Paranormal Erotic Romance Box Set (35 page)

“Lovely,” I said and turned back toward Nellie.

She and Tommy were in a standoff.

“What is your name?” Nellie said.

“Ma’am?”

“Your name, what is it?”

“It’s right here, ma’am,” Tommy said and pointed at his
name tag.

“Look at that coward,” I said and cocked my head toward
Mr. Conway who watched Nellie from behind the column.

“Look, Tommy,” Nellie said, “I just want to get to our
suite. Mr. Therrault has a cold.”

“Yeah, some cold,” May Gaspar said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tommy said. “If you just present a deposit,
I’ll have you on your way.”

“Deposit,” Nellie said as she dug through my purse. “Fine,
a fucking deposit. How much?”

“One hundred dollars,” Tommy said. “Cash.”

“Excuse me?” Nellie said as she looked up from my purse.
“One hundred dollars? You have some fucking nerve. I wouldn’t give you ten
dollars for this piece of shit place!”

The other two reservation clerks standing next to Tommy
took a few steps back and left Tommy on his own.

“Oh, shit,” Céline said, “Ginormica is going to get them
thrown out.”

“Here comes Conway!” Anthony said.

Mr. Conway jumped from behind the column where he hid and
trotted toward Nellie.

“What is going on?” Mr. Conway said as he approached.

“Sir,” Tommy said, “we’re having an issue with the
deposit.”

“Yes, sir,” Nellie said and looked at Mr. Conway, “we most
certainly are having an issue. Your employee is trying to extort money from me.
I thought this was a nice hotel, an honorable place. Is it the Battleroy’s
habit of stealing money from rich customers?”

“Please, ma’am,” Mr. Conway said, “lower your voice.”

“Who are you?” Nellie said and snapped the clasp on my
purse.

“Mr. C-Conway, the manager.”

Nellie looked at Mr. Conway and licked her lips, dried
with the frosted coral lipstick painted on her mouth.

“Mr. Conway, the manager?” she said.

“Yes, that is who I am,” Mr. Conway said and tapped his
finger against the top of the front desk.

“Do you remember Mr. Therrault, Mr. Conway?” Nellie said
and nodded her head toward Brandt.

“Yes,” Mr. Conway said.

“So, you remember telling Mr. Therrault, no, begging Mr.
Therrault to come back here for a stay at no charge?”

Mr. Conway looked over his shoulder at Brandt and then
closed his eyes and sighed. He turned back toward Nellie and attempted to look
into her eyes.

“He’s terrified of her,” Tara Holderman said.

“Because he knows what she did,” I said.

“Yes, I remember,” Mr. Conway said.

“Good,” Nellie said and smiled. “Then please tell me why
this idiot who works here will not check me into my suite until I give him one
hundred dollars?”

“It’s policy,” Tommy Chartrand said.

“Would you shut up?” Nellie said and turned to Tommy. “I
asked him, not you.”

“Forget the deposit, Tommy,” Mr. Conway said and looked at
his shoes.

“Did you hear that Tommy? Forget the deposit,” Nellie
said. “And have a bottle of your finest champagne sent to my suite at Mr.
Conway’s expense. Bellman, my bags.”

Nellie turned away from the front desk, but Mr. Conway
reached out and grabbed her arm. Nellie looked down at his hand and her eye
twitched.

“Yes?” she said.

Mr. Conway leaned in toward Nellie.

“I trust there won’t be any issues during your stay?”

She looked up at Mr. Conway and smiled.

“Why, I suppose that would depend on you,” Nellie said and
tried to pull her arm out of Mr. Conway’s grip.

“One night, ma’am,” Mr. Conway said. “One night and then I
never want to see either of you again.”

“I know who you are, Conway,” Nellie said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Conway said and released Nellie’s arm.
“And I know who you are, as well.”

Nellie stared into Mr. Conway’s eyes and her jaw tensed.

“Brandt, baby, get up,” Nellie said and glanced over Mr.
Conway’s shoulder. “We’re going to our suite.”

Nellie pushed Mr. Conway aside and walked toward Brandt.
Mr. Conway’s hands shook as he ran his fingers through his hair and bowed his
head.

“Get out of the way, Anthony,” James said, “Ginormica is
coming.”

Anthony and Judah got up and stepped aside as Nellie
walked over to Brandt. She put her hand under his chin and pulled his head up.

