CARNIVALE DIABOLIQUE

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EXCERPT

A man and a demon walk into a bar…

“Well, will you look at that.”

Cam looked, and almost dropped the coffee carafe. Everyone had turned to stare at the towering, bronze-skinned man with black tribal markings etched into the left side of his face. Definitely not a common occurrence in Elberton, Georgia.

The demon that came in behind him? She’d seen plenty of those, unfortunately.

She forced herself to resume pouring Willie’s coffee. “I’d heard that a carnival was coming to town. Looks like it’s here.”

“Is he the strong man or the side show?”

“Those tattoos mean he’s Maori, from down by New Zealand way. Ain’t you ever seen Whale Rider?”

Willie frowned. “Is that some kind of interracial porno?”

Cam shook her head. “There are times when I’m glad you can’t contribute to the gene pool, and this is one of ‘em.”

She returned the carafe to its warmer, then moved behind the counter to greet the new arrival. She stood an even six feet barefoot, but this guy had at least five inches on her. Man, they sure grow ‘em big Down Under. “Welcome to Cam’s Cafe.”

“Thanks.” His voice, a surprising tenor instead of a bass rumble, held just a bit of an accent. He slid onto a stool as she held her breath, but the seat took his weight. Her peripheral vision caught the demon sliding onto the stool to his left. “Seems like a nice place.”

“We do all right.” She reached beneath the counter for a menu, placed it in front of him. She so wasn’t getting out a menu for a demon. “You with the carnival, I guess?”

“Yes. We pulled in about an hour ago.” He picked up the menu with large hands covered in black swirling patterns, like a masculine version of lace. It made her wonder if his entire body was marked, but she was too polite to ask. Just like she wouldn’t ask if he knew he had a demon for a shadow. Sticking one’s nose into other folk’s business could get you killed, and Cam liked her life just fine.

“I don’t suppose you have hot tea?”

“I do. It’s the closest you?re going to get to unsweet tea around here. I got a bunch of different herbal kinds you can choose from.”

“Excellent. I’ll take tea and a cup of coffee, black. Oh and if you have tomato juice, I’d like a glass of that with a bottle of Tabasco sauce.”

Cam raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Did the guy know he had a demon–and was actually buying it a drink? If so, he was dangerous. Maybe the entire carnival had demons and humans who could not only see them, but wanted them around.

Big problem. She suppressed a shudder as she moved off to fill his drink order. Too many demons running free. Part of the reason she’d come to Elberton and stayed was because the town was full of honestly good people of different faiths, a mysterious tourist attraction called the Georgia Guidestones, and absolutely no demons. That had been two years ago. Just when she’d finally gotten past being “the outsider” and had made her cafe one of the main congregation spots, demons started appearing.

It was enough to make her wonder if she was the magnet that drew them.

The thought instantly made her think of Miss Bessie Ann. She missed the older woman terribly. Although the police had ruled her death a tragic accident, Cam knew better.

Miss Bessie Ann could see demons too. She’d often told Cam that the only good demon was a dead demon. The older woman had saved her life when she’d dragged herself into town half-dead and past hope. It cut her to her soul that she hadn’t been able to return the favor.

Unfortunately she couldn’t prevent demons from entering the diner. One, it was a public place. Two, the only net strong enough to keep them out tended to keep out other things as well. That would start questions she’d just as soon her neighbors didn’t ask.

She thunked the drink order with more force than she’d intended. Both the Maori and the demon stared at her. As much as the demon creeped her out, the tattooed man fascinated her. Her idle mind immediately conjured up an image of him in a Mr. Olympia pose, his muscular body oiled and covered in tats.

Dammit! “You ready to order?”

“Yes.” The Maori set about ordering a steak cooked medium, scrambled eggs, double order of hash browns, an order of bacon, a short stack, and an omelet loaded with jalapenos, onions and jack cheese with hot sauce on the side. And a side salad.

She wrote down everything, trying hard not to comment. Would he eat it all, or would he somehow slide some of it over to the side, where the demon sat? “I hope you pace yourself. Baker just put a pan of our peach cobbler into the oven. People line up to be the first one to get a piece.”

He rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had peach cobbler.”

She laughed at that. “If you have to think that hard about it, then no, you’ve never had any. I’ll pack you up some when you get ready to go. Consider it a welcome gift.”

