Undead and Unworthy (7 page)

us, but hasn't?"

"I credit Jessica with that more than Detective Berry's good sense."

"Point," I conceded. "And yeah, it's a little obnoxious that he came over all expecting me to say yes right away – "

"Also, you're flattered."

"I am not! Okay, a little. Listen, this is our chance to win him back!"

"And why," he sighed, rubbing my shoulders, while I tried not to purr and lean into him,

"would we want to do that?"

"Listen. Oooh, don't stop. The whole reason you pushed Jess to go out with him was

because you wanted a source in the police department." I paused. "Another source, I

mean. That reminds me. You've been keeping secrets. More than usual, I mean."

"Oh?" he said silkily, tightening his grip. My collarbones groaned under the pressure. Or maybe that was me groaning. "Because there are one or two things I would like to discuss

with you as well, if you're opening that door."

"Ahhhh... well, that's, um – " Fortunately, I was saved by the sound of splintering wood, and then Nick skidded down the foyer, his face a mask of blood.

"Face us, false queen!"

"Oboy," I said, nearly tripping as Sinclair grabbed me and thrust me behind his back. "That doesn't sound good."

They streamed in, stepping smoothly over Nick's unconscious body. They moved like cats

and had the hungry, feral look of same. At least, as far as I could tell from peeking over

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) Sinclair's shoulder; I kept trying to elbow him out of the way, and he kept jamming me

behind him.

"Uh, hi. You'd be, um, Garrett's friends, right?"

Happy, Skippy, Trippy, Sandy, Benny, Clara, and Jane glared at me as one. Somewhere,

they'd clothed themselves – probably at the farm, I was seeing an awful lot of flannel – but

still had the rank smell of the unwashed. They were all too thin, even bony. Their hair was

varying colors and degrees of snarled.

"Well," I plunged, "I'm sorry I wasn't here when you stopped by the other night – "

They weren't moving. Perhaps I was dazzling them with my ineptitude. It had happened

before.

"But at least this gives me a chance to, um, explain and even, um, apologize – "

"Do
not
apologize to them," Sinclair snarled. "One such as you should not even speak to them."

"Shush! He's cranky," I explained, "no blood tonight, you know how it is."

"We know exactly how it is," Clara said.

"Oh. Right." Awkward. What was interesting wasn't their reaction so much as Sinclair's.

He wasn't angry so much as – as –
offended,
that was the word. Their presence offended

him. I guess the Fiends were the vampire untouchables.

"Anyway, the thing is, it has been a
crazy
couple of years. For me, I mean. First there was the whole 'you are the queen' thing, which I was so
not
prepared for. And, I might point

out, a lot of people were telling me to kill all you guys when Nostro – when you ate

Nostro – but I didn't. In fact, I
saved
you."

"For imprisonment and slow starvation."

"I'm
getting
to that." I lowered my voice. "Okay, so then there was a serial killer – more than one, come to think of it – and then my half sister turned up, who was the daughter of

the devil. The devil! I mean, please!"

"Yes, please," one of them said. "Let us end this."

"But I'm not finished! And then – before then, actually – all these ghosts started showing

up looking for favors, like in that movie? Never mind, you didn't see that movie."

One of them was rubbing her temples. I sped up the This Is My Life portion of our

program. "Then my friend got sick, lethally sick, and I had this wedding to plan, and all

these werewolves showed up, and my dad and step mom died because I wanted a baby,

and I had to kill a librarian, and it was just – just a crazy, crazy time. I mean, totally nuts."

"So. Essentially," Sandy – or was it Benny? – said, "you forgot about us."

"Well."

"Do not," Sinclair said through gritted teeth.

"Kinda," I admitted. "But I had all these really good reasons! I – yeek!" Sinclair had shoved me into the curtains as seven enraged vampires launched themselves at me.

It's hard to even describe the fight. With enhanced strength, speed, and reflexes,

everything happened so fast, and then it was all over but the bandaging.

