Dead Certain (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 3) (27 page)

That part of what had been going
on was due to Eve using magic on her, even if it hadn’t been on purpose, well,
that was kind of neat, actually.

Who didn’t want another
superpower?

If Keeley could be trusted, Eve
had
one now, if she could just learn to use it right.

It seemed worth trying, if
nothing else.

The house, the one that she
shared with Edom, was big enough for six people to not bump elbows, but only
had the two of them there at any time. Even that was kind of not true, since
she couldn’t even remember when both of them had been there. It was mainly due
to the fact that for as long as her mind was willing to go back, Eve had pushed
herself, and worked without end. It wasn’t really much of a life though.

Work was fine, and a good place
to start, but she wanted, no,
needed
, more. Friends to share with, and
people to help make things better for. Not that she knew where this idea was
coming from, since it didn’t sound totally like her, she didn’t think. There
had to be a point to things though, beyond just making frozen goodies, and on
occasion putting together the right paperwork for Vampires, or their Human
friends.

Real people went out, and
did
things. They hiked and camped, even though she sucked at both of those. She
hadn’t loved them as a Human anyway. Hiking was probably well within what she
could do pretty well now, she bet. Being alone in nature, or even better, with
other people there, might be fun. Dancing even could be.

Ed had basically told her that
standing in the back room babysitting Ginger was a no go for the night, since a
big part of what was being done had to do with confidence. The girl had the
skills she needed now, and a phone with which to call in help, if it became
needed. That was supposed to be
Ed
, too. Not the youngest Vampire in
town.

So they were both at home, for
the first time in so long that she kind of wondered if it was fair to claim she
lived there. Edom was actually relaxing, too. Listening to some old time piano
music. It was scratchy and had a hum to it, but was off of a CD, not a vinyl
record. So something recorded from a file that wasn’t very good. He seemed to
like it, and was sitting in the living room doing nothing but tapping his toes
to what had once been a catchy tune, no doubt.

For her part, Eve started
cleaning things up. Doing laundry, which took only a few minutes to get started,
having good machines for it there, and then dusting the whole house. The front
room had a cream colored carpet, which needed to be vacuumed, but she didn’t
want to bug Ed by doing that, so left it until last, sweeping and scrubbing the
whole place. It took about an hour, since in her boredom, she realized, she’d
pushed herself into super speed ranges. It hadn’t even hurt enough to get her
to notice she was doing it.

Then, as the music was changed to
better quality Big Band in the other room, she finally sat on her uncovered bed,
and tried to just think for a bit. It wasn’t a thing that she spent that much
time doing, compared to other things in her life. Contemplation had never truly
been her thing. It led to things like remembering, if you weren’t careful, and
her life, if nothing else, had taught her that most things were better left
forgotten.

Still, she had some things to
consider and not doing them would leave her weaker than she wanted to be. So
Eve needed to buckle the hell down, she decided, and not be a little wimp about
what she needed to consider now.

Magic. What could she do with
that kind of thing? It was really clear that increasing parts of herself, the ones
she already knew well, and the things she could do, were what worked. So far at
any rate. Just to check she tried to get a candle lit, using her mind. Some
Vampires could do it after all, so why not her? No matter how much energy she
tried to throw at it, that just didn’t work. Moving things at a distance did,
which she practiced for an hour, until it was kind of clear that doing more was
just goofing off, and not going to help her be better at it.

The music had shifted again in
the other room, this time to a soft melodic singer with a very mellow, but good
voice. She just listened to it for a bit, before a new song came on that she
remembered from a high school dance. One at which the music had nearly had the
poor AV guys lynched by the football team. Barry Manilow. That Edom liked that
kind of thing…

Well, why
not
? Now that
she had better ears, she could tell that the guy was beyond
merely
good.
He was brilliant, even if some of the stuff he sang was a bit sappy for her
tastes. Love songs, and odes to women that she didn’t know anything about. Most
people put themselves, and their current situations into love songs that they
heard, but that had never been her way, had it?

