My point: it looked like we had a couple of minutes to talk, and I’d be glad to take full advantage.
“Yeah, we are. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, when I haven’t been trying to heal sister-inflicted nosebleeds.”
“You got even!” she cried, pointing to her neck.
“It wasn’t me, you—wait. I guess it was. Listen: Tina would have left town without biting Sinclair if we hadn’t stopped her! You saw. She. Was. Leaving! We had to talk her into it.”
“We is a generous word,” she muttered.
“Now let’s think about the Tina we already knew. She’s never questioned that I was the queen when, let’s be honest, the very idea was so stupid it was almost funny. She didn’t know me—we hadn’t met when she jumped into that pit to help me.”
“That’s a story I haven’t heard yet.”
“Yeah, later. I come off sort of cringing and cowardly in it. Listen: I’ve always thought Tina was supernice, and loyal, but I never asked myself why. I’ve never asked myself lots of things.”
Laura gently touched my elbow. “It’s not like you lie around nibbling bonbons all day. There are things going on. You haven’t really had time to—”
“That’s really nice, Laura, and it’s also a total crock. I never made the time. That’s all there is to that. But back to Tina . . . she told me Sinclair rose strong but never explained why. Now we know why: because I bit him first. Because the long-foretold queen got to him before Tina. But he never saw my face.
“Listen: Tina’s been devoted to me from the second she jumped into the Pitiful Pit. And Sinclair always knew I was the queen, always knew he’d end up with me. Why? Because I’ve told them, Because we’re living in a time stream that I’ve already fucked with.”
Laura was staring at me. “You’ve never been more logical.”
“Well, thanks.” I resisted the urge to scuff a toe through the dirt and do the aw-shucks thing.
“Or scary.”
“Sorry.” I shrugged. “But see? I said I’d prove it.”
“Sure, and you’ve convinced me. But what does it all mean? Why do you think—uh-oh. I know that look.”
I took her by the elbow and gently pulled her back. We stepped onto cemetery property, lurking beside an enormous marble tombstone . . . almost six feet high! We could have hidden a parade back there. Somebody dead had issues, or his family did.
“Wait” Sinclair.
“What is it?” Me. About a week after I didn’t bite Nick, by the new time line. “I have to go; I’ve wasted enough time in this pit”
“It’s my first meeting with Sinclair,” I whispered to Laura. “He’s gonna get grabby, and I’m gonna throw him through a big stone cross, then run off to save Marc from killing himself, and then Sinclair will follow me to a coffee shop where Marc will instantly get a huge crush on him.”
“So, same old, same old,” Laura whispered back, and snickered.
I could hear myself bitching shrilly. I suppose it was interesting to see these things from the perspective of . . . well, me, just three years older. But instead it just brought back the anxiety and fear I’d felt when I woke up in the funeral home and realized nothing would ever, ever be the same.
It brought back the sheer disbelief of realizing there were all sorts of dead people running around who wanted me dead (permanently) for no reason at all. I was used to being disliked because I’d been shrill or hadn’t put out or had beat someone to the last pair of Manolos. Being disliked because people decided I was too dangerous to leave alone was something new and awful.
“I wonder,” my husband’s voice reached me and I shivered. I couldn’t wait to get back to my own time . . . I had some tall apologizing to do. And I wanted him to tell me about Erin. About his folks. What he’d loved and what he’d disliked. The things they did that would drive him batshit. Best memories. Worst memories. Family stuff. Because what were we now, if not a family? “I wonder what you’ll taste like?”
I shivered again, because it felt as if he’d whispered that right between my legs. How had I resisted the big lug for so long? Hanging on to being pissed had kept me out of his bed for quite a while. All those potential orgasms, wasted. Like dust in the wind . . .
“That’th it. For the latht time, get off me!”
Finally! I’d throw my temper tantrum—
There was a muffled minor explosion as Sinclair sailed back and into the big stone cross. Laura whistled, watching the scene from her knees. “Oh my God! You’re terrifying!”
“An off night,” I grumbled.
“Ohhhh! He’s out cold. He is going to be so mad at you when he wakes up.”
“Yeah, I know.” I was loitering by the enormous tombstone she and I had used as our temporary headquarters. “I wish he’d wake up already. Once he’s out of here, we’re out of here. It’s a good thing we—”
“He’s up!” Laura interrupted, peeking around the stone. “Wow, you vampires recover so quickly! Anyone else would have a concussion. And a shattered spine. And—uh. Is that right?”
“What?” I peeked.
Sinclair was on his feet all right and stomping out of the cemetery.
But he was going the wrong way.
Chapter 59
Don’t try to stop me! Don’t you see? Unless I interfere, he’ll never come after me. He’ll never stick around and trick me into making him king by having sex with me upside down in the deep end of a swimming pool! And if we don’t do that, we’ll never fall in love and never rule the undead together as good guys not assholes like Nostro! So let me go so I can tell him to be a huge pest!”
“I know. Well, not all of that . . . stuff . . .” I realized Laura, far from trying to stop me, was actually shoving me in the direction Sinclair had left. “So go. Go!”
