Undead and Undermined

  Which was fine by me; I was the ultimate welcoming vessel. I practically had a "Help Yourself, Neighbor!" sign hung around my neck. Our mouths nearly slammed together, his teeth cut me, hurt me, and I didn't give a ripe shit.

  He seized my thighs and slung them apart, then surged forward and I felt his cock enter between my thighs and stop somewhere around my throat. Felt his mouth on my neck, nuzzling, not biting, and heard him, heard him murmuring into my throat, "Sorry, sorry, my own, my queen, oh forgive . . . oh . . . oh . . . "

  He . . . he thought he was hurting me! Which he was. But, as above: I didn't give a ripe shit. I loved it; I loved him. It didn't matter what he did to me; I'd heal in minutes or even seconds. It was worth anything. It was worth anything to be with him.

  I had to die to learn about love.

  Dumbass.

  (Love I love I love O Elizabeth I love I love . . . )

  (Don't stop. If you stop, I'm getting a divorce lawyer. )

  (Love O I love O O O O O O O O O O O O O!)

  I saw stars. Cliche, right? But they were streaming past my eyes, they were screaming through my heart. They were everywhere, we were everywhere, and while we were together it was impossible to worry, or be scared, or . . .

  . . . or anything. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 

  "Are you . . . all right?"

  "Extremely very all right. " I scratched at some of the dried blood, which had pooled in the center of my throat. "Aw. You were worried. "

  "I think I shall kill you soon," he speculated to the ceiling. "After I use your body more, of course. "

  "Of course. Wouldn't have it any other way. Not a jury in the world would convict you. "

  He didn't laugh, or even smile. His hand, which had been gently cradling my wrist, tightened. "I was . . . afraid. "

  "Me, too. I do not like being run over on the so-called Magnificent Mile. And I'm going to wring Laura's neck when we see her. "

  "Yes. " I didn't think I'd ever heard him sound so grim, so I tried to cheer him up.

  "But you're here now. And we'll figure it all out. "

  He turned and was looming over me, his dark eyes piercing, his forehead furrowed. He looked terribly, terribly concerned. "What? What will we figure out?"

  "What we have to. Sinclair, don't you know? Didn't you read the memo? We can do anything. Anything. "

  "I love you," he said, and kissed me deeply. His mouth tasted mine for a long, long time and I remembered, again, that I had to die to understand about love.

  I broke the kiss, and not without regret.

  "Something I've always wondered, Sinclair. And by 'always' I mean 'for the last few hours. '"

  "Ah, I await all a-tremble for your random comment. "

  "If you died when you were in your late teens, why do you look like a handsome-but-weathered thirty? I can remember first meeting you and thinking you were thirtysomething, but in the past you were just a kid. Younger than Laura, even! Oooh, don't get me started on Laura. "

  "I shall not, then. " My husband wiggled his dark brows at me. Like me, and Jim Carrey, he had the gene that let him raise them independently. He hardly ever indulged, so it was hilarious when he did. Over the sound of my appreciative snort, he said, "You recall, of course, that my last week of life as a human being was somewhat stressful. "

  "Dead sister, dead parents. " My throat tightened. How would I handle it if my mom . . . if BabyJon . . . bad enough to contemplate the scenario at all, but to lose them both the same week?

  Leaving Eric Sinclair alone . . . with Tina, his family's very own pet vampire. Small wonder he made the decision he had. And it worked. And it was a bargain. The only price he paid was his soul . . . and decades of loneliness.

  My father and stepmother's deaths were startling, but not all that traumatic. Hey, I'm not going to pretend I loved her. I mean them. We never got along; death didn't change that. Or her. I mean them.

  "That's just . . . I don't have the words. "

  "A rare and wondrous occasion. "

  "And I'm so sorry. I was sorry then and I haven't-I didn't have a chance to tell you-I guess I should tell you now. I'm so, so sorry. "

  "I know," he said, and leaned in and kissed me above my left eyebrow. "I know the things you think, and cannot say. "

  "Okay, creepy. But we'll get to that another time. But about your past-about your sister and-and-I can't believe you didn't jump off a bridge. "

  His eyebrows climbed higher, if that was possible. "In a manner of speaking, I did. Certainly I was dead quite soon after. But even if I hadn't endured the worst week of my life, it was the early twentieth century, darling. We lived hard. "

  "And ate hard. I can still taste your delicious live blood. I can't believe I just said that. "

  "Speaking of your bite, beloved . . . "

  "Were we?"

