Foreward
Welcome to The Circus of Brass and Bone. This story is free, but donations are what keeps it going. All proceeds go to help cover my mother's treatment for advanced ovarian cancer.

Now settle back and enjoy the circus. It's the end of civilization, but the show...must go on.

Episode 10

What the Watchers Saw

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The Indian mahout paid close attention to the footprints every person left in the snow. He tensed like a dog on the scent when the fortune teller walked past him. Shortly after she walked out into the woods for her morning constitutional, so did he. I noticed when she didn't return, even after a time period that would satisfy the demands of the most vigorous constitution. With nothing to do all day but watch, I am quite good at it.

Some hours later, the mahout returned from the woods with a dark red blot on his paper-white sleeve.

I told myself I didn't care if he'd hurt the fortune teller, though she had been kind enough to me--in the way that she was kind enough to everyone. The mahout was more promising. He was not bound by the same conventions and fears as the rest of the circus. He had seen me and not flinched. But he would do nothing unless he benefited from it, and what could I do for him?

#

Christopher Knall*, ringmaster- and clown-in-training

Not too far from New York City

Wind whistled through the branches. If that wind hadn't set the fortune teller's veil to flapping, Christopher wouldn't have seen it. It had been tied around a tree branch a good four feet above head level, and the veil blended with the dark gray of the tree bark.*

His boots crunched across the snow as he searched around the base of the marked tree. A couple of feet away, he found a depression where the snow and leaves looked like they'd been recently disturbed. He knelt in the snow and dug.

He found the fortune teller's eye-shatteringly bright kaftan, her shawls, a number of her rings and necklaces--and nothing else. Huffing with frustration, he straightened and dusted the snow from his knees. A single line of footprints led up to the clothing cache.

None led away.

That just wasn't possible. The fortune teller might, maybe, have some special insight into the future; he would not credit that she could also fly. He glared at the smooth, unbroken snow surrounding him.

Wait. Smooth, yes. Unbroken, no. One swath lacked the crystalline sheen of the rest. He squatted beside it and squinted. Small brush marks rewarded him. She'd swept out her footprints. Grinning, he rose and trotted along beside the path-that-wasn't.

After a few minutes of tracking, a line of small bootprints resumed, heading for New York City.

Out of sight, something clattered against the branches. Christopher jumped. A weird animal cry like the rasp of a saw* mocked him.

Christopher looked around but saw nothing.

With a shiver, he retraced his steps. At the marked tree, he bundled up the fortune teller's clothing and tucked it under his coat.

As he approached the circus camp, he heard a wavering cry of, "Doom!"

#

"You found footprints?" Ginger the clown* asked, incredulous.

"She'd swept them away with a pine branch, but it left the snow looking disturbed."

Ginger nodded. "After even a light snow, nobody could have followed her trail." Ginger looked at Christopher appraisingly. "Most wouldn't have found it, even now. You'll do."

Christopher fought to keep from grinning, until Ginger spoiled the moment by adding, "Of course, even a halfwit would know that the only place to go around here is New York City."

"Ginger, why would she go anywhere? What's going on? What's Operation White Rabbit?"

"Kid, I'm not even supposed to know about White Rabbit. I'm just nosy by nature--and trade--so I took the chance to snoop through her orders when she was first sent to join the circus."

"Sent."

Ginger gave an exaggerated shrug and a clownish raise of his eyebrows.

Christopher refused to be distracted. "White Rabbit."

Ginger sobered. "If the fortune teller suspected an enemy among us, she was to disappear into the night and report." He stared in the direction of the city. "Whether there's anyone still alive to report to is another question."*

"Can we tell everyone she's missing now?"

Ginger visibly weighed his answer.

"No," he said finally. "If the person she's running from doesn't know she's gone, we won't tip her hand. We'll just make sure we're both in the groups sent into New York."

"Sent to New York?" Christopher echoed.

Ginger raised an eyebrow. "What, you thought we came here just to stare at the city and then go away?" He squinted at the sky. "You wait and see, it'll be hashed out around the cook fire tonight. Tomorrow morning, some of us will go in. If we left now, there wouldn't be much daylight left once we reached the city. Not a good idea to go into a strange city after dark without proper reconnaissance. Don't know if it's hostile or not, can't see as well to escape or fight...just a bad proposition."

