Sylvie

“True she was voluptuous, Miss Rivers, but that isn’t all.  Your lips matched the same shade of red, and you both have a swagger and presence about you, she used her hips so much more..”  Amos stopped talking when both lady vampires had crossed their arms and stopped serving drinks. “..Fine, I’ll get to my point.”  He lightly chuckled and took a sip of the Bloody Madelyn. “Perfectly balanced, Casey.  Thank you.”  Content when all Casey did was shake her head, Amos kept going. “I later found out that she kept a journal of her business and a journal of private information.”  Amos almost seemed to be dreaming as he spoke,  “She liked the tactile feel of a pen and paper.  She wrote down everything, nothing digital.”   Sipping more of his drink, Amos finished up. “Those two books had her entire dealings in them.  Who, Where and more specifically what they were.  Some outright say vampire, some say town council, or even city manager.”  He stopped for a breath, “The other was personal information.  Her time as a vampire, what she planned to do, how she planned to work, and her ideas for visiting other places.  Even her experiments with blood use.”

“You are hoping that I get a vision and get these books back, aren’t you Amos?”  Sylvie slid Alan his drink, “Always looking for an angle on how to profit from my gift.”  She shook her head, “I am not your pawn anymore.”

Alan cleared his throat right after he took a hefty gulp of the mixed drink. “S-Sylvie.  It’s a veil break, and it was in your place.”  Alan tapped lightly on the bar. “I can’t see it as anything other than leftovers from the mess Phantasmagoria left behind.”

“Fuck.”  Sylvie ran her hand through her short blue-gray hair, “Fine.”  She glared at Amos. “I am not going to bring them back but to confirm their destruction.”

Swirling the end of his long mustache on his index finger, Amos nodded and then smiled. “Might I ask you to spare any personal correspondence between Livia and myself?”

Kissing Sylvie on her cheek, Casey breezed by and to a computer terminal to read the various drink orders coming in. “I have these.”  She snickered, “I don’t know how I know, but I can make most any drink there is.  I have the bar, you deal with those two.”  Casey grabbed four pint-sized mugs and filled them with beer, setting them on a tray for pickup. “Don’t worry, I can hear what’s going on.”

Watching Casey move around the bar as if she’d been born to it, Sylvie took the time to think about the request. “Amos, no.  I am not going to stop and read the ledgers to find anything personal for you.”  Sylvie faced Alan, “What do you have?”

Amos held up a finger, “Dear?  How do you plan to find the books?  I’ve not said the rest of the story.”  Spotting the look of annoyance on his progeny, Amos stopped trying to be coy. “You are still no fun.  Very well.  Rumor is that Haley Grant found it right after the attack.”   He laughed, “She was a frequent customer of Livia’s establishment and knows my face.”  Amos took down more of his drink and wiped his mouth, “Before you ask, Yes, I have been to her home and tried to find it.  My hunch didn’t pan out and I was nearly caught.”  He shrugged, “I am no spy, Sylvie.”

Hearing the spy comment sent a chill down Sylvie’s spine and she noticed the curious look on Casey’s face. “I wasn't hiding anything from you, Casey.  We’d just never gotten around to discussing it.”  Lightly rubbing her temples, Sylvie sighed and confessed, “I used to be a scout for my tribe.  I wasn’t a very good one, but I was one all the same.”  Sylvie glared at Amos, “All I did was watch colonists and report back, I never planned anything and I certainly have no skills at breaking into a place.”

Having dipped a small glass in lime juice and then rimmed it in sugar, Casey made a quick rum and cola to send out into the restaurant, “Something tells me he’s holding something back.  There’s more to Amos's story, Sylvie.”  She refilled a couple more beers, and then smiled at Amos. “She’s got a contingency plan and is probably blackmailing you.”  Casey tapped on her head, “I don’t know how I know, maybe I can see the deception in his eyes, but the news reporter has turned the files digital and has them in some way set to release should he show up or if she disappears.”

Sylvie balled up her fist and shook it at Amos, “You prick.  You absolute jackass.”  Turning her venomous look to Alan, Sylvie added, “You knew this was going to be a bitch, that’s why you have hit me with this bullshit of cleaning my own mess.”  She flipped her thumb back at her former master, “That ass knows Haley a little more than in passing, she knows him intimately.”  Furious, Sylvie took a couple of steps back and leaned against her computer terminal. “Out with it, Alan.  What else is on the plate?  No more bullshit.”

Unwilling to feed into the tenseness of the moment, Casey skipped and partly danced her way up and down the bar as she made drinks. “So far this isn’t anything we can’t handle, Sylvie.”  Casey paused and winked lovingly at her partner. “We can easily charm Haley and that ends the blackmail.”  Casey laughed, “Why Amos didn’t think of that, I don’t know.”

“I did.”  Amos laughed and pointed to Amber as she approached with a drink order. “You call them blood bunnies.  I’ve adopted the name gifted, so yeah.  Mostly immune and loves being fed on.”

Noting that the situation was quickly deteriorating, Alan spoke up. “The other couple things shouldn’t prove to be terribly difficult.”  He shrugged, “Both are still linked to Phantasmagoria.  First is Franco Tarsey’s skull.  It's being studied at a local university, because the police had no idea what to do with a skull that has fangs in it.  They weren’t sure if it was real or not.”  Alan opened a small hand notebook and tore off a piece of paper. “That is the name of the anthropologist looking at his skull.  Another seek and destroy mission.  I figure that there are notes the doctor has taken on them, but won’t that robotic pigeon friend of yours help with that?”

“Kody?  They aren’t around, I have no clue where they went.”  Sylvie raised one eyebrow, “Their name is Kody.  Robot pigeon is a bit insulting.”

“My apologies.”  Alan quickly amended and continued, “Consequently it’s one of Kody’s designs that’s also on the list.”  Alan flipped a few more pages in his little notebook and tore out the page. “That I am told is some super computer chip-thing.  Graphite..graphics..spirograph, Fuck if I know what it is.” Tossing the little page across the bar, Alan finished up. “It’s got notes with it that indicate vampiric blood use.  It needs to be recovered or destroyed as well.”

Settling down behind Sylvie once more, Casey rubbed her maker's shoulders. “We can do these things, they aren’t overly complicated.”  Casey nuzzled into Sylvie’s neck, “Let’s call it an adventure..Pleeeeeeaassseeeee?”  Casey heard hip-hop start playing in her mind and laughed as she wiggled her hips for Sylvie, “Can you hear it too?  Casey laughed and winked at the other two vampires. “Oh, I hear music most of the time.  Right now I have an older song, ‘This is how we do it’ banging around in my head.  It’s making me want to bounce.” She saw the confused look that came over Alan and Amos, “Singer, Montell Jordan.  Really guys, just because you are old, doesn’t mean you have to act it.”