Undead and Unforgiven (11 page)

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

“The bitch is back,” the Ant said, which was as warm a greeting as I'd ever gotten from my stepmother.

“Don't try to sweet-talk me. What'd I miss?”

“Eleven thousand new souls have shown up, Father Markus has begrudgingly signed off on your new and improved Ten Commandments, and the She-Wolves of France are requesting a meeting with you—”

???

“I knew you'd say that,” the Ant grumbled.

“I didn't say anything!”

“You looked pretty blank,” Marc said in what he doubtless thought was a helpful tone.

“Several of the souls my daughter let loose a few months ago have come back and requested reinstatement—”

“We do that? Reinstate people?”

“I guess that's up to you,” the Ant replied carefully.

Well. That was some good news. When I still thought
Laura and I would both run Hell, I'd been a little, um, hard to pin down. Oh, those carefree days of yesteryear when my biggest problem was Jessica's weird babies! And by
yesteryear
I meant less than a month ago.

Anyway, one of the ways she got me to quit stalling and go to Hell already was by telling me souls were “escaping.” What she
meant
was, “I'm letting them out to get your lazy ass into Hell.” Tracking them down and hauling them back was one of the eight zillion things on my list. But apparently life in the real world wasn't what they thought it would be.

“I want to talk to them. The ones who came back.” The Ant nodded; I think she'd anticipated my request. “What else?”

“A few other administrative details Cathie, Father Markus, and I are dealing with. A copy of Father Markus's sermon for your approval.” I waved that away; it wasn't for me to tell an ordained priest that his sermons weren't churchy enough. Even when he'd been running a group of vampire executioners who were trying to kill me, he'd always prayed fair. And in death he'd been beyond helpful. “And Miss Cindy Tinsman would like a meeting, if it's not too much trouble. Her words, not mine; I'm assuming anything that takes you away from the Macy's sample sale is too much trouble.”

“Couldn't resist that one, huh?”

“No,” was the smug reply.

“FYI, the only upcoming event at Macy's I'm interested in is the Mother's Day Fashion Show. I'm technically a mom now. Well, a big sister/mom hybrid.”

Then I could have bitten my tongue. On purpose, I mean. The reason I was a big sister/mom hybrid was because the Ant had died in a car accident and my dad—presumed to have perished with her in a ball of blazing hair spray and spray tan—had faked his death.

Since then, my half brother, BabyJon, had alternated staying at the mansion with all of us and staying with my mother—of all people! She'd gone from wanting nothing to do with the spawn of the Ant to loving BabyJon and doting on him like any fond grandma. Part of it was the kid himself; BabyJon was one of those placid, happy babies who was a good eater and a better sleeper. The kind of baby who, when other people saw him, thought,
That doesn't look so hard. We should have a baby!
Then they ended up with a colic monster.

But part of BabyJon's appeal, I think, was my mom's realization that her vampire daughter was never going to have a baby of her own, that BabyJon was her one and only shot at being a grandmother. Me, I wasn't complaining. I hadn't thought I'd be lucky enough to get BabyJon, and I'd resigned myself to not having children of my own within a week of waking up (un)dead.

“Um.” Marc was looking at his shoes while I fumbled through an apologetic offer; no help there. “If you wanted to—uh—I wouldn't bring BabyJon here—”

“Jesus Christ!” the Ant practically screamed, as agitated as I'd seen her since she died. “I would damned well hope not!”

Yikes!
“Right, right, we're on the same page. But, uh, if you wanted to come back with me and see him—”

“I'm dead.”

“Yeah, well, so am I. So's Marc. It doesn't mean you can't—”

“I'm dead,” she said again, but gentled her tone. She was looking at her feet, too. I resisted the urge to do the same. “Let me stay dead. To him.”

“Okay. Well. If you ever change your—”

“What should I tell Cindy Tinsman?”

“Eh?”

“The girl who wasted ten minutes of my time beating
around the bush before finally asking for a meeting with you if it's not too much trouble.”

Cindy Tinsman. That sounded vaguely familiar. Marc's eyes had gone big, so I assumed she was familiar in a negative context.

“Timid girl, about five foot two, black hair, brown eyes, sixteen, died five weeks ago, lifelong Catholic, Inver Grove Heights native,” the Ant prompted. “Neighbor? Maybe you're friends with her parents? Or know her through your—through the first—through Dr. Taylor?”

