Malice In Wonderland

by H. P. Mallory

  Knowing Bram wouldn't want his letter discovered, I folded it and wedged it into my sock before grabbing the notebook directly underneath it and sifting through the pages. What I saw made me nearly choke on my own tongue.

  February 23, 2009

  Hemogrophit.................................3 lbs, $500,000..................................Sawyer Peninsula

  Grondelbit.....................................16 oz, $20,000...................................Frazier St.

  Ruthsbane.....................................2 oz, $75,000.....................................Holden Hall

  It was a list of illegal potions, along with the weight of each potion, the money charged, and the various locations for each proposed drop off.

  I had to look away from the ledger as I summed everything up in my head and tried not to gag on the information. So Bram had been involved in the illegal potions trade all along? It was a rhetorical question. The answer was as obvious as the ledger I gripped in my hands. I glanced down at the date again.

  Two thousand nine! This has been going on for at least three years and I’ve never even realized it!

  While I felt my whole being deflate on itself while gauging the extent of Bram's deceit, I refused to allow myself the luxury of dwelling on my own anger and shock. Nope, I couldn’t—I didn’t have the time. Instead, I focused on the fact that there had to be a reason Bram wanted me to find this. There had to be a reason he’d led me here, sacrificing himself in the process. Something was going on that was more of a worry to Bram than giving up his own game. And that thought scared the shit out of me.

  I flipped through twenty or so pages of the notebook and found similar entries, only more recent. Flipping to the back of the notebook, I found nothing but blank pages. Backtracking, I saw the most recent entry was exactly one week ago, when Bram noted a potion delivery of Arson Flower to the loading docks near Splendor.

  So why suddenly decide to come clean with all of this? What changed Bram’s mind? I mean, he’s been lying to me all along—ever since I first became involved with the ANC. Even when he accompanied me to the Netherworld, he told me he’d stopped working with my father more than one hundred years ago. So why break his silence now?

  I glanced back at the drawer, but it was empty. Now on a mission, I shut it and opened the top drawer on the opposite side. There were nothing but Post-It note packs. Nothing was written on them. I closed the drawer and opened the next one down. A filing drawer. I opened a few of the first files, but found nothing more interesting than Bram's car insurance, some leather bound book club he’d signed up for, and various permits to run No Regrets. Nothing I could use.

  Opening the next drawer down, I hit the jackpot. There, staring up at me proudly was Bram's cell phone. And just like the note and the ledgers, it was blatantly obvious that he’d left it for me to find. I picked it up and thought I might pass out when I clicked the power button and was greeted with a password prompt. All my hopes and dreams of solving the riddle of why Bram would lead me on this quest died with the prompt for his password.

  Shit, I whispered to myself. Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit!

  Then I realized there was no way Bram would have taken me this far just to have me come up empty-handed. He had to have left me a clue. I wracked my brain, trying to think of something.

  Facing the phone, I entered "sweet," and when that failed, "Dulcie,” “Dulce,” and “ANC," but none of them worked. I tried "dear" and "my dear" without success. Then I re-entered each of the words again, trying with caps and without caps. Still, no go.

  Then I remembered the strange way Bram had said the words "My home is your home." I figured it was worth a shot, especially since I didn't have anything else. I entered the word "home" into the phone. Nope. I entered "your home." Nada. No good. "My home" still no go. Fearing that I was soon going to lose my mind if I didn't get the damn thing unlocked, I entered: "MHIYH", the first letters of each word.

  I felt my breath catch as the phone unlocked itself. Immediately, I clicked on the phone icon and discovered a short list of "numbers dialed." Grabbing Bram's folded note from my sock, I reached for a pen from the top of his desk and wrote down every number I could see: a total of four. Then I clicked on the "received calls" button and wrote down the five numbers I found there. As soon as I wrote down the last number received, the phone began to vibrate and I nearly dropped it. A text message popped up on screen that said:

  Tonight. Midnight. Culligan's.

  I quickly wrote "Culligan's" down next to the list of phone numbers. Then below that, I wrote the number from which the text had originated. I clicked on the icon for text messages, but noticed Bram had already cleared them out. Returning the phone to its drawer, I shut it and turned to my list of numbers.

  Picking up the cordless phone on Bram's desk, I dialed the first number in the list of "numbers dialed." There were a few beeps before the operator's voice came on to tell me the number was changed or disconnected. Crossing the number off my list, I tried the next number. Same thing. Third number started to ring.

  One ring. Two rings. Three rings.

  "Bram?" a female voice answered.

  I immediately hung up and tried to squelch the shock that fluttered from deep down within me. Why? Because Christina was the woman on the other line.

  So what? I chided myself. Bram admitted that Christina visited him on more than one occasion, so what does it matter that they exchanged phone numbers? It could be totally meaningless. In fact, it probably is totally meaningless …

  After deciding I had a good point, I turned to the fourth number on the list and dialed it, only to find it was also disconnected. I crossed it off my list and turned to the list of phone numbers received. Four of the numbers were the same ones that were now canceled. The other two were Christina.

