The Warslayer(36)

Vixen looked around. Her friends were chained against the velvet-covered walls. Plump and perky Sister Bernadette, in her short-skirted brown nun's habit and tights—Sister B's eyes went wide when she saw Vixen, as if she wished to shout a warning but didn't dare.

Beside Bernie was the tall and slender Marlowe—Wardrobe had only been able to give him one costume change for his episode, but the teal-blue velvet doublet (re-cut from one of the ladies-in-waiting's dresses from the series premier) showed off his craggy red-headed good looks to perfection. She did wish they hadn't had to kill him off at the end of his episode, but since he'd only been dragged off to Hell by demons, there was always hope.

"Undoubtedly, you will wish to know my plan," Lilith Kane said, stepping forward into her key-light. "Behold!" she said, with a sweeping gesture.

Fra Diavolo scuttled downstage, the skirts of his black soutane swishing, to fling back the curtain at the far side of the room. Lying on a tilted table, wearing a brief white shift and nothing else, was another Vixen, identical in every respect to the original but seemingly asleep. Startled, Vixen looked down to make sure she was still her.

The Duchess laughed, a pealing laugh like silvery bells. "Surprised? I sent to Cathay for the most perfect mandrake, and from it and a drop of your blood I had the foresight to save from our last adventure I had my alchemists grow a homunculus indistinguishable from you in every degree. Soon I shall give it life, and send it forth in the world in your place, where it will undo all the good you have done in your short life and make the name of the Slayer anathema throughout Merrie England! Only two people could possibly see through this masquerade, and so I had them brought here, where their blood will give my poppet life—and seal the covenant of your doom and everlasting disgrace!"

There was a pause.

"Oh, Jesus," Sister Bernadette muttered, sliding her hands out of the manacles.

"Line!" Marlowe shouted, looking behind Vixen.

"Effing—goddamned—amateurs!" the Duchess shouted, dropping the posh pear-shaped tones and turning away. "Christ on toast, girlie, when I was at Southland, your size-eighteen ass would have been out the gate the second time you blew your line that way."

"Hey, Zorro, you just hit 'em with your sword, right? I mean, it's not like they should expect you to talk, too—"

Vixen whirled. Standing behind her was Count Wolfgang von Blitzkrieg, Hentzau's ambassador to the Court of Queen Elizabeth, and former Eurotrash underwear model. He wove drunkenly toward her, leering sloppily.

"Leave her alone," Julie Sluice said. Vixen's former Olympic teammate was wearing her selkie costume from Episode 18, and the silver makeup glistened in the torchlight. "It isn't her fault she isn't any good. When she was on the team with me in Seoul, she always did her best. It wasn't much of a best, but . . ."

"Time is money here," Sister Bernadette said, walking forward. "How hard can it be to say 'Come, camrado, evil wakes' or whatever it is this week? For heaven's sake, Vixen, you've said it a hundred times. Just tell her she'll never get away with it, and—"

"Stop it!" Glory shouted. She threw her sword down on the stones, where it clattered ringingly. "I can't do this without a script! I don't know what to do! I'm not Vixen—I'm not even really an actress!"

"Well, we all knew that, didn't we, sweetie?" Lilith Kane vamped maliciously. She turned and began to walk briskly away, toward the back of the Star Chamber.

Glory followed her. She was angry enough to want to shake some manners into Miss High-and-Mighty Romy I-Was-A-Star-Before-You-Were-Born Blackburn, and somewhere deep inside she figured that Romy might know what was going on. The Duchess always knew what was going on—she was the one plotting all the plots, after all.

But somehow Glory didn't seem to be able to get any closer to her. She went from a walk to a run, from baffled anger to red, murderous fury, until all she could think of was getting that snooty bitch's lily-white throat between her fingers. She ran, and somehow never reached the back wall of the set, and Lilith floated on ahead, tauntingly just out of reach, her long blond hair (a wig, certainly, Romy's hair was nothing like that long) shimmering down her tight-laced red satin back beneath her lace-edged Elizabethan headpiece.

And then Glory lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of hair, and miracle of miracles, the wig held, and she snapped the Duchess back toward her like a bimbo yo-yo, panting with victory and rage.

She spun Romy around, and realized, to her horror, that the Duchess was tearing, that Lilith Kane was coming apart like a weird rubber disguise from which the contents had suddenly been removed. Suddenly Glory was alone, holding an empty dress, and the lights were going out.