Undead and Unreturnable (3 page)
I brushed some of his dark hair off his forehead, tried not to stare longingly into his black eyes, let my hand wander down to his lapel, and finally tore my gaze back to the table. In half a second, my good mood evaporated like the Ant's taste at a sample sale.
"What the
hell
is
that
doing here?"
"Darling, your grip—" He put his hand on my wrist and gently disengaged me, because I'd twisted the cloth of his lapel in my fist and, knowing him, he was less worried about the damage to his windpipe than ruining the line of his clothing.
"Don't get upset," Tina began.
"
Ahhh
!
Ahhh
!" I
ahhh'd
, pointing.
"The UPS man brought it," she continued.
Jessica and I stared at her.
"No, really," she said.
"The UPS guy brought
that
?" Jessica squeaked, also pointing at the Book of the Dead.
"And a box from your mother," Tina added helpfully.
"Christ, I'd hate to see what's in the other box!"
"I thought we—" Jessica glanced at Sinclair, who was as smooth-faced as ever, though his black eyes were gleaming in a way that made the hair on my arms want to leave. "I thought it was gone for good."
"Shit, shit, shit," I muttered. It was open—open!—and I slammed it closed. "Shit! Don't look at it. Shit! Why were you looking at it?"
"Oh, well, the best-laid plans and all of that." Sinclair smiled, but he didn't look especially happy. "Better luck next time, and by that I mean, don't you
dare
try it again."
Long story short: I'd read the Book of the Dead around Halloween and had gone nuts for a while. Really nuts. Biting and hurting my friends nuts. Even now, three months later, I was still so desperately ashamed of how I'd acted, I could hardly think about it. I had punished myself by wearing Kmart sneakers for a month, but even that didn't seem to strike the right note of penitence.
The up side was, now I could rise from my deep, dark slumber in the late afternoon, instead of being conked from dawn to dusk. But it wasn't enough of a trade-off for me, and I'd thrown the Book into the
Sinclair had been coldly furious, and Tina hadn't been especially happy with me, either. Historical document, priceless beyond rubies, invaluable soothsaying tool, blah-blah. He hadn't shut me out of his bed, but the entire time we were having sex that night, he never stopped with the lecturing. And in his head (I can read his mind, though he doesn't know that—yet), he was pissed. It had been a new kind of awful. But at the time, I thought it was a small price to pay to be rid of it.
And now it was back.
"Shit," I said again, because for the life of me, I couldn't think of anything else.
"Well," Jessica said, staring at the Book, "I have some good news."
"This is a really good fake?"
"No. I've just finished my last crochet class. Now I can teach George another stitch."
"Oh." I managed to tear my gaze from the Book. "Well, that is good news. That's—really good."
"How was your grave?" Tina asked politely.
"Don't change the subject."
"But it's so tempting."
"What are we going to do with
that
?"
"Jessica already changed the subject. And I thought we'd put it back in the library."
"Where it belongs, and should never have been taken from in the first place," Sinclair added silkily.
"Hey, my house, my library, my book."
"Hardly," he
snitted
.
"Besides, it's
our
house," Jessica said, which was kind, because she paid the mortgage. Sinclair paid a pittance in rent, and I didn't pay anything. We'd used the proceeds from the sale of my old, termite-ridden place to put a partial down payment on the mansion.
"It's dangerous," I said, which was futile because I knew when I was beat.
"It's a tool. Like any tool, it depends on how you use it." Sinclair started to get up. "I'll remove it to the library."
"
Nuh
-uh." I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed. It was like trying to budge a boulder. "C'mon,
siddown
already. I'll put it in the library. I promise not to pitch it into the river on the way."
After a long moment, he sat. I awkwardly scooped up the Book (it was about two feet long, a foot wide, and six inches thick) and shuddered; it was warm. The vampire bible, bound in human skin, written in blood, and full of prophecies that were never wrong. Trouble was, if you read the thing too long, it drove you nuts. Not "I'm having a bad day and feel bitchy" nuts, or PMS nuts. "I think I'll commit felony assault on my friends and rape my boyfriend" nuts.
"I'm going to the basement," Jessica said after the long silence. "I'm going to show George the new stitch."
"Wait," I grunted, hefting the Book.
"C'mon, I want to show him now, so he can practice."
"I said wait, dork. You're not supposed to be alone with him, remember?"
"He's never hurt me. He's never even looked in my direction. Not since you keep him full of your icky queen blood."
