Jeannie and Lara were still conked, and thank goodness. With zero traffic and a lead foot, I made it to the Minneapolis warehouse district in record time, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. I had to be very careful not to bend it out of shape, or even pull it off.
It had been so thoughtful of Marjorie to pay her respects at my father's funeral. Marjorie, in fact, seemed to enjoy being helpful in all sorts of ways. Marjorie, the eight-hundred-year-old vampire who disdained politics.
Why had she come? To see how I was bearing up under all the pressure she was bringing? To try to get a whiff of my pain? To throw me off her scent?
I didn't know. But I was going to find out.
I pulled up outside a dilapidated warehouse, which I knew was beautiful and spacious inside, filled with thousands of books and state-of-the-art computers. Marjorie's digs. Her lair. Fucking she-spider.
I didn't bother knocking, just shoved the big double doors open and stomped inside. Like all important confrontations in my life, this one was anticlimactic. Marjorie was nowhere to be found.
The place looked the way it usually did. . . lots of low lighting, comfortable chairs, benches. Lots of conference tables and chairs. Row after row of computers. Quiet as a grave (really!), and smelling like reams and reams of old paper. Oh, and dust. And Pledge!
Well, a case of Pledge wasn't going to stop me. It wasn't even going to slow me down. I'd-
(Elizabeth)
"Eric?" I whispered. That tiny voice in the back of my brain, previously so faint I couldn't make out who it was, or even what it was saying, was now quite a bit clearer.
I sniffed. Stupid Lemon Pledge, I wasn't getting anything but-I sniffed harder. Ah! There we go. Yep. Sinclair had been here. Was maybe still here. I stiffened like an English setter on point, then followed the scent through several doorways and down two flights of stairs into a dank basement.
My heels didn't make a sound on the carpeted stairs, which was fine with me, as I was busy trying to look in fifteen directions at once. Had Sinclair really been one town over the entire time? And where was she keeping him, that I could barely hear him? What had she done to him?
The place didn't look like a torture chamber. It looked like what it was: an old library, well-maintained, with plenty of money for books and computers. Heck, plenty of money for fluorescent lights as opposed to, say, torches sticking out of the wall.
I finished with the stairs and slid open the huge door in front of me-down there, at least, the place looked like a warehouse. The door rattled past me, and the smell of mildew and sweat assaulted my delicate, queenish nostrils.
The first thing I saw was Antonia in a spacious cage, the kind they used to cage Dr. Lector in The Silence of the Lambs. She was shaking the bars, and I remembered how claustrophobic she was. Her dark hair was matted with sweat, and her face was pale; she stank to high heaven, and her clothes were filthy. Her big eyes rolled toward me, like an animal in a killing pen, and she greeted me with a shrieked, "Get me out! "
Then I saw the coffins. Two of them, chained shut and draped with. . . were those rosaries? Yes. Dozens, covering almost every inch of the top of the coffins.
(Elizabeth)
I ran to the one nearest me and stripped the rosaries away, then yanked at the chains until they tore and bent in my hands. I didn't know how Marjorie had placed them-wearing asbestos gloves, maybe? I didn't care. I just had to get him out and face whatever hunger and crosses had done to him.
"Me first, me first, me firrrrssssssttttt!"
I flipped the top off the coffin and bit back a scream. Sinclair, yes. Incredibly wizened, incredibly old. Shrunken. Dried out. His lips were drawn back so his fangs were prominent. He looked a thousand years old. He looked dead.
"Oh my God!" I cried. "Oh, Sinclair! Tell me what to do! How can I-"
"Did your mother never teach you to call before dropping by? Oh, I'm prepared to validate your parking whenever you wish. How clever of you to park right out in the open like that."
I spun so fast I nearly went sprawling. Marjorie was descending the last of the steps; I'd been so caught up in freeing Sinclair I'd never heard her.
"You cunt ."
"You infant."
"Why?" I had to yell to be heard over Antonia's howls of rage. She was unusually bitchy during the full moon during the best of times. . . which this certainly was not. "Why did you do this?"
"You made it necessary."
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch her sly face in. "What the hell does that even mean?"
She stepped into the room, looking neat and trim in her tweed suit and sensible shoes. "He can't keep you in line. Case in point, your monthly newspaper column. Your autobiography, the fall fiction offering! You live your life openly-everyone around you knows your true nature. You collect people instead of living a solitary life. This is incredibly dangerous, to all you claim to rule. You left me no choice."
"You don't agree with the way I live my life, and so you do this?"
"As I said, you forced me to."
"Oh, right. Kidnapping, false imprisonment, torture. Blame me ."
