Undead and Unstable

by Davidson, MaryJanice

  I leaned back in my chair and looked at her. Either I was getting used to these confrontations, or my fear circuits were burning out. Cool as a cuke, that one, almost always. But I’d seen her angry before. I’d made her angry before. I’d even hurt her. But I was never sure if I was working my agenda, or hers.

  See, one of the (many many many many) things I hate about the devil is how you can be booking along, minding your own business, thinking that everything you’re doing is part of your bigger plan, and you never find out until it’s leagues past too late that it was her plan you were following. Always hers, all along.

  You were ready to pull the cart, but guess who’d been holding the reins the whole time? And never told you about the spurs ’til you felt them digging into your ribs?

  “Are you channeling a cowboy or indulging a heretofore-unknown longing to be sidekick to the Lone Ranger?”

  I blinked. I’d probably been staring at her with a blank look on my face for five minutes. “What, you read minds now?”

  “More desires than minds, and yes. On occasion. It’s not much of a trick. As a species, you’re not especially complex.”

  And here she was again. Just hanging around. Nothing was going on. Oh, except Ancient Me had hitched a ride from the future and was also hanging around.

  Too bad I had no idea what to do about any of it. We were all in a holding pattern, and I couldn’t imagine what I could do to blast us out of the waiting game.

  Nope. I wasn’t a secret genius, or a computer freak. I wasn’t a doctor or a cop or a farmer turned philanthropist. I wasn’t an old wise vampire and I wasn’t a pregnant millionaire. I wasn’t a Pack werewolf with all the power and backup that implied, and I wasn’t a formerly feral vampire who had survived decades of torture.

  I wasn’t anything like that. I had been a slightly above average office employee before I died, and a considerably below average vampire queen after I died.

  What I knew was barreling into situations with no prep and no help. What I knew was stomping right through a problem until I somehow stumbled over the—

  You have to look to your strengths. You do have some, you know.

  Oh.

  Oh!

  I clicked to save my queen journal, all two paragraphs of it so far. Slapped my laptop closed. Stood. Stretched. “Say, Lucy…”

  “Do not call me that.” Her mouth was twisted in a sneer, but she was watching me carefully. Almost … nervously?

  Satan is afraid of you. Don’t you find that at all interesting?

  As a matter of fact, I did. Finally.

  “Lucy, how about we cut the shit?”

  The devil looked into my eyes … and she knew that I knew.

  THIRTY-NINE

  “Why? Why, Beetlejuice? That’s really all I want to know before we do what you want us to do. Why?”

  “Beelzeb—”

  “Stop it. Why?”

  She sniffed. “I can never make you understand.”

  “No kidding. I’ve had a head full of how superior you are and how wormlike I am. Fine. But you gotta try, okay, O great and powerful asshat? Before you kill me and I die screaming—which I’ve been doing for the last six months, anyway—you gotta try. I can’t die not knowing. I won’t.”

  She spread her hands, and in one of those weird why-am-I-thinking-this? moments, I saw again how beautiful her hands were. “What do you want to know? I’ll do what I can.”

  “Fine. Thank you.” I took an unnecessary breath … funny how some habits were so hard to let go. That was probably a metaphor for something. “First there was nothing and then there was God and He made you guys and that’s all there was for a while, just Him and the angels, and then He made us.

  “So you were never human and you’d never understand anything about our pathetic stupid lives, right? And even if you were ever human, you’ve been around for five billion years, so any perspective you ever could have had would have gone kaput ages ago, so you’d never understand anything about our pathetic stupid lives, anyway. It’s like you’re watching a bunch of grasshoppers and they’re so outside of your experience it’s not even worth trying to be their king, trying to even explain you’re their king; it’s just easier to do your own thing with them and never mind the fallout, right?”

  Satan shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Right.”

