Undead and Uneasy

by Mara

  "Your mother took your father's name and, even after he left her for the lethal flirtations of another woman, kept his name. Which is why, to this day, there are two Mrs. Taylors in town. So in fact, it is not how you were raised."

  I glared. He glared back, except his was more like a sneer. Since Sinclair looked like he was sneering even when he was unconscious, it was tough to tell. All I knew was, we were headed for yet another argument and thank goodness we were doing it in our bedroom, where one of the house's many live-ins weren't likely to bother us. Or, even worse, rate us (Marc had given our last fight a 7.6—we started with an 8 based on volume alone, but he had taken four-tenths of a point off for lack of originality in name-calling).

  We lived (and would presumably for the next thousand years—hope Jessica was paid up on her damage insurance) in a big old mansion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Me, Sinclair, my best friend Jessica, Marc, and a whole bunch of others I'm just too tired to list right now. I adored my friends, but sometimes I couldn't help wishing they'd all just disappear for the sake of some peace and quiet.

  Retreating to the master suite, where we were currently arguing, was an acceptable substitute for actual solitude. I'd never seen a divine bathroom before, much less been in one, but after taking a bath in the eight-foot-long whirlpool tub, I'd come to believe God could act through bubbles.

  The whole place was like a bed and breakfast—the fanciest, nicest one in the whole world, where the I ridge was always full, the sheets were always fresh, and you never had to check out and go home. Even the closets were sublime, with more scrollwork than you could shake a stick at. Having come from a long line of tract housing families, I'd resisted the move here last year. But now I loved it. I still couldn't believe I actually lived in a mansion of all things. Some of the rooms were so big, I hardly noticed Sinclair.

  Okay, that was a lie. Eric Sinclair filled every room he was in, even if he was just sitting in the corner reading a newspaper. Big—well over six feet—with the build of a farmer (which he had been) who kept in shape (which he did): wide, heavily muscled shoulders, long legs, narrow waist, flat stomach, big hands, big teeth, big dick. Alpha male all the way. And he was mine. Mine, I tell you!

  Sinclair was seventy-something—I was vague on the details, and he rarely volunteered autobiographical info—but had died in his thirties, so his black hair was unmarked by gray; his broad, handsome face was without so much as a sun wrinkle. He had a grin that made Tom Cruise look like a snaggle-toothed octogenarian.

  He was dynamite in bed—ooh, boy, was he! He was rich (possibly richer than Jessica, who had arranged for the purchase of this mansion). He was strong—I'd seen him pull a man's arm off his body like you or I would pull a chicken wing apart. And I mentioned the vampire part, right? That he was the king of the vampires?

  And I was the queen. His queen.

  Never mind what the Book of the Dead said, never mind that he'd tricked me into the queen gig, never mind what other vampires said; shit, never mind what my mom said. I loved Eric (when he wasn't being a pud), and he loved me (I was almost positive); and in my book (which wasn't bound in human skin and written in blood, thank you very much) that meant we collared a justice of the peace and got him to say "Husband and Wife."

  Two years ago, I would have said a minister. But if a man of God said a blessing over Eric Sinclair, sprinkled him with holy water, or handed him a collection plate, my darling groom would go up in flames, and it'd be really awkward.

  Anyway, that was the way I wanted things. The way I needed them. And really, it seemed a small enough thing to ask. Especially when you look at all the shit I had put up with since rising from the dead. Frankly, if the king of the vampires didn't like it, he could take a flying fuck at a rolling garter belt.

  "If you don't like it," I said, "you can take a flying fuck at a rolling garter belt."

  "Is that another of your tribe's charming post-ceremony activities?"

  "What is this 'my tribe' crapola?" I'd given up on the announcements and had started folding my T-shirts—the basket had been silently condemning me for almost a week. Jessica had hired plenty of servants, but we all insisted on doing our own laundry. Except Sinclair. I think Tina (his super-butler/major domo/assistant) did his. He could hold his damned breath waiting for me to step up.

