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Authors: MaryJanice Davidson

BOOK: Undead and Unfinished
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“Yeah, well. That’s how quick we’re gonna be neck deep in shit.” I snapped mine. “Like that.”
Chapter 31
l
must warn you ... although theoretically you can travel to any time or any place, you’ll be drawn toward those events that had a significant impact on you—of her.” Satan pointed at—dammit!—me. ”Because Betsy is part of your learning as well. And I will understand your dismay. Bad enough she’s part of your blood, yes?”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Laura said, but she had a peculiar expression on her face. Like she was somewhat concerned, but not all there. I think, in her head, Laura was
already
traveling to other zones and other times. “It’s not nice.”
“I only wanted to give you a last warning. As you mature, you won’t necessarily be at Betsy’s whims. But that could take time.”
“Luckily, this all didn’t sound awful and scary enough,” I said. “I’m glad you’ve saved the worst for last.”
We’re stuck together because my sister and I are two of the few people on the planet with the potential to live for five thousands years, Ye gods.
Take time? Like what? How much are we talking exactly? A baseball reason? A school year? A decade? A century? Why do I have the feeling that spending a few centuries as sidekick to the Antichrist might have a detrimental effect on my sanity? Not to mention my wardrobe.
I shook my head but kept those thoughts to myself. “And again, thank you so much.”
The devil shrugged. “It wasn’t a coincidence that I shot-putted you into the parlor room wall so you could wake up here. I needed to show you a demonstration. The fact that your hollow, empty head sustained a concussion was just a bonus.
“You see, Laura is only
part
angel, something that has always held her back but which I could work around. Unfortunately, since I am complete in myself—”
“Complete in yourself?” I started to laugh.
“—my blood, my abilities, aren’t diluted by a human strain. But Laura’s are. I can move from here to there to there and back to here simply by the force of my will. Laura can’t ... at least, not yet. To move from place to place, or time to time, she needs to have strong physical contact with a blood relative. Her father is dead.”
“No shell,” I guessed. “Only his spirit. So no chance of physical contact with him.” Satan raised her eyebrows. “What? I pay attention sometimes.”
“Mmmm. So that leaves me. Or you. Which actually means you, Betsy, because she won’t learn if she simply taxis along with me for the ride.”
“What does strong physical contact mean?” I asked. “A face full of pillow? Should we cha-cha? Thumb wrestle? What?”
“It means strong physical contact. I shall now give you a few moments to deduce what I mean.”
“Shows what you know. I won’t need a few—hey. Uh. What? Hey! Dammit!”
“You may now curse me for twenty seconds.”
“You tricky, treacherous, shoe-stealing cow! You
bitch
! This is so
bogus! What is wrong with you?
Why do you have to be so sneaky ... and creepy! Aw, fuck a duck.” I took an unnecessary breath and yowled, “I hate everything!”
“And ... time.”
“Especially you, Satan! Especially you!”
“Mmmm.” Satan closed her eyes, a dreamy look on her face. “Those words are meat and drink to me.”
Chapter 32
W
e were back in the tacky office-waiting-room section of hell. The devil wasn’t kidding about how her will shaped reality here. Not that she was much of a kidder anyway. Although it seemed like we’d been walking and talking for hours, she turned us around and took something like three whole steps and
boom!
There was the waiting room again.
“As Betsy surmised, this room is symbolic of your ability to travel. As I said, your brains simply can’t—”
“Since you said it, a few times, I think, why are you saying it again? Let’s get this abortion over with.”
“Watch your mouth,” Laura said, looking irritated.
“Sorry. I guess being in
hell
where my sister has to
smack
me to teleport through
space
and
time
to avoid going
insane
has made me a little
grumpy.”
“That’s enough, drama queen,” Satan said, nicely enough.
“It’s vampire queen. And I’ll be the judge of what’s enough if you don’t mind. And even if you do.” I brightened. “Especially if you do.”
“To leave, open a door and step through.” Satan pointed.
I walked over and inspected the closest door. Pretty standard. It even had a red neon EXIT sign above it and an old-fashioned handle. There were at least half a dozen in the room, each spaced about two feet apart.
“To come back, Laura, you’ll use your Hellfire sword to cut a doorway for you to return through.”
Laura nodded. “All right, Mother. I’m not very good with it ...”
“Yet,” Satan said.
“I try not to use it.”
“I trust that will change.” Satan was unsmiling, even a little tense. “Your life will depend on it.”
“Gosh, Satan. I’ve never seen this sentimental side of you. And I won’t deny this; I feel cheered up. It doesn’t sound like one single thing could go wrong with any of that. Sure, I was nervous at the start of the tour. But now all my worries have been thoroughly laid to rest.”
“It may take several tries for you to make it all the way back,” Satan cautioned, “but you know what they say about practice guaranteeing perfection.”
“Nope,” I said. “Nothing at all will go wrong. How could it? It’s all so simple. So easy. So free of potential disasters.”
“My hope,” Satan continued, ignoring me, “is that eventually you will move all about the universe simply by thinking it. That you will need no props”—a vague gesture at me—“and no weapons.”
“Speaking
as
the prop,” I said, “aren’t you going to give us a panic button or something? What if we’re stranded somewhere dangerous?”
“Oh, I expect you will be,” Satan said, terrifying me. “But you won’t learn if I rescue you.”
“But we could—” Wait. That wasn’t the way to her black, black heart. “But
Laura
could get seriously maimed. Or killed. Or kidnapped by nuns and forced to marry Jesus. Or exposed to ... uh ... horny Boy Scouts.”
