Undead and Unfinished, page 17
part #9 of Undead Series
Are the stories about monsters true? What happened to you? And what happened to my family?
And how much of it is my fault, for never questioning anything?
“I—yes. How did you know?”
Eric, embarked upon his last night of life, started to laugh. I had never heard him laugh like that and hoped never to hear it again.
“How did I know? How did I know? My God, a better question would be when did Erin and I not know? Our grandmother’s best friend? Who was always
beautiful and clever, who never lost her wits or her looks?”
“Pretty big clue,” I admitted, and Laura nodded.
“A friend who never seemed to leave her teenage years, who always seemed to relate to the elders far more easily than people her own age. People
who looked her own age,” he qualified.
“You never—”
“Our mother told us, when we started asking questions. Before we were invested in the Sinclair family secret. She said you were an angel. A dark
angel, sent to protect us and watch over us.” His hands flashed, and suddenly he was gripping Tina’s shoulders and shouting into her face, “An angel!”
“She lied, of course,” Tina said calmly, as if she wasn’t being tossed around like a cocktail shaker on a gravel road in a smal town in the middle of
nowhere in 1920 (probably). “She lied because she couldn’t reconcile the truth with her religious upbringing. She couldn’t understand how a vampire could
also be a friend of the family. She couldn’t understand how a creature of darkness and blood could enjoy the company of farmers, could babysit and take
vacations with you. Could love you.
“And rather than question it, she created a convenient fairy tale, as her mother had done for her, and her mother before her.”
“Then why couldn’t you save them?” he cried, and his voice cracked like the adolescent he stil was. Though I was betting nineteen years old in the
(maybe) 1920s was the equivalent of thirty-five in the twenty-first century.
“Because I’m a vampire, not a goddess, and we’re not infal ible. The reverse, if anything. Our appetites often lead us to trouble. Even our destruction.
The only guarantee our state brings is freedom from aging bodies, never-ending thirst, and great strength and speed. Those are helpful much of the time.
But they aren’t a promise. They are no guarantee.”
“You’re off, then. After the kil ers.”
“Yes.”
“Not by yourself. I won’t leave ugly work like this to a woman.”
Ahhh, there was the charming chauvinist I often fantasized about strangling. And not in an auto-erotic way, either.
To her credit, Tina didn’t go into gales of humiliating laughter. “I appreciate your concern, my dear. But I have been involved in ugly work long, long
before you were born.”
“Exactly. That’s why you’re going to make me one of you.” Sinclair took a deep breath. “And teach me. Everything. You’l show me everything. And they’l
pay. They wil pay and pay, and when I’ve finished with them ... in time ... there may be more to live for than vengeance and a living death.”
Another short silence, and I could have sworn Tina glanced at us pseudo-hiding in the ditch. “Yes, that ... that seems to be the thing to do, doesn’t it?
Eric, you must understand—”
“Vengeance. I understand vengeance. If I’m damned because of it, then so be it.”
Again a glance in our direction. “I’m not sure damned is ... exactly ... the appropriate word.”
“We should go,” Laura whispered. “There’s nothing else for us to screw up.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
I didn’t know. I couldn’t figure it out myself, much less explain to Laura. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would be a personal disaster to leave just now.
But I didn’t ... know ... why.
“Let me tel you what it wil be like.”
He made a curt gesture. “Irrelevant. There’s nothing I wouldn’t endure for vengeance. Losing my soul is the least of it.”
You won’t, though! I almost shouted. Soul ess was so not how I’d describe Sinclair. He came off as chil y and indifferent, until you got his pants off. I
mean, got to know him.
“The ... act itself isn’t unpleasant. You’l get tired. You’l sleep. And, as I plan to steal your body, you needn’t worry about waking in a coffin six feet in the
earth. I cannot tel you how upsetting that is,” Tina muttered.
Jeez. I could imagine. I was learning more about Tina in one night than I had in three years.
