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  She snorted and jabbed the elevator button. “Listen to you. 'Sensible precautions.' ”

  “And don't forget the 'doy.' Jess, how many scary movies have we seen where the heroine does something really dumb like hang around in a hallway when she knows the bad guys are, like, a room away?”

  “ 'Bout a zillion,” she acknowledged.

  “We got off real lucky this time – Marc with a few scratches, and you not even hurt – and I think it's completely nuts to push it. So how about you don't be an asshole about it and just stay with Marc until we kill all the bad guys?”

  “Oh, someone's being an asshole,” she agreed, practically leaping into the elevator in her agitation, “but it's not this girl.”

  I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Mostly against the awful fluorescents in the elevators; there were about eight too many. “I knew you were gonna be like this.”

  “But you had to open your yap anyway.”

  I squinted at her. “Don't come crying to me when a Fiend tears your head off.”

  She smiled a little, and I knew that was partly because she thought she had won the argument. She hadn't, but she was forcing me to do something I really, really, really didn't want to do.

  I was gonna tell on her.

  Chapter 21

  l nearly walked through the Ant on my way from the bathroom to the bed, and neither of us were very happy about the near miss.

  “Must you ignore everyone's personal boundaries? ”

  “Yeeeeeggghh! Stop doing that, you disgusting horrible dead wretch!”

  Sinclair, all the way across the room, looked guilty and bent down to untie his other Kenneth Cole, as opposed to just yanking it off and tossing it in the general direction of the closet.

  “You might think about what would happen to me if you got your silly self killed.”

  “Yeah, I should have realized what a terrible thing that would be, Ant. For you.” I ran the six steps from the bathroom, jumping into the middle of the bed, so nothing hiding under it could grab my feet. “And I wasn't talking to you,” I added to my husband, “but it's nice to see you treating your shoes with more respect. ”

  The Ant was looking in our direction with rabid suspicion. Which, since she'd been heavily Botox'd before her death, came across as slightly raised eyebrows and rapidly blinking eyes. “What are you two doing? You're not going to bed now?”

  “We've been up all night, you pineapple-​colored idiot.” Pineapple referring to her hair, which was stiff and yellow. “Dawn's about an hour away.”

  “Well, in that time you could be – ”

  “Having nasty sex with my husband. Nasty,” I added, ignoring Sinclair as he picked up a pillow, calmly pressed it over his face, and barked laughter into it. “With, um, probes and things. We like to role-​play. I'm the alien, and he's the helpless probed human. Now get lost, because it's going to get messy in here.”

  Ah! It worked. She'd popped out while I was horrifying her with lurid descriptions of my imaginary sex life. I wish she'd just tell me what she wanted and go back to Hell already.

  “Thank” – I searched for a word that wouldn't make Sinclair cringe – “goodness she's gone.”

  “Help, help, I'm being probed!” The pillow sailed at my head, and I knocked it away, trying not to grin. Beside me, Sinclair tried his best to look horrified. “If only I didn't feel a sick, wrong sexual attraction to these alien invaders. If only I had listened to my mother's warnings about loose alien women!”

  “Pal, you are so not getting any tonight.”

  “If only,” he continued dolefully, “they didn't keep telling me to turn my head and cough.”

  That was it; I lost it. I shrieked and laughed and kicked at the covers until the bed looked like what I told the Ant we'd be up to.

  “That was slightly... hysterical.”

  “Hey, it's been a long night.”

  “Indeed it has, my darling alien intruder.” Sinclair yanked the remaining sheets and blankets off the bed and threw them to the floor with a theatrical flourish. Then he pounced on me while sheets billowed all over the place.

  He kissed me for a wonderfully long time, then pulled back and cocked an eyebrow. “Want to see my probe?”

  Chapter 22

  The next evening started off nice and quiet. Marc wasn't around, of course, Garrett was probably still cowering in the basement, and I didn't look too hard for Jessica.

