#performance night

Madame Dynamite’s voice carried out through the crowd, as she gave her customary welcome poem.

“Enemies and friends,

Everyone here has quirks.

Vampires at both ends,” – she gestured to the tight rope high above their heads, with vampires on either end of the rope, and followed up by nodding her head and walking around to each act as she spoke of them –

“and zombies with their perks.

Dragons with their fire,

Sirens with their lure,

Wizards using pyres,

And witches, oh so pure.

Ghosts galore,

And the occasional gore.

This is the circus of the monstrous,

The circus of the devilish,

The circus of the humongous,

The circus of the hellish.

Welcome to the Cirque du Monstrueux!” She shouted the last line, throwing her hands out and head up as the dragons roared, taking flight and lighting the ring around the performers on fire, causing the audience to lean back just as the chimera animated themselves, their respective trainers making them leap through loops of fire, before jumping and standing on their backs as they blew flames, flying around, above the audience, and sometimes into the rafters, weaving through the dragons smoothly.

The wizards and witches used their wands and hands, weaving the fire into flowers, cards, ribbons, even animated animals to impress the audience.

The vampires launched into action, leaping and flipping across the almost-invisible wires, making it seem as if they were flying through the air.

As the chaos unfolded, Madame Dee pulled a skull off her wide-brimmed black hat, the skull of an ancestor, whose name was long lost, and lit it with her cigarette. Wordlessly, she gathered the attention of everyone and threw it up, higher than visible, even though it was a flaming ball.

Vivant was standing off to the side, occasionally going behind the big scene to grab explosives, then coming back out and setting up her cannon, drawing some attention to herself, but not too much attention. The humans were curious about what the little zombie girl with the fat cigar and steampunk goggles was doing with more explosives than they had seen in their lives and a massive cannon that was taller than her.

“I’d like everyone to focus your eyes on the lights above us, slightly below our dragon friends.” Madame Dynamite’s voice cut through all the chatter, even though only a portion of the audience understood her with her thick French accent.

Partially invisible forms appeared, waltzing and gliding through the air, weaving between themselves and the blobs slowly focused. The ghosts swapped partners halfway through the Allemande, then again during the Courante and Sarabande, the looked akin to floating clouds of different colours with flames and sparks lighting up the background. During the Gigue, a new ghost flew through the walls, weaving in and out fast enough that the humans knew that they were there, but couldn’t pin point their features. By then, almost all the music geeks in the audience knew these were Baroque-era ghosts, purely from the music and the characteristics of their dances.

The Gigue (last dance in the suite) finished, and the Baroque-era ghosts bowed gracefully, glancing around almost warily, then the figure that no one could pinpoint suddenly appeared dramatically.

“Hey humans! ‘Tis I, the frenchiest fry!” He shouted. It was almost definitely a he, for he had short hair, triangular form, flat chest, and slightly deep voice, even though it sounded as though he was only 14 or 15.

The other ghosts looked panicked in an almost comical way, but they weren’t honestly all that panicked, just mildly annoyed. “Billy, was this really necessary?” One the older ghosts stepped (or floated forward).

He summoned a dancing baton out of nowhere and started whirling it around, stepping back into a long stance. “Don’t fuck with me, I have the power of God and anime on my side!” He shouted, and the parents in the audience looked horrified as they covered mildly amused children’s ears. The teens who knew exactly what he was referencing were ecstatic that there was something that they had understood or found enjoyment in the circus, as they had only been forced along to accompany families in family outings even though the thought of acrobatic vampires and fire-bending mages had piqued their interest, but they would never tell anyone.

“Billy!” The elderly ghost (named George) exclaimed admonished, and Billy only turned to him with a smirk, before disappearing with a bow as George started to storm (literally, a storm brewed over his head somehow, probably one of the mages finding amusement in their bickering) after him.

The ghosts flew back, bowing and waving at the excited audience, if the first act was going to be this amusing, they could barely wait for the next ones!

Their eyes immediately returned to Madame Dynamite, who gave them a sharp-toothed smile, showing off her impressively long (but still managing to be short by vampire standards) fangs to the audience.