The first one that got near Sinclair dropped, and so did the next one. One got past him and

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) got a good grip on my hair (must have been a female killed in the 1920s... that was the

hair-pulling era, right?), but I brought my head forward in a blur of coolness and broke her

nose with a satisfying crunch. The blow made me stagger, and I wiped her blood off my

forehead... sluggish, nasty dark stuff.

And the screaming! All the screaming! Wait. Only one person was screaming.
Marc
was

screaming.

I shoved Hair Puller at the fireplace, peripherally noticing the ceramic tiles rain down on

her stupid face as she hit the floor. Then I ran toward the shrieking Marc, who was on his

back fighting off flashing fangs and teeth (Clara? Benny? It was going so quickly I couldn't

tell).

Before I could get to them, Tina leaned over them, grabbed Clara/Benny
by the hair
and

yanked him (ah, a guy, I saw it now) off Marc. She had something long and shiny in her

other hand, and I recognized it, as she swung the Wusthof butcher knife (Jessica's pride

and joy, she had a whole collection in the butler's pantry, and they were wicked sharp),

hard enough to decapitate Benny. His headless body fell with a thump, and Marc

scrambled back on his hands, so the thing wouldn't fall on him.

Tina had dropped the head and was turning to see who else she could decapitate, when a

wooden spoon burst through her chest.

"This?" the Ant demanded. "This is how you spend your time? Squabbling with people

who don't bathe?"

"Not...
now!
" I ran to Tina, nearly tripping over the body of a Fiend Sinclair had killed, and yanked the serving spoon out of her heart. Then I grabbed her head and screamed into

her eyes, which had begun to gloss over. "Don't you
dare
die on me, you efficient bitch, don't you
dare!
"

"I – I'm fine. I'm all right, my queen." We both looked down. The wooden serving spoon,

about nine inches long, was now ash. I had turned it to ash. And Tina was all right.

No, I didn't know how.

And then the door was slamming, the other Fiends were gone, and the fight was over.

We'd killed two of them: Sinclair had killed Trippy; Tina had killed Benny. Marc was

wounded, bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig, but it looked mostly superficial. Jessica,

who had been keeping a terrified Garrett from fleeing down the tunnel, drove Marc to the

ER. Marc's last delirious comment was, "Will I become a vampire now? Cool!"

By then, the rest of the Fiends had fled, and Nick had regained consciousness. "Yeah,

that'll show 'em," he said groggily, as he caromed from one wall to another, trying to

stagger out the door. It looked like he had a broken nose, but I hoped that was the worst

of it. We offered to call an ambulance, but he tagged along with Jessica, who I knew

would tell him the whole story.

Sinclair carried Tina upstairs to the hot tub room, dunked her in (over her protests; we

were pretty sure I'd cured the wound), and, after ten minutes, let her out.

About the water thing: for some reason, when vampires are grievously hurt, water speeds

up the healing process. I had no idea why. Maybe because our undead bodies didn't have

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) much moisture? I didn't know. So much of being a vampire was like magic to me. And not

the cool kind, either.

Tina shook the wet hair out of her eyes and grinned at me. "Two down. Five to go."

"You were nuts, launching yourself at that guy."

"You and the king had your hands full," she said dryly. I handed her a robe, and she

snuggled into it. Not a mark on her, thank God.

"But you were stabbed with wood," Sinclair said, looking ashen. "I saw it."

Tina looked at me, and I winked. So she shrugged and said to the king, "It must have

missed my heart."

Oooooh, she's actually lying to the king of the vamps! Somebody write down the date and

time. And I had to admit, it was nice to be the one keeping secrets for a change.

"But I
saw
– "

"Come on," I sighed. "Let's make smoothies. Or something."

