I hurried home to Apple Valley to tell Jessica all about my new job. But the unbelievable stench assailed me on my front step, and I almost couldn't make myself go inside.

I fidgeted on the front step for a minute, debating, and finally told myself, well, you defeated the most evil vampire on the planet just a couple of months ago, so you can do this, too.

I opened my front door and followed my nose to the bathroom, where my best friend was lurched over the toilet.

"Still have the flu?" I asked sympathetically.

"No stupid questions from vampires," she groaned. She retched again. I observed she'd had chicken soup and toast for lunch. "Use your super strength to pull my head off my shoulders, please."

"For crying out loud, Jess, how long you been in here?"

"What day is it?"

I noticed that she hadn't had time to turn on the bathroom light in her headlong gallop, and had initially missed the toilet. Oh, well. The wall needed re-painting, anyway.

When she was finished scatter-puking, I picked her up like a big doll and carried her to the guest bed. Before I'd become a vampire, there was no way I could have done this. Jessica was a few inches shorter than me, and about as pudgy as a stop sign, but she was gangly and hard to move around. Now, of course, it was cake.

I brought her a glass of 7-Up and a wet washcloth. She cleaned herself up as best she could, and then I picked her up and ran back into the bathroom so she could throw up the soda.

"Maybe it's time to go to a hospital," I said nervously. She'd been barfing for two days.

"Marc can give me a shot when he gets home," she said. She sounded hollow, because her head was all the way inside the toilet bowl. Luckily, she'd gotten her hair cut last week.

Marc was my roommate, a resident at the Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. He'd moved in the week I woke up dead. Jessica had a gorgeous, chic little seven-room place in Edina, but she spent most of her time at my place.

"Is there a reason you're being sick here," I asked, "instead of at your place?"

"You don't know how lucky you are," she replied, ignoring my question, "being dead and all."

"Right now I agree with you. Hey, guess what? I got a job."

"That's nice." She looked up at me. Her brown eyes were sunken. She'd looked better on the day of her parents' funeral. "Why are you just standing there? Why aren't you killing me?"

"Er, sorry." I took a breath through my mouth. Luckily I only had to do that about twice an hour. "You know, this sort of reminds me of your twenty-first birthday. Remember?"

"The night is"-she hurped-hurped for a second, then continued-"a blur."

"Well, you were mixing cr��me de menthe with vermouth, and then you started with Jack Daniels and tequila. I tried to get you to slow down, and you told me to shut up and get you a Zima with a bourbon chaser. Then-"

"Stop!"

"Sorry." Yeah, not the brightest move. But that was the last time she'd been this sick. "If you were a guy, or gay, I could hypnotize you into passing out. I guess I could try hitting you over the head with something..."

"Just help me back to bed, dead girl."

I did. I was ready to hurp-hurp myself, and wanted to go back to Macy's in the worst way.

Instead, I tucked Jessica back in-she dozed off while I was pulling the blankets up to her chin-and left her to start cleaning.

I found some clothespins in the kitchen junk drawer. Don't ask me why-I didn't have a clothesline. Junk drawers are a miracle in themselves. The stuff that turns up in them-why were there coupons for free bird seed? I didn't have a bird.

I found with the clothespin over my nose, and Playtex rubber gloves on my hands, and by thinking about the spring line of Ferragamos, I could scrub the bathroom without yarking up the blood I'd drank about three hours ago. My donor had been an amiable car thief who'd been fumbling with the steering column of a Pontiac Firebird when I found him. After I'd taken what I needed, I called him a cab. It was bad enough I was a lamprey on legs; I wasn't going to be an accessory to grand larceny.

I was rinsing the mop in the toilet when I heard a knock. I hurried to the living room and opened the door before Jessica could wake up.

Tina stood there, looking all big-eyed and hopeful. She took one look at my ensemble and slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the giggles.

"Get lost," I suggested. I still wasn't speaking to her. Thanks to her, and Sinclair, I was the queen of the undead. A small fact they'd hidden until after Sinclair and I had made love. There could be no forgiveness!

