Undead and Undermined Read online

  "Wait!"

  We waited. When Sinclair used that tone, everybody played Statues. Even if I was half an inch from orgasm, it was Statue City. The opposite, if you're wondering, of romantic.

  "Marc?"

  "Yes?" they both replied.

  "The undead one," Sinclair clarified. "You called him Nick. "

  "Even as a sprat, your hearing is excellent. "

  "Why did you do that?"

  N/Dick started to open his mouth, but Sinclair made a curt motion with the flat of his hand.

  "Because . . . it's . . . his name?" the Marc Thing wondered, gazing at the ceiling.

  "Not here it isn't," Tina said, her big eyes going all badass narrow. This was a hilarious effect uttered from someone in a cute T-shirt and capris.

  "Holy shit!" Jessica gargled from the bathroom. Then: "Ohhhh, I shouldn't have had that fourth yogurt. "

  I never got sick of being the only one not to get something. "What? Are we still killing him? What's wrong? C'mon, break out the hand puppets, somebody. What? Whaaaaaaat?"

  "My name isn't Nick," Nick told me. "It's Dick. I'm Nick in the other timeline. Your original timeline. I'm here, so I'm not here. "

  "Talking with you makes me feel like I'm rereading Alice in Wonderland. " This was a lie. I'd never been able to make it through the book, and I thought the Johnny Depp movie was a little too pleased with itself.

  "Which begs the question," Sinclair said. "Who are you, really? And why are you here, really?"

  And why wouldn't Advil work on the undead, really? Someone should do a study. Unfortunately, I now had other things to worry about. CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

  "Wait, wait, wait. Wait. " Everyone waited. Unfortunately, that was all I had. But wait! I had more. "So this Marc Thing, the dead guy in our kitchen right now, he's not in his past. He's in our past. " I turned to him. "Is that right? You don't remember any of this?"

  "I remember it," he said. "Just not this way. "

  I scowled. Maybe he could be less helpful. "So, no, then. "

  "What difference does it make?" Laura asked. "He's evil and he's gotta go. "

  "You are correct, but we need to talk about this for a bit," Sinclair said. "Murder is an irreversible action. I try to avoid irreversible actions when at all possible. "

  "Does this mean we can't fix the past? His past?" I asked, pointing to the trussed vamp. "We're on . . . what? A parallel route now? Separate events and they can't ever touch in the way that parallel things can't ever touch, which I learned in sixth grade and never thought I'd have a use for?"

  "Fifth grade!" Jessica called from the ralph room.

  "The past already happened," the Marc Thing volunteered. "You can't un-happen something. Hrrmm. That came out more ignorant than I intended. And duller! What I meant was-"

  "Wait!" I leaped to my feet . . . then remembered I'd already been standing and almost pitched into a wall. I was too excited to sit still. "I mean, wait again. We don't have to sit around and blah-blah this one to death. "

  "But I wanted to," Still Human Marc whined. "If I'm not in here, I've gotta go to work. I've mentioned it's a full moon, right? There'll be things to remove from rectums and lacerations to be stitched. "

  "No, this is a good thing! Don't you get it? I'll check the Book of the Dead! That's the whole reason I went to hell in the first place and let Laura beat me up for three centuries. "

  "You let Laura beat you up for three-"

  "No time, Jess. Anyway, that's why I went through all that. So I could read the thing without going crazy. Finally, the stupid thing will actually come in handy instead of being awful and scary. " I whirled and practically ran out of the kitchen.

  "Wait," Laura began.

  "What good is having an all-seeing creepy dead book of skin that's always right if I can't ever take advantage of it? Huh?" The hallway was narrow, so they were all stampeding behind me. Onward! I would lead my faithful minions to the path of the righteous, and also the library. "Right? Right? So I'll read it and it'll tell us what to do. Or at least what happened. Then we can make a plan. Then we can make another supper. Because I don't know about you guys, but I'm wicked thirsty. "

  "Betsy," Laura called again, but I was one heedless queen of the undead. It was so rare for me to get a really good idea, I couldn't wait to implement this one. I practically skidded to a halt in the library, which was harder than you'd think, what with the 1970s apricot shag. "Now we-shit. "

  "What?"

