Undead and Unfinished

by Davidson, MaryJanice

  Except sometimes, that was almost the most they could hope to be. There were such shits running around, all the time.

  I still remember a meal from over a year ago ... I’d happened on a pedophile who was just lowering the pants of her victim. I’d meant to knock her out and save the middle-school boy. Instead, I’d nearly put her through the wall. The brick wall. The good news was, when she came to she was so rattled she started compulsively confessing to ... everything. The bad news was, after it happened? I hardly ever thought about the useless cow.

  It wasn’t that I felt bad. I felt bad because I didn’t feel bad. Not too migraine-inducing.

  “... but after, he promised to turn himself in and return all the bootlegged copies of Ironman Three and Spiderman Eight.”

  “And the populace sleeps in peace. Bootleg. So, uh, that word. I bet it takes you back ... to moonlit nights in the deep South when you ran moonshine for your many cousins ...”

  “Majesty?”

  “Unless, of course, it doesn’t. Take you back I mean. So does it?”

  Tina’s brow was knitted, so much so that for a scary moment she appeared to sport a unibrow. “I beg pardon, my queen?”

  “Never mind. So, you’re probably going to bed.”

  Tina glanced down as if assuring herself that, yes, she was clean and freshly tubbed, and also wearing a nightgown as opposed to, say, a cocktail dress. “Yes, I was, but if you require anything at all—”

  “No, no. No. I’m—” What exactly? Sulking and waiting for Sinclair to cough up an apology? Worrying about my sister? Not using the front hall so I wouldn’t think about Antonia and Garrett? “I’m using the door, that’s what I’m doing!”

  Tina had backed up until her (permanently shapely) butt was pressed against the fridge. “As—as you wish, Majesty.”

  “Damn right!”

  Yeah! No one could accuse me of not using my own front door. No way, babies.

  I was gonna use the hell out of the front door.

  Chapter 13

  l hate the front door.

  Well, I do, and that was before The Thing. First off, it was practically the size and thickness of a redwood. Heavy as hell, even with hinges. No peephole ... and given that most vampires knew where I lived, that was murderously stupid. Sort of like the asshats who occasionally came looking for me.

  Plus, it opened onto an enormous foyer of marble and ancient furnishing and, on the housekeeper’s off days, dust bunnies the size of orangutans. The house smelled like ancient wood, floor wax, and dead flowers. Everything was larger than life ... Tall doorways. Marble everything. Tables that seated twenty. Chairs for the tables that looked like thrones. (Target doesn’t carry chairs like that. I’ve looked.) Someone who didn’t know a thing about the house’s residents would instantly sense we were all up to no good.

  Subtle, it wasn’t. And when the mistress of the obvious notices something isn’t subtle? Brother, it’s time to pack up and leave town, because the rain of fire was about to start.

  Oh. Right. There was one other thing I didn’t like about the front entryway. The library (one of the libraries) was just off said entryway, and the library was, in almost every way, worse than the front hall.

  The Book of the Dead was kept in the library. Which was a lot like saying the bomb was kept in the garage next to the snowblower.

  I crept toward the awful thing. And why not? It was barely November and the month already sucked rocks. What was the thing gonna do, give me demonically infectious paper cuts?

  Nope. You needed paper for paper cuts. The Book of the Dead was written (in blood) by a(n) (insane) vampire, on human skin.

  Collect the set!

  I could feel my mouth trying to pull down into an unattractive frown as I sidled closer. Not that I had to worry about wrinkles. Only about turning evil and watching helplessly while roommates died. And, you know, taxes.

  All the answers were in there. The Book of the Dead was never wrong. The thing was just sitting there on an old-fashioned, never-in-style book stand, mocking me. If my late stepmother were a book, she would be that book. All my questions could be answered. No more worrying ... no more wondering, even.

  Yep. All right there, if I didn’t mind going insane. Now, I’m not the type to be picky, and one girl’s insanity is another’s too-many-daiquiris weekend, but the last time I’d overindulged I’d scared (and bitten) my best friend and raped my husband. (I never did decide what was worse: that I’d aggressively molested him or that he didn’t notice I’d turned evil over the weekend.)

