Undead and Unworthy u-7 Read online

  “Getting eaten alive by the Fiends can't be worse than this,” Marc groaned from the floor. Ouch. He must have fallen at least ten steps. Onto cement.

  “Be careful,” Tina said.

  “Thanks. At least someone cares.”

  “You could have broken your ankle on the way down and slowed our escape.”

  “I hate vampires,” he replied. “So much.”

  I eased past Jessica on the stairs, went to Marc, and picked him up. “This is so romantic,” he cooed, modestly kicking his unbroken foot.

  “Shut up, or I'll use you for Fiend chum.”

  “Why,” Jessica demanded, “have we decamped to the basement?”

  “And why haven't we turned any lights on?” I asked.

  “Tina, take Jessica's hand. Elizabeth, keep carrying Marc.” Sinclair groaned softly in the dark, as if he couldn't believe he'd said such a thing. “Everyone else, follow me.”

  It took a long time. The basement was as long as the house, which was a mansion on Summit Avenue. And we had to wander around various tables and chairs, in and out of mysterious rooms – I could count on one hand how often I'd been down here since we moved a couple of years ago. I had never liked it, not even – especially even – when Garrett was living down there, knitting afghans and learning to crochet.

  The journey wasn't improved by the occasional yelps, as Jessica stubbed a toe or cracked an elbow. Marc just snuggled deeper into my arms (ridiculous – he had thirty pounds of muscle on me) and waited patiently for me to make him safe.

  Story of my life, since I'd died.

  Chapter 5

  We could hear faint crashings from upstairs; the Fiends, making a mess because they couldn't find us. Chewing on my drapes; defecating on my carpet, ripping up my graphic novels in their bloodthirsty rage. But surely they could follow their noses?

  That's when Sinclair stopped walking and began tapping his knuckles on what looked like a solid cement wall.

  “I don't think you should do that,” I said nervously. “They might hear.”

  “Over the sound of their own nonsense? Doubtful. ”

  I opened my mouth to object again (quietly) when the solid cement wall suddenly swung wide to the left, revealing a narrow, dimly lit (with fluorescents, blinking on one by one even as we stared) tunnel.

  “Tunnel?” I asked, peering.

  “Tunnel,” Marc confirmed, peering with me. His grip tightened around my neck. “Did this come with the house, or did you put it in after?”

  Good fucking question, which, I couldn't help notice, my husband didn't bother to answer.

  “The lights and heat are motion activated.” Sinclair turned to me, smiling with all his sharp teeth. “Usually, in our case, heat activation would do little good. After you, my queen.”

  Wondering what else about the Vampiric Mansion of Mystery I didn't know, I went.

  Chapter 6

  “I'm tired,” I whined after we'd been walking for a hundred years.

  “It's only a bit farther,” my lying bastard husband said.

  “You keep saying that, and we keep not being there.”

  “I keep dreaming about divorce and not being divorced.”

  “Oh, very nice!” I raged, running to catch up with them, ignoring Marc's yelps as he was jolted in my arms. “Married not even a season, and you're looking for the door, such a typical guy, I knew you – hey!”

  I had been lifted easily, effortlessly. “Now shush, Your Majesty,” Tina said, shifting my and Marc's combined weight with no effort. “And we really are almost there.”

  “This,” Marc announced over the distinctive gagging noise of Jessica stifling laughter, “is too much. My masculinity could stand being carried by Betsy, but – ”

  “The gay guy has concerns about masculinity?” Jessica managed, then broke down completely.

  “I'm gay, not a eunuch. Have you ever seen me in drag? Or even mascara? I'm a regular guy in every way – ”

  “Except you like to put your penis in weird places,” I said primly.

  “Can we please have one midnight getaway without having to talk about Marc's penis?” Tina asked, aggrieved.

  We all shut up as we navigated another set of stairs... and then another. I'd been living here for months and months, and nobody had told me about the secret vampire escape tunnel.

  I remembered that Sinclair had steered Jessica toward this house when we had to upgrade. Back in the days when I thought I hated him. And here I thought it had been because he was a history buff and liked old houses!

