"You're probably all wondering why I've called you here." I tried, and failed, not to stare at Jessica's gigantic gut.

"Not really," The Thing with the Gut replied. "You're back from hell and chock-full of gossip."

"Intel," I grumbled. "Gossip is what old ladies do after church."

"Gossip is what you do, every day. And given the way you can't not stare at our kid," Nick added, sitting beside my best friend with an arm slung casually across her shoulders, "I'm guessing we're living in an altered time stream."

I gaped. I couldn't help it. Every word I had ever uttered since the age of twenty-nine months (shut up, I was a slow talker) ran right out of my brain. I was morbidly aware my mouth was hanging open, and prayed most of the bugs in the mansion were dead on one of a hundred windowsills and not flying around looking for something to fly into. "I, uh, well, that's a real time-saver for me. I'll come right out and admit it. I thought this would take longer to explain."

Wordlessly, they jerked their thumbs at Sinclair. Seeing me stare and flop still more, Jessica added, "You want the CliffsNotes version?"

"Are you two done? Sounds like you're done. Thank God you're done." Another roommate, Dr. Marc Spangler, shoved the swinging kitchen door open and marched straight to the blender, which was oozing with strawberry-banana smoothies. It was a lava flow of delicious strawberry-icy goodness!

He poured himself a generous cup, stared at the fridge where Tina kept her vodka, debated leaping off the wagon, decided to cling to said wagon for another hour, turned away from the fridge, and plopped onto one of the kitchen chairs around our big, wide wooden table. You could slaughter and dress a moose on the thing. We mostly just drank smoothies there, though.

A quick word about Tina's vodka collection. Like all vampires, she was constantly thirsty. Unlike many (many being my code for less than a dozen) she tried to keep it at bay with frozen drinks made from potatoes. She also adored variety. Not that you could tell from her schoolgirl-bait wardrobe. Wait. Did schoolgirl-bait mean she was dressing to bait schoolgirls or was bait to people who liked-argh, focus!

Anyway, in our freezer lurked cinnamon-flavored vodka and bacon-flavored vodka. Ditto chili pepper and bison grass and bubble gum. Go ahead and barf . . . I nearly did.

"Now that you two've finished your unholy banging," Marc began, taking a monster slurp, "tell me all about the past. Is it smelly? Is the food great? Do they really say 'prithee'? And how come Laura's not here?"

"Laura didn't come back with me." Even as I said it I realized it was weird. "I mean, she made a doorway to here for me, but she stayed in hell. Or made herself a doorway and went to her apartment from hell. Or both. Or neither."

"Ah, beloved, one of the things I most cherish about you is your attention to detail."

"Yeah, well, I'll cherish you for shutting up now. I'm not my sister's keeper." Though if anyone needed one, the Antichrist qualified.

Marc was gulping his smoothie, and Jessica and Nick were watching him with some fascination. He had told me once that he'd gotten in the habit of bolting liquid meals when he was an intern. He could gulp down the equivalent of two pints of strawberries in three monster swallows. When he was off the wagon, he drank all his meals.

It was an indicator of how little I wanted to talk about the future and the past by how interested I was letting myself get in something I was normally leery about discussing. "Uh, so, how are the AA meetings going?"

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Don't take my inventory, Betsy."

"I don't know what that means," I admitted over Nick's snort.

"It means addicts in recovery know what they're supposed to do to stay clean and whether or not they're doing it. They dislike being reminded of it."

"Is that what you are?" Sinclair asked with interest. "In recovery?"

"Nah." Slurp. "People in recovery go to meetings. I'm a drunk."

I clapped a hand over my mouth, but not in time. Marc grinned at my insensitive titter.

I'd never understand why he couldn't find someone and settle down. He was smart, he was gorgeous, he had true green eyes (d'you know how rare that is? True green, not hazel?). He had black hair, currently cut brutally short into, I'm sorry to report, the Woody Harrelson. He was in his usual outfit of scrubs and his iPod. He was famous at the hospital for listening to heartbeats with one ear and They Might Be Giants in the other.

I know. They Might Be Giants? More like they might be one-hit wonders.

"But you know the old saying," Marc was saying, "tomorrow being another day and such. And I can't take credit for that . . . I think Stephen King said it first."

"Margaret Mitchell did."

"Not the another-day line. The addicts-go-to-AA line."

"Like you even read Gone With the Wind," I said. I mentioned how delighted I was in talking about stupid crap instead of the future, right? "Ha!"

Don't get me wrong. I didn't think there was much funny about addiction, outside of Sandra Bullock in 28 Days. And I won't deny being mystified by 28 Days Later . . . she was nowhere to be found in that one.

