Winging It

by A. A. Albright

  Dear Gretel, I wanted to run away so bad. This house was so unlike the Gabriel I had come to know. Sure, I could imagine his TV persona living here – I mean, if you added a few modern touches. But scruffy, sweet Gabriel? That Gabriel, the version I liked, seemed incredibly out of place in Godbody House.

  ‘I think the house is ... very grand,’ I said. ‘Can we go and meet your dad, now?’ So we can get this over with, once and for all, I neglected to add.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, but he didn’t move. ‘Actually, first ... would you like to meet my mother?’ He swallowed nervously, and pulled me to the largest painting of all. It was situated near the staircase, and it looked newer – and far less dusty – than any of the other artwork.

  The woman in the portrait had long, fair hair and lovely blue eyes. Those eyes had a kindness about them, but also a faint nervousness.

  ‘She’s the reason I got so weird the other night,’ he said. ‘She jumped from the house’s tallest tower one day. So.’

  Oh. I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for him, and pulled him close. ‘I’m so sorry, Gabriel. You should have told me. You should have told Max.’

  He gave me a wan smile. ‘It’s not exactly something I like talking about.’ He grasped my hand, and kissed it softly. ‘Come on. My dad’ll be wondering what’s taking so long.’

  He led me down the hall and veered to the right, taking me into a huge drawing room, larger than every house in Westerly Crescent combined. Despite its enormity, the room felt claustrophobic. It was crammed with stuffed animals, antique furniture, and a collection of pointy weapons that lined every wall.

  By a crackling fire at the far end of the room, a tall, thin man sat hunched in a chair.

  ‘Excuse the lack of electricity.’ At the raspy sound of his voice, I almost jumped out of my boots. ‘I find I hear too much travelling around inside the power lines. Come. Come warm yourself by the fire, Wayfarer.’

  I cast a scared-to-bejaysus look at Gabriel. He gave me a reassuring smile in return, and walked me forward. ‘My father is plagued by his power,’ Gabriel whispered. ‘Energies affect him deeply. As do emotions.’

  ‘Oh.’ If that was true, then I wondered what he was making of my current emotional state. ‘Is it the vampire ancestry?’

  ‘It is not, but you are wise to wonder.’ Once again, it was Gabriel’s raspy-voiced father who spoke. ‘I do have a degree of vampire telepathy, but only a very small amount. I am what I suppose you might call an empath.’

  Just like Kitty, I thought, although I said nothing out loud. For some reason, I was reluctant to mention the kitten. Perhaps it was due to the stuffed white cat I could see sitting next to the log basket.

  ‘That is why I choose to live so far from the madding crowd.’ He let out a wheezing laugh. ‘Brandy?’

  ‘Um, okay.’ No sooner had I accepted, than a glass of richly coloured brandy was sitting in my left hand. I was so surprised I almost dropped it to the floor.

  ‘Excuse me. I should have warned you I was about to do that.’ Gabriel’s father extended a shaking hand. ‘I am Gabriel Godbody the Twentieth. Pleased to meet you, Wayfarer.’

  I took his hand. It was warm and dry. ‘Pleased to meet you, too. But call me Wanda.’

  ‘Of course. And you may call me Father.’

  I blinked. ‘Father?’

  ‘Well ... I will be, very soon, I hope. Or your father-in-law, certainly.’ Seeing the expression on my face, he broke out into raucous laughter, wiping his eyes and patting Gabriel’s back. ‘Sorry, son. I couldn’t resist. Wanda, I have no idea what Gabriel’s future intentions hold. I do know he likes you very much. But you don’t need to worry about him moving quite so fast.’

  I laughed weakly for a few seconds before he said, ‘Please. Sit.’

  I perched in the edge of the wing-backed chair directly across from his, while Gabriel sat in a similar chair alongside. Even with only a small portion of my rear end on the chair, I could tell that it was filled with horsehair. I could feel the ancient stuffing sticking out in places, making me itchy. We made uncomfortable small talk for a short while. I was far too busy avoiding the dead eyes of the stuffed animals to pay much attention to what was being said. I was almost positive that there were at least three dragon heads and six unicorn horns on the wall to my left, but I was too afraid to take a better look.

