Fairy Metal Thunder (Songs of Magic, Book 1)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Assorted Zebras flew to Romania on the Malarkay Gulfstream that had carried them across the Atlantic. This time, the ride was a bit more crowded and a bit less fun.
Heath rode with them and complained about everything—the seats, the food, and even the music selection, despite the fact that dozens of songs he’d produced himself were available. Sean and Shane were there, too, to keep watch on the band.
They landed in Sibiu, a large city in Transylvania. Even as they approached the airport, the stunning and unexpected beauty of the city amazed them—baroque architecture, high pointed Gothic spires from the churches, curved medieval streets, and every roof in the city center seemed to be painted in matching shades of red. Erin and Mitch snapped pictures through the airplane windows as they descended.
They quickly loaded their instruments onto a rusty rented bus driven by a local Transylvanian named Grigore, a short stocky man with a big salt and pepper mustache. Erin took the very last seat, several rows back from anyone else. Jason sat beside her, and she gave him a thin smile and looked back out the window.
The bus trundled through downtown Sibiu, a postcard-perfect little world full of old churches, palaces and winding roads. Grigore narrated their journey over a squeaking, crackling speaker, describing the sights they passed in perfect Romanian, Jason assumed. He couldn’t understand a word of it. Grigore was shouting to be heard over his own radio, which played some very loud music full of flutes and drums. Combined with the backfiring of the bus’s engine, it made for a very loud ride.
“Are you feeling any better?” Jason asked, in a voice too low to be heard by the others.
“I’m fine. I didn’t mean for it to happen this way, me being the one who causes all the problems. Am I wrong?”
“No,” Jason said. “Somebody has to care about the actual music.”
“Do you?” Erin asked.
“I wish we were just doing your songs,” Jason said.
“Thanks. I mean, I don’t mind doing other songs, I just want them to be good. But where does Heath come up with this garbage I have to sing?” Erin whispered.
“I think he’s got a room somewhere full of monkeys banging on computer keyboards,” Jason said. “Whatever they come up with, he makes us play it.”
Erin laughed.
“So what did Cayce want with you earlier?” Jason asked. He’d been wanting to ask all day, but he hadn’t had a chance. “You didn’t look happy when you came back.”
“Oh...just stuff. Get along with Heath better. Things like that.” Erin looked out the window.
“You can talk to me about whatever’s bothering you, you know,” Jason said.
“Thanks.” She gave him another little smile.
“But, look at this, free trip to Transylvania.” Jason pointed out the window. They’d passed some factories on their way out of the city, and now it was all farmland and villages. “Ever been to Transylvania before?”
“No, duh. I’ve never left the United States.”
“Me neither,” Jason said.
The driver took them up a steep road into the Carpathian mountains, where the turns grew sharper the higher they climbed. Grigore didn’t seem to have any interest in using his brakes, despite the long, sheer drops all around them. He fishtailed around every tight turn, slinging them across the road and back. The steep drive through the high mountains felt like a roller coaster ride, only much less safe. They were surrounded by deep forest on every side.
For a moment, they were near the peak of the mountain ridge, and they could see mountains, rocky slopes and green valleys spread out for miles in each direction. Then they dove into a long tunnel through the rock, the driver not slowing down at all, though the tunnel was completely dark except for the distant smudge of light at the far end.
Jason had no armrest or seatbelt to grab, so he clenched his fists tight in his lap.
“Is this driver going to kill us or what?” Erin whispered.
“Maybe,” Jason said.
After what seemed like a terribly long stretch in the darkness, they careened out into the daylight, rushing downhill on a steep road with another huge drop off to the side, only inches from the road. No guard rail. Jason tried not to imagine the bus slipping off the road and tumbling a thousand feet to the forest below.
They rounded a bend and a huge lake came into view, the road flattened out, and Jason and Erin both breathed a sigh of relief. The road skirted the long way around the mountain lake. They reached a place where an eighteen-wheeler truck and a few vans and minibuses were crammed into a small parking lot by the road. The bus stopped here—apparently it did have brakes, after all.
There was a busy swirl of activity as they met with the production crew. A number of local Romanian laborers had been hired for the day to haul equipment and lighting up to the castle, which apparently had to be reached by way of concrete stairs with a metal railing. The stairs climbed into the woods and out of sight.
“Okay, kids, get ready to walk,” Heath said. “It’s about fifteen hundred stairs to the top.”
“What?” Mitch asked. “It didn’t say anything about that on the website for Dracula’s castle.”
“Life is full of sweet surprises. Let’s walk,” Heath said.
They fell in line with the locals hauling the production gear, which had all been trucked in from London for the shoot. Jason carried his own guitar case, while Mitch carried the black case holding his central keyboard, the one that had mutated from a silver fairy harp. Dred insisted on carrying the case with her fairy drum, though several Romanian workers attempted to take it for her.
“How much do you think they’re spending on this video?” Dred asked quietly, after the four of them drifted back from Heath.
“A lot,” Heath called back. His ears were better than they’d expected. “And you can bet we’re publicizing it for all it’s worth. ‘Filmed at Dracula’s castle.’ The Yanks will lap it up like dogs.”
Mitch pointed up. On the cliff above them sat the ruins of a medieval fortress, walls and broken towers made of gray stone and red brick.
“What is that?” Mitch said. “On the internet, Dracula’s castle has these huge red and white towers, and it looks awesome, and not like a pile of rubble.”
“Yeah, this doesn’t look right,” Dred said.
“You mean Bran Castle?” Heath sneered back at them.
“Isn’t that the one they call Dracula’s castle?” Jason asked.
“It’s the place to go if you want a Dracula t-shirt,” Heath said. “Pretty spot. Tourists everywhere. But that castle doesn’t have much to do with the real Dracula.” Heath pointed up to the ruins. “But here. This. Poenari Citadel. Vlad Dracula spent heaps of time here, rebuilding and upgrading this fortress. This is the real Dracula’s castle, lovelies.” Heath turned away from them.
“Now he cares about doing something authentic,” Erin whispered. They continued on up the next thousand stairs toward the ruins at the peak.
The ruins of Poenari Citadel consisted of a few thick walls and the bases of a couple of towers. There was no roof. Concrete walkways with hand railings had been built throughout the ruins. The crew was setting up lights, cameras, and scaffolding around a stone slab that had apparently been designated as the stage. There were a few tents off to one side.
A few members of the crew rushed to Heath and pulled him away, whispering.
Jason and Erin took in the panoramic view of the mountains stretching out all around them, under a thick layer of low-lying clouds. From these heights, Dracula had commanded his realm. An interesting place to visit, he thought, but a strange place to make a video for a song called “The Sugar Dance.”
“Everyone look sharp and alive,” Heath whispered as he returned from his rushed meeting with the crew. “We have a visitor.”
One of the makeshift tents opened, and two men stepped out. They could have been Se
an and Shane’s cousins—tall, hulking young men with square jaws, who looked like they’d rather be boxing than wearing a coat and tie.
They were followed by an unnaturally tall man with broad shoulders, leaning on a cane, his face craggy and wrinkled, his gray hair thin, in a dark suit and silk tie. The man’s green eyes were clear and sharp, though he was rumored to be more than ninety years old. Jason recognized him immediately, as did everyone else.
Andrew Malarkay, the billionaire Irish media mogul who employed them all, had decided to drop in on the set. He looked quietly at the band, his eyes analyzing, his mouth a firm, flat line.