  “I've never been bored, and scared, at the same time,” Marc commented.

  “What do you want me to do with that information?” Tina asked.

  “Just put us down,” he grumbled, and Tina did, hard enough to rattle my teeth. Marc and I groaned in unison.

  Sinclair pressed another button, another wall raised, and I suddenly could hear flowing water. He walked out into what must have looked like pure darkness to the others, except I could hear his heels clanking on the boards of the dock. He sounded like a sheriff from the Old West.

  “We walked all the way to the Mississippi?” Marc goggled.

  “What 'we'?” Jessica asked. “And it was, what? Seven, eight whole blocks?”

  We heard Sinclair start up the Evinrude, and as he hit the lights Jessica and Marc cheered.

  “Get the rope, will you, darling?” he asked casually, as if he didn't look, at that moment, like the coolest guy in the universe.

  The dock was a memory a few seconds later, and when Sinclair opened 'er up, I decided I wasn't mad anymore and allowed him to put his arm around me.

  Chapter 7

  “All right, Garrett,” my husband said about half an hour later. I had no idea where we were, but we were out of the Fiends' reach, at least for now. He'd powered down the motor, and we were floating between a couple of islands. City lights were visible, but far off. I'd always sucked at geography; the lights could have been St. Paul or Minneapolis for all I knew. “Suppose you tell us everything.”

  I realized that during our tunnel getaway and subsequent penis discussion, Garrett hadn't said word one. And at some point, the Ant had disappeared. Thank goodness for small etcetera.

  Garrett, a slim, tall blond with hair almost as long as Marc's, was sitting low in the bow, staring at his hands.

  “Garrett? Helloooo? Time, if you didn't notice by the whole Fiends breaking down the door and the tunnel escape, is not on our side.”

  “I am shamed,” he said at last, still staring at his hands. “I feel ashamed.”

  “Well,” Marc said reasonably, swiveling around in one of the captain's chairs, “what'd you do?”

  He looked up at me, the moonlight bouncing off his face and making his eyes seem to gleam. “You should kill me, dread queen. Right now.”

  “Blech! I mean, uh, no way, Garrett, you're one of the family.” The giant extended family I neither wanted nor asked for. To think, three years ago I was living in a two-​bedroom in Apple Valley, bitching because I hadn't had a date in over a month. My biggest problem had been fixing the copy machine at my day job – management would try to fuck with the machines, and often there was no hope afterward. “Besides, if I didn't kill you when you were a Fiend, I'm sure not going to now and risk your girlfriend's wrath.” Antonia-​the-​werewolf was a high octane bitch when she was in a good mood. I never, never wanted to see her when she was really mad.

  “Antonia,” Garrett said, almost sighed. “As you know, my mate has to leave me. Often, she leaves. More so, now that you changed her.”

  We nodded, like we'd been cued. We did know this. Antonia had to pop over to Cape Cod now and again – the seat of werewolf power, pardon me while I snigger – and tend to pack business. We assumed she didn't take Garrett, because traveling with a vampire could get tricky.

  Also, up until two months ago, she was a werewolf who had never changed during the full moon. I had done something to her, something we all still didn't li
ke to talk about, and now she did change. The meetings on Cape Cod had increased as a result, but those of us in the manse weren't talking about it.

  “I stay,” he continued, “because I'm afraid.”

  “Of what?” Jessica asked.

  “The world,” he replied simply. “The last time I went out in the world, I was captured and bound like a slave.”

  Thank you, Marjorie, you kidnapping fuck, may you roast in Hell for a zillion billion years.

  “The time before that, I was killed. The monster got me. I don't go out in the world anymore.”

  It occurred to me (it was going to be a night of discovering things that had been under my nose) that except for going after Antonia last summer (and getting captured, as he put it, and bound like a slave), I couldn't remember the last time he had left the mansion.

  I imagined he fed on Antonia, but such things were none of my business, so I didn't ask. As long as he wasn't hurting innocent people, I had no interest in where he was getting his liquid diet.

