CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

“The bitch is back,” the Ant said, which was as warm a greeting as I’d ever gotten from my stepmother.

“Don’t try to sweet-talk me. What’d I miss?”

“Eleven thousand new souls have shown up, Father Markus has begrudgingly signed off on your new and improved Ten Commandments, and the She-Wolves of France are requesting a meeting with you—”

???

“I knew you’d say that,” the Ant grumbled.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You looked pretty blank,” Marc said in what he doubtless thought was a helpful tone.

“Several of the souls my daughter let loose a few months ago have come back and requested reinstatement—”

“We do that? Reinstate people?”

“I guess that’s up to you,” the Ant replied carefully.

Well. That was some good news. When I still thought Laura and I would both run Hell, I’d been a little, um, hard to pin down. Oh, those carefree days of yesteryear when my biggest problem was Jessica’s weird babies! And by yesteryear I meant less than a month ago.

Anyway, one of the ways she got me to quit stalling and go to Hell already was by telling me souls were “escaping.” What she meant was, “I’m letting them out to get your lazy ass into Hell.” Tracking them down and hauling them back was one of the eight zillion things on my list. But apparently life in the real world wasn’t what they thought it would be.

“I want to talk to them. The ones who came back.” The Ant nodded; I think she’d anticipated my request. “What else?”

“A few other administrative details Cathie, Father Markus, and I are dealing with. A copy of Father Markus’s sermon for your approval.” I waved that away; it wasn’t for me to tell an ordained priest that his sermons weren’t churchy enough. Even when he’d been running a group of vampire executioners who were trying to kill me, he’d always prayed fair. And in death he’d been beyond helpful. “And Miss Cindy Tinsman would like a meeting, if it’s not too much trouble. Her words, not mine; I’m assuming anything that takes you away from the Macy’s sample sale is too much trouble.”

“Couldn’t resist that one, huh?”

“No,” was the smug reply.

“FYI, the only upcoming event at Macy’s I’m interested in is the Mother’s Day Fashion Show. I’m technically a mom now. Well, a big sister/mom hybrid.”

Then I could have bitten my tongue. On purpose, I mean. The reason I was a big sister/mom hybrid was because the Ant had died in a car accident and my dad—presumed to have perished with her in a ball of blazing hair spray and spray tan—had faked his death.

Since then, my half brother, BabyJon, had alternated staying at the mansion with all of us and staying with my mother—of all people! She’d gone from wanting nothing to do with the spawn of the Ant to loving BabyJon and doting on him like any fond grandma. Part of it was the kid himself; BabyJon was one of those placid, happy babies who was a good eater and a better sleeper. The kind of baby who, when other people saw him, thought, That doesn’t look so hard. We should have a baby! Then they ended up with a colic monster.

But part of BabyJon’s appeal, I think, was my mom’s realization that her vampire daughter was never going to have a baby of her own, that BabyJon was her one and only shot at being a grandmother. Me, I wasn’t complaining. I hadn’t thought I’d be lucky enough to get BabyJon, and I’d resigned myself to not having children of my own within a week of waking up (un)dead.

“Um.” Marc was looking at his shoes while I fumbled through an apologetic offer; no help there. “If you wanted to—uh—I wouldn’t bring BabyJon here—”

“Jesus Christ!” the Ant practically screamed, as agitated as I’d seen her since she died. “I would damned well hope not!”

Yikes! “Right, right, we’re on the same page. But, uh, if you wanted to come back with me and see him—”

“I’m dead.”

“Yeah, well, so am I. So’s Marc. It doesn’t mean you can’t—”

“I’m dead,” she said again, but gentled her tone. She was looking at her feet, too. I resisted the urge to do the same. “Let me stay dead. To him.”

“Okay. Well. If you ever change your—”

“What should I tell Cindy Tinsman?”

“Eh?”

“The girl who wasted ten minutes of my time beating around the bush before finally asking for a meeting with you if it’s not too much trouble.”

Cindy Tinsman. That sounded vaguely familiar. Marc’s eyes had gone big, so I assumed she was familiar in a negative context.

“Timid girl, about five foot two, black hair, brown eyes, sixteen, died five weeks ago, lifelong Catholic, Inver Grove Heights native,” the Ant prompted. “Neighbor? Maybe you’re friends with her parents? Or know her through your—through the first—through Dr. Taylor?”

