Undead and Unforgiven (24 page)

“Ah,” Betsy said, sounding pleased. “You
do
see her, I was starting to wonder. What's her name?”

“I don't know, she hasn't told me.”

“But you definitely see her?” Tina asked, looking at me with a lot more interest.

“Of course he sees me, you Southern belle boob,” the ghost said crossly. “And my name's Cathie. Betsy, you dragged me out of Hell for this? To vet the latest addition to the mansion freak show? Father Markus is undermining you all over the place and I've got more new arrivals to assign buddies to.” To me: “Take my advice: run and never look back.”

“Nope.” I clutched my glass at the very thought. “I like it here. I like them.”

She let out an inelegant snort. “Hope you like constant chaos and spending way too much time drinking pulped fruit when the Big Bad isn't trying to kill you and Betsy's not bitching about missing a shoe sale. Because that's what you're in for.”

“Sounds great,” I said, which was nothing but the truth. “I'm Will Mason, by the way.”

“Oh, who cares?” she said and walked through the wall and disappeared.

“So.” I cleared my throat and found a smile. “Do I pass?”

“You bet,” Betsy said, and those were the magic words, because everyone else loosened up. “Welcome. Next time just knock and come in like my mom did. Don't skulk in the mudroom.”

“Thank you.” Yes! Yes! Yes! To Marc: “And thank you, again.”

“I'm a zombie,” he said in abrupt reply. “I'm not a sexy vampire or a mysterious ghost. It's nothing cool or fun.”

“Cathie wasn't especially mysterious,” I commented. A zombie! Fascinating! “I'm glad. If you'd been human you could have been hurt or killed when you helped me. That wouldn't have been fun for either of us.”

He stared at me like I'd spouted Swahili. “You saw my blood. You
saw
it and it wasn't that color because it was getting dark. I have sluggish black blood because I'm a zombie.”

“Sluggish is good. Cuts down on ruining clothes, and bleeding out.” My sources had died in so many ways, and most of them sounded awful.

“You're glad? That's not— You're not disgusted?”

I realized they'd all left. That I was alone in that cavernous kitchen with that gorgeous man. Zombie. Gorgeous zombie.
They left me with this wonderful, beautiful zombie.
I reached out and, when he didn't flinch away, took his hand. “You feel cool,” I said, squeezing slightly. “But you're not, y'know, squishy or gross or anything. And your leg's better.” I tightened my grip and felt my pulse zoom when he squeezed back, just a little. “If you're a zombie, you haven't been dead very long. It's fine if you don't want to talk about it. I already said: I'm not here for work. I just wanted to see you again. I'm so glad to see you again.”

He was shaking his head like he couldn't believe he was there. Or I was there. “You really don't care?”

“I care. I already told you, I'm glad you're a zombie, I'm glad you can't get hurt or die—again, I mean.” Didn't he know? Everyone died. Everyone died and left me. Except for the people who lived in this house.

He took a deep breath (did he have to breathe?) and told me things. Wonderful, terrifying things. We talked
for hours. I wanted to kiss him but didn't dare. But I never let go of his hand (except to go to the bathroom, and he'd loosened up enough by then to tease me about having to take a piss).

I don't know when I'll kiss him. But I will.

I can't wait. I—I hope he can't wait, either.

Who cares about vampires? Tell me more about zombies.

INTERLUDE: BETSY'S ERRAND TO HELL

I found myself in my office, stepped out, and said, “I want Cathie right now.” And like that, she was there.

“
God
, that's disconcerting. What?” she complained. “What d'you want?”

I grinned; I couldn't help it. In a dimension where millions were terrified of me, her snark was refreshing. “I've got a guy at the mansion who says he can see ghosts.”

“What am I, a litmus test for weirdos?”

“Perfectly put. Yes. I need to bring you to the mansion for a couple of minutes, but you can come right back. And then I want you to hang out in the food court for a bit.”

She looked interested. “Something up?”

“Yes.”

“Sharing deets?”

“No.”

“Boo. Okay, but just for a minute. Your stepmother and I have been working on the buddy system—”

“Yes!” I cried. “That's it!” So much going on this week, and I kept forgetting to tackle something: “I want Cindy and Lawrence. Right now.”

“Who are you— Oh.”

And there they were, looking startled to suddenly find themselves outside my office and, when they caught sight of each other, looking crushed.

Cindy broke first, taking a tentative step forward. “Oh, Lawrence. Lawrence, I'm so—”

“Cindy, my poor child, can you forgive me?”

