Lord of the Wings Page 5

  “That would be excellent,” the chief said.

  “Let’s catch up with the tour party and see if we can arrange an alternate ride home for the boys,” Michael said. “Then we can go straight to the Haunted House when we leave here.”

  “What about that hand in the lion’s den?” the chief asked, turning to Aida. “Are they making any progress toward clearing the lions out so we can process it?”

  “They’re working on it,” she said. “It’s not as if they can just pick them up by the scruff of the neck like kittens.”

  Michael and I followed the boardwalk through the rest of the indoor swamp. Along our way we spotted beavers swimming in their habitat. We resisted the temptation to peer into the glass side of the beaver lodge. We didn’t pause to listen to the chorus of bullfrogs, perhaps croaking their relief at being in a separate pond from the alligators who, in the wild, would have found them delightful tidbits. We raced through the swamp and into the next exhibit.

  “Smells a little like Vicks VapoRub,” Michael said.

  “We’re entering the Eucalyptus Forest,” I said, as I took a deep breath. “Come on—we might be able to catch up with the children at the crocodile exhibit.”

  But apparently we’d dallied too long talking with the chief. The children had all moved on from the crocodile exhibit—even bloodthirsty little Mason. Though I thought I could hear shrill childish voices not too far away.

  “They must have gone on to the Bat Cave,” I said.

  I led the way through the Eucalyptus Forest, which was not only aromatic but pleasantly dry after the dank humid air of the swamp.

  “Brace yourself,” I said.

  “Why?” Michael asked.

  I didn’t answer. I just opened the door and let the bats do that for me.

  Chapter 6

  The Bat Cave was Grandfather’s pièce de résistance. He’d wanted to give visitors the closest thing possible to what they’d experience if they went to a real Bat Cave—without, of course, subjecting the bats to any danger or annoyance from the humans intruding into their realm.

  So the Bat Cave was built as a single huge space, several stories tall, in which the bats could fly freely and roost wherever they wanted. We mere humans traversed the floor of the Bat Cave confined to a narrow, winding tunnel. The sides of the tunnel were made of netting, so fine it was almost invisible—and in two layers, with a few inches of space between them, to keep us from sticking our fingers through the mesh to touch the bats. The roof was solid, to protect us from the bats’ droppings, but made of clear glass, so we could look up and see the bats overhead—at least we could this early in the day, before the guano had piled up too badly. And we could hear the bats—the rustling of their wings and the squeaking noises they made—and feel the slight movement in the air as they rushed past.

  Unfortunately we could also smell them. The bat guano reeked of ammonia. Not for the first time, I questioned the wisdom of having visitors go from the Eucalyptus Forest directly into the Bat Cave. I loved the way the gentle but pervasive eucalyptus scent cleared my sinuses and sharpened my sense of smell, but to go directly from that to the stench of the bats was cruel and unusual punishment.

  And even though I knew the ultrasounds bats emitted as part of their echolocation was too high for human ears, I couldn’t help wondering if they didn’t have some kind of effect on us—perhaps subliminally. Every time I entered the Bat Cave, it felt as if the air was pressing in on my ears and throat. Maybe it was those ultrasonic bat cries.

  Or maybe it was just my claustrophobia kicking in. Either way, I had little desire to linger in the Bat Cave. But I wasn’t about to let the children know how I felt.

  I started to take the deep yoga breaths that Rose Noire always recommended I use to calm myself, and after the first one I decided that in the Bat Cave, I’d have to work on being calm while breathing shallowly.

  We couldn’t see the children but we could hear their voices somewhere ahead of us. I hurried to catch up with them. And the fact that catching up with them took me closer to the exit was also nice.

  “No, the bats don’t bite,” Grandfather was saying. “Only vampire bats bite, and we don’t have any vampire bats in the Bat Cave.”

  “I want to see the vampire bats.” Mason again.

  “We’ll see some,” Grandfather said. “They have their own habitat, just before the exit. But for now, enjoy the Bat Cave.”

