Dead Certain (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 3) (20 page)

Smiling, she realized that some
would probably think she really meant it, if she ever said that out loud.
Because all those young Vampires not acting like insane assholes clearly would
turn out to be trouble.

When they got in Edom was working
behind the counter, even though it was evening already. Glancing at the clock,
she saw that it was eight already, though he didn’t seem upset or anything.
Before she could ask, he shrugged.

“David asked for the night off,
so I’m pulling a double. Unless I can interest you in the job? Hmm? That, or
trading out with Barb at the club? It’s great fun…” He was actually being
really charming, and smiling the whole time, so Eve nodded.

“Um…” She turned and looked at
Ginger, and tilted her head. “Which do you want to do? The club will have more
people, which will be good practice for you, but might be hard. I’ll be here
all night, but you can meet me back in the morning?”

The girl, looking as young as
ever, froze.

“I get a choice?”

“Yeah. I mean, if Ed’s good with
it? You can handle being around people now. As well as anyone. You won’t lose
your temper either, even as the pervs feel you up, so, it can work, if you want
to give that a try? You know where the club is, right? Barb can get you in.
Call if you have a problem.”

Edom seemed very unsure about the
wisdom of doing that, having known Ginger longer, but the girl seemed pretty
solid to Eve. A little uncertain of herself, but she
wouldn’t
fail. Even
without the threat of a beating. She’d been a Vampire for five years, and could
already face the sun, which took a lot of will power. That kind of thing
translated to other areas of life, like not eating the patrons.

“I’d like to go to the club, I
guess? What will I do there?”

Eve knew that one, and smiled at
her.

“Clean disgusting toilets, and
avoid going down on anyone, just yet. For one thing, you look fourteen, which
would make it creepy, if they don’t know how old you really are. For another,
we’ll want to test you a little more slowly than that. Give it a few weeks of
practice being around people before you move to licking them, and all that. We
should have already done that, but you just got into cool Vampire kid classes
with me, so what else could have been done? Meet me back here at seven?”

The girl nodded, and looked at
the dark man in his very nice suit, who slowly did the same thing.

“You’re ready for this. Remember,
if things get to be too much for you at any point, just leave. You won’t get in
trouble for it. Come back here in that case. We can keep working on this every
night, if it comes to that. I don’t think it will though. I’ll call Troy, so
that he knows that you’re coming.”

That would be useful, since most
girls that looked that young didn’t work at night clubs, did they? Still, she
was a Vampire, and people knew who owned the club, so as long as she was open
about it all, that might not be a huge problem.

Eve watched her leave at a run,
one that was still too slow really, and heard Ed call the whole thing in to
Troy, assuring him that Ginger was a seasoned hand at managing the public, and
would be a great asset to the team.

When he came back out, she smiled,
but it looked worried.

“Do you think she’s going to kill
all our best customers?”

“Nope. I bet she doesn’t do
anything but work the whole time. This is really important to her. She feels
like a fuck-up, and no one wants to be that person, do they? She
isn’t
though. She just got a raw deal. We need to make sure she’s up to speed on
things before she meets back up with her family. It’s going to be happening,
and we should control that part of things, if we can.”

Ed nodded, then tossed her a
clean apron on the way out.

“It’s your call. They’re going to
be upset though, their daughter being turned into one of us. I can’t blame them
either. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Then, his rather cute butt left
the room, going through the back, since he’d driven in, and parked in the upper
lot.

Eve remembered to call the
Council, and ended up talking to Gene, which was her favorite thing in the
world to do. The boy looking ancient being snickered at her when she told him
that Wallace had given her a message for them.

“Oh? What did he remove from you
then? He tends to be a bit messy with things like that. To be most fair, Bey
shouldn’t have asked you to see to that one. He probably didn’t recognize the
name, since it’s a rather new one. He’s the eldest of the Australian Vampires
however. Originally from Europe, about three thousand years ago.”

It was a handy lesson, and didn’t
sound all that snide, for once.

Eve sighed.

“I’m intact. He tried to move on
me, using speed, but I managed to stay ahead of him that way, and give him a
few thumps. He didn’t disintegrate though, which means he’s pretty tough. Then
he glowed, and caused an Earthquake when I dumped him on his head. It’s a skill
of mine. Moving things at a distance.” She probably shouldn’t have told him that,
but she doubted that he’d be without that kind of data for long.

After a moment, he made a
slightly choked sound.

“He engaged you in battle, and
you
won
?”

“It wasn’t much of a fight, and I
didn’t hurt him. He kind of gave up when he realized it wasn’t going to be all
that easy, I think. He did seem impressed, but that could just be my looks. It
happens, you know?” She wasn’t joking on that one, it really did, but the boy
laughed.

“Impressive. We really should
kill you, for the safety of all of us. Well, it’s probably too late for that,
if Wallace can’t manage it. So, I suppose you’ll want a voice on the Council
now? Or are you throwing in with Jasmine, and helping to depose us?” He
pronounced it differently than Bey had the whole time, as
Yasmeen
. Eve
thought that was probably the way it had been said originally.

“No. To both. I have something in
the works, to try and save her, but it might not work. Say, if we’re going to
be buddies now, and have sleepovers and all that, can you tell me the name of
the Greater Demon that you’ve been hanging with lately? I think that they might
be involved with some things here. Or, I guess, ask if they mind if you let me
know?”

“You think that I don’t have
enough control over my own life to tell you if I wish?” There was a low,
whispered, and deadly tone to the words. Like he was pissed that she’d said
them.

