“Uh-huh.”
“You love ‘The Empty Hearse.’”
“I do. How come a dead woman from the antebellum South is the only one in this house who understands me?”
“Out!” Sinclair and I roared in unison.
“We’re going, shut up. Tina, honest question: flushing my eyes with bleach won’t cause permanent damage, right?” Marc was walking so fast he was now leading them both (I’d never realized how big our bedroom was before), and Tina tripped a little to keep her balance. “If I only do it for five minutes or so?”
The door slammed on her answer. “Ugh, sorry,” I said. What little clothing I still had on was getting rapidly ruined as I yanked and tugged. “They really don’t get boundaries.”
“So inappropriate,” Sinclair agreed, dark eyes gleaming. His brunet hair was cut short and neat, and he had what appeared at first glance to be eight miles of limbs. His broad shoulders were sleekly muscled—he’d been a farmer’s son in life, before a vampire destroyed his family—and tapered to a narrow waist and tight abdomen. You know how people joke about bouncing quarters off abs? You could bounce a rock so high off his you’d be in real danger of losing an eye. “And though I derive much pleasure from disrobing you myself, watching you shred your clothing in a frantic bid to get naked for me is easily as erotic.”
“. . . stupid . . . buttons . . . passing a law banning them . . .”
“As you wish, my own, so long as you don’t—ah.” I’d yanked too hard and started to tumble off our bed; Sinclair’s hand shot out, grabbed my wrist, and hauled me on top of him.
“Oh,” I said. I smiled down at him. “This works.”
He grinned back, showing teeth. “Show me.”
I did. For a lovely long time. Reason #27 not to let Sinclair have the run of Hell: if the vampire king was there, it wasn’t really Hell.
At least, not to me.
CHAPTER
NINE
“Hell pretty much runs itself,” I told him, panting. Silly, really—we didn’t need to take more than two or three breaths a minute. But energetic marital banging had rocketed my pulse to at least ten bpm. I’d literally run a mile (stupid fleet-footed serial rapist!) and not had my heart pound this hard. “Half the time I’m overwhelmed, and the other half I wonder why I’m even there.”
“And this surprises you?” Sinclair was leaning on one elbow, gently stroking my belly with his other hand. He’d missed a drop of blood—we often fed on each other during sex, making an incredible circuit of feeding-orgasm-feeding-orgasm-ohGodpleasedon’tstop-feeding. I reached up, thumbed it off the corner of his upper lip, licked my thumb. He kissed my thumb on the retreat and added, “It’s a system that has been in place for countless millennia. They’ve had ample time to work the kinks out, so to speak.”
“Yeah. Good point.” But I wasn’t thinking about Hell just then. His mouth on my thumb reminded me of his mouth being everywhere just a few minutes ago. I’ve never seen this put quite so bluntly in any women’s magazine, but I loved fucking my husband. Loved it like cake. Loved it like shoes.
I loved him on me and in me and behind me. I loved getting on my knees for him. I loved when he knelt, too. I loved riding him. Sometimes no matter how good he was making me feel, I just had to shove his hands aside and climb on top of him. The different angle was delightful, and that was the least of it. I loved his hands on my hips, gripping so tightly I’d bruise for a week if I were alive. I loved swooping down for teasing kisses that steadily deepened.
But best of all I loved watching him shake apart beneath me. Seeing him lose his mind, unable to say clever, cutting things, and just groan my name. Watching his eyes roll back as he lost even that small verbal ability, feeling his brain essentially white out and go off-line
(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
was as big a high as the blood.
“Elizabeth? Are you with me?”
“Kind of,” I muttered.
He snickered. “I’ll need at least ten minutes, my own.”
“Boo.”
“And while we wait, we can continue the discussion. Are you worried your new role essentially makes you a figurehead?”
“I wish,” I snorted. “I would love to be a figurehead. No, it’s that on one hand, I see lots of things that could be changed, but on the other, how do I know more than Satan? She was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. So I’m scared to make too many changes, y’know?”
