Undead and Unforgiven(7)

“Nonsense,” came a voice that managed to be soft, brisk, and polite all at once. Tina (real name: Christina Caresse Chavelle, which was hilarious) had popped up out of nowhere (she was like a census taker that way), representing herself and the vampire king.

You’d think the vampire queen (moi) could do that, but trust me: it’s better for everyone that Tina handle these things. She’s been doing it for decades; she’d known Sinclair since he was a li’l farmer kid with grubby knees, and had been a friend of his family for generations. She was descended from a not-witch I’d saved from being burned during the Salem witch trials in sixteen hundred whatever, because time travel.1

So anyway, she was used to repping my husband at meetings, smoothie oriented and otherwise. She was also used to incredibly long boring meetings. Plus, to be honest, I trusted her to be in Hell a lot more than my husband, a man I loved dearly but knew to be sneaky, manipulative, controlling, and murderous. (God, he was so dreamy!)

Since we were all new to the business side of running Hell, and thus equally clueless, Tina was using fashion to soothe us, dressing the part of Demure Majordomo in Charge of Meetings N’Stuff: a virgin wool Armani skirt suit in deepest midnight blue, with a two-button long-sleeved jacket, matching camisole underneath, black panty hose, and kitten heels the same shade of blue as the suit.

The deep, dark colors set off her pale (vampire) skin and enormous dark eyes to perfection, the dark hose made her look taller (a good trick, since she was almost a foot shorter than I was), and she had scraped her long, Southern-belle-ringleted blond hair into a severe bun. She was right out of the “Hot for Teacher” video and it was glorious. If she had to fight, or jog, the suit was a disastrous choice. If she had to look like she knew exactly what she was doing in a business capacity, it was brilliant.

I need a suit like that. But in red. No, black. No, red. Purple? Purple could be great . . . except I’d look like an eggplant wearing pumps. Does Sinclair think eggplants are sexy? Must research . . .

“If you want to meet some extraordinary men and women,” she was telling Marc, who had instantly cheered up at the sight of her (they were pals bordering on besties), “I can introduce you to several, assuming they’re here.”

“Guess it depends which side they fought on,” Cathie said, and since Tina had lived through the Civil War, that was a fair point.

“General Sherman?” Father Markus asked with a disapproving air. I jumped; he’d gone so long without speaking I’d forgotten he was there, even though he’d brought me to the meeting. “Jefferson Davis?”

“You knew the president of the Confederacy?” Cathie asked, sounding impressed, which was a rare and wonderful thing.

“No, that’s the other Jefferson Davis; this one murdered his commanding officer and never saw a trial, much less prison.” Hmm, who knew Father Markus was a Civil War buff? (It’s worth noting that Tina wasn’t, since that’d be like saying, “I live in Minnesota, so I am a Minnesota buff.”)

“Robert Smalls? Wait, there’s no way he’d be in Hell. Right?” It was a fair question, since people who had done good things all their lives were in Hell. One of many things to be discussed in (argh) today’s meeting (argh-argh).

“Ooh, I got this one,” Cathie enthused, warming to her subject. “This is the guy who stole a military transport, steered it past a bunch of Confederate forts, gave the ship and the signal codes to the union  , then went on to find and get rid of land mines he himself had been forced to plant. And he did all this while he was a slave!”

“Robert Smalls!” I cried. At last, I could contribute something to a historical conversation that didn’t sound asinine. “I saw that episode of Drunk History!”

“Actually I was thinking of notables from the Revolutionary War,” Tina corrected gently. She gave us a moment to chew that one over

(she looks so young and hot but is ancient! weird! we know this, but keep forgetting! weird!)

before adding, “Nancy Hart, for instance. Half a dozen British soldiers accused her of protecting a Whig leader (she was), and didn’t believe her when she said she hadn’t seen him (she was lying). At the end of the night, all those men were dead. They found the bodies—”

“Thanks, but I don’t actually have to seek out sociopaths, I hang out with plenty on my own.”

“Or Mary Ball Washington.”

“Who?”

“Washington’s wife.” Duh. I managed to keep the sneer off my face, if not out of my tone.

“Washington’s mother,” Father Markus and Tina corrected; he colored a little and ducked his head while she kept the sneer off her face and out of her tone. I should learn that trick.