Heh. Even after this many years, the Ant could hardly bear to say my mother's name. Normally I'd have stuck it right to her, but she was—groan—valuable to me these days. And she'd been a real champ when her rotten daughter stuck me with Hell.

“Tinsman . . . nooo . . .” Shit.

“You might have cut off her head. About five or so weeks ago,” Marc prompted.

“You're gonna have to narrow that— Oh. Oh! Oh.” I returned Marc's grimace. “
That
Cindy Tinsman. Oh, shit.”

“Yep.”

“I'll see her right now.”

“You will?” The Ant and Marc said this in unison, then sort of halfheartedly snarled at each other. Marc disliked my stepmother on my behalf, and she thought gays were icky.

“It's just,” he continued, “you really wanted to try the clock—”

“Right! Right. Listen, I was gone for two weeks last time.”

The Ant nodded. Her pineapple hair didn't move a centimeter. Hell was resistant to grotesque amounts of hair spray product, right? Wait, it was imaginary hair spray, so probably not too dangerous . . .

Focus!

“You don't seem surprised.”

“Well, no. How would time passing on earth affect me, exactly? Why would I need to know that?”

“Okay, fair question,” I admitted. “Only, I didn't
want
to be gone from the real world for two weeks. I don't know why time has to be so screwy in Hell anyway; it's a real pain in my ass.”

“Yes, you do know.” She said this with total confidence, like she hadn't disparaged my intelligence many many many many many many many times over the years. So this would not be a good time to look blank.

“Yes, I do know,” I parroted. Think! The Ant was waiting, and Marc looked expectant, like he thought I could actually figure this out. That made him as big an idiot as I was. For God's sake, I'd been gone a day and eleven thousand people had shown up! She-Wolves wanted a meeting and the cheerleader I'd beheaded was looking for me. I'd need to clone myself about a hundred times to have time for all the

time for all

time for

Oh.

“Because there's only one of me and there's billions of them and if time moved at regular speed here it'd be impossible for any one person to get anything done even if they're the devil!” I shrieked in one long triumphant babble. Whew! Good thing I didn't need to gasp for a new breath. I almost did, purely out of force of habit.

“Toldja you knew,” the Ant said, sounding more smug than usual. Because only my terrible stepmother would take credit for knowing I was smart enough to figure something out.

“Can she affect time the other way?” Marc asked her. “Can she be here for two weeks and then fix it so only a day went by back home?”

He got a slow blink from my stepmother for his trouble.
I had the impression the answer was yes. It'd need practice, like pretty much everything did when it came to supernatural nonsense.

“Okay, so, I need a bank of clocks—my phone's from the real world, so even though I can send and get texts here on it, I can't
do
anything to it to make it more supernatural.” I'd tried, thinking it'd be a great phone-clipboard combo. It stubbornly remained an iPhone. Argh, stupid supernatural “rules” that were as weird as they were arbitrary! “So a bank of clocks—where? My office, I guess.” Do I have to go into how much I hated having an office in Hell? No? Excellent. “And I'll just have to keep constantly checking them—what a pain in my ass!—but it shouldn't be too hard because I can at least—oh, look, now I have a wristwatch.”

The three of us stared at it. Perfectly plain small wristwatch with a rose gold band and a black clock face on which I could clearly make out the little golden hands: 4:25. Small and out of the way, it was exactly the sort of pretty and practical watch I'd have picked for myself at a high-end department store.

“Well, then. That settles that.” Wristwatch! Why hadn't I thought of it? From Marc's chagrined expression, I could tell he was thinking the same. “Time for a test time.” Wait. That hadn't come out right. No time for a redo, either: if I didn't stay focused, the fifteen thousand other demands on my time would drown my brain and I'd forget all about the time issue until I popped home only to find I'd been gone three centuries.

I closed my eyes. “Okay, this might take a minute.” Or longer if that distracting delicious smell didn't fade. Fresh, ripe fruit . . . strawberries? Here? Who was being punished by the scent of strawberries?

I opened my eyes. I was in my bedroom. Our bedroom. And Sinclair was, incomprehensibly, slurping a smoothie while messing with his phone.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

“Aha!” I hollered, pointing in triumph. “Caught you!”

He nearly spilled the thing all over himself, which would have been awesome. “You—er—” He looked down at the solid proof of his betrayal. “Ah . . . I'm multitasking?”

