It didn’t hurt that the media broadcasted pictures of all of us being calm and cool and our neighbors helping and nobody eating anyone alive or drinking from jugulars. We’d just looked . . . normal. Which the world was fine with.
Besides, the fire had been two weeks ago. And everyone had learned vampires were real last month, and Undersea Folk were real last year. What’s new now?
“Look, kiddo, I’m an American, just like you.”
“Actually, I identify as an Earth-bound carbon-based life form. Brunette.”
“Adorable. As I was saying, the media’s not mine to manipulate and it would eventually backfire, anyway. One of the great things about our country, the media won’t put up with that kind of overt manipulation. It’s not like, I dunno, Communist Russia. Or China.”
“Uh-huh, and in response to your adorable ‘the American media isn’t easily manipulated’ nonsense, here is my rebuttal: Bwah-ha-ha!”
“I’ve also been thinking about recent events.”
Elizabeth stopped in mid-bwah. “Natch. It’d be odd-odd-odd if you weren’t.”
“My sister’s dead, and my dad’s a dead stick.” Gone, left town probably the day Lara Wyndham got her tiny deadly hands on him. No trace of him anywhere. Good. His money had bought Laura’s campaign to expose me and mine, and all that came with it. Which meant he’d bought the bomb, too. I was no longer ambivalent about how to handle our next meeting. It’d be our last. My mom hadn’t tried to talk me out of it like she had earlier this year. She either knew it’d be futile, or—after a look around the mansion the day after the fire—decided he deserved whatever I was going to do to him.
I kept going, because I wasn’t sure if she was inclined to be as helpful as her brother, but there was no harm in trying to find out. “The mermaids and the werewolves are going to band together and work with us, so it’s not just a few hundred thousand vampires exposed and vulnerable to anyone who wants to stake them; we’ll be a formidable nation with allies who are not to be fucked with.”
“All good, right, chieftess?”
“Extremely good. So in a way, this mansion, this life, will never be safer. It looks like—anything can happen, but it looks like Sinclair and I will be in charge and we’ll all be working together and running things for a long, long time.” Centuries. Maybe longer. Werewolves weren’t especially long-lived, but the next Pack leader thought my husband and I were peachy keen. The next Pack leader had risked her neck (and her beloved New England Aquarium shirt) to save my son. We were going to get along fine.
And mermaids were long-lived. I could expect to work with Fred for decades, barring something unforeseen, or me punching her so much when she pissed me off, which I foresaw could be frequently. I mean, yes, to give credit where credit was et cetera, she’d come up with the triad and we were going to play nicely with others, but . . . come on. She was still Fred Bimm.
“Yep-yep-yep,” Elizabeth said. “I can see that. Sure.”
She could. She was living it. We were from different timelines, but in hers, Laura died and things got better. And stayed that way.
“My half brother, Jon Taylor, can’t be harmed by anything paranormal,” I told someone who already knew. “And I can’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“Onnie Betsy, we all give you shit for being silly, but you’ve never been all-the-way stupid.”
“Thanks?”
Her gaze was kind but relentless. “You don’t think any of this is a coincidence.”
“No.” I drummed my fingers on the counter and watched my friend’s daughter, a confident young woman who, along with her brother, had seen things that would send most people sprinting to a shrink. “I can’t say I do. Not anymore.”
She stretched, long bony arms over her head, and yawned. “Sorry. College graduation coming up—last night was the party to celebrate the party we’ll throw on graduation day. I feel like I mainlined a liter of rum. And ate . . . cotton balls, it feels like?”
“Poor thing.” So, twenty-one. Drinking age. Unless she was a genius and had skipped some grades. Which was certainly possible. Also, I sucked at estimating ages. She could be seventeen or twenty-four (and either way, couldn’t legally rent a car, so I had her beat in one area at least).