  Almost as soon as I'd gotten up, Tina and Sinclair had left for the library. This made sense, as the former librarian, Marjorie, had kept extensive files on every vampire she knew of, heard of, or could track down.

  Information, as far as the late, unmourned Marjorie believed, had been power.

  They had politely asked if I wanted to come, pretending I'd actually be of use to a couple of near geniuses trapped in a warehouse disguised as a library. They probably thought hours of research on computers and – and whatever you did research on would be a good time, poor morons. Of course I'd said no.

  But even if I'd lost all my cool points and was a hopeless, helpless virgin weirdo geek who wanted to spend half the night in a vampire library, I couldn't.

  I, after all, had serious work to do for the Minneapolis Police Department. Make that Homicide Department. Yeah, that's right, we vampire queens are in constant demand all over the place for –

  “Are you actually going to get in my car?” Nick Berry demanded, shaking his keys at me. “Or just keep staring off into space like that? Because it is fuckin' creepy, Betsy, you look like the Exlax is about to kick in.”

  “Huh? Oh. That was mean. And I'm coming, don't nag.”

  “I'm a grown man,” he forced out through gritted teeth, “and we don't nag.”

  “You were! You were nagging!”

  “Betsy, I swear to God, if you don't shut your fucking yap and get in the car, I'm going to pull out my gun and blow your – ”

  “Ha! You said 'blow.' ”

  The gun had cleared the holster. Hmm, Nick was a short-​tempered fellow these days. “I'm gonna count to ten. One. Seven. Nine. T – ”

  “Hold it right there!”

  We both jumped like we'd been caught doing something nasty, and looked. Jessica the Terrible was stomping down the porch and across the driveway toward us.

  Quick as thought, Mr. Gun was back in his house, Mr. Holster.

  “Hi, babe, I thought you were sleeping.”

  “Oh, Jess. I didn't know you were up.”

  “Well?” She stopped, slightly out of breath. She must have sprinted when she figured out Nick was here. “Which is it? I'm in bed asleep because I have a human boyfriend, or I'm wide awake because my best friend is a vampire?”

  “Uh – ”

  “You're so great,” Nick said warmly. “It's both.”

  Man, I could never pull that off.

  “You sneaky lying sack of shit.”

  Apparently Nick couldn't, either.

  “You're sneaking off with him to – well, I don't know what, but I don't like it. And you!” She rounded on Nick, jabbing with the dreaded index finger (which was now painted eggplant). “I know damn well you don't like being alone with Betsy anymore. So what are you up to?”

  He didn't tell her?

  “You didn't tell her?” I tried to hide my delight at Nick's look of consternation... and the fact that it bummed me out, hearing Nick was scared to be alone with me. At least I wasn't the only one who was scared to death of Pissed Off Jessica – hell, he was armed, and he looked ready to sidle around the corner and hide. “That's awful. Why wouldn't you tell her?”

  “Because she'll jump to the conclusion that I'm trying to get you killed,” he snapped.

  “Yeah, she's funny that way.”

  “What? Get killed? Why might you get killed? Betsy, you can't go off doing something dangerous with Nick, when those disgusting Fiends could be back any minute and try to finish what – ” Then she shut her mouth with a snap.

  Nick and I lo
oked at each other, then at Jessica. I felt sorry for her. She really did try to keep Nick out of the vampire stuff, telling him only what she absolutely thought he needed to know.

  And of course, she didn't get into the gory details of Nick's terror and hatred of me, just made the occasional reference to it. She was a good dancer. And it was too bad she had to dance at all. I mean, more than the normal amount any best friend does when balancing a lifelong friendship with a new love affair.

  “Why don't we get in the car,” I suggested, “and Jess goes back in the house, and the three of us pretend the last forty-​five seconds never happened.”

  “Deal.”

  “Deal.”

  Nick started up his SedanMobile as I waved to Jess, who was back on the porch and anxiously waving back.

  “Betsy! Let's go!”

  “Your car,” I told him, gingerly climbing into the front seat, “smells like ass.”