“Now welcome our famously tall bigfoots and our dazzlingly graceful vampires.” She introduced them, and jaunty music began as multiple bigfoots stumbled into the ring with hilariously coloured clown outfits, the famous red nose and juggling items. Each of the 6 bigfoots had a different item, one had coloured bean bags, another had soft balls. One could even be seen throwing loops of fire (touchable fire made by the mages, of course).

They started lumbering around, their clothes emphasizing their already comically long legs to make them look almost like humans on stilts.

The bigfoots lumbered around the edge of the ring, walking around in a rehearsed order and occasionally swapping whatever they were juggling.

The audience began to note the net that was attached to their belts, expanding between them as the vampires occasionally bounced off them, purposefully jumping off their platforms to fall and jump back up as their partner on the trapeze caught them and threw them back up onto the tight ropes, where they danced elegantly in a style that was not of this era.

The audience ‘ooh’ed and ‘aah’ed as they turned their allure on and almost everyone in the room swooned at their smooth movements, momentarily forgetting what ‘monsters’ they were for just needing to drink blood to survive.

The main part of it, was when Aoife came out, drenched in a layer of fire-proof potion and a layer of flammable liquid (thankfully they didn’t cancel out or cause any sort of reactions when they came into contact, so it was a relatively safe show for Aoife), and a chimera swooped down, lighting her on fire, and she looked like an ethereal being, a fire elemental, which were rare, and only known to exist in fire-prone areas (not the Cirque du Monstrueux, or any circus for that matter).

She was the master acrobat and the choreographer for all the vampires and tight-ropers for the circus, and she had come up with the routine herself and was rather proud of it, as it included multiple flips and even a few areas where she turned into a bat and ‘blew’ fire using a technique that the witches had shown her.

The audience clapped and cheered for the vampire, who landed elegantly with a flourish and bowed with grace that could only come with practice. She had, after all, been one of the founding members and a mother figure for Madame Dynamite.

Madame Dynamite cleared her throat, gathering the attention of everyone in the massive tent (which was surely bigger on the inside, how else would they fit the dragons?!) and began directing their attention away from the flashily out-fitted vampires exiting the ring, and towards the chimera, who had their trainers on their backs, their trainers were riding them like surfboards, standing on their backs with their knees bent and their centre of gravity low enough to stay on their chimera.

The trainers waved down at the crowd, happily accepting the attention, and reached down to catch the attention of their respective chimera in their special way, causing them all to roar and acknowledge the audience in a cacophony of growls, purrs, chirps and even a few whistles.

The chimera breathed fire, close enough to the audience for them to feel the heat, but the tongues of flame were suddenly swept away by the fire mages, shaped to be flowers (one particular mage could be seen handing a bouquet of fire roses to another mage).

The audience held their breath as the trainers bounced from chimera to chimera, and breathed out as one when they landed on their original chimera, whilst the mages blew fire, created whips and gave a new meaning to ‘dancing like fire’.

The audience didn’t even notice as the chimera disappeared into the rafters, as their gaze was fixated on the central mage, who seemed to be standing on a column of fire, getting raised up in a spiral with her arms raised and hair life flames. She wore a beautiful cloak that looked like it was on fire and a dress that touched her knees that was covered in jewels that made her look like she was a flame, dazzling and glinting in the light of her flames.

The fire danced across her skin, and when she opened her eyes, it was quite obvious her eyes were orange, a bright fiery colour that was emphasized by her pale skin and the orange freckles that covered almost every inch of whatever the audience could see of her.

She was flame personified.

Her name? Dame Chama. Mistress of the flames, face of destruction and the consumer of worlds.

This was only a small demonstration of what she could do, and she could be out there, destroying other worlds for fun, if she wasn’t blood-bound to Madame Dynamite, or as she’s affectionately called by the performers, Ma’am Dee.

