Undead and Unsure (19 page)

(I liked how even Not-Nick’s warm gratitude came out like a vague threat; it must be a cop thing.)

“Really, really good job,” I said. At first I’d been annoyed to get here in the middle of it. But now I saw how foolish that was. What if I’d gotten here earlier?
I
might be the one with Jessica up to my elbows! “Really, really great, good, excellent job. Nice work. Really. Just outstanding.”

“She’s right,” Jessica said, and it was only now that I could see how scared she’d been, too. Her face had that funny blotchy look it got when she’d been terrified but then realized things were going to work out. “You were great. Thank you for not eating my babies’ brains.”

Don’t laugh. This is a touching moment and she probably wasn’t making a joke. Don’t you dare laugh.

“You’re welcome,” he replied. “Thanks for not freaking out more about me having to deliver them.”

“No chance.”

Meanwhile, Tina sort of scooted Sinclair out of the way with her butt as she bent over so Jess could see Other Naw; it occurred to me I should do the same with her brother.

“What, no chance?” I asked, showing Jess her second-born. He’d warmed up and depurpled, and was now sound asleep. Lazybones I and Lazybones II, that’s what they oughta name them.

She put her hand on the top of Naw’s tiny head, took her hand away, kissed her first two fingers, and put the hand back. The gesture—so tender and so unconscious; she didn’t think about it, she just did it—brought a lump to my throat. I had to look away before I made a bigger fool of myself than usual.

“Like I said: no chance.” She reached up and Tina gently handed Other Naw down, towel and all. Jessica snuggled her daughter for a second, then turned back to me. “Okay, yeah. I was nervous about Marc being around if I went into labor at home, and I thought about making a fuss and we even talked about moving out.” Not-Nick nodded, startling me. She’d never said a word. And Marc was suddenly very busy peeling off gloves and trying to clean up. He wanted to be long gone before the EMTs got up here; we’d have to think about just what to tell them. But first I wanted to hear this. “But then I remembered every single movie and TV show where someone’s pregnant. They always go into labor when it’s least convenient or safe or fun. Friggin’
always.
”

I nodded. She was dead-on. You could almost set your watch by it.

“So I figured with all the paranormal nonsense in our lives the last couple of years, wherever I was, whatever I was doing, something would happen so that Marc would be the only one to help me. My plans would be for shit. So when the babies started coming super fast I was scared, but not—you know—
surprised
.”

Tina cleared her throat. “As there has been a happy outcome, it might be time to confess I also have been running obstetrical errands for Dr. Spangler.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I confessed.

“OB books,” he explained. “Figured I better study up. Just in case. Because, yeah.
Every
TV show.
Every
movie. Tina’s been helping me track down the stuff I needed to bone up on.”

That must have been when he started making her cozy nests in his trunk as they drove around the Twin Cities on the hunt for OB books, and probably solving mysteries on the side. It was like a Pixar flick. A vampire and her zombie! A zombie and his vampire! Egad.

I felt Sinclair’s gaze and looked up. And for a few seconds the chaos and blood and sweat and stress and relieved tension went away; for a few seconds the only thing I could see was him.

My own, my own, how I wish I could have you in my arms at this moment.

Yeah, sure, now all of a sudden you’re glad I’m here? You haven’t said two words since I walked in.

Dreadful neglect and I should be shamed to dare hope you still cherish me as I do you. And I would show you just now, would stride across the room and make you mine in front of all, but I doubt I will be able to break Jessica’s grip. I am her prisoner until she releases me. It makes you all the more beautiful to me, since you are as yet unattainable.

I started laughing; I couldn’t help it. Yeah, I was piqued that they hadn’t been worried about me, and it was annoying that the annoying babies were here to begin stealing my thunder annoyingly early, but the babies were cute and, even better, okay. (And much less purple!) And my family was okay. And I was okay.

Asking for anything past that was just greedy.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

After love, I flopped over on my back. “Now I have to call
Laura and get her to come over, or meet me somewhere, because she’s got her Big Girl Apartment and won’t tell me where it is.”

“One-three-one-one West One Hundred Forty-third Street, Burnsville, Minnesota.” At my astonished silence, he reeled off, “Five-five-three-zero-six.”

