Undead and Unappreciated (9 page)

“W
ell, I do have some good news!” I shouted. “I know how we can track down my sister!”

“Why are we having a meeting in the hallway?” Sinclair asked, looking up from his notes for practically the first time all night.

“So Jessica stays in the loop, duh,” I replied. “Anyway, I thought we could track my long-lost sister down and ask her not to take over the world! Okay? I mean, something good came out of the fuckup du jour, right?!?”

Marc rubbed his ear. “How do you want to start?”

“Well, I know she was born right here in the Cities, on June 6, 1986!”

“Six six eighty-six?” Tina asked. “That's interesting.”

“It's lame, is what it is! What, we're in
The Omen
now?!? But anyway, we can narrow it down to all the baby girls born to the Ant on six six eighty-six, and how many of them can there be? One, I'm guessing!”

“I don't think you have to
scream
,” Marc said. “Her door isn't that thick.”

“Do you think you can get the records? You said at the Ant's that you'd try!” This meeting was making me tired. And why wouldn't Sinclair look at me? I figured he was still pissed about the other night. Not a word about how he didn't even notice I was evil, natch. I started to get freshly annoyed and tried to squash it. I was in no position to play the victim. “Marc?!?”

“Shit, I heard you.” He rubbed his ear. “Yeah, I don't think that'll be too hard.”

“What about confidentiality issues?” Tina asked.

“What's that you say?” I shrieked. “You want to know how we get around confidentiality stuff?”

They both looked annoyed, and then Marc answered her. “Well, let's put it this way. Normally I don't like to go snooping around in charts that are none of my business. But to find Satan's daughter and save the world, I'll make an exception. And Tina, if you or Eric come with me, I'm sure we can get past the clerks.”

“All right,” Tina said.

“Do you want me to come, too?” I screamed.

“It's not necessary,” Tina said, leaning away. “We'll tend to this errand for you, Majesty. Besides…” She eyed the closed, locked door to Jessica's bedroom. “You have other things to worry about.”

“Right! Well, here's what happened! In case you were wondering!”

“
I'm
wondering how long this meeting will last,” Sinclair muttered.

“The devil got really bored down there in Hell and decided to come to Earth for a while! And she possessed the Ant when she was knocked up! And then she went back to Hell!”

“You know all this?” he asked, looking up again.

“Yes! The Book told me! I mean, it didn't
tell
me, I sort of read about it and then just knew the rest!”

“So your stepmother actually
was
the devil for, what, almost a year?”

“Yes!”

“That's amazing,” Tina said, wide-eyed.

“Not so amazing! What's amazing is that she was possessed by Satan for almost a year and nobody noticed anything unusual!”

What was that? I thought I'd heard a muffled laugh from the other side of the door. I listened hard, but I couldn't hear anything else. Nuts.

“I have to admit, that's a new one on me,” Marc said. “But you don't seem surprised.”

“I grew up with the woman. So the devil thought she was the perfect vessel…I guess you called it, Marc.” My voice was getting tired, so I was talking normally for the moment. “She lost nearly a year of her life, and when she came back to herself, she must have totally freaked. Dumped the baby, tried to get things back to normal. Then later, she managed to talk my dad into marriage. So she got what she wanted, eventually.”

“But at what cost?” Sinclair asked. He was sitting cross-legged on my right side and turned to give me a look that was almost scorching. Then the moment passed, and he was back to his notes.

“Right,” I said uneasily. “Okay! So, Satan went back to Hell, the Ant broke up my parents' marriage, my sister was dumped into the foster care system, and now we gotta find her before she takes over the world!”

“An interesting agenda,” Tina said, bringing up a small hand to cover her smile.

“For all the good it will do,” Sinclair said, “your sister is fated to rule the world. As you will recall from your own late reading, there is not a lot of gray area in the Book. I doubt anything we can do will prevent the daughter of the devil from doing that which she pleases.”

“Well, we're gonna try!” I hollered back. “We can't not try!”

He shrugged. “As you wish.”

Damn right, as I wish. Now if I could just tear him away from his precious note-taking, things might start getting back to normal around here. What the hell was so damned engrossing, anyway? His last will and testament? His grocery list? I leaned over and peeked, but he was writing in a language I didn't know.

“Okay, meeting adjourned!” I shrieked. “Unless anybody has anything to add?” I half-turned and watched Jessica's door, but it didn't open.

So that was that.

