Date: 2018-02-24 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Vampires; Paranormal Romance; Humor; Romance; Novella; Urban Fantasy
Description: Betsy the vampire queen is back, and this time she's up against her most diabolical enemy to date: reality. And witches! (Or militant vegans.) And worst of all, her friends, all of whom remember a life-changing story very differently. Unfortunately, when you live in a mansion with vampires, at least one ghost, the only zombies in the world, and the occasional human, it can be hard for everyone to end up on the same page. But Betsy is determined to clear up the mystery, and she's not letting anyone hijack her narrative. Really. She'll pull it off. Everyone will have to admit she's right. Yep. (

UNRELIABLE
by

MaryJanice Davidson

Text copyright ©2018 by MaryJanice Davidson

All Rights Reserved

INTRODUCTION

A reader pointed out a passage in Undead and Unstable where friends of Betsy, the vampire queen, are pointing out good things she’s done.  Brief mention is made of rescuing Detective Nick “Dickie” Berry from witches. (“And you saved Dickie’s life that time when all those witches were gonna...”)

Reader:  “So what’s the backstory there?”

Me:  “How should I know?”

Reader:  “...”

So I mulled, then I wrote.  This is the result of the mulling, for which that random reader deserves all credit or blame. I’ll be keeping the royalties either way. 

“History is malleable because memory is subjective.”  Danielle LaPorte

“Some stolen items seem unusual because their value is not easily visible.  For example, thieves steal catalytic converters for the platinum.  Frank Scafidi of the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) gave the example of manhole covers, as well as a variety of other metal objects, that are often stolen to be resold as scrap metal.”  Thomas C. Frohlich, The Ten Weirdest Things Thieves Love to Steal

“No sane person should believe that something is subjective merely because it cannot be settled beyond controversy.”  Hilary Putnam, The Many Faces of Realism

“What’s the point of these quotes at the beginning of a story, anyway?”  Random reader

The events described in this story took place between Undead and Undermined and Undead and Unstable.

New to the Undead series?  No problem.  Long story short (unlike every other time someone says ‘long story short’, this long story will actually be short), unemployed administrative assistant Betsy Taylor, whose love for designer shoes is an all-encompassing hunger, gets fatally smashed by a Pontiac Aztec while looking for her cat.

She wakes up dead, escapes the morgue, keeps all her old friends, makes new friends, marries the king of the vampires (at least twice), repeatedly cheats death, and comes to realize she’s the long-foretold vampire queen.  Violence happens.  Also sex.  Then more violence.  And even more sex.  Along the way, Betsy gets into a prolonged catfight with Satan (who looks like Lena Olin in a gray designer suit) and her half-sister, the gorgeous, priggish Antichrist. One of her roommates (they are legion) commits suicide, but don’t worry—she totally has a plan to fix that.  And occasionally her evil self from 500 years in the future stops by.

See?  Easy.  But you’ll be okay either way, you can read this story without having so much as peeked at an Undead book.  Though you really should.  It’s a pretty fun series, if I do say so myself.

(1)

“For the last time, they weren’t witches!”

“Of course they were.”

“And it wasn’t part of a Satanic plot!”

“Yeah, but...it was, though.”

I squashed the urge to start throttling people I cared for/lived with/worked with.  It gets so awkward after you strangle somebody and then try to play nice after.  “It wasn’t!  It was a completely ordinary caper that wasn’t especially interesting and it’s weird that none of you, none of you remember it that way!”

“We are.  You’re the one remembering this all wrong.”

And, from my (pseudo) best friend Jessica, “Caper?  You really used that word?  Like it’s 1955?”

“Oh my God.”  I clutched my head.  We were at the font of all arguments:  the smoothie table in the mansion’s kitchen.  It was 2:00 a.m. and because we all lived strange unsettled lives, we were all wide awake.  “You people have lost your minds.  The whole thing barely took an hour.  Nobody got hurt—nobody even got scratched.”

“You people?”  Jessica pretended to ruffle up.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“’You people’ includes anyone who thinks that particular caper was supernatural in any way, or even dangerous in any way, because it wasn’t.  At all.”

“Except for the vampires involved,” my horrible husband, Eric Sinclair, pointed out.

“And the witches.”  This from Marc, who had been back from the dead (kinda) just long enough so that I wasn’t compelled to be exaggeratedly nice to him all the time. Nothing like living with a newly animated zombie to make you appreciate...er...whatever you were supposed to appreciate while living with a newly animated zombie.

“Marc, you weren’t even there.”

“What, it’s my fault it took you so long to figure out how to bring me back from the dead?”

“Oh my God.”  Knew breaking that Commandment was painful for my husband.  Didn’t care.  Planned to do so again very soon.

“Good morning, Majesties.”  This from Tina, my husband’s long-time friend/major domo (long-time = a century or so), who had pushed open the swinging door and come in at exactly the wrong time.  (It was her super power!)  As usual, she was dressed like a jailbait-inspired felony:  green watch plaid miniskirt, short-sleeved spotless white t-shirt (with her liquid diet?  bold!), long blonde hair pulled back with a black headband, and hilariously thick socks (the mansion could get drafty).  They were so thick they added half an inch to her height, which she needed because she was a shrimp.  “Are you arguing about the witches who kidnapped Dickie again?”

