CHAPTER

TWENTY

“Because I am a petty, petty woman,” I finished.

“Um, what?” Cindy, who’d been sobbing on my shoulder, looked up.

Oh, nothing. Just reminiscing about your beheading. “Nothing,” I assured her. “C’mere, sit down.” I’d walked her to my office, which in the real MoA was the security office/dispatch center, and had her sit down in front of the bank of blank screens. “Thank you for asking to see me, and for apologizing.”

She’d started to tense up as soon as her butt hit the seat, but relaxed a bit when I didn’t instantly start berating her or jabbing her with a pitchfork. She slumped back and sighed. “Well, since you were right about everything and I ruined my life by not listening, then killed the love of my life and broke into your house and tried to kill your friend, it was the least I could do.”

“Oh.” I coughed. “That takes care of my ‘do you remember what happened?’ question.”

There was a beat and then we both laughed, followed by Cindy clapping a hand over her mouth. Her eyes were so big I half expected them to pop out of her skull and dangle from the ends of her optic nerves. “Srry,” she mumbled against her palm, “’M srry nt fnny.”

“Sometimes you have to laugh. It’s either that or go screaming foaming crazy. I’ve done both, and believe me, inappropriate laughter is better. So I take it getting chomped by a vamp was part of your plan? Remind me to talk to you about the shoes you wore, by the way.”

“Yes.” She blinked at the shoes remark, then continued. “I remember most of that night, but some of it’s hazy. I remember the high points, though.” She shivered. “Low points, I mean. Anyway. Lawrence told us so many stories, I could spot a vampire by the time I was twelve. And he—you know. He wouldn’t do it. Turn me.”

“Had you talked to him about this before?”

“No. He asked what I wanted for my sweet sixteen and I told him: to be like you. So I wouldn’t die of cancer but also because . . . Well. You know.”

“Suddenly girls asking for nose jobs for their sixteenth seems much less terrible. Although it is still terrible. So he wouldn’t turn you, and you got him to go over his head by taking a meeting with us . . .”

“And when you wouldn’t—which I totally get now, by the way—I just . . . You know.”

I shouldn’t keep prying, but Cindy had proven herself to have a formidable will. I could probably use someone like that for . . . I dunno. Something. “You rose—”

“Yeah, the woman who killed me got me to go with her—”

I snorted. “Like that was a challenge. You were a fish looking for a net.”

She nodded. “She did it in one of those empty warehouses on First.”

I nodded encouragement and made a mental note. Get a thorough description of the vampire and her lair—argh, who has lairs?—so Sinclair and I can find her and burn her alive. Burn her alive sooo much. “Totally deserted so nobody found me. And when I came back, I was—so thirsty. So—everything. All I could think about was feeding. I didn’t— It was the only thing that mattered. It was the world. Like Lawrence used to be my world and I—” She shook her head and didn’t finish the sentence.

“Okay, so you went to his place—”

“He just . . . let me. He didn’t fight hard enough to—I mean, he tried to keep me off him but he couldn’t make himself hurt me.” She shivered like a gale had blown through the office. Poor, poor idiot. Both of them.

“And then you came to the mansion? For what, belated revenge?”

“No!” The cheerleader I’d beheaded seemed genuinely shocked by the idea. “I just figured since you’d invited me in, I could go there.”

I shook my head. “Old wives’ tale.”

“Well, yeah, I know that now. But it was a lot closer than my dad’s house.” She closed her eyes. “Oh, God. My dad. Thank God I didn’t go there.”

I kept up with the questions, trying to distract her from that thought. “Did you hurt anyone else?”

“I can’t remember. Most of that night is a bloody blur. Oh! Your friend. Is he going to be all right?”

“Oh, sure.” Marc’s injuries had completely healed by morning. Which made no sense. The theory was if he kept close to me, my unconscious zombie-raising powers would keep him whole. Around me, he was never more than a minute dead: body still warm, no rigor, etc. “He bitched half the night—understandably, but he insisted we binge-watch season two of Sherlock while he healed. I mean, he really milked it. He’s fine now.” Relatively speaking.

“I’m glad. I don’t think I had time to hurt anyone else. I mean . . . you know.” Her lower lip started to tremble but she made a visible effort and her mouth firmed. I could practically read her mind: Crying won’t do shit. Own it already and get on with your death. “Besides Lawrence.”

“Okay. Did you— Have you seen Lawrence?”

She gasped, then shook her head. “There’s so many people . . . I’ve been too scared to really ask around.”

“I can summon him if you—”

“Please don’t. Please. I’m not— I can’t handle that right now. Please don’t.”

“All right.”

She slumped in her chair a little, relieved. “I’m glad I didn’t hurt you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Or my husband. Right?”

“Er.” She looked down. “I’m scared of the king.”

“That is a sensible mind-set to have.” In fact, the body count would have been a lot lower over the decades if Sinclair’s enemies had adopted such a mind-set.

“Lawrence told me—I mean, he and the king were friends before the king was the king. But he was super happy when he found out you guys were in charge now. He said that the old king was all that was bad about vamps, and that Sinclair—and you, too—was all that was good.”

I smiled. “Well, he was right.”

“He was.” Her small, round face crumpled in sorrow again. “About everything. You were, too. I should’ve listened.”

Don’t beat yourself up, I started to say. Except: Hell. That was precisely what you were supposed to do here.

“How come you waited to reach out to me?”

“It took me a while to work up the nerve to ask for you. And I wasn’t sure what was— It’s just, when I got here, there seemed to be some confusion about who was in charge.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. Well, I’ll end the suspense: it’s me.”

“I figured. But I have to say, for Hell? This place isn’t so bad. They don’t have Mountain Dew or Doritos here, but I’m not being flayed alive over and over again, either. Mostly I’ve been exploring, but there’s so much I don’t— Y’know, I’ve only been here a little over a month. There are people here who’ve been here a thousand years or more who know lots.”

“Yesssss . . . hmm.” There it was. A blinding new idea. “I want Jennifer Palmer right now.”

And then she was there, pulled by my will in the act of handing someone a terrible Orange Julius. She took both of us in, set the drink on a nearby table, and said, “Some things you never get used to. It’s so weird to be in one place one moment and then somewhere else before you can blink.”

Tell me about it. “Jennifer Palmer, this is Cindy Tinsman. Cindy, this is your buddy from Hell. She’ll take you around, introduce you, show you the ropes—pick your cliché.” This might be one of those “why didn’t I think of that?” ideas, except for once it would be my idea everyone was wishing they’d thought of. Ha!

“Buddy,” Jennifer repeated, looking as though she was wondering if her ears had fallen off or something. I could almost read her mind: Did she really just say . . . ? “Buddy?”

“Yep. It’s a new initiative.” Real new. “You’re the test case. Or patient zero. Whatever you want to call it.” This could work. Or blow up in my face. But neither of them were in Hell because they’d gone on a killing spree or were serial pedophiles. They were there because they’d made one huge, life-altering, death-causing mistake and thought they should be punished.

“If test case and patient zero are my options, I’ll take test case.”

I grinned at Jennifer. “Smart choice.”