With An Agonized Last Breath

If you didn’t know it was there, you never would have seen the sign. It marked the entrance to a particular Circus tucked into the darkest glen of the forest like a canton of Hell. A simple two-by-four, nature-worn and crumbling, the words, faded and mostly gone, painted in a red that looked more brown than cherry, the sign creaked even in the absence of a breeze. Tucked into the corner of a dirt road that was more path than anything else, it read Circus of the Bizarre in cruel, blocky letters just irregular enough to be recognizable as handwriting. A stake of light wood, painstakingly carved to a wicked point, anchored the sign to the dark soil. Compared to the chain, so rusted that several of the links had faded to nothing, and the sign itself, the crisp newness of the pillar, so carefully formed and maintained, seemed all the more threatening. If you knew enough to look for it, of course. If you didn’t, the eye passed right over the sign as if it weren’t even there.

The Circus itself attracted two different kinds of people. Those who thought of themselves as dark and mysterious—the Goths, the wannabe vampires, the brooding poets too cynical to do aught else—and those folk for whom the dark proved too much of a curiosity to ignore. Common to both groups, however, and those few stragglers who fit into both or neither, was the belief that the Circus itself was simply a collection of oddities, a roadside amalgamation of things not quite mysterious or shocking enough to make it into Ripley’s or the record books. Only a few—the crazy or the true believers—thought the circus would have anything but jars of pickled pigs feet marked as alien arms or the occasional acrobat juggling fiery swords. For the masses, however, the unbelievers and the self-styled realists, the Circus had the proverbial ace up the sleeve, the secret meant to shock and entice. The secret meant to terrify and to awe those fools unwilling to acknowledge the impossible, the unbelievable, the occult. To those masses, to those unbelievers, the denizens of the Circus shared their dark, terrible, amazing secret.

The secret was this: the Circus of the Bizarre, unlike any other circus in the world, specialized in monsters. Real monsters. The ones under your bed and in your closet. The creatures that really were following you when the chills ran up your spine and you were stupid enough to turn around and stare into the darkness. There, in innocuous cages lined up amongst food vendors and acrobats, the bizarre was more than the usual oddities of two-headed cows and freaks. At the Circus of the Bizarre, marked by a half-rotted sign so hidden that no one would see it unless they were looking for it, the oddities were real. And they were trapped, displayed like animals behind bars, for the general amusement or terror—and often both—of the crowds.

St. Michel licked the blood from his lips and tossed the feed bucket back toward the door of his cage before slumping to the straw-covered floor. He was awake, so night must have fallen, though the caretakers hadn’t yet removed the cover from his prison cell. Not allowed the comfort of a sarcophagus, St. Michel relied almost exclusively upon the thick, black fabric that separated him from the excruciating burn of sunlight. Compared to the travails of his nights, however, St. Michel preferred the hours of fitful sleep, tossing and turning, struggling to keep a safe distance from the bars the caretakers washed in Holy Water three times a day. At night came the strength, the restlessness, the hunger. At night came the unwitting humans, who had no clue just how close they were to death. It was then that the cage became unbearable. It was at night that the need to escape drove him to madness, stole the mind that was all of his humanity he still retained this long after his rebirth as a vampire.

Which was, as he knew all too intimately, just what the caretakers wanted. A screaming, snarling beast with bared fangs, displayed openly to terrorize and entertain the skeptical and curious of humanity. And St. Michel, though he fought against the madness each night with all of his undead strength, obliged them at every turn. Like a beast of burden. Caged, trained, and beaten. He’d lost his life when he’d become a creature of the night, and some would argue that he had lost his soul; but only now, as the property of the Circus, did he feel like he had lost himself completely.

“Oi, yer holiness, you up yet?” The cage rattled, shaking on its precarious legs, as one of his caretakers pounded on the door. “If you ain’t, rise and shine! It’s show time, m’lord.” The last came out derisively, the voice, already the audio equivalent of raking gravel from years of chain smoking, rising in a diabolical mockery of sing-song. St. Michel sighed, ran an alabaster hand through his corn wheat hair, and stared at the soiled straw beneath him. The caretakers seemed to take perverse joy in reminding him that he was their prisoner. He, a mighty vampire whose existence stretched three times the length of the average human, whose dark gift was wisdom and understanding. Even the bogeymen, who enjoyed and thrived off of the fear wafting palpably through the clearing each night, had cleaner cages than he, received better food than he. St. Michel was the crowning glory of the Circus’ long run; the impossible catch, the super human, and he was reminded of it at every turn.

