I groaned when I pulled into my driveway. It wasn't even nine o'clock and the whole evening was crumbling apart. I hated how things had gone with Sophie-and what was I going to do if she disobeyed me? "Disobeyed," ha! Even the word was silly. Everybody said I was the queen, but in my head, I was still Betsy Taylor, shoe fashionista and part-time temp worker. It had been almost a year since the Aztek had creamed me, but it still felt like about two days.
Meanwhile, there was a Ford Escort in my driveway, one that smelled like chocolate. Detective Nick Berry, Jessica's new boyfriend.
Marc's beat-up Stratus was parked next to it. Lucky Marc, he'd missed all the excitement the night before, but it looked like he was on days again for a while.
And a rental car-a Cadillac, no less. The Europeans were back.
It took a long moment for me to open the door of my car. I damn near put the engine in reverse and got the hell out of there.
In the end, I got out and trudged into the mansion. Where was I supposed to go, anyway? This was home.
I zeroed in on the conversation-the third parlor, the one that took up a good chunk of the first floor. I could hear Marc squawking like a surprised goose: "Whaaaaa?"
I hurried down the dimly lit hallway.
"You guys saw Dorothy Dandridge?" he was saying as I entered the parlor. He was delighted and surprised, jumping up on the couch cushions like Tom Cruise with a boner. "You saw her live, on stage?"
"Yes, on a visit to New York City." Alonzo was watching Marc like an amused cat. He was sleek and cool in a black suit, black shirt, black socks and shoes. I didn't know the brand-men's shoes all look the same to me. His were spotless and polished to a high gloss, the bows in the laces perfectly tied. "She was wonderful-a joy."
"It was the last time I saw you," Sinclair commented, "before last year." He was more casually dressed-an open-throated shirt, dark slacks. Shoeless and sockless. This was a message, I knew, one for Alonzo: I'm not worried enough about you to dress up.
"Correct, Majesty," Tina said courteously. "We left for the West Coast right after."
It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I had very little clue what Sinclair-my fiance and current consort-had done in the decades before we'd met. One night I'd have to get his whole life story out of him. It wouldn't be easy. When there wasn't a crisis at hand, he was about as chatty as a brick.
"You saw her." Marc couldn't get over it. Boing, boing on the couch. "Live and everything. Did you get to meet her?"
"Did you bite her?" I asked. I had no idea who Dorothy Dandridge was.
"That's the tragedy of her," Jessica said. She was on the couch beside Marc, trying not to be pitched onto the floor with all his antics. As usual, her hair was up-skinned back so tightly her eyebrows arched-and her mouth was turned down. She was dressed in her usual "I'm not really a millionaire" style: blue jeans, Oxford shirt, bare feet. In the spring! It made me cold just to look at her and Sinclair. Tina, at least, had wool socks on. Marc hadn't even taken off his tennis shoes. "That you've never heard of her."
"I didn't say that," I said.
"Oh, please, it was all over your big blank face." Her broad smile was forced-it was clear the barb was genuine, and not at all a joke.
"What is with you these-" I began, forgetting all about Alonzo, Sophie, bare feet, only to be interrupted when Detective Nick came back into the room.
"Thanks," he said cheerfully. "I was in the stakeout van half the day-no time to take a-oh." He slowed down. "Hi, Betsy."
I stifled a groan. Nick was a whole new problem, his own subset, you could say. I'd known him before I died. I'd bitten him right after I'd died, and it had driven him nuts. Literally crazy. Sinclair had had to step in with a bit of vampire mojo to make him all right. The official line was: Nick never knew I died, didn't know we were all vampires.
But we all wondered if he was going along with the party line, or fooling us. Normally I'd think nobody could get past Tina's bullshit radar, but Nick was a cop. They paid him to lie.
And Jessica had decided to date him. Because, you know, my life wasn't stressful enough.
He held out his hand, and I clamped on it and escorted him to the parlor door. "Great to see you again." I had no intention of introducing him to Alonzo, the Amazing Spanish Killer Vampire. "Guess you two want to get to your date, huh?"
"Actually..." Jessica began with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"Well," Nick said as I hustled him out, "the show starts at ten, so we thought we'd stay and visit for a few..."
"Right, don't want to miss it, have some popcorn for me, bye!" I hollered as he practically went sprawling into the hallway. Jessica rolled her eyes at me and followed. "See you later!"
Much later.
"That was-" Tina said, stopped, and put a hand over her mouth so I wouldn't see she was fighting a grin.
"Efficient," Alonzo suggested.
"You hush. You're still on my list, chum."
"Oh, Majesty." He clasped his heart like a player in a bad opera. "I would gladly cross seven raging oceans to be on any list you might have."
