Angelo bit his tongue, holding in the worst of the shuddering coughs. Beside him, his brother Salvatore gasped, the thin band of flesh connecting their adolescent bodies contracting like a jagged vice with each wracking heave.
       "A deal, oui?" The thin man with the hollow features, known to Angelo only as Etienne, turned with murder in his dark eyes at the sound of their distress. His thin lips curled in warning, and then his expression melted from hostility to mere apathy as he glanced away to concentrate on his customer. "The price stands at sixty francs. As is."
       The gentleman nodded, waving his gloved hands as if shooing away a fly. Torches sputtered at either side of the red-striped circus tent, kicked up by a sultry breeze that brought with it the woody grape scent of nearby vineyards. In the distance, the clacking roar of a train growled its way towards the far-off glow of Paris like the rumble of distant thunder.
       Behind the two men, a pair of shining eyes loitered. Doyen, the boy who'd left with the fat Englishman a week earlier, surveyed the twins with sullen anger. His eyes held a strange luster, the odd luminescence reflecting the bloated globe of the moon within their dark depths.
       Angelo shivered. With each anguished spasm came a grunt from Salvatore as the ribbon of muscle and skin joining their bodies throbbed, hot and swollen. It was this unlucky contrivance of nature that had brought them to the field outside of the great gleaming city. This deformity presented them as something less than human, a commodity to be bought and sold across a tattered deal table for a small pile of silver coins.
       "Go to your work!" Etienne kicked at the air where Doyen had been standing. The boy had vanished.
       "Now, Monsieur.. . ." Etienne began again.
       "Oui, oui." The other man's impatient drawl sounded like a piglet caught in a garden gate. He stood beside Etienne at the table, hands nervously fingering a small stack of worn paper money.
       Angelo had seen the big man before, trampling the tall grass at the edges of the field as he accosted various performers, purchasing small trinkets from laughing gypsy women or bargaining over the ashen remains of the fire-eaters' used sticks. He was different from the greasy circus workers who hurled scraps of food into the small wooden-slat cage the boys called home, or the sweaty peasants who paid hard earned pennies with fat calloused fingers and waited breathlessly in line to see the young freaks, so later they could go home to their farms and gossip and brag and wonder how nature could have done such a thing.
       This well-dressed man in his neat woolen suit, his curling hair and receding hairline over deep-set dark eyes and bulbous nose, he smelled of a different world. It reminded Angelo of his mother. Although the memories were hazy, he often thought of the dark-haired woman who cried, outstretched arms grasping as her twins were ripped from her, lost forever.
       No, maybe not forever.
       At night, in his fretful and uneasy sleep, she held him again and he knew they would be together once more. It was this dirty world, this cesspool of filth and degradation, that was the true nightmare. Someday, he would awaken.
       "If one dies, you're stuck with the other. I mean it." Etienne ran long fingers up the thick rope that anchored the rear flap of the Great Tent. "Stuck. I want it written down that they're both alive when I sold them to you, Monsieur Barnum."
       Etienne's thick Basque accent gave his voice a hurried edge as the man fiddled with a wrinkled sheet of foolscap, a hastily written document of sale. "Is that what it says?"
       The Englishman glanced at the boys. Angelo tried to smile but could only cough and hope to draw a little more air into his burning lungs. Soon, it wouldn't matter. Soon the man would take them away to a place where they wouldn't be treated as animals, a place where the sun shone without being sliced into pitiless fragments by crude wooden bars, and where, perhaps, they would find their mother. And he wouldn't bring them back, not like Doyen.

       "Yes, they're both very much alive right now." The man's crisp words echoed in the night air.
       "Good. Let's sign now. Where do I make my X? Here?" Etienne jabbed at the paper with a long, dirty finger. He was in a hurry to divest himself of the boys before one or both died. It was very fortunate this man of science had come at just the right moment, offering to take them away, and for a good price. Etienne had consoled himself to the prospect of exhibiting the pickled remains, a much poorer draw than a set of live joined twins, but est la vie.
