Undead and Unwary (20 page)

“—not nearly enough time but I
was
able to figure—”

“—figure out . . . what to . . .” I trailed off as Jessica’s words sank in. “What now? How long was I gone?”

“A night and a day,” Tina replied, watching me carefully, “and now it’s night again.”

“No. No, that’s not—” I stared and, since I couldn’t think of anything else to do at that moment, stared more. And they were all looking at me like
I’d
been the one to lose track of time and not crazy, new-mom-hormonal, sleep-deprived Jessica. “Is it? That can’t . . .”

Sinclair’s big hand gripped mine and he gave it a light squeeze. “It seemed like much less time in Hell?”

“It was half an hour in Hell! Oh, hell. I mean, the hell with Hell. Argh! You know what I’m trying to get across.”

“Vaguely.” The corner of his mouth twitched, but he squashed the grin. “So in addition to mastering your newfound ability to move your physical body to and from another dimension, it seems you had best adjust to, and understand, the time issue as well.”

“I didn’t even know there
was
a time issue! How the hell am I supposed to address it? Don’t even get me started on understanding it.”

“By allowing me to attend you,” was his soooo smooth reply.

I yanked my hand away. “Aha! I see your subtle game, Sink Lair; you’re not fooling me.”

“The
b
in
subtle
,” he began with a mournful sigh, “is silent. As we have discussed.”

“Back off, Grammar Police.”

“Would that not be Pronunciation Police?”

“Don’t try to confuse me!” Alas, too late.

“Never mind that—what’s subtle about Sinclair saying straight-out that he wants to go to Hell with you and take some of the burden off your bony shoulders?” Marc asked with honest curiosity.

“He just wants to take over.” Weird how I snapped that like it was a bad thing. “All right, I’ll deal with that, too.” My brain waited hopefully, but no idea was forthcoming. I’d deal with my lazy brain later. It would be punished! Everyone would be punished! “I have to go.” Not least because Jess apparently had a Dad update. Pass. “You know you can text me if you need me.”

“Yeah, about that,” Marc began, and Tina’s eyes lit up. I could actually see them widen and get sparkly the way they did when she came home with a bottle of peanut-butter-flavored vodka.

“Yes, how interesting! And how fascinating, my queen, you must tell us how—”

“No idea.” Better nip that in the bud right now, the thought that I could actually be a helpful source of information for them. “Seriously, you guys. I’ve got no idea. And hanging in the kitchen isn’t going to help me get one. I’ll be back in—” A day? A week? Ugh, no idea, everything was horrible, life was horrible, Hell was horrible, Jessica’s weird babies were horrible, my vampire king husband angling for a supernatural corporate takeover was horrible, ugh
ugh
UGH!

I just really, really need to get the fuck out of here right now I have to have to
have to—

 CHAPTER 

TWENTY

“Oh, now, what is this shit?”

I was back in the big fat nothing that was the pit, Hades, the place where you could never find your receipt and even if you could, Hell doesn’t take returns.

I’d wanted to be back in Hell—or at least gone from that kitchen. And I was. Blink! Jeannie and her pink outfit of scarves and air (and her disturbing habit of referring to an air force major as “Master”) had nothing on me. Too bad I had no real idea how I did it. More of that “Hell and its rules are shaped by the force of your will” bullshit? The force of
my
will? What, like, think positive?
Don’t think you can run Hell . . .
know
you can!
What? No. Nothing was that easy.

Could those business seminars I’d endured for various office jobs have been right all along? Communicating with Tact, Diplomacy, and Professionalism . . . do I have to say what a waste of money that was for management? Almost as much as the bucks they shelled out for Conflict Management Skills for Women. Should I hang some of those motivational posters in Hell?
Be the Bridge: Problems become opportunities when the right people join together
.
Excellence: Some excel because they are destined to. Most excel because they are determined to
. Are they also determined to end a sentence with a preposition? Because that’s what they’re doing. Show me
that
poster, thanks.

“Oh, look,” a familiar, bored voice drawled behind me. “It’s back.”

