The Girl In the Morgue

by D. D. VanDyke

  “Maybe when she passes.” Meat crossed himself.

  “Hopefully not for a while. She’s only fifty-five.”

  “Yeah, but your pops…”

  “Cancer’s not contagious, Meat.”

  “I dunno.”

  And then they were there. The lush green grassy swards—that was a word she’d learned at the Renfaire, ‘swards’—of Golden Gate Park lay in contrast to the patchy browns of the Escondido crabgrass. The air smelled crisp and fresh, the tang from the ocean as familiar as Starlight’s favorite incense. Meat and Manson jumped out of the truck to gear up, launching back into their torturous faux-Middle English.

  Cal started to divest of her usual weaponry.

  Meat looked at her, his jaw dropping. “You’re leaving those in the car?”

  Cal dragged over the lock box. “Not supposed to take firearms in. It’s swords and spears only. Everything else stays here.”

  Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to put her .22 derringer in the box. Whether Meat noticed that she didn’t leave final holdout or not, he didn’t say. But he and Manson turned serious as they put their hand-cannons into the lock box and looked around, suddenly assessing the hazards of the situation rather than the fun and excitement.

  “How are we supposed to protect you without any real weapons?” Manson demanded. “The swords aren’t even sharp. You’d have to hit someone in the head or something. Use it as a bludgeon.”

  “No one else is going to have firearms either.”

  “Unless gunnin’ for us. Goddamn gun-free zones. Free-fire zones for criminals, you mean.”

  “Hey, it’s not actually illegal for you to carry. You got your gun cards. It’s just against Society policy. But I don’t want you to risk it. You good with that, or you wanna hang out here and guard the truck?” Cal stared Meat down, certain his machismo wouldn’t let him chicken out.

  “Naw, Cal, we cool.”

  “Relax. You’re here to keep an eye on me, but nothing is going to happen. It’s just to put Cole’s mind at ease. It’s deterrence.”

  “If Cole’s worried, maybe you should be too.”

  Cal suited up without any comment. They all had to help each other to do up straps and buckles as their outfits grew more unwieldy. Cal picked up her sword and shield and led the way to the registration tent to be checked in, or “enrolled in the lists,” as they called it.

  The woman who assisted them had coils of hair piled high on her head, was wrapped in huge swaths of floral fabric, and had prominent teeth. She examined Cal and the M&Ms with the same indulgent look that a mother would give her brood of children. “Your first time?”

  Cal wondered what it was that gave them away. Was there something wrong about their costumes? Did they look store-bought instead of handcrafted? Was it their wide-eyed wonder as they looked around at the other players already on the field warming up and testing their weapons? Or was it just because she had never seen them at any other activities? The M&Ms were too big to be easily forgotten, and people tended to stare at them while trying to figure out their racial profile.

  “First time to fight,” Cal admitted. “I saw it all it at the Escondido Renfaire and it sounded like fun.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time. You’ll need to sign this waiver to indicate that you understand the rules and won’t hold the Society responsible.” She said it so casually that Cal was a little taken aback, even though she figured it was routine.

  “Uh, yeah. Of course.”

  “The rules are pretty simple. Weapons must all be taped rattan, no wood that can splinter, no metal except for hilts. That means no steel blades—other groups use those, but not us. Thrusting tips must be padded in accordance with Society regs. Looks like your stuff complies. You plan on using any two-handed weapons? No?” She gave a bright smile. “Other than that, the marshals will check you over before the fight and stop you if they see anything in violation.”

  Manson and Meat looked at each other, and at Cal. “That’s it?” Manson asked suspiciously. “No rules about hitting below the belt, or if you’re touched you’re dead, or anything like that?”

  “Um, okay, yeah, a few other things. Usually people have a few practices, so I forget. The crotch is a valid target, so you better be wearing cups. Deliberately striking at the hands is a foul, as is anything below the knees. You can’t strike with anything except your weapon, so no kicking or punching or head-butting or anything like that. Make sure you get calibrated before you go in. That means a marshal will hit you a few times to establish a valid strike. Valid strike to the head or torso are kills. Arms and legs mean you lose the use of that limb. Marshals will help you remember if you go rhino.”