“At least, not right away,” Sinclair suggested.
“But there are kids there! In Hell! I mean, some of them aren’t technically kids anymore, but they’re still running around in their old-timey braids and long dresses and saying things like ‘forsooth’ while some asshole whips them until their backs are all bloody. It freaks me right the fuck out.”
He looked at me, unblinking, for a few seconds, and I barely caught his stray thought
(but not my darling sister)
it was so quick and quiet and I’m not sure he was quite conscious of it. “She’s not there,” I said before I overthought it. Or underthought it. “Your sister. Of course she’s not there. She never did one thing to deserve Hell and if there was a terrible mistake and she was in Hell I’d save her. I would. I’d do that. Sure I’d do that.”
He’d started frowning halfway through my save-the-sister babble, then his expression lightened and his hand cupped my cheek. “Of course you would, my own. And my stray thought did not do her credit . . . or you.”
Being able to read the vampire king’s mind was pretty great . . . usually. Sometimes it was weird, often it was sexy, and occasionally it was really, really uncomfortable. Like the time I lost my damned mind and tried a whale tail with a red thong and jeans I should have tossed five years ago—whale tails had gone past trendy, past irony, past the backlash, and were now just hopelessly outdated; what had I been thinking? His reaction
(by all the saints in Heaven she looks ridiculous)
wasn’t at all what I was going for.
Wardrobe malfunctions aside, I wouldn’t give up our connection for anything. Another reason I cordially loathed Hell: I couldn’t hear Sinclair’s thoughts there, and he couldn’t hear mine. Thus, I allowed texting in Hell. And, weirdly, so did AT&T.
I knew, even though the thought wasn’t at the front of his mind, that he was wondering why I hadn’t invited him back to Hell since that first visit, so I kept talking about his family and the steps I’d taken to make sure they weren’t being tortured. Sure, I’m blocking you from this huge new part of my life, but I’ve kept an eye out for my in-laws, too!
“I asked my magical clipboard if your parents were there, and they aren’t, either. None of the people you asked about are there. So they’ve been reincarnated or they’re in Heaven or something.”
“Almost a pity,” he murmured, lying flat so I could snuggle my head into his shoulder. I could kiss the hollows in that man’s shoulder and collarbone all day and all night. “What a way to impress them!”
I giggled. “Hiya, Mom and Pop. So, in the decades you’ve been dead I’ve become the vampire king and I’m married to the HBIC in Hell.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I would never refer to them as Mom and Pop.”
“Whatever you say, honey-bunny.”
“And I forbid the use of that nickname.”
“You bet, snuggly-wuggly.” Over his groan, I added, “And something in the cool-but-weird category, Marc made a new pal this time. George Washington’s mom! Who holds grudges for centuries, apparently. But he definitely wasn’t bored.”
“Excellent.” Sinclair liked Marc, but at the same time was a little freaked-out by the trials and tribulations of living with a zombie. And we all liked for Marc not to be bored. “Well worth the trip for that alone.”
“Mmm.” I looked at the ceiling for a few seconds, thinki
ng. “Y’know, I have to say I get why Satan was such a huge bitch. The Hell gig is a headache on the best of days, and if you do it right, nobody gives a shit. It’s gotta be like running the DMV.”
“Perhaps worse. You aren’t compensated for running the netherworld.”
“Maybe Satan wasn’t so awful.” I thought that over for another two seconds. “Nope. Still hate her.”
“Perhaps I could come with you next time. You dislike acknowledging it, but I’m quite a bit older than you and certainly have more experience in management.”
