Dead Certain (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 3) (28 page)

She grinned, “except this isn’t
the end, is it? It’s just another thing in a long line of events that will keep
going. So, do you find being a parent rewarding enough? I
swear
, I’ve
tried not to be the worst Vampire kid ever. I’m not a teen yet, but I’m planning
my rebellion to be something along the lines of moving out of the house too
young, and voting Libertarian.”

Rather than laugh at her, Edom
seemed pleased for a bit, and then shrugged.

“So far so good. I
do
keep
waiting for the other shoe to drop. For you to turn out to be a hidden Greater
Demon, or one of their slaves, if not something worse than that. What that
would be, I have no clue, but things can happen. You aren’t though. At least
Zack assured me that you were just you, and not tied to anyone other than me.
He’s a Greater Demon though, so you know, who can trust that?”

“I understand. You just weren’t
ready for my natural awesomeness to shine through so brightly. Well, no one can
blame you there. I mean, they
could
, but then I’d make fun of them… And
tell Barb to stop calling me Special Snowflake. I’m afraid that’s going to
stick if she doesn’t cut it out.”

Edom stood up, changed the CD,
and sank back down as a man started to croak in the background. It wasn’t good
at all. Eve didn’t comment though, since it might be an exercise in personal
discipline on Edom’s part, or something, and interrupting would be rude.

After a while it was clear to her
that Ed was done talking, and while she was probably welcome to just sit there,
it wasn’t very interesting. They needed to get the internet. A computer, too.
She smiled then, and decided to be heavy handed and just go get one. It wasn’t
like she didn’t have the money for it. The box might be a pain to carry back
from the store, but Wal-Mart was open all day and night, so why shouldn’t she
go and at least see what they had that way?

It took her the rest of the night
to go and buy a readymade machine, and then find a desk to put it on, and get
it all set up. That didn’t have the internet put into the house, of course,
which she’d have to call after in the morning, but Ed didn’t comment on the
machine appearing, and while he was old, he knew what the thing was, having
been in public in the last twenty years like he had.

They left at the same time, about
six, and she got to work about three minutes later, running on foot. It took Ed
over half an hour to do the same thing. When she got to the shop Ginger was
smiling and seemed happy enough. True there was the body of a dead Vampire in
the back room, but the place wasn’t messy or anything.

Eve glanced at the man, who was
laid out on the floor, under the spot where the node was, even if she couldn’t
see the thing at all.

The fellow, the dead one, had
slightly blackish blood, and fangs that were dropped down, as well as a knife
sticking out of his throat. It was a big thing, clearly meant to compensate for
having a little dick. She didn’t check that one, but from the skuzzy clothing,
which had blood stains on the front which were both Human smelling and old, and
the unkempt hair, he wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen. Still, killing
people was kind of a no-no, most of the time.

“Hey, Ginger… I can’t help but
notice that there’s a body back here. Is there a story to go with it, or are we
just hiding your rage problem, when we go off to bury this thing?”

Felicia walked in just about
then, having gotten a hotel room in town, not too far away. That let her do
something in the evenings that wasn’t going to be bothering Ginger. She heard
what was said, and looked a bit scared, but didn’t comment. The counter girl,
in her cute white and green dorky looking apron did though.

“He tried to kill another Vampire
that was buying blood. To take it from her. So I stopped him. I got her
information, the victim, so that you could check and make sure it was all real,
and not me just slaughtering annoying people. I didn’t give into the temptation
to do that even once. I think someone should note that down somewhere. This guy
was asking for it. Legally, I mean.”

Eve called the number, in case the
woman was going to end up sleeping that day, and found her just about to go
down, from the sound of it. Still she didn’t wait to explain, knowing what it
was all about.

From the way she told it, Ginger
had engaged in an epic battle, and protected not only her life, but virtue,
from the enraged and hungry Vampire man. It was probably closer to what the
girl that had killed the man had said, but Eve wrote it all down, so that the
report was ready when Edom got there. It really was a better story, involving
high kicks, an epic exchange of powerful blows as the two went toe to toe for
about ten minutes, with Ginger laughing as she suddenly sped up, using her
super human speed to end it all, and save the damsel. Okay, the word
damsel
hadn’t been used expressly, but it had been heavily implied. Honestly, from the
way the Vampire lady on the phone spoke, if Ginger had been a boy, she’d
totally be getting laid in the coming days or weeks.

Instead of making a big deal of
it, he dug in his front pocket and then tossed Eve his car keys.

“Take the body and get rid of it
for us? Show Ginger how. It can come up. You have your license with you?” He
seemed worried about that part, but Eve actually did. Her debit card, and some
cash too. Just in case she’d needed to prove who she was at the store. She
normally didn’t bring that stuff with her, but pulled it from her pocket, to
show him how prepared she was. It made her look competent, she thought. Ready
for anything.

“You’re parked in the back?
Felicia, do you want to come, too? The spot I use is
beautiful
. Worth
the trip. It’s a bit of a drive though. We can sing songs, and talk about all
the boys we used to have crushes on. We can bring some blood and make a picnic
of it.”

“Sounds good.” The orange eyed
Vampire seemed pleased to be invited, even though knowing where a Vampire body
was hidden probably wouldn’t help her in the slightest. After all, for the
really
good
blackmail, you had to have information that wouldn’t be as
easily used against you as the person you wanted to control.

Knowing where the body was didn’t
link anyone else to it. Just you.

Eve ran to get the car, which was
Ed’s new one, hers being in the two car garage at the house, since getting rid
of things wasn’t the Vampire way, unless you’d wrung every last bit of use from
its corpse. Which, when put that way, suddenly worked for her. It was kind of
what they really were, wasn’t it?

