Splendificent

by Dacy Alex

"Who is the caster, Madame Wanda?" Giselle asked, leaning in even closer like the news will escape her at any moment.

  "You think I know every ho who hopped on this peckerwood's dick?" Madame Wanda snapped, swirling an orange scarf over her shoulder.

  "Eeep, your mystical speech really took a break there!"

  With a seamless shift back to her psychic persona, Madame Wanda went on, "Are there many with this curse?"

  "Well there's a lot kinda gathered around the place I'm staying. I think they live in the building though."

  "Odd that the caster would let them roam free. Unleashed they should gravitate towards strong supernatural elements."

  Nope, don't have any of that lying around. Just perfectly normal every day freshmen.

  "The only way for the men to be saved is to draw the curse into what I am about to give you."

  Reaching beside one of the crystal balls, Madame Wanda pulled out a brittle amulet shaped like a miniature pizza slice with Hebrew writing. She placed it into Giselle's hand and closed Giselle's hand for her. A warm feeling traveled from Giselle's hand to what she felt was her actual psyche. It caused her to relax formerly tense shoulders.

  "This is a holy object, child. I make no promise but you may be able to save these men."

  "But how?'

  There probably was an answer stored in Wanda's vault of knowledge. But that vault was sealed shut when a male figure forced a black sack onto her head.

  Giselle couldn't even push out a trademark "eeep" before her mouth was covered by a thick hand that felt like solidified putty and reeked of rotten eggs. This disgusting vile man hauled her away as his partner carted off Madame Wanda.

  She certainly should have gone to UCLA.

  Chapter Eight: The Torture Rack

  Giselle's mother would be horrified not just to know that her daughter had been kidnapped, but to know her trust fund baby was tied back-to-back with an animal skull collecting psychic in the cobweb-infested warehouse hideout of said kidnappers. If Dawn knew about this, she'd demand the president call a national emergency.

  The place reminded Giselle of any number of action movies. A big space, a few rooms, perfect for a shootout or a bloody battle royale. Great for the likes of John Wick, very bad for the likes of Giselle Nyfall.

  Giselle had estimated this gang totaled ten people, with nine outside standing guard. The only brute with Giselle was an olive-skinned bear of a man, who had a tattoo of the word Belphegor on his head laid between tattoos of demon horns. Somehow he managed to look even more ridiculous due to the fact he'd been sitting on an open toilet since the gang dropped Giselle and Wanda in front of him.

  At this point, Giselle felt like a goddamn buffoon for feeling extraordinary. The rush of adrenaline had long since passed. Only regret that she hadn't left things in the hands of her supernatural roomies remained.

  "I'm sorry but this is absurd," Giselle barked, "why did this IBS sufferer kidnap you?"

  Madame Wanda sighed, "I am a high value target."

  Mysteries layered upon mysteries layered upon the shit storm Giselle's life had become. Dawn Nyfall said her daughter wasn't ready for New York. Mothers do know best, Giselle thought ruefully.

  "A high value target? That's pick-up artist talk. That's not biker gang kidnapper talk!"

  "I know some white bitch ain't talking shit on my words. Ho, I will fuck you up. Do not play with me!"

  "Eeep! I'm so sorry," Giselle would throw her hands up in apology but there was sort of the whole thing about her arms being bound to her side.

  Wanda was far from through, "Nobody asked you--"

  Good fortune struck Giselle as Wanda was distracted by the sound of gunfire raging outside the door. There was no chance for Giselle to get verbally fucked up by Wanda, as someone else was being physically fucked up outside under the harsh New York sun.

  Giselle growled, "That's great. Have a gunfight in the middle of the day. Totally cool, not gonna arouse any suspicion at all."

  The chaotic blaring was shredded apart by the sounds of men dying. Dying horrific deaths. To make no mention of the shouts of "yeehaw" from a musical Tennessee accent.

  It's them!

  Rising from his throne, the boss reached for his gun. The tremble of his hand and the unsteady gait told Giselle and Wanda an invading force is most unexpected. An invading force of hot eighteen-year-old women must be a wet dream turned nightmare, Giselle surmised.

  "I'm heeerreee!" Sofi whistled, skipping through the door, while sending out a tweet on her phone.

