Part 3 - Best laid schemes


Chapter 29 - The Last Straw

Richard takes a seat in the plush leather of the plane and settles back. He sighs as the flight attendant leans down towards him and places a clinking glass of chilled water on the table. He lifts his hat, from where it shields his tired eyes from the sun as it streams through the window. He smiles at her. She returns the favour. "Anything I can get you, Sir?"

"You don't happen to have a few hundred million dollars on you, perhaps?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

She placates, "Nuts? Perhaps?"

He shakes his head.

"A paper?"

He politely declines.

"Any other kind of drink?" She unbuttons her wrist-cuff.

"Perhaps, later," he smiles, if only to send her on her way. There is so much to think about.

"Of course, just press the button once we are in flight," she says. He watches her wiggle away to her safety seat before he raises the glass to his forehead, rolling it back and forth.

Wales. He hates Wales. He had got as close as he could bear in the years spent in Bristol all that time ago, perhaps that was why he loathed it so much. He remembered the feudal countryside of the place like a bad hangover.

A weight lands in the seat beside him. He turns.

"What?" says Hettie, "You really think I was going to let you balls this up too?"

"You? Wales? Really?"

"Happiest Place on Earth."

"Isn't that Disneyland?"

Hettie looks at him through her fringe as if he has just claimed the earth was made of candy floss and kitten poop. "No," she smiles with a snap before deadpanning him like a pro, "No, that would be Off Strip Vegas with a thick O-neg stripper on one arm and a bucket of chips in the other. Oi, Bar-snacks Barbie!" she calls for the flight-attendant. The attendant comes over obediently.

"Whisky, Oban, double, no ice," snaps Hettie.

"You don't need to come, Hettie," Richard sighs, he really can take only so much of the potty-mouthed little munchkin. "I'm perfectly capable of..."

Hettie laughs like a car backfiring.

"Of what? Losing all of our money. Chickening out of any responsibility? Shitting up every opportunity we gave you and somewhere in the middle leaving me to clean up your mess?"

"If you're referring to New York again, " Richard groans. "Want to get something off your flat chest, my dear?"

"Of course I'm referring to New York, dunce knuckles. In the midst of our Havana negotiations and Snow rang my bell about a little cleanup - YOUR little cleanup! That shit took years to smooth over. All because you couldn't keep a lead on your assignment."

"Havana played a nice profit, if I recall, which it wouldn't have if you had stayed. Fidel wasn't too keen on your lip."

"Men with beards give me the screaming heebies. Anyway, the point is that she was your scramble to fry. She was your responsibility and you lost her. You only managed to convince me to draw straws because I was gazeboed on Havana Club with cabana boy special. Lucky for all involved you let me keep the straw. Only bloody help you were was that little toy you gave me. "

"If I recall, you insisted, and you were supposed to bring that 'little toy' back in a matter of days."

The plane picks up speed and begins to pull away from the runway.

"Yeah, well. None of us, not even Snow, knew what that cuckoo was capable of," she says, cracking out her cigarettes and starting on the chain of fifty Rothman which would carry her over the Atlantic.


New York.

Tuesday, April 12th, 1960


The big jet lumbered towards the terminal. Terrence and Mildred, sitting beside each other, nursing matching bags of foil-covered peanuts and flat G&Ts, were dressed in their First Class best; near matching stiff tweed. Terrence's outfit was breasted and cut. Mildred was tailored and trim. Despite the eight hour flight, which both had endured, not a hair was out of place on Mildred's head and Terrence's moustache was straight. He barely ruffled it at all when a spatter of blood caught his glasses. He slipped his thumb to the glass and wiped it away, naturally reluctant to interfere as the flight stewardess crashed to the floor between the empty seats opposite.

The other passengers seated in First Class, all well dressed young men finishing up their morning coffees and cordials, raised their heads a little at the disturbance. Terrence met the curious gaze of the fellow nearest to them across the aisle. He shrugged, seeming to say 'Kids'. The man furrowed his brow, shook his head and went back to his newspaper.

