Vionna and the Vampires

VIONNA AND THE VAMPIRES

A Symphony in Nausea

by Chuck Miller

Published by Pro Se Press at Smashwords

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

Vionna and the Vampires

Copyright © 2014 Chuck Miller

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES

CHAPTER ONE: THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION

CHAPTER TWO: WHAT SCUDDER MORAN HAD TO TELL

CHAPTER THREE: THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE

CHAPTER FOUR: THE GATHERING

PART TWO: MISS VIONNA VALIS OF BAKER STREET

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE: MISTER SHERLOCK HOLMES

CHAPTER TWO: THE ILLUSTRIOUS CLIENT

CHAPTER THREE: HEAVY GAME

CHAPTER FOUR: A CASE OF IDENTITY

CHAPTER FIVE: THE EMPTY HOUSE

CHAPTER SIX: THE FINAL PROBLEM

PART THREE: THE GHOST AND THE MACHINE

CHAPTER ONE: SHERLOCK HOLMES DISCOURSES

CHAPTER TWO: PROBLEMS

CHAPTER THREE: UNDER THE HOUSE

CHAPTER FOUR: ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROFESSOR

CHAPTER SIX: WHEN A DOCTOR DOES GO WRONG, HE IS THE FIRST OF CRIMINALS

CHAPTER SEVEN: A FLIGHT FOR LIFE

CHAPTER EIGHT: YOU KNOW MY METHODS, WATSON

CHAPTER NINE: LADY WITH A LAMP

CHAPTER TEN: THE LADY IS A TRAMP

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE GENIUS AND THE WONDER OF THE THING

CHAPTER TWELVE: LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: NOTHING EVER ENDS…

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moriarty and Doctor John H. Watson were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Some dialog and descriptive passages have been taken from his works.

INTRODUCTION

Vampires.

Everywhere you go, every time you turn on the TV, you see vampires.

They are everywhere these days. Movies, books, comics, you name it. The vampire girls are pretty and sexy and mysterious. The vampire boys are handsome and compelling and fascinating. They are not horrible monsters. They are tragic and loving and misunderstood.

I call B.S. (Pardon my language.)

If you think vampires are cool and romantic and sexy and all that, you are absolutely WRONG. Vampires are gross and stupid and disgusting. I know, because I met some of them not long ago. And I didn’t want to kiss them or be one of them or worship them or any of that. Would you want to do that kind of stuff with a bunch of cockroaches or skunks or mangy, rabid hyenas? If you would, then I guess you wouldn’t have any problem with vampires. But I don’t think there are a whole lot of people who would say yes to that. Anybody who did would be crazy.

I’ll tell you the whole story, and if you still want to go to movies and buy books about gorgeous, wonderful teenage vampires, then I honestly won’t know what to think about you. But it’s a free country.

My name is Vionna Valis, and I’m a private detective. I have an agency I help run with Mary Jane Kelly. Mary is my best friend.

When she was still pretty young-- 25 years of age-- Mary was murdered by Jack the Ripper. She stayed dead for about 120 years, then got brought back to life by me and some of my friends. It’s a long story, but don’t worry about it.

As for my own history, your guess is probably as good as mine. My memory has been completely trashed somehow, by something or somebody that I have no clue about. I don’t remember any details about my childhood, just a few little flashes of memory that don’t make any sense at all since they don’t have any context to make sense in.

I only remember the last couple of years in any detail at all. It’s almost as if I didn’t exist before that. I don’t remember my family, I don’t remember going to school. I was in a pretty sorry state two years ago, when Jack Christian, who became my adopted brother, found me. I have the impression that I spent most if not all of my adolescence going in and out of a variety of mental institutions. When Jack found me I was living on my own in a tiny little apartment and drawing checks from Social Security.

I have really, really tried, and I’ve had help from all kinds of people, including doctors and sorceresses, but I can’t retrieve anything from further back than that. Internet searches don’t turn up any information. My fingerprints don’t seem to be on file anywhere. There is no record of anyone named Vionna Valis ever existing anywhere. It smells like a conspiracy, my friend the Black Centipede (who isn't nearly as bad as everyone seems to think he is) once said. It’s as though someone has been covering up all the tracks for some unfathomable, but almost certainly sinister, purpose. Of course, he always thinks there’s some kind of conspiracy going on with everything he sees. I think it’s psychological, but I’m not going to tell him that, because if I did, he’d probably start thinking I was a conspiracy.

The other weird thing about me is my Roommate, but I won’t go into that here. It will come up later, though, because it plays a part in the story you’re about to read.

At the time, this was the biggest thing that had ever happened to us, and a lot of other people were involved. There are important parts of the story that I did not witness in person. But I learned all the facts from the people who were present, and I’m going to present everything to you in the exact order in which it happened, whether I was there or not. The stuff I didn’t actually see, I will describe in what I believe they call the omniscient third person narrator style. So if it seems to you like I’m being a know-it-all, that’s because I do know it all-- now.

