Undead and Unforgiven (22 page)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

“Dread queen, Tina and I have come up with a plan to stop the Antichrist, punish your father, and discredit the reporters covering this story. We'll need to put it into practice at once. With a little luck—which you have always brought me—this entire episode will be a thing of the past a week from now.”

It was later that same day, the end of a bad week and a stressful month. And it was finally time to get down to it. We were in Sinclair's office, just down the hall from our bedroom. I'd been waiting for them forever, seemed like. There was only so much research I could lose myself in. And if my DVR got any more stuffed with shows I didn't have time to watch, it'd explode all over the TV parlor.

“Yeah, I know. Been waiting for you to bring it to me.”

“Ah. Very good.” They were both in their casual Friday business suits: a deep rose for Tina, black for Sinclair. No shoes: Tina was wearing black stockings, and Sinclair had
black dress socks. Me? Deep brown leggings, red hip-length sweater, slouchy red and white socks. Because I (a) knew how to dress for lounging about the house, and (b) wasn't stuck in the past. I loved Sinclair and Tina, but sometimes they acted every year of their great age. Case in point: their awful plan. “Shall we walk you through it?”

“Nope. You're going to tell vampires all over the city, state, and country to snatch the reporters covering this story, work vamp mojo on them, and get them to either retract everything or ‘discover' the whole thing was a hoax. You'll discredit Laura by revealing she's the Antichrist, arrange for my dad to take a long swim in the Mississippi with lead Uggs, and then stomp every inquiry into all that you did, until people have forgotten or lost interest or are too scared to poke around anymore. And all for the greater good. Right?”

They both gaped at me. Finally Sinclair cleared his throat. “Well, it's a bit more complicated than—”

“And we're not doing it. Not any of it.”

“Wait—you knew?” Tina asked me, surprised.

“I guessed. C'mon, we've been hanging out for how long? I know how you both think. You're traditionalists. You still send letters snail mail, for heaven's sake. So you were going to come up with a traditional vampire solution to an old problem: Stomp the messengers. Kill the message. Sow enough fear and confusion to keep working under everyone's sightline. Then wait for things to get back to normal. And why not? Time's on our side.” I paused then added, very gently, “That won't work this time. We're not doing that this time.”

Tina was shaking her head. “Majesty . . . forgive me . . . but then why wait for us to decide on a course of action?”

“Because I was hoping you'd come up with something better,” I replied bluntly. “You're both smarter than I am; it wasn't an unreasonable thought. Maybe you'd have a plan B that wasn't quite so Gestapo-esque that we could have gone with. But you don't. Right?”

A sharp inhale from Sinclair, which was a pretty good indication of his shock, since he didn't have to breathe. He'd lost friends, good friends, in World War II. He had so much contempt for Hitler you'd think the guy was still around causing trouble. “Do not—”

“I said Gestapo-esque,” I continued, “because that's what these strong-arm tactics are. It's Nazi bullshit. Raping the brains of reporters because we don't like what they're writing?”

“If we don't, there will be no way to calculate the danger, or the damage to us.”

“Except we're always in danger. It's always something. When our default is hurting people for doing their job, we deserve to be exposed.”

“My own, your compassion is laudable.” Sinclair was trying not to look
and
sound distressed, and failing. “But this isn't just about the danger we personally face. We have to think about what's best for the vampire nation, not just ourselves.”

“Yeah, yeah, it's not just about me, there's a bigger picture to consider—apparently that's the theme this week. But c'mon. Kidnapping, scaring people? Setting a horde of vampires on the media, for God's sake? Why not just host a book burning and get it over with?” I could feel my voice rising with my temper, and forced calm. “We're better than that. The vampire nation is (as of now) better than that.”

“So . . . what, then? What?”

“Well, like I was saying, I was waiting to see if you'd come up with something besides Operation Media Rape. Since you didn't—which is nothing to be ashamed of—we're going with my plan.”

“Which is . . . ?”

I took a deep breath and told them.

It didn't go well.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-EIGHT

FROM THE PRIVATE BLOG OF WILL MASON

The G-Spot

February 27

The most incredible thing. Hard to even think about, much less write down. This won't go on the website. This is something else, something for me.