  “So why, why, why?” I cried. I realized I was almost crying, and hoped the devil wouldn’t notice. “Why even bother? Why the tricks, why the sneaking? Why are you still trying to get people to be their worst, do their worst, all the time? What do you get out of it? It can’t still be interesting. It can’t do much of anything for you after all this … you’ve seen every bad thing in the human condition. A million years ago you must have known there were never going to be any surprises. It’s gotta all be just so … fucking … boring. So what’s the point?”

  “Well,” the devil began. Then she paused, thinking it over. Finally: “If there was one, I forgot all about it a long time ago.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No. It’s not that easy. You don’t get off that easy.” I was pretty sure I was gonna faint. Things were definitely getting swimmy around the edges. Yep. Wait—no. I’d held off rage-and-terror-induced unconsciousness for the nanosecond. “No.”

  “Yes. That’s all. The reason is there is no reason. The reason is you don’t know and I don’t care. The reason is green. The reason is number twenty-seven. There was no point, is no point, won’t be one no matter how much you shrill and whine and bitch. So live with it, or die with it.”

  Yes.

  That was just right.

  I took another unnecessary breath. “Laura’s watching the shop, huh?”

  “Yesss…”

  “So no one’s gonna notice if you go missing for a while, I bet.”

  “What in the worlds are you—”

  I launched myself at the devil.

  FORTY

  Here’s the thing about the devil: she’s really strong. She’s really smart. She’s really fast.

  And she’s really old.

  And tired.

  She was still giving off heat, but it didn’t hurt me. Either it wasn’t real heat—the stuff in my world that could burn things like mansions and fences and people—or I just didn’t give a shit. Or it was something else, something I knew nothing about. Yeah, it was probably the last thing.

  We slammed back and forth like a couple of alley cats, spitting and snarling and clawing and punching and kicking. I could hear walls cracking, furniture breaking. A snap that was prob’ly a couple of my fingers. Maybe one of her ribs? Nope, one of mine.

  “Good time to start praying,” she forced out through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t need His help to kick your ass all over this mansion.”

  She seemed to think that over, which was exactly what I hoped she’d do. The devil was a bitch, but she was a smart bitch.

  Come on, Lena Olin, you jaded horrible thing, come on! You don’t want to do this here. You want to do it on your turf!

  ELIZABETH!

  Shit! Sinclair, knowing I was up a creek sans paddle and coming on the run. The gorgeous idiot could really screw this up for me. Us. Okay, me.

  “If you won’t … pray … for you … will you pray … for me?”

  “Never in life,” I gritted back. Also: WTF? Don’t tell me my nutball seat-of-my-ass hunch was actually right. I’d just wanted to do something. I didn’t expect to be right.

  Also: I should be paying attention. No sooner had that occurred to me than I managed to jerk back before her fist plowed through the wall where my head had just been. Were there any dentists for the undead? If the devil knocked my teeth down my throat, would they grow back, like a shark’s?

  (The things you wonder when you’re trying not to be beaten to death.)

  We had to leave. We had to get out of here. My stupid plan wouldn’t work here. And then, of course, there was Sinclair to worry about.

/>   ELIZABETH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M COMING KEEP HER THERE KEEP HER THERE WHATEVER YOU DO DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT LET HER TAKE YOU KEEP HER IN THE HOUSE KEEP HER IN THE HOUSE DO NOT LET

  “Time to change the venue,” she muttered, and the world fell away.

  FORTY-ONE

  Yes! We were in hell!

  (This was what my life was. I was glad to fall through a hole in the world and plop into hell, where my sister was temping for the devil. Oh, and the devil was trying to goad me into killing her. Unless I’d guessed wrong, in which case the devil was gonna squash me like a grape.)

  “Tricky, tricky,” she panted, easily dodging my fist. And then my kick. But my other kick landed—ha! A perfect day to wear my pointiest leather boots. Take that, Satan! And that! And—

  “Ow!” She was pretty fast for someone at least five billion years old. What had I been thinking?

  I remembered my theory. I remembered my utterly insane idea that this wouldn’t be a fair fight … and why that was actually good for me. Why it could be the saving of me … and him. And maybe even the future.

