Undead 11, Undead and Unstable - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,52

many decades?”

I remembered the kid. God, she’d scared the shit out of me. I hadn’t known until then I could see the dead … the real dead, ghosts, not just vampires. I’d been terrified of her. And the kid … she’d just been sad.

“And then you got rid of a serial killer—”

“Laura did that,” I objected. “I was the one cowering in the corner with the last victim. Believe me, we were both trying to figure out where it all went wrong in our lives. Laura’s the one who swung into action.” And then some. I’d nearly thrown up when I saw what she’d left of him. Oh, sure, a serial killer, he had it coming, right?

Nobody had that coming.

“—and you figured out that evil old librarian had kidnapped Sinclair—”

“Okay, that I will take credit for,” I admitted. “I did eventually realize in between my search for the perfect wedding dress who had stolen my king, and after finding a caterer, I got around to killing her eventually.”

“For which I was grateful, my queen.” He said it with a straight face, but I could sense the smile lurking beneath. I gave him a later-for-you look.

“So one cool thing among dozens of incompetent fuckups.”

“And you didn’t let the werewolves kill all of us when Antonia died. The Werewolf Antonia,” Jessica added because, stop me if you’ve heard this, there were two hell-bound Antonias in my life. “In fact, the WIC kind of liked you. Werewolf in Charge,” she added before Marc could ask. “And then you got the devil to let Antonia be alive again!”

Well. Yeah.

“See?”

Maybe.

“Don’t forget, pretty much the first thing you did was kill that Nostro creep … how bad was that guy? And you killed him and took over.”

“It was a little more complicated than that,” I said, “and I wasn’t alone, Sinclair and Tina—”

“And you totally saved Garrett.”

“Well, yeah—”

“And you saved Dickie’s life that time when all those witches were gonna—”

“Um, I didn’t.” Witches? I’d never met a witch in my life, except my stepmother. “Look, guys, I appreciate what you’re doing, but all you’ve proven is that I should seek psychiatric help, not that I should be running the joint. By which I mean the world, eventually.”

“And you tried to save the other Fiends after you saved Garrett. It wasn’t your fault they—”

“Were disgusted with my lame leadership and turned on me in rightful fury?”

“Well, you found out your sister was the Antichrist,” the Antichrist reminded me. “And you took that pretty well.”

If memory served, I’d had a giant tantrum when I found out she was two inches taller and ten times more beautiful than I was, but what the heck. They were trying to be nice. It wasn’t their fault they were completely totally utterly wrong when they thought I sometimes maybe knew what I was doing.

“I think we should get out of this kitchen,” Jessica announced. “Am I the only one who feels like we’ve been in here half a day?”

“You have to admit, it’s pretty interesting.”

“Nope. I don’t.”

Laura shrugged. “Okay, but there’s just one other thing I want to get cleared up…”

“Aw, shit!” Jessica sat up straight and put a hand on her belly, looking puzzled. “What was that?”

“Gas? You’ve eaten … um … everything, I think.” Multiple smoothies on top of the chocolate chips on top of the grapes on top of the Peanut Buster Parfait on top of the Filet-O-Fish on top of the Cinnabon with extra frosting.

“I don’t think it’s gas…” She rubbed her stomach and frowned.

“It’s absolutely gas. You said yourself you’re not due until next summer.”

“I thought you were due next month,” Marc commented.

“It depends on where I am,” Jessica explained, like that would make sense to any of us. She must have been getting light-headed from, I dunno, not enough carbs? Too many carbs?

“Owwwww! Guys, I think … I think I might be in labor.”

“No you’re not. You are not! This is not a wacky premise for a Thursday night sitcom. This is a mansion full of the damned and the pregnant, and you are not in labor!”

“Oh, shit, here comes another … ahhhhh … son of a bitch.” Marc was getting to his feet. And I was getting into my ninth panic attack of the week. “Betsy, this is labor. These are labor pains. I am in labor, which will eventually result in—aaaahhh, cripes!—a baby.”

“Well, stop it! Stop it right now.” Once again Jessica was trying to make it all about her. The woman had no