Page 87 of Magic for Nothing

There was a loophole.

Leaning forward, I gingerly grasped the block of plastic explosives, aware that if it was old and unstable, or if the Covenant bomber had done a halfway-competent job, I was about to die. But a big explosion would bring the local authorities and destroy the carnival in a way insurance wouldn’t pay for, and I couldn’t do that to them. They deserved the chance to get away clean and start over, without me or the Covenant breathing down their necks. I had promised Emery I’d try. I was trying.

“Okay,” I said, with a deep breath. “Here goes nothing . . . Mary! I need you! Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!”

“You know I hate it when you call me like that,” snapped Mary, materializing air next to me. “Also, sometimes, I’m going to be busy. Like, you get that, right? I have a life aside from babysitting y—”

If I asked, she’d have to involve the crossroads, and so I didn’t ask as I yanked the Semtex away from the wall and hurled it at her, blasting caps and all. She had time to make a horrified face before she disappeared, taking the explosives with her. The bomb’s digital control beeped once and sparked fruitlessly. There was nothing left for it to trigger.

“She’s going to kill me for blowing up the ghost world,” I muttered, and looked around the shed, settling on the repair kit next to the door. My makeshift torch was going out, but it still provided me with just enough light to see the flare gun when I opened the toolbox. I grinned ferally, grabbed the gun, and ran.

The dark rides were mixed in with the bigger power sucks, making it easier to control crowd flow. I ran until I found the ride I wanted. Then I stopped, turned to face the rest of the show, and pulled the trigger on my borrowed flare gun. A red flower blossomed in the sky above me. I stood my ground, waiting.

It wasn’t a long wait. Three figures ran around the Scrambler, two female, one male. I recognized the man as Robert and one of the women as Margaret. The third was a mystery to me, but as she was running in step with the other two, it wasn’t a stretch to guess that she was Covenant. I aimed my flare gun at them and pulled the trigger again, forcing them to leap to the side to avoid being hit by a burning projectile. Now that they were well and truly pissed, I gave them a jaunty little wave, turned, and ran straight into the Haunted House.

As a dark ride, the Haunted House depended on a fixed track system that pulled the individual carriages through the scenes that had been constructed inside. The carriages were slow, ostensibly to give people time to take in the horrors around them, but really to make sure the townies felt like they were getting their money’s worth from what was honestly one of the less thrilling attractions. There were no live performers—usually—and plastic skeletons just aren’t enough to send the youth of today into an ecstasy of terror. As one of the youth of today, I know it takes a lot more than a few stuffed bats on strings to scare me.

Like, say, being pursued into a dark ride by three members of the Covenant of St. George. That was something I found plenty scary.

The carriages rolled by as I ran into the ride, following the track until I came to the Mad Scientist’s Lab. Ducking behind the stereotypically green monster on his slab, I drew two knives from inside my shirt and crouched down, every muscle tense, every nerve on fire. At least my fingertips weren’t heating up this time. Apparently, I had managed to let off enough of a spark in dealing with the bomb that I was going to need a little time to build it up again.

“Annie, darling, where are you?” The voice was Robert’s, pitched low and sweet, virtually a purr. I stayed where I was, crouching down farther. “Come out, dearest, and we’ll have a little chat about your behavior. This doesn’t have to hurt, you know. Not unless you want it to.”

I said nothing.

“I’ll admit, I saw this coming. I told Reginald, I said ‘she’s too new, she’s too green, they’ll turn her head.’ But I didn’t think you’d be this willing to betray us. We’re your family now, Annie. Come home to your family. Let us take care of you.”

The way he said “care” made it clear I wouldn’t enjoy whatever they were going to do to me. A lot of it depended on how much value the Covenant placed on me as a North American agent. They’d been kind up until this point, trying to woo me to their way of thinking. I had absolutely no doubt that they could be cruel, if they thought it would get them what they wanted.

I crouched lower, knives at the ready, wishing I’d thought to keep a little bit of that plastic explosive for my own use. Blowing him up wouldn’t have been practical, but oh, it would have felt good.

“Annie, Annie, there’s no need to be like this. These carnival folk, they’ve been kind to you, but they’re never going to love you the way we will. At least in part because they’re all going to be dead before morning. Leonard’s out there right now, slitting throats and making sure there are no survivors.”

Leo was doing no such thing. Leo was unconscious in the mud outside the sideshow attractions, and when he woke up, he was going to have one hell of a headache. There’d been no blood on his hands when he’d come looking for me. I’d been more of a priority for him than his orders. Poor fool.

“Oh, Annie.” Robert’s voice came from right behind me. Slowly, I turned, and there he was, bending to look under the slab where I was hiding. He smiled at the sight of me, expression grim in the black light illumination of the artificial lab. “I really thought better of you than this.”

His hand lashed toward my face. I moved without thinking, bringing up the first of my knives and slashing hard across his fingers. My knives were designed for throwing, not cutting, but they had an edge on them; without it, they wouldn’t have been able to pierce my targets the way they needed to. Robert bellowed. I rolled backward, flinging my bloodied knife at him as soon as I came upright again. It embedded itself in his shoulder. He bellowed again, louder this time, the sound filled with pure anger.

I turned and ran.

My theory of combat is simple: keep it as far away from myself as I can. I am a soft, squishy creature, with lots of moving pieces, and I want to keep all those moving pieces safely contained inside my skin. I’d been working with Robert for months, but we’d never sparred, and I didn’t know his preferred weapons. He could be carrying anything. In lieu of more information, my best approach was a swift retreat.

I ran through the abandoned Transylvanian village and the hall of funhouse mirrors, dodging slow-moving carriages all the way. Next up was the swamp, where I could take cover behind the plastic banyan trees. I could—

Someone grabbed my arm, yanking me behind a mirror. I balled my hand into a fist and swung, hitting only empty air. Sam let go of me, giving me an offended look. He was back in human form, which meant that he was either tense, making an effort, or both.

“Punching?” he asked, in a low voice. “Really?”

“What are you doing here?” I hissed. “You’re supposed to be evacuating the bone yard.”

“It’s done. They’re gone. Everyone’s gone.” He continued to look at me admonishingly. “Did you honestly think you could punch me? I’m so much faster than you that’s almost insulting.”

“Sam.” I grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him toward me. This time, he didn’t dodge. “The Covenant is here. In this building. They set a bomb in the generator shed. They’re not fucking around. You need to get out of here.”

Sam opened his mouth to answer. Then he stopped, and grimaced, and said, “Too late.” There was a pained note in his voice, like he was doing his best to hold himself together. I took a half step backward and leaned to the side.

Margaret was behind him, a pistol in her hands. The barrel was digging into Sam’s spine. He was fast—maybe the fastest living thing I’d ever encountered—but he wasn’t fast enough to dodge a point-blank shot.