  ‘Family heirlooms,’ said Gabriel Godbody the Twentieth. ‘I keep meaning to redecorate, but any change upsets me deeply. Sends my power into overdrive. So alas, I must live with these relics.’

  ‘Isn’t there anything you could take to lessen your discomfort?’

  He shook his head. ‘I have tried everything available. Why, I even had to get rid of the telephone and television. If I watched the news, I could feel the emotion of each and every person on the screen. The same thing with the telephone.’

  Okay, so he definitely knew I wanted to be anywhere but here.

  ‘I know that this is nerve-wracking for you, Wayfarer,’ he said, confirming my suspicions. ‘But it ought not be. You certainly don’t need to impress me. Gabriel is smitten with you, and that is all I need to know. So be yourself. Please.’

  In the distance, a gong rang out, saving me from responding.

  ‘Ah, that will be the gong to tell me my dinner spell has completed. Shall we move along to the dining room?’

  He led the way out of the enormous drawing room, down a long, dark corridor, and finally into the dining room. The table must have been large enough to seat at least thirty guests. It was lined with candelabras – the candles within them were the only light in the room.

  There were three place settings. Unfortunately, they were incredibly far away from one another. Gabriel’s father wiggled his fingers, and a chair at the centre of the table pulled out. ‘Take a seat, Wanda,’ he said, beaming at me. ‘As our guest of honour, you shall be in the middle, the whole focus of our attention.’ He laughed as though he had said something hilarious. I smiled feebly, and took my seat. As I pulled myself closer to the table, I noticed Gabriel and his father taking seats at opposite heads.

  The unnerving thing was that, even with all of us sitting so far apart, the room felt just as claustrophobic as the drawing room had. In fact, I felt the same way I had earlier on, when I visited the residences of Benny and the Jeffs – like I was being stared at by unseen eyes. Of course, the dining room walls were lined with even more animal heads than the drawing room walls had been, so that could have been the reason.

  ‘Well.’ Gabriel Godbody the Twentieth waved his fingers once more, and the table filled with food. ‘Shall we begin?’

  I gulped. In the very centre of the table, staring directly at me, was an enormous dead pig, with an apple stuck in its mouth. I glanced at the other food. Every bit of it looked equally dead.

  Gabriel’s eyes filled with horror. ‘Dad! You know Wanda and her family eat very little meat.’

  Actually, I hadn’t eaten any meat at all since moving in with Max.

  ‘Oh.’ Gabriel’s father’s face fell. ‘So sorry. It’s been such a long time since I spent time with anyone. Let alone the Wayfairs. I’d forgotten about all of their little quirks. Oh dear. Well ... I suppose you could eat the potatoes.’

  I looked at the table. The only potatoes were the roasted ones that surrounded each and every meat dish.

  ‘Or ... the sprouts. Actually, no. I put little bits of bacon in those. Well ... not to worry. I can whip something else up in a flash.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Thanks, but it would be wasted on me. Even if I did eat meat, I’ve been so nervous at the thought of meeting you, Mr Godbody, that I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep a morsel down. Seriously. The two of you go ahead and chow down. I’ll sip at my wine.’

  Gabriel’s father didn’t seem to need much convincing. Immediately, he began to load his plate, and Gabriel’s, with food. I watched as they tucked in enthusiastically, feeling my stomach grow sicker and sicker by the minute. I had lied. I wasn
’t nervous – not anymore, anyway. The sick feeling in my stomach right now was one of disappointment. I had hoped that by getting to know Gabriel’s family, I would get to know him a little better, too. But neither this house, nor his father, seemed to be any reflection of who he was – or at least, who he was with me.

  The Gabriel I knew ate pizza and watched movies with Max and me. He walked Wolfie with us, while we tramped through the woodland mud, or threw balls along the beach. He battled wayward witches alongside me, not caring that his hair was getting singed by the spells flying through the air.

  But here, tonight, he was nothing like that. I hadn’t paid much attention to his outfit at first, but now I noticed it was a suit made of velvet, almost exactly the same as his father was wearing. His brown hair was slicked back – not quite to the degree that it was on TV, but close.

