Table of Contents
A Word of Warning
1. Admit One
2. Masochist’s Paradise
3. A Fear of Clowns
4. Don't Feed the Clowns
5. Harbinger of Lust
6. Circus of Creeps
7. The Butcher
8. Blood and Leather
9. The Virgin
10. Showstopper
11. The Shade and His Pet
12. Double Trouble
13. Monstrous Attraction
14. The Ringmaster
15. Dark Oath
16. New Toy
17. Monster Twins
18. Kryptonite
19. Knives, Cuffs and Tongues
20. The Virgin and the Monster
21. Something Twisted
22. Discord's House of Worship
23. Cum, Sweat and Damnation
24. The Devil Inside
25. Corpse Carnival
26. Virgin on the Altar
27. Deal With the Devil
28. Beware of Dog
29. Into the Hound’s Flames
30. One Month Later
31. Out of the Doghouse
32. Stone Cold Succubus
33. The Ringmaster’s Caravan
34. The Hunt
A Note From the Author
About the Author
Circus Creeps
Sinner's Sideshow Duet Book 1
Aiden Pierce
Copyright © 2023 by Aiden Pierce
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Circus Creeps is one of my darker works, so please read this warning carefully.
The characters within this book make a dark spectacle of themselves. Their story contains triggering situations such as gore, violence, murder, horror elements, discussions of parental loss, breath play, fear play, knife play, pain play, demonic clowns, exhibitionism, voyeurism, monster appendages, spitting, light vore, dub-con, consensual non-consent, non-con (not involving the heroes or heroine) and other graphic sexual content.
If you have any questions, please contact me.
1
Admit One
Meg
E
very monster within a fifty-foot radius either wanted to eat me or fuck me.
Perfect, just fucking perfect.
As if I didn’t already feel like a fish out of water as the only half-blood that had come to watch the monster circus. It’s not like I was food to the full-blooded monsters here, but I smelt enough like a human to turn heads as I made my way through the crowd toward the ticket booth.
As a circus brat, I was used to attention. When I performed in the ring, countless eyes watched me—usually with a twenty-five-inch sword shoved down my throat. So, attending another circus as a guest should have been a cakewalk. But…this wasn’t like the human circus I’d grown up in.
This was Sinner’s Sideshow, the supernatural circus from Hell.
The crowd that had crawled out of the darkness to witness the show was made up of countless other horrors of the night.
It’s not that I was scared of them. What bothered me was how I was standing in line for a ticket, minding my own damn business, yet I was drowning.
Drowning in their bloodlust.
With the succubus blood running through my veins, I could feel the emotions of the people around me. Whenever I performed in the ring, I embraced the ability I’d inherited from my mother. I felt what my audience did.
Their thrill. Their wonder. Their fear.
I tasted it all. I craved it, feasted on it.
But the emotions of these monsters were on the…intense side. Even if I had the balls to feed on the thick energy in the air, I didn’t dare. Not here.
This wasn’t the place to bring attention to myself. I’d been stupid to come at all.
I was so out of my element here.
I hadn’t performed in months. I hadn’t fed in weeks. There was no way these people would accept me. Just because my mother had starred in Sinner’s Sideshow years ago didn’t mean I belonged.
Too bad I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
When the slow-moving line for the ticket booth finally moved, I shoved the slipping strap of my guitar case higher up my shoulder and shuffled forward.
A voice in my head screamed at me to run as far away from this place as possible. But that voice was easy to smother. Even if my succubus side was good at following instructions—which it certainly fucking wasn’t—there was no point in running. There had to be hundreds of monsters here who could outrun my mortal ass, and I wasn’t interested in being anyone’s dinner. Not tonight, anyway.
At the thought of food, my stomach grumbled. Shit. I was starving. Real food wouldn’t help. The hunger clawing at my gut couldn’t be satiated with a carnival dog or a pretzel.
