Interview with the Vixen

by Rebecca Barrow

  IT’S ALMOST DAWN when the others arrive at Cheryl’s.

  Cheryl brings them up to the library, and Veronica would laugh at the range of expressions on their faces—Dilton confused, Betty worried, Archie yawning wide—if she wasn’t dreading telling them about Reggie and Moose.

  “First things first, let’s get this out of the way,” Veronica says, standing in front of her friends. “Cheryl is now fully caught up on the current Riverdale vampire saga, and since her family’s hotel is going to be the staging ground for our Big Bad final battle, she’s now part of the team.”

  The boys sit, but Betty stays standing, her eyes narrowed at Cheryl. “I thought you didn’t care about what was going on,” she says. “I mean, that’s what you said the other day when I told you I was worried about V.”

  Cheryl waves a manicured hand. “That was so long ago,” she says.

  “Um, three days!”

  “Three days, a lifetime, whatever,” Cheryl says. “Didn’t you hear what Veronica said? I’m on the team. Deal with it.”

  Veronica elbows her but only gently. “Play nice,” the move says, and then Veronica nods at Betty. “Trust me, B. She’s on our side.”

  Betty folds her arms and nods. “Fine.”

  Veronica takes a deep breath. Now for the hard part. “Something else you need to know: Reggie and Moose are dead.”

  “What?” Archie snaps to attention. “Ronnie, what?”

  “Reggie and Moose are … dead?” Betty repeats, her eyes wide with shock. “Are you—I mean—dead dead?”

  Veronica wrings her hands and tries her hardest not to look away from her friends. They deserve to know what happened—the truth, and not some story that might make Veronica look better than she really is.

  She killed them. That’s what happened.

  “The thing is—”

  “They were going to kill me.” Cheryl’s voice is loud, and she holds herself tall, even though Veronica can see her hands shaking from here. “Reggie and Moose were attacking me, and if Veronica hadn’t gotten here in time, I’d probably be dead. Or turned. And if she hadn’t killed them—” Cheryl throws her shaking hands up. “Who knows who else they’d have killed by now.”

  Dilton looks up at Veronica. “They were both attacking?” he asks. “So—Moose was …”

  Veronica nods. “Reggie must have turned him. It all happened so fast, and if there was any way I could have ended it without killing them, I would have, but they weren’t going to let that happen.” She takes another deep breath. “I did what I had to do.”

  The room is silent for a long minute, and Veronica isn’t sure whether they believe what she’s just said. Whether they think she’s a murderer or a hero.

  What am I? she thinks. Something between the two?

  Archie is the first to break the silence. “Well. I guess this is the world we live in now.” He looks at Veronica. “Reggie and Moose made their choices. You did what you had to,” he says, an echo of her own words. “No one can blame you for that, Ronnie.”

  Dilton nods, and Betty, too. “If it was a choice between letting them rampage through town or saving everyone, then you made the right choice,” Betty says.

  Veronica exhales slowly. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I know.”

  “So,” Dilton says, with a clap of his hands that breaks the tension somewhat. “You stopped one potential crisis. What about the other, bigger, crisis? What are we going to do about that?”

  “That’s where I come in,” Cheryl says. “I know every inch of the new hotel, and every single part of the plans for the opening on Friday.”

  “That’s not all.” Veronica picks up the large, heavy book she and Cheryl have spent all night poring over. Inside is the story of how Riverdale came to be—and more, besides. “Cheryl showed me this. You know what’s in here?”

  “Something boring that you’re about to summarize for us?” Archie says, hopeful.

  Veronica makes a face. “Well. Yes,” she says. “But it’s not boring. You want to know how Theodore Finch really connects to our town?”

  “He’s a founder,” Dilton says. “Or, his family were founders. That’s what my research said.”

  Veronica drags a wingback chair over to the table and sits, like she’s ready for story time. “Sure,” she says, settling in. “But it’s not quite as simple as that.”