And some of it turned out to be very wonderful. You’ll see what I mean.

Actually, I thought about getting one of the participants to write up his own version of what he had experienced, then just sticking that into this book, but I decided it would just be laziness on my part. I do have the notes he wrote, though. Honestly, even if I was that lazy-- which I’m not-- I wouldn’t put the junk he wrote into a book with my name on it. It was that bad. It probably would have been good enough for one of those goofy teenage vampire books, but it doesn't make the grade for this one, so I’ll just adapt it.

Also, I don’t use cuss words, and I don’t allow anybody else to use them in the stuff I write. So, wherever someone did use one in real life, I have replaced it with something else. Other than that, this account is totally accurate and one hundred percent true.

Vionna Vernet Valis

Co-President, WVC Psychic Detective Agency

Zenith

February, 2013

PART ONE: ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES

CHAPTER ONE: THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION

I seriously doubt, said Mary Jane Kelly, that enormous breasts and a bare midriff would enhance my effectiveness as a private investigator.

We were sitting in our office, which was on the ground floor of this big, old house we bought for practically nothing from our friend, Dr. Dana Unknown.

Well, they wouldn’t, of course, I said. But these days, you have to have some kind of a gimmick to grab people’s attention. Have you looked at our bank book lately? We haven’t had a client in six weeks. And why do you think that is? It’s because the Femmes Fatales Private Inquiry Agency is stealing all our business. Have you seen their TV ads?

Yes, I have, Mary said sharply. And it appears that they are advertising a great deal more than detective work.

"Well, of course it does. Duh, Mary! Hello! That’s their hook. That’s how they get people to pay attention to them. It isn’t just the way they look and dress. The whole commercial sticks with you. I can’t get that dumb jingle with their phone number in it out of my head."

The Femmes Fatales had popped up out of nowhere a few weeks before this. Mary was right about the commercials, of course. There were three of them in the agency, and they were all very attractive and what you would call buxom, which means they had the kind of bodies people-- men mostly-- paid a lot of attention to. Their TV commercials were very bouncy and sexy and they were attracting a lot of clients. As a result, the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee Psychic Detective Agency-- which is me and Mary-- was having problems. We call ourselves ‘psychic detectives,’ because we are very familiar with all kinds of weird phenomena, and we have strange stuff in our heads that could be called psychic powers, but we will take on any kind of case. Here lately, though, the only cases we were taking on were none whatsoever.

Mary aimed a cold eye at me. I have no intention of selling sex.

"I’m not saying that, Mary. God, you are so touchy! We don’t have to sell actual sex to anybody. But we have to be realistic. Listen, we’re not bad looking. I have these striking gray eyes, you know. If we make a commercial where we have on a lot of makeup and stuff, and kind of show off our boobs and so forth, I bet we could blow those dumb Femmes Fatales right out of the water. We’re much better detectives. Heck, as far as I know, they’ve never actually solved a case."

I was being incredibly rational, but Mary was being hardheaded, like she always is. Any time I come up with a good idea, she seems to think it's her duty to shoot it down.

Well, she said, if people are foolish enough to hire incompetent investigators simply because they’re willing to expose their breasts, that’s up to them. But I’ll have no part of–

We don’t have to expose anything, Mary, I interjected. Will you quit putting words in my mouth? I just mean we could wear low-cut tops and maybe get a couple of those push-up bras. We could shoot it in soft focus and be reclining on a sofa–

I’m aware that it will do no good, Mary rudely interrupted, "but I’m telling you now that I absolutely will not be a part of any such thing. You’re wasting your time, an activity for which you obviously have a superhuman capacity. So I’m not going to argue with you. I shall simply ignore you, a technique I should have adopted long ago."

I leaned back in my chair and got quiet. She was expecting me to keep hammering away at her, so I did the exact opposite and changed the subject completely. I could play that game just as well as she could.

And, as it happened, while I was sitting there not hammering away at Mary with my fantastic business plan, I came up with an idea that would make any further hammering unnecessary.

***

I should take you to court, Mary blustered at me a week later. I should absolutely get myself an attorney and sue you for every cent you have.

Well, go ahead, I blustered right back. You know exactly how much I have, which is nothing, the same as you. Just wait a couple weeks until we’re rolling in money, and you can sue me for my half.

Mary’s scowl deepened. You can be a very foolish girl, Vionna Valis, and sometimes I cannot fathom why I put up with you at all.

When Mary gets mad, her Irish accent really comes out. It’s very cute, and it always makes me laugh because it reminds me of that leprechaun in the breakfast cereal commercials.

