Dead Over Heels

get better leverage, my super vampire strength had plunged the heel of my sandal right through the wall, where it stuck fast.

Sinclair looked back at me.

I tried to think of what to say. Stupid vampire strength! “I-I—”

Sinclair burst out laughing. I started to laugh, too, though I was slapping his shoulders and saying, “Stop it! Stop it! It’s not funny! I can’t get down! Help me, you asshat!” and in the end we left the shoe where it was, stuck about four feet up in the wall.

Chapter 5

We slept until sundown, and woke to a message from Jessica inviting us to the joint around the corner for dinner—her treat. Of course, since we couldn’t eat solid food, we were cheap dates, but still. The offer was out there.

We debated it. “This is our honeymoon. It is time for you and I to spend alone.”

“In a city of fifty million people?”

“Eighteen million,” he said dryly. “All of whom are strangers.”

I couldn’t believe I was in the position of defending Jessica and Nick tagging along on our honeymoon. “Yeah, but think of Jessica’s problem.”

“I’m thinking,” he said, “of my own.”

“Yeah, yeah, but come on. Nick hates us, and she sees this as a chance for him to get over that.”

“So we can all be one big happy family.”

“Well. Yeah.” We sort of were, usually . . . when we weren’t in New York, a bunch of us lived in the same house in St. Paul. More or less happily. So it was really bugging me that Nick wasn’t going along with the “come on, get happy” plan. I mean, it was bugging me now that Jessica had reminded me of the problem. “Exactly. Think of the position Jessica’s in . . . if we don’t fix this, she’ll have to pick between me—I mean, us—and him.”

“So?”

“Heartless bastard!” I cried, pounding on his (bare, yum!) chest with my fist.

“Jessica is a beautiful, intelligent, wealthy woman. She will have no trouble finding another boyfriend.”

This just went to show how fucking little Sinclair knew about women in general and my friend in particular.

“She doesn’t want another boyfriend, she wants Nick.”

Sinclair sniffed.

“And you have to admit, this is sort of all our fault.”

“We did what was necessary,” he said with the cool arrogance of someone who’d been walking around on the planet for more than sixty years, “and would do it again. That doesn’t mean we have to share every meal with them while we’re honeymooning.”

“Not every meal,” I compromised.

He rolled his eyes and slipped on a shirt. I fought the urge to slip it back off. “As you wish,” he said. “Not every meal.”

“Yay! I mean, thanks.”

He grunted.

“I’ll call Jess.”

He didn’t bother with a grunt this time. I whipped out my phone and texted, “Dinner OK! See you at 8?”

A few seconds later my phone chirped at me. “8, OK!”

“We’re on.”

“Oh, splendid.”

“Come on, it’ll be—” Fun, I had been about to say, which would only have been the biggest lie since “This won’t hurt a bit.” “Incredibly awkward and weird, but we can skip dessert again.”

“Ah.” He smiled at last and stepped into his boxer shorts . . . unfortunately. “A heroic sacrifice on your part, so I will say no more.”

“Nobody loves a wiseass.”

“Not true at all, my wife.”

Chapter 6

It was, if possible, even worse than the evening before. Jessica was strained and smiled too widely, Sinclair had nothing at all to say, and Nick kept making needling remarks about our Revolting Army of the Undead.

I kept ordering daiquiris.

At least the waiter was nice, though he picked up on the tension and came over only when one of us obviously needed a refill or, in Jessica’s case, more fries. I watched enviously as she plowed through a burger and fries and Nick chewed up a steak and a twice-baked potato. God, I missed solid food.

Finally, Nick pushed it too far with, “What’s the matter, Vampire King? Am I raining on your parade? Tough to slip off and snack on civilians with a cop on your trail?” There was a muffled thump, and I knew Jessica had smashed her giant size-nine foot onto Nick’s boot. Yee-ouch.

“So, anyway,” I said, “no dessert for us, but thanks anyway.”

“Once again you misunderstand my motivation, Detective Berry. If I seem terse it’s not because you are intruding where you are obviously not welcome.”

Oh, ouch, here we go.

“It’s because at least half the staff of our hotel, and at least a third of the guests, are vampires.”

I froze. Jessica froze. Nick froze. Sinclair drained his Merlot.

“Oh, fuck me,” Nick said in a watery voice I’d never heard before. And I had a flash—most of Nick’s fury was really fear.

“We’re not in any danger,” Jessica said firmly, and I could have hugged her. She had about nine yards of guts, and it had nothing to do with being rich. She was just brave. Brave and ballsy and loyal and if she wanted to tag along on my honeymoon to clear up some personal shit, was I going to get in her way? After she hugged me when I came back from the dead?

No.

“They’re the king and queen of the vampires,” she was telling Nick, who had turned as cheesy-pale as the beer he wasn’t drinking. “None of them will touch us without their say-so. Although you’re acting like such a prick, they just might sic one or two of them on us for the hell of it.”

I stifled the impulse to cheer. Also, to rip Sinclair a new one for not mentioning that little factoid. “So when you planned our honeymoon, you picked Vampire Central?”

“Of course.” He had the audacity to look surprised. “Where else would I choose? The staff can accommodate anything we wish. The Grange was a natural choice. Of course”—he gave Nick a heavy-lidded look —“I wasn’t expecting company.”

“How many of the staff?” Nick asked in a voice that sounded like he was being strangled. “And which ones?”

“That,” my husband replied, “I will not tell you.”

Jessica and I looked at the men, then at each other. It was never much fun to watch a pissing contest, especially when the odds were so firmly stacked in one person’s corner.

After a long, awful moment I said, “Jessica’s right, Nick. We’d never let them hurt you.”

“You didn’t even know about them, you stupid bitch!”

“Nick!” Jessica gasped.