Wild Ride (43 page)

“Might be doable,” Ethan said, not really giving a shit what Ray wanted.

“All right. Meet me, alone, at the OK Corral in ten minutes.”

“You gotta be shitting me.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I'll see you there. Make it fifteen minutes. Something I have to do first.”

“Who was that?” Mab said as he hung up.

“Ray.”

“You're making a deal with Ray? So not a good idea.”

“You stay on the research,” Ethan told her as he headed for the door. “I'll handle Ray.”

“Okay,” Mab called after him. “But if I never see you again, remember I told you so.”

 

B
ack at his trailer, Ethan checked his Mark 23, making sure it had a round in the chamber and was off safe. He wished Weaver were around as backup—Ursula had called her in to work—since he couldn't call any
of the other Guardia on this: Gus was too old, and Mab and Cindy—well, the OK Corral wasn't their thing. Young Fred wasn't even on the reliable radar. He needed Doc Holliday.

Ethan walked past the Devil's Drop, glaring at the Devil statue in front, sensing Kharos's evil, then up to the three booths that made up the OK Corral games. He went to the gunslingers booth and stood to one side as he flipped down the plywood covering the front.

No shots rang out, so he peered around the corner, muzzle of the Mark 23 leading. Ray was standing there beyond the counter, among the statues of two Clanton brothers, the two McLaury brothers, and Billy Claiborne. At least Dreamland had some aspect of history correct, Ethan thought as he watched Ray raise his empty hands.

“You alone?” Ray called out.

“Yeah. You?”

“Nah, I'm not that stupid.”

Ethan spun about. A man standing twenty feet away fired a Taser, the metal barb striking Ethan in the leg.

Electricity coursed through his body, causing his muscles to contract, and Ethan fell to the ground as Ray laughed. Then a second man came up and whipped a black hood over his head, and through the pain Ethan felt the pinprick of a needle jabbed into his arm and then there was nothing.

 

E
than woke to darkness.

He was bound horizontally by straps across his body. The air was damp, and Ethan picked up an odor of evil permeating whatever enclosure he was in. He'd sensed this before, in Kandahar, when he'd dropped off a high-profile prisoner his team had captured to the CIA at their special facility near the airfield. He'd gotten the hell away from the place as quickly as possible.

He knew he wasn't getting away from here anytime soon.

He lifted his head and saw a small red light, indicating he was being watched by an infrared camera. A shaft of light cut into the room as a door opened. Ethan blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust. It got harder
to do that as a floodlight hanging five feet above him came on, bathing him in its glow.

“Master Sergeant Ethan John Wayne,” a woman's voice came out of the darkness surrounding the cone of light.

Ethan closed his eyes and remained silent.

“Actually, you're not a master sergeant anymore. You never served in the Army. Never were awarded the Silver Star. You were never born. You don't exist. If you never make it out of this room alive, no one will know.”

“Hey, Ursula,” Ethan said. He could see the silhouettes of two figures behind her in the doorway.

“In fact, we believe there is a distinct possibility you're not even human, based on your blood work. Did you know that there's estimated to be less than one ounce of francium on the entire crust of the planet? And that it's radioactive and should decay rapidly? Yet you have it in your blood.”

Ursula stepped forward into the light. Two guys came up on either side of her, sandwiching her small frame, one tall and skinny, the other short and fat, a stick and a blob.

“I don't believe in demons,” she said, “despite Agent Weaver's outlandish after-action reports from the Dreamland Amusement Park. But something very odd is going on in this park. So why don't you tell me what that is? I asked nicely the other night, and you ignored me.”

“You didn't ask nicely.”

“It was nicely for me,” she said with all sincerity. “This is a matter of national security. Don't you feel a sense of duty to your country?”

Ethan blinked. “You just told me I don't exist. What sense of duty to what?”

Ursula tapped a finger against her upper lip, as if trying to decipher what he'd just said. Ethan could see the nail was chewed down. “I need to know if I can use this park. You'll talk.”

“You can make anyone talk,” Ethan said to Ursula. “The question is, can you believe them?”

“Are there demons in this park?” Ursula said. “Can they be used in combat? As forces on their own or weaponized?”

Ursula weaponizing demons. Ethan closed his eyes. The fallout from that would be catastrophic, especially since the supply of minion demons seemed endless.
Their name is Legion
, Weaver had said, and Ethan could see legions of minions, swarming the battlefield, feeding on pain and despair, growing stronger, out of control—

“No,” he said.

Ursula turned to the skinny guy. “He's yours.”

“Now we got some options here, ma'am,” he said. “Like your pliers to the teeth. Or fingernails. Ice pick in the eye is gruesome but effective, especially when the remaining eye sees it coming. Then you got your teeth drilling, aka
Marathon Man
, but the equipment is a pain to haul around. Electricity works well.”

The porky one indicated the damp walls.

“Right, not here,” Skinny said. “Now me, I'll take a good old phone book beating any day, nothing fancy, nothing that's more about the guy doing the torture than it is about the guy getting the torture, if you know what I mean. Plus it don't leave no marks.” He looked over Ursula at his partner. “You know what I think, Quentin? I think you gotta focus on results, not drama. That's what I think. I say phone book.”

“Waterboarding,” Quentin said.

“Okay,” Skinny said.

“Just do it,” Ursula snapped.

They went out the open door and came back in. One carried a bucket, the other a wad of cloth.

Ethan tensed, losing his sense of humor.

“No one lasts more than twenty seconds,” Ursula said. She looked at her watch. “I've got the time.”

“The record at SERE is fifty-two seconds,” Ethan said.

“SERE?” Ursula asked.

“Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape school at Fort Bragg,” Ethan said, trying to buy time.

“Really? Who holds it?”

“I do.” And he finally knew why he held it. And why he'd survived Afghanistan. He was Guardia.

“Impressive.” She smiled coldly. “I think I can spare a minute.”

She nodded to the men and left, and Skinny cranked something under the wooden slab Ethan was tied to and it tilted, his head going about a foot lower than his feet. Quentin placed the cloth over Ethan's face, covering it completely.

“You know this is illegal now,” Ethan said, his voice muffled by the cloth. “New administration and all.”

He realized he was hyperventilating and tried to relax. He found a calm spot deep inside, a place he'd never experienced before. His breathing slowed, even as he sensed Quentin lifting the bucket. Ethan closed his eyes and shut his mouth under the cloth. Closed all off.

Water poured into the cloth, into his nose, flowing upward.

And stopped. He wasn't breathing but he felt no lack of air. Everything was still except for the sound of the water being slowly poured onto the cloth and his face. It sounded gentle to Ethan, like a summer drizzle. His mind floated away to memories of his childhood in Dreamland.

Ethan blinked away water as light blasted into his eyes as the cloth was pulled away from his face.

“What the hell are you?” Ursula demanded.

“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 I 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.

T
he 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.”