  Have I mentioned the horrible, horrible thing was fireproof? And waterproof? Every time I tried to throw it away or destroy it, it came back. It was like being in one of those buy-ten-DVDs-for-$2.99 clubs except more with the evil and not so much with the weekly mailings.

  Still, it was tempting. Sure it was. Even though I knew it was dangerous—or was that because I knew it was dangerous? Because if I really had to give it some thought, I’d—

  “What an unattractive frown. Since you can’t rely on your brains, dear, you should try to stay pretty as long as you can.”

  My heart took a great big ka-THUMP in my chest and I actually staggered. I knew that sly-sweet voice. First the book.

  Now the devil.

  Chapter 14

  l whirled. “You!”

  “Me,” Satan agreed. Against every instinct of self-preservation I’d come up with in thirty-some years, I instantly glanced at her feet. And moaned.

  “Ah,” God’s Problem Child simpered, batting her long eyelashes. “You noticed.”

  Of course I noticed. She could have pulled mukluks over them and I would have noticed. She could have been disguised as the Michelin Man and I would have noticed.

  The devil was wearing a pair of Stuart Weitzman stilettos. They were trimmed with 1,420 Kwiat diamonds (over thirty carats!), which were set in platinum. Anika Noni Rose (the other Dreamgirl) wore them to the Oscars in 2007. And they were quite the bargain at half a million dollars.

  “Tell me. How are things with my favorite dead thirty-something?”

  I was too overwhelmed to reply, or take offense. Or even really notice. I was ... dazzled. The Book of the Dead could have morphed into naked Robert Downey Jr. and I wouldn’t have so much as glanced at Hollywood’s hottest new/old bad boy.

  Satan smiled down at her beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful shoes, and who could blame her?

  While I was thinking about it, have I mentioned the devil looked like Lena Olin? Like the hottest cougar in the history of hot older women? A cougar who could seduce all your guy friends but then take you out for drinks and charm you into grudging forgiveness?

  Pure evil stalked me in my own home, wearing stiletto heels and a severely cut suit with a high neckline. The suit, I knew at once, was made of vicuna wool, the most expensive fabric on the planet. It ran for about $1,780 a yard. I knew because she’d worn another suit in a different cut and color last year, a deep luscious black, and I’d been curious enough to look it up.

  Severe suit in midnight blue, great shoes, minimal makeup, no perfume, no jewelry (who needed it with footgear like that?), and the sheerest stockings, more like silk webbing than something man-made. Satan preferred garter belts (I wish I didn’t know that). And also tempting the bejeezus out of your friendly neighborhood vampire queen.

  “—a favor.”

  “Bluh?”

  “I said you’ve got the look of someone who needs a favor.”

  “I whuh? Neh? Mem.”

  “You seem less loquacious than usual. Now then. I know you and my daughter had a nice chat over A1 Pacino movies and microwave popcorn. I also know that you have a problem. Several, not least of which is your anemic IQ, but one in which I can be of some assistance. Even better, one in which I wish to be of assistance. And I am willing to assist you, but in return I must insist—”

  “ ‘Scuse me. I have to lie down.” I tottered to
ward the love seat (recently reupholstered in a deep moss green velvet after one of my roommates barfed buffalo grass vodka all over it) and tried to lie down. But I couldn’t make it in time before my knees buckled, so I just ...

  I just sort of ...

  Um ... sort of ...

  “Well smack my face and cast me out of heaven.” Satan’s face appeared above mine; the devil was about as concerned as she ever got. “You swooned. Do you know how rare an old-fashioned swoon is these days? It looked like a slow-motion belly flop. Would you like a pillow? I trust that carpet isn’t as dusty as it looks. And smells.”

  “Those are just really very great and awesome shoes,” I managed, blinking up at the Morningstar.

  “And I got them for a song,” she replied. “Or more specifically, a soul. But they can be yours for the low, low price of—”

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Satan snapped her head around, and I heard a hiss of irritation. Or maybe she just had a leak somewhere. My best friend, Jessica, was framed in the doorway, arms akimbo. Which was pretty alarming, because she was beyond bony and her elbows could have been registered as deadly weapons. She could shatter car windows with them.