  Most of the children seemed to be enjoying it. The group was only slightly smaller than it had been when I’d last seen it in the swamp exhibit. Perhaps a few children had freaked at the sight—and smell—of the Bat Cave and had to be taken out to calm down. Or perhaps a few parents decided to whisk their darlings away before more fake body parts appeared. A couple of the children seemed to be clinging to their parents in a way that suggested they were not wholly charmed by their surroundings. But most of the class were pressing against the inside of the mesh, trying to get as close to the bats as possible and muttering things like “awesome” and “wicked” and even that old standby from my generation, “cool.”

  As Grandfather lectured the children on the bats, he was holding his cell phone in his hand, and glanced down at it from time to time. He eventually wrapped up his spiel and walked over to Michael and me, leaving the class group to enjoy the bats on their own.

  “Lot of Brigade people on their way,” he said. “And Caroline’s coming to help organize them.”

  “Good.” I liked Caroline, who in addition to running a local private wildlife sanctuary was one of Grandfather’s usual allies when he embarked on an environmental crusade or an animal welfare mission. She was cheerful, organized, and one of the few people in the universe capable of bossing Grandfather around.

  “And I guess it’s time I took your brother up on that offer of his,” Grandfather went on.

  “What offer was that?” Not, I hoped, his notion of opening a zoo annex in the building where Mutant Wizards, Rob’s computer gaming company, had its offices. However much the programmers might enjoy the presence of wolves and badgers, I didn’t think the feeling would be mutual.

  “He says some of his techs can install cameras all around the perimeter of the fence, and also in key points inside the zoo,” Grandfather said. “And then set up a big control room so someone on my staff can watch it all.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” I said. “But how long is that going to take?”

  “No idea,” he said. “So until we can get it up and running, we’ll set up patrols of Brigade members. First thing is to get through this blasted spook fest without any more of my animals being upset.”

  I’d have been insulted at the implication that Grandfather cared more about protecting his zoo animals than his grandchildren if I didn’t know that he more or less lumped them—and the rest of his family—in with the animals. He’d recently remarked that Josh and Jamie were admirable young primates, more amusing than spider monkeys and arguably as clever as baby orangutans—rare praise indeed.

  Michael and I arranged for our two amusing young primates to ride home with Mason’s mother and left the children to enjoy the Bat Cave for as long as their attention spans and Grandfather’s patience would allow.

  Crowds were already starting to gather outside the zoo. I checked my watch: 10:10. Still nearly an hour before the zoo opened. I saw two of my Goblin Patrol members standing nearby. One was Osgood Shiffley, a cousin of Randall’s, who ran Caerphilly’s only gas station. One of these days I’d ask Osgood why he’d chosen a giant chicken costume for Halloween. Left over, perhaps, from a long ago career with some obscure fast food chain? The other, Ragnar Ragnarsen, was the closest Caerphilly came to having a real celebrity. He was a retired heavy metal drummer—retired because the last three bands he had played in had self-destructed in ways that were pretty spectacular even by heavy metal standards, leaving Ragnar the only one still alive who wasn’t committed, incarcerated, or in semi-permanent rehab. Although he was the mildest-mannered
soul imaginable, Ragnar was taller than Michael—at least six eight—and built like a sumo wrestler, so in his black-leather Viking costume—complete with real, waist-length flaxen braids and a war ax whose edge I hoped wasn’t too sharp—he made a satisfactorily intimidating presence. Osgood looked almost frail beside him, but I happened to know that Osgood was tough as rawhide and, unlike Ragnar, pretty cynically savvy about human nature. They made a great team, which was why I’d assigned them to the zoo, which had been something of a trouble spot ever since the festival had started. And I couldn’t help thinking how nice it was that volunteering for the festival was bringing together people who might otherwise have never met.

  We went over to wish them a good morning and pass along a warning about the scavenger hunt.

  “So keep your eyes open,” I said, when I’d explained the situation.

