Original -- The Bridegroom: Episode 2
Title: The Bridegroom: Episode 2
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8,738
Warnings: same warnings, but moreso: blasphemy, language, Tierfal on cocaine, fun with gender, and a special *fail!editing*!
Prompt: Genre: spy thriller (…no, but really); archetypes: femme fatale, reluctant hero for Mince Spies at pulped_fictions
Summary: Belial is still jonesing for either a vampire's soul or the best season of reality TV ever. Vincent is still thinking seriously about self-staking. Maion is still a chick. The hilarity is still… hilaring.
Author's Note: You don't really have to have read Episode 1, but it's punchier, funnier, and actually edited. Although this one has its moments. I will try to edit soon. AUGH.
THE BRIDEGROOM: EPISODE 2
Maion opens his eyes to the dulcet tones of a monumental catfight. For a moment, he wonders why he’s wearing cute short-short pajama bottoms with what feels like a word across the butt.
Then it all comes crashing back-his premonition of a vampire-hunter tracking Vincent to the ends of the Earth (despite the fact that the Earth is round and therefore doesn’t actually have ends)… His rather unfortunate discovery of the terms of Vincent’s latest deal with a demon-specifically, starring in the first season of “The Bridegroom” ever to have an undead antihero as its prize… His even more unfortunate realization that the best way to find the hunter, save Vincent, and generally maintain the balance of the universe was to infiltrate the television show by altering his physical form and becoming one of its contestants.
At least that explains the shorts. And the breasts.
Maion sits up and rubs at his face. One of the other girls is screaming something about drinking orange juice from the carton.
It’s shaping up to be a very, very long two months.
Then again, Maion has been wandering the planet for a few millennia, give or take a couple half-centuries. And every trial and triumph begins with a single moment of resolution.
Maion climbs down to the floor, ignoring the pretty brunette who is snoring into her pillow the next bed over, dons his fuzzy pink slippers, and pads towards the kitchen. He regrets-but can’t really help-that he procrastinated so long on getting the proper amount of celestial sleep back while he had the chance. Ordinary human unconsciousness sustains him a little, and food certainly doesn’t hurt, but his powers are getting progressively more limited as he whiles the hours away down here, a world apart from the energies that replenish him. He thinks he’ll be able to maintain this shape for years at the current rate, and he can still nudge small miracles into being without much trouble, but any more involved angelic activity could prove… taxing. Dangerous, perhaps.
Then again, there isn’t much in heaven or on Earth more dangerous than walking into the middle of a screaming match between two jealous women.
As soon as he’s started down the hall, one of the eerily ubiquitous cameramen is on his tail, documenting his every step. Maion pauses.
“Do you ever sleep?” he asks.
There is no response except for some slightly startled blinking.
“If there was a form to sign about not addressing you, I joined the show late,” Maion tells him. “And I think it’s degrading that we’re supposed to pretend you don’t exist. Do you have a union? What kind of hours do you work?”
More startled blinking. Maion sighs.
Another feral scream from the kitchen garners his attention, and he decides to put the issue of cameraman abuse on the backburner until he’s prevented a breakfast-related homicide.
“You are supposed to step in if anyone’s about to get killed, right?” he asks, not-really-joking. To have the unnoticed eyes and ears that underpin the whole spectacle watching out for Vincent’s safety would be… well, a godsend.
The latest round of startled blinking is none too inspiring.
Maion gives up and continues to the kitchen, a lovely room of polished granite countertops, high-end appliances, and artfully-arranged furniture. After those, the most notable feature is probably the two beautiful women howling at one another.
“It’s a metaphor for Vincent!” Naina screams.
“Yeah!” Jamaica screams back. “And I don’t see your name on either of ’em!”
Maion looks at the carton of orange juice on the counter-Jamaica’s right about that much-and then back up at the combatants.
“That’s the whole point, you dumb bimbo!” Maion wonders if Naina, too, is camera-conscious; or perhaps works with small children. “We’re supposed to share!”
Maion clears his throat. “Is this, by any chance, a problem that can be solved by working together to make blueberry pancakes for the whole house?” he asks, giving them his most feminine winsome smile.
Perhaps he missed a memo saying that startled blinking is the order of the morning.
Jamaica scowls. She has a rather considerable proportion of last night’s mascara smeared around her eyes, and her voluminous dark hair is in disarray.
“I don’t think you wanna get all up in my grill, hot stuff,” she says.
Maion believes that means she doesn’t want to help with the pancakes.
“I don’t mean to interfere with anyone’s barbequing,” he says soothingly. “I’ll just make a bunch of big blueberry pancakes, and you can both have some. How does that sound?”
Naina reinforces the suspicion that Please respond to half of the questions you are asked with startled blinking was on some pre-show waiver right under Do not look directly at the cameramen, for your feminine wiles will paralyze them.
“Pancakes?” she repeats after a moment. “With butter?”
Maion beams. “And powdered sugar and maple syrup and lots of antioxid-”
Naina and Jamaica share a long-suffering look, link arms, and walk off without explaining what pancakes ever did to them.
After a moment of staring at the orange juice, wondering what kind of Bad Mood Poison it’s spiked with, Maion decides he’ll just let the wafting smell of blueberry pancakes punish them for their unkindness and gets to work. He’s flipping happily-and the cameraman has unfrozen enough to salivate-when footsteps in the hall alert him to a visitor.
This time, it’s Kylie, who is small and pretty and sunny and some part Asian; she has lovely straight black hair and a friendly expression.
“Good morning,” she says cheerfully, although she looks tired. “Maia, right?” When Maion nods, she smiles. “What can I do to help?”
There is a slight but interesting possibility that this whole experience might not be unrelentingly terrible from start to finish.
This whole experience is going to be unrelentingly terrible from start to finish.
“Absolutely not,” Vincent says, resisting the urge to pull out his laptop keys and use them as projectiles. “I am not ignoring my company; I am not wearing that; and I am definitely not taking a bunch of women who slaughtered all of their brain cells with hydrogen peroxide in the process of bleaching their hair to hell and back to the planetarium.”
Belial smoothes the Team Vincent T-shirt he’s laid out on the settee, straightens, smiles, and shrugs.
“Fine by me,” he says. “In that case, I’ll see you in hell. Permanently. With bells on-the kind that are triggered by the slightest twitch of a muscle and ring far too loudly, just a tiny bit off-key.”
Vincent stares at him. “You’re sick.”
“No, I’m Evil. ‘Sick’ is a human thing.”
“You’re twisted.”
“Given all the snake-and-horn imagery, I’ll give you that one.” Belial grins, and somehow the long, cold fangs he’s got for the moment look a thousand times more sinister than Vincent’s ever do. “You see how generous I am today? I could get fired for this.” There’s a pause. “Get it-fired. Like hellfi-”
“I get it,” Vincent says. “Please extend your extraordinary generous streak to putting me out of my misery.”
Belial vanishes in a spurt of flame, but before Vincent can decide on relief or disappointment, there’s another puff of smoke, and the demon has reappeared right beside him, apparently with the solitary goal of ruffling his hair.
“Just wear the shirt and go on the group date,” he says cheerfully, “or I’ll have to inspire a terrorist to do something very untoward to the Eiffel Tower. It’s in the contract.” He waxes faux-pensive, stroking his chin slowly. “Perhaps you should have read the fine print before you signed. Funny that a businessman would forget something like that.”
“You drugged me,” Vincent reminds him through gritted teeth.
Belial smirks. “Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry; I make so many deals, I sometimes forget which are even remotely fair. If it helps, I’ve sent you a copy of the contract.”
An email notification pops up on Vincent’s laptop screen. The subject line says read em & weep sucker (get it bcuz ur a vampire lol).
Vincent presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “The millisecond my soul is clean, I’m making a deal with God and shoving a rod of Grace so far up your ass that your head explodes.”
He expects a silencing retort. When none arrives, he opens his eyes and discovers that he just wasted a threat on an empty room.
He sighs, heaves himself up, crosses to the settee, and glares down at the T-shirt laid out on the cushions.
“Team Vincent is losing,” he says.
The shirt is not particularly sympathetic.
This might be the best idea Belial has had since Silly Bandz. It might be better than Silly Bandz, since those accidentally stimulated the economy. This endeavor is evil to the core, including-especially-the rather un-coincidental rise in the sale of trashy vampire erotica. Belial had almost forgotten how much he loves reality TV.
Most of the girls look blankly around themselves, taking in the exhibits and the awkward employees waiting to scribble “Overtime - that dumbass dating show” on their time-sheets and be done with this nonsense. Maia, of course, is bouncing up and down, and Jailbait-er, Janine, who is young and hot and wrangling her way towards an MBA; she’s Belial’s pick for Most Likely to Seduce Vincent When He Least Expects It-heads straight for a display about the life cycles of stars.
“Is there going to be a quiz on this later?” Naina asks. “’Cause I am so totally not down.”
“Of course there is,” Vincent says sourly. “The five lowest scorers get kicked off the show immediately.”
The looks of horror are, Belial has to admit, rather hilarious.
“Vincent’s just joking,” he says glibly, throwing an arm around the vampire’s shoulders again. “He has a great sense of humor, doesn’t our Vinny?”
The women nod enthusiastically, all smiles again.
Vincent gives Belial a glare that might be capable of melting glass, which is even more impressive given that he can’t practice in a mirror.
Deandra-whom Belial votes Most Likely to Have Lied and Put ‘Waitress’ on Her Application Instead of ‘Professional Skank’-snakes her arm through Vincent’s on the other side, batting her highly-embellished eyelashes.
“After this, can we go in the pool?” she asks.
“I don’t care,” Vincent says flatly. “It’s not my pool, so you can contaminate it all you like.”
Deandra drags a finger down Vincent’s bicep. He looks ready to start chugging holy water. Belial writhes with joy.
“I meant you and me,” she says.
Vincent pauses. “I don’t work out, and I haven’t been exposed to sunlight since 1787,” he says.
“What’s your point?” Deandra purrs.
Belial swiftly updates her to Most Likely to Jump Anything with a Y Chromosome, and then he abandons Vincent to her clutches, taking his personal cameraman with him.
Belial’s personal cameraman probably has a name of his own, but Belial likes to call him Blinky, on account of the red camera light that supercedes his personality and everything else about him. Belial loves all of the Deadly Sins about equally, but there’s a special place in his seething, volcanic, heart-like object for vanity.
Blinky dutifully follows him over to Maia, who is gazing with tilted head and open mouth at a series of dioramas about the Big Bang.
“So tell me, Maia,” he says smoothly, “exactly why are you here, vying for the affections of our dear Mr. Duval?”
Maia glances at him, startled, and then goes back to perusing the text on the wall. “Well… he needs somebody to look after him. Everybody does.”
Interesting. That explains… everything.
“Are you a habitual nurturer, then?” he persists, to keep her and the viewers both in the dark a bit longer. “I’m afraid you joined so late that we don’t have a profession listed for you yet.”
“The universe came into being essentially spontaneously,” Maia says, loudly and none too subtly. “Can you believe that? It’s wild to think about. In essence, every moment that led up to this one was decided arbitrarily.”
“Not a believer?” Belial asks. “I guess we shouldn’t play the Monkees if you and Vincent tie the knot.”
