Thank you for the comments, friendies!
Trevor, inexplicably, does not want to be in the VRN. (He and Shay had a discussion about this, resulting in the conclusion on Shay's part: "Whenever I hear about one of Mary's projects, I just stay the hell away and try not to get involved." They know me too well.)
I could probably work you in, Kristina: in what role to you envision yourself?
New chapters probably up by Monday.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Chapter 11: Balance of Power Politics and the Working Man
Any further involvement on the part of Roquefort or Voluptua was postponed until the next night, since the sun had come up. Lucretius, since evil never sleeps, found himself stuck with job of guarding Fr. Stephen, who did go to sleep. Tarin was stuck in charge of Katie.
“This is a vampire slayer’s lair?” Katie asked, looking around Tarin’s aparetment. “I thought you lived in Gothic mansions. I expected fewer Bon Jovi posters.”
“Vampires live in mansions. And I haven’t slept in two days, so I suggest you find a way to get comfy on my futon, otherwise you’ll pretty bored for the next few hours.”
Tarin, optimistically, had intended to get ready for bed and then go to bed. Katie seemed oblivious to this plan.
“Isn’t Voluptua pretty?” she gushed, watching Tarin brush her teeth. “And don’t you think Roquefort is just sex on toast?”
“Fnnrfl.” Tarin spat out toothpaste. “Remember that bit where I’m a vampire slayer? Does that not indicate to you my general feelings towards the species at large?”
“Well, I suppose, but they seem rather fun. Why don’t we play MASH with them?”
“With Roquefort and Voluptua? What are you talking about? I want to mash them into pieces. It’s my sworn duty to kill Roquefort, that’s what we were consulting the bloody prophets about, so we can see who’s got the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. And sometimes Y. That’s why they kidnapped Stephen, because he understands the wretched people, and that’s what they were on their way to do when you summoned Lucretius and got a side of vampire and Catholic.”
“Oh.” Katie seemed a little put out, but she wasn’t to be put off. “Lucretius seemed keen on you.
“That’s another kettle of fish entirely.”
Diplomatic relations between the undead, alive, demonic, and hopeful hangers on broke down temporarily next evening. Fr. Stephen refused to tell Lucretius and Roquefort anything concerning the prophecy. Voluptua demanded to know the prophecy and threatened to kidnap Fr. Stephen from his kidnappers and torture it out of him. Tarin demanded Stephen’s immediate release and threatened to kill Katie, but Roquefort called her bluff and she really hadn’t the heart. Lucretius, with rather more likelihood of following through, threatened to kill Stephen if Tarin didn’t order him to reveal the prophecy and then had an extensive argument with Roquefort. (“Waste of blood!” “But free weapons.”)
It was finally arranged that they would all meet together, Fr. Stephen would reveal the prophecy and that in return Voluptua would not bother him again.
“And we,” Lucretius said magnanimously, “will release you back into your natural habitat. I will stop attempting to kill you for as long as a week in return for your translating services.”
They ended up meeting in Roquefort’s gaudy and velvet draped mansion and sitting around a large mahogany table in dining room with a pleasant skull and roses motif.
“Right ho! Let’s have it then!” said Roquefort, rubbing his hands together. “I propose that after Fr. Whosy tells us what he knows, we all disband and have fair-minded, honest race to find and kill this stake-bearer, except of course if you, Tarin, you can do what you like.”
“Since I can’t find a way to stop you, I agree,” said Tarin. “Stephen?”
“Um,” said Stephen. “He will be gruff, but with a heart of gold.”
“Obviously!” said Lucretius in a stage whisper.
“He will be good with his hands. He will wear flannel shirts or no shirts at all. He will be practical and always come through for you in a pinch. He takes pride in keeping his word. He is nobody’s master but his own. He opens doors for women and likes dogs. He makes his own rules.”
“Oh, he sounds rather attractive,” said Tarin.
“Well, not as attractive as I am,” said Lucretius jealously, “but sounds a decent sort. Shame about having to kill him.”
There was a pause in which everyone else realized that Voluptua and Roquefort were staring at each other with expressions of abject horror.
“Falalalala, lalala fuck,” Roquefort said, not a man to stay coherent under pressure. “By the fresh scent of inappropriately shaped jello, this is worse than I thought.”
“What? Who? Why do you and Voluptua know things I don’t?” Lucretius whined.
“Are you experiencing an attack of conscience? You must admit, he sounds all right,” said Stephen.
“No,” said Voluptua, “what we are dealing with here is the worst sort of opponent. We are going to have to deal with, and possibly be in the same room as, a Gritty Everyman.”
“He probably try to ‘tell it like it is,’ and have a monosyllabic name,” said Roquefort.
“And inspire respect and loyalty in his employees, crew, minions, slaves, what ever he has. They always have fawning hangers on,” snapped Voluptua.
“Oh, you had me worried,” said Lucretius. Lucretius had not been born; he came into being as an evil spirit somewhere around 1 AD and viewed people as either more or less likely to be of use to him. Voluptua and Roquefort, however, worked within human constructs, and as such, cultivated the ability to look down on anyone. They had played pleasant childhood games such as “Throw Rocks at Poor People” and “Terrorize the Peasant” and “Make Jokes in Languages That Inferior Classes Don’t Know, Like Sanskrit.” They enjoyed spending money, lying outrageously and generally reassuring each other that there was nothing gritty or everyman about them.
But Tarin and Fr. Stephen exchanged a knowing look. For they already where to find their specimen, Buck “Testosterone” Steelham.
“This is a vampire slayer’s lair?” Katie asked, looking around Tarin’s aparetment. “I thought you lived in Gothic mansions. I expected fewer Bon Jovi posters.”
“Vampires live in mansions. And I haven’t slept in two days, so I suggest you find a way to get comfy on my futon, otherwise you’ll pretty bored for the next few hours.”
Tarin, optimistically, had intended to get ready for bed and then go to bed. Katie seemed oblivious to this plan.
“Isn’t Voluptua pretty?” she gushed, watching Tarin brush her teeth. “And don’t you think Roquefort is just sex on toast?”
“Fnnrfl.” Tarin spat out toothpaste. “Remember that bit where I’m a vampire slayer? Does that not indicate to you my general feelings towards the species at large?”
“Well, I suppose, but they seem rather fun. Why don’t we play MASH with them?”
“With Roquefort and Voluptua? What are you talking about? I want to mash them into pieces. It’s my sworn duty to kill Roquefort, that’s what we were consulting the bloody prophets about, so we can see who’s got the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. And sometimes Y. That’s why they kidnapped Stephen, because he understands the wretched people, and that’s what they were on their way to do when you summoned Lucretius and got a side of vampire and Catholic.”
“Oh.” Katie seemed a little put out, but she wasn’t to be put off. “Lucretius seemed keen on you.
“That’s another kettle of fish entirely.”
Diplomatic relations between the undead, alive, demonic, and hopeful hangers on broke down temporarily next evening. Fr. Stephen refused to tell Lucretius and Roquefort anything concerning the prophecy. Voluptua demanded to know the prophecy and threatened to kidnap Fr. Stephen from his kidnappers and torture it out of him. Tarin demanded Stephen’s immediate release and threatened to kill Katie, but Roquefort called her bluff and she really hadn’t the heart. Lucretius, with rather more likelihood of following through, threatened to kill Stephen if Tarin didn’t order him to reveal the prophecy and then had an extensive argument with Roquefort. (“Waste of blood!” “But free weapons.”)
It was finally arranged that they would all meet together, Fr. Stephen would reveal the prophecy and that in return Voluptua would not bother him again.
“And we,” Lucretius said magnanimously, “will release you back into your natural habitat. I will stop attempting to kill you for as long as a week in return for your translating services.”
They ended up meeting in Roquefort’s gaudy and velvet draped mansion and sitting around a large mahogany table in dining room with a pleasant skull and roses motif.
“Right ho! Let’s have it then!” said Roquefort, rubbing his hands together. “I propose that after Fr. Whosy tells us what he knows, we all disband and have fair-minded, honest race to find and kill this stake-bearer, except of course if you, Tarin, you can do what you like.”
“Since I can’t find a way to stop you, I agree,” said Tarin. “Stephen?”
“Um,” said Stephen. “He will be gruff, but with a heart of gold.”
“Obviously!” said Lucretius in a stage whisper.
“He will be good with his hands. He will wear flannel shirts or no shirts at all. He will be practical and always come through for you in a pinch. He takes pride in keeping his word. He is nobody’s master but his own. He opens doors for women and likes dogs. He makes his own rules.”
“Oh, he sounds rather attractive,” said Tarin.
“Well, not as attractive as I am,” said Lucretius jealously, “but sounds a decent sort. Shame about having to kill him.”
There was a pause in which everyone else realized that Voluptua and Roquefort were staring at each other with expressions of abject horror.
“Falalalala, lalala fuck,” Roquefort said, not a man to stay coherent under pressure. “By the fresh scent of inappropriately shaped jello, this is worse than I thought.”
“What? Who? Why do you and Voluptua know things I don’t?” Lucretius whined.
“Are you experiencing an attack of conscience? You must admit, he sounds all right,” said Stephen.
“No,” said Voluptua, “what we are dealing with here is the worst sort of opponent. We are going to have to deal with, and possibly be in the same room as, a Gritty Everyman.”
“He probably try to ‘tell it like it is,’ and have a monosyllabic name,” said Roquefort.
“And inspire respect and loyalty in his employees, crew, minions, slaves, what ever he has. They always have fawning hangers on,” snapped Voluptua.
“Oh, you had me worried,” said Lucretius. Lucretius had not been born; he came into being as an evil spirit somewhere around 1 AD and viewed people as either more or less likely to be of use to him. Voluptua and Roquefort, however, worked within human constructs, and as such, cultivated the ability to look down on anyone. They had played pleasant childhood games such as “Throw Rocks at Poor People” and “Terrorize the Peasant” and “Make Jokes in Languages That Inferior Classes Don’t Know, Like Sanskrit.” They enjoyed spending money, lying outrageously and generally reassuring each other that there was nothing gritty or everyman about them.
But Tarin and Fr. Stephen exchanged a knowing look. For they already where to find their specimen, Buck “Testosterone” Steelham.
Chapter 11: Remember What the Dormouse Said
What was going on inside of Voluptua’s sordid mind? Her sexual interlude with Tarin had passed from her mind, as sexual interludes tended to with Voluptua. By the time you figured out why your pants were off, she was on the prowl for her next victim.
But Voluptua, soaking erotically in an erotic bubble bath, was experiencing an unpleasant sensation, which was not something that happened very often and least of all in Voluptua’s specially engineered bathtub.
Volptua spent most of her time avoiding boredom. She had no moral conscience, but more problematic for people around her was that she was very extremely gifted at avoiding consequences. Metaphorically speaking, she had spent centuries firing guns in the air and watching, with interest, as bullets fell on other people. Indeed, sometimes she created diabolically unfortunate situations for the expressed purpose of amusing herself by avoiding the consequences.
But, she reflected, playing idly with a pet water snake, the plot had thickened like a belligerent custard. Setting aside the whole problem of Fr. Freudian Displacement, there were now four people who could affect the future of the undead world of darkness. And between those four, there were a limited number of relationships which would be beneficial to her interests. A union of Tarin and Lucretius would be disastrous. On the other hand, while Tweedledick and Tweedledum (as she thought of Roquefort and Lucretius) kept each other out of trouble with their own incompetence, they left Tarin free to fulfill all manner of prophecies, especially with a priest on her side. And if Tarin killed Roquefort, there would be no one to distract Lucretius from being a massive bother.
The hub, nub and crux of the situation was Tarin. I ought to have killed her instead of having sex with her, Voluptua mused, but she had seemed so delightfully confused and disturbed. At the heart of the matter, Voluptua enjoyed trouble too much to dispatch her enemies when an easy opportunity presented itself. Villains, as James Bond could have told her, tend to have this problem.
It occurred to Voluptua that she had promised to rescue Fr. Stephen. With Tarin. But Tarin had left in a flurry of sexual confusion and unnecessary accusations, culminating with some rather cutting personal remarks about Voluptua’s character and the ludicrous claim that she could rescue Fr. Stephen better without the help of “a malevolent, manipulative sexual predator and slut.”
Voluptua resolved to rescue Fr. Stephen anyway, because if there was a question of his being in any way useful she wanted him where she could see him. He might know more about the Wooden Stake of Etc than he was letting on.
Besides, rescuing someone from the Dynamic Duo was like rescuing candy from a moist, succulent baby.
Voluptua found them outside the Temple of Prophesy (mysterious Grecian temple on a barren moor, always surrounded by thunderstorms and the distant howl of wolves) arguing.
“How did you manage to drag her along?” ranted Lucretius. “Send her back to her parents! She’ll slow us down!”
“Shan’t,” said Roquefort. “You’re not the murderous tyrant of me.”
“Well, a quick bite and then back to her den of cheap body spray and futile dreams. But no more,” snarled Lucretius, rife with homosocial anxiety.
“May I interject that this is highly immoral?” interject Fr. Stephen. “Plow ye not the grassless furrow. Sup not of the young and the breastless. Leviticus, something something,” he added hopefully.
“I’ll plow the furrow of your face!” said Roquefort, and stood back with the air of a man who has really laid down a zinger.
“Roquefort,” said Stephen, “that was not actually a counter-argument.”
“Oh, hark at him! First name basis, eh? Kidnap a man for a day and he’ll think you’re friends for the rest of your life or teach you how of fish,” gabbled Roquefort.
“It was a bit familiar,” agreed Lucretius. “Look, why not--- oh hell, hell hell hell hell hell. I was just wondering how, how possibly, this night could reach below the absolute nadir of crapnitude, but now my eyes have been opened.”
“How are my favorite boys?” said Voluptua, sweetly.
“Voluptua!” said Roquefort, “this is a pleasant surprise.”
“Don’t talk to her,” muttered Lucretius. “It encourages her.”
Voluptua’s chief redeeming features were that she was very good-looking and very interesting to be around. It tended to bring out the worst in people. Lucretius, however, spent quite a lot of time in hell, where there were large numbers of very good-looking and very interesting women, and frankly the novelty had worn off after a few centuries. Really, though, he hated her effect of Roquefort, which was invariably bad. Like most things without a noticeable penis, Volutpua was one of Roquefort’s weaknesses.
At that moment, thunder clapped. Voluptua was about to suggest, by way of a distraction, that they actually enter the Temple of Prophesy, when Tarin the Righteous leaped out of a hedge, gleaming with chain mail and righteousness.
There was a moment of awkward silence in which they all regarded each other with animosity, confusion and sexual desire (the latter emanating mainly from Roquefort) before Tarin broke the silence, by saying, in the voice of one who feels she ought to say it, “Stephen! Thank God you’re all right.”
“I can’t tell you the day I’ve been having,” Stephen said.
“Well, that’s all right, I’ve come to rescue you,” said Voluptua, generously, and was greeted with a chorus of objections.
“Hahahahaha.”
“Wouldn’t go, mate. Out of the frying pan and into the fire of unadulterated liscentiousness.”
“Hahahahaha,” repeated Roquefort, irked that no one appreciated his sarcastic laughter.
“Don’t go with her! I’ve come to rescue you!”
“Hehe. Quite good that, old girl. Rescue. Is that what they’re calling that. Oh deary me. I’m tearing up with mirth,” continued Roquefort, determinedly.
