Dead Certain (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 3) (2 page)

David spoke then, sighing pretty
well at her.

“You know, back in my day the new
kids were all just insufferable pains in the ass that wanted to kill you, and
take over the world. Now we have…
You
.”

Eve nodded at him, and folded the
towel before setting it on the marble counter top.

“So, still insufferable and
pushy? Annoying, and really, really hot?” There was a grin with it.

He froze for a bit, and then
nodded.

“All true. I was actually
thinking
scary
, to be totally honest, though. You get your arms and legs
blown off by a Vampire that The Bey told us he doubted
he
could defeat
in battle, and drive her away, saving hundreds of lives. Then you re-grow your
stems, and manage to move so fast when I toss things at you that I can’t even
see you moving. To answer your question though, the reason
I
can’t do
those things is because I’m a little girl. That should be clear, by comparison
if nothing else. Ask anyone.”

Eve shrugged. It just wasn’t
true. If the man, the Vampire, was that big of a waste of space, he wouldn’t
have been working at an embassy. You had to be a bad ass just to get an apron
put on you. Being trusted to work the night shift, alone, well that meant he
was expected to become something special one day.

“
Bull
. Tell you what, I’ll
stay with you all day, and you can start working on that? Yeah, it hurts like a
mother fucker. I won’t lie about it. You know that one, since we
all
do,
but things are getting real around here, in case you didn’t notice? Being dead
during daylight hours is a huge liability now. A year ago it wasn’t a big thing,
but if the Humans turn on us, and I have it on good authority that it’s the
working plan, then you’re going to want to be alive and awake from now on.
Still, let me get a shower first? You won’t be that useful today, but um… Could
you get a call in to Nikki? The local Proctor? She started working on this with
me, staying up, then I had a bit of a personal setback, which screwed up the
schedule.” She nearly felt bad about it, for a short period of time.

Not that Nicole had any real
reason not to keep up with things, past the first day, or that the others
shouldn’t have seen to it. Then,
Eve
hadn’t suggested it either, had
she? No, she’d just sat in the back, consumed with the idea of revenge, and the
fear that she’d never be able to really be whole again at all. She wasn’t
really yet, but it would come. She hoped.

Her power, her personal agency,
had been stripped away from her, and that wasn’t a thing she was willing to
allow. For that alone, a certain Vampire and the Greater Demon that had
enslaved her were going to die.

Oh, she knew it wasn’t fair,
killing Maggie for it. She was trapped, and her ability to resist was gone too.
In a lot of ways it had to be worse than what Eve had felt. The only way for a
person to get free of a Greater Demon that held their will, what people called
owning another’s soul, was for the Greater Demon to die. Not just be knocked
out or made a little uncomfortable either. They had to go all the way down.

Some of them could come back even
from that, but she couldn’t see it as a great idea with Fram. After all, if she
managed it, by some miracle, taking him down like that, bringing him back would
just give him a second chance to come for her.

Would he be reasonable enough to
see that revenge was stupid and a waste of time, once her goals had been reached?
She didn’t really know. If Fram had been a Human man, or the Mage he’d
pretended to be, then the answer would have been no, almost all the time. If
he’d been a Vampire, then she’d be dead already, not having survived being
weakened for so long.

Great Demons though, they were
often really sensible about things, and didn’t always hold a grudge. Some of
them could, if they were insane, or if it was logical to remove a long term
threat, but she just didn’t know what Fram would do, if she killed him and let
him come back. Not that she had a clue how to do that last part.

Kill him, and work out some kind
of healing, to bring him back? Could she do that? Healing yourself was one
thing, but another person? Other people had that kind of skill, but she’d never
heard of a Vampire with it. Then, it wasn’t a battle ready ability, so maybe it
was out there, but no one bothered to chat about it? Really, they might not
even know it existed, if they did have it. Vampires didn’t try to fix people
very often, did they?

David the Vampire, good looking,
and trim enough to be a catch if anyone was interested, groaned a bit. It was a
sad sound, she decided.

Pitiful.

“Awww. Do I
have
to?”
There was a slight bit of petulance to the tone, but it was mainly playful.

“Yup. You and me in an hour, get
Nikki out for it. I’ll be back.” She moved then, barefoot, walking into a field
of white hot pain that moved through her entire being the whole time she used
her speed. On the good side she didn’t have to physically run the whole time.

That part was ridiculously easy,
actually. She didn’t even get out of breath, if she tried doing
that
,
without using her special powers for the jog.

As much as she could Eve pushed
and pulled herself through the world, the light of the sun daring to creep up
at her, over the edge of the world, blinding her as she traveled. It was a real
skill, not hitting anything harder than it could take, moving her body faster
than two feet on the ground could cause her to go normally. It was like a
combination of a slow jog and swimming, really. She hid from the cars that were
on the road as they passed, even though people knew that Vampires, and other
things, existed now. It was good practice for one thing, and for the other she
didn’t want to cause anyone to crash, distracted by her as they would no doubt
be. Especially men.

She’d caused more than a few car
accidents just walking around when she was a
regular
girl, so it wouldn’t
be fair to add in Vampire powers to the mix now. The poor guys wouldn’t stand a
chance. She smiled about that line of thought, since she’d met a lot of women
that made her feel like she should walk around with a bag over her head all the
time. Some of them worked at the mall, too, so it wasn’t like she was never
going to see them again. It was healthy, remembering that, since getting a big
head at this point in her life would probably have her ending up dead. Baby
Vamps that got full of themselves didn’t last long, and she wasn’t even a year
old yet. Not from the time of her death, which was when Vampires started
counting.

