Viola Grace - Saguinary Seduction, page 22
To everyone’s great relief, the Chief Justice even refrained from proclaiming the vital importance of the traditional family consisting of one man and one woman as he pronounced them man and wife. If he secretly doubted that the bridegroom was a man…well, he still had some social graces.
Those guests who knew the house was haunted kept glancing at the garden in the hopes of seeing Dolley Madison standing over her precious flowers. Since she was so well known to haunt the Rose Garden, few of them were surprised to see her there.
She gave the incumbent First Lady a few anxious moments, worrying what would happen if someone disturbed so much as a rose petal. But since everyone carefully avoided Dolley and her flowers, she remained a smiling presence in the shadows.
Then the party came through the West Wing and into the East Room.
So far, still so good. As usual, Simona was playing the love theme from Titanic, as she always did when hired to perform at weddings, proms, anniversaries, Satanic rituals and other special occasions. It fit in perfectly here…too well, alas, as things turned out.
* * * *
Then the guests started milling around the open bar and taking 197
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hors d’oevres from the silver trays. They were heavy on the extra-rare roast beef, of course.
For the Russian ambassador, a closed bar might have been a good idea. He was holding his third vodka-with-more-vodka when he went in search of the First Lady’s female bodyguard.
“You must be Ylenia Vyrdelek,” he said, beaming as he took her free hand, ignoring her male colleague’s angry glares.
She seemed alarmed for a moment, but was obviously reassured by his fatherly round face beneath his wispy white hairs. “I believe we met at a reception given by the Countess Vyrdelek,” he said, without releasing her cold, dry hand from his hot, moist grip.
“Of course, Mr. Ambassador,” she replied.
“I know she was your sister bride. Or should I say your comrade?”
Jerking her hand away from him, she showed him, for an instant, the red-hot glare of the vampire. “I am not a Communist, if that is what you are asking,” she retorted. “The Secret Service cleared me of all suspicion.”
“But we know that back in 1936, you were in the Communist Student League at Bucharest University,” he whispered, leaning toward her. “I thought that you might have met Comrade Stalin himself, so you can tell me what the Great Soviet Leader was really like.”
“Comrade Stalin was a pig!” she exclaimed. “I know because I dated him…once. I had performed a dance in his honor and he had somehow heard about it and invited me to the Kremlin. You can imagine how flattered I was. Then he threw bread rolls and orange peels at me, right at the table.
And then, when he got even drunker, he tried to drag me under it. Believe me, I was no Communist after that.”
“Well, we have all denounced Stalin,” he answered uncertainly. “We know he did bad things. But what was his true thinking?”
“His true thinking…” she answered, with the vampire’s red glare that would have terrified anyone who was not hell-bent on learning more about the Great Soviet Leader. As it was, he 198
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leaned toward her eagerly as she went on, “His thinking…as far as I could see…was all about finding ways to get girls into bed. By throwing bread rolls at them! I tell you, he was a pig!”
“And that is why you joined the decadent aristocracy?”
“Gladly!” she all but shouted. “Count Vyrdelek never threw orange peels. And he looked very good to me after the Great Soviet Leader.” It might not have been such a sore subject, she realized, except that it reminded her how Stalin had killed Trotsky. Would I have taken a bullet for him? She wondered…even though she would have had the added incentive of pissing Stalin off.
Matt Mader broke into her thoughts by asking sharply,
“How well did you know Comrade Stalin anyway?”
“None of your business!” she retorted, in an even colder tone. “I have gotten full security clearance and that should be enough for you. It was seventy years ago, Josef Stalin is dead and there is no Soviet Union any more. Not even Congressman Zagorsky would be questioning me about that, and he was a Polish-American. Until he became a Transylvanian-American, of course.”
“Maybe someone should be doing just that,” Agent Mader answered, glaring down at her. By now, he was angry enough to add, “It’s bad enough having Secret Service agents who are foreign-born, female vampires, without their having been with Stalin, too.”
Left speechless with fury, she finally managed to say, “I have not been with Comrade Stalin, in the way you mean, because he was a vulgar pig and a male chauvinist pig, too.
Obviously, he had nothing on you!” And she turned on her high heel and headed for the nearest tray of rare roast beef.
* * * *
Heads were turning toward them and their raised voices. Dolley Madison could hear them even in the Rose Garden.
