Seer (30 page)

To say I was a lousy spy would be an understatement.

“Solange.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” she repeated.

Too late, my brain began to work. “
I could say the same about you.” I gestured. “What are you doing to them?”

“I think you know the answer to that.” She said it coldly.

“You’re…” I paused, licking my lips. My heart was pounding out of my chest. “You’re bleeding them. For their blood.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You- you- you drink it.”

“Yes.”

“The dreams weren’t metaphors,” I said.

“No.”

I looked around, somewhat frantically. Solange watched me dispassionately. How could she be so calm? I was frightened out of my mind.

“We-” I choked just trying to get the words out, fighting back blind panic.
“We can go talk about it.”

“I don’t think so,” she replied.
Then she screamed, “You shouldn’t be here!”

I couldn’t help it. My control broke. I ran.

She cut me off before I reached the elevator, coming to a stop in front of me, her arms folded in front of her.

Her fangs were showing. I stared.

“Solange?” I whispered. “We can talk about it. I won’t tell anyone. You know you can trust me. I would never do anything to hurt you. Surely you know that.”

“Trust you? I can trust you?” Her voice rose. “I think we have evidence I can’t.”

“Don’t take that tone with me!” I said. “You should have told me.” I waved. “I do not believe you get to take the moral high ground here. Look what you’re doing to these people!” I put my hand on my hip and cocked my head. “Now get out of my way. I am going to go home and think about this. Then tonight we are going to discuss it like calm, rational adults.”

She turned cold again. “It’s too late for that, Sidney,” she said. She advanced on me, and I backed up a half step.

“It’s not too late for anything,” I replied. “You love me. I know you do. You don’t want to hurt me.”

“You haven’t given me a choice, Sidney. Have you?” I’d never heard her sound so cold. “You.” She took a step closer. “Ruined.” Another step. “Everything!” The last word was screamed again.

In panic, I ran again, directly away from her. I don’t know where I thought I was going, but it didn’t matter. I got three steps before her hand was in my hair. I made three more steps before we came to a stop, my head yanked savagely, my back arched. I began to lose my feet, but Solange grabbed my arm with her other hand and kept me from falling.

“No!” I screamed. “You don’t want to do this. Solange! You don’t want to do this!”

She didn’t reply. Instead, her hand still in my hair, she began marching me down the walkway. I struggled with her, trying to pull away, but not once did I try to hurt her. I’d never hurt anyone in my life, and I wasn’t going to start with her.

Oh, I couldn’t have, anyway.

“Solange! Stop this! We can both calm down and discuss this.”

She was strong, and her hand on my arm was unyielding. I continued to struggle, but she half pushed, half dragged me down the hall.

“No!” I screamed. “No! Stop. Solange, stop! Don’t do this!”

She had to release my hair to open the door. When she did, I tried yanking my arm free, but it did me no good. She shoved me into the next room, the room from my dreams. Aubree was waiting with two other people.

“Oh Sidney,” she said sadly.

“Aubree!” I screamed. “Tell her not to do this. We can discuss it. I won’t tell a soul. Tell her to stop!”

The metal table was there, right in the middle of the room. Solange dragged me to it. I began to keen loudly, falling into a full panic, slipping out a, “No, please, Solange, no!” here and there.

She turned me to her. “Look into my eyes.”

I clamped my eyes shut.

“No!” I screamed. “Let me go! Please let me go.” My words dissolved into more keening.

Solange shook me. “Look into my eyes!” she hissed.

I kept my eyes clamped shut.

Then Aubree was beside me. “Sidney,” she said in a soft voice. “It’s easier this way. Otherwise we can hold you down. We’ve done it before. Solange will take away the fear. It’s easier.”

“Don’t do this don’t do this don’t do this.”

“Maybe she’ll calm down, Sidney. They last a long time, if we want them to. Some have been here for years. Tell her you’re sorry. Beg her to forgive you. Then open your eyes and stare into hers. It’s for the best.”

“Please don’t do this,” I whimpered.

