Post by oberonfrost on Jan 4, 2012 0:40:37 GMT -5
Ultimate Crimson Fox #4
Twenty Pieces of Silver Part 4
Blood of My Blood
Bright morning sunshine poured in through the glass windows of Constance’s office at the D’Armis Chemical Limited headquarters. She sat behind her large oak desk, her head in her hands. Auburn hair fell down limply around her face and hands and a low moan escaped from her barely parted, hidden lips. Her head was swimming, and had been since late last night. The fever that had come on unexpectedly had passed, but she was left with an unstoppable ache between her eyes and a stomach that wouldn’t stop doing summersaults. Constance had confessed to herself already that while she’d made it to the office, thanks in no small part to the car service she kept on retainer, she would not be accomplishing any actual work.
Then, with a slight creak, the doors across the room opened, and her twin sister strode in. Vivian was bright eyed and beaming a smile from ear to ear. “Good morning sister!” she exalted as her high-heeled shoes clacked across the wooden floorboards.
Constance made a grab for the wastebasket and swiftly emptied the contents of her stomach into the lining. She groaned as she lifted her head to glare at her sister. “What is so good about it?” she croaked.
Vivian rushed to her sister’s side and knelt beside her. “Are you ill?” she asked, wrapping her sister in a loose embrace.
“Very,” Constance admitted weakly. “I was taken with fever just after midnight, and have been ill since.”
Vivian stood up, her hand still on her sister’s shoulder. “You should see a doctor, Constance. Work should be the last thing on your mind.”
“I will be fine, Vivi,” Constance said, pushing her sister’s hand away. “I need to be here.”
Vivian backed away a few steps. “Well, if you’re well enough to work, then you’re well enough for good news,” she said, smiling. “I have some information on who is leaking information to our competition.”
“Already?” Constance croaked, obviously surprised.
“Oui,” Vivian said, pouring herself a glass of champagne from the small refrigerator her sister kept. “It isn’t much of a lead, only an e-mail address, and unfortunately not from within the company. But I’m confident that it will lead us to the culprit.”
“
How? How will we find out who it is? And how did you get this information in the first place? You haven’t even been back in the country a full day!” Constance declared, with less force than she would have had her health been better.
Vivian gave her sister a wry smile. “One day Constance, I’ll tell you everything. Today, however, that will be my secret.
“As for how we will track down the traitor, I have called in a friend from across the pond. He is a computer expert- a hacker, the Americans call them. I sent the company plane for him last night. Mark will be here later this afternoon,” Vivian explained as much as she dared without giving anything away about her new double identity. She was sure that her sister would disapprove, but it was as though she had found her true calling in life. Even the danger of it excited her, and she couldn’t wait to pull the leather and Kevlar back on and become the fox once more.
***
Josephine nodded to foreman of the small construction crew busy replacing the front entrance of the Revson building. She flashed him both her badge and a smile as she crossed through the construction zone. The lobby was virtually empty as Josephine made her way toward the center, where the company’s Chief Operations Officer stood. Margot Marceau smiled a wide toothy smile as she took Josephine’s hand and gave it a curt shake.
The two women could not have been more different. Josephine was the shorter of the two, though she was broader shouldered and even under the plain striped shirt and brown trousers she wore, you could tell that she had a solid and muscular, if feminine build.
Margo stood a good six inches taller, her hair cascading down past her tiny waist. She had the body of a gymnast. Her clothes even made her look a bit like a circus performer. Though she wore a tastefully cut business suit, it was trimmed around the hem of her skit and the lapels of her jacket in a bright yellow, the same yellow as the impossibly tight blouse she wore underneath. Her legs were also coated in a pair of skin tight yellow nylons and ended with matching black and yellow pumps.
“A pleasure to meet you, inspector,” Margot said as she turned and led the detective toward the bank of elevators at the back of the lobby. “Have you had any luck in identifying the party responsible for the vandalism to our entry way?”
As they climbed into the elevator Josephine said, “I’m not sure it was vandalism, Ms. Marceau.”
“What else could it have been inspector? Probably some environmentalist who opposes our recently announced pesticide and planted a pipe bomb or some such nonsense,” Margot presumed. The elevator came to a stop and the women exited into a large office on the building’s highest floor.
