“Oh, it'll be blond again tomorrow, who cares? What was I thinking, when I said I could do this job? I must have been out of my mind!”
“That's the spirit,” Nick said, instantly cheering up.
“Stop that,” Sinclair and Jessica ordered in unison. They looked at each other in surprise, almost laughed, and then Jessica continued. “You're doing the best you can. Nobody expects more.”
“Ha!” I pointed to her boyfriend. “He does.”
“And I can't be the only one,” Nick added.
“Well, what's she supposed to do, smart guy? By all means, enlighten all of us. How would you help run the vampire kingdom?”
“I'd start,” he replied sweetly, “by rounding up all my 'subjects' and blowing their faces off.”
Sinclair snorted. “Then let us say, for the sake of argument, that you were the king, and you did that. I'm sure you can see the consequences.”
I could feel the confidence I'd gained after defeating Marjorie draining out of me. Whatever I'd done to Marjorie had been, like most of the great events of my life/death, both a fluke and dumb luck. I was lucky to be alive (ahem), and it was nuts to read any more into it than that.
“I'm guessing I can't abdicate,” I said to Tina.
She looked more than a little taken aback. “Ah... no.”
“That's quite enough,” my husband said coolly. “You've let this silly little man rattle you and for no good reason.”
“Yeah, but the Fiend thing really is my fault.”
“And none of mine?”
“Hey, yeah!” Nick said. “It's both your faults!”
Sinclair ignored him. “I knew, as you did, that they were out there in Minnetonka. I chose, as you did, to do nothing.”
“Yeah, but if I'd done like you wanted, they'd all be dead, and we wouldn't be in this mess.”
“And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
“What?”
“An old saying of my mother's.”
“Very old,” Tina said, almost – but not quite! – smiling.
“Elizabeth, it's far too late to play the 'what if' game. We have a situation. We are dealing with it. The opinions of the occasional passing human are of no import. I am the king, you are the queen, so shall it be forever.”
“Or, at least,” Jessica added, “for a thousand years.”
“Passing human?” Nick asked.
“I noticed you put yourself first.” I slid my empty glass over to him. “Pour me something, will you? Something. Anything.”
“Why don't you snack on Detective Berry?” Tina suggested. “That would make us all feel better.”
“You assholes stay away from me,” Nick warned, backing up until his butt hit the kitchen door.
“Then do not,” my husband said, “let us keep you.”
Chapter 29
“Well, that was – ”
“Can you believe the nerve of that guy?” Jessica bitched, plunking down in the chair opposite Sinclair. “Asking me to marry him just so I'd move.”
“Perhaps it was the right question under the wrong circumstances,” Sinclair suggested, which I thought was an elegant way of looking at it.
“And perhaps he's losing his damn mind.”
“There is always that,” he admitted.
“Are we all going to pretend that he didn't make some really good points?” I demanded.
“Oh, right,” Jess replied. “I forgot: this is all about you.”
“Well, it kind of is,” I grumbled, chastened.
“When you are older,” my husband said, folding up his newspaper (I don't know why he didn't read them online), “you will see the futility of second-guessing yourself and wasting time with it.”
“Great. I can't fucking wait. Hey, when I'm older, do you think I'll turn into an emotionless robot like someone we all – ”
“Betsy!” The kitchen door swung open, and Nick stuck his head inside. “There's a vampire here to see you. I think she's a vampire. She fucking stinks, man.”
“Great. A new subject to disappoint! Let's go see her, so I can let her down right away.”
“Can someone let me off of the pity train now?” Jessica asked, getting up and following me. “This is my stop.”
I thought I heard Sinclair snicker, but when I glanced at him, he was as smooth-faced as usual. And, thank God, the Ant wasn't following us. Perhaps she'd popped out again. I'd hope it was permanent, except I wasn't that dumb.
“Thank you, Detective Berry, you would make a fine butler. Now run along.”
“Like I want to stay?” he retorted, falling into step beside us. I wondered who the new vamp was. Maybe a straggler of sorts who had just heard about the new king and queen. Now and again a vampire from the middle of nowhere would show up to pay tribute (gag). “Besides, I gotta get back to work.”