The other fire mages held their breath, praying that the blood-oath to Madame Dynamite was strong enough to keep Dame Chama’s column of flame from burning them to dust as they went through the exit routine. All the lower class mages would walk in first, tossing fire flowers into the crowd, but making sure they don’t make it far enough to burn an audience member, and then the higher class mages would ride their fire familiars into the column of the flame. The column should lead to their trailers.

Too bad Dame Chama didn’t care enough to learn all their separate trailers, so as per usual, some of the mages ended up in separate chambers.

What of Dame Chama? She still stood atop the column of light and heat, the fire growing and dancing under her impeccable control.

She could destroy this circus right there, burn the filthy humans until they were nothing but charred spots on the ground, and the tent nothing but ashes… but she wouldn’t, because she’s a good girl. Mostly.

She bowed, gave the audience a predatory grin, before sinking smoothly into the column of flames, flame-travelling into the candles that currently lit up her trailer, and just as the column of flames disappeared, she decided that she could play along with Madame Dynamite’s little game, pulling the pool of water into the centre of the ring, right where her fire had been.

But pulling the siren with it made it all the more difficult, she already had to pull in a massive pool, filled with water (which dampens her flame game), as well as a tall ladder with a diving board. But pulling a creature not only of a different species, but a creature of the opposite elemental alignment was difficult.

Luckily, she’s a goddess, and if there’s anything a goddess can do, it’s be completely over-powered and manage to do things that aren’t meant to be physically possible. Dame Chama was one of those deities that loved to use their ability to make all others seem incompetent.

The siren leapt out of the water, diving back in as the audience got time to figure out what it was exactly as the ripples disappeared. She dove as deep down into the (charmed) bottomless pool as she dared, before using powerful pumps of her tail to propel her out of the water so that she had long enough for the humans to see what and who she really was.

“Humans, I present to you….” The drum roll thrummed in her bones as her hearts pumped wildly.

She broke the surface, and a loud crash could be heard as a hundred pairs of hands clapped for her.

“Siesta! Our siren!” Ma’am Dee shouted over the din. In the second she hovered before falling down, she flashed all the humans a sharp-toothed grin, saluted and flipped backwards to dive headfirst into the water again. Ma’am Dee was giving the audience facts about her, and her species, although it still was to be proved that there were others like her.

Once she was submerged again, the voices outside of her own little world warbled and muffled, she pulled out a hairclip out of her thick, dark hair. Swimming deeper again into the depths of her tank, she surfaced, threw the clip in the air, and it shimmered, getting brighter until all the humans had to look away. When they looked back, a pipe had landed in Siesta’s hands and she grinned, half out of the water, before blowing into it, bubbles of different colours and consistency, some popping above the audience in a shower of glitter, others formed with snow inside them or a small flame. No one knew now that happened, only Siesta, who thrived in the chaos that the bubble-encased flame caused.

Her favourite trick of all was when her boyfriend, an octopus shape-shifter dove off the diving board, a hundred metres above her. Of course, there was mild discomfort when she swallowed him whole, but it was worth it, seeing the shock of the little, pale, sickly-pink humans. She flipped again, and the bubbles increased in number, Madame Dee had somehow gotten inside one of the bubbles and was now narrating inside of it, voice slightly wobbly and she sounded as if she were underwater.

Surfacing so that she could continue to blow bubbles and watch her boyfriend climb up the ladder to the diving board, Siesta silently willed him to go faster.

The audience was now chanting for Siesta to sing. The sounds of their chants made the water tremble, and some of them were stamping their feet, Siesta could feel it rippling through the water.

Oh no. This was not good.

Madame Dee was trying desperately to get the audience under control. They all knew what happens if Siesta sung; everyone would be enchanted by her melody and instantly be controlled by her mind. The last time she sung, she almost got a fire mage to light Vivant on fire. Madame Dee did not take kindly to any purposeful bodily harm out of performance to her daughter.

She directed the bubbles towards her boyfriend, Damian the octopus-shifter, and he was swallowed up in a massive empty bubble, rising up to the board much faster than he would have gotten there if he had continued to climb.

He nodded in thanks, a small smile gracing his lips and Siesta felt something rise in her. Well, at least she definitely knew her feelings hadn’t fizzled out.