“Get up, baby,” Nellie said. “We’re going to our suite.”

“Can I lie down?”

“Yes, of course,” Nellie said and grabbed Brandt’s arm and
lifted him off the couch. “You can do anything you want.”

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf and the
strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

Rudyard Kipling

Scott Williams led the way and Brandt and Nellie entered
the corridor toward Room 165. We all followed closely behind and crashed into
each other several times because Brandt kept stopping.

“Come on, baby,” Nellie said as she dragged Brandt down the
hallway toward the room, “just a few more steps.”

“Where are we?” Brandt said as he stopped and looked at
the ceiling.

“Baby, we’re at the hotel,” Nellie said.

Brandt ran his hand across the raised velvet wallpaper
that lined the walls between the doors to the suites.

“I don’t want to be here,” Brandt said.

“You’re going to wish you stayed home soon enough, buddy,”
Patrick said and clapped Brandt on the back.

Scott unlocked the door to Room 165 and we all squeezed
our way past Brandt and Nellie to go inside. Nellie took the key from Scott’s
hand.

“That will be all,” she said she as pulled Brandt into the
room.

Scott Williams shook his head and backed out of the room
and closed the door.

“Jesus Christ, Brandt,” Nellie said as she leaned him up
against the wall like a cardboard cutout, “I’m getting really tired of this.
This is supposed to be my vacation too.”

Brandt leaned his head against the wall and closed his
eyes.

“I didn’t want to come here,” he said. “I need to lie
down.”

Nellie grabbed the suitcase and opened the bedroom door
and walked inside.

“Ah, just as I remember,” she said and giggled.

“Fucking bitch,” James said.

We all walked into the bedroom and sat together on the
long dresser opposite the bed.

“Where’s the recorder?” I said.

“Under the bed,” Patrick said.

“Should you turn it on?”

“No, not yet. The fucker I stole it from only had one
tape.”

Nellie dragged Brandt inside the bedroom.

“Bed,” Brandt said like a caveman.

Brandt stumbled toward the bed and lay on his back. He
looked up at the ceiling and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

“Well, they obviously replaced the mattress,” Nellie said
as she pulled the sheets aside, “but I’ll be goddamned if this doesn’t look
like the same bedspread.”

Nellie sat down on the bed beside Brandt and untied the
sash on his robe.

“Now, is my big bear going to fall asleep before we make
boom-boom?” Nellie said and shook Brandt’s arm.

“Boom-boom?” Patrick said.

“Vomit,” I said.

Brandt opened his eyes and looked at Nellie.

“I need a shot,” he said.

“Bingo!” Judah said from behind Tara Holderman who sat in
his lap.

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

Nellie put the suitcase on top of the bed and opened it.

“Peas and carrots,” Anthony said and whistled.

The suitcase was devoid of clothing, perhaps because
Nellie wore it all. It contained two syringes with very long needles, a length
of rubber cord, a large, tarnished tablespoon and a blue bath towel. Nellie
pulled the towel out of the suitcase and unwrapped it. Inside the package were
twenty glass bottles.

“Now do you believe it, Sophia?” Judah said.

“Now, I believe it, Judah.”

Nellie grabbed the spoon and one of the syringes and
placed them on the bed by Brandt’s feet. She dropped the rubber cord in
Brandt’s lap and placed one of the drug bottles on the bedside table.

“Now, Mommy is going to get her baby all fixed up,” Nellie
said. “But first I have to go pee-pee really bad.”

“If she’s going to talk like this all day, I’m out of
here,” James said.

“Like hell,” I said. “If we have to be subjected to this
bullshit, so do you.”

Nellie took off her stole and fur coat and another scarf
and a cardigan and a blazer and threw them on top of Andy Larabee who sat on
the floor by the dresser and walked into the bathroom and slammed the door.
Brandt turned his head and stared at the bottle on the dresser and smiled.

“I can’t get out!” Andy said as he struggled to get out
from under Nellie’s clothes.

“Help him,” I said.

Jennie-Lynn ran over to Andy and pulled the clothes off
Andy’s body.

“Fuck,” Andy said, “I couldn’t breathe!”

“He gets that language from you, you know,” James said to
me.

“It’s moving!” Brandt said and sat up.

“Oh, fuck,” I said.

“It’s moving!” Brandt said and pointed at Nellie’s
clothes.

