The Living and the Dead (Tyler G Book 3) (6 page)

The Vampire nodded, then shook
his head a little bit.

"Fuck. The Snowflake is
coming here? I know that Miss Harris said that she knew her, but I figured that
it was just from training. Felicia worked with her, too. The whole thing sounds
hard, doesn't it?"

Tyler could see that. Horrible
torture and for the first days or weeks an almost drugged disorientation, until
they all adapted. During the day. The night time was better.

Still, it wasn't his place to
comment on that.

"You'll do well. It was why
you were chosen." They were just pulling into a large parking lot. The
whole thing was about the size of Westfield, but held more than one building in
the complex and each one had at least five levels, meaning the whole thing was
much bigger inside than the other place was, as to what could be held there.

It was, in short, kind of
impressive. Then, The Mistress of Souls put the whole thing together. Evan
waved at it.

"The Center. The largest and
most complete embassy facility for non-Humans in the known world. Not just our
part of it, the whole thing. There are hundreds of groups represented here.
Even regular Humans, like the Mages. You know that though, being their
representative. We want the big building. There." It was large and white,
with a slightly reflective sheen to the outside.

Pretty, but he was willing to bet
it had to do with some kind of solar process, rather than just seeming classy.

Evan pulled to the very front,
where there were two armed guards. Neither was strictly normal looking however.
At least if Human was going to be the standard for that. Given that was
probably bigoted, he gave each of the beings a nod. One was kind of reptilian,
had blue scales and a nifty tail, and the other was a female creature that had
white fur. She didn't have much as far as a chest went, but made up for that
with a tail. It was smaller and more fluffy than her fellow guard's.

"Hi! Tyler Gartner,
Coalition of Nations." He didn't know if he needed I.D. or not, but the
answer came a half second later when the Lizard man, who was at least seven
feet tall, bowed. Shortly after that the white furred woman did the same. She
was about the same size, and he realized, was a Trollienkeine.

Or more exactly was very related
to them. As far as he knew they didn't have tails. Hilda, his friend, had
mentioned that she had to shave a lot though, and this would explain why that
was.

Both of them had matching black
outfits on.

The blue one spoke gently, his
voice a lot higher than Ty would have guessed it to be.

"Gartner. Be welcomed to
this place. We can call for a guide to lead you to your hall?"

"I... Actually, I need to
find Morisy? I think that would be the Shifter Embassy. Is that possible?"

It turned out that it was, and
the request was called in on very tiny, but efficient seeming, walky-talkies,
or cell phones. It was hard to tell, since the things were little more than ear
pieces for the large people at the door. They didn't let him in, and Evan moved
the truck. Still, it took long enough to get things around that the Vampire was
able to run up on foot, after, presumably, finding a good parking space. The
lot wasn't full after all, and was all outside, rather than having a covered
garage.

The person that came for him
wasn't anyone he knew. She was a woman, and had on a blue skirt and a matching
blazer. Her hair was a dyed red color, but looked professional enough. Her
youthful face was pale, and she had piercings however. That was a little out of
place. He would have guessed her as being about twenty-four from a distance.
When she got closer though, that estimate went up.

She was dead, after all, and that
would throw things off a lot.

It was cute, but she bowed too,
like the people on the door had.

"Mr. Gartner, sir? I'm
Felicia. Ambassador for the Vampires here. Everyone else is trying to set up a
proper welcome for you, but Ginger said that if we took too long you'd probably
just walk in anyway."

He smiled, and waved to her, left
handed. If they wanted bows they could wait a few days. His balance wasn't
allowing for that at the moment.

"Thanks. Yeah, we need to
get to Morisy? You know about that?" He just meant to ask if she could
find the right place, but the Vampire started to walk, very slowly, allowing
him to hop along behind her. The floor inside the place was all carpeted, which
had to be a bitch to take care of in a place that large. It did look nice. The
place had a homey feel to it. Decorated like people would be living there,
which, for all he knew, was the case. It seemed large enough.

The Vamp lady led, he hopped
along in the middle and Evan walked behind, still seeming nervous about
something. Given the reaction at the door, and from Felicia, he was kind of
starting to suspect that had something to do with an awesome Tyler being there.
If so that probably meant that there was a propaganda machine around someplace
that was helping him out. Otherwise it made no sense.

Giving a look back over her
shoulder, the woman in front seemed to take a breath.

"The Elth Ambassador
Summerhold came in earlier and started pushing people around, as if we were all
his personal servants. There was a bit of a misunderstanding there, since
Summerhold is a Prince of his people, and kind of thought for some reason that
he was going to be in charge here? That isn't the case, so several of the
others took umbrage at the mistreatment. Not that I blame them. I nearly handed
that idiot his ass, too. Still, we're not supposed to kill people here, so the
Shifter's Second called you in to handle it. That..." She walked for a
bit, and pointed to the elevators along the center of the large space they were
in. There was a help desk, or security thing, off to the left. It took up most
of the far wall. The whole place was vast however.

When they got into the little
box, which was, he noticed, not that small for that kind of thing, the woman
kept speaking. Her voice dropped a lot however as they rose.

"We aren't supposed to do
that. Technically it's a breach, calling you in. Ginger told me about what was
going on with you, so this is a big deal. Do you want us to handle this?"

"By us you mean the Vampires
in general, or are we just going to get Evan to go in and fix it all?" He
glanced over at the man, who had light colored eyes, now that they weren't
blood red, he noticed. An off blue color that had a lot of gray in them.
"Good call. Evan and I will see if we can fix this. Hopefully without an
actual fight. Morisy mentioned that there was a challenge and that I was
supposed to come and handle that? It will be awkward for me, in that case. My
leg is only about half re-grown. It will be another day or so before it's back
to normal."