  The Finches were, as they had originally thought, one of the families who’d been instrumental in turning Riverdale from the small mill settlement it had begun as into a thriving town of entrepreneurs, socialites, and chancers, back in the early 1900s. The first family to pour money into the town and make it their own. They built properties and ran businesses up and down what became the Main Street of Riverdale. And they brought power and more money to the town through their connections with New York tycoons and their young families wishing for a quieter life in a smaller pond.

  The three families—Lodge and Blossom and Finch—worked side by side, an uneasy alliance, according to the book’s author. There was much sniping back and forth, deals poached from one another, and boundaries crossed, but the town’s success in the beginning depended on all three families bringing their best and combining it. So after a while, things settled down: no more double-crossing, no more shady deals. Everyone was in alignment and kept the town thriving.

  “Okay,” Dilton says after Veronica’s told them this. “So what happened to the Finches?”

  Veronica flips to a section of photographs. “Get this. Their entire estate burned down,” she says. “They all died, and that was it—the end of the Finch line. It says the fire started in the early hours of the morning and burned for a while before the nearest neighbors saw and brought help. By the time they were able to put the fire out and it was safe to go inside, there was barely anything to go inside of.”

  “They assumed all of the family had died,” Cheryl says, pulling her hair over one shoulder. “Theodore; his mother, Jeanne; his father, Patrick; and his sister, Odette.”

  “But,” Veronica says, “as we all know—Theodore is not dead.”

  “So what happened?” Betty finally sits, crossing her legs, her foot tapping the air. “He escapes from the fire and then becomes a vampire and hides out for a hundred-some years? Or—was he a vampire before he died? I mean—” She pauses, her face thoughtful. “Before he supposedly died. Before the fire.”

  “I don’t know.” Veronica looks at the family portrait in the book before her. It’s a formal picture, the four Finches posed in front of their family home. Theodore looks exactly the same, not one more line on his face or a hint of age in his eyes to separate him from the young man in the picture. But it’s his sister Veronica can’t stop looking at.

  A girl just like her—daughter of a founding family, heir to a legacy. In the photo she’s smiling, a knowing smile, dark hair like Veronica’s set in long waves that spill down a pale silk dress. According to the information given, she would have been only a few years older in this picture than Veronica is right now: early twenties, maybe.

  Betty’s gotten up and come to stand at Veronica’s side, examining the picture, too. “She’s pretty,” Betty says, pointing at Odette.

  “Wonder what she was like,” Veronica says. “Isn’t it weird to think of her, burning to death, trapped in that house?”

  “God, I can’t imagine,” Betty says, and she takes the book from Veronica so she can look closer.

  Veronica turns back to the others. “So we know who Theodore is and where he came from,” she says. “But it doesn’t really change anything. We still need to know exactly how we’re going to handle things on Friday. We’ve tried attacking him before, and it didn’t work, because we weren’t really prepared. This time—”

  “Hold on,” Betty interrupts, and comes forward with the book flipped to a new page, a new photo. “Look at their house.”

  “What about it?” Veronica says. “I’m trying to focus on—”

  “Look, here,” Betty says, jabbin
g at a grainy black-and-white photo with a pink-painted nail. “See this old road sign here? And the church spire way in the background?”

  Veronica squints. The house isn’t like any she’s seen in town before, but of course it wouldn’t be; it doesn’t exist anymore. Hasn’t existed for close to a century. “Yeah, the sign, the spire,” she says. “So?”

  “So this place, their estate, it was on the west side,” Betty says, pointing again. “See the angle of the spire? That’s the angle you see when you come down over the hill and that land opens out in front of you.” She stops, and looks up at Cheryl. “Or, it used to. Until the Blossoms started building there.”

  And like that, it all slips perfectly into place. Veronica looks at Cheryl, too, sitting there with her mouth half-open like she’s just catching up to what Veronica and Betty already understand.

  “Your family’s new hotel is built on Theodore’s family’s estate,” Betty says. “His takeover isn’t just about power.”

  No. No, it’s not that at all.

  Veronica flicks her fangs out and runs her tongue over their sharp points. “It’s about revenge.”

  AFTER THE REVELATIONS, the day must go on.

