Finally Dead (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 1) (37 page)

“What
were you all thinking?”

That was
a
horrible
thing to say, so he stopped them, seeming grumpy. They’d all
started speaking at once, and about totally different topics, each having their
own take on what they thought he might want to know about.

“No.
Warren, you go first. What did you have planned, and why?”

The thin
man didn’t look nearly as homosexual when he was under a compulsion, Eve
realized. The way he held his face was different, for one thing. He seemed
darker. Edgier. Almost a little angry.

“We were
going to take over. To grab the Vampires first, and then use them as our pawns
to do whatever else we wanted. After I read the book… It’s
all
in there.
How to unify the forces of the main groups, and use that to dominate the rest.
In the end we would have been like gods. That’s why we did it. Power.”

Eve took
a breath and didn’t speak. She wanted power too, didn’t she? A different kind,
perhaps, but the goals weren’t all that different.

Except
that she was smart enough not to get caught by anyone that could kill her, or
who even wanted to. Not yet.

The
others went, one at a time, and the reasons given were all a bit different, but
in the end it came down to one simple fact. They felt that having power gave them
a right to use it. A duty to make the world their own. Failing to do that was
wrong
,
to their way of thinking.

It was
enough to convict them, but the questions weren’t even close to being finished.

Eve kind
of wished they were.

The
space they were in wasn’t a small one, being meant for ceremonial magic. That
meant it was decently empty feeling even after all the people came in for the
proceedings. It took forever for that to happen, too, and Barb had to give her
testimony first thing, since she was about to go down for the day. Leslie went
next, followed by Tara, though she didn’t know much at all. Most of them really
didn’t.

One
by one they were let go though, after verifying what their stories were. It
wasn’t that important, since they already
had
knowledge of guilt. The
Mages were just really big on paperwork though. Every T being dotted and I
underscored in triplicate. In the end only the older Vampires, a score of Mages
she vaguely recognized, and Zack, were left.

Then
the real questions started, as if they’d been waiting for the kids to go to bed
before getting to the nitty-gritty.

Bob
Millhouse led the guilty through their confessions, trying not to leave
anything out. It made sense to her to try and start with the all important
first day kidnapping of one Eve Benson, but that wasn’t the start of their
story. No, that ranged back years. To when Warren had first worked out who Zack
was and that the books he’d put out had troves of incredible history and
intelligence in them.

“At
first I just read them all, but after a while I noticed that I could use what I
knew to help myself get ahead. It wasn’t anything all that big to start with.
Making some money by finding work for the Shifters as mercenaries, or doing the
same for the Trollienkeine. It was all legal enough. Mostly. Then I did a bit
more, working out how the laws from one group were different than others. There
was a lot to be done that way. It wasn’t until about a year ago that Jim and I
came up with the plan. We needed a woman, so brought Ellyn in. She’s a bit of
an idiot, but powerful enough. Then we started creating a power base, using the
group in the park. Some of the kids are decent enough Mages, power wise, but
their defenses are for shit, so we took them all, pretending to be their
friends, and then used them to do the same to the others. About four months ago
we decided to try and move on to bigger prey, so tried to work out how to get
some of the Vampires. It’s harder to spell them than it is a Human, but it can
be done, if you’re clever about it, and they don’t know what you’re trying to
do.”

The
rest of the story was about the individuals that they’d captured and eventually
kept in thrall. A lot of them. Vampire and not.

Enough
of those that all of her people in the room were clearly wondering about the
practicality of war at the moment. The thing there was that it really
did
seem to just be the three in the room. They were the heart of it all, as far as
their story went. They could still be under the influence of someone or
something else, and Zack had hinted at something like that to her, but if that
was the case that person was a lot more sophisticated than they were. There
were no tracks that Eve could see.

Bob
got them to keep going, telling the story, with Ellyn being the one to give the
details about Eve.

“It
was mainly a test. The girl we captured had layers of spells on her. Blood
magic, mainly. Powerful, but it needed a sacrifice to set it off. We could have
compelled one of the others to do it. To just start drinking until she died,
but Warren wanted to see what would happen if Eve, his girlfriend, did it as
her first feeding. The compulsions he had on her as a Human would die when she
did, so it made sense. She would have been trapped totally, forever, if she’d
killed that girl.”

