Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)

The same could be said for those of us working along the parade route. The sidewalks and walkways were clogged with gaping guests, making it virtually impossible for anyone to get into or out of the store. It was probably a safety hazard. As long as it gave us time to fold all these damn shirts, I didn’t care.

That’s what I was doing when the engine blew. I was folding shirts, hands working on autopilot while my mind reviewed Colin’s most recent set of training exercises, my back to the street. There was a loud banging noise, like a nail gun going off, and someone screamed. That first scream was the bellwether for quite a few more. In a matter of seconds, the world was made entirely of screaming.

I dropped the shirt, fingers suddenly nerveless, hands refusing to close. There was no heat, but I whipped around all the same, running toward the window. Half my coworkers were already there. No one shoved or jockeyed for position. We just stood, frozen, terrified, as the Goblin Market float toppled sideways, falling onto the crowded sidewalk.

Several screams cut off abruptly, like the screamers were no longer available for comment. That was enough to break the spell my shock had cast. I ran for the door, pausing only long enough to lean over the counter and grab the first aid kit we kept there for the inevitable staff accidents. I didn’t think individually packaged aspirin and mini-bandages were going to help much, but I had to do something.

The street outside had devolved into pure chaos. People were still screaming, scattering away from the fallen float like it was a giant grenade chucked into their midst. The sound was somehow muted, unable to live up to the impact of that first, ear-splitting cacophony. Babies and young children wailed, clinging to their parents or—more chillingly—sitting abandoned on the curb, with no caretakers in sight.

The float itself was on its side, completely obscuring a long stretch of sidewalk, burying whatever had been there under more than a ton of plastic, papier-maché, and metal rebar. A red pool was forming along the float’s edge, and despite the theme of the area, I knew it hadn’t come from a pomegranate, full and fine.

One of the curling blackberry vines the actresses playing Laura and Lizzie usually used as handholds while they raced around their float was on fire. I ran toward it, trying to feel the heat, to focus my training on pulling it out of the world. A burning float was one of the only things I could think of that would make this already bad situation genuinely worse.

My hands stayed cold and calm. They were just hands. I stopped in the middle of the street, buffeted on all sides by guests fleeing from the accident, and stared at them. There was no heat. I could feel what was coming off the float, feel it getting stronger as the fire began to spread, but it was all external fire. There was nothing inside me.

Colin’s words about babies and the way they screamed, hurting themselves because they didn’t know any better, flashed through my mind. I knew better now. I knew hurting myself didn’t do me any long-term good. But dammit, I could have done with that lesson kicking in a little later.

“Fuck,” I muttered—a firing offense if any of the fleeing guests felt like reporting me for swearing while wearing an official Lowryland uniform—and started running again, heading for the center of the chaos.

The actress playing Lizzie had been flung free when the float went down. She was sprawled on the concrete about ten feet away from the wheels, one arm bent at an angle that spoke clearly of a bad break, the sort of thing that would require more than just a cast to repair. I stopped next to her, crouching down and feeling for a pulse. She moaned when my fingers pressed against her throat. That was a good sign. Dead people don’t usually make a lot of noise.

“You need to be as still as possible,” I said. Most of the crowd was already past this point, fleeing for places that weren’t at risk of being on fire; the injured actress’s chances of being trampled were low. “You fell hard, and you could have a spinal injury.”

She moaned again. It was difficult to tell for sure whether she could hear me. If she couldn’t, she was unlikely to move, and if she could, she would hopefully listen. I shoved myself back to my feet and ran on toward the float, hissing, “Mary,” under my breath.

“Mary” is a pretty common name. My dead aunt doesn’t appear every time I say it, which is a good thing, given how many Marys I’ve met through cheerleading, roller derby, and being a physical meat creature who walks in the world and has to deal with the consequences of uninspired parents. But she hears it every time a member of the family says her name, and she can choose to come and see what we’re going on about. I ran, and suddenly a white-haired woman was running next to me, her steps making no sound.

“What the hell?” she demanded.

“Float fell,” I replied. There were sirens in the distance, the sound of Lowryland’s emergency teams racing toward us. There’d be no effort to cover this one up. This wasn’t some behind the scenes accident where no guests had been injured. This was a full-on disaster, and everyone was going to get involved.

The trouble with something like this—apart from the loss of life and the therapy that all these children were going to need—came from Lowryland’s design. Like most Florida theme parks, real estate was at a premium, and a space that wasn’t somehow interactive or eye-catching or otherwise keeping our guests engaged was a waste of money. That meant there were very few straight roads within the Park itself. Security staff could come through the backlot and the tunnels, but the emergency vehicles? Those had to travel along one of a limited number of routes, and at this time of day, with the rest of the parade still clogging the street and screaming guests fleeing everywhere, getting through to us was going to be just this side of impossible.

“What do you want me to do?” demanded Mary.

I looked quickly around. No one was looking at us. Anything that happened now was likely to be written off as shock, a hallucinatory aftereffect of seeing something this horrible happen in a place that was supposed to be all about happiness and joy.

“Go under the float,” I said. “See how many dead we’re dealing with. If there are any ghosts, see if you can convince them to go away. I’m going to take care of the kids.”

Mary nodded and was gone. I kept running until I reached the sidewalk and the first of the sobbing, somehow left behind children.

Please, you were with an older sibling who forgot about you, I thought desperately, picking up a weeping little girl with one arm and grabbing a baby carrier with the other. The girl wailed and buried her face against my shoulder. I was a stranger, sure, but I was a stranger in a Goblin Market costume. She was wearing a sparkly Princess Laura dress. Having someone from what was probably her favorite movie come to rescue her must have been the only thing that made sense right now.

There was blood on the lacy edge of her dress. Please think it’s jam, I thought, and ran until I reached a bench, where I plopped both child and carrier down.

The little girl didn’t go easily. She grabbed for me as soon as it became apparent what I was trying to do, making a keening noise in the back of her throat, like a distressed puppy. I offered her my brightest Lowryland smile.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Melody. What’s your name?”

“Ginger,” she sniffled.

“Is this baby with you, Ginger?”

She shook her head.

“Okay. I have a big job for you, princess. Do you think you can do a big job for me?”

“I want my mommy,” she whispered.