Undead and Unreturnable (13 page)

"I don't care how you take it, but be nicer to Jon. Stop shoving him around; it just showcases your—I can't believe I'm using this word in reference to you—insecurity."

"That term is exactly why I haven't yet brought up the subject of your new sleepwear."

"What?" I spread my arms, like Christ on the cross. "You think I'm insecure and that's why I wear this stuff? You're on drugs! Don't you think the dots bring out my highlights?"

He grinned, started to say something, but then cut himself off and turned back to the wall of Cool.

"How have I not noticed these before?" he asked.

Because we appeared to be done fighting, I didn't say anything, but boy, I was thinking plenty. Like:
well, if you came here for anything but sex, you'd probably notice all sorts of cool things
.

"
Various Hits of the Eighties
. Cyndi
Lauper
." Sinclair was flipping through the top shelf of CDs. "
Greatest Hits of Duran
Duran
. All Dance Hits of the Eighties. Eighties, Eighties, Eighties. More of the
Jammin
' Eighties. Madonna: True Blue. The Pet Shop Boys. The Beastie Boys
."

"What can I say? I'm eclectic."

"Yes. Eclectic. That wasn't the word that sprang to my mind, I admit."

"Don't tell me you're one of those music snobs." But of course, he was. Nothing in his car but Rachmaninoff.

"No, no. The wedding's off."

"What?"

"I said, you have to take that off."

"Oh." Weird vampire hearing. It was either really good or really bad. "Okay, okay. Do you want to borrow—"

"No!"

"All
right
, don't
yell
." I moodily started unbuttoning my flannel top. "And stop pushing Jon around, I mean literally pushing him. How'd you like it if he put his big ole farm boy mitts on your face and shoved?"

"I would love that," Sinclair replied with scary sincerity.

"Is that the stench of a dead goat I smell, or your testosterone? Cripes, throttle back. Besides, you're missing my point. I'm in here with you, aren't I? I don't go to Nick's place or climb into Marc's bed—I notice you're not weird about Marc—"

"Is that supposed to be a joke? I'd be infinitely more worried about Marc if we were the same suit size."

Hmm, good point. Moving on! "Maybe one of my undead superpowers is to make gay people straight, but I don't see you worrying too much about it."

"No," he agreed, sitting on the edge of the bed and drumming the fingers of his left hand on his right knee. "I don't worry too much about it."

"Right!"

"Also, you are not undressing nearly quickly enough."

"And I'm not in the Bee's bed, wherever that one even is—"

"Second floor. Third one down the hall, right side."

"See? I should be worried about
you
sleeping with him, you're so obsessed."

"Territorial," he conceded. "Not obsessed."

"But it's you I want to be with—did we not figure this all out in October?" I waved my arms, which, as I was unbuttoning, napped like a clothesline in a windstorm. "It's
your
voice I hear in my head, nobody else's. That should prove you've got nothing to worry about."

"What?" Oh, fuck.

"Now, don't freak out." Stupid, stupid! I'd meant to tell him, but not like
this
. I was thinking more along the lines of giving him a giant cookie frosted with "I can hear you in my head, lover!" Maybe for Valentine's Day. Twenty years from now.

"What did you say?"

"Okay, it's like this." I hurried over and sat beside him on my—our!—bed, and flung my arms around his shoulders, which wasn't unlike hugging the big oak tree in the backyard. "When we make love, I can hear what you're thinking. It's in my head."

Nothing. He sat stiffly, like we were playing statues.

I hugged harder. "And the thing is, I've been trying to figure out the right time to tell you, and there just never was one. But now that I see how
insec
—how worried you are about our houseguest, I figured it would be a good time to
prove
my love and how much we are
meant to be together
because in my whole life and death, I never heard anybody in my head, ever, not one time."

If anything, he got stiffer. "You hear. Me. In your. Head?" he asked carefully.

"Yes. But only during lovemaking. Never before and never after. I mean, I have no idea what you're thinking right now. Although, uh, I can probably figure it out."

"For. How. Long?"

"Since that time in the pool—the first time. And right up until… well, earlier. In the parlor, after Margaret left."

"Marjorie," he corrected automatically. He pried my hands off him and pulled my arms away.

"Don't be mad," I said, probably the stupidest line ever, right up there with, "she didn't mean anything to me."

He left.

I sat there and stared at the open doorway. Okay, I knew he wasn't going to take the news well, and I told him in a shitty way. At least I hadn't told him out of spite. But still—he'd had no prep at all. And now he had left, walked out.