Ever the gracious hostess, she was used to breaking up brawls before they started. Of course, she realized that she 199
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might frighten some of the guests merely by appearing…but everyone would be a lot more upset by a screaming match in the East Room.
That seemed all too close to happening now as the Countess Vyrdelek started racing to rescue her former sister bride from the guard. Dolley Madison immediately appeared between them.
“I believe that Mrs. Lincoln may also have known some Communards,” she said hastily as she shimmered into view.
“She was in Europe during the Paris Commune. Shall I ask her to join us?”
Just as she had feared, several people screamed and backed away, overturning the shrimp-cocktail sauce onto the pure white linen tablecloths. But the current president was not that easily frightened off. Before the panic could spread, he left the bridal group and strode firmly toward the disturbance, Scotch and soda in hand.
“Mrs. Madison, how nice to see you again,” he said, taking her hand. He neglected to give it back again as he stared at her exposed and uplifted bosom.
“And it’s always a pleasure to see you, Mr. President,” she replied, lowering her eyes demurely, thus sending her black curls falling enticingly around her shoulders.
Did her pink little rosebud lips linger over the word pleasure? She could tell from his sly smile that he hoped so.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough, boy!”
* * * *
They jumped apart when they saw the unmistakable lantern jaw and white shock of hair that made Andrew Jackson one of the most recognizable presidents, which was mostly due to the new outsized portrait on the twenty-dollar. “It makes me look like a rock star on a poster,” he often grumbled…but his tone made it obvious that he adored looking just that way. The current incumbent glanced anxiously back at the bar, long enough to notice with relief that the boy was Caucasian.
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Tennessee’s favorite son could not be expected to show modern sensitivities, where ethnic groups were concerned, especially in his current condition, but the current incumbent had to do so, no matter what his condition was. O’Neill had noticed with a shudder that Old Hickory was drinking straight from the bottle and holding it with one hand as though it had been a jug.
He just wished that the Great Liberator would show up soon so the two late presidents could spend the rest of the evening swapping dirty jokes. Old Abe had such an extensive repertoire, they could have stood there all night. Some of his favorites were still told, too…
“Tonight, wife, you will sleep with the mayor.”
* * * *
Later that evening, after the election returns are in… “Where are you going at this hour, wife?”
“To his house.”
No matter how often he had heard it, the current president still had to smile at that one. His grin faded as he realized that, in Old Abe’s absence, he would have to handle the problem himself.
“President Jackson!” O’Neill exclaimed, almost racing toward the spirit with his hands held out, in the hopes that his predecessor would return the gesture long enough to put the bottle down. Instead, the Hero of New Orleans took another swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and demanded, “What in tarnation is she doing here?”
“I was talking to President O’Neill,” Mrs. Madison responded, in a defensive tone.
“And from what I’ve seen around here in the Lincoln Bedroom, that isn’t all he wants to do with you. Have you heard that dirt about her and Thomas Jefferson?” he demanded, glaring at his successor from under his bushy white brows.
“He has heard it and does not believe it,” Dolley answered 201
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firmly. The current president nodded in eager agreement, even though he was starting to hope that the scandalous stories were true.
“He’d better not!” Jackson growled. “I shot and killed a man to defend my Rachel’s honor and I’ll do the same for a war heroine. Do you know that she would not leave the burning White House until she had cut Washington’s picture out of its frame?”
“I heard about it, yes,” the president answered faintly.
“So you know why I will defend Mrs. Madison.”
“Isn’t Mr. Madison here, too?” O’Neill asked in his most casual tone.
“No one has seen him,” Jackson answered with a shrug.
“But as long as I am here, I will defend his lady’s good name.”
“Oh, my God, he’s got a gun!” The president sprang back in alarm as he heard his bodyguards’ cry.
Indeed, before the president’s eyes, a pistol had indeed suddenly materialized in his predecessor’s fist.
His Secret Service agents did not hesitate. Ghost or not, major historical figure or no, Andrew Jackson was a threat to the man they protected. Two of them pushed President O’Neill to the floor and piled on top of him, while the third attempted to do the same to the late President Jackson.
“I want to challenge him to a duel, you varmints!” Old Hickory roared. “I would not shoot a man in cold blood. I would even give him the first shot.” When they failed to listen, he vanished from beneath their hands and materialized again beside the grand piano.
