Vampire News!

GENETRIX TOWER OPENS

Valerius Victorious, Victrix Vexed

The three year battle over control of the vampire community in New Hadria ended today. Solange Auriville of the Council of Metaspecial Interests officially declared the new headquarters of the Genetrix Order open for residents and businesses. This is the first city charter to be given to a vampire organization and makes the Genetrix the official order in the city.

Originally one of the city’s Old Age apartment houses and still the tallest building in New Hadria, Genetrix Tower will now stand as a testament to the vital presence and influence of Hadrian vampires. “This day has been long in coming, but not one of us had any doubts about this action,” Auriville said at a press conference in the Genetrix Tower lobby. “The Genetrix has been an asset to all of us in New Hadria. Yes, they are vampires, but they are also outstanding citizens and great contributors to our society. They have earned this distinction.”

Valerius, called the Prince of the Genetrix and the leader of the Order, has been working closely with Auriville and the Council to achieve this goal. “This is the realization of a dream for my kind. The Tower is a symbol of our strength and our unity. I may have led the way, but I defer to my brothers and sisters for having the courage to share my vision.”

Valerius arrived in New Hadria five years ago. His history and original name remain unknown, in keeping with vampire tradition. But he brought with him ancient knowledge, a philosophy that would spread through the city. He called his way the Genetrix and thousands flocked to him for teaching and fellowship.

But the Genetrix was not the only vampire order in New Hadria. Three years ago Aurelian, the Lord of the Victrix, demanded that Valerius cease his efforts to gain city recognition. Having been born in New Hadria, Aurelian contested that his own group, the Order of the Victrix, merited preference over the Genetrix. Aurelian continued his argument despite repeated rejection from the Council of Metaphysical Interests.

The leader of the Victrix could not be reached for comment, but he did prepare a statement for the New Hadria Crier. “Obviously, by virtue or by vice, Valerius has managed to imprison the Council in his pocket. The city can do whatever it wants. We of the Victrix are not bound by any phony accord. Let the Genetrix enjoy their charter and their fame. We are still vampires and we are still here. We will be the dissenting voice in the crowd. I am no less a champion of my Order than Valerius is of his, and I owe the Victrix nothing less than to keep fighting.”

In reaction to this statement, Valerius said, “I am saddened that Aurelian will not simply come to peace with us. We extend friendship and coexistence. After all, we have much more in common than we have in conflict.”

But today is the day for the Genetrix. As vampires take up residence in its many apartments and restaurants, stores, and services move into the commercial floor, Genetrix Tower promises to become the biggest center of commerce and community in New Hadria.

“This is the start of an amazing future for our vampire citizens,” Auriville said. “From here, nothing is impossible.”

Meet The Gang

Well, it sure looks like today's gonna be another wet one here in the fish tank! Ha ha, just a little goldfish humor there, folks. Every day's a wet day.

I'm Carlotta. I'm a fish. And I talk, and think, and write, and have other intellectual pursuits. So don't laugh; fish don't have good senses of humor. Zippy is my pet. Well, okay, I guess its the other way around...but not in my little world.

I've been chewing on these stupid rocks all night. Where's Zippy with my food? Damn it, I'm starving. I guess calling for pizza is out of the question. Maybe I'll nibble on these nice leaves here. Rats, I forgot the plants are plastic. Artificial food. Chalk another one up for the ape. I imagine Zippy serves friends wax fruit!

"Hey there, fishie! How are you?" Zippy grinned.

"Humph! For your information, I'm famished. Starving. Weary. Hungry. Wasting away to almost nothing."

"You are not!"

"Okay, but I have the munchies."

Zippy was just about to get Carlotta some fish grub, when Janeless Lament knocked on the front door. "Hey there, Zip-ness! Like, how's it falling?"

"Into place, I guess."

"Coolness. Mind if I come in out of the cold?"

"It's seventy degrees outside."

"Babe, everywhere's cold when you think you're from Venus." She stepped in. Carlotta groaned loudly. "Hey, how's the little talkin' fishie?"

How to describe Janeless? Well, let's just say that dumping her into a river would be illegal in most areas.

"Carlotta, you remember Janeless, don't you?"

