“Do you know anything about a French vampire nun?” I asked him, letting his statement float on by. Fornicating couples were the last of my worries.
“Actually, I do.”
We all—piskies, gorilla, wolf and I—rotated to stare at my husband.
Nathaniel plopped to the ground. “I told you. I did some research into Pascal and his past. There’s this mysterious blip in his history where he visits his sister, Jacqueline, in her monastery. Supposedly, right after this, he had a religious epiphany. While he continued to go out in public, he did so only at night, and society folks got sick of him spouting nonsense about Hell and demons, so he eventually retreated, claiming he wanted privacy.”
Nathaniel stood and dusted off his pants. “I believe his sister was a vampire who turned him. They had been remarkably close in life, and he was disappointed when she became a nun. My guess is she brought him over to her side of the street, and he had trouble dealing with it.”
“Very astute of you.” The voice came from above us, high at the top of a tree in our neighbor’s yard.
Pascal balanced on a large oak branch. His face wasn’t sloughing off anymore, but it still looked like a candle put to flame. One side of his mouth drooped, and the skin under his eye was a red slash that hurt me to look at. He looked like a stroke victim who’d been caught in a fire after being bitten by a paralyzing spider. At least, that’s how it appeared to me. I’ve never seen that exact combination of calamities in real life, thank goodness.
“That monster is your sister?” I demanded. “She means me great ill. Would you like to tell me why?”
“And how did she get in here?” asked Nathaniel. I tapped my nose in agreement. Good question.
Pascal sat on the branch, swinging his legs back and forth.
“She’s a bit angry with you.”
“Why? I’ve never done anything to her. Not that I won’t now,” I added, a faint growl in my voice. I was tired, and my patience was thin.
“You are the recipient of downstream fury,” Pascal said. “She was originally upset with your mother. Since your mother is gone, she’s directed that anger at you.”
“Whatever for?”
“It’s a long story, granddaughter.”
“Why do you call me that? I’m no relation to you.”
“I beg to differ…”
“Pascal, no more vague statements and nebulous warnings. I need to know the truth.”
“It’s a little hard to explain, but it has to do with your mother…”
Pascal’s voice cut off as a giant black bat attacked him, wings spread, talons outstretched. There was a muffled, “Jacqueline!” and then the siblings crashed to the ground. Jacqueline let out a high-pitched scream that caused Shura to whine in pain. The two vampires grappled on the ground like wrestlers in the lightweight division.
Pascal was slow to react, perhaps because he was surprised she was there, or because she was his maker. It was difficult to analyze the situation because all I could see was a hazy, amorphous mass of swirling darkness.
“Jacqueline! You must stop,” Pascal cried out. “This isn’t achieving anything.”
“You belong to me, brother, and it is time you remembered it. You have no allegiance to that whore.”
“Don’t call my granddaughter a whore!”
“She’s not your family. I am!”
The two separated enough that I could make out their individual bodies, and we witnessed Jacqueline’s full display of power. Physically, she’d gotten the upper hand, being the master vampire, and now held Pascal by the neck like a kitten.
She stared into his eyes and muttered to him, her voice hard to hear, but it reeked of ghastly things, violence and pain. My gut tore when he lost control. The Pascal who had been about to explain what was going on, who sounded almost reasonable, sunk deep within as his maker whispered words of hate.
“Piskies! Retreat!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I needed those tiny warriors inside the barrier, and I needed to figure out how Jacqueline got inside to begin with. The piskies flew inside, an entire chorus of flittering, spitting-mad dragonflies screaming insults to the vampires on the neighbor’s lawn in a variety of languages. Jacqueline continued to whisper in Pascal’s ear, and his face went from animated and angry to slack. His eyes glazed over, and with every new word, Jacqueline let go of Pascal’s neck a little more, relaxing her physical grip as her mental one took control.
Jacqueline sunk deeper and deeper into Pascal’s psyche, until he became a puppet to her will, worshiping her with his eyes and nodding at her every instruction. My gorge rose in my throat.
