The Vampire in the Iron Mask (The Spinoza Trilogy Book 3), Page 2

  Forever.

  Chapter Three

  Medievaland looks like a big castle.

  It was definitely not something you’d expect to see in the middle of Orange County, a county famous for its desperate housewives, beaches and, perhaps, citrus fruits.

  Then again, what did I know? I lived in a small apartment in the heart of Los Angeles, an hour northwest of Orange County. Desperate housewives in my part of town didn’t make TV shows. They hired me to follow their husbands. Or find their missing kids. That was my specialty, actually. Finding the missing. Tough field. Especially when I found them dead.

  Or worse.

  With that said, this part of Orange County—in a place called Buena Park—reminded me a lot of Los Angeles: rough streets, graffiti, homeless and traffic. Yeah, I felt right at home.

  That is, of course, until I found myself on Beach Boulevard and surrounded by a surprisingly large crowd of tourists, all here to see Knott’s Berry Farm, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and Wild Bill’s Dinner Theater. And, of course, Medievaland.

  A lot of flash for an otherwise dreary city.

  I parked in the back parking lot with a smattering of other vehicles. I was early. The dinner show would start in about an hour.

  The Medievaland facade is fortress-like, complete with high towers, turrets, a walkway and even a moat, which I crossed over now along the lowered drawbridge. The lowered drawbridge looked suspiciously non-functional. At the ticket window, I purchased a dinner for one, which included tonight’s tournament and a free tour of the facilities. I tried to look excited about the free tour. The girl at the ticket booth smiled at me sadly. Perhaps I had looked too excited.

  Ticket in hand, I joined a handful of other guests as we were shown through a gate and into the horse stables. I didn’t know much about horses, and suspect I never would, but from what I could tell, these were particularly magnificent creatures. Each was bigger than I thought horses actually were. Yeah, I know. City boy and all that. Still, since when did they grow horses so big?

  There were about ten such beasts, all different colors, although the jet-black creature at the far end seemed to hold me transfixed. I was certain he was bigger than the others. No doubt a shitload of hands high. He was watching me in return, tail swishing rhythmically, black eyes unblinking. It took a brave man—or woman—to ride that animal. After our brief stare-down, which I lost, I followed the other guests through the stable and out into the arena itself.

  The floor was covered in dirt and sawdust and peanut shells. Two beams of wood ran along either side of the arena floor, where, I suspected, the knights jousted. I could think of a half-dozen other things I would rather do than ride a horse at full speed while another man pointed a spear at my chest.

  The arena was larger than I’d expected. Bigger than a high school gymnasium, but not quite the size of a basketball stadium. Still, there were dozens and dozens of rows for what would undoubtedly seat hundreds of guests and tourists.

  We continued through the arena, which was roped off so that we wouldn’t venture too far astray, and soon found ourselves in the gift shop and cafe, where, I calculated, we would spend more money while waiting for the show to start.

  Which is exactly what I did. I spent mine on a Diet Coke served in a pewter mug. I was all too aware that drinking beer in the very same mug would have been heavenly. Except I don’t drink beer anymore—or alcohol of any type. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and some days are easier than others. Today was a hard day. Today I was wishing very earnestly that this beautiful-looking mug was filled with ale or grog or mead, or whatever the hell they called it in this place.

  Easy, boy, I thought. Easy.

  And so I sat there and watched the dozens of other tourists laughing and smiling and drinking, waiting for the show to start. A show that would feature a man in an iron mask.

  I shook my head and drank my Diet Coke and wondered again why I had taken this case. In an hour or so, I would see why.

  Boy, would I.

  Chapter Four

  The show was about to begin.

  I was seated at a scarred table on a scarred bench. A few minutes earlier, while I had been nursing my second tankard of Diet Coke, the doors to the arena had burst open and two young men wearing colorful tights stepped out. Next, they solemnly raised their longish horns, trumpeted them a few times—just enough to give me a headache—then announced the tournament was about to begin. I might have detected an English accent or two.

