Undead and Unemployed (15 page)

"I'm
fired
?"

"We're going to have to let you go," Mr. Mason explained. "When you're here, Elizabeth, you do fine work, but of late you've become unreliable."

"But… but…" But I can't help it. But I'm the queen of the undead, and queens didn't get fired! But I've been really busy trying not to get murdered! But the new Pradas are coming in next week and I desperately need my employee discount! But I've never been fired by someone wearing a turtleneck in July! "But… but…"

"Besides, don't you have more pressing business to attend to?" he added kindly. "You've got a killer to catch, and a consort to satisfy."

"Yeah, that's true, but—
what
?"

"You shouldn't be here, Majesty. Everyone appears to grasp this but you."

I gaped at him. Started to speak, couldn't, gaped some more. Tried to talk again. No luck. I had been struck mute with shock, just like when Charlize Theron won the Oscar for Best Actress.

He opened the lone manila folder on his otherwise spotless desk, and withdrew a paycheck, which had a blue piece of paper stapled to it. Termination form. Argh! "Here's your final check. And good luck catching the killer."

"Mr. Mason!"

"Oh, I'm not a vampire," he said, correctly reading my bulging eyes and sprung jaw. "I'm Kept."

"You're what?"

"I'm a sheep," he clarified. He tugged at his cashmere turtleneck, baring his throat. There wasn't a bite, but there was a pretty good bruise. "At first, when you came here, I thought it was a test. Or a joke. Then, I realized you were serious. You really wanted to work here. I couldn't think why. Finally, I realized I must fire you for your own good."

"Thanks tons," I said, starting to recover from the shock. "Jeez, why didn't you tell me sooner?"

He coughed into his fist. "I assumed you were smart… er… I thought you knew what I was."

I snatched my check and stood. "Well, you were wrong about me, mister! So there!" Wait a minute. Oh, never mind. "This is just perfect. The perfect end to a perfect week."

He spread his hands apologetically. "I do apologize. And I wouldn't advise trying to snare me to get me to re-hire you. After all this time, I'm immune to everyone but my master."

"But… but if you know me, you must have recognized Eric Sinclair. And he zapped you pretty good."

"His Majesty the King," Mason said carefully, "is a very powerful vampire. You're quite right; I could not resist falling in thrall."

"Thrall? Falling in thrall? I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but I'm leaving before I pull your head off your shoulders and use it for a soccer ball."

"And I appreciate it. It really is for your own good, you know," he called after me as I stomped out. I made a rude gesture queens probably weren't prone to. Felt pretty good, though.

I trudged out to my car, which was parked in Georgia. Stupid gigantic Mall of America parking lot. What a rotten week. I couldn't imagine it getting any worse. Well, I suppose I could get decapitated. That might be worse. On the other hand, my troubles would pretty much be over.

I rested my forehead on my car roof. The body shop had done a good job of patching up the bullet holes and arrow gouges. And it ran like a dream. Too bad I just didn't have the energy to fish out my keys and get in. I'd probably run over a little kid on the way home, or have to break up another vamp/human unfair fight. Something. Something bad, guaranteed.

I heard a car pull up behind me, but didn't turn. What fresh hell was this? Probably the Ant, loaded down with crucifixes and baby formula.

"Majesty?"

I turned; it was Monique. She had opened her car door, a sleek black Porche, and was half-in, half-out of it. She looked gratifyingly concerned, which cheered me up a little. "What's wrong, my Queen?"

"Everything!"

She blinked at me.

I started banging my head against the roof. It didn't hurt a bit. "Every single thing in the whole world,
that's
what's wrong."

"Majesty, you're denting your car roof," she observed.

"Oh, who cares? I'd elaborate on my grotesque and numerous problems, but then I'll probably start to cry, and it'll be really awkward."

"I'm willing to take a chance. Why don't you leave your car and come with me? We can get a drink and you can tell me who you want me to kill."

"Don't tease me," I sighed. "And that's the best offer I've had all day. Okay."

I abandoned my car without a thought and practically jumped into Monique's Porsche. "Let's book."

"That does sound bad," Monique admitted when I finally wound down. She downshifted to make the yellow light, which showed off what pretty legs she had. Black miniskirt, black heels, white blouse with lace cuffs. Tarty, but trendy. "But at least the king is firmly in your corner."

"Ha! Firmly in my pants is more like it."

"
Ah-hum
. So… how is he?"

"Annoying."

"I mean… are his sheet skills adequate?"

"I have to admit," I admitted, "I've never heard it put quite like that. And yeah. They're more than adequate. I mean, he's really fine. Whoo! I could sweat just thinking about it. If I still sweat."

