TWENTY-FIVE

Hours later, when we were alone, Sinclair reached for me, and I clung to him. Things started to get naked when we both heard Marc shambling around the house, no doubt looking for a project. A door to paint. A shelf to straighten. A dead cat to dissect.

"Odd how now that we know he is here, we cannot not hear him."

"I can't," I groaned, letting go and stepping back. "Sinclair, I can't. There's a wide-awake zombie running around, and I apparently have you skinned and then write a book out of you."

"Not conducive to horniness," he admitted, and since it was the first time he'd used that word, I had to laugh.

Then we both went to bed, and pretended to try to go to sleep. Him with his thoughts, and me with mine.

I reviewed my to-do list:

1) Save Marc

2) Save the future

3) Buy frozen strawberries

4) Save myself and/or kill myself

5) Remind the Ant she's stuck with that dumb pineapple-colored shellacked hairstyle for all eternity

6) Pick up BabyJon after future is saved (unless I've killed myself)

7) Hit Macy's for semiannual shoe sale

A lot to do! Better get started. Or at least, I'd better do more than I had so far. And I instantly forced myself not to think about BabyJon or my mom. They were out of this, they would know nothing about any of this disaster until it was fixed, or I was out of the picture. It was something so fundamental, I knew without taking a poll that everyone in the house would agree. So: no Mom and no BabyJon. Maybe forever, if things went the way I was afraid they would.

I thought about the BabyJon from the future-he had been the best thing about the future. A handsome, charming grown man. Kind and big-hearted. Blessedly normal-not a vampire, not anything supernatural as far as Laura and I could tell.

"Holy God! BabyJon!"

"Aw, man." Gorgeous Grown BabyJon covered his face, then dropped his hands and shook his head. "I outgrew that nickname a while ago, Mom."

"Mom?"

"Okay, technically you're my big sister-like you're Aunt Laura's big sister-"

"Aunt L-"

"But I grew up calling you Mom. But if that's freaking you out, since I'm still shitting in my crib where you come from-"

"That's a weird way to put it," Laura said.

"Look, I'll try to master the whole toilet thing as quickly as I can, but bottom line, right now in your when, I'm suffering the heartbreak of fecal and urinary incontinence." He threw up his hands. "I'm owning it, okay? Don't judge."

It was too much. I burst out laughing. And BabyJon-Jon, I s'pose-joined me. It was kind of nice. I remembered it for a long time, because it was about the only nice moment we had the ninety minutes we were there.

I tossed and wriggled and tossed some more. Sinclair lay like a six-foot-four stone beside me. Meditating, or thinking hard, or zonked for the day. I didn't know. What I did know was that for one of the few times in my undead existence, I couldn't conk out. Shit, half the time I'd just flop over wherever I was when the sun came up-much to the amusement of pretty much the entire household.

Great. Of all the stupid times to evolve...

Please God it's not true. Please God it's a trick. Please.

I'll do anything. Anything to save him, even if it means putting a bullet in my mouth. But c'mon, God, I can't do it alone. Help a vampire queen out, willya? Help me and I'll owe you a big favor. Help me and in return, I'll ... I tried to think of something worth bargaining for. I know! I'll use some of Sink Lair's vast amount of money and buy a Payless Shoe franchise. And work in it. Every day, I'll work in it. I'll pull double shifts in the motherfucker from now until the end of the universe. I'll sell cheap knockoffs to everyone who comes in the door. I'll have those silly "buy one pair, get the second half off" sales. If he'll live. If I don't kill him.

Please God it's not true.

As for what Sinclair was thinking, I had no idea. Our telepathic link was down, or he was keeping his thoughts from me. I couldn't blame him. I wouldn't blame him.

But it hurt, anyway.

TWENTY-SIX

Sinclair was gone when I woke up at 4:45 p.m. He didn't have to sleep all day; he could be out and about in daylight, so long as daylight didn't touch him. He was often in his office on the first floor, or reading something stuffy and moth-nibbled in the library. I had no desire, none at all, to look for him. Shit, after what we'd found out last night, I could barely look at him.

I heard footsteps, pained, labored, waddling footsteps, and then a knock on the door, which opened at once at my weary, "C'mon in, Jess."