  "Stay where you are!" the boss demanded, brandishing his gun at Sofi.

  That he wasn't fainting from Sofi having fox ears, a tail, and a fox nose made Giselle question his humanity.

  "Stay there or else!" the boss shouted, his gun hand wavering like a flag in the wind.

  Sofi couldn't give half of a shit about his orders if she was paid to in diamonds. Instead, she continued tweeting as she strolled to the boss.

  "Oh my god, Adam Levine just asked me for a nude photo."

  "Sofi, that's probably not Adam Levine!" Giselle barked. "And can you be a little more concerned about the man with the gun!"

  Desperate to avoid being a statistic in this massacre, the man fired off a warning shot. It made a loud pinging noise that was accompanied by one of the outside men's shouts for mercy.

  "Oh, hey, bro, didn't see you there!" Sofi claimed, and she actually sounded honest.

  The regret of his actions, the anger from what they'd led him to, and the denial of his fate. The man's face spelled it all in the moments before Sofi gave him an old school Miami beat-down. He was served the classic two-piece and a biscuit combo -- two punches to the face and one to the gut.

  "Sorry about that, Adam. And, of course, I can send you my Amex card to help produce your new album. My pleasure!"

  The shock of her roommate's UFC-like power, the bewilderment over her dismissal of a discharged fireman, the amazement over her gullibility, and the realization that she, Giselle Nyfall, was close to being sent back to California in a coffin -- Giselle felt all of this right before she fainted.

  ***

  "Ah, Mom, I had a terrible dream," Giselle whispered to a mother whose loving touch had wakened her slumber atop the finest silk linen.

  What favor it was to have Dawn Nyfall for a mom. And though Giselle's eyes may have been blurry, she could tell her redheaded mother was smiling down on her.

  "I dreamed when I went to Hemera, this kinky witch woman put me in a condo with these four girls who were really magical special ops. Maybe Russian!"

  "The only thing Russian," said her mom, "was us rushin' to save you."

  Her mom let loose in raucous laughter. Except this cackling redhead wasn't her mom. It was Sofi Poe, a redheaded supernova standing against the grey twilight of Giselle's bedroom mural. Which meant Giselle was still in New York with its constipated kidnappers and clout chasing foxes.

  "What happened?" Giselle asked.

  "Well ya got kidnapped by a pretty shady group," Sofi informed her. "But I already made it so I could track ya, sooooo we were able to save ya. And Madame Wanda, too!"

  "Track me? That is a gross invasion of privacy, Sofi."

  "It totally is. So anyway I did call Anika and I got her to buy that the men are all taken care of with her special sauce. She thanked me, I flirted with her, and she helped me think up things for the Fox Hole Challenge. Then I started up a campaign to mute SeaSeaSea after I read some woman's tweet about how he harassed her in a club last night."

  "You idiot," a perturbed Boston accented voice snapped. "If your thoughts came with a food label, it would say one hundred percent all-natural dumb fuck. That goofy bastard has been with us the whole time."

  "Oh my gosh, you're right! Well, anyway, can I tell you about the Fox Hole Challenge? You're gonna love it."

  Fleur stepped into the room with a narrowing of her pale blue eyes. While her eyes broadcast disdain, Giselle's eyes broadcasted raw lust. A lust born by Fl
eur being totally naked, save a green ribbon with white shamrocks in her hair.

  "So you're pretty naked," Giselle said, breath ragged.

  "Got some blood on my clothes, blood and brain matter. So fuck it, I'll just be naked."

  Sofi and Fleur contrasted. Fleur as naked as can be and Sofi dazzling in a pink and white midriff-exposing top and high-rise white shorts. Sofi looked as friendly as ever, while Fleur gave off the appearance of an Ab informercial model turned evil.

  "Thanks for saving me," Giselle said, rubbing the weariness out of her eyes.

  "You did good not getting those shits to kill you," Fleur informed her, though Giselle wasn't sure she did much worth note.

  "Of course we'd save you," Sofi announced. "You're our friend."

  For a girl who's klutziness had systematically eroded her friendships, this was akin to being given a vault of gold.

  "You were pretty close to some creep burning your skin to keep warm," Fleur added.