"Are you trying to pick me up?" I asked irritably, "or overthrow me?"
"Can we not do both, darling Majesty?"
"Say that now," Marc said cheerfully. As usual, he was clueless-or didn't care. He just loved the whole vampire politics thing. It was a lot more interesting than his day job, saving lives.
"Don't you have some patients to intubate downtown?" I asked him pointedly. "Or some dates to fondle uptown?"
"If I did, do you think I'd be here?" Damn. So reasonable, and the truth besides. He looked at Eric and Alonzo again. "So tell me about the show. Where did you see Dorothy? Did she look fabulous? She did, didn't she?"
"I was there for other reasons," Sinclair said. "I must admit I paid little attention to the stage goings-on."
Marc groaned and covered his eyes. His hair was growing out-he'd been shaved bald when I first met him-and his scalp was almost entirely black now, with an interesting white streak above his left eyebrow. His green eyes were shaded with long black lashes-guys always got the good eyelashes-and he was dressed in the scrubs he'd worn to work. They made him look doctor-like and professional, which was good, because he was actually a few years younger than I was, and sometimes patients had a hard time taking him seriously.
They should see him now, bouncing on the couch and grilling an undead Spaniard about somebody named Dorothy.
"As I was saying, it was in New York City," Alonzo said, smiling as Marc sighed and squealed like a bobby-soxer. " 'La Vie en Rose.' Could it have been... 1950? Yes, I think so."
"Oh, man, this totally makes my night. It was a shit night to put it mildly. I'm on my third set of scrubs."
"Oh, a lot of patients?"
"Bus crash. A lot of DOTS. Just really a downer."
"DOTS?" Alonzo asked.
"Dead on the Spot," Sinclair and I answered in unison. Thanks to Marc, we were up on all the medical slang.
"That sucks," I continued. "Maybe you should skip work for a while, Marc."
He shrugged. "They're hauling in a shrink for us to talk to, you know, talk about how helpless and arbitrary the whole thing was." He seemed to make a determined effort to look cheerful. "Anyway, you were saying about Dorothy, Mr. Alonzo..."
"She was wonderful," the Spaniard said at once, and I almost liked him for his obvious attempts to cheer Marc up. "Illuminating, gorgeous. It was impossible to take your eyes off her. Unless you were the king," he added, with a nod in Sinclair's direction.
"Thanks for not killing her and dumping her in an alley somewhere," I observed sweetly.
"Her neck, her voice box, was a work of art," he said, having the colossal gall to sound wounded. "Risking damage to such delicate organs with my teeth, even for the sake of eternal life, would have been sacrilege."
"And ending Sophie's life was not?"
Marc shook his head sadly, unwilling to completely damn this magnificent Spaniard. "Sophie's a great chick, man. You shouldn't've killed her. A great chick."
"Who would, if my math is correct, be at least fifty years under her cold, stony grave by now had I not turned her. Assuming she died of natural causes."
"That wasn't for you to decide," I said sharply. "Vampires can drink without killing people. You didn't have to take it that far."
He spread his hands. "This argument is pointless. The girl is dead. She hates me for it. There is nothing I can do about this now."
Marc looked at me. "Good point." I could see he was half in love with Alonzo already.
"Go make yourself some Malt-O-Meal," I snapped. "This is vampire business."
"Hey, I know when I'm not wanted." He didn't move from the couch.
"You're not wanted," I said.
"Oh." He got up. "Well. It was nice to meet you. Maybe you can tell Betsy and Sophie you're sorry and, you know, hang out for a while."
"Perhaps." Alonzo held out a hand, and Marc shook it. "A pleasure, Dr. Spangler. I look forward to our next conversation."
Marc was staring raptly into Alonzo's golden-colored eyes. "Yeah, that'd be good. I'm off for the next two days, so maybe-"
"Maybe," I said, seizing him by the back of his scrubs, "you shouldn't break your dating drought with this guy."
"Hey, I deserve a social liiiife," he trailed off as I practically threw him into the hallway. It was my night for tossing men out of the room, it appeared.
I stuck a finger in Alonzo's bemused face. "Don't even think about it."
He licked his thick lips. Which probably sounded gross, but it wasn't-it actually called attention to his lush mouth. "I assure you, Majesty, I do not make a move toward that delicacy of a man without your express permission."
"Ha!"
"But it is the truth," he said, sounding vaguely hurt. "Why else am I here, if not to make amends for yesterday?"
"To figure out how to kill me, after a rotten evening?"
He smiled at me. It was a nice smile; lit up his whole face and made him look like a pleasant farmer from Valencia instead of a rotten undead fiend from hell. "Oh, Majesty. Forgive me if I patronize, but how young you are to me. There was nothing rotten in last evening. Just a simple misunderstanding. To kill you in response-forgive me, to try to kill you in response-would be an overreaction of the worst sort."
