“He— What?”
“Moron!” I’d leaned down and shouted it into her face, and watching her flinch was deeply satisfying. “He broke the law! It’s a felony, dumbass! He’ll be lucky if he’s only sued. They could slam his ass into Stillwater for—for—”
“Up to twenty years and a fine of up to one hundred thousand dollars in the state of Minnesota,” the doorway said, except not really.
“Oh, you might as well get in here,” I said, resuming my pacing.
To my surprise, Dick led the charge: “You’re pathetic.” Tina stretched on her tiptoes to peek over his shoulder and nodded in agreement. The others were crammed in behind them (narrow doorway).
Laura said nothing, just raised her eyebrows.
“She’s only ever welcomed you,” he continued, presumably referring to me, “and occasionally called you on your shit.” Definitely referring to me.
“Not her job,” Laura snapped back.
“It by God ought to be someone’s job! Sorry, Tina.”
“It’s fine.” The rest had come in and were glaring en masse at Laura, who should have been less irritated and more afraid. “Understandable.”
“I can’t wait until someone catches you flinching at the Lord’s name on camera,” Laura said.
“You underestimate our resources,” was Sinclair’s cool reply. “And you underestimate our queen, as ever.” In small rooms he always seemed taller than he was, and if Laura wasn’t exactly cowering (she got points for that, if nothing else) she was definitely in his shadow. In all ways. “You think you’re the only person in ten thousand years to try to expose us? This is nothing new. You’re nothing new. There’s not one original thing about you, not a unique thought in your head. Everything about you is a cliché, including this childish resentment you have for your older sister. I’d pity you, Laura, if you warranted it.”
Whoa.
That one must have hurt, because she didn’t engage. Just stared at him for a long moment, then turned to me. “They can’t help you,” she hissed, her mouth turning down, her eyes going narrow. “You like to flaunt your friends—”
“I really don’t.” Where was this coming from? “Having friends isn’t the same as flaunting them.”
“—and pride yourself on complaining you have to do things you don’t like, then shoving those things off on friends and complaining more, for some reason.”
Okay, that did sound like me. But c’mon. Was all this really happening because the Antichrist thought I had a lousy attitude?
“They can’t help you this time; they’ve all got secrets, they’ve all got too much to lose. Didn’t you notice how they didn’t all rush out into the yard with you? Just the one you’ve—the vampire you’ve enslaved with your—your—”
I cut her off, amused in spite of myself. She was neck-deep in a plot to expose and betray me, and she couldn’t say the words. “Are you trying to infer Sinclair’s pussy-whipped?”
“I imply; you infer.”
“Yeah, like I said.”
“Shut up! Don’t you understand what’s happening?”
“Kind of?” Okay, even I wasn’t this dim, but it was doing interesting things to Laura’s blood pressure and, for that reason alone, was worth pursuing. And the others were mercifully silent, except for Marc’s muffled snort (cut short by Tina’s elbow to his ribs).
Laura puffed a hank of perfectly golden hair out of her face with a frustrated blast: pfffttt! “Dick’s a cop, for heaven’s sake; he could have run them off in thirty seconds. But he stayed inside. I out-and-out told Jessica what I was up to; I even offered her and her husband shelter so they could avoid the fallout—they’re only guilty by association, they’re not undead—and she couldn’t be bothered to pass it on. If she had, you wouldn’t be so shocked.” Wait, what? Don’t turn around and glare at Jess, don’t turn around and glare at— “None of them came to your aid; they just cowered inside, hoping you’d fix this and knowing you couldn’t.”
“I’m having trouble following your villain rant. Are you doing this because you think I’m inherently evil, because I have a lousy attitude, because you resent my friends, because you don’t like my friends, because you don’t like your brother-in-law, because you hate your birthright, because you regret tricking me into taking your birthright, or because you think this will win you Daddy’s love?” At her furious silence, I added, “It’s at least one of those, though, right?”