Not to get too doleful, but the Freak might have found someone. Or would Marc be some
thing
? I don't know. He's not human; he can't be. But he's
real.

He's wonderful.

Okay. The beginning: heading over to Summit, checking out the vampire thing. That gorgeous girl in all the YouTube videos from the last couple of weeks. She's on camera naming names, giving out addresses, saying the craziest shit while sounding sane and looking earnest
as hell, and backed up by people who don't seem crazy, either.

I mean—these guys are getting affidavits. They're basically swearing on a Bible that what they saw was real, that vampires are real . . . it was worth checking out. Unlike most of the media, I knew there were plenty of things out in the world we didn't understand. Unlike most of the media, I wasn't at the supposed Vampire HQ because the YouTube girl was slim and blond and had wonderful boobs. I actually listened to what she had to say. And it was fascinating . . . if she was telling the truth.

I kind of forgot about her when I saw
him
. This was the next day, after the so-called vampire queen shooed us away like we were a flock of unruly chickens. Which wasn't far off, come to think of it. She hadn't seemed like the terrifying soulless dark queen of the undead described on YouTube. For one thing, she had highlights. For another, she seemed genuinely exasperated to find a bunch of reporters camped in her yard. And finally, she seemed as interested in her shoes as she was in getting rid of us.

Anyway, next time
he
came out.

God, how to describe? Taller than me by a couple of inches. Super-short black hair and the most wonderful green eyes, bright and piercing. He was probably wearing clothing; I couldn't get past his face. And he was super nice, politely but firmly telling us to fuck off. I was alternately embarrassed to be there and thrilled I'd come.

Then, the best thing, the most perfect thing, he makes a
Better Off Dead
reference. A couple of the guys there were from the
Strib
and the
Press
, so he mutters, “Four weeks, twenty papers, that's two dollars.
Plus tip!
”

When opportunity isn't just knocking but kicking my door in, I go with it. I walked right up to him and introduced myself with, “I want my two dollars!”

He grinned—God! What a smile! I said my name, first
and last, and he gave me his, just the first. Then we traded lines from the movie back and forth, and then he did a sublime impersonation of Bobcat Goldthwait, and that led us to
Say Anything
(we both agreed Cusack must have had some wondrous upper-body strength to hold up a boom box so long; impressive for a skinny guy), and before I knew it we were talking. Just talking.

He's so beautiful.

But then it was like he remembered this was business and not pleasure and sort of walked me off the lawn. I didn't care, I couldn't look away from those green eyes. I was babbling something—I don't remember what—and walking backward, and then those eyes got big and startled and he lurched forward and shoved and I went flying. And I just lay there looking up at the sky and thinking,
I knew it was too good to be true. My own fault. My own fault; how often have my sources told me I'm alone?

And then I sat up. And I saw what Marc had done. He'd shoved me out of the way of one of the news vans. The driver, in the deepening gloom, hadn't seen me walking. (I'd been walking backward, so I couldn't really call the guy on his carelessness.)

He didn't just save me from a nasty accident. He had the nasty accident instead. I could actually see the bulge in his jeans (not like
that
, unfortunately) from the broken bone, halfway between his knee and his ankle. In the winter gloom the blood trickling through the denim looked black.

I babbled something (“Oh my God I'm so sorry are you okay I'll call an ambulance no wait I'll drive you to the ER I'm so sorry thank you thank you for saving me please let me help you oh your leg your poor leg”), and he was all “No big, I'll be fine,” stands up
on his broken leg
and starts limping back to the house. Just a sprain, he says. (Gorgeous, but thinks I'm an idiot.)

“I'm coming back!” I said, grabbing at his arm. I'd been frozen, staring at him as he limped out of my life, and finally woke up enough to run after him. I caught his arm and helped him up the steps. “I'm coming back,” I said again, quieter.

He was all stiff, not friendly anymore, no trace of that smile. “Don't. It's fine. Don't.”

“Not about
that
,” I said, waving at the mansion to indicate my sudden lack of interest in Vampiregate. Who gave a shit about vampires when
this
enticing mystery was in the same house? “I want to see you. Check on you, I mean.” That sounded casual, right? “You saved me. Of course I'll come back.”

