Brides Of The Impaler (28 page)

She laughed in a high titter, and squeezed his shoulder again. “Oh, no. The stones by themselfs are worthless.”

ThemSELFS?
he thought.
This woman’s something
.

“But I can give you four hundred dollars for it.” And now her right hand had a wad of cash in it.

Jess winced.
This is fucked-
up
. “It’s not even mine, I just wanted it appraised.” He blinked. “So…you’re really a friend of Ann’s?”

“Oh, yeah.” She giggled. “We make out all the time—”

Jess’s breath caught in his chest. “Uh, yeah, well—”

“You…sure you don’t want to sell it?” Now her words, however stilted, came out as a hot gush, and her right hand slipped below the desk, traced up his thigh, and landed on his crotch.

“Hey, what is this?” Jess objected. “Is this a con?”

She rubbed, brushing right against him. “Hmm?”

Jess wanted to rise and throw her out of the office…
but didn’t. He seemed to melt, remaining there, and she continued.
This is FUCKED-UP
. Some crude lust fogged his senses but eventually a thread of reason pushed through.

“You’re just trying to work me over for the damn bowl, aren’t you?”

“Uh-uh.” She rubbed some more, started to slide her fingers under his belt.

He was about to grab her hand just as it slid beneath his shorts. “I—” A thought flashed. “I get it. She put you up to this. Right?”

“Um-hmm. Anna.”

Jess frowned. “You mean Ann.”

“Right, Ann.” The odd woman noticed the front office door open. “Come on, back here. We don’t want anyone to see.” She urged him out of the seat and back into Jess’s office.

He didn’t stop her.
What am I doing?
“Listen. I’m not selling you the bowl—”

“That’s okay. But if you change your mind…let…Ann know, and I’ll buy it.” She pushed Jess’s office door closed, walked right back up to him, and sat him down.

“Look. Just…stop—”

She smiled. “Let me. I want to. I like it…”

Jess didn’t move. He supposed it was the crudity of it all, and the abruptness, that pushed his resistence over the edge, the way she knelt before him and yanked his pants and shorts right down to his ankles in one pull.

“Look,” he objected yet again but before he could say more, he tensed right up when—as abruptly as everything else—she began to fellate him.

Holy shit, what am I
—

“Mmmm,” she murmured through the act.

The sensation was riveting, and judging by her technique, she’d had some considerable experience.
Shit, that’s
the best…A dizzy
glance down at the back of her head,
and he half-noticed the label on her dress—Dolce & Gabbana—but the coincidence was lost by the fastidious, wet rhythm and excruciating plea sure. Another minute and he spent himself in her mouth.

“Mmmm,” she kept murmuring through the earthy denouement. His release left him tingling and lax.

The woman stood up and grinned at him. She didn’t expectorate anywhere. “If you change your mind about selling the cistern, have…Ann call me.”

Jess stared. The bizarre woman waved and left the office.

He snapped out of it a few moments later, jumped up and hauled up his pants.
What the hell was that shit all about?
A tinge of guilt seemed to fleck his spirit.
Did I just cheat on
Britt?

No. Not really
.

He stepped into the restroom, got himself back to rights.
Some girl who looks like a bum in a nice dress just blew
me in my office
, came the bald realization. A worse realization occurred moments later, when he errantly reached into his back pocket.

That ho! That thieving bitch
!

Jess’s wallet was gone.

Anger mapped his face with lines. He couldn’t even think straight when he heard tapping. Someone knocking on the office door.

Furious, he barged out to the front area—

“Mr. Franklin?” asked a mousy-looking woman in jeans and a pink blouse. “I’m Daniela Agren, from Doria Jewelers. Ann said you needed an appraisal.”

Jess stood mute. He jerked a gaze to the front desk and saw that the bowl was gone.

The same man with the absurd blond mohawk and leather vest greeted him from behind the counter. He’d called Vernon an hour previously. “One Noxious Nun coming up. You were smart to preorder.” He turned his hand toward the shelves. “We sold out the same day of their release.”