“But you’l be ... disoriented. You’l —it might take a while to ... to learn ... how to be strong ...”
I leaped to my feet. Strong! That’s why we were stil here!
I scrambled out of the ditch. Laura lunged but, since I was in superspeedy-vamp mode, missed by a mile (almost literal y). I was moving so efficiently,
Sinclair was only now starting to turn toward the racket I was making. And Tina, who could have stopped me, seemed frozen in surprise, or maybe disbelief.
Eric didn’t turn quickly enough. I nailed him from behind, rode him al the way into the gravel, and sank my canines into his neck.
Chapter 52
What are you doing?”
“Oh, Betsy! This is so inappropriate,” the Antichrist scolded.
The teenaged Eric Sinclair also tried to protest, probably, but since he was facedown in the gravel I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
I won’t lie: his blood? His live blood, electric with the high-fat diet of the 1920s (probably)? Unbelievable. His live blood was worth the huge pain in the
ass our time traveling had been. At least, I thought so. Laura probably wouldn’t agree.
Make no mistake: I always liked the taste of Sinclair; we often spent days and days where we only fed off each other. But live Sinclair, yummy with
electrolytes and a healthy midwestern diet?
His blood sang with meatloaf and roast duck and buttery biscuits and lamb and chicken and radish roses and deviled eggs and potato salad and turkey
and oatmeal and veal and beans and jel y and crumb cake and ham and gingerbread and beets and bread pudding and pork chops and rice pudding and
oh, my, what is this? Teenage Sinclair was in excellent shape, what with al the farming and being gorgeous and suchlike.
Oofta.
Sinclair raised his head. “Uh, miss? I think you might have fal en on me by accident.”
“Go to sleep,” I told him, sitting up. Then I yelped and shoved my hands forward so his head didn’t clunk facedown into the gravel, but rather onto my
palms. Probably should have thought that one out.
“Okay,” I said, looking up at Tina and Laura, who were staring down at us like they’d seen a woman in her thirties molesting a teen—oh. Huh. Ew. “Now
you can bite him.”
“Al right,” Tina said cautiously. “I’m not quite sure how to proceed. Do I take you to task for hurting a friend, a boy I think of as my grandson?”
“Could we stop with the ‘boy’ talk? He’s a grown man. Right? I’m not gross and inappropriate. Right?”
“Or should I bite the boy—”
“Dammit!”
“—and teach him al the ways of a living death?”
“Trust me, he’s not hurt. But he’s sure out cold. Ooof! Laura, I’m gonna careful y put his head down and then stand up, so if you could—”
“Wait!” I heard a tiny clinking, and Laura bent and picked something up as I lurched to my feet. Sinclair’s yummy rich blood was making my head swim.
“This fel out of his pocket.”
“Oh!” I managed not to snatch it out of her grip, just gently grasped it. “He’s not gonna want to lose this; it’s Erin’s. I mean, it was Erin’s.” I held out the
tiny cross on the gold chain to Tina. It would be mine, almost a hundred years from now. Sinclair would give it to me, his most treasured possession, and
he wouldn’t know why.
At the time, I wouldn’t know why, either. Only that the jackass vampire I couldn’t ever seem to ditch had given me something of great value, great personal value. And when he did, for the first time I was able to see him as a person instead of a pain in my ass.
Tina backed up very, very slowly. “I can’t touch that. But you can.” She leaned forward and seemed to peer at me. “You are a vampire! I couldn’t tel
before.”
“She probably figured it out when you leaped on him and gnawed like he was your own personal Chew-eez.”
“You’re very unattractive when you’re al sarcastic and snarky like that.”
“Who are you?” Tina asked. She seemed as intrigued as she was startled ... maybe even frightened. Or just real y weirded out.
“No one of consequence,” I said, ruthlessly stealing a line from The Princess Bride. “So, we’re out of here.”
