“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she finally said. “I have to get back. The others will miss me. They'd kill me if they knew I was here.”
“Then why are you here?” Tina asked.
“To find out more. To learn if what the others say is true.”
“What do the others say?”
“That we are the queen's wolves, bred for her wars, and the foreshadow of what the world will become under her reign.”
We all took that in for a moment. It was so horrible, so preposterous... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
“Perhaps you could educate your colleagues,” Sinclair suggested, “as to the true nature of this queen.”
“Well, I would try to talk to them, but it wouldn't work.” Stephanie shrugged. “And I couldn't try too hard, or they might kill me.”
I was trying not to gape at her, and failing. In my efforts to apologize and see her point of view, I had missed how fearful she still was... and how undependable an ally she would be.
“You have overstayed your welcome,” Sinclair said, which felt a bit harsh to me, but I had no idea how to correct him.
“All right, but...” She licked her lips. “I am afraid we will come back soon.”
“Not if you obey your queen,” Tina pointed out.
“I cannot stop them.”
“If you cannot stop them,” Sinclair pointed out, “then you cannot help us. And if you cannot help us, we cannot let you go back.”
I stared at Sinclair, trying to see where this logic train was going to end. Nowhere happy, I told myself.
“We cannot let you stay here, any more easily than we can let you go back. The effort to watch over you securely, combined with the potential costs if we fail, lead to only one solution. Tina,” he ended calmly, “kill her.”
Chapter 32
“No no no no no no no!” Only just in time did I leap from my seat and jump in front of the cringing Stephanie, who had shoved herself so far back she had nearly disappeared into the couch.
Tina slammed into me hard enough to make me stagger – she'd launched herself the moment Sinclair got “kill” out of his mouth. Like she'd been ready the whole time. Like she was waiting for it.
“Bad, Tina! Down!”
“Elizabeth, do not – ”
“Keep her away from me!” Stephanie squealed, scrambling off the couch.
I managed to grab Tina by the shoulders and hold her at arm's length. At least she wasn't trying to kick me. “You guys, you guys! We are not killing her, she came in peace, and she's leaving the same way.”
“Like hell,” Tina managed through gritted teeth.
“Don't listen to her! You can go. Good-bye, Stephanie. I'm sorry about what happened to you.”
“Do not,” Tina snarled, “apologize. To that thing.”
Meanwhile Stephanie was halfway out the door. “Thankyouforseeingmegoodbye.”
I let go of Tina, and we all listened to the rapidly retreating footfalls.
“Soft,” was my husband's verdict. “Much too soft. Even now. Hmm.”
“And you're too hard,” I shot back with my own judgment. That's right – two could play the judge-and-jury game! “And too stupid. And don't be siccing Tina on people, like she's your own personal pit bull!”
“But I am,” she replied at the exact moment Sinclair said, “But she is.”
“ 'Kill her,' my God! Haven't you ever heard of a flag of truce? These Fiends are growing. Maybe they can grow emotions beyond hate and fear. Maybe they can become... like Garrett. Like us. Why is that so hard for you two to see?”
They'd flinched when I'd broken the commandment, but now they were both giving me that look.
“There will come a time when you will regret having let her leave,” my bloodthirsty psycho husband said.
Tina was shaking her head. “You should have let me kill her, Majesty. If for no other reason than the audacity she showed in coming here, soliciting an apology, and giving nothing in return! Not even an offer to try to lift a finger to stop the others.”
“She'll remember I was nice to her.”
“Mercy,” Sinclair lectured, “is a poor weapon.”
I stared at him. Sometimes – many times – I didn't know him. At all. “It's the only one I'm using right now.”
“You don't have to use a weapon at all,” Tina pointed out. “I would take care of these problems for you.”
I think what finally made me snap was seeing Tina degrade herself – describe herself as nothing but a deadly vessel, when I knew she was so much more. Or maybe I was just pissed at my fucking arrogant husband.
“The only problem I have,” I hissed, “is a couple of subjects who don't think I have what it takes to be queen! Perhaps if they'd sit down, shut up, and listen to her, they'd learn something!”
Yuck, did I just refer to myself in the third person? Even weirder, Tina looked embarrassed beyond belief, and quickly sat down. Sinclair also sat down, much more slowly, with an odd expression on his face – a cross between outrage and pride.
Well. Now what?
“So.” I started to pace. “Let's figure this out. Where are the Fiends staying during the day?”
“I would be more interested in how and where they are feeding,” Sinclair said. “I would ask Detective Berry to look for any unusual homicides, but he is not our friend at the moment. His loyalty is solely with Jessica. Perhaps another source can help us.”
“He'd look for vampire attacks in two seconds, regardless of how he feels about you, me, and Tina.”
I was about to elaborate, when the front door was slammed open and an all-too-familiar voice greeted us with, “What the hell is going on? I leave this shitheap for three days, and the fuckin' Fiends are loose, my boyfriend's practically catatonic, and the smelliest bitch I've ever fuckin' seen practically ran me down on the porch! Not to mention I nearly got into a fender bender with the devil who looks like Miss Fuckin' February! Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is going on?”
