by Lori Woods
Honestly, this is probably better than an actual carriage ride. With our driver being a ghost, I can see straight through and enjoy the scenery. And the skeleton smells a lot better than it would be staring down the wrong end of a living horse. It’s ghoulish and totally adorable, and I love it. The wedding is taking place at a large venue just on the edge of town. It’s an empty castle, and it’s the go-to place for fancy events in Nightshade, so I’m told.
Once we arrive, Val tips the driver, and I assure my date that I found the gesture to be lovely. The ceremony is to take place outside on the lawn, under the light of the crescent moon. There are white chairs set up along the grass and glowing flowers everywhere. It’s actually quite normal, as my granny had promised. We watch the bride and groom exchange vows, and I enjoy watching the familiar wedding scene unfold. Love is not so different, no matter where you go, it seems.
We’re told to head inside, and the crowd mingles a bit while the bridal party remains outside for family photos; so normal it’s almost frightening. However, the haunted castle—in which the wait staff is mostly ghosts and ghouls—is a little less normal. I enjoy it either way. I glance in one corner, and I see what is unmistakably vampires. “Hey!” I say, nudging Val. “Looks like you’re not the only vampire in Nightshade tonight.”
“Yes, we sent word out to some neighboring towns that we might have a basilisk problem, and Joe invited all of the vampire volunteers who came as a thank you,” Val says. “Vampires and other living dead creatures are really the only ones who can safely hunt basilisks… although we still run the risk of being eaten—but just looking at the things won’t kill us.” Val then glances over toward the other vampires, and I see him stiffen.
I frown. Something’s up. I look back at the group, and I see a woman staring us down. She has a wicked smile that makes me uncomfortable. I watch as she places her drink on a tray and starts to sashay over to us in her skin-tight, floor-length red gown. Her skin is as smooth and pale as they come, contrasting her jet-black hair, which hangs down her back. “Val,” she says in a voice that screams familiarity.
“Hey, Buffy,” Val says uncomfortably.
“Who’s your friend?” she asks with emphasis.
I interrupt. “How do you two know one another?”
“We dated a while back,” she says without hesitation. “Well, two hundred years ago or so, I’d say. Haven’t really seen you since you came out to Nightshade. Is it true you’re a preacher now, or is that just rumor?”
Val clears his throat and then hooks his arm in mine. “Buffy, this is my girlfriend, Suzy. She’s a witch from the other side.”
“The other side?” Buffy asks with interest more so than shock. “How fun.”
“I love that your name is Buffy,” I say, deciding making enemies with Val’s ex is just a terrible idea and horribly cliché. I decide to try to play nice.
“Oh?” she asks.
“Well, yeah,” I say. “I know a lot of classics have made it over to this side. Haven’t you heard of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”
“The vampire slayer?” Buffy asks and then crosses her arms in annoyance. “So you think it’s funny I have the same name as a character who murders vampires?”
Oh. Crud. “Well… no…. um…” I frown. Yeah, she’s got me there. I probably just came off pretty terribly. “You know what; I’m going to go get a drink! Why don’t you two just catch up without me…” I can tell Val doesn’t want me to leave him alone with her, but I really hit rock-bottom with that comment. I flee from the embarrassing situation quickly.
I find myself standing in line to get punch when I bump into a woman, nearly knocking her over. “Sorry!” I say.
“No, that’s my fault entirely,” she says, and I get a good look at her.
She’s wearing a niqab; the traditionally Muslim garment covers her entire body apart from her eyes, but she is wearing dark black glasses and carrying a hoover cane. My mind tries to rationalize what I’m seeing. Did I just run into a blind Muslim woman at a werewolf wedding?
“Are you all right?” she asks me, tapping her white cane around her to make sure she’s not bumping into anybody else. “I can’t see well at all, so sorry.”
I keep staring. Mostly because I’m confused. “I’m fine,” I say. “Um… you’re not from around here, are you?”
