“But she’s rich. Why would she need to go on wel—”
“I don’t know!” Really? That was the part of the expected response she was going to focus on? “Racism isn’t logical, for Christ’s sake! But you’ve gone all squirrelly and that is freaking me right out!”
“I’m right here,” she pointed out. “No need to scream.”
“Dammit dammit dammit!”
“You were right.”
Well. Those were the magic words that took the wind out of my sails, so I forced myself to get a grip before my rant could gain momentum and become sentient. “Okay. Thanks for that.” Had I ever heard those words from her? Maybe, if one of her charity-bim pals dared her. Or if she had a fever. A really high fever. Like, boiling-point high. “Which part was I right about?”
“Your time is your business and it was inappropriate for me to tell you otherwise. But my time is my business, and I don’t have any for this.”
“Again: this is not how this conversation goes. You’re supposed to—to—” Wait, why was she smaller? Was she—? She was! The pineapple-haired bitch was walking away! “Antonia, where do you suppose you’re going? Antonia? Ant?” Farther and farther away, the nothing was swallowing her even as I watched. “You get back here this instant, missy! This isn’t over and we aren’t even close to done. Don’t make me hunt you down! You think I won’t? I’ll hunt you like Khan hunted Kirk!” Oh, jeez, did I just yell a Star Trek reference at my dead stepmother? That was it. Marc’s biweekly sci-fi movie marathons were hereby canceled. “There’s no point in running, you know. You’ll never escape me so you should just suck it up and accept the fact that—annnnnd you’re gone.”
I was standing by myself. Entirely by myself. In a Hell dimension populated by billions, I’d managed the trick of being alone. I had no idea how to feel about that. I had no idea how to feel about the fact that I had no idea how to feel about that, either.
The worst part was, the entire confrontation had settled exactly nothing. I’d forced myself to ask the question, something unthinkable only a few hours before. By asking, I was forced to acknowledge (to myself if no one else) the fact that his death was not, perhaps, what it seemed. So I’d sacrificed my complacency for next to no gain.
Shit, maybe my dad was in Hell and just didn’t come when I wanted him, knew I was playing (and losing) the Game but keeping well out of sight. No question at all, that would have been one hundred percent in character.
He’d been a lousy father. It was hard even to admit that and had taken years for me to acknowledge, never mind face. It didn’t help that I felt guilty complaining when so many people had it worse, endured fathers who beat them or sexually abused them or stole from them or killed them. Jessica’s father had been much worse; I couldn’t imagine enduring a tenth of what she’d been subjected to. I tried to count my blessings but I always fetched up against an undeniable fact: all my father’s sins against me hadn’t been out of anger. They’d been born of indifference, which somehow hurt the worst.
Men who knew me briefly and sometimes not even that long had been more interested in my life, more helpful and concerned, than he had been in three decades of what Jessica dubbed “kinda parenting.” When I was younger I wished he’d care more. Or, if he did, show it more. By the time I was in my late teens I’d given up on that as a hopeless fantasy (like my fantasy of Christian Louboutin deciding I was his shoe muse and designing pair after pair for me only for me ALL FOR ME, ALL OF IT!).
Instead I’d indulged in different wishful thinking; I wished for a different father. Childish, I guess. But I had clung to it for years and even now it was a tempting thought.
Another father, and now I was thinking of some of the older men I’d known over the years. Such as the retired mailman who’d lived across the street from my childhood home. He’d leave cupcakes in our mailbox sometimes, which I found hilarious and delicious. Mr. Reynolds had been rising before dawn for over thirty years and, though retired, couldn’t shake the habit. So he’d filled his mornings with baking and was always leaving Mom and me mailbox goodies. Mom hadn’t been able to resist reminding him that it was a federal offense for anyone but the owner or the PO to put things in mailboxes, and being retired didn’t shield him from federal law. But she said it with a smile on her lips and a dab of frosting on her chin. Today that would probably come off as creepy, but back then we didn’t worry about it and it worked out fine; the treats were always delicious and Mr. Reynolds didn’t push boundaries any further.
