Wild Ride (13 page)

“No, you can't.” Ethan looked at his hands. They were shaking. Damn alcohol. “These are all tricks, and it's not a good time for them. The black ops guy who shot me, he's dangerous. I think this woman I met tonight, Weaver, is up to something, so if you're hiding anything, watch out for her. And I'd bet money Ray's got a plan you're not going to like, buying into this place. You have to stop playing games, you have real problems, but they're human, not demon.”

Glenda's face was hard. “Ethan, we've been patient but—”

“No.” Ethan stood and turned for the door.

“Ethan, get back here—”

“I'll help you,” he said to her. “But not with this fairy-tale stuff.” And then he went out, leaving them to their collective insanity.

R
ay sat down beside Kharos's statue, lit a cigar, and said, “Your mermaid just killed somebody.”

Kharos seethed. He was getting plenty of practice at seething.

“It's not my fault,” Ray said. “And the Guardia aren't any happier than you are. You should have seen their faces.”

Kharos stopped seething.
ARE THEY DESPAIRING
?

“They looked . . . tired, I guess. Well, they're old. Gus is pushing eighty, and Delpha's in her nineties. Even Glenda's almost sixty.”

Kharos considered that. They were old, but they had experience and they knew that Fufluns and Tura were out. They were on guard now. But not resilient, they were tired, Ray said. That meant they were losing faith, the first step on the road to despair.

Ray took another drag on his cigar. “I couldn't find Fufluns, either. I touched iron to as many people as I could and got nothing. He could be anywhere in anyone. Who the hell knows?”

If Tura was exhausting the Guardia, that was good. But it could be better. More trauma meant more exhaustion, confusion, mistakes.

BRING IN MINIONS
.

“What? Oh, hell.” Ray exhaled. “I don't like them, little rabid animals, always chattering and ganging up on things that are smaller than they are. It's like herding pit bulls on meth. Where do I get them this time?”

I WILL CALL THEM AND THEY WILL COME TO YOU. BRING THEM ACROSS THE RIVER IN A BOAT. DON'T LET THEM TOUCH THE MOVING WATER
.

Ray nodded. “You know, if we gave ourselves some more time, a couple years maybe, we could really—”

NO
.

Ray sighed and said, “Fine,” and then stood up and left, striding down the midway as if he owned it, or thought he would shortly.

Kharos forgot him to concentrate on thoughts of the old Guardia wearing themselves out dealing with Tura and an infestation of minion demons, falling into hopelessness before he escaped and killed them. He could almost taste their despair. It had been so long, too long, since he'd fed, too long since he'd felt anything.

SOON
, he told himself, and began to call the minions.

 

W
hen Mab came down for breakfast, Cindy was waiting for her, hands on her hips.

“There was an ambulance down here last night,” she said as Mab sat down at the counter.

“I know.” Mab put her hat on the counter and her bag on the floor and tried to look normal after a night of almost no sleep.

“You look awful,” Cindy said. “What
happened
?”

“A guy named Karl had a heart attack and died in front of the carousel.”

“Carl who runs the Whack-A-Mole?” Cindy said, horrified.

“No,” Mab said. “Big guy. Bald. Married. Fooling around with Ashley.”

“Oh, Karl the Cheater.” Cindy relaxed. “Well, may he rest in peace, the son of a bitch. Carl Whack-A-Mole is a good guy, but Karl the Cheater we can spare.”

“What?” Mab said, appalled. A man had died, right there at her feet—

“Wife-beater,” Cindy said, looking almost angry. “Sleeps with anything that will say yes, then goes home and hits her. Awful, awful man.”

“Oh.” Mab felt the weight that had kept her from sleeping the night before lift a little as she considered it. It would be so much tidier if she didn't have to feel bad about Karl's death. If she hadn't seen the body, it would even be feasible.

“Once I found out he was scum, I wouldn't sell him ice cream,” Cindy said. “He got nasty, tried to grab me.”

“What?”
Mab said, outraged.

“So I stabbed him with a fork, and then Gus took him out.”

“Gus?”

“Gus has his moments.” Cindy looked at her sympathetically. “That must have been awful for you, finding him dead.”

