Dead Certain (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 3) (8 page)

The man was also bright enough to
get that going by his maker’s last name was kind of a giveaway as to who that
might be, it seemed. So instead of taking her knowing that as a sign that she
was there to kill him, and all his friends, he kept walking, not speaking for a
good long while as they marched down the street.

“I was told that we had to bow to
the Council, or that we would be killed, and that the owner of the formulae we
need would not part with it for us. I begged her to intervene for us, to allow
this to be handled in a way that would provide survival for us here, even
though the Vampire that owns the needed information is from America, but she
does not think that will be allowed. Apparently the bitch that we need to deal
with is under the thumb of your sister, Nicole. We have that bit of bad blood
between us, so it is perhaps that, sending us to war? I should have handled
Lenore differently, at the time. I was callus, perhaps, when I should have been
more kind?”

Eve kept herself from rolling her
eyes. After a bit, she shrugged again, not really knowing if there was a bigger
plan involved than not. On
this
side of things it seemed like there was
an easy enough fix, wasn’t there? They could just open up some blood
manufacturing farms in Russia. Even if they didn’t make any money from it, it
wasn’t a horrible idea. Some things were more important than making cash.
Almost everything was, really.

After a bit, she spoke, her voice
low, with Nikki just looking like a guilty child.

“Ah. Okay then. Well, we need to
fix some things then, if you don’t want to die anytime soon, that is. The
Council won’t put up with this kind of thing for long, will they?” She glanced
at the Vampire and had to fend off a strong wave of compulsion. It was so
constant that she was starting to think he didn’t have complete control over
it.

“This is truth. What can be done
however? My people here are sick of the taste of boot leather. Even if
threatened with death, they will seek to fight, rather than slowly be ground
down.”

Nikki managed to shake herself
enough to free her mind a bit it seemed, and she changed the topic suddenly,
her face going a bit tense.

“Have you been
leading
these people, Bohdan? The ones that have been robbing the Council embassies?”

Her boyfriend, if that was the
right word for that kind of relationship, stared at the brightly colored hair
Nikki was sporting, and then shook his head slowly.

It wasn’t exactly a denial
though.

“They are my people, but it is
not all to my plan. Nearly a year ago some of the Vampires decided to take the
battle to the Council, weakening them here, by denying them resources. It has
been kept quiet however. How did you learn of it?”
Now
he was getting
suspicious.

Nikki either didn’t get that, or
didn’t care at the moment, since she went on like it just made sense to run her
mouth.

“Three of them attacked the place
we were staying last night. They threatened to rape the ambassador,
and
us, given that we happened to be there at the time. It’s not a great plan,
trying to hit places like that.”

The male Vampire, his smooth face
pale and very bland, stopped dead and turned to look at Nikki, suddenly very
angry seeming.

Eve got ready to end his days,
but his words were different than she would have suspected.

“The fools! We can’t afford to
add such insult. Do they seek to have The Lord brought down on us? You are not
injured are you? Not abused as they threatened? I swear, they will not exist
past this night! Can you tell me their names?”

They really couldn’t, but the
team’s description was enough. Bohdan knew who they were, after all, and
winced.

“I understand. You would have had
no way to stop them... To rape the daughter of The Lord like that… We are all
dead, aren’t we, then? I shall seek to bring them to me, and then submit myself
to your father, Nicole. Perhaps he will show mercy, and kill only those that
allowed this to happen, instead of each of us. Those
fools
!” This time
the fangs popped out and the man really didn’t seem to care about hiding it. No
one noticed though.

As far as the people there knew,
there were no Russian Vampires. That meant noticing them wasn’t high on the
priority list, most likely.

Nicole touched his coat sleeve
and shook her head.

“No. Those Vampires
died
,
well before they could do anything. Eve destroyed them. She’s…” The other woman
stopped then, even if she had given too much information.

Bohdan seemed shocked though.

“You… Killed Alexander, Ivan and
Misha? By yourself? What weapon allowed you to do this? Is that why you have
blood on your shirt?” He waved at the spots, which made her feel a bit
embarrassed.

He’d probably thought she was
just a sloppy eater.

“That’s right. If it was them, I
mean. It sounds right.”

They moved on then, and after a
bit he started to nod.

“I do not understand. Who are you
then? I have never heard of the Vampire Eve before. You must be most elder.
Perhaps you have a different name that I would know you by?”

She winked, then shook her head.

“No. I’m new, so you wouldn’t
know me yet. Anyway, if I could get you the formula for the…” She slipped into
English, but Nikki translated for her, using the same word that the man with
them had before. “Yes, if I can get you the anti-coagulant, can you and your
people here get the needed farms, transport trucks and all that? I want thirty
percent of the profits, annually. We should keep the price down though. That’s
only for animal blood, though. If you start doing Human you’ll need permission
from The Mistress of Souls, and the Vampire Rebekah. It might be worth doing.
Also, you need to stop robbing embassies and return all the money that was
stolen. Some of your people will still probably die. Maybe you, too, but we can
try to get around that. If they raped or abused Council people directly, that
will be a hard sell. We’ll have to kill anyone that did that, at the very
least.”

The man stared at her, suddenly
scared, but he was, as Marissa had pointed out, an intellectual, not a fighter,
by nature.

“We might be able to do that. You
have access to such knowledge?”

Eve looked away, then nodded. It
was true that he might try to take her hostage to get the information from her,
but if he did that, she’d fight, which was going to happen anyway, if he wasn’t
careful about how he reacted.

Hopefully he was smart enough to
work that one out.

