Dead and Everything (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 2) (21 page)

Honestly,
it was pretty close.

“Thanks.
That won’t be needed right now. We were here earlier. Really, our part is done,
but we need to wait for dark to get out of town. I think?” She didn’t know at
all, to be honest. Bey smiled at her however and seemed to warm to the larger
man, even if he did seem a bit smarmy. Then, was she really the type to think
that being a political blood sucker was that big of a sin?

She
decided not to.

Besides,
once Jim introduced himself it turned out that he was the Chief of Staff for a
Senator, who’d been sent over to make sure their side of the aisle wasn’t left
out if this thing actually worked. That was a good plan, actually.

Eve
winked at him, which was a bit forced, and probably promised a hand job in a
coat closet later. She thought she might be able to manage it, now. Without
even ripping anything off or drinking him dry. The man didn’t respond at all
though. It either meant he was subtle, gay, or really focused on his job. All
good things, as far as she was concerned.

The
man got them set up at a small space on Jonas’s desk, and then started to
introduce them to people. That was helpful, since the moment that they did
that, or shortly after, she got what was going on.

The
assholes had the airtime they needed, they were just arguing over who was going
to be front and center, because that would be the person to get all the credit
later, if it worked.

It
was a sudden thing, what happened next. She didn’t even feel angry really,
though her teeth snapped down audibly, and she was willing to bet her eyes had
gone red. She moved fast, grabbing the big solid oak desk that she was next to,
and pushing on it so fast it became airborne. It slammed into the outer wall of
the room, with a shattering thud.

Bey,
for his part, had simply reached out, casually, and made sure her new book
didn’t go with it. She jerked her head his way and gave an almost spastic nod.

Then
she screamed.

“I
cannot
believe
that you mother fuckers are in here debating who’s going
to get their dick stroked over this while people are
dying
. You have one
minute to pick someone and get your asses in gear, or I swear there’s going to
be a totally new massacre to talk about on the news later!” It was the wrong
thing to say, and she knew it, so she walked over, pushing into pain on a level
that would probably make it seem like she teleported to the room at large, and
ended up with Rich’s throat in her hand. Then she forced him against a wall,
too, making a hole that had his vague shape to it.

“One
minute! Do you understand Swerlin? This political crap ends now. I don’t know
if this will do anything, but delaying is… I
will
kill you, if you don’t
get it going, right now. Even if it means dying myself for it. Do you get
that?”

No
one ran from the room at her fit, which probably meant they were all a bit too
smug and self-certain for their own good. Even Bey didn’t, though Eve noticed
that he’d set the book down and had moved over to the door, ready to make sure
the people couldn’t escape if they did need to be murdered for being
dumb-fucks.

She
dropped the man she had pinned, since short of making his head pop like a zit,
she didn’t really think she could win a fight with him. Not one that didn’t end
in death. He’d be at least as strong as she was, if not more. Slower, it seemed,
but if they started spinning around the room and bouncing off walls, most of
the non-Vampire people were going to end up dead.

“Do
it now, or
I’ll
pick who does the talking. You have fifty seconds.” She
was hurrying things she thought, and the first half minute was spent with
people just looking at her like she was insane. Finally,
Richard, who was rubbing at his neck, looked around.

“Kendra?
Why don’t you and Lawrence take this one? I’m sure that the rest of us will
support that?” He looked around anxiously, but several of the people had
problems with that. At least most of them wanted to go themselves, instead of
passing the buck.

She
slowly walked over to the big wooden desk, pulled a piece off the top, and
started to shred it, pulling long splinters of the inch thick wood away. It
wasn’t that loud, and most people in the room seemed to miss what she was
doing.

“Time.”
She held the handful of long skinny spikes, and then looked at Swerlin. The
moron. The politician. “So, Kendra and Lawrence? Good enough. Get on that. Now.
We have five minutes. If things aren’t set by then, I…” She was willing to kill
some people, and really planned to, but she closed her eyes, and forced herself
to pull back from it. The feeling might not have been anger really, but it was
close enough. With effort, as people started to make calls around her, and
actually got things going, she pulled her fangs back and stood very still for a
while.

Then,
only ten minutes later, the assholes actually got going, doing what they should
have nearly three hours before. Worse, before the twenty minutes of prayer were
up, the Lesser Demon, who was on a screen in the room across the hallway, froze
in place, then
vanished
, allowing the injured people to scurry out.

For
some reason that didn’t make her happy, even as the people in the room cheered.

“Fuck
you. Every one. You took hours longer than was needed, trying to grab the
credit. Each of you should be tortured like the people you failed to help were.
Except Jim. The rest of you though…” She wanted to storm out, but it was still
too light to run cross country, or wherever they were going. Besides, Bey
actually got a call, since word had passed that they were there.

That
meant she just had to stand there, glaring at a room full of people. She
kind
of wanted to get started on that torture, but the phones were suddenly all in
use, and people were sneaking off to make sure they, or their boss, got what
portion of the credit they could. No one offered to have her locked up though,
even if she was going to have to pay for the mess she’d made.

She
looked around, her mind trying to find a way so that she wasn’t going to be out
thousands of dollars. That, she knew, wasn’t all that likely. The damage was
done, and even if she’d had a good reason for it in her own mind at the time,
she could have done it some other way. Not getting involved at all came to
mind. It wasn’t like she cared about those people being killed and hurt, was
it? Or, well, she did, but it was an abstract thing. She hadn’t even seen a glimpse
of them until after the Lesser Demon was gone.

