Finally Dead (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 1) (25 page)

It
didn’t take them long to work out what they wanted, and while Harland and Gene
vanished into the nothingness that looked exactly like air to Eve, Marissa came
and touched her arm gently. Her fingers were cool, but felt almost right on the
equally cool arm.

“We
should meet soon, again. If you aren’t too busy with these other things? We
need to buy property, animals and find beings who are able and willing to
operate the facilities for us. I have some ideas however. When would you like
to have things up and running? It never hurts to have a goal in mind. I was
thinking that six months sounds about correct?” It was leading, but Eve could
see that it would take a lot longer to get some of those things done than not.

Buying
property, for instance… She didn’t have a clue what that would take. The
closest she’d ever had to anything of that nature was a rock that she’d tried
to turn into a pet when she was a kid. It was the size of her fist, and had
just been picked up from outside. In the trailer park where she’d lived with
her mother.

It was
the kind of thing that she wasn’t willing to talk about, since her rock, her
only friend at the time, had been thrown out by her mother, who hadn’t wanted
anything that dirty inside their little palace of child rape. Probably so that
Eve wouldn’t get any ideas about hitting people in the head with it.

Anger
flared through her, which was probably visible on her face, since Marissa, the
ancient Vampire Council member stood back suddenly.

“Or we
could try to do it faster than that?”

Eve took
a breath, and made her body relax then, shaking her head.

“No,
you’re right. It will take at least that long. I just wish we could go faster.
People need this.” It sounded better than the idea that she was having
flashbacks.

The
older Vampire smiled and nodded, but got out of there without saying anything
else. Eve thought she might have offended her, but Bey came and touched her
arm, very gently.

“I
believe she fears you, young Eve. Not for what you are right now, which is
impressive but nothing that those here cannot defeat. No, she fears what your
ambition might bring about. If she’s intelligent, which is her way, then I
think you may have a strong ally there.”

He
didn’t seem upset by the idea, at any rate.

The
people that came to take the bodies away waited until dark, and simply loaded
things up as if they were moving furniture. It was a trio of Human men, all of
whom looked Middle Eastern, but also like they were American through and
through. Blue jeans, t-shirts, and no beards. They even took the broken table
away. What would happen to the bodies after that she didn’t know, but Lenore
had her run home, to get her stash of emeralds.

Because
it was only right that she pay for the work, wasn’t it?

In the
end it took half the little bag of the things, and a lot of discomfort to run
across the city and back like she did. It took only a few minutes though, and
the animal blood links she had were working well enough. They felt a little
less refined, but the energy seemed to get her going and all that.

On the
good side the men all seemed fine with the idea of taking something other than
cash for their efforts. Probably because she was overpaying them by about ten
times each. It would be worth it to them to just hold on to the things and try
to sell them later.

When
they were gone, Eve was put to cleaning the place again, though Lenore did ask
her to do it rather nicely. It didn’t take very long at all however, since it
was basically all she’d been doing for the day. Finally she was let go, when
Marcus came over, having just finished his daily work out with the
Trollienkeine. He seemed stiff, but didn’t whine about it that day, so
that
was a bonus.

“Hey,
Mark… When does that club of yours meet again?” She’d asked before, but hadn’t
gotten a great answer.

“Wednesday,
at seven, in central park, near the bathrooms. For now. Pretty soon we’re going
to have to rent someplace else for it. A grange hall or whatever. That’s what
we did last year. Why?” He seemed suspicious for some reason.

Eve just
shrugged.

“I’m
planning to look into it. See if I can get my role playing groove on. Maybe go
in as a Mage or whatever?” She grinned, as if that were a clever idea, but the
actual Mage just gave her a look that told her she was filled with things that
should be flushed.

His
voice became pissy then, and sounded like he
wanted
to be beaten to a
pulp.

“One
does not simply
walk
into Mordor. You’ll need the guidebook. We’re
playing using Node Rules, which is a bit different than anything else you’ve
probably heard of. On the good side, if you aren’t as dumb as you seem, you’ll
recognize some of it. Shifters, Vampires, Succubae, Elth and even Greater
Demons. Lesser ones too, but you can’t play those. I have a book, but… Well, I
can’t go, can I? Someone made it so that I’m not welcome there anymore.” There
was a pointed gaze, directly at her, which had Eve holding the bridge of her nose.

