“The. Full. Moon. We. Will. Get. Hairy.”
“Cut that out. Sorry. The werewolf I lived— live — with doesn't do that.”
“Right. But the rest of us will, except Jeannie, who's human, and Lara, who's too young.”
Dimly, I heard, “Come on! Lemmee talk to her.”
“Shut up, or I'm calling your wife. Betsy? Are you there?”
“Yes,” I said, my patience stretched almost beyond endurance. “So you'll have to leave town?”
“Not at all. We'll stay.”
“You think the good people of Minneapolis won't notice werewolves running around on Nicollet Avenue?”
“Give us a little credit, Betsy. In fact, we might be able to find Antonia and her mate on all fours. Our senses are much, much keener when we run with the moon.”
“Well, do that. Run along with the moon. Have fun. Keep me posted.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“Of course you do.”
“Would it be all right if my wife and cub stayed with you during the first night of the full moon? This is a strange city, and I prefer not to leave them unguarded while my Pack members and I go hunting.”
Dimly in the background: “I don't need a damned babysitter, Michael!”
“Uh, maybe you better run that one by the little woman first.”
“I will pretend,” he chuckled, “you didn't just call her that. May we impose?”
I sighed. I don't get these people. “Sure. Be nice to have some company. But Michael?”
“Yes?”
“Tell her to leave the gun at home.”
“Well, she'll keep it holstered,” he said, sounding almost shocked.
“When should I expect you?”
“Two days, maybe sooner. We'll call before coming by.”
“Oh, I can't wait. I'm all atingle,” I muttered, hanging up.
Derik was right. Definitely a cultural thing.
Chapter 26
“I think this is a sign from God,' my half sister, Laura, told me after she took a sip of her orange pekoe.
I managed not to groan out loud. She'd swung by for tea, showing up about twenty minutes after I woke up (being the queen, I usually woke up around 4:00 p.m. or so, and could go outside without being sauteed).
As usual, she was indecently beautiful: about my height, with long buttercup-?blond hair caught up in a sensible ponytail. No makeup. Tan capris and a faded blue oxford shirt. Navy blue Keds, one black sock and one navy blue sock. Big, gorgeous blue eyes framed by lashes that you usually only saw on little boys.
I'd given serious thought to not inviting her to my wedding, because, bottom line, she looked better on her worst day than I did on my best. Fortunately, I quickly came to my senses. Well. Six or seven days later, anyway.
“Really, I think God is trying to tell you something,” the daughter of the devil went on. (Have I mentioned? She rebelled against her mother, the Lady of Lies, by being a faithful churchgoer). “You should take it as a sign. I was praying over it just last night.”
“Laura, what the hell are you talking about?”
She frowned. “Don't talk like that. I'm saying that perhaps your wedding to the king of the vampires wasn't meant to be. He could have picked any other time to leave you, but he chose now?”
“That's the thing, Laura.” I ignored my own tea. I was ragingly, crazily thirsty, and I didn't give a damn. “I don't think he left me. I think someone snatched him.”
“But why? Why would someone do that? No, I think you should cancel your wedding and be thankful he didn't decide to pull this nonsense after you'd been married a hundred years. By then, you'd have been emotionally committed.”
'Laura, he didn't run out on me. Even Tina agrees.'
“Oh, her.” Laura waved Sinclair's most loyal friend away with her unmanicured hand. “Another vampire. What do you expect her to say? You're always complaining that she's more loyal to him than you.”
That was true, I had confided that to Laura. I never dreamed she'd toss it back in my face, though. And it was getting real hard to hold on to my temper. “She's worried about him. So am I.”
“She's a vampire. She lies.”
“I'm a vampire.”
“Yes, well. I know you're doing the best you can.”
“When you said you wanted to come over to help me figure out what to do, this was your big plan?”
“I'm helping,” she said, reaching for my hand. I snatched it away “You need friends now, Betsy. Besides your mother and a sick Jessica, I'm the only one left who really cares about you.”
“Laura. Darling? You're so full of shit your eyes are brown.”
She stiffened. “Don't talk like that.”
“Then cut the shit. Jeez! Did you really come to my house—”
“Jessica's house.”
“—to encourage me to forget about the man I love? Who's either dead or captured? To blow off Tina, who spends all her time trying to make our lives as comfortable and murder-?free as she can?”
“God doesn't want you to throw in with the minions of Satan,” she sniffed. “Don't ignore the signs.”
“What the hell do you know about God, you murdering psychotic spawn of Satan?”
She was on her feet. So was I. “Don't talk to me like that!” she shrilled, our faces only inches apart.
“Or what? You'll give me shitty, insensitive advice?”
“It's not my fault that creature tricked our father, birthed me, then went back to Hell!”
“Well, it's not my fault I'm a vampire who fell in love with a vampire!”
“You can control who you live and—and fornicate with. I can't control my bloodline.”
I felt my eyes bulge. “Are we really playing Who's The Biggest Sinner?”
“You chose to throw your lot in with him,” she went on. “I didn't choose what happened to me.”
“Oh ho! The prude is rearing her ugly head, If not the wedding that's bugging you, it's the living in sin.”
“It's a sign,” she repeated stubbornly. “You're blind not to see it.”
A chilling thought occurred to me. “Laura. Honey? Did you snatch my fiance? Did you stick him with that light-?show sword of yours?”
“I did not .”
“I've seen your temper tantrums before, Laura, so don't get up too high on that horse. People usually die when you get pissed.”
“They do not! Not real people, anyway. And you're one to talk, you have to drink blood to keep walking around. You—and your kind—are abominations!”
“At least our socks match!”
“That's it!” She threw up her hands. “I'm leaving. I might have known you would spurn perfectly good advice.”
“Spurn this,” I said, and gave her the finger.
She looked like she'd found a minnow in her cereal, which was probably close to the expression on my own face. She turned, and I grabbed her shoulder and shoved her across the kitchen. She bounced off the wall, hit the floor, but was back on her feet in half a second. Just in time for me to grab her by the throat and slam her against the wall.
That's when I noticed the bright light just below my left eye. Her sword. She could call it up simply by force of will. It was made of Hellfire, and turned vampires into towers of flame, and then ash. Where it went when she wasn't using it, even she didn't know.
“Let go,” she grated.
