Bunny finished the sentence for him, “ — I was history?”
Frank spread his hands wide. “Well, all’s well that end’s well. I’ll leave you guys to pack up your things and take off. Like you said, Joey, the Legion may be gathering an army.”
“Look at me!” Bunny moved toward Frank. “Do I look fit to travel? We’re supposed to take this kid to a fancy boarding school tomorrow. How can I do that?”
“I’ll drive,” said Vendetta. “You can rest.”
“We have a lot of makeup in the basement prep room,” said Frank. “Help yourself. It’s the least I can do.”
“You are too kind.” Bunny put her hands on Frank’s shoulders. “How do I thank you properly for this new face?”
He tried to pull away.
Smiling, she pinned his arms against his body. “I know. I’ll provide you with the send-off you wanted to provide for me. I so much want us to depart from Bon Voyage in peace. Don’t you?”
Frank looked panic-stricken. “Joey, you going to let her do this? Cremate me?”
Vendetta shrugged. “This is your business, not mine. But if my associate is satisfied, I have less to worry about. Girls, why don’t you go look at the pretty caskets. You have a favorite, Frank?”
“I gave you the car. A favor for a favor, remember?” He looked at Vendetta’s knives. “Don’t let her burn me alive.”
“Aware, not alive,” said Vendetta. “But I see your point. There’s no need for the girls to see this. I will favor you inside.”
“Why do you have to kill him?” asked Kathy. “Hasn’t there been enough killing already?”
“He’s my half-brother’s tool,” said Bunny. “We have to destroy his tools before he uses them to destroy me and any chance for a better existence.”
“I could say it’s a matter of honor,” said Vendetta, “but in truth I agree with Bunny. An undead enemy will never die a natural death. He will plot to destroy us forever. If we don’t act when we have the opportunity, he will eventually succeed. So go bring Frank a nice casket.”
25
Tanya
The door to Rose’s room flew open. Tanya strode in like a furious mother. “Out!” she barked.
Celise Wardley jumped up from the chair she’d brought to Rose’s bedside.
“Hope you feel better, Rose.” Five-foot eight, Celise seemed to shrink as she slipped by Tanya to get to the door.
Lying fully dressed on her bed, holding an ice pack to her nose, Rose looked up at the furious face of her good Samaritan, the flush enhancing the Russian girl’s almond eyes, high cheek-bones and expert sneer.
“I should have left you in the grass to bleed to death from that Angela,” said Tanya. “You have ruined my life forever.” She whipped the chair back and it toppled over. “I am bread!”
“Toast,” said Rose. She dropped the ice pack onto the panda rug beside her bed and sat up. Her nose felt like a giant boil she had to look over. Tanya was wearing a red sweater and slim jeans. Gold hoops dangled from her ears. And I’m still in my bloody uniform. How am I going to get it clean? Or find anything in this mess they left in here? “How have I ruined your life?” she asked.
“Your CIA man interrogated me as if I was a spy,” said Tanya. “He threatened to deport me unless I answered his questions and let his people search my room. They even took my computer.”
“He’s not CIA, he’s from Homeland Security — DHS. And he’s certainly not my man. He wouldn’t stop questioning me even in the Emergency Room.” She motioned to the books and clothing that littered the floor. “Look what his people did here while I was gone. Winkish thinks I hid my laptop and iPad, invented Angela, and either punched myself in the nose or had you punch me.”
Tanya nodded. “Your nose looks much worse than usual. Is it broken?”
“No. They X-rayed it at the hospital.”
“I saw the ambulance from the Dean’s window. They kept me prisoner in that office for two hours.” Tanya righted the overturned chair and sat down in it. “Your Winkish thinks like FSB, but he is not as smart as our Russian security men. Our Federal Security agents can easily tell the truth from lies.”
After they torture someone. “What did he ask you?”
Tanya’s hands swept outward like windshield wipers. “Everything! Everything! What was on your computer? Why did I help you get rid of it? What did this Angela look like? Was my father connected to the Russian security services?” She tapped the hair over her temples. “These security people are driven crazy by suspicion. He even asked if there were vampires in my country.”