“They weren’t witches!”

“Pretty sure they were,” Jessica drawled.

“Totally, definitively, absolutely witches,” Marc—who wasn’t even there—added.

“You mustn’t fret,” my odious husband told me.  “So many odd things happen in our lives, it can be difficult to keep all the details straight.”

“Tell it to these guys!  I have all the details straight.”

“Except for the part where you insist they weren’t witches,” Jessica interjected.

“As I recall, they were practitioners of the dark arts,” Tina began, her (unlined) forehead furrowing as she thought.

“No.  They.  Weren’t.”  Was it a prank?  A dare?  Were they trying to goad me into beating them to death?  But why?  Why would being beaten to death by a barefoot vampire be their endgame?  It made no sense.

“The important thing, if I may,” Tina added, “is that Dickie was saved.”

“From witches!” Marc added, grinning at me.

“I hate all of you.  All.  No exceptions.  Everyone in this kitchen, I hate.”

“Don’t get mad at us because you’re perpetually vague on details,” Jessica huffed.

“And you were barely involved, on account of being knocked up.”

“Please,” she sniffed.  “I prefer the obstetrical term ‘gestating like a motherfucker’.”

I nearly choked on my smoothie.  Don’t laugh.  This is important.  You’re the only one who remembers what actually happened.  Must...remain...impassive... “Whatever the term, you were in it for about five minutes, and then you took a nap, leaving Sinclair and Tina and me to do the dirty work.”  Which hadn’t been especially dirty, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.  The whole thing had been more a midnight snack run than a rescue op.

“I’m the one who set you on the trail that led to the witches!  While knocked up.  And so what if I needed a nap?  I was busy creating life.  It was exhausting.”

Yes, like this conversation.  I set down my smoothie (which sucked because of all the blackberries so it was 75% seeds and also everyone who pretended to love me hates me and the world is terrible) so I wouldn’t accidentally shatter the heavy glass.  “You know how we can clear this right up?”

“Call Dickie?  He’s on his way back.”  Jessica was already pawing through her bag to grab her phone.  “I love Amazon Prime, but even they can’t keep up with the twins’ diaper needs.”

“No.”  Although those weird babies did blitz through diapers like they were being paid.  “Listening to me tell it will clear things up for you.  All of you.  So listen.”

“Goody!”  Marc got comfy, which was a neat trick on a bar stool.  In terms of comfort, I put bar stools right up there with the Rack.  He propped his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands, and blinked those big baby greens while looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his zombie mouth.  (It wouldn’t, since Marc was basically room temperature.)  “So tell us about the witches.”

“There weren’t—just listen, okay?”

*****

A couple of years earlier, give or take

“Betsy, thank God you’re home!”

I blinked at Jessica, who was arms akimbo in my bedroom doorway.  “I’ve been here all day.  And all night.”  Truth.  Marc was still dead, and I’d still made zero progress resolving that.  As a consequence, I was depressed and grumpy, and hadn’t put so much as a Manolo-clad toe out the door in days. Even reorganizing the closet had lost its erotic charm.  “What’s up?”

“Dickie’s been kidnapped!”

I blinked more, because some habits were impossible to break.  I didn’t have to breathe, but still gasped in appreciation (chocolate milkshakes spiked with Bailey’s) or horror (blackberries in my smoothie), and I was pretty sure my undead eyeballs were self-lubricating.  Wait.  That didn’t make any sense, because even if they were, I’d still have to blink to, I dunno, clean them or whatever?  Wouldn’t they get cloudy if I never blinked, undead or not?

Also, the Dickie/Nick thing still threw me.  Before I’d (accidentally—it’s really crucial people keep that in mind) changed the timeline, Dickie went by Nick, cordially loathed my entire existence, and had been dumped by Jessica.  (Never force a woman to choose between her life-long bestie and the guy she’s been dating for a few weeks.)

But I’d returned to a timeline where he liked me, loved Jess, and they were expecting a baby.  The only downside (other than my jealousy, because every woman who assured her friend that nothing would change after the baby was born was a well-meaning liar) was that a grown man, a police detective, no less, insisted on going by “Dickie”.  How did bad guys not crack up when he identified himself?  And explaining to him that in an alternate timeline he had a grown-up moniker wasn’t working at all.  All I got for my pains were variations of “It’s Dickie, it’ll always be Dickie, suck it up—but not literally”.  It was really something to ponder, once you thought about all the—

“Will you please stop blinking like a sleepy screech owl and pay attention?”

“I am!  Marc’s dead and your boyfriend has a dumb name.”  And my shoe closet was a mess.  And I barely cared.

“Marc is temporarily dead and the father of my unborn baby is missing!  And with your enemies list—”

“Whoa!  Don’t pretend you don’t have an enemies list of your own.”  An alphabetized one, no less.

“—that means anyone or anything could have him.  Mean vampires or pissy werewolves or tall fairies—“

“Tall fairies are a thing?”  No one told me!

