Chapter 19: Confrontations

A few days later Kennedy stood with Mr. Glastonbury at Faire, this time well before the official opening. "It seems so long ago since the first time I came to Faire," Kennedy said sadly.

"I know. You were cute in your Robin Hood costume."

"I'm tempted to visit Harriet's mother and buy one of her dresses," Kennedy told him.

"I don't think she'd sell you one. I think ... well, it was touch and go before the party."

"I know. I can hope, though."

"Kennedy, your father says, enough is enough. The risk of going to White Plains is too high. Next year ... he didn't enroll you."

"And I did," she told him. "I'm not stupid. I know the deadlines and I made sure I was covered."

"And the risk to your fellow students?"

"I've never, ever, gone to an after-school activity after dark. I never will. Ever."

"And Faire?"

She laughed. "Vampires attack a Faire campground? With all these people in armor and swords? I doubt it! They simply hated the Middle Ages!" Leaving out Crunchy, of course, but the odds were, he'd been desperate ... and probably hadn't known where he was.

Friar Geoffrey nodded and then the two of them went so Kennedy could join the Grand Marshal's muster. Duke Roger pinned on her holly leaves and she stood tall and proud as usual.

"You're looking well, Kennedy," the duke told her after the ceremony. "I'm glad, after that mess at New Year's."

She shrugged. She was about to say something about how this time there would be no Agent Larkin, when she saw a man with a holly sprig not far off, his side to her, talking to another of the constables.

Deja vu! It slammed into her, shaking her to her core.

"What?" the duke asked softly.

She waved at the man. "Do you know who he is?"

"He's a US Marshal, from the Philly office. Why?"

"I saw him once before. I can't believe I've been this stupid!"

"What, Lady Kennedy?" Friar Geoffrey asked.

"I told you I saw Larkin headed up towards the camp, last summer," she told them. "Until this second, I forgot that he wasn't driving." She waved at the US Marshal. "That man was driving."

She was unprepared for Duke Roger to start laughing. Even Mr. Glastonbury seemed nonplussed at the duke's reaction.

"What?" Kennedy asked.

"He showed me his credentials. He's soft-spoken and unassuming; he seems a little shy. He said that Faire is something his sister's son got him interested in, but he's a little embarrassed. He wanted to do something low-profile. He had the list of positions I sent to volunteers. He picked the petting zoo."

"He wants to start at the very bottom, eh?" Kennedy laughed.

"Evidently. He wanted the afternoon shift and to be put with someone experienced. Like a fool, I agreed. I never once thought about your troubles."

"I saw the Sixteenth Cousin at the muster," Kennedy told him. Again, everyone smiled.

The poor guy had to adopt that for a name, because no one would call him anything else.

Kennedy expounded, "Sixteenth Cousin would be ideal for the petting zoo in the afternoons. His fondness for the quarterstaff would mean there would be a lot fewer kids who wanted to play with his weapon."

"And you?" Duke Roger said, turning serious in an eye blink.

"Well, I suppose I could take over his patrol duties. Or, I could spare poor Sir Bartleby the morning chores at the petting zoo."

"And what would I do with Sir Bartleby?" the duke asked reasonably. Sir Bartleby was a wonderful, kind gentleman who was nearly blind and had only one leg.

"Like I said, there is the patrol," Kennedy said with a straight face.

"Well, Sir Bartleby can't patrol. I guess I'd have to give you that duty. The Sixteenth Cousin has a very short memory. Sir Cuchulain tells me that Sixteenth Cousin wants to present you a formal challenge, he and his quarterstaff against you and Lady Kennedy, unarmored, sword and quarterstaff only."

"I never fight armored," Kennedy reminded him. "Sure, if that's what the Sixteenth Cousin wants. I hope someone has reminded him of the gist of the conversation last year."

"Repeatedly. Now he wants a direct challenge. As a constable..." he looked at her. "I can't deny him. Still, it'll be Faire rules."

"I know. And I wouldn't want you to deny him," Kennedy told Duke Roger. "It's fine."

"He's spent a lot of time in the last year working with his quarterstaff," the duke warned. "He's not half bad."