She stood and smoothed her (immaculate) jeans, ready to leave now that she’d ruined my week/month/decade. “You’ve got a nasty way of making morals sound ridiculous.”
I laughed at her. (It was either that or burst into furious tears.) “It’s hilarious that the Antichrist used ‘morals’ and ‘ridiculous’ in the same sentence.”
She was halfway to the door by then but checked and turned at my words. “They’ll see you for what you are, you know. Everyone will. Then they’ll destroy you. Your friends can’t help you. Your father won’t help you. You’ll just have to go to Hell. And stay there forever.”
She left.
We let her.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
Marc’s comment broke the difficult silence: “The Antichrist miiiight be crazy in addition to evil.”
“It’s worse,” Jessica said glumly. “It’s so much worse. The Antichrist isn’t evil and/or crazy because she’s the spawn of Satan. She’s evil and/or crazy because she’s a fundamentalist the-Bible-is-literal-and-I’ll-kill-you-to-save-you nutjob. She’s determined to be good and she’ll destroy anyone she has to in order to prove it.”
We’d adjourned to the kitchen, too depressed and freaked to even consider pulping fruit, ice, and yogurt into a delicious drink to be ardently slurped through straws. And I figured now was the best time to tackle the primary issue on my mind, while we were still reeling from what the Antichrist had visited upon us, but I didn’t yet have a plan.
I cleared my throat, and they looked at me hopefully, but that was where I was stuck. I wanted to glare and shout, but didn’t dare. Jessica and I had been friends since our training-bra days (cue jokes about how Jessica could still wear training bras, then cue me breaking your nose). I couldn’t bear it if she was scared of me after everything she’d seen me through. If she was afraid of me, this time I didn’t have the excuse of having read the Book of the Dead and turning evil (temporarily).16
But what other explanation was there?
“Jessica, how— Laura said she told you. Um, so . . . I was wondering. Just, y’know, out of curiosity. Simply to pass the time while we come up with a plan. Just as a way to keep the conversation going . . .”
Marc had buried his face in his hands. “Oh, just spit it out and ask,” he groaned into his palms. “This is too painful.”
I glared but kept my tone mild. “Why didn’t you—”
She turned her head toward me so fast I heard the tendons in her neck creak. “You think I kept this to myself? That your jackass sister confided her sinister plan and I decided silence was the best option? Why would I do that? For fun? For spite? To see what would happen?”
Tina leaned over and carefully relieved Jessica of one of her babies, then backed out of the line of fire. This freed Jessica to jump to her feet and sort of loom over me, since I was sitting at the counter. I tried not to cower. I failed.
“I’m not mad,” I said delicately, “but it’s important that you understand, we could be in a lot of—”
“Now you shut your mouth and listen to me, Elizabeth Anne Taylor.”
Whoa. Full name. Abort, abort! My hands were instantly up, placating. Now Dick and Tina were backing away with babies. “No, really, I’m not m—”
“I have no recollection of that conversation, partly because I don’t pay much attention to your judgmental bitch-cow sister—”
Bitch-cow! The gloves were off!
“—but mostly because I’ve been averaging twenty minutes of sleep a night for weeks! Which is why I didn’t mention it to you! Because I promptly forgot it! I don’t know if she called or came by or meant to tell me or just blurted it out, and I don’t give a shit! Whatever her reason, whyever she told me, if I’d been well rested and in my right mind I would have told you right goddamned away! Because the Antichrist offering shelter to me and mine while she exposed you and your husband to the world is something I would have felt you needed to know! Okay?”
I nodded so hard I almost fell over. We were all nodding. “Yep. Makes perfect sense. Thanks for clearing that up. Never doubted you—”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, but a smile broke through the scowl.
“—for a second. A nanosecond. That’s less than a second, right?”
“That said,” Jessica added, thankfully out of shout mode, “this is not good. For any of us.”
“Got that right.” Marc looked as glum as I’d ever seen him. “Not to belittle your sister’s deep insecurity and instability, but I can’t help wondering if maybe she should just get laid.”
