"I still don't understand why Midwestern Barbie is along for the ride," Detective Nick whined as we pulled onto the highway.

"One of the three of us in this horrid little car has my sister's best interests at heart. One of them isn't you," Laura said sweetly, "and the other isn't her."

I forced a cough. "Any luck with that, um, errand Jessica asked you to run?" After some discussion, Tina, Sinclair, and I had agreed Jessica was the best person to ask Nick to keep an eye out for unusual murders.

"You mean have your runaway pets mangled any citizens? Not that we can tell. Yet. And again, if I didn't make this clear: nice one, doorknob."

"I said I was sorry," I grumped, slumping against the backseat. (Yes, he'd dumped me in the back - at least it was a plain car and not a cruiser.)

"You stop picking on her," Laura ordered. "She's doing the best she can. Although when she shuts out family members it only makes things - "

"I'm sitting right behind you. I can, sorry to say, hear everything. Where are we going, anyway?"

"Got a tip that our bad guys might be meeting down here."

"Wait, 'bad guys' the Fiends? Or - "

"No, my bad guys, dummy. I hate to break this to you for the twentieth time, but it's not always about you, Betsy."

I disagreed, but let it pass. "And a fellow cop showing up isn't going to scare the alleged bad guys away?"

"We think they're actually contracting out - giving the info to one of their perps, a guy (or gal) they can count on to pull the trigger. Do a few of those, and the triggerman disappears."

"So... wait. You think they aren't just killing bad guys, they're getting other bad guys to kill bad guys, and then killing those bad guys?" Laura sounded truly horrified, but I had to admit it was fiendishly logical.

"Hey, I know it sounds bad, but our stats look great. Crime's down across the board almost eighteen percent."

"Nick Berry!"

"I know, I know." He slumped against the steering wheel. Luckily he'd gotten off the highway and we were at a red light. "We gotta put a stop to it. Tell me something I wasn't the first to figure out. Why do you think the chief's been riding my ass?"

"The entire force should be out on this, not just you," Laura continued, snug in her cocoon of moral superiority. "It dishonors all of you. Your chief should understand that."

"The last thing we need is the papers getting ahold of this tidbit. So it's on the down low for now."

"You worry too much about the papers. Also, nobody says down low anymore," I announced.

Nick sighed. "Bad enough you have to come along. Next time," he said, catching my gaze in the rearview mirror, "Pollyanna stays home."

I shrugged. "See if you can make her."

We were in a fairly beat-up Minneapolis neighborhood, one of those places that might have been pretty a few decades ago, but had suffered from a few too many absentee landlords, and not quite enough good jobs.

Nick parked, and we all got out. The street was dimly lit, and clumps of teenagers and twenty-somethings stood out like mushrooms sprouting on various corners. We got a few looks, but nobody came over - or appeared to recognize Nick as a cop.

The storefronts were all empty, some with windows soaped over. The sidewalks were a mess; paper, beer bottles, and cigarette butts all over the place. If I hadn't been dead (or with the devil's daughter), I never would have gotten out of the car.

At least it wasn't too cold out yet; it was nearly seventy degrees, not too shabby for nighttime in September. It was funny; I'd always had contempt for California and Florida transplants who bitched about how cold the weather got in my home state. Shoot, I used to wear shorts in February and sneer at the whiners.

That was all over with, now. O, irony, you are a harsh mistress. I actually had a pair of gloves in my Burberry handbag... how was that for wimpy?

"I've just got a tag number," Nick was saying, "but I don't know if it ties in to - "

I didn't hear the rest, because I was distracted by rapidly approaching footfalls and turned just in time to get slammed off my feet. The chilly sidewalk rushed up to smack into my back, and I cracked my head hard enough to see black roses.

Then someone with truly awful breath was yanking me off the ground by my purse strap, which, to my amazement, held. I had no idea if I was mad or glad. It had been a gift from Jessica. It was my only designer handbag. But then, if it had snapped free, I wouldn't have a stranger's hands around my neck right now. Decisions, decisions.

"Leave her alone!" Laura shrieked, while around her, teens fled. "Let her down! Detective Berry! Do something!"

"Freeze?" he suggested.

Bad Breath Boy and I were spinning around on the sidewalk in a tight little dance, and the stench of fresh, drying, and old blood was making me nuts.

