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 one another. 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 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 finger. “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. “Seatbelts.”
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 axe, 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.