“—or witches, a whole pile of ‘em—who knows?  The point is, we’ve got to move!”

“Are you creating a crisis to get me out of the house?”

“No!  But now that you mention it, you need to get out of the house.”

Yeah, bullshit.  Different people mourned in different ways.  (Not that I needed to mourn, because Marc wasn’t going to stay dead.  I’d bet every last pair of Louboutins on it.  And you gotta know that is not a wager I’d make lightly.)  I was still trying to grasp the fact that I was destined to live for centuries, many of them as a rabid megabitch who thought blondes could pull off gray wool.  (Can’t be done.  Washes us out and adds years to our faces.  Blondes everywhere will back me up on this.)  Oh, and that I will, in the course of time, turn my friends into monsters.  That was lurking in my future, too.

So, yeah.  I wasn’t keen on interacting with society right now.  Or anyone in the house, to be frank.  Or the shower.  Or clean clothes.

Alas, Jessica was still in lecture mode.  “I know you miss Marc, I know you feel bad—we all do.  But moping isn’t going to yaaaggghhh!”  She whirled, probably because Sinclair had glided up out of the darkness and loomed behind her.  Well, he’d matter-of-factly walked up the stairs and stopped behind her, because she was blocking the doorway, but if you couldn’t actually hear him coming, it seemed very loom-ey.  Loomish?

“I could not help but overhear your shrieking from the kitchen,” he began, which is when Jessica socked him with a small brown fist, a blow that bounced harmlessly off his shoulder.

“Don’t do that!”

“Perhaps you should lie down.”  Ooooh, that was Sinclair’s molten honey voice, where he got down in the deep register and sounded soothing and sensual, a tone no woman could—

“Don’t marginalize me and don’t try that rumbly voice on me, either!  My possible future husband has been kidnapped, don’t tell me to take a fucking nap.”

Okay, that was a fair point.  I got to my feet (I’d been on my knees listlessly sorting my navy-blue pumps) and said, “Well, let’s go get him.”

“I apologize, Jessica.  I only meant...I thought your...I worried about...”  Whoa.  Sinclair never fumbled, physically or verbally.  He finally squared his (broad) shoulders and coughed it up:  “It has been many decades since I have had a friend who was in the family way.  I’m afraid I’m out of practice.  I never meant to upset you.”

“Well, I probably shouldn’t have punched you.”  She socked him again, gently.  “You big lurking cat-footed galoot.”

“So tell us everything you know about Don’t-call-me-Nick’s abduction.”  This while I was changing into clean underwear and leggings (I figured the long-sleeved t-shirt would be good for a while).  And thank heavens for dry shampoo, though I’d been using so much of it I had basically turned my hair into a dry shampoo helmet.  “And we’ll go get him.”

“Yes indeed.  We shall.  Immediately.  Yes.  Ah.  Is there perhaps time for you to shower, my love?”

Huh.  Maybe it was past time to get out of the house.

*****

“It really was,” Jessica said, pulling us all back to the present.  “Marc, you should be glad you weren’t around to see it.  She didn’t shower, she bailed on her nails, she did zero self-care, and yeah, vampires don’t sweat and give off heinous b.o., but even they get stale after a while.  Dry shampoo can only do so much.”

“Excuse me, I was in mourning.  Ack!”  That last because Marc had slapped his clammy hand down on mine and squeezed, probably because he thought I’d find it comforting.

“Aw,” he teased.  “You missed me.”

“Did not.  Well, a little.  Shut up.”  I snatched my hand back.  “So anyway...”

*****

“I do not understand,” Sinclair began.  We were in his gray Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which my husband thought was sexy.  It wasn’t, partly because gray cars can never be sexy, but also because the thing looked like an electric shaver with a windshield.  “Detective Berry’s text indicated he would be late, not that he has been detained by supernatural forces.  Do not misunderstand, I think we were wise to put trackers in everyone’s vehicles, but this does not seem like an emergency.”

“I would never say this within Jessica’s hearing...”  I double-checked the back seat to reassure myself it was empty.  Tina was following us in her red Fiat because she was practical, efficient, and loved the color red.  She’d keep her distance unless we needed help. Which was excellent, as I would take no chances on being overheard.  “...but she’s been overreacting a smidge.  Remember when she thought that sushi had given her a tapeworm when it was just morning sickness?  Dick-not-Nick is probably holed up in a Target parking lot gorging on all the things he gave up in solidarity with Jessica.”

*****

“Liar!” Jessica practically screamed.  “I was not!  And he wasn’t, either!”

“Anyway...”

“You’re telling it wrong!”

“Anyway...”

*****

“This Target,” my husband observed, “should not be open for business at 12:08 a.m.”

“Was he so consumed with a potato chip/salsa/Oreo craving that he broke in?”  I clicked my tongue in faux sympathy.  “Poor guy needs professional help.”

We’d swung around to the back entrance of the Suburban (yeah, it was really called that) Square Target which, as Sinclair had pointed out, shouldn’t be open.  But from the back, we could see some lights were on, and there was a sinister-looking dark green van idling just a few feet away.  Although “sinister” and “dark van” were redundant.  All dark vans were inherently sinister.  Weird but true. Weirder and truer:  Call-Me-Dickie’s Ford Escape was parked beside it.

