Art had grown to hate them all. After his bout with African tick bite fever, Art was never invited on another hunting trip, and every stuffed creature in the house was just another reminder of his own failure. But on this day, as Etson stepped aside and Art entered the front room, he forced himself to take it all in. He looked at the elephant. He imagined it charging him on the open plain. Merv had taken this elephant down with a 458 magnum rifle. Maybe one day Art wouldn’t need such a silly contraption. Maybe one day he would be a ruthless predator in his own right, one who had no fear of charging elephants, snarling crocodiles, or infectious ticks. A predator who feared nothing at all, because it had already conquered death. A hunter who stood atop all food chains, feasting on human flesh and blood.
He went into the kitchen and ordered the chef to, “Make me something that will get rid of a hangover, as fast as you can.” The chef responded with an omelet and some juice.
“Eggs?” Art said. “This is good for a hangover?”
“The eggs are okay, Sir,” said Anton, the live-in chef. “They will fill your stomach so you can have this.”
Anton laid a single white pill on the table next to the juice glass.
“It’s what your father always has after a long night,” Anton said.
“Will it make me sleepy?” Art said.
“It makes your father…relaxed,” said Anton. “He likes to take them before important days at work.”
That was good enough for Art. He popped the pill in his mouth and washed it down with three gulps of orange juice. Then he tore into the omelet. On a normal morning in the Tremblay house, Anton would make an omelet for Merv, a bowl of fruit for whatever young woman Merv had slept with the night before, and a protein shake for Art.
Art had never liked omelets before. They were his dad’s food, and it didn’t seem appropriate for him to imitate his dad. But if everything else was changing today, then why not his taste in food as well? Why not have omelets and little white pills every morning? Why not bring stunning young ladies to the house?
Stunning young ladies dressed in black.
Call me. Two words on a note from Nicky. Two words that could change everything. Two words that would begin the rest of his life.
He went upstairs, swished some Listerine in his mouth, and splashed on some aftershave. Then he pulled out his phone and dialed Nicky’s number.
“Hello, Art.”
“Hey.”
“How do you feel?”
“I feel good. Really good.”
“Good enough for company?”
“Yeah, I would love some company.”
Art silently pumped his fist in celebration.
Thirty minutes later, Etson was opening the door and Nicky was standing on the other side. She was like a vision come down from a very naughty version of heaven, where the girls wore big black boots, tight-fitting red tops, and oh-so-wonderfully-short leather skirts. Her makeup was dark and seductive. Red lipstick, dark eye shadow, heavy mascara…
Good grief this girl was hot.
She gave Art a seductive smile as she stepped inside, and right then he knew. Despite his best efforts over the years, despite driving to school every day in a German sports car, despite a body that was carefully carved over many hundreds of hours at the gym, despite a respected family name and a house that was frequently empty of parents, despite all of this, Art was a virgin. But Nicky was smiling at him now. She had invited herself over and came dressed in an outfit that would make a priest renounce his vows. She had left him a note at the hotel. She had latched onto him at the Masquerade and wooed him to her after-party. She had kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “Now everybody knows you’re with me.”
She was going to rock his world tonight.
“May I take your bag, Madame?” Etson said with a small bow.
“Yes, thank you,” Nicky said. Before she gave the gray snakeskin bag to Etson, Nicky reached inside and pulled out a stainless steel bottle. Small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, it reminded Art of the tiny urn of ashes his family received when his great aunt passed away.
“What is that?” Art asked. That little urn with Aunt Ruth inside had always creeped him out.
Nicky unscrewed the lid. As she did so, Art noticed a bandage on the little finger of her left hand. He remembered this from last night. She had been in a car accident and came to the party with a broken finger. But at the party her bandage was made of white medical tape. Today her bandage was black lace, so perfectly applied it might have been an accessory to her dazzling outfit.
She finished removing the lid and held the bottle out to Art.
“The Bloom family hangover cure,” she said. “We’ve used it for generations.
Cautiously, Art took the bottle and ran it under his nose. It smelled like cinnamon and cream.
“Who says I have a hangover?” Art said.
“If you don’t, you’ll like the taste of it anyway,” said Nicky. “I know I do.”
Art took a swig.
“Oh that’s good,” he said. “But it burns a little going down. What’s in it?”
“Some herbs, some milk, a little hair of the dog,” Nicky said.
“Hair of the dog?”
“You were drinking gin last night,” Nicky said.
“There’s gin in this? Doesn’t taste like it.”
“It’s just a hair,” Nicky said with a smile. “To help take the edge off any headache you might have.”
Art didn’t tell her that the edge was off already. His dad’s little white pill was in full effect now, and it was good, like ice water quenching the fiery ends of his nerves.
He took another drink from the bottle, finishing it off.
“That’s really tasty,” he said. “You’ll have to teach me how to make it.”
“Or maybe I’ll just need to visit you every time you’ve been partying,” Nicky said. She slid in closer to him and put her hand on his arm.
Art felt all the old habits trying to take over. The old Art would have played it safe, gone slowly, maybe even asked for permission before making a move.
It was time to leave the old Art behind.