Margot lit a cigarette as she traversed the room to her own desk. She inhaled the smoke deep into her lungs and motioned for Josephine to take a seat across from her. “Would you like a cigarette inspector? Perhaps something to drink?”
Josephine shook her head, “No, Ms. Marceau,” as she took her seat. “There was no evidence that there was a bomb of any sort,” she stated flatly. “In fact, it looked as though the door had been ripped off. By hand. We found what look to be claw marks in the metal.”
Margot put a hand to her mouth, surprised. “How… odd. What do you think…” she trailed off.
Tautin shook her head. “I don’t know Ms. Marceau. I was hoping that you might be able to shed some light on that.”
“No, I don’t believe I can, Inspector Tautin,” Margot said, taking another long draw from her cigarette. “We do very little testing on animals, and certainly none large enough to cause that kind of destruction. Rats and rabbits are really all we have here. And those labs are kept secure, and below ground level.”
Josephine scribbled a few notes on the small pad she had lain across her lap. “I am also curious, Ms. Marceau, if you know anything about the man found at the scene: Reginald Pickering?”
“Non, the name does not ring a bell. I don’t believe that he is affiliated with the company. How is he?”
Tautin again put pencil to paper as she continued to address Margot. “Still in critical condition,” Josephine said dryly. “He’s been unconscious since he was admitted to hospital, and doesn’t show any signs of waking.”
“Concussion?” Margot asked, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air.
“Not as such,” Josephine said, trying to gauge whether Margot was being entirely honest with her. She couldn’t help but feel that the woman knew more than she was letting on. “Poison in fact,” Josephine admitted after a long moment of silence. “Several varieties of poison to be honest; some the hospital toxicologists have not even been able to identify.”
“Mon dieu!” Margot exclaimed as she came to her. “That poor man. I assure you though, inspector, that Revson had nothing to do with the assault on his person. We create, test and manufacture chemicals- everything from cleaning products to pesticides- some are hazardous to people if consumed, but we do not traffic in poisons.”
Josephine rose without prelude and extracted her business card from her breast pocket. “Call me if you think of anything more, Ms. Marceau,” she said briskly, placing the card on a nearby tabletop. “I’ll show myself out.”
***
Far from the well manicured streets that tourists and businessmen frequented, was a small Parisian brothel, the outer walls painted a dark red. Red curtains hung inside, obscuring passersby from seeing what went on inside those blood-colored walls. A sign by the door, carved from maple and faded by decades of bright Paris sunshine read “Bordel Le Goût de la Peau.”
Below street level, the brothel’s proprietress, Madame Madeline was ready to settle into her overstuffed bed with its crimson silk sheets and sleep away the day until she would rise again at dusk and help clients both new and old to find satisfaction of their own between the sheets, and thighs of her staff. Before she could fall into a restful slumber, however, Madeline had to finish the cleanup from the night before.
It was rare for her to take a client to her own chambers, but even she had needs that had to be tended to from time to time. She cracked her bedroom door and bellowed “Nora!”
A slim blond girl, no more than sixteen appeared in the doorway within seconds. “Yes Madame?” she asked as she stepped inside.
“He was ravenous,” Madeline said, patting her young ward on the shoulder. Her satisfaction with the previous nights visitor was evident from her breathy, excited tone.
“I am glad you enjoyed your evening Madame,” the younger woman said smiling.
Madeline took a clean white handkerchief from her bedside table and wiped the blood from around her mouth. “I haven’t had a more satisfying meal in years, Nora. But I think he enjoyed eating himself more than I enjoyed dining on him.”
In the corner, slumped against one of the vermillion hued walls was the body of Madeline’s client, looking like a marionette whose strings had been cut. His head was tilted to the side, and his eyes were glazed in a stare that looked both hypnotic and dead at the same time. Blood pooled on the floor below him, dripping down from the matted carpet of bloody hair on his legs. His own blood was smeared on his face and neck. Most disturbingly, his arm was buried, nearly up to the elbow in his mouth. He was also missing a chunk from the left side of his abdomen, and his kidney and liver were exposed.