Rising to the occasion when she saw Andrew Jackson beside her, Simona started pounding out The Battle of New Orleans. As a vampire herself, she could gaze on a disturbed spirit without even missing a note.
The ten banshees who had been dancing to the love songs came over to ask why the tempo had changed. Seeing the fallen hero of the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Creek War, they burst into shrieking that shattered the glassware, splattering even more cocktail sauce across the 202
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tables and onto the floor.
“Ochone, ochone, ochone!” they cried.
Wincing at the clamor he had caused, Old Hickory disappeared. The lamenting started to die down until Abe Lincoln approached to see if he could help with Mary trailing behind him. Naturally, that started that ear-splitting tribute all over again.
* * * *
The First Banshee, who was also the bride, wailed even more loudly as she lifted her hoop skirts and ran from the room…but for a different reason this time. Ignoring her duty to mourn for the late, great president, she was sobbing that everyone had ruined her wedding. The groom raced after her into the Green Room where she hurled herself onto the green-and-cream striped sofa and buried her face in her hands. Even there, she scented the harsh lye soap odor that was filling the East Room. “Oh, no!” she howled, at such full banshee strength that even her vampire groom pulled back. He even started crossing himself before he remembered his current situation just in time.
Going to the door, she saw her worst fears confirmed.
Abigail Adams was walking through the East Room, pulling up the soiled linens, apparently without knowing or caring that she was walking straight through the guests while sending the Clinton chinaware crashing to the hardwood floor.
The Clintons themselves, with the other former presidents and first ladies, had long since been surrounded by their own Secret Service details. They had rushed them from the room the moment they had heard the fatal word gun!
United by the emergency, Mrs. O’Neill’s own bodyguards soon followed. They were practically flying away with her…and they would have been flying literally, if the vampire had not be warned to keep up appearances at all costs. The other guests raced toward the entrance hall, which had become the exit, crashing over the standing lamps as their evening 203
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shoes skidded on the marble floor.
Their screams drowned out even the banshee as they saw another spirit racing down the wrought iron stairs. This was the White House’s least friendly ghost…a young British soldier who ran across the marble floor waving his torch and shouting that he would burn the whole place down, so he would, and that bitch Dolley Madison, too, after throwing her to the floor and having his way with her.
The last to remain was the Speaker of the House, who was also the only one who seemed to be smiling.
* * * *
“Vampires who dated Josef Stalin guarding the First Lady! Witches, ghosts and banshees! That’s who we have in the White House. Now they’ve thrown it into turmoil and the East Room is completely destroyed. If that didn’t tell us that it’s time to call a halt, nothing ever will. That’s why we call our movement Back to Normal.”
“The ghosts were seen before we even knew that vampires existed and long before we elected George Zagorsky,”
Cassandra Bailey replied mildly.
“We don’t know that,” the Speaker of the House responded to her while staring straight at the TV cameras.
“They might have been mere rumors until the First Lady raised them…or the First Witch, I should say.”
“I think First Lady is more appropriate,” his blonde hostess said reproachfully.
“And I think First Witch is just fine,” her partner Buck Patrick snapped back. This might have been startling to anyone but a Dueling Duo fan who watched their TV shout show religiously.
He could more aptly have been called her sparring partner.
The Dueling Duo’s audience always assumed, based on long experience, that whatever she said, he would say…or shout…the opposite.
“Of course, the events at Maeve O’Neill’s wedding were 204
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regrettable,” Cassandra went on, ignoring the fact that not one gentleman or lady of the press regretted the uproar in the least, these two definitely included. “But that does not reflect on all paranormal minorities. Ordinary humans have behaved very badly at weddings, too, even in the White House. Why, at Andrew Jackson’s own inauguration—”
“His supporters tore the place apart. We know, we know,”
Buck Patrick retorted impatiently, shaking his balding head in scorn. “But they did not cause a panic.”
“Well, perhaps people panic because of their prejudices.
And who says that the paranormal minorities can’t be as normal as anyone?”
Rep. Lee was struck silent for a moment, obviously having failed to anticipate that question. Finally, he said, “Well, if they can be, they didn’t prove it at the White House this week.”
“So what should we do about them?”
“How about exorcism?” Patrick sneered.
He had meant it as a joke and was rather dismayed to see his guest gazing at him thoughtfully.
