The Altonevers (42 page)

“
That was wonderful. The
way you moved so well together was so, so effortless. Seamlessly as
one,” Anna says still clapping as the duo take their
seats.

“
Thank you Carrots,” the
duo say over each other trading side glances.

“
What’re you up to
tomorrow?” Cider asks.

“
Why you wanna tag along?”
Vivian teases.

“
The lotto,” says the
flamboyant Popper smoothly. A tall lengthy man, always in a double
breasted tailored beige suit, quiet with overly groomed pretty boy
with not a hair out of place of his swept chestnut head. With
tweezed eyebrows always raised, in a state of surprise that is his
stock expression when speaking to people, that today, is obscured
behind his lavender mask for the masquerade party. Smirking between
powdered cheeks and breathing heavily from his dance floor fun with
Harley, his one and only. He has a habit of wrapping rhythm's
through his well manicured fingers onto anything within reach, as
he is now, on the table.

“
Ha, rigging the game or
taking the vault?” Asks Cider.

“
Either way,” Harley says
in her raspy toned short way of speaking. A naturally pretty faced,
though grungy looking tomboy who doesn't know the purpose of make
up or a brush. Preferring to push her chin length blue black hair
back behind her ears, though strands always fall in front of her
forever solemn gray eyes. She has a habit of nibbling on her
fingernails and is often tapping her feet to a beat even when there
is none. Carrying an ambivalent glare, and sometimes as salty sneer
as though she's perpetually peeved, even when elated, like now.
Wearing a lavender mask like her lover, and her favorite lavender
tie for the occasion, and is always in black pants suit of a
waiter.

“
Well if it's the second,
I'll take a piece,” Cider says.

“
The last time we took a
lotto we got a million gallons, at least,” Popper says
boastfully.

“
What? from the school
system?” Cider jokes.

“
Yeah right,” says Daisy
laughing.

“
Oh yeah, how'd that
happen?” Cider asks. Harley stares unblinkingly at the man she
calls her sparrow, slowly leaning closer to his nose as he
speaks.

“
Well it was back at the-”
Popper says.

“
A million?” Harley barks
two feet from Popper's prettied face.

“
Ah...What?” Popper says,
looking like his hand is in a cookie jar. Harley says nothing but
an insistent glare.

“
Oh oh sweetie no, I was
just gloating.”

“
Oh okay, then
continue.”

“
So there we were it as
snowwwch! damn it!” Harley smacks the mask and foundation from his
face, sending his nose almost to his dinner plate.

“
What was that for?” he
says rubbing his cheek that's now redder than his lightly powdered
blush. Cider laughs first, and the rest of the table joins in
stomping inebriated laughter.

“
Four hundred,” Harley
says, as she jumps from her chair, jabbing him in the ribs with a
salad fork to make him squeal like a greedy pig. Cracking up the
audience of friends, but making Anna's rib entree look a little
less enticing.

“
I didn't know you loved me
for the money,” Popper snickers sitting back in his
seat.

“
Liar. You liar, trying to
sly your way out it like he does” Harley says wagging her finger in
Ciders face.

“
Oh to be stung by your
lover. I spent it all, on other women, Hahaha” Popper laughs,
holding his abdomen and a face of pain. Harley throws a punch that
he grabs, and pulls her out of her seat, spinning her into his arms
as though they're ballroom dancing. She ducks around him, escaping
to his back getting on her tippy toes to lock him in an air tight
choke hold with her forearm pressing his Adam’s apple.

“
Tap.”

“
No.”

“
Tap, baby.”

“
Noo. Never.”

“
C’mon baby, tap, for
me.”

“
Eat it” Popper gargles
with reddening face, waving his arms around like a confused
Frankenstein.

“
Tap for me, please. C'mon,
my sparrow, tap,” Harley whispers in her lover’s ear, with no
intention of letting him out of her grip. Popper gargles inaudible
noises and throws a leg to her crotch, not to stop her, but for his
own humor.