“Oh.” I needed a second to get my balance, physically and mentally. I’d expected her to put up more of a fight, so I was having to rethink my strategy. “Okay! Stay here. I’ll come back as quick as I can.”
And I scampered off in the direction Sinclair had gone.
It didn’t take long to catch up with him; he’d taken the long-cut through the cemetery and was about to do a Six-Million-Dollar-Man leap over the fence and to the street when I seized his shoulder and spun him around.
“Ah, I knew you would not be able to—eh?”
“I’m so, so sorry about Erin and your folks,” I cried. My hands had slid down, and I was holding on to the sleeves of his dark wool winter coat while he blinked down at me in astonishment. “She seemed really nice when she was five. I think she was five.”
“You are wearing different clothes. Dirty clothes,” he observed. “And how did you get all the way around the cemetery?”
“I didn’t! So you have to go after me. Listen. You have to follow me to the coffee shop after I stop Marc from killing himself. You have to be as annoying as you can, all the time, until you trick me into having sex with you in Nostro’s swimming pool.”
“But what if I’ve made other plans?” he asked pleasantly, still looking me up and down.
“This is no time for your weird sense of humor, Sink Lair,” I snapped. “If you want to spend the next five thousand years ruling at my side, you’ll listen to me now.”
“It would be a pity to let such an opportunity slip through my fingers.”
“That’s the spirit! Be like that, be like that a lot. So go after me and be all dogged and irritating, and ignore all the times I’m gonna tell you to take a long walk off a short pier and call you an asshat. Oh, and shoes. You’ll have to bribe me with shoes. And be a huge pain in my ass until I realize I’m in love with you.” I shook his coat sleeves. “Are you paying attention to me?”
“Oh yes.”
The words were right, but the tone (mildly patronizing) and expression (mildly interested) were all wrong.
“Goddammit!” I swore, and when he flinched, I remembered. Our fight. Our stupid fight. And the things I could do that he couldn’t. That no other
vampire could.
“Look!” I said, and ripped open my shirt.
“Really exceptional,” he commented.
“Look up, dumbass. That’s right, about three inches above the cleavage.”
He did, and the barely interested expression left his face as if I’d slapped it away. Which in a way, I had. Because I was, of course, wearing Erin Sinclair’s gold cross. It meant everything to me; I only ever took it off when we made love.
“My sister’s—but you’re a—”
“He sees the light! Hallelujah!”
“How—” He stared at me. “It’s . . . all true, then. Everything you babbled in a piercing whine while you were smudging my coat”
“Babbled! You asshole. I mean, right! So you need to beat feet out of this cemetery and go find me in the coffee shop. I’ve probably saved Marc by now,” I mused aloud, “and he and I are headed for a snack.”
“This is your usual practice after saving a life? Coffee and pie?”
“I hate coffee, and why shouldn’t I treat myself to an ice-choked Coke after I talk a jumper down from a roof the week I came back from the dead? Plus, almost but not quite killing himself gave Marc an appetite. For a muffin, I think. It might have been a bagel; I wasn’t really paying attention. So there’s time for you to find me. Just”
“But what if I do not wish to be your king?”
“Please.” I rolled my eyes. “One, you love power. Two, you love me. Or you will. Because although I might need a shower, even dirty leggings can’t disguise my essential hotness.”
“Touché, my dear.” He laughed, which was jarring in a dark, creepy cemetery, but kind of nice, too. “You seem to know me quite well. And it’s good to have assurances about your essential hotness.”
“Yeah, lucky you. And lucky me. So go already.” I made shooing motions. “Run along. Go seduce me. You know, eventually.”
“This is the oddest conversation I have ever had,” he commented.
“I wish I could say the same.”
“I take it you wish for me to do these things because you enjoy being with me?”
“I love being with you, idiot! I love you. Idiot. Even though you’re arrogant. And slow to take direction. And you have to have your way, like, all the time. And you own more farms than any man could ever need. And you have extremely weird ideas about spouses in the workplace. Also, you hang all your clothes on wooden hangers. It’s like living with Joan Craw-ford. ‘No wire hangers, ever!’ And you have another weird thing about buying fruit out of season.”
“You simply can’t,” he said, appalled. “The taste . . . dreadful!”
“My point, Farmer Brown. What I’m saying is, you’re a huge pain in my ass and we’re in love and dying was worth it because otherwise I never would have met you, so go find me and seduce me already!”
“Not yet married but already nagged,” he commented. His long fingers were at my shirt buttons; he was solicitously buttoning me up. I guess he was afraid I’d get a chill. You can take the polite midwestern farm boy off the farm, but you couldn’t take the farm out of the boy, or however the old saying went. “Still, the joys of matrimony will likely make up for your shrill sweet nothings.”
Then he kissed me. Which is when I, never a candidate for Mensa on my best day, realized he’d been buttoning me up to cover up the cross so he could mack on me without getting a third-degree burn.
I s’pose I should have tried to knee him in his undead gonads, a sort of I’m-not-that-kind-of-vampire message, but who was I kidding? I was horny and I was missing my husband and I was in love and we were married. Sort of. In other words: I was that kind of vampire. Also, of all the things about Sinclair that were right, his kissing was probably the rightest.
