The Story So Far
Betsy (“Please don’t
call me Elizabeth”) Taylor was run over by a Pontiac Aztek almost
three years ago. She woke up the queen of the vampires and in
dazzling succession (but no real order), bit her friend Detective
Nick Berry, moved from a Minnesota suburb to a mansion in St. Paul,
solved various murders, attended the funerals of her father and
stepmother, became her half brother’s guardian, still avoids the
room housing the Book of the Dead (Book of the Dead, noun: the
vampire bible written by an insane vampire, which causes madness if
read too long in one sitting), cured her best friend’s cancer,
visited her alcoholic grandfather (twice), solved a number of
kidnappings, realized her husband/ king, Eric Sinclair, could read
her thoughts (she could always read his), found out the Fiends had
been up to no good (Fiend, noun: a vampire given only animal [dead]
blood, a vampire who quickly goes feral).
Also, roommate
Antonia, a werewolf from Cape Cod, took a bullet in the brain for
Betsy, saving her life. The stories about bullets not hurting
vampires are not true; plug enough lead into brain matter and that
particular denizen of the undead will never get up again. Garrett,
Antonia’s lover, killed himself the instant he realized she was
dead.
As if this wasn’t
enough of a buzzkill, Betsy soon found herself summoned to Cape
Cod, Massachusetts, where Antonia’s Pack leaders lived. Though they
were indifferent to the caustic werewolf in life, now that Antonia
was dead in service to a vampire, several thousand pissed-off
werewolves had just a few questions.
While Betsy,
Sinclair, BabyJon, and Jessica were on the Cape answering these
questions, Marc, Laura, and Tina remained in Minnesota (Tina to
help run things while her monarchs were away, Marc because he
couldn’t get the vacation time, and Laura because she was quietly
cracking up).
They hadn’t been gone
long before Tina disappeared and Marc noticed that devil
worshippers kept showing up in praise of Laura, the
Antichrist.
In a muddled,
misguided attempt to help (possibly brought on by the stress of his
piss-poor love life ... an ER doc, Marc worked hours that would
make a union-less sweatshop manager cringe), he suggested to Laura
that she put her “minions” to work helping in soup kitchens and
such.
As sometimes happens,
Laura embraced the suggestion with tremendous zeal. Then she took
it even further, eventually deciding her deluded worshippers could
help get rid of all sorts of bad elements ... loan officers, bail
jumpers, contractors who overcharge, and ... vampires.
Meanwhile, on the
Cape, Betsy spent time fencing with Michael Wyndham, the Pack
leader responsible for three hundred thousand werewolves worldwide,
and babysitting Lara Wyndham, future Pack leader and current
first-grader.
With Sinclair’s help
(and Jessica’s cheerful-yet-grudging babysitting of BabyJon), Betsy
eventually convinced the werewolves she’d meant Antonia no harm,
that she in fact had liked and respected the woman, that she was
sorry Antonia was dead and would try to help Michael in the future
... not exactly a debt, more an acknowledgment that because she
valued Antonia and mourned her loss, she stood ready to assist
Antonia’s Pack.
Also, Betsy
discovered that BabyJon, her half brother and ward, was impervious
to paranormal or magical interference. This was revealed when a
juvenile werewolf Changed for the first time and attacked the baby,
who found the entire experience amusing, after which he casually
spit up milk and took a nap.
Though the infant
could be hurt, he could not be hurt by a werewolf’s bite, a
vampire’s sarcasm, a witch’s spell, a fairy’s curse, a leprechaun’s
dandruff ... like that. Betsy was amazed—she’d suspected there was
something off about the baby, but had no idea what it could
be.
Sinclair, who until
now had merely tolerated the infant, instantly became proudly
besotted (“That’s my son, you know”)
and began plotting—uh, thinking about the child’s education and
other requirements.
Back at the ranch
(technically the mansion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul), Laura had
more or less cracked up. She’d fixed it so Marc couldn’t call for
help (when he discovered their cell phones no longer worked, he
snuck off to find another line, only to be relentlessly followed by
devil worshippers, who politely but firmly prevented this), and she
and her followers were hunting vampires.
Betsy finally
realized something was wrong (a badly garbled text secretly sent by
a hysterical Marc), and they returned to the mansion in time to be
in the middle of a vampires-versus-Satanists
smackdown.
Betsy won, but only
because Laura pulled the killing blow at the last
moment.
People went their
separate ways, for a while. And nobody felt like
talking.
Three months later,
there still has been no real discussion about the ominous events
over the summer.