Mythic melee murder, p.1
Mythic Melee Murder, page 1
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MYTHIC MELEE MURDER
a Merry Wrath Mystery
by
LESLIE LANGTRY
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Copyright © 2023 by Leslie Langtry
Cover design by Janet Holmes
Gemma Halliday Publishing
http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This book is dedicated to Susie Halliday—a funny, talented, and beloved editor who made my books so much better. She will be missed.
CHAPTER ONE
I looked across the field at an army who were threatening us by brandishing swords, halberds, and…was that a light saber? How unauthentic. I was so gonna report that troll if we survived.
Hilly cracked her knuckles next to me before doing lunges. How was she able to do that without her sword and scabbard getting in the way?
Hilly Vinton was a CIA assassin, who wasn't an assassin because the CIA doesn't have assassins because that would be illegal. But she totally was. An unusual woman on her best day, the quirky six-foot-tall brunette was convinced she was constantly being mistaken for former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. No one has ever convinced her otherwise, and in fact, those who knew her had quit trying long ago.
"Always limber up before hand-to-hand combat," she said. "And make sure to keep hydrated. That's really important."
"That's really important?" I wondered.
"Well…" The assassin waved her hand at the horde. "Killing all the other guys goes without saying really."
The enemy roared with fury. There was no more chance of avoiding a fight.
"I think we should mow them down with machine gun fire," a voice said next to me.
"We don't have machine guns, Betty," I sighed. "I keep telling you that."
Betty chewed another toothpick into a spike and placed it between her knuckles with the others she'd made earlier. "I could've brought the cannon at least."
She was right. We could really use a cannon right now. The problem was that the hitch on my minivan was broken, so we couldn't have brought it if we'd wanted to.
"I can take at least twenty of them." Hilly was now doing jumping jacks somehow without her scabbard even bouncing. "But the rest are on you."
I looked out from the castle window. Today, we will not be so easily taken. Geez. Now I was thinking in the vernacular.
"I'll get the boiling oil," Betty said. "The Kaitlyns have been secretly heating it in the microwave."
I looked away from the enemy. "We have boiling oil?"
The little girl shrugged. "It's just canola oil. My mom buys it in bulk from Costco. But hey, oil is oil, right?"
Ava spoke up before I could respond. She pointed at the army facing us and intoned, "I want the usurpers' heads on spikes before this day is done."
"Your will is my command, my queen," Betty said with a little bow before disappearing. For some reason, she was dressed as a samurai, which didn't really make sense…not that anything about this did.
Lauren appeared. "My falcon brings word from my spies." She actually had a real falcon. I didn't ask because I didn't want to know if she had stolen him from the zoo. "Patricia the Falcon says the enemy has a cave troll."
I really, really shouldn't have let the girls have a Lord of the Rings marathon a week ago.
Ron and Ivan, who were both wearing complete suits of medieval armor, clanked over carrying a huge black cauldron and set it down in front of me.
Ron flipped up the visor on his helmet. "Betty said bring you boiling oil."
"Are we roasting a yak?" Ivan looked a little too hopeful. "Armor is heavy, and I am hungry."
Ron looked confused. "Back in Chechnya, we do not roast yak in oil. We cook over large fire made with the branches taken from the homes of our enemies."
I held my hand over the cauldron before dipping a finger in. Lukewarm cooking oil. At least it would be gross.
Kelly joined me, her long blonde hair whipping in the wind over her pointy ears. "This is all your fault, you know."
I readjusted my armor. "Yeah, I know."
There was another thunderous roar across the field before the enemy broke and began running toward us.
A week ago, things had been basically normal. I had the girls over to my house for an overnight, and they'd wanted to watch The Lord of the Rings. I popped popcorn, broke out the good junk food, and we sat around watching.
Things were going so well, I didn't even realize I'd agreed to participate in a LARP (live-action role-playing—I had to look it up too) event at a park in a town just outside of Des Moines. And now, my Fellowship of the Robust Otter were facing off against a group I suspected was mostly made up of former Boy Scouts, who wanted us to die horrible but very fake deaths.
That wasn't going to happen on my watch. No fellow of mine would die this day!
I'd done it again. Even considering the approaching army, thinking like this was probably the worst part of my day.
Ava nudged me. Right now, I was supposed to give a rousing speech. My mind went blank until I had an idea. I raised my sword and looked at the expectant faces on either side of me. "For the Fellowship! Many Shubs and Zulls will know what it is to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar on this day!"
"Yeah!" The four Kaitlyns, who were made up like extras in Braveheart and operated with one hive mind, began beating their shields with their fake swords.
"Ghostbusters?" Kelly asked.
I shrugged. "I couldn't think of anything else. They seem to get it though. Hey! Maybe we can do a Ghostbusters marathon next weekend…"
One of Kelly's pointy ears popped off as she shook her head. "Nope. No more marathons. Ever."
