Wild Ride (39 page)

“What about the rest of them, then?” Weaver said. “Can we turn anybody else?”

“I don't know.” Glenda looked doubtful. “Tura's crazy, so she's unpredictable, and I don't think she could stand up to Kharos anyway. Selvans is his yes man, no hope there. And Vanth loves him—”

“She doesn't feed on despair,” Mab said. “I've spent a lot of time with her, talking with her, and she's never made me feel despairing. Guilty, but not despairing.”

“Guilty?” Oliver said.

“You should be wearing a coat, it's cold out, you know how I worry,” Mab said. “Where have you been, you're late, you always start painting by ten, you know how I worry. Are you sure you want to be with him, he's not good enough for you, and you know how I worry. Although to be fair, the last one was about Fun, and she was right, so—”

“Mother figure,” Oliver said. “She feeds on guilt?”

“I don't think so,” Mab said. “I think it's something more that she needs me to . . .” She bit her lip. “Want to be with her? Need her?”

“Love her,” Glenda said. “She feeds on love, I bet. Probably doesn't give it, but needs to evoke it.”

“That's not despair, either,” Oliver said. “I think you've got your secret weapon. Pit Fufluns and Vanth against Kharos because the despair he needs is the antithesis of the happiness and love they need.”

“That almost makes them seem like good guys,” Cindy said.

“No,” Weaver and Mab said together, and Weaver looked at Mab, surprised.

“They don't . . . connect,” Mab said. “They're not emotionally involved. When Fun couldn't make me happy, he left, there wasn't anything in it for him. He wants to come back because he's sure he can make me laugh, but if I don't laugh, he goes to find somebody who will. He's in it for himself, not for me. Vanth's the same way. If I reject her, she won't go on loving me, she'll turn on me, find somebody else to feed on. I don't think they're evil, but they're not good. They're demons. And I think they're all dangerous because they all really need to feed to survive. They're parasites. We need to put them back.”

“Now that I can agree with,” Ethan said. “So we get them to turn on each other and then we capture them by—”

Young Fred groaned. “Why can't we just let them out so we can get
lives
. They're not going to hurt anybody. They feed on emotion, not people's brains. We're not talking zombies here. Let's let them go free.”

“No,” Glenda and Gus said together, but Mab said, “Wait a minute.”

“Not again,” Ethan said.

Mab waved him away. “What would happen if we did let them out?
I'm not saying we should do it, especially Kharos and Tura, I just want to know what happens when they all get out.”

“The more that are out, the stronger they are,” Glenda said. “All five out makes them corporeal. After that, what happens is whatever they want. I'm not even sure you can turn them against each other. They all follow Kharos. They must, he's their king, the ruler of their underworld, and he's the Devil. We can't let them out.”

“So,” Ethan said, taking back the meeting. “Our mission is to keep them in the chalices. I propose a two-part plan. The first part is to move all the chalices in here. The Keep is walled with iron and surrounded by water—”

“Not running,” Weaver said from the wall.

“We can start the pumps again,” Gus said. “The water will run. Then the demons can't get in here unless the drawbridge is down or the door in the basement is opened.”

“So we lock and barricade that door,” Ethan said, “and control the drawbridge, which will make this a safe place to keep the chalices, at least until Halloween is over. Even if they get out of the chalices, they can't get out of the closed-up Keep. Right, Mom?”

Glenda nodded. “Even a full Untouchable can't go through iron.”

“So this week we move the chalices in here,” Ethan said. “It's our Alamo.”

“Alamo?” Mab said, alarmed.

“Not the Alamo,” Ethan said fast while Weaver looked at the ceiling. “Fortress. Our fortress, our fall back position. The real prison inside the prison, the most defensible and safe place. So the chalices . . .” He looked at Mab. “What's the status on Fufluns' chalice?”

“I still need the two pieces—,” she began, but Gus pulled two small pieces of wood out of his pocket and handed them to her.

