Chapter 8

"Drinks?" Jeannie asked, playing bartender. I was eyeing her hair with not a little admiration. Unlike mine, which at best could be coaxed to be wavy (I'd had a highlight touch-up and deep-conditioning treatment the week before I'd died; I might be a slavering ghoul of the undead, but I would never have graying split ends), hers was shoulder length, surfer blond, and curly . . . the kind that frizzed out in July, the kind that was a mass of soft spiral curls tonight. The rest of her was unexceptional.

Okay, that came out wrong . . . Jeannie Wyndham was a beautiful woman, admirably slim after two kids, casually dressed in jeans, loafers (Payless; ah, well, nobody's perfect), a soft blue chambray shirt, and a tan wool blazer.

When I described her as unexceptional, I meant in comparison to my surroundings: Michael's wife was the queen of everything I was staring at; it was all half hers. But you'd never know it to look at her; she had the brisk, understated demeanor of an experienced nurse.

Except for the eyes, of course; she had the flat and calculating gaze of a sniper. I wondered where her gun was. This was more than idle curiosity; the last time I'd seen her she'd shot me. Three times, in the chest.

But later she'd helped me pick out the greatest dress in the history of human garments, so I didn't hold it against her anymore. Attempted murder is a fleeting moment, but the perfect wedding gown lasts forever.

"Betsy? Drink?"

Damn, I was really gonna have to pay better attention. I'd been so busy staring around the room and remembering point-blank chest wounds that I took the glass without looking and drained it.

And nearly barfed all over the beautiful Persian rug. I think it was Persian. It looked expensive and smelled old. Michael's great-great-great-great-grand-parents had probably hauled it all the way to Plymouth from the Mayflower, centuries after their great-great-great-great-grandparents had hauled it from the palace of Cyrus.

How did I know Cyrus was one of the first rulers of the Persians, you ask? Hey. I don't always ignore my husband when he's prattling on about useless stuff.

"Wwwrrllgg!" I managed, wiping off what was dribbling down my disgusted chin. I forced what was left of the loathsome liquid down. "What the hell is this, kerosene?"

"We're out of kerosene," Derik said with no trace of a smile. This was far from the Derik I'd met before, who had been all smiles, charming and sexy and nice.

"I should have mentioned that my wife only likes drinks that come from a dirty blender," Sinclair said. He was sitting across from Michael, who was behind his desk. I was sitting next to him; Jessica was on my right. Jeannie, done with handing out glasses of regurgitate, was pacing back and forth behind us. Like I wasn't already nervous enough. "I take it you didn't enjoy your first whiskey, dear one?"

Yeah, about as much as a tax audit, jerkhead. Guess I wasn't as thirsty as I'd thought.

Sinclair nodded thoughtfully, his fist pressed under his nose to hide a smile. He hadn't been reading my mind as long as I'd been able to read his (it's a long story, and I come off kind of bad in it), so he was still in the wow-this-is-so-awesome stage, whereas I was at the fuck-you-I-have-no-privacy phase.

I fumbled frantically in my purse, found a tin of Altoids, and dumped half of them in my mouth. I crunched them up like they were Rice Krispies, relishing the way the mint overpowered the yuck-o booze. Zow! The potent little buggers were really clearing out my sinuses; my eyes were all but watering. Which would have been a good trick, since my eyes don't water.

"Let me begin by saying we appreciate you bringing Antonia home to us."

"Nnnn prbm," I crunched, trying not to cough. Dammit! Probably shouldn't have dumped such a big mouthful into my gaping piehole. Probably shouldn't have done a lot of things this week.

"It was no trouble, and the least we could do," Sinclair said, speaking as calmly and colorlessly as Michael while I crunched furiously. I wondered if that was the royal "we." "It was an honor to escort her back home."

"My understanding is that she was shot several times in the head, protecting you," Michael said calmly. Calmly, but a muscle beside his eye twitched.

I tried not to stare, and failed. I gave serious thought to getting up and spitting my mashed Altoids into his spotless wastebasket, but just didn't dare. It seemed . . . what was the word Eric would use? Undiplomatic.

With a mighty effort, I swallowed the minty lump down, gagged briefly, and sneezed. Beside me, I could sense Sinclair rolling his eyes and either trying not to smirk, or thinking up an excuse for me. I'd deal with him later.

"Yes, that's right," I replied with startlingly fresh breath. I managed to stifle the second sneeze. "She saved me."

"Why?"

Huh. That didn't seem very nice. My tongue ran away before I could stop it: "Because she lost a bet?"

There was a loud hissing sound, like everyone had gasped at the same time. I looked at my lap and muttered, "Sorry. Too soon?"

