THIRTY-TWO
Peach. Peach everywhere, so much peach it wasn’t just all around me (we should repaint that ceiling), it was under me. I blinked and thought about that for a second.
Ah.
Somehow I’d gone from forbidding vampire queen ordering a dead-to-me father out of my city on pain of death to crumpled pitiful daughter shivering on the carpet and wanting Mommy.
A circle of concerned faces were looking down at me. This should have been creepy, or at least startling, but I was pretty numb. All I could muster was a kind of tired, faint curiosity as I stared up at them.
Elizabeth? My own?
“Easy,” Marc said, pressing his hand against my shoulder as if I’d tried to rise, when I had no intention of ever leaving my new womb, the Peach Parlor. “Rest a second.” A second? I planned to rest for a century at least. I wouldn’t even need a bed. The thick, dusty peach carpet would be dandy. The mice would creep out at night and befriend me. I would be their queen.
“D’you want something?” Dick asked anxiously. His face kept appearing and disappearing over me as he paced and fretted. “A smoothie? D’you need blood?”
“I would like my mommy, please.”
“Er . . .” He and Marc traded glances.
“I could call her, hon,” Marc said, waving a finger at me. “Follow the tip, please.”
“I don’t have a concussion, Marc. I didn’t hit my head.” Did I? I was still a little fuzzy on how I got down here.
He ignored me and took my pulse, which was so laughable I didn’t know where to start. “Oh, don’t give me that look. Think I haven’t memorized your undead RHR? You want me to call your mom?”
I shivered. No, best keep the awful truth(s) to myself for a bit longer. Mom would be upset and infuriated on my behalf before I got to the end of the tale, the part where I threatened to stomp her ex like a roach. Note to self: do not tell Mom the end of the tale.
“Perhaps some sugar-cookie-flavored vodka?” Tina suggested, which was quite the offer as it was her current favorite and they were discontinuing the flavor (despite her impassioned letter-writing campaign). Thank goodness. Bakery products and booze sounded good on paper, but the reality tended to be a disaster, and nobody wanted a repeat of New Year’s Eve. “My queen? What do you need?”
Well, let’s see. I needed a new dad. I needed to get out of running Hell. I needed to turn the Peach Parlor into my permanent lair. Most important: I needed to get my thumb out of my ass.
“I’m fine.” Nobody said anything. “Really. I’m okay. I just wanted to rest. Very suddenly. I’m perfectly fine. Apropos of nothing, don’t be alarmed if I never leave this room.”
Sinclair smiled at me, dark gaze intent on my face, and it was almost enough to make me feel better. “If this is our room now, then it shall be so.”
“Oh, Eric.” Would not would not would not cry. “And you hate peach.”
“I do. I cannot understand why we have not yet had this room redone.” He glanced around with a frown, then returned his gaze to me. “Also I may murder your father if, for no other reason, than because he upset you so much you called me Eric.”
What? It’s your name, isn’t it? I call you that. Sometimes. I could count those times on the fingers of one hand, but that didn’t make his point, except for how it did. And wanting to kill my dad is so sweet! I can almost feel myself melting into this horrible carpet.
I am quite serious.
I gave him a warning look. If I held back, you’d better, too.
“I hate when you flaunt your supernatural mystic Vulcan telepathic link thing,” Marc griped. “Could you please talk out loud now?”
Eric—sorry, Sinclair—obliged. “Apropos of nothing, when I have recovered from my worry, I shall tell you how proud I am, my dread queen. And . . . and . . .”
I groaned. “Go on. You know you can’t help yourself.”
“The s in apropos is silent.”
“It was burning you up inside, wasn’t it?”
He inclined his head in a slight bow. “I thank you for this indulgence, darling queen. Now perhaps if you—”
He cut himself off, and he and Tina both cocked their heads to the side, the motion almost doglike. I almost felt like smiling, it was so cute. They were like undead bipedal versions of Petey the Dog!
“Did you hear . . . ?” Tina murmured to Sinclair.
Sinclair had taken my wrist and was running his thumb back and forth across my sluggish pulse point. As he listened, he brought my wrist to his mouth and pressed a cool kiss to the vein. “Hmm,” was all he said, which was just mysterious enough to be annoying.
“What are you guys talking about now?” Marc said, apparently satisfied that I wasn’t going to expire on the spot. He had settled on the carpet beside me. “There’s a lot of super secret vampire stuff going on in this room and I won’t have it! What do you hear?”
“Nothing! Not one goddamned thing.” I clawed for some self-control and lowered my voice. “I can’t hear anything that man is doing. I’ll never hear anything he does ever again. It’s the airport trick, remember, Tina? Oh, stop it,” I snapped as Marc started groping for my pulse again. “It’s a vampire trick Tina taught me; I’m not out of my mind. At least no more than usual. So nope. I don’t hear anything. And neither do any of you.”
Tina wasn’t paying attention, which was all kinds of aggravating. “It almost sounds like—”
Breaking glass and groaning metal. And was that shouting? Yep. Screaming, too, as different voices howled at each other. But that only made sense if . . .
I sat bolt upright, like Frankenstein coming to life on the table. “Where’s Jessica?”
And then we were all scrambling to get outside and, not for the first time, I was glad the Peach Parlor was so close to the front door. Otherwise I would have missed the whole terrible, wonderful thing.