Lorcan hadn't realized how accurate the expression was. The moment he asked Kate the question, she seemed to almost explode - though he could tell her reaction was much more restrained than it could have been.
He took a step back.
"I saw your fangs," he said. "You saw mine, too, and you haven't even asked me about them - or how I was able to change my form. Either we're in the same exact situation, or you're a vampire."
He looked back at the fence.
"If you're like me," he added, "I already know the answer. I don't know a lot about vampires. I've heard that vampires can sometimes change their forms. If you're one of those kinds of vampires, I thought it would make more sense for us to sneak in as animals and not as..."
"Well, you thought wrong," she snapped and turned sharply back to the fence. The stupid thing didn't have a broken link or an untwisted wire anywhere in sight. She grit her teeth in frustration. Fuck it. With more noise than she wanted and barely any effort at all, she hopped the fence and landed on her feet on the other side.
She'd landed hard, and the shock sent a headache buzzing in her skull, but she ignored it.
So that asshole wasn't a vamp. Fine. He was something else, something that could turn into something. Some dipshit shapeshifter or something who just had the fangs for kicks. Fucker.
Lorcan bit back a sigh as Kate jumped over the fence. Considering that she had the physical strength to do something like that, Lorcan guessed she had been objecting to his question about turning into an animal - not the part about her being a vampire.
He eyed the fence.
He doubted he could do the same thing. The magic was still strong here; he could get away with a shift or two. Sinking into the shadows just in case he was caught, Lorcan crouched down and let the change overtake him.
A minute later, he flew over the fence and hovered in the area beside Kate - his wings rhythmically beating the air.
"Are you okay?" he asked. "That look like a hard fall."
She flipped him off in way of an answer and stalked off to check out whatever warranted all this hush-hush nonsense.
They were in the roller coaster, among the twisting tracks and crooked beams with fake splintering wood streaked with fake bloody handprints and blood splatter. Dangling bits of tattered cloth hung over the ride in a few places where the riders couldn't possibly reach, and the lights were low to the ground and red. Those read as genuine. Warnings of an emergency, a signal to get out.
Of course, they were for the people who still relied on a beating heart to keep living.
If the smell had been bad before, it was absolutely horrible now. Lorcan landed on one of the nearby beams and covered his nose with his wing; the smell was so strong. He knew they were close to whatever the rest of the park was being kept away from.
Lorcan wasn't really sure what they were under right now, but it looked dangerous with how high it was.
"Did someone fall?" he asked. He knew Kate hated him, but she was the only person he could ask for clarity from at the moment.
"Probably," Kate grumbled, just to shut him up. She didn't think anyone fell. The blood was fake, mostly, and the only real blood Kate could see were the skid marks on the tracks. Those had to be real. No point in painting the actual tracks, especially when they were already black.
She knelt down and touched the blood. Sure enough, that shit wasn't dry in the slightest.
She wiped the blood on her stupid glittery fairy costume and kept marching on under the main structure, where she assessed the crisscrossing beams, plotting a course up to the top, or, at least, to a place near the top where she could overhear whatever the police were saying. Occasionally, she could glance around to check that there was no one around other than the stupid bat-kid.
Lorcan had come to the same conclusion that Kate had, even if she hadn't voiced it. He was also aware that she had probably given him the response she did to keep him quiet - not to honestly answer the question.
He looked back at the blood.
Some of it looked fake. He didn't know why someone would want to make fake blood, but the smell was wrong., Maybe that was what had overpowered his senses. Not actual blood but this strange, foreign imitation of it that wasn't anything like the original.
There were skid marks on the tracks. Those smelled right, but Lorcan didn't have the slightest idea how to read something like that. He glanced over at Kate, hoping that she would give him some idea of what had happened.
Kate could feel the bat-kids eyes on her, but she ignored it, and him in general. Instead of bothering to acknowledge him, she reached up and got a grip on one of the bars, then pulled herself up. The slats of the decorative outer layer - made to make it more spooky or whatever - gave her good cover as she claimed with the efficiency of a practiced sailor up to the space below the policeman's feet.
"-keep guests out of here," the police guy was saying - a twenty-something baby-faced guy with a shock of unflattering bleached blonde hair - gesturing to nothing in particular, or everything in particular, "We need to get the whole park shut down as quickly as possible so we can start our investigation."
The employee he was talking to - not a ride operator, someone higher up the ladder, judging by the uniform - looked timid, like someone about to deliver bad news, "But we can't just close. There has to be some kind of compromise."
The cop looked sternly at the employee - which was the single least intimidating stern look Kate had ever seen - and said with a slightly-more-convincing tone, "No, there isn't. You have to shut down."
Kate's foot was slipping, and she shifted. In the process, her hand knocked a loose scrap of wood down into the crisscrossing bars where it hit each and every one, it seemed, on the way down. Plink, plunk, plunk, plink, plink.... Until it hit the ground with a faint clap.
Kate cringed and turned her eyes downward as the two up above undoubtedly looked through the slats to see what caused the noise. Downside to glowing eyes: If you're in the dark, you can't look at anything that wants to find you unless you're keen on getting caught immediately.
That thought in mind, she closed them, too. Just to be on the safe side.
The magic was still heavy here. It would make changing forms again later a little difficult, but he knew he had to make sure Kate didn't get spotted by the men down below. Closing her eyes would only hide the glow - it wouldn't hide the outline of her body if they squinted too much.
Lorcan tapped into his magic.
A moment later, a very thin wall of darkness appeared right behind Kate's back. It wasn't enough to prevent her from moving, but it was enough to fully cloak her.
And while Lorcan wasn't much of a schemer, he knew a thing or two about distractions.
He flew off of his perch and made his presence very clear to the onlookers - flitting about right where the darkness was. It would hopefully be enough to convince them that they had just seen a bat moving things around.
He released the darkness and landed on the ground down below. He could feel the strain the magic he had tapped into was under; he would have to change back now if he wanted to do it anytime soon.
A moment later, he was back in the form of a human teenager - or a vampire one, depending on how the fangs played into the determination of that.
"So somebody died," Kate said, not really to Lorcan, specifically, "My bet's on murder. Supernatural, probably, not that these glitter-snorting morons would guess that."
She walked as she mused, weaving through the understructure of the roller coaster until they finally came out to the path again a ways away from where they got in in a much more deserted area. The little kids' section. Past all the brats' bedtimes, probably.
Kate clambered up the fence and hopped over without checking that her batty companion could do the same. He'd probably just transform again or something. It didn't look like a natural transformation at all. Pure magic. So, most likely, it didn't take nearly as much energy as a real transformation did.
It wasn't nearly as easy for Lorcan to climb the fence as it was for Kate, but he knew that bringing that up to her could never end well. He dusted his pants off when he got to the other side, blew a strand of hair out of his face so he could actually see, and eventually gave into temptation. He doubted he would be successful, but he really needed a hair-tie right now.
"We must have to solve the murder," Lorcan guessed. He stuck his hand into the pocket on the right side of his pants and felt around for anything that felt vaguely elastic. They wouldn't end up in a place like this unless there was some reason to be here. It didn't seem like an accident this time around - and the murder was the only clue they had so far.
He stuck his hand in a little farther and frowned. The hair-tie was nowhere to be found, but he had found something that felt much thinner and flimsier. He pulled out a wad of green paper. He had seen it before, but he couldn't remember where. Did Charlotte have paper like this, too?
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