“Grandbabies?” She sighed.
“Yeah, grandbabies—beautiful, strong, most likely very athletic grandbabies. But first we have to fix Zeb so he can apologize to Jolene, profusely, and they can get married.”
Mama Ginger sighed, twisting a Kleenex into complex tornado shapes. “I took Zeb to Madame Zelda and told him it was for his headaches. It was stress relief, I told him. Madame Zelda could use hypnosis and suggestive imagery to put him in a better state of mind. Every time he told Jolene he was coming over here to do chores, I was taking him to Zelda. She’s spent weeks planting thoughts in his head. Bad stuff about Jolene. Good stuff about you. I made her tell him that you were the only girl he could possibly marry, that you were the only one who could make him happy. That he should be more aggressive with you and let you know how he feels. Zelda fixed it so every time Zeb heard you say the word ‘wedding,’ he would do something to hurt Jolene’s feelings or make a pass at you. And he wouldn’t remember doing it later.”
In my head, I ran over the conversations that had preceded Zeb’s bizarre behavior. In all of them, we’d been talking about the wedding in some capacity. Considering that we’d been planning Zeb’s wedding, that was natural, inevitable. Mama Ginger had set out a minefield for us. “What makes you think you have the right to do this stuff, Mama Ginger? Do you have any idea how crazy this is?”
“I just wanted everyone to be happy!” she yelled. “We weren’t even sure it was working because Zeb was being so resistant. But he kept coming back. Zelda fixed it so he wouldn’t remember anything except the thoughts she put in the back of his brain. We just couldn’t get him to dump her.”
“Because in his heart and his head, he loves Jolene,” I told her. “He was rude to her a few times, said some really hurtful things. He slapped me on the butt in front of my vampire boyfriend, which put him in serious peril—oh, yeah, Gabriel and Dick are vampires, too. But Jolene loves him so much, she forgave him for all of that. So you had to do something bigger.”
Mama Ginger blushed and wiped the mascara streaks from her cheeks. “Zelda fixed it so as soon he heard someone say ‘peas in a pod,’ he would tell Jolene he didn’t want to marry her. He’d repeat all the things that we’d been planting in his head.”
“Well, if there’s a trigger keyword, there has to be a release keyword, right? What is it?”
Mama Ginger flushed. “She didn’t tell me. I only paid half up front. She wouldn’t give me the release word until I paid the rest.” I stared at her. She shrugged. “I wanted to make sure it worked.”
“Well, pay her the rest!”
“I tried. Earlier tonight, I called her and told her I wanted to call it off, that my son was miserable and she had to take everything back. I may have used some words she didn’t like.”
“Such as?”
Mama Ginger sniffled. “Crackpot … crazy old coot … buck-toothed hag.”
“Did you stop to think maybe it wasn’t a great idea to use your special brand of phone manners on the person who has access to your son’s subconscious?”
Mama Ginger was sobbing in earnest now, which meant she would be no further help.
“So I need to track down a psychic who specializes in hypnosis and mind-control techniques to try to wrestle information out of her?”
Mama Ginger nodded pitifully.
“Great.”
After persuading Mama Ginger not to move Zeb or further scramble his brain, I followed her soggy directions to Madame Zelda’s “parlor front” shop on Gaines Street. Madame Zelda lived in a one-story “shotgun”-style house with peeling green paint and a giant plywood hand advertising five-dollar palm readings.
I rang the doorbell, and after some audible shuffling inside, I was greeted by a little old wrinkled lady wearing a fringed purple shawl, a long Indian-print skirt, and a smoky topaz ring the size of a door knocker. Her eyes were heavily kohled. And suddenly, my weird encounter with Esther Barnes made sense.
“Hi, Ms. Barnes,” I said, smiling sweetly.
“I am Madame Zelda,” Esther said in a deep, obviously fake Transylvanian accent while she waved me into the parlor. Her house smelled of yesterday’s fried chicken and overbrewed coffee. Her “office” looked exactly how you would expect a five-dollar psychic to decorate: beaded curtains, stinky candles, busy fabrics, and creepy angel figurines. “I do not know this Ms. Barnes of whom you speak.”
