“You shouldn’t be drinking so much,” Tiny said with audible concern.
Katalin drained the last of the whiskey and balanced the empty bottle at the top of the pyramid of empty beer cans. “I really should. It makes me harder to hit. And the worst that can happen now is that I’ll really, really need to piss. Actually, no. The worst that can happen is that I’ll puke over a bunch of monsters, but now my puke is some toxic shit or something. Dio santo, the way my day is going, my piss will turn out to be explosive. Tiny, how much light can you make, right now? Over the whole circus? Can you, uh, make the light brighter by giving them more electricity?”
Tiny gave her a look that told her that his opinion of her intelligence just fell dramatically.
Katalin flapped her hands in frustration. “Light doesn't just scare the monsters, it kills them. We need light. As much as you can manage.”
Tiny turned to regard the generator that was chugging sturdily along beside him. “There’s spotlights in the Big Top?”
“Oh, sure, I’ll just lead them all in there,” Katalin snarked.
Tiny nodded, oblivious to the sarcasm. “That would work best. I can throw all the house lights on as well as the spots.”
Katalin gawped at him, momentarily speechless. Then it occurred to her that she ought to be faster than she used to be. Maybe he could manage to outrun the panthyruxi, long enough to lure them into the canvas killing-zone. “Uh. Right. Can you do that from here? Or do you need to be on the control deck?”
Tiny shrugged and rummaged under his chair for a battered-looking computer tablet. “If Bobby sets the controls to enable remote, I can do it from here.”
Katalin sighed, certain that Bobby was dead but unwilling to disillusion Tiny, at least for the moment. “Wait-” She pointed at the tablet. “I thought you couldn’t read?”
“Don’t have to read. Just have to count.” Tiny flicked the power on, tapped at the screen a few times then turned it to face her. “Bobby set it up. Lights are programmed for each act. You just got to know which act it is, and press the right picture. You were three.” He pointed at the third icon on the list, beside its label: The Great Giordanos. “You can hear the music from here, so you know when each act is starting and which one it is.”
“As long as Serzei hasn’t gone and changed the music. Again.” Katalin and Tiny shared a companionable look of shared frustration. “So how do… how does Bobby enable remote?”
Tiny shrugged. “There’s a switch on his computer.”
Katalin fought the impulse to facepalm. “On the screen, or like a light-switch, or what?”
“Bobby will know.” Tiny looked down at his feet. “Did know. He’s probably not alive. You don’t need to pretend.”
Katalin blushed slightly, her eyes finding anything to look at except the man sitting in front of her. “Sorry. I just… wanted one of us to… not be traumatised. For a little bit longer.”
Tiny patted her on the shoulder. “There’s two TV screens above the control deck. Left hand one. Remote is one of the switches on that. About half way down. I don’t know if there’s more than one page that Bobby puts on there.”
Katalin covered Tiny’s hand with her own. “You should come too. What if they come in here while I’m in there?”
“The spots are on the ring, not the control deck. Probably wouldn’t be any safer. I got my flashlight. And she needs me.” He nodded towards the generator.
“I, uh, lost your flashlight, I think,” Katalin admitted, eyeing the pile of tumbled shelving that probably now had a flashlight buried underneath. “Sorry.”
“Not that one.” Tiny slipped his hand away, unfolded from the chair and reached for one of the shelves that was still standing, picking up something that Katalin had assumed was some sort of lampshade for a desk lamp. “One hundred thousand lumens for one minute.”
“I’ve got no idea what that means.”
“The brightest circus spotlights are thirty-three thousand lumens,” Tiny explained. “This is three times as bright as one of those-”
He broke off, both of them jumping at the ear-splitting lightning-crack from beyond the tent walls. Bright turquoise light flared in the distance, visible even through the canvas walls.
“Shit!” Katalin shot to her feet. “Time’s up. That’s the next lot of monsters, I think. Shit, shit, shit, there’s no time! I can’t get to the control deck, find the switch, then get back here in time to lead them back to the Big Top!”
“They’re going to find me anyway.” Tiny was pale and his hands were trembling, but he nodded decisively. He hefted his flashlight. “I can give you a minute.”
“Tiny! That’s for just in case, not-”
“No time.” Wild-eyed, Tiny stared over Katalin’s head towards the ripped-open generator tent doorway. Bright blue spots, paired and blinking, were approaching. “Go under the canvas behind me. Sneak past them. I got this.”
“Tiny, I’m trying to sneak while covered in glitter!”
“Then dazzle them! You got one minute!” Tiny reached for the bank of switches behind his chair, systematically flipping everything that was not already on. The night brightened. Rainbow strobes raked the ground beyond the tent, flashing across oily blots of creeping hide and leaving howls and sizzling smoke in their wake.
“Dammit!” Katalin took one final glance around the generator tent and snatched up one last smallish, flat item from the ground where it had fallen. Stuffing it between her teeth, she dropped to hands and knees and crawled out under the canvas opposite the open doorway. Almost right away, eyes closed on her, darting through the shadows between the strobing colours.
Panthyaxi
Level 15 Night Creature
Alignment: Corruption
Weaknesses: Light
Skill Increased: Identify Monster 4%
Panthyaxi Health 24/25
“Shit shit shit!” She threw herself into a tumble from between the eyes, ignoring the messages that flashed before her eyes, aiming for the closest place where the lights seemed to coalesce most often. These creatures were somewhat like the panthyruxi, as if the earlier monsters had grown half as big again, gone through an oil bath and sprouted extra spikes all along their spine. “Dazzle? Really?” Despite her scepticism, claws swished past her even when she missed a chance to dodge. She kept moving, flickering through the dancing lights as her sequins flashed like tiny stars, and the panthyaxi snarled in confusion.
