Wild Ride (14 page)

“Delpha, huh?” she said to Cindy.

“Oh, yeah,” Cindy said. “Delpha.”

“Okay, then,” Mab said, and headed out the door.

She was halfway down the midway to the Fortune-Telling Machine and the Delpha's Oracle booth when she heard someone say, “Miss?”

She turned around.

It was the fair-haired guy with glasses from the Dream Cream, his trilby hat squarely on his head.

“You forgot this,” he said, and handed over her yellow miner's cap, his gray eyes steady on hers behind those ridiculous glasses.

“Thank you,” she said, and he nodded and turned back to the Dream Cream.

She frowned as she watched him walk away. For some reason she'd assumed he was retired, the thick glasses, the old-fashioned hat, but he moved like a young guy, sure and strong, and his face had been unlined, his eyes sharp.

So what was he doing spending most of his life at the Dream Cream?

“Huh,” she said, and went to ask Delpha about Etruscan demons.

 

W
hen Mab got to the Fortune-Telling Machine, she hesitated. The Delpha's Oracle booth was right next door, but the chances that Delpha was in there on a weekday were slim and—

She heard a cawing sound and looked up to see Frankie perched on the peak of the tent-shaped wooden booth.

The Oracle was in.

She walked over and went through the opening in the wrought-iron fence, hesitating before the sliding wood doors painted to look like tent flaps, and then lifted her fist to knock.

“Come in, Mab,” Delpha said, and Mab looked at her fist, shrugged, pushed the doors apart, and went in, Frankie swooping in behind her.

Delpha sat behind an old table with a pile of stuff in front of her. Frankie landed on the table and began to pick through the pile daintily, using his beak and one claw to sort through the stuff. Probably looking for an eyeball.

“I'm sorry,” Mab said. “Are you busy? I can come back.”

“No.” Delpha picked up a paper fan with a clawlike hand and dropped it in the trash bag beside her table. “Sit down.” She picked up her dark blue shawl and folded it and put it on top of a box on the other side of the table. “Have you come to let me read your cards?” She picked up something else from the pile and then dropped that in the trash, too.

“No, I have a question.” Mab frowned at the box. “Are you packing up? I thought you were working next weekend, too.”

“Someone else will be here next weekend.” Delpha nodded to a blue chair Mab had painted when she'd done the table. “Sit down.” She crooked her finger, and Frankie left his scavenging to flap off the table and onto her shoulder.

Mab hesitated and then sat down. “Someone died last night. Cindy said there was a legend, and then I heard . . .” She was not going to say
demons.
She leaned forward. “Do we have a killer in the park? A human serial killer who's striking again after forty years?”

“No,” Delpha said.

“That's it? No?”

Delpha studied her for a moment, then put a pack of tarot cards on the table.

“You turn over a card, I will answer a question. Ten cards. Ten questions.”

“You've been trying to get me to do this ever since I got here. Admit it.”

“Yes.” Delpha smiled, startling Mab with the transformation. “And now you are here. Shuffle the cards.”

“Fine.” Mab shuffled and tried to hand the deck to Delpha, but the old lady shook her head. “Cut them,” she said, and Mab did. “Now turn up the first one.”

Mab did and saw a pale-faced woman dressed in black holding a sword almost as tall as she was with a crown floating above her head. The writing at the bottom said
REGINA DI SPADE
, translated at the top into
QUEEN OF SWORDS
.

“That is your card,” Delpha said, looking very satisfied. “You are the Queen of Swords, a solitary woman of much intelligence and strength.” She looked at Mab pointedly. “Ethan is the King of Swords.”

“Do not matchmake,” Mab said.

“No, he is not your mate. He is your brother in a great, never-ending battle.”

“Brother is fine. The rest of it, no. What's happening in this park?”

“Many things,” Delpha said. “Next card.”

“Oh, come on,” Mab said, “play fair.”

“Then ask good questions,” Delpha said.

Mab thought about it. “Okay, let's start at the beginning. Did the FunFun statue from the park entrance run into me two nights ago?”

“Yes,” Delpha said.

