Undead and Unworthy

Like I wasn't dreading the coming winter already. These days I was always cold, even on the hottest day in July; November was going to suck rocks. What I wanted to do was adjust to married life, set up house (well, the house had been set up for more than a year, thanks to Jessica and her big bucks, but I was still finding places for our wedding gifts), finish writing thank-you notes (yawn), and settle down to the job of raising BabyJon, my half brother and legal ward. (You remember, the whole my dad and the Ant being dead thing.)

Yep, yep. Everything was normal. I was a newlywed and would-be parent. Nothing wrong or weird here. Nope.

" - felt responsible," Garrett was yakking, which in itself was hard to get used to. He'd gone from slobbering Fiend to monosyllabic boyfriend (Antonia-the-werewolf's stud... more on that later) to verbose old vampire. The fact that he looked about twenty-three didn't fool anybody. "So I began visiting them. It didn't seem right that I was back to myself while they were - were - well. You know."

Fine time for his newfound vocabulary to fail him! But we knew. The old king - the one I'd killed to take the crown - liked to torture newly risen vampires by refusing to let them feed. After a few months of this treatment, they went crazy. Worse than crazy - feral. Forgot everything they ever knew, or could know, about being human. Think dangerous, rabid wolves, wearing L.L. Bean.

Sinclair and his major domo, Tina, had asked me again and again to stake the Fiends through the heart.

But I couldn't. It'd be like stomping puppies. Bloodthirsty, feral, dangerous puppies, yes, but still - puppies. Had I made the puppies? No. Was any of it the puppies' fault? Nope. Was I going to kill - worse yet, order to kill, wouldn't even have to get my hands dirty - innocent puppies, no matter how many buckets of blood they drank a day?

No.

And now the puppies were going to eat out my soft human heart. You'd think I'd have learned the essential Rule of the Undead by now: cuddly undead are still undead.

"How come nobody tried feeding them their own blood before?" Marc asked. "Why the buckets of animal blood?"

"They're too dangerous to be allowed to hunt. They'll kill anyone they can find."

"Yeesh."

"I don't think we have time for a recap," Garrett said, nervously cocking his head to one side. "Recap," that was very good; man, he was sharp! Picking up slang like no tomorrow. To think, six months ago he couldn't even purl, much less knit.

"But Garrett fed them his blood. 'Live' blood - so to speak. So, how come nobody tried that before?"

"Nobody," Sinclair said, the corners of his mouth drawing down, "cares to get near them. No offense, Garrett."

"None taken, my king," he said stiffly, not looking at my husband.

And there it was. The Fiends were the untouchables, the unwashed. In a society built of nonhumans, of monsters, these guys were considered a level below that. A good trick, if you sat down and thought it over.

I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. "I knew I recognized that guy! He's one of the Fiends? Jesus, he's really out?"

"Did somebody break a window?" Tina asked, walking into the office with what appeared to be a ream of paperwork waiting for Sinclair's signature. Privately, my husband was the king of the vampires; publicly, he owned several companies, tracts of land, and office buildings and was ridiculously wealthy. Half mine now, under Minnesota law. I think. Or - wait. Were we a community property state or - I guess I'd blocked out most of my mom and dad's divorce -

"Garrett brought the Fiends back to life like some kind of moody 1920s Frankenstein, and now they're on their way here to kill Betsy," Marc said in one breath, looking pleased at his ability to spit out several words without passing out. Of all the nights for him not to be on call at the ER! There'd be no shaking him off our heels tonight. Normally, we tried to keep the respirating roommates out of vampire biz, for their own safety if nothing else.

"They're what? Who's here to what?" Tina's jaw sagged; papers fluttered. She was a doll of a woman with waist-length blond hair and enormous pansy eyes. She looked delicious in knee-length shirtdresses and nonprescription glasses she didn't need. She was wearing both, in navy and tortoiseshell. "Why are you all standing around? Why - "

"Also, the Ant has started haunting me."

"I was wondering when you'd remember I existed," the wretched woman snapped.

"Did you remember to pick up tampons?" Jessica asked, and now the men looked appalled. That was a good question, actually. I sure didn't need them anymore, ergo Tina didn't. Jessica's cycle had been all over the place since the cancer. Did Antonia - any female werewolf, for that matter - need them? The ghost definitely didn't.

And what did it say about my life that I was living (again) with two women named Antonia? Most people went their entire lives without running into an Antonia. When one of them died, I figured I was home freaking free! Really, it was all -

"Majesty, will you focus!"

"Huh? Why?"

Sinclair actually laughed out loud while Tina stomped a tiny foot. "Angry vampires are on their way here to kill you."

"It's hard to get worked up," I said truthfully as my husband bit back another laugh, "when the Ant is breathing over my shoulder. So to speak. And it's not exactly the first time unwelcome guests have been on the way." I turned to Jessica. "Remember homecoming 1996?"

She shuddered. "I never thought you'd get the Dewar's out of the curtains."

"But I guess we'll just have to - "

Bam! Ka-Bam! BAM! BAM! BAM!

"What the - ?" Jessica wondered.

"That would be hordes of the ravenous undead, kicking in the front door," Tina said, dropping the rest of the paperwork and whipping off her glasses. I waited for her to do a Wonder Woman twirl (Wonder Vamp!), but she just looked alert and ready to flee.

Sinclair sighed, looking greatly put upon. But men who have interrupted sex tend to get that look. "Shall we flee, or fight?"

Tina glanced at Jessica, who glared. "Ah. Flee, I think. At least until we know more about this particular threat."

"Don't run off on my account," Jessica warned. But of course, that's exactly why we were choosing flight over fight. We couldn't risk Marc and Jessica's lives until we knew more about what was going on. "I mean it, you guys."

Sinclair ignored her. "Very well. Let's take the tunnel."

Tunnel? We were taking a tunnel? We had the king, the queen, Tina, a former Fiend - the odds were okay, I thought. But Tina had an excellent point - we had a couple of humans to watch out for, too.

Tina led the way to one of the many doors leading to the basement, and I had to jog to keep up. "What? We have a tunnel?"

"Betsy, come on!" Marc said, grabbing an elbow and giving such a yank I nearly fell down the stairs.

"Not without me, you're not," the Ant said triumphantly, and marched (Marched? Couldn't she float?) behind me just as the door closed, leaving all of us in pure darkness.