The Damsel and the Daggerman

.2.

When the clockwork dog took up its mechanical barking, Jacinda Harville snapped her pocket watch closed and smiled to herself. She’d heard Criminy Stain was keen as a blade, that between his magic and his madness, nothing got past the wily Bludman. She’d also heard he hated journalists above all else. Time to see which other rumors were true about the famous ringmaster.

“Hush, Brutus.”

The metal beast quieted immediately. Jacinda slipped on her favorite bracelet and adjusted her hat in the mirror firmly affixed to the wall of her conveyance. The live-in vehicle was modeled on a bus-tank but only large enough to support a Murphy bed, a small desk, and her traveling trunk. Her leather pith helmet sat smartly on red hair the color of a bludfox’s pelt, and the matching leather corset below had been made by the same artisan to straddle the line between protection and beauty. She had worn both on purpose, knowing that it would be well in character for Master Stain to send his two-headed Bludman, a wolf man, or even a venomous lizard boy to frighten her away.

The knock was sharp, and she counted to ten before walking to the door. In spite of the cool, confident nerves she’d cultivated over a series of death-defying adventures, when she saw who glared at her from the other side of the peephole, she was slightly intimidated.

So he’d come himself. Interesting.

She opened the door and looked down. “Good evening, Master Stain.”

“Who the devil are you?” He breathed in deeply, and his lip lifted in a snarl. “Besides a dead reporter.”

She tipped her helmet and forced a smile. “Jacinda Harville, adventuress and journalist, at your service.”

“If you wish to serve me, pet, best turn this monstrosity around and rumble back to town. I don’t allow the press through the turnstiles.” He looked up at her, his top hat slipping back to show wicked eyes and a smirk. “And if they do slip through, they don’t make it back out again. I mount typewriters on the wall instead of hunting trophies.”

Good thing she kept her beloved Underwood tucked away in a trunk. Infamous ringmaster Criminy Stain loomed over me like a dark angel, she thought, fingers twitching for cold metal keys, like an incubus drawn in ink on stark white paper. She’d type it up later. The Bludman was a force of nature, she’d give him that. Her late husband had been a rather dashing and leonine blond, but she’d gotten a taste for the dusky and exotic since his tragic passing in Egypt. Criminy Stain was wickedly handsome, but he made her edgy, and she tapped her hip in a distinct pattern, relaxing just a bit when Brutus settled on smoothly oiled haunches, its sensitive nose pressed against her leg.

“I think we can find a mutually beneficial arrangement, Mr. Stain.”

“As do I, Miss Harville. You turn around and leave, and I won’t kill you. It works out rather nicely for both of us.”

“It’s Mrs. I’m a widow, and you’ll find I don’t give up that easily.” She knocked a leather-gloved fist against her helmet. “Hardheaded does not begin to cover it.”

The corner of Criminy’s mouth twitched, and he looked past Jacinda’s unusual outfit of canvas, leather, and fur and into the small space beyond her. Masks of wood and bone covered the walls, along with bits of scroll and tablet and a few crumbling relics on ledges. A great striped bludzebra pelt covered much of the wood floor, and the fierce but startled face of a bludgazelle glared from above the steering wheel. Her bed was folded into the wall to reveal her worktable, and just to the side was a desk crammed with papers and . . .

“Books. Why am I constantly afflicted with uppity women and their blasted books?” The look he gave her was weary but just the tiniest bit curious, and she struggled not to crow in triumph. “What is it you want, Mrs. Harville?”

“Something only you can give me, Master Stain.”

He chuckled darkly. “Bad news, pet. I’ve a wife. And she’s a fortune-teller. And as she hasn’t killed me in my sleep, that means it’s not in the cards for us.”

“Bit full of yourself, aren’t you? But I expected nothing less.” She looked him up and down with no attempt to hide her appreciation. “Fortunately, that’s not what I want.” His eyebrows rose in lieu of repeating his question. “I’m here for a story.”

“Unless the headline is ‘Famous Reporter’s Bones Found Near Scarborough,’ I can’t help you.”

“Ah, but you can. I’ve built my career writing about the most hidden, exciting, mysterious places in Sang. And now I want to write about something the city folk can’t begin to fathom: life in a caravan.”

“You’re funny, I’ll give you that. Good night.”

Criminy tipped his hat and turned to go, shaking his head in amusement. As a younger woman, Jacinda would have panicked. Instead, she said, “Brutus, record.” Clearing her throat, she spoke loudly and carefully. “World-renowned caravan ringmaster Criminy Stain was the most handsome man I’d ever met, and also the most dangerous. Luckily, he underestimated me, and that’s how I came to be pointing a salt-dipped arrow at his back.”

Criminy froze, and she struggled not to laugh.

“I understand that you lie for a living, love, but you tread on dangerous ground,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Turn around and call me a liar again.”

Criminy’s hands made fists at his sides, and he spun smoothly to face her, his eyes shining in the night like an animal’s. She waggled the little crossbow just a little, letting the warm light of the conveyance twinkle against the salt clinging to the arrow’s barbed tip.

“How the hell did you manage that?” He seemed more amused than angry, which was what she’d banked on.

“I keep it hanging beside the door in case unsavory characters come knocking.”

“And have they?”

“They have. And I have the scars to prove it.”

“And yet here you are, on my caravan’s doorstep.”

“That’s how dedicated I am to my calling, Master Stain. I intend to write a book about your caravan. I wish to interview your carnivalleros, provided they’re willing to share their stories with me. Tales, illustrations, and a very fine engraving of the dashing gent in charge. Do I have your attention?”

He grinned. “Depends on what my cut of the profits would be.”

She didn’t even have to think. “Seventy/thirty, and you pay for printing.”

“Sixty/forty, but you must be terribly flattering toward the rakish gent who runs the show. I get full editorial privilege. And I expect color illustrations. And gilt on the cover, which will be red.”

“I’d already decided as such, so I’m agreeable.”

She stuck out her ungloved hand, which he shook firmly.

“To an exciting partnership,” she said.

“And to my rules, which you’ll follow to the letter.”

Jacinda withdrew her hand and cocked the crossbow. “I’m not overly fond of rules.”

“Consider them nonnegotiable. First, you submit to being glanced upon by my wife, Lady Letitia, and agree to leave immediately if she demands it. No one gains access to the internal workings of the caravan until she’s touched them and determined they mean us no harm.” She nodded, and he stepped up into the doorway of her wagon. Despite the crossbow between them, it felt far too close. “I protect my own, Mrs. Harville.”

“Understood.”

“Second, the carnivalleros participate of their own free will; I won’t order them or even ask them. Under no circumstances may you badger them. Several of my folk have reason to hide, and I have offered them refuge and anonymity.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’m deadly serious. I can see that you’re a woman accustomed to getting her way, but if they refuse to talk to you, it’s over. You turn this conveyance around and get back to buggering mummies, or whatever you do.”

“I may be persistent, Master Stain, but I’m not cruel. We all have our secrets.”

“That we do. And three, you pay admission every night and don’t cause me a bit of trouble.” His eyes went a shade darker. “Or else.”

She didn’t hide her grin at that. “Very generous. I agree.”

“That quickly? Blast. My reputation’s going to go to hell.”

She finally lowered her crossbow. “I promise to write you up as a fearsome, bloodthirsty scoundrel.”

“Don’t forget the pointy teeth, lass.”

When he grinned like that, it didn’t seem like a difficult task at all.