Undead and Done (16 page)

“Mom, I have to focus on you and Lars. I'll worry about making a new life here
if
I'm allowed to stay.”

“And if you're not?”

“Then it was still worth it, if only to see you again, and tell you how sorry I am.” Mom looked like she smelled something awful, which was what her face did when she was about to burst into tears. Jennifer rushed to head off more tears. “So find Lars' address and then let's dig up a paper and pencil so I can write down the directions.”

That made her mom laugh, for some reason. “Oh, honey. You're going to love MapQuest.”

“What?”

“Come with me to the office . . . I've got things to show you.”

Ten minutes later, Jennifer was carefully pulling out of her mother's driveway. Driving her mom's new car, a burgundy Ford Fusion, was like piloting the space shuttle. And it was a hybrid! Which meant it ran on gas
and
electricity. Unreal! And MapQuest! Wow
.

Mom had made her a sandwich and insisted Jennifer take it with her for some reason. It was on the passenger seat beside the printout of directions to Lars' house. Her mom had tried to give Jennifer her cell phone, but Jennifer politely refused. That thing
also
looked like some futuristic space mechanism to her uneducated eyes.

She resolved not to eat the food. Perhaps one of Betty Palmer's world-famous club sandwiches would at least get her in Lars' front door. Stranger things had happened. That very day, in fact.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“I'm not saying you don't have any problems, obviously you
do, and I'm not just talking about the way you dress—”

“How could I have forgotten your essential vacuous nature?”

“—I'm just saying I've got a buttload of problems, too! My life has never been easy.” Okay. Exaggeration. Looking back, pre-death, the Ant was my biggest problem and, ironically, I saw a lot more of her now that we both hung out in Hell. And even when
Time
and
Newsweek
and MSNBC and the
Pioneer Press
were speculating about vampires, I still had a husband I adored and lived in a mansion with the coolest people ever.

But we'd barely gotten in the house before Fred was grouching about how my problems were making her life difficult. When, if anything, my problems were making
my
life difficult. “I don't expect you to get it, by the way.” Why was I in such an ugly mood? Why was I picking a fight? Other than the fact that Fred was smarter than me, handling infamy better than me, and about a zillion times more respected than
me? “I'm just saying things aren't all sunshine all the time around here.”

Fred's eyes rolled so hard, she could probably see her big fat brain. Wow. Being on the receiving end of an epic eye roll was kind of annoying.

“Do tell me about your insurmountable stack of first-world problems.”

“My father divorced my mom for the worst person in the world. I say that totally without hyperbole.”
*

“I was raised by hippies.”

“I had to get nibbled on by feral vampires.”

“I walked in on the hippies having sex.”

“Then I woke up dead.”

“I can only swim with my tail, never my legs.”

“I had to kill a Big Bad who was a thousand years older than me.”

“I had to put down a revolt virtually single-handedly.”

Damn. Impressive. “Yeah, well. I'm having dad issues.”

“My father led that revolt, the end result of which was we fought to the death. And since you've likely noticed I'm not dead, you can probably deduce how that turned out.”

“. . . I think we should be best friends forever and ever.”

Then: the impossible of impossibles. Dr. Fredrika Bimm burst out laughing. “Ah,” she said when she finally stopped chortling like a hyena. “Now I remember why I don't completely loathe you.”

“Well, good.” I'd take what I could get. And who knew? Maybe she had some dad-killing tips I could use.

I couldn't believe I just thought that.

Progress, my own. You must know that you'll likely have to kill him. Soon.

Stay out of my head, Sinclair. That was just for me.

If you would merely allow me to kill him, everything would—

Not better! Oh my God!

“Hi, Dr. Bimm,” Jessica said, and where the hell did she come from? “I'm Jessica; I used to live here.”

“Fredrika Bimm.” They shook.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks for coming to help us.”
Us.
Fred was hot shit, no doubt, and there were probably more Undersea Folk than vampires, but Jessica's love and loyalty were worth a dozen brainy mermaids. “It's nice to meet you.”

Jess put the baby toter on the counter, where Eric or Elizabeth was inside, sound asleep.

“Hey, you're short an infant. Where's Eric or Elizabeth?”

“Elizabeth's got a minor cough, so Dick took her to the pediatrician today.” Jessica was unhurriedly taking out the good blender, fruit, yogurt, ice. “I wanted to swing by and pick up some of our stuff from storage.”

“Storage?”

“The basement.”

“Ugh. Have fun.”

Jessica shrugged at Fred. “Betsy's got a thing about our basement.”

“You didn't put ‘dark, spooky basement' on your list of woes,” Fred pointed out. “If only you had, I might have mustered sympathy from somewhere.”

