Betsy 4 - Undead and Unreturnable Page 12

  "Why, Sinclair! That was… dare I think the word… a joke? A yarn, a tale, a comical story? Are you feverish, nauseous, cramping?"

  "Furthermore, I suspect he has engineered this entire thing as an excuse to stay close to you."

  I sighed and stuck my shoes in my closet, fast, so Sinclair wouldn't see inside the bags.

  "Elizabeth? I breathlessly await your commentary."

  "What can I say? Maybe it is. Maybe it's a little weird that out of all the projects he could have thunk up, the one he picked is the one that lets him follow me around and ask questions."

  "Ah." He looked at me approvingly.

  "Jeez, Sinclair, I'm not a genius, but I'm not in a coma, either! I've had guys like me before; I can recognize the symptoms, poor bastards."

  "Yes," he said. "We are poor bastards."

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I just continued my train of thought. "I don't know. Maybe I feel sorry for him. Maybe I thought I owed him a break. He came all this way and basically got his heart stomped. And the whole reason he quit staking vampires was because he liked me. I felt like I had to be… I dunno…"

  "Magnanimous in victory?"

  I shuddered. "Of course that just came tripping off the end of your tongue, Sink Lair, what a surprise."

  I noticed he was in his usual spot when we chatted: arms crossed, leaning against my door (people did have a tendency to run in after just a brief knock or worse, no knock), head tipped to one side as he listened to every word that came out of my mouth. I pulled my frog socks off and tossed them in the hamper, but at least he didn't try to move farther away when I did it. I didn't think I could take that again.

  "I would almost prefer that you disliked him," he commented. "Men have been able to cajole women into bed using nothing more than their pity."

  "Oh, right!" I snapped. "Like there was ever a woman in the universe who fucked you because she felt sorry for you."

  "I am hoping," he said, pushing away from the door and coming toward me, "there will be at least one. I behaved abominably."

  "Yeah, you were a real dick." I was watching him warily. This was too good to be true! Not to mention a) nothing had changed, and b) I wasn't a faucet. "I'm glad you're sorry, but I can't just get over being upset"—I snapped my fingers—"just like that. I can't turn it on and off."

  "I must beg your forgiveness," he said soberly. I realized for the first time that his hair—his hair—was messy, like he hadn't combed it in hours. It was as startling as if he'd gone outside without pants. "I know during love-making—it's the nature of vampires, I think—we have been… rough… at times, but that was no excuse for assaulting you."

  "Damn right!"

  "My only excuse—"

  "Hey, I thought you said there was no excuse."

  "—is that I was driven by fear, which is a new experience for me." He frowned. "An unpleasant one."

  "Well." I sulked and allowed him to hug me. He did it carefully, like he was hugging a barrel of snakes. One open at both ends. "I did surprise you. And not in a good way. I really didn't mean to keep it a secret for so long, and I didn't mean to blurt it out that way."

  "And you apologized, repeatedly, for that."

  "Yeah, I did! What, so, you're not worried about that anymore?"

  " 'That' being the frightening and unmanning way you can get into my head during our most intimate moments, while you yourself remain a locked door to me?"

  "Well," I grumped, "when you have that attitude, anything's going to sound bad." Then I loosened up and kissed him on the chin. "Aw, come on. I wasn't a virgin when I met you, and I kind of liked that this was a 'first' with you. It helped me—it helped me decide a lot of things. A big thing, this October. I mean, you were aware I was going to stay with you forever, or leave forever, right?"

  "Ummmm," he said, because he was nuzzling my throat. I flinched back a little, and he kissed me reassuringly in the same spot he had chomped me the night before. It had, of course, healed perfectly, but I couldn't help being twitchy.

  "And part of the reason I decided to stay was because, in my head at least, you weren't sneaky and weird."

  "It will take me some time," he said, working his way into my cleavage, which was as wonderful as it sounded.

  "Time?" I laughed and clutched his head. "Sweetie, you're so quick to check the Book for every little thing, you forgot we're stuck with each for a thousand years."

