shouldnât guzzle holy water on camera. Youâre the ones who said I wasnât a circus performer.â
âNo,â Marc agreed, âyour outfit was all wrong for that.â
I shot him an exasperated look. âLook, Laura made her little video, I went on TV to refute, end of story.â
âNo one is saying that you did a bad job,â Tina began in that âtreat the idiot with kid glovesâ tone I hated. âButââ
âBy denying weâre a nation, you just opened up the chance for any vampire to be arrested, charged, and tried in a court of law . . .
not
by our laws,â Sinclair said.
âWhich is . . . bad?â
Vigorous nods.
Sinclair went on. âEvery vampire who sees this will now wonder if you have not simply exposed them, but they will wonder if you made a deliberate decision to leave them without protection, either.â
âWhich is super-
duper
bad.â
âYes. Further, by mentioning vampire politics, you have raised the question among our people: Why
arenât
we more political? Why do you and I rule? Perhaps we should embrace politics and hold elections.â
âOh.â Huh. Okay. Hadnât thought of it like that. What surprised me most was that my first impulse wasnât:
You want the job? You can have it
.
Best of luck
. No, it was:
Iâm not the queen by popular demand. Iâm the queen because Iâm the queen.
âOkay, well, this is how we figure out what else we have to do.â I refused to see this as a fuckup. âThe whole point is that itâs time, right? Well, nobody ever promised itâd be drama-free. Or that itâd be easy.â Though Iâd been hoping. âI still think you guys are making something out of nothing. Iâm telling you, itâll be fine.â
Suddenly everyoneâs phones shorted out at the same time.No, wait, they all started ringing and trembling at the same time. A cacophony of ringtones filled the air, startling everyone in the room. For the first time I wasnât amused by Marcâs Darth Vader ringtone, or the
Pink Panther
theme, which sounded so
weird
coming from Tinaâs phone. Sinclair used the old-fashioned bell ringâno, wait, that was the kitchen phone ringing, the one hooked into the landline. (Yeah, we still had one of those.) Sinclair had his set so only dogs and vampires could hear it.
I cut off my own ringtone
(âPiiiiiiiigs . . . iiiiiiin . . . spaaaaaaaace!â)
when I answered and was greeted with, âOh, you silly bitch. What have you done now?â
âAntonia,â I groaned. There were two women named Antonia in my life and they were both pains in my ass. One was my dead stepmother, who helped me run Hell. The other was the bitch (literallyâAntonia was a werewolf) on the other end of the line. Sheâd lived with us in the mansion for a few months until she fell in love with a feral vampire and they both moved west. (I know how it sounds. These are the days of our lives.) *
âDid no one prep you, you shoe-obsessed moron?â
This was Antonia-ese for
Iâm a little worried about you.
âIt was a ten-minute local interview,â I whined. âIt went fine.â
âI didnât know it was possible for someone to have their head
that
far up their ass.â
As your friend, Iâm concerned you havenât thought through all the ramifications.
âYou donât call me for six months and when you do pick up the phone, itâs to yell at me?â
âGod knows the cringing sycophants you live with wonât do it.â
With respect, the others lack my objectivity.
âAlways so nice to hear from you, Antonia.â
A rude noise, like she farted into her cell phone. I wouldnât put anything past that bitch. âLook, when the gang gets to town, call me. I might be able to save your dumb ass from the well-deserved smackdown coming
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