I moved carefully around the back of the funhouse. The back door was hanging limply open on one hinge, with half a sign still visible on it. The faded red letters spelled out GENCY EX quite clearly. I paused at the side of the doorway, pistol ready. I didn’t really think anyone would be hiding inside among the old mirrors. It was too much of a cliché, and surely even cannibals have some pride. And in any case, the mirrors had not rea
lly fooled anyone when they were in good condition. After so many years of neglect they were almost certainly no more reflective than the bottom of my shoe. But I took no chances; I moved past the door in a crouch with my pistol ready and aimed at the inside of the funhouse. Nothing lurked, nothing moved. I went on by to the next puddle of shadow.
At the far corner of the building I paused again, and peeked carefully around—still nothing. Was it possible that no one was actively looking for me? I remembered something my adoptive mother, Doris, had often said: The wicked flee where none pursueth. It was certainly true in my case. I spent far too much time fleeing, and so far no one had pursuethed me. But I knew with absolute certainty that they were in the park, and the only sensible move was to run for my life—but I knew just as certainly that my sister would never leave the park without Samantha Aldovar and Bobby Acosta, and I could not leave her to do it alone.
I heard unhappy muttering from the Passenger, and I felt the cold wind from his wings blowing through me, and every small voice of reason and common sense raised up on its toes and screamed at me to run for the exits—and I could not. Not without Deborah.
And so I took a breath, wondering how many more times I might be able to do so, and I scuttled for the next small and crumbling chunk of shelter. It had once been a ride for very young children, the kind with the large enclosed cars that go slowly around in a circle while you turn a big wheel in the center. Only two of the cars remained, and both were in very bad shape. I scuttled into the shade of the blue one and crouched there for a moment. The entire group of partying pirates had vanished and there was no sight or sound of anyone or anything paying attention to my hermit-crab progress. I could have been marching through the park leading a brass band and juggling live armadillos for all the attention they were paying me.
But sooner or later we would meet, and things being what they were, I wanted to see them first. So I got down on my hands and knees and peeked around the kiddie car.
I had come to the end of the area with the rides for small kids and was now in sight of the artificial river that had once held the pirate ship ride. It still had plenty of water in it, although it was not the most attractive tint I had ever seen. Even from here I could see that the water was a dull and vile green from years of neglect. Between me and the river there were three of the poles that supported the cable car. Each one of them had lamps hanging down from them, but only one of the lights actually worked. It was to my right, in the direction I had last seen Deborah. Straight ahead there was a dark open area about a hundred feet long that ended at the next chunk of cover, a grove of palm trees on a bluff above the water. The grove was not terribly large, barely big enough to hide a few small squads of Taliban waiting to ambush me. But there was no other cover in sight, so I eased out from behind the car and scuttled into the open at a running crouch.
It was an awful feeling to be unprotected, and it seemed to take several hours to cross the open and unshadowed ground until I came up next to the little grove. I paused beside the first palm tree. Now that I had the small security of its trunk, I worried again about what might be hiding on the other side. I hugged the tree and peered around it, in among the trees. A great deal of scrub and underbrush had grown up between them, and since a lot of it had sharp and pointy branches, it really did not look like a very attractive place to hide. I could see enough to be reasonably sure that nothing was lurking among the saw palmettos and thorny bushes, and I did not want to risk losing any flesh by lurking there either. I started to ease away from my tree trunk to look for better cover.
And then from up the river to my left I heard the unmistakable sound of fake cannon fire. I looked toward the sound and, in a clatter of torn cloth and half-shattered spars, the pirate ship came sailing around the bend.
It was only a decomposing husk of what it had once been. Chunks of wood dangled from the hull. The ratty remnants of its sails fluttered sadly, and less than half of the faded Jolly Roger still waved at the top of the mast, but still the ship came proudly on, just the way I remembered it. Another feeble broadside puffed out from the three cannons facing me and I took the hint and dove into the tangled scrub between the palm trees.
What had seemed like something to be avoided moments ago now seemed like precious security, and I wormed my way into the deepest clump of brush. Almost instantly, I was tangled in greenery and torn by thorns. I tried to pull away from a plant that had attacked me and I backed painfully into a small and well-named saw palmetto. By the time I had pulled myself free, I was bleeding from several deep cuts on my arms and my shirt was torn. But complaining never does any good, and I was sure no one had thought to bring Band-Aids, so I kept crawling.
I inched forward through the underbrush, leaving several more small and valuable pieces of my flesh behind on the carnivorous bushes, until I got to the far edge of the little forest, where I hunkered down behind a fan of palmetto fronds and peeked out at the river. The water roiled as if a giant hand just under the surface had begun to swirl it into motion, and then it settled into a slow and steady stream, as if it were a real river instead of a circular pond.