Sinclair parked his gigantic electric shaver behind the van, blocking their rapid escape, and we eased out of the car, found the back door obligingly unlocked—at least the unhinged Oreo-craving bastard didn’t shoot his way in—and slipped inside.

It didn’t take long to see what the problem was.  Because—

*****

“—the place was crawling with witches!” Jessica interjected, waving her fist in triumph and nearly clipping Marc on the end of the nose.

“No, it was crawling with black marketers trying to freak people out en masse.”

“Like I said!”

“No.”

*****

Dickie was essentially narrating, and thanks to vamp hearing we didn’t miss a word, despite the fact that every voice save Dick’s was oddly muffled.

“Will you take a minute and think—really think—about what you’re doing?  Right now it’s only breaking and entering, which any good lawyer could plead down to misdemeanor trespass.  And stealing pregnancy tests—I mean, I get why you’re doing that, but if you stop now, it’s only misdemeanor theft.”

“We’re not stealing them, you insufferable pig,” an unfamiliar voice insisted.

“Hey!  I may have put on a few pounds to keep my pregnant wife company, but that’s uncalled for.”

“Not that kind of pig.”  The speaker sounded positively scandalized, muffled voice and all.  “We wouldn’t weight shame you.”

“Oh.  It’s the slang term, then. Fine.  But that just proves my point—this is all minor stuff so far.  Don’t make it worse.  Don’t turn a few misdemeanors into 3rd degree assault and federal kidnapping.  Which is what it’ll be the moment you cross the river into Wisconsin.”

“How do you know we’re—“

“Your van has Wisconsin plates.”  Unspoken:  you morons.  Not that I could read his mind.  But come on. Who uses their own van for a caper?

*****

“Wait, wait,” Marc said.

“Yeah, I said caper, and I’ll say it anytime I like,” I retorted, and I wasn’t defensive at all.  Nope. “Everyone just needs to get over it.”

“Not that.  Go back—why is stealing pregnancy tests understandable?  It sounds like Dickie wasn’t even surprised.  I mean, he lives with vampires and a zombie, so his threshold for surprise is pretty high, but didn’t that strike you as odd?”

“The black market,” Tina replied promptly.  She had rinsed out the disgusting blackberry smoothie dregs and to my joy was now making a pitcher of strawberry/banana.  “As there is with laundry detergent.”

I was surprised, which tamped down the annoyance of being interrupted again.  “There’s a black market for detergent?”

“There’s a black market for everything,” Jessica replied.  “Dickie told me that people actually use detergent as currency, trading it for drugs and stuff.  It’s one of those things that everybody needs all the time, y’know?  Same thing with pregnancy tests—somewhere, someone is always going to need one.  And they get stolen all the time by embarrassed teenage girls, so they’re always in demand.”

“Right.  So, not witches.  Black marketeers.”  That was the phrase, right?

“You’re still telling it wrong,” Jessica insisted.  “Why won’t you listen to me?”

*****

“So you guys broke in and got around the alarm—I assume one of you works here?  The horse Halloween masks are a nice touch, by the way.  Can you even breathe in them, though?”

“Of course we can breathe in them!”

“Because they look like they’re made of rubber.  Tell me there’s at least a hidden nose hole or something.  Tell me you’re not ramping up the carbon dioxide in your blood with every breath.  Which would explain a few things, actually...”

“We’re not horses, we’re unicorns!  These disguises—“

“They’re Halloween costumes, kiddos.  Not disguises.”

“—show the world we’re returning to our mystical roots!”  Except, thanks to the mask, it came out “mizzdiggal roods”.

“You think rubber masks mass-produced overseas gets you back to your mystical roots?”

By now I’d started biting my lip so I wouldn’t guffaw and give the game away.  Sinclair felt my pain, judging by how he rolled his eyes at me.  Then his voice slithered into my brain, which should have been awful but wasn’t.  There are only five.  And only one gun.

If you can get the four on the left, I’ll grab the one closest to me and get in front of Nick in case one of these horsey dumbasses gets triggered.  Y’know, literally.

As you say, my own.

But before we could do anything, Jessica came in from nowhere looking credibly badass (fresh manicure!  designer boyfriend jeans!) and she had...was that a flamethrower?

“You’re all fired!” she yelled, and the witches cowered away from her as she promptly bathed Target in flames.

*****

“What?” I cried.  “First, you weren’t there.  Second, if you were there—which you weren’t—you wouldn’t have had a flamethrower.  I’m the goddamned queen of the vampires and I don’t have a flamethrower.  Third, you’d never use such a hack line.  Fourth, stop interrupting.”

“Get to the witches,” Jessica snapped, because I’d died again without realizing and was in my own personal hell, one crammed with constant interruptions, blackberry seeds, and unreliable narrators hijacking reality.

*****

There are only five.  And only one gun.

