by Michael Dunn
John nodded and kept eating. Teresa had a glass of red wine and watched John eat, smiling.
“That is a beautiful necklace you are wearing,” John said while he was cutting himself a piece of the chicken.
Teresa smiled. “Thank you. It has been… in my family for centuries.”
“A valuable antique. Is that the same necklace from the night we met?”
It was an vintage gold necklace with a small, but stunning emerald in the middle; polished and cared for throughout the years.
Teresa shook her head, “No, this one is… for a different purpose.”
“That emerald resembles the one Dan sold to the Professor.”
Teresa smiled. “You have a great eye for detail. Several pieces of the same stone exist in various locations. Did you touch the Orb of Genoa?”
John shook his head. “Not after learning it had spent several hours inside Dan’s butt and sweaty underpants. No thanks.”
“Eww! The Orb of Genoa was up your friend’s ass and then he sold it to Thaddeus Marin?” Teresa laughed.
“Why are you and the Professor so eager to possess the same stone?”
“The emerald, called the Orb of Genoa, gives rather… magical qualities to whoever possesses it.”
“Like wearing a crystal from some store?”
Teresa giggled. “Not at all. This is actual magic. It can… change certain properties in reality.”
“How so?”
“Have you had enough to eat?” Teresa asked after John had finished his plate.
“I guess so.”
“Then let’s get you back into bed.”
She took him by the hand. “So much I wish to tell you, so much I want to share. Someone told me you would come for me, but I had no idea you would be so handsome.”
“Who told you I was coming?” He asked, smiling, but skeptical.
Teresa giggled. “An old friend. You will meet her later.”
“Is she a fortune teller you told me about the other night?”
Teresa nodded. “The woman is a fortune teller, but she is much more than a fortune teller. She told me about you and your friends. She called them the Heart and the Fool.”
“Yep, that would describe them,” John said, nodding. “What did she say about me?”
Teresa giggled and said, “She told me I was to meet a handsome, intelligent, young man who would change my life. She called you the Emperor.”
“Emperor? What does that mean?”
“It’s from tarot cards. Old magic. You will learn it too.”
“I will?” John asked laughing.
Teresa brought him back to bed again. “If you would like, you could live here with me.”
John smiled. He had heard this before. He said, “I don’t expect your husband would like that very much.”
“My husband and I… now live very different lives and we only see each other only on ceremony. He is ill and he won’t be in the picture much longer.”
“I don’t know if I can…”
“Let me show you an inkling of what I am offering.”
She floated above the bed, performing an exotic air dance, not unlike those Las Vegas dancers who use curtains to dance in the air.
During the air dance, Teresa shed her clothes and John watched, in a trance. Once she was naked, she held out her hand, and she lifted John off the bed. He did not feel as though she was lifting him as though he was a small child. Instead, his body felt practically weightless. When John was in the air, Teresa wiggled her finger in a ‘come hither’ motion, and John floated closer to her.
“Undress,” She commanded softly.
He took off his clothes and watched them drop to the floor. She brought him closer to her, and they embraced, they kissed, and they made love hovering over the bed.
When they were both spent, Teresa glided them down to the bed, descending slowly like feathers. They lay in bed in each other’s arms, laughing like children.
“Wow,” John said. “That was a… new experience.”
Teresa giggled. “You enjoyed it, no?”
“Oh yes, very much so.”
“Would you like to learn to do that?”
John laughed. “How do you learn something like that?”
Teresa smiled. “There are ways. I was as skeptical too when I first learned and there is much more than that to show you; several lifetimes of things to teach you, my handsome young man.”
“Several lifetimes? Sounds like my schooling to become a surgeon,” John said, and chuckled.
“Then you know how to study, learn, and apply what you have learned, yes?”
“Oh, yes, I have spent a short lifetime doing that.”
Teresa smiled and said, “Then teaching you will be easier than teaching most people.”
“Did you know I used to be a writer?” John asked.
Her large green eyes lit up. “Were you now?”
John nodded. “I wrote a few novels to pay for medical school. They weren’t best sellers or anything like that, but they earned me enough to get me through medical school.”
“Wow! I am even more impressed. Smart, beautiful, and hetero: what a rare combination. You’re perfect for me,” she said and giggled. “As my friend foretold.”
Then she glanced at the clock and realized it was early in the morning. She kissed him and said, “I have to go now and I’ll be back tonight with my husband and you can be part of our ritual on the Eve of the Dragon.”
“Um, okay,” John said, confused. “Where are you going to be today?”
Teresa picked up her clothes and dressed. She shrugged and said, “My husband and I have to plan for the ritual this evening. You could not imagine how much energy it takes to prepare for this evening. I will inform the servants to treat you and your friends as if you own this castle. I will tell them to have an American breakfast waiting for you.”
After she dressed, she kissed him good morning.
“I’ll see you tonight, my beloved.”
“I can’t wait,” John said smiling.
She blew him a kiss before she closed the door behind her.
John was both exhilarated and terrified.