“You're cheating is what you're doing!” Oh, the triumph was as sweet as the smoothie he wasn't supposed to be drinking in our room because
he made that fucking rule ages ago.

“You made me take the transponder off the blender, then neglected to put the blender back in the kitchen.” He said this while having the nerve to sound put-upon. “But this is interesting. You only just left.”

“Yeah, that's right, left and came right back only to find you— Hey! It worked!” I looked down at my pretty Hell watch only to see it wasn't there. So, like my clipboard, and Mussolini, it had to stay in Hell.

“Wait, if I just left, where'd you get the fruit? And the
ice?” I gasped at further evidence of his shadiness. “The champagne fridge!” Sinclair liked to occasionally use me as a champagne flute, dribbling the ice-cold Bollinger on me and then licking and sucking it off. He always kept a couple of bottles chilling in the unobtrusive fridge in the corner of the room. It sounded like it'd be unpleasant, all sticky and chilly and damp and annoying. It wasn't. At all. Oofta, just thinking about his steady hands and his mouth,
that mouth
, and—no. No!

I wrenched my horny brain back to the matter at hand. “How could you drag the champagne fridge into this, you heartless, fruit-hoarding, smoothie-swilling, Bollinger-slurping bastard?”

“I regret nothing,” he retorted and took a defiant slug, one that would have rendered an ordinary mortal catatonic with brain freeze. He was going for regal and disdainful, so was probably unaware of his smoothie 'stache. “And seeing you suddenly pop in like that was most unsettling. But in the very best of ways, my own.”

“You just lost room fridge privileges, mister.” Wait. Why was I cutting off my nose to spite my sex life? Better to make him share the spoils. “Never mind, I realize now that while I was gone for two weeks you moved fruit and ice up here to feel closer to me, so I forgive you. But make enough for me next time and for God's sake don't tell any of the others! Their shrill bitching will
ruin
smoothie sexytimes for us.”

He put his hand over his heart (the one not clutching his glass). “I just fell in love with you all over again.”

“Maybe you could also fall in love with the idea of putting pants on.” If I wasn't there to appreciate it, I disapproved of Sinclair flaunting his flauntables. Who knew who could stumble in and ogle what was mine, mine, mine?

“‘Make sure that your heartfelt thanksgiving is more consistent than your nagging needs, and your passionate
apology more fervent than your unhealthy justifications.' Israelmore Ayivor.”

“Yeah, I'll get right on that. Okay, time to get back and see how long I was busting your balls.”

“An eternity?”

“Shut
up
.” Didn't even close my eyes that time. Just wished myself back. And there they were, my stepmother and my zombie, right where I'd left them: the seating area outside the Lego store.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

They stared at me, expectant. “So . . .” Marc prompted.

“Worked! I'd only been gone for a couple of minutes, just like here.”

“Excellent,” the Ant said with a grudging nod of almost-but-not-quite approval. “Now we can—”

“And Sinclair's been keeping ice and fruit in our room! He was sucking down a smoothie in our bed!”

“He defiled the champagne fridge to break a rule
he
made?”

“Right?” I cried, thrilled to be vindicated.

“Do you two mind?” the Ant asked. “Betsy, I'm sorry you caught your husband cheating on you with a blender; somehow you'll have to find the strength to move on. Marc, stop encouraging her. Can't you take any part of this seriously?”

“I
am
taking this seriously. Surely you noticed I was wearing my business shoes,” I said, pointing to my black patent
loafers. Too late I remembered I was wearing my red knee-high gladiator sandals. (Valeria, an actual former gladiator I met on my third day running Hell, burst out laughing when I told her what they were. Did you know there were female gladiators? I didn't know there were female gladiators. They're kind of mean, too.)

“Holy shit,” Marc exclaimed, staring, “I didn't even notice!”

“What? She doesn't know?” The Ant turned to me. “Don't tell me you haven't noticed this.”

“Noticed what? You know, you're being kind of negative. Even for you.”

“Uh . . . Betsy.” Marc pointed. “You might want to look down. I mean
really
look.”

I did. And smiled. Valeria was wrong, dammit! This was the perfect footgear for kicking ass in Hell. Or anywhere else, for that matter. “Nothing you can say will make me repudiate these shoes.”

“So you
haven't
noticed you're not wearing your magical silver slippers?”