 

The next afternoon, I drove to my mom's office at the U. Tina wasn't up yet, Jessica was still avoiding me, Marc was off somewhere, and if I was exposed to much more of Sinclair's cold shoulder, I was gonna get frostbite.

We'd find out later tonight what, if anything, Tina and Marc had found out, but for now, the waiting was driving me nuts. The whole situation was driving me nuts.

So, like any insecure, lonely, friendless vampire, I wanted my mommy.

She'd had the same dumpy office for twenty years—tenure didn't mean a decorating budget, apparently—and I made my way there in no time.
DR. ELISE TAYLOR, HISTORY DEPARTMENT
was etched on the glass part of the door. Her specialty was the Civil War, specifically the battle of Antietam. Like I hadn't had my fill of
that
by the time I was ten.

I could hear her talking in the hallway long before I saw her silhouette against the door. She had half-opened it and was still haranguing her colleague:

“I'm not going to the thing, and you can't make me, Bob, you absolutely can't.”

Then she saw I was waiting for her. Her mouth popped open, and her green eyes bulged. Her snow-white hair was straggling out of its usual neat bun; it was her post–sophomore Civil War 124 look. Then she shut the door on poor Bob and ran to me.

“Betsy! You're up!” She looked out her window, looked back at me, looked out the window again. “My God, what are you doing up?”

“Surprise,” I said, holding out my arms. She jumped into them—I'd been a head taller since I was twelve—and gave me a squeeze. “I thought I'd do the pop-in.”

“I love the pop-in if it's you. So what's happened? Is this part of being the queen? Oh!” Her hand went to her mouth. “I just realized…this means you can go to Antonia's baby shower.”

I grinned. “Thanks. I totally hadn't thought of that until now. Heh.”

“So…what's happened?”

I ended up telling her most of it: reading the Book, and going crazy, and what I had done to Jessica and Marc and Tina. I left out what I'd done to Sinclair. Mom didn't need any updates on my sorry sex life. Besides, she was so fond of Sinclair she'd probably be annoyed with me. I also left out the daughter of the devil angle. Mom was broad-minded, but it was best to give her the info in digestible chunks.

“…and Jess is still hiding from me—she sleeps at night now, behind a locked door. She used to stay up all night because I was up all night. I really screwed the pooch, Mom. Pardon my French. I think the worst part is, I'm in a mess that's totally of my own making. Sinclair warned me about the Book, but I didn't listen. And Jess paid for it. Everybody paid for it.”

“You did, too, honey,” my mom said, her eyes soft with sympathy. Ahhhh. A mother's love…it was like slipping into a sauna—warm, yet hard to breathe. “You're still paying for it. Of course, Jessica is upset. But you've been friends since the seventh grade. A little felony assault isn't going to change that.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, and I started to perk right up. “Your friendship survived death. It'll recover from this. Just keep apologizing. Do it every single day. Besides, a little remorse will do you good, dear.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I take it Tina and Marc have forgiven you?”

“Yeah, seems like it. Tina never seemed mad about it in the first place, and Marc's a little tense around me, but he treats me nice and all. It's just Jessica.” And Sinclair. But there was only so much I could stand to tell her about my own piss-poor behavior.

“Honey, it wasn't your fault. It was that Book. Bound in skin and written in human blood, you say? It must be ancient…possibly predating—well—everything.” Her eyes were seeing me and far away at the same time; I'd seen that look before. “What I wouldn't give to—you say you keep it in your library?”

“Mom. Seriously. If I see you near that thing, I'll throw it in the fireplace. I might do it anyway. No Book for you.” So she'd know I wasn't kidding, I went Soup Nazi on her. We were both gigantic
Seinfeld
fans. “
No Book for you!”

“Betsy, you can't.” She was all somber and reproachful. Not a big fan of book-burning, my mom. “It's literally priceless. Think of what we could—”

“It's a priceless pain in my big white butt. You don't go anywhere near it, get me? The thing's been around forever, and even Sinclair hasn't read it all—just enough to torture me with. I mean it, Mom. Promise you won't try to check it out.”

“I promise if you promise not to burn it.”

“Fine, I promise. And thanks for the escape hatch, but I can't blame the Book for how I acted after. Nobody stuck a gun in my ear and made me read it. It was my choice. And I've
got
to make it up with Jess.”

“Well, keep trying to apologize. You'll have more time to do that, now.” She looked out the window again.

I leaned down and rested my head on her shoulder. “Yeah, you're right. I'll keep at it.”

