Tracy is an assistant as the dictionary defines it: she contributes to the fulfillment of a need; she assumes some of my responsibilities. She rescues me from the minutiae that nearly everyone has to endure if they want to be a functioning member of society. She’s smart, she’s quick, she never has to be told anything twice, she’s discreet (nobody knew about my pantsless son or Malt O’Mealgate until I stuck it right in my acknowledgments page). Also, she smells terrific.
Thanks are also due, as always, to the awesomest of awesome husbands, Anthony Alongi (he also cowrites the Jennifer Scales series with me). He tirelessly reads, suggests, edits, mocks, enrages, inspires, and annoys. Without him, there’s absolutely nothing for me.
My folks and sister, for being completely unwavering in their support, one hundred percent of the time. They wouldn’t abandon that stance if I stuck a gun in their ear. Do not ask me how I know that.
The Magic Widows, who have endured me for years and pretend that I’m worth the trouble.
The best of agents, Ethan Ellenberg, who paid me the ultimate compliment of calling me low maintenance. That was a wonderful lie for him to tell!
The always terrific Cindy Hwang, who reads my book suggestions and synopses, edits my manuscripts, exudes copious enthusiasm for same, and doesn’t smack herself on the forehead when I can see it, or hear it. (Though I do occasionally hear odd background sounds when I’m on the phone with her.)
And to Leis Pederson, kick-ass assistant editor, who is repeatedly forced to track me down and corner me like a rat to get edits out of me, but does it with such style I feel wanted, not stalked.
Thanks also to the Yahoos, my fans on Facebook, the readers kind enough to write to me, and the readers who don’t go near Facebook or the Web, who don’t have computers but who write to me, care of my publisher, with real pens on real paper. (I feel bad I received one such snail mail and instantly assumed, as comedian Jim Gaffigan suggested, that someone had been kidnapped.)
I write for myself—I always have. I think if you write for other people, the end result is something of a cheat, for you and for them.
But you guys make the writing that much more fun, for which I am continually humbled and slavishly grateful.
—MaryJanice,
Winter 2009
Author’s Note
I’ve got nothing against Claes Oldenburg or his wife, Coosje van Bruggen. And I’ve got nothing against the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
But at the end of the day, it’s just a giant spoon.
A spoon!
The Story So Far
Betsy (“Please don’t call me Elizabeth”) Taylor was run over by a Pontiac Aztek almost three years ago. She woke up the queen of the vampires and in dazzling succession (but no real order), bit her friend Detective Nick Berry, moved from a Minnesota suburb to a mansion in St. Paul, solved various murders, attended the funerals of her father and stepmother, became her half brother’s guardian, still avoids the room housing the Book of the Dead (Book of the Dead, noun: the vampire bible written by an insane vampire, which causes madness if read too long in one sitting), cured her best friend’s cancer, visited her alcoholic grandfather (twice), solved a number of kidnappings, realized her husband/ king, Eric Sinclair, could read her thoughts (she could always read his), found out the Fiends had been up to no good (Fiend, noun: a vampire given only animal [dead] blood, a vampire who quickly goes feral).
Also, roommate Antonia, a werewolf from Cape Cod, took a bullet in the brain for Betsy, saving her life. The stories about bullets not hurting vampires are not true; plug enough lead into brain matter and that particular denizen of the undead will never get up again. Garrett, Antonia’s lover, killed himself the instant he realized she was dead.
As if this wasn’t enough of a buzzkill, Betsy soon found herself summoned to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where Antonia’s Pack leaders lived. Though they were indifferent to the caustic werewolf in life, now that Antonia was dead in service to a vampire, several thousand pissed-off werewolves had just a few questions.
While Betsy, Sinclair, BabyJon, and Jessica were on the Cape answering these questions, Marc, Laura, and Tina remained in Minnesota (Tina to help run things while her monarchs were away, Marc because he couldn’t get the vacation time, and Laura because she was quietly cracking up).
They hadn’t been gone long before Tina disappeared and Marc noticed that devil worshippers kept showing up in praise of Laura, the Antichrist.
In a muddled, misguided attempt to help (possibly brought on by the stress of his piss-poor love life ... an ER doc, Marc worked hours that would make a union-less sweatshop manager cringe), he suggested to Laura that she put her “minions” to work helping in soup kitchens and such.
As sometimes happens, Laura embraced the suggestion with tremendous zeal. Then she took it even further, eventually deciding her deluded worshippers could help get rid of all sorts of bad elements ... loan officers, bail jumpers, contractors who overcharge, and ... vampires.
Meanwhile, on the Cape, Betsy spent time fencing with Michael Wyndham, the Pack leader responsible for three hundred thousand werewolves worldwide, and babysitting Lara Wyndham, future Pack leader and current first-grader.
With Sinclair’s help (and Jessica’s cheerful-yet-grudging babysitting of BabyJon), Betsy eventually convinced the werewolves she’d meant Antonia no harm, that she in fact had liked and respected the woman, that she was sorry Antonia was dead and would try to help Michael in the future ... not exactly a debt, more an acknowledgment that because she valued Antonia and mourned her loss, she stood ready to assist Antonia’s Pack.
Also, Betsy discovered that BabyJon, her half brother and ward, was impervious to paranormal or magical interference. This was revealed when a juvenile werewolf Changed for the first time and attacked the baby, who found the entire experience amusing, after which he casually spit up milk and took a nap.