Mildred, openly stared, as their well dressed 'charge' tore into the neck of the offending stewardess. She gripped for Terrence's arm and whispered, "Dear, should she perhaps -?" Terrence shushed her.

It would be fine. There wasn't even a drop of blood on the girl's pinafore.

The prim little outfit, which the stewardess was sporting, was a different story. The thin jacket had torn open. The woman's blood was seeping into her cleavage in a gush. Her white gloved fingers uncurled from the base of the leather seat, which she had been gripping, in a vain attempt to right herself. Her pillbox hat pressed against the sidewall was in a bit of a tatter and the heel of her shoe had split in the fall.

The appetites of the Old Ones were well known, but Hettie was rather infamous all on her own. She knew that Mildred thought it was quite uncouth for a lady of her stature, but that amused Hettie all the more. The stewardess gurgled her last as Hettie unpinned the tiny tin wings the woman had tried to placate her with. With a happy click of her tongue, the pin went through the stewardess's eye. All this because the young stewardess wouldn't allow Hettie her cigarettes?

"Such a waste," Mildred tutted to Terrence under her breath.

Hettie raised her head above the leather seat, and delivered her 'parents' a disparaging and threatening glare before dropping the dead trolly-dolly, finally sated.

Terrence, who was altogether less fussed than Mildred, nodded to their men in the First Class cabin with them, who were readying themselves. They would ensure the disappearance of the body, but they had to do it quickly.

Still straddling the dead girl, Hettie retrieved her cigarette case and flipped her zippo into light. She slipped the Rothman between her lips and inhaled deeply, relieving the cigarette of at least a third of its tobacco in an ashy column, before leaning in to blow smoke into the face of her victim.

She sighed, "Fuck yeah," and took a few more quick drags. Standing, and licking her lips clean of any last evidence, she admired her work. Terrence and Mildred averted their eyes when she turned to them. "Come on, minions, we've work to do."

Early morning in the Big Apple was sight to behold, and behold it Hettie did. She hung out of the window of their hired limousine, well on her way through her fourth Rothman. Taxi horns, pigeons, people, squalor, steam and splendour passed her by in a messy whir. The full-moon from the night before was still faintly visible in the dawn light as the cold sun appeared to knock it from the sky.

"Seriously, what the fuck are all these assholes doing up this early?"

Neither Terrence nor Mildred answered her. Good.

The limousine turned onto Fifth Avenue as Hettie flicked the butt of her smoke towards Central Park. It shattered into sparks on the hoof of a sleepy horse that clopped along beside, drawing an empty carriage behind it, damp in the morning dew.

"Americans and their nostalgia. Pah!" Hettie grimaced, as the architectural wank-off of the the Guggenheim Museum spiralled into view. Suffice to say, Hettie was not a fan of so-called 'modern' architecture.

"Fucking finally already," she spat, and did not wait for the limo to come to a stop before she opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk with a skip. The drizzle and puddles splashed onto her patent red shoes as several other town cars arrived behind them bearing the members of their team. The only other vehicle stopped at the museum entrance was a single squad car. An officer, a vampire, stepping out to greet them. Another was stationed at the closed entry, if possible he was more pale than he should be for a member of the undead.

Approaching Hettie, the officer bowed. She rolled her eyes. Undeterred, the New York vampire shook Terrence's hand. "This is a little overt, don't you think?" he drawled.

"Oi!" Hettie kicked the officer in his blue-clad shin, with an exasperated huff. "You'll be speaking with me, Dickwad!" The man turned red in the face as Hettie continued, "You want this shit storm cleaned up before nine or not?"

"Eh... yeah... I don't think you quite got the message on this one your uh ...Majesty?"

"I got the message that New York needs a swift kick in the ass. Fuck-off Teddy boy. I know who's in there. You think we haven't been keeping tracks on her?" Hettie spat. "You just count your little white socks that it's me who's here to deal with what you fucktards couldn't. Snow would have flayed you alive. I may yet. This shit ruined my party. Werewolves in Havana don't come easy you know. We had politicos left in the lurch because your lot couldn't pep up."

