WHEN I woke up I was horribly thirsty. I knew why. Dennis, that traitor schmuck asshole, had hit me so hard if I’d been alive it would have killed me. At the least, he probably shattered my skull.

While I was dead to the world my body healed itself, and now I was unbelievably thirsty. I cursed myself for turning down Sinclair’s offer to share dinner. It had seemed so morally upright at the time, and now it was probably going to get me really dead.

I opened my eyes. I was in a windowless, cellar-like room. Cement walls and floors. Chilly as hell. Smelled like mud.

“Asshole,” I croaked. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Asshole, you there?”

“Yes,” Dennis said, with the nerve to sound apologetic. He straightened up from whatever he’d been doing and gave the chains around my ankles an experimental tug. “Sorry about that. For what it’s worth, this is really for the best.”

“Oh, okay, then I’ll just stop worrying. Jackass. Just tell me why, you jerk. Sinclair takes good care of you. He’s the good guy. I heard you and Tina have been with him for, like, forty or fifty years. So why the double cross? Were you always an asshole, or is it, like, a recent development?”

“Nostro is my sire.” Dennis said that with a simple dignity that made me want to kick him. “Everything I am is because of him. When he asked me, years ago, to go to his enemy, how could I refuse?”

I tugged at my wrists. Nope. Don’t know what I was chained up with—titanium? cold silly putty?—but it wasn’t budging. Wrists above my head, ankles spread wide…and this slab was really cold.

“Let me get this straight, jackass. Nostro ripped you open like a trout and drank from you like a fountain while you were alive, and from that you’ve inferred that you owe him?”

“It wasn’t like that. He released me. He freed me.”

“He turned you into a Happy Meal, and you were dumb enough to think it was a favor.”

Dennis slammed the knife I hadn’t noticed he was holding into my upper thigh. Yow! There was a ‘chunk!’ as the tip embedded itself in the slab of stone I was chained to. It stung like crazy, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of yelling.

“Ow!”

Okay, I’d give him a little satisfaction.

“I’ve been stabbed before,” I sneered. “Barely a week ago, in fact. And I’ve been audited, and I come from a broken home. In short—no offense, shorty—you don’t scare me.” I wriggled again…no go. In addition to the indignity of being clobbered with a case of plum wine, dragged to the bad guy’s hideout, and chained to a stone altar (did Nostro keep a hack scriptwriter on the payroll to feed him clichés?), my clothes were in tatters. Dennis had been busy with the knife before I woke up. “You’ll have to do a lot better than that.”

Dennis bent close to me, so close I could see the candlelight gleaming off the gel he used in his hair. It occurred to me for the first time that he looked like an egret. “I threw all your new shoes into the fire,” he whispered in my ear.

I howled in agony and thrashed ineffectually. “Bastard!” I wept. “You’ll pay for that.”

He straightened up, lips tightening with disgust. “You make my gorge rise.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls, you overly moussed nancy boy.”

“You care more about your pretty fripperies than anything else.”

Fripperies? That was a new one. And it was tough to argue, so I kept my mouth shut.

“You, the queen? Never. Not while I’m around to serve my master.”

“I agree with you! Hey, I never asked to be the queen, jerkweed. It wasn’t exactly on my top-ten list of things I’d like to do after I die. I’ll renounce the throne, okay? I never wanted it anyway. And I’m pretty sure it’s not mine.”

“It won’t work. They’ll never let you alone.” He sighed. We both knew “they” meant Sinclair and Nostro. “It doesn’t matter now. You’ll die. You’ll never rule.”

“Let me get this straight. You believe I’m the queen, even though your master doesn’t. And the Book of the Dead was right, but you just don’t like it? Not too pathetic.”

I wriggled again, and again to no avail. I tried to ignore the image of lavender Blahniks roasting in the fire, turning black, the room filling with the stench of burning leather…

He snapped his fingers before my eyes. “Pay attention!”

“Whaaaaaaat?” I whined.

“Yes, you’re right. I tolerated your presence when you had no intention of helping Eric Sinclair. When you were a cute young vamp for him to coax to his bed.”

“Ewwww! Fat chance, shiny head!”

