left in the sky would no longer hold the creatures of the night at bay.
Murphy glanced up at me, sensing the change in my level of tension. She finished off her drink while I stuffed the last of the funnel cake into my mouth, and we stood up together.
THE WESTERN SKY was still a little bit orange when I finally sensed magic at work.
We were near the carnival, a section of the fair full of garishly lit rides, heavily slanted games of chance, and chintzy attractions of every kind. It was full of screaming, excited little kids, parents with frayed patience, and fashion-enslaved teenagers. Music tinkled and brayed tinny tunes. Lights flashed and danced. Barkers bleated out cajolement, encouragement, and condolences in almost-equal measures.
We drifted through the merry chaos, our maroon-shirted tail following along ten to twenty yards behind. I walked with my eyes half closed, giving no more heed to my vision than a bloodhound on a trail. Murphy stayed beside me, her expression calm, her blue eyes alert for physical danger.
Then I felt it—a quiver in the air, no more noticeable than the fading hum from a gently plucked guitar string. I noted its direction and walked several more paces before checking again, in an attempt to triangulate the source of the disturbance. I got a rough fix on it in under a minute and realized I had stopped and was staring.
“Harry?” Murphy asked. “What is it?”
“Something down there,” I said, nodding to the midway. “It’s faint. But it’s something.”
Murph inhaled sharply. “This must be the place. There goes our tail.”
We didn’t have to communicate the decision to each other. If the tail belonged to whoever was behind this, we couldn’t let him get away to give the culprit forewarning—and odds were excellent that the sudden rabbit impersonation by the man in maroon would result in his leading us somewhere interesting.
We turned and gave pursuit.
A footrace on open ground is one thing. Running through a crowded carnival is something else entirely. You can’t sprint, unless you want to wind up falling down a lot and attracting a lot of attention. You have to hurry along, hopping between clusters of people, never really getting the chance to pour on the gas. The danger in a chase like this isn’t that the quarry will outrun you, but that you’ll lose him in the crowd.
I had a huge advantage. I’m freakishly tall. I could see over everyone and spot Mr. Maroon bobbing and weaving his way through the crowd. I took the lead and Murphy followed.
I got within a couple of long steps of Maroon, but was interdicted by a gaggle of seniors in Shriners caps. He caught a break at the same time, a stretch of open ground beyond the Shriners, and by the time I got through, I saw Maroon handing tickets to a carnie. He hopped up onto a platform, got into a little roller coaster-style car, and vanished into an attraction.
“Dammit!” Murphy said, panting. “What now?”
Behind the attraction, advertised as the Tunnel of Terror, there was an empty space, the interior of a circle of several similar rides and games. There wouldn’t be anyone to hide behind in there. “You take the back. I’ll watch the front. Whoever spots him gives a shout.”
“Got it.” Murphy hurried off around the Tunnel of Terror. She frowned at a little plastic barrier with an AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY notice on it, then calmly ignored it and went on over.
“Anarchist,” I muttered, and settled down to wait for Maroon to figure out he’d been treed.
He didn’t appear.
The dingy little roller coaster car came wheezing slowly out of the opposite side of the platform, empty. The carnie, an old fellow with a scruffy white beard, didn’t notice—he was dozing in his chair.
Murphy returned a few seconds later. “There are two doors on the back,” she reported, “both of them chained and locked from the outside. He didn’t come out that way.”
I inhaled and nodded at the empty car. “Not here, either. Look, we can’t just stand around. Maybe he’s running through a tunnel or something. We’ve got to know if he’s inside.”
“I’ll go flush him out,” she said. “You pick him up when he shows.”
“No way,” I said. “We stay with our wing”—I glanced at Murphy—“person. The power I sensed came from somewhere nearby. If we split up, we’re about a million times more vulnerable to mental manipulation. And if this guy is more than he appears, neither of us wants to take