“Did—did they hurt you?”
Oboy. Jennifer had thought this would be difficult, but as happened so often, the reality was much worse. How to explain Hell to someone who had never been there? “No, not really,” she said gently. “It’s not brimstone or lakes of fire.” Unless you needed it to be. “It wasn’t my fate to be physically tortured. Mostly I was bored and the only thing I could do was think about why I was in Hell. Thirty-one years of that was worse than torture, I think.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was more boring and frustrating than anything else—my last job was working in a food court.”
“But you hate food courts! Ever since you were little and gulped that Orange Julius too fast and threw up all over yourself in public.”
Jennifer smiled. “Guess where in the food court.”
Her mother blinked and swiped at her eyes. “You worked at an Orange Julius?”
“For years.” Or a few weeks. Time was strange down there. But this was better, much better . . . her mom was still crying but was now trying to smile, and Jennifer would take a watery half smile over sobs. “So gross.”
“But, Bear, why are you here? Are you supposed to take me to Hell? Is it my time?”
“What?” She jerked back so hard she almost fell on her ass. “No! Christ, of course not, oh my God!”
“Language,” Mom snapped, then clapped a hand over her mouth. When she lowered her hands, she had a sheepish expression on her face. “Sorry. You still look like my girl—but you’re forty-eight now.” Of course her mother would know her real age, probably to the day. “Old enough to decide when it’s appropriate to blaspheme.”
“Don’t worry about it. And—I can’t emphasize this enough—I’m not here to take you to Hell like some kind of morbid Angel of Death. Gross.”
“Then why are you here, Bear? Here, sit up here with me.” They moved to the couch, which was fine with Jennifer. Her mother couldn’t stop touching her, patting her back, holding her hand, and that was fine, too.
“It’s a long story, but the quickie version is, Hell is starting a parole program. The new devil—”
“Oh, my.”
“—yes, it’s complicated, but there’s a new boss, and she’s trying—”
“She?”
“—yes, there’s never been a glass ceiling in Hell—anyway, she’s instituting parole for some of us. I’m the test case. She let me come back to confess my sins and make amends.”
“So you’re back for good. You’re . . . alive again?” She squeezed her hands again. “You feel alive.”
“Yes. But, Mom, I have to warn you . . .” Ow! Her mom might be a retired office worker quietly living in a small Minnesota town, but she still had quite a grip. “. . . if I screw up, if I can’t make it right, I go back to the food court.”
“In Hell.”
“In Hell.” She took a breath. “Mom, where’s Lars? I know he was sentenced to—”
“They let him out after twelve years, Bear.”
“Okay.” That was something. At least he hadn’t done the whole twenty. “Do you know where he is?”
Mom nodded and wiped her eyes again. “After his dad died, he moved into their old house.”
“So out by the fairgrounds?”
She shook her head. Mom was still a brunette, which was kind of cute. “They moved after the—you know. The trial. They had to, because of all the—anyway, they ended up moving to Burnsville, and when they died a few years ago, Lars inherited the house. I can dig up the address for you.”
“Okay. And Tammy’s parents? I have to find them and explain . . . No?” Her mother was slowly shaking her head. “Oh. They’re dead, aren’t they?”
“Yes. She died of cancer about ten years ago, and he went in a car accident a year later.”
She was relieved; how was that for cowardly? “Okay. I can’t do anything for them, but I still have to go to Lars. Can I borrow the car?”
Mom giggled, which was understandable. It was giggle or scream. “I think your license might have expired.”
“That’s the least of my problems.” But she saw the humor in it, too, and smiled. “I’ll be careful, I promise. And what’s this?” She reached up and tugged softly on a hank of her mother’s hair. “My, my, still a brunette, hmm? If I checked your bathroom I wouldn’t find any L’Oréal products, would I?”
“Old women are allowed their vanities,” she said with the acerbic tone Jennifer well remembered.
“You’re not old,” she lied. She tapped her mother’s knee. “Keys, Mom? Please?”
