“Seems?”
“—okay, good point, but this way I won’t write the Book of the Dead eighty zillion years from now. The devil—” Made me do it, I almost said, recognizing at the last second what a huge cop-out that was. “Satan and Old Yucky Me were allies, right? And through that relationship, you and I were allies in the future. But now that Satan 1.0 isn’t around, she won’t spend the next bunch of centuries helping me do all sorts of nasty things, like scribbling my blog on Sinclair’s skin.”
“And you know that, how?”
“Uh…” A lucky guess? Instinct? My super secret vampire queen decoder ring? “Old Me didn’t do that.” Pointing at her mother’s severed head. “Ergo, the future will be different than the one you and I fell into. Because I did do that.” Probably. But this was no time to insinuate in any way that I wasn’t 100% confident my impromptu plan would work.
The devil was dead, and that was maybe worth celebrating. Except I knew things, in one respect, weren’t gonna change. Not really. The devil was dead, long live the devil.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“What?” My sister’s face, her voice. Her mouth was smiling. Her eyes weren’t. “Laura?”
“You’ll regret it.”
Oh, sure. Add it to the list! I had gobs of regrets. Getting drunk at senior prom and barfing all over my science teacher’s/dance chaperone’s shoes. Falling for a Jimmy Choo knockoff when I was thirteen. Signing up for the Miss Burnsville pageant of my own volition. So long a life, so many regrets.
“You shouldn’t have killed my mother.”
“Yeah, I was afraid that’s where this was going.”
“If for no other reason,” she said, and her voice was calm, and her hair was bleeding red through the blond and getting redder and redder, so I was getting scareder and scareder, “than because you created a job opening.”
“I’ve gotta come right out and be honest: you’re sort of terrifying me right now.”
“This isn’t over.”
By which she probably meant, this isn’t over.
“Wait. Laura!”
She’d opened up a portal to somewhere and stepped toward it. She did it without once looking away from me. She did it as easily as I’d have flipped a burger on a grill. And—this is weird—I was actually scareder at this moment than when Satan and I threw down.
“Laura!” Going, going, and now almost…“I had to save the future, dammit! It’s not like I killed one of the good guys, right? It wasn’t personal! By which I mean it was very, very personal! It’s not that I hated your mom so much, it’s that I love Sinclair so much! You hear me yelling, right? Because it feels like I’ve been yelling at you for hours!”
“Save your breath,” Ancient Me advised.
“Don’t make me put you on the spreadsheet I haven’t started and keep forgetting about!” I yelled. “Get over here or—”
“Spreadsheet?” Ancient Me asked.
“—you’re off the Christmas card list!”
… gone.
FORTY-THREE
“So, what? Do we try to hail a cab? The Antichrist left in a huff—with good reason, I’m not saying she didn’t have good reason—and are my ears bleeding?”
“Yes.”
“What’s so fucking funny? Are my eyes bleeding?”
“Yes. You. You’re so fucking funny. I can’t believe you did it.”
“Yeah, that bish—bitch—never knew what hit her. Not Laura. The devil.” I should probably hail a hell cab and make it take me to an ER or something.
“She was wrong, though. Laura.”
“Nuh?”
“You knew what you were doing when you killed Lucifer Morningstar.”
“Corningware.” I was gonna vomit. No, wait. I wasn’t. Prob’ly. Ow. “Heh.”
“Lord, you’re just as much an irritant when you’re heavily concussed and near death.”
“Am not. ’Cuz time’s a wheel.”
“Ah!” She sounded pleased. “Marc did remember. I thought he might.”
“Not really. Fuzzy. Like a dream. He’d say, ’n’ then he’d f’rget. Um. What’d I say?”
“Time is a wheel.” She stuck out her finger and made a circle. “If you live long enough, Betsy, you eventually catch up to yourself. That’s the secret. That’s the meaning of life, in case you ever wondered. When you did things I didn’t remember doing, I figured it out. All I had to do … was live long enough … to undo.”
“I don’ geddit.”