Eve
listened, not wanting to hear it all. She got the idea though. Warren had been
keeping her busy at the embassy, as in having sex with her, without her
knowledge… for years.

Because
that
made sense? She’d been kind of slutty and willing to bang almost
any guy that simply asked her to. So of course the man would act gay, and then
use magic to do it against her will. She felt her anger rising then, but kept
it held down. These people weren’t leaving the room alive, anyway. Being upset
about it wouldn’t help anything.

Maggie
looked scared then, which
had
to be a put on thing. That or she was
worried that Eve was going to slaughter the three people before they finished
getting at all the info. So, to reassure her, Eve looked over at her and
winked. It wasn’t the first time that she’d been mind fucked that way, after
all. She really needed to make sure she could stop that from happening in the
future, if there was a way. Some kind of amulet, or better, mental training.
Whatever would work.

Eve
had been supposed to be corrupted forever, by the powerful dead blood of the
girl, instead of forming a simple feeding link to her.

Warren
didn’t explain his reasons why he’d raped her, instead of just
asking
,
but she really doubted it was true love. Interestingly enough he’d
also
been doing the same thing to Lisa and Bob. So at least he had the gay thing
covered too. Neither of them was thrilled to hear about it, and Robert
Millhouse nearly ended the man right there. His right hand came up, and a pure
ball of blue light started to form. It was so powerful it thrummed along her
everything
,
making her quiver inside her belly.

She
held up her own hand then to get his attention.

“The
rest of the information first, please?”

It
wasn’t all that entertaining, once the parts about sex were done. As she’d
started to suspect, Marcus had been a pawn the whole time too, and what he’d
done to Maggie, well, that was complicated. On the one hand it was pretty clear
that he’d wanted to do it, and had known at the time that it was wrong. On the
other hand, he’d had orders he couldn’t refuse that forced him to do it.
Against his will. Not the sex portions specifically, but the rest of it.
Stripping her free will away like he had. So half the crime wasn’t his fault.

That
made it hard though, since it was certain to everyone there that he wouldn’t
have done
any
of it, if she hadn’t been under his control. Because he
loved her, after all.

That
had been said by him, but Eve really figured that it had been mere words the
whole time.

Apparently,
it was at least a thing that Jim and Warren could see as well.

The
attempted robbery had actually been meant to kill Cormack. Warren knew the name,
and didn’t really care if a Vampire or two died, so why not? He worked at the
place across the way, but only on the night shift, so they weren’t friends or
anything.

Eve
nodded then.

The
real trick there would be that one, she guessed. That it was all about not
really thinking of people as being real. Like a psychopath, or a tax attorney.
They could
seem
like everyone else, and pretend to have empathy, but in
the end, it wasn’t really there, was it? It was just a Human mask pulled over
the face of a monster.

Sure,
she got the irony of a Vampire thinking that about a Human Mage, but that
didn’t make it
wrong
. There were a lot of other things to go over too,
but in the main, she didn’t care about most of them. Honestly, she wasn’t even
worried about
punishing
the people.

They
were beyond help, and had been for a while.

Bob
looked at her, and then Lisa, as if their pain would somehow be greater than
his own. She understood why, after a moment. It was a thing that shocked her,
when the words came out of his lips.

“Eve…
They forced you to kill innocent people, and tried to make you harm another, on
top of the rest. This should be your decision.” It
did
sound a little
weak, like Bey had suggested it might, but he was an ambassador, and keeping
the peace with those others there was important. The Vampires, as well as his
own people.

She
moved forward, and then looked at the Mages in the room, one by one.

“This
isn’t
about Mages versus Vampires. It isn’t even about good and evil.
This is about misguided people that have harmed others, because they didn’t
control their lust for power. I’m sure most of us in this room have felt that
one before.” She looked back at the line of her own people, who were taking up
the back half of the room, guarding the door there, it seemed. To keep anyone
from coming in to stop things, or from escaping.

