Thirty
The polite and
helpful zombie led her straight back to what Rachael saw was the
kitchen, one the size of a small football stadium. The queen, her
assistant/friend/minion Tina, and the starving pregnant angry
Jessica were all seated on stools around a butcher-block
table.
The air reeked of
fruit, and there were many, many glasses on the table, all with
varying amounts and types of smoothies in them. There were three,
count ’em, three empty blenders plugged in and clearly ready for
more business.
“You again,” the
queen greeted her. “Just in time for happy hour.” Nothing. Nothing. “Whoa! No shoes, no service,
missy! What’s with the bare feet? Are you from
Arkansas?”
“No.” She realized in
her rush to leave she’d neglected footwear. What an odd thing for
the queen of the vampires to notice. “Forgive me, but . . .” Why
was this only now occurring to her? Was she in that deep a fog of lust? “. . . why are you awake
when it’s daytime?”
The leggy blonde
yawned. She was either unphased by Rachael’s reappearance or
possessed a superhuman ability to appear so. “Queen of the vamp
perks.”
“But she”—pointing to
Tina—“isn’t the queen.” Unless she was . . . what? A
co-ruler?
“No, but she’s
decrepit,” Jessica answered, unmindful of her smoothie moustache.
Hunger. Amusement. “Ancient, even. I
guess the older you are, the more godless hideous abilities you
get.”
“What an apt
description, Jessica, thank you so much.” Nothing. Nothing.
So. The vamp who
looked like a walking ad for jailbait (who wore pleated plaid
skirts with crisp white blouses anymore, unless they were on their
way to a costume party or a fetish convention?) was an ancient
vampire.
Good to know. She
hoped they would make more slips. If they were slips. Could they be
that confident? That unworried?
“I guess that makes
sense,” she admitted, feeling a comment was required. They were
awfully free with their information. Assuming any of it was the
truth. She couldn’t tell, that was the
maddening part. Only with the pregnant woman, and who knew what
havoc pregnant hormones were wreaking on her senses? “I apologize
for coming by, again, without calling first, again, but I need to
tell you—”
“Why have you and
your friend been sneaking around the neighborhood?” Tina
asked.
Rachael thought about
that one for a few seconds. The queen apparently saw this as a lull
in the conversation, which she jumped to fill: “See? Toldya that’d
knock her for a loop. Oooh, gimmee more of that sweet blackberry
goodness. Nom, nom, nom!”
“Ugh, how can you
stand all the seeds?” The zombie was peering at the queen’s glass
with poorly concealed distaste.
“All fruit has seeds,” the queen protested. “You’re
sitting there with a glass of strawberry seeds, moron!”
“There’s seeds and
there’s seeds,” Jessica piped up. “You’d never grind up apple seeds
in a blender for a smoothie.”
“You can’t,” the
zombie said. “They’re poisonous.”
“They are not. That’s
an urban legend.”
“They absolutely are.
Trust me, I’m a doctor. A dead doctor.”
“What friend?” Rachael asked, much more sharply
than she intended.
“Oh, like you don’t
know. Puh-leeze, think we were born yesterday? It’s just not true.”
The queen nodded toward the jailbait poster child. “Tina, in fact,
was born about a thousand yesterdays ago.”
“How amusing, my
queen.”
The zombie cleared
his throat. “Betsy, I think you need to listen to her. She says she
thinks people are being killed to get your attention.”
“No shit? Well,
that’s just great.” The queen shook her head, suddenly dispirited.
“Just when I was thinking my only problem was figuring out how to
bring you back to life.”
“Don’t you dare bring
me back to life,” the zombie replied sharply. “Then that damned
prophecy will come true and I’ll eventually become the Marc Thing.
Don’t make my suicide seem like a mistake.”
“Your suicide
was a mistake,” the queen informed
him.
“Dammit,
Betsy!”
“Dammit, Marc! Like
I’m gonna let you shamble around as a fucking zombie for the next thousand years? Have you met me
ever? Not gonna happen! Get it through
your thick, zombie head!”
“Excuse me. What
friend?”
“Oh, don’t worry. My
husband’s taking care of him right now.”
Rachael turned to
run, her mind empty of everything but the urgent need to get to
Edward now, which is when someone
turned all the lights out in her skull.
Definitely should have seen this coming, she
thought, watching with detachment as the floor rushed up to smack
her in the face.