Wild Ride

by Jennifer Cruisie

  Then it disappeared and the guy with the glasses was back. He looked away from Mab and down at the woman.

  “Now what's wrong?” he said to her unconscious body.

  “I think I'm losing my mind,” Cindy whispered to Mab. “Those two little kids were whining while their mother talked on her cell. The marshmallows in their hot chocolate turned into little white dragons and sang 'You've Got a Friend in Me.' Off-key. Marshmallows are evidently tone deaf.”

  “Who knew?” Mab said, trying not to stare at the guy. He'd been such a great dragon.

  “Exactly. Their mother couldn't see them at all. Just me and the kids. I think the only people who can see them are me and the ones I'm annoyed with.”

  “I saw them,” Mab said, wishing the dragon would conic back.

  “Well, yeah, you're a Seer,” Cindy said.

  “Right.” Mab gave up on the dragon and turned hack to her.

  There was panic in Cindy's eyes. “Mab, what's happening to me?”

  “You're creating illusions for people,” Mab said as things clicked into place. “Like Young Fred. No, wait, that's not right, you're not becoming somebody else but She thought for a minute. ”It's like your ice cream. It really is good ice cream, but when people eat it here in Dreamland in front of you, it's a religious experience. You create the illusion that it's otherworldly."

  Cindy blinked at her and Mab tried again.

  “You make people believe what you want them to believe. Like Glenda.” Mab stopped. “Oh. That's it. You got a bump up the ladder in sorcery at midnight last night when Glenda died.” Mab looked back at the unconscious woman, still dumbfounded. “Wow.”

  I was in bed at midnight,“ Cindy said. ”I did not bump."

  “Yes, you did. Glenda died, arid a new Sorceress was called. You. You've been practicing to be her successor all your life, and now she's passed the baton to you, and you're casting illusions. Beyond the ice cream. Only dragons. Wow. This is very cool.” Mab took out her cell phone and punched in Glenda's number.

  Down the counter, the woman stirred on the floor and tried to sit up.

  “I saw a dragon.”

  The guy took off his glasses and helped her up. “Sure you did, Ursula.”

  He always looked so different without the glasses, Mab thought. It surprised her every time, sharper planes to his face, sharper eyes, sharper everything. Plus, he'd been a great dragon.

  He put the awful glasses back on again as Ursula said, “There was a dragon.”

  “I don't want a baton,” Cindy whispered to Mab. “Glenda's not dead anymore. She can have the baton back.”

  Mab heard Glenda's “Hello?” on her cell phone and said, “This is Mab. How are you feeling?”

  “Alive, thanks to you,” Glenda said. “What can I do for you?”

  Mab lowered her voice. “Get down to the Dream Cream and talk your replacement off the ledge. She's making dragons instead of ice cream.”

  “It's Cindy?” Glenda laughed, the lightest sound that Mab had ever heard her make. “Of course it's Cindy. I'm on my way.”

  “Thank you very much for the ice cream,” the guy with the glasses said as he guided a shaken Ursula toward the door. “I'll be back.”

  “No, no,” Cindy called after him. “We're closing for the season. Try us next May.”

  “And miss Halloween?” the guy said, and Mab met his sharp eyes and realized Ursula hadn't been the biggest danger after all.

  “I thought I saw a dragon,” Ursula said, still sounding dazed, and he guided her out the door.

  “That's not good,” Mab said, sitting back down.

  “Make the dragon not come back,” Cindy said, holding on to the edge of the counter.

  “And the little singing marshmallows,” Mab said, nodding.

  “I like the marshmallows,” Cindy said. “But that dragon is dangerous.”

  “I know,” Mab said, thinking about all the power that had been there.

  “I know.”

  Ethan caught up to Weaver, Tura's chalice still under his arm. “Look, I know you're mad about last night, but we did what had to be done.”

  “I know.”

  “I think the D-gun has its place here, we're going to need it. And you. Your expertise.”

  “Thank you.”

  Okay, it was good he had a future, but he'd prefer not to spend it all trying to coax Weaver out of a snit. “How long are you going to be mad at me?”

  Weaver stopped and turned to face him. “You think you know it all. You don't. You don't even know what you are.”

  Ethan held up a hand. “No, I'm learning that. The Hunter thing, what I can do, I'm still finding that out. This morning -”

  “Not the Hunter thing.” Weaver bit her lip, as if she was trying to decide something. “You don't show a lot of emotion, but when we have sex -”

  I'm gonna hate this, Ethan thought.

  “- your eyes glow. Red. The first time I was startled but we were in the middle of things, and I thought maybe! imagined it, and then it happened again but by then I knew you weren't a demon, but... that's not normal.”

  “Great,” Ethan said, trying to wrap his head around that one. His eyes glowed red. Probably should keep his eyes closed during sex in the future.

  Weaver frowned at him, annoyed again. “You don't seem surprised.”

  “!'m surprised. But I've seen Mab's eyes glow, so -”

  “You had sex with Mab?”

