Chapter 45

lf this is somebody's idea of a joke," I said, gently rubbing my throbbing lower lip, "it stopped being funny about a hundred years ago."

"It was never funny," my sister lied loyally. "I think you're being an awfully good sport."

"And I think I'm being slowly driven insane. So this is ... whatever this is." I was looking around and I suppose I should have been all excited and interested and, I dunno, eager to assimilate. If it were a movie, my character prob'ly would have been all these things and more. Instead I was all, "So, what indignity awaits me in this hellish time stream?"

I never said I wasn't a sore loser.

This was the first time I'd been conscious (mostly) and outside. At the same time, I mean. It looked like another small town, but there weren't a zillion horses. There also weren't any cows. Or Volkswagens. So it could have been the Roaring Twenties. Or the Depression. Or both! Or neither.

Actually, I thought, taking a closer look at the buildings, it looked like we'd been plunked, once again, into a downtown area. But the place looked familiar. Maybe because all these dinky little towns looked the same after a while. Or maybe they kept using the same movie set for all the old Westerns I'd seen. That would explain a few things.

"D'you have any idea whefe-"

"Hastings. Minnesota," the Antichrist added, as if I wouldn't recognize the name of a town less than twenty-five miles from where we lived. A town my mother lived in! "I think it's the early twentieth century."

"How do you-"

She pointed. I turned around, picturing all sorts of horrors. A hangman's noose. A firing squad. The opening of the first-ever Wal-Mart. Wait, that wasn't likely, was it?

That's when I noticed the Spiral Bridge, one of those oldtimey things we'd long outgrown but Minnesota was weirdly proud of. And because I'd grown up and gone to school in the area, I knew two things your average time traveler from hell wouldn't.

It went up in 1895.

And didn't come down until 1951.

Chapter 46

You girls! If you're going swimming, you should be ashamed of yourselves! And if not, go home and cover yourselves!"

"Oh, yeah? Well, fu-" Fuck you and the horse you are literally riding in on had been where I was going with that. But the Antichrist had the reflexes of a rabid mongoose released in a reptile hut, so she did that arm-wrap-around-the-neck thing you usually see big brothers doing to little brothers, clapped her fingers over my mouth, and cheerily called, "Yes, sir! We sure will!"

"I'm going to drool like a beast on your fingers, you hateful cow. I'm gonna start slobbering any second now. Just as soon as I work up some saliva. Then you'll be sorry. Then you'll wish you were time traveling with someone else."

"Too late on that last, Betsy. If they mistook modern clothes for bathing costumes-"

"They deserve to be set on fire," I finished. "Why is our swimming or not any of their damned business in the first place? Ashamed of ourselves? Who appointed that jackass general of the Morals National Guard? I get that it's ancient America and all, but it is still America."

"Yes, and we're women in ancient America. Black guys had the vote before we did, remember, and once upon a time, they thought those poor guys were property. Property got the vote before we did. That's like the Levee Cafe getting to vote before we did. So look demure, darn it."

"I have no idea what expression I should arrange my face into. Demure? That's not even a real word, is it?"

"Sedate," the Antichrist suggested.

"Not in a million zillion years. Hey, do we even know what the year is? I still don't see any cars. When the hell did the Ford family take over the country?"

"Not 'til the late 1800s," Laura explained. "Not the Fords. When cars were invented. Nobody has a hard-and-fast date, but in the late part of the century is what people figure. They started showing up around then."

"Wow. And here I was afraid this time travel thing would be hideously dangerous and boring. But it's only hideously dangerous. How d'you know when cars started to show up?"

"My minor is midwestern American history."

"You have a minor?" It was probably rude to ask my own sister what her major was. That was something a big sister would know, right? Wait. I think I knew this one. Let's see ... if I was a virginal Antichrist and had a partial scholarship to the University of Minnesota, what would my major be?

Food business management? Animal science? Not evil enough. Applied economics? Plenty evil, but not virginal enough. Civil engineering? Environmental design? None of these seemed quite right ...

"And that was in New Jersey, I think."

"What was?"