       Etienne shoved the paper at the Englishman, crinkling it against the man's broad chest. Barnum frowned but took the sheet and set it against the worn surface of the deal table, slowly flattening the document with a meaty hand. Etienne huffed. He fidgeted as he stared from the boys to the smartly dressed stranger.
       "Now?"
       "Now." Barnum handed him a pen, and with a quick dip into a shallow clay inkpot and a couple of rapid scratches, it was done.
       "The deal is complete, my friend." Etienne felt pleased with himself. "They're your problem now. Far too much work and a bit of bad luck, they were. Give me a good animal act anytime, something with a nice coat of fur to conceal the whip marks. Au revoir a mauvaise chance, au revoir."
       Barnum rolled an ivory-capped blotter over the wet ink and then folded the document into a small square packet, which he placed in his suit's front pocket.
       "I'll have someone by before morning to pick them up."
       Etienne grabbed the man by the coat sleeve as he turned to leave. Panic flooded his mind like cheap wine. "Monsieur, this is unacceptable. You must take them now. If they die--"
       "If they die before they can be retrieved, you will place the bodies, intact, in a barrel of brine." The man's stern features bunched up as he disengaged Etienne's grimy fingers from his suit. "You'll be well compensated for the effort. They're worth nearly as much to me dead as alive."
       Etienne let go of the fat man's sleeve. He shrugged his shoulders as the man marched to his horse and led the animal into the road. If the Englishman didn't care, then neither did Etienne. The boys no longer belonged to him. Whatever happened now, it was out of his hands.
       "Doyen! Where are you, you useless pile of excrement?" He shouted for the lowest and most worthless of his employees. The lad was probably sleeping when he should have been caring for the elephant by this hour.
       After a few more shouts into the darkness beyond the Great Tent, a bent figure emerged carrying a wooden shovel that seemed twice his size. He limped, dragging a twisted leg behind him as he scurried across the grass. Barnum had taken Doyen earlier that week, and Etienne had promptly forgotten about the boy. But then the English scientist had returned, bringing the scruffy youth with him. The boy's leg had been damaged, an accident involving animal specimens, Barnum claimed. Etienne didn't really care. He'd been paid to hand over the boy and paid again to accept him back. It mattered little what the peculiar scientist used him for.

       "Where have you been, lazy boy?" Etienne cuffed him on the side of the head, a blow that sent Doyen reeling and stumbling into the coarse canvas of the tent. "I have a job even you might be able to do."
       Doyen smiled dully and bowed. The pig of a man could beat him all he wanted. Only Doyen knew who carried the real power. When the monster was sleeping off his wine, lying pickled and snoring on his bed, it was Doyen who stood over him. It was Doyen who held the shovel blade centimeters from the man's throat night after night, waiting for when the time was right. Soon, it would be. He could feel it. The moon swelled with each passing night, and with the waxing of the moon came the surging of Doyen's strength and resolve.
       "Bien tot nous serons meme," Doyen whispered under his breath as he continued to smile at the focus of his hatred. Soon, the scales will balance.
       "What did you say?" Etienne growled, raising his hand.
       Doyen shook his head, eyes downcast. He spoke little to the monster. Etienne lowered his hand, either too lazy to strike the boy again or somehow sensing it would do no good.
       "Watch them." He spat, pointing in the direction of the conjoined twins.
       Doyen stared blankly at the boys. He'd seen them in their cage, heard them crying for their mother in the night, but had neither the interest nor the curiosity to admire the accident nature had produced. To him, they were just two filthy animals.
       "The Englishman will send someone to retrieve them. When they arrive, come and get me. I'll be in my office. Can you do that much?"
       Doyen nodded, a slight smile playing about his lips as he noticed the moon's glow in the cloudy sky. Soon.
       Etienne, unaware of Doyen's malice, turned to go. "Oh, if they die, make sure nothing picks at them."