Whenever I got the urge to feed, I’d either find a public space like a grocery store or something and skim whatever emotions hung in the air. If I was really starving, I’d find some random guy to suck off and drain dry. I preferred the inconspicuous feeding from a crowd. If I didn’t have to put some random guy’s pathetic dick in my mouth, that would be a plus.
Too bad I couldn’t do either here. Too risky, and I’d come too far to fuck this up now.
I’d been searching for Sinner’s Sideshow for over two years. It had been a nightmare to find. It’s not like I could just Google search the show towns and dates. It left no digital paper trail except for the occasional review on the dark web.
My mother’s people still lived in the shadows. They didn’t want humans to know about them, and to keep it that way, the circus had powerful magic that hid every tent, truck, animal, and even the attendees within its vicinity from the human eye.
As a half-blood, I’d been worried that I wouldn’t be able to see it. But there it was, the infamous black and white big top looming ominously in the distance. The sight of it made my heart ache. I missed the circus I’d grown up in so damn much. I missed my dad. My friends.
All of it was long gone.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I summoned an old memory.
“Focus on your breathing,” my father’s voice echoed from the past. “That’s it, angel. Just like that. Always focus on your breathing when you’re in the ring. And remember, don’t—”
“Lock my knees,” a teenage me told him with a huff and a roll of my eyes. “Yeah, Dad. I know.”
My father lowered his sword to the ground and sat on one of the hay bales in the ring. He’d patted the spot beside him, motioning for me to join him. “Then what’s got you in a funk?”
I sat next to him, my knuckles paper white as they tightened around my sword’s hilt. “I’m scared.”
“Aw, honey. That’s okay. If you don’t want to do this tonight, we can push off your performance until the next town. Or the next state. Whenever you’re ready. Or you can just do the usual sword-eating act. You’ve done that a thousand times. No need for the bells and whistles tonight.”
“That’s boring,” I pouted. “Everyone is coming to see a fire-eating sword swallower.”
My father brushed a piece of my soft pink hair from out of my eyes. “Meg, honey. You’re so beautiful. People would come from miles around just to watch you twiddle your thumbs. Whatever you put out in that ring, they’ll eat up. Now come on.”
He rose to his feet and pulled me onto mine, his eyes dancing with pride. “You look so much like your mom. Especially in your new costume.”
My father had barely ever mentioned my mom, but when he did, I always sensed a pang of fear beneath all the heartbreak. I’d never understood that.
A sigh wound from me as I pulled myself back to the present. The tight bodice of my old circus costume hugged my body from under my baggy hoodie. I’d had it altered since my days at Walker’s Circus, but it was pretty much the same outfit.
Same sword. Same act.
Everything else had changed. My dad was dead, and so was Walker’s. All I had now was me, and my mission to find someplace where I didn’t feel so lost.
“You’re holding up the line, bitch.”
My eyes shot open, and I slowly turned to face the asshole in line behind me. I guessed that he was some kind of shifter. Maybe a werewolf, judging by the pungent stench of mongrel.
When he registered my face, his eyes widened, and his anger fizzled into lust. “Damn, baby. I was gonna swing by the concessions before the show, but maybe you can be my snack tonight. What are you, anyway? Some kind of siren?”
My eyes narrowed on the shifter. “I’m someone with a sword that knows how to use it.”
He licked his lips as they stretched into a skeevy smile. “A sword, huh? I got one of those.”
“Yeah.” I snorted. “I promise mine’s bigger.”
The werewolf opened his mouth, probably to spew some tired-ass pickup line, but the ticket attendant yelled for the next customer.
I stepped up to the wooden booth painted in black and white stripes to match the big top. The man behind the counter had grayish skin, pointed ears, and a hooked nose so long it stretched past his lips. He reminded me of the goblins in the Harry Potter movies.
”One adult, please.”
The goblin gave me a once-over through slitted eyes. “No humans allowed.”
“I’m a demon,” I told the attendant, donning my unshakable stage smile. “How else would I have been able to find this place?”
He gave a hmph.
I pulled out a wad of crumpled bills from my sweatshirt pocket and threw it down on the counter. “I’m a paying customer just like everyone else.”
