Undead and Unforgiven (9 page)

hadn't been so pleasant. Was she—was she trying to forge a new relationship with me? Was setting up the “We Can Prove God Exists” lecture series her way of reconciling herself to what she'd lost? Was she regretting her choices less than a month after she had made them, or was this the plan all along?

“I've barely started, and I wanted to tell you right away—”

Really?

“—but you've been gone.”

“Wow.”

“I know!”

“You actually managed to make me being
in Hell
, doing
your job
, sound like a character flaw, or like I was rude to keep your Great Idea waiting. I can't even figure out the time thing between dimensions—”

“Conjure up a row of clocks, like in a brokerage firm.”

“—when I was—well, yes, that was Marc's suggestion and it'll probably work, but it's not like I was off having fun!” Although listening to Dame Washington bitch about her kid
had
been pretty entertaining . . . and pissing off all the teens and twenty-somethings with my No
Tweets rule (and confusing everyone else over fifty: “What's tweets?”) had also been fun . . .

I forced a calming breath (focus!) and decided to go with the least complicated objection first.

“Never mind where I was or for how long or why I had to be there in the first place. I'm here now, right? And the thing is, about your Great Idea, our word isn't proof.” I said it as nicely as I could, and not just because showing the world our trials and tribulations had zero appeal. In a future that will never come to pass, I ruled the world. And it was a huuuge downer. What little I'd seen of the other, ancient, grumpy, zombie-raising, Sinclair-killing me had been more than enough. I wouldn't revisit it. And since I could time travel from Hell, I meant that figuratively
and
literally. There was no way to prove the good (Heaven is a real possibility!) without dredging up the bad (vampires take over the world!). “People don't know who we are, and they shouldn't, Laura.”

She ignored this, so the bright-eyed enthusiasm continued unabated. “There are enough of us who know the truth; if we combine forces we can reach millions!”

Sure, but so could Taylor Swift, and any Kardashian. In this day and age, reaching millions wasn't unheard of . . . and oh boy, I hoped that wasn't her point. That if ordinary mortals

(sometimes I miss being an ordinary mortal)

could make their presence known with just a video or a silly trick on YouTube, if the “Leave Britney
alone
!” guy and the ice bucket challenge could go global, the Antichrist and the queen of the vampires could, too.

“Once we convince the rest of the world, things would change overnight! No more wars, no more murders.”

Oh boy. She was only a few years younger than me and I felt every day of those years now. “People not knowing if there's a God is not what causes murders and wars,” I said
carefully, because she was glowing like a zealot-turned-lightbulb. “At least, not all the time. Anymore. General dickishness causes wars. Money causes wars.” I recalled one of my favorite lines from
Gone with the Wind
:
All wars are in reality money squabbles.
“I promise you, Laura. I promise. There will always be war and murder because there will always be assholes. They are not an endangered species. Even if every single person on the planet converted to Christianity, there'd still be crime.”

She waved away war and murder and crime with a small, long-fingered hand. “We can quibble about the details later. Say you'll help me with this.”

“You mean in addition to being the queen of the vampires—”

“Sinclair is perfectly capable of overseeing the vampire nation.”

“—and running Hell—”

“You've made a committee, and even if you hadn't, Hell will run itself if you leave it alone.”

I— Wow. Okay. Wow.

“What's the pitch, exactly? Assuming you could prove God's existence? We somehow prove it and hey presto, everyone in the world becomes a Christian?”

“Sure.”

When I was little I'd wait for the bus with a bunch of neighborhood kids. And after the first big frost, we'd kill time by easing across puddles that looked frozen, but weren't—or at least, not all the way through. We'd inch across, freezing and giggling at every
crack!
Best case, you made it across and the kids gave you props. Worst case, you broke the ice and soaked your shoes, which was unpleasant but not fatal.

Well, I felt like I was inching across a puddle that was bottomless. Like if I put a foot wrong I'd fall down so deep
no one would ever find me. It
looked
safe enough . . . but probably wasn't . . . and if I put one foot wrong . . .

“Hell being a thing doesn't mean every other religion is wrong.”

Laura just looked at me.

I sighed. “I get it. You've decided Hell being a thing
does
mean every other religion is wrong.”

“We know the devil is real, ergo God is real, ergo Jesus is real.” At my expression, she plowed ahead with, “It's
not
arrogance. I'm not saying it's what I think. It's what we know.”