“I’d like that.” He smiled then, a nice and easy curve of his lips that slid over her senses, making her feel like she’d just stepped into a shower set to the perfect temperature.

The demon leaned closer to him. Half the tabasco sauce had disappeared. So had half the tomato juice. That was enough to snap her out of a hormone-induced fog. Spinning on her heel, she left them. It wasn’t really retreating when she had to give the cook the order, was it?

Turning her back on the demon literally made her skin crawl. She cashed out a customer then busied herself with dishes at the end of the counter, far enough away from the carnival diners without seeming like she was avoiding them. Tracey kept throwing her curious glances but she ignored them. Her floor server would take Cam’s being friendly as a sign to play matchmaker, and whatever she had time for, it certainly wasn’t that.

Baker called order up. Cam worked on serving up the Maori’s massive mess of plates while ignoring Tracey and the demon. Easier said than done.

“There you go. You got everything you need?”

“Except a name.” He smiled, the dark lines etching his skin moving with the curve of his cheeks. “I feel strange just calling you ‘Miss.’ My name’s Anaru.” He extended his hand.

What else could she do? She allowed her hand to be engulfed in his. Heat, calluses, strength. Power of a different sort. “Pleased to meet you, Anaru. You can call me Cam.”

She fought a shiver as their palms parted. The demon looked from her to his companion and back again. Now it was interested in her. Crap on a cracker.

“We knew Miss Bessie Ann McRae,” the Maori said then. “We heard about her passing and wanted to offer our condolences to her family. Does she have any relatives here?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“I figured your diner to be one of the hubs of the town and I thought if anyone would know, someone here would.”

Way to look suspicious, dipshit, she thought to herself. She plastered on a smile. “Well, I don’t know if you can call Cam’s a hub, but I make it a point to be friendly to all comers, no matter how unusual.”

“Even carnies?”

“Even carnies.” She topped off the coffee, even though the other was drinking it. If she pissed it off, it might want to hang around, and that would not be cool. “Miss Bessie had a daughter, but she passed about a year ago. Then Miss Bessie herself died. It was awful.”

“What happened?”

“The story is that she fell asleep while driving and rolled off an embankment.”

“The story? Sounds like you don’t believe that.”

“Miss Bessie was in her late fifties and she walked here from her house every day. So yes, I find it a little unusual that her car slid down an embankment at one-thirty in the afternoon on a sunny day.”

The Maori frowned. Willie made a gulping noise and went back to finishing his grits. Cam didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t want to be on the Maori’s bad side, not even on a bet.

“So, how does a man from New Zealand know a woman who never left Georgia?”

That dark gaze pierced her. Even the demon had stopped sipping his coffee to stare at her. She fought the urge to look away from the tattooed man, just as hard as she fought her sleeping ovaries waking up and noticing him. That was her problem, having a thing for the extra-ordinary. If she’d settled for normal and regular, she wouldn’t have had to run for all those years.

“The previous head of our carnival was a close acquaintance of hers,” the Maori finally said. “We didn’t learn of her passing until after the funeral.”

Don’t ask, Cam, don’t ask the question when you know you don’t want to know the answer… “What happened to the previous head of your carnival?”

“She was murdered.”

Crap. “I’m sorry to hear that.” You might want to ask your shadow if it knows something about it.

Cam busied herself with tending the last few breakfast stragglers and avoiding the Maori and his demon. Maybe it was time to think about some sort of protection for the diner. It was hard to do though, with a public place that wasn’t a place of worship–and even those weren’t completely demon-proof.

She brought another glass of tomato juice over, set it down between Anaru and his invisible companion.

“You can see him, can’t you?”

“Him who?”

“My acquaintance.”

“You sure you don’t need to be in a hospital instead of a carnival? You’re the only person I see here.” Everyone knows you don’t look directly at demons. You notice them, they turn around and take a powerful interest in you.

He smiled. So did the demon. “Vulcan says you can see him.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You named him? Are you crazy?”

“He’s harmless.”

“There’s no such thing as a harmless demon.”

“She has a point.”

The demon just appeared, a tallish aristocratic European with dark hair and chiseled features, a goatee (of course) and–she wasn’t going to look into his eyes. No one else reacted, as if he’d been there all along in solid form instead of a smoky corner-of-your-eye shadow.

Anaru frowned at his friend. “Vulcan’s been on our side for a long time.”