“That might be a good idea,” Rep. Lee said. “Of course, we want to keep Abraham Lincoln with us…and Andrew Jackson, too, of course.” Having this placated both the Northern and Southern regions, he went on in the same measured tone, “But they must be suffering here, being kept from their eternal reward. It may be the greatest gift we can give them…to help them find the peace they want so desperately.”
* * * *
“Tarnation!” Andrew Jackson shouted, shaking his fist at the television set that now perched on the Red Room’s marble mantel. “I’ll help that little varmint find peace on the dueling ground. We’ll be a real dueling duo.” “You can’t call him out, Andrew,” Abigail Adams pointed out. “You are a ghost, remember? He can’t kill you…and I’m not even sure you could kill him. Besides, if you did, he might join us.” She shuddered at the thought.
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“But exorcism? As though we were some kind of evil spirits? Who in Hell does he think he is!”
“Well, if they want to spew me, they have to chew me,” the former railsplitter drawled. Seeing Abigail’s blank stare, he went on, “Excuse me, m’am, that’s frontier talk. It means…”
and his gaunt face went grim…”Old Abe here ain’t that easy to get rid of.”
* * * *
It would be impossible, if the First Lady had her way. “Jacqueline Kennedy devoted herself to restoring the White House with relics of our history. Now that we have seen and heard and even spoken with its human legacy, are we to throw them out?” she demanded, her well-bred voice trembling with unaccustomed indignation as she spoke to the press. “While I preside over the White House, no exorcist will set foot here.”
“The White House is the people’s house,” Rep. Lee said in response. “Every resident must bow to the people’s will.”
Both felt sure it would end in a constitutional crisis…but they reckoned without Marlene Lynch.
Small, Southern and social, the curly-haired little blonde was already well known as a Washington volunteer. That made her a natural candidate for a post as a White House docent, leading the guided tours.
On the application form, she gave the address of her Arlington apartment. She did not mention the 150-year-old house in New Orleans, which was a much more appropriate location for a practicing witch. As Evelyn O’Neill would have felt certain, Ms. Lynch was a pretty wicked one. She certainly was sneaky. And she was absolutely certain that the White House ghosts, like all of those other paranormal minorities, were loyal to the liberals.
Those guests who knew the house was haunted kept glancing at the garden in the hopes of seeing Dolley Madison standing over her precious flowers. Since she was so well known to haunt the Rose Garden, few of them were surprised to see her there.
She gave the incumbent First Lady a few anxious moments, worrying what would happen if someone disturbed so much as a rose petal. But since everyone carefully avoided Dolley and her flowers, she remained a smiling presence in the shadows.
Then the party came through the West Wing and into the East Room.
So far, still so good. As usual, Simona was playing the love theme from Titanic, as she always did when hired to perform at weddings, proms, anniversaries, Satanic rituals and other special occasions. It fit in perfectly here…too well, alas, as things turned out.
* * * *
Then the guests started milling around the open bar and taking 197
eXtasy’s Collective Mind
hors d’oevres from the silver trays. They were heavy on the extra-rare roast beef, of course.
For the Russian ambassador, a closed bar might have been a good idea. He was holding his third vodka-with-more-vodka when he went in search of the First Lady’s female bodyguard.
“You must be Ylenia Vyrdelek,” he said, beaming as he took her free hand, ignoring her male colleague’s angry glares.
She seemed alarmed for a moment, but was obviously reassured by his fatherly round face beneath his wispy white hairs. “I believe we met at a reception given by the Countess Vyrdelek,” he said, without releasing her cold, dry hand from his hot, moist grip.
“Of course, Mr. Ambassador,” she replied.
“I know she was your sister bride. Or should I say your comrade?”
Jerking her hand away from him, she showed him, for an instant, the red-hot glare of the vampire. “I am not a Communist, if that is what you are asking,” she retorted. “The Secret Service cleared me of all suspicion.”
“But we know that back in 1936, you were in the Communist Student League at Bucharest University,” he whispered, leaning toward her. “I thought that you might have met Comrade Stalin himself, so you can tell me what the Great Soviet Leader was really like.”
“Comrade Stalin was a pig!” she exclaimed. “I know because I dated him…once. I had performed a dance in his honor and he had somehow heard about it and invited me to the Kremlin. You can imagine how flattered I was. Then he threw bread rolls and orange peels at me, right at the table.