“It was,” Mab said. “I was so tired when I got home, I could barely walk, but then I couldn't sleep. I should have talked to you.”

Cindy nodded. “Always talk to me. Tell me you weren't alone when you found him.”

“No, I was with—”

The door opened, bell jingling, and Cindy beamed past Mab at the newcomer. “Well, hello and welcome back.”

Mab turned and there was Joe, sliding onto the seat beside her, and her heart kicked up a beat, which was just foolish of it, and then he leaned in and kissed her, and she kissed him back because who wouldn't?

When she stopped to breathe, she rested her forehead against his, so glad he was there that it worried her, but then he brushed back her hair with his finger and said softly, “You okay?” and she felt so much better that she smiled.

“It turns out Karl was a cheater and a wife-beater. And not Carl from the Whack-A-Mole, so we can spare him.”
Kiss me again.

“Good to know,” Joe said, and kissed her again.

It was the best breakfast she'd had in years.

“I can't stay,” he said when she pulled back again to breathe. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. By the time I came back, they'd locked the gate to the bridge. I didn't want you to be alone.” He grinned at Cindy. “But then I remembered who you roomed with.”

Cindy grinned back.

“I'm fine,” Mab said, amazed that he'd tried to come back.

He looked back from Cindy to her, as if he'd forgotten for a moment that she was there, and put his hand on her back and rubbed a little. Friendly. Warm. “So, can I talk you into hot dogs and beer tonight?”

He smiled at her, that glorious, crooked, sunny smile that melted her toes, and she smiled back, helpless.

“Yes. I'll be at the Fortune-Telling Machine.”

“Then that's where I'll come get you.” He kissed her again, and something unfamiliar welled up inside her,
bubbled
up inside her, and she realized it was happiness, not contentment, not satisfaction,
happiness
. She
kissed him again, and then he got up, waved to Cindy, swooped in for a final kiss, and left.

Mab blinked a couple of times to get her bearings, and then turned back to Cindy, who looked delighted. And avid.

“I want to know
everything
,” she said, leaning over the counter. “This is so
good
for you.”

Mab took a deep breath just to get her lungs back to normal. “He took me to dinner at the Beer Pavilion, and then we frenched on the carousel, and then I fell over Karl. Dead Karl, not Whack-A-Mole Carl.”

“Whoa,” Cindy said. “That's some first date.”

“I don't think it was actually a date,” Mab said, trying to evaluate things calmly.

“You got tongue on a carousel. That's a date.”

“It ended with a dead body,” Mab pointed out.

“Yes, but it was Karl's,” Cindy said. “You said heart attack, right?”

“I think so, but . . .” She hesitated, knowing what was coming. “. . . he had this wavy mark on his chest . . .”

Cindy straightened. “He had
the mark
?” She shook her head, marveling. “
My god
, you have a great life.”

“Because I fell over Dead Karl?”

“You got a robot clown, you got a hot guy, and now you're part of the legend. Mary Alice Brannigan, this is your week.” Cindy beamed at her. “I'd give you ice cream on the house, but you get that anyway.” Then she got serious. “So what does this mark look like?”

“Just a black wavy line.”

“Oh.” Cindy pulled back, disappointed. “I was hoping for a skull or at least a big black
X
. Just a wavy line . . .” She shrugged.

“On
a dead guy
,” Mab pointed out.

“Okay, points for that. You want waffles? I've got a new flavor, but it's a love potion and you clearly are past that.”

“Past what?” Mab said. “Joe? He's just—”

“Don't even try to pretend,” Cindy said. “He's probably carving your initials inside a heart on something right now. And I hope for his sake it isn't anything you painted.”

Mab laughed and Cindy looked surprised.

“What now?” Mab said.

“I've never heard you laugh before.” Cindy looked amazed. “Wow. I made Mab Brannigan laugh.”

“I laugh,” Mab said, and then realized she couldn't remember when. She certainly
had
laughed. Some time. In her life. “I'm not . . . emotional. My mother used to get upset when I'd cry or get angry, so I stopped. It makes life a lot easier if you just don't react to things.”

“Like Joe,” Cindy said.

“Well,” Mab said, and found herself smiling again.

