George Martin: Songs of Love and Death

“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.”

I REALIZED WE were being followed halfway through my second hot dog.

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 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 was 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 that 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 man in maroon’s sudden rabbit impersonation would result in him 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 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.