I carefully pushed Fur and Burr back so when I shut the door I didn’t catch an errant paw or tail, then went to my car, determinedly not looking back at any of the sneaky bums. Yeah, they were aggravating and treated me like a blundering idiot sometimes (which was only fair, since I was one), and teased me and followed me because they were bored and because I might be in trouble, but they were mine.
And that was something else the Antichrist didn’t get.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
A day later, I was on my way back to Hell. Not out of any sense of duty or desire to get better at my job, but to punish my sneaky gorgeous Belstaff-wearing tricky-dick husband. Hell: if I wouldn’t run it out of obligation, I’d run it out of spite. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” I informed him, hands on my hips as I glared down at him
(how can anyone look so edible all the time?)
and deliberately did not return his sleepy smile. It was midafternoon and I would have loved to linger for a nap. But I had responsibilities, dammit, and I was still a little irked. I’d insisted the bugs from my car, the blender, and my shoes
(my shoes!)
be removed. The phones I decided to be okay with. Hey, we lived dangerous lives. And these days, cell phones were pretty much tracking devices anyway. Anyone who thought different hadn’t been paying attention the last ten years. “Or a few days, if I can’t get the time thing figured out.”
“You might try a bank of clocks, all showing whatever time you need,” he suggested—was everyone going to have the same good idea that had never occurred to me?
“Don’t teach your grandma to chew cheese,” I sneered, trying for tough and, given his giggle (a giggle!), failing.
“You do come up with the most charming country colloquialisms, darling.”
I made a mental note to look up “colloquialisms.” “You’re the country kid, not me,” I reminded him. “And you leave my collo—colloqu—you leave it to me. And don’t smirk, you infuriating bastard.”
Too late. “Darling, you forgot to add ‘let that be a lesson to you.’ And I must warn you, if what just happened is supposed to be negative reinforcement, you’re doing it wrong.”
“I am not! Never mind. I’m off to try the clock thing.” I paused, then swooped to press a quick kiss to his mouth. “I’ll really, really try not to be gone two weeks this time. I know you must’ve hated it.” Have I mentioned it was sometimes very, very difficult to stay mad at Eric Sinclair? There he was, all nude and lonesome looking and nude and gorgeous. “You didn’t have to wait so long before texting me to come home.”
“Why do texts work in Hell?” he asked, honestly puzzled.
“Right? A mystery for the ages. I can’t think about it, it makes me really afraid of AT&T. Like, Comcast-afraid.” Everyone in the house feared the amoral tyrants that were Comcast/Xfinity. “But listen, I’m telling you now, my intention is to be in Hell no more than ten or twelve hours. If days start slipping by and you don’t—”
“Hear any shrill whining announcing your return, and/or experience your displeasure when you inevitably discover we’re out of ice?”
“I’m not shrill,” I whined then kissed him again, because what the hell. “And for God’s sake, stock up on ice while I’m gone. Okay.” Another smek!—this one on the nose. “See you soon.”
“Beloved.” His hand shot out. He could have ground every bone in my wrist to splinters, but his grip was gentle. Like a small boa constrictor that liked you.
I sighed and gently pulled free. “Sinclair, just stop. I’ve got to go, and no, you can’t come, we’ve been over this, you’ve got to stay here and king.”
“We have never ‘been over’ it. You studiously avoid the subject.” While I tried to think of a retort he arched a dark brow. “And I had no idea ‘king’ was a verb.”
“Well, it is now. So just stop with all the trying to delay me—”
“Elizabeth.”
“—I don’t want to go, either, but—okay, I’m kind of curious to see how the clock thing goes, and I’ve been thinking about what to do about the girl doing time in Hell’s Orange Julius—”
Elizabeth!
“Ow! Don’t do that inside my head unless someone’s setting you on fire.”
Look at yourself.
I did. Then I was silent for a couple of seconds. Then: I should probably get dressed before I go.
“Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job,” he replied, and do I have to tell you he said it with a sizeable smirk? I could almost see the thought balloon: Won’t bring me back to Hell because she fears control; can’t remember to get dressed for work.
“I had none of these problems when I was alive.” I sighed. There’d been the occasional hungover Monday, but occasionally forgoing a bra because trying to hook the clasp made your brain hurt wasn’t the same as forgetting you were naked.
Grumbling, I nipped into the bathroom, did a quick-yet-thorough wash, and a couple of minutes later was slipping into clean underwear, a knee-length khaki skirt, and a deep red sweater. You wouldn’t think so, but parts of Hell are surprisingly chilly. And appropriate footgear, of course.
“All right, I’m leaving again. Again.” I kissed him (again) and headed for the door (again). “And thanks for the ‘always be dressed when you’re going to Hell’ tip.”
“Anytime. Er, not to aggravate you further—I live in fear of your divine wrath—I believe you’re forgetting—”
I turned. “I am? What?”
He gave me a lingering once-over from ankles to forehead, then showed the smile I lived for (and killed for). “Never mind. It seems I was mistaken.”
“Sure, like that ever happens. Okay, it does, but you usually don’t admit it.”
“I am in a postcoital coma, one brought about by the most charming and delightful woman in the history of man. I’ll admit anything you wish.”
“Damn, can I get that in writing? And how come there’s never a notary around when you need one?”
“Tina is a notary.”
“Of course she is. Fuck my life.”
“That’s the spirit, O dread queen.”
“I hate you so much.”
“Oh yes.” Another smile. “And I you. From the moment we met.”
Man, it was hard to stay mad at that guy!
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Before I left, I went down a flight of stairs and tapped on Marc’s door. I’d expected to find him holed up with a dozen teeny mouse corpses or working on the new Sudoku book or pitching a Rubik’s Cube out his window (he liked retro puzzles, but not that one). Instead he was watching TV in his room. Odd, because Marc believed watching TV was a spectator sport, or at least a couples activity. I took one look and mentally groaned.
Quick! Be quick!
He looked away from the television and gave me a distracted smile. “What’s cookin’, good-lookin’?”
“I’m going to Hell to try the time thing. Wanna come?”
“Hell yes. Heh. See what I did there?”
“Yes, I’m definitely not tired of that joke yet.” I was rarely in Marc’s room, partly because I respected his privacy, but mostly because it was where he’d killed himself.
Tina had bought him a new bed (he’d told me suicides always made sure they were as comfortable as possible before ending it, so not only had he killed himself in his own room, but he’d been snuggled securely in bed while he died) over his halfhearted protests.9 “It’s not like I pissed myself when I died,” he’d tried to explain while Jess burst into tears and I ground my teeth so hard I felt my jaw try to pop out of place. “I went to the bathroom before I OD’d. I’m not a savage.”
We didn’t care: new bed. New bedding. (“You threw out my Twister bedsheets? I’ve had those since med school!”) New clothes. And extra bookshelves. Before he died,
he’d had two shelves stacked mostly with NEJM and JAMA,10 everything George R. R. Martin and Stephen King had written, the Narnia collection (“C. S. Lewis killed everyone in the last book but people bitch about G.R.R.M.?”), and X-Men graphic novels. He still had all those, but now he had five more shelves and they groaned with puzzle books, Gray’s Anatomy (he didn’t have his predeath dexterity and was scared of losing any predeath knowledge as well), and horrible jigsaw puzzles (a five-hundred-piece double-sided Dalmatians puzzle, a thousand-piece pencil collage—the horror and eyestrain were relentless).
But he stood firm on the “don’t you want a different room?” issue: “Not only can I not hear Betsy and Sinclair’s Sex Olympics from here, it’s got a west-facing window. I hate trying to sleep with the sun in my face. Even before I died. Plus the bathroom’s just across the hall. I might not need to piss or shit, but I still like showers.”
