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Authors: MaryJanice Davidson

BOOK: Undead and Unfinished
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“What, I should just leave the dead in the ground? When they can’t freeze to death? When they take orders so beautifully, don’t feel pain, and don’t call in sick? You want me to waste a human on chores like this?”
“Waste a human? Do you hear yourse—wait. Where do they come from?”
“Sorry,” I said, which was a pure lie. “Privileges of rank. You’ll figure it out eventually.
The Queene shall noe the dead, all the dead, and neither shall they hide from her nor keep secrets from her.”
The smile fell off my face when she snapped, “Yeah, and
noe the dead and keep the dead
. That’s how you interpreted that awful book? You figured out how to raise zombies? Stop me if you haven’t heard this in the last few hundred years, but what is
wrong
with you?”
“Run along,” I said coldly. “I could never make you understand.”
“Yeah? Well, I understand that I can kick the shit out of you pretty much at will, and you don’t dare hurt me back.”
“I will dare. Dare and more,” I muttered. “There are ways to keep you off me that won’t kill you.”
“Then bring it, cow.”
I tried to recall the last time someone had dared insult me to my face. Or even behind my back (among other functions, fresher zombies could repeat overheard conversations verbatim ... they were my all-seeing eyes, the rotten darlings).
To my annoyance, she had called my bluff. I sat behind my desk, my hand resting close to the zombie button. That, at least, wasn’t a bluff. I had raised another dozen or so only last week. They wouldn’t be too decayed to move for at least another three days.
“Run along, little girl.”
“What’d you do to my husband, you fucking sick zombie groupie?”
“
My
husband’s whereabouts are none of your concern.” Had she really called me a groupie?
“Where are Tina and Jessica? And elderly Laura? And why are you letting Marc walk around like that? You might be dead inside, you might have crummy color-coordinating skills in your decrepit old age, but you have to see he’s dangerous, he’s unpredictable, and he’ll probably be the end of you.”
Good points, all. It was refreshing, seeing the occasional flash of logic Infantile Me was capable of. Certainly only a very old vampire would ever have any hope of killing me. Fortunately, Marc was too far gone to rally any troops. And one-on-one, as he had found out nine hundred years ago, he had no chance.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have kept him sealed in a coffin draped with rosaries for so long. I’d wanted him broken, but I hadn’t anticipated he would go insane. It had only been for fifty years, for God’s sake. I still remember the disappointment I felt when I realized I had overestimated his resolve, grit, and discipline. I’d expected more from a physician . . .
“What do you want, Betsy?”
“What do you
think
I want, you psycho shithead?” she cried. I didn’t like to admit it, but being insulted like this was almost refreshing. “I want you to not be a psycho shithead! I want you to go back in time and undo whatever the hell happened to Marc! He was your
friend,
you nasty cow! He was
devoted
to you!”
I stared at myself, my stupid, infantile, foolish self. I was red faced (a good trick for someone who’s blood moves sluggishly at best). I was out of control. If I’d been able to cry, I would have been bawling.
“I don’t know if you did it or Tina or Sinclair, but you should have saved him! And if you couldn’t, you should have taken the head of anyone who
dared
touch a friend of the vampire queen.”
“You
have
noticed Tina’s absence,” I said quietly, arranging the antique pens on my desk.
That shut her up. Alas, not for long. “I don’t believe you. Or maybe I do. I can’t do anything about it now. But you should be ashamed, not me. You let all this happen, and for what? So you could stay safe?”
“Not at all.” I paused. Was I going to do this crazy thing? I had no memory of this conversation. My memories of this chaotic time were of realizing we were all living in a tampered time line. My memories were of seeing the future with horror and running back to my own time as quickly as possible. I didn’t confront myself. This nasty little scene never happened. Laura and I had slunk home when we thought no one was looking. “So my son could stay safe.”
She paused, then shook her head. “Don’t pretend you did all those things because you were trying for Mom of the Year.”
“I never pretend,” I said evenly. “I lost my taste for it once the death toll reached ten million.”
What was I doing?
If I was going to match her recklessness, why not just tell her everything? Tina’s betrayal, Sinclair’s weakness. What I had allowed to happen to so many people.
Satan’s last, great gift to me. A page from the Book of the Dead flashed in my mind’s eye.
“
The Morningstar shalt appear before her own chylde, shalt help with the taking of the Worlde, and shalt appear before the Queene in all the raiments of the dark.”
She had. She certainly had. And then some.
“The Queene’s sister shalt be Belov’d of the Morningstar, and shalt take the Worlde.”
And let us not forget my favorite truism:
“The Queene shalt see oceans of blood, and despair.”
 