Instead of going back to Edom’s
place, where she actually lived, she stopped in at Troy’s house. She had some
clothing there, and he would be home, she thought. She wasn’t totally certain
what day of the week it was, but being that he worked nights, as the manager of
a dance club, he’d be back. She knocked on the door though, since it was just
possible that he’d have company over. The guy was nice enough looking, clean,
and managed to hold steady employment in a down economy, so it was a thing that
could happen. They used to date, or at least have sex occasionally, but Eve
wasn’t going to let that ruin their friendship now. She’d still do him after
all, and her lack of real interest in that kind of thing, physically being
involved with someone, just meant she didn’t feel all that much like being
jealous if he found someone else.

He probably would, if he didn’t
become a Vampire first himself.

Troy was the slave of a Greater
Demon though, even if he didn’t know it. If he died to become a Vamp, then that
would be taken away, which might not be allowed.

It was a point that she hadn’t
considered before really. What if she killed Maggie and brought her back? Death
broke the link, going either way. She
thought
that was the case, anyway.
Killing Fram might be the more certain way of getting it done, since it would
probably be easier to get him back, but she was nearly certain that killing him
and surviving it would be beyond her. It probably always would be. Not that she
wouldn’t be willing to die to get that done, if she had to.

Still, it was a possible option,
wasn’t it?

How could she kill something that
was undead, and bring it back?

Blinking, she understood that one
without even having to concentrate on it. It was one of her personal fears
after all. If someone killed all of your energy sources, and prevented you from
getting another, you’d eventually starve, even if no damage was done. If a Vampire
got close enough to death, and was given some energy, just in time…

Well, she didn’t know if she
could do that one. Even if it were possible, it would be pretty hard to just
trap Maggie Sims, and kill all her sources like that. Maybe if she kept blinding
her? When they’d fought, Eve had, rather desperately, managed to pluck out the
other woman’s left eye, which had gotten her to run off. The burning had
stopped first, if she remembered correctly. Did that mean anything, like she
needed to see in order to use her powers, or was it that even for a Vampire,
your eye suddenly jumping out of your head was freaking insane and scary?

If she needed her eyes to aim her
flame power, or use it at all, then that might work.

Then she’d just have to keep the
other woman blind until she passed away.

It sounded easy, and it just
couldn’t be at all.

On the other hand, running up on
her from behind, really fast, and vaporizing her head might work too. That
would end the link, and be a lot less work. It was probably more certain too.
If she got fancy with things, and failed, she’d
die
this next time.
There was simply no way she was going to set up a fair fight with either of the
beings she wanted dead. Doing that would end up with her losing, if not being
enslaved herself.

Fram had told her, several times,
that he wasn’t The Mistress of Souls, able to take anyone, even on the fly, and
that was probably true. Keeley was kind of a bad ass when it came to taking
over people against their will, from the sound of it. She’d never heard anyone
claim that Fram was special that way. Or in
any
way, particularly. That
just meant he kept his skills hidden though, most likely. Each of the Greater
Demons seemed to be particularly good at one thing or another. True, some of
those things would be music, or art, or even medicine, but not having heard
what he was good at just meant he could surprise her. Any Greater Demon could
do that though. Probably at any time they chose.

Thinking otherwise was suicide.

So, if she focused on Mags, took
the source of her power away while keeping her own, made it too hard to fight
her, then made sure she broke the link… That might work. It could also be her
just masturbating into the air, not wanting to have to kill a woman that she’d
kind of liked. They might not be best buddies or anything, now, but they’d
gotten along pretty well. It was enough to cause Eve to do stupid things, she
knew. Trying to protect a friend that could be ordered to kill her at any
moment.

The door opened slowly, and
Troy’s head came into view. It was kind of clear that he was naked behind the
door, and from the scent he was hiding an erection. Given that she couldn’t
hear anyone else in the place, she got what that meant.

That he was too lazy to toss on a
robe when he came to the door.

“Eve! My God! I was told you
wouldn’t be around… For
years
. Come in…” He covered the nudity, and the
muted porn on his wide screen television, with a hug, and blushed a bit when
she glanced over at it.

“Um… This is pretty much
exactly
what it looks like. In my defense, notice that the two ladies on the screen are
easily of legal age and neither is wearing a mascot costume. Not this time. I
reserve the option to get off to girls in squirrel costumes though. Otherwise,
why have all this freedom?”

She shrugged and glanced over at
it. The two women were all right looking, but not so hot as to be worth getting
bothered over.

“Can I use your shower? Then we
can do something, if you want? I don’t have long, but…”

He actually winced, and then,
rather sadly, shook his head.

“I can’t. You work at the club.”
He looked down, and seemed almost ready to cry then. It had to be a nightmare
for him, she knew. Being presented with a hot and willing woman, already at
full mast, and have to say no.

Eve shrugged again, not feeling
up to doing a lot more than that. It was funny, but regrowing limbs had left
her feeling a bit tired. Drained, even though that wasn’t really true.

“I haven’t in half a year now.
I’m pretty sure that you’re my boyfriend anyway, which would get us around
those rules. You don’t have to do anything with me, but I can hold up my end if
you want to try? Call it practice for me. I’ve only been with one Human guy
since the change. I didn’t bite him though, which was pretty good, considering
I had him in my mouth.”

“You didn’t try me first? I’m a
little hurt.” The funny thing was, even under the small smile he gave her, it
seemed like he really was.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to
try it for the first time with some guy I actually
liked
. More than a
bit, I mean. Ben is okay. He works with Zack at his store now? I don’t know if
you’ve met?” It was possible, since the two were best friends.