No one said a thing. They waited for me.

“Solange,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Please, please forgive me.”

“Open your eyes, Sidney,” Aubree said. “Stare into hers.”

I obeyed.

If you do a web search for “vacuum packed models” or “Iris van
Herpen”, you will find images that formed the original idea for this novel. Seer began with just these images — of women packed between two sheets of plastic. I always knew there was a story waiting amongst those images.

I vaguely recall a few vampire shows or movies with similar scenes to
Solange’s warehouse of bodies, but I don’t remember where I saw them. And so, these ideas were not mine, but simply borrowed.

As for the card game that gets played by Sidney and her friends… Card games such as these tend to be taught amongst families and groups of friends. Growing up, my parents played bridge with their friends, but the adults in my extended family were avid 500 players. I learned to play at a young age.

The rules for 500 seem to vary somewhat dramatically. While writing Seer, I did a bit of web searching. There’s a write-up on Wikipedia, for instance, although the rules there seemed quite odd to me. And so I am left believing there are a great many variations. I am going to describe the game as my family played and then discuss some of the variations I’ve seen.

To play 500, you start with a normal deck of cards. You remove the twos and threes and you insert a joker. This leaves you with 45 cards. As the game is played with 4 people (most commonly anyway), this leaves 10 cards in a hand and 5 “in the middle”. Some call it the kitty, a small pile of cards dealt to the center of the table, face down. My family also calls it the blind, which is the term I tend to use automatically.

Every other card game I have played, you deal one card at a time. 500
is different. You deal three cards to each person and put three in the middle. You then deal four to each and add two more to the middle. Then three more to each. That gives each person 10 and 5 in the middle.

I don’t know why you deal this way. I think the end result is somewhat less random hands (in spite of shuffling), which makes for better play. There may be some other historical reason for this.

Some people deal 3-2-3-2 instead. What matters is 10 to each and 5 in the middle (face down).

Wikipedia describes bidding rules quite different from how I learned. I’ll explain how my family played.

Beginning with the person to the dealers left, that person can make a bid. Bidding goes around exactly once, ending with the dealer. Unlike bridge, you do not go around until there are three passes.

When it is your turn to bid, you may pass or bid. If you bid, you must bid a hand that scores higher than the previous bid. (See scoring below.) For instance, if I were playing with Sidney, Solange, and Aubree, and I were partnered with Aubree, the bidding could go like this:

Sidney: six clubs

Robin: indicate diamonds (indicate is a six bid and diamonds score higher than clubs)

Solange: eight spades

Aubree: eight diamonds

My family played a few rules. First, you could bid six, but if the best bid was six, we didn’t play it. We tossed in the hand and the dealer dealt a new hand. And we didn’t say “indicate” or “inkle”.

As an adult, I began playing with people who bid with a distinction between six and “indicate”. The first time I heard it, I said, “What?” The same group also sometimes said “inkle”, which was even stranger to me. An indicate is a six bid, but that particular group said, “Indicate means you have high cards in that suit; six means you have a lot.” So for instance, if I indicate clubs, it means I have a few clubs plus at least one of the joker or black jacks.

Let us use the example earlier. Aubree won the bid with eight diamonds. She collects the five cards from the middle, adds them to her hand,
then discards five cards. A smart player, after discarding, will count the five she is discarding and then the ten in her hand. It is very easy to discard four or six. Your opponents will happily declare you as “set” for doing so.

Aubree then leads a card from her hand. She is free to lead whatever she wants. Sidney, Robin and Solange must then play in turn, and if you are able, you must follow suit (play the same suit).

So assume Aubree leads the joker. Diamonds are trump, so the rest of us would play our lowest diamonds. Because Aubree played the highest card, she collects the “trick”, placing them face down in front of her in a small stack and leads again. Let us say she plays a small diamond. In my turn, I play the jack of diamonds, which is the next highest trump, and I have taken the trick.

Aubree still collects the cards, stacking them in front of her in a crisscross fashion so everyone can clearly see we have now taken two tricks. But it is my turn to lead.

