Undead and Unreturnable (20 page)
"Uh… we're not using 'obey' in the vows."
He smiled. "Aren't you in for a surprise, darling."
"What just happened?" I asked Jon on the way to the front door. "Did we make up? Are we back together again? We were ever not together? Did he change his mind after he saw me get stabbed? Should I hold a grudge because of the whole felony assault thing in my bedroom? Or should we call it even because I smacked the shit out of him right after? And why am I asking you this stuff? Where's Tina? Where's Jess?"
"So it's true!" Jon cried, fumbling for his Sidekick with one hand and frantically brushing his shaggy bangs out of his eyes with the other. "Betsy, we've got to pick up where we left off."
"
Shhhhhh
!" I could hear Jess and Nick chit-chatting from the next room. "Not while Nick is here."
"Nick would be…" He consulted his tiny notes. "Detective Nick Berry. Ooh, yuck, that's inconvenient."
"To say the least. We're not sure what he knows, so for Christ's sake don't be babbling about vampires and swords and shit while he's around."
"Don't worry. You can count on me. You know you can."
"Well, thanks." I smiled at him. Then I frowned. "You know, I
was
excited about Jessica dating this guy, but now I'm starting to wonder…"
"But when can we get together again?" he whined.
"Come shopping with Laura and me. She knows most of my dirty little secrets. You wouldn't have to keep your mouth shut around her." And I had a feeling that what happened in the basement was going to be off-limits, conversation-wise, for a long, long time.
"Okay!" he said, and actually pumped his fist in the air. I cried dry tears over what a geek loser he was and went to get my coat.
Dear Betsy,
I died about ten years ago, and as you know, basically all I've cared about since is the thirst. But things are different now. I've been keeping up with my hometown newspaper, and I've read that my dad is going to retire. He was only 39 when I became a vampire. He's never seen me since, and neither has anyone else in my family. What should I do? I know I'm supposed to keep a low profile, but I really miss my folks and would like to see what they've been up to.
Sign me,
Family Friendly in
Dear
For crying out loud, go see your dad. If you don't want them to know you're a vampire, make shit up… you've been recruited by a secret government agency and that's why you went missing for so long. So secret you can't talk about it, or even stay very long, but they should be super-proud of you because you're out saving the world.
Something like that. Thrust me, they'll be thrilled you're not dead. They won't even think of awkward questions until you're long gone.
Your queen,
Betsy
We had rolled past the third group of carolers when Jon made the comment, "This time of year must be hell on vampires. Literally hell."
I giggled. "Some carolers came to the house, and Tina and Sinclair ran down to the basement with their hands over their ears. And they don't go shopping with me, needless to say. A simple 'Merry Christmas' from a stranger gives them indigestion for the rest of the day."
At last, Laura laughed. She'd been driving like a robot: no speaking, no engaging, just stiff turns and shifts.
"But it doesn't bother you."
"Heck, no, I love this time of year."
"You're crazy to go to the mall the week before Christmas," Jon observed.
"Oh, shut up. What do you know about it?"
"I know I finished my Christmas shopping in October."
I shuddered. One of
those
freaks. More unnatural than the vampires, if you asked me.
"Is George going to be all right?" Laura asked timidly.
"Ah, George. Yes, let's
get
to it, shall we? Sinclair came up with a super punishment for you."
"Asshole," Jon muttered, almost too quietly for me to catch.
I decided not to be distracted.
Focus on the devil's daughter almost killing you and a helpless psycho vampire
. "He needs fresh blood—like, from a living vein—or he'll backtrack, forget how to walk, all that stuff. I've been feeding him, but guess what!"
"Oh no," she moaned.
"Can I watch?" Jon asked.
"That's right, for beating the shit out of a guest with no provocation,
and
trying to poof the vampire queen into tiny piles of ash, your grand prize is… letting George leech off you until all his wounds are healed! Thanks for playing."
She shuddered. "It's disgusting."
"Should have thought of that before you whaled on him."
Ohhhh
, Sinclair was a dark genius. This was great. She looked as appalled as I'd ever seen her.
"What if I won't do it?"
I shrugged. "Then have a nice life, and don't ever come back."
"You wouldn't! Over one of those—those things?"
"Laura."
