by Sasha White
“Ralph and I can get away on our own. I don’t think we can leave the scene until the crowd disperses anyway.” We had a lot of uniformed officers we were going to need to ensure were okay before we left the scene as well.
Just as I was about to ask what the counter-spell was, I heard it. The loud sound of rock and roll music, coming from a distance, but still quite audible to regular, let alone werewolf, ears.
There was no way to tell if it was working, but we had more than just the crowd of humans to consider. “Stay here.” I trotted out of the gazebo and took a look up into the sky. The dragon was still there.
Linus and Cleo were still playing, and while the music Merc and L.K. were creating was louder, I could still hear the kids’ so-called songs. The dragon was definitely bobbing to the beat they were creating, not to the much more musical and on-tempo beat the real musicians were coming up with. This boded.
I trotted back into the gazebo. “Well, either the counter-spell hasn’t reached the fiery skies yet, or our visitor’s immune, because he, or she, is still rocking out to the soulful sounds the kids here are creating.”
“Gods and Monsters alone knows why,” Maurice said. “No offense,” he added to the kids.
“Not too much taken,” Linus replied. “Is one dragon worse than all the people rioting?”
“I’m hoping not to find out.” I scanned the crowd. No one seemed to be moving or not rocking out any more. “Amanda –”
“On it. Be right back.” She took off, flying over the crowd. No one so much as looked up. I had the distinct feeling whatever spell the kids were perpetrating was stronger than whatever our side was trying.
That the kids were in the process of casting a spell created by those who followed the Prince was a safe bet. That it was strong enough to be cast in the hands of amateurs made it even scarier. If they were amateurs, of course. Nothing about them screamed “professional minion” but we’d been fooled before. I’d been fooled in a big, emotionally devastating way before.
Werewolves didn’t have telepathy or anything like it, but Ralph was very in tune with my moods. He nudged up against me. “Stop it,” he said in a low voice. “Wagner fooled the strongest angels we have. That he fooled you, and the rest of us, isn’t your fault.” He looked at the kids. “Though I understand why you’re worried.”
“Yeah. Do we call for backup?”
Amanda returned before Ralph could reply. “Well, we call for something,” she said. “Merc has some of the strongest musicians in Necropolis out there playing an incredibly compelling ‘come hither’ set of song-spells, and no one’s paying the least bit of attention.”
I listened. “Merc’s singing. His voice is distinctive. I can’t believe that no one in this crowd has ever heard of Queen.”
“Even if they’re all too young or into pop or rap, I can hear what he’s singing, and I want to race on over and wag at the stage,” Ralph said.
“So, are we screwed or what?” Cleo asked. “I’m asking because we’re really tired and we weren’t joking – we only know five songs.”
I refused to give up when nothing officially bad was happening. Plus Cleo’s teenaged disdain was making me want to show her just how good a policewolf I was.
One of Necropolis’ older philosophers loved to share that necessity was the mother of invention. Aesop had his way with a parable, but, frankly, the real mother, father, and extended family of invention were desperation, embarrassment, and not a small helping of insanity. I made up my mind.
“Kids, can you hear what the other musicians are playing?”
“Yeah, sorta,” Linus said doubtfully.
“Not really,” Cleo said.
“It doesn’t matter if our little girl here can hear it,” Sexy Cindy offered. “I can’t tell that she can hear what her boyfriend’s playing standing right next to her.”
“Good point,” I said before Cleo and Sexy Cindy could get into it. “Linus, try to alter what you’re playing to match what the other musicians are playing. Cleo, just keep on committing whatever musical crime you already have in process.”
“I hate both of you,” Cleo muttered under her breath.
“Just doing our part to make you miss your parents,” I replied cheerfully. I was cheerful because Linus seemed to be catching on. His tune, if you could call it that, was changing.
The rest of my squad looked around. “I don’t see any dangerous reactions to the musical adjustments,” Maurice said. The others agreed.