She shrugged. "Unlike you, I do what must be done. Unlike him, I'm not besotted with your dubious charms. By keeping Sinclair under my control, I'll be able to keep you under control. Because someone has to take charge. And you clearly aren't up to it."
"But-but-"
"I have him. I'll keep him. And I'll kill him the moment you don't do as I say."
"But I am the queen!"
"You're a fluke. An accident. And now, you'll be my tool."
She followed my glance into the open coffin. Sinclair was still doing his impersonation of a wizened mummy. "I knew he wouldn't go along with my idea. So I needed him to come and see me. He brought these two-unexpected, but I could deal with them." She glared at Antonia, who was making an ungodly amount of noise rattling her bars.
"But why would he come see you so quickly?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Because I had information for him. Information is power; libraries are full of power. I can change records, reveal deaths, make up new ones, transfer ownership. I can change the facts, change history, if I like. I can grow my own power base and even presume to be queen myself someday, if I like. Eventually, I can discard you on the rubbish heap of rumor and misinformation. Betsy Taylor was no queen-she was a pretender, or a prophet, or whatever I'd like to make her. Who, exactly, will dispute the facts with me? The only vampires old enough to know better are in Europe. Would they argue if you die? If Sinclair did?"
I was trying to follow all this. "What information did you tell him you had?"
"I told him your engagement ring was cursed."
"And he fell for that?"
"Of course.Because it is."
"Aw, say it isn't so." I examined my diamond and ruby ring. "Cursed how?"
"Did you ever read The Monkey's Paw? "
"In high school."
"What a pleasant surprise. Here I thought I'd have to show you the picture book. Well, as in that story, your ring grants wishes. But always at a cost. You see, the stones were stolen from an Egyptian tomb. They followed quite a path before they got to me. I split them up and spread their pieces around the world. For research purposes.
"One actually made it back to me here years ago, set in a beautiful antique ring. I buried it far enough away where it couldn't hurt me, but where I could still find it if I thought it might come in handy. And so it did, when Sinclair actually came to me a few months ago and asked me if I knew of any special jewelry he could give you for engagement purposes!" She laughed. "He actually paid me a quarter of a million dollars for it. I couldn't wait to see what you wished for."
A thousand thoughts were whirling through my brain. The zombie, who showed up without explanation three months ago. Tina and Sinclair had tried, and failed, to figure out why it had come. They hadn't even known zombies existed. A total mystery, unsolved until now. But hadn't I wished for a real challenge when the Europeans were in town? A way to prove to myself that I was worthy of my title?
I had wished for everyone to go away and leave me alone-I had never felt more isolated than this past week.
And I had wished for a baby of my own. And then my father. . . and the Ant. . .
"Oh God," I moaned. I was fairly certain I was going to pass out. I had killed my father! My father! (And the Ant.)
"So, seeing the new opportunity the ring afforded, I then breathlessly contacted the king and told him I had done more research on the stones and found out unpleasant facts. Naturally he came on the run." She frowned at the other coffin. "With company."
I figured Antonia must have had a last-minute psychic flash and either accompanied Sinclair, or followed him. And Garrett had followed her. What a cluster-fuck.
"Apparently she tried to talk him out of coming, but of course Sinclair is sensitive to vampire courtesy, and my great age. And came anyway. And so here we are."
"You bitch."
"Yes, yes. Now. Let's discuss my first orders to you."
I dove at her. Well, the wall, as she neatly sidestepped. "Don't be tiresome," she snapped. "You won't best me. Sinclair is incapacitated, and without him by your side, you are a nothing. A typo. No one has been able to harm me for over five hundred years. You-ow."
I had punched her in the back and felt her ribs splinter. But fast as a snake, she'd gotten a grip on my arm and thrown me into the wall. I felt my nose break as it made brisk contact with the concrete.
I spun and slapped her so hard she staggered sideways, and I managed to avoid her elbow. I was going to kill this bitch twice. Not because she was a duplicitous cow. Not because she was trying to hurt and manipulate me. I was going to kill her for what she had done to him.
I heard a crunch as my knee broke, and I hobbled sideways, swiping at her with my good leg. With a grunt she went down, but before I could blink she was back on her feet, hoisting her sensible librarian skirt up and kicking me in the same knee that was still trying to grow back.
I shrieked and flung myself at her. I was bigger and managed to force her to the floor, then shrieked louder as her fist explored my spleen. I rolled away, fairly certain I was going to puke, then felt her on my back as she slammed my head against the wall.
"This is foolish," she said in my ear. "All you need do is fall in line, and we can get down to the business of governing the vampire nation properly."
I whipped my head back, smiling at the crunch of her nose breaking. I jerked an elbow back, but only caught air. I felt her hands on me, and she pushed, hard. My teeth broke as I hit the concrete again.
