“Whoa. New trick. Nice one, devil's daughter. Any other new stuff you want to share with the class?”
She was silent for a long moment, and I suddenly felt silly, hoisting my little sister by the neck a good foot off the ground, trying to avoid the sword pointing at my eye. Was this what happened when things went wrong all at once? You couldn't trust anybody?
“I see what you're doing. It won't work. Put me down, please.”
Her eyes were blue again, the red fading to blond. The sword disappeared in a flash. No, it didn't work. If she had done something, it likely would have come out when she was her other self, her darker self. When she was in a temper, she lost her mind. She wasn't sly, like her mother. Just red-rage pissed. Too pissed to lie.
But now she was calm again. Careful again. Now she could lie.
I put her down.
“Really, Betsy,” she fumed, straightening out her mussed shirt. “What would Jesus do?”
“Turn you into loaves and fishes?”
“I've had about enough of your blasphemy.” She started for the door, puffing her bangs out of her face as she stomped past me.
“You're a lot more interesting when you're pissed!” I yelled after her.
“Go to hell! And I mean that as a literal invitation.”
“Where do you think I am right now?” I cried, but the slamming of the front door (damn, she must have really booked down that long foyer) was my only answer.
Chapter 27
I didn't want to do it. In fact, I could think of about a thousand things I'd rather do, including having a root canal without anesthesia.
I resisted it as long as I could. Well, I resisted it for about ten minutes after I had the idea. But this could be considered “the beginning.”
It was also right around the time Nick would have realized I was a vampire, and that we had stomped all over his brain with big black boots. But Nick wasn't the only one we'd vampire mojoed and regretted it, after.
One phone call to Tina, who was in the middle of trying to cross the border into Switzerland, was all it took. This was a surprise. Not that she had the info. Frankly, I had no idea Switzerland was anywhere near France.
“Isn't that, like, way farther north? Like by Greenland?”
“My queen, how may I be of service?” Tina replied, sounding harassed.
“I need Jon Delk's home address.”
Long pause.
“Tina? Stupid cell phones. . .”
“My queen, what good would that information do you? As you have promised not to leave the house until I return.”
“Every day is another pint of Sinclair's blood, Tina, assuming he's still alive at all.” I could actually feel her wince through the phone. “Delk's old job was killing vampires, and he hates Sinclair more than anyone I know. It's worth paying a visit to the family farm, don't you think?”
Another pause, this one shorter. Then: “Bring Laura.”
“Sure,” I lied. Damn. I was getting good at lying through my fangs. I'd make it up to Tina once she got back.
“And please call me the minute you find out anything,” Tina was saying. “Or don't find out anything. It's an excellent idea, Majesty. I just wish I was there to run the errand for you.”
“You've got your hands full already, sunshine. Now hit me with the address, please.”
“I've text messaged it to your phone while we've been talking.”
“Sneaky and efficient. That's my girl.”
“Majesty, it's kind of you to pretend I'm actually being of assistance.”
“Stop that,” I ordered. “There's no point in beating yourself up. You had an important job to do, and you did it. Who could have predicted all this?”
“Someone,” she said, “my age with my IQ.”
“Whoever did this took him out from under my nose. Did all this shit right in front of me, and I didn't even notice. Whatever's happened. . . well, it's on me, that's all. Not you.”
“Kind,” she replied, “but untrue. Take all care, Majesty. How I adore thee.”
“What?”
“N-nothing.”
Awkward!
As we hung up, I found myself wondering about the mysterious Tina. How had she turned into a vampire? Who had done it, and why, and where were they now? I had no answers here, only her unabashed devotion. In fact, the only person I knew less about was my recently vamoosed fiancé.
How was it that these two vampires, who seemed to care so much about me, had remained so mysterious about their pasts?
Well, wondering wasn't getting me any closer to finding Sinclair. After some digging (I was always misplacing the damned thing), I found my cell in the bottom of an old Louis Vitton purse Jessica had bought me for my twenty-first birthday.
I noted not only the address but precise directions (I knew Tina would make sure she could track down a Blade Warrior if necessary), and got ready to make the long drive to the Delk family farm.
Chapter 28
Jon Delk's parents lived in a St. Paul suburb, but lately he was spending a lot of time at his grandparents' farm in Burlington, North Dakota. I made the fourteen-hour drive in nine hours, mostly because I didn't have to stop to pee or eat, and because I went ninety on the interstate almost the whole way. I was pulled over three times, all three times by single male state troopers. Didn't get a ticket once.
It was the next evening—I'd had to get a motel room just before sunrise, but was on the move again by 5:00 p.m. the next afternoon.
Long gone were the Minnesota cornfields I was used to; out here, close to the Canadian border, it was all wheat fields and sloughs. Got kind of monotonous after a while. At least cornfields were an interesting color.
I pulled into the mile-long drive and shut off the engine (I'd picked Sinclair's banana yellow Ferrari for this drive. . . ninety felt like fifty), staring at the neat, large cream-colored farmhouse with not a little trepidation. I wasn't at all looking forward to what was coming next.
For one thing, it was late—for farmers, anyway. Ten o'clock at night. For another, Delk and I had not exactly parted on good terms. Specifically, he found out we'd stomped around inside his head and was not at all pleased. He expressed this by shooting me. (It was astonishing how often this sort of thing happened.) Then he'd stomped out, and we hadn't seen him since.
Making him a pretty good suspect for all the weird goings-on.
I stumbled up the gravel driveway, regretting my choice of footwear. I was wearing lavender kitten heels to go with my cream linen shorts and matching cardigan (sure, it was eighty degrees outside, but I felt cold almost constantly).
I went up the well-lit porch steps, inhaling myriad typical farm odors on my way: manure, wheat, animals, rosebushes, the exhaust from Sinclair's car. There were about a zillion crickets in the back field—or at least, that's what it sounded like.
I knocked on the porch door and was instantly distracted when a shirtless Delk answered.
“Betsy?” he gaped.
Farm Boy was built. Too young for me (not yet drinking age), blond, nice shoulders, fabbo six-pack. Tan, really tan. Blond hair almost white from being out in the sun all day. He smelled like soap and healthy young man. His hair was damp from a recent shower.
“What are you doing here?”
“Huh?”
His blue eyes went flinty and he squinted past me, trying to see past the porch light into the dark driveway. “You didn't bring anyone with you, did you?”
“I came by myself.”
“Well, I'm not inviting you in.” He crossed his (muscular, tanned) arms across his (ripped, tanned) chest and glared.
I opened the screen door and pushed my way past him, gently. “Old wives' tale,” I said. “Got any iced tea?”