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  It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I had very little clue what Sinclair—my fiancé and current consort—had done in the decades before we'd met. One night I'd have to get his whole life story out of him. It wouldn't be easy. When there wasn't a crisis at hand, he was about as chatty as a brick.

  “Yousaw her.” Marc couldn't get over it.Boing, boing on the couch. “Live and everything. Did you get to meet her?”

  “Did you bite her?” I asked. I had no idea who Dorothy Dandridge was.

  “That's the tragedy of her,” Jessica said. She was on the couch beside Marc, trying not to be pitched onto the floor with all his antics. As usual, her hair was up—skinned back so tightly her eyebrows arched—and her mouth was turned down. She was dressed in her usual “I'm not really a millionaire” style: blue jeans,Oxford shirt, bare feet. In the spring! It made me cold just to look at her and Sinclair. Tina, at least, had wool socks on. Marc hadn't even taken off his tennis shoes. “That you've never heard of her.”

  “I didn'tsay that,” I said.

  “Oh, please, it was all over your big blank face.” Her broad smile was forced—it was clear the barb was genuine, and not at all a joke.

  “What iswith you these—” I began, forgetting all about Alonzo, Sophie, bare feet, only to be interrupted when Detective Nick came back into the room.

  “Thanks,” he said cheerfully. “I was in the stakeout van half the day—no time to take a—oh.” He slowed down. “Hi, Betsy.”

  I stifled a groan. Nick was a whole new problem, his own subset, you could say. I'd known him before I died. I'd bitten him right after I'd died, and it had driven him nuts. Literally crazy. Sinclair had had to step in with a bit of vampire mojo to make him all right. The official line was: Nick never knew I died, didn't know we were all vampires.

  But we all wondered if he was going along with the party line, or fooling us. Normally I'd think nobody could get past Tina's bullshit radar, but Nick was a cop. They paid him to lie.

  And Jessica had decided todate him. Because, you know, my life wasn't stressful enough.

  He held out his hand, and I clamped on it and escorted him to the parlor door. “Great to see you again.” I had no intention of introducing him to Alonzo, the Amazing Spanish Killer Vampire. “Guess you two want to get to your date, huh?”

  “Actually…” Jessica began with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

  “Well,” Nick said as I hustled him out, “the show starts at ten, so we thought we'd stay and visit for a few…”

  “Right, don't want to miss it, have some popcorn for me, bye!” I hollered as he practically went sprawling into the hallway. Jessica rolled her eyes at me and followed. “See you later!”

  Much later.

  “That was—” Tina said, stopped, and put a hand over her mouth so I wouldn't see she was fighting a grin.

  “Efficient,” Alonzo suggested.

  “You hush. You're still on my list, chum.”

  “Oh, Majesty.” He clasped his heart like a player in a bad opera. “I would gladly cross seven raging oceans to be on any list you might have.”

  “Are you trying to pick me up?” I asked irritably, “or overthrow me?”

  “Can we not do both, darling Majesty?”

  “Say that now,” Marc said cheerfully. As usual, he was clueless—or didn't care. He just loved the whole vampire politics thing. It was a lot more interesting than his day job, saving lives.

  “Don't you have some patients to intubate downtown?” I asked him pointedly. “Or some dates to fondle uptown?”

  “If I did, do you think I'd be here?” Damn. So reasonable, and the truth besides. He looked at Eric and Alonzo again. “So tell me about the show. Where did you see Dorothy? Did she look fabulous? She did, didn't she?”

  “I was there for other reasons,” Sinclair said. “I must admit I paid little attention to the stage goings-​on.”

  Marc groaned and covered his eyes. His hair was growing out—he'd been shaved bald when I first met him—and his scalp was almost entirely black now, with an interesting white streak above his left eyebrow. His green eyes were shaded with long black lashes—guys always got the good eyelashes—and he was dressed in the scrubs he'd worn to work. They made him look doctor-​like and professional, which was good, because he was actually a few years younger than I was, and sometimes patients had a hard time taking him seriously.

  They should see him now, bouncing on the couch and grilling an undead Spaniard about somebody named Dorothy.

