“Or was it just my basic personality? I’d blame it on being a vampire, but honestly, he was like this pretty much the whole time I was alive, too. Except this time . . .” I paused, then forced the rest of the words out. “This time he’s putting everyone I love in danger, too. For spite. You’re in the worst danger of your life because my dad never loved me.”
And that was it. I clapped both hands over my eyes in a gesture I knew was childish
(if I can’t see them they can’t see me)
but was too upset to care, and burst into tears. I hadn’t cried so hard since my dad faked his death to get away from me. There was probably a lesson there, but I couldn’t get to it. So I just wept and let Sinclair offer what comfort he could, and in a while I fell into an exhausted sleep.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
Jessica’s twins, who were about a month old, were just getting home from kindergarten when I walked into the kitchen a few hours after my breakdown.
(This will take some explaining.)
Though life was currently stressful and shitty, I knew everyone was working on the problem. The reporters hadn’t come back, though we expected more press tomorrow . . . I’d given them a few sound bites while processing my sister’s betrayal. Don’t even get me started on the horror of Mr. Tinsman’s grief being a contributing factor to this . . . fucking . . . mess.
The one bright spot: I’d popped into Hell for an hour, almost sad I’d fixed the time problem (how great would it have been to come back a year later, when Sinclair and Tina had fixed everything?). To my surprised pleasure, things were running smoothly. Operation Hell Buddy was still going strong, and Cathie and the Ant had started reviewing cases/souls that were eligible for parole, as it were.
I was beginning to realize that running Hell was like the old saying about one person eating a bear by herself. It seemed impossible when you thought about the whole job, but the trick was to do it one bite at a time, however long it took.
Hell was my dead bear.
Meanwhile, there was this to deal with.
“H’lo, Onnie Bets.”
“Hi, kiddo. Sorry, plural.” Jessica’s twins—a boy and a girl who reminded me of Poe’s Raven (“Nameless here for evermore”) due to Jessica’s hatred of government paperwork—were seated on bar stools pulled up to the big butcher block that dominated the kitchen. They had identical expressions of “well, we’re politely waiting, how about you move your butt and get us a snack already?” on their teeny cute faces.
“Aw, c’mon.” I tried not to whine. “You guys will get me in trouble with your mom again. And she was super pissed at me just a few hours ago. I’m not stirring that pot again.”
“Nuh-uh! We won’t say anything.”
“You can stir, you can stir! And even if she knew—”
“Not from us!”
“She’d forgive you ’cuz you’re best friends.”
“That’s true,” I admitted, because Jessica had overlooked worse crimes (borrowing her eyeliner without asking, coming back from the dead, temporarily wondering if she was in cahoots with the Antichrist), “but there’ll be hours of shouting first.”
“And also, you have the most prettiest shoes in the world.”
“Well, one cookie won’t hurt.” I smiled at them. Dammit, they were adorable. “Besides, you should be rewarded for being so smart.”
In unison (which should have been creepy but was just cute): “We know!”
I opened the snack cupboard and stretched to reach the Thin Mints, which Marc still obsessively bought and hoarded even though he didn’t eat anymore. The cookies-on-the-top-shelf ploy worked except when Jessica’s weird babies were in their late teens. Then it was like a pair of wolverines had been released into the cookie cupboard; the mess was right out of I am become death, destroyer of worlds.
“Here.” I gave them each two, then poured milk and watched carefully as they drank. In this universe, Jessica and Dick’s babies were still newborns; we had no sippie cups on hand, and so kept an eye on the kids as they drank. Two weeks ago one of them (I forget which) lost his or her grip and sloshed chocolate milk on my Nicholas Kirkwood prism ankle boots. They took turns comforting me as I collapsed in a heap on the floor and sobbed for five minutes (I’d have cried a lot longer if the boots hadn’t been black).
A sweet, high-voiced chorus of two: “Thank you!”
“Welcome. Now keep your lips zipped. If your mom kills me, I’ll kill you.”
A chime of giggles. “Nuh-uh! Not even if someone tried to make you.”