Another malignant silence followed, as everyone was aware that a nasty argument was about to ensue and nobody wanted to start it, be on the same side as Voluptua, be on the opposite side of Voluptua, or catalyze another endless, sexual-tension filled squabble between Roquefort and Lucretius.
A diversion presented itself in the form of a previously unnoticed figure.
“Like, seriously. Are you really a vampire?” Katie gasped, awestricken, staring at Voluptua.
Tarin, Stephen, Lucretius and Roquefort then experienced the rare pleasure of seeing Voluptua disconcerted. Anyone would be put off, confronted by someone who appears to have dressed up as you. Voluptua stared, gobsmacked at what appeared to be a grotesque and rather hopeful parody of herself.
“Yes,” she managed. “I’m Voluptua. Charmed, I’m sure.” She extended a smooth white hand and shook Katie’s bony, silver-ring encrusted one.
“Gosh! I’m Katie. I’ve been trying to get people to call me Jadine, but it doesn’t really stick. How do you get people to call you Voluptua? And how to you get your hair like that? Are you Rocky’s girlfriend? It’s okay if you are, because I really totally feel like we’re going to be Best! Friends! We have sooooooooo much in common.”
“Voluptua… is my name…. Rocky? Girl… friend? Best... friend? Rocky?”
Tarin barely contained a snort of laughter, only because she felt bad for the poor girl. Lucretius, a creature of a nastier persuasion, chortled freely. “Rocky! Oh it’s too good! To think I’ve let him call me Lucy all of these years! Rocky! You were right, old thing, we must keep this one around!”
“Now, now,” said Roquefort nervously. “There’s no need to be assigning hasty titles like ‘girlfriend.’ Plenty helpings of Roquefort to go around.”
Katie was not tuning in to the basic tone of this conversation. “I. Love. Your. Dress. It’s sooo legit! Is it custom made? Do you dance under the moon with your sistern?”
“Sistren,” corrected Fr. Stephen helpfully, “ A cistern is a well.”
“He does this too me, too,” said Roquefort, whose talent for derailing conversations was second to none, “had a whole conversation about dormice and he was claiming I was talking about doormats.”
“You’re thinking of witches,” added Tarin.
Voluptua was recovering. She generally disliked having other women around, unless she was in a certain mood, but the advantages of being trailed by someone who is a much less attractive version of yourself were swiftly presenting themselves. Also, Roquefort seemed fond of her, and she liked a nice bargaining tool.
Roquefort, for his part, was not entirely out of the loop. He could tell from Voluptua’s face that Plans Were Hatching and unless they immediately and intimately involved the lower half of his body he was having none of that. “Lucy,” he hissed, “let’s drag the priest into the temple and get some nice hot prophesies.”
Lucretius, who had been trying to make suggestive eye-contact with Tarin for the past few minutes, and who was having no luck, nodded. They each grabbed one of Fr. Stephen’s arm and bolted for the temple, moving as only a demon and a vampire can. They were aided by a complete lack of resistance on Stephen’s part, since Voluptua’s creepy expression gave him the willies and Katie was the most irritating person he had ever met. Tarin, he felt, could fend for herself.
Voluptua looked after them, lazily. She could catch up in a hurry, if necessary.
“Don’t worry, Stephen,” yelled Tarin, “I’ll come rescue you... again!” She couldn’t feel right about leaving Katie with Voluptua.
Katie was positively glowing. “God, men, eh? Always…” she fumbled, “Always rushing off unexpectedly into Grecian temples, right? No sense of community or fraternity of sisternity.”
“Quite,” said Voluptua, who was always up for a little cheerful misandry, however ill-directed.
“Look here,” said Tarin. “I don’t like you, Voluptua, and you don’t like me, and we had sex, but I really feel we should follow them and find out what they’re up to.”
“Yes, better get those sillies out of trouble, that’s what we always do,” blathered Katie, happily ensconced in an imaginary sisterhood. Then she rethought. “Sex? Oh my God, really? I’ve always been, like totally bi-curious!” She turned her innocent interest to Tarin. “Are you a vampire too? I love your chain mail!”
“I’m a vampire slayer, you idiot,” said Tarin, losing patience. “Tarin the Righteous, descended from a line of vampire hunters sworn to rid the earth of the foul fiends that plague its very soul.”
“Oh,” said Katie, turning to Voluptua, “is she our enemy?”
Voluptua and Tarin exchanged a rare look of camaraderie. “Temple, then?” said Voluptua, bleakly.
The three prophets sat cross-legged in very high thrones. Wafts of smoke drifted up from the incessant fires of burning leaves at their feet.
“Bay leaves! How Delphic!” squealed Katie.
“Katie,” said Tarin, “those are not bay leaves.”
Lucretius and Roquefort were encouraging Stephen.
“Go on, Father Whatnot! Ask them whose got the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and Sometimes Y,” said Roquefort, eagerly.
“And be quick, or else we’ll all be in Estonia pretty shortly,” added Lucretius, who did not share Voluptua’s open mind about recreational drugs.
“I thought demons spoke in all tongues?” asked Fr. Stephen, absently.
“Tongues is not the problem,” said Lucretious. “Bloody annoying is the problem. The tall skinny one on the left speaks only in classic rock lyrics. The one with crazy hair in the middle can only quote Fox network television, and sometimes Comedy Central. And the woman on the end speaks only in the most pretentious literary references possible.”
Fr. Stephen nodded. He knew this. He’d met the prophets before. “Greetings, O Those On High,” he said, amicably. “How have you been?”
“Better to burn out than to fade away.”
“Your music is bad and you should feel bad!”
“And I, I took the one less traveled by.”
Fr. Stphen nodded sagely. “Really? Well, I can imagine. I’ve been rather busy myself. Look, I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a question?”
“Bucket of truth,” conceded the mad-haired individual beneficently.
“What are they saying?” hissed Roquefort.
“They say its nice to see me, they’ve been keeping very busy trying to remember where they put their feet, and of course I can ask a question, but I might not like the answer,” translated Fr. Stephen.
“I knew we were right to kidnap him,” beamed Roquefort.
“One of your better ideas, old fellow,” said Lucretius.
“Guys, you don’t happen to know who’s got the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Sometimes Y, do you?”
This provoked consternations, or as much consternation as was possible for people who are on a transcendent plane of reality.
“And the walls came down. All the way to hell,” posited the lanky one.
The woman bristled. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment! Love is not love that alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Friends, Romans—”
“Parliament actually has five houses,” interjected the third, tentatively.
“You can’t start a fire,” countered the man on the left. “You can’t start a fire without a spark.”
“Woob woob woob!”
Fr. Stephen sighed. “They don’t know. But then can give us distinguishing characteristics.”
“Well get them,” snapped Lucretius. “God, I can feel my mind dissolving.”
The mad-haired one grudgingly admitted, “Kiss my shiny metal daffodil.”
“Hear it not Heaven, thy misters have done it! Oh, for a voice of thunder,” opined the woman.
“She was a fast machine,” added the man on the left. “She kept her motor clean.”
“Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
“Godamnit, Any Poehler, no one knew what red wings were until you invented them!”
“Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight.”
“Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, lady, would be no crime.”
“Ah,” said Fr. Stephen. “Well, thank you for your efforts.”
“Let us go then, you and I, while the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table.”
“What do they say?” said Roquefort.
“And does it mean anything?” added Lucretius.
“Hmm, it will take some extrapolating, but--- um, does anyone remember where Tarin or Voluptua have gone?”
“Well, buggery, buggery dock,” said Roquefort, “they’ve sippadeared. Disappeared. With my dinner.”
And indeed, the cistern had fled the coop.
But Voluptua, soaking erotically in an erotic bubble bath, was experiencing an unpleasant sensation, which was not something that happened very often and least of all in Voluptua’s specially engineered bathtub.
Volptua spent most of her time avoiding boredom. She had no moral conscience, but more problematic for people around her was that she was very extremely gifted at avoiding consequences. Metaphorically speaking, she had spent centuries firing guns in the air and watching, with interest, as bullets fell on other people. Indeed, sometimes she created diabolically unfortunate situations for the expressed purpose of amusing herself by avoiding the consequences.
But, she reflected, playing idly with a pet water snake, the plot had thickened like a belligerent custard. Setting aside the whole problem of Fr. Freudian Displacement, there were now four people who could affect the future of the undead world of darkness. And between those four, there were a limited number of relationships which would be beneficial to her interests. A union of Tarin and Lucretius would be disastrous. On the other hand, while Tweedledick and Tweedledum (as she thought of Roquefort and Lucretius) kept each other out of trouble with their own incompetence, they left Tarin free to fulfill all manner of prophecies, especially with a priest on her side. And if Tarin killed Roquefort, there would be no one to distract Lucretius from being a massive bother.
The hub, nub and crux of the situation was Tarin. I ought to have killed her instead of having sex with her, Voluptua mused, but she had seemed so delightfully confused and disturbed. At the heart of the matter, Voluptua enjoyed trouble too much to dispatch her enemies when an easy opportunity presented itself. Villains, as James Bond could have told her, tend to have this problem.
It occurred to Voluptua that she had promised to rescue Fr. Stephen. With Tarin. But Tarin had left in a flurry of sexual confusion and unnecessary accusations, culminating with some rather cutting personal remarks about Voluptua’s character and the ludicrous claim that she could rescue Fr. Stephen better without the help of “a malevolent, manipulative sexual predator and slut.”
Voluptua resolved to rescue Fr. Stephen anyway, because if there was a question of his being in any way useful she wanted him where she could see him. He might know more about the Wooden Stake of Etc than he was letting on.
Besides, rescuing someone from the Dynamic Duo was like rescuing candy from a moist, succulent baby.
Voluptua found them outside the Temple of Prophesy (mysterious Grecian temple on a barren moor, always surrounded by thunderstorms and the distant howl of wolves) arguing.
“How did you manage to drag her along?” ranted Lucretius. “Send her back to her parents! She’ll slow us down!”
“Shan’t,” said Roquefort. “You’re not the murderous tyrant of me.”
“Well, a quick bite and then back to her den of cheap body spray and futile dreams. But no more,” snarled Lucretius, rife with homosocial anxiety.
“May I interject that this is highly immoral?” interject Fr. Stephen. “Plow ye not the grassless furrow. Sup not of the young and the breastless. Leviticus, something something,” he added hopefully.
“I’ll plow the furrow of your face!” said Roquefort, and stood back with the air of a man who has really laid down a zinger.
“Roquefort,” said Stephen, “that was not actually a counter-argument.”
“Oh, hark at him! First name basis, eh? Kidnap a man for a day and he’ll think you’re friends for the rest of your life or teach you how of fish,” gabbled Roquefort.
“It was a bit familiar,” agreed Lucretius. “Look, why not--- oh hell, hell hell hell hell hell. I was just wondering how, how possibly, this night could reach below the absolute nadir of crapnitude, but now my eyes have been opened.”
“How are my favorite boys?” said Voluptua, sweetly.
“Voluptua!” said Roquefort, “this is a pleasant surprise.”
“Don’t talk to her,” muttered Lucretius. “It encourages her.”
Voluptua’s chief redeeming features were that she was very good-looking and very interesting to be around. It tended to bring out the worst in people. Lucretius, however, spent quite a lot of time in hell, where there were large numbers of very good-looking and very interesting women, and frankly the novelty had worn off after a few centuries. Really, though, he hated her effect of Roquefort, which was invariably bad. Like most things without a noticeable penis, Volutpua was one of Roquefort’s weaknesses.
At that moment, thunder clapped. Voluptua was about to suggest, by way of a distraction, that they actually enter the Temple of Prophesy, when Tarin the Righteous leaped out of a hedge, gleaming with chain mail and righteousness.
There was a moment of awkward silence in which they all regarded each other with animosity, confusion and sexual desire (the latter emanating mainly from Roquefort) before Tarin broke the silence, by saying, in the voice of one who feels she ought to say it, “Stephen! Thank God you’re all right.”
“I can’t tell you the day I’ve been having,” Stephen said.
“Well, that’s all right, I’ve come to rescue you,” said Voluptua, generously, and was greeted with a chorus of objections.
“Hahahahaha.”
“Wouldn’t go, mate. Out of the frying pan and into the fire of unadulterated liscentiousness.”
“Hahahahaha,” repeated Roquefort, irked that no one appreciated his sarcastic laughter.
“Don’t go with her! I’ve come to rescue you!”
“Hehe. Quite good that, old girl. Rescue. Is that what they’re calling that. Oh deary me. I’m tearing up with mirth,” continued Roquefort, determinedly.
Another malignant silence followed, as everyone was aware that a nasty argument was about to ensue and nobody wanted to start it, be on the same side as Voluptua, be on the opposite side of Voluptua, or catalyze another endless, sexual-tension filled squabble between Roquefort and Lucretius.
A diversion presented itself in the form of a previously unnoticed figure.
“Like, seriously. Are you really a vampire?” Katie gasped, awestricken, staring at Voluptua.
Tarin, Stephen, Lucretius and Roquefort then experienced the rare pleasure of seeing Voluptua disconcerted. Anyone would be put off, confronted by someone who appears to have dressed up as you. Voluptua stared, gobsmacked at what appeared to be a grotesque and rather hopeful parody of herself.
“Yes,” she managed. “I’m Voluptua. Charmed, I’m sure.” She extended a smooth white hand and shook Katie’s bony, silver-ring encrusted one.
“Gosh! I’m Katie. I’ve been trying to get people to call me Jadine, but it doesn’t really stick. How do you get people to call you Voluptua? And how to you get your hair like that? Are you Rocky’s girlfriend? It’s okay if you are, because I really totally feel like we’re going to be Best! Friends! We have sooooooooo much in common.”
“Voluptua… is my name…. Rocky? Girl… friend? Best... friend? Rocky?”
Tarin barely contained a snort of laughter, only because she felt bad for the poor girl. Lucretius, a creature of a nastier persuasion, chortled freely. “Rocky! Oh it’s too good! To think I’ve let him call me Lucy all of these years! Rocky! You were right, old thing, we must keep this one around!”
“Now, now,” said Roquefort nervously. “There’s no need to be assigning hasty titles like ‘girlfriend.’ Plenty helpings of Roquefort to go around.”
Katie was not tuning in to the basic tone of this conversation. “I. Love. Your. Dress. It’s sooo legit! Is it custom made? Do you dance under the moon with your sistern?”
“Sistren,” corrected Fr. Stephen helpfully, “ A cistern is a well.”
“He does this too me, too,” said Roquefort, whose talent for derailing conversations was second to none, “had a whole conversation about dormice and he was claiming I was talking about doormats.”
“You’re thinking of witches,” added Tarin.
Voluptua was recovering. She generally disliked having other women around, unless she was in a certain mood, but the advantages of being trailed by someone who is a much less attractive version of yourself were swiftly presenting themselves. Also, Roquefort seemed fond of her, and she liked a nice bargaining tool.
Roquefort, for his part, was not entirely out of the loop. He could tell from Voluptua’s face that Plans Were Hatching and unless they immediately and intimately involved the lower half of his body he was having none of that. “Lucy,” he hissed, “let’s drag the priest into the temple and get some nice hot prophesies.”