“I swear Nora,” Madeline said as she cleaned the last of the bright red blood from her face, “one day I’ll get one of them to eat himself until there’s nothing left but teeth. I had a good start last night, but the sight of all that blood just made me so hungry I couldn’t wait, and I had to take a bite.…” Madeline knelt beside the body, then ran a finger along the jagged hole in the man’s abdomen. “Take the body to Serena at the café, have her grind him into sausage and put him on the menu tonight. I’ll clean up here, and get to bed.”
Nora grabbed the corpse’s arm, protruding from his lips, thinking it would provide a firm hold for her to drag the bleeding carcass down the underground passages that led to the café next door. Unfortunately, the man’s teeth had not dug into the flesh on his last bite, and the arm slipped free, jagged bone sticking out of the forearm the man had stripped of flesh with his own teeth.
***
Vivian’s bright red convertible cruised down the crowded streets away from the airport, making her way back toward the D’Armis building. “I hope your flight was pleasant,” she said, glancing at the blond man in the passenger seat.
Mark Armstrong chuckled, “Luxurious more like,” he said. “Your company plane is incredibly comfortable, Vivian. Thank you for sending it for me.”
Vivian turned onto a side street. “Tracking down the leak inside our company will be well worth it. Even if we can’t, it is good to reconnect with an old friend.”
***
Not long after, Vivian had set Mark up at one of the computer terminals in the D’Armis headquarters and he gotten to work instantly. Vivian watched as his fingers flew across the keys and guided the mouse around the desktop. Mark was an attractive man, tall and blond with broad shoulders. He was a natural athlete, and had taught Vivian how to fence during her time in America. Like herself, Mark had been merely visiting the States. Born and raised in Quebec, Mark was a proud French Canadian.
‘Too bad he’s gay,’ Vivian thought to herself as she tried to follow the action on the monitor glowing before them.
Thirty silent minutes later Mark clapped his hands together and declared, “Too easy, Vivian! Probably worth flying me coach, but definitely not worth the private jet.”
Vivian giggled and patted her friend on the shoulder. “So, you know the identity of our betrayer then?”
“I will in a few more seconds,” Mark said, inputting a few more keystrokes into the machine. “Judas4313@freemail.org was registered to a fake name. Most of the messages were sent from various cafés and coffee houses around the city. The first message, however, was sent from a residential address,” Mark clicked a link on the screen. “I used public records to trace that address back to a Doctor Henri DeChampes.”
A flurry of fast-paced clicks followed, “And cross referenced the name with the D’Armis employee registry,” a résumé appeared on the screen, alongside a picture from the official D’Armis security badges that employees used to access the buildings secure facilities. “Voila,” Mark announced finally, “Your head of R&D is the man selling secrets to your competition.”
Vivian studied the picture. DeChampes was a heavyset, middle-aged man. He had few notable features, and was very average, save for the wild forest of hair spilling out from the collar of his shirt. She was not familiar with DeChampes. A glance at the résumé confirmed that he had been hired during her time in America.
“You are amazing,” she said to Mark, planting a playful kiss on his cheek.
***
Hours later, after a long dinner, Vivian had gotten Mark settled in the spare room at her penthouse and then retired to her own chambers. Within minutes of closing the door behind her, she had stripped off her day clothes and was pulling on the uniform of the Crimson Fox. She wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to handle DeChampes yet, but knew that she needed more information on why he had been selling D’Armis company secrets to the people at Revson.
Mark had checked into his financial records and found no payments from Revson, or any companies or individuals related to the company. Vivian could think of very few things that would tempt someone to become a traitor besides money. Perhaps someone at Revson knew something shameful and was blackmailing DeChampes for information. Perhaps it was something more dangerous. Careful observation was in order; the kind she could more easily accomplish in this identity than her civilian one.
The scientist didn’t live far from the building where her penthouse was located, and it took her only a few moments to reach his street via the rooftops. His apartment was on the second floor of a historic building, and Vivian had to jump down to street level before vaulting herself back up to the balcony outside the man’s quarters.
Peeking in through the windows, Vivian saw little. The lights were off, and the television provided the only illumination in the entire place. The volume was low, and she couldn’t hear it or make out what was on the screen. She could barely make out DeChampes’ silhouette sitting at his desk, a cellular telephone pressed to his ear.