“That is crazy.”
“Not so much. There have been vampires in Russia for more than a thousand years. But Angela was not a vampire.”
“Definitely not.” Gently touching her nose, Rose grimaced. “They’re stories made up to scare children.”
“No, it is true. The goats in the villages around Novosibirsk were drained of blood. A vampire was seen but never caught. But why did Angela and these people want our computers?”
“There’s nothing secret or bad on my laptop or iPad.” How much do I tell her? She’s not my friend. “They’re just threatening you so that you’ll tell them what you know.”
“But I know nothing. My computer has only my personal photos and files. In my country, we know not to store anything unusual on a computer. What are these security people looking for?”
Rose shrugged. “You’d have to ask them.”
“They tell me nothing except that they will give it back tomorrow. You tell me even less. My parents are flying from Moscow to be here for the graduation weekend. Your Homeland Security people will make trouble for them, yes?”
“I don’t see why. How could anyone think they’d be involved in someone stealing my laptop?”
“You are so naïve, Rose. Don’t you understand what you have gotten me into?”
“I don’t even know what I’m into. Look!” Rose spread her hands to indicate the damage done to her room.
Tanya raised a thumb in front of Rose’s face. “Today your Homeland Security demands your computer.” Her index finger popped up next to the thumb. “Within the hour, someone comes to steal it rather than let it be examined. So there must be information on it that is dangerous. You tell me no, but I am questioned by a woman who looks like a frog, my room is searched and my computer is taken.” Her hand flailed toward the door. “Now my parents arrive from Russia. You think your security people will not think we are spies?”
“Calm down,” said Rose. “Your imagination is frightening you.”
“No. That Winkish and the frog lady frighten me. They will think that secret agents pretending to be my parents now come to take your computer or its information back to Russia. My admission to Stanford will be withdrawn.” Tanya’s eyes welled with tears. “I will never live in California.”
“But that’s crazy. There’s nothing dangerous on my laptop. You’ve been going to school here for three years. Your parents are coming for graduation. All this computer stuff just happened today. No one could have planned that far ahead.”
Tanya hands shot up above her head. “Have you not seen the propaganda films and TV shows about Russian spies and sleeper cells?” She jumped up from her chair. “I must call my parents and tell them not to come to the school.”
“Wait!” Rose pushed herself up from the bed. She put a hand to her head to keep it from floating away. Tiny stars sparkled and disappeared from sight. She leaned on her small night table.
Tanya stepped toward her. “Do you need the nurse?”
“It’ll pass. I’m okay.” Rose retrieved her glasses from the night table and put them on. “The thing is, if you call your parents, wouldn’t they worry that you’re in trouble and be more determined to come? They’ll be really anxious all the way here. It would be a shame if they didn’t come because of a silly misunderstanding. They wouldn’t see you graduate or get the Computer Science medal at the Honors Banquet.”
Tanya l
ooked as if she were going to cry. Then her face hardened. “The shame is yours, for bringing these fascists down on us. If you have done something wrong, why not admit your guilt like a person of character?”
Rose grunted as the air went out of her. Her cheeks stung as if she’d been slapped. Tanya’s right. But betray CQ?They could send him to prison. She sat back down on the bed. “I got up too soon,” she mumbled.
“You are weak in more ways than one,” said Tanya on her way to the door. “I am ashamed of feeling sorry for you.”
26
S'Right
From the back seat of the Lexus, Kathy looked bleary-eyed out at Boston’s Public Garden, a peaceful oasis in the heart of the city. The sidewalk was wet and early morning sunlight made the night’s raindrops sparkle on the bushes and grass beyond the iron fence. She’d slept most of the way from Chicago, awakening only to use the bathroom or buy a quick snack when they’d stopped for gas. At one point, with Vendetta driving, she’d heard Bunny call someone and request “a makeover for a tall coed couple and two girls in their teens.” Before she could ask Bunny how they’d be made over, Vendetta had begun a rant about the escalating costs of the trip, the loss of his hearse and his practice time with Lionel. Bunny had responded with her complaints about his nasty associates in Chicago and his failure to be there for her when she needed him. They’d sounded so much like her parents that Kathy had sought refuge in sleep.
