Undead and Uneasy

by Mara

  "Stick with the comics," I advised him, then took off my sunglasses. I blinked painfully at the fluorescents, then caught his gaze and said, "I've got special privileges, T. Starr."

  "Yup."

  "I can come and go no matter how late it is."

  "Yep, you sure can."

  "Tell the charge nurse, will you?"

  "I am the charge nurse."

  Finally, a break. "Well, spread the news, T. Starr. Betsy Taylor. Unlimited visiting privileges."

  "Yup, you can come and go whenever you want, everybody knows."

  "And you have a very nice evening."

  "No phone number?" I heard him ask mournfully, and I snickered. Even deep in the thrall of sinister vampire mojo, he was still trying to score. T. Starr was gonna go far.

  I pushed open the door to Jessica's room, ignoring the soft sigh of the hydraulic hinges (or whatever made big doors wheeze like that), and stepped inside just in time to hear some pompous asshole say, "—really a very rare form of blood cancer. A fascinating case study, really."

  "No thanks," Jessica said. Sighed, really . . . her normally strident tone of voice was running at about 15 percent.

  "But if my colleagues could read about your case in J.A.M.A., they might be able to help others with your condition."

  I knew from my two-year stint as a medical secretary that J.A.M.A. was the Journal of the American Medical Association. J. A.M. A., along with the Lancet, were two of the biggies for docs to publish the weird and unusual.

  "No thanks."

  "Really, Miss Watkins, you're being a little selfish, don't you think?"

  A doctor couldn't write up a patient without his or her permission.

  "Miss Watkins, don't you think?"

  But they were supposed to ask. Not nag. Not guilt trip.

  I opened my mouth to leap to Jessica's rescue, when the bathroom door slammed open and Detective Nick Berry snarled, "The lady said no, asshole. Take a walk."

  I was actually glad to see him, but had to wonder . . . when did he sleep? Or work? For that matter, how'd he keep getting up here?

  "Detective Berry, it would be a pity to ban you from the floor. Your visits seem to have a positive effect on my patient."

  "No . . ."Jessica's voice was a thread. I could tell it hurt to talk. "Don't do that . . . maybe I could do the . . . the thing . . . "

  "Forget it, baby," Nick told her.

  "Yeah," I said. I tried to slam the door behind me, but the damned thing just slid slowly shut on those whispery hinges. "Forget it, baby."

  From the way the men jumped (Jessica, obviously, didn't have the strength), I realized they hadn't known I was in the room.

  And the dickhead bullying my best friend? When he wasn't flushed red to the eyebrows, he was probably almost normal-looking. Mussed brown hair, cut short. About my height, with bluish-green eyes and a truly heroic nose. Slump-shouldered and too thin for his height. Bony wrists sticking out of the lab coat. A full-on, grown-up geek. And let's not forget about that spectacular blush! I couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or angry. I was hoping for embarrassed.

  "Hey, shitstain, ever hear that no means no?"

  "What are you people doing here after visiting hours?" B. McGill, M.D., Oncology, sputtered.

  "Kicking your ass." I crossed the room in a hurry—Nick had his gun out of his holster, guess I'd startled him, too—and picked B. McGill up. By his throat.

  I won't lie. It felt gooooood.

  "Don't. Bully. My friend. Ever. Ever! Again." Each word was punctuated by a teeth-rattling shake. B. McGill's eyes were starting to roll like dice.

  "Let go, Betsy, he's mine."

  "Back off, Nick. I'm starving."

  "Awwww." Jessica smiled. "I hate it when Mom and Dad fight."

  "I can't let you commit felony assault on him, even if he's the biggest dick on the ward."

  "Nick? Sweetie? You couldn't stop me with flamethrower."

  "Rrraaggle," B. McGill managed.

  "Betsy. There are days when I almost don't hate you, so don't make me shoot you."

  "Oh, go ahead and shoot!" I snapped. "The way my week's going? You think I'm scared of your thirty-eight?" And what happened to his Sig? How many guns did the guy have, anyway?

  "Kids, kids," Jessica said.

  "Gragggle."

  "Put him down! Now!"

  "Make me."

  "Gggkkkk!"

  "Kids?"

  I heard the click as Nick cocked his gun. I could hear the bullet tumble into the chamber. The barrel looked really big. That was fine. Finally, a foe I could grapple with, a problem I could confront head on. Misplaced aggression, Sinclair whispered in my head, which was irritating. For an undead (possibly all-the-way dead) runaway groom, he had sure made himself .it home in my brain.

  "Kids, Dr. McGill is out cold."

  I looked. Nick looked. She was right. His head was lolling, and he was drooling on my wrist. Well, shit. That was no fun at all. I dropped him, and he hit the tile and splayed in a most unflattering way. Nick put his gun away.

  We glared at each other across Jessica's bed.

  "Pull that again, and I will arrest you."

  "Draw down on me again and I will eat you."

