"Everything looks fine," Laura announced, coming back into the kitchen. "I don't think-whoa!" She took in the scene: Sinclair and me silently looking on, Tina and Nickie/Dickie making like two of the Charlie's Angels, and a greenish Jessica staggering down the hallway. "Okay. What'd I miss? And Tina, how many guns do you have?"

"Seventy-four. And let's be honest. First, it's a safety issue. Second, it's what he wants-"

"Yes, yes, yesssss!" The Marc Thing was too thoroughly taped to bounce, but he wriggled happily. It was like watching a worm trying to do the Forbidden Dance. "I do, I do, I really, really do! Ah, Laura, truly the spawn of angels . . . one angel, anyway, I dooooo!"

"Ick," Laura commented. Then, "So it's like Tina said? It's what he wants and it's a good way to keep all of us safe so we should feel good about killing him and just get it over with?"

Jessica had almost made it back to the kitchen when we heard her turn around to return to the bathroom. Cue ralphing noises.

"So just . . . sayonara, sucker, and ka-blam?" D/Nick asked, looking doubtful. He'd made a gun from his thumb and forefinger (dumb, since he had an actual gun on the Marc Thing) and looked down at it with less than perfect confidence. "He's a pretty old vampire. I don't think it'll be simple."

"Mucho ka-blam will be required," the Marc Thing agreed, then pouted. "It's not nice to throw my age in my face. I'd never do that to you, Nick."

"Shut up," he replied absently. "Okay, sounds like we're on the same page. Funny how when I got up this morning I figured Lamaze class would be stressful and bloody." We all heard the click of the hammer dropping. "Let's-"

"Right here in our very own kitchen? We eat smoothies in here! And since when are you so quick to not follow any of the cop rules?"

"Since I moved in with vampires and knocked up your best friend?" Nick replied, like it was a quiz.

"We can still have smoothies in here," Laura soothed. "We'll just mop. A lot."

I glanced at my sister. She was taking this awfully well. Laura usually wouldn't get on board for baiting mouse traps, never mind kitchen executions. Oh, sure, she sometimes snapped and murdered serial killers and vampires, and she had tons of devil-worshipping followers who would kill or die for her, but on the whole, she was in the Murder Is Bad category. "You're taking this-" I began.

"Wait!"

We waited. When Sinclair used that tone, everybody played Statues. Even if I was half an inch from orgasm, it was Statue City. The opposite, if you're wondering, of romantic.

"Marc?"

"Yes?" they both replied.

"The undead one," Sinclair clarified. "You called him Nick."

"Even as a sprat, your hearing is excellent."

"Why did you do that?"

N/Dick started to open his mouth, but Sinclair made a curt motion with the flat of his hand.

"Because . . . it's . . . his name?" the Marc Thing wondered, gazing at the ceiling.

"Not here it isn't," Tina said, her big eyes going all badass narrow. This was a hilarious effect uttered from someone in a cute T-shirt and capris.

"Holy shit!" Jessica gargled from the bathroom. Then: "Ohhhh, I shouldn't have had that fourth yogurt."

I never got sick of being the only one not to get something. "What? Are we still killing him? What's wrong? C'mon, break out the hand puppets, somebody. What? Whaaaaaaat?"

"My name isn't Nick," Nick told me. "It's Dick. I'm Nick in the other timeline. Your original timeline. I'm here, so I'm not here."

"Talking with you makes me feel like I'm rereading Alice in Wonderland." This was a lie. I'd never been able to make it through the book, and I thought the Johnny Depp movie was a little too pleased with itself.

"Which begs the question," Sinclair said. "Who are you, really? And why are you here, really?"

And why wouldn't Advil work on the undead, really? Someone should do a study. Unfortunately, I now had other things to worry about.