  “We will.” Ragnar opened his eyes very wide as if to demonstrate that he understood. I never knew whether he was pulling my leg or not. He had only a faint Norwegian accent, and spoke good and sometimes curiously formal English, but sometimes he seemed to take everything anyone said quite literally. “These tourists are far more weird than I expected,” he added.

  I had to suppress a giggle to hear that coming from a man who had redecorated his entire forty-room mansion in what Mother referred to, with a sniff, as a combination of late Gothic and early Halloween.

  “At least the problem of people trying to sneak in goes away when the zoo opens,” Osgood said.

  “Until eight o’clock tonight, when the zoo closes again,” Ragnar said. “Because if I wanted to sneak in here, I would wait until after dark.”

  “True,” Osgood said. “I guess we’ll have to keep our eyes out for fake body parts and entomophagy all day.”

  “Entomophagy?” I echoed. Not a word I’d have expected to find in Osgood’s vocabulary.

  “That’s what your grandfather calls it,” Osgood said, with a wheezy laugh. “Sounds less disgusting than bug-eating. This Goblin Patrol gig is turning out to be a lot more exciting than I expected. And I can tell you, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

  “Grandfather’s calling out his Brigade members to help patrol,” I said. “We should have the first of them by sometime this afternoon.”

  “That won’t be easy for a bunch of city folks,” Osgood said. “Especially after dark. And some of the terrain on the far side is pretty rugged.”

  “The Brigade members aren’t all city slickers,” I protested.

  “Once the gates open and things quiet down here, I’ll make a few calls to some cousins,” Osgood said. “Pretty near every one of them’s got one of those portable hunting stands you can set up in a tree, and they’re all getting right bored, waiting for the deer season to start. We can probably put most of the perimeter under observation by nightfall.”

  The vision of the zoo ringed by a posse of armed Shiffleys perched in the trees was probably more reassuring to Osgood than it was to me.

  “And what will they do if they spot an intruder?” I asked. “It’s not tourist season, either.”

  “Always open season on tourists,” Osgood said with a straight face. “The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries considers them a nuisance species, just like rats, pigeons, and feral hogs.”

  “And nutria, I suppose,” I said. “But seriously—”

  “Don’t worry,” Osgood said. “We spot anyone trying to break in, we’ll call 911, and then follow them till a deputy arrives.”

  “Sounds good to me, then,” I said. “But clear it with the chief, will you?”

  “Will do,” Osgood said. “And don’t worry. One look at Ragnar here and the intruders will probably run away.”

  Ragnar grinned at that, and hefted his war ax.

  “I know I would,” I said. “Thanks again for volunteering,” I added to Ragnar.

  “Thank you for taking me.” The subject seemed to depress him. “I was hoping to play a greater role, but…”

  He shrugged.

  “Yeah, Ragnar tried to offer his house for some of the events,” Osgood said. “Still don’t understand why you folks turned him down.”

  “Well, I didn’t turn him down,” I said. “I didn’t even know he’d offered it.”

  “It was Miss Lydia,” Ragnar said. “I do not think she likes me.”

  “Join the club,” I said. “I don’t think she likes me, either.”

  “I know she doesn’t like me,” Osgood said. “I told her a few plain truths about some of the mistakes she’s made running things. I wonder if Randall’s figured out what a mistake he made hiring her.”

  “I’ll mention your offer of the house to Randall,” I said to Ragnar. “Probably too late for this year, but come November first, we’ll start planning for next year.”

  Ragnar beamed, and he and Osgood went back to the gate.

  “Assuming this goes off well enough that we even have a next year,” Michael said in an undertone.

  “We will still have to plan for next year,” I said. “Even if the plan is to lock all the doors, hide in our basements, and post signs at the county line saying ‘Keep out! No festival this year!’”

  Just then a young woman in a Xena the Warrior Princess costume burst out of the woods and looked around wildly. She spotted us and started running again, heading toward Michael and me. Osgood and Ragnar also noticed her and headed back our way.