“I’m awake,” he replied softly, his voice a series of notes struck true, perfectly pitched. Like any instrument, the voice required practice and St. Michel had over two centuries of performance to train his vocal chords to perfection. “And, as I know you’re going to ask, my bucket is empty…” The creature slumped slightly, reminded of his ignominious position here at the Circus. Forced to drink rotted animal blood from a bucket each night, the door to his prison strewn with strands of garlic and poplar spikes lining the ground beneath the wooden floor. He wasn’t allowed to bathe any longer since the gatekeepers’ discovery of his remarkable ability to regenerate through sleep. At least they gave him the sun proof cover even if they’d taken away his sarcophagus. They had it hidden somewhere, hoping that they might be able to control him that way. St. Michel smiled softly to himself, knowing full well that at least that myth was false. But, he reminded himself, they had every other means of keeping him trapped well at hand. He was stuck here, captured by his own stupidity.

The black cloth swept away suddenly, revealing the world to St. Michel. Weakened as he was from lack of sleep and rotten blood, his senses had faded over the years. He’d lost his hearing first and then his preternatural sense of smell. But his eyesight yet remained, a gift from whatever dark gods of death listened to a vampire dim-witted enough to allow mortals to take him captive. It was a perverse gift, St. Michel thought; the ability to see what he could not have and only when he needed it the most. The forests stretched out before him, broken only by the black peaks of the big top and the lights of the pavilions. It was too early yet for the patrons to be scurrying about, so the mortal presences he felt could only be the denizens of the Circus including, he knew, his captor. The Hunter, he was called; a name whispered both in hatred and in grudging respect for his abilities. The last tangible tie to anger, the focal point of any passion that yet sparked amidst his listlessness. When Hunter died, St. Michel thought, what remained would truly be an animal, resigned to a captured and tethered fate until they let him go or, more likely, destroyed him forever.

“Good job, yer popery. Ol’ Brady’s proud of you. How’d you like your breakfast? It was pig this time. A whole month old, just for you.” Brady fancied himself the head caretaker. He was at least eighty years old and had been with the Circus the day St. Michel, trapped in silver chains and surrounded by a contingent of stake-wielding mercenaries, had been led into the camp at the end of a tether. St. Michel remembered throwing all of his strength against the chains, sure that he could move swiftly enough to escape if he could only break through the silver barrier. But the bonds had proved too strong even for him and it had been Brady, still a young man then, who’d tossed the bolt on his prison. In the decades since, other caretakers had found themselves assigned to ‘His Holiness’, but it was Brady that stylized himself St. Michel’s primary tormentor. “Come, come now, m’lord…look sharp. You’re the star attraction of your very own show!”

St. Michel sighed again, his emerald eyes sparking dully with some long-buried vestige of rage at his captivity. It was long since he’d forgotten what it felt like to be free—a quarter of what could be called his life had been spent in this wretched cage—and many years since fury had abandoned him for the hollowness of resignation. Only occasionally, when they mocked him more forcibly than usual or he allowed his thoughts to travel to memories of the Hunter, was he reminded of his anger and frustration; but now, after so long, they seemed a blunt thing compared to the keen edge of his onetime passion. Where once he would have thrown himself against the bars of his cage, earning himself burnt hands and a holy water whipping for his trouble, now he kept himself silent and his lips tightly pressed together.

Brady’s disdainful laugh faded into a hacking cough that wracked the old man’s body. St. Michel wondered if it were only hatred and sadism that kept the man alive at this point. Any other human would be dead from the smoke and the whiskey that seemed the man’s entire diet. The vampire winced as the human hacked and spat, relieved that Brady had at least aimed the mucous at the grass instead of, as was normal, his face. The flask appeared, shining silver in the light of the tents, and Brady poured a healthy amount of Jack Daniels down his wizened throat. “You’ve got a visitor tonight. Seems someone’s taken a fancy to see his prize capture afore he retires for good.”