Antonia the werewolf was home.
“Oh, gosh, Antonia, you know you shouldn't talk like that.”
As well as the devil's daughter.
Chapter 33
Two ridiculously beautiful women hurried into the parlor, and I sighed. I often felt like the homely judge at a swimsuit competition; all the women in our house were just so pretty.
Antonia Wolfton, current werewolf and former psychic, was a lean, tall brunette (almost as tall as me), with striking dark eyes and the palest, softest skin I'd ever seen on someone alive. She was like a foulmouthed milkmaid.
The waves of her hair crashed and bounced halfway down her back. Her lips were rosebud pink, and when her hair was pulled back by a red ribbon, as it was now, she looked like Snow White.
“I thought you were gonna get the fucking driveway fixed,” she griped. “And what'd you do to my boy toy while I was gone, you rotten bitch?”
I didn't laugh – barely – but then, I was used to it. For Antonia, that was a downright warm greeting. It was just so weird, those excellent good looks, that amazing figure, that perfect mouth... and then the words that kept coming out over and over again. It was as if God had fused a swimsuit model with a teamster.
“Oh, now, stop it,” the devil's daughter (really!) said with gentle reproach. “The driveway's not that bad, and I'm sure Sinclair and Betsy have lots more important things on their minds.” Laura Goodman (don't laugh) looked like, as Antonia had put it once, “a dirty old man's wet dream,” with long, butter-scotch blond hair, big blue eyes, and long strong limbs. Her nose was a sculpted delight, her mouth wide and generous.
She had never had a pimple.
I think I mentioned before that Laura had a unique way of rebelling against her mother. When your mother was the devil, the devil, there wasn't much you could do for rebellion; after all, how do you rebel against the embodiment of evil?
You go to church. You teach Sunday school. You volunteer for soup kitchens. You are k
ind to children and small animals. You constantly watch your language. You pray.
That's how.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“Ha!” Antonia brayed. “I knew you'd play dumb. Actually, you can't not play dumb, huh, Bets? My boyfriend called, and he's a gibbering wreck. Something about his 'foul behavior' and 'base betrayal' and how there can be no forgiveness 'n' shit, then I got bored, so I kind of tuned him out.”
“And yet,” Sinclair said dryly, “here you are.”
“Shit, yeah. Apparently everything's going to hell around here. You dummies need me.”
“You don't especially need me,” Laura said, almost apologetically. “But I got worried when you canceled our lunch.” From anyone else, that would have sounded reproachful. Laura was too tenderhearted to pull something like that, even though it hadn't been one lunch I'd blown off, it had been two. “I apologize for dropping by without calling, but I was beginning to worry.”
There was a method to my madness, and I wasn't at all happy to see my sister here. Bottom line? I didn't want her anywhere near the Fiends, especially since we didn't know when they'd come calling again. Part of the reason they'd gotten better so quickly was because they had drunk a combination of my blood... and hers.
It wouldn't be understating the point to say I wished she'd leave the state until this was all straightened out. I was just too chickenshit to tell her.
“It's been really crazy around here,” I managed.
“ 'Really crazy'?” Antonia sneered. “Oh, okay. That's not the Betsy play-it-down machine getting into gear, is it?”
“My gosh,” Tina said mildly, “what happened to your arm?”
“Oh. That.” Antonia gleefully rolled up her sleeve and displayed her disgusting injury to all of us. What I hadn't noticed turned out to be a hideous blackish red bruise running from her wrist to past her elbow. “Jumped from one of the bluffs and miscalculated the distance.”
“Antonia, you've got to take better care of yourself,” I scolded. “You're not used to changing into a wolf, and besides, last night wasn't even the full moon... what are you doing jumping off bluffs?”
“Quickest way to get where I wanna go. Anyway, tomorrow night is the full moon, and then we'll have fun fun fun.” She was positively gleeful, and I couldn't blame her.
“One of these days you'll miscalculate and break your rotten little neck.”
This was true, despite Antonia's glare. See, when she first came to us, Antonia was a very special kind of werewolf. She was born into the pack, had a werewolf mom and dad, but had never changed. Never become a wolf during the full moon.
Instead, she could see the future. It wasn't always clear, and sometimes only after the fact could we figure out exactly what she'd been trying to warn us against. (Like most supernatural abilities, it sounded better on paper than the real deal.) But she was never wrong – just oblique.
Until Marjorie the librarian came along – in addition to giving me a cursed engagement ring and snatching my groom, she'd locked up Antonia as well – and Garrett. Do you have any idea how claustrophobic werewolves are? They dealt with enclosed spaces the way I did with knockoffs. Just a bad, bad situation all around.
Anyway, while I was busy killing Marjorie and soaking up all her evil energy, I let Antonia have a blast of it (most of the rest I saved to revive Sinclair and cure Jessica's cancer). It was the first time she had ever changed into a wolf, and she'd been enjoying it ever since.
As I said, she had lived her whole life among werewolves while being unable to change into a wolf herself. Now she saw herself as complete, and didn't seem to mind the loss of her psychic abilities as a trade-off.