An arrow with a huge stopper on the end flew between us and landed with a plop at our feet, and I realized that unlike the ridiculously padded arrows, she had a point. But I wasn't going to tell her that. Not until we vanquished this army of infidels!
With a roar, Hilly leapt over the wall onto a ladder and rode it down to the ground, slaying ten guys who had been climbing it as they fell.
The battle had begun. We were outnumbered by guys who'd been doing this for years. I drew my fake sword and stabbed a pasty middle-aged man who looked like he rarely emerged from his mother's basement. He began to cry.
This was going to be a very long day.
CHAPTER TWO
One week earlier…
"Wait…we're doing what now?" I asked the girls, who had called for a super-secret special emergency meeting the day after the movie marathon. "And why is this a super-secret special emergency meeting? What's the crisis?"
"It's just like the kind of meetings you had in the CIA," Ava responded.
I shook my head. "Nope. We never called it anything like that. We literally just called them meetings."
"Well, we have super-secret special emergency meetings with the city council all the time," Mayor Ava said. "And you get punished if you don't show. Or vote how we want you to."
Betty looked up from a file folder labelled CLASSIFIED – FOR MOLDOVAN SECRET POLICE EYES ONLY. "I learned that from when we toured Huey Long's office. We installed a panel in Ava's office just like he had to stop voting and bring in anyone who needed a 'talking to.'" Betty ended with finger quotes to show she meant business.
"Do not tell anyone you learned that from our meetings, or I will disavow any knowledge of it," I said quickly.
Kelly gave me a look.
"What?" I asked. "It's called being 'responsible.'" I mimicked Betty's air quotes.
"What's the emergency?" Kelly turned to the girls and repeated my earlier question.
"We have a chance to re-enact stuff," Lauren said. "Betty's cousin is involved in a huge LARP event next weekend in a park near Des Moines, and he said if we put our own army together, we can participate!"
"Army? What is LARP?" Kelly asked.
"Live-Action Role Playing," Ava said. "It's where you get together and pretend to be your own country and invade other countries." She waved a DVD in the air. "Here's a video from a couple of years ago."
"I can't believe anyone uses DVDs anymore," Betty scoffed as she closed the file and picked up another one that said TOP SECRET – TURKMENISTAN PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY. "Why don't they have it on YouTube like normal people?" Her eyes scanned the file, and she began laughing hysterically…or maniacally. You never knew with Betty.
"They're analog due to their dedication to whatever," Inez rolled her eyes. "They also had VHS, whatever tha
I put the DVD in the player and turned on the TV as something in the file triggered tears of laughter that rolled down Betty's face.
"I am Jedar, the Just!" A man in his thirties was dressed as a sort of knight with a chainmail hood. He raised a foam sword over his head and waggled it around a bit. He was surrounded by a group of knights in the same gear. "And we demand the ousting of Mark the Merciless, to thusly rid ourselves of his tyranny!"
There was a hearty cheer around him, and for some reason I felt a little sorry for Mark the Merciless. There was a strange blip on the movie and a new date stamp that implied this part of the video was newer.
"Welcome to the Realm of Ulm!" a young man in a wizard costume said directly to the camera. "The greatest LARP event in the lower western Des Moines area!"
Inez interrupted, "They're the only LARP group in Iowa. I checked."
"My name is Andy the Necromancer, and I'm a twenty-three-level sorcerer! It hath cometh to our attention that you"—he pointed dramatically at the camera—"hath chosen to join with us in our battle between good and evil!" Andy brought his hand back to the staff he'd propped against his shoulder and accidentally knocked his pointy hat off. He didn't seem to notice. "We looketh forward to your presence on the battlefield!" He raised both hands in the air, knocking over the staff, and threw something resembling ping pong balls at the camera. "Oregano!"
"Oregano?" Why did he shout that?
"Must be some powerful magic," two of the Kaitlyns said in unison.
The video had that strange blip again, and the next scene showed a flat wooden castle front with a group of pirates waving foam cutlasses and saying "Arg!" The camera swiveled to the left, and we saw thirty men, led by Jedar, running toward it. The two armies clashed just as the camera seemed to fall on its side and turn off. Credits rolled, mostly for someone named Viggo the Viking, who appeared to do all the filming, editing, and sound work.
"What was that?" Kelly's eyes were wide. "A battle? That's too violent for little girls!"
"It's not any different than playing dodgeball in gym class," Ava said.
"Especially when Betty adds mild explosives to the balls," Lauren added.
The four Kaitlyns nodded in unison.
"How would this work? We can't exactly register as a Scout troop," I intervened quickly in case Kelly started to ask where Betty got explosives, because I was fairly certain she got them from me.