He landed on the diving board with a small bounce, which eventually turned into a bigger bounce as he got ready for the plunge. Nodding at his girlfriend, he jumped upwards, somersaulted, landed on the diving board, before jumping forward, somersaulting and twisting as if he were dancing through the air.

Whilst he had been doing that, Siesta had travelled as deep down into the water as she dared, and as soon as his feet hit the diving board the last time, she pushed upwards with long strokes of her tail. The water rushed past her face, hitting her cheeks and tugging at her hair, and the fins that protruded along her spine and neck, as well as her forearms and the entire back of her tail, flattened as she gained speed. They were only there for direction, and right now, she didn’t need the extra drag if she already had muscle-memorised aim.

She broke the surface with as gasp, as the cold night’s air hit her skin and made it almost sting.

Damian was spiralling head first, like a screw driver, straight for her head, and she grinned as her jaw unhinged unnaturally. The horrified gasps from the audience were music to her auditory sensors, as she swallowed Damian whole.

The sudden fullness took her by surprise, as it did every time, but she swallowed the mild discomfort at swallowing a humanoid and flipped backwards, slipping into the cool water with only the slightest ripple. She felt something inside her shift, and hoped it was only Damian changing into an octopus to get more comfortable. But it’s hardly possible to get comfortable in another’s stomach of all places.

Back-flipping in the water, Siesta rose slowly, so she could lay on top of the water on her back, showing the full length of her tail, almost twice the length of her human portion, and the light underbelly contrasting her darker back. She was almost serpentine with the way that her tail was scaled. Long, large and white scales covered the width of the underside of her tail, and the fins that stuck out on the sides and back were laced with poison. One touch of them could kill a human; two drops of her poison could paralyse a baby zombie or fully-grown vampire.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the zombie child, Vivant, stumble into the ring and throw in a lit bomb. Ah yes, the bomb the size of her torso with a fish skeleton marking etched onto the side. It floated up to her, and she batted it around, the fuse slowly getting eaten by sparks.

Madame Dee started talking again, but Siesta started ignoring her out of habit, it was the same speech, over and over again. Something, something, twin ghost magicians, something, something. Her voice would sound warbled and muffled, then get clear again, then the muffling quality of her bubbles returned.

She had maybe another five seconds, according to the length of the fuse, so she looked up into the faces of the audience. After extensive research and experimentation (a hobby of hers), she figured it was astonishment and curiosity.

A bright flash and a loud bang startled her. Over five centuries of this with Damian and the exact same act, and she was still surprised every time the bomb went off. Sometimes it annoyed her.

When the light and dots that danced in her vision died down and the unnerving feeling of having no gravitational centre dissapitated, she was behind the tent. Of course she was, that’s what the transportation bomb did.

Inside the big tent, Vivant dusted her hands off and disappeared behind the tent to check in Siesta, who regurgitated Damian the octopus some time between the landing and the arrival of Vivant, who could be seen carrying as many sticks of dynamite as her little rotten and stitched-together arms could, before stumbling back into the ring to load up her cannon, which was currently sitting to the far side.

The audience paid closer attention to the little zombie girl now, taking note of the bizarre stitches that covered almost every inch of her, some healed, others still with the actual thread on them. How she healed, no one knew, no one but her mother, the person who had brought her back to ‘life’. They made note of the pale, sickly looking lines of skin on the left side of her forehead, obviously lightning markings, as she had once had to fly through a storm to get to their next destination. Of course, she had similar markings along her body, when she got shot out of the cannon to their next destination as the final act, she often had to fly through storms, and whilst she didn’t carry that much metal, half her stitches were made of thin wire to make sure she held together through the flight. Usually she changed to wire the morning before the final night.

Of course, half the audience’s attention was still on Madame Dee, who was still making her way through all the bubbles. She’d pop one bubble with the end of her cigarette, and then land in another one, before popping that one. Eventually, when she got close to the ground, or at least a safe landing distance for an old vampire such as she (an estimated 20 metres), she took a long drag of the cigarette and blew out slowly, filling the bubble with smoke, filling it until it grew, and grew, and popped.