“The only thing I want to discuss less than being exposed is my sister’s virginity. I can’t believe this is happening. Any of it.”
Tina was still cradling a baby, but came over and rested a cool hand on top of mine. Her voice was a lull. The babies loved her. She could hum about four notes and they were out like teeny lightbulbs. “Majesty, the king was right when he said this isn’t the first time humans have tried to expose us. We’ve fought this before and won before. And that was without the queen on our side.”
“Thanks for the entirely misplaced vote of confidence. And yeah, obviously Laura’s sinister plan is a rerun; other people knew about vampires in the past and tried to blow their cover. But this is the first time it’ll probably work if we don’t think of something. The world’s a lot smaller than it was a thousand years ago.”
No one said anything, which was a real shame. I was hoping to be refuted. Soundly, even.
“This— It’s—” I broke off and shook my head. I couldn’t find the words. Maybe because there weren’t any. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry, you guys. I’ve put you all in danger. More so than usual, I mean.” I couldn’t stand their expressions. They were upset, but not with me. They were mad . . . but not at me. They were concerned . . . for me. Concern I knew I didn’t deserve. “I’m very, very sorry.”
I fled.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
I heard the door open and knew it was either Tina or Sinclair, the only ones who could have kept up with me. Probably Sinclair, preparing to explain at length how my idiocy had ruined his (after)life.
The bed dipped as he sat beside me. I was facedown on my pillow in the middle of a half-assed suicide attempt. Even if I needed to breathe, suffocation via pillow would still take too long. Stupid memory foam!
“My father and my sister have teamed up to destroy me,” I said into the foam, which Sinclair probably heard as “Mmm ffmmm sssmmmm hvvv mmmm mm.”
No response, which made sense. He had to be pretty annoyed, and was likely thinking up the best way to explain the depths of my fuckuppery. Constantly blowing Laura off, denying her Hell after she tricked me into taking Hell, threatening to kill her father, constantly questioning her choice of footwear . . . my unsisterly behavior had piled up to endanger every one of us.
I felt it then. Sinclair’s hand on the small of my back, warm(ish) and steady.
I am so sorry, my own, my dearest. You’re worth ten of them.
I perked up a little. “Only ten?” (Which came out, “Nnn ttnn?”)
“A hundred. A thousand. A centillion.”
Damn, that sounded like a lot. I rolled over and blinked up at him. His dear face was creased with concern, but his fist was clenched. He wanted to beat Laura to death as much as he wanted to make me feel better. I could relate.
I took a deep breath, let it out. “I’m sorry. About before.”
“No, the offense is mine. You were correct to be wary of my objectives. I truly have no intention of—er—”
“Glomming on to Hell?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me, dark eyes gleaming. “Yes. But then, I had no intention of falling in love with you, or tolerating our many roommates, or being a pet owner, or participating in the Winter Carnival, and all those things have happened.” He stroked my bangs away from my face. “To my unending delight.”
I sighed and snuggled into his palm.
“All that to say,” he continued, “I may not have intended to take over Hell, but perhaps it would have come to pass regardless of my intent and your wishes. It’s— You’re so young and sweet. You have too many burdens as it is. I want to relieve you of them, but perhaps that isn’t my place.”
I made a mighty effort and didn’t snort at “young and sweet.” Wrong on both counts, pal. And for one of the few times in our marriage, I felt every year of the age gap between us. He thought I was a spoiled child and I thought he was a controlling chauvinist, and sometimes we were at least partially right about each other.
“The thing about Hell.” I reached out and caught his other hand, linking our fingers. “It’s not just me trying to prove something to myself, that I can do this thing on my own. Well, on my own with a committee. Every suggestion you’ve made has been a good idea and I’ve implemented almost all of them. No,” I rushed ahead as he opened his mouth, “I am not implementing a Black Labrador Appreciation Day in Hell; you’ve just got to accept that. Fur and Burr aren’t going anywhere near Hell.”
