Undead and Unappreciated (10 page)

“…
A
nd then I graduated valedictorian at my school and got to give the speech to all the kids, and then I got a job volunteering at Goodwill, in addition to my jobs at Target and SuperAmerica, while I waited to start at the U in the fall.”

I stifled a yawn and shifted the phone to my other ear. If you’d ever told me the devil’s daughter would be nice, but dull…“Yeah, then what happened?”

“Well, that’s about it. I mean, I’m still in school. Nothing much has happened to me yet.”

Give it time, sweetie.

“What about you, what have you been doing? You’re—what? Twenty-five?”

I laughed. “Actually, I turned thirty in April. And I’ve had kind of a checkered career. Model, secretary, waitress…”

“And right now you own a nightclub?”

“Right now, yeah.” I’d just looked over the books the other night, in fact. We were definitely in the red—I was shocked at the price of booze, not to mention utilities—but so far I had been able to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. Without Jessica’s help, I couldn’t much longer. But it was hard enough to ask her for a loan when she
wasn’t
pissed and terrified. “I guess we’ll see how that goes.”

“So, tell me about my birth mother and father.”

That was the
last
thing I wanted to do. I downed my hot milk in a hurry and tried not to drop the phone. She’d called me about a minute after I’d woken up that afternoon. Three thirty in the afternoon, yippee! A new record. Maybe someday I’d manage to wake at lunchtime. “Uh, well…gee, so much to tell. Where to start. Ah…”

“Do you think I could meet them sometime? I wouldn’t want to push my way into their lives. I understand they gave me up because it was what they thought was best for me. I wouldn’t want to intrude or make them uncomfortable in any way.”

“Don’t forget, Dad didn’t even know you existed until after you were adopted.” Why had I said that? Did I want her to like Dad? Maybe I was so dreading telling her about the devil, I wanted her to have something nice to hold on to.

“That’s true, Betsy. And I know my mother was alone…poor thing, she must have been so worried when she found out. No one to turn to…maybe her minister was able to counsel her.”

Her minister, her bookie, whatever. “Yeah, the…poor thing.” Suddenly, a wonderful (or terrible) idea came to me. “Listen! Do you want to meet them both? This afternoon?” The shower started in…I checked my watch. Twenty minutes. Well, we’d be fashionably late.

Laura’s happy squeal was answer enough.

“She’s pregnant again?” Laura asked, staring at the Ant’s too-big-for-two-people house. “At her age?”

“She’s not that old, remember.” I checked my lipstick in the mirror. Next to Laura’s breathtaking, fresh beauty, I don’t know why I bothered.

She looked wonderful; her hair was in two golden braids today, the ends brushing the tops of her breasts, her bangs perfectly level with her eyebrows. She was wearing a clean white blouse (she must have a closet full of them) and a navy A-line skirt. No panty hose, and sensible black flats. Isaac Michener, good. The Target collection, bad. She looked like an extra on
Touched by an Angel
. And I felt like a before on
Nip/Tuck.

“I’m so excited!”

“Oh, she will be, too,” I lied. “Let’s go.”

We knocked politely but, since it was a party, opened the massive front door and went right in. The driveway was packed with cars, and I could hear the gabble of voices off to the right.

The Ant came hurrying out to greet us, the smile vanishing when she saw it was me. She glanced over my shoulder to the windows on either side of the door, confirming the sun was still up, looked back at me, looked out the window.

“Surprise!” I burbled.

“Congratulations,” Laura said.

The Ant swallowed her tongue and forced a grimace that I suppose was technically a smile. “Thank you for coming,” she managed. “Betsy, you know where to hang up your coats.”

Laura handed me her knee-length mustard-colored trench coat. (I know it sounds awful, but on her, it worked. She probably could have worn the kitchen curtains and it would have worked.) I slung it into the hall closet.

“Gifts…gifts can go in the living room. There’s a table.”

“We didn’t bring a present,” I informed her gleefully. “Just our bad old selves.”

“We have a gift,” Laura corrected me. Now that I’d relieved her of her coat, I saw she was holding a small box of Tiffany blue, with the standard white ribbon.

