EIGHTEEN
“Are you all right, John? Did they hurt you?” Laura had stormed the Peach Parlor in a fury. Once we’d let her in, that is. Believe me, there’d been a couple of votes to just leave her out on the porch to let her squawk to the media. Marc can be such a bitch when he’s aggravated. Sinclair, too. “Are you hurt?”
“’Mfine,” my dad mumbled, shrugging back into his coat. He wouldn’t look at me, but that had been his MO for years. “Ready to go.”
“Don’t worry, John. I’ve got some of my people outside and they’ll make sure you get out of here safely.”
“John?” I asked, mouth open. “You don’t let her call you Dad?”
“That’s how I show my respect!” she flared. She’d extended a hand to help him up from the chair, which he’d avoided as he clambered to his feet. And she couldn’t see it. All the subtle tells that showed he wanted nothing to do with us. And the way he kept saying he wanted nothing to do with us. All whizzing over her head.
“That’s also how his mailman shows respect. And his accountant. Because they’re his mailman. And his accountant.” Could. Not. Believe it. How long had this been going on? “You’re his daughter. Jeez, just call him Dad already.”
“I don’t take orders from you anymore, Betsy.”
“Did you ever? Honest question.” I started tapping my foot as an alternative to daring Jeannie to shoot her in the face. “When, in the time we’ve known each other, when have you ever followed an order of mine? When did I even give you an order?”
She stopped trying to help our father, who was having none of it anyway, and whirled to face me. “Did you really think you’d get away with this?”
“Which part?”
“Don’t play dumb!”
Play?
“Ms. Goodman, my daughter has already apologized to Mr. Taylor and the queen—”
At “queen,” Laura made a noise like a cat that had been thrown into a bubble bath.
“—on behalf of our P—”
“You set your pets on our father,” she said, aghast. “Had them fetch him to your command.”
“Whoa!” I spun toward Michael. “Nobody fetched anything! Again: I have never, ever, in any way, ever referred to any of you as my pets, ever—”
“I think they get it,” Marc said. “But maybe throw a few more ‘evers’ in there, just to be sure.”
“—because first of all: rude. And second, super-duper inaccurate. And third . . . well, I’ll need a minute to come up with another one, but once I do I’ll definitely have more in reserve.” I mean, Jesus. Were they trying to get me killed? Oh. Right.
“How’d you even fix it so Laura would show up here?” Marc asked, which was a wonderful question.
“Well, I took away his phone and called the last few numbers still in ‘Recent.’” To my father as he inched ever closer to the front hall and sweet, sweet freedom: “Sir, you really should passcode your phone.”
“Yeah, any rando werewolf could kidnap you and use it to trick the Antichrist into doing a pop-in,” Marc added with, it must be said, vicious glee. “That’s what would have solved all this: passcodes!”
“Anyway.” Lara seemed a little irked at being interrupted. Oh, honey. Welcome to my galaxy. “I figured out which number was Laura’s by process of elimination. The others were his accountant and some reporters.”
“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk,” I clucked, popping each k. “The paps, Dad? Really? Hope that whole you-faking-your-own-death thing didn’t come up.”
“Don’t worry,” Lara assured me, “I didn’t tell the reporters anything.”
“Bullet dodged. Good to know.”
Now Michael and Jeannie were doing the “oh shit another migraine” temple rubs. Heh.
“Anyway, yours was the only number that called him that he didn’t call back. He did call Laura back, though. The one who actually likes him.”
“Ha!” From Laura, who was deluded enough to think that would hurt me.
“So I figured if I called her and told her exactly what I was doing—”
“Didn’t even apologize,” Laura said with an indignant huff. “Just called me up and confessed!”
“—I could get him as well as the other person causing all the trouble over here so the whole clean-house thing could get under way.”
“That,” Sinclair said, “is an excellent story. Tell it again, will you, dear?”