  “Rhino?”

  The woman grinned. “Yeah, you’ll find the adrenaline makes you forget when you get hit. Rhino-hiders do it habitually. Oh, also, if you get killed, leave the field of battle as soon as you safely can. Cuts down on people tripping, or getting stepped on.”

  “Martial arts?” Meat demanded. “Combat holds?”

  The woman shook her head. “This ain’t the MMA. Like I said, only use your approved weaponry. You can shield-bash, but only against an opponent’s shield. It’s not realistic, but it’s too easy to hurt someone by charging them with a shield. This ain’t a blood sport, okay?”

  “Sure, ah, milady.” Meat eyed the big woman appreciatively. “Hey you gonna be watching?”

  She shrugged and smiled. “Aye.”

  “Then I shall fight for your honor.”

  She laughed delightedly and unwound a scarf, holding it out. “Well spoken, milord, though my honor’s long since departed. Here’s my favor. Tie that tight to something where it won’t catch.”

  Meat took the scarf but held onto her hand, bowed and kissed it. “I’m Meat.”

  “Mm, you certainly are. Rowena of the Flowers.” She fluttered her fingers toward the next tent. “Please take your weapons to the marshals’ station before the first fight starts.”

  The three of them traipsed over to the inspection station, exchanging glances with each other. The M&Ms were starting to grin, sure that they were going to be the heroes of the battle. Even without their guns, they clearly believed they could take down anyone they saw warming up on the field.

  There were no problems with their weapons. A man in black-and-blue armor and carrying a heavy staff indicated they could enter the field.

  “How do we know which team we are on?” Meat asked.

  “You three are allied with the Misty Hills, arrayed on the west field.” The man motioned to one side of the field. “Our opponents, those of the Marches, are to the east. I entreat you report to Duke Radnor. He’ll put you in the ranks.”

  “Prithee…” Meat started to laugh, and then caught himself, putting on a serious face. “Prithee…where be the privy?” He and Manson both started to laugh uproariously.

  Their guide looked on stolidly, not cracking even the smallest smile. When Meat and Manson finally got control of themselves, he gave a little bow, and gestured to the row of porta-potties on the far end of the field. “There are the privies. Obviously.”

  The M&Ms started to laugh again as they trudged toward the toilets. Cal struck Meat on the armored upper arm with her rattan sword. “Grow up. Are you thirteen-year-olds or men? And did you notice, these Society people don’t talk like pirates. This is an event, not a Renfaire, so there aren’t a bunch of paying customers that want over-the-top silliness. They take it seriously here.”

  Both of them stopped laughing. Manson gave Cal an ashamed look. “Hey, we’re having fun,” he said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  Cal had to grin and shake her head. “No, but remember, you’re watching my back, and you’re representing me. Once we’ve relieved ourselves, let’s go warm up. I’ve never done this before and I want to at least try out my sword and shield before we get murdered.”

  Meat frowned. “Phrasing, Cal. Not good.”

  “On the field, I mean.” />
  “Yeah, right.”

  Cal smiled to herself. If that sobered them up, she’d done her job. She really didn’t think there was any danger, not in broad daylight in public like this—after all, there were a couple of uniformed police officers roaming the outskirts, as with any large gathering of people in San Francisco’s premier public park—but she wasn’t paying the M&Ms to goof off.

  Once they’d reached the fighting area, but before they reported in, they donned their helmets. Cal immediately felt claustrophobic. It cut down on her vision so much she felt like she was blind. How was she supposed to cross swords with someone she didn’t even see coming? She’d be killed before she had a chance to take a swing.

  “I feel like I’ve got a tin can on my head,” Meat complained, his voice reverberating strangely from inside his helmet. “I can’t fight with this on!”

  “It’s to protect your brain box,” Manson called, his voice sounding muffled. “That’s the most important part of your body. Or the most important part of mine, anyway. For you, it’s your other head, yo.”