I snorted. “This is me, not holding my breath.”

“Also, you probably hear this all the time, Fred, but I've got to ask—”

“Yes, I'm really a mermaid.” Fred had perched on one of the barstools around the big butcher-block counter and was
looking around with an expression that was almost pleasant. “No, I don't grant wishes.”

“Don't start with the pestering, Jess,” I warned. “Marc scampered off to change his shirt, for God's sake, though there was nothing wrong with the one he had on, and that after he fangirled all over her all the way here. It was awful.”

Jessica giggled. “Don't deny it, Marc fangirling is a beautiful sight.”

“When it's
Game of Thrones
, sure. But he blew off Will Mason so he could keep bugging Fred.” Which . . . huh. Was weird. Maybe Cathie was onto something. Marc
talked
about how much he wanted to spend time getting to know Will, dating, maybe canoodling, maybe beyond canoodling. (Marc's sex life was none of my business and that had been the case since day one. I was careful not to inquire. And I definitely never wondered about Cathie's hideous invasive blood-flow “can you even get it up as a zombie?” question.)

“He knows I'm a zombie,” he'd whispered to me while we were binge-watching season four of BBC
Sherlock
, “and he doesn't mind! He thinks it's
cool
. It's not cool, of course. But it's nice that he thinks so.”

“It's a little cool,” I suggested. Marc wasn't gross or shambling or dripping. He was cute as hell, like always.

“It's . . . handy,” Marc conceded. “Especially if I'm going to be running around with you guys, facing lethal danger often before lunch. And after lunch.”

“Martin Freeman looks like a sad potato,” I announced, which sparked a long, long, long argument.
*

For a lonely guy who put in too many hours at the ER for a long-term relationship, and hadn't been on a date in the last
year and a half, Marc was sure finding it easy to keep putting Will off. I needed to start taking Cathie's theory more seri-ously.

“Betsy!” Jess snapped her fingers right under my nose, because she's horrible. “Come back to us. Stay away from the light.”

“Yes, are you all right? You look like your dinner disagrees with you.” Fred added under her breath, “Whomever that might be.”

“Don't worry about my dinner, you—you vampirephobe.” Actually, I hadn't fed in three days. Queen perk: I didn't have to glug-glug blood as often as other vampires. To Fred: “Don't be one of those awful, awful vegetarians. ‘Oh, you eat
meat
?' And they say it in a tone like ‘meat' is code for ‘kittens.'”

“Fair point,” Fred conceded. “The tight-asses give us all a bad name.”

Well, amen to that. I'd take that as a minor victory and decided to be generous in the face of her concession. “Sorry again about Marc. He's very immature.”

“Yes, that must be maddening.”

“Are you messing with me?”

“Yes. May I have a smoothie?” And, when Jessica nodded, Fred added with—I hated to admit it—a charming smile, “Maybe a few more strawberries to go with the bananas?”

A vegetarian mermaid, and you only had to look at her teeth to know why. Fred had inherited her mom's teeth: the flat grinders of landlubbers. Her dad and his kind had what looked like a mouthful of needles. They needed them; think about how tough it was to get through a piece of octopus sushi. Now think about having to do that just about every time you ate. The Undersea Folk needed the strength and speed and stamina and sharp, sharp teeth to catch and eat any manner of deep-sea creatures. Humans? We just needed cash. Or
access to a pantry and stove. Or even a gas station. If you had to, you could get a sandwich there. It wasn't pretty, but people did desperate things to survive.

So, Fred “No meat” Bimm. No fish, even though fish made up something like sixty-five percent of your average Undersea Folk's diet. One of many reasons she had trouble fitting in. Killing her dad? Probably another reason.

Hmm, empathy for Fred Bimm. Was I maturing? Or just really, really tired?

“One of the times you were almost bearable in Boston was how much you enjoyed Faneuil Hall,” she announced out of nowhere. “You were almost charming.”

“How much I liked what?”

Fred closed her eyes to slits and the slits glared at me. “You pronounced it Nathanial Hall.”

“Oh,
that
place. Yum.”

In next to no time, Jessica had given us all glasses full of dark pink liquid and walked off, basement bound, leaving her baby snoozin' away on the counter. The nice thing, when they were that age? They stayed where you put them.

Sinclair walked into the kitchen, BabyJon slung over one shoulder; BabyJon was out of the stay-where-you-put-them stage, alas. “This child is getting tired,” he said by way of greeting, gaze glued to his phone. Just like a man, or a monarch: make an announcement and wait for everyone around you to scramble to fix it.

“Thanks for the update,” I said sweetly.

“And the Wyndhams would like to stop by.”

