Wild Ride

by Jennifer Cruisie

  “I didn't,” she said, looking at Ray's gun with admiration. “I don't like guys who try to bully me.”

  “Good to know.”

  "Okay, I lost my temper. I'm sorry. Well, not really.

  “Try not to do that again.” Ethan surveyed the room once more and nodded. “This is it.”

  “This is what?” Weaver asked.

  “Our fallback position. It's the safest place in the park from demons. Surrounded by water.”

  “Not running water,” Weaver said.

  “Maybe we could do something about that,” Ethan said. “And it's lined with iron. We have the keys to the two doors. And they're covered in iron. Everything outside of here is vulnerable, but this tower, this room, is where we can make a stand if we have to. This is our Alamo.”

  “Everybody died at the Alamo. What's the midway, the Little Big Horn?”

  Erhan looked at her, exasperated.

  She shrugged. “I'm just saying that if you want to rally the troops, avoid the A word.”

  “Fine,” Ethan said. “We've got a week to get ready and this is going to be the center of our defensive position, our command central. I'll call the Guardia to meet here Sunday, after the park closes. We'll get all the chalices in here for safekeeping, make our plans, train for Halloween.”

  “That won't keep Ursula out,” Weaver said.

  “Ursula is the least of our problems,” Ethan said, and went to shut Tura's chalice in the armoire.

  “That may be, but she's still a problem,” Weaver said.

  Ethan latched the armoire door. “I can handle her.” I can handle anything now.

  “I'm glad you're not going to die,” Weaver said. “I mean ... congratulations. On your bullet.”

  “Thank you,” Ethan said. “Do they have a card for that?”

  “I don't send cards,” Weaver said, and went our the door, sounding a little unsettled.

  “There are other ways we can celebrate,” Ethan said, and followed her down the stairs.

  Mab moved her two bags into Delpha's trailer and put Delpha's urn up on the ledge beside Frankie's nest. He seemed pleased. Then she went back to the park, crossing Weaver's path as she carried her duffel bag into Hank's trailer. She spent the afternoon reading the hearts and palms of Parkersburg's romantically crossed until six, when she put up her CLOSED sign and went to look for a Guardia handbook in the Keep. She rook her good heavy flashlight, used a paddleboat to cross the Keep lake, let herself in with the key Glenda had given her, ignored the basement because she knew what was down there and it wasn't books, and went up to the top room, where she stopped inside the door.

  It was pretty much the same as she remembered from the first time she'd gone through it in April. There was a five-sided table with five beat-up wooden chairs around it, a wall full of weapons that looked like an ErhanWeaver wet dream, and a big, battered, heavy wood armoire that was full of books and ledgers and tied bundles of papers. New was a wooden chalice that she recognized.

  “Hey, Tura,” she said, and moved the chalice to one side. “Okay,” she said to Frankie. “This is going to be boring. No drawings.”

  She found a light switch in the room and turned it on, which helped since the light through the windows was growing dim, and then she starred going through the stuff in the armoire, pulling a notebook out of her work bag to catalog things as she sorted them on the floor. When she was done, she had a lot of stacks but only four things laid out on the table that looked like a good bet for figuring out the Guardia. She was starting to put the rest back into the armoire when the door opened.

  She spun around, her heart in her throat, and saw Ethan pointing a gun at her.

  “Hey!” she said, and he lowered the gun.

  “Sorry,” he said. “We saw a light in the window.” He frowned at the mess on the floor. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for the Guardia instruction manual.” She picked up a stack of books and shelved them on the bottom of the armoire.

  “Find one?” he said, moving to the window. He opened the casement and leaned out and waved, presumably to stop Weaver from coming up to blow her away. Then he shut the window again and came over to the table. “What's this stuff?”

  Mab picked up a leather-bound notebook. “This is a Sorceress's diary from the eighteenth century. It has recipes and what I assume is good advice, the little I can make out. It's in Italian, and my Italian is not good.”

  “So how is Cindy going to read it?”

  “To get recipes and advice on how to stop the dragons, Cindy will learn Italian.”

  “Dragons?”

  Mab picked up the second book, bound in black leather. “This is a thirteenth-century armory book. It's full of hand drawings and handwritten notations -”

  Ethan took it from her.

  “- and it's in Latin, but I'm assuming the drawings will do the trick k for you.”

  “Weaver's gonna love this,” Ethan said, turning the pages in fascination.

  “Yeah, it'll be like a pillow book for you two,” Mab said. “Now that you're going to have pillows.”

  Ethan frowned at her.

  “I saw Weaver move into Hank's trailer,” Mab said. “Never mind. I also found this.”

  She held up a satin-bound book. “It's a history of the Guardia written by the first American Seer. In English. I'm taking that one.”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said, still paging through weapons.

