Falcon Quinn and the Crimson Vapor Read online

  “I demand that you leave this body this instant!” said Vonda. “I demand that you—grrrkkk!” Vonda’s face turned purple for a moment, then Twisty’s expression returned. This time, Vonda’s expression did not come back.

  “Vonda’s going away for a while,” said Twisty’s voice, and a sly smile spread over her features.

  “Twisty?” said Falcon. “What happened to Vonda?”

  Twisty’s voice laughed softly. “I chained her to a log!” she said triumphantly. “I chained her to a log—in her own brain!!!”

  “I do not understand,” said Pearl. “You are saying that you have seized control?”

  “I have,” said Twisty’s voice.

  “Dude,” said Max, shaking his head. “This is better than video games. I’m serious.”

  “Ah! Ah! Ah!” said Sparkbolt. “Twisty FRIEND!”

  “It’s not Twisty,” said Twisty. “It’s Vonda.”

  “Listen,” said Falcon. “Not that this isn’t entertaining and all. But I have to get over to the Bludd Club to bus tables.”

  “I’m pretty!” Twisty shouted, starting to do a little dance.

  “Okay, man,” said Max. “We’ll be here! Eatin’ s’nasties!” He glanced over at Twisty. “Watchin’ the show.”

  “S’nasties bad,” said Sparkbolt.

  “And I’ll walk around being—pretty!” said Twisty jubilantly. “Everyone will be amazed—at how pretty I am!”

  Sparkbolt groaned to himself. Falcon nodded to his friends and began to walk back toward the amusement park. Lumpp scampered after him.

  “Hey, wait up,” said Max. He put his arm around the retriever’s squishy neck. “You gotta stay with us, fella. No octopus retrievers in the Bludd Club.”

  “Thanks, Max,” said Falcon.

  “Also,” said Max, “don’t forget your amulet thing.” He put the necklace in Falcon’s hand.

  “Okay,” said Falcon. He started to walk away again, but Max called to him one more time.

  “And dude,” said Max, “one last thing? Be careful tonight, okay? Those vampires—they’re—well, you know. They’re kinda wonky.”

  “I’ll be careful,” said Falcon. He squeezed his friend’s large, hairy shoulder. “You’re a good friend, Max. I mean it.”

  “That’s right,” said Max. “I’m awesome!”

  Lumpp wagged his tail.

  “You’re a good friend too, Lumpp,” said Falcon. The octopus retriever had gotten hold of Sparkbolt’s poems again, and once more he stood there with his tail wagging and the leather journal in his rubbery mouth.

  “I gotta go,” said Falcon.

  “Later,” said Max, and headed back toward the ocean, Lumpp at his side.

  Falcon looked at the amulet in his hand. He remembered the sound of Max’s voice coming out of Sparkbolt’s mouth. He looked over at the bonfire, where even now Twisty was walking around saying “I’m pretty!”

  This thing is dangerous, Falcon thought. I should get rid of it.

  Falcon held the amulet in his hand for a moment longer, looking at its mysterious runes. Then he threw it as far as he could. It soared above the beach, over a volleyball net, and landed in some sand dunes.

  Then Falcon turned his back and headed toward Abominationland, and the Bludd Club.

  Mortia, firelight flickering off of her half-decayed face, was still singing her zombie song.

  I wish they all could be zombie mutants

  I wish they all could be zombie mutants

  I wish they all could be zombie mutant girls.

  Lumpp, meanwhile, had not taken his eyes off Falcon, even as Max led him away. As the amulet sailed through the air, the octopus retriever dropped Sparkbolt’s “Poetry Book of Rhyming Poems” and let it fall into the sand.

  A moment later, Lumpp was running across the beach, his eyes focused intently on the place in the dunes where the amulet had come to rest.

  Chapter 4

  The Bludd Club

  Falcon walked from the beach back to the amusement park. At this hour, just after sunset, many of the monster families were leaving the park for the evening. They left the sections of the park with the rides—Yesterdayland and Abominationland—and made their way toward the exits, where hearse cars or Viking funeral boats would take the visitors back to their hotel rooms at the Waldorf-Hysteria. The night creatures, however, were just beginning to come out, and an equal number of weredogs and vampires were pouring into the park at this same hour. A long line for the evening buffet at Dracula’s Castle had formed, and from the Plasma Falls water park, Falcon saw a coffin-shaped flume boat emerge from the gushing summit of Thrombosis Mountain and plummet down the five-hundred-foot waterfall of roaring, thundering blood.