“He did,” I whispered to Jessica, “get here really quick. He must have hung up and rushed right over. That's pretty sweet, doncha think?”
“Hey, that's right! You called him and told him about the Fiends!”
Oh, shit.
Jessica was shaking her head. “The things I'm gonna do to you when we have a little privacy – I think it's time to pour vinegar on your Jimmy Choos again.”
“No!” I practically screamed, beyond horrified. “Once was enough!”
“Obviously not, since I've done it twice.”
I'd probably put up a psychological block the size of the Great Wall.
“Anyway, here she is,” Nick was saying. “I put her in the, uh, other parlor.” He meant the one that was the least presentable of the four we had. Or was it five? Anyway, the wallpaper was faded and even torn in some places; the rugs were worn. And it smelled musty, like old books in an attic. We hardly ever spent any time in there. In a mansion this size, it was no trouble to ignore the less comfortable rooms and stick with the ones you liked. “She, uh, really stinks pretty bad.”
“Maybe she got caught out late and had to pop into the sewer,” Tina suggested. “That's happened to me a time or two.”
“I'll see you later,” Nick said, giving Jessica a noisy smack on the lips.
“To be continued,” she warned him, but at least she kissed him back.
“Hello,” Sinclair said. “I am King Sinclair, and this is Queen Elizabeth.”
The vampire, who had been huddled by the fireplace, turned to face us. “I know who you both are.”
Tina took one look, shrieked, “Clara the Fiend!” and launched herself at the smaller, smellier vampire.
Chapter 30
Which was unbelievably startling, to say the least. Before I could move, or think, or react in any way, Sinclair's hand shot out almost faster than I could track, and he caught Tina by the back of her sweater. He held her in midair, her short legs kicking back and forth.
Clara the Fiend had backed into the nearest corner and was pressing herself into it as if she could shove herself through the wall and disappear. Given Tina's sudden viciousness, I could hardly blame her. “Please, I came alone! Please, I just want to talk!”
“Eric, put me down.” Tina was practically spitting. And she'd used his first name... oooh, he was in trouble now. “Put me down right now so I can – and you! You get out of my master's house, you wretch! You pathetic creeping thing, you disgust us all, and you insult their majesties with your very presence! How dare you come to their home! Get out, before I kill you!”
“Tina, it's okay – ” Jessica started.
“Oh, Jesus.” Nick had his gun out and was standing in front of Jessica. The gun barrel kept wavering between Clara and Tina.
I couldn't blame him. I'd never seen Tina so out-of-control furious. I mean, I was scared of her, and I knew that under ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the circumstances, she not only wouldn't hurt me, she'd give her life to save me. Even Sinclair, much bigger and stronger, had to hang on to her with both hands. “Jesus, Jesus, these are the guys that clocked me in the nose the
other day. These are the Fiends?”
“They are,” Sinclair replied, turning pale at the reference to God's son. “Tina, calm yourself. She appears to have come in peace.”
“And she'll leave in pieces!”
“Good one,” Jessica piped up from behind Nick, “if a bit clichéd.”
“Out, out now, you vile bitch! You get out of our house!”
“Holy shit,” Jessica muttered. “I have no idea which one to be more scared of.”
“Makes two of us,” I whispered back. Maybe somebody should slap her? It always worked in the movies. And after you clocked them, they always said, “Thanks, I needed that.”
I didn't really see Tina saying anything of the sort, so I reached up – Sinclair had hoisted Tina pretty high – and grabbed a flailing fist. “Tina, relax. If Clara tries anything, you can kill her all over the place.”
The mad frenetic kicking stopped. “You swear it? Swear it on your crown,” she ordered, then instantly changed her mind. “No: swear it on the king.”
“I swear on my husband's testicles that if Clara tries even one sneaky thing, you can play soccer with her head.”
Tina abruptly stopped struggling. Sinclair, just as abruptly, set her down. He didn't seem particularly concerned for his genitals, despite my promise. Maybe he thought this would all end up okay. I sure as hell didn't know that for sure.