  “But how are we supposed to fight like this?”

  Cal raised her sword and gave Meat a chop on the upper arm. There came a thump, and Meat turned his whole body to try to find her. “That’s not fair, I was talking to Man—”

  Manson struck Meat a blow across the back of his shoulders. There was a lot more force in it than Cal had used, and Meat staggered forward, howling in protest. “Manson! You have to wait—”

  Cal was watching for her opportunity, but Meat had figured out not to turn his back on either one of them and took a few steps back to be able to watch both of them simultaneously.

  “You guys! We’re supposed to be on the same team!”

  “We’re supposed to be warming up,” Cal reminded him. “We don’t exactly have much time to figure out this sword-fighting thing. So, you gonna fight or you gonna whine?”

  Meat aimed a blow in her direction and Cal stepped out of the way. She brought her shield up and blocked. Manson pressed in from the other side. “Hey, pick on someone your own size!” She figured that might give her an opportunity.

  Meat turned to fight with Manson, foregoing parrying his blows and trying a bear hug to control him. The two of them ended up toppling to the turf.

  Cal laughed as they wrestled awkwardly, each trying to either hold the other down or to get to their feet, neither succeeding. “Come on, guys. They said no grappling.”

  Eventually the two got tired of their horseplay, and the three reported to Duke Radnor as they were ordered. They were assigned to a mustering area with a dozen other fighters.

  “Cal!”

  Cal turned, scanning for who had called her name. She didn’t recognize him at first; then the knight took off his helmet and Cal saw it was Cruiser. She left the quarreling men behind and went over to talk to him, taking off her own helm. “How’d you know it was me?”

  “I saw your name on the registration list and Rowena said that you had come in with a couple of apes. The combination of two large and one small was easy to spot.”

  “Makes sense. You came for the battle?”

  She knew as the words left her mouth that it was a stupid question. Why else would he be standing there on the field with his gear on? But Cruiser didn’t seem perturbed.

  “Yeah. It’s a good way to work off a little stress. Not many places you can crack heads and not get arrested for it. You know they don’t hold back here, right? Swing as hard as you want, at least with a one-handed weapon.”

  “Yeah, what was that about two-handed weapons? Rowena asked us.”

  “They generate so much power, you’re not allowed to swing more than ninety degrees. Keeps the injuries down.”

  Cal nodded, looking around. “Where’s Alan?”

  “He’s watching. A friend of mine’s keeping an eye on him.” Cruiser gestured to the spectators.

  Cal squinted, trying to find Alan amongst the milling people. Then she saw him, right up against the fence enclosing the battlefield, peering over the edge in their direction. A slim, nerdy-looking man held his hand.

  Cal watched the boy for a moment. “How has he been?”

  Cruiser rubbed his chin, his whiskers rasping. “Disrupted. It’s hard, because I don’t know how much he understands. How much I should explain to him, and how much I should just give him space and time to adjust. It’s obvious he’s off, but I don’t know if he really gets that she’s gone and isn’t coming back, or if he just senses that it’s been longer than usual since he last saw her. He’s so young, I don’t think he can comprehend death.”

  “No…probably not. I’m sorry. I hope he settles back to himself before too long.”

  “Me too. Not that I want him to forget Jenna, but I doubt he’ll remember her much when he’s an adult. Maybe a little for the next few years; then he’ll start to forget what she was like and what she meant to him.”

  Deep for a surfer dude. But Cruiser wasn’t just a surfer. He was also a programmer. And a medieval knight. And a father. Cal found herself sympathizing with him. He wasn’t the slacker some people thought.

  Cruiser scratched the back of his neck, and then hefted his helm into place. “We’d better armor up.”

  Cal reluctantly put her own helm over her head and settled it. “Are you in our squad, or whatever they call it?” she asked, motioning to toward Meat and Manson. With his helmet on, he probably couldn’t see her small hand movement.

