Undead and Unreturnable (19 page)
"Duh!" Cathie shouted.
"But she's been dead before, so this is kind of a stumper for me."
Tina
hmmmmed
and then said, "For us as well… where's Nick?"
"Jessica's keeping him busy upstairs, thank God. Of all the stupid times for her to start dating again."
"Amen to that," I said and opened my eyes. I was startled to see Marc and Cathie had been right—there
was
a big-ass sword sticking out of my chest. I'd seen Laura stab vampires with it before, and they instantly disintegrated. I was sort of amazed to see I wasn't a pile of ashes. "Sinclair! Put her down. Laura, get over here. Get this thing out of me."
They both looked over at me, Laura's face so red it looked like she was going to pop a blood vessel. Which, given the firm grip Sinclair had on her throat, was probably imminent. He let go, and she hit the cement, gasping.
"I can't leave any of you people alone for one day without all hell breaking loose," I griped. "Where's George?"
"We put him in the shower to wash away the blood," Tina reported matter-of-factly. She was on one knee beside me and kept squeezing my arm as if to reassure herself that I wasn't going to disintegrate.
Laura had heaved herself to her knees and then her feet. If I were her, I wouldn't be so quick to turn my back on Sinclair, but she only had eyes for me as she staggered toward us.
"Betsy, oh
Besty
! Forgive me!" She tripped and fell but probably was going to get back on her knees anyway, judging from what came out next, which was: "I swear, you were not my target! I'm an unworthy treacherous bitch, one you have taken into your family, and I repaid you with—" She gestured at her sword. "Please, please, I beg your forgiveness. I-—"
"Laura."
"Yes?"
"Can we do this after you've pulled this thing out of me?"
"Oh. Oh! Yes, of course. I—ah—no one's ever—" She grabbed the hilt with easy familiarity. "Either my sword passes harmlessly through them—it only disrupts magic—or it kills them. It's never… gotten stuck halfway."
I felt a little ill. "Well, can we get it un-stuck, please?"
"Yes, of course, but after causing you so much pain, I feel I must warn you it may hurt a bit—"
"
I gasped with fresh outrage. "And the hits just keep on coming! Cancel the
weddiarrrrrrrggggggggl
"
I clutched my chest, which was hole-free, thank goodness. "That
did
hurt, you cow!"
"Perhaps less," he said, looking vastly relieved, "as you were distracted."
"Yeah, thanks for 'helping' me by scaring the shit out of me," I grumped as Tina and Marc helped me to my feet. Marc felt between my boobs, which I didn't take personally, and then circled around to feel my back.
"How do you feel?" Tina asked anxiously.
"Pissed off! I've been up for, what, ten minutes? Cripes. This is worse than prom '91. Laura, you've got some big-time explaining to do."
"Close your eyes," Marc told me, "and think of
"
Ack
! It's chilly in here, stop that." I jerked away from him. "I'm pretty sure if I had a big old stab wound in my chest, we'd all know it."
"I can't believe you aren't dead!" Laura exclaimed. "I mean, I'm happy and everything, but I've never seen that happen before." Sinclair came up to our little group, and she sort of shrank away from him. "I tried to tell you… before… I didn't mean to stab her. She got between us."
"
Yesssssssssss
," Sinclair purred. "And who
were
you trying to stab when she, ah, got between you?"
"It wasn't… it wasn't for real." Laura suddenly looked about twelve years old. The braids helped. So did the fact that she'd put her sword away… to wherever it went when she wasn't killing vampires with it. "We were just practicing."
"I guess what happened at the Ant's bugged you more than you let on," I suggested.
Laura shrugged. She wouldn't look at any of us. Her hair was blond again, and her eyes were blue. The blue of the Ant's mother, apparently, or the devil.
"He's a feral vampire," she pointed out defensively. "It's not like I could have really hurt him… done some lasting damage."
Lie.
"It was just a training exercise."
Lie.
"It has nothing to do with my family life," she insisted, the third and (hopefully) final lie.
"It—"
You fight so I can send you to my mother!
"—doesn't—"
You fight so you can tell her I'm doing just fine up here!
"—mean anything."
"Oh, boy," Cathie said. Tina glanced over at her, but nobody else had a clue. "Did you say she had some parental issues? Because that's a pretty fucking big issue right there. I mean, come on, Liz. You don't believe this happy crappy, do you?"