“Oh, thank God! I’ve had enough of Hastings.”
“What’ve you got against Hastings, Laura? It’s a perfectly nice river town. Um, now. Because I don’t know that it’s nice in the future or anything. I don’t
have a clue.”
“Truer words,” Laura muttered.
“So, best of luck with everything. With the turning and the training and such.”
“Ah ... thank you, miss.”
I knelt, tucked Erin’s necklace back into Sinclair’s pocket, smoothed his hair back from his dirty cheek, and kissed him. “See you in the future,” I whispered, and it would have been an awesome and touching moment, except Laura grabbed my arm and hauled me off down the gravel road, so the
last thing Tina heard was the vampire queen yelping like a stomped pup.
Chapter 53
Oh, come on!” I couldn’t believe it. Back in the waiting room again, and stil no way to the front door. Or back door. Or whatever the fuck it was. “I don’t
recal your mother mentioning that Time Travel 101 was going to take, I dunno, the best years of my life!”
“It’s true,” Laura said, already standing in front of a new door to try. She didn’t look terribly put out, I was annoyed to see. She seemed to be gaining
confidence by the hour. By the door, as it were. “She didn’t. But she keeps them close to the vest, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would say.”
“So, ready?”
“Ugh, no. What’s next? We save Laura Ingal s from being set upon by vampires?”
“Only one way to find out.”
“You know what’s weird?”
She’d been reaching for a new knob but now looked at me and grinned. “I have to pick just one thing?”
I smiled back. Yes, this was dangerous. Yes, it was annoying. But I’d never had the chance to spend so much time with Laura, and I was finding the
experience pretty cool.
Okay. To be fair: I’d never made the chance to spend so much time with her.
“Good point. What’s weird is, the past doesn’t stink. It sucks, make no mistake, but it’s not smel y. I figured that with no running water or regular showers
and such, and air freshener not having been invented, or antibacterial soap, that everyone would stink. But they didn’t. Things were dusty, you know, but
not filthy or gross. Wait’l I tel my mom.” My mom was a col ege professor specializing in the Civil War. She’d hang on my every word but would be too
polite to say out loud, “If only you’d been exposed to death and danger during the battle of Gettysburg!”
“She wouldn’t say it, but she’d think it,” I muttered.
“Fascinating. So, onward and upward, sister mine. Next stop, who knows? Watch the birdie!”
“What? Dammit!” I clutched my now-throbbing eye, the knob easily turned beneath Laura’s hand, and we were off again like Magel an and Columbus.
Or Abbott and Costel o.
Chapter 54
Seriously? You stil have to beat on me to move through time? I assume this is al because God hates me this month.”
“Yes, Betsy. It’s al about you.”
“Sometimes it is,” I whined.
“And sometimes it isn’t. Anyway, smacking you around for the greater good is a sacrifice I’m wil ing to make.”
“Yeah, real wil ing, don’t think I haven’t noticed.” I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window. Fortunately, I was stil awesomely pretty. “Wel , what
fire do we have to ... put ... out ... ?”
I’d trailed off because we’d materialized beside a house in the suburbs. A modern house in modern suburbs! With electric lights and everything! In fact
—
“Isn’t this your old house? The one that had termites—whoof!”
She’d gasped because I’d picked her up and twirled her around and around. “Yes, yes, yes! It is my bug-ridden abode. It’s the house I lived in before
Jessica and I moved to the mansion. We’re back! Laura, we’re back!”
“But why are we at your old house? Nothing ever happened here.”
“Hardly, ignorant child.” I set her down, but I could have danced her up and down the block for an hour and a half. “I was living here during the Ferragamo
debut. And let’s not forget the hangover of 2000; gah, I thought I was going to yark up my liver. And the pseudo date-rape of 2002, and I say pseudo
because I kicked his bal s up so high he was strangling on them by the time the cops showed up. Ahhhh ... good times ...”
