Undead and Uneasy Page 12

  "Oh my God," I said.

  "I know," Jessica said smugly, reclining in her hospital bed like a goddess being fed grapes.

  "They're perfect. "

  "I know. "

  I burst into tears.

  "Whoa. Hey!" Jess shot upright, then gagged, and for a minute I thought she'd barf on me while I wept into the shoe box. We both struggled to control ourselves, but only Jessica won the battle. "This really wasn't the reaction I was going for. "

  I cried harder.

  "Betsy, what's wrong? Is it Nick? We'll figure something out. We're going to have to. But I don't think he'd really try to hurt you. "

  "It's Nick," I sobbed, hiding my face with the box. "It's everything. "

  "What everything?" So I told her. Chapter 33

 

  "Wow. "

  "I know," I sniffed.

  "Wow. "

  "I know. "

  "Why didn't you-never mind. I know why you didn't say anything. " She propped her chin in her palm and stared past me. "This stinks to high heaven. "

  "Yeah. I don't know what to do. "

  "Well, he's not dead. " She said this with such authority that I instantly cheered up. "No chance. No chance. "

  "Why? He's not immortal. "

  "Why? Because he's Sink-Lair, that's why! You think he's easy to kill? You think you wouldn't know if your king was dead? He's stuck somewhere. Some asshole snatched him, and you've gotta figure out who. "

  "That's what I've been trying to do. "

  "Yeah, so you said. It's not the werewolves, it's not Delk. It's not Laura. It's-what did you say Nick told you? To go back to the beginning?"

  "Yeah. "

  "So when did things start to get weird?"

  I thought about it. I took my time, and Jessica let me. It wasn't the fight we'd had over the wedding announcements. Sinclair and I fought all the time. What was the first really weird thing to-

  "The double funeral," I said at last. "That's when I realized things were mondo-bizarro. It was like one day everything was the way it's been the last couple of years, and the next, I was alone. You were sick. Dad and the Ant were dead. Tina was in Europe. Marc had disappeared. Laura and Mom blew off the funeral. Antonia and Garrett had vamoosed. "

  "You think your dad and the Ant weren't killed by accident?"

  "Who'd want to get rid of them? I've been so busy I haven't had time to feel sad. If someone was trying to hurt me, that's not really the way to do it. I guess that makes me a bad daughter, but-"

  "But your dad was a pud," Jessica said bluntly, "and that's the end of it. "

  "I'm wondering if there might be some answers in the Book of the-"

  "You stay away from that thing," she ordered. "You going psycho-bitch isn't going to help anything. "

  I sighed and slumped back. "I suppose. "

  "Tina called it right. This whole thing reeks like last week's sushi. I wish you would have told me earlier. "

  "You've got more important things to worry about. "

  "Oh, what's more important than my best friend?" she asked irritably.

  "Your life," I replied. "Focus on getting better. "

  "Well, today was the last day of chemo. So I ought to be able to come to the wedding without heaving all over my suit. If I have to be dragged in on a stretcher and propped up like Hannibal Lecter, I'll be there," she vowed.

  "Revolting," I said. "Yet comforting. " Chapter 34

 

  I dragged myself into the silent house. The third floor was dark; I assumed Lara and Jeannie had hit the sheets. But this wasn't the week to make assumptions, so I tiptoed up to the third floor and found them in the second bedroom I checked. They were both conked and both snoring. I shut the door and snuck back downstairs.

  I kicked off my pumps, tossed my keys in the general direction of the foyer table, then went into the library and sat down across from the Book of the Dead.

  The nasty thing was on a mahogany book stand by the fireplace, open to God knew what page. I stared at it and tried to make a decision. Any decision.

  "You might as well," a horrifyingly familiar voice said from across the room. "You can't screw this up any worse. "

  I looked over, and there she was: Laura's mother, the devil, seated behind the desk. "Fabulous," I muttered.