I held back a snort with difficulty. Management. Sure. If that was how he wanted to refer to keeping the former king of the vampires off his ass by wielding the cruel fist of a tyrant, that was fine. Whatever, pal. “Someone has to stay here and be a vampire monarch,” I said. “And I acknowledge your creepy ancientness all the time, you fogey.” I did, when I wasn’t trying not to think about it too hard. My husband was eligible for social security, and had been for decades. I regularly boinked an octogenarian. By contrast, I was barely a triplegenarian! (That’s the word, right? Triplegenarian?) “So what’d I miss this time? How long were we gone?” There was a pause and I left off the shoulder snuggling to sit up. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, exactly,” he soothed, which made me groan in despair. Sinclair had a high tolerance for wrong. The mansion could be in ashes and he’d classify it as “well, we had a bit of a setback this morning.” Know how I knew this? Because before we were married, he lived in a mansion, and it ended up in ashes. And he was as perturbed as I am when we’re out of ice. (It’s easy to get ice. So I find a lack of ice to be mildly annoying, but not much else.)
“What, what? How long was I gone? What happened? Is it terrible? It’s terrible, isn’t it?”
“Not . . . exactly. You were gone just over two weeks.”
(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Sinclair put a hand to his forehead. “Ouch.” Like me, he cherished our telepathic bloodsucking bond . . . most of the time.
“Christ, when am I going to get the hang of this?” I just about screamed. Thing #842 I hated about Hell: time moved differently there. If I had to guess, I would have thought we were there maybe half a day, long enough for the meeting and for me to chat with some locals, slurp down an Orange Julius, and listen to George Washington’s mom bitch about her rotten kid who founded a country while disobeying her. Instead, half the month had gone by.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ah . . .”
“Right. We both needed all the sex.” Good God, I didn’t think Sinclair and I had gone without a marital boink for more than seventy-three hours since . . . I had to take a second and think about it. Ah! Since I accidentally fucked him upside down in the deep end of a swimming pool, simultaneously marrying him and making him king of the vampires. (Long story. Weird week.4 Also, vampires don’t need church services to be married, for obvious reasons.)
“But why didn’t you ask me to come back sooner?”
He remained silent, and I realized it was a dumb question (even for me). I knew why. It was a point of pride: I shall support my wife in the job I did not want her to take and wish she did not have, the thing she won’t share with me, and I will do this by refusing to give in to lonely horniness and beg her to come back. I’ll do that for a day. Three days. Five. A week. A week and a half. Two weeks . . . now where did I put my phone?
Goddammit.
I slumped back into the pillows. “Fine, fine. Better tell me the bad news. Did Jessica’s babies disappear and take longer than usual to reappear?”
“No.”
“Did my mom break up with her boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Please tell me she broke up with the guy who looks like a giant baby . . . That big round head, I can’t not stare at it when I visit . . .”
“Nothing like that,” he soothed.
“Well, good.”
“But the Antichrist has been trying to out vampires to the world, and it looks like she may well be succeeding.”
“What?”
He looked at me, and I swear there was more than a note of reproach in his tone as he added, “I didn’t call you back to me just to have sex, you know.”
Silly me.
CHAPTER
TEN
Marc and I crossed paths as we were both lunging for the keyboard in the kitchen. Tina had (stupidly) tried to implement hanging keys in order of status. Jessica and Dick (his name used to be Nick, but that’s a whole other thing5) abruptly lost their minds and threatened to threaten to sue (“I don’t actually want to sue, but I might promise to sue!”) over what they saw as discrimination against the living.
So then she suggested we hang keys in alphabetical order by owner. (“Boo! That means the cop goes first!” “What, it’s my fault my mother married a Berry?”)
So then she tried alphabetical by car, but since Sinclair had two Audis, a Bentley, and a Corvette, that was promptly shouted down as well.
And then Tina noticed that in the three days she’d spent trying to come up with a system that wouldn’t make us all want to kill each other, we were all just hanging our keys on whatever hooks were empty, and nobody had trouble finding theirs, even when in a rush. I mean, I lived with millionaires, but even they could drive only so many cars. The board had plenty of hooks.
So Marc and I were both scrambling for the keyboard. “My passive-aggressive sister is trying to out vampires to the world!”
“I missed two Game of Thrones and one It’s Always Sunny, and I’m two weeks behind on People, Entertainment Weekly, and Time!”
“And we were gone two weeks!”
