I stared at them all: mother, daughter, stepmother. “What is she talking about?”
“Nothing!”
“Everything,” Satan said, so softly it was almost a whisper. A whisper I could feel at the base of my spine.
“It’s not set in stone, Betsy, and it’s not as bad as you think it—”
“It’s not set in stone, Laura’s right, she’s always right because she’s so quaintly honest.” The devil tittered, clearly amused at the thought of an Antichrist who tried never to lie. “It’s set in
flesh
. That’s what the book
is
.”
“Why are you doing this?” Laura managed to force through gritted teeth. They were almost nose-to-nose. Their wings stirred and fluttered in their agitation. “Why are you doing this right now?”
Laura winced as soon as the question was out of her mouth, and I could see Lucifer had grabbed her. All four fingers and the thumb were deeply sunk into Laura’s arm. “Because I. Don’t. Lose.”
“I don’t like this, I don’t like any of this, all of you just stop, ohpleasedon’tfight,” the Ant moaned. We ignored her.
“What’s she talking about, little sister?” I’d never been so angry and so afraid in my life . . . and that included getting run down in the road like a squirrel. “What in the book is about Sinclair?” This . . . it all made sense. This was why Satan would only give me the ability to read it after I helped Laura with her powers. And why Laura took it and wouldn’t let me see it. The book predicted something terrible (like death, again) happening to the king of the vampires! “Out with it, Laura. I’ve already strangled one pain in my ass today.”
Satan laughed harder. She had, I was sorry to say, a great laugh, a throaty chuckle-y laugh. “The book isn’t
about
Sinclair. It
is
Sinclair!”
I blinked. I understood the words, but they didn’t make sense in context. The book was Sinclair, like, what? They were one and the same? What the heck was that supposed to—
“My, I can almost smell your cortex burning as you labor to puzzle this out. Literally, the book is Eric Sinclair. It’s
his
skin the book is written on.”
Ouch. Nice try, Satan, but this girl wasn’t biting. Finally, finally I was wising up to the devil. She was humiliated because I’d bounced her off the walls of her own office, and it didn’t take her long to figure out the best and most vicious place to hit me was the center of my heart. Where I kept Sinclair, of course.
“Nice try,” I said. “If I knew you a little less, I’d have fallen for it. Now. We really should head out, but don’t think this hasn’t been fun, although it hasn’t, and don’t think we haven’t enjoyed your company, although we haven’t.” I looked at Laura and Garrett. “You guys ready to go?”
“Yes. Go. Yes.” Satan made a visible effort to stop laughing. “This way it’s even better. Oh, I never thought of this! Much,
much
better. Go with my blessing.”
“Yeah, because if there’s one thing I don’t like to travel without, it’s the devil’s blessing.”
Instead of getting pissy, she was getting more and more cheerful. Weird. Would Thorazine work on Satan? “Away, Vampire Queen. And never, ever forget: I warned you, and your response was insolence.”
“Yeah, thanks, it was fun strangling you, let’s never, ever do lunch.” I looked at Laura, who was playing Statues all by herself. “Uh, Laura? You want to unclench and make us a doorway already?”
She looked at Satan, then at me. She blinked, licked her lips, and tried a smile. It looked all right if you didn’t mind sharks. The poor kid . . . she couldn’t even make her expressions lie. It was so cute! She really hated confrontations (unless she was killing someone; then she overcame her shyness). I couldn’t imagine how difficult this had been for her. It’s hard, I think, for anyone to stand up to their mother, even mothers that weren’t fallen angels. Laura did great. I was proud to be with her . . . so proud she was my sister.
“Yes, we’ve . . . we’ve worn out your welcome,” she managed. I squashed the urge to put my arm around her. For one thing, her wings were still out and I had no idea how to encircle her shoulders without getting a faceful of feathers. For another, I didn’t want Satan to see that as weakness, on either of our parts. “So we’ll go. We’ll go right now.”