"Do I remember Janeless? How could I forget that great day when she had a runny nose but not a tissue and decided to remedy her situation by hanging her face over my tank!"

Janeless sniffed. "I'm sorry. But you sure hold a grudge."

"You did this last week, foolish ape."

"I'd be mad too if you snotted all over me," Zippy said.

"Don't be gross!" Carlotta snorted.

Janeless changed channels. "Fishie, I have a question for you..."

"Uh oh."

"I promise. It's not too dumb."

"You don't know what my thresholds are."

"Can I ask you something or not?"

"If you must."

"How do you know you're female?"

Excerpt from By Way of the Dodo...

Carlotta turned bright red. "What...do...you...mean?"

"Just that. See, by looking at you, I wouldn't know. So I was wondering how you can tell."

"I don't know! I just can, okay."

"How?"

"Well, how can you tell you're female? I sure can't!"

At this point, the conversation was getting to be too much for Zippy. She threw three slices of leftover pizza into Carlotta's tank. The fish shut up.

"What the gerf kind of fish is she, anyway?" Janeless asked.

Zippy peered into the fish tank. Carlotta had a golden body, with ruby-red fins, a violet tail, and dark blue eyes. Actually, Carlotta was Her Imperial Highness Princess Carlotta, in line for the throne of the water planet Xanthus 12. In the midst of a political coup against her father the emperor, Carlotta had been sent to earth. But by some bizarre stroke of fate, she had ended up in the pet department of Fluffy's. That's how Zippy got her...for seventy-nine cents.

"Uh, she's a...rare species of goldfish from Tanzania."

"Wow. Now that's really Perdue."

Janeless wore a barbarian smile.

"What's with you?" Zippy asked.

"Do you notice anything different?"

"About you?"

"Yeah."

"You smell better than usual."

"Thanks. I showered. But other than that."

She hadn't lost or gained any weight...Janeless was as scrawny as always. She hadn't pierced her ears again. There were no new tatoos on her arms. Zippy didn't see it. "I give up. What'd you do?"

Janeless frowned. "You can't tell?"

"No, I can't."

"You can't tell I had my hair dyed electric violet?"

"Janeless, your hair's always been purple."

"No, not purple. Bogus, Zippy! It's violet now. See?"

Zippy saw no real difference in Janeless' hair color; it was still dark purple. Poor thing! She'd been taken again. Zippy bit her lip in invocation, and Janeless' hair became a brilliant mane the color of Carlotta's tail. "Yeah, okay. I see it now."

Janeless, thinking her hair had been dyed correctly the first time, was oblivious to the
magical change. "I have another surprise, too!" Janeless grabbed the zipper of her snakeskin jacket. "Now don't go squirrely on me. Are you ready?"

Zippy nodded.

Janeless unzipped the jacket to reveal a neon-yellow t-shirt underneath. The words "Sugar Bangs" were printed in paisley across the front. "Is this Perdue, or what?"

"Wow! You guys got your own shirts!"

"Pretty bitchen, isn't it? This guy in Purgeberg is printing them up for us. We're selling them at the gig for ten bucks a piece."

"Cool."

"So, are you coming or what?"

"Am I coming where?"

"To hear us play at the Summit Club tonight or what? We're gonna be like Party Central."

Party Central, in Delaware Valley terms, loosely meant any place where more than five people would gather at a time.

Zippy had to shudder at the thought of a Sugar Bangs concert. They group couldn't quite play their instruments; the amplifiers were always turned up twice as much as for other bands; Nuclear Vikki often jumped into the audience and attacked; and rare was it when Ginger could remember all the lyrics to a song.

Zippy supposed a magic without a sense of ethics could have turned them into the greatest most popular rock band in the world. Zippy wasn't such a magic. Success was something they needed to achieve on their own, however improbable it was in their case.

Yet Janeless was her friend, and this was their first concert with the new shirts. Besides, Zippy reasoned, she could always change the music for her own ears into something she could listen to. "I wouldn't miss it."

"True to the Trickster"

I've been working at the story of Loki and all the legend that surrounds him for a while.  Lately I got the idea to weave in a "romance" with his long suffering wife Sigyn.  Here's a peek.

Burning ice and biting flame.

