MaryJane Davidson: Undead and Unworthy

Tina glanced at Jessica, who glared. “Ah. Flee, I think. At least until we know more about this particular threat.”

“Don't run off on my account,” Jessica warned. But of course, that's exactly why we were choosing flight over fight. We couldn't risk Marc and Jessica's lives until we knew more about what was going on. “I mean it, you guys.”

Sinclair ignored her. “Very well. Let's take the tunnel.”

Tunnel? We were taking a tunnel? We had the king, the queen, Tina, a former Fiend – the odds were okay, I thought. But Tina had an excellent point – we had a couple of humans to watch out for, too.

Tina led the way to one of the many doors leading to the basement, and I had to jog to keep up. “What? We have a tunnel?”

“Betsy, come on!” Marc said, grabbing an elbow and giving such a yank I nearly fell down the stairs.

“Not without me, you're not,” the Ant said triumphantly, and marched (Marched? Couldn't she float?) behind me just as the door closed, leaving all of us in pure darkness.

Well. Not pure. I could see fine, as could Garrett, Tina, and Sinclair. But from the moans and whimpers coming from farther down the stairs, the humans were having more trouble.

“Stop that sniveling, Marc Spangler, or I'll detesticle you,” Jessica snapped. When she was scared, she got pissed. Man, you should have seen her the day she got a false positive on an EPT. We were buying new dishes for days.

“I can't see a fucking thing,” he snarled back. There was an abrupt silence, a – I know how this sounds, but I could hear it – a flailing, and then a rattle of thumps, followed by moans of pain.

“Getting eaten alive by the Fiends can't be worse than this,” Marc groaned from the floor. Ouch. He must have fallen at least ten steps. Onto cement.

“Be careful,” Tina said.

“Thanks. At least someone cares.”

“You could have broken your ankle on the way down and slowed our escape.”

“I hate vampires,” he replied. “So much.”

I eased past Jessica on the stairs, went to Marc, and picked him up. “This is so romantic,” he cooed, modestly kicking his unbroken foot.

“Shut up, or I'll use you for Fiend chum.”

“Why,” Jessica demanded, “have we decamped to the basement?”

“And why haven't we turned any lights on?” I asked.

“Tina, take Jessica's hand. Elizabeth, keep carrying Marc.” Sinclair groaned softly in the dark, as if he couldn't believe he'd said such a thing. “Everyone else, follow me.”

It took a long time. The basement was as long as the house, which was a mansion on Summit Avenue. And we had to wander around various tables and chairs, in and out of mysterious rooms – I could count on one hand how often I'd been down here since we moved a couple of years ago. I had never liked it, not even – especially even – when Garrett was living down there, knitting afghans and learning to crochet.

The journey wasn't improved by the occasional yelps, as Jessica stubbed a toe or cracked an elbow. Marc just snuggled deeper into my arms (ridiculous – he had thirty pounds of muscle on me) and waited patiently for me to make him safe.

Story of my life, since I'd died.

We could hear faint crashings from upstairs; the Fiends, making a mess because they couldn't find us. Chewing on my drapes; defecating on my carpet, ripping up my graphic novels in their bloodthirsty rage. But surely they could follow their noses?

That's when Sinclair stopped walking and began tapping his knuckles on what looked like a solid cement wall.

“I don't think you should do that,” I said nervously. “They might hear.”

“Over the sound of their own nonsense? Doubtful. ”

I opened my mouth to object again (quietly) when the solid cement wall suddenly swung wide to the left, revealing a narrow, dimly lit (with fluorescents, blinking on one by one even as we stared) tunnel.

“Tunnel?” I asked, peering.

“Tunnel,” Marc confirmed, peering with me. His grip tightened around my neck. “Did this come with the house, or did you put it in after?”

Good fucking question, which, I couldn't help notice, my husband didn't bother to answer.

“The lights and heat are motion activated.” Sinclair turned to me, smiling with all his sharp teeth. “Usually, in our case, heat activation would do little good. After you, my queen.”

Wondering what else about the Vampiric Mansion of Mystery I didn't know, I went.

“I'm tired,” I whined after we'd been walking for a hundred years.

“It's only a bit farther,” my lying bastard husband said.

“You keep saying that, and we keep not being there.”

“I keep dreaming about divorce and not being divorced.”

“Oh, very nice!” I raged, running to catch up with them, ignoring Marc's yelps as he was jolted in my arms. “Married not even a season, and you're looking for the door, such a typical guy, I knew you – hey!”

I had been lifted easily, effortlessly. “Now shush, Your Majesty,” Tina said, shifting my and Marc's combined weight with no effort. “And we really are almost there.”

“This,” Marc announced over the distinctive gagging noise of Jessica stifling laughter, “is too much. My masculinity could stand being carried by Betsy, but – ”

“The gay guy has concerns about masculinity?” Jessica managed, then broke down completely.

“I'm gay, not a eunuch. Have you ever seen me in drag? Or even mascara? I'm a regular guy in every way – ”

“Except you like to put your penis in weird places,” I said primly.

“Can we please have one midnight getaway without having to talk about Marc's penis?” Tina asked, aggrieved.

We all shut up as we navigated another set of stairs... and then another. I'd been living here for months and months, and nobody had told me about the secret vampire escape tunnel.

I remembered that Sinclair had steered Jessica toward this house when we had to upgrade. Back in the days when I thought I hated him. And here I thought it had been because he was a history buff and liked old houses!

“I've never been bored, and scared, at the same time,” Marc commented.

“What do you want me to do with that information?” Tina asked.

“Just put us down,” he grumbled, and Tina did, hard enough to rattle my teeth. Marc and I groaned in unison.

Sinclair pressed another button, another wall raised, and I suddenly could hear flowing water. He walked out into what must have looked like pure darkness to the others, except I could hear his heels clanking on the boards of the dock. He sounded like a sheriff from the Old West.

“We walked all the way to the Mississippi?” Marc goggled.

“What 'we'?” Jessica asked. “And it was, what? Seven, eight whole blocks?”

We heard Sinclair start up the Evinrude, and as he hit the lights Jessica and Marc cheered.

“Get the rope, will you, darling?” he asked casually, as if he didn't look, at that moment, like the coolest guy in the universe.

The dock was a memory a few seconds later, and when Sinclair opened 'er up, I decided I wasn't mad anymore and allowed him to put his arm around me.

“All right, Garrett,” my husband said about half an hour later. I had no idea where we were, but we were out of the Fiends' reach, at least for now. He'd powered down the motor, and we were floating between a couple of islands. City lights were visible, but far off. I'd always sucked at geography; the lights could have been St. Paul or Minneapolis for all I knew. “Suppose you tell us everything.”