Chapter 58
Let me see your neck again.”
“Cluck-cluck,” the
Antichrist teased. Then she smiled, and I remembered that when I
didn’t want to smack her, I thought she was kind of terrific. She’d
sure been pretty awesome on the trip. Trips. A lot of people would
be drooling in the corner, not perfecting their right cross.
“Really, it’s okay. Come on, stop beating yourself
up.”
“That’s my job,” we
said in unison. “Ugh, don’t remind me,” I continued. “But is it
just me, or did you not have to smack me as hard this time?” I
rubbed my nose, which had stopped throbbing almost
immediately.
“Oh, I’m definitely
getting the hang of it,” she replied cheerfully. “I wouldn’t want
to have to guarantee a trip if lives depended on it, but yes, I
think I’m catching on.”
“Terrific. Maybe your
mother will let us out once she decides you’ve learned what you
needed to learn.”
“So you’re assuming
we’re not back in our time?”
“Hell, no. Not after
the last trip. I’m not believing I’m where we’re supposed to be
until I see a copy of the Trib with the
right date.”
Laura nodded.
“November second. Unless time is passing in our time while we’re
running all these errands, in which case it could be the third or
even the fourth.”
“It wouldn’t be the
worst thing in the world to skip the entire month of November. I’ve
told you how I—”
“Hate November, yes,
yes, your weird prejudices are endlessly weird. Which reminds me,
you said you’d prove we were already the product of a messed-up
time stream.”
I took a quick glance
around. I wasn’t quite sure where we were—another spooky damned
cemetery, but the electric streetlights reassured me that we were
getting ever closer to the right time. I didn’t see any familiar
faces—the street on both sides was deserted of people ... though
there were dozens and dozens of parked cars.
My point: it looked
like we had a couple of minutes to talk, and I’d be glad to take
full advantage.
“Yeah, we are. I’ve
been thinking about this a lot, when I haven’t been trying to heal
sister-inflicted nosebleeds.”
“You got even!” she
cried, pointing to her neck.
“It wasn’t
me, you—wait. I guess it was. Listen:
Tina would have left town without
biting Sinclair if we hadn’t stopped her! You saw. She. Was.
Leaving! We had to talk her into it.”
“We is a generous word,” she muttered.
“Now let’s think
about the Tina we already knew. She’s never questioned that I was the queen when, let’s
be honest, the very idea was so stupid it was almost funny. She
didn’t know me—we hadn’t met when she
jumped into that pit to help me.”
“That’s a story I
haven’t heard yet.”
“Yeah, later. I come
off sort of cringing and cowardly in it. Listen: I’ve always
thought Tina was supernice, and loyal, but I never asked myself
why. I’ve never asked myself lots of things.”
Laura gently touched
my elbow. “It’s not like you lie around nibbling bonbons all day.
There are things going on. You haven’t really had time
to—”
“That’s really nice,
Laura, and it’s also a total crock. I never made the time. That’s
all there is to that. But back to Tina . . . she told me Sinclair
rose strong but never explained why. Now we know why: because I bit
him first. Because the long-foretold queen got to him before Tina.
But he never saw my face.
“Listen: Tina’s been
devoted to me from the second she jumped into the Pitiful Pit. And
Sinclair always knew I was the queen, always knew he’d end up with
me. Why? Because I’ve told them,
Because we’re living in a time stream that I’ve already fucked
with.”
Laura was staring at
me. “You’ve never been more logical.”
“Well, thanks.” I
resisted the urge to scuff a toe through the dirt and do the
aw-shucks thing.
“Or
scary.”
“Sorry.” I shrugged.
“But see? I said I’d prove it.”
“Sure, and you’ve
convinced me. But what does it all mean? Why do you think—uh-oh. I
know that look.”
I took her by the
elbow and gently pulled her back. We stepped onto cemetery
property, lurking beside an enormous marble tombstone . . . almost
six feet high! We could have hidden a parade back there. Somebody
dead had issues, or his family did.
“Wait”
Sinclair.
“What is it?” Me.
About a week after I didn’t bite Nick,
by the new time line. “I have to go; I’ve wasted enough time in
this pit”
“It’s my first
meeting with Sinclair,” I whispered to Laura. “He’s gonna get
grabby, and I’m gonna throw him through a big stone cross, then run
off to save Marc from killing himself, and then Sinclair will
follow me to a coffee shop where Marc will instantly get a huge
crush on him.”
“So, same old, same
old,” Laura whispered back, and snickered.
I could hear myself
bitching shrilly. I suppose it was interesting to see these things
from the perspective of . . . well, me, just three years older. But
instead it just brought back the anxiety and fear I’d felt when I
woke up in the funeral home and realized nothing would ever, ever
be the same.
It brought back the
sheer disbelief of realizing there were all sorts of dead people
running around who wanted me dead (permanently) for no reason at
all. I was used to being disliked because I’d been shrill or hadn’t
put out or had beat someone to the last pair of Manolos. Being
disliked because people decided I was too dangerous to leave alone
was something new and awful.
“I wonder,” my
husband’s voice reached me and I shivered. I couldn’t wait to get
back to my own time . . . I had some tall apologizing to do. And I
wanted him to tell me about Erin. About his folks. What he’d loved
and what he’d disliked. The things they did that would drive him
batshit. Best memories. Worst memories. Family stuff. Because what
were we now, if not a family? “I wonder what you’ll taste
like?”
I shivered again,
because it felt as if he’d whispered that right between my legs.
How had I resisted the big lug for so long? Hanging on to being
pissed had kept me out of his bed for quite a while. All those
potential orgasms, wasted. Like dust in the wind . . .
“That’th it. For the
latht time, get off me!”
Finally! I’d throw my
temper tantrum—
There was a muffled
minor explosion as Sinclair sailed back and into the big stone
cross. Laura whistled, watching the scene from her knees. “Oh my
God! You’re terrifying!”
“An off night,” I
grumbled.
“Ohhhh! He’s out
cold. He is going to be so mad at you
when he wakes up.”
“Yeah, I know.” I was
loitering by the enormous tombstone she and I had used as our
temporary headquarters. “I wish he’d wake up already. Once he’s out
of here, we’re out of here. It’s a good thing we—”
“He’s up!” Laura
interrupted, peeking around the stone. “Wow, you vampires recover
so quickly! Anyone else would have a
concussion. And a shattered spine. And—uh. Is that
right?”
“What?” I
peeked.
Sinclair was on his
feet all right and stomping out of the cemetery.
But he was going the
wrong way.