All that went through my head while he grabbed the remote and shut off the TV, looking like he wanted to throw something. Possibly out the nearest window, which had only recently been fixed after he’d tossed the Rubik’s Cube through it. Usually breaking furniture was strictly a Betsy-and-Sinclair thing. And it was usually our bed. We were on the ninth—tenth?—headboard.
“Yeah, I’d love to get out of here.”
“Great!” Go, go, go! Don’t give him time to—
“This fucking movie.”
I swallowed another groan. Deflect, avoid, or embrace?
Hell with it. See what I did there? “Why do you watch it every time it’s on if you hate it so much? And don’t say it’s hate-watching, because that’s a different thing.”
“Oh, please,” he scoffed, “tell the gay man about hate-watching.” But his retort was amiable enough. He’d gotten up off his bed, stripped off his T-shirt, rummaged in his closet, and pulled on a clean scrub shirt, leaving the jeans and loafers. He raked his fingers through his short black hair, squinted at a mirror, then shrugged as if to say: Good enough. And it was. Marc was a remarkably handsome zombie.
“It’s such bullshit. Snow White and the Huntsman demands we jettison belief in the first five minutes. Hair black as night, skin white as snow, lips red as blood . . . hah! It’s Kristen Stewart! Should have been hair brown as a dead branch, skin pale as someone who never goes outside, lips thin as paper.”
“She’s pretty enough. I don’t think anyone could have competed with Charlize Theron.” What was wrong with my life when I was moved to stick up for Kristen Stewart, of all things? Fame and wealth beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, but she never smiled and didn’t seem to own a brush. But all that aside, the poor thing never had a chance. Because Charlize Theron! “Also, I might have been rooting for Ravenna,” I admitted. It was true. Charlize forever, Kristen Grumpypants never.
“Everyone rooted for Ravenna,” Marc assured me in an “also, fire is hot and water is wet” tone. I realized my mistake almost at once and prayed that was the end of it, but Marc had latched on to one of his favorite grievances. “Though it’s creepy to watch it now, all those annoying close-ups on Kristen Stewart.”
“She was the star,” I mumbled. Why? Why? Why even open his door? Why didn’t I run? Why didn’t I knock him unconscious and then run?
“And smooching the director, Rupert Sanders! Who was married, thank you very much, to the eternally fine Liberty fucking Ross!”
“I don’t think that’s her middle na—”
“Thank Christ they didn’t let him direct the sequel!”
“Marc, it was years ago. Time to let it—”
“Who picks Kristen Stewart’s flat butt and lack of tits and utter inability to smile over Liberty fucking Ross?”
Rupert Sanders, apparently.
“If I had someone like that, I’d never throw them over for a sullen teenager.”
And there it was.
“No, of course not,” I said, tugging at his hand until we were heading out the door and down the back stairs to the kitchen. “You’d be the best husband ever. Whoever you picked would be so lucky.”
He barked a laugh. “Yes, and they’re lining up, aren’t they? C’mon, Betsy. It was hard enough to get a date when I was a live, cute doctor. Now? Christ. Fuck getting a date, I’d settle for getting laid. No pun intended.”
“Oh. You can . . . uh . . . you . . .” I made a vague gesture in the general direction of his crotch. Sinclair could get hard, of course, which made no sense. It was one of the things Marc found so interesting about our “condition.” Vampires shouldn’t be a thing. There was just no way. And yet we lived (kinda) and laughed and banged and drank. And could do so indefinitely, provided we got regular “live” blood and nobody cut off our heads. It was pretty ridiculous, really.
“Everything still works,” was the dry reply. “Believe me, I know.”
“Well.” At his expectant look, I gave him an apologetic shrug. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“You’re a well-meaning moron, Betsy.” He pulled me into a hug and I got a noseful of his shampoo (Head & Shoulders . . . wait, zombies got dandruff? Or was it just familiar?) and soap (St. Ives apricot scrub . . . wait, zombies had clogged pores?). “I love you and I’m lucky to have you for a friend.”