But, as Laura pointed out, she was taking too many risks. Nothing we would say would talk her out of it, either; she thought she was invincible even when she wasn't in wolf form.
“So what'd you dimwits do to my boy toy?” she demanded, rolling down her sleeve. I noticed for the first time that she was wearing one of my oxford shirts, and stifled a groan. Antonia had the table manners of Boss Hog. Assuming I ever got the blouse back, I'd probably have to chuck it. “He's practically fetal with wretchedness.”
“You could tell that over the phone?” Sinclair asked, amused.
“Enhanced senses,” she sneered, staring him straight in the eye – the height of rudeness for a werewolf. “Way better than anything a dead guy can do.”
“It's really none of my business,” Laura said, fiddling with a lock of her hair and looking at the assembly of personalities in the room, “but something certainly seems to be going on. Are you all right?”
“As rain,” I said heartily.
Antonia and Laura stared at me.
“Well.” I coughed. “There have been a few things going on...”
Chapter 34
We ended up sitting down in the kitchen and telling the girls everything. If for no other reason than they had to be warned – Antonia lived there most of the time, after all, and Laura was famous for the pop-in.
Antonia's face got darker; Laura's became more concerned. When I finished (after frequent interruptions from the love of my life and his personal pit bull), there was a long silence, broken by Antonia bawling, “Garrett! Get your ass up here!”
“But you could have been killed!” Laura said, rubbing her ear as Antonia disappeared in the direction of the basement. “Why didn't you call me?”
“It would be unsafe to have you near such dangerous vampires at this time,” Sinclair said bluntly.
“What? I could help,” she said, hurt.
I glared at Subtle Boy. “Honey, it's not personal. It's just – the Fiends are like this because of my blood and your blood.”
“But you're the one who made me – ”
“I know, I know. Like I said, it's not personal. But I can't take a chance of one of them attacking you, getting a mouthful, and getting even more dangerous. And, no offense, sometimes your temper gets the better of you.” To put it very freaking mildly.
“It does not!”
“Hon. It so totally does.”
“That was one time!”
“Are you talking about the time you beat the shit out of Garrett, or the time you killed the serial killer?”
Laura's mouth thinned, but before she could reply, Garrett came skidding into the kitchen on his back, as if someone was using him to play shuffleboard. We heard footfalls, and then Antonia slapped the door open.
“It's one thing to want to help your comrades in arms,” she told him as he climbed slowly to his feet. “But something else to put your friends in danger and then hide from what you've done. Literally hide – have you even been out of the basement since you called me?”
“No,” Garrett said.
“And you're living under her roof! Calling for me to come save you, calling from her phone! You made this mess, Garrett, and much as I love you, you'll fix it, or I'll pull all your limbs off.”
“It's not his fault.” Sure, she'd been saying things I had secretly been thinking, but I could have cried at the expression on poor Garrett's face. He was trying to shake the long hair out of his face, and was too ashamed to look at any of us. “He didn't know what would happen. He's only been speaking English for two damn months!”
“It is my fault,” he said dully, looking at the floor.
Antonia's tone gentled about a fraction, and she bent to help him to his feet. “I know we have different backgrounds – and the age thing – I'm not stupid, I know we're different. Shit, we're not even the same species; needless to say we weren't brought up the same way. But I can't be with someone who puts his friends in danger and then hides to save himself.”
“The Fiends are my responsibility and no one else's,” I said, resisting the urge to step between Antonia and Garrett. “This isn't a debate we're having, okay? The Fiends are my problem. How they got on the radar is irrelevant. Does everyone understand that?”
This, as I knew it would, put Antonia in a
major bind. A creature of pack leaders and strict hierarchies, when she was under this roof, I was her pack leader pro tem. She could tease me, mouth off, borrow my clothes without asking (though she knew better than to touch my shoes), and give me untold rations of shit, but it was very, very difficult for her to out-and-out cross me.
In a strange way I knew I could count on Antonia's obedience and support more than anyone else's in the room. Of course, I had no power over the devil's daughter, except her willingness to please a sister.
Tina obeyed me in superficial matters (while you're up could you get me a glass of orange juice? Could you show Officer Berry the door? Could you hit Sinclair over the head with the fax machine?), but on matters like this, her allegiance was clearly to Sinclair.
I had zero power over Sinclair.
“If you're taking responsibility, I guess it's none of my business,” Antonia said with a shrug. “But holler next time one of them comes calling. Might be fun. As for you...” She pointed to Garrett, and he followed her, slump-shouldered, toward the basement door.
“I hope she isn't too hard on him,” Laura worried.
“Ha,” I said sourly. Already I could hear things crashing. “She'll be hard on him. But at least they'll kiss and make up.”
“You think?”
“Who else could stand to be with either one of them?”
“Point,” my sister conceded, and we both laughed.
I asked after BabyJon, whom Laura had been watching, before dropping him off at my mother's for the day.
“She'll be underwhelmed,” she pointed out diplomatically, when I suggested BabyJon might need to stay there longer.
“Laura, I know she thought her baby-rearing days were long over – ”
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