  “And this. . ,” she said a little louder, trying to get his attention. When he finally looked up, she unrolled a map. “This is the first map of Dreamland. The original drawing. I haven't had time to look at it closely, but it has -”

  He took it out of her hands and looked at it closer. “This is detailed.”

  “Yes,” Mab said. “It was stuck in with a bunch of ledger sheets, or I'd have found it on my first pass through here last April. It even has drawings of the wrought-iron fencing, and I think those really faint dotted lines are the tunnels -”

  “Damn,” Ethan said. “We can use this.”

  “You're welcome,” Mab said.

  “What? Oh, sorry.” He rolled the map up and put it with the armory book. “Here. Let me carry all of these down for you. You're lugging that bag -”

  “That's okay, I can carry -”

  Frankie cawed from on top of the armoire and she stopped, wondering what his problem was.

  Ethan frowned up at Frankie. “He doesn't want you carrying things?”

  “Oh,” Mab said. “Chill, bird, we got eight and three-quarters months to go yet.”

  “Until what?” Ethan said, looking confused.

  “Until I give birth to demon spawn,” Mab said, only half joking.

  “You're pregnant?”

  “Yes, Ethan, I'm pregnant.”

  "With Joe's . . .”

  “Yes,” Mab said. “I was impregnated by a demon in the body of the local drunk. Go ahead, try to make me feel worse than I already do.”

  “How do you know the baby's not human? I mean, fully human. You know what I mean.”

  “What are the chances?” Mab said.

  “I don't know. I don't even know how we ended up. . . demon spawn.”

  “We?” Mab said. “We who, Batman?”

  “You and me. With the red in the eyes.”

  “Your eyes do it, too?”

  “So says Weaver.”

  “Well, she should know,” Mab said. “What does Glenda say? Any memories of demon possession?”

  “I haven't asked her yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Ethan gave her the dead eye. “It's not an easy thing to ask your mother.”

  “Sure it is. You say, 'While you were making me, was there anybody else inside you? ... ' Oh. Never mind, I'll ask her.”

  “I'll do it. You just. He gestured helplessly. ”You're not having any cravings for raw meat, are you?"

  “No,” Mab said. “I don't want to drink anybody's blood, either. I do, as usual, want to kill you
.”

  “Get in line,” Ethan said. Outside, the end-of-the-night fireworks started to crack, and he picked up the books. “I'll go down and finish the last patrol with Weaver, cover Gus at the Dragon, then we'll walk you back to the trailer. Don't go alone. We still don't know what's out there.”

  “That's until midnight,”

  “It's eleven now,” Ethan said, looking mystified. “Can't you read your diary thing until then?”

  “Oh,” Mab said. “I spent five hours going through this stuff? Okay, fine, I'll wait for you on the paddleboat dock. At midnight.”

  He nodded and then hesitated. “About the baby.”

  Mab steeled herself for whatever clueless comment was coming.

  “You know I've got your back, right?”

  She blinked at him. He'd been odd ever since he'd come into the room, lighter somehow, not so much like the Grim Reaper in came. But this“You're not alone. Anything you need He stopped, clearly miserable at having to be sensitive and supportive. ”Just because Joe isn't gonna be there, doesn't mean you're on your own."

  Mab swallowed. “Thank you.”

  He started to say something else, then nodded and left.

  “Damn,” Mab said to Frankie, and blinked back tears. Her baby was going to have backup. Ethan said so.

  I'm going to have a baby.

  So, okay, she'd learn to be a mother. Better than her mother. None of that crap about demons.

  Oh, hell.

  But Glenda would be a good grandmother. And Ethan would make a good, dependable, protective surly uncle. And Cindy would make wonderful ice cream for the little demon spawn.

  Gotta get a name for this kid.

  She put the papers back in the armoire and closed the doors and shut off the light. The room fell into darkness, but the brightness outside drew her to the window, and she leaned on the sill and stared out at all the color as the last of the fireworks burst in the sky, the way they had thirty years ago when she'd leaned on the attic windowsill and wondered what Dreamland was like. Gold sparks exploded in the air, and blue and white and red, and the orange and yellow lights on the Double Ferris Wheel revolved in front of her, and she heard the fat, chuckly sound of the carousel, its gold and turquoise lights gleaming below, and the Dragon swooped its green lights up the last incline and then down into the orange smoky depths of the fog-machine-clouded midway.

  It was so beautiful, it made her throat ache. And it was hers, she was inside the park now, a part of it. Even better, this was what her baby would grow up seeing, light and color and laughter and love.

  She had to keep her baby safe. She'd never felt like that before, but now she had to keep somebody safe. And there'd be people to help her with that. Ethan would beat up any kid who was mean to her demon spawn on the playground. Weaver would shoot any boy who broke her heart. Her kid was covered.

