Undead and Unworthy (Undead #7)

l blinked, more than a little surprised. Mostly at the fact that there was an upstairs living room; I'd never seen that before. Just more proof of Nostro's essential nuttiness. And I'd had more pleasant greetings. Shoot, the IRS guy had been nicer.

Focus, Betsy!

A bloody and battered Nick was slumped in a dining room chair. There was a row of floor-to-ceiling windows behind him and, weirdly, three of them were open. There was quite the breeze whipping through the room - I guess the Fiends, used to living outside, didn't much notice the cold.

Then I remembered that they'd been kept outside all year round, like dogs you didn't mind having around but didn't want to spend much time with, either.

They ripped up anything they got near; it's not like they were aware enough to sleep in beds, or even on a carpeted floor. You're acting like they were POWs and you were a Viet Cong!

Nick wasn't tied to the chair or anything - why would they? But he sure was pissed.

"Well, uh, they sort of did," I answered, gesturing to the Fiends. "Invited me, I mean."

"You just had to come and save the day, didn't you?"

"Alone," one of the Fiends said - it was Stephanie, and she wasn't bothering to hide her surprise. "She came alone."

"Of course I came! What, you think I'd stop for cocktails instead?" The Fiends stared at me, unblinking, while I bragged, "You have no idea who you're dealing with." Okay, to be fair to them, I had no idea who they were dealing with. "You think you can get what you want by grabbing my friend - "

"I'm not your friend," Nick whined.

"Fine, you grabbed my best friend's boyfriend, and now you think you're going to get what you want. But you don't even know what you want, do you?"

The Fiends looked at each other, while Nick, looking thoroughly disgusted to be there, rolled his eyes.

I examined them as closely as I could without making it obvious I was staring. Happy, Jane, and Clara looked a little better - something in the eyes, I guess. They didn't seem as savage or as confused.

Wonder of wonders, although they didn't appear to have showered, they were at least wearing clean clothes. It occurred to me that the bedrooms in the McMansion probably still had dressers with clothes in them. And these guys had eventually fed enough, or remembered enough, to realize that.

Jane had long, dirty blond hair - it hung halfway down her back in greasy strings. Her mouth was a thin line, and her fingernails were filthy, but, incongruously with the rest of her, she had bright blue eyes, definitely her best feature.

Clara and Happy also had long hair but of course Happy, being a guy, towered over them both. He was one of those fellas who are so big they slump to try to look smaller, which only drew attention to his sheer bulk.

Happy had the tip-tilted eyes of an Asian American and would have been pretty good looking, if not for the hate-filled expression on his face. His jeans and shirt were clean, but he needed to wash the dried blood off his chin.

I wondered if anything was driving the Fiends now besides hate for me.

"Look, guys, let's talk about this. I think there's been enough killing, don't you?"

"No," Happy said.

"Because this could get a lot worse, you know. Before it gets better."

"It will never be better," Clara - also known as Stephanie, but I wasn't going to let on - said sadly. "I thought maybe - " She cut herself off, and I knew why. Even now, she couldn't let on to what she had been up to earlier. She was as much a prisoner as Nick. "Not ever."

"Then what's your goal?"

"You must pay for what you've done," Jane said.

"Pay as in kill? I didn't kill you, I didn't make you vampires and starve you - I tried to help you. You know what your problem is? The one you really want to hurt is dead. Nostro's out of your reach, and you can't fucking stand it."

"Stated with Kissingerian diplomacy," Nick snarked.

"Quiet, Chair Boy. Look, I'll apologize again, okay?"

"No," Happy said.

"Then what do you want? You want to go back in time? Because that's the only way to - wait." I thought for a second. And then another one.

I thought about Jessica, and how much she loved Nick. I thought about these Fiends, and the lives they had before they became my subjects - yes, my subjects. And even if the old king, Nostro, had done this to them, I was still responsible for them.

So what would a queen do, for her subjects? What kind of queen did I want to be?

"Okay. Let Nick go, and I'll stay, and you can have at me."

The three Fiends glanced at each other.

"Maim, kill, fold, spindle, mutilate. Whatever. Just let Nick go."

"You offer yourself in his place?" Stephanie/Clara seemed genuinely shocked by the offer.

"Yup."

"This is not a trick?"

"Uh, I don't think so."

"You are not setting a trap?"

I lifted my bare hands. "If this were a trap, wouldn't I have sprung it by now? I'm here alone. I'm not here to trick you. I don't want to kill you. I want you to get better. If the only way you can get better is to deal with me alone, then this is your chance. So what the hell are you waiting for?"

Happy moved in and sniffed the air around me. "You are serious."

I made an effort not to lean away from him; yeesh, he stank. "Yes."

"It may be painful."

"It might be." I tried not to shake. I tried to sound brave. I guess I didn't, though, because he almost smiled.

"We give you no guarantees," he warned. "We may come after your friend here, anyway, after you're gone."

I thought of Sinclair. "My friend," I sighed, "will be the least of your problems, if you kill me."

"We are afraid of no one. Not even our queen."

I shrugged. "Obviously not."

Happy looked over his stooped shoulders at the other two. They gave no sign, but he seemed to understand them anyway.

"We accept. Your friend can go."

"No fucking way!"

The four of us stared at Nick.

"Oh no you don't," he hollered, white-faced with blood loss. "You don't get to save me, no way, uh-uh. They kill me, and you feel like shit for, what is it? A thousand years? That's the way it's supposed to be. You're supposed to live with failure, not be the hero. Hear that? You're not the hero, Betsy Taylor! So hit the bricks! Get lost! Crawl back into your mansion basement and hide again!"

"He does not want to go," Happy observed after a short silence.

"Yeah, no shit."

"Are you sure you wish to take his place?"

"I'm having second thoughts," I admitted grimly.

"Perhaps he is not the friend to her we thought he was," Stephanie told the others.

"Damn right we're not friends!" Nick hollered.

"Will you stop screaming? And no," I sighed. "We used to be, sort of, but no, not anymore. But the offer still stands. Let him go, and I'll stick around, and we'll see what we'll see."

"I have doubts," Stephanie told her comrades. Aha! I silently congratulated myself for stopping Sinclair and Tina from killing her.

"What d'you mean?" Jane asked. Happy looked like he was wondering the same thing. Both of them had a little suspicion in their eyes, and I prayed Stephanie would be careful with her next words, so she wouldn't give herself away.

"She is not what we expected." Stephanie circled me and Nick. "Nothing about her. Not her friends, not those she calls her friends but are not - " She stopped and sniffed Nick, who made a batting motion at her with his hands, like he was shooing away a fly. "She is not the queen we thought. She is not smart, or powerful, or terrifying. Not like a real queen."

"More like a commoner," Happy added.

"Thanks?" I called out.

"She might help us," Stephanie added.

"How?" Jane asked, shaking tangled hair out of her face. "If she is not like a real queen, what can she give us?"

"We could start with your names," I suggested, still hoping to avoid hostilities. "I'd like to know them."

My request confused them, until Stephanie cleared her throat. "My name is Stephanie," she told me, as if for the first time.

Happy licked his lips. His tongue was weirdly long. "Richard," he finally said.

"Jane," the third one said.

Huh, I told myself. Jane's name is actually Jane! What are the chances?