“You have to go right now?”
“Yes, I have to go right now. It’s what she let me come back for. I can’t let her down.”
“The—the new devil?”
“Yes.”
Her mom had gotten up, gone to her purse, rooted around. “You don’t sound . . . afraid of her, exactly.”
There really wasn’t a word that described how she felt about Betsy. “I’m done letting people down,” was all she said, but it seemed, by some miracle, that her mother understood.
“How will we explain this? How do we explain you? If the new devil lets you stay? What would we say to people?”
“I can’t think about that now.” Truth. Because those problems, in the face of what she had to do to earn her freedom, didn’t really sound like problems. Golly, what will the neighbors say? Who gives a damn?
But facing Lars? Confessing? Bracing herself for whatever came afterward?
What if he hurts me? Hits me, beats me up?
Well. What if he does?
Her mom, though. She was thinking about the things she could help with, the way she always did. “You’ll need a new social security card,” she was muttering, and Jennifer knew by her expression that she was already making lists in her head. “Your old one wouldn’t work, obviously. If you looked your age—your real age—we could say it was all a mistake, that you faked your suicide and, I don’t know, fled the country but now you’re back because reasons.”
“Because reasons?” What the hell did that mean?
“Something the kids say. If that was the case, you could use all your old IDs and just get a new driver’s license . . . but you don’t look your age.” Her mother reached out, tucked a hank of hair behind Jennifer’s ear. “My Bear. Pretty as the day you d—as when you were a girl.” She paused. “We could move. Get a new start somewhere. Or stay put and just say you’re a grandniece or something. My sister’s daughter’s girl.”
“You don’t have a sister,” Jennifer felt compelled to point out.
“Oh, who cares? Then we can put any comments on your looks down to simple family resemblance.”
“Mom, I have to focus on you and Lars. I’ll worry about making a new life here if I’m allowed to stay.”
“And if you’re not?”
“Then it was still worth it, if only to see you again, and tell you how sorry I am.” Mom looked like she smelled something awful, which was what her face did when she was about to burst into tears. Jennifer rushed to head off more tears. “So find Lars’ address and then let’s dig up a paper and pencil so I can write down the directions.”
That made her mom laugh, for some reason. “Oh, honey. You’re going to love MapQuest.”
“What?”
“Come with me to the office . . . I’ve got things to show you.”
Ten minutes later, Jennifer was carefully pulling out of her mother’s driveway. Driving her mom’s new car, a burgundy Ford Fusion, was like piloting the space shuttle. And it was a hybrid! Which meant it ran on gas and electricity. Unreal! And MapQuest! Wow.
Mom had made her a sandwich and insisted Jennifer take it with her for some reason. It was on the passenger seat beside the printout of directions to Lars’ house. Her mom had tried to give Jennifer her
cell phone, but Jennifer politely refused. That thing also looked like some futuristic space mechanism to her uneducated eyes.
She resolved not to eat the food. Perhaps one of Betty Palmer’s world-famous club sandwiches would at least get her in Lars’ front door. Stranger things had happened. That very day, in fact.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
“I’m not saying you don’t have any problems, obviously you do, and I’m not just talking about the way you dress—”
“How could I have forgotten your essential vacuous nature?”
“—I’m just saying I’ve got a buttload of problems, too! My life has never been easy.” Okay. Exaggeration. Looking back, pre-death, the Ant was my biggest problem and, ironically, I saw a lot more of her now that we both hung out in Hell. And even when Time and Newsweek and MSNBC and the Pioneer Press were speculating about vampires, I still had a husband I adored and lived in a mansion with the coolest people ever.
But we’d barely gotten in the house before Fred was grouching about how my problems were making her life difficult. When, if anything, my problems were making my life difficult. “I don’t expect you to get it, by the way.” Why was I in such an ugly mood? Why was I picking a fight? Other than the fact that Fred was smarter than me, handling infamy better than me, and about a zillion times more respected than me? “I’m just saying things aren’t all sunshine all the time around here.”
