business?â Times like this, I
almost
missed Satan. Sheâd been the one whoâd been a stickler for meetings starting on time. For meetings at all. Sure, sheâd been trying to obstruct me at every turn, but by God, we stuck to an agenda and meetings ended on time. Not that I knew she was the devil then. Because nothingâs ever simple, yâknow?
âYes, yes, we can start,â the Ant replied, waving away my whining. âWe just have toâ Marc! Hoo-hoo!
Marc!
â
âHey!â Cathie let out an eardrum-shredding whistle. âOver here, Marc! Get your butt over here!â
Marc, whoâd been hurrying through the food court, looked momentarily surprised to be greeted so enthusiastically. Heshot a cautious glance at me and I shrugged. It wouldnât be fair to tip him off. Also, it would be huge fun to see my stepmother and favorite ghost falling all over him to figure out the state of his love life so they could decide which one would be the otherâs slave for the next hundred years. Why would I ever stand in the way of that?
With each step, Marc looked more and more bewildered. It was a good look for him, though, because Marc was criminally cute. Black hair he kept chopped in a Caesar cut (which he insisted on calling a George Clooney cut), bright green eyes, pale skinâlike most of us, because (a) dead and (b) Minnesotaâlong legs, quick and clever hands. He usually wore scrubs so often washed they were almost velvety (as well as going from green to a washed-out gray). An ER doc in life, he didnât trust his zombie reflexes to do much more than skilled first aid in death.
I thought he was being overcautiousâitâs not like the flesh was rotting off his bones or anything. Heâd delivered Jessicaâs weird babies with no trouble. (For him. Jessica was pissed that he was unable to rig an epidural in her bedroom. I can still hear her: âI
get
to push? What, like itâs something I won? How is that an incentive?
What the fuck is wrong with you?
â) In fact, as long as we hung out together, Marc would only ever appear to be seconds dead. Maybe just
one
second dead; thatâs how (ugh) fresh he was. He could also heal with ridiculous speed, which made
no
sense.
The trouble would start if I abandoned him. Or took my power away from him . . . not that I had any idea how to do that. I still had no idea how Iâd turned him into a zombie in the first place. * Argh, hindsight! Thatâs how I should haveanswered all of Diana Pierceâs questions: âI have no idea how I did that.â
Moot, anyway; Iâd never leave him. He became my friend the day I woke up dead and has stuck by me ever since. Not to belittle my mom or Jessica, but theyâd loved me before I died. Marc only knew me as a bitchy vampire and he still thought I was worth getting to know. So there wasnât much I wouldnât do for him.
Except warn him where this was going, of course. I got so few kicks from running Hell, I wasnât keen on derailing this train until we knew who won.
ââjust tell us why you were late already!â I could see the Ant had gotten tired of her version of subtlety and was just nagging the shit out of him so they could settle the bet.
âBut why do you even care?â
âOf course I care!â the Ant yelped. Boy, talk about a half-truth. She cared, but only because she didnât want to be my compliment slave. Also,
I
didnât want her to be my compliment slave.
âWhat difference does it make if I had plans?â He was looking from one to the other with a dazed expression on his face, like he was trying to focus on a tennis match after several beers. âIâm here now.â
âDid you have plans?â
âWhy?â
âJust answer the question.â
âDid Will put you up toâ No, wait. Thatâs idiotic. Right?â He looked at me. âWill
1802-1870 Alexandre Dumas