“I need to rush. Mom’s still roaming the upstairs with the others, right? Won’t be a better time to slip away.” Oh, was that what they called their mysterious comings and goings? They were like beautiful biracial Batmans. Batmen? “I only came because—”
“You can tell if we need you,” I whispered, and I don’t know why. Maybe I wasn’t ready for anyone to hear the theory until I’d thought it over more. “That’s when you come. You do what you can and then you go back. Every time. Even when you’re tiny.”
She smiled and took my hand. “It’s not entirely altruistic, Elizabeth the One.” She laughed when I made a face. “We get a sizable emo-boost from the trips. It’s so severely wonderful to see you guys in your carefree days.”
I snorted. Carefree was never a word that leaped to mind when pondering our lives.
“But yep: I must motorvate. I was hoping to see BabyJon.”
“Sorry—my mom enrolled him in some kind of Lord of the Flies day care three mornings a week. Lots of emphasis on interacting with other toddlers. Apparently socializing is huge. But I dunno. Seems overrated.” I’d gone with them. Once. Soooo many sticky fingers, and they all wanted to touch me. I hadn’t salvaged six-eighths of my shoe collection only to be severely smudged.
“You should take my brother’s advice about the kiddo. Like he said, BabyJon’s the last one you need to worry about.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that.”
“This entire time?” she teased.
“Shut up, it’s my process.” I took a breath and said the thing that had occurred to me when Lara Wyndham saved my boy. “He’s my heir. Mine and Laura’s. She’s dead, so he’ll inherit her abilities. And since he’s a blood relative, like Laura and I were, I’ll be able to teach him how to go back and forth from Hell.”
She studied her (beautiful) nails and said nothing.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I pressed on. “Sinclair and I will rule for a long time and when we’re done, and dead, Jon Taylor will be the new king.” Of vampires . . . and perhaps Hell, too. Who knew?
Elizabeth rose to her feet, put a hand over her breast, and sounded like the world’s biggest, dorkiest Girl Scout as she said with prim precision, “I can neither confirm nor deny that theory, Ms. The One, out of respect for the always fragile timeline, and also, I gotta pee and maybe get a sandwich, and I can’t do that here, so farewell, chieftess, time to arrivederci.” Only she pronounced it the way Brad Pitt did in Inglourious Basterds: uh-ree-vuh-DER-chee. Even I knew that was screwed up.
“Oh, go, then.” Should have known she wouldn’t confirm. Not that she had to. The smirk said it all, really.
She started to amble past me toward the mudroom door, then paused and rested a warm hand on my shoulder. “Gosh, if only BabyJon—he never ditches that nickname, by the way, poor bastard—if only he was raised by vampires and a zombie and was used to extreme weirdness and hung out with werewolves and mermaids and saw all kinds of amazing shit all the time. And if only that same guy had two best friends who could travel back and forth between parallel universes and figure out how to get him whatever he needed whenever he took on the bad guy du jour. Wouldn’t that be something?”
I stared at her. It was. It was all. It was literally all I could do. Because. I. Wow. Holy. Wow!
A giggle. “You should see your face!”
Then she left, the little jerk.
EPILOGUE
Jennifer put the cereal box back in the cupboard, put away the milk, wiped down the counter. Looked around the small, sunny kitchen with satisfaction, hung the dish towel neatly on a hook by the oven.
; “Y’know, I have a cleaning lady. You don’t have to do all those things for me plus clean.”
She turned to look at Lars, who was much improved since his hospital stay. After breakfast, he would telecommute—amazing, genius concept—for a couple of hours, then nap. His job title was something she could never remember that hadn’t existed thirty-one years ago. Computer stuff.
“Don’t be silly. It’s my pleasure. Okay if I head out?” She checked her watch. Watches were almost gone; everyone used their cell phones to tell time. She liked watches; she had no interest in giving them up. “Starts in forty-five minutes.”
He flapped a big meaty hand at her. “Sure, sure. See you tonight. Your mom still joining us for dinner?” At her nod, he added, “Listen, don’t worry. You’ll love it.”