  “As I was saying, it was inNew York City ,” Alonzo said, smiling as Marc sighed and squealed like a bobby-​soxer. “ 'La Vie en Rose.' Could it have been… 1950? Yes, I think so.”

  “Oh, man, this totally makes my night. It was a shit night to put it mildly. I'm on my third set of scrubs.”

  “Oh, a lot of patients?”

  “Bus crash. A lot of DOTS. Just really a downer.”

  “DOTS?” Alonzo asked.

  “Dead on the Spot,” Sinclair and I answered in unison. Thanks to Marc, we were up on all the medical slang.

  “That sucks,” I continued. “Maybe you should skip work for a while, Marc.”

  He shrugged. “They're hauling in a shrink for us to talk to, you know, talk about how helpless and arbitrary the whole thing was.” He seemed to make a determined effort to look cheerful. “Anyway, you were saying about Dorothy, Mr. Alonzo…”

  “She was wonderful,” the Spaniard said at once, and I almost liked him for his obvious attempts to cheer Marc up. “Illuminating, gorgeous. It was impossible to take your eyes off her. Unless you were the king,” he added, with a nod in Sinclair's direction.

  “Thanks for not killing her and dumping her in an alley somewhere,” I observed sweetly.

  “Her neck, her voice box, was a work of art,” he said, having the colossal gall to sound wounded. “Risking damage to such delicate organs with my teeth, even for the sake of eternal life, would have been sacrilege.”

  “And ending Sophie's life was not?”

  Marc shook his head sadly, unwilling to completely damn this magnificent Spaniard. “Sophie's a great chick, man. You shouldn't've killed her. A great chick.”

  “Who would, if my math is correct, be at least fifty years under her cold, stony grave by now had I not turned her. Assuming she died of natural causes.”

  “That wasn't for you to decide,” I said sharply. “Vampires can drink without killing people. You didn't have to take it that far.”

  He spread his hands. “This argument is pointless. The girl is dead. She hates me for it. There is nothing I can do about this now.”

  Marc looked at me. “Good point.” I could see he was half in love with Alonzo already.

  “Go make yourself some Malt-​O-​Meal,” I snapped. “This is vampire business.”

  “Hey, I know when I'm not wanted.” He didn't move from the couch.

  “You're not wanted,” I said.

  “Oh.” He got up. “Well. It was nice to meet you. Maybe you can tell Betsy and Sophie you're sorry and, you know, hang out for a while.”

  “Perhaps.” Alonzo held out a hand, and Marc shook it. “A pleasure, Dr. Spangler. I look forward to our next conversation.”

  Marc was staring raptly into Alonzo's golden-​colored eyes. “Yeah, that'd be good. I'm off for the next two days, so maybe—”

  “Maybe,” I said, seizing him by the back of his scrubs, “you shouldn't break your dating drought with this guy.”

  “Hey, I deserve a social liiiife,” he trailed off as I practically threw him into the hallway. It was my night for tossing men out of the room, it appeared.

  I stuck a finger in Alonzo's bemused face. “Don't even think about it.”

  He licked his thick lips. Which probably sounded gross, but it wasn't—it actually called attention to his lush mouth. “I assure you, Majesty, I do not make a move toward that delicacy of a man without your express permission.”

  “Ha!”

  �
�But it is the truth,” he said, sounding vaguely hurt. “Why else am I here, if not to make amends for yesterday?”

  “To figure out how to kill me, after a rotten evening?”

  He smiled at me. It was a nice smile; lit up his whole face and made him look like a pleasant farmer fromValencia instead of a rotten undead fiend from hell. “Oh, Majesty. Forgive me if I patronize, but how young you are to me. There was nothing rotten in last evening. Just a simple misunderstanding. To kill you in response—forgive me, to try to kill you in response—would be an overreaction of the worst sort.”

  Tina and Sinclair looked at each other and I could sense their unspoken agreement:it's a peace offering. Take it . As usual, when I was the only one who felt a certain way, I got pissed.

  “Look, we can't just paper over this, okay? You weren't here two minutes before you plopped a big steaming pile of shit into my lap. Last night wasbad , get it?”

