Undead and Unstable (13 page)

“Glad?” Marc had been the one to let us in; he knew we were meeting Laura and knew the three of us were coming back to the mansion. He knew the plan was to shock Laura with … well …
him.
Exhibit A: Behold and ye shall see before ye a zombie. Now take it back, ye sinner!

And it had worked. Laura had been plenty shocked. But not shocked enough, I guess, or about the right things. We weren’t any closer to knowing what had happened than we were before she’d walked into our house.
“Glad?”

“Uh,” was as far as I got before the zombie blew.

“I am not
glad
! I am
pissed
, okay? Okay? I killed myself to avoid all kinds of
bullshit
! And what did I get after I killed myself?
More bullshit!
I am very far from glad right now! I am all the way around the world from glad! Okay, Laura? Okay?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and looked at the floor.

“Oh, hell,” Marc said, and rubbed his eyes. He was dressed in new scrubs—he must have absconded with, like, a dozen pairs, and his hair was military-neat. Knowing how much he loved to change his look—buzz cut to mullet to Caesar haircut to the Hugh Jackman—I felt even more sorry for him. Who cared about a zombie’s hair, anyway? And could he even change it anymore?

“Right, Betsy?”

“Huh?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Oh. Well, that’s okay.” What did Marc have to be sorry for?

“Laura, I just—I can see by your face you can’t—I didn’t really have a plan for what to do if you weren’t the one who did this. And you’re clearly not.”

Say it twice. The daughter of the Lord of Lies was a laughably bad liar, even by omission. She could barely maintain eye contact if she was trying to cheat at Monopoly (nobody gets
that
many Get Out of Jail Free cards in one lousy game … who did the Antichrist think she was dealing with?).

Besides, if she
had
done it, she wouldn’t have covered it up. If she had done it, she wouldn’t lie about it. And it was obvious she had no idea what had happened to Marc … or what to do next.

“Marc, I was very sorry about what happened to you—that other you—”

“The Marc Thing,” I prompted.

“Right … I was sorry about that. And I was sorry you—you hurt yourself.” She’d been a little more than sorry. More like distraught at the thought of Marc being in her mother’s clutches—burning in hell, in other words—because he’d killed himself. Though after what I’d seen the past few years, I was no longer certain who went to hell and why. I doubted Marc would have burned for eternity, suicide or not. If God isn’t around to lend a hand, what was so bad about trying to fix your own life? Or death?

“And I—it’s nice to see you,” Laura continued, sounding like she was coughing up the words, “but I—I’m not sure—okay, this is going to sound terrible, but you’re an abomination now.”

“You’re right,” I told my sister. “It sounds terrible.”

“That’s not to say I don’t still like you as a friend,” she added quickly.

“And an abomination!” I added brightly. “
I
love you as an abomination. Speaking of the
A
word, Antichrist, what does that make
you
?”

“You stay out of this!” she snapped.

“Ooooh, did that one sting a little?” Marc shot me a grin and I instantly felt much better. And how lame was that? I had to be mean to my sister to feel better about myself. Where was an After-School Special when I needed one? “Sorry. So … you, the Antichrist, were talking to Marc, the abomination, about how you felt about him being an abomination. And … go.”

“Shut up,” she said helplessly, and covered her face with her hands.

Temper, temper, my queen.
But his feelings—smug and amused—didn’t match his tone. In my head. Yeah, I know how it sounds.

She’s so fucking quick to hit people with the judgment stick! Makes me nuts. She’s no angel. She’s, um, half angel.

My husband laughed in my head, which had the dual attraction of giving me an idea, and making me feel better.

“So you should come over for Thanksgiving,” I blurted out.

Shocked silence. Staring eyes. Horrified expressions.

“No, really. It’ll be…” A disaster. A boneheaded idea. A clusterfuck. A Republican back in the White House. “Fun?”

“But you hate—”

“Hate!” Marc added.

“Darling Queen, you loathe Thanksgiving.”