“Of course not; they never would have gone with— Oh.” I chewed on that for a second. “Well, the Ant did say it was all me, it was never the shoes.”

“Probably hated saying something even remotely positive.”

“I'm standing right here,” she reminded me. “I know what I said. I'm amazed
you
know what I said. You knew they were just symbolic manifestations to help you focus your concentration.”

“I know,” I said and didn't sound even a tiny bit grumpy. She wasn't the boss of me. I was the boss of me! And occasionally Sinclair. And BabyJon, when he was cutting another tooth. I was starting to think the kid was part piranha. Actually, given who his biological mother was, he
was
. Heh.

“It's a little scary,” Marc said. “Even for us.”

“I know! Now I won't have to coordinate outfits to my footgear. It opens up a dizzying array of options.”

“I meant
you
, you adorable asshat.”

Over the Ant's snicker, I began, “This thing where you say something nice and immediately follow with something mean is kind of—”

He ignored me, because I am cursed with terrible friends. “A month ago you couldn't teleport anywhere. You were out-and-out
stranded
in Hell, thanks to the Antichrist ding-dong-ditching you.
11
But now everything's different. You're picking this up so fast, but you've been a vampire for a few years now and you still lisp when your fangs come out.”

“Hey,
you
try speaking coherently when it feels like your mouth has suddenly filled with needles.”

“Dear God.” From the Ant, who looked revolted. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Trust me, it sucks. Sinclair told me I'd eventually—Sinclair! That's what he meant,” I said, the thought zipping through my brain and out my mouth before I could think about it. “He saw I was leaving without them. I was all ready to go after our—uh—afternoon—um.”

Marc smirked. “Bangfest? Booty hoedown?”

“Dear
God
.” The Ant managed to look still more horrified, which all by itself made the whole trip worth it.

“Right, so I was dressed and ready to go and he stopped me to say something. And then he changed his mind. And when I came right back, he wasn't surprised. I mean, he was, because—”

“
Bus
-ted!”

“Right, but he wasn't surprised I'd come back on my own.”

“No?”

“No.” It should have been comforting, but it made me feel bad. And a little scared. I was getting stronger by the month and he was paying me the compliment of assuming I could improve and grow in my new role, was openly and privately proud of me, proud to be my husband and my king. Me, I hadn't dared bring him back to Hell after the first quick visit.

“Cindy Tinsman,” the Ant said, dragging us back to the topic at hand. I think it was the topic at hand, at least once the time thing sorted itself out. I looked down: Yep. The Hell watch was back.

“Yeah, thanks.” I raised my voice a bit. “I want Cindy Tinsman. Right now.”

“Um . . . hi?”

We all looked. And I knew her on sight—I was so much better with faces than names. I could remember our phone number from the house I lived in as a kid, but not the name of the mailman who came to our house almost every day. (Frank, I want to say? Bill? Karen? He or she had pretty muscular legs, whoever they were.) Sinclair said it was because my face perception was higher than my name retention, and that it was true of everybody, but especially me. It was a nice way of telling me I was an idiot.

“Ohhhh, Cindy,” I said, going from triumphant to sad in half a second. “
Man
, am I sorry to see you here.”

“Me, too,” she said and burst into tears. She rushed at me and the Ant went tense, but then she was clinging to me and crying on my shoulder. “I'm sorry I'm so so sorry you were right please I'm so sorry.”

“Stop that!” the Ant snapped. “That's the Lord—well, Lady—of Hell you're slobbering on, get your hands off her right now!”

“Nope,” Marc said, and he grabbed the Ant's arm. From her wince, I was guessing he'd gotten in a good pinch
before starting to escort her away. He excelled at those underarm-flab pinches; they stung like crazy.

“Marc, this kind of familiarity can't be allowed—”

“Wow, I had no idea you even knew my name. And no one's in charge of maintaining Betsy's dignity, remember? She established that in the very first meeting.”

“It'd be an impossible task anyway,” my beloved stepmother snapped back.

“Yeah, I'm not touching that one. Besides, you gotta hear the backstory on this.”

“There's no need to yank. Fine. And ouch, you ridiculous pervert.” She rubbed her arm, but didn't pull out of his grip. “But I warn you, I've heard every sob story there is.”

“Not this one.”

Meanwhile, Cindy was still crying all over me, and I felt really, really bad about cutting her head off five or so weeks ago.