  While the others go to school—keep the everything’s-completely-fine-and-normal charade going, Dilton said—Veronica heads upstairs to take a blissful rest in Cheryl’s bed. Cheryl’s parents won’t be back until evening, and Veronica desperately needs to sleep.

  She falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the silk pillow, all daylight blocked with thick curtains.

  And she dreams about the room burning down around her. Flames eating up the curtains and heat swelling around her, and her body pinned to the bed by some invisible weight, no way to move, nowhere to escape. She can only lie there as the blaze creeps closer and closer still, until it catches hold of her and her skin begins to burn and blister, glowing deep dark red, any scream of pain caught inside her throat by the smoke that’s choking her.

  Then the dream morphs and shifts, becomes Veronica back out in the woods digging an endless hole while Reggie and Moose taunt her from the dirt surrounding her. Murderer, they sing, over and over. Murderer, murderer, murderer!

  When she wakes it’s in a panic, sweat beaded on her forehead and a hand to her pounding heart. “It’s not real,” she whispers to herself. “It’s not real, that’s not you. It’s not real.”

  She cannot shake the dreams, but she tries, anyway. She spends some time sketching out a plan of attack for tomorrow, using the blueprints Cheryl gave her before she left for school. The first time she tried to kill Theodore, she’d been surprised by her parents. During their escape with Archie, Veronica had let herself be surprised again, by Theodore himself.

  This time around she doesn’t want anything unexpected to happen, nothing that might rock her focus or endanger the plan’s success—and, in turn, her friends’ lives.

  I have to kill Theodore, she thinks. That’s the only way to end this. If I don’t, he or his minions could turn Betty and Archie and Dilton, and they won’t be like me—they won’t be free, making their own choices, picking their own battles. They’ll be more of Theodore’s mind-controlled zombies.

  And Cheryl will be right in their crosshairs.

  The Veronica of a week ago would be amazed by the loyalty and protectiveness she now feels toward Cheryl, but it’s there. That night they went through together, the things they had to do—they’re bonded now. And if Theodore wants to kill Cheryl, he’s going to have to kill Veronica first.

  She focuses on the blueprints again, mapping several routes in and out of the building. They’re going to need to be fully stocked up on weaponry, and Veronica’s going to need to feed before they fight.

  Her phone buzzes, and she sees Betty’s text: On our way to pick you up!

  Veronica smiles and pushes the blueprints away and her dreams aside. “Fully prepped” includes being ready for the gala itself, and that means shopping for all of Veronica’s favorite things. Gowns and heels and jewels, she thinks. Oh freakin’ my.

  VERONICA FLINGS BACK the curtain and steps out, bare feet on the dressing room’s plush carpet. “I think this is the one.”

  Cheryl claps excitedly, and Betty gestures for her to spin. Veronica does, the narrow-cut black gown shimmering under the lights as she turns. In the dressing room behind her are all the gowns she’s already tried on and rejected: red tulle was too dramatic, navy fifties-style too costumey, and the rest were just a combination of too small or too Old Veronica.

  But this one, a sleek dress that clings and gleams, razor-thin straps crisscrossing Veronica’s back and shoulders, is perfection.

  She turns back to the mirror and drops one hip, hitching her knee out through the high slit in the skirt. Around her thigh is a holster, of course meant for guns, but Veronica’s not a fan of firearms. No; it’s a perfect fit for her stakes, though. “See?” she says. “Easy access to weaponry while still being extremely Bonjour, oui, delighted to be at your event, merci beaucoup pour l’invitation.”

  Another bonus about this dress: It makes Veronica look startlingly like her favorite ancestor, Mirabelle Luna Lodge, a wild child from way back in the Lodge family line. Mirabelle’s skin was a deeper brown, her hair intense curls, but it’s the determination behind Veronica’s eyes that really brings to mind the image of her relative. In the few pictures they have of Mirabelle, she’s dressed to kill, and the story goes that she was always in the center of some storm or another, causing havoc both on the island she called home and in Riverdale, when she arrived.