I trotted onto the grass to check the skies. Our dragon seemed unperturbed and still very into the bad music scene. Its head bobs and wing beats seemed to be moving closer to what Merc and L.K. and their band were creating. So far, so very good. I rejoined the others.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Maurice and Amanda are going to carry Linus and Cleo, who are going to keep on playing. We’re all going to walk out of here, and head for the stadium.”
“What happens if they don’t follow us?” Linus asked.
“Or, worse, if they decide to try to kill us?” Cleo asked.
“They won’t,” I said with complete confidence in my tone. I was good at faking complete confidence when it was necessary. And it was necessary right now, because my team looked as doubtful as the kids.
“What if you’re wrong and your spell or whatever doesn’t protect us?” Cleo seemed unconvinced that we were up to the task of protecting her.
I gave her a smile I ensured was wolfy. “Then we’ll say to you what we say to everyone – the Prosaic City Police Department welcomes you to Prosaic City, Land of Enchantment. Please be sure not to break any laws while you run for your life.”
Chapter 6
A short but heated argument between Maurice and Amanda for who’d carry whom ensued. “I’m the eldest,” Amanda said finally. “And I made you a vampire. Ergo, I’m carrying the guitarist.” She picked up Linus and started out of the gazebo, flanked by Freddy and Ralph.
“There’s no justice in the human world, the undead world, or the next world for the youngest in a family,” Maurice muttered as he picked Cleo up like she was a large wad of used tissues. We moved out as planned, with me and Sexy Cindy flanking Maurice and Cleo.
“It’s not like I want to be carried by you, either,” Cleo snapped as she gave her tambourine a particularly vicious shake by Maurice’s ear.
“I still say we could leave her here and I could shake that tambourine,” Sexy Cindy said.
“Why are you all being so mean to me?” Cleo whined.
“Because you’re a teenager, and a particularly obnoxious one,” I told her as I kept my eyes, ears, and nose on the crowd. “If you want to be treated more nicely, you could try speaking to us with a modicum of respect in your tone. Or at least with a little less disdain for our skills, since you’re the one who created the situation.”
“You sound just like my aunt,” Cleo said sullenly. “What is it about old people?”
Considering how undeads age – very, very slowly, to the point of being almost imperceptible to the human eye – none of us other than Freddy looked even close to old. Maurice, Amanda, Sexy Cindy, Ralph and I all looked mid- to late-twenties, which, even if you’re eighteen, is still hard to consider “old”.
“I’ll give you ‘old’,” Sexy Cindy muttered. “Old Testament style old.”
The crowd was cooperating. They weren’t crowding us, just sticking close enough to ensure we knew they were there and listening. We were able to catch up to Ralph and the others with ease. How the crowd was hearing the music Linus and Cleo were playing was beyond me – the closer we got to Merc’s part of things, the more the kids’ music was being drowned out.
“Can I vote on Cindy’s suggestion?” Maurice asked. “Both of them, even? Because I’m all for the idea of dumping Miss Charm here off, pretending we never saw her, and letting the crowd show her what Yahweh’s wrath is like.”
“No, it’s against the rules and regulations.” And honesty forced
me to admit that much of Cleo’s attitude was probably her reaction to being in the situation she’d found herself in. “Besides, Cindy was this mouthy when she first joined up.”
“I got with the program faster,” Sexy Cindy pointed out.
“Only because you became undead,” I pointed out.
“True enough. Can we kill her?” Sexy Cindy really wasn’t a Cleo fan.
“Oh, let’s give Cleo a chance to get to know the real us.” I wondered if I should alter my plan and have the kids get on stage with Merc and L.K.
“You’re all the weirdest cops I’ve ever met,” Cleo said, ensuring she wasn’t going to get to play with Freddy Mercury and the Lizard King any time soon. Petty vindictiveness is more of a feline than canine trait, but I could manage it when events warranted, and Cleo ensured they did.
“You’ve met a lot of cops?” I ensured my tone was very relaxed as I sent a wrist com message to L.K. to let him know what we were doing and where we were heading.
“Enough.”
