Page 4 of Corruption
The show wouldn’t begin until well after dark. To kill time, he walked, leaned against a fence and observed, and munched on a sticky candy apple and a buttery ear of corn. Eventually the rides stopped and the children went home. The booths with the games shut down. A few women remained, mostly wandering arm-in-arm and murmuring with their menfolk. Several noisy groups of men clustered near the booth selling beer and shots of rotgut.
A man in an expensive but flashy suit appeared from nowhere to stand at the entrance to the demon’s tent. He carried a heavy walking stick. “Gents!” he called. “Come see, unless you’re too scared. Hell’s own fury captured and chained for your amusement. Only fifty cents, tonight only! You’ll be talking about this for years.”
His patter continued, and men responded as though bespelled. If the kid from Plainville was there, Charles didn’t see him. But plenty of others came, their breaths sour, their shirts sticking with sweat, their faces flushed with drink and excitement. Charles joined them. He handed two quarters to the barker before entering the tent.
Something was on the small stage, Charles could sense it, but a ratty curtain blocked the view. He sat in one of the rickety folding chairs—not too near the front, but not in the back, and on the aisle, where he could move quickly. Soon the other chairs filled and the tent was at capacity. The close air was rank, and the members of the audience shifted restlessly. Charles struggled to stay still; his skin tingled and his lungs refused to fully inflate. And his backitched. He would have liked to strip naked and immerse himself in cold, clean water. Instead, he clenched his fists and waited.
The man with the cane took the stage. Davenport, he said his name was. His patter was smooth, well-practiced. He spun ridiculous tales of the demon’s evil deeds. No single fiend had ever accomplished a fraction of what Davenport claimed for this one—pestilence, mass hysteria, debauchery of the innocent, political disasters, the deaths of thousands. But the audience didn’t know that and didn’t care, and Davenport led them into a rising frenzy. Charles shuddered at their fast, harsh breathing and the rotting-flesh stink of them.
When Davenport was satisfied they were ready, he nodded, and an unseen person quickly drew back the curtain. The audience gasped. Charles’s heart stuttered before resuming a rapid beat.
The demon was bound with his back to the crowd. He was naked, his arms stretched tautly overhead, chained to a heavy metal structure, and his widely spread ankles tethered to the stage. A thick metal collar circled his neck, with a chain running to the overhead bar. His black hair should have been glossy but instead hung in dull clumps, hacked unevenly short. His lackluster bronze skin was a backdrop to his enormous folded wings, covered in black feathers and drooping slightly as his head hung forward.
Davenport was good. He paused long enough for the crowd to gaze their fill, and then he resumed his spiel. He emphasized his words with occasional whacks of his cane against the demon’s flesh. The sound was very loud within the canvas walls, and the demon flinched at each blow, once uttering a choked groan when Davenport hit the tender skin just at the top of his thighs.
When Davenport poked the end of his walking stick against the demon’s muscular ass, Charles felt the temperature rise within the tent. He smelled the audience’s lust—for sex, for violence—and had to tightly clamp his jaw to keep from retching.
Just when everyone was wound perfectly tight, a man two rows over stood up. “That ain’t real!” he shouted. “You’re tryin’ ta hoodwink us!”
The man was a good shill, Charles thought. Appropriately belligerent and skeptical, and when Davenport invited him onstage, the guy nodded at the audience conspiratorially, inviting them to feel as if he represented them all. He did a good job of prodding at the demon, plucking a feather, and carelessly unfolding one wing to see where it attached to the demon’s body. His truly award-winning performance, however, came when he walked around to view the demon’s front. “Them eyes! Those ain’t the eyes of anything human!”
Everyone in the audience held their breath as Davenport slowly wheeled the demon’s platform around.
Oh, merciful gods.
The creature was magnificent. He wasn’t pretty, not by a long shot, although he certainly wasn’t as ugly as the demons Charles had destroyed. They had been twisted, sharp and gnarled. Butthisone was only beautifully broken, his head bowed, his horns grimy, his eyes clouded, his body heavy, his cock and balls hanging like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. There was nothing angry about him, none of the fury Charles had seen in other demons. Just... surrender and despair, as sweet as a candy apple.
Whatever else Davenport had to say, Charles barely heard it over the rush of his own blood.
Eventually, Davenport offered the audience a closer experience with the demon—for ten dollars. Most of the men left, but they weren’t complaining. They looked stunned, on edge. Charles figured they would work it out by drinking themselves into a stupor, by finding someone to screw roughly, brutally. But a handful of men remained, and they ponied up their money and waited for Davenport and his demon.
Charles didn’t pay—not because he couldn’t afford it, but because he didn’t trust himself. His jaw was tight with jealousy, and the gun weighed heavily in his pocket.
But before he left the tent, he looked at the demon once more—and the demon lifted his head and looked back. Orange eyes widened and nostrils flared; the creature opened his mouth but then bit his lower lip before saying anything. Charles had a good idea of what the demon had bitten back: a plea.
Charles shook his head.
The demon did make a noise then. He threw back his head and keened so loudly the tent seemed to shake. The sound inflamed the men, making them pant eagerly, and Davenport laughed. Charles slipped away.
Music blared from the biggest tent, and raucous laughter rang into the night. Glancing around quickly to make sure nobody was watching, Charles stole around to the back of the demon’s tent. More laughter, cruel and guttural, and the unmistakable sounds of a body being hit. Choked screams, strangled cries. Charles’ palms bled from the pressure of his fingernails.
Only after the sounds in the back of the tent had ended did Charles return to the front. Nobody guarded the entrance, so after waiting a few more minutes, he stepped inside. The air still reeked, but he ignored the smell and the discarded chains onstage. He walked to the narrow flap behind the platform and cleared his throat. “Hoy there,” he called, just loudly enough.
A moment later, the flap opened slightly. “We’re done for the night,” Davenport snapped irritably. His face was flushed. He wasn’t in it just for the profits—he got off on what the marks did to his demon.
Charles could have flashed his badge; keeping a demon was illegal under federal law and in all forty-eight states. But he had no backup, he wasn’t in friendly territory, and he didn’t especially want to drag Davenport to jail. So he simply smiled. “I want to buy some time with the demon. Private time.”
“I said we’redone. Come see us next week in Arapahoe. Don’t forget your ten bucks.” He started to walk away, but Charles grabbed the canvas flap, holding it open.
“I want it tonight. I have two hundred dollars.”
Well, that made Davenport freeze. “Where would someone like you get that kind of dough?”
“Tooth fairy.”
Davenport gave him a long look. “Let me see it,” he said at last.
Charles was ready for this. He pulled the folded bills from his pocket, fanned them out so the numbers were visible, and held them up for inspection.
