Dangerous Creatures(17)

“Well, that’s too bad, because I found us a puking clown.”





CHAPTER 8


Stairway to Heaven


Where are you taking me?”

“Have a little faith, Rid,” Link said.

“Right.” As if.

Link stopped and pulled her in front of him, putting a hand on each of her shoulders. “Look. I’m tryin’ to help, here. I’m not sayin’ it’s a slam dunk. I gotta make sure it’s a good fit, I mean. The band.”

Ridley held her breath.

“Yeah?”

“If it’s important to you, I’ll give it a shot. I mean, I’m your guy. But you gotta be straight with me.”

“I am.” She reached up to push a spike of hair out of his eyes.

“You sure there’s nothin’ else goin’ on here?”

She shook her head. Nothing I can tell you, anyway. But she was still spooked by the feeling that she was being watched. And more than a little guilty about having to lie to her own boyfriend.

She had a bad feeling about this whole night.

“I’m fine,” Ridley said, as much to herself as to him.

Link looked relieved and grabbed her hand. “Then let’s go.”

She followed him across the street from the Duane Reade—the very real drugstore, not the infinitely less real person—where there was a small, run-down, otherwise nondescript one-story diner. Though the street itself was dark, the front window of the building was lit by a blinking neon light that said one word: DINER. It looked like it hadn’t changed much, or been cleaned much, in half a century.

“Does that mean it’s a diner? Or that the name of the place is Diner?” Ridley stared up at it. “I don’t get it.”

“Marilyn’s Diner. Can’t you see where the rest of the neon’s blown out?”

She examined it more closely, but she could barely make out anything in the window. Now that he had transformed, the hybrid Incubus Link could see and hear things well beyond the abilities of a Mortal, or even a Caster.

“Anyway, I’m not talking about that. Look at this.” Link pointed to a wall on the side of the diner, the one that faced the corner of the intersection. It was a relatively average wall of brick covered with graffiti. Tagged words became abstract spray-painted shapes, swirling one into the next. A row of monsters. A sea of faces. Hands lining the ground like flowers.

And one word, arching over it all.




The lettering reminded Ridley of something, but she couldn’t recall exactly what. The name was familiar, or maybe just the artwork. “It’s like those paintings by that one guy. You know, in the museums in Paris, or Spain.”

“Oh, that guy. I see what you’re saying.” But Link didn’t see, since he had never set foot inside a museum in his entire life. Not even the gift shop.

“Dalí,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Salvador Dalí, the guy with the droopy clocks and bizarre faces and skulls that have skulls for eyes. Monster heads walking around on chicken legs and whatever.”

“Last time I checked, you paid about as much attention to museums as I did.” Link grinned. “You’re so full of it.”

“See right there? Where the monster coming out of the creepy egg thing with legs is eating those little guys? That’s what I’m talking about.” Ridley gestured to the wall.

“I think you’re missing the point.” Link looked smug.

“Yeah? What is it, then, Picasso?”

Link reached toward the white monster. “It’s that.”

He touched the wall right behind the white monster, where another creature, one that looked like a cross between a squid and a giraffe—with a strangely round, red nose—was spewing what looked like a bunch of eyeballs out of his enormous mouth.

“He’s throwing up,” Rid said. “Clown Nose is throwing up.” Suddenly, she saw it. Clown Nose. Throwing up. Puking clown!

“Pukin’ like Savannah Snow at Senior Night.” Link seemed more chipper than he’d been since they left Gatlin. “Or Emily Asher at prom. Or that really drunk Summerville kid with food poisoning at Meatstik’s last gig. Or—”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got it.” Rid reached for the mouth. Her hand slid inside, until it disappeared all the way up to her wrist.

“Doorknob?” Link looked hopeful.

In answer, she grabbed his sleeve and yanked, until they both disappeared into the swirls of paint that were the graffiti mural…

… and reappeared on the other side of a door, in what seemed to be the mail room of an average-looking apartment building.

Link doubled over, his hands on his knees. Then he stood upright, shaking his head like a big dog that had just come out of the water. “Whoa. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”


“A basic Occultus Vox Cast? Oh, please, whatever. Illusionist kid stuff. Larkin did the same thing to his clubhouse when he was five.” Ridley wasn’t so impressed with the doorway; anyone could do that. But through the glass of another doorway, she saw stairs zigzagging up into the darkness—apartments above Marilyn’s, hidden from the outside by a Cast. Illusioning away a whole apartment building was pretty cool. Only the diner on the bottom floor was visible, and Ridley realized there was a second way in.