The Living and the Dead (Tyler G Book 3) (2 page)

It was still light out, after
all.

"Honey, I'm home!" He
was going for goofy, not expecting a response, but the air in front of him
stirred, and a girl suddenly appeared.

She had ash blonde hair, the
remains of a few freckles across her nose, and looked about fourteen. Ginger.
His girlfriend. One of the two women that called themselves that anyway. Also a
master Vampire, which was why she was up and around, when his band mates
weren't. It was, he thought, about noon. The hardest part of the day for her
kind.

"Tyler!
Oh
!" There
was a lot of hugging and no particular staring at his leg, even though it had
to have been noticed. "Come in! I didn't know what to do. You were just
gone. We all thought you were dead."

He nodded, hugged her again, and
then let Lucy act as a crutch as he got himself inside. It would be less
awkward that way. Not that there were neighbors outside to watch him. The place
was nicely isolated that way. He thought that Sparks wasn't too far off, but he
hadn't come in a car, or even a plane, so had never seen the road signs. In one
direction there was nothing for a long way, so the other probably held the
city.

It was kind of clear that she didn't
know the tale of his time away. There wasn't a lot to tell, but he decided to
do that sitting down.

"Hey, could someone get a
blanket or something for me? So I can rest on the sofa and not ruin the poor
thing? Bloody stump." He waved it around a bit, which got Ginger to focus
that way, her face a bit hard. She didn't seem scared though, or worried that
he was crippled for life.

Lucy patted the Vampire woman's
arm, bare flesh connecting. Drinking in all the information her form held, most
likely. That was a gift her kind had, after all.

"It will grow back. In a few
days now. Two really. I could speed that up, but I doubt it will be needed.
Would you be a love and get a throw for him?"

That didn't take long, since
Ginger was hard working and had super human speed when she wanted. Normally, it
being daytime, she should have been at work, which got him to glance at her
when she came back, and they all moved to the next room. The red thing she'd
gotten was thick and soft under him, as he settled into place.

"Shouldn't you be off
working or something? Not that I don't like seeing you. I just figured that I'd
have to dig everyone up. It's been a few weeks after all." Not that he
recalled most of that. To him it really seemed like about fifteen hours had
passed. The remains of the party were all packed up though, as he looked
around.

The Vampire girl smiled, her
teeth white, but with no unruly fang showing. It was kind of darling, really.

"Nope. I have today off. I
work a whole five days a week, like a regular person, and get the weekends off.
Felicia has been really sweet that way. She's the Ambassador here now. We have
a building set up in town, but Keeley let me stay here. Calley too, though
she's off at work, since, you know, she's in charge here and doesn't have half
the staff that us Vampires do. Do you need a pillow, or... Um, some soup?"

He nearly said no, since he
wasn't sick, but then realized that the purpose of her saying that wasn't so
that he'd feel better, but so she could take care of him. Pamper him a bit.
Because she'd been worried.

So he nodded at her, and smiled.

"That would be wonderful. I
should get my keyboard too, so I can work while I sit around being lazy. I'll
be fine. It wasn't the greatest way to spend quality time with my enemy, but it
turned out all right." It was part of his plan, not being the world's
whiniest dead man.

Though, before he was going to
get his soup, he apparently had to spill the beans about what had happened. It
was, he knew going to be the story of the day, he bet, so he tried to come up
with a shorthand for it.

"Kidnapped, stuck in a
magical cave to starve me, with a little boy as food. So I used a bit of sharp
rock to take off my head. The boy needed a snack, hence the leg." It was
nicely brief, and for some reason, other than a slight widening of her eyes,
enough for his girlfriend. For the time being anyway.

She leaned in, kissed him on the
cheek, and then dashed from the room, toward the kitchen.

"Oh, what kind of soup? We
have vegetable, and tomato?" Her voice was soft and very far away, but it
was clear that she was yelling so he could hear it. Her abilities that way far
outstripped his own, so he just spoke back, like she was standing right next to
him.

"Tomato, please. Thanks.
You're the best girlfriend, you know that?"

No sound came back that he could
hear, but hopefully it was near the right thing to say. He'd never had a real
girlfriend before, so was making that kind of thing up as he went. Even if he'd
had more experience, what was the right level of that sort of thing, when you
came back from being kidnapped? Tyler was willing to bet that there were no
real rules for that kind of thing.

Zack stood back, not fussing over
him, but Lucy kind of did, making sure that the couch he was on, which was soft
and a light tan color, was totally covered. Protected from the ooze that was
assembling itself into his new leg. That was a cool trick. A power, after a
fashion. Super healing on a level that was kind of neat. He'd always kind of
thought of himself as being a bit like Batman. Only without the money, or
fetish gear.

In a way he was probably a bit
more like Wolverine. Super healing as a power, more or less. No claws. If he'd
had those, taking his head off would have been a
lot
easier than it had
been.

His keyboard, a generic thing
that had been purchased at Wal-Mart, was in the other room, which meant that
Zack got it for him, and plugged it into the wall, then settled the thing
behind him, on the back of the sofa, balanced precariously.

"You should eat first. Don't
forget to watch T.V. or do something for fun too. Working all the time is a
good way to waste a life. Play too." Then, after a moment, the guy who was
his boss, and as far as Tyler knew,
only
worked, all the time, glared at
Ty's mom.

She gave the other man, who she
was sort of dating, even if he hadn't been told about it, a cute look.

"I suppose that's a good
idea, Tyler. You should take an hour or two a day for yourself, and not just
work all the time. The
rest
should be filled with useful things. There
needs to be a balance to that kind of thing, and you don't need sleep." It
was all true, but also, no doubt, his new orders.