“Uh huh. How many, exactly?” The dragon was still in the skies, but it was also moving slowly and I was pretty sure it was going to follow us.
“I’m not a criminal, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”
“Maybe not, but you have ‘delinquent’ written all over you.” This wasn’t true – Cleo seemed like a regular kid who’d allowed the romance of the idea of running away overpower any common sense she might possess otherwise – but it was a good baiting technique.
“I’ve never been in trouble,” she snarled as she took the bait. “Neither has Linus. We just wanted to do more than just live in our stupid little town for the rest of our lives. Is that so wrong?”
“No, ambition isn’t wrong.”
I’d have said more but Ralph interrupted me. “Vic, it’s going to take us a long time to walk to the stadium. And just because no one’s noticed the dragon yet, if we’re wandering through Prosaic City the likelihood that someone spots it is going to increase to a certainty.”
“Or they’ll spot it on the ground,” Freddie said nervously, as he pointed towards the sky.
We all looked up. To see the dragon slowly circling, almost like an airplane that’s being asked to wait to land. However, this golden airplane was moving ever lower in the sky with each rotation.
“Now what?” Ralph asked, probably speaking for everyone.
“Well,” I replied as cheerfully as I could manage. “At least we know that the song alteration is working.”
“How’s that?” Sexy Cindy and Cleo asked in unison. Perhaps it would cause them to bond. Though probably not.
“Everyone’s playing a ‘come hither’ song, and our dragon is, in fact, coming hither.” Probably because Linus had changed his tune, but that at least proved that others were hearing said change.
“And that’s a good thing?” Maurice asked, sounding ready to take to the skies in the opposite direction from wherever the dragon was.
“Sure,” Amanda said, with obvious false bravado. “It’ll be down here, where we can deal with it on our own terms. Right Vic?”
I was going to be cavalier and reply that my plan actually revolved around the dragon squishing humans, when something that rarely happens happened. Maurice, who was still looking at the dragon, knocked into Amanda, who was also still looking at the dragon.
The vampires and their passengers fell to the ground, all yelling at each other. And, as my luck would have it, both kids lost hold of their instruments. Linus’ guitar flipped a few feet away, and Cleo’s tambourine rolled off in the opposite direction into the crowd.
The results were instantaneous.
The crowd got angry. People began slamming into each other, shouting, complaining, and fighting, depending on who and where they were. The rock music stopped mid-song. I was pretty sure because the stage had been stormed.
At times like these, a being had to do what a being had to do. More to the point, as an officer of the law, I had to give it the old college try. “Prosaic City Police!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs. “Cease and desist!”
Shocking no one, least of all me, there was no ceasing or desisting. There were a few screams, however, and a lot of fingers pointing in the air, not all of them the middle fingers and most not directed towards me.
I looked up. Sure enough, our dragon wasn’t circling nicely anymore. Our dragon was in a nose dive, headed right for us.
Chapter 7
In times like these, I said the hell with police procedure and let instinct and training take over. “Ralph,” I shouted, “fetch the guitar!”
He and I both shifted to wolf forms and then we were off.
An unsung genius from yesteryear had come up with werewolf bodysuits that morphed with us into whatever form we went with, and ensured that when we returned to human form we wouldn’t be butt naked. The bodysuits allowed our fur through, which was helpful for a variety of reasons, protection being only one of them. Not looking like giant canine idiots dressed in special sweaters being another.
Being lower to the ground in a riot isn’t the best option. However, as long as a being is mobile, it’s not as bad as it could be. My hearing and sense of smell were even more enhanced in wolf form, and I was faster and stronger than any human here.
The tambourine was getting kicked around, just like in the movies. Just like in the movies, it was frustrating to almost have my jaws on it and then have it get kicked away again and again. I figured Ralph was having similar fun, though the guitar was larger and therefore probably more at risk for being damaged beyond repair. Of course, neither of these instruments looked brand new or even good. Maybe this happened a lot whenever they were played. The smart money said it did.