“What a liar you are! The entire staff knew you slept together.”

“Yeah, but we just slept together. We didn’t—you know. Sleep together.”

He shook himself, as if the effort of talking to me was tiring him out. “However. The moment you changed your mind about joining with them to overthrow my sire—”

“It was clobberin’ time. Yeah, I got that part. Listen, answer a question—how the hell do you kill a vampire? Specifically, how will you kill me? You can’t toss me into the Pit this time, because the Fiends are scared of me. And you can’t lock me in a room facing east and wait for the sun to do your dirty work. A holy water facial won’t do it, either. Not that I would mind a facial, so if you think it’ll work, go right ahead. Just go easy on the exfoliants; I have combination skin.”

Dennis’s brow wrinkled and he looked worried for a brief moment. Then he shrugged. He gestured to his left, and I looked where he was pointing. There were several swords propped in the corner. “Cutting off your pretty little head should do the job nicely.”

I grimaced. Yeah, I didn’t really see any way around that one. “You know something? I’m actually kind of glad it’s come to this. Me or Nostro. Because I am sick to death of this shit—the kidnappings and the treachery and whose side are you on…it’s so fucking childish. How can any of you stand it?”

“We know our place.” He jerked the knife out of my thigh. “A pity you never did.”

“Nobody tells me my place, needle dick.” Hey, maybe I was the queen! At the least, I wasn’t in a hurry to get on my knees for Nostro or Sinclair. Bully for me. “Well, chatting’s been fun, but we should probably get to it, right?”

He blinked down at me. “You want to have your head cut off?”

“Anything’s better than lying here freezing my ass off and smelling your mousse. Suave is all wrong for your hair type, by the way. It’s so fine and girly, you should use Aveda products.”

He smoothed his sleek head and glared. “Never mind your silly jokes.”

“I never joke about hair. Say, where is your psycho boss, anyway? I would’ve expected him to be in here with forty or fifty of his closest underlings, gloating nonstop and looking like a designer’s bad dream.”

Dennis grimaced. He probably thought it was a smile. My, my, he was getting good and pissed. Excellent. “He’s killing Eric and Tina. But he’ll be right along.”

I quit smirking. Part of the reason I’d been so flip, other than the complete absurdity of my situation—I mean, come on, half naked and chained to a stone slab?—was because I’d been expecting Sinclair and Tina to rescue me.

“The day Nostro gets the drop on Eric Sinclair is the day I…” I couldn’t think of anything absurd enough.

“…get your head cut off,” Dennis finished helpfully.

“Hmm.”

“I signaled my tribemates, of course, as soon as I had you. Some of us brought you here, and the rest set fire to Sinclair’s mansion. We had the place surrounded, and anyone who made it out would have gotten a holy water shower. Not that anyone made it out, I’m sure. Vampires are incredibly flammable.”

I thrashed ineffectually. That gorgeous Victorian, crammed with priceless antiques. And my new shoes! And Sinclair and Tina, and their ladyfriends, and the guys who were in Dennis’s harem! And my new shoes!

And it was all my fault. Sinclair and Nostro had been at war for years and years, but it was my presence that escalated the situation. They might have stayed at an impasse for another five hundred years. But for me. It was all my fault. And I’d never get the chance to make up for it.

“You fucker,” I said helplessly.

“All’s fair in love and etcetera,” he said lightly. “I’m afraid I can’t wait much longer for Nostro. Best to dispatch you and commence celebrating. Also—aaagggkkk!”

I stared. There was a long metal blade sticking out of the side of his neck. Just as my eyes had adjusted to what they were seeing, Tina wrenched the sword out of Dennis’s neck and swung again. He ducked away from her. She instantly turned and smashed the sword down on the chains between my ankles. And again. And—

“Watch it!”

She spun and ducked, and Dennis’s blade went whistling over her head. I kicked and wrenched as hard as I could. She’d weakened the chains, and if I could just—

I kicked free of the chains and flipped my feet over my head, quickly, to gain momentum. Now I was standing behind where my head and shoulders had just been. The chains were biting into my wrists, which probably would have broken if I’d tried this last week, but I ignored the pain. I braced my weight against the altar and pulled as hard as I could. There was a tearing—both of my flesh and the chains—and then I was free.

