by Jim Butcher
"If we were investigating something," Murphy said. "We're not. We're going to the fair."
I eyed her sidelong. "On a date?"
"Sure, if someone asks," she said off handedly. Then she froze for a second, and added, "It's a reasonable cover story."
"Right," I said. Her cheeks looked a little pink. Neither of us said anything for a little while.
I merged onto the highway, always fun in a car originally designed to rocket down the Autobahn at a blistering one hundred kilometers an hour, and asked Murphy, "Springfield?"
"State Fair," she said. "That was the common denominator."
I frowned, going over the dates in my head. "State Fair only runs, what? Ten days?"
Murphy nodded. "They shut down tonight."
"But the first couple died twelve days ago."
"They were both volunteer staff for the fair, and they were down there on the grounds setting up." Murphy lifted a foot to rest her heel on the edge of the passenger seat, frowning out the window. "I found Skee-Ball tickets and one of those chintzy stuffed animals in the second couple's apartment. And the Bardalackis got pulled over for speeding on I-55, five minutes out of Springfield and bound for Chicago."
"So maybe they went to the fair," I said. "Or maybe they were just taking a road trip or something."
Murphy shrugged. "Possibly. But if I assume that it's a coincidence, it doesn't get me anywhere-and we've got nothing. If I assume there's a connection, we've got a possible answer."
I beamed at her. "I thought you didn't like reading Parker."
She eyed me. "That doesn't mean his logic isn't sound."
"Oh. Right."
She exhaled heavily. "It's the best I've got. I just hope that if I get you into the general area, you can pick up on whatever is going on."
"Yeah," I said, thinking of walls papered in photographs. "Me, too." THE SMELLS ARE what I enjoy the most about places like the State Fair. You get combinations of smells at such events like none found anywhere else. Popcorn, roast nuts, and fast food predominate, and you can get anything you want to clog your arteries or burn out your stomach lining. Chili dogs, funnel cakes, fried bread, majorly greasy pizza, candy apples, ye gods. Evil food smells amazing-which is either proof that there is a Satan or some equivalent out there, or that the Almighty doesn't actually want everyone to eat organic tofu all the time. I can't decide.
Other smells are a cross section, depending on where you're standing. Disinfectant and filth walking by the Porta-Potties, exhaust and burned oil and sun-baked asphalt and gravel in the parking lots, sunlight on warm bodies, suntan lotion, cigarette smoke and beer near some of the attendees, the pungent, honest smell of livestock near the animal shows, stock contests, or pony rides-all of it charging right up your nose. I like indulging my sense of smell.
Smell is the hardest sense to lie to.
Murphy and I started in midmorning and began walking around the fair in a methodical search pattern. It took us all day. The State Fair is not a rinky-dink event.
"Dammit," she said. "We've been here all day. You sure you haven't sniffed out anything?"
"Nothing like what we're looking for," I said. "I was afraid of this."
"Of what?"
"A lot of times, magic like this-complex, long-lasting, subtle, dark-doesn't thrive well in sunlight." I glanced at the lengthening shadows. "Give it another half hour and we'll try again."
Murphy frowned at me. "I thought you always said magic isn't about good and evil."
"Neither is sunshine."
Murphy exhaled, her displeasure plain. "You might have mentioned it to me before."
"No way to know until we tried," I said. "Think of it this way: Maybe we're just looking in the exact wrong place."
She sighed and squinted around at the nearby food trailers and concession stands. "Ugh. Think there's anything here that won't make me split my jeans at the seams?"
I beamed. "Probably not. How about dogs and a funnel cake?"
"Bastard," Murphy growled. Then, "Okay." HALFWAY THROUGH MY second hot dog, I realized we were being followed.
I kept myself from reacting, took another bite, and said, "Maybe this is the place after all."
Murphy had found a place selling turkey drumsticks. She had cut the meat from the bone and onto a paper plate, and she was eating it with a plastic fork. She didn't stop chewing or look up. "Whatcha got?"
"Guy in a maroon tee and tan BDU pants, about twenty feet away off your right shoulder. I've seen him at least two other times today."
"Doesn't necessarily mean he's following us."
"He's been busy doing nothing in particular all three times."