Sigyn wielded her sword and shield for the last time, her heart packed with ice and her spirit buried under drifts of snow. Never had the walls of Sessrumnir seemed so cold, so constricting. She had stood here in Freya's great hall so many times before. Yet in those times she had been a Valkyrie, one of the sacred thirteen. Today, she would reliquish that power forever.
Kneeling before her, prepared to take her sacred oath, Brynhilde's eyes glowed bright with promise and awe. Sigyn had no doubts about this candidate. Brynhilde was one of Odin's own daughters, and had proven herself worthy in battle. She would make an exceptional Valkyrie, perhaps even the best.

What accursed fate would that day force Sigyn to resign from the circle of Valkyries and become the unwilling wife of the most despised god in Asgard? Freya herself, the great goddess, ruler of the Valkyries, had pleaded with Odin to reconsider his command. Surely someone else could be found to marry Loki the Trickster, the Lord of Lies! But Odin, in his high chair above all the gods of Asgard and all of creation, could not be dissuaded. Sigyn, and only Sigyn, could be Loki's wife.

Meeting the goddess's glistening eyes, Sigyn knew Freya felt no great joy in this day, either. They had served long together, and Sigyn was as much of a friend to Freya as anyone. But both knew the divine law. One could not be married and serve as Freya's warrior priestess. Odin's decree that Sigyn would wed the horrible Loki was the beginning of her torture and the end of her days as a Valkyrie. Perhaps this Sigyn resented more than the forced union.

But all was not lost. On this day, Sigyn would join the Aesir and become a goddess in her own right. That had been Odin's reward to her for suffering these marriage arrangements. Even if Loki were worse than reputed, Sigyn would never get the chance to become a full goddess again. And so, she had agreed to marry Loki.

Sigyn looped the shield onto Brynhilde's arm and pressed the hilt of the sword into her hand. Now it was done. Brynhilde had become a Valkyrie by the grace of Freya.

They left Freya's hall in procession, with Freya herself at the head. Sigyn, veiled and bowing her head, followed the goddess, and the Valkyries followed her. In this way did they come into a larger hall, a hall which joined Freya's Sessrumnir to Odin's Gladsheim. There the goddesses Idunna, Sif, and Frigga waited to greet the bride.

Sigyn raised her head and looked around at the goddesses and Valkyries around her. All wore faces of stone, dismal expressions belying their inner forboding. She almost laughed as she thought these proceedings were more like a funeral than a marriage celebration. "Where is the funeral ship?" she said, her voice forced to be light. "When will you load my corpse onto the ship and set it ablaze?"

Running her fingers through her cropped hair, the goddess Sif sighed. Her suffering at Loki's hands had brought about this marriage in the first place. Loki had crept with the night into the palace Sif shared with her husband Thor and cut away all of her beautiful golden hair. As punishment for his mischief, Loki would now be forced to marry. "You can hardly expect us to be happy on this day," Sif said. "I would that Odin had simply killed the beast outright than try to tame him through marriage."

"But there is reason to celebrate, for on this day Sigyn joins the Aesir and becomes a goddess," Freyja said. "To celebrate, we each have a gift for you. No woman shall ever receive wedding gifts such as these."

"Indeed." The tiny Sif smiled at Sigyn. "You are a goddess now, my sister, and among the Aesir. As such, you will need to keep watch over Midgard from your own hall. Therefore, my present to you is your own World Eye, through which you will be able to see the happenings in the mortal realm. May you be blessed."

Sigyn believed she would burst with the thrill she felt. Her own World Eye! She would have her own window on the world of man. Her new status as a goddess of the Aesir became more of a reality. "Sif, my deepest thanks," she said, hugging the little goddess. "I will use the World Eye and serve the mortal as best I may."

Smiling, Sif nodded, and then stepped back to let Frigga embrace Sigyn. "Lovely lady, your marriage will not be an easy one. You know well that you are marrying the most difficult of bridegrooms. For that reason, I make patience and temperance my gifts to you. I enable you to cope with the trials of Loki with love and tenderness, and I pray that by being the best of wives, you might come to tame the Trickster."