Lucretius, who had been trying to make suggestive eye-contact with Tarin for the past few minutes, and who was having no luck, nodded. They each grabbed one of Fr. Stephen’s arm and bolted for the temple, moving as only a demon and a vampire can. They were aided by a complete lack of resistance on Stephen’s part, since Voluptua’s creepy expression gave him the willies and Katie was the most irritating person he had ever met. Tarin, he felt, could fend for herself.
Voluptua looked after them, lazily. She could catch up in a hurry, if necessary.
“Don’t worry, Stephen,” yelled Tarin, “I’ll come rescue you... again!” She couldn’t feel right about leaving Katie with Voluptua.
Katie was positively glowing. “God, men, eh? Always…” she fumbled, “Always rushing off unexpectedly into Grecian temples, right? No sense of community or fraternity of sisternity.”
“Quite,” said Voluptua, who was always up for a little cheerful misandry, however ill-directed.
“Look here,” said Tarin. “I don’t like you, Voluptua, and you don’t like me, and we had sex, but I really feel we should follow them and find out what they’re up to.”
“Yes, better get those sillies out of trouble, that’s what we always do,” blathered Katie, happily ensconced in an imaginary sisterhood. Then she rethought. “Sex? Oh my God, really? I’ve always been, like totally bi-curious!” She turned her innocent interest to Tarin. “Are you a vampire too? I love your chain mail!”
“I’m a vampire slayer, you idiot,” said Tarin, losing patience. “Tarin the Righteous, descended from a line of vampire hunters sworn to rid the earth of the foul fiends that plague its very soul.”
“Oh,” said Katie, turning to Voluptua, “is she our enemy?”
Voluptua and Tarin exchanged a rare look of camaraderie. “Temple, then?” said Voluptua, bleakly.
The three prophets sat cross-legged in very high thrones. Wafts of smoke drifted up from the incessant fires of burning leaves at their feet.
“Bay leaves! How Delphic!” squealed Katie.
“Katie,” said Tarin, “those are not bay leaves.”
Lucretius and Roquefort were encouraging Stephen.
“Go on, Father Whatnot! Ask them whose got the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and Sometimes Y,” said Roquefort, eagerly.
“And be quick, or else we’ll all be in Estonia pretty shortly,” added Lucretius, who did not share Voluptua’s open mind about recreational drugs.
“I thought demons spoke in all tongues?” asked Fr. Stephen, absently.
“Tongues is not the problem,” said Lucretious. “Bloody annoying is the problem. The tall skinny one on the left speaks only in classic rock lyrics. The one with crazy hair in the middle can only quote Fox network television, and sometimes Comedy Central. And the woman on the end speaks only in the most pretentious literary references possible.”
Fr. Stephen nodded. He knew this. He’d met the prophets before. “Greetings, O Those On High,” he said, amicably. “How have you been?”
“Better to burn out than to fade away.”
“Your music is bad and you should feel bad!”
“And I, I took the one less traveled by.”
Fr. Stphen nodded sagely. “Really? Well, I can imagine. I’ve been rather busy myself. Look, I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a question?”
“Bucket of truth,” conceded the mad-haired individual beneficently.
“What are they saying?” hissed Roquefort.
“They say its nice to see me, they’ve been keeping very busy trying to remember where they put their feet, and of course I can ask a question, but I might not like the answer,” translated Fr. Stephen.
“I knew we were right to kidnap him,” beamed Roquefort.
“One of your better ideas, old fellow,” said Lucretius.
“Guys, you don’t happen to know who’s got the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Sometimes Y, do you?”
This provoked consternations, or as much consternation as was possible for people who are on a transcendent plane of reality.
“And the walls came down. All the way to hell,” posited the lanky one.
The woman bristled. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment! Love is not love that alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Friends, Romans—”
“Parliament actually has five houses,” interjected the third, tentatively.
“You can’t start a fire,” countered the man on the left. “You can’t start a fire without a spark.”
“Woob woob woob!”
Fr. Stephen sighed. “They don’t know. But then can give us distinguishing characteristics.”
“Well get them,” snapped Lucretius. “God, I can feel my mind dissolving.”
The mad-haired one grudgingly admitted, “Kiss my shiny metal daffodil.”
“Hear it not Heaven, thy misters have done it! Oh, for a voice of thunder,” opined the woman.
“She was a fast machine,” added the man on the left. “She kept her motor clean.”
“Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
“Godamnit, Any Poehler, no one knew what red wings were until you invented them!”
“Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight.”
“Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, lady, would be no crime.”
“Ah,” said Fr. Stephen. “Well, thank you for your efforts.”
“Let us go then, you and I, while the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table.”
“What do they say?” said Roquefort.
“And does it mean anything?” added Lucretius.
“Hmm, it will take some extrapolating, but--- um, does anyone remember where Tarin or Voluptua have gone?”
“Well, buggery, buggery dock,” said Roquefort, “they’ve sippadeared. Disappeared. With my dinner.”
And indeed, the cistern had fled the coop.
Chapter 10: Occult Play and Light Bondage
Roquefort, Lucretius and Fr. Stephen were happily on their way to see the Three Prophets when the limo started to rattle, hiss and glow.
“I say, making it rather hard to drink, eh?” said Roquefort, who had been feeling bored and was not averse to a diversion.
“Are we going to explode?” said Fr. Stephen, not without a trace of hope.
“No,” said Lucretius, with a look of deepest horror and fear. “Worse than that. We’re being---”
However, there was a sudden flash of light and bang and sense of movement.
Fr. Stephen looked around. He was in a darkened room. He felt for a gun, and stroked it to reassure himself. He was surprised to find that the sound of Lucretius and Roquefort bickering was oddly comforting.
“I strongly suspect this is something to with you, Lucy!”
“Oh, of course you do! First thing you always do, we find ourselves in a Circle of Demonic Summoning and you blame the demon! Racism!”
“A what of Demonic whating? Did my keen little ears hear the word ‘Demonic?’”
“A Circle—you know the word, I can only hope—of—it’s a possessive—Demonic—and I want to reiterate that I did not orchestrate this…”
Stephen tuned them out and peering into the darkness. This did not look like hell, or indeed, anything demonic. If he wasn’t very mistaken he would have said he could see a Blink 182 poster—but that didn’t make sense…
A shrill, female voice. “Sisters, it worked!”
“Do they come in threes, usually, Katie?”
“Well, we are new at this—ahem!”
(“We don’t have time for this!” “You never have time for my problems. Or sympathy.” “Lucy, I was wrong. This is entirely your problem. I really have no reason to be extremely angry—oh, I say, someone is talking to us…”)
Three young female faces, which Stephen would put at roughly fifteen, peered out of the darkness, illuminated by flashlights they held under their chins and a considerable amount of pale makeup and red lipstick. Stephen felt a sudden burst of pessimism. They were wearing black nail polish.
The one in the middle had a nose stud and was clearly in charge. “Are you all incubi?”
“No!” said Stephen and Lucretius in unison.
“Yes!” said Roquefort, predictably.
“Can I just interject, gentlemen,” said Lucretius, “that this is a perfect lesson in negative stereotyping? I am a perfectly respectable, certified demon, trying to make an honest living---”
“Sorry, you can’t expect me to just let that pass,” began Stephen, but Lucretius was enjoying a rare moment of righteous outrage.
“And every four or five years, this happens, a group a prepubescent baggages summon me because of course, ALL demons are incubi, we ALL have the same interests, profiling, I call it, profiling of a most pernicious nature. And by the way, we’re stuck in the Circle of Summoning until they let us go.”
“Well, I am certainly an incubus. Rawwwr, demon lover!” Roquefort said, hungrily. “Just let me out of this little Circley whatnot and I’ll drain you dr—erm, fulfill all of your innermost sexual fantasies.”
“This is what I put up with constantly,” Lucretius muttered to Stephen. “Everywhere we go, its suck this, seduce that, change into a bat that flies up women’s skirts. And who cleans up the mess?”
“You?” said Stephen wearily. He was wondering if divide and conquer might not be the way out of this kidnapping pickle. Lucretius was clearly more reasonable, but Roquefort was probably easier to manipulate. He glanced over at the girls. There would be no help from that quarter. They probably thought being kidnapped by a vampire and a demon was the best thing that could possibly happen to a girl. Roquefort, with admirable shamelessness, was encouraging this impression.
“Well, the problem with being an incubus,” he purred, “is that all sorts of hideously unattractive women summon you. Imagine, ladies what very pleasant surprise the three of you were!”
Stephen noted that the girls were trying, in some respects, to look like Voluptua. They had all died their hair jet black, and were wearing the sort of tight, low dresses that cost about 11.50$. Two of them had obviously stuffed their bras and the one that didn’t need to do so had neglected to wear one at all.
“One grows so world weary… so lonely… searching for a woman who understands the recesses of my troubled, complex heart. And loins,” Roquefort was saying.
“Beezebub’s blood-stained crockpot,” grumbled Lucretius. “We’ll be here for hours. Where’s a priest when you need on?”
Stephen blinked. “I am a priest.”
“What? Why didn’t you say so? You think you know a person.”
“Lucretius,” Fr. Stephen said. “We’ve been fighting each other for years. Because I’m a priest and you’re a demon. You’ve been calling me ‘Father.’ I am wearing a cassock.”
“Well, yes, but you sort of forget the specifics of a mortal enemy, don’t you? I mean, it’s like you have blond hair, but every time I see you, I don’t take especial note of it, because it would be beside the point.”
“The reason that we are mortal enemies is beside the point,” Stephen said flatly, feeling a twinge of sympathy for Roquefort.
Roquefort was picking up steam. “It’s just heart-breaking. You finally meet a woman, three women, who move something in your heart that you thought had died long ago, women who could teach a bad man to love again, and you find yourself stuck within a demonic circle of some sort.” He sighed wistfully. “Oh, if only there was some way to get out… to embrace the fires of love…”
The plump one looked sideways at the central girl. “Urm, should we let him out, Katie?”
There was an awkward silence. “Well, I don’t know. I didn’t think we’d get an actual demon,” Katie said nervously. “What do you think will happen?” She blushed. “I mean, I know what will happen, but there are questions of, you know, how soon, where, with what, all that.”
“Really?” said the plump girl hopefully. “What will happen?”
Roquefort changed paces rapidly. “Romantic kisses. Light petting. Parchesi.”
“Right, this has gone just about as far as it should,” said Stephen. He whipped out his crucifix. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, this circle is broken!”
“Soothing talks about books,” continued Roquefort. “Hand-holding. Tea and----GAH WHAT ARE YOU DOING HE HAS A CRUCIFIX LUCY!”
“I know,” said Lucretius, in a tone of pride, as if he were responsible for this discovery. “Turns out he’s a priest.”
“And they always carry those things? Bloody dangerous.” Roquefort prodded the circle’s edge with his evening boot. “Oh I say. Seems this thing has broken.”
There was a pause both pregnant and distinctly virginal.
“Um, just remembered an important geometry homework curfew going to the bathroom,” said the third girl, the quietest and apparently the most intelligent, and left.
Julie, the plump one, stood up and folded her arms. “I’m leaving. Don’t try any funny business.”
“He won’t. I’ve got a crucifix,” said Stephen, feeling protective, and, for the first time in several hours, in control.
“Eurggh, Boringus Maximus Alertus,” said Roquefort, stepping toward Katie in what could only be described as a predatory manner.
“No, we’re leaving. And you are too, you bloody encourager of racial profiling,” said Lucretius. “We can go back to the limo through the circle now they’ve let us go.”
“They didn’t,” said Roquefort, “Whatsit here broke it. No way of getting back now. My dear, can I interest you in a moonlight stroll?”
Lucretius grabbed Roquefort’s velvet-clad arm and jerked him backward. “We are on a mission to prevent Tarin the Righteous from overcoming the forces of evil, ie, us, and when I am not in a Circle of Demonic summoning, I can disapparate when I like. Now come on. He’s a vampire, by the way, you silly girl. As in, he vaaants to suck your blooood.”
“Wait!” Katie threw herself on the ground. “Take me with you! Show me the ways of love!”
“You see? She wants to come along. Everyone knows vampires only go where we’re invited, more or less.”
“He’ll show you the ways of a light snack,” said Lucretius. “Now come on, you useless lout!”
Stephen felt a familiar jerk and flash, and, faintly in the distance, Roquefort’s voice saying like, “Interfering, judgmental of lifestyle choices, hungry, bag of hot air demon, back to hell where he belongs, no harm in a light bite…”
Then there was a thud, and they were not back in the limo at all.
“I say, making it rather hard to drink, eh?” said Roquefort, who had been feeling bored and was not averse to a diversion.
“Are we going to explode?” said Fr. Stephen, not without a trace of hope.
“No,” said Lucretius, with a look of deepest horror and fear. “Worse than that. We’re being---”
However, there was a sudden flash of light and bang and sense of movement.
Fr. Stephen looked around. He was in a darkened room. He felt for a gun, and stroked it to reassure himself. He was surprised to find that the sound of Lucretius and Roquefort bickering was oddly comforting.
“I strongly suspect this is something to with you, Lucy!”
“Oh, of course you do! First thing you always do, we find ourselves in a Circle of Demonic Summoning and you blame the demon! Racism!”
“A what of Demonic whating? Did my keen little ears hear the word ‘Demonic?’”
“A Circle—you know the word, I can only hope—of—it’s a possessive—Demonic—and I want to reiterate that I did not orchestrate this…”
Stephen tuned them out and peering into the darkness. This did not look like hell, or indeed, anything demonic. If he wasn’t very mistaken he would have said he could see a Blink 182 poster—but that didn’t make sense…
A shrill, female voice. “Sisters, it worked!”
“Do they come in threes, usually, Katie?”
“Well, we are new at this—ahem!”
(“We don’t have time for this!” “You never have time for my problems. Or sympathy.” “Lucy, I was wrong. This is entirely your problem. I really have no reason to be extremely angry—oh, I say, someone is talking to us…”)
Three young female faces, which Stephen would put at roughly fifteen, peered out of the darkness, illuminated by flashlights they held under their chins and a considerable amount of pale makeup and red lipstick. Stephen felt a sudden burst of pessimism. They were wearing black nail polish.
The one in the middle had a nose stud and was clearly in charge. “Are you all incubi?”
“No!” said Stephen and Lucretius in unison.
“Yes!” said Roquefort, predictably.
“Can I just interject, gentlemen,” said Lucretius, “that this is a perfect lesson in negative stereotyping? I am a perfectly respectable, certified demon, trying to make an honest living---”
“Sorry, you can’t expect me to just let that pass,” began Stephen, but Lucretius was enjoying a rare moment of righteous outrage.
“And every four or five years, this happens, a group a prepubescent baggages summon me because of course, ALL demons are incubi, we ALL have the same interests, profiling, I call it, profiling of a most pernicious nature. And by the way, we’re stuck in the Circle of Summoning until they let us go.”
“Well, I am certainly an incubus. Rawwwr, demon lover!” Roquefort said, hungrily. “Just let me out of this little Circley whatnot and I’ll drain you dr—erm, fulfill all of your innermost sexual fantasies.”
“This is what I put up with constantly,” Lucretius muttered to Stephen. “Everywhere we go, its suck this, seduce that, change into a bat that flies up women’s skirts. And who cleans up the mess?”
