Wild Ride (37 page)

The bottom of the spear-shaped iron picket didn't look right.

She bent down, her hand shaking in the cold, and yanked on it, and it came out of a bracket at the bottom, it wasn't welded on at all, and then she stood up, yanking it free from the bracket at the top, and realized it wasn't a picket, it was an iron spear. All the pickets were spears, stored in brackets on the wrought-iron rail.

“This fence is all over the park,” she whispered. “That means these pickets—”

Suddenly they were swarmed again, and Mab stabbed and slashed until he pulled her through the tunnel entrance and out onto the ramp, shielding her as he made short efficient stabs into the dolls' necks.

Articulated necks
, Mab thought; he'd found their weakness.

“Will you
run
?” he snapped at her, and she said,
“No,”
and began to stab for the neck, too.

“Damn it.” He turned back to the dolls and yelled, “Get that one, he's the leader!”

“What?” Mab said, but the demons stopped in their tracks, turning to look at one of the French demons, chittering now as it backed away, its beret askew.

Mab started to move, but the guy grabbed her arm, so she stood quietly, shuddering with the cold.

Then they all screamed and fell on the French doll, and the guy said,
“Now,”
and they tore out of the cruise tunnel and down the ramp and along the midway toward the Ferris Wheel to meet Ethan and Weaver, who were running toward them as Frankie swooped overhead, cawing at her, probably screaming,
How could you be so dumb?

“What the
hell
?” Weaver said to the guy as he stopped in front of her, Mab running into his back.

“That leader thing worked,” he said to Weaver, barely out of breath at all. “They're back in the Mermaid Cruise, killing one of their own.” Then he tugged on Mab's arm. “She's freezing, so if you don't need me on this—”

“Get her warm,” Ethan said. “We got this.”

The guy took the D-gun from Mab and handed it to Ethan. “This does
not work if they're inside wood. The pickets on the wrought-iron fence are spears. Jab them in the space between the joints, and you've got them.”

“Right,” Weaver said, and took off running for the Mermaid Cruise, Ethan hot on her heels.

The guy walked over to the paddleboat dock and picked up Mab's work bag from where she'd dropped it during the attack. He shoved it into her arms and said, “If we hurry, you'll be warmer.”

“Who
are
you?” she said, shivering in the dark as she took the bag.

He turned to her, his black-rimmed Coke-bottle glasses gleaming in the lousy light from the cellophane-covered streetlamps. “I'm Oliver.”

“Hello, Oliver,” Mab said, and let him pull her down the midway, running to keep up with him, Frankie keeping watch overhead.

E
than and Weaver found several dolls lying near the entrance to the cruise with goo eating through the wood, and one German doll just inside the tunnel, torn to pieces and leaking purple into the water in the tank.

“This is a mess,” Ethan said as he led Weaver into the dark tunnel, shining his Maglite ahead of them. “Remind me to tell Glenda to shut this ride down so we don't have to explain what wiped out France, Germany, and Hawaii. Or why the water looks like acid Kool-Aid.”

“Hawaii's a country?” Weaver said as she stared at the carnage next to the fence.

“When this thing was built, it was a territory,” Ethan told her. “So, that guy's your partner?”

“Yep. Oliver.”

“What was he doing with Mab?”

“Following her.”

“Why?”

“The same reason I followed you. She has a demon trace.”

“Yeah, but he didn't shoot her.”

“She wasn't trying to push Gus under the Dragon. I don't think there are any demons in here.”

Ethan stopped. “I wasn't trying to push Gus under the Dragon.”

“Well, it looked like you were.” Weaver kept on walking past China. “He wouldn't have shot her anyway. He's against shooting. He made me promise never to kill a demon unless it was attacking something. He said it was the only way there'd be any left for him to study.”

“Sounds like you have a good partnership,” Ethan said.

“Very good,” Weaver said, and then they were silent until they reached
the end of the ride, Weaver for her own reasons, Ethan because he suddenly discovered himself feeling something he'd never felt before.

Jealousy.

