“They know it won't.”
“It won't?”
“Look at it from their point of view, Majesty,” said Tina. “They are not remotely sure of your power base. They wait almost a year before coming to pay tribute. While they are here, you show evidence of fasting, prayer, powerful allies—vampire and human—live through an attack by a vampire killer—”
“Delk wasn't trying to kill me,” I protested. “He was just having a really shitty day.”
“—publish your life story, maintain a cop and a doctor as blood-?sheep—”
“The hell!”
“—kill a zombie sent here for obviously sinister reasons—”
I'd told them about Zombiefest in the car on the way to Alonzo's hotel. They had both been flabbergasted. Both denied ever seeing a zombie in their long, long lives. “We don't know if it was sent, or just wandered in.”
“And, when presented with a moral dilemma, you arranged for the death of a contemporary.”
“But I didn't!”
“From their point of view,” she reminded me.
“Well, how dumb are they?” Imuttered .
“Frankly,” Sinclair said, smiling, “I am surprised they did not skulk out of town quite a bit earlier.”
“So—you're happy? You're happy that those guys think I'm a royal murdering jerk.”
“You should be very happy they think that—if you can bear it, Miss Congeniality.”
I stuck a finger in his face. “I told you about that privately. It's private. Private information!Not for sharing with the class!”
“You should never have told Jessica, then,” Tina piped up, “because she told everyone that story.”
“What?” Jessica cried when I looked at her. “You were in the Burnsville paper, for God's sake. It's not like it was a Pentagon secret.”
I turned to Sinclair. “So do we ask Sophie and Liam to leave? Banish them?”
“They banished themselves,” Sinclair said quietly. “They did not return to their home in Embarrass; no one has seen them in days. Too bad; I have questions.”
“Questions like what?”
“Like how a farmer of modest means could have killed one of the oldest, most powerful vampireson the planet.”
“A classic assassination,” Tina pointed out. “He just walked up to him and—well. Alonzo was distracted, apparently. Perhaps Liam got close to him with a lie—I'll be your driver tonight, orders from the Queen, she's the one who had me call. Something. Anything.”
“And he isn't a farmer,” I said. “He lives in a small town, on a farm, but he doesn't work the land. He's retired from the Air Force, Sophie told me.” I nearly groaned as I rememberedwhat she had told me. “Where he used to teach small arms.”
“Small arms?”
“Handguns,” Tina clarified. “Hmm. In hindsight, someone should have been watching those two.”
“I guess I thought Sophie would just wait around for—”What? For me to make a move? For justice ? “Indefinitely,” I finished. “I should have known none of this would sit well with Liam. And he wouldn't think killing Sophie's killer—I mean, I don't get the idea that it's going to be weighing heavy on his mind, you know?”
“Did killing Nostro weigh heavily on yours?” Sinclair asked.
I shook my head; if he was looking for answers, he had the wrong girl. “I'm so fucking thirsty right now,” I admitted, “it's hard to get worked up about anything.”
Jessica edged away.
“I don't think you have to worry,” Tina teased. “You smell so bland and tasteless right now.”
“Hey, that's right!” She brightened. “Vampire repellant.”
“You've always been repellant,” I told her gently.
“Oh, that reminds me. We're redoing the parlor—”
“The second one?”
“No, the first. All the foot traffic in there just reminds me how awful the wallpaper is. Anyway, once the walls were stripped the workmen found something really interesting.”
“Interesting how? Interesting bad? Termites? What?”
“Come and see,” she invited.
I followed her, groaning. What fresh hell was this? Couldn't I ever get a break? And why was Jess even bothering me with this stuff? She knew I was bored to death by anything having to do with the house; not to mention, if there was a real problem it would be her, not me, who would have to take care of it financially.
“Whaaat?” I whined, following her into the parlor.
“Surprise!” a dozen people yelled back. I stared; there was a big happy birthday swag on the far wall; the place was full of multicolored helium balloons, and people were throwing confetti at me. The walls, needless to say, were not stripped at all. Lying bitch.
“You'd think it would be harder to fool a vampire,” my mother was saying, a colorful conical hat perched incongruously in her white hair. “But no.”
“If the vampire is Betsy,” Sinclair said, coming up and putting an arm around me, “it is not so difficult.”
“Shut up. Jeez, you guys! I said, I said no parties.” I was trying not to grin like a chimp. Aw! They'd gone to all this trouble. Balloons everywhere. Streamers. The aforementioned swag. A big table at the far end full of all kinds of pop and wine and even sandwiches. And a big cake at the end—double layer, chocolate frosting. If I knew Jessica's maniac attention to detail, the inside of the cake would be chocolate, the layers filled with chocolate buttercream. Hopefully someone had a blender nearby and could toss a piece in for me.
There was also a gallon of chocolate ice cream in a tub of ice. Now that Icould have, once I mixed it with some milk and made it into a shake.
“Well, I can't stay,” the Ant was saying, giving my mom a narrow-?eyed look of (mature!) distaste. “I only came to drop the baby off.” The baby had gotten hold of his birthday hat and was busily chewing on the end of it. I wondered how he'd like chocolate cake. How could I slip him some? It would blow all the circuits in his little head. And the kid would love it. Hee!
“I'll take him. Please, Mrs. Taylor? It's Betsy's special night.”
“Oh, well, uh.” The Ant looked flustered; BabyJon had only spent the night at home and, more and more frequently, my house. “Well, Laura, if you don't mind. He can be a handful.”
“Oh, it's no trouble.” She bent down and scooped him out of his car seat. “I'd love to have him overnight!” She took the hat away from him and he wailed. She whipped a bottle (where had she been keeping it? Her pocket?) into his mouth and the wail was shut off as he sucked energetically.
“Sorry I'm late,” Detective Nick said, rushing into the room. I was amused to see him out of breath. “Did I miss the part where everyone yells surprise and she freaks out? I love that part.”
Honey, you should have seen me last night.
“I ran from the car,” he was saying apologetically to Jessica. “Sorry—got hung up at work.”
“Hey, you're here. Have some cake.” Jessica hugged him, and over her head Sinclair shot me a look. I knew what he was thinking: Nick hadn't been in the room when my mom had made her ill-?conceived comment about vampires. So he missed it, so he was still fooled. Or he was still fooling us.
An issue for another time. The larger concern: the Ant wasn't leaving. She and Laura were burbling over BabyJon and the Ant actually took her coat off. Weird!
Further proof that Laura's devilish charm worked on anybody, no matter how freakish or awful.
“Your father couldn't make it,” my mom said through tight lips. “He's sorry.” Wow, if I had a dollar for every time I'd heard that growing up—wait a minute. I think Sinclairdid .
“It's fine.” I meant it. It would be just too weird to have my dad there, too, along with—
Let's see, there was Nick. Jessica and Tina. Sinclair, Marc. The Ant, BabyJon. Cathie—yes, she had just floated in, and was waving to me across the room and talking to another ghost, a much older woman who kept pointing at me and gesturing urgently No doubt a problem Cathie could handle herself, as she had suggested before.
Marjorie the librarian, scarfing up the free wine. Toni and Garrett. No Sophie and Liam, of course, but I
