THIRTY-ONE
Laura was back at the mansion, the place she hated to be but couldn’t stay away from. She was getting a little worried about Ronald Tinsman. Not much, just a bit. And not because she was starting to wonder if Betsy had been right. Betsy wasn’t right. It was statistically impossible.
Laura was back and the mansion was looming in front of her like the Bates Motel and she was just . . . concerned. As a friend. A friend Ronald had known less than a year and never socialized with either before or after his daughter’s murder. A friend who had told him she was the Antichrist and he hadn’t blinked. Because he was open-minded, not because he was numb, Betsy, thank you very much.
The irony, given their mission to expose vampires, was that these days Ronald was the walking dead. But despite his deep personal grief, he’d been integral to the plan, had helped her expose vampires, would help her keep manipulating the media until the world rose in righteous fury and destroyed every bloodsucker they could find.
None of this would be happening without Ronald. It was almost as though Cindy had been murdered for the greater good. Perhaps in time, he would come to see it that way. That her death was necessary. Perhaps even a blessing in disguise.
You think him being numb means he’s fine with that?
Even when Betsy wasn’t there, she was there. Sometimes her half sister babbled on and on and on in Laura’s mind until she thought her brain would burst.
He knows I’m a force for good, despite my birthright.
That was right. That was just right. Laura had been nervous about revealing her dark genetic legacy to Ronald, but he’d been fine with it. With her being the Antichrist. Totally fine with it. Not numb—accepting. Like a friend.
Besides, she wasn’t anymore. Betsy was the Antichrist. If not the daughter of the Morningstar, then her heir. And Laura was—was—
(trapped)
free.
Anyway, here she was, worried about Ronald, and Betsy was probably wrong about him
(wrong about everything)
because Ronald wasn’t numb to the world, he was mourning, there was a difference, and she didn’t expect Betsy Taylor of all people to see the nuances. To understand anything beyond her own nose.
But still: troubling behavior. Ronald almost never went home. He spent hours and hours on the sidewalk in front of the mansion. He was the first reporter there and the last to leave. Everyone knew his story, and after the first few days, the other journalists left him alone. He made them all uncomfortable—men and women whose job was showing people’s pain to the world were getting creeped out by Ronald Tinsman.
Once he’d gone thirty-seven hours without a trip home. Laura had intervened then, had asked a couple of her followers to make him go home, make him eat and rest, and they had; they were anxious to do anything she asked; they would have eaten him if she’d asked, but of course she never would; she was good, and she would make her followers be good, and anyone who couldn’t fall in line could leave, or die, or both.
Six hours later, he was back.
The meeting was tonight. Two dozen (maybe more!) vampires were in that house right now, and because they were animals there would be blood, and there were half a dozen reporters here and finally, finally the world would have to acknowledge Betsy Taylor was an animal who should be put down or at least run out of town, thrown out, not given a loving husband and buckets of money and a mansion and friends and her very own kingdom on earth and in Hell.
Finally.
“It’s almost over,” she whispered to Ronald. She thought about gently bullying him to go home and rest. But what she’d started with a few YouTube videos would be finished tonight. He would rest tomorrow. She would see to it. She’d show him that she was a friend, not someone who manipulated his grief and used it to her own end.
“You’ve got a lot to be proud of, Ronald. Cindy would be proud, too.” Probably. Hadn’t she been a cheerleader? Well, perhaps she would have shaken her pom-poms and cheered for her father if she could see him avenging her. Something like that. Sure.
“Yes,” he replied with all the animation of—it must be said—a corpse. When she’d met him at Fairview, her first thought had been, What a sad gray man. But sad wasn’t the word. Not even close.
“Is it true?”
Laura looked around at the unfamiliar low-pitched voice and felt her eyes narrow. She knew that man. An overgrown boy, really, the skinny guy in his midtwenties, the blogger who claimed to see ghosts. The one who looked at Marc Spangler like he could eat him alive, the one Marc Spangler was careful not to look back at. Too often, anyway.
Another person who, by rights, should be scared to death of Betsy and her ilk but was too dumb or infatuated to keep away from here. He’d met Betsy’s mother and her friends. He was a welcome visitor there. And Laura was out here on the sidewalk.
God, she hated the mansion.
Will something. Something to do with cooking, or kitchens. Will Pot? Jar? No. No, that wasn’t it.
Mason.
“Is what true?” she asked, not bothering to keep the irritation out of her tone. If she hadn’t been raised to be a good person, she’d tell him to get the hell away from her, couldn’t he see there was important work to be done?
He wasn’t speaking to her, she realized, irritated all over again. He was pestering poor gray Ronald. “My sources told me you lied to Laura about the bomb.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No. No. No. Will Mason, puny infatuated faggot, did not know about the incendiary device Ronald had built as an absolute, total last resort. As a tool there was a ninety-five percent chance they wouldn’t even use. It was . . . was . . .
Just in case.
Right. Insurance. People bought insurance knowing the chances were good that they’d never, ever need it. The bomb
(don’t call it that sounds scary it’s a device just a device like an alarm clock or a kitchen timer just a tool)
was like that. Hardly worth the trouble to assemble and plant, because they likely wouldn’t use it.
God, he was still talking. He’d sidled close to them and was almost whispering. He didn’t want the other reporters to hear him, which was a relief but also puzzling. Why was he confronting them? Had he told Betsy? Was this a trap?
Of course it’s not a trap. It was my idea to come here, like it’s always my idea to come because my darling sister can’t be bothered to invite me. I’m the one who set the trap. The trap I can spring whenever I want, but I won’t. Because I’m not like that. That’s something she would do.
“You told Laura you could trigger it remotely as a last resort. But that you probably wouldn’t have to.”
“Yes,” the gray man said.
“But my sources say that really, your bomb’s on a timer, and the clock’s been running for two days.” Pause. When neither of them said anything—Ronald too gray, Laura too horrified—Will asked, “Is that true?” And his voice. His tone. It’s not true, right? You didn’t really do that, right? My sources got it wrong. I’m almost sure. That’s why we’re out here having a quiet, civilized conversation. Because you wouldn’t have done that to your own sister. Even if you secretly hated her. Even if you’ve thought about killing her since the week you met.
Oh, it was awful. So thank God he had it wrong; his stupid little ghosts were lying to him and stirring up trouble because anyone not in Heaven or Hell was clearly up to no good, vampires and werewolves and now ghosts, treacherous, not to be trusted, they fell outside the natural order of things and ha! Your ghosts got it wrong, Will!
“No,” she said, triumph ringing through her voice; oh, wouldn’t he feel stupid. Betsy’s friends were as dim as she was and it was pretty funny when you thought about it. “No, of course not; I’d never—”
“Yes,” Ronald replied absently, almost indifferently. “The clock’s almost run down. Not long now.”
“Wh-what?”
To Laura: “Why do you look shocked? You know what they did to my girl. Did you think I’d be satisfied with a meeting? What do I care if they’ve come over to yell at the king and queen of the vampires? What do I care if they’re fighting? Or if they kill one or none or some or both? None of them can live. They have to burn, Laura. They have to and anyone who would help them. We all have to burn.”
Her mouth had gone so dry it took her a few seconds to speak. “Ronald, that’s—that’s not the plan. That was never the plan.”
Wasn’t it?
He laughed at her.
And here was Will Mason, pulling out his phone and hitting a number he clearly called a lot, probably had Dr. Faggot on speed dial and now he was half-turned away and muttering, “Come on, pick up,” and that’s when Ronald pulled a gun from somewhere and shot him in the back.
And then himself, in the head.