Relief washed over the Ant’s face; I could almost hear her thought: Not a total disaster after all! She practically snatched the present out of Laura’s hand and ripped the ribbon off. Inside was a sterling silver baby spoon.

“Why, this is—it’s very nice. Thank you, er—”

“Laura Goodman, ma’am. I’m a friend of Betsy’s.”

“Well, you might as well come in and have some cake,” she almost snapped. To Laura, she added warmly, “So nice
you
could come.”

Big surprise, Laura the Great had won over the second most evil creature in the universe. And where’d the present come from? She was a college student on scholarship; I doubted she kept a closetful of Tiffany baby gifts around.

Sixteen thousand years later, it was almost seven o’clock, and guests were pulling on their coats. Laura and the Ant were chatting like old pals—Laura seemed to think everything about her birth mother, from the bleached hair to the fuzzy pastel sweater to the knockoff pumps—was just swell. Me, I was ready to bite everybody in the room just for the relief of the screams. It was the usual collection of wannabe socialites and poseurs. Believe me, a bite on the neck would doing every one of them a favor. The fact that they all didn’t recognize me—or pretended not to—was one of the nicest things that had happened all week.

“Come by anytime,” the Ant told the devil’s daughter. She didn’t say anything to me, but her look spoke volumes.

“That was
great
!” Laura yammered on the way back to the car. “Wow, what a gorgeous house! And she’s so nice! And pretty, don’t you think she’s pretty? I wish I could have told her the truth—I feel so bad about lying. And to a pregnant lady!”

“You didn’t lie,” I said, wondering why there was never a pack of feral vampires around when you needed them. “We
are
friends. Just ones who haven’t known each other very long.”

“Oh, Betsy.” She slung an arm across my shoulders and gave me a one-armed hug. “You’re the greatest. Thank you so much for bringing me here today.”

“Umf,” I said, or something close to it. “Listen, can I ask you something?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“How’d you have a present all ready to go?”

“Oh, I bought that a long time ago,” she explained with awe-inspiring (yet slightly nauseating) earnestness. “I always knew I’d meet my birth mother someday. The spoon was actually for
me
—you know, like a gag gift. But it works even better to give it to my future brother or sister. Just think, I was an only child my whole life, and now I’ll have two siblings!”

“That’s super,” I said. I’d been half-hoping for an evil explanation but was yet again disappointed.

“Well, I have homework to do, so can I trouble you to take me back to my apartment?”

“Why? It’s still early.” And I had nothing to do. No one to go home to. Tina had given George a dozen balls of yarn—balls of yarn—and he was busy unrolling them and rerolling them when I left. Tina had stayed behind, amused, to watch him (at a prudent distance). Marc had work, as usual. Jessica was gone—her car was, anyway. Sinclair was somewhere, but I wasn’t about to go looking for another dose of chill nasty.

“Gosh, Betsy, I don’t know…”

“Oh, come on. You’re not at the minister’s house anymore, Laura, time to let your hair down. Literally—those braids are a little 2002. Or 1802. I know! We’ll go to the Pour House. We can drink daiquiris, talk about boys, go crazy.”

“I can’t, Betsy.”

“Pleeeeease?” I wheedled.

“I mean I really can’t. I’m not twenty-one. I’m not allowed to drink.”

“Oh, that.” I pushed away federal law with a wave of my hand. “I can get you in, don’t worry about that.” One peek at my mold-colored eyes, and no bouncer would be able to resist.

“No, Betsy,” she said as firmly as I’d ever heard. “It’s against the law.”

“Fine, fine.” I sighed, then brightened. “I know! Let’s go shopping! The mall will be open for another couple of hours. I’ve got a wedding to go to; we can look for an outfit and shoes and stuff.”

“I can’t,” she said apologetically. “I don’t have any money. And it wouldn’t be right to—”

“That’s okay, I—” Didn’t have any money, either. Normally Jess would go with me, and she’d either pick up the tab outright or we’d work out a deal—I’d put in a few days at The Foot, her nonprofit org, in return for a cashmere sweater or pair of sandals. “Uh…hmm…”

“Maybe we should call it a night.”

“Yeah, okay.” I was disappointed at the sorry state of affairs my life had come to, but there was no use taking it out on Laura.