  I’d joined the multitudes as we passed through the door and into the dark arena. I’m not a tall guy, and soon found myself surrounded by a lot of shoulders and hair and sullen teenage kids. They split us off into various rows and aisles and somehow I ended up with a seat right smack dab in the middle of the arena, about halfway up.

  Waitresses made their rounds between the tiered rows. The waitresses looked a lot like poor serving wenches. They also showed a lot of bosom, which, I was certain, was historically accurate.

  Drink orders were taken and soon, another pewter mug of Diet Coke was placed before me, along with a basket of bread and a bowl of tomato bisque soup. Noticeably missing were utensils. Apparently, according to my bosomy waitress and armchair historian, those in the eleventh century didn’t use utensils.

  Others seated nearby promptly used their bread to soak up the soup—or simply slurped happily from their bowls. As they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do...

  Or in this case, Medievaland.

  As I slurped—and not very happily—the arena lights dimmed. Drums sounded from seemingly everywhere. A spotlight turned on, shining down on a tunnel entrance. Smoke billowed from the entrance. The drums increased in tempo. Suddenly, a horse and rider burst from the smoke and into the arena, and charged along the outer edge of the open space, kicking up dirt and dust and undoubtedly horseshit.

  The crowd clapped and cheered. I didn’t clap or cheer. I watched and dipped my garlic bread in the tomato bisque soup.

  The horse and rider circled a few more times, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. He finally stopped in the center of the arena and hopped down from his horse. He was wearing full chainmail and a gleaming white tunic. The tunic was embroidered with something that looked like a dragon.

  “Hear ye, hear ye!” he bellowed, his voice booming almost supernaturally, seemingly coming from large black boxes suspended around the arena. Certainly not period pieces. Perhaps these were devil boxes. “Dost thou knowest the time?” he asked, turning in a full circle.

  “Medieval times!” shouted some in the crowd.

  He nodded, pleased. “Aye, good sirs and fair maidens. Tis indeed these medieval times. But more importantly, it’s tournament time!”

  As the crowd cheered, he explained further: apparently the arena was split into four color-coded quadrants. Red, blue, white and green. I was in the green quadrant and was told I should root for the green knight. My quadrant, like the other three, erupted in wild cheering. It was mob mentality at its best.

  But first we would be entertained by the land’s finest performers while we ate, drank and were merry. I was rarely, if ever, merry.

  While chicken and lamb and ribs were served, while tankards were refilled and cleavage spilled, a steady procession of performers took center stage. First up was a young man on a beautiful white horse. Arabian, I assumed, since the kid was dressed like Aladdin, complete with a jeweled turban and puffy pantaloons. He and his horse performed a mesmerizing series of impressive tricks, which involved a lot of bowing and prancing.

  More drinks were served. Plates were cleared.

  I nursed my Diet Coke and continued scanning the arena, looking for anything out of place—until I realized the whole damn place was out of place.

  A falconer was next, and he and his raptor put on a brief but impressive act. The bird of prey swept low, circling around and around the stadium over the ducking and laughing crowd, and finally pounced on a tattered, stuffed mouse tossed by the falconer himself.
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br />   More acts followed. A court jester. A dance troupe. More horse acts, and when the dishes were cleared, the lights went out again. The drumming returned. Even louder this time. More fake smoke appeared out of fog machines, and now four horsemen roared into the area to the frenzied delight of the crowd.

  What followed was, admittedly, an exciting display of swordsmanship, jousting and all manner of medieval hullabaloo. The jousting was spectacular, even if the wooden poles were cut away for easy breakage. And in the end, after much pounding of hooves and shattering of lances, as the vanquished knights were dragged out of the arena by their humble squires, one knight remained. He stood in the center of the arena, breathing hard, holding his sword proudly while his section—the blue section—cheered wildly. My own Green Knight, sadly, had been the first to die. A mace to the head. Tragic.

