Undead and Unworthy (8 page)

ago, but otherwise was something of a dateless wonder), and no family – at least, none he

would ever live with ever again. "Where do you want to go? You pick the place, and

Sinclair will pay for it. Sinclair and I," I corrected, since technically it was now my

fortune, too.

"I don't want to pick anything," Marc began, still pissed, but then I could see the possible advantages of the situation begin to trickle past the fog of drugs. "Uh. Anywhere I want?"

"Anywhere. Until we fix this. The day the Fiends pack it up and go home" – Yeah, sure,

that's how this would end – "is the day you move back in."

An expression of vague alarm crossed his features. "But what if the Fiends stay out of

sight for, I dunno, two years? Before they make their move? Are you going to keep me

out of my home for
years?
"

"It won't come to that." And try as I might, I just couldn't picture it. Not to be all

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) egotistical or anything, but I couldn't imagine the Fiends could do much of anything until

they'd settled with me. Laying back in the buckwheat for a couple of years was definitely

not their style. "It absolutely won't. But right now it's too dangerous for you. Of course it's your home, and the day the Fiends are taken care of is the day you come back. But until

then..."

I tucked another blanket around Marc and left him sleepily murmuring, "The Radisson?

No. The Millennium? No. Sofitel? I know! The Grand! Will they do turndown service for

me... ?"

As Marc's door was wheezing shut behind me, I heard Jessica trotting toward me. I was

able to pick up the sound of her footsteps over everyone else's in the hall (granted, at this

hour, there weren't many, but still – my very own stupid pet trick!) and turned in time for

her to wave to get my attention.

It seemed to take a very long time for her to get to me. Sinclair and I had talked about this

phenomenon once or twice, after making love. It was starting to seem more and more

natural, taking advantage of my vampiric senses and all. In the beginning, they either

overwhelmed me (especially when I was hungry) or I had to sit still and make a conscious

effort to hear, to smell, to whatever outside the range of normal human activity. Now I

could probably pick Sinclair or Jess or Mom out of a Metrodome crowd.

Now her mouth was moving, verrrry sloooooowly. I squinted at her and then yelped when

she pinched me.

"Sorry, but you had a very goofy look on your face. How is he? Is he sleeping?"

"He's a little out of it."

"Oh." She stared at the closed door as if she had suddenly developed X-ray vision and

could, y'know, actually see what was happening on the other side. "Do you think I should

go in? It's so late. Think he'd be mad if I didn't come in tonight? I don't think he'd be mad.

And I'll see him tomorrow. I'll bring him some Bruegger's for breakfast. Let's walk. Can

we walk? Come on."

I didn't say a word, just fell into step beside her. It wasn't hard to figure out why she was

nervous – she had, after all, spent many days in this very hospital as a terminal patient.

That'd take the shine off your night, even if the other events hadn't.

I cut through her nervous chatter as we headed to the hospital parking ramp. "Actually,

you could help me out
and
radically reduce your trips to the hospital."

"Sing it."

"Well, we're putting Marc up somewhere nice, sort of as a treat, you know? I mean, he's

been through a
lot.
He was finally starting to date again but he had that bad breakup last month... and he's been picking up so many extra shifts... and he really got torn up tonight."

"Yeah," Jessica said slowly, "I guess you could say he's had a crummy few weeks."

"Right!" She was falling for it! The puny human had no hope whatsoever of overcoming

the mightiness that was me, Betsy, vampire queen and recovering Miss Congeniality. "So

maybe you could go with him, wherever he picks, and sort of settle him in, you know?

Make sure he's got everything he needs, and – "

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) Jessica had stopped walking, which was awkward, as I didn't immediately notice, and I

have long legs and walk fast, so I had to walk all the way back across the skyway if I

wanted to keep participating in the conversation. Which, judging by her thunderous

expression, I did not.

"Betsy. Oh my God. How – "

– did I know that was just what Marc needed? How could we best help him get settled?

How did I manage to say the right thing time and time again?

Naw. I knew the tone and I knew it wasn't going to be good.

" – fucking dumb do you think I am?"

"You mean, on a sliding scale, or – "

"You've gotten rid of one human, and now you're trying to ditch the other."

"Oh, say, hey now! I think 'ditch' is a little – ow."

She had jammed her index finger into the middle of my chest and now poked to emphasize

her words. With each poke a cloud-colored fingernail jabbed me. It was like being pricked

over and over again with the world's dullest needle. We'd had so many fights like this, I

practically had scars there. "I'm. Not. Going. Anywhere. Besides, it's my house! You can't

kick me out of – "

"Also, Sinclair wants to buy it from you. I mean, we want to buy it. The house. We totally

do. Together. It's not just him alone.
We
want to." Because that's what married couples did, right? Bought real estate together and drank each other's dark, dead blood?

"Oh, I'll just
bet
you do." She pulled her small, sleek head back, like a snake getting ready to bite. It was silly, kind of: I was a foot taller, I was thirty pounds heavier, I had legions

of the Undead at my command (sorta) and vampiric strength, and I was scared to death of

her. I tried not to cower as she ranted, "Well, you can't have it! For one thing, it's not for sale, and for another, it's my house!"

"Jessica, we almost lost you this summer, and – "

"Betsy, even if you couldn't cure cancer, I wouldn't be afraid of the Fiends. But hey! Since

you can? I can't say I'm worried about something as silly as a few bites."

We started walking again, only she was stomping toward the elevator, and I was doing the

Igor Shuffle ("Yes, master, right away, master, I am not an animal, master.") right behind her. "A few bites? That's like calling the cost of the War on Terror a few dollars. And I

know you're not afraid, it's not about you being afraid, it's about taking the sensible

precaution of being elsewhere when the bad guys come back, doy!"