Hmm. Getting the shit kicked out of me was no fun at all. I bit back a howl as she twisted an arm so hard, it broke in two places.
(Elizabeth, get away.)
Shut up, Sinclair. I turned just in time to catch a librarian fist in the face, and there went more teeth. I coughed up blood and spat it right in her face.
"Oh, dear!Not. . .blood. " She laughed at me and licked her lips, her fangs appearing like needles springing from her gums. I slapped her again, and she shook it off, then punched me in the gut. I bent, gagging, and she grabbed my head and twisted.
I just managed to get an arm up before she broke my neck, and we moved around the basement in a flailing dance. Then she stomped on my foot with her sensible soles, and I felt a few more bones break and lost my balance. I went down, and she was right on top of me.
She had both hands around my neck and was squeezing and yanking my head up and down. The squeezing didn't bother me so much (I didn't need the breath) but every time she slammed my head into the floor I heard another fracture. It sounded like someone was crunching ice in my ear. It hurt, and it was annoying.
Slam. Slam. Slam. I brought my legs up to wrap them around her neck, but she simply leaned forward and fractured my skull again. And things were getting a little dark in here. I didn't think it was the ambiance. Nope, she was killing me. I'd been stumbling around like an idiot since Sinclair disappeared, had the clue in front of me the whole time
(Go back to the beginning.)
finally figured out who the bad guy was, and for my trouble? She was kicking my ass sideways. It hurt like hell and was fairly humiliating.
"And to think-I thought-you'd be-reasonable." Bitch wasn't even out of breath! Each pause was punctuated by another head slam. I was getting killed by a scrawny suit-wearing woman with graying hair. And sensible shoes!
Black roses were blooming in front of my eyes, and all of a sudden things hurt less. Hmm. Stakes hadn't killed me, and neither had bullets. But if an older vampire did enough damage (particularly to my head), if an older vampire pretty much tore my freaking head off, it seemed that would do the trick. Fine way to find out.
It was all right, though. It really was. I'd been floundering around in the dark for so long, it seemed appropriate that things were going dark for real. She was right; I was no queen. Look how easy she'd led me by the nose, and for how long. Heck, she'd been able to fool Sinclair!
(Elizabeth, get away. Run!)
Easy for him to say; he was napping in a nice comfy coffin.
No, it was probably for the best. My dad was dead, practically by my own hand. I'd probably have screwed up Babyjon beyond repair. Antonia had apparently gone completely nuts from the stress of being locked up most of the week. God knew what state poor Garrett was in. Jessica was a goner-you only had to look at the weight dropping off her to see it. And Sinclair-
If this bitch killed me, he was dead meat.
If this bitch killed me, there was no stopping her from hurting anyone she liked. My family. My friends. Sinclair.
The back of my head was sticky with blood; it was running down my face. I had a hundred broken bones; three of my ribs were gone. Not broken. Gone. Blood was draining from me. I had never been so. . .
hungry?
. . . in my life. Never. I needed to drink, and I couldn't. I needed to live, and I wouldn't. But Marjorie had power and energy to spare; the most I'd been able to inflict on her were defense wounds.
Marjorie had power and energy to spare.
Marjorie.
I reached for her. Not with my hands. Not with my teeth. With my mind. Even as everything faded to black I could sense her energy, her strength, and I grabbed for it like a fat kid grabbed for pie. And just like a fat kid, my chubby mental fingers crushed her tinfoil skin, and my chubby mental eyes gleamed at the crumbling, steaming crust.
"Unh, " I heard her grunt. She let go of me, her head tossing in confusion. Something had a hold of her and wasn't letting go. I rolled over to see who it was.
There was no one else there. But that didn't matter, because just seeing her like this was making me feel a bit stronger. The black blooms vanished, and I could see again. Her limbs thrashed as the chubby, pie-loving child inside of me poked at her to see what kind of fruit filling was inside.
Mmmmm. Blood pie.
Without touching her, I began to drink.
She screamed and fell to her knees.
No one else is doing it, I realized with more alacrity as the blood rushed into my system. Just the Queen. The Queen of the Fucking Vampires. Her Queen. And her Queen requires her goddamn, fucking obedience. She has something, I need it, it's mine.
Mine!
The darling pie-loving child was gone now. I split her open with my mind, grabbed for her, and pulled everything she had into me.
Her suit emptied-the blood first, then the shriveling muscles, then the flaying bits of dried skin, and then the billions of splinters of bone.
By the time I was done, I was standing tall over a librarian's suit, a librarian's sensible shoes, and about twenty grams of dust. I felt absolutely fine.
In fact, I had never felt fucking better in my life.