“I…
Seriously
?
You can’t see that using magic to take over someone’s mind then making her have
sex with you might just be wrong? That all of this is a result of what you did?
I need you to tell me that you understand that Mark. I really do. If this little
bit of me being nice isn’t going to work, let me know now. I can kill you and
be done with it, before I invest too much time.” She didn’t sound upset, but
she felt it. That was the kind of thing that was happening all the time now.

Rage
poured through her, and for once she let it show on her face. Her eyes stung a bit,
and her fangs dropped down. She didn’t fight against it, but Lenore, behind the
counter, looked very wary. Probably because there were still real people in the
mall, shopping and getting ready for the holidays.

Mark
looked scared though, even as she moved so that her back was to the glass that
separated the shop from the walkway.

“Can’t
you see this one? It was wrong. You can’t do that again and I need you to start
really living that,
all
the time now, or you will
not
survive
this, Marcus. Why you keep acting like this isn’t your last chance, I don’t
know. I guess I’ve been too nice about it all? Keep pushing your luck, lard
ass, and we’ll see how long you last. Right now… Half a dozen Vampires want you
dead, do you know that? More than a few Mages too, I bet. You nearly started a
war. A
real
one, with people dying because of what you did. Do you think
that Maggie is
really
okay with you raping her? She lied about that, so
you wouldn’t be hurt. Not just to stop things from going sideways either. You
hurt her, and stole her free will, and she
still
stepped in front of you,
and kept you alive. That alone should have you crying yourself to sleep every
night, you fuck tool. You have the rest of your life to make amends, but I
wouldn’t wait too long, because if I don’t start seeing real effort from you in
the next, oh, call it ten minutes, then I’ll end this little project and drain
the life from you.”

She
moved in, getting him to step back. He was in some of his new clothing and
looked better, if not good, but she’d just have to ruin that for him. Taking a
deep breath she forced her mind into a calm state, and kept it up until her
teeth relaxed and her eyes went back to normal. They didn’t sting anymore, at
least.

Mark,
for all he was a bit whiny most of the time, just looked down.

“Sorry.
I
do
get it. That… It’s really the only social thing I do. I know I
can’t go back, but I miss it.”

“Right.
That’s kind of the point. You mess up and other people step in and take away
some of the things you like. It’s that, or constant beatings, and I doubt you’d
survive that yet. So, where do I get one of these books?” Also, why did they
have accurate sounding information in them?

She
suspected it was some kind of Mage thing, but Marcus waved toward the bookstore
down the way.

“
Here
,
actually, down at the good bookstore. A few other places in town, and over in
Portland too. It’s a Northwest thing. I…” What he was about to say, she
couldn’t tell, since the clatter from the main walk area of the mall got him to
stop talking. She ducked out, to see what was going on. It was a different
scene than she might have expected.

After
the first sound, which was, as she’d understood, the sound of metal on brick
tile, clanging, a bit of shouting started. She was running toward it, but at Human
speeds, for some reason. At first she thought that it might just be her getting
lazy, especially since Marcus was keeping pace with her, but everyone else that
came out of their own shops to see what was going on had managed to do about
the same thing. Instead of being armed and armored for war, everyone just
looked concerned. Eve got the general idea too, since the fight that seemed to
be going on was between a cute and rather familiar Japanese lady, and three
young men who were maybe in their mid-teens. The only strange thing was that
instead of simply scolding the boys for whatever it was that they’d done, the
woman, who was in front of the food court, looked ready to lay into them.

Hard.

She was
unarmed, but the way she moved told Eve that these punks, and they
seemed
like that kind of douche bags, were about to have their asses firmly delivered
to them. Possibly in a far more lethal manner than they were honestly ready
for.

“You do
not
touch
a lady like that.” The growl from Lyn, Zack’s grandmother, Eve
thought, was darker than it probably should have been. What the hell had these
twerps been doing? Slapping someone on the behind probably wouldn’t have gotten
that level of response.

Mark,
surprisingly kept on running, and ended up stopping
between
the small
woman and the three taller a-holes. Facing the bad guys, at least, which meant
she didn’t have to kill him for it.

“What
the crud? What did you do?” He pointed at the one in the center, who was
actually a decent looking boy, compared to the others. A six or so, on a scale
going to ten. There was a flare of white around him too, which meant he was
getting ready to perform magic.

That was
against the rules, except that given the situation it might have just been reflexive.
Eve watched him though, ready to slap the magic right out of him if it became
needed.

