Chapter 57

Oh my God!"

"Didja get ... Nick ... away?"

I clapped a hand onto the side of Laura's neck, ignoring her muffled yelp. "Jeez, you're really bleeding!"

"Well ... you were ... really ... hungry."

I could feel her blood trickling against my palm and, to my shame, felt my fangs slide out. "I'm tho thorry!"

Laura giggled. "It cracks me up when you do that. The other you did that, too!"

"Laura, I don't know what to thay." I was almost crying with remorse and mortification. I'd saved Nick ... and arranged for my sister to get assaulted instead. Oh, well done, Vampire Queen! Next: Armageddon.

I hoisted Laura into my arms and carried her around the front of the garage like an undead, rumpled groom. "It's okay. You're not out here anymore. You went inside. I think ... to sleep."

"Good," I said shortly. It was probably a terrible idea to find myself and then beat the shit out of myself, but hoo boy, was I tempted.

I set her down and rammed my fist through the passenger-side window, popped the lock, and bundled Laura into the front seat. Then I scurried around to the front of the car, belatedly remembered I kept a spare key in a teeny magnetized box under my front left fender, and squashed the urge to smack myself on the forehead. I grabbed it, hopped in the front seat, and started the car. It was April, in Minnesota. So I cranked the heat.

"You can't steal a car," Laura said, abruptly sitting up. Then: "Ack! Why didn't you remember the spare key before you broke my window?"

I instantly cheered up. Even better, my fangs were going down. "You sound a lot better."

"Yeah, the whole thing was sort of ... hypnotically weird. You really have some whammy in you, Betsy. I mean, I blinked and then I was bleeding and it was almost ten minutes later."

"I'm soooo sorry."

"I know." She patted my knee, which was an improvement over a Hellfire sword through my knee. "And it worked, right? It was worth it?"

I didn't answer. Switching the victims of my assault hadn't been the plan.

"Did stupid, greedy me see your face?"

"No. So when you meet me a year or so from now, you won't have deja vu, I'm pretty sure." She stared out the windshield and shook her head disapprovingly. "I can't believe you stole a car."

"It's my car!"

"But what are you going to think when you get up tomorrow night and your car's gone?"

"I'll have to worry about that then. Or three years ago. Whatever."

Laura shook her head disapprovingly. "I'm keeping a list, Betsy. Grand theft auto, breaking and entering-"

"It's my car!"

"-breaking and entering into a house-"

"It's my house! And I neither broke, nor entered; I had a key."

"Assault-wait. Did what the other you did count as assault?" She flapped a hand. "Anyway, we've only been here twenty minutes and we've racked up about twenty years in Stillwater. If they incarcerated women there. And why are we driving?"

"What are you talking about? I had to get you away from there."

"Yes, but why are we driving? You did what you wanted; you saved Nick. So let's go back to hell."

I hit the brakes and thought about it. "I can't believe this is about to come out of my mouth, but going back to hell sounds like a great idea."

So we went.

Chapter 58

Let me see your neck again."

"Cluck-cluck," the Antichrist teased. Then she smiled, and I remembered that when I didn't want to smack her, I thought she was kind of terrific. She'd sure been pretty awesome on the trip. Trips. A lot of people would be drooling in the corner, not perfecting their right cross. "Really, it's okay. Come on, stop beating yourself up."

"That's my job," we said in unison. "Ugh, don't remind me," I continued. "But is it just me, or did you not have to smack me as hard this time?" I rubbed my nose, which had stopped throbbing almost immediately.

"Oh, I'm definitely getting the hang of it," she replied cheerfully. "I wouldn't want to have to guarantee a trip if lives depended on it, but yes, I think I'm catching on."

"Terrific. Maybe your mother will let us out once she decides you've learned what you needed to learn."

"So you're assuming we're not back in our time?"

"Hell, no. Not after the last trip. I'm not believing I'm where we're supposed to be until I see a copy of the Trib with the right date."

Laura nodded. "November second. Unless time is passing in our time while we're running all these errands, in which case it could be the third or even the fourth."

"It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to skip the entire month of November. I've told you how I-"

"Hate November, yes, yes, your weird prejudices are endlessly weird. Which reminds me, you said you'd prove we were already the product of a messed-up time stream."

I took a quick glance around. I wasn't quite sure where we were-another spooky damned cemetery, but the electric streetlights reassured me that we were getting ever closer to the right time. I didn't see any familiar faces-the street on both sides was deserted of people ... though there were dozens and dozens of parked cars.