But Marc, so open about his sexuality, job, and love life, was weirdly closed about his drinking. There were times when he went to an AA meeting every day. And times when he didn't go for months. He'd made it clear ("Fuck off and die, again.") he appreciated zero interference, advice, or tough love.

Not that that would stop me! But I sort of had my hands full, what with an eternal nuclear winter-thing coming, my Ancient Evil Self, Jessica gestating The Thing That Made Her Eat Strawberry-banana Smoothies (she hated bananas), the Book of the Dead, and Satan doing her I'm-hot-and-plotting thing. But giving Marc unasked-for advice was on my to-do list, you bet. I was lulling him into a false sense of thinking he'd dodged nagging.

Yeah, I know. Even as I was telling myself this shit, I wasn't believing a word. Tell you what: if you can't fool yourself, you can't fool anybody.

I should cross-stitch that on a sampler.

"Did so," Nick replied. "Lost a bet."

"Huh? Oh, reading Gone With the Wind. And again, I say ha. Listen, Nick, if you'd even give the book a-"

"Stop that," he said with a shudder. "You know I hate that."

"Hate what?" The list was so long. Vampires . . . except apparently not anymore. Bananas . . . one of the few things he and Jess had in common. Bad guys . . . assuming he was still a cop. Tough to tell, because in the un-screwed timeline he'd been a plainclothes detective, so there was no uniform to give him away. But since he hung around cops and crime scenes and shooting ranges all day, he always smelled like gun powder; it was not an indicator of what his job was. In the altered timeline he could be in charge of sweeping up the men's room at the Cop Shop, or a gunsmith, for all I knew.

Luckily, he was still talking, because I badly needed enlightening. "Stop calling me Nick. You know I can't stand it."

I stared at him. For the second time in three minutes, I had no idea what to say. "What am I supposed to call you?"

"Maybe by his name?" Marc asked, pouring himself smoothie number three. Which was terrifying; I hadn't seen number two go down his gullet. I was starting to suspect sleeping with pretty boys and wolfing smoothies were his superpowers. "Just for funsies."

"Your name. Right. Right! Which is . . . ?" I prompted. "Sounds like . . . ?"

"Sounds like Dick."

"Hee, hee!"

"Grow up," Jessica and Nick (?) said in unison. Nick (?) added, "Come on, you know that. Or at least you knew it yesterday. Jeez, for the first year Jessica and I went out, you kept calling me by the wrong name."

"I do that to everyone. So your name is now Dick."

"It's always been Dick."

"But your name isn't Richard or Dick or anything like that. If you're a Nicholas, why would your nickname be Dick?"

"Because there are a lot of Nicks in my family, so they called me Dick to distinguish."

"Not Nick, yup, got it."

He sighed and looked put-upon, then smiled at me. "If only I could believe that, roomie."

Roomie! I sooo did not authorize this; it was annoying enough sharing hot water and fridge space with . . . uh . . . lemmee see, how many people were living here before . . . "Are you still a cop?"

"No, now I sell Mary Kay." Seeing my eyes narrow into the cold pitiless gaze of a killer (or someone getting ripped at a sample sale), he elaborated: "Yes, I'm a cop. Currently Detective First Grade."

"And you . . . uh . . . you and Jessica . . ." I pointed vaguely at her big belly.

"Stop staring," she told me. "And yes. And stop that."

"I'm not staring."

"You absolutely are."

"I-oh, cripes, what was that?" I was on my feet before my brain knew I'd been trying to get away. "It moved!"

"Kicked," Jessica corrected, patting her belly and pushing the teeny foot or skull or tentacle out of the way. "But don't worry, honey. Someday you'll have hair on your special places and will start thinking about boys and wanting to have a baby."

"Fat fucking chance. No offense."

"Whoa, wait." Jessica's big brown eyes went squinty, which wasn't easy since she was wearing her hair skinned back in her usual eye-watering ponytail. She was sort of stuck in a high school hairdo, but it was understandable . . . pulling her hair back emphasized her cheekbones. You could practically cut yourself on them. She looked like a big round Nefertiti. "Did you just get back from hell and call me fat?"

"Not on purpose. Either of them."

"You're glowing, Jess, you're gorgeous," Nick soothed. "Betsy's just . . . you know. Being Betsy."

"What's that supposed to mean, Artist Formally Known as Nick?"

"What do you think it means, Vampire Queen Lamely Known as Betsy?" He sounded pissed, but then laughed. "Jesus! You take one trip to hell and then have to be reminded of the basics."

"Why are you laughing? You hate me!"

Nick frowned. "Since when?"