Undead and Unemployed (8 page)

"Well, I know, and I'm sorry. Don't cry about it," he said, kindly enough. "But there's worse things than nice vampires thinking you're in charge, right?"

"I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Okay," Jessica said at once. She was glaring at Marc. "You don't have to if you don't want to. Look, why don't you get dressed for work? I'll make you some tea, and then we'll go get your car."

I sniffed. "Okay. Actually, I'll come down with you. I want tea right now… I'm dying of thirst. Don't look at me like that."

"Sorry," they said in uneasy unison.

"Oh, please. Like I'd ever bite either of you two dorks," I muttered. "I'm gonna change my clothes, and I'll be right down."

They left, and I thought I heard the front door open, but I was too annoyed to really care. More visitors—great! Well, bring it on.

I turned around to go to my dresser and nearly fell over Marie. "Jeez, don't
do
that!" I practically yelled. Okay, I did yell. "Sugar, would you mind clearing out? I've had a rotten evening and it's barely started. Go find your dad, or something."

"Sure," she said, staring at me with big, solemn eyes. "But I don't think you should open the door."

Yeah, yeah, whatever. She was gone when I came out of the bathroom, and I changed into a clean blouse, khaki shorts, and slipped on a pair of black sandals. I ran a brush through my hair and decided that would do, and decided to head downstairs.

I opened my bedroom door, and got the surprise of my life.

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

Killing the Evil Ones is not as satisfying as I had assumed it would be. And I can hardly believe I am thinking such a thing, much less writing it down. When I am long dead, these papers will belong to the Holy Church. What will they think of me, and however will I explain myself to my Heavenly Father?

At first, I thought God was acting through our employer. I am beginning to wonder if that was the devil, speaking to me in the voice of my pride. Because many things I have long believed may not be true. And if that is the case, what will become of me? What will become of the children? They say all things work toward God's will… perhaps even the Undead do, as well.

The money, the equipment, the skills of the Blade Warriors… every vampire the children found was dispatched. I assumed we were doing great good. We are commanded not to kill, but are these things not already dead? I thought God was acting through me, through the children, but now…

It started to go bad when the two females escaped. Both were beautiful, looked young, and had the strength of ten tigers. Although we inflicted great damage on the smaller, dark one, she eluded us in the end. It was the first time we had been unable to do our duty, and it weighed heavily on the boys. Ani was more sanguine, but even she couldn't hide her distress.

Then there was the vampire in the parking garage.

Except was she?

Our employer had never been wrong. But this woman—she did not hiss and snarl when cornered, she did not try to bite. She seemed puzzled, and annoyed, and although she moved with the grace of a jungle cat she did not try any tricks of the dead—the hypnosis, the mind-bending, the seduction. Instead, she yelled at Jon and mocked the rest of us. She made us feel foolish and worse, we feared we
were
foolish. And after taunting us, instead of engaging, she fled. And we learned something more—heights are a vampire's friend.

Ani found the purse in the woman's—the
vampire's
—car. And that was another thing. This vampire had a car, a job, and a life. She was carrying full identification, right down to her library card.

Vampires, going to the library.

The name was right—Elizabeth Taylor—but nothing else fit with what we knew of the Undead.

We could all feel doubts start to creep in. In our business, that is fatal.

Jon proposed a simple yet daring plan. And so it was that the next evening, we found ourselves on Summit Avenue, in the state's capitol.

To our great surprise, the front door was unlocked. There were several cars in the driveway, and when we stepped inside we could see a cook hurrying through the entryway with bags of groceries. She gave us a single, disinterested glance and disappeared through an archway. We heard a car start outside and Wild Bill went to check. When he returned, he informed us the gardener had just left.

"Weird" was Ani's comment. She was a philosophy major at the University, and we had deep respect for her mind. "The vampire's driving a beat-up Ford, but she lives here? And what are all these people doing here? Do they know? And if they do, are they with her? Or prisoners? There aren't any marks on them, and they don't look like they've been snacked on…"

Before we could answer—and troubling questions they were—a lovely young African American woman came hurrying down the steps, and behind her was, of all things, a physician! He was a sharp-looking young man with dark hair, wearing light green scrubs and looking quite surprised to see us.