“You?” said Stephen wearily. He was wondering if divide and conquer might not be the way out of this kidnapping pickle. Lucretius was clearly more reasonable, but Roquefort was probably easier to manipulate. He glanced over at the girls. There would be no help from that quarter. They probably thought being kidnapped by a vampire and a demon was the best thing that could possibly happen to a girl. Roquefort, with admirable shamelessness, was encouraging this impression.
“Well, the problem with being an incubus,” he purred, “is that all sorts of hideously unattractive women summon you. Imagine, ladies what very pleasant surprise the three of you were!”
Stephen noted that the girls were trying, in some respects, to look like Voluptua. They had all died their hair jet black, and were wearing the sort of tight, low dresses that cost about 11.50$. Two of them had obviously stuffed their bras and the one that didn’t need to do so had neglected to wear one at all.
“One grows so world weary… so lonely… searching for a woman who understands the recesses of my troubled, complex heart. And loins,” Roquefort was saying.
“Beezebub’s blood-stained crockpot,” grumbled Lucretius. “We’ll be here for hours. Where’s a priest when you need on?”
Stephen blinked. “I am a priest.”
“What? Why didn’t you say so? You think you know a person.”
“Lucretius,” Fr. Stephen said. “We’ve been fighting each other for years. Because I’m a priest and you’re a demon. You’ve been calling me ‘Father.’ I am wearing a cassock.”
“Well, yes, but you sort of forget the specifics of a mortal enemy, don’t you? I mean, it’s like you have blond hair, but every time I see you, I don’t take especial note of it, because it would be beside the point.”
“The reason that we are mortal enemies is beside the point,” Stephen said flatly, feeling a twinge of sympathy for Roquefort.
Roquefort was picking up steam. “It’s just heart-breaking. You finally meet a woman, three women, who move something in your heart that you thought had died long ago, women who could teach a bad man to love again, and you find yourself stuck within a demonic circle of some sort.” He sighed wistfully. “Oh, if only there was some way to get out… to embrace the fires of love…”
The plump one looked sideways at the central girl. “Urm, should we let him out, Katie?”
There was an awkward silence. “Well, I don’t know. I didn’t think we’d get an actual demon,” Katie said nervously. “What do you think will happen?” She blushed. “I mean, I know what will happen, but there are questions of, you know, how soon, where, with what, all that.”
“Really?” said the plump girl hopefully. “What will happen?”
Roquefort changed paces rapidly. “Romantic kisses. Light petting. Parchesi.”
“Right, this has gone just about as far as it should,” said Stephen. He whipped out his crucifix. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, this circle is broken!”
“Soothing talks about books,” continued Roquefort. “Hand-holding. Tea and----GAH WHAT ARE YOU DOING HE HAS A CRUCIFIX LUCY!”
“I know,” said Lucretius, in a tone of pride, as if he were responsible for this discovery. “Turns out he’s a priest.”
“And they always carry those things? Bloody dangerous.” Roquefort prodded the circle’s edge with his evening boot. “Oh I say. Seems this thing has broken.”
There was a pause both pregnant and distinctly virginal.
“Um, just remembered an important geometry homework curfew going to the bathroom,” said the third girl, the quietest and apparently the most intelligent, and left.
Julie, the plump one, stood up and folded her arms. “I’m leaving. Don’t try any funny business.”
“He won’t. I’ve got a crucifix,” said Stephen, feeling protective, and, for the first time in several hours, in control.
“Eurggh, Boringus Maximus Alertus,” said Roquefort, stepping toward Katie in what could only be described as a predatory manner.
“No, we’re leaving. And you are too, you bloody encourager of racial profiling,” said Lucretius. “We can go back to the limo through the circle now they’ve let us go.”
“They didn’t,” said Roquefort, “Whatsit here broke it. No way of getting back now. My dear, can I interest you in a moonlight stroll?”
Lucretius grabbed Roquefort’s velvet-clad arm and jerked him backward. “We are on a mission to prevent Tarin the Righteous from overcoming the forces of evil, ie, us, and when I am not in a Circle of Demonic summoning, I can disapparate when I like. Now come on. He’s a vampire, by the way, you silly girl. As in, he vaaants to suck your blooood.”
“Wait!” Katie threw herself on the ground. “Take me with you! Show me the ways of love!”
“You see? She wants to come along. Everyone knows vampires only go where we’re invited, more or less.”
“He’ll show you the ways of a light snack,” said Lucretius. “Now come on, you useless lout!”
Stephen felt a familiar jerk and flash, and, faintly in the distance, Roquefort’s voice saying like, “Interfering, judgmental of lifestyle choices, hungry, bag of hot air demon, back to hell where he belongs, no harm in a light bite…”
Then there was a thud, and they were not back in the limo at all.
Chapter 9: Deleted Lesbian Sex Scene
No seriously, I deleted it. Well maybe. It's still on my computer. But it's available only to members of a secret society.
Chapter 8: The Love Which Dare Not Scream Its Name
Meanwhile, Tarin was headed over to Voluptua’s. This was not an undertaking she undertook lightly, and under her glistening chain-mail were hidden various weapons, ass well as a secret vial of holy water and another of Essence of Garlic. Yet Tarin did not plan to kill Voluptua, satisfying as that might have been. She knew she would be injured, possibly killed in the struggle, and she needed all her strength to destroy Roquefort. No, Tarin came to Voluptua’s home because she had been invited. A card had come in her mail, inviting her to have tea and discuss a truce. Tarin doubted that Voluptua had any such truce in mind, but the layout of Voluptua’s home would be a useful thing to have in her mind for later.
“My dear. Do come in,” said Voluptua, opening the door to her lavishly furnished townhouse. “I’ve just had Deshedned lay out a tea tray.”
“Please don’t call me your dear. I know you want something from me. You may as well tell me upfront,” Tarin said.
Voluptua laughed. It sounded like poisonous bells. “You don’t take any pleasure in conversation? A great man once said that when you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. When you come into a vampire’s home with a stake and vial of holy water under your clothes, you should at least indulge her in some pleasantries. Please sit down, by the way.”
“I’m here to have tea with you, Voluptua. If you get a lion to lie down with a lamb, you don’t tempt the lion with irritating small talk.”
“Mmm, well, I’ll try not to tempt you too much,” smiled Voluptua. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Cream, no sugar.”
“Of course. And now I will oblige you by getting to the point. You may have noticed Roquefort and Lucretius floating around in an irritating fashion.”
“I have.”
“And, while I know you have a strange grudge against me—”
“Voluptua, be reasonable. I’m a vampire-slayer. You’re a vampire. I also know you’ve helped Roquefort in the past. I just want to know why you’d help me.”
“I didn’t help Roquefort, I fucked Roquefort. Completely different, as I’m sure you’re aware. And I’m helping you because it benefits me, obviously. Why do you think I do anything?”
“Good point,” Tarin admitted
“I believe The Brothers Twit have kidnapped that priest of yours.”
“What? Fr. Stephen? Why?” Tarin gasped. “Are they going to molest him?”
“God, what a nasty and completely believable idea that is,” said Voluptua. “Anyway, I’ve no idea why they’ve got him. I do have a mute spy installed as their bartender, but he can’t hear everything. I hope it’s not something too diabolic.”
“Oh my God,” Tarin said. “Well, get him back.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Come on. Isn’t that really why you asked me here? You know you’re the only person who can take on Lucretius and Roquefort. You know I can’t let Stephen be kidnapped by molester nosferatu. And I know you’re going to want something from me. So you win, Voluptua. Get him back.”
“You know, there are more modes of conversation than cutting to the chase,” Voluptua said mildly. “And if you ask me to, I will bring your friend back. But I want you to promise not to try to kill me, now or ever.”
“Is that all? Of course I won’t, if you rescue my friend.”
“Mmmm, lovely. How nice that we’ve reached this little entente. We shall leave immediately. I happen to know where they’re headed. I assume you’ll want to accompany me? To keep me honest?”
“You know, you act like I’m completely unreasonable for disliking you, but you kill people,” Tarin said.
“You kill vampires.”
“Vampires kill innocent people.”
“And why, pray, does that entitle you to act as our judge? Is it murder when I kill somebody to eat, but not when you kill someone who you don’t like as a species?”
“Don’t philosophize me, Voluptua, we’d just reached this nice understanding. And yes, I will accompany you.”
“How delightful to have intelligent female company for once,” Voluptua said. She rose and stood what would have been eye-to-eye with Tarin, except that Voluptua was wearing heels about six inches high.
“Okay, then,” Tarin said, put off my Voluptua’s casual disregard for personal space. “Should we, um, go?”
“Yes. But first there’s something I must tell you,” Voluptua said, in a low voice. Her white hand snaked around Tarin’s shoulder and traced a line down the nape of Tarin’s neck. “Ever since I first saw you in the bar, I was struck by your brisk stride. Your competence, your confidence, your dark and sultry eyes. I love men, but a woman like you can turn my head, and I’ve been dead for over a thousand years.”
“Voluptua,” stammered Tarin, “I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I love the cock. And anyway, I can’t justify a lesbian interlude when we’re supposed to be rescuing Stephen.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Stephen,” Voluptua purred, stroking Tarin’s hair, “Roquefort and Lucretius can’t do anything quickly or effectively. And darling, I know you want me. Everyone does.”
Before Tarin could point out the essential narcissism of this statement, Voluptua had bent her face and pressed her warm, red lips against Tarin’s own. Voluptua’s black, shining hair brushed Tarin’s face, and she realized that it smelled like jasmine blossoms. The heat of the kiss caught her surprise.
“Ah, Tarin,” murmured Voluptua against Tarin’s thoat, “you taste as good as you look. And you look beautiful. I must have you, now, on crimson sheets of iniquity.”
“This is wrong,” Tarin muttured, but her heart beat faster and her nipples tightened under the chain mail, which proved slightly painful.
“Sometimes when I’m conflicted about something, I do it anyway,” Voluptua said helpfully.
“I know that,” Tarin said, “but I--- ooh!”
Voluptua had scooped her up in her surprisingly strong arms and was walking gracefully toward the stairs. She bent as she went to kiss Tarin’s baffled forehead. Tarin felt herself sink under Voluptua’s warm and arousing spell. Voluptua carried her to a sumptuously furnished bedchamber. And then they had dirty, energetic sex.
“My dear. Do come in,” said Voluptua, opening the door to her lavishly furnished townhouse. “I’ve just had Deshedned lay out a tea tray.”
“Please don’t call me your dear. I know you want something from me. You may as well tell me upfront,” Tarin said.
Voluptua laughed. It sounded like poisonous bells. “You don’t take any pleasure in conversation? A great man once said that when you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. When you come into a vampire’s home with a stake and vial of holy water under your clothes, you should at least indulge her in some pleasantries. Please sit down, by the way.”
“I’m here to have tea with you, Voluptua. If you get a lion to lie down with a lamb, you don’t tempt the lion with irritating small talk.”
“Mmm, well, I’ll try not to tempt you too much,” smiled Voluptua. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Cream, no sugar.”
“Of course. And now I will oblige you by getting to the point. You may have noticed Roquefort and Lucretius floating around in an irritating fashion.”
“I have.”
“And, while I know you have a strange grudge against me—”
“Voluptua, be reasonable. I’m a vampire-slayer. You’re a vampire. I also know you’ve helped Roquefort in the past. I just want to know why you’d help me.”
“I didn’t help Roquefort, I fucked Roquefort. Completely different, as I’m sure you’re aware. And I’m helping you because it benefits me, obviously. Why do you think I do anything?”
“Good point,” Tarin admitted
“I believe The Brothers Twit have kidnapped that priest of yours.”
“What? Fr. Stephen? Why?” Tarin gasped. “Are they going to molest him?”
“God, what a nasty and completely believable idea that is,” said Voluptua. “Anyway, I’ve no idea why they’ve got him. I do have a mute spy installed as their bartender, but he can’t hear everything. I hope it’s not something too diabolic.”
“Oh my God,” Tarin said. “Well, get him back.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Come on. Isn’t that really why you asked me here? You know you’re the only person who can take on Lucretius and Roquefort. You know I can’t let Stephen be kidnapped by molester nosferatu. And I know you’re going to want something from me. So you win, Voluptua. Get him back.”
“You know, there are more modes of conversation than cutting to the chase,” Voluptua said mildly. “And if you ask me to, I will bring your friend back. But I want you to promise not to try to kill me, now or ever.”
“Is that all? Of course I won’t, if you rescue my friend.”
“Mmmm, lovely. How nice that we’ve reached this little entente. We shall leave immediately. I happen to know where they’re headed. I assume you’ll want to accompany me? To keep me honest?”
“You know, you act like I’m completely unreasonable for disliking you, but you kill people,” Tarin said.
“You kill vampires.”
“Vampires kill innocent people.”
“And why, pray, does that entitle you to act as our judge? Is it murder when I kill somebody to eat, but not when you kill someone who you don’t like as a species?”
“Don’t philosophize me, Voluptua, we’d just reached this nice understanding. And yes, I will accompany you.”
“How delightful to have intelligent female company for once,” Voluptua said. She rose and stood what would have been eye-to-eye with Tarin, except that Voluptua was wearing heels about six inches high.
“Okay, then,” Tarin said, put off my Voluptua’s casual disregard for personal space. “Should we, um, go?”
“Yes. But first there’s something I must tell you,” Voluptua said, in a low voice. Her white hand snaked around Tarin’s shoulder and traced a line down the nape of Tarin’s neck. “Ever since I first saw you in the bar, I was struck by your brisk stride. Your competence, your confidence, your dark and sultry eyes. I love men, but a woman like you can turn my head, and I’ve been dead for over a thousand years.”
“Voluptua,” stammered Tarin, “I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I love the cock. And anyway, I can’t justify a lesbian interlude when we’re supposed to be rescuing Stephen.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Stephen,” Voluptua purred, stroking Tarin’s hair, “Roquefort and Lucretius can’t do anything quickly or effectively. And darling, I know you want me. Everyone does.”
Before Tarin could point out the essential narcissism of this statement, Voluptua had bent her face and pressed her warm, red lips against Tarin’s own. Voluptua’s black, shining hair brushed Tarin’s face, and she realized that it smelled like jasmine blossoms. The heat of the kiss caught her surprise.
“Ah, Tarin,” murmured Voluptua against Tarin’s thoat, “you taste as good as you look. And you look beautiful. I must have you, now, on crimson sheets of iniquity.”
“This is wrong,” Tarin muttured, but her heart beat faster and her nipples tightened under the chain mail, which proved slightly painful.
“Sometimes when I’m conflicted about something, I do it anyway,” Voluptua said helpfully.
“I know that,” Tarin said, “but I--- ooh!”
Voluptua had scooped her up in her surprisingly strong arms and was walking gracefully toward the stairs. She bent as she went to kiss Tarin’s baffled forehead. Tarin felt herself sink under Voluptua’s warm and arousing spell. Voluptua carried her to a sumptuously furnished bedchamber. And then they had dirty, energetic sex.
Chapter 7: A Man, A Plan, a Roman Delicacy
Fr. Stephen sipped his scotch. “So let me get this straight. You want me to encourage Tarin to hook up with Lucretius so that she won’t kill Roquefort, and, incidentally, to prevent wholescale seduction of Voluptua’s part. Yes?”
“Yes! Well done, you grasped that with devilish speed, if you’ll excuse the expression,” said Lucretius.