Not to mention, she was a nice kid and all, but she was no substitute for my friend. Or Sinclair. I’d been wrong to use her as a distraction.

“Wait!” I said, almost driving into a streetlight. “I’ve got it! We’ll go to Scratch.”

“Your club?” she asked doubtfully.

“Yeah. And I won’t sell you a drop of booze, I promise. We’ll just check it out, and then I’ll take you home.” What recently learned lesson about how you couldn’t swap friends like baseball cards?

“Well…” She was weakening! Either my fiendish un-dead powers of persuasion were working on her, or she had any kid’s curiosity about how the inside of a bar looked. “Maybe just a quick look…”

“Yippee!” I called, and wrenched the wheel to the left.

“Wow,” Laura goggled. “It’s in here? It’s so nice!”

“Here” was a well-kept brownstone; in fact, the place looked just like somebody’s home. Now that I knew it was a vampire bar, I knew why: the more innocuous the surroundings, the better.

“I’ll just park out front,” I said, and set the emergency brake. Nobody was going to tow it in
this
neighborhood.

I walked in, Laura right on my heels, and was a little bummed to see how dead the place was. Of course, it was early—only about seven thirty—but still. Except for a couple of vampire waitresses, and Slight Overbite manning the bar, the place was deserted.

“How’s business?” I half-joked when Slight Overbite left the bar to greet us.

“The same, Ma—”

“This is my sister, Laura,” I interrupted. “You can just call her Laura. Laura, this is—” It occurred to me that I’d forgotten his name again. “This is the guy who looks after the bar for me when I’m not here.”

“Klaus, ma’am.” He bent over her little white hand, and when he looked up at her from that position, an alarming amount of the whites of his eyes showed. It was like looking into the face of a corpse. “Charmed.”

Laura, thank God, didn’t notice Klaus’s extreme yukkiness. And, even better, seemed immune to his charm. Of course, Klaus wasn’t all
that
charming, but still…“Hi there,” she said, shaking his hand. “It’s real nice to meet you.”

I practically jerked her away from Slight Overbite, who was looking as though all his Christmas wishes were coming true at once. What had I been thinking? Bringing my sweet little sister to a bar run by vampires? Sure, I was the head bloodsucker, and she wasn’t in any danger, but still. Exposing her to Klaus and the sullen waitstaff…I was out of my mind.

“Ah, Laura.”

I spun around, and there was Sinclair, looming over us like a big black bird of prey. “Elizabeth,” he said, obviously noticing me for the first time. At least he’d remembered my name.

“Hi again,” Laura said, dazzled. And who could blame her? That hair, those eyes, those shoulders…yum. To think that it had all been mine, and I’d thrown it away by…uh…sleeping with it. I guess.

“What are you two doing here?” he asked, a shade of disapproval in his deep voice. I knew “you two” meant “Laura.” I wasn’t about to explain that desperation and loneliness had driven me to yet another boneheaded move. So I did what I always do:

“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business for
once
?” I snapped. “If I want to take my sister to my place of business, that’s my own damned business and not any of your business.” Was I overusing the word
business
? Fuck it. “So mind your own business.”

“Betsy!” Laura gasped.

“Quiet, you.” Lectures from the spawn of Satan/Ms. Goody-goody 2005 I
so
did not need.

“It’s inappropriate for her to be here, and you know it. What were you thinking?”

“That you should mind your own business?”
And stop following my sister?

“I think I’d like to go home now,” Laura said primly.

I opened my mouth, but Sinclair beat me to the punch. “Allow me to see you home, Laura,” he said, proffering his arm for her to take.

“Oh. Well…” She glanced at me—for approval or help, I wasn’t sure—and I shrugged. “All right, then. That’s very kind of you.”

“It’s my great pleasure.”

They walked out.

That was it. My life was now officially horrible. Worse than horrible. I’d be tempted to jump off a cliff, except I knew I’d survive it.

“Give me some Dewar’s,” I told Klaus.

“I can’t,” he replied smugly. “You haven’t paid the liquor bill, and we’re out.”

Of course we were.

Depressed beyond all measure, I drove home.