"Oh, great," the woman said. She was thin to the point of emaciation, but lovely just the same. Her ebony skin had reddish undertones, and her cheekbones made her look almost regal. Her eyes flashed dark fire as she hurried toward us. And, oddest of all, she seemed familiar to me. "Don't tell me, let me guess. The Blade Warriors. I have a huge bone to pick with you."

"That was our friend you ganged up on," the doctor added. He was right on her heels as they rapidly approached.

This was a bit nerve-wracking. We were quite helpless around humans—we certainly wouldn't kill
them
! But we had never met a vampire with human friends before.

And where had I seen the woman?

"Maybe they're pets," Ani muttered behind me.

"Maybe you're trespassing," the woman replied coldly. "You assholes are on private property.
Mine
. So get the hell out, unless you're here to apologize to my friend. In which case, you can still get the hell out, because we don't want to hear it."

"The door was unlocked," Jon pointed out.

"So it's not breaking and entering," the doctor said, grinning. "It's just entering."

His little joke caused most of us to relax a bit, but the young woman remained unmoved. "You guys get out of here," she said with clear warning in her voice. "I'm going to count to three. Then I'm loading the shotgun. Then I'm filling the waterguns with bleach. Then I'm releasing the hounds. Then—"

"Jessica Watkins?" I asked, utterly surprised.

She blinked at me, just as surprised. "Yeah. So?"

"I'm Father Markus. You donated half a million dollars to my church." At last, at last I had placed her! I hadn't recognized her in faded jeans and a Gap T-shirt, because I usually saw the lady at fundraisers, when she was dressed in formal attire. "This is a surprise. It's good to see you."

Taken aback, she let me shake her hand. "Uh, yeah. Good-good to see you, too. Um. What are you doing with these idiots?"

"These are my children," I corrected her firmly.

She leered. "Oh, you're one of
those
priests, eh?"

Although the Church's reputation had suffered grievously the last few years, I did not rise to the bait. "I take care of them," I explained patiently, "and they look after me in my old age. We do God's work."

"Not today, Father! Betsy never did a single thing to any one of you. Leave her alone!"

"We're here to solve a mystery," I said. "We're not quite sure your… your friend is… is who we think she is."

"So you come to my house at night, bristling with weapons? I'm surprised you didn't show up at noon like true cowards," she said, her imperious voice dripping with scorn. She was her father's daughter, all right. The man had been known to make other CEOs cry just before taking over their companies.

"We would never," I said, offended. "Even the undead deserve to be dealt with honorably."

"Outnumbered five to one and cornered and staked to death? Father Markus, I never dreamed you were such an asshole."

How that stung! I was a good man, a good priest. I helped hunt the Undead. I saved lives. I was
not
an asshole.

As was her wont, Ani stepped in when she felt someone was being disrespectful. "Don't talk to Father Markus like that," she said in warning. She was a tall woman—easily my height—with jet-black hair cut just below her ears, and lovely, tip-tilted almond-shaped eyes. Her mother had been Japanese; she had never known her father, but from her build and coloring, we guessed he was Northern European. Her limbs were long and slender, and she was one of the fastest runners I had ever seen. She had been considering the Olympics when we found her. "Not unless you want to eat teeth."

"Ani," I murmured.

"Going to stake regular people next, you bimbo?" Jessica snapped. "You come into my house hunting my friend, you don't even knock, you bring guns and knives into my home, and now you're threatening me? Girlfriend, you should have kept your ass in bed today."

The children were shifting uneasily, and I couldn't blame them. Hunting the Undead was one thing. Arousing the ire of the city's—the state's!—wealthiest citizen was quite another. Even without her money, Jessica Watkins would have been formidable. As I said, she was her father's daughter.

"Look, let's make a deal," the doctor said, neatly breaching the awkward silence. "Father, why don't you go upstairs to Betsy's room—"

"Betsy?" I repeated.

"—and toss some of your holy water on her. That should do the trick, right?"

"Marc," Jessica began, but he shook his head at her.

"Well." I coughed. "It will likely burn her severely. It could even kill her. Or blind her. Your friend."

"It's a risk we're willing to take," the doctor said cheerfully.

"We're going with him," Jon said.