"Don't call me that. It's all right, Laura," I said after an awkward moment. My life: a series of awkward moments. "It was an accident. I know you'd never want to hurt me."
"Yes, that's just right," she said, guileless blue eyes swimming with tears. "I'd never ever want to hurt you. I'd die before hurting you."
"Really?" Sinclair asked, head cocked to one side.
"Let me, ah, just go check on George, and we can go finish our shopping."
Her face lit up. "You—you still want to?"
"Are you kidding? What part of 'thirty percent off everything in the store' do you not get? It would take a lot more than this to keep me away. I'll meet you out at the car."
"Oh," she said sadly. "I guess this is the part where you all talk about what to do about me."
"It's more like a Secret Santa thing," I said, pushing her toward the stairs.
"Jesus," I said, staring into the shower. "She kicked the living crap out of him."
"Yes."
"I don't suppose he said anything."
"No," Tina and Sinclair said in unison. Marc had gone back upstairs to take Jess aside and assure her all was well. Who knew what Nick was up to—hopefully not prying too much. Cathie, miffed we had let my sister "get away," had walked through a wall and went who-knew-where.
"Poor guy, minding his own business and she comes down here and starts whaling away on him."
I started to chew on my wrist—the usual quick pick-me-up for George—when Sinclair stopped me. "A large part of your sister's faith hinges on redemption. She does seem to feel badly about her part in this. So why not have
her
feed George for a day or two?"
"Oh, but that's pretty…" Diabolically mean. "Brilliant," I confessed. "Okay, I'll tell her that. She'll have to feed him, one way or another, until he's healed up from everything she did to him."
"And I—ah—must be sure that the—ah—" Tina was stammering like a blonde learning Latin. And I ought to know.
"Tina, what in the world is your problem?"
"The thing!" she blurted. "I must be sure the thing is also taken care of."
"What?" I asked, but Tina was already out of the shower room.
Leaving me with Sinclair, who wouldn't talk to me, and George, who couldn't.
Oh.
"Well." Cough, cough. "I guess I'd better get to shopping—"
"You seem to always be shot or stabbed or otherwise fatally attacked when I'm not around." And was that a smile, lurking in the corners of his mouth?
"Hey, I didn't do anything. I was minding my own business, and Laura stabbed me in the heart." Okay, even I knew how lame that sounded.
He
was
smiling. "Your sister will have some bruising."
"Okay. I'll break out the ice packs. For the record, I disapprove of the whole strangling thing."
The smile was gone, banished to wherever Sinclair's smiles go. "She is
extremely
lucky that's all she will have."
"Now, come on. It was an accident. You saw how upset she was after."
"She certainly
seemed
to be upset," he agreed.
"What? She was lying?"
"I don't know. That's part of what I don't like."
"Well, you shouldn't have picked her up like that and choked her like a rat, that's all I'm saying. Although it was kind of—never mind. Bad, bad Sinclair! But thanks for coming to the rescue. Again."
He sighed and brought me close to him; warily, I went. "No matter how angry I am with you, I cannot bear to see you hurt, or in trouble, it seems."
I felt like jumping up and down. I squashed the impulse. "That's because we're in
luurrrrrrrrvvvv
."
He grimaced. "How enchanting."
"Listen, I've been thinking."
"How charming!"
"Shut your face. I really have. Been thinking, I mean. About the fight, and the things you said. Maybe we shouldn't get married," I said uneasily. The training of a lifetime of reading
Modern Bride
rose within me and screamed in horror, but
dammit
, this was bigger than what I wanted.
"Are you sure she didn't hit you on the head with that hellish thing?" he asked, feeling my forehead.
I slapped his hand away. "I'm serious. This sort of thing is always going to be happening to us. To our friends. There's always going to be some disaster that will threaten to ruin everything. You have to admit, this was minor, as far as this stuff goes. And worse is around the corner, guaranteed. Maybe…"
"No."
"I'm just saying…"
"You've said it yourself: you won't feel like you belong to me without this silly human ritual. So we are doing it, damn it all. And I am not going through a tasting menu again, or a flower meeting. No. Absolutely not."
"That's… so sweet," I said finally. "So you feel like you're not worthy of me, but you're insisting on a wedding, when before you implied that me changing the date means I secretly don't want to marry you. Is that about right?"
"Secretly or not, this human ritual obviously holds deep meaning for you. So we will do it. Then even you will admit you belong to me."
