Wild Ride (21 page)

She put her hand on the latch and thought,
Of course, it's like this
, and pushed the latch in, lifting it at the same time, as if she could see how to do it.

The door swung open, squeaking, its hinges loose again.

The dust was thick inside, coating everything in a gray blanket. The back of the Vanth statue was a single sheet of it, and Mab realized that was because she had some kind of scarf or shawl that fell from the top of her head. She reached up gingerly and found two clips welded to the top of the statue. When she flipped those open, the scarf fell, the dust sheeting off as Mab caught it before it hit the ground and shook it out.

It was blue, sky blue, madonna blue, made of something so slippery, so finely woven, that the dust didn't stick at all. Mab shook it again, marveling at how beautiful it was and then folded it carefully and put it into her work bag.

“Okay, then.” She put her hands on the waist of the Vanth statue and tugged on it to gauge the weight, and it rolled out of the box, almost
knocking her down before she stopped it. She got a clean, soft cloth from her bag and began to wipe the dust from the back, uncovering beautiful paintwork in the statue's blue drapery, untouched by sun or weather, making her way around to the front of the statue, where she gently brushed the dust from the delicately painted face. When she was done, she stood back to see what she had.

Vanth was serenely beautiful, thick auburn hair and big sky-blue eyes, looking almost maternal in her round benevolence, her arms out and her hands cupped. She looked like she was reaching for something, her hands grasping, and as Mab watched, the statue began to roll toward her.

“Whoa,” Mab said, and caught it, her hands on Vanth's arms. “Hang on there. . . .”

Her voice died as she stared into those painted blue eyes. There was something behind there.

“Vanth?” she said. “You're in there, aren't you? This is where they keep you. In your . . . chalice . . . cup cell thing.” She waited, but nothing happened except a growing conviction on her part that she was right and that Vanth should go back inside her booth. Soon.

“Wait here,” she said to the statue. “I have to clean that booth out. It's a mess.”

She waited a moment and then stepped back, and the statue didn't roll.

“Okay. Just give me half an hour to clean out that booth. Don't
go
anywhere.”

She picked up her cleaner and more rags and moved into the booth, doing a fast but thorough basic house cleaning in there, since none of the colors needed retouching, protected by the dust and out of the weather.

So if Vanth was inside the statue, could she get away? Fufluns had taken his statue and run when she'd put the key in, so apparently Vanth could, too. No, wait, Vanth couldn't get out; her statue hadn't been unlocked. Fufluns hadn't run until she'd put the panpipes in and wiggled them. So as long as she didn't put anything in anywhere . . . She finished cleaning the glass and wiped down the surface of the counter and the glass ball glued to the counter. Then she backed out of the box and turned to the Vanth statue. “There. It's beautiful for you.”

Vanth sat there, unmoving.

Well, good. That meant she was still locked up.

Mab pushed the statue back into the booth, feeling it roll into grooves in the floor that kept it stable. She got the blue shawl out of her bag, clipped it back onto Vanth's head, and settled it around her shoulders and over her arms. Then she closed and latched the door and went around to the front, marveling at the beauty of it all: the delicate figure, the detailed sides of the box that she'd be painting soon, the arched roof with the raven on the top . . .

“What do you think, Frankie?” she called up.

He moved from foot to foot, not happy but not flying away, either.

“That's what I think, too. Don't worry, but be careful.” She went closer to the box and looked inside. “It's you, isn't it? Vanth?”

The gears moved and a card shot into the tray.

Mab picked it up.

HELLO, MAB.

M
ab swallowed hard. “Hello. You, uh, you look beautiful.” Another card:

LET ME OUT
.

