The Living and the Dead (Tyler G Book 3) (18 page)

"A bit more? That isn't bad,
but you can do more than that. This is nowhere near what you need."

The trick there was the power
that was needed. The amount of energy needed was higher than what he'd been
using, which meant that he had some work to do. After a bit he gave in and
pushed the magic up, which got Eve to grin and speak in a normal voice.

"Walk with me. Around the
block here." She moved at a brisk place, but it was
just
walking as
far as he could tell. They moved through the side gate, but just walked as far
as he could tell. It was light out, if only just barely, so he could see the
world.

Eve spoke to him the whole time, casually.

"This is... Oh, about a
tenth of the speed I can actually go. Just to give you an idea. You can throw
more power at it, but what you need to really be doing is using your focus to
do the work. You can do this with almost no magic, now that you have the trick.
For me this hurts. I can handle it, but there's a lot of pain. How about
you?" She was placid enough, even if agony was there for her.

Ty shrugged, and tried to
concentrate on the concept of speed.

"Nothing like that. I need
to... Use less power. I think."

That got a nod, and while he
tried, it was harder to do while he moved along. She worked back to the yard,
in the back of the place, and waved, slowing back to normal. Tyler followed
easily enough, cutting the magic first.

Eve winked at him.

"Not too shabby, kimosabe. Practice
without using magic, unless I'm with you. You should be able to get some
effects without it. Even regular people can, so it's worth learning. That's the
basis of magic. Really, more than that. You did really well. We can start on
some other tricks too, after you have these things down. Are you going to go
into the embassy today?"

He hasn't been thinking about
doing that, since he didn't have a car, but he could jog in, so that wasn't an
excuse. It wasn't that far away.

"Sure? Did you need me for
something in particular?"

"Nope. Not me. It's just
that everyone there kind of thinks of you as the head man, so showing up for
some office hours would be nice. Let people meet with you. Cry about how
wronged they are and all that. It was suggested to me as your mentor that I set
that up. Also, eat more. You used about ten thousand calories worth of energy
in the last few hours, so you'll need to eat about twice that, since the energy
you give back to Anne is less than what you take in. There's always a loss that
way, between any energy source and its use. So go do that."

He nodded at her and headed back
toward the back door of the house.

"That always messes with me.
How the Greater Demons have all those names. I mean, to me she's mom, or
maybe
Lucy. Darla is Darla, or now also Allison. Though that part kind of freaks me
out. I... You know the thing Keeley did?" He'd told her the whole sad
story, including his worries and the sense of violation, but about half the
people that had heard the tale had just laughed at him. Like getting laid that
way was all just fun and games.

Eve shook her head.

"
That
was fucked up.
If she'd been a guy people would get it. If a man said to a woman that she
could take it from him,
or
be killed, everyone would
know
it was
rape.
She
knows, by the way. I had a talk to her about it. By the way,
she
knows what she did. She just doesn't care, because she meant to do it. Greater
Demon. Even the good ones can be assholes. It's kind of the definition of the
term. I'm here to talk though, if you need?" She looked away and then
shook her head slowly. "I've been raped enough in my life to know what
it's like. It wasn't your fault. It's hard when no one believes you. I do.
Keeley
does. The trick there is getting her back and not dying at the same time."

That got him to blow out a big
puff of air, and then keep moving.

"Thanks. I'll live. It was
more about what she'd said really. I guess that on some level I kind of think
that Lucy would do something like that, even though she never has. Not that I
remember, anyway. That... I don't own my own mind. It... I guess it kind of
bothers me."

Eve patted his shoulder, and left
him at the back door.

"Well, get through it. I
can't fix that for you. You might do it yourself, if you can learn the right
things. Have you talked to Tarsus lately?"

He hadn't, since he kind of
figured that the Demon would let him know if he had anything. Bothering him
wouldn't speed that up, he bet.

"Go, eat mass calories. I
have a thing for the next few nights. I should be in and out. I need to go with
Bey to Toronto and deal with... You know, can you get some time off? You should
come along too. It might have to do with your favorite group of
individuals."

He felt slightly baffled.

"Little people? They
are
pretty awesome as a group. I've never met one that gave me a single problem."
Which was true in a lot of ways, so there was no sarcasm to the words.

"True, but
I
meant feminists.
That's their secret headquarters for North America. For the Men's Rights
Movement too, which is probably a backlash thing. It's all a waste of time, but
some of them have been coming after our people, Vampires, so we need to go
visit and make sure some college girls realize that pushing the undead might
just be the wrong idea. We'll probably have to kill some of them."

Tyler sighed.

"No. Not if they're
Humans... Which is why you really want me to go? To try and keep them
alive?"

"Bingo! You're so smart.
Now, if you can do that be ready to leave tonight. You'll need to get there I
think. Get with Zack and work that out? I don't think you can run that distance
without using too much magic yet. Work on that, since we're running back.
Walking really. You got that part pretty well. Ninety-nine-point nine percent
of us try to physically run at first. You're ahead of the game that way. You'll
need to be about five times faster at the very least, or I'll go insane trying
to hobble along with you. Like a slow turtle. Barely getting anywhere."

There was a pat on his back, and
then the girl moved, a flare of movement, now familiar to him, coming just
before she vanished.

He grinned.

"Food time." Thanks to
Zack he had a lot now, though for some reason the guy thought that he should
spend big parts of his day cooking from scratch. It was an interesting idea, so
he tried to hold the concept of a time distortion field around him, pushing it
as hard as he could, without adding anything to it magically speaking. It
wasn't that helpful, but he did seem to be moving a little faster than he
normally would have. About twice as fast. It wasn't even close to being enough.