Mab nodded. “And how is that possible?”

“Put the next card across your card,” Delpha said, and Mab did.

This one looked like the Keep, a big stone tower that appeared to be blowing up. Mab looked closer. Bodies were falling from the tower.

“This is what crosses you,” Delpha said. “Change. It is difficult, but it is good.”

“Yeah, it looks good. How is it possible that the statue ran into me?”

“It was possessed by a demon. Put the next card to the left of the first two.”

“A demon,” Mab said, somehow not surprised.

“A card,” Delpha said, putting her finger down to the left of the first two cards.

Mab put the next card down while she thought fast. This one was some guy on a horse in the snow, three swords on his banner, looking depressed as all hell.

“You must have been very lonely,” Delpha said, looking at the card.

“When? No, wait, that's not my question. A demon knocked me down with the statue. Is that like a figure of speech, a guy so bad, he's demonic—”

“Fufluns,” Delpha said. “He's a demon. The next card goes beneath the others.”

Mab turned over the next card, a man looking at a far-off city, five cups at his feet. “So Fufluns. Is he dangerous?”

“Sometimes,” Delpha said, studying the cards. “He plays tricks and seduces and lies and betrays. That can be dangerous. The next card goes above.”

Mab flipped the next card over. She put it above the first two, in the place that Delpha pointed to. This one was somebody in goggles wearing a hat and holding a painter's palette, flanked by paintings of two naked women holding coins. “But he doesn't kill, right? Tricks and seduction and lies, but not death? He didn't kill Karl?”

“You have had much isolation and betrayal in your past. . . .” Delpha tapped the card below the others. “And now, you carry loneliness within you, you're locked inside yourself, trapped by your own dem—”

“Actually, I'm fine,” Mab said, “except for the dead body and the robot clown.”

“Achievement,” Delpha said, tapping the card above. “You find your meaning in artistic ability. You hide in your work like a little girl.”

“Hey,” Mab said.

Delpha gestured to the cards and Mab flipped the next one and paused. It was obscene, a huge, leering, naked devil looming over two equally naked blue people.

Frankie cawed, and Delpha said, “And now you face great evil.”

“That I knew when I saw Dead Karl,” Mab said. “You didn't answer my question. Did Fufluns kill Karl?”

“No. Put the last four in a vertical row to the right, starting at the bottom.”

“Then who did?”

“A card.”

Mab flipped up a woman crouching in a gray, desolate landscape, eight swords thrust into the ground around her. “Who killed Dead Karl?”

“Tura.”

Mab flipped up the next card and put it above the last one, a guy in front of a blast furnace, evidently making money, since there were eight coins lined up along the bottom. “Who's Tura? And don't tell me she's an Etruscan demon.”

“She's an Etruscan demon,” Delpha said, almost absentmindedly, as she studied the cards.

Mab flipped up the next one, and stopped. It was a picture of a couple, him with a ridiculous hat, her with red hair, staring into each other's eyes while a child poked a turtle with a stick behind them, ten gold cups floating in the air above them.

So not me
, she thought. “Who is Vanth?”

“An Etruscan demon,” Delpha said. “Turn the last card.”

Mab flipped it over.

A naked woman sat on a rock at daybreak, pouring water from a pitcher into a stream. Her hair was dark red, and she looked cold but not unhappy.

“That is your future,” Delpha said, sitting back, satisfied.

“Pouring water naked into a pond?” Mab said. “Well, it's within my skill set. Enough with this demon stuff. What's going on in this park?”

Delpha looked at her steadily for a moment and then nodded. “You have shown me what I need to see; I will tell you. When you put the pipes back in the hand of the carousel FunFun, they opened the iron FunFun statue at the gate, and he escaped. Karl was killed by a second demon, Tura, imprisoned in the mermaid statue, who punishes betrayers.”

“Betrayers? That's why she killed Karl last night?”

Delpha nodded.

“The mermaid killed Dead Karl.” Mab rubbed her head. “Look, I don't believe in demons. Is it possible that some human person is doing
this and using the demon legends as a cover? Is it possible Dead Karl just had a plain old heart attack? Is it possible—?”

