Undead and Unreturnable, Page 2

  The up side was, now I could rise from my deep, dark slumber in the late afternoon, instead of being conked from dawn to dusk. But it wasn't enough of a trade-off for me, and I'd thrown the Book into the Mississippi River, and good riddance.

  Sinclair had been coldly furious, and Tina hadn't been especially happy with me, either. Historical document, priceless beyond rubies, invaluable soothsaying tool, blah-blah. He hadn't shut me out of his bed, but the entire time we were having sex that night, he never stopped with the lecturing. And in his head (I can read his mind, though he doesn't know that-yet), he was pissed. It had been a new kind of awful. But at the time, I thought it was a small price to pay to be rid of it.

  And now it was back.

  "Shit," I said again, because for the life of me, I couldn't think of anything else.

  "Well," Jessica said, staring at the Book, "I have some good news. "

  "This is a really good fake?"

  "No. I've just finished my last crochet class. Now I can teach George another stitch. "

  "Oh. " I managed to tear my gaze from the Book. "Well, that is good news. That's-really good. "

  "How was your grave?" Tina asked politely.

  "Don't change the subject. "

  "But it's so tempting. "

  "What are we going to do with that?"

  "Jessica already changed the subject. And I thought we'd put it back in the library. "

  "Where it belongs, and should never have been taken from in the first place," Sinclair added silkily.

  "Hey, my house, my library, my book. "

  "Hardly," he snitted.

  "Besides, it's our house," Jessica said, which was kind, because she paid the mortgage. Sinclair paid a pittance in rent, and I didn't pay anything. We'd used the proceeds from the sale of my old, termite-ridden place to put a partial down payment on the mansion.

  "It's dangerous," I said, which was futile because I knew when I was beat.

  "It's a tool. Like any tool, it depends on how you use it. " Sinclair started to get up. "I'll remove it to the library. "

  "Nuh-uh. " I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed. It was like trying to budge a boulder. "C'mon, siddown already. I'll put it in the library. I promise not to pitch it into the river on the way. "

  After a long moment, he sat. I awkwardly scooped up the Book (it was about two feet long, a foot wide, and six inches thick) and shuddered; it was warm. The vampire bible, bound in human skin, written in blood, and full of prophecies that were never wrong. Trouble was, if you read the thing too long, it drove you nuts. Not "I'm having a bad day and feel bitchy" nuts, or PMS nuts. "I think I'll commit felony assault on my friends and rape my boyfriend" nuts.

  "I'm going to the basement," Jessica said after the long silence. "I'm going to show George the new stitch. "

  "Wait," I grunted, hefting the Book.

  "C'mon, I want to show him now, so he can practice. "

  "I said wait, dork. You're not supposed to be alone with him, remember?"

  "He's never hurt me. He's never even looked in my direction. Not since you keep him full of your icky queen blood. "

  "Nevertheless," Sinclair said, free of the Book and now picking up the Wall Street Journal, "you are not to be alone with him, Jessica. Ever. "

  She scowled, but she was scowling at the paper, which was now in front of Sinclair's face. I almost laughed. Dismissed. He did it to me all the time.

  "Let me dump this thing in the libe," I said, staggering toward the door-it was hard to carry something and not gag at the same time-"and I'll be right with you. Anything's better than this. "

  "That's a bold statement," Tina observed, stirring her coffee. "Especially since you've recently been to your stepmother's. "

  "Har," I said, and made my way toward the library. Chapter 5

 

  "Well!" I said brightly, descending the stairs. "That was about the most disgusting thing ever. "

  "And you drink blood every week. "

  "Ugh, don't remind me. George? Honey, you up?"

  We went to the other end of the basement (the place was huge; it ran the length of the mansion and, among other things, we'd had decapitated bodies down there as well as a body butter party) and found George in his room, busily crocheting another endless yarn link. Sky blue, this time.

  He looked up alertly when we walked into his room and then went back to his crocheting. The scary thing about George was how normal he was starting to look.