“
Sweet dreams, lover,”
Harley says.

“
Eh ahhh,” the blood is
bluing in his face “I'll dr ea m o f yo u t on i g ht,” are his
last muttering before passing out.
They’re
always playing their own games, seeming much to Carrots like
cartoons chasing each other. Knock out, of her to him is often one
of the more obvious of them. Popper kicks his feet and flails his
arms, then with a kick and a last throat gurgling moan Harley dumps
his limp body to the ground and sits to her plate of surf and turf.
Nearly two minutes pass before Popper lifts his head from the
ground and returns to his chair glaring at his sparrow.

“
Let's go dancing. After we
finish our main course, of course,” Popper says without
looking.
Daisy is gnashing and tearing at
a succulent pink centered shell steak with her hands and teeth like
a savage, It’s juice is dripping down her face and
forearms.

“
Oh yeah that's right,” she
says.

“
What is it Daisy? my
darling,” Vivian asks.

“
We found the guy that's
been causing all the trouble,” She says while chewing her food with
her mouth open.

“
Oh Daisy, close your mouth
while you eat will you. The table manners of a wolf you have,”
Vivian says.

“
Blah blah blah. So you
don't want to know?” daisy says enticingly.

“
Your appetite for fresh
flesh is marring your manners. Who is it then, who is it Daisy?”
Vivian asks from behind her mask.

“
Some disgruntled
illusionist pickpocket turned private eye or something. He’s been
feeding the other studios with clues, and the Ribbits, like some
kind of shadow leader or something. Anyway he's over by the blue
light district.”

“
It couldn't be…” Vivian
says glaring a thousand yard stare straight ahead to sight of the
brass band strumming sleazy speakeasy sounds backed by a smoothly
struck piano. Lost in the sight of the band who’re dressed in white
or black, opposite their black or white instruments.

“
Oooooh, look at that,”
Daisy says twisting her neck over her shoulder, “he's
gorgeous...I'll be right back,” The vivacious girl drops her steak,
and licking her fingers goes to a handsomely masked mime. She drags
the lucky guy by his belt buckle past the table and up the grand
stairs to her room like a caveman drags a clubbed woman to his
cave.

“
I have to use the
bathroom,” Anna says wiping her face and leaving the
table.

“
A sweet heart,” Harley
says. as Anna turns the hall.

“
Good going guy, finally
got one worth keeping. But can she walk with us,” he
asks.

“
She does okay,” Cider
says, thinking that even though she has killed she doesn’t
necessarily have a killer’s instincts.

The hall is opulently decorated for
the night’s event. A Carnival themed masquerade party in the wealth
and grandeur of the golden age of film. A jovial celebration for
the turning of technicolor tides in their favor. Detailed by the
splendor of black, white and silver cloths draping down the walls
and hanging from the ceiling, each with the trim of the other. The
black of all colors combined, the white of no colors and the
silvers of the screen reflecting the otherwise polychrome patched
room. To Match Vivian's black evening gown, long elbow length white
gloves and almost silver platinum blonde hair. All the realm, the
theatre especially is radiating in her sight appeasing
resplendence, as she smokes a long cigarette through the mouth slit
of her peacock feathered black carnival mask.

The brass and pearl gates
open for a line of nine black cars to roll through the great lawns
minute long drive of art deco obelisks and statues of film stars
past. The guards are nearly kneeling as they bow opening the first
peacock decorated door for the recent arrivals.
She's wickedly grinning a sharp smirk under her oblivion
black bedroom eyes burning on this day. Her long milk white legs
stroll over the red carpeted floor of the long hall, passing the
paintings and sculptures. Jet black hair swaying back and forth
like a flag, leading twelve red suited Ravens with the bluish
complexion of cadaver's marching in lockstep behind her. No one
stops them, only looking as though they’re seeing a ghost, and
shying their eyes away. The small parade passes the merman fountain
in making their way intently to the peacock door of the theatre
room. The clicking of her high heels disappears to the rising sound
of the band playing to the carousing stage performers turned crooks
and criminals of all color and shade.