Murphy nodded. "Five eight or so, long hair? Little soul tuft under his mouth?"
"Yeah."
"He was sitting on a bench when I came out of the Porta-Potty," Murphy said. "Also doing nothing." She shrugged and went back to eating.
"How do you want to play it?"
"We're here with a zillion people, Harry." She deepened her voice and blocked out any hint of a nasal tone. "You want I should whack him until he talks?"
I grunted and finished my hot dog. "Doesn't necessarily mean anything. Maybe he's got a crush on you."
Murphy snorted. "Maybe he's got a crush on you."
I covered a respectable belch with my hand and reached for my funnel cake. "Who could blame him." I took a bite and nodded. "All right. We'll see what happens, then."
Murphy nodded and sipped at her Diet Coke. "Will says you and Anastasia broke up a while back."
"Will talks too much," I said darkly.
She glanced a little bit away. "He's your friend. He worries about you."
I studied her averted face for a moment and then nodded. "Well," I said, "tell Will he doesn't need to worry. It sucked. It sucks less now. I'll be fine. Fish in the sea, never meant to be, et cetera." I paused over another bite of funnel cake and asked, "How's Kincaid?"
"The way he always is," Murphy said.
"You get to be a few centuries old, you get a little set in your ways."
She shook her head. "It's his type. He'd be that way if he were twenty. He walks his own road and doesn't let anyone make him do differently. Like…"
She stopped before she could say who Kincaid was like. She ate her turkey leg.
A shiver passed over the fair, a tactile sensation to my wizard's senses. Sundown. Twilight would go on for a while yet, but the light 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 him solo."
She grimaced, nodded, and we started toward the Tunnel of Terror together.
The old carnie woke up as we came up the ramp, let out a wheezing cough, and pointed to a sign that required us to give him three tickets each for the ride. I hadn't bought any, and the ticket counter was more than far enough away for Maroon to scamper if we stopped to follow the rules.
"Sir," Murphy said, "a man we're looking for just went into your attraction, but he didn't come out again. We need to go in and look for him."
He blinked gummy eyes at Murphy and said, "Three tickets."
"You don't understand," she said. "A fugitive may be hiding inside the Tunnel of Terror. We need to check and see if he's there."
The carnie snorted. "Three tickets, missy. Though it ain't the nicest room you two could rent."
Murphy's jaw muscles flexed.
I stepped forward. "Hey, man," I said. "Harry Dresden, PI. If you wouldn't mind, all we need to do is get inside for five minutes."
He eyed me. "PI, huh?"
I produced my license and showed it to him. He eyed it and then me. "You don't look like no private investigator I ever saw. Where's your hat?"
"In the shop," I said. "Transmission gave out." I winked at him and held up a folded twenty between my first and second fingers. "Five minutes?"
He yawned. "Naw. Can't let nobody run around loose in there." He reached out and took the twenty. "Then again, what you and your lady friend mutually consent to do once you're inside ain't my affair." He rose, pulled a lever, and gestured at the car. "Mount up," he leered. "And keep your, ah, extremities inside the car at all times."
We got in, and I was nearly scalded by the steam coming out of Murphy's ears. "You just had to play along with that one."
"We needed to get inside," I said. "Just doing my job, Sergeant."
She snorted.
"Hey, Murph, look," I said, holding up a strap of old, worn leather. "Seat belts."
She gave me a look that could have scoured steel. Then, with a stubborn set of her jaw, secured the flimsy thing. Her expression dared me to object.
I grinned and relaxed. It isn't easy to really get Murph's goat and get away with it.
On the other side of the platform, the carnie pulled another lever, and a moment later the little cart started rolling forward at the blazing speed of one, maybe even two miles an hour. A dark curtain parted ahead of us, and we rolled into the Tunnel of Terror.
Murphy promptly drew her gun-it was dark, but I heard the scratch of its barrel on plastic as she drew it from its holder. She snapped a small LED flashlight into its holder beneath the gun barrel and flicked it on. We were in a cramped little tunnel, every surface painted black, and there was absolutely nowhere for Maroon to be hiding.