"Fine, but the toys stay down here. Just holy water. Ought to be enough for big-shit vampire killers like you guys, right?"

His words were rude, but he was still grinning at us in a friendly way. I tried to find the trap, but I couldn't see it. "Right."

"So, then. Go on up. We'll wait." He looked disturbingly cheerful, but, as I said, I couldn't see the problem.

The children dutifully unholstered guns and unsheathed knives. There was quite a pile on the lovely cherry table when they finished unloading. As for myself, my cross and holy water had always been all I needed. The Undead always went after one of the children; they tended to steer clear of me.

"Right, then." I took a deep breath. "Let's go. But first…" The children dropped their heads obediently, and I closed my eyes. "O Heavenly Father, please guide my hand and keep our family safe. In Your name, Amen."

"Amen," they echoed. Interestingly, the doctor and Jessica also said Amen.

"Third floor," he said helpfully. "Fifth door on the left. Watch the seventh step, it squeaks."

I couldn't help but stare at him, and knew my bewilderment must have shown on my face. Odder and odder. But we had our duty, and even had permission to finish it.

I pulled the cork from the bottle of holy water and led the way upstairs.

I opened the door and, to my total amazement, got a vial full of water thrown in my face. For a moment I just sputtered. Then I started to sneeze.

Oh, great. Holy water! The stuff was worse than hot pepper. I sneezed and coughed and gasped until my vision finally cleared.

There were several people crowded in the hallway, but I focused on the tall, old one in black, the one staring at me and holding a cross out.

"Thanks very much!" I snapped. "What'd I ever do to you, jerk? Here I am, minding my own business, and you throw holy water in my face! Look at my hair! And my
shirt
! Dammit, I just put this on!" I shook water off my feet—lucky for these guys they were last season's sandals—and shouldered my way past him and the other weirdos. "Is this what they teach you in Jerkoff School? Do
I
come to
your
house and throw water on
you
?"

"We… uh…"

"Well, come on." I stomped down two levels and heard them sort of shuffling after me. Nobody was talking. Which was probably just as well, since I wasn't done yelling. "And another thing! Haven't you heard of knocking? I mean, how long were you lurking in my hallway, anyway? Not
too
creepy."

Marc and Jessica were waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. Marc was smirking, and Jessica was glaring. At least all was right with those two.

"Problems?"

"You wouldn't believe it!" I ranted. "I open the door, and big idiot in black here throws holy water on me!"

"Not surprising. Marc told him to," Jessica said.

"You
what
?"

"We weren't sure," big idiot in black said, looking confused and scared and apologetic, all at the same time. "We weren't sure… we thought you were a vampire."

I was a heartless denizen of the undead, and I was unmoved. Who cared if he strongly resembled somebody's grandpa? Okay,
my
grandpa. "I
am
a vampire, dumbass! I ought to pull all your teeth out and play craps with them."

"But… but that's impossible!" one of the dorky teens blurted. I glared at him… and recognized him.

They all took a big step back as I rounded on them. "I know you guys! You're the Broody Warthogs!"

"Blade Warriors," one of them, the surfer dude from last night, corrected in a mutter.

"You shoot up my car and now you're
here
?" I whirled on Marc and Jessica. "They didn't hurt you guys, did they?"

"Never," the big idiot in black said, sounding—the nerve!—offended. "We only kill the dead."

I finally realized the black suit was actually a priest's outfit, and so resisted the urge to pull his head off his shoulders and use it as a soccer ball. Would I go to hell for calling a priest a dumbass? Even if he was one? A problem to worry about later.

"You guys…" I took a breath, ignoring the wave of dizziness that caused, and forced calm. "We've been looking for you guys."

"I'll bet," the woman said. She was super pretty, and big—my height—but looked mean, like a tall, evil Lucy Liu with a bad haircut. "I'll just bet."

"Hey, you think we're not gonna notice if you guys are running around slaughtering vampires?" I lied, because, of course, I hadn't. "Hardly! You're in big trouble."

Oooh, wait till Sinclair found out I caught the Word Barriers! All by myself!

"I don't think—" the priest began, trying yet again, but I was still too annoyed to let him finish a sentence.

"What's the matter with all of you? What'd I ever do to any of you?"