When they were out in the open again, Ethan said, “So. Did you and he ever—?”

“Yep,” Weaver said. “When we were done, he said, ‘That was very efficient.' I think we'd been partners too long.”

“Oh. So you're not now—”

“No, Ethan, now I'm with you. In Hank's trailer.”

“Oh. Uh, good.” Ethan looked around the park, trying to find another topic of conversation now that his future was back to bright again. Any topic of conversation. It was dark, except for the flashing light on top of the Devil's Drop and a few muted security lights here and there. “They're not going to stop coming.”

“Nope.”

“We need a plan.”

“Good idea.”

“I'm going to have to get the Guardia together tomorrow. Come up with a strategy.”

“Good,” Weaver said. “Thanks for being jealous.”

Ethan almost said,
I wasn't jealous,
but then he shrugged. “Sure,” he said, and they walked back to the trailers, arguing about the plan.

His future had never looked better.

 

B
y the time they got to Delpha's trailer, Mab's hair had started to freeze and she was shuddering inside Oliver's coat. He opened the door and pushed her in as Frankie swooped in to land on his nest over the kitchen. Oliver went past her, down the short hall, where he opened the bathroom door and reached in. She heard the water in the shower come on as she shuddered with the cold, and then he came back to her and stripped the coat off her.

“In,” he said. “You can take off your clothes in the shower, just get under the water,” and she stepped in, and he shut the door.

She walked under the water, only warm now but getting hotter, and
thought,
I can't take many more days like this
, and put her head against the shower wall and cried from exhaustion and near death and pregnancy and confusion.

Then the water got hotter and her clothes got heavier and she shoved everything off and stood naked as all the glorious warmth washed over her and brought her back.

Cold. It really shut down your ability to deal with life.

Somebody had put her soap and shampoo out—not Oliver, he hadn't had the time—and she washed off the last of the tank water, and thought,
Okay, now, what about him?
There was plenty of mystery there, Coke-bottle-glasses guy rescuing her from demons and knowing Weaver, but she was so damn
tired.
. . .

She turned off the water and reached for a towel, and then registered that there was a towel there. Somebody had unpacked her things and set up the trailer for her. Somebody had taken care of her. She felt tears start again and scrubbed them away with the towel, and then she put on her old blue terry cloth robe with the ducks and went out into the hall.

“Here,” Oliver said from the bedroom, and she stepped inside and he pointed to the bed, already made up and now piled high with blankets. “Get in,” he said, and she did, and he pulled the covers over her, and then stood there uncertainly while she shivered under the covers.

“Cold bed,” she said, trying to explain away her wimpiness.

“Okay,” he said, “scoot over,” and climbed in with her, pulling the comforter over her head, shielding her wet hair from the air.

She curled against him, tentatively at first and then closer—he was putting out heat like a furnace, which made sense since he'd been a dragon—and he put his arms around her as she snuggled against his nice hard chest and buried her face in his shirt. It smelled of soap and heat and him, something indefinably pleasant and right, something that sent a primordial tingle down her spine.
This is good
, she thought, knowing her brain was addled from exhaustion and cold.
This is really good.

He rubbed her back. “Go to sleep, you're all right now.”

He was taking care of her. Mab felt the tears start again. She was turning into a needy watering pot.
Pull yourself together. Act normal.
She sniffed and said, “So you're Weaver's partner?”

He reached behind him to the bedside table and got her a Kleenex. “Here. Yes, I'm Weaver's partner. Go to sleep.”

That sounded like a good idea. She blew her nose and then stuffed the Kleenex under her pillow and snuggled deeper into the bed, closer to him, sucking up his heat, relaxing in his arms until she was practically boneless. She was dry and warm and sleeping with a dragon. “You were a
great
dragon.”

“What?”

There was something she was forgetting, something that nagged at her as sleep fogged her brain. Something important. Then she remembered and woke up a little, pulling her head back to look up at him. “You should call your wife.”

He frowned down at her. “I'm not married.” He put his hand on her forehead. “Are you delirious?”

