“Have you ever considered – ”
“Yes.”
“Don't be a wiseass. Have you ever thought that the guy hates us and knows how to kill us, but hasn't?”
“I credit Jessica with that more than Detective Berry's good sense.”
“Point,” I conceded. “And yeah, it's a little obnoxious that he came over all expecting me to say yes right away – ”
“Also, you're flattered.”
“I am not! Okay, a little. Listen, this is our chance to win him back!”
“And why,” he sighed, rubbing my shoulders, while I tried not to purr and lean into him, “would we want to do that?”
“Listen. Oooh, don't stop. The whole reason you pushed Jess to go out with him was because you wanted a source in the police department.” I paused. “Another source, I mean. That reminds me. You've been keeping secrets. More than usual, I mean.”
“Oh?” he said silkily, tightening his grip. My collarbones groaned under the pressure. Or maybe that was me groaning. “Because there are one or two things I would like to discuss with you as well, if you're opening that door.”
“Ahhhh... well, that's, um – ” Fortunately, I was saved by the sound of splintering wood, and then Nick skidded down the foyer, his face a mask of blood.
“Face us, false queen!”
“Oboy,” I said, nearly tripping as Sinclair grabbed me and thrust me behind his back. “That doesn't sound good.”
Chapter 16
They streamed in, stepping smoothly over Nick's unconscious body. They moved like cats and had the hungry, feral look of same. At least, as far as I could tell from peeking over Sinclair's shoulder; I kept trying to elbow him out of the way, and he kept jamming me behind him.
“Uh, hi. You'd be, um, Garrett's friends, right?”
Happy, Skippy, Trippy, Sandy, Benny, Clara, and Jane glared at me as one. Somewhere, they'd clothed themselves – probably at the farm, I was seeing an awful lot of flannel – but still had the rank smell of the unwashed. They were all too thin, even bony. Their hair was varying colors and degrees of snarled.
“Well,” I plunged, “I'm sorry I wasn't here when you stopped by the other night – ”
They weren't moving. Perhaps I was dazzling them with my ineptitude. It had happened before.
“But at least this gives me a chance to, um, explain and even, um, apologize – ”
“Do not apologize to them,” Sinclair snarled. “One such as you should not even speak to them.”
“Shush! He's cranky,” I explained, “no blood tonight, you know how it is.”
“We know exactly how it is,” Clara said.
“Oh. Right.” Awkward. What was interesting wasn't their reaction so much as Sinclair's. He wasn't angry so much as – as – offended, that was the word. Their presence offended him. I guess the Fiends were the vampire untouchables.
“Anyway, the thing is, it has been a crazy couple of years. For me, I mean. First there was the whole 'you are the queen' thing, which I was so not prepared for. And, I might point out, a lot of people were telling me to kill all you guys when Nostro – when you ate Nostro – but I didn't. In fact, I saved you.”
“For imprisonment and slow starvation.”
“I'm getting to that.” I lowered my voice. “Okay, so then there was a serial killer – more than one, come to think of it – and then my half sister turned up, who was the daughter of the devil. The devil! I mean, please!”
“Yes, please,” one of them said. “Let us end this.”
“But I'm not finished! And then – before then, actually – all these ghosts started showing up looking for favors, like in that movie? Never mind, you didn't see that movie.”
One of them was rubbing her temples. I sped up the This Is My Life portion of our program. “Then my friend got sick, lethally sick, and I had this wedding to plan, and all these werewolves showed up, and my dad and step mom died because I wanted a baby, and I had to kill a librarian, and it was just – just a crazy, crazy time. I mean, totally nuts.”
“So. Essentially,” Sandy – or was it Benny? – said, “you forgot about us.”
“Well.”
“Do not,” Sinclair said through gritted teeth.
“Kinda,” I admitted. “But I had all these really good reasons! I – yeek!” Sinclair had shoved me into the curtains as seven enraged vampires launched themselves at me.
Chapter 17
It's hard to even describe the fight. With enhanced strength, speed, and reflexes, everything happened so fast, and then it was all over but the bandaging.
The first one that got near Sinclair dropped, and so did the next one. One got past him and got a good grip on my hair (must have been a female killed in the 1920s... that was the hair-pulling era, right?), but I brought my head forward in a blur of coolness and broke her nose with a satisfying crunch. The blow made me stagger, and I wiped her blood off my forehead... sluggish, nasty dark stuff.
And the screaming! All the screaming! Wait. Only one person was screaming. Marc was screaming.
I shoved Hair Puller at the fireplace, peripherally noticing the ceramic tiles rain down on her stupid face as she hit the floor. Then I ran toward the shrieking Marc, who was on his back fighting off flashing fangs and teeth (Clara? Benny? It was going so quickly I couldn't tell).
Before I could get to them, Tina leaned over them, grabbed Clara/Benny by the hair and yanked him (ah, a guy, I saw it now) off Marc. She had something long and shiny in her other hand, and I recognized it, as she swung the Wusthof butcher knife (Jessica's pride and joy, she had a whole collection in the butler's pantry, and they were wicked sharp), hard enough to decapitate Benny. His headless body fell with a thump, and Marc scrambled back on his hands, so the thing wouldn't fall on him.
Tina had dropped the head and was turning to see who else she could decapitate, when a wooden spoon burst through her chest.
“This?” the Ant demanded. “This is how you spend your time? Squabbling with people who don't bathe?”
“Not... now!” I ran to Tina, nearly tripping over the body of a Fiend Sinclair had killed, and yanked the serving spoon out of her heart. Then I grabbed her head and screamed into her eyes, which had begun to gloss over. “Don't you dare die on me, you efficient bitch, don't you dare!”
“I – I'm fine. I'm all right, my queen.” We both looked down. The wooden serving spoon, about nine inches long, was now ash. I had turned it to ash. And Tina was all right.
No, I didn't know how.
And then the door was slamming, the other Fiends were gone, and the fight was over.
Chapter 18
We'd killed two of them: Sinclair had killed Trippy; Tina had killed Benny. Marc was wounded, bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig, but it looked mostly superficial. Jessica, who had been keeping a terrified Garrett from fleeing down the tunnel, drove Marc to the ER. Marc's last delirious comment was, “Will I become a vampire now? Cool!”
By then, the rest of the Fiends had fled, and Nick had regained consciousness. “Yeah, that'll show 'em,” he said groggily, as he caromed from one wall to another, trying to stagger out the door. It looked like he had a broken nose, but I hoped that was the worst of it. We offered to call an ambulance, but he tagged along with Jessica, who I knew would tell him the whole story.
Sinclair carried Tina upstairs to the hot tub room, dunked her in (over her protests; we were pretty sure I'd cured the wound), and, after ten minutes, let her out.
About the water thing: for some reason, when vampires are grievously hurt, water speeds up the healing process. I had no idea why. Maybe because our undead bodies didn't have much moisture? I didn't know. So much of being a vampire was like magic to me. And not the cool kind, either.