Yep.  If you can get the four on the left, I’ll grab the one closest to me and get in front of Nick in case one of these horsey dumbasses gets triggered.  Y’know, literally.

As you say, my own.

So we did exactly that. I darted up behind the horse closest to me, seized him by the back of his shirt, and yanked back so hard he smacked into the wall behind me, then fell forward on his face for an instant nap.  I jumped in front of Dickie, which hadn’t been necessary as Sinclair had already disarmed the gun-toting horse.  Good.  I can take a couple of rounds to the chest, but it hurts like a bitch and ruins my shirt.

“Oh, hey! Hi, guys.”

“Detective.”  Sinclair adjusted his shirt cuff, which had shifted out of place by half an inch while he took out the four horses of the Targetpocalypse. .

“Hi, Dickie.  Keeping busy?”  Sinclair handed me the gun, a .38 that had seen better days—did no one take time to clean their weapons anymore?  It’s not like it was hard, or took much time.  I set it on the box to my left, where the pseudo horses had piled his sidearm, badge, and phone, then got busy pulling him free of the two miles of duct tape they’d bound him with.

“Christ, this is so embarrassing,” Dickie muttered.  “Got the drop on me when it was supposed to be the other way around.  Must be slowing down in my old age.”  Since he wasn’t yet thirty, that was an adorable notion.  “Ow, Jesus!  Sorry, Sinclair.  Ow, fuck, I hate being tied up with tape!  Might as well use barbed wire.”

“Sorry, sorry—almost done.  And it’s your own fault for having body hair.”

“Being a mammal is my own fault?”

I didn’t dignify that nonsense with an answer.  Another riiiiiiiip.  And another.  Heh.  And then two more.  No question:  since waking up dead, I’ve gotten more sadistic.  “What were you doing at a Target after hours anyway?”

“I’ll tell you, but you’ve gotta promise not to tell Jessica.”

“I knew it!”

“What?”

“Nothing.”  I shredded the last of the tape and Dickie wasted no time surging to his feet.  I threw an affectionate elbow into his side, ignoring his grunt.  “Snack attack, right?”  To Sinclair:  “Toldja.”

“No!  Well, yeah.  This Target’s closing by the end of the month, so everything’s on sale.  And Jessica doesn’t shop here, so it’s safe.  Uh.  Safe is probably the wrong word.”

“Only because it implies that shopping for Oreos where your lady love might see you is unsafe,” Sinclair purred.

“Definitely the wrong word.  So I came by, mostly out of force of habit—“

“You’re making a habit of the illicit snacking!” I said gleefully.

“So much so that it seems to have turned you into a homing pigeon,” Sinclair observed, because he was awesome.

“Don’t think I won’t kill the both of you,” Dick warned.  “Anyway, I was driving by, saw the lights on around back, and figured they’d decided to stay open later to move more merch.”

“More delicious merch, no doubt.”  I smirked.  “Then you did what every cop does in every movie ever—saw something suspicious, didn’t bother calling it on, checked it out on your own, and got captured.”

“Yeah, well.  Like I said.  Embarrassing.  Especially when you think about why I was here at all.”  He looked over the group, three of whom were unconscious.  The two still awake were huddled together, staring at us with big eyes.  Big, fake, rubbery, brown mask eyes.  “You dumbasses, you’re luckier than you know.  These guys are literal killers.”

“We want a lawyer.”

“And I want world peace, but guess what?”  As they made muffled squeaks of terror, Dickie relented.  “Yeah, yeah, you’ll get a lawyer.  Take those ridiculous things off, I can barely look at you without giggling.  All this, just to steal pregnancy tests?”

“We weren’t stealing them!”  This from the one on the left, a slender brunette with brown eyes and one of those little blobs of facial hair on his chin—soul patch, I think?  Anyway, he’d dispensed with the mask, then helped his companion wrestle hers off. She looked a lot like he did, minus the facial hair—siblings?  “We told you.”

“What are you doing with them?”

“We’ve fixed them in our lab.”

Oh, great.  The horses have their own lab.

Dick-not-Nick, like me, was having trouble following.  “’Fixed them’?”

“Yes.  Then we reassembled them perfectly—the boxes don’t look tampered with at all.  Isn’t that great?”

“I have no idea how to answer that.”

“Yeah, I’m lost, too,” I admitted.

“Then all we had to do was switch them out.”

I waited, but Mr. Ed was done.  “And?”

“Don’t you get it?” his accomplice-maybe-sister spoke up.  “They’ll all come up as positive.  Even if you’re not pregnant.”

Silence while we all digested that.  I could actually feel Sinclair’s confusion, followed by his impatience.  No, wait.  That was my impatience.  “This is an odd thing on which to expend so much energy as well as risk incarceration.”

“It’s mean, too!” I cried.  “Just—really, really mean.  Straight-up diabolical.”

“In such ways we expose the fascist underpinnings beneath—“

“You know what?  I don’t actually care anymore.”  What a pack of masked boneheads.  Why not expend all that time and effort into something helpful, like making Peeps edible or sunscreen that didn’t stain your clothes? Instead, these galloping asshats wanted to give random consumers heart attacks.  Because mystical roots or something.

