Raven laughs. "I gotta go."
Jessica, "See you tomorrow?"
He smiles, "Sure Jess." He walks down the hall. Jessica feels exhausted.
"Tomorrow then," she says quietly reassuring herself - knowing that he didn't hear her - that she will be allowed another day to solve this caper and save her father's life, with her friend alongside rather than going out alone.
Jessica also feels reassured that she does not have to think another minute about ghouls, today. She is worn out, tired from her run in with ghastly beings and all the worrying she’s already done. She flops down on to her bed looking up at the stars she has pasted to her ceiling and falls fast asleep before dinner.
Another day of sleuthing begins with Jessica convincing sensible Raven to do the unsensible thing and go back to the home of the ghouls to get to the bottom of this mystery she has taken upon herself (and dear Raven) to solve in defense of the overheard threat. Once again, he finds himself talked into attending the assumed crime scene upon the strict ruling of ‘just walking by’ the large, greenish, Ghoul abode. This time, however, Jessica sneaks around to the back of the house, and Raven reluctantly follows.
"Here it is!" Jessica points to the black plastic, body-shaped, bag.
Raven shushes her, "Quiet." He motions her over behind a tree, "I thought I heard something."
Jessica catches her breath, "Huh!" She sees the ghoul open the back screen door.
"Here you go you miserable lout!" the ghoul growls to a hobbling beast for a dog. The animal goes running out the back screen door which slams behind it, and the ghoul is gone, back inside the house.
Raven tugs on Jessica's arm, "Let's get out of here."
"No," Jessica says, "we've got to see what's in the bag."
Raven raises an eyebrow, "Or who is in the bag?"
“Come on,” Jessica whispers and sneaks up to it, “it’s not moving,” she reports.
Raven doesn’t follow her, this time, and whispers, "You go ahead. I'll watch from here."
Jessica unfolds a bit of the plastic, peeling it back to have a peek inside. She whispers back toward her reluctant partner-against-crime, "Look!” He isn’t behind her, however.
She sees he is still behind the tree and whispers a little louder, “Come see this."
Raven turns his head away and makes a face, "Is it bloody?
Not that you'd mind,” he whines, “but I’m not a seeker of dark and evil things, Jessica. I really think we should just go.”
Jessica almost laughs, "No. It's not bloody.... I think it's marble,” she says, “It’s a statue. Look at it.”
She pauses and then asks, “Do you think it's famous?"
Raven looks annoyed, "I don't know. Now what do we do? "
Jessica decides, "We document this!"
She opens her notebook and writes, "Found. One marble statue."
“In a body bag,” Raven adds, and then as quick and quietly as he can he almost yells, "Get back!" Both he and Jessica jump back behind a lattice partition and hide behind a wheelbarrow which is propped up against the wall to a garden shed.
The ghoulish fiend leads an unknown man, carrying a grey leather attache case, along the garden pathway, walking around the corner of the house.
The ghoul explains to him, "The statue is not exactly in storage yet. We're in the process of moving it there."
The unknown man sets down the attache case and says, "Ooh, yes,” and then,”it won't take long to determine if this is the real thing or a fake."
"Here, it is.," the ghoul kneels down and pulls back the same part of the covering that Jessica had touched just moments before.
"I've got the plastic on it. Probably have it crated today; if it's what he's looking for."
The unknown man buries his hands into the attaché and rummages around, Just a few minutes here," he explains, taking a few instruments out from the bag.
"Could you unwrap that part for me, there? Um-hmm..." he straps an eyepiece microscope around his head, and then brushes the statue and brushes the dust (the evidence) onto a slide. He continues working, while at last, Jessica and Raven stop staring at what he is doing and look at each other, stuck behind the garden shed, just feet away from the ghoul who just might wish to end sweet Jessica’s father’s life.
Just then, the animal, earlier let out of the house, sniffs and gurgles its way around the back of the lattice partition where the two sleuths hide trying to make an exit plan. It snurgles around in the bushes, when it catches sight of Jessica and Raven causing it to let out a loud, piercing whine. Raven startles and falls back into the wheelbarrow which makes a loud grating sound of nails against metal and then a dull thud.
