Undead and Undermined Read Online Free PDF

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