“Dreamland is very good for you,” Cindy said smugly. “So waffles? With a little What-Love-Can-Do strawberry ice cream in between them?”

“What's in . . .” Mab began and then thought,
What the hell
, and said, “Yes. That's what I want.”

Cindy went down the counter and started the waffles, and Mab put her mind back where it belonged, on the Fortune-Telling Machine. But this time, instead of thinking about colors, she thought about Vanth. Vanth was new information, a name she could look up. There might be pictures. . . .

Cindy came back, and Mab said, “Do you still have your laptop under the counter?”

“Yep.” Cindy pulled it out and handed it over.

Mab opened Cindy's browser and typed in
Vanth
, hit the URL for Wikipedia, and read out loud, “ ‘Vanth is a female demon in the Etruscan underworld.' ”

“Good to know,” Cindy said, looking confused.

“Vanth is the name on the Fortune-Telling Machine,” Mab told her, and read the rest of the entry while Cindy slapped her waffles and love potion together. Then she pushed the laptop around so Cindy could read for herself. She picked up her spoon and tasted the pink ice cream, momentarily distracted from demon lore. “Strawberries, passion fruit, and . . . ?”

“Honey, vanilla, and cinnamon,” Cindy said, squinting at the screen as she skimmed the article. “Maybe she's an oracle. Oh. No, she's not. But this says she's benevolent. She even has a boyfriend. A demon named Kharos.” Her face changed.

“What?” Mab said around a mouthful of waffle.

“He's a bastard. The Etruscan Devil.”

“I'll tell her he's no good for her.” Mab cut into her waffle again.

“You talk to her?”

Mab nodded, swiveling the computer back around to her with one hand while she scooped waffle and cream with the other. “She talks back. With cards.”

“Cards,” Cindy said. “The machine talks to you with cards.”

“Old fortunes. Like these.” Mab reached in the side pocket of her bag where she'd stashed the cards, but they weren't there. “I had cards.” She put down her fork and went through the other pockets, but still no cards. “Who took my cards?”

“I didn't see any cards,” Cindy said, clearly trying to follow.

Mab dropped her bag to the floor. “Am I losing my mind?”

“No, but something's going on.” Cindy leaned against the back counter. “Cards, heart attacks, robot clowns. Maybe we're being haunted by Etruscan demons.”

“In southern Ohio,” Mab said. “I don't think so.” She forked another piece of waffle and then stopped. “Wait a minute. Glenda's son mentioned somebody. . . .”

She pulled the laptop closer and typed
Fufluns
into the browser, hit the first URL, and read, “ ‘In Etruscan mythology, Fufluns was a god of happiness and growth in all things. He later appears as an underworld demon, supplanted in the pantheon by Bacchus.' Fun guy. Except for the demon part.”

“FunFun?”

“Fufluns.”

Cindy frowned. “He starts out as a god and ends up a demon?”

Mab shrugged. “It says ‘supplanted by Bacchus.' He's the Roman god of drunken revelry and general good times. Maybe two was a crowd, so Fufluns got moved to the basement.”

“Pink-slipped into hell.” Cindy shook her head. “Poor guy.”

Mab closed her browser. “Don't feel too bad. He's not real. But this whole Etruscan thing . . .” She shook her head. “I'm confused.”

“You should go ask Delpha,” Cindy said. “She knows everything. And she's never wrong.”

Mab was tempted, which was insane. She looked around the shop, looking for normal life. There were two mothers with little kids there, and a retired couple oohing and aahing over their ice cream, and two seats down the counter, the fair-haired guy with the big black-rimmed Coke-bottle glasses, finished with his waffles and ice cream, his green trilby on the seat beside him, his notebook open in front of him. What would it be like to be them, not dealing with Dead Karl and Etruscan demons?

She shook her head. “I think I should go to work.”

“That will be soothing for you,” Cindy said.

“It will,” Mab said, and picked up her work bag.

“And after that there's Joe,” Cindy said happily. “You are one lucky woman.”

“Yes,” Mab said, surprised to realize that she was.

In fact, if somebody would explain all the craziness to her so she could stop wondering about it, her life would be just about perfect.