St. Michel’s head snapped up. The Hunter! Brady laughed again, keeping it quiet this time to avoid hacking. “I see you know who I mean. Well, yer Holiness, make yerself presentable now.” The old man turned and grinned as a figure, deep enough in the shadow that even St. Michel could not see him, stepped into the light. St. Michel gasped, both in shock and in hatred. The Hunter, whom St. Michel remembered as a young man, hobbled toward his cage, leaning heavily on a poplar cane that St. Michel knew doubled as a weapon especially for vampires. This was the man who’d taken St. Michel from his very sarcophagus! Who’d imprisoned him! And now here he stood, bent and broken, once luxurious chestnut hair now reduced to tufts of white wire. Rheumy blue eyes blinked slowly at the vampire, but within their cloudy depths, St. Michel saw mockery and disdain. This was the man. And though his body had faded, his skills surely had not.

“Ah, St. Michel,” the man whispered, his French accent softened by years outside of his native country. “You are still beautiful, I see. Though much faded from your glory. You would be an easy capture now, I think. Not worthy of one such as I. If I had my way now, St. Michel, I would stake you and capture another.” He chuckled. “Or maybe not. It would be too easy to capture you now when it was so easy at the peak of your strength.”

The vampire glared down at his captor, shame and hatred commingling in equal measure within him. In his mind's eye, Hunter was young again and he held the key to the silver chains binding St. Michel from escape, parading the vampire through the Circus as his trophy. It was as if the years in his cage had not happened; St. Michel had spent so long hating this man, wrapping himself in resignation as long as he could hate the Hunter, that seeing him now erased the years of mistreatment, the chilling nothing that had surrounded his still heart. How could he have accepted his captivity for so long? But here, here was the man! The Hunter. And to ignore it now would be to give up, to accept that he was the animal they thought he was. He snarled, baring his fangs. “I am as strong as the day you managed to get past my guards, Hunter.” St. Michel did feel stronger, his ire lending potency to undead muscles and unlocking the gifts he had long thought gone forever. He fed anger into his long-dead limbs and felt himself changing within, returning to the vampire that he had once been. “You, Hunter, are the weak one now. Though your mind remains, your body has abandoned you. And it was the combination that gave you victory.”

Brady smacked at the bars, jostling the cage. “None o’ yer lip now, Holiness. This here’s Hunter’s last day. Treat him with respect, now, or it’s a whippin’ fer you.”

St. Michel smiled, the ice in his eyes enough to remind both men that youth had long abandoned them. The beast within the cage had all the strength of a man in his twenties, the wisdom of centuries. “I’ve had enough of you two. And I have had enough of these bars.” He turned to Brady. “Did you ever have them coated in silver like you threatened, old man, or did you think to rely on Holy Water alone? And how long as it been since the last bath? Enough time that I might do this?” St. Michel, eyes never leaving the Hunter’s, grabbed both bars. Agony seared through his muscles, tearing strength away from him as fast as he could channel his pent up rage. But he pulled nonetheless, ignoring the pain, refusing to acknowledge the bits of rotted muscle that fell to the straw below as his hands burnt away. Brady, seeing the bars give way, ran into the darkness. Only the Hunter, brave or foolish, but probably both, remained, watching his crowning glory escape before his very eyes.

St. Michel didn’t allow himself the luxury of screaming, though he could feel the remnants of Holy Water spreading through what passed for veins in a body that was two centuries dead. Instead, he focused all of his rapidly fading power on pulling the bars out of their grooves, struggling to escape with enough strength left to fight the man standing a few feet away. The Hunter refused to move; he watched and waited, as death came for him. He’d wanted to see this creature—his creature—that night, to face him, to earn death the way a Hunter deserved to earn death. Talk among the caretakers was that the vampire had weakened, but Brady had mentioned that St. Michel might be roused to hatred once more if he saw his captor. Perfect for the Hunter’s needs.

The Hunter, whose birth name was Gabriel, though he had gone by nothing but Hunter since taking up the cross, was nearing ninety years old and he’d been a vampire hunter for sixty of them. From the day he’d taken the oath, he’d devoted his life to being the best. For six decades, he had been; he’d never lost a quarry, never had another Hunter steal a quarry (though he’d stolen plenty), and had never been bested. And yet his colleagues had all defeated him in one important thing: they had died with honor, in battle with the forces of evil. He still lived and would very shortly lose any opportunity he had to die in battle like a true Hunter. Disease and rot had set into his very bones and the man knew that the reaper would take him soon, asleep in his bed; the ultimate disgrace.