I shoved through a few more people, took some unintended kicks to the ribs and stomach, controlled myself from biting the person who stepped on my tail, knocked a couple people over, and managed to finally get the stupid tambourine in my mouth. I shook it. Nothing happened.
Well, nothing I wanted to have happen happened. The crowd continued to riot or party, depending on how a being looked at it.
There was a loud crunching sound. I took the best guess out of three, assumed the first two guesses didn’t count, and figured the dragon had landed on the gazebo. Intense sniffing shared that the dragon was definitely nearby. Other sniffing showed me, finally, where Maurice and Amanda were. Vampires smell of old blood, and other things, but it’s a distinctive odor and I’d smelled the two of them for a couple hundred years.
I shifted to werewolf form – I could hold the tambourine and still run, and a dragon on the ground meant I needed to run fast. It was the best fighting form, too, and since I literally had to slam dance my way back to my team, the smartest choice.
As I slammed and ran and sent a fast prayer to Yahweh asking him to forgive me for being an idiot and please keep the dragon from flaming, I shook the tambourine with my human-wolf hands. Nada. What a surprise.
Our group was in a protective huddle, with the kids in the middle. Fortunately, all corporeal undeads are physically stronger than most humans, so the team could shove the rioters away without causing too much damage, or taking too much, either.
I contemplated throwing the tambourine to Cleo to get her shaking it again sooner, then reconsidered. It was too easy to guess how that would go, and I’d been kicked and stepped on more than enough already.
Ralph rejoined our group at the same time I did. He was still in wolf form, which wasn’t a big surprise. Up until a little while ago, I’d never seen him in human, let alone werewolf, form. Werewolf Rights activists, of which Ralph was the only one, felt that wolf form was the true form, and that the rest of us using the other forms were just being lazy. That I’d gotten him to wear the bodysuit every day was more of a surprise than that he was happily staying in wolf form right now.
It also wasn’t a surprise that he looked beaten up and bedraggled. The guitar, however, was held firmly in his jaws.
I shoved the t
ambourine at Cleo. “Shake your moneymaker, right now!” I grabbed the guitar from Ralph and handed it to Linus. “Anything. Play anything!”
Cleo shook the tambourine and Linus sort of slammed his hand on the guitar strings, some of which were frayed. The crowd calmed down. I risked a look over my shoulder at where the gazebo had been. Sure enough, there was a dragon of great size sitting there, looking expectant.
“Keep playing,” I said as calmly as I could. “I don’t care if you fall down, fly through the air, or are eaten by something – you two hold onto those instruments and keep on playing.”
“What are you going to be doing?” Cleo asked, clearly speaking for everyone else, at least everyone else not affected by the spell.
“I’m going to be taking in the scene, determining damage, and trying to figure out what to do that won’t involve anyone being squished or flamed by your biggest fan,” I indicated the dragon with a jerk of my head.
“Good luck with that,” Cleo muttered under her breath.
I ignored her and activated my wrist-com while Ralph gathered up our discarded clothing. “Merc, what’s your status?”
“Oh, we’re fine, darling,” Merc shared with a laugh. “Everyone I brought out has had to deal with enthusiastic fans and the occasional riot. However, our spell wasn’t able to actually activate.”
“It activated, in that sense, when I had our guitarist over here follow your tune. Unfortunately, that means we have a very big visitor with us. Not doing anything other than rocking out, dragon style, but still, down here.”
“Would you like us to go back to playing?” Merc asked.
I’d been wondering that myself. Frankly, the only music working on the listeners was what Linus and Cleo were creating. “No. Get everyone back to Headquarters. But I think we need the Tour Bus on standby. No one’s going to be lazing on a sunny afternoon right now.”
Merc chuckled. “I don’t know why the Count complains about your lack of protocol. You always know the right things to say to us, darling.”
“I’m more in sync with you and L.K., I guess.”
“Can’t argue with your tuneful dedication. L.K. and I will be waiting, darling. Call, howl, or come running, whichever works best for your situation.” Merc signed off and I contemplated my options.