       Doyen sat on a stack of hay and watched the two boys. He swung his bare feet against the moist grass and listened to the sounds of the circus closing down. In the distance came a fierce growl as the tigers were fed, followed by snorts and roars as other creatures were hassled to or from their cages. Soon, all would be quiet. It was a favorite time for Doyen, the night. That was when others were at their weakest, and he felt most powerful. He relished the night.

       Angelo watched Doyen, perhaps with more interest than Doyen watched them. The older boy had been a fixture around the moving town they called a circus since the day the twins had been brought in, caged and shackled like two wild animals. He'd passed by them on many occasions but had never once shown interest. Others, more curious, came and went, always sparing a glance at the boys. But not Doyen. He seemed too singular of mind.
       The older boy seemed preoccupied with the moon, sharing his gaze equally between Angelo, Salvatore, and that bright object high over the fleeting clouds. Angelo wondered at this interest but could read nothing in the boy's flat, dead eyes.
       "We have a chance here," Salvatore whispered from beside him, his voice hoarse and high-pitched. "Do you hear me, brother?"
       Angelo struggled to respond. The effort to breathe seemed too much at times, but he understood. They might not get another chance at escape. It never occurred to him that a pair of joined twins would be as conspicuous in the outside world as the elephant whose trumpeting he could hear in the distance. The future didn't matter, only freedom and flight.

       Doyen looked up at the sound of the elephant. The beast billed as le geant to the unwashed masses was far higher in importance to the circus than Doyen. If it were in pain, if anything happened to it, then Doyen's life would be more worthless than the lives of the two freaks he was supposed to be watching.
       He debated leaving the twins for a moment to check on the elephant, but no, if Etienne found he'd been gone, there'd be a spectacular beating, one he wouldn't recover from in time. He'd let chance steal his revenge for too long, but no longer. The time to strike the monster down was very near. Nothing could ruin that.
       The trumpeting sound crashed across the field once more, causing the twins to twitch. Doyen became more troubled. He jumped up, moving in slow circles, dragging his maimed leg as he paced through the trampled hay.
       He circled the boys. They appeared harmless enough. The one on the left seemed to be half dead already. Surely, they could be left alone for a moment. He paced for only an instant more before succumbing to the pained cries of le geant.
       "If either of you moves before I get back, I'll kill you." He said it matter-of-factly, and he meant it. Nothing would interfere with his plans.
       "Stay."

       Salvatore couldn't believe it. Doyen was just going to walk away. Hope flooded his veins like a dip in ice water, but not without an edge of caution. Fate had made them fools for too long. They'd learned early they could rely only on themselves.
       "Can you walk?" He whispered. It was more of a command than a question, as if by the force of his words he could make Angelo obey.
       "I'll try." Angelo gasped, choking out the words. They spoke Italian, their native language, when they didn't want to be overheard. Long ago, they'd discovered the world spoke only French or English, and there were few who cared to learn anything else.
       "Stop jabbering." Doyen stamped his shovel down, pointing a dirty finger in their direction. "Stay still and live."
       Salvatore eased his brother back, looking small and helpless. The bigger boy frowned, picked up his shovel, and limped around the edge of the tent.
       "We have to move. Now!" Salvatore hissed, pulling his brother roughly to his feet.
       Angelo sagged. Salvatore gritted his teeth, wrapped an arm around his brother's thin shoulders, and fought to keep them both upright. His muscles quivered under the strain. In his mind, he imagined his mother's soft, steady hands lifting them, guiding them in their plan.
       But then he paused. His memories of her were tied to this place. If they left, what would remain? Would they be giving her up for their freedom?
       He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Angelo's sickness must be seeping through the pathway connecting them. Their mother had been part of the circus, but it hadn't defined her as it defined them. That was childish thinking. Neither she nor her memory was tied to this place. If they could get away, if escape were even possible, it didn't matter how far they went.
       And if they could escape. . ..
