Chapter 10

Dear Future-Self Dude,

Fifteen minutes ago I nearly experienced the heartbreak of fecal incontinence. I was in the kitchen, staring glumly at the near-bare refrigerator shelves and wondering if I had time to swing by Cub Foods before my shift started.

Living with vampires and the Antichrist isn't the constant fun and games you must imagine. To begin, I don't technically live with Laura; she's a student at the U of M and has a place of her own in Dinkytown (That's what we called the small batch of apartment buildings and restaurants near the U of M. After I gave this some thought, it made perfect sense that the Antichrist lived in Dinkytown. She was probably right down the block from a Cinnabon chain, too. As Jim Gaffigan said, "Tell me that place isn't run by Satan.").

Anyway, Laura has her own place and I imagine she eats most of her meals there. And since she's alive, she buys food. Which she keeps in her fridge.

Our fridge, nearly big enough to use in a restaurant, is not so lucky. Today its contents revealed four bottles of Diet Peach Snapple (as a doctor, I never touched Diet anything . . . why not just drink gasoline and be done with it?), a carton of strawberries (which, as they were not in season, tasted like tiny, fuzzy raw potatoes), two pints of cream, half a box of Godiva truffles (I knew, without looking, that Betsy had already scored the raspberry ones, pureeing them with milk in one of the six blenders), an open box of baking soda that was not doing its job to defunk the fridge, fourteen bottles of water, a near-empty bottle of Thousand Island dressing, a cellophane-wrapped chunk of parmesan cheese so hard it could be used successfully as a blunt instrument, an unopened jar of lemon curd (whatever the hell that was), two cans of Diet Coke (Jessica was addicted to it; why is it that the chronically underweight were drawn to drink diet soda? And am I the only one to notice someone who drank seven cans a day ended up with cancer?), and something foul lurking beneath the tin foil on a paper plate . . . I just wasn't up to exploring (I didn't even know we had paper plates), so I let it be.

This is what comes of living with vampires and a woman who seemed to consume nothing but salads and Diet Coke. Unlike the community fridge, the freezer was full, but still weird. It fairly bulged with bottles of a vodka brand I'd never heard of-Zyr-in various flavors. The flavors were alphabetized. The bottles were perfectly lined up; they were like cloudy glass soldiers at attention.

As these were typical contents of the mansion's kitchen freezer, I knew some of the flavors lurking in the back were lime, juniper, peppercorn, espresso, fennel, mint, garlic, cherry, sun-dried tomato, mustard seed, apple, and horseradish.

Dude, I am not making this up, or exaggerating for humorous effect. In a household of oddities and the undead, Tina was everywhere and nowhere. She excelled at going unnoticed and she could pull that off anywhere in the world . . . except our kitchen freezer. Vodka was her vice; the more obscure the flavor, the more she had to try it. She drank it neat, using a succession of antique shot glasses, which were always kept chilled.

Tina had offered to make me a drink once. I had accepted. Once.

I did not have time to swing by Cub on the way to work and would be too tired after my shift; time to order pizza again. Green Mill was practically on my speed dial.

Sighing, I swung the freezer shut and my senses, instantly overwhelmed by someone they hadn't smelled, seen, or heard, but who was all of a sudden right there, went into overdrive. My adrenal gland dumped a gallon of F.O.F. into my system (what my interns called Fight or Flight juice) and for a long minute I thought my heart was going to just quit from the shock.

She greeted me with "I am out of cinnamon vodka," then grabbed my shoulder and prevented me from braining myself on the metal handle as I flinched hard enough to be mistaken for an epileptic.

"Tina," I groaned, yanking my hand out of her chilly grasp, "that's the second time today. I'm putting a bell around your neck. Or sewing one into your scalp, I swear to-" No, don't swear to God; just hearing the G word was like a whiplash to a vampire, the movies had gotten some things right. "I swear," I finished.

Tina looked mildly distressed. Most of her expressions were mild versions of what humanity could come up with. What would put you or me in a killing rage would cause her to raise one eyebrow and frown. Frown sternly, but still.

The smooth efficiency and profound, almost unshakable calm were at odds with her appearance. Tina looked like an escapee from Delta Nu, the sorority Reese Witherspoon's character made famous in Legally Blonde. (Great movie, dude. "All those opposed to chafing, please say aye.")

Tina had long, honey blond hair-past her shoulders in rippling waves-and big, dark eyes, what Tina called pansy eyes. Not only did Tina look too young to vote, she would probably get carded if she tried to buy cigarettes. And she dressed to play up her appearance in a never-ending variety of kicky plaid skirts, white button-downs, anklets, everything but a backpack full of high school textbooks. She looked like a walking, talking felony. One far older and smarter than any would-be college boy who might try out a little date rape.

