by Ramy Vance
At the display case, the main part of the crime scene, little plastic tents with numbers on them littered the floor. Most of them stood next to items used in the ritual: a scalpel, three buckets holding red-stained towels (I guess the killer wanted to control the blood flow), a few vases and other decorative items that prettied up the murder. Rituals are nothing without their shrouds, vases and incense, right?
Several placeholders stood where the jars or containers with bits of body in them had been. They had been taken away as either evidence or part of the bio cleanup. I tried to remember what was next to the lone placeholders before going over to the display and looking for the one clue I needed to confirm my theory. Walking among the ransacked display cases, I didn’t have to look into more than a couple of them before I found what I was looking for. Well, several whats I was looking for.
“I knew it,” I said.
“Knew what?” Egya said, emerging from the shadows. He held up several wires in his hands. “Disabled alarm. Elegant solution.”
“The obsidian knife,” I said. “It isn’t here.”
“So?”
“Obsidian knives are central to Mayan and Aztec ritual sacrifices—not Incan, like you’d said. The obsidian knife is missing, but not the Feast Bowl. Why would an Incan apu go to all the trouble to steal the blade, but not the other ritualistic items? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Again, so?” Egya said.
“So—look at what is missing.”
I walked over to a smashed display case and pulled out the little card bearing the description, handing it to the former were-hyena. He read it. “GoneGodsDamn it! I’m going to kill them all,” he growled.
“I’m sure you will,” I said. “And I’ll be right there with you.”
Mergen, hearing his unbridled rage, belched. He made a gesture that indicated he couldn’t possibly eat another bite.
LET’S PARTY LIKE IT’S YOUR LAST DAY ON EARTH
(Except It’s Not and the World Already Ended)
T he party started, not with a bang but, rather, a parade.
I had heard the university parties were a big deal, but this was something else.
The O3 Bros had arranged that some of the more enthusiastic participants would parade up the hill together. Hundreds of kids—all dressed up as minotaurs, valkyrie, angels, wendigos, kappas, cyclopes, elves and a whole host of Others I didn’t recognize—made a slow ascent up the hill toward the area that stood between the four dorms. McConnell, Molson and Gardner Hall served as a net, bordering the three sides of an uneven field all the dorms shared. In the center of the field stood an old, circular building that housed the mess hall, a large open courtyard at its center. In the center of this courtyard was an old stone fountain that hadn’t worked in years.
Slowly, deliberately, the partiers poured into the courtyard, Others dressed as humans and humans dressed as Others. Some of the humans were so well-disguised that I mistook them for Others, and only after a double take—sometimes a triple take—did I recognize them as human. And not from a flaw in their costume. It was their mannerisms that gave them away: an oversized dwarf running his hands through his hair in a very nervous, human way; a tiny minotaur chugging a beer; an overaccessorized valkyrie vaping.
And then there were the misinformed humans. The ones with fake vampire fangs or those prancing around in werewolf costumes. They clearly hadn’t gotten the memo that those once-upon-a-time kinds of monsters no longer existed.
Not that it mattered. In a way, I was comforted that vampires and werewolves were still something humans thought about (huh, humans—look at me refer to them like I wasn’t one myself).
I walked through the crowd of humans pretending to be Others, when some shirtless boy shoved a plastic cup filled with beer at me and said, “Nice sword. What are you supposed to be? A Scottish baby?” He chuckled at his oh-so-funny joke. He trousers were furry and his feet looked hooved. A satyr. He even held a pan flute in one of his hands—nice touch. With that beer in his other hand and that wicked grin, he could have been Pan himself.
I was wearing my father’s mask and my old Stewart tartan, which was older than this guy’s grandfather. Still, he was acting in good humor, and this was a party, after all. I curtsied—not an easy feat when you have a dirk wrapped around your waist—and in my poshest British accent I said, “A Cherub warrior, actually. And before you ask, yes, all angels are from Scotland.”