       It would be over. The daily humiliation, the parade of jeering faces, wagging fingers, and thrown refuse; it would all end. They'd be at peace for the first time in Salvatore's memory. There'd be no more shouts of >i>"the show must go on".
       He hesitated, listening, as he furtively scanned the surrounding field, the road, the outer tents and wagons. Most of the bustle from the circus's nightly closedown came from the front of the Great Tent. From where he and his brother rested, it seemed deserted. A watchman strode by in the distance, but he'd be looking for trouble such as fire, and not escaping children.
       "Lean on me," Salvatore said, tenderly brushing a lock of hair from his brother's eyes. "I can hold you up."
       Angelo shook. A searing tug tore Salvatore's side. The sudden contraction of muscle fighting muscle brought a scream to his lips, but he bit it off, sputtering, a droplet of warm blood resting like a kiss upon his lips.
       "Ready?" Salvatore took a step forward, holding his brother close, pulling the boy along as if carrying a heavy suitcase. Together, they traveled ten paces from the Great Tent before Angelo collapsed.
       "I can't do this," Angelo wheezed, sounding like a very old man who has tried to draw his last breath but failed.
       "Yes, you can." Salvatore swore in frustration. His brother had always been the weak one, the frail one. That made Salvatore the rock, the strong one, the decision maker.
       "No--"
       "There's no other way!" Salvatore snapped, hauling his brother up. "If I could do this without you, I would. Now move."
       They rounded the Great Tent. Voices approached. Salvatore drew them away from the path and into the high grass, half falling, half dragging them both towards a small green wagon. They managed to hide themselves just as two dark men, speaking rapidly in French, passed.
       It wasn't until the men had moved on that Salvatore noticed a third shadow on the ground beside theirs. He glanced up, heart pounding, but it was too late. The wooden shovel landed flat against his brother's face, breaking Angelo's nose with a sickening crunch. A geyser of blood sprayed into Salvatore's eyes. He screamed, falling to his knees as the weight of his brother's body dragged him painfully into the cold grass. Then the shovel whooshed, swinging in a wide arc that connected with his skull.

       Agony forced a gasp from his lips as Salvatore opened his eyes. A foul odor washed over him, moist and warm like composting swill. He tasted dirt and blood, and the cold ground squelched sickeningly under his fingers as he shifted his brother's bulk until they both lay face up.
       They appeared to be in a large barn. A red brick wall rose behind them, merging with dark planks so warped and twisted that streamers of pale moonlight filtered in, striking the scattered hay with eerie silver fingers. Sturdy doors occupied the far wall, and the sounds of the circus seeped through as if from very far away.
       "Where are we?" Salvatore asked. Thankfully, he remembered nothing after that first shovel blow.
       "Doyen. . . brought. . . us. . .." Angelo sputtered between gasping words that seeped slowly from his lips. His nose was twisted and swollen, his eyes ringed and blackened. A circular impression stood out on his right cheek, covered by caked patches of dried brown blood. It looked like a bite mark.
       "The moon called, he said. . . I feel it too, Salvatore, so warm. . . so. . .."
       "Your face. . .." Salvatore reached out to brush the teeth marks on his brother's cheek. Angelo jerked away. Salvatore screamed, a jolt of agony slicing along his flank as the inflamed band of flesh between them stretched. It was getting worse.

       Etienne reached past the sleeping whore to raise the flame on the fluted lamp sitting on the tattered red portmanteau. Something had disturbed his sleep.
       "Qui est là?" Shadows scattered across the stained, bone-colored walls of the cramped wagon as he grunted.
       Beside him, the plump redhead stirred, sighing as she shifted on the hard straw mattress. Her moist hand slid across his chest, giving him a chill, and he panted softly as he tried to dispel the dread that had suddenly overtaken him.
       "Who's there?" He asked again, straining for any hint of sound. None came.
       After a moment, he lowered the wick, chocking up his unease to the plate of cold donkey meat he'd consumed with far too much port. The local wine had tasted of vinegar. The meat was nothing but gristle and fat, but the company was well worth the sou it cost. He chuckled as he slapped his companion's backside and lowered his head to his pillow.
