Becca Fitzpatrick - Crescendo

“Hey! Watch out!”

“Excuse me,” I said, breathless. “Which way to the exit?”

“Where’s the fire, man?”

I fought my way past the crowd. “Excuse me. I have to get through … excuse me.” Above the hedges, the lights of the rides blazed and glittered against the backdrop of night. I paused at an intersection, trying to orient myself. Left or right? Which would get me to the exit faster?

“There you are.” Scott’s breath warmed my ear. He laid his hand on my neck, sending a spike of chills ricocheting to the bone.

“Help!” I shouted on instinct. “Someone help me!”

“My girlfriend,” Scott explained to the few people who’d paused long enough to direct their attention at us. “This is a game we play.”

“I’m not his girlfriend!” I shouted in a panic. “Get your hands off me!”

“Come here, sweetheart.” Scott wrestled me into his arms, pinning me against him. “I warned you not to lie to me,” he murmured in my ear. “I need the ring. I don’t want to hurt you, Nora, but I will, if you make me.”

“Get him off me!” I shouted to anyone who would listen.

Scott wrenched my arm behind my back. I spoke through gritted teeth, trying to battle the pain. “Are you insane?” I said. “I don’t have the ring. I gave it to the police. Last night. Go get it from them.”

“Quit lying!” he growled.

“Call them yourself. It’s the truth. I gave it to them. I don’t have it.” I shut my eyes, praying he believed me and released my arm.

“Then you’re going to help me get it back.”

“They aren’t going to give it to me. It’s evidence. I told them it was your ring.”

“They’ll give it back,” he said slowly, as if he was forming a plan as he went. “If I trade you for the ring.”

It all clicked into place. “You’re going to hold me hostage ? Trade me for the ring? Help!” I screamed. “Somebody get him off me!”

One of the people standing nearby laughed .

“This isn’t a joke!” I yelled, feeling blood rise in my neck, terror and desperation scraping away at me. “Get him off—”

Scott sealed his hand over my mouth, but I got my foot up and kicked him in the shin. He gave a grunt of pain and buckled in half.

His arms loosened slightly in the surprise of the attack, and I shoved myself free. I fumbled back a step, watching agony twist on his face, then turned and bolted, seeing glimpses of the rides through the gaps in the crowd. All I had to do was make it out. The police had to be close. Then I’d be safe. Safe. I repeated the word frantically as motivation to keep my head and not succumb to panic. There was a wan light left in the western sky, and I used it to orient myself north. If I continued north, the pathway would eventually deliver me to the gates.

An explosion shattered my ear. It startled me so much, I tripped and went down on my knees. Or maybe I’d acted reflexively, because there were others around me who’d dropped to the pavement too. There was a moment of hair-raising quiet, and then everyone was screaming and scrambling in every direction.

“He’s got a gun!” The words blurred together in my ears, sounding so very far away.

Even though not one part of me wanted to, I found myself turning back. Scott was clutching his side, bright red liquid flowering through his shirt. His mouth was open, his eyes wide with shock.

He went down on one knee, and I saw someone standing several yards behind him, holding a gun. Rixon. Vee was at his side, her hands clamped over her mouth, her face as white as a sheet.

There was a chaotic stampede of feet and limbs and panicked, chilling screams, and I scooted to the side of the path, trying to avoid getting trampled on.

“He’s getting away!” I heard Vee shriek. “Someone get him!”

Rixon fired several shots, but this time nobody dropped. In fact, the rush to get out intensified. I pulled myself to standing and looked back to where I’d last seen Rixon and Vee. The echo of the shots still pealed in my ears, but I read the words as they fell from Rixon’s lips. Over here. He flagged his free arm through the air. In what felt like in slow motion, I fought the stream of traffic and ran to him.

“What the hell?!” Vee shrieked. “Why did you shoot him, Rixon?”

“Citizen’s arrest,” he said. “Well, that, and Patch told me to.”

“You can’t shoot people just because Patch says to!” Vee said, her eyes wild. “You’re going to get arrested. What are we doing to do now?” she moaned.

“The police are on their way,” I said. “They know about Scott.”

“We have to get out of here!” said Vee, still hysterical, flapping her arms and pacing a few feet, only to spin back and come back to where she’d started. “I’ll take Nora to the police station. Rixon, go get Scott, but don’t shoot him again—tie him up like last time!”

“Nora can’t use the gates,” Rixon said. “That’s what he’ll expect. I know another way out. Vee, get the Neon and meet us at the south end of the parking lot, near the Dumpsters.”

“How are you going to get out?” Vee wanted to know.

“Through the underground tunnels.”

“There are tunnels under Delphic?” Vee asked.

Rixon kissed her forehead. “Hurry, love.”

The crowd had scattered, leaving the pathway empty. I could still hear panicked shrieks and screams echoing down the walkway, but they sounded a world away. Vee hesitated a moment, then gave a resolute nod. “Just hurry, okay?”

“There’s a mechanical room in the basement of the fun house,” Rixon explained to me as we walked in a hurry down the opposite pathway. “It has a door leading into the tunnels under Delphic. Scott may have heard of the tunnels, but if he figures out where we’ve gone and follows us, there’s no way he’ll find us. It’s like a maze down there, and it goes on for miles.” He gave a nervous smile. “Don’t worry, Delphic was built by fallen angels. Not me in particular, but a few of my mates helped. I know the routes by heart. Er, mostly.”

AS WE DREW CLOSER TO THE GRINNING CLOWN’S head leading inside the fun house, the distant screams were replaced by creepy music-box carnival music, tinkling loudly from the bowels of the fun house. I stepped through the mouth, and the floor shifted. I reached out to steady myself, but the walls turned, rolling under my hands. As my eyes adjusted to the traces of light filtering through the mouth of the clown behind me, I saw that I was inside a revolving barrel that seemed to stretch on forever. The barrel was painted with alternating stripes of red and white, and they blurred together into a dizzying pink.

“Here,” Rixon said, guiding me through the barrel.

I put one foot in front of the other, sliding and blundering forward. At the end, I stepped out to solid ground, only to have a jet of icy air shoot up from the floor. The cold licked my skin, and I jumped sideways with a startled gasp.

“It’s not real,” Rixon assured me. “We have to keep going. If Scott decides to search the tunnels, we have to beat him inside.”

The air was stale and humid, and smelled of rust. The clown’s head was a distant memory now. The only light came from red bulbs in the cavernous ceiling that blazed to life just long enough to spotlight a dangling skeleton, unraveling zombie, or vampire rising from a coffin.

“How much farther?” I asked Rixon over the distorted cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails that echoed all around.

“The mechanical room is just ahead. After that, we’ll be in the tunnels. Scott’s bleeding pretty bad. He won’t die—Patch has told you all about Nephilim, right?—but he could pass out from loss of blood. Chances are, he won’t find an entrance to the tunnels before he does. We’ll be back above ground before you know it.” His confidence sounded slightly inflated, a little too optimistic.