Lord of the Wings (29 page)

“I heard you the first time.” I decided my best bet was to ignore his game. “And if Clan Raven wants to claim this particular spot as part of their ancestral lands, they'll have to take it up with the Caerphilly College legal department. Now get out of my way.”

“You dare assert your human laws against the immortal … um … wisdom of the Undying Ones!”

“Goblin Patrol,” I barked. “And you're the one trespassing. Take that silly little toothpick away from my throat or you'll be sorry.”

“Silence!” he roared. And then he narrowed his eyes and glowered at me. At my neck actually, where a few drops of blood were trickling down from the cut he'd given me. Was he really trying to make me think he was craving my blood? Or just killing time till he could come up with some more stilted dialogue? I reminded myself that both of our recent murders had been committed with guns, but somehow that didn't reassure me. It wouldn't prevent this lunatic from committing murder number three with his sword.

I needed to come up with a plan. Maybe I could back up in the direction of the agricultural machine at the edge of the asphalt and try to impale him on one of the pointy bits? No. Too complicated. And I was already talking as loudly as I could, in the hope that Michael would come along and tackle him.

Maybe a distraction.

“Look,” I began. “If you—”

And then I deliberately broke off and glanced over his shoulder, as if I'd suddenly spotted something. He didn't completely fall for it and whirl around, but he did take his eyes off me for a few seconds, and that gave me my chance.

“Ay-yi!” I yelled, as my martial arts teacher had taught me so long ago. Fortunately I remembered a few other things he'd taught me. I ducked under the blade and kneed the Clan Raven dude in the groin while grabbing his sword hand with both of mine and twisting. He yelped and doubled over, dropping the sword. I rolled him over on his stomach—he was almost Michael's height, but weedy, and also, thanks to my knee, in no frame of mind to put up much of a fight. He squirmed a bit until I pulled one of his arms up behind and twisted it enough to be uncomfortable.

“Oww,” he whined. “You're hurting me.”

“Lie still, then,” I said. “Or I'll hurt you worse. You're the one who drew first, remember. What are you doing here?”

He said nothing—just moaned feebly.

I tightened his arm a little.

“Oww!” he yelped. “All right. I'm just here to decorate for the ball.”

“The ball?”

“The vampire ball,” he whimpered. “Tomorrow night. All the clans are coming. And Clan Raven is in charge of decorating.”

“In the barn?”

He nodded.

“You couldn't just hire a hall?”

Okay, that was a rhetorical question.

Then a voice came out of the darkness.

“You can let him go now, Meg.” Aida Butler. “I've got my .38 aimed at him. Of course I didn't load the silver bullets this morning, but I'm betting Dracula here isn't immune to lead. Why don't you get up and find your phone and tell Debbie Ann I'm here.”

“I need to look for Michael.” It worried me that he hadn't showed up already. I spotted my phone and grabbed it.

“Wait till Vern gets here,” Aida said. “Or let me cuff this creep—”

“I'm here,” said Vern. “Where'd Michael go?”

“Around the back.” I took off in the direction Michael had taken, over a fence into a paddock, and then down the side of the barn until I reached the fence at the other end. There were probably gates but I didn't want to waste time hunting for them in the dark. Okay, not so dark—Vern's flashlight came on, just in time to let me avoid stepping in a strategically located manure pile—but I still didn't want to waste time looking for the gate. “We heard rustling in there,” I said over my shoulder. “In the Ag Sci department's demonstration barn,” I added, since presumably Debbie Ann might also still be listening on my phone. “So I was guarding the front door while he went around to check on—Michael!”

I ran the last few steps to where Michael was lying on the ground just outside the barn, beside another people-sized door.

“I'm okay,” he said. Then he winced. “Okay, I'm not okay. I think maybe my ankle's broken. But I'm not dead. The vampires went thataway.”

He pointed away from the barn, where the Ag Sci pastures stretched away into the darkness.

“We'll round them up later,” Vern said. “We need an ambulance here, pronto,” he added into his police radio. Then he turned back to us. “What happened?”