If between Aubree and me we take eight tricks in this fashion, then we have won the hand, and we get our 280 points for winning an eight diamond bid. Solange and Sidney get 10 points for each trick they take.

However, if they get three, and we only get seven, we are “set”. We lose 280 points, and they get 30 for their three tricks.

Let’s say that I lead a small club. Aubree doesn’t have any (she discarded them when she discarded five at the beginning). Aubree is free to play any card she wants from her hand, so she can play the four of diamonds. Because diamonds are trump, she takes the trick. However, if she had a club, she would have had to play it.

This rule is the most confusing for new players. The order of trump is joker, jack of trump, jack of colors, then ace down to four.

For instance, if clubs are trump, then the order is Joker, Jack of Clubs, Jack of Spades, Ace, King, Queen,
Ten et cetera of clubs.

The two jacks are called bowers. The jack of trump is the right
bower, the jack of color is the left bower. So in the clubs example, the jack of clubs is the right bower, the jack of spades is the left bower.

Everyone I play with sorts their hand by suit and number within suit. Beginners tend to forget to move the left bower over with the rest of the trump, and this leads to misplay.

Beginners get confused about scoring. I’ve been playing most of my life, so I think it’s easy. We don’t play six bids, so let’s start with seven.

7 spades: 140

7 clubs: 160

7 diamonds: 180

7 hearts: 200

7 no trump: 220

After that, add 100. So 8 diamonds is 280. 9 diamonds is 380. 10 diamonds is 480. Easy. All you have to remember is spades, clubs, diamonds,
hearts.

Nulla is a variation that a lot of people seem to dislike. Normally, the idea is to take as many tricks (between you and your partner) that you can. However, in nulla, you want to take no tricks. If you take a single trick, you are set.

So let us say it is the next hand. I have a lousy hand (lots of low cards and not many high cards). I bid
nulla, and no one decides to outbid me.

I take the middle, discard five, and Aubree quietly folds her hand and sets it on the table. She’s not playing this hand.

I lead a card. You can bet I’ll lead a four or five. Solange and Sidney then play as well. After that, they try to force me to take a trick. They’ll fail, of course; I’m just that good. (smile)

The idea of
nulla is that even if you get a bad hand, you can do something with it. It dramatically reduces the number of unplayable hands you are dealt. I also find nulla particularly challenging to play, which appeals to me.

On the other hand, watching your partner play while you sit
there, can be boring. I find it to be a good time to stretch my legs, use the bathroom, or go in search of more tiramisu.

There are two more variations to
nulla. Open nulla is just like nulla, but after I have played my first card, I lay my cards down on the table so everyone can see. This is much more challenging, as my opponents can readily see where I can be set and where I can’t.

For instance, let’s say that I have a lot of little clubs but my smallest diamond is the six. If Solange has the five and Sidney has the four, they can readily set me. However, if Aubree had one and folded it down
, then it’s a little harder — and my opponents don’t know this unless they cheat (table talk).

Perhaps Solange has the five and a lot of high clubs. She could elect to lead lots of clubs, which is safe because they aren’t going to set me in clubs, but I have to follow (and not discard my six of diamonds). But that gives Sidney a chance to throw away her diamonds, and when Solange finally decides to lead the five, Sidney might be out, and then I am set with my six.

Double nulla is when both partners play. Typically this happens because I bid nulla and Aubree has a nulla hand herself. She bids double nulla. She then takes the five from the middle and discards five. I get her discard, add them to my hand, and then discard five. She then leads and we both play.

In double
nulla, when you discard, you have to do what you can to make yourself safe, but if you give your partner four aces and the joker, she is not going to be happy with you.

For scoring purposes,
nulla is 250, open is 350 and double is 450. This puts the bid between eight spades and eight clubs, which is awkward. Some people play it that way — nulla beats eight spades. Others say in spite of the score, nulla is between seven and eight, so while the score is 250, eight spades outbids nulla.