Interview with the Vixen

by Rebecca Barrow

  I’m nothing like you, Veronica wants to say, but it would be a lie. Hasn’t she just listened to Odette’s story thinking the entire time how oddly similar their lives are? Daughters of founding families. Ambitious and driven but held back by dismissive fathers. Drawn to the darkness of being a mythic creature turned real.

  And besides, she knows none of that is even what Odette means right now.

  “I had to do what I did.” Veronica shuts her eyes against the image of the ragged grave that floods her mind, the dead bodies of Moose and Reggie piled in there together, limbs tangled and blood still slicked across their skin. “I had to kill them. Or they would have killed Cheryl and probably half the town.”

  “Of course,” Odette says smoothly. “Of course you had to. And you didn’t like it at all, did you? I’m sure you didn’t. I’m sure you didn’t take any pleasure in the way you defeated those boys, in the way it felt to take a life. Two lives. Veronica? Tell me. You didn’t like it, did you?”

  Veronica squeezes her eyes tighter shut.

  They’re underwater and she aims her stake right for Moose’s heart, and it sinks into him, and she watches the un-life drain out of his eyes.

  She rises out of the water, dragging their corpses like prizes, like they’re her reward for being such a good vampire girl.

  She digs the grave and pretends to feel sad and sickened, but there is a small, powerful part of her hidden somewhere deep inside that is awed by what she’s done. No one will mess with her anymore. No one will tell her what she can and can’t do—not now.

  She feels a tear snake its way under her eyelid and down her cheek. “I killed them,” she says quietly.

  Odette makes a sad sound. “Because they deserved it,” she says. “And because that’s what you’re made to do. Veronica—”

  Odette’s hands tug at hers and Veronica opens her eyes, finds now that she can move again. She rises when Odette pulls her up and lets herself be guided to the back wall of the basement.

  Odette’s hands are soft and delicate, cold as they are, and there’s a kind of relief in letting her take charge, Veronica finds. Odette leans forward and whips a cloth from a frame, unveiling the mirror behind it, and then she takes her place at Veronica’s shoulder.

  “Look,” she says, and Veronica does as she says. The two of them reflected there together, Odette’s dress pristine where Veronica’s is battle-worn, Odette’s skin pale white where Veronica’s is warm honey, but outside of that they are so similar. Dark hair and intense red eyes, a wildness to the shape of their mouths, the flash of their fangs inside. “People see small, insignificant girls when they look at us. Not because that’s what we are, but because it’s what they want us to be. They can’t stand the idea that we could ever be more than that—can’t stand the idea that we could force our way out of the places they’ve put us in. But look at us. You know what power feels like now, don’t you?”

  Veronica nods, her eyes fixed on Odette’s mirror ones.

  “You know what happens if you kill me?” Odette speaks into her ear. “You lose all of that. You have to go back to the girl you were before, and no one will ever respect you the way you deserve to be respected. But—” She draws a hand down the side of Veronica’s face. “You could join me. Take your rightful place in control of this town, like I’m going to. A Lodge and a Finch daughter, ruling like we always should have. Don’t you want that?”

  Veronica can see it clearly, the life Odette is offering her. No one ever telling her she’s not smart enough. Not having to answer to her father, to smile and curtsy like the princess he likes to call her. And best of all: No more pretending that she is palatable and perfect. She will be the New and Improved Veronica Lodge, the one with the razor-wire teeth and loud heart, and she’ll rule with Odette, the daughters of Riverdale taking this town for all it has. There’ll be no Stepford wife future for her, and no more fighting over stupid boys that mean nothing to her, really, and most thrilling of all, no need to act like she’s disturbed by what she’s capable of.

  Don’t you want that? Veronica hears Odette’s voice slip-sliding its way around her brain and down deep into her heart, and she thinks, Yes, I want that, I want to be this me for the rest of time, and I want to show everybody what a mistake they’ve made underestimating Veronica Lodge for so freakin’ long, and I want to tell Betty—

  Her heart thuds to a crashing stop. Betty.

