Jane Vows Vengeance jb-3

by Michael Thomas Ford

  “Very good, young lady,” he said. “And what is today?”

  “Thursday,” Jane answered, trying not to stare at his unusual appearance.

  “Thursday,” the man repeated. “That explains the cough, then. It’s a good thing you didn’t come a day later, as I would almost certainly be unable to see you. And of course by Saturday I will be dead and of no use whatsoever. So before that happens, perhaps you should tell me why you have come.”

  “Jane is in need of a passport, Solomon,” Byron explained.

  “Indeed?” said Solomon. He eyed Jane with curiosity. “And who are you? Before, I mean. Not now.”

  “Oh,” Jane said uncomfortably. Saying that she was Jane Austen always made her feel as if she were lying. Or boasting.

  “Solomon, allow me to introduce you to Miss Jane Austen,” Byron said.

  Solomon stepped back. “My, my,” he said. He bowed toward her. “It’s my distinct pleasure.”

  Jane felt herself blush as much as someone with no beating heart could. “It’s lovely to meet you,” she said.

  Solomon smiled, revealing a row of gleaming gold teeth. “I have long been a fan,” he told Jane. His eyes sparkled. “Just a moment,” he told her. “I want to show you something.”

  He retreated to the rear of the shop, where Jane heard him rummaging around. There was a great deal of rustling, a very loud thud, and several rounds of enthusiastic sneezing. Then Solomon reappeared, clutching in one hand a trio of leather-bound volumes. He waved them at Jane, cackling gleefully. “I admit I haven’t read them in quite some time,” he said. “But here they are.”

  He handed the books to Jane, who looked at the covers and gasped. “The first edition of Sense and Sensibility!” she exclaimed.

  Solomon nodded. “I had them bound, of course. Otherwise they’re exactly as I bought them from a London bookstall on the day of their publication.”

  Jane ran her fingertips over the leather, tracing the title of her book. She lifted the cover of the first volume and gazed upon the familiar title page. “Even I don’t have the first editions,” she said. “I did once upon a time, of course, but I’m afraid I lost them in a move. I believe I mistakenly threw them out along with a stack of old New Yorker issues.”

  “Pity,” Solomon said, quickly taking the books back from her and slipping them into one of his coat pockets. Jane stared wistfully at the pocket, wondering if perhaps the watchmaker might be persuaded to part with the novels.

  Byron cleared his throat. “Now that introductions have been made, perhaps we can get down to business,” he said.

  “Ah, yes,” said Solomon. “A passport. For Miss Jane Austen.”

  “Fairfax, actually,” Jane said. “It should say Jane Fairfax. That’s the name by which I’m now known.”

  Solomon turned and walked toward the back of the shop. This time Jane followed him, arriving at a large workbench covered with tools and upon which were scattered various gears, faces, crystals, and minute and hour hands that had become detached and now lay disembodied among the corpses of broken watches. A lone stool sat before the table, and a single bare bulb was screwed into the end of an electrical cord that dangled from the ceiling.

  Solomon seated himself on the stool, pulled open a drawer in the workbench, and removed several passport books. “Would you like to be English, Canadian, or American?” he asked.

  “American, I suppose,” Jane answered. She felt a bit as if she were turning her back on her homeland by assuming an American identity, but she knew it was the most practical choice.

  “American it is,” Solomon said, placing a blue passport on the table and returning the others to the drawer. “Now then, did you bring the photographs?”

  Jane fished in her coat pocket and withdrew the small cardboard folder containing the photos she’d had taken the evening before at the copy shop near her bookstore. “I’m afraid they’re dreadful,” she told Solomon as she handed them to him.

  “Nonsense,” Solomon assured her as he opened the folder. “I’m sure they’re perfectly love—” He hesitated, then looked at Jane. “Well, at least your eyes are nice and open,” he said.

  Jane watched as Solomon took one of the photos and began trimming it to the correct size. “If you don’t mind my asking, do you do a lot of this sort of thing?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Solomon answered. “Passports. Driver’s licenses. Anything you need, I can forge it.”