That
hadn’t been one she recognized either, thank goodness. There had been pictures
taken of the whole thing through the window of the place. It wasn’t like the
energy being could be killed, which the police had picked up on pretty quickly,
for some reason. Probably because someone on their staff or in their power
structure wasn’t strictly Human themselves.

Bey
spoke into the receiver gently for a while, clearly not letting her know who
was on the other side. That meant it was probably Gene, since that little
bastard was a pain in the ass all the time. Regardless, she was left alone by
everyone in the room, until Jim the Congressional Chief of Staff came over. Not
that he was actually that, but what did she know about political titles like
that?

“Ah.
Well, you certainly got people moving! Now we can just stand back and watch
this whole thing turn into the story about how they all heroically wrestled you
to the ground as you tried to stop them from getting the word out. Prayer. Who
would have thought?’

She
shrugged, her face a bit blank. That meant she needed to get a smile going,
fast. It was taking more work than it should have, but she got one going,
thankfully.

“It
won’t work for everything. Lesser Demons, at least that kind, are the product
of Christian’s minds. By changing them, even a little, they were able to affect
the being. You can pray at a Vampire all day long and it won’t make them
anything other than slightly annoyed. Shifters and Mages are the same. Greater
Demons… Yeah. If you meet one of them your best odds are to be really polite,
while not agreeing to
anything
.”

That
got Jim to look at her, his broad face looking a bit strange for a moment.

“There
are things greater than
that
monster?” He pointed at the screen which
was in the doorway of the room across the hall. There was no picture of a
Lesser Demon on it, but she got the concept, being smart that way.

“Oh
yeah. So much so that… Well, on the good side, you’ll probably never meet one.
They’re all rare. A few thousand Lesser Demons of note, and about five hundred
Greater ones. In the main you want to avoid both kinds of things. Unlike
Vampires.
We’re
just hard on the furniture.” She didn’t point at the
desk she’d ruined or look at the wall. Or Richard Swerlin, who was probably
going to try and kill her now.

She
noticed a hint of movement, and Bey, speaking to her in Russian, said something
that she thought might be him suggesting they leave. She nodded, then shook
Jim’s hand. The man was polite about it, and professional, giving her a card
with numbers on it, in case she needed to get in touch with him. She turned
then, and walked over to Swerlin, who was one the phone again. Touching his arm
lightly, she smiled, not meaning it.

“Tell
Jonas that I’ll be sending funds for a replacement desk, as soon as I can?”

That
got the man to nod, but he didn’t say much, since he had to talk to the news
lady on the phone. Then, without waiting to explain her poor behavior, she
managed to get out of there, alive and everything. Well,
dead
and
everything.
That
part hadn’t changed, thankfully.

She
didn’t let Bey take her to task first, pointing out her own errors. They were
many, and clear. When she finished her summary, the tiny man smiled at her, and
patted her back. There was no lingering touch, but it was nice anyway.

“It
might have been done a bit more smoothly, I agree. You also saved lives and
even aided those in that room to remember their job. In all, I think we can
forgive your lapse this one time. Strive to improve, however. When possible we
need to cultivate the idea of Vampires as ancient beings of logic and reason.
The ones you seek to be your friend, not those you should fear.” Then he looked
away, hiding a smile that seemed a lot more lively, for some reason. “Not that
Richard Swerlin
didn’t
deserve to be taken to task. We’ve had no end of
trouble with him of late. For years now his attachment to The Mistress of Souls
has protected him from our wrath. His fellows dared not take him to task too
strongly. I think perhaps, he realizes that you, out of us all, need not fear
her as greatly. It would be good if he feared
someone
again.”

Eve
kind of did get that. Though it wasn’t really why Bey probably thought. Oh,
Keeley was her friend, but her lack of fear there was for different reasons. If
she were killed, well, the fact was that Keels would have to argue the point
and reason for it with others of her kind. Even if they didn’t like the Greater
Demon, it could be trouble.

No
one loved Swerlin that much. Or hated him, most likely. Yes, she’d pinned him
to a wall, but other than being a bit of a pain it wasn’t like he was a
horrible person. Just inconvenient to her, personally.

To
a lot of Vampires, actually.

Bey
moved back to speaking in Russian, but had to break that after a few minutes so
that she could actually understand him. She’d only been working on it for a few
hours, and wasn’t some kind of super linguist. Then, you didn’t really have to
be, did you? If you learned the languages and practiced them often enough, then
you had them. It didn’t matter if it took three years to learn, or two weeks.
Not once it was part of your skill set.

Apparently
though, they had instructions, ones that had come over the phone when she
wasn’t listening, even if they were different than she would have thought.

“I
was asked to see about a minor issue in Georgia. The place of the peaches,
here, not the other one in Europe. It seems that someone has been parenting
large amounts of new Vampires. That can be a prelude to war, a distraction or
at times simply one of us feeling the need to have a large family. The issue
then is if they can control that many at once. The answer is, in the main, no.
So we must needs travel there this night, and then locate first the new
Vampires, and then their maker. What we do about that will depend on the
situation, but most likely we will be forced to destroy them all. Coddling the
young rarely works, for our kind.” He glanced at her, but didn’t explain any
more.

She
knew what he was getting at.

“Yeah,
we need to get that pre-Vamp training thing going soon. It’s a shame that we’ll
probably have to kill these, but I get it. Edom told me that he’d planned to
take off work for over a year, just to deal with me. That wasn’t needed,
because of the work I’d put in already, but… He’s
good
, and careful.
Clever enough to farm out part of his work with me to you, and Lenore, which
was, you have to admit, brilliant of him. What would someone do with ten killer
kids around though suddenly? We pretty much have to stop that.”