“Take this, demon cur!” she cried, throwing the garlic.
For an instant, I thought, So I guess you really do use garlic against vampires. But a second later, Lady Angelica casually tossed the garlic aside.
It flew toward me. With a yelp, I drew my head back.
The girl jumped down, covering a height of two or three yards in an instant. “Who’s there?!”
When I nervously peered out again, my eyes met Lady Angelica’s. Ack! What now? I tried to come up with an excuse, but nothing sprang to mind.
Clicking her tongue, the girl ran off. In the end, it looked like I’d managed to stop the fight after all. I get the feeling the danger isn’t over for good, though.
“Misaki?” Lady Angelica said, a hint of exasperation in her voice.
She knew it was me. I decided there was nothing I could do but step out and show myself. “Erm, good day, Lady Angelica.”
Feeling very, very nervous, I walked over to her.
“Good day.” She folded her arms and sighed. “I’m impressed you actually made it all the way here.”
“You are?”
“One of my bats warned you, right? And I put up the fog as a barrier. You should have felt an urge to go back when you were passing through it.”
“Oh, uh, so you’re saying that that little critter wasn’t having a friendly chat with me? It was telling me to turn back?”
She paused a moment. “I would hope so, yes.”
“The fog was really heavy. I couldn’t see a thing for a minute. But then it cleared up again, and here I am.”
“Intriguing. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be capable of getting through it so easily. Maybe you’ve built up some immunity to my abilities after repeatedly being in close contact with me. Still, if anyone was to find me, best for it to be you. What were you doing around here anyway?”
“I was taking out the garbage when I saw you leaping through the trees. When I noticed the girl who was here just now chasing after you, I got curious.”
“It’s my fault for being careless. There aren’t usually too many people around here, and the visibility is poor, so I let my guard down. It didn’t help that I was being chased.” She sighed again.
“About that—why was she going after you? She said some pretty worrying things.”
“Hmm. Well, after what you’ve seen already, I might as well tell you. It’s better that way. She might have seen your face, after all.”
I suddenly had a very bad feeling about all this. “I’ll just pretend I didn’t see anything. None of this even happened.”
“If she remembers your face, she might approach you. Safer for you to be armed with at least some knowledge, surely.”
“Yeah, I suppose. Is she really dangerous then?”
“It depends.” Lady Angelica paused and thought a moment. “She doesn’t especially pose a danger to me, but she could be quite dangerous to a normal person like you.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s go somewhere else for now. She probably won’t come back here, but you never know.”
“All right.”
I walked through the thicket with Lady Angelica. After we passed through the wall of fog, a lone bat flew down from the sky. I was pretty sure it was the one who’d been sitting on my shoulder shortly beforehand.
This time it sat on Lady Angelica’s shoulder as it began to talk again. Squeak! Squeak!
“Yes, yes, I know,” Lady Angelica replied. “It’s not very effective on Misaki, unfortunately. It’s not your fault. You can go back on guard duty now.”
With a cheerful goodbye squeak, it left Lady Angelica’s shoulder.
“Erm, I’m sorry for being so dense,” I said.
I didn’t know if the bat would understand, but I said it anyway. It flew in a circle twice above my head, squeaking all the while, then flew off. I guess I should take that to mean my words got through.
“You’re not scared of bats?” Lady Angelica asked.
“Not really. I mean, normally I wouldn’t get so close, but it seemed okay since I was pretty sure it was a friend of yours. I guess if they’re tame, they’re actually pretty cute.”
She chuckled, looking slightly pleased. “I see. Well, all the bats at this school are associates of mine, so if you’re ever in trouble, you can tell the bats and they’ll pass it on to me.”
“Really? That could definitely come in handy, I guess.”
Who’d have ever expected bats to be a means of communication? They were kind of like carrier pigeons that could only be used by people who knew the secret.