Undead and Unsure (20 page)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

“I’m in the hospital for three days and get home to find
you’re the codevil?”

“To be fair, you only needed to be in for two d—”

Her glare cut me off cold. “Did you squeeze two humans out of your body under conditions that can be best described as fucked up?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then I advise you to shut your undead piehole.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And so it began, the thing I’d been dreading since I came home from a long day of changing the timeline to find my best friend pregnant. The ‘you’re not a parent so you will never be able to know my torment/angst/pain/hilarity/agony/insanity’ thing. The irony was, I
should
have known. I was BabyJon’s parent, dammit. And now that I was going to help run Hell, what was that gonna do to our already-iffy mother/sister/brother/son relationship? Did I now have the power to implement Take Your Child to Hell day? Hmm. Maybe that wasn’t as nuts as it sounded.

“And Laura went along with that?”

“Laura was delighted to go along with that.” Laura was delighted about everything. Me, not so much, but it wasn’t as though I’d been
sent
to Hell (like the millions of souls I’d now have partial dominion over). I’d volunteered. “It wasn’t a coup, Jess.”

“It’s pronounced ‘coo,’ like ‘your breathy coo made the Antichrist think running Hell with you was a great idea,’ not ‘coop,’ like ‘but you’ll end up turning it into a chicken coop of the damned.’”

“Thanks. Besides, it was a suggestion she was free to—”

“Yeah.” My friend, who looked a thousand times better than she had when I’d last seen her in her bedroom, let out an elegant snort. (I know. But she pulled it off!) “Like she’d turn you down after bitching about how awful she had it since her mama bit the big one? Also, are you gonna hold a funeral in Hell for the devil?”

“Nooooo. Maybe?” I was appalled and didn’t bother hiding it. “I never thought of that. Please don’t suggest that when Laura comes over for supper.”

“When’s that?”

“Tonight. Sinclair’s picking her up at the church in Hastings.”

Jess shook her head. She’d been going back and forth between her room and the nursery, the bedroom next door she was converting for her purpose. The babies were asleep in their cocradles downstairs in the kitchen. Fur and Burr were also in the kitchen; they’d frisked about the cradles, ate their weight in puppy kibble, then collapsed into puppy food comas. Tina was keeping an eye on all four of them while running a spreadsheet, God help that poor bitch.

Jessica, ever practical, had wanted to hire a nanny. Tina, ever practical, had suggested that with the varied sleep schedules of so many in the house, hiring a nanny was unnecessary at best and a potential security risk/headache/lawsuit at worst.

It also helped that Not-Nick told (
told
, mind you) the Minneapolis Police Department that he was taking six months of paternity leave. They reminded him it would have to be unpaid. He reminded them that he was rich and his wife was richer. They congratulated him on the marital
coup
(apparently you don’t pronounce the
p
) and on the twins.

“Your hub really likes that church.”

I had to smile. “After all this time I think he’d like any church. But apparently First Pres burned down in 1907 and his grandpa raised the money to fix it.”

“That’s so cute.” She’d been folding baby clothes and had stacks of them all over her bed, which had been made with clean sheets. I assumed the old ones had been burned, or shot into space. I also assumed “so cute” had applied to my husband, but since she said it to a pea green onesie, it could go either way. “What’d he say about you running Hell?”

“The usual ‘if you want to work outside the home I’ll support your decision’ stuff. Which is an improvement over a couple of years ago.” Before we were married, he’d actually stomped through Macy’s and forbidden me to work. I’d laughed so hard I almost fell down. “But he knows I’m going to be coming to him for advice about every eight minutes, so that’s all right.”

“Speaking of jobs, has Dick talked to you about this shoe design website thing?”

I was startled and let it show. “He didn’t drop that? We were in my room a couple of days ago, before I went to hellfog in a handbasket, and he was saying I should get in the shoe-designing business.”

“He told me. He’s got this idea where people come to your website and pick out what kind of shoe—suede, patent leather—and style—pump, sandal, flat—and color and such, and your staff artists crank them out to order. You could run it on your vampire schedule.”

I couldn’t believe it. With all the insanity going on, with Jessica’s belly and the ensuing babies, he’d found time to look into his idea to help me cope with the loss of the genius Louboutin?

