Finally Dead (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 1) (34 page)

Several
people got out of the tiny car. Five of them. Three were men that were all
large, in one way or another. A tall skinny guy, dressed all in black, with a
cape on, moved in next to a short but
very
heavy young guy in all red. He
was well groomed though, and the scent of him fresh and clean, carried to her
from where she was standing fifty feet away.

The last
guy was just
vast
. Fat, but so tall that it almost threw her off about how
big he really had to be. Probably close to five hundred pounds, if not slightly
over that. Pushing seven feet tall, too. He was in brown though, and his
clothing looked handmade. Not perfect, but like someone had actually bothered
to take some time in trying to come up with his costume.

Probably
the short woman that climbed out of the passenger’s seat. She was in a dress
that was both ridiculous to wear outside,
and
fantastic looking, at the
same time. Eve was in slacks and a tight shirt, not dressed up as Gloria the Elth
should be at all, but these people were all clearly taking the whole thing
pretty seriously.

The driver
at least was familiar. Maggie.

She was,
as far as Eve could tell, the only non-Human in the bunch. Though the giant guy
could have been at least part something else. Really, they
all
could
have, she realized. She wouldn’t know what beings that weren’t strictly Human
were all like, would she? No, all she could tell was that she might be able to
feed on any of these people.

Walking
over, she waved, since her part in things didn’t involve hiding. Not unless
something went horribly wrong. Then there’d be running first. Scampering away
like a quick little squirrel. Or bunny. That second one was more like it. Bey
had told her to stay near the ground, and while there were a lot of trees
around, trying to work her way through the upper branches wasn’t a thing she
wanted to try just then. Not if it became important.

“Maggie!”
She waved and smiled, since walking out of the relative dark might startle some
people. None of these seemed to think it was all that odd though. “I just got
here. Mark is bringing the stuff I mentioned?” It was all true, but the short
chubby guy in red looked at her funny.

“You
don’t have a car, and someone is coming with something? Why didn’t you ride
with them?”

It was
pretty clever of him, to get that it didn’t seem right so fast, but she had a
good cover story for that one, didn’t she?

“I
walked. It’s only about three miles from my house to here. I try to exercise
when I can. Oh, I’m Eve. I’ll be playing the part of Gloria the Elth this
evening.” She didn’t know how they normally introduced themselves, but that
wasn’t
it. She could tell by the laughter. It wasn’t really polite, but the other
girl, the one in the cool dress, kind of glared at the guys.

“Hey,
brilliant
.
Yes, let’s alienate her first thing.
That
will get you all out on dates
with her. I
know
, why not tell her you don’t like thin, pretty girls
while you’re at it, too?” There was a slightly hard scowl on her tight, pinched
looking young face, but she moved in and smiled at Eve.

“I’m
Tara. These incredibly smooth operators are Lars, Ben and Sky. They’re actually
not
as stupid as they look right now. Mainly. I’m technically dating
Lars here, the scarecrow, so try not to steal him, but the other two are fair
game, if they ever get those shoes out of their mouths. ”

The one
in red, Ben, cleared his throat.

“Sorry.
Tara is right, we should be more polite. Even if it
won’t
get me a date.
I’m almost positive my parents mentioned something like that once. Are you new
to all this?” He waved around them, as if to the splendor of it all, even
though at the moment it was just an empty park facility. A chilly one. Two of
the boys moved back to get coats, though it was clear that both Maggie and Tara
were going to hold out for the sake of fashion. Not that the Vampire would
notice the cold. Eve didn’t really.

That
probably meant that Tara was more than she seemed too, since she didn’t seem to
be freezing yet either. Lars was the other one without a jacket. The tall thin
one in black. There was something familiar about him to her, but she couldn’t quite
place it. If they’d met she wasn’t placing the face.

She had
to remind herself to breathe, since the others were blowing out puffs of moist
air like dragons, already. Eve didn’t do that though. Neither did Maggie, Tara
or Lars. That was a bit of a giveaway, wasn’t it?

Scrambling
a bit, after realizing that, she shrugged.

“Well, I
am
new, yeah. I also have some…” She gestured as Marcus pulled up, his
big black truck making him seem far more manly than normal, until he climbed
out. Then he… Well, his face was bruised still, since his ass had been kicked
pretty hard not long before, and he didn’t have super healing. There were some
magics that could be used for that but he either hadn’t bothered, or didn’t
know them. His body didn’t look too different, but he’d probably lost five
pounds in that time frame. The exercise, and having something to do other than
eat, was probably a big part of that.

Most
mages weren’t fat, she’d noticed. It used up energy to cast magic, and if you
did it regularly enough, it was a bit like constant hard work or exercise. In
fact, being thin was one of the ways you could tell that a Mage was kind of
powerful or at least hard working. He was in jeans and a warm jacket, not being
insane like she was. Still, she had one with her, in the back of the vehicle.
It wasn’t heavy enough, just being the one that Troy had given her for work,
but it was something. She jogged over and climbed into the back of the thing,
slowly and like it was hard. To sell it she made a little grunting sound as she
jumped up, her hands on the moist metal. It wasn’t that damp, but there was a
little bit of condensation forming on it.

Eve
didn’t even wait to see if she had help coming, just moving things toward the
back. Either people would be useful, or not. Maggie got there first, starting
to take the large plywood sheet from where it was propped up on the side,
releasing the straps.

She
explained to the others, her voice carrying.

“We need
the table set up first, for the food. That’s a lot of it.”

Eve
nodded, knowing that she’d probably overdone it a bit. That was all part of her
master plan.

“Elth,
you know? I read the book. I just wish I could have done something better
costume wise. I don’t really know how to do that very well though.”