She willed herself to be as silent as she could, and reached out for the door handle. Mercifully, she found it unlocked and slipped stealthily inside without alerting the occupant.
***
“Daddy says you’re finished,” Margot said. “There was a disturbance at the Revson building last night. Now the police are sniffing around.”
Aliki let out an excited sigh. “About time. But when this I stop showing up to work, people are going to come looking,” her voice deep and masculine in the skin she wore.
Margot chuckled. “Take the body to the Madame. She’ll make sure that there’s no evidence left for anyone to follow. It will be as though you disappeared into the mist.”
“Oui,” Aliki said, letting out a hearty belly laugh, “she’ll feed it to the unsuspecting gourmands at Serena’s. I think he’ll make a good lasagna.”
***
Vivian listed to the strange telephone conversation, crouched behind a long linen drape that had been pushed to the side of the door. She wished she could hear what the person on the other end of the call was saying. Without that portion of the conversation to put this in context, it didn’t make much sense at all.
***
“Is daddy sure that there’s nothing on this one he wants?” Aliki asked her sister over the phone.
Margot made a disgusted noise. “Have you looked at the skin you’re wearing? What would he take from that slob of a man?”
“You’re right. Call Zachariah and have him meet me here. I’ll need someone to sew me up after I take this off and put it back where it came from,” Aliki added before clicking the button and ending the call.
***
Vivian followed DeChampes into the dark bedroom and saw him strip off his suit. She watched in horror as plunged his fingers into the skin at the back of his neck and pulled something free. Whatever it was, it glinted metallic in the dim light from the television. She nearly vomited when the skin ripped all the way down his back, and then fell to the floor.
She was paralyzed watching this skinless creature, all muscle and bone and sinew, open the closet and pull out a body- she hoped it was a body and not another one of these things- also devoid of skin. Flies buzzed around the limp form and maggots fell from its desiccated eye sockets as she splayed it across the floor.
“Thank you doctor,” she heard the skinless thing, the living one, whisper to the dead one, as she began to pull the skin back onto it.
Twenty Pieces of Silver Part 4
Blood of My Blood
Bright morning sunshine poured in through the glass windows of Constance’s office at the D’Armis Chemical Limited headquarters. She sat behind her large oak desk, her head in her hands. Auburn hair fell down limply around her face and hands and a low moan escaped from her barely parted, hidden lips. Her head was swimming, and had been since late last night. The fever that had come on unexpectedly had passed, but she was left with an unstoppable ache between her eyes and a stomach that wouldn’t stop doing summersaults. Constance had confessed to herself already that while she’d made it to the office, thanks in no small part to the car service she kept on retainer, she would not be accomplishing any actual work.
Then, with a slight creak, the doors across the room opened, and her twin sister strode in. Vivian was bright eyed and beaming a smile from ear to ear. “Good morning sister!” she exalted as her high-heeled shoes clacked across the wooden floorboards.
Constance made a grab for the wastebasket and swiftly emptied the contents of her stomach into the lining. She groaned as she lifted her head to glare at her sister. “What is so good about it?” she croaked.
Vivian rushed to her sister’s side and knelt beside her. “Are you ill?” she asked, wrapping her sister in a loose embrace.
“Very,” Constance admitted weakly. “I was taken with fever just after midnight, and have been ill since.”
Vivian stood up, her hand still on her sister’s shoulder. “You should see a doctor, Constance. Work should be the last thing on your mind.”
“I will be fine, Vivi,” Constance said, pushing her sister’s hand away. “I need to be here.”
Vivian backed away a few steps. “Well, if you’re well enough to work, then you’re well enough for good news,” she said, smiling. “I have some information on who is leaking information to our competition.”
“Already?” Constance croaked, obviously surprised.
“Oui,” Vivian said, pouring herself a glass of champagne from the small refrigerator her sister kept. “It isn’t much of a lead, only an e-mail address, and unfortunately not from within the company. But I’m confident that it will lead us to the culprit.”
“
How? How will we find out who it is? And how did you get this information in the first place? You haven’t even been back in the country a full day!” Constance declared, with less force than she would have had her health been better.
