“Then—then nothing. Antonia was dead. The bad guy was dead. So I called Michael and—and you know the rest.”
“Why did you involve Antonia in vampire politics?”
“Involve her?” I asked blankly. “Involve her?” A shrill giggle burst out of me before I could squash it. “So, you never actually met Antonia, huh?”
There was an amused rustling from the assembled crowd, but I didn’t score any points with the Council, who scowled at me as one.
“I only meant that Antonia did whatever the hell she liked. She wasn’t afraid of anything, and she didn’t take shit from anybody. Especially after she was able to change into a wolf during the—”
“What?” The Council spoke as one (creepy!) and there was an excited murmuring from the crowd.
The head cleared her throat, and the room hushed. “Mrs. Sinclair—”
“Please call me Betsy.”
“Mrs. Sinclair, Antonia was a hybrid.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Meaning she couldn’t change into a wolf. She had other gifts.”
“Yeah, I know, she could tell the future. But see, she got kidnapped a while ago by a murderous librarian and when I rescued her and my husband—except he wasn’t my husband then—I accidentally fixed it so she could change.”
Dead silence.
“Uh . . . so can I go now?”
“You ‘fixed it so she could change’?” the head of the Council asked, looking stunned. “What do you mean?”
“I—you know. I fixed it.” How could I explain something I didn’t understand myself? It seemed like I discovered a new weird power every other month.
I heard someone clear his throat, and then Michael was standing. “Mrs. Sinclair is quite correct. Antonia and I spoke frequently on the phone, and she explained to me that she was now able to change, thanks to the intervention of the vampire queen. In fact, Antonia was never happier in her life than she was in the final months with the Sinclairs.”
My grip tightened on the arms of the chair as the room burst into noisy gabbling. Was this good for me or bad for me? I glanced at Sinclair, who simply raised his eyebrows at me. Fat lot of help he was.
“Michael, why didn’t you bring this up while she was still alive?”
“Why?” I snapped. “So you could welcome her back now that she wasn’t a freak in your eyes?”
“Mrs. Sinclair, no one is speaking to you right now.”
“Too fucking bad. You guys aren’t fooling anybody, you know. Pretty much everyone here made it clear they didn’t want her around, so she left. Now she’s dead, and you’re trying to make it my fault, or my husband’s . . . anybody but the Pack’s. Meanwhile you’re playing the blame game while Antonia rots in her grave. And for what? So you don’t feel bad? So you can make me feel bad? Trust me, nothing anyone says here today is going to hurt me more than I’ve hurt myself. You can’t punish me more than I’ve punished myself.”
Sinclair was nodding solemnly, as if listening to something both wise and wonderful, but his hand was up, covering his mouth so no one could see him smile.
There was that feeling of flies in my brain again, and it took me a second to realize what was wrong. Before, the Pack had viewed me as an annoyance, a blundering idiot who’d gotten one of their family killed. Now they were seeing me as an active threat . . . who’d gotten one of their family killed.
Was this good for me, or bad for me?
The way my luck was going? Please. So, so bad for me.
Chapter 37
Betsy, you have to have to have to come home! Laura has LHDM! Quit dicking around on the Cape and CHRTM!
“You’re right,” Jessica said, squinting at the printout of Marc’s latest gabble. “It’s pretty incomprehensible.”
“I’m not answering him until he writes like a grown man instead of a thirteen-year-old girl. He knows how I feel about all the silly e-mail faux-netiquette garbage. And, hello? I’ve only got about fifty bigger problems to worry about.”
“Yeah, I know. So finish already! You told the Council that you gave Antonia more superpowers than she already had, and then what?”
“Then they decided to call it a night. I’m supposed to answer more questions later.”
“Later, when? Tonight’s the full moon.”
“I know. I guess tomorrow night, maybe. Or—wait. Isn’t the full moon usually for a couple of days?”
Jessica, who had been walking beside me down the beach, stopped and stared at me. I shifted BabyJon to my other arm and faced the dragon: “What? Something’s on that so-called mind of yours. Spit it out.”
“This is crap, Betsy,” she said, kindly enough. “You’ve done everything they’ve asked. You did everything you could for poor Antonia, and then some. But because they found out you’re a lot stronger than they ever imagined, they’re assuming you can just hang out until they have everything settled their way? Bullshit.”
“So, what? We leave before they’re satisfied? How does that fix anything?”
“I don’t know, but I sure don’t like how you’re letting them push you around.”
“Well, they do sort of outnumber me seventy thousand to one.”
“That’s worldwide. There can’t be more than three thousand on the Cape.”
“Much better odds,” I said glumly.
“Look, that’s part of the reason I had to break up with Nick—”
I moaned and covered my eyes. “Something else to hate myself for.”
“Oh, just stop it,” she scolded. “I don’t blame you—even if he does—and he made his choice.”
“Yeah, but—don’t you miss him?”
“Every day,” she replied quietly. “But letting him stay in my life was going to cost too much. Even for me.”
“I wish . . .” I trailed off. “I don’t know. I wish for everything, I guess.”
“You can’t tell me Sinclair is fine with all of this.”
