Lord of the Wings (28 page)

“One of my cousins is an artist with a band saw,” Randall bragged. “And you'll notice we added some barbed wire to the top of all the fences. That should slow them down a bit.”

“And you seem to have created another tourist attraction,” Michael said with a chuckle. Tourists were lining up to take selfies and pose in groups in front of the cutouts. In fact the new fences were almost as popular as the picturesque iron front fence—just about every time I visited the Haunted House, I spotted at least one person having his picture taken behind it—sometimes with both hands clutching the bars as if rattling them angrily, and sometimes with one hand stretched out through the bars in pitiful entreaty.

“You know,” I said. “We should create some kind of site where the tourists could upload their photos.”

“That's a great idea,” Randall said. “It'd be great publicity for next year's festival. Assuming we have the festival next year, of course,” he added hastily, no doubt realizing that one of the things getting many of us through this year's event was the notion that maybe we'd never have to do any of this again.

“Rob can probably get someone to set it up,” I said.

We left Randall and his workmen to finish up the new fencing and continued on back to town. The road was filled with trolls, wizards, superheroes, hobbits, and other beings from worlds where automobiles had not yet been invented, so that their inhabitants didn't understand why stepping out in front of them was such a bad idea.

We parked in the college parking lot and began patrolling the town square. Night was falling, and the vegetable stands and craft booths were closing up. The food tents were probably hoping to close soon as well, but at the moment they still had long lines for the boxed dinners they had started selling for after-hours customers.

Including the Trinity Episcopal tent.

“Let's drop in and see how Mother is doing,” I said. “I'm a little worried about her.”

“Worried?” Michael echoed. “Why?”

“Look around,” I said. “Does this look like something Mother would enjoy?”

A conga line of some thirty or forty particularly gross-looking zombies was winding its way through the square, shambling in time to Michael Jackson's “Thriller,” which was booming out of speakers hidden in the ragged clothing of several participants. A dozen or so vampires wearing velvet cloaks, pale makeup, and fairly fake-looking fangs were having some kind of discussion or altercation just outside the tent door. Or maybe they were just acting out a scene from some play or movie—overacting, more like it. A hairy-chested man in a tutu was dancing the cancan with a man wearing a grim reaper cloak and a Nixon face mask, and two people playing the front and back halves of a unicorn.

“You're right,” Michael said. “Let's check on her.”

To my astonishment, Mother wasn't just supervising—she was performing actual work. A short, round woman whose face was hidden under a Darth Vader mask was cutting slices of pie and putting them on paper plates. Mother, at her elbow, was adding a small, artistic dollop of whipped topping to each slice.

“You're making me wish I'd saved room for pie,” I said, as I came up behind them.

“If you like, dear, I can buy a whole pie for us to take home and share later.”

“Make it two,” Michael said. “I'll help you pack them up and Meg can take over for you for a few minutes.”

Mother and Michael went off to deal with pie acquisition and I stepped into her place and began wielding the whipped topping spoon.

“Meg! Isn't this fun?”

Darth Vader pulled her mask up just long enough to see that she was actually Becky Griswald. She seemed a lot happier, and even younger, away from her overbearing husband and his obsession with the cat-shaped brooch.

“Actually, it looks like hard work if you do it for very long,” I said. “Is the mask to make sure Harris doesn't see you?”

“To make sure no one mentions seeing me,” she said. “He's gone down to Charlottesville for the weekend for a meeting of the Stuffed Shirts.”

“The Stuffed Shirts?” I had to giggle, because it sounded just like Mr. Griswald's kind of group.

“I call them that. Half a dozen old coots he went to business school with. They get together every quarter for an expensive dinner. Normally I have to go along to make polite conversation with their stuffy wives, but I pretended I had a migraine so I could stay home and enjoy the festival. Isn't it marvelous!”

She was beaming at the patrons who were picking up pie—a Spider-Man, a Wonder Woman, and a pair of pirates.

Just then Mother and Michael returned, each carrying a pie box. Mother handed hers to me and took up her station beside Mrs. Griswald. She was wearing what I thought of as her bravely suffering smile, and I suspected she was getting a headache.

“Mother, would you like us to run you home,” I asked. “We need to go out to the Haunted House anyway—it would only be a small detour.”

Michael opened his mouth—no doubt to point out that we'd just come from the Haunted House—and then he obviously realized what I was doing and held his peace.

“Thank you, dear, but Caroline is coming by to pick me up any minute now,” she said. “It's been a long day.”

A long day in uncongenial surroundings. In theory, Mother approved of Halloween—she approved of any holiday that involved decorating, and was enthusiastic beforehand about the idea of the festival. She loved the sort of tasteful handmade decorations Martha Stewart was always demonstrating, but the rest of the world so rarely met her expectations. Rubber bats, orange and black crepe-paper garlands, plastic skeletons—in practice, Halloween was one long assault on her decorating sensibilities.

“There's Caroline now.” Mother's voice was filled with relief. “You know, if you're still patrolling, I can take the pies with me.”

“Just as long as you don't eat both of them before we get home,” I said, as I handed her my box.

“I think I can restrain myself, dear.” She smiled wanly, gave us each a peck on the cheek, and sailed out of the tent toward where Caroline was standing. I suspected that she was probably going to go straight to bed with a cold cloth over her face, but if my teasing helped her keep her head high till then, all the better.

For the next few hours, Michael and I patrolled. Around the square. Back to the parking lot for the car. Out to the haunted house. Out to the zoo. Back to town. Either the news of the murder hadn't really spread to the tourists or it hadn't dampened their spirits. I was beginning to wish it had.

