I had no idea what time it was, but the stars were bright in the ebony sky above, and there was a steady stream of cars pulling out of the parking lot. It must be getting close to midnight.
Which meant it was nearly time to pull the splinter. That thought made the roller coaster flicker and fade even more, though I could still see it. I rubbed my chest, grateful to Quentin for the gift of his magic. It didn’t stop the fear from creeping in, though, along with the memory of Letisha’s words . . . Do you know one of them will kill you?
From somewhere out in the woods came a sharp pop, followed by a second and a third a minute later. I glanced at the sky over the trees. Would there be fireworks? Intrigued, I trudged toward the midway, the entrance to which was marked with a huge lighted archway. A peek down the lane revealed a bizarrely enchanting dark village with a cottage for each “freak,” elaborate signs describing the attributes and skills of each one. So different from the shabby wooden booths that flickered faintly beneath the glamour. I nearly bumped into Jimmy as he stood in the middle of the road, peering toward the woods with concern. He glanced over at me and then turned to the midway. “Closing time,” he shouted. “Time to go home, folks!”
People obediently flocked toward the field of parked cars, and I waved to Vernon as he walked toward us with his bag of trash. He smiled and opened his mouth to say something, but then his eyes went wide and his expression turned rigid, lips pulling back from gapped teeth.
“Headsmen,” he roared. “Headsmen!”
The word had an instant effect not only on the carnies, but also on several of the carnival attendees—just not the kind I would have expected.
I watched in numb disbelief as a group of carnival goers, men and women, suddenly whipped out thick leather gloves and zip ties. Jimmy cursed and shouted, “Evacuate! This is not a drill!”
A few people by the cars screamed. “It’s coming down!” shrieked one woman, pointing to the field. “Oh my God, no!”
I spun around to see the roller coaster buckle and crumble, and even though I knew it wasn’t really there, I felt the tremors beneath my feet.
“Fire!” a man cried, pointing at the midway. Staggering, I whirled around to see four of the dark cottages become hellish infernos, flame and cinders spiraling into the air. The “smoke” made me cough; it was that real. People howled and scattered, bumping into each other as they ran for their cars. The Knedas folk among the carnies were working hard to create enough chaos to allow their comrades to escape.
But the leather-gloved folks didn’t seem fazed. They seemed to see right through the illusion. I turned to run as I watched a guy tackle Quentin and sit on his back. As Quentin tried to reach up and lay hands on his attacker, his wrists were shackled behind his back and his ankles were similarly tied in a matter of seconds. All around me, this same scene was being played out, carnies being tossed to the ground and cuffed. The undercover Headsmen, who had obviously been gathering throughout the evening, posing as regular tourists, were wearing long pants and long sleeves and gloves, keeping their skin covered so they’d be less vulnerable to the effects of the carnies’ magic.
I took a few stumbling steps back and darted between the campers where the gingerbread houses had been, thinking to make it to the woods. Where was Asa? Had he already been taken down? I doubted it would be easy, but that made me even more worried for him, especially when I witnessed one Headsman, a young Hispanic guy wearing a Georgetown sweatshirt, shoot a Taser at the bespectacled Knedas lady who had been running the roller coaster. As soon as she went down, the roller coaster vanished, and the people who had been cringing and fleeing from the massive collapsing tangle of metal stopped and stared, brows furrowed in stunned puzzlement.
“Show’s over,” shouted one woman, holding up what appeared to be a badge that flashed silver under the generator-powered lights. As she did, her sleeve slid up her right arm, revealing a thick silver cuff. “All cars will be searched at the roadblock.”
Suddenly I wondered if the popping sound I’d heard had been someone shooting out the Knedas-juice jars that had been hung in the trees, weakening the glamour. I ran along the perimeter of the campers toward the outhouses, hoping to get behind them and sprint to the woods beyond. I grimaced as my heavy breathing awakened the pain in my chest, but I forced myself to keep going. There was nothing I could do to help. My only good option was to try to escape—my last encounter with a Headsman had nearly gotten me killed, and this time Asa wasn’t here to strangle my attackers with his suspenders.