  “An agoraphobic vampire?” Marc asked, and I could tell he was trying very, very hard not to laugh.

  “It's more common than you might think,” Tina said, pacing the small deck. She was so light on her feet, the boat didn't even rock. “Particularly when the vampire in question had a bad death.”

  “Uh, excuse me, but don't you guys have to kill somebody for them to come back? Aren't all vampires, by definition, murder victims? They all sound like bad deaths to me.”

  “Point,” Jessica said, actually sticking her left index finger in the air to mark the point.

  “So, didn't you guys all have bad deaths? Except for Betsy?”

  “Call me the day after you get run over by an Aztec, and then we'll talk,” I grumbled.

  “We are not here to discuss such things with – with guests,” Sinclair said, correcting himself so smoothly Tina and I were probably the only ones who knew he'd been about to say “outsiders” or “humans.” “And you were telling us about Antonia.”

  “Other than my mate, I have no peers. All of you, even the humans, are smarter than I.”

  “What 'even'?” Marc said. “I'm a doctor.”

  Jessica put a soothing hand on Marc's arm. “Garrett, don't be so hard on yourself. You've been out of it for, what? Sixty, seventy years? Crack a few modern history books, you'll be up to speed in no time.”

  Garrett waited patiently until Jessica was finished. “It is not my place to befriend a queen, or a king. So when Antonia leaves me, I am lonely.”

  I was beginning to see where this was going. Oh, it'd be a lovely children's book: Garrett the Fiend Finds Friends!

  “And it seemed to me that I was – that I was the way I am now – because the good queen and the devil's daughter allowed me to feed off them. I thought perhaps if I gave my old comrades my blood...”

  Okay. This is a little embarrassing to explain, so I'm just gonna plunge in and get it over with. See, I had let Garrett feed from me, ages ago. And as a sort of punishment, I'd ordered the devil's daughter to do the same thing.

  The devil's daughter being my half sister, Laura.

  (I know. Bear with me.)

  See, the Ant was possessed by the devil years back, only she was so fucking nasty nobody noticed. And the devil didn't care for child rearing, so she dumped Laura and took off back to Hell. Laura was adopted by (seriously, don't laugh) a minister and his wife.

  How do you rebel against the evilest nastiest yuckiest entity in the universe (who looks like Lena Olin and has an amazing shoe collection)?

  You go to church. You teach Sunday school. You don't touch a drop of booze until your twenty-​first birthday.

  And you conceal a hateful, murderous temper. Laura was going to blow one of these days, but I just didn't have time to worry about it right now. Among other things, I had slavering Fiends on my tail and thank-​you cards to finish.

  “So I began to visit them and let them feed off me.”

  “Eh?”

  “Pay attention, Elizabeth.”

  “They didn't try to puree you or anything?” Marc asked.

  Garrett shook his head. “Even though I had... changed, they still knew me as one of them. They would never have hurt me. Or so I thought, until tonight. And I felt... bad. To see them. I had everything, and they were drinking buckets of cow blood.”

  I was suddenly interested in studying my feet. I wouldn't have credited Garrett with a guilty conscience. But then, I scarcely thought about him at all.

  “I was not sure what would happen, but I kept trying. I had found so much happiness in – ”

  “Your agoraphobia,” Marc prompted.

  “ – in my new life, I felt it cost me nothing but blood to try to help my old friends. And Antonia is generous with her blood. She regenerates quickly, as is part of her superior genetic heritage.”

  “Superior genetic – ” Tina began, equal parts outraged and interested (until a very short time ago, neither she nor Sinclair believed in werewolves), but Sinclair shook his head, and she shut up without another word. God, I'd love to learn that trick. I'd only use it for fighting evil, though.

  “It worked. My friends were helped by my blood. The effect wasn't all at once. It took many visits. It was – was – ”

  “Accumulative?” Jessica and Marc asked in unison.

  Garrett nodded.

  “But they weren't really friends, right?” I asked anxiously. “You guys didn't even know each other in life, right? Once in a while, ole Nostril would take it in his teeny brain and toss another one of you into the snake pit and that was about it. Right?”