“No, he’s pissed. I mean, he got pissed during some of the questioning. Then he thought the rest of it was funny.”
“Your husband is a whack job.”
“Tell me. But that’s not even my biggest problem right now.”
“Split ends?” Jessica inquired.
“Shut your cake hole.”
“Ah, cake. That reminds me, I missed lunch today.”
“Can you stay focused, please?”
“Sorry, forgot—only for a minute—that everything’s about you all the time.”
“I’ve mentioned my deep hatred for you, right?”
“Twice today.”
“What I’d like to know is what’s the deal with my brother?” I patted BabyJon on his diapered rump; sunset was about half an hour away. “Derik acts like BabyJon’s head can spin all the way around, and Michael keeps forgetting I even brought a baby! Something is rotten in Hallmark.”
“Denmark.”
“Right.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Betsy, because I know you love him, but he is the spawn of the Ant and your dad. Who knows what twisted up his DNA?”
“That’s fair enough,” I admitted. We were slowly making our way from the beach to the mansion. “Especially when you consider the Ant’s other kid.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Laura that getting laid wouldn’t cure.”
I started laughing so hard I nearly dropped the baby. “That’s quite enough about my siblings from you,” I said, trying (and failing) to sound stern.
“Somebody’s got to help you keep it real.”
“Nobody’s said ‘keep it real’ for about five years.”
We walked through the front door and into the large receiving hall, and I still wasn’t used to the immensity that was Wyndham Manor. It made our place in St. Paul look like an RV. I was about to comment on that to Jess when I noticed a bunch of people running toward us.
I instinctively clutched the baby—What now, for God’s sake?—only to see them run straight past us.
I spun and looked. A kid—twelve? thirteen?—was falling, oh my God, he was actually falling from the third-level landing, headed straight for the marble floor. I thrust BabyJon at Jessica, but it was too late and the poor kid hit the floor with an awful, wet smack.
Chapter 38
Call an ambulance!” I screamed as a ring of adults surrounded the boy. “He’s—what the hell?”
He was growling. At least three adults went reeling backward, and I saw a blurred face, lots of white teeth, a snarl of fur.
And the sounds, dear God, the sounds! It was the noise you’d hear coming from a slaughterhouse. Or if a cat was tossed into a pack of wild dogs. It was chilling; it was terrifying.
Suddenly Jeannie was there, hauling Jessica and me back by our elbows. “You need to go,” she said firmly. “Now.” She was practically carrying us; our heels were dragging across the floor. “Right now!”
“What—what’s going on?” Jessica asked, trying to stare at the kid and extricate herself from Jeannie’s grip while keeping her balance.
“He’s only eleven. This is his first change. You need to leave right now. He won’t be able to—”
More adults fell back. One of them spun right into Jessica, and she—oh my God, she—
She dropped my brother. Right in the path of a brand-new werewolf.
The crazed adolescent (was there any other kind?) charged at my brother and bit him. I screamed, high and shrill . . .
(Elizabeth? What’s wrong?)
... and cried out for my brother, now surely dead at the hands of—
He was laughing.
BabyJon was laughing.
The new werewolf took off with his tail between his legs with at least three adults in pursuit, and suddenly the marble floor rushed up at me and hit me in the face.
Chapter 39
“. . . maybe she . . .”
“. . . couldn’t have . . .”
“... her a minute ...”
“. . . just the shock . . .”
I opened my eyes and saw Jeannie, Michael, Sinclair, and Jessica all peering down at me.
“Hey, there you are,” Jess said. She was, thank God, holding BabyJon, who was wriggling and whining to come to me. “You fainted.”
“I did not faint. Vampires don’t faint.”
“I know of at least one who does,” Sinclair teased.
“What happened?” I asked, sitting up.
“We were hoping you could tell us,” Michael said.
“Hey, one minute I’m minding my own business and the next some poor kid is falling to his death—except he didn’t die—and then trying to eat my brother. Who appears to be not eaten.”
In fact, BabyJon appeared to be fine. Which was impossible. I reached up and took him from Jess, inspected him, and found nothing except some saliva. No bite. No blood. Unbelievable.
“—don’t normally go through their first change until thirteen or fourteen,” Michael was saying. “Aaron’s only eleven; nobody expected him to change during this phase.”
“Is that why he did it while it was still daylight?” Jessica asked.
Nobody answered her, which was just rude. Super-Secret Werewolf Business, no doubt. And speaking of daylight, there wasn’t much of it left. I imagine Michael was going to have to get furry pretty soon. Which meant—oh, shit.
“Sinclair!” I cried. “This castle is practically all windows, what the hell are you doing out of our room?”
He looked at me as if I’d suddenly grown another head. “You were screaming,” he said simply. “In my head. I had to come.”
“He jumped down from the third-floor landing,” Jessica added. “I can’t believe his femurs aren’t in his lungs right now.”
“Gross,” was my only comment.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Michael said. “You said Aaron bit the baby? You must be mistaken; there isn’t a scratch on him. And whose baby is that, anyway?”
Oh, for the love—
“Wait a second. Wait.” Jessica frowned. She frowned harder. Her eyes went all narrow and squinty. Her lips twitched. Michael and Jeannie looked alarmed, but I knew that expression. It was her It’s on the Tip of My Tongue look.