  Betty’s waiting for you, remember? That voice is not Odette’s; it’s her own, a thin and desperate part of herself calling up through the rapture Veronica’s twisted up in as she watches Odette smile in the mirror. Betty’s waiting for you, and if you don’t do what you came here to do, she’s going to die. And Dilton—he helped you survive; he found you scared and did everything you asked of him. And then Archie, you saved him from death once, are you just going to leave him to it this time?

  And Cheryl.

  Cheryl.

  “You’re going to burn the Blossoms,” Veronica says, careful to keep her voice neutral.

  “We’re going the burn the Blossoms.” Odette smiles, wide and proud. “Well, we’re going to burn Cheryl. Poetic, don’t you think? The lone surviving Finch daughter taking the lone Blossom daughter from Penelope and Clifford. And now that they’ve been turned, they can have the rest of their existences to feel that loss. It’s what they deserve. I wanted to put an end to them years ago, but I realized just killing them would be so boring. This is so much sweeter. I think it’s all worked out perfectly. Now I can have everything I want and I have you.”

  Veronica stills. Odette has her.

  That’s what everyone always thinks, that they have Veronica. Archie, when he deigns to choose her, and Reggie, when she’d let him kiss her, and even sometimes Betty, when she expects her picture-perfect best friend, even if she doesn’t realize that’s what she’s doing. Every other person in her pre-vamp life always thinks she’s something to have.

  You’re just like them, she realizes as she stares at Odette, almost her twin in the mirror. You don’t see me for me. I’m just another trinket for you to own, another prize on your path to being the richest, bestest vampire ruler in Riverdale and beyond.

  “Okay.” Veronica nods, her reflection’s head bobbing, and for a moment Odette looks so pleased with her that Veronica’s heart swells and she won’t, she can’t—

  No. I will.

  “We’re going to have such fun,” Odette says. “You won’t—”

  Veronica moves.

  She pushes Odette back so suddenly that Odette flies clear across the room and Veronica twists as she crouches to snatch her last remaining stake from its place at her ankle. She covers the distance between her and Odette, on the floor, in half a second.

  Odette opens her mouth to let loose a piercing, grinding cry, and it rips at Veronica’s ears; the walls begin to move as they had upstairs earlier, but Veronica is singularly focused.

  “I might be a bitch,” she says, “but I’m not going to be your bitch.”

  She drives the stake deep into Odette’s heart.

  THE HEAT IS creeping up her legs.

  Cheryl cries out, desperate, for someone—anyone—to help her. It’s pointless, she knows: Betty and Dilton and Archie are outnumbered so thoroughly that any attempt to save her would only lead to their own deaths. And even then it might be too late.

  If she looks down, she will see the flames taking hold. The vampire who lit the pyre stands back, the torchlight illuminating her face. “Mom.” Cheryl sobs the words, watching the light dance over her mother’s blank face. It’s not her, it’s not really her, she knows, but what does that matter now.

  Except then, a change comes over her mother’s face. One moment she’s blank, and the next …

  It’s like the life has slipped back into her, as if she’s suddenly herself again, and as her eyes focus on her daughter a scream rips from her mouth. “Cheryl!”

  “Mom!”

  For a moment Cheryl sees the horrified r
ealization play out on her mom’s face, the realization that she’s about to watch her daughter burn to death.

  Mom, Cheryl wants to call out again, but the smoke from the pyre chokes the word from her.

  This is it, she thinks. I’m going to die.

  She locks eyes with her mom, trying to say all the most important things with just a look.

  And then—

  Her mother’s eyes roll back and she drops to the ground.

  The wood crackles, loud snaps and rips. Cheryl struggles against the rope binding her to the pyre, holding her close to the fire creeping closer and closer to her flesh, and at the same time she watches in wonder as the vampires surrounding the pyre drop, just as her mother did.

  Veronica, she thinks.

  The army falls, and Cheryl calls out with renewed ferocity. “Betty!”

  The flames lick her feet.

  THE NOISE ODETTE makes is unholy.