“Yes, well. Another time, perhaps. Get it?” She actually giggled. “Another time? Do you see what I did there?”
“Time’s wunna those things, um, those round things guinea pigs run in?” I was going to throw up. No, pass out. No, throw up. No, both. “Ummm…”
“And you knew what you were doing the entire time. You knew you were creating a job opening. Betsy? Stay awake, dammit. Don’t you understand how much I want to talk to you about this? You’re being really quite selfish. Think of my needs for once. So, elaborate: you knew who’d have to step in. The only person who could.”
“Nuh? Meh. Uh?” Hey, Ancient Me was getting small and wee! Ancient Me was Wee Me! Good-bye, Wee Me! Good-bye! Good
(bye)
FORTY-FOUR
I woke up with the taste of blood in my mouth, which even a few years ago would have been horrifying. And I felt loads better. I could think again! More or less.
“Welcome back.” Ancient Me was peering down at me, and I was sucking on her—
—her—
“Aw, man!” I scrambled away from her and lunged to my feet. She looked resigned, examined her cut wrist, then stood and put pressure on the wound she’d doubtless inflicted on herself when the world went bye-bye for me. “What would you call that?”
“An act of kindness and generosity?”
“Is it cannibalism, or more like, you know, masturbation?” Had I ever been so horrified yet fascinated to hear an answer? Ugh. There was something wrong with me. “And now that I feel better, time is a fucking wheel? So bogus!”
“Bogus. Does it bother you that you, a woman in your thirties—”
“In my thirty! I’m a woman in my thirty. I’m still just thirty. Thirty forever.” Not depressing at all.
“—has the vocabulary and syntax of a teenager?”
“Nope. Not once. And that’s enough out of you; now I’ve got questions. You probably have answers. So start talking.”
“Don’t be tiresome,” Ancient Me yawned.
“Time is a wheel? Really?”
“Oh. He finally remembered. I’ve been waiting.” She had the nerve to sound disapproving. She had the gall to make that last sound like Marc was the one to do something that let her down.
“He always remembered, he’s just had kind of a hard time lately what with dying and all, you heartless twat!”
“Everyone does it sooner or later,” Bitchy Me shrugged. “And dying isn’t the end of the world. It’s not even that interesting.”
“You know what this means, right? This wheel crap, this you-wrote-the-Book bullshit? That we’re not the vampire queen, among other things.”
“What?” Got her … she actually sounded startled. Uneasy, even.
“Dumbass! They’re not prophesies, the Book of the Dead doesn’t tell our future. They’re memories. Your memories. Writing down something that happened to you isn’t a prophecy, don’t you get it? It’s a blog, and with all the lameness that entails.”
“I wrote about things that happened to you.” No, she didn’t like my analogy one bit. Damn, what a rush. Even if I was wrong, it was almost worth it just to rattle that chilly bitch. “We both did what we could as best we could, whatever way we could. And I will tell you one more truth, infant: when I leave here, I don’t know what I’m going back to.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Why’d you help me?” I asked, deeply suspicious.
“Which time?”
“The time when I woke up wi
th your blood in my mouth. And if I didn’t make it clear before, yerrrggh.”
“I wanted to finish our conversation.”
“Why?”
“I was curious.”
“Why?”
“Will it be worth it, do you think?”
I didn’t say anything. Just looked at her. I didn’t owe her shit. In fact, I was sort of hoping that when she left hell, she’d cease to exist. I also hoped when she left hell, I’d never see her again. Was that so much to ask? To not ever see myself again? I’d changed the timeline again … hers, this time. What was she going back to? And why did I still care?
Finally, when it was clear she was ancient and crotchety enough to outwait a dead frog, I gave her what she thought she wanted to hear.
“Yeah, Me Who Should Cease Pretty Soon. It was worth it to save Sinclair and me—”
“Us.”
“—and Marc and the future. I sacrificed my sister’s happiness and freedom for my husband’s life.”