l
had. And I had.
So what was I doing now? Why was I tolerating her interference ? Thinking there was an alternative . . . it was more of that residual weakness. The last part of me that was still squirming and alive. The last part to be smashed like a snake.
The last environmental specialist had broadcast his findings to a shocked world. And when he’d finished, he had said something I’d never forgotten: “This is no world for cold-blooded animals.”
Fool.
Chapter 71
T
here was a firm knock on the door, and Decrepit Me looked almost relieved. “That will be Laura, come to entice you away. Then you’ll slink off like thieves.”
“Come in, fellow thief!” I hollered. Laura did, looking shaken. “Watch out for the zombie bits on the carpet”
“So I
haven’t
gone insane from the horror. It passed me in the hall. (We seem fated to never get out of the hallway.) I came to make sure you were all right. Because of your thing.”
“A nice thought, but it originated from here, the poor gross thing. Among my other wonderful hobbies like allowing friends to be brutalized, in the future I take up zombie raising.”
“Infant,” Psycho Me muttered.
“And you!” I jabbed a finger at Asshat Me. “You don’t fool me a bit, you crone. When I came in here and made you my bitch—”
“You did
not
—”
“Quiet, you ancient bitch. Younger, Cooler, Awesomer You has the floor. You were surprised when I did that. You were
freaked out
. Things might not be as cut and dried as you tried to pretend.”
There was a long silence, broken by Shriveled, Elderly Me calmly saying, “Perhaps. Why not remain awhile, and discuss it? There are things—”
“You know what? I don’t give a shit. We’re out of here.”
Laura glanced at me, troubled. “Betsy, maybe Dinosaur You has a point. We could—”
“Still not giving a shit. Take us back to hell. Right now.”
“But we—”
“Laura, this is not a good time to make me repeat myself. Sword! Mystical doorway! Hell’s waiting room! Now!”
Her sword was in her hand while I was still spitting out
mystical
. That was more like it.
“Ta-ta,” Prehistoric Me said.
“Fuck off.”
“Fuck off twice,” the Antichrist added.
Laura sliced. We stepped.
Good-bye, future. Hope to see you never.
Chapter 72
N
ever thought I’d be glad to see this place.”
“Amen.”
“Ah! Back so soon.” The Ant was at the receptionist’s desk, still dead, and still with awful hair. “How was it?”
I pointed. After facing Jerk-off Me, I was in no mood for her idea of banter. “Get Laura’s other mother. Right now.”
To my surprise, the Ant popped out of sight. She was maybe doing my bidding and maybe searching for a few thousand boa constrictors to fill the waiting room with. Either way, she was out of our hair for a few minutes.
“I think it’s fixable.”
Laura nodded. “It’s worth trying, if nothing else. You said she was freaked?”
“Completely. And she said things—things she hadn’t meant to say. She seemed surprised. And—not hopeful, not really, but maybe less . . . resigned?”
Laura was still nodding. “Okay. It’s better than nothing. We were able to prove to her—and more important, to us—that the future isn’t set.”
“There’s no fate but that which we make for ourselves.”
“That’s from
The Terminator.
”
“Yeah, which will now be known as Time Travel 101.”
“I think—I think one of the things I have to do is what my mother wants. Take over hell; take her job. But not the way she thinks. Not the way Future You thought. I’ll take hell, but it’ll be on my terms, not Satan’s.”
I was nodding, too, reluctantly. I hated the thought of Laura stuck in that awful job, but if we were going to save the world from me, we’d need some big-time power. I didn’t see the devil lifting a finger. So it would be up to Laura to lift the fingers, so to speak.
Besides, she looked human but really wasn’t. No more than I was. She couldn’t hide from her destiny in the suburbs the way I had tried to.
“Maybe that’s what the book meant. Maybe instead of taking over our world, you’ll take over hell.”
“We’re on exactly the same page,” she agreed.
“I have to say, not worrying about you taking over this world will be a load off my mind.”
“Um . . . Betsy? Is it just me, or ... ?” Laura gestured.
She’d noticed what I had seen the minute I realized we were back in the waiting room. All the locked doors were gone; there was just the door
out.
The one back into hell proper, for lack of a better word.
“Of course,” the devil said, materializing behind the desk.
“Of course
what
?” I wouldn’t deny it: all the time traveling had made me grumpy. “I hate when you’re cryptic.”
“Sorry,” Satan yawned.
“Why now?” Laura asked. “We tried and tried to get out before.”
“The exit appeared because you needed it to appear. Before, you only wanted it to appear.”
“Oh, not Zen-in-hell bullshit,” I groaned.
“Sorry,” Satan said. “I don’t make the rules.” Then she laughed cheerfully. “That’s not true! I do make the rules!”
“It’s so creepy when you laugh,” I observed.
“Almost as creepy as when I don’t. So, questions? Comments? Ah . . .” She trailed off at my eager expression. “Perhaps not comments. Maybe you should just go home.”
“Maybe I will,” I agreed.
So, with Laura’s help, I did.
Chapter 73
l
t ended where it began for me: in the library where we kept the Book of the Dead. What was funny was, now that I knew what was going to happen, now that I had a brand-new mission, I didn’t
need
to read the stupid thing.
Still, knowing I could made living in the same house with it slightly more bearable.
And a shower! I could shower! I could be clean! I could
not
revolt myself! Or others!
I spied my red bag beside one of the coffee tables, and lunged for it. A change of clothes! Clean underwear! Oh I loved, loved, loved the present!
I heard the front door slam, heard the bellow of a cheerful baritone, and didn’t give a shit. I righted the coffee table (it must have fallen over when Satan tossed me like a tiddlywink), snatched up my bag, and—
Saw Detective Nick Berry standing in the parlor doorway.
“I
said,
Rainbow had a sale on raspberries. So I bought about ten pints. What Sinclair doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?”
I dropped my bag and stared. This, this smiling, friendly, relaxed Nick,
this
was the Nick I had known before I’d died.
“I—I can’t believe it,” I stammered.
“What? You think I’d leave my favorite vampire berryless? Get it? Berryless? I got a million of ‘em. Did you know you’ve got dirt on your nose?”
“I’m your favorite vampire?”
He sighed and glanced at the ceiling. “Your vanity knows no bounds, but you make it look cute instead of irritating, so I’ll indulge you: yes, of course you’re my favorite vampire. Don’t get me wrong, Sinclair’s a handsome man, and Tina’s certainly easy on the eyes, but I’ll admit it: I’m a star fucker.”

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