When Ms. Estella Themis, the future royal Madeleine Shortshanks of Albania, received a huge bouquet of 220 long-stemmed white roses, not to mention her cyber love lament from Mr. Lone Odion Star, a wave of regret rushed over her, an odd longing to re-member the good old days of soterika.biz...to cyber chat with her mysterious secret admirer just one last time.
"What if he crashes the wedding and challenges the Prince for my hand?" Estella wrote to Vlad, back in London and de Smeardje's good graces since she had agreed to Sobek's sudden and unexpected notion of a chemical wedding between a true Grail princess such as herself and the diminutive, illegitimate bloodline heir to the Maltese throne. "We don't have a clue who Lone Star is...or do we? If he ruins my big day, well...I am going to throw the biggest fit, right there in Notre Dame, in front of all your relatives, I don't care...do you have any idea how much my Stella McCartney trousseau cost, do you! Don't even get me started on the wedding gown..."
Vlad grimaced as he read the threat, forwarding it straightaway to his own true heart, Anubis Jack. "Get over here ASAP," he urged, "I'll send the plane fare - Ms. Estella and I will pick you up at Heathrow next Friday - I need you for a most delicate mission - we need to hit that troublemaker O. Peyton and her cowpoke Lone Star in Paris on the 22 day - tango gopher incognito foxtrot."
"Heh heh," Carlos grinned all the way across the pond from his new home in the desert of Nuevo Mexico, "with pleasure, Toots...I'll do this job for free!"
Thus the stage was set for Miss O's execution, an assassination to be performed by the Jackal on the date of Mary Magdalene's own passing, a fact that caused Vlad to chortle with glee.
"I despise all Christian Grail cults," he fumed to Pindar the lizard. "And as soon as Estella pops out a princeling prat bottle by Shortshanks, it's curtains for her, too...miserable-buggering-fornicating-cow."
However, Ms. Maddie had not yet turned completely wicked, nor was she ready to abandon her Knight of the Hermes T Ranch without as much as a good-bye. Waiting until it was very late, she dared to log into the esoterika.biz chat room, not knowing what to expect, hoping against hope she might find Odion in the sky with diamonds...