#

That evening*, Ginger's prediction proved to be true.

At first, they all ate supper in glum silence. The stew was bland, filled with parsnips and potatoes, with only a smidge of carrot and the faint memory of bacon grease to add flavor. Nobody particularly liked it, but nobody particularly blamed Cook.

One of the hostlers took a bottle of pepper sauce out of his coat pocket and gave it a good shake over his bowl.

"Hey, pass that down!" the roustabout sitting next to him said.

The hostler cuddled the bottle closer to him. "No! Maybe you ain't been paying attention, but grocers are getting kinda scarce on the ground."

"Yeah, so we got to share and share alike. Give it!"

"Like your mama does? Hell, no!"

The roustabout's hands fisted and he took a swing

The hostler, accustomed to dodging hooves, scrambled to his feet and out of the way.

The hostler tucked the hot sauce bottle back into his coat, but when his hand came back out, he held a hoof pick. Its wickedly curved blade gleamed in the firelight. "It's mine," he growled. "You want it, you come and take it."

Lacey the equestrienne was on her feet. "Boys!" she said, with all the sharpness of an irate governess. "Stop that this instant!" Her refined accent cut crisply through the night air.

The hostler fell back, his hoof pick disappearing back inside his coat. The roustabout plopped back down, looking rather shamefaced.

"We are not savages," Lacey reminded them. "And we are not starving." She scowled at the roustabout "A man's hot sauce is his own." The hostler began to grin--until she turned her attention on him. "You are quite free to choose whether or not to share." Her tone left no doubt as to what she thought the proper outcome would be.

"Sorry, ma'am," the hostler muttered, settling awkwardly back down beside the roustabout. "And sorry about the cussin'." Slowly, as if the movement pained him, he pulled out the hot sauce bottle. He held it in his hand for a moment, weighing it, and then tossed it to the roustabout. "Here, help yourself."

The roustabout gingerly caught the bottle. He sprinkled just enough of the sauce on his stew to be polite before handing the bottle back. "Thanks. You didn't got to share."

Both the men looked up at Lacey. She smiled approvingly back.

When she turned around, she found the eyes of everyone upon her. A blush rose to her cheeks.

"Brings up a good point, though," Cook said. "What we traded for in Seppanen Town will keep us from starving, but there's not a whole lot of variety. I know my limitations. Soon enough I'll be trying fir needle soup just to spice things up. If we could get a few more staples from New York. . . ."

Lacey nodded. "We do need to go in, but--"

The Indian mahout interrupted her. "I am thinking we do not want to be going in big parade. We are not knowing what we will find."

Lacey blinked. "Yes, we should send emissaries to speak with the mayor." She paused, as if she expected someone else to speak. When nobody did, a slight frown pinched her brows. She looked around with, and then continued, "A lady shouldn't put herself forward, but I suppose I would be the best choice, for the same reason that I was asked--" again that searching look, "--to speak to the mayor of Boston."

"A lady needs an escort. I'll accompany you," Ginger volunteered gallantly.

"What about Mr. Doom?" blurted out Isaac, the monkey handler. "He likes people. If he got lost, he'd go to the city." He gulped. "I can look around and figure out where he might go while you're talking to the mayor."

"No-one should go alone," Lacey said, her brow creased. "We should travel in groups--at least pairs. Cities aren't safe." Her eyes flicked to Christopher and away. "If they offer us food or drink, not all of us should take it. That way, even if they drug it, they'll still have a fight on their hands. Worst case, there's one person to escape and warn the rest of us."

Christopher grimaced, not in disagreement, but because of what he could have avoided if he'd followed a similar plan when he entered Seppanen Town.

Then he jumped, because Ginger had just elbowed him in the ribs. "I'll go too," he volunteered.

Lacey smiled maternally at him. "Thank you."

The rest of the meal passed in peace. After the crowd broke up, leaving Cook to do the washing-up, Lacey walked over and sat beside Ginger. "The fortune teller isn't here," she said quietly. "I know that you and she talked often. Do you know where she is?"