She stood framed in the doorway in all her enormity, holding a six-inch sub from Subway in each hand. "Laura told us," she began. "How can we help?"

Like the cool, collected undead monarch I was, I thanked her politely. By which I mean I let out a cry and launched myself at her, then started sniveling on her shoulder. She staggered back a step, then regained her equilibrium.

"What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?"

"You'll figure it out, Bets. You're not alone." Lettuce from her sandwiches dribbled down my back as she soothed me with onion breath. "We'll all help. We will. It's a trick. Got to be-you'd never hurt Sinclair. And even if you were capable of-of that, it's nothing that has already happened. Only something that might, but you're forewarned and all. Okay?"

"Okay ... ow!"

"What?"

"Your sto-your, um, adorable baby just kicked me."

"Welcome to my pregnant world," she replied, unperturbed.

Pass. I straightened from her sandwich-ey, baby-kicking embrace and brushed a tomato slice out of my hair. "Thanks. I know it's a cliche, but I really needed that."

"No problem."

"And you've got a point. I'd never hurt him. And as for the Book of the Dead? This doesn't seem like a me kind of thing to do. First off, why human skin? What, OfficeMax was closed? I wrote it in the future ... plastic and paper suddenly weren't available?"

"I'm convinced."

"And I'm sorry about before."

"Current events-future events-gave us all some perspective, I think," she said, smiling.

"Laura told you?"

"Yeah. She was just leaving when I came downstairs. She told me the whole weird thing."

"That was ... helpful."

"Sure. She's your sister."

"And the Antichrist."

"And your sister," Jess said patiently. "You know she cares, even if she's kind of conflicted about vampires."

"She's not around so much these days. She's spending a lot of time in hell. And maybe even worse places ... she's not like us, Jess."

"You're not like us, Bets." She said it with a smile, but she still said it.

"Okay, good point." One I occasionally hated, but this wasn't the time to quibble. "But where is she when she's not here? And where's hell, exactly? When Laura teleports or evilly beams herself or whatever-which she's gotten very good at very quickly-where does she go?"

"Unknown."

"What, unknown? That's it, Spock? That's all you've got?"

"Betsy, what do you want from me? Some things, they're just not explainable or understandable. Hell is where hell is because that's where hell is. Satan does what she does because that's her nature. Laura can teleport through space and time and sometimes has wings and sometimes doesn't and can make weapons made of hellfire that nobody can touch except you by thinking them up, and there is no logical explanation for any of it."

"Lame."

"Make a list of questions and ask God when you see him."

"Oh, I have been. I've got plenty to ask that absentee landlord of a deity."

"You should just ask Laura those things. I bet she'd tell you."

"I'm kind of scared you're right."

"Oh. You're asking me questions because you're not sure you want the answers. That's a little on the lame side."

"Yeah ... listen, do you know where Marc is? I have to go talk to him right away."

"Got a plan already, huh?" she said, sounding impressed. "Good. Um, I don't know where he is. I've kind of been avoiding him, what with how he makes my skin crawl and all."

"Jessica." I couldn't always pull off a reproachful tone, being such a disaster as a human being and a bigger disaster as a vampire queen, but this time I could. "Come on. It's not his fault. In fact, it's Ancient Betsy's fault."

"Think I don't know that? I got the whole skinny this morning. I didn't say it was his fault. But come on. I'm gonna have a baby! A tender, delicious baby no zombie could resist."

"He's not that kind of zombie," I said, exasperated. Not as long as there were dead cats around, anyway. And the People "Second Look" page. ("Find the differences in these two pictures!") And the NYT crossword.

"Girly-o, I am taking no chances. None. Now Dickie, his thinking's different, he has been hanging around Marc, but only to find out ways to control him or defeat him in the guise of guy talk ... like that. Once a cop, right?"

"Don't call him Dickie. Gross."

"It's his name, shithead." She said that with total kindness. And she pulled it off every time, too. She was the one person who could always say the worst, most truthful things about me right to my face and I'd almost never get pissed. Maybe it was her superpower. That and being rich. And huge.

"Don't care, it's weird, I gotta go find Marc. Thanks again. Oh. Here, you dropped a cucumber slice." I picked it up and handed it to her, then left so I wouldn't see what she did with it.