“Don't,” he said again, but he gave me a long look before he got the seriously heavy door open and limped inside, out of my life.

“I'll come back,” I said, and it's true. It's the truest thing I've ever said in twenty-seven years.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

“I think it's time you went to Hell,” I told the king of the vampires.

“Ah, darling. Is it over between us already?”

“Very funny. Just for a visit, like last time. I've got no plans for you to be there forever, any more than I plan to be there forever.”

Sinclair was trying his damnedest not to look over the moon, and failing. Adorable! “As you will, my own.”

“Marc, Tina, I'd like you to come, too.” I've said it before and I'll say it again: everyone liking smoothies was so
handy
. We were almost always in the kitchen. Super easy to have meetings. Not like Hell, where everything was scheduled and when I wasn't pissed I was bored and when I wasn't bored I was overwhelmed. Tempting to just dump it all on Father Markus.

Yeah, right. Just a daydream. And a dangerous one.

“Of course, Majesty.”

“Sure!”

“Not right this second,” I added, looking at my phone, “because apparently my mom's on her way.”

“Dr. Taylor is coming? Oh, dear . . .” Tina hopped off her stool and checked the fridge. She knew my mom liked a nice glass of Chardonnay now and again, and she tried to keep some on hand for the rare pop-in. “Ah! Still here.”

“And I need to talk to Laura.”

“Ugh,” Marc said, accurately summing up everyone's feelings. “Why? Is it a ruse to get her here so you can punch her in the teeth?”

“It's a ruse to get her here so I can explain to her exactly what she's done.” I grinned, and Marc flinched. “In great and terrible detail.”

“Cripes, don't
look
like that.”

“Like what?”

He shivered all over like Fur or Burr when Sinclair grabbed the Handi-Vac to suck up errant dog hair. “Like you could kill someone for looking at you crooked and never lose sleep over it.”

“It's just to talk,” I assured him.

“You think she'll come when you call, my own?”

“Sure. She feels safe—we can't disappear her.”

“Not just yet,” was the silky reply.

I frowned at him. “Quit it. She'll come because she'll hope to see me scared. She wants that. She wants me desperate to protect myself, desperate to keep all of you from being exposed. She's hoping I'll be sorry. She'll think I'll apologize. Trust me: she'll come running.”

“Accurate assessment,” Tina said at the same moment Marc added, “Depressing.”

Tina and Sinclair turned their heads and I heard it, too: a car pulling around the back.

“It's like living with dogs. Blood-ravenous talking dogs,” Marc bitched.

We jeered at him and I topped off his triple berry smoothie (why did we use blackberries? they were all seed!) just as my mom came in the mudroom door, exclaimed over Fur and Burr, knocked politely, and stepped into the kitchen.

“Hello, all, can the puppies come in, too?”

“Sure, Mom. Hi.”

She crossed the room, shrugged out of her coat, and gave me a quick hug. Sinclair was on his feet at once, taking her coat, and she gave Marc a kiss. I looked her over; much as I hated to admit it, dating was doing her good. Weird to think of your mom dating. Weirder when your mom was
old
and dating. Weirdest that dating probably meant fucking. Annnnd time to scour that thought out of my brain . . . someone needed to invent a good brain bleach that did the job but wasn't toxic . . . permanent damage would be okay as long as it was localized.

The puppies, while excited to find themselves back in the kitchen, frisked around for a few seconds and then darted back to the mudroom. Not like them, but it certainly made things quieter. And less slobbery.

“Dr. Taylor,” Tina said in a tone of great respect, “how pleased we are to see you. Would you like a glass of Chardonnay?”

“Yes, and you stop that,” she scolded, “how many times do we go through this? I'm not the Queen Mum.”

“Um . . . technically you are.” When all I got for that was a distracted smile, I knew this wasn't a social call or, worse, the “soon you'll have a new daddy!” talk. “Time to be resigned, Mom. Heaven knows I am.”