  “Majesty, lopping off heads and cutting off penises and flaying strips of skin and drying them out like jerky, then making innocent children chew on them,that would be bad. Not being allowed to feed until you lose your mind, fighting over victims like dogs in a pen, that is bad. Do you understand this?”

  “Alonzo.” I ran my fingers through my hair and resisted the urge to kick the couch through the wall. “Okay, I understand. You are trying to put this in perspective. So try to see mine. You hurt my friend. You killed my friend.”

  “When you were not in power, when I did not know she would be your friend.”

  “Agreed. But dude: she is gunning for you.”

  “And you will allow that? Am I not your subject as much as she is?”

  “Maybe a caged death match?” Marc hollered from the hallway.

  Tina got up and firmly shut the door.

  “Perhaps a formal apology?” Sinclair suggested.

  “I would do that,” Alonzo said at once. “It would be my honor to do that, to help Her Majesty and His Majesty find a way through this… difficult situation.”

  I sighed and looked at Tina and Sinclair. Of course they would want this to end here, with a hint of a chance at agreement, so we could move on with diplomatic relations.

  I gave them both a look. Tina had turned Sinclair; they were best buddies. Of course he would think Sophie and Alonzo could Just Get Along.

  “You didn't see her tonight. She is beyond pissed. And she's pissed atme , because I'm not helping her. Yet,” I added, hoping to wipe the smile off his face. Unfortunately, since I wasn't cutting off his penis or making him eat his own skin, he was in a pretty good mood.

  “Where's the rest of the Undead L'il Rascals?” I asked, because more surprises, I so did not need.

  “We felt it was better for me to return alone to make amends, as I was the one to, ah, incur your wrath.” He almost laughed when he saidwrath .

  “Alonzo, I am fond of Sophie as well,” Sinclair commented.

  Finally, the lurking smile was banished. Alonzo looked contrite. “I cannot undo the past, Majesties. If you will it, I shall seek out the lady and apologize. And make amends.”

  “Make amends how?”

  “However you wish. My fate,” he said simply, “is in your hands.”

  I glared. “Stop being nice about it.”

  “Of course, as you wish. I shall endeavor to stop the niceness of my apology immediately.”

  Before we could go any farther down this insane road, there was a long, sonorousgong from the foyer, and I nearly groaned. The front door. Terrific.

  “You know what? I'll get it. You guys”—I motioned to Tina and Sinclair—“should Alonzo be strung up by his balls? Discuss.”

  “I would be against that particular course of action,” I heard him say as I left the room.

  My evil-​o-​meter must have been on the fritz, because I didn't realize it was my stepmother until I'd swung open the door (these old fashioned mansions didn't have any peepholes—something we probably should have rectified when we moved in).

  She was holding my half brother, BabyJon, a chubby three-​month-​old infant who was squirming and wailing in her arms.

  “You take him,” she said by way of greeting. “He's just being impossible tonight, and if I don't get any sleep, I'll be awful tomorrow for the foundation meeting.”

  “It's not a good—” I began, then juggled the baby as she shoved him into my arms. “Antonia, seriously. This really isn't—”

  She was backing down the front steps, wobbling on her high heels. If it hadn't stuck me with permanent baby duty, I would have wished her to fall down.

  “He'll need to eat in another hour,” she said. “But it's not like it's really an imposition, right? You'll be up all night anyway.” She'd navigated the steps in her tacky brown pumps, and now she was practically running to her car. “I'll pick him up tomorrow!” she yelled, and dove into her Lexus.

  “It's not a good time!” I hollered into the spring night as gravel sputtered and tires squealed. BabyJon was chortling and cooing in my arms. And—was that?—yep. Shitting. He was shitting in my arms, too.

  I trudged back to the parlor, laden with bags of baby crap and, of course, the baby.

  Alonzo looked mildly surprised. “I thought I smelled an infant,” he said, which was creepy in nine ways.

  Tina looked away, nibbling her lower lips. Sinclair looked resigned.

  “I'm, uh, going to be babysitting tonight. Starting right now. Which does not get you off the hook,” I added. “But we'll have to finish this up later.”

  “You have a baby?” Alonzo asked, looking befuddled.