“What gave it away?” she asks with a laugh. She then adds. “I’m joking, obviously. Yes, I’m mortal. Got stuck here with my sisters a while back.”
“Whoa,” I say. “Can I help you to a table?”
“That would actually be just wonderful. I think I walked through a ghost earlier, and he got very upset with me,” she says, and I place my hand at her elbow and help her walk to a table. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she says to me. “The one type of creatures here I am just having the hardest time getting used to are ghosts. Everyone else here has their own distinct smell or sound. I never know ghosts are there because I can’t hear a thing unless they’re talking. And they get so easily offended!”
I sit down with her. I’m just too intrigued to not learn more about her. “So you’re from the other side?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says.
“But you’re not a witch or anything like that? You’re just human?” I ask.
“Correct,” she says. “My sisters and I were in this cemetery, and my blind self wandered under this arch. They followed me, and now all three of us are stuck here.”
“Wow!” I say. “Well, I’m from the other side too.”
She perks up. “Really!” she exclaims. “I’ve been here for a while, and I’ve never met another mortal!”
“Oh, I’m actually a witch. I just didn’t know it,” I explain. “I just came here a few months back, and I know it can certainly take some getting used to.”
“I’d say so,” she says. “Who are you?”
“My name is Suzy,” I say. “What’s yours?”
“Solan,” she says. “Do you know the couple?”
“Not particularly well,” I say. “I know Joe, the pack leader. His niece, the one who was married, invited me. Her cousin Ted was killed this week, and I was there when he went from dead to dead dead. We got to talking, and she asked me to attend.” It occurred to me she might not know what I meant by dead dead. “Dead dead means—”
“I’ve been here long enough to have had that explained to me,” she interrupts. “What happened to the bride’s cousin that got him killed?”
“Sheriff Dudley is still investigating. He was turned to stone.”
“Turned to stone!” Solan cried.
“Yes, it was awful. They think it could be a basilisk,” I say. “If you look at one, you die. But there’s a chance that Ted could have seen its reflection and turned to stone instead of just dropping dead. That’s why there are a bunch of vampires in town. Since they’re already dead, a basilisk’s stare can’t kill them. They’re going to help us hunt for the basilisk.”
“I suppose I won’t have to worry about a basilisk then,” she says, tapping her glasses. “But stone, you say? When was this? Where did it happen?”
Just when Solan is starting in with twenty questions, the bride and groom make their entrance and everyone claps and cheers. I glance across the room to see Val, and he appears to be looking for me. “Solan, if you ever need someone from the other side to talk to, I work at the Nightshade library—I’m the Librarian there. But I see my date is wandering around aimlessly right now.”
“Oh, of course, go get him,” she says. “And thank you so much, Suzy, for helping me to my table.”
I go and catch up with Val, and the two of us find our seat. “Thanks for ditching me to suffer through a run-in with my ex,” he gripes.
“Sorry, but she seemed like she wanted to catch up,” I say.
“She did, but I didn’t,” he says.
Before the two of us could say much more on the matter, dinner was being placed in front of us. I feel someone grab my should
er, and I glance up and gasp when I see a friendly and familiar face. “Red Sumac!”
Chapter Four
I leap out of my chair and throw my hands around her neck. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her.
“Ok, enough. You’re squishing me.”
I laugh and pull away. “What are you doing here, Red?”
She flips some of her red hair over her shoulder and before she answers me, she gives Val a quick nod and a small smile. I’m not sure Red approves of me dating a vampire, but the fact that she helped me rescue him from the Doppelgangers in Hemlock proved her loyalty to me.
“I need a break from The Academy.” She pulls out a chair and takes a seat next to me. “After everything that went on, I needed to clear my head. I know some werewolves and one of them invited me. Plus, I knew we’d get a chance to catch up as well. So, surprise!”