“I think the only things he’ll be tying are a series of nooses,” Maia mutters. Then she looks mortified. “Um, don’t show that. Rewind. Erase that clip. Pretty please?”
Belial grins with just a little bit of fang before he starts strolling off. “Come, Blinky. Our work here is done.”
“You’re my star,” the woman hanging onto Vincent’s right arm like some malformed mussel coos.
“Please stop talking to me,” Vincent says.
“Yeah?” This comes from the woman on Vincent’s left arm, who resembles a strangling vine slightly more than a shellfish, and is directed at the one on the right. “Well, he’s my supernova.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Vincent says.
“He’s my universe.”
“He’s my Big Bang.”
“I’m going to vomit,” Vincent says.
“I’ll hold your hair back!” the left-hand woman cries.
“Well, I’ll pet him and murmur sweet nothings and wipe his mouth!”
“This is not happening,” Vincent says, beginning to feel legitimately ill. “This is an elaborate hallucination. I am never taking LSD again. I’m not sure why I took it in the first place, because these horrifying dreams have caused me to forget the truth of their origin, but it was definitely the last time I will ever indulge that inexplicable impulse.”
“Drug trips are hot,” Right-Side Woman says.
“But only when you’re the one on them,” Left-Side Woman tells him.
“Well, obviously, since he’s the only hot man on the planet.”
“He’s the only hot man in the solar system. Did you hear that, Vincent? It was topical. Clever, huh?”
“Someone put me out of my misery,” Vincent says.
At that moment, Greta sashays up to their extremely unpalatable golddigger-and-vampire sandwich.
“Sorry,” she purrs to the other girls, and then she looks at Vincent through her thick eyelashes. “Can I steal you?”
“I am not an object,” Vincent says.
The three girls are all glaring daggers at one another in a very sharp-edged triangle. Not one of them seems to have heard him.
“Fine,” he says, jerking both arms out of the flanking women’s respective grips. “I am exercising my autonomy and choosing to accompany Greta for a while. Don’t you forget it.”
Judging by the mournful expressions, they have already forgotten their dignity, and after that the rest just sort of crumbled.
More than a little smugly, Greta links her arm through his and starts dragging him off to another exhibit. Vincent can feel a bruise forming on the inside of his elbow.
“Remind me what you do again?” he says, because even a vapid egotistical monologue would be better than being told that he’s her personal Orion.
“I’m a museum curator,” Greta says briskly. “It’s about the only thing you’re qualified for when you have three degrees in various denominations of Archaeological History.”
“I didn’t realize there were multiple denominations of Archaeological History,” Vincent says. “How exactly do you acquire one of those?”
“You read a lot of books written in dead languages,” Greta explains, neutrally enough. “And you spend a lot of time digging for artifacts in countries where you can’t drink the water.”
“Thrilling,” Vincent says.
He supposes he shouldn’t really talk given that all of his degrees involved playing with numbers until he thought death by decapitation sounded better than another headache.
“Spend any time reading old French?” Vincent asks, although he doesn’t think he actually cares.
“Yes, actually.” Greta’s voice is airy, and it’s beginning to give over to pomposity, but she’s not hugging the afterlife out of his arm just yet, and she hasn’t compared him to an astronomical feature once. “Most of the initial archaeological work early in the excavations of Egypt-destructive and profiteering as it may have been-was done by the French and the Germans and documented accordingly. I had to study a few different languages fairly intensively, and of course those classes had us delving into linguistic history as if we had nothing better to do with our time.”
“I think linguistic history is fascinating,” Vincent says, partly just to find out whether she’ll backpedal.
“I don’t,” she says. That answers that question. “I’m an advocate of getting-and learning-what I need to know in order to do what I want. Anything more or less is a waste of time. Surely that makes sense to a CEO?”
“To a CEO, yes,” Vincent says, guiding their trajectory back towards the larger cluster of pinched-faced, envious women. Greta talks like a dictionary on uppers, which was entertaining for about ninety seconds. “For an immortal, wasting time is something of a hobby-I might even say an art form. Besides, ‘waste’ is such a subjective word that it’s kind impossible to judge, just as it’s impossible to tell if that’s your natural hair color.”
She looks so drastically offended that Vincent almost laughs and ruins it.
“I’ll file your information away for later,” he says. “For now, please let go of my arm so I can retreat to the men’s restroom and purge myself of your presence.”
“You’re a dick,” Greta says flatly. Then she leans in to breathe warmly in his ear: “It’s hot.”
Vincent is very glad that he doesn’t have to count himself among humankind, because he despairs of them.
Five minutes after Vincent makes a tactical retreat into the lavatory-and three suicide note drafts written on paper towels later-Belial strolls in, preening so emphatically that Vincent fully expects him to sprout feathers.
“Don’t be such a girl,” he drawls.
“Believe me,” Vincent says. “Girls are one thing we have too much of.”
“I think it’s just the right number,” Belial says. “But now you’ve been gone so long that they’re all whining to me.”
“Tough shit,” Vincent says.
Belial looks pointedly at Vincent’s latest suicide note-towel, which promptly bursts into flame.
Vincent drops it and leaps back. “Jesus Christ!”
“I hate that guy,” Belial says.
“I get it!” Vincent hisses at him.
“I’m glad,” Belial says brightly. “I’ve been preparing my best man speech for your wedding reception. It starts out, ‘Fourscore and seven years ago, when Vincent was a wee little vampire still cutting his fangs on Boston-which cut him back-we met when I set a tenement on fire, and he somehow survived. We have been firm friends ever since, as you can tell from the fact that he is inching the cake knife towards my jugular.’”
“How remarkable,” Vincent mutters. “You can see the future.”
“‘What my dear young friend always forgets, however, is that I am impervious to cutlery-and bullets, including silver bullets, although silver bullets dipped in holy water do sting a bit-and even more impervious to that pout he’s giving me right now.’”
“It’s not a pout,” Vincent says. “It’s a supercilious sneer.”
Belial pauses to consider him. “That’s more of a frown,” he says. “The one you’re going to have at your wedding reception is definitely a pout. Accordingly, I intend to pat you on the head and pinch your cheek.”
Vincent storms for the door, displaying a few choice obscene gestures over his shoulder on the way out. He would rather be torn apart by a pack of rabid wolves than stand in a planetarium bathroom rapidly filling with burnt paper towel smoke and listen to Belial plan his wedding.
It’s somewhat fortunate that his priorities have shifted this way, since subjecting himself to the women is essentially tantamount to the wolf thing.
Maion plants his hands on his hips-his new hips-and glares at himself in the mirror. This is the face and the overexposed body of a cold-blooded, deadly-efficient spy.
That, or he’s become a blonde chick in flip-flops and a bikini.
Damn it.
No, un-damn it. Maion is going to collect all of his wit, willpower, and general impressiveness, and he is going to reign triumphant.
…it’s hard to feel threatening in a bikini. Maion seeks out a much more intimidating gauzy sarong.
…this isn’t going to work, is it?
Maion sighs deeply and trudges out of the mansion towards the pool.
The trudging would make him stick out like a sore thumb if anyone could pick out a thumb amongst all of this bare skin and neon polyester. He sits down on the edge of one of the lounge chairs and attempts not to feel insufferably awkward. All of the other women are splashing around or trying to cuddle up to Vincent, who has rolled up the cuffs of his slacks and put his feet into the jacuzzi, presumably because the cameras are closing in, and Belial will be watching his every move.
One of the most scantily-swimsuited girls cuddles up with his left foot, ignoring the warning looks Vincent sends her way. Maion is not sure whether to assume fetishist or driven to extremes by desperation to extend her fifteen minutes of fame, although either way he doesn’t think he’ll be befriending that particular young woman. All of the nearby contestants loitering around the hot tub huff, glare, and toss their hair a little.
Maion takes a deep breath, gets up, and marches over to Vincent, although marching in flip-flops turns out to be extraordinarily anticlimactic.
He leans down to tap Vincent on the shoulder and then folds his hands behind his back. The vampire looks up at him warily.
“What?”
“Can I talk to you?” Maion asks. “It’s important-legitimately important, and not about me.”
There’s a flicker of intrigue in Vincent’s eyes. Or maybe that’s the insanity finally setting in. “You don’t say.”
“Um,” Maion says. “Well, I just did…”
Vincent shakes the girl off of his foot and clambers upright. “Let’s go discuss your legitimately important subject,” he says. “If I was capable of dying of boredom, I would have done.”
They step off a little ways into the garden, where the foliage is denser than at least a few of the women, and where there is a charming wooden bench. Maion sits down and kicks at the grass with his flip-flopped toes.
“I suppose I should just be straightforward,” he says. He glances at Vincent, who looks receptive-and who looks rather tousled with his trouser legs rolled up to the ankle and with his charcoal waistcoat wrinkled and with that sheen of impending madness in his stark blue eyes. “I have reason to believe that one of the other contestants is-”
“Sorry,” Jamaica gushes, bursting through the leaves and batting her eyelashes. “Can I steal you?”
“Go to hell,” Vincent says.
Belial pops up out of a bush, which is the most horrifying thing Maion has seen since That Scene in Alien.
“Actually,” the demon says calmly, “that’s where you’re going if you don’t play by the rules of the game.”
“Where in the rules does it say I have to get ‘stolen’ every two minutes?” Vincent demands.
“Page seventy-one,” Belial dutifully reports, “section eight, clause fifty-two.”
“God damn you,” Vincent hisses through his teeth.
“It’s been done,” Belial says, yawning. “A few millennia ago, no less.”
Vincent mutters something that will get censored almost out of existence in the final edit as he gets up and storms off with Jamaica, who insinuates herself immediately into the crook of his arm. One of the cameras trails them as she drags him down the path, deeper into the greenery.
“This is the best thing ever,” Belial says. “I may cry when the two months are up. Then again, I always cry at weddings.”
“It’s not funny,” Maion says, feeling kind of sick. Vincent’s alone and unattended now, but for one of those creepily silent cameramen. What if Jamaica-?
That settles it. Maion gets up, focuses for a moment to make his pedicured feet soundless on the leaves and stepping stones, and starts off after them. No one will be staking Vincent on his watch.
Taking a cue from Belial-which, if he thinks about it, is probably the worst idea he’s had since… deciding to do this-Maion hunkers down behind the thickest fern that affords a view of the small clearing Jamaica has chosen. Although it’s something of a nice spot, with brightly-colored flowers and a little waterfall and a slightly enchanted air, it’s probably not a nice spot to die, so Maion’s here for the long haul.
“We haven’t gotten much time together,” Jamaica says, running her hand up and down Vincent’s arm.
“I think that’s because you spend most of your time abusing the hospitality,” Vincent says.
She ignores him. “So I wanted to get you all to myself for a minute.”
Vincent frowns. “Your sixty seconds start now.”
As Jamaica embarks upon an epic narrative about her upbringing, during the course of which everyone hated her for being so pretty and talented; and her stint on the Miss America circuit, when everyone hated her for being so pretty and talented; and her current job as a powerful, independent real estate contractor, where everyone hates her for being so pretty and talented, although most of them buy property from her anyway, Maion makes a quick assessment and deems it unlikely that anyone could hide an oak stake on one’s person whilst wearing a bikini. At the very least, concealing one that could provide enough leverage to do more than crack Vincent’s waistcoat buttons would probably prove impossible.