  “Yes,” Cruiser agreed, voice muffled, “we’re in the same company. For the Misty Hills!”

  “For the Misty Hills,” Cal echoed.

  An amplified voice rang out over the roar of the crowd and the chatter died down. Cal couldn’t make out what was being announced, but she sensed the change in the audience and in the fighters on the field. Everyone settled armor into place. Many checked each other. Those across the field, on the east side, did the same.

  Cal looked for the M&Ms. They moved to flank her, left and right. If anyone tried anything, they were ready. Well, she hoped so. She took a deep breath as the excitement ramped up, the sweet, white spark of adrenaline that warmed her from her head to her toes and made everything around her slow down and come into crisp focus. She knew it was crazy to wade into this sport—this activity, this hobby—without much preparation, like when she went paintballing for the first time on a whim. Cal rushes in where angels fear to tread, her father used to say.

  “Bring it on, baby,” she murmured, so low that she was the only one who could hear her voice. “Bring it on.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The gong sounded. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Cal ran forward to meet the opposing forces. She aimed with laser focus at a figure directly in front of her, squarely inside the tiny window of vision the helmet allowed. She couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman, someone experienced or a total newbie like she was, only that they were about her size.

  The only thing that mattered was bringing them down. They ran directly at each other like two rhinos. Cal’s shield and sword were up, and as she closed in, she angled her shield to block her opponent’s sword, and swung her sword at the enemy’s midsection.

  When they contacted, a shockwave went Cal’s body and she was barely able to keep her feet. Her opponent staggered, and Cal’s sword slammed into her opponent’s side armor. The figure paused a moment, and then crumpled and sprawled dramatically, even though the strike must have been relatively painless through all the padding and mail.

  Exultation at her first kill exploded inside of Cal, spreading from her stomach out to the tips of her fingers and toes. Inside the helmet, she was grinning madly, mouth wide open to facilitate her heavy breathing. She centered another fighter in her sights, this one several inches taller than she, but slim. When she advanced on him, his sword whipped around swiftly to clash with hers and knocked it away.

  With all of the fights she’d ever seen on TV and in the movies, Cal had never comprehended the combinati
on of agility and strength needed to cross swords with an opponent. On screen, sword fighters moved like dancers, in a well-choreographed waltz, their blades crossing and re-crossing slow enough for the cameras to catch.

  Now, though, Cal’s movements felt slow and clumsy, hampered by her armor and the force needed to push back against the other knight. Freeing her sword and attempting another blow was a process that seemed to take several long seconds. The knight she was fighting was definitely male, grunting and growling with effort. He tried to use his superior upper body strength to push her back, but Cal dug in her heels and refused to give way.

  There came a collision and Cal was bowled over to the ground. She rolled and jumped back to her feet with as much agility as the armor would allow, turning her body and scanning back and forth to figure out what had just happened. She could see one of the M&Ms—Manson, she thought—had knocked Cal’s knight to the ground with a shield bash. The man got up quickly from his knees and backed away, probably intimidated by her bodyguards.

  Looking around frantically, Cal took a glancing blow to the head, not a kill as far as she could tell. She whirled to face her attacker. About her height, but who was nearly as wide as he was tall. His helmet had a ghoulish, grinning mouth with slats to protect his teeth. She was close enough to see cruel, widely dilated eyes glinting on the other side of the helmet’s grille. This guy was into it.

  She aimed a body blow to force him to step back. He didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. Cal smacked him with her shield, followed by a quick sword-strike at the side of his head. He blocked the blows with immovable strength, and then shield-bashed her own shield, knocking her back ten feet. She felt the blow all the way to her core, making her breathing even more labored.

  Well, if a kill wasn’t in the cards, maybe she could leg him and move away, let the M&Ms finish him off. That would be smart, smarter than going toe-to-toe with someone twice her mass.

  Even as she struggled to pull in her next breath, she lunged and tried a low sweep of her sword, planning on coming backhand if she missed. It worked, her rattan blade sneaking under his shield to contact his thigh just above the knee.