That seemed to be about right
too. On the good side, it was just coming back, filling out and getting longer.
There was no itching or anything, just regeneration. Which was, he had to
consider, pretty cool. True, he couldn't die properly, and might have eaten
that kid and then been forced to forget it, but he
did
have some
abilities that were worth noting. You had to focus on the positive from time to
time if you were going to keep on moving in life.

Felicia just nodded at him, as if
that was enough to explain anything.

"There was some talk of
that, but I think everyone got her calmed down enough to prevent bloodshed. I'm
sure that you and... Evan can deal with this." She looked a bit hurt, and
the other Vampire seemed slightly scared.

Tyler took his own turn to nod as
they reached the fourth floor and the doors opened.

"Don't worry, I'm not saying
that you aren't good enough, Ambassador. I'm just pretending that this is such
a non-issue that me and your, Evan is what, your third in command here?" He
looked at Felicia, who smiled and nodded.

"It isn't official, but
that's about right. It will be, if he can make it through the next weeks."
There was a cryptic air about her then, and Ty rolled his eyes as he hopped
after her, using his cane. It was practically flashing as he moved, the shiny
dark wood looking refined. It would if he had on nicer shoes. Shoe. If he had
on a nicer
shoe
.

The thought got him to smile a
bit. Felicia seemed to think that was about her cleverly not explaining to Evan
what was coming. Tyler just followed, speaking softly.

"It's a big opportunity, doing
that. What did Ginger call it? Daylight training? I heard that it's kind of the
fast track to promotion, if you can hack it. She suggested you first, so that
means that she believes in you, which is a great sign." He looked back a
bit, and then stopped, since doing that was starting to over balance him.

Evan nodded, and moved along side
of him keeping pace. Like they were the actual team.

"Is that why I'm getting the
honor of getting between a Dragon Shifter and an Elth High Lord? Hurrah. I'm
thrilled, I'm sure."

Tyler tried to shrug, but it didn't
work, given the movements he was making. That
was
about the right level
of enthusiasm for the job at hand, so he nodded.

"Remember, if they won't
listen to reason, we both just pull out. Morisy first, I guess?" He didn't
know where they were headed, but Felicia, acting like her secret hadn't been
spoiled, nodded and pointed at a set of doors near the end of the hallway.

"Over here, I think. I don't
know where everyone is yet, but I can hear the right voices." She kept
walking, and spoke in a conversational tone. "Mr. Gartner is here. From
the Coalition of Nations. For Morisy?"

There was a bit of activity down
the hall, and a small form in a brown skirt and blouse came out, her sensible
shoes making slight patting sounds as she jogged down the hallway. Her rust red
hair was still short, and the glasses made her look like a nerd, but the Bat
woman was smiling in a way that made her whole face light up.

"Ty! Over here! Things
are..." She stopped in front of him, glanced down at his little leg, and
shook her head. "Fucked up, comes to mind? I didn't know that my second in
command was going to try and go over my head like this. There will be words
about it, but later, once the storm has passed. What do you want to do first?"

He was young enough that having
sex came to mind, but smart enough to get that it wasn't happening until he
fixed a few things. Instead he tried to pretend that he knew what the hell he
was doing, making stuff up as he went along.

"First, Evan and I should
speak to Morisy? Then the Elth Ambassador Summerhold. Hopefully a few simple
explanations will work there. If not... Well, let's not borrow trouble?"

There was a grimace, one that
made it clear that just quietly explaining things wasn't going to be enough
this time. That was most likely the case, since no one sent people around to
this kind of thing if they were hot headed morons.

He didn't think.

The hobble to the right office
took longer for him than for Calley or the others. Felicia actually took
several steps back at the door though, when the others looked up, and gestured
at Evan. She didn't say anything though, being subtle that way it seemed.

It wasn't too hard to find Morisy
however, since the lady, and deep manly voice on the phone or not, she was a
girl, was standing there naked, with scales, and breasts. Also wings on her
back. She seemed to be about twelve feet tall in her current form too, and had
a nicely fanged face. Her overall color was more or less yellow, but it was
pretty being nearly a golden orange over the wings and tinged with green near
her large three digit feet and hands. Over all it wasn't exactly sexy looking,
being too different for that, but it was clear that she still had Human-like
girl parts. As in they could have gotten it on, if he were a porn star, and she
was willing.

Over in the corner, on an office
chair were the remnants of clothing. Stuff that would belong to a much smaller
person, he bet. Shape shifting was neat that way, apparently.

"Hi! I'm Tyler. You called
for me?" He didn't mention the why of it, as the woman, giant as she was,
stared at him openly. Her eyes were slit, but not like a cats. It was very
different than that.

"I did, Gartner of The
Nations." The low voice boomed, and then there was a sigh from the woman,
as she started to shrink. It was a fast process, and that she could do it at
all probably meant it had been hours since her last change. She also seemed to
think that him being there meant she, personally, wasn't going to have to
fight. Otherwise she should have kept the bigger, more battle ready, form. They
still had to wait for several minutes, but in the end, after shrinking and
morphing like melted wax for a while a rather pleasant looking lady stood
there.

She was black, not yellow at all,
and as naked as you could want. Unfortunately for Tyler, that meant locking his
gaze onto her eyes, since she was of ample enough proportions to be distracting
otherwise.

"That Elth prick called me a
slave
. Then he ordered me to move his things for him. I tried not to let
it get to me and just explained the situation, but the little bastard just kept
at
it. I was going to kill him, but I figured it would be better if I
asked for help first. Though, if you don't mind waiting a few hours, I can
change back and do that anyway?"