"Do not think for a moment I am heedless to your pain," Sinclair said as we were all heading down the stairs. I braced myself because that was usually man-speak for "I'm about to say something that will annoy the shit out of you." "But where is the vampire?"

"The Marc Thing," I said, and Jessica nodded.

"Yeah, it's weird but it fits. And I can actually hear the capital letters."

"What can I say?" Marc said. He looked uncomfortable yet intrigued. "I die and become a badass."

Uh. Not exactly. You did because I either turned you or didn't save you. And then I rewarded your years of friendship with decades of torture, and then wouldn't put you out of your misery. I just let you roam around my Shitty Future Winter compound, scaring the hell out of people while I raise zombies and wear gray dresses. Gray dresses! Jesus wept.

(Wait, should I have written that in the future tense? Was it even the future tense? Present tense, I think. Maybe I should have written in past tense, since I was thinking about things that I had done, which I will have done. Dammit!)

None of that was out loud . . . I'm not quite as dumb as people sometimes thought. Probably. Maybe.

"He's still in the basement . . . I checked on him right when you guys pulled in."

"Whoa, wait." I stopped, and Marc plowed into me; I had to clutch at the banister so I wouldn't pitch headfirst down the stairs. "Don't get me wrong, you guys, I'm glad you came to get me, but you left a pregnant woman with no superpowers to guard the Marc Thing?"

"And Garrett."

I didn't say anything. I assumed Garrett was on guard duty in the basement while we were having this uncomfortable conversation in the middle of the stairs. But he was a coward, and flighty. At least, in my timeline he had been. What had he said earlier? His lover was dead, so there wasn't anything to be afraid of anymore. Sure. Except maybe there was. In my timeline, I hadn't been able to trust him. But I had no idea if that was true in this one.

He might not be in the basement. He might be curled up in a corner, shivering. He might be halfway to Hollywood . . . he'd been an actor in life . . . cast in Gone With the Wind! How cool, right? But died before he could show up for filming, which was a huuuuge blow to me, since that was one of my favorite books and movies of all time.

That was the thing about crazy chickenshits. They were unpredictable. Except when they weren't. Argh, I was getting a headache.

"So that was the plan? Garrett and Jessica?" I'm not judging Garrett. (I'm not! Truly. So don't judge me.) If I'd been through what he had, I'd be a shivering emotional wreck who fled from confrontation, too. It wasn't about judgment, it was about practicality.

Speaking of practicality, my conscience piped up, you weren't here. You let your dumb ass get yanked into hell by the Antichrist, which, since she's the ANTICHRIST, you should have anticipated. They did the best they could-Sinclair had no way of knowing how much manpower he would need, and since his first priority was you, and not Jessica's safety, he erred on the side of caution. So enough with the Monday-morning quarterbacking, you useless cow.

God! My inner voices were so bitchy. If someone outside my head talked to me like that, I'd string them up by their appendix.

"Our options were limited. Your mother was out of town," Tina said dryly. Hmmm, she must be more rattled than she let on. She usually didn't say shit . . . certainly when she was sarcastic there was almost always an undercurrent of respect and affection. Not this dry, clipped, irritated tone. "And when I looked in the Yellow Pages for ancient-vampire babysitters, the only listing was closed for the weekend."

"Would that be an ancient vampire who is also a babysitter?" Marc wondered, and Nick and Jessica both laughed. "Or is that, in fact, a babysitter for an ancient vampire?"

"Hilarious." Hmm. Pissier than ever. I resisted the urge to shout something lame like, How dare you? or You're forgetting your place, Tina, even though she'd be the first to agree with me. The last thing I ever, ever wanted to do was buy into this whole kiss-the-vamp-queen's-ass-every-five-minutes thing. That way led to dead friends and gray dresses.

"My mom . . . thank goodness I've got one in this timeline. Is she still watching BabyJon for us?"

Sinclair nodded.

"Maybe I should check on her."

"Do you think Dr. Taylor is in danger?"

Okay, I'm going to pause a minute and say I loved that my mom-a prof at the U of M-kept her married name. As long as the Ant lived (and after), that drove her nuts. Meanwhile, my mom was all, "You're welcome to my husband, but my name is mine. I've been a Taylor far longer than a Frend-sunverm" (my mom was German/Dutch).

"I don't know," I admitted. "But I'm wondering if Laura would go there . . . She knows where my mom lives. And she's keen on mastering her from-hell amazing teleportation trick. Plus, BabyJon is her half brother, too. You know she's gotten into her head that all vampires are soul-sucking, evil denizens of the undead. Sometimes that prejudice gets the best of her."

"Speaking of prejudice," Marc said, " 'shut up, you lesbian slut?' Was that homophobia rearing its ugly head?"

"I don't know," I said truthfully. We'd been tromping down the stairs this whole time, but now I was headed to the back entry for my car keys. Well. Sinclair's car keys. He had seven of the stupid things. "So we've gotta figure that out, too, I guess. But I'm not letting another minute go by without making sure my mom's okay."

"I doubt Dr. Taylor is the Antichrist's focus," Tina commented.

"I agree with you, but come on, guys. It's my mom."

"Call her."

So I stopped in the kitchen long enough to grab the phone-a rotary dial! What century was this again?-and dialed my mom's number. It rang four times and kicked over to voice mail.

"This is Dr. Taylor. I don't care why your paper is late, I'm failing you. If you are not one of my students, I'm away from the phone right now." Click. Terse, yet funny. Ah, my mom in a nutshell.

"It's the wee hours of the morning," Marc protested. "She's probably asleep."

"Not her." My mom was a notorious insomniac, not to mention one of those types who only needed four or five hours of sleep a night. Try growing up with that. "It's five a.m., honey, time to get up and mow the lawn. Of course you'll be able to see. The sun will be up any minute now." Hell, my teenage years had been a living hell!

"Well, okay. Try her cell," Marc suggested.

"She hates them." I was already sliding into my winter coat, a big down-filled thing that made me look like a midnight blue Michelin Man. Unseasonably warm autumn or not, I was always cold. "Refuses to have one."

"Text-no, wait, that won't work, will it? E-mail her."

"She never checks it on the weekends."

"With all respect," my husband said, and I mentally girded my loins, "your mother is a Luddite."

"Watch it, pal. That's your mother-in-law you're talking about."

"Tell me," he sighed. "I prefer not to let you out of my sight, dear one, but I . . ." He glanced around at our friends. I knew what he was thinking . . . he was afraid to leave them, and he was afraid to let me go alone.

"I can be there and back in an hour," I promised. "I'll just check and come straight back."

"Straight back."

"Yep."

"Be careful," D/Nick said, and he was again cradling a protective arm across Jessica's shoulders.

"You know it," I said, and I went.

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