the furnace kicked on, which sounded at the moment like a jet plane taking off from inside my skull.
Startled, everyone twitched or looked in my direction. “Sorry,” I said. “I just remembered that 30 Rock is a rerun this week.”
Stephanie looked more confused than before, but that was all right. I noticed neither Sinclair nor Tina took a seat, so I did – straight across from our visitor. “You came by yourself,” I said, “that seems pretty obvious now. Sorry about Tina jumping on you like that. She had a flashback to the Civil War.” I ignored Sinclair's snort. “So what's on your mind?”
“And why should we think anything you say is the truth?”
I shot a look at Sinclair – that sounded a little too much like Nick to suit me.
“I don't – I can't prove I'm telling the truth,” she said, a little desperately. “I guess the others could be parked a mile away, and this is step one in some elaborate, I dunno, plan? But it's not. We're – we're not well organized.”
“You looked pretty organized when you hurt our friends,” I said mildly. “They had to go to the hospital.” A minor exaggeration – once Nick's nosebleed had cleared up, he'd been fine. It was a measure of his contempt for our lifestyle that he hadn't thought twice about strange vampires punching him in the face and then attacking us. It was only when I'd given him the gory Fiend details that he had realized exactly what had happened – and what it meant for Jessica. “We were pretty bummed about that.”
“Well. The others are – they're mad at you.”
“But not you,” Sinclair said, soooo silkily.
“I am. I mean, I was. How could you – I dunno.” She had an interesting way of speaking... not slowly, exactly, and maybe it was the accent. But it was almost like she was searching for each word and found it almost every time, in the unused corners of her mind. I reminded myself that last week she'd been batshit crazy. No idea who she was, where she was, what she was.
“Did you guys sort of 'wake up' all at once, then?”
Stephanie looked, if possible, even more uncomfortable. Clearly not a subject she wanted to discuss. Too bad.
“Well, each time Garrett came we felt – I dunno, better? We felt more. And then, a few days ago, it was like – like I'd been asleep for a long time, only now, right now I knew, I remembered I was Stephanie. I don't...” She shook her head. “I don't know who killed me. And I couldn't tell you where I grew up, or the name of my first boyfriend, or even where I went to middle school. I remember some things – my first job out of high school, and the name of the man I almost married, but – mostly I remember the blood. Drinking all of that... that dead blood. For years and years and years.” She cleared her throat and worked her jaws like she wanted to spit, but didn't dare.
I glanced at Sinclair and Tina, then took the plunge. “The thing is, Stephanie, it was kind of our only option.”
“Once we took killing you off the table,” Sinclair said pleasantly.
“I didn't want to kill you guys, but I couldn't set you free, either.”
“Why?”
“Oh, boy.” I thought about the best way to explain this. “Stephanie, you have no idea how scary you guys were.” Was scary the right word? I probably shouldn't have told her that. Fuck it. “The few times you got out, you ripped people just to pieces. There was no way we could let you have live blood. You would have killed the donor every time.”
“Oh. Yes, I see that now.” Except she sounded like she didn't, not exactly. “I should go now.”
“You don't believe me,” I said.
Her eyes betrayed her emotion: trapped. I had seen through her lie, and now all she could imagine was that she was in fantastic trouble.
“Stephanie, I'm not saying I've treated you and the others perfectly. I think I had the right idea when I began to feed Garrett, regardless of the danger. And I think Garrett had the right idea, when he began to feed all of you. I'm glad – ”
“Glad?!”
“Yes, glad, Tina, that he did so. And I hope you and the others can forgive me, and see that I really did start the awakening for all of you. Just not fast enough, or well enough. I can do better, if you give me the chance.”
I warned Sinclair, with a look, from saying a word. Stephanie was plainly trying to digest what I had told her. For all I knew, she was still trying to understand some of the words. Or maybe she had one of those 1970s game shows playing in a loop in her mind (“Things you kill. Things you maim. Things you wish you could drink instead of blood! YES, YOU'VE WON THE $64,000 PYRAMID!”).
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she finally said. “I have to get back. The others will miss me. They'd kill me if they knew I was here.”
“Then why are you here?” Tina asked.
“To find out more. To learn if what the others say is true.”
“What do the others say?”
“That we are the queen's wolves, bred for her wars, and the foreshadow of what the world will become under her reign.”
We all took that in for a moment. It was so horrible, so preposterous... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
“Perhaps you could educate your colleagues,” Sinclair suggested, “as to the true nature of this queen.”
“Well, I would try to talk to them, but it wouldn't work.” Stephanie shrugged. “And I couldn't try too hard, or they might kill me.”
I was trying not to gape at her, and failing. In my efforts to apologize and see her point of view, I had missed how fearful she still was... and how undependable an ally she would be.
“You have overstayed your welcome,” Sinclair said, which felt a bit harsh to me, but I had no idea how to correct him.
“All right, but...” She licked her lips. “I am afraid we will come back soon.”
“Not if you obey your queen,” Tina pointed out.
“I cannot stop them.”
“If you cannot stop them,” Sinclair pointed out, “then you cannot help us. And if you cannot help us, we cannot let you go back.”
I stared at Sinclair, trying to see where this logic train was going to end. Nowhere happy, I told myself.
“We cannot let you stay here, any more easily than we can let you go back. The effort to watch over you securely, combined with the potential costs if we fail, lead to only one solution. Tina,” he ended calmly, “kill her.”
Chapter 32
“No no no no no no no!” Only just in time did I leap from my seat and jump in front of the cringing Stephanie, who had shoved herself so far back she had nearly disappeared into the couch.
Tina slammed into me hard enough to make me stagger – she'd launched herself the moment Sinclair got “kill” out of his mouth. Like she'd been ready the whole time. Like she was waiting for it.
“Bad, Tina! Down!”
“Elizabeth, do not – ”
“Keep her away from me!” Stephanie squealed, scrambling off the couch.
I managed to grab Tina by the shoulders and hold her at arm's length. At least she wasn't trying to kick me. “You guys, you guys! We are not killing her, she came in peace, and she's leaving the same way.”
“Like hell,” Tina managed through gritted teeth.
“Don't listen to her! You can go. Good-?bye, Stephanie. I'm sorry about what happened to you.”
“Do not,” Tina snarled, “apologize. To that thing.”