Mab took a step back, looking at the cards in her hands. “No. No, absolutely not, never. You—” She looked closer at the cards. They looked . . . fuzzy around the edges. The more she stared at them, the flimsier they got until she could see through them, they were dissolving, and then they were gone and she was looking at her empty hands. “They're not cards,” she said to Vanth. “They're an illusion. You made me think they were cards.” She took another step back. “I don't like it. Don't do that anymore.” She brushed her hands off, as if the illusion had left dust, and then she said, “I'm going to do the undercoat on your box now. You sit tight.”

She opened the first bottle of paint she'd mixed and looked at the primed booth.

As if by magic, she saw where that color went, where it blended with the other two underpaint colors, how the entire underpainting had been done.

Seer
, she thought.
Delpha gave me the power to see things.

That was a good power. If she'd had it from the beginning of the park restoration, things would have gone a lot faster.

Of course, it was probably supposed to be used for other things. Like . . .

She put down the paint and stepped closer to the box, looking into Vanth's flat painted eyes, and then, with effort, beyond, to what at first was a faint blue cloud that became upon concentration a pulsing form inside the statue.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “You look like a really nice demon. But I'll never let you out.”

The blue pulsed harder, sad and angry and alone.

“I'm
really
sorry,” Mab said, and went back to her paint, thinking hard.

A couple of hours ago, she had offered to give Delpha's legacy to someone else. But now if she could keep the power and the Airstream—

Frankie cawed above her.

—and Frankie, without getting swept up in some demon vigilante group, that could be wonderful. A home of her own with a magic table that warded off evil, her own instincts supernaturally enhanced—

Frankie cawed above her.

—and a bird to live with and talk to, these were good things.

“I just don't want to be a demon cop,” she told Frankie. “And it's not fair to cherry-pick the good stuff and dump the bad on somebody else.”

Frankie cawed again. It sounded like
coward
this time.

“You're probably right,” she said, and began to paint the Fortune-Telling Machine.

 

E
than had thought about having Weaver under him, but not like this.

“Who the hell are you?” Ethan demanded.

“Weaver. We've met, remember?” She looked up at him and he felt himself drawn into those eyes. “Could you get your knee off my chest? Kind of hurts.”

Ethan removed his knee. “Kind of hurts to get shot by that thing you carry.”

Weaver grunted in pain as she sat up. “The D-gun. I invented it.”

“D-gun?”

“Demon gun.” She unbuckled the black bulletproof vest she'd been wearing and pulled it off, revealing a thin black turtleneck underneath.

It was chilly in the basement of the Keep.

“Oh, grow up,” Weaver snapped as she rubbed through her shirt between her breasts and he stared. “What are you, fourteen? And did you have to shoot me?”

“Did
you
have to shoot
me
?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

That brought a long silence.

“You thought I was a demon, didn't you?” Ethan asked. “Do you just go around shooting people you think look demonic?”

“Well, so far it's working.” She looked around the room. “So this is what, where amusement parks go to die?”

“Storeroom,” Ethan said. “So how did you find out about the demons?”

“We're under the Keep, right?”

Ethan didn't like being questioned, and he especially didn't like having his questions ignored. “Who are you? Who do you work for? And how the hell did you know there were demons in Dreamland?”

Weaver considered him, her green eyes narrowed. “Okay, that's fair.” She lifted her tight turtleneck slightly, revealing a sliver of smooth skin and a platinum badge that Ethan didn't recognize.

Ethan blinked. “You're a cop?”

“Homeland Security. Department 51.”

Great. The government.
“You search demons at airports?”

“Oh, funny.” Weaver picked up her vest and slid it back on, disappointing Ethan as she buckled up. “Department 51 is a secret department detailed to study, among other things, whether demons exist and if they do, to evaluate their possible threats and . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

“And uses,” Ethan said. “Somebody in the government is insane enough to think that demons could be used as weapons?”

“That would be my boss,” Weaver said. “Fortunately, she doesn't believe in demons, so that threat isn't great right now.”

“She doesn't believe in demons and she's your boss?”

