Meanwhile Stephanie was halfway out the door. “Thankyouforseeingmegoodbye.”
I let go of Tina, and we all listened to the rapidly retreating footfalls.
“Soft,” was my husband's verdict. “Much too soft. Even now. Hmm.”
“And you're too hard,” I shot back with my own judgment. That's right – two could play the judge-?and-?jury game! “And too stupid. And don't be siccing Tina on people, like she's your own personal pit bull!”
“But I am,” she replied at the exact moment Sinclair said, “But she is.”
“ 'Kill her,' my God! Haven't you ever heard of a flag of truce? These Fiends are growing. Maybe they can grow emotions beyond hate and fear. Maybe they can become... like Garrett. Like us. Why is that so hard for you two to see?”
They'd flinched when I'd broken the commandment, but now they were both giving me that look.
“There will come a time when you will regret having let her leave,” my bloodthirsty psycho husband said.
Tina was shaking her head. “You should have let me kill her, Majesty. If for no other reason than the audacity she showed in coming here, soliciting an apology, and giving nothing in return! Not even an offer to try to lift a finger to stop the others.”
“She'll remember I was nice to her.”
“Mercy,” Sinclair lectured, “is a poor weapon.”
I stared at him. Sometimes – many times – I didn't know him. At all. “It's the only one I'm using right now.”
“You don't have to use a weapon at all,” Tina pointed out. “I would take care of these problems for you.”
I think what finally made me snap was seeing Tina degrade herself – describe herself as nothing but a deadly vessel, when I knew she was so much more. Or maybe I was just pissed at my fucking arrogant husband.
“The only problem I have,” I hissed, “is a couple of subjects who don't think I have what it takes to be queen! Perhaps if they'd sit down, shut up, and listen to her, they'd learn something!”
Yuck, did I just refer to myself in the third person? Even weirder, Tina looked embarrassed beyond belief, and quickly sat down. Sinclair also sat down, much more slowly, with an odd expression on his face – a cross between outrage and pride.
Well. Now what?
“So.” I started to pace. “Let's figure this out. Where are the Fiends staying during the day?”
“I would be more interested in how and where they are feeding,” Sinclair said. “I would ask Detective Berry to look for any unusual homicides, but he is not our friend at the moment. His loyalty is solely with Jessica. Perhaps another source can help us.”
“He'd look for vampire attacks in two seconds, regardless of how he feels about you, me, and Tina.”
I was about to elaborate, when the front door was slammed open and an all-?too-?familiar voice greeted us with, “What the hell is going on? I leave this shitheap for three days, and the fuckin' Fiends are loose, my boyfriend's practically catatonic, and the smelliest bitch I've ever fuckin' seen practically ran me down on the porch! Not to mention I nearly got into a fender bender with the devil who looks like Miss Fuckin' February! Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is going on?”
Antonia the werewolf was home.
“Oh, gosh, Antonia, you know you shouldn't talk like that.”
As well as the devil's daughter.
Chapter 33
Two ridiculously beautiful women hurried into the parlor, and I sighed. I often felt like the homely judge at a swimsuit competition; all the women in our house were just so pretty.
Antonia Wolfton, current werewolf and former psychic, was a lean, tall brunette (almost as tall as me), with striking dark eyes and the palest, softest skin I'd ever seen on someone alive. She was like a foulmouthed milkmaid.
The waves of her hair crashed and bounced halfway down her back. Her lips were rosebud pink, and when her hair was pulled back by a red ribbon, as it was now, she looked like Snow White.
“I thought you were gonna get the fucking driveway fixed,” she griped. “And what'd you do to my boy toy while I was gone, you rotten bitch?”
I didn't laugh – barely – but then, I was used to it. For Antonia, that was a downright warm greeting. It was just so weird, those excellent good looks, that amazing figure, that perfect mouth... and then the words that kept coming out over and over again. It was as if God had fused a swimsuit model with a teamster.
“Oh, now, stop it,” the devil's daughter (really!) said with gentle reproach. “The driveway's not that bad, and I'm sure Sinclair and Betsy have lots more important things on their minds.” Laura Goodman (don't laugh) looked like, as Antonia had put it once, “a dirty old man's wet dream,” with long, butter-?scotch blond hair, big blue eyes, and long strong limbs. Her nose was a sculpted delight, her mouth wide and generous.
She had never had a pimple.
I think I mentioned before that Laura had a unique way of rebelling against her mother. When your mother was the devil, the devil, there wasn't much you could do for rebellion; after all, how do you rebel against the embodiment of evil?
You go to church. You teach Sunday school. You volunteer for soup kitchens. You are kind to children and small animals. You constantly watch your language. You pray.
That's how.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“Ha!” Antonia brayed. “I knew you'd play dumb. Actually, you can't not play dumb, huh, Bets? My boyfriend called, and he's a gibbering wreck. Something about his 'foul behavior' and 'base betrayal' and how there can be no forgiveness 'n' shit, then I got bored, so I kind of tuned him out.”
“And yet,” Sinclair said dryly, “here you are.”
“Shit, yeah. Apparently everything's going to hell around here. You dummies need me.”
“You don't especially need me,” Laura said, almost apologetically. “But I got worried when you canceled our lunch.” From anyone else, that would have sounded reproachful. Laura was too tenderhearted to pull something like that, even though it hadn't been one lunch I'd blown off, it had been two. “I apologize for dropping by without calling, but I was beginning to worry.”
There was a method to my madness, and I wasn't at all happy to see my sister here. Bottom line? I didn't want her anywhere near the Fiends, especially since we didn't know when they'd come calling again. Part of the reason they'd gotten better so quickly was because they had drunk a combination of my blood... and hers.
It wouldn't be understating the point to say I wished she'd leave the state until this was all straightened out. I was just too chickenshit to tell her.
“It's been really crazy around here,” I managed.
“ 'Really crazy'?” Antonia sneered. “Oh, okay. That's not the Betsy play-?it-?down machine getting into gear, is it?”
“My gosh,” Tina said mildly, “what happened to your arm?”
“Oh. That.” Antonia gleefully rolled up her sleeve and displayed her disgusting injury to all of us. What I hadn't noticed turned out to be a hideous blackish red bruise running from her wrist to past her elbow. “Jumped from one of the bluffs and miscalculated the distance.”
“Antonia, you've got to take better care of yourself,” I scolded. “You're not used to changing into a wolf, and besides, last night wasn't even the full moon... what are you doing jumping off bluffs?”
“Quickest way to get where I wanna go. Anyway, tomorrow night is the full moon, and then we'll have fun fun fun.” She was positively gleeful, and I couldn't blame her.
“One of these days you'll miscalculate and break your rotten little neck.”
This was true, despite Antonia's glare. See, when she first came to us, Antonia was a very special kind of