That said, Jamaica could be in possession of a very small vial of holy water and enough garlic powder to give Vincent a migraine, so she’s not off the hook yet. And the hunter, whomever she is, will almost certainly try to cozy up to Vincent as much as possible, playing herself off in some non-threatening capacity, to catch him at an ideal moment. Such an ideal moment almost undoubtedly requires actual clothing, but Maion has committed to vigilance.
Maion considers a few more factors and decides that he is very, very stupid for doing all of this in the first place.
Also, this fern is uncomfortable.
“You know what I think?” Jamaica says when she eventually runs out of talents.
“I imagine you’d shout it after me even if I ran away screaming,” Vincent says, “so you might as well spit it out.”
“I think you should come back into the pool,” Jamaica says, completely unperturbed by his sarcasm, “so I can show you my breaststroke.”
“I think that’s hands-down the worst come-on I’ve ever heard,” Vincent says. “And I lived through the Victorian Era, when half of it was silk fan semaphore.”
“That’s hot,” Jamaica says.
“What a coincidence,” Vincent says. “My inexpressibly deep hatred for this entire experience burns very warmly.”
“You say the damnedest things,” Jamaica coos.
Vincent wrinkles his nose. “For once, we’re in agreement.”
Jamaica starts towing him down the path, and Maion hitches up his sarong to scuttle silently after them, staying back a safe distance just in case.
The cameraman who has been stalking Vincent and Jamaica in order to immortalize their scintillating conversation on film notices Maion creeping through the brush just before they make it back to the poolside. Maion is so preoccupied making finger-to-lip, throat-slashing, and frantic waving gestures that he almost doesn’t hear what Jamaica leans in to murmur as she and Vincent move back into the fray:
“Later I’ll tell you which girls are here for your money… and which ones are out for your blood.”
Vincent doesn’t even flinch. “You’re going to have to do better than that to get a one-on-one date.”
Jamaica spreads her hand on his chest, directly over his heart. “I can do a lot better,” she says. “You just have to let me prove it.”
At that point, the rest of the women mob them, and Maion can’t hear any more.
Vincent is approximately two and a half centimeters from choosing an eternity of hellfire over this. He is also approximately two and a half centimeters from trying to find out firsthand whether vampires can die by drowning and/or swallowing an inadvisable quantity of chlorine. With his luck, he would probably succeed only in making himself sick enough that all of the women would fight over the opportunity to take care of him, and there would be catfights in which chicken soup spoons were shoved down opponents’ throats.
…he’s definitely trying it.
He’s just raised one foot to jump into the deep end when a pair of slender hands clasp in an incongruously steely grip around his wrist.
“Can I steal you?” the one-who’s-cornsilk-blonde-and-has-some-occupation-he-forgets wants to know.
“Only if you stab me in the throat afterward,” he says.
She giggles-just nervously enough that he takes pity on her and lets her tow him out to the edge of the poolside lawn. They sit, and she curls up next to him, her eyes bright and her smile shy. Vincent isn’t sure whether to find her cute or pathetic, so he reserves the verdict for now.
“I guess this is stupid,” she says, and then she starts picking at the grass. This is almost too transparent to be an act. “And it’s-selfish, but… can you keep me on the show?”
Vincent tries not to squirm as he hears the faint whirring of the nearest camera zooming in on his face. “Give me a good reason, and I wouldn’t particularly mind.”
“It’s just…” She sighs, glances at him, and tears one of the blades of grass into little strips. “Later on, they always go to so many amazing places for dates and stuff. And you don’t have to take me on single dates, but-I’ve never been outside of the U.S. before. I’ve never even been on a plane. So-I mean, if there aren’t girls you want more, which I definitely get-I’d just really like to get to go somewhere.” Her eyes light up more. They’re kind of an interesting hazel. “Like Paris. You’re French, so I bet we’ll get to go to Paris. People think that every single French person in the world is from Paris.”
Vincent doesn’t know why he tells her. It’s probably the chlorine fumes he’d been inhaling for half an hour to no avail. “I’m from Saint-Malo.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of it,” the girl says, and her apologetic tone sounds genuine. Vincent can’t help himself-his night vision picks out the fact that her roots are blonde. “Is it northern or southern France?”
“Northern,” he says. “On the coast. It’s a walled city that looks out over the English Channel. I gather it’s quiet nowadays, but there used to be smugglers and pirates and-”
There is a rustling in the bushes. The sounds and shadows resolve into Maia, who looks slightly pained.
“Sorry,” she says. “Can I…” She looks ill. “I can’t even say it. May I borrow Vincent’s attention for a moment, Rosalie? I have some important things to tell him, and I promise to bring him right back after I’m done.” She pauses for a slightly worried smile. “Saint-Malo is really nice; I can suggest to Belial that the two of you should visit it together.”
Rosalie-whose-occupation-Vincent-still-forgets (although logic dictates that she must be a preschool teacher or a nurse or something equally self-sacrificing) smiles permissively and nods. “I can always look it up, too. Don’t worry about it.”
Vincent manages not to stare at her as he gets up and follows Maia’s undignified trek directly into the bushes.
“Is she for real?” he asks. “I wasn’t aware that nice girls applied for this show.”
“I wasn’t aware Belial had picked any,” Maia replies. “And as much as I really would like to discuss his terrible motives, that’s not what I need to talk to you about.”
Vincent looks her-or, more specifically, her white swimsuit, her pale blue sarong, and her tightly-folded arms-up and down. “Let me guess,” he says. “You object to the unstated but unbreakable dress code.”
“No,” Maia says. “Well, yes-I do; it’s degrading, demeaning, and right now rather chilly-but that’s not what I need to tell you.”
“You want to go to Paris.”
“No. I mean-I always want to go to Paris, but-”
“You want me to kick out the girls that wouldn’t eat your pancakes.”
“No! How did you even hear about that? I don’t care about the pancakes; they can just starve-but that’s not-”
“I’m afraid I can’t assure you that the lilies aren’t grown specifically for this purpose,” Vincent says. “And knowing Belial, they’re probably covered in carcinogenic pesticides.”
“I don’t care,” Maia says hastily. “Well, obviously I care, but-”
“I’m also aware that using a fleet of limos instead of a hydrogen-powered city bus is extremely wasteful,” Vincent says. “But apparently that was page forty, section three, clause nine.”
“Will you shut up for three seconds?” Maia screeches.
Vincent pauses.
Maia goes pink and bites her lip. “Um, thank you. It’s just-” Her face hardens in an interesting way. “I’m sorry, but I really need to warn you that one of the girls is a-”
An elegant figure elbows the ubiquitous cameraman out of the way to beam at Vincent. “Can I steal you?”
Vincent gives Maia an exasperated look and holds his bruised elbow out to the newcomer. She giggles, grabs him, and unceremoniously commences dragging him back towards the pool.
If Vincent is not mistaken, he hears a distant scream of “Gosh darn it all to heck!”
Belial hums the Imperial March from Star Wars to himself as he saunters down the hall, Blinky trailing. It is perfectly possible that this is, in fact, a different Blinky than the one he had yesterday, but Belial doesn’t particularly care. It’s time to take care of some business he’s been putting off-slash-ignoring in favor of even more entertaining activities, like calculating the rate at which Vincent’s ichor pressure was skyrocketing last night.
Belial throws open the door to communal bedroom A, and Maia starts in surprise and looks up, guilt plastered all over her face. The skin tone of her hands might actually be moving multiple shades towards red; Belial doesn’t have time to watch them.
“Good afternoon,” he says cheerfully. He nods to the suitcase through which she is digging rather unceremoniously, a blast radius of personal effects spread out on the floor. “May I ask what you’re doing?”
“Um,” Maia says. “Unpacking. Of course. Unpacking my things. Again. Of course.”
“Of course,” Belial says. “I hadn’t realized you’d brought so many questionable aphrodisiacs.”
Maia drops the perfectly harmless bottle of perfume in her hand and flails back. “What? Eew, I, um-well-”
“Blinky,” Belial says, “hit the red button for a second. This is off the record.”
Maia looks deeply perturbed, and Belial doesn’t blame her. Furthermore, he’s a bit flattered.
He crouches down on the other side of the suitcase and looks her in the wide turquoise eyes.
“All right, angel,” he says. “Why are you here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Maion is the worst liar in history, and Belial would know; he’s been tallying their transgressions since well before the dawn of recorded time.
“I was actually hoping to spend this afternoon stalking the footage of the group date,” Belial tells him/her/the Enemy, “so I would much rather we burn through the bullshit. Now, I know for an absolute fact that you can see this.” He gestures elegantly to his general red-brown aura, visible only to celestial eyes. “Rest assured that I can see yours-and I can see how weak it is.” For once, he’s telling the untwisted truth. The last time they met-which Belial seems to recall was in Vincent’s living room, and which may or may not have involved a fight over a card game that ended with half of the foyer on fire-Maion’s opposite aura was a vibrant electric blue. At the moment, it’s a dull, throbbing, pale remembrance of that color. “You haven’t been Up in a while, or at least not for long enough to rejuvenate. Keeping this human shape is drawing out all of the more mundane energies you can find down here, resulting in a net of zero. You’ve rarely been more vulnerable.”
Maion swallows rather hard, which would be more amusing if his form still had an Adam’s apple.
“Now,” Belial goes on breezily, “we have two options here. One, I can smear you into soot, grind you into this carpet, and count it as the first scratch of revenge against the Big Man.” He sets his hands on the edge of the suitcase and leans in until their noses almost touch-close enough that he can smell her new form’s sweat. “Two,” he says, “you can explain to me exactly why you’ve decided to turn the sprinkler on my parade.”
Maion’s hands clench and unclench four times. His aura flares hotly for a moment, and the celestial fire contained within his delicateness turns his eyes a stark sapphire.
Then he fades, once again becoming ostensibly ordinary.
“I had a Premonition,” he says. “About this whole event, and that one of the women would be a vampire hunter using it as an opportunity to get close to Vincent-and then to get even closer with a stake.”
Belial blinks.
“Holy hell,” he says. “That is epic. How did I do that on accident? I am a machine. They should hire me out at parties. I cannot tell you how amazing this is.”
Maion looks slightly crushed. “You’re not going to help?”
“Help?” Belial says. “I’m sorry; I think I was too busy jubilating to hear you correctly. Did you actually think I was going to discourage this chain of events?”
“Only for a very naïve half-second there,” Maion says glumly.
“That’s right,” Belial says. He leans in and kisses Maion’s cheek, and then he jumps up and clicks his heels, leaving only a small trail of flames in the air. “This is perfect. This makes up for all of the B-horror-movie scare opportunities I’m missing by not being with them at the amusement park I bought out. Have you told anyone? Think of the ratings!”
“I’m thinking of Vincent!” Maion says, presumably because being a buzzkill every two seconds is the first item on the official list of angelic duties. “You bullied him into signing an unfair contract, and now he could die!” Maion frowns. “Permanently this time.”
