I laughed. Hard. Everyone else did too. All the tension of the last three days burst from us in unison. The feeling was cathartic.
“Yes and no,” I answered when I pulled myself together. “It’s a crazy story, and we’ll get to it. But I do believe you had something to add to the fact game?”
Jennifer winked. “You bet I do. She glanced around the room at our smiling and relieved faces. “First off, I have to say I’m thrilled that we’re all still sparkling like the vamps fromTwilight. Secondly, the G-spot was almost called the Whipple Tickle, after Professor Beverley Whipple, who coined the term we use today!”
“What’s a G-spot?” Shitty Ritchie asked, perplexed.
He was roundly ignored.
Life was glorious. Jennifer was alive. She wasn’t a hundred percent, but she was alive. Our world was still incredibly dangerous, but glorious nonetheless.
We’d take it a day at a time.
The game—life.
The mission—take out the Higher Power so the new and improved Trinity could take their rightful place.
The goal—live through it.
CHAPTER FIVE
Gideon,Charlie, Candy Vargo, Heather, Catriona, Zander and I had spent the night patrolling the area. Charlie and Candy triple-warded twenty acres surrounding the house. It wasn’t clear if it could keep the Higher Power and Its zombies out, but it was something. Alana Catherine and Shitty Ritchie stayed back. They were who we were protecting. Tim and June stayed in the house by Jennifer’s side, along with my pups. It was unlikely that the Higher Power was aware that Jennifer was alive, but no chances were being taken. Zander and Catriona continued to patrol into the daylight. Sitting still wasn’t the siblings’ modus operandi.
The Higher Power would figure it out eventually. That was a crappy given. We needed to be prepared.
The tension that had dissipated when Jennifer had woken up returned. For different reasons, but just as heavy. Gideon was still keen on moving the Trinity to a safe house, but had been shot down by Alana Catherine once again. Firmly. Our daughter wasn’t sure why, but she knew in her gut that Jennifer, Shitty Ritchie, and she needed to stay. While she was still our child, she was part of something bigger than all of us. Gideon wasn’t happy with her demand but honored it.
By morning, Jennifer was pretty much back to her old self—physically, at least. Her recovery was mind-boggling… and fantastic. She’d even walked a runway show that would have made the drag queens, AKA the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, proud. She’d strutted around the kitchen in her mail uniform that matched her pappy’s. She took a bow to loud applause, then downed three mimosas for breakfast. Her motto, “It was five o’clock somewhere,” was going strong. However, I was pretty sure she was swallowing some liquid courage for the chat we were about to have.
I almost joined her but decided on an iced coffee with two squirts of chocolate syrup instead. I was never going vanilla again. Dinking a beaver’s anus matter wasn’t on the agenda. Ever. Granted, I’d looked that nasty piece of info up last night, and beaver butt stuff was no longer used. However, even the thought was enough to turn me off of vanilla for the foreseeable future. Collectively, our sparkly skin wore off after Jennifer’s third mimosa. She and Shitty Ritchie were seriously bummed. I was not.
For several hours, we took turns explaining to Jennifer what had happened and what her destiny included as far as we were aware. For the first hour, Heather told her about the battle leading up to her near demise, then went on to describe how Tom Hanks had electrocuted her which led us to having to gut her from sternum to belly button. Her pappy, Tim, then punched his partially severed wrist into her chest and fed her his blood.
Jennifer thought we were pulling her leg. She laughed like a loon. It wasn’t until Tim took her hands in his and lovingly assured her that none of what she’d been told was a joke did her laughter disappear.
She poured herself another mimosa but made it a double.
The second hour, Candy Vargo took over. Jennifer was slack-jawed for most of that session. Hell, I was too. Candy did not beat around the bush. She explained the history of the Higher Power and the vile crimes It had committed. The Keeper of Fate had also gone back to using the f-bomb as a verb, noun, adjective, conjunction and wherever else she deemed it appropriate. Thankfully, Charlie and Gideon chimed in and made the history lessons less profane—no less wild, but far more palatable.
During the third hour, Alana Catherine and Shitty Ritchie spoke.
Alana Catherine spoke eloquently, with poise and knowledge far beyond her years. She spoke of the Trinity that would result in a checks and balances system, and how the world would be better for it. I wasn’t sure how much Jennifer absorbed, since she was gobsmacked that my daughter was a grown woman and no longer a baby. For the love of everything nuts, Jennifer had changed Alana Catherine’s diaper last week.
Predictably, Shitty Ritchie was bizarre and wildly inappropriate. He regaled everyone with his long-ago stint as a cannibal until Candy let him know she’d eaten a few people in her time and if he didn’t shut the fuck up—her words, not mine—she’d get back into the habit by eating him. Amazingly, Shitty Ritchie knew when to fold ‘em. And of course, twice he’d slipped in a request to father a few of Heather and Missy’s children due to his super-higher-powered-swimmers. It had taken Heather setting him on fire and Candy Vargo threatening to rip his pocket-sized pecker off for him to cool his jets. The three sticks of butter that she’d shoved into his mouthed helped too.
It had to be noted, the info we’d been dropping on Jennifer was enough to make a person have a mental break—too unbelievable to be true. I could see it taking a toll on my friend.
Jennifer threw her hands up in surrender. “It’s kind of a lot,” she said, dumping the rest of her mimosa into the sink. She stared at the bubbly orange liquid as it circled down the drain.
We all exchanged silent glances. Tim went to her immediately and put his hand on her slumped shoulder.
Her statement was loaded. I fully understood. On the day I turned forty, I started seeing the dead. I was sure I’d lost my mind and needed to be committed. I knew nothing about my family’s history as Death Counselors. Gram thought the gift had passed me by, so she’d never bothered to explain it. I’d been alone in my crazy for a while until I finally broke down and told Gram. She’d been horrified that I’d assumed I was going insane. It was only after she let me in on the secret that I quit researching mental illnesses that caused hallucinations.
As scared as I knew Jennifer must be, it brought me enormous relief that she had all of us to guide her. None of it would be easy, but not having to go it alone was an outstanding way to start.
Jennifer turned around and looked at us. “So, I’m not gonna die? Ever?” she whispered, trying to wrap her mind around the impossible.
Candy Vargo shrugged. “Highly fuckin’ unlikely. Although decapitation usually does the trick.”