  "So nice to see you, too, dear. " Satan looked a lot like Lena Olin: long brown hair streaked with silver. Calm expression, beautiful gray suit, classic gold earrings (in the shape of angel wings!), black stockings, and. . . I peeked under the desk. And groaned silently. She was wearing fourteen-thousand-dollar Manolo Blahnik black alligator boots. "Like them?" She rotated her left foot around her ankle. "I'm sure we could work something out. "

  "Get lost. "

  "Now, Betsy. You need me. After all, you're not using that teeny, tiny brain of yours. In fact, you haven't been since this whole thing started. "

  "And what do you know about it? Scratch that: go away. " I wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I knew that the devil never gave up anything for free. I was crazy even to be talking to her.

  "Oh, Betsy. Don't you know? I can help you. I want to help you. Him?" She jerked a thumb toward the ceiling. "Not so much. You think He cares about you now that you're a vampire?"

  "I think you lie like old people fart. "

  "I've never lied to you, dear. "

  I had to admit that was true. Not that I was going to say so out loud.

  "It distresses me to see my daughter's sister so upset. So alone in the world. Beset from all sides. "

  "Really. "

  "I'll help you, dear. All you need do is ask. "

  "How about if I ask you to toddle off back to Hell?"

  Lena Olin made a tt'tt! noise and shook her head sorrowfully, as if at a disobedient daughter. "Why make things so much more difficult? You know I can help you. "

  "I know nothing's free with you, Lena Olin. "

  "Let me help you. I'm dying to help you. He's still alive, you know. It's not too late. . . yet. "

  That hurt. A lot. I closed my eyes and chewed on my tongue so I wouldn't say something that would cost me my soul.

  "I'll be glad to lend a hand. Because once you have your lover back, you'll stop thinking the worst of my poor Laura. I dislike it when the two of you argue. " I grunted.

  "All you need to do is ignore Him and pray to me. " I nearly fell out of my chair. "Pray to you?"

  "Well, why not? You've seen the state of His world, right?" she said with a gesture. "Your best friend fighting for her life? Your father dead in a senseless accident? Your brother orphaned? You alone in your time of greatest need? And let's not even talk about all the children He does away with every hour of every day. Who knows how long Babyjon has under His regime? Pray to me, dear. At least I'm not crazy. "

  "That's tempting," I said. "Really tempting. " She smiled and smoothed her hair. "We try. " "Well, try this. Take your satanic, designer-shoe-wearing ass right out the door, willya?"

  The devil frowned. "Betsy, this is a chance that may never come again. "

  "Bullshit! You show up whenever I'm in a jam, but I'm not dumb enough to think you care about me. You're the devil, for crying out loud! Your reputation is horrible! Now get lost!"

  She stood. It seemed to take a long time. It seemed like she was ten feet tall. "Enjoy the funerals, dear. Because without my help, there will be more. And say hello to my dear one when you see her again. "

  I opened my mouth to say something snappy, but I was alone in the room. Chapter 35

 

  It took me about ten minutes to stop shaking. It had never been so hard to tell Lena no. Sure, my soul would sizzle in the bowels of Hell for eternity, but on the other hand, I was going to live for at least another thousand years. I wouldn't have to worry about Hell for a long time.

  And I believed her when she said she could help me. She wouldn't have shown up here if sh
e couldn't help me. Even now, I was tempted to yell for her, call her back, make a deal. . .

  Had she said funerals, as in plural?

  The desk extension rang, and I nearly jumped out the window. What now? I snatched up the receiver. "Hello?"

  "Betsy? It's Mom. "

  "Hi, Mom. You're up late. "

  "Babyjon had a late nap," she said ruefully. "But I don't have anything scheduled for tomorrow, so we can sleep late. "

  "That's good. "

  "So. . . how are you?"

  "Not so good," I admitted. "Things are kind of a mess. " And I deeply, deeply covet Satan's footwear.

  "I'm sorry," she said at once. "I can relate to what you're saying, hon, make no mistake. Do you believe the funeral announcement didn't come out until yesterday? I could have sworn I made the newspaper's deadline, but they said I missed it by twenty-four hours. "

  "What? You mean Dad and the Ant's funeral?"

  "Isn't that stupid? My point is, I've been a bit of a scatterbrain since the accident. And I know I made things harder for you at exactly the wrong time. My only excuse is. . . I don't really know. It's not like I was still in love with your father. I guess I wasn't ready to say good-bye forever. Not so soon after you died, anyway. "

  "I didn't think about it that way," I said. "I guess I shouldn't have been such a jerk. "

  "Your father died, dear. You were entitled. "

  "Well, I wasn't there by myself. So how did Dad's coworkers know to be there?"