       An echoed laugh fell from the curved roof beams like a bucket of ice water, and Etienne glanced up.
       "Mon Dieu!"
       Directly above the bed, braced against the arched supports like a lurking spider, the filthy urchin Doyen smiled down on him with tiny, impossibly sharp yellow teeth. The boy's eyes glowed a malevolent, bloody crimson.
       "What are you doing here!" Etienne stammered with more authority than he felt. "Get out! Get!"
       A splash of dusky rust-orange flashed as Etienne noticed the shovel. He had just enough time to get a whiff of pungent elephant dung before the boy slammed the shovel home.

       Withered stalks whipped against his threadbare clothing as Salvatore struggled to drag his brother deeper into the corn field. Angelo hung limp at his side, barely breathing. The bite on the boy's cheek had swollen, the puckered flesh a corrugated plateau of bruises that stank of decay and wept sticky yellowish pus. The smell was overwhelming.
       "We have to keep moving." Salvatore hugged his brother close, the muscles in his arms burning as he pulled them both through the desiccated remains of the harvest. "If that bully comes back, he'll finish the job. Hear me? Angelo?"
       He was afraid his brother would die. It seemed almost a certainty. Sickness and infection consumed Angelo. The waves of heat radiating through their shared flesh carried his twin's failing heartbeat, and it was only a matter of time until Salvatore would be left alone. Alone, but still never alone. What would happen then?
       "He's near. . .." Angelo sputtered weakly, reviving enough to take a few faltering steps.
       Salvatore trembled, his breath suddenly gone as he detected a new heat nearby, and a familiar but unpleasant scent on the breeze. "I. . . sense him too."
       He didn't know how or why, but he knew, with certainty, Doyen was somewhere nearby. And the older boy was stalking them.
       "He knows we're here."
       Salvatore wheezed, panting as he increased his pace, dragging Angelo faster through the irregular rows even as his thoughts churned in frantic circles. How was he so certain the older boy lurked out there in the darkness? What had Angelo said about the moon? Had the bite created some kind of connection, and if it were real and true, what hope had they of escape?
       He swept a handful of dried stalks aside. "I--"
       It seemed to spring at them from the glare of the full moon. Salvatore recoiled. He stifled a scream as he stumbled back, the sharp tug tearing at the sag of skin and muscle connecting him to his brother as the black shape appeared to lunge across the corn stalks.
       He threw up his hand even as he pulled his brother closer, and in that motion, his trembling fingers blocked the moon. He saw it dimly then. In the tunnel vision of sudden terror, it had loomed large, becoming animated and. . . alive, but the shadows thrown by his outthrust fist revealed its true nature.
       It was only a scarecrow.
       A pumpkin, its carved face already drooping with rot, had been skewered onto a post and affixed with a tattered sheet, filthy with mud and flapping in the cold winds like a cape.
       "If I were a crow, I'd have dropped cold. . .." Salvatore sighed, chuckling to himself as he tried to calm his furiously beating heart.

       Doyen paused by the gates of the old barn where he'd left the two freaks, and sniffed. The frigid air tasted empty. The heat had faded, leaving only dark pools of shadow where young bodies should have been.
       "Where have you gone, my little friends?"
       He growled at the scratchiness of his own voice, and the noise erupted into a roar that echoed into the darkness, leaving him hoarse and shaken. Rage flared in his glowing eyes. Those freaks had been important to that pig Etienne, so they were important to Doyen. Wherever they'd gone, he'd get them back. Then he'd show them who was more important.
       The moon's reflection wavered in the murky water of an ancient wooden trough like the eye of some fantastic beast, glaring at him, taunting him, and raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He snorted, shrugging it off as he caught a familiar scent on the wind.
       "There you are. . .."
       He tilted his head back, licked his sharpened teeth with a surprisingly long tongue, and howled.