Charming
. “Thanks for calling,” Vernon said. He still couldn’t figure why he’d ordered the thing. He looked at it in its box. The actual figure looked more unsettling than the ad pictures: a cute little toy nun holding a bowl of blood.

“Pretty impressive detail,” bragged the proprietor.

Vernon said nothing, just stared at the thing. He thought of a hypnotist’s totem. The tiny eyes beamed, the tiny white fangs in the tiny mouth seemed to shimmer. When Vernon blinked, he could have sworn the hardened scarlet resin in the tiny bowl rippled as if liquid.
This thing
really is bizarre
. What unsettled him more than the rest, though, were the weaving black, green, and red lines that decorated the box.

Vernon gulped.

“Your niece’ll
love
it,” said the shopkeeper.

“My niece?” Vernon looked at him. “Oh, yes, I’m sure she will—”

“—and she’ll definitely want the rest of the line. I can give you a 5 percent police discount—”

“Really?” Vernon felt flattered.

“—if you preorder the next ten figures.”

Vernon winced. “Let me give it some thought,” he said.
I hate the hard sell
. He thanked the man and left.

Saturday morning traffic wasn’t bad. He cruised down 69
^th
, subconsciously eyeing the street for signs of his “bum-chicks.” Still nothing more to go on, but at least there’d been no more impalements. When he pulled onto Amsterdam, he rechecked the address on his note pad, then parked illegally.
Here it is
.

One of the city’s many grand old rent-controlled apartment buildings hulked before him. He went up narrow stairs, huffing when he reached the third floor, and found the number. His hand paused before knocking, for the oddest of door knockers caught his eye.

It had been mounted on the drab door’s center stile, an oval of tarnished bronze depicting a morose half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth, no other features.

In the strangest notion, Vernon imagined that for a split second, the knocker had grown a mouth—a grin—which showed tiny fangs.

Why do I feel haunted today?
He shook it off, knocked, and was welcomed by a stoop-shouldered man who had to be eighty.

“You must be Inspector Vernon,” the voice cragged. “Do come in. I’m Professor Fredrick.”

“Thanks for agreeing to see me, sir.” Vernon stepped in, his briefcase tugging his arm. At once he stood surrounded by what he might expect of an archaeologist’s abode: walls lined floor to ceiling with books and assorted statues, busts, and old stone nicknacks.
Smells like a museum
, he thought.

Fredrick walked with difficulty, requiring a cane. Vernon frowned when he noted that the cane’s brass head
looked identical to the half-formed face of the door knocker. Its tip snapped along the bare wood floor.

“I thank God,” the old man chuckled, “the man below me is deaf. Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” Vernon sat in an armchair angled before a cluttered desk backed by huge computer screens filled with text. “I can see you’re busy, sir. I hope this isn’t too much of an inconvenience. When Dr. Aured recommended you, he mentioned you were working on a book.”

When Fredrick sat down, either his chair or his bones creaked. “Not busy enough. I’m too old to teach during the summer sessions anyway. We all must pursue our immortality, eh?” He lit up a sweet-smelling pipe. “This book on Daco-Roman Romania is one I’ve meant to write for thirty years but, lo, other things kept popping up.”

Romania
, Vernon thought. He got out his notes, and suddenly felt foolish.
Home of Vlad the Impaler
. “Romania, yes, sir. Dr. Aured said you were an expert on Romanian history.”

Fredrick, in spite of his age, had a full head of black hair that didn’t look dyed. “Oh, I’m an expert, all right. I almost died thanks to that blasted country. Earthquake. Southern Romania lies on a fault line. They get serious earthquakes every fifty years or so. The worst one occurred in 1977, and I was unlucky enough to be there at that precise time. A rectory wall collapsed during the tremor, and crushed my leg.” He absently raised his cane. “It took years to heal.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vernon said for lack of anything else.

Fredrick smiled aloofly, puffing the pipe. “I suppose I was lucky. My teaching assistant was killed instantly.” He pointed to an old framed picture of a chubby young woman in boots and field dress, with a burgeoning bosom. “Her name was Janice, a lovely girl. At least she died in the midst of her dream.”

