Undead and Unpopular (17 page)

Get up

I tried to move.

Get up or they'll kill each other. Really kill each other.

My entire chest felt like it had been drenched in kerosene and then lit. And not in a good way, either. I tried to sit up.

"Better not," Marc said, and I realized he and Jessica were both kneeling over me. "I think your heart's busy growing back."

"Help me up," I groaned.

"Bad idea," he said, but he carefully pulled me to my feet. It seemed to take a long time.

"Jess, you okay?"

"I'm fine. Nothing's broken." She looked awful—blood all over her clothes, blood drying across her face—but at least it wasn't fresh blood. "I know this isn't the time or place, but that really squicks me out."

"What?"

"You're licking blood off the back of your hand," Marc murmured.

Yeesh! "Sorry." I made myself stop. Just as well; it hurt to move. Luckily I didn't need to breathe, because I bet that would have hurt like crazy, too. Now where was I? Something important. Like, life or death important. Oh, yeah… "Stop, you guys! Cut it out. Sinclair, let him go."

Not that I could see what was going on, but it wasn't hard to guess.

I limped toward the kitchen door (which had started all the trouble, come to think of it) and pushed it open. Sinclair was just leaning down to pick Jon up off the tiles, ignoring the loaded gun pointed at his nose.

"Ah, you're up and around," Sinclair said, looking over at me. "Splendid."

"Just… stop. Okay? Come on. I got shot, you broke Delk's arm, Jess got a nosebleed. We'll sprain Marc's ankle and make Tina have a haircut and then everybody's even, okay? Please don't," I pleaded, as Sinclair reached for his prey again. "It's so awful right now; please let's not make it worse. Besides, aren't you dying to rush over here and make sure for yourself that I'm all right?"

I could see him think about it. The gun might have been made of candy for all he noticed it, but I knew Jon's bullets were hollow points stuffed with holy water. One probably would have killed Sinclair. As usual (happy sigh), when I was concerned, he didn't give much of a shit about his personal safety.

And yup, he was actually wrestling with his lovely desire to check on me. And his strong male urge to pull Delk's head off his shoulders and use it as a soccer ball.

"Please," I said again, and abruptly Sinclair straightened up, leaving the other man flat on his back and waving his gun at nothing. He crossed the room and grabbed my hands, then held them out so he could stare at my chest. Marc had ripped my shirt open while I was out; luckily, it was a bra day. I looked down; no hole. Just a few trickles of dried blood.

"
Are
you all right?"

My Ipex bra would never be the same, but… "Sore as hell."

He shook his head. "You are miraculous. The bullet should have killed you. At the least, you should not be healing so quickly, especially as you haven't had any blood in—four days?"

I made a face. "Don't remind me."

He kissed me. "I am thankful for all your peculiarities." He said it with a fervor that made me smile, but a cold part of me wondered what Delk must think of all this cooing vampire affection. Not much, I imagined.

"I'll see the boy out," Tina offered. She'd come in, unnoticed as usual, and was standing by the back stairs. "The boy," heh. No more of "your friend" or "the young gentleman" or "Jon" or even "Mr. Delk." Nope, the gloves were off.

"No, you won't," I wheezed, because she looked positively drooley at the thought of getting Jon alone for a moment. "I'll see him out." I was pretty sure I could make the walk from here to the front door without falling down.

Pretty sure.

"Well,
I'm
not going to," Jessica said. "Marc, you help her."

"I've got patients here."

At some point, Jon had climbed to his feet. The gun was still out, was swinging wildly as he tried to point at all of us at once. His other arm was bent at a nauseating angle; I wondered how he was able to get to his feet, never mind stand and keep the gun up. His face had gone the color of oatmeal. Sweat was standing out on his forehead in big drops. "Nobody sees me out! None of you
freaks
come near me. I'll see myself out."

"Well, all right, don't make a big thing of it," I said crossly. "You know, I
should
be yelling at you for shooting me, but I'm going to let the whole thing go. Now we're even for everything, right?"

"Fuck you," he replied, sounding cool and tough, and we all pretended not to see the tears rimming his lower lashes. "You're only alive because I—because I didn't want you dead just yet."