Heh. Even after this many years, the Ant could hardly bear to say my mother’s name. Normally I’d have stuck it right to her, but she was—groan—valuable to me these days. And she’d been a real champ when her rotten daughter stuck me with Hell.

“Tinsman . . . nooo . . .” Shit.

“You might have cut off her head. About five or so weeks ago,” Marc prompted.

“You’re gonna have to narrow that— Oh. Oh! Oh.” I returned Marc’s grimace. “That Cindy Tinsman. Oh, shit.”

“Yep.”

“I’ll see her right now.”

“You will?” The Ant and Marc said this in unison, then sort of halfheartedly snarled at each other. Marc disliked my stepmother on my behalf, and she thought gays were icky.

“It’s just,” he continued, “you really wanted to try the clock—”

“Right! Right. Listen, I was gone for two weeks last time.”

The Ant nodded. Her pineapple hair didn’t move a centimeter. Hell was resistant to grotesque amounts of hair spray product, right? Wait, it was imaginary hair spray, so probably not too dangerous . . .

Focus!

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“Well, no. How would time passing on earth affect me, exactly? Why would I need to know that?”

“Okay, fair question,” I admitted. “Only, I didn’t want to be gone from the real world for two weeks. I don’t know why time has to be so screwy in Hell anyway; it’s a real pain in my ass.”

“Yes, you do know.” She said this with total confidence, like she hadn’t disparaged my intelligence many many many many many many many times over the years. So this would not be a good time to look blank.

“Yes, I do know,” I parroted. Think! The Ant was waiting, and Marc looked expectant, like he thought I could actually figure this out. That made him as big an idiot as I was. For God’s sake, I’d been gone a day and eleven thousand people had shown up! She-Wolves wanted a meeting and the cheerleader I’d beheaded was looking for me. I’d need to clone myself about a hundred times to have time for all the

time for all

time for

Oh.

“Because there’s only one of me and there’s billions of them and if time moved at regular speed here it’d be impossible for any one person to get anything done even if they’re the devil!” I shrieked in one long triumphant babble. Whew! Good thing I didn’t need to gasp for a new breath. I almost did, purely out of force of habit.

“Toldja you knew,” the Ant said, sounding more smug than usual. Because only my terrible stepmother would take credit for knowing I was smart enough to figure something out.

“Can she affect time the other way?” Marc asked her. “Can she be here for two weeks and then fix it so only a day went by back home?”

He got a slow blink from my stepmother for his trouble. I had the impression the answer was yes. It’d need practice, like pretty much everything did when it came to supernatural nonsense.

“Okay, so, I need a bank of clocks—my phone’s from the real world, so even though I can send and get texts here on it, I can’t do anything to it to make it more supernatural.” I’d tried, thinking it’d be a great phone-clipboard combo. It stubbornly remained an iPhone. Argh, stupid supernatural “rules” that were as weird as they were arbitrary! “So a bank of clocks—where? My office, I guess.” Do I have to go into how much I hated having an office in Hell? No? Excellent. “And I’ll just have to keep constantly checking them—what a pain in my ass!—but it shouldn’t be too hard because I can at least—oh, look, now I have a wristwatch.”

The three of us stared at it. Perfectly plain small wristwatch with a rose gold band and a black clock face on which I could clearly make out the little golden hands: 4:25. Small and out of the way, it was exactly the sort of pretty and practical watch I’d have picked for myself at a high-end department store.

“Well, then. That settles that.” Wristwatch! Why hadn’t I thought of it? From Marc’s chagrined expression, I could tell he was thinking the same. “Time for a test time.” Wait. That hadn’t come out right. No time for a redo, either: if I didn’t stay focused, the fifteen thousand other demands on my time would drown my brain and I’d forget all about the time issue until I popped home only to find I’d been gone three centuries.

I closed my eyes. “Okay, this might take a minute.” Or longer if that distracting delicious smell didn’t fade. Fresh, ripe fruit . . . strawberries? Here? Who was being punished by the scent of strawberries?

I opened my eyes. I was in my bedroom. Our bedroom. And Sinclair was, incomprehensibly, slurping a smoothie while messing with his phone.