She stopped short. “Me forgive
you
? No, jeez, I'm the one who killed you, can you forgive
me
?”

“Nonsense. Don't be a silly g— Don't be silly. It's my fault. I filled your head with so much nonsense and when you needed me I refused to help.”

“You
did
help: you tried to warn me. I was stupid and selfish—”

“Oh, ugh,” Cathie muttered, looking like she'd rather be anywhere, anywhere but there. I would have giggled if it hadn't been deadly serious business for Lawrence and Cindy.

“You were your mother's daughter, determined to make your own way. I should have respected that instead of dismissing your wishes because of your youth.”

“You were right to dismiss them; it was a dangerous, stupid plan and I deserved to have Betsy cut my head off.”

“Oh, ugh,” Cathie said again, rubbing her forehead.

“Then I shall forgive you, my dear, if you're kind enough to forgive me.”

They were ignoring me completely.

It was kind of glorious. And then they were hugging, and that was kind of glorious, too.

“Can you please,” Cathie asked sweetly, “get us the fuck out of here?”

“It's always so nice to see you,” I said, smirking, and her wish was my command.

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

“Please don't construe this as criticism,” the vampire king said critically, “but it's so
odd
that Hell looks exactly like the Mall of America.”

“Hey, the system works.” “The system” meaning Hell looked like whatever the person in charge wanted it to look like. When Lucifer was in charge, Hell was a waiting room leading to any one of a million billion doors with something awful behind each one. Dead kittens. IRS auditors. Severed heads. The Payless ShoeSource website. “And really? You're here five minutes and you're giving me crap?”

“Mostly to conceal my terror and admiration,” he admitted. He glanced at me and smiled.
Thank you for allowing my return.

Okay, so our link works in Hell if you're here, but not when you're in the real world. Interesting . . .

I don't know that the mansion is the real world anymore. Surely after all you've seen, it cannot be so.

It is to me, Sinclair.

Fair enough, beloved. For me, the real world is wherever you are.

Awwww.

“Quit it,” Marc said, waving at us like we were flies. Flies with a telepathic link. “Bad enough when you gaze at each other without talking for an hour back home. I won't put up with something that annoying in Hell.” When I laughed at him, he grinned. “I'd better rephrase.”

“You'd rather be canoodling with Will Mason,” Tina teased. She and Marc were holding hands. Not like that, of course. Sometimes I think she saw Marc as an overgrown kid and herself as his protector/honorary aunt, because often when she grabbed his hand it was to lead him toward or away from something. (“Be careful, Marc, the fire is hot and will burn you.” “Tina, please stop hiding the paper clips. I promise I won't put one in my mouth and choke.”) He tolerated it, because he adored her. “A shame you couldn't call on him before we left.”

“Okay, first, never say ‘canoodling' again. Second, we're going out tomorrow and I happen to be scared shitless. My first date since I died. My first date altogether in three years. My first—”

“It will be fine,” she assured him, patting his hand. “He seems like a sweet boy.”

A useful boy as well,
my husband thought, and I grinned.

My thought, too. I never go looking for ghosts—the few who find me never leave me alone until I do whatever chore they left behind when they died. But it'd be pretty handy to have someone around who could see and hear them. Think of all the good gossip he could tell us!

Intelligence, my darling.

Dress it up how you like, pal, it's still gossip. It's talking about people behind their backs about things they don't want you talking about.

. . .

Ha. Got him.

We were entering the food court, which was teeming with the damned. Funny how people often stuck to a schedule—it was 12:32 p.m. HST (Hellish standard time), so that meant it was time to hang in the food court and stand in line, choke down something you were allergic to, be offered drinks you couldn't stand, or get stuck talking to people you cordially loathed.

Speaking of cordial loathing, the Ant was at one of the larger tables with Cathie and Father Markus. She saw us and kept talking. Cathie turned, spotted us, rolled her eyes, and jerked her head in a “come on over” gesture. The Ant's surliness made Cathie seem like Miss Congeniality (and I should know).
20

A path magically cleared for us and we started toward them. I could see Cindy and Lawrence sharing a table and talking, Cindy with her hands while she gabbled at him, Lawrence leaning forward and listening intently, smiling every once in a while. Good; that was settled, then. One less thing to worry about.