*
Steven dreamed he wore Mickey Mouse’s garb from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. However, instead of a wayward army of mops and buckets he could not control, Steven was trying to juggle objects with his mind while meditating and levitating. He was not proficient at it, and he and the juggling ball wavered up and down. Concentration was more difficult to maintain than he expected, but he needed practice to master this ability. Then he noticed Sallie was in danger — Professor Marin was about to push Sallie into a volcano — he lost concentration and fell. The balls also fell and bounced off his head.
When Steven awoke, he was confused about where he was. Three nights and three different beds; the beach, the penthouse, and now this bed, wherever this was. After rubbing his eyes to make sure that he was not dreaming. The luxurious bedroom included two king-size beds along with antique furniture off to the side. The bed faced open French doors covered by white gossamer drapes, which wafted in a gentle breeze from the balcony.
Steven learned he was naked after he rolled over and pulled the blanket aside. Steven spotted new clothes set on the chair next to his bed along with a tall glass of water and some pills on the nightstand. They swallowed the aspirin, but it was hard to tell. Steven popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down with the glass of water. He figured if they planned to kill him, he would be dead by now. Steven finished the water in one gulp. He hoped those pills would ease his headache, and he hoped they worked quickly.
He could not remember much from the day before. Steven remembered sun tanning with John and Dan, then getting drunk over a long lunch, then the world went black. He remembered he dreamed a dragon rescued him. However, Steven attributed the dream to his affinity for the Game of Thrones series. So, that was another mystery: how did he go from getting blackout drunk on the beach to waking u
p some place more luxurious than Dan’s rented penthouse?
Steven stepped out of the bed, and grabbed his new clothes (white polo shirt, white shorts, white underwear, white socks).
Seriously, did someone invite us to a tennis outing after breakfast? Steven wondered and then headed to the bathroom.
The shower was warm and refreshing, and with every drop of hot water, Steven felt more like himself again. He did not shower long, and the shower along with the pills helped retrieve his memory. Now, he was hungry, and he bet that food would also magically appear. The clothes fit, not entirely, but as good as if he had purchased them at the store himself. The clothes he had worn yesterday were mended and laundered.
When Dan awoke, and he groaned and moaned as he reluctantly returned to the waking world.
“Where are you…? I mean, where are we?”
Steven shrugged and said, “I don’t know. It could’ve been aliens or wizards that brought us here.”
Dan yawned, stretched, and asked, “Where’s John?”
“I have no idea of anything outside this room. We could be in a holodeck for all I know.”
Steven pointed to the chair by Dan’s bed. “Someone left some new clothes for us to wear. Apparently, we are going to a tennis match later on, and they may provide lunch. Also, there are some water and hangover meds on your nightstand.”
Dan swallowed the meds and drank the glass of water in one gulp.
“Sounds wonderful,” Dan said and yawned again.
Steven asked, “Remember anything from last night?”
“Hanging out on the beach, getting drunk at lunch like good doctors should and then some friends of mine threw us into a van and they drugged us to tell the truth. Then it gets weird, like, a dragon saved us, who then turned into a beautiful if spidery woman, who wanted to eat John. Then let’s check this place out after I shower.”
Dan took his new clothes and headed into the shower all the while singing Katy Perry’s Hot n Cold.
Steven stepped out onto the balcony and to try and to determine where they were and to get away from Dan’s bad singing. Wherever they were, the view was as spectacular as it was from the penthouse suite.
Ten minutes later, both American doctors were dressed in their casual white, casual attire. Dan reached out for the door handle of the heavy wooden door and pulled. It clicked but opened slowly and with effective, spooky castle loud creakiness.
Dan peeked his head out the door, peered down the hall, and whispered, “The coast is clear. Come on.”
As they were about to step out into the hallway, an oak tree of a man dressed in formal attire appeared in front of them. There was a blinking electronic device attached both sides of his head. The shorter, American doctors stared into his milky-white eyes.
“Oh shit,” Dan whispered to Steven. “It’s the Borg from Star Trek. Be cool.”
Steven groaned. It amazed him they were still alive despite Dan’s acerbic tongue. The massive servant did not react.
“Listen, Lurch,” Dan addressed the large, well-dressed man. “Take us to Mrs. Addams at once.”
The enormous man nodded. He walked down the hall. They followed.
Dan asked the big guy, “Hey, Lurch, one more thing: is Wednesday Addams of age? The reason I ask is that I had a childhood crush on the brilliant, but creepy, little girl played by Christina Ricci in the movies and enough time has passed that she is well into adulthood, and I thought maybe I had a chance. As a handsome American doctor, such as myself, who comes from a wealthy family, but not this type of wealthy, I might have a shot at being her suitor. I will try her strange, and potentially lethal, forms of BDSM. I’ll try anything once.”
The hulking manservant merely groaned.
Steven grabbed Dan by the shoulder. “Dan, stop it. You’re gonna get us killed.”
“You say that literally every day.”
“Because it is true literally every day.”
“Don’t you understand there is a method to my madness?”
“No, Lord Hamlet, I don’t.”