"A Fiend," I managed, trying to break his grip - he was much taller, much broader. "It's a Fiend, don't get too close." Here? Now? What the fuck? Had they followed me from the house? Worse, had they followed Laura? That could be extremely awful.

"I could shoot it, but might kill Betsy by mistake. Ah, well," Nick said cheerfully, and I could hear him unsnap his holster. "A risk I'm willing - hey!"

There was a blinding light, like someone was holding a bolt of lightning, and then the light swung through both of us. It didn't do a thing to me but make me blink furiously.

But the effect was devastating on the Fiend, who didn't so much burst into flame as burst into ash. This was actually really weird for a vampire - unlike in the movies, where most vampires, when killed, just laid there, dead forever.

Not this one; he was a puddle of ash inside filthy clothes. Oddly, there was no smell, and no real flash of heat, just that blinding, gorgeous light. This made sense, as it wasn't real heat that had demolished the Fiend.

I coughed explosively, spitting dead Fiend out of my mouth and wiping it out of my eyes.

"Holy shit!" Nick said from the sidewalk where Laura had shoved him. "What the hell did you do?"

"Hell being the right word," I muttered, straightening out the kinks in my back, groaning and spitting. I was pretty sure Nick didn't know Laura was the spawn of Satan, so I kept the explanation brief, yet truthful. "That's her hellfire sword."

"You said that like 'that's her third cup of coffee.' "

"You know how some girls get pearls for their sweet sixteen? Laura's mom gave her weapons made of hellfire."

"You guys never tell me anything. I should have guessed your sister would be a freak like you," he bitched, climbing to his feet - only to get kicked over on his back by Laura, who was still holding her sword made of light.

"Now, Laura," I started, trying to swallow my nervousness.

"She was in trouble, and you just stood there," my sweet, good-natured, murderously dangerous sister hissed. "She might have been hurt or killed! Protect and serve, my ass!"

Uh-oh. She'd said ass instead of butt. Really mad, then.

"That was a Fiend! She said that was a Fiend! You led us down here, and a Fiend jumped her! Did you plan it? Do you have something up your sleeve besides catching rogue cops?" She jammed her sword under his chin, and his eyes watered at the light. It was pure bluff; her sword only disrupted unnatural magic: vampires, werewolves, spells. And only when she wanted them to, which is why it didn't work on me.

But Nick didn't know that.

"Get that thing out of my face," he snarled, not quite daring to bat it aside. "Think I would have brought a damn witness if I was trying to eighty-six your sister? Or are you as dumb as you look?"

"Stop it, that's enough, just - quit!" I gently pulled my sister away. "Laura, put that thing away before half the street sees it."

Laura sullenly complied, sheathing her sword into... well, nothing, as far as I could tell. Nobody knew where her weapons went when she wasn't wreaking havoc with them.

"And you!" Nick, climbing to his feet, nearly fell over when I rounded on him. "She makes a good point, you know. A Fiend just happens to burst out of nowhere and try to kill me, and you just stand there?"

"What the fuck do I know about killing vampires? My bullets won't kill you. I don't think." The truth was, we didn't know. His bullets had killed a vampire... once. On my honeymoon, no less. "Why would they kill that thing? Do you think we have a police training course on arresting the undead? Do you think I've got Fiend Hunter tattooed on my forehead? "

"No, you've got Brutal Imbecile tattooed on your forehead," Laura interrupted.

"When I want your opinion, Barbie, I'll pull the string on your back."

"Give it a try," she snarled. "See how many fingers you pull back."

"You wanna go, Barbie? Because we'll go."

"Shut up!" I howled. "I'm not a queen, I'm not a wife, I'm not a big sister, I'm a WWF referee! Sorry, Nick. This expedition is over. Everyone get in the car right now!"

Meekly, they did. This was more like it - Eric and Tina never did a damned thing I asked them to. But first, Nick carefully eased my purse off my shoulder... I guessed he was going to try to get some fingerprints off it. We sure couldn't print the pile of ash on the sidewalk. I warned him not to use any of my credit cards and to leave the strawberry Blo-Pops alone. Sometimes I went through a dozen a day. It helped keep the blood craving down.

"Heir to the John Deere fortune, remember? I've got more money than you do, honey."

"Good. Then you can bring me to Wendy's," I commanded, all queen-like. "Being the victim of assault and battery gives me a craving for a chocolate shake."