She landed with a flourished, bowed over, holding both hands out, then pulled herself together and smirking at the audience.

“And now, our magical ghost twins. Trained in sorcery and illusions, these two will show you the true extent of what we can do as what you call… monsters.” Madame Dee made a great sweeping gesture at the audience, then pointed at the little opening to the outside of the tent on the other side of the audience.

The curtains didn’t move an inch, instead, two figures appeared, phasing through the curtains and floating up in sync, opposite each other and an arm’s length away, before back-flipping in the air and floating down to either side of Madame Dee.

“They would like to call for a volunteer! Anyone up for the show of their lives?” Madame Dee called out. There was silence. No emotion showed in the eyes of either of the ghosts, and Madame Dee looked grim behind her show mask.

“I volunteer….” All eyes darted over to Vivant, their back up volunteer for this sort of situation. She fingered at threads keeping the two halves of her hand together, before stepping closer to the twin magicians. They looked rather similar to Vivant in terms of hair length, liveliness, and clothing, but other than that, they were vastly different. Whilst the shared the top hat, long hair and black stare, Vivant’s top hat was pitch black and rather frilly, and had a pair of steam-punk goggles resting on the rim, and the twin magicians were pale, emanating a white aura, all their clothes a blinding white, including their simple top hats, which only had a singular black band around the base, but other than that, their bright billowing capes and striped pants and shirts contrasted greatly with Vivant’s black frilly dress. Vivant huffed out lightly, the smoke from her cigar twirling upwards.

“Well, shall we get started then?” The first ghost, Aidan spoke, voice sounding like the whistling wind that had picked up as the twins made their entrance. Nadia, Aidan’s twin, and Vivant nodded in sync. It showed just how practiced this particular event was, as many humans were too scared of the twins.

“We shall start with the time-weary magic trick, sawing someone in half, first performed by our father, Peter Thomas Tibbles, or more commonly known as P.T. Selbit.” Nadia’s voice sounded airier, as if she weren’t truly there, and her mannerisms further confirmed the appearance that her mind was elsewhere, whilst Aidan seemed alert and very aware of what was happening.

Hurrying her sister, Aidan, swept an arm vaguely to the middle of the ring and a large wooden box on two separate, square tables. “Come on, Vivant. In you get.” Aidan again, proved that she was the more focused one when Nadia nearly walked past the saw that she had been sent to collect. Nadia backtracked quickly, swept the ghostly saw up into her hands, hands with fingertips that dripped what seemed to be mist, but when it reached out to the humans, Nadia’s curiosity getting the better of her and controlling her aura, they felt nothing but cool stinging, a frozen blade that pierced their skin and rippled as they waved it away, only to find that they hadn’t been hurt.

“Rude.” Nadia could be heard muttering as she gave Aidan the other side of the two-man saw. They began working at the wood, it was always a new hollowed out block of wood whenever Vivant had to volunteer. Which was every single time. No one ever wanted to go near the monsters, the cryptids, the creatures that performed for them, and whilst they found it mildly offending, they revelled in the distinct scent of fear that hung in the air every time they got close.

Vivant’s deadened eyes simply looked ahead and she gave no response to behind cut in half. Cut in half literally. Humans started paling, and the adults covered the children’s eyes. Most were thinking: They were going to do that to one of us?!

Of course, they wouldn’t have actually done that to a human, that was only when Vivant volunteers. Otherwise they’d get sued.

The twin ghosts slid the two halves of the table apart in sync, facing it towards the audience to reveal that they had cut at the exact point between floating ribs and intestines so that there was the slightest sliver of flesh that kept her innards inside.

Carefully removing her from the boxes, the twirled around, each holding half of Vivant, before flying around the ring, hovering a few metres above the ground.

Then they started throwing her around. Well, not throwing exactly, they started juggling the halves of Vivant, circling each other in sync. Eventually they became a glowing circle with two halves of zombie flying around between them, and Madame Dee took this as an opportunity to talk a little about her daughter.