"I'm sorry. I just don't see him the way you do. He's not a man, you know."
"Neither is the kid in the backseat—"
"Hey!"
"—but we let him hang around. Bottom line, Laura, I know I bitch about the queen gig, but the thing is, you can't just come into my house and beat the shit out of one of my vampires. You just can't. And don't pretend like you don't get it, because I know you do."
She didn't say anything. The silence got long, so Jon piped up with, "What happened after you realized you couldn't kill yourself?" and we picked up my life back in April.
Sinclair was waiting in my room when we got back from shopping. I greeted him with a screeched, "Don't look, don't look!" as I hustled my bulging bags over to my closet, threw them in, and leaned on the door.
"Dare I guess you bought me a gift after my dreadful trespass last night?"
"If you're admitting you were an asshole, I'm not going to argue, but I felt better about you after you throttled my sister into
semiconsciousness
. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the old-fashioned stuff." I realized I hadn't exactly answered his question, because I added, "The thing I had on layaway was finally paid off, that's all. Don't go reading anything into it."
"You've been with Jon, then?"
I groaned miserably and sat down on the bed to pull off my shoes. "Come on, Eric! Don't start up with that tired shit again,
willya
? I was also with Laura, but that doesn't mean I was the
ménage
in their
trots
."
"I think you mean you were not the
trois
," he corrected. "And I was not starting up that tired shit again. My irritation with Jon now extends far beyond his romantic intentions."
"Oh yeah? God, the mind reels. What's he done now, start up with
his
tired old shit? The Bees active again?"
"No. But his current activities are almost as dangerous to you. Your life story is not appropriate for publication, in any forum."
"But it's a joke! He's passing it off as fiction, a cute idea for a classroom project. The gag is that it's supposed to be about a real person, and some of us know it is, but everybody else thinks—"
"I'm aware of the purpose of the 'gag.' Which is what he makes me want to do, by the way."
"Why, Sinclair! That was… dare I think the word… a joke? A yarn, a tale, a comical story? Are you feverish, nauseous, cramping?"
"Furthermore, I suspect he has engineered this entire thing as an excuse to stay close to you."
I sighed and stuck my shoes in my closet, fast, so Sinclair wouldn't see inside the bags.
"
"What can I say? Maybe it is. Maybe it's a little weird that out of all the projects he could have
thunk
up, the one he picked is the one that lets him follow me around and ask questions."
"Ah." He looked at me approvingly.
"Jeez, Sinclair, I'm not a genius, but I'm not in a coma, either! I've had guys like me before; I can recognize the symptoms, poor bastards."
"Yes," he said. "We are poor bastards."
I didn't know what to say to
that
, so I just continued my train of thought. "I don't know. Maybe I feel sorry for him. Maybe I thought I owed him a break. He came all this way and basically got his heart stomped. And the whole reason he quit staking vampires was because he liked me. I felt like I had to be… I
dunno
…"
"Magnanimous in victory?"
I shuddered. "Of course that just came tripping off the end of your tongue, Sink Lair, what a surprise."
I noticed he was in his usual spot when we chatted: arms crossed, leaning against my door (people did have a tendency to run in after just a brief knock or worse, no knock), head tipped to one side as he listened to every word that came out of my mouth. I pulled my frog socks off and tossed them in the hamper, but at least he didn't try to move farther away when I did it. I didn't think I could take that again.
"I would almost prefer that you disliked him," he commented. "Men have been able to cajole women into bed using nothing more than their pity."
"Oh, right!" I snapped. "Like there was ever a woman in the universe who fucked
you
because she felt sorry for you."
"I am hoping," he said, pushing away from the door and coming toward me, "there will be at least one. I behaved abominably."
"Yeah, you were a real dick." I was watching him warily. This was too good to be true! Not to mention a) nothing had changed, and b) I wasn't a faucet. "I'm glad you're sorry, but I can't just get over being upset"—I snapped my fingers—"just like that. I can't turn it on and off."
"I must beg your forgiveness," he said soberly. I realized for the first time that his hair—
his
hair—was messy, like he hadn't combed it in hours. It was as startling as if he'd gone outside without pants. "I know during love-making—it's the nature of vampires, I think—we have been… rough… at times, but that was no excuse for assaulting you."