Then: “Bite him.”
“What?”
“Bite the baby.”
“Nobody’s biting anybody’s baby,” I protested. “Least of all this one.”
“I’ll bite him,” Jeannie offered.
Jessica shook her head. “It’s got to be one of the vampires.”
“Ah,” Sinclair said. “I see what you’re getting at.”
“Swell,” I grumped. “Somebody want to clue me in?”
“BabyJon may well be immune to dangers others would find crippling, even fatal.”
“He’s not immune to anything,” I protested. “He’s had colds. He’s had shots at the pediatrician. He—don’t do that!”
Sinclair, moving with the spooky speed that, even after all this time, startled the hell out of me, dipped his head and slashed at BabyJon with his jaws. He made a rattlesnake look slow.
I lashed out and punched him in the eye before I knew what I was doing. Then, when I did know what I was doing, I slapped at his shoulders. It probably looked to the others like he was on fire and I was trying to put him out. “What—do you think—you’re doing?”
“Proving—ouch—Jessica’s theory.” He rubbed his eye. “Look.”
“Look at what, you psychotic?”
“Look at the baby.”
BabyJon yawned, unmoved by either a) the werewolf attack or b) the vampire bite.
“He doesn’t have a mark on him!” Jeannie marveled. “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!”
“What, you’re saying he’s—what? Invulnerable?” I shook my head, feeling like I should be wearing a dunce cap. “But he’s not. You guys know he’s not. He’s skinned his knee crawling, he’s—”
“Invulnerable to paranormal harm,” Sinclair said, and Jessica nodded.
“Wait a minute,” Michael said. “That’s your baby?”
“Well, look who just caught up. Seriously? You guys think that’s what it is?”
“I saw Aaron try to bite him,” Jeannie said quietly. “It would have killed a normal infant.”
“When did you have a baby?” Michael asked, but I waved off his silly-ass questions.
“So that’s why Derik kept freaking out around him. He knew something was different about BabyJon, but not what. And—Jeannie, how would a Pack leader deal with something he could never hurt?”
“Why . . . I suppose he would try to gain dominance of some sort,” Jeannie replied slowly. “That’s their nature. That’s—”
“That’s why Michael kept forgetting about BabyJon. He can’t dominate someone if he doesn’t remember him.”
“How long has this baby been here?” Michael demanded, poor guy. He was sounding more and more bewildered . . . and the sun was dipping lower every second. Explanations would have to wait.
“We’ll tell you all about it,” Jeannie promised. “Later.”
“When you aren’t furry and drooly and such,” I added.
“So a vampire can bite—and nothing will happen. A werewolf can chomp, a fairy can whack him with her wand—and nothing.” Jessica paused, deep in thought. “Nothing at all. Wow.”
“But why?” Jeannie asked. “Why would this baby be special?”
“It’s a really long story,” I said. “Which I’ll probably never tell you.”
Jeannie laughed. “That seems fair.”
Chapter 40
Dude,
Not only is Tina gone, but her laptop is missing as well. I had hoped to use her e-mail address to get Betsy and Sinclair’s attention, but a room-to-room search revealed nothing.
I was far too distracted at the hospital to do a reliable job, so I was taking unpaid sick time as I tried to figure out what the hell to do.
I managed to keep it casual as I asked Laura what she’d done with Tina’s stuff, but just got another one of her insipid smiles and assurances that I didn’t need to worry about a thing.
Ha. Worrying was more or less all I was doing. And each time Laura tried to assure me she hadn’t lost her mind, she sounded a little less sane.
“Marc, vampires are—with the possible exception of my sister—evil by nature. Betsy’s life would be so much simpler if she didn’t have to spend so much time policing monsters. And,” she went on with the fervor of an evangelist, “not only am I helping Betsy, I’m keeping the peace in the Twin Cities, keeping the devil worshippers busy doing God’s work—it’s all good.”
“Having me followed every minute of the day or night is God’s work?”
She had the grace to flush a little at that. Maybe she wasn’t entirely gone. “Marc, you don’t know any better. You’ll give Betsy all the wrong ideas. I want her to come home, too, but not until I’ve finished working on the surprise.”
“The surprise? You mean there’s more to come?” I tried not to sound as horrified as I felt.
“Sure! Lots more. You’ll see, Marc. Besides, they’re for your own protection. We can’t have anything happen to you, now can we?”
“Will you at least consider the possibility that you’ve gone insane?” I asked, and got a soft laugh in response. She had thought I was kidding.
“You worry too much.”
“What are you going to tell Betsy and Sinclair when they get back?”
“That I kept things safe for them,” she replied promptly.
That you’ve gone looney tunes, I thought, but prudently kept that to myself.
I tried arguing with her for another ten minutes, and kept getting that sweet smile for a response. Dude, after a while I just wanted to whack that smirk off her face.
At least we still had an Internet connection, though what I knew about such things could be carried in an emesis basin. E-mails were about all I knew. Sure, I could have gone to an expert, a real techno geek . . . except I had Satan’s Minions constantly on my heels.
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