Finally Dead (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 1) (30 page)

She had
him take the thing to Edom’s, and drop it on the ground, right in front of the
garage door. As soon as that was done, the rather plump-middled man gave her a
tired look.

“The
Chief called me in, so I don’t suppose I get paid for this?”

Eve
shrugged.

“I have
no money. I’ll give you a handjob, if you want?” She thought she could do the
compulsion well enough to make that seem real to him. Before she could try
though, the man shrugged at her and looked down.

“Nah.
I’d rather
not
have my balls ripped off, thanks. I have a wife. Call it
my good deed for the day?” Then he waved, moved to his old looking truck, and
drank a few large gulps from his silver travel mug before waving, and taking
off.

It
wasn’t that hard to get the car into the garage, even with the sun burning down
on her. It hurt, but that was, she knew, the new way of things. If she wanted
to be a boss, she was going to have to be willing to do things that others
weren’t.

Nodding,
after locking up securely, she took off running, heading for the mall
carefully, making sure no one saw her. She wasn’t as fast during the day,
thanks to the extra bit of discomfort, but that
had
to stop. It was
pretty clear that there was no real reason for her not to be just as quick now
as she had been the night before.

Bearing
down, with no air in her lungs, she moved so hard that she nearly couldn’t see
the whole time. It wasn’t a physical thing, just the pain forcing her to shut
her eyes involuntarily. It was nearly cute, except for the fact that she really
had to be paying attention if she didn’t want to trip over things at speeds
that would pretty much
assure
she made a giant mess of things if she
did.

Because
that would be easy to explain to everyone, wouldn’t it? Leave a car in the
middle of the road with a her shaped dent smashed into the hood or something.

It took
about a minute for her to get to the mall, which was fast, coming from Ed’s
house, but not exactly moving at speeds that the others couldn’t manage. Edom
at least. Lenore was even faster she thought, and of course, Bey was the master
of that. She tried for more though, and thought she was managing to do a little
better by the end. When she got to the mall, she found the shop totally empty.
It was only eight in the morning, but that was unusual.

Except
that it wasn’t really empty, when she checked. Cormack was there, bent over on
the counter, behind one of the silver mix freezers. When he saw her he groaned.

“About
time. I thought I was going to die here.” He stumbled away, heading toward the
back, but Eve moved in and touched his arm.

“Where
is everyone?”

He said
words, but they didn’t make any real sense. After a few seconds he groaned
again, and shuffled away, not being all that helpful at all. Eve grabbed his
arm though.

“Come on
Cormack… You can do better than that. I know it hurts, but it’s only pain.
Fight it and tell me what I need to know. It’s the right thing to do, plus, if
you do, I’ll…” She had been ready to offer to blow him, since that would have
worked for her, once upon a time. He was even a Vampire, so she thought she
could manage it without biting.

The fact
was though, that like her, Cormack was probably pretty much without a sex
drive. It was a Classic Vamp trait after all. Bribing him with money wouldn’t
do much either. The ten bucks she could probably spare wouldn’t really help him.

Suddenly,
she had a brainstorm.

“I know,
tell me and I’ll take a shift for you. I’ll get it cleared and everything and
you can get a day off? Maybe even two in a row?”

That was
enough, it seemed and the man, who was far older than she was, bothered to
fight the pain and lethargy for a bit.

“Lener,
wit Mages. Trble.” It was garbled, but she got the idea. Lenore was over with
the Mages. Because of the trouble. Probably from the day before?

“Got it.
I’ll set that day off up for you. Next week? Or do you want something
specific.”

“W’enevr.”
He stumbled away, looking like a cute little pale kid. A sleepy one. With
fangs. Well, those weren’t showing, but his eyes were mainly closed as he
headed back to the supply closet. She jogged ahead, pulling all of the supplies
out first. No doubt she’d want them, for the work she had to do that day. It
made for an ungainly pile in the back, near the soft sofa. It did look inviting,
but she knew better than to lie down and close her eyes.

It was
enough better that day than the one before that she decided not to be lazy
about it all. In a few more days she probably wouldn’t even want to sleep
again. A big part of that was probably down to the idea that her subconscious
mind hadn’t really learned to hide from the pain of the day by going dormant
yet. It made sense. Otherwise someone like Cormack, who was a lot older than
she was and not a wimp, should have been able to fight through it pretty
easily. Instead both he and Barb had fought just to walk in the daylight in the
early part of the morning.

She filed
that idea away, wondering if there was real truth to it or not, and started
making sure everything was clean and ready for the day. They needed to start a
new batch of frozen yogurt, which meant using the last of the living culture
for it.
That
meant using the last bit of the fresh and unsweetened stuff
to start a new culture, after mixing the rest of it into the moving freezer
that would turn it into what was essentially soft serve ice cream. Not that she
was ever going to say that out loud. Lenore would pitch a fit if anyone tried
to call it that. It was almost like she was truly offended by the comparison.

Still,
that lead to a need to clean up the mess of doing it, which in turn meant that
she noticed that the toppings bins needed to be cleaned. At Yoghurt World they
did most of those things from scratch. It was a real process, making the stuff,
chipping chocolate from a block with a rasp, breaking out a jar of homemade
maraschino cherries, and
then
opening a jar of store bought colored
sprinkles. They were bright, cheery and fake, since even Lenore wasn’t going to
make those things. They were pretty much without flavor and people expected
them to look a certain way that was hard to get at home.

Then,
using her nose for once, she realized that the cream was going, the heavy kind
they used for the thinner desserts. Thick things, like peanut butter, or
caramel got a topping made of light cream, which had a different texture to it.