“One in the bottom of the statue, other one on the floor of the Tunnel,” Gus said. “Fished your paint coat out of the cruise tank, too, but the demon goo in the tank had eaten through—”

“I don't need the coat back,” Mab said. “Thanks for the chalice pieces. I'll get Fun's chalice repaired today. As for the rest of them, I bet
Ray has the keys. He gave me the panpipes, and I found the dove in his RV two weeks ago. What other keys do we need? Fun's pipes are still glued to the top of the carousel, but since his statue is broken, it's worthless anyway. We've got Tura's chalice up here already. So we need the keys to Vanth, the orange Strong Man, and the Devil.” She stopped, frowning. “Do we even know what the other keys look like?”

“We have Selvans' key. It's the green jewel Dragon's eye,” Glenda began.

“You found the Dragon's eye?” Mab said, straightening. “That's great, now we can finish the Dragon . . . oh. No, we can't. It's a key.” She sat back, disappointed.

“So we can get Selvans' chalice any time we want it,” Glenda went on. “Vanth's key is a crystal ball that goes on top of the Oracle booth.”

“There's one in the Fortune-Telling Machine,” Mab said, and Glenda shook her head.

“That's just a piece of glass. The real key is bigger and it's real crystal. Then Kharos's is a silver trident that goes on the top of the Devil's Drop. We don't have that one, either.” She looked ill as she said the last part, and Gus looked over at her, his eyes full of worry and sympathy.

“So we hit Ray's RV and look there first for the ball and the trident.” Ethan nodded to Weaver. “You up for that?”

“Definitely.”

“Good,” Ethan said. “Any discussion on the first part of the plan, or can we move on?”

“Me,” Mab said, holding up her hand. “Why haven't the chalices always been in here?”

Ethan looked at her, exasperated.

“Well,” she said, “it sounds like a really good idea. Why are we the first ones to think of it in eighty-some years?”

“Because it's our turn,” Ethan said.

“Because the Keep has always been a safe house,” Glenda said. “It's true that if we keep them in here, they can't get out, but if they're out there and we're in here, they can't get in, either. The Keep is really designed to keep them out, not in.”

“So it really is just that nobody ever thought of that before?” Mab said. “That seems odd.”

“The second part of the plan,” Ethan said loudly, “is us. Most of us are new, and aside from Gus, all of us are untried. We need to find out what makes the Guardia strong, make ourselves a fighting unit.”

“We know how to fight,” Gus said.

“We can fight better,” Ethan said. “Last night, you and I put Tura in her chalice without Glenda there to bind her. I don't know how, she just gave up and went in, but we need to know how we did that and how we took Selvans without Mab. We need to know the extent of our powers and how to use them to best advantage. We—”

“We need a handbook,” Cindy said. “With diagrams.”

“Oh.” Mab dug the Sorceress's book out of her work bag. “Forgot. This is for you. It's in Italian.”

“Oooooh,” Cindy said, taking it. “Italian. I don't read Italian.”

“We'll get you a dictionary,” Ethan said. “Now about
the plan
.”

Mab sighed, Young Fred rolled his eyes, Gus looked grumpy, and Cindy was engrossed in her book. He looked over at Weaver, who gave him a thumbs-up, and at Oliver, who was watching everything, his face blank.

Oliver
, Ethan thought.
Probably over there thinking he could do this better.
“You have anything else to say, Oliver?”

Oliver thought for a moment. “I think your demons are getting smarter. Every time they're out, they learn something more about human beings. If they've been escaping for twenty-five hundred years, they have a pretty good knowledge of human behavior. Has the Guardia changed its capture process in all that time?”

“No,” Glenda said.

“Then I'd suggest you do what Ethan says and think outside the chalice this time.”

Oliver
, Ethan thought.
Good man.
“So here's what I'm thinking. We need to get faster, and we need to be able to improvise, to take over each other's jobs if we have to.”

Cindy looked up at that. “I don't even know my job.”

“You will,” Ethan said. “Because we're going to practice. There are
minion demons in the park, at least half a dozen got away last night after trying to kill Mab. So we're going to hunt them at night and put them in boxes using every variation we can think of, including doing without one of us in the capture and swapping jobs. And we're going to get faster, no more hesitating.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Mab said.