She snorted and jabbed the elevator button. "Listen to you. 'Sensible precautions.' "

"And don't forget the 'doy.' Jess, how many scary movies have we seen where the heroine

does something really dumb like hang around in a hallway when she knows the bad guys

are, like, a room away?"

" 'Bout a zillion," she acknowledged.

"We got off
real
lucky this time – Marc with a few scratches, and you not even hurt – and I think it's completely nuts to push it. So how about you don't be an asshole about it and

just stay with Marc until we kill all the bad guys?"

"Oh, someone's being an asshole," she agreed, practically leaping into the elevator in her agitation, "but it's not this girl."

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Mostly against the awful fluorescents in the

elevators; there were about eight too many. "I knew you were gonna be like this."

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"But you had to open your yap anyway."

I squinted at her. "Don't come crying to me when a Fiend tears your head off."

She smiled a little, and I knew that was partly because she thought she had won the

argument. She hadn't, but she was forcing me to do something I really, really, really didn't

want to do.

I was gonna tell on her.

l nearly walked through the Ant on my way from the bathroom to the bed, and neither of

us were very happy about the near miss.

"Must you ignore everyone's personal boundaries? "

"Yeeeeeggghh! Stop
doing
that, you disgusting horrible dead wretch!"

Sinclair, all the way across the room, looked guilty and bent down to untie his other

Kenneth Cole, as opposed to just yanking it off and tossing it in the general direction of

the closet.

"You might think about what would happen to me if you got your silly self killed."

"Yeah, I should have realized what a terrible thing that would be, Ant.
For you.
" I ran the six steps from the bathroom, jumping into the middle of the bed, so nothing hiding under it

could grab my feet. "And I wasn't talking to you," I added to my husband, "but it's nice to see you treating your shoes with more respect. "

The Ant was looking in our direction with rabid suspicion. Which, since she'd been heavily

Botox'd before her death, came across as slightly raised eyebrows and rapidly blinking

eyes. "What are you two doing? You're not going to bed
now?
"

"We've been up all night, you pineapple-colored idiot." Pineapple referring to her hair, which was stiff and yellow. "Dawn's about an hour away."

"Well, in that time you could be – "

"Having nasty sex with my husband. Nasty," I added, ignoring Sinclair as he picked up a

pillow, calmly pressed it over his face, and barked laughter into it. "With, um, probes and

things. We like to role-play. I'm the alien, and he's the helpless probed human. Now get

lost, because it's going to get messy in here."

Ah! It worked. She'd popped out while I was horrifying her with lurid descriptions of my

imaginary sex life. I wish she'd just tell me what she wanted and go back to Hell already.

"Thank" – I searched for a word that wouldn't make Sinclair cringe – "goodness she's gone."

"Help, help, I'm being probed!" The pillow sailed at my head, and I knocked it away,

trying not to grin. Beside me, Sinclair tried his best to look horrified. "If only I didn't feel a sick, wrong sexual attraction to these alien invaders. If only I had listened to my mother's

warnings about loose alien women!"

"Pal, you are so not getting any tonight."

"If only," he continued dolefully, "they didn't keep telling me to turn my head and cough."

That was it; I lost it. I shrieked and laughed and kicked at the covers until the bed looked

like what I told the Ant we'd be up to.

"That was slightly... hysterical."

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"Hey, it's been a long night."

"Indeed it has, my darling alien intruder." Sinclair yanked the remaining sheets and

blankets off the bed and threw them to the floor with a theatrical flourish. Then he

pounced on me while sheets billowed all over the place.

He kissed me for a wonderfully long time, then pulled back and cocked an eyebrow.

"Want to see my probe?"

The next evening started off nice and quiet. Marc wasn't around, of course, Garrett was

probably still cowering in the basement, and I didn't look too hard for Jessica.

Almost as soon as I'd gotten up, Tina and Sinclair had left for the library. This made sense,

as the former librarian, Marjorie, had kept extensive files on every vampire she knew of,

heard of, or could track down.

Information, as far as the late, unmourned Marjorie believed, had been power.

They had politely asked if I wanted to come, pretending I'd actually be of use to a couple

of near geniuses trapped in a warehouse disguised as a library. They probably thought

hours of research on computers and – and whatever you did research on would be a good

time, poor morons. Of course I'd said no.

But even if I'd lost all my cool points and was a hopeless, helpless virgin weirdo geek who

wanted
to spend half the night in a vampire library, I couldn't.

I, after all, had serious work to do for the Minneapolis Police Department. Make that

Homicide Department. Yeah, that's right, we vampire queens are in constant demand all

over the place for –

"Are you actually going to get in my car?" Nick Berry demanded, shaking his keys at me.

"Or just keep staring off into space like that? Because it is fuckin' creepy, Betsy, you look like the Exlax is about to kick in."

"Huh? Oh. That was mean. And I'm
coming,
don't
nag.
"

"I'm a grown man," he forced out through gritted teeth, "and we don't nag."

"You were! You
were
nagging!"

"Betsy, I swear to God, if you don't shut your fucking yap and get in the car, I'm going to

pull out my gun and blow your – "

"Ha! You said 'blow.' "

The gun had cleared the holster. Hmm, Nick was a short-tempered fellow these days. "I'm

gonna count to ten. One. Seven. Nine. T – "

"Hold it right there!"

We both jumped like we'd been caught doing something nasty, and looked. Jessica the

Terrible was stomping down the porch and across the driveway toward us.

Quick as thought, Mr. Gun was back in his house, Mr. Holster.

"Hi, babe, I thought you were sleeping."

"Oh, Jess. I didn't know you were up."