Also, she was about as noisy as an unplugged television. If you don't believe that, dude, you couldn't feel my heart just now.

"I apologize, Marc. I honestly don't mean to frighten you." This was true, and scary in its own way-I hated to think what she could do to my nervous system if she really put some thought into it. "We're just two peas rattling around in a can 'round here, aren't we?"

She laughed a little and I noticed she had slipped again. Most of the time, Tina had the smooth, accent-free tones of a weather reporter. But occasionally a Southern accent would creep in. I loved it when that happened because she seemed less a smooth-voiced butler and more like a walking, talking, feeling person.

Don't misunderstand; I have no problem with the undead, although I was dying to learn all I could and trying to work up the nerve to ask Betsy if I could autopsy the next Big Bad she would inadvertently kill with a heretofore unknown superpower. Nope; no real problem with them, I just thought they should get back to their roots a bit more often.

Besides, Tina made me nervous.

And she knew she made me nervous. This was nothing I could discuss with Betsy, of course . . . my feelings were too vague and unformed and frankly, my best gal wasn't what I would ever call a deep thinker. As Susan Sarandon said in the greatest movie in the history of cinema, Bull Durham, "The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness." The world was made, in other words, for people like Betsy.

She had no time for "Hmm, Tina's a quiet one, huh? Perhaps we should ponder what that signifies," particularly during the fall when she had to update her collection of winter footgear. But it was there and I couldn't deny it: Tina gave me the creeps.

I knew she had been born the year the Civil War had begun.

I knew she had been a vampire long before Sinclair.

I knew she had made Sinclair, had remained by his side all the years since then, and was his capable assistant.

And that was all I knew about her. And I only knew those things because Betsy had told me. In other words, that was all Betsy knew about her, too. And she was the queen, for the love of . . .

Dude, there are all sorts of etiquette rules for living with vampires. There had to be; there was etiquette for everything. But it was hard to come up with a tactful way to ask, "So, how'd you get murdered, anyway?" And that was only one of the things I would love to learn.

All this went through my head in about eleven seconds. Meanwhile, Tina was still lurking-well, standing-by the fridge.

"Will you have a drink with me?" She opened the freezer and reached for the first row of bottles. I saw she had extracted mustard seed-flavored vodka and, thanks to years of seeing man's inhumanity to man via the emergency room, I manfully concealed my shudder.

"I have to get to work," I said glumly.

Curious, I waited a beat, but Tina did exactly what I anticipated. "Oh, that's too bad, Marc. A pity you won't have time to shop first."

Dude, if I had been Sinclair or Betsy, her answer would have been something like, "Oh most wondrous undead monarch, please give me, your humblest, lamest, most slovenly servant, your grocery list and I shall fill your fridge with any produce, meat by-products, Little Debbie snack cakes, and dairy products you desire and also pick up your dry cleaning on my way home, unless you would prefer I simply run out to KFC for some original recipe chicken."

Alas, it was not to be: not only was I alive and well, I was neither the vampire queen nor the vampire king. Tina was their willing and untiring slave, not mine.

Still, we were roommates. You would think that would lead to some kind of bond. The Sacred Roommate Bond. Would it kill her to bring home a gallon of milk once in a while?

Chapter 11

The words wife or queen seemed almost to hang in the air over our heads. I had the sense that they weren't asking these questions out of idle curiosity, or to be polite. No, no. Michael was a predator, of course, as Antonia had been, which meant he was constantly on the lookout for weakness. He couldn't help it. Probably he didn't even know he was doing it.

Wife or queen? A question I had asked myself on more than one occasion. Sinclair was bigger, stronger, faster. Older. Richer. Better educated. More even-tempered, more in control. Frankly, there were times-lots of times-when I wished I could just be the wife, and leave the whole vamp royalty thing to him.

But I could do things no other vampire on the planet could. Seemed dumb not to take advantage of that, or at least acknowledge it. So we existed in an interesting state of love and respect.

Well, occasional respect, when I wasn't giving him a Wet Willy or poking him in his flat belly when we showered together-the man wasn't ticklish! Talk about an unnatural creature.

He'd bowed to my authority on more than one occasion, too-usually just before I started hurling heavy objects at his head to emphasize whatever point I was making. You want to see something funny? Eric Sinclair, following one of my orders. Believe me, it didn't happen all that often. Whenever it did, he always had an odd expression on his face: part admiration, part annoyance.

Now where the hell was I? Dammit! It was three A.M., I was tired out from being on edge all night, and was having more trouble than usual following the conversation, which had veered from funeral rights to religion to atheist vampires to my title.