“Nope. I just think that pissing
off a Greater Demon for a person you don’t care for all that much would be
stupid, and they might not
care
if I know, so asking probably won’t
hurt. If you want to. If not, well, I’ll either find out or not, right? Anyway,
I was just calling to pass that info on to you. The situation, at least that
part of it, in Australia, has been taken care of. I tried to do it without
death being involved, and you know, two out of three? It isn’t perfect, but
really was the best I could manage at the time.”

“Ah. I should probably tell you
that it wasn’t good enough, and make fun of you now. But anyone else would have
either killed them all, or died. Except perhaps Bey, his legend proceeding him
enough that some might have given up, or fled rather than engage him. You did
well. That wasn’t
ever
my question though, Eve Benson. I do not doubt
your skills or abilities to get things done. What I fear is that you may be
more than you seem, and working for forces that even you can’t name.
If
you’re a Vampire at all. There are too many Greater Demons in my life, to trust
that you are only what you seem.”

She could kind of get that one,
but she really wasn’t anything more than her. That was pretty clear.

“I’m really just me, but you’ll
get that, over time. As long as you aren’t going to send a hit team after me?
That would be annoying, so we can skip that, if it’s all the same?”

“Fine. For now. I’ll contact you
if more work is needed. Bey is distracted for the moment, with Jasmine. I have
to admit, I was surprised to see her as well. She used to be one of the
Council, long ago. Now we may well have to kill her. That isn’t the ending I
would have for her, if you can avoid it?”

“Working on it. You and Bey will
need to handle the Council parts if it’s going to work. I’m going to be busy
with the rest.”

The phone went dead, so she got
to work, making certain the whole place was clean, and that all the Vampires
coming in for blood got what they wanted in a timely and well presented
fashion.

It took up most of the night, until
about five in the morning, when everything when totally dead. Then she got the
place ready for the next day, which didn’t take too long, and heated up a mug
of blood for herself.

She had the time, and refreshing
the links wasn’t a horrible idea.

Plus, she’d been meaning to try
something new, for a while now.

She dropped several of the lines
that she’d had, and replaced them with new ones, then, taking one tiny sip at a
time, did the same until all of the lines were new and fresh. Eight of them,
just like she always had.

Then with as much focus as she
could muster, Eve tried to grab, and hold, another one. It didn’t sink into
place on its own, but she could, as long as she held it in her thoughts the
whole time, keep it. She ended up with ten links in all, though it was nearly
constant work to keep them all going like she was.

It also
filled
her with
power. Energy that she couldn’t really contain. Not knowing what else to do
with it, she made her hair grow. It was all the same length, but by the time
Ed, Ginger and David got there in the morning, it was past her collar by about
four inches. She tied it back, using a piece of string from one of the drawers.
It was the longest her hair had been since she was a little girl.

Edom noticed it and gave her a
funny look, so she explained. She was cool like that, being honest and sharing
like she did. That’s what she was going with for the moment anyway.

“I’m holding two extra links, and
the energy has to go somewhere. So new hair. It was all I could think of.
Anyway, Ginger, grab an apron, since we’re going to make some goodies. Oh! Ed,
can you get with Lenore? Or at least, if you talk to her, remind her that we need
the waffle cone maker? I’d call her myself on that, but I don’t have a cell
phone yet.” Not that she couldn’t use the land line at the store, but she
really should have one soon.

Edom nodded though, as if him
doing it was the correct order of things. To him it probably was. Lenore was
his
boss, after all.

The day was spent in training,
going over the notebook that Lenore kept under the counter, and making things,
then delivering them to various people around the mall. She had Ginger do that,
personally, so that everyone could meet her, while she got practice interacting
with the public. No one mentioned how she’d done the night before, but since
she wasn’t hit with the tale of a Ginger-centric bloodbath first thing, it had
been fine. Eve would have heard about any problems, probably before anyone even
noticed her new hair style.

This way, by not asking, it
looked like she really trusted Ginger to have handled things. Which she
did
.

In fact, she was doing so well,
that even given the daylight outside, Eve sent David away until his shift
later, and had the girl running the whole place for several hours. On her own.

Eve looked over the applications
that different people had given them over the prior months. She kind of triaged
them, trying to separate them into three groups, based on what she read.

Organized and professional
seeming in one group, sloppy but promising in another, and of course, the
largest section. Bat-shit insane. One of them was even written all in
blood
.
It was Human and hopefully the person’s own. Worse, it was a contract, selling
their soul to the Vampires, for power. That, thankfully wasn’t how it all
worked, but meant that the guy that wrote it wasn’t exactly up to speed on
things like that.

When Barb got in, at about three
that afternoon, taking the swing shift, so Edom could leave early, she stared
at Ginger for some reason, then sank into the booth, across from Eve.

“So… Things are looking up,
aren’t they?” She glanced at the apron wearing Vampire girl behind the counter,
as if it should have meaning.

“Yep. In a few days I was
thinking that she and I might run out to Iowa and visit Cormack. See if he needs
help, or anything? I have about a week and a bit before I need to be back here.
Then we should see about starting that training for people that want to become
Vampires. I’m trying to get Ginger to help me with that. That’s what I’m doing
here. I was just about to start on some calls. I really need my own phone, but
I don’t know if Edom will let me have one yet. I tried to drop a hint earlier,
but I don’t know if it was a no, or if he missed it, distracted by other things.”
She spoke the words a bit more loudly than normal, and there was a dark chuckle
from the back.

Then he spoke softly, like she
was right next to him. It was one of the best things about being a Vampire,
being able to hear people talking to you from that far away. Not that most of
it wasn’t fantastic.