AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His gaze lifted the moment Octavius instructed them to. In the ceiling, a massive glass and metal chandelier began to lower. Turney frowned when it started to wobble back and forth dangerously, as if it wasn’t secure. Something…was on top of it… Was that a hand?
The chandelier suddenly plummeted. The crowd scrambled back out of the way at an impressive speed as the thing landed in a shatter of glass and crunching metal… Not to mention, an odd thump.
Screams wretched up from the crowd. While he could see the top of their heads, the height of the stage wasn’t so much that he could see the ground past such a thickly packed crowd.
“What…the hell,” he heard Octavius growl. “Please, part!” the vampire yelled out, storming to the edge of the stage.
And the crowd did, instantly, revealing on the ground what looked to be a very dead body…because, of course…why wouldn’t there be an actual dead body at Octavius’ party? Or was this part of the show?
He couldn’t see the face of the person, as long vibrant blue hair obscured their face. He could see that they were male, as the person was wearing skin tight spandex pants that looked like scales in multiple shades of white and blue. His body was fit, thick with muscles…and was covered in scales, or rather, snake skin. The patterned skin was a mixture of white, turquoise, and black, matching the rest of his costume. Turney wasn’t sure if they were just wearing really amazing prosthetics…or if the guy was some sort of creature that could grow scales. It looked like real snake skin. Gaze moving away from his body, Turney eyed the blood puddle forming near the male’s head.
Octavius hopped off the stage and Turney followed. Reaching the body, Octavius stepped closer, kicking glass out of the way with his bare feet, before crouching down and flipping the wig out of the person’s face. Turney’s eyes went to the vampire’s feet making sure they were unharmed before glancing over to see what was revealed.
Scales came up along the edge of the creature’s face before they broke away, giving way to smooth bone white skin. His eyes were closed, lips blue and slightly parted. Turney could see a hint of fangs. He wasn’t sure what the performer was, but he knew he wasn’t human… At least, he didn’t smell human. To Turney, all humans had a certain smell to them, on top of their individual scents. Sadly, to him, that certain smell was also food-like…with their…brains and all.
“Do you know him?” Turney asked.
Scarlett and Min-ji pushed through the crowd then. Curiously, their costumes were swapped. Alexander and…oddly, Theo plus Sprinkle came next. And well… he could hear Cormac, even if he couldn’t see him.
“Stupid fucking tail!” The werewolf growled from somewhere in the startlingly quiet crowd.
* * *
Octavius staredat the dead naga, his mind screaming ‘who the fuck is this?’. The audacity of them, dying and interrupting his party! The show had been so cool and spooky, and now no one was going to get to see it!
“I have no clue. He is one of the performers though. I previewed the show, but I wasn’t informed of anyone’s name, or anything like that…” He pursed his lips into a pout. “Henry!” he called out.
His youngest fledgling pushed through the crowd then…followed by Cormac, who was only partly dressed as a siren, his tail now gone. The wolf was walking around in tight purple boxer briefs, looking completely unashamed.
“Where is your tail?” Octavius huffed in added irritation, shaking his head. “Never mind. Henry, could you—” His words cut off in a horror laced gasp as he caught sight of Scarlett and Min-ji. “How could you?!” he cried.
“Umm…Octavius,” Turney chimed in. “Not that costumes aren’t important, but the dead body?” He waved towards the downed paranormal.
Octavius let out a sigh, and then glared at the two women. He’d deal with them later! “Fine! The dead body… As we are a detective agency, it is only right that we solve this mystery. Henry, could you be a dear and fetch the leader of the performers? Well, he’s the owner of the company too… Either way, he should be around here somewhere. Someone in one of the rooms should have a walkie talkie to communicate directly with him. Though, I suppose I could text him…” He shook his head. “No, his phone is likely off. Just go find him.”
Henry nodded and started to push back through the crowd, Cormac following behind him. Though, he supposed the performers that had been waiting to drop down from their spots in the ceiling had already run off to find the owner of the performance company. He no longer sensed any heartbeats hidden up above, so he was going to assume they had.
As Henry disappeared, Octavius turned and faced the crowd, who were all staring at him. “Ah, my dear friends. As you can see, there has been an unfortunate event on this side of the party. Why don’t you all head back through the woods, and have a little fun over there while we, uh…handle this.”
He smiled at them brightly and encouragingly. Catching the eye of his oldest fledgling, he nodded towards the exit with a stern expression when he saw her and the rest of his crew attempting to approach. She visibly sighed in irritation, but nodded and started guiding the other five out with the rest of the crowd. He did not need them to interfere.
As the crowd started to exit, he scooted over to Min-ji and whispered, “I need you to run outside and put up a barrier to prevent anyone from leaving, humans and paranormals alike.”
“I can just tamper with the one I already set up to prevent unregistered guests from entering, so that no one can come in or out,” she whispered back.
“Good, do that.”
She nodded. Min-ji and Scarlett slipped quickly through the remaining crowd and disappeared.
There was a loud throat clearing.
Octavius turned and narrowed his eyes at the reaper who had made the noise. “Yes?”
“Octavius…be nice,” Turney whispered as he slid up beside him.
“I’m always nice,” he hissed.
The zombie gave him a look at that. It screamed disbelief. How rude!
