“Oh, come on. Just having a little fun. The yuk-yuks have been pretty thin this month.”
“No doubt. Is it true? Is your sister trying to expose your people?”
“Yes. It’s her childish way of expressing her displeasure with pretty much everything I’ve ever said and done. You know how it is with little sisters.”
“Thankfully, no.” Her tone was getting less frosty, though it hadn’t quite crossed over into warm and friendly. “Would you like some help? Or advice?”
“No to the former, yes to the latter.”
“I’m impressed. I was sure you’d get those mixed up. Here’s my advice: no matter what you do or say, some people will always assume you’re lying and some will always assume you’re telling the complete unvarnished truth. The trick is getting the ones in the middle to come around to your way of thinking.”
“Uh-huh. And how do I make that happen?”
“Well, that depends,” the mermaid replied, “on what your way of thinking is going to be.”
I thought about that while Sinclair was whispering and gesturing, giving Marc the CliffsNotes version of our adventures in Boston last fall.
“Is this one of those things that seems like lame advice at the time, but later turns out to be perfect, dead-on advice?”
“That’s up to you, too.”
“Ugh. Got anything that isn’t a platitude?”
“Yes: your shoes are ugly.”
I gasped, horrified, then remembered. “Ha! Joke’s on you, Bimm, you can’t see me! I’m barefoot, so suck on that.”
“God help every vampire everywhere,” was the rejoinder, and then the grouchiest mermaid in the history of mermaids hung up on me. Not a moment too soon, either, because Marc was all over me.
“I can’t believe you met a goddamned mermaid and didn’t tell me!”
“Hey, there was a lot going on that week. Most likely.”
Sinclair chuckled. “Oh, my own, tell him the real reason you’ve repressed conscious knowledge of Dr. Bimm and the ways of her people.”
“No.” I pouted.
“As you like.” My traitorous husband turned to Marc. “The good doctor is, ah, volatile. And my beloved is flippant and easily distracted. At times,” he added, like that made it better. “Dr. Bimm despaired of keeping her attention, so she seized an issue of Time and struck the queen.”
Marc’s mouth popped open. “She hit you?”
I nodded. “With a rolled-up magazine.” I could still feel the sting. “On my nose.”
“Like a dog?” I couldn’t tell if he was thrilled or horrified.
“Exactly like a dog,” I confirmed. “I was so flabbergasted I forgot to beat her to death.”
“Dr. Bimm,” Sinclair said, already headed back to his office where Operation Terrible Plan was being ironed out, “does not suffer fools gladly.”
“Got that right,” I muttered, and when Marc started laughing and didn’t stop, I grabbed a coupon insert and smacked him on the nose. He shrieked and hit me back, and I ended up chasing a zombie all over our mansion the day my best friend moved away to guarantee her family’s safety. So, a mixed day.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
“Dread queen, Tina and I have come up with a plan to stop the Antichrist, punish your father, and discredit the reporters covering this story. We’ll need to put it into practice at once. With a little luck—which you have always brought me—this entire episode will be a thing of the past a week from now.”
It was later that same day, the end of a bad week and a stressful month. And it was finally time to get down to it. We were in Sinclair’s office, just down the hall from our bedroom. I’d been waiting for them forever, seemed like. There was only so much research I could lose myself in. And if my DVR got any more stuffed with shows I didn’t have time to watch, it’d explode all over the TV parlor.
“Yeah, I know. Been waiting for you to bring it to me.”
“Ah. Very good.” They were both in their casual Friday business suits: a deep rose for Tina, black for Sinclair. No shoes: Tina was wearing black stockings, and Sinclair had black dress socks. Me? Deep brown leggings, red hip-length sweater, slouchy red and white socks. Because I (a) knew how to dress for lounging about the house, and (b) wasn’t stuck in the past. I loved Sinclair and Tina, but sometimes they acted every year of their great age. Case in point: their awful plan. “Shall we walk you through it?”
“Nope. You’re going to tell vampires all over the city, state, and country to snatch the reporters covering this story, work vamp mojo on them, and get them to either retract everything or ‘discover’ the whole thing was a hoax. You’ll discredit Laura by revealing she’s the Antichrist, arrange for my dad to take a long swim in the Mississippi with lead Uggs, and then stomp every inquiry into all that you did, until people have forgotten or lost interest or are too scared to poke around anymore. And all for the greater good. Right?”