“No, don’t. We have long outstayed our welcome. And Lara and her mother and I still need to have a lengthy discussion about the events of the evening.” And the smile just dropped off Lara’s face. “Our apologies again. And our thanks. Again,” Michael said.
I waved it off. “Nobody got hurt and your kid’s heart was in the right place.” Also her claws and teeth.
“You should all be ashamed.” Because scolding people who had sincerely apologized always fixed everything. “Everything you do brings havoc and hurts innocents,” Laura continued.
Lara blinked up at her. My sister was even taller than I was, which was probably God’s way of compensating her for having shitty taste in clothes and also being a tight-ass. “Aren’t you the Antichrist?”
Laura flushed so hard she actually swayed on her feet; that’s how fast the blood rushed to her head. Also, ha! “That—that is irrelevant. You’re just a child; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Doesn’t the Bible say you’re going to persecute the saints?* And names you the son of destruction* and says you’re going to deny God and Jesus?”
Whoa. If Laura got any redder, I was pretty sure she’d faint. Just pitch face-first into the peach carpet. And me with my phone all the way upstairs! “I will never deny Them! That’s why I—” Then she snapped her mouth shut so hard we all heard her teeth clack together.
“Oh. Wait. This isn’t some hugely pathetic bid for our father’s love. Well, it is, but it’s also about proving to God that you’re not going along with the Antichrist agenda. Huh.” This . . . explained a lot, actually. Laura had always been worried she’d be like her mother. I was only now realizing I had way underestimated her terror; she was a lot more afraid of turning into her mother. And then destroying the world. “Well, the Bible’s not infallible. It’s not a blueprint. It’s—it’s stories. They don’t have to all come true exactly the way someone wrote them.”
“Shut your mouth. You’ve never read anything more complex than Vogue. The complexities and messages of the Bible would be completely beyond you,” Laura ranted.
“Hey! I don’t even like Vogue; the thing’s bigger than a phone book and the ads are weird. You know I’m an InStyle subscriber and that’s plenty complex.” They weren’t just about clothes, you know. InStyle was about how anyone can come up with their own signature style and look great—any age, any size, any budget. Now, there was a message for all the people of the world. “And I’m trying to make you feel better, you beautiful moron!”
“Wow,” was Michael’s comment. Oh, right. The werewolves were still here. “You actually paid attention in Sunday school. Good for you, honey.”
Meanwhile, Jeannie was studying Laura. “That’s right. We were so focused on the vampires, we forgot about you.” Story of Laura’s life, I thought but didn’t say. “You betrayed her secret to the world. And in return, she took pity on you and declined to tell the world that you’re actual, literal devil’s spawn. That’s something actual, literal devil’s spawn should keep in mind. You owe her.”
Oops! Just when Laura’s face couldn’t get redder, she outdid herself. Purple was not a good look for her forehead. “I’ve got no interest in taking advice from some werewolf’s bitch.”
“Wonderful to see you all again!” Michael said loudly. “We’ll definitely have to do this again sometime!”
“Really?” Sinclair asked, looking as delighted as I’d ever seen him. “Wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“But, wow, look at the time!” Which was inaccurate, since he never looked at the time. Michael now had Jeannie by one elbow and Lara by the hand, and hustled them over to the door so fast they almost knocked over my dad. “Thanks again, Betsy, you’ve got our numbers, let’s definitely get together before we have to leave town, good-bye.” Then they were out the front door, Derik right behind them.
“You have no idea how lucky you just got,” I informed the Antichrist. “Just so unbelievably lucky. You managed to piss off the second most dangerous person in the room.” Lara being the first, naturally.
Laura opened her mouth (again), only to be interrupted by a soft, toneless, “Everything all right in here, Laura?”
We all looked. When the Wyndhams had gone out, followed by my dad, someone new had come in. Why couldn’t the Wyndhams have left, and Laura and my dad left, and no one come in? Was that really so much to ask?
Because I didn’t want to talk to this poor guy, but I didn’t dare send him away, either. He was untouchable, and that was entirely on me.