       Salvatore faltered, stumbling into a shallow depression, and collapsed face first in the dried mud. He hurt all over. His chest heaved. He panted, muscles twitching from overuse as clumps of the acidic dirt filled his mouth and nostrils.
       He tasted years of compost and rotting vegetation. The powdery tang of desiccated insects competed with more unsavory flavors, each fighting to the forefront of his brain, painting images in his mind like flashes of lightning. A young fox had recently passed nearby, leaving trace pheromones like an invisible stain on the earth.
       His blood pounded, his senses screaming as they expanded, transcending his body and mingling with the gibbous moon. Fear heightened his sensations, but this. . . it was overpowering.
       Then, like a lamp being extinguished, it vanished. It left him small and alone. Beside him, Angelo lay still, his body cold where their skin touched.
       "I don't know if I can do this without you," Salvatore wheezed, muddy grit bubbling from around his parched lips. "You've got to help me, brother."
       Angelo didn't reply. He hadn't moved or spoken since before the scarecrow, but if they could just get past this cornfield and into some shelter, Salvatore knew things would get better. They had to.
       He lifted himself onto one elbow and, with a jerk, flipped them both onto their backs.
       "You've got to do this with me," he complained, fatigue rippling over his body like a heavy blanket. "It's only a little further."
       When the silence persisted, Salvatore craned his neck. "Angelo. . .."
       His brother's lips, slightly parted and showing far too many teeth, were bluish white under sunken cheeks. Purple circles, like old bruises, outlined the boy's open eyes, enhancing the reflection of the full moon in Angelo's blank stare.
       He was dead.
       With the jolt of realization came an icy stab of physical pain that hit Salvatore like a kick in the ribs. He gasped, clutching at the bulge of flesh where the warmth of his body met the unyielding cold of his brother's skin. A flush raced through him like a bubble in his blood. He convulsed, clutching at the corpse of the only person he'd ever loved as tremors washed like razors through his insides, stealing his thoughts and overwhelming his mind.
       "Oh, brother. . .."
       It subsided slowly, leaving a deepening chill and a feeling of utter despair. Angelo was gone. Salvatore was alone for the first time in his life, but he was as dead as his brother. It was only a matter of time.
       He lay back and wept for Angelo and for his lost mother, whose presence had faded with their distance from the circus. She was somehow connected to it in much the way he was connected to his brother. Without her, without 'the show', was there a reason to go on?
       Breezes rippled the bare stalks as if unseen demons circled mere inches overhead, waiting for him to fade and the bulbous moon to sink slowly below the horizon. It seemed too big, that cream-colored ball riding there on the low clouds; hypnotic, dreamy, seeming to expand until it filled the whole of the horizon.
       It wavered in his tears, growing softer and fainter as he stopped fighting and gave himself to the oblivion of solitude.

       Angelo jerked. It felt as if a torch had been ignited in his chest as he sucked in a lungful of frigid air. He gasped, and sputtering, turned his head to vomit foul-smelling bile onto the black soil. Beside him, Salvatore screamed.
       "Shut up!" His head pounded.
       He smelled sweat and fear intermingled with the earthy tang of decay, caught scents of rodents in burrows beneath the fragrant soil, and even a delicate whiff of elephant dung from the tents in the dim distance. The cornfield glowed in a grid of thin golden splotches with the waning heat of the harvest. Combined with the wail of the wind, the low-pitched creaking of boards on the old barn nearby, and the incessant prattling laughter from the distant circus, it gave him one hell of a headache.
       "You're alive!" Salvatore stared incredulously.
       "Yes, brother. . .," Angelo replied with a sneer as he dabbed at the circular mark on his cheek. His fingernails flashed in the moonlight like knife blades. "More than ever."
       Then he howled, the noise bursting from him in uncontrolled fury. Yes, he was finally alive.

       Doyen dropped into a crouch at the cry. There was a new presence in the field. It burned with a cold heat, overpowering the faint luminescence of the dying corn. He could taste it on the air.