  I pointed; the unholy book stand upon which the unholy and smelly Book of the Dead evilly perched was empty.

  The book was gone. And thank goodness. Wow, was I glad the thing had gone missing. Now I didn't to worry about it, right? Because up until that point I had nooooo problems, right? And everything was working according to my plan, right?

  Right. Gah. CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

  There was a long, perplexed silence, broken by N/Dick's, "Was it insured?"

  "We're not putting in an insurance claim on the Book of the Dead," Jessica said firmly. "First off, we never got it appraised. "

  "Where is it?" I couldn't believe my eyes. I was at a total loss. Of all the problems I thought I'd have this month, releasing the hounds on a book bound in human skin was nowhere on the list. Don't even get me started on insurance paperwork.

  "Okay, who was reading the Book of the Dead in the tub and forgot to put it back?" Marc asked, but if his expression was any indication, his heart wasn't in the teasing. He looked like I felt: rattled to the extreme.

  "Wait. " I turned to Tina and my husband. "There is a book in this timeline, right? You didn't follow me down the hallway to humor me? Or chase me?"

  He smiled. "Though I will admit I have chased you from time to time, you are correct: there is a Book of the Dead in this timeline. "

  "Okay, that's something. So let's think about this for a minute. Did you know it was missing?"

  "I took it. "

  "Of course not. I would have mentioned it straightaway. " Sinclair looked as offended as I'd seen him. "After properly greeting you. "

  "Getting laid," N/Dick volunteered with a grin. He was recovering from the shattering blow quicker than the rest of us. Cops: they live in a black-and-white world. He didn't take it, he didn't know who did, he was waiting for instructions, then he'd get back in gear. Boom. Simple.

  "As I said. "

  "I took it. "

  "Did any of you know it was missing?"

  "You're asking us?" Marc said. "There's so much weird shit going on around here I don't even notice when my underwear's missing. "

  "Okay, first? Gross. And second, what now?"

  "No one could have broken in here and taken it," Tina thought aloud. "Perhaps that other Marc secreted it somewhere before making his presence known?"

  Dimly, from several rooms away: "I did not!"

  "I took it. "

  "We gotta find it!" I was trying, and failing, not to freak out. What was worse than having the Book of the Dead in your house? Not knowing where the Book of the Dead was. I'd almost rather have a bitchy cobra roaming the carpets. "Whoever's reading it is reading it and going insane right this minute and maybe they don't even know it because they don't know when they read it they'll go insane! We have to save them!"

  "Or punish them. "

  "Vengeful is not a good look for you," I told my husband. "Your nostrils get all flare-y. "

  "I took it. "

  "When did we last see it?" Tina asked. "If we can corroborate the last time it was here, we can then-"

  "I took the Book of the Dead, you morons!"

  We stared at the Antichrist. Nobody spoke for a few seconds, until the Marc Thing wailed, "Naaaaughty!" CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

  "What?"

  "I took it. " Laura smoothed her bangs and tried not to look rattled. The library, which had always seemed dark and dusty to me, with the dark pan
eling and yucky apricot carpeting and dusty, dark, overstuffed furniture, seemed to loom, then shrink, around me.

  Remember wishing there was a cobra on the loose? Now I felt like there really had been one, only she'd been with me the whole time.

  "You what?"

  "I took the book. "

  "But why? Did you need some light reading while waiting in line at Goodwill?"

  "I took it after I got here. "

  Right. I remembered-after she realized the Marc Thing had followed us back, she put on a big show of being revolted and horrified. Or maybe she really had been revolted and horrified. Either way, she'd left the kitchen on the premise of making sure he hadn't left us any other surprises. Then . . . took the Book? But . . . "How come?"

  She glanced at the carpet, the window, the sofa, her feet, my feet, my neck, and finally my face. "You don't need it. "

  "What?"

  "Am I not speaking clearly?" she snapped. "Why are you having trouble following this?"

  "Are you seriously asking me that, you Antichristing sneaky jerkoff asshat?" (I'll admit it: I was stressed out. It had been a terrible week. Or three centuries. Or future. )

  "Ah . . . Majesty . . . "

  "Elizabeth, perhaps cooler heads could-"

  "You bop in from freakin' Goodwill and then steal the nastiest thing in the house, and don't say anything until we need it and have to look all over for it? Who does that?"