Ginger shook his head. "I wish I did. New York, maybe."

"Well." Lacey stood, shaking out her skirts. "We have another stray to look for, then."

#

Lacey Miller, The Fabulous Lady Equestrienne Who Defies The Fiery Rings of Death!

Bronx County, on the outskirts of Manhattan

Lacey frowned at the river that lay between them and the city. Their little group's progress through the Bronx countryside had left her skittish. They'd passed too many abandoned farms stripped of anything of value, including--perhaps especially--the livestock. The few farmfolk remaining had watched them pass from the farmhouse steps, unsmiling, rifles to hand. A couple of farms they'd glimpsed in the distance seemed overpopulated by farm hands, a circumstance that reminded them all too closely of Seppanen Town. They'd swung wide to avoid those.

It would have been a quick trip if the railroad through the Bronx countryside to New York City still ran, or if they'd ridden horseback. She would have felt much better if she'd been astride a fast horse, instead of stumbling along on foot, but Ginger had pointed out that horses would be seen as valuable and maybe worth ambushing a small group of travelers for.

In general, it had been an expedition unsettling to Lacey's nerves. The uncanny wheezing and rattling animal noises that trailed them, as if they were being stalked by some predator just out of sight, hadn't helped.

And now they faced the Harlem River and the curved wall grew in an arc around where the bridge connected the mainland to New York. The wall was only a couple of feet high, but the ant hive of activity around it would soon change that. A stream of men and women carried bricks and stones over the bridge and dumped them in a mound. Other laborers worked to mortar the wall's building blocks into place. Even complete, the wall wouldn't entirely block off the outside world; there was a four-foot gap where the wall marched across the road. A blue-clad policeman sat on the edge, his rifle leaning against the wall. He appeared to be eating something. Beyond the wall, a single layer of bricks marked a square that might become the foundation for a new building.

"They're defending the bridge over the river, building--a fort, or something," Lacey said. "That can't be good."

"They're not doing a very good job of it, either," Ginger said. "See there--they're only building the wall to the river edge. Unless they guard the water's edge as well, any attackers could just circle around and attack them from the river. So whoever's doing this doesn't have military advisers. That's very interesting. This is a port town; there are military forts near the harbor. Why isn't Fort Hamilton helping?"

"Maybe because it's slave labor building this fortification," Christopher said grimly.

Ginger cleared his throat. "Could be, but let's not overlook the most important part." He pointed at the bodies dangling from the lamp posts on the bridge.

"Are we armed?" Lacey asked, wishing she'd asked before they left the circus camp.

"I have a pistol," Ginger said. "And it's hidden where nobody will find it unless they're very fond of other men."

"Oh!" Isaac said. "I didn't even think of--I mean, I don't have a weapon anyway, but. . . ."

"Should we go back?" Christopher asked.

"I think the nice policeman sitting on the edge of that wall would find that suspicious," Ginger said. "He's looking right at us."

"He hasn't aimed his rifle at us," Lacey said dubiously.

"Maybe because he doesn't want to drop his sandwich. Let's not give him reason to." Ginger strode forward, hands open by his sides and a wide smile on his face.

With a dismayed, "Hmph!" Lacey hurried after him. She looked over her shoulder and saw Christopher and Isaac still standing there, with identical doubtful looks on their faces. "Come on!" she said. "We're committed."

"Ought to be committed--to Bedlam," Christopher muttered as he followed along after her. She pretended she hadn't heard.

"Hello!" Ginger was saying to the policeman when she caught up to him. "You are a sight for sore eyes."

The policeman blinked, clearly unaccustomed to being greeted with such enthusiasm. He cleared his throat. "Welcome to New York City," he said gruffly. He straightened into something approximating attention, though one hand--the one that had been holding a sandwich--remained tucked behind his back.

Lacey's nose twitched at the scent of boiled ham, and her mouth salivated involuntarily.

Any bits of meat the circus hunted up got tossed in the stew, making it more nourishing and adding a bit of welcome flavor. The knife thrower was getting better at pegging squirrels, and the girl sharpshooter had bagged a rabbit or two, but they agreed that there was less game in the countryside than there ought to be.