"What could bullets have done to a vampire?" Michael continued, unmoved by my terrific breath and sarcastic observations. And that was the $50,000 question. Because it was only recently that vampires realized werewolves existed, and vice versa. Michael probably assumed our vampirism was straight out of a bad horror movie. And who could blame him? I hadn't thought lead bullets would hurt a werewolf.

"What would bullets in the brain do to anyone?" Sinclair replied quietly, totally screwing up my assumption. "There was no chance anyone could have regenerated."

Michael had tipped back in his chair and was staring at the ceiling. "Mmmm." Then he had all four legs of his chair on the floor and met all our gazes.

Well. Almost all. His gaze kept skittering over the sleeping BabyJon. He hadn't asked one question about the baby, made one comment, not even a careless, "Cute kid." And from what I'd heard, he was a devoted dad who loved ankle biters, nose miners, whatever.

But he wouldn't look at BabyJon. And that was very strange. So strange it was starting to make me nervous.

"I hope the baby isn't bothering you," I said, to which Michael had no reply. Now he was locking gazes with Derik. It was like he hadn't even heard me-which was bullshit, given what I knew about werewolf hearing.

Why ignore an infant? To what purpose? And why was it making me so nervous?

I was rocking BabyJon's seat with my toe as he slept, trying to get a handle on my feelings. Hey, it wasn't like I had to worry about bad breath at the moment. Quite the opposite, in fact. And sure, this was a stressful scene, but they had all seemed nice enough when I'd met them earlier.

After all, we could have gotten a much nastier reception. Much nastier. But nobody had so much as waved a crucifix in our direction. No one had attacked us yet, to be sure. So why was I practically shaking?

Sinclair was frowning at me picking up my nervousness, but not the cause. All I could do was lift my left shoulder in a tiny shrug, the international "tell you later" gesture.

Besides, I had other things to focus on. Derik, for instance. He'd been so different when he'd come to the mansion looking for Antonia a couple months back. Friendly and charming and funny and sooo cute . . . though I usually didn't go for blonds.

In fact, the only time he'd gotten upset was when he followed me to BabyJon's nursery and-and-

I could almost hear the click as the reason behind my sudden nervousness clunked home: Derik kept giving BabyJon a wide berth, and Michael didn't even seem to see him. Which was impossible; you couldn't hide a twenty-pound infant surrounded by a pastel car seat, not when it was right out on the floor and smelling like formula and stale powder.

Now that I thought about it, Jeannie was the only one who had acknowledged BabyJon; she had stroked his feathery black hair once we had him buckled in the limo, and complimented me on his good looks. I wasn't sure if I could take the credit for those or not, so I'd just nodded.

But Derik . . . Derik had followed me to the nursery once, taken one look at the baby, and nearly broken his neck on the stairs while trying to achieve distance. There was so much other shit going on at the time, I'd completely forgotten about it until now.

I dared not forget again . . . something was wrong with this baby. Or with any werewolf who came in contact with him.

And I didn't like that. At all.

Now Derik and Jeannie were pacing behind us, which was just as nerve-wracking as it sounds. But whenever Derik got near BabyJon, he would veer off. And Michael, as I said, couldn't see him at all.

And they weren't even aware of it. Derik could have been avoiding a mud puddle for all the emotion he showed, and Michael, who could and did hold everyone's gaze in the way only an alpha Werewolf could, wasn't looking at BabyJon.

All of a sudden, I had a brand-new problem dumped in my lap. Just what I needed. I'd have rather had a new pair of Prada pumps dumped on me.

Chapter 9

Why did I seize so quickly on the possibility that BabyJon was special? Well, consider our sister, Laura, who was still back in Minnesota but still very much in my thoughts as I whispered super-minty breath across the mahogany expanse that separated me from the alpha male of Antonia's werewolf Pack.

Laura, an impossibly beautiful, naive, and sweet blonde, was raised by a minister and his wife, which partially explained why she was currently a tireless worker for charities, as well as a cheerful and frequent Goodwill volunteer.

Laura worked in soup kitchens and went to church on Sundays. She stuck twenty-dollar bills into red Salvation Army buckets at Christmastime (and Laura was far from rich; her folks made less in one year than Sinclair made in a month). In February she had literally given the shirt (well, the coat) off her back to someone down on her luck.

Sickening? Okay. Yes. A little. But still, it all made perfect sense. How else could someone rebel against their parent? Laura fought back by being sweet and kind. Mostly sweet. Although she had a spectacular temper.

Also, her birth mother (not the minister's wife) was the devil. Yes. The devil. As in Satan. As in Lucifer. As in a woman who looked weirdly like Lena Olin, except with better footgear. Either Satanic influence or Lena Olin's terrific fashion sense had endowed Laura with supernatural abilities-of course! She was half angel, right? Lucifer's lineage hadn't changed when he/she was tossed out of heaven.

