Undead and Unfinished

by Davidson, MaryJanice

  “I had already given your wise advice to myself,” she said wryly. “And i’truth I would not stay here if they all fell to their knees and swore upon their souls to be kind. I have money saved away. I shall go west.”

  “Really?”

  “My heart has been there long and long,” she said, but didn’t elaborate. And why should she? Her business was her business.

  “Okay. Well. Good luck with the west and all.”

  “Good luck with the Lord’s work.”

  “Uh. What?”

  “Is that not what you are doing, you and your kin? You are saving the wrongly condemned; you are doing his work.”

  “Not exactly,” I replied, even as Laura was fighting a grin. “But we appreciate the sentiment. Don’t we, little sister?”

  “Yes indeed, Beverly.” Laura also shook Caroline’s hand. “Go well with God, Miss Hutchinson.”

  “And you,” she replied, and spread her skirts and dropped a perfect curtsy, so pretty it was like a dance.

  That was Salem, Massachusetts.

  Chapter 39

  l can’t believe this worked out so great.”

  “It’s something, all right.”

  “And the blue ribbon goes to the Antichrist,” I said, making no secret of my relief and admiration. “Time and space travel accomplished simply by the force of your will, in about seventy seconds.”

  “It was no big deal.”

  “I agree! The movies have lied to us, Laura. Time travel’s a piece of cake, and you just proved it. I’m not denying it: I am im-pressed. And also a tiny bit scared.”

  “Betsy .. Laura began with a rebuke.

  “But that’s normal, right? When big sisters find out their little sisters can twist the rules of space and time like a wad of damp paper towels? It would be weird if I wasn’t freaked out. In a supportive way,” I added, holding my hands up in a calming gesture. “Freaked out in a loving and respectful way. Gently freaked out, I guess, is a better way to put it. Softly freaked out. Sweetly freaked out ... ?”

  Laura’s expression relaxed into a wry smile. “Okay. I’ll admit, this whole, um ... how can I put this in a way that isn’t—”

  “This whole time-traveling-from-hell-and-then-back-to-hell thing. There’s no way to pretty it up, Laura. There’s no way to say any of that in a way that isn’t startling and weird.”

  “It went better than I thought.”

  “Way better.”

  “In a way, you could describe the last thirty-five minutes as—”

  “Awe inspiring.”

  “Anticlimactic.”

  “No!” we both cried at the same time. I shouted down Satan’s stepchild with, “Awe inspiring in the sense that all our adventures should be like this. We should aspire for more days where there’s lots of fretting but no real damage of any kind. We should feel awe that we haven’t realized before now that these weird things that keep happening do not have to have a body count!”

  “Don’t misunderstand; I’m glad no one was hurt. I don’t want people to get hurt. Most people,” she added in a mutter I found a tad terrifying. “But this seems wrong, somehow. Like we forgot to do something. If this was an action movie, we’d only be into the second hour.”

  “But it’s not. So we aren’t. And what, are we standing here all day or what now? C’mon. Let’s go find your mom and tell her we accidentally left Salem a smoking crater. Then, while she’s still screaming, we tell her she can’t plan on retiring for at least eight thousand more years. Oooh, the look on her face! Let’s make it ten thousand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Eight thousand just doesn’t sound bitchy enough.”

  Laura shook her head. “Not that. What did you mean about standing here all day?”

  I stared at my sister. We’d been having this entire conversation, patting each other on the back the whole time, in hell’s waiting room. Did she need a puppet show? Signs?

  Once we’d gotten out of sight, once the church was beyond the hill and Catherine or Carol or whoever couldn’t see, Laura had hauled out her Hellfire sword—bink!—sliced a big half circle through the air, we clasped hands, she stepped, I stepped, we both stepped through, and here we were in the waiting area.

  Ta-da!

  “I’ve been standing here talking to you because I assumed you had something to say, eventually, and when you were finished, finally, we could then walk out the door and into hell proper.”

  “Okay, well, we’re gonna talk about that snotty little eventually-finally thing you just did there, but we’ll do that later. What are you saying?”

