Undead and Undermined - By MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,47
turned out. “He’s a fucked-up vampire in . . .” The future. My future. “What I mean is, the new timeline . . . there are things wrong with it.” Oh boy, were there ever. “Look, it’s a long story and I come off really bitchy in it. I’m trying to fix things . . . that’s pretty much what it boils down to.”
By the way, Betsy, you didn’t run into Mom in the future, did you? Nice of you to finally realize.
I shoved that away. Mom not being in the middle of that winter wasteland a thousand years from now didn’t mean shit, and now was not the time to freak out. About that, anyway. “Listen, just . . . if Marc ever comes here alone, don’t let him in and keep your cross on.” Mom had several. She had been collecting and wearing them as accessories long before Madonna made it trendy in the 1980s. “At all times have a cross on, okay? And don’t let him in unless he’s with Sinclair or me or . . . Sinclair or me. Unless we’ve talked to you.”
I couldn’t think of any reason the human Marc, our Marc, would come here alone. And I didn’t have to think of a reason for the Marc Thing to show. He was crazier and scarier than a thousand Garretts. We couldn’t even predict the weather, never mind the advance plans of psychos.
“Just protect yourself, and if you think you can’t, or you run into trouble, or even if you can’t sleep because you’ve got the creeps, call me. Or don’t even take time to do that, just hop in your car and come over. Err on the side of caution, got it? There’s tons of room at the mansion. What’s another roommate?”
Mom snorted. She knew that while I liked/loved my roomies, I had preferred living alone.
“I’ve got no idea what happens next,” I fretted. The bucket was nearly empty. Vampires were immune to brain freeze. No wonder people were scared of us. “Which pisses me off, because that’s why I went to hell in the first place. So I could know what happens next!”
“Think that one over, Betsy. There’s a reason Cassandra was both blessed and cursed by Apollo.”
“Duh. Everyone knows that.”
She ignored my bluff. “Cassandra was a princess so beautiful, the sun god Apollo gave her the ability to see the future.”
“And I’m sure, given how the gods liked to run things, especially male gods, that there were zero strings to that ‘gift.’ She certainly wasn’t expected to put out.”
My mother smiled. “Cassandra was afraid, of both him and what he wanted to give her, and refused his advances. So he . . .”
“Turned her into a swan and had sex with her!”
“No, that’s Leda and Zeus. What’s the matter with you? Do you not have a good grasp of Greek mythology in the new timeline? Because the old you—”
“Oh, that’s flattering. The old me. Great.”
“Sorry. The other you from the other timeline knew all sorts of Greek myths.”
“So do I!” I did, dammit. This, this was how rattled I still was. Curse you, Clive! May you be audited twice a year until the end of time. “Look, just run it down for me, okay? I’m on a schedule.”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “Very well. Apollo let her keep his gift, but he fixed it so although she would know the future, no one would believe her until it was too late.”
Ohhhhh. That Cassandra. Right. “What a lovely story. It wasn’t depressing or anything. Thank you so much for sharing it with me.”
“My point, wretched child, is that I think what Apollo did was a good thing. I don’t think we should know too much about the future in general, never mind all the details of our own.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one.”
“Really?” Mom looked as surprised as I’d seen in a while. “That’s curious, I always thought your husband would have—”
“I was thinking of Laura.”
“Yes, I was going to ask you about that. How did she like hell?”
“A lot,” I said glumly. “She’s got wings in hell. Big pretty brown wings. And the first half dozen times she actually made a real effort to use her powers, instead of hiding from them, she did things I think only God should be able to do. What’s she going to be like when she gets good at all that scary stuff?”
“Perhaps you should check the book.”
“Can’t. Laura took it and hid