Chapter 31
“All right,” he said to the huddled, smelly vampire. (Nick was right: she reeked.) “Suppose you tell us why you're here, Clara.”
“That's not my name,” she said. “My name is Stephanie Connor. Thank you for seeing me, dread king.”
I heard a commotion and turned to see Nick trying to haul a very reluctant Jessica out of the room. She kept yanking her hand out of his and hissing at him to hush up, she wanted to hear.
“Detective Berry, perhaps you could escort Jessica somewhere safer?” Sinclair asked, soooo politely, so I knew he was really sticking the knife in. “Anywhere outside of Ramsey County would be preferable.”
“Dread king, may I – ?”
“Nick, let me go.”
“It's a little chaotic right now,” I told Cl – uh, Stephanie. “Give us a minute.” I turned to Jess. “You know I'll tell you all about it later. Why don't you am-scray for now?”
Giving me an “I'll deal with you later” glare, Jessica allowed herself to be herded out. Nick shot me a look, too, one I found startling: pure gratitude.
Tina was panting and patting her hair back into place. Thank goodness she'd worn a ponytail. I hated to think of the masses of blond hair flying all over the place. “Would you,” she managed through gritted teeth, “like a refreshment?”
Cl – uh, Stephanie looked shocked, like it was a trap. The trap of the Coca-Cola products. Ah, I'd fallen into that sweet, sweet trap a time or two myself. “Uh, no. No thank you, ma'am.”
“My name is Tina.” Still forcing the words out through teeth ground so tightly, I could hear them rasping against each other. “I am the adjutant to their majesties.”
Adj-u-what? Was that, like, a super secretary or something? I was pretty sure I'd never heard that word out loud before. Maybe I'd read it, but it was spelled completely differently. I made a mental note to ask about it later. Sinclair would know. He knew pretty much everything.
“Why don't you come out of the corner,” I said, crossing the room and offering my hand, “and have a seat? Oh, and unless this is a trap, thanks for coming out to see us all peacefully and stuff.”
Sinclair had stiffened when I'd moved toward Stephanie, but relaxed when all she did was meekly follow me and look down at one of the couches. “I'm... dirty. I'll stand, if that won't, um, offend.” Another nervous glance at Tina, who was examining the rips in her sweater. I tried, and failed, not to raise my eyebrows: she'd been struggling so hard to get away from Sinclair she'd torn the seams out from under both arms. And wool was tough. Cripes.
“No, please, take a seat. A little dirt won't kill anyone.” Oh, shit, I said kill. Reminding her of what the Fiends had tried to do to us. “Um, I mean hurt anyone.” Oh, shit! “Um, just sit the hell down, okay?”
She sat on the far, far edge, looking like she wanted to leap away at any second. And I could see why she smelled – her clothes were filthy, and the mingled odor of dirt, dog poop, and blood came off her.
I wondered where they were sleeping during the day. They had no money or resources unless they killed or robbed or both.
In the past, when a vampire came back to him- or herself, they could go to the library in Minneapolis and find out who they were, if they owned property, if they still had a bank account... like that. And Marjorie, the dead betrayer, would give them a hand. It occurred to me that we needed a new system in place... like two months ago. Because right now, a vampire who wasn't an out of control newborn had few options. Just feed and hide, feed and hide.
While you live in luxury on Summit Avenue.
I shoved that thought away, hard.
“Now,” Sinclair was saying, “what brings you to us, Ms. Connor?”
She picked at the knees of her torn, stained jeans. “I, uh, thought maybe we could talk.” She had a mild southern accent – Virginia, maybe? Missouri? Not a drawl, but almost. Of course, anyone who sounded like they weren't from the set of Fargo or Drop Dead Gorgeous sounded southern or eastern to me. “About our, um, problem.”
“Do you represent the interest of your companions, or only your own?”
She blinked at that one, then seemed to decode it in her mind. “Oh. Um, I'm here by myself. I mean, the others don't know I've come.”
