Accidentally Dead, Again Part 9

"Oh, we're not gonna do it during daylight hours, Sammy. We're goin' in ninja style," Nina cackled, mocking a karate chop.

Sam's jaw tightened. "Despite the mostly harmless goings-on at O-Tech, we do still deal in dangerous chemicals, Nina. Which means they have armed guards. So how do we get past the security guards?"

She shrugged her shoulders like she'd stormed plenty of castles in her time. "You're the wall whisperer. She can teleport. Figure it out, brainiac."

Oh, dear G.o.d. Not only was she a vampire, but she was going to be a teleporting felonious vampire now, too?

"So you want me to just walk through a wall at O-Tech? I don't know if you saw what just happened only moments ago, Nina, but I wasn't exactly Mr. Miyagi at wall walking."

Nina glanced at her wrist.w.a.tch. "Then you two better get to crack-a-lackin' and practice. You've got twenty-four hours. Eight of which will be spent pa.s.sed out cold in vampire sleep not too far in your immediate future, Gigantor."

"Do you have any idea what could happen if we get caught?" Sam demanded, his voice, usually so easygoing and light, riddled with concern Phoebe distinctly heard.

Nina rose, pulling Archibald up with her. "Nope. But you do have an idea of what could happen if we don't figure this s.h.i.+t out. I don't know about you, but I bet that Mark would pa.s.s out cold if he had to sweep his Phoebes up off the floor. I bet all those nice pictures of your family you had all over the place are a sure sign they'd be pretty upset if you just didn't exist anymore, too. We got trouble, kemosabe. Big trouble. If I were you, I'd want answers."

Yeah. Answers. Phoebe internally rallied for answers while she pondered Sam's hesitance. Maybe he was just one of those rule followers who never balked at authority? But who could afford to follow the rules when they were destined for death? Wouldn't that light a big fire under your a.s.s?

If your two choices were break some rules or die-she was choosing rule breaking. Whether Sam was in or not.

She sat silently, watching the play of emotions on Sam's face and waiting. But the moment had pa.s.sed and his face lightened. "You're right. I'm just not a fan of breaking and entering. I have to go back to work sometime. Can't do that if I'm in jail."

Nina wrapped her arm around Sam's shoulder. "Sam, here's the word. You ain't ever goin' back to a day job because there isn't a sunscreen on the planet that can protect you from frying like so much egg come high noon if you're out in the sun too long. A full day of work just won't cut it until you build up a tolerance, and that takes time. You'd have to walk around covered from head to toe in clothing, and even then, it stings like s.h.i.+t. It can be done. I've done it. But it ain't no walk in the park and it takes time to build up a tolerance to it for longer than an hour or so. Get used to the fact that gray and overcast are your new BFFs."

Jesus. Phoebe grimaced. Always with the death threats. If one thing didn't kill them, something else surely would be happy to take a stab at it.

While Dmitri, Nina, and Sam hatched a plan, Archibald extended a hand to her, tugging her upward from her place on the couch. "So, miss, I hear a welcome to the fold is in order?" His pleasant smile and soft words made the hole where her dead heart lay ache.

"I think there's no room left in the fold," she said, keeping her tone light.

He clasped her hand between his, his eyes full of a twinkling amus.e.m.e.nt. "There's always room in the fold, miss. Sometimes the fold just needs a swift kick in the pants."

Phoebe laughed for the first time in what felt like eons. "I'd be happy to oblige."

Archibald's smile was warm, his rounded cheeks cheerfully dusted with color. "Ah, miss. Our Nina is as you young people say, a bada.s.s. But underneath all that bl.u.s.ter lies a heart, and while it no longer beats, it surely exists. She grumbles. She oftentimes yells. Indeed, her language is an abomination to one's ears. However, I've borne witness to countless selfless acts on her part. I do hope you'll stick around to see some of them."