Vivian gave her sister a wry smile. “One day Constance, I’ll tell you everything. Today, however, that will be my secret.
“As for how we will track down the traitor, I have called in a friend from across the pond. He is a computer expert- a hacker, the Americans call them. I sent the company plane for him last night. Mark will be here later this afternoon,” Vivian explained as much as she dared without giving anything away about her new double identity. She was sure that her sister would disapprove, but it was as though she had found her true calling in life. Even the danger of it excited her, and she couldn’t wait to pull the leather and Kevlar back on and become the fox once more.
***
Josephine nodded to foreman of the small construction crew busy replacing the front entrance of the Revson building. She flashed him both her badge and a smile as she crossed through the construction zone. The lobby was virtually empty as Josephine made her way toward the center, where the company’s Chief Operations Officer stood. Margot Marceau smiled a wide toothy smile as she took Josephine’s hand and gave it a curt shake.
The two women could not have been more different. Josephine was the shorter of the two, though she was broader shouldered and even under the plain striped shirt and brown trousers she wore, you could tell that she had a solid and muscular, if feminine build.
Margo stood a good six inches taller, her hair cascading down past her tiny waist. She had the body of a gymnast. Her clothes even made her look a bit like a circus performer. Though she wore a tastefully cut business suit, it was trimmed around the hem of her skit and the lapels of her jacket in a bright yellow, the same yellow as the impossibly tight blouse she wore underneath. Her legs were also coated in a pair of skin tight yellow nylons and ended with matching black and yellow pumps.
“A pleasure to meet you, inspector,” Margot said as she turned and led the detective toward the bank of elevators at the back of the lobby. “Have you had any luck in identifying the party responsible for the vandalism to our entry way?”
As they climbed into the elevator Josephine said, “I’m not sure it was vandalism, Ms. Marceau.”
“What else could it have been inspector? Probably some environmentalist who opposes our recently announced pesticide and planted a pipe bomb or some such nonsense,” Margot presumed. The elevator came to a stop and the women exited into a large office on the building’s highest floor.
Margot lit a cigarette as she traversed the room to her own desk. She inhaled the smoke deep into her lungs and motioned for Josephine to take a seat across from her. “Would you like a cigarette inspector? Perhaps something to drink?”
Josephine shook her head, “No, Ms. Marceau,” as she took her seat. “There was no evidence that there was a bomb of any sort,” she stated flatly. “In fact, it looked as though the door had been ripped off. By hand. We found what look to be claw marks in the metal.”
Margot put a hand to her mouth, surprised. “How… odd. What do you think…” she trailed off.
Tautin shook her head. “I don’t know Ms. Marceau. I was hoping that you might be able to shed some light on that.”
“No, I don’t believe I can, Inspector Tautin,” Margot said, taking another long draw from her cigarette. “We do very little testing on animals, and certainly none large enough to cause that kind of destruction. Rats and rabbits are really all we have here. And those labs are kept secure, and below ground level.”
Josephine scribbled a few notes on the small pad she had lain across her lap. “I am also curious, Ms. Marceau, if you know anything about the man found at the scene: Reginald Pickering?”
“Non, the name does not ring a bell. I don’t believe that he is affiliated with the company. How is he?”
Tautin again put pencil to paper as she continued to address Margot. “Still in critical condition,” Josephine said dryly. “He’s been unconscious since he was admitted to hospital, and doesn’t show any signs of waking.”
“Concussion?” Margot asked, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air.
“Not as such,” Josephine said, trying to gauge whether Margot was being entirely honest with her. She couldn’t help but feel that the woman knew more than she was letting on. “Poison in fact,” Josephine admitted after a long moment of silence. “Several varieties of poison to be honest; some the hospital toxicologists have not even been able to identify.”
“Mon dieu!” Margot exclaimed as she came to her. “That poor man. I assure you though, inspector, that Revson had nothing to do with the assault on his person. We create, test and manufacture chemicals- everything from cleaning products to pesticides- some are hazardous to people if consumed, but we do not traffic in poisons.”