“You suck!” I jerked the roll pillow out from behind me and smacked him with it. Right around the time he’d been raining kisses on my inner thighs, I vaguely remembered grabbing the small log-shaped pillow and shoving it into the small of my back, and then my brain blew up. Or something.

But now I was back in my body, ready to wreak havoc with crimson-colored and gold-tasseled throw pillows. “Wait, did you go sheet shopping while I was gone? I don’t recognize any of this linen. No, let’s get back to Laura—how’d you find out where she lived? Did she tell you on the way to church? Which, by the way, was gonna be our little secret for a while.”

“Circumstances,” was his dry reply, and I had to laugh. I was teasing him now, but the moment we were alone he’d shown me the despair and loneliness that had whirled through his brain the minute I left our dimension.

“The word of the week,” I agreed. “Spill!”

“On one of my walks I put a tracer on her car. Tina keeps track of your sister’s hithers and thithers. It’s how she knew Laura was at your mother’s.” I must have looked as surprised as I felt, because it was his turn to tease. “Why, my own, did you think all my fun in the sun was only about fun?”

“Kinda,” I admitted. So sneaky of Sinclair to be sneaky even when he wasn’t trying to be sneaky! That . . . that was the
definition
of sneaky. “I assumed your main objective was al fresco sex, sure.”

“And it was,” he replied sagely. “But there were occasionally other goals.”

I made a fist and thumped his chest. “And I meant it about church. I thought you wanted to keep that under your immaculate vest for a while.”

“And so I did.” He reached for me and drew me down beside him. I ran my hand up his ribs and snuggled into his side. “But I saw an opportunity to make a point without scaring or angering her. I must say, it was rather theatrical.” The badass king of the vampires giggled like a little boy pulling off a prank.

“I’ll bet.”
So
bummed I missed it. Sneaking off to church had been our little secret for days. Apparently back in the day, the Sinclair family was big on regular churchgoing. His church was a whole other community, a little town (townlet?) of people who looked out for each other and stuck together when shit went bad. I had no idea he’d missed it so much. So when he realized he could reclaim that part of his boyhood, he did, and I helped. It was wrong that it made us super horny, right? A morning of God-bless-us-everyone followed by outdoor sex, then drinking blood after the sun went down. Just your average big-city married couple. “And Laura didn’t need to be pressured into doing anything, so it worked out. How’d you know I’d figured out how to come back from the hellfog by myself?”

“I realize I only gave you a chance to recount ‘the CliffsNotes version’ before taking you to bed—”

“To dining room, actually, then to parlor sofa, then to stairs—ow, by the way—and then to bed, technically speaking.” After the ambulance had taken Not-Nick, Jessica, Naw, and Other Naw to the hospital for at minimum an overnight, Marc had disappeared to spend the next few hours cleaning up, and not just Jessica’s room (“Out, out, damned purple things and their spots!”), and Tina had likewise vamoosed, to do what I couldn’t bring myself to care. Which was about when my husband fell on me, with all that entailed.

“Always a stickler for the technical details, my love. But since you have not had sufficient time to recount what you endured, I must ask for a definition of ‘hellfog.’ But before that, what did you mean?”

Since parts of me were still numb, I was having trouble following the conversation. “Which time? About what?” Now I was stroking his abs: one, two, three, four, five—yep, a six-pack. A genuine six-pack! In elderly men, such things were mythological, like a horny unicorn.

“You wondered how I knew you could come home without Laura. I did not know.”

“So you dragged her to church to—what? Threaten her with more tithing if she didn’t produce me?”

“I had no plan,” my man-with-a-plan spouse admitted. “Laura had assured us you were safe and would shortly return. I believed her, and I cannot explain why.”

“She never lies,” I suggested. “That might be one reason.”

“She was so . . . despairing. Not because she grieves for the Morning Star, I think. Because she felt—feels—trapped. And for good reason. Now, don’t look like that, my queen. Of course you were quite right to kill the devil. But the consequence of that, as you knew, as you explained to me, is that it effectively trapped the Antichrist into taking that job. For the next million years, most likely.”