“But why would we be here? Does this mean we’re back? Maybe we should get a cab back to Summit”
“I s’pose—wait.”
“We don’t need a cab,” Laura observed, watching the car pul into what was once my driveway. “Because here you come now. Do you think you’l give
us a ride?”
“Oh ...”
“Shit,” the Antichrist agreed, and then we both dived out of sight as I got out of my car and headed up the walk to my front door.
Chapter 55
Stupid!” I fumed as we lurked behind my old house. “I saw the damned car and didn’t even think of it!”
“What?” Laura was crouched beside the eight zil ion chives I hadn’t tried to grow ... did you know that if you plant, like, two chive seeds, three years later
you’ve got an acre ful of the buggers? Me neither. “Wow, it real y smel s like onions back here.”
“Nick Berry’s in there!”
“The cop? Jessica’s ex ...” Laura trailed off, and I didn’t blame her. The thing with Nick was something we al felt bad about. And that I was deeply
ashamed of.
“Yeah. Jessica’s ex, who I bit, and when that fucked him up, Sinclair ‘fixed it’ by mind-raping him. Which he never recovered from, and the more he
remembered, the more nightmares he had and the more scared he got until he made Jessica choose, which he never would have done if we hadn’t
messed with him in the first place, and he lost and they broke up!”
“Shhhh!”
“You shhhh! He’s in there right now!” I said, squashing the urge to shake her until her teeth fel out. “And stupid, newly risen, starving me is gonna fal on
him like he was a six-foot Godiva truffle.”
“Oooh, don’t say that. You realize we haven’t eaten in al this time?”
“But not this time, devilish sidekick. This time I’m gonna not let myself have the chance to bite the poor guy.”
“I think you’re my sidekick, actua—”
“We’re gonna fix it,” I said, and Laura must have seen something in my face she didn’t care for (or was having cramps from hunger pains), because at
once she began shaking her head.
“Okay. You need to stal me—the younger, dumber me—and while you’re doing that, I’m gonna grab Nick and get him the hel out of the suburban
hel house.”
“No, Betsy, you can’t!”
“Watch me,” I said with a sort of steely tone, like El en Ripley tel ing an alien queen to get away from her, you bitch, oooh, yeah! That would—“Ow, don’t
pinch!” Had El en Ripley ever whined? I was pretty sure she hadn’t ... though if anyone had earned the right ...
“Listen, I put up with saving that gal in Salem. And helping Tina help Sinclair. But you’re messing with very serious things! Just because we haven’t
noticed a consequence— yet— doesn’t mean there aren’t any! You can’t do this. I won’t help you. I’l —I’l try to stop you.” The Antichrist looked frightened
but determined. “I just can’t let you keep screwing with the time stream. Who knows the damage we’ve done? It’s my fault, too, for not standing up to you.
Maybe that’s what my mother wanted me to learn. But not this time, Betsy.”
“Laura, there’s no time, and you can’t stop me, but think about this while you’re stal ing the other me: we’re already the product of a screwed time
stream, and once you help me with this? I’l prove it. Now stal me, or stal the other me, but either way, keep outta the way.”
She might be the Antichrist, but she was stil , at the end of the day, a human, and no match for vampire strength.
I think she realized that as wel , or was unwil ing to get into fisticuffs with me. Because when I went to duck around the side of the house, headed for the
backyard, she didn’t try to stop me. In fact, she went the other way. Toward the front of the house.
Toward the other me.
Chapter 56
l raced around to the back, snatched up the dead tomato plant (other than chives and dandelions, nothing ever grew in my old yard), dug through the dirt in
the pot, and found the spare key.
Not that I needed it; I was so keyed up I could have booted the door right off the hinges. But a racket, I did not need to make. If the other me didn’t
notice, Detective Nick sure would.
I let myself in—you ever noticed how hard it is to be in a hurry and be quiet? Yeah. I had an advantage in that I was much, much stronger and faster than