  "But what happened to Madame Wanda?" Giselle said, remembering that the kidnappers had come for the mystic.

  A high value target was what Madam Wanda called herself. In Giselle's world, high value targets tended to fall under the protection of a federal agency. There's little that made Giselle believe the psychic was under FBI surveillance.

  "She's fine," Sofi assured Giselle with a pat on the head. "That was a super good idea to go to see her. You're smarter than you look."

  I don't think that's the compliment you intended it to be.

  "Maybe that's your extraordinary talent. You're resourceful," Sofi decided.

  Fleur wore another big happy grin and announced, "Wanda hooked us up with how to save these cursed fucks. To save ’em we gotta fuck ’em."

  "Tastefully of course," Sofi hurried to add.

  "Nothing says tasteful like double penetration," Fleur quipped.

  Giselle rose upward and it felt like she was rising through the clouds towards a hymn of angels. She definitely got pixie dusted.

  "Hold on," Giselle instructed, raising her hands in front of her body. "You can't go from visiting a sexy witch to fighting demons, to killing kidnappers to having a magic orgy!"

  "You just described my March," Fleur offered.

  The lives of these cursed men hung on what appeared on Giselle's X-videos recommendations. It seemed too absurd to be true. But then again everything that happened to her was too absurd to be true. If an orgy could ward off Tryggr, then an orgy there must be.

  "But that talisman she gave you..." Sofi said slowly, her wide grey eyes narrowing in frustration. "One of the kidnappers kinda sorta ran off with it. But we might have a lead—"

  "Arrggggh!" A scream heavy with panic and anguish came from down the hall.

  Fleur and Sofi had effortless calm in the face of a possibly dying man. In fact, Fleur busied herself with flexing in Giselle's vanity mirror.

  "Gonna need you to explain that one," Giselle spat, her body tensing.

  Sofi's long lips just wore an easy-going smile, while Fleur kept flexing.

  All right, Giselle, you had a setback. But you're still the main character. That's the truth!

  Giselle wouldn't be deterred by non-answers. No endless spring of violence would stop this heroine. She darted past Sofi and Fleur, led on by the continued screams.

  This journey of heroism and valor amounted to her going a few feet across the hall to Tristabelle's room. The princess's room was supposed to be the height of opulence. One would prostrate themselves before the hand-crafted high headboard of her bed with its engravings of elven warriors. They would be bowed low by her mirror, which looked like Tristabelle should constantly be saying, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall..." with its intricate ornate carvings that displayed various women that Giselle recognized from fairytales. Though strangely many of the fairytale heroines were portrayed as elves.

  Giselle held her hand to her gaping mouth, shocked to find the princess not basking in her luxury but digging a $2,500 dollar pump into the kidnappers' boss' open shin wound. To say nothing about the straw-chewing, 4'11" volleyball player who was rooting her on.

  "Gah! What are you two doing?"

  "Nothing you need concern yourself with, Giselle."

  "Breaking the Geneva Conventions is something we should be concerned with," Giselle stammered.

  A long, weary huff fell out of Dusty's mouth. Giselle thought she heard Dusty mumble something about "being a little girl."

  The expensive pump was removed from the man's wound with Tristabelle unconcerned about it being covered in blood and puss. The designer could just hand-deliver her a new one.

  "Good heavens, Giselle! You act is if we are feasting on his disemboweled entrails. We are merely concerned well-wishers offering the finest of medical care in exchange for the small payment of information."

  "How did you even get this guy here?"

  Dusty stuck out her mammoth breasts with pride.

  Dusty with the double D's. She looks good even when she's violating human rights.

  "I hogtied him, and we dragged him and you back 'ere in my lady wife's limo."

  "I am not your lady wife."

  It wasn't possible for Giselle to detect with the confusion of zombified millionaires, poisonous glitter, and fainting, but it smacked her in the head that Dusty had a crush on Tristabelle.

  If we put them together, they're Trusty!

  "Ya know, Trusty, I watched a YouTube video by a renowned expert who lives in his mother's basement, and he says that torture doesn't actually get good results. So maybe be a bit less horrocore?

