Undead and Undermined

Chapter FORTY-THREE



“. . . be all right?”

“. . . her a minute.”

“. . . right into the door, I couldn’t—”

“. . . bleeding stopped.”

“. . . anything I can do.”

Jumble. Jumble of soft, soft words in my soft, soft head. Getting clearer, though. Oh, goody. I was going to live. I just wasn’t going to live it down.

“No one is blaming you, Laura.” My husband’s voice. And that was his hand, holding mine. “I’m going to carry her up to our bedroom, and—”

“No! God, no!” My eyes flew open. “Please. Please don’t go in there, and don’t take me in there. You don’t know, Sinclair. You just don’t.” I looked around the small circle of faces. Tina, N/Dick, Jessica, Laura. “None of you can understand the true horror of what’s happening in our room right now.”

“You’d better be concussed at the very least,” my best friend informed me. “Do you know how many stairs I gotta climb to get out of this shithole?”

“And Sinclair was wrong,” I told my sister. “I’m blaming you. Why didn’t you stop me?”

“How could I? You were like the bionic woman down here. I barely saw the door was locked before you smacked straight into it.”

“Well, I . . . I thought we would find something else.” I felt something wet on my lip and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. My entire face ached. My hand came away trickling my sluggish undead blood. “Dammit. Tell me I didn’t break my nose.”

“You seem fine,” Sinclair soothed.

“Ha! If you’ve got a medical degree, Sink Lair, it’s the first I’m hearing about it.” I started to sit up, ignoring the many helping hands. It’s not that I wasn’t grateful. Okay, I wasn’t grateful. But I was more embarrassed than anything else. So intent on rescue I ran smack into a closed door and knocked myself out . . . not too lame. “Where’s Marc? Shouldn’t he be trying to take my nonexistent pulse?”

“In there.” Tina pointed to the closed, bolted door.

“Not that Marc. The one that’s alive, sane, and not (too) creepy.”

“In there.”

I blinked, then realized what she’d said. “What? You’ve locked him in there with the Marc Thing? What, did he lose the coin toss?”

“No, it’s—”

“What the hell is the matter with all of you?” Sheesh. I go back to hell for a couple of hours and everyone back home checked their IQ at the door.

I was on my feet in a flash, fumbling with the bolts and then yanking them aside to open the door. Instead of helping, they just stood around and watched me. Unbelievable! I heaved it open (sucker was heavy) and made ready to dash into the room to save Marc from the profound idiocy of my room—

Both Marcs, who had been in deep discussion, looked up at me.

“What?” they said in unison.

I stared. I had to; it was an interesting sight to say the least. I saw in an instant why my roommates hadn’t been concerned: the Marc Thing was still trussed, and though our Marc had been locked in with him, he was festooned with crosses.

Yep. Crosses were hanging everywhere off our Marc . . . if he so much as shifted his weight, the Marc Thing flinched back and couldn’t look at him. And the duct tape was holding up beautifully.

The perfect interrogation technique. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Because who would the Marc Thing be most likely to talk to? His younger self, of course. And who’d be the best judge of whether his old dead self was prevaricating or covering up? His younger self, of course.

“Ohhhh.”

“Uh-huh,” Jessica said, smug.

“Hey.” Our Marc waved casually. “You’re back, finally.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been busy.”

“So we hear.” Sinclair had taken out a handkerchief (who still carried those?) and was tenderly wiping the blood off my face. “Besting the devil and freeing our friend’s soul.”

“I’m not sure how the soul/body thing works in hell,” I confessed. “Think about it . . . Antonia’s body was buried on Cape Cod. But now her body is back here, alive. It’s not her soul. She’s flesh and blood again.” Gah, didn’t I know it. Mustn’t . . . think . . . about bedroom . . . carnage . . . “I mean, how does that even work?”

Laura blinked. “Huh. I didn’t even think about that, Betsy. That is weird.”

“I have so much to tell you.” I realized I’d been leaning on Sinclair since I’d climbed to my feet. “And, um, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about going back to hell.”

“No. You are not.”

“Okay, well, I’m sorry I—”

“You are not.”

“Okay, okay, but look how great it turned out!”

“That,” my husband said, “is why you didn’t wake up on the bottom of the Mississippi River.”

“Please.” I flapped a hand at him. “Like you’d ever hurt me.”

He sighed. He looked grim, but then leaned forward, pulled me into his arms, and rubbed his chin on the top of my head. I guess I was supposed to find that loving and comforting, but all it did was mash my sore nose. “No, but I can dream.”

“I gotta get going,” our Marc said, standing. He backed out of the wine cell (I had decided the wine cellar needed a new name), which was smart. Dozens of crosses were pointed at the Marc Thing the whole time it took our Marc to cross to the doorway. He’d agreed to be locked in with it, but protected himself with tons of jewelry. Meanwhile, even if the Marc Thing did do something stupid, he still had the (three) bolts to get through. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Don’t be a stranger!” the Marc Thing called with eerie, and inappropriate, cheer. Hearing that raspy cold voice sounding high and enthusiastic made me feel a little like throwing up. Or throwing myself at another locked cellar/ cell door. “Send me lots and lots and lots and lots of postcards! I love getting mail!”

Marc pushed past me and I let him. He’d had a look on his face I didn’t like, but understood. He looked sort of . . . it was hard to describe . . . unplugged? Sort of vaguely uneasy but also thoughtful . . . like he’d been given tons of info and was having trouble making sense of it.

That was probably exactly what he was going through.

We watched him climb the stairs like an old man. When he was out of sight, I said, “It can be pretty terrible, finding out about terrible things that you haven’t even done yet which will make the future terrible. I’ll go talk to him.”

“Give him a few minutes,” Sinclair advised.

“Yeah, you’re right. The Marc Thing probably blew his mind.”

“That is it exactly,” the Thing agreed. “We caught up on current events . . . I can’t grow hair in new and gorgeous ways anymore, but perhaps a wig? Perhaps . . . a Justin Bieber?”

“Perhaps gross,” I suggested.

“Is Antonia really back from hell? It’s not that I thought Laura was lying. It just seems . . . it’s incredible.”

“She’s here,” the Marc Thing said, “but she’s not here. Antonia’s dead. You just can’t help yourself, can you? You pretend you hate change, but it’s what you constantly bring us to.”

“Pull the other one, Fang. Tina, you haven’t even heard the whole story yet!” And wouldn’t for a while, since Laura and I were in full agreement that the gang didn’t need every single dull detail. I’d hit her with the highlights, emphasizing how cool and awesome I’d been in hell.

“Then lead on.” Sinclair courteously gestured to the stairs, bowing slightly at the waist. The bow did nothing to hide his amused grin. “And regale us, my own.”

So that’s what I did. That’s what kills me, that’s the part I couldn’t stop thinking about after. When I could bear to think about any of it at all.

I did.