“Well, thanks.” Yes, he definitely needed to get laid. I’d already known he loved me, but getting maudlin and handsy while obsessively washing with apricot scrub and bitching about Kristen Stewart wasn’t like him at all. “Back atcha.”
“Can I ask you something?”
Uh-oh. That never prefaced something good. This was a guy who had no problem greeting me with, “Those flip-flops make you look fat.”
“Suuuure . . .” Drawn out because I was trying to think what would be so awkward that Marc of all people hesitated to bring it up.
“Why aren’t you letting Sinclair help you with Hell?”
I looked at him and felt my eyes narrow. “Did Sinclair ask you to ask?”
“What? No! C’mon, no.” He shook his head at me. “What are we, in high school? Besides, that’s not his—”
“Did Tina?”
“No! C’mon. Well, yes. But it’s not like she made me ask . . .” He cleared his throat. “We’ve all been wondering. Why wouldn’t you put him on the committee? Tina was really surprised when you asked her but not him.” He paused, then emphasized, “Really surprised.”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Because it’s a vampire thing?”
“Nooo . . .”
“Because it’s a queen thing?”
“Because I don’t really understand myself. I just—can’t do it. Every time I think about it, I just shut down inside. I don’t know why. And you know me, you know I’ve got no problem ditching crap on other people.”
“Some crap,” he corrected. “You take the serious stuff seriously. Y’know, after you put on a show about how put-upon you are.”
“It’s not a show; I’m very put-upon, and—you know what? Go to Hell. And I’ll come with you.”
And on that note, we hit the kitchen, saw it was empty (a rarity!), and I thought about us being in Hell.
And then we were.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
“The bitch is back,” the Ant said, which was as warm a greeting as I’d ever gotten from my stepmother.
“Don’t try to sweet-talk me. What’d I miss?”
“Eleven thousand new souls have shown up, Father Markus has begrudgingly signed off on your new and improved Ten Commandments, and the She-Wolves of France are requesting a meeting with you—”
???
“I knew you’d say that,” the Ant grumbled.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You looked pretty blank,” Marc said in what he doubtless thought was a helpful tone.
“Several of the souls my daughter let loose a few months ago have come back
and requested reinstatement—”
“We do that? Reinstate people?”
“I guess that’s up to you,” the Ant replied carefully.
Well. That was some good news. When I still thought Laura and I would both run Hell, I’d been a little, um, hard to pin down. Oh, those carefree days of yesteryear when my biggest problem was Jessica’s weird babies! And by yesteryear I meant less than a month ago.
Anyway, one of the ways she got me to quit stalling and go to Hell already was by telling me souls were “escaping.” What she meant was, “I’m letting them out to get your lazy ass into Hell.” Tracking them down and hauling them back was one of the eight zillion things on my list. But apparently life in the real world wasn’t what they thought it would be.
“I want to talk to them. The ones who came back.” The Ant nodded; I think she’d anticipated my request. “What else?”
“A few other administrative details Cathie, Father Markus, and I are dealing with. A copy of Father Markus’s sermon for your approval.” I waved that away; it wasn’t for me to tell an ordained priest that his sermons weren’t churchy enough. Even when he’d been running a group of vampire executioners who were trying to kill me, he’d always prayed fair. And in death he’d been beyond helpful. “And Miss Cindy Tinsman would like a meeting, if it’s not too much trouble. Her words, not mine; I’m assuming anything that takes you away from the Macy’s sample sale is too much trouble.”
“Couldn’t resist that one, huh?”
“No,” was the smug reply.
“FYI, the only upcoming event at Macy’s I’m interested in is the Mother’s Day Fashion Show. I’m technically a mom now. Well, a big sister/mom hybrid.”
Then I could have bitten my tongue. On purpose, I mean. The reason I was a big sister/mom hybrid was because the Ant had died in a car accident and my dad—presumed to have perished with her in a ball of blazing hair spray and spray tan—had faked his death.