Chapter 7: The Tower
“I’ll pull you and pill you, I’ll crueladeville you.”
Queen, “Let Me Entertain You”
Faulkner became the circus’s first archivist. Like those who succeeded him in the position, Faulkner was mortal. He did not have demon’s blood or abilities—no power, no disgusting appearance, no creepy habits. Usually archivists were advanced in years when they came to the circus. They dedicated their lives to studying the arcane arts, especially goetia—the art of demon summoning. They learned languages older than Latin, in which were written the most famous grimoires, and were able to create talismans of summoning. Basically, archivists were a communication device between the mortal world and the world of demons. Lucifer himself rarely found time to talk with Lazarus and the other circus inhabitants, so he appointed Mr. Star, or Astaroth, as a curator.
The archivists were people of many talents, and they served as a database, an encyclopedia, and a help desk for the circus. No one in the world knew better than they what demionis were, where they lived, and what approach and care they needed. They kept a single written diary. Each new archivist continued the previous diary, and every day they wrote about traveling, shows, expenses, and tickets sold. They also recorded on paper any event that in their opinion was out of the ordinary.
Lazarus initially tried to talk as little as possible to Faulkner, taking him for a spy, but as the circus grew, the little man’s help became apparent, and Lazarus, who had not dealt with supernatural beings, appreciated it.
On May 8, 1871, when Ezra Sutton made the first homerun in the history of baseball, in Cleveland, “Lazarus Bernardius’ Circus” hit the road. Around the same time, Phineas Taylor Barnum founded his circus, which ten years later would become The Greatest Show on Earth. Barnum’s circus performances drew full houses in large cities. Lazarus’s shows were in the small towns and backwoods, where half the people thought they were a cheap knock-off, and the other half was so poor that sometimes Lazarus had to paper the house to create some semblance of an audience under the big top. But money didn’t concern the tentmaster.
Lucifer kept his promise, and Lazarus’s circus was never in need of anything, even though the money from ticket sales covered only a small portion of the costs. Lazarus knew why the public was not in a hurry to see his shows. He himself lacked the manners of an entertainer; he was leaden and words got tangled on his tongue. The performances didn’t even look like a mud show. Most of the carts with equipment were not even used, and a few tents for housing were enough for the small troupe. Besides Lazarus and Faulkner, at first the circus included only a rougaru named Charles, the rarog Stepan, and a brainless joint snake.
Faulkner had brought Charles to the circus back in New Orleans. He was a middle-aged man, with good manners, who always tried to stay away from the usual hustle and bustle of life. When he was a teenager, his devilish blood had emerged, and sometimes at night pain tortured Charles throughout his body. Then he would be covered with hair and run into the woods, where he behaved like an animal. Unlike a werewolf, Charles never turned into a wolf, and he kept his human features. But only the flesh of an animal could satisfy his bestial hunger, and human flesh was best of all. These changes and cravings terrified Charles. Not wanting to harm anyone, he ran away from human society. Faulkner and Lazarus offered him help. With the knowledge gleaned from his books, Faulkner could ease Charles’s madness. The problem of rougaru hunger was solved when Stepan joined the circus. Now and then, he agreed to dig up bodies from fresh graves or rob morgues under the cover of night to provide human flesh for Charles.
Faulkner found Stepan when the circus, in which there were only three people, was about to leave New Orleans. Stepan was a Ukrainian immigrant who had fled his homeland because of some crimes. He wanted to try his fortune in the New World, where, he believed, any fugitive was given a second chance. Alas, the rarog’s violent temper failed him in every city where he stayed. Stepan was a dwarf who could turn into a vortex and become invulnerable in that form. He used his ability in many fights in cities across America, until he accidentally killed a man. Working in the circus allowed him to travel across the country, making it harder for coppers to catch him.
The joint snake had no back story. It was one of those unfortunate mongrels born as a beast. It lived in the swamps of New Orleans until it was caught by local blacks to be used in voodoo rituals. They hacked it to pieces as a sacrifice and were horrified when the remains of the creature started crawling in the sand, as if the pieces were looking for each other, until it coalesced again into a snake. The frightened blacks did not throw it away, however, but sold the creature to a white businessman, a rarities seeker, believing it would harm him. This businessman, in turn, sold the snake to the circus for a high price, and a month later he died unexpectedly at his home from some unknown cause.
Charles portrayed himself as a wendigo, a werewolf, grinning and covered with dense hair, but many years later, when he became old, he was just an incredibly hairy man. Stepan entertained people by transforming into a vortex into which someone would throw a knife, and then he turned back into his human form, holding the blade between his teeth. Unfortunately, at least to Mr. Bernardius, the most popular exhibit in his circus of freaks was the snake. Children loved to torment it, tearing it to pieces as they laughed, and then happily watched as the pieces fused again.
The “Lazarus Bernardius’ Circus” didn’t have such a limited troupe for long. Mr. Bernardius was surprised by how often in the early years of touring they attracted new demionis, both sane and bestial, which he took under his wing. Unlike the Barnum circus, the fame of which resounded throughout the country, Bernardius’s circus wasn’t popular. However, Barnum’s show served Lazarus well. After Barnum’s numerous scams, frauds, and swindles were exposed by the press, people stopped believing that the “artists” of Lazarus’s circus were real monsters and beasts and not subtle fakes.