He grabbed Nicky’s hand and lifted it to his chest. With his other arm, he pulled her close. Nicky let out a little yelp of pleasure at the gesture. It was a sound Art had never heard before, the sound of a girl feeling lust for him. They looked in each other’s eyes for a second. Then he kissed her.
It was the single most thrilling moment of his life. He didn’t know how she was going to react, and at first he felt like she might pull away. But she didn’t. She leaned into the kiss, put her hand on the back of his head, and opened her mouth wide to invite Art’s tongue inside.
He had to have her now. He might explode in his pants any minute. This girl, this day, the way everything had changed all at once, the new Art…he had never been so horny in his life. Art pushed hard into her lips so even their teeth were making contact. Her hands were all over his back now. She was moaning a little. Dear God this was actually going to happen. Nicky Bloom was in his house and they were kissing hard and she was giving him all the signals. For some reason, as they kissed, he imagined a bull standing in the dirt of some Spanish stadium. A big, raging bull, dragging its hoof on the ground, getting ready to charge. And he heard the trumpets egging it on. The bull was snorting now, lowering its horns, shaking its head. It was all power and strength and fury. Watch out world; here comes the bull!
Nicky pulled away from the kiss and Art gasped for air. He felt dizzy on his feet; he might have fallen over had Nicky not held him up.
“Dismiss your staff,” Nicky commanded. “I want you, and I don’t want anyone else to be in the house when I have you.”
Art took a deep breath—he felt like he had just run a marathon--and yelled, “Etson!”
His voice came out crackly and weak, but the butler heard him anyway. Etson stepped into the foyer immediately, as if he had been just outside the door waiting for his name to
be called.
“Yes, Master Tremblay,” he said.
“Everyone iss to gooo..”
He stopped himself. Something funny was going on with his tongue. The words were like rocks that had to tumble through his mouth before he could spit them out into the room. He focused his mind and tried harder.
“Everyone is to go to their quarters immediately,” he said. There. That wasn’t so hard. How weird that he had such trouble the first time. It was like Nicky had kissed him so hard his tongue forgot how to work. “Ms. Bloom and I wish to have the house to ourselves.”
“Right away Master Tremblay.”
As Etson bowed, Art was right back at it with Nicky, only now he was working on her neck, pulling her hair aside with his hand so he could put his lips under her ear, then down to her shoulder. He was pulling at her shirt to expose more skin when she stopped him.
“Not here,” she said.
Art nodded. “Come with me,” he said. He reached for her hand, thinking he’d take her upstairs, but suddenly her hand was hard to find.
“No, not upstairs,” Nicky said. She pushed her face close to his, like she was about to kiss him some more, but when their noses were touching, she whispered, “I want to do it in your father’s study.”
The study? Okay, if she got off by going to the….wait a minute.
“Nicky, did I saaayyy…”
It was more than his mouth that was stuck this time. The very thought seemed to be lodged in his brain, blocking the road for any other thoughts to pass through.
Did he say….what? What was he even talking about?
He didn’t know, and frankly, he didn’t care. Nicky wanted his body. He didn’t need to say anything. He just needed to do it. He needed to do it, do her, right now.
He started undoing his belt and tried to kick off his shoes, but for some reason, his feet didn’t understand what he was trying to tell them and he fell over. Were it not for Nicky, who caught him on the way down, he would have landed right on his butt.
“Art, this is going a lot faster than it’s supposed to,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m going too faaa…too faaaaasss..”
This girl, what was her name? Whatever. She was looking at him. That was all that mattered. An intensely, outrageously beautiful girl was looking at him.
“I don’t think you’re going to be with me for much longer, so we’ll just cut to the chase, okay Art?”
She looked right in his eyes as she spoke and he wondered if he had died and gone to heaven. Yes, maybe that’s why everything was so strange. The phone call from his dad, the hot girl charging into his house demanding a piece of him, the way the walls and the ceiling were spinning, the sense that he was about to turn into a cloud and float away…
He was dead. It was the only explanation. I have died and gone to heaven, and now I am in the presence of an angel.
“You’re my angel,” he whispered. “My guardian angel.”
“Art, I need to ask you something very important, okay?”
Yes, yes, ask me something. Ask me anything.
“You have a password to get into the computer system at Tremblay Property Management. I need to know what that password is.”
Password? Oh no. He wasn’t in heaven yet. He was at the gates and she needed the password.
But the password was bad. It was a bad password that he never should have used. He was being foolish the day he created it. Not just foolish. Immature. He knew that one day his password would cause him trouble. Now it was going to confine him to a life of eternal damnation. This was a test. He was at heaven’s gate and they wanted the password, and when he said it, they would know that he was a bad boy who wasn’t deserving of entry.
“No,” he whispered. “I don’t want to say it.”
“Art, everything’s going to be okay. It’s very important that you tell me the password. That’s your one and only job right now. You feel strange. You feel confused. Everything will be alright when you tell me the password.”
“It’s a test,” he said. “I’ve failed.”
“You haven’t failed any test yet, but you will fail if you don’t tell me the password. Be brave, Art. Say it out loud. Everything will be perfect and you’ll be right again once you tell it to me.”