  “We were prisoners together,” Garrett said quietly, “for decades.”

  “Right, right, got that, sorry.” I was so embarrassed I couldn't look at him. So I went back to studying my toes. “So, you had good intentions, right?”

  “Exactly so, my queen,” he said eagerly. “I only wished – ”

  “And in your loneliness and self-​exile, you put the queen's life in danger,” Sinclair said coldly. “You put her friends in danger, and my friend.” I noticed he didn't include himself in the pack. “I should have ignored Elizabeth's soft heart and staked you myself.”

  I heard Tina flip open the seat on the stern (you could sit on it, but it held life jackets and things... sort of like a padded cedar chest), rummage around, and produce – ack! – a stake. The boat that had everything!

  Garrett sank to his knees. “All you say is true, bold king,” he said to the deck.

  “Marc, Jessica, step to the back. You don't want to get splashed.”

  “Now wait just a fucking minute!” I slapped the stake out of Tina's hand so hard she nearly plunged overboard. (And what other nasty implements of death were in that chest?)

  I marched over and hauled Garrett to his feet. The book rocked alarmingly, then steadied. “This is a monarchy, right, Sinclair? And if the Book of the Dead is right, I outrank you. I was born the queen; you had to fuck me to get your crown.”

  And oh, boy, I still got pissed if I thought that one over too carefully.

  “So I'll be the one to say who gets staked.” I shook Garrett, who drooped at the end of my arm. “Stand up straight! Defend yourself! Be a man of the early twentieth century, for God's sake – ignorant yet sure of your superiority.” (We were sure he'd been killed in the thirties or forties.)

  “Ever the graceful hostess,” Sinclair commented.

  “Besides, smart guy, you didn't even notice that every time Antonia left town, Garrett was leaving the house and feeding other vampires. Too busy looking for new companies to buy?”

  “Touché,” Tina muttered, not looking happy about it. Watching over the estate, including the Fiend farm, was part of her job, but she knew I preferred to yell at Sinclair rather than her.

  “So, Garrett, where were we? What's the rest of the story?”

  “My plan worked,” he continued miserably. “Too well, I fear... my comrades wanted to know where they were, what ha
d happened to them. Unlike me, they were – were displeased to find themselves – ”

  “Stuck on an abandoned farm full of animal blood?” Jessica suggested.

  “Exactly so. I tried to emphasize the queen's goodness in letting them live, tried to explain that she had set us free by killing our jailor, but they only became more enraged. Essentially, they could not understand – ”

  “Why you and not them?” Marc asked.

  “What?” I cried. “So this is my fault?”

  “Looks like,” Jessica replied.

  “They were so angry,” Garrett said dolefully.

  “Angry? After you saved them? Ungrateful brutes. Besides, with Nostro dead, what's to be mad about?” Marc asked.

  “Ah, let me count the ways,” Sinclair purred. And he did just that, ticking the points off on his long, slender fingers. “They are angry because they are old vampires with no real power. Deprived of live blood for so long, like Garrett, they will never have real power. They are angry about, as they see it, being dumped on a farm, and never mind that it was for the public's safety.”

  “But it was!” I cried.

  “The vampire queen puts vampires first, my dearest. As I have repeatedly told you. Next – ”

  “I don't wanna hear any more,” I groaned.

  “ – they are angry that a new queen has been in power for two years and done nothing to help them – ”

  “Nothing! I stopped you from killing them about nine times!”

  “ – angry that the new queen knows she could have 'cured' them at any time (case in point, the happily married, articulate Garrett), and, finally, extremely angry that they've been given silly nicknames.”

  “That wasn't the queen,” Tina said loyally. “That was Alice.”

  “Alice is dead,” Garrett said.

  “Happy, Skippy, Trippy, Sandy, Benny, Clara, and Jane killed her?” I said, horrified.

  “I tried to stop them, but they are many, and I am one. I only barely escaped myself. Alice...” He looked away, out over the water. “Died cursing me.”