  "Again," he sneered. He poured Jessica a cup of water and fixed the bed so she was sitting up. He guarded her like a pissed off mama cat, while she drank it all down.

  "Oh, like it was such fun for me, too, that first time! Get it through your head, lamebrain, I was a brand-new dead girl! I didn't even know I was a vampire until my teeth came out. I went to you for help, remember?"

  "Help?" he nearly shrieked.

  "How could I know what chomping you would do?"

  "You didn't think biting me on the neck and drinking my blood would be problematic?"

  Wince. Score one for Nick. Never mind. "In case it's escaped your notice, I'm one of the good guys! I kill bad vampires and stop serial killers and—and—" I was going blank. What other good things had I done? Surely there were at least a few more . . .

  "Of course you stop killers, why do you think I've been feeding you information for the last eighteen months? Because I'm soooo in love with you?”

  "That was the prevailing theory," I admitted, feeling vain and stupid at the same time. "Of course, I'm revising it rapidly. So you, uh, don't love me, yeah, I'm getting that."

  "Not fucking likely, you blond leech on legs. I dream about locking you up in a sunny cell."

  Jessica said nothing. And I kept my face perfectly straight. So Nick didn't know everything about me. Thank goodness! He probably thought a cross or holy water would hurt me. Excellent.

  "You know something, Nick? I'm glad you don't like me. Because you're a self-absorbed, overreacting, testosterone-filled, gun-toting dipshit."

  "Will you two cut the shit?" Jess demanded. "I'm having a real crummy day. Night. Whatever."

  "He started it."

  "You started it."

  "I'm ending it! I will turn this hospital bed around right now if you two don't knock it off. And before you ask, Bets, I didn't clue him in as to what you are."

  "Of course you didn't." Jess looked ghastly and had lost more weight. Trouble was, she didn't have that much to lose in the first place. Five pounds from her was, like, 10 percent of her body weight. Or whatever. "Sinclair's mojo wore off. Nick and I already discussed that."

  "Yeah," she said. "You know, when I'm out of this bed, we're going to have to find a way for everybody to play nice."

  I grimaced. And Nick looked like someone had placed a scorpion on his tongue.

  I stepped over the unconscious asshole, gently put a finger on Jessica's chin, looked at her neck, then turned her head and looked at her other side. Then I looked at her wrists.

  Clean as a whistle. I'd check her thighs, next (wasn't looking forward to that wrestling match), and then her—

  "Don't bother," Nick grumped. "I already looked." "Yeah, and here I thought we were going to get sweaty, and it was just anothe
r exam. What are you guys looking for?"

  "There's a lot of weird stuff happening all at the same time," I replied. "I thought it was kind of interesting that you had a big-ass relapse around the time everybody started disappearing."

  "No bites," Nick told me. "Not even a scratch."

  "So this is just bad timing?" "Luckily for you."

  "Oh, put both your guns away," I snapped. "Nobody's impressed."

  "I am," Jess said cheerfully. "In fact, it's turning me on like you wouldn't believe."

  "I'm outta here."

  "Wait! You said everybody was disappearing? Who?"

  "I'll tell you the whole story after."

  "After what?" I heard Nick ask as the door started to wheeze shut behind me.

  "After it's all over," Jessica sulked. "She keeps me out of the cool stuff until it's too late to have any fun of my own."

  "Humph," Nick replied.

  I couldn't believe, all this time, that I thought he'd been on my side! That he'd liked me. Here it was all a lie, hated my guts and fed me info just to get creeps off the street. Not caring, I assumed, if I got hurt or even killed in the process.

  Jeez, he'd made a special trip to my house to tell i me all about the serial killer Laura went to town on! He must have known I wouldn't have known about him, avoiding the news as I did.

  What a manipulative bastard! He'd been pulling all our strings for so long, I didn't—

  Whoa. What?

  I wheeled around, marched back to the room, shoved the door open, waited patiently for it to actually be open, then rushed in and grabbed Nick's head in my hands before he could turn, much less find his gun.

  "Betsy! What the hell do you think you're—"

  I ignored her. "Nick."

  "Yes."

  "You have to tell the truth, Nick."

  "Yes, I do."

  "Are you responsible for Sinclair's disappearance?"

  "I wish."

  "Do you know who is?"

  "No. But good luck to them."

  I thought for a second, never breaking eye contact "Do you have any advice?"

  "Go back to the beginning. Find them. Kill them."

  "Go back to the beginning?"

  "Who else is gone?"

  "Marc. Cathie-the-ghost. Tina. My father and his wife. Antonia. Garrett."

  "Then it's personal. You already know who's doing it. Go back to the beginning."

  I stared at him thoughtfully. He was dreaming with his eyes open, looking not at me but through me, past me. "I'm sorry for what I did, Nick, and for what I did just now. You'll remember everything . . . in five seconds."

  "Great," Jessica snapped. "Leave me to deal with the fallout."

  "Sorry, hon. Catch you later."

  "Let me guess!" she hollered. Wow, water had certainly perked her up. "After you go back to the beginning!"