  He was licking the column of my throat. "Not . . . precisely . . . "

  "Wow!"

  "Really?" He looked pleased, and licked harder.

  "This is the coolest room!"

  He snorted, then rolled over so he was again on his back. "I had hopes I was dazzling you with my seductive skills. "

  I held up a double handful of shredded T-shirt and raised my eyebrows at him. The bum didn't even look apologetic, just pointed to some dresser drawers and went back to lolling. What is it about tearing clothing that made men all "me Tarzan" as opposed to embarrassed they showed the patience of a four-year-old?

  The RV bedroom could have been an expensive Miami hotel room . . . everything was cream and chrome and glass. The carpet was so plush! The sofa was also cream, and beautiful . . . this was not a low-rent mobile home on wheels. Nor was it child-friendly. Plasma TV, mirrors everywhere. The living area, which I'd gotten a bare glimpse of while Sinclair was dragging me through it, was just as plush. Velvety cream-colored couches, small exquisite tables, swivel chairs, another TV . . . wow.

  "It's not Jessica's private plane," I said, digging through the drawers, which someone (Tina . . . the clothes were appropriate and neatly folded) had stuffed full of my outfits. "But I suppose I can put up with the crudeness of a seven-figure recreational vehicle. "

  "Plane?"

  "Mmmm. " I jerked a thumb toward a door I assumed led to the bathroom. "Shower?"

  "Of course. " Sinclair bounded up from the bed like a big cat.

  "I don't need a tour," I said, amused. Damn, he was a fine specimen of a man. Even if he was practically tripping because his slacks had clung to his ankles. I'd never seen a sexy stagger before.

  "I wasn't going to give you a tour," he said, and I laughed.

  I heard a lively honk and poked my fingers through the shades, making a tiny tent of the blinds. There, in the lane beside the Mansion on Wheels, were Tina and Marc . . . and Marc was driving Sinclair's Ferrari!

  "I specifically told Marc he could not," Sinclair humphed, glaring out the window. Marc tooted more and zigged back and forth in the lane, waving. Tina was covering her eyes and shaking her head. "If we did not require a discreet physician who would never betray us . . . "

  I was dazzled. This was the coolest week ever! Maybe. "Why'd you bring the monster RV and a car?"

  "Oh, some silly nonsense they were bleating about not wanting to listen to our lovemaking. "

  "Nick must have lost the coin toss," I said, remembering I'd seen him at the wheel for half a second when I was hauled ("Thar she be, matey!") aboard the vessel like booty. Or booty (get it?).

  "And quite cross about it, too," Sinclair said, and I laughed so hard I fell down.

  That was okay, though. My husband kissed my boo-boos in the shower. Do I have to tell you it was shiny and luxurious and stuffed with high-end gels and shampoos? CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

  "Well, finally," was how Jessica chose to greet me. Nice. "I've been waiting all night. Literally all night. The sun's coming up pretty soon. "

  I
was in no mood for discussing the hours I'd been in transit, or dead. "If you'd come with, you wouldn't have had to wait," I sniffed back. I was in zero mood for attitude. Too bad, because Jess had a belly full of it.

  Tina and Sinclair had their heads together in one of the parlors, Marc was out parking the Ferrari in the garage, and Nick was getting the RV gassed again. I'd run right into the house to change my clothes and update my footgear. Tina had been a dear, but who packs flats with everything? Everything?

  "Could have come with? Are you kidding me? A six-hour drive and me eight months pregnant? And knowing you and the King of Dick, you were banging all the way back to St. Paul, and there's only one bathroom in the Mystery Machine. "

  "Lame," I announced, though I was giggling. "Was your plane in the shop?"

  "Plane?"

  "Your private-you don't have a private plane in this timeline, do you?"

  "In this economy?" Jessica looked horrified.

  "Okay, that makes sense, but the private plane was cool. Though the Mystery Machine was an acceptable substitute. And Nick-"

  "I knew," my (ugh!) stepmother announced from behind Jessica, "she'd be as big as a house when she got pregnant out of wedlock. Didn't I tell you?"

  "Oh, yuck!"