The ghoul snarls, glaring toward the bushes with one eye open, the other half-closed.
"Excuse me," he says quietly to the man with the microscope over his eye.
He turns his head and bellows, "Franbelowtheonius! What the devil are you getting into now?!"
The ghoul begins to walk in the direction of the hidden away wanna-be crime-stoppers when Jessica once again says (only this time in the loudest whisper of her life), "Run!"
Raven panics. He lets the fear out from his belly with a verbal cry which seems to get his legs moving as fast as he wishes them to go, from nearly frozen with fear to quick escape, he cries, "Ahhh!" as he runs out from behind the garden shed, down the garden path, and nearly over the fence before the ghoulish fiend can stop them.
Yelling to his faithful beast, "Barthosaraptre! Get them! Intruders!" the ghoul picks up a shovel that laying against the wall of the garden house and begins to run after them. Raven and Jessica get out through the open gate, running non-stop for several blocks, before Jessica quickly ducks in behind a hedge and Raven follows her. They wait and watch as the ghoul runs past them, the shovel in his hand held high like a zombie crusader in a corn field.
At the sight of this, Raven grabs Jessica by the wrist and pulls her out from the hedge to run in the opposite direction, "Let's go!" he pleads as the children disappear, a block away from the ghoul’s side show – representing both the Undead and the Undead Avenger defending his home.
The Quill Pen Killer
Chapter Three: Art Caper
Jessica and her father, Raven, and girlfriend-of-the-week number 3 enter a black and white tiled foyer with a chandelier and lavish furnishings. Jessica wears a brown dress with ruffled underskirt, her favorite red shoes with the gold buckle, a long, black coat, and a pink scarf. Her father's date wears a sleek, black dress. Her father, in proper vampire protocol, is dressed in a stylish black suit with pointed, black, leather boots. A man in a tuxedo approaches to take the family's coats.
Jessica's father removes his gloves and mentions to Jessica, "I'm glad you finally conceded to attend. I think you both will enjoy yourselves here." After their coats are taken, they all enter the party. Her father quickly excuses himself and Jessica and Raven wander through the rooms. A tray full of drinks arrives and Jessica and Raven are offered each a glass and take one.
They continue wandering until Jessica stops dead still and gasps, "Raven... look!" The statue from the plastic bag stands, majestic, dead center in the middle of the room at the top of a low, marble pedestal where fashionistas of the day with celebrity immortality fans and fan-makers mingle about at its feet.
Raven wonders out loud, "Maybe it's a replica."
"Yeah," Jessica agrees.
Jessica's father's date enters the room, "Hello!" she says to the children, smiling.
Jessica mutters, "Hi," stumped as how to answer the being inside the post of ‘Father’s Date’ who has actually chosen to speak straight to her, unattended by her father.
"We were just admiring the statue," Raven says surprised at Jessica’s lack of smart remarks, he fills in for Jessica who appears to be speechless, "Know anything about it?"
The unusual date of Jessica's Father, of whom no one but Jessica's Father bothered to learn the name says, "I think it's new. Ickabod told me he wa
s acquiring a new piece for his collection. Ickabod!" she yells, "over here. Is this the new beauty you told me about?"
Ickabod approaches, "Why yes it is. What do you think?' The date cocks her head from side to side. She walks a few steps left, and then a few steps right, sizing up and down the marble work-of-art. She presents her unglorified comment to Ickabod, "You certainly have it displayed as though you like it."
He practically sneers out his smile, “Yes,” he snaps his fingers, a little too close to her face, exuberantly exclaiming, "I love it! Love it! It’s from Translyvannia. Created by a young artist - for a vampire ofcourse. Legend has it she sculpted the original from clay while he watched. Daring cad, at the finishing moment of glory, he just... well frankly, he bit her on the neck and sucked the life-blood right out of her – clear to her mortal soul; gone."