  Because time is a wheel.

  “You think … He loves you?”

  “Really? We’re gonna chat about God while we’re trying to kill each other?” My ears weren’t ringing so much as booming. And it was suddenly almost impossible to see out of my left eye. Was that my blood or hers making everything look pinkish-red? Probably mine.

  “It’s the last … conversation … I plan to have … with you. So answer.”

  “Yeah, then. He does. Sure He does.”

  “And me?”

  “Of course … He still loves you … moron! That was never the issue … moron! You big stupid moron!” Normally I didn’t have to think of what to call people I was pissed at. Asshat, dumbshit, shitstain, fuckface, jizzbucket, fucktard, dickweed, cockknocker, jizzhole … it all usually came tripping off my tongue in a glorious rain of obscenity.

  Had to work for the insults now, though. It was hard to think what with all the red stuff in my eyes and the booming in my ears, which I was pretty sure were also bleeding.

  I felt her hot little hands close around my neck and start to squeeze. I punched. Punched. Punched—nothing. Should have found the time to take a martial arts course. Yoga couldn’t help me now.

  It was tough work, bitching at the devil while being throttled, but I was up for the challenge. “How come … older you get … dumber y’get?”

  “Yes, He does,” Satan replied, a thoughtful look on her bloody face. “I suppose He does. He must, you know. It’s one of His rules. I think I…”

  “Gggsssshat!”

  “I think I want … I’d like … to go home.”

  “Stop it!” Laura, yelling from a galaxy far, far away. “Stop it, don’t, you’re killing her, stop killing her!”

  No idea. No idea who she was talking to. Her mom? Her sister? A player to be named later? Wow, look at all the blood coming out of me! Almost as much as a live person. Weird.

  “Don’t! Don’t! What are you doing? Let go!”

  It was good that Laura was here. Was almost here. What was keeping her, anyway? I needed her here. My plan wouldn’t work without her here. Oh, Laura, I’m so sorry you’re here.

  Lena Olin grinned at me through bloody teeth. Her hair had been yanked from its neat coiffure and she looked kind of Medusa-esque. With luck she’d need a deep-conditioning treatment after she’d beaten me to death. “Uh-oh.”

  “My thought … xxxactly,” I gurgled.

  “You’ll have to do it in front of her.”

  “… kkk…”

  “You’ll have to steal her future while she watches.”

  “… nnn…”

  “Him or her, Betsy? Now’s when we see.”

  “… favor…”

  “What?” I actually landed a good one—splat!—in the middle of her narrow face. Finally, I’d surprised her. Really surprised her. Not the fake stuff she usually showed me. Had been showing me all along. “What, stupid girl?”

  “… want one … favor … a wish … want it…”

  It was probably all the skull fractures, but her eyes, usually brown, and recently dead black like a night sky without stars, seemed to burn. Eyes on fire, that’s what they looked like—and it wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t human, this was an angel, I was killing an angel and she was killing me and she was a creature I did not understand, could never have understood, asking for an explanation had been a waste of time and had only increased her contempt and her eyes were like nothing I’d ever seen, her eyes her eyes oh God oh please help me now God her terrible terrible eyes…

  “Yes! One! For what you’ll do. Now do it! Your worst, vampire queen, show me your worst and choose!”

  I almost didn’t. Almost couldn’t. I had never been so frightened, never. In the end it was my essential stubborn nature

  (fuck you Lena Olin you’re scary but you’re gonna die or I’m gonna and I’m fine with dying again because time is a wheel)

  that allowed me to reach for nothing

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  and grasp the Antichrist’s hellfire sword

  “Don’t! Betsy! Motherrrrr! Don’t!”

  which only Laura or one of her blood could wield

  “Let go of me! What are you—let go!”

  and shoved it into the devil’s heart. Or where the devil’s heart would have been, had she ever had one.

  Laura’s last shriek cut off like someone had thrown a switch. Maybe someone had.