       "What are you up to, you little freaks?"
       At first, he'd planned on playing with the boys as a cat would toy with a mouse, but something had changed. They no longer seemed as insignificant and powerless as when he'd set them in the barn, marking one with his teeth in his barely controlled hunger. A quick kill might be wiser now. He'd finish them and then return to the circus to complete his revenge.
       Yes, it would be glorious. Doyen, master of the big top, king of the only world he'd ever known.

       Dread had quickly overtaken exhilaration, causing Salvatore to tremble with more than the cold as he stared into his brother's wild and glowing eyes. Angelo had died. He'd felt it. He'd stared into his brother's lifeless face, and he knew it to be true.
       "How. . .?"
       "Not how, but why." Angelo smiled through rows of small, pointed teeth, his face lean and feral-looking. The frail twin was gone and replaced by something. . . else.
       Salvatore pulled back, testing the bond of flesh between them, praying it would give and release him from this nightmare. It flexed uncomfortably. Suddenly, he convulsed. A jolt struck him like a stream of icy water flooding his veins as something wriggled through his insides, slithering with chill intent through his blood. He bent to vomit, but strong fingers yanked his head back.
       "No, brother." Angelo grasped him around the shoulder and pulled him closer. The stench of decay dribbled from the boy's mouth as he pressed his lips to Salvatore's cheek. "We are together in all things, you and me. And, as one, we will return to that accursed circus and give them a show they won't soon forget."
       He chuckled and rose, pulling Salvatore easily to his feet.
       "You. . .? You're. . ." Salvatore faltered as his brother lifted him off his feet, turned easily, and marched towards the twinkling lights in the distance. "Why are you so strong?"

       The scarecrow sat like a ghastly sentinel on its post overlooking the dead field, cloak flapping, obscuring the rotting shape within as they passed.
       "Am I going to become like you?" Salvatore panted, unable to keep up with Angelo's fevered pace.
       His brother's hot touch made his skin crawl. He no longer felt safe. The bond holding them together, both physically and emotionally, had strained to the point of breaking, and Salvatore didn't know how much longer he could go on. Angelo had died. This thing beside him could not be that frail boy, but Salvatore didn't have the words or concepts to imagine what might be inhabiting his brother's corpse.
       Beside him, Angelo chuckled. "Like me. . .."
       And then the scarecrow exploded.
        A crouching form dropped like a cannonball onto Angelo's back, tearing and rending with knife-like claws, throwing both boys into the frozen mud as it rolled to its feet in the deep shadows.
       "Doyen!" Angelo howled, twisting to meet the larger boy's assault.
       Salvatore was lifted like a doll and hurled against their attacker, his flesh tearing, his muscles screaming as he hung on with all his strength.
       Angelo, with unnatural speed, snapped several quick jabs into the older boy's mouth, forcing him back, splitting Doyen's upper lip and splashing blood down his chin. They broke apart. Both boys growled like animals as they circled, Salvatore stumbling beside his brother, who seemed oblivious to his presence.
       "Je vais te tuer!" Doyen spat in French.
       Angelo crouched. "Not if I kill you first. . .."
       Doyen pounced. Claws raked Salvatore's face as his brother twisted, snapping with sharpened teeth at Doyen's throat. The bigger boy ducked. His fist connected with the bridge of flesh between the twins, and Salvatore buckled in pain.
       "You'll pay for that!" Angelo barked as he crouched, backing slowly away.
       Salvatore gasped, his vision blurring as he fought for breath. The tips of his fingers tingled. He felt hot, as if his blood were boiling inside his veins. He smelled the heavy stench of musk and garlic, the odor of fresh earth under fingernails, and the tang of distant dung; it clung to his lips as he ran his tongue over teeth that suddenly seemed too big for his mouth.
       "What have we ever done to you?" He croaked.
       Doyen laughed, wiping a stream of blood from his mouth. "That pig Etienne, he didn't want me."