“No. Who's Ursula?”

“My boss.”

“Oh.”

His cool gray eyes were warm on her now, his face so close. He had a great mouth. A great, unmarried mouth.

“Good,” she said, and snuggled up against him again and sighed with exhaustion, safe in his arms.

His unmarried mouth quirked a little. “Why is that good?”

“Because I don't sleep with married men,” Mab said, and fell asleep.

 

W
hen Ethan and Weaver got to Hank's trailer, Ethan hesitated. “I'll just go sleep in the woods.”

“Right,” Weaver said, and opened the door and he followed her in and down the short hall to the bedroom, where she took off her coat, and he stopped, staring at the bed, now neatly covered with a plain black comforter and thirty inches of green-and-purple stuffed dragon with gold on its wings and chest.

“What?” Weaver said, stripping off her turtleneck.

“You brought the dragon.”

“Beemer? Of course, I brought Beemer.” Weaver took off her jeans.
“He lies ‘under the shadows, in the covert of the reeds and the swamp,' don't you, baby? This is his kind of place.”

“Oh,” Ethan said, still staring at the dragon. “Is he going to watch?”

Weaver took off her underwear and got into bed, patting Beemer, her breasts bouncing a little as she scooted over to give him room. “Sure. I usually talk to him at night, but since you're here, he can just—”

“No,” Ethan said, and put the dragon outside the bedroom door.

“Probably just as well.” Weaver pulled the covers up to her chin. “We wouldn't want to traumatize him.”

“We're going to do something that would traumatize him?” Ethan said, growing more cheerful as he stripped off his clothes and body armor.

“Oh, yeah,” Weaver said, and Ethan sighed and got into a warm bed for the first time in a long time.

Civilization had its perks.

 

K
haros waited for Ray to show up by recalling the various torments he could inflict on a soul once it was in his possession. There were a lot, and they were all extremely satisfying.

“Sorry, I'm late,” Ray said as he slumped down on the bench. “There's a government agent in the park. The boss of the woman with the gun that kills demons. I gotta tell you, this is turning into a real clusterfuck. I'm thinking it's better to wait until next Halloween. Maybe the one after that.”

WHAT DOES SHE WANT?

“Ethan. Says there's something weird about him. I got the impression she thought he was a demon or something.”

GLENDA'S SON? THE NEW HUNTER?

“Yeah.”

Kharos considered that.
GLENDA'S SON
.

Ray fidgeted. “I'm going to need more minions for the attack on Friday. The good news is Tura's chalice is in the Keep. Ethan took it over there.”

WHY DO YOU NEED MORE MINIONS
?

“Some of them attacked Mab. It didn't work out for them.”

WHY DID YOU SEND THEM TO ATTACK YOUR NIECE?

“I want the park,” Ray said, sounding impatient.

I SAID THE PARK WOULD BE YOURS
.

“Well, it's not, and I'm running out of time.” Ray stood up. “I've got people talking back to me, threatening me, taking my gun . . . it's not right. It's taking too long. I need the park
now
—”

More of his hair fell out.

“Oh,
come on
.”

GIVE ETHAN TO THE GOVERNMENT AGENT.

“But—”

TELL HER TO KILL HIM. THEN SEND ME YOUNG FRED.

“You know, he's not a big supporter of hurting the Guardia,” Ray said, his face flushing red. “He just wants the whole thing to end so he can retire. He has no idea of what you're up to. So if you're thinking he's going to replace me—”

THAT IS NOT YOUR CONCERN.

“Great,” Ray muttered. “You know, I've done everything you've told me to. I deserve better than—”

SOON YOU WILL HAVE EVERYTHING YOU DESERVE.

“Oh,” Ray said, looking nervous this time. “I'll, uh, get on that government agent thing.”

He walked away faster than usual, looking back over his shoulder once.

Not as dumb as Kharos had thought.

But still dumb enough.

Kharos returned to the new problem.

Glenda's son was part demon.

THAT CANNOT BE
, Kharos thought, but if it was true . . .