  I dropped the fresh, clean T-shirt so I could put my hands on my hips and really give him the glare. "Your dad was a Minnesota farmer. This I'm-an-aristocrat-and-you're-a-peasant schtick stinks like a rotten apple."

  Sinclair, working at the desk in the corner (in a black suit, on a Tuesday night—it was the equivalent of a guy getting up on his day off and immediately putting on a Kenneth Cole before so much as eating a bowl of cornflakes), simply shrugged and did not look up. That was his way: to taunt, to make an irritating observation, and then refuse to engage. He swore it was proof of his love, that he'd have killed anyone else months ago.

  "I am just so sick of you acting like this wedding thing is all me and has nothing to do with you."

  He didn't look up, and he didn't put his pen down. "This wedding thing is all you and has nothing to do with me."

  "I'll bet you haven't even worked on your vows yet.”

  "I certainly have."

  "Fine, smart-ass. Let's hear it."

  He laid his pen down, closed his eyes, licked his lips, and took a deep breath. "Alas, the penis is such a ridiculous petitioner. It is so unreliable, though everything depends on it—the world is balanced on it like a ball on a seal's nose. It is so easily teased, insulted, betrayed, abandoned; yet it must pretend to be invulnerable, a weapon which confers magical powers upon its possessor; consequently this muscle-less inchworm must try to swagger through temples and pull apart thighs like the hairiest Samson, the mightiest ram." Opening his eyes and taking in my horrified expression, he added, "William Gass, 'Metaphor and Measurement'."

  Then he picked up his pen and returned to his work. With a shriek of rage, I yanked my engagement ring off my finger, yelped (it stuck to my second knuckle), and threw it at him, hard.

  He snatched it out of the air without looking and tossed it back at me. I flailed at it, juggled it madly, then finally clenched it in my cold fist.

  "Oh no you don't, love. You insisted on a gauche it-presentation of my feelings and you will wear it. And if you throw it at me again," he continued absently, turning crumbling sheets of parchments, never looking up, "I will make you eat it."

  "Eat this!' I flipped him the bird. I could actually fee] my blood pressure climbing. Not that I had blood pressure. But I knew what it felt like. And I knew I was acting like a brat. But what was the matter with him? Why was he being so cold, so distant, so—so Sinclair? We hadn't even made love since . . . I started I counting on my fingers and gave up after I'd reached last Thursday. Instead we were sharing blood without sex—a first for us. It was like—like being used like a Kleenex and tossed accordingly.

  What was wrong with him? What was wrong with me? I was getting everything I ever wanted. Since I woke up dead, right? Right?

  I was so caught up in my mental bitching I hadn't noticed that Sinclair had advanced on me like a cat on a rat.

  "Put your trinket on, darling, lest you lose it again."

  I ignored the urge to pierce his left nostril with it. He was soooo lucky I liked rubies.

  I managed (barely) to evade his kiss. 'What? You think we're going to have sex now?"

  "I had hopes," he admitted, dodging a fist.

  "Don't we have to make up before the makeup sex?"

  "I don't see why," he said, pressing me down onto the bed.

  I grumbled, but his hands felt fine, and I figured it was just as well to let him think he 'was in charge. (He did only think that, right?) His mouth was on mine, then on my neck, his hands were under my shirt, then tugging and pulling on my pants. I felt his teeth pierce my throat, felt the dizzying sensation of being taken, being used, as he sipped my cool blood. His hands were on my ass, pulling me t
oward him, and then he was sliding into me, and that was that, the fight was over. Or at least on hold.

  We rocked together for a fine time, and I counted my orgasms like fireworks going off in my brain: one, two, three!

  (Elizabeth, my own, my queen, my . . . bride.)

  "Get used to that one," I panted, meeting his thrusts with my hips, trying not to hear the laughter in his head.

