he almost dropped it. Ah-ha! So this was a potent weapon in both timelines. Excellent.
One of the worried faces above mine was Garrett’s. He looked like he did in my timeline . . . sort of rumpled and fierce, like he could dart off at any moment and his clothes wouldn’t hinder him. He was too thin—I always wanted to hook him up to a milkshake IV—and he was sort of flinch-ey.
It’s hard to describe . . . he came off as high strung yet calm. Like someone who freaked out at the thought of speaking in public but didn’t mind being in a choir. Someone who froze at the thought of back-to-school shopping but didn’t mind going to the dentist. Someone who didn’t fret about what to wear, but always wore clean clothes.
Garrett was technically an old man—he was an old-timey actor from 1940s Hollywood; how was that for retro?—but his swimmer’s build and blond, shoulder-length hair were more Playgirl than AARP.
“I made you afraid,” he commented, gazing down at me with eyes that were mild as chocolate, yet I remembered times when they could glare with fury.
“You sure did. You’ve got a lot of nerve being alive.” I could hardly believe my eyes. And seeing he had a canvas bag hanging off one shoulder that was stuffed with balls of yarn and bulging with several sizes of knitting needles, I wanted to laugh and give thanks. Garrett, the Fiend formerly known as George, could crochet a mean baby’s blanket in this reality as well.
It’s corny, but as I reached up to touch his dear face, I felt blessed. I hadn’t gotten a chance to know him before he died. Hadn’t bothered, was more like it. And to be honest, my sadness after his suicide had been more guilt than anything else. But I would make up for that. Hadn’t I just been thinking about how great it was to get a do-over in Nickie/Dickie’s case, how in real life that almost never happened? Here were two, not even five minutes apart.
“I’m so happy to see you. Is—is Antonia . . . ?”
“Yes. She died protecting you. But don’t worry, Majesty.”
Worry? Was he kidding? I don’t think I’d ever been less worried in my life. “Okay.”
“You told me your plan.”
“I did? How awesome of me. And I know, I’m sure, it was a wonderful plan, a great plan, my most genius plan ever. A plan I was brilliant to think up and you were privileged to hear.” I cleared my throat and glared at Jessica and Marc, who were rolling their eyes. “D’you mind reminding me what my plan is?”
“Oh, that. Sure. You and I and the Antichrist are going to hell to get my wife back.”
And here it came. Stroke number two.
CHAPTER SIX
“It’s not over yet,” my dead stepmother warned. There hadn’t been time to work in a halfway decent insult (“Why can’t you go straight to hell like any other decent God-fearing—”) before I was shoved so hard, I smacked into the wall and fell.
The impact forced a shower of plaster to rain down on me. There was the deafening boom of a pistol being fired several times over my head. We were trapped in the doorway like ants in a straw. Nobody had any room.
And from that, worse was to come: “Why wasn’t she getting up?”
“Twenty-two longs, perfect for the job . . . They ricocheted around her skull but didn’t exit . . .”
“But she’s a werewolf!”
“Her brains are all over the floor. There will be no coming back from this.”
“But she’s—she’s Antonia! She can’t be—I mean, shot?”
“No, she can’t be. You’re wrong. She’s not.”
“She jumped in front of me. She saved me.”
“Everybody saves you.”
And that last flashback quote was still echoing in my head, the way they get all echoey: saves you, saves you, saves you.
All that was still thrumming around in my gray matter when the last of the expositional flashback clicked home.
Then we heard the splintering crash come from the stairwell.
I stood, trembling at the silence, and peered into the foyer. I choked back a sob at what Garrett had done to himself.
The regretful Fiend-turned-vampire had kicked the banister off a stretch of curved stairs in the foyer, leaving a dozen or so of the rails exposed and pointing up like spears. Then he had climbed to the second floor to a spot overlooking the stairs and swan dived onto the rails, which had gone through him like teeth.
“See?” my dead stepmother