“Uh, yeah,” Belial says, shooting a reprimanding look at the wisp of heel fire that’s menacing the rug. “And then I won’t have to hold up my end of the bargain at all.”
Maion’s eyes go huge, and his mouth falls open. “I can’t believe you! You’re so-”
“Evil?”
Maion buries his face in his hands.
Belial starts for the door, snapping his fingers in front of an incredulously frozen Blinky.
“You can turn that thing back on,” he says, pointing to the camera. “We are going to have a hell of a time.”
“This is the fifth time I’ve been on the Ferris wheel,” Vincent says.
Girl Number Five blinks at him. She has slightly eerie pale gray eyes, and with all of the eyeliner and mascara she’s slathered around them, she bears more than a passing resemblance to a raccoon caught in a flashlight beam.
“If I vomit on you,” Vincent says, “it’s nothing particularly personal.”
Given the choice, he’ll vomit on the small camera secured to the bar, attached there because fitting a cameraman into the carriage with them would have been a bit of a squeeze. Vincent would have ripped the thing from its supports and hurled it to the ground four and eight-ninths rides ago if not for the knowledge that Belial would make him eat the pieces.
Five looks at him, looks down at the other girls milling on the pavement far beneath them, and snaps her gum.
“Aren’t we supposed to make out?” she asks.
Vincent doesn’t think he could successfully strangle himself even if he hung himself over the edge of their car by his thin red tie, but it’s tempting to try anyway. “No. We’re not. Definitely not.”
“I’m pretty sure we are.” Five blows a dark purple bubble until it pops, at which point a practiced tongue pulls all of the gum back into her mouth.
While Vincent is preoccupied staring in disgust, she ambushes him, and the next thing he knows, he’s pressed up against the hard plastic of the carriage seatback, lamenting that he can’t die by suffocation either.
After enough time for the bystanders below to have noticed the frenetic activity in the car-Vincent can just hear them shouting in protest-Five releases him and scoots back to her side of the car, crossing her legs primly.
Vincent-oh, good God-
“Why would you even buy prune-flavored gum?” he asks.
Five smirks. “Just wait ’til I show you celery,” she says.
Vincent wonders what it says in the rules about murdering contestants.
Well, Maion’s the one who originally made up the phrase If you want something done right, shut up and do it yourself.
It’s gotten a bit corrupted over the years. Raphael always recites it wrong, because he’s a softie.
Admittedly, when he coined it, he wasn’t really foreseeing clambering around through the ventilation ducts of a reality-television mansion whilst in the form of a woman and with all of his powers waning, but one of the problems with aphorisms is their general lack of sympathy. These days, Maion is an advocate of positive reinforcement.
Today in particular, he is an advocate of subtle reconnaissance. There is nothing quite so subtle as trying not to bang his knees on the aluminum panels, hoping that the poorly reaffixed vent through which he entered will go unnoticed. He was up all night listening in the bedroom he shares with four of the girls in the hopes that one might reveal something condemning in her sleep, but there were mostly just some mumbles about ponies, a lot of snores, and a fair amount of gibberish. He’s also searched through almost all of the luggage belonging to the girls in his immediate group, and none of them has brought anything suspicious, which is kind of comforting and frustrating at once.
Maion is trying not to make a list of suspects in his head just yet, mostly because he’s fairly sure that the confused femaleness that swirls about unpredictably in the head in question will try to do something bizarre and instinctive, like target the women most likely to bear healthy children in the hopes of eliminating the evolutionary competition. Perhaps later he can bribe some of the cameramen to let him review recent footage for worrisome activity. Surely they’ll break the rules for blueberry pancakes-for Maion’s blueberry pancakes. Really, given the demonic tyranny under which they are currently operating, he can’t imagine they won’t leap at the chance to undermine their overlord, and if they get breakfast in the bargain…
But that’s a foolproof plan for tomorrow morning. At the moment, Maion needs to keep his mind on the task at hands and knees.
If his mental layout of the mansion on a whole is to be believed-which it almost certainly is, given the near-infinite capacity of angel brains-he should be getting close to the nearest bedroom. A selection of the girls are out horseback-riding along the coastline of Monterey with Vincent, but he may be able to get some quality eavesdropping done. If most of these girls are out, then he’ll use the time to raid their suitcases for stakes, holy water, and knives fit for decapitating.
He’s slightly concerned he won’t find anything quite so unequivocal. And, really, threatening knives could appear in women’s luggage for a lot of different reasons-a whittling hobby, a compulsion to gut one’s own game animals for food, a part-time knife-throwing circus gig, paranoia about the onset of the Apocalypse. The lattermost Maion has to admit he understands. He’d once known a nun who slept with a revolver under her pillow just in case Satan’s minions ever came heavily armed.
Lines of light spill up into the cramped metal corridor before him, indicating that he’s almost reached the nearest vent. He creeps up to it, taking great care not to kick a siding and give himself away, and peeks down between the slats. His heart does a very unpleasant, very unsettling scuttle-flutter thing.
Jamaica and Greta are standing by one of the beds below, deep in conversation. Greta has her arms folded and her eyebrows raised, and Jamaica is gesticulating so emphatically that her neon pink fingernails are making Maion slightly dizzy.
Greta mutters something dismissive, but Jamaica doesn’t appear to be deterred.
“Look, we have to do something,” she says, audible now as her voice rises urgently. “And we have to do it together. That’s the only way we can accomplish anything here.”
Maion makes sure he doesn’t gasp loud enough to be heard, because that would be too melodramatic even for him. Somehow it never occurred to him that the hunter could have help-could have brought allies in to start with, and could be making more of them as she goes along.
Fortunately, Greta’s disdain for Jamaica’s lifestyle-or the lifestyle she presents when Vincent’s around-seems to be outweighing what must be some extremely persuasive talk of sharpened oak stakes and all of the road reputation that comes with hunting long-since domesticated members of the undead.
…that is the phrase, right? Road rep? Something about…
Maion always thinks better when he has his chin propped on his hand, which is slightly embarrassing given all of the thoughtful cherub paintings that have resulted over the years. He puts his elbow down at the edge of the grate.
There is an excruciatingly loud creeeeeeeaak.
Jamaica and Greta look up in perfect unison, their hair swishing like something out of an advertisement. Maion holds his breath and thinks about balloons.
It was a good idea in theory.
The next thing Maion knows, he’s lying on the floor in a tangle of broken grating and a wash of plaster dust, staring up at the vaguely him-shaped hole in the ceiling.
“What in the hell?” Jamaica says.
Maion tries to say I can explain; it’s a funny story, actually, but it comes out as “Ow, oh, my gosh, I think I broke this thing.”
Greta’s concern becomes suspicion. “What thing?”
This body. I’m pretty sure it’s broken. “Um. The ventilation system. I mean… look at it.”
Jamaica plants her hands on her hips and then cocks them for maximum attitude. “Maia, what the hell were you doing climbing around in there? Were you spying on us?”
“I wanted to know what you were planning,” Maion says dazedly. More plaster dust shakes loose from the ceiling, and he scrunches his nose. “Because we’re competing, I mean. For Vincent. You know.”
“Are you on PCP?” Jamaica asks. “Because that shit will mess you up, girl.”
“Only if PCP stands for Pretty Crippling Pain,” Maion says.
Greta crouches down, which must require a great deal of dexterity when one is wearing stilettos. “I think you’re not supposed to move your head in case you’ve hurt your neck.”
“I’ve hurt everything that’s hurtable,” Maion says. He’s fairly sure he has enough Grace to heal all of the major damage, but he can’t exactly do that with the pair of them in the room. “Maybe you should go call an ambulance. Both of you. One of you to call, and one of you to make sure the other gets the number right.”
“You mean 9-1-1?” Greta asks, one eyebrow arching.
“That sounds complicated,” Maion says. “Um, I have an idea: Jamaica, you should make the call, and Greta can go get me some ice from the kitchen. How does that sound?”
“Like you’re getting delusional,” Greta says. She looks to Jamaica. “I don’t think we should leave her alone.”
“I really think you should,” Maion says.
“She’s creeping me out,” Jamaica says. “Come on, we should get a camera guy.”
Maion would do a victory dance, but… well.
“This is…” Maia pauses. “…interesting.”
Vincent glances down into the well of darkness. He knows very well that this is a not-coincidental metaphor. “I was thinking ‘heinous,’ but ‘interesting’ is close enough.”
“On the upside,” Maia says, more cheerfully, “the phrase ‘impromptu spelunking’ is very fun to say. And bats are cute. Are we going to see any bats? Maybe we can feed them little cubes of mango. I did that at a zoo once. They lick your hands.”
Vincent has a very weird moment in which he vividly imagines bats licking Maia’s fingers. This is further evidence for his well-developed theory that this show is causing him to lose his damn mind.
“I don’t think there’s any bat-feeding planned,” he says. “Are you sure you’re all right? I gather you fell out of the ceiling yesterday.”
“Oh,” Maia says lightly. “Well, you know. These things happen.”
“I don’t believe they usually do.”
“We’re doing a spot of impromptu spelunking,” Maia says. “There’s no reason to dwell on ceilings I may or may not have fallen out of. And, sir-” This to the cameraman who is impromptu-spelunking just below them. “If you don’t stop focusing that camera on my rear, I’m afraid I will have to shove it down your throat.”
Vincent glances downward again, and the light on the cameraman’s miner’s helmet perfectly illuminates his cowed expression. Vincent snickers.
Before any voyeurism-related violence erupts, they alight on the cave floor and start unhooking all of the cables and harnesses. Vincent expects Maia to get tangled in her harness and require a few minutes of awkward personal space destruction to be freed, but then he blinks in the too-bright light of Cameraman Eighteen’s helmet, and she’s already shed all of the cords.
“Oh, my goodness,” she says, actually clasping her hands beneath her chin. “Candlelit dinner at the bottom of a cave?” She circles the elaborately laid-out table, trailing a finger along the edge of the white linen tablecloth, then touching the polished candelabra, and then the crystal wineglasses. “Wait, yours isn’t wine. This had better have come from an autopsy table, Duval. There’s always a shortage of blood donors, you know. And transfusions save lives. And as many minor crimes as this show has perpetrated on humanity, I draw the line at-”
“Sit down, shut up, and eat,” Vincent says.
Maia gives him a smoldering glare that somehow makes him feel cold. “You,” she says, “are a bad man.”
But she sits.
“Let them eat steak,” Vincent offers after thirty seconds of frosty silence.
“I hope this is free-range,” Maia mutters.
Vincent lifts his wineglass and sets an elbow on the table, preempting Maia when she opens her mouth to complain about his etiquette.
“Wasn’t there something important you were going to tell me the other day? That’s the primary reason I picked you for this one-on-one.”
“Oh,” Maia says. “Right.” She cuts a bite of steak, pops it into her mouth, and smiles. “Mmm. One of the contestants is a vampire-hunter waiting to kill you when you least expect it.”
Vincent drops the glass, which shatters on the cave floor and splashes probably-ganked-from-an-understaffed-bank blood all over his shoes.
“You’re hopeless,” Maia says. Then there’s a distant flapping sound, drawing nearer by the moment, and her eyes light up again. “There are bats! Can you commune with them?”
The only good news is that Vincent will have killed himself long before the alleged hunter can get to him.