“Her dream?”

“It had been her lifelong goal to see Snagov Monastery, a most unique place in the annals of fifteenth-century European history.” Now the old man’s smiled turned sardonic. “It was also the final resting place of the man we’ve come to know as the historical Dracula.”

Vernon looked back at him; he suddenly felt hollow. He cleared his throat, then showed the old man his notes and began to explain his dilemma…

“Sure, we’d love to,” Britt said in the cab. “It’s the weekend, and your house is a lot better suited for a get-together than ours. We’ll pick up where we left off last night.”

Before I screwed it all up by overreacting about that damn
bowl or centerpiece or what ever it is
, Cristina thought. This would be a chance to make it up to them by having them spend the night again.

Britt whispered, mindful of the cabdriver. “And there’s something about your house that lights a fire under Jess’s butt. You know. Sexually.”

Cristina smiled. “Good. And thanks for lunch. I’d never been to Four Seasons before. I just wish I could remember where I put that gorgeous dress you gave me.” Cristina had given up looking for it, and worn a nice Gianni summer dress. “I could’ve sworn I unpacked it and put it in the closet.”

“You’ll find it.” Britt looked forward, to the street signs. “I actually have to go home for a few hours, though. I want to call the office and do some e-mails. But what time to night?”

“Just come over when you feel like it. Jess and Paul are bringing pizza when they’re done golfing.”

“Which means they probably won’t be back till seven or
eight. Those guys spend more time in the ‘nineteenth hole’ than on the course.”

A sudden distraction infused itself in Cristina as the cab drove on. A bright, hot day passed before her, the city bustling with life. A high billboard showed three beautiful women on a beach, an ad for Victoria’s Secret bikinis, yet the colors of the beachwear were black, green, and red. It reminded her unpleasantly of the night she’d scrawled the same colors on her own body while blacked out.
What
would compel me to do something so bizarre?
she stressed to herself. When she briefly closed her eyes, she saw the three women but now they stood not on a beach but in a dark stone room, naked, their flawless bodies streaked with the same colors. At the corner, then, she glimpsed a black-clad figure in some kind of hood.

A nun?

Cristina squinted forward but saw that it was merely an old woman in a cloak.

“What’s with you?” Britt asked. “You in the twilight zone?”

Cristina flinched out of it, smiling as if all were normal. “No, I was just thinking.”

“Not about that damn centerpiece, I hope.”

“No, no…”

“Did you have the dream again?”

“Miraculously, no. Don’t remember dreaming anything last night, which is surprising ’cos I guess I was really worked up when we found that thing.”

“All that means is you’re getting accustomed to the new house, and your new life here.”

Yes
, Cristina felt sure.

They exchanged farewells when the cabbie dropped Britt off at her townhome, then continued on with Cristina. “Just drop me here, please. I’d like to walk,” she said when the cabbie stopped at a traffic light. He seemed about to thank her for an ample tip but was sidetracked when his
gaze raked across her bosom in the low-cut dress.
Jeez.
Drool, why don’t you?
But more male heads turned when she proceeded down the street.
I guess it’s just a sexist world
, she thought, and then noticed more high billboards sporting attractive women with sexual glints in their eyes.
Everything’s sex these days
.

Why was her mood being mauled?
Maybe I SHOULD
take Prozac
, she considered. She should be looking forward to to night instead of wilting from the glances of others.
It
only means I’m attractive, so I guess I should be grateful
.

“A beautiful woman for a beautiful day,” cracked a voice, and suddenly a hot dog was thrust before her.

“Thank you,” she muttered, halfheartedly, “but I just had lunch.” It was the vendor she saw so often now, who always had a cigar stump crimped between his teeth.

“Have a wonderful day,” he offered, “because it’s a wonderful world, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” she replied and hustled away.
Maybe it’s me
, she considered next. Maladapted—that was a word Britt used sometimes to characterize most of her cases at social services.
Maybe I’M the maladapted one. That vendor was
just wishing me well, but I immediately think it’s just lust
.