Bunny steered the Lexus onto a street of trendy shops and renovated brownstones, some with large display windows on the ground floor, others with steps leading down to basement boutiques or up to art galleries.
“Not Newbury Street,” Kathy grumbled.
“Is it bad?” asked Soo, sitting next to her.
“It’s the center of fashion in Boston,” said Bunny. “Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Valentino, Armani – they all have stores here.”
From the front passenger seat, Vendetta spoke over his shoulder. “Very overpriced. We had better styles and longer lasting clothes in Padua, three hundred years ago.”
“We’ve seen you wear some at school,“ said Kathy. “For the 18th century, they’re really fab.”
“You’ve been to this street before?” asked Soo.
“My mother brought me here a few times when I was little,” said Kathy. “My father sometimes had bank meetings in Boston and Mom would drag me away from the hotel to get her hair done in one of these fancy salons and then parade through the galleries. I’d be bored out of my mind.” She turned to Bunny. “Are we safe from the Satanic Legion here?”
“Safer than most places. I have a friend living here.” Bunny stopped the car between two metal poles bearing red and white No Parking signs. A wooden signboard at the edge of the sidewalk said S’ Right Valet Parking.
“Kathy you can get out,” said Bunny. “The rest of us will wait until a valet brings us an umbrella. They’re opening early for us.”
“It’s no longer raining,” said Soo.
“I don’t want anyone looking down from a window seeing our pretty faces,” said Bunny.
Kathy reached for the door handle. “S’Right Fashions? Opening just for us?” The ritzy design house and its upscale shops had surged in popularity because of billions spent on advertising in traditional and social media, with S’Right endorsements from rock stars, athletes, supermodels and brain surgeons. But it was the company’s motto that had captured public imagination and debate.
“Go!” ordered Bunny.
Kathy got out of the car and walked toward the display windows. She looked at the mannequins, one in a red sequined dress and another in a white lace gown. Matching shoes, scarves, handbags and jewelry were set on small pedestals against a backdrop that looked like a casino.
Kathy shook her head. Wouldn’t be caught dead in those dresses.Hector would never stop teasing me.
A young man in a fitted white shirt, string tie and black trousers came out the glass door and popped open an umbrella which bore the company logo, a large red apostrophe.
Not a vampire. Kathy turned back to the jewelry in the display window. Her gaze lingered on a ruby necklace, then moved on. Toward the bottom of the windows, tastefully imprinted in frosted glass letters, was the company’s motto: S’Right Fashions – Style Guaranteed by the World’s Most Famous Apostrophe.
So much hype over a meaningless slogan, thought Kathy. So many blogs and tweets, even a doctoral thesis on possible meanings of that apostrophe by some jerk at Princeton. It’s the “Emperor’s New Clothes”of advertising.
“Kathy!” Bunny called from inside the open doorway.
“They have a ruby necklace in the window,” Kathy said as she walked toward Bunny. “You think they put real rubies out like that?”
“This company sells high fashion,” said Bunny. “Nothing here is real.”
Kathy stepped by her into the showroom.
“Wait for the others,” Bunny said.
Kathy’s eyes widened. Where are the clothes? Velour sofas and upholstered chairs sat behind coffee tables that held laptops, demitasse cups and saucers with tiny spoons, small bowls of wrapped chocolates, and cocktail napkins sporting the red apostrophe. Lighted alcoves for jewelry were set into the cream-colored walls.
“You’re right on time,” said a slim woman entering the showroom from a door in the rear. She looked thirtyish but with her milky skin and fanged smile she could just as easily have been three hundred. Her dark hair was parted on her left with a twisted side swoop. She wore a strand of pearls above the scooped neck of her black dress and she came gracefully forward on stiletto heels. “It’s good to see you again, Bunny.” With a flare of her delicate nostrils, the woman shifted her gaze to Kathy. Her green eyes were surprisingly alive for one of the undead. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing breakfast.”