  Chapter 23

  “Man, that was bad. We coulda handled that one better. A lot better.”

  “What are you talking about, 'we'? I'm not the one who completely screwed that one up. Hey, Jess gets full disclosure from me, pal.”

  “Oh fucking bullshit,” he snapped, almost running down a squirrel. He turned onto Grand Avenue, where he'd have better luck with hapless pedestrians. “You told me yourself after that – after that business around your wedding that you kept her out of the vampire stuff.”

  “After I cured her terminal illness, you mean? Is that what you're referring to?” My voice was so sugary it would have given a diabetic an instant attack. I normally wouldn't bring it up, especially since I had no idea how I'd done it, but hey, Nick was bigger than me, and smarter. And armed. And he hated me. “Sure, Sinclair and I keep her out of it – keep her out in the sense of actually, physically keeping her out of it. But I still tell her everything.”

  “Nnmph,” he grunted. Then, “Put on your seat belt.”

  “Please. Would you really give a gold-​plated crap if I was launched screaming through your windshield?”

  “State law.”

  Oh. Right. I, the Minnesota law-​abiding vampire queen, obediently buckled up.

  “She's got enough to worry about,” he finally (lamely) said.

  “You big liar! You're using me to ramp your solve rate, and I might get hideously mangled or killed. That's what you don't want her to 'worry' about.”

  “Ramp my solve rate?” He slid over two streets and merged onto I-94. “Betsy, stop watching NYPD Blue reruns.”

  “I don't! On purpose.”

  He groaned. “Please don't explain that.”

  “But Marc has a big crush on Sipowicz, and he's always hoping to see the man's butt again, and I can't help it if every time I go into the TV room or his room or one of the parlors, he's playing the DVDs.”

  “Well, if you're so damn sure I'm up to no good, how come you're here?”

  “You know why.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Stop it.”

  “C'mon, I'm serious.”

  I stared at him. He stared back with his blank cop's face. Truth? Lie? Somewhere in between? I bet he could take a polygraph and never, what was the cop phrase? Never bounce a needle.

  “I'm here to prove to you that I'm no danger to you, that we could be friends if you didn't shrivel with horror at the thought, that vampires can be good guys, too.” I said it all in a rush, and it came out sounding like my drunken Marilyn Monroe impersonation.

  “Yeah, you're going to have to slow that one down and run it by me again.”

  “I'm. Here. To. Prove. That. I'm. No. Danger. And. We. Can. Be. Friends. If. You. Didn't. Shrivel.”

  “That's okay, I think I can piece together the rest. Trouble is, blondie, why should I ever believe anything you tell me, ever again?”

  “Oh, jeez!” I threw my hands up in the air. “How long are you going to hold that one thing against us? I've told you and told you, I was a new vampire and didn't know the rules!”

  “Yeah, so you fucking mind-​raped me.”

  I noticed that, like me, he tended to swear more when he was nervous or mad.

  “Anything sounds bad when you say it like that,” I conceded sulkily, staring out the passenger window.

  He made a sound that might have been a snort, or a muffled laugh. When I looked, he had his cop face back on.

  “So where are we going?”

  “What a tactful, yet subtle way to change the subject.”

  “Fine. Don't tell me. Keep being the biggest, most gigantickest asshole – ”

  “Gigantickest?” he said, delighted. “Are you using word-​a-​day toilet paper again? Okay, okay, don't pout. And don't enlighten me about vampire toilet habits, I don't think I could stand it. I've managed to run down a couple of leads and thought I'd bring my favorite dead enforcer with me to see what's what.”

  “I thought you said your vigilante killer was a cop? Or cops, plural?”

  “I did.”

  “So how can we check on them without, I dunno, scaring them? Tipping them off?”

  “Very carefully. I've been running down when the murders took place – best as the M.E. can tell us, anyway – with the duty logs of the ones I think might be capable of something like this.”