  "Don't be like that," Jessica said. "You don't have to be a jerk all the time. "

  "You're one to talk," I snapped back to the Ant. I wasn't going to make a fool of myself the way I did when I found out Garrett was alive. Betsy Taylor learns from her mistakes. Of all the people, though! Mother Teresa was dead and the Ant was alive?

  "Mother Teresa's dead, right?" I whispered to Jessica.

  "It's disgusting," my annoyingly alive stepmother continued. She was the only person I knew who could skulk as well as she mocked. "Flaunting that belly when she should be flaunting a wedding ring. And that sweater is too small. And all wrong for her complexion, which is too dark. "

  "You got knocked up to get married!" I cried, amazed, as always, at the Ant's selective memory.

  "I did not!" Jess and the Ant said in unison.

  "And your complexion's fine. "

  Jess blinked. "What?"

  "Disgusting," the Ant said. She was everything a man could want: her hair was too dyed and too tall, her electric faux silk dress was too faux, her pantyhose was all wrong for open-toed sandals, her faux fingernails were too red, she wasn't especially smart, she wasn't especially nice, and she used sex to get what she wanted.

  Not in a romantic hey-Sinclair-let's-stay-in-bed-all-night-and-find-new-ways-to-hurt-each-other way. In a darling-let's-leave-your-seventh-grade-daughter-behindwhen-we-go-on-vacation-so-we-can-make-Disney-World- just-for-the-two-of-us way.

  Now, which one of her odious personality traits was I forgetting? Oh, yeah. She was a bigot, and a snob.

  "Not you," I clarified, irritated. "You. What do you want, anyway? Shouldn't you be off in your too-expensive, too-big house neglecting your son BabyJon, the sweetest baby God ever made, whom you do not deserve? Or making my poor idiot of a father's life a living hell? And speaking of hell, your rotten daughter made the top of my shit list tonight, so I'll be bouncing her skull off the fireplace bricks for a while. "

  "Don't you touch her!" the Ant snapped. "She's more powerful than you'll ever be, and prettier. "

  "Liar!" I screamed. That was just-oooooh, low blow. Taller, maybe. I'd be okay with taller, maybe.

  "Betsy!" Jessica screamed back. Oh, shit. Was labor rearing its ugly head? This was too much to ask of anyone, but especially me.

  "Now look what you did," I snarled in the Ant's direction. "You've made her water blow up, or something. "

  "Betsy. " Jessica's color-of-green-Play-Doh fingernails sunk into my wrist and I yelped. "Who are you talking to?"

  "What the hell does that-" I pointed at the Ant, who was checking her shoulder pads for dandruff. "It. Her. That. Ish! Don't stare too long, you'll go blind. My stepmaggot. Antonia. Nice try, but pretending she's not there never works. "

  "Antonia's dead, Betsy. "

  "Moron," my dead stepmother added. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

  I greeted this news with a cheated roar: "Nobody tells me anything!"

  "We thought you knew. You, uh, knew in the old timeline. So she's alive in-"

  "Ick, no, they're both dead and I'm BabyJon's legal guardian. "

  "My poor boy," my dead stepmother mourned.

  "You shut up from your corner of the damned. I just-I mean, I saw her there and . . . " It was too embarrassing to confess. No one could understand my unique shame.

  "After you freaked out about Garrett being alive in front of the whole house," Jessica the Annoying speculated, "you assumed the Ant was alive and didn't want to make a total jackass of yourself again. "

  "How much do I hate thee?" I asked aloud. "Let me count the ways. " Friends: the ultimate mixed blessing.

  "Well, she is. And drives you crazier, if possible, in death than in life. She's saying something racist right now, isn't she?"

  "She should wear prints so when she cleans houses, the dirt won't show up so badly. "

  "She says you've never looked prettier," I replied.

  "Tell her I think she's a useless whore. "

  "She can see you. She doesn't need a translator. So she and my dad . . . "

  "Oh, yeah. "

  "In a car vs. garbage truck accident?"

  Jessica bit her lip so as not to smirk, and nodded. She had always been polite to the Ant, even in death.

  "My life passed before my eyes," the Ant fretted, "and you were in a horrible amount of it. "

  "Are you Satan's receptionist in this timeline, too?" I demanded. "Because I need to talk to your treacherous kid, pronto. And maybe her mom. Her other mom. "

  "You leave her alone," the Ant warned. "You've got plenty enough to worry about without bothering my boss or my little girl. "

  "What's that supposed to-dammit!"