“I know. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
The scary part? She was not kidding. At all. She’d really given it some thought and weighed Laura’s possible demise against what her daughter could learn, and judged it worth the risk.
And I thought the Ant’s maternal instincts were poisonous.
Chapter 33
A
ll right,” I said, tapping one of the doors. “You wanna make with the teleporting, or should we find out how awful the restaurants are in hell?”
“I guess we’d better. The first one, I mean.” Laura looked and sounded doubtful. And who could blame her? Never had an office waiting room looked so sinister to me, and that included the time I had to go to the DMV two days in a row to pass my driver’s test. “So ... I’ll just ...” She stretched out a hand and turned the knob. Which didn’t move.
I tried it myself, which was as dumb as hitting the elevator button when I’d just seen someone else do it. It’s like we all think
our
magic fingers will do the trick.
“So. Make with the strong physical contact.”
Laura reached toward me with tented fingers. She rested them on my chest and sort of eeeeeased me back, then tried the door again. No luck.
“Strong
physical contact,” the devil reminded us.
“You’re supposed to let her figure this out for herself, so back off. C’mon, Laura. You can do it.” But I wasn’t sure I wanted her to. If she couldn’t pull this off, if she was
too
human, we could go home! Before more death and weirdness! I’d be able to give Tina a good laugh by describing hell.
For that matter, if I could have gone back to the mansion and grabbed someone to bring with us (assuming Satan would have obligingly played interdimensional taxi cab), it’d
be
Tina. She was supersmart and she didn’t rattle, two qualities I didn’t have, and thus admired.
“Um ...” Laura gave me a friendly chuck on the shoulder. No joy.
“I think I’m going to leave,” the devil said, sighing. “If I have to watch any more of this, I may vomit. Or kill one of you.”
“Quiet back there. Laura, have I mentioned those nightmares you’ve been suffering have wreaked havoc on your complexion? You have
serious
bags under your eyes.”
“Oh, I believe it. That’s one of the reasons we’re here. I can’t thank you enough for being here with me.”
Well,
great
. “And your clothes don’t match. And your shoes are dead to me.”
“Really? I know you don’t think I should buy shoes at Target, but they’re very pretty and inexpensive. What’s wrong with my clothes, though?”
She glanced down at herself: conservative long-sleeved navy T-shirt, faded blue jeans. A wide, beat-up man’s leather belt, I assumed one of her dad’s (her adopted dad, I meant), made her waist seem even smaller than it was.
I would have looked like Owen Wilson if I’d tried to pull that off. But the masculine touch at Laura’s waist just made her seem more beautiful and feminine. I pinched my nose and shook my head. Some days, it really didn’t pay to get out of bed. Maybe Laura could master time travel really quick and take us to two days ago, and then I wouldn’t be in hell trying to goad the Antichrist into socking me in the eye.
“I admit the jeans are a little big, but then Dad said I could borrow—”
“There’s nothing wrong with them,” I sighed. “You look beautiful.” Damn the luck. “But ... your midwestern accent! You sound like a cross between Frances McDormand in
Fargo
and Ed Rooney’s secretary in
Ferris Bueller’s
Day
Off.”
“Wasn’t she terrific in
Fargo?
So earnest and nice, but really smart, too. She’s
soooo
talented. Did you see her in
North Country?”
“Hells yeah! Can you believe that was based on a true—dammit! Let’s try to focus.”
“Okay.”
“You have bad breath. And ... your hair ... is stupid.”
She looked shocked and covered her mouth with her long, tapering fingers. This was getting us nowhere. I’d known my sister was good-natured bordering on comatose, but this was just stupid. Which was how I felt right now.
“Do you think I should switch toothpastes?”
“Fuck it,” I said, and hauled off and slapped her face. The sharp
crack
seemed to fill the room. There was an even louder
crack
as her fist crashed into my nose.
I think I just got my second concussion of the night,
I thought, observing that the room was getting wavy and ... was that right? Yes. The room was going away.
Good-bye, weird office lobby in hell, good-bye ...
Satan’s laughter was the last thing I heard before the hell fell away from us.
Chapter 34
S
top me if you’ve heard this before,” I said, too scared to open my eyes, “but I hate everything.”
“I’m so sorry! You surprised me. And it really stung! But you’re not bleeding. If that, um, makes you feel better.”
I cracked an eye open. Laura was bending over me, possibly starting a future crow’s foot, she was frowning so hard. Oh, who was I kidding? She’d never have a wrinkle. “Don’t do that. Your face’ll freeze that way. Where are we?”
I sat up.
And instantly wished she’d hit me harder, so I could have enjoyed an hour or two of unconsciousness.
We were in the past, all right. Her first jump ever and she’d pulled off time travel. If the big, ancient-looking church wasn’t a tip-off, ditto the eighty zillion horses and horse-drawn wagons, what I didn’t see or hear would have given me the answer.
It was too quiet. No cars. No background hum ... no horns, telephones, no ring tones. No streetlights. No motorcycles or mopeds. No ten-speeds.
I could smell the ocean, but, more surprising, nothing really stank. I won’t deny surprise; in addition to no motorcycles, there was no deodorant, hairspray, or strawberry body scrub from the Body Shop. But the salty air was surprisingly clean and refreshing. And the town looked tidy and sweet. These old-timers were serious about keeping the place tidy.
I wondered if everywhere in America smelled like this right now. Smelled real, before we forgot what even dogs know and started shitting where we ate.
There weren’t many forest sounds, though there were enormous trees just past the main street or path or road or whatever it was. An occasional bird call, but that was it.

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