"Please can't I come in, Majesty?" she asked, lips twitching madly.

"No. And don't call me that." Still, I stood there with the door open. I'd liked Tina the moment I met her. Of course, whenever someone saves my life on first acquaintance, I tend to feel warm toward them.

And except for her unwavering loyalty to Sinclair, which made her do the most annoying things (see above: the whole queen of the vampires thing), she was pretty cool. Old-something like a hundred and some years-but cool. She didn't act or talk like an old lady, though she could be stiff sometimes. And she looked like a Glamour cover girl with her long blond hair, high cheekbones, and pansy eyes, so dark and enormous they seemed to take up half her face.

"What on earth are you doing? And what is that stench?"

"Cleaning up," I replied nasally. I plucked the clothespin off my nose. "Jessica's got the flu."

"I'm sorry to hear that. The flu. I haven't had that in..." Her eyes tipped up in thought. "Hmm..."

"Fascinating. Look, the bathroom smells like someone died in there. I'm not exaggerating-I would know, right? We both would. So, I have to get back."

"Let me do it," she suggested.

"Forget it," I said, startled. Yech! A job I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Or Sinclair.

"Such work is beneath you."

"I'll be the judge of what's beneath me, missy," I snapped. "And as it happens, cleaning up puke is right up my alley."

"I insist, Majesty."

"Too bad. Besides, you can't come in without my permission. Ha! And again I say, ha."

She raised her eyebrows at me, dark and delicate as butterfly feelers, and stepped over the threshold.

"Well, nuts."

"Sorry. Old wives' tale. Besides, Eric and I were in and out of here a couple of times this past spring, remember?"

"I've been doing my best to forget all about last spring." I handed her the clothespin.

"Besides, if you think about it, it makes no sense," she said gently. "Why wouldn't a vampire be able to come and go as she pleased?"

"Spare me the lecture. And if you're going to barge in, make yourself useful. You want to clean? Be my guest."

She moved forward so eagerly, I actually felt bad for a few seconds. She was so desperate to get back in my good graces.

Not my problem.

"So, what d'you want? Why'd you come over?"

"To beg your forgiveness again," she replied soberly.

"Scrub first," I advised. "Then beg."

Tina made about as much noise as a ninja, but Jessica sat up anyway when we walked into the bedroom. "Whu?" she asked muzzily. "Tina? That you?"

"Poor Jessica!" Tina hurried to the side of the bed. Her delicate nostrils flared once, and then she was smooth-faced and polite. "If memory serves, the flu is dreadful." She put a hand on Jessica's forehead. "You must feel awful."

"I do, but that feels great," Jessica groaned. "Your clammy dead hand is just the ticket. How come Betsy let you in? Thought she was still ticked off at you and King Gorgeous."

"Do not call him that," I muttered.

"She took pity on me. Go to sleep, darling," she soothed. "When you wake, you'll feel much better."

Just like that, Jessica's eyes rolled up and she was out, snoring blissfully.

"Damn!" I was impressed in spite of myself. Tina was bisexual; I figured that's why she had power over men and women. "Nice work! I didn't know you could cure the flu."

"Thank you. Scrub brush?"

"Next to the toilet. But seriously, this is just too sad. You must have more important things to do than clean my bathroom," I commented, following her to said bathroom. "It's almost the weekend, for God's sake."

Tina flinched at "God". Vampires were so touchy about organized religion. "Actually, I did have some news."

"Sinclair has turned into a pile of ash?" I asked hopefully.

"Ah... no. But it's funny you should say that. We're getting reports of quite a few staked vampires."

"So?"

She looked at me.

"Ah, no," I whined. "What, this is my problem?"

"You're the queen."

"Oh, so I have to protect the city's vampires?"

"The world's vampires, actually," she said gently. Good thing I was standing near the tub, because all of a sudden, I needed a place to sit down.