This wasn't the first time she'd heard those words where Nina was concerned. Sam held the same sentiment to a degree. On impulse, Phoebe gave him a hug. "Thank you, and thank you for coming out so late to help us."

"I daresay it isn't pleasant news, but I have every faith we shall find an answer. As for now, you must rest. All good vampires need a minimum of eight hours or they turn into our fair Nina."

Phoebe smiled at him and giggled softly. "Then maybe I should shoot for ten-you know, padding my chances?"

He laughed before holding out his arm to her in a gallant gesture. "Come. You must drink in order to keep you strong during the final stages of the change. I shall prepare your evening feeding, and we'll get to know one another while your Sam finishes up."

"Oh, he's not my Sam," she made a point of saying, looping her arm through his and allowing him to lead her to the kitchen. "We just met a few hours ago."

Archibald's bushy eyebrow rose. "Chemistry is a funny thing, miss. Sometimes those who are experiencing it aren't always aware they are."

Oh, she was aware, she thought as she slid onto one of Sam's steel kitchen stools and watched Archibald produce more of the packets of the blood Wanda had given her back at her place.

She was more than aware of Sam McLean. She was aware of how his jeans hugged the tops of his strong thighs, and the tight abdomen under his s.h.i.+rt. She was sickly aware of his deep brown eyes with lashes for days and his long, lean fingers when they held hers. She was aware of the s.e.xy Stetson he wore that shadowed his lean face.

The trouble was, she wouldn't always be aware.

And that was a problem.

"ARE they asleep?" Wanda asked, entering Sam's apartment via Nina and sliding off her shoes to set them in the hall closet.

Nina stretched, clasping her fingers together over her head and twisting her body from side to side. "Yeah. Finally. Who's got Marky-Mark covered?"

Wanda draped her jacket over Sam's couch and sighed. "I left him with Marty and Say Yes to the Dress. Good gravy, they're like a sister and brother from another mother, Nina. They were bonding over tulle and Swarovski crystals when I left. He'll be fine. Though, he was sick with worry over Phoebe. They've been friends since childhood."

"Good for them." Nina grunted, plopping down on the couch and dragging one of Sam's pillows to her lap. She patted a s.p.a.ce next to her for Wanda to sit. "Now I just want some quiet without Barbie Fabulous yakking in my head. I'm an hour overdue for vampire sleep-which makes me b.i.t.c.hy Vampire. Vampire Barbie's evil twin."

Wanda dropped down next to her best friend and patted her hand with a light chuckle. "It's been a busy few hours. We've got a lot on our plates. I'm worried, friend."

"Me, too, Wanda. Me f.u.c.king, too." Nina's words held a defeat Wanda knew she wouldn't have shared with Phoebe and Sam.

"Do you really think you'll find something at O-Tech?"

Nina burrowed into the couch, letting her head fall back on the arm. "The f.u.c.king idea that someone's creating vampires scares the s.h.i.+t out of me, Wanda, but it's as good a place to start as any. It's not like we have much else to go on but that memo pad from O-Tech the chick dropped. Like I told you on the phone, Arch and his stoner dude think this is some kind of research gone seriously south. Where better than a place like O-Tech to experiment with s.h.i.+t like that? No doubt, they have the resources."

"But with people? Humans, Nina? Sweet Jesus. It's horrifying. I feel so helpless. At least with the others we've been able to help in that we had something in common. We didn't know anything about cougars, but we did understand Katie and Shaw's need to s.h.i.+ft. We had a semblance of understanding for their predicaments. But if this is some experiment gone awry, and they're manufacturing vampires, we can't even begin to antic.i.p.ate what else could go wrong."

Nina grunted, her eyes fighting to stay open. "How are Doc Katie and those little beasts, anyway?"

Wanda held up her phone and scrolled through her pictures. "Katie sent me this today. Look at the twins-are they not just to die for?" she cooed.

