The Living and the Dead (Tyler G Book 3) (30 page)

He shook his head at her, and
stood as she did. He rose into the air, with a sense that he might just float
upward, but he didn't. It was a graceful thing though, compared to how he used
to move.

"You keep pushing her that
way. Why? That guy, um, Warren? You said that he mind controlled her and had
sex with her. Raped her. I can see her being uneasy that way."

Eve nodded, and patted his left
arm.

"
Because
of that. She
can either get past it and stand on her own, or collapse, and I'm not really
certain what she's going to do yet. It's been a while, but she isn't getting a
lot better.
Or
worse, so there's that. It doesn't have to be you, but
she needs to face her demons. The ones in her head. Living in fear all the time
sucks too much to let anyone else do it, if you can stop it. In the end it has
to be her choice. So, I push at her, and keep suggesting people for her to do
things with, in the hope that someday she'll try one of them." Leaning in
he got a gentle and dry kiss on the cheek. "Later, Tyler G. You know, if
you live through the thing with The Storm?"

He winked at her, practicing the
unfamiliar move. She did it all the time, so it made sense to follow along,
given that they were on the same team.

Team dead people.

"I'm already gone. I may be
turned to dust, or thrown into a different dimension, but I can't die. Even
less than you could, or one of the Greater Demons. Besides, I'm ready now. Like
you said, living in fear isn't a good thing. I should probably just send her a
text message and set up a meeting. We could televise it. Pay-per-view. I'll be
rich. I mean, if I exist after. If not, well, then it won't matter, will
it?"

"That's the spirit. Well,
let me know when, and I'll try to watch it. I haven't been doing a lot of that.
Television is so boring now. I know too many cool people. Like you."

Then, she moved off, using speed
that had to be painful, from what she'd said to him before. Tyler just looked
up at the Moon above for a while, watching the clouds roll in on the horizon. A
storm was coming, it was clear. What that would end up being he didn't know,
but he blocked out the sense of foreboding that Eve had mentioned. It really
was there, but also off in time.

He needed to get past the next
hours, and days, if he wanted to be there for whatever else might happen. It
was, he realized, life happening. That should have been funny to him, but it
wasn't. No matter how he functioned, he was a force in the world, and that was enough.
It was also all he could be, for the time being, so
had
to be good.

It was late by the time he went
inside. The others were there, and most of them had probably heard what he and
Eve had been talking about. Thunder crashed in the distance, and the sky lit.
The rain wasn't coming down yet, but the air smelled of dampness and ozone.

In the living room Steve was
cuddling with Ginger, which was a relationship that Tyler
hadn't
seen
coming. She looked up at him, a bit guiltily, since Steve had his hand under
her shirt. It could have been a fight, he knew, but he shrugged, and walked
over, settling on her other side. No one else was there. To his credit the red
haired guy looked a bit panicked then.

"Hey. So, I think that a
thing is about to happen here. Can you get everyone out? The embassy should be
safe enough. The Storm is coming, I think." Not
a
storm, but
something bigger than that. More impressive. Almost as if trying to make a
point of that, the world shook. It was more than lightening being close. At
least ten strikes had hit all around them, almost at once. "Everyone? I
think that's the sign to clear out."

There were more people there that
had to leave than he thought there might be. After a few minutes though, they
all collected in the front, by the door.

Rebekah looked at him, her face
scared and a bit drawn.

"We can call someone? Keeley
will help you. Or, your mom?" She didn't mention any of the others as
being willing to aid him, but then, they probably shouldn't. It was The
Mistress of Souls' territory, and he worked with her, so that made it her
business. His mother, well, he was her property. Her slave.

She'd be with him, no matter
what.

"I'm good. Get Marissa,
Calley and Ginger out of here? Scotty, Steve..." He smiled and started
shaking hands. Scotty gave him a hug.

"I... Don't die too easily,
Tyler of the Nations. If this was any kind of normal threat, I'd say to run,
but I know you won't. Don't die. Or, if you must, may you take your enemies
with you into whatever lies beyond this life."

It was good advice, even if he
didn't think he was going to be able to control all of that.

"I'll do that. Now, you
should all leave, before the power goes out. There's a car?" There were
actually several in the garage now. Ones that had been bought for them to use
by Rebekah, herself. Tyler could drive, and had a license, though he hadn't
switched over to Nevada yet. His was still for Washington State.

It wasn't important, but the
thoughts filled him anyway. Memories of his life came flooding back. How strange
he must have seemed to everyone around him in school. How he'd been alone so
much of the rest of the time. Practicing music, and teaching himself how to
fight from books. Things that he'd been told to do. Without using any magic, he
held several concepts then, pushing himself into being something different than
he really was.