At this, he guffawed and handed me five tickets that reminded me of the coupons you won at a carnival. “You’re a funny gal. Here—beer tickets. Enjoy.” And with that, he pranced off with such grace that for a moment I thought he might actually be Pan.
I looked at the tickets I held and shrugged. “When in Rome,” I muttered to myself, and made my way to the makeshift bar the O3 Bros had set up beside the fountain.
AS I APPROACHED the beer stand, I scanned the crowd. After what I’d seen—or rather, didn’t see—in the library, I was pretty sure the killer would use the chaos of this party to enact the next phase of his plan.
Or her plan. I still wasn’t certain about that.
There were so many people, though, all dressed up in so many disguises, that I wasn’t sure how I’d ever find him. Luckily I wasn’t alone. Deirdre was somewhere in this crowd, dressed like a purple ninja—the only costume that covered her face we could come up with, given our limited wardrobe. Egya wore an uninspired white sheet with eyes cut out—his version of a ghost. I guess he wasn’t kidding about the costume, after all. And without the hood, he thankfully just looked like a kid under a sheet. As for Mergen—well, that guy had eaten so much Truth on the mountain that he’d literally swelled up to the size of a plump fat man.
So we dressed him like Santa Claus.
All we had to do was find the killer. Trouble was, based on our investigations, the killer was human, not an Other like the hex had led us to believe. You see—and this was where I was particularly proud of my Nancy Drew skills—I noticed that the only items used in the killing ritual and the only items stolen from the library were human relics used in human sacrifice. Ancient rope, a ceremonial bowl and the obsidian dagger.
Others—particularly the human-sacrificing kind—didn’t use such items. By their logic, there was too much distance between the human and victim when using a crucifix: better to bind them with magic. Granted, magic was in limited supply these days, but still, they wouldn’t crucify their victims. Why use a Christian symbol to taint their own traditions, when simply tying them to a chair was enough?
And as for the ceremonial bowl—why use something as silly as a bowl when it was much better to drink the blood straight from the source? I should know—ex-vampire here, remember?
An obsidian blade looks cool, sure, but claws are much easier to use.
All that told me was the killer had never been an Other. But what it didn’t explain was the jinni guard dog that attacked us in the library, or the hex cast on me afterward. A human cannot conjure something like that, and so it really created a huge plot hole for us. Until, that is—and this was the pièce de résistance—we found one of Solomon’s rings shattered in its case.
Even though it’s in the Bible, few people understand what King Solomon’s rings were about. Solomon was the “wise king,” the guy who could supposedly speak to the “other world.” All that was true, but it was the nature of how it was true that few understand. King Solomon could capture and control jinn. As in, otherworldly creatures that God made from smokeless fire.
What a power.
Only problem with his power was that he had to capture the jinn in gems. Gems that he fashioned into rings, bracelets, belts … you name it.
Seems the Other Studies Library had inherited a boatload of them.
Few people would know that … could know that. But an Occultist bastard hell-bent on performing human sacrifice might. Knowing the power of the ring and being backed into a corner—the corner of being caught by a certain ex-vampire girl wandering into the l
ibrary in the middle of the night—would have been motivation enough to release the jinni from its eternal prison. Luckily for us, the killer must have returned to the scene of the crime sometime after I’d been hauled off to the police station and returned the ring to its case. Must have thought the police would just assume it had been broken in the debacle along with so many other things and wouldn’t put two and two together. Too bad for the killer—I’d had the last three hundred years to bone up on my history and lore. The instant I saw the broken ring, I knew the answer.
And as for the hex? That was witches’ magic. Witches, just like vampires and werewolves, lost their magic when the gods left. But they didn’t lose their talismans. It was perfectly conceivable that a witch might have imbued an item in her possession with a hexing spell. In fact, it was perfectly conceivable that she might have dozens of items, all imbued with various nasty, onetime spells at her disposal.
And so, all these facts led us to the same conclusion—the killer was human.
And, most likely, at this party.
Trouble was, there was an overwhelming number of humans at this party. Talk about finding a body in a mass grave (sorry, sick vampire humor).