  “No. No.” Women. He watched her narrowed eyes and said, “No, no. Never. Her eyes flash when she gets angry. Almost like a person possessed by a demon. But she's not a demon. And neither am L” But I am different, he thought.

  “So what are you?” Weaver demanded. “And by the way, this is another thing I haven't told Ursula, so you're welcome. But you have to admit, sensing demons behind doors, seeing in the dark, francium in the blood, eyes glowing... You're not scoring high on the 'not demon' chart. I believe in you, but 1 don't see anybody else giving you a pass on this.”

  They came out onto the midway near the Keep lake. “It's okay,” Ethan said. “I figure it's like my ability to sense demons, to see better in the darkpart of being Guardia. Maybe Guardia are anti-demons. Yin and yang. You know. A little outside the bell curve.”

  “A little? Do Glenda's eyes glow? You must have seen her mad plenty of of tmes.”

  That gave Ethan pause. “Never saw them do it.”

  “Gus's? Delpha's? Young Fred's?”

  “No, but... Okay, so maybe it's not a Guardia thing.”

  A long silence played out, and Ethan kept walking.

  “I've got to take you in,” Weaver finally said.

  “No.”

  “Look, Ursula plays dirty. She's talking about erasing your identity if you don't cooperate. Your disability pay will be gone. No record of your service in the Army at all. No record of you. You won't exist anymore.”

  “Does she have that kind of power?”

  “She wants that kind of power,” Weaver said. “Whether she has it remains to be seen. I just don't want to see it when you disappear.”

  “I don't care. I'm Guardia. Nothing else matters. Look.” He slowed and reached into his pocket and pulled out the AK-47 round. “This is the bullet they couldn't take out because it was too close to my heart, the bullet that was going to kill me any time. I was doomed. This morning it was right under my skin. Popped it out. And the wound healed right away. I have my life back. You think care about your Ursula?”

  Weaver stared at the bullet. “You've had that inside you? Pressing on your heart? And you didn't tell me?”

  “Uh,” Ethan said, not expecting that.

  You ... idiot,“ Weaver said, fuming. ”You could have died!"

  “I know,” Ethan said, cautious now. “But it's out. I'm okay now -”

  "No, you're not. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Ursula's dangerous.

  She's ambitious as all hell and if she can prove demons are real - and whatever powers you Guard
ia have are real -she'll use it to get more power. She's already brought in muscle to grab you if she decides she wants to. And if you defy her, if you get in her way . She swallowed. “The life you just got back could be over pretty fast.”

  Ethan shrugged. “Let her try.” He slowed as they reached the garbage can beside the carousel. “Last night my mother died and we brought her back. Today, I carved my death sentence out of my chest. Somebody up there likes us, and I'm going to keep working to keep it that way. The hell with Ursula and her muscle.” He shoved the can aside and opened the trap door to the tunnels. 'You with me?"

  Weaver hesitated.

  “It's okay,” Ethan said. “I never expected you to risk your career for this.”

  “I'm with you,” she said, and climbed down into the tunnel.

  And then Ethan took Glenda home, and Frankie and I came here and packed,“ Mab said over her waffles as Frankie crunched pistachios on the floor. She was eating cautiously, and so far her stomach was being edgy but cooperative. ”We're moving out to the trailers today so you get your guest room back."

  Oh,“ Cindy said. ”Well, that'll be ... nice. So the Guardia thing, it's not hard?"

  “We had some problems,” Mab said, and then saw Cindy get tense again. “Nothing we couldn't fix, everything was fine, you can do this. 'Things got a little screwed up because Ethan insisted on bringing Weaver along -”

  “He took a date to a demon battle?” Cindy said. “Oh, wait, it's Ethan. Of course he took a date to a demon battle.”

  “Not a date. Remember the man in black who kept shooting him? The man in black was Weaver.”

  “I thought it was Johnny Cash.”

  “No -”

  Glenda rattled the door and Mab went to let her in.

  “You have to open up,” Glenda said to Cindy. “People need ice cream.”

  “I will,” Cindy said, "as soon as you tell me how to stop making dragon s.

  Glenda looked at Mab.

  Mab smiled, ignoring her queasy stomach. “Ethan told me that you east illusions as the Sorceress. Well, when Cindy gets annoyed, she casts an illusion to pay off the person annoying her. Apparently her subconscious communicates in dragons.”

  Glenda looked at Cindy. “I didn't know you ever got annoyed. You always seemed so ... cheery.”

  “I repress a lot,” Cindy said.

  “Oh.” Glenda sat down on a counter stool. “So, let's start at the beginning. You're part of the Guardia now. The Guardia is -”

  “Yeah, Mab told me. I'm the Sorceress, I yell 'Redimio,' and demons go into chalices, we save the world. She did not mention dragons, though, or what else these powers do, or how I control them.”

  “Control them.” Glenda looked confused. “I don't remember them ever getting out of control. I want something to happen, I concentrate on it happening, it happens. It doesn't just happen on its own.”