  Jane, intrigued, said, “And are all of your clients as we are?”

  “Vampires, you mean?” said Solomon. He had removed his glasses and inserted a jeweler’s loupe in his left eye. His head was bent over the passport as he did something Jane couldn’t quite see. “Most are, but not all.”

  “And are you …” Jane began. She decided the question was indelicate, however, and stopped.

  “Am I a vampire?” said Solomon, lifting his head and grinning at her. “No. I’m something … different.”

  He returned to his work. Jane, sensing that he didn’t want to be disturbed, went in search of Byron. She found him crouched on the floor, rummaging through a box of old pocket watches.

  “How did you say you know Solomon?” she asked Byron.

  Byron blew the dust from a watch, looked at the back, then returned it to the box. “I didn’t,” he replied. “And I really don’t remember. But he’s proved to be quite useful over the years.” He stood up and looked at Jane. “Do you know he once forged me a death certificate from the state of Missouri that was so realistic I almost believed the gentleman in question really had died of cardiac arrest?”

  “Why would you need … Never mind,” Jane said. “I don’t want to know. I’m sure he’s very good at what he does. But what exactly is he?”

  “Ahh,” Byron purred. “He wouldn’t tell you, would he?”

  Jane shrugged, feigning disinterest. “I didn’t ask,” she said. “It only now occurred to me to.”

  “Did it?” said Byron, smirking. “Well, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. He’s a zombie.”

  “A zombie!” Jane said.

  Byron made a shushing sound. “Quiet,” he said. “He doesn’t like to discuss it.”

  Jane, chastened, lowered her voice to a whisper. “He doesn’t look like a zombie,” she said. “Well, not like any I’ve ever seen, although I’ll grant you those have only been in movies.”

  “Solomon isn’t like that,” Byron explained. “Not exactly. Remember the rhyme?”

  As Jane had only recently recited it to him, she assumed Byron’s question to be rhetorical, and said nothing. Byron continued, “He wasn’t joking when he said it was lucky we came on a Thursday. By tomorrow he’ll be quite ill, and by Saturday night he’ll be dead. Sunday he’ll—well, I don’t really know what becomes of him on Sunday—but on Monday he’ll be right as rain and it will start all over again.”

  Jane made a face. “How awful,” she said. “How does a thing like that happen? I mean, surely he wasn’t always like this.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Byron agreed. “But I don’t know how he became what he is. As far as I know, he’s never told anyone, except perhaps his wife.”

  “His wife?” said Jane.

  “Yes, his wife,” Byron repeated. “ ‘Married on Wednesday,’ remember?”

  “What’s she like?” Jane asked.

  “That depends,” said Byron. “When she is good, she’s very, very good, but when she is bad she is horrid.”

  Jane snorted. “And I suppose she has a little curl?”

  “Yes,” said Byron. “Right in the middle of her forehead. I thought you said you didn’t know her.”

  “I don’t,” Jane said. “I was quoting the rhyme.”

  “What rhyme?” said Byron, giving her a puzzled look. “Anyway, she runs the boardinghouse upstairs.”

  Jane glanced at the ceiling. “Up there?”

  Byron nodded. “They cater mostly to our community,” he said. “Generally the newly turned. They stay here w
hile they adjust. Also, Alice teaches them a thing or two about being undead.”

  “Alice?” said Jane. “That’s Solomon’s wife?”

  “Now that I think of it, I should have just sent you to Alice,” Byron said. “I could have saved myself a great deal of fuss and bother. Not that I haven’t enjoyed it,” he added quickly.

  “There’s a school?” said Jane. “How do people find out about it?”

  “Oh, they have cards,” Byron explained. “The more thoughtful vampires leave them in the pockets of anyone they turn. Otherwise it’s mostly blind luck or being fortunate enough to run into someone who knows about this place. Someone like myself, for example.”

  “Except that you didn’t tell me about it,” Jane argued.

  Byron shook his head. “Well, how could I have told you?” he said. “That was two hundred years ago. I didn’t know about it then.”