And then, when he got even drunker, he tried to drag me under it. Believe me, I was no Communist after that.”
“Well, we have all denounced Stalin,” he answered uncertainly. “We know he did bad things. But what was his true thinking?”
“His true thinking…” she answered, with the vampire’s red glare that would have terrified anyone who was not hell-bent on learning more about the Great Soviet Leader. As it was, he 198
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leaned toward her eagerly as she went on, “His thinking…as far as I could see…was all about finding ways to get girls into bed. By throwing bread rolls at them! I tell you, he was a pig!”
“And that is why you joined the decadent aristocracy?”
“Gladly!” she all but shouted. “Count Vyrdelek never threw orange peels. And he looked very good to me after the Great Soviet Leader.” It might not have been such a sore subject, she realized, except that it reminded her how Stalin had killed Trotsky. Would I have taken a bullet for him? She wondered…even though she would have had the added incentive of pissing Stalin off.
Matt Mader broke into her thoughts by asking sharply,
“How well did you know Comrade Stalin anyway?”
“None of your business!” she retorted, in an even colder tone. “I have gotten full security clearance and that should be enough for you. It was seventy years ago, Josef Stalin is dead and there is no Soviet Union any more. Not even Congressman Zagorsky would be questioning me about that, and he was a Polish-American. Until he became a Transylvanian-American, of course.”
“Maybe someone should be doing just that,” Agent Mader answered, glaring down at her. By now, he was angry enough to add, “It’s bad enough having Secret Service agents who are foreign-born, female vampires, without their having been with Stalin, too.”
Left speechless with fury, she finally managed to say, “I have not been with Comrade Stalin, in the way you mean, because he was a vulgar pig and a male chauvinist pig, too.
Obviously, he had nothing on you!” And she turned on her high heel and headed for the nearest tray of rare roast beef.
* * * *
Heads were turning toward them and their raised voices. Dolley Madison could hear them even in the Rose Garden.
Ever the gracious hostess, she was used to breaking up brawls before they started. Of course, she realized that she 199
eXtasy’s Collective Mind
might frighten some of the guests merely by appearing…but everyone would be a lot more upset by a screaming match in the East Room.
That seemed all too close to happening now as the Countess Vyrdelek started racing to rescue her former sister bride from the guard. Dolley Madison immediately appeared between them.
“I believe that Mrs. Lincoln may also have known some Communards,” she said hastily as she shimmered into view.
“She was in Europe during the Paris Commune. Shall I ask her to join us?”
Just as she had feared, several people screamed and backed away, overturning the shrimp-cocktail sauce onto the pure white linen tablecloths. But the current president was not that easily frightened off. Before the panic could spread, he left the bridal group and strode firmly toward the disturbance, Scotch and soda in hand.
“Mrs. Madison, how nice to see you again,” he said, taking her hand. He neglected to give it back again as he stared at her exposed and uplifted bosom.
“And it’s always a pleasure to see you, Mr. President,” she replied, lowering her eyes demurely, thus sending her black curls falling enticingly around her shoulders.
Did her pink little rosebud lips linger over the word pleasure? She could tell from his sly smile that he hoped so.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough, boy!”
* * * *
They jumped apart when they saw the unmistakable lantern jaw and white shock of hair that made Andrew Jackson one of the most recognizable presidents, which was mostly due to the new outsized portrait on the twenty-dollar. “It makes me look like a rock star on a poster,” he often grumbled…but his tone made it obvious that he adored looking just that way. The current incumbent glanced anxiously back at the bar, long enough to notice with relief that the boy was Caucasian.
200
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Tennessee’s favorite son could not be expected to show modern sensitivities, where ethnic groups were concerned, especially in his current condition, but the current incumbent had to do so, no matter what his condition was. O’Neill had noticed with a shudder that Old Hickory was drinking straight from the bottle and holding it with one hand as though it had been a jug.
He just wished that the Great Liberator would show up soon so the two late presidents could spend the rest of the evening swapping dirty jokes. Old Abe had such an extensive repertoire, they could have stood there all night. Some of his favorites were still told, too…
“Tonight, wife, you will sleep with the mayor.”
* * * *
Later that evening, after the election returns are in… “Where are you going at this hour, wife?”
“To his house.”
