Wild Ride

by Jennifer Cruisie

  “You look awful,” Cindy said. “What happened?”

  “A guy named Karl had a heart attack and died in front of the carousel.”

  “Carl who runs the Whack-A-Mole?” Cindy said, horrified.

  “No,” Mab said. “Big guy. Bald. Married. Fooling around with Ashley.”

  “Oh, Karl the Cheater.” Cindy relaxed. "Well, may he rest in peace, the son of a bitch. Carl Whack-A-Mole is a good guy, but Karl the Cheater we can spare.”

  “What?” Mab said, appalled. A man had died, right there at her feet -

  “Wife-beater,” Cindy said, looking almost angry. “Sleeps with anything that will say yes, then goes home and hits her. Awful, awful man.”

  “Oh.” Mab felt the weight that had kept her from sleeping the night before lift a little as she considered it. It would be so much tidier if she didn't have to feel bad about Karl's death. If she hadn't seen the body, it would even be feasible.

  “Once I found out he was scum, I wouldn't sell him ice cream,” Cindy said. “He got nasty, tried to grab me.”

  'What?" Mab said, outraged.

  “So I stabbed him with a fork, and then Gus took him out.”

  “Gus?”

  “Gus has his moments.“ Cindy looked at her sympathetically. ”That must have been awful for you, finding him dead."

  “It was,” Mab said. “I was so tired when I got home, I could barely walk, but then I couldn't sleep. I should have talked to you.”

  Cindy nodded. “Always talk to me. Tell me you weren't alone when you found him.”

  “No, I was with -”

  The door opened, bell jingling, and Cindy beamed past Mab at the newcomer. “Well, hello and welcome back.”

  Mab turned and there was Joe, sliding onto the seat beside her, and her heart kicked up a beat, which was just foolish of it, and then he leaned in and kissed her, and she kissed him back because who wouldn't?

  When she stopped to breathe, she rested her forehead against his, so glad he was there that it worried her, but then he brushed back her hair with his finger and said softly, “You okay?” and she felt so much better that she smiled.

  “It turns out Karl was a cheater and a wife-beater. And not Carl from the Whack-A-Mole, so we can spare him.” Kiss me again.

  “Good to know,” Joe said, and kissed her again.

  It was the best breakfast she'd had in years.

  “I can't stay,” he said when she pulled back again to breathe. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. By the time I came back, they'd locked the gate to the bridge. I didn't want you to be alone.” He grinned at Cindy. “But then I remembered who you roomed with.”

  Cindy grinned back.

  “I'm fine,” Mab said, amazed that he'd tried to come back.

  He looked back from Cindy to her, as if he'd forgotten for a moment that she was there, and put his hand on her back and rubbed a little. Friendly. Warm. “So, can I talk you into hot dogs and beer tonight?”

  He smiled at her, that glorious, crooked, sunny smile that melted her toes, and she smiled back, helpless.

  “Yes. I'll be at the Fortune-Telling Machine.”

  “Then that's where I'll come get you.” He kissed her again, and something unfamiliar welled up inside her, bubbled up inside her, and she realized it was happiness, not contentment, not satisfaction, happiness. She kissed him again, and then he got up, waved to Cindy, swooped in for a final kiss, and left.

  Mab blinked a couple of times to get her bearings, and then turned back to Cindy, who looked delighted. And avid.

  “I want to know everything,” she said, leaning over the counter. “This is so good for you.”

  Mab took a deep breath just to get her lungs back to normal. “He took me to dinner at the Beer Pavilion, and then we frenched on the carousel, and then I fell over Karl. Dead Karl, not Whack-A-Mole Carl.”

  “Whoa,” Cindy said. “That's some first date.”

  “I don't think it was actually a date,” Mab said, trying to evaluate things calmly.

  “You got tongue on a carousel. That's a date.”

  “It ended with a dead body,” Mab pointed out.

  “Yes, but it was Karl's,” Cindy said. “You said heart attack, right?”

  “I think so, but. She hesitated, knowing what was coming. ”. . . hehad this wavy mark on his chest.

  Cindy straightened. “He had the mark?” She shook her head, marveling. “My god, you have a great life.”

  “Because I fell over Dead Karl?”

  “You got a robot clown, you got a hot guy, and now you're part of the legend. Mary Alice Brannigan, this is your week.” Cindy beamed at her. “I'd give you ice cream on the house, but you get that anyway.” Then she got serious. “So what does this mark look like?”

  “Just a black wavy line.”

  “Oh.” Cindy pulled back, disappointed. “I was hoping for a skull or at least a big black X. Just a wavy line . She shrugged. ”On a dead guy," Mab pointed out.

  “Okay, points for that. You want waffles? I've got a new flavor, but it's a love potion and you clearly are past that.”

  “Past what?” Mab said. “Joe? He's just -”

  “Don't even try to pretend,” Cindy said. “He's probably carving your initials inside a heart on something right now. And I hope for his sake it isn't anything you painted.”

  Mab laughed and Cindy looked surprised.

