I slept until noon considering the long night I had. After a quick breakfast at the same diner, I went to the night before I made my way back over to Emily’s office. She was standing outside waiting for me. Once again, she was dressed in an all black Victorian Goth getup, this time a little less frilly and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She was lighting up a clove cigarette when I approached.
“Are you even old enough to buy those?” I teased.
“Funny,” she said, as she took a drag, “we’ll be leaving soon so I’ll have to brief you quickly. But I wanted to give you a heads up about what we’re up against.”
“Okay, I’m all ears.”
“My arch nemesis is an enigmatic figure known only by the underground as The Black Hand. He deals in all sorts of devious activities. Everything from drug deals to fine art heists and extortion. I’ve come close to catching him quite a few times, but he always has at least one goon between me and him that takes the fall.”
“So, what’s the plan? Do you have some kind of hot lead?”
“Yes. I’ve been invited to a dinner party tonight at a wealthy businessman's home outside of town. He sent me a letter claiming that he has reason to believe The Black Hand would be in attendance tonight also and thought I’d appreciate the tip. I have some suspicion that he may actually be The Black Hand himself and he’s just fucking with me.”
“So, what’s the plan then?”
She put out the cigarette and started walking as she said, “we go out to the party. Play things by ear and you make sure no one tries to kill me before I can figure out what’s going on.”
“Cool. So, where’s your car?”
She shot me a fierce look and said, “I don’t drive,” and a slightly aggressive tone.
A moment later a taxi pulled up, but it wasn’t exactly a yellow cab. It was a black all metal body antique car with windows tinted far past the legal limit where I come from. Emily opened the back door, picked up her skirt and got in. I followed closely behind but once I got in, I freaked out.
Sitting in the driver's seat was a dark figure with a large heavy coat on that had a collar up to where his ears should have been. I say should have because you couldn’t see his face. He had a top hat on and there was a dark aura so thick that the sunlight couldn’t penetrate it. I wasn’t sure what to do. I’d never seen something like this before, so I was just frozen. The dark figure turned around and a disturbing reverse vacuum sound came from it.
Finally, Emily asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Umm, umm…are you sure it’s okay to ride with this guy?”
“Yeah, it’s alright I speak Phantom,” after she said that she opened her mouth and the same morose whooshing sound came from her mouth.
“There’s no way I’m getting in this car!” I protested.
“Eric, that’s no way to treat them. Just because they’re from beyond oblivion doesn’t mean they don’t need jobs like the rest of us.”
I finally mustered up the courage to get into the car and the driver pulled away. A short time later, we were out of the city driving uphill on a mountain pass with lots of thick trees. The moon was full and there were dark clouds scattered around it.
“Looks like a storm is coming?” I noted.
“Yeah, gorgeous night, huh?” she replied.
The next thing you knew, we were driving through a light rainstorm. The windshield wipers were going, and the driver showed no signs of slowing down. I was beginning to get anxious about this dinner party and I wanted to ask Emily some more questions about the host but before I could…
*WHAM!*
Some kind of large animal slammed into the hood of our taxi and brought the car to a screeching halt. The Phantom driver got out to take a look and quickly returned. He made another one of those horrid noises and Emily replied to him again with one of her own.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Looks like we hit a werewolf,” she said.
“A werewolf!” I exclaimed, “Does that kinda thing happen often around here?”
She shrugged her shoulders and said, “You know, from time to time.”
I facepalmed and said, “My friend Wraith is really not gonna believe this place.”
“You’re friends with a Wraith?!” Emily asked in an excited and juvenile manner.
I chuckled and said, “Sure am. But I’ll tell you one thing…he’s a lot better at scaring off attractive women in my world than that guy is in this world,” as I pointed to the driver.
The rain let up a fair bit and the driver was ‘speaking’ with Emily again. Apparently, the car had taken some damage and couldn’t complete the trip. Emily said the Manor was not much further and we could probably get there faster on foot than waiting for when the tow truck arrives.