  He bit me on the other side of my throat, and I thought, we're going to have to change the sheets. Stupid undead lovemaking!

  He stiffened over me and then rolled away, stifling a yawn. "There, now. Don't you feel better?"

  "Loads. So about the wedding—"

  "The ceremony we have no use for?"

  Poof. All gone, afterglow. "Shut up! Some moldy old book written by dead guys tells you we're married, and that's good enough for you?"

  "Are we discussing the Book of the Dead, or the"— He made a terrible face, like he was trying to spit out a mouse, and then coughed it out—"Bible?"

  "Very funny!" Though I was impressed; even a year ago, he could never have said Bible. Maybe I was rubbing off on him? He was certainly rubbing off on me; I'd since found out the Wall Street Journal made splendid kindling. "Look, I'd just like you to say, just once, just this one time, I'd like to hear that you're happy we're getting married,"

  "I am happy," he yawned, "and we are married." And around and around we went. I wasn't stupid. I was aware that to the vampires, the Book of the Dead was a bible of sorts, and if it said we were consorts and coregents, then it was a done deal.

  But I was a different sort of vampire. I'd managed (I think) to hang on to my humanity. A little, anyway. And I wanted a real wedding. With cake, even if I couldn't eat it. And flowers. And Sinclair slipping a ring on my finger and looking at me like I was the only woman in the universe for him. A ring to match the gorgeous gold engagement band clustered with diamonds and rubies, wholly unique and utterly beautiful and proof that I was his. And me looking understated yet devastating in a smashingly simple wedding gown, looking scrumptious and gorgeous for him. Looking bridal. And him looking dark and sinister and frightening to everyone except me. Him smiling at me, not that nasty-nice grin he used on everyone else.

  And we'd be a normal couple. A nice, normal ample who could start a—start a—

  "I just wish we could have a baby," I fretted, twisting my ring around and around on my finger.

  "We have been over this before," he said with barely concealed distaste.

  We had. Or I had. Don't get me wrong; I wasn't one of those whiny women (on the subject of drooling infants, anyway), but it was like once I knew 1 could never have one (and once my rotten stepmother, the Ant, did have one), it was all I could think about.

  No baby for Betsy and Sinclair. Not ever. I'd even tried to adopt a ghost once, but once I fixed her problem, she vanished, and that was that. I had no plans to put my heart on the chopping block again.

  I sat up in bed much too fast, slipped, and hit the floor with a thud. "Don't you want a baby, Sinclair?"

  "We have been over this before," he repeated, still not looking at me. "The Book of the Dead says the Queen can have a child with a living man."

  "Fuck the Book of the Dead! I want our baby, Sinclair, yours and mine!"

  "I cannot give you one," he said quietly, and left me to go back to his desk. He sat down, squinted at some paperwork, and was immediately engrossed.

  Right. He couldn't. He was dead. We could never be real parents. Which is why I wanted (stop me if you've heard this before) a real wedding. With flowers and booze and cake and dresses and tuxes.

  And my family and friends looking at us and thinking, now there's a couple that will make it, there's a couple that was meant to be. And Marc having a date, and Jessica not being sick anymore. And my baby brother not crying once, and my stepmother getting along with everybody and not looking tacky.

  And our other roommate werewolf, Antonia, not having a million bitchy remarks about "monkey rituals" and George the Fiend—I mean Garrett—not showing us how he can eat with his feet. And Cathie not whispering in my ear and making me giggle at inappropriate moments.

  And my folks not fighting, and peace being declared in the Middle East just before the fireworks (and doves) went up in the backyard, and someone discovering that chocolate cured cancer.

  Was that so much to ask?

  Chapter 2

  “Take that rag off," my best friend rasped. "It makes you look like a dead crack whore."

  "Not a dead one," my roommate, Marc, mock-gasped. "How positively blech-o."

  "It's not that bad," I said doubtfully, twirling before the mirror. But Jess was right. Nordic pale when alive, I was positively ghastly when dead, and a pure white gown made me look like—it must be said—a corpse bride.