"Funny thing for you to ask, Jeannie," I finally said. I guess it wasn't exactly unheard of for a werewolf to marry a-you know, a regular person. But it was rare enough so that the two of them caused a stir now and again-I'd gotten that much from Antonia, and that only after she'd been living with us for a while.

Get this: not only was it rare for werewolves to marry boring old humans, it was considered super-lucky for the Pack, and the offspring were usually exceptional Pack members. For example, Antonia-

But I wasn't ready to go there again. Call me a chickenshit coward; that's fine. I just couldn't do it again right now.

"Mmm." Jeannie grinned, but didn't rise to the bait, just shrugged. "Good point."

I cleared my throat, because I was having trouble swallowing the whole-the whole mundaneness of the thing. Mundaneness? Mundanity? "So there are Presbyterian werewolves, and Catholic ones, and Lutherans-"

"And Buddhists and atheists and Hindus," Derik added.

"Will you please stop that pacing and sit the fuck down? Ow!" I yanked my poor sore ankle out of reach of Sinclair's foot. "You look like a cheetah on crack."

"Back off, blondie," Derik snapped back and, if anything, sped up the pacing.

"I'm surprised you didn't draw your own conclusion," Michael said loudly, clearly trying to distract us. I think he was clearly trying. It was hard to know what the guy was up to. "Because clearly, all vampires are Christians."

"No," Sinclair said.

No? What, no? How did we get off the topic of werewolf retribution for Antonia and on to religion? I got enough of the "let's all pray to Jesus meek and mild" stuff I needed from Laura.

"No?"

"No. We, too, have Muslims and Catholics and pagans. We, too, have-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jeannie interrupted. "That makes no sense at all."

"We do not go about our lives with the objective of making sense to strangers," my husband said with terrifying pleasantness.

"Fuck." Derik, thank God, had grabbed a chair, dragged it over, turned it so it was facing backward, and sat. His blond hair fell into his eyes and he shook it out of his face with a quick, impatient movement. "Why would a cross work on an atheist vampire?"

Sinclair and I traded a glance. Jessica, I noticed, was all ears as well-she'd been so quiet I'd almost forgotten she was in the room.

"Or someone Jewish?" Derik continued.

Because vampirism was a virus.A virus that was very hard to catch, and even harder to pass on. This was Marc's theory, backed up by Tina and Sinclair-again, not all of a sudden. After months and months and months. Tina and Sinclair couldn't be much more tight-mouthed if someone sewed their lips shut with ultralite fishing line.

Vampirism, as a virus, slowed your metabolism waaaaay down, but didn't stop it. Good points: you no longer sweated, or peed. Aging seemed to stop altogether. You were faster, stronger. Heightened senses. Blah-blah.

Bad points: vampires were highly susceptible to suggestion. (All of them-modest cough-except me.) Tina, my husband's right-hand woman (she had been the one to turn him into a vampire in the early part of the twentieth century . . . yup, I was in love and regularly boinking a man old enough to be my grandfather), had eventually advanced this theory with Marc.

Marc went into MD mode and had tentatively concurred (on the grounds that he could change his mind if further proof emerged) that yes, it was a virus, and yes, a Jewish vampire would cringe away from a cross. Because we all know that's what vampires do. They are vampires; ergo, crosses and holy water can hurt them.

I know, sounds stupid, right? Give it a minute. If you catch a disease that makes you highly suggestible, and you have the weight of a zillion horror movies telling you holy water burns . . . then holy water burns.

But we were getting off the point.

And it was driving me so nuts, I was practically biting the tip of my tongue off so I wouldn't point out that Derik had made the same silly assumptions about vampires that we had about werewolves. After calling us morons.

"-explain what happened?"

Eh? Aw, shit. Michael was looking right at me. I jerked my foot away in time and Sinclair's Kenneth Cole-shod shoe clunked into the back of Michael's desk.

"Explain what happened?" I repeated with what I hoped was an intelligent question on my face.

"Yes, to the Council."

Council? What council? That didn't sound good at all. Nobody had said anything about a council-I think. Damn. I really should be paying attention to the goings-on in my life. "Can't you tell them what happened? You're the boss around here."

"No." Click. Closed. End of argument. I knew that tone-I'd heard it in my husband's voice often enough-to know when it was no good to protest. "We'll be meeting on the grounds just after sunset tomorrow. I'll need all of your testimonies, so do not send one representative to speak for the group.

"Then what?" I asked nervously.

He just looked at me, almost like he was sorry for me.

Somehow, that was even worse than his cool fury.