Having my friend, Red, appear at the wedding reception is one of the highlights of my evening—right behind the haunted carriage ride Val had provided and meeting the blind Muslim woman from the other side. If not for these lovely instances, I would have considered the evening a total bust. All night long, Buffy has been popping up every time Val and I turn around. I honestly don’t appreciate what she’s doing. The part that really bothers me is that I cannot tell if she is honestly flirting with Val because she wants him back or if she’s been doing it because I ticked her off with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comment. Either way, by the time we’re halfway through the reception, I’m ready to bolt.
Val is looking exhausted too. Avoiding an ex-girlfriend who is as persistent as Buffy has to be exhausting. And it’s not just Buffy. All the vampires know Val either personally or through reputation, and they spend the whole evening poking fun at him. I mean, when I first met him I admit Preacher-Vampire seemed kind of like a misnomer, but after getting to know him, I assumed that it wasn’t as strange as I had initially thought. Apparently, I had been right on the money. The other vampires all think it’s hilarious and keep making jokes about him drinking the blood of Christ. Pretty sure that’s blasphemous, but in the end, that seems to be what these living dead people are all about. Val was not the norm; he was the exception. Turns out those vampire stereotypes of hyper sexuality and bloodlust are pretty much spot on—they all brought a surplus supply of what amounts to juice boxes filled with blood. And Val doesn’t care for the general behavior of his former acquaintances. No wonder he moved to a town that made him the one and only vampire.
“Are you ready to go?” he whispers in my ear after yet another breakaway from Buffy the Vampire Stalker. He sounds so adorably desperate.
“What, not having fun playing catch-up with your old friends?” I ask him.
“They are not my friends,” he says. “Not anymore.”
I smile. “Good, because I don’t really care for them. Yeah, let’s get out of here. Any chance we’re taking your haunted carriage back home?”
He grins. “I knew you liked it.”
“I told you I did,” I say. We stand up after having been hanging out at the table with Red for a while. I smile at her. “I wish you could stay longer.”
“Me too, but I have to get back to The Academy in a few days,” she says. “I’m looking forward to spending some time with a few friends and acquaintances I have out this way—and that includes you, sweetie. Maybe you and Broom Hilda can try to give me a run for my money while I’m out here?”
“Sounds great,” I say, grinning. We both know that Broom Hilda is the fastest in Nightshade and Hemlock, but I don’t say anything.
“That is something I would enjoy watching,” Val says, hooking his arm in mine. “Now let’s go before she finds us again.”
I got to say, I love that he doesn’t still get along with his ex. You can call it petty, but I don’t care. Just as Val and I are heading to the main entrance of the enchanted castle, there is this loud eruption of screams and howls. “Laura’s dead!” I hear.
“Oh no,” Val says anxiously. We head back toward the crowd to see what in the world is going on. Some lady werewolves are running out of a powder room in fright. Joe is darting past them, practically pushing the women over to see for himself what is going on.
Joe remerges moments later, and he’s got a very pale-looking Laura in his arms. “Someone help!” he yelps.
Dr. Ryan, the local veterinarian, comes darting up. He’s sort of the local werewolf expert. He touches Laura’s throat, and I can see him shaking his head. “She’s… she’s so pale…” the doctor grumbles.
I look at Val; he doesn’t really know Laura all that personally, but he looks like he’s been frightened out of his mind. I see him sniffing the air like a bloodhound. “Val?” I question in a hushed tone.
“She doesn’t have any blood in her,” he says hoarsely almost as soon as Dr. Ryan is making the exact same announcement to the panicked crowd.
“Vampire!” someone shouts.
“Vampires—they’re everywhere!”
This isn’t good. Nightshade is not usually filled with vampires. And vampires, I’ve learned, don’t really suck the blood of people like they had done historically. This right here is a horrible crime, even to vampires, but their stereotypical reputation is enough to get this crowd stirring. The vampires in the room—apart from Val, who remains standing still beside me, gripping my arm—all look like they are frightened.
“Calm down!” I shout over the crowd, and I’m surprised at how much my voice carries in this room. “Where’s Sherriff Dudley? Is he here?”