  "You checked one room," Laura said. "Barely, I might add. You came, you glanced, you bitched. "

  I gargled with fresh rage. "After being all egging-on with the killing of the Marc Thing?" I had thought at the time it had been out of character for her, but didn't follow up. Also, stealing and lying? Also out of character.

  From several rooms away: "I don't mind! Really!"

  D-Nick/Jessica/Still Human Marc: "Shut up!"

  "Have you lost your teeny tiny mind, you too-tall, too-skinny, too-crazy jerk?"

  "Oh, look who's talking, Miss Let's Blunder Around the Time Stream and Hang the Consequences! Thanks to you, we've got a dead Marc and a live Marc in the same timeline . . . in the same house! Thanks to you, I got chomped on by a dim, blonde, undead, selfish, whorish, blood-sucking leech when I was minding my own business in the past. "

  "Don't you call me dim!"

  "Um. Everyone. Perhaps we should-" Tina began.

  "Wait, when did this happen?" Marc asked. He had the look of a man desperately trying to buy a vowel. "Past, an hour ago? Past, last year? Help me out. "

  "Oh, biiiiig surprise!" Laura threw her (perfectly manicured) hands in the air. "Let me guess, you were soooo busy banging your dead husband that you haven't had time to tell anybody anything. "

  "I was getting to it," I whined.

  "Then after not telling anyone anything and not being proactive-or even active!-you grow up to destroy the world and bring about eternal nuclear winter or whatever the heck that was and how do you deal with your foreknowledge of terrible events to come? Have sex!"

  "An affirmation of life?" Sinclair suggested. Never, I repeat, never had I loved him more. I was torn between slugging my sister and blowing my husband. Hmm. Laura might have a point about my priorities . . . but jeez. Look at him. Yum.

  "-even do it and what do you have to say for yourself? Huh?"

  "You're just uptight, repressed, smug, antisex, and jealous, you Antichristing morally superior, fundamentally evil bitch. "

  Laura and Marc gasped. My husband groaned. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

  "That's right. " I gripped the gold cross around my neck and wiggled it back and forth at her. I'd had to sling it all the way around so it was on my back when Sinclair and I were, um, busy earlier. Nothing kills the mood faster than a third-degree burn between the nipples. His, not mine.

  Laura's color-of-a-spring-sky eyes were slits. "I am not jealous. "

  "Wait, that's the word you're refuting?" Jessica asked. "Out of that whole thing she just said?"

  "I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to keep you safe. And because you're you, you're blocking me all over the place. "

  My husband and friends had the look of people watching the most terrifying yet coolest tennis match in the history of human events. I didn't remember moving, but I was nose-to-nose with my little sister, shaking my (unmanicured . . . the older I got, the harder it was to find time to do vital stuff like nail maintenance) finger under her chin, and she wasn't backing down an inch.

  "And in case you lost track of time in hell or at Goodwill, I've only been back about three hours! It's not like I went on a shopping spree without warning anybody. " This time. "But never mind me, Miss Sneaky Pants. Let's get back to you, and how you're sneaky. You ducked out to hide the book, and I can't help notice you haven't. " I lightly pushed her with tented fingers. "Given. " Push. "It back. "

  "I already told you. " She settled her stance so my fingers weren't rocking her back and forth. "You don't need it. "

  "Not. Your. Ennnff! Decision. " Damn. She could really brace herself when she wanted.

  "Ladies," Sinclair tried.

  "To think I could be stitching up drunks and missing this!" Marc gurgled.

  "Get her!" the Marc Thing yelled. I had no idea who he was rooting for.

  "It's mine. " I couldn't believe I was pissed because someone had grabbed the book I loathed and was keeping it from me so I couldn't read it to find out terrible things I could do nothing about.

  Weirder: I couldn't believe I was pissed because I truly felt my property had been stolen! How could my life and death have gotten so fucked up in three years?