'Date', as she has now officially become known for the night, mutters, "Typical."
Jessica offers a valid opinion of one of her kinds' lack of self-control, "Pathetic!"
Raven adds, "Wickedly ungrateful!"
Ickabod continues on, "And do you know what happened then?"
Date guesses, "Happily Ever After?"
Jessica guesses, "It broke?"
Raven demands, "Tell us."
"It began to cry, tears of blood."
Date makes a face, "Eww."
"But that was the clay version, right?" Jessica asks.
"No, no, this one does it too."
Jessica cites, "But this one's marble and obviously not the original."
Ickabod turns to face her, "True," he says, "You see, the vampire cast the statue, then, in marble, after, well, you know, the relationship didn't quite work out... or is that didn’t bite work out," he chuckles and gives a nonchalant look of 'what are you gonna do' toward Date. She rolls her eyes, shakes her head and looks down at her feet. (Doesn’t see it – the fate – in herself. Mortals with an eye for vampires never do.)
Ickabod continues, "But the night of the next feast, when the marble statue was displayed - this very one – also cried tears of blood and dripped drops of blood from its fingers."
Date makes a sick face.
Jessica gasps, "No!"
Ickabod jumps a little with joy, "Yes!"
Raven says, "Sicker than creepy."
"What did he do, then?" Jessica asks after a pause where they all stare at the statue's fingertips for a long and thoroughly anxious moment hoping they won’t become its first witnesses while Ickabod is obviously hoping they do.
Ickabod continues the story, telling her, "At first, the old vampire thought it a fluke. But then, on three other occasions, the same thing happened. So, ofcourse, he got rid of it. Yet, every vampire – I mean collector – who has owned the statue since… has experienced the same occurrence. Not as often. Not every time... but I..." he whispers to Jessica loud enough for all of them to hear, "I'm hoping it will bleed, right here, after the dinner tonight."
Jessica looks to the base of the statue; the words: I cried blood tears for you. I'm dead; are inscribed on a piece of metal fastened to the marble near the statue’s feet.
"Just got it, however," he continues, "so we'll see."
Jessica raises an eyebrow and says to Raven, "Don't worry, it’s not what I'd do."
Raven whispers, "Let's get out of here."
Date and Ickabod chat as Jessica and Raven slink away seeking refuge from the creepy stories and a looming possibility that marble might bleed in the conservatory where they sit down on a bench and listen, for a while, to a string quartet while people watching. Artists, nobel prize winners, star pupils and the generally precocious circulate the room while waiters with trays of miniature foods and long glasses swish in and out like an unchoreographed dance that could easily end in a domino-effect tumble, but doesn’t. Jessica speaks up when the string quartet lay down their bows to get a drink of water and take a break.
"I guess it could be a replica...” referring to the statue, “must be the reason the ghoul's were having it dusted for authenticity, you know. The one they had, must've been a replica," she says and then looks at Raven whose eyes are fixed on a girl’s strange, fur hat which occasionally moves as though the animal is still alive.
"Yes, uncanny coincidence. It looks just like the statue we saw, doesn’t it?”
Jessica scratches her head, "But my dad owes money for something. Do you think he bought it? Devil's toe clips! I hope we don't have to live with that thing in our foyer. That's the only place I could see it fitting in - if such a thing could possibly blend, you know? I guess it wouldn't be so bad in the garden."
Raven, watching the live animal hat move, says, "Creepy!" to either the hat or Jessica's acceptance of a statue that drips blood residing in her garden, but probably – and with good sense - to both.
Jessica continues thinking out loud, "My father wouldn't buy a statue he couldn't afford, though, right? Especially that statue. No, there's got to be some other answer to this mysterious set of clues we overheard."
Jessica turns to Raven and puts her hand on his shoulder to get his full attention, "Let's look around maybe we'll find something here to go on."
Raven agrees and they meander their way through the flock of people toward an exit or room that isn’t quite so crowded. Raven, follows Jessica who obviously didn't even notice the hat, and is forced to skootch past the girl wearing it. He nearly touches it, but instead sticks his tongue out at it and it sticks it's tongue out back at him.
