“Fifty-three seconds?” Ethan asked.
“Half an hour. You stopped breathing. You're still alive.” Ursula looked ready to either have a heart attack or drive a stake through his heart. Skinny and Quentin were arguing near the doorway in low voices. Well, Skinny was saying something; Quentin was just standing there.
Ethan felt triumphant. Unstoppable. He strained against the straps holding him down, expecting to see them rip and pop and then he would.
Nothing.
So much for superhuman strength, he thought. Not part of being the Hunter. Not breathing for half an hour wasn't bad, though.
Skinny came up to Ursula as Quentin disappeared through the door.
“Quentin's gonna get me a phone book. Let your fingers do the walking to make them do the talking -”
“What the hell are you yammering about?” Ursula shouted at him.
Skinny blinked. “Well, ma'am, just filling you in on what I think -”
“You don't think,” Ursula snapped. “I do the thinking. I wanted you to do a simple thing, and you couldn't manage that.”
“Well, now, we did it right. It's not that sophisticated. You just pour the water into the face through the cloth. Not our fault this fellow here can hold his breath a long time like some magician, but the phone book - pain is pain - and as -”
“Shut up.”
“Who put you up to this?” Ethan asked. “Ray Brannigan?”
“Ray is a patriot,” Ursula said with no conviction.
“Ray works for a demon - a devil. You've been played, and if you don't get your head out of your ass, you're going to be part of hell on earth, victim number two for Kharos, right after Ray.” He saw the flicker of recognition in her eyes.
Quentin came back, his hands empty.
“No phone book?” Skinny said, disappointed.
Ursula turned to her flunkies. “Kill him.”
Skinny nodded. “Now normally, I'd just smother him, looks like a natural death, but seeing as this guy can breath underwater, I'm thinking -”
A sound outside the door made him stop. He exchanged glances with Quentin and then said, “We'll just check on that.”
Quentin opened the door cautiously and then nodded, and he and Skinny slipped out.
Ursula leaned over Ethan. “Tell me what's going on, and 1 won't have them kill you -”
There was the sharp crack of C-4 explosive going off, and the door to the cell blew open. A figure in black, wearing goggles, came in and jammed the muzzle of a D-gun under Ursula's jaw. “Give me a reason.” There was no mistaking the voice or the intent.
“Weaver!” Ursula exclaimed, her voice higher because her chin was jacked up by the gun muzzle. “Are you insane? Think of your pension.”
Weaver pushed the gun a little higher under Ursula's jaw and said, “Think of your face,” as she pulled a knife out of her belt and slashed the straps that held Ethan down.
Ethan turned, putting a foot down to ground himself. Then he got up, staggering and almost falling as they backed out of the room, Weaver covering them.
Ethan stepped over the unconscious bodies of Skinny and Quentin and went down a tunnel, where Gus waited, holding open a heavy door banded with iron. Then they were in familiar territory as Ethan recognized the brick tunnel.
“Where was I?”
“The engine room underneath the Devil's Drop,” Weaver said, pulling her goggles up. “They couldn't get you out of the park, because of all the people, but Frankie still spotted them dragging you down here. We'd have been here sooner, but Mab's the only person who speaks raven, and we had to find her.” She hustled ahead down the tunnel. She halted at some rungs and climbed. Ethan followed, with Gus bringing up the rear.
It was dark, and Ethan could hear the sound of crowds. “How long was I gone?”
“About five hours,” Weaver said. “Friday Screamland is almost over.”
“I think it's getting ready to start,” Ethan said.
Wild Ride
20
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The crowds excited Kharos. Knowing that he was just over twenty-four hours away from having all those souls to reap. It was unfortunate that he was surrounded by incompetence.
YOU WERE TO KILL THE HUNTER.
“Is that him speaking?” the woman named Ursula asked Ray. “It sounds weird.”
“It's inside your head,” Ray said.
“He's really a demon?” The woman stepped up to the statue. “Listen, if you're playing some sort of game on me, you're messing with the United States government, and no one messes with the United States government.”
If he were free, Kharos would have shown her what a demon was. He corrected himself - he would show her what a demon was. Soon. Very soon. But for now.
WE MUST KEEP THE GUARDIA ON THE DEFENSIVE.
“The minions,” Ray said. “They're gonna tear up the park, and we have one more night of Screamland to go. We need that money.”
YOU WILL SCREAM TOMORROW NIGHT, Kharos thought.
“Forget the park,” Ursula asked. “I'm talking about national security. I'm talking about my future.” She shook her head. “If I don't get out of this weirdo unit, my pension will be nothing when I retire. I need -”
ASSIST RAY. HAVE YOUR PEOPLE LEAD THE MINION ASSASSINATION SQUADS. TELL YOUR PEOPLE TO TELL THE MINIONS THAT THEY ARE THEIR LEADERS.
Behind her, Ray opened his mouth and then shut it again, looking shocked.