  One by one, the lights went out, the Dragon powering down, the carousel music slowing to a stop, the twin circles of the Ferris Wheel disappearing into the night. When the park was darkened, only the orange cellophane streetlights left on to illuminate the rapidly disappearing cotton candy fog, she closed the window and went down the stairs, Frankie swooping down in a circle in front of her, Delpha's malachite bunny bouncing from the ribbon tied to her bag.

  “I think I'll call the baby Delphie,” Mab called out to Frankie, and he rasped back his approval.

  Mab and Delphie and Frankie. And Glenda and Ethan. And Cindy. And Gus. And Weaver. That was a family.

  She put her flashlight back into her bag and went out to paddle back to the dock.

  A peace offering," Ethan said, holding out the Latin weapons book to Weaver when he met her on the midway, the cold night air biting at them.

  She had her D-gun slung at the ready, her goggles up on her forehead for the moment, but she took the book from him and flipped through it. “Neat. We can get ready to fight the Crusades.”

  “It's weaponry to use against demons,” Ethan said. “Probably tactics, too, once we translate it. People still study Sun Tzu, you know.” He nodded toward the Dragon Coaster. “We need to cover Gus for the midnight run in an hour. Then we have to meet Mab back at the paddleboat dock and escort her to her trailer. And then we can, uh . . . ”Talk in Hank's trailer."

  “Sure,” Ethan said, thinking, Talk?

  They patrolled the park until the lights on the Dragon Coaster came alive. 'Anything?" Ethan asked as Weaver's head turned back and forth, scanning the area around Gus.

  “Nope.”

  “There's someone over by the Pirate Ship.”

  Weaver swiveled her head in that direction. “A person. Not a demon. Fuck."

  “What?”

  “It's Ursula.”

  Ursula stepped out of the shadows of the Pirate Ship, a set of demon goggles askew on her head and a D-gun held awkwardly in her hands.

  They clashed with the finely tailored powder blue business suit, which was clearly not warm enough. She was shivering, which might have been why she looked so bitchy.

  “Master Sergeant Wayne,” Ursula called out.

  Ethan ignored her and kept walking toward the Dragon.

  After a moment, Weaver followed.

  “Agent Weaver," Ursula said, upping the bitch in her voice.

  “We had a demon attack at the coaster the other night,” Weaver said over her shoulder. “We want to make sure there isn't a repeat.”

  “That wasn't in your report,” Ursula said, but she caught up with them, stumbling a little, not used to the depth perception problems of the goggles.

  Ethan stopped near the Pirate Cove Games, close enough that he and Weaver could cover Gus with Weaver's D-gun. He looked at the orange Strong Man and felt Selvans' seething. No wonder Gus was always worried.

  “Master Sergeant Wayne,” Ursula started again.

  “I'm not in the Army anymore.”

  “I need to take you in for testing,” Ursula said.

  “No.”

  With a rattle, the Dragon began its run.

  “That's my friend Gus,” Ethan said. “If! go with you, he and everybody else in this park are vulnerable to demon attack. So, no.”

  “About that,” Ursula said. “We also would like one or two of your socalled demons to examine. Agent Weaver says they're more powerful than those she supposedly has encountered so far. Of course, we have only her anecdotal evidence.”

  Ethan looked at Weaver. He had a feeling she was rolling her eyes behind the goggles.

  “Which is why,” Ursula continued, “I'm taking you in. Your blood is the only substantial thing Agent Weaver ever brought us.”

  “Ma'am,” Weaver said, “there's a lot more going on here than you can imagine. Ethan needs to be here for this next week. He can't leave the park.”

  “Ethan? Are you losing your objectivity, Agent Weaver?”

  The Dragon came swooping down the tail, and Ethan could hear the rattles. Four.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Ray called out from behind them.

  Ursula turned. “Who are you?”

  Ethan kept his focus on Gus. The Dragon came to a halt and the lights went off. No minions.

  “I own this park,” Ray said, walking up, bundled up in his Burberry, towering over Ursula, his cigar chomped in his mouth.

  Weaver opened her mouth, probably to dispute the I own this parkline, and Ethan shook his head. If Ray wanted to take point with Ursula, he was all for it.

  Ray scowled down at Ursula. “Who are you?”

  “Senior Agent Ursula Borden. Homeland Security.” Ursula lifted her chin, probably trying to look important, but her nose was red from the cold, so she just looked fussy.

  “You got a warrant to be on my property?” Ray demanded.

  “I have cause to be here,” Ursula said.

  Ethan saw that Gus was headed to his trailer, safe and sound. Time to get Mab and take her home and then, god help him, talk with Weaver. “We have somebody to meet, Agent Borden, but I'm sure Ray will be ver
y helpful. Excuse us.” He started down the midway to the paddleboat dock.

  “Wait a minute,” Ursula snapped.

  Ethan kept walking, Weaver behind him. He could hear Ray being rude to Ursula.

  “Do we really want to leave the two of them alone?” Weaver said, catching up to him.