the Jocos Mardi Gras ride. That’s where Penny said she’d be held.”
For once in our marriage, Alan didn’t argue with me. He hurried across the red line as if it were nothing and disappeared into a sudden fog that rolled out of the amusement park. Thicker than pea soup, the mist curled along the ground about knee height, higher in a few places, obscuring any obvious threats.
I nodded as I eyed up the fog. “That could work in our favor. We can’t see them, but they can’t see us either.”
I had the map of the park set in my mind, and while my knee ached and my body felt as though it needed a two week vacation on the beach with some hot young guy rubbing me all over with sunscreen, I knew we were Charlotte’s only hope.
We had to get her out of there.
Robert and I stepped across the red line together.
“You going to tell me how you know our necromancer friend?” I asked quietly. The question had been in the back of my head since the dream.
Robert sighed. “I know a lot of the old ones, Bree. And I got in their way, the same way you are doing now.”
“So you are like me?” I pushed a little on that. “Whatever I am?”
“Yes,” he said softly, and a hush crawled over us.
I motioned for him to follow me, suddenly not feeling like I could speak without being heard.
I wanted to get to the far side of the creeptastic joker ride the coven had set as their meeting place with Penny. If Robert and I could tuck in out of sight and keep an eye on Penny, that would be ideal.
I wasn’t really interested in going in guns blazing if we didn’t have to.
The fog swirled up and around us, and for a moment I was sure I could smell funnel cakes and popcorn, but the scent was there and gone, like a memory of what the amusement park had been years before.
Looking about, my eyes landed on one of the remaining signposts. I followed the faded lines that had been painted onto the wood to help park goers find their way. Little pale-yellow arrows here and there, the edges blurred and the points softened from the ravages of everyday weather as much as the meaner hurricanes.
I pulled one of my knives out, the handle giving me a little comfort. I didn’t really understand my magic, which seemed to come out in random bursts requiring no real skill (I really needed to work on night school or something for bringing out my magical side), so a knife touched with Crash’s magic was all I had to keep me safe from the Coven of Darkness.
Robert walked beside me, icy blue eyes scanning the area. We followed the park’s pathways until the tinkling sound of music cut through the air ahead of us.
We both froze, and my skin about crawled off my body even while it erupted in goose bumps. The song was a classic circus tune that I didn’t know by name. Robert grimaced.
“Fitting, ” he whispered.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys.” I whispered back the only circus quip I had in my repertoire.
He grunted. “Not even the flying monkeys?”
I shook my head and cringed. “Please no. Let’s not invoke fate’s weird sense of humor.”
Moving even more carefully, which meant I was half crouched and my thighs were currently trying to burn a hole through my leather pants as my muscles screamed at me to stand up straight like a normal person, we turned the next corner, and there it was. The Jocos Mardi Gras ride.
Robert and I scooted back so we were hidden from view and then peeked around the corner to get a feel for what we were up against.
Bright jeweled eyes of a leering Mardi Gras clown or maybe a jester in 3-D relief on the sign above the entrance, stared out over the park like some sort of freakish ghoul from a B-rated horror movie. Hands flopped loosely at the wrist, no longer attached to the sign, as if the fingers could clutch you without warning. Wherever the witches were, they weren’t currently within view of the ride. Either they were inside, or they hadn’t arrived yet.
Basically I didn’t like it, not one bit. The entrance to the ride was dark, an open black tunnel with no obvious sign of anyone watching for us. That didn’t mean anything, I was sure.