"Whatever sustains your fragile young male ego. But I think you'd be better off coming back here with an improved attitude."

"You'll see me again," he promised. "With attitude and more." Then he let the gun sort of drift to his side—it was probably way too painful to put it, one-handed, back into a shoulder holster—and simply walked away. On his way through the foyer, he steadied himself once on the banister—and drew his hand away in disgust, shaking stale gum off his fingers.

"And you wanted to evict me," I gently chided Jessica.

Delk stumbled up against the giant front doors, wrestled with the nineteenth-century knob, swore at the latch, got the door open, swore some more at us… and was gone.

"He's got a lot of personal growth ahead of him," I observed. My chest felt a lot better; had the bullet gone through me? It must have. I hoped so; I didn't want Marc or anyone else digging around in there to find it again.

"The infant is lucky he chose to leave."

"We did some pretty shitty things to the infant, in case you forgot. Or don't you care about that?"

Sinclair was eyeing the ruins of my ripped shirt, the bloodstains. "No," he said flatly. "I don't care about that."

"We can't let him live," Tina said.

"Sure we can."

"Majesty, be reasonable. I know you are—were—fond of the child, but he is a
dangerous
child."

"I still consider him a friend, okay? Friends have falling-outs. Or would that be fallings-out? Anyway, we don't always get along a hundred percent of the time. Look at me and Jessica!"

"Duh
not
," Little Miss Myeloma said, her voice muffled through the ice pack Marc had slapped over her face, "drag meh entoh this."

We were in the (first) parlor. We'd picked it because there were two couches, and Jessica and I both needed one. Shit, I needed a hospital ward. But a couch that smelled like dust was the best I could do, right now.

"Surely after what happened today you do not still consider him an ally?"

"Eric, try to see his point of view! If someone's keeping score, we're ahead of him on points, okay? So, seriously: don't go after him, you guys. Don't order another vampire to do it, either. Jon's out of bounds as far as the vampires are concerned."

"Foolish sentimentality."

"Hey, I'm mad at him, too, okay? He shot me. In the chest. With holy water. But I'm not going to kill him."

Everybody looked at my chest.

"No, seriously. He didn't mean to do that. Or he meant to, but he knew it wouldn't kill me—he was scared, okay? Scared and humiliated, which is just the worst combo ever. At least the worst part's over."

"Worst part?" Jessica mumbled around her ice pack.

"I was really dreading telling him. I did
not
want to do that, boy oh boy. But at least it's out."

"What I'd like to know," Marc said from his chair by the fire, "is what he was doing here with a gun in the first place."

"Are you kidding? That kid's always got about nine guns and knives on him. Those farm boys are tough."

"Right," Marc allowed, "but a former Blood Warrior shows up, and you guys don't even frisk him? Make him walk through a metal detector? Something?"

"We knew he was carrying. Mostly because he's
always
carrying. But we never frisk anybody."

"What, that's a rule now?"

"Sure," I said, and Sinclair nodded, backing me up.

"Come on, guys! The Queen of England's a tough cookie, too; but she puts people through a metal detector and a security check before they can talk to her."

"If the throne is so easily taken from us," Sinclair explained, almost exactly the way he explained it to me, "we would be poor monarchs indeed."

"In other words, if someone gets the drop on you in your own house, too bad for Betsy and Sinclair, but they should have been able to take care of themselves?"

We looked at each other. "Basically," I answered, "yeah."

"Great," Marc muttered, and slumped lower in his chair. "Those of us caught in the crossfire appreciate the attention to detail."

"Although," I said, looking at Jessica's face—what I could see around the ice, "maybe we should change that rule."

"If we cannot protect our allies," Sinclair said, "the same rule applies."

"Tough luck, guys," I said in a fake-bright laugh, and they both laughed.

"Getting back to the issue of the child," Tina said, harshing our buzz as visual, "I really think you should reconsider. He—"

The phone rang. She picked it up, glanced at the caller ID.

"We're kind of busy," I said, a little sharply. The phone was a whole thing between Tina and me.