Of all of the Hunter’s victims, St. Michel had been the hardest to take. The vampire, both powerful and wise, had killed three of his deputies with his intricately worked traps and defenses. Had Hunter not disguised himself completely, cloaking himself in the aura of a much weaker creature, the vampire would not have mistaken him for a lackey and would not now be trapped. And Gabriel might have earned the death he craved; he, too, would be free. Ah St. Michel, Hunter thought, knowing all too well how good a vampire’s hearing was. We are both prisoners. You in your cage and I…I in this prison cell of a body. If you are strong enough, we might both earn our freedom this night.

Capturing St. Michel had been a highlight of Hunter’s career and the vampire owed its continued existence to the admiration he had garnered for himself. None had come so close to defeating Hunter. His ruined chest, caved and torn as it was, served as a reminder of St. Michel’s might. In recent years, as Hunter watched his once powerful body shrivel and bend, he’d stare at the wounds and wonder if the vampire could give him the release he so desperately needed. His order demanded death in the field, in battle, at the hands of the enemy. Ignominy, such as the creature before him now suffered, was his fate if the vampire could not kill him. Sixty years as the best Hunter in history rendered obsolete by a peaceful death, a final breath exhaled slowly as his eyes closed and his heart stopped beating. This night was their final chance. If St. Michel failed them, Hunter would lose his honor and the vampire would forever lose his freedom.

Hunter could remember perfectly the night that he decided to give St. Michel the chance to escape. He’d brought another quarry to the Circus—they paid well for the monsters that Gabriel had captured beyond those condemned to death by his Order—and sat, watching the vampire from afar. As far as the Order was concerned, St. Michel was dead. No one wanted to allow a creature of such wisdom—his Dark Gift, of course, being innate understanding and even psychic proclivity—to continue existing. But Hunter had admired the creature too much to kill him. St. Michel had never murdered or taken the blood of humans; had done nothing to earn the wrath of the Order but be too powerful. Gabriel had seen no evil in him. Instead, the vampire had earned something akin to respect from the powerful Hunter. And so, instead of destroying St. Michel, Hunter had given him to the Circus fifty years ago. As he’d watched the vampire that night, remembering the battle, Hunter had realized that St. Michel looked no different for all the years of captivity. Weaker, maybe, but he had not aged. For him, captivity could last forever. His failure would haunt him forever as Gabriel’s imminent demise would forever tarnish his name and honor. Such a creature—the most powerful he had ever faced—surely deserved the chance at freedom, especially if it could give Hunter the glory he so desperately needed. If St. Michel could defeat him, they would both be free.

There was no sound as St. Michel’s feet touched the earth beneath his cage, easily avoiding the poplar spikes so carefully whittled to part dead flesh. Hunter smiled softly and tightened his grip on the cane in his right hand. He had no intention of giving the vampire an easy escape. No, Hunter thought, the vampire must earn his freedom through battle just as the Order ordained, otherwise Gabriel’s death would be insufficient. Honor and freedom for both or neither. The perfect monster against the perfect hunter. No other could defeat the Hunter; the best against the best. Each owed captivity and dishonor to the other and only the other could grant them absolution.

St. Michel stared at the Hunter and grinned. Time for revenge. Time to free himself from this Circus and this cage, from the ignominy of defeat at the hands of a mortal. The only creature ever to best him. St. Michel needed to defeat the Hunter or he would not even escape his cage, much less escape his torment. And, as his power returned to him, St. Michel could sense a need within the Hunter, as well. A need to escape the prison of his mortal body before it turned against him. The mighty Hunter brought low by age; a fiery mind unable to stem the shades of time. Such a man needed a glorious death to go with a glorious name.

“So,” St. Michel whispered. “Hunter. It seems we each have something the other needs. You hold the key to my freedom and I hold the key to yours. But you are an old man. Is there glory to be had in my defeating you?”