Filling himself with death, and
allowing it, making it, flow like a river into him. It was enough that everyone
there, alive and dead alike, shivered and hurried to exit.

"I love you all. Now, go.
I'll try not to trash the house." That was about the least he could do. So
when they left to go out the garage exit, to the right, he went outside into
the rain that had started to pour from the sky, and moved left. Like he had when
Michael had called for him.

This time he simply walked
though, getting ready.

Tyler didn't bother with magic.
That was of life, and he was, as he kept thinking, simply
not
.

That got him to fix a smile on
his face, and keep moving. He didn't have any thoughts that a Greater Demon couldn't
find him. The easy thing to do for her would have been to hit him with
lightning bolts, over and over. It wouldn't stop him now, but that kind of
thing had to be disruptive. For his part, he drank the darkness from the world.
After a while, walking along, he realized that he could store some of it. Oh,
not life, but this kind of thing, as rough and jagged as it felt, was
his
.

It came at him like the rain did.
Hitting him hard, and soaking his very being. It was probably cold out, even
though it was only Fall now. He didn't feel it. Tyler could have, or at least
convinced himself that he did, but didn't bother. The world could affect him,
but the rules were different, where he was concerned.

The storm grew in size and power
then. Objects that had no business leaving the ground flew upward. There
weren't a lot of trees in the area, but the bushes that clung to the ground
barely held on as the wind started to scream at him. Calling to him. Suggesting
that he die.

"Too late for that
now." He smiled, objects bouncing from him nearly unnoticed. He held
himself to the ground with a thought. The dead, it seemed, didn't fly easily.
Not his kind.

For a long time he simply stood
in place, a vortex of clouds in the sky coming toward him. It didn't take a
genius to figure out that they were going to meet in the eye of the thing. It
was a bit dramatic, but so far The Storm had been. Really, if the Greater Demon
had a subtle bone in her body, she hadn't told him about it yet.

The Moon was framed inside the
clear patch that settled above him. It was actually pretty. Impressive, given
the flickering glow of the rest of the world. That part was so constant he
could have read a book by it, if the thing wouldn't have been torn to shreds by
the wind and rain.

Finally, off in the distance, he
could make out a form. It moved toward him slowly. Like a man or woman simply
walking along. Which, after a while he understood that it was. The person
wasn't huge, being shorter than he was by about half a foot. The world didn't
reveal who it was to him however.

Oh, it was The Storm, without a
doubt, but who she looked like, what role she was going to play for the night,
Tyler had no clue. A person he knew, he didn't doubt.

Will, perhaps, which was the form
that he associated with her. That, or the old woman he'd met once from Zack's bookstore.
Really, it could even have been one of his friends. Eve, for instance, or
Marissa. She would have been a good person to copy, since she had a way into
their lives, but no one had checked on her, to make certain she was really herself.
Who would? That might just be insulting and no one would want to risk that.

Whoever was coming had a long
coat on, which flapped a bit dramatically. That had to be on purpose, since the
wind was almost gone now. They stood in the center of the vortex. The clouds
whipped around them, like he was holding them on a string. That was pretty
telling, because the thing stopped over him like that. Perfectly.

Making him the center of the
world.

Finally, the woman made her way
to him, her face smiling a bit. She was young seeming, and had bright red hair,
that could have only come from a bottle. Tyler recognized her as the Feminist
that he'd brought back, or had brought back, a few days before. The one that Zack
had killed.

That had been a mistake then.

He also noticed that she was
smaller than he'd thought at first. He'd been thinking of her as being about a
hundred and seventy pounds, but she was probably closer to one-sixty. She was
The Storm. If that was who she'd always been, he didn't know.

At this moment, vast amounts of
magic strung from her, lines and tendrils of life that pulled and pushed at the
clouds. Powering them, and making them do her bidding. Almost on a whim Tyler
reached out, and cut them all, polluting the power with that of death. Without
even a shudder, or last gasp, the whole thing died. It was just gone, leaving
the world a bit the worse for wear, and silent.

"Hello. Fancy meeting you
here. I suppose you decided to come and repay me for bringing you back to life
the other day? You can pay in sexual favors if you want?" He was being
flip, but The Storm was either there to destroy him, or not.

Tyler wasn't going to ever be her
puppet, or property, so there weren't a lot of options left. The woman, looking
annoyed, walked up to him, and shook her head.

"Stop oppressing me. What
did you do to my nice clouds? I made them just for you. I find them so much
more impactful than flowers."

"Yeah. It was nice. A bit
noisy. So I took them away. Really, you won't be able to use any magic against
me now, I don't think." To make sure of that he surrounded her with death.
She might use that power too, but it wasn't what she just had been.

