MaryJanice Davidson: Dead Over Heels

More footsteps, and then my best friend, Jessica, was saying, “What’s wrong? Is she okay?” She was so skinny and short, I couldn’t see her behind Marc.

“The Ant is here!” I yowled as Sinclair assembled the rags of his suit, picked me up off the desk, and shoved me behind him. I don’t know why he bothered; Marc was gay and a doctor, and so couldn’t care less if I was mostly naked. And Jessica had seen me naked about a million times. “Here, right now!”

“Your stepmother’s in this room?” I still couldn’t see her, but Jessica’s tone managed to convey the sheer horror I felt at the prospect of being haunted by the Ant.

“Where else would I be?” the Ant, the late Antonia Taylor, said reasonably. She was tapping her Paylessclad foot and nibbling her lower lip. “What I’d like to know is, where’s your father?”

“One problem at a time,” I begged.

After Marc decided a Valium drip probably wouldn’t work on a vampire, he brought me a stiff drink instead. Which was sweet, but I was so rattled I drank it off in one gulp and it could have been paint thinner for all I knew.

“Is she still here?” he whispered.

“Of course I’m still here,” my dead stepmother snapped. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m the only one who can hear you,” I shrilled, “so just shut up!”

“Bring her another drink,” Sinclair muttered. We were still in his office, but Jessica had kindly brought robes to cover our shredded clothes. “Bring her three.”

“I don’t need booze, I need to get rid of you-know-what.”

“Very funny,” the Ant grumped.

She and my father had been killed in a gruesome, stupid car accident a couple of months ago. Where she had been since her death, and why she had shown up now, I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to know. But I was going to have to find out, because the ghosts never, ever went away until I solved their little problems for them.

And where was my dead dad, anyway? I sighed. Non-confrontational in life, as well as in death.

“What do you want?”

“I told you. To fix this.”

“Fix what ?”

“ You know.”

“This is so weird,” Marc murmured to Jessica, forgetting, as usual, about superior vamp hearing. “She’s having a conversation with the chair.”

“She is not, quiet so I can hear.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “I really, really don’t. Please tell me.”

“Stop playing games.”

“I’m not !” I almost screamed. Then I felt Sinclair’s soothing hands on my shoulders and sagged into him. Like our honeymoon hadn’t been stressful enough, what with all the dead kids and Marc and Jessica crashing it and all. This was a hundred times worse.

“If you could just—” I began, when the office door crashed open, nearly smashing into Marc, who yelped and jumped aside.

Garrett, the Fiend formerly known as George, stood in the doorway, panting. Since he was seventy-some years old and didn’t need to breathe, I knew at once something was seriously fucked.

“They’re awake,” he gasped. “And they want to kill you.”

“Who?” Sinclair, Jessica, Marc, and I asked in unison.

“The other Fiends. I’ve been feeding them my blood and they’re pissed. They—they sort of ‘woke up’ and now they want to kill you.”

“It’s this lifestyle you lead,” the Ant said smugly. “These things are bound to happen.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” I barked. I actually had to clutch my head; which problem to tackle first?

“You’d better sit down and tell us everything,” Sinclair said, reminding me he was the vampire king. Bam. Decision made. We’d deal with what Garrett had done first.

So take that, dead stepmother.

“Delightful, wicked fun . . . Erotically passionate!”

—Christine Feehan

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—Romance Reviews Today

“A must-read for fans who appreciate a humorous out-of-this-world tale . . . fast-paced and filled with zingers.”

—Midwest Book Review

“One of the funniest books I have ever read! MaryJanice Davidson has once again brought to life an independent, wisecracking heroine . . . The story is fast-paced, the sex is hot, and the humor outrageous! I highly recommend this story to everyone.”

—Paranormal Romance Reviews

“Classic MaryJanice Davidson, in that it had me laughing throughout the book. It is one of the most original story ideas I have read in a long time also . . . [and] has the steamy love scenes that Ms. Davidson is known for . . . awesome.”

—The Best Reviews

“[A] wickedly clever and amusing romp. Davidson’s witty dialogue, fast pacing, smart plotting, laugh-out-loud humor, and sexy relationships make this a joy to read.”

—Booklist

“A hilarious romp full of goofy twists and turns, great fun for fans of humorous vampire romance.”

—Locus

“A bawdy, laugh-out-loud treat!”

—BookPage

“Smart, sarcastic, frequently profane, and maniacally inventive.”

—The Fort Myers (FL) News-Press

“[A] hilarious, outrageous romp that . . . has more than one unexpected twist.”

—Library Journal