“But that doesn't mean other things
aren't
real. You're like someone who's red/green color-blind and thinks that just because you can't see them it means red and green don't exist.”

“Your analogies are starting to suck less,” she said grudgingly.

“Thank you!” Ugh, I was always so pleased when she complimented me. It was the dark side of being Miss Congeniality, the thing they don't tell you at the pageant rehearsals. “Listen, Hell and the devil being real doesn't disprove Allah and Buddha and, uh, Mohammed and Zeus and, uh—” Why hadn't I taken a single religious studies course before I flunked out of the U of M?

She shrugged off Buddha and Mohammed and Zeus. “They can't prove
their
religious icons are real. That's the difference.”

“But what's the point of— Oh.” I saw it. Finally. “Aw, jeez. This is about you bringing gobs of unfaithful into the flock. So if you get to Heaven—”

“When.”

Oh, Christ
. “Fine, when you get there, you can tell your pal Jesus that you heroically avoided running Hell—through lies and trickery, but who cares about the details, right?—and that you disapproved of your sinful vampire
sister but managed to recruit her into helping you bring millions into the fold so where's your Christian Gold Star already.”

Her pretty mouth (how does she not have chapped lips in a Minnesota winter?) went thin. “It's a far better use of your time than lolling around your mansion slurping smoothies and accepting blood orange offerings.”

“First off, I don't loll.” I was pretty sure. That meant lying around, right? Lolling around? I rubbed my temples.
Don't beat the Antichrist to death with a hymnal. That would be deeply uncool
. “Second, if vampires want to stop by and bring me fruit and promise not to be assholes, what's the problem? It's a lot more than the previous vampire monarch did. His big contribution was starving newborn vamps until they went insane and making older vamps do all his murder-ey dirty work.” Ugh, I hadn't thought of Nostril, or Noseo,
8
in years. Nobody talked about the undead-and-now-dead-forever wretch; he wasn't missed by anyone. New as we were to the monarch thing, Sinclair and I were still loads better at it on our worst day than Nostril was on his best. Was it weird when vampires showed up at the mansion to hand me a bag of citrus and pledge eternal bloodsucking devotion and seemed relieved when all I made them do was promise not to be asshats? Yes. Was it a bad thing? Hell no! (Or just no.)

I scooted back a bit on the pew, away from her, and I wasn't aware I was doing it until I noticed I'd put another foot between us. “Y'know the difference between you and me, Laura? Other than the fact that you've never had a pimple? I never sat in judgment on you. You and our father like to bitch about the embarrassment of having a vampire in the family; how d'you think I felt when I found out my
long-lost sister wasn't just prettier and smarter than me, but was the Antichrist? And what did I do? Huh? Whine? Yes. Feel incredibly insecure? Of course. Show you the door?
No
. Tell you that you were bound to turn evil because that's what happens in every single book or movie about the Antichrist? No.”

“That's not—”

“Now let's talk about what I
did
do. Did I welcome you into my home? Yes. After you tried to kill me? Yes! You tried to commit fratricide, and I could have killed you for it but didn't, but
I'm
the Hell-bound bitch?”

“Sororicide. Fratricide is killing your brother. And we're not discussing your nature,” she added, but she had the grace to look uncomfortable. “This is about the great thing we can do together.”

“Ohhh.” I saw it then. Her actual plan, and the plan beneath, the thing driving her to recruit zillions for the Lord's force, the thing she might not be consciously aware of. “So your life's purpose
wasn't
to take over for Satan. And me giving you the boot from Hell—and by extension taking away all your supernatural abilities—that's all fine because
really
your purpose was always to bring peace on earth goodwill toward men by proving the existence of God. It's not you flailing around for something meaningful to do because you didn't think past getting out of your birthright.”

“I hated my powers,” she said to the pew in front of us. “They were proof of my sin, my dark nature. But . . . I liked them, too. And now I miss them.”

“Tough shit.” I couldn't muster even a shred of sympathy. She'd been able to teleport to and from Hell, and she could focus her will, which was considerable, to make weapons of hellfire—swords and knives and, on one memorable occasion, arrows—that had no effect on “normal” people but were devastating to the supernatural. They made her remarkably skilled at killing vampires. “Like a
hot knife through butter” didn't begin to cover it. “If you're waiting for me to go all ‘there, there' for you, I hope you packed a lunch, because we'll be here for a while.”

