you do is wondrous. I'll support you as long as you—”
“Can hold out?”
“—decide to stay with this course of action,” he corrected himself.
“Thanks. For a puke, you can be pretty nice sometimes.”
“Crumbs from the lady's table,” he said with grim good humor, and got up to find the overnight bag.
Later, we made love again, slowly and tenderly, sliding against each other and purring like the big predators we were. And for a whole night, I didn't think about BabyJon or Sophie or Alonzo, or even Jessica.
Chapter 14
“There's a zombie in the attic,” Cathie said, and I nearly yakked up my gum. She was a ghost—literally, the spirit of a dead person—and as she spoke she floated through the wall, into my bedroom. Cathie had been a tall woman, almost as tall as me, with honey-?tinted hair pulled back in a perpetual ponytail, a green sweatshirt, and black stretch pants. Barefoot. For eternity! At least her feet were attractive. They were little and pretty, with unpolished but nicely shaped toenails.
“This is no time for your quirky sense of humor.”
I snapped as I lugged a pile of near-?empty journals into my closet. It never failed—I'd buy a new journal, write like a madwoman for ten pages, then lose total interest in the process. Three months later, I'd start the whole process all over again. I think I just liked buying new notebooks.
“Well, well! You seem touchy! What's the matter, didn't get laid last night?”
It was scary how much she sounded like me sometimes. Maybe that's why she totally got on my nerves. “That's not the problem at all. I just hate it when you dart out of solid walls to tell me ridiculous stories.”
“Well, it's not like I have a choice,” she said crossly, floating through my bathroom door and then back out again. “After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. You'd walk through walls, too, if you could. And it's not like I can ring a doorbell to get your attention. As for the zombie—is it my fault you're in denial about reanimated corpses?”
“I'ma reanimated corpse,” I said glumly. “Let me deal with that. There's no such thing as zombies anyway.”
Cathie stuck her head into the wall (probably just to creep me out, since she knew it drove me crazy), pulled it back out, and said, “Why do I bother?” and stuck it back in. “Where is everybody?”
“Sinclair isn't up yet, ditto Tina, Jessica's at an appointment, Marc's at work, Toni and Garrett haven't left her bedroom since she got back, and Iwas enjoying my privacy.”
“Too bad. I'm bored, and you guys are exciting company.”
She'd been killed by a serial killer a few months ago, and had come to me for help. Unlike other ghosts who came to me for help, once she got what she wanted, she stayed. I wasn't a vampire queen, I was a damn soul collector. Nobody left; they all just chained themselves to me like eternal chattel. But they were all too fucking sassy for the phenomenon to be nattering.
“I bring good news from the underworld,” she was booming in a terrible Vincent Price imitation. “All's quiet on the Midwestern Front.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, there have been ghosts, but I've been helping them.”
“You've been helping ghosts who seek my favor, without even telling me? So you're like my—”
“You know those Hollywood assistants who handle all the producer's problems so she can concentrate on making movies? That's what I do now. I help the little people.”
“You want to make movies?” She had lost me. And so soon in the conversation, too.
“No, dumb shit, I'm like the assistant who tends to the little people.”
I felt my eyes bulge. “I don't think you should call them that.”
“I'm doing you a favor, okay? Usually these ghosts just want someone to listen, maybe point them in the right direction. You've got higher priorities right now, I gather.”
“Well, thanks.” I must not have sounded convincing, because she glared at me. “No, really. Thanks. The last thing I need this week is another needy ghost dropping by for favors.”
“You're welcome. It's actually kind of nice. They can see me and talk to me, just like you. I mean, look at my options! I have to talk to you, or I can talk to them.”
“Well, you've made the right choice,” I said with faux enthusiasm.
“Don't get too down. At least your hot, hunky boyfriend can see you and touch you. Your friends can see you and touch you. What have I got? A distracted vampire with a long to-?do list ahead of me and my problems.”
“Cathie, that's not true!” I couldn't believe I was getting a lecture from a woman in a green sweatshirt. “I solved your problem right away, didn't I? The bad guy's dead, if memory serves.”
“Yeah,” she said, cheering up. “Your sister cracked his head open like an egg.”
“So what do you want from me now?”
“I dunno. But there's got to be more thanthis .” She sulkily floated through the wall.
“Tell me about it!” I shouted after her.
Chapter 15
Because things weren't awful enough, an hour later Marjorie the scary librarian popped by and chimed the bell. I put my foot down: no. Just because people—
“Very old, very powerful vampires,” Sinclair interrupted.
—stopped by without proper planning or scheduling—
“She says it's an emergency. You want her to plan her emergencies?”
—didn't mean I had to drop everything and rush to the parlor.
“No one was in the parlor,” Marjorie announced, pushing open the swinging door into the kitchen, “so I let myself in.”
Tina followed closely on the librarian's heels with a pained, helpless expression. I gave Sinclair a look.
“Ah,” he began. “Marjorie. So good to see you again. But perhaps now—”
“Majesty,” the elder vampire said, dipping her head. “Very rude to barge in, I know; but what I have is extremely important.”
“Of course it is,” I sighed. “A nice new crisis you're gonna drop in my lap.”
“Are you suggesting, Majesty, that I should let all important matters run their course without your intervention?” She smiled a little and fiddled with her sweater cuffs.
No, just call first.
Marjorie looked around the kitchen approvingly. The big wooden table in the center had plenty of chairs for all of us. More than enough to hold Sinclair, Tina, Jessica, and me. Everybody else was—heck, I didn't know, what was I, the fucking family calendar?
Marjorie was a severe-?looking woman of ordinary height, dark hair 'with gray wings at the temples, and sensible shoes. She ran the vampire library in the warehouse district—the biggest, I had been told, in the Midwest.
She tried to keep tabs on all vampires, recently turned or otherwise, kept their mortgages and bills paid up (in the case of new vampires, that was especially nice… if they ever came back to themselves they would find a home and their credit rate unaltered), kept nice neat computer files (or, in earlier ages, carefully maintained paper files) on everyone she could. Howdid she do that? No one knew.
Anyway, she had been around before Nostro's time (Nostro = deceased disgusting despot), and before Nostro's sire's time, too. She had little interest in explicit displays of power, which was probably good news for the