  Shocked, Satan looked down at the piece of light sticking out of her chest. I have to admit, I was surprised, too, though I was pretty sure this had been what she wanted, what she had been planning from the minute Laura was born, the minute I’d come back from the dead.

  But knowing wasn’t the same as doing. Astonished together, we looked at the chunk of Laura’s soul, the pieces of her self she made into weapons that could kill angels and vampires, and then at each other. Neither of us knew what to do.

  So I shoved the sword in harder. I dunno … it just seemed like the thing to do. So I went with it.

  “Finally,” said Satan, and died.

  I wasn’t falling for it, though. I mean, probably she was dead.

  But because Dr. Taylor didn’t raise no fools, I took off her head with the back swing. “I chose,” I told her head as it bounced past me. “Happy now?”

  FORTY-TWO

  “Betsy, my God!”

  Had I ever been so tired? I looked up as my sister finally reached me. It seemed like she had been screaming forever. No more screaming. I’d had my fill of screaming for the day. Night?

  I hoped she wasn’t going to be difficult about giving me a ride back home. “Just Betsy,” I said. I wiped some of the blood from my eyes. “Not your God.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taunting your mom’s severed head.” It had stopped rolling, and I stifled the urge to boot it farther away. My sister wasn’t likely to take that well. And it was pretty disturbing that I wanted to do it, even. “There’s no way to make that sound not crazy, is there?”

  “Why did you—why were you—” The Antichrist burst into tears. “Why? Why?”

  “To save him. And me.” It sounded simplistic. The truth did, sometimes. It didn’t matter what I said, anyway. Laura was never going to forgive me. We were probably going to become really bad enemies over this. At the least, she was gonna blow off Thanksgiving.

  Oh. Thanksgiving. Since Satan hadn’t killed me, I still had that to worry about.

  “And you! What did you think you were doing? My mother respected you! My mother—”

  “Was right to fear me.” Ancient Betsy, looking as close to happy as I’d ever seen her. We stared at each other for a long moment, and then she said, “This. This is what I was waiting for.”

  “Yeah, no shit.” Sure, now it was obvious. She couldn’t have said, “I kind of need you to kill the devil to save the future”? Was that such a difficult fucki
ng speech? “Thanks for all the help.” Actually, judging from the bruises slowly purpling her face, it looked like Laura had fought like a, well, hellcat.

  But Sneaky Evil Me didn’t have to entirely prevent Laura. Just figure out the right time to follow her to hell—did she ask Laura to take her? Or could she move back and forth on her own after all these centuries of hanging with the devil? Anyway, she only had to slow Laura for a few crucial seconds.

  And she had.

  “I am really hating your face right now,” I told Crooked Wily Me.

  “Yours is almost unrecognizable!” she replied with what sounded like sincere admiration. “Satan really made you her bitch before you cut off her head. My condolences, Laura,” she added.

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  “Laura!” we both gasped. Okay, under the circumstances, Laura’s response was one hundred percent appropriate. It was just a shock to hear the Antichrist make with the potty mouth.

  “You,” she said to (aw, nuts) me. “You … what you did here … it’s not just unfathomable. It was stupid.”

  “Ah,” Ancient Me mused. “A day without the Antichrist sitting in judgment on you is a day without sunshine.”

  “Give her a break, we just decapitated her mom.” God, was I really gonna turn into that vicious chilly bitch? Just … appalling, really. The idea. The horror.

  “I didn’t know you hated her so much. When I was you, I didn’t hate her. That came later.”

  “It’s not that I hated her so much,” I explained to myself, “but that I love Sinclair so much.”

  She smiled. “Yes. You did. You do. I never killed the devil. That’s the—”

  “Thing you were waiting for, yeah, yeah. And as for ‘stupid,’ Laura, I’m aware that me killing your mom while Other Me slowed you down is gonna make things awkward for a while.”

  “For a while?” Laura looked like she couldn’t decide whether to cry or choke me or rage or kick me or barf. I sympathized, as much as I could.

  “I know it seems horrible—”