Tara
started to move in to take the other side of the large wooden sheet, which
wouldn’t be that heavy, just to have Ben walk over and take her place.

“
I’m
not in a dress, let me?” He didn’t push in, but the rather plain girl nodded
happily enough.

“Thanks.
Don’t ruin your clothes though.” She looked at him, his belly pushing against
the bottom of the fabric a bit. “I made all our clothes for us. It’s my hobby.
I could do some up for you, if you’re going to show up regularly?”

Eve
nodded, happy to have the offer on the table.

“Let me
see? For one thing the villagers might just run me off, if my offerings aren’t
sufficient. Can we set up under the lights over there?” It didn’t take long to
off load it all, though even with seven people it took longer than it had with
just Bey and her doing the work at full speed. Still, ten minutes later she had
the little saw horse table set up, covered with the red cloth, and all the food
set out on shining fake silver platters. She even had a covered trash bin, with
a sturdy bag in it, set up next to the thing, as well as little paper plates
and some plastic forks, in case people didn’t want to use their hands to eat.

Maggie
walked over, and so did the tall skinny guy. Lars. He was the one that pointed
at the set up, a long pale finger not quite being hidden by whatever he was
doing. It was chalk white for a moment, then slowly shifted to flesh tone.

“This is
amazing. We’ve never had anything like it before. I should have brought some
fruit punch.” He was kidding, but she realized that they didn’t have anything
to drink. Before she could wince too much though, several more cars pulled into
place.

That was
waved to by Maggie.

“Here we
go. Almost everyone will be here by seven. So in about fifteen minutes. I bet
we can get Mitchell and Dora to work the table. They’re Hsreth. Here, let me
ask?”

The
people that came were about as Hsreth like as she was Elth. They were both
plump people, having that part nearly right, but moved slowly and with a lack
of energy. They
were
slightly drunk though, so that was correct too.
Hsreth drank as constantly as their schedules allowed.

Still,
they were game, as far as passing out food went and seemed impressed enough
with her offerings.

“Where
did you buy all this? It looks great. Tastes that way too.” This came from
Dora, who stole a cupcake and licked a bit of the dark chocolate frosting from
the top. Eve had put it on correctly, so it
did
look decently
professional, she knew.

“Made
it. All of it. I figured that I could bribe everyone with goodies, and then they
wouldn’t notice how socially awkward I am otherwise. Sounds like a good plan,
don’t you think?”

That got
nods from most of the people, and Ben moved in closer to her than was strictly
polite, but
didn’t
try to touch her. So, he wasn’t up on what to do
exactly, or at least when to try it, but seemed like he was smart enough to
understand that rubbing up against someone he just met wasn’t going to work that
well as a dating strategy. She could work with that. He wasn’t great looking,
but she
had
noticed that he smelled nice. Delicious in fact. Filled with
life. Tasty, iron scented, life. Really, that had to make her like him, at
least a bit, didn’t it?

She was
a bit hungry, of course, but noticing that let her lock the idea out of her
mind pretty well.

She
figured he was going to offer to show her the ropes.
Possibly
with a
suggestion that they could get together later and talk about it all, but
instead he turned and looked over at Mark.

“What’s
with the face? Make-up?” He didn’t reach out to check, but Lars, the tall thin
guy in black nodded at him.

“I was
wondering about that too. Is there an event today? I didn’t hear anything…”
that seemed to mean something in particular, but Eve didn’t get the idea.

Maggie
made a face and crossed her arms, which was done so well that Eve actually lost
track of the fact that she wasn’t a Human for a moment. It was really well
done, to a level that showed true artistry.

The
ancient Vampire didn’t say anything, and Marcus looked away, also remaining
silent. Eve however had no problems destroying his social life. Especially with
the truth. He had, in point of fact, brought it all on himself, hadn’t he?

Not that
she could give
all
of it.

“Um…Mark
here basically roofied Maggie, and got caught doing it, so she kicked his ass.
There isn’t enough to go on for a court case, so we put him on double secret
probation and are taking turns making him act like our slave until he learns
not to be an asshat. It isn’t a perfect…” She was actually caught off guard by
what took place next.

Ben, the
shorter, rather round guy, moved in and started punching Marcus, his fists
flying without any skill or training at all. It was kind of a weak looking
flailing thing. On the fifth one he was gasping, and Mark was still on his
feet. Trying to cover his head, also without any real skill. That meant blows
were getting through, even if they weren’t all that effective.

Eve
watched for a bit, then moved in and touched the now red faced smaller guy on
the arm. He didn’t spin to punch at her though. He just stopped dead in place,
then panted.

“Good
work. Save some for later though. There are too many people here for a real
beating. Also, you need to work out more. At least if you’re going to go all
super hero on people every time you hear about something like this.” She wasn’t
displeased, personally. Kicking Mark’s behind was the
correct
response
to what he’d done.

The
others all looked a bit scared, including Tara and Lars, like they didn’t know
what would happen, but Maggie nodded, going with the story.

“Yeah.
It’s worse than it sounds, since he was fucking my mouth when I came to. Some
friends of
his
came in, thankfully, and got me sober. There was no good
reason for it.” She stopped then, as Marcus turned three shades of red and
looked ready for a fourth.

“I said
I was sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Eve
thought she understood. He was saying that he hadn’t meant to
rape
her,
and on some level just didn’t think of using magic to make her love him, or at
least do what he said, was the same thing as slipping something into her drink
at all. To her it was, which caused some problems. Still, Eve had said that he’d
drugged
her, and in America that was considered rape by everyone.
Probably even by rapists in prison. You’d have to be willfully ignorant in
order to claim otherwise anymore.