“Of course not,” he said, offended. “Labs we don’t love would go to Hell.”
“You’re a monster!” I almost shouted, then got a grip. “Anyway. It’s not happening. But the thing about Hell, the real reason I don’t want you down there, so to speak . . .”
“Yes?” His face was calm, he was stroking my cheek, but his gaze was riveted to mine and I could see the tense line of his shoulders. He was expecting something bratty or hateful or both. Was bracing himself for it. Was telling himself it was my choice, not his! Christ, I did not deserve this man.
“It’s turning Father Markus mean,” I said in a small voice.
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“He’s getting mean. I think it’s being there—I think Hell’s corrupting him. Maybe even being on the committee is corrupting him; I’ll have to watch the others. How would I be able to tell if Hell made the Ant a bitch? She was already a bitch when she got there. So was I.”
“You’re not . . . always . . .” he began loyally.
“And Tina—well, she’s been around the block a few times; I’m not worried about her. She’s used to the assistant role; she likes helping behind the scenes and hates being onstage. I can’t imagine ever having a power struggle with her. And Marc doesn’t seem any different—well, that’s not entirely true. Being in Hell makes him lonely. I don’t know why. I mean, he’s always lonesome. He needs someone in the worst way, and I can’t help him. Maybe—”
“My love, I don’t understand.”
I wriggled until I was propped up on my elbows. “Hell is changing Father Markus. He’s not as quick to forgive, and he’s much quicker to judge. He’s not very interested in decreasing anyone’s suffering. He’s fighting me on every major change, and I’m pretty sure he’s undermining my efforts when I’m not there. And since I refuse to be in Hell twenty-four/seven, he’s got lots of opportunities. And I don’t want that to happen to you. Some people would say you’re already mean. But they don’t know you like I do.
“You’re not mean, you’re driven. And ruthless, when you have to be. But you don’t enjoy it any more than I do. And I’m not downing you for any of that; your nature is the reason you existed long enough for us to meet.”
“Existed,” he murmured, but he seemed pl
eased. “Yes. The perfect word.”
“You’ve taken lives, like me, but you’ve saved plenty along the way, also like me. But . . . come on. Father Markus was right out of central casting for the ‘kindly priest who wants everybody to love their neighbors and their enemies’ trope. This was a guy who wouldn’t set actual mousetraps in his church, just those awful humane ones so he could release disease-carrying rodents into the wild where they could go into other houses. You remember, you met him in life.”
Sinclair was nodding. “He was compassionate and open-minded. I found him to be a good man. He certainly grieved when he thought you had died, and he’d only known you a few days.”
“Right. All that and then some. But these days? He’s pretty cold.” I reached for Sinclair’s hand again. “So I started to wonder. What would Hell do to you? You’re tricky and ruthless and brilliant when you aren’t corrupted. What if Hell changed you like it’s changing Markus?”
“I don’t understand. Are you saying—?”
“But me? I don’t take anything seriously. I’m not brilliant and I’m not especially tricky. And I’m not so ruthless I’ve lost my humanity . . . yet. But I want people to get along. I want to decrease what I see as meaningless suffering. And I have people who love me to retreat to when Hell is overwhelming. I think that’s why I can handle it down there. I think that’s why I’m supposed to handle it down there.”
He nodded. “I understand, my own. And I regret doubting you, and my unkind words. You’ve been a fine queen for our kind; I’ve no doubt you’ll be one in Hell, too.”
I sighed and flopped back. “Any other time and I’d be tempted to believe you. But now we’ve got our regular problems, plus Hell, plus the Antichrist and my useless father plotting to expose us. And they’ll probably succeed. I mean, we can’t kill them.” I paused. “Can we?”
“Likely not. I don’t doubt your sister has taken steps to ensure still more exposure for us if she were to disappear.”
It’s also morally wrong, I thought but didn’t say.