Gone In A Flash

Almost at that exact moment...

...the call came in without warning, the loud ringing disturbing the otherwise silent room.

Lorelei was awake, however, and reached over to pick up the phone.

"Hello, sweetie," purred the Australian. "You know I said I'd call."

Lorelei fought the urge not to throw the phone as far away from her as possible, and instead settled for just wrinkling her nose in disgust. "This had better be good."

"Oh, it is," asked the woman with a grin in her voice. "Would you say that Ruby Redfort's loyal to Spectrum?"

Lorelei was momentarily thrown by this seemingly random question. "I don't know what you're... yes, I guess she is. Why wouldn't she be?"

The Australian laughed. Her voice had always been cold, and this sounded more like shattering glass than anything you'd actually recognize as proper laughter. "Think again. Little Ruby's been a naughty girl – stealing from her mother's cupboard, and running away from home, no less!"

"Stop talking in riddles," Lorelei growled, twisting the cord of the phone tightly around her finger. "What are you talking about?"

A dramatic sigh, rattling through the speaker like a snake hiss. "Oh, do I really need to spell it out for you, sweetie? Always so disappointing. Well, let me put it this way – Ruby's gone rogue. AWOL. Left the premises of Spectrum, gone off to fight the forces of evil all on her lonesome."

"Were you always this dramatic?" Lorelei cut across the Australian. "Or have you been spending more time with the Count lately?"

The Australian's tone instantly became more clipped, tinged with resentment. "Shut up, sweetie – focus on the point. You did understand the point, didn't you?"

"Of course I did." Lorelei reached across into her bag, and pulled out a bottle of perfume – the only perfume she ever considered worth owning. She toyed with the familiar weight of it in her hand for a moment. "So Redfort's gone off- what, to anywhere in particular?"

"Our mole wasn't specific," replied the older woman. "But I think we can make a guess, can't we?"

"You're right. It's obvious." Lorelei sprayed a tiny amount of the perfume into the air in front of her, and smiled as the fragrant scent of Turkish Delight filled the air. "So we can assume that she's not going to come back."

The smile was back in the Australian's voice once more. "Well, I'd hate to make premature assumptions – but no, I don't think little Ruby Red's gonna be coming back alive."

"That is the first proper bit of good news you've ever told me in my life," Lorelei told her frankly.

"It is, isn't it," the Australian agreed. "Well, let's hope this doesn't become a pattern."

She hung up, leaving Lorelei alone in a room that smelled just as sweet as her mood was at that very moment. She slowly began to grin. Ruby Redfort was probably dead, and if she wasn't yet, she soon would be. That was enough to make her day entirely – she felt like celebrating.

She reached across to take out her makeup bag, which was draped over the back of a nearby chair. Even as she began to take out the tools of her trade, she was plotting out the face that would disguise her own on her afternoon trip out.