[Episode 3]
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8,738
Warnings: same warnings, but moreso: blasphemy, language, Tierfal on cocaine, fun with gender, and a special *fail!editing*!
Prompt: Genre: spy thriller (…no, but really); archetypes: femme fatale, reluctant hero for Mince Spies at pulped_fictions
Summary: Belial is still jonesing for either a vampire's soul or the best season of reality TV ever. Vincent is still thinking seriously about self-staking. Maion is still a chick. The hilarity is still… hilaring.
Author's Note: You don't really have to have read Episode 1, but it's punchier, funnier, and actually edited. Although this one has its moments. I will try to edit soon. AUGH.
THE BRIDEGROOM: EPISODE 2
Maion opens his eyes to the dulcet tones of a monumental catfight. For a moment, he wonders why he’s wearing cute short-short pajama bottoms with what feels like a word across the butt.
Then it all comes crashing back-his premonition of a vampire-hunter tracking Vincent to the ends of the Earth (despite the fact that the Earth is round and therefore doesn’t actually have ends)… His rather unfortunate discovery of the terms of Vincent’s latest deal with a demon-specifically, starring in the first season of “The Bridegroom” ever to have an undead antihero as its prize… His even more unfortunate realization that the best way to find the hunter, save Vincent, and generally maintain the balance of the universe was to infiltrate the television show by altering his physical form and becoming one of its contestants.
At least that explains the shorts. And the breasts.
Maion sits up and rubs at his face. One of the other girls is screaming something about drinking orange juice from the carton.
It’s shaping up to be a very, very long two months.
Then again, Maion has been wandering the planet for a few millennia, give or take a couple half-centuries. And every trial and triumph begins with a single moment of resolution.
Maion climbs down to the floor, ignoring the pretty brunette who is snoring into her pillow the next bed over, dons his fuzzy pink slippers, and pads towards the kitchen. He regrets-but can’t really help-that he procrastinated so long on getting the proper amount of celestial sleep back while he had the chance. Ordinary human unconsciousness sustains him a little, and food certainly doesn’t hurt, but his powers are getting progressively more limited as he whiles the hours away down here, a world apart from the energies that replenish him. He thinks he’ll be able to maintain this shape for years at the current rate, and he can still nudge small miracles into being without much trouble, but any more involved angelic activity could prove… taxing. Dangerous, perhaps.
Then again, there isn’t much in heaven or on Earth more dangerous than walking into the middle of a screaming match between two jealous women.
As soon as he’s started down the hall, one of the eerily ubiquitous cameramen is on his tail, documenting his every step. Maion pauses.
“Do you ever sleep?” he asks.
There is no response except for some slightly startled blinking.
“If there was a form to sign about not addressing you, I joined the show late,” Maion tells him. “And I think it’s degrading that we’re supposed to pretend you don’t exist. Do you have a union? What kind of hours do you work?”
More startled blinking. Maion sighs.
Another feral scream from the kitchen garners his attention, and he decides to put the issue of cameraman abuse on the backburner until he’s prevented a breakfast-related homicide.
“You are supposed to step in if anyone’s about to get killed, right?” he asks, not-really-joking. To have the unnoticed eyes and ears that underpin the whole spectacle watching out for Vincent’s safety would be… well, a godsend.
The latest round of startled blinking is none too inspiring.
Maion gives up and continues to the kitchen, a lovely room of polished granite countertops, high-end appliances, and artfully-arranged furniture. After those, the most notable feature is probably the two beautiful women howling at one another.
“It’s a metaphor for Vincent!” Naina screams.
“Yeah!” Jamaica screams back. “And I don’t see your name on either of ’em!”
Maion looks at the carton of orange juice on the counter-Jamaica’s right about that much-and then back up at the combatants.
“That’s the whole point, you dumb bimbo!” Maion wonders if Naina, too, is camera-conscious; or perhaps works with small children. “We’re supposed to share!”
Maion clears his throat. “Is this, by any chance, a problem that can be solved by working together to make blueberry pancakes for the whole house?” he asks, giving them his most feminine winsome smile.
Perhaps he missed a memo saying that startled blinking is the order of the morning.
Jamaica scowls. She has a rather considerable proportion of last night’s mascara smeared around her eyes, and her voluminous dark hair is in disarray.
“I don’t think you wanna get all up in my grill, hot stuff,” she says.
Maion believes that means she doesn’t want to help with the pancakes.
“I don’t mean to interfere with anyone’s barbequing,” he says soothingly. “I’ll just make a bunch of big blueberry pancakes, and you can both have some. How does that sound?”
Naina reinforces the suspicion that Please respond to half of the questions you are asked with startled blinking was on some pre-show waiver right under Do not look directly at the cameramen, for your feminine wiles will paralyze them.
“Pancakes?” she repeats after a moment. “With butter?”
Maion beams. “And powdered sugar and maple syrup and lots of antioxid-”
Naina and Jamaica share a long-suffering look, link arms, and walk off without explaining what pancakes ever did to them.
After a moment of staring at the orange juice, wondering what kind of Bad Mood Poison it’s spiked with, Maion decides he’ll just let the wafting smell of blueberry pancakes punish them for their unkindness and gets to work. He’s flipping happily-and the cameraman has unfrozen enough to salivate-when footsteps in the hall alert him to a visitor.
This time, it’s Kylie, who is small and pretty and sunny and some part Asian; she has lovely straight black hair and a friendly expression.
“Good morning,” she says cheerfully, although she looks tired. “Maia, right?” When Maion nods, she smiles. “What can I do to help?”
There is a slight but interesting possibility that this whole experience might not be unrelentingly terrible from start to finish.
This whole experience is going to be unrelentingly terrible from start to finish.
“Absolutely not,” Vincent says, resisting the urge to pull out his laptop keys and use them as projectiles. “I am not ignoring my company; I am not wearing that; and I am definitely not taking a bunch of women who slaughtered all of their brain cells with hydrogen peroxide in the process of bleaching their hair to hell and back to the planetarium.”
Belial smoothes the Team Vincent T-shirt he’s laid out on the settee, straightens, smiles, and shrugs.
“Fine by me,” he says. “In that case, I’ll see you in hell. Permanently. With bells on-the kind that are triggered by the slightest twitch of a muscle and ring far too loudly, just a tiny bit off-key.”
Vincent stares at him. “You’re sick.”
“No, I’m Evil. ‘Sick’ is a human thing.”
“You’re twisted.”
“Given all the snake-and-horn imagery, I’ll give you that one.” Belial grins, and somehow the long, cold fangs he’s got for the moment look a thousand times more sinister than Vincent’s ever do. “You see how generous I am today? I could get fired for this.” There’s a pause. “Get it-fired. Like hellfi-”
“I get it,” Vincent says. “Please extend your extraordinary generous streak to putting me out of my misery.”
Belial vanishes in a spurt of flame, but before Vincent can decide on relief or disappointment, there’s another puff of smoke, and the demon has reappeared right beside him, apparently with the solitary goal of ruffling his hair.
“Just wear the shirt and go on the group date,” he says cheerfully, “or I’ll have to inspire a terrorist to do something very untoward to the Eiffel Tower. It’s in the contract.” He waxes faux-pensive, stroking his chin slowly. “Perhaps you should have read the fine print before you signed. Funny that a businessman would forget something like that.”
“You drugged me,” Vincent reminds him through gritted teeth.
Belial smirks. “Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry; I make so many deals, I sometimes forget which are even remotely fair. If it helps, I’ve sent you a copy of the contract.”
An email notification pops up on Vincent’s laptop screen. The subject line says read em & weep sucker (get it bcuz ur a vampire lol).
Vincent presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “The millisecond my soul is clean, I’m making a deal with God and shoving a rod of Grace so far up your ass that your head explodes.”
He expects a silencing retort. When none arrives, he opens his eyes and discovers that he just wasted a threat on an empty room.
He sighs, heaves himself up, crosses to the settee, and glares down at the T-shirt laid out on the cushions.
“Team Vincent is losing,” he says.
The shirt is not particularly sympathetic.
This might be the best idea Belial has had since Silly Bandz. It might be better than Silly Bandz, since those accidentally stimulated the economy. This endeavor is evil to the core, including-especially-the rather un-coincidental rise in the sale of trashy vampire erotica. Belial had almost forgotten how much he loves reality TV.
Most of the girls look blankly around themselves, taking in the exhibits and the awkward employees waiting to scribble “Overtime - that dumbass dating show” on their time-sheets and be done with this nonsense. Maia, of course, is bouncing up and down, and Jailbait-er, Janine, who is young and hot and wrangling her way towards an MBA; she’s Belial’s pick for Most Likely to Seduce Vincent When He Least Expects It-heads straight for a display about the life cycles of stars.
“Is there going to be a quiz on this later?” Naina asks. “’Cause I am so totally not down.”
“Of course there is,” Vincent says sourly. “The five lowest scorers get kicked off the show immediately.”
The looks of horror are, Belial has to admit, rather hilarious.
“Vincent’s just joking,” he says glibly, throwing an arm around the vampire’s shoulders again. “He has a great sense of humor, doesn’t our Vinny?”
The women nod enthusiastically, all smiles again.
Vincent gives Belial a glare that might be capable of melting glass, which is even more impressive given that he can’t practice in a mirror.
Deandra-whom Belial votes Most Likely to Have Lied and Put ‘Waitress’ on Her Application Instead of ‘Professional Skank’-snakes her arm through Vincent’s on the other side, batting her highly-embellished eyelashes.
“After this, can we go in the pool?” she asks.
“I don’t care,” Vincent says flatly. “It’s not my pool, so you can contaminate it all you like.”
Deandra drags a finger down Vincent’s bicep. He looks ready to start chugging holy water. Belial writhes with joy.
“I meant you and me,” she says.
Vincent pauses. “I don’t work out, and I haven’t been exposed to sunlight since 1787,” he says.
“What’s your point?” Deandra purrs.
Belial swiftly updates her to Most Likely to Jump Anything with a Y Chromosome, and then he abandons Vincent to her clutches, taking his personal cameraman with him.
Belial’s personal cameraman probably has a name of his own, but Belial likes to call him Blinky, on account of the red camera light that supercedes his personality and everything else about him. Belial loves all of the Deadly Sins about equally, but there’s a special place in his seething, volcanic, heart-like object for vanity.
Blinky dutifully follows him over to Maia, who is gazing with tilted head and open mouth at a series of dioramas about the Big Bang.
“So tell me, Maia,” he says smoothly, “exactly why are you here, vying for the affections of our dear Mr. Duval?”
Maia glances at him, startled, and then goes back to perusing the text on the wall. “Well… he needs somebody to look after him. Everybody does.”
Interesting. That explains… everything.
“Are you a habitual nurturer, then?” he persists, to keep her and the viewers both in the dark a bit longer. “I’m afraid you joined so late that we don’t have a profession listed for you yet.”
“The universe came into being essentially spontaneously,” Maia says, loudly and none too subtly. “Can you believe that? It’s wild to think about. In essence, every moment that led up to this one was decided arbitrarily.”
“Not a believer?” Belial asks. “I guess we shouldn’t play the Monkees if you and Vincent tie the knot.”