Fred’s eyes rolled so hard, she could probably see her big fat brain. Wow. Being on the receiving end of an epic eye roll was kind of annoying.
“Do tell me about your insurmountable stack of first-world problems.”
“My father divorced my mom for the worst person in the world. I say that totally without hyperbole.”*
“I was raised by hippies.”
“I had to get nibbled on by feral vampires.”
“I walked in on the hippies having sex.”
“Then I woke up dead.”
“I can only swim with my tail, never my legs.”
“I had to kill a Big Bad who was a thousand years older than me.”
“I had to put down a revolt virtually single-handedly.”
Damn. Impressive. “Yeah, well. I’m having dad issues.”
“My father led that revolt, the end result of which was we fought to the death. And since you’ve likely noticed I’m not dead, you can probably deduce how that turned out.”
“. . . I think we should be best friends forever and ever.”
Then: the impossible of impossibles. Dr. Fredrika Bimm burst out laughing. “Ah,” she said when she finally stopped chortling like a hyena. “Now I remember why I don’t completely loathe you.”
“Well, good.” I’d take what I could get. And who knew? Maybe she had some dad-killing tips I could use.
I couldn’t believe I just thought that.
Progress, my own. You must know that you’ll likely have to kill him. Soon.
Stay out of my head, Sinclair. That was just for me.
If you would merely allow me to kill him, everything would—
Not better! Oh my God!
“Hi, Dr. Bimm,” Jessica said, and where the hell did she come from? “I’m Jessica; I used to live here.”
“Fredrika Bimm.” They shook.
“Yeah, I know. Thanks for coming to help us.” Us. Fred was hot shit, no doubt, and there were probably more Undersea Folk than vampires, but Jessica’s love and loyalty were worth a dozen brainy mermaids. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Jess put the baby toter on the counter, where Eric or Elizabeth was inside, sound asleep.
“Hey, you’re short an infant. Where’s Eric or Elizabeth?”
“Elizabeth’s got a minor cough, so Dick took her to the pediatrician today.” Jessica was unhurriedly taking out the good blender, fruit, yogurt, ice. “I wanted to swing by and pick up some of our stuff from storage.”
“Storage?”
“The basement.”
“Ugh. Have fun.”
Jessica shrugged at Fred. “Betsy’s got a thing about our basement.”
“You didn’t put ‘dark, spooky basement’ on your list of woes,” Fred pointed out. “If only you had, I might have mustered sympathy from somewhere.”
I snorted. “This is me, not holding my breath.”
“Also, you probably hear this all the time, Fred, but I’ve got to ask—”
“Yes, I’m really a mermaid.” Fred had perched on one of the barstools around the big butcher-block counter and was looking around with an expression that was almost pleasant. “No, I don’t grant wishes.”
“Don’t start with the pestering, Jess,” I warned. “Marc scampered off to change his shirt, for God’s sake, though there was nothing wrong with the one he had on, and that after he fangirled all over her all the way here. It was awful.”
Jessica giggled. “Don’t deny it, Marc fangirling is a beautiful sight.”
“When it’s Game of Thrones, sure. But he blew off Will Mason so he could keep bugging Fred.” Which . . . huh. Was weird. Maybe Cathie was onto something. Marc talked about how much he wanted to spend time getting to know Will, dating, maybe canoodling, maybe beyond canoodling. (Marc’s sex life was none of my business and that had been the case since day one. I was careful not to inquire. And I definitely never wondered about Cathie’s hideous invasive blood-flow “can you even get it up as a zombie?” question.)
“He knows I’m a zombie,” he’d whispered to me while we were binge-watching season four of BBC Sherlock, “and he doesn’t mind! He thinks it’s cool. It’s not cool, of course. But it’s nice that he thinks so.”
“It’s a little cool,” I suggested. Marc wasn’t gross or shambling or dripping. He was cute as hell, like always.
