The dead cheerleader flew away from him like she’d been shot out of a cannon. I’d whipped my arm, hard, like I was back-tossing a Frisbee; Tina’s reflexes were excellent and she hopped out of the way. Cindy smacked into the wall and slowly slid down
(“We just sponge-painted that wall, aw, come on!”
“Yes, but you needed a change, Marc, dear, and we can fix it.”)
and I was on her before she could get up.
Now what? I could indulge my earlier urge to Homer Simpson her, but strangling didn’t bother a vampire too much. Stupid me, I’d run straight to Marc but hadn’t thought to grab a weapon.
“I need—”
Tina slapped something in my hand; the heft was excellent and, as I discovered when I tightened my grip and swung hard, the blade was nice and sharp. Cindy had time to start a shriek—of hunger? rage? despair? general pissed-offedness?—that was cut off pretty much immediately. Just like her head, which flew a good six feet before thudding to the floor and (nightmare fuel) rolling under Marc’s bed.
“I am not,” he announced, straightening from his defensive crouch, “fetching that.”
“Christ!” I exclaimed, immediately followed by, “Sorry, Tina, but holy crap! I mean, it’s great that you had the presence of mind to grab a knife—”
“I was in the kitchen checking on the puppies.”
“—but I had no idea that thing was so sharp.” We had a buttload of Cutco knives for one reason only: Sinclair could stand sunlight. He’d been walking Fur and Burr, his puppies (not our puppies; never, ever our puppies), in the neighborhood and had run across a college kid selling knives door-to-door. Sinclair bought everything in the kid’s catalog on the spot, which made it doubly funny when he came home with the puppies and a buttload of knives. (“The rest are on back order,” he’d hastened to inform me, like I was going to be annoyed he didn’t come home with the entire set.)
“Gotta give it to them,” Marc said, staring at Cindy’s headless corpse. “They make a good product.”
“I didn’t even know what you grabbed— I’m not sure I would have tried to behead her on the spot like that.” Maybe we could have, I dunno, subdued her and locked her up somewhere? We used to keep the Fiends out at a compound, but they’d either recovered or died for good and the place was empty now. If I’d had time to sit down and think about it, I don’t think I would have advocated immediate execution.
Too late now.
“Never mind, Tina, it’s not your fault. Everything was so fast! It’s been less than a minute since Marc first screamed.”
“Yelled,” he corrected. “Hollered. Shouted.”
“Screamed,” I teased, “like a whiney little girly-girl.”
“Come over here so I can bleed icky black zombie blood all over you.”
“Pass.”
“You didn’t know what I gave you?” Tina had walked over to the corpse and carefully nudged it onto its back, then bent to examine it, but took a moment to glance up at me, a curious expression on her face. “Why did you swing at all?”
“I knew you had it covered, figured whatever you’d handed me would do the trick.”
Only Tina could look up from examining a corpse she’d helped me decapitate with such a touched expression and say warmly, “That may be the greatest compliment I’ve ever been paid.”
“Yeah, well, your hair is stupid. Pigtails? Really?”
“I’m going hunting tonight,” was the absent reply. Would-be rapists and muggers beware! Tina literally ate them for lunch. Then: “Yes, as I suspected—as we all did. She’s newly risen. Killed by one of us a few days ago.”
“Lawrence is dead,” I said suddenly, remembering Sinclair’s urgent mental holler. I took a second
(we’re all fine Cindy’s dead so don’t crash your car in a reckless headlong rush to get back here we’re fine everything’s fine)
(I’m coming I’m coming)
to soothe my husband. For all the good it did. Fine, ignore my strict instruction not to crash his dumb electric-shaver car, see if I care. Oh, who was I kidding? I did care, the big stupid vampire lug.
(Seriously, be careful!)
Tina was shaking her head. “Dreadful. The king will take this hard.”
“Well, yeah.” Marc had squatted beside Tina and was also looking over the corpse. “Lawrence was his pal.”
“Yes, a good man and a responsible vampire. We need more like him, frankly. Too many of us think being among the ranks of the undead is a signal to jettison all signs of humanity: empathy, remorse, sentiment.”