I whirled and glared at the Ant. “What the hell is going on in Hell?”

“You aren’t tired of hammering that stupid joke over and over yet?”

“I will
never
get tired of hammering stupid jokes,” I retorted. “Now tell me what’s going on. How long was I gone? And how come I was only here for a few minutes but the gang said I was MIA for a day? And what’s up with the weird babies?” This was why I hadn’t said anything to Jessica or DadDick about what I’d seen their babies do. Because if there’s one person on the planet who loathes my stepmother more than I, it would be Jessica, who loathed her with all the power her love and loyalty brought to bear.

The Ant had, after all, been the one to tip me off to the problem with Jessica’s pregnancy
⁹
and the strangeness therein; I assumed she’d also know what was up with Oil and Vinegar. But there was no way I could have said,
Something unprecedented and terrifying is happening to your children and the only one who might be able to help us is a woman you and I both despise and have never been nice to, but, no big, I’ll go play Twenty Questions with her in Hell and maybe she’ll be helpful and maybe not. Later, bitch!

Uh. No. If I had, Jess never would have let me go back to Hell without her, and taking my best friend to Hell was not happening,
ever
. And she wouldn’t have forgiven me for going without her.

“Oh, now you want my counsel?” The Ant was cupping her elbows and shivering as if she were cold, which she totally wasn’t. She was also tapping one foot, which I assumed was to remind me that a) she was Very, Very Busy and b) she still had terrible taste in footgear. “That’s nerve. I thought since you killed my boss I was now the—how did you put it?”

“Annoying Nobody,” I reminded her, then realized I wasn’t helping myself. “Um, I think. I dunno, it was so long ago.”
Maybe
. “Look, just cough up what you know about this place, okay?”

“No,” was the predictable answer, and there it was, the thing I loathed more than pleather: the Pout. The Pout had precipitated my father filing for divorce, cruises to tropical islands, my father’s second marriage, and various shopping trips abroad. And that was just the stuff I knew about. It was the Ant’s mightiest weapon (aside from her stiff hair, which, I was pretty sure, was bulletproof from all the product she shoveled on) and one that never failed to work.

On my
father.

“Don’t even,” I warned. “I will rip your lips off your face. Then throw them on the ground and stomp on them.” What ground? Hell was still a big pile of nothing. I was undaunted; for the purpose of lip stomping, I’d find a way to make Hell have a ground again. Have an up and a down and a right and a left, too, if it came to that. “Look, you think I don’t know this sucks? I’m well aware this sucks and I’m just as horrified as you are to find out we’re still in each other’s lives.”

“That,” she replied grimly, “is impossible.”

“Ha! You remember how appalled you and Dad were to find out I’d come back from the dead? As a vampire, no less?”

“Yes,” was the short, stiff reply. “Nightmare.”

“For me, too! You think that was any kind of fun for me? You think that was my plan? Because that was not my plan, Antonia; in no way, shape, or form was any of that my plan.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but I was off and running.

“Being run over by a Pontiac Aztec on my thirtieth birthday after I’d just been fired was not my plan. Hearing my skull shatter—it sounded like ice cracking, by the way—was not my plan. Coming back as a vampire was not my plan. Coming back as the foretold
queen
of the bloodsuckers . . . wait for it . . . not my plan! And that’s just the stuff that happened that first
week
! That insane amount of insanity was all
before
I found out about the Antichrist being a blood relative and Satan looking like Lena Olin and—and—and me messing up the timeline and time travel and the cold, frozen netherworld of the future and Ancient Me and helping run Hell!”

“Yes, yes, you have problems. We know.
We all know
, because you never shut up about how put-upon you are with the money and the happy marriage and the minions.”

“I don’t have minions,” I said, sulking a little. “I have helpers. Like . . . like Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts on a liquid diet possibly for eternity. And what the
fuck
would you even know about my marriage?”

“Do you think this is what I wanted?” she snapped back, gesturing at all the nothing while ignoring my very sensible question. “I’m well aware of what a skull sounds like when it shatters, or did you forget I died almost exactly the same way?”