“You owe me!” she cried, and the hell of it was, she really believed that. I was the big bad vampire queen who cheated her out of what she wanted to give away.

“I don't owe you a goddamned thing,” I snapped back. Her mouth popped open and I kept on. “I know we're in church! I think God would give me a pass on this one!” I was on my feet without remembering standing. “We're done. So sorry to keep you waiting while I was learning your job. I'm going now.”

She sniffed. (I'd have snorted; did she have to be more graceful in
everything
she did?) Mumbled something that sounded like, “Typical,” but I wasn't going to rise to the bait. (This time. Probably.) I heard her stand and follow me down the aisle like we were the Taylor sisters hanging out after church, just a couple of sisters disagreeing over matters that weren't life and death, instead of the Antichrist and the vampire queen arguing about the best way to prove God was real, or not, in order to demand the conversion of millions, or not.

The worst part? I still wanted her to like me. She was the only sister I was ever going to have, and I admired her when I wasn't thinking about puncturing her eyeballs with my stilettos. She was sneaky but brave, judgmental but unwavering, beautiful but bitchy when crossed. I'd been impressed and jealous since the moment we met. She was her mother's dreadful daughter in every way . . . and our father's . . .

. . . and I still wanted her to like me.

CHAPTER

TWELVE

“And you might tell the vampire king that First Presbyterian doesn't need any more of his blood money!”

I stopped on the sidewalk and turned to see the Antichrist framed in the doorway, holding the heavy door open with an effort (did they
want
to make it difficult to get in, or leave?). We had both marched through the church, past the few remaining churchgoers, tight-lipped and glaring at the carpet. All the brownies had been snarfed. (Plenty of peanuts left, though.) I'd thought we were done. But, as I often am, I was wrong.

“Churches always need more blood money!” I shouted back. I winced and lowered my voice. “I mean, regular money of the nonbloodstained variety. And frankly, Sinclair's got dibs on this place. His grandpa rebuilt it;
you're
just the Antichrist-come-lately.”

The devil's daughter glared from the shelter of Sinclair's grandpa's church (there was probably a metaphor
in there somewhere). “They wouldn't be so pleased to see him if they knew what he was!”

“Like I give a shit! Like
he
does! Tell anyone you want who he is, who any of us are, and enjoy the three-day psych hold that results. You really don't get it, do you? No matter how many ways I try to explain it. You've made up your mind about him and that's it, right?” Guess it was true, some in-laws were just doomed to never get along.

Laura took a few steps toward me, letting the door swing closed with a heavy
chunk!
that probably rattled the stained glass. “What's to get? He's trying to buy his way into Heaven. It's disgusting.”

I burst out laughing. Not to be mean—well, out-and-out laughing in her face
was
mean, but it wasn't anything I thought about doing and then did just to be mean, if you see the difference. It just proved that all she saw was the surface stuff—and that was true of herself, too.

“Uh, news flash—”

“What are you, fifteen?”

“—Sinclair does
not
expect to go to Heaven. He could recarpet the place in thousand-dollar bills and he wouldn't expect ever to shake hands with St. Peter. And this is what I mean when I keep telling you how you don't get it.”

She folded her arms and shivered a little; I realized she must have left her coat inside. Good. Hope someone stole it; how'd that be for delicious irony? Me, I was always cold, even in August, and I'd never taken mine off. Thanks, Gore-Tex! Suck it, Antichrist! “Explain it to me.”

Why? To what effect? Would it change anything? Would it solve anything?

Fuck it. “The worst thing to happen to you was finding out who your mom was. That was it. Your adopted folks are still alive; they never stopped loving you; you've never lost a friend or a loved one. You've got a job you like—” Er, right? I knew she'd dropped out of the U (one of the few
things we had in common), but her many part-time volunteering jobs had, over the course of the last year, turned into a couple of full-time ones. “You're a welcome contributor wherever you volunteer; you've got family you like—your mom and dad—and family you don't, like me and Sinclair.”