“Yes, that’s what I thought,” said Stephen. “But firstly, I fail to see why you think I’d help you, and secondly, the unholy union of Tarin and Lucretius would bring about a force of evil stronger than anything previously known in the undead world. And I’m frankly against that.”
Roquefort spewed Slow, Comfortable Southern Screw across the car. “Lucy! You never told me about that! What nefarious plan is this, you demonic demon from hell! I should never have trusted someone with horns under his hair.”
“And hence my profession,” said Stephen.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it, I can assure you,” said Lucretius, in a plausible and trustworthy tone of voice, “but I can’t see how it changes anything. As it stands, you’re likely to get staked and Fr. Whatsit here is still going to be savaged by Voluptua.”
“Maybe I want to be,” Stephen said, somewhat defensively.
“Yes, everyone thinks that at first,” said Lucretius. “Isn’t that right, Hammy?”
“I thought he was mute,” Stephen said.
Lucretius nodded knowingly. “Exactly my point.”
“This all smells a bit fishy to me. I don’t like it and I shan’t do it,” said Roquefort said, from the corner of the limo where he was sulking.
“You see? He’s in a pout. Can’t take him anywhere,” said Lucretius to Stephen.
“This isn’t a pout; it’s righteous indignation. And we go places together, you don’t take me anywhere, you condescending anachronism!”
“I’m an anachronism? I am? I call that a bit rich coming from someone who still signs his checks AD. And besides, you’re pouting over nothing. I honestly had no idea that my union with Tarin would accidentally make me the most powerful creature in the universe. The problem here is your determination to think the worst of me at all times. I’m hurt by this completely undeserved prejudice, hurt, baffled, and perplexed, all at the same time.” Lucretius paused for breath. “There. I said it and I’m glad.”
“Oh, of course you are. Of course you are. Because it’s always about you, how hurt you are that I don’t let you treat me like a dormouse,” replied Roquefort, addressing himself largely to the ceiling of the limo.
“Like a dormouse? Those are edible, you know. We used to have them stuffed with hummingbird’s tongues back when my dear friend Tiberius was running the show. Unless I’m thinking of Trajan.”
“Only an uncivilized person would eat a dormouse,” sniffed Roquefort, “all the better educated classes feed on the blood of the living. And I frankly have no idea what you’re talking about, except that you never miss an opportunity to drop names. ‘Oh, I happened to be talking to Napoleon one day when what do you think I said that was terribly interesting?’ Which it never is, I might add. ‘Oh, and then God walked into the room, and me in my second-best waistcoat! Fancy!’”
Lucretius made a noise much like a growl. “Firstly, you were the one who brought dormice inexplicably into the conversation. Secondly, I’m sorry that you’re threatened by my large numbers of friends, but really, since I pay so little attention to fame and power, it’s hard for me to remember who became history and who didn’t. Thirdly, all my waistcoats are equally good. Which you would know if you had any taste in eveningwear at all.”
“My taste! I wasn’t the one who entertained the Prince of Wales-- not the current one, I might add, the one who couldn’t eat sausage because he said they look like cooked penis? That one? Left-handed, blinked a lot?—anyway, you were wearing something puce and unholy that night, I distinctly remember it. Possibly it was beaded.”
Lucretius took such a deep breath that Stephen felt the need to intervene. “Actually, I think Roquefort was trying to say that Lucretius tried to treat him like a doormat.”
Roquefort blinked. “What has that got to do with evening wear?”
Lucretius shook his head. “The thing about priests is, they always wear black, or vestments on formal occasions, so the bit of their brain which has to make fashion decisions just atrophies. It’s sad, really.”
“No,” said Stephen, “I meant that Roquefort said ‘dormouse’ instead of ‘doormat.’ And then you got on the waistcoats tangent. And incidentally, could you please let me out, because I am in no way swayed by your nonsense about Tarin, stakes, or dormice.”
“I call that a bit hasty, Father,” said Roquefort. “We’re not exactly ignorant in the ways of the world. Lucy here has met Napoleon, you know.”
“It’s true, I have,” admitted Lucretius.
“So I gathered. Now look here. I am completely confident in Tarin’s ability to withstand Voluptua’s many charms, as I am in my own ability. And, having her best interests at heart, I could not encourage her to become the partner of a queer demon.”
“Why does everyone think that about us!?” expostulated Lucretius.
“I haven’t the foggiest, Lucy, and that’s the truth. Now, listen, Father Whomever—”
“---Nice use of ‘whomever---’”
“—Thank you, Lucy, I planned the sentence structure carefully; listen, Father Thingy, Voluptua is most powerful vampire alive. We thought there was another, but he mysteriously disappeared one night after Voluptua invited him over for a friendly game of backgammon.”
“A game I have never liked,” contributed Lucretius.
“Well, who does? Anyway, the threat she poses is not merely one of unrestricted female sexuality, which I think we can all agree is a dangerous, if occasionally enjoyable, phenomenon. No, the horrors of her soul are beyond fathoming. No matter how deep you plunge, it’s never enough, even if you’re trying really hard and are not unkindly gifted in certain departments, you can never quite reach it, even that one time you tried--”
“Roquefort,” said Lucretius, “you’re brain is doing that thing again, where it makes inappropriate connections and verbalizes them awkwardly.”
“Oh? Sorry, anyway, she’s unfathomably evil. That was probably where I was going with that. Her body is easy to obtain, but her mind, heart, and all that, are completely unreachable. Therein lies her charm. Once you become convinced you’ve earned even a corner of her respect, you fall hopelessly in love and do whatever she wants. She’s like Mount Fujiwara. I’ve seen thousands of men climb on, and very few make it back alive.”
“I believe Fujiwara was a ronin we knew during that charming tour we made of feudal Japan, actually,” said Lucretius. “You possibly mean Mount Baldy.”
“Baldy? No, you could stroll up that if you wanted to get a good angle for a photograph. Maybe I’m thinking of Everest.”
“Tarin isn’t interested in women, so possibly we have little to fear on that front,” put in Stephen.
Lucretius and Roquefort exchanged a glance. “Fine. Don’t help us,” said Lucretius. “We’ll be fine on our own.”
“Great. I’m sure you two will be very happy together. Just let me out at the next stoplight.”
“Hahaha! That’s funny. Actually, we’ve kidnapped you. Whoopsy!” And Lucretius and Roquefort burst into self-satisfied laughter.
“Godamnit,” muttered Stephen. “For sexual purposes?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re effeminate, not female,” said Roquefort. “Actually, we have a clever purpose for you. We heard you’re good at languages. We heard you can translate prophecies.”
“I can’t read the un-nameable book of prophecies, if that’s where this is going.”
“You wish,” said Roquefort. “Actually, we’re going to the Three Prophets and you’re going to ask them who has the stake for us.”
“Oh, fuck!” said Stephen. “Those are the most irritating people in life.”
“Which is why we’re glad we won’t be able to understand them, eh, Lucy?”
“I must say, we’ve thought this out uncommonly well,” said Lucretius.
Stephen slouched in his seat. “I hate my life.”
“Yes! Well done, you grasped that with devilish speed, if you’ll excuse the expression,” said Lucretius.
“Yes, that’s what I thought,” said Stephen. “But firstly, I fail to see why you think I’d help you, and secondly, the unholy union of Tarin and Lucretius would bring about a force of evil stronger than anything previously known in the undead world. And I’m frankly against that.”
Roquefort spewed Slow, Comfortable Southern Screw across the car. “Lucy! You never told me about that! What nefarious plan is this, you demonic demon from hell! I should never have trusted someone with horns under his hair.”
“And hence my profession,” said Stephen.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it, I can assure you,” said Lucretius, in a plausible and trustworthy tone of voice, “but I can’t see how it changes anything. As it stands, you’re likely to get staked and Fr. Whatsit here is still going to be savaged by Voluptua.”
“Maybe I want to be,” Stephen said, somewhat defensively.
“Yes, everyone thinks that at first,” said Lucretius. “Isn’t that right, Hammy?”
“I thought he was mute,” Stephen said.
Lucretius nodded knowingly. “Exactly my point.”
“This all smells a bit fishy to me. I don’t like it and I shan’t do it,” said Roquefort said, from the corner of the limo where he was sulking.
“You see? He’s in a pout. Can’t take him anywhere,” said Lucretius to Stephen.
“This isn’t a pout; it’s righteous indignation. And we go places together, you don’t take me anywhere, you condescending anachronism!”
“I’m an anachronism? I am? I call that a bit rich coming from someone who still signs his checks AD. And besides, you’re pouting over nothing. I honestly had no idea that my union with Tarin would accidentally make me the most powerful creature in the universe. The problem here is your determination to think the worst of me at all times. I’m hurt by this completely undeserved prejudice, hurt, baffled, and perplexed, all at the same time.” Lucretius paused for breath. “There. I said it and I’m glad.”
“Oh, of course you are. Of course you are. Because it’s always about you, how hurt you are that I don’t let you treat me like a dormouse,” replied Roquefort, addressing himself largely to the ceiling of the limo.
“Like a dormouse? Those are edible, you know. We used to have them stuffed with hummingbird’s tongues back when my dear friend Tiberius was running the show. Unless I’m thinking of Trajan.”
“Only an uncivilized person would eat a dormouse,” sniffed Roquefort, “all the better educated classes feed on the blood of the living. And I frankly have no idea what you’re talking about, except that you never miss an opportunity to drop names. ‘Oh, I happened to be talking to Napoleon one day when what do you think I said that was terribly interesting?’ Which it never is, I might add. ‘Oh, and then God walked into the room, and me in my second-best waistcoat! Fancy!’”
Lucretius made a noise much like a growl. “Firstly, you were the one who brought dormice inexplicably into the conversation. Secondly, I’m sorry that you’re threatened by my large numbers of friends, but really, since I pay so little attention to fame and power, it’s hard for me to remember who became history and who didn’t. Thirdly, all my waistcoats are equally good. Which you would know if you had any taste in eveningwear at all.”
“My taste! I wasn’t the one who entertained the Prince of Wales-- not the current one, I might add, the one who couldn’t eat sausage because he said they look like cooked penis? That one? Left-handed, blinked a lot?—anyway, you were wearing something puce and unholy that night, I distinctly remember it. Possibly it was beaded.”
Lucretius took such a deep breath that Stephen felt the need to intervene. “Actually, I think Roquefort was trying to say that Lucretius tried to treat him like a doormat.”
Roquefort blinked. “What has that got to do with evening wear?”
Lucretius shook his head. “The thing about priests is, they always wear black, or vestments on formal occasions, so the bit of their brain which has to make fashion decisions just atrophies. It’s sad, really.”
“No,” said Stephen, “I meant that Roquefort said ‘dormouse’ instead of ‘doormat.’ And then you got on the waistcoats tangent. And incidentally, could you please let me out, because I am in no way swayed by your nonsense about Tarin, stakes, or dormice.”
“I call that a bit hasty, Father,” said Roquefort. “We’re not exactly ignorant in the ways of the world. Lucy here has met Napoleon, you know.”
“It’s true, I have,” admitted Lucretius.
“So I gathered. Now look here. I am completely confident in Tarin’s ability to withstand Voluptua’s many charms, as I am in my own ability. And, having her best interests at heart, I could not encourage her to become the partner of a queer demon.”
“Why does everyone think that about us!?” expostulated Lucretius.
“I haven’t the foggiest, Lucy, and that’s the truth. Now, listen, Father Whomever—”
“---Nice use of ‘whomever---’”
“—Thank you, Lucy, I planned the sentence structure carefully; listen, Father Thingy, Voluptua is most powerful vampire alive. We thought there was another, but he mysteriously disappeared one night after Voluptua invited him over for a friendly game of backgammon.”
“A game I have never liked,” contributed Lucretius.
“Well, who does? Anyway, the threat she poses is not merely one of unrestricted female sexuality, which I think we can all agree is a dangerous, if occasionally enjoyable, phenomenon. No, the horrors of her soul are beyond fathoming. No matter how deep you plunge, it’s never enough, even if you’re trying really hard and are not unkindly gifted in certain departments, you can never quite reach it, even that one time you tried--”
“Roquefort,” said Lucretius, “you’re brain is doing that thing again, where it makes inappropriate connections and verbalizes them awkwardly.”
“Oh? Sorry, anyway, she’s unfathomably evil. That was probably where I was going with that. Her body is easy to obtain, but her mind, heart, and all that, are completely unreachable. Therein lies her charm. Once you become convinced you’ve earned even a corner of her respect, you fall hopelessly in love and do whatever she wants. She’s like Mount Fujiwara. I’ve seen thousands of men climb on, and very few make it back alive.”
“I believe Fujiwara was a ronin we knew during that charming tour we made of feudal Japan, actually,” said Lucretius. “You possibly mean Mount Baldy.”
“Baldy? No, you could stroll up that if you wanted to get a good angle for a photograph. Maybe I’m thinking of Everest.”
“Tarin isn’t interested in women, so possibly we have little to fear on that front,” put in Stephen.
Lucretius and Roquefort exchanged a glance. “Fine. Don’t help us,” said Lucretius. “We’ll be fine on our own.”
“Great. I’m sure you two will be very happy together. Just let me out at the next stoplight.”
“Hahaha! That’s funny. Actually, we’ve kidnapped you. Whoopsy!” And Lucretius and Roquefort burst into self-satisfied laughter.
“Godamnit,” muttered Stephen. “For sexual purposes?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re effeminate, not female,” said Roquefort. “Actually, we have a clever purpose for you. We heard you’re good at languages. We heard you can translate prophecies.”
“I can’t read the un-nameable book of prophecies, if that’s where this is going.”
“You wish,” said Roquefort. “Actually, we’re going to the Three Prophets and you’re going to ask them who has the stake for us.”
“Oh, fuck!” said Stephen. “Those are the most irritating people in life.”
“Which is why we’re glad we won’t be able to understand them, eh, Lucy?”
“I must say, we’ve thought this out uncommonly well,” said Lucretius.
Stephen slouched in his seat. “I hate my life.”
Chapter 6: Naughty Girls Need Love Too
Voluptua lay naked in her silk-lined coffin, smoking a cigarette with one hand and masturbating lazily with the other.
“Do you want a hand with that, my lady?” asked her butler, the indefatigable Mr. Deshedned.
“Not tonight, Deshedned, I’m thinking,” said Voluptua softly. “Bring me a gin and tonic and try to think of a way to seduce a neoconservative vampire slayer and a gun-lugging priest.”
“If I knew how to do that I wouldn’t be lazing around here, getting you drinks and cleaning your vibrators, ma’am,” said Deshedned. “Lime or lemon?”
“Guess,” said Voluptua, “and if you get it wrong, I’ll spank you.”
“Oh dear.”
“No. I don’t see a gin and tonic in my hand. Do you? Where could it be? It looks like a cigarette, but I can’t believe my faithful retainer, Deshedned, would in any way keep me waiting. Looks like a cigarette, tastes like a cigarette—come here--- yes, burns human flesh like a cigarette. Which leads me to conclude that it is not, in fact, a gin and tonic.”
“I’ll fetch it directly, milady,” murmured Deshedned, rubbing his burned thigh and leaving Voluptua to her post-orgasmic contemplations.