The town square seemed to be the favored rendezvous of what we'd come to call the vampire conventioneers—mostly young people in their teens or twenties, dressed almost entirely in black except for small ribbon rosettes pinned somewhere on their costumes. They tended to clump together by ribbon color—so far I'd noticed posses of red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange, and gray. And they all seemed to spend their time acting out small dramatic scenes, so I'd pegged them as probable LARPers. And also as probably harmless.

“You know,” I said, as we were halfway through another stroll around the town square, “I don't normally mind watching other people have fun while I'm working. Normally I can sort of share their enjoyment. Having a hard time with that tonight.”

“It's not watching them have fun that's a downer,” Michael said. “It's knowing that some of them might be plotting pranks. Or worse, more murders. Where do you suppose they're going?”

He was pointing to a trio of black-clad vampires sporting purple and black ribbon rosettes who had taken a sharp right turn at the corner, toward the less crowded parts of town.

“They're heading toward the campus,” I said.

“Where there's absolutely no festival activity going on.” He was frowning. Now that he was the heir apparent to the chairmanship of the Drama department rather than a despised rogue professor, he was taking a much more protective attitude toward the college. “The president and the board of trustees were absolutely dead set against hosting any festival events on campus. So where are those jokers going?”

“Maybe they're students, heading back to their rooms,” I suggested. “Or even out-of-towners staying with friends in the dorms.”

“Maybe.” We had reached the corner where the LARPers had turned. He still looked uneasy.

“So let's just patrol that way for a little bit,” I suggested.

 

Chapter 21

The three LARPers had already disappeared from view by the time we turned the corner, so we found ourselves walking through the tree-lined and increasingly quiet streets of the campus. The dorms were about the only place that showed any signs of life, but they didn't seem any different from a typical Friday night. And once we passed the dorms, the various academic buildings and the lawns surrounding them were absolutely deserted. When we finally reached the far end of the campus we stopped for a moment.

“Are you reassured that the vampires aren't taking over the campus?” I asked.

“Well, if they are, at least they're doing it quietly,” he said. “I suppose we should head back.”

“Let's turn that way,” I suggested, pointing to a road that ran along the outer perimeter of the campus. “And go back by another route.” Another route that would prolong, if only briefly, our time in the peaceful back streets of the campus.

Michael fell in with my suggestion and we walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. Then Michael stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

“That's odd.” He was peering into the darkness. “There shouldn't be anyone over there.”

We were in a part of the campus I didn't know very well. I knew by the signs I'd read that we'd recently passed the Mechanical Engineering building and the Agricultural Sciences building, but I had no idea what was in the direction of Michael's gaze.

“What's over there?” I asked.

“The Ag Sci Department's demonstration barn,” he said. “There shouldn't be anyone there right now.”

“Not even someone tending the animals?”

“No.” He shook his head slightly. “They were worried that the festival would upset the animals, so they trucked them all out to the main farm over a week ago. The building's supposed to be locked up tight for the duration.”

“Maybe some cow with a homing instinct got out of her pasture at the main farm,” I suggested.

“And walked ten miles to get back here? With a flashlight?” he added as we spotted a quick flash of light near the barn.

“Let's check it out.”

We turned into a narrow asphalt lane that led to the barn. Fences ran on either side of the road. I got my bearings back and remembered coming down this lane before. There had been sheep and goats in the left-hand pasture, and at least a dozen different breeds of cow in the right. Now both fields were silent and presumably empty.

The lane opened up into a broad expanse of asphalt—also empty except for a single hulking piece of agricultural equipment. Possibly some kind of seed drill or tiller. Even a first-year Ag Sci student would probably know exactly what it was. All I could tell for sure is that it seemed to have a lot of sharp-looking points and edges so that we'd be better off giving it a wide berth.

We arrived at the broad double barn doors and stopped to listen.

“Rustling noises,” Michael whispered. “There could be someone there.”

“Or the rats could be having a field day while the legitimate occupants are away,” I whispered back.

The door handles were chained together and padlocked. I pointed to a smaller ordinary door to the right of the main entrance.

Michael tried the handle gently.

“Locked,” he whispered.

“Of course,” I said softly. “If I were sneaking in there for some nefarious purpose, I'd probably lock the door behind me to prevent being surprised.”

“And I'd run out the back if anyone rattled the door,” he replied.

“You didn't exactly rattle it,” I said.

“Yeah, but if they're listening…”

We looked at each other for a moment.

“Run around and check,” I said. “I'll guard the front.”

“Is it wise for us to split our forces?” he asked.

“We're also sending for reinforcements.” I already had my phone out. “I'm calling 911.”

“Good thinking.” He took off running toward the back of the barn as I dialed.

“Hey, Meg, what's your emergency?” Debbie Ann asked.

“Not sure yet if it is an emergency,” I began. “But—oof!”

Something hit me in the back. I stumbled, dropped the phone, and fell back against the side of the barn.

“What mere mortal dares to trespass on Clan Raven's territory?”

I looked up to see a tall, gangly young man dressed in black, from his ruffled shirt to his thigh-high boots. The only touch of color was a little rosette of black-and-purple ribbon near the collar of his cloak. He was grinning mirthlessly, probably so I could see his fangs. Even by moonlight they looked a little fake—not nearly as impressive as Dr. Smoot's. And he might have made a more plausible vampire if he'd worn a mask to cover his rather extensive acne. Though even without the acne, I'd never have mistaken him for a real vampire.

But the sword he was holding with its point almost touching the hollow of my throat—that was real. Real steel. Blacksmiths—especially ones like me who have done a bit of bladesmithing as well—can tell these things. The metal had an unmistakable satiny sheen to it. And while it made me cross-eyed to look at it, I could see that it had a nasty point. In fact, when his hand wavered a bit, I felt the point break my skin before he drew it back again.

“Mortal—I demand to know why you are trespassing on the ancestral lands of the Raven Clan!” he intoned.