Undead and Unworthy (5 page)

Mississippi River (on two separate occasions!). It always showed up wherever I was.

Fucking creepy thing that I didn't dare read and couldn't get rid of.

Or tell Sinclair I knew he was reading it. How could I bring that up without mentioning

Jessica's cure, or what I did to Marjorie?

And don't even get me started on what I did to the Ant and my dad. I'd wished for a baby,

and I got one – because they had been killed. It wasn't my fault, it was a Monkey's Paw

situation. I'd been wearing a cursed engagement ring at the time. One gruesome car

accident later, and I was the sole guardian of my half brother, BabyJon.

Thank God he'd been spending the weekend with the devil's daughter and didn't get ripped

to pieces by the Fiends!

(I can't believe I just said that. This, this is what my life had become.)

What was worse, that my distant dad and bitchy stepmother were dead, or that I didn't feel

too broken up about it? Let's face it, he'd never been there for me, and she was a stiff-

haired nightmare.

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) Who, last I checked, had been
haunting
me. Maybe I'd get lucky – maybe instead of an

actual ghost, that vision of her was just a hallucination, the onset of permanent brain

damage.

I sighed as we pulled into the driveway.
I should be so lucky,
I told myself.

"This is an inopportune time," my husband pointed out as I knocked on the door at 1001

Tyler Street, a small, neatly kept gray and white house.

"No shit," I muttered. The mansion had been trashed; it was the next evening, and Jessica had called in an army of fixer-uppers. Even now, after sunset, they were still working on

the house. No sign of the Fiends, and Tina had promised to get Marc and Jess into the

tunnel at the first sign of trouble. She even thoughtfully provided flashlights by the

entrance to the mansion basement. Even better: Marc's ankle was much better. No break,

thank God.

"Then why are we here?" Sinclair asked, looking around the tidy suburban neighborhood.

Inver Grove Heights was famous for their tidy suburban neighborhoods.

"Because he's been incarcerated for months, and this is the first time I've seen him since I

got married."

"And... ?"

"I want my bigoted, angry, dying grandfather to meet my dead husband. Now slap on a

smile and feel the family joy!"

Sinclair managed a friendly grimace, as the lady who ran the hospice ushered us in. It

wasn't really a hospice; she was a registered nurse who owned the house, and she had

three patients, including my grandpa. She could give meds and change dressings, and

knew when to haul in an MD.

In return she made a reasonable living and managed not to smother my grandpa with a

pillow. For their part, they were living in an actual home and not dying in an impersonal

hospital ward.

"Get lost," my beloved maternal relative said warmly.

"Hi, Grandpa. Just dropped by – "

"Did you bring me a Bud?"

" – to say hi and tell you I got married."

He squinted at me with watery blue eyes. His hair was lush and entirely white – it thrived

on Budweiser. His eyebrows looked like angry albino caterpillars. He was in his

wheelchair by the window, dressed in sweatpants and a blue checked flannel shirt, feet

sock-less in the heel-less slippers.

He didn't need a wheelchair, but Mr. Mueller in the next room had one, and my grandpa

broke every plate he could find until Nurse Jenkins relented and ordered one for him.

Mueller also had a colostomy bag, but my grandpa graciously decided not to go after that

as well.

Next to the Ant, and maybe the devil, he was the most evil person I'd ever known. Come

to think of it, most of the male influences I'd had growing up had either been –

"Your mom still fat?"

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"She's at the perfect weight for her height and age, you bony smelly man!" I snapped.

Great, a new record. I'd been in the same room with him for eight seconds, and already I

was screaming. "It's a miracle she isn't a sociopath, raised by a rotten old man like you!"

"Hello," Sinclair said. "I'm Eric Sinclair, Elizabeth's husband."

Gramps scowled at the vampire king. "You look part Indian. You got any Injun in you,

boy?"

"It's possible," Sinclair said mildly, as I moaned and chewed on a throw pillow. "I never knew my biological father."

I spit out some feathers and stared at him. "You never knew your father?"

"He could be part black!" my darling, dying relative howled. "He could be – he could be Catholic!"

"I believe I may be Californian," Sinclair added helpfully.

"
Anyway,
I got married, this is the guy, nice to see you again, don't drop dead anytime soon, because I couldn't handle another funeral this year, good-bye."

"Yup," Grandpa said, smacking his teeth (he still had them all... a chronic drinker and

smoker with gorgeous hair and perfect teeth). "Hope that witch is having a good time

screwing the devil in Hell."

"I don't think the devil swings that way," I said truthfully. I had finally remembered the one reason I hadn't wrung the old buzzard's neck twenty years ago.

Sinclair cleared his throat. I prayed he wasn't eyeing my grandpa and trying to figure out

which one of the two of them was older. "Oh, you knew the, ah, late Mrs. Taylor?"

"Knew her? Beat the shit out of her."

"How sweet."

"Twat stole my girl's husband." A cat wandered near, and Grandpa kicked it away,

sending his slipper flying. Sinclair snatched it out of the air and courteously handed it

back. "She had to go down."

"Go... down?"

"Fistfight. The Halloween I was fifteen. The cops came," I sighed reminiscently, "and everything."

"Bitch went to her grave with fewer teeth than I have," my warm, friendly grandfather

cackled.

"You engaged in a physical fight with a woman?"

"Slut should have kept her legs closed round a married man. 'Course," he added, looking

at me, "your father always was a worthless bastard."

"As I recall, he got a fist in the face that night as well."

"And woulda got a boot in the ass! If the cops hadn't cuffed me by then."

"The arresting officer gave me a Charms Blo-Pop," I reminisced, "and took me over to stay with my mom. She got to read the police report." I stooped and kissed his wrinkled

forehead. And handed him the Cub grocery bag, which was full of cans of Bud.