No matter how often he had heard it, the current president still had to smile at that one. His grin faded as he realized that, in Old Abe’s absence, he would have to handle the problem himself.
“President Jackson!” O’Neill exclaimed, almost racing toward the spirit with his hands held out, in the hopes that his predecessor would return the gesture long enough to put the bottle down. Instead, the Hero of New Orleans took another swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and demanded, “What in tarnation is she doing here?”
“I was talking to President O’Neill,” Mrs. Madison responded, in a defensive tone.
“And from what I’ve seen around here in the Lincoln Bedroom, that isn’t all he wants to do with you. Have you heard that dirt about her and Thomas Jefferson?” he demanded, glaring at his successor from under his bushy white brows.
“He has heard it and does not believe it,” Dolley answered 201
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firmly. The current president nodded in eager agreement, even though he was starting to hope that the scandalous stories were true.
“He’d better not!” Jackson growled. “I shot and killed a man to defend my Rachel’s honor and I’ll do the same for a war heroine. Do you know that she would not leave the burning White House until she had cut Washington’s picture out of its frame?”
“I heard about it, yes,” the president answered faintly.
“So you know why I will defend Mrs. Madison.”
“Isn’t Mr. Madison here, too?” O’Neill asked in his most casual tone.
“No one has seen him,” Jackson answered with a shrug.
“But as long as I am here, I will defend his lady’s good name.”
“Oh, my God, he’s got a gun!” The president sprang back in alarm as he heard his bodyguards’ cry.
Indeed, before the president’s eyes, a pistol had indeed suddenly materialized in his predecessor’s fist.
His Secret Service agents did not hesitate. Ghost or not, major historical figure or no, Andrew Jackson was a threat to the man they protected. Two of them pushed President O’Neill to the floor and piled on top of him, while the third attempted to do the same to the late President Jackson.
“I want to challenge him to a duel, you varmints!” Old Hickory roared. “I would not shoot a man in cold blood. I would even give him the first shot.” When they failed to listen, he vanished from beneath their hands and materialized again beside the grand piano.
Rising to the occasion when she saw Andrew Jackson beside her, Simona started pounding out The Battle of New Orleans. As a vampire herself, she could gaze on a disturbed spirit without even missing a note.
The ten banshees who had been dancing to the love songs came over to ask why the tempo had changed. Seeing the fallen hero of the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Creek War, they burst into shrieking that shattered the glassware, splattering even more cocktail sauce across the 202
Sanguinary Seductions
tables and onto the floor.
“Ochone, ochone, ochone!” they cried.
Wincing at the clamor he had caused, Old Hickory disappeared. The lamenting started to die down until Abe Lincoln approached to see if he could help with Mary trailing behind him. Naturally, that started that ear-splitting tribute all over again.
* * * *
The First Banshee, who was also the bride, wailed even more loudly as she lifted her hoop skirts and ran from the room…but for a different reason this time. Ignoring her duty to mourn for the late, great president, she was sobbing that everyone had ruined her wedding. The groom raced after her into the Green Room where she hurled herself onto the green-and-cream striped sofa and buried her face in her hands. Even there, she scented the harsh lye soap odor that was filling the East Room. “Oh, no!” she howled, at such full banshee strength that even her vampire groom pulled back. He even started crossing himself before he remembered his current situation just in time.
Going to the door, she saw her worst fears confirmed.
Abigail Adams was walking through the East Room, pulling up the soiled linens, apparently without knowing or caring that she was walking straight through the guests while sending the Clinton chinaware crashing to the hardwood floor.
The Clintons themselves, with the other former presidents and first ladies, had long since been surrounded by their own Secret Service details. They had rushed them from the room the moment they had heard the fatal word gun!
United by the emergency, Mrs. O’Neill’s own bodyguards soon followed. They were practically flying away with her…and they would have been flying literally, if the vampire had not be warned to keep up appearances at all costs. The other guests raced toward the entrance hall, which had become the exit, crashing over the standing lamps as their evening 203
eXtasy’s Collective Mind
shoes skidded on the marble floor.
Their screams drowned out even the banshee as they saw another spirit racing down the wrought iron stairs. This was the White House’s least friendly ghost…a young British soldier who ran across the marble floor waving his torch and shouting that he would burn the whole place down, so he would, and that bitch Dolley Madison, too, after throwing her to the floor and having his way with her.