“And we're going to get angry,” Ethan said, and saw Cindy frown at him. “What?”

“I get angry, there's going to be dragons.”

“Good,” Ethan said. “Nice diversion. Strong emotion makes the magic stronger. If you see a minion, don't think about being afraid, think about how they slaughtered Delpha.”

The room seemed to grow colder suddenly, even Cindy looking grim.

“Yeah,” Ethan said. “Think about how they tried to push Gus under his own coaster, about how they tried to drown Mab and her baby. They're not abstract evil, they're coming after us, they're coming after—”

“Family,” Glenda said. “And nobody fucks with our family.” She nodded at Weaver and Oliver. “You can be second cousins. You count.”

They looked at each other, and Ethan thought,
Second cousins? That's the best you can do, Mom?
He shook his head and went on. “So this week, we meet every night at midnight, and we go demon-hunting. We practice. We
train.
And during the day, we move all the chalices in here. On Halloween night, we hunker down here and wait the sons of bitches out.”

“Well, it's a plan,” Mab said doubtfully.

“Maybe they just want to be free,” Young Fred said. “Maybe they're not all evil.” He looked back at Oliver. “Right?”

“No,” Weaver said. “All demons are evil.”

“It's very possible they're not all evil,” Oliver said, earning a snort from his partner. “And shooting everything in sight is draconian. But if we're talking the Devil here, we're talking draconian. I think on this one, I'm with Ethan.”

Oliver
, Ethan thought.
Great guy.
“So Mab will do the research, and we'll meet by the Dragon at midnight. Any questions?”

“The pirates are all destroyed, so the Pirate Ship is closed,” Mab said. “The cruise tank is stained with purple demon jam, so that's off the midway.
Can we try to not do anything else to the rides? Because I can't fix them now. It's just too late. And Halloween is going to be our big money-making day.”

“Sure,” Ethan said, not amused. “From now on if a demon attacks, we'll protect the ride first.”

“She's right, Ethan,” Glenda said. “We have to keep Dreamland running or we can't maintain the prison. Falling on hard times is what got Ray into the park in the first place. If you can avoid damaging a ride, it's really important that you do.” She nodded to Mab. “I'll talk to the Pirate Ship and Mermaid Cruise families, let them know they're not working, but that you'll have them up again by next spring.”

Mab looked surprised, but she nodded.

Wonderful. “Protect the rides, folks,” Ethan said. “See you tonight at midnight.”

They got up, none of them enthusiastic, and some of them—Young Fred, in particular—clearly skeptical.

Tough.

They were going to be a team if it killed them. Because that was the only way he could keep them from dying.

Mab patted his arm on the way out. “Nice job, chief.”

Weaver didn't pat his arm. “You need a better plan than ‘We're going to do things differently.' You need—”

“I know,” Ethan said. “Keep reading that damn book while I figure this out.”

M
ab waited for Glenda outside the Keep, Frankie fidgeting on her shoulder. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” she said as Glenda came out.

“Absolutely.” Glenda put her sunglasses on. “I have all the time in the world. Where are you headed now?”

“Oliver said something this morning,” Mab said. “I need to talk to Vanth.”

“Want me to go with you? It's not a problem. My daiquiris will keep.”

“Boy, getting out of the Guardia really agrees with you,” Mab said.

“You're never out of the Guardia,” Glenda said. “But sometimes you get lucky and you're not
responsible
for the Guardia anymore.” She looked at Mab ruefully. “Of course, now you're the one holding the demon bag.”

“I think it's more Ethan,” Mab said.

“No,” Glenda said. “He needs you to balance him. It's the two of you. Did you want me to go with you to Vanth?”

“No, I can handle Vanth.” Mab hesitated. “But I could use a favor. Could you maybe clean out Old Fred's trailer?”

Glenda blinked at her. “You want to move into Old Fred's trailer? Honey, that's no good. We'll move Young Fred in there, and you can have the apartment over the paddleboat dock. Much better for the baby.”