“Yeah.” I let my head flop back onto Sinclair’s biceps. I loved it when a man put his hands behind his head after love; I loved lying on biceps. I know. It’s odd; I can’t explain it. “Yeah, and I still have to figure out what to do about that. About her. Because nothing’s been solved, you know? She was pissed and she took me and I put up with Thing One and Thing Two and then figured out how to come home and the babies came. Stuff happened, but nothing’s been resolved.”

“The wisdom of a serpent, the gentleness of a dove.”

“The irritation of a wasp stinging my ass. Yeek!” I knocked his fingers away. “So I guess I’d better start by calling her. See if she’ll meet me somewhere so we can work this out.”

“She will.”

“Oh, you two are best friends now?”

“Hardly. But now she trusts me a bit, I think.”
The fool.

“Caught that one,” I said. “Be nice.”

No reply to
that
but a stubborn silence, and who could blame him?

“She’s young.” I could hardly believe I was making excuses for her. Being home, safe, was erasing my irritation. Which was dumb. But I was in such a sex haze of all’s well, it was hard to be mad at anyone for anything.

“She is,” he allowed. “And it is only slightly less absurd that
you
are commenting on anyone’s youth, never mind someone a bare ten years younger.”

“Hey, I’ve aged decades in wisdom over the last three or four years.” I yawned. We’d sucked. Then we’d fucked. And I was starting to think about round two. “Tell me again how much you missed me.”

Much better to show you, beloved.

The man had a point. And not just with his—

“Yeek!”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

Laura met me in the lobby of Burnsville’s Fairview Ridges
just before suppertime the next day. “This was perfect since I was already volunteering here this week,” she told me, adjusting the collar of her volunteer smock.

I groaned. “You’re the worst Antichrist ever.”

“They normally only let college students volunteer in the summer, but Mrs. Greeley said I did such a good job, I could come during the holiday break, too.”

I put my hand on my forehead like I was an undead psychic. “You’re majoring in religion with a minor in . . . let me see . . . social work. Right?”

“Not once I switch majors to philosophy,” she said with a dignified sniff.

“Thanks for setting me straight.” Ridges was pretty nice as hospitals went. Nobody was screaming, anyway. The place smelled more like flowers and less like antiseptic. Maybe that should be more worrying. Not to me, though; I always hated the sting-ey smell and since I had the nose of a thousand bloodhounds, places like hospitals made me
very
nervous. Give me a hospital more greenhouse than surgery drive-thru any day. I could hardly make out the blood over the poinsettias. “You want to go see Jess with me?”

“Already did,” she replied brightly. “The babies are
so
cute! She told me they’re keeping the three of them at least one more day, but you know it’s so they can pitch her for a donation to the new birth center. And Dick’s been running around handing out bubble-gum cigars!”

“Adorable. Walk with me.”

“You want to talk here?” She fell into step beside me, eyeing the other visitors meandering through the lobby and in and out of the hallways. “About . . . about stuff we need to talk about?”

“Safe as houses,” I assured her. “Most people here are too wrapped up in their own problems to care about what two random blondes are babbling about. The ones who aren’t—what are they gonna do? Grab a roving shrink and tell them two random blondes they’ve never seen before are talking about vampires and the devil and, jeepers, they were here just a minute ago so somebody should
do
something?
If
they could convince anyone and track us down—with who and for what I’ve got no idea—we’re not exactly gonna rush to corroborate their story. Also: nobody cares, Laura. I promise.”

She still looked doubtful, but shrugged and started walking through the lobby with me. “Are you thirsty? More than usual?”

“No worries. Stopped at Caribou and quaffed two large half white chocolate, half milk chocolate hot chocolates. I’m feeling a little sloshy inside, but I’m good for now.”

We walked in silence for a minute. I couldn’t speak for my sis, but I was basking, lizardlike, in the greenhouse effect. Big glass windows + winter sunshine = mmm, toasty. Sure, we were wrecking the planet, but at least we’d be warm. Laura broke my surprisingly contemplative silence with, “I’m glad you made it back okay.”

“That’s my cue to snap ‘no thanks to you, bee-yotch!’ except nobody says bee-yotch anymore, so I’ll just stick with ‘no thanks to you’ and that’ll be that.”

