"... And then I graduated valedictorian at my school and got to give the speech to all the kids, and then I got a job volunteering at Goodwill, in addition to my jobs at Target and Super America, while I waited to start at the U in the fall."

I stifled a yawn and shifted the phone to my other ear. If you'd ever told me the devil's daughter would be nice, but dull ... "Yeah, then what happened?"

"Well, that's about it. I mean, I'm still in school. Nothing much has happened to me yet."

Give it time, sweetie.

"What about you, what have you been doing? You're-what? Twenty-five?"

I laughed. "Actually, I turned thirty in April. And I've had kind of a checkered career. Model, secretary, waitress..."

"And right now you own a nightclub?"

"Right now, yeah." I'd just looked over the books the other night, in fact. We were definitely in the red-I was shocked at the price of booze, not to mention utilities-but so far I had been able to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. Without Jessica's help, I couldn't much longer. But it was hard enough to ask her for a loan when she wasn't pissed and terrified. "I guess we'll see how that goes."

"So, tell me about my birth mother and father."

That was the last thing I wanted to do. I downed my hot milk in a hurry and tried not to drop the phone. She'd called me about a minute after I'd woken up that afternoon. Three thirty in the afternoon, yippee! A new record. Maybe someday I'd manage to wake at lunchtime. "Uh, well... gee, so much to tell. Where to start. Ah..."

"Do you think I could meet them sometime? I wouldn't want to push my way into their lives. I understand they gave me up because it was what they thought was best for me. I wouldn't want to intrude or make them uncomfortable in any way."

"Don't forget, Dad didn't even know you existed until after you were adopted." Why had I said that? Did I want her to like Dad? Maybe I was so dreading telling her about the devil, I wanted her to have something nice to hold on to.

"That's true, Betsy. And I know my mother was alone... poor thing, she must have been so worried when she found out. No one to turn to... maybe her minister was able to counsel her."

Her minister, her bookie, whatever. "Yeah, the... poor thing." Suddenly, a wonderful (or terrible) idea came to me. "Listen! Do you want to meet them both? This afternoon?" The shower started in... I checked my watch. Twenty minutes. Well, we'd be fashionably late.

Laura's happy squeal was answer enough.

"She's pregnant again?" Laura asked, staring at the Ant's too-big-for-two-people house. "At her age?"

"She's not that old, remember." I checked my lipstick in the mirror. Next to Laura's breathtaking, fresh beauty, I don't know why I bothered.

She looked wonderful; her hair was in two golden braids today, the ends brushing the tops of her breasts, her bangs perfectly level with her eyebrows. She was wearing a clean white blouse (she must have a closet full of them) and a navy A-line skirt. No panty hose, and sensible black flats. Isaac Michener, good. The Target collection, bad. She looked like an extra on Touched by an Angel. And I felt like a before on Nip/Tuck.

"I'm so excited!"

"Oh, she will be, too," I lied. "Let's go."

We knocked politely but, since it was a party, opened the massive front door and went right in. The driveway was packed with cars, and I could hear the gabble of voices off to the right.

The Ant came hurrying out to greet us, the smile vanishing when she saw it was me. She glanced over my shoulder to the windows on either side of the door, confirming the sun was still up, looked back at me, looked out the window.

"Surprise!" I burbled.

"Congratulations," Laura said.

The Ant swallowed her tongue and forced a grimace that I suppose was technically a smile. "Thank you for coming," she managed. "Betsy, you know where to hang up your coats."

Laura handed me her knee-length mustard-colored trench coat. (I know it sounds awful, but on her, it worked. She probably could have worn the kitchen curtains and it would have worked.) I slung it into the hall closet.

"Gifts... gifts can go in the living room. There's a table."

"We didn't bring a present," I informed her gleefully. "Just our bad old selves."

"We have a gift," Laura corrected me. Now that I'd relieved her of her coat, I saw she was holding a small box of Tiffany blue, with the standard white ribbon.