“I think the only things he’ll be tying are a series of nooses,” Maia mutters. Then she looks mortified. “Um, don’t show that. Rewind. Erase that clip. Pretty please?”
Belial grins with just a little bit of fang before he starts strolling off. “Come, Blinky. Our work here is done.”
“You’re my star,” the woman hanging onto Vincent’s right arm like some malformed mussel coos.
“Please stop talking to me,” Vincent says.
“Yeah?” This comes from the woman on Vincent’s left arm, who resembles a strangling vine slightly more than a shellfish, and is directed at the one on the right. “Well, he’s my supernova.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Vincent says.
“He’s my universe.”
“He’s my Big Bang.”
“I’m going to vomit,” Vincent says.
“I’ll hold your hair back!” the left-hand woman cries.
“Well, I’ll pet him and murmur sweet nothings and wipe his mouth!”
“This is not happening,” Vincent says, beginning to feel legitimately ill. “This is an elaborate hallucination. I am never taking LSD again. I’m not sure why I took it in the first place, because these horrifying dreams have caused me to forget the truth of their origin, but it was definitely the last time I will ever indulge that inexplicable impulse.”
“Drug trips are hot,” Right-Side Woman says.
“But only when you’re the one on them,” Left-Side Woman tells him.
“Well, obviously, since he’s the only hot man on the planet.”
“He’s the only hot man in the solar system. Did you hear that, Vincent? It was topical. Clever, huh?”
“Someone put me out of my misery,” Vincent says.
At that moment, Greta sashays up to their extremely unpalatable golddigger-and-vampire sandwich.
“Sorry,” she purrs to the other girls, and then she looks at Vincent through her thick eyelashes. “Can I steal you?”
“I am not an object,” Vincent says.
The three girls are all glaring daggers at one another in a very sharp-edged triangle. Not one of them seems to have heard him.
“Fine,” he says, jerking both arms out of the flanking women’s respective grips. “I am exercising my autonomy and choosing to accompany Greta for a while. Don’t you forget it.”
Judging by the mournful expressions, they have already forgotten their dignity, and after that the rest just sort of crumbled.
More than a little smugly, Greta links her arm through his and starts dragging him off to another exhibit. Vincent can feel a bruise forming on the inside of his elbow.
“Remind me what you do again?” he says, because even a vapid egotistical monologue would be better than being told that he’s her personal Orion.
“I’m a museum curator,” Greta says briskly. “It’s about the only thing you’re qualified for when you have three degrees in various denominations of Archaeological History.”
“I didn’t realize there were multiple denominations of Archaeological History,” Vincent says. “How exactly do you acquire one of those?”
“You read a lot of books written in dead languages,” Greta explains, neutrally enough. “And you spend a lot of time digging for artifacts in countries where you can’t drink the water.”
“Thrilling,” Vincent says.
He supposes he shouldn’t really talk given that all of his degrees involved playing with numbers until he thought death by decapitation sounded better than another headache.
“Spend any time reading old French?” Vincent asks, although he doesn’t think he actually cares.
“Yes, actually.” Greta’s voice is airy, and it’s beginning to give over to pomposity, but she’s not hugging the afterlife out of his arm just yet, and she hasn’t compared him to an astronomical feature once. “Most of the initial archaeological work early in the excavations of Egypt-destructive and profiteering as it may have been-was done by the French and the Germans and documented accordingly. I had to study a few different languages fairly intensively, and of course those classes had us delving into linguistic history as if we had nothing better to do with our time.”
“I think linguistic history is fascinating,” Vincent says, partly just to find out whether she’ll backpedal.
“I don’t,” she says. That answers that question. “I’m an advocate of getting-and learning-what I need to know in order to do what I want. Anything more or less is a waste of time. Surely that makes sense to a CEO?”
“To a CEO, yes,” Vincent says, guiding their trajectory back towards the larger cluster of pinched-faced, envious women. Greta talks like a dictionary on uppers, which was entertaining for about ninety seconds. “For an immortal, wasting time is something of a hobby-I might even say an art form. Besides, ‘waste’ is such a subjective word that it’s kind impossible to judge, just as it’s impossible to tell if that’s your natural hair color.”
She looks so drastically offended that Vincent almost laughs and ruins it.
“I’ll file your information away for later,” he says. “For now, please let go of my arm so I can retreat to the men’s restroom and purge myself of your presence.”
“You’re a dick,” Greta says flatly. Then she leans in to breathe warmly in his ear: “It’s hot.”
Vincent is very glad that he doesn’t have to count himself among humankind, because he despairs of them.
Five minutes after Vincent makes a tactical retreat into the lavatory-and three suicide note drafts written on paper towels later-Belial strolls in, preening so emphatically that Vincent fully expects him to sprout feathers.
“Don’t be such a girl,” he drawls.
“Believe me,” Vincent says. “Girls are one thing we have too much of.”
“I think it’s just the right number,” Belial says. “But now you’ve been gone so long that they’re all whining to me.”
“Tough shit,” Vincent says.
Belial looks pointedly at Vincent’s latest suicide note-towel, which promptly bursts into flame.
Vincent drops it and leaps back. “Jesus Christ!”
“I hate that guy,” Belial says.
“I get it!” Vincent hisses at him.
“I’m glad,” Belial says brightly. “I’ve been preparing my best man speech for your wedding reception. It starts out, ‘Fourscore and seven years ago, when Vincent was a wee little vampire still cutting his fangs on Boston-which cut him back-we met when I set a tenement on fire, and he somehow survived. We have been firm friends ever since, as you can tell from the fact that he is inching the cake knife towards my jugular.’”
“How remarkable,” Vincent mutters. “You can see the future.”
“‘What my dear young friend always forgets, however, is that I am impervious to cutlery-and bullets, including silver bullets, although silver bullets dipped in holy water do sting a bit-and even more impervious to that pout he’s giving me right now.’”
“It’s not a pout,” Vincent says. “It’s a supercilious sneer.”
Belial pauses to consider him. “That’s more of a frown,” he says. “The one you’re going to have at your wedding reception is definitely a pout. Accordingly, I intend to pat you on the head and pinch your cheek.”
Vincent storms for the door, displaying a few choice obscene gestures over his shoulder on the way out. He would rather be torn apart by a pack of rabid wolves than stand in a planetarium bathroom rapidly filling with burnt paper towel smoke and listen to Belial plan his wedding.
It’s somewhat fortunate that his priorities have shifted this way, since subjecting himself to the women is essentially tantamount to the wolf thing.
Maion plants his hands on his hips-his new hips-and glares at himself in the mirror. This is the face and the overexposed body of a cold-blooded, deadly-efficient spy.
That, or he’s become a blonde chick in flip-flops and a bikini.
Damn it.
No, un-damn it. Maion is going to collect all of his wit, willpower, and general impressiveness, and he is going to reign triumphant.
…it’s hard to feel threatening in a bikini. Maion seeks out a much more intimidating gauzy sarong.
…this isn’t going to work, is it?
Maion sighs deeply and trudges out of the mansion towards the pool.
The trudging would make him stick out like a sore thumb if anyone could pick out a thumb amongst all of this bare skin and neon polyester. He sits down on the edge of one of the lounge chairs and attempts not to feel insufferably awkward. All of the other women are splashing around or trying to cuddle up to Vincent, who has rolled up the cuffs of his slacks and put his feet into the jacuzzi, presumably because the cameras are closing in, and Belial will be watching his every move.
One of the most scantily-swimsuited girls cuddles up with his left foot, ignoring the warning looks Vincent sends her way. Maion is not sure whether to assume fetishist or driven to extremes by desperation to extend her fifteen minutes of fame, although either way he doesn’t think he’ll be befriending that particular young woman. All of the nearby contestants loitering around the hot tub huff, glare, and toss their hair a little.
Maion takes a deep breath, gets up, and marches over to Vincent, although marching in flip-flops turns out to be extraordinarily anticlimactic.
He leans down to tap Vincent on the shoulder and then folds his hands behind his back. The vampire looks up at him warily.
“What?”
“Can I talk to you?” Maion asks. “It’s important-legitimately important, and not about me.”
There’s a flicker of intrigue in Vincent’s eyes. Or maybe that’s the insanity finally setting in. “You don’t say.”
“Um,” Maion says. “Well, I just did…”
Vincent shakes the girl off of his foot and clambers upright. “Let’s go discuss your legitimately important subject,” he says. “If I was capable of dying of boredom, I would have done.”
They step off a little ways into the garden, where the foliage is denser than at least a few of the women, and where there is a charming wooden bench. Maion sits down and kicks at the grass with his flip-flopped toes.
“I suppose I should just be straightforward,” he says. He glances at Vincent, who looks receptive-and who looks rather tousled with his trouser legs rolled up to the ankle and with his charcoal waistcoat wrinkled and with that sheen of impending madness in his stark blue eyes. “I have reason to believe that one of the other contestants is-”
“Sorry,” Jamaica gushes, bursting through the leaves and batting her eyelashes. “Can I steal you?”
“Go to hell,” Vincent says.
Belial pops up out of a bush, which is the most horrifying thing Maion has seen since That Scene in Alien.
“Actually,” the demon says calmly, “that’s where you’re going if you don’t play by the rules of the game.”
“Where in the rules does it say I have to get ‘stolen’ every two minutes?” Vincent demands.
“Page seventy-one,” Belial dutifully reports, “section eight, clause fifty-two.”
“God damn you,” Vincent hisses through his teeth.
“It’s been done,” Belial says, yawning. “A few millennia ago, no less.”
Vincent mutters something that will get censored almost out of existence in the final edit as he gets up and storms off with Jamaica, who insinuates herself immediately into the crook of his arm. One of the cameras trails them as she drags him down the path, deeper into the greenery.
“This is the best thing ever,” Belial says. “I may cry when the two months are up. Then again, I always cry at weddings.”
“It’s not funny,” Maion says, feeling kind of sick. Vincent’s alone and unattended now, but for one of those creepily silent cameramen. What if Jamaica-?
That settles it. Maion gets up, focuses for a moment to make his pedicured feet soundless on the leaves and stepping stones, and starts off after them. No one will be staking Vincent on his watch.
Taking a cue from Belial-which, if he thinks about it, is probably the worst idea he’s had since… deciding to do this-Maion hunkers down behind the thickest fern that affords a view of the small clearing Jamaica has chosen. Although it’s something of a nice spot, with brightly-colored flowers and a little waterfall and a slightly enchanted air, it’s probably not a nice spot to die, so Maion’s here for the long haul.
“We haven’t gotten much time together,” Jamaica says, running her hand up and down Vincent’s arm.
“I think that’s because you spend most of your time abusing the hospitality,” Vincent says.
She ignores him. “So I wanted to get you all to myself for a minute.”
Vincent frowns. “Your sixty seconds start now.”
As Jamaica embarks upon an epic narrative about her upbringing, during the course of which everyone hated her for being so pretty and talented; and her stint on the Miss America circuit, when everyone hated her for being so pretty and talented; and her current job as a powerful, independent real estate contractor, where everyone hates her for being so pretty and talented, although most of them buy property from her anyway, Maion makes a quick assessment and deems it unlikely that anyone could hide an oak stake on one’s person whilst wearing a bikini. At the very least, concealing one that could provide enough leverage to do more than crack Vincent’s waistcoat buttons would probably prove impossible.