The bleak self-analyses collapsed when she spotted a big poster in the comic shop window.
Now THERE’S something
to be happy about!
The poster bragged of the release of the first four
Evil Church Creepies
, while a piece of tape informed: SOLD OUT! MORE ON ORDER. Suddenly her day felt reborn.
I’m pretty successful for someone so…maladapted!
A brisker pace took her down the street, and just as her happiness grew to full awareness, she slowed at the corner and—

Is that Father Rollin?

Another figure in black caught her eye, though not a woman and not becloaked. A priest with the same looks and build as Father Rollin approached the elegant front doors of the Ketchum Hotel. She stared after him as pedestrians
swept by on either side. When the crowd cleared, the priest was already inside.

Why is he going in there when he lives right across the street?

A giggling sound, almost like chirping, caused her to spin around. Another throng of pedestrians were crossing the street but between the intermittent gaps, Cristina thought she saw two girls peeking at her from an alley entrance.
Those homeless girls?
she wondered. She stood on tiptoes, glared between heads, but then the crowd cleared and no one remained in the entrance.

This day keeps tipping up and down
. She took off her high heels and power-walked back to the house.

Once inside, she felt yet another distraction: the house’s silence seemed all-consuming, a great dead space, and in spite of the air-conditioning, her skin prickled with heat. She stepped out of her dress right there in the foyer, then glimpsed herself in the bar mirror near the hall. She looked back at herself, noticing with a slight shock that she was naked.
I never leave the house without pan ties on!
Yet she couldn’t remember making the decision not to wear them. Sweat glistened on her face, breasts, and stomach. I
must be under the weather
, she concluded; now she felt burning up. When she checked the answering machine, she didn’t even smile at Bruno’s enthusiastic messages declaring that the first four figures in the
Evil Church
line were out of stock via preorders, and even after only a day or two reorders were pouring in, especially for the Noxious Nun.

Cristina walked listless to the bedroom, closed all the drapes to make it as dark as possible, and collapsed on the bed.

Laura “cooped” in the middle of her shift. Cooping was security-guard parlance for sleeping on the job. But why
not? Her rounds were all made.
Just a nap
, she told herself, stretching out on the couch in the old employees’ lounge. Half-drowsing, she smiled at the knowledge that not only had she gotten a lot of shut-eye on this couch, but she’d made love with a number of men.
All on the clock
. Each time she nodded off, however, some dream-snippet would shove her back to wakefulness, along with a jolt in her heart.

Was it a naked woman she saw in the flash, with fangs?

Jesus
…

And in the next drowse—

Shit!

—she bolted wide awake because she thought she heard a voice.

Just more dream shit
, she concluded. The words had sounded foreign and accented, whispered by a woman.

Get a catnap. I’m working a sixteen-
friggin’-hour shift
…

Her eyes slowly closed again; she felt fogged in darkness, then saw a great white wash of blood behind her eyes and—

“
Singele lui traieste
…”

“Damn it!” She sat upright, her attempts to “coop” ruined.
What the hell is this?
Had she heard the words in her head, or for real?

She looked immediately at the old boiler room door…

Sounded like it…came from there
.

When she pushed herself off the couch, her hand accidently slipped between two cushions, and touched something metallic.
Couldn’t be
, she challenged herself when she flipped the cushion up.

There, amid nameless food crumbs, petrified french fries, and an old porno novel that looked thirty years old, lay a metal ring full of keys.

No way
, she felt convinced; then her jaw dropped when she saw one key marked BOILER ROOM.

“I do not believe this,” she said aloud when she turned the key and heard the bolt release.

She pushed the door open and almost gagged at the sour stench that drifted out.
Probably dead rats
. She’d smelled that on many different job sites. She flicked the wall switch but nothing happened, then checked the circuit breaker near the couch.
How do you like that?
All of the circuits for the building were on, save for one slot—BOILER ROOM—whose breaker had been removed. Laura grabbed her flashlight out of her bag, snapped it on, and stepped into the black doorway.