“As hard as this is to believe, I want the old Pascal back,” I said, as my troupe of allies watched Pascal fall. “This is obscene.”
Gothskie had worked up a head of steam about it herself, literally as her head gave off a boiling hot vapor as she witnessed the mind control sink in. “I loathe vampires,” she said. “But mind control is the ultimate crime, even beyond murder, because you kill someone’s spirit while you keep their body alive. I have to believe there is some small part of Pascal who knows this is happening and is screaming inside.”
“I agree, but let’s not wait here for her next move.” I tore myself from appalling scene. “We’ve got some planning to do. Gothskie, can you do that whistle thing? It’s time for some battle plans.”
Gothskie’s piercing whistle drew everyone to the center of my yard. The exhausted but fulfilled lovers lay in each other’s arms, magicked to sleep by the bow. Blaze emerged from the house with Cupid, still in my son’s body, but the phoenix’s beak was pursed in a way that let me know he was nonplussed.
Blaze tapped his Tweety-bird feet and said, pointing a wing at the cherub, “He won’t help. He’s an obnoxious tyrant in a child’s body who doesn’t care who he hurts.”
“I’m not hurting anybody,” said an affronted cupid, zipping around our heads. “I’m a giver of loooooovvvvvveee.”
“You’re a pervert,” Blaze retorted.
“That too,” Cupid acknowledged. “But my lack of morals doesn’t seem to be what is creating this pow-wow.” He fell silent and pulled up his wings, running fingers through his curly, blond locks. Daniel had good hair to begin with and the cupid had thickened it. Vanity.
“Who. Are. They?” he asked, making a kissy-pout with his lips. He zoomed down to waist height, and I turned to see who he was talking about.
The demonettes came at the whistle, shaking their booties and their pom-poms. They had changed into red sequined dance tops with black sparkly cheerleader skirts, and the tops showed a lot of cleavage. I didn’t know women that short and busty could balance like that.
I rolled my eyes. “Demonettes, meet Cupid. Cupid, the demonettes. They’re here to cheer on my death.” The demonettes did back flips, landed on their feet, then bent to one knee, jiggling their…pom-poms…. Cupid stared, slack jawed.
“Well, hellllooooo ladies,” he said.
I had to get serious. “Troops! Demonettes excepted, I suppose. We have a new problem.” I examined my army.
A chorus of piskies.
A gorilla, dolled up with ribbons and bows.
A wolf, equally bedazzled.
An emu that occasionally set himself on fire.
My exhausted husband.
And…a cherubic cupid about to make a very stupid mistake because of cleavage. Well, he wouldn’t be the first guy.
That’s when it hit me that he was still in my son’s body. I sent him a warning glance, but Nathaniel was done and plucked the flying baby by the diaper and placed him into the house, closing the door and locking it. Cupid pressed his nose to the glass like a lonely dog.
I knew he heard me through the glass. “Get out of my son’s body, and we’ll talk.”
“I have no other place to go.” He shed a tear, and I guffawed.
“Then, too bad. My three-year-old isn’t getting it on with two bodacious bosomed female imps. Period.”
The cherub made a face that was all him and not a bit Daniel. “After some time with me, they won’t get their periods.”
I pointed at him with fire and brimstone in my eyes. “I’m going to forget you said that, you disgusting, debauched young godling. Do whatever you want, but not on my son’s time.” I yelled to the sky. “Venus! Get your child under control!”
I thought I saw a flash of lightning, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Folks, Pascal, a deranged vampire, and his sister Jacqueline, an even more deranged vampire, if you can believe that, are here. Somehow Jacqueline got inside the perimeter.”
Rocko poked me on the shoulder and pointed up.
“I don’t understand. Blaze, can you interpret?”
Blaze stared in Rocko’s eyes. “He’s trying to say that the witch protected around the property, but not the sky. She didn’t create a dome, so Jaqueline didn’t cross a border. She flew high enough to avoid the border and dropped in vertically, like a helicopter.”
“Kill the witch,” muttered Nathaniel.
“Burn her, burn her,” chorused the piskies.