"Do tell!"

To a near stranger? Even a nice one? No thanks. "But it doesn't mean anything to him. He just likes sex. You should have seen what he was doing the first time I went to his house!"

"He seems," Monique said carefully, "to be an acceptable consort."

"Sure, if you don't mind being bossed around. And condescended to. And hugged when you're upset. And made love to until your toes curl. And-uh-look, let's talk about something else."

"As you wish." She wrenched the wheel as we turned onto Seventh Avenue—practically on two wheels, yikes!—and pulled up outside a small brownstone with a screech. I thought it was an apartment house, but the doors were propped open and there was a line of extremely hip-looking people stretching down the sidewalk. The red neon sign over the doors read scratch.

"Oh, dancing?" I asked, brightening. "I love to dance."

"This is my club. I've been longing to show it to you."

"Oh, yeah?" Well, that explained the nice clothes. And the Porsche. "I didn't think you were from around here."

"I have properties all over the country. It's amazing what you can do when you've got seventy years to get it done."

"Good point," I said, as a valet held the door open. He was wearing black cargo pants, tennis shoes with no socks, and a white't-shirt with green lettering:
go fang yourself
. Very cute. He smirked at me as he slammed the door shut and another valet drove Monique's car away. "So, this is like a vampire club?"

"Mostly. Come along, Majesty, let's get you a drink."

"Sounds good to me." We brushed past the waiting crowd and I followed her like a sheep to slaughter. Hmm. I
was
following her, and I certainly didn't mind, but why did that corny saying creep me out all of a sudden?

And why, now that Monique and I had entered the club, had everyone stopped dancing? And why were they all staring at us?

"You know," Monique said, turning to me, "you really don't deserve him."

"Who?" I asked dumbly. Sheep to slaughter? Where had I heard that before? Mr. Mason, of course. He said he was Kept. A sheep. And where had I heard that icky term before Mason? From Monique, the night Tina and she were attacked. She said it was much easier when you kept sheep, instead of hunting all the time. And Tina and Sinclair had blown it off, hadn't wanted to explain. Too late now. Too bad for me. "Who don't I deserve?" Except I had a horrid feeling I knew exactly who she was talking about.

"The king, of course."

"Yeah, of course. Uh… you didn't put Mr. Mason up to firing me or anything, did you?"

She just looked at me.

"Yeah. 'Course you did. He lied about Renee not coming in, so he could fire me and get me out of the building. And then… uh… he tipped you off, I guess, so you knew where I'd be, and now we're here. In your place."

"I knew you were foolish," she sighed as several hands grabbed me from behind, "but I didn't think you were a moron."

"What's the difference?" I yelled as I was dragged to the middle of the dance floor. Unfortunately, I didn't think it was because they wanted to do the Lambada with me. "And who's a moron? I figured it out, didn't I? Hey! Cut it out! Hands to yourselves, creeps. Monique, what the hell…?"

Monique disappeared behind the bar, and reappeared with a wicked-looking stake as long as my forearm.

"And here I thought you were mixing me a daiquiri."

"This is your cue," she said, as if explaining to a slightly retarded student, which I resented the hell out of, "to say something obvious, like, 'you're the killer.'"

"Well, you are! I can't believe it! The
one
new vampire I meet who's actually nice, and you're going around killing vampires!" There were still about ten hands on me and they held me firmly. Where was Sinclair when I actually wanted him around?

"Yes," she said, sounding bored. Gosh, it was too bad I wasn't able to capture her full attention. I was getting so mad, I felt like biting myself. "I had this insane idea that you might be difficult to bring down. So I wanted the Warriors to get some practice. Then…
then
," she added, and her lip curled, and she looked truly furious for the first time, "that idiot, that infant, that moron, Jon, fell under your spell. And he wouldn't kill you for me anymore. And he persuaded the others to stop, too."

I shrugged modestly. It wasn't my fault I had unholy sex appeal. "Too bad, you cow. And will you guys get
off
?" I yanked and pulled, to no avail. Were they rubber vampires, or what? "
And
you set yourself up to be attacked, to throw suspicion away from yourself."

She yawned. "Mmm-hmm."

And it worked, too, dammit. I'd never considered Monique for a second. I was too busy keeping a wary eye on Sarah, who was worth about twenty of this treacherous bitch. To think I staked
her
and decided to go party with Monique. God, I was really too stupid to live sometimes. However, it didn't look like that was going to be a problem much longer.