Terrence finally balled up and interjected awkwardly, his posh accent contrasting sharply with Hettie's fuming, "Yes, well. You see, we will be requiring the use of your networks. This is an intervention. Sorry, chap."

Mildred held up one candy apple red manicured talon to address the gruff New York vampire, "And if you would be so kind to arrange for breakfast dear? Not all of us have eaten."

"Ma'am, I've seen some scenes go down in my day, but what's in there? May turn you off."

Hettie struck up another Rothman with a cheshire grin. With smoke oozing between her teeth, she winked. "Lead the way, Toots"

The officer's jaw clenched. He bit his tongue and gave a nod to the vampire on guard who unlocked the heavy chain barring the door. He turned to lead them through the threshold. "This way, Ma'am."

The door opened silently.

Hettie was hit with the smell first. Acrid and heavy, it cut under the smoke of her burning cigarette and put her right off the thing. With one last drag Hettie admired the view of the carnage before her. It looked rather artistic, on first impression.

The building was polished. It still had the dust of construction behind its ears. The interior walls of the spiral walkway circling up from the lobby floors, should have been white. Even from six stories up blood could be seen, trailing down like paint, glooping from the spiral sidewalls in spurts and splatters against the stark white plaster. At the very top, where the nautilus abutted the column, a tux sleeved arm hung, impaled by the fabric on a steak knife. The body, well, Hettie was pretty sure the arm belonged to the mass of pulpy mess in the middle of the broken buffet table below it.

Hettie dropped the butt of her cigarette and ground it out as the clean-up team filed in to flank her. They stood behind her, a silent army. Dumbstruck, they too stopped to take in the impressively hellish display.

The lobby floor was littered with crushed crudité, broken champagne glasses, overturned tables, smeared cream tarts and orphaned limbs askew. Assessing quickly, Hettie counted the bits of what seemed to be well over 50 once well attired people. That was what she could see! Eyeing the creviced gangways, as they spiralled upwards, she wondered how many more prizes the nautilus swirls contained. Ten rabid starved vampires locked in a cocktail party could not do this much damage! Keeping all the prey contained inside would have been the main problem, not to mention the strength required to tear them all apart like that. All this was from one scrawny ginger? The bitch was still here, Hettie was certain of it!

"Snow and his bloody pets," Hettie huffed.

She gave a nod of her head to the men behind her, the scared quimms who had watched the rest go first. "Get up there! Take her down!"

Caught between the wrath of an Old One and whatever lay above, many of them did not know where to turn. Hettie hissed. Suitably told, half flanked left, searching the scene and the other right to check the wings, silent as only they could be.

Terrence and Mildred on the other hand, remained standing near the exit.

Mildred coughed politely, "Do you need us, dear? Perhaps we'd better..." Her whisper wilted with an eyeroll from Hettie. Staring across the floor, daintily as she could, Mildred forged the way around sticky heel prints, indistinguishable lumps of meat, and congealed puddles of blood.

Officer Teddy and his speechless partner followed the confident Old One as she approached the base of the ramp. Blood trails like grooved sled tracks paved the way up, up and up.

As they climbed higher a horrible hum suddenly began to echo from the walls, occasionally punctuated by a cacophonous laugh, "humm, hum, hummm...haa...ha-ha...laaa laa la la...babe..." It turned into a walloping sing-song across the upper cavern. "If I get scaaaaared, you're aa-always aroooound!"

Mildred put her hands over her ears, "What in the name of the devil is that?"

"Well shit-on-a-stick," hissed Hettie. "So much for sneaking up panther style. She knows we're here. Has anyone seen that ghost of hers, the girlfriend? We were convinced they were good enough to keep her in check?" she asked Officer Ted who shook his head.

"She arrived three days ago. We clocked the ghost day one, not seen her since. Nothing to report until - "

"Who?" Terrance asked, wild-eyed, his moustache was now distinctly ruffled.