Tina and Sinclair looked at each other and I could sense their unspoken agreement: it's a peace offering. Take it. As usual, when I was the only one who felt a certain way, I got pissed.
"Look, we can't just paper over this, okay? You weren't here two minutes before you plopped a big steaming pile of shit into my lap. Last night was bad, get it?"
"Majesty, lopping off heads and cutting off penises and flaying strips of skin and drying them out like jerky, then making innocent children chew on them, that would be bad. Not being allowed to feed until you lose your mind, fighting over victims like dogs in a pen, that is bad. Do you understand this?"
"Alonzo." I ran my fingers through my hair and resisted the urge to kick the couch through the wall. "Okay, I understand. You are trying to put this in perspective. So try to see mine. You hurt my friend. You killed my friend."
"When you were not in power, when I did not know she would be your friend."
"Agreed. But dude: she is gunning for you."
"And you will allow that? Am I not your subject as much as she is?"
"Maybe a caged death match?" Marc hollered from the hallway.
Tina got up and firmly shut the door.
"Perhaps a formal apology?" Sinclair suggested.
"I would do that," Alonzo said at once. "It would be my honor to do that, to help Her Majesty and His Majesty find a way through this... difficult situation."
I sighed and looked at Tina and Sinclair. Of course they would want this to end here, with a hint of a chance at agreement, so we could move on with diplomatic relations.
I gave them both a look. Tina had turned Sinclair; they were best buddies. Of course he would think Sophie and Alonzo could Just Get Along.
"You didn't see her tonight. She is beyond pissed. And she's pissed at me, because I'm not helping her. Yet," I added, hoping to wipe the smile off his face. Unfortunately, since I wasn't cutting off his penis or making him eat his own skin, he was in a pretty good mood.
"Where's the rest of the Undead L'il Rascals?" I asked, because more surprises, I so did not need.
"We felt it was better for me to return alone to make amends, as I was the one to, ah, incur your wrath." He almost laughed when he said wrath.
"Alonzo, I am fond of Sophie as well," Sinclair commented.
Finally, the lurking smile was banished. Alonzo looked contrite. "I cannot undo the past, Majesties. If you will it, I shall seek out the lady and apologize. And make amends."
"Make amends how?"
"However you wish. My fate," he said simply, "is in your hands."
I glared. "Stop being nice about it."
"Of course, as you wish. I shall endeavor to stop the niceness of my apology immediately."
Before we could go any farther down this insane road, there was a long, sonorous gong from the foyer, and I nearly groaned. The front door. Terrific.
"You know what? I'll get it. You guys"-I motioned to Tina and Sinclair-"should Alonzo be strung up by his balls? Discuss."
"I would be against that particular course of action," I heard him say as I left the room.
My evil-o-meter must have been on the fritz, because I didn't realize it was my stepmother until I'd swung open the door (these old fashioned mansions didn't have any peepholes-something we probably should have rectified when we moved in).
She was holding my half brother, BabyJon, a chubby three-month-old infant who was squirming and wailing in her arms.
"You take him," she said by way of greeting. "He's just being impossible tonight, and if I don't get any sleep, I'll be awful tomorrow for the foundation meeting."
"It's not a good-" I began, then juggled the baby as she shoved him into my arms. "Antonia, seriously. This really isn't-"
She was backing down the front steps, wobbling on her high heels. If it hadn't stuck me with permanent baby duty, I would have wished her to fall down.
"He'll need to eat in another hour," she said. "But it's not like it's really an imposition, right? You'll be up all night anyway." She'd navigated the steps in her tacky brown pumps, and now she was practically running to her car. "I'll pick him up tomorrow!" she yelled, and dove into her Lexus.
"It's not a good time!" I hollered into the spring night as gravel sputtered and tires squealed. BabyJon was chortling and cooing in my arms. And-was that?-yep. Shitting. He was shitting in my arms, too.
I trudged back to the parlor, laden with bags of baby crap and, of course, the baby.
Alonzo looked mildly surprised. "I thought I smelled an infant," he said, which was creepy in nine ways.
Tina looked away, nibbling her lower lips. Sinclair looked resigned.
"I'm, uh, going to be babysitting tonight. Starting right now. Which does not get you off the hook," I added. "But we'll have to finish this up later."
"You have a baby?" Alonzo asked, looking befuddled.
"It's not my baby. It's... ugh. You know what? Never mind. Our discussion is over. Go apologize to Sophie, if you think that'll make things right. Just... do it and mind your own business."
BabyJon, perhaps in agreement, barfed all over me.