Aw, jeez. I waited a few seconds, sort of hoping Tina might have something wonderfully insightful and wise to say to somehow fix how much messier the situation had just gotten, but she just looked at Cindy, her face creased in an expression of profound pity.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I’d rarely meant anything more. “Love sucks. And I still can’t help you.”
“Won’t,” she said, animation leaking away, scrunching back into a dejected lump.
“Well. Yeah. I won’t help you. I know you think I’m a stupid, uncaring bitch, and I am, but in this one thing my method of handling it is for the best.”
“I hate you. All of you. And him the most.”
No, she didn’t. Which, of course, was the problem. Tina and I looked at each other and she lifted one of her shoulders in a slight, apologetic shrug. My sentiments exactly; never had a shrug
(the whole situation is so unfortunate but there’s really nothing we can do; perhaps best to let time be the great teacher)
been more elegant.
So that was that.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Except not. Because the next time I saw Cindy, she was trying to rip Marc to shreds. And not doing too bad a job, either.
I’d suspected nothing; I’d been working on the new and improved Ten Commandments because kindly, encouraging Father Markus was a fucking slave driver. Sinclair was off with his rediscovered bestie, Lawrence; Jessica and Dick were both home and awake and playing with their weird babies; Tina was somewhere in the house doing whatever it was she did; ditto Marc. Only I had the self-discipline and work ethic to be hard at it this time of night.
So when the crash came just after nine p.m., I was on board to check it out. Overzealous paperboy? Marc throwing another Rubik’s Cube out the window in a fit of zombie? An overenthusiastic neighbor returning a cup of sugar?
Man, if only. It wasn’t any of those things, it was
(Lawrence is dead the wretched child nowhere to be found take all precautions I am coming)
a lot worse. I barely had time to register who our uninvited guest had to be when Marc started screaming.
God knows how she managed to corner him without anyone in the house knowing about it until she’d drawn blood, though later Sinclair pointed out that ordinary human insane people were capable of great stealth and cunning, insane vampires even more so. However she’d pulled it off, there was a locked door between Marc and (relative) safety, but not for long. I had just enough time to hear Dick’s shout, also from behind a locked door—it sounded like he’d
(“We’re all fine, go!”)
barricaded himself and Jess and the babies in their reinforced closet—and then I was there.
Here’s the thing no one tells you about kicking in a door: even if you have supernatural strength, you can’t just kick it anywhere as depicted by every movie ever. You have to kick the weak spot, usually the frame or the lock. If you don’t, your momentum will simply propel your leg through the middle of the door and you’ll be stuck
“Ow-ow-ow! Fuck!”
like a trout on a hook. An angry, flailing, blond trout hung up on an oak hook.
Tina, who’d been right behind me as we’d roared down the hall, simply seized me by the elbows and yanked back. I howled as my (previously shapely) leg was dragged out, gathering about a million toothpick-sized splinters on the way. Then she kicked the door (hitting the right spot on the first try, the insufferable show-off) and it fairly flew off its hinges before hitting the carpet
(phwump!)
hard enough to raise dust. Which was pretty hard, since Marc vacuumed every other day (like all doctors, he was constantly waging a war on germs).
Cindy had looked much better alive, but who didn’t, present company excluded? I didn’t think she’d been buried and clawed her way free of the grave, but only because I’d seen people who’d done that and they were much muddier and stinkier.
Not that Cindy didn’t stink; she reeked of old and new blood, of fury and fear, of dried piss and garbage. Blood streaked her face, her hands; her hair had more red in it than blue. It had dripped and dried all over her clothes: black miniskirt and tights in a nod to the freezing weather (Minnesota girls wore tights when everyone else wore snow pants), white and black leopard-print shirt, short white (well, not anymore) denim jacket. Hair that probably started out sprayed and smoothed and was now wild and streaked with gore. No shoes—they’d been torn off. Or kicked off when she . . . came back.
Clubbing clothes.
Trolling-for-vampire clothes.
Marc was kicking up an admirable fuss
(“Stop with the biting! You don’t even like how I taste, ow, Goddammit!”)
and I saw defensive marks on his hands and forearms. His neck was slashed and bitten, but the sluggish black trickle couldn’t really be defined as bleeding. I reached out, got a handful of Cindy’s matted, snarled hair, and yanked.