  The Blue Knight bowed and his section roared enthusiastically...that is, until the lights dimmed ominously, and a low, rumbling drum filled the air.

  The crowd fell quiet. I would have fallen quiet, too, had I been making any noise. I did, however, sit forward on my creaking bench, elbows digging in the scarred table, looking down over the low railing to the arena below.

  And waited. From offstage, I heard shouting and fighting. Metal clashing against metal. Curses sworn. Medieval curses, mind you. I waited, sipping on my tankard of Diet Coke.

  And, in a surprise twist, a man burst into the arena—just as coincidentally the drumming picked up its pace again. The man was dressed all in black—and rode a black horse. The same black horse I had seen earlier. I was sure of it.

  The crowd gasped and a few children screamed. A loud, menacing laughter filled the air. More people gasped. I might have heard a chicken bone clatter onto a pewter plate.

  The man in black leaped from his horse, rolled once, and came up to his feet before the Blue Knight. The Black Knight drew his sword from a hip scabbard.

  The Blue Knight, who had been soaking in the praises from his adoring section, looked a little put out. After all, the Black Knight was literally raining on his parade. Well, the Blue Knight, fresh off his latest combat victories, was no chump. What ensued was a fierce swordfight, to the delight of the crowd. The Black Knight even went after the Blue Knight’s squire. The young guy looked truly terrified, springing to his feet and dashing through the arena. Good acting.

  But the Black Knight wasn’t above using tricks and deception. He threw sand in the face of the Blue Knight, pulled his tunic over his head, spun him around comically, and then drove his broadsword deep into the Blue Knight’s heart…or perhaps between his inner arm and ribs. Either way, the Blue Knight was very, very pretend dead.

  The Black Knight raised his sword triumphantly, circling, while the blue section showered boos upon him. The Black Knight, whose face was covered completely, seemed to revel in the boos.

  At that moment, the spotlight shifted to an area where the King and Queen of the realm had been dining at one end of the arena. The king and queen stood.

  “Who art thou, foul knight?” inquired the king, his angry voice booming over the speakers.

  The man in black strolled casually below the king, looking up. He still wore his mask. “I am the rightful king, my lord.” I noted the contempt in his voice.

  “Guards!” shouted the king.

  And then the arena went black.

  The sounds of swords clashing and grunts and men dying filled the air. I heard something else, too, something being wheeled. I sat forward. Somewhere, a child began weeping.

  And then the lights turned on. The Black Knight was now standing where the king once stood, next to his queen. The crowd gasped. Below, strapped to a slab of wood on wheels, a slab that was presently standing on one end, was a man in an iron mask.

  The Black Knight finally removed his own dark mask, shook out his long blond hair. He was, of course, the Green Knight. My knight, and my section of the arena went crazy.

  When the crowd had died down, the Green Knight—the rightful king, apparently, ordered the traitor to be taken away.

  The man in the iron mask made little or no movement. I assumed, like the rest of the crowd, that the man in the iron mask had been the one-time king, now imprisoned.

  Even from here, I could see the eyes sparkling behind the mask. Impossibly big eyes. One thing I was certain of: those weren’t the eyes of the king.

  Or the eyes of a man.

  A woman’s eyes.

  I was sure of it.

  The dutiful guards turned and wheeled the person strapped to the table out of the arena. To where, I didn’t know.

  But I was going to find out.

  Chapter Five

  I slipped away from my table, stepped over the crushed peanut shells littering the floor, and headed for the closest exit.

  The exit consisted of a longish tunnel, and behind me, the crowd suddenly erupted in a wild cheer. The cheer turned into chants, and everyone within the arena seemed to be having a grand time. Well everyone, that is, but the person strapped to the slab of wood.

  Those eyes...

  I picked up my pace and emerged from the tunnel, back into the main lobby. The bar was mostly empty, as were the coffee and gift shops. Workers milled around, no doubt waiting for the crowd that would soon be spilling forth from the packed arena. I didn’t see any security guards. No security guards was a good thing.