  I sighed long and deep, trying to fight the feeling that there was something ominous about Bram and Christina being close enough to receive calls from one another. Maybe the reason the information bothered me so much was because neither Christina nor Knight ever hinted to Bram being involved in any of this Resistance related stuff. And Knight was absolutely pissed when he found out that Christina had arranged for me to stay with Bram.

  Hmm, there was no use in speculation. I didn't know all the facts, and until I did, there was no point in jumping to conclusions. I turned back to my list of phone numbers and noticed the only one I hadn't checked was the number from the text. When I dialed the number, it just rang.

  After five rings, I hung up. I folded my sheet of paper again, wedging it back into my sock. Then I started to leave Bram's library, all the while wondering how Christina figured into all of this.

  FOURTEEN

  The gown that Bram proposed I wear this evening was just as bad as the one from the night before. While the wine-red color was slightly better than the garish gold of the first gown, little else recommended it. This dress was just as obscenely short—disabling me from bending over in the slightest, all dropped dinner utensils be damned. Not only that, but the dress was so tight, I could see the lines of every mound and valley of my body. To make matters worse, the fabric itself was beyond revealing; the intensity of the light determined whether or not you could see right through it. And I’m sure every detail of the dress was not by accident, but rather, by design. With the hem of the thing barely covering my ass, the bodice was no more than a strapless tube. And as any woman with ample, natural breasts will tell you, tube tops are “the girls’” worst nightmare.

  Even now, I struggled with the top, irritated with the weight of my breasts, because they kept causing the top to roll back down again. Catching my reflection in the mirror, I heaved a sigh of quiet desperation.

  “I look like a freakin’ shrink-wrapped sausage,” I muttered, shaking my head at the outright indecency of the whole damned thing. “Son of a bitch!”

  Hearing a knock on my door, I gripped the top of the dress and re-hoisted the girls with all my might, gaining maybe three
millimeters more fabric. Before I could wrestle with it any further, the door opened, revealing my vampire host. Seeing him, handsomely attired in a navy blue, three-piece-suit, indignation suddenly overcame me.

  How could he have lied to me all along? How could he have been involved with my father from the get-go, but sworn he wasn’t? How could I have trusted him!

  That was the biggest kicker of the whole damned situation; I’d trusted Bram. I couldn’t help surrendering to the tide of disappointment as well as raw anger now flowing through me. I felt my hands fisting and my fingernails digging into my palms.

  Get a hold of yourself! I screamed internally. Regardless of the past, Bram is on your side! And there must be lots more you don’t know, which he wants you to discover, so don’t blow that chance!

  I took a deep breath and stretched my fingers, reminding myself that as a good ANC Regulator, I had a duty to focus on the cold, hard truth without getting sidetracked by my own emotions. I’d managed as much with Quillan, so I could do it again, with Bram.

  One thing you know for sure: Dulcie O’Neil is one tough chick! And what’s more, she’s fanfuckingtastic at her job, I reminded myself.

  Yep, I was right. There was no way in hell I would miss out on whatever information still awaited me. Not when the weight of the Netherworld rode on my shoulders. Instead, I was resigned to play into Bram’s game and let him lead me to the truth. I wouldn’t rest until I understood exactly what was going on; and the real reason why I was being shielded under Bram’s roof.

  I glanced up at the vampire, who didn’t make any motion to say anything. Instead, he seemed to be searching for the right words. When he opened his mouth to speak, our eyes met and the words faltered on his lips. It was as if he’d suddenly been struck dumb. Thinking more on it, he’d probably just realized the same thing I had—that things between us could and would never be the same.

  I shut my eyes and ignored the sudden urge to lash out at him with words as well as my fists, but I knew that would be a mistake. I was on the brink of discovering something significant and the last thing I wanted to do was screw the whole thing up. I glanced down at myself again and tried to prioritize my thoughts. First things first, I needed a safe subject.

  “This thing,” I started, while shaking my head with obvious distaste over my attire, “sucks.”

  Bram’s eyes widened in surprise only momentarily before he apparently realized there would be no long winded conversations about “why?” Then, as if reading my mind and, specifically, that I had no time for explanations or apologies, he assumed the role he always had. Doffing a devil-may-care attitude, he faced me squarely. His eyes, vapid pools of nothing, scanned my body from head to toe with undisguised appreciation.

  He smirked, “It suits you, Sweet.” He was back to his starring role, as both of us knew he had to be.

  “I vehemently disagree,” I snapped, attempting to heave the tube top up again. Finally, admitting defeat, I headed for the door, and nearly tripped over the ridiculously narrow and high stiletto-heeled boots Bram had left for me to wear. Yep, it looked like I was very successfully channeling Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

  Bram didn’t reply as he openly eyed me from head to toe again before stepping behind me, and repeating the process.

  “I believe one of my favorite parts of your body is this line here,” he whispered just above my ear. He reached down and outlined the top of my thigh, all the way up to where it met my butt. I spun around, taking a step back as outrage burned my cheeks.

  “You keep your hands off me,” I chided, although he didn’t respond. Apparently it hadn’t been a difficult feat to drop back into the role of the perverted vampire.