  Well, yeah.

  Chapter 24

  What did it mean? I wasn't a detective, God knew. And the people around me usually did the thinking. That was how I liked it. I liked that Tina and Sinclair dealt with most of the shit. I liked that another vampire looked after the other Fiends, that two other vampires looked after my nightclub, Scratch. Shit, Jessica had even hired someone to feed my cat. My time was spent reading, snacking, fucking, wedding planning, playing bartender in the kitchen with my friends, and occasionally vanquishing evil . . . again, with help.

  The answering machine in the kitchen was blinking. I scowled at it, then pressed "Play."

  "Hi, Betsy. Michael Wyndham. We're coming up empty. Completely cold trail. The Pack members in the area haven't seen either of them. We're still looking. Call me if you find anything."

  "Hi, hon. It's Mom. The baby is doing fine. I thought you might want to know. Laura's here, if you need either of us. So . . . talk to you soon?"

  My, my. Weren't those two getting thick as thieves?

  "Hi, Betsy, it's Marc. Man, I hope you get this. Anyway, call me right away." He left a phone number—not his own cell phone—with an unfamiliar area code.

  "Hello, Jessica. It's Don. Listen, I set up that new tax shelter for you, I just need you to sign some paperwork. I can come over to your place whenever you like. We can shelter a good seven figures, and as you say, you'd rather give it to charity than the government. Your wish is this CPA's command. Call me."

  Ah, Don Freeman, the sexiest accountant on the planet. When he'd first come to the house (he was always bringing things for Jess to sign, and nobody expected a mega-millionaire to come to them), I'd mistaken him for a Minnesota Viking. Shoulders out to here.

  "Betsy, why the hell haven't you called me back? It's Marc again. Listen, call me. I'm starting to worry."

  He was starting to worry? He sounded fine, not dead at all. And not under duress. I leapt for the phone, played his first message back again, and punched in the number.

  "Pirate's Cove Resort, Little Cayman."

  "Uh, yeah. I'm looking for Dr. Marc Spangler? He left this number?"

  "I think he's still scuba diving."

  Scuba diving?

  "Can you hold on, while I check?"

  "Take your time," I managed through gritted teeth.

  There was a clunk as someone put the phone down.

  He was on vacation! Oh, I would kill him. I'd eat him alive and then cut him into a thousand tiny pieces and then set each piece on fire. Then I'd force the ashes to watch reruns of Survivor, Season 4. Then I'd—

  "Hello?" Marc panted. "Betsy? Is that you?"

  "Sorry to interrupt your scuba-ing," I said coldly.

  "Oh, that was this morning. I've been hanging around the bar waiting for you to call back. Listen, I've been trying to reach you for days."

  "Yes, I know! What's going on? Are you really in the Bahamas?"

  "The Caymans," he corrected, "and yeah. But this is the getaway of all getaways. Cell phones are dicey, and so is their Internet connection. We just had I wicked bad storm come through here, which didn't help. Scuba diving's been for shit ever since."

  "But what are you doing there?"

  "Boning my brains out," he said, sounding way too cheerful. "You know David Ketterling? The cute new pediatrics fellow?"

  I had a vague memory of Marc burbling about the new guy at the hospital, but had paid it no mind at the time, since Marc, as we all knew, had no life beyond . . . well, us.

  "Well," he bubbled on, "we both had our four-day stretch at the same time, and his grandma owns this resort, so on the spur of the moment—"

  "You left the country with a total stranger."

  "It was more romantic in my head," he admitted.

  "Marc, I've been worried to death!"

  "I'm sorry, Betsy. I told you, it was spur of the moment. And I've been trying to call since we got here. David was the one who suggested we use the lodge landlines. I can't believe I didn't think of that three days ago."

  "Guess you had other things on your mind."

  "And in my mouth," he said cheerfully.

  "Thanks for that grotesque little mental image."

  "Homophobia rearing its ugly head?"

  "Honey, if Jessica was telling me about Nick's body parts in her mouth, I'd have totally the same reaction."

  "Hey, is she around? Let me talk to her. David's dad is a king shit oncologist in New York. He had a few ideas."

  "Urn . . ." The temptation to pour all my troubles over the phone line like smelly oil was almost too much. He could be back here this time tomorrow. I wouldn't be by myself. He was a doctor, he was smart, he was funny, we were good buds. He could help me. He would help me.

  And the only thing it would cost him would be his first vacation in years. His first romantic getaway in five years.

  I opened my mouth. Marc to the rescue!

  My mouth wasn't paying attention to my brain, because what came out was, "She's out stocking up on tea and cream. I'll tell her about your new boy-toy, though."

  "He's a man-toy, and don't you forget it, blondie. Listen, I'll be
back on Sunday. How goeth the wedding plans?"

  "Wha? Oh. Everything's fine. I found a dress, and of course Sinclair has about forty tuxes already." Two lies and one truth. "Listen, I'm glad you're okay. I was—I was worried."