Relief washed over the Ant's face; I could almost hear her thought: Not a total disaster after all! She practically snatched the present out of Laura's hand and ripped the ribbon off. Inside was a sterling silver baby spoon.

"Why, this is-it's very nice. Thank you, er-"

"Laura Goodman, ma'am. I'm a friend of Betsy's."

"Well, you might as well come in and have some cake," she almost snapped. To Laura, she added warmly, "So nice you could come."

Big surprise, Laura the Great had won over the second most evil creature in the universe. And where'd the present come from? She was a college student on scholarship; I doubted she kept a closetful of Tiffany baby gifts around.

Sixteen thousand years later, it was almost seven o'clock, and guests were pulling on their coats. Laura and the Ant were chatting like old pals-Laura seemed to think everything about her birth mother, from the bleached hair to the fuzzy pastel sweater to the knockoff pumps-was just swell. Me, I was ready to bite everybody in the room just for the relief of the screams. It was the usual collection of wannabe socialites and poseurs. Believe me, a bite on the neck would be doing every one of them a favor. The fact that they all didn't recognize me-or pretended not to-was one of the nicest things that had happened all week.

"Come by anytime," the Ant told the devil's daughter. She didn't say anything to me, but her look spoke volumes.

"That was great!" Laura yammered on the way back to the car. "Wow, what a gorgeous house! And she's so nice! And pretty, don't you think she's pretty? I wish I could have told her the truth-I feel so bad about lying. And to a pregnant lady!"

"You didn't lie," I said, wondering why there was never a pack of feral vampires around when you needed them. "We are friends. Just ones who haven't known each other very long."

"Oh, Betsy." She slung an arm across my shoulders and gave me a one-armed hug. "You're the greatest. Thank you so much for bringing me here today."

"Umf," I said, or something close to it. "Listen, can I ask you something?"

"Sure. Anything."

"How'd you have a present all ready to go?"

"Oh, I bought that a long time ago," she explained with awe-inspiring (yet slightly nauseating) earnestness. "I always knew I'd meet my birth mother someday. The spoon was actually for me-you know, like a gag gift. But it works even better to give it to my future brother or sister. Just think, I was an only child my whole life, and now I'll have two siblings!"

"That's super," I said. I'd been half-hoping for an evil explanation but was yet again disappointed.

"Well, I have homework to do, so can I trouble you to take me back to my apartment?"

"Why? It's still early." And I had nothing to do. No one to go home to. Tina had given George a dozen balls of yarn-balls of yarn-and he was busy unrolling them and rerolling them when I left. Tina had stayed behind, amused, to watch him (at a prudent distance). Marc had work, as usual. Jessica was gone-her car was, anyway. Sinclair was somewhere, but I wasn't about to go looking for another dose of chill nasty.

"Gosh, Betsy, I don't know..."

"Oh, come on. You're not at the minister's house any-more, Laura, time to let your hair down. Literally-those braids are a little 2002. Or 1802. I know! We'll go to the Pour House. We can drink daiquiris, talk about boys, go crazy."

"I can't, Betsy."

"Pleeeeease?" I wheedled.

"I mean I really can't. I'm not twenty-one. I'm not allowed to drink."

"Oh, that." I pushed away federal law with a wave of my hand. "I can get you in, don't worry about that." One peek at my mold-colored eyes, and no bouncer would be able to resist.

"No, Betsy," she said as firmly as I'd ever heard. "It's against the law."

"Fine, fine." I sighed, then brightened. "I know! Let's go shopping! The mall will be open for another couple of hours. I've got a wedding to go to; we can look for an outfit and shoes and stuff."

"I can't," she said apologetically. "I don't have any money. And it wouldn't be right to-"

"That's okay, I-" Didn't have any money, either. Normally Jess would go with me, and she'd either pick up the tab outright or we'd work out a deal-I'd put in a few days at The Foot, her nonprofit org, in return for a cashmere sweater or pair of sandals. "Uh... hmm..."

"Maybe we should call it a night."