“Well, that could get awkward.” That brought the score this evening to at least three werewolves, two dozen vampires, a human/USF hybrid, Jessica, Eric, other Eric, a zombie, and whatever the heck BabyJon was.

“No, my queen, this is good for us. We can have all our
problems in one spot at one time.” His dark gaze flicked over to Fred, who was gulping her smoothie like her life depended on it. Guess a leisurely swim down the Mississippi made her hungry. “I was not, of course, referring to you, Dr. Bimm. You are many things, but a problem is not one of them.”
I think.
Crafty!

She flapped a hand at him, finished her smoothie, then nearly dropped her glass. “It's no concern of mine, but—where is the baby?”

We looked.

The baby carrier was empty.

Okay, complicated. “It's not a big deal,” I began.

“Excuse me, but it is,” she corrected sharply. “Your friend didn't take the baby with her. No one has touched the baby. People are very likely spying on you. Your sister and father are definitively out to get you. You have out-of-town guests who may or may not be allies.”

“Hey,” I pointed out, “you're on that list.”

“So where is your friend's infant?” Fred was on her feet, like she was going to start checking cupboards and peeking behind furniture. “We need to find it right away.”

“Oh hey, Fred Bimm! Wow. So, you were always kind of bossy, huh? Even in your youth.”

I pointed to the teenager standing in the mudroom doorway. “He's right there. Eric Berry, Fredrika Bimmm.”

Jessica's newborn let out a deep chuckle. “We've met.”

“When?” Fred still sounded sharp, and now looked bewildered and suspicious. Annoyingly, this didn't impact her looks in a negative way.

“Another place and time.” His big brown eyes lit up. “Any strawberries left?”

“Sure,” I said, and made room so the baby could saunter over and take a seat.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“I don't understand,” Fred said flatly. “You are not an
infant.”

“That must be why you're
Dr.
Bimm. Nothing gets past you.” Petty, yep, but for once, I knew something she didn't. I was gonna enjoy it, dammit. And big surprise, Sinclair had left the explanations to me, since he'd wandered off with BabyJon. Typical: once again, the burden was mine. Case in point . . .

“It's a long story,” Eric Berry said, snatching my half-empty glass without shame and draining it.

“Oh you little shit!” I yelped. “You know where the glasses are and the blender's sitting
right there
. You only did that to bug me.”

“You know you're the one I love to bug, Onnie Betsy.”
*
Because I am a shameless compliment whore, this worked on me. It didn't hurt that the punk was gorgeous.

Jessica was cute, and Dick was handsome, but their kids were living proof that every redneck bigot got it wrong: biracial kids were the best-looking kids on earth. Eric had his mother's luminous brown eyes and his father's pale skin, except Eric's had gold undertones. He had Jessica's pointed chin and broad forehead, and Dick's swimmer's shoulders. His hair bristled out in a proud Afro; you looked at him and all you could think was,
Is it as soft as it looks? Let's find out!

I'd seen newborn Eric and toddler Eric, and first-grade Eric and sixteen-year-old Eric; this one was the oldest iteration, probably eighteen or nineteen. Not drinking age, but not far off, either. He was in what I called jean-colored jeans, because I'm not creative, and an orange T-shirt with white lettering:
World's Okayest Brother.
He was sockless and wearing the shoes from the future I'd noticed on other visits, narrow black shoes that looked like a sneaker and a loafer had a baby.

And the best part? The twins' beauty was the least interesting thing about them.

“Excuse me,” Fred said. “Explanation still required.”

“Well, we need a minute,” I pointed out. “It's hard to explain. See, when Jessica was pregnant, some days she was only a month along and some days she looked ready to pop. But none of us noticed except my mom, because she didn't live here. And where is my mom? BabyJon's here; is she? Because this place is gonna be Defcon 5 for weird pretty soon; maybe the kids should scram.”

“That's actually the least severe Defcon,” Eric pointed out helpfully.

I turned to him. “What, so Defcon 1 is more terrible than Defcon 5?”

“Nailed.”

“Stop with the future slang; I can't always figure it out even with context. Also, starting at five makes no sense.”

“So what am I supposed to do about it? Bring your grievance to the USAF; they're the ones who thought it up.”

“You're saying that like you think I won't. And a little respect, please, for your honorary aunt.”

“Nuh-uh.” But he grinned at me, a sweet smile that made the sarcasm more cute than irritating. A good trick. Maybe he could teach me.

“Will you two stop it?” Fred cried. “Betsy, stay focused. Although since the two of you seem singularly unworried, I'm not sure why I'm fretting.”

“Fretting?” Couldn't resist the poke. “Is that what you call it?”