  “None of your concern, Ms. Watson. Why don’t you run along and spend more money you didn’t earn?”

  “And why don’t you go back to hell?” Jessica was doing pretty well given that (a) she’d never met the devil and (b) she was, in fact, spending money she didn’t earn. Daily, even. “Not that it’s any of your damn business, but I bled for that money. Now, I don’t know why you’re here—”

  “Most likely because I would never trouble myself to inform you.”

  “—but no way is it good news for anybody in my house.”

  “Her house,” the Adversary snapped back, pointing a perfectly manicured, French-tipped finger at me. “The deed is in her and her husband’s name.”

  “It is?” Oh. Right. I think Sinclair had mumbled something about that a few months ago. I was too busy avoiding the front hall and this room to pay much attention. “So we own the house ... so? It’s just semantics.”

  “Do you actually know what that word means?”

  “It means Jessica’s owned plenty of the places I’ve rented or lived. So if the deed’s in her name or my name or Tina’s name or the cat’s name, it’s just as much her home as mine.”

  “Except from a legal standpoint,” Baal said, rolling her eyes.

  “Out!” Jessica actually stamped her foot. Also frightening ... she was a size nine, but her feet had, like, almost no width. It looked like she walked around on rulers. They were sharp like rulers, too. When she swung one into my shin, it stung like crazy. Undead superpowers could not prevent the stinging. “Right now!”

  “Or what? You’ll tell Daddy? He’s fine, by the way, my dear, dull Miss Watson. Actually that’s not true. He’s damned! He is utterly un-fine.”

  Jessica’s skin was too gorgeously dark to go pale when she was afraid. Instead, when she was scared, her face seemed to tighten. That broke the fog I’d been in since I’d eyeballed the demonic footgear.

  “Knock it off.” I’d meant it to sound like a tough command. But it came out weak. And feeble.

  The devil didn’t even glance at me. And she hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken a step toward Jess. But it seemed like she had. It felt like she had. With only her voice, she seemed to loom over Jessica. To ... to blot her out.

  Which really, really pissed me off.

  “It’s a dull pattern, isn’t it? In your showgirl mother’s shadow until she died. And now in Betsy’s. Who, of course, will never grow old and ugly, just less and less intelligent.”

  “Hey!”

  “Do you pick beautiful women to live with on purpose?” She sounded genuinely interested, which was just another way she lied. “Or do you only realize it waaaaay down deep, in the bottom of your brain where the serpents live?” The devil grinned. “And me, of course. I visit there.” Pause. “I love it there.”

  “You get out of here,” Jessica managed, and she sort of wheezed it. I think, in her head, I think she thought she was shouting.

  “Of course! But before I go, did you have any messages for dear, damned Daddy? Or your mother, who chose her husband’s money over her daughter’s safety? She’s still a showgirl in my realm, you know. And still can’t get work. And still in your father’s shadow! You should see her, Jessica, you should see them both. They hate each other. Almost as much as they hate you.”

  Satan threw back her long, elegant neck and laughed. The booming chortles filled the room like a swarm of bats—tried, anyway, because a crunch of wood and skull cut the laughfest off just when it was getting started.

  Jessica smiled, but her lips were trembling. “Oh, Bets. That might cost you one of these days.”

  The devil was rubbing the back of her head and glaring at me. I’d managed to shake off my stupor, get off the floor, snatch up the book stand (the Book of the Dead went flying, but it wasn’t like anything would happen to it), and crown Satan with it. Since I was moving at vampire superspeed, I’d been able to get some momentum behind the swing. And did the crunch sound feel good?

  Hells yeah! Tax-refund good. All-your-tests-came-back-negative good. I-can’t-finish-do-you-want-the-rest-of-my-dessert good.

  “The next one,” I warned, brandishing the broken stand like a jagged baseball bat, “goes through your teeth. Get your saggy ass out of our house.”

  Satan finished shaking splinters out of her perfectly coiffed hair. “My ass is not soggy.”