"Never mind," said Hettie and snapped her fingers. Several of the crew peeled away from their sweep to join the others. Following the spiral ramp up, they ascended.

"I got you to hold my ha-aa-and!" their insane quarry sang with surprising depth.

Along the way it became evident to Hettie that there was more to this display than just a bloodbath.

"I got you to uuuunderstand! Doo-doo-doo..." squeaked the voice with a laugh. Every word sounded horribly placed, laced with threat. Her notes seemed to be positioned as systematically, intentional in appearance, as the human body parts that lay parcelled out amongst the artworks. "I got you to walk with me! Doo-doo-doo..."

Hettie admired a glistening trachea, which hung off a Kandinsky mobile like a comical scarf, dripping fluids onto the floor below. One of her crew slipped in the spoils behind them.

"Careful, Fuckfangs!" she snarled.

"I got you to talk with me! Doo-doo-doo..." There was a clash and a clatter from above.

The crowd of armed vampires hesitated.

"Keep going!" Hettie ordered, stopping only briefly in order to contemplate a cloud of smudged, red handprints that framed the Chagall. "It's almost impressive," she sighed, pointing it out to Terrance who passed alongside. "Really, the effort it must have taken to do that. I preferred the spleen stuck to the Max Ernst with a cocktail swivel. That was quite artful."

"I got you to kiss goodnight! Doo-doo-doo..."

The trill drew the attention of both Hettie and her 'carers' to the real prize. It was a true shining work of a brilliant madness. A sculpture in obscurance was placed halfway to the apex. It was a fat marble spire, five feet in length but its marble protrusion was now unnaturally streaked, darkened with blood and offal where it protruded like a grotesque stalagmite through a slumped stomach.

"Oh, the fuck, no!" Even Hettie's normally flourished speech was stunted as she stared at it. For once, silenced.

Terrence's moustache was now a disaster zone. "Holy Hell!" he muttered. His eyes followed the skewer upwards to its pinnacle, upon which the head of the body had been perched, slackjawed, eyes rolled back.

Mildred slipped in a pool of blood and broke a nail, her tweed skirt ripped. "Shit!" she swore, finally breaking her prim exterior.

"I got you to hold me tight.

I got you, I won't let go! Doo-doo-doo...

I got you to lo-oo-ove me sooo. Doo-doo-doo... Doo-doo-doo... Doo-doo-doo..."

Finally, Hettie approached the skewered body. It was a Cardinal! Of all things! She went and killed a freaking red hat? This was going to be a bitch to keep under wraps!

Officer Ted clearly recognised him, "Cardinal Biondi," he said, holding back the urge to vomit. "He was one of the conclave delegates in Rome two years ago. Big fuss."

"You're catholic?"
"Was."

Hettie read the splattered label on the wall behind, "'Bird in Space'. Bloody hell. Abstract expressionism can suck my balls, I don't care what Regus says, but this wackjob is going down. I'm not going to war with the fracking dogmatics again. Lads?"

Teddy's officer held back, mouth agape like a stuck fish while the rest of the men surged past. Hettie lingered behind, trying to fathom the handiwork it must have taken to get the rather blunt sculpture all the way through. Finally realising she was not alone she smiled at the terrified officer. "Peaches, why don't you go back down to the ladies? Your pansy footing is distracting enough."

Instantly shamed, the vampire snapped shut his jaw. Hettie started to follow her crew, but his tentative apology caught her attention. "I'm sorry miss. It's just... I'm... a painter."

With a click of her heel, she swivelled to look up at him. "So you know your way around this desiccated turd-circus?"

Shyly, he nodded.

"Grand! You can sort the specialists. Hop hop!" As Hettie wound her way up the rest of the building the mess began to decline. Their perpetrator had clearly started to run low on body parts. They reached the fourth level to find her troops crowding into the gallery annex as stealthily as they could. Hettie sighed and stomped through, pushing and ducking under elbows and knees.