  He was tall and lean, with a swimmer's build, shoulder-length golden brown hair, and dark brown eyes. When he'd been more feral, it was tough to see the man under all the mud. Now that he was on a steady diet of my blood, it was hard to see the feral vampire under the man.

  He was too thin, but he had the best butt I'd ever seen, never mind that my heart belonged to Sinclair (and his butt). His eyes were the color of wet mud, and occasionally a flash of his intelligence gleamed out at me. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

  He seemed only to like me, which was fair, because I was the only one who hadn't wanted to stake him and his fellow Fiends. The others were at a mansion in Minnetonka, being cared for by another vampire. Unlike George, the other Fiends had no desire to do anything but crawl around on all fours and drink blood out of buckets.

  I wasn't really sure what to do about the Fiends, thus my great and all-encompassing "live and let die" policy. The asshat who used to run the vampires was a big experiment fan-you know, like the Nazis. And one of his favorite things to do was starve newly risen vampires.

  Thus, the Fiends: feral, inhuman, and not so great with the vocalizing. Or the walking. Or the-anyway. They were monsters, but it wasn't their fault. . . the real monster had gotten to them first.

  All I could do was try to look out for them. . . and keep George amused. Unlike the others, George liked to drink my blood every couple days or so. Unlike the others, George was walking.

  It was very strange.

  "Check it out, baby," Jessica said, bringing out a crochet hook of her own and showing it to him. Then she glanced at me. "Uh, he's eaten this week, right?"

  "Unfortunately, yes. " I glared at my wrist, which had already healed over. I only liked sharing blood with Sinclair; the rest of it sort of squicked me out. And I only did it with Sinclair during, um, intimate moments.

  Sad to say, my blood (queen blood, sigh) was the only thing making George better. Three months ago, he was covered with mud, naked, howling at the moon, and eating the occasional rapist. Yarn work in my basement and consenting to red Jockeys was a big damn improvement.

  "Like this," Jessica was saying, showing him what looked, to me, like an incredibly complicated stitch. But then, I'd tossed out my counted cross-stitch patterns at age sixteen after declaring them way too hard. Crocheting and knitting. . . yurrgh.

  My mom tried to teach me to knit once, and it went like this: "Okay, I'll do it really slowly so you can follow. " Then the needles flashed and she'd knitted half a scarf. That's about when I gave up on all crafts.

  "And then. . . " Jess was murmuring, "through the loop. . . like this. "

  He hummed and took the yarn from her.

  "What's next on the wedding agenda?"

  "Um. . . " I shut my eyes and thought. My Sidekick was upstairs, but I knew most of the wedding details by heart. "Flowers. I'm still pushing for purple irises and yellow alstromeria lilies, and Sinclair is still pretending we're not getting married. "

  "What's the new date?"

  "September 15. "

  Jessica frowned. "That's a Thursday. "

  I stared at her. "How do you know that?"

  "Because it's the date my parents died, so I try to get out to the cemetery then. And I remember, last September was a Wednesday. "

  "Oh. " We did not discuss Jessica's mother and father. Ever. "Well, what difference does it make? Like Sinclair cares? Like the other vampires do? Oh, what, we've all got
to get up early for work the next morning?"

  "How many times have you changed the date? Four?"

  "Possibly," I said grudgingly. It had been, respectively, February 14 (I know, I know, and to give me credit, I did scrap the idea eventually), April 10, July 4, and now September 15.

  "I don't understand why you don't just get it done, hon. You've wanted this how long? And Sinclair is agreeable and everything? I mean, what the hell?"

  "There just hasn't been time to get all the details taken care of. I have been solving murders and dodging bloody coups," I bitched. "That's why I keep moving the date. There aren't enough hours in the day. Night. "

  Jessica didn't say anything. Thank God.

  "Look!" I pointed. George was crocheting the new stitch she'd just showed him. "Wow, he's catching on. "

  "Next: the knit stitch. "

  "Can't you ever rest on your laurels? Let the guy make a blanket or something. "

  "And after that," she said confidentially, "we're going to start with reading and math. "

  "Oh, boy. "

  "He already knows how. He must. It's just a matter of reminding him. "

  "Yeah, that's what it's a matter of. "

  She ignored that. "So what else? Flowers? And then what? You've got the gown picked out. "

  "Yup. Picked it up last week. The nice thing about being dead is one fitting pretty much did the trick. "

  "Well, there you go. What else?"