  The Bludd Club was a dark-looking pub between Plasma Falls and the Waldorf-Hysteria. The hotel, which was run by Mr. Trunkanelli’s wife, Pachysia, flickered with the lights of candles. Bats circled around and around its towers. From the Bludd Club came the sound of harpsichord music. Falcon sighed.

  “Whatsa matta?” said a familiar voice. “Ya don’t like harpsichord?”

  Falcon looked over. “Hi, Snort,” he said.

  “I been in here once before,” said Snort. “By the end of the night that harpsichord music was like nails on a blackboard.”

  “When were you in here before?”

  Snort shrugged. “Last time I stampeded somebody,” he said.

  They opened the thick, oaken door to the Bludd Club, and Falcon and Snort walked inside.

  The loud, raucous room was abundant with vampires of many varieties. There were old-school vamps in tuxedos and slicked-back hair; there were younger ones with crew cuts and pool cues over at a billiard table. There were girls with navel rings and tattoos; there were middle-aged blond women who looked like the hosts of cable news shows. At scores of tables sat the undead creatures, talking animatedly with one another, laughing, cavorting. They were an exceedingly attractive group of people, their teeth shiny, their hair perfect.

  “Boy!” shouted a hearty young man. “Boy! I need a clean spoon.”

  Falcon was still staring at the interior of the Bludd Club. There was an outer chamber called the Crypt, in which the vampires drank blood from pint glasses. Beyond this was the Coffin Room, a fancy restaurant in which a man with deeply wrinkled skin and bloody slits for eyes sat behind a harpsichord playing Bach.

  “Boy!” shouted the hearty young man again.

  “He’s talking to you, Falcon,” said Snort. “You take care of the Crypt; I’ll cover the Coffin Room.” He nodded. “Go on, see what he wants. They get mad if you keep them waiting.”

  “Yes?” said Falcon to the young man. “Can I help you?”

  “I said I need a clean spoon. Do run along and get me one. Spit spot!”

  “Spit spot?” said Falcon.

  “There’s a good man,” said the vampire. He gave Falcon a fifty-dollar bill. “And please do take good care of the ladies.” The young man nodded to the women at his table.

  “Where’s Vonda?” said one of the girls. “I don’t see Vonda!”

  “She’s back at the Monster Beach party,” said Falcon.

  There was a moment of shocked silence. “Did you just speak to me?” said the girl in a tone of outrage. “Reevey! Make him stop!”

  “Say, you’re Falcon Quinn, aren’t you?” said the young man. “I’m Reeves Pennypacker Sherrod-Waldow Binswanger III.” He nodded to the women. “This is Dominique and Muffy.” The girls looked away. “You’re new here, aren’t you? Haven’t learned your place?”

  “I guess not,” said Falcon.

  “Well, you will,” said Reeves. “You will.”

  “Right,” said Falcon, and turned toward the back of the room, where the kitchen was. As he stepped forward, Muffy swung her leg out and tripped him, and Falcon fell onto the floor. Everyone laughed.

  “Look, everybody!” said Reeves. “A fallen angel!”

  This witty comment made all the vampires laugh even harder. Fal
con’s black eye began to burn with fire. He got back on his feet and as he did, his wings began to spread above and behind him. He looked more than a little menacing, standing there by the vampires’ table, looking at them all with hatred. Reeves looked back at Falcon with widening, hypnotic eyes. Conversation in the Crypt fell silent as the vampires turned to watch the standoff.

  Reeves and Falcon stared at each other for a few seconds more, then Falcon lowered his wings again and turned his back on them. As he walked across the room holding the spoon, he felt the vampires’ gaze upon him. Conversation began again—a series of whispers at first, followed by laughter.

  From behind a small, elegant wooden table, a man with a red carnation in his lapel watched Falcon as he headed toward the kitchen. He fingered a rich ruby ring on his right hand and then looked once more at Falcon with a cruel and cunning smile.