“As you all know, the young girl, Vivant, is a zombie. It’s completely safe for this to be done to her, and of course, if one of you had volunteered, we would have used an illusion. Vivant wasn’t always a zombie. She’s my daughter. Was and is. I was already a vampire when she was born, meaning she grew up sickly, prone to all kinds of human diseases. When she was still human, still alive as all of you are, she found great enjoyment in watching the family business,” Madame Dee gestured up at the ghosts who were whirling around, still juggling the halves of Vivant between them.” “But she was too frail and sickly to participate in an act herself. She ended up passing away from pneumonia at around 5, and shortly after, I decided to resurrect her as a zombie to give her a new life. Now she can participate in the circus without any trouble, as she can be reassembled whenever she gets destroyed.” The crowd was silent as the ghosts slowed down.

A slow clap began with a young child, a little boy around the age of Vivant’s physical body, only five years old. Then the audience began to appreciate just how spectacularly talented and unique the circus was. There had always only been one monster circus ever, all the other circuses had been out-competed by the Cirque du Monstrueux, simply because Cirque du Monstrueux was the original and no other circus could quite do what they could.

“And now, you will get a glimpse of just how reparable zombies can be.” Madame Dee gestured at the ghosts, who held each half of Vivant horizontally. Vivant didn’t look bothered at all about her current status of being cut in half at the middle and then juggled, mainly because she didn’t get motion-sickness that easily and her mind was somewhere else at the time (as it always was). They two ghosts slowly put her together again, made sure she was aligned, and then the mist that had been leaking out of their fingertips slowly snaked towards the cut, before sharpening in small threads and acting as wire to sew Vivant together. The strangely ethereal substance made no noise as it slid into Vivant, then out, repeatedly before tying itself together and cutting itself off from where the rest of it connected to the ghost twins’ fingertips.

The glow of the thread slowly leaked into the sealed part of the wound, and the edge glowed brightly for a second, before dying down to reveal just another stitched up scar, a slightly lighter shade of the mottled grey of Vivant’s rotten flesh.

“Finally the ghost girls will show you how indestructible zombies are.” Madame Dynamite spoke softly, so that the audience would quiet down, listen, and watch the show. The ghost girls turned the backs to the audience, and became opaque for a bright second, and when they parted, there was a rocket where they stood.

They pulled out a length of rope, and held a placid Vivant to the side of the rocket, before binding her to the rocket. Soundlessly, Aidan flicked her hand upward and a lit match appeared. Gliding gracefully to either side of the rocket, Aidan and Nadia glowed brightly for one second, seemingly casting one last spell, before Aidan lit the fuse.

Counting together, Aidan and Nadia sounded angelic, their voices mingling perfectly to sound almost human. Almost.

Vivant shot off with a loud boom, and she disappeared through the hole at the very top of the tent, zooming through the ropes that pulled the fabric of the walls together into pole.

She disappeared out of sight, almost comically shining like a little star, just without the little ‘ding’. Aidan and Nadia closed the gap between them so that their shoulders were touching and turned in sync, facing either side of the audience, before waving their arms in identical patterns, glowing lips moving, but nothing but the screams of the damned coming out.

A hundred things suddenly appeared, the displaced air pressing into the audience, then disappearing beneath the canvas of the tent in spirals of wind. A few of them were illusions, the twins being unable to summon such a large number of things – around 200 things – without connecting their power sources. Without looking at the other, the froze, allowing the audience to realise that they had summoned the exact same things in the exact same places to create a mirror image, then the objects started moving, spinning around them creating a mini tornado, like when they had tossed Vivant around.

A few objects flew over their heads and switched sides, an identical objects always passing at the same time, and still, neither twin turned around to see what the other was doing, knowing exactly when the other would send one over and switching at the same time, and the velocity of the objects never wavered, consistent as their bond.

They dropped their arms in sync, and their arms fell at their sides, where they linked their hands and tilted their heads back so they touched and both looked up. Mouths closed, eyes closed and hands held together, they slowed down the objects in sync, sensing something on the edge of the field of energy, and the objects disappeared one by one. The humans began to realise just how much was summoned, after all, humans could only register 50 things at once, and not understands just how much skill it required to summon over a hundred things at once, in the exact same spot as the summoner’s twin.