So I clung instead of kicked, and kissed him back instead of delivering a stern lecture on, I dunno, abstinence?
His mouth was slanting over mine, his arms were around me, I needed a shampoo in the worst way, and who cared?
Then it occurred to me: I was helping my husband cheat on me ... with me!
I extricated myself with difficulty—it would have been easier to wrestle free of a vat of Laffy Taffy. Fortunately Sinclair seemed inclined to let me go, or it would have taken much longer.
“So. Off you go.” I flapped my hands at him. “Make with the seduction so we fall in love. Shoo!”
“Yes, that seems sensible,” he said, sounding dazed. “I shall get right on that. You know, there’s something about you. Maybe it’s the strawberry body wash.” Damn. He could smell that under all my layers of grime? What a stud!
Then he wandered off . . . in the right direction, this time.
Chapter 60
l scampered back toward my sister’s hiding place. “It worked! He’s gonna go make my life a living hell until I fall in love with him!”
“I know. It was disgusting.”
“You were peeking? Perv.”
“I needed to make sure you had everything under control,” she grumped. “What if he’d gone foaming, barking mad and tried to kill you?”
“I would have kicked his ass.”
“Ha!”
“Until he decided to fight back, at which point you would have rescued me.”
“There we go.”
“D’you know what this means?”
“You’re going to be more arrogant than usual?”
“Hell yeah! We’ve done everything! Your next jump will be the one that brings us home! Dammit.”
“What?”
“I’d finally gotten the theme from Quantum Leap out of my head. And why are we still cowering back here? Come on.”
I took her by the wrist and pulled her out from behind the big shiny tombstone. “So make with the Hellfire sword and cut us a door back home.”
“You’re certain you’re finished? You don’t want to tamper with your own past some more? When my mother said I’d be drawn to your history, I didn’t realize it meant you’d take the chance to pull a do-over on everything.”
“Yeah, I never thought I’d say this, but I owe Satan a favor. I’ve set things up so they’ll happen the way they’re supposed to. And I undid biting Nick and ruining his love life. But Laura, I didn’t know it’d get switched over on you. I wouldn’t have wanted you to get chomped.”
“That’s okay. I needed to know what it was like.”
Okay, that was odd. “Why the hell would you need to know that?”
She shrugged, reached for her waist . . . and was holding her sword. “Know thy enemy and suchlike.” Then she winked. “Not that you’re my enemy.”
“No, of course not.”
I didn’t like that wink.
Not at all.
“If we undid Nick getting chomped, maybe we can undo Antonia and Garrett dying!”
“No.”
“Yeah, it’ll be—what?”
We’d gone back behind the tombstone; Laura probably didn’t want to risk anyone seeing us when she hacked a doorway out of nothing.
“No, Betsy. That one you can’t undo, and you shouldn’t try. And if you did try, I’d try to stop you.”
I almost laughed, then remembered that my religious-prude half sis was, what was the phrase? Oh, yeah. Demon spawn. Probably an exceptionally bad idea to laugh. Ever.
“But why? C’mon, Laura, you’re one of the biggest softies I’ve ever met when you aren’t hacking your way through vampires and serial killers.”
She colored. “Thanks.”
“I figured you’d be the first one on board with saving lives.”
“Then you haven’t been paying attention. It’s not that I’m against saving lives, Betsy, you know that. But undoing bad things won’t necessarily guarantee good things.”
“But—”
“I know you feel guilty. I know you wish it hadn’t happened. But if you undo their deaths, you’ll never meet with the werewolves. You’ll never make nice with the Wyndhams. You won’t be aligned with seventy-five thousand werewolves. If Antonia and Garrett
don’t die, vampires won’t be aligned with werewolves. That’s too important to undo. No matter how crummy you feel.”
I stared at her, appalled. That she could be so cold about it, so logical, was yuck-o enough. That she was right was even worse.
“Why don’t you shut up and get us home already?”
“Don’t get bitchy because you know I’m right”
“I’m not bitchy. I just need a shower, dammit! And to stop traveling all over my past!”
“Bitchy,” the Antichrist mumbled, and obligingly sliced a door out of nothing.
About time, too. I’d had more than enough of this. It was good that we were done. Good that we were heading back. Laura was either learning the wrong things or learning too much. Or both.
Either way: it would be better than good to be back.
Chapter 61
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!”
“Okay, wait. It’s not as bad as you think.”
I started kicking and beating on the door closest to me. Because we were, of course, still stuck in hell’s waiting room. “I hate everything! Satan, you bitch, let us out! Your daughter can’t take over the family business if I strangle her with my disgusting leggings! Which I’m going to do! If you don’t let us out!”
“Betsy, stop screaming and look.”
“Why?” My fists were getting numb. They had good craftsmanship in hell. “Look at what?”
Laura pointed. I looked. “There’s only one door left. All the other ones are gone.”
I stopped in mid-pummel.
She was right. When we’d started this series of timehoppin’ hijinks, the entire room had been wall-to-wall doors, each about two feet apart. The others were gone; there was just the one left.
“This better mean what I hope it means.”
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