  Dusty wasn't down with the nice girl act and punted the man in the shins. Another scream ripped from his throat and the air took on a stench that Giselle wasn't sure she wanted to be identified.

  "Listen, buster, my pa is a professional wrassler, and I know 1,000 holds. So if you don't wanna be bleedin' like Stone Cold at Wrestlemania 13, you're gonna start spilling the beans."

  Giselle spread her arms in a plea, "Bro, you better talk!"

  "No English!" the man shouted in a heavy Mexican accent.

  There was an "are you serious?" look from Giselle to the girls. But then Tristabelle bowed in apology, sweeping disgust from Giselle's mind. Yes, that kind of elegance, grace, and that wonderful smile from those cupid bow lips. Who wouldn't forgive her her crimes against man?

  She should be in a movie!

  "Perhaps we were a bit overzealous," Tristabelle admitted. "Good sir, do you speak Gothic? Old Norse? Aramaic?"

  A moment to be extraordinary has arisen for Giselle. She might not have possessed the fighting ability or the casual disregard for human life of her roommates. But, damn it, her Spanish is C+.

  "I got an A+ in Spanish in twelfth grade, so let the expert handle this."

  Not before Dusty could offer a helpful interrogation guide, "You tell this punk that as he sits in my queen's room with drops of pee running down his leg, and drops of blood on the floor, that if he don't fess up his mama's gonna have drops of tears running down her cheek because I'm dang sure gonna kill 'em."

  Forgoing Dusty's script, Giselle kept her voice in a staunch calm. Her barely above average Spanish pulled a stumbling answer out of the bleeding man.

  "So he said something about a party. A masquerade," Giselle informed the other two. " I think it was a party. Maybe it was chicken? But, anyway, it's tomorrow night. The party. Or the chicken. I also got the name of the host. Belphegor."

  "Ah, one of the princes of hell," Tristabelle said, almost drooling.

  She's looking for an excuse to use that sword again. There's a whole different world inside this one where teenage princesses hunger for fights against demon princes.

  Giselle wasn't drooling, she was trembling. The only prince she wanted to meet was Prince Harry.

  Tristabelle's almond eyes gave Giselle a warm look over. For Giselle that was like getting mad respect from her videogame crush.

  "We must tell the others. Excellent work, Giselle! I had no
t the smallest faith in your ability to do anything but mouth breathe, but you have proven yourself a cut above the rabble."

  These people suck at giving compliments.

  Observing the man who's had his card pulled by what seems to be the Hemera branch of the Bloods, Giselle felt the tiniest pang of sympathy.

  "And him?"

  For more than a moment, it seemed Tristabelle had forgotten she had been torturing someone.

  "Oh, yes, him. The consulate shall take care of him."

  "And get him to a hospital?"

  "Sure, fine. I just need them to clean the carpet afterward."

  Ding! Ding! DIIIINNNG!

  There it was. The unpleasant sound of the doorbell that signaled the arrival of the aggrieved wives, the noise that was the herald to this insanity.

  With her being the one not naked and not committing crimes against humanity, Giselle figured it best to answer the door by her lonesome.

  "I'll go see who that is," Giselle told Dusty and Tristabelle to a wave of dismissal from the princess.

  Giselle left Tristabelle's room with its stench and headed towards the front door.

  Unfortunately, Giselle was no match for vampire speed. The still naked Fleur opened the door to an Asian woman, whose mouth went agape at Fleur's nudity, and a forty-something Asian man staring ahead, face slack, eyes glazed over. This woman didn't know, but Giselle knew he was cursed.

  "Naked? Of course you are, slut," the woman shot. "If he wants to walk from midtown to see you, then have him."

  Fleur gave a bored glance to the man who was swaying in place. "This is the dude that begged us all to take his phone number at Anika's party."

  The woman pushed the Asian man across the doorway. His capsizing to the floor bothered her not one bit as she turned on her heels and left.

  The man became a very well-dressed area rug as Fleur rested her foot on his back and sneered at his hapless, helpless, frail state.

  "This guy doesn't live here. I thought all the cursed guys did," Fleur noted, grinding her foot into his three thousand dollar polo shirt.

  "Maybe you'll learn something at the party?" Giselle answered, voice rising with hope.

  "What party?'