Her lovely nostrils flared. “Sinclair is
not
—”

“And that's fine. It's good, even! You won't believe me, but I'm glad nothing too terrible has ever happened to you. Comparatively speaking. Meanwhile, one fucked-up vampire killed my husband's whole family and he gave his life to avenge them. He grew up on a farm; he loved the outdoors. And he turned his back on everything to make their killer pay, knowing he'd never see any of them again in life or the afterlife. And now, after almost a century, he can be outside again. He didn't look for it, he never expected it, he was glad to be in love and not alone, and then suddenly he could bear the light. Not just sunshine. God's love.”

She opened her mouth but I cut her off. “And who are you to decide Sinclair's not worthy of any of it? God doesn't seem to think so. If the big guy had a problem with Satan granting my wish, He sure never stepped in to put a stop to it. Like it or not, Sinclair's now a creature of the day
and
the night.”

For a minute I wondered why I was bothering. Was she listening? Did she even care? But never let it be said she was clueless because no one took the time to explain. She was still there, at least. Still listening.

“I don't expect you to acknowledge it, Laura, and I sure as shit don't think you'll understand it, but Sinclair's free in a way he hasn't been since he was a teenager. Anyone else would be happy for him. But not the Antichrist. All you see is an evil vampire using the church for some nefarious end. He could cure cancer and you'll always see the bad, and none of the good.”

She was affecting boredom now, staring over my shoulder like this was all so tedious. And maybe it was. When I was in church, I was usually being lectured, not the one doing the lecturing. And is there anything more yawn inducing than hearing someone go on and on about how super terrific their sweetie is?

“Yeah, yeah, fine, hearing someone babble about how wonderful the love of their life is can be so dull. Bottom line, you'll never understand the true bond between . . . What? What are you grinning about?”

“Your sneaky wretch of a husband.”

“You didn't listen to a word I said! You've filed him under Evil Brother-in-Law, and no matter what he does, that's how you'll always see him.”

“I think he's a sneaky wretch because he's a sneaky wretch.”

“I'm doing you the favor of your life and not mentioning any of this to him—”

She grinned, her gaze finally coming back to me. “I think you should mention all of it. Right now.”

Dammit.

“He's across the street, isn't he?”

The Antichrist didn't answer, just giggled into her palm.

Dammit!

I whirled and there he was, sliding out of the driver's side of his silver Lamborghini, my least favorite of his cars because it looked like a giant electric shaver on wheels, and walking across the street to join us. In the backseat I saw two small, sleek black heads: he'd brought the puppies, too. My humiliation was complete.

“I can't believe you and the puppies have been stalking me!”

He stopped short and had the nerve to give me a
reproachful look. “I would never.” He sounded deeply serious and deeply pissed, which made me feel (deeply) guilty.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“There's no need to stalk you. All your cars are bugged.”

“Nnngghh.” Rage stroke. Inevitable after the drawn-out come-to-Jesus meeting with Laura. I knew he bugged my car once in a while, usually when the Big Bad of the month had yet to be defeated/killed/banished. But as a general rule? All the damn time?
Ho hum, I'm bored and thirsty, let's see where Betsy drove today . . .

“And possibly your phones.”

“Sinclair! I'm the queen regent. You're the consort! I should be bugging
you
.”

“Regnant, darling.” He was beside me on the sidewalk now, wearing one of his dark designer suits, a tailored navy shirt, a silk navy tie with little red skulls (a Christmas gift from me), and his deep gray Belstaff coat, which I definitely didn't buy for him because it's what Benedict Cumberbatch wore on
Sherlock
. He raked Laura with a cool, unfriendly gaze, then gave his attention to me. “I should adore it if you bugged me.”

“Well, I won't,” I said, instantly abandoning that plan. “Not if you want me to. The point is that it should be something you
don't
like. And we are not done talking about this! Except we are, right now, just for a little while, because Laura and I— Oh, what?
What?
” Laura was looking over my shoulder again and, as God was my witness (and He was, probably, since we were hanging out in one of His houses), I was afraid to look. I heard car doors slamming, saw Sinclair's refusal to turn around—whatever it was, he knew exactly what was happening, or knew it would plunge him into more trouble, or both. He was playing stoic, hoping it'd be like playing safe. His refusal to budge told me everything.

Before I turned around, I said, “Stop following me, you bums!”

“We aren't.” And here was Marc, loping up the sidewalk, and Jessica, crossing the street from where she'd just parked her own tidy red Ford Escape. She paused long enough to wave to the puppies, then continued toward me. “Sinclair has your car bugged. We just have to hit the right app in our phones and we know where you are.”