Lacey pushed away the thoughts of food and put on her brightest smile. "We are here to speak with the Mayor. Can you direct us to him?"

One of the policeman's lips twitched up at the corners. "The Mayor? Oh, yes, I know exactly where you can find him."

Sensing something amiss, but not sure what, Lacey changed the subject. "Did you see a woman come in yesterday?"

"What does she look like?"

"Um--ah--" Lacey's mouth flapped like a beached fish.

"An outsider," Ginger put in. "Not someone who'd been in the city before."

The policeman shrugged. "Not during my shift. We rotate, you know."

Lacey's shoulders slumped slightly before she pulled them straight. "Well, we need to speak to the authorities. We'd welcome an escort--"

"Sorry, lady. I'm on duty." He glanced over at the laborers hauling bricks. "Hey, one of you want to guide these strangers? It'll count toward your food ration. I'll square it with your gang boss."

A small woman with sweat running down her forehead and dirt in the creases of her neck scowled in the policeman's direction, but after she dropped her stack of bricks--nearly half as tall as she was--on the pile of building materials, she trotted over to them. "I'll do it, boss," she volunteered. "I know the way to Central." In marked contrast to her slum accent, she wore what had once been a fine dress, before it was dirtied and patched with lower-grade fabric.

"I bet you do," the policeman said. "No tricks, hear? You deal straight with these people, even if they are strangers. The Commissioner wants trade." His face soured and his hand tightened on his ham sandwich. "Not like we've got anything to trade, though, unless you're looking to collect bodies."

"No, thank you," Lacey said politely.

"No tricks," their new guide promised. "I don't want to be an example." She turned to Lacey. "Pleased to meet you, ma'am. Name's Deborah Rowan." She stuck out her hand.

Lacey took it, dirty though it was. When they shook, she felt the strength of that small, calloused hand. "Lacey Miller. Charmed, I'm sure, Miss Rowan," she murmured.

"Call me Deb."

Lacey inclined her head.

The policeman grunted. "You lot carrying any contraband? Food, weapons, liquor?"

"No, sir," Ginger assured him.

The policeman seemed to weigh the value of searching them against the inconvenience of having to set his ham sandwich aside. "You look like decent people, so I'll let you go without a search this time. If you are carrying contraband, they'll find out soon enough, and you'll regret it." He jerked his head. "Go on."

"Thank you, officer," Ginger and Lacey chorused.

Deb smiled sweetly. "This way, lady and gents!"

She strode ahead, leading them past the fortification-in-progress and out onto the stone bridge that arched over the river. "Welcome to New York City," Deb said. "We call this the High Bridge, because if you look over the edge, you'll see it's mighty high!" She chuckled at her own joke. "Its fancy official name is the Aqueduct Bridge, but if you call it that when you're trying to find your way back here, nobody'll know what you're talking about."

Lacey froze. "You said aqueduct? We're walking across an aqueduct?"

Deb shrugged. "Yes."

"The water aether could explode at any moment!" Lacey hoisted her skirts. "Run!"

Isaac bolted. Ginger peered at the bridge with a thoughtful expression on his face, and Christopher dithered beside Ginger.

"No, no!" Deb caught Lacey's arm. "It's safe. No aether engineering involved. We know all about the exploding water mains. That's in the warnings posters." Deb rolled her eyes. " 'Do not use water taps or pumps. Use only pumps marked as safe by the Sanitary Squad. Do not use mechanical lighting unless the same applies.' I tell you, I'm not fond of coppers, but the guys on the sanitation squad are made of solid brass, if you know what I'm saying." She stomped her foot on the bridge. "This is just water flowing downhill. Good thing, too. Without fresh water, we'd be drinking from the harbor." She made a face. "That's not a good idea if you want your bowels to stay regular."

"Oh." Lacey dropped her skirts, feeling a flush creep across her cheeks. She'd made a fool of herself. She lifted her chin and pasted a perfectly correct smile on her lips. "Well. Thank you."

Isaac returned, rather shame-faced. Lacey gave him a charitable smile. "Not your fault," she said. "I was mistaken." Her expression gave no sign that the words tasted like gall on her tongue.