She rubbed my back, and we watched the sun go down together.

“I
t took some doing,” Marc said into the baby monitor, “but we got it figured out. Over.”

“It's not a walkie-talkie, and you're not a trucker,” I said, exasperated. “And how much doing could it have taken? You started last night.”

“Hey, next time you track down Damien. Whose name is Laura, by the way.”

We were in the kitchen—everyone but Jessica—and I was getting the scoop on my lost-now-found sister. The three of them were unanimous in their dislike of screaming at Jessica's closed door, so Marc had picked up a set of baby monitors. He'd popped one into Jessica's room that morning, while she was out and the rest of us were conked. She couldn't have minded—we didn't find the monitor in little pieces in the kitchen garbage, at least.

Wait a minute.

Laura?

“Satan's kid is named Laura?”

“Laura Goodman.” Tina giggled.

“That's pretty dumb.”

“Almost as ridiculous a name as Betsy for a vampire queen,” Sinclair commented.

Was that a nasty comment or a nasty-nice comment? Was he getting over being mad? And why did I care so much?
He
was usually on
my
shit list.

I had to admit, I didn't much care for the role reversal. But what could I do? I had the distinct impression that apologizing for having sex with him would just make everything worse. And things were plenty bad enough, thanks. “So, what else did you guys find out?”

Plenty, as it turned out. Laura had been adopted about ten seconds after the Ant had dumped her, thank goodness, by the Goodmans, who settled with her in Farmington, where she grew up. Even better, Laura was a student at the U of M and had an apartment in Dinkytown. My mom could probably help me out a little there.

“It wasn't even very hard to find this stuff out,” Marc added. He turned to Tina. “My review is tomorrow. Will you please come to work with me?”

She rolled her eyes and laughed again. “Oh, Marc.”

“Well, I suppose it wouldn't have been,” I said. I had great respect for Tina's sinister powers. Hey, trying to kill her could be seen as a compliment! A sad, lame compliment. “If there's someone out there Tina can't put the vamp mojo on, I haven't met them.”

“Less mojo was needed than you would believe. Everyone was very open about…well, everything. The adoption and where she is now and what she's doing. We've even got her phone number.”

“Well, good.” I guess. That was good, right? Right! Time to regain control of this meeting. Assuming I'd ever had it. “So I guess we'll…what? Go see her? Track her down in the root of all evil—Dinkytown, is it? Tell her we're onto her, and she'd better not fulfill her destiny or we'll…what?”

“One thing at a time,” Sinclair said. Since he was having very little to say these days, I was glad to hear him piping up. “We must find her first.”

“Together?”

He speared me with his dark gaze. Which was as uncomfortable as it sounds. “You shouldn't speak to Satan's own by yourself. Of course, I will come with you.”

“Of course.” I smiled at him, but he didn't smile back.

“Meeting's over,” Marc told the baby monitor. “Over.”

“S
he volunteers at the church,” I said. “Oh. My. God! She volunteers at the church!”

“No matter how many times you say it out loud,” Sinclair said, “it still seems to be true.”

We'd been shadowing a group of kids—all girls in their late teens—for the last two hours. I wasn't sure which of them was my sister—there were three blondes, two brunettes, and even a strawberry blonde in the group. They'd gone from the U (my mom had most helpfully provided Laura's class schedule, breaking about twenty school regs in the process) to an apartment house in Dinkytown, and now they had all trooped into the local Presbyterian church.

“They're like a flock,” Sinclair observed.

“That's just what girls do at that age.” Heck, any age. “They travel in clumps. Like hair!”

“Charming.”

We were in Sinclair's Passat. I know, I know…the king and queen of the vampires, tooling around in a blue Passat? He was keeping the really good cars—the convertible (a Mustang ironically a convertible), the Spider, the various other pretty cars that I didn't know the names of—under wraps for the time being.

Maybe he had hauled the good ones out before to impress me, and now that he was done with the mating dance, it was Passat time.

Ridiculous.

Right?

“I'm going in,” I said. I waited for him to caution me, to warn me not to be heedless, to be careful, to insist I wait until the devil's spawn was in a place he could go, too.

Instead, I got, “That seems wise. We really must find out more about this girl.”

“Well, so I'll go in. Wait here for me, okay?”

“Mmmm.” He was squinting at the church again; I could have started disrobing, and he probably wouldn't have looked away.

“Hey, how come the devil's kid can go in a church and you can't?”

“Ask her,” he suggested.