  She watches in the reflection as Betty stands behind her and picks up the dangling ends of the straps, ties them into a swooping bow. “You’re only going to carry the stakes?”

  “What else can I have?” Veronica says. “It’s not like I can take the crosses, or the garlic, or the holy water. I’m trying to kill Theodore, not myself.”

  Cheryl kneels and lifts the hem on the non-slit side. “You could always wear one on this ankle, too,” she says. “It won’t show, if you put it in the right place.”

  Veronica runs her hands over her hips. “Excellent,” she says, and gives herself a fanged smile. “Now let’s get you two done.”

  When they leave the department store, it’s with an armful of bags each and Veronica’s credit card burning in her back pocket. She bought Betty’s pale lavender dress and the gold strappy sandals to match, plus two sharp, slim knives from the homewares section. Silver, she’d said as the sales assistant handed the bag to Betty. You need to protect yourself, B.

  Cheryl already has a dress, she says, but she’s bought herself a beautiful new necklace: three long, interwoven delicate chains dotted with a rainbow of jewels. Pure silver, the sales assistant had said as Cheryl admired herself in the handheld mirror, 2.5 carats throughout. And Cheryl had laid down her black card without even asking the price.

  Veronica swings the bag containing her gown, carefully wrapped up in soft tissue paper. “You know what we need?” she says. “One of those, like, fancy hidden labs. You know how in a movie, at this point they go get all their spy gadgets from the unassuming spymaster who they, up until that moment, just thought was the barista at their local coffee shop? We need that.”

  “Isn’t that Dilton?” Cheryl says. “You just described exactly Dilton.”

  “Sure, but he doesn’t have a lab,” Veronica says. “He has a smelly boy’s bedroom and that’s about it.” She glances at Betty, walking beside her silently. “B? You okay?”

  Betty snaps back to the moment. “What? Oh, yeah.” She shakes her head as they serpentine through the parking lot toward Cheryl’s shiny red Mustang. “I just can’t stop thinking about the fire that destroyed the Finches’ estate. How horrible it must have been for them to be trapped inside, surrounded by the flames, knowing there was no way of getting out of there alive.”

  “Except for Theodore,” Cheryl says darkly.

  Veronica keeps quiet. It’s been bothering her, too. She re
members a story she once read, about another house that burned down back in the 1930s, killing the entire family inside—and theirs wasn’t a small one. They had something like seven or eight kids, plus the parents. Except that afterward, searching the scorched rubble for human remains, the authorities found nothing.

  Did the old Riverdale fire department even search for the bodies of the Finches? she wonders. Or did they just assume there could be no survivors? How did Theodore make it out of there alive—and was it really an accident, like the history book described it, or did something more sinister happen?

  Veronica throws her bags into the trunk when they reach Cheryl’s car and then slides into the passenger seat. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to erase the film of fire she’s seeing over everything. No time for that: They have less than twenty-four hours until the gala now, and the pressure is beginning to weigh on Veronica. It’s odd, but part of her wants to talk to her parents—she’s never gone this long without seeing them before, and their lifelong connection is threatening to override her clear focus. Her parents are not her parents anymore, she knows. Or—maybe they are. Just as the vampirism has brought out parts of Veronica she’s always repressed, maybe her parents in moroi form are only the purest versions of their selfish selves.

  Not maybe, she thinks. God, why am I so hell-bent on giving them the benefit of the doubt? Daddy threatened to kill Archie. Mom wants me to be on their side. There’s nothing good left in them, not really. Not while Theodore has them in his grasp.

  “Veronica?” A hand waves in front of her eyes. “Hello?”

  “What?” Veronica glances at Cheryl, looking at her expectantly, one hand on the steering wheel.

  Cheryl arches her brows. “I said, where to now?”

  Veronica tries to forget about her parents or, more specifically, how she has been slowly trying to convince herself that killing her parents is something she’s okay with. Home, she wants to say, but she can’t.

  She misses her bed and her bathtub and the quiet that surrounds her at night. But home is only another trap now. “Back to yours, I guess,” she says. That’s where the blueprints are; that’s where they will solidify tomorrow’s plan of attack.