“Uh-huh. And tell me, how long have you been working on this plan? Or was there no actual plan? Did you have another lightning flash of pure dumb luck and decide on the spur of the moment to act and then found to your amazement that half-assing it actually worked?”
“I’ll have you know I painstakingly and with considerable foresight—”
“Pulled it right out of your ass.”
“Well, yes. And I decided to do it when the devil was bitching about my queen blog. Is that what you wanted?”
“No.”
“Then here comes the part you’ll like: I’m not sorry. And I know I should be.”
Choose, she’d said. Show me your worst and choose!
And I had. Sinclair, of course. I’d sworn to save him. And then I did.
“I never promised to save the Antichrist,” I told my other self. “Not in this timeline, or any other. I think I’m more like Garrett these days than anyone else. He’s sneakier in this timeline. He tricked me into pulling Antonia out of hell; he wouldn’t have done that in the old timeline. And there are things—there’s stuff I wouldn’t have done, once upon a time, that I can do now.”
“So?”
“So. In the end, I just did what I’d always set out to do. And succeeded in spite of myself.”
“That,” she said. “That’s what I wanted. The thing you did. And then the thing you didn’t do.”
“Well, great. Can you get me home? Or do I have to hang out in hell and hope Laura doesn’t make me cool my heels here for a few decades?”
“Oh, I can get you home. You can get you home, probably. But that’s a topic for another century. You’ve transcended the feeble limitations of your own mind long enough for one day.”
“Thanks.”
“That wasn’t a—never mind.”
“If you’re so smug, do you know about the wish?”
“Of course I do.”
“What is it?”
“You doubt me?”
“What is it?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“You don’t, Decrepit Me!” I nearly shrieked my relief. “You don’t know about the wish! Ha! I think things really are changed! I think we really pulled it off!”
“Why are you screaming? I’m standing three feet in front of you.”
“You don’t know,” I whispered. “So blow.”
She frowned, but her curiosity was too much for her. “What wish? What do you mean?”
Yes! One! For what you’ll do! The devil’s last gift … or curse. Because maybe there wasn’t going to be an HEA for the king and I. This wasn’t a fairy tale. In which case the thing I wanted more than anything would ultimately doom us both.
Yuck. Those kinds of boo-hoo thoughts weren’t like me. Ancient Me was harshing my buzz.
“If you could wish for any one thing, what would you ask for? Second chances? To never be a vampire? To not write the Book?”
“All those,” she decided, thinking. “And none of those.”
“Yeah, okay, thanks, Yoda. Me? The world’s full of things I want.” Have Christian Louboutin’s parents meet and breed in this timeline. Have the Ant leave me alone forever. Produce my father because it’s weird that I haven’t seen him since he died. Let Jessica love me even after she has a baby to love more. Find out what the dealio is with her weird pregnancy. Keep a closer eye on Garrett. Wish my mother’s marriage had never imploded. Wish that Aztek had never run me over … no. Even after everything, that was something I’d never wish for. I had to die to figure out what to live for, why is it like that sometimes?
“But this is getting boring,” I decided. “And if I’m bored, you’ve got to be damn near petrified.”
“Damn near,” she agreed.
“So send me home. Then we don’t have to look at each other anymore and maybe not even think of each other anymore.”
“Infant.”
“Crone.”
“Ingrate.”
“Psycho.”
She was getting smaller. Or I was. No, she was. Wait. What was happening, exactly? This wasn’t like traveling through portals with Laura. That was startling, even jarring. This was more like the world was fading away and making everything teeny before it
“Dupe!”
disappeared.
FORTY-FIVE
“Aw, dammit! That bitch got the last word!”
I sat up, shivering, then realized why I was cold all over. That heartless ice-bitch twat had dumped me in the snow in my own front yard … practically the same path I’d walked when I left to bury Giselle and this whole weird thing started. (Note to self: get the dead cat away from Marc and properly inter the thing.)
Okay, I was cold, but I was home, and whole, even! And the devil was dead, and Sinclair was safe. Probably. Ooh, but he was gonna be pissed. I’d have to figure out how to spin this.
