Page 60 of Dead Serious Case 5 Madame Vivienne
“What exactly do you do?” Danny asks suspiciously.
“Okay, I’m back! Oh holy fuck, what did I miss?”
Dusty gasps as she takes in the giant man, the glowing floor, and Danny and Sam looking very belligerent as they stare down the stranger.
Lucien does a double take at the new arrival now standing beside Bruce. It’s not every day you see a six-foot drag queen looking like the love child of Annie Lennox and Lily Savage. Dusty’s obviously taken the time to change clothes since her unexpected incarceration at the hands of what I can only assume is Viv’s killer. She’s now wearing a pinstripe suit, and I use the word suit very loosely.
Instead of trousers, she has on a hybrid of a kilt and a wraparound skirt in dark grey with white pinstripes and held together at the hip by a complicated crisscross of straps and buckles. It slashes dramatically from ankle to thigh, showing off a pair of shiny black patent thigh-high boots with skinny six-inch stiletto heels that cover her legs. I find myself wondering not only how she managed to squeeze her legs into them but how she also manages to stay upright. Falling off those things would be like falling off a cliff, I imagine.
The jacket she’s wearing is in a matching grey with white pinstripe, tightly fitted and cinched in at the waist with a corset that matches the bondage boots, and instead of wearing a shirt, she simply wears a black silk tie tucked into the opening of the jacket.
Her signature blonde wig that’s usually so big it looks like it’s filled with helium is now scraped back and gelled into such a high, tight ponytail that it practically gives her a DIY facelift, not that she needs it. Overall, I suspect she was probably trying to get the suits upstairs to take her seriously, but I honestly don’t know whether to ask or to strap myself to a St Andrew’s cross and call her mistress.
“Apparently, we’ve got a demon trap on our hands, complete with demon,” Harrison says to Dusty.
“Fuck.” She scowls.
“Are you seriously telling me you knew demons were real?” I ask incredulously.
“It was in the handbook they gave me when I became a spirit guide in training.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“To be fair, I didn’t read the whole thing.” Dusty wrinkles her nose. “I mean, it must have been written by Tolstoy. It could’ve doubled as a doorstep.”
“And you didn’t think that it was full of… oh, I don’t know… pertinent information?” I reply dryly.
“I got the highlights.” She waves her hand nonchalantly. “Demons and other hellhound entities were all in chapter thirteen—wait a minute.” Her eyes narrow. “They’re supposed to all be confined to Hell, where they were banished by the archangels, so what’s that one doing here?”
“I’m pretty sure that answers my whole argument on why you should’ve read the handbook they gave you.”
She frowns and stares at the floor. “How did it get down there?”
“And now you’ve pretty much caught up to where we are,” Sam says.
“Hang on a minute.” Dusty holds up her hand and sniffs the air, much as Lucien did when he first walked in. Looking confused, she turns her head and sniffs again. Her gaze falls on Lucien and she leans in close to him, inhaling tentatively. Suddenly, her eyes widen and she takes a step back, sucking in a sharp breath.
“You’re not human,” she whispers in shock. “You’re Hell-born.”
“Perceptive, aren’t you?” Lucien grins.
“You’re what? What is a Hell-born?” I ask, wondering what Dusty is going on about, but as the words leave my mouth, Danny grabs me and shoves me behind him just as Sam moves closer to Harrison, who doesn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed with this turn of events.
“Not a Hell-born. I was born in Hell,” Lucien replies.
“You’re not a demon, are you?” I try to push Danny aside so I can see, but he’s like a sexy, protective, immovable six-foot wall of sheer stubbornness.
“No, I am not,” Lucien says indignantly. “Just because I was born in the Hell dimensions doesn’t automatically make me pure evil. It’s just like Earth.”
“Sorry, come again?” Sam blinks, looking as confused as the rest of us.
“Humans are born on Earth, but they’re not all born equal,” Lucien replies. “You’ve got your pure of heart, your do-gooders. You know, people who donate kidneys to strangers, devote their lives to the betterment of others, give expecting nothing in return. Then you’ve got your pure evil, your serial killers, politicians, bankers… those people who leave the cap off the toothpaste and squeeze the tube from the middle. My point is, you can’t stereotype someone just based on where they come from. It’s the deeds that make the person, not the circumstances.”
“He has a point.” Sam nods.
“Are we just supposed to trust you?” Danny squints at Lucien. “For all we know, you’re the one who killed Viv.”
“Viv?” Lucien tilts his head thoughtfully before pointing to the photos still out on the desk. “I’m guessing that’s Viv?”