"Yeah, okay." I was disappointed at the sorry state of affairs my life had come to, but there was no use taking it out on Laura.

Not to mention, she was a nice kid and all, but she was no substitute for my friend. Or Sinclair. I'd been wrong to use her as a distraction.

"Wait!" I said, almost driving into a streetlight. "I've got it! We'll go to Scratch."

"Your club?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yeah. And I won't sell you a drop of booze, I promise. We'll just check it out, and then I'll take you home." What recently learned lesson about how you couldn't swap friends like baseball cards?

"Well..." She was weakening! Either my fiendish undead powers of persuasion were working on her, or she had any kid's curiosity about how the inside of a bar looked. "Maybe just a quick look..."

" I called, and wrenched the wheel to the left.

"Wow," Laura goggled. "It's in here? It's so nice! "

"Here" was a well-kept brownstone; in fact, the place looked just like somebody's home. Now that I knew it was a vampire bar, I knew why: the more innocuous the surroundings, the better.

"I'll just park out front," I said, and set the emergency brake. Nobody was going to tow it in this neighborhood.

I walked in, Laura right on my heels, and was a little bummed to see how dead the place was. Of course, it was early-only about seven thirty-but still. Except for a couple of vampire waitresses, and Slight Overbite manning the bar, the place was deserted.

"How's business?" I half-joked when Slight Overbite left the bar to greet us.

"The same, Ma-"

"This is my sister, Laura," I interrupted. "You can just call her Laura. Laura, this is-" It occurred to me that I'd forgotten his name again. "This is the guy who looks after the bar for me when I'm not here."

"Klaus, ma'am." He bent over her little white hand, and when he looked up at her from that position, an alarming amount of the whites of his eyes showed. It was like looking into the face of a corpse. "Charmed."

Laura, thank God, didn't notice Klaus's extreme yukkiness. And, even better, seemed immune to his charm. Of course, Klaus wasn't all that charming, but still... "Hi there," she said, shaking his hand. "It's real nice to meet you."

I practically jerked her away from Slight Overbite, who was looking as though all his Christmas wishes were coming true at once. What had I been thinking? Bringing my sweet little sister to a bar run by vampires? Sure, I was the head bloodsucker, and she wasn't in any danger, but still. Exposing her to Klaus and the sullen waitstaff... I was out of my mind.

"Ah, Laura."

I spun around, and there was Sinclair, looming over us like a big black bird of prey. "Elizabeth," he said, obviously noticing me for the first time. At least he'd remembered my name.

"Hi again," Laura said, dazzled. And who could blame her? That hair, those eyes, those shoulders... yum. To think that it had all been mine, and I'd thrown it away by... uh... sleeping with it. I guess.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked, a shade of disapproval in his deep voice. I knew "you two" meant "Laura." I wasn't about to explain that desperation and loneliness had driven me to yet another boneheaded move. So I did what I always do:

"Why don't you mind your own fucking business for once?" I snapped. "If I want to take my sister to my place of business, that's my own damned business and not any of your business." Was I overusing the word business? Fuck it. "So mind your own business."

"Betsy!" Laura gasped.

"Quiet, you." Lectures from the spawn of Satan/Ms. Goody-goody 2005 I so did not need.

"It's inappropriate for her to be here, and you know it. What were you thinking?"

"That you should mind your own business?" And stop following my sister?

"I think I'd like to go home now," Laura said primly. I opened my mouth, but Sinclair beat me to the punch. "Allow me to see you home, Laura," he said, proffering his arm for her to take.

"Oh. Well..." She glanced at me-for approval or help,

I wasn't sure-and I shrugged. "All right, then. That's very kind of you."

"It's my great pleasure."

They walked out.

That was it. My life was now officially horrible. Worse than horrible. I'd be tempted to jump off a cliff, except I knew I'd survive it.

"Give me some Dewar's," I told Klaus.

"I can't," he replied smugly. "You haven't paid the liquor bill, and we're out."

Of course we were.

Depressed beyond all measure, I drove home.