Wild Ride (45 page)

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Skinny said. “
Get them!
I'm your boss, and I'm telling you—”

The skeletons turned and fell on Skinny, and Quentin fired into the melee, trying to blast them off him, but he had real bullets, so the demons didn't flinch.

Skinny screamed.

“This way,” Mab said, and yanked Cindy toward the back door, and Quentin fired at them, splintering the wood in the door frame.

“
This
way,” Cindy said, and threw open the storage room door and then dived inside as Quentin fired again, real bullets whistling overhead as they hit the floor and slammed the door shut behind them.

Skinny's screams reached a crescendo and then stopped.

“Yuck,” Cindy said. “In my nice clean ice cream shop.”

“Better him than us,” Mab said, looking around to see if there was another way out. “Why aren't there windows in this place?”

“Because it's a storeroom,” Cindy said. “But I'll have some put in—”

They heard the gun fire again, and then the door began to splinter.

“Oh,
hell
,” Mab said, and tried to think of a way to stop human beings with guns. She'd been concentrating on demons, forgetting that humans were worse.

The lock splintered, and Quentin wrenched the door open, his face twisted with rage.

“Specto!”
Mab said, hoping for a miracle, and Quentin raised his gun and pointed it at her.

“Sorry about the baby,” he snarled, and Mab heard a gunshot and braced herself for the impact, only to see Quentin fall forward onto his face, Oliver standing behind him with a non-demon gun and a grim-as-hell expression.

“Sorry about the baby, my ass,” he said, and Mab heaved a sigh of relief. “Your bird is upset again,” he said to Mab, and she concentrated on seeing what Frankie saw.

Giant spiders attacking Young Fred, cowboys hitting Glenda's trailer, lovers from the Tunnel rushing Weaver's trailer, and out at the Dragon—

“Oh, no,” she said, and ran for the midway.

 

E
than ran down the midway to the Dream Cream, stopping to blow away half a dozen large spiders that had surrounded Young Fred and were chanting, “Betrayer!” at him while he screamed,
“No!”

“Come on,” Ethan said, and Young Fred collapsed to the ground in the middle of papier-mâché spider parts and demon goo and screamed again. “Okay, then,” Ethan said, and started for the Dream Cream, only to have Mab, Cindy, and Oliver run by him.

“Trailers,” Mab yelled back. “Frankie sees demons there,” and Ethan reversed direction and ran after them, catching up as they arrived at Glenda's trailer, where demon-splashed wood cowboys from the OK Corral were strewn around with iron-tipped crossbow bolts in them as Glenda sat smoking on the trailer steps, a daiquiri in her hand, the crossbow on her lap.

“Weaver had some trouble,” she called to them, and then drank another slug of daiquiri as Cindy stopped to see if she needed help while the rest ran past.

Hank's trailer looked like Glenda's, except this time the bodies were the lovers from the Tunnel of Love blown open with a demon gun, leaking purple goo, and the trailer door was open and empty.

Mab stopped to catch her breath and survey the carnage. “She really does have relationship issues.”

“Where is she?”
Ethan said, his heart pounding as he went toward the trailer door.

Weaver was sitting inside, breathing heavily, staring at Beemer, who sat on the table in front of her, staring back at her with glowing, purple demon eyes.

Ethan raised his gun to blow the little son of a bitch away, and Weaver said,
“No!”
and put her hand between them.

“That thing is possessed,” Ethan said, trying to shove her hand out of the way, and she rose up and pushed him hard enough that he stumbled backwards and fell down the trailer steps onto his ass.

“Maybe if I tried,” Mab said, looking down at him. She went up the trailer steps and said, “Well, what have we here?”

“It's Beemer,” Ethan heard Weaver say.

“Yes, it is,” Mab said. “But there's somebody in there with him.”

“That's Beemer, too,” Weaver said, and Ethan thought,
Oh, hell, she's lost it.

He climbed back into the trailer and said to Mab, “Get her out of here, and I'll take care of it.”

“No.” Weaver's eyes were wide but not crazy, and she stared at Beemer as if trying to understand something. “That's Beemer. I know it's a demon, too, but it's not . . . evil.”