  "Anything's going to sound bad," he said, picking me up and tossing me on the bed, "when you put it like that."

  Chapter 33

  He had come up for a kiss after spending an inhuman amount of time between my legs, and I was trying to figure out if you could actually die, yes die, by orgasm. It seemed likely. It also seemed like a great way to go.

  Can you hear me now?

  "Sinclair, we are not doing a cell phone commercial right now," I growled. "Now take that thing and stick it in me and let's worry about something else! Anything else!"

  But you can . . . pausing for the thrust. I moaned when it went home, when he buried himself in me, when I could feel him everywhere… hear me.

  "Yes," I groaned. "I hear you."

  And when I think about how precious you are to me and how I nearly broke your sister's back when I saw her sword between your breasts, you can hear that, too?

  Thrusting back now. It was weird, having a conversation like this. About this. But I was nothing if not adaptable.

  "Yes, I hear you."

  All right, then. I can live with this.

  "It's nothing," I grumbled, "compared to what I have to put up with."

  "I read your columns," he said, after.

  I groaned and hid myself in the blankets. After a few seconds of digging, he found me and pulled me out. "Aha! I've been saying that in my head for over a minute, to no avail. So it really is only during—"

  "I told you. Must we relive every fight, all the time? And I don't want to hear the editorial report on my columns."

  "I liked them," he continued, ignoring my queenlike command. And was it my imagination, or was proof that I wasn't a constant telepath really cheering him up? "I thought they made much sense. They will, of course, cause a bit of a scandal among the older crowds—"

  "They're not for the old guys. Those guys have already figured out all the rules. I gotta admit, I kind of get a kick out of writing them."

  "Perhaps seeing the lighter side of the queen will appease some of the more, ah, some of the vampires who are more set in their ways. Particularly the European faction."

  "I don't have any other side," I admitted. Then: "European faction?"

  "Yes, that group of older vampires who was giving serious consideration to overthrowing you."

  I sat up. "What?"

  "Did you never wonder why I suddenly went to France last fall?"

  "Well—yeah, but—at the time we were—I made it a point not to show too much interest in your activities because I was still mad at you for being a sneaky freak, and this is the sort of thing I've been talking about!"

  "But I persuaded them not to revolt," he said, looking totally puzzled. "I fixed the problem for you."

  "First of all, why can't they just mind their own business? They can worry about them, and I can worry about me. Jesus!"

  "Because you killed two major vampires in three months, one of them the sitting power," he explained. "It was cause for concern."

  "And second, whyyyyyyyy did you secretly go over there and then not say a word about why you were going and what happened when you got back? Instead it was all 'I miss you, Betsy, why won't you sleep with me?' "

  "I did miss you," he pointed out. "And I was wondering why you wouldn't share my bed. Or vice versa," he added, looking down at my green flannel sheets.

  "But this is the stuff I'm talking about!" I thrashed between my sheets like a landed bass. "You can't keep this shit from me!"

  "But I fixed it," he said. Honest to God, he was completely bewildered. No doubt wondering
why I wasn't on my knees fellating him out of pure gratitude. Men! "I fixed the problem. There was no need to bother you with any of it."

  I fought not to choke the living shit out of him. "But it was my problem?"

  "But when you didn't tell me about your sometime-telepathy—"

  "That was a totally different thing! That was something I couldn't help, that I meant all along to tell you about, and eventually did, and understood why it was wrong to keep it from you, and we moved on!" I was stomping back and forth, wrapped in my comforter. "This was not sneaking off to Europe—"

  "I never sneak," he said coolly.

  "Oh, dude, you invented sneaking!"

  "You knew where I was going. And you knew when I returned."

  "Semantics! And here's a question, ladies and gentlemen—"

  "Who are you talking to when you do that?"

  "Why not bring me with? Huh? They were going to overthrow me, why not let me come over and plead my case?"

  He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. I had either cornered him with my cementlike logic, or he didn't want to tell me he thought I'd fuck up the whole thing. Either way…

  "Get out!"