“Oh you fucker,” I said breathlessly, turning. Seeing Tina alive helped me focus my anger on the lost shoes. Mighty would be my wrath! “Now you’re gonna get—yuck!”

Tina was kneeling before me, holding Dennis’s head by the hair and very plainly—yeerrgh!—trying to hand it to me.

“Majesty, I beg your forgiveness for the indignity you suffered and offer you the head of our enemy as—”

“Put that thing down,” I said impatiently. “I can’t talk to you when you’re shaking his head like a damned maraca.”

“At once, Majesty.”

She dropped his head and I yanked her to her feet and gave her a hearty smack on the mouth. “That’s for that whole nick-of-time thing you seem to have going on.” I kissed her again. “And that’s for cutting off the bad guy’s head.” Mwah! “And that’s for being so cute.” Mwah! “And that’s for not being dead.”

“Sure,” she said, fending me off with an elbow. “You’re all affectionate now, when there’s no time. Let’s go.”

“Where’s Sinclair?”

“We split up to find you. Since that honor was mine, I imagine he ran across Nostro instead. Now I have to show you to your people.”

“My—” She tossed me a sword, then grabbed my arm and pulled me along so fast I stumbled to keep up. “My people?” I glanced back, more than happy to be leaving the cheerless little room I had wondered if I would die (again) in. Dennis’s headless body was twitching all over, then shuddered and went still. It didn’t turn into dust and whirl away, just lay there like a puppet with its strings cut. And its head missing. Another gross-out in a week filled with indignities.

“The only reason I got back here in time to help you was because I told Nostro’s people you were the foretold queen.”

“Yeah, but how’d you avoid being barbecued? Dennis seemed pretty sure you guys were ashes.”

“The underground tunnel, of course,” she said with bare impatience. She was still hauling me along like a sack of feed. “They blocked it, but poorly. Under normal circumstances they might have succeeded, but Sinclair was so angry you’d been taken—I’ve never seen him like that.” She shivered a little. But maybe it was just the chilly room temperature.

“That Sinclair. A big mushy pussycat at heart. So everyone got out okay? That’s so great! I mean, I thought you guys were all toast. Literally toast.”

“Ah…”

“I was so bummed when he told me you were all dead! But I kept talking and stalling anyway, you know, like they do in the movies. It was all I could think of to do. And look how great it worked out!”

Tina looked at me for a moment that probably seemed longer than it was. “Karen’s dead, Betsy.”

I stopped short. Karen, burnt up? Burnt to death? And for what? Status and territory. Boys and their toys, fighting over land. Even though this city was plenty big enough for two head vamps.

What a fucking waste.

“I’m sorry,” Tina continued when I didn’t say anything. “I know you liked her. If it helps, the feeling was definitely mutual. You were all she could talk about the last couple days.”

“I—I didn’t know her. She made me tea, is all. But she was nice. I thought she was really nice.” I was too numb from all the rapid events to say much more, but beneath the numbness I could feel anger stirring. It reminded me of black water moving under ice in January. When I stopped feeling numb, someone was going to pay through the nose.

“So…so you guys got out and came here. Piece of cake, right?”

Tina snorted. “Dennis left too quickly with you—a rather large error of judgment, which I’m happy to say cost him his head. Eric and I got out and came straight here, yes. I was prepared to fight my way in, but instead told everyone I ran across that I was there for their salvation and our queen. And, for a wonder, no one tried to stop me. That tells me they might be ready. If I show you to them, they may yet turn on him.”

“Think so?”

“No,” she said grimly, hauling me up a flight of stairs, “they’re too frightened. To stop me, but also to help me. Though I’ve noticed that when we put you into the equation, interesting things happen. So we’ll try. And if I see Nostro I’m going to have his balls for breakfast.”

“Thanks for the visual.”

“There!” She pointed; there was one hell of a brawl going on in the ballroom. At least thirty people were fighting and kicking and punching and clawing at each other. Nostro and Sinclair were probably in the middle of it.

Tina dropped my hand and waded in. I turned and ran. Past the ballroom, past the swimming pool, all the way outside. I knew what I wanted—now how to find it?