The premise of using things
totally. Including their own dead bodies.

She backed up to the mall door in
the upper parking lot, and came around the front, since she didn’t have a key
for that side of things. Not that she had one for any of it. This one was a
large Sedan, compared to the little red sports car that her maker had used to
have. It was directly down to hiding bodies in the trunk, too. He’d mentioned
it when he was picking it out.

There were tarps in the back, and
she took one with her. It was part of body disposal, having a good way to keep
blood off of everything. Fibers too, from hair and clothing. It would also help
to hide what they were doing a bit. She wrapped the rather smelly body up,
carefully, then stopped, and pulled the knife out of its throat. Something
wasn’t exactly right, with the whole scene. The body wasn’t alive, strictly
speaking, but when her hand brushed the flesh, she felt a tingle.

A fucking familiar buzzing along
her flesh, that indicated her information was being read.

Grimacing, she stood back.

“
Fuuuck
. This guy isn’t
one of us. He’s a Greater Demon, and still alive.” The words got Edom and Ginger
to come into the back running, but Felicia wisely stayed away. She knew a few
of those kinds of people, or at least one. So did the people that came, but
they both had hero complexes. Especially Ginger.

Sighing, Eve nudged the corpse
with her foot.

“Seriously, you might as well get
up now. I don’t get the game here, but…” Rather than just stand, like a normal
dead body would have, the room exploded from the point she was looking at, in a
gushing stream of liquid that smelled so bad it left her blind and gagging. The
body didn’t vanish though, even if the stream of gunk, which felt like rotting
flesh, and something worse, pummeled her upper chest and face without mercy.
Some of it got in her mouth, making her want to vomit her soul out. Given that
shouldn’t have really been possible, it meant the crap that had hit her was
really bad.

Eve doubled over, but kicked the
fucker in the knee as he got up anyway. Tolerating discomfort was a thing she
did every day, and a bit of vomiting wasn’t going to stop her from fighting
when someone was about to kill her. Then she started to fight in earnest,
moving into pain so great that she couldn’t tell if she was being hit or not as
she moved in and struck the man in the head, as hard as she could. When she
pulled back the brain melon was still mainly attached, so she did it again,
several times, and then remembered that she had a knife in her other hand.

The face, half off now, the jaw
having melted away at some point, spoke to her then, the voice rough and
growling.

“Do not seek to dissuade The
Vile
!
Die!”

It was creepy as all get out, but
the fight was still a bit one sided, with Eve fighting well, even as the man
sped up. He wasn’t fast enough, however, to escape her pursuit of him. It
lasted, right until she threw the now rotting being to the floor, and tried to
kick the head the rest of the way off. She didn’t know if a Greater Demon could
live without its head, but whoever this being happened to be was still freaking
tough. She’d
vaporized
heads with blows nowhere near as powerful, or
fast, as the first one she’d used… And it had connected like she was just good
old Eve Benson, high school cheerleader. Not a Vampire at all.

Still, when in doubt in a fight,
keep going. Moving into a level of speed induced pain that she hadn’t been
certain she could ever face, she stabbed at the neck and throat, until the head
was about to come off all the way, under the fury of the attack.

Then, without warning, she
suddenly felt herself being
incredibly
attracted to the incredibly gross
mess beneath her. Like she wanted to strip naked right there and fuck any part
of him she could stuff inside her lady parts. It caught her off guard, for
about an eighth of a second. That was just enough time for the mess of rot and
stench to throw her away, and leave the place, using the Node in the center of
the room, she suspected. It had happened in a huge blue flash, so it was hard
to tell, but the man was gone, and had left an incredible mess for her to
cleanup.

She just stood there for a bit,
trying not to gag again, while Zack ran in, coming from the front, carrying a
knife of his own.

“Is everyone all right?”

Like he didn’t know?

Eve felt a strong wave of
annoyance as the slightly Asian looking guy stopped, and looked around, posing
inadvertently. Like it was a freaking movie or comic book. Yeah,
he
looked great, but she was covered with reeking slime, because he couldn’t keep
others of his kind from dicking with her. Not that it was really his job, but
she wanted to be sick, and had to quit breathing to stop that from happening.
Everyone else tried to leave the room, too. The only one that managed not to
flee from the evil stench that covered everything was Zack.

Using some kind of Greater Demon
magic to make it so he had no sense of smell probably. Eve tried not to breathe,
but the stuff was already in her mouth and nose. It was too late for her. The
only saving grace was that, after Zack looked around for what seemed like a
half year and was probably closer to fifteen seconds, he figured everything
out, and waved his left hand. The one without the ten inch long, purple
glowing, shining knife. The thing even hummed a bit, now that Eve had time to
examine it.

A hole opened in the air, from
the Node in front of her, which he gestured at, carefully not smiling. It
glowed too, so she could see where it was. He didn’t always do that, but he
could, when he wanted to move a person without touching them.

“Go. It’s just to the shower in
the back of the bookstore. Directly into it.”

She went, the room moving from
the formerly clean and tidy back room of her shop, into a nicely tiled shower
stall. Without waiting, or breathing at all, she turned the water on, as hot as
she could, and started scrubbing, not even taking her clothing off at first.
After ten minutes she removed them, and wrung them out, tossing them through
the door. Hopefully they were clean enough that the jeans, panties and cotton
shirt wouldn’t force people from the store out front.

Then, because there was nothing
else to do, she started washing, and kept doing it, over and again, until about
three hours later, when Zack opened the glass shower door, slowly, and turned
the water off.

“That should do it. I have some
clothes for you to wear. Kait is about your size, and had some things here.”
What he handed her was a soft white towel though, not a trendy outfit that
would probably be good for picking up guys at a club.