  Back on Monster Beach, the campfire had burned down to coals. Mortia sat on a large rock, playing her guitar and singing softly. Max, Sparkbolt, and Pearl were now gathered around her. Lumpp sat at their feet. Waves crashed on the dark shore. Out on the ocean, a soft yellow light flickered on the horizon.

  Mortia sang.

  All I wanna do

  Is suck some blood.

  I got a feeling

  I’m not the only one.

  All I wanna do

  Is suck some blood

  And watch the sun come up over Hematoma Boulevard. . . .

  Lumpp turned his head toward the ocean. His eyes settled on the small, yellow light in the distance. It was moving.

  The octopus retriever growled softly.

  “Dude,” said Max, looking at Lumpp. “What’s with the growling? Now’s not the growling time. Now’s the sit-around-and-be-excellent time!”

  “Our many-tentacled friend has a feeling of discontent!” observed Pearl.

  Lumpp’s tail stood out straight behind him. He raised one of his front tentacles to point. He growled again.

  Mortia put her guitar down and looked in the direction Lumpp was pointing.

  “Hey,” she said, looking at the moving light. “What is that?”

  “Light,” Sparkbolt said. “Belong dead.”

  Lumpp growled more loudly now. His tail quivered.

  “Dude,” said Max. “Something’s coming.”

  “Falcon Quinn,” said a waitress named Cuttles. “I heard you and Snort were coming to help out tonight.” She was a kind of enchanted squid, with ten long rubbery arms. Cuttles wore a pink waitress uniform.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Falcon.

  “Oh, don’t you ‘ma’am’ me, hon,” said Cuttles. “Put on an apron and start working the room. You’ll figure out the drill soon enough.” She picked up two plates of food with a pair of tentacles and shoved a pile of plates onto the conveyor belt for the dish room with several others. Cuttles was a whirlwind of moving arms and legs. “It’s a fine place to work. I don’t know why Mr. Trunkanelli thinks it should be a punishment. Me, I’d come in here on my day off, if I wasn’t too tired. It’s good to be busy!” As she said this, another pair of tentacles picked up a plate with a juicy steak on it, plus nine pints of blood, each of which was stuck to another of her sucker disks.

  “What do I do?” said Falcon.

  Cuttles was still moving. “You see your friend the rhino, over there in the Coffin Room? Do what he does. Clear the plates. Get the bloodsuckers what they want. If you don’t know what to do, tell me, and I’ll take care of it as soon as I can. But don’t expect any miracles! I only got ten arms!”

  “Okay,” said Falcon. He held up Reeves’s dirty spoon. “What do I do with this?”

  “Conveyor belt,” said Cuttles, grabbing the spoon with one tentacle and putting it on a moving belt that led toward the dish room. “Copperhead will wash it in the back room. Oh, and don’t talk to Copperhead, okay?”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s a Gorgon, hon. Snakes for hair, the works. She wants you to come into the back room so she can turn you to stone. So don’t listen to her! Just keep moving!” Cuttles reached toward the counter and picked up a piece of pie on a plate. “That’s what I do!”

  “Okay,” said Falcon.

  “And don’t talk to the vampires either!” she shouted. “They don’t like it! Just stay busy! Busy! Busy! Busy!”

  Falcon watched as Cuttles swept through the Crypt like a cephalopod tornado. As she moved, she carefully placed the steaks and pints of blood on the vampires’ tables while simultaneously gathering up used plates and cutlery.

  “Boy,” said a vampire, and Falcon turned to see a distinguished, older man looking at him. He had a red carnation in his lapel. Falcon went toward his table and began to gather the dirty dishes.

  “So you’re the famous Falcon Qvinn,” said the man. There were points of silver light in the man’s eyes.

  “How do you know my name?” asked Falcon.

  “Now, now,” said the man. “Everyone knows your name. You’re all anyvun can talk about. Especially after the ewents of this morning. Attacking the”—the man looked at Snort with distaste—“ungulate.” He shuddered. “Tearing up the park. And of course, the matter of your parentage. The mother. The father. Really, it’s a vonder anyone can speak of anything else.”

  “I wish they didn’t,” said Falcon, feeling strangely ashamed. “I wish I was like everyone else.”

  “But of course you do not vish this,” the man whispered. “This is not the vish for Falcon Qvinn.”

  “I don’t know,” said Falcon.

