“Thanks for the advice.” Sebastian looked into my eyes, and his gaze held me fast. “You will not speak to anyone of what you have seen and heard tonight.” As he spoke, the words became an unbreakable law to me. Then Sebastian sauntered away, leaving me – what did I tell you? – to bury the bodies. At least with Gilbert, it was just a matter of lugging the pieces to the Ruined Statue Garden a couple of streets away.
By the time I got done, my hands were a mess and I was sweating and shaking and maybe even crying a little. I went back to the bar and poured myself some Wild Turkey, and then some more, and then a bit more after that. I wished I could talk to someone about this. But of course, I was under a vampiric mind-spell thingy, and I could never speak a word.
Good thing I’ve got a Hotmail account.
I put the whole thing as plain as I could in a long email to Antonia, including the whole confusing “vampire who’s also a zombie” thing. I ended by saying: “Here’s the thing, sweetie, Sebastian is gonna think you don’t know any of this, and with Gilbert out of the way, he’ll be making his move. Definitely do NOT marry him, the half-zombie thing is a dealbreaker, but don’t try to fight him either. He’s got the thing where the more you hurt him, the more zombie he gets and then you can’t win; he’s got you beat either way. And not to mention, the full moon is over as of tomorrow morning, so you got no more wolf on your side. Just keep yourself safe, okay, because it would just about ruin me to see anything happen to you – I mean you bring in the paying customers, don’t worry, I’m not getting soppy on you. Your boss, Rachel.”
She came in the next day, clutching Gilbert’s head. Her eyes were puffy and the cords on her neck stood out as she heaved a sob. I handed her a glass of absinthe without saying anything, and she drained it right away. I made her another, with the sugar cube and everything.
I wasn’t sure if Sebastian’s mind control would keep me from saying I was sorry, but it didn’t. Antonia shrugged and collapsed onto my shoulder, weeping into my big flannel shirt, Gilbert’s forehead pressing into my stomach.
“Gilbert really loved me,” she said when she got her breath back and sat down on her usual music-playing stool. “He loved me more than I deserved. I was... I was finally ready to surrender, and give my heart away. I made up my mind, while I was out running with the wolves.”
“You were going to go out with Gilbert?” I had to sit down too.
“No. I was going to let Gilbert down easy, and then date Sebastian. Because he made me laugh.” She opened her guitar case, revealing a bright sword made of tempered Sylvanian steel with the crest of Thuiron the Resolver on the hilt, instead of a guitar. “Now I have to kill him.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” I said. “There are some good reasons not to do that, which I cannot speak of, but hang on, let me get a notepad and a pen and I’ll be happy to explain—”
“You already explained.” She put her left hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for your kindness, Rachel.”
“I don’t—” What could I say? What was I allowed to say? “I don’t want you to die.”
“I won’t.” She smiled with at least part of her face.
“Are you starting your set early tonight? I have a request,” Sebastian said from the doorway at the top of the short staircase leading into the bar, framed by the ebbing daylight. “I really want to hear some Van Morrison for once, instead of that—”
Antonia threw Gilbert’s head at Sebastian. His eyes widened as he realized what it was, and what it meant. He almost ducked, then opted to catch it with one hand instead, to show he was still on top of the situation. While he was distracted, though, Antonia was already running with her sword out, making a whoosh as it tore through the air.
Antonia impaled Sebastian, but missed his heart. He kicked her in the face, and she fell, blood-blinded.
“So this is how it’s going to be?” Sebastian tossed the head into the nearest booth, where it landed face-up on the table. “I confess I’m disappointed. I was going to marry you and then kill you. More fairy treasure that way.”
“You—You—” Antonia coughed blood. “You never loved me.”
“Oh, keep up.” Sebastian loomed over Antonia, pulled her sword out of his chest, and swung it over his head two-handed, aiming for a nice clean slice. “I’ll bring your remains back to Sylvania, and tell them a lovely story of how you and I fell in love and got married, before you were killed by a wild boar or an insurance adjuster. Hold still, this’ll hurt less.”
Antonia kicked him in the reproductive parts, but he shrugged it off. The shining sword whooshed down towards her neck.
“Hey!” I pumped my plus-one Vorpal shotgun from behind the bar. “No. Fighting. In. The. Bar.”
“We can take it outside,” Sebastian said, not lowering the sword.
“Too late for that,” I said. “You’re in my bar, you settle it how I choose.”
“And how’s that?”
I said the first thing that came into my head: “With a karaoke contest.”
And because it was my bar, and I have certain safeguards in place for this sort of situation, they were both bound by my word. Sebastian grumbled a fair bit, especially what with Antonia being a semi-professional singer, but he couldn’t fight it. It took us a couple hours to organize, including finding a few judges and putting an impartiality whammy on them, to keep it a fair competition.
I even broke open my good wine jug and gave out free cups to everybody. Once his nesting place was all emptied out, Leroy the Wine Goblin crawled onto the bar and squinted.
Antonia went first, and she went straight for the jugular – with showtunes. You’ve probably never seen a fairy princess do “Don’t Tell Mama” from Cabaret, complete with hip-twirling burlesque dance moves and a little Betty Boop thing when she winked at the audience. Somehow she poured all her rage and passion, all her righteous Sarah McLachlan-esque anger, into a roar on the final chorus. The judges scribbled nice high numbers and chattered approvingly.
And then Sebastian went up – and he broke out that Red Hot Chili Peppers song about the City of Angels. He’d even put on extra eyeliner. He fixed each of us with that depthless vampire stare, even as he poured out an amazing facsimile of a soul, singing about being lost and lonely and wanting his freakin’ happy place. Bastard was going to win this thing.
But there was one thing I knew for sure. I knew that he’d have to shut his eyes, for at least a moment, when he hit those high notes in the bridge about the bridge, after the second chorus.
Sure enough, when Sebastian sang out “Under the bridge downtown,” his eyes closed so his voice could float over the sound of Frusciante’s guitar transitioning from “noodle” mode to “thrash” mode. And that’s when I shot him with my plus-one Vorpal shotgun. Once in the face, once in the chest. I reloaded quick as I could, and shot him in the chest again, and then in the left kneecap for good measure.
It wasn’t enough to slow him down, but it did make him change. All of a sudden, the lyrics went, “Under the bridge downtown, I could not get enough... BRAIIIIIINSSSS!!”
He tossed the microphone and lurched into the audience. The three karaoke judges, who were still enchanted to be 100 percent impartial, sat patiently watching and making notes on their scoresheets, until some other patrons hauled them out of the way. Leroy the Wine Goblin covered his face and screamed for the safety of his jug. People fell all over each other to reach the staircase.