Ash blinked at him, his eyelashes still thick with blood. “That’s why you’re suddenly so interested in time travel? You want to know whether an earthquake’s going to destroy your whorehouses?”

Mac held out his palms: What do you expect? “What can I say? I like to think ahead. And, when I got to the future, I saw that I had a pretty good reason to be worried. This next earthquake isn’t just wiping out the city, it’s wiping out everything, the whole coast. Anyone still living out here is gonna die.”

For a moment Ash couldn’t hear anything over the blood pounding in his ears.

Anyone still living out here is gonna die.

It was just as they’d feared. The next earthquake was going to kill them all.

“I’m not keeping you alive out of the goodness of my heart,” Mac said. “I have a feeling that Roman and Quinn aren’t going to play nice once they find out I took over their precious Black Cirkus. I have a plan to take care of them, don’t you worry about that. But once they’re gone, I’ll need someone else to fly my new time machine.” Mac sniffed. “I’m thinking I’ll go back in time. Use my money to set up a tech company in Seattle in 2015 or play the stock market in 1980. You know, something fun. I just need someone to fly the time machine for me.” He took Ash’s chin in one hand, grinning gleefully. “That’s where you come in.”

Ash swallowed, tasting blood. “I’d rather die than help you,” he said.

Mac shrugged. “That can also be arranged.”

41

Dorothy

“Mac is busy right now. What do you need?”

Dorothy had been standing in the hallway with her back to the hotel room door, studying a water spot on the wallpaper—and she turned around at the voice. Eliza was leaning head and shoulders into the hallway, the door held close behind her.

Dorothy glanced from the girl’s face to the new cloak hanging from her shoulders to the shiny boots on her feet. “Those are new,” she said, shocked.

Eliza grinned. “Mac asked me to do him a favor.”

“You’re working for Mac now?” Roman asked.

“Don’t look so surprised. You were the one who gave me the idea,” Eliza said innocently. “Or don’t you remember our conversation back at the Dead Rabbit?”

A choked scream issued from inside the hotel room. Roman stiffened, and Dorothy saw his eyes travel past Eliza’s head, narrowing in curiosity.

“Who’s in there?” Dorothy asked.

“No one you need concern yourself with,” said Eliza. Was it Dorothy’s imagination, or did she seem to hold the door ever so slightly tighter? “Mac can find you after he’s done.”

Roman made a noise in his throat. Mac didn’t give orders in their hotel, no matter what treasures he brought their Freaks. It’d been too long since they’d reminded the Black Cirkus who they were.

Dorothy removed a long, thin dagger from her sleeve. The blade was smaller in diameter than a pencil, and so sharp that Eliza would have to squint to see where its point ended.