  “Oh.” That was really smart. And just laced with common sense. Exactly why I never would have thought of it. God, I'd be the worst police officer. I knew that about myself, had always known it, which was why it was kind of a thrill to be in a police car (the front seat, anyway), helping solve murders. Well. Coming along for the ride while someone else solved murders. “Huh. Okay.”

  “Do you know much about guns, Betsy?” He indicated his service piece. “If you're ever in a situation where you need to shoot a guy to save my ass, could you do it?”

  “Wait. Do you hate me now because I'm a ruthless vampire who has killed before, or do you hate me because I'm a careless dimwit who can't be trusted with this power?”

  “You mean, right now? Right this minute, why do I hate you?” he asked in a voice that was almost – so close! – teasing. “Do I have to choose? God, so many choices...”

  “I don't have a lot of use for handguns,” I said after a glance at the pistol at his waist. “Mostly I know about shotguns from goose hunting with my mom, and rifles for target practice.”

  “The professor hunts?”

  “The professor can shoot the eye out of a squirrel at two hundred yards. I'll tell you who knows a ton about guns – Tina. She's an expert. You should get with her sometime.”

  “No thanks,” he said curtly, and just like that, our fragile whatever it was came to an end.

  Chapter 24

  Nick dropped me off at about two-​thirty in the morning, not remotely discouraged, although it looked to me like his leads hadn't panned out. At least he was being (relatively) friendly again, so I didn't say anything to wreck it. I just waved good-​bye and trudged into the mansion.

  Where a grim Sinclair and a fretful Jessica were waiting for me.

  “Whaaaat?” I whined, moodily pulling off my Herrera boots. “What'd I do? I didn't do it. I'm pretty sure it was Marc. No, wait. Cathie!” Cathie, the ghost-​gone-​walkabout, who I could actually use to help me with the hunt. She was usually convenient for blame. Of course, if she'd been there, I never would have gotten away with it.

  She'd been killed by a serial killer (who was later killed by my sister, Laura, who had a spectacular temper tantrum in the killer's basement) and, even after his death, had hung around being my ghostly secretary of sorts. If ghosts showed up needing help, Cathie would try to help them herself... and only if she couldn't would she then let the ghost bother me. Plus, she was super funny and nice. I missed having her around. Even more so now that the Ant was pestering me.

  “Sinclair told me,” Jessica said without preamble.

  “About what?” I asked, totally at a loss. Man, I'd have to drink some blood soon. I was getting dumber by the hour.
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br />   “About Nick's little murder project,” she said grimly, and I winced.

  “That wasn't nice,” I said to Sinclair, the reproach quite clear in my tone.

  “ 'Nice' is the least of my concerns, or interests. He is trying to get you killed, or at least cares not if you're hurt. If I could tell his superior without jeopardizing our secret, I would.”

  “You'd tattle to his boss! Oooh, that's really mean.” I walked into the parlor and carefully flopped down onto a fainting couch, which someone had probably lugged over on the Mayflower.

  “I'll deal with him later,” she swore, and I almost felt sorry for the guy. “I just wanted to make sure you got back all right.”

  “Sure I did. Heck, it didn't even pan out. It was an evening of driving around, basically. Feel bad for him, he was the one trapped in a car with me.” In fact, a couple of times he had rolled his window down and hung out his head like a dog, screaming into the wind. Heh.

  “And I,” Sinclair said, “wished to attempt to convince you, once again, to leave police matters to the police. We have other things to attend to.”

  “Oh, like I would have been any help to you and Tina tonight.”

  Sinclair lifted his left shoulder up about half a centimeter, which, for him, was the same as a shrug of agreement.

  “Like I said, it was one big safe boring evening. No problems. And,” I added, looking around the small, peach-​colored parlor, “I assume the Fiends haven't been back?”

  “No, thank God.”

  “Did you and Tina learn anything?”

  “Oh, this and that,” Sinclair said vaguely, which either meant (a) he had gobs of tidbits he didn't want to spill in front of Jessica, (b) he had nothing, or (c) he had plenty, but didn't want to worry me.

  “So. Let's go to bed?”