  “What now?” Mab said.

  “I've never heard you laugh before.” Cindy looked amazed. “Wow. I made Mab Brannigan laugh.”

  “I laugh,” Mab said, and then realized she couldn't remember when. She certainly had laughed. Some time, in her life. “I'm not ... emotional. My mother used to get upset when I'd cry or get angry, so I stopped. It makes life a lot easier if you just don't react to things.”

  “Like Joe,” Cindy said.

  “Well,” Mab said, and found herself smiling again.

  “Dreamland is very good for you,” Cindy said smugly. “So waffles? With a little What-Love-Can-Do strawberry ice cream in between them?”

  “What's in Mab began and then thought, What the hell, and said, ”Yes. That's what I want."

  Cindy went down the counter and started the waffles, and Mab put her mind back where it belonged, on the Fortune-Telling Machine. But this time, instead of thinking about colors, she thought about Vanth. Vanth was new information, a name she could look up. There might be pictures.

  Cindy came back, and Mab said, “Do you still have your laptop under the counter?”

  “Yep.” Cindy pulled it out and handed it over.

  Mab opened Cindy's browser and typed in Vanth, hit the URL for Wikipedia, and read out loud, “'Vanth is a female demon in the Etruscan underworld.”

  “Good to know,” Cindy said, looking confused.

  “Vanth is the name on the Fortune-Telling Machine,” Mab told her, and read the rest of the entry while Cindy slapped her waffles and love potion together. Then she pushed the laptop around so Cindy could read for herself. She picked up her spoon and tasted the pink ice cream, momentarily distracted from demon lore. "Strawberries, passion fruit, and ...

  “Honey, vanilla, and cinnamon,” Cindy said, squinting at the screen as she skimmed the article. “Maybe she's an oracle, Oh. No, she's not. But this says she's benevolent. She even has a boyfriend. A demon named Kharos.” Her face changed.

  “What?” Mab said around a mouthful of waffle.

  “He's a bastard. “The Etruscan Devil.”

  “I'll tell her he's no good for her.” Mab cut into her waffle again.

  “You talk to her?”

  Mab nodded, swiveling the computer back around to her with one hand while she scooped waffle and cream with the other. “She talks back. With cards.”

  “Cards,” Cindy said. “The machine talks to you with cards.”

  “Old fortunes. Like these.” Mab reached in the side pocket of her bag where she'd stashed the cards, but they weren't there. “I had cards.” She p
ut down her fork and went through the other pockets, but still no cards. “Who took my cards?”

  “I didn't see any cards,” Cindy said, clearly trying to follow.

  Mab dropped her bag to the floor. “Am I losing my mind?”

  “No, but something's going on.” Cindy leaned against the back counter. “Cards, heart attacks, robot clowns. Maybe we're being haunted by Etruscan demons.”

  “In southern Ohio,” Mab said. “I don't think so.” She forked another piece of waffle and then stopped. "Wait a minute. Glenda's son mentioned .somebody. . . .”

  She pulled the laptop closer and typed Fufluns into the browser, hit the first URL, and read, “'In Etruscan mythology, Fufluns was a god of happiness and growth in all things. He later appears as an underworld demon, supplanted in the pantheon by Bacchus.' Fun guy. Except for the demon part.”

  “FunFun?”

  “Fufiuns.”

  Cindy frowned. “He starts out as a god and ends up a demon?”

  Mab shrugged. “It says 'supplanted by Bacchus.' He's the Roman god of drunken revelry and general good times. Maybe two was a crowd, so Fufluns got moved to the basement.”

  “Pink-slipped into hell.” Cindy shook her head. “Poor guy.”

  Mab closed her browser. “Don't feel too bad. He's not real. But this whole Etruscan thing She shook her head. ”I'm confused."

  “You should go ask Delpha,” Cindy said, “She knows everything. And she's never wrong.”

  Mab was tempted, which was insane. She looked around the shop, looking for normal life. There were two mothers with little kids there, and a retired couple oohing and aahing over their ice cream, and two seats down the counter, the fair-haired guy with the big black-rimmed Coke-bottle glasses, finished with his waffles and ice cream, his green trilby on the seat beside him, his notebook open in front of him. What would it be like to be them, not dealing with Dead Karl and Etruscan demons?

  She shook her head. “I think I should go to work.”

  “That will be soothing for you,” Cindy said.

  “It will,” Mall said, and picked up her work bag.

  “And after that there's Joe,“ Cindy said happily. ”You are one lucky woman.'

  “Yes,” Mab said, surprised to realize that she was.

  In fact, if somebody would explain all the craziness to her so she could stop wondering about it, her life would be just about perfect.

  “Delpha, huh?” she said to Cindy.

  “Oh, yeah,” Cindy said. “Delpha.”

  “Okay, then,” Mab said, and headed out the door.

  She was halfway down the midway to the Fortune-Telling Machine and the Delpha's Oracle booth when she heard someone say, “Miss?”

  She turned around.