  “It's notmy baby. It's… ugh. You know what? Never mind. Our discussion is over. Go apologize to Sophie, if you think that'll make things right. Just… do it and mind your own business.”

  BabyJon, perhaps in agreement, barfed all over me.

  Chapter 8

  “I had other plans for us tonight,” Sinclair said, looking nudely aggrieved.

  I had just plunked BabyJon into the port-​a-​crib in our room, none too happy about current events. I was trying not to drool at my fiancé, who was standing, hands on hips, beside our bed. His dark hair was mussed from where he'd pulled his undershirt over his head (vampires layered), which was the only indication that he was annoyed. With his broad shoulders, long muscled legs, and big, uh, nipples, he could have been a lumberjack slumming in the state capital. All he needed was the axe. And possibly the blue ox.

  “This wasn't exactly how I pictured spending the evening, either.”

  “Must he sleep in here with us?” Sinclair continued.

  “He's not exactly sleeping,” I mumbled, as BabyJon cooed and chortled in the port-​a-​crib.

  “Why not put him down in another room?”

  “Why do that when I can put him down here?” I looked at the baby. “You're fat and you don't know how to use toilet paper.”

  “I am quite serious, Elizabeth. Put him down somewhere else.”

  “Eric! Be sensible. What if something happened to him? This is an eighty-​room mansion. What if he chokes? I'd never forgive myself if I couldn't get to him in time because I couldn't remember what door I put him behind.”

  “You have super speed and super hearing.” Eric sighed.

  “It's just one night. We're supposed to be together for a thousand years, you can't ditch sex for one night?”

  “It is the third night,” he retorted, “this week. At this rate, in a thousand years we'll have missed sex one hundred fifty-​six thousand—”

  “Jeez, okay, I get your point, so what? I should put him on the doorstep from now on?”

  “You could try telling your stepmother no.”

  “It all happened so fast,” I said weakly. “And you want him to have to spendmore time with his mother? Unfeeling bastard! Besides, the baby brings the family, uh, closer together.”

  “Which I would understand, if you had the slightest desire to be closer to Mrs. Taylor.”

  “It's one night,” I said a
gain. Okay, three—in addition to the surprise she'd dumped on me tonight, we'd actually planned for the baby to stay tomorrow night and Monday. I decided not to bring this up just now. “Come on, babe. He's the only little brother I've got. Maybe he's our heir!”

  BabyJon farted.

  “Our heir,” Sinclair observed, “is a hairless, incontinent monkey. With frog legs.”

  “That's not true! He looks like a real baby now.” About the incontinence, I couldn't argue. But BabyJon had plumped up beautifully, and wasn't so yellow and scrawny anymore. He had a mohawk of black hair and bright blue eyes. He didn't look like my dad or my stepmother. But who could tell with babies? They usually didn't look like anybody.

  “You only like him because he prefers you to all others,” Sinclair pointed out.

  “Well, sure. Duh. Come on, it's a little flattering that I'm the only one he can stand. I mean, how often does a girl find someone like that?”

  “Iprefer you above all others.”

  I melted.Goosh , right into a little puddle on the carpet. At least, that's what it felt like. “Oh, Eric.” I went to him and hugged him. He was stiff in my arms for a moment (not in a good way), then hugged me back.

  “You have to admit,” I said, nuzzling his chest with my nose, “it's brought us together.”

  “Us being you and Mrs. Taylor.”

  “Yeah. I mean, my whole life—since I was a kid—we've basically stayed out of each other's way, when we weren't torturing each other. Now we're almost…” I was stumped. “What's the word?”

  “Civil.”

  “That's it.”

  He was stroking my back with his big hands and I leaned further into him. He dipped his head, kissed me, sucked my lip into his mouth, plunged his fingers into my hair, and I responded eagerly, hungrily, touching him wherever I could reach as we—

  “Arrrrggggh,” BabyJon said, and an unmistakable, mood-​killing odor filled the air.

  Sinclair pulled away. “Perhaps he should see a doctor. Certainly there must be specialists for this sort of thing.”

  “Eric, you're just not used to babies. Stinking up the room is what babies do. And changing them,” I said, stepping toward the diaper bag, “is what I do, apparently.”