The last to remain was the Speaker of the House, who was also the only one who seemed to be smiling.
* * * *
“Vampires who dated Josef Stalin guarding the First Lady! Witches, ghosts and banshees! That’s who we have in the White House. Now they’ve thrown it into turmoil and the East Room is completely destroyed. If that didn’t tell us that it’s time to call a halt, nothing ever will. That’s why we call our movement Back to Normal.”
“The ghosts were seen before we even knew that vampires existed and long before we elected George Zagorsky,”
Cassandra Bailey replied mildly.
“We don’t know that,” the Speaker of the House responded to her while staring straight at the TV cameras.
“They might have been mere rumors until the First Lady raised them…or the First Witch, I should say.”
“I think First Lady is more appropriate,” his blonde hostess said reproachfully.
“And I think First Witch is just fine,” her partner Buck Patrick snapped back. This might have been startling to anyone but a Dueling Duo fan who watched their TV shout show religiously.
He could more aptly have been called her sparring partner.
The Dueling Duo’s audience always assumed, based on long experience, that whatever she said, he would say…or shout…the opposite.
“Of course, the events at Maeve O’Neill’s wedding were 204
Sanguinary Seductions
regrettable,” Cassandra went on, ignoring the fact that not one gentleman or lady of the press regretted the uproar in the least, these two definitely included. “But that does not reflect on all paranormal minorities. Ordinary humans have behaved very badly at weddings, too, even in the White House. Why, at Andrew Jackson’s own inauguration—”
“His supporters tore the place apart. We know, we know,”
Buck Patrick retorted impatiently, shaking his balding head in scorn. “But they did not cause a panic.”
“Well, perhaps people panic because of their prejudices.
And who says that the paranormal minorities can’t be as normal as anyone?”
Rep. Lee was struck silent for a moment, obviously having failed to anticipate that question. Finally, he said, “Well, if they can be, they didn’t prove it at the White House this week.”
“So what should we do about them?”
“How about exorcism?” Patrick sneered.
He had meant it as a joke and was rather dismayed to see his guest gazing at him thoughtfully.
“That might be a good idea,” Rep. Lee said. “Of course, we want to keep Abraham Lincoln with us…and Andrew Jackson, too, of course.” Having this placated both the Northern and Southern regions, he went on in the same measured tone, “But they must be suffering here, being kept from their eternal reward. It may be the greatest gift we can give them…to help them find the peace they want so desperately.”
* * * *
“Tarnation!” Andrew Jackson shouted, shaking his fist at the television set that now perched on the Red Room’s marble mantel. “I’ll help that little varmint find peace on the dueling ground. We’ll be a real dueling duo.” “You can’t call him out, Andrew,” Abigail Adams pointed out. “You are a ghost, remember? He can’t kill you…and I’m not even sure you could kill him. Besides, if you did, he might join us.” She shuddered at the thought.
205
eXtasy’s Collective Mind
“But exorcism? As though we were some kind of evil spirits? Who in Hell does he think he is!”
“Well, if they want to spew me, they have to chew me,” the former railsplitter drawled. Seeing Abigail’s blank stare, he went on, “Excuse me, m’am, that’s frontier talk. It means…”
and his gaunt face went grim…”Old Abe here ain’t that easy to get rid of.”
* * * *
It would be impossible, if the First Lady had her way. “Jacqueline Kennedy devoted herself to restoring the White House with relics of our history. Now that we have seen and heard and even spoken with its human legacy, are we to throw them out?” she demanded, her well-bred voice trembling with unaccustomed indignation as she spoke to the press. “While I preside over the White House, no exorcist will set foot here.”
“The White House is the people’s house,” Rep. Lee said in response. “Every resident must bow to the people’s will.”
Both felt sure it would end in a constitutional crisis…but they reckoned without Marlene Lynch.
Small, Southern and social, the curly-haired little blonde was already well known as a Washington volunteer. That made her a natural candidate for a post as a White House docent, leading the guided tours.
On the application form, she gave the address of her Arlington apartment. She did not mention the 150-year-old house in New Orleans, which was a much more appropriate location for a practicing witch. As Evelyn O’Neill would have felt certain, Ms. Lynch was a pretty wicked one. She certainly was sneaky. And she was absolutely certain that the White House ghosts, like all of those other paranormal minorities, were loyal to the liberals.