“We’ll see,” she replied, and went for her jacket and car keys. “If it’s going to cut too much into my time here, it doesn’t matter how much I love it.”
“Well, that’s the spirit, I guess. And don’t tell me about the so-called ‘snacks’ you’ve left me. Carrot sticks and granola aren’t snacks; they’re what you feed petting zoo animals.”
“Tough nuts. And there’s more where that came from. I know you haven’t been eating the rice cakes, just crumbling them up and tossing them. You will devour your rice cakes, Lars. If you’re good, you can put some Greek yogurt on them.” Greek yogurt put Yoplait in the shade, she had discovered.
“Aw, jeez, just leave already.” But he gave her a smile that made his small eyes seem to disappear in a fit of good humor, and she took that as her dismissal.
Today she was taking a tour of the U of M campus, which she anticipated would be different from the tour she’d taken thirty-one years ago. Her mother had never touched her college fund in all the years Jennifer had been in Hell, though due to inflation that money would pay for only about half of the tuition for the nursing program.
To her amazement, Lars had offered to pay the balance. He’d casually made the suggestion a few days after his discharge from Fairview. She had practically moved in at that point, was essentially his caretaker as he slowly regained his health and strength. She’d left only late at night to go back to her mom’s house to grab six or seven hours of sleep. She’d be right back in his house before the sun was all the way up.
“You don’t have to do all this for me.” He’d been on the couch with the remote nearby, comfortably clad in flannel pajamas and propped up with pillows. The remains of his breakfast were still on the coffee table and she started to clear away the dishes. “Y’really don’t.”
“Of course I do. It’s my fault—again—that you’re in some difficulty.” While she waited for Betsy to come fetch her for another three decades of torture by boredom, Jennifer had followed her own adage. She had controlled the things she could and let the rest work itself out.
“Listen, you were a dumb kid back then. You paid for it, okay? We’re square.” She’d just hummed in response and wiped down the coffee table. “You like it, though, right? I mean, it’s not all for my benefit. You still want to be a nurse? I remember you going on about it in school.”
“I haven’t thought about it,” she’d replied, and it was the truth. “Sorry about the cliché, but I’m taking it one day at a time.”
“You should go back to school,” he’d suggested. “Get your GED and then take some college classes. I’d be glad to help pay.”
Shocked, she’d just stared at him.
“What? I got the money. So who cares?”
“I can’t let you do that.” Preposterous. She should be giving him money. She would, if she had any.
“Ah, bullshit. You’re not listening again. Enough with the punishing yourself. You explained what happened. Not just that. I mean, jeez, you came from Hell to try to make it up with me. ’Sfar as I’m concerned, that was more than enough. But you can’t live out the next decade making me eat that awful fucking granola. I won’t have it, Palmer, no way. Go to school already. If that money helps you, what the hell do I care?”
“You could go to college,” she’d pointed out, and he just laughed at her.
“Too old.”
“We’re the same age,” she reminded him.
“Too fat.”
She said nothing, and her tact made him laugh harder.
* * *
Then: the incredible, most amazing thing. Betsy had popped up when Jennifer was on her way to restock Lars’ pantry with stuff that wouldn’t give him a heart attack. And there she was, sitting on the hood of her mom’s space shuttle, like the new devil hanging in the Minnesota suburbs was “a thing” (lots of things were “a thing” these days).
“Keeping busy?”
Jennifer had almost dropped her purse (she had a purse now, and a wallet, and clothes—her mother had brought her to Target the day after the fire). “Yes, ma’am.” She quit fumbling for her car keys and said, “Would you please let me say good-bye to my mom before you take me? And maybe give me a minute to explain to Lars?”
Betsy’s answer was to frown. “Take you where? Do we have plans I forgot about? Oh damn, that’s it, isn’t it? I need to start keeping a calendar. One that doesn’t burn up in a house fire.”
Jennifer hadn’t expected her to play dumb. Or worse—toy with her. “To Hell, obviously,” she’d replied, almost snapped. “That’s why you’re here. I failed.”
