“Hey hey hey,” I said. “There are some good reasons not to do that, which I cannot speak of, but hang on, let me get a notepad and a pen and I’ll be happy to explain—”
“You already explained.” She put her left hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for your kindness, Rachel.”
“I don’t—” What could I say? What was I allowed to say? “I don’t want you to die.”
“I won’t.” She smiled with at least part of her face.
“Are you starting your set early tonight? I have a request.” Sebastian said from the doorway at the top of the short staircase leading into the bar, framed by the ebbing daylight. “I really want to hear some Van Morrison for once, instead of that—”
Antonia threw Gilbert’s head at Sebastian. His eyes widened as he realized what it was, and what it meant. He almost ducked, then opted to catch it with one hand instead, to show he was still on top of the situation. While he was distracted, though, Rachel was already running with her sword out, making a whoosh as it tore through the air.
Antonia impaled Sebastian, but missed his heart. He kicked her in the face, and she fell, blood-blinded.
“So this is how it’s going to be?” Sebastian tossed the head into the nearest booth, where it landed face up on the table. “I confess I’m disappointed. I was going to marry you and then kill you. More fairy treasure that way.”
“You—You—” Antonia coughed blood. “You never loved me.”
“Oh, keep up.” Sebastian loomed over Antonia, pulled her sword out of his chest, and swung it over his head two-handed, aiming for a nice clean slice. “I’ll bring your remains back to Sylvania, and tell them a lovely story of how you and I fell in love and got married, before you were killed by a wild boar or an insurance adjuster. Hold still, this’ll hurt less.”
Antonia kicked him in the reproductive parts, but he shrugged it off. The shining sword whooshed down towards her neck.
“Hey!” I pumped my plus-one Vorpal shotgun from behind the bar. “No. Fighting. In. The. Bar.”
“We can take it outside,” Sebastian said, not lowering the sword.
“Too late for that,” I said. “You’re in my bar, you settle it how I choose.”
“And how’s that?”
I said the first thing that came into my head: “With a karaoke contest.”
And because it was my bar, and I have certain safeguards in place for this sort of situation, they were both bound by my word. Sebastian grumbled a fair bit, especially what with Antonia being a semi-professional singer, but he couldn’t fight it. It took us a couple hours to organize, including finding a few judges and putting an impartiality whammy on them, to keep it a fair competition.
I even broke open my good wine jug and gave out free cups to everybody. Once his nesting place was all emptied out, Leroy the Wine Goblin crawled out on the bar and squinted.
Antonia went first, and she went straight for the jugular—with showtunes. You’ve probably never seen a fairy princess do “Don’t Tell Mama” from Cabaret, complete with hip-twirling burlesque dance moves and a little Betty Boop thing when she winked at the audience. Somehow she poured all her rage and passion, all her righteous Sarah McLachlan-esque anger, into a roar on the final chorus. The judges scribbled nice high numbers and chattered approvingly.
And then Sebastian went up—and he broke out that Red Hot Chili Peppers song about the City of Angels. He’d even put on extra eyeliner. He fixed each of us with that depthless vampire stare, even as he poured out an amazing facsimile of a soul, singing about being lost and lonely and wanting his freakin happy place. Bastard was going to win this thing.
But there was one thing I knew for sure. I knew that he’d have to shut his eyes, for at least a moment, when he hit those high notes in the bridge about the bridge, after the second chorus.
Sure enough, when Sebastian sang out “Under the bridge downtown,” his eyes closed so his voice could float over the sound of Frusciante’s guitar transitioning from “noodle” mode to “thrash” mode. And that’s when I shot him with my plus-one Vorpal shotgun. Once in the face, once in the chest. I reloaded quick as I could, and shot him in the chest again, and then in the left kneecap for good measure.
It wasn’t enough to slow him down, but it did make him change. All of a sudden, the lyrics went, “Under the bridge downtown, I could not get enough… BRAIIIIIINSSSS!!”
He tossed the microphone and lurched into the audience. The three karaoke judges, who were still enchanted to be 100 percent impartial, sat patiently watching and making notes on their score sheets, until some other patrons hauled them out of the way. Leroy the Wine Goblin covered his face and screamed for the safety of his jug. People fell all over each other to reach the staircase.
“I shall take it from here.” Antonia hoisted her sword, twirling it like a Benihana chef while Frusciante’s guitar-gasm reached its peak. She hacked one of Sebastian’s arms off, but he barely noticed.
She swung the sword again, to try and take his head off, and he managed to sidestep and headbutt her. His face caught the side of her blade, but he barely noticed, and he drove the sharp edge into Antonia’s stomach with his forehead. Blood gushed out of her as she fell to the ground, and he caught it in his mouth like rain.
A second later, Sebastian was Sebastian again. “Ah, fairy blood,” he said. “There really is nothing like it.” Antonia tried to get up again, but slumped back down on the floor with a moan, doubled up around her wounded stomach.
I shot at Sebastian again, but I missed and he broke the shotgun in half. Then he broke both my arms. “Nobody is going to come to karaoke night if you shoot people in the face while they’re singing. Seriously.” I tried not to give him the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.
Antonia raised her head and said a fire spell. Wisps of smoke started coming off Sebastian’s body, but he just shrugged. “You’ve already seen what happens if you manage to hurt me.” The smoke turned into a solid wall of flame, but Sebastian pushed it away from his body with a tai-chi move. “Why even bother?”
“Mostly,” Antonia’s voice came from the other side of the fire wall, “just to distract yoooooooooo!” Her snarl became a howl, a barbaric call for vengeance.
There may be a sight more awesome than a giant white wolf leaping through a wall of solid fire. If so, I haven’t seen it. Antonia—for somehow she had managed to summon enough of her inner wolf to change—bared her jaws as she leapt. Her eyes shone red and her ears pulled back as the flames parted around her and sparks showered from her ivory fur.
Sebastian never saw it coming. Her first bite tore his neck open, and his head lolled off to one side. He started to zombify again, but Antonia was already clawing him.
“Don’t—Don’t let him bite you!” I shouted from behind the bar.
Sebastian almost got his teeth on Antonia, but she ducked.
“BRAIIINNSS!”
She was on top of him, her jaws snapping wildly, but he was biting just as hard. His zombie saliva and his vampire teeth were both inches away from her neck.
I crawled over to the cooler where I kept the pitchers of sangria, and pulled the door open with my teeth. I knocked pitchers and carafes on the floor, trying to get at the surprise I’d stored there the night before, in a big jar covered with cellophane wrap.
I hadn’t actually buried all of Lou and Jerry.
I pulled the jar out with my teeth and wedged it between my two upper arms and my chin, then lugged it over to where Antonia and Sebastian were still trying to bite each other. “Hey,” I rasped, “I saved you something, you bastard.” And I tipped the jar’s contents—two guys’ brains, in a nice balsamic vinaigrette—into Sebastian’s face. Once he started guzzling the brains, he couldn’t stop himself. He was getting brain all over his face, as he tried to swallow it all as fast as possible, brains were getting in his eyes and up what was left of his nose. There was no going back for him now.