  It was the fair-haired guy with glasses from the Dream Cream, his trilby hat squarely on his head.

  “You forgot this,” he said, and handed over her yellow miner's cap, his gray eyes steady on hers behind those ridiculous glasses.

  “Thank you,” she said, and he nodded and turned back to the Dream Cream.

  She frowned as she watched him walk away. For some reason she'd assumed he was retired, the thick glasses, the old-fashioned hat, but he moved like a young guy, sure and strong, and his face had been unlined, his eyes sharp.

  So what was he doing spending most of his life at the Dream Cream?

  “Huh,” she said, and went to ask Delpha about Etruscan demons.

  When Mab got to the Fortune-Telling Machine, she hesitated. The Delpha's Oracle booth was right next door, but the chances that Delpha was in there on a weekday were slim and -

  She heard a cawing sound and looked up to see Frankie perched on the peak of the tent-shaped wooden booth.

  The Oracle was in.

  She walked over and went through the opening in the wrought-iron fence, hesitating before the sliding wood doors painted to look like tent flaps, and then lifted her fist to knock.

  “Come in, Mab,” Delpha said, and Mab looked at her fist, shrugged, pushed the doors apart, and went in, Frankie swooping in behind her.

  Delpha sat behind an old table with a pile of stuff in front of her. Frankie landed on the table and began to pick through the pile daintily, using his beak and one claw to sort through the stuff. Probably looking for an eyeball.

  “I'm sorry,” Mab said. “Are you busy? I can come back.”

  “No.” Delpha picked up a paper fan with a clawlike hand and dropped it in the trash bag beside her table. “Sit down.” She picked up her dark blue shawl and folded it and put it on top of a box on the other side of the table. “Have you come to let me read your cards?” She picked up something else from the pile and then dropped that in the trash, too.

  “No, I have a question.” Mab frowned at the box. “Are you packing up? 1 thought you were working next weekend, too.”

  “Someone else will be here next weekend.” Delpha nodded to a blue chair Mab had painted when she'd done the table. “Sit down.” She crooked her finger, and Frankie left his scavenging to flap off the table and onto her shoulder.

  Mab hesitated and then sat down. “Someone died last night. Cindy said there was a legend, and then I heard She was not going to say demons. She leaned forward. ”Do we have a killer in the park? A human serial killer who's striking again after forty years?"

  “No,” Delpha said.

  “That's it? No?”

  Delpha studied her for a moment, then put a pack of tarot cards on the table.

  “You turn over a card, I will answer a question. Ten cards. Ten questions.”

  “You've been trying to get me to do this ever since I got here. Admit it.”

  “Yes.” Delpha smiled, startling Mab with the transformation. “And now you are here. Shuffle the cards.”

  “Fine.” Mab shuffled and tried to hand the deck to Delpha, but the old lady shook her head. “Cut them,” she said, and Mab did. “Now turn up the first one.”

  Mab did and saw a pale-faced woman dressed in black holding a sword almost as tall as she was with a crown floating above her head. The writing at the bottom said REGINA DI SPADE, translated at the top into QUEEN O

  SWORDS.

  “That is your card,” Delpha said, looking very satisfied. “You are the Queen of Swords, a solitary woman of much intelligence and strength.” She looked at Mab pointedly. “Ethan is the King of Swords.”

  “Do not matchmake,” Mab said.

  “No, he is not your mate. He is your brother in a great, never-ending battle.”

  “Brother is fine. “The test of it, no. What's happening in this park?”

  “Many things,” Delpha said. “Next card.”

  “Oh, come on,” Mab said, “play fair.”

  “Then ask good questions,” Delpha said.

  Mab thought about it. “Okay, let's start at the beginning. Did the FunFun statue from the park entrance run into me two nights ago?”

  “Yes,” Delpha said.

  Mab nodded. “And how is that possible?”

  “Put the next card across your card,” Delpha said, and Mab did.

  'This one looked like the Keep, a big stone tower that appeared to he blowing up. Mab looked closer. Bodies were falling from the tower.

  “This is what crosses you,” Delpha said, “Change. It is difficult, but it is good.”

  “Yeah, it looks good. How is it possible that the statue ran into me?”

  "It was possessed by a demon. Put the next card to the left of the first two.'

  “A demon,” Mab said, somehow not surprised.

  “A card,” Delpha said, putting her finger down to the left of the first two cards.

  Mab put the next card down while she thought fist. This one was some guy on a horse in the snow, three swords on his banner, looking depressed as all hell.

  “You must have been very lonely,” Delpha said, looking at the card.

  “When? No, wait, that's not my question. A demon knocked me down with the statue. Is that like a figure of speech
, a guy so bad, he's demonic -”

  “Fufluns,” Delpha said. "He's a demon. The next card goes beneath the others.

  Mab turned over the next card, a man looking at a far-off city, five cups at his feet. “So Fufluns. Is he dangerous?”

  “Sometimes,” Delpha said, studying the cards. “He plays tricks and seduces and lies and betrays. That can be dangerous. The next card goes above.”