“Er . . . yeah.”

“Don’t bother.” She’d been peeking at my feet and I couldn’t help being amused. “The silver shoes disappeared between Naw and Other Naw showing up in the world. I’ve got no idea where they went—back to the hellfog, maybe.” Or maybe not. I was pretty sure I could make them appear just by thinking about them. And I was pretty sure that a few months from now, or weeks or days, I wouldn’t need them to go back and forth. But that was for me to know. For now, anyway.

“I hope you understand why I left you there. If I wanted you to truly understand, I didn’t have any choice but to—”

“Don’t!” I said it so sharply a few other visitors in the hall looked up. I did the patented Minnesota Nice Apologetic Head Dip and Shoulder Shrug, and they went back to their business, and I went back to mine. “I hate ‘I had no choice.’ D’you know why?” At Laura’s head shake, I continued. “It’s always a lie. Just because the choices other than the one you want to go with are
bad
doesn’t make them nonexistent. ‘I had no choice’ always,
always
translates to ‘I had two choices, but one sucked. So really, I had no choice. Except I did.’ So it’s fine that you decided to ditch me—okay, not fine, but you know what I mean—but at least own that. Don’t go with the anthem of the pathetic, ‘I had no choice.’ Because you absolutely did have a choice, every step of the way. You just didn’t like most of them.”

“All right. So. I chose to leave you there. And I hope you know I was never going to leave you there forever. But what I don’t understand—”

“Because this is all about answering
your
questions.” I heard the acid and decided to dial it back. If the point of our meeting was to show each other our claws, I could have done it over the phone or, even better, via bitchy e-mail. “Sorry. Go ahead.” Wow, for a second there it was like
I
didn’t have a choice! Except I did.

“Why didn’t you tell me your . . .”

She trailed off, and though it could have been any one of a dozen unfinished thoughts, I took a stab that it was the big reveal.

“Why didn’t I tell you Sinclair could go to church? Can sing Christmas carols?” Oh boy, could he. And as much as Sinclair loved church? He loved Christmas and everything about it a hundred times more. I’ve never had sex while my lover was singing “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” before. Erotically surreal doesn’t begin to cover it. “Can freely wander a mall without fearing his ears will implode from Christmas Muzak? Although that’s a risk everyone takes this time of year.”

“Yes! Why didn’t you? Why didn’t the both of you shout it from the rooftops? Betsy, that’s so huge!” She’d seized my arm in her excitement and—yow! The Antichrist needed a mani in the worst way. Long
and
unpolished
and
jagged. It was like being grabbed by a blond wolverine sporting a volunteer smock. “You should have seen him. No fear, and he was so—so happy to be there! I could see him bathing in the light of God’s love.”

“Okay.” Bathing? In love? Hyperbole much? Wait, was that right? Either way, she was happy for him and I was glad to see it. “The reason I didn’t tell you—didn’t tell anyone—is because Sinclair asked me not to. He wanted to keep it between us for a while. But I was bound to tell you sooner or later, because it kind of leads into my point about your mom wanting to die and how I’m kind of the victim again.”

She shook her head and, even better, removed her daggerlike nails from my arm’s tender underside. Ah! Ouchie! “I don’t understand.”

“Then here it is again. The devil granted me one wish. She didn’t do it because she was afraid of me and she didn’t do it to hurt me—it wasn’t a Monkey’s Paw kind of wish. Why would she do that if not to do something nice for someone who was going to give her what she wanted?”

Laura didn’t say anything.

“I didn’t even know what to ask for at first. It’s not like I lie awake in the morning trying to think of what I’d ask for if Satan granted me a wish. Plus, she gave me a
time
limit! That was soooo her. Anyway, after her insistence that I play beat the clock in Hell, I managed to come up with something. And it was a close call between getting something for Sinclair or bringing back my beloved Christian . . .” But I couldn’t talk about that without worrying about bawling in the Fairview hallways while the Antichrist patted my shoulder. “But I didn’t wish he could go outside and work on his tan. I wished he could bear the light.”

She frowned, thinking it over. “Any light? So even . . . the light of God’s love?”