I see one vampire inching towards the door, and Val releases me. He pulls some sort of wicked vampire mysticism, appearing in front of the door in a field of black smog before hissing violently at his fellow vampire who dared to try to dip out. “I didn’t do it!” the man shouts.
“I don’t care,” Val hisses. “Don’t you dare leave.”
Sherriff Dudley comes waddling up after having just stuffed his face with some cake. Seriously? I really don’t understand this man. For once, though, he surprises me a bit with an air of professionalism. “Now listen,” he says, addressing the group of vampires. “No one is accusing any of you of anything—yet. I need all the werewolves in the room to calm down right now and stop pointing fingers; we don’t need to cause a panic.” He looks back at the vampires. “Every last one of you is going to come down to the station, and we are going to talk this out. That’s all. I’m not arresting anyone, but I need to hear your testimonies for the evening. We have a body that’s been drained of blood, and done so very quickly, I might add because I just saw the girl a few minutes ago. Let’s all make this easy on ourselves and cooperate, understood?”
The group of five or six vampires all nod anxiously. Sheriff Dudley marches them all out, and then he turns to Val who is walking toward me. “You too, Val,” Dudley says firmly.
“You’re joking,” Val says.
“Do I look like I’m joking?” he retorts.
“Go with him, Val,” I say. “I’ll meet you at the station.”
Another local officer arrives as Val is leaving and looks over Laura. I decide to hang out for just a moment to get his assessment. “That’s weird,” he says as he looks at Laura’s neck. “No bite marks.”
“No bite marks?” I question, looking over his shoulder at Laura. I feel my stomach tighten. She had just gotten married; I glance up and see the groom seated on the floor, hugging his knees. He looks like a mess. I glance back down at Laura; she had been so sweet to me.
“Well, no…” he says. “There’s just one hole in her throat right here where her blood was drained.”
“What are we looking for then?” Joe growls. “A bucktooth vampire?”
“I’m not sure,” the officer says.
I decide I’ve waited long enough. I offer my condolences to Joe and to the groom before leaving. I feel this awful knot forming in my stomach. Two werewolves in one week. I’m certain that this will have the entire pack on edge. Due to my nausea, I’m not sure I
feel like riding Broom Hilda, so I take the carriage that Val had rented. It’s really bittersweet riding on this ghoulish yet romantic carriage by myself. It takes a while to get to the station; I probably could have just walked.
“You’ve got me for the rest of the night, miss,” the ghost driver says. “I can wait out here until you get your boyfriend out.”
I smile. “I’d appreciate it.”
I head inside and I see Val speaking to Dudley in the station’s lobby, looking very bothered. He shakes the sheriff’s hand before glancing up and seeing me. There is this look of relief on his face as he comes forward and wraps his arms around me, resting his head on my shoulder. “They’re letting you go, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, Dudley interviewed me first,” he says, glancing back to be sure the man was out of earshot. “He’s terrible at conducting interviews; just fumbles over his words. He should let someone else do it.”
He still looks incredibly upset. I stroke his arm and offer him a smile. “Are you all right?”
“Not really,” he says. “We all talked on the way over here. Buffy doesn’t have an alibi. She was by herself when Laura was killed, and Dudley’s going to detain her.”
“Oh!” I say. “Well, that’s not good. Do you think a vampire could be responsible for this?”
“No!” he says almost angrily, but I see him immediately regret his tone, so I decide not to pester him about it. He wrings his wrists. “But that’s not going to stop everyone in town from being on edge. The vampires are only here because they volunteered to help the people of Nightshade hunt a basilisk. They’re not here to hurt anyone. I know they’re a bit more of the traditional vampire compared to myself, but they wouldn’t hurt anyone. Buffy wouldn’t hurt anyone, but because she is what she is and she doesn’t have an alibi she’s going to have to spend the night here at the station. Not really innocent until proven guilty around here, Suzy. We can’t afford to be that way with such powerful beings walking about. I feel like I have to do something—find out who really hurt Laura.”