Panthyaxi Health 23/25
Panthyaxi Health 24/25
Panthyaxi Health 24/25
Skill increased: Dodge 14%
Supporting skill increased: Subterfuge 4%
Skill succeeded: Dodge
Supporting skill increased: Subterfuge 5%
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The bulk of the fallen ticket booth lay in her path, flooded with light from the external spotlights. She rolled to her feet from another tumbling dodge, snatched the item gripped in her teeth, and hurriedly angled its flat surface. One of the panthyaxi recoiled as the spotlight beam bounced from Katalin’s hand straight into its face.
Skill increased: Improvised weapons 18%
Panthyaxi Health 18/25
Panthyaxi Health 17/25
Panthyaxi Health 23/25
Panthyaxi Health 23/25
“I’m not going to like the next part,” Katalin grumbled aloud, then braced herself, lips curling back from her teeth with disgust.
Skill increased: Combat Regurgitation 4%
Panthyaxi Health 16/25
Panthyaxi Health 15/25
Panthyaxi Health 21/25
Panthyaxi Health 21/25
“So glad that wasn’t worth it.” She swung the beam from the mirror across the face of the monsters chasing her then threw herself upwards and backwards as they recoiled, dropping into cover on the far side of the ticket booth.
Skill increased: Improvised Weapons 19%
Panthyaxi Health 11/25
Panthyaxi Health 10/25
Panthyaxi Health 17/25
Panthyaxi Health 17/25
Another monster was leaping for her. She lurched out of the way. “Where did the fourth one come from?”
Skill increased: Dodge 15%
“Fuckit.” Chancing her newly-enhanced speed, she sprinted for the entrance to the Big Top, only to find herself temporarily blind. Without anyone at the controls, the performance lights had fallen into darkness, and Katalin’s eyes were still adjusted to the technicolour blaze illuminating the circus ground outside. Her mirror had nothing to reflect. She threw it hard at the first panthyaxi to be silhouetted in the doorway behind her.
Skill increased: Improvised Weapons 20%
Panthyaxi Health 16/25
She’d moved through the tent in darkness before, from backstage into the ring, even climbing up into its heights, but she’d never come in that way through the public entrance. She knew where the ranks of seating were, though.
Skill succeeded: Dodge
Supporting skill increased: Acrobatics 11%
The world began to emerge in dim greys as she sprinted between two rows of seats. Wood cracked and splintered as monsters leaped up behind her into the tiers and charged in pursuit. She vaulted a handrail, flying over it with a lack of effort that astounded her. She bounded downwards, finding herself on the top of the raised ring curb with only a single leap.
“If I’d been able to do this a week ago, I’d have been asking for a raise!”
The blue eyes of the panthyaxi snapped towards the sound of her voice, their oily forms leaping after her, closing from three sides. She turned tail and darted through the remaining gap. The cord lisse for the high wire and the bars was wound around one of the quarterpoles. Katalin didn’t bother to unwind it, but leaped straight up and caught it at the point where it bowed free and soared upwards into the darkened aerial reaches overhead. Claws swished past her close enough that she felt their draft, but she had gambled and won: panthyaxi couldn’t climb ropes. She’d never climbed so fast before.
Skill increased: Monster Behaviourist 5%
The fly-bar was secured at the platform. Katalin was at the centre of a sea of darkness. The light spilling through the entrance was barely enough to reach the ringside, let alone the control deck set behind the audience seats on the far side. She knew where she needed to be, could picture it in her head. She’d done her act blindfolded before. More than once. The first time, in practice, on a dare. The next times in shows, because she stupidly let Serzei find out about the first time. She’d been glad when the circus had moved on to nations where such things were considered health-and-safety-violation-worthy. Only now was she glad that she’d done it in the first place.
She freed the fly-bar, gripped it in both hands, and breathed. Carefully she rehearsed in her mind. The swing of the bar, the space around her, the swing, the arch, the release. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus. Calm.
She was falling through the air, Giorgi's hands brushing past hers and spinning away.
The panthyaxi prowled below. Snarls and unholy yowls whispered in the distance.
Tiny.
Breathe in, breathe out. Calm… hands… the gasps of the crowd… falling… falling… Tiny! Calm… focus… FOCUS!
Skill learned: Meditation 1%
Focus. Calm. Accept the inevitable.
Dammit.
Bar and artiste pendulumed through the shadows, and destruction rained down on the monsters below.
Skill increased: Combat Regurgitation 5%
Panthyaxi Health 9/25
Panthyaxi Health 8/25
Panthyaxi Health 15/25
Panthyaxi Health 14/25
Skill increased: Acrobatics 12%
Tuck, tumble, see with everything except the eyes, a sense of solidity closing fast.
Falling… FOCUS!
Skill increased: Meditation 2%
Let the body do what it knows how to do. The wood of the deck skidding under bare feet.
Skill increased: Acrobatics 13%
Splinters!
Katalin paused for a fraction of a moment, waiting for a message about her health, but a few splinters in her soles didn’t seem to qualify as proper damage. Behind the heavy drapes of the control deck, there was darkness. Katalin started feeling her way around, fingers clattering along the switches and keys then encountering the smooth surface of a screen.
The computers weren’t on. That wasn’t something she’d considered. She’d left Tiny alone. She’d come up with this plan, and Tiny was all alone. Alone, without enough time for her to get back to him.
She’d failed. She’d failed both of them.
Failed.