She gestured for me to sit at a tiny tea table covered in a sari, with a laughably large crystal ball in the middle. “That’s funny. You look so much like a lady who came into the bookshop where I work. I must be mistaken.”
“Indeed,” she intoned. “How may I be of service?”
“Well, you’ve been helping a friend of mine with some ‘headaches.’”
“I help many people,” she said, her lips tightening so that I could see the carmine-colored lipstick feathering even further into the tiny lines around her mouth.
“Well, this is a special case. See, he came in, thinking he was going to get your two-hundred-dollar six-session stress treatment and tarot reading. And instead, he ended up brainwashed into thinking he was in love with someone other than his bride-to-be.”
“You!” she growled, the venom in her voice killing off the fake accent, turning her voice thin and brassy once more. “You’re that ‘Jane’ she just won’t shut up about. If I had to hear one more time how wonderful you are, how many beautiful grandbabies you were going to make, I was going to throw up. Wait, wait!” Suddenly, she burst out laughing. Carefully wiping her lined eyes, she hooted, “Ginger doesn’t know you’re a vampire, does she?”
“Not until recently.”
“Oh, that’s priceless!” she cried. “All this time, she was plottin’ to get her boy away from a perfectly nice girl and hand him over to a vampire! Oh, you’ve made my day.”
“Well, I do what I can,” I said flatly as she lit a long brown cigarillo. “The thing is, Zeb’s wedding was ruined because of that crap you put in his head. Having some experience in the psychic arena, I recognize that you’ve got some serious chops. I mean, whatever you did to me at the shop was impressive. My ears were ringing for hours.” A faint flush of pride spread across her furrowed cheeks. “Now, look, Mama Ginger still owes you a hundred dollars. I’m willing to pay you five hundred so we can settle this whole thing without any hard feelings. All you have to do is hold up your end of the deal and give me the release keyword.”
She pursed her lips. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I wouldn’t do it for any amount of money.” She sniffed. “Ginger Lavelle insulted me personally and professionally. And she’s a giant pain in the ass. I don’t want to have anything to do with her. She deserves whatever she gets.” She settled her gaze on me, and in a voice that reverberated inside my skull, she said, “Now, go away.”
Fortunately, I was prepared for the psychic smacking, so while her efforts stung a little, they didn’t do a lot of damage. I shook my head. She seemed stunned by my lack of reaction. “That was rude. I came to you in good faith. And Mama Ginger isn’t suffering, her son is. Look, I know she’s a pain in the ass. It’s part of her charm. And if some insulted part of you feels the need to track her down and hypnotize her into thinking she’s a chicken or a nudist or something, I will be more than willing to look the other way. Hell, I might pay you extra to do it. I’ll consider it a wedding present for a deeply hurt daughter-in-law.”
I backed her against the parlor wall and let my fangs fully extend. “I don’t want to hurt you. But for my friend, I will do anything it takes to get that keyword. You might reconsider—ow!”
She had reached into a side table and pulled out a silver cross large enough to make me break out in hives. “Silly little vampire, I’ve seen inside you. You don’t have the stomach for killing. You can’t even feed on humans without torturing yourself over it. You wouldn’t hurt a little old lady like me.”
Wheezing and scratching the blisters forming on my arms, I spat, “Look, lady, I’ve got twenty-four hours to dewhammy my best friend and get him to the altar. Otherwise, he may never leave his parents’ guest room again. I wouldn’t overestimate the depth of my kindness. And I brought something you didn’t count on.”
“What’s that?”
“Gloves.” I slipped the black Isotoners out of my pocket and slapped the cross out of her hands. “And my big mean sire. Gabriel!”
Gabriel swept into the room, followed by a slightly less sweepy Dick.
“What’s the plan?” Dick asked, rubbing his hands together and checking the room for valuables. “Carnage? Bedlam? Fisticuffs?”
Gabriel smiled solicitously and waved a hand toward Esther. Dick rolled his eyes. “Dang it.”