Josephine rose without prelude and extracted her business card from her breast pocket. “Call me if you think of anything more, Ms. Marceau,” she said briskly, placing the card on a nearby tabletop. “I’ll show myself out.”
***
Far from the well manicured streets that tourists and businessmen frequented, was a small Parisian brothel, the outer walls painted a dark red. Red curtains hung inside, obscuring passersby from seeing what went on inside those blood-colored walls. A sign by the door, carved from maple and faded by decades of bright Paris sunshine read “Bordel Le Goût de la Peau.”
Below street level, the brothel’s proprietress, Madame Madeline was ready to settle into her overstuffed bed with its crimson silk sheets and sleep away the day until she would rise again at dusk and help clients both new and old to find satisfaction of their own between the sheets, and thighs of her staff. Before she could fall into a restful slumber, however, Madeline had to finish the cleanup from the night before.
It was rare for her to take a client to her own chambers, but even she had needs that had to be tended to from time to time. She cracked her bedroom door and bellowed “Nora!”
A slim blond girl, no more than sixteen appeared in the doorway within seconds. “Yes Madame?” she asked as she stepped inside.
“He was ravenous,” Madeline said, patting her young ward on the shoulder. Her satisfaction with the previous nights visitor was evident from her breathy, excited tone.
“I am glad you enjoyed your evening Madame,” the younger woman said smiling.
Madeline took a clean white handkerchief from her bedside table and wiped the blood from around her mouth. “I haven’t had a more satisfying meal in years, Nora. But I think he enjoyed eating himself more than I enjoyed dining on him.”
In the corner, slumped against one of the vermillion hued walls was the body of Madeline’s client, looking like a marionette whose strings had been cut. His head was tilted to the side, and his eyes were glazed in a stare that looked both hypnotic and dead at the same time. Blood pooled on the floor below him, dripping down from the matted carpet of bloody hair on his legs. His own blood was smeared on his face and neck. Most disturbingly, his arm was buried, nearly up to the elbow in his mouth. He was also missing a chunk from the left side of his abdomen, and his kidney and liver were exposed.
“I swear Nora,” Madeline said as she cleaned the last of the bright red blood from her face, “one day I’ll get one of them to eat himself until there’s nothing left but teeth. I had a good start last night, but the sight of all that blood just made me so hungry I couldn’t wait, and I had to take a bite.…” Madeline knelt beside the body, then ran a finger along the jagged hole in the man’s abdomen. “Take the body to Serena at the café, have her grind him into sausage and put him on the menu tonight. I’ll clean up here, and get to bed.”
Nora grabbed the corpse’s arm, protruding from his lips, thinking it would provide a firm hold for her to drag the bleeding carcass down the underground passages that led to the café next door. Unfortunately, the man’s teeth had not dug into the flesh on his last bite, and the arm slipped free, jagged bone sticking out of the forearm the man had stripped of flesh with his own teeth.
***
Vivian’s bright red convertible cruised down the crowded streets away from the airport, making her way back toward the D’Armis building. “I hope your flight was pleasant,” she said, glancing at the blond man in the passenger seat.
Mark Armstrong chuckled, “Luxurious more like,” he said. “Your company plane is incredibly comfortable, Vivian. Thank you for sending it for me.”
Vivian turned onto a side street. “Tracking down the leak inside our company will be well worth it. Even if we can’t, it is good to reconnect with an old friend.”
***
Not long after, Vivian had set Mark up at one of the computer terminals in the D’Armis headquarters and he gotten to work instantly. Vivian watched as his fingers flew across the keys and guided the mouse around the desktop. Mark was an attractive man, tall and blond with broad shoulders. He was a natural athlete, and had taught Vivian how to fence during her time in America. Like herself, Mark had been merely visiting the States. Born and raised in Quebec, Mark was a proud French Canadian.
‘Too bad he’s gay,’ Vivian thought to herself as she tried to follow the action on the monitor glowing before them.
Thirty silent minutes later Mark clapped his hands together and declared, “Too easy, Vivian! Probably worth flying me coach, but definitely not worth the private jet.”
Vivian giggled and patted her friend on the shoulder. “So, you know the identity of our betrayer then?”