Firing up the waffle iron that
had shown up a week before, he made some batter, melted some butter and heated
up a small pot of strawberry jam. It was tasty that way. He had to pour butter
over the whole thing, since twenty-thousand calories was hard to eat, even if
he didn't feel full at any point. The food pretty much vanished from inside
him. Like magic, actually.

Ty wasn't really sure, but it
probably was that kind of thing. Really, he didn't think he was capable of
digesting it normally, so it had to be turning to energy directly in some way.
How that worked, he didn't understand, but he was pretty certain that Zack had
to do things the same way, more or less. The man was thin, but ate all the
time. Like Tyler was at the moment, only every few hours.

Neither of them was running to
the bathroom all the time either, so it was different than what a Human would
have going on.

The food was eaten, but it got
hard after the first half of it was down. He
wasn't
full. He also wasn't
hungry. Not for waffles. There was a desire to eat, but only Human flesh, which
was both disgusting to him,
and
sounded
so
good. Boredom set in.
Ty loved the taste of food, of course, but the amount just hit him as being too
much.

Fighting through it, he managed
to get the stuff inside him, but didn't know how Zack managed it all the time.
It was boring. That surprised him, but it was the truth.

He could eat all he wanted, and
more, and that was too much of a good thing.

Still he got through it, since
starving Lucy was the last thing he wanted to do in life. She was letting him,
her animated corpse slave, the one she treated like a son, learn to use
powerful magic. The only thing she'd asked was that he didn't use too much
energy doing it. Giving something back was worth the extra effort. She
shouldn't have to suffer for that.

It was very early in the day, and
a Thursday, so he called Zack about getting to Toronto that night. The cute guy
picked up on the second ring, since it was his cell phone.

"Zack Hartley."

"Hey Zack. Ty here." He
didn't know what to say, but
Zack
had some things it seemed.

"I guess it's time for you
to get rid of my parents? I have things ready for them. We can do that later.
Call it seven tonight? Here?"

Tyler stopped for a second, taken
by surprise.

"Okay. I can be there. Can
you drop me off in Toronto after that? Eve wants my help with some feminists
there. Apparently they decided to take on the Vampire patriarchy, and that is
not the world's most sensible idea?" He chuckled a bit. "I really
don't know what's going on. I don't want to put them down. I mean,
most
of them aren't like the ones that we had here." They couldn't be.

If that was the case, they
probably wouldn't be allowed to be a group. You could only kidnap so many
people before that kind of thing got you a bad reputation.

Zack made a sound that seemed
pleasant enough.

"That's true enough. Hating
people based on things they can't help is always wrong. You can't work with
people that start out with derision. No one will listen to you. So, you'll
bring Tina and Darren? I can trade getting you to Toronto. Round trip for
that?"

"Nope. I have to run back, I
guess. That should be interesting. I should get with Lucy first, though the
point is to do it without using much magic. I'm not ready yet. I guess I get
until we need to come back to learn that trick?"

Zack laughed, but his words were
supportive.

"Awe inspiring Ty. If Eve
says you can do it, then you can. I agree, get with Lucy, in case she needs to
make arrangements for extra power. I hear camp is over in a few days. From what
she's told me it seems that she has a plan coming together as to getting The
Storm taken care of. That will go well, no doubt. Things like that always
do." Even Ty heard the thick sarcasm in the words.

The phone was hung up, but he got
the idea, he needed to have everything ready at seven. First he had to go and
see if anyone really wanted to chat with him at the new embassy complex. His
Vampy mentor had suggested that, and while it hadn't been an order, it probably
wasn't a huge mistake. He was willing to bet it wouldn't be a lot of people
really. Especially if they didn't know he was there.

A quick change, and a comb, got
him as ready as he was going to be, looks-wise. Then he walked to the right
place, trying to bend time around him without using any power. It was hard to
tell if it was really working. It felt like it was, but there was nothing to
measure it by. A few cars passed him, going fifty or so on the road beside him.
Slower as he got closer to town.

They
seemed
to be moving
slower than that. A lot, actually, which got him to block out most of the
world, and try to hold the right concept harder. Until it became the only thing
he was thinking about. That worked demonstrably. The cars held in place nearly,
passing him as he walked, but he was able to nearly keep up with a red Civic.
He knew that was what the make was, having a lot of time to read the name on
the back.

Sure it wasn't Eve-like Vampire
speed, but
he
wasn't using anything other than mental power to do it, he
didn't think. He'd been going a lot faster with her earlier, on their walk, but
this was a bit different. He was replacing clarity for power and making it work.
Right until he got distracted and lost his train of thought, being impressed
with himself as he was.

Snorting, he started again, and
got himself to the front door of the right building. Today the guards were
different, since it wasn't his big white Trollienkeine friend, and her blue
lizard buddy. On the good side, the one on the left was a Vampire. One of Eve's
crew. The youngest of them, who was a guy named Sylvester, of all things. In
life he'd been of mixed race, and that gave him a bit of color now, if probably
not as much as he'd once had.

He'd also clearly been a body
builder. He was about six-four and weighed about twice what Tyler did himself.
All of it lean and hard. It was a good look, given everything.

The other guard was a mushroom.
At least that was the impression the being gave. If it had a gender, he
couldn't guess at it. The head was like the top of a red mushroom that had
white spots, fins on the underside, and no eyes that could be discerned. Its
body was smooth, but had arms and legs. It nearly didn't seem real to him, but
he bowed to them both, not wanting to risk insulting the creature by touching
it with a hand shake.