“What?” I asked as Dick sidled up to the trembling old woman.
Gabriel snickered as he looked over the fading blisters on my arms. “Haven’t you ever wondered about the nature of Dick’s vampiric gift?”
“I figured it was dodging collection agents or slipping out of handcuffs.”
Gabriel grinned as Dick soothingly stroked a resistant Esther’s papery hands and led her to a sofa. He fetched a glass of water and cooed over her as she recovered from the “shock” of having three strange vampires in her home. “Dick can reach the heart of any woman. Through a combination of pheromones, subliminal persuasion, and old-fashioned charm, he can get anything he wants from them—money, favors, certain keywords that will help unlock your best friend’s brain …”
“His special vampire power is flirty manipulation? Wait, he’s not doing that to Andrea, is he? Because that’s … icky.”
“No, he rarely uses it. He hates lowering himself to it, really. So, his doing this shows you how much he likes Zeb. Using his gift doesn’t seem sporting to him. And if anything, Dick adores the chase.”
“I don’t know if I can watch this,” I said, shaking my head in disgust as Dick clasped Esther’s hands against his manly chest. She was already making cow eyes at him. “Keep Dick away from my grandma.”
“Now, Esther—I can call you, Esther, can’t I?” Dick chuckled, giving her a saucy, intimate grin. “It seems like such a shame for you to go by any name but that of one of the most famous queens in history.”
As Esther giggled coquettishly, I felt a little ill. “This is not right.”
“But extremely effective,” Gabriel conceded. “And you don’t have the guilt of assaulting a senior citizen hanging over your conscience.”
Dick stroked Esther’s hands as he pleaded his case, his flashing green eyes drawing her closer across the love seat. “Esther, honey, I don’t blame you for being mad at that awful Ginger Lavelle. She’s a horrible woman, and I personally can’t stand the sight of her, but her son is such a nice boy. He doesn’t deserve this kind of hurt. Now, you’ve got a good heart, Esther. Anyone can see that. You don’t want to break up true love, do you? Why don’t you go ahead and give me the keywords?”
“I just said the exact same thing,” I complained. “That’s never going to—oh, come on.” Gabriel smirked as Esther whispered the words “like peas and carrots” into Dick’s ear.
I snorted. “What is your obsession with peas?”
She ignored me as Dick kissed both her palms and her cheeks.
“We’re square, right?” I asked the nonresponsive geriatric psychic. “You’re not going to come back in a year and use some secret word to make him divorce Jolene and join the Krishnas or something. Hello?”
“Aw, Esther wouldn’t do that, now, would you?” Dick cooed.
“Dick, eventually, your thrall will wear out,” I reminded him quietly.
“I looked over her brain. There are no other words. Esther doesn’t much like to put in extra work, do you, sweetheart?” Dick kissed the top of her scarved head.
“No.” Esther giggled. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, Jane. Will I see you again, Dick?”
“Maybe you will, maybe not.” Dick smirked.
“Oh, please come by,” she wheedled. “Come back and see me.”
Dick merely grinned and ushered us out the door.
“Well, I learned more about you, which is always disturbing.” I wrapped a purely platonic arm around him. “You are a very bad man, and I hope you’re always on my side.”
Zeb was not the depressive type, so it was disconcerting to see him in full Howard Hughes mode, ensconced in his mother’s guest room, also known as her Precious Moments display area. The walls were lined with shelves where carefully arranged figurines stayed perfectly preserved in their plastic viewing boxes. As far as the eye could see, there were towheaded, large-pupiled children forever frozen while cavorting in adorable pastel rain slickers. Huddled under a pink chenille comforter, Zeb stared blankly at the wall.
“I don’t like this place,” Dick whispered after Floyd had let us into the house and flopped back into his easy chair without comment. Mama Ginger had taken to her bed. “It’s like all the little eyes follow you around the room. This is a bad place.”
“Well, it wasn’t upsetting before, but it is now.” Gabriel grimaced as he recoiled from the plush Precious Moments angel that recited the Lord’s Prayer when squeezed.