"Well, now you're gonna get it. I guess. Yeah! Big trouble, Monique." As soon as I freed myself from the grip of the RubberMaid Undead. "Any second now, and I'll… uh…"

"So, I'll kill you," she finished, perking up, "and Sinclair will be in need of a new consort, and of course Tina won't do. They're more like siblings, have you noticed? And Sarah's dead, and there aren't many of us who are suitable, you know."

"So that leaves you, huh?"

"That leaves me."

"But aren't there thousands of us?"

"I can assure you, Eric Sinclair will find me the most viable choice."

"And the fact that he has a consort right now," I said dryly, "isn't an impediment, or anything."

"Impediment! I'm amazed you didn't need a flashcard to use the word."

"Hey, hey! Assaulting me is one thing, but watch the nasty comments."

She stalked toward me, stake in hand. I became morbidly aware that we had an audience. Besides the vampires hanging onto me with grim determination, there were about twenty more on the dance floor who were staring at us. No help, I figured. They belonged to Monique. Or they didn't think I was a real queen. Either way, it amounted to the same thing. Well, at least she was still talking, even if she was waving that stake around like a band leader's baton. Classic James Bond villain mistake. I hoped.

"Waste of resources."

"What? I wasn't listening."

She gritted her teeth. "I said, I am appalled at the waste of vampires and resources. I should have taken you myself, the moment I came to town. I had no idea you'd be so easy."

"Hey! What'd I say about the nasty stuff?"

"To think I was paying the Blade Warriors to practice, to hone their skills, to work their way
up
to you. What nonsense! You didn't really kill Nostro, did you?"

"What?" The abrupt subject change took me by surprise. "Is that why you thought I'd be such a toughie?"

She gave me a withering "of course" look.

"As a matter of fact, I
did
kill him, so there." Alas, like little George Washington, I could not tell a lie. "Well, sort of. I set the Fiends on him, and they ate him." The Fiends! What I wouldn't give to see their snarling faces right now. "But listen, Monique. You don't have to stake me to get Sinclair. You can
have
him."

"I disagree."

"No, really!" I couldn't believe this. First he tricked me into boinking him. Then I found out I was his undead little woman for a thousand years. Then he tricked me into boinking him again. Well, sort of. Now this nutty bitch was going to kill me to have him for herself! Oooh, if I lived through this, he was getting a piece of my mind.

A pox on you, Eric Sinclair!

"Seriously. I don't want him, I never wanted him." Okay, that last one was a small lie. I mean, I
wanted
wanted him, you know, like you want a juicy steak, but I didn't want to be married to him, not without him at least asking. Which he never did. Not once. Was that so much to ask? A marriage proposal? I didn't think so. Not that anybody asked my opinion. Oh, God forbid, anybody should ask my opinion!

"… is devoted to you."

"What?"

"Will you pay attention? In case you haven't noticed, you're in dire straits."

"Yeah, yeah. I've been there before. Look, we can work this out. Sure, you're a crazy cow bent on my destruction, but can't we get along? I mean, if my parents could work things out, anybody can. You can have Sinclair on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I—"

She lunged forward with a scream of frustration—I'll admit I have that effect on people—and buried the stake in my chest. It hurt like a son of a bitch. And then I died. Again.

From the private papers of Father Markus, Parish Priest, St. Pious Church, 129 E. 7th Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Moments too late! I suspect that's why we were all so slow to react. It didn't seem real that we hadn't arrived in time to save the day. The children, especially, had no real experience in failure. The cavalry always arrives in time, at least in the movies.

Jon had followed Betsy all over town, of course—foolish boy, we had all warned him it was hopeless—and something about the club put him on alert. Possibly the way all the vampires waiting outside ran off for no apparent reason. They must have sensed something in the air—shifting allegiences, perhaps. It didn't matter now.

The important thing was, Jon called us when he got to Scratch. It didn't take long for us to arrive, in terms of mileage. In terms of time, of course, it took just a few moments too long.

When the woman who had been pulling our strings killed Betsy, it was like all the light went out of the room. Exactly like that. We were so shocked, nobody moved.

And Betsy was still, so still. It seemed ridiculous that those green eyes would never again flash fire, that her red lips would never form the words
idiot
or
moron
or
asshole
ever again.

Then Eric Sinclair, as formidable and frightening a creature as I have met in my long days, just went to pieces. It would have been touching if it hadn't been so terribly, terribly sad.

He cradled her in his arms and sank to the floor. His coat billowed around them as they fell. He whispered her name, over and over, and caressed her face with trembling fingers, and blocked all of us out.