"Nevertheless," Sinclair said, free of the Book and now picking up the
Wall Street Journal
, "you are not to be alone with him, Jessica. Ever."
She scowled, but she was scowling at the paper, which was now in front of Sinclair's face. I almost laughed. Dismissed. He did it to me all the time.
"Let me dump this thing in the
libe
," I said, staggering toward the door—it was hard to carry something and not gag at the same time—"and I'll be right with you. Anything's better than this."
"That's a bold statement," Tina observed, stirring her coffee. "Especially since you've recently been to your stepmother's."
"
Har
," I said, and made my way toward the library.
"Well!" I said brightly, descending the stairs. "That was about the most disgusting thing ever."
"And you drink blood every week."
"Ugh, don't remind me. George? Honey, you up?"
We went to the other end of the basement (the place was huge; it ran the length of the mansion and, among other things, we'd had decapitated bodies down there as well as a body butter party) and found George in his room, busily crocheting another endless yarn link. Sky blue, this time.
He looked up alertly when we walked into his room and then went back to his crocheting. The scary thing about George was how normal he was starting to look.
He was tall and lean, with a swimmer's build, shoulder-length golden brown hair, and dark brown eyes. When he'd been more feral, it was tough to see the man under all the mud. Now that he was on a steady diet of my blood, it was hard to see the feral vampire under the man.
He was too thin, but he had the best butt I'd ever seen, never mind that my heart belonged to Sinclair (and his butt). His eyes were the color of wet mud, and occasionally a flash of his intelligence gleamed out at me. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
He seemed only to like me, which was fair, because I was the only one who hadn't wanted to stake him and his fellow Fiends. The others were at a mansion in
I wasn't really sure what to do about the Fiends, thus my great and all-encompassing "live and let die" policy. The
asshat
who used to run the vampires was a big experiment fan—you know, like the Nazis. And one of his favorite things to do was starve newly risen vampires.
Thus, the Fiends: feral, inhuman, and not so great with the vocalizing. Or the walking. Or the—anyway. They were monsters, but it wasn't their fault… the
real
monster had gotten to them first.
All I could do was try to look out for them… and keep George amused. Unlike the others, George liked to drink my blood every couple days or so. Unlike the others, George was walking.
It was very strange.
"Check it out, baby," Jessica said, bringing out a crochet hook of her own and showing it to him. Then she glanced at me. "Uh, he's eaten this week, right?"
"Unfortunately, yes." I glared at my wrist, which had already healed over. I only liked sharing blood with Sinclair; the rest of it sort of
squicked
me out. And I only did it with Sinclair during, um, intimate moments.
Sad to say, my blood (queen blood, sigh) was the only thing making George better. Three months ago, he was covered with mud, naked, howling at the moon, and eating the occasional rapist. Yarn work in my basement and consenting to red Jockeys was a big damn improvement.
"Like this," Jessica was saying, showing him what looked, to me, like an incredibly complicated stitch. But then, I'd tossed out my counted cross-stitch patterns at age sixteen after declaring them way too hard. Crocheting and knitting…
yurrgh
.
My mom tried to teach me to knit once, and it went like this: "Okay, I'll do it really slowly so you can follow." Then the needles flashed and she'd knitted half a scarf. That's about when I gave up on all crafts.
"And then…" Jess was murmuring, "through the loop… like this."
He hummed and took the yarn from her.
"What's next on the wedding agenda?"
"Um…" I shut my eyes and thought. My Sidekick was upstairs, but I knew most of the wedding details by heart. "Flowers. I'm still pushing for purple irises and yellow
alstromeria
lilies, and Sinclair is still pretending we're not getting married."
"What's the new date?"
"September 15."
Jessica frowned. "That's a Thursday."
I stared at her. "How do you know
that
?"
"Because it's the date my parents died, so I try to get out to the cemetery then. And I remember, last September was a Wednesday."
"Oh." We did not discuss Jessica's mother and father. Ever. "Well, what difference does it make? Like Sinclair cares? Like the other vampires do? Oh, what, we've all got to get up early for work the next morning?"
"How many times have you changed the date? Four?"
"Possibly," I said grudgingly. It had been, respectively, February 14 (I know, I know, and to give me credit, I
did
scrap the idea eventually), April 10, July 4, and now September 15.
"I don't understand why you don't just get it done, hon. You've wanted this how long? And Sinclair is agreeable and everything? I mean, what the hell?"