All three
of the boys answered with similar things, but the combined response was only
about half of what Mark was doing.
That
was interesting. The idea that
her little fatbeard might actually be a
powerful
Mage had never really
occurred to her. She’d kind of thought he was just sort of a joke. After all,
if he were worth anything he wouldn’t have been trying to mind control Maggie
into bed, would he?

The one
in the center looked down and then sneered a bit.

“Nothing.
It was just a bit of compulsion. No big thing. I figured that I’d get her to,
you know, have some fun with me? She’s hot.” There was a sullen shrug and a
look that told everyone in the world that he knew that Marcus had done the same
thing and pretty much gotten away with it. That would be the problem then,
wouldn’t it? She just hadn’t been hard enough on him for the rest of them to
take notice of anything.

Lyn
nodded, a flare of silver white magic suddenly dwarfing what even Mark was
putting out, making the others all take a step back. Her eyes looked insane
when she did it, and the feeling of power and life thrummed across everyone’s
skin. Eve let her face go slack, because while it
felt
like the same
thing that the boys were all doing, she was nearly certain that Lyn was a
Greater Demon. Zack had mentioned it to her, and there had never been mention
of more than one grandmother. Besides that, the woman looked like she could be
dating… Almost any of them. There was a youthfulness to her that meant either a
lot of healing magic, or that she just wasn’t going to age.

Meaning
that if she were
really
pissed off, some folk were about to die. The
goal then would be to help her select the little, and possibly useless, mental
midgets in the group.

Eve took
a deep, very slow breath, as people, mainly shoppers, looked on, and then lied
to the whole mall, loudly.

“Well,
we
don’t
allow sexual assault here, boys. I don’t know what the hell you
were thinking, but this is a family friendly establishment. Come with us. Now.
Ma’am, if you’d come along, too? Let me, and Mark handle this though, please?
We don’t need blood in the middle of the mall. Not this close to Christmas. It
would
kill
sales.”

She
wasn’t joking about that, but Lyn gave a feisty looking nod that held more
humor inside it than what Eve was really managing at the moment, herself. What
the fuck were they going to do about this? The kids were
clearly
monsters, trying to use their powers to abuse innocent people in public, but it
was even worse than that. They’d thought that Lyn was just a regular person,
and for some reason
didn’t
think that it would matter to anyone if
they’d used her however they wanted? What the heck were they learning in school
if that was how they thought?

Eve knew
for a fact that compulsion spells were regulated by the Mages, and that you
were supposed to fill out forms when you wanted to use them on people. She’d
helped do the paperwork for things like that more than once, and the things
weren’t given out to help acne ridden kids get some exotic granny tail. Not
that Lyn looked that old, but still…

It was
hard for her to keep herself under control then, and she fumed a little as she
took them all into Hartley and Co. Instead of bothering with the front desk she
walked them all over to the Node room, and held the door. One of the boys
seemed to get the basic idea, and tried to run, but she snagged his shirt and
tossed him inside. Gently enough that he only fell to the floor with a thud,
rather than the death causing throw that she nearly went with.

“I
don’t
think so, asshole. Get in there.”

Zack had
been out on the floor, and followed them in, seeming concerned. When they were
inside and the door shut, Eve realized that Darla was there too.

Wonderful.
Not that she didn’t like having her peeps around, but this was about to get
more complicated than someone like her could really handle, wasn’t it? With
Three Greater Demons in the room, what were the odds that they were going to
get out of the situation alive? Oh, she might, since two of them actually liked
her, but the others?

No, it
already was too complicated for that kind of thing.

Meaning
she was totally out of her depth.

She
turned on the boys, who looked to be about fifteen or so, give or take a year
or two, and forced herself to shake her head, slowly. They were the ones she
could take in a fight after all.

“Um…
Lyn… I have that right?” She didn’t know any other name for the woman, and if
she had a title, Eve had never heard it. It could be a big problem with some
Greater Demons, if you didn’t know who they were all the time. Even though they
could change shape without giving notice. The woman nodded, not seeming ready
to kill her over some imagined insult, thankfully. “Lyn here… These little morons
tried to take over her mind. In
public
.
On embassy row
. They’re
all Mages too, so they know better than to pull that kind of crap here. That’s
pretty much an act of war, even on a good day. I don’t know what to do, to tell
the truth. She’s um, a Mage too, right? So…”