Or someone like the priest I’d run into not long after waking up dead. The father had always been nice to me even though he knew what I was. He was upset when a member of his flock staked me, even though he was one of the reasons I’d been in danger in the first place. He’d shown more anxiety over my staking than my actual father had about my fatal car accident. What was his name? Mark something, no, I was getting him mixed up with our Marc, I think it was Father Mark and whatever happened to that guy that father that Father Mark Father Mark Father . . .
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
“Hello, young lady!”
I didn’t move for a few seconds. Just took a couple of deep unnecessary breaths. Okay. It appears to have worked. Turn and confirm . . . I guess that means my old neighbor is still alive. Or in Heaven. Because the guy talking to me isn’t a postal worker turned postretirement cupcake god.
I turned. Saw the small older man—old enough to be my dad and, yep, I admit to a few dad issues—and smiled. “Hiya, Father Mark.”
“Markus,” he corrected with a smile. “You were always terrible at names. All of our names.”
“Oh, who cares?”
I did, kinda. Maybe one or more of them was here, too, but I hoped not—they’d all been young, younger than me, younger than Laura.
And I was happy to see a friendly face in Hell. Before Cathie showed, it had been the Ant and Jessica’s parents and Laura and they’d all had harsh words for me. Like I wasn’t struggling, too!
Father Markus looked just like he had when I last saw him, and it was clear he still thought of himself as a priest, even here. Black suit, white collar. White fringe of hair, but otherwise bald. Small brown eyes that scrunched when he smiled, as he was now. Small, neat hands, simple black dress shoes that were neatly shined. And the white collar. My gaze kept going to it.
“You were expecting me to be in a T-shirt and Bermudas?” he teased.
“Ugh, what an image to shove into my brain, why would you do that? It’s just weird to see a priest down here. Here,” I said again, correcting myself. “We’re neither up nor down. Sorry. Old habits.”
“I do it, too. It sure feels like ‘down here.’”
“Why are you here?” I glanced around, which was dumb. It was just him and me. And the Ant, probably lurking back in the fog of nada while ignoring my call. Oh, and let’s not forget, never forget, the billions of souls also lurking (at least the ones who hadn’t taken advantage of the confusion brought on by new management and vamoosed). “Are you a hostage?”
“Hostage denotes value,” the priest replied cheerfully. “I have none.”
“I doubt that. A lot.”
“Don’t let the collar fool you; I was always just an ordinary sinner.”
“But technically we all are, right?”
His eyes gleamed with momentary approval, as he knew I’d been an indifferent Christian in life. A believer, sure, but I’d never been one for getting up early on Sundays. Like most of my ilk, I’d always assumed that whatever issues God had with me could be worked out . . . eventually. Not today, though. Maybe not tomorrow. “Yes, we all are, but I broke my vows.”
I chewed on that one for a few seconds. Tricky ground with a priest. Most of them took that Bible stuff pretty seriously and, in an age where texting OMG was technically a sin, he could have ended up here for any number of reasons.
Off the top of my head I was thinking big number six: thou shall not kill, no matter how tempting it was or how stressful your day or how much easier it would make your life (I’m paraphrasing). Father Markus helped plan murders—except the Brood Mariners only targeted people who were already dead. Is it murder if the person you killed was already (un)dead? He hadn’t formed the gang (it was like West Side Story, except it wasn’t a love story, it wasn’t a musical, and instead of dancing they staked vamps) to do anything malicious. He—they—truly thought they were doing God’s work.
God hadn’t weighed in, but I had. Which was why the Blond Wormers had disbanded.
“It sucks that you’re here—”
“That disappointed to see me?” he teased.
“No! A bazillion times no. But I’m not sure you belong here.”
I got a stern look for that. “Of course I do.”