Once they were halfway across the bridge, out of earshot of the officer guarding the wall, Ginger mused, "Police putting up safety warnings and checking the aetheric devices. Police as city guards. It will be interesting to learn if the mayor is a figurehead only, or if he's controlling the police force."

Lacey shot him a quelling look. "Interesting? If we play this wrong, we could all end up hauling bricks like those poor people building the wall."

Ginger refused to quell. "Exactly. Interesting, like I said. The bit where they said they want trade was promising."

"You mean the bit where they said they didn't have anything to trade?" Her voice rose incredulously. She glanced ahead of them, but their guide kept walking as if she hadn't heard anything. "Except bodies?" She shook her head and stalked away to walk beside their guide.

On the other side of the river, Lacey stopped and looked around. No guard waited for incomers. No pedestrians bustled around on errands. No children played in the street. No hackney cab drivers waited to pick up custom. The only sign of life was a mangy dog pissing against the wall of a jewelry shop. When he saw he had an audience, he slunk away into the shadows.

"Where is everybody?" Christopher asked.

"Going about their lawful business or sitting in the dark in their apartment," Deb answered. "Come on, keep it moving. It ain't good to linger."

As they moved through the deserted streets of Manhattan, Lacey couldn't suppress a crawling feeling, as if a venomous spider were walking over her skin. There was no visible reason for it. Three- and four-story brick buildings rose placidly on either side of the street, staring down on the travelers with darkened windows. A light dusting of snow gilded the wrought iron balconies and fire escapes. No laundry hung out the windows. Colorful shop awnings arched over the sidewalks, but the shops beneath were locked and shut, or boarded shut. She'd seen far worse in Boston. Here, there were few broken windows, and most of those had been boarded up. Only one building showed signs of a serious attempt to set fire to it. But Boston had been filled with life, even though the dead were everywhere. Here, the only sound was their own footsteps. The only company was the dead.

"Did she linger?" Ginger jerked his thumb at a female corpse dangling from a flag pole. Swelling distended her rotting flesh. She wore the dress of a laboring-class woman. The worn fabric had been carefully patched with cloth scraps that almost matched. "Is that what happened to her?"

Deb glanced at the body and away. "She did something. I don't know what. I don't know her. She died a while ago. She doesn't have a sign on her neck, so it was probably during the riots."

"So you did have riots!"

"Not for long. Turns out the Commissioner was a patrolman during the Draft Riots. He saw his partner torn to pieces by a mob, and he swore he'd never let that happen again. He had a plan to keep riots in check. It worked. We're all peaceful and law-abiding now." Deb's face set in grim lines.

"Surely that's a good thing?" Lacey said.

"Sure. Sure it is." Deb plowed forward through the streets. "Just ask the dead."

They walked in silence for the next couple of miles, passing perhaps a dozen pedestrians along the way. All hurried past with their eyes downcast and their shoulders hunched. They also passed men who seemed to be of a different sort. Those men leaned against doorways or sat on stoops, watching those who passed with hard eyes. They weren't visibly armed except with a short truncheon, but they still struck a certain intimidating note. Each wore a blue band tied around his upper arm.

"If it's so safe," Christopher asked, "why are there no shops open? Why are there so few people in the streets? And who are they?" Christopher jerked his chin slightly at one of the blue-banded, a rough-looking fellow sitting on a stoop smoking a cigarette.

"Most of the shops that are still open moved closer in to the center, so they aren't drawing people out here," Deb answered. "You'll see soon. There's no workers because the corpse gang and the authorized salvagers already moved through here."

"Authorized salvagers?" Ginger raised an eyebrow.

Deb jerked her thumb at a bloated and fly-bit corpse hanging from a tree. "Looters get strung up."

"And them?" Christopher began to raise his hand, but Deb grabbed it.

"Don't point," she hissed. "They know you're tourists because of the way you're rubbernecking. But you've got a guide--that's me--so they've decided you're not trouble. Don't change that."

"Okay, okay!" Christopher pulled his hand back. "So who are they?"