“
Oh! welcome back. The
party has alrea-” POP! Spreads the door keepers gray matter to the
wall like a Pollock painting. The shot can't be heard by the
Vaudevs on the other side, who're happy as fed hyenas running on
tables and swinging from the chandelier. Showing off their
vaudeville talents and trying show each other up at their carnival
crafts. A free spirited but sometimes highly competitive crowd,
though two man acts often erupt in bar brawls, sometimes killing
each other to the applause of the rest.
The girl slowly wraps her slender fingers around the door
knob, and turning it even slower. She gives a glance over her
shoulder to the twelve Ravens standing dressed in shades of reds
and death behind her. Blankly looking with the eyes of lizard
brained birds devoid of soul or sensation. Knowing only the
wrathful will of their overlord, under the command of the crimson
dressed Captain of the Ravens, the ravenous Rebecca, the
Raveness.

“
Aah. It’s so good to be
home,” Rebecca says throwing the door open. Letting the boisterous
sound out to fill her ears for a second before an abrupt silence
spreads like a wave through the entirety of the expansive theatre.
Leaving only the sound of the squeaking chandelier as it sways, and
the piano player trailing his fingers off the keys.

“
What is all this about?”
Vivian asks.

“
I don't know,” Cider
answers. They’re unable to see from their table to the opposite
side of the room. The muted crowd is aghast, most holding their
hands over their open mouths. Opening a path, holding their hats to
their chests while bowing their heads as she and her unkindness
pass through them.

“
I don't see anything, what
is it?” says Harley on her tip toes.
The
bullet holed head of the soul ravishing Rebecca rises with each
step up the stairs to the center stage. Until she is above the
crowd, standing prominently on the stage with the black and white
clad band and red suited Ravens. Dead middle of the multi-tiered
rotunda theatre and in plain view to all.

“
Rebecca, my dove. It is
you! Wherever have you been? and for so long?” Vivian shouts in
utter glee to see her only daughter. The Baroness stands to her
feet, unmasking herself to a collective gasp. Showing all who can
see, her blemished face for the first time in months, with vividity
fading in spots, and covered in small speckles and blotches of
lividity wrinkled skin and crow’s feet reaching out from baggy
eyes. The repulsed reaction of the crowd, her own kind, cuts
through the heart of the Baroness, nearly bringing her to
tears.

“
You look magnificent Viv,”
Cider says.

“
Thank you” she sniffles,
giving him a warming smile.

“
You look absolutely
ravaged by age mother,” says the shark eyed girl as a snidely as a
teenager would. Rebecca’s eyes are the black of her mother’s gown,
her skin as pale as her white gloves, and her crimson dress is the
is reddest thing in the room marveled by her mother’s grace. Vivian
about to answer, then remembers what her daughter could be here
for, casts a scared look to Cider. Who already has a hand in his
coat on the handle of his loaded colt.

“
Sit down will you. Have a
drink or a bite to eat,” Vivian says to the Raveness.

“
I'm not here for chit chat
or catching up with you, you who have forsaken me, and what I
desire” Rebecca says.

“
Then what are you here for
dear? and why are you and all your wretched looking rouge friends
so well armed?” the Baroness asks about the banana clipped m66
assault rifles of her and each of the twelve man undead death squad
at her command. She already knows and is about to spit at the
thought of it, then winking to Cider with a nod.

“
Oh. These aren’t my
friends. Darling,” Rebecca scowls, “they die at my every whim and
will.”

“
And to whose will do you
die for?” Vivian asks.

“
The one who sent me to
collect this idiot, who doesn’t listen when he’s told,” Rebecca
says frustrated and leering right at Cider.

“
Hey! I've been working
every day,” he says.

“
Yeah I seen it all over
the Internews, so did Alister, he's furious. He wants to see you,”
Rebecca says then stressing, “immediately.”