Undead and Unworthy (15 page)

house brought back bad memories of last summer, when I was all alone.

Shoot, I even missed BabyJon's shitty diapers.

"Which part is strange?" Nick said dryly, bringing me back to my consideration of

Sinclair's comment. "The part about my receiving a call and being sent to a bad

neighborhood on what might have been a phony tip? The part where a Fiend just

happened
to run into us? Or the part where your wife's sister pulled a fucking flame brand out of thin air and killed said Fiend, before threatening to do the same thing to me?"

Hearing that Laura had threatened the officer didn't seem to perturb Sinclair one bit. "You

say the chief is the one who gave you this assignment?"

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"Yeah. And don't go there, pal, he's a stand-up guy."

"Oh, Nick." I shook my head sorrowfully. "Nobody says 'don't go there' anymore.

Seriously. I'm so embarrassed for you right now. More so than usual, even."

He ignored me. "The chief's a year away from forced retirement – it's no time for him to

fuck up a perfect record. It'd be the closest thing to suicide – this guy's job means

everything
to him. That's why Chief Hamlin wants these rogue cops caught, but he doesn't

want to trash the police department's rep at the same time. Hell, he's the one who figured

out the pattern – and the killings have been going on less than a month."

"I would think the reputation of his house would be the least of his problems," Tina

ventured.

"Yeah? Come on, they're
still
making jokes about the LAPD, and how many years ago

was Rodney King?"

"Some might say," I said carefully, "that there've been one or two incidents in that department since the King videotape."

Laura beamed at me. "You're right, Betsy. Some police departments deserve the

reputations they have."

I shrugged under Nick's withering stare. "I don't have a problem with cops," I said

apologetically. "But I've been known to channel Jessica's point of view, from time to

time."

"Getting back to the issue at hand," Sinclair suggested, "I wonder why this Fiend came alone. Did any of you get a look at which one it was?"

"Skippy," I said immediately.

"Skippy?" Nick asked, incredulous. "Friggin' Frankenstein was named Skippy? He was

almost seven feet tall!"

I was embarrassed to hear the nickname repeated; what had at first sounded fun now

seemed stupid, careless, and immature. Worse, nobody'd ever know the dead guy's real

name now. The least I could have done when they came by was ask their real names.

Mistake number 1,429 in what was turning into a shitty week.

"I am in your debt, Ms. Goodman, for the assistance you rendered my wife."

Laura blushed to her eyebrows. "Oh, no, Eric, it's fine. We're family. I'm just happy
I
was there to help." She sharpened her words by narrowing her eyes at Nick.

"Hey, hey," he protested. "The whole thing happened in about two seconds. I could have got a shot off, but I might have blown a hole in your pretty wife's head. I mean, I could

have lived with it, but – "

Sinclair silenced him with a wave of his kingly hand, which I could tell irritated Nick to no

end.

"So what are you going to tell your boss? The chief?"

"That I couldn't find the tag, but I'll go back and look again."

"Alone," Sinclair said. We all noticed it wasn't a request. "You will go back and look again alone."

"You think I want those two PMS poster babies along for the ride? Ha!"

"Then allow me to escort you out," Tina said politely, getting up from the table.

"I'll see my own damned self out. In fact, I'm gonna start hanging out at The Grand instead

of this house of freaks."

"The door can stick a bit," Tina yawned. "Make sure you pull it shut all the way behind

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) you."

"Me-yow," I smirked as the door swung fully shut a few moments later.

Tina's bored expression vanished, nearly startling me into a yelp. "Curious."

"I was thinking the same thing."

"What?" I resisted the urge to yank my hair out by the double handful. "Oh, God, what now?"

"He insists the queen assist him in a delicate matter. He seems determined to put her in

harm's way. He has made no secret of his contempt for and fear of her. And now, tonight

– a Fiend happens to show up."

"You're not thinking – wait. What
are
you thinking?"

"But Nick couldn't be the rogue killer," Laura said – and thank goodness someone else

was catching on. "He's the one killing all the bad guys,
and
he tells us all about it, and brings Betsy in to help him? You're saying it's an elaborate trap so he can kill her?"

"No way." I was shaking my head, though it did make a sneaky amount of sense. "He

wouldn't dare."

"He does seem to dislike you a lot," my sister said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, but you guys are forgetting the Jessica factor. He wouldn't dare risk their

relationship just to get me. I don't think he'd risk
anything
if it meant Jessica would toss him like hot vomit."

"An appealing image," Tina said, stifling a giggle. "But I still suggest we take a closer look at the good detective. A pity the body was essentially vaporized; I would love to have

gotten his fingerprints."

"Why?"

"Knowing who they used to be would be helpful, I'm sure. If nothing else, Detective Nick

could see if they had priors, when they were born – like that."

"Sorry," Laura said. "That's the trouble when hellfire meets vampire. Poof!"

"Yeah, it's cool, but then you've got dead vampire in your hair for hours. But Nick might

have some luck with my purse. I'd better get that back from him, the crumb bum. Which

reminds me, if the festivities are over for the night, I'm gonna shower."

"And I," Sinclair said, rising, "shall assist you."

He chased me all the way to our room.

Sinclair was as good as his word; he soaped my back, washed my hair for me, and pretty

soon we were groaning and biting each other under the pounding water. Sex in the shower

didn't always work for people, but I was a tall girl.

And while he pushed, pushed, pushed into me, I watched the blood from my bite trickle

down his back and swirl down the drain. Then the universe went away for a few seconds,

while my orgasm took over my brain. Thank God Sinclair had a good grip, or I would

have gone down like a sawed Sequoia.

We were relaxing in the second or third afterglow – we'd gone from the shower to the

bed, and the sheets had completed the job of drying us – and I was grinning like a monkey.

