Undead and Unreturnable (26 page)

"Yeah." I laughed evilly. "Sinclair's doing it for him. He'd better not fob it off on Tina, either. A history of the life and times of Grover Cleveland. Apparently Sinclair knew him." I laughed harder. The perfect punishment!

"You talk it out with Laura yet?"

"No." I quit laughing. "I don't know what to say without sounding like a jerk. I guess—I guess we're just hoping it was a slip. I mean, look who her mom is. She's bound to have a short temper. And it's not like the guy didn't have it coming."

"Is that what the party line is? He had it coming?"

"No," I almost snapped, "but it's the best I can do. I don't see Nick crying about it."

"Big-time promotion, probably," she admitted. "And that's what we're celebrating. The Task Force is just about done. Nick's going back to his everyday stuff. And the Driveway Killer's done. And the
Scomans
are going to have a great Christmas."

"Assuming she ever stops having nightmares."

"Your little ghost told you that? What a voyeur."

"I heard that!" Cathie said, and then popped back out, probably to nag (not that they could hear her) the guys putting up the tree. We were late with it this year, and out of deference to Sinclair and Tina, Jess, Marc, and I didn't join in the trimming festivities. It had been a big enough fight just letting Jessica order one and have it sent to the house.

Needless to say, those two would be avoiding the entire east wing of the house until after New Year's.

"Obviously, if she'd had to pick between her life and nightmares, it's an easy choice. Still, I wish we could have spared her the entire experience."

"Come on. You saved her. And the bad guy got his. And you're getting married! Probably."

"What?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure. And I'm finally getting laid."

"It's a Christmas miracle," I said with mock joy. "With devils and vampires and dead serial killers."

"It's just gotten so commercial," she agreed, touching up her lipstick. "Want to sneak down and put a cross on the tree later?"

"No, I'd better not. Poor things, they've already got the heebie-jeebies."

"Boy, there's a phrase I never thought would be associated with bad-ass vampires."

"Any kind of vampires. Anyway. We'll work on that for next year. If they're going to stay out of the room altogether, why
not
put a cross on the tree?"

She laughed and slung a black cashmere wrap over her bony shoulders. "Good point. Now, on a scale of one to ten, with one being ratty-ass you, and ten being
Halle
Berry
—"

"Nine point six. Definitely."

"What a liar you are, my girl." She kissed me, leaving an orange smear on my cheek, and floated out on a cloud of
Chanel
.

And I in my kerchief, and Ma in her cap
… that was all of it I knew, unfortunately. My mom could recite the whole thing by heart, all twenty verses or however many there were. Jess, Marc, Jon, and I were heading over there tomorrow night for Christmas Eve dinner. She'd tell it to me then.

I shut my—our—bedroom door behind me and saw Sinclair in a miserable huddle in the middle of the bed. "It's here now, isn't it?" he asked. "I can feel it. Draining the strength from me."

"Oh, jeez, you're such a baby! It's just a Christmas tree. It's not a nuclear device."

He shuddered. "You say tomato, I say
toe-
mah
-toe
."

"It's not even that big!" I held my hand up to my waist. "It's only like this big. We had to put most of the decorations back in the attic."

"It's going down the day after tomorrow, right?"

"It just went up! Oh, while I'm thinking of it, I don't suppose you want to go to you-know-what Eve dinner tomorrow with my mom."

He grimaced, like he smelled something bad. "Your mother is a charming woman in all ways, and normally I would be delighted."

"Thanks but no thanks, huh?"

"I am not leaving this house until the twenty-sixth."

"You guys. I swear."

"You will never understand, which is both boggling and frightening."

"Uh-huh. You're probably too freaked to get it up, am I right?"

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Not quite that freaked out."

"Thanks for not un-hypnotizing Jon," I said drowsily, much later.

His chest rumbled beneath my cheek as he laughed. "Which reminds me, my report on President Cleveland is nearly finished."

"Ha! Serves you right. Thanks."

"There is one small problem."

"About your report?"

"No. Something else, I'm afraid."

"There aren't any
small
problems, good-looking. Hit me."

"Tina and I have looked everywhere, deleted everything we could. But it appears Jon made a hard copy of the book before I reached him. He did something with it. We aren't sure what."

"Why do I hate where this is going?"

"And if I ask him, really get into his mind and ask him, it could jeopardize—"

"The footprints you've already left," I said glumly. "You think he turned it in to his
prof
already?"

"I… hope so. Because otherwise, a book-length manuscript about our lives has gone missing. And if your column catches on, someone could see it and…"

"Well… it'll probably turn up. He was doing it for school; it's not like he had some sinister motive or anything. Right? Sinclair? Right?"

"Probably." Which is as close as Mr.
Buzzkill
would ever get to admitting nothing would probably come of it.

"Catchy title, though," he said as we both felt the sun start to come up on Christmas Eve. "
Undead and Unwed
."

"That title sucks," I said, and then it was morning, and everything went dark, and I went wherever it is vampires go when they aren't Christmas shopping.