"Well," big idiot in black said. "Ah. That is to say… nothing."

"She isn't a vampire," surfer guy insisted.

"She is," shorter geek with black hair moussed in spikes and tipped in white insisted.

"Is not!"

"Is!"

"Isn't!"

"Is!"

The Lucy Liu knockoff stepped to the big table in the entryway, pulled a knife as long as my forearm out of a heroic pile of weapons, and handed it to Marc, handle first, much to his surprise. "Would you please," she asked pleasantly, "drive this into my ear until I can't hear anymore?"

I couldn't help it. I laughed. And, as always, it was hard to hold onto my mad when I was giggling. Ridiculous, but there you go.

"I still say she's not a vampire," Wild Bill, the kid who had the armadillo haircut, insisted half an hour later. He had cream on his lip, but I wasn't going to tell him.

"You'll just have to take my word for it," I said. We were in the Tea Room—one of the tea rooms—and Jessica was playing hostess to the people who had tried to kill me. Well, I guess it was slightly more civilized than biting them or pulling their arms off. "I really am. And we'd better figure out how to get along."

"You can't blame us for being surprised," Ani said. Her name was Ani Goodman. Wasn't that a great name for a vampire hunter? Give the girl a decent haircut, and she would be a force to be reckoned with. "It's just that you're awfully… uh…"

"Vain," Marc said.

"Shrill," Father Markus added.

"Annoying," Jessica piled on.

"Did someone already say vain?" Jon, the leader who looked like a surfer, said.

"You guys are hilarious." I crossed my arms over my chest and crossed my legs for good measure. "If everybody's done having a good chuckle at my expense—"

"
I'm
not done," Marc said.

"This is awkward," Father Markus said.

"No kidding!"

"Because until now, we have felt we were doing God's work."

"Oh. I thought we were still talking about me."

"I'm sure we will be, soon enough," Ani soothed, and Jessica cracked up. They traded a look, and the mood of the room shifted a bit more toward the "can't we all get along?" side.

"The vampires we killed—they were abominations." Boy, that Father Markus would
not
be shaken off a subject. "But now, given recent events…"

I squirmed. I knew how bad vamps could be. But I was the queen—laughable as the idea was—and I had a responsibility here. Too bad I hadn't the faintest clue what it was.

"So you guys just woke up one day and decided to start staking vampires?" Marc asked. He leaned over and stuffed half an éclair into his mouth. I nearly drooled… the pastries looked sooooo good. Custard squirted out the end and puddled on his plate. I looked up and realized Jon was watching me watch the pastry. I tore my gaze away and contented myself with another gulp of tea. "What, it was in your horoscope or something?"

"No," Jon said. "Father Markus knows tons of people from his parish work, people the rest of us have never met, people from all over the world."

"Well, that's true," Markus coughed modestly.

"And a few months ago he started getting these e-mails, and then money started showing up in our account for weapons and stuff, and then we'd get a list of names and addresses. Hangouts, like… and we'd go to work."

"How'd they know about you guys? How'd you even learn to fight?"

"They are orphans who avoided the system," Father Markus said quietly.

"So?" I asked, puzzled.

"Grew up on the streets," Ani said with her mouth full. She swallowed her sugar cookie and continued. "Good place to learn how to fight."

"I caught Jon and Bill trying to boost my tires behind the church," Markus said fondly, "and brought them under my wing. And they brought me the others."

"Awww, that's so cute. Not that we give a shit." I snickered. So much for being a good hostess.

"Who's financing you?" Jessica asked.

The Weird Warriors looked at each other. "Well, the thing is," Father Markus said delicately, "we don't know. Our—"

"Puppet master," Jessica said.

"—patron wishes to remain anonymous."

Jessica rolled her eyes at Marc, who shrugged. I thought it was kind of weird, myself, but didn't say anything. With Jessica in the room, I didn't have to. "Uh-huh. So, you guys get everything you need to kill vampires, somebody just hands you all that stuff on a plate, and you don't question it, you just start killing them off?"

"We questioned it at first," Ani said. "But we were more easily persuaded when the first vampire nearly killed Drake."

"Who's Drake?"

"Drake doesn't run with us anymore. He's trying to learn how to walk again."