“Jennie-Lynn, drop the coat,” I said.

Brandt looked at the pile of clothing and rubbed his eyes.
He leaned back against the headboard and didn’t take his eyes off the pile.

“I saw it,” Brandt said. “I know I did.”

“Oh, let’s have some fun,” I said and hopped off the
dresser and walked over to the bed. “Just a little?”

“Only while she’s in the bathroom,” James said.

I pushed the syringe slowly up the bed toward Brandt.

“Here comes the train,” I said, “into the station.”

Brandt looked away from the pile of clothing and glanced
down at the bed.

“What the fuck?” he said as he watched the needle coming
toward him. “It’s coming!”

We all laughed as Brandt struggled to sit up. He grabbed
the syringe and the needle stabbed the palm of his hand.

“Help me!” Brandt said.

Nellie ran out of the bathroom in a beige bra and beige
nylon briefs.

“Oh, fucking hell, get some clothes on, please?” Patrick
said and shook his head.

“That is delicious,” Judah said. “I’ve always loved a
hippy lass.”

“That,” Mary McDonald said, “is not hippy. That is--”

“Ginormica,” Mica Morrison said and laughed.

“What’s with all the screaming?” Nellie said.

“I saw things,” Brandt said, “m-moving.”

“Jesus, Brandt,” Nellie said and sat on the bed next to
him, “it’s not been that long.”

“I know what I saw,” Brandt said and closed his eyes.

“You don’t even know where you are,” Nellie said and
grabbed the syringe.

We all watched Nellie insert the needle into a bottle of
drugs and pull back on the plunger.

“That’s a big shot,” Judah said. “I hope he doesn’t
croak.”

“Perry,” Patrick said, “crawl under his side of the bed
and get ready to press the red button on the machine. Then push the microphone
out a bit from under the bed and slide the red bar on the mic up. Got it?”

“Yes,” Perry said and got on the floor beside the bed.
“But when do I do it?”

“When we tell you, okay?”

“I’m on it,” Perry said and crawled under the bed.

“What is she doing?” Andy said.

“She’s cooking the drugs,” Judah said. “You heat them up
until they boil then you draw the liquid back into the syringe.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about this, Judah,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said and rested his chin on Tara Holderman’s
shoulder, “I used to be quite the chemist.”

“Okay, where does Daddy want his shot?” Nellie said as she
filled the syringe with the cooked liquid.

“Arm,” Brandt said.

“No, not yet,” Nellie said. “You’ll be out for the rest of
the night.”

“Fine,” Brandt said and kicked off his slipper, “toe.”

Nellie held the syringe between her teeth and peeled off
one of Brandt’s socks. His foot looked like he just pulled it out of a pot of
boiling water.

“Man, he’s been doing this for a while,” Judah said.

“Spread your little piggies, little piggy,” Nellie said
and rubbed Brandt’s foot.

“She’s keeping him sick so he won’t leave her,” I said.

Nellie stuck the needle in between two of Brandt’s toes
and depressed the plunger slowly.

After a moment, Brandt’s face went completely slack and
the back of his head slammed against the headboard. Nellie crawled onto the bed
and lay on her side staring at Brandt. She ran her fingers through his hair and
he made little grunting noises from his throat.

“This is really sad,” May Gaspar said.

“Oh, Brandt,” Nellie said and turned onto her back, “what
are we going to do?”

“Now Perry!” Patrick said.

The recorder clicked and we all looked at Nellie who
didn’t notice.

“Brandt, I wish you’d talk to me,” Nellie said and closed
her eyes. “I know things have been difficult since we were here last, but I
really don’t understand why. We should be flourishing and we seem to be worse
than we were before.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo,” I said.

“But the thing is,” Nellie said and ran her hand down
Brandt’s chest, “we won. Can’t you see that?”

Brandt lifted his head and looked at Nellie out of one
eye.

“What?” Brandt said.

“I was just telling you that we won,” she said and kissed
his cheek.

“What did we win?” Brandt said and looked around the room.
“Where the fuck are we?”

“At the Battleroy,” Nellie said and pulled an emery board
out of my purse.

Brandt sat up on the bed and looked around the room. He
scratched the side of his face and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his pajamas.

“It’s like watching apes in the wild,” James said.

“I don’t like it,” Brandt said. “The room looks too much
like the last.”

“This is it, Perry! Push the microphone out more,” Patrick
said.