Undead and Unworthy

Chapter 20

As Marc's door was wheezing shut behind me, I heard Jessica trotting toward me. I was able to pick up the sound of her footsteps over everyone else's in the hall (granted, at this hour, there weren't many, but still – my very own stupid pet trick!) and turned in time for her to wave to get my attention.

It seemed to take a very long time for her to get to me. Sinclair and I had talked about this phenomenon once or twice, after making love. It was starting to seem more and more natural, taking advantage of my vampiric senses and all. In the beginning, they either overwhelmed me (especially when I was hungry) or I had to sit still and make a conscious effort to hear, to smell, to whatever outside the range of normal human activity. Now I could probably pick Sinclair or Jess or Mom out of a Metrodome crowd.

Now her mouth was moving, verrrry sloooooowly. I squinted at her and then yelped when she pinched me.

“Sorry, but you had a very goofy look on your face. How is he? Is he sleeping?”

“He's a little out of it.”

“Oh.” She stared at the closed door as if she had suddenly developed X-​ray vision and could, y'know, actually see what was happening on the other side. “Do you think I should go in? It's so late. Think he'd be mad if I didn't come in tonight? I don't think he'd be mad. And I'll see him tomorrow. I'll bring him some Bruegger's for breakfast. Let's walk. Can we walk? Come on.”

I didn't say a word, just fell into step beside her. It wasn't hard to figure out why she was nervous – she had, after all, spent many days in this very hospital as a terminal patient. That'd take the shine off your night, even if the other events hadn't.

I cut through her nervous chatter as we headed to the hospital parking ramp. “Actually, you could help me out and radically reduce your trips to the hospital.”

“Sing it.”

“Well, we're putting Marc up somewhere nice, sort of as a treat, you know? I mean, he's been through a lot. He was finally starting to date again but he had that bad breakup last month... and he's been picking up so many extra shifts... and he really got torn up tonight.”

“Yeah,” Jessica said slowly, “I guess you could say he's had a crummy few weeks.”

“Right!” She was falling for it! The puny human had no hope whatsoever of overcoming the mightiness that was me, Betsy, vampire queen and recovering Miss Congeniality. “So maybe you could go with him, wherever he picks, and sort of settle him in, you know? Make sure he's got everything he needs, and – ”

Jessica had stopped walking, which was awkward, as I didn't immediately notice, and I have long legs and walk fast, so I had to walk all the way back across the skyway if I wanted to keep participating in the conversation. Which, judging by her thunderous expression, I did not.

“Betsy. Oh my God. How – ”

– did I know that was just what Marc needed? How could we best help him get settled? How did I manage to say the right thing time and time again?

Naw. I knew the tone and I knew it wasn't going to be good.

“ – fucking dumb do you think I am?”

“You mean, on a sliding scale, or – ”

“You've gotten rid of one human, and now you're trying to ditch the other.”

“Oh, say, hey now! I think 'ditch' is a little – ow.”

She had jammed her index finger into the middle of my chest and now poked to emphasize her words. With each poke a cloud-​colored fingernail jabbed me. It was like being pricked over and over again with the world's dullest needle. We'd had so many fights like this, I practically had scars there. “I'm. Not. Going. Anywhere. Besides, it's my house! You can't kick me out of – ”

“Also, Sinclair wants to buy it from you. I mean, we want to buy it. The house. We totally do. Together. It's not just him alone. We want to.” Because that's what married couples did, right? Bought real estate together and drank each other's dark, dead blood?

“Oh, I'll just bet you do.” She pulled her small, sleek head back, like a snake getting ready to bite. It was silly, kind of: I was a foot taller, I was thirty pounds heavier, I had legions of the Undead at my command (sorta) and vampiric strength, and I was scared to death of her. I tried not to cower as she ranted, “Well, you can't have it! For one thing, it's not for sale, and for another, it's my house!”

“Jessica, we almost lost you this summer, and – ”

“Betsy, even if you couldn't cure cancer, I wouldn't be afraid of the Fiends. But hey! Since you can? I can't say I'm worried about something as silly as a few bites.”

We started walking again, only she was stomping toward the elevator, and I was doing the Igor Shuffle (“Yes, master, right away, master, I am not an animal, master.”) right behind her. “A few bites? That's like calling the cost of the War on Terror a few dollars. And I know you're not afraid, it's not about you being afraid, it's about taking the sensible precaution of being elsewhere when the bad guys come back, doy!”

She snorted and jabbed the elevator button. “Listen to you. 'Sensible precautions.' ”

“And don't forget the 'doy.' Jess, how many scary movies have we seen where the heroine does something really dumb like hang around in a hallway when she knows the bad guys are, like, a room away?”

“ 'Bout a zillion,” she acknowledged.

“We got off real lucky this time – Marc with a few scratches, and you not even hurt – and I think it's completely nuts to push it. So how about you don't be an asshole about it and just stay with Marc until we kill all the bad guys?”

“Oh, someone's being an asshole,” she agreed, practically leaping into the elevator in her agitation, “but it's not this girl.”

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Mostly against the awful fluorescents in the elevators; there were about eight too many. “I knew you were gonna be like this.”

“But you had to open your yap anyway.”

I squinted at her. “Don't come crying to me when a Fiend tears your head off.”

She smiled a little, and I knew that was partly because she thought she had won the argument. She hadn't, but she was forcing me to do something I really, really, really didn't want to do.

I was gonna tell on her.