  His father threw a bone to the floor, and Gabriel copied the action. A moment later, the shadows in the room began to move. I couldn’t see any animal, but the bones disappeared into something. And as they did, chomping noises filled the air.

  Wow. Just ... wow. In my purse, I felt my phone vibrate. I stood up and excused myself, rushing into the labyrinthine corridors.

  It was a number I didn’t recognise, but I picked it up anyway. I would have happily spoken to the Minister herself if it kept me out of that dining room.

  ‘Wanda? Oh, thank goodness you answered.’

  I recognised Fontanella’s sultry voice. ‘Is everything okay?’

  She paused for a moment. ‘I’m ... not sure,’ she said eventually. ‘I got an email from Benny. It came through today, but he wrote it the day he died. He says ... he says in the email that he’s afraid he might be murdered, and if that does happen, I need to show the email to you.’

  My blood ran cold. ‘Okay. I’m coming over. Where do you live?’

  ‘Luna Park, in Northerly Crescent – number six. But Wanda ... it’s really weird. You have to see it. Especially the photo that Benny attached. Wanda ... all of this is making me feel really guilty.’

  ‘Guilty? Why?’

  ‘Because I lied to you, Wanda. When you came in earlier on. I told you Facility B was in the basement, and it’s not. I’m so sorry, but ... we’ve been told never to speak of Facility B to outsiders. The boys work there, on and off, but I’ve never been there myself. I don’t even know where it is. And I really thought the boys killed themselves, so I had no way of knowing that Facility B had anything to do with it all. But now I know that it does. Oh, this is all so strange, Wanda. It’s ... Oh, dear Dracula, no!’ She let out an eardrum-bursting scream. ‘Wanda, I’m about to be murdered. You need to look for the glitch, Wanda! Look for the glitch!’ She let out another long scream, and the line went dead.

  I glanced back into the dining room. Gabriel and his father were throwing more bones to invisible animals. They seemed like they were getting along perfectly well without me. ‘Got to go,’ I said. ‘So sorry, but it really is an emergency.’

  Before they could respond, I’d clicked my fingers, and disappeared.

  10. Going Batty

  When I arrived at Northerly Crescent, I didn’t have to look too hard for number six. It was the one with the Peacemakers trundling in and out.

  One of them stepped in my way, with the usual grunt-voiced, ‘Sod off, Wayfair.’

  ‘It’s all right Lionel,’ said Gretel, striding towards me. ‘Let her through.’

  Lionel’s eyes glared beadily out through the slits on his helmet. ‘Minister’s not going to like that.’

  ‘Let me worry about the Minister,’ Gretel retorted. ‘Just get back to work.’

  She pulled my hand, dragging me inside number six. The décor was far from what I expected. There were comfy couches and bean bags, a large-screen TV, and a coffee table with a vase of stunning red roses at its centre. A foot or so away from the vase, there was an open laptop.

  ‘Where’s the body?’ I asked, moving to the window. The curtains were drawn, and the window itself was shut.

  Gretel pointed to a pile of dirt on the floor next to the window. ‘She was dusted. Stake to the heart.’

  I blinked. Dusting a vampire was a lot harder than the TV shows made it look. It took strength, expertise, and dexterity. Considering you were trying to murder a creature who could vaporize or turn into a bat, then you’d also better have crazy-fast speed. There were very few people in the world who could manage it, which was why most vampire murders were carried out with poison, or by beheading. Without a body, we’d have very little to go on.

  ‘Well, that sucks,’ I said.

  ‘And Fontanella doesn’t. At least not anymore.’

  I found myself stifling a laugh. ‘How come you guys got here so fast, anyway? Did a neighbour call you about the screams?’

  Gretel sunk down into a couch and sighed. ‘I was convinced that Fontanella had something to do with the murders of Benny and the Jeffs, so I was staking the place out. Hah! I hid out in the bushes in the park across the road with a pair of binoculars and a thermos of coffee. Because, you know, I had nothing better to do on my night off. Anyway, it all happened so quickly. One second she was messing around on her laptop. Next she was on the phone. Then all of a sudden, every single curtain in the house closed, all at the same time. I thought that was a bit weird – I mean a lot of vamps can do telepathy, but telekinesis? I figured that if Fontanella had that power, then she was definitely our murderer. So I started to run over here. And then ... I heard the screams.’ She rubbed her ears. ‘So did half the neighbourhood, which is why the other Peacemakers got called in. I was going to try and get your coven in here before my own lot arrived, but no such luck. Anyway, I broke the door down, and here I am.’ She shivered. ‘When I walked into the house, though, even though Fontanella was dusted and there was no one else here, I felt sure I wasn’t alone.’