  "The tasting menu. "

  "How are you going to pull that off?"

  "It's wine for them, juice and stuff for the rest of us. " I heard myself say that and wondered: Who did I think "us" was?

  "Oh. Good work. And?"

  "The cake. Not for us. " There was that word again! "But there will be some regular guys there. You, Marc, my folks. "

  "The Ant?"

  "I'm inviting her. "

  "You are? Well, maybe she'll have a face-lift scheduled that day. "

  I perked up. "Maybe. You think? Anyway. I'm leaning toward chocolate with raspberry ganache filling, topped with chocolate-covered strawberries. And, you know, ivory basket-weave fondant icing. "

  "Stop, you're making me hungry. "

  "And I've been trying to get Sinclair to go tux shopping. "

  "Why? He's got a million of them. "

  "Yeah, but this is the tux. The mother of all tuxes. The wedding day tux. He needs something special. "

  "Maybe in a nice powder blue," she suggested.

  I laughed. "Or canary yellow. Can you imagine? Wouldn't he just die?"

  "Again. Actually, he seems pretty close to it. He, uh, doesn't seem all that interested in the details. I mean, more than most guys. Which is weird, given his cool metrosexualness. "

  I hadn't heard that exact term (which had been sooo trendy the year before but was now woefully overused) applied to Sinclair, but I only had to mull it over for half a second before I realized she was right. He had a big dick, adored women, didn't mind kicking the shit out of bad guys, insisted on redecorating all the parlors, was a foodie and a tea snob. Ah, the love of my life. Great in bed and would only drink tea from leaves, not bags. Whodathunkit.

  I sat down on one of the chairs and watched George busily crochet. Speaking of metrosexuals. He'd already done four inches across.

  "You know how it is. Sinclair's like a tick, he gets so stubborn. 'We're married by vampire law, a ceremony is redundant,' blah-blah. "

  "That's tough," she said sympathetically. She was digging around in her craft bag and tossing more skeins of yarn to George. A wool rainbow flew through the air: red, blue, yellow, purple. "But you know it's not a question of love. You know that, right?"

  "I guess. . . "

  "Come on, Bets. You guys got that cleared up at Halloweentime. He worships you. He'd do anything for you. He's done anything for you. It's not his fault he's considered you guys to be married for the last eight months. "

  "Mmm. Did you know, our wedding is going to be the first vampire monarch wedding in the history of dead people?"

  "Something for the diary. Vampire monarch wedding?"

  "Umm. Because vampires get married now and again. And a vampire/human couple will get married-like Andrea and Daniel. But I guess since the Book of the Dead claims we're already married, it's never actually been done. "

  "So?"

  "Exactly," I said firmly. "Exactly! Who gives a damn if it's never been done? No reason not to do it. But I'm not taking his name. "

  Jessica burst out laughing. "I just realized. If you did, you'd be Sink Lair. "

  "Don't even tell me. "

  "Better not tell him. He's kind of a traditionalist. "

  Exactly what had been worrying me lately. Chapter 6

 

  One of the ghosts came to bug me while I was updating my diary. I don't know why I bothered. I'd write full steam for about a week and then totally lose interest. My closet was full of ninety journals that were only used through the first fifteen pages.

  Marc had just left after begging me, once again, to have a carrot cake instead of chocolate. The maniac. We exchanged cross words and then he huffed out. Jessica was asleep. (It was two A. M. ) Tina was out on the town, probably feeding. (I was careful not to ask. ) Sinclair was somewhere in the house.

  And the ghost was standing in front of my closet with her back to me, bent forward like a butler bowing from the waist, her head stuck through the door. I don't even know why I turned around. She'd been as noisy as a dead battery. I just did. And there she was.

