Chapter 9 #2
Sal was running up and down the path shouting Rumble’s name.
He’d recruited a few of the vendors to his cause—Brody and some of his friends helped Sal look down the far end of the row.
Arthur dipped around the back of the food trucks.
Rumble was probably hiding, and, as much as she was Sal’s cat, Arthur thought she might prefer a gentler hand when it came to coaxing her back home.
She was probably frightened and hungry. She wouldn’t emerge if they were too animated.
Arthur crouched in the dry grass, peeking underneath the different carts. As he made his way down the row, he began to lose hope, but then—there! A flick of a black tail near the abandoned coffee cart for the Big Bad Brew. As quietly as he could, Arthur went after her.
Getting Rumble back would be a wonderful way to end their undercover trip to the festival. Once she was safe at home, Arthur wouldn’t have to keep worrying about her, and he could save all his worrying for everything else that had gone wrong lately.
“There you are,” Arthur whispered. He stepped carefully, chest constricting with an anxious flutter.
He felt dizzy. Perhaps it was all the excitement or the sun—he’d forgotten to open his umbrella once they’d left the shelter of the trees.
He wished the feeling away. Now was hardly the time to succumb to heatstroke.
Not when Rumble was only a few inches away.
He stooped to pick her up, but he must have misjudged the distance.
His hands didn’t connect with anything at all.
He blinked his eyes back into focus just as Rumble spotted him.
She whirled around, claws out. Before he had time to flinch, she’d lashed out and darted off.
He stared at his hand, where the long thin wounds would’ve been bleeding were he mortal.
The scratch was nothing; it would heal in minutes once the sun set.
But…Rumble had never done that before. She’d hurt him many a time when she’d clung to his shoulders or nibbled a finger too hard, but it was always by accident. This had very much been on purpose.
Maybe Rumble no longer wanted to live a domestic life.
Sal had been talking about getting her a few outfits to wear around the Dead & Breakfast. For marketing purposes, he’d said, but of course Arthur knew better.
There was a chance Sal had already stuffed the poor cat into some Dracula costume while Arthur was out doing the shopping.
Perhaps the pet psychic had been the last straw in a long string of objectionable treatment.
“Arthur? Arthur, have you found her?” Sal cried, seeing him bent low to the ground.
All Arthur could do was shake his head. He hadn’t acted quickly enough. Rumble was gone, like she’d never been there at all.
It was a dejected pair of vampires who cycled home on their teal tandem bike.
Arthur glumly stowed it in the garage as Sal went on ahead, shoulders slumped as he carried his bagged fish inside.
After he’d arranged their helmets on their hooks and closed the garage behind him, Arthur trudged through the front door, expecting to find Sal wallowing on the floor, perhaps even face down.
Instead, he heard laughter coming from the kitchen. A little of Arthur’s gloom faded as he approached.
Sal was at the stove—a small miracle in itself—putting a kettle on for Theodore, who sat at the kitchen table. Arthur was surprised to see him, until he remembered what day it was.
“You’re early,” Arthur said, heading to the pantry to get some of the scones he’d baked that morning.
Ever since Arthur and Sal had broken into his house and accused him of murder, Theodore had come by the Dead & Breakfast once a week for tea and snacks.
Turnabout was fair play. Usually he arrived at night after the Big Bad Brew was closed, but with Brody handling the festival stand, perhaps he’d freed up early.
“I finally hired enough help I could take the occasional afternoon off,” Theodore said. “Thought I’d swing by and see how my favorite vampires are doing.”
“Aren’t we your only vampires?” Arthur asked, immediately regretting his phrasing. Sal so loved to tease Arthur about a nonexistent crush, and referring to them as his vampires would only stoke the flames of Sal’s imagination.
It was a sign of Sal’s distress that he ignored the comment. “We’re not well,” Sal said, collapsing into a chair. He’d left the goldfish—Grumble—in its plastic bag on the counter, seemingly forgotten. “Rumble is still missing!”
Arthur hadn’t told Sal about his encounter with Rumble.
He didn’t know how to tell him. He couldn’t help but feel responsible.
If he’d been faster, he could have caught her.
What would Sal think if he knew? It might not matter.
Perhaps Rumble was only hungry and afraid because of the noisy environment.
They would keep looking for her until she was ready to come home.
In the meantime, Arthur had pulled the sleeve of his billowy shirt down to hide the scratch on his hand.
“Sorry to hear that,” Theodore said. “If you have any extra Missing posters, I’d be happy to put one up at the Brew.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Arthur rummaged around in one of the cabinets for a suitably wide glass vase to use as a temporary fish tank and filled it with water while Sal triumphantly retrieved his stack of remaining Missing posters to offer Theo his pick.
Arthur plucked the fish off the counter and slid it into the temporary tank, silently promising to fetch it a proper enclosure with rocks and a filter from the pet store with haste. Assuming it lived long enough.
“I like the lettering on this one, but this one’s more of an art statement,” Sal said. “I know, it’s so difficult to choose.”
“Why don’t I take both?” Theo suggested.
It would be an utterly inefficient use of space on the noticeboard, but Arthur couldn’t help but feel a swell of gratitude toward the werewolf—not only for his generosity toward them in their time of distress, but also for his kindness to Sal, whose artistic talents were not rewarded as often as they ought to be.
Putting a plate of scones on the table, Arthur joined them at last. “How’s business at the festival? Have you had much time to talk with Nora and Quinn? I feel as if we’ve barely seen them for weeks.”
“No, they’ve been too busy with organizing everything. My sales have been great, though.” He paused to take a bite of scone. “Wow, this is delicious!” he said through a crumbly mouthful.