Dickie was shaking his head and calling for back-up, which meant Sinclair and I had to get in the wind.  Tina was already gone; she’d been advised via text that we didn’t need her this time.  “Don’t think I’m ungrateful, but how’d you guys even know to come get me?  All I texted Jess was that I was running late.  I didn’t want her to worry.”

“Yeah, well, she did worry.  We’re here because she overreacted.”

*****

“Except I didn’t,” Guess Who said triumphantly.  “Because he was in danger.”

“Right, but there was nothing tipping you off to that.  You just overrea—you just assumed because of your pregnancy sixth sense or whatever.”

“Which was right.”

I was gonna pick my battles.  “Yep.  Your gestational ESP worked perfectly.”  I glanced around the table.  Jessica looked vindicated, Marc entranced (he loved story time), Tina was simultaneously texting and blending, and Sinclair was smiling at me, doubtless remembering the al fresco sex we’d had once we’d left Target.

We had barely made it out of the parking lot before I lunged at Sinclair, which worked out nicely as he had chosen that exact moment to lunge at me.  (We collided somewhere above the gear shift.)  You’d think a three minute sex act conducted inside a giant electric shaver would be difficult and uncomfortable, but you’d be wrong-wrong-wrong. I wriggled around enough for semi-easy access (let’s hear it for leggings!), and all Sinclair had to do was yank his zipper down.  Somehow we managed to fold our long limbs in just the right way to let me sink down on Sinclair’s cock while he clutched at the small of my back and bit me right over the carotid.  I hissed as the brief flash of pain warred with my pending orgasm, let him drink, then buried my fists in his dark hair, yanked his head back, and took my own reward, tipping over the edge so fast I felt like I’d been shoved, with Sinclair right behind me.

There was something about fucking while sirens wailed in the distance that was just...oofta.

I managed to shake away the memory of the hurried erotic encounter, which wasn’t easy with Sinclair’s dark gaze boring into me—I could almost feel his intense regard—and got back to business.  “So, to sum up:  it wasn’t a coven, it was a Facebook group.  And they weren’t witches, they were thieves dealing in black market pregnancy tests. Thieves who hadn’t actually stolen anything, and disguised themselves as horses who thought they were unicorns.  Okay?  Everybody clear now?”

“I still don’t under—“

“Everybody clear now?”

With near perfect timing, the star of the story (besides me), came in through the back kitchen door.  We heard him fight his way past Fur and Burr, the puppies who slept in the mudroom, then make it into the kitchen.  He hung up his keys and grinned at the sight of the midnight smoothie hour, if midnight was two in the morning.

“Hey, guys.  Hi, babe.”  As usual, he looked like the very thing he was:  a corn-fed clean-cut Midwestern fellow who was blessed with a yummy swimmer’s build.  Lucky for both of us I’d never gone for blonds.

We greeted him with a chorus of howdys (howdies?) and Marc scooched his chair over to make room.  Dick-not-Nick dropped a kiss to the top of Jessica’s head, then looked hopefully at Tina.  “Got enough left for me?”

“Of course, Detective.”

“You missed it, Dick!” Marc said as the aforementioned Dick climbed on the stool beside him.  “Betsy was telling us about the time you were kidnapped by witches at midnight while on a junk food run.”

“Whoa!”  Dickie nearly dropped the glass Tina had just handed him.  “None of that is true.”

“See?” I cried, and mighty was my triumph. Mighty. “Told you guys you had it wrong.”

“It wasn’t a junk food run, I was checking out a gluten-free bakery for Jess.  And they weren’t witches, they were militant vegans.  And it wasn’t midnight, it was noon.”

I groaned and buried my face in my hands as everybody instantly burst into argument.  I would leave.  I would move into a studio apartment in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, I would devote four-fifths of said studio to my shoes, and I would be a hermit.  Forever.  It would be lonely (I assumed—I’d actually never lived alone) but I would at least retain what was left of my sanity.  Perfect plan.

Never threaten such a thing, my own.

Perfect plan, Sinclair!

Or if you do, swear you shall live the life of a married hermit at least.

Nope.  I’m gone.  I’m out.

Then before you take your leave, at least allow me to lead you upstairs, divest you of your clothing, and put my tongue anywhere you like as long as you like.

Well.  I didn’t have to move out right this minute.

THE END

(2)

And now, a sneak preview of MaryJanice’s upcoming release, USA Dead Ahead!  This is book two in her Danger series, a rollicking romp that pokes gentle fun at romance tropes.  (Think Shaun of the Dead, except with romance novel tropes instead of zombie movie tropes.)

PROLOGUE

Agh.  Pain.  And thirst.  Painful thirst.  Thirsty pain.  Where?  Was?  Ow.

Rake Tarbell sloooowly rolled over and stared at a ceiling.  (His ceiling?  No.)  His eyes were so gritty and the room so quiet he could hear his eyelids sticking and unsticking as he blinked.  And sometime in the last few hours, he’d eaten...a dead bird?  And washed it down with another dead bird?  One that had drowned in vermouth?

