Chapter 50
He can’t be that hard to hunt down,” I opined. ”How
many nineteen-year-old studs in the depths of grief are wandering
around 1920s Hastings, Minnesota, right this minute?”
“Too right. So you
think it’s 1920s Hastings, do you?”
“Don’t answer that,”
Laura said quickly.
“Duh, Laura. Hey,
look, is that Satan over there? What year is it, exactly?” I
whispered to Tina when Laura actually—get this!—fell for that.
Putz.
“You are an odd one,”
Tina observed, falling into step with us as we left the cemetery.
“You and your sister.”
“How did you know we
were sisters?”
“The family
resemblance is remarkable.”
“Really?” This was
thrilling as nothing had been on this
wacky time-traveling misadventure. Laura was hot! It would be
awesome to also be hot. To have people look at her and then look at
me and be all “sure, I can see the hotness running in their
family.” It made having the devil for a stepmother almost not
sucky. “So, Sinclair went thataway.”
“I know. His scent is
distinctive. I have known it for—for some time.”
“I heard—I mean, I
know the kids thought of you as Aunt Tina.” Not the time to mention
that, a few hours ago (at least in my head), we’d seen l‘il
Sinclair and l’il Erin, and the only thing they had on their minds
was how grumpy their mom was because it was Moving Week. “You must
be a close family friend.”
“I knew their
mother.” Long pause. “And their grandmother.”
“Yeah, I bet you were
best friends with those guys. Those ladies,” I amended. “So did
they not ever notice you weren’t aging, or did they pretend to
believe you were your own daughter and granddaughter?”
“My friends ... my
friends didn’t care. When my grandmother moved to Minnesota, Eric’s
great-grandmother was her best friend. It seems the Sinclairs have
always welcomed me; it seems I have always been in their lives.”
There was a long silence as the three of us walked together. Then:
“They knew I was, ah, different. We never spoke of it. And
they—they paid me the honor of guardianship of their
children.”
“So you’re Sinclair’s
legal guardian now? No. Wait. He’s an adult ...
barely.”
“He is the—he is the
closest thing I shall ever have to a grandchild of my
own.”
I could practically
hear the click as long-unasked
questions were answered: why had Tina stayed by his side so loyally
all those years? Why had they never hooked up? They had way more in
common than Sinclair and I did, and nobody knew that better than
me. (Frankly, I’d always found Sinclair’s interest in me a complete
mystery.) And why did she regulate herself to the periphery of the
power? Why did she never make a move for the crown
herself?
Not that the crown,
so to speak (there actually wasn’t one,
how was that for false advertising?), was so great. But a lot of
people seemed to think it was.
“You must be so angry
about what happened to your friends and Erin,” Laura
said.
“Angry. Yes. I am
angry.” She said this with all the heat of I
am wearing yellow. “And he will pay and pay.”
“From what we heard,
it sounds like a vampire?”
“Yes. That’s what it
sounds like. But he didn’t act alone. And Erin Sinclair was only a
means to an end.”
Hmm. Sinister, creepy
Tina was something new. Of course, she and Sinclair had lots in
common: both of them lost practically their whole family in a
matter of hours.
“You think maybe they
were after you?”
“I have had dealings
with those men before,” she replied evenly.
“Okay. So, turn
Sinclair and he can help you. It can be all vengeance, all the
time. It can be Die Hard: The Early
Years.”
Laura snorted while
Tina said, “I don’t understand you. And that is the second time
you’ve made reference to Eric being able to help me. But I think
there is something you don’t understand about
vampires.”
“Only one thing?” the
Antichrist sneered. I gave her the finger when Tina wasn’t
looking.
“Eric will be useless
to everyone, including himself, for at least five years after
rising. The new undead, they are savage. They think only of the
thirst. It takes years to deal with such things. And such knowledge
is hard won.”
“You’re wrong.”
Because this, I did remember. I
remember being in that nasty pit and hearing Tina explain that some
vampires wake up strong. That it was very rare, but occasionally, a
vampire would rise strong.
In fact, there were
only two vampires I ever heard of who came back to life
strong.
My husband, Eric
Sinclair.
And me.