Chapter 21

"We can't let him live," Tina said.

"Sure we can."

"Majesty, be reasonable. I know you are—were—fond of the child, but he is adangerous child."

"I still consider him a friend, okay? Friends have falling-outs. Or would that be fallings-out? Anyway, we don't always get along a hundred percent of the time. Look at me and Jessica!"

"Duhnot ," Little Miss Myeloma said, her voice muffled through the ice pack Marc had slapped over her face, "drag meh entoh this."

We were in the (first) parlor. We'd picked it because there were two couches, and Jessica and I both needed one. Shit, I needed a hospital ward. But a couch that smelled like dust was the best I could do, right now.

"Surely after what happened today you do not still consider him an ally?"

"Eric, try to see his point of view! If someone's keeping score, we're ahead of him on points, okay? So, seriously: don't go after him, you guys. Don't

order another vampire to do it, either. Jon's out of bounds as far as the vampires are concerned."

"Foolish sentimentality."

"Hey, I'm mad at him, too, okay? He shot me. In the chest. With holy water.

But I'm not going to kill him."

Everybody looked at my chest.

"No, seriously. He didn't mean to do that. Or he meant to, but he knew it wouldn't kill me—he was scared, okay? Scared and humiliated, which is just the worst combo ever. At least the worst part's over."

"Worst part?" Jessica mumbled around her ice pack.

"I was really dreading telling him. I didnot want to do that, boy oh boy. But at least it's out."

"What I'd like to know," Marc said from his chair by the fire, "is what he was doing here with a gun in the first place."

"Are you kidding? That kid's always got about nine guns and knives on him.

Those farm boys are tough."

"Right," Marc allowed, "but a former Blood Warrior shows up, and you guys don't even frisk him? Make him walk through a metal detector?

Something?"

"We knew he was carrying. Mostly because he'salways carrying. But we never frisk anybody."

"What, that's a rule now?"

"Sure," I said, and Sinclair nodded, backing me up.

"Come on, guys! The Queen of England's a tough cookie, too; but she puts people through a metal detector and a security check before they can talk to her."

"If the throne is so easily taken from us," Sinclair explained, almost exactly the way he explained it to me, "we would be poor monarchs indeed."

"In other words, if someone gets the drop on you in your own house, too bad for Betsy and Sinclair, but they should have been able to take care of themselves?"

We looked at each other. "Basically," I answered, "yeah."

"Great," Marc muttered, and slumped lower in his chair. "Those of us caught in the crossfire appreciate the attention to detail."

"Although," I said, looking at Jessica's face—what I could see around the ice, "maybe we should change that rule."

"If we cannot protect our allies," Sinclair said, "the same rule applies." "Tough luck, guys," I said in a fake-bright laugh, and they both laughed.

"Getting back to the issue of the child," Tina said, harshing our buzz as visual, "I really think you should reconsider. He—"

The phone rang. She picked it up, glanced at the caller ID.

"We're kind of busy," I said, a little sharply. The phone was a whole thing between Tina and me.

"But—"

"If it's important, they'll call back." "But it's your mother."

I practically snarled. The phone, the fucking phone! People used it the way they used to use the cat-o'-nine-tails. You had to drop everything and answer the fucking thing. And God help you if you were home and, for whatever reason, didn't answer. "But I called!" Yeah, it was convenient for you so you called. But I'm in the shit because it wasn't convenient forme to drop everything and talk toyou , on the spot, for whateveryou needed to talk about.

Unfortunately, Tina was the type who lunged for it every time it so much as peeped. She couldn't stand the sound of a ringing phone. Always tracked me down: it's so-and-so. Well, I'mrecovering from a fatal chest wound, take a message . But it's your mother! Yeah, well, she'll call back. But she's on the phonenow .

I practically snatched it from her. "Hi, Mom, this really isn't a good t—"

"Your grandfather," Mom said in the doleful voice reserved for announcing funerals, "has escaped."

"Escaped what? Mom? He's got three kinds of cancer, he's eighty-nine, and he's hooked up to forty different machines. What are you talking about, escaped?"

"Someone's coming up the driveway," Tina said in a low voice.

"Well, go take care of it." "And if they need to see you, Majesty?"

I cupped a hand over the mouthpiece. "Read my royal lips, Tina:this is not a good time !"

"What?" my mom said.

"I wasn't talking to you, Mom. See, the reason I sound all distracted right now is becausethis is not a good time ."

"Well, why did you answer the phone then?" my mom asked reasonably.

"Just let it ring."

"Gah! Tell me about Grandpa, please." "Well, you know he doesn't care for that nursing home."

"Right. So what else is new. The guy's got three kinds of cancer. And frankly, it probably isn't much fun for the nursing home to have him there."

"This is true," Mom replied promptly. She had, after all, been raised by the gentleman in question. "Anyway, he doesn't like it there. The animals are the least of it."