But just as I reached the outhouses, two women stepped out from behind them, and one had a Taser pointed right at me. The one with the weapon, a curvy blonde with a ponytail, squinted at my hair, and then her eyes met mine. “Name?”
I put up my hands. “Karen Funkhouse.”
Her partner, a slender Asian woman with a sleek black bob, shook her head. “Hang on, Phillips. I think this is her.” She pulled out a phone that had been clipped to her belt and peered at the screen, then at me. “She’s lost some weight, but it’s definitely her.”
“Thought so,” said the blond Agent Phillips. “Mattie Carver, you’re coming with us.”
I took a step back but froze when she raised the Taser to keep it centered on my chest. Like the woman with the badge, Phillips had a silver cuff on, too. “Have you ever been hit with one of these?” she asked, tilting the weapon. “We had to do it in our training. You know what fifty thousand volts feels like?”
If she hit me with that thing, who knew what it would do to the splinter inside me? “I don’t want to find out,” I said.
“Then don’t run,” said the dark-haired agent. “We’ve been sent to fetch you.”
“What? By who?”
The women moved to stand on either side of me, and each took one of my arms. “Above our pay grade.” They marched me back to the road, along which several of the carnies had been lined up, cuffed at the wrists and ankles while casually dressed Headsmen stood over them, taking pictures of their captives with their phones. I gave each of the carnies apologetic looks as I passed, my heart sinking as I saw Vernon trying to scoot on his belly over to Betsy, who was struggling and spitting as a male Headsman dragged her out of her booth.
“You’d better not hurt her,” he roared. “Swear to God, I’ll kill you if you hurt her.”
“Got Ms. Carver,” Phillips said as she reached the woman with the badge, a thick-limbed, steel-haired agent who looked as if she was pretty comfortable being in charge.
“Get her loaded up and take her to the station. We’ll finish up here. Park, call ahead to tell Winslow to get ready.”
Park, the dark-haired agent, nodded and stepped aside with her phone—which was when I noticed she had a silver cuff around her wrist as well.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the cuff.
The agent in charge gave me a quick sidelong glance, but instead of answering, she strode over to a group of other agents who were gathered around Jimmy. He was the only one who wasn’t cuffed. He had his hands up and was speaking calmly to them, his voice a low rumble. But then the agent in charge parted the crowd, pulled a Taser from her belt, and shot him in the chest. He went down like a sack of concrete, and I cried out at the total injustice of it. “He wasn’t hurting anyone,” I shrieked. “Who the heck do you people think you are?”
“He was starting to get through the shields,” said Phillips to Park, tapping her silver cuff. “That’s one powerful Ekstazo. We could use a guy like that.”
“What are you going to do to them?” I asked, inclining my head toward the carnies.
“Not your concern,” said Phillips, her hand closing around my upper arm.
“Why are you taking me and leaving everyone else? Where are we going?”
Park and Phillips refused to answer any more of my rapid-fire questions and pushed me into the back of a black sedan with a tinted shield between the front and back seats. Once the doors were closed, I realized I couldn’t open them
. As they pulled back onto the road, I pressed my nose to the window, frantically scanning every face, looking for a familiar crooked profile. But he wasn’t among the stream of people rubbing at their eyes and shaking their heads, tossing resentful looks over their shoulders at the campsite. About half a mile up the road, we reached a checkpoint, but when Phillips rolled down the window and held out a badge of her own, the people blocking the road, who looked for all the world like local sheriff’s deputies, waved us through.
