<I don’t see any poodles at present. No sausages either.>
I sighed and dropped my eyes to the bare ground over which the tent had been erected. What grass remained was well trampled and forlorn, perhaps wondering why it, of all grass, had to suffer a herd of bipeds crushing it into the earth. Rounding another plywood barrier, I was confronted with a large woman wearing a costume beard, Grizzly Adams–style. The elastic band keeping it in place was plainly visible over her ears. Next to her stood a man with a cheap old-fashioned prosthetic arm attached to his chest via a clever arrangement of suspenders and bungee cords. He grabbed the forearm with his left hand and raised it a bit, then wiggled it to make the plastic hand flap at me. I shook my head in disgust and moved on, hoping something more inventive would be around the next sheet of plywood.
<Hey, Atticus, is it normal for there to be stairs in a tent?>
What? No.
<We’re going down a staircase. Looks like they slapped wood planks on top of solid earth. We’ve been walking on wood the whole time, actually.>
I spun around and searched for trapdoors or anything else that might indicate a trip down below on my side. Nothing. No wood flooring either. The idiot three-armed man flapped his prosthetic hand again, figuring I wanted additional proof of his dexterity.
Have you seen anything stupid posing as a thrill?
<No, we turned a corner and boom, stairs headed down.>
That’s weird. It’s completely different on this side. Seems more elaborate than all their costuming.
Maybe it was a thematic thing. Their side was supposed to be hell, after all. If my side was heaven, though, where was the stairway to it? I hurried around the next corner and saw the woman with two “tumors”—they were red gumdrops attached to her cheeks with adhesive. And the conjoined quintuplets were there too: “They” were one guy with two shrunken plastic heads resting on either shoulder.
How could anyone walk out of here and praise this farce? It made no sense, especially since the few other people who’d chosen this side with me were obviously annoyed by the extent of the swindle. I didn’t know what to expect around the next wall—most likely the exit—so I was surprised by a little blond girl, maybe eight years old, in a pretty pink dress and shiny black shoes. She would have been adorable had her eyes not been glowing orange. The smile she smiled was decidedly un-girlish—more like inhuman—and her voice was one of those low basso frequencies that shiver your bones.
“You came alone and it was the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen,” she rumbled, and a wave of her power—or perhaps I should say its power—did its best to slap me upside the head. Since my aura was bound to the cold iron of my amulet, the mojo fizzled and delivered a small thump to my chest, as if someone had poked me right on the amulet. She was standing on a square of plywood. I blinked as I realized that the deception going on here was much grander than a three-dollar fraud.
I kicked off my sandals and stopped hiding from Amber the elemental. I’d been powering Oberon’s camouflage with magic stored in my bear charm, but it was running low and the orange-eyed girl demanded more resources, seeing as how she was casually slinging around hoodoo and speaking as if she had a giant pair of balls that dropped two feet after puberty. I drew energy through the tattoos that bound me to the earth and watched as the girl repeated the ensorcelling phrase for the person behind me. It was a young man in a white cowboy hat, and he rocked back visibly under the little girl’s greeting before his expression assumed a thousand-mile stare and he became a mouth breather.
<Atticus, something isn’t right.>
No kidding. I activated the charm on my necklace that allowed me to see in the magical spectrum and discovered that wee miss was an imp crammed into a human shell. That shell was the same thing as a hostage: If I attacked it and it couldn’t bamboozle people anymore, those same people would think I was assaulting a child.
<We just went through this weird door made of this jelly stuff. More like an orifice, really…We sort of squirted through the middle and it was gross. It smells bad down here. Blood and bad meat and that poo you like to fling around. It’s coming from someplace ahead.>
I frowned. Stop. Don’t go any farther. I’m coming to join you. In fact, go back.
<But Granuaile is going forward.>
She couldn’t hear Oberon’s thoughts yet, since she was still about six years away from getting bound to the earth. Grab her by the shirt or something. Pull her back. Don’t let her go.
I spent a few seconds trying to think of how to beat the imp without a kerfuffle, until I realized it wasn’t trying to prevent my escape. All I had to do was act dumb and walk out. Picking up my sandals, I did precisely that, vowing to return later. Once safely outside, I sprinted around to the front of the tent to have another shot.
<She’s getting mad at me, Atticus. She’s telling me to stop and let her go. And there are people cramming in behind us.>
Don’t let her go! It’s important, Oberon. I’m on my way.
<I’ll try, but she’s really determined.>
The line at the front of the tent was just as long as when we’d entered—perhaps longer. The barker, I saw through magical sight, was actually a full-fledged demon. The huge man at the door taking money was an imp, so the barker was the boss. His words came back to me: “Guaranteed to harrow your soul.” “Reap what you sow.” And then, in writing, an offer to choose hell. I couldn’t afford to wait in line again.
<Um, Atticus, we’ve moved down the hall a bit. There’s another weird door ahead, like a full-body turnstile, and I think these things are one-way. Great big bears! The smell is awful now, and people on the other side of it are screaming and trying to get back to where we are, but they can’t. And the people on this side—Granuaile included—can’t wait to walk through to where the screaming is. This isn’t any fun, and I think you should get your money back.>
Can’t you stop her?
<I tried! She hit me, Atticus! On the nose!>
That didn’t sound like Granuaile at all. She loved Oberon every bit as much as I did. Only one thing could explain her behavior.
Oberon, she’s under a spell. These are demons at work. You have to stop her. Knock her down and sit on her if you have to.
Oberon weighed more than she did. He could keep her pinned.
<Demons? Why don’t I smell them?>
Normally demons smell so bad that it takes a herculean effort to keep your lunch down. I shot another look at the demon barker but saw no one violently ill in his vicinity. Neither the man at the entrance nor the girl at the exit had set my nose twitching.
They’ve sewn themselves up tight in human bodies. Have you got her?
<Not yet. She’s not the average human. You’ve been training her for six years.>