Wild Ride (42 page)

“No, I want to make sure you're okay with all of this.” Ethan tried to find his warm, sympathetic, understanding side and then realized he didn't have one. “You're the newest, and you weren't paying much attention at the meeting in the Keep. I—”

“Yes, I was,” Cindy said, unfazed. “And I've been paying a lot of attention to the book Mab gave me. It's slow going, but I'm learning many things. Including how to control the dragons. Most of them. Really, my skill set is vastly enhanced, as Mab would say.”

“Well, that's good,” Ethan began, and the door opened and a teenager came in, gangly and goofy and happy looking, and sat down one seat away from him.

“Be right back,” Cindy said, and dished up a waffle.

Then she took the bowl into the storeroom and came out with a pile of orange ice cream on top of the pastry and put it in front of the boy.

“You look like somebody who'd be up for experimental ice cream,” she said, beaming at him. “Cinnamon Surprise. On the house.”

“Great!” the kid said, and dug in as Cindy moved back down to Ethan.

“So it's good you're learning, uh, many things,” Ethan said. “But what we need—”

“Like it's not all spells, although Glenda gave me some of that, too. She says I'm a natural,” Cindy said, watching the kid shovel ice cream.

“That's good,” Ethan said again, “but what we need are practical skills—”

The boy dropped his spoon on the counter with a clatter and began to choke.

“Like now I can spot a demon as soon as he walks through the door.” She leaned over the counter to the boy and said, “That's for knocking up Mab and lying to her.”

Ethan saw the yellow flash in the kid's eyes, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him to the door as Cindy dumped the bowl of ice cream into the trash and the entire Dream Cream froze, watching them. Then Cindy said, “Everything is just
fine
!” in Glenda's overbright version of these-are-not-the-droids-you're-looking-for, and they all went back to chatting and eating.

Ethan dragged Fun around to the deserted side of the building and slammed him against the striped paneling.

“Easy,” Fun said, still gasping. “I'm dying here.”

“As long as it's you and not the host, I don't care,” Ethan said, and then Cindy came out and joined them, looking very Midwestern and cheery in her pink stripes, the sequins on her turquoise cardigan glittering in the October sun as she hugged herself to keep warm.

“What was in that?” Fun said, starting to recover.

“Iron rust,” Cindy said. “Looks just like cinnamon. And I have
gallons
of it.”

“Look,” Fun said, smiling at them as he choked. “I know about the baby, and I think it's great. I've never had a kid—”

“You're not going to have one now.” Ethan hit him, knocking him cold, and then let him drop to the ground. “You knocked up my sister, you bastard.”

“Might want to go easy on the body,” Cindy said. “That's Jerry Ferris Wheel.”

“The Ferris Wheels are having a bad week.” Ethan picked up the unconscious teenager. “I'll take him to the Keep, you call Mab to bring the chalice and get everybody else you can.”

“I'll go with you,” Cindy said, and made her calls while she walked beside Ethan, who had Fun over his shoulder. They got some looks, but Cindy would smile that amazing smile and say,
“We're fine, thanks,”
and people would nod and move on.

“Okay,” Ethan said after he loaded Fun into one of the paddleboats. “I apologize for doubting the new skills.”

“You haven't seen anything yet,” Cindy said, and got in the boat with him.

 

M
ab had just settled in on the velvet banquette in her trailer with a bowl of vegetable soup when she heard a knock at the door. She slid out from behind the malachite table and opened the door.

Weaver stood there with a pained look of friendliness on her face.

“You don't have to fake it,” Mab said. “I'm good with open hostility.”

Weaver's smile disappeared into her sigh. “I'm not hostile. You're hostile. I'm . . . exasperated.”

“Come on in, Exasperated,” Mab said, and stood back to let her in.

“Wow.” Weaver took in the gold-starred walls and the branch crown molding with Delpha's urn ensconced next to Frankie's nest. “This is . . .”

“Delpha's,” Mab said, sitting down again. “Oh, I forgot. Can I get you anything? Coffee, Diet Coke, vegetable soup . . .” She looked up at Frankie. “. . . sunflower seeds?”