  "All right," he said mildly, climbing out of bed, "but you did state in your terms that I must move all the way in, or all the way—"

  "I know what I said!" I kicked the duvet in a rage. "I don't care about that now! If I look at you another second I'll—I'll kick you in the gonads! Now get lost!"

  He got lost.

  Chapter 34

  "Wait a minute, wait a minute." Jessica made the time-out sign. "You made up after your other fight, but now you're fighting again?"

  I nodded miserably.

  "You guys. Seriously. I really think you should get married already—talk about prewedding jitters! You're tearing each other apart!"

  "Perhaps my father could help," Laura suggested. "He has counseled many couples before their special day."

  Oh, right. I could just see Sinclair and me sitting in the minister's office. "Thanks anyway, Laura."

  "What are you doing here?" Jess demanded. She was jealous of any woman who took up my time, even relatives. "Weren't you just here?"

  "I had to let George feed again," she said glumly. She pulled back her coat sleeve to show us the neat bite marks and reddened flesh. "He's pretty much healed up now."

  "Oh. Well, good work." I tried an encouraging smile, which felt like an embalmed leer. "Don't almost kill him anymore. Let that be a lesson to you. Etcetera. Time to get back to my problems: can you believe that bum?"

  "Well. He did go to Europe to keep a bunch of scary old vampires from coming over here and killing you," Jess pointed out.

  "You just like him because his rent checks have never bounced."

  "No, but frankly, I figure that other hurdle—whatever it was—if you got over that, you can get over anything."

  "Excuse me," Cathie said, right next to my ear, and I yowled and knocked over my tea. "But if we're going to get back to anyone's problems, we're getting back to mine."

  "There's a ghost in the room," I told Laura and Jess.

  "Oh, honey. Not this again." Jess didn't believe in ghosts (funny 'tude for someone who lived with vampires). No matter what I did, I couldn't get her to see them. So she just…

  "I'm out of here." She got up, ready to put her cup and saucer in the sink, when Laura opened her mouth. I shook my head, and we sat in silence until Jessica left.

  "What does it want?" Laura practically whispered.

  "I can hear her fine," Cathie snapped.

  "She can hear you fine," I translated. "She's the latest victim of the Driveway Killer."

  "The one who's missing? Mrs. Scoman?"

  "There's another one?" Cathie cried. "Dammit, dammit! This is why I'm floating around this dump, trying you to get your head out of your ass! This is exactly what I was trying to prevent! Son of a fucking bitch!"

  "All right, don't yell." I put my hands over my face and shivered for a minute. "She's mad because there's another victim."

  "Well… another lady who's missing. She got pulled out of her driveway tonight; they've already put an alert out on her." Laura was obviously trying to sound encouraging to the dead woman she couldn't see or hear. "She hasn't actually shown up, um, dead."

  "Then let's go get him! Right now!"

  "She wants to go after the bad guy," I told Laura.

  "Of course she does! It's Mrs. Robinson, right?"

  "Yeah, yeah, let's go!"

  "Wait wait wait." Cathie, halfway through the wall, backed up and looked at me. Laura, halfway to the door, also stopped. "Where are you guys going? Do you know where he lives? All Cathie knows is that she got conked in her driveway—that's not exactly news. And she has a vague idea of being in 'some old house' and then she woke up dead. We have to tell Nick all this stuff—"

  "How?" Laura asked. "Of course, you're right, we must tell the law, but how will we explain our knowledge?"

  "We could say we got an anonymous letter or something."

  "Which he will then wish to see." Laura sounded apologetic to be thinking up problems. "At least, I know I would."

  "A phone call?"

  "Why would they call you? Or me, for that matter?"

  "Because Jessica's going out with him?"

  "You could pretend to be a victim who got away," Laura suggested, "and then tell them everything the ghost tells you."

  "That's not bad," Cathie said, "but there's no damn time. Don't you get it? He doesn't keep us very long; he's scared."