My point: it looked like we had a couple of minutes to talk, and I'd be glad to take full advantage.

"Yeah, we are. I've been thinking about this a lot, when I haven't been trying to heal sister-inflicted nosebleeds."

"You got even!" she cried, pointing to her neck.

"It wasn't me, you-wait. I guess it was. Listen: Tina would have left town without biting Sinclair if we hadn't stopped her! You saw. She. Was. Leaving! We had to talk her into it."

"We is a generous word," she muttered.

"Now let's think about the Tina we already knew. She's never questioned that I was the queen when, let's be honest, the very idea was so stupid it was almost funny. She didn't know me-we hadn't met when she jumped into that pit to help me."

"That's a story I haven't heard yet."

"Yeah, later. I come off sort of cringing and cowardly in it. Listen: I've always thought Tina was supernice, and loyal, but I never asked myself why. I've never asked myself lots of things."

Laura gently touched my elbow. "It's not like you lie around nibbling bonbons all day. There are things going on. You haven't really had time to-"

"That's really nice, Laura, and it's also a total crock. I never made the time. That's all there is to that. But back to Tina . . . she told me Sinclair rose strong but never explained why. Now we know why: because I bit him first. Because the long-foretold queen got to him before Tina. But he never saw my face.

"Listen: Tina's been devoted to me from the second she jumped into the Pitiful Pit. And Sinclair always knew I was the queen, always knew he'd end up with me. Why? Because I've told them, Because we're living in a time stream that I've already fucked with."

Laura was staring at me. "You've never been more logical."

"Well, thanks." I resisted the urge to scuff a toe through the dirt and do the aw-shucks thing.

"Or scary."

"Sorry." I shrugged. "But see? I said I'd prove it."

"Sure, and you've convinced me. But what does it all mean? Why do you think-uh-oh. I know that look."

I took her by the elbow and gently pulled her back. We stepped onto cemetery property, lurking beside an enormous marble tombstone . . . almost six feet high! We could have hidden a parade back there. Somebody dead had issues, or his family did.

"Wait" Sinclair.

"What is it?" Me. About a week after I didn't bite Nick, by the new time line. "I have to go; I've wasted enough time in this pit"

"It's my first meeting with Sinclair," I whispered to Laura. "He's gonna get grabby, and I'm gonna throw him through a big stone cross, then run off to save Marc from killing himself, and then Sinclair will follow me to a coffee shop where Marc will instantly get a huge crush on him."

"So, same old, same old," Laura whispered back, and snickered.

I could hear myself bitching shrilly. I suppose it was interesting to see these things from the perspective of . . . well, me, just three years older. But instead it just brought back the anxiety and fear I'd felt when I woke up in the funeral home and realized nothing would ever, ever be the same.

It brought back the sheer disbelief of realizing there were all sorts of dead people running around who wanted me dead (permanently) for no reason at all. I was used to being disliked because I'd been shrill or hadn't put out or had beat someone to the last pair of Manolos. Being disliked because people decided I was too dangerous to leave alone was something new and awful.

"I wonder," my husband's voice reached me and I shivered. I couldn't wait to get back to my own time . . . I had some tall apologizing to do. And I wanted him to tell me about Erin. About his folks. What he'd loved and what he'd disliked. The things they did that would drive him batshit. Best memories. Worst memories. Family stuff. Because what were we now, if not a family? "I wonder what you'll taste like?"

I shivered again, because it felt as if he'd whispered that right between my legs. How had I resisted the big lug for so long? Hanging on to being pissed had kept me out of his bed for quite a while. All those potential orgasms, wasted. Like dust in the wind . . .

"That'th it. For the latht time, get off me!"

Finally! I'd throw my temper tantrum-

There was a muffled minor explosion as Sinclair sailed back and into the big stone cross. Laura whistled, watching the scene from her knees. "Oh my God! You're terrifying!"

"An off night," I grumbled.

"Ohhhh! He's out cold. He is going to be so mad at you when he wakes up."

"Yeah, I know." I was loitering by the enormous tombstone she and I had used as our temporary headquarters. "I wish he'd wake up already. Once he's out of here, we're out of here. It's a good thing we-"

"He's up!" Laura interrupted, peeking around the stone. "Wow, you vampires recover so quickly! Anyone else would have a concussion. And a shattered spine. And-uh. Is that right?"

"What?" I peeked.

Sinclair was on his feet all right and stomping out of the cemetery.

But he was going the wrong way.