Read Online Pure Dead Wicked by Debi Gliori - Free Book Online Page B

snow fell. The lounge was full to overflowing by the time the Strega-Borgia party finally appeared.
    The room fell silent as all eyes beheld Signora Strega-Borgia. Dressed in a simple green velvet sheath with her black hair falling glossily over one shoulder, she looked like a mermaid. Her lack of makeup or jewelry only served to accentuate her natural beauty. The crush of bodies parted to allow this vision access to the bar. Signor Strega-Borgia, Latch, and Mrs. McLachlan followed in her wake. Around them, interrupted conversations were resumed and a measure of normality returned to the lounge.
    Mortimer, on bar duty, goggled, choked, and managed a smile halfway between a leer and a grimace.
    â€œLuciano? A glass of wine? Latch? A hot toddy for your cold? Flora?” Signora Strega-Borgia smiled at Morty. It was the kind of smile mermaids use to lure sailors onto rocks. Morty floundered. His hands shook as he uncorked a wine of his re-labeled gut rot. Signora Strega-Borgia reached out and took the wine from his trembling hands. Reading the label, she began to laugh. “I don’t believe it,” she said, passing the bottle to her husband. “Mr. Fforbes-Campbell—is this some kind of joke?”
    Signora Strega-Borgia failed to notice the manageress bearing down on her, lips drawn back in a snarl, eyes flashing danger. Pretending to catch her stiletto heel in a crack in the floorboards, Mrs. Fforbes-Campbell staggered into Signora Strega-Borgia with a girlish shriek of dismay. “Oh, my
dear
!” she gushed, recovering her balance, “your
poor
dress. Oh, heavens above, and red wine, too. Awful. So sorry. Only one thing for it. . . .” And, grabbing a soda siphon from the bar, she drenched Signora Strega-Borgia in its contents.
    Once again, the cocktail lounge fell silent.
    â€œDear me,” said Signora Strega-Borgia in arctic tones. “I think you can stop
squirting,
Mrs. Fforbes-Campbell. The dress is ruined. Antique velvet doesn’t put up with such clumsy treatment—but you couldn’t be expected to know that, could you? It belonged to my grandmother, designed especially for her by Schiaparelli herself. Still . . . ,” she said, brightening considerably and drawing her husband close, “. . . the replacement cost should more than cover our hotel bill for the next few weeks.”
    She turned back to Morty, who stood gasping behind the bar, his mouth opening and closing like a stranded cod. “I think we’ll pass on your
interesting
little wine, Mr. Fforbes-Campbell. Instead, let’s have a glass of your finest champagne for everyone in the lounge and a bucket with four straws for my dear beasts and Tock.”
    Morty was stunned. Finest champagne? Twenty or so bottles at one hundred and seventy-two pounds each? He rubbed his hands in glee.
    â€œ
And,
Mrs. Fforbes-Campbell,” added Signora Strega-Borgia, “
that
will be on the house. Against the damage to my dress, you understand.”
    At a table by the window, the group of American lawyers on vacation stood up and cheered. The prospect of
Mermaid v. Morty
more than made up for their lack of Nessie sightings.

Dodgy Santa
    H uddled in a forgotten corner of the attic at StregaSchloss, Tarantella shivered. “How
could
she? How COULD she?” she demanded, addressing the rafters. “Thoughtlessly, heartlessly abandoned. Forgotten. Overlooked. After all I’ve done for her, and her miserable family—the ungrateful bizzem of a biped.” Tarantella paused to stuff another desiccated fly into her underfilled Christmas stocking. “Where’s my Christmas present? Where’s my annual reward for being such a perfect pet? Where’s Pandora?” The spider pouted in a fashion that would have given any self-respecting bluebottle nightmares, then added a deceased daddy longlegs to the stocking. “Not seen hide nor hair of her for three weeks. Not even a postcard. Faithless