“Get back to the story,” Fred managed through gritted teeth, and thank goodness she didn't inherit her dad's choppers; she'd have bitten through her tongue by now. Blurgh.

“Okay, so, Jessica's pregnancy was all over the place; it was just like her tie-dye phase except—if you can imagine—even more worrisome.”

“Oh good Christ,” Fred muttered.

“I'm telling it! So after a while we realized it was because her babies were shifting between parallel timelines, even before they were born! And that's because—oh, I forgot to tell you that I accidentally changed the timeline since before I did that she and Dick had broken up because he was terrified of me, but when I came back not only were she and Dick together; she was pregnant and also I didn't skin my husband and turn him into the Book of the Dead.”
*

“What?”

“I warned you it was complicated.”

“Complicated I can handle. Learn to tell a story in a linear fashion.”
*

I set my (empty!) glass down so it wouldn't shatter in a zillion pieces when I clenched a fist. Oh, I was going to give this uppity jerk-ass
such
a—

“Fred, I'm a version of Jessica's son from another timeline.”
*

“Oh?” Fred turned an inquiring gaze toward him. I loosened my fist.

“Yes. For reasons I can't go into, all versions of my sister and I have access to this house. And I'm vastly superior to the infant I've temporarily displaced, since at this stage of my life I've stopped shitting my pants.” He paused, then muttered, “Mostly, but in my defense, that was a completely out-of-control prom.”

“I thought you said it was complicated. That wasn't complicated.” Fred extended a slim paw, totally showing off how quickly she caught on to all the weird around here. “Nice to remeet you, since apparently you know a version of me from your own timeline.”

“A wonderful version,” Eric replied at once, shifting into Shameless Flirt without a pause.

“Ewww. She's old enough to be your mom.”

“Yes, but I know what a lovely person she is, and not that I place importance on physical features”—said the teenage boy—“but USFs age beautifully. You don't ever appear to get wrinkles,” he continued, still holding Fred's hand and ignoring my subtle retching. “Must be all the time in the water.”

“Nope. You're not going to sit here and flirt with Fred Bimm. You're just not.”

“Agreed,” Fred said with a grin, the finned hussy. “But I must say, it was fascinating to meet you.” She turned to look as Sinclair came back in.

“My own, the Wyndhams are here. Ah. Eric.” He nodded to Jessica's baby, who was topping up
my
glass with
his
smoothie.

“Hey, Sinclair, howzit?”

“Ah, fine.” That was another annoying thing: future slang was almost incomprehensible. “Standing perm” and “snatch” and “howzit” and “zup.” I missed the subtle, classier slang of the past: “as if” and “lame” and “doy.”

“Intriguing.” Yeah, well, Sinclair would have to narrow that down a lot if he wanted us to have any idea what he meant. “Your mother only brought one twin over . . . and only one of you shifted from your time stream to ours.”

“Yeah, well.” A cheerful shrug from the twin in question. “It is what it is. Or what it will be. What year is it today again?”

“You are of course welcome anytime, child, but I must warn you, we have quite a few outside—”

“Undersea/human hybrid, more werewolves than usual, more vampires than usual and—let me guess—the press?”

“Quite.”

“I'll 'moose pretty soon. Promise, chief. Gimmee.”

“Eh? Oh.” Eric had held out his arms for BabyJon and a bemused Sinclair handed him over. “Carry on.”

“And on, and on! Sorry, but I'm giddy—it's so
nifty
being bigger and older than this guy for a change.” He scooped BabyJon close and held him with careless confidence, then brought him within nuzzling distance. “Yes it is. Yes it is!”

BabyJon had been eyeing the older boy with fuzzy bemusement, which turned into giggles as the kitchen filled with the “bbbblllllzzzzztttt!” of a raspberry to the belly.

Sinclair was lingering, which was odd. Not that he had anything against homey family scenes, but he had a houseful
of werewolves to worry about, and the press outside. And an assembly of vampires was on the way. And other stuff he said.

“I don't suppose you would care to enlighten—”

Eric cocked a dark brow at the king of the vampires. “You know the rules, O chieftain my chieftain. Sorry.”

“Mmmm.”

The rules. The twins had made it plain that they wouldn't give us any hints about our (possible) future. For one thing, there was no guarantee they were right. Who was to say the past they remembered had anything to do with
this
timeline? For another, even if they were right, giving us foreknowledge of events might affect how those events unfolded. For a third, ow, it all made my brain throb.