Such a gift was a blessing, indeed. Sigyn had been unable to reckon how she could live with the monster Loki and keep peace. Frigga would make that possible. "My thanks to you, Mother," she said, enfolded in Frigga's arms. "I will do as best I may."

Now Idunna, the Lady of Youth, stepped forward. She cradled a small golden chest in her arms, with the world tree Ygradrisil engraved on the lid. "As my gift, I give to you the Apples of Youth," she said, patting the chest. "Of these you and the Aesir will eat, and you remain young and strong forever."

Her hands trembling, Sigyn took the golden chest from Idunna. "How am I worthy of such a gift?"
Idunna's full lips turned in a smirk. "You are marrying Loki. You need all the power you can get."

Sigyn looked down at the chest in her arms as Idunna continued. "At the end of a feast in Asgard, your duty will be to feed an apple to each of the Aesir. And worry not, for no matter how many apples you give away, you will always have more in store." Idunna's face turned stern. "However, it is a great responsibility. The evil Giants will be anxious to steal these apples from you for themselves, and your husband is half of giant blood. Keep your wits, Sigyn, and guard these apples as you would guard your life."

"And so I shall." Sigyn exchanged a tender embrace with the goddess, wondering in Idunna's warmth and beauty.

Finally, Freya approached Sigyn, with tears of solid gold falling from her eyes. Freya's eyes focused on the charm which hung between Sigyn's breasts. The simple disc, inscibed with a seven-pointed star, protected each Valkyrie from the lusts of men. So long as she wore the amulet, and none but the goddess Freya could remove it, a Valkyrie need never lie with a man she did not desire.

Sigyn feared her heart would break. To part with the amulet was to part with her life as Freya's maiden forever. But she supposed there was no hope for it. A woman could not be a wife and a Valkyrie. Sigyn lifted her hair and turned her back to Freya, intending to return the amulet.

But Freya shook her head, and her tears stopped. "You may keep your amulet, Sigyn. Call it my wedding gift to you."

By Way of the Dodo

In a large, pink-metallic office building, on the 234th floor, the third board room on the right after passing the exploding water fountain and the tempermental stairway, Dratnal Fjord was not happy. However, the stairway had just met with its psychiatrist, and felt rather well after a hefty dose of Soopem-Up-Feelem-Good pharmaceuticals.

It is the year 2314, and there are still office buildings and boardrooms. In fact, there are more office buildings and boardrooms than had ever existed before. Elevators are the subject of massive wildlife conservation campaigns as they are being replaced all over with empty vertical corridors and personal jet packs--more expensive, more neurotic, but considerably less safe.

Dratnal Fjord was an angry man. Due to a horrific accident involving stupidity, plutonium and juggling chainsaws, most of his natural body had been replaced. Now he was a patchwork of different colored plastics and metals. The only prosthetic arms available to him at the time of his accident were of infant-length; he lacked the patience to wait for a more suitable pair. Dratnal did not like being called Stubby. His employees knew that calling him Stubby would result in their instantaneous vaporization, in spite of the union ruling against vaporization of its members.

Of course, they also realized it was just one of the professional risks of working for the Whoopie Fun Ice Cream Company.

Dratnal's glowing red eyes made everyone in the boardroom uneasy. He drummed his fat yellow fingers on the table as his head was enveloped in the smoke from his atomic cigar. If he had friends, they would have encouraged him to quit the nuclear stogies, or at least cut down. But Dratnal Fjord didn't have any friends, and he liked it that way. No one to annoy him with their concern for his health. He puffed.

Mutter Haslow and his pet briefcase Bork finally arrived in the boardroom. Mutter scurried over to Dratnal, and bowed humbly. "My corporate lord," he pleaded. "I am very sorry to be late."

Dratnal spoke no words, but grunted. Mutter looked for his left hand, and discovered it had been vaporized. He smiled in relief. "Oh thank you, thank you, sir, for your leniency." Mutter and Bork assumed their seats.

With a wave of his hand, Dratnal closed the doors of the boardroom. A loud clank resounded as the room was locked. The twenty-odd assemblants--human, creature and briefcase--quickly jumped to their feet and began to sing:

"All hail the corporate master we love
With the skill of adept and the smell of a glove
To you, oh master, we pledge our devotion
And not just for the chance at a promotion
Oh no! We live to serve you, and we rejoice
We wouldn't quit, even if we had the choice
May you forever over this world reign supreme
Great Dratnal Fjord, of Whoopie Fun Ice Cream!"