Initially Lazarus was offended. His circus always traveled on the back roads of the country, but one day, after a pause in the tour and without warning anyone, Lazarus went to New York to witness the performance of The Greatest Show on Earth. Mr. Bernardius was impressed by the scale and magnificence of the spectacle. He feverishly took notes in a notebook he brought with him, planning to use them to make his circus performances better. With dreams and ideas hustling in his head, and building fantastic plans in his mind, Mr. Bernardius encountered the man in black and white robes at the exit of the circus. Astaroth jogged Lazarus’s memory. The circus was a home to supernatural beings rescued from the world of people and not an entertainment company whose purpose was to make money. In his usual sarcastic manner, the demon told Lazarus that the tentmaster should not draw too much attention to the demionis.
Disappointed, Lazarus returned to his circus. He didn’t even ask how Astaroth knew he had left, but he was sure that Faulkner had informed the demon about it. Faulkner’s attitude toward Lazarus had not changed, and the archivist was still friendly and good-natured, showing no signs of disrespect. The old man still didn’t look like an employee of the infernal forces, but like a kindly old uncle every kid dreamed about.
Astaroth’s instructions were not in vain. “Lazarus Bernardius’ Circus” never strove for glory, continuing to travel to small towns, some of which in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were not even on the map. The circus equipment from the first trip had not worn out. Tents and poles, props and pieces of the arena lost the luster of newness, but they were still strong and reliable. Lazarus wondered how this was possible. Faulkner told him that the spell of fortification had been cast upon the gear and props, making them virtually indestructible. Years passed, but the wonders of progress bypassed Mr. Bernardius’s troupe. Eventually Lazarus replaced the carts and horses with trucks, but telephones, computers, and other electronic devices were strictly prohibited. Even the posters and tickets were drawn manually, by archivists trained in calligraphy.
Progress w
as one of the reasons the circus avoided big cities. Progress went too fast there. The more that cameras, radio, TV, the Internet, and other technology conquered humanity, the more forbidden big cities were to the circus. High-tech cell phones, which any teenager could use to record video and post it to the Internet, were dangerous for demionis, the reality of which Mr. Bernardius tried to keep secret. Lazarus had heard that some demionis had perfectly adapted to the megalopolis. These were able to mix with millions of people and had found ways to survive. But most were forced to flee to places less subject to the influence of man. People cut down the forests and transformed the wastelands where demionis once lived, and built houses and factories there. The miserable creatures had no choice but to run and hide. Those whom people called monsters and beasts retreated from human settlements. At the request of Lazarus, the circus archivists checked local newspapers, and advance teams listened to conversations in bars. What they learned confirmed that demionis showed up rarely near the places where people lived, preferring to hide in the boondocks. That is, until they were found by Lazarus Bernardius.
The archaic appearance of the circus in the twenty-first century, to the surprise of Mr. Bernardius, did not turn audiences away, but actually attracted them. He often heard visitors wondering how the circus managed to achieve that “aged” look in the arena, the cells, and the props. After thirty years of back-breaking touring across the country, the circus drew complaints from some audience members that it lacked the luster comparable to Barnum’s, but for one hundred and thirty years, people had admired what they called its authenticity. This change of mood seemed almost stupid to Lazarus, but he loved his audiences.
Mr. Bernardius rarely chose a big city for a show, only in the case of extreme necessity, and did not spend more than a day there. He didn’t like big cities. In the tullies, people were more open; their emotions were clear and predictable. Lazarus sometimes thought that if the circus performed in big cities, people there would treat the artists with contempt and distrust. Mr. Bernardius had been in towns so small that the circus show would become the most discussed event for many years. The “Lazarus Bernardius’ Circus” returned to some towns decades later, and Lazarus met people whose parents or grandparents had told them about the fantastic circus full of freaks and monsters. Lazarus loved to bring joy to people, liked their responsiveness when the advance team asked them about strange local legends. But the demionis couldn’t reveal themselves. Therefore any footage of the show was strictly forbidden, and if anyone violated this rule, the brothers Blanche and Black would explain, as politely as they could, that cameras were not welcome. Sometimes the local press was pushy, wanting to report on the inhabitants of the circus. In that case, an archivist had to summon a few lesser demons that had no rank in the infernal hierarchy. The little imps could zap out any electronic device in a radius of several hundred meters. But this did not happen often.
Most of the residents of the circus thought of it as their home. There they were protected. People might scoff at them, but they could not harm them. In the circus were food, warmth, and the company of beings united by the same fate. Problems occurred, but Lazarus always found a solution. The main rule was to communicate with outsiders as little as possible. For some creatures, it was strictly forbidden, but others could leave the circus from time to time, as long as they observed certain restrictions. No one could leave the circus without Lazarus’s permission.
Demionis did not dare violate this rule. Until Greg appeared. The magician was endowed with a rare gift, as rare as Lazarus’s immortality. He was well aware of this. He broke the rules and sometimes behaved as if he was doing the circus a favor by staying. After Martha appeared, Greg became more compliant, but he still remained the most obstinate of Lazarus’s fosterlings. Mr. Bernardius had been running the circus a long time, and one thing he had learned was that demon blood needed to stay away from people. But Greg was drawn to them. Lazarus knew all too well how these things ended. Not well.