B
efore I could drive myself through a plate glass window, my cell phone rang. Jessica? I clawed it out of my purse. “Hello? Jess? Hello?”

“Hi, Betsy. It’s me, Nick. Berry,” he added, like I could forget. Nick was a Minneapolis cop.

“Oh, hey.” I was disappointed but worked on not showing it. “Who’s dead now?” I joked.

“Several people, but that’s not why I’m calling. Listen, I haven’t seen your new digs, and I just got off. I thought I’d come over and say hi.”

“Oh. Look, I’m glad to have you over, Nick, but why now?”

“Well…” I heard an odd sound in the background and realized he was chewing on a Milky Way. Nick abhorred donuts. “This is going to sound a little out there, but I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind lately. I mean, you gotta admit, that whole thing last spring where you almost died and they had a fake funeral and all—”

“Yeah, last spring was a real laugh riot.”

“And then this summer with all the dead bodies—I guess the killer moved on, because there hasn’t been one like it in about three months—but you were sort of in the middle of that, too—and…I don’t know. I just thought it’d be fun to stop by, catch up.”

“Well, sure.” Come on into my parlor, big boy. Actually, the last thing I wanted was the cop who had known me in life nosing around in Vampire Central after my death, but I couldn’t think of a way to say no without arousing his suspicions. “I’m on my way there now. I’m guessing there’s no need to give you the address, seeing as how you’re the man and all.”

“See you in twenty,” he confirmed.

I hurried into the mansion to straighten up but realized Jessica’s corps of home helpers (the cook, the gardener, the garage guy, the downstairs guy, the upstairs lady, the plant lady) was way ahead of me. The place was immaculate and freshly vacuumed. Marc’s car was gone, but Jessica’s was in the garage, so I darted up the stairs and knocked on her door.

“Jess? Detective Nick is coming over to play Welcome Wagon, which isn’t much good in the way of timing, but seriously, when
is
the best time for a cop to come over? When you’re not a vampire,” I answered myself. “Anyway, if you want to come down, we’ll be in”—Where? Where was a vampire-free zone?—“one of the parlors. I think.”

I went to the basement and found Tina sitting a prudent distance away from George, scribbling notes, while he crocheted an endless chain in sunshine yellow. He’d churned out about thirty feet so far and didn’t look up when I shrieked.

“You gave him a hook?” I could hear a car pulling in and didn’t wait around for Tina’s answer. At least George was occupied.

Nick was waiting at the door, and I played ditz and “forgot” to give him a tour. We ended up shooting the breeze in the small sitting room just off the front hall.

“This place is amazing,” he said, staring. As always, he was easy on the eyes. My height, blond, broad-shouldered, tan. Ooooh, a tan! It was really great to see someone with real color in their cheeks. “You and Jessica are really moving up in the world.”

“Ha!” I replied. “Jess pays for the whole thing.”

“Well, yeah.” He grinned boyishly. “I figured. Have you found a job yet? Not that you need one, I guess…” He gestured to the room.

I
didn’t
need one since I had the whole queen thing going, but I wasn’t telling him that. Likewise, I didn’t dare tell him about Scratch. I couldn’t prove to a live person that I legally owned it. I sure didn’t need a cop snooping into it.

Nick wasn’t just any cop. He’d known me in life but, worse, had fallen under my vampiric spell after I died. Sinclair had ended up making Nick forget quite a bit from last spring. But it was a worrisome thing sometimes; we honestly didn’t know what he remembered or if Sinclair’s mojo would wear off.

“You look great,” I said, changing the subject. “You’re so tan! Where’d you go?”

“I just got back from Grand Cayman. Me and a bunch of the other guys saved up for about a year and a half. It’s really not that expensive if you go in a group. Actually, that’s sort of why I’m here.”

“I can’t go to Grand Cayman with you,” I joked. I wasn’t up to pushing the new sunshine allowances.

“No, no.” Of course not. Why would a healthy red-blooded male want to date a corpse with badly polished toes? “One of the guys was looking for a new place to go to an AA meeting, and I knew from my brother that they had a good group at the Thunderbird—on 494? Anyway—”

“You were there the night I went,” I said with a sinking feeling. It was definitely weird the way Nick kept stumbling back into my life. What were the chances?