And as I watched, the pride of Buccaneer Land, the terror of the seven seas, the wicked ship Vengeance floated into view and came to a stop at the ancient and rotting pier that jutted into the river on the bank, just below me and to my right. The water roiled again, settled down into a slow flow, and the Vengeance rocked ever so slightly but stayed in place at the dock. And although there was no sign of the ship’s roguish crew, there was at least one passenger on board.
Tied securely to the mainmast was Samantha Aldovar.
THIRTY-EIGHT
SAMANTHA DID NOT LOOK LIKE THE KIND OF PASSENGER I had seen on board the Vengeance in my youth. Aside from having no cotton candy or souvenir pirate hat, she was slumped over, perhaps unconscious, maybe even dead, her weight hanging against the ropes. From my hiding spot on the small bluff, I had a decent view of most of the things on the deck. Next to Samantha stood a large black barbecue grill, with a thin column of smoke wafting up from under the cover. Beside it was a big five-gallon cooking pot on a stand, and a small table where several indistinct but familiar-looking objects gleamed sharply as they caught the light.
For a moment, nothing moved but the shredded half of the Jolly Roger flag on top of the mast. The deck was deserted, except for Samantha. But someone else had to be on board. In spite of a large fake wheel at the stern, I knew the boat was controlled from inside the cabin. There had also been a lounge in there, with a refreshment stand. Somebody must be down there, working the controls. But how many? Just Bobby Acosta? Or enough of his fellow cannibals to make things dicey for the good guys, who oddly enough included me tonight?
The flag flopped. A jet flew overhead, wheels down, coming in to land at Fort Lauderdale Airport. The boat rocked gently. And then Samantha rolled her head to one side, another anemic broadside puffed out from the cannons, and the cabin door thumped open. Bobby Acosta came out on deck with a scarf tied around his head and a very unpirate-ish Glock pistol held up high. “Whoo-hoo!” he yelled, and he fired two shots into the air as a small gaggle of happy-looking partygoers about his age, male and female, followed him out on deck. They were all dressed in pirate gear, and they all headed directly to the big cooking pot beside Samantha and began filling cups from it and chugging the contents.
And as they settled into their lighthearted and carefree amusement, I actually felt a tiny glimmer of hope blossom in my heart. There were five of them and only three of us, true, but they were clearly lightweights, and they were guzzling something I was quite sure was the intoxicating punch they liked so much. In a few moments they would be high, goofy, and no threat at all. Wherever the rest of the party might have gone, this bunch would be easy. The three of us could step out of cover and round them up. Deborah would have what she came for, we could sneak away and call for help, and Dexter could get back to reinventing normal life.
And then the cabin door opened
again, and Alana Acosta slithered out on deck.
She was followed by the ponytailed bouncer from Fang, and three nasty-looking men carrying shotguns, and the world turned dim and dangerous once more.
I had known Alana was a predator from what the Dark Passenger had whispered as we stood beside her Ferrari. And now, seeing her here so clearly in command, I knew that my brother, Brian, had been right: The head of the coven was a woman, and it was Alana Acosta. And this was not merely her trap; it was also her invitation to dinner. And if I could not come up with something really clever, I was going to be on the menu.
Alana strode right to the rail, looked out into the park more or less between me and where I thought Deborah should be, and she called out, “Olly olly oxen free!” She turned and nodded at her posse, and they obligingly put the shotguns to Samantha’s head. “Or else!” Alana yelled happily.
Clearly her bizarre yodel about oxen was some sort of British children’s ritual, meant to summon everyone to come in: Game over, come to home base. But she must have thought we actually were children, and very dull children at that, if she supposed we would come obediently out of our hard-earned cover and trudge into her clutches. Only the rankest ninny would fall into that kind of stupidity.
And as I hunkered down for what I assumed would be a long game of cat and mouse, I heard a shout to my right, and a moment later, to my very great horror, Deborah came into view. She was apparently so obsessed with saving Samantha—again!—that she had not even spent two seconds thinking about the consequences of what she was doing. She simply sprang out of hiding, ran over to the ship, and raced up beside the pier to surrender. She stood there below me looking defiant, and then very deliberately she drew her pistol and dropped it to the ground.
Alana clearly enjoyed the performance. She went to stand closer, where she could gloat at Debs properly, and then turned and said something to the bouncer. A moment later he wrestled the decrepit boarding ramp over the side and thumped it down onto the dock.
“Come on up, dearie,” Alana said to Deborah. “Use the ramp.”
Deborah stood still and looked up at Alana. “Don’t hurt that girl,” she said.
Alana’s smile grew huge. “But she wants us to hurt her; don’t you see?” she said.