“Well, now I don’t!” I snapped, annoyed they weren’t embracing my brainstorm. I didn’t get a lot of them. They could at least get on board when I did.

“Since wh—”

“It’s a family holiday, right? Well. We’re all family. Even the ones we aren’t married to or the ones who have the same dads and we’ve had a hard time lately and I want us all to have Thanksgiving together as a family because, dammit, we’re a family! So we’re gonna give thanks for that! On Thanksgiving! Obey me!”

“Because it
sounds
like you’re planning to kill us in our sleep,” Marc replied, still looking perplexed. “And I’m okay with that, by the way. In fact, I need to talk to you, Betsy.”

“My parents will be doing Meals on Wheels like every Thanksgiving,” the Antichrist said, “but I could come over for the dinner. If that’s okay.” She gave me such a hopeful, pleased smile that I was instantly ashamed I had never thought of it before. All the Antichrist had ever wanted was to belong. And of course, she didn’t, and wouldn’t ever. Not really.

“So it’s settled.” Yeesh. What had I done in my moment of reckless madness? Every Native American was turning in their grave right this second. Oh, wait … only the dead ones were doing that. “It’s a done deal. We can’t escape now.” Hmm. Better rephrase before I spring it on Antonia and Garrett. Dickie/Nickie/Tavvi wouldn’t care as long as Jessica didn’t. And Jessica, I knew, would be in. Still rightfully pissed at me, The Belly That Ate the World would never turn down a free meal loaded with carbs.

“Ah, Laura,” Sinclair said, extending a long-fingered hand in her direction. She looked up, then took his hand and he pulled her smoothly to her feet. “Come, let’s have a drink in the kitchen.”

“You know I don’t drink,” she said, but started to follow him as he led her out of the parlor.

“Yes, yes, I know you are a teetotaler until you are of legal age, which I find quite admirable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a glass of chai, or a shake.”

“Strawberry?” the Antichrist said brightly while the king of the vampires led her out like a cosseted child.

“Oh yes,” he promised, and out the door they went.

“Okay, Marc, I just had an—whoa.”

Marc had also gotten up, and swiftly crossed the room until he was looming in front of me. I mean standing. Marc didn’t
loom.
He was a good zombie. Guy! He was a good guy. That’s what I meant. That wasn’t some sort of psychological slipup.

It wasn’t!

“You have to kill me, Betsy, because time is a wheel.”

“Um … what?”

“You have to kill me! I’m no good at it myself, clearly,” he snapped. “So you’re gonna do it.”

“Then
I’m
gonna need a drink. And I’m sick of hearing about that wheel you’re obsessed with.”

“What?”

“Forget it.”

Where? Where had it all gone wrong? Oh, right. The minute I woke up dead.

God, you sick fuck, we are gonna have such a talk when I catch up to you…

TWENTY

“You’ve got to thoroughly kill me. No half-assed Betsy
stunts.”

“Hey!”

“I’ve got to be
really
dead,” he continued, ignoring my outraged yelp. “And since we’ve got the weight of about a hundred zombie movies on our side, I’m thinking decapitation.”

“Marc, I didn’t not bring you back to life just to kill you.”

“Yeah, but we still don’t know who did it, right? So we’re right back where we started.”

“But you won’t be the Marc Thing now.”

“Who says? Maybe shambling around in your wake for a few hundred years will turn me into something even worse.”

I shuddered. No chance.

“Try, just this one time, Betsy, try to put yourself in someone else’s Marc Jacobses. I killed myself to avoid the future. So think what it must be like to find out I’m even more repulsive than a fucking psycho vampire!”

“But you aren’t. Repulsive, I mean.” He really wasn’t. He didn’t rot or stink. He didn’t lurch around the house after physical brains; he just wanted mental stimulation. In fact, I could see no sign of even the slightest decomp … and sadly I knew what stages of decomposition looked like. “Now that I’ve gotten over my gross shock, I—I think it’s kind of cool that you’re back.”