I leaned back on the headrest and stared at the inky night outside the window as we bumped along the gravel road, and each time Phillips hit a pothole, it hurt a little more. The fear wasn’t helping—it was like sandpaper, quickly wearing away any sense of safety or hope I’d had. Confusion was bitter in my throat, and guilt was crushing me. I knew so little about this shadowy branch of magical law enforcement, but what I did know was not encouraging. Though Grandpa had told me to take the empty Sensilo relic to them after he died, he’d also told me to steer clear of the Headsmen whenever possible. And now that I’d seen them in action, I had an even clearer sense of why. Our encounter with Keenan in Bangkok had been just him, one lone agent, but now they’d descended in force and manhandled dozens of carnies. I had no idea if they were going to put them in jail—or worse.
My anxious churning only intensified when we pulled into the parking lot of the New Kent County Sheriff’s Office. The two female agents pulled me out of the car and escorted me inside, pulling out their badges, which were simple—and blank—silver shields. But the deputy who greeted us at the door looked down at them and nodded. “We’ve got you guys set up back there.”
He pointed past a set of holding cells to a room with a metal door. My stomach dropped. I was so scared that I couldn’t even find the wherewithal to try to convince the deputy that these women weren’t who he believed them to be. He probably thought their badges said “FBI” or “ATF”—I had no doubt the blank silver shields were Knedas relics.
The women guided me through a quiet office area and down the hall with the holding cells. One contained a guy who reeked of booze and was snoring wetly as he lay sprawled on the floor.
In the other cell, a man was sitting ramrod straight on a bench bolted to the wall. Even though he was surrounded by iron bars and cinder block, his wrists and ankles were shackled. He looked to be in his fifties, with graying brown hair and a sensuous mouth that was pulled into a terrible, twitching grimace. There was a thick silver collar fastened around his neck. As we passed, our eyes met, and his glittered with pain and rage so thick and powerful it was almost palpable. I felt the inexplicable urge to ask the women to unshackle him, to take off the collar, to let him breathe free. But just as I was opening my mouth to ask, we reached the metal door.
“I felt that,” Park said with a frown. “Someone needs to turn his collar up.”
“I’ll get Jack to do it when he gets back,” Phillips replied. “I’m not going anywhere near him, cuffed or not.”
“Do the deputies know not to approach him?”
Phillips chuckled. “I think we were pretty clear. They’ll be pretty relieved when his transport arrives.”
“So will I,” said Park. “He gives me the creeps.”
I wondered who he was and what he’d done. He was clearly a natural—and they were treating him like an animal.
As the two agents guided me down a grim gray hallway and into a room with a mirror along one wall and a metal table and chairs positioned under a bright lamp in the center, I couldn’t help but think, how were they going to treat me?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Have a seat.” Phillips pointed to one of the metal chairs, and Park pulled it out for me.
My heart beating a thousand miles an hour, the pain increasing by the second, I sank onto the cold surface. “Do I get a phone call?”
“We’ll let Agent Winslow decide.”
The door slammed, and I sat there, alone. I stared at myself in the mirrored glass. I’d watched enough Law & Order to know there was probably a person behind there, watching me.
I’d looked better. My ponytail was crooked, and my hair was tangled and frizzy. My new outfit looked fine enough, but my arms looked like sticks and my cheeks were hollow, my bones sticking out sharp in my face. Asa was right. I did look like I’d escaped a refugee camp.
The door clicked, and in walked a short guy, bald on top and gray on the sides, wearing tan suit pants with a mustard stain on the left thigh, a pale-blue button-down stretched over a generous belly that didn’t match his wiry limbs, and a plaid bow tie. “Agent Winslow, Ms. Carver,” he said in a nasally voice. “Nice to meet you.”
“Um . . . hi.” He looked and sounded so goofy that my fear faded, leaving only irritation.
He sat down across from me. “You hungry? You want a sandwich? You look like you could eat.”
“No, thanks. But I’d love a phone call.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Who would you call?”
“Is that your business?”
“We’re not the police.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a threat or a reassurance.”
“Consider it both.”
“Nice. So can I have a call or not?”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a tricky one.”
“I’m actually pretty straightforward, relatively speaking.”