Voluptua rose and, without bothering to wash her hand, got dressed. This took her no time at all because her breasts were too full and perky to require a bra, and panties slowed her down. Make-up was pointless because her features were already perfect, a pleasant side-effect of having sold her soul to the night. The only adornment she wore was a white rose, tangled in her silky black hair, plucked from the garden of Eden. It was prophesied in the un-nameable book of prophecies that this rose would remain young as long as Voluptua did, wilting only when someone pure of heart touched it.
Outside, the sun had just set, signaling the beginning of another night. Voluptua smiled nastily and ran a well-experienced tongue over hungry lips.
“Milady? Your drink?”
Voluptua turned. “I see you added lime. Come here, Deshedned.”
Fr. Stephen was walking home in the cold, dark hours of the morning when he noticed that he was being followed by a black stretch limo. Irritated, he stopped and grabbed one of the many guns he kept concealed under his vestments.
The window rolled down. “Get in the car, priest.”
Stephen blinked. “Um, no. Have no intention of doing that. Why are you using a stretch limo to stalk me anyway?”
This seemed to produce some kind of argument within the backseat of the limo. Stephen guessed there were two men at least. Then the door opened, and before Stephen could discharge any or all of his firearms, he found himself whipped into the car by some kind of red serpent.
“What the hell was that?” he yelled, disoriented.
“My tail,” Lucretius said. “I have other shapes. I am a demon, you know.”
Stephen found himself confronted with Lucretius and another man he didn’t know. Both were pale, good-looking and well-dressed.
“Nicely done, Lucy,” said the darker man. “Now, we have a proposition for you.”
“If this is some kind of homosexual come-on, I’m not interested,” Stephen said firmly, eyeing the man’s lacy ruff and well-mannicured hands.
“Ha! You wish, pervo. I’m straight as a wooden plank and twice as hard.”
Lucretius grimaced. “Right now, Roquefort? Errgh,”
“No, I meant in general. I am generally very hard. Not in this specific instance. The problem with you, Lucy, is that you have no sense of context.”
“I’ve told you how I feel about being called Lucy, Cheesy. Why don’t you—oh, hang on, the priest is leaving.”
For Stephen had indeed sensed an opportunity to move toward the door. The two men, or demons, or what have you, seemed much more interested in flirting than in doing anything to him.
Roquefort dragged Stephen back in. “Just where do you think you’re going, Reverend Father?”
“I thought if I tactfully left you two could get back to buttfucking,” Stephen said. “You must be the Roquefort I’ve heard so much about.”
“Nothing Tarin the Righteous says about me is true, the lying horned toad!” Roquefort said.
“Now, now. I like Tarin,” Lucretius said.
“Impurely!” Roquefort snapped. “Anyway, you’re a friend of hers, right, Father?”
“Yes. Why do you care?”
“Oh, you’ll see. This limo has a built in bar. Would you like a drink?” Roquefort pressed a button and the window behind Stephen slid back to reveal a full stocked bar and a surly-looking bartender. Stephen twisted away, but still was wary about sitting between Roquefort and Lucretius.
“I’ll have a scotch,” he said.
“Our bartender is mute, because Voluptua ripped his tongue out. He’s quite good, though,” Roquefort said. “I’ll have a Slow, Comfortable Southern Screw. Lucy?”
“I’ll have and Awkward, Badly-Considered Screw, Where We Realize Halfway Through That No One Has a Condom. Hold the pineapple,” Lucretius said. “And now, priest, our proposition…”
“Do you want a hand with that, my lady?” asked her butler, the indefatigable Mr. Deshedned.
“Not tonight, Deshedned, I’m thinking,” said Voluptua softly. “Bring me a gin and tonic and try to think of a way to seduce a neoconservative vampire slayer and a gun-lugging priest.”
“If I knew how to do that I wouldn’t be lazing around here, getting you drinks and cleaning your vibrators, ma’am,” said Deshedned. “Lime or lemon?”
“Guess,” said Voluptua, “and if you get it wrong, I’ll spank you.”
“Oh dear.”
“No. I don’t see a gin and tonic in my hand. Do you? Where could it be? It looks like a cigarette, but I can’t believe my faithful retainer, Deshedned, would in any way keep me waiting. Looks like a cigarette, tastes like a cigarette—come here--- yes, burns human flesh like a cigarette. Which leads me to conclude that it is not, in fact, a gin and tonic.”
“I’ll fetch it directly, milady,” murmured Deshedned, rubbing his burned thigh and leaving Voluptua to her post-orgasmic contemplations.
Voluptua rose and, without bothering to wash her hand, got dressed. This took her no time at all because her breasts were too full and perky to require a bra, and panties slowed her down. Make-up was pointless because her features were already perfect, a pleasant side-effect of having sold her soul to the night. The only adornment she wore was a white rose, tangled in her silky black hair, plucked from the garden of Eden. It was prophesied in the un-nameable book of prophecies that this rose would remain young as long as Voluptua did, wilting only when someone pure of heart touched it.
Outside, the sun had just set, signaling the beginning of another night. Voluptua smiled nastily and ran a well-experienced tongue over hungry lips.
“Milady? Your drink?”
Voluptua turned. “I see you added lime. Come here, Deshedned.”
Fr. Stephen was walking home in the cold, dark hours of the morning when he noticed that he was being followed by a black stretch limo. Irritated, he stopped and grabbed one of the many guns he kept concealed under his vestments.
The window rolled down. “Get in the car, priest.”
Stephen blinked. “Um, no. Have no intention of doing that. Why are you using a stretch limo to stalk me anyway?”
This seemed to produce some kind of argument within the backseat of the limo. Stephen guessed there were two men at least. Then the door opened, and before Stephen could discharge any or all of his firearms, he found himself whipped into the car by some kind of red serpent.
“What the hell was that?” he yelled, disoriented.
“My tail,” Lucretius said. “I have other shapes. I am a demon, you know.”
Stephen found himself confronted with Lucretius and another man he didn’t know. Both were pale, good-looking and well-dressed.
“Nicely done, Lucy,” said the darker man. “Now, we have a proposition for you.”
“If this is some kind of homosexual come-on, I’m not interested,” Stephen said firmly, eyeing the man’s lacy ruff and well-mannicured hands.
“Ha! You wish, pervo. I’m straight as a wooden plank and twice as hard.”
Lucretius grimaced. “Right now, Roquefort? Errgh,”
“No, I meant in general. I am generally very hard. Not in this specific instance. The problem with you, Lucy, is that you have no sense of context.”
“I’ve told you how I feel about being called Lucy, Cheesy. Why don’t you—oh, hang on, the priest is leaving.”
For Stephen had indeed sensed an opportunity to move toward the door. The two men, or demons, or what have you, seemed much more interested in flirting than in doing anything to him.
Roquefort dragged Stephen back in. “Just where do you think you’re going, Reverend Father?”
“I thought if I tactfully left you two could get back to buttfucking,” Stephen said. “You must be the Roquefort I’ve heard so much about.”
“Nothing Tarin the Righteous says about me is true, the lying horned toad!” Roquefort said.
“Now, now. I like Tarin,” Lucretius said.
“Impurely!” Roquefort snapped. “Anyway, you’re a friend of hers, right, Father?”
“Yes. Why do you care?”
“Oh, you’ll see. This limo has a built in bar. Would you like a drink?” Roquefort pressed a button and the window behind Stephen slid back to reveal a full stocked bar and a surly-looking bartender. Stephen twisted away, but still was wary about sitting between Roquefort and Lucretius.
“I’ll have a scotch,” he said.
“Our bartender is mute, because Voluptua ripped his tongue out. He’s quite good, though,” Roquefort said. “I’ll have a Slow, Comfortable Southern Screw. Lucy?”
“I’ll have and Awkward, Badly-Considered Screw, Where We Realize Halfway Through That No One Has a Condom. Hold the pineapple,” Lucretius said. “And now, priest, our proposition…”
Chapter 5: A Marriage of True Minds Admits Impediments, Name-calling Ensues
Later that night, Roquefort was greeting Lucretius as a guest in his palatial and badly-decorated home. Withers scuttled homosexually about, getting underfoot, and when he could manage it, under carriage. The tall, Heathcliffian vampire welcomed the tall, Byronic demon warmly, and apologized for his short, Stephen Kingian minion.
“By the lopsided testicles of the Minotaur, what happened to you, Roquefort?” enquired Lucretius.
“Voluptua’s back in town. I keep thinking she’s dead, but then she never is. Anyway, terrible news: a woman of infinite vengeance, cunning and bloodthirstiness is after me.”
Lucretius looked unsettled. “I’m sorry to hear that. I always thought you and Mrs. Thatcher got on rather well.”
“Not her, Lucy! Your old flame, Tarin the Righteous, is being a Righteous pain in my sculpted ass.”
“If you call me Lucy, I’m going to call you Cheesy.”
Roquefort bristled. “Roquefort is a fine, distinguished name and a fine, distinguished cheese, and I’d thank you not to disrespect either by such an ill-bred diminutive. Lucy.”
“It’s a French cheese,” said Lucretius, “and a stupid name.”
“Oh is it, you pansy relic of a fallen empire? You effeminate and frumpy piece of Roman history? Who was your father? A centurion? A plebs? A passing stranger too disgusted to gaze on your mother’s syphilitic face?”
“Who was yours, you froggy piece of new blood scum? You Vichy knobcheese?”
“Masters!” cringed Withers, “don’t quarrel. Dangerous women and over-educated priests walk the night. Let’s all hold hands.”
“Let’s never hold hands,” said Roquefort, “but the help is right. We must band together against these wretched humans. No hard feelings, old chap?”
“None whatsoever,” said Lucretius magnanimously. “Now tell me how Tarin is bothering you. I’ve just spent my evening trying to convince her to sleep with me.”
“Oh, bad taste, Lucy- I mean, Lucretius. Anyway, you know she’s had this bee in her bonnet about killing me and defiling my corpse and then scattering the remains to the four corners of the earth, thereby sending me to Hell to listen forever to the screams of the damned, hopeless and tormented in eternity?”
“Yes? What of it? Can’t be liked by everyone.”
“Quite. But do you know, old thing, if that pedantic and well-armed priest is helping her, I get rather nervous about her pulling it off. She’s quite unreasonable on that point, you know. Really wants to have at me, for no discernable reason.”
“She told me you ate her mother.”
“Yes, but these things happen, don’t they?”
“To the best of us.” Lucretius sighed and lit a particularly phallic cigar. “But look here. Tarin can’t defeat you without the aid of her ‘soul-mate’ or whatever the kids are calling it these days, him and the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Sometimes Y. It says so, in the un-nameable book of prophesies, bound with the skin of an Assyrian wood-smuggler.”
“Written in the blood of two-headed tortoises and smelling faintly of bad breath?”
“That un-nameable book of prophecies, yes. So why get your bits in a bother?”
Roquefort frowned and absent-mindedly kicked at Withers, who had curled up at his feet. “Well, what if she does meet him? Anyone could have the Wooden Stake of Thingumy Bob, from that meddling priest to the boy in the butcher’s shop. There’s men everywhere who’d be happy to share their wood with her.”
Lucretius smiled the evil smile of a man who has seen the unspeakable and invited it over for tea. “Look here. You want to be free of Tarin’s endless hunger for your dismemberment. I want to Tarin to be endlessly hungry for my member. The solution is as plain as the sensually aristocratic nose on my face. You’ve always had a way with women. Help me win her heart. Then her lithe, chain-mail clad form will be mine, and, as the book of prophecies says I’m not her soul-mate, you will be safe as a beautiful women sitting next to Withers.”
“Lucy, I declare you are ingenious as two ingenious things at an ingeniousness convention!” Roquefort’s Michaelangelic features lit up.
“Thank you for that Dickensian, nay, Shakespearean analogy,” said Lucretius. “That agreed, I propose we call it a day and reconvene tomorrow night. She’s not going to find her soul-mate in twelve-hours, lithe chain-mail clad form or not.”
“There is a tiny, un-noticeable fly in the ointment,” Roquefort said cautiously. “More of a gnat. A speck. A particle in a great sea of ointment.”
Thunder crack overhead and Withers howled at the moon. Far away, Hillary Clinton howled back.
“What? What have you done, Roquefort?” Lucretius eyed his old friend with completely justified suspicion.
“In a bit of a panic, I may or may not have asked Voluptua to distract them for me. You know. Show Tarin and the priest a good time, possibly, and I’m not saying I said this exactly, but I may have implied that if she killed them I would be slightly irritated rather than very angry. I just felt I should keep you abreast of that.”
Lucretius stared at Roquefort. “You aren’t serious.”
“Again, I’m not fully admitting to that conversation.”
Lucretius covered his face with a pale and shapely hand. “Sweet boiling martyrs of the fourth century A.D. Batten down the hatches, boys, hurricane Voluptua is approaching. Honestly, Rocks, that woman’s vagina is a veritable Charybdis, appearing placid and calm, but actually sucking innocent men into its gaping and insatiable maw.”
“Well, I haven’t had your classical education. It’s hard for me to spot these things. She’s not without her redeeming features, though.”
“Right, new addition to my fiendish plan. We get the priest on our side. We observe to him that Voluptua is creature of such insatiable depravity that he and Tarin must steer clear at all, repeat all, costs. I feel that this is one of the few instances in our long lives where we can legitimately present ourselves as the lesser of two evils.”
“God, how long has it been since we did that?”
“Not since the Borgias, my good man. Unless you’re counting the Reagan administration.”
“By the lopsided testicles of the Minotaur, what happened to you, Roquefort?” enquired Lucretius.
“Voluptua’s back in town. I keep thinking she’s dead, but then she never is. Anyway, terrible news: a woman of infinite vengeance, cunning and bloodthirstiness is after me.”
Lucretius looked unsettled. “I’m sorry to hear that. I always thought you and Mrs. Thatcher got on rather well.”
“Not her, Lucy! Your old flame, Tarin the Righteous, is being a Righteous pain in my sculpted ass.”
“If you call me Lucy, I’m going to call you Cheesy.”
Roquefort bristled. “Roquefort is a fine, distinguished name and a fine, distinguished cheese, and I’d thank you not to disrespect either by such an ill-bred diminutive. Lucy.”
“It’s a French cheese,” said Lucretius, “and a stupid name.”
“Oh is it, you pansy relic of a fallen empire? You effeminate and frumpy piece of Roman history? Who was your father? A centurion? A plebs? A passing stranger too disgusted to gaze on your mother’s syphilitic face?”
“Who was yours, you froggy piece of new blood scum? You Vichy knobcheese?”
“Masters!” cringed Withers, “don’t quarrel. Dangerous women and over-educated priests walk the night. Let’s all hold hands.”
“Let’s never hold hands,” said Roquefort, “but the help is right. We must band together against these wretched humans. No hard feelings, old chap?”
“None whatsoever,” said Lucretius magnanimously. “Now tell me how Tarin is bothering you. I’ve just spent my evening trying to convince her to sleep with me.”
“Oh, bad taste, Lucy- I mean, Lucretius. Anyway, you know she’s had this bee in her bonnet about killing me and defiling my corpse and then scattering the remains to the four corners of the earth, thereby sending me to Hell to listen forever to the screams of the damned, hopeless and tormented in eternity?”
“Yes? What of it? Can’t be liked by everyone.”
“Quite. But do you know, old thing, if that pedantic and well-armed priest is helping her, I get rather nervous about her pulling it off. She’s quite unreasonable on that point, you know. Really wants to have at me, for no discernable reason.”