"And you know for a fact that I'd cut his quarterstaff into matchsticks if I wouldn't be fighting with a scabbard on Lady Kennedy. I'd break his fingers if I wasn't supposed to be avoiding injuring him. Would he fight me bare-handed?"

"Someone told him you're a black belt."

"Drat!" Kennedy told him. "How about bows or crossbows? Darts? Bowls?"

"I'm afraid it will be quarterstaff against your scabbarded blade. I let it go the first time, but this time he's within his rights."

"For no offense at all?"

"If I assign him to the petting zoo, all will know the offense."

"Well, I could always fight the US Marshal. I could probably go all out, if he laid a hand on me, right?" Which of course, she couldn't and they all knew it.

"I don't suppose you have a kendo master again?" Kennedy asked.

"No. The featured master this time is Henri Beauchamp, the French saber and foil champion."

Kennedy brightened. "I could fight him! I'm not fond of the French."

"Why not?"

"They smell of garlic," she told Duke Roger.

"So do the Italians," Mr. Glastonbury observed.

"True, but the Italians use the garlic to enhance the flavor of olive oil, along with oregano, basil and rosemary. The French use it to cover up that they haven't had a bath this month."

"Ugh!" Duke Roger said, shaking his head, laughing hard.

"Duke Roger," Kennedy said with authority, "be glad you've never been to Germany. They're a lot like the French, except they don't use garlic."

"None of this is solving the problem, Lady Kennedy," Duke Roger told her. "I've never let anyone your age patrol. If I let you do it, I'll be petitioned by everyone less than eighteen. I'm sorry, the liability involved would be too high."

"I understand. Okay, I'll do the petting zoo with the Marshal guy. Just so long as I'm the one in charge."

Mr. Glastonbury guffawed. Duke Roger, however, nodded. "You know the ropes, Lady Kennedy. The petting zoo only sounds like an easy berth. You've learned to your chagrin who the real enemy is."

"The little tykes," she agreed. "Yep, that works. In fact ... I'll just go talk to him now."

She turned and walked away, leaving the two adults standing, gaping.

She walked up to him. She could see him psych himself up. It was truly awesome in concept that an adult felt like he had to psych himself up to talk to her.

"Marshal Bob?" she asked.

"My name is Richard," he said evenly.

"Marshal Dick! Ever so much better!" she exclaimed. "Please, I want to ask you some questions, in private if you please," she gestured a few feet away, into an area where there was no one close.

He followed along behind her, not exactly hurrying to keep up. Kennedy stopped and looked around. "Nice and private!"

She grinned at him. "What, no questions? Your bud Larkin died trying to get this close to me, wanting to ask questions. They must have got the wrong guy when they picked you for this job."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure, of course. No problem, Marshal Dick."

"I don't have a Faire name."

"Well, now you do. It's not fair, but then that's Faire. You can of course, stand up at the fire tonight and explain why it's unfair. I'm still waiting for one of those questions that were worth Larkin dying for."

"You've mistaken me for someone else."

"Oh, I don't think so," Kennedy told him. "I could call up my friend Pipes, and see what they have on you. Their files have ... well, quite a lot of otherwise unusual material."

He pulled his shoulders back. "What are you?"

"A girl, doofus."

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don't. I'm a just-barely fourteen-year-old girl from Scarsdale, New York. I just completed my freshman year of high school. I have a 4.0 average, but there's another girl who's intending on giving me a run for my money on the whole GPA thing."

"And you've killed."

Kennedy laughed. "I've never seriously hurt a living person! Don't be absurd!"

"No, the persons you killed were already dead."

"I sure hope I can quote that statement in any trial," Kennedy told him. "I'm sure it will make as much sense to a jury as it did to me."

"You know what I mean," he said, obviously frustrated.

"No, actually I haven't a clue what you mean. The last fellow like this who chased me wanting to ask questions came to a rather untimely end. Doubly so, considering the pathetic questions you've asked."

"This is a matter of National Security!"

"And I'm a fourteen-year-old girl," she reminded him. "I could be wrong, but that's not going to fly very far in a court of law."

"You know things!"

"Yes! Yes, I do! My multiplication tables! Ask my second grade teacher!"

Kennedy let her voice drop. "Now, I'm not playing games or having fun. Unless you can do a lot better than this, get out of here. There's nothing here for the likes of you."