"Special patrolmen," Deb said quietly, not looking in the man's direction. "Police commissioners have the power to appoint special patrolmen when there might be riots and suchlike. We only have the one commissioner now--" she didn't specify what had happened to the others, "--and he used that power." She shrugged. "They're not so bad, I guess. They know what it is to be poor. Most of them aren't bullies, especially after the Commissioner hanged a couple who, ah, 'overstepped their authority.' There's just so many of them, all snooping and prying, it makes a body nervous."

Particularly, Lacey thought, a body who hadn't necessarily been on the right side of the law even in regular times. "Where did he get them all?" she asked. "Surely they wouldn't just volunteer."

"It's not a bad choice. I volunteered to carry bricks out to the wall. You think I'm the volunteering type? People volunteer real fast when food is on the line. The corpse gang? Volunteers. The authorized salvagers? Volunteers--and I wish I could have gotten in that gang. I hear they can slip a little something in their pocket as long as it's not contraband."

Lacey blinked. "Compared to the corpse gang, I suppose the special patrolmen have a pleasant job."

"Yeah, the special patrolmen have it pretty good. Worst they have to deal with is cracking skulls if there's trouble. Most of them come from the street gangs so they've got no trouble with that." She eyed a patrolman enviously. "They wouldn't take the girls, though."

Lacey refrained from comment.

"Anyway," Deb said, "we're almost there."

"There where?"

"There where people moved. Once the corpse gang cleared out the apartments, if they left a zero chalked on the door, well, you could move right in. People feel more comfortable living near each other, instead of in a dead zone. More company, fewer memories. The stores followed. You'll find ones that are actually open here. It feels like the city used to, except most of the neighbors are new. " Deb chuckled harshly. "The new New York!"

"Where are we going?" After the reaction of the policeman at the wall, Lacey didn't want to ask directly about the Mayor.

"The rail-line. The Commissioner's got some of the horsecars* running again. They only run on a few of the lines they used to, but it's better than walking. You won't find a horse-drawn cab these days, not unless the cabbie's extremely well-armed."

Lacey didn't ask for details. She didn't want to know the fate of the horses, not in a city this hungry. Of course, the instant she tried not to think about it, her imagination conjured up all sorts of gruesome images. She was very glad they hadn't ridden into New York.

Seemingly tiring of the endless question-and-answer routine, Deb strode ahead.

The new New York was a shadow of what the city had been before the aether storm, but it was a shadow cast by a living thing. Everywhere were posters warning about prohibited behavior and allowed consumables. The sound of babies crying penetrated through apartment walls. Laundry flapped from windows overhead. Women swept building stoops. Men hustled past with bags of--well, in these times, best not to think too closely about what might be in the bag. Within two blocks, Lacey saw a grocer, a butcher, and a ladies notions shop that were open for business. The ladies notions shop seemed best stocked and least populated.

"Here we are," Deb said, stopping in front of a jewelry store whose proprietor eyed them with a particularly hungry expression and then turned away with his shoulders slumped. "Poor bugger. Pardon my language. Wonder how long he'll last? Nobody's buying gewgaws."

They clustered under a sign that said, "Horsecars stop here."

"How long will we wait here?" Isaac asked.

Deb shrugged. "Long as it takes."

"We should split up and go look for Mr. Doom," Isaac said to Christopher. "He won't be in a government office." A look of doubt came over his face. "I don't think. . . ."

Deb laughed. "Doom's everywhere, Mister. No looking needed."

"No, no!" Isaac hurried to explain. "Mr. Ben Doom is a monkey who ran away from the circus. Have you heard anyone talk about seeing a monkey? Have you seen him?"

The girl blinked, and for a moment the mask of cynicism fell from her face. "A monkey, here? Wouldn't that be a sight! I'd trade my ration coupons for a week to see something like that!"

"That's rather the idea," Ginger muttered under his breath.

Deb sighed. "No, I haven't seen anything like that. No one else has either. They'd talk about something like that, you can bet on it!"

Isaac squared his shoulders. "We'll just have to keep looking, then. Somewhere, somebody has to have seen him!" He strode away.

"We'll turn this place inside-out," Christopher said to Ginger, with what Lacey thought seemed like extra emphasis. "See you back at the camp."

Ginger nodded. "I'll keep an eye out too. Good luck."