The line to the bar was moving at a snail’s pace; given that it literally wove around the entire courtyard, I’d be here for a while. But standing in a line was as good a vantage point as any from which to look for the killer. Looking up and down the line, I saw the last person I wanted to see standing right in front of me.
The mousey girl who got that poor gargoyle killed.
I TOOK A DOUBLE TAKE, but there was no mistaking her. There she was, dressed in a catsuit complete with fake cat ears pinned to her hair and a silly cat’s tail pinned to her arse. Ironic that someone so mousey would dress as a cat, but hey, I guess we all aspire to be something we’re not from time to time.
I knew that I had something really important to do. I knew that confronting her would be the worst thing I could do at this moment. But I also knew that I might never have another chance to tell that bitch what a horrible thing she had done. There would be no justice for that unfortunate gargoyle, but there might be a little retribution.
I leaned forward and pulled at her cat’s tail. She whirled around, and her stupid mascara whiskers were in my face. Our eyes connected, and I saw the regular fear and anxiety constantly on her face. She didn’t know who I was—as far as she could tell, I was some drunk cherub having a bit of fun. She tried to smile, but given how nervous she was, all she managed to pull off was a troubled smirk. I now saw that it took every ounce of her nervous, anxiety-ridden being to dress up and come to this party.
Not that I cared.
“You,” I said, dropping my posh British accent, “have been a very naughty girl.”
“I have?” she said.
I lifted my cherub mask for a second before lowering it again.
Her eyes flashed with recognition.
“You abandoned someone who only wanted to fit in—just like you,” I said. “What’s more, you abandoned someone who would have protected you. I would have thought someone as weak and pathetic as you would have—”
“Georgie,” she said, scanning the crowd. “Is he here?”
I paused. “Georgie?”
“Yeah,” she said, leaning in close. “The gargoyle. Is he here?”
They must have gotten a few extra hands at the bar. The line started moving, and within seconds we were making a slow march toward drinks. “You mean you didn’t …”
I suddenly realized I had automatically assumed she was responsible for the gargoyle’s death. But in reality, I didn’t know. “No … Georgie isn’t here. What happened yesterday?”
We were walking side by side now, and I was starting to feel like a real moron.
“We were walking home,” she said, “talking. He was telling me all about his role in protecting some medieval king. Chlo-something.”
“Chlothar the Great,” I corrected her. “It was from the Gargouille where all gargoyles were born from. They rose when Chlothar was king.”
“Yeah, that’s it. We had a good time, and we decided we’d go up to the gazebo. You know, the one on the hill behind the dorms. We cut through the stadium’s parking lot. It was the middle of the afternoon, so we figured it was safe enough. And when we got in, we saw several hockey players loading their gear into the van, laughing and having fun. You know, boys being boys.”
“And what? They saw Georgie and attacked him?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. They didn’t even look in our direction. Not until …” She stopped talking and her shoulders scrunched up like she was literally trying to make herself smaller. Even in a cat costume, she managed to look like a mouse.
“Until what?” I asked.
“This woman stepped out of a car. She walked over to the passenger side and opened the door. A boy our age stepped out. But she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on Georgie. She had a wicked smile on her face, and as we walked past she pointed at Georgie and said, ‘How convenient.’ Then … then she slapped the boy. Georgie didn’t like that. Not one bit.”
“You mean some kid was being slapped by his mother?”
She shook her head. “No. First of all, the boy’s a student here. I’ve seen him around. And as for the woman—she was too young to be his mother. But she was mad. And she slapped him hard. Weird thing was, she wasn’t looking at him when she hit him. She was looking at us. Well, not us—at Georgie. ‘Let’s see if this works,’ she said. Her voice was eerie, like she was trying out something she shouldn’t. Then she slapped the boy again. And again. That’s when Georgie started shaking his head and huffing. Then that crazy woman pulled out a gun and pointed it at the boy’s head. That’s when Georgie started to really get mad, but the woman didn’t seem worried. She just pointed at the group of hockey players who were no longer loading their gear into the van, but were now staring at her. ‘If you want him to live,’ she said to Georgie, ‘then you’ll take care of them.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Run. Please. I’ll find you later, but you must run now. Run, run, run!’ The woman giggled at this and pulled back the hammer on her pistol. That’s when Georgie’s eyes turned red and he charged at the group of hockey players. I mean, he was like a creature possessed. But that wasn’t him. He wouldn’t just attack them and—and …” She trailed off.
