Chapter 39

". . . maybe she . . ."

". . . couldn't have . . ."

"... her a minute ..."

". . . just the shock . . ."

I opened my eyes and saw Jeannie, Michael, Sinclair, and Jessica all peering down at me.

"Hey, there you are," Jess said. She was, thank God, holding BabyJon, who was wriggling and whining to come to me. "You fainted."

"I did not faint. Vampires don't faint."

"I know of at least one who does," Sinclair teased.

"What happened?" I asked, sitting up.

"We were hoping you could tell us," Michael said.

"Hey, one minute I'm minding my own business and the next some poor kid is falling to his death-except he didn't die-and then trying to eat my brother. Who appears to be not eaten."

In fact, BabyJon appeared to be fine. Which was impossible. I reached up and took him from Jess, inspected him, and found nothing except some saliva. No bite. No blood. Unbelievable.

"-don't normally go through their first change until thirteen or fourteen," Michael was saying. "Aaron's only eleven; nobody expected him to change during this phase."

"Is that why he did it while it was still daylight?" Jessica asked.

Nobody answered her, which was just rude. Super-Secret Werewolf Business, no doubt. And speaking of daylight, there wasn't much of it left. I imagine Michael was going to have to get furry pretty soon. Which meant-oh, shit.

"Sinclair!" I cried. "This castle is practically all windows, what the hell are you doing out of our room?"

He looked at me as if I'd suddenly grown another head. "You were screaming," he said simply. "In my head. I had to come."

"He jumped down from the third-floor landing," Jessica added. "I can't believe his femurs aren't in his lungs right now."

"Gross," was my only comment.

"I don't understand any of this," Michael said. "You said Aaron bit the baby? You must be mistaken; there isn't a scratch on him. And whose baby is that, anyway?"

Oh, for the love-

"Wait a second. Wait." Jessica frowned. She frowned harder. Her eyes went all narrow and squinty. Her lips twitched. Michael and Jeannie looked alarmed, but I knew that expression. It was her It's on the Tip of My Tongue look.

Then: "Bite him."

"What?"

"Bite the baby."

"Nobody's biting anybody's baby," I protested. "Least of all this one."

"I'll bite him," Jeannie offered.

Jessica shook her head. "It's got to be one of the vampires."

"Ah," Sinclair said. "I see what you're getting at."

"Swell," I grumped. "Somebody want to clue me in?"

"BabyJon may well be immune to dangers others would find crippling, even fatal."

"He's not immune to anything," I protested. "He's had colds. He's had shots at the pediatrician. He-don't do that!"

Sinclair, moving with the spooky speed that, even after all this time, startled the hell out of me, dipped his head and slashed at BabyJon with his jaws. He made a rattlesnake look slow.

I lashed out and punched him in the eye before I knew what I was doing. Then, when I did know what I was doing, I slapped at his shoulders. It probably looked to the others like he was on fire and I was trying to put him out. "What-do you think-you're doing?"

"Proving-ouch-Jessica's theory." He rubbed his eye. "Look."

"Look at what, you psychotic?"

"Look at the baby."

BabyJon yawned, unmoved by either a) the werewolf attack or b) the vampire bite.

"He doesn't have a mark on him!" Jeannie marveled. "That's the most amazing thing I've ever seen!"

"What, you're saying he's-what? Invulnerable?" I shook my head, feeling like I should be wearing a dunce cap. "But he's not. You guys know he's not. He's skinned his knee crawling, he's-"

"Invulnerable to paranormal harm," Sinclair said, and Jessica nodded.

"Wait a minute," Michael said. "That's your baby?"

"Well, look who just caught up. Seriously? You guys think that's what it is?"

"I saw Aaron try to bite him," Jeannie said quietly. "It would have killed a normal infant."

"When did you have a baby?" Michael asked, but I waved off his silly-ass questions.

"So that's why Derik kept freaking out around him. He knew something was different about BabyJon, but not what. And-Jeannie, how would a Pack leader deal with something he could never hurt?"

"Why . . . I suppose he would try to gain dominance of some sort," Jeannie replied slowly. "That's their nature. That's-"

"That's why Michael kept forgetting about BabyJon. He can't dominate someone if he doesn't remember him."

"How long has this baby been here?" Michael demanded, poor guy. He was sounding more and more bewildered . . . and the sun was dipping lower every second. Explanations would have to wait.

"We'll tell you all about it," Jeannie promised. "Later."

"When you aren't furry and drooly and such," I added.

"So a vampire can bite-and nothing will happen. A werewolf can chomp, a fairy can whack him with her wand-and nothing." Jessica paused, deep in thought. "Nothing at all. Wow."

"But why?" Jeannie asked. "Why would this baby be special?"

"It's a really long story," I said. "Which I'll probably never tell you."

Jeannie laughed. "That seems fair."

Chapter 40

Dude,

Not only is Tina gone, but her laptop is missing as well. I had hoped to use her e-mail address to get Betsy and Sinclair's attention, but a room-to-room search revealed nothing.

I was far too distracted at the hospital to do a reliable job, so I was taking unpaid sick time as I tried to figure out what the hell to do.

I managed to keep it casual as I asked Laura what she'd done with Tina's stuff, but just got another one of her insipid smiles and assurances that I didn't need to worry about a thing.

Ha. Worrying was more or less all I was doing. And each time Laura tried to assure me she hadn't lost her mind, she sounded a little less sane.

"Marc, vampires are-with the possible exception of my sister-evil by nature. Betsy's life would be so much simpler if she didn't have to spend so much time policing monsters. And," she went on with the fervor of an evangelist, "not only am I helping Betsy, I'm keeping the peace in the Twin Cities, keeping the devil worshippers busy doing God's work-it's all good."

"Having me followed every minute of the day or night is God's work?"

She had the grace to flush a little at that. Maybe she wasn't entirely gone. "Marc, you don't know any better. You'll give Betsy all the wrong ideas. I want her to come home, too, but not until I've finished working on the surprise."

"The surprise? You mean there's more to come?" I tried not to sound as horrified as I felt.

"Sure! Lots more. You'll see, Marc. Besides, they're for your own protection. We can't have anything happen to you, now can we?"

"Will you at least consider the possibility that you've gone insane?" I asked, and got a soft laugh in response. She had thought I was kidding.

"You worry too much."

"What are you going to tell Betsy and Sinclair when they get back?"

"That I kept things safe for them," she replied promptly.

That you've gone looney tunes, I thought, but prudently kept that to myself.

I tried arguing with her for another ten minutes, and kept getting that sweet smile for a response. Dude, after a while I just wanted to whack that smirk off her face.

At least we still had an Internet connection, though what I knew about such things could be carried in an emesis basin. E-mails were about all I knew. Sure, I could have gone to an expert, a real techno geek . . . except I had Satan's Minions constantly on my heels.

In desperation I waited until she and the devil worshippers had left on another kill-all-vamps mission, then typed out a quick e-mail to Betsy. And sent it. And sent it. And sent it. And sent it.