"And your country? In its hour of need?"

She laughed. "One more time, dim-bulb: I'm a fourteen-year-old girl."

"The forces of the night are alive and well! They attack the innocent. Surely you have a duty to protect those people!"

"And tell me, Marshal Dick ... if you were to poll a hundred Americans, who would they want looking after them? Fourteen-year-old Kennedy or thirty-something Marshal Dick?"

He spluttered, but it was clear he was struggling.

"Marshal Dick, let me be very clear. I have no idea what questions you or Larkin want to ask me. Larkin died trying to ask them. You, yourself, are in severe danger of being laughed out of Faire."

"We're going to go to war against vampires and demons. Don't you want to be on the side of right?"

"Marshal Dick, you'll be joining my side, not the other way around. Do you have any idea how long people like me have been in that fight?"

She could tell he did, because he looked away.

"Go, Marshal Dick. Just take yourself out the gate, down the road and go. I tell you true, sir, you won't even be able to handle the mundane issues at the petting zoo tomorrow."

She could see his throat work, but she didn't stay to watch. She spun on her heel and walked back to Sir Roger. "I don't think he'll work out, but it's your call, sir."

Duke Roger bobbed his head, then walked over to the US Marshal. A second later the marshal was headed for the front gate.

That night in the village, the Sixteenth Cousin wanted to fight right then. Kennedy laughed. "Duke Roger is my friend. We have to wait until tomorrow, when he can sell tickets."

"I look forward to it!" he said with heat.

Kennedy laughed. "You don't! A year ago you were six inches taller than I was and had a longer reach. Today we're the same height and I have the longer reach."

"I've practiced!" he said, trying to regain ground.

"And I've done what for the last year?" she told him. "Practice, practice, practice! By all means, I hope you bet heavily on yourself. I'll be betting on myself. I expect to clean up!"

It was sudden, too fast, and not from someone Kennedy knew. She was a girl, not much older than she was. Kennedy had seen her when she'd been arguing with the Sixteenth Cousin, and when she turned away, the girl was there in her path.

Kennedy smiled -- and only at the last second did she see the knife. It impacted her abdomen and her breath whistled out.

"There! I've done to you, what you did to my brother!" the girl exclaimed.

Kennedy smiled wanly. "And who might your brother be?"

"Dwight Evans. You bitch! You killed him!"

"Actually, no. I don't suppose you asked your grandfather, your Uncle Pipes, Don Valentine, Carlos or even Dennis Pipes, about this, eh?"

"Dennis told me you killed Dwight!"

Kennedy looked down at the knife sticking out of her abdomen. Honestly, truthfully, it wasn't hurting as much as when she'd been whacked across the thighs with a huge wooden stick.

Still, both Mr. Glastonbury and Duke Roger were even now, coming forward.

She plucked the knife out of her abdomen and threw it hard against a tree, a dozen feet away. "I'm sorry, Miss, but you are simply wrong. The one and only time I faced your brother when he was alive was to stop someone from knifing him. You should have asked."

"Dennis doesn't lie!"

"I don't think you asked Dennis the right questions," Kennedy said calmly.

Both her teacher and Duke Roger were on them. "Miss Kennedy?" Mr. Glastonbury asked.

"A flesh wound," she told him. "No big. This is Dwight's sister."

Duke Roger grabbed the girl and shook her. "What? Are you nuts?"

Kennedy giggled. "Please, Duke Roger, assume she's not stupid. Just a bereaved."

"That doesn't excuse what she did!"

"A flesh wound, Lord Duke! Just that! A scratch!"

The girl tried to pull back, but got no where. "A scratch! Bitch! I stuck you good!"

Kennedy sighed. "That was Dwight's plan, you know. To let Juan Baptiste stick him. The odds that the first blow would be serious were low. Then Dwight was going to kill Juan Baptiste Somoza."

"That's my brother you're talking about!"

"Miss, and I wish I knew your name, the fact is that Dwight liked to lurk in shadows and rape girls. Maybe, as his sister, you were immune."

Kennedy could instantly see in the girl's eyes she hadn't been.

"Dwight was a bastard, but he was my brother!"