  “There is no door.”

  “What? There’s tons.”

  “Yes, those. But there’s no exit anymore. Look around.”

  There was no denying the sinking feeling ... which was interesting, given that my blood barely moved and my heart barely beat, but stress and adrenaline still felt like sinking, swooping dismay.

  But yeah. Laura was right.

  There was no door.

  Chapter 40

  Okay, don’t panic!”

  “Betsy.”

  “We just need to calm the hell down!”

  “All right.”

  I had my sister by the shoulders and shook her briskly. “Just don’t go all hysterical on me, Laura! Stay calm! Stay focused.”

  “It’s hard for me to see when you do that,” the Antichrist pointed out politely, and I could see what she meant. What with all the shaking, her hair was flying around like blonde cotton candy.

  “Sorry! I’m a little freaked out!” I let go of her and tottered around the room, fighting the urge to rend my clothes or tear my hair out. “Okay, let’s see. Let’s just calm down and see.”

  Except there wasn’t much to see. It was the same old waiting room. But there was no way to leave the room. So it was the nasty carpet and the flickering fluorescents and the beat-up receptionist’s desk. And doors, of course. Lots of closed doors. Lots of locked doors.

  “I think,” Laura said, studying the room, “our celebration was a little premature.”

  “No shit.”

  “And I think we’re supposed to pick another door.”

  “My! We’re really clever today, aren’t we?”

  “Better clever than bitchy.”

  “Hey!” She looked at me and waited, eyebrows arched, but I shrugged. “Yeah, I got nothin’. I was being bitchy. It’s my superpower.”

  Laura seemed to lighten up a little. “So we can run around this stinking little room and yell and have hysterics. Or, we can get back to work.”

  “I s’pose doing both isn’t an option.”

  “It is, but it seemed so dumb and bitchy, it was hardly worth mentioning.”

  “You’re enjoying yourself.”

  She shrugged and smiled. “Not ... entirely.”

  “Ugh. Fine, fine. You know what? My own stupid fault for being dumb enough to think we could go to hell and travel through time and things wouldn’t suck.” I threw up my hands again. “Pick a random door, which will throw us into a random corner of hell. Or earth. Or earth’s past. Good thing we’ve got a guarantee that nothing will go wrong. Oh, wait! We don’t.”

  Laura grasped a handle. Shook it briskly—no joy, locked firm. Then her eyes widened and she pointed. “What happened to your shoe?”

  Terror the likes of which I rarely felt unless someone was on fire rose in me, and even before I looked I had a shriek ready. But it was weird, because I couldn’t see my shoe at all.

  All I could see was ...

  ... was ...

  How come I could only see Laura’s fist and why was it coming at me in slow motion and wow my head hurts a lot but at least I’m a fast fast fast fast

  A fast healer! That was it! That’s what I was.

  Yup. Definitely.

  Right?

  Chapter 41

  This time, I just stayed where I was. I didn’t even open my eyes. “Hey, Laura?”

  “Yes?”


  “There wasn’t anything on my shoe, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Thank God. Nice fake-out.”

  “I’m very sorry.” But ... was that a muffled giggle I heard? She might think she was sorry, but deep down where she really lived, she probably wasn’t. So was this good for me, or bad for me?

  And where were we now?

  I opened my eyes—and yelled. “Aggh! I’m blind! That rotten bitch-cat mother of yours arranged for me to be—”

  “Betsy.”

  “—cruelly blinded because she’s jealous—”

  “Oh, Betsy, jeepers!”

  “—of my awesomeness in general and also my shoe collection, which will—”

  “For heaven’s sake.”

  “—never be hers, never, I tell you! I’ll set every pair on fire myself if I have to. Oh God, my poor babies. I’ll burn ‘em and then give ’em all an acid bath—”

  “Will you shut up and just look?”

  “—which is the least of what I’m gonna do to that rotten—oh, hey, I’m not blind anymore.”