She
dumped that down the sink, hoping that Lenore wouldn’t be upset about it. It
was wasteful, but the stuff really wasn’t going to be good for much. It could
even make people sick, which was a horrible idea for any business.

The
woman herself, looking annoyed, came over about fifteen minutes later, and
glanced at the place, almost as if she didn’t really care how it looked. That
was a lie though. It was one of her favorite things, having a clean and tidy
shop that was well stocked.

“Good. I
wasn’t certain you were coming this morning, after the events of last night.
Edom is across the way, with Bob and Lisa. I took the liberty of giving your
slave the day off? I truly just didn’t want him underfoot.”

It took
her a moment to get the idea that Marcus was her slave. That wasn’t true, but
she got the concept well enough.

“That’s
fine, I’m sure. I’ll call him later to make sure he isn’t getting into trouble.
Um… Did Ed tell you about the, uh, two male attackers?” She didn’t know what to
say about it, since a lot of people there could hear them speaking. Lenore,
obviously didn’t think that was going to be a problem.

“The
ones hidden in the back of your vehicle? Yes. I also received an interesting
phone call from Althea Sims. Something about having a car towed? Why didn’t you
use our service for that? Not that the reimbursement isn’t comparable, but from
now on I’d rather you use
our
chosen people for the task.” There was a
mock hard look, followed by a smile. “I do notice however, that you managed
well enough, and that really is the important thing, this time. Did you escort
the vehicle the whole time?”

“Yeah. I
rode with the guy, which is against Edom’s rules for me right now. Bey told me
why I needed to run everywhere, so I
get
it. I just hope that the
beating won’t be too public. That would be embarrassing. I knew I was breaking
the rules though. I just wasn’t going to let some hung over guy get away from
me with, you know, my car.” The bodies in the back, too. Mainly those, to be
honest.

Lenore
didn’t tell her that there wouldn’t be punishment for what she’d done though,
Eve noticed.

“Very
well. That’s between your master and yourself. I suggest addressing the problem
directly however. Hiding things won’t aid you in this. Too many beings know
what happened.”

She
nodded, feeling like a little kid called to her mother’s bedroom to entertain a
drug dealer. So, bad, afraid, and wondering how much her ass was going to hurt
the next day.

Eve
rallied though, because living in fear was exactly the opposite of what she
wanted for herself in life.

“Oh! I
offered to work some days for Cormack soon. A couple in a row, if that works? I
traded for information, about where you were. I know that might not be allowed
for a while, but if I can learn the paperwork stuff well enough…” She was
offering, more than anything else, and when Lenore’s hand came out she figured
it was time for beatdown two-point-oh. Instead it was just a comforting, if
cool hand on her arm.

“That
should be fine. In fact, why don’t I get you the book of forms and rules? You
can start reading through it. Later you can work on memorizing them all. The
shop looks good. I need to get back soon, but a call to the Council is required.
The young woman you captured last night has been compelled. Clearly by Human
magic, or at least it’s been made to seem that way. You will be pleased to know
that she wasn’t sent to target the club however, which is good news. No, her
orders and those given to the dead men, were to attempt to kill Troy Lopez,
specifically
.
That could mean anything however, from people wishing to harm our economic
standing in the area, to this being an attack on Zack, or even the Greater
Demon Finias. Or, possibly, even Mr. Lopez himself.”

Eve knew
her face was befuddle looking on that one.

“The
Mind Stealer? Why him? I know that he comes over for parties on occasion, and
is Keeley’s dad, but other than that…”

Lenore
shrugged.

“Troy
Lopez is his slave. Troy doesn’t know it, of course. If a person wished to
weaken Finias however, taking his servants away would be a good place to start.
Though it could be anything, including Troy simply kicking some Mage out of the
club at one point, and the man or woman deciding that a bit of revenge was in
order. It may even be over a woman, given his predilections. It would be a poor
plan however, to remove him from this setting. Too many very powerful beings
might well take exception to it.” There was a flare of real anger behind her
eyes, and Eve nodded, not pulling away or letting herself go truly still in
fear, even if she did kind of feel it suddenly.

“That’s
just the truth. That was a pretty big set up just to get him, too. A person
could just run up on him when he got home and shoot him, then drive off. So,
was it meant to be a statement? More to the point, was what happened to
me
connected to it?”

There
was a pause, and finally the ambassador nodded.

“I think
so. All three of the Humans from last night are known to frequent the same role
playing collective as the Vampires that came for you. The ones that attacked our
shop as well. Maggie Sims belongs to that group, as well as your slave, Marcus.
The boy that was killed for his wrongdoing yesterday? He too, is of that group.
Yes, it is over a hundred people strong, but that comes to over ten percent of
them being involved in things that have come to our attention in the last few
days.”

Eve
winced.

“Which
makes sense, but why take me? To get at Zack? To punish him? If that’s the
idea, then they need to learn more about Greater Demons. He
might
fight
if I’m killed, but he won’t let himself feel anything other than anger over
it.” That kind didn’t have to feel anything they didn’t want to. It was one of
their powers.

Lenore
knew that too, it seemed.

“Or…
It’s a long shot, but what if it isn’t about Zack, or even us, at all?”

Eve
thought about the whole thing, taking far longer than she probably should have
to work it all out. There was one person that was tied to them all, after a
fashion, wasn’t there?

“Bey? I
know that Maggie used to be his wife. Or, from what he said, still
is
.
He seems to trust her though. I guess she could be a bitter ex anyway?”

“Possibly.
It may be something different as well. Whatever it is, it’s pretty clear to me
that it keeps leading back to that single group of game players.”

Eve
could see that one, couldn’t she?