“Off the top of my head,
actually. I own the concern back home, along with Marissa. I don’t know why she
didn’t just ask me to let you have it here, too. There might be a reason I
don’t know about, and in that case I can’t promise anything. If the Council
wants you all dead, then, well, that’s just what will have to happen. Still, if
it
isn’t
something like that, or if we can talk them out of it, then it
might pay off to try.”

For a very long time after that
they moved in silence, walking at normal Human speeds down the side of a road
that was busy, but not too much so for a major city. Finally they turned into a
seedy looking restaurant, that was beat up and poor looking. On the outside.
The interior was as nice as anything she’d ever seen though, with a lot of rich
reds and polished wood. The Human woman that met them at the door was waved
away, rather curtly.

“We do not need you. Close the
doors, and allow no one to come in.” Then he turned to Eve, and knelt in front
of her, his head bowed low. “I beg you, do not kill the Humans here, even if
you must take my life. They are good people, and loyal, so may try to fight, if
they see me dying. They are innocent in this though, and simply run this place
for us, during the day.” He sounded pretty humble about it.

Eve waved him up.

“As long as that’s true, I can
try to do that. Can we use a phone? Also, are you willing to do more of that
begging?
I
don’t get off on that kind of thing, but I bet you that some
of the Council will. Half of them are a…” She looked at Nikki, then smiled and
asked for the translation. Bey hadn’t taught her the naughty words yet.

Nicole smiled though, when she
asked, and spoke the words, as if it were a solemn prayer.

“A bag of dicks.”

Bohdan seemed to think that was
mildly funny, and gave a dismal sounding chuckle.

“I agree. That will not save us
here, now, if the order for our deaths come. Let us do that now? If you must
kill me, it will be best to happen before dark, so news of it may spread, and
my people flee, for their lives.”

Eve could see that. It wasn’t
even a horrible plan, really. She decided to keep it on the back burner, and
then got Bohdan to take them to a small office with a phone in it, and had him
negotiate the system, so that they ended up in contact with Marissa. She was
the one member of the Council that Bohdan could just call up, after all.

The phone was handed to Eve
before it picked up, presented as if it might just be the instrument of his own
death.

“Hello? This is Marissa.” The
words were in English, so Eve switched up, speaking that way herself. It was a
relief, after, the last few days of stumbling to find the right words all the
time.

“Hey. This is Eve. Benson? I’m in
Moscow, and have Bohdan here. He’s given up, and is calling off the rebellion.
That being the case, we need to know what’s allowed for that? We could open up
an animal blood business here, if you want? He’s going to return all the cash
that was taken, and I’m planning to kill any of his people that attacked
Council holdings directly. Is there anything else that you there want done?”
She didn’t know if any of that would even make sense, but after a few moments,
the mellow tenor spoke, gently.

“You have him there? Is he well?
Intact? Things didn’t go well between us last we spoke.”

Eve looked at the other Vampires,
who were standing there and listening, and made a face she hoped would be
considering.

“Eh, well, we didn’t have to
rough him up or anything. Not yet. I just need to know what’s needed here. I’m
way overstepping my job, but Nikki kind of botched things on this end for me,
so that’s my excuse this week. Not too bad to save though. Unless you want
everyone dead here? That will be harder now, since they kind of know that we’re
here.”

That made sense to her, at any
rate, and Marissa seemed to get the basic idea.

“I need to speak to the others,
may we call you back at this number?” That required actually giving it to her,
but that was fine, it seemed. It was still early in the day, which meant that
they weren’t going to be attacked by an army of Vampire rebels yet.

No, that would come later, when
darkness fell.

Almost certainly, too. No one
would just march in to go to their deaths, and the Council was filled with
beings that were kind of harsh that way, Eve knew. Not that she didn’t get it.
She really did. Vampires spent hundreds of years being assholes, and it was a
hard habit for most of them to break. The best did it, over time, but it could
take centuries to master, and even then it was always easier for them to give
in to anger and rage, rather than to be logical and detached.

They weren’t all that slow
though, and called back at about three in the afternoon. For her part, she just
stood there, making Nikki pace the whole time, as Bohdan looked on, confused.
Finally she explained it to him.

“She’s under orders to learn to
be up all day. Being a bit soft, and lazy, she’s avoided doing that. It’s
easier to bear the sun, if you stay in motion. I don’t know why, but it’s true.”

That got a nod, and the much
older Vampire seemed to stop and think for a bit.

“That is a fact. I think that it
has to do with the nerves of the body being used for other tasks. Not that we,
the dead, use nerves for the perception of pain directly, it is an analog
however, for whatever magical system keeps us going.”

It made some sense to her, so she
filed that away, as the phone first chirped, then rang.

She answered it, speaking in
English, and hoping it wasn’t a phone solicitor.

“Eve Benson here.”

“Ah! Young Eve! I was told that
you and Nicole have broken this rebellion without me? They now seek to deal
with the Council, as is moral and correct?” It was Bey, and he actually sounded
happy enough about the whole thing.

“Pretty much. There’s some cleanup
needed here, and all that. Some money to be returned, and some bullies to, erm…
Chastise for being jerks? I need to know what you all want done though? Bohdan
here seems to be willing to play ball, but they’re having a blood problem. They
want
to follow the rules, at least to the level anyone does, in that
regard, but they don’t have access to any of the new products. I was thinking
that we could make Bohdan here run it, and not get any profits from it, paying
that directly to the Council instead? After I get
my
cut, I mean, of
course. I didn’t do anything wrong after all. Call that twenty years of him
seeing to that or so? For free I mean, to pay for what he’s been doing?” Not
that she knew what all of that was.