“You can’t pass the buck that easily,” Cain retorted. “You were the leader; she was your responsibility.”
“She was a grown woman, you nitwit! You’re making it sound like she was my kindergarten student.”
“You’re still passing the buck,” someone else said, a werewolf I hadn’t met.
“And you’re all conveniently overlooking the fact that not only did you practically drive her to my front door, I didn’t see any of you assholes ever come to visit.”
“She was her own person,” that same werewolf said.
“Well, which is it, dipshit? Either she was a grown woman who could take care of herself, or she needed me to shelter and protect her. You can’t have it both ways.”
“We’re getting a bit far afield,” Sinclair began, but I bulldozed right over him.
“She didn’t get a single phone call the entire time she lived with us. The only time anyone bothered to show up was after she missed her weekly military check-?in, whatever it was. When your info pipeline into the vampires suddenly got cut off, then you showed up.”
A furious gabble of voices rose, and rose, and I had to shout to be heard over the din. “Not to mention, not to mention, you guys clearly didn’t want much to do with her while she was alive. So all this postmortem concern is a pile of crap. You guys look stupid trying to come off all morally outraged when it was your fault she was living in my house in the first place.”
The babble of voices got louder, but I was able to pick out one comment from the din: “The bottom line is that she died in your service, so it’s your responsibility.”
“If they’re even telling the truth about how she died,” someone else said. “How can we ever know? She and her mate don’t have a scent. They can make up any story they like and we’d never know the difference.”
“Oh, really? Okay. Here’s a story, fuck-?o. Once upon a time, there was a werewolf who could predict the future who lived on Cape Cod. And all her supposed friends and family went out of their way to avoid her because she wasn’t exactly Miss Congeniality.” I ought to know; I used to be one. “And one day she moved away and never came back, and nobody in her Pack gave a rat’s ass. The end.”
More babbling. The din rose and rose. Shouts. Threats. Michael trying to get everyone to calm down. Sinclair rubbing the bridge of his nose. Sara looking like an increasingly nervous tennis match observer. BabyJon crying.
It was stupid, really. Stupid to forget how fast they were. Stupid to pick a fight in a room full of werewolves. I heard the crash of a chair splintering, and turned just in time to get stabbed in the heart with a chair leg.
That was pretty much when the lights went out.
Chapter 26
Dude,
I swear my intentions were good. But I vastly overestimated Laura’s state of mind and underestimated the rapidity with which things could deteriorate. And when Tina started having trouble sending and receiving e-?mails, I honestly didn’t make the connection until it was too late.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
More Satanists showed up and, instead of hiding from them or being embarrassed by them, Laura started briskly giving them orders. She spent a lot of time on the web finding charitable organizations where she could send the devil worshippers, and soon there were Satanists all over the metro area, cheerfully raising money for the homeless or participating in Meals on Wheels.
I admit, dude, I was proud of myself. I didn’t go into medicine for the money, obviously, so helping people always put me in a good mood. And Laura, for all her advantages, needed me as much as any patient. It’s just too damn bad I was too busy patting myself on the back to notice what was really going on.
Tina came and went, always on her own schedule, and I knew better than to ask her what she was up to. Mostly because it was none of my business, but also because she was as closed-?mouthed about her work as I was about mine.
There had been a bad crack-?up on I-35—no fatalities, thank God—so I didn’t get home until about 2:30 A.M. I headed straight for the kitchen (I had finally gone grocery shopping, so there was actual food in the fridge), where I found Tina sitting at the counter with her laptop, muttering to herself.
“Hey.”
“Good morning,” she said, not looking up.
“Everything okay?”
“Mmmm.” Then, thoughtfully, “You had a busy night, I see.”
Ah. Right. I had found it prudent to change out of my scrubs the moment I got home—or, even better, before I left the hospital. It didn’t matter if the blood on me was ten minutes old or ten hours. They could always smell it.
“Car crash.”
“Mmmm.”
I set about making myself a tuna sandwich while Tina pecked away at her laptop. She seemed a little off— annoyed, maybe, or distracted.
“Everything okay?”
“Hmmm?” She looked around as if noticing me for the first time. “Oh. Yes, everything’s fine. I’m getting a poor wireless signal. My e-?mails to His Majesty keep bouncing.”
“So call.”
“I have.”
“Oh. You don’t think anything’s wrong, do you?”
“I’m sure they’re fine.”
I believed her. But I also knew what was bugging her. Tina lived for Betsy and Sinclair, the way most people lived for racing cars or marathons. When she couldn’t keep in touch, she got antsy. Not unlike a drug addict going through withdrawal, to be perfectly blunt.
“Betsy answered my e-?mail,” I volunteered. It was a typical Betsy missive: bitchy and shrill. She really hated e-?mail acronyms. The woman should really catch up to this century’s lingo. “I’m sure she’s already won over the werewolves and they’re somewhere partying like it’s 1999.”
Tina slapped the laptop closed and smiled at me. “I’m sure you’re right. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go out.”
To hunt. And feed. She was too polite to say so, of course. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand in her way. A grumpy vampire is a homicidal vampire. Hungry ones were even worse.
“Heck,” I called after her, “they’ve probably declared it National Betsy Day out on Cape Cod. You know she can win over just about anybody.”
Yes, dude, I know. In retrospect that was beyond ignorant. But how was I supposed to know they were going to kill her?
Chapter 27
I opened my eyes and saw a ring of tense faces above me. The first few times this had happened to me I’d been badly startled, but now I was getting used to being killed and then brought back to life.
“Ow,” I commented, sitting up. There was a sizeable hole in my blouse and suit jacket. Not to mention an unconscious werewolf three feet away. And BabyJon was still howling. “You’d better give him to me.”
Wide-?eyed, Sara knelt beside me and obliged. BabyJon hushed at once, giving me a chance to take a good look around.
“Oh, man,” I said, eyeing the werewolf who, I assumed, had driven a chair leg into my heart. “Sinclair, what did you do to him?”
“I only hit him once,” my husband replied in that faux-?casual tone that didn’t fool me one bit.