Nina's return grin was filled with affection. "Yeah. Love those little b.u.g.g.e.rs. Aunt Teeny, too. I'm glad she gave those old broads s.h.i.+t and started her own knitting circle."

They each fell silent with the memory of Katie, a veterinarian accidentally turned into a cougar, and the strange, fact-finding journey that had led their friend not just to a successful paranormal existence, but love with a man named Shaw, marriage, and subsequent twins boys.

Wanda let her head fall back on the couch. She poked her friend's leg. "Hey, Nina?"

"Now what, Wanda?"

"Talk to me," she demanded. "We've been so caught up in the chaos of this O-Tech thing and Phoebe and Sam, I haven't had the chance to really talk to you."

"About?"

"How you feel about all this. Tell me how you feel about Phoebe being your sister."

She shrugged, the roll of her hoodie rippling on her shoulders. "I don't feel anything."

Wanda scoffed. "Nina. C'mon. Some woman shows up and has valid proof she's your sister. That means your father had a long-term affair you knew nothing about, honey. Tell me how that makes you feel and what I can do to help you deal with it. And don't try to hoodwink me. It's just you and me all in the circle of safe."

Nina's eyes had begun to slide closed, but they popped open at Wanda's words. "First, get this s.h.i.+t straight. My dad didn't have an affair. He didn't cheat on my mother. She was dead by the time he hooked up with Princess Barbie's mother. My mom died when I was just a baby of a drug overdose, and I'm four years older than Couture Girl, if that birth certificate frilly boy slapped up in my face is right. Second, I could only feel something if I gave a s.h.i.+t-which I don't. Just because some DNA test says she's my blood means squat. I don't know her. I don't want to know her, and when we're through with this bulls.h.i.+t a.s.signment and she's done all that adjusting we have to teach her, I'm f.u.c.king out."

Wanda leaned forward, brus.h.i.+ng the hair from her dearest friend's eyes. "Nina. Don't shut the door on this relations.h.i.+p before you've peeked inside to see what the room holds. Lou's getting older. We both know she's not going to live forever like us. But Phoebe will, if we can turn this mess around. Why not try to establish some kind of connection to her? She's family, Nina Statleon, and Lou has a right to know she has two granddaughters."

Nina shrugged Wanda's hands away. "You and Marty and your dumb-a.s.s sister are my family, Wanda. Greg and Arch and Darnell, too. You really think I need more than the three of you loons mucking up my s.h.i.+t? And FYI, one chick that digs designer clothes and all that c.r.a.p you slather on your faces in this group is enough. Doesn't it just figure that a sister of mine would end up being so much like Gucci-loving Marty? What the f.u.c.k was the universe thinking?"

Wanda rubbed her best friend's arm and smiled. "It was thinking if you can love Marty in all her girl-i-tude, you can love Phoebe."

Nina's chin jutted forward, the sharp line stubborn. "I don't love Marty. I tolerate her."

"You've tolerated her for four years, Nina. In fact, you've tolerated us all, despite your loud, sometimes rude protests otherwise. You're still here. You still come to OOPS every day. We're why you come back, because all your b.i.t.c.hing aside, we're framily, as Casey calls us. You know, your friends who're like family? So why can't Phoebe be a part of that, too? She has no one but Mark, and it certainly isn't her fault your father had an affair with her mother, now is it? She reached out, Nina. She reached out because she's alone. Now, I know you're not very good at connecting unless it's your fist against someone's face, but reach back. Just a little." Wanda held up her index and thumb and grinned.

"The only thing I wanna reach is her neck-so I can wring the f.u.c.k out of it. And I have to tell Lou. Before Phoebe gets to her. We all know how subtle she is when it comes to surprises." Nina grunted.

"Uh-uh-uh, Nina." Wanda admonished, shaking her finger. "Let's call it like it was. She tried to get you to go somewhere private with her, but you did what you always do. Go on the defensive. If you'd have just listened to her instead of reacting, things wouldn't have gotten so heated between you, and she wouldn't have fallen on poor Sam. But clearly, she has the Nina gene. She's no coward, that's for sure."