  “We could have sent Chloe here,” said Jane, thinking about the young actress she had been forced to turn the previous summer.

  “I did consider that,” Byron admitted. “But only briefly. I don’t think they take celebrity clients. Anyway, I think we did rather well with her on our own.”

  “Yes,” Jane agreed. “I think we did. Which reminds me, the film will be out this summer.”

  “Have you decided whether or not you’ll see it? I know you weren’t at all happy with how things went.”

  “I think I’m over it. Besides, if I can stomach Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennett, I can stomach anything.”

  “All right, here you are.”

  Solomon’s arrival brought Jane’s attention back to the moment. She accepted the passport Solomon held out to her and opened it. “It looks perfect,” she said after checking that all of the information was correct—or as correct as it could be for a bunch of out-and-out lies.

  “With that document you will be able to make your way all over Europe with no difficulties,” Solomon assured her.

  “Thank you,” Jane said.

  “And if you get caught and thrown in an Italian prison, I will refund one-half of the purchase price.”

  Jane looked at Byron, unsure of what to say.

  “I’m joking,” Solomon told her. “I don’t give refunds. All sales are final, and if anyone asks, I’ve never seen you before. But don’t worry, everything will be fine. Go and have a lovely honeymoon.”

  “I’d almost forgotten that that’s why I need this,” Jane said as she slipped the passport into her coat pocket.

  “Solomon, as always, it’s a pleasure doing business with you,” Byron said, shaking the other man’s hand. “Now go have Alice make you some chicken soup. You look terrible.”

  Solomon laughed heartily, but after a moment it turned into a wet-sounding cough. “Oh, dear,” he said. “It seems to be coming on early this week. It must be the weather.”

  When they were outside again, Byron took a bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket and squirted some into his palm. He extended the bottle to Jane, who shook her head. “We’re already dead,” she reminded him. “What’s the point?”

  “Yes, we’re dead,” said Byron. “But so are zombies. Do you really want to risk it?”

  She held out her hand. “You’re right. Explaining to Walter that I’m a vampire is one thing. Trying to explain why I want to eat his brain is quite another.”

  Chapter 3

  Brakeston, New York

  “Stephanotis! Casablanca Lilies! Hydrangeas!”

  Jane sat straight up in bed and pointed a finger at Walter, who had pulled the blankets up to his chin and was looking up at her with a puzzled expression.

  “But absolutely no baby’s breath!” Jane shrieked before collapsing back against the pillows.

  Walter sat up slowly, cleared his throat, and said, “I take it you had another wedding dream.”

  Jane groaned. “It was horrible,” she said. “I’d forgotten all about the flowers. For some reason every florist in town was closed, and I had to run to the A&P and buy one of those horrid bouquets of daisies dyed bright blue and wrapped in cellophane. Then when I tried to check out, my club card wouldn’t scan and I couldn’t remember the fake telephone number I’d given them when I opened the account, so the clerk wouldn’t give me the discount. I only had a ten-dollar bill and the bouquet was twelve ninety-nine. The woman behind me was yelling at me to hurry up because her chicken thighs were thawing and she was worried about salmonella, and the bag boy kept shouting, ‘Paper or plastic? Paper or plastic? Paper or plastic?’ ”

  She began to cry. Walter reached over and put his arm around her shoulders. Jane leaned against him and sniffed loudly.

  “I’m going to have a nervous breakdown,” she informed him. “I’ll have to be institutionalized, and I’ll spend the rest of my life sitting in an uncomfortable chair next to a window, wearing my wedding dress and staring out at the sidewalk, waiting for you to come. And you will at first, because you’ll think there’s still hope, but after a few years you’ll realize that I’m never getting better and you’ll stop coming. Then everyone will start calling me the Bitter Bride and torment me by humming the wedding march until I go completely mad and begin mumbling our wedding vows incessantly. Eventually all I’ll say is, ‘I do, I do, I do,’ over and over and over and the other patients will wait until the nurses aren’t looking and pelt me with rice.” She paused. “Or more likely with rice pudding, because that’s what they make you eat in those places.”