"Likewise!" Christopher turned and trotted off after Isaac, who was already making inquiries of a young girl holding a basket of flowers for sale. The girl shook her head.

Watching them, Lacey said, "Finding a stray monkey in a city this size--or persuading the powers that be to let us set up the circus and maybe even to resupply us? I think they have the easier task."

Sometime later, the horsecar stopped in front of them. Seeing it did not change her mind. The horse-pulled streetcar was three-quarters full, and every face inside was tight with anxiety. On the front platform, two hawk-eyed policemen with rifles to hand accompanied the driver. "Central Police Department," the conductor announced. "All aboard."

"That's you," Deb said, nudging them.

"You're not accompanying us?" Lacey asked.

"Not me."

Lacey must have looked as adrift as she suddenly felt, because Deb relented and added, "Look. It'll be okay. The Commissioner isn't unreasonable. And if you need a guide later, you can usually find me at the Glorious Green grocer. Spend half my day waiting in line for rations there, I do."

"Thank you." Lacey shook the other woman's grimy hand again, vigorously, before stepping into the horsecar. As the conductor blew his whistle one last time and the driver giddyaped to the horses, she leaned in to Ginger and said quietly, "We asked to see the Mayor, the authority in charge. Why did she take us to the police station?"

"Maybe he's under arrest," Ginger answered whimsically.

The horses sweated as they pulled the car along the rail lines. Inside, the passengers did, too. The air inside the car was sharp with the acrid tang of anxious perspiration.

Lacey's nerves were wound too tight for her to pay much attention to the passing scenery. Still, she noticed that every mile or so, swollen fruit hung from tree or lamp post.

"City's going to smell a lot worse once the thaw sets in," Ginger said after they passed one particularly gruesome specimen. "If the city was more Northern, it wouldn't be this bad. They've had just a few too many warm winter days."

"In the spring, sickness will hit hard, with all the corpses around."

"Dead bodies, in and of themselves, don't spread disease as much as you might think. Ask the doctor."

"Perhaps I will," she said, giving him a sideways look and pointedly not asking, And why do you know so much about dead bodies?

When the conductor blew his whistle and shouted, "Central Police Department," Lacey and Ginger clambered down obediently. The other passengers pressed past them, swarming up wide stone steps to an imposing brick building. Iron bars guarded the windows. Special patrolmen and uniformed policemen teemed around the doors.

Lacey snagged the sleeve of a passing patrolman. "Excuse me, sir," she said, chin thrust forward. "We were hoping to see the Mayor." This time, she would get a straight answer.

The patrolman looked at her with an expression she couldn't decipher. Surely, she'd done nothing to earn his--distaste?

He jerked his thumb upward. "Look your fill."

Lacey and Ginger followed his gesture up, to the flagpole--and the corpse dangling from it. His features were too distorted to recognize. In life, he'd been a portly man. He wore fine clothes, though his trousers were soiled. Nobody had stripped the corpse's body. His fingers puffed around heavy golden rings, and the mayor's chain of office dangled from his neck like a noose.

The placard hanging around his bloated neck read, "Accepted bribes."

"We will talk to the Commissioner, then," Lacey said numbly. "He would seem to be our only choice."

"You saw how he treated the mayor," Ginger said in an undertone, after looking around to be sure nobody was within earshot. "That was a man with power in this town. We sure don't have any. What do you think he's going to do with us?"

(To be continued in Episode 11: A Hive of Scum and Villainy)

If you enjoyed this episode of The Circus of Brass and Bone, consider making a donation to keep it going (and get a character named after you, and a copy of the final book). You can do that at www dot circus of brass and bone dot com, which is also where you will find special features including deleted scenes, character information, and research tidbits. All proceeds go to help cover the costs of my mother's treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. If you can't afford a donation, tell a friend, or blog about it.

Acknowledgments

This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of Betty Janzen and Richard Walters.

The Circus of Brass and Bone is written and recorded by Abra Staffin-Wiebe (that's me). My main website is at www.aswiebe.com, and I blog at cloudscudding.livejournal.com.

Music is courtesy of Vermillion Lies. Go to their website at vermillionlies.com to hear more.

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