THEY WILL ATTACK ONE MINUTE AFTER MIDNIGHT ON HALLOWEEN.
“Hey,” Ursula said. “I don't take orders from a statue. I give the orders. I need you to kill somebody for me. One of my people betrayed me, held a gun on me. On me. She's staying here in the park. Sleeping in one of those ratty trailers with Ethan Wayne.”
THE HUNTER YOU FAILED TO KILL.
“Whatever,” Ursula said. “She's caused you problems, too. I want her eliminated.”
OF COURSE.
Ursula nodded at Ray and spoke in a low voice, as if Kharos could not hear. “He's pretty agreeable. This might work out.”
Ray rolled his eyes. “Yeah, he's a real sport.”
BEGIN THE ATTACKS ON THE GUARDIA AT ONE MINUTE AFTER MIDNIGHT.
“I got that,” Ray said. “What about Weaver?” Ursula said.
ADD HER TO THE ATTACKS.
“Can we watch?” Ursula said. “For research purposes, of course?”
Kharos looked at the gleam in her eye. OF COURSE.
Ursula nodded, satisfied, and said, “Good. I'll see you're rewarded for this.”
AND I WILL DO THE SAME FOR YOU.
Ray shot him a sharp look and then turned away, as if he didn't want to be involved. “Midnight,” he said, and walked away.
“He doesn't really have the liver for this,” Ursula said, scorn soaking her voice.
TOMORROW, YOU WON'T HAVE A LIVER, Kharos thought, and stayed silent until the woman was gone.
Ethan covered Gus as he locked the front gate, shooing the last drunk out of the park. It was just before midnight, and the moon was high overhead, casting short shadows in the park.
“Just one more night,” Gus said as he walked back over the causeway.
A stiff breeze blew off the water, the cold cutting into Ethan's skin under his armor and clothes. Discarded paper and other trash blew across the ground as they reentered the park.
“Let's do the midnight run,” Ethan said, “and get to the Keep. Weaver's there already, on watch. And get Glenda, too, while I do the last patrol around the park.”
“She probably ain't gonna want to go.”
“Convince her otherwise,” Ethan said. He could see lights on in the Dream Cream to the right and decided to check in on Cindy after the run.
Gus pulled his long worn coat tight around his thin frame. “Good idea.”
They passed the Double Ferris Wheel, and then the Dragon Coaster loomed ahead, and Ethan halted short
of it. “All yours, Gus."
Gus walked up to the control booth.
Ethan flipped down the demon goggles and scanned the area. All was quiet.
His cell phone vibrated.
“Yeah?”
"I've got multiple bogeys,' Weaver said.
“Where?” Ethan asked.
“Everywhere. Got a pack heading toward the Dream Cream. A pack heading toward the trailers. One toward the boathouse and Young Fred. An army heading toward you and Gus at the Dragon Coaster.”
“They're trying to take us all out at once.”
“I'm coming to you,” Weaver said. “You're going to be overwhelmed -”
“Negative,” Ethan ordered. “Get Glenda to safety, then cover Young Fred in the boathouse. I'll deal with things here, then go to the Dream Cream.”
“There's a lot of them,” Weaver said.
“I've got a lot of bullets.” Ethan ran up to the control booth of the Dragon, where Gus was looking at his watch. “We got company,” he told the old man as he turned to face the park.
Mab had told fortunes right up to eleven, then pulled out the Seer's diary she'd been studying all week and went over her notes one more time. If Ethan wanted them all in the Keep, she could use the opportunity to ask him about some of the stuff she'd found. The problem was that the diary Seer was a little erratic - whack job, Mab thought - so it was hard to tell what was truth and what was her fevered imagination. Some of it seemed really out there, like her belief that demons took on the attributes of the thing they possessed if they possessed it long enough, which meant that demons who possessed humans would become more . . . human.
That was food for thought.
And the idea that inanimate objects could take on emotions from the humans that were around them, like well-loved stuffed animals or prized artworks, and that demons who possessed those things often absorbed those emotions -
Frankie screamed up in the rafters and swooped down to her shoulder, and Mab slammed the book shut and stood up.
She'd learned not to ignore Frankie when he yelled.
She closed down the Oracle booth and came out onto the midway, moving slowly, looking in all directions before she stepped out onto the flagstones. Frankie was still hollering, so she said, “Show me,” and he flapped up above the park -
“You and that bird are really something,” Fun said from behind her, and she jerked around. “Probably the only real friend you got.”
He was in Drunk Dave again, but evidently Dave had been drinking even more heavily than usual, because he stumbled and slurred his words. How the hell did you get out of that chalice? she thought, and then he took a step closer and she stepped back.
Frankie was going crazy up in the sky, but she couldn't concentrate on him now, there was something really wrong with Fun -
“You stupid bitch,” Fun said. “You had to get pregnant. You know what that kid is going to look like? Horns and a tail, cloven hoofs, she's gonna get stoned on the playground and you won't he able to save her.”
