Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [18]
“Oh.” I blinked in surprise, suddenly remembering the absence of blood as I had gazed at the terrible injury. “Oh.”
“You see my point?”
“Yes.” I lowered my voice, too. “But I’m telling you, those gargoyles were real. I fought with one of them.”
“It sounds like a very good costume worn by someone chosen—maybe even hired—for their size.”
I looked at him. “You mean a little person?”
“Could be. I think the staging sounds too elaborate to have involved young children.” He continued reasonably, “It was dark. You were startled and scared. You’d already had an ominous warning from the guy with the sword. Everything happened fast. So you saw what someone wanted you to see. What the whole scene was orchestrated for you to see.”
“A prank . . .” I mused. Lopez was making it sound very plausible.
“A well-executed one.” He gestured subtly to the cops waiting by the squad car. “Thompson didn’t sound too happy about The Dirty Thirty filming here. Maybe some of the guys in this precinct decided to discourage the show from doing more location filming here. Or maybe someone else is messing with the show, and the cops are just willing to look the other way.” He paused before saying, “Anyhow, whatever the original plan for tonight was, it probably went off course when filming stopped unexpectedly after Nolan collapsed and you all started leaving the location.”
“So these various, er, people that I encountered . . . You think they were improvising? Trying to squeeze something out of the evening, so to speak?”
“Probably.”
“But why use a dead man’s name?”
Lopez shrugged. “Maybe it was supposed to be the punch line: You report what you saw, you find out the ‘wounded’ man has been dead for weeks, and you realize you’ve been had.”
“Hilarious,” I said sourly.
“But, of course,” he said, “they didn’t count on their victim getting arrested, which put yet another kink in whatever the original plan was.”
“Hmm.” I thought over the whole episode. “You could be right.”
He sensed my lingering doubt. “But?”
“But Darius—or whoever he was—seemed genuinely injured. Or disoriented. Or something. Not at all well, anyhow. And the attack on him seemed so vicious! So genuine.”
“You of all people should know that disorientation, injury, and vicious attacks can be convincingly simulated,” he pointed out. “Haven’t you ‘died’ onstage?”
“Well, yes . . .”
He was making a valid argument. I supposed that the pranksters’ violent interaction with an unwitting, unrehearsed audience member—me—was also a feasible part of the theory. After all, participatory murder mystery weekends, where actors following a plot interacted with paying guests who didn’t even know the plot, were a popular form of entertainment. And despite my own perception that I’d been in real danger when fighting the gargoyles, I hadn’t been hurt at all—just scared.
I looked at Lopez, feeling a little embarrassed now. “I guess I really got played, huh?”
He smiled and smoothed a strand of hair away from my shoulder. “Well, it sounds like they put on a hell of a show.”
“It was so real,” I murmured. Even now, I couldn’t shake off my shocked fear upon confronting those growling gargoyles, or my horrified panic upon seeing Darius’ severed hand.
After a moment, Lopez asked, “Can I take you home now?”
I nodded and turned toward the squad car as he took my elbow. But after a few steps, I halted, recalling Darius’ prone, helpless body and his dazed voice. I closed my eyes, struggled with myself briefly, then gave a sigh and let my shoulders sag.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t go. Not yet. I have to . . .”
“You want to look around for him?” Lopez guessed.
“Yes.” I said again, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “This was upsetting for you. If searching the area will make you feel better, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Thanks.”
He gave my arm a gentle squeeze, then told the two cops that we were going to have a look around. They declined to assist us.
I started walking down the dark street, with Lopez at my side, looking in every stairwell, poking around every garbage can,