Eve had been with a lot of men,
and a few women, but none of them had ever loved her. It hadn’t happened the
other way around either. When Hally had been off getting a boyfriend, and later
a girlfriend, Eve had just moved from one person to the other, desperately
trying to find a connection, but never really doing it, since that was scary,
wasn’t it?

Now, well, she really
was
busy, but how long each day would it take to keep a relationship going? Three
or four hours? She didn’t even
sleep
now, so claiming that there was no
time wasn’t honest, was it?

What she didn’t have was anyone
to really call on for things like that. A good guy that she actually liked, and
wanted to keep around. The closest she had was actually Ben, and she hadn’t
talked to him for months. Not since she’d given him a hummer in the back of
Zack’s bookstore. With Zack right there, having done him first. That had to
have left him feeling a bit like she didn’t care about him, didn’t it?

Worse, it was nine at night on a
Thursday, and she really didn’t know him well enough to just call him up, and
ask if he wanted to do anything. For that matter, she didn’t have his number.

So she just sat, for a long time,
and wondered what the point of being a kick-ass, and pretty good looking,
Vampire was, in her world. Well, she seemed to be doing all right with the
first bit.
Many
tushes had been booted. Some fatally. No one would claim
she wasn’t doing it right when it came to that part.

“It’s about having the time to
get things right, isn’t it? To fix the things that I messed up, and to figure
out how to help other people, while still making sure I get what
I
need.
Why else live forever?” She spoke the words out loud, so softly that it didn’t
occurred to her that Edom, in the other room, was a Vampire too.

“That’s the way of it.” His voice
was deep, relaxed and happy sounding. Normal for him. “There’s time to be what
you want to become, to learn, explore, and help others. Not all at once. Not
even for one of us, but yes, there is time. You can appreciate the world, and
find out what lies at the very bottom of things, if you want to. Most never go
that far into anything, even if they have forever. I think it’s worth it
though. Mastery of anything tends to start you on the road to mastery of many.”

She walked to the other room,
since she didn’t need to go to confession, in particular. Or, well, she
probably did, but not with Edom. If she was going to do that, she’d go and call
The Cleric, since that was his deal, right? Acting like a Priest all the time?
For all she knew, he really was one.

Ed, dark and handsome, his teeth
nearly shining under the single light that illuminated the space, wore jeans
for once, like she did most days. He had on a t-shirt too, which hugged his
muscular form closely. It should have been hot, but Eve just didn’t care about
that kind of thing anymore. For a brief moment it left her feeling a tiny bit
sad.

Still, he wasn’t hard to look at,
which was nice, in its own way.

“I was just thinking that I
should try having a relationship. I’ve never really had one. Not past a few
friends. The closest I’ve ever gotten was a few fuck buddies that I had sex
with five or ten times. Then they’d get bored, or we’d lose touch. I have
problems that way. Trust issues, and things like that. Not a huge mystery as to
why, but I think it’s time for me to grow up a little bit.”

Her maker looked at her, and
smiled.

“Good idea. Do you have anyone in
mind? Ginger mentioned that she was considering making a claim on you. I think
everyone laughed at her, since that kind of implies that she’d toss you in the
corner and have her way with you a few times to prove her dominance, but
flowers and poems could work, too. Or, what do you young people do now?
Sexting?”

“Like
I
know? I was
thinking about Ben. He works down at Zack’s, in the mall. A Human, but nice
enough. Not the best looking guy in the world, but not bad that way. He’s kind
of dating Kaitlyn though, and she’s really pretty. A succubi so that might
still work out. They don’t have a lot of long term relationships. Not that I
have any reason to think he’d want to do more than fuck. He’s just the only
normal guy I know.”Then she grinned a bit. “I had been thinking of making a
play for Bey for a while, but just as things started looking good there, Maggie
came into the picture. I can’t compete there, so that leaves me at loose ends I
guess. I can look though, right?”

There was a smile then and a nod.