She accepted a glass from Tina and looked me over. She had always looked young for her age, despite the white hair (she'd had it since her senior year in high school), and her blue eyes were bracketed by fine laugh lines. She was dressed in Professor Casual: tweed skirt, brown tights,
sensible brown shoes (despite my years of effort, she selected footgear for comfort, not style), cream-colored turtleneck, cream-and-brown cardigan. She taught at the U of M, her specialty was the Civil War, and she thought Tina was wonderful. (“What was Lincoln
really
like?”)

She sipped her wine and zeroed in on me with a focus that was one of my earliest childhood memories. Nothing stood in my mother's way if she perceived an injustice to a loved one, however slight. It was why she was so stubborn about hanging on to her married name. It was why she'd fought my dad for so long before, during, and after the divorce: because “we have our daughter to think about, you cheating, creepy son of a bitch.”

“I've come,” she said, shaking her head at Tina's proffered plate of hors d'oeuvres (who at once dropped her gaze and took a step back, and how long have we had Havarti with dill? Sometimes I miss cheese), “to plead for the life of your idiot father.”

Marc broke the short silence with an uncertain “Should we step out?” It was a mark of his respect for my mom that he didn't assume he'd be staying.

“There's no need,” I said quickly. “Mom, I won't kill him.”

Her shoulders relaxed. “No? Because you must know your sister wouldn't have been able to start this nonsense without his help. If nothing else, he must have financed it.”

“Half sister. And you're forgetting her legions of dorks. They do anything she says. If she'd said, ‘Can you float me a few hundred grand to finance a campaign to expose vampires to the world?' they'd have sprinted to the bank. No, Laura's choices are on her, and Dad's are on him, and I'm not going to kill either one of them for it.”

Unless they force my hand. Unless they push me to it. Unless it's in self-defense of me or mine.

Agreed. How I cherish you, my queen. Even when you're good, you're somewhat bad.

We haven't had sex in way too long.

Hours. I agree.

“Oh. Well.” She managed a smile. “I had all my arguments marshaled. Now I don't need them.”

“All?” I teased.

“Well, one.” She took my hand in hers, the only part of her that showed her age. Wrinkled and softened and cherished, those hands had touched me with love my entire life.

So many childhood memories centered around me being small and looking up as she extended a hand: to help me up, to bring me to a library or a museum, to show me the garden, to bring me to the banks of what looked like an ordinary river but was the site of Custer's last stand (Little Bighorn was a surprisingly peaceful spot), to clean her shotgun at the beginning and end of every hunting season. (There were several dead ducks and geese who likely hadn't thought her hands were soft
or
cherished, but it's a duck-eat-duck world out there.) “I would have wanted you to spare him to spare
yourself
. You don't need patricide on your conscience. As someone with a less-than-loving father,” she added dryly, “I understand the urge. Believe me.”

I snorted. She was right; my maternal grandfather was the worst. How he'd produced a thoughtful, intelligent woman who would no sooner strike a child than she'd torch a Civil War museum was the mystery of my childhood. That, and how my dad could have preferred the Ant to her.

“Where's BabyJon?” Marc asked, correctly gauging that the tricky part of the conversation was over.

“He's with my—”

“Don't say it,” I muttered. “Bad enough he can't visit for a while; knowing your boyfriend is baby-sitting my half brother/son just adds to the weird.”

“Betsy called a few days ago and explained what was happening. We agreed I should keep BabyJon for a bit longer.”

“Prudent,” Sinclair said with an approving nod.

“And awful.”

“It's not your fault.” That was Marc, loyal to a fault when he wasn't bitching.

“Except it is.” I was missing his childhood. I was his legal guardian, but lately my mother had been more of a parent to him than I was. That was going to change. It had to. This was the only child I'd ever have.

But first things first. “Stay for supper?” I asked. “Soup and smoothies for everyone.”

She laughed. “Of course. But aren't you going to ask about Jessica? She and Dick and the lovely babies had me over last night. Her new place is charming.”

“Yeah, I know.” I'd been invited, too, but couldn't risk any reporters following me to her new place. Now that I knew the course of action we were going to take in response to Laura's spiteful plan, I was doubly glad she and Dick were clear of it. It was going to get a lot worse before it got better. “Tell us all about it.”

So she did. And for a while, it was like we were a normal family with ordinary problems. It was as nice as it was strange.