"Who's here?" I asked, yawning as I strolled into the kitchen. Sinclair, once done laughing, had been in a rush to get back to the manse, for which I could not blame him. He'd snuck

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) into the library to read the Book of the Dead, and I'd come to the kitchen to pretend I

didn't know, and also for a smoothie.

"Here, what?
Here
here?" Marc was yawning, too, and scratching his ribs; he smelled like cotton balls, antiseptic, and was wearing last night's scrubs. His hair, shaved nearly bald

when I met him, was now shoulder length, dark, and fell into his eyes a lot. It was a

wonder how he examined anyone at the hospital. "I hate your creepy vampire

superpowers."

"Liar."

"It's Nick," Jessica announced, shutting the fridge and turning around, a pomegranate (a pomegranate! She ate 'em like oranges, I swear to God) in her left hand.

"Oh."

I'd probably better leave. I had recently discovered that Detective Nick Berry, who was in

love with my best friend, hated me. And not "hate" like "I hate boogers." Hated me like plague. Hated me like famine. The fact that I deserved it didn't make things any easier.

"You guys have a date?"

"No," she said cryptically, which made me want to strangle her. When Jess didn't want to cough up, you could stick a gun in her ear, and she'd laugh at you. Must be from growing

up rich. Sinclair was the same way. Stick a gun in
my
ear, and I'd talk until your pants fell down.

Then: "How's your grandpa?"

"Still worried that your blackness will infect me."

"That's the plan. First you, then all the other blondes, and then on to brunettes and

redheads. Once we have the womenfolk, all the babies will come out black, too. We all

voted on the plan at the last Black Conspirators meeting." Ignoring Marc's choking, she

added, "Bet Sinclair had a good laugh."

"To put it mildly. He was all soft and nostalgic at first, talking about how it was nice to

have live in-laws, but my grandpa wiped the smile off his face soon enough. But never

mind that. What's Nick doing here?"

"Meh," the Cryptic One replied.

"He's a carpenter by night? Not that we need one anymore; that gang you hired did a

pretty good job." And they did. Except for the smell of sawned wood and fresh paint,

you'd think nothing had happened.

"Yeah, thanks, Jessica. What do we owe you?" Now that I was married to a rich guy, I

could say something like that and not have Jessica burst into derisive laughter. But as

usual she just waved a hand: don't worry about it. I was so used to her money I hardly

noticed it was there. Shit,
she
hardly knew it was there. But she was never obnoxious

about it, seeing it as something permanent and unchangeable, like her skin color and taste

in music.

"So," I continued, "not to go on and on about something – "

"You?" Marc asked.

"Never," Jessica declared.

I scowled at them both. "What
is
Nick doing here?"

"What do you care?" Marc asked, plucking an apple out of the basket on the counter and

taking a wet bite. "He'd rather see you dead than in last year's Blahniks."

I shuddered and wiped masticated apple off my cheek. "That was mean. Even for you."

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"Obviously," Marc continued, shaking his hair out of his eyes (and into Jessica's

pomegranate), "he and the richest woman in the state – "

"Richest
person,
" Jessica corrected gently.

" – have a hot sloppy date. FYI, girlfriend, you're aware he's using you for your money,

right?"

"His grandpa was one of the Deeres."

We gaped at her. This was a tidbit we hadn't heard before.

"Shut...
up!
" Marc nearly screamed.

"Nuh-uh." Jessica popped another pomegranate seed into her mouth and tried not to look

smug. She sucked at it, as usual.

"As in the John Deere tractor company?" I advanced cautiously. (As in, anyone who

wanted a tractor, trailer, thresher, or combine usually bought 'em from the John Deere

Company.)

"Yup. He's got money falling out of his butt."

"Yum," Marc said absently.

I tried to speak for a couple of seconds and finally choked out, "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Why would I? What difference does it make if he's got a seven figure trust fund?"

"Well, it certainly makes him a more attractive man," Marc blurted before he could stop

himself. "Also, money makes a guy's dick huge."

"Go fuck yourself," she said congenially enough.

"If only I could," he mourned. "It'd be the only way I'd get any, that's for sure."

The thing is, as exasperated as Marc and I were to be the last ones in on this incredibly

juicy gossip (me more than him, probably, I mean, we
were
best friends), Jessica really

meant what she said. She wouldn't know what difference it made, and wouldn't care.

It occurred to me that Sinclair had probably found this out ages ago and had also

neglected to tell me. Must be a rich guy thing. Excuse me. Rich
person.
Not to mention,

definitely the week for me to find out shit I should already have known.

"I'll get the door," I said gloomily, because I knew neither of them could hear Nick coming up the walk, and also because I decided the quickest way to find out why he was here was

to let him in. As I started to leave the kitchen I nearly ran into my husband.

"I'm getting the door," I explained, trying to sidestep him.

He resisted, which made it like trying to sidestep a barn. "I'll accompany you."

I stared up at him. He must have died clean shaven. At least, I never saw him shaving, and

there weren't any shaving – what was the word? accoutrements? – in his bathroom. God,

he was gorgeous. Gorgeous and distant, like the sunrise he could never see. There were

times I looked into that perfect, impassive face and wondered what he was thinking.

Sometimes I was truly mystified: Out of all the vampires in all the world, why'd he want

me?

We were still sidestepping each other in the hallway. "Why d'you want to come with me?"

"I'm unable to be outside of the goddess-like presence that is you?"

I heard Marc making vomiting noises as the kitchen door swung shut behind us. "No,

seriously." Except with Sinclair, I never knew when he
was
serious.

"I miss you, and I want to be with you?"

"Come on."

"I am coming," he said, falling into step behind me.

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"Yeah, this stopped being cute about five seconds ago."