“Are you okay? You look like you just smelled something awful.”

“If you must know, I’m trying not to cry,” I said with what little dignity I could manage. “I can’t believe he’s been working on that.”

“He feels bad that Christian guy is
no más.
He’s been trying to think of how to cheer you up.”

“I’m just not used to him liking me.” It wasn’t the first time I’d had the thought that the addition of a well-adjusted Dick (heh) and a happy Jessica more than made up for the lack of Christian Louboutin, but it was the first time I’d had it and not felt like an utter traitor to my first love: designer shoes.

“We should have hired a nanny,” Jess replied, which made no sense. Another thing I dreaded about her impending mommyhood. Except since Naw and Other Naw were here, it wasn’t impending anymore. You could be having a perfectly normal conversation about Hell and former timeline boyfriends hating me, and the mommy in question wouldn’t be thinking about anything but her spawn. “We’ll need it.”

“I think Tina had a good point about everybody’s schedules—” I began.

She finished folding her thousandth onesie and looked at me over her shoulder. She’d magically shrunk; it looked like she would be one of those annoying moms who get their prebaby body back about a week and a half after giving birth. “Not for that,” she said. “But between the twins and BabyJon, we’re running an honest-to-God nursery here, a day care! And who knows what the future holds?”

“You probably meant that to sound hopeful, but it just sounds terrifying.”

She chuckled. “Now that’s too bad, Bets.” She started stacking piles of baby stuff. “Wait’ll they find out the new coruler of Hell has no imagination.”

“Not only that, I’ve seen too much. Also, I’m kind of hoping Laura’s gonna let me phone this in. With any luck, pretty soon someone will stage a
coop
and overthrow me.”

I made it out the door in time to hear a pile of li’l baby T-shirts patter against the door. Ha! Motherhood was slowing her down.

Then I heard the knob start to turn, and fled in terror. Maybe it wasn’t too soon to start winning the babies over to my side. We could form an alliance: Naw, Other Naw, and Betsy Taylor: vampire queen and co-overlord of Hell.

Things had come to quite a pass when this was my plan! Was it too soon to win them over with pureed peaches? How long was Jess planning on breast-feeding? I should probably read a book about babies or something. Maybe applesauce? I’d be their Fun Aunt Betsy!

Jessica had gotten me thinking, and I didn’t appreciate it at all. But she had a point, and it wasn’t a minute too soon to introduce them to BabyJon. He’d be the oldest, kind of their big brother. As they grew they’d form alliances against the adults in the house.
Survivor: Bad Babies! Outthink, Outlast, Outdrool.
Already I could see how Marc would always be the one to take their side, the softie parent. Sinclair and I’d have to be the disciplinarians, along with Jess. Not-Nick would be another softie. Tina would be what she’d been to Sinclair all his life, the kindly old auntie with spectacular legs.

If my mom was home, I could go pick up BabyJon right now! Filled with new purpose, I bounded down the stairs.

EPILOGUE

The minister, a charming, clear-eyed woman with wavy red
hair and green eyes, had welcomed me into the sanctuary with a warm smile. Ah, if my grandfather could have lived to see such a sight! Knowing the old bounder, he would have jettisoned my grandmother and wooed the lovely reverend to his side. He had made no secret of his unfashionable love for strong women, and no apologies.

“So nice to see you again, Mr. Sinclair.” This came as no surprise, as I had recently donated twenty thousand dollars. But I liked to think I would have gotten the smile and the welcome if I’d been a penitent, come to the Lord’s house in rags. The prodigal son, so to speak.

I had briefly explained my business: “I am meeting my sister-in-law here. May I await her upstairs?”

She said of course, of course, and now I thought about parables and waited for the Antichrist. It did not take long; the spawn of Satan was unfailingly punctual.

“Hello!” She greeted me with a big smile. She looked beautiful, as she always did, though why she settled for dungarees and a “Fairview Ridges Volunteer” T-shirt when dark slacks and a navy turtleneck would have set off her coloring to far greater effect was a puzzle. “I apologized to the reverend for how I’m dressed,” she whispered, shrugging out of her peacoat. “I didn’t think you’d be up here again.”

“I quite like it up here.”

“I can imagine.”