Nina nodded her consent. The brief look of admiration for Phoebe came and went, though. "Whatever. Lou still deserves to know, I guess."

Wanda gave her a quick hug, making Nina squirm. "Now that's the Nina I know and alternately despise and love. The one with the hard outer sh.e.l.l but the big, gooey center. And don't fret about Lou. I'll help. We'll do it on pot roast night. She's always happy when she can cook food you can't eat and to this day doesn't realize you don't eat. You shove your face full of that glutinous mess she lovingly prepares all day, then spit it into a napkin while you tell her, and I promise to eat your portion when she's not looking. How's that?"

Nina gave her a sleepy snicker. "You'd eat Lou's pot roast for me?"

"Because we're framily. You know, I love you, you love me? Like Barney only with bad language," Wanda reminded her.

"I'm not f.u.c.king painting your toenails if some long-lost brother of yours shows up, Wanda. No can do, framily."

"d.a.m.n. I had the color picked out and everything."

"f.u.c.k you, Wanda."

Wanda laughed, pinching Nina's cheeks and rising to drop a kiss on her forehead. "I love you, too, sugarplum. Now sleep, vampire. We have a busy day tomorrow."

Wanda slipped off into the kitchen, leaving Nina to seek a quiet moment to gather her thoughts before she sought solace in a dreamless sleep, too.

As Wanda's eyes scanned Sam's steel kitchen countertops and his painted black oak cabinets, she slid to a breakfast barstool and closed her eyes, her fear finally catching up with her after the adrenaline of the day.

For all her soothing words, for all her rea.s.suring glances, for all the confidence she displayed in front of everyone else, she was terrified. Terrified they wouldn't be able to figure out how to keep Sam and Phoebe from ending up like that woman had. In these past years since she'd been turned, she'd seen things that would leave most in need of lifetime therapy. Yet, she'd summoned the courage and the strength to survive.

But this. The possibility that someone was using humans for sport until they got the experiment right? It was unspeakable.

The well of tears that threatened, yet never fell, blurred her vision. She let her head fall to her folded arms on the counter and allowed the silence of Sam's apartment to seep into her pores while she sent out a prayer to the universe.

Jesus.

Dear, sweet baby Jesus.

This time, OOPS just might have bitten off more than they could chew.

CHAPTER 7.

"So like we practiced, right, Sammy?" Nina asked, the harsh, early November wind blowing the last of the fallen leaves around their feet.

Sam gazed up at the gla.s.s and black steel of O-Tech's building. They'd huddled at the south corner where Sam claimed a cafeteria lay on the other side with no security guards to interfere. It was the safest place for him to make his wall-walking debut. "Which time is that, Nina? Do you mean the time I couldn't get my entire head through the wall? Or the time I actually managed to make it through the wall and tripped on my own feet, fell, and broke not one, but two standing lamps and a perfectly good bookcase?"

Phoebe tugged at her black mask, adjusting the hole at her mouth. The fabric was sticking to the peachy lip gloss she'd so carefully put on while she told herself it wasn't for Sam. She just wanted to be pretty for her first major crime spree. Raising her hand in front of Nina's face, she jumped up and down.

"Christ. What, Barbie?"

"So, just a thought. And I'm merely thinking out loud here, but I feel this shouldn't go unmentioned."

"What's the f.u.c.king problem now, Phoebe? Did you only brush your hair for ninety-nine strokes before we left and you need a redo? Or do you have a chipped nail and we need to go back to Sam's so you can fix it? Wait. I know. Those black jeans make your a.s.s look too big and you want everything to be just right when you commit your first f.u.c.king felony?" she mocked in Valley girl speak.

"Oh, no. I gave my hair an extra twenty strokes just to be safe, and you know my a.s.s looks cute in these, Nina." Phoebe gave her backside a light slap. "It just hurts too much for you to say so. Anyway, I'm good to go on those fronts."