“I found the door open,” Michael said. “And I went in and surprised half a dozen people dressed like vampires. They were decorating the place—hanging lights and drapes and stuff. When they saw me, they all panicked and ran. One of them fell on her way out the door, and I tripped over her, and—voilà.”

He pointed at his ankle. Vern shone his flashlight on it. The ankle was already grapefruit-sized.

“What's going on here?” I turned to see Chief Burke climbing over the fence.

“Trespassers in the Ag Sci barn,” Michael said.

“The vampire clans were planning to have their Halloween masked ball here tomorrow night,” I said. “Don't look at me that way—I didn't make it up. The vamp wannabe with the rapier told me. He's on the decorating committee.”

“I don't doubt you,” the chief said. “That would be the young reprobate Aida has in handcuffs at the other side of the barn? Debbie Ann seems to think he tried to attack you with a sword.”

“What?” Michael exclaimed.

“He tried,” I said, indicating the small wound on my throat. “But then I disarmed him and twisted his arm to tell me what he was doing here.”

“I gather you mean that literally,” the chief murmured. “Let me check this out. And it's starting to drizzle. Let's get Mr. Waterston inside where he can be more comfortable till the ambulance arrives.”

Vern and I managed to get Michael up and helped him hobble through the barn door without putting any weight on his foot. We couldn't help staring at what we saw inside.

“Glory be,” the chief muttered.

The vampire LARPers had transformed the place. They'd hung long lengths of black fabric from floor to ceiling along three of the walls, and I could see a ladder in place where we'd evidently interrupted someone decking the fourth wall. Someone else was starting to hang fairy lights along the already draped walls. At one end of the room was a large table covered with a black tablecloth, while at the other stood a black dais with two chairs sitting on it. The chairs were the only discordant note—although large, they were fairly ordinary armchairs upholstered in scruffy beige fabric. But I could see a heap of black fabric nearby, and I had no doubt that when they finished with the walls they'd have enough left over to camouflage the rather utilitarian chairs and transform them into vampire thrones.

“They're having a party here?” the chief asked. “Who authorized that?”

“If someone had authorized it, why would they have run away when we confronted them?” I asked.

“Barn's supposed to be locked tight till the festival's over,” Michael said.

“Tell me what happened.” The chief had taken out his trusty notebook.

Michael let me do the talking. As I was doing so, two EMTs arrived and began checking Michael out, which probably made the end of my tale just a bit less coherent than the beginning. Once I'd finished, Michael described the LARPers he'd seen.

“So we're looking for half a dozen young people dressed up as vampires,” the chief said, with a sigh. “I'm afraid that's not much help.”

“I can tell you what will help,” I said. “All the people who are playing this game will be wearing those little ribbon rosettes. I'm pretty sure it tells the other players that they're part of the game, and also which clan they're in. The Clan Raven people will be wearing black-and-purple rosettes like my assailant.”

“Yes,” Michael said. “Black-and-purple ribbons, definitely.”

“That's good,” the chief said. “I'll put out a BOLO for vampires wearing purple ribbons. Meg, why don't you go down to the hospital with Michael? Once you're sure he's okay, come down to the station and we'll see what kind of charges we're pressing against these hooligans.”

It sounded like a good idea to me. The EMTs were loading Michael onto a stretcher, over his complaints that all he really needed was a shoulder to lean on. I trotted behind them as they made their way to the other end of the barn, watched as they loaded him into the ambulance, and then, since our car was still over at the college parking lot, hitched a ride on the ambulance to Caerphilly Hospital.

 

Chapter 22

“He'll be fine,” Dad said. “A simple fracture. We're just waiting for Dr. Sengupta to get here.” Apparently only orthopedists were allowed to set bones and apply casts, and Dr. Sengupta, the local orthopedist, had fled to Richmond for the weekend, but had allowed himself to be persuaded by Dad to come back to take care of Michael.

“Why don't you leave me with your dad?” Michael suggested.

“I'm staying right here until you get your cast,” I said. “And then I'm driving you home.”