“That would imply you’d
been
welcomed,” the Ant said, rallying. Guess she’d finally figured out which way to jump, because she went back to her desk and sat behind it. “Next time, call before you come.”
“I don’t have hell’s phone number.”
“Precisely,” the Ant said. Ouch! She got me! That dead bitch got me.
It was all right. We’d gotten what we came for, and then some. I felt like doing a victory dance.
Things were going to work out.
They really were.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Laura carved a hole in the universe and the three of us
stepped through it. I realized something that both impressed and scared me: Laura didn’t have to smack me anymore to tap into her powers. When just a few days ago, she had to practically beat me with a two by four just to drop through a doorway to end up somewhere she couldn’t plan for.
I noticed we were exactly where I wanted to go: my bedroom in the mansion.
Laura was catching on fast. Scary-fast. I was so glad she was on our side.
“Well! That was stressful and weird and probably illegal, or at least immoral. It was like a family reunion where nobody can find the booze. Also, you are really getting the hang of this teleporting-around-the-time-stream thing.”
“I’d better be.” Laura sounded unaccustomedly grim. The confrontation, of course. We’d been to hell and back (several times) and lived to tell the tale. I’d be worried if she didn’t sound grim. “We’re going to need everything, we’re going to have to learn and master everything, just to tread water. And we’re already behind.”
“I know, I know.” I didn’t, actually. Behind what? Learn everything to tread water? Sure, whatever, your doctor told you not to mix your medications, right? She picked the oddest times to be grim and determined. Didn’t she know? It was over. If this were a book, it’d be the end. If it were a movie, we’d be showing the hilarious outtakes while the audience surged toward the restrooms.
“Dammit, Betsy—”
“I’m not taking this lightly!” I added, raising my hands like I was a liquor-store clerk and she was a crack-addled petty thief. It was never a good sign when the Antichrist dropped expletives. “Just let me enjoy the moment, okay? You’ve agreed to give back the book, the devil’s pissed at us, and—”
“Hey!”
“—and Antonia—”
“Dammit, what the hell?”
I looked—
that
was a familiar voice. And it was coming from my closet. “And Antonia—the good one—oh my God, I can’t believe it . . . I mean, I believe it, but it’s so unreal! Even though it’s happening so, by definition, it’s very real.”
“I didn’t exactly agree to give—” Laura began.
Muffled, from the far back corner of my walk-in: “Somebody better tell me what the hell I’m doing in this closet
right now
!”
“And Antonia’s back,” I finished. I’d recognize those growled dulcet tones anywhere.
“Betsy, about the book . . . we’re going to need it, and I’m going to help you, and I think together we can fix things, but I didn’t agree to—”
“Whoa!” I scrambled out of the way as Garrett darted down the hallway toward my room. Only my vampire nimbleness saved me from getting squished when he flew across the threshold. He didn’t so much open my closet door as yank it off its hinges. Then Antonia was rushing out—clogs flew everywhere—and into his arms so quickly she knocked him over. They practically made their own shock wave when they came together:
ka-WHAM!
Momentum brought them sliding to a stop about a foot from my ankles. I could see Antonia looked exactly as she had in life . . . still beautiful (it was disgusting how many werewolves and vamps were stupidly gorgeous). She had the build of a swimsuit model and the complexion of an Irish milkmaid who put sunscreen on before she even got out of bed. Soooo irritating. And hell must have a terrific salon, because her lustrous dark hair shone and her lean limbs were as finely toned as ever. In fact, I could see more of her limbs than I wanted as the two of them were ripping off each other’s clothes.
Wait. They issued clothing in hell? Or did you have to, I don’t know, pack a suitcase? Or a steamer trunk?
While I pondered this fascinating quandary, Antonia looked up long enough from trying to devour Garrett alive—that’s how it looked to me, anyway—to say, “Hey, bimbo. Thanks for the ticket out of hell.”