He tried to open his mouth and felt his gummy lips struggle to part.  Had he been kidnapped?  Hit over the head and kidnapped, then had his mouth and eyes taped shut?

No.

Worse.

Hung-over.

He made it to the edge of the bed in a series of small wriggles, each one causing a new wave of nauseating pain to claw up his spine and wash over his brain.  When at last he was upright, he fought his gorge to a draw, and buried his head in his hands, praying for swift death.  He noticed he was in a black t-shirt he’d never seen before with the puzzling yet reassuring logo I do all my own stunts.  No socks.  No pants.  By squinting very, very hard he could just make out a pair of crumpled dark brown cargo shorts on the floor three feet away.

I keep telling you, Rake.

Shut up, Blake.

You can’t party like a twenty year-old forever.

Seriously, Blake.  Shut.  Up.

His inner voice, which sounded exactly like his tight-ass twin, obligingly shut up, something the real Blake hardly ever did.

He managed to lurch to his feet and staggered toward a doorway leading to a sparkling clean bathroom—okay, mystery solved, he was in a hotel room.  Bland white walls, bland tan carpet.  De rigueur nightstand, two-drawer dresser, television.  Shiny clean fixtures and various helpful signs his head hurt too much to even look at, much less interpret, but at least he had a vague idea of where he was.

He turned the tap on full and tried to kill himself:  suicide by sink, glug, glug, ahhhhh.  When he realized drowning would take too long, he cupped his hands under the cool flow and drank and drank and drank, then washed his face, ran his head under the tap again—thank God for roomy hotel sinks!—and slowly stood as he raked his fingers through his hair and slicked it back from his eyes.

He nearly screamed:  he’d rarely looked so fucked up.  Even his inner Blake voice

(Kill it at once, and with fire!)

was horrified.

“Okay,” he said, and winced.  His deep voice reverberated around the small shiny white bathroom, which is how he found out it hurt to talk.  “Okay,” he whispered to his hideous, red-rimmed, ghastly reflection.  Normally dark blond, his hair was now dirty blond.  And his eyes, God, his eyes!  Like the zombies in 28 Days Later or, worse, 28 Weeks Later. “Get out of the room.  Don’t think about the scary hotel room from 1408.  Figure out where you are, then get something in your stomach—no, you have to.”  His reflection was shaking his head and looking horrified; time to get stern.  “You know you’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”  Mirror-Rake cringed, but Actual Rake was relentless.  “You’ve got a day of crackers and ginger ale to look forward to, you horrible-looking shithead, and only yourself to blame.”

Probably.  He hadn’t ruled out kidnapping yet; this might be someone else’s fault.  He’d been hung-over before, though not as often as Blake assumed.  He never did anything with the frequency Blake assumed, as a matter of pride if nothing else.  But he had no idea where he was or how he’d gotten to—to wherever he was.  And the mystery wouldn’t be solved from the bathroom.  Had any mystery ever been solved from a bathroom?  How often did Sherlock Holmes take a dump?  The books never said.

He left the bathroom and managed to inch across the room to the shorts, gingerly stepped into them, pulled them on.  These, at least, did belong to him, though they needed a trip through a washing machine.  He felt the comforting bump of his phone in his side pocket as he zipped up, and the beat-up loafers at the end of the bed were also his.  He figured he must have checked in (somehow—how did he manage to walk, much less communicate with a hotel clerk?), kicked off his shorts (but left his shoes on?), collapsed face-down on the bed, his absurdly long legs dangling over the end, and the shoes had fallen off in his sleep.  Stupor.  Coma.  What-have-you.

After a few tries, he found the door to the hallway.  The water had helped; he knew most of the pain of a hangover came from dehydration.  That, and knowing he’d done it to himself and had no one else to blame.  Fine.  He’d get some fresh air, take stock of his surroundings, start Plan Ginger Ale + Crackers = Might Not Die.

Somehow he made it to the lobby, though for a minute he thought he was going to hurl tap water in the elevator.  He closed his eyes against the killing glare of the fluorescents and focused on his breathing, then staggered out of the elevator with a real sense of accomplishment:  no barf left behind!

He ignored the guest babble in the lobby, though normally he liked talking to strangers, especially female strangers.  Not today.  If he had to focus on anything besides falling down he would fall down.  I’ll give everyone in the hotel a thousand bucks if they just don’t talk to me.  Money well spent. He made it through the revolving doors once...

“Agh!  Mistake, mistake!  Stop the ride, I wanna get off!”

...then twice around.  The doors spat him out onto the sidewalk, where the sun immediately set about frying him like a T-bone.

Aaaggghhhh my retinas!  Who knew the sun was so huge and hot?  In early spring, no less!

Eyes squinched to slits, he shuffled forward, breathing in the, um, fresh air—hmm.  There was an odd smell; not bad, but distinct.  Familiar.  Wherever he was, he’d been there before.  That alone was enough to cheer him up, and he squared his shoulders and took a few jaunty steps to his destiny while ignoring the people who were shouting behind him.  Back off, strangers!  It’s my time to shine!  Or at least gobble some crackers.