There she was.

Snow's fucking half-demon flutterby; Richard's awol Bonk-buddy; Regus' Hot little 'Harbinger of the Apocalypse': Belinda-bloody-Weaver.

And she hadn't run dry of toys. She still had one corpse, headless, pressed close. She was dancing, spinning and sliding with him in a waltz, bare-foot between the artwork in a drunken daze. Her heels hung from the open jaw of another dead patron by the door. The dead fella she was swirling around with looked better off than she did. She wore a dress that may have been once purple and gold but the corseted satin of her gown was so horribly stained, entirely dark with blood, that the original design was hard to make out except when she swooped around sculptures, kicking the fabric to betray the lining beneath. Her hair was askew. Her make-up was smeared, black rivers of mascara striped her cheeks. Her neck and chin were smeared scarlet with blood, as were her arms, her fingers, they were sticky with it, and had collected stray hairs and fabric from the many dead her like hideous decoupage. "I got you babe, I got you babe, I got you babe, I got you babe, I got you babe..." she trailed off into humming, eyes closed.

The team that Hettie had pulled from Havana, all top of the line in vampire 'diplomats', were stopped in their tracks, watching the slowly sweeping woman. The damned creature was too far gone to have even noticed them. The trill in her tone had not been threatening, nor cautionary, nor teasing. It was simply a symptom of some peculiar insanity. Tuneful, yes, and not a song Hettie had ever heard, or wanted to hear again; but it was, at least, going to work in their advantage.

"Opportunity knocks boys," Hettie decreed. "Take her down."

A few of the team stepped forward stealthily, closing in. The corpse and vampire sauntered away from them in a slow circle. A few more joined them, edging closer, as bravely as they could. Trying not to be noticed. This seemed a successful tactic, until a champagne flute shattered under someone's boot. The sharp crunch of glass echoed around the Annex.

Belinda froze.

Her blood-smeared back bristled. The first few men leapt forward, attempting to nab her before she could take action or defend herself. She made no move to do either. She dropped the corpse to the floor with a thick thump. The attacking vampires drove forward with a war-cry, but were stopped. Suddenly, it seemed, crashing into a great, invisible wall.

Hettie's stepped out of the way, her upper lip twitching with surprise, as all three were propelled backwards in opposite directions. As there were no ghosts to be seen amongst the wreckage Hettie assumed such tricks were of Belinda's making. She searched for her in the crowd, finding her attention was turned focused upon pinning one of the vamps to the far wall.

Terrence's eyebrows were nearly to the atrium ceiling. He bent towards Hettie. "I dare say - a poltergeist possession? Been ages," he said.

"Something like that," Hettie said. She turned her team before they could lose their nerve, "Quick-quick, nimrods. She can't block all of you!"

They act upon the barked order without hesitation. The group charged, breaking into a circle to flank the distracted lunatic. One or two were repelled when she caught wind of their pincer movement, but it clearly wasn't strategic or even concentrated. The circle tightened, only when Belinda finally seemed to run out of steam.

The group seized the opportunity without hesitation, throwing themselves upon her in a violent scrum. Ganging in, amongst the melee of screeches, swearing, hisses and kicks, someone's quick thinking made it easier upon the rest by grasping for a weighty Henri Moore and knocking the woman upside of the head. Suddenly, silently, and to the relief of all involved, Belinda dropped limply into their capture.

"See? Child's play," said Hettie. She caught the attention of Officer Ted with a wolf-whistle, "Get with the program, Skip. You're gonna book her."

"I beg your-fucking pardon?" he said, choking on his impertinence as Hettie caught his groin with the sharp end of her elbow. "I mean, of course, Ma'am."

"Alrighty, Bird brains. You get her shoes."

"Shoes?"

Hettie snarled in response, "Yeah shoes. Footwear? Goes on her darling dear feet. We're taking all the pieces and that includes her shoes. Now - you." The vampire at the receiving end of her steely gaze nodded that he was listening. "I expect to see this piss-party tucked and polished by oh-nine-hundred, got it?"