  “I think you do,” said the man. “I—am Count Manson. Vun of the instructors at the Academy. Ve have been vatching your progress, Falcon Qvinn, my colleagues and I. Vatching vith a sense of fasincation—and vonder!”

  “Yeah?” said Falcon. “Well. I’m interesting, I guess.”

  “Oh, much more than interesting. A remarkable case—the boy born to a demon and—our adversaries. A creature from the land betwixt and between! There are those, I am sure you are avare, who vonder vhich side you are on.”

  “I’m on nobody’s side,” said Falcon. “Or everybody’s, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Ah,” said the count. “I vonder if you think it vill be possible to live a life vithout choosing a side.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Falcon. “I vonder that too sometimes. I mean—wonder.”

  The count laughed as if this was a deeply humorous thing to have said.

  “I suppose,” he said darkly. “Ve vill see. Von’t ve?”

  “Yeah,” said Falcon. “I guess ve vill.” He collected the dirty glass from the count’s table and took it back to the dish room. As he walked away, he felt Count Manson’s gaze still upon him. It was as if the man’s glance was burning a hole into the back of his head.

  “Help me,” moaned a low voice, and Falcon turned toward its source—the small hole in the wall with the conveyor belt that led to the dish room. Falcon unloaded the dirty dishes and plates from the Crypt onto the conveyor, and as he did, the voice called out again.

  “Is anybody there?” it said.

  “I’m here,” said Falcon.

  “Help me.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Copperhead. I’m in the dish room. Can you let me out?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Falcon. “I was told not to.”

  “Who are you?” she said. He heard the clattering of plates and the rushing of water in a sink.

  “I’m Falcon Quinn,” he said.

  “Falcon Quinn,” said the voice breathlessly. “I know you! You’re the angel!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Won’t you come in and talk? Just for a second!”

  “Cuttles told me not to talk to you,” said Falcon. “You’ve got, like, snakes for hair. If anybody sees you they turn to stone.”

  There was a long pause. Falcon heard the sound of more splashing water, the clink of glasses in a sink. “You don’t have to look at me,” said Copperhead. “I have this bag I can put over my head.�
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  “I’m working,” said Falcon, and he turned with his empty platter back toward the Bludd Club. He walked through the Coffin Room, busing tables, as the young vampires laughed at their private jokes and the harpsichordist continued playing in the corner. Suddenly Falcon felt an unexpected jabbing in his rear end, and he shouted, nearly dropping his platter of dirty glasses on the floor. He turned around and saw Snort standing there, hot steam curling out of his nostrils.

  “Poked ya,” said Snort.

  “What?” said Falcon, confused.

  “Poked ya,” said Snort again, and chuckled.

  “Did you want something, Snort?” said Falcon.

  “Thought you were pretty funny today,” said Snort to Falcon. “Making me look stupid. In front of everybody.”

  “What?” said Falcon.

  “Getting me in trouble with Trunkanelli. Making everyone laugh at me.” More steam blew from his nose. “But who’s laughing now, Falcon Quinn? Tell me that!”

  “I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble, Snort,” said Falcon. “I was trying to help you.”

  “Why would you help me?” said Snort, his voice cracking for a moment. “Nobody wants to help me!”

  “I don’t know,” said Falcon. “It just seemed like the—”

  But Falcon paused midsentence. A strange hissing noise, like the voices of hundreds of approaching snakes, was slowly rising in the room. A blue fog crept across the floor.

  “What’s this fog?” said Reeves at a nearby table. “It’s not very sporting!”

  “I think I’ll just have a little nap,” said Muffy, laying her head down on the table. “So tired!”

  “It’s really getting sleepy in here,” said Dominique, looking around. A lot of the vampires were yawning now, closing their eyes, resting their heads on their hands.

  “Cuttles—,” said Reeves. “Be a good girl and have them stop this fog. It’s making everyone so”—he yawned—“so piqued.”

  “Vait!” said the count suddenly. “Don’t you see? They’re here! They’re here!”

  “Who?” said Falcon. “What are you talking about?”

  It was at this moment that Falcon saw a figure he recognized emerging through the mist. Cygnus, the guardian general, walked into the Bludd Club and looked around with an air of amusement. At his side was a man with a large white mustache and a monocle. He wore a pith helmet atop his head and with one hand he carried a large elephant gun.