  Come on, Betsy. Time to wake up. You're having a terrible dream because you missed the sweater sale at Saks, but things will be better once you wake up. Wake up! "So cough it up. "

  "Why do you even care? You hate it. Everybody knows you hate it . . . Lord knows you complain about it enough. "

  "What the Lord knows and keeps to Himself is none of your business. You know I hate it? So you just come in and snatch it? I hate famine and poverty, too, so what's your plan for those?"

  "The important thing," Tina began, "is that it is no longer missing. And I am sure Laura will-"

  "Back off," I snapped in unison with Laura's, "Stay out of this, you lesbian slut. "

  "Hey! Tina is a bisexual slut. "

  "Thank you, my queen," Tina murmured as N/Dick slowly shook his head and stared at the floor. I knew that look. He was afraid he was going to laugh, even as he knew baaaad shit could happen at any second.

  "How do you not see how twisted and stupid this is, Laura? You know, you know the whole reason I went to hell was because your evil, evil, evil, evil mom promised me that if I did, I could read the fucking thing and not get a nine-day migraine or turn evil. So why take it now that I can finally read it?"

  "I thought you went to hell so you could help me learn about my powers," Laura said sadly.

  Okay. Whoa. That stopped me right there. I instantly felt like an unworthy shit. She just sounded so . . . dejected. I reminded myself she was just a kid-was she even drinking age yet? A lonely kid with the devil for a mom and powers she couldn't control-and a destiny she didn't want.

  "Well, yeah. That, too. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed our zany adventures. " Huge lie. "And when your mom explained the best way for you to get in touch with your abilities was to smack me around? Hilarious!" Huger lie. "But you're forgetting something, Laura. Before we went anywhere, you called me, remember? You woke up naked in the spoon and called me for help. "

  "Waaaaait!" the Marc Thing wailed. "What are you talking about? What spooooon?"

  "Then I ended up talking to your mom and making the deal. That's how all this started, right?" I softened my tone. "Well, we're back now, and we've got more work to do-you know, saving the world, and saving Marc-"

  Marc smiled, pleased. "Thank you. "

  From the kitchen: "It won't work! You won't save him! We'r
e doooooomed. In every timeline, I think. So kill us both, Spock!" Psycho vamps channeling Star Trek . . . so this is what they meant by hell in a hand basket.

  "That duct tape is working so great," Jessica whispered to Dickie/Nickie. "Why didn't we gag him with a roll of it?"

  He shrugged, not taking his gaze off me. "Hindsight. " It wasn't the first time I noticed Nick was standing almost entirely in front of Jessica. Protecting her, like. It looked so natural-practiced?-and Jess didn't even notice. In this timeline they were in love, he liked me and tolerated the shenanigans from House o' Vamps, but was also mindful of the danger. I liked him a lot for it.

  "Betsy? What?"

  I blinked and looked at Laura. Sinclair leaned in and muttered, "You were explaining that you needed each other and helped each other, but now have a new agenda. "

  "Yea, that. An agenda like you and me not getting evil, or more evil, so please give me back my Book of the Dead now so we can get on with whatever it is. "

  Wait. Had I really just phrased it like that?

  "It's not your Book of the Dead," Laura pointed out.

  "It follows me around like a dumb, ugly, smelly dog," I said, irritated. "Whose else would it be?"

  "You don't need it and you shouldn't use it. I'll take it to hell and let you know what you're supposed to know. "

  "What, because you're the Antichrist you won't go crazy if you read it? Or is your devil mom going to translate for you?"

  "Either way, Laura, as my queen rightly pointed out, that is not your decision," Sinclair said. You could practically hear the icicles in his voice. "She requires her property. I require your obedience to my queen. "

  "Well, why not?"

  "Why not, what?" I nearly screamed. How long had we been having this argument? Eight months? Gah.

  "Why isn't it my decision? I'm more powerful than you are, and I can call on my mom if we need help. I should hang on to the book. Right?"

  "Right? Right? No, that's not right. It stayed with Sinclair until I became a vampire, then it stayed with me. It never had anything to do with you, but now you've decided you should have it? And you're all mystified because I'm pissed?"

  "You're always pissed," my little sister mumbled, and I could have happily slapped her perfect complexion. "Should have done it a long time ago anyway. "