I stared in confusion at the grounds—just my luck, Nostro lived on a damn half acre. Where the hell were the…?

A teeny, red-haired vamp scuttled around the corner right into me, clearly having no interest in joining the fight. When I seized her arm, she squeaked and shrank away from me.

“Where are the Fiends?”

“Please—don’t—don’t hurt me—”

“The Fiends, twit! Where does your boss keep them? I know they’re locked up around here somewhere.”

She blinked up at me and when I got a good look at her I felt sick. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen when she died. She weighed, at rough guess, about eighty pounds. Scrawny as hell and with the biggest brown eyes I’d seen outside of a pet shop. A teenager forever. Perpetually in the throes of adolescence…I couldn’t think of a worse fate. Sinclair was a pig, but he wasn’t killing teenage girls. If I hadn’t already made up my made to fight Nostro until he was in little pieces on the ground, I would have done it in that instant.

“Their cage is behind the barn,” she said in a small voice. “I can show you just pleasedonthurtme.”

“Relax, cutie. This is shaping up to be your lucky day. You’d better stick with me. It’s dangerous in there.”

“Oh, dangerous? Tell me! I thought the Korean War was bad.” She relaxed a little as she realized I wasn’t going to use my sword to cut off her head. “I’m—I’m Alice, by the way.”

“I’m the queen, Alice.” Korean War, let’s see, that made her—forty? Fifty? I’d never get used to this. “It’s nice to meet you, now come on.”

The Fiends sent up an ungodly racket when they saw me. I groped and was relieved to find Dennis hadn’t relieved me of my cross…he probably hadn’t been able to touch it, or had forgotten about it. I flashed the Fiends and they went into their abject cringing routine.

Was I really going to do this? It could backfire and then I’d be fucked.

Well, I was fucked anyway. I took a deep breath, smashed the locks on their cage with a few punches—it hurt, but nothing compared to what it felt like when I tore my wrists free of the chains—and stepped inside.

“Uh…your—uh—your queenness…majesty or what ever…I wouldn’t…”

“It’s okay.” At least, I hoped it was okay. If not, I wouldn’t have long to regret my actions. About five seconds, tops. “I think I’ve got their number.” I held out my torn, bleeding wrists. I could still bleed from a pulse point, it seemed, just not as well as when I was alive, and not as hot. The flow was thick and sluggish, and such a dark red it was almost black. It made me feel slightly sick to look at it.

The Fiends crawled toward me, sniffed me up and down, then lapped from my wrists. Their breath was cold. Their smell was indescribably bad.

“What are these things?”

“They’re vampires who weren’t allowed to feed when they rose.” Alice was clutching the bars and watching us with big scared eyes. “They become animals when that happens…they lose their sense of self. All they know is hunger.”

“Huh.” I felt sorrier than ever for them—they’d once been people! Even if they were the authors of my new existence, I still felt bad. “Is it fixable?”

Long pause. “I…I don’t know. No one has ever been able to—I mean, my lord Nostro wouldn’t—”

“Say no more. And stop calling him lord. Alice, this appears to be working. So I’m gonna try something and probably I won’t get killed. But I might. Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time. Anyway, are you with me or against me? It’s okay if you want to stay out here.”

“Stay out here? And let you go in alone?” She looked woefully tempted for a moment, then shook herself like a dog. “I think—I think I’m with you.” She stared at me through the bars, then lowered her gaze to my cross, which was still giving off its brave little light. It reminded me of the Snoopy nightlight I’d had as a kid.

She looked away, then looked back, as if drawn. She brought one hand up to cover her eyes, but it stopped halfway to her face. “You’re so brave and…and strong. And it must be right, for how can you—”

“Today, Alice, could you answer my question today? I still have to save my new friends, kill Nostro, and get home in time to set the VCR to tape Martha Stewart.”

“I’m your servant,” she said softly. She squeezed the bars so hard I heard metal groan. “Forever and ever. Because you were nice and because you would have let me stay outside. Even if I won’t. Stay outside, I mean.”

“Swell. I think.” Would I ever get used to people instantly throwing me their allegiance? Lord, I hoped not. “Here’s the plan.”