“You dumbass! Name one good thing about being a zombie.”

“You can’t die again.” It was what my mom had loved about me coming back as a vampire … she’d never again have to worry about me being a victim of a ten-car mash-up, or a date rapist.

He raised his eyebrows. “Wanna bet? See, that’s where you come in.”

“I think you’d better think this through.”

He began to pace. “A vampire, okay. Not being able to eat solid food looked like a downer, but on the other hand, I’m best friends with the queen of the vamps! Being a vampire would have been very cool. Until I met the Marc Thing.”

“Really?” I said, pleased. “Best friends? Aw, Marc, I love you, too.”

“Will you focus, you undead bitch?” he cried.

“Say it, don’t spray it,” I muttered, refusing to look at him.

“But this?” He gestured to his mild-mannered, nonrotting self. “I’ve got to constantly find this interesting to keep my brain occupied.”

“Just like you did in life. It’s true!” I added as he opened his mouth to bitch more. “You were always chasing excitement. This is nothing new.”

“And how will I ever find a guy who wants to be with a
corpse
, for God’s sake?”

Okay. He had me there.

“Right,” he said, correctly reading my expression. “I can’t have a relationship and I can’t be a doctor. So what’s left for me but pain and betrayal and going crazy? I don’t sleep, Betsy, have you noticed?”

“I’m sure I would have eventually.”

“I don’t sleep, and my skills are getting atrophied. I’m fucking useless to you—and me—like this.”

I couldn’t stand to hear him talk about himself with such loathing. “Marc, you have worth!” I thumped my fist against his chest to make my point. “You’re still a doctor, you’re just a dead doctor. You can still—”

“Cut up dead cats?”

“Provide really, really advanced first aid. Maybe you can’t do surgery or stuff like that, but you can still help people in trouble … and I bet you could talk a layman through something complex. You’re
not
some worthless rotting zombie … we need you!”

“I don’t give a shit; I’m not hanging around like an extra in a George Romero vehicle. So c’mon. Let’s figure this out. How will you kill me?”

“I’m not. Listen, we’ll figure something out, okay? How do you not get that this is a gift?”

“A gift?” he yowled. “Oh my God. Just when I was pretty sure you couldn’t get any dumber.”

“Insulting me won’t get you what you want,” I snapped.

“Oh yeah?” Up went his dark brows again. “It’s your fault there isn’t a single Christian Louboutin pump anywhere on the planet.”

“That’s … don’t. Don’t say that.”

“This Christian guy was all you could babble about when you came back from hell, but he’s nowhere to be found because
you
fucked up the timeline.”

“That’s not—”

“All those sexy high heels he thought up are gone and, worse, won’t ever be, and instead you’ve got a closet full of velvet clogs and it’s all your fault.”

“You don’t say that ever!”

“And your hair,” Zombie Marc concluded, “looks stupid. Nobody’s doing red lowlights anymore. So: stupid
and
dated. Grrggh! Argh! Hey, wait,” he gurgled. “Things’re going dark! Maybe this’ll work. Margle! Sqzz hrdr.”

This. This was what my life had become. I was strangling my zombie roommate over clogs and highlights. And he’d had trouble getting laid
before
he died. After a sweet moment of feeling his esophagus crackle under my fingers, I let go.

“Dammit! Look what you almost made me do. That was just plain stupid.”

“I know. I mean, why would that have even worked?” he mused, rubbing his throat. “You could have crushed my trachea and I’d still be walking and talking. No, decapitation is the way to go.”

“Don’t tease me about crushing your trachea,” I muttered.

“Ah, decapitation,” a most unwelcome voice said. “One of the classics.”

We looked. Lounging indolently on the two-seat sofa in a navy blue Donna Karan suit, sheer black hose, and breathtaking
peau de soie
black fuck-me heels was Satan herself.

“Well,
great
,” was all I could come up with.