"Oh," Marc and I said.

"Anyway," she said briskly, "after that, it was easy. We certainly didn't question the morality of it. Most of the time when we cornered a vampire they were about to eat somebody. Or were actively hurting someone just for fun."

I squirmed, but didn't say anything.

"Until we ran into you, that is."

At last, I could say something in defense of vampires. "Actually, until you ran into Tina and Monique. They got away, too. And FYI, they're good guys! Not that you bothered to check."

"Look, we're sorry," Jon said, crumbling his vanilla biscuit in his agitation—what was he thinking?
I
wasn't going to vacuum, that was for sure! "But who checks the bona fides of the undead? They're vampires,
ergo
they're evil,
ergo
they should be killed."

"I've got your
ergos
right here," I muttered. Unfortunately, he had a point. Not that I could tell them that. In fact, what could I tell them? Should I even be talking to them? Was I supposed to be killing them right now? I'd never killed anybody alive before.

And how could I kill them when they were drinking orange pekoe tea and eating cookies with us? Should I wait until they finished, or jump them when they were getting refills? Being a soulless denizen of the undead was
really
hard sometimes.

While I was pouring more tea and contemplating mass murder, I heard a door slam open one floor down, but didn't say anything. We had enough problems without more uninvited guests.

There was a
tap-tap
on the window behind me, and I turned. And nearly spilled my tea. Tina was looking through the window, which was disturbing because we were two stories up.

We're coming
, she mouthed.
Stay calm
.

"For heaven's sake," I said, standing, crossing the room, and opening the window. Everyone else jumped, and Jessica let out a little scream when she saw what was on the window. I realized I was the only one who'd heard Tina knock. "Come in here and have some tea like a civilized person. Eww, you're just sort of hanging on the house like a blond moth! Get in here."

She glared at me but clambered in. Then she glared at the Warriors. "We're here," she said with great dignity, "to rescue you from certain death."

"Biscuit?" Ani asked sweetly.

The door to the tea room slammed open and, big surprise, there was Sinclair. Uninvited, as usual. He didn't stand still very long; the next thing I knew he had picked Jon up and was shaking him like a broken pepper grinder.

Pandemonium. Spilled tea. Biscuits on the floor, where they promptly got stepped on and ground into the two-hundred-year-old carpet.

I jumped in front of Sinclair, arms spread, just in time to get another face full of holy water. I shook my head to clear my eyes, then grabbed Jon and wrenched him out of Sinclair's grip. A little too hard; the guy went sailing over the back of two chairs and hit the corner with a thud that shook the teacups.

"Stop it,
stop it
!" I yelled. "This isn't helping, you retard!" Then I spun and sneezed on Sinclair's lapels.

The two little guys—Wild Bill and Devo—were cowering behind Father Markus, who had his cross out, but Ani looked ready to rumble as she studied Sinclair and clutched a butter knife.

"It appears her Majesty does not need saving," Tina said, and
she
was studying Ani.

"No shit. Thanks for noticing. Why don't you guys sit down, take a load off? Have some tea, and a cookie if they aren't all squashed."

"Why," Sinclair demanded, whipping out a black handkerchief and wiping my face, "are you having tea with the vampire killers?"

"Because they're too young to drink alcohol?" I guessed.

Tina brought her hand up to cover a grin.

"Hey, I recognize you!" Ani said suddenly, staring at Tina.

"No you don't," I said quickly. "Never seen her before. Got her mixed up with another bloodsucker."

"Of course she does," Tina replied. "The last time I saw her, she was on the business end of a crossbow and I was running for my life."

Interestingly, Ani blushed. Sinclair, who'd been holding my shoulder while he wiped all the holy water off my face, suddenly tightened his grip and I yelped. "Don't start, don't start again!" I yelled, waving my arms frantically. "Let's sit down and talk about this like civilized people!"

"Why?" he asked coldly.

"Uh… because I asked nicely?"

He stared at his handkerchief which, now that it wasn't touching me, was starting to smolder. So, once holy water was, like, off my person, it could hurt a vampire? Weird! He tossed it in the waste-basket and scowled at the Blond Warriors.

"As my queen commands," he managed to spit out through gritted teeth, to my surprise and everyone else's relief.