“But if you stay here, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out if they've caught the stupid LARPers who tripped me,” Michael protested.

“And it could be a while before Dr. Sengupta gets here,” Dad said. “You go handle your Goblin Patrol duties. I'll keep you posted on everything that happens here, and you can tell me what you learn at the station.”

They both looked so determined that I gave in.

“Okay,” I said. “But call me the minute Dr. Sengupta arrives. Or if anything else happens.”

“Absolutely,” Dad said.

“Of course,” Michael said. “And now that your dad has given me some pain meds, I'll probably just go to sleep anyway.”

So an hour or so after I'd arrived, I walked out of the hospital and turned left, toward the police station, which was only a few blocks away. The parking lot where we'd left the car was only a few blocks beyond that, and once I got to the police station, I could probably beg a ride from someone if I didn't feel like walking the rest of the way.

We were a few streets from the town square, but the noise still carried. Rancid Dread, an inexplicably popular local heavy metal band, was playing a concert in the town square tonight. The high-pitched squealing of the Dreads' guitars, and the incessant throbbing of their bass line carried easily, interspersed with the cheering of the crowds.

But wait—should they still be playing? If the concert ran past its agreed-upon midnight end time, we'd hear from everyone within earshot—which could mean half the county.

I pulled out my phone and glanced at the time. How could it possibly be just a little past eleven?

On impulse, I took a slight detour past the town square so I could see how the concert was going over. Either distance was kind to the Dreads' music or they had been practicing a lot more since the last time I'd been unable to avoid hearing them.

Amazing to see hundreds of costumed revelers either dancing in the town square or sitting on the courthouse steps, apparently enjoying themselves. The Dreads were all dressed in Goth-style Halloween costumes and flamboyant facial makeup, so if you were stone deaf you might think, just for a moment, that you were at an early KISS concert. They had improved a bit—musically at least. And with the costumes on, they didn't look nearly as weedy and disheveled as usual. Of course, their lead singer still enunciated so badly that it took me several bars to realize that they were doing a cover version of The Doors' “Riders on the Storm.” Not a tune I could ever have imagined a heavy metal band playing until I heard the Dreads' hideous version of it. And unfortunately it seemed to be one of their signature numbers.

The song reached a crescendo, increasing in volume so much that I decided maybe I should continue assessing their progress from a few blocks away. I turned and collided with a human being almost the size of a Dumpster. Ragnar. Now that Blake's Brigade was guarding the zoo, I'd reassigned Osgood and Ragnar to patrol the town square. Though I thought their shift had ended hours ago.

“Sorry,” I said. “Are you still on duty?”

“Is okay,” Ragnar said. “I am technically off duty now, but I do not think the town square should be unguarded. And I like to listen.”

He sounded rather wistful.

“By the way,” I said. “If you happen to see the annoying Lydia anywhere, let the police know.”

“Is she a suspect?” From his expression, I suspected he would be neither surprised nor unhappy if she was.

“No idea,” I said. “All I know is she'd better have a good excuse for disappearing all this time, or she will not be around to organize next year's festival.”

“Awesome,” Ragnar said. “And if she leaves, perhaps next year we can have a small haunted house in Dr. Smoot's house and a big one in mine. And also perhaps by this time next year I will have another band to play with here in the square.”

“I thought you were retired.”

“Oh, not to make records with,” he said. “Just to play for fun.”

He was still looking longingly at the stage. An idea struck me. I peered at the stage until I spotted one of my Goblin Patrol members guarding the steps at one side of it. I texted the goblin and gave him a few instructions.

I watched as he darted over to Orvis Shiffley, the Dreads' drummer. They exchanged a few words. Orvis surged forward from behind his drums, grabbed the microphone from the lead singer, and began to address the crowd.

“I have some awesome news,” he said. “Right here in the audience tonight we have a living legend … a musician who's been an inspiration to our whole band. And word is that maybe we could get him to play a few numbers with us. Ladies and gentlemen—Ragnar Ragnarsen!”