Kathy took a step back.
“Don’t worry.” Bunny’s tone was reassuring. “Aurien’s teasing. It’s one of her finer qualities.”
“And I have so many.” Aurien turned to Vendetta. “As I’m sure you do, my prince.”
“Giuseppe Roderigo Vendetta,” he said. Bowing from the waist, he reached for Aurien’s hand, straightened up half-way and kissed it. “At your service, bella donna.”
Bunny chuckled. “Don’t get carried away, Joe.” She gestured toward Aurien. “My college roommate was a real heartbreaker.”
“While mine broke lower parts of male anatomy.” Aurien smiled as she withdrew her hand from Vendetta’s and pivoted into Bunny’s embrace. “You look terrible, dear. And you smell like a funeral home.”
“Right. You may also be smelling the case of cosmetics one of the embalmers gave us as a going away present. Unfortunately, we had to leave both old and new baggage at a Bon Voyage party.” Bunny dropped her arms and took a step back. “If the Chicago Legion inquires, you haven’t heard from me.”
“Same old Bunny.” Aurien winked at the teens. “She leaves baggage wherever she goes.”
“You have some choices ready for us?” asked Bunny. “We’re impersonating a billionaire couple looking for a private school for our daughter.” Bunny plucked at her ripped jersey. “We can’t go in these filthy things.”
“Obviously not.” Aurien looked at Kathy. “I assume you’re the daughter.”
“I’m Kathy.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Her name is Soo.”
Soo nodded. “It is an honor to meet a friend of Bunny’s.”
“She’s our adopted daughter from Korea,” said Bunny.
“Maybe she can teach you some manners. I’m pleased to meet you, girls. I hope you like playing dress-up. I’m Aurien Velini, the behind-the-curtain manager of this S’Right boutique. The warmblood staff doesn’t arrive until shortly before ten, so that gives us a few hours for makeovers.”
“Your valet is not a vampire,” said Soo.
“Charles? Oh, he’s my vampet. He won’t say anything.”
“Your employees know they’re working for vamp
ires?” asked Kathy.
“We pay them enough so they don’t care. We rarely need threats. Morale is much better among employees working for excellent salaries rather than for survival. We never bleed good workers against their will.”
“Where are the clothes?” Soo pointed to the laptops. “Do your customers order online?”
“They wouldn’t have to come here to do that,” said Aurien. “Those upgraded laptops help our clients use holographic projections to pick out what they’d like to try on. The machines project a countless number of choices, and what’s not in our climate-controlled basement can be delivered from our warehouse. But I’ve selected some things you can choose from downstairs. This way, please.” Her fingers beckoned them to follow.
Vendetta’s arm swept forward, ushering the ladies before him. Having parked his umbrella, the vampet followed.
Aurien led them through a plush-carpeted fitting room, through a door marked Employees Only, and down a staircase into a large, birch-paneled room filled with racks and shelves of clothing.
“Charles, take Signor Vendetta into the gentlemen’s garment room and see to his needs,” said Aurien. “We’ll meet you in the second floor spa.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the vampet. “If you’ll follow me, sir.”
Kathy watched them step behind a rack of nightgowns and disappear through another door.
“I put some ‘possibles’ on this rack,” said Aurien, “but feel free to browse and take what you want.”
“Take what you want is the vampire way,” said Bunny. “But we don’t have time to browse. Girls, pick something out quickly. Elegant, but not super-expensive. Count Vendetta dislikes paying for the extravagance of others.”
Kathy glanced in the direction Vendetta had gone. “He’s a Count?”
“He is today. Let’s see what we have here.”
Of the “possibles” on the rack, Kathy chose a simple green A-line dress with short sleeves.
“No,” said Bunny. “Too plain. Take this one.” She held up a navy lace creation with elbow-length sleeves, a banded waist and flare skirt.
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