Raven laughs, “I like your hat,” and then feels Jessica squeeze his elbow. He pushes his way past as people cram and jostle their way toward the band which starts up and begins to play, again.
Out in the corridor, away from the swarm of people Raven takes a deep breath, still smiling from his entendre with the silly animal. Jessica perks up from her pensive preoccupation with solving the art caper and points toward the corner of the rectangular room.
"Over there!" Jessica proceeds in the direction of her pointing and Raven follows, climbing up circular steps behind Jessica.
Nearly at the top, Raven complains, "Come on, Jessica! There won't be anything up here."
"Okay. Maybe not, but it is interesting up here," she stops at the top and turns to him smiling. "Don't you think? Stunning view. Look."
Raven approaches behind her and looks out over her shoulder through an open, arched cove window, "Wow! I see what you're saying."
Jessica points again, "Look, you can see my house. This reminds me of the time in Spain, the castle I stayed in, at least, I think it was in Spain, and that fat witch threatened to cook me in a pot! Do you remember me telling you that story? I had to go running, all over the place; it was horrifying! I ran through the laundry room and grabbed two sheets, then up to the tower, like this one...”
Raven shakes his head, "What?! Devil's purse mitts, what made you do that?"
"I thought I could make a parachute and get out of the house. Luckily, the chapter nurse caught me, before I actually tried it."
"And I thought a young vampire's life was so easy... anything ever happen to her, the witch?" he asks.
Jessica smiles, "O yeah. When my father got back to the castle, I guess he'd already heard. He was so worked up, one look at her and she went flying across the kitchen, landed in a pile of pots and pans."
"Hey!" Raven points toward the property line, marked off by a row of tall, dark green hedges, "what's that?"
"Where?" asks Jessica.
"There, in the bushes, see them moving?" he points again.
Jessica squints her eyes and spies the movement among the hedges, "I don't know. Maybe an animal."
Raven wonders, "Must be an large animal."
"Maybe it's a moose," Jessica guesses, watching.
"Cool." Raven exclaims and then asks, "So, are we done looking for the day? Can we just enjoy the party now?"
Jessica sighs, "Sure. Let's go."
Down in the deep-green hedges, the ghoul and his ghoulish friend are moving their
statue, wrapped in the same black plastic, through the bushes, pulling and pushing each other, whispering swears as they go.
"Aw, hexes!" one growls as his friend pushes on the statue, jabbing it into him.
"Your slow as night vermin!" complains the ghoul as his friend heaves the statue forward which jerks the ghoul and causes him to stumble on the grass. The two unknown guests go on at this: tugging, heaving, jerking and yanking the body bagged marble replica; swearing their way down the hedge row, toward Ickabod’s house full of fantastically dressed friends, all gathered to welcome his most splendid new art acquisition.
Jessica and Raven billow down the stairs entering the room where Ickabod’s statue had been just an hour before. It is not in the center of the room. It is not in the room at all. Instead, it has been replaced with dining tables that dot the room, topped with lavish centerpieces, and exquisite place settings. A candelabra is being lit, while overhead lights are dimmed, and the fabulous people look around for their names on the place cards which tell everyone where to take their seat. As guests settle in, Ickabod stands and begins to make a toast.
In the back room, near the kitchen a waiter pours a glass of wine on a tray. He stands near a back door. He hears two knocks.
The waiter says, in a low, quiet voice, "Ghost filled rooms! Who is there?"
He hears the raspy voice of the ghoul answer, "Seven angels on a vampire's wing." The waiter opens the door.
He urges the ghoul inside, motioning the two carrying the large object inside, "Hurry, he's making the toast. Most of the staff are out there enjoying it." He rolls his eyes and adds a hint of sarcasm at the word 'enjoying'.
Then he insists, "Come in. Quick. That it?" The three of them struggle with the plastic covered statue's form until it is in the kitchen.
The Quill Pen Killer (Vampire DeAngeliuson Book 1) Page 3