And I was beginning to suspect BabyJon had powers, too. Not that we could confirm this by asking Lena-Satan-after possessing the birth mother long enough to experience breast-feeding and stretch marks, she had fled for the easier comforts of hell. The minister and his wife who adopted Laura had been the best thing to happen to her, and kept her diabolic lineage in check.

So who will keep, I wondered, my half brother in check, if he inherits anything unusual? Me? It was the only thing that made sense in an increasingly complicated family history.

(I have a point. I promise.)

Okay, I can see how some of this-most of this-could be confusing. Shit, it's my life and even I get mixed up sometimes. So. The Cliffs Notes version: the devil possessed my stepmother, the Ant, because she wanted to try the whole giving birth and raising a kid thing. My stepmother, the late Antonia Taylor (I know, I know . . . two Antonias? Both dead? What were the odds on something like that?) was so unrelievedly nasty, no one had any idea she was possessed.

Think about that for a minute. My stepmother was so horrible and nasty on a daily basis that no one noticed when she was possessed by the devil for almost a year.

I know! It boggles my mind, too.

Anyway, the devil had hated labor and delivery, not to mention breast-feeding and stretch marks, and fled my stepmother's body to get the hell back to hell.

When my stepmother realized that someone else had been running her body for almost a year (remember: nobody even noticed!), she promptly gave the baby up for adoption.

And didn't tell my father about it. Hey, the couple that lies together (no pun intended) stays together. Or however that saying went.

Only the Ant knew my dad had fathered Laura, which is why she and I didn't meet until two decades later. My late father, who I'd always thought of as a colorless coward, had fathered the Beloved of the Morningstar (in other words, the Antichrist) and a vampire queen.

God help us if it turned out I had another half brother lurking out in the world somewhere; maybe he was the reincarnation of Attila the Hun. Maybe I should have talked Dad into having some of his sperm frozen.

Yuck. Time to get off the subject of my father's sperm.

Anyway, back to BabyJon. Now I was wondering-maybe it was silly . . . vampire queen or no, this stuff really wasn't my field-maybe my stepmother's body had retained some leftover magic from her days of possession. And maybe that had had a profound effect on her late-in-life baby.

Shoot, the poor kid had been conceived purely out of spite. The Ant had not liked it at all when her spoiled bimbo stepdaughter returned from the dead, and tried to pull her husband's attention back to his second family with the age-old trick: she'd gotten pregnant to jazz up her marriage.

Michael was still talking. Jeannie and Derik were still pacing. Sinclair's face was serene and composed, but he kept glancing at me and I knew he knew I wasn't paying attention. Well, who could right now?

Besides, Sinclair would give me the scoop on anything I needed to know when we were alone. Meanwhile I, the Daphne of the Undead, had a mystery to solve.

I carefully nudged the car seat with the toe of my left shoe, forcing it farther away from the desk and toward the middle of the floor.

Again, Derik veered. He didn't look down. He didn't frown at the baby, or at me. He just kept giving the sleeping BabyJon a wide berth. And it looked like Jeannie hadn't noticed the phenomenon, which didn't surprise me. She'd just lost a family member; her mind was definitely on other things.

Hmmmm.

"-know when the service will be," Michael was saying.

I was instantly diverted. Ah ha! Now we would find out the secret of werewolf funeral rituals. Did they burn the body on a pyre? Loft it into the ocean? Cremate it and scatter the ashes over sacred moss? Bury her while in wolf form with some yowling ritual under the yellow glow of a full moon? Preserve her in spice-soaked cocoon wrappings underground, like mummies?

Everyone was staring at me, and I would have died if I hadn't already. I hate when I think I'm thinking something only to find out I've been saying it out loud.

"Pyres?" Michael asked. "Yowling ritual?"

"Oh, fuck me twice," Derik said, throwing his hands in the air. "Did you really think we were going to bury Antonia in the woods like she was a dog treat?"

"Well, how'm I supposed to know what you're going to do?" I snapped back as I leaned over and pulled BabyJon's car seat closer. "That's why we're here. To do things your way. Ow!" Sinclair had kicked me none too gently in the ankle. I glared at him, then returned my attention to Derik. "Sorry. Muscle spasm."

"Mummies," Derik was muttering. "Funeral pyres. Burial at sea? Antonia was Presbyterian, morons."

How anticlimactic.

"You may call me whatever you wish," my husband was saying in a voice more smoke than sound. "But do not insult my wife and queen."

"Well, which is it?" Jeannie asked. I heard the clinking rattle of more ice as she filled her glass with something. Her tone was okay; she didn't sound mean or anything. Sort of half-teasing/half-curious. "Are you here wearing your wife hat or your queen hat?"

Huh. Hope they had a few hours to kill, because it was a long story.