  "She's vanished in an evil puff of Aqua Net, hasn't she?"

  "The bad guys only stay around long enough to be unhelpful," I bitched. It was true! They randomly popped in and out of my life like Girl Scouts during cookie season. Except you could usually predict when Girl Scouts will show up hawking Thin Mints. "Then, poof. " CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

 

  I would definitely keep Big Fat Jessica around, despite the annoyance of The Belly. Not many women could tolerate vampires, their boyfriend's road trips to morgues, switching timelines, ghostly visits from dead bigots, and mysterious disappearances from same. "That's exactly what my boyfriend says, except about arsonists. "

  "Speaking of him-he brought the Mystery Machine to the morgue, and Nick did all the driving! There and back. " I hated driving, so found this impressive. It's soooo boring. And just when you get going, some asshat Statie pulls you over. Like there aren't any murders and rapes going on, so they can nap under bridges and set speed traps for unwary vampires. Weak.

  "Dick. Remember? He's Dick. "

  "I know, I was just testing you. Also, don't worry that he's not here. He had to go-"

  "I know, he texted me. " She waved her cell phone at me, then grinned at my scowl. "Don't start with the text bitching. "

  "Why is it suddenly uncool to spell? That's all I want to know. " Just thinking about how texting had taken over both timelines was pissing me off. I stomped through our musty hallway-we had three housekeepers, but the mansion had been born before Lincoln, and there was always dust somewhere. "I wouldn't trust Dead Ant to tell the truth about this, but has my psycho traitor jerkweed asshat sister been by? Because I'm scratching her eyes out the next time I see her. Then I'm really going to go to work on her. "

  "No, we've just been massively worried about you since she yanked you into hell. No one's had time to even look for her-not that we could find a teleporter. "

  "Right. " That's what she was now, wasn't she? Terrific. "It was terrible," I agreed
. "You were right to fret. I've been run over by an Aztek and knocked through a Payless store window in the last three years. And felt up by a strange doctor!"

  I must have slowed down, or she sped up, because I felt her big stomach whack into my back. It was surprisingly solid, which, for some reason, put me in a fouler mood. And also scared me. Why was it like a boulder? Shouldn't it be soft? Pregnancy was weird.

  "If you've got that telepathic link with Sinclair," she huffed, trying to keep pace, "why did we have to wait until you stole a cell phone? After, uh, you got felt up by a strange doctor?"

  My back actually itched where The Gut had smacked me. "Telepathy's great if we're having sex face-to-face. I mean, having sex. But multiple states away it's less reliable. " In fact, I was still sort of amazed that I'd been able to hear Sinclair from two states away. I guess major stress had amped up our . . . what? Receiving abilities? I didn't know. There was so much about this bullshit vampire gig that I didn't understand, and maybe never would.

  Not that my sex-pathy was any of her business. She was my best friend, but there were limits. Sex-pathy forever, telling Jess all the perv details, never.

  "What is your problem?" Jessica demanded flatly.

  "Oh, me? Hmm? Nothing much. I'm just a little busy juggling screwed timelines, looking out for the Antichrist, breaking out of morgues, and trying not to destroy the world with eternal winter. "

  "With me. What's your problem with me? Specifically"-she pointed to her enormous bulge-"this part of me?"

  "I've got more important things to worry about than what you're gestating," I lied, scratching my lower back, which itched madly. What if she had a baby and some sort of fungus going on under there?

  "Not right now you don't. " For a second she was almost as intimidating as Satan. Satan! "If you expect to leave this hallway under your own power, you'll own your shit. "

  "Own my . . . ? Okay, first, I don't even know what that means. Second . . . " Would I? Could I, even? I did love the front-heavy tart, even if she got pregnant in front of me behind my back. Oh, the hell with it. "Second, I'm jealous, okay?"

  "Of Dickie?"

  "Who? Oh. Nick. No, no. In fact, he's a delight in this timeline. You have no idea . . . the father of your demonspawn was a real prick in the old timeline. Jealous, moody, shrill . . . " Like me, actually. But this was no time for self-introspection. "No, I'm jealous of that. " I pointed to her bulge again.