“What happened after that? What did you do?”
She looked around before lowering her head in shame. “What do you think I did? I ran, just like he told me to.” She shook her head and dabbed the corners of her eyes with the end of her tail. “I shouldn’t have left. But I was so scared. And he was so angry.” Then she clamped her fists at her sides and her voice took on a bit more confidence. “But that’s why I’m here now. I’m looking for Georgie. He’s going to live with me…just like you and—”
Mousey Girl so abruptly stopped walking that the people directly behind us bumped into her back. Not that she noticed. She just pointed in front of her and said, “That’s the woman who made Georgie so crazy.”
SCREAMING THE GODS BACK
I looked up to see where Mousey Girl was pointing, half expecting to see some crazed Occultist standing with the obsidian blade in one hand and a rain stick in the other. What I didn’t expect to see was Detective Wilcox, standing next to Nate.
They stood on the far side of the fountain, too far to discern any real detail, but close enough for me to clearly make out who they were. If I could recognize them, that meant they could recognize me. For a split second, my heart started to race. Either Mousey Girl had gotten all her facts wrong or Detective Wilcox was somehow involved in all this. Which meant she was probably responsible for the hex. My heart skipped a beat—until I remembered I was wearing the cherub’s mask.
I breathed a sigh of relief, then scanned the crowd for Mergen, Deirdre or Egya. None of them were in sight. The only familiar face—other than Wilcox and Nate—was the apu, Sal, standing by himself and looking pr
etty glum. And since Wilcox was with Nate, one of the apu’s closest friends, I couldn’t be sure which side he was on. Damn it!
Mousey Girl turned to run away. I grabbed her arm and said, “Where are you going?”
“Away,” she whispered in a rushed voice.
I looked up at Wilcox, who seemed to be scanning the crowd, looking for someone. Nate, on the other hand, looked dejected, frustrated and scared.
But Mousey Girl could easily get away. From where we stood, she could veer to the right and use the beer line as cover. Even if Wilcox recognized her as the girl in the parking lot, Mousey Girl would be long gone before anything could happen.
“OK,” I said. “Go—but before you do, I have a question. Do you know the gargoyle’s real name?”
“Huh?” she said, fear filling her mascara-decorated eyes.
“The gargoyle. Georgie. Do you know his real name? We want to give him a proper burial and, well, his name will go a long way toward making that happen.”
I don’t know if she even heard my question, or else she’d probably have started bawling from the discovery that her new friend was dead. But her eyes were trained on Wilcox. The line edged forward. Mousey Girl’s terror quickly got the best of her. She pulled her arm away and disappeared into the crowd.
I was alone in the line. At least I wouldn’t be recognized, which meant I could get close enough to confirm or deny Mousey Girl’s story without being detected. The line edged forward until we were almost parallel with Wilcox, with the fountain between us. As I got close enough to make out some details, I realized that Mousey Girl had only been half-right.
Detective Wilcox wasn’t just the terrifying lady who’d gotten Georgie the gargoyle killed.
She was the crazy woman who was going to get everyone at this party slaughtered.
THE LINE WAS MEANDERING ALONG, snaking around the courtyard, closer and closer to where Wilcox was standing, and now that she was only yards away, I could see she hadn’t had only the one Solomon’s ring, used and abandoned at the library—she had dozens. The sharp ruby-red diamonds lined each of her ten fingers, most sporting two rings each, and at least a dozen more hung from her belt as seemingly harmless decoration. And that’s exactly why I hadn’t seen her wearing any yesterday. She knew she could get away with displaying them in the open at a GoneGodsDamned costume party.