"No, we'd just come up with our own nation," Betty explained as she put the file folders in her backpack.
"It's a whole weekend," Inez piped up. "We'll need to take our own tents and stuff."
"I'm still not sure about this," Kelly mused.
The girls ignored her and began throwing around names for our group. Kelly might be concerned, but I was starting to warm to the idea. After all, we'd be outside for a whole weekend, camping and bonding over blood sport. What could be more fun? It wouldn't be long before the girls were in middle school, and I wasn't quite sure what would happen. Middle school, as I recalled, was a strange time. Girls started getting weird in middle school, and I'd heard horror stories of troops splitting up around that age.
That wasn't going to happen to us. And if we needed a war to stay together, my girls were going to get one.
"What are you thinking?" Kelly interrupted my train of thought. "You have a strange look on your face."
That was shocking. Kelly usually knew exactly what I was thinking…ever since we met in elementary school. She was my oldest and best friend. The smart, reliable, and practical one. And I was…well…never mind.
"I was thinking that things are going to change when the girls start middle school soon. And how I'm probably not going to like it."
Kelly gave me a wan smile. "I know. I've been dreading it too. A lot of troops split up then. Girls get boy crazy and find a whole new world of clubs and activities."
"You're not helping," I nagged. "You're supposed to cheer me up."
She looked over at the troop, who were now excitedly drawing on paper.
"Maybe our troop is so unusual it won't be an issue."
"Okay," I replied. "You're probably right. I think that we can bond more with these guys over this war game thingy. That will keep them interested."
"As long as it doesn't feed some primitive craving for more violence," Kelly warned.
"I don't think that will be a problem. Remember, they still love unicorns and sparkles and stuff. We'll be fine."
"The Skull Crushers?" I held up the poster.
"It's one word," Inez corrected. "Skullcrushers. We're a dangerous group of warriors from the north. And when we meet an enemy, we crush his skull and then wear it on our armor."
"How can you wear a crushed skull? There won't be much left to put on a necklace or anything," I wondered.
"Not important," Betty said.
"So we're a sort of Viking?" Kelly frowned.
"No, we're going to be a band of mercenaries made up of all kinds of killers," two of the Kaitlyns said.
"You guys will have personas too," Ava announced. "Mrs. Albers will be a healer elf like Galadriel. And you"—the mayor pointed directly at me—"can be the general."
"So, I'm some sort of fantasy nurse?" Kelly asked. She thought about it for a few seconds. "I suppose I could live with that."
"And I'm the general." I nodded. "Awesome!"
The girls went on to show us their ideas, how we were a sovereign nation of our own called Skullgraviastan. Our symbol was a pile of broken skulls. We'd definitely moved away from glittery unicorns.
"We're gonna need more people," Betty said. "Ten isn't enough to defend the keep."
"Keep?" Kelly froze. "As in a castle?"
"Remember the castle in the movie?" Ava asked. "It's a big wood castle with platforms on the other side that you can walk around on. They take it down after every game, but it's still a castle." She pointed to herself. "I will, of course, be the queen you will have to defend."
Went without saying, really. No one was going to argue this point, because it just seemed like a natural progression of things. Of course, I was going to have to answer to the kid, but in a way, I kind of already did since she was the mayor of Who's There.
"There is one fast and solid rule—we reserve the right to overrule you," Kelly reasoned, "if whatever you propose is too dangerous."
"We'll see," Ava said.
My name is Merry Wrath Ferguson, and I used to be in the CIA. Unfortunately my spy career ended early when the then Vice President "accidentally" outed me while I was undercover with a Chechen strongman. This forced, early retirement sent me back to my hometown of Who's There, Iowa, where my best friend Kelly and I started a Girl Scout troop consisting of eight of the most precocious girls you would never believe actually existed.
My troop had Ava, the youngest mayor in Who's There history, who dreamed of being CEO of a major insurance company; Lauren, our junior zookeeper who sometimes had fantastical theories about animals; Inez, who was so smart you couldn't sneak anything past her; four Kaitlyns who looked exactly alike and, as far as I knew, shared one hive mind; and Betty.
Betty was someday going to be the most dangerous spy the CIA ever had. She was a vocal promoter for Scottish independence and the people of the Basque region and Catalonia. As Ava's black ops right hand, Betty would give corrupt politicians like former governor Huey Long a run for his money. And she was awesome.
I missed my life as a spy, but in Who's There, I had everything I never knew I'd needed, from a handsome husband who was the town's detective, to two houses across the street from each other, a Scottish deerhound dog named Leonard, a severely narcoleptic cat named Martini, and an obese cat named Philby who had an uncanny resemblance and temperament to Hitler. It wasn't the CIA, but life was unpredictable, as bodies seemed to fall into my path on a disturbingly regular basis.