I gave them a grim smile. Taking care of that witch was number one on my bucket list. First, however, I’d have to live, and so would my friends and family.
The demonettes pivoted so their backs faced us and twerked like Beyoncé. They cheered, “When we say Vampires! You say Go! Ready…? Vampires!”
Rocko pointed and uttered a sound that I knew meant “Go!”
I smacked him on the arm. “No, Rocko. No.” The gorilla’s face fell. “I mean, good following directions, but the vampires are the bad guys.” Rocko furrowed his brow and nodded.
I pointed to the naked bodies on the ground, deep asleep. “Blaze, can you and Rocko move these poor people into the house? They could get hurt out here.” Blaze gave me a salute.
“Piskies, set up a perimeter. Nathaniel, call Officer Bob and ask if they have a cannon. Shura, with me.”
It was to Nathaniel’s credit that he simply pulled out his cell phone
Chapter Eleven
I remembered two things about my mom that, to me, personified who she was. She was a miracle worker with knives or blades of any kind, which I didn’t know wasn’t normal. I had a friend whose mother’s sister married her father’s brother, and the kids shared grandparents on both sides. When I expressed amazement, she stared at me in complete confusion. It had never occurred to her that siblings marrying siblings was unusual. That’s how my mom’s ability with sharp, pointy things was for me. It wasn’t weird. It was just my mom.
The second thing was her sense of humor. No matter what, she taught me to laugh at most situations and find the fun in everything. I remembered one afternoon in particular.
We were baking, something my mother and I liked to do together. It was almost Purim, a holiday in which it is traditional to eat cookies shaped like triangles, which represented a hat worn by the main bad guy in the biblical tale of Esther.
The Hamentashen, as the cookies are called, didn’t hold together. We’d followed the directions to the letter, but our triangles separated at the corners, and we had flat circles with burnt jam on our cookie sheets. Worse, the jam had also dripped onto the bottom of our oven and the sugary stuff was smoking.
Which made the fire alarms go off, shrill and loud.
Which scared the neighbors.
Who called the fire department.
Who arrived with three trucks, two ambulances, and the fire chief himself.
All because of burnt cookies.
I was mortified, a teenager certain her social life was over, and I was convinced they were going to yell at us. I hid in the house, waiting to be expelled from school, arrested, ostracized, and humiliated. It was all coming, there was no doubt. My friends on the block peeked out the windows, and I knew my life was over. We were going to have to move. I was already ticking off states far away and cities where we had no friends. Houston, I decided. Or, maybe, San Antonio. I didn’t think we knew anyone in Texas.
The firefighters arrived with bells clanging, and I cringed even more. The fire chief’s red car had a swirling red and white light on the top in case the other sirens weren’t enough to cause attention.
Then Channel 5 showed up, and the local paper. I prayed the floor would swallow me up whole.
My mom, on the other hand, greeted the firefighters and worried neighbors with big smiles, held out the cookie sheets and asked if anyone wanted the burnt bits. She answered questions for the newsies, and the paper photographer took a photo of my mother beaming with the firefighters. The television station quoted her as she thanked them for the fast response. “In this case, it wasn’t an emergency,” she’d said, “but if it had been one, these amazing men and women were here in seconds. I am proud of our town’s heroes, and I sincerely thank them for their service.”
The fire chief picked up a blackened cookie, took a bite, and said, “My wife did the same thing once. We scraped them into a tin and ate them with milk.”
An ambulance driver joined in. “I did it with almonds that I drizzled with oil. They didn’t merely smoke; they actually caught on fire! Imagine how embarrassed I was when my co-workers showed up!” She, too, took a crusty bit from the cookie sheet and munched it.
A neighbor snuck a hand in and swiped a fairly unburnt cookie. “I discovered the hard way that eggplant can make a real mess. Smoke everywhere. I had to leave the windows open for three days.”