For Antonia, that was sincere, heartfelt, tearful gratitude. Heck,
I
was almost tearing up at the warmth of her thanks. I covered it pretty well, though. “Don’t have sex with him in here, you whore.”
Predictably, they both ignored me. “Hey. Hey! You can pay me back by fixing the closet door you broke through. And by doing that somewhere else. Oh, come on! Do not, do
not
have sex on my bedroom floor. At least move the extra shoes out of the . . . oh, God. Oh my
God
. How did you do that? I can’t even imagine how you did that to something as big as—”
Laura had seized my elbow and was dragging me away from the scene of desecration. Thank goodness, because although I didn’t want them to defile my carpet, I wanted to see them do it even less. Yet I was frozen. The whole thing was like a shuttle crash in slow motion. You know how in action movies the hero always leaps forward in slow motion to stop something terrible? And you can hear his long, drawn-out, “Noooooooooo . . . !” Yeah. It was exactly like that, except I didn’t have to pay $8.75 to see it.
“At least move my end table—” The crash of shattering glass cut me off. “You guys! Gross! I forbid it! I’m the queen of the vampires and you can’t have sex right now on my . . . oh, man. That’s not gonna come out.” I looked at Laura as she mercifully pulled my bedroom door shut. “That won’t ever come out, Laura. And there isn’t a dry cleaner on the planet who will touch it. See? See what I have to deal with?”
Laura was unmoved by their romantic reunion and my revulsion at what I had (almost) seen. “We should go tell your husband everything that’s happened.”
“Okay. Do we have a CliffsNotes version? Because telling Sinclair every single detail will take a long time. Hey, let’s start with me making your mom my bitch and finish with ‘and now Garrett and Antonia are defiling our bedroom with fluids no one should be able to voluntarily produce much less spread around.’ And can we leave out the part where I meant to ask for Antonia but asked for footgear instead?”
“Under no circumstances do we tell him every single detail.”
I nodded, relieved. “Oh, great. We’re on the same page, then.”
“Not quite. But maybe soon. Listen . . .”
I listened. But the Antichrist seemed to have trouble finding words. She just looked at me and shook her head, but I didn’t understand why. Head-shake: I’m a little overwhelmed? Head-shake: I can’t believe what Garrett did with your bedspread ? Head-shake: I’m scared what my mom will do next?
“We have a lot to do.”
“Okay. No, wait. That sucks. And you’re wrong. If this was a book, this would be the part at the end where we’re all relieved that things worked out and everybody’s happy. The end. Cue cheesy montage music, probably something sad by Stevie Nicks.”
“No.”
“Kenny Loggins?”
“What?”
“Come on, we just got back. From
hell
(again), if you’re not keeping score. That’s worth celebrating. That’s worth resting on our laurels for at least a week, right?”
Laura was shaking her head so much, for a moment I worried she was having a seizure. “Betsy, I don’t mean to tell you your business, except I think it’s maybe my business, too, and I’m not sure what just happened is what you think just happened. Because—”
“Are you serious? Were you not just inside the hellhole formerly known as my bedroom? What just happened—what is, ugh,
still
happening is exactly what I thought was happening. Sinclair isn’t going to take this well. Maybe we should go check in to the Marriott for a while . . . until the fumigators come at the least . . .”
“Betsy, please shut up! You have no idea how serious things are!”
“You’re right. And
you
don’t know when it’s time to relax and lighten up. It’s not your fault—it’s your upbringing. Your folks are so busy helping their fellow man they never stop and smell the fabric softener. This is the part—”
“This isn’t a book, Betsy. It’s your life. It’s all our lives.”
I ignored the buzzkilling wench. “—where we do fun things for ourselves while telling everyone about our zany adventures. Then, as in every episode of
South Park
, we talk about what we’ve learned. Then we rest up for a few days or weeks or (let’s hope!) months, and then something weird and terrible happens that we have to drop everything and fix. And that terrible thing sort of takes over our lives for a few days, and then we figure out how to fix the problem, and the whole celebration cycle starts all over again.”