Weaver pushed herself up off the floor, wincing a little. “She's the boss of a lot of little departments that deal in odd things. I think she screwed up and got the assignment as a punishment. She puts up with us on the off chance that we'll actually find something she can use to get back to the top.”

“And have you?”

“Isn't it my turn to ask a question?” she said, smiling at him.

“No. What are you doing in Dreamland?”

“We're just checking out the place, eating funnel cakes, the usual.”

“Who's we?”

“Department 51. My partner and me. We don't have a large department.” She began to walk around the room, looking into boxes, frowning.

“How large is it?”

“My partner and me”

“Like
The X-Files.
”

“Only we're real and we don't banter.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“Staying at this really annoying B and B in town. There are teddy bears on the bed and my partner doesn't like teddy bears—”

“What are you doing in Dreamland?”

Weaver stopped poking into junk and frowned harder. “My turn to ask questions. What are you doing down here? There's nothing here. You had a man die two nights ago, and you're cleaning the basement?”

“You were asking questions about Ray that night in the Beer Pavilion. Are you here watching him? Were you watching him last night?”

She crossed her arms. “So it seems we both need information. And I've been giving up a lot more than you have.” She smiled at him again, and he thought,
Play your cards right, I'll tell you anything.
“How about a deal? I tell you exactly what we're doing, what we've found—well, some of it—and you agree to tell us what you're doing and to let us give you a physical. Normal stuff, vital signs, draw a little blood . . .”

Ethan tried not to think about Weaver giving him a physical. “Why? And who would do the examining?”

“My partner. He's a doctor.”

“Good for him,” Ethan said, disappointed. “Why do you want my blood?”

Weaver smiled at him without a trace of sincerity. “Just a general checkup. I'd be really grateful if you'd let us—”

“How grateful?” Ethan said. “Because I could use half a dozen of those demon guns. What are the goggles for?”

“Oh, you'd really like the goggles,” Weaver said. “You'd give me your blood for the goggles alone.”

“No, I wouldn't,” Ethan said. “What do they do?”

“They highlight francium,” Weaver said, watching him.

“Francium.”

“The most unstable element in the universe. Evil is drawn to instability, so francium is the only concrete thing it can bind to. That's what demons are made of, evil and francium. And some trace elements, of course, but francium is the key. And these—” She dangled the goggles in front of him. “—see francium, so they see demons. Wherever demons are, these goggles can find them.”

Ethan nodded. “Good, I'll take a half dozen of those, too. Plus everything you know about Ray. Basically, you tell me everything about your mission, and the real reason you want my blood, and hand over the equipment, and I'll let you do a physical. If you do the physical. Here in Dreamland.”

“I don't think so,” Weaver said.

“Then you can't poke at me,” Ethan said, and she smiled, this time with that glint in her eye, and he thought,
Oh, sure you can.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Gus asked from the top of the stairs, and they both turned in surprise. He had a dusty leather bag slung over one shoulder, the tips of several swords and lances poking out the top.

Weaver waved. “Hey, Gus. How you doing?”

“This is Weaver, you met her at the Pavilion,” Ethan said.

“I bought you beer,” Weaver called up to him.

Gus nodded and came down the stairs balancing the bag on his back, and they both watched him, holding their breaths. At least Ethan did. Weaver's chest wasn't moving so he assumed—

“I got the mold,” Gus said to Ethan when he got to the bottom.

“What mold?” Weaver asked.

“Hobby of Gus's,” Ethan said.

“We'll take it to Mab with—”

“Good job, Gus,” Ethan said, clapping him on the shoulder before Gus could say
the chalice
. “You take that to Mab. Weaver and I have some trading to do.”

“So tell me about the mold, Gus,” Weaver said, turning all her wattage on the old man.

“No,” Gus said.

Evidently beer could only buy so much.

Weaver picked up the D-gun from where it had fallen to the floor. “Okay, then. I will consult with my partner and get back to you. In the meantime, you might reconsider your terms. You've got big problems here. I can help you solve them.”