“Stop it,” Mab said, taking a step back. “What's wrong with you?”
“She's gonna hate you the way you hate your mom,” Fun said. “She's going to spit on you every day she's alive.”
“I don't hate my mother,” Mab said, surprised to find it was true. “She did the best she could.”
“She was bat-shit crazy, and you're a demon who's bat-shit crazy, and your kid is the Antichrist, born to bring this world to hell.” Fun was lurching toward her now, and she backed toward the Dream Cream, ready to make a break for it as soon as he stumbled and fell. “Mutant bastard devil baby -”
He was saying all the things that were her worst nightmares, all the things she woke shaking about in the middle of the night, but they made no sense when he said them, they weren't what he'd say, something was very wrong -
“You're not Fun,” she said as she backed onto the flagstones of the midway. “I don't know what you are, but I know the father of my kid, and you are not him.”
The thing followed her, stupidity plain on Drunk Dave's slack face, and she tried to think of how to stop it. If it was a demon, iron would kill it, but it would kill Drunk Dave, too, if she stuck it in the wrong place. She kept backing across the flagstones until she hit the wrought-iron fence, and then she turned around and yanked one of the picket spears out and turned to face the thing.
“I'm Fun!” the thing roared at her, and lurched onto the flagstones and fell flat on Drunk Dave's face.
“Not even a little,” Mab said, and stabbed Drunk Dave in the arm with the picket.
The thing screamed, and the demon rushed out, a dark purple splotch with legs like a spider and she stabbed the picket down into the middle of it and watched it explode onto the flagstones, jumping back to avoid the splatter.
Beyond it, Drunk Dave groaned.
“Get out of here, ”she told him.
Dave passed out on the flagstones.
“Oh, hell,” Mab said, and took a step to help him, but then Frankie screamed again and she listened to him, concentrated on him, and saw what he saw: skeletons filing into the Dream Cream with Skinny and
Quentin behind them. “You're on your own,” she told Drunk Dave, and took off at a run for the Dream Cream.
Ethan knew the demons were out there, he could feel them, but even with the goggles, the park looked empty to him.
“They're after both of us,” Gus said, grabbing an iron-tipped spear from inside the control booth. “We split up, we got better odds. I'll draw whichever is after me off.”
“No,” Ethan said. “We stay -” But then one of Mab's ghosts flew at him, untriggered, and he thought, Fuck, and blasted it as half a dozen more swooped down, crashing into him so fast that he couldn't shoot and batted at them with the rifle instead. They backed off for the moment, encircling him.
Ethan blinked as the skull on the closest ghost morphed into a head, the face familar. He paused, finger on the trigger as it floated less than ten feet away.
“Captain Martin?” Ethan's mouth was dry. He knew it wasn't real, but there was no denying the face was that of his team leader. Behind the apparition were four other ghosts - bearing the faces of the other members of his team.
Ethan took a step back as they moved forward.
You failed us.
The words echoed in his head.
“I did the best I could.” He was talking to Mab's ghosts. It was insane.
You failed us.
The muzzle of the demon gun went down, the words slamming inside his head like sledgehammers.
Then the one that looked like his team leader raced forward and blanketed him with cheesecloth, and then the others swarmed him, and he couldn't breathe.
You failed us.
Ethan went to his knees, letting them take him. He needed to join his team. This was the only way to make amends.
You failed us.
But he didn't need to breathe.
The cheesecloth tightened around his mouth, around his neck, but he was fine. He was Guardia.
He hadn't failed his team, that team or his new one; he was Guardia, and that was why he had survived when the others perished. He'd survived because his team here needed him. He'd survived because he had a mission.
He whipped out his Hunter knife and slashed upward, parting the cheesecloth and splattering demon goo on the midway. He cut again and again, demon goo flying outward, until there were no more ghosts.
Then he stood up, free and furious. Somebody was playing mind games using minions, somebody was -
He heard a yell and turned and saw Gus facing down the Worm as it jerkily advanced down the midway toward him, each of its jointed cars moving as if possessed, now free of its old tracks over by the Tunnel of Love.
“No!” Ethan yelled as Gus hit the controls on the Dragon and then jumped into the coaster as the Worm chanted, “Coward, coward, you let him die,” and lurched up onto the Dragon tracks to follow him. The cars began to move, and the Worm
turned and went on an intercept course, inching up the track in the opposite direction, going to meet the old man standing in the front seat with his iron spear.
“Damn it, Gus, get out of there!” Ethan yelled, and ran toward the ride.
He reached the control booth and yelled, “Get off, Gus!” trying to stop the cars, but instead, Gus lowered the iron spear over the front of the first car. The cars began to accelerate, and the Worm raised up, mouth opening, its “Coward” chant deepening as it crawled the rails into the sky to meet Gus.
Wild Ride Page 36