Um. I kind of did. Forget, that is. The garbage truck had pancaked them. Yeah,
them
. Because there were two people in that car and one of them was definitely my dad. It never occurred to me to wonder how much of the fatal, devastating accident my stepmother remembered. It was horrifying even to think about, never mind quiz her about. Even more horrifying: of almost all the people I knew, the Ant was someone who could empathize with some of the less-than-great aspects of my life after death.

The Ant! Why does the universe hate
me and want me to be sad? Because
could
empathize wasn’t the same as
would
empathize. In fairness (groan), I had zero interest in empathizing with her, either.

And, oh good God, she was still bitching. “Do you think it was my plan to be possessed by the devil, to have her run my body for a year?”

“I thought you were more upset about how no one noticed you were possessed,” I admitted. It wasn’t funny, except to me. It was actually pretty vindicating: she was so awful, no one noticed she’d been possessed by the evilest thing in creation.

The smirk fell off my face as I realized that was something else we had in common. I’d read the Book of the Dead in a misguided attempt to learn more about vampires and their nature and what I could expect in the future.
¹⁰
I’d turned evil for a bit and raped Sinclair, who had been delighted for every second of it.
¹¹
That was an awkward conversation, later.

More empathy, ugh. And at the worst possible time. I couldn’t afford to feel anything for the Ant except my usual exhausted contempt. Anything else only made complicated matters even more difficult.

“And did you think—” Oh, good, the shrill bitching was helping me back off from the momentary empathy. “Did you think it was my plan to have
another
baby in my thirties?”

“Forties,” I mumbled.

“And die in my late thirties?”

“Forties.”

“And find out that my daughter—the one I’d been forced to carry for nine months and squeeze out without so much as a Tylenol, never mind an epidural—was the Antichrist?”

“Well, I had to find out she was my sister, and also the Antichrist.” Speaking of, where the hell in Hell was she? Where was anyone besides This Woman? “So we can both relate, so what? This isn’t further proof we should go get coffee together or something, right?”

Judging by the expression on her face, the Ant found that concept as repulsive as I did. Whew! “And before you ask,” she continued, “my daughter had to tend to something back on earth.” Wow. I’ve lived long enough to have “back on earth” be a true, literal thing, something I barely blinked at. “She has many responsibilities and demands on her time.”

“So do I!” I cried. “
So
many. Speaking of, Jessica’s babies—”

Nostril flare at the name. I stomped on the urge to take off her shoes (which weren’t really there) and beat her to death with them (which was impossible) and then set the shoes on fire (tricky, since the shoes
and
the fire didn’t exist). Ultimately futile, sure, but sooo satisfying. I think.

“Keep your bigotry out of this,” I warned, which was like telling Cinnabon to keep their sugar out of anything.

“I am not a racist!” she cried, contradicting many,
many
of her actions, conversations, and boldly stated philosophies. “We’re very supportive of all their causes. For years we donated to the—ah—”

“Can’t remember the name of the charity you use for a tax break? That’s not surprising. Not even a little tiny bit.”

“You’re as bad as I am—”

“You take that back!”

“—with your one black friend and—”

“Wait. What?”

A snort, followed by an eye roll. “Sorrrry. African American friend.”

“No, that’s not what I take objection to.” And never would. I’d made that mistake once, and as a consequence Jessica almost fed me my own face.
My parents and grandparents and greats and great-greats and great-great-greats were not African! We were from Jamaica! This PC shit is going too far! Don’t assume you know where my family’s from because I’ve got more melanin in my skin cells than you do, you silly bitch!

All right, all right! Say it, don’t spray it. Sorry.

The Ant cut through my stressful flashback (it was so real! I could remember the feel of her fingers as she seized my shirt and twisted, giving it the fabric equivalent of a purple nurple). “Oh, you know what I’m talking about. You’ve got your one African American pal to cement your street cred but you don’t hang out with any other—”

“Stop. Talking.” I took an unnecessary breath (it didn’t calm me but the dizziness helped me focus). “You’re awful. And nobody says ‘street cred’ anymore.”