“Didn’t you see his Borg-like implants by his dead, doll’s eyes? I was gauging to see how many marbles Groot here has rattling around his noggin. Apparently not much otherwise he would react when I suggested having weird sex with the daughter of the lady of the house. Didn’t you have servants?”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Well, I did, and I learned that despite being paid to care for their charges, most servants actually do care for the children of these houses. I was trying to test the waters to see what we are dealing with here.”
“By trying to get us killed?”
“And what have we learned by my little rant about our large and possibly re-animated friend here?”
“Well, he could be a deaf-mute who can only read lips.”
“What are those electrodes on the side of his neck? And more importantly, are there others?”
The strange, lumbering servant brought the doctors to John, who sat at a cozy, white, metal table in the backyard while other servants brought him breakfast. He was wearing a white, terry-cloth bathrobe and dark sunglasses.
“Thank you, Bernardo. Hey, guys, did you sleep well? Come, sit down and join me.”
Dan and Steven sat with him.
“John, what the hell is going on here?” Steven asked.
“Would you like some coffee?” An elderly maid who also had the blinking electrodes on the side of her head, screeched as though it was difficult for her to speak.
“Oh my God,” Dan gasped. “Is that Richie Rich’s robot maid, Irona?”
“I doubt it,” John said.
To the robotic maid, John said, “Yes, coffee for all.”
Both Dan and Steven nodded vigorously. Other servants came out staggering as they carried breakfast for Dan and Steven.
“Don’t worry. We are safe now,” John said.
“What?” Steven asked.
“How?” Dan asked. “And where can we get zombie servants like these? My family could have saved a fortune or at least another fortune over the years.”
“Sit down, eat,” John said. “I guess I have an explanation.”
They waited to speak again when the servants left.
“Okay, guys, they could be vampires.”
“What?” Steven asked. “Are you kidding me?”
“Like the scary, evil ones or the sparkly ones made for little girls to lust after older, abusive men?” Dan asked.
“Neither,” John said. “Let me explain.”
John told them about what had happened to him after Teresa awakened him the prior evening.
“Floating?” Steven asked.
John nodded.
“Wow, that’s a new one,” Dan said. “Dear Playboy Advisor, what do I do when the strange woman I just met in a foreign, European country, who lives in an old castle and has the ancient title of Contessa wants me to live forever with her and have sex while floating in mid-air?”
John nodded and said, “Seriously, we are going to meet the Count tonight at dinner. Teresa will be with him, and we are to be his guests during this ritual.”
“Do you know what this ritual entails?” Steven asked.
“No,” John said, shaking his head as he was finishing his breakfast.
“Have you Googled it?” Dan asked.
“I was about to, but my phone is running low on juice. I left my charger at the hotel before someone threw us into a van.”
“Me too,” Dan said. “Our kidnappers should have been more sympathetic and let us get our chargers from the room before they took us.”
Steven thought for a moment before asking John, “What are we going to do?”
John shrugged and said, “I don’t know. What can we do?”
“Does this ritual entail killing us or at least turning you, John, into one of the undead? You’ll be known as the Night Surgeon.” Dan joked.
“I don’t know. After breakfast we need to learn more about this place and wha
t we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
Chapter Sixteen: A Mobster’s Revenge
Less than an hour after Teresa and her servants arrived and saved her American lover and his friends, Tex arrived at the apartment complex that was owned by his employers that also housed some of the lower echelons of the Sabella crime family. The befuddled fixer was not sure what had happened after Sergio stopped talking to him over the phone. He had listened to their screams, and to the American doctors say something about a dragon. A dragon?
However, the foreign doctors were hungover and were under the influence of the LSD Sergio had slipped into their water, so they were less than reliable. He gathered a few men as muscle and they drove to the apartment complex.
Tex needed a win on this one. His employers were not happy with his performance in the past couple of days. First, he had let the mouthy (and probably insane) doctor escape with the green emerald that Count Vincenzo had hired him to retrieve.
His superiors had already threatened him for that debacle, which was not his fault, but that hardly mattered. He was in charge of this ‘operation,’ something went wrong, and he was to blame. It did not matter that he had performed over thirty successful runs before they found their regular plastic surgeon dangling in a hotel closet. All that mattered to his rather unforgiving superiors was that this one time something fouled up. Sometimes things go wrong during these procedures and, on more than one occasion one of the mule girls had died on the table thanks to their often drunk and disgrace of a plastic surgeon.
However, those mistakes were acceptable and sometimes expected. They considered those dead girls collateral and often the cost of doing business. The bosses did not complain when the girls died because they had recovered all the merchandise. This time was different, because Count Vincenzo had contracted them, (an antiquated and useless title if there ever was one), and the Don (a title of royalty of sorts) wanted to keep happy. Neither was pleased that Tex had let this demented doctor run off with their prize. They had ordered Tex to get the emerald back at all costs. He sent his guys to pick up Dr. Dan Carter and his friends to confess the whereabouts of the emerald. From what Sergio had discovered, they had sold it to the Professor.