One of the firefighters went into our house, disconnected and reset the fire alarms, and came out to scrape some cookie crumbs together for himself. My mom brought out some drinks, water, pop, that kind of thing, and we all sat on and around the stoop eating burnt cookies and swapping baking disaster tales. Eventually, the firefighters had to go, shook my mom’s hand, saying they were glad everyone was okay, and took off. My mom slipped the good vodka out to the porch, and the block party continued.
I observed all of this from my bedroom window, stunned by what I’d witnessed. It was then that I learned that bad things happen, but how you deal with the situation is as important as the situation itself. You could greet people with honesty and a smile, or you could hide your head, ashamed of every little mistake.
It was a lesson I took with me for the rest of my life.
So, here I was, facing a true showdown of massive proportions, and that was the lesson that came to me. I didn’t know how we’d gotten to such a state, but it didn’t matter. What mattered is how I dealt with the situation.
“Shura, we need a plan.”
Shura didn’t bother to respond.
“Let’s go drag out the wine box.”
Shura gave me a sideways glance.
“Not the boxed wine. I’m not drinking. The wine box I ordered so that I had Manischewitz in bulk. I have ten bottles, all blessed by Rabbi Stein.”
Shura helped me open the box with her claws and teeth. I poured two of them into a bucket and removed my ‘hawk, jump rope, and bat. I dipped all of them into the wine, being careful to only dip the wooden handles of the rope and reassembled myself. Shura snorted in satisfaction.
“Yeah, bet they’re not expecting that.”
Shura shot a look at the door to the basement and licked her chops.
“Hungry? Me, too. Let’s not fight on an empty stomach.”
We tip-toed into the house, taking care not to wake the sleeping children, and I grabbed the cookie jar, some deli meat, a couple of apples, and a jug of filtered water. A few paper cups and Shura and I moved outside.
My friends gathered around, calm as can be, and had a snack. Shura loved the deli meat, and Blaze tried a cookie. His gargantuan eyes opened even wider in surprise when he discovered the buttery taste of a good homemade snickerdoodle. Rocko ate two apples, and the piskies shared the third.
The quiet before the storm, and as I looked at our ragtag band, I realized I loved this family I’d cobbled together and vowed I’d do anything to protect them.
High-pitch
ed alarms rang out from every corner of the yard, and we all moved fast, splitting off in different directions to respond to the piskie guard calls.
My vision dimmed, and I looked up to see a solid blot in the sky blocking all moonlight as it plummeted down like a pillar of darkness into the yard.
I whipped my jump rope at the encroaching inky splotch in the sky and managed a hit against one of the vampire’s legs, as evidenced by the whiff of smoke. It didn’t do any real damage though because both vampires were covered in head-to-toe in black, flexible armor. They landed on the ground feet first and lashed out with claws extended.
Pascal rushed me, his destroyed face mostly hidden, but I could still see a string of saliva drooling down his chin.
I chopped at him with my tomahawk, and every hit landed, but the effect was minimal. Pascal advanced, pushing me back, while the piskies and Shura harried Jaqueline.
“Pascal! What has she done to you?” I hacked and hacked, but he still advanced. I ducked as he swung a clawed hand over my head and struck at his knees, only to hear a clang as my ‘hawk met metal. The blow reverberated up my arm, and it went numb from the shoulder down. My ‘hawk dropped to the ground as my hand lost its grip, useless.
I’d seen Pascal, bite, claw, swing, and punch. I’d seen him disappear and move like smoke. I’ve seen him lift things ten times his weight and shove Nathaniel aside with one arm like he was swatting a gnat.
What I’d never, ever seen was Pascal pulling a sword.
It was an Epée, a fencing sword, thin and flexible, with a bell at the bottom to guard his hand. Pascal placed one arm behind his back as he prepared for an assault, lunged, and brought the sword in for a touch at my chest.
He didn’t have the power to go through my chest, but the point went through my thin shirt and drew blood. It was a message, a warning, and one I took seriously. I jerked inside and to the left, to be on the outside of his blade, and swung a back fist directly at his nose. I hit it dead center and even the vampire had to shake his head to clear the blood from his face.
The Devil's Been Busy Page 34