Ethan and Mab looked at Beemer's crazy purple demon eyes and then at each other as Oliver climbed in to join them.

“He's not evil,” Weaver said to Oliver. “You said that maybe demons could be good.”

“Yes, I did,” Oliver said, staring at Beemer. “What evidence do you have that Beemer is . . . good?”

“I just know.”

“Did he save you from the other demons?” Mab said.

“No.” Weaver frowned. “I think he jumped into Beemer when I blew Romeo away.”

“So he was attacking you,” Ethan said.

“Until he jumped into Beemer,” Weaver said. “Then he stopped. He . . . he
absorbed
Beemer.”

Ethan turned to Mab. “Get her out of here. I'll take care of Beemer.”

“Wait.” Mab slid onto the banquette next to Weaver, keeping a cautious eye on Beemer, who appeared to be seething. “He absorbed Beemer. Like Beemer's personality?”

“Yes,” Weaver said tensely.

“It's a
stuffed animal
,” Ethan said.

“Shut up, Ethan,” Mab said, not taking her eyes off Weaver. “So since the night Ethan gave him to you, you've talked to Beemer a lot, right?”

“I'm not crazy,” Weaver said, sounding like her old self.

“I know. But you talked to the dragon a lot, right? You've had him for a week, two weeks? You talk to him every day?”

“Yes,” Weaver said. “But I knew he was a stuffed dragon.
I'm not crazy.
”

“Just let me get the demon out of it,” Ethan said. “I'll stab it . . . close to a seam or something and then Mab can fix it—”

“No,” Weaver said.

Ethan looked at Mab.

“I've just been reading about this,” Mab said. “In the Seer's journal. She thought strong emotion could exist in inanimate objects if it was constantly stoked. That's why some prisons radiate hate after they're deserted, and why stuffed animals are—”

“You are kidding me,” Ethan said.

“No. The Seer wrote about a demon that grabbed on to an artwork, a statue that a woman talked to every day, and the statue changed the demon. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Statue?”

“Sorry,” Mab said. “I just realized something. Anyway, this demon has grabbed on to the emotion Weaver invested in Beemer, which means . . . the demon is Beemer now.”

“And it's still
a demon
,” Ethan said, trying to keep everybody on point.

“But it's emotionally linked to Weaver,” Oliver said, gazing at the dragon with a lot more interest now. “And she's protecting it, which ties it to her closer.”

“It looks like it's going to eat her liver,” Ethan said.

“Well, there's always that,” Oliver agreed.

“I'm keeping him,” Weaver said.

“He's not a
puppy
,” Ethan said. “He didn't follow you home from
hell
, he's a
demon.
”

“Don't be a bigot, Ethan,” Mab said. “Weaver's a big girl. If she wants a demon as a pet, she gets it.”

“Thank you,” Weaver said.

“Of course, if it rips your heart out in your sleep, you're going to be in a world of I-told-you-so,” Mab added.

“No, this is right.” Weaver took a deep breath. “I looked into its eyes, and I felt myself change. We're supposed to be together.”

“That wasn't Beemer, that was Gus,” Ethan said, and Weaver jerked her head up.

“Gus?”

“He's dead. You're the new Keeper.”

“No,” Weaver said. “Not Gus.”

Beemer moved across the table and butted her arm with his head, and she put her arm around him automatically as his eyes glowed demon sympathy. Or demon something.

Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out the watch. “Gus wanted you to have this.”

“Oh,” Weaver said, swallowing hard as she took it.

Ethan stepped back, really not ready for an emotional Weaver. Or a demon stuffed dragon. “We're going to the Keep. Now. All of us. I've had enough death.”

“I have bodies to get rid of,” Oliver said. “I'll join you later.”

“Bodies?” Ethan said.

“Skinny is now giving Quentin his opinion of hell,” Oliver said. “In hell.”

“That works for me,” Ethan said.

“What about Kharos?” Mab said.

“I'll go get him when the rest of you are inside the Keep.” Ethan looked at Weaver, her arm around a demon dragon. “We'll leave the dragon here for the night.”