“I will in a few more seconds,” Mark said, inputting a few more keystrokes into the machine. “Judas4313@freemail.org was registered to a fake name. Most of the messages were sent from various cafés and coffee houses around the city. The first message, however, was sent from a residential address,” Mark clicked a link on the screen. “I used public records to trace that address back to a Doctor Henri DeChampes.”
A flurry of fast-paced clicks followed, “And cross referenced the name with the D’Armis employee registry,” a résumé appeared on the screen, alongside a picture from the official D’Armis security badges that employees used to access the buildings secure facilities. “Voila,” Mark announced finally, “Your head of R&D is the man selling secrets to your competition.”
Vivian studied the picture. DeChampes was a heavyset, middle-aged man. He had few notable features, and was very average, save for the wild forest of hair spilling out from the collar of his shirt. She was not familiar with DeChampes. A glance at the résumé confirmed that he had been hired during her time in America.
“You are amazing,” she said to Mark, planting a playful kiss on his cheek.
***
Hours later, after a long dinner, Vivian had gotten Mark settled in the spare room at her penthouse and then retired to her own chambers. Within minutes of closing the door behind her, she had stripped off her day clothes and was pulling on the uniform of the Crimson Fox. She wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to handle DeChampes yet, but knew that she needed more information on why he had been selling D’Armis company secrets to the people at Revson.
Mark had checked into his financial records and found no payments from Revson, or any companies or individuals related to the company. Vivian could think of very few things that would tempt someone to become a traitor besides money. Perhaps someone at Revson knew something shameful and was blackmailing DeChampes for information. Perhaps it was something more dangerous. Careful observation was in order; the kind she could more easily accomplish in this identity than her civilian one.
The scientist didn’t live far from the building where her penthouse was located, and it took her only a few moments to reach his street via the rooftops. His apartment was on the second floor of a historic building, and Vivian had to jump down to street level before vaulting herself back up to the balcony outside the man’s quarters.
Peeking in through the windows, Vivian saw little. The lights were off, and the television provided the only illumination in the entire place. The volume was low, and she couldn’t hear it or make out what was on the screen. She could barely make out DeChampes’ silhouette sitting at his desk, a cellular telephone pressed to his ear.
She willed herself to be as silent as she could, and reached out for the door handle. Mercifully, she found it unlocked and slipped stealthily inside without alerting the occupant.
***
“Daddy says you’re finished,” Margot said. “There was a disturbance at the Revson building last night. Now the police are sniffing around.”
Aliki let out an excited sigh. “About time. But when this I stop showing up to work, people are going to come looking,” her voice deep and masculine in the skin she wore.
Margot chuckled. “Take the body to the Madame. She’ll make sure that there’s no evidence left for anyone to follow. It will be as though you disappeared into the mist.”
“Oui,” Aliki said, letting out a hearty belly laugh, “she’ll feed it to the unsuspecting gourmands at Serena’s. I think he’ll make a good lasagna.”
***
Vivian listed to the strange telephone conversation, crouched behind a long linen drape that had been pushed to the side of the door. She wished she could hear what the person on the other end of the call was saying. Without that portion of the conversation to put this in context, it didn’t make much sense at all.
***
“Is daddy sure that there’s nothing on this one he wants?” Aliki asked her sister over the phone.
Margot made a disgusted noise. “Have you looked at the skin you’re wearing? What would he take from that slob of a man?”
“You’re right. Call Zachariah and have him meet me here. I’ll need someone to sew me up after I take this off and put it back where it came from,” Aliki added before clicking the button and ending the call.
***
Vivian followed DeChampes into the dark bedroom and saw him strip off his suit. She watched in horror as plunged his fingers into the skin at the back of his neck and pulled something free. Whatever it was, it glinted metallic in the dim light from the television. She nearly vomited when the skin ripped all the way down his back, and then fell to the floor.
She was paralyzed watching this skinless creature, all muscle and bone and sinew, open the closet and pull out a body- she hoped it was a body and not another one of these things- also devoid of skin. Flies buzzed around the limp form and maggots fell from its desiccated eye sockets as she splayed it across the floor.
“Thank you doctor,” she heard the skinless thing, the living one, whisper to the dead one, as she began to pull the skin back onto it.