We got out and started walking up the road away from the wrecked car and the werewolf body. Emily popped open a black lace umbrella and walked at double speed.
“Come on. Let’s get moving before the rain picks up again,” she said.
“Does it ever not rain here?”
We made it about a mile up the road from the crash site and the rain was down to a slow drip but there was fog everywhere among the dense trees. I started to get a little scared again and asked, “You think there’s any more werewolves out there?”
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“Nonsense, they don’t travel in packs when it’s out of mating season.”
“You know. I’m having a really hard time getting a read on you,” I said, “you speak in this really spry, excitable tone of voice until you get serious about something. But you dress all dark and gloomy. One minute you act like you’re seventeen years old and the next you come off as thirty.”
She let out a sigh but continued walking, “are you finished yet? I really don’t want us to be late for this thing.”
Not long after, the Manor came into view. It was as big, no, bigger than my place. It was perfectly nestled among the trees with no neighbors to speak of. We walked up to the house and Emily rang the doorbell. A moment later a butler answered.
“Good evening, madam,” he said as he bowed.
“I’m Detective Emily Grimwood. This is my plus one, Eric Noble.”
The butler let us in and introduced us to the man of the house. Something about all this felt odd. Like I’d been here before. But there’s absolutely no way I had been.
“Greetings Detective,” said the man with coal black hair and a dark red evening suit, “I’m
Mr. Cadaver. I so appreciate your attendance.”
He kissed her hand and then shook mine, asking, “And who is your associate?”
“The names Eric Noble,” I reciprocated.
“Sorry we’re a little late,” Emily apologized, “our taxi hit some wildlife and we had to walk the rest of the way.”
Wildlife.
“Not to worry at all. Come right in, we were just about to have dinner. I’ll introduce you to the other guests.”
We made our way into the dining room and saw an attractive young blonde maid serving everyone at the table. Before introductions could even be made, I was awestruck at the cast of characters before me.
Mr. Cadaver pointed around the room introducing everyone, first he pointed to an older man in a tan suit with a mustache, “Over here is General Custard.”
Next was a middle-aged woman in a Cream colored dress, “this is Mrs. La Crème”
Then a slender man in an orange pinstripe suit with a Jack O Lantern knot on his tie, “and Professor Pumpkin.”
He then pointed at an exceptionally attractive dark brown-haired woman wearing bright purple, “that’s Miss Violette.”
Then there was a man in his thirties wearing a bluish-green suite and tie, “then we have Mr. Teal.”
And finally, he pointed to a woman in her forties wearing a slim fitting pink dress with matching gloves, “finally, Mrs. Flamingo.”
“Everyone, this is Miss Grimwood and her partner, Mr. Noble. Please, have a seat.”
Right before we sat down at the table, I put my hands on Emily’s shoulder and whispered to her, “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Not now!” she scolded.
“I’m telling you, it’s important. This man is going to die tonight!”
“Please, everyone, excuse us for just a moment. My date has something he forgot to tell me before we arrived. It’ll only be a moment.”
“Oh, no problem,” said Mr. Pumpkin, “I need to be excused to use the washroom as well.”
We stepped back into the entryway, and I told Emily, “Listen, I can’t explain how I know this but I’m telling you, the host is going to be killed. I mean, his name is Cadaver for Christ’s sake!”
“Eric. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but everyone has to die sometime. It doesn’t mean it's going to happen tonight. It’s not some big coincidence that his name is Cadaver. Just let me work for now and make sure I’m not the one who gets killed!”
“Alright, alright. I’ll let you do your thing,” I conceded.
The two of us went back into the dining room where everyone else had already started eating. We sat at our places to the left of Mr. Cadaver, opposite Custard, and La Crème. Mr. Teal sat to my left.