  “This doesn’t look good,” Michael muttered.

  The young woman wore a Goblin Patrol armband, and I recognized her as one of Randall and Osgood Shiffley’s many cousins. I even dredged up her name out of my memory by the time she neared us.

  “Ashley, what’s wrong?” I called.

  “Meg! Thank goodness you’re here! Thor and I found a body in the woods!”

  Chapter 7

  “A body?” I echoed.

  “I’ll call the chief,” Michael said, pulling out his cell phone.

  “Are you sure it’s a real body?” I asked.

  “We thought at first it was another of those fake legs like the first graders found in the alligator pond,” Ashley said. “But then I tried to pick it up and—”

  She burst into tears. I put my arms around her and she started crying on my shoulder.

  “I’ll call her ma.” Osgood pulled out his cell phone.

  Ragnar strode over to a bench some ten feet away, picked it up as easily as I could have picked up a folding lawn chair, and set it down gently behind where Ashley was standing. I steered Ashley down onto the bench.

  “Chief’s on his way,” Michael said.

  “Ashley, when the chief gets here, do you think you could lead us to where you found the body?” Her grip on me tightened. “Not all the way—just close enough that we can see it.”

  She nodded slightly.

  I just let her cry, and she was a lot calmer by the time the chief arrived. And once we set out to lead him to the body, her normally sunny disposition began reasserting itself and she readily answered the chief’s questions. No one objected when Michael and I tagged along. Maybe the chief wanted me around in case the tears reappeared.

  “One of the deputies asked Thor and me to guard the place where that guy cut a hole in the zoo fence,” Ashley explained as we made our way through the woods just outside the fence. “Until Cousin Randall could get someone down here to fix it. And it was pretty boring just standing around there, so we were patrolling up and down the fence and then Thor spotted a foot sticking out of some bushes. We thought it was a fake foot.”

  It was only a few minutes’ walk. We passed the hole in the fence, now being repaired by two men in Shiffley Construction Company hats. Thor was standing in a small clearing another twenty feet or so farther along the fence line. He was muffled in a large gray-green cloak but his mop of bright red hair made him easy to spot. He was carrying a bow and arrow. Was he supposed to be an elf or one of Robin Hood’s merry men? He didn’t look particularly merry at the moment—just gl
um, and then relieved once he spotted us.

  “Hey, Meg,” Thor said. “When I tell your grandmother about this she’ll be put out that she didn’t come.” Actually, I suspected Grandmother Cordelia could do without encountering another dead body, but I didn’t argue with him. I’d met Thor through my grandmother, for whom he worked during semester breaks and summer vacations, and she had recruited him to serve in the Goblin Patrol. I hoped this didn’t discourage him from continuing.

  Thor pointed at a foot clad in a scruffy black boot, protruding from under the overhanging limb of a hemlock tree. The chief inched slowly forward until he could reach the limb and lifted it up to peer at the rest of the body. Then he frowned.

  “I don’t recognize him.” He didn’t sound happy about it. I could understand why. If the chief didn’t recognize him, he was almost certainly not from around here. And therefore probably a tourist. Someone who had come for the Halloween festival. Just damn.

  “Meg?” the chief said. “Perhaps one of your out-of-town volunteers?”

  I stepped forward and peered past the chief’s upraised arm. I had a good view of the dead man, including the curiously neat bullet hole in the center of his forehead. He was in his twenties, or maybe his early thirties. Since he was lying down, it was hard to tell how tall he was, and equally hard to assess his weight since he was dressed entirely in baggy black garments—black pants, shirt, boots, and cloak. His face was thin and sharp-featured; his eyes, though wide open, were still small and beady; and his mouth hung open to reveal prominent buck teeth. If Michael were casting a production of Cinderella, he’d probably consider the poor man perfect for the role of the rat turned coachman. And was it thinking ill of the dead to realize that if I’d seen him approaching me in the street, I’d probably have checked to make sure my purse was zipped shut?