Like that meant anything. “Which side is that?”

The Maori’s eyes twinkled. “Can’t put anything past you, can I?”

“You can’t survive seeing demons by being stupid,” she retorted. “You either drink, go insane, or get smart.”

His demeanor changed, going from open and easygoing to alert and predatory. Cam immediately tensed. “You’ve seen other demons?”

Crapioca again. The dishcloth hit the counter with a splat. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“The loss of your friend and the loss of our leader may be related,” Anaru said. “If something else has happened here, we need to know.”

“Why? So you can kill them with cotton candy?”

The demon laughed, then covered it with a cough as Anaru glared at him. “You know about my friend here. That should tell you that we’re not your regular traveling carnival. I don’t know how much you know about Miss Bessie Ann and what she did, but if you have questions, I promise that our leader can answer them. And perhaps you can answer some of ours.”

“Answers.” As a lure, it was definitely tempting–especially if they knew more about Miss Bessie Ann than she did. Although she’d lived with the older woman for a couple of years and still called the bungalow her home, she knew Miss Bessie Ann hadn’t revealed everything to her. Hadn’t had the chance. But Cam hadn’t managed to stay alive for twenty-eight years by giving in to temptation. “You can keep your answers, carnival man. In this case, I kinda figure ignorance is bliss.”

His hand wrapped around hers atop the dishcloth. Actually, her hand completely disappeared beneath his. “Ignorance will get you killed, Cam,” he said softly. “None of us want that to happen.”

His thumb stroked across her knuckles before he withdrew. Damned if she didn’t feel that simple stroke all the way down to her panties. “We can help each other. Would you come out to the carnival this evening?”

“I think that’s a great idea!” Tracey announced as she joined them at the counter, her over-bleached ponytail swinging.

Oh hell no. If they had one demon, they were sure to have more. She hadn’t survived by being fearless. Or stupid. “Sorry. The diner gets all my time.”

Tracey apparently decided it was okay to keep adding her unsolicited two cents. “We close after lunch.”

“I know.” Anaru pointed a thumb over his shoulder, at the diner’s door. “Your hours are posted out front.”

Dammit. “It takes me a while to finish up the business stuff, and I have to start early tomorrow,” Cam said, giving her floor waitress what she hoped was a none-too-subtle reminder.

“You balance the books in less than an hour, and you know it. We should go to the carnival. It’ll be fun. Lord knows you ain’t had a stick of fun since Miss Bessie Ann passed. She wouldn’t want you to be all down in the mouth like this forever.”

“It’s only been a month,” she said through clenched teeth, making a mental note to fire her talkative server. It had been a while since she’d had any kind of fun, though. High school, maybe? Running scared for your life kinda took the party animal right out of a body.

Anaru smiled at her again as Tracey made googly-eyes at the demon. He probably meant it to be friendly, but it came out predatory. “I’d like to extend an invitation to you–” Tracey coughed– “and your friend to visit us, free of charge. You have my word that no one will bother you at the carnival. After my set, I’ll even be your personal escort.”

“Your set? Do you do that, uhm, war dance thing?”

He beamed, as if her question pleased him. “The haka peruperu is the war dance, but I like to save that for special occasions. I’m the strongman and knife-thrower.”

Of course he was. “That’s a useful occupation.”

He lifted one massive shoulder. “It pays the bills.”

Tracey leaned closer to Vulcan, her big, Wedgewood-blue eyes doing Puppy Dog Factor 10. “And what do you do?”

The demon turned as suave and charming as only demons could get. “I entrance and entertain, madam, through the use of swords and fire.”

Cam refrained from rolling her eyes, simply because of the concern she had with Tracey’s fascination with Vulcan. It’s not like she could come out and say, Stay away from him, he’s a demon, without Tracey laughing in her face or calling her crazy. Or worse, jealous.

“What do you say, Cam?” Tracey turned those luminous blue eyes her way, the stare that tried for an extra day off, a partial shift, or an advance on tips. It hadn’t worked before, it certainly wouldn’t work now.

Going to the carnival wouldn’t be about having fun. Not completely. It would be about the demons that had begun to filter into the town, concentrating just on the outskirts where the Guidestones were. She’d made a promise to Miss Bessie Ann, that she’d find a way to stop the demons from taking over Elberton. She intended to keep it, even if it meant spending more time with the Maori and his demon.

“All right. I’ll go.”