Leaving the Big Top wasn’t enough to escape the sounds and smells of the circus, but it dimmed everything for Katalin. It was enough to reduce the spinning and the ringing in her ears into the pounding of a fierce headache. The circus was a strange place during a performance, all but deserted except for the vibrancy and clamour of the Big Top. The small clutter of fairground stalls lay still, one finger of the pendulum ride pointing straight up at the stars. The chaser lights were still flashing but the fairground music was calling out to an empty showground. She sagged atop her crate, in the shadows beside the painted canvas of the huge tent behind her, not yet feeling up to the walk to her trailer.

  What? She was seeing things. That was a new side-effect of a knock on the head. At first, she put the spots out in the darkness down to the knock to her head as well. It wasn’t the first time she’d had a concussion, she recognised her symptoms. The purring was new. It drifted over the muddy grass like fog as the spots slowly moved sideways and grew larger, stretching slightly into eyes. Pairs of yellow eyes, sliding through a maze formed of shadows, the coloured lights of the fairground stalls and the wash of pale, cloud-veiled moonlight.

  If this was from her concussion then it was an entirely new sort of symptom. Circus Kovacs didn’t have wild animals, just horses and dogs, but the eyes reminded her of a wildlife documentary. One where the predators were stalking a juicy antelope. She got the feeling that if this was one of those documentaries then she was the antelope. As silently and smoothly as she knew how, she slid herself behind the crate, deeper into the shadows. They couldn’t be escapes from the circus itself. Was there a zoo nearby?

  What the…? Katalin stared at the words, which hovered in a floating window, the way movies sometimes showed high-tech screens. Glowing light floating in the air. Impatiently she shook her head, the pain a sufficient distraction that she blanked for a while, helplessly riding it out. When she finally came back to herself the eyes were still out there in the darkness. They were circling the Big Top with intimidating growling purrs that seemed to come from all around. Sometimes they pulled back, sometimes they slunk forward enough that Katalin could vaguely see long, low bodies with even longer tails and multiple pairs of legs.

  Monster? Katalin felt a growing sense of confusion, disbelief and unease. The latter increased as she realised that she was trying to hide from some sort of night creature while she was entirely covered in sequins and glitter. The creatures weren’t getting closer, though. They seemed wary. Something kept spooking them. She watched them from her hiding place, trying to work out exactly what they were scared of or waiting for.

  The music changed inside the tent. Blaring horns and deliberate dischords meant the clowns were on. All the circus folk knew the music for each act, Katalin being no exception. At the raucous chorus the Panthyruxi darted back several steps. The music, Katalin realised. They’re scared of the music.

  Oh crap, monsters? There are monsters outside the Big Top, it’s full of people, nobody is going to believe me if I go in and tell people that there are monsters outside the Big Top, and I wish my head would stop hurting! They’re night creatures… they’re mostly sticking to the shadows. Maybe that’s just stealth, but maybe they don’t like the light? I can’t believe I’m really thinking there’s monsters. Must be the concussion.

  There were big floodlights set up outside the Big Top. They stood dark at the moment, normally only switched on at the end of a late performance to light the way for the audience as they left. The switches weren’t far. On a good day, Katalin could reach them in moments. Ha, I could reach them from here without even touching the ground. This wasn’t a good day.

  Katalin painfully got herself onto hands and toes behind the crate. A giant, broken teacup had been left to one side of it, the size of a small car, dragged from one of the rides to be repaired or stripped down. She crept between the cup and the Big Top, freezing as the clouds parted and threw a net of moonlight onto the ground.

  Eyes turned towards her. Crap, crap, crap! She held her breath. Could they smell her? She probably stank, they all did, none of the costumes got washed because it made the sequins fall off. Her head felt ready to split in two and her guts churned. One pair of eyes got larger, the night coalescing around it into a head- half lion, half dragon, all alien. She lurched to her feet to make a run for it, but her stomach rebelled at the abrupt change of height. Acid scoured her throat as her supper reappeared, her stomach contents propelled into the face of the Panthyruxi.

  I didn’t want to learn that skill! Katalin groused as she swallowed down bile and lurched unsteadily out of the way when the Panthyruxi’s claws slashed at her. She staggered again as the world spun around her head, dizzily righting herself just in time to dodge.

  She darted to the side, intending to get past the monster attacking her and dash between a gap between it and the next one.

  That was the plan, anyway. Her foot caught on something in the grass. She turned the fall into a roll and came back up onto her feet, wavering when her head seemed to keep on rolling.