"You're funny. So much G.o.dd.a.m.n funny it hurts," Nina snarled, lifting her mask from her face in aggravation. Her deep dark eyes glittered in anger. Not an uncommon event where Phoebe was concerned. "So speak. Get to the point."

Her hands went to her hips where a walkie-talkie and, of all things, a pocketknife were attached to a belt around her waist. "When I tried to teleport today, and I swear on my unlife, I was thinking about Sam's bathroom. Swear it. Wouldn't it be cause for concern that instead of being surrounded by the warm glow of Sam's clay- and beige-colored porcelain and tile, I ended up in the bath fixtures aisle of Home Depot? I don't want to sound any alarms or anything, but that's a problem," she hissed, her every nerve raw and fragile. This was nuts.

Last night, it had appeared the only solution.

Tonight, she was sure it would just be easier to steal the Hope Diamond and turn it into a friends.h.i.+p bracelet.

Sam yanked his mask off, too, his luscious lips a thin line of grim. "Look, Phoebe, if you don't think you can pull this off, I'll do the wall thing and find a way to let you both in. We just thought it would be easier if we both managed to get inside, then let Nina get to a window we can open without having to break it. You know, no alarms, no SWAT team? Less attention drawn to the outside of the building is better."

"Not to mention," Nina groused, "it'll save me a chiropractic bill not having to haul your big ol' badonkadonk on my poor back if we end up having to hit a window two stories up because you can't get this a.s.shattery power you have working."

Phoebe clenched her fists at her side, digging her nails into her hands. Do not engage, Phoebe. Be the bigger person, Phoebe. This had been her mantra since they'd awakened and began practicing her pathetically lacking teleportation skills.

That practice had led them to discover that Sam sucked at teleportation, and she'd done an equally dismal job at walking through a wall. Though, via her magically mystical vampiric wonders, the knot on her head and her blackened eye had healed in seconds.

Since dusk, like they were in some kind of vampire boot camp, Nina had barked orders and criticized her for having to chase Phoebe all over Manhattan because she just couldn't get teleportation right. Yet, even when Sam failed just as miserably as she did, Nina did nothing but encourage him with phrases like, "f.u.c.king good try, Gigantor!" and the ever-popular, "Push, dumb a.s.s! You know you can!"

At this point, after not one but five unsuccessful attempts to land in the right place via her vampire mind-meld, she was, as Marty had dubbed it, a.s.s-fried. Yet, somehow, she'd curbed her temper. But her delicate lifeline was fraying as though it were being rubbed against something sharp with every snarky word her sister shot at her.

Between clenched teeth, she fought a snarl when addressing Nina. "Look, all I'm saying is, if I end up, say, on the Verrazano Bridge, I'll be no good to you, and if we hope to cover as much ground as O-Tech has by the plans we virtually stole from the inspector's office under cover of night, we don't need me s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g this up. All night long you b.i.t.c.hed about how time was of the essence. In and out, Cat Burglar Barbie, you said. I'm just trying to get it right. Jesus. So cut me a break, Vampire Master, okay?"

Sam let his head bow for a moment, seeking patience, a signal she'd become familiar with when he'd been practicing his wall walking. "Ladies? Why don't we just give this a whirl and see what's what? The worst that happens is we don't get inside and we have to find another way."

Nina shook her head. "No. The worst is the two of you end up ashes we have to dump in that fancy f.u.c.king chiminea Wanda has in her backyard. That's the worst. So you'd better get it right."

Sam wrapped an arm around Nina's shoulder and pulled her hard to him. "You're so much awesome. All supportive and encouraging. I'm aglow with your love."

Nina flicked his shoulder, then pointed to the steel on the side of the building. "Wall. Walk. Now."

Phoebe's stomach sank. It was now or never.

Sam placed his shoulder against the building in preparation, bracing himself.