  Walter kissed the top of her head. “Are you done now?”

  “For the moment,” Jane said.

  “First of all,” said Walter, “they wouldn’t let you wear your wedding dress in a mental institution. Second, you don’t need a club card at the A&P anymore. You automatically get the sale price.”

  “Really?” Jane said. “Well, that just makes it worse. The clerk was deliberately being difficult, and it was obvious I needed those daisies. Who does that to a bride on her wedding day?”

  Walter stroked her hair. “I have an idea,” he said. “What would you think about postponing the wedding?”

  Jane pulled away. “You don’t want to marry me,” she said. Her lip began to tremble.

  “Of course I want to marry you,” said Walter. “But not if it’s going to put you in an institution. And I’m not talking about postponing the entire wedding. Just this one.”

  “This one?” Jane said. “I don’t understand.”

  “We could have two weddings,” Walter explained. “One would be just for us. We can do it during our trip. Then, when we come back and we have more time to plan, we can do it again for all of our friends.”

  Jane considered this plan. “Can we do that?” she asked. “Just get married, I mean.”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Walter. “All we really need is the marriage license. It doesn’t matter where we have the actual wedding. We can take it with us and have someone marry us wherever we want to.”

  “You really wouldn’t mind?” Jane said.

  Walter shook his head. “I don’t care where I marry you, or what you wear, or whether you’re carrying a bouquet of daisies from the A&P or a bunch of—what did you scream earlier?”

  “Casablanca lilies?” said Jane.

  “No, the other one,” Walter said.

  “Stephanotis?” Jane suggested.

  “A bouquet of stephanotis,” said Walter. “All I care about is marrying you.”

  “It really would be less stressful,” Jane said. Then a horrible thought came to her. “But what about your mother? She won’t like this at all.”

  Walter smiled. “Don’t worry about her,” he said. “I have a cunning plan. I’ll explain it at the war council this morning.”

  “War council” was what Walter had come to call the daily meeting between Jane, Lucy, and Miriam as they attempted to pull together a wedding in record time. Really, it was just the three of them sitting in the kitchen of Jane and Walter’s house as Jane and Miriam quarreled over the details and Lucy pl
ayed referee and did the bulk of the actual work.

  And so at several minutes past eleven in the morning, Walter stood before the three women and announced in a firm voice, “The wedding is off.”

  “Only temporarily,” Jane added as she saw Miriam start to leap to her feet with a triumphant expression.

  Miriam remained seated and scowled. “What kind of nonsense is this?” she said. “I thought you wanted to be married before you go on this ridiculous trip of yours.”

  “We’re going to get married in Europe,” Walter told her. “In England. That’s where Jane’s family is from, so it’s a way to include them.”

  “But they’re dead,” Miriam said, looking pointedly at Jane.

  “It’s symbolic, Mother,” said Walter.

  “We’ll have another wedding when we come back,” Jane added. “You know, with a dress and flowers and shrimp puffs.”

  Miriam snorted. Jane glanced at Lucy and saw that she too looked slightly distraught.

  “I knew you’d find some way of cutting me out of the wedding,” Miriam said, looking neither at Jane nor Walter but condemning them equally with her tone.

  “But we’re not,” said Walter. “You haven’t heard the rest of the plan. You’re coming with us.”

  “What?” Miriam said. “Going with you?”

  Walter nodded. “Lucy too,” he said. “And Ben and Sarah if they want to come. You’re all invited as our guests.”

  “It would be a kind of traveling wedding party,” Jane told them. “We’d follow the itinerary of Walter’s house tour.”

  Miriam sighed. “I’m too old to be traipsing around Europe in the wintertime,” she said.

  “Nonsense, Mother,” said Walter. “Last year you went hiking in Nepal.”

  “We had Sherpas,” Miriam snapped. “And llamas. That’s hardly the same thing as wandering around the moors with damp feet. I could get pneumonia.”

  “With a bit of luck,” Jane murmured, just loudly enough for Miriam to hear.

  “Well, do as you like,” Walter told his mother. “Lucy, will you be coming with us?”