Our former employer, Monique, tried to explain herself. She could smell death in the air—her own, as well as the Queen's. We were all standing in silent judgement, but she must have known it wouldn't last. That we would soon be moved to action. She had been caught out, her true colors revealed at the worst possible moment, and she knew it as well as we did.

It was the usual, tedious motive: she explained that she had coveted Eric, who by vampire law belonged to Betsy. So Monique. had formed the Blade Warriors to get Betsy out of the way.

Was she crazy, I wondered disapassionately, or just driven? Had years of feasting on humans warped her conscience until hiring children to kill her own kind actually seemed like a fine plan? I didn't know. And at the moment, frankly, I didn't care.

But she might as well have been speaking to a boulder. Despite her pleadings for his attention, Eric Sinclair simply rocked Betsy in his arms and wouldn't look up or speak.

Tina, however, had no such compunctions. She was as angered and shocked as any of us, but she was not frozen to inaction. I have long been fascinated by how different vampires are on the outside from their true selves. Tina had always looked like a charming sorority girl to me.

Not tonight.

She led the charge, and in minutes, a vicious fight was raging all around us. I pulled Marc and Jessica behind me—they were too stunned to fight—and held out my cross, but I needn't have bothered. I could see several of Monique's minions were slipping out the back, avoiding the fight entirely. Wise of them. Because when Mr. Sinclair recovered his wits, this would not be a good day to be on Monique's side.

Being human, I of course could not track much of the, fight. It was a physical impossibility. There would be a flash of silver or a blurred fist, and then a vampire's head would be rolling on the floor, or a body would sail through the air. And the children, as always, acquitted themselves well.

Finally, only Monique was left, and Jon, who had tears in his eyes, pulled his knife and marched toward her. He ignored us, he ignored everything. He swung it back, and I heard him say, "This is for Betsy, you bitch," only to be stopped in mid-swing by Tina's sharp, "Hold!"

For she had moved with that eerie, inhuman quickness, and was now holding our common enemy at swordpoint—Ani's sword, in fact—and had an arm out to prevent Jon from getting closer.

Monique had been backed into a corner, and Tina, despite her fragile looks, was formidable. Ani was backing her up, but it appeared to be entirely unnecessary.

"We'll let the king decide her fate," Tina said, and that was that. Even Jon, heartbroken, could not argue with that command.

I noted much of the heart had gone out of Monique's group when Eric Sinclair arrived. It made sense, though it was unfair and unkind to dear Betsy. Because if she hadn't seemed especially royal or noble—although she was, if one cared to take the trouble to really
see
her—there was never any question of Eric's right to the throne. And nobody wanted to mess with the most powerful vampire on the planet. Especially when he had just lost his consort to treachery and betrayal.

The last of Monique's vamps slipped out, and we let them go. We had been woefully outnumbered, and weren't unaware of the depths of our luck.

While Tina held Monique at bay, the rest of us crouched around Betsy. There was no blood and, as I wrote earlier, the whole thing didn't seem quite real. She did not look like a dead woman. The stories were wrong. The movies were wrong. She wasn't a pile of dust, she wasn't a wizened mummy. Her eyes were closed, though she had that vertical wrinkle in the middle of her forehead which usually meant she was annoyed. She looked as though her eyes would pop open at any moment and she would demand tea with extra sugar and cream.

After a long moment, Marc, ever the practical physician, asked what we should do. Jon did not answer him, and Tina just shook her head. Monique tried to speak, and stopped when the swordpoint pressed into her throat.

As for the rest of us, we knew it was hopeless. Vampires did not come back after being staked with wood. It was impossible—even those formidable night creatures had to follow their own rules. But none of us had the heart to let Marc and Jessica in on this fact. We were just using this time to begin to recover from the shock.

It had been, as the deaths of all charismatic individuals are, too sudden, too quick. We wanted time to grieve.

Jessica was straightening out Betsy's bangs, which were quite disheveled, and I could see her tears dripping down on Betsy's still face.

"Oh, Bets, Bets… it's not fair. We figured it out. If we'd just been here a minute sooner… we could have saved you! We
should
have!"

She was young.

"I just can't do this again," Jessica wept. "I wasn't supposed to have to go through this anymore with you. You've got to stop dying on me!"

"Well, forget it," Marc said abruptly. He put his hand on the stake protruding between Betsy's breasts. Jon put out a hand to stop him, but Marc shook his head so hard, his own tears flew. "I can't stand to see her like this, you guys. Like a bug tacked to a fucking board. It's not right, and I'm not havin' it."

And, with a wrench and a grunt, he yanked the stake out of her chest.

Betsy's eyes flew open, which of course, startled everybody.