“No one watered my cactus! Which is good, actually. Betsy. Seriously.” He blocked my retreat to the mudroom door. “You gotta get the time thing figured out.”
“No shit!” I realized I was clutching my keys in a white-knuckled fist and eased up. Those electronic keys were insanely easy to crack. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“You need a row of clocks, like they have in car rental places or brokerage firms. They all tell the time for a different city.”
“When were you in a brokerage—”
“I watched The Wolf of Wall Street. You know what I’m talking about—they’ll have a clock up for Tokyo time and one for New York time and one for, I dunno, L.A. and one for Hong Kong and one for Ann Arbor and one for Houston and one for Bismarck.”
“Bismarck? Really?”
“You need one that will always tell you what time it is at the mansion.”
Well. That was actually a pretty good idea, assuming my powers in Hell would work like that. Whenever I wanted to know something, my magical clipboard usually obliged. Maybe I could put a magical clock in, too. It was no surprise that there were no clocks in Hell; time meant different things to the souls there, and a fixed clock always set to, I dunno, central standard time wouldn’t be much help. Maybe not a row of clocks, but maybe a wristwatch that always told me what I needed to know? “Okay, that’s not bad,” I admitted. “Remind me next time we’re there.”
He nodded and scooted aside so I could pass. “Gotta go.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Sinclair didn’t tell you until after the sex, did he?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Hey, the guy went two weeks without nooky. I’m surprised he remembered his own name, all that backup.”
“Vampires don’t get— Oh my God, I’m not discussing this with you.”
“You kind of are,” he said with a grin that was half apologetic, half wiseass. No, wait. All wiseass.
“Oh, shut up.”
“Have pity on the man!” my least favorite zombie hollered after me as I hurried through the mudroom. “Take pity on his penis!” Because the neighbors don’t have enough to goss
ip about.
In my rush to get gone, I nearly fell over something and knew without looking what it was. I seized the pitchfork, yanked the door to the side yard open, ignored the puppies’ yelps of welcome, and tossed it into the garden with the others.
“Stop giving me these things!” I shrieked back at the house in general. Prank-hungry bastards. Twice in a month, really? Bad enough they were defacing name tags and planting them on me, but to leave pitchforks lying around? Where does someone even buy a pitchfork? “Really? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
From all parts of the house, simultaneous replies came back: “No!”
Well, that was just a lie.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
I had the Antichrist cornered like the sun-kissed rat she was. “Aha! I thought I’d find you here!”
Eventually. First I’d tried her apartment in Burnsville, then Fairview Ridges where she volunteered, and then Hastings Family Service where she also volunteered. Then I stopped at Caribou for a large hot chocolate (I was back in the real world now, and so was my unholy vampire thirst of the damned . . . what little I’d taken from Sinclair wouldn’t hold me for long), then the United Way.
Then I looked at my phone again, observed it was Sunday morning (the clanging church bells and gaggles of families dressed in their Sunday best should have tipped me off), and found her at First Presbyterian in Hastings.
I had thrown the incredibly heavy door open (it took some effort—argh, so windy!—even with vampire strength—how did the Sunday school kids manage?) and pointed my cup of hot chocolate at her, bellowing to the startled churchgoers that, aha, I thought I’d find her there, eventually.
“Betsy!” the Antichrist hissed, setting down a coffeepot. “This is fellowship!”
She made it sound like a place, rather than something they were doing. Unless fellowship meant “behold the ritual of the serving of the coffee and of the nondairy creamer, for yea, some churchgoers shalt be lactose intolerant.”
Maybe it was the name of the room. Church—the service—was clearly over; the place was packed but everyone was eating. And it was the food moms and dads and grandmas had brought to church: pans of brownies, plates of cookies, some blondies that didn’t get gobbled as quickly as the brownies (when will people just accept that blondies will never trump brownies? ooh, memo to me: people in Hell should get blondies when they order brownies), a pyramid of Rice Krispies bars, fruit plates, Kool-Aid for the kiddos, coffee for the adults, and bowls of peanuts for whomever. Somebody always brought peanuts; it was weird.