The goblin’s suspicion seemed to ease into guarded intrigue as he noted my soft pink eyes. He pointed a finger tipped with a yellowed claw at the guitar case on my back, covered in brightly covered stickers, then pointed to a sign that read: No outside weapons, drugs, instruments, explosives, or firearms.
I blinked as I noted the word outside. Damn. Their concessions and merch tables had to be pretty wild.
My smile turned sickly sweet. “I don’t have any of that. Just lip gloss. Gum. Some body spray.” Plus, a twenty-five-inch serrated sword with a canister of isopropyl alcohol, but he didn’t need to know that. “I use the guitar case as a purse. I’m one of those “weird girls” you always see on TV.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Creature. Just sell the girl a damn ticket. You’re holding up the line.”
I turned my head in the direction of the sing-song voice to find a woman leaning against the side of the ticket booth, her arms folded over her chest. She was covered in colorful tattoos, a lot of them colorful depictions of candy. She wore a pink tank top, a purple plaid skirt, fishnets, and knee-high boots.
The most notable thing about her was her hair, or rather, her lack of hair. On her head was a nest of snakes. Living snakes!
The snake-haired woman grinned at me. “She’s a succubus.”
“She doesn’t smell like a sex demon,” Creature scoffed.
“That’s because I buy the good deodorant,” I sniped.
The woman rolled her eyes and wrapped her knuckles on the side of the booth. “Pretty sure that ancient nose of yours is out of whack, you old bag of bones. Now give her the stupid ticket before the ringmaster finds out you turned away a paying customer.”
Fear flashed behind the monster’s eyes. “D–don’t tell the ringmaster. Here.” He quickly handed me a ticket while flinging a glare at the snake-haired woman. “If she gets eaten, don’t come crying to me.”
“Ugh,” she said when we were out of earshot from the ticketing booth. “You think he would have seen a half-blood before. You could have just used your succubus powers on him, you know.”
I wasn’t used to feeling so comfortable around another person. But then again, it had been a long time since I’d been around anyone who hadn’t given me weird vibes. This girl’s energy was curious, but kind.
“I don’t really like doing it. It feels sketchy,” I admitted after a beat. The last time I’d used it was to get out of a speeding ticket, five months ago. So I was rusty as hell.
“Sketchy?” Her brows arched high into her hairline—where a snake draped itself across her brow. “Then this is the perfect place to use it, babe. What’s your name?”
“Meg.”
“I’m Lollie. I work the concession stands here with my sister.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the snakes in her hair as they slithered and hissed, their tongues flicking out to taste the air. “Um, Meg? You’re staring.”
“Shit.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
She laughed. “That’s okay. Gorgons are rare. Most of us don’t have legs, so we don’t make it to the Upside too often. But this is the circus, girl. Where vampires and other basic bitch monsters of the Upside come to gawk at all the monstrosities that crawl from the Downside.”
The gorgon’s gaze churned with thought, her attention drifting past my shoulder to the guitar case on my back, with its worn hot pink casing and faded gothic stickers. “But you’re not here to stare, are you?”
Her perception caught me off guard. “How did you know?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Half-bloods don’t come here for the show. It’s a little high-octane for most.”
“High octane?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said with a silent duh punctuating her sentence. She flicked her hair in a fashion that would remind me of a preppy girl if it wasn’t for all the hissing snakes. “This is a show where Monsters from Upside come to see what all the horrors of the Downside are like. Without actually having to go there. Although some actually do go there.”
“Wait, you mean people die at the show?”
“Yup. Usually, only people who want to die. But you know, accidents happen,” she added with a half-shrug. “So whatever reason you’re here, just keep your head straight and stay safe, ‘kay?”
A blood-curdling scream from inside the big top had Lollie nervously tucking a snake behind her ear. “Um. On second thought, maybe I should escort you to your seat inside? The front entrance is a haunted house you have to get through before you make it to the main house.”
“A haunted house?” At that, I perked up. I loved spooky shit.
Lollie laughed. “Don’t get too excited...
Aloksei