That said, Jamaica could be in possession of a very small vial of holy water and enough garlic powder to give Vincent a migraine, so she’s not off the hook yet. And the hunter, whomever she is, will almost certainly try to cozy up to Vincent as much as possible, playing herself off in some non-threatening capacity, to catch him at an ideal moment. Such an ideal moment almost undoubtedly requires actual clothing, but Maion has committed to vigilance.
Maion considers a few more factors and decides that he is very, very stupid for doing all of this in the first place.
Also, this fern is uncomfortable.
“You know what I think?” Jamaica says when she eventually runs out of talents.
“I imagine you’d shout it after me even if I ran away screaming,” Vincent says, “so you might as well spit it out.”
“I think you should come back into the pool,” Jamaica says, completely unperturbed by his sarcasm, “so I can show you my breaststroke.”
“I think that’s hands-down the worst come-on I’ve ever heard,” Vincent says. “And I lived through the Victorian Era, when half of it was silk fan semaphore.”
“That’s hot,” Jamaica says.
“What a coincidence,” Vincent says. “My inexpressibly deep hatred for this entire experience burns very warmly.”
“You say the damnedest things,” Jamaica coos.
Vincent wrinkles his nose. “For once, we’re in agreement.”
Jamaica starts towing him down the path, and Maion hitches up his sarong to scuttle silently after them, staying back a safe distance just in case.
The cameraman who has been stalking Vincent and Jamaica in order to immortalize their scintillating conversation on film notices Maion creeping through the brush just before they make it back to the poolside. Maion is so preoccupied making finger-to-lip, throat-slashing, and frantic waving gestures that he almost doesn’t hear what Jamaica leans in to murmur as she and Vincent move back into the fray:
“Later I’ll tell you which girls are here for your money… and which ones are out for your blood.”
Vincent doesn’t even flinch. “You’re going to have to do better than that to get a one-on-one date.”
Jamaica spreads her hand on his chest, directly over his heart. “I can do a lot better,” she says. “You just have to let me prove it.”
At that point, the rest of the women mob them, and Maion can’t hear any more.
Vincent is approximately two and a half centimeters from choosing an eternity of hellfire over this. He is also approximately two and a half centimeters from trying to find out firsthand whether vampires can die by drowning and/or swallowing an inadvisable quantity of chlorine. With his luck, he would probably succeed only in making himself sick enough that all of the women would fight over the opportunity to take care of him, and there would be catfights in which chicken soup spoons were shoved down opponents’ throats.
…he’s definitely trying it.
He’s just raised one foot to jump into the deep end when a pair of slender hands clasp in an incongruously steely grip around his wrist.
“Can I steal you?” the one-who’s-cornsilk-blonde-and-has-some-occupation-he-forgets wants to know.
“Only if you stab me in the throat afterward,” he says.
She giggles-just nervously enough that he takes pity on her and lets her tow him out to the edge of the poolside lawn. They sit, and she curls up next to him, her eyes bright and her smile shy. Vincent isn’t sure whether to find her cute or pathetic, so he reserves the verdict for now.
“I guess this is stupid,” she says, and then she starts picking at the grass. This is almost too transparent to be an act. “And it’s-selfish, but… can you keep me on the show?”
Vincent tries not to squirm as he hears the faint whirring of the nearest camera zooming in on his face. “Give me a good reason, and I wouldn’t particularly mind.”
“It’s just…” She sighs, glances at him, and tears one of the blades of grass into little strips. “Later on, they always go to so many amazing places for dates and stuff. And you don’t have to take me on single dates, but-I’ve never been outside of the U.S. before. I’ve never even been on a plane. So-I mean, if there aren’t girls you want more, which I definitely get-I’d just really like to get to go somewhere.” Her eyes light up more. They’re kind of an interesting hazel. “Like Paris. You’re French, so I bet we’ll get to go to Paris. People think that every single French person in the world is from Paris.”
Vincent doesn’t know why he tells her. It’s probably the chlorine fumes he’d been inhaling for half an hour to no avail. “I’m from Saint-Malo.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of it,” the girl says, and her apologetic tone sounds genuine. Vincent can’t help himself-his night vision picks out the fact that her roots are blonde. “Is it northern or southern France?”
“Northern,” he says. “On the coast. It’s a walled city that looks out over the English Channel. I gather it’s quiet nowadays, but there used to be smugglers and pirates and-”
There is a rustling in the bushes. The sounds and shadows resolve into Maia, who looks slightly pained.
“Sorry,” she says. “Can I…” She looks ill. “I can’t even say it. May I borrow Vincent’s attention for a moment, Rosalie? I have some important things to tell him, and I promise to bring him right back after I’m done.” She pauses for a slightly worried smile. “Saint-Malo is really nice; I can suggest to Belial that the two of you should visit it together.”
Rosalie-whose-occupation-Vincent-still-forgets (although logic dictates that she must be a preschool teacher or a nurse or something equally self-sacrificing) smiles permissively and nods. “I can always look it up, too. Don’t worry about it.”
Vincent manages not to stare at her as he gets up and follows Maia’s undignified trek directly into the bushes.
“Is she for real?” he asks. “I wasn’t aware that nice girls applied for this show.”
“I wasn’t aware Belial had picked any,” Maia replies. “And as much as I really would like to discuss his terrible motives, that’s not what I need to talk to you about.”
Vincent looks her-or, more specifically, her white swimsuit, her pale blue sarong, and her tightly-folded arms-up and down. “Let me guess,” he says. “You object to the unstated but unbreakable dress code.”
“No,” Maia says. “Well, yes-I do; it’s degrading, demeaning, and right now rather chilly-but that’s not what I need to tell you.”
“You want to go to Paris.”
“No. I mean-I always want to go to Paris, but-”
“You want me to kick out the girls that wouldn’t eat your pancakes.”
“No! How did you even hear about that? I don’t care about the pancakes; they can just starve-but that’s not-”
“I’m afraid I can’t assure you that the lilies aren’t grown specifically for this purpose,” Vincent says. “And knowing Belial, they’re probably covered in carcinogenic pesticides.”
“I don’t care,” Maia says hastily. “Well, obviously I care, but-”
“I’m also aware that using a fleet of limos instead of a hydrogen-powered city bus is extremely wasteful,” Vincent says. “But apparently that was page forty, section three, clause nine.”
“Will you shut up for three seconds?” Maia screeches.
Vincent pauses.
Maia goes pink and bites her lip. “Um, thank you. It’s just-” Her face hardens in an interesting way. “I’m sorry, but I really need to warn you that one of the girls is a-”
An elegant figure elbows the ubiquitous cameraman out of the way to beam at Vincent. “Can I steal you?”
Vincent gives Maia an exasperated look and holds his bruised elbow out to the newcomer. She giggles, grabs him, and unceremoniously commences dragging him back towards the pool.
If Vincent is not mistaken, he hears a distant scream of “Gosh darn it all to heck!”
Belial hums the Imperial March from Star Wars to himself as he saunters down the hall, Blinky trailing. It is perfectly possible that this is, in fact, a different Blinky than the one he had yesterday, but Belial doesn’t particularly care. It’s time to take care of some business he’s been putting off-slash-ignoring in favor of even more entertaining activities, like calculating the rate at which Vincent’s ichor pressure was skyrocketing last night.
Belial throws open the door to communal bedroom A, and Maia starts in surprise and looks up, guilt plastered all over her face. The skin tone of her hands might actually be moving multiple shades towards red; Belial doesn’t have time to watch them.
“Good afternoon,” he says cheerfully. He nods to the suitcase through which she is digging rather unceremoniously, a blast radius of personal effects spread out on the floor. “May I ask what you’re doing?”
“Um,” Maia says. “Unpacking. Of course. Unpacking my things. Again. Of course.”
“Of course,” Belial says. “I hadn’t realized you’d brought so many questionable aphrodisiacs.”
Maia drops the perfectly harmless bottle of perfume in her hand and flails back. “What? Eew, I, um-well-”
“Blinky,” Belial says, “hit the red button for a second. This is off the record.”
Maia looks deeply perturbed, and Belial doesn’t blame her. Furthermore, he’s a bit flattered.
He crouches down on the other side of the suitcase and looks her in the wide turquoise eyes.
“All right, angel,” he says. “Why are you here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Maion is the worst liar in history, and Belial would know; he’s been tallying their transgressions since well before the dawn of recorded time.
“I was actually hoping to spend this afternoon stalking the footage of the group date,” Belial tells him/her/the Enemy, “so I would much rather we burn through the bullshit. Now, I know for an absolute fact that you can see this.” He gestures elegantly to his general red-brown aura, visible only to celestial eyes. “Rest assured that I can see yours-and I can see how weak it is.” For once, he’s telling the untwisted truth. The last time they met-which Belial seems to recall was in Vincent’s living room, and which may or may not have involved a fight over a card game that ended with half of the foyer on fire-Maion’s opposite aura was a vibrant electric blue. At the moment, it’s a dull, throbbing, pale remembrance of that color. “You haven’t been Up in a while, or at least not for long enough to rejuvenate. Keeping this human shape is drawing out all of the more mundane energies you can find down here, resulting in a net of zero. You’ve rarely been more vulnerable.”
Maion swallows rather hard, which would be more amusing if his form still had an Adam’s apple.
“Now,” Belial goes on breezily, “we have two options here. One, I can smear you into soot, grind you into this carpet, and count it as the first scratch of revenge against the Big Man.” He sets his hands on the edge of the suitcase and leans in until their noses almost touch-close enough that he can smell her new form’s sweat. “Two,” he says, “you can explain to me exactly why you’ve decided to turn the sprinkler on my parade.”
Maion’s hands clench and unclench four times. His aura flares hotly for a moment, and the celestial fire contained within his delicateness turns his eyes a stark sapphire.
Then he fades, once again becoming ostensibly ordinary.
“I had a Premonition,” he says. “About this whole event, and that one of the women would be a vampire hunter using it as an opportunity to get close to Vincent-and then to get even closer with a stake.”
Belial blinks.
“Holy hell,” he says. “That is epic. How did I do that on accident? I am a machine. They should hire me out at parties. I cannot tell you how amazing this is.”
Maion looks slightly crushed. “You’re not going to help?”
“Help?” Belial says. “I’m sorry; I think I was too busy jubilating to hear you correctly. Did you actually think I was going to discourage this chain of events?”
“Only for a very naïve half-second there,” Maion says glumly.
“That’s right,” Belial says. He leans in and kisses Maion’s cheek, and then he jumps up and clicks his heels, leaving only a small trail of flames in the air. “This is perfect. This makes up for all of the B-horror-movie scare opportunities I’m missing by not being with them at the amusement park I bought out. Have you told anyone? Think of the ratings!”
“I’m thinking of Vincent!” Maion says, presumably because being a buzzkill every two seconds is the first item on the official list of angelic duties. “You bullied him into signing an unfair contract, and now he could die!” Maion frowns. “Permanently this time.”
“Uh, yeah,” Belial says, shooting a reprimanding look at the wisp of heel fire that’s menacing the rug. “And then I won’t have to hold up my end of the bargain at all.”