“Again, you get time. There will
be good people,
if
you stop to notice them. To make it even easier, you
work with the public, so won’t be stuck with only other Vampires to choose from.
That opens the pool up a lot. This is a great time to be single and looking for
a connection, too. If you want to get to know someone, society will pretty much
let you. Guy, gal, black, white or other. When I was a boy, even looking at the
master’s daughters, or the other white girls, would have you beaten. I don’t
mean staring at the back of their skirts with lust in your eyes either. I mean
glancing at them, and letting your eyes come up past their feet for too long.
It took me nearly thirty years to be able to actually look at a woman and meet
her gaze. I mean just stare into her eyes, and not wonder if the world was
about to end.
After
I became one of us. This is a better time that way.”

Eve might not always feel like
the sharpest tack in the tool shed, but she understood what had been said
there. His
master
hadn’t been the one that brought him over, had it?
Then, everyone had to start somewhere, and if you were going to be born black,
over two hundred years before, that meant your odds of having been a slave went
up a lot, didn’t it?

Eve changed the subject.

“Say, you never mentioned who
your maker was. I didn’t ask, since, you know, it just doesn’t come up in
conversation a lot, but I guess it isn’t forbidden for me to know, if you want
to tell me?” Unless he didn’t, or it was, but so far that had never been the
case for anyone else that she’d known.

“His name was Charles. Bey was
his maker. He was a bit wild, actually. New to being a Vampire. Not thirty
years one of us, when he made me, and not all that well controlled. I was just
one of about fifty that he made, trying to create an army, to take over
Kentucky. He’d bought me, for the price of a good horse. We weren’t close, but
unlike the others, I didn’t go insane with the first blush of power. I wasn’t
well controlled, but having been a slave saved me. I was already so afraid, and
angry, used to holding that all in, that I did it, even with the power of the
universe rushing through me. A few years later when Bey was ordered in to kill
us all, I fell back into that pattern, which allowed me to survive. When the
others all started to explode around me, their head gone without warning, I
just fell to my knees and froze. Looking at the ground, like I’d been trained
to my entire life. I didn’t move while the others died, just knowing that he
was going to end me, too, and that doing anything would be futile. Charles was
the second or third to die that night. I think Bey felt the loss keenly, so
when he got to me, instead of take my life, he just stood there for a long
time, and then spoke to me, like I was a child.”

That kind of sounded like Bey to
her. Soft spoken and friendly even, when he could be.

“What did he say?”

That got a sudden, and disarming
grin.

“That if I wanted to learn, and
was willing to try, he’d show me what to do, since he was my grandfather. It
wasn’t easy for him. I was more than half wild, and it took years for me to be
able to handle being around people safely. A decade. Longer to break most of
the bad habits that Charles had left me with. After that, when I was in control
of myself well enough, I went off on my own, for about a hundred and thirty
years. Eventually I met up with Lenore, who suggested that I travel with her
for a while, as a porter and bodyguard. She was an actress back then. Decently
famous. Movies, but before they had talking in them.”

That got Eve to blink several
times, and sink onto the sofa, across from that matching soft fabric chair that
Ed was in. She didn’t speak for a while, but finally realized that she’d known
that about Lenore. It just hadn’t really occurred to her that, a long time
before she’d been born, ninety to a hundred years ago, Lenore and Edom had
known each other, and been friends.

“Have you been with her ever
since?”

“God no. We traveled together until
the movies dried up, and she went on to start working for the Council. She’d
always been stronger than I was, when it came to resisting the light, so moved
up pretty quickly. It was still hard for a black man to find work that only
took place at night, so I moved into music. I was a jazz musician for nearly
thirty years, and then took a turn with the blues. In the seventies I started a
chain of discos, and have been in that business ever since, even as things, and
styles, have changed. The Council owns the T2LA franchise, but the original
idea was mine. After that took off, I ran into Lenore, who’d suggested I come
and be her second, about fifteen or twenty years ago, now. Then I finally
decided to settle down and make a child of my own. The end.”