I could sense Sinclair's surprise and pleasure at the deference, and . . . yep, there it was. Pride, too, that I could command that kind of respect. He knew they had no idea who he was, knew they weren't parting like the Red Sea for him or Marc or Tina. Seeing so clearly into his emotional state made me ashamed it had taken me so long to let him come back to Hell. Our link working here was no excuse; the link worked fine in the real world, too. I could have seen his pride in me if I'd bothered to look. Instead, the only things I looked for were reasons to exclude him.

The Ant's eyebrows were arching, but not quite high enough to disappear beneath her hard shiny bangs. “Hello again, Betsy's husband.” She wasn't kidding. She'd never bothered to learn his name. “Hi, Marc!” Whoa. Actual warmth.

“You know you missed me,” Marc replied, smiling. She giggled

(!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I know! My thought exactly: !!!!!!!!!!!!

and ducked her head.

“Father Markus was just explaining why the buddy system should be dismantled.”

“I didn't use the term ‘dismantled,'” he said mildly. He turned to me. “I understand you're trying to lighten your own workload by getting the souls here to take on some of the burden. But you're laboring under the same misunderstanding you always have: it's not your job to make things easier for them.”

“Actually, I'll be the one who decides what my job is.” I kept my tone mild, too. “We've had this discussion already. The buddy system stays. The new and improved Ten Commandments stay. Which reminds me, it's time for me to work on the new and improved Seven Deadly Sins. Being jealous because your neighbor got backstage passes to Jim Gaffigan is no reason to be damned for eternity.”

“That is
enough.
” Father Markus was on his feet, face flushed. “With all respect, Betsy, that's idiotic.”

Don't,
I thought as Sinclair's fist clenched.
Seriously: you keep the fuck out of this. I mean it.

As you will.

Thank you.

If he touches you, I may have to disobey. Punish me as you will.
His thought was serious and unwavering, like a five-hundred-watt flashlight in a dark basement: this is what will happen, I'm sorry to disobey, I will accept the
consequences. There were some things a chivalrous man in his nineties couldn't tolerate, I guess.

It didn't matter, it wasn't going to come to that. But I made a mental note to give the old duffer a serious scolding when we were back at the mansion. After I'd fucked him.

“You know, Markus, I've about had it with your attitude. For a guy who's never been out of Minnesota, you're pretty surly.”

“Minnesota Nice is a lie,” he replied, so I punched him.

Ohhh, did I punch him. My hand snapped into a fist and I belted him in the face as hard as I could. That punch, which had been trying to escape for at least a week, came up from my heels and knocked him twenty feet through the air until his momentum was stopped by a helpful cement pillar.

Total, complete silence—no one gasped, no one stirred, it was just a sea of open mouths and eyes everywhere—broken by Markus groaning and trying to sit up. Once he sat up he tried to stand. Took a few tries, and I was bitchy enough to take pride in that.

I actually heard the click as he pushed his dislocated jaw back into place and Marc hissed in sympathy behind me. “That usually requires big-time anesthesia,” he muttered to Tina, who murmured agreement. They were still holding hands, looking less like an elderly auntie watching out for her boy, and more like Hansel and Gretel wondering when the witch was going to make her move.

????????

Wait.

Excellent punch, beloved. Anything that flies that far and fast usually has wings.

Shut up. I'm working.

“Nnn fffrrr,” Markus said, limping toward me. He'd broken an ankle or a leg when he hit the pillar, too.

“You should put some ice on that,” I suggested, smiling. “Or a cast.”

He shook his head again, spraying blood in fat drops. He opened his mouth but this time I cut him off.

“Who are you?”

He just looked at me.

“There's this nifty thing called the Directory of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis,” I told him. “It's online, and free. It lists all the priests and their backgrounds. Father Markus was born in Connecticut and ordained in Boston. He only got to Minnesota a decade ago.” I reached out, seized him by his fake collar, and hauled him toward me until we were nose to nose. “Who are you?”

Those bright brown eyes, which I'd often thought were sparkling with compassion and humor, were gleaming with what I now knew was scorn. “You know,” he whispered, kissing-close. “Don't you?”

I dropped him and he fell to his knees, scrambled back, and then made the painful climb to his feet again. Except he was moving quicker, easier. The blood was drying, disappearing. The broken bones were reknitting. The black suit and collar were fading. He was shrinking into something else. No. Someone else.

I turned to my family, who'd been watching in stunned and fascinated silence. “You guys remember Lucifer, right?”

And there she was, looking as Satan always had to me: like Lena Olin in a wonderful black suit, sheer black stockings, and black Christian Louboutin Pagalle pumps.

One eyelid dropped in a small wink. “Miss me, sweetie?”