Beemer snarled at him, and Weaver patted his olive-green velvet side. “It's okay, baby, you're coming with me.”

“The Keep it is, then,” Mab said cheerfully, getting up. “Lots of room
there.” She went past Ethan and muttered, “Lots of weapons there if the thing turns on her. We're good.”

“Right,” Ethan said, and stood back to let Weaver and her dragon out, wondering how Beemer felt about him. He'd put him out in the hall every night for a week. That could make a dragon surly. “You're not going to sleep with him, right?” he said to Weaver as they went out the door.

Beemer looked over Weaver's shoulder at him, purple eyes glowing.

“Wonderful,” Ethan said, and followed them back to the midway.

 

E
than walked the battlement at dawn, looking out over Dreamland, now littered with pieces of the Worm and giant exploded spiders and dead cowboys and lovers, the park almost destroyed, Gus gone—

“You okay?”

Ethan looked over his shoulder at Mab as she came out onto the roof. “No.”

She came to stand beside him. “I'm sorry about Gus. He was a great guy.”

Ethan looked back at the park.

“At least he went out fighting,” Mab said. “He probably enjoyed that. It must have been spectacular.”

“It was,” Ethan said. “Living would have been better.” Anger rose up and cut through his grief. “What the fuck just happened here? What were those things that attacked us? They
knew
things about us, they—”

“Minion demons,” Mab said. “Plain old minion demons. But it's Halloween now, and the supernatural has more power. Oliver thinks they got smarter and reflected our fears back at us to drive us to despair. That's what Kharos wants: pain, despair, guilt. He feeds on it.”

“I'll get Kharos,” Ethan said. “And then we'll hunker down here and wait until after midnight.” He looked over at her. “Unless there's something I'm missing?”

“Kharos's plan,” Mab said, looking out over the battlements. “Those attacks on us were to demoralize us, not set him free. He has to want to be free, but he's not doing anything about that. What is he waiting for?”

“I don't care,” Ethan said. “I'm socking his ass in here with the rest of
his gang, and then I'm going to find a way to keep him locked up forever. We're not going through this every Halloween.”

“Yes,” Mab said, still staring out over the park, and Ethan knew she was mourning the destruction of her work along with mourning Gus. “I'll fix it,” she said. “I'll make it better than it was before.”

“I know,” Ethan said, and they stood together looking out over the wreck of Dreamland under the orange-colored lights.

M
ab spent the morning supervising cleanup crews until the park opened at noon. Then the people swarmed in, most of them in costumes, and the park came alive. The Dream Cream was packed when she got there, the college help slinging waffles and scooping ice cream like pros, but the storeroom door was open, and Mab went inside, brushing her fingers over the bullet holes in the wood door.

“We almost died,” she said to Cindy, who was bent over her worktable, reading the Sorceress's book. “It's making me rethink things.”

“Well, that's good,” Cindy said, straightening. “Especially if you're rethinking that asshole Fun. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed poisoning him with rust.” She looked at Mab closely. “You're not still hung up on him, are you?”

“Not exactly,” Mab said.

“Not what I want to hear,” Cindy said briskly. “We find out they're cheating demons, we move on.”

“Well, I owe him.” Mab pulled over a bowl full of chocolate chips and took a handful. “He kind of jump-started my life. He really did make me happy.”

“Yeah, so he could feed.” Cindy crossed her arms. “He was using you.”

“Yeah, but he loved me, too. He just couldn't love me very much. Which explains why the sex never quite worked even though everything . . . worked. He wasn't there for me, he was there for the happiness I felt, but I still felt really happy so . . .”

Cindy was shaking her head as if warning her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Cindy said, and went back to her book. “So what's the plan for today?”

Mab was still thinking about Fun. “It's just that I've thought about it, and I don't think making me come my brains out so he could get high on the happiness is a killing offense.”

“So we almost died last night,” Cindy said. “We should talk about that.”

“What is wrong with you?” Mab said. “You love to talk relationship stuff.”

“I'm just saying we almost
died
,” Cindy said, raising her eyebrows.