It’s not so much that I manipulated the devil into bringing me to hell so I could kill her while keeping you out of danger, sweetie, it’s more like we were playing a life-or-death session of Truth or Dare. Naw, he’d never buy it. I had no idea when I practically forced her to leave our bedroom and bring me to hell that things would get even more violent! Honest! Nope. Um…
I squinted at the mansion … the sun was starting to set behind it, so it had to be around 4:30 in the afternoon. How long had I been in hell? And why hadn’t any of my eighteen roomies noticed I’d been tossed ass over teakettle on the front lawn? Where was—
“Betsy! Hey!” Marc the Zombie had thrown open the front door. “Jeez, where’ve you been? We’ve been looking all over, we’ve all been freaking ou—”
Then he was shoved aside and went sprawling almost all the way to the edge of the porch, and Sinclair was galloping down the porch steps, suit jacket flapping as he raced to me.
“Oh, Elizabeth.” My normally graceful husband slipped and skidded to his knees, then seized my hand in a grip that made it go instantly numb. I could feel the little bones in my hand grinding together and gritted my teeth; from the expression on his face, he had no idea he was hurting me. “Oh, my dearest queen.”
“What? I’m fine. Are you okay? I’m okay. Would you believe it was all sort of my plan? Sort of? Don’t be mad, okay?”
“How did you do it? How?”
Okay, he was being lovier and dovier than usual. “What are you doing? Are you sick? Is there a huge pain in your left arm radiating to your black, black heart?”
His shoulders were shaking. He was shaking … trembling all over. Could vampires suddenly develop epilepsy? Was he cracking up from extreme horniness since we hadn’t had sex in almost a week?
“Yeesh, it’s not like we’ll never have sex again, it’s only been a few days. Get ahold of yourself. Man up.”
“How did you ever do it?” He was still on his knees as I climbed out of the snow and to my feet, looking up at me and not letting go of my other hand. “And how will I ever be able to show the depths of my joy and love and admiration?”
“T
ry Hallmark. Will you get up? You’re ruining those slacks.” This was all very alarming. I didn’t like it at all. What the hell was wrong? Things should be fine, what was wrong?
His dark gaze was boring into me, his eyes suddenly enormous in his pale face. His hands shook and he was staring up at me from his knees in a way that both touched and frightened me. “Please, Sink Lair, you’re scaring the shit out of me. I’m kind of missing my way-too-arrogant annoying husband who I occasionally feel like kicking in the balls. Please get up.”
“I loved you before you did this. I would have thought it an impossibility to love you more.”
“Eric, you’re—”
“Shut up, darling.”
I shut up.
“I would have died for you before this,” he told me while kneeling on our lawn. “Now I want to die for you, and would right now, just so I could show even the smallest measure of my gratitude. And you, my love, my own, you don’t think you did anything spectacular. You never think you’ve done anything spectacular.” He laughed, a deep rolling laugh that didn’t go at all with the on-his-knees all-hail-the-queen thing. “It’s one of the few things you are truly stupid about.”
“Well, thanks tons, jerk. Can I list a few of the things you’re truly stupid about? Thing number one: not knowing that crouching in snow will wreck your suit. Thing number two: the way you sneak into the kitchen and hog the last of the strawberries for an emergency four a.m. smoothie and think I don’t hear your furtive rustling. Thing number—wait.”
I finally caught on, and couldn’t believe it had taken me all these seconds to put it together. (Don’t judge. I had a lot on my mind. Also, I’d nearly been beaten to death an hour ago. Or a day ago.) The sun was setting, not set. It was late afternoon. It was not full dark.
In other words, the sun was shining on my favorite vampire! Even better, he wasn’t bursting into flames. My husband hadn’t been able to truly see and feel sunshine for decades; he had said good-bye to the big blazing ball of gas for good when he let Tina kill him. Before I loved him, he had allowed himself to be burned alive for love of me. And he had always indicated to me that he felt it was a fair trade.
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