  The girl cleaning up the coffee shop smiled at me as I swept past her. I didn’t smile back. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I had smiled back at anyone.

  I headed over the drawbridge, and back toward the parking lot. The night was cool and the moon was full. Somewhere out there a werewolf was howling. That is, of course, if you believed in that sort of thing.

  I passed two security guards sitting in a golf cart. One was texting. The other was on his cell phone. Neither noticed me. I continued past them along a sidewalk that eventually led me around the building. There, I found what I was looking for.

  It was more than a loading dock, and it was a beehive of activity, with horses coming and going, all handled by medieval employees dressed in chainmail. Although I didn’t smoke, I knew that doing so provided a great reason to loiter. So I sacrificed my health, loitered near the loading docks, and watched the activity going on behind Medievaland.

  Yogi Berra had once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” I almost smiled at this. Then I thought of how my son had loved baseball, and a wave of guilt wiped any smile I might have had.

  I kept away from the squires or handlers—or whatever the hell they were called. As I smoked, I wondered idly if my client was somewhere among them.

  I next turned my attention to a big rig that had just entered. As it came to a stop next to me, I flicked away my cigarette and climbed into the rig’s passenger seat before the driver got out.

  “What the hell do you want?” He was a large guy with a graying ponytail and a handlebar mustache.

  “Sorry to barge in,” I said nicely enough. “I just wanted to know if you could use some help unloading a little of that hay.” I held out a fifty.

  Handlebar regarded me with some suspicion, and I didn’t blame him.

  “You don’t need to know,” I answered in advance. I pushed the fifty into his hand. He shrugged and took it.

  The bales were deceivingly heavy. We worked silently, stacking them onto wooden slats. I studied the entrance as I unloaded the large, fresh-smelling rectangular bundles. Most of the squires had left by now, but there were a few hanging out by the entrance. I watched them watch who entered.

  Guards, I thought.

  I thanked the truck driver for letting me pay to help him—and approached the entrance. No one questioned me. Having observed me stack the hay, they assumed I was there on business. I entered, followed the aroma of horse, and soon found myself at the stables.

  The black stallion’s stall was the very last. As I approached him, I once again saw that he was no ordinary steed. He regarded me with an int
elligence I didn’t think horses possessed. Hell, few humans possessed it. I heard footsteps and voices. The great black beast instinctively backed up. Equally instinctively, I jumped into his stall. I crouched in the front corner as the footsteps came nearer. Black Beauty ignored me and came forward nonchalantly. I could hear two men, apparently making their rounds for the night, talking together. They checked the padlocks on each of the stalls. When they came to ours, the horse didn’t so much as glance at me.

  “I’ll take care of it, no problem,” the first guy said. “The woman, now...you mentioned she’s becoming more of a problem?”

  “She is.” The second guy’s tone implied he had a little authority.

  Apparently they’d decided to chat just outside Black Beauty’s stall. Lucky me.

  “She’s attracting attention. People are beginning to wonder. Like that squire the other night. He said he was just curious, but I’m not so sure.”

  “And he’s one of us supposedly,” the first man said. “If so, why would he be asking so many questions?”

  “Damn good question,” said the second guy. “It may be too risky to keep him around, too.”

  The horse snorted next to me and moved a little closer in my direction. From my crouched position, the great beast looked, exactly, ten stories high.

  Anyway, the second guy continued. “We’ve kept her here as long as we could. But it may be time to get rid of her. After all, we don’t really need her, right?”

  “Right, although it’s been damn interesting.”

  At this, my stablemate neighed viciously and pawed his giant hooves. Something was spooking him, and that something was, undoubtedly, a smallish detective squatting nervously in the front corner of the stall.

  But the two men ignored the noise.

  “It has been,” the first guy agreed, “but what are you going to do?”

  “I’ll bring it up with the others.”