“You cannot.”

“I’m sorry?” Her eyes widened.

“You cannot imagine. Not any of it.”

“I don’t—”

“You cannot imagine being cut off from your Father for decades longer than you lived and scurried on the earth as a bug among bugs. You cannot imagine the life—of sorts—of desolation and hopelessness you lead after being denied the Kingdom of Heaven. You cannot imagine what it is to come to terms with the darkness and then meet someone who drives it out, someone to whom the light is so ingrained she
does not know how she does it.
And you cannot imagine what it is like to realize there are others just as powerful, others who will snatch that light out of your life to indulge a tantrum and then expect everyone to be chums when the tantrum has passed.”

She’d been staring, openmouthed, through my discourse, and when I had finished she raised an eyebrow and said, “So that’s how it is now, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m supposed to come home with you for dinner. Should I cancel?”

“Why?”

“Right, I almost forgot,” she muttered. She had retrieved her purse from the floor and was rummaging through it. “You’re one of those.”

“I see no reason why antagonists cannot share a meal. Not that I will eat, of course.”

“Of course. Don’t worry, I never forget you don’t eat. I keep it in mind all the time.”

“Lovely. Are you planning to tell the queen what you and your accursed mother have done?”

“Uh . . .” She had retrieved a Kleenex and wiped her nose. I did not flatter myself that I had moved her to penitent tears. It was cold outside; it was warm in the church. The Antichrist was as prone to a runny nose as any living mammal. “What have we done, exactly?”

“How you trapped her into agreeing to help you run Hell. Except that was never the plan, was it, Laura? Elizabeth is to run Hell alone. Leaving you free to do whatever it is unemployed Antichrists do.”

“Okay, I’d like you to explain that, please. Because I didn’t even know my mother was doing that until after she was dead. She left me some papers and—and things.”

“No doubt.”
And things?
I was suddenly consumed with curiosity. What things? Written things? Artifacts? Instructions? I made a mental note to ask my queen for a tour of Hell very soon.

“I didn’t get it at first,” she was explaining as if I would be moved by her distress. “I was upset, and scared, and it took me a while to figure it out.”

“Elaborate.”

“That she hadn’t ever been grooming me to take her place. She’d been grooming Betsy. Once I did figure it out, I could
see
it, you know?” She was as relaxed as I’d ever seen her, one denim-clad leg primly crossed over the other, her right arm resting along the back of the pew as she turned to face me. “Why would she have stuck me with a job she
hated? I don’t know if she loved me, but I know she liked me, and I know she wanted me to be happy.”

“Satan, a doting mother,” was my dry comment.

She shrugged off my sarcasm. I did not care for the changes I saw in her. I had expected her to be intimidated when I revealed what I had surmised. I had not expected the relief . . . or the self-confidence.

“I realized the last thing Mother would have done was stick me with the world’s first thankless job. And most enduring thankless job. So if not me, who? Who shared a bloodline with me, and so had the potential to go back and forth? Betsy. Who liked me, which was something my mother knew she could exploit? Betsy. And who did my mom never like, not this Betsy or other timeline Betsy or future Betsy? Who could she stick with it and also not care if that person got stuck with Hell?”

She waited, and I realized she was waiting for me to say my line. “Elizabeth, clearly.”

“Right! Okay, but how to even start to prep for the change of management? Offer Betsy things she wants. Who in the history of
anything
would be better at offering someone what they wanted so my mother could get what
she
wanted?”

“She had a gift,” I allowed.

“So when we went back in time, it wasn’t so I could learn how to control ’porting through the dimensions . . . or not entirely. But it gave Betsy an idea of how to use the ability, too. Because she watched me learn, she was able to pick it up much faster once I’d left her in Hell. And if I needed any proof that my mother’s plan was working, I had it when I found out about the silver shoes. I mean, come
on
! Silver slippers from
The Wizard of Oz
? Pure proof that Betsy’s already starting to bend the place to her will.”

“Yes, how clever.” She was still lovely, but I could have cheerfully stripped the skin from her face and fed it to her. My beloved, manipulated into—what had her Judas sister called it? The first, most thankless job ever?