"Well, Pipes shot him and a second later Dwight killed your aunt. Then Dwight killed someone near and dear to me. Like I said, I'm uncomfortable not knowing your name. But, suffice to say, Dwight was long gone before he came to my house that night, which was why Pipes was shooting at him."

"I don't believe you!"

"Who would you believe?" Kennedy asked.

"Pardon?"

"Who could I ask to come and explain things to you? Dennis will come, I'm sure. I know Pipes will. Don Valentine? Carlos? I dunno -- your grandfather and I sort of rub each other the wrong way, but maybe he'd do. I can ask."

"Sure! Of course! You tell him what to do?"

"I said I could ask," Kennedy told her gently. "The question is, who would you trust?"

"Why aren't you dead?"

"Because no matter what you think, it was a flesh wound."

Kennedy just hoped no one was going to ask her to tap dance, because that was out. Even lifting Lady Kennedy might be a chore.

"Pipes. Or Fatso."

"Fatso? Girl! Don't you know how he came by his name?"

"Yeah."

"Fatso and I aren't friends either. How about I get him up here?"

"How could you possibly do that?"

"Duh! Because you are so full of it!"

Kennedy walked over to Friar Geoffrey, taking it slow, so that the blood didn't gush. He simply shook his head, but handed her his phone. A few moments later she was talking to Pipes, telling him of her need, but not why.

"Clarice is there? She's supposed to be in Switzerland. She goes to a private school there."

"She's here."

"Should I come?"

"No, she says Fatso will do."

It was, Kennedy thought, completely impressive, even if the antithesis of Faire. An hour later a helicopter landed in an empty section of the parking lot.

Kennedy was surprised to see Dennis Pipes with Fatso. Still, she waved at the man the girl wanted to see. "Do you know this young woman, Fatso?"

"Yes, Miss Kennedy."

Kennedy saw the girl's eyes widen when he replied.

"Would you explain to her, please, that I wasn't the person who killed her brother."

Fatso's face fell. "Miss Clarice..."

Dennis spoke up. "My father shot him in the head, before Miss Kennedy reached him."

"Pipes?" the girl had turned pale as a sheet. "He shot Dwight?"

"Miss," Fatso went on, "they told me that I was to come, but not why. I swear," he waved at Kennedy, "Miss Kennedy ... she took me twice."

Clarice Evans eyes widened. "She took you?"

"Yeah, she kicked my..." he stopped and coughed. "It hurt. Pipes, though, like always -- he stopped her. That one time. Since then, we're to help her in any way we can. Your grandfather's orders."

"My grandfather is okay with this?"

"He told us to do it, Miss."

"Clarice," Dennis said evenly.

"What, cousin?"

"I wasn't there, but your brother killed my mother. My father shot him before that, but that didn't stop him. Then Dwight went on to kill someone else. Then Miss Kennedy waded in and finished it ... and Dwight. You have to understand, that if it was up to me, I'd piss on your brother's grave?"

Clarice recoiled, startled. "Dwight? Hurt Aunt Cynthia? I don't believe it!"

"Enough!" Kennedy said. "Clarice, look Dennis in the eye and tell him your brother never raped you."

There was an instantaneous hush over the area. Clarice looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

Dennis sighed. "I never liked Dwight. I thought it was because he was pushing for things too fast. Clarice..."

She turned her head from him and walked into the night, stopping well away from any light.

Kennedy moved to stand next to her, breathing lightly, trying to be a hole in the dark.

Clarice looked at her, then went back to contemplating nothing.

Finally she sighed. "He was my brother."

"I understand. But at the end, he wasn't anything. You don't understand, but if you were to ask Dennis or Fatso flat out, they'll explain. But Clarice, before that, he liked to hurt women. He enjoyed their fear. He wanted other people to fear him. You included."

"I guess."

"It's true. I was the person who went to your grandfather and complained about Dwight using your grandfather's name in vain. I take no pride in that, beyond the fact that it stopped him from attacking anyone else."

"And yet, you killed him?"

"Not exactly. It's not an easy thing. Better, if you never learn about it. Trust Dennis, trust Fatso. Neither one has any particular reason to take my side. If you want to know, it could be your death. Just like what happened to Cynthia Pipes and my own friend, Ruby Goldberg."

"Are you threatening me?"

