Page 5 of Desperately Seeking Vampire
I was about to protest that I could do without camping in an empty mausoleum, but the reality was that it was starting to get cold at night, and I could do worse. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll see if I can’t round up a couple of blankets, and claim the other empty one.”
“You must be quick,” the fourth member of the band said, a woman with a braided crown of golden hair that was straight out of Sound of Music. “The Smashed Avocado has said they want one to sleep in tonight.”
“They said they wanted to sleep in the cabin with the bodies,” the first woman said, giving a delicate shudder.
“That’s horrible,” I said, recoiling. “If you know for a fact they are tampering with the remains—”
“No, no,” she said, grimacing. “It is not that they want to actually touch the bodies—they simply want to sleep in the crypt with them, you understand? They want to be near them.”
“They are very Goth,” Antoine said, nodding. “They like that sort of thing.”
“Oh. Well ...” I tried to decide if it was my problem to warn the GothFaire that one of the bands was likely breaking into an occupied mausoleum if they weren’t actually doing harm, but decided that since I didn’t know the people in question, I wasn’t obligated to alert Dominic and company to what might be going down. “Thanks for the information. And good luck tonight.”
They all smiled, wished me well, and hurried off to do whatever groups of young people did before a three-day musical festival. I assumed it involved alcohol, some illegal substances, and probably visits to the services offered by the GothFaire.
“Services,” I said thoughtfully, looking to the right, where a U-shaped collection of tents and stands had been arranged. Most of the stands bore signs with graphical depictions of their services and wares, everything from a palm reader, to potions and amulets, a demonologist, a magician, and three different types of diviners—runestone reader, tarot reader, and scryer. “I wonder ...”
Ten minutes later, I shook the hand of the fake-fanged Dominic. “You can set up next to the poetry stage,” he said, gesturing toward the open side of the U shape.
“I was kind of hoping I could use your tarot reader’s booth while she was on bed rest,” I told him, not at all impressed by a small stage that was isolated from the bands’ main stage. A few beat-up folding chairs had been set out in front of it, while the stage itself, about four square feet, held a wooden three-legged stool, a small battered amp, and a microphone that, like the rest of the equipment, had clearly seen better days.
“It is not possible, mon ange,” he told me in a French accent that gave me the heebie-jeebies for some reason. He was dressed in what I thought of as classic Vampire Lestat wear, with a black velvet frock coat, gleaming white shirt, elaborate bloodred cravat, and lashings of lace at his wrists. “The tent, it has not even been set up, since the doctor will not allow Reelie to leave her bed until the child is born. You must keep accurate tallies, you understand? Mark down the readings, and then deliver to either Milos or me our share of the money each night.”
I wanted to tell him that I was most likely within my rights to set up a tarot-card-reading table outside his GothFaire setup and keep all the profits, but decided it wasn’t worth the fight. I wasn’t happy about handing over half of my take to them, but hopefully, I’d scrape together enough money each day to feed myself and pay for the room reserved at the local hotel. I really did not want to have to sleep in a mausoleum, especially if bands had decided it was cool to break into them and party, as I suspected they were going to do.
“Fine. I should warn you about something that I heard.” I told Dominic about the mausoleums, but he didn’t seem to be overly worried.
“It is the talk most big, you know?” He gave a shrug that had his shoulder-length blond curls brushing his shoulder. “They do that to scare each other. Ah, there is Milos. I must tell him the latest about Jason Amiri.”
“You tried,” I told myself, and was about to leave when two big men who looked like they had spent their entire life in a bodybuilding studio, all bulging muscles and tightly fitting sleeveless T-shirts, stopped in front of me at the demonologist’s booth. The men looked like twins since they were bald, had no necks to speak of due to the buildup of shoulder muscles, and both sported identical snake tattoos that coiled around their beefy biceps. I wouldn’t have paid any attention except I caught my name.
Not wanting to stare, I turned my back and pulled out my phone, pretending to consult it as I strained my ears.
“I haven’t heard of anyone of that name,” the demonologist’s assistant told them. “Minerva?”
“Goldstein. She is with a thief, the one running the music. He stole something of great importance, and we want it back,” one of the big men told her.
“If you see her, you will tell us,” the other announced, making it clear there was no option to refuse his request. “We want what the thief stole. You understand?”
“Yes, but I do not know this woman, or the man,” the assistant protested.
“You tell us when you see her,” the second one repeated. Then they both turned and glanced around the booths, as if figuring out where to go next.
I hurried forward, my mind whirling. Who the hell were those muscle-bound men? And why were they hunting for me? Clearly it was something to do with Jason, but why did I feel like they were talking about something other than the prize pot with which he’d tried to abscond?
My stomach growled as I tried to puzzle it out. After staring hungrily at people clustered around one of the food booths, I decided there were no answers to be found at the fair, and made my sad, lonely, and foodless way to the hotel, where I prayed they wouldn’t ask me to verify the credit card information Jason had given to hold my room.
“I’ll take a shower, find a cheap meal at a nearby fast-food place, and then go back to the meadow to keep an eye on the bands while avoiding the Muscle Brothers,” I told myself as I hurried to the south, where a long hotel sat at the far end of the town. The road, which wound around the meadow up to the castle, was choked with cars and people on foot, the GothFaire having done an excellent job of drawing in seemingly everyone from the Czech Republic to the festivities.
I dodged both people and vehicles, absently pulling out my phone when it burbled a P!nk song at me. “Oh, hell,” I said, seeing the name, then with a grimace said, “I hope to god you’re not wasting your one phone call on me, Jason, because I am not in a mood to do anything to help you. And speaking of the hellish nightmare you thrust me into, why do you have your phone when the police wouldn’t even let me have my money and credit cards, let alone my clothes?”
“Money talks, even in this backwater. As for the rest ... don’t start in on me, Minerva,” he snapped, his tone far from the urbane one he used when wooing investors. “I’ve had a day from hell, and I don’t need any shit from you. Where are you? Why aren’t you here moving your sweet ass to get me out of this nightmare?”
“I like that!” I hurried off into a full parking lot, since a few of the people streaming toward the fair gave me curious looks. “You’re the one who tried to run off with the money, leaving me and all the others to deal with your theft.”
“I don’t need a lecture from you,” he said, his voice making me grind my teeth in frustration. “I just need you to do your job and get me out of here. It’s dangerous for me to be trapped in a cell. I need to be free. Only free can I be safe.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dude, are you off your meds? What are you talking about?”
