Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,3
I forget, jumps down from the vehicle and rushes around to open my door, but I beat him to it. “Go and help them,” I tell him.
He nods and scurries away.
Andrei traveled with me, and I put the guests in a separate car which is just pulling off from the dirt track behind us. Five of my men rode in front of us on dirt bikes and quads and another five behind us.
Even someone like me cannot afford to be too careful.
Our large group approaches the entrance, which is, apparently, guarded by a giant. A real-life fucking giant. I’m tall myself, six foot five if I’m standing up straight, and this man towers over even me. He’s about twice as wide, too.
He tries to bow but struggles when his gut connects with his leg, and I wave my hand away. He’s so stiff the movement looks painful, and I don’t want to witness a death before we’ve even entered the place.
With the tree trunks he has for arms, he turns a wheel that I hadn’t even noticed until now. It’s horizontal, and as he walks around inside of it—like some overgrown ox—chains rattle and the gate begins to click.
Waiting until it’s about halfway done, I duck under the spikes and the rest of the group follows my lead shortly after. Since I wasn’t the one behind the security procedures here, I don’t trust them, but I’d rather be inside the cave than outside like sitting ducks.
The tunnel reaches farther into the mountain at a downward gradient, lit by a mixture of electrical bulbs in different colors and backup torches flickering along the walls.
We reach the end, and a man is there to greet us. I have never met him before, but I know just from the description I’ve been given who he is.
“Baron,” he bows low at the waist, then rises to hold out his hand. I stare down at it. “It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the carnival.”
The red paint covering his body and the black horns attached to his forehead give him away. A small man, in height at least. He is rather fat in every other sense. Maxim eats well.
Do his women, though?
Apparently sensing there will be no handshake from me, he moves on to my guests while I take a look around.
I know people who have visited here. Understandably there is some crossover in our clientele. This place is just much more… theatrical. But still, even though it has been described to me before, I didn’t really know what to expect.
We’re standing inside a cavern big enough to fit a full-sized circus tent, the stripes a mixture of silk and matte black. It’s lit dimly by turquoise bulbs that follow the stripes, with torches pitched into the ground as a precaution. On the roof of the cave, there are more of the turquoise bulbs, so small up there they look like stars. The ground is dirt, which is to be expected, but there is a path of black carpet between the tent and the stalls that surround it.
I take a step away from the group to see what these stalls are selling. Around me, people glance and then avert their eyes, which I am more than used to. Although here I must say it stings a bit, considering there are quite a few people perhaps more freakish than me.
Set out a few meters away from the tent at all sides are the usual stalls selling alcoholic drinks, and the smell of barbecue eventually permeates my masked nose. What the meat is, no one could say. I bet they wouldn’t tell you, either. It just smells like smoke with the faintest hint of seasoning, which is never a good sign.
Andrei approaches behind me. “Will you be having a dog’s tail or a pussy with your beverage tonight?”
That gets a laugh from me, more because his thoughts were traveling in the same direction as mine than because of the humor of what he said.
He knows I can’t eat or drink, even if I did want to take that risk.
Andrei takes a step around me, trying to see the smaller tents that are facing away from us. He reads the sign and tilts his head to the side, and since I am nothing if I’m not curious, I follow him over.
Fortunes.
My eyes drift up to the old woman who sits in between the slits of the tent. Other than my own grandmother, who is not