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After Marc decided a Valium drip probably wouldn't work on a vampire, he brought me a stiff drink instead. Could he even tap a vein? I was over a year dead, after all. Would an IV take? Someday I was going to have to sit down and figure all this shit out. Someday when I wasn't plagued by ghosts, serial killers, wedding planning, rogue werewolves, mysterious vampires bursting in on me, and diaper changing.

It was sweet of Marc to bring me a gin and tonic (which I loathed, but he didn't know that), but I was so rattled I drank it off in one gulp, and it could have been paint thinner, for all I knew.Advertisement

"Is she still here?" he whispered.

"Of course I'm still here," my dead stepmother snapped. "I told you, I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm the only one who can hear you," I shrilled, "so just shut up!"

"Bring her another drink," Sinclair muttered. We were still in his office, but Jessica had kindly brought robes to cover our shredded clothes. "Bring her three."

"I don't need booze, I need to get rid of you know what."

"Very funny," the Ant grumped.

She and my father had been killed in a gruesome, stupid car accident a couple of months ago. Where she had been since her death, and why she had shown up now, I didn't know. There were so many things about being the vampire queen I didn't know! And I didn't want to know.

But I was going to have to find out, because the ghosts never, ever went away, until I solved their little problems for them.

And where was my dead dad, anyway? I sighed. Nonconfrontational in life as well as in death.

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"What do you want?"

"I told you. To fix this."

"Fix what?"

"You know."

"This is so weird," Marc murmured to Jessica, forgetting, as usual, about superior vamp hearing. "She's having a conversation with the chair."

"She is not. Quiet so I can hear."

"I don't know," I said to the chair - uh, the Ant. "I really, really don't. Please tell me."

"Stop playing games."

"I'm not!" I almost screamed. Then I felt Sinclair's soothing hands on my shoulders and sagged into him. Like our honeymoon hadn't been stressful enough, what with all the dead kids and Jessica and her boyfriend crashing it and all. This was a hundred times worse.

"If you could just - " I began, when the office door crashed open, nearly smashing into Marc, who yelped and jumped aside.

A bloody, stinking horror was framed in the doorway, then darted right at me like a goblin in a fairy tale. Since I was a tad keyed up from the Ant popping in, my reflexes were in excellent shape. I slugged the thing - it was a man, a big, bearish, shambling man - so hard I knocked him halfway across the office. He hit the carpet so hard, buttons popped off his shirt, which looked about ready for the ragbag anyway.

He was on his feet in a flash and looked wildly from Sinclair to me and back again. And he was - there was something familiar about him. Something I couldn't put my finger on.

Sinclair and I started toward him in unison, and he backed up, pivoted, and dived out the second story window.

"What the blue hell - ?" I began.

The office door crashed open, and I felt like clutching my heart. I couldn't stand many more of these shocks to my system.

Garrett, the Fiend formerly known as George, stood in the doorway, panting. Since he was seventy-some years old and didn't need to breathe, I knew at once something was seriously wrong.

What fresh hell was this?

"They're awake," he gasped. "And they want to kill you."

"Who?" Sinclair, Jessica, Marc, and I asked in unison. It could be anyone. The guys who delivered pizza from Green Mill. Other vampires. The Ant's book club. Werewolves. Zombies. And, of course, the uninvited guest who'd jumped out the window. So many enemies, so little -

"The other Fiends. I've been feeding them my blood, and they're pissed."

"You've what, and they're what?" I asked, horrified.

Garrett couldn't look at me - never a good sign. "They - they sort of 'woke up,' and now they want to kill you."

"It's this lifestyle you lead," the Ant said smugly. "These things are bound to happen."

"Oh, shut up!" I barked. I actually had to clutch my head; which problem to tackle first? "You couldn't have crashed into the office tomorrow? Or yesterday?"

"You'd better sit down and tell us everything," Sinclair said, reminding me he was the vampire king. "The queen has just been attacked... and now you come bearing tales of murder." Bam. Decision made. We'd deal with what Garrett had done first.

So take that, dead stepmother. pqdm.com