  "Oh, I'd called your dad's secretary-Lorraine?- the day I heard about the accident. And I guess she called the others. And you know your stepmother wasn't averse to using Lorraine for her charity work. That's how her friends knew to come. And of course, I had called you myself. "

  "Yeah, I remember. " Something was bumping my brain like a minnow nudging a weed. It was great that my mom had called, great that she had apologized, great that we were patching things up. Why, then, did I feel so weird? Sort of sick to my stomach and excited at the same time? I was filled with a kind of happy dread, if there was such a thing.

  "I thought I'd bring the baby to see Jessica tomorrow," Mom was saying.

  I barely heard her. Start at the beginning. The funeral was the beginning. There was no announcement. So the only people there, would have been people who knew. . . who knew. . .

  "I'll visit during afternoon hours if you'd like to join us. . . "

  "MARJORIE!" I shouted and heard the receiver crunch as I squeezed it too hard. Chapter 36

 

  Jeannie and Lara were still conked, and thank goodness. With zero traffic and a lead foot, I made it to the Minneapolis warehouse district in record time, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. I had to be very careful not to bend it out of shape, or even pull it off.

  It had been so thoughtful of Marjorie to pay her respects at my father's funeral. Marjorie, in fact, seemed to enjoy being helpful in all sorts of ways. Marjorie, the eight-hundred-year-old vampire who disdained politics.

  Why had she come? To see how I was bearing up under all the pressure she was bringing? To try to get a whiff of my pain? To throw me off her scent?

  I didn't know. But I was going to find out.

  I pulled up outside a dilapidated warehouse, which I knew was beautiful and spacious inside, filled with thousands of books and state-of-the-art computers. Marjorie's digs. Her lair. Fucking she-spider.

  I didn't bother knocking, just shoved the big double doors open and stomped inside. Like all important confrontations in my life, this one was anticlimactic. Marjorie was nowhere to be found.

  The place looked the way it usually did. . . lots of low lighting, comfortable chairs, benches. Lots of conference tables and chairs. Row after row of computers. Quiet as a grave (really!), and smelling like reams and reams of old paper. Oh, and dust. And Pledge!

  Well, a case of Pledge wasn't going to stop me. It wasn't even going to slow me down. I'd-

  (Elizabeth)

  "Eric?" I whispered. That tiny voice in the back of my brain, previously so faint I couldn't make out who it was, or even what it was saying, was now quite a bit clearer.

  I sniffed. Stupid Lemon Pledge, I wasn't getting anything but-I sniffed harder. Ah! There we go. Yep. Sinclair had been here. Was maybe still here. I stiffened like an English setter on point, then followed the scent through several doorways and down two flights of stairs into a dank basement.

  My heels didn't make a sound on the carpeted stairs, which was fine with me, as I was busy trying to look in fifteen directions at once. Had Sinclair really been one town over the entire time? And where was she keeping him, that I could barely hear him? What had she done to him?

  The place didn't look like a torture chamber. It looked like what it was: an old library, well-maintained, with plenty of money for books and computers. Heck, plenty of money for fluorescent lights as opposed to, say, torches sticking out of the wall.

  I finished with the stairs and slid open the huge door in front of me-down there, at least, the place looked like a warehouse. The door rattled past me, and the smell of mildew and sweat assaulted my delicate, queenish nostrils.

  The first thing I saw was Antonia in a spacious cage, the kind they used to cage Dr. Lector in The Silence of the Lambs. She was shaking the bars, and I remembered how claustrophobic she was. Her dark hair was matted with sweat, and her face was pale; she stank to high heaven, and her clothes were filthy. Her big eyes rolled toward me, like an animal in a killing pen, and she greeted me with a shrieked, "Get me out! "

  Then I saw the coffins. Two of them, chained shut and draped with. . . were those rosaries? Yes. Dozens, covering almost every inch of the top of the coffins.

  (Elizabeth)

  I ran to the one nearest me and stripped the rosaries away, then yanked at the chains until they tore and bent in my hands. I didn't know how Marjorie had placed them-wearing asbestos gloves, maybe? I didn't care. I just had to get him out and face whatever hunger and crosses had done to him.