They sat down.

"Mumford," growled Dratnal. "You didn't keep in harmony."

"Sorry, sir," the feathered man with the fluorescent cock-comb apologized. "My cat ate my ears this morning."

"How many more times will you use that excuse?"

"I can't help it. My cat has weird tastes."

On a normal day, Dratnal would have pursued the matter to such extremities that extensive proof of Mumford's indiscretions in the company would be created, and, more than likely, Mumford vaporized. But Dratnal had bigger things on his mind.

Dratnal Fjord cleared his voluminous throat with a noise not unlike an elephant imploding. "This is Dr. Slime, from the Time Travel Institute." He motioned to a large beige blob sitting on the table in front of him. The blob opened its blue eyes, and sprouted an arm. It waved.

Everyone envied Dr. Slime. Dratnal had almost never vaporized a guest.

"Dr. Slime approached me last week about a discovery his team had just made at the institute...a discovery directly affecting the Whoopie Fun Ice Cream empire. Naturally, I was eager for this information, and so I pooled all of your salaries for the next three years in order to make an offer for which he would negotiate his ethics."

"I assure you, Dratnal," Dr. Slime spoke from some unseen orifice in a nasally, congested voice. "It was a bargain."

"Oh, I agree." Dratnal puffed harder on his cigar. "So I have brought him here to tell all of you what he has told me. Then we can do our dictated democratic process."

The board members all nodded eagerly.

"I'll cut to the chase. The Whoopie Fun Ice Cream Empire is in dire danger. It will be completely erased from existence, utterly destroyed."

Mutter Haslow paled. As did his briefcase. "What do you mean, erased?"

"Just that. Just like it never existed. Eradicated. Kaplooie!"

A panicked murmur overwhelmed the room. "Now, hold on," Dratnal shouted. "It won't happen, because the good doctor will tell us how to fix everything."

Dr. Slime moved in something like a nod. "As you all know, the Whoopie Fun Ice Cream Company has been in existence for four hundred years. It has ruled the world for two hundred. Before that, it held the monopoly on ice cream and other frozen treats in the western world."

As we have discovered, the past is not solidified. Through the process of time travel and universe-shift, our pasts and futures are able to be altered. Such an alteration is going to occur that will destroy Whoopie Fun."

Unless," the blob gargled. "We stop it!"

Mumford squawked. "What do we have to do?"

"Time travel," declared Dr. Slime. "You must choose someone to go back and sabotage the one who shall destroy you."

"And who is the wretch."

Dratnal lifted a poster board from under the table for all to see. "And this is the trouble maker. Lute Napper."

Mumford chirped in horror. Mutter looked away and wretched quietly. A board member with long fangs and scaled skin screamed in terror.

"Hideous!"

"Abominable"

"Evil!"

"And so, here's the mission," Dratnal growled. "You, Mumford. You will go back in time. This Lute Napper lived in this very geographic area, 350 years ago. You will use the Institute's Phenetron Generator."

"I understand," Mumford said.

"According to our history files," Dr. Slime added. "The one who you seek was working in a university laboratory, but was fired. However, a time swerve is bound to occur, that will keep that one from being fired, and will lead to your destruction." Dr. Slime coughed. "It is up to you to correct that time swerve."

"I will do so," Mumford declared.

"You'd better," spat Dratnal. "Or I'll vaporize you twice."

The Loa Gate

“Where the hell are we?” Theda pressed her palm flat against a cold, smooth surface at her side. Cold, yes, but dark too. This whole place was dank and dark, humidity hanging in the air like a thunderstorm waiting to happen.
“New Orleans.”

“You’ve told me nothing.”

She looked across and in the shadows she could make out the shining white of clean bone. There was a skull, and there was more. Theda could see a plum velvet suit that created something like the skull’s body. A top hat did not hide the complete lack of hair. Sunglasses hid the empty eye sockets and a half-smoked cigar hung from the corner of the mouth, clenched between teeth that were doing something remarkable. They were turned up in a grin.