“Once I figured out what my mom had really been up to the last couple of years, I knew what I could do to help her work—her last work!—along: dump Betsy in Hell so she could see what Mother’s death had stuck me with. And it worked. She saw and she offered to help me and now she thinks we’re going to be running it together.

“And I’m not such a fool—

Wrong.

“—that I think Betsy’s only in this to help me. She can see the potential as well as the harm in getting in on the ground floor. And it’s a terrific way for her to keep an eye on me. That’s the other thing she thinks would be an advantage.” Unspoken: she
thinks.

“Such a clever girl.”

She was studying me as if she’d never seen me before. I likely had the same look on my own face. “You’re not fooling me, you know. You’re sitting here in the pew with me and the sun’s shining through the windows, but you’re just as capable of ripping the reverend’s throat open and showering in her blood as you are of writing her a check. God’s grace doesn’t mean you’re incapable of the evil you’ve been perpetuating for the last hundred-some years.”

I made no comment, but wondered again what it was about me that made people think I was well into my next century. Perhaps Elizabeth had a point: I should dress younger. And perhaps she did not.

“It was a touching moment the other day. The prodigal son returned and all that. But you forgot about the other son.”

“Oh?”

“Sure. No surprise; you’re out of practice. The man had two sons, and the eldest—remember?—was the good one. He’d always done what his dad wanted, never gave him any trouble. And he had a
huge
problem with his little brother coming back after burning through their inheritance, coming back after pissing away all his money and cavorting with whores and basically being a real asshat—”

“I’m sorry,” I said, struggling to hide my mingled horror and amusement. “Did you say ‘asshat’?”

“Never mind! The point is, the little brother pulled all that crap and was
still
met with open arms. And fed fatted calf, too! ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’”

Ah. It was time for me to say more of my lines. “‘And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.”’”

“Right.” She sounded pleased. “You do remember. Well, my whole life, I’ve only tried to be good. Her whole life and yours, you
never
did. You never cared about anyone but yourselves. You know what that taught me? Being bad made her a queen; being good almost got me stuck with Hell. I’m done with it.”

“Ah.”

She waited, and I was childish enough to be glad to have disappointed her. “That’s it? Ah?”

“What else is there to say? You were a fool a year ago and you remain one still. You still believe people will not change.” I paused and shook my head. “Not quite right: you have
decided
you believe that to justify setting a trap for your sister, who only ever tried to help you. Congratulations: you fooled someone who loves you. A feat worthy of Machiavelli himself. Or any teenager.”

She was watching me through narrowed eyes. “I don’t expect you to take my side.”

“At last, you have said something intelligent.”

“And when you tell Betsy—”

“You know I will not tell the queen.”

More surprise.
I
was surprised . . . and gratified at how much I enjoyed that look. “I do?”

I looked at her, unblinking. “Tell the woman I love that her cherished sister tricked her into a job out of laziness
and
selfishness? Explain to my queen that she has been manipulated for years and, after dispatching the Adversary, the author of all sin, the deceiver and the destroyer, the father of murder and the liar from the beginning—after ridding the earth of your blight of a mother—her reward is a job her enemy died to escape rather than accept the consequence of starting the war in Heaven? Of course not, never in life could I crush her with that. As you must have known.”

She considered that and nodded. “Yeah. I did know.”

“I shall do something much worse.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” she said, trying for a jest and not . . . quite . . . getting there.

“It’s quite simple. I am going to let you have what you think you desire. My Elizabeth, your sister, the Adversary’s adversary, queen of the undead, will also be queen of the damned, if you’ll pardon the obvious Anne Rice reference.”

I stood and reached for my coat. Warm for Minnesota was still quite cold for a churchgoing vampire. “Elizabeth will rule Hell. And I shall do everything in my power to assist her.” I shook out my coat and slipped into it while Laura gazed up at me from her pew.

“Big surprise. Eric Sinclair sticking his fingers into the power pie.”

“Your analogy is almost as dreadful as your coat. I chose this spot so I could pray for you, as I did before you came, as I do now. May God pity you, Laura; may He shelter you from your most dread desire. May He save you from what you will bring to pass. You shall have what you want, and it shall be the end of you.”

I left. Places to go, people to stomp, as Elizabeth would say, and both were true of me.

Besides, it would never do to keep my queen waiting.