       "What's that to us?" Angelo sneered. "Etienne loves only Etienne."
       "Ah, but he needed you, and so did that English monster, with his serums and experiments, his big schemes, and bizarre otherworldly exhibits. They rejected me for. . . freaks."
       He spat a gob of blood to punctuate the insult.
       Salvatore felt his brother tense. He braced himself just in time to be swept into the action once more as Angelo lunged, shredding Doyen's filthy shirt and slashing deep trails into the boy's flesh.
       Unexpectedly, Doyen leaped towards the thrust, clutching Angelo's arm and holding it fast to his bloody chest as he spun and stomped his boot onto Angelo's exposed leg.
       There was a loud crack, and Angelo screamed, falling, dragging Salvatore down beside him. They rolled. Sharp stalks flayed Salvatore's skin. He threw his hands up to protect his eyes, but thick fingers forced him back as Doyen straddled his brother, pounding away with closed fists already moist with Angelo's blood.
       He whimpered, shaking with each blow as Doyen pressed his assault and his brother weakened. He cried, calling out for his mother, but Doyen only laughed, redirecting a few blows against Salvatore's face as the boy's unnaturally bright eyes flashed in the moonlight.
       Salvatore tasted blood, both his own and his brothers. There were undertones of pain and rage in that sweet sticky serum, but also a sharp current of fear; fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of surrendering the deep physical and emotional connection they shared.
       A flash of shame heated Salvatore's cheeks as he realized he'd given up on his brother, thinking him a monster. But Angelo was still there, still a part of him, and only together were they complete.
       He let go. He gave in, letting the heat surging between them finally break through in a rush that made him gasp. Power filled him like air into a balloon. He howled with the swelling energy as the smell of blood hit him, rich and tangy and hot. His eyes rolled back. Rage flooded his veins, destroying his reason and blotting out his thoughts.
       His teeth found flesh. Doyen screamed. Salvatore tore into tendon and bone, his head thrashing from side to side as hot blood sprayed, then foamed, then trickled and congealed, leaving nothing but ice-cold gristle and his own whimpering breath.
       He lay back, sagging like a deflated balloon.
       His face felt numb, but his vision cleared as his breath eased and power surged through his body like a fever. It was as if the sun had suddenly risen.
       "It's so bright," he whispered in awe at the moon, reaching out a hand with thick, pointed nails as if to grasp it.
       Angelo sighed. "It's everything. . .."
       Salvatore glanced back at Doyen. The boy's corpse lay at an odd angle, head bent unnaturally upward, eyes open and glassy as they reflected the glorious moonlight. His throat gaped. Oily knobs of blood had congealed in the ragged wound, giving the impression of a mouth, broken-toothed and laughing.
       An unholy confidence surged through him. Salvatore's limbs quivered with energy as he drank in the moonlight. Angelo didn't frighten him anymore. His brother was a part of him, as he'd always been, as they always would be.
       "What now?" He asked.
       Angelo's eyes flashed in the moonlight. He smiled, those horribly long teeth glowing as he glanced back toward the circus and the faint trumpeting of the elephant and flicked a long black tongue over leathery lips. "It is our home."
       Salvatore could feel his brother's thoughts. Their mother's memory was strongest under the big top, fading with distance. They had no concept of the outside world, and neither knew where or how to begin searching for her. But she knew where they were.
       "Maybe she's afraid." Salvatore raised an eyebrow.
       "Maybe we should change that." Angelo chuckled ominously.
       Salvatore nodded and glanced at the moon. A time of change was upon them. Together, they would bring that change to the circus; to the ringmasters with their jeering commands, to the animal trainers with their oiled leather whips, to the clowns with their disingenuous comedy, and most of all to the patrons with their large eyes, greasy fingers, and selfish apathy. They would pay for all the pain and humiliation, the hunger and fear. It would all be cleansed in blood.
       The twins clasped hands, their shadows merging into one as they turned toward the horizon. "The show must go on. . .."