“No,” Weaver said. “Thank you. I've come for a, uh, psychic reading.”

“Whoa.” Mab sat back. “Either you really want to make friends or you really have a problem.”

Weaver pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down. “Look, you and I don't get along, and that's okay. But if we're going to work together to defeat the demons, we need to at least respect each other. And Oliver seems to think you're the real deal.”

“Really?” Mab bit back a smile. “Well, we've only been working together for a week. He doesn't really know me at all.”

“Right,” Weaver said, dismissing that. “So, I want a reading. You know what I do; I want to see what you do.”

“Ten bucks,” Mab said, and ate some more of her soup.

Weaver looked taken aback.

“That's the going rate,” Mab said.

Weaver reached in her pocket and pulled out a wallet and found a ten. “Okay,” she said, sliding it across the table. “Here.”

Mab nodded. “If you don't think the reading is real, you get to take it back.” She put her soup bowl to one side. “What's your question?”

“Question?”

“What did you come to find out? Matters of the head or heart?”

“Head,” Weaver said firmly.

“Right hand, please.”

Weaver stuck out her right hand, and Mab took it. “Nice long life line. Clearly the military isn't going to kill you any time soon.”

“I'm not in the military.”

“Really? 'Cause that black helicopter looked very Ethan to me. Never mind.” Mab took a deep breath. “You have a specific question in mind?”

“No, I just wanted . . .”

“Wanted to see if Oliver was right and I was the real deal,” Mab finished for her. “God knows.” She put her palm flat on Weaver's and closed her eyes.

Images raced by, thoughts even faster: demons, Ethan, guns, Oliver, training, Ursula, guns, Ethan . . . Weaver was evidently on overdrive 24/7.

“You're going to have to slow things down,” Mab told her. “I'm getting bombarded here.”

“With what?” Weaver said.

“Ursula's being a pain in the ass, but she scares you; Oliver wants you to stop shooting demons; you're wondering if you can adapt the demon gun to the Untouchables; you think Ethan can probably help you,
whoa
—” Mab dropped her hand.

“What?” Weaver said again, this time wide-eyed.

“I did not need that memory of you and Ethan naked,” Mab said, scowling at her. “Concentrate on business, please.”

“Oh.” Weaver cleared her throat. “You can read my mind?”

“No,” Mab said. “That would be too easy. I get pieces of things unless the person is concentrating on one question. Then I can see what he or she is thinking and extrapolate from that. You won't ask a question.”

“Okay,” Weaver said, holding out her hand again. “Can I be of help to the Guardia?”

“Good question.” Mab put her hand on Weaver's and concentrated, and the flood of images slowed down, Weaver seeing herself as a guard to the Guardia, Weaver seeing herself defeating something that looked like the Devil statue, Weaver standing with the team . . . “Well, you certainly think you can.” She shifted in her seat, which moved her hand on Weaver's palm. “And—”

A new image, this one of Weaver smacking a chalice lid down and yelling,
“Servo!”
and the chalice sealing—

“Oh, god.”

“What?” Weaver said. “What's wrong?”

“You're going to
be
Guardia.” Mab pressed down on her palm, but there was nothing there. She took her hand back. “You're going to be the Keeper.” She met Weaver's eyes. “You'll be here forever. It doesn't matter that Ursula is a pain in the ass and Oliver is cramping your style, because you'll be quitting to join us. Let's just hope that Gus will be retiring, not dying, to let you in.”

“No,” Weaver said firmly. “I won't be joining the Guardia. I'll be the Keeper, if that's what happens, but I won't quit my—”

“What happens when you tell Ursula that the demons are real and the five worst ones are imprisoned here?” Mab said. “What's she going to do to the park? Blow it up? Or come in and shut down the place, make it a new Area 52?”

“Well,” Weaver said. “That would make sense. And it's Department 51.”

“No,” Mab said. “That would be very, very bad. You're going to have to choose. You're either with us or them. You can't be both.” She frowned. “Have you told anyone at work about the Untouchables?”

“Oliver,” Weaver said.

“Oh,” Mab said. “So does he want Dreamland to be Department 51?”

