“Some of them are dead,” he informed me. “Some of them ran off.”
Marc called from the other room, “And some of them are going to need medical attention! I’ll do what I can.”
Sinclair took in the ruined room, the holes in the walls, the broken windows, Laura, unconscious on the floor.
“Are you all right?”
“Shit, no. But I’ll live. How about you? You look like somebody dropped you into a blender and pressed puree.”
“What a coincidence. That is precisely how I feel.”
I went to him and hugged him, closing my eyes as he stroked my back. “Laura’s mom was here.”
“That explains much.”
“It explains mucher than you know.”
“At least you won the fight.”
I looked up at him. “She could have killed me at any time. She threw the fight when she realized her mother had been pulling her strings all this time.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
I imagined Sinclair didn’t need me to spell out the ramifications for him. Given the way he was grinding his teeth, I knew he was equal parts pissed for me and frightened for me.
Because if Laura could kill me anytime—she’d hidden her strength and speed all this time, for one thing—who was really in charge around here? A mere vampire?
Or the devil’s daughter?
And what about the next time Laura and I butted heads? Much as I hated to admit it, there most likely would be a next time. I couldn’t count on her to throw every fight. Frankly, I was pretty sure she’d only thrown this one because I’d shocked her with the bald truth. There were only so many times I could play the sister card.
And next time, she wouldn’t be taken off guard.
Next time, she might kick my ass straight into hell, and then bye-bye for every vampire she could get her hands on.
And she could get her hands on a lot. Especially since she apparently had followers who would do whatever she asked. Legions of them.
It should have been over.
But it wasn’t. We’d earned a temporary respite, that was all.
Chapter 58
Between Marc and Sinclair, they pulled enough strings to get the wounded to the hospital without us having to fill out reams of paperwork or answer unanswerable questions. Not for the first time I appreciated being married to a rich man who knew people . . . not to mention having Dr. Spangler as a roommate.
Sinclair carried Laura to the room she’d been staying in and laid her on the bed. She was going to have an unattractive shiner, but Marc checked her over and pronounced her merely unconscious.
We still had no idea where Tina was, so I stayed in the room listening to Laura’s soft breathing, waiting for her to wake up.
After about half an hour, her eyes opened and she stared at the ceiling, then at me.
“Welcome back.”
“Is it true?” she asked hoarsely, and I realized with a stab of pity that she was afraid. “Did my mother have something to do with all this?”
“Yeah, Laura. It’s true.”
“I was so sure it was a good plan, the right plan. Instead of running from those—those people, I thought I was—oh, Betsy! How am I ever supposed to know what’s my idea, and what’s part of her plan for me?”
The time was past for comforting lies. “I don’t know.”
“I’d rather be dead than be her puppet.”
“Can’t we find a happy medium between those two?”
She suddenly seemed to notice my ruined suit, the blood, my mussed hair, the way I was covered with bits of soot, wallpaper, and plaster.
Her face crumpled and she clapped her hands over her eyes. I leaned forward, grasped her wrists, and gently pulled her hands away from her face.
“Come on, Laura. It’s not fatal. This is why God invented dry cleaners. Also, it’s going to be really, really awkward between us for a while. It might even ruin Christmas.”
My lame-ass joke fell flat—deservedly so—and Laura burst into tears. “I’m sorry,” she managed, pulling free of my grip. “I’m just so, so sorry.”
She rested her forehead on my shoulder and I stroked her (blond) hair while she sobbed all over my already filthy suit. “It’s all right, Laura. We’ll figure it out. Come on, enough with the waterworks.”
“I could have killed you.”
“But you didn’t.” You just killed a bunch of my people. But I’d have to address that later. I wasn’t looking forward to it, that was for damned sure. “You let me hurt you—punch you out like we were brawlers in a Western—rather than killing me. You know what that makes you?”
“No.”
“One of the good guys. Your white hat is in the mail.”
“No, it’s not,” she said again, and wept harder.
Chapter 59
Traffic was light at this time of night, and Sinclair rode the gas pedal like he was in the race of his life. Which wasn’t far off.
In next to no time (objectively, subjectively it seemed to take a week), we were at Laura’s apartment in Dinkytown, opening the door to the spare bedroom.
Marc, Sinclair, and I all stared. Laura was studiously not staring.
Finally I said, “Devil worshippers brought a coffin up here and nobody noticed?”
Laura shrugged. I moved forward and stripped the crosses off the coffin, off the inside door handle, and the windows—no wonder Tina had disappeared from the picture so completely. The crosses were more effective than bear traps.
I popped the top off of the second coffin in the same week. “Hey, Tina? Rise and shine, it’s time to—gggkkk!”
Tina’s hands had shot up and out and she was briskly strangling me while I gurgled and grabbed her wrists. “Help me, you idiots,” I choked, which seemed to break the spell . . . Marc and Sinclair both sprang forward to prevent Tina from snapping me in half.
The perfect end to a perfect week.
They pulled her off me and Sinclair helped her sit up. She was terribly wasted, terribly old, but I knew some blood would fix her right up. She kept beating her withered hands at Sinclair’s shoulders and trying to speak.
“Be calm, Tina.”
“Yeah, be calm already,” I added. “We’ll take care of you.”
“Laura,” she whispered, so faintly I had to strain to hear. “You have to watch out for Laura.”
“They know,” Laura said, staring at her shoes.
Then Sinclair and Marc and I had our hands full keeping Tina from ripping out my sister’s throat and taking a shower in the blood.
Chapter 60
Oh, come on, you guys.” Everyone but Laura was in our kitchen . . . it was the next evening, and I didn’t think Tina was going to not try to kill my sister anytime soon. And who could blame her? Laura had tricked her, trapped her, and starved her. Something other than a Hallmark card was definitely called for. “We won! The bad guys are vanquished. Why so glum?”
Sinclair was giving Marc his “you idiot” stare, but Marc was so happy we were all back home he was overlooking a few things.
Sure, we had friends among the werewolves now . . . including Michael and Jeannie, which was quite a coup. I could practically hear Sinclair trying to figure out how to turn their goodwill to our advantage.
And yes, we’d found out BabyJon was no ordinary baby—which was a great relief, given our dangerous lifestyles. If he was going to be raised by vampires, it was excellent that he couldn’t be hurt by them.
The vampires Laura and her minions had killed were all pretty bad characters . . . Sinclair and Tina knew each and every name, and couldn’t deny the planet was better off without those particular undead walking around.
However, the ends don’t justify, etcetera.