“You know me, petite, so let’s not indulge in nonsense.”

Reality sunk in like a rush of cold water flooding into Theda’s stomach. “Monsieur le Baron!”

A hand of thin bone reached up and took the cigar from his mouth. “Call me Samedi. We’re intimate enough.”

Theda sat quietly for a few moments, the ramifications too great for her mind. Finally, she looked at the Baron with something like remorse in her eyes. “I’m dead.”

The Baron spread his hands. “It pains me, but it’s not my doing, you understand.”

“How?” A spike of anger entered her voice. “How can I be dead?”

At that, an unearthly light dimly illuminated the area. With a fake cough, the Baron paused. “How? How is really not part of my domain. You were alone and you fell dead. Who knows why—perhaps your heart could not go on beating, perhaps a spring in your brain came unsprung. Your husband won’t be coming back, of course. No one will find you until your neighbor notices a funny smell. By the time you are discovered you will be so badly decomposed your very skin will stick to the carpet. Such is the circus of the mortal realm. You need not worry about it anymore.”

Theda considered this. Dead was dead, and that was that. “You still haven’t told me where we are.”

“We’re in a mausoleum,” the Baron answered, then drew on his cigar. “The Prejeans, I believe. I don’t really care. I get them all confused sooner or later.” With the forefinger of his free hand, he pointed at her. “You, however, are not quite finished. Close, yes, but not finished.”

“Finished with what?” Theda began to laugh. “You tell me I’m dead. How much more finished can I possibly be?”

“You’ve died out of balance. You cannot pass through the Loa Gate until you’ve fixed that balance.”

“Pardon?”

“Your husband,” the Baron thundered. “The philanderer. The coward who took to bed with the very woman you believed he loved but he denied. The whore who would fall into the arms of a married man. And Marni, the woman you called your closest friend, the woman who knew all of this and would not tell you. These three are your imbalance.”

Theda experienced something like a swoon. Greg had been talking with Raye for so long, Theda had often wondered why he ever needed her counsel. When Theda had first grown suspicious, she had only asked Greg for the truth. Of course he didn’t have a spark for Raye. Theda’s conspiracy complex must be working overtime. And Theda believed him, because what else could she do? She took her marriage seriously.

Marni’s betrayal seemed to hurt more. Best friends weren’t supposed to be in on a secret affair and not tell the spurned wife. Then again, Marni had been Raye’s friend too. Maybe Marni hadn’t wanted to explode this bomb. Yeah, right. More likely, Marni had been protecting herself.

Sliding to stand on the stone floor, Theda saw that she had been sitting on a coffin—a fairly new one of polished mahogany from the looks of it. “So tell me, Samedi, what do I do? I’m sure you’re here to help me somehow.”

“I’m here to reward your faith and devotion to me, to the Loa, and most of all to Bon Dieu.”

“I don’t understand.”

The cigar burned out, the Baron’s hand was free. He reached behind him and brought forth a caramel-colored glass bottle. “I’m returning the favor, petite. You offered me better rum than anyone else scattered to the winds. Good, hearty dark rum, not that tonic water I get from so many others.” With that, he took a healthy drink from the bottle. “Real rum from a real dedicant. If there is any greater tribute, I haven’t discovered it.”

Rum? Rum was going to help her settle her scores? “Tell me, Samedi, what can I do if I am dead?”

“What can’t you do if you’re dead?” The Baron cocked his head. “Come on, you know the powers of the dead. You can do anything. You can even send the spirits of the other dead into the living bodies of your enemies.”

Theda paused, speechless. The sending of the spirits—she hadn’t even thought of that. “But why would I send other spirits to do my work?”

“You’re too kind,” the Baron replied. “You would never be able to be as ruthless as this task requires. No, this is not for you, but for the truly wicked, the spirits unable to make peace of any kind with any entity.”

The Baron opened his plum velvet jacket and withdrew three phials from a pocket. Each phial contained the same grainy black-gray substance, but one was plugged with a red stopper, one with a white stopper, and one with a black stopper. Theda had already guessed what it was when the Baron smiled. “Graveyard dirt, carefully collected from an obsolete resting place upriver from here. Three bottles of demon-ridden dust from the graves of the most vile monsters to ever terrorize Louisiana.”