  “Yeah? You should check it out from where I’m standing,” I sneered, which was total bravado. Her ass was awesome. “Now scat. Or do I have to get a priest in here to perform an exorcism?”

  “Tempting. I haven’t had a good laugh in eighty-seven seconds. An eternity with you people.” Lucifer Morningstar folded her wool-clad arms across her perfectly shaped boobs and eyed the toe of her beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful shoes. “I shall scat, as you like. But Betsy, when you need to reach me, and you will, you will know what I require.”

  “What are you gonna require?” Jess asked, a suspicious scowl on her face.

  “The queen will know,” she said with Lena Olin’s voice. “She need only think about temptation.”

  “Right now I’m only thinking about caving in your skull. Again. Ha! So take that.”

  “Oh, and Betsy? I’ve already forgiven you that little bit of criminal assault, so it will all be behind us tomorrow. You need not fear to call on me.”

  “Yeah? Wrong again, you loser devil-type fallen angel, because I will f—” Then she blipped right out of existence. There was even a sharp pop! which I realized was the sound of air rushing into the space she had been occupying. “I hate when she does that. Right in the middle of a sentence. She’s like Batman that way. Except bitchier.”

  Jessica still looked dreadful, but her expression was relaxing a little and her eyes, while shiny, didn’t drip tears. It hadn’t exactly been the worst day of her life when her useless, disgusting parents had died. To paraphrase Stephen King, sometimes an accident can be an unhappy woman’s best friend.

  Put it this way: if they hadn’t died, I would have eventually had to kill them. And who needs that on a to-do list?

  “Jeez, Betsy.” She eyed the book, the splinters, the book-stand-turned-limbo-pole. “You’re such a badass.”

  “Hey. The only person who can belittle you and taunt you with family secrets until you almost cry is me. Besides, those shoes weren’t even in my size,” I lied, knowing exactly how the fox had felt when she couldn’t snatch the grapes.

  Chapter 15

  Then she said mean stuff to Jessica, so I smashed a book stand across the back of her skull. Then she left. Then Jess left. Then I left.” I took another gulp of my Orange Julius. Enduring November, and back at the Mall of America. Pattern? What pattern? “Oh, and I�
��m not speaking to the king of the vampires right now, but I s’pose I’ll forgive him in a couple more hours.”

  I happened to look up and catch a pair of teenage boys openly staring at me. “What? Is there something on my face?” I furtively touched my nose, chin, and eyebrows. Was I dripping Orange Julius from somewhere? “Stop staring,” I told them, and like testosterone-swamped seventeen-year-old robots, they both went back to their Big Macs.

  It’s not that I’m a sexpot, or even a Miss America type. I have this undead sex-appeal thing going on. It had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Why Being A Vampire Takes A While To Get Used To. Yes, I occasionally made ruthless use of it to get out of a speeding ticket. But that was the extent of my evil. I swear!

  “Aw, give ‘em a break. You did say, in the middle of a public food court, that you made the devil your bitch and that you’re not putting out for the vampire king. I’m surprised only two people noticed.”

  My roommate (one of the legions) lounged in his plastic chair at our tiny sticky food-court table. Marc was—I think I mentioned this—an ER doctor, though tonight he was disguised as a shave-needing, sleep-deprived cutie in faded scrubs that smelled like cotton, sweat, dried blood, and Mennen Speed Stick. (Alpine Force ... and how dumb was that? Alpine Force? Who thinks this shit up?)

  So, he was in disguise as an ER doctor. I saw Marc in scrubs so often, I didn’t think I’d recognize him in jeans, or gingham.

  He was also slammin’ handsome if you liked the sharp-featured, compassionate, green-eyed, warm, hilarious, brunet type.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have covered Ren’s shift.” Marc groaned and raked his fingers through his schizophrenic hair. In the couple of years I’d known him he’d tried shoulder length, shaved, crew cut, short and messy, short and short, buzz cut, ponytail, the Caesar, the Beckham, the fauxhawk, the crop, the Keith Urban, the Josh Holloway, and even, during one ten-day period no one in our house ever talked about, the armadillo (complete with white spikes).