  "Me first, me first, me firrrrssssssttttt!"

  I flipped the top off the coffin and bit back a scream. Sinclair, yes. Incredibly wizened, incredibly old. Shrunken. Dried out. His lips were drawn back so his fangs were prominent. He looked a thousand years old. He looked dead.

  "Oh my God!" I cried. "Oh, Sinclair! Tell me what to do! How can I-"

  "Did your mother never teach you to call before dropping by? Oh, I'm prepared to validate your parking whenever you wish. How clever of you to park right out in the open like that. "

  I spun so fast I nearly went sprawling. Marjorie was descending the last of the steps; I'd been so caught up in freeing Sinclair I'd never heard her.

  "You cunt . "

  "You infant. "

  "Why?" I had to yell to be heard over Antonia's howls of rage. She was unusually bitchy during the full moon during the best of times. . . which this certainly was not. "Why did you do this?"

  "You made it necessary. "

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch her sly face in. "What the hell does that even mean?"

  She stepped into the room, looking neat and trim in her tweed suit and sensible shoes. "He can't keep you in line. Case in point, your monthly newspaper column. Your autobiography, the fall fiction offering! You live your life openly-everyone around you knows your true nature. You collect people instead of living a solitary life. This is incredibly dangerous, to all you claim to rule. You left me no choice. "

  "You don't agree with the way I live my life, and so you do this?"

  "As I said, you forced me to. "

  "Oh, right. Kidnapping, false imprisonment, torture. Blame me . "

  She shrugged. "Unlike you, I do what must be done. Unlike him, I'm not besotted with your dubious charms. By keeping Sinclair under my control, I'll be able to keep you under control. Because someone has to take charge. And you clearly aren't up to it. "

  "But-but-"r />
  "I have him. I'll keep him. And I'll kill him the moment you don't do as I say. "

  "But I am the queen!"

  "You're a fluke. An accident. And now, you'll be my tool. "

  She followed my glance into the open coffin. Sinclair was still doing his impersonation of a wizened mummy. "I knew he wouldn't go along with my idea. So I needed him to come and see me. He brought these two-unexpected, but I could deal with them. " She glared at Antonia, who was making an ungodly amount of noise rattling her bars.

  "But why would he come see you so quickly?"

  Her eyes narrowed. "Because I had information for him. Information is power; libraries are full of power. I can change records, reveal deaths, make up new ones, transfer ownership. I can change the facts, change history, if I like. I can grow my own power base and even presume to be queen myself someday, if I like. Eventually, I can discard you on the rubbish heap of rumor and misinformation. Betsy Taylor was no queen-she was a pretender, or a prophet, or whatever I'd like to make her. Who, exactly, will dispute the facts with me? The only vampires old enough to know better are in Europe. Would they argue if you die? If Sinclair did?"

  I was trying to follow all this. "What information did you tell him you had?"

  "I told him your engagement ring was cursed. "

  "And he fell for that?"

  "Of course. Because it is. "

  "Aw, say it isn't so. " I examined my diamond and ruby ring. "Cursed how?"

  "Did you ever read The Monkey's Paw? "

  "In high school. "

  "What a pleasant surprise. Here I thought I'd have to show you the picture book. Well, as in that story, your ring grants wishes. But always at a cost. You see, the stones were stolen from an Egyptian tomb. They followed quite a path before they got to me. I split them up and spread their pieces around the world. For research purposes.

  "One actually made it back to me here years ago, set in a beautiful antique ring. I buried it far enough away where it couldn't hurt me, but where I could still find it if I thought it might come in handy. And so it did, when Sinclair actually came to me a few months ago and asked me if I knew of any special jewelry he could give you for engagement purposes!" She laughed. "He actually paid me a quarter of a million dollars for it. I couldn't wait to see what you wished for. "

  A thousand thoughts were whirling through my brain. The zombie, who showed up without explanation three months ago. Tina and Sinclair had tried, and failed, to figure out why it had come. They hadn't even known zombies existed. A total mystery, unsolved until now. But hadn't I wished for a real challenge when the Europeans were in town? A way to prove to myself that I was worthy of my title?