“She told me you ate her mother.”
“Yes, but these things happen, don’t they?”
“To the best of us.” Lucretius sighed and lit a particularly phallic cigar. “But look here. Tarin can’t defeat you without the aid of her ‘soul-mate’ or whatever the kids are calling it these days, him and the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Sometimes Y. It says so, in the un-nameable book of prophesies, bound with the skin of an Assyrian wood-smuggler.”
“Written in the blood of two-headed tortoises and smelling faintly of bad breath?”
“That un-nameable book of prophecies, yes. So why get your bits in a bother?”
Roquefort frowned and absent-mindedly kicked at Withers, who had curled up at his feet. “Well, what if she does meet him? Anyone could have the Wooden Stake of Thingumy Bob, from that meddling priest to the boy in the butcher’s shop. There’s men everywhere who’d be happy to share their wood with her.”
Lucretius smiled the evil smile of a man who has seen the unspeakable and invited it over for tea. “Look here. You want to be free of Tarin’s endless hunger for your dismemberment. I want to Tarin to be endlessly hungry for my member. The solution is as plain as the sensually aristocratic nose on my face. You’ve always had a way with women. Help me win her heart. Then her lithe, chain-mail clad form will be mine, and, as the book of prophecies says I’m not her soul-mate, you will be safe as a beautiful women sitting next to Withers.”
“Lucy, I declare you are ingenious as two ingenious things at an ingeniousness convention!” Roquefort’s Michaelangelic features lit up.
“Thank you for that Dickensian, nay, Shakespearean analogy,” said Lucretius. “That agreed, I propose we call it a day and reconvene tomorrow night. She’s not going to find her soul-mate in twelve-hours, lithe chain-mail clad form or not.”
“There is a tiny, un-noticeable fly in the ointment,” Roquefort said cautiously. “More of a gnat. A speck. A particle in a great sea of ointment.”
Thunder crack overhead and Withers howled at the moon. Far away, Hillary Clinton howled back.
“What? What have you done, Roquefort?” Lucretius eyed his old friend with completely justified suspicion.
“In a bit of a panic, I may or may not have asked Voluptua to distract them for me. You know. Show Tarin and the priest a good time, possibly, and I’m not saying I said this exactly, but I may have implied that if she killed them I would be slightly irritated rather than very angry. I just felt I should keep you abreast of that.”
Lucretius stared at Roquefort. “You aren’t serious.”
“Again, I’m not fully admitting to that conversation.”
Lucretius covered his face with a pale and shapely hand. “Sweet boiling martyrs of the fourth century A.D. Batten down the hatches, boys, hurricane Voluptua is approaching. Honestly, Rocks, that woman’s vagina is a veritable Charybdis, appearing placid and calm, but actually sucking innocent men into its gaping and insatiable maw.”
“Well, I haven’t had your classical education. It’s hard for me to spot these things. She’s not without her redeeming features, though.”
“Right, new addition to my fiendish plan. We get the priest on our side. We observe to him that Voluptua is creature of such insatiable depravity that he and Tarin must steer clear at all, repeat all, costs. I feel that this is one of the few instances in our long lives where we can legitimately present ourselves as the lesser of two evils.”
“God, how long has it been since we did that?”
“Not since the Borgias, my good man. Unless you’re counting the Reagan administration.”
Chapter 4: Tarin the Righteous is Not Impressed
While Roquefort was realizing that Voluptua had, in fact, brought handcuffs, and not the padded kind, Tarin the Righteous was laying out her problems before Fr. Stephen.
“You see, I’m so conflicted! On the one hand, I know I must stay ever faithful and ever true to my mission: and that mission is to plant a stake in the heart of Roquefort. And yet, I grow lonely, plagued by doubts, unable to sleep because of restless desires. I know I must resist the charms of Lucretius, for they are only the charms of physical pleasure, yet how strongly they bind me, like cruel chains!”
“Catena saeva,” mused Fr. Stephen. “Was he into that kind of thing, then?”
“I meant figuratively, Father,” reproached Tarin. “And anyway, he is not for me. There is another, written in the great book of prophecy, who will join me in my lonely wanderings through this cold life.”
“There’s a book of prophecy?”
“Oh, yes! An evil book, bound in the skin of an Assyrian wood smuggler, written in the blood of two-headed tortoises and smelling faintly of bad breath. Even Roquefort fears this book, not because it harms him, but because it speaks the truth.”
“Fascinating! Who owns it?”
“No one knows. It’s a moot point, anyway, because the language cannot be learned. One must be born knowing it. The last person to have been able to read it died before I was born, drowned in blood and opals. It prophesied my coming and that I must slay Roquefort, slay him with the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuana, Estonia, and Sometimes Y. Yet I am not strong enough to do it on my own. The man who is able to help me in this quest is my chosen one, and together we will defeat evil of all kinds. For this man, chosen to soothe the ceaseless desires of my perfectly waxed flesh, will posses this tool, the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Sometimes Y. ”
Fr. Stephen tactfully refrained from any comment as to what notable Austrian psychiatrists would have said about the Wooden Stake of Latvia and Co. He instead contributed: “So what are you waiting for? Get on eHarmony. Possibly wear something more approachable than chain-mail.”
“But there is another side to this coin, a dark and seamy side.”
“There always seems to be,” observed Fr. Stephen, fishing the ice-cubs out of his scotch. Idiot bartender, knew nothing of whiskey.
“For if I unite my powers with Lucretius, we would be more powerful than Roquefort himself and would rule the vampire world. And, you know, the human one too, more indirectly.”
“I see the conundrum,” Fr. Stephen said. Before he could offer any advice however, a woman sauntered up to them, looking tall, dark and carnivorous.
“Forgive me for interrupting. But I saw you from across the bar and I had to ask. Am I in the presence of Tarin the Righteous?”
“You are,” said Tarin, eyeing the woman suspiciously.
“And you must be the famous Fr. Stephen. Is that a gun in your pocket, or are---”
“Actually, it is a gun. Who are you?”
“I know who she is, Stephen,” said Tarin nastily. “This is Voluptua. She seems like a good idea but she’s not.”
“Oh dear. How embarrassing. I see my reputation has preceded me. Perhaps I ought to go,” Voluptua murmured. Then she paused. “Can I just ask you, however, Tarin, if you’ve seen that ghastly Roquefort about anywhere?”
“If I saw Roquefort, everyone would know because I’d have ripped his head off. Then stepped on it repeatedly,” Tarin snapped.
“And quite rightly, my dear, quite rightly,” Voluptua said.
“I thought you were in league with Roquefort,” Fr. Stephen asked.
“Don’t talk to her, Stephen, it’s like wrestling with shit,” Tarin cut in.
“Well I was, but now it’d be rather useful to me to have him dead. I was going to offer to pay you to do it, but if you’re already trying and failing, then I’d better look for offers elsewhere.”
“I bet you’d get some on the street corner,” Tarin said. “And don’t even try appealing to my vanity. I wouldn’t take money from you in the first place.”
“In that case, forgive my intrusion,” Voluptua said. “I hope we live to meet on better terms, Lady Tarin. Fr. Stephen, have a pleasant night and mind your guns. There are dangerous people afoot.”
And with that she slunk off. Tarin found herself, against her better instincts, gazing hypnotically at Voluptua’s ripe, plump, persimmon-like buttocks. She shook herself. This was no time for Anglo-Saxon monosyllables.
“Warm in here, eh, Stephen?”
“And getting warmer. Who is she?”
“The devil with D-cups. Satan in a slinky dress. Mephistopheles in a miniskirt. Beelzebub with a beautiful bum. Old Nick without knickers. Lucifer with Lauren Bacall’s lips. In short, the opposite of everything we stand for!”
Stephen nodded thoughtfully. “I can assure you I had no intention of standing.”
“She was born from the black sands of time, and went to Eton.”
“Isn’t that a boys’ school?”
“I didn’t say she was enrolled.”
“You see, I’m so conflicted! On the one hand, I know I must stay ever faithful and ever true to my mission: and that mission is to plant a stake in the heart of Roquefort. And yet, I grow lonely, plagued by doubts, unable to sleep because of restless desires. I know I must resist the charms of Lucretius, for they are only the charms of physical pleasure, yet how strongly they bind me, like cruel chains!”
“Catena saeva,” mused Fr. Stephen. “Was he into that kind of thing, then?”
“I meant figuratively, Father,” reproached Tarin. “And anyway, he is not for me. There is another, written in the great book of prophecy, who will join me in my lonely wanderings through this cold life.”
“There’s a book of prophecy?”
“Oh, yes! An evil book, bound in the skin of an Assyrian wood smuggler, written in the blood of two-headed tortoises and smelling faintly of bad breath. Even Roquefort fears this book, not because it harms him, but because it speaks the truth.”
“Fascinating! Who owns it?”
“No one knows. It’s a moot point, anyway, because the language cannot be learned. One must be born knowing it. The last person to have been able to read it died before I was born, drowned in blood and opals. It prophesied my coming and that I must slay Roquefort, slay him with the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuana, Estonia, and Sometimes Y. Yet I am not strong enough to do it on my own. The man who is able to help me in this quest is my chosen one, and together we will defeat evil of all kinds. For this man, chosen to soothe the ceaseless desires of my perfectly waxed flesh, will posses this tool, the Wooden Stake of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Sometimes Y. ”
Fr. Stephen tactfully refrained from any comment as to what notable Austrian psychiatrists would have said about the Wooden Stake of Latvia and Co. He instead contributed: “So what are you waiting for? Get on eHarmony. Possibly wear something more approachable than chain-mail.”
“But there is another side to this coin, a dark and seamy side.”
“There always seems to be,” observed Fr. Stephen, fishing the ice-cubs out of his scotch. Idiot bartender, knew nothing of whiskey.
“For if I unite my powers with Lucretius, we would be more powerful than Roquefort himself and would rule the vampire world. And, you know, the human one too, more indirectly.”
“I see the conundrum,” Fr. Stephen said. Before he could offer any advice however, a woman sauntered up to them, looking tall, dark and carnivorous.
“Forgive me for interrupting. But I saw you from across the bar and I had to ask. Am I in the presence of Tarin the Righteous?”
“You are,” said Tarin, eyeing the woman suspiciously.
“And you must be the famous Fr. Stephen. Is that a gun in your pocket, or are---”
“Actually, it is a gun. Who are you?”
“I know who she is, Stephen,” said Tarin nastily. “This is Voluptua. She seems like a good idea but she’s not.”
“Oh dear. How embarrassing. I see my reputation has preceded me. Perhaps I ought to go,” Voluptua murmured. Then she paused. “Can I just ask you, however, Tarin, if you’ve seen that ghastly Roquefort about anywhere?”
“If I saw Roquefort, everyone would know because I’d have ripped his head off. Then stepped on it repeatedly,” Tarin snapped.
“And quite rightly, my dear, quite rightly,” Voluptua said.
“I thought you were in league with Roquefort,” Fr. Stephen asked.
“Don’t talk to her, Stephen, it’s like wrestling with shit,” Tarin cut in.
“Well I was, but now it’d be rather useful to me to have him dead. I was going to offer to pay you to do it, but if you’re already trying and failing, then I’d better look for offers elsewhere.”
“I bet you’d get some on the street corner,” Tarin said. “And don’t even try appealing to my vanity. I wouldn’t take money from you in the first place.”
“In that case, forgive my intrusion,” Voluptua said. “I hope we live to meet on better terms, Lady Tarin. Fr. Stephen, have a pleasant night and mind your guns. There are dangerous people afoot.”
And with that she slunk off. Tarin found herself, against her better instincts, gazing hypnotically at Voluptua’s ripe, plump, persimmon-like buttocks. She shook herself. This was no time for Anglo-Saxon monosyllables.
“Warm in here, eh, Stephen?”
“And getting warmer. Who is she?”
“The devil with D-cups. Satan in a slinky dress. Mephistopheles in a miniskirt. Beelzebub with a beautiful bum. Old Nick without knickers. Lucifer with Lauren Bacall’s lips. In short, the opposite of everything we stand for!”
Stephen nodded thoughtfully. “I can assure you I had no intention of standing.”
“She was born from the black sands of time, and went to Eton.”
“Isn’t that a boys’ school?”
“I didn’t say she was enrolled.”
Chapter 3: Voluptua is on the Case
Fr. Stephen and Tarin walked into a bar, followed closely by three nuns, three Irishmen, and several talking animals.
Fr. Stephen looked around. “Why do all the men in here look like they escaped from the covers of Harlequin romance novels?”
“Who cares,” said Tarin, “I brought a change of panties. Dirty martini, please.”
As Tarin the Righteous and Fr. Stephen ordered their drinks, they were unaware that they were being watched by two creatures of unspeakably well-dressed evil, who were lurking attractively in a dark corner. One of these was Roquefort.
“Look, already the dangerous Lady Tarin, Tarin the Righteous and Tarin the Often Braless, is on our trail,” Roquefort drawled softly.
“Our trail?” purred his companion. “I rather think, darling Roquefort, that she’s only on yours.”
Roquefort cast a sidelong glance at the woman to his right: for it was none other than Voluptua, the oldest and most beautiful female vampire, raven haired, ruthless, rapacious, ravenous for the fluids of innocent men.
“I don’t know how you stay out of these scrapes, Voluptua. Alright then, they’re after me. Should I kill her now and be done? Kill the priest as a warning? Order another drink?”
“No, no, that’s boring,” Voluptua said, her eyes gazing at the couple by the bar, “I have a much better idea. I seduce the girl, Tarin. Then, while she’s questioning her sexuality, I seduce the priest. Then, while he’s questioning his vocation, you and I have a lot of incredibly kinky sex. You lie in bed recovering. I then have follow-up sex with both the girl and the priest. We all do a few lines of coke. Possibly we’ll get Lucretius to stop by. I’ll seduce him. Then we’ll have a drink, smoke a joint maybe, have a goodbye shag. Then it’ll back to the old routine of feasting on the blood of the living. Brilliant, what?”
“Voluptua,” said Roquefort, “that plan is not without glowing merits. But, like most of your plans, it appears to consist entirely of you sleeping with everyone involved—and I’m not saying I object, here—I just don’t see how it in any way solves my problem of what to do with Tarin the Righteous stalking me.”
“Oh,” Voluptua said. “Well I was about to work that in anyway, although I must say it seems a bit tangential. They’ll completely see the error of their ways and side with the forces of darkness. And if they don’t, then I’ll have earned their trust and can always slaughter them in a ruthless and gory way.”
“Voluptua, they say your beauty is so blinding that no mortal can ever know you, because they grow maddened by your loveliness. And yet now I see that even this beauty is eclipsed by the supple brilliance of your foul mind. Kiss me, darling!”
“I don’t like kissing men whom I can’t kill when I want to,” said Voluptua, “but do allow me to shag you mercilessly in the handicapped stall of the men’s room.”
“No clawing.”
“No promises.”
Fr. Stephen looked around. “Why do all the men in here look like they escaped from the covers of Harlequin romance novels?”
“Who cares,” said Tarin, “I brought a change of panties. Dirty martini, please.”
As Tarin the Righteous and Fr. Stephen ordered their drinks, they were unaware that they were being watched by two creatures of unspeakably well-dressed evil, who were lurking attractively in a dark corner. One of these was Roquefort.