  Veronica twists the stake as deep as she can go and throws her head back, letting out her own wild wail.

  Beneath her Odette’s body begins to collapse in on itself: her pretty face goes first, those red eyes rolling as her eye sockets cave in, and the flush on her cheeks becomes blood vessels bursting, a rush of dark, sticky blood oozing through the cracks in her skin.

  Veronica pants as she watches Odette die. It’s not like when she killed Theodore, or Reggie and Moose: It’s as if Odette’s soul is fighting with every remaining piece of herself to cling on to life, even as her body decays, acid and blood and shredded flesh ripping and separating from bone.

  I did it, Veronica thinks, and she allows herself a triumphant smile, a loud laugh. I did it! I killed her!

  She swings her legs over the remains of Odette, her dying cry stuttering and fading out. “Sorry,” she says. “I don’t think the dry cleaner’s going to be able to get the blood out.”

  Odette’s voice finally falls silent; Veronica turns away from her, but stops.

  Take no chances, she thinks, and spins back.

  There’s a toolbox in one corner, and Veronica throws it open, draws out a large saw with a gleaming silver blade. How do you kill a vampire?

  A stake through the heart, or decapitation.

  “Both feels good,” she says to herself, and goes back to the body that used to house Odette, a sunken mess there on the floor.

  Veronica straddles the remains and presses the blade to its throat, takes a deep breath. “This is for Cheryl,” she says, and begins to saw.

  THE FLAMES HISS as they’re extinguished, and Cheryl mimics the sound as Dilton unties her. “My feet,” she says thickly. “I don’t think I can walk.”

  Archie takes her in his arms, and Cheryl winces when she catches sight of her feet and ankles. The skin is red and blistered, throbbing so intensely it’s all she can do not to pass out.

  But she’s alive.

  And so is everyone around them. The former mob is shifting, waking, and Cheryl can see the mayor rubbing at her eyes, their high school principal sitting up, her own mother coming to with a shocked expression on her face.

  The destroyed ballroom is filled with the hum of confused voices. Cheryl catches pieces of them: What happened— Why are we— Smells like— Some kind of attack— What’s that noise?—

  She snaps out of her haze. “Veronica!”

  She points and the others follow her finger. Yes, that noise is Veronica, roaring back up to the hotel on a motorcycle, her dress and hair streaming behind her.

  “She’s alive!” Betty says. “V! Veronica!”

  And then, knowing that it’s all over, that they’re all alive, that Veronica is okay, thank god, Cheryl lets the sweet blackness take her.

  VERONICA SPRINTS THROUGH the waking crowd to reach her friends. Are they all—yes, they’re all there: Dilton and Archie and Betty and Cheryl—and she exhales, panic seeping out with it. All she’s thought about as she raced from her house back to the hotel was whether she had acted in time, or if she had let Odette seduce her for too long and now her friends would be dead; Cheryl would be on fire.

  But Veronica careens into Betty, throwing her arms around her. “You’re okay!”

  “Because of you.” Betty squeezes Veronica tight. “You did it, V.”

  Behind Betty, Veronica can see her father. He’s sitting up against the wall, raking a hand through his always artfully disheveled hair, and when he looks up his eyes meet Veronica’s.

  His face fills with surprise.

  “Veronica?”

  “Daddy.” She disentangles herself from Betty and passes through her friends, pausing briefly to look at Cheryl in Archie’s arms. She looks a little hurt, but she’s alive, and Veronica almost can’t believe it. That Cheryl came so close to death, that Veronica came so close to losing her new friend.

  Then she continues over to her father. When she gets there, she stares down at him, and it’s all she can do not to walk back the way she came. Instead, she puts her hands on her waist. “Guess your plan didn’t exactly work out, did it?”

  He frowns up at her. “Plan?”

  “Oh, don’t try to play that confused little innocent act,” Veronica says. “You know what you did, Daddy. And guess what? I finished it. Me.”

  Her father slumps, but his face stays confused. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Veronica,” he says. “I don’t even—I mean, what the hell happened here? Was there some kind of accident?”