Yes, be brave. That was the test. Be brave and admit your mistake. Ask for forgiveness. The truth shall set you free!
“My password is…”
“Yes, Art?”
“My password…”
“Tell me your password, Art!”
“Screw you dad!”
“What? Art…your password. What is your password?”
Art didn’t hear her. With those words, those last three words and the energy it took to speak them, Art collapsed in Nicky’s arms, falling into a deep, restful sleep.
Chapter 3
It was Jill’s idea to trick Art into giving them access to the database. She presented the idea to Nicky right after they got Art safely into a room at the Hamilton.
“He’s been following you around like a dog in heat all night,” Jill said. “I think you could have asked him for anything and he would have given it to you. The only reason I didn’t tell you to get the password during the party is that Art might wake up in the morning and realize his own blunder.”
“You’re thinking of drugging him, aren’t you?” Nicky said.
Jill nodded. “Here’s how it will go down. You’ll show up at Art’s dressed to kill. Big boots, a low-cut shirt, bright red makeup…wear something that will drive him crazy. I’ll get Patrick to give us something to loosen up Art’s tongue.”
Jill was referring to Patrick Hall, who had been a chemist at Ventigen before he joined the Network.
“With a good concoction in his belly, and the right outfit on you, Art will get so hot and bothered he won’t be able to contain himself,” she continued. “Your job will be to make Art log into the TPM database. Once you’re inside, you’ll give him a prick with some Addonox and put him to bed. Then I’ll come in and steal all the data. What do you think?”
“I think it’s brilliant,” said Nicky. “And I’m totally in. You’re aware that Gia’s not going to approve this, right? She’ll say it’s too much of a risk to the larger mission.”
“We’ll do it tonight before anyone has a chance to stop us,” Jill said. “I’ll call Patrick right now and tell him to get on a train this afternoon so we can have what we need by tonight.”
“Will he be able to get something together that fast?”
“I bet he has all the ingredients on the shelf,” said Jill. “Should be a simple brew, really. Some alcohol to bring out the horny beast that’s been following you all night, some narcotics to hasten the alcohol’s effects, some scopolamine to ensure Art does whatever you tell him to do, and some sodium pentothal to loosen his tongue.”
“Is it safe to mix all that stuff together?” Nicky asked.
“Beats me. Patrick will know.”
Nicky laughed. At that moment, Jill was letting her brilliant mind run without inhibition. It was fun to watch.
“What if Art doesn’t have enough access for you to do anything?” Nicky said. “He’s only a junior associate right now. He doesn’t become partner until his birthday.”
Jill’s face filled with a smile. “You just get me access. I need an empty house to work in and a password that will get me to an interface. I’ll do the rest.”
Fifteen hours after Jill spoke those words, Nicky gently laid Art on the floor, taking extra care with his head. She was worried about him. Patrick’s concoction was supposed to loosen up Art so he would do what Nicky told him to. It wasn’t supposed to knock him out.
Nicky checked his pulse. It was slow but strong. His temperature was fine. His breathing was deep and regular. Deciding Art was okay for now, Nicky slipped out of her wildly uncomfortable boots (a loaner pair from Jill’s collection that were a full size too small) and ran to the coat closet by the front d
oor. She found her handbag on a shelf against the back wall. She pulled out her phone and called Jill.
“He’s out,” Nicky said, “but wait where you are. I’m gonna pull the car to the back side of the house.”
“Is someone out there?”
“Yes, I’ll explain later. Just sit tight.”
Nicky ended the call and grabbed her car keys from the bag. Then she went through the foyer, past the kitchen, and into the hallway that led to the back door. There were two cars and a Jeep parked out back already, but there was still plenty of room for the BMW Nicky brought. Strolling leisurely around the side of the house and out to the front, Nicky found her car in the center of the circular driveway, right where she’d parked it.
Her two followers were still where she’d left them. They had parked their green station wagon behind the mulberry tree down the street.
Nicky shook her head. Whoever these spies were that Melissa had sent to follow her, they were about as subtle as a rhinoceros. Two teenage boys in a junker of a car who made only a minimal effort to hide themselves. Clearly, Melissa didn’t think professionals were in order, and why would she? If Nicky was her slave now, the worst that Nicky would do is report back to Melissa that two kids were following her.
It would have been easy for Nicky to lose these jokers on the way to Art’s, but she figured it was better to let them tag along. On the face of it, there was nothing suspicious about what she was doing. Art had come to her after-party last night; she was coming to his house tonight. So long as the spies reported that Nicky came here alone, there wasn’t much for Melissa to worry about.
Nicky pulled the car around to the back side of the house, parked next to the Jeep, and did a final check to make sure there were no cameras or spying eyes nearby. Confident that no one could see her, Nicky opened the trunk and let Jill out. Together, they went back into the house and found their way to Art.
“He’s just laid out in the middle of the floor?” Jill said. “I thought you were going to put him in his bed.”
“We never made it that far,” said Nicky. “The drink that Patrick made—Art started tripping out a few minutes after he drank it, and then he was gone. I didn’t even get to use the Addonox.”
The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two) Page 3