Sure, there were still problems, but now we were thinking about solutions. Maybe we

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) were turning a corner on this. Maybe we –

From far below us, the front door boomed open, and I heard the very distinctive sound of

Antonia's growl, followed by Tina's shrieked, "Majesties!"

"It never ends," I moaned, reaching for a robe. Sinclair had slipped into a pair of pants and was already out the door. "It never ends!"

I beat him to the foyer, but only because he had too much dignity to vault the banister and

bypass the stairs. Ha! Score one for – aggh! I had nearly skidded in the blood.

Antonia was in her werewolf form – I glanced at the bigass clock at the far end of the hall

and saw that dawn was still at least ten minutes away.

She had dragged a dead Fiend in with her.

"Um. Good dog?"

Garrett was shivering behind her. He clearly hadn't cared for the night's fun-filled

activities, but knew he looked bad enough already in his lover's eyes.

I felt sorry for him. Anybody who says good guys never get scared and do stupid things

has watched too many action movies. Yeah, he'd shown the less noble half of the human

condition these past few days, but I could never forget what he'd gone through, and how

far he'd come.

The man had never asked to become a vampire, or a Fiend, or anything else. He just woke

up one day in a world full of pain, and wondered why. Just like the other Fiends.

I couldn't even look to myself as a better example of how to act. Any poise I had, I was

sure, was a function of my ignorance of what I truly faced as queen. To put it more

bluntly, I was so clueless about the magnitude of my new job, I was too dumb to be

scared.

Antonia was sitting on her haunches, seeming to laugh at us with her wide mouth and

eight zillion teeth. Her coat was the color of her hair, rich and dark. Interestingly, she had

a white splotch on her chest, roughly diamond shaped. The splotch had a dark red smudge

on it, and blood still trickled down her panting tongue.

Tina was examining the dead (again) Fiend. "This one appears to be the one Betsy named

Sandy."

He was a large man, built like a farmer with thick shoulders and long, powerful legs. Not

as tall as Skippy, but still formidable. Shirtless, with ripped jeans. No shoes or socks. His

feet were filthy; God knew how long he'd been running around like that.

His throat had been torn out. Among other things.

"She found his scent in the garbage pile out back – the stuff the contractors left after they fixed the house," Garrett said. "We've followed it all night. She caught him alone and –

well. You can see."

"Sure can."

Okay, there was another corpse in my foyer, and that was, under any circumstances, bad.

But Marc and Jessica were out, and untouched by this. So I was at a total loss as to how

to react: Great job? Naughty werewolf? Thanks? Don't run off ever again on a murderous

rampage, or I'll kick your ass? Murder bad? Murder good?

I finally settled on concern for my friend. "For crying out loud, Antonia! You could have

been killed! Bad, bad werewolf!" I was towering over her, shaking my finger (but not

getting it too close to all those teeth). "This is the sort of thing that can get you killed, and then where would Garrett be without you? You were really sweet to try and solve our

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) problem, but I don't want you going off alone like that ever again!"

Bored, Antonia licked blood from her left paw.

"I mean it!"

The werewolf yawned.

"If you have more to add to your lecture," Sinclair said, his lips twitching, "you had better hurry. I estimate the sun will be up in less than five minutes."

"Dammit!" While I could withstand sunlight, the coming of dawn was still a narcoleptic

trigger for me. Worse so than for other vampires; apparently, this was part of the price of

being queen.

I tried to end my lecture quickly, but Sinclair had been (unintentionally, I'm sure!)

mistaken: sunrise was in less than ten seconds.

"There she goes," Tina commented, as the floor rushed up to my face and everything went

dark.

Someone had considerately carried me up to bed (I prayed it was Sinclair), and I woke up

with a large Post-it stuck to my forehead.

I snatched it away and read:
Developments! Come down as soon as you get rid of your

horrible vampire breath. Also, your mom wants to know how long she's going to be stuck

with BabyJon; I guess he's teething again.

Oh, goody. Jessica was back. And my poor baby brother! He drooled like a beast when he

popped a new tooth; I'd seen him soak an entire quilt. He was impossibly cute most of the

time, with his shock of black hair, amazing blue eyes, and sweetly chubby limbs, but I

could hardly bear to look at him when he was slobbering his way through the tooth of the

week.

I couldn't help it; I grinned, picturing my mother's horror at watching BabyJon soak one of

her antique quilts.

I hopped out of bed, shrugged out of yesterday's outfit, and brushed my teeth and hair.

Then I changed into gray leggings, a dark blue PROPERTY OF RENFEST sweatshirt,

and black flats – no socks. Then I hurried downstairs to the kitchen.

" – took him down so easy," Antonia was bragging. "Look! Not a mark on me."

"Anymore," Sinclair corrected her politely. "You don't fool
me,
dear."

"Okay, maybe El Fiendo got in a few good ones, I admit it. But I'm all healed up and
he's
roasting in hell. That puts it in the win column for me."

"It was foolish of the two of you to go after him by yourselves. You might have run into

all of them."

All of them – I wondered how many were left. Jeez, even when I knew they were running

around pissed at me, I couldn't keep track of them.

"Hey, think I'm gonna sit around on my ass while the fuckin' Fiends pop up without

warning whenever they want? Who needs the pressure? Besides, I hate pop-ins. I hate this

whole stupid situation." Except she appeared to be thriving on it.

"So where
is
the dead guy who was in our foyer?" I asked, gratefully accepting a glass of grapefruit juice from Tina. It wasn't nearly as good for me as Sinclair's blood, but I'd had

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) enough from my husband to keep me going for a while. "Not that I mind that he's gone."