Mr. Cadaver looked around the room smiling and began to toast. He said, “Ladies and
Gentlemen. The reason I have gathered you all here this evening is to…”
Suddenly, Mr. Cadaver fainted into his plate of food face first. Violette and Flamingo each let out a scream. Professor Pumpkin came back into the room in a hurry and checked Cadaver’s pulse.
“He’s dead,” the Professor exclaimed.
The room exploded into a frenzy. The guests stood up from their places at the table and expressed their concern that the food had been poisoned.
Flamingo stated that she was going to be sick and ran off into another room. The butler ran in to find out what the screaming was all about and began to panic seeing his boss laid out on the table the way he was.
Custard exclaimed, “I’m going to call the police,” as he too left the room.
The remaining patrons of the party settled down a little as Emily spoke, “everyone, calm down. There’s nothing to worry about. If you had been poisoned it would have set in by now.”
“Calm down? But that man is dead,” uttered La Crème.
Just then, Custard returned to the room, “the landline has been cut!”
“Oh no,” Mrs. Flamingo said as she returned to the room, “there’s no cell phone reception out here? What should we do?”
“Hang on, I’m gonna try out front,” said Miss Violette as she ran out the front door whilst pulling her cell phone from her purse.
Mr. Teal, who hadn’t said anything, looked like he was about to burst into a full-on panic attack.
“Everyone, let's just remain calm. Let’s all go into the Billiards room until we can figure things out.”
“I agree,” said Emily, “let’s all just stay together.”
The entire group made their way into the Billiards room and stood in a circle. Violette was the last one to enter the room, returning from her attempt at calling for help.
While everyone was collecting themselves and discussing what should be done next, thunder and lightning struck hard, causing the lights to go out. It was pitch Black in the room.
Everyone let out a little yelp and all of a sudden…
*POW*
A gunshot was heard. I grabbed Emily in the dark and threw her to the carpet underneath me.
*POW* *POW* *POW*
Three more consecutive gunshots rang out after a pause after the first one. Then the lights flickered a little and the power came back on. Everyone was on the floor except La Crème and Teal who were crouching in the hallway right outside the door.
“Everyone okay?” I asked as I helped Emily back to her feet.
“Yes, but look at the Grandfather clock!” Professor Pumpkin noted. It had been shot to hell.
Custard abruptly turned in the opposite direction and said, “Look! That window. It’s cracked open. Someone must have shot in here and hit the clock.”
“But why would anyone wanna shoot a clock?” Flamingo asked.
“Not the clock. But at Miss Violette,” Custard explained, “she was directly in the line of fire from that window, but the shooter missed in the darkness.”
“Where’s the butler?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He didn’t come in with us when we left the dining room,” said La Crème.
“Oww, ah, oww,” Emily exclaimed, “my wrist. I landed on it when we fell. I’m gonna go run some cold water on it.”
Emily left for the washroom. The rest of us debated on what to do next.
“Who else is in this house?” I asked.
“No one’s seen the maid since dinner,” Custard noted.
“That’s right, and I haven’t seen the chef since we got here,” Flamingo added.
The group decided we would go looking for the missing staff members. But agreed that we should do it together and not split up. We waited for Emily to get back and headed for the kitchen first. As soon as we walked in we saw a fat man with a skinny mustache lying dead with a knife in his gut near the fridge. It was the chef!
La Crème screamed and said, “Why is this happening?!”
Mr. Teal still seemed to be in a nearly panicked state and was speechless.
“Has anyone been upstairs?” asked Pumpkin.
We all agreed to go check. Every room was dark and one at a time we turned the lights on. Finally, we came across a bedroom and found the cute blonde maid hanging by a noose from a sturdy chandelier.
Panic started to set in again as Custard and Pumpkin tried to calm Flamingo and La Crème down. The only person missing was the butler. The assumption was starting to become that he was the one behind all of this.
The group traveled back downstairs and out the back door to check the carriage house. The cars were still here but no sign of the butler. I grabbed a large, heavy-duty wrench as protection, because I didn’t like where all this was going.