“It’s . . . handy,” Marc conceded. “Especially if I’m going to be running around with you guys, facing lethal danger often before lunch. And after lunch.”
“Martin Freeman looks like a sad potato,” I announced, which sparked a long, long, long argument.*
For a lonely guy who put in too many hours at the ER for a long-term relationship, and hadn’t been on a date in the last year and a half, Marc was sure finding it easy to keep putting Will off. I needed to start taking Cathie’s theory more seri-ously.
“Betsy!” Jess snapped her fingers right under my nose, because she’s horrible. “Come back to us. Stay away from the light.”
“Yes, are you all right? You look like your dinner disagrees with you.” Fred added under her breath, “Whomever that might be.”
“Don’t worry about my dinner, you—you vampirephobe.” Actually, I hadn’t fed in three days. Queen perk: I didn’t have to glug-glug blood as often as other vampires. To Fred: “Don’t be one of those awful, awful vegetarians. ‘Oh, you eat meat?’ And they say it in a tone like ‘meat’ is code for ‘kittens.’”
“Fair point,” Fred conceded. “The tight-asses give us all a bad name.”
Well, amen to that. I’d take that as a minor victory and decided to be generous in the face of her concession. “Sorry again about Marc. He’s very immature.”
“Yes, that must be maddening.”
“Are you messing with me?”
“Yes. May I have a smoothie?” And, when Jessica nodded, Fred added with—I hated to admit it—a charming smile, “Maybe a few more strawberries to go with the bananas?”
A vegetarian mermaid, and you only had to look at her teeth to know why. Fred had inherited her mom’s teeth: the flat grinders of landlubbers. Her dad and his kind had what looked like a mouthful of needles. They needed them; think about how tough it was to get through a piece of octopus sushi. Now think about having to do that just about every time you ate. The Undersea Folk needed the strength and speed and stamina and sharp, sharp teeth to catch and eat any manner of deep-sea creatures. Human
s? We just needed cash. Or access to a pantry and stove. Or even a gas station. If you had to, you could get a sandwich there. It wasn’t pretty, but people did desperate things to survive.
So, Fred “No meat” Bimm. No fish, even though fish made up something like sixty-five percent of your average Undersea Folk’s diet. One of many reasons she had trouble fitting in. Killing her dad? Probably another reason.
Hmm, empathy for Fred Bimm. Was I maturing? Or just really, really tired?
“One of the times you were almost bearable in Boston was how much you enjoyed Faneuil Hall,” she announced out of nowhere. “You were almost charming.”
“How much I liked what?”
Fred closed her eyes to slits and the slits glared at me. “You pronounced it Nathanial Hall.”
“Oh, that place. Yum.”
In next to no time, Jessica had given us all glasses full of dark pink liquid and walked off, basement bound, leaving her baby snoozin’ away on the counter. The nice thing, when they were that age? They stayed where you put them.
Sinclair walked into the kitchen, BabyJon slung over one shoulder; BabyJon was out of the stay-where-you-put-them stage, alas. “This child is getting tired,” he said by way of greeting, gaze glued to his phone. Just like a man, or a monarch: make an announcement and wait for everyone around you to scramble to fix it.
“Thanks for the update,” I said sweetly.
“And the Wyndhams would like to stop by.”
“Well, that could get awkward.” That brought the score this evening to at least three werewolves, two dozen vampires, a human/USF hybrid, Jessica, Eric, other Eric, a zombie, and whatever the heck BabyJon was.
“No, my queen, this is good for us. We can have all our problems in one spot at one time.” His dark gaze flicked over to Fred, who was gulping her smoothie like her life depended on it. Guess a leisurely swim down the Mississippi made her hungry. “I was not, of course, referring to you, Dr. Bimm. You are many things, but a problem is not one of them.” I think. Crafty!
She flapped a hand at him, finished her smoothie, then nearly dropped her glass. “It’s no concern of mine, but—where is the baby?”