Undead and Undermined

Chapter SIXTEEN



There was a long, perplexed silence, broken by N/Dick’s, “Was it insured?”

“We’re not putting in an insurance claim on the Book of the Dead,” Jessica said firmly. “First off, we never got it appraised.”

“Where is it?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was at a total loss. Of all the problems I thought I’d have this month, releasing the hounds on a book bound in human skin was nowhere on the list. Don’t even get me started on insurance paperwork.

“Okay, who was reading the Book of the Dead in the tub and forgot to put it back?” Marc asked, but if his expression was any indication, his heart wasn’t in the teasing. He looked like I felt: rattled to the extreme.

“Wait.” I turned to Tina and my husband. “There is a book in this timeline, right? You didn’t follow me down the hallway to humor me? Or chase me?”

He smiled. “Though I will admit I have chased you from time to time, you are correct: there is a Book of the Dead in this timeline.”

“Okay, that’s something. So let’s think about this for a minute. Did you know it was missing?”

“I took it.”

“Of course not. I would have mentioned it straightaway.” Sinclair looked as offended as I’d seen him. “After properly greeting you.”

“Getting laid,” N/Dick volunteered with a grin. He was recovering from the shattering blow quicker than the rest of us. Cops: they live in a black-and-white world. He didn’t take it, he didn’t know who did, he was waiting for instructions, then he’d get back in gear. Boom. Simple.

“As I said.”

“I took it.”

“Did any of you know it was missing?”

“You’re asking us?” Marc said. “There’s so much weird shit going on around here I don’t even notice when my underwear’s missing.”

“Okay, first? Gross. And second, what now?”

“No one could have broken in here and taken it,” Tina thought aloud. “Perhaps that other Marc secreted it somewhere before making his presence known?”

Dimly, from several rooms away: “I did not!”

“I took it.”

“We gotta find it!” I was trying, and failing, not to freak out. What was worse than having the Book of the Dead in your house? Not knowing where the Book of the Dead was. I’d almost rather have a bitchy cobra roaming the carpets. “Whoever’s reading it is reading it and going insane right this minute and maybe they don’t even know it because they don’t know when they read it they’ll go insane! We have to save them!”

“Or punish them.”

“Vengeful is not a good look for you,” I told my husband. “Your nostrils get all flare-y.”

“I took it.”

“When did we last see it?” Tina asked. “If we can corroborate the last time it was here, we can then—”

“I took the Book of the Dead, you morons!”

We stared at the Antichrist. Nobody spoke for a few seconds, until the Marc Thing wailed, “Naaaaughty!”