“So maybe you can straightforwardly tell me how you came to be in the company of an infamous group of criminals.”
“Criminals?” I blinked at him and prayed he wasn’t a sensor. “I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”
He leaned forward, and I stared at his ridiculous tie. “I’m sure you’d like to go home, Ms. Carver. I’m sure you’d like to see your family again. You can if you cooperate.”
Seeing my family again did sound nice . . . then my chest flared. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. You’re a Knedas.”
“Ah. Guilty as charged.” He gave me a sheepish smile. “It doesn’t make anything I’ve said untrue.”
“What exactly does ‘cooperating’ entail?”
“I’d like to know everyone you’ve talked to and been with in the past seventy-two hours.”
I rubbed my temples. “Honestly, my head kinda hurts.”
He chuckled. “I can see a more blunt approach is required. Let’s try this—your fiancé telephoned our central office about twelve hours ago to offer us something very rare.”
My fists clenched under the table. “A two-for-one special on neutering?”
Agent Winslow threw back his head and let out a bellowing laugh. “Good one! But no. He offered us a priceless relic that has long been believed to be out of circulation and out of our reach. Imagine our surprise when he described it in detail and offered to hand it over to us.”
“So some guy called you out of the blue and claimed to have a priceless relic, and you believed him just because he told you what it looked like? How do you know he didn’t look the thing up on Google Images?”
“Some guy?” Winslow’s brow furrowed. “Dr. Benjamin Ward is your fiancé, is he not?” He bent to the side and peered at my hand under the table. “Quite a sparkler you’ve got there.” He pulled out his phone and swiped until he got to an image, which he showed me. It was Ben and me two Christmases ago, grinning into the camera, our eyes bright, our cheeks flushed. “And a beautiful couple.” He put the phone away.
“We’re going through a rough patch.”
“He said the same. He’s very worried about you, Mattie. And he had quite a story to tell. Would you like to hear it?”
“I’m not sure I can take any more excitement tonight.”
“He was willing to exchange the relic for you. It’s priceless, and he could have tried to sell it, but instead, the only thing he wanted was our assistance in securing your safe return. He told us the tragic story of how he came to be in possession of it in the first place.” He shook his head, drooping with apparent sadness. “I was just a young agent when Howard Ca
rver retired, but he was well respected in our community. I’m sorry to hear of his loss.”
“Thanks,” I said in a broken whisper. “This wasn’t what he wanted, though.”
“But Dr. Ward said he wanted us to have the relic. Was Ben lying?”
“I’m sure he thinks he’s telling the absolute truth.”
“He accepted his share of the responsibility for drawing you into this. He offered to turn himself in and face charges.” Winslow snickered. “Like all people not familiar with our world, he assumed we function as the police do.”
“You don’t care about what he did. You only care about getting ahold of the relic.”
“Ms. Carver, you of all people can understand that original relics are incredibly dangerous. Don’t you think it best if it doesn’t end up in the hands of a mob boss?”
“Only if it ends up in more responsible hands. The verdict’s still out on you.”
He put a hand to his chest as if I’d wounded him. “We are here to protect innocent people. All innocent people—naturals and nonmagicals alike. Especially the vulnerable.” He looked me up and down, and I stared mutinously back at him. “Your fiancé was able to describe exactly where you would be and—forgive me for saying so—exactly the shape we would find you in.” He waved his hand at my face.
“Hang on a second. What is that supposed to mean?” I had forgotten to be scared for the moment. I was too mad, too hassled, too insulted, too worried, too guilty, and in way, way, way too much pain. “Actually, don’t tell me. So just because Ben had something you want, and told you to come and get me, that’s what you did—even though there was no reason to believe I was really in trouble? Is acting as errand boy for desperate, overcontrolling men something you guys do on the regular?”
“There was every reason to believe you were in trouble. He said you were under the influence of a man well known as a dangerous criminal—Asa Ward is a thief, a smuggler, and possibly even an assassin. Dr. Ward was frantic for your safety.”