Theda pulled back a bit. She didn’t exactly cherish the idea of having evil-charged graveyard dirt on her person. In the next moment, it came to her again that she was dead and that the terrors of the living were no longer her problem. “I think I know how to use these.”

“This bottle is for the bastard,” the Baron said, handing her the phial with the black stopper. “This bottle with the red stopper is for his whore, and the last is for the traitor. “Don’t get them mixed up.”

Shaking her head, Theda examined the phials. Sending the spirits was the worst kind of magic that could be done. Was she angry enough at Greg, Raye, and Marni to utterly destroy them? In the end, all Theda had wanted was the truth. Instead she was stuck on the far side of the Loa Gate because these three people could only think of themselves. Yes, oh yes, she could do this.

She turned to the Baron. “What now?”

The Baron extended her hand to her, and she clasped the bones as if it were the hand of her beloved. “This won’t be easy for you,” he said. “But it will strengthen your resolve and it will prove to you the reason you are sending the spirits.”

In the next moment the Baron and Theda were in a lush hotel suite. She saw the bed out of the corner of her eye but she asked the Baron, “Won’t we wake them?”

“They can’t see us, of course. We’re of the spirit realm, but they’re of the flesh. The graveyard dirt is also of the earth.”

Gathering her nerve, Theda walked towards the bed. There she found Raye and Greg in an erotic embrace, asleep and entangled. Both of them were covered with sheets, but Theda couldn’t mistake what had been going on. On the other side of Raye Marni snuggled up against her.

“You know, I could have accepted this if they’d been honest with me,” she said to the Baron.”

“I know. You responsibility is what is, not what might have been. Send the spirits, petite. Do it and be done with this.”

Theda wouldn’t question the Baron’s wisdom. She took the black-stopped phial and opened it. Greg’s ear was in plain sight. Theda knew what would happen. The spirit would enter Greg’s body and find out his worst fear, the fear that could freeze him in his sleep. He would be a ruined man, but such was the penalty for betraying a dedicant of the Loa. Without another hesitation, Theda sprinkled some of the gravedirt into Greg’s ear. She thought she saw the dirt fade to white as it touched his skin. This whiteness gathered into a spiral of tiny clouds before rushing into the opening of the ear.

“The spirit is sent,” the Baron told Theda in a soft voice. “Finish what you must.”

“What will happen to them?”

The Baron shook his head. “That is not your concern, petite.”

“Tell me! By the love of Bon Dieu, I want to know. If I don’t know I will not find peace.”

“Do the others,” he said. “Do it all and I will tell you.”

Theda regarded the Baron, looking for some evidence of duplicity she would never find in the bone face. Why did she care anyway? However much she had loved Greg and Marni, they had betrayed her. She only felt a kind of mute hatred for Raye in any case. At the same time, she knew the grave dirt.

Before she could lose her composure, Theda poured dirt from the other phials into Marni’s ear and Raye’s ear, damn her. The she turned to the Baron. “I’ve done my part. Now do yours.”

The Baron nodded. “They’ll wish you’d killed them. The traitor will know with every nerve in her body that she is truly alone in this world. You were the only honest friend she will ever have. She will shake and sob for the rest of her days. When the whore awakes, she will hear nothing but the screeching of the one singer she likes least. The noise will possess her to the point of madness. She will never be free of it.”

Theda glanced at the bed. Yes, even in the face of it, she felt compassion for these people. But it was not her place to question the Loa. “And Greg?”

“He will suffer worst of all.” With a long thin finger bone he pointed to a piece of wire sculpture sitting on the nightstand. Theda recognized it. Greg’s art, if it were true that art was objective. He had been tinkering in their garage for months making objects from copper wire, white tubing, and anything else he could scavenge. This piece he had made for Raye. He had expressed his love for her in metal.

“He will lose all control over his hands forever. He will never do the work he loves again. This is his fate.”

In life Theda might have shed a tear, but there was no time. The hotel suite and New Orleans vanished. She found herself standing before a wrought iron gate with the Baron at her side. As the gates began to open, the Baron leaned over to place a hard kiss on Theda’s forehead.

“Bon Dieu will see you now, petite.”