“Come on, Father. You were one of the good guys. You put yourself in danger to round up the Blini Wanderers—”
“Blade Warriors.” He sighed.
“—those annoying teenaged emo vampire killers—”
“Emo?”
“How long have you been dead? Never mind,” I said as he opened his mouth to answer. “We’ll be here all day. Is it day? Don’t answer! An emo is a kid with a terrible attitude about life, which isn’t new, but these kids are often right, which is. The kid who says, ‘He’s too good for me,’ and you want to be all, ‘No, no, don’t talk like that,’ except you know the kid’s right. Emos never cut their bangs, and they write long, meandering poems about things they have no reference for, like death or prolonged suffering or using too much fabric softener. I’m generalizing,” I added when his eyes started to cross from the info dump, “and I’m sure they’re not all annoying. It’s just, all the ones I’ve met are.” Minnesota emo kids liked Orange Julius almost as much as I did, and there were always at least two in front of me and one behind me in line. Sometimes in the middle of the day! (Emos don’t have to go to high school, apparently.) Also, maybe Orange Julius = existential deepness?
“Basically—it’s okay, I’m almost done, I swear it—basically it’s the ‘these kids today’ lament with a healthy dose of black hair dye. That, and the only thing worse than an emo who wishes they were a vamp is one who kills vamps and then writes a really long poem about it using phrases like ‘burning ice’ and ‘sunlight of shattering cold.’ Except that might not be quite it . . . wait, did I get goth mixed up with emo again?”
“I know you’re trying to help me understand, but I’m more confused now.”
Yes, I often had that effect on people. “Never mind. My point is, you saw what you thought was evil and you wanted to face it; you saw badness in action and the orphans you took in off the streets—”
“Not all of them were orph—”
“Details, Father! We can’t get mired in details! You made them into a team and gave them all the wooden stakes they could stab with and helped them say their prayers, when you weren’t helping them track down and kill psycho vampires.”
“Again, I realize you’re trying to help me, but I’m not at all comforted.”
“That’s because you keep interrupting me! You did all that stuff except you didn’t, not really. Someone else was pulling all your strings, we know that now.”
“Yes,” he said, mouth turning down in a sorrowful bow. “Now.”
“Will you please ease up on yourself? The gang and I fixed it, evil was punished, and when it was all over I owned a nightclub, called Scratch.” By vamp law, when you killed one of us, you inherited all the vamp’s stuff. Tina had explained the somewhat savage tradition (“Vampires don’t have families to whom they can bequeath their belongings.”) and, like most things vampire, it was unpleasantly hilarious. “Except I don’t anymore; we sold it. You did what you did and I did what I did and—”
“—we’re both here.”
Yep. That about covered it. “And you’re here because you knew you were supposed to come here when you d—how did you die, anyway? If it’s not too personal,” I added. Ah, the tricky etiquette of asking a Catholic priest how he died and went to Hell.
“You know that sushi that can kill you if it’s improperly prepared?”
“I think so.” I’d never much cared for eating bait when alive, so sushi wasn’t my strong suit. But there had been that Simpsons episode . . . “Cuttlefish?”
“Puffer fish. The preparation is stringently controlled and the chefs are required to undergo years of training.”
“I would hope so, what with them wanting to feed their patrons poisonous fish,” I prompted, “that might not kill them if the chefs paid attention in school?”
An approving nod, which cheered me up. Ugh, I definitely was dealing with father issues this week.
“After the Blade Warriors disbanded, with Jon going on to write books, Drake getting his prosthetic feet, and Anya headed to the Olympics—”
“Okay, I want us to stay on track but I’m going to want to get back to that stuff you just said.”
“—I found myself seeking new challenges. We were wrong to kill vampires but I admit to missing the thrill of the chase.”
“Adrenaline perv,” I said affectionately. “So you took a look at your life and said, ‘I know! I’ll eat poisonous fish! That’s a sure way to solve all my problems!’”
