Page 55 of Circle of Death
And then… nothing.
CHAPTER 66
MADDY WALKS THROUGH the entrance of the World’s Fair at the stroke of midnight—alone and determined. The visit with Lamont and Margo two nights back showed her the lay of the land, and Lamont’s vision gave her a few hints about the killer. All-seeing. Hideous. Powerful. But she left that night feeling discouraged and useless. Nothing was solved.
Tonight will be different, Maddy tells herself. Very different. She knows that Lamont and Margo would stop her if they could. But they can’t. They’re on another continent. This time, it’s just her.
At this late hour, most of the families with kids are gone. The main thoroughfare is packed with young couples and rowdy friend groups, most of them drunk. Maddy passes a gaggle of twentysomething women, slurring and stumbling, their faces sparkling with glitter from a makeup booth.
As she heads down the main concourse, Maddy is amped up and alert. The killer is here somewhere. She’s sure of it. Maybe watching her right now. She feels her neck hairs tingle at the thought of something behind her, or above her. Somehow, she needs to lure the murderer into the open. Whoever it is—whateverit is—she’s going to find it and kill it. No mercy.
The crowd thickens as patrons pour out of a pavilion exit in front of her. Maddy angles her way through, trying to stay on course, looking through small gaps in the throng.
Something catches her eye. About twenty yards ahead.
A young woman. Slim. With long, dark hair.
She looks again. No. Not possible!
Maddy feels a blast of adrenaline—so strong it stuns her. For a second, her breath stops in her chest. Her heart is racing now. She elbows her way through the crowd, trying to keep her eyes locked on her target.
The young woman is walking fast. Black pants. Bright blue top. Maddy knows that top. It was the one she lent to Deva a week after school started. She never got it back.Dear God…
“Deva!”
Maddy breaks into a run, crazed with relief. Her vision at school must have been wrong. Some kind of misfire. She shoves people aside, almost tripping as she goes. “Sorry! Move!” Signs and lights and kiosks pass by in a blur.
“Deva! Stop!”
But she doesn’t.
What’s wrong? Why won’t she turn around?
Maddy breaks through the other side of the crowd and freezes. She’s in the middle of the concourse now—surrounded by strings of bright lights. Drums pulse from a pavilion just ahead.
But Deva’s gone. Vanished.
Maddy looks left and right. The drumming is getting louder, blocking out all other sounds. She hurries to the pavilion entrance and walks through, as if she’s being pulled.
She can’t stop.
The entrance leads into a tunnel lined with black canvas. With every step, the drumming gets more and more intense. Maddy can feel it from her temples to her toes.
She’s almost at the end of the tunnel now. She sees light through a half-open flap in the canvas just ahead. She steps through and…bam! She gets walloped by a blast of sound and human heat.
It takes a second to register. She’s in a stadium. The biggest she’s ever seen. Packed with thousands of people. The stage at the far end is filled with costumed dancers—spectacular and acrobatic. The performers and the audience are all thrashing to the rhythm pounded out by a battalion of drummers on a platform above the stage. The energy is insane! Wild. Ecstatic. The drum pattern is Asian, then African, then everything at once—the pounding of a global tribe.
Maddy stands at the top of one of the main aisles. The bleachers shake from thousands of feet stomping in unison. She looks across the stadium.
There!
A lone figure is moving down another aisle about twenty yards to her right. For a split second, the figure is illuminated by one of the spotlights sweeping the audience.
Black hair, blue top.
It’s her!
Maddy races toward the stage and cuts across the front of the stadium. Her ears are throbbing. The tempo of the drums is building, faster and faster. Maddy speeds up, too. The figure she’s chasing is now just a silhouette. The stage lights pulse in sync with the drums. On the final deafening beat, the stage goes black. The roar from the crowd rises like a physical force.