  ‘Like you were being watched?’ I asked, with a nervous thrill running through my veins.

  ‘Yeah. But it’s gone now. Maybe I imagined it.’ She nodded to the magic scanner secured to her belt. ‘No witchcraft was involved in the making of this murder. But the telekinetic energy scanner?’ She prodded another smaller scanner. ‘It stopped working tonight. Convenient, huh? But I know this was a vamp on vamp attack. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.’ She kicked her feet up onto the coffee table, knocking the laptop off the edge. I caught it just in time.

  ‘Pixie piddle!’ cursed Gretel. ‘Why do I have to be so clumsy all the time? I think I’m getting worse since Finn was fired. He made me feel at ease in my skin, y’know. Even if I did something stupid, he just laughed it off and helped me sort it out.’ She shook her dark hair. ‘Never mind. Is there anything on the computer?’

  I pressed the power button. Nothing happened.

  Gretel wrinkled her nose. ‘Maybe the battery’s dead.’

  I nodded to the lead coming out of the laptop. ‘It’s plugged in, not running on battery power.’ I pulled the laptop close to my chest. ‘Have any of your guys noticed this computer yet?’

  ‘Doubtful. They’re just keeping nosey parkers out right now. Only a couple of them have been inside, and all they noticed was that photo of Fontanella on the mantelpiece over there.’

  I followed Gretel’s gaze. The photo was of Fontanella and a few female friends, sitting around a poolside in the dark. All of them were wearing tiny bikinis, and each girl was more gorgeous than the next. ‘Gee, I wonder why that’s what they focused on. So ... can I take the laptop then? Fontanella phoned me just before she got murdered. There’s something on here that she wanted me to see, and I’m afraid if it goes with your guys, I might not get the chance to check it out.’

  Gretel nodded. ‘Say no more. But you’d better get yourself and that computer out of here, and quick. I’ve already annoyed the Minister quite a few times today. Pretty sure she’s going to fire me soon.’

  I squeezed her hand. ‘You’re a real friend, Gretel,’ I said, before clicking my fingers and sending myse
lf home.

  ≈

  When I arrived back home, Dizzy was staring out the window, shaking. Max was stroking him, while Kitty and Wolfie were sitting on the couch, looking worriedly on.

  I ran to the bat. ‘What’s wrong, Dizzy? Are you all right?’

  He pointed a shaky wing to the sky outside. ‘D-did you s-see them?’

  ‘See who?’

  ‘The v-vampire bats.’

  Max sighed. ‘We were watching Transylvania Nightmares Five, when Dizzy said he heard screams somewhere outside. Dizzy flew to the window and ... well, he’s been like this ever since. It’s been at least fifteen minutes now. At first I thought he was scared because of the film, that he must have only imagined he heard the screams. But then I remembered – it’s Dizzy. He doesn’t get scared of scary movies. He laughs at them and points out their flaws.’

  I stroked him gently behind his ears. ‘When you say vampire bats, you don’t mean the species, do you? You mean vampires who turned into bats?’

  Dizzy nodded. ‘You saw them too, didn’t you?’

  ‘No. But a vampire got murdered about fifteen minutes ago. That’s who you heard screaming. And I think it might have been another vampire who did it.’

  Dizzy shook his head. ‘Not just one vampire. Wanda, I think it could have been the Dark Team.’

  ‘Who are the Dark Team, Dizzy?’

  ‘I didn’t even believe they were real. When I was Harry Berry’s familiar, I heard them talked about by the Berry coven all the time. Like they were this scary story. You know – you’d better get that work finished or I’m going to hire the Dark Team to kill you. Vampire assassins, Wanda. But they are real. I saw them tonight. They flew over the park as bats, but they were vampires. A bat can tell these things, Wanda. A bat can tell.’

  I glanced at Max. ‘You ever hear of them?’