There was no choice for him but
to follow them. That meant... Actually, it meant that Zack was being very nice,
making certain that he got some kind of time off. If he'd been told to be happy
working all the time, he would have been. Now he got to do other things, too.

Just for fun.

A few minutes later he had a
large bowl of soup, piles of saltines to go with it and a spoon. Digging in he
savored the flavor. It did taste of a tin can, underneath the soup part, but
that was fine. It was the sort of thing that he'd grown up eating. They'd been
poor, after all, so knock off canned soup was a staple for him.

"Wait... We weren't poor though,
were we?"

Lucy coughed a bit, and managed
to look a tiny bit embarrassed.

"I didn't want you to grow
up to be spoiled, so I faked that part of things. Besides, pretending to work
double shifts all the time let me get my real work done. I know, I lied. Sorry.
Greater Demons weren't a known thing back then. For that matter we still
aren't, really. Humans can barely keep in mind that Vampires are real. Even
after all the years of being told that by their stories and shows. It's both
annoying and useful at the same time. Now,
scootch
, oh son of mine. I'm
going to stay with you for a while. I was very worried that you were being
abused by that bitch. Especially when I found out that she'd been pretending to
be that effeminate feminist fellow that shot you."

A spoonful of soup and damp
cracker went to his mouth as Tyler thought about that one. After he swallowed,
the warm liquid moving down to his stomach a thing he could feel, he spoke.

"That
had
to have
been on purpose, didn't it? I mean Will, The Storm, had fought for the gun with
that other man, but managed to get me shot three times in the middle while
doing it? Before I'd just figured that it was just bad luck, but now..."
There was more to eat, so he did.

Lucy nodded at him, and then
Zack.

"Agreed. It was a set up.
Probably meant to force me to tell you about your true nature. Little did she
know that I was already planning to. What she was thinking however, I don't
know. You weren't going to turn on me simply because you're special. How would
being
better
than other people turn you against me anyway?" This
was said to Zack, who shook his head.

"I think that the matter
there is more about The Storm being insane than anything else. She wants Tyler
to be hers, but can't simply steal him, so is working to turn him against you.
That won't really work. I mean, if he'd gone revenant in that cave, you would
have simply ordered him to forget it when he got out anyway." There was a
shrug then.

Tyler winced.

"Fuck. I didn't eat that
kid, did I?" It made more sense than that he'd cut off his own head, in
the end, didn't it? Before he could stew on the idea, Zack shook his head.

"Nope. I can take you to see
the boy if you need. I was just pointing out that no matter what, Glindlyth
hadn't really set things up so that there was a clear win condition for
herself. That could mean a lot of different things however. From her being so
far gone that she hadn't realized she couldn't win, to her having a totally
different plan altogether. It's
probably
that one. This is a little
obvious otherwise, and even the insane Greater Demons aren't fools."

"Oh. Well, thanks. Now I'm
sitting here wondering if I ate the boy and six like him as snacks. I mean,
you'd lie to me about it if I had, wouldn't you?"

Rather than be helpful or nice,
the man nodded at him. Firmly, and with a small smile.

"Yep. It isn't the case, but
from where you are at the moment you have no way of knowing that. Even if I
brought a boy here, you wouldn't be able to be certain it was him. You could be
made to think anything on the matter. All you have is my word on the
issue."

Tyler laughed a little then.

"From the man who told me
not to trust
any
Greater Demon?"

"Bingo! Not that I want you
to live in self-doubt. Now, on those words, and knowing that nothing anyone
says will make you feel any better, short of ordering you not to think about
it, I'm going to take off. See you in a few days, Ty? Wednesday night?"
That was when he was supposed to be working.

"Yeah. See you then. I'll
try to call, if I can't make it." Ty looked at his leg, but no one
mentioned the thing.

Then he waved his spoon, not
having a free hand, and Zack left the room. Ginger sat across from Lucy and
himself, in an oversized and comfy looking chair. She perched, looking worried
still, which was about a Greater Demon being in the room with them. It got
worse
after Zack left, but it had been there before too.

When he finished his soup, she
hopped up.

"Would you like more? Or
something else? Do you need something with more calories, or protein in it?"

Tyler nearly said no, but next to
him the glasses wearing schoolgirl nodded.

"That would be good. I'll
help. The more solid food he has while healing, the less energy it takes from
me. One of us needs to eat. In fact, I think I'll order some things in. Chinese?"
She said it to him, and sounded like Lucy used to, while he was growing up.
About once every two months or so they'd ordered something like that or gone
out to eat.

That one was his favorite, which
meant that she was trying to distract him. Probably from the idea that he'd
been off eating people instead of heroically dead like he remembered. If that
was the case... Well, then he still needed to
act
like it wasn't. There
was no point in surviving if he was going to go around acting like a giant baby
all the time.

"Sounds good,
actually." Ginger got up, to get a phone book. That they had one, an
actual thing made of yellow paper and with a heavy, glossy cover, surprised
him.

Really, he hadn't seen one in
long enough that he'd kind of thought that no one made them anymore. There
wasn't just one, but six places that delivered available to them, however.

Lucy explained, as she got up to
dial.

"Sparks is basically
connected to Reno. That someone as young as Keeley managed to get it is...
Well, my guess is that she slept with Gregor for it. That, or traded something
better than her behind. Slaves most likely, that being the kind of thing she
does. It means that there's a lot of good food around here however. They even
have a few decent Mexican places." That was her favorite.

His mother's, at least. Tyler didn't
know if that was real or not however.