“Ask the guy who plays Christmas carols in our bathroom now.” Not that vampires had much use for bathrooms. But I still liked to make sure my layered eye shadow looked as terrific as possible. And we showered together. Now we showered together while he belted out “All I really want for Christmas . . .” in his soapy baritone. I . . . I don’t understand why my life is like this now.

“But we were talking about wishes, and Satan, and how she’s dead now. I think we decided before my vacay in the hellfog that I wasn’t going to apologize for killing your mom.”

“Yes. And during your vacay I explained to the vampire king that I wouldn’t apologize for your vacay.”

“Now look at that! We’re agreeing on so much already.” I smiled, and I guess it wasn’t a very nice one because the corners of her mouth turned down. I reminded myself that I wasn’t here to score points.
If you’ve ever had to keep your mouth in park and your temper under control, it’s probably now. It’s also been other times. Learn, dammit! Learn from your thousands of mistakes!
“I thought you had some good points amid all the whining and shrillness.”

She snorted. “Sure you did.”

“About what’s fair and what’s not. I thought about it and you’re right. Your situation is unacceptable.” Oh boy. Was I gonna do it? The vague idea I’d formed between Thanksgiving 1.0 and 2.0, the notion that solidified in the hellfog, the thing that was about to come out of my mouth . . . I was about to change my life—again—and not just mine. Everyone’s life, and I wasn’t going to take a vote or pretend to be interested in what the others would think. “Totally unacceptable.”

“Thank you for that.” Laura grinned. “Did I get that out without whining or shrillness?”

“Yeah. Remember, practice makes perfect. Anyway, I’ll help you.”

Wow. I was—was I? Yep. I really was doing this. I’d have some explaining to do when I got home. I hadn’t told Sinclair what I was going to do, but he knew my mind and hadn’t tried to talk me out of it. He hadn’t insisted on coming with me, either. I’d like to credit that to the strength of our marriage, but I think it was more about the postcoital coma I’d left him in.

She groaned and covered her eyes. “And now you’re going to ruin it with one of your bitchy—yeah, that’s right, I said
bitchy
—one of your bitchy asides.”

“I’ll help you run Hell. I mean, take the hellfog and turn it back into Hell and then help you run Hell.”
I’m sorry. I made the mess. I’ve got to clean it up, no matter what it means for our marriage and our future and even our—groan—kingdom.
How could I always think of what to say when the person in question wasn’t anywhere near me? This, also, was something I probably shouldn’t spend a lot of time pondering.

“This!” More visitors were looking, and Laura didn’t care. “This is what I don’t like about you!”

“To be fair, there are lots of things you don’t like about me.”

“It’s all a joke. For you there’s a hilarious side to everything, and if not, you just hide behind your ignorance. ‘Hey, guys, I didn’t know better, can’t help being a moron and now I’m off to another midnight madness simple sale.’”

“Sample.”

“I know.”
She was screaming in the middle of a hospital, which is better than screaming in the middle of a library. I probably shouldn’t have blown off her suggestion that we talk about this somewhere else. “I was being sarcastic!”

“Okay, but you suck at it. Listen again: I’ll help you run Hell. Everything you said is right. I created the problem and it’s shitty to leave it in your lap while I traipse off to a simple sale.”

I glared around at the looky-loos until they fled in a restrained Minnesota Nice manner, which is to say they slowly turned and walked away while murmuring in low voices to themselves that we should be ashamed while not addressing our rudeness directly. I was distracted from their restrained fleeing by the Antichrist saying in a small voice, “It’s sample. Sample sales.”

“Right. Sorry. Thanks for correcting me.”

“If you’re joking I’ll—I’ll do something awful. Burn you or—or kill someone. Something. I’ll do something.”

“I know.” I reached out a hand and took one of hers, except it was a fist. So I patted her fist. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

Too little too late, I figured. Laura would see it as a half-assed Band-Aid when it should have been a full-on life support system. (My analogies had never sucked more.) But I could at least put it out there. Worst case, Laura would—actually, there were so many worst-case scenarios, so many hideous things Laura could do to me or mine, I couldn’t even think of them all. Which was too bad for me.

So I braced myself as best I could, but was still unprepared when one of the things I couldn’t think of happened: the Antichrist burst into tears.