"No, I'm warning you. I'm a dangerous person to be around. I'm losing the battle, Clarice. They killed eleven people I knew and cared about. I've killed four of them."

"I stuck you good! I know I did!"

"You'd have stuck most people good, but not me. The bleeding has stopped. I doubt if it would stay stopped if I got very athletic, but I wasn't planning on doing anything athletic tonight. Tomorrow morning I can get a little athletic, tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to get very athletic."

"What kind of a person are you?"

"Trust me, Clarice, that's something you should ask someone else."

"What the fuck is this place, anyway? All these people dressed up like from the Middle Ages. Losers!"

"It's Renaissance Faire, Clarice. You don't have to understand it, and if you don't, none here will care very much. They won't respect you, but you can't go to the Vatican and knock the Pope and expect warm applause."

She turned to Kennedy. "That's a dig at my grandfather, right? He lives in that kind of fantasy world."

Kennedy laughed. "You haven't been a very good student. You should know by now that all animals, including people, go out of their way to make sure that they have a nice comfortable niche to live in."

"Why aren't you dead?"

"I told you, it was a scratch that isn't bleeding any more."

"And that stain down the front of your outfit? That's raspberry juice, right?"

"I never said I didn't bleed, I said the bleeding had stopped. I heal quickly. Unlike the last person I told that to, it is immaterial to me whether or not you believe me."

"My brother is dead."

"Your rapist brother is dead," Kennedy told her roughly. She waved a dozen yards away where Dennis, Fatso, Mr. Glastonbury and Duke Roger were standing in uneasy silence watching them. "I said that in front of them. You changed the subject. None of them are stupid, Clarice."

"It was only once."

Kennedy tried not to gag. "Yeah, sure, right. Just once. It only happened to the girlfriend of a guy I know once, too. Dwight smashed her in the mouth, broke some of her teeth, drew a lot of blood. Then he did his thing. Then Dwight tried to kill her boyfriend, then he tried to kill the girl's father, uncles and her oldest brother. A prince of a fellow, Dwight, before he was turned."

"Turned?"

"Girl if I say the word, you're going to regret it."

"Turned?"

"Turned into a vampire."

She laughed. "Oh yeah, right! He couldn't be seen in mirrors, avoided daylight and had to be stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake."

"I killed him with a wooden stake."

That rocked Clarice back on her heels.

"That, plus how do you think he went through all the security cameras my father had at the estate? He surprised the guards because they relied on the cameras to tell them a threat was coming ... but the threat didn't show up on the cameras. They all died. Nine of them. Men with guns, men skilled in hand-to-hand combat. He broke the bones of two others. One of them a skilled policewoman from Scotland Yard, the other a Roma. A gypsy."

"My brother was twisted about girls, but he wasn't a mass murderer."

"At the end he was a vampire. It's not their jollies they get sucking a person's blood out: that's like a glass of orange juice to them. They do, though, get their jollies scaring the bejesus out of people and then killing them."

"And you expect me, expect everyone else to believe this -- bullshit -- about my brother?"

"Pipes was there, Clarice. He shot your brother. Afterwards your grandfather came and hugged Pipes. Your grandfather and I aren't the best of friends, but since then, we've been acting in concert about certain things. You know your brother died in my house on New Year's Eve at my hands. So does your grandfather; so does Pipes, Dennis, Fatso and all the others. Please, you're not stupid. What do the police think?"

"I have no idea."

"They think kidnappers attacked our house, looking for my father. The only two of us who agreed on a story in advance were Pipes and me. Everyone else told the police what they saw. Your brother never came up."

Clarice spit and promptly regretted it, because a gust of wind blew it back on her blouse.

"So, it's true, isn't it? It's just stupid to spit into the wind?"

Kennedy had to laugh. "It is true, yes."

"And I don't have a clue and everyone has been trying to tell me that I don't have a clue, but I've been behaving clueless anyway. The worst thing is that when I heard Dwight was dead, I wanted to break out into a tap dance of joy."

"Clarice, it's true the bleeding has stopped, but I did bleed. Right now I'd like to eat a cow and drink the Niagara River."

"You should be dead."

Kennedy couldn't resist it. She'd seen the first three Karate Kid movies. It wasn't possible to pass up. She reached over and twisted Clarice's nose gently and said, "Honk!"