  "Scared of getting caught?" I asked, so far over my head.

  "No, scared of us. The victims. He'll kill her tonight and dump her in some awful public parking lot where everyone will see her naked and laugh and point."

  "Nobody—" I began, shocked.

  "No, that's what he thinks. It's what he wants. Now can we come up with how to explain it later? At least let's go drive to where I remember the house!"

  "An address, anything?"

  "No, but at least we can get in the area. Maybe I'll remember more. It's worth doing, goddammit!"

  "You're right," I said, after I'd told Laura everything that had been said. "It's worth doing."

  "Now, now, right now!"

  "She's right," Laura said, and I assumed it was in response to what I had said, not because she could hear Cathie. "It's worth doing. Let's go at once."

  Chapter 35

  "Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad BAD idea," I said again.

  "Take a left," Cathie commanded from the back. "And enough complaining. I'm sick to death of the complaining."

  "We're not cops! Okay? In this car is a secretary, a college student, and a part-time horse trainer."

  "It would have been full-time," Cathie said, "but now that I'm dead, that bum Gerry's gonna snake the slot right out from under me."

  "We should have told Nick the whole thing and let him come into the neighborhood with about nine SWAT teams."

  "Never mind how difficult that would be to explain," Laura began.

  "Right, and scare the killer off with a bunch of uniforms running around!" Cathie snapped. "No, we have to catch that jerk. Driveway Killer… Driveway Asshole is more like it. Left!"

  "Does anything look familiar to her?" Laura asked.

  "No," Cathie said. "But I won't forget the smell in a hurry. It stank like nothing else has."

  "He stank?"

  "No, the neighborhood. Something chemical, something like—"

  "The Glazier Refinery?" I read off the sign as we passed it. There were about two hundred smokestacks in the air, and they were all pouring out smoke that smelled like fake pizza.

  Cathie retched in my backseat. Could ghosts puke? I tried to stay focused. "I guess this is the area."

  "God, that smell! How could the cops not smell it on my—goddammit, because he strips them and then dumps them."

  "Still, you'd think there'd be some clues," I said doubtfully.

  "This isn't CSI," La
ura said, watching out the window. "Not that I watch the show—an hour of people finding new and interesting ways to kill each other? No thank you. But this is real life, not television. And it's a big metro area. Millions of people, doing millions of things, over a large square area. I've lived out here all my life, and I've never even heard of this place. I think when we catch him, it will be obvious what he was doing and where he was taking them, but we have to get him first."

  "Whoa, whoa! You guys, I think we agreed—"

  "I didn't agree to anything," Cathie said.

  "—that this is a fact-finding mission. We're not here to bust the guy. We need something concrete to take back to Nick and then they can come get him. We're just nosing around for clues."

  "And if we find him standing over a woman with a big butcher knife?" Laura asked.

  "Actually," Cathie piped up helpfully, "he strangles us. With his belt."

  I shuddered. "If worse comes to worst, we'll catch him. Don't sweat it, Cathie, Laura and I are totally capable of knocking a guy out and calling the cops. I'll distract him by letting him stab me multiple times and then Laura will kick the shit out of him. We'll just use a nearby phone and do the anonymous tip thing. If Mrs.—uh—"

  "Scoman. You really are terrible with names," Laura chided me gently.

  "I know. Anyway, if she needs to go to the hospital, we'll take her. We'll—look, we're putting the cart ahead of the horse, here. Let's see if we can find the damn house first."

  "He took off his belt, and he strangled me until I shit myself." I was shocked to see Cathie had scooted way over and was whispering in Laura's ear. "He did it because he's weak and because he's afraid of women. And after I was dead, he took off all my clothes and made fun of my boobs."

  "Cathie! I mean, jeez, I'm not saying you don't have a right, but cripes!"

  "What?" Cathie was smack in my rearview mirror again. "I didn't say anything. I'm looking at houses."

  "I heard her that time!" Laura said, excited. "Talking about her boobs and such. I think I'm getting a new power!"