She was really mad right now, and she sounded really funny, so I couldn’t help laughing. Of course, she took it completely the wrong way.

"Oh, I see, it’s a joke to you, is it? raged the giant leprechaun. You besmirch my good name by hiring some... trollop with, with breasts the size of watermelons to go on television and, and claim to be me in a pornographic advertisement, and you see it as some grand jest, something for your amusement."

Noooo, I said, sitting down and putting my head on my desk. I just could not stop laughing.

Vionna, Mary said sternly. If you think feigning insanity is going to get you out of trouble...

That’s not what I was trying to do, but it seemed like it might be a good idea, and I wondered if I could get away with it.

***

I thought Mary was overreacting, which I should have expected. The pornographic advertisement she was going ballistic over was actually a very tastefully-done commercial that I had taken the initiative to get made.

A couple days after our useless conversation, I made some unilateral plans and carried them out with my customary efficiency. I made arrangements with various people-- including borrowing some money-- and then on the big day I went down to Glamour Shots and had them make me up. Then I headed over to the junior college, where a guy in the AV department shot the commercial.

Obviously, I could not appear in it all by myself. I was competing with the Femmes Fatales Agency, all of whom were what you would call extremely voluptuous. I am a very attractive girl, but there is not a wonder bra in the world that could hoist me up into their league. Plus, there were three of them, and only two of us, so we were out-boobed no matter how you sliced it.

And no, I did not think it was fair that anybody at all, much less a private detective, should be judged on how big her boobs were, but that’s just the world we live in.

So, the night before the commercial was to be shot, I went out scouting.

I called my brother Jack, the one that works either for or with Doctor Dana Unknown. Jack knows a lot of things and a lot of people, and he is, if I may say so, a person with a few unsavory habits. I knew he sometimes went to strip clubs, or used to anyhow. He had cut back on that type of thing after he got started with Dana, though I doubt if she’d have cared one way or the other.

Anyhow, I told Jack what I had in mind, and asked him about strip clubs. Right away he said he’d better accompany me to some of them, since I might get hurt on my own. He said he had no interest in going to such places, but felt duty bound to look after me if I insisted, even though I hadn’t asked him and wasn’t planning to. You can make whatever you want out of that, just like I did.

To cut a long story short, I ended up meeting a very pretty and very, very voluptuous girl by the name of Wilhelmina Whoppers. I have no clue what nationality that is. A very strange name-- but then so is Vionna Valis.

So, Wilhelmina met me that day at the junior college and we were in business. I was wearing the only formal dress I own, an old prom gown of mine that the Black Centipede had once worn to trap the ghost of Jack the Ripper. It still had some pig blood on it, but that wasn’t really noticeable. But even with my glamour makeup and a wonder bra stuffed with kleenex, I knew Wilhelmina was going to have to be the one to take point.

Once we got all the details settled, I was sort of reclining on a little couch, puckering my lips and holding a submachine gun. Wilhelmina was standing next to the couch, wearing a black bikini and cradling an assault rifle in her arms. I was playing the role of Vionna Valis, sexpot psychic detective, and Wilhelmina was, of course, Miss Mary Jane Kelly. I told Wilhelmina that Mary was Irish, so she should talk with an Irish accent. What she came out with sounded more Scandinavian, but I figured it wouldn’t matter much.

***

And now here we were, on the morning after the commercial had first aired on ZNTH-TV, during the Captain Harry Horror monster movie program. I had totally forgotten that Mary almost always watched that show. That night they were showing two Godzilla pictures in a row, and Mary loves Godzilla.

So she had seen the commercial, and she was royally ticked off.

Mary got quiet, and I could feel her looming over me. I was kind of afraid to look up. I felt like I was waiting for somebody to come shave my head and cut one of my pants legs up the side. I imagined that I had bravely resigned myself to my fate.

My phone rang. It made me jump.

I picked it up, even though I knew it was probably just a stay of execution and not a pardon. I ignored Mary, who was standing there staring at me, and probably would have kept on doing it if the phone on her desk hadn’t started ringing. She went over and answered it, so I was able to talk in peace with my caller.

The caller claimed his name was Scudder Moran, of all things. I listened to him with one ear, and with the other ear I listened to Mary’s half of her phone conversation. I wasn’t eavesdropping. I couldn’t help listening because she just kept getting louder and louder.

First she said hello, then it went something like this: "Yes, this is Mary Jane Kelly. I beg your pardon? What did you just say? That is none of your business! No, I do not, and furthermore, if you ever call here again, I promise I shall track you down and..." The rest was a bunch of cuss words and things that I'm not going to repeat here. She slammed the phone down. Two seconds later, it started ringing again.

Fortunately for me, this Scudder Moran character was calling about an actual case-- as far as I could tell. He asked me if, as psychic detectives, Mary and I ever took on cases involving vampires. I told