I listened hard for the sounds of ambush, but could only hear the usual household noise. Then I yowled as the furnace kicked on, which sounded at the moment like a jet plane taking off from inside my skull.
Startled, everyone twitched or looked in my direction. “Sorry,” I said. “I just remembered that 30 Rock is a rerun this week.”
Stephanie looked more confused than before, but that was all right. I noticed neither Sinclair nor Tina took a seat, so I did – straight across from our visitor. “You came by yourself,” I said, “that seems pretty obvious now. Sorry about Tina jumping on you like that. She had a flashback to the Civil War.” I ignored Sinclair's snort. “So what's on your mind?”
“And why should we think anything you say is the truth?”
I shot a look at Sinclair – that sounded a little too much like Nick to suit me.
“I don't – I can't prove I'm telling the truth,” she said, a little desperately. “I guess the others could be parked a mile away, and this is step one in some elaborate, I dunno, plan? But it's not. We're – we're not well organized.”
“You looked pretty organized when you hurt our friends,” I said mildly. “They had to go to the hospital.” A minor exaggeration – once Nick's nosebleed had cleared up, he'd been fine. It was a measure of his contempt for our lifestyle that he hadn't thought twice about strange vampires punching him in the face and then attacking us. It was only when I'd given him the gory Fiend details that he had realized exactly what had happened – and what it meant for Jessica. “We were pretty bummed about that.”
“Well. The others are – they're mad at you.”
“But not you,” Sinclair said, soooo silkily.
“I am. I mean, I was. How could you – I dunno.” She had an interesting way of speaking... not slowly, exactly, and maybe it was the accent. But it was almost like she was searching for each word and found it almost every time, in the unused corners of her mind. I reminded myself that last week she'd been batshit crazy. No idea who she was, where she was, what she was.
“Did you guys sort of 'wake up' all at once, then?”
Stephanie looked, if possible, even more uncomfortable. Clearly not a subject she wanted to discuss. Too bad.
“Well, each time Garrett came we felt – I dunno, better? We felt more. And then, a few days ago, it was like – like I'd been aslee
p for a long time, only now, right now I knew, I remembered I was Stephanie. I don't...” She shook her head. “I don't know who killed me. And I couldn't tell you where I grew up, or the name of my first boyfriend, or even where I went to middle school. I remember some things – my first job out of high school, and the name of the man I almost married, but – mostly I remember the blood. Drinking all of that... that dead blood. For years and years and years.” She cleared her throat and worked her jaws like she wanted to spit, but didn't dare.
I glanced at Sinclair and Tina, then took the plunge. “The thing is, Stephanie, it was kind of our only option.”
“Once we took killing you off the table,” Sinclair said pleasantly.
“I didn't want to kill you guys, but I couldn't set you free, either.”
“Why?”
“Oh, boy.” I thought about the best way to explain this. “Stephanie, you have no idea how scary you guys were.” Was scary the right word? I probably shouldn't have told her that. Fuck it. “The few times you got out, you ripped people just to pieces. There was no way we could let you have live blood. You would have killed the donor every time.”
“Oh. Yes, I see that now.” Except she sounded like she didn't, not exactly. “I should go now.”
“You don't believe me,” I said.
Her eyes betrayed her emotion: trapped. I had seen through her lie, and now all she could imagine was that she was in fantastic trouble.
“Stephanie, I'm not saying I've treated you and the others perfectly. I think I had the right idea when I began to feed Garrett, regardless of the danger. And I think Garrett had the right idea, when he began to feed all of you. I'm glad – ”
“Glad?!”
“Yes, glad, Tina, that he did so. And I hope you and the others can forgive me, and see that I really did start the awakening for all of you. Just not fast enough, or well enough. I can do better, if you give me the chance.”
I warned Sinclair, with a look, from saying a word. Stephanie was plainly trying to digest what I had told her. For all I knew, she was still trying to understand some of the words. Or maybe she had one of those 1970s game shows playing in a loop in her mind (“Things you kill. Things you maim. Things you wish you could drink instead of blood! YES, YOU'VE WON THE $64,000 PYRAMID!”).
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