The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files) by Frank Tuttle Page A

limp frame. I pushed her aside and snatched him up by his lapels.
    He didn’t weigh what he should. Lifting him was as easy as lifting a suit of empty clothes.
    His hat was gone. His hair was mussed and skew, as though his scalp had been given a half-turn on his head.
    Alfreda raged, clawing and gurgling.
    I pushed his body against the glass.
    His remaining eye snapped open, and he smiled through his ruined, bloody mouth.
    He spoke a word. It had no meaning to me, but it echoed in the dark. No sooner did its last syllable fade, than thumps and scrapes and footfalls sounded amid the candles and the mirrors.
    Alfreda clawed at his face. His wig came off.
    Suddenly I was clutching nothing but a coat. Pants and shirt and gloves and belt fell in a heap, and the glow in the head of his cane died.
    I smashed the cane against the glass. This time the cane broke, but the glass was unscathed.
    Alfreda grabbed my hand.
    “Go,” she said. Her voice was thick and bubbly. Black fluid oozed out of her mouth. “Go.”
    Something out there among the candles and the mirrors began to whistle. Something else cackled with mad laughter. Other things hissed or growled. I heard the scrape of talons on the featureless hard floor.
    Alfreda pulled so hard I took a step, and when I looked back at Buttercup’s glass, she was gone.
    I cussed. I reloaded. I wasted a shot by firing into the dark. I whirled about and called her name, but Buttercup didn’t answer, couldn’t answer.
    Then things began to show themselves, at the edges of my sight. The mirrors filled with a thousand furtive motions. Mad eyes blinked, a million times in unison.
    I let Alfreda drag me off toward what I hoped was safety.

Chapter Ten
    We ran through the nightmare.
    Monstrosities flanked us on every side. The Man of Bones and the Vampire Woman. The spider-thing and a shapeless mass of gelatin. A wailing bank of fog that smelled of rot and burning flesh.
    I emptied both revolvers, brought down a thing of tentacles and stingers that nearly dragged Alfreda into its beak-like maw. I know I winged the flying witch, because she flew away cussing and screeching, trailing blood that burned bright green where it fell near a candle flame.
    I ran out of rounds, couldn’t stop to reload. I grabbed a pair of grenades from my sack, yanked out the silver pins, and hurled them to each side.
    On the count of three, each exploded, and damned if I didn’t hear glass shatter at last.
    Something off to my right fell and rolled. Shrieks and howls came from every direction. I’d hurt something—but the rest kept coming, drawing closer with every step.
    Alfreda stumbled. I yanked her to her feet, wound up dragging her as she struggled to regain her balance.
    I realized with a chill she had no more idea how to escape the hall of mirrors than did I.
    We’d run farther than the tent was wide. Several times over. But it continued to stretch off toward infinity in every direction.
    Our pursuers weren’t in any hurry. They knew haste was unnecessary.
    No one can run forever.
    I lobbed another pair of grenades toward the closest howls.
    Got to be a way out, I thought. Even if it’s magic, there’s got to be a way.
    Something grabbed at me from behind. I sidestepped, whirled, and smacked an upright wolf in his furry muzzle with the butt of my useless revolver.
    Down he went, snarling and bleeding, and on we ran.
    Above us, the witch laughed.
    The grim realization that I had maybe another half a minute of run left in me set it. The grenades were good at keeping things at bay, but would be as deadly to us as they were to the nightmares at close range. I figured I might get a shot or two off, if that, once I stopped to reload.
    The inside of the tent is bigger than the outside, I thought.
    The outside of the tent couldn’t be seen unless you knew it was there.
    So maybe the inside plays by the same rule?
    I thought it, and then I saw it. Directly ahead, maybe twenty feet away. Plain thick burlap tent