Then he fell.  Not far, thank goodness, but ack cold cold cold!  The river/lake/ocean/whatever-the-hell he’d plunged into was beyond bracing and well into hypothermia-inducing.  He popped to the surface like a furious cork and wiped the water out of his eyes.  So that’s what they were yelling about.  Now would be a good time to start paying attention to my surroundings.  Also, ninety seconds ago would have been a good time.

At first he thought the strangers were going to bludgeon him with paddles until he went down and stayed down, the perfect end to a horrific morning.  Then he realized they were all extending poles and paddles and

(why????)

bottles of water.

Then he saw the gondolas and vaporetti.

“Venice?” he sputtered, spitting a stream of foul water back into the larger stream of foul water that was the Grand Canal.  “I’m in fucking Venice?”

USA Dead Ahead will be available in late 2018  The first book, Danger Sweetheart, is available now!

MaryJanice Davidson is the best-selling author of several novels, including the UNDEAD series and the BOFFO trilogy, and is published across multiple genres. Her books have been published in over a dozen languages and have been on best-seller lists all over the world, including USA Today and the New York Times. She has published books, novellas, articles, short stories, recipes, reviews, and rants, and writes a column for USA Today (http://happyeverafter.usatoday.com/author/maryjanice-davidson/). A former model and medical test subject, she lives in St. Paul, MN, with her husband, children, and dogs.

You can reach her at contactmjd@comcast.net, follow her on Twitter (@MaryJaniceD) and Instagram, find her on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/maryjanicedavidson), and check out her blog at http://maryjanicedavidson.blogspot.com/.

Like a book autographed, or personalized as a gift for a loved one?  Well, too bad, what do you think she’s running here?  She doesn’t have time for that crap.  You probably don’t, either.  Have some self-respect, dammit!

Kidding!  Send it to MaryJanice Davidson, P.O. Box 193, Hastings, MN  55033.  Autograph’s free; snark is extra.

Titles by MaryJanice Davidson

The Undead Series:

Undead and Unwed

Undead and Unemployed

Undead and Unappreciated

Undead and Unreturnable

Undead and Unpopular

Undead and Uneasy

Undead and Unworthy

Undead and Unwelcome

Undead and Unfinished

Undead and Undermined

Undead and Unstable

Undead and Unsure

Undead and Unwary

Undead and Unforgiven

Undead and Done

The Sweetheart Series

Danger, Sweetheart

The BOFFO/FBI Trilogy

Me, Myself and Why

Yours, Mine, and Ours

You and I; Me and You

The Wyndham Werewolves

Love’s Prisoner (Secrets, Vol. 6)

Jared’s Wolf (Secrets, Vol. 8)

Derik’s Bane

Wolf at the Door

The Undersea Folk (mermaids)

Sleeping With the Fishes

Swimming Without a Net

Fish Out of Water

The Déjà Series (reincarnation)

Déjà Who

Déjà New

The Alaskan Royals Trilogy

The Royal Treatment

The Royal Pain

The Royal Mess

The Gorgeous Books

Hello, Gorgeous!

Drop Dead, Gorgeous!

Doing It Right

Really Unusual Bad Boys

Under Cover

The Anthologies

Wicked Women Whodunit

(with Amy Garvey, Nancy J. Cohen)

Bad Boys With Expensive Toys

(with Nancy Warren, Karen Kelley)

Merry Christmas, Baby

(with Donna Kauffman, Nancy Warren, Erin McCarthy, Lucy Monroe, Susanna Carr)

Dying for You

Cravings

(with Laurell K. Hamilton, Rebecca York, Eileen Wilks)

Bite

(with Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Angela Knight, Vickie Taylor)

Faeries Gone Wild

(with Lois Greiman, Michele Hauf, Leandra Logan

No Rest for the Witches

(with Lori Handeland, Cheyenne McCray, Christine Warren)

Kick Ass

(with Maggie Shayne, Angela Knight, Jacey Ford)

Men at Work

(with Janelle Denison, Nina Bangs)

Dead and Loving It

(with Janelle Denison, Nina Bangs)

Surf’s up

(with Janelle Denison, Nina Bangs)

Mysteria

(with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)

Mysteria Lane

(with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)

Mysteria Nights

(with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)

Over the Moon

(with Angela Knight, Virginia Kantra, Sunny)

Demon’s Delight

(with Emma Holly, Vickie Taylor, Catherine Spangler)

Dead Over Heels

(with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)

Perfect for the Beach

(with Lori Foster, Kayla Perrin, Janelle Denison, Erin McCarthy)

How To Be A Wicked Woman

(with Susanna Carr, Jamie Denton)

Charming The Snake

(with Camille Anthony, Melissa Schroeder)

The Shorts

Dead But Not Forgotten:  Short Stories From The World of Sookie Stackhouse

My Angel, My Devil

Unwavering

Medical Miracle

Monster Love

Titles by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi

The Jennifer Scales series

Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace

Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light

The Silver Moon Elm

Seraph of Sorrow

Rise of the Poison Moon

Evangelina

Table of Contents

- UNRELIABLE
- INTRODUCTION
- THE END
- PROLOGUE