"That first car, please pay attention. But, see, they wouldn't have gotten to a small town in Minnesota for years and years. So I'm guessing we're somewhere in the 1920s."

"Where's a bulletin board right out on the street, with the day's newspaper helpfully plastered on it?" I squinted into the afternoon sun and reminded myself to count my blessings. I was the only vampire who could be outside, squinting into the sun, and it was best to keep those things in mind. "I miss Salem."

Laura sniggered. "Bite your tongue."

"I'd like to bite somebody's. I hate to add a problem when we've got a saddlebag full, but I'm getting kind of hungry. And did you notice how I slipped a 1920-ish colloquialism into my conversation? That's right, baby! Never let it be said that the queen of the undead can't blend."

Kind of was a sizeable lie. (So was blend.) Because the truth was I was always hungry. Okay, thirsty. Whenever I opened my eyes. And whenever I closed them. And often for long periods in between.

Most of the time I could just grit my fangs and bear it. But I did occasionally have to give in to my unholy craving for human blood. The rapists had held me for a while, but ...

"Uh ..." Laura's hand had gone to the collar of her shirt, where she was absently fiddling with it. I doubt she was even aware of it. So I decided not to call her attention to it. "That could be a problem."

"For the greatest time-traveling team since Lewis and Clark? No chance, baby." Ignoring Laura's snort of laughter, I continued outlining my sinister plan. "Ideally, we'll catch some bigoted wife beater in the middle of committing a felony. Or in the middle of a coma. I usually try to limit my chomping to rapists, thieves, murderers, and DVD bootleggers. And the occasional student loan officer. So keep your eyes peeled for a felony. Or a stupidly high rate of interest."

"I think-"

"Enh, who am I kidding? Beggars can't be choosers. Watch for misdemeanors, too."

"I think we might have lucked out again," Laura said, sounding guardedly optimistic. "The town seems almost deserted. In fact, I haven't even seen anyone on the street since that man yelled ... at ... us ..."

She'd trailed off because she'd seen what I'd heard a few minutes ago-the jingling of many horses.

Three teams of two, in fact. Dressed in black-well, whatever you dressed horses up in (reins? leashes?), in 1920s (probably) Hastings, Minnesota. And the horses were pulling three big black wagons.

Each one toting a coffin.

Dozens and dozens of townspeople were now streaming into town; it was obvious nearly everyone had been at the wake and had walked into town afterward. I was even able to catch snatches of conversations over the jingling and clipclopping and wheel-squeaking.

Laura sucked in breath, then let it out in a slow gasp. "Oh my G-"

"Shut up."

She shut. I was sorry to have had to snap at her, but I needed my concentration to listen.

"-poor things-"

"-after losing the daughter-"

"-poor boy, all alone now-"

"-catch them?"

"-naw, long gone by now-"

"-sheriff couldn't even-"

There were more murmurings, but I'd gotten the jist of it. And the jist sucked. "Aw, dammit"

Laura was already shaking her head. "No."

"This is bad."

"No."

"It's-"

"No!" Laura had actually clapped her hands over her ears. "I can't hear you!"

"Yeah. You can. And there's no point in telling you, since you already figured it out"

She lowered her hands and her face-it was so stricken. She felt as badly as I did. "It's them, isn't it? It's Eric's parents."

"And his twin, Erin." I watched the horse-drawn hearses pull past us. We were standing under one of those old-fashioned hangy-porch things, a perfect view to watch the procession. To watch practically the whole town go by. "A triple funeral for the Sinclair family. They're taking the coffins up the hill to the cemetery."

"No wonder that man yelled at us."

"Yeah. I'd have done the same thing if I saw a couple of doorknobs in bathing suits ready to hop in the Mississippi the day of a triple funeral."

"Okay." Laura cleared her throat. "This is bad, but we can work around it. I-I don't mean that the way it came out."

"I know you didn't."

"Okay. Once they're all past, we should be able to find-hey!"

I'd seized her hand and headed for the street. "We're going."

"Back to hell?"

"Worse." I waved at a lone man driving an empty wagon. "We're going to the funeral."