“Son of a bitch! Wait—we?”

“Greetings, dread queen!” Tina's voice peeped out from Marc's phone; he was holding it like Kirk held his communicator in the classic Star Trek movies, in his palm, faceup. “If you require assistance, we stand ready to assist you!”

From Marc's trunk. Sure. “Everything's under— Jess, what are you even doing out?” Jessica wasn't a zombie, a vampire, a cop, a werewolf, or the Antichrist. She tolerated all that shit, but managed to keep out of most of the supernatural frays that had surrounded me since I woke up dead in too much makeup and my stepmother's tacky shoes.

My oldest and best friend just grinned at me, looking more emaciated than usual (which was a frightening thought, since on her heaviest days she weighed about as much as a broom). “I've got newborn twins,” she said, like that would explain everything. And it did. “Any chance to get out of the house, right? Dick doesn't go back to work for a couple more days; he practically booted me out the door.”

“You
all
know my car has been—”

“And phones,” Marc added, then flinched when his phone spat warning static, Tina's preferred method of expressing displeasure. “Um, or so I heard.”

“—are bugged?”

“Also your laptop, your favorite pair of Beverly Feldmans, and the good smoothie blender.”

I reeled. Mentally, not physically.
So. Much. To. Address. Here.
“The blender?”

Jessica shrugged and yawned. The babies had been sleeping a bit more lately; she no longer looked embalmed, and the reddish undertones in her mahogany skin made her look lovely, not ill. She was even wearing a clean shirt! Her deep black hair was yanked back into its usual screaming-tight ponytail, making her eyebrows arch and giving her a look of perpetual surprise. She swore it never gave her headaches, and that she couldn't think if her hair was in her face. “Hey, you're always threatening to steal the good blender so you can creep off to make smoothies and not share them. If you weren't such a selfish jerk, he wouldn't have to resort to this shit.”

“Sinclair is not the aggrieved party here!”

“He kind of is, though,” Marc added, because he was a zombie and zombies don't fear death. “I mean, look at it from his perspective. You're always dashing off, there's usually a bad guy lying in wait somewhere ready to kill some or all of us . . .” He trailed off when he heard my teeth grinding together.

“All respect to the king, I don't know that I agree,” Marc's phone pointed out. “The queen has had much to grieve her of late, and I—”

“Okay, no. No, I'm not doing this. You guys can stay here and debate it, I'm out. There's a Caribou Coffee around here and it's calling my name. Do not follow me there! Laura, you're crazy and your plan is insane also. Nice to see you again, good-bye. No!” I snapped as Sinclair stepped toward me. “We'll discuss boundaries and bugging vehicles and phones and blenders upon my return. You're all on my list!”

“The list,” Marc's phone said dolefully. “A terrible place.”

“It's not so bad,” Marc said cheerfully. “I was on it for a week after I stored some dead mice in an old shoe box.”

“A Beverly Feldman shoe box! Just the
boxes
are works of art, never mind the—never mind. All of you, just—shoo.”

“Shoe?” Jessica asked slyly, but I didn't take the bait. And if I stuck around much longer, I wouldn't be able to stay mad. I marched across the street and, like I needed more proof I was going soft, stopped long enough to open Sinclair's rear door and pet Fur and Burr, Sinclair's black Lab puppies, who greeted me as they always did: with seizures of joy and tail wagging and licking and shrill puppy barks. Dogs
loved
my undead ass. It was one of those things that was slooowly growing on me. And I was finding the more I was around the
same
dogs, the less they needed to flock to me. A year ago, a stroll through the neighborhood meant a swarm of local dogs escaping from leashes and yards and basements to hunt me down and try to slobber me to death. Now when I was out and about, they knew I was in their territory and loved it, but didn't feel the need to escape and ruin my shoes to
prove
they loved it.

I carefully pushed Fur and Burr back so when I shut the door I didn't catch an errant paw or tail, then went to my car, determinedly not looking back at any of the sneaky bums. Yeah, they were aggravating and treated me like a blundering idiot sometimes (which was only fair, since I was one), and teased me and followed me because they were bored and because I might be in trouble, but they were
mine
.

And that was something else the Antichrist didn't get.