I got
ahold
of myself. I wasn't going to sit on the bed cowering and waiting for him to come back and yell at me, or possibly throw a credenza at me. I jumped to my feet and ran to the door… where I promptly smacked so hard into the returning Sinclair I hit the floor like a backhanded pancake.

"Damn," I gasped. "You must have really tooled up those stairs."

"This is no time for one of your amusing pratfalls," he snapped. He stepped over me (he didn't even help me up!) and dropped something big on the bed, something that gave off its own dust.

I was totally horrified to see it was the Book of the Dead.

"Get that thing off my sheets," I ordered. "I just got those last week at Target! They're flannel!"

He ignored me, bent over the book, and flipped through it. Finally (a miracle with neither a table of contents nor an index) he got to the yucky nasty page he wanted, straightened, and pointed.

"What? You want me to… forget it, no way. I'm done with that—hey!" He'd crossed the room in a blink, seized my arm, and dragged me over to the Book. "Okay,
okay
, don't
pull
. These are new, too."

I bent over the horrible, horrible thing, written in blood by an insane vampire who could see the future. And never spell-checked, I might add, just to add to the overall fun.

"Okay, here we go—here? Okay. 'And the
Queene
shall
noe
the dead, all the dead, and neither shall they hide from her nor keep secrets from her.'" I stood up. "Right, so? We figured that's why I can see the ghosts and nobody else can."

"Keep reading."

"Eric—"

"Read."

I hurriedly bent back to the homework from Hell. " 'And
shalt
noe
the king, and all the king's ways, for all their reign o'er the dead, and the king
shalt
noe
hers.' There, cheer up!" I straightened (please God, for the last time… no more reading tonight). "See? I know your ways, and you know mine. So… I mean, this is deeply meaningful because…"

"As you said. You can read my mind during… intimate moments."

"Yeah," I nodded. "I told you that. Remember? Told you? As in, didn't keep it a secret?"
For more than eight months
? Shut up, brain.

"I cannot read yours," he pointed out.

"Yeah, I figured," I confessed. "I tried to sort of, uh, feel you out a couple times. But I didn't get anything back."

He just stared at me. I knew that look: penetrating and faraway at the same time. There was some serious thinking going on behind those black eyes.

"Eric…"

He took a step back.

"Okay, you're mad. I don't blame you; it was a rotten way to find out. Only, I knew you'd be like this! That's why I was scared to tell you!" Worst. Apology. Ever!

"I am not mad," he said.

"Eric, you're the one I want to be with."

"The Book begs to differ."

"Jeez, we've only been together for two months… we've only
known
each other since April. Give me time to '
noe
your ways,'
dammit
, and you need time to
noe
—know mine. Just because you can't—you know. Just because you can't right this minute doesn't prove anything. And I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I wanted to."

"I understand," he said with horrifying distance, "why you could not."

"Eric,
you're
the one I'm marrying!"

"I'm the one you keep changing the date on," he said. "Perhaps because you have realized I am not your equal? Being a soft-hearted wretch, I can see why you would not be up to the task of telling me face-to-face that your feelings had changed."

"That has nothing to do with it!" I screeched. "Oh my God, did you just call me a wretch?" A coward, too! He'd turned telepathy into an excuse to postpone the wedding?

Men! "How you could jump to a conclusion like that?"

"Yes, you are correct, it is simply a wondrous coincidence."

"I'm just disorganized, moron! It's not a personal observation! See, see? This is why I didn't tell you, I knew you'd freak out and get pissed."

"I'm not pissed," he said coolly. And… he didn't
sound
pissed. He didn't sound like anything I could figure. I didn't know whether to run and put my arms around him, or jump out the window and get away from him. The four feet between us yawned; it could have been the edge of a cliff. "I'm… surprised."

He was a liar, that's what he was. Finally, I recognized the emotion. I'd never seen it on his face before, so no wonder it took me a few minutes: it was fear.

Not for me. I'd seen that before, plenty of times. No, this was something else. He was afraid, all right.

Of me.

Dear Betsy,

I'm a new vampire (I was attacked and killed by another vampire while I was on my senior class trip, eight years ago), and I'm not sure exactly of the protocol now. Things were different under
Nostro
, but I'm not sure how things are with you. There's a girl in my life I "see" once in a while, and she lets me bite her, but she thinks it's just part of fun. Sometimes I'll make friends with a new girl and bite her a few times, too. It's hard because I have to feed every day, but I don't want to kill anyone. Do you have any advice?