  I sat there for a moment and took a steadying breath, ignoring the instant dizziness. This happened occasionally. Part of the queen thing. The first time I'd been scared shitless. Ironically, I was terrified of dead things.

  I wasn't used to it, exactly, but at least these days I didn't go tearing out of the room to cringe in the driveway.

  "Um," I said.

  She pulled her head out and looked at me, amazed. "You have a lot of shoes. "

  "Thanks. "

  "More than Payless. "

  I concealed a shudder. "Thanks. " We stared at each other. She was a small strawberry blonde, about five foot nothing, with her hair pulled up in an I-Dream-of-Jeannie ponytail. She was blue-eyed and had lots of caramel-colored freckles all over her face and hands. She was wearing beat-up blue jeans and a booger-colored turtleneck. Battered black flats; no socks. Freckles on the tops of her feet, too.

  "I'm, ah, sorry to bother you. But I think I-I think I might be dead. "

  "I'm really sorry to have to tell you this," I replied, "but you are. "

  She sat down on my floor and cried for about ten minutes. I didn't know what to say or do. I couldn't leave, though that was my first impulse-to give her some privacy. But I was afraid she'd take it the wrong way.

  I couldn't touch her-my hands went right through ghosts, and it was horrible. Like plunging your limbs into an ice bath. So a supportive pat or hug was out of the question. "There, there" seemed unbelievably lame. So did going back to my journal. So I just stayed in my desk chair and watched her and waited.

  After a while, she said, "Sorry. "

  "You're totally entitled. "

  "I knew, you know. I just-hoped I was wrong. But nobody-you're the only one-nobody can see me. The EMTs couldn't see me, and the guys in the morgue, and my boyfriend. "

  "How did you know to come here?"

  "I-I don't know. "

  "Okay. " Dammit! If the ghosts knew, nobody was telling. I didn't know if there was a sign outside my house ("She sees dead people") that only the dead could see, or what. Not that it made much difference. But I was curious.

  She sighed. "I was hoping you could do me a favor. "

  "Sure," I said at once. I knew from experience that it was just easier (and quicker) to give them what they wanted. Otherwise, they hung around and talked to me at the most awkward moments. Ever been interrupted by a ghost while you're wa
shing your hair? Or going down on your fiance? Awkward. "What can I do for you?"

  "Well, the last thing I remember-the last time anybody else could see me-I had just run out of our apartment building. Mine and my boyfriend's. We had this big wicked fight because he thought I was cheating on him, but I swear I wasn't!"

  "Okay. "

  "And if you could just-go see him? And tell him? I only had dinner with the guy twice. I wasn't going to do anything. It's Denny I love. I'm so mad I didn't realize that before running out in front of the-anyway. I hate the thought-I hate the thought-of Denny thinking to the end of his days that the last thing I did was cheat on him. I mean, I can't sleep for worrying about it. " She paused. "Not that I could anyway. I think. But it's really bothering me. It-it really is. "

  "I'll be glad to go see him. I'll do it first thing tomorrow night. "

  "I live in Eagan," she said. Then she gave me excellent directions, which I wrote down in my journal.

  "No problem at all. It's done. "

  "Thank you so m-" Then she looked extremely surprised and popped out of sight. This was also expected. It was like whenever they got whatever-it-was off their chests, they could go to. . . wherever.

  Poor thing. I was getting all kinds. At least she didn't feel bad about stealing or a dead mom or criminal assault or something awful like that.

  I went back to my journal and realized she'd never told me her name-and I'd never bothered to ask. This bothered me a lot. . . was I getting jaded? Well, obviously I was, but how bad?

  Dammit. Chapter 7

 

  The next night, I pulled back into my driveway after going about my little errand. The boyfriend-Denny-had been tearfully receptive to my news. That was the weirdest part of all the ghost stuff. . . not only did the ghosts feel better after they told me what they wanted, but whomever I told also felt better. Believed me, unquestioningly. None of that Whoopi Goldberg skepticism in Ghost. No, it was always, "Thank you so much, thank God you told me, now I can get on with my life, are you sure you don't want any coffee?" Very strange. But better than the alternative, I figured.