Right on time, Vivant fell through the gap in the top of the big tent, head first with nonchalance that could only come with patience, practice and time. Halfway to the bottom of the tent, she spat out the skull of an ancestor, name long lost and still burning from Madame Dee’s cigarette.

Catching it with grace, Madame Dynamite put out the flame, brushing off invisible dust, before placing it back on its place on her hat.

Somersaulting, and then planking vertically, Vivant slotted right into the canon that she had meticulously prepared throughout the entire circus.

“Now, it’s time for our grand finale, my daughter, Vivant will be shot out of her canon, but she will not land here, she will land at our next place of performance.” Madame Dee sauntered over to the canon, taking her time as she spoke. “As my daughter is a zombie, she will survive the flight to Shanghai, China. Albeit, she may come out with more battle scars, she will be fine.” Holding the butt of her cigarette against the fuse of the canon, Madame Dee pecked her zombie daughter on the head and in a whisper, wished her good luck.

The fuse was lit and the silence was deafening, the audience straining to see and/or hear what was going on in the ring, but knowing not to get too close. Who knew what they could do? Who knew the true extent of their power? If this was only a show, a display, of their abilities used in a trivial manner, they could kill everyone on the spot without blinking.

Madame Dee’s smooth voice rang out, counting down the seconds, and the audience exploded into action, fear be damned, and leaned forward in their seats, trying to see just how many explosives had been shoved into the canon. “3… 2… 1….” No one said a word, the noise had died down as Madame Dee counted.

A loud boom sounded, sparks flying and what sounded like firecrackers went off. Vivant soared out of the tent for the second time that evening, and Madame Dee grinned up at the sky as Vivant shined for a second, and an almost comical ‘ding’ sound made its way to the ears of the audience. Madame Dynamite turned her long-dead eyes on the awed audience as juggling bigfoots stumbled out, the chimera made a reappearance and the circus seemed to come alive as everyone filtered out slowly, already having seen what they could do from earlier in the show. But a few hung back, a feeling that this wasn’t all to the famous Cirque du Monstrueux.

As the mythical beings trailed out of the tent, Madame Dee, shooed the remaining humans out into the front, following them out. Everyone but the performers were surprised to see a ring of fire mages surrounding the tent.

Raising their arms as one, a spiralling flame, sparking and crackling, formed at the tip of the big tent and at the base of it. Burning the tent up, it collapsed into a flurry of sparks and Dame Chama rose from the flames on a pedestal of flames as the fire mages one by one took a step into the heat and disappeared with the tent.

Last to go was Madame Dynamite, who took a dramatic bow facing the remainder of the audience before the tongues of light licked at her coat impatiently, almost as if it were trying to draw her into the portal. Putting away her cigarette and cigarette holder, Madame Dee grinned, showing off her fangs as she pulled out a big, fat cigar, similar to that of Vivant’s. After lighting it with her cigarette, she pulled out another thing, most of it hidden in her hands, but the remaining audience could still see that it was a bomb. They weren’t going to blow up those who stayed behind, were they?! They weren’t. Well, Madame Dee was going to set the bomb off, but it wasn’t harmful. That much. Lighting the bomb and stepping back lightly, she grinned at the audience, the cigar balancing dangerously on her lips as she took a long drag. Blowing the smoke upwards, it formed the logo on the cigars and cigarettes that Vivant and Madame Dee used, the family sigil, if you will.

“Well, humans of all kinds, this is goodbye… for now.” She threw the bomb up as she backed into the flames suddenly, the bomb hung in the air, a few seconds too long for it to be natural, and Dame Chama could be heard cackling through the pillar of flames that used to be the tent, over the backdrop of whispering audience members and the busy traffic of Shanghai through the portal, but the portal suddenly closed with a snap milliseconds before the bomb hit the floor, leaving no trace of the strange entities that were there just a few minutes ago.