  “The mounds of your biceps femoris, where they attach to your gluteus maximus, are something of a delicacy.”

  I shook my head, unable to staunch the irritability flowing through me. I still had so many questions I wanted answered, but I had the distinct feeling that Bram didn’t intend to answer them. Not yet anyway.

  “And your adductor magnus,” he started again. This time, he traced the outline of my inner thigh until I smacked his hand and stepped away from him, fuming with indignity.

  “I hope you know these cheap thrills count as the equivalent of two dinners of the four I still owe you,” I grumbled. “And the only reason I even wore this ridiculous outfit in the first place is because I’m contractually obliged to do so.”

  Then I thought, given Bram’s blatant involvement with the illegal potions industry and my subsequent anger over it, that I could renege on our agreement altogether. But after further consideration, I decided an agreement was an agreement. And, what was more, I needed to get more information from him, so I figured I’d have a better chance if I played by his rules.

  So here I was, shrink-wrapped to the nines. Farmer John be damned.

  Bram didn’t say anything more as he offered his arm, apparently striving for gallant. I took it and we started down the hallway.

  “I trust you found ways to occupy yourself while I slept?” he asked with an expression that suggested there was a double entendre in his statement.

  I nodded, but the thought occurred to me that maybe we weren’t quite as alone in Bram’s house as it appeared. Knowing Bram was in cahoots with my father, as well as my father’s general paranoia, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least to discover the whole house was bugged.

  “I spent a lot of time in the library,” I answered simply.

  Bram didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but stopped walking when we reached the stairs and turned to face me. His eyes were inscrutable as he studied me.

  “Very good,” he said at last, licking his lips. “And I daresay you … found something to interest you?”

  Based on the way he wouldn’t come out and ask me what he really wanted to know, I figured either his house had to be bugged, or maybe he was bugged. Otherwise, I couldn’t imagine why he found it necessary to talk in code.

  “Yes, I did,” I answered, studying him meticulously. At my words, Bram’s jaw tightened and I could only imagine he must’ve believed his plan—that I’d found not only his ledger book, but also his cell phone—had worked. I could see the epiphany in his eyes when he realized everything he’d been keeping from me for so many years was now out in the open. And, more so, that I now knew him to be a lying piece of shit.

  He gave me his elbow again and after I beat down another round of anger over this whole situation, I took it with a frown and we started down the hallway, which terminated at the double doors of the dining room. The same goblin butler from last night opened the door nearest us and we entered the ornate room. I noticed an assortment of covered dishes already on the table.

  “So you didn’t wait for me to order this time?” I asked, my stomach growling in anticipation. I’d been so overwhelmed by everything I’d discovered earlier that I hadn’t found the time, much less the interest, to eat.

  “Alas, chefs live to show off their cuisine, do they not?” Bram asked. I shrugged, assuming his chef was probably less than thrilled with my order of salmon and Caesar salad from the previous night. So this time around, they’d left me out of the dinner arrangements. It didn’t matter to me, really. With everything else going on in my head, I didn’t have the energy to slap a dinner menu on top of it.

  Bram said nothing more, but led me to the first seat just adjacent to the head of the table. He pulled my chair out and pushed me back up to the table once I sat down. The goblin followed quickly behind him and placed my unfolded napkin neatly on my lap.

  Bram took the chair at the head of the table beside mine. When the goblin started to fuss over unfolding Bram’s napkin and placing it in his lap, the vampire shooed him away with a wave of his hand and the expression of someone aggravated by his very existence. The goblin apparently got the message. Leaving Bram, he started removing the domes from all seven platters on the table.

  The first dish was rolls of buttered bread. Without asking me, t
he goblin lifted my bread plate and used a pair of incredibly shiny silver tongs to place a roll on the plate. Turning to the next dish, he heaped a huge helping of what appeared to be chicken casserole onto my dinner plate. By the time he made all the rounds and returned my plate to me, it was piled over four inches high with what looked like … slop.

  “Thanks,” I said unconvincingly.

  The goblin said nothing as he exited the room. I turned to Bram, who shook his head, sighing deeply. “Good help is not what it was two hundred years ago,” he said as he eyed the smorgasbord on my plate forlornly.

  “It’s fine,” I answered while poking around the plate with my fork, trying to find something I recognized. I settled on a grape, which I speared with the fork and brought to my lips. My stomach continued to grumble with hunger, and it seemed the more I ate of the various dishes, the hungrier I got.

  After polishing off maybe a third of my plate, I pushed it away and downed my glass of water. I was eager to find out what more Bram had up his sleeve, but wasn’t sure how to go about getting there. Bram still seemed to be talking in code, and I had the distinct feeling it was because we didn’t have the luxury of privacy.

  “Do you enjoy classical music, Sweet?” he asked after a protracted silence, during which he swirled the mouth of his water glass with his index finger lazily. Like the evening before, Bram didn’t eat anything. He simply watched me curiously—as if he were trying to recall what food tasted like. He never rushed me, though, instead, seeming to enjoy the ritual of eating.