  I sat up, blinking. Laura had crossed the floor and yanked at what looked like shutters for the inside. There was a clatter, dusty light fell onto the floor, and I realized we were on the first floor of a barn. An old barn—it was cow and cat free. It smelled like ancient shit, dust, dirt, and corn.

  “It’s late afternoon outside,” Laura was explaining as I hopped to my feet and crossed the room to look out the grime-streaked window. “I dragged you in here ... I wasn’t sure if you’d wake up or not.”

  “Dragged—” I glanced over my shoulder and groaned. Yep, dirt from my shoulders to my calves. Where was I going to find a pair of leggings in my size, in a color that didn’t make me think of dried puke, and long enough to fit my freakishly long frame? “Aw, shit. I foresee problems ahead, kiddo. For starters, depending on where we are, it’s possible the inventor of leggings hasn’t been born. Or has, but hasn’t been to high school.”

  Laura shrugged. “Sorry. It was all I could think to do.”

  “And it was perfect.” I looked out the window again. Another small town. And no streetlights. No telephone poles or lines that I could see. And no electric lights—not that I could see, anyway. “I know, you’re used to me squawking for longer, but time is precious, my little time-traveling tadpole. Dragging my big butt in here was sensible and quick. We need not speak about the damage to my leggings at this time.”

  “Oh. Well.” Laura ducked her head, and I could see, even in the dim light of the barn, she was blushing. She could be so adorable when she wasn’t lying about shoes and giving her only beloved sister her second bloody nose of the day. “Thanks. I—you know, I feel stupid, but it never occurred to me. I know you won’t burn in sunlight, but ...”

  “But what else will we have to worry about, right?”

  “No offense,” she added hastily.

  “Yeah, I know I’m a vampire, Laura. You don’t have to worry about pointing stuff like that out. Well, I used to be out cold from sunrise to sunset. Then ...” I had started brushing dust and dirt off my clothes, and swallowed two sneezes in half a second.

  “Then you read the book.”

  “Yeah. Big mistake—bit Jessica, raped my husband—”

  “What?”

  “And started waking up a couple of hours before sunset. Not exactly a trade I was looking for, but...” I shrugged.

  “Okay, well.” Laura sneezed, and like everything she did, it was cute and delicate. Like how bunnies sneeze. “I’d like to circle back to the raping Sinclair thing.”

  “Perv.”

  She laughed. “I deny nothing!”

  “It’s always the virgins. Those are the ones you gotta watch.” I usually made a concerted effort not to think about the Antichrist’s love life, but one of these days, my not-even-drinking-age sister was going to lose her virginity, and it’d be great if nothing too world-ending was happening that same week.

  And why was I thinking about Laura’s sexual inevitability when we were time traveling and I had dirt down my shirt?

  Because, I answered myself, it’s something to worry about that doesn’t include time travel, or hell.

  Yeah. My brain was like everyone else’s—when I got stressed, I couldn’t help thinking about stuff that was so not important to current events.

  “But maybe,” Laura was saying, “I can worry about my poor brother-in-law’s rape—”

  “It wasn’t a rape exactly. I mean, he was all for it. But he didn’t notice I was evil.”

  Laura nodded politely, then resumed where she’d left off. “... at a time when we’re in our own century.”

  “Yeah, you noticed the lack of traffic, smog, electricity, and iPods, too, huh?”

  “Yes. Also the lack of an ocean.”

  “So not Salem again.”

  “Most likely not.”

  “D’you think this is like episodes of Knight Rider?”

  “I don’t know wh—”

  “Never mind. I hate being reminded of how young and dumb you are.”

  “Don’t you mean young and gorgeous?” Laura grinned at me.

  I started to grin back, always ready for some friendly-like joshin’, when I stopped. There was something I didn’t like about that smile. And since when did Laura actually own her gorgeousness?

  Time traveling—or maybe just hanging out in hell—was giving her all sorts of confidence. I was remembering other incidents—hell, this time around she’d knocked me on my ass before I’d barely realized we were headed out of hell. A far cry from her earlier, tentative efforts ... the devil had been so scornful of those she’d threatened to leave.