"But -"

"Don't you go back chatting me, mate! Obviously we can't torch the place so we need it clean. And I mean ship-shape. Call whoever you have to - use petty cash. My crew, we'll deal with the leftovers."

Hettie looked pointedly at the fallen carcass dropped by the blonde. "Use the charity clink's registration list. I want addresses. Telephone numbers. Fuck-bunny secretaries. The works. Can you do that?"

"Yes M'am."

"Great. Fucking fantastic. Okay peeps. Let's get this bitch booked. Keep it quiet. And someone get me a slushy! Two straws."

Like a shot, a clutch of her troops began to clear the mess, a few ran off for supplies, one delivered Hettie's slushie. Eventually two brawny vamps were dispatched to 'deal with' Belinda. They lifted her up on their shoulders, clearly surprised at how light she was, given the chaos she had caused. They strung her between them, dragged her towards the gangway, and then down, limp footed, toes and hem trailing lines through the bloodied footprints. After breathing a heavy sigh of relief, the rest of the team escorted alongside, with Mildred and Terrence eagerly leaving ahead.

They had barely reached ten steps past the smeared and spiked Cardinal when Belinda came too. With a sudden whip of her head upright, alert, she launched into a renewed tasmanian she-devil blur of a second she tore her arm free from the vamp to her left. A painful yelp broke from him as his arm came free from its socket. With a swift nab she swiped back her shoes from the other vampire, breaking his nose flat against his face in the process. The second she had the heels clamped between her blood smeared teeth, the two vampires were flung away like rag dolls with her spare hands.

It all happened so fast that the crowd barely noticed the chaos until Belinda broke into a barefoot run towards Terrence and Mildred, the reanimated and bloodied vampire giggled a maniacal peel as she passed them. Mildred backed aside with a distasteful expression and no lack of haste, but Terrence, playing the hero tried to stop the charge. Maybe would have been successful? He still 'had it' afterall, but his shock of meeting a gaze of pure red fire fury was enough to give Ms. Weaver an in. She bowled into him and tumbled clear. Terrence gasped and lay still. One of Belinda's pumps protruded from the chest of his tweed suit like a Salvador Dali afterthought.

"Terrence? Terrence!" Mildred shrieked.

Terrence's face was lacing into fiery cracks as Belinda dove towards the Cardinal. She was still clutching one of her pumps while plunging her hand into the slime and gore. Hettie looked on with both horror, admiration and more than a little curiosity. What was the mad cow up to?

Terrence exploded into ash.

"You BITCH!" Mildred, in an anguished cry, shouted at Belinda who turned, answered with a lop-sided grin, and flung her remaining shoe through the air. The broken heel perforated Mildred's chest like a silken dart and she fell immediately. The troops around them stared in useless amazement.

"FUCK THIS!" Hettie strode towards Belinda as she left what was remaining of the Cardinal in peace. All three feet ten inches of her stood down Belinda while Hettie calmly sucked on the remaining blue ice of the slushy she had ordered.

It was a stand off.

High Noon at the Guggenheim.

"Do you know how bloody difficult it is to find good help?" said Hettie.

"Help?" Belinda croaked darkly.

Hettie looked at the dusty piles of tweed that has been her associates. "Regrettably they were," Hettie continued, "Oh well, not any more." She lifted the straw from the slushy to her lips. During the insanity Hettie had retrieved the contents of Richard's reed from the inner pocket of her pinafore, the only assistance the bastard had offered, she thought. She had inserted one of Dicky's clever darts into the slushy straw.

"No," said Belinda, as Hettie pursed her lips around the straw and lunged forward to blow. A small dart flew through the air with a pop. "I mean, I need your -"

But the sentence hung there. Belinda-fucking-Weaver slumped to the ground.


A/N: This Chapter represents the hard work and effort of Saemay & myself over the last month. We're really proud of it so we hope you like it too. Please leave a review. Welcome to Part 3.