“Well…yeah. And it’s none of my business at all…”

“One of the
A
s stands for
Anonymous,
” I pointed out.

“Yeah, I know. My brother did the twelve steps a couple years ago. I just—I guess I was surprised to see you there,” he finished lamely.

He
was surprised! Was my luck
ever
going to take a turn for the better? “Well, it’s nothing I like to talk about,” I said, sort of telling the truth.

“Sure, sure, sure,” he said quickly. “I understand. I just wanted you to know…well, sometimes it’s a hard thing to talk about. It’s like nobody else can possibly get it, right?”

“Right,” I said, on surer ground.

“So I just wanted you to know that if you ever wanted to, you know, just talk…” He trailed off and smiled at me, which made the cute laugh lines in the corner of his eyes crinkle in a friendly way.

I nearly wept; it was beyond wonderful to have someone be nice to me, to be concerned with my problems. Well, that wasn’t fair; Laura was nice, and Jessica
had
been concerned until I’d hurt her. It wasn’t Laura’s fault Sinclair was taken with her. What guy wouldn’t be? And it wasn’t Sinclair’s fault he’d decided I’d given off negative vibes one too many times.

Poor Nick didn’t have a clue, but he cared. That counted for a lot.

“That’s so sweet of you. I really appreciate it.” We’d been sitting next to each other on the little peach-colored love seat, and he was inching closer to me. Maybe he had an itch. “And I promise I’ll keep it in mind. But I really don’t want to talk about my dumb problems right now.” My incredibly lame, stupid, dumb problems.

“I just—wanted you to know,” he breathed, and then he kissed me.

Oh, yay! No, boo. No, yay! I let him go for a few seconds, quite enjoying the feeling of a warm mouth on my cool one. I could hear his pulse thundering in my ears. He smelled like chocolate and cotton.

It was actually kind of nice. He liked me. He’d always liked me. Of course, since I’d died he’d found me way more attractive, but I tried not to take advantage of it. Except for that one time. Which Nick didn’t remember. I was pretty sure. But anyway…not taking advantage of innocent policeman.

Although without much difficulty I could. He was so nice, so great-looking, so earnest—and as a cop, he’d come in
real
handy. I could—I could—

Take him.

I could get rid of this annoying thirst for the moment, that’s what I could do. I could—

What are you waiting for?

—get a little warmth, a little happiness, be needed, be touched, be wanted.

It would be so easy.

I jerked away, actually throwing Nick to the floor. It
would
be easy. Real damn easy. Which is why I couldn’t do it.

Is that why I read the Book…to learn how to be an asshole vampire? Is that what I learned from hurting Jessica—take what I wanted when I could get it? Is that how my mom raised me? Is that the kind of queen of the dead I wanted to be?

“Jeez, I’m so sorry,” Nick said from the floor, apparently overlooking the fact that I’d thrown him on his ass. His face was red with blushes. “I’m really sorry, Betsy.”

“No, no, it’s my fault!” I was shouting to hear myself over his pulse, which alarmed him. I lowered my voice. “Sorry. It’s my fault.” It really was. Nick had no idea why he found me so appealing. God knew it was a mystery to me most times, too. “Sorry again. You’d better go.” I hauled him to his feet and showed him the door, over his protests and apologies. “Thanks for stopping by. Great to catch up! ’Bye.”

I shut the door and leaned against it with my eyes closed. I could still hear his pulse, though that was probably my imagination.

It had been a near thing.

“Is your date over already?”

My eyes popped open. Sinclair was standing on the left side of the entryway; he’d obviously come through the back.

“That was—”

“I know.”

“He thinks—”

“I know.”

“But he’s going now, I—”

“Yes, I imagine you took care of it. Good work,” he added distantly.

“It wasn’t—”

“I understand. The last thing you—we—need is a police officer nosing about. And the quickest way to get rid of him—” Sinclair shrugged. “Well, you did what you had to do.”

“Eric—”

“I’ll leave you to retire. Oh, and Laura and I are having coffee tomorrow evening. You need not join us.”

He turned. And walked away.