“He thinks it needs to be researched. You mean has he told Ursula? No. He's thinking about it. Oliver spends most of his time thinking.”

“And you spend most of your time acting.” Mab nodded. “Good team. You're going to have to choose between him and us.”

Weaver got that mule-stubborn look on her face. “No.”

“Well, then, we're going to have to keep Gus alive. I'd vote for that plan anyway.”

Weaver took her hand back and stood up. “You know you could have made all of this up.”

“You're right.” Mab slid the ten back across the table. “Here you go.”

Weaver looked down on it. “Keep it. You worked for it.” She turned for the door.

“That was what you really came here for,” Mab said, knowing suddenly that it was true. “You wanted to find out that the whole powers thing was a crock.”

“Easy guess,” Weaver said.

“And now you owe Ethan twenty bucks because he bet you it was real,” Mab said. “You were so sure I was faking it.”

“I'm not sure you aren't.”

“Is Weaver your first name or your last?”

“Last,” Weaver said. “Why?”

“What's your first name?”

“None of your business,” Weaver said sharply.

“Oh, my god,” Mab said. “Bathsheba? Jesus wept, that's child abuse.”

“How did you . . .” Weaver pressed her lips together.

“You ask somebody a question, they think the answer,” Mab said. “I read your mind. And I was not expecting that.”

Weaver stayed silent for a moment. Then she said, “Don't tell anybody.”

“Absolutely,” Mab said. “Your secret is safe with me.” She pulled her soup bowl back in front of her. “You have a nice—” Her cell phone rang, and she picked it up. “Yeah?”

“We have Fun,” Cindy said. “Come to the Keep so we can put him back in the chalice.”

“Oh,” Mab said.

“We can try to do it without you—”

“I'm coming,” Mab said, and clicked off the phone.

“Trouble?” Weaver said.

“No,” Mab said, feeling a little bereft again. “Trouble's over.”

Then she got up and went to the Keep to imprison her ex-lover.

 

“Y
ou sure you're ready to do this?” Ethan said to Mab when she reached the top floor of the Keep.

“Yeah,” Mab said, but she looked torn.

“Let's do it,” Ethan said, and patted Fun's cheek none too gently until he started to come around.

Then Young Fred said, “Sorry, dude, but
frustro
,” and Fun shot up out of Jerry Ferris Wheel and stood before them, curly-haired and goat-horned in a blaze of sunshine yellow. He said, “Wait!” and Mab stepped forward and said,
“Specto,”
and Ethan said,
“Capio!”
and took him.

He braced himself for the pain in his heart, but instead he was filled with sunshine, all that light warming him, no squeezing or death, just a lift in his chest like happi—

“Redimio!”
Cindy said, and the sunshine left him and leapt into the chalice, and Gus clapped the lid on and said,
“Servo,”
and Fun was back in his box.

Gus put the chalice beside the other three and closed the doors on the armoire.

“Okay, then,” Mab said, looking not okay. “So that was good. And once we practice . . .”

Jerry Ferris Wheel stirred on the floor, and Ethan helped him up.

“Uh, you passed out,” Ethan said, hoping somebody there could explain to Jerry what he was doing at the top of the Keep.

“Damn demon,” the kid said, sounding surly as he rubbed his jaw. “Did you get him?”

“Uh, yeah,” Ethan said.

“Good,” the kid said, and headed for the stairs.

“We've got them all but Kharos,” Mab said, eyeing the armoire uneasily. “You know, I'm just not sure—”

“I am,” Ethan said. “Thirty-six hours from now this will all be over. We're right on track.”

Mab hesitated and then said, “Okay,” and Ethan felt himself relax as his cell phone vibrated. He flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“Ethan, it's Ray. I want to make a deal.”

“Why?”

“To save my ass,” Ray said, which Ethan found somewhat believable. “I'll give you the trident. You give me half your ownership of the park.”

“That's not saving your ass, Ray.”

“Come on,” Ray said. “I'm trying to be reasonable.”

“You don't know what
reasonable
means.”

“Look, you—” There was a pause; then Ray spoke again, his voice friendly again. “How about I give you the trident, you get those feds off my ass. You tell that—You tell Weaver to have her boss back off.”