MaryJane Davidson - Undead and Unpopular

He was blinking so fast, for a second I thought he had something in both eyes. “But I don't remember that! I'd remember if I wrote a book, right?”

“Yeah, normally. Except Sinclair made you forget you'd written it. And since you didn't remember writing it, you didn't think to warn us that you'd sent it in to get published.”

“Warn you? I—” He walked dazedly back and forth by the table for a moment, not quite pacing. He looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands. “Sinclair made me forget?”

“Well.” Tell the truth and shame my sister's mother, wasn't that how the saying went? Sure, we could be done now, but I didn't want any part of this conversation left undead. Whoops—Freudian slip.Unsaid . Another surprise down the road I didn't need. “Tina found the electronic version of your manuscript—she was looking for it, or something like it—and told Sinclair. He mojoed you into forgetting all about it, and then they deleted your work. They thought all of your work.”

“Did you call me down here,” he whispered, “because you just found out and you want my help to stop them?”

“Ah, no. See, after they did all that, they told me. This was around Christmas. And at first I told Sinclair to undo his undoing, if you get what I mean. But then I remembered.”

“What?”

“I remembered I'm the queen and I'm responsible for all the vampires,” I said simply. “So I let it all stand. It was shitty for you, but I thought if the book got out that would be shitty for all vampires.”

He was clutching the back of one of the kitchen chairs and I saw all the knuckles had gone from pink to dead white. All the color had fallen out of his face, except for two patches of red way up on each cheek.

“Are you okay?” I asked, dumbest question of the year, no doubt. “Maybe you better sit down.”

“You—youlet —him—dothat? To me?”

“Well, I didn't know about it until afterward,” I began lamely, “but—”

He actually swayed a little while he hung on to the chair. I edged a little closer, figuring I could catch him if he fainted. Helooked like he was going to faint. After he threw up. “Youlet him do that—let him into my fuckingmind —and then you had the chance tohelp me and you tooktheir side?”

“I—yeah. That's more or less it.”

“You didn't help me—you let him—and you didn't—”

“Delk, I think you should sit down before you—”

“Shut! Up!” he screamed at me, the cords standing out on his neck. “You aren'teven sorry! Because if you did it, if you fucked me over to help all of goddamn vampire-​kind, youcan't be sorry.”

“I'm sorry you got stuck in the middle. I'm sorry there's a book out there that you don't remember writing. A funny book the critics like,” I added, trying to find a speckle of good in this whole awful nightmare. Oooh, and there was something else! “You kind of got the last laugh, because the book is coming out anyway, and the vampires who know about it are pretty annoyed, so—”

“So everything you let himdo to me was for nothing.”

“Okay, that's another way to look at it.”

He wiped his nose with the back of the hand not holding the chair. “I can't believe this,” he whispered.

“I'm really sor—”

“I can believe that bitch snuck around in my files, and I can believe that prick jumped into my mind, but you! You're supposed to be the good one! I-I thought you—you aren't supposed to be a bad guy! You're supposed to look out for me,and for vampires—they're all the same to you, right?”

I stammered, trying to say five things at once.

“Right?”

“Delk, I—”

He wheeled around and almost slipped in one of the little puddles he'd made.

“Please don't leave! Please, let's talk some more.”

He barked an incredulous laugh, staggered for the door, and shoved against it, hard.

Unfortunately, it only moved about a foot before it thudded into something.

“Aagghh!” I heard Jessica say from the other side, then another thud as she fell down. I rushed over, held the door open, and saw her rolling back and forth on the floor, hands cupped around her nose. The blood, it was—it wassheeting down her throat and onto her shirt; the blouse was already wrecked.

Marc was crouched beside her, doing the doctor/mom chant: “No, I won't touch it, just let me look, no, I'm not going to touch, just get your hands down so I can see, let me see.”

That was no ordinary nosebleed. It was just—it was everywhere. I whirled upon Delk. “She's sick! And you practically broke her nose—she didn't doanything . And she'ssick , you asshole!”

Before I knew what was happening, I had seized him by the shirt and was holding him right up to my nose. “You thouhd have kept your handth to yourthelf.”

“Betsy, don't! It was an accident, come on, it's—” Jessica choked a little from her spot on the floor and spat blood. “It's a swinging door, for heaven's sake. I'm surprised this doesn't happen every week. Come on, put him down.”

I threw him away from me. He bounced off the wall (and I'd be lying if I didn't admit it felt good to watch him fly like a paper airplane, and where had all my sympathy for him gone?) and crumpled to the floor in a heap.

I knelt by my friends. “Jeth, are you all ri—”

“Look out!” she screamed, and I turned just in time to get shot.

I'll bet Marc is sorry he skipped work today , I thought, toppling into Jessica's bloody face and knocking her down again.

I woke up just in time to hear Jon's bellow of pain and the instantaneous dull “snap” that came with it.

Get up

I tried to move.

Get up or they'll kill each other. Really kill each other.

My entire chest felt like it had been drenched in kerosene and then lit. And not in a good way, either. I tried to sit up.

“Better not,” Marc said, and I realized he and Jessica were both kneeling over me. “I think your heart's busy growing back.”

“Help me up,” I groaned.

“Bad idea,” he said, but he carefully pulled me to my feet. It seemed to take a long time.

“Jess, you okay?”

“I'm fine. Nothing's broken.” She looked awful—blood all over her clothes, blood drying across her face—but at least it wasn't fresh blood. “I know this isn't the time or place, but that really squicks me out.”

“What?”

“You're licking blood off the back of your hand,” Marc murmured.

Yeesh! “Sorry.” I made myself stop. Just as well; it hurt to move. Luckily I didn't need to breathe, because I bet that would have hurt like crazy, too. Now where was I? Something important. Like, life or death important. Oh, yeah… “Stop, you guys! Cut it out. Sinclair, let him go.”

Not that I could see what was going on, but it wasn't hard to guess.

I limped toward the kitchen door (which had started all the trouble, come to think of it) and pushed it open. Sinclair was just leaning down to pick Jon up off the tiles, ignoring the loaded gun pointed at his nose.

“Ah, you're up and around,” Sinclair said, looking over at me. “Splendid.”

“Just… stop. Okay? Come on. I got shot, you broke Delk's arm, Jess got a nosebleed. We'll sprain Marc's ankle and make Tina have a haircut and then everybody's even, okay? Please don't,” I pleaded, as Sinclair reached for his prey again. “It's so awful right now; please let's not make it worse. Besides, aren't you dying to rush over here and make sure for yourself that I'm all right?”

I could see him think about it. The gun might have been made of candy for all he noticed it, but I knew Jon's bullets were hollow points stuffed with holy water. One probably would have killed Sinclair. As usual (happy sigh), when I was concerned, he didn't give much of a shit about his personal safety.