Gabriel chuckled and brought his cane around, pressing a button on the side as he did so. A series of small spikes, little bigger than a splinter, flung through the air and dug themselves into St. Michel’s flesh. Each had been tipped in silver and dunked in Holy Water to inflict the most pain. The vampire cried out, each point a searing heat that raged throughout his entire body. Hunter launched into another attack, using St. Michel’s distraction to break his cane in half and launch himself at the creature’s heart. Their first fight, half a century ago, had been a fight of great show, each man displaying every one of his formidable skills for the benefit of those watching. This fight had no showmanship. It would end quickly and with one or both of them dead. Neither had time to waste with showing off with freedom at stake.

St. Michel grabbed at the stake and twisted it away, the poplar eating away even more of the flesh from his hands. It would take days of recuperation to return to his physical peak, if it happened at all. St. Michel had never purposely grabbed at poplar and Holy Water until his bones peaked through burnt muscle. But freedom was at stake here and St. Michel would not return to his cage. He would allow himself to be destroyed before he went back to that. His feet had touched the soil and never again would he be forced to sleep on dirty straw, drinking rotten blood and used to entertain. With a growl, St. Michel kicked the man and, before Hunter could blink, twisted the stake from his grizzled hands. Gabriel landed on his back, several feet from where the fight had started. He tried to move, to swing out and back onto his feet as he once would have, but his body would not allow it. The mighty Hunter had waited too long to seek death and now he could not even put up much of a fight. Still, though, he had fought. And if he died now, at least it was at the hands of the enemy. The Order’s last commandment would be fulfilled. Gabriel could be free.

“St. Michel!” Speaking hurt far more than Gabriel had thought it would. He must have done some real damage when he’d landed. “Stop! You have earned your freedom.” Gabriel gasped, feeling the reaper reach out for him. He hadn’t wanted his last fight to end so quickly. He’d wanted it to be a real battle. But there had been no way for that to happen, had there? He really had waited too long and now he was forced to settle with a rout, defeated within two moves. But oh did he want to die! And he had not simply allowed St. Michel to kill him. His body, though, his blasted body could not manage anything else. Gabriel, the greatest of all Hunters, had been betrayed by his own mortality and his own foolish pride. But he would die in battle, as inglorious a battle as it may have been, and be welcomed into the haven of his brothers. And St. Michel, the creature that might have done it fifty years ago but for his own pride, would also be freed from his prison. As it should have been long ago. “Kill me, St. Michel, but listen first and I shall give you the key to your escape.”

The vampire slowed and came to stand next to the old man, spike poised just above the Hunter’s heart. This was no trick, his mind told him. Hunter wanted to die, that much St. Michel knew, and earn glory. This might was firmly in his control. St. Michel could feel the death crowding near, spiraling toward Hunter’s broken body. Give the man his last words, his intuition told him. It is right that you do so. “Speak, old man.”

“Find Brady. You will need him to escape.” Gabriel coughed and flecks of blood flew through the air. St. Michel ignored them, though his mouth watered at the thought of human blood flowing through his veins. “The spike,” Hunter continued, once the wracking coughs had passed, “at the entrance. There is another. They create an entrance to the real world. You must…you must have a mortal invite you to the mortal world. Without him…you will fail.”

St. Michel started. He had never even thought about the spike or why the caretakers had whittled a new one any time it became even slightly weathered. It made sense that they would weave an entrance out of them. None of the monsters in this blasted Circus could escape as long as those spikes remained standing. The Hunter wheezed and St. Michel looked down at him. He could not find it in him to forgive the mortal—the Order was a group of zealots convinced of their own superiority—but he could grant him the death he so desperately needed. “Thank you, Hunter.”

“Gabriel, St. Michel. If you must thank me, thank me by my real name. I go to meet the Lord and He shall not call me Hunter. But I must thank you, I think. Without you, I would not have been the greatest and without you, I would not now be joining my brothers in the afterlife. Be done with it and make your escape before the caretakers come to take you down.” St. Michel nodded and quickly, using all of his strength and undead speed, rammed the spike through Gabriel’s heart. The old man did not scream as he died; he remained silent as his body twitched for a few minutes as his heart bled out. Then, with an agonized last breath, the Hunter died. And both creatures were free.

St. Michel took a deep breath, feeling the agony almost as keenly as the dead mortal beneath him. But now he was free. He had given death to the man that had imprisoned him and earned freedom for them both. Pulling the spike from Gabriel’s chest, St. Michel whispered a soft prayer and then, sniffing the air for his chief tormentor, set out into the darkness.