Rabbit Blood

Chapter 33 - Play Some Chuck Berry!

Leslie enjoyed quitting her job. She'd never done so in such dramatic fashion, but then again, she'd never had a boss as loathsome as Mr. Rapier. On Friday night, just as planned, she finished her shift, sticking around for fifteen minutes while she waited for Bossman to get his act together. She grabbed something impulsively from behind the bar, then circled back, hiding the thing under her coat as she got behind Ginerva, in line for the back office. She watched Rapier review her timesheet, disincluding breaks the staff had been denied from taking, and she focused on his horrible bulbous nose and squirrely mustache. Finally he paid her out.

"Thank you," she beamed. "I quit."

"You what?"

"I quit!" she repeated, then took out his beloved air horn, the one he kept to bully customers, and deployed it right next to his head. Rapier's eyebrows left his face as he jumped and fell from his swivel chair. A relatively harmless 'fuck you' to her boss, but it gave her no small amount of satisfaction. Laughing, she gave him a few more blasts before linking Ginny's arm and running from the establishment.

It was a little premature, perhaps, to flounce away before she taught her first official class at the hotel, but what was the point in waiting? Why should she endure one more day of overworked, underpaid hell when she didn't have to?

Alastor enjoyed hearing about it as they sat on his couch the next night, even making her re-enact the event with an empty water-pistol. He then showed her the newspaper (one of many media outlets Vox controlled), where a front page article detailed his fight with Alastor. Sparks Fly Between Feuding Overlords, read the headline. Below it was a photograph of the two demons: Alastor wielding tentacles, and Vox making the air sizzle with blue lightning. Of course, there were no signs of Leslie or Ginerva in the photo, since they'd left before the reporters arrived. Just as well, she thought.

Leslie skimmed the text.

"OK, but this goes on about you, like, at length," she said, then quoth the third paragraph aloud, "'Once again we see the classic game of cat-and-mouse -- or is it cat-and-cat? -- play out on the streets of Hell. Alastor, literally and abstractly red,' whatever that means, 'was seen standing defiantly even as furious electrical winds tousled his hair and coattails. The narrow, mischievous eyes and glowing grin he saved for his adversary could be seen for miles. Perhaps this riveting overlord considers Vox less of a nuisance than he lets on.'"

"He wishes."

She put down the paper with a scrunch. "That's kind of creepy! And it's definitely bad journalism, I mean... Did Vox secretly write the article? Because it feels like he did."

"Wouldn't be surprised," Alastor sighed. "He has always been a bête noire, frankly, but his agitational mood has increased since he and Valentino dissolved their affair."

"Oh, so he's-? Oh."

"At the very least, you girls dancing allowed me to get the drop on him... not that I need distractions in general."

Alastor momentarily left the couch to put on some music. As he did so, Leslie used her phone to take a photo of the article, and then snapped one of Alastor before he could react. His face in the photo appeared as a glitchy black-and-red mess. Now that she looked again at the image on the paper, his visage was scrambled there too.

"Get rid of that," Alastor warned, pointing a finger.

"What, I can't have one photo of you?"

"Not in the office. Erase it."

He was serious. Taking advantage of his tech-illiteracy, she deleted the photo from her gallery before his eyes, planning to retrieve it from the 'Recently deleted' folder tomorrow. Alastor seemed satisfied, sitting down again. They got to 'playing' as usual, and all was well until Alastor unhooked Leslie's bra, causing a handful of small change to come spilling out.