  “Not when you got angry?” Mab said. “I remember you getting pretty angry a couple of times. You must have had ... thoughts.”

  “Yeah,” Glenda said. “But they never became dragons. That's new.”

  “Oh, well, that's wonderful,” Cindy snapped, and Mab pulled back a little, surprised.

  “I can see why you're... upset,” Glenda began.

  “Upset?” Cindy said, and the napkin holder on the counter morphed into a silver dragon about two feet tall and began spitting napkins.

  “Oh,” Glenda said, watching it. “That's a problem. Possibly you just need to, uh, control yourself -”

  “Don't you people have a handbook or something?” Cindy said. “With a troubleshooting section in the back? Somebody you can call?”

  “There are old books in the Keep,” Glenda said. “Mab could look around.”

  “Sure,” Mab said, and took an incautious bite of her waffle. “I could -”

  Her stomach revolted and she ran for the bathroom and lost everything. She splashed water on her face, rinsed her mouth our, and thought,

  Wild Ride

  17

  ************************************************************************************************

  0nce Ethan and Weaver were in the Keep, they made their way up to the restaurant level, where Ethan paused. The small door built into the drawbridge was open. Looking out, he saw one of the paddleboats tied to the ledge outside.

  He drew his gun and led Weaver to the top room of the Keep. He picked up no sense of demon, but that didn't put him at ease. The trapdoor at the top of the stairs leading to the battlement roof was open. He put Tura's chalice on the pentagonal table, indicated for Weaver to cover him, then climbed the stairs, pistol leading.

  He popped his head up over the threshold and saw Ray Brannigan, smoking a cigar and staring out at Dreamland, looking like the king of the Keep.

  Ethan climbed onto the battlement, and Ray spun about, hand flashing inside his expensive coat. He saw that Ethan had already beaten him to the draw and raised both hands very slightly.

  Somehow having a future made Ethan dislike Ray even more. He raised his gun higher.

  “Hey, it's just me,” Ray said. “Owner of half the park, remember? I'm allowed to be up here.” He smiled, just pals.

  Remember he's the devil you know, Ethan told himself. Don shoot him.

  “Which reminds me,” Ray said. “You have twenty percent of the park. I'll give you half a million for it.” He looked past Ethan at Weaver as she climbed out onto the roof and lost his smile. “I thought I told you to get rid of her.”

  “You'll give me your share of the park,” Ethan said. “And then you'll go. I know you were outside Delpha's trailer while she was dying, I know you sent the demons after Gus, I know you made a deal with the devil, which just shows how dumb you really are.”

  “Listen, you punk, I'm the mayor of this town and half owner of this park, and you do not talk to me like that.” Ray took a menacing step forward, and then there was the thuft of the D-gun firing, and he staggered back, hit by a demon round slamming into the left side of his coat. Ethan charged forward and did a leg sweep, knocking Ray to the ground. He ripped the demon round off the coat and pulled it back. The round had hit the outside of a leather holster housing a massive Desert Eagle pistol. Ethan pulled it out and handed it to Weaver.

  “A little compensation going on there, Ray?” Weaver asked, hefting the massive gun. “Chambered for fifty caliber? Are you nuts?”

  Ray tried to get up, and Ethan pushed him back, patted him down, extracted a set of iron rings from an inner pocket, and slid them into one of his own pockets.

  Ray got to his feet cursing. “You're the one who's crazy. You had that Nighthawk land here last night, didn't you? You're government? Well, this is private property. You got a warrant?”

  “I don't need a warrant,” Weaver said calmly, tucking the Desert Eagle into her vest and filling the empty chamber on her D-gun. “I'm with Ethan. This is his Keep. And you were advancing in a threatening manner.”

  “Give me my gun and my keys,” Ray snarled to Ethan. “And get rid of that bitch!"

  “I could throw you off this roof,” Ethan said, thinking seriously about it. “You've been depressed lately. We've all noticed it.”

  Weaver took out Ray's gun and leveled it at him. “Let me just shoot him. You never let me shoot anybody.” Ethan detected sincerity in her voice.

  A vein pulsed in Ray's forehead. “I'm the mayor. I own half of this park -”

  “And I have all of your gun,” Weaver said brightly.

  “Fuck you,” Ray said, and headed for the door and stairs.

  Ethan followed him down, Weaver covering his back.

  Ray paused before the next set of stairs, staring at Tura's chalice on the pentagonal table. “What is that?”

  Get Out,“ Ethan said. You're done here.”

  Ray glared at him. “This isn't the end of this. You don't treat a Brannigan like this and get away with it.”

  “That's the best you've got?” Weaver said. “Didn't ma
king a deal with the Devil give you snappier patter than that?”

  Ray clenched his jaw and then disappeared down the stairs. Ethan went over to one of the narrow windows and watched. A minute later Ray appeared, looking mad as hell and just as foolish, pedaling away in the boar toward shore.

  “How did you know the gun would rake the impact of the demon round?” Ethan asked Weaver.