"Hey, wake up."

I burrowed farther under the covers, a big undead worm.

"Hey, Betsy. Wake up."

"Hnnnnnnwwwww," I mumbled, which any sane person would translate as "Go away, I'm sleeping."

"Your sister is beating the living shit out of that vampire who lives in the basement."

That got my attention. I sat up and there was Cathie, shoeless and looking scared, sitting in Marie's Chair. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Your sister. She came over early, I guess for Christmas shopping? She went downstairs, and I was bored out of my tits, so I followed her. She started beating up that long-haired guy in the basement, the one who can't talk. I didn't want to ask your friends to step in-one of your roommates looks like she's on a date, and her date is actually here, wandering around waiting for her-"

"Christ," I groaned.

"-and you're the only vampire I could wake up."

I tossed the blankets back and glanced at the clock: 5:35 p.m. I'd slept late, but the others wouldn't be awake for a few minutes yet, not until the sun fell down.

"Nice pajamas. Did you get them at a garage sale?"

I started for the stairs at a dead run. I was out my door in half a second, on the stairs in another second, and pounding down the basement steps while the blanket was still falling to the floor upstairs.

I screeched to a halt in front of the long, bare area of the basement we called the sparring section.

Cathie had not been exaggerating. Laura was fighting George, and if he hadn't been dead before, he would be soon. It's not that she was such a good fighter-though she was-it's that he wasn't fighting back. Every blow she landed sounded sickening and looked worse.

"Laura!"

"Fight, you demon spawn, fight!"

"Laura, stop it!"

"You fight so I can send you to my mother. You fight so you can tell her I'm doing just fine up here and she need not interfere... again!"

Laura's hair, I was dismayed to see, was flame red-the color of sullen coals after a raging fire. Her eyes were the color of fall grass-green, but dying. Gone was the rosy-cheeked blond teen we all knew and liked. We were here with the devil's daughter now.

"Jesus," Cathie murmured, finally making it back down to the basement.

"I wish," I said.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She has parental issues."

"No, I've got parental issues. She is fucked up severe."

"Later. Laura!" I bawled. "Get off him right now! Now now, not in a minute now!"

"Stay out of this, Betsy!" she shrilled back. She smacked George another good one-I could only imagine how much it must have hurt her hand, judging from how it split open George's cheek-and he reeled and almost went down, but didn't fight back.

"Laura, I hate to pull rank on you, but I'm the queen, and that's a subject so get your fucking hands off him right now!"

She smacked him again-whamthud!-I couldn't believe it. Was I even in the goddamned room?

I raced around them just as her sword materialized on her hip. I couldn't look at the thing-it was made of hellfire and gave me an instant headache, it was like looking into the sun-so I averted my gaze and somehow-I'm still not quite sure how I pulled this off-somehow I was in front of George, my arms spread out protectively, and that's how my sister accidentally plunged her blade into my chest.