  Veronica takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. She hasn’t been sure this whole time—ever since her mother said that they had agreed to Theodore’s plan before he turned them—whether they were really involved or not. But her father’s confusion seems to tell her exactly what she wanted to know.

  They weren’t a part of this. It was all Theodore’s—no, Odette’s—lies. And that means her parents are hers again.

  She drops to her knees and throws her arms around her father. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, an accident. That’s exactly what happened.” She pulls back, scanning the rest of the residents coming back to their human selves. Everybody looks lost, bewildered. Like they have no memory at all of the havoc they were part of.

  Then she spots the face she was looking for and jumps to her feet. “Mom!”

  She leaves her father there and rushes to her mother, who is gently probing a small cut on her forehead. “Veronica,” her mom says, sounding as lost as she looks. “What happened to me? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Veronica says. “And you’re going to be fine, too. Come on—” She helps her mom to her feet and leads her over to join her father. “There was … a gas leak,” she says to both of them, the only explanation that comes to mind. Will it explain the damage, or the drained pool, or the general sense of chaos pervading the night? Maybe not, but gas leaks make people do weird things. A gas leak could, like, totally make a group of people build a pyre in the middle of a hotel ballroom.

  “You should go home,” Veronica says, and then remembers the havoc she wreaked at their home. “Or … maybe get a room for tonight. I mean, not here. Another hotel that isn’t leaking gas. Sound good?”

  Her father shakes his head, brow furrowed in confusion still. “A gas leak—”

  “Yes,” Veronica says, cutting him off. “So you should probably get out of here, in case it gets bad again. Or, like, goes boom or something. Maybe spread the word to everyone else, too—okay? Perfect.”

  She leaves her parents staring at each other and makes her way through the ballroom back to her friends. “They don’t remember,” she says when she reaches them. “Look around—it looks like nobody remembers anything.”

  Dilton adjusts his glasses and screws his face up as he thinks. “It makes sense, sort of,” he says. “If you consider the mind-control aspect—if they weren’t in control of their nervous system at all, then it follows they might—”

  Veronica tunes him out and looks back toward her father. He’s plucking at his clothes, the spot of blood on his shirt collar. And suddenly
Veronica is not intimidated in the slightest by this heap of a man, this arrogant man who never seems to see what Veronica truly has to offer.

  He didn’t save the town; she did. He didn’t kill Odette. He has no clue who Odette even is, can’t remember being manipulated by Theodore. So really, who has the power now?

  You were never in control, Daddy, she thinks, but she’s not angry so much as satisfied. And you will never be in control of me, ever again.

  Veronica turns back to her friends. Archie looks tired, Cheryl still half passed out in his arms. Dilton’s shivering, and Betty looks like she needs a really good shower, but overall they seem to be okay. It could have been so much worse.

  For a moment, I was willing to let it be worse.

  “We should get out of here,” Betty says. “Cheryl could probably use some bandages.”

  Veronica nods and smiles as Cheryl opens her eyes and focuses on her. “Wakey wakey, princess.”

  “Veronica.” Cheryl frowns, her head rolling against Archie’s chest. “Like, could you have taken any longer to kill the freakin’ strigoi? I don’t think I’ll be able to wear heels ever again.”

  Veronica makes a face. “Still a pain in the ass,” she says.

  And Cheryl smiles. “Oh, you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Come on,” Betty says. “Let’s get the hell out of here before people start asking more questions we can’t really answer.”

  The five of them carve a path through the mess, leaving the smoke-filled ballroom and carcass of a pool and the confused once-vampires in their wake. The hotel is still lit brightly against the dark night, and Veronica takes a moment to look at the stars hovering above the trees.

  This is what Odette saw on that night, lying with the fire eating her home, half-alive under the night sky. Veronica watches the pinprick lights blink in and out on the velvet night, and for a second, she is filled with sorrow. For the girl that Odette could have been if she hadn’t so thoroughly corrupted herself, and for the wreckage of her body that Veronica left behind.