“Failed.”
“Yes.” Oh cripes, was this how it was going to go? Did she have to confess all before Betsy took her away? “I gave Lars a heart attack. Then I left him alone to go to your house.”
“The guy was a walking time bomb—having recently been around a time bomb I know what I’m talking about—and could have popped a valve at any time. You probably saved his life by getting the ambulance so quickly. Then when you’d done what you could and visiting hours were almost over anyway, you saw I was in trouble and came to help. And then you confronted your worst fear by running toward a burning house to distract people so I could get Will away.” Betsy shook her head. “I mean, Jesus.”
“That’s . . .” A generous interpretation of events, she’d been about to say, because completely wrong, you well-meaning dope probably wouldn’t have gone over well. “Not how I see it.”
“And now you’re here . . .” Gesturing to the house. “Fifteen hours a day, busting your ass to nurse this guy back to health. Of course I’m not going to take you back to Hell. You passed. You did great.”
“I did?”
“Sure. I didn’t expect you to fix everything, to make it all perfect. But you owned your shit. Repeatedly. That’s plenty good enough.”
“Oh. Huh.” She wasn’t Hell bound? She could stay? “Wow. Okay. That’s . . . wow.” She looked up into the other woman’s kind eyes. “Thank you. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“You’re not going to hug me, are you?”
“No.”
“Great.” A sigh of relief, and then she hopped off the car. “I just wanted to check on you, is all. And to thank you for your help.”
“Okay.” She had years, maybe. Decades, possibly. To fill however she could. Any way she wanted. It actually hurt to try to grasp that. A mortal lifetime yawned before her.
“I wish you the very, very best of luck.” She held out a hand. Jennifer shook it, felt like she was falling, or getting too much oxygen. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again. In Hell, I mean.”
“Oh, me, too! In Hell.”
She’d stepped back so Jennifer could get to the driver’s side door. Stood there while Jennifer climbed in, buckled her seat belt (it was the law now), started the car. Rolled down the window so Betsy could finish.
“Tammy sees you,” she said softly. And was gone.
Jennifer clutched the steering wheel and wept thirty-one years of tears.
’NOTHER EPILOGUE
/> “Okay, okay, that one now. Let me smell it.”
“This is the most disgusting game in the history of games.”
“Marc is correct, Elizabeth.”
I took a big whiff, then straightened. “Ha! See?” I opened my mouth and pointed. “No fangs!”
“And now, no appetite.” Marc swept the almost empty blood bag out of sight. We had no idea where he’d gotten it, and didn’t ask. Something about biohazard garbage being a treasure trove of grossness, which is the exact moment I stopped listening.
It was the end of Moving Back Day, and the beginning of smoothie time. The only person missing was Tina, and I could hear her steps in the hall. She came into the kitchen, smiling a little at the old-fashioned swinging door. We’d restored what we could and changed as little as necessary.
“Two packages for you, Majesty.” She had a sizable box in her arms and a Priority Mail envelope on top of it. I knew without asking that they’d been scanned, weighed, fluoroscoped, et cetera, or she wouldn’t have brought them anywhere near me. There were some security upgrades to adjust to.
I tore open the first envelope while Sinclair topped my glass with more Dreamsicle smoothie. He nearly dropped the blender when I yelped to see the book and the enclosed note.
Dear Betsy,
You might not remember me but we met the day of our KARE 11 interviews. I saw on the news that you had a fire and thought you might like a new copy of Smoothie Nation. Thanks again for being so nice to me when you knew I was scared of you.
Best, Carol
“Oh, yay!” I showed them the book. “Isn’t that nice? Now I’m super glad I didn’t bite her. Or any of the sound guys. Or Diana Pierce.”
“No need to immediately make work for Detective Berry,” my husband pointed out. Except he wasn’t Detective Berry anymore; he was now the official Police Liaison to the Twin Cities Vampire Community Berry. His twins