Though the infant could be hurt, he could not be hurt by a werewolf’s bite, a vampire’s sarcasm, a witch’s spell, a fairy’s curse, a leprechaun’s dandruff ... like that. Betsy was amazed—she’d suspected there was something off about the baby, but had no idea what it could be.
Sinclair, who until now had merely tolerated the infant, instantly became proudly besotted (“That’s
my
son, you know”) and began plotting—uh, thinking about the child’s education and other requirements.
Back at the ranch (technically the mansion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul), Laura had more or less cracked up. She’d fixed it so Marc couldn’t call for help (when he discovered their cell phones no longer worked, he snuck off to find another line, only to be relentlessly followed by devil worshippers, who politely but firmly prevented this), and she and her followers were hunting vampires.
Betsy finally realized something was wrong (a badly garbled text secretly sent by a hysterical Marc), and they returned to the mansion in time to be in the middle of a vampires-versus-Satanists smackdown.
Betsy won, but only because Laura pulled the killing blow at the last moment.
People went their separate ways, for a while. And nobody felt like talking.
Three months later, there still has been no real discussion about the ominous events over the summer.
I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I’ve nurtured every sensation man’s been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I’m a fan of man.
—SATAN,
THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
Can you imagine what it was like? Ten billion years
providing a place for dead mortals to torture them-
selves? And like all masochists, they called the shots.
“Burn me.” “Freeze men.” “Eat me.” “Hurt me.” And we
did. Why do they blame me for all their little failings?
They use my name as if I spent my entire day sitting
on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they
would otherwise find repulsive. “The Devil made me
do it.” I have never made any one of them do anything.
Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their
lives for them.
—LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR,
DEVIL IN THE GATEWAY
It’s not easy being the Barbra Streisand of evil, you know.
—SATAN,
BEDAZZLED
Prologue
A
rchived audio files of Elizabeth, the One, Queen of the Vampires, circa 2010
Okay, so, here are various yucky excerpts from the Book of the Dead. Gawd, I hate that thing.
“The Queene’s sister shalt be Belov’d of the Morningstar, and shalt take the Worlde.”
That’d be my sister, Laura. She’s a great kid—a college student at the U of M. Also, she’s the Antichrist.
“And the Queene shall noe the dead, all the dead, and neither shall they hide from her nor keep secrets from her.”
Yeah. That fun tidbit translated to, “Zombies will lurk in your basement, and ghosts will follow you around and bitch. Lots.”
“... and the Morningstar shalt appear before her own chylde, shalt help with the taking of the Worlde, and shalt appear before the Queene in all the raiments of the dark,”
This? I have no idea. Could be the end of the world, could be a visit from Boy Scouts selling wreaths. And it’s maddening, really maddening, because I can’t read too much of this fucking horrible tome from hell (probably literally from hell) in one sitting because I go crazy. Anyone who reads it for too long at a time goes crazy. Also? I can’t get rid of the damned thing.
It finds me. It always finds me, sometimes via the nefarious operators of the United Parcel Service. As Ferris Bueller put it, “How’s that for being born under a bad sign?”
“And the Queene shall noe the dead, and keep the dead,”
Yep, got that one figured out. I live with vampires and talk to them, and I’m having fabulous sex with one of them. Also we’re filing joint tax returns, a good trick for dead people.
As for keeping the dead—I have a zillion roommates, none of whom I asked to move in, in case anyone’s keeping track.
“And the Queene shalt noe a living chylde, and he shalt be hers by a living man.”
Score another one for the Book of the Dread. My half brother, BabyJon, is now my legal ward due to the recent grisly deaths of my father and stepmother. I had pretty much given up on the idea of being a mom—I no longer sweat, never mind menstruate—when BabyJon landed splat in the middle of my (undead) life.
What’s worse, that I can’t read the thing long enough to make sense of it, or that it’s always right?
“To challenge the Queene, thou shalt desecrate the symbole.”
At least this isn’t getting weird.
“The Queene hath dominion over all the dead, and they shalt take from her, as she takes from them, and she shalt noe them, and they her, for that is what it is to be Queene.”
Now it’s getting weird. See, um, one of my superscary evil vamp powers is that I can pull energy from other vampires, then boost it and slam it back into them. I only did it once. It sucked rocks, and nearly killed me (again).
Please God, I never have to do it again.
Do a lady a favor, okay, God?
“The Queene shalt see oceans of blood, and despair.”
Now, that one? That’s the one that really scares me.
Chapter 1
l
would never have gone to hell in the first place if the Antichrist hadn’t been fluent in Tagalong. Talk about your perfect storm of paranormal weirdness ... and on Halloween, too.
Okay, so, I’ll back up. This whole mess started simply enough (they always, always do): Bloomingdale’s was having a shoe sale and for once, the retail time warp worked in my favor.
Okay, I’ll back up more. You know how stores are actually about four months ahead of the actual calendar? Like Halloween decorations on sale the day after Easter (pardon me while I embrace the horror)? Like that. So anyway, even though it was Halloween, they were having their spring shoe sale (because when there’s a foot of snow on the ground, everybody wants to buy sandals, right?). And the Antichrist asked if she could tag along, so I said okay.
I ... said ... okay! You’d think I hadn’t been paying attention the last four years. Okay, I haven’t been. Still, how could I not see the coming disaster? It shouldn’t have mattered that the Antichrist needed a new pair of sandals. I should have realized that an innocent quest for fine leather footwear would have ended up with me in hell and the Antichrist freaking out. Again.