I shook out the charm bracelet on my left wrist, preparing defensive energies in case they were needed. Murph and I had been working together long enough to know our roles. If trouble came, I would defend us. Murphy and her Sig would reply.
A door opened at the end of the little hallway, and we rolled forward into an open set dressed to look like a rustic farmhouse, with a lot of subtle details meant to be scary-severed fingers at the base of the chicken-chopping stump, just below the bloody ax, glowing eyes appearing in an upstairs window of the farmhouse, that kind of thing. There was no sign of Maroon and precious little place for him to hide.
"Better get that seat belt off," I told her. "We want to be able to move fast if it comes to that."
"Yeah," she said, and reached down, just as something huge and terrifying dropped onto the car from the shadows above us, screaming.
Adrenaline hit my system like a runaway bus, and I looked up to see a decidedly demonic scarecrow hanging a few feet above our heads, bouncing on its wires, and playing a recording of cackling, mad laughter.
"Jesus Christ," Murphy breathed, lowering her gun. She was a little white around the eyes.
We looked at each other and both burst into high, nervous laughs.
"Tunnel of Terror," Murphy said. "We are so cool."
"Total badasses," I said, grinning.
The car continued its slow grind forward, and Murphy unfastened the seat belt. We moved into the next area, meant to be a zombie-infested hospital. It had a zombie mannequin, which burst out of a closet near the track, and plenty of gore. We got out of the car and scouted a couple of spots where he might have been but wasn't. Then we hopped into the car again before it could leave the set.
So it went, on through a ghoulish graveyard, a troglodyte-teaming cavern, and a literal Old West ghost town. We came up with nothing, but we moved well as a team, better than I could remember doing with anyone before. Everything felt as smooth and natural as if we'd been moving together our whole lives. We did it in total silence, too, divining what each other would do through pure instinct.
Even great teams lose a game here or there, though. We came up with diddly and emerged from the Tunnel of Terror with neither Maroon nor any idea where he'd gone.
"Hell's bells," I muttered. "This week has been an investigative suckfest for me."
Murphy tittered again. "You said suck."
I grinned at her and looked around. "Well," I said, "we don't know where Maroon went. If they hadn't made us already, they have now."
"Can
you pick up on the signal-whatsit again?"
"Energy signature," I said. "Maybe. It's pretty vague, though. I'm not sure how much more precise I can get."
"Let's find out," she said.
I nodded. "Right, then." We started around the suspect circle of attractions, moving slowly and trying to blend into the crowds. When a couple of rowdy kids went by, one chasing the other, I put an arm around her shoulders and drew her into the shelter of my body so she wouldn't get bowled over.
She exhaled slowly and did not step away from me.
My heart started beating faster.
"Harry," she said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"You and me… Why haven't we ever…" She looked up at me. "Why not?"
"The usual, I guess," I said quietly. "Trouble. Duty. Other people involved."
She shook her head. "Why not?" she repeated, her eyes direct. "All these years have gone by. And something could have happened, but it never did. Why not?"
I licked my lips. "Just like that? We just decide to be together?"
Her eyelids lowered. "Why not?"
My heart did the drum solo from "Wipeout."
Why not?
I bent my head down to her mouth and kissed her, very gently.
She turned into the kiss, pressing her body against mine. It was a little bit awkward. I was most of two feet taller than she was. We made up for grace with enthusiasm, her arms twining around my neck as she kissed me, hungry and deep.
"Whoa," I said, drawing back a moment later. "Work. Right?"
She looked at me for a moment, her cheeks pink, her lips a little swollen from the kiss, and said, "Right." She closed her eyes and nodded. "Right. Work first."
"Then dinner?" I asked.
"Dinner. My place. We can order in."
My belly trembled in sudden excitement at that proposition. "Right." I looked around. "So let's find this thing and get it over with."
We started moving again. A circuit around the attractions got me no closer to the source of the energy I'd sensed earlier.
"Dammit," I said, frustrated, when we'd completed the pattern.
"Hey," Murphy said. "Don't beat yourself up about it, Harry." Her hand slipped into mine, our fingers intertwining. "I've been a cop a long time. You don't always get the bad guy. And if you go around blaming yourself for it, you wind up crawling into a bottle or eating your own gun."