Not
that anyone was even trying to do either of those things.

“What
we need to do now is prevent these people from harming anyone else, ever again.
If they die, will that break the compulsions they had a hand in?” She looked at
Lisa, who nodded her golden colored hair.

“It
will. Unless they used a full ceremony to do it.”

Warren
helpfully shook his head.

“No.
It was just us three.”

Eve
looked around then and shrugged.

“That’s
the answer then. We have to make sure we miss nothing here. Can we get a tarp,
or blanket?” It would be a pain to bury them all, but Zack moved forward and
opened the Node then made it glow a brilliant purple so that she could see it.
It was kind of cool looking, even given the moment.

“Great.
Thanks Zack. Here…”

Walking
over to the line of people, and starting with Warren, since he could have been
the hard one, she killed them all.

It
was over fast, since she didn’t hesitate before doing the next one. Eve pushed
as hard as she could into the pain of movement, but still only made their heads
explode away from her. It kind of made a mess, but there was no one standing in
that direction, thankfully. On the third one she tried really hard though, and
managed to make Ellyn’s head turn into a mist. She didn’t let herself breathe
until she’d recovered fully, but did move to toss the remains through the Node.

As
she had Warren’s lifeless body held in its chair, ready to swing, she stopped,
which made her stumble a bit, since even without a head he weighed more than
she did.

“Oh,
right, what’s on the other side?”

“A
forest in a place so far off there’s nothing like people.”

“Ah.
Good. It would be bad to dump them in the middle of a baseball field, or in
Times Square.”

Then
she tossed the things through, trying to make sure she was accurate so that she
didn’t have to do it more than once. It would be disruptive if she did.

After
it they were all gone, she nodded to first Bob and then Lisa, who both seemed a
lot more worked up now than when they’d started. Then finding out that you’d
been being anally raped for years wasn’t a fun thing. The oral part wasn’t that
big of a deal for her, but Lisa was a lesbian, more or less, and Bob was as
straight as you could be without secretly sneaking off to gay glory-holes on
the side. In fact he was
so
hetero that she doubted he’d even get why
saying it that way would be funny.

“This
should end the worst of it. We’ll need to work together, to make sure there’s
no more fallout from this. Please let us know if anything happens though, and
we’ll try to solve it without bloodshed. This was bad, but we don’t have to
turn it into more than it was. The crimes of a few misguided people.”

Turning,
she looked at Lenore, since she was the ambassador there, and then Edom, her
own maker. Both of them just nodded, and Lenore moved to both Bob and Lisa, and
spoke in quiet tones. Ones that seemed a lot more friendly than not. Caring
even.

Eve
moved to Zack, which got a few other people to come over, including Ed and Bey.
Some Mages, too.

“So…
Zack, how did
you
miss this? Bob and Lisa are your friends…”

He
didn’t deny what she was asking, his face suddenly going hard.

“I
can’t
get involved every time someone does something, Eve. It wasn’t
good, but for every Warren out there pulling crud like this that we find, there
are hundreds of others. All the time. Most of them never amount to much, but my
job
isn’t
to police them. I’m here to serve
my
needs. Not anyone
else. Yes, that means that I’ll help you hide the bodies for free, and even
that I love you all, but notice, it wasn’t just them? I found out about this
first because of what was being done to
you
. If I didn’t intercede
there, why would I for these others? Worse, do you know what the fallout would
have been if I’d tried?’

“No?
Not really. I doubt I can think that far ahead.”

“Neither
can I. I’m glad that you worked it out, and that you’re all free of this one
now though. I really am. There are things at play in my life that… Well,
telling you about it won’t help, but there really were reasons. I’m not
just
the kind of jerk that sits back and lets people he knows be raped. I mean,
clearly I’m that too, don’t get me wrong, but not
only
that.”

She
could see it. A heads up
would
have been nice, but she hadn’t asked
about it had she?

“Is
there anything else I should know about?”

Zack
looked at her and smiled. It was
not
the best thing to see in the world,
she realized. It didn’t seem exactly sane, for one thing. Sure, he wasn’t, and
she knew that, but this was the first time it had been directed at her like
that.