  "I think it looks very pretty," Laura, my half sister, said loyally. Of course, Laura thought everything was very pretty. Laura was very pretty. She was also the devil's daughter, but that was a story for another time.

  The five of us—Marc, Jessica, Laura, Cathie, and I—were at Rush's Bridal, an uberexclusive bridal shop that had been around for years, that you could only get in by appointment, that had provided Mrs. Hubert Humphrey and her bridesmaids with their gowns. (The thank you note was framed in the shop.)

  Thanks to Jessica's pull, I hadn't needed an appointment. But I didn't like stores like this. It wasn't like a Macy's . . . you couldn't go back in the racks and browse. You told the attendant what you wanted, and they fetched (arf!) various costly gowns for you to try on.

  I found this frustrating, because I didn't know what I wanted. Sure, I'd been flipping through Minnesota Bride since seventh grade, but that was when I had a rosy complexion. And a pulse. And no money. But all that had changed.

  "I'm sure we'll find something just perfect for you," the attendant, whose name I kept forgetting, purred, as she had me strip to my paisley panties. I didn't care. Jessica had seen me naked about a zillion times (once, naked and crying in a closet), Laura was

  family, and Marc was gay. Oh, and Cathie was dead. Deader than me, even. A ghost.

  "So how's the blushing bridegroom?" Marc asked, surreptitiously trying to take Jessica's pulse. She slapped hi in away like she would an annoying wasp.

  "Grumpy," I said, as more attendants with armfuls of tulle appeared. "I swear. I was completely prepared (o become Bridezilla—"

  "We were, too," Cathie muttered.

  "—but nobody warned me Sinclair would get all bitchy."

  "Not pure white," Jessica said tiredly. "It washes her out. How about an Alexia with black trim?"

  "No black," I said firmly. "At a vampire wedding? Are you low on your meds?"

  Marc frowned. "Actually, yes."

  "Never mind," I sighed. "There's lots of shades of white. Cream, latte, ecru, ivory, magnolia, seashell—"

  "You don't have to wear white," Laura piped up, curled up like a cat in a velvet armchair. Her sunny blond hair was pulled back in a severe bun. She was dressed in a sloppy blue T-shirt and cutoffs. Bare legs, flip-flops. She still looked better than I was going to look on The Day, and it was taking all my willpower not to locate a shotgun from somewhere in that bridal shop's secret back room and shoot her in the head. Not to kill her, of course. Just to make her face slightly less symmetrical. "In fact, it's inappropriate for you to wear white."

  "Virgin," I sneered.

  "Vampire," Laura retorted. "You could wear blue. Or red! Red would bring out your eyes."

  "Stop! You're all killing me with your weirdness."

  "What's the budget on this thing, anyway?" Cathie asked, drifting close to the ceiling, inspecting the chandeliers, the gorgeous accessories, the beautifully dressed yet understated attendants (who were ignoring all the vampire talk, as good attendants did), the utter lack of a price tag on anything.

  "Mmmm mmmm," I muttered.

  "What?" Cathie and Jessica asked in unison.

  "Cathie was just asking about the budg
et." One of the yuckier perks of being queen of the dead? I alone could see and hear ghosts. And they could see and hear me. And bug me. Any time. Day or night. Naked or fully clothed.

  But even for a ghost, Cathie was special. As we all know, most ghosts hang around because they have unfinished business. Once they finished their business, poof! Off into the wild blue whatever. (God knows I'd never had that privilege.) And who could blame them? If it were me, I'd beat feet off this mortal plane the minute I could.

  But even after I'd fixed Cathie's little serial killer problem, she hung around. She even ran defense between the ghosts and me. Sort of like a celestial executive assistant.

  "So?" Marc asked.

  "Don't look at . . . me," Jessica gasped. Marc's lips thinned, and we all looked away. "Gravy train's . . . over."