  So, yeah. I was uneasy and getting more so. Trouble was, was I threatened by that because she was young and hot and smart? Or was I threatened because—ha, ha!—she was supposed to take over the world one of these days?

  “I guess my point was, d’you think we’re supposed to do little jobs whenever we jump through time’s door, so to speak? Or is it enough to just be here, before we try to go home?”

  Laura shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  And she didn’t seem particularly worried, either way.

  What’s to worry? my inner bitch whispered. She’s the one who can move from world to world, and time to time, You’re the one who’s riding her like a taxi. So what happens when Laura realizes you’re son much dead weight?

  Hell if I knew.

  Maybe literally.

  Chapter 42

  So, what? Should we go outside?”

  “To do what?”

  I gestured, but I’m not sure why. Frustration, maybe. Anyway, I was waving my arms in a darkened dirty barn, leaving a cloud of dust wherever I paced. “Look for someone to help, maybe?”

  “You’re assuming we helped Caroline,” Laura pointed out. “We might have messed up the time stream. She might have been fated to die and will instead live to be the great-great-grandmother of another Hitler.”

  “Yeah, and if my grandma had balls, she’d be my grandpa. But she doesn’t. And she isn’t. Look: we can do the couldashoulda-woulda dance until our knees lock and it won’t help. So, we either stay here in McBarn Town and try to get back, or we go out, take a tour, save someone (or not), and then try.”

  “Well, okay, but you’re assuming—”

  “Kids? Kids! You put that wagon in the barn, then c’mon and help your mother finish packing!”

  I must have flinched pretty good, because Laura seemed startled. “What? Is someone coming?”

  “A couple of someones,” I said just as the double doors at the other end of the building opened. “But I don’t think we’re in the soup just yet.”

  The couple of someones were short. And young. And cuter than bugs’ ears. They were lugging a wooden wagon—the homemade version of the Little Red Wagon, I figured—and stopped short when they saw us.

  “Oh, hello,” the boy said. He was exactly the same height as his sister, and they were portrait
s of extreme cuteness.

  They both had dark hair, carefully trimmed so they had matching bangs. The girl’s was longer, and braided; her braid was long enough to touch her own butt.

  Other than that, and the fact that the girl was wearing a checked yellow dress (with filthy bare feet—a sensible precaution in a family that probably saved their shoes for church), they were portraits of identical cuteness.

  Twins! Like anyone who wasn’t a twin, I thought they were fascinating yet creepy. These two hadn’t fled screaming, which I couldn’t help admiring.

  “Hi, kids,” I said.

  Laura followed with, “We’re not dangerous,” which I thought was a rather large lie.

  “What happened to your clothes?” the girl asked, seeming more surprised than frightened.

  “Where to begin?” I answered. To Laura: “I thought we were in a town, not on somebody’s—”

  “Our farm’s on the edge of the Grove,” the boy explained. He was wearing a dirt-streaked linen shirt in dark blue, and black trousers. And little suspenders! Also bare, dirty feet. His eyes were so dark I couldn’t pick out the iris from the—the other thing in the eye that wasn’t the white part. (It wasn’t the first time I’d come to regret getting a C—in Biology.) “Past our place is just country. Town’s the other way.”

  “What town?” Laura asked.

  The boy opened his mouth to answer just as a piercing shout made all four of us jump. Laura didn’t have any trouble hearing that one; none of us did.

  “Erin! Eric! You two get in here and get these puppies out of my kitchen!”

  “Oh God.” I groaned. I’d forgotten all about this potential disaster. “Puppies.” I looked at my sister. “We so don’t want to hang out if they get a whiff of me.”

  Laura nodded but couldn’t keep the grin off her face. She knew one of the more annoying consequences of my being undead was the fact that dogs drooled and slobbered helplessly when they saw or smelled me. That would have given the Salem thing the final, surreal touch: freeing witches, fighting with town elders, then being chased from the church by packs of baying, slobbering canines. Ugh.