“I think I'll work up to that one,” I replied and climbed out of the Passat to cross the street.

 

I opened the door and walked into the church, hoping Sinclair was noticing the awesome way I could do just that. Yay, the queen!

Argh, again, why did the queen
care
? Was the queen at heart a pathetic loser who could blow off a guy while he was all over her, but the minute he started ignoring her couldn't stop thinking about him? And why was the queen referring to herself in the third person?

But I had to admit, I'd been so focused on being mad at Sinclair for various sins against me, I'd sort of gotten used to him being around. Being concerned about me, always ready to take one for the team, that was Sinclair all the way. When he wasn't being sneaky and withholding.

Focus, idiot
. Instead of the main part of the church, the part with the pews, I was in a dining area with tables and chairs all over. The gaggle of girls was in the far corner, chatting and giggling, and one of them—the tallest, the blondest, the prettiest—waved at me, said something to her friends, and walked over.

Too late, I realized I had no cover story. At all.

“Hi,” she said, smiling. She was wearing a white button-down, crisp and spotless, with khaki pants and loafers. Beat up, ancient, cracked, yukky loafers; no socks. Her hair was long and fine, the blond strands looking like rough silk, and caught away from her face with a white headband. Her eyes were a perfect, clear blue, the exact color of the sky. Her skin was also irritatingly perfect, creamy with peach highlights, and not a freckle in sight. No makeup—she didn't need it.

And she was smiling so pleasantly at me, in her casual running-around clothes, that I instantly knew she was one of those beautiful girls who didn't know they were beautiful. It took all of my powers as the queen of the undead not to instantly hate her.

“Why are you and your friend following us?”

“Uh…” Because, as king and queen of the vampires, we feel that you—or one of your friends—as the devil's daughter (and worse, the Ant's daughter), should be stopped from ruling the world. Welcome to the family! Now get the fuck out. “We're…we're looking for Laura? Laura Goodman?”

“I'm Laura,” she said, holding out a slim, pale hand for me to shake. I took it, being massively unsurprised. She was too tall (as tall as me!), too pretty, too perfect. And you know what they said about the devil taking a pleasing form. “What can I do for you?”

“Well…the thing is, I—”

“Laura!” One of her gaggle was calling over to us. “You coming? This dance isn't going to plan itself.”

“Be right there,” she called back, and turned back to me. “You were saying?”

“It's kind of a private thing. Do you have any time later tonight? Or tomorrow? Maybe we could have some coffee and talk?”

“Okay,” she said, and she wasn't giving off scared vibes, which was good. Really trusting…or really scarily powerful with nothing to fear from the likes of me. “How about lunch tomorrow? Kahn's?”

“Ohhhh, I
love
Kahn's!” So we couldn't go there. If I couldn't eat the awesome garlic noodles with scallions and lamb, I wasn't going to watch someone else do it. “But lunch is bad for me.”

“Well, I've got class tomorrow until four thirty…”

“How about Dunn Brothers, at five? Right around the corner?”

“All right, then.” She shook my hand again. “It was nice to meet you…”

“Betsy.”

“Right. See you tomorrow for coffee.”

“Bye,” I told my sister and watched her walk back to her friends.

 

“So she's this wretched evil beast who's fated to rule the world
and
she's a natural blonde. Just ridiculously pretty—hair, face, long thin legs, okay clothes, terrible shoes. And sweet as sugar, so far. When she turns into her horrible demon self it should be something to see…

“I didn't see much resemblance to the Ant or my dad, except for her being tall like me, and blond. But that's not too hard; we're in Minnesota, not Japan. I dunno. I'm having coffee with her tomorrow, trying to suss out her evilness…so I guess that's everything.”

I clicked off the baby monitor and then remembered, so I turned it back on. “Almost forgot, I told Sinclair all about this, too. Sun's not going to be down all the way by five—I swear, vampires must have thought up daylight savings—but since it hasn't kicked in yet, he can't come. He didn't even seem to mind that he couldn't be there again. I guess he's still pretty pissed at me. Not that I blame him. Or you,” I added hastily. “I can't seem to fix it with either one of you. And it's weird—it's bugging me that he's being so chilly and distant. And it's bugging me that it's bugging me. I can't apologize, and I can't pretend nothing happened. I guess…I guess I'll just focus on other stuff. Oh, my mom's having me over for supper the day after tomorrow, and she says you should come, too. If you want.”

Silence.

I clicked the monitor off again and went up to bed.