“No,” Delpha said. “It is the demons. They possess people, spread pain and hopelessness, break hearts and poison minds and kill from within. They—”

“No,” Mab said, losing patience. “No more fantasy, this is real. We need to stop this—”

“We try.” Delpha sat back, looking even more tired than usual. “The Guardia fight the demon. But we are few and mostly old. New Guardia must be called if we are to win this time.” She looked at Mab fixedly. “Young, strong Guardia.”

“So you've got a secret demon-fighting society.” Mab gave up. “Great. Look, I need to call the police. Or something.”

“You would be a good Guardia,” Delpha said.

“I'm really not a joiner,” Mab said, trying to figure her next move.

Delpha picked up the Devil card. “You are facing great evil, and you will have to change, to fight. There will be darkness. The Devil will try to enslave you, so you must struggle to see—”

“I have to go now.” Mab pushed her chair back, but Delpha's hand shot out and grabbed her arm as Frankie lowered his head and stared into her eyes.

“Your strength is the way you
see
things. You must remember to
look
on all things with an open heart and mind. Ignore the illusion.
See the truth.
”

“I do that anyway,” Mab said. “In my work, you have to.”

“The last four cards hold the truth,” Delpha said, as if Mab hadn't spoken. “The first is how you see yourself, trapped and alone.”

“I do not—”

“The second is how people see you, taking great pride and success in your work. The third is your hopes and dreams—”

Mab looked at the happy couple on that card.
I hardly even know Joe.

“—part of a family, not alone anymore. And the last . . .” Delpha let go of her arm and picked up the card. “The last is your future, Mary Alice Brannigan. Hope. Balance. Harmony after the storm.”

“Oh.” Mab took a breath. “Well, that's good. No demons.”

“But only if you defeat the Devil,” Delpha said, dropping the card back on the table.

“Right, defeat the Devil, save the world.” Mab got up.

“You have another question,” Delpha said. “A personal question. About a man.”

Joe.
“No—”

Delpha picked up the card with the couple on it. “You want to know if he is your true love. Give me your hand.”

Mab hesitated and then sat down again and put her right hand in Delpha's.

“Other one,” Delpha said, and Mab put her left hand in Delpha's.

Delpha drew her finger across Mab's palm with one perfectly manicured nail, painted in royal blue with tiny gold stars stuck on it. Then she gazed into Mab's eyes until her own unfocused. After a minute, she let Mab's hand drop and sat back. “Your true love is here, the one you will love forever. You have met him.”

“Well, good for me,” Mab said, trying to stay calm. “Anything else I should know? Because I really—”

“His name is Joe.”

Mab tried to ignore the leap her heart took. “You're kidding. You can see
names
?”

“No, I heard you say it in the future,” Delpha said. “You will be standing in the sunlight in front of the Dream Cream, and you'll say his name and laugh. But he is not what you think he is.”

“They never are,” Mab said, standing up again. “Well, thank you very much—”

“You are very strong,” Delpha said. “The Guardia will need you to fight the demons.”

“I don't believe in demons,” Mab said.

“You will believe.” Delpha hesitated. “There is something else. I think . . .”

Frankie hopped off her shoulder and onto the table, and she sorted through the pile of stuff there.

“I don't really need anything,” Mab began, and then Delpha held up a long loop of blue-green ribbon with a small green rock dangling from it.

“You will need this,” Delpha said, handing it to her.

Mab looked at the rock. It was an inch-long chunk of dark green stone, crudely carved to look like a rabbit.

“It's a malachite bunny,” Delpha said.

“A bunny,” Mab said, trying to sound appreciative.

“Malachite wards off evil.” Delpha nodded. “You'll need that later. For when she comes.”

“She,” Mab said, lost.

Delpha nodded and went back to her work, and Mab pushed the sliding doors apart and went out into the brisk October day.

The sun was shining, and the whole fortune-telling-demons-on-the-loose bit should have seemed even more ridiculous in the bright light, especially given the weirdness of the malachite bunny she now clutched that she was evidently supposed to use to ward off some female demon but . . .