  Skill learned? You can kiss my spangly backside, whoever you are with the messages, I could teach it! She turned too fast at the warning waft of air on her neck, and threw up again over the alien creatures.

  The stench hit Katalin’s nostrils. She couldn’t blame the pair of panthyruxi for recoiling. “I. Do. Not. Want. This. Skill! Urgh!” She forced her unsteady feet into a run, only to go pinwheeling forwards as claws sliced across her back. Muscle memory kicking in, she managed to turn the fall into another roll back to her feet.

  “I’m better than two percent!” Her back was on fire. “I hope you get sequins stuck in your claws! And I hope they ITCH!” Dizziness hit her once again and her swerve became more of a stumble. She veered around another panthyruxi, feeling its claws swish across her hair. “Shit, it nearly took my head off! Maybe I should let it, then my brain might stop trying to kill me!”

  Chaser lights marked the footpath to the Big Top. She took a chance and darted towards them. Multicoloured rainbow sparks reflected from her costume and glitter-painted skin. They seemed to confuse the pursuing monsters, buying her a few moments of distance and time in which to catch her breath.

  Wooden palings and the boxy wooden shack they called the Ticket Office still blocked her goal, and she spotted another panthyruxi just behind them. She gulped down the gorge pushing up her throat, vaulted onto the fence and planted her feet on the little shed to push herself off and over the monster. The shack tilted as she launched into the air, teetering then going over with a crash. It caught one of the pursuing panthyruxi a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell. More messages threatened to block her view as she tumbled between the legs of yet another of the creatures.

  The pain across her back almost paralyzed her. She rolled to her knees and gasped up into a drooling, toothy dragon-lion maw as her sluggish body fought her. “Oh… fuck. Dammit!”

  She rolled out of the way of a slash of claws, barely dodged a second swipe, and then her body failed her. The sweep of a saw-tooth-edged tail caught her up, flipped her over and slammed her back down. Red filled her vision.

  ??????

  Backstage behind Auditorium One at the Salcester International Centre, Chezzo Taylor could hear two of his band-mates chatting. He couldn’t help overhearing as he made his way towards them, despite the increasingly loud and demanding sound of the audience filtering through the wings.

  “Where’s Chezzo?” Noah, the drummer, sounded bored, but that was normal for Noah.

  “Going off on the stage manager about that barmy voice and the lights and that,” Alfie, the lead guitarist replied. “Where’s Charlie?”

  “Haven’t seen him since he threw a paddy over that voice. Had a proper cob on, him. Maybe Chezzo’ll find him?”

  Chezzo turned the corner into the crossover behind the stage, and saw the pair of them leaning against the wall, chugging bottled water. Alfie had long since stripped off down to his jeans- his t-shirt was somewhere out in the audience- and both were drenched in sweat. Much like Chezzo himself.

  “Charlie got a taxi,” Chezzo announced. There was a mirror on the wall he was passing. He checked that his shoulder-length mane had survived his argument without getting a hair out of place. It was perfect. He scowled anyway. “Jack’s gone too. Fucking stage manager says he doesn’t know a thing. It’s proper kak. We’ve got no keyboard, no bass and four thousand fans wanting the second half or their money back.”

  “Fuck.” Alfie shoved his fingers through his already spiky hair. “You’ll have to play, Chezz. You take my axe, I’ll take bass, fuck Jack not letting anyone touch his stuff, he shouldn’t’ve walked out on us. We can do without keyboard if we skip Skinny Dipping.”

  Chezzo turned towards Alfie, his anger taking a step back in the face of delight. “Your Strat?”

  Alfie gave a long-suffering sigh. “Show must go on, right?”

  The sound from the house became an insistent chant. “Abraham, Abraham, Abraham!”

  Chezzo swallowed back irritation at his missing band members and clapped the other two on the shoulders. “We got this. Let’s crack on.”

  They walked on stage into a wall of sound. Chezzo grabbed the stand microphone and raised a fist in the air. “Hello, Salcester! We’re Abraham Moss, and we’re back! Are you ready for more?”

  The words of the screams were lost in the noise. Chezzo could still feel his anger fizzling in the background, but a grin spread across his face despite that. He reverently took the Fender Stratocaster that Alfie passed to him, slipping the strap over his head with equal care for the guitar and his hairstyle. Alfie picked up Jack’s prized Rickenbacker. Noah picked up his sticks. Chezzo screamed over the crowd. “A’ight then. Youse waited long enough. Every Time We Fall!”

  Then the power went out.

  ??????