“Look, already the dangerous Lady Tarin, Tarin the Righteous and Tarin the Often Braless, is on our trail,” Roquefort drawled softly.
“Our trail?” purred his companion. “I rather think, darling Roquefort, that she’s only on yours.”
Roquefort cast a sidelong glance at the woman to his right: for it was none other than Voluptua, the oldest and most beautiful female vampire, raven haired, ruthless, rapacious, ravenous for the fluids of innocent men.
“I don’t know how you stay out of these scrapes, Voluptua. Alright then, they’re after me. Should I kill her now and be done? Kill the priest as a warning? Order another drink?”
“No, no, that’s boring,” Voluptua said, her eyes gazing at the couple by the bar, “I have a much better idea. I seduce the girl, Tarin. Then, while she’s questioning her sexuality, I seduce the priest. Then, while he’s questioning his vocation, you and I have a lot of incredibly kinky sex. You lie in bed recovering. I then have follow-up sex with both the girl and the priest. We all do a few lines of coke. Possibly we’ll get Lucretius to stop by. I’ll seduce him. Then we’ll have a drink, smoke a joint maybe, have a goodbye shag. Then it’ll back to the old routine of feasting on the blood of the living. Brilliant, what?”
“Voluptua,” said Roquefort, “that plan is not without glowing merits. But, like most of your plans, it appears to consist entirely of you sleeping with everyone involved—and I’m not saying I object, here—I just don’t see how it in any way solves my problem of what to do with Tarin the Righteous stalking me.”
“Oh,” Voluptua said. “Well I was about to work that in anyway, although I must say it seems a bit tangential. They’ll completely see the error of their ways and side with the forces of darkness. And if they don’t, then I’ll have earned their trust and can always slaughter them in a ruthless and gory way.”
“Voluptua, they say your beauty is so blinding that no mortal can ever know you, because they grow maddened by your loveliness. And yet now I see that even this beauty is eclipsed by the supple brilliance of your foul mind. Kiss me, darling!”
“I don’t like kissing men whom I can’t kill when I want to,” said Voluptua, “but do allow me to shag you mercilessly in the handicapped stall of the men’s room.”
“No clawing.”
“No promises.”
Chapter 2: Moist and Steaming Boysenberries, Multiverse
Little did Roquefort know that his arch-nemesis, Tarin the Righteous, was wending her chain-mailed way through the night to find him. Tarin was a dedicated and lascivious vampire-slayer, sworn to rid the world of the blood-sucking pleasure-mongers who beset it.
But first, breakfast. As soon as the sun set, Tarin would rise in search of wholesome non-human sustenance. She sauntered, clinking, into IHOP.
“Pancakes, orange juice and… sausage,” breathed Tarin, through pouty, ripe lips.
“Ummmm… maple or boysenberry syrup?” asked the waiter.
“Boysenberry. Always boysenberry,” purred Tarin. “Zounds! Is that—but it couldn’t be---” She gazed over to the next table, where a mysterious figure wearing all black sat alone.
“What kind of toast?”
“Sourdough. Sour like my heart. And…. Extra butter… dripping butter…”
The waiter left, and Tarin called to the figure across the table: “Lucretius! Is it truly thou?”
Lucretius turned, his hair falling over his black eyes, which absorbed the light in the room, then reflected it back, darker, more swollen with potential and charged with pheromones. “Yes. May I… join you?”
Tarin pouted, her lips growing yet fuller for no discernable reason. “Perhaps.”
But Lucretius had already made him self comfortable across the table. “How long has it been?”
“My life has been hell without you—but not as bad as it was with you.” Tarin refused his gaze.
“Which way I fly is hell,” quoted Lucretius.
“Don’t be such a whiner,” Tarin replied. “You are a demon.”
“Pancakes, sausage and toast?”
“…Yes,” Tarin murmured.
“Why are there so many ellipses in your speech?” asked the waiter.
“Don’t question!” snapped Lucretius.
Tarin moaned in anticipation of the meal. The steam rose from the plate. “I can barely wait,” she whispered.
“Just put it in your mouth,” replied Lucretius, running his forked tongue over his lips. “Right between your lips.”
“I’m going to,” quipped Tarin.
“And then pull it out again—and then back in--- ah!”
“I can’t very well eat if you’re going to thrust against the table like that,” complained Tarin. “Uuuuhhhh. Uhhuhhhhhhh.”
“Darling, our lives must be united once again. Our powers combined were unstoppable, and coated with tight tight leather.”
“But you belong to the forces of darkness, and were threatened by my constant stream of lovers.”
Luctretius growled. “I hated your constant stream of lovers!”
“But no man was able to satisfy my appetites… I constantly search for the final, ultimate companion, able to quench the burning within my loins--- and always, always disappointed!” A faraway look had come into Tarin’s eyes.
At that moment the door to IHOP swung open. In walked Fr. Stephen, the Latin-spewing and weapons-crazed priest. Lucretius met his eye and hissed. “By the vas deferens of Satan! That nerdtacular priest stalks me yet again!”
“How do you know he’s not stalking me?” quipped Tarin.
“Stop quipping! I hate that fuck!”
“Pace, filiae,” said Fr. Stephen to Tarin. “Cur ad deamonem dices?”
“He has a forked tongue. You figure it out,” quipped Tarin.
“Oh, I WARNED you about that quipping,” snarled Lucretius, leaping up. “That is it. I will treat with you no longer, slut of sluts, or with you, sordid priest of Babylon!”
“Yea, fly, perfidious one, into the oily night which bore you,” Fr. Stephen said, standing his ground against the sardonic, demonic and Byronic creature. “You are unworthy to gaze upon this worthy’s face.”
“I only gaze on it when she won’t let me gaze on anything else,” said Lucretius petulantly. “You wouldn’t know, though. You are God’s eunuch.”
“I beg your pardon!” Fr. Stephen said, “Would you be so good as to stuff it up your ass?”
“Watch for me on wild nights, priest, for I will not forget the remarks of this evening, or your campaign of thwarting my schemes.”
“Know this, Demon: I carry guns in places that even you, with all your worldly and dark knowledge, would tremble to imagine,” said Fr. Stephen.
“I hope they all go off at once,” said Lucretius, and stalked, darkly and stormily, from the IHOP.
Tarin had by now finished her meal and was looking very satisfied. “Won’t you join me for a cup of coffee, Father? There is much with which I must speak with you with which about, about the demon with whom we have just been conversing with.”
“Your breasts are lovely, but your grammer is terrible,” said Fr. Stephen, sitting down. “Do they serve scotch here?”
“No,” said Tarin. “Boysenberry syrup, though.”
“I’ll struggle by on mere coffee, then,” said Fr. Stephen, “And now, my child, what can I help you with?”
“A matter of both personal and cosmic importance. A matter which covers the most private desires of the human soul and the all-consuming passions of the multiverse. A matter, in short, which we can only discuss here, in the privacy of IHOP.”
“Well, if we’re dealing with the moist and steaming passions of your multiverse, perhaps we should go to a bar,” Fr. Stephen said. “Man shall not live on pancakes alone, you know.”
But first, breakfast. As soon as the sun set, Tarin would rise in search of wholesome non-human sustenance. She sauntered, clinking, into IHOP.
“Pancakes, orange juice and… sausage,” breathed Tarin, through pouty, ripe lips.
“Ummmm… maple or boysenberry syrup?” asked the waiter.
“Boysenberry. Always boysenberry,” purred Tarin. “Zounds! Is that—but it couldn’t be---” She gazed over to the next table, where a mysterious figure wearing all black sat alone.
“What kind of toast?”
“Sourdough. Sour like my heart. And…. Extra butter… dripping butter…”
The waiter left, and Tarin called to the figure across the table: “Lucretius! Is it truly thou?”
Lucretius turned, his hair falling over his black eyes, which absorbed the light in the room, then reflected it back, darker, more swollen with potential and charged with pheromones. “Yes. May I… join you?”
Tarin pouted, her lips growing yet fuller for no discernable reason. “Perhaps.”
But Lucretius had already made him self comfortable across the table. “How long has it been?”
“My life has been hell without you—but not as bad as it was with you.” Tarin refused his gaze.
“Which way I fly is hell,” quoted Lucretius.
“Don’t be such a whiner,” Tarin replied. “You are a demon.”
“Pancakes, sausage and toast?”
“…Yes,” Tarin murmured.
“Why are there so many ellipses in your speech?” asked the waiter.
“Don’t question!” snapped Lucretius.
Tarin moaned in anticipation of the meal. The steam rose from the plate. “I can barely wait,” she whispered.
“Just put it in your mouth,” replied Lucretius, running his forked tongue over his lips. “Right between your lips.”
“I’m going to,” quipped Tarin.
“And then pull it out again—and then back in--- ah!”
“I can’t very well eat if you’re going to thrust against the table like that,” complained Tarin. “Uuuuhhhh. Uhhuhhhhhhh.”
“Darling, our lives must be united once again. Our powers combined were unstoppable, and coated with tight tight leather.”
“But you belong to the forces of darkness, and were threatened by my constant stream of lovers.”
Luctretius growled. “I hated your constant stream of lovers!”
“But no man was able to satisfy my appetites… I constantly search for the final, ultimate companion, able to quench the burning within my loins--- and always, always disappointed!” A faraway look had come into Tarin’s eyes.
At that moment the door to IHOP swung open. In walked Fr. Stephen, the Latin-spewing and weapons-crazed priest. Lucretius met his eye and hissed. “By the vas deferens of Satan! That nerdtacular priest stalks me yet again!”
“How do you know he’s not stalking me?” quipped Tarin.
“Stop quipping! I hate that fuck!”
“Pace, filiae,” said Fr. Stephen to Tarin. “Cur ad deamonem dices?”
“He has a forked tongue. You figure it out,” quipped Tarin.
“Oh, I WARNED you about that quipping,” snarled Lucretius, leaping up. “That is it. I will treat with you no longer, slut of sluts, or with you, sordid priest of Babylon!”
“Yea, fly, perfidious one, into the oily night which bore you,” Fr. Stephen said, standing his ground against the sardonic, demonic and Byronic creature. “You are unworthy to gaze upon this worthy’s face.”
“I only gaze on it when she won’t let me gaze on anything else,” said Lucretius petulantly. “You wouldn’t know, though. You are God’s eunuch.”
“I beg your pardon!” Fr. Stephen said, “Would you be so good as to stuff it up your ass?”
“Watch for me on wild nights, priest, for I will not forget the remarks of this evening, or your campaign of thwarting my schemes.”
“Know this, Demon: I carry guns in places that even you, with all your worldly and dark knowledge, would tremble to imagine,” said Fr. Stephen.
“I hope they all go off at once,” said Lucretius, and stalked, darkly and stormily, from the IHOP.
Tarin had by now finished her meal and was looking very satisfied. “Won’t you join me for a cup of coffee, Father? There is much with which I must speak with you with which about, about the demon with whom we have just been conversing with.”
“Your breasts are lovely, but your grammer is terrible,” said Fr. Stephen, sitting down. “Do they serve scotch here?”
“No,” said Tarin. “Boysenberry syrup, though.”
“I’ll struggle by on mere coffee, then,” said Fr. Stephen, “And now, my child, what can I help you with?”
“A matter of both personal and cosmic importance. A matter which covers the most private desires of the human soul and the all-consuming passions of the multiverse. A matter, in short, which we can only discuss here, in the privacy of IHOP.”
“Well, if we’re dealing with the moist and steaming passions of your multiverse, perhaps we should go to a bar,” Fr. Stephen said. “Man shall not live on pancakes alone, you know.”
Chapter 1: Roquefort in Action and Getting Same
Roquefort the tall, Heathcliffian vampire stared grimly around the dimly lit bar. His pale skin glimmered in the light, and his scrotum scar throbbed with awareness of nearby prey. He looked around with his searing golden eyes. A woman was staring at him.
Roquefort sauntered over, in a way that Trevor often does, and sat next to the woman. Her long blonde hair was a silken curtain between them. He slid his hand up her long leg until it rested on her thigh.
“Excuse me?” she said in a husky, Scandinavian-Japanese voice.
“Your leg enticed me. Just the left one.” Roquefort murmured.
“That is odd,” the woman replied. “Because I am actually a model for prosthetic legs. That leg is silicone and metal.”
“Yet it feels like heaven beneath my hand,” Roquefort continued. “What is your name, you silicone-rich goddess?”
“Inger,” said Inger. “And yours?”
“Roquefort,” said Roquefort.
“Ah!” gasped Inger. “The most satisfying form of cheese. Perhaps we should... meet again..."
Inger stared at Roquefort. She could not explain her growing attraction for this strange, sexually aggressive man. “Roquefort, there is something bizarre about you, but I can’t understand what it is. And yet I long to be under you.”
“My luscious multi-ethnic darling, that can be arranged. I will tell you the secret of my life—if you let me whisper it in your ear.”
“Of course! I would--- wha?? Your short friend is humping my leg! My real leg! And he’s getting it all sticky!”
“WITHERS!” thunder Roquefort, enraged. “This is really not on. Not at all. I am locking you you of the attic tonight. Now be gone!”
Withers climbed off Inger’s real leg and slunk off, to return at a later time. Downbound Train by Bruce Springsteen came on the jukebox.
“Its getting hot in here!” Inger said.
Roquefort leaned under her thick golden hair. “My secret, you legwench, is that I am a vampire---“
Before Inger could be surprised, he sank his long and pentrating fangs into the white flesh of her neck in a penetrating fashion.
“Ah! Your long fangs have penetrated me!” Inger whispered. “And I love it.”
Roquefort sauntered over, in a way that Trevor often does, and sat next to the woman. Her long blonde hair was a silken curtain between them. He slid his hand up her long leg until it rested on her thigh.
“Excuse me?” she said in a husky, Scandinavian-Japanese voice.
“Your leg enticed me. Just the left one.” Roquefort murmured.
“That is odd,” the woman replied. “Because I am actually a model for prosthetic legs. That leg is silicone and metal.”
“Yet it feels like heaven beneath my hand,” Roquefort continued. “What is your name, you silicone-rich goddess?”
“Inger,” said Inger. “And yours?”
“Roquefort,” said Roquefort.
“Ah!” gasped Inger. “The most satisfying form of cheese. Perhaps we should... meet again..."
Inger stared at Roquefort. She could not explain her growing attraction for this strange, sexually aggressive man. “Roquefort, there is something bizarre about you, but I can’t understand what it is. And yet I long to be under you.”
“My luscious multi-ethnic darling, that can be arranged. I will tell you the secret of my life—if you let me whisper it in your ear.”
“Of course! I would--- wha?? Your short friend is humping my leg! My real leg! And he’s getting it all sticky!”
“WITHERS!” thunder Roquefort, enraged. “This is really not on. Not at all. I am locking you you of the attic tonight. Now be gone!”
Withers climbed off Inger’s real leg and slunk off, to return at a later time. Downbound Train by Bruce Springsteen came on the jukebox.
“Its getting hot in here!” Inger said.
Roquefort leaned under her thick golden hair. “My secret, you legwench, is that I am a vampire---“
Before Inger could be surprised, he sank his long and pentrating fangs into the white flesh of her neck in a penetrating fashion.
“Ah! Your long fangs have penetrated me!” Inger whispered. “And I love it.”
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