Maion’s eyes go huge, and his mouth falls open. “I can’t believe you! You’re so-”
“Evil?”
Maion buries his face in his hands.
Belial starts for the door, snapping his fingers in front of an incredulously frozen Blinky.
“You can turn that thing back on,” he says, pointing to the camera. “We are going to have a hell of a time.”
“This is the fifth time I’ve been on the Ferris wheel,” Vincent says.
Girl Number Five blinks at him. She has slightly eerie pale gray eyes, and with all of the eyeliner and mascara she’s slathered around them, she bears more than a passing resemblance to a raccoon caught in a flashlight beam.
“If I vomit on you,” Vincent says, “it’s nothing particularly personal.”
Given the choice, he’ll vomit on the small camera secured to the bar, attached there because fitting a cameraman into the carriage with them would have been a bit of a squeeze. Vincent would have ripped the thing from its supports and hurled it to the ground four and eight-ninths rides ago if not for the knowledge that Belial would make him eat the pieces.
Five looks at him, looks down at the other girls milling on the pavement far beneath them, and snaps her gum.
“Aren’t we supposed to make out?” she asks.
Vincent doesn’t think he could successfully strangle himself even if he hung himself over the edge of their car by his thin red tie, but it’s tempting to try anyway. “No. We’re not. Definitely not.”
“I’m pretty sure we are.” Five blows a dark purple bubble until it pops, at which point a practiced tongue pulls all of the gum back into her mouth.
While Vincent is preoccupied staring in disgust, she ambushes him, and the next thing he knows, he’s pressed up against the hard plastic of the carriage seatback, lamenting that he can’t die by suffocation either.
After enough time for the bystanders below to have noticed the frenetic activity in the car-Vincent can just hear them shouting in protest-Five releases him and scoots back to her side of the car, crossing her legs primly.
Vincent-oh, good God-
“Why would you even buy prune-flavored gum?” he asks.
Five smirks. “Just wait ’til I show you celery,” she says.
Vincent wonders what it says in the rules about murdering contestants.
Well, Maion’s the one who originally made up the phrase If you want something done right, shut up and do it yourself.
It’s gotten a bit corrupted over the years. Raphael always recites it wrong, because he’s a softie.
Admittedly, when he coined it, he wasn’t really foreseeing clambering around through the ventilation ducts of a reality-television mansion whilst in the form of a woman and with all of his powers waning, but one of the problems with aphorisms is their general lack of sympathy. These days, Maion is an advocate of positive reinforcement.
Today in particular, he is an advocate of subtle reconnaissance. There is nothing quite so subtle as trying not to bang his knees on the aluminum panels, hoping that the poorly reaffixed vent through which he entered will go unnoticed. He was up all night listening in the bedroom he shares with four of the girls in the hopes that one might reveal something condemning in her sleep, but there were mostly just some mumbles about ponies, a lot of snores, and a fair amount of gibberish. He’s also searched through almost all of the luggage belonging to the girls in his immediate group, and none of them has brought anything suspicious, which is kind of comforting and frustrating at once.
Maion is trying not to make a list of suspects in his head just yet, mostly because he’s fairly sure that the confused femaleness that swirls about unpredictably in the head in question will try to do something bizarre and instinctive, like target the women most likely to bear healthy children in the hopes of eliminating the evolutionary competition. Perhaps later he can bribe some of the cameramen to let him review recent footage for worrisome activity. Surely they’ll break the rules for blueberry pancakes-for Maion’s blueberry pancakes. Really, given the demonic tyranny under which they are currently operating, he can’t imagine they won’t leap at the chance to undermine their overlord, and if they get breakfast in the bargain…
But that’s a foolproof plan for tomorrow morning. At the moment, Maion needs to keep his mind on the task at hands and knees.
If his mental layout of the mansion on a whole is to be believed-which it almost certainly is, given the near-infinite capacity of angel brains-he should be getting close to the nearest bedroom. A selection of the girls are out horseback-riding along the coastline of Monterey with Vincent, but he may be able to get some quality eavesdropping done. If most of these girls are out, then he’ll use the time to raid their suitcases for stakes, holy water, and knives fit for decapitating.
He’s slightly concerned he won’t find anything quite so unequivocal. And, really, threatening knives could appear in women’s luggage for a lot of different reasons-a whittling hobby, a compulsion to gut one’s own game animals for food, a part-time knife-throwing circus gig, paranoia about the onset of the Apocalypse. The lattermost Maion has to admit he understands. He’d once known a nun who slept with a revolver under her pillow just in case Satan’s minions ever came heavily armed.
Lines of light spill up into the cramped metal corridor before him, indicating that he’s almost reached the nearest vent. He creeps up to it, taking great care not to kick a siding and give himself away, and peeks down between the slats. His heart does a very unpleasant, very unsettling scuttle-flutter thing.
Jamaica and Greta are standing by one of the beds below, deep in conversation. Greta has her arms folded and her eyebrows raised, and Jamaica is gesticulating so emphatically that her neon pink fingernails are making Maion slightly dizzy.
Greta mutters something dismissive, but Jamaica doesn’t appear to be deterred.
“Look, we have to do something,” she says, audible now as her voice rises urgently. “And we have to do it together. That’s the only way we can accomplish anything here.”
Maion makes sure he doesn’t gasp loud enough to be heard, because that would be too melodramatic even for him. Somehow it never occurred to him that the hunter could have help-could have brought allies in to start with, and could be making more of them as she goes along.
Fortunately, Greta’s disdain for Jamaica’s lifestyle-or the lifestyle she presents when Vincent’s around-seems to be outweighing what must be some extremely persuasive talk of sharpened oak stakes and all of the road reputation that comes with hunting long-since domesticated members of the undead.
…that is the phrase, right? Road rep? Something about…
Maion always thinks better when he has his chin propped on his hand, which is slightly embarrassing given all of the thoughtful cherub paintings that have resulted over the years. He puts his elbow down at the edge of the grate.
There is an excruciatingly loud creeeeeeeaak.
Jamaica and Greta look up in perfect unison, their hair swishing like something out of an advertisement. Maion holds his breath and thinks about balloons.
It was a good idea in theory.
The next thing Maion knows, he’s lying on the floor in a tangle of broken grating and a wash of plaster dust, staring up at the vaguely him-shaped hole in the ceiling.
“What in the hell?” Jamaica says.
Maion tries to say I can explain; it’s a funny story, actually, but it comes out as “Ow, oh, my gosh, I think I broke this thing.”
Greta’s concern becomes suspicion. “What thing?”
This body. I’m pretty sure it’s broken. “Um. The ventilation system. I mean… look at it.”
Jamaica plants her hands on her hips and then cocks them for maximum attitude. “Maia, what the hell were you doing climbing around in there? Were you spying on us?”
“I wanted to know what you were planning,” Maion says dazedly. More plaster dust shakes loose from the ceiling, and he scrunches his nose. “Because we’re competing, I mean. For Vincent. You know.”
“Are you on PCP?” Jamaica asks. “Because that shit will mess you up, girl.”
“Only if PCP stands for Pretty Crippling Pain,” Maion says.
Greta crouches down, which must require a great deal of dexterity when one is wearing stilettos. “I think you’re not supposed to move your head in case you’ve hurt your neck.”
“I’ve hurt everything that’s hurtable,” Maion says. He’s fairly sure he has enough Grace to heal all of the major damage, but he can’t exactly do that with the pair of them in the room. “Maybe you should go call an ambulance. Both of you. One of you to call, and one of you to make sure the other gets the number right.”
“You mean 9-1-1?” Greta asks, one eyebrow arching.
“That sounds complicated,” Maion says. “Um, I have an idea: Jamaica, you should make the call, and Greta can go get me some ice from the kitchen. How does that sound?”
“Like you’re getting delusional,” Greta says. She looks to Jamaica. “I don’t think we should leave her alone.”
“I really think you should,” Maion says.
“She’s creeping me out,” Jamaica says. “Come on, we should get a camera guy.”
Maion would do a victory dance, but… well.
“This is…” Maia pauses. “…interesting.”
Vincent glances down into the well of darkness. He knows very well that this is a not-coincidental metaphor. “I was thinking ‘heinous,’ but ‘interesting’ is close enough.”
“On the upside,” Maia says, more cheerfully, “the phrase ‘impromptu spelunking’ is very fun to say. And bats are cute. Are we going to see any bats? Maybe we can feed them little cubes of mango. I did that at a zoo once. They lick your hands.”
Vincent has a very weird moment in which he vividly imagines bats licking Maia’s fingers. This is further evidence for his well-developed theory that this show is causing him to lose his damn mind.
“I don’t think there’s any bat-feeding planned,” he says. “Are you sure you’re all right? I gather you fell out of the ceiling yesterday.”
“Oh,” Maia says lightly. “Well, you know. These things happen.”
“I don’t believe they usually do.”
“We’re doing a spot of impromptu spelunking,” Maia says. “There’s no reason to dwell on ceilings I may or may not have fallen out of. And, sir-” This to the cameraman who is impromptu-spelunking just below them. “If you don’t stop focusing that camera on my rear, I’m afraid I will have to shove it down your throat.”
Vincent glances downward again, and the light on the cameraman’s miner’s helmet perfectly illuminates his cowed expression. Vincent snickers.
Before any voyeurism-related violence erupts, they alight on the cave floor and start unhooking all of the cables and harnesses. Vincent expects Maia to get tangled in her harness and require a few minutes of awkward personal space destruction to be freed, but then he blinks in the too-bright light of Cameraman Eighteen’s helmet, and she’s already shed all of the cords.
“Oh, my goodness,” she says, actually clasping her hands beneath her chin. “Candlelit dinner at the bottom of a cave?” She circles the elaborately laid-out table, trailing a finger along the edge of the white linen tablecloth, then touching the polished candelabra, and then the crystal wineglasses. “Wait, yours isn’t wine. This had better have come from an autopsy table, Duval. There’s always a shortage of blood donors, you know. And transfusions save lives. And as many minor crimes as this show has perpetrated on humanity, I draw the line at-”
“Sit down, shut up, and eat,” Vincent says.
Maia gives him a smoldering glare that somehow makes him feel cold. “You,” she says, “are a bad man.”
But she sits.
“Let them eat steak,” Vincent offers after thirty seconds of frosty silence.
“I hope this is free-range,” Maia mutters.
Vincent lifts his wineglass and sets an elbow on the table, preempting Maia when she opens her mouth to complain about his etiquette.
“Wasn’t there something important you were going to tell me the other day? That’s the primary reason I picked you for this one-on-one.”
“Oh,” Maia says. “Right.” She cuts a bite of steak, pops it into her mouth, and smiles. “Mmm. One of the contestants is a vampire-hunter waiting to kill you when you least expect it.”
Vincent drops the glass, which shatters on the cave floor and splashes probably-ganked-from-an-understaffed-bank blood all over his shoes.
“You’re hopeless,” Maia says. Then there’s a distant flapping sound, drawing nearer by the moment, and her eyes light up again. “There are bats! Can you commune with them?”
The only good news is that Vincent will have killed himself long before the alleged hunter can get to him.
[Episode 3]