Fred got up to go with my husband—apparently she wanted to meet werewolves,
yawn
—and Sinclair departed in the closest thing to a snit I'd seen in a while; unlike me, he
loathed
not knowing everything all the time about every situation. When I'd tease him about his inner (and outer) control freak, he'd smile and say, “Is such behavior not the reason I was able to survive two lifetimes before meeting you?” Well, jeez, when you put it that way . . . Me, I figured that mind-set was a setup for a daily nosebleed at the very least.

But that didn't mean I couldn't relate.

“So,” Eric the younger was saying. He'd looked outside and observed the weather, then glanced at the calendar on the fridge. “The 'rents have moved on for a bit.”

'Rents? Oh—Dick and Jess. For a bit? So they'd come back?

I'd hoped/suspected they would. Every iteration of the twins who showed up knew the mansion and everyone in it. Knew where the glasses were, the spoons, knew who everyone was all the time, teased Tina about her absurd vodka collection, complimented my shoes, were respectful and sweet to Sinclair, and Marc was apparently some kind of super-uncle
in their eyes. When Jess and Dick had moved out a few weeks ago, even then part of me knew that one way or the other, they'd return. Maybe not this year, or next. But they'd be back, would raise their children here. Knowing that had been one of the reasons I'd been able to let my friends go.

“I think it will be fine,” the boy said carefully, and I appreciated his effort.

“Yep, I think so, too.” Y'know, eventually. Probably. Good thing there weren't any rules about me telling
him
stuff. I couldn't see the harm in confirming what he'd deduced . . . or remembered.

“It'll work out, Onnie Betsy,” he said, and his eyes were his mother's—dark and kind.

“Well, I hope so. Your mom hasn't said much, but I feel bad that your dad had to quit his job because of all this.”

“Oh. That. Don't fret, li'l fretter.”

“I'm thirty-some years older than you are,” I reminded the whippersnapper.

“And an inch shorter . . . so far. I'll
tower
over you, ha!”

“You're barely cute when you sneer like that.” This was a total lie.
Little jerk.

He shrugged off my objective criticism of his shit-eating grin. “Not to worry, Onnie. One way or the other, Dad's always fuzzy.”

“That's a load off.” Always fuzzy? What, like a grooming thing? Gross. Didn't I have enough to worry about? Now I had to picture Dick's intimate landscaping needs?

“And you're gonna be fine, too, little big brother.” Eric pretended to nibble on BabyJon's fingers, which the baby thought was just the best game ever.

“Hope so.” I sighed. “He's one in a sea of weirdos. At best, he'll
only
be lost in the crowd. Which sucks. At worst? Doesn't bear thinking about.”

Eric laughed at me, but he had such natural charisma it didn't make me want to punch him in the throat. “BabyJon is the
only
one you don't have to worry about. You'll come to harm before he does.”

“That's a nice thought.” Wait, was it? Yeah. Yeah, better me than him, definitely. “But I worry about everyone. You, your sister, your folks, Sinclair, Tina, Marc. Even—”

“Laura and your father.”

Whoa. Did he know them, in his timeline? Were they alive? Were we in touch?

Had I killed them?

“Well. Yeah, them, too.” And I could never admit it out loud. The whippersnapper was wise and cute! “And sometimes myself even.”

“Just remember when things seem like an enormo pile of tiger droppings: BabyJon's the last one you need to obsess over.”

“Isn't this cheating?” I asked tentatively. “Not that I mind. But the rules you guys set in place—”

“Telling you is safe enough,” he assured me. He was so nice! The girls and/or boys must go nuts over him in his timeline. “You're not known for your memory retention.”

Nice, and also awful. “That's one way to put it.”

“No need to perspire over it, Onnie; it works for you. You're the only person in the world who has somehow turned a case of the stupids into a superpower.”

“Chronic stupids,” I agreed glumly. Then: “You little prick.”

He laughed at me, and before I could come up with something appropriately devastating, the kitchen door swung open and there was Derik, the blond werewolf obsessed with lettuce who looked like an escapee from the pages of
Martha Stewart Living: Kickass Gourmets.

“Hey,” I said, because I had to say something. “Welcome back.”
I guess.

He didn't reply. He wasn't even looking at me. He'd stopped still and was staring at Eric.

I forced a cough. “Helloooooo?” It's not that I needed the queen kudos. I hated the bowing, in fact, and the “Your Majesty” this and “dread queen” that, had put as much a stop to all of it as I could (though some of the oldies, like Lawrence, persisted). But returning my greeting would be nice.

By way of response, Derik scraped his hands through his short blond hair so it was standing up in spikes. He definitely seemed like he had something on his mind, and it wasn't me. Good thing or bad thing?

He cleared his throat and managed a faint, “Hello?” Again: not looking at me. Or talking to me. Or responding to me in any way.