“Indeed.” Father Markus shrugged and smiled.
“I can’t believe you accidentally killed yourself with a fish.”
“Oh, I didn’t. I had a heart attack on the way to the restaurant.”
I stared at him. “You mean we’ve been talking about bubblefish—”
“Puffer fish.”
“—for, like, an hour—”
“About one minute.”
“—and it didn’t have much of anything to do with the story?”
He shook his head, brown eyes full of resignation. “I should have known better than to go anyway. Fugu means ‘river pig’ in Chinese.”
“It does?” No kidding around: I was grossed out.
“Oh yes. The emperor of Japan isn’t allowed to eat it, can you imagine? It’s considered far too risky; it’s against the law.”
“If the emperor of Japan is determined to chow down on poison on a plate, maybe they should let him. Maybe you don’t want someone with impulse control issues and a need to take risks running the country. Natural selection could just run its course on that one.”
I got a disapproving frown for that tone. “Be that as it may, the liver is considered the tastiest—”
“Because gross.”
“—as well as the most poisonous.”
“Of course it is.” I wanted to wring my hands and wail. “And people still line up for the privilege of sucking down river pig with their green tea? God, we’re all so stupid. Humanity is screwed.”
He laughed at that. “Not at all. But we’ve definitely got our work cut out for us.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
“If I haven’t mentioned it before—”
“You’ve brought it up several times on our walk.”
“—this is Just. So. Stupid.”
I’d gotten tired of standing around in all the nothing during our chat, so I’d taken the priest’s elbow and started walking. And that was when it happened: I opened my big mouth and accidentally did something that at worst would make everything worse and at best would only raise more questions.
And it had all started soooo innocently. My own fault for dropping my guard. Whitebearwhitebearwhitebear.
“This place would be a lot easier,” I had stupidly bitched, practically yanking Father Markus in my wake, “if it was organized.”
“Yes, well. I imagine that’s why you’re here.”
“Me and my sister,” I corrected him. “Or my sister and I; Hel
l is probably teeming with grammar police so don’t you dare report me. Anyway, we’re comanagers. Except she’s not here, still.”
“Your sister.”
That was odd. He said it so flatly and gave me a look, something like “why would you say something you know to be false,” except that couldn’t be it because a) it wasn’t false and b) how would he know if it was?
“Your sister,” he said again, like he thought maybe I didn’t hear him from a foot and a half away.
“Yes, after I, um, did the thing . . .” And now I was on tricky ground again. Father Markus was in Hell for doing what he thought was right. My sins were so much greater than his and yet I was one of the people in charge. How to just blithely rattle off my Satan-murdering antics? “After that, after we—I mean I—after I—” Tongue, stop flopping down on the job and help me form words and actual sentences! Don’t make me bite you while I’m chewing gum!
“After you freed the Morningstar,” he prompted.
“Yeah, after I freed her by freeing her head all over her—I’m not sure free means what you think it does, Father.”
“The Morningstar paid a heavy price for his—”
“Her, when she looked like Lena Olin.”
“—dissatisfaction.”
“You sound like you felt sorry for her.”
“A heavy price,” he said again, forgetting (again) that I was only a foot or two away. “He, or she, or what-have-you, could have returned to God’s grace at any time. Pride prevented that.”
“Uh-huh. So she was stuck with the job because she was too proud to tell God, ‘Hey, sorry about the whole war-in-Heaven thing, can you prodigal me already?’” A million years running the pit? More? And all she had to do at any time was cough up an apology to a deity basically made of sunshine once you were forgiven? “Boo hoo.”
“For shame, have you no compassion?”
“For the devil? So you don’t remember anything about me at all, do you?”
He ignored that. “All this time and I had no idea prodigal was a verb,” the priest mused. “But back to the Morningstar. She had fallen, it was true, but there was a way back. It was known to her but her pride prevented her escape as effectively as any jail.”