We visited Marc later that night. Sure, two o'clock in the morning isn't considered

optimum visiting hours, but this wasn't the first late-night trip to this hospital for me. Or

even the tenth. I knew who to sidestep, who to put the vampire mojo on, and who didn't

give a tin shit if Bin Laden was on the floor, as long as he or she could snag an extra hour

of sleep in the on-call room.

"Disgusting," Marc informed me cheerily from his bed, as he played with the tilt settings and television remote control at once. "This hospital's about as secure as the men's rooms

in the Target Center. But thanks for coming to see me so fast."

"After my second smoothie, you were all I could think about."

"Tell the truth," he said soberly. "My hair looks awful, doesn't it?"

"Well..." If he considered most of the hair on the right, which was clotted with blood and hopelessly snarled to be awful, then... "At least you've got your health. Oh, wait."

"Aren't you funny." He stretched out his bandaged arms and looked at them. After being

stitched up (fifteen stitches in his left arm, twenty-six in his right, thirty-one in his right

leg, eighteen in the muscle just below his right nipple, seven stitches to the left of his belly

button) , he'd been admitted for overnight observation. "It looked worse than it was, in

case you were wondering."

"Actually, I was wondering if you could pull the blanket up a little more."

"Oh." Marc was still staring down at himself, but had yet to notice he was naked.

"I'll, uh, just do that." I bustled around the bed, trying to make myself useful.

He looked pleased. "Now I'm tucked in!"

For the first time I realized his green-eyed gaze was a little cloudy. I peered closer. So did

he. Our faces were about an inch apart but, again, Marc didn't seem to think this was at all

unusual.

"Jeez," I said, so close my breath (if I had any) would have fogged his glasses (if he wore them). "How much medication are you on?"

"Well, let's see. I had some Valium at the house, and some more on the way to the

hospital. (I offered some to Nick, but he said no thanks.) Then in the ER, the intern said –

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)

"

"You know what? It doesn't matter. As long as you're okay is all."

"Oh, sure! I'm great! You know, for someone who was trying to kill me, he mostly just

knocked me down and got me dirty. I mean, did you
see
those guys? Covered with mud!"

"Yeah, that's annoying." I fought not to roll my eyes or sneak a peek at the clock on the wall.

"I think he wanted to kill you and was mostly trying to get me out of his way. I'll be sore

and itchy for ages, and I'll have spec
tacular
bruising, and maybe a couple of really butch scars, but that's the extent of it. I feel pretty lucky."

"I'm – I'm glad, Marc." He
had
been lucky, but I was mostly too tormented by guilt. And hunger pangs. I was so thirsty, and the smells generated by the hospital were making me

drool. As the queen, I didn't have to feed every night like all the other vampires, and

sometimes I made the mistake of pushing it. It had been at least four days. "Also, don't

come back."

He absently cracked his knuckles; they sounded like Rice Crispies. "Yep, after tonight it'll

be smooth – what?"

"You can't come back until we take care of this Fiend situation."

"Take care of the situation? You're talking like it's a termite infestation!"

"If only," I muttered. "Look, I feel crummy that you got hurt, but you
were
lucky, and I'm not enough of a twit to put you right back in danger."

He blinked at me slowly, like an owl, and I could tell he was trying to muster an argument.

After a long silence he said, "But we have the Super Secret Vampire Tunnels to escape

to."

"Yeah, except every one of the Fiends is faster than you and Jess, and what if they cut you

off next time? What if Sinclair and I, God forbid, aren't even home next time?"

"But we can – "

"Marc, I'm sorry, I guess I didn't realize... you think this is a debate. It's not. You
could
run to the tunnels, Sinclair and I
might
be able to protect you, the Fiends might come back
but
not try to hurt you... whatever, man. Too many maybes for me – you're out."

"But Betsy..." His eyes filled, and he shook his head savagely, making the tears fly. Then he was glaring at me with wet cheeks. "That's my
home,
same as it is yours. Where can I go?"

"Yeah, about that." Marc wasn't seeing anyone right now (he'd had a fling a month or so