Not that he thought she couldn't
still do some nifty tricks. She
teamed
with life, inside herself. The
world tried to move toward her, giving that to her so strongly that it was a
struggle to prevent it from happening. One that became more of one with each
passing moment.

That was all internal however. On
the outside she merely seemed like any woman might have, on a Moon lit night.

"Not bad. In the end it
won't really matter though, Tyler. You belong to me. You should be
with
me. You were once mine, and that means you always shall be, until time runs
out, and the universe collapses into a ball of cold fire."

He smiled at her and shook his
head.

"See, I
knew
you were
going to go for drama. That was kind of pretty. So, do you want to start out on
your knees, or should I take you from the rear? I didn't bring any oil with me.
I don't suppose you did?"

It was getting harder to hold the
life of the world away from her, and she was still very strong. She didn't feel
any different to him at all, as far as that went. So he redoubled his efforts.
The darkness was more plentiful than the light, and always had been. Death was
stronger, in the end, than life. It always won.

It also set its own rules, and
didn't want to play by his. That made things a lot harder than they should have
been for him.

Laughing, the slightly heavy
woman in front of him shook her head, sadly.

"No, it won't be me that
kneels this time, Tyler. I am your true Master. I am
more
than
that."

Then she took a half step
forward.

"I... am your father."

Tyler cleared his throat, and
looked at the red headed feminist.

"
Riiight
. Don't
Greater Demons always have Demon kids? That isn't what I am, in case you missed
that?" He waved down at his body, as if to illustrate that fact. He didn't
stop surround them with a choking, if invisible, miasma of death.

Regardless of how this turned
out, he couldn't let himself be distracted.

"That's right. You're not
one of us. Now. You were, before you were murdered as a child. By The Rotted.
She killed you all, and stole you from me before I could raise you. So, you
aren't hers, you are now and always have been,
my
child. Not that
bitch's." The pale face looked hard suddenly, and she lashed out, a fist
coming directly for his head. It was a fast move, and done with intent, but
Tyler blocked it easily.

After all, he was ready for
almost anything. He even struck back. Without any great speed behind it, but it
was closer to his best than he would have managed a few weeks before.

"Nice distraction, but I can
tell the difference between Human flesh and not. If I was born a Greater Demon,
I'd want to eat you. Not in a fun way either. Besides, you're a woman. That kind
of gets past the dad part of things pretty nicely." Only Greater Demon men
could have kids, after all.

Her ploy having failed, she
stopped and shrugged.

"It was worth a shot. After
the thing with The Line Walker's parents, I figured you might be primed for it.
They really
were
my slaves, your parents, and you should have been, too.
You are
mine
. Nothing can change that."

He sighed and shook his head.

"Except the part where I
can't get away from The Rotted even if I wanted to? If you try to pry me away,
it won't work. I'm already dead, and short of killing her, that isn't going to
change. I don't think she's going to volunteer for that. I don't even know if I
can survive that way, to be honest. That's the reality of the situation. You
can kill me, or really, destroy me, if you do a good enough job, but nothing
else will really work. Besides, you owe me. I brought you back to life. So,
come kneel down now?" It wasn't going to work, but Demons bargained for
everything, and if she started doing that with him, he might just get her to
hold to her word.

"That won't work on me. I
know who, and what, you are, Tyler. Perhaps better than anyone in the world,
other than Leslie. I won't deal with slaves. Now, come with me."

Leslie? Tyler got that she meant
Lucy, but this Greater Demon name changing stuff was getting hard to keep up
with. He'd heard Anne, Lucy and The Rotted, but that was all, before this.

Taking a breath he shook his
head, and kept trying to make magic too hard to do.

"Nope. Why don't we fight,
instead? I mean, I
offered
to let you off easy, with just a bit of sex
in payment, but you didn't even make a counter offer. Cash, precious gems, or
information. Oh, hey, before I kick your ass, have you noticed a big sense of
impending doom lately? Like something vast and crushing is going to come down
on you?" It couldn't hurt to ask.

There was a slightly nervous
chuckle then.

"I have, actually. A
sourceless thing. I suppose you're claiming that it's you? That this is my end,
and it will come at the hands of my own slave? Or do you think that you've
moved beyond that now, with your little tricks." There was a wave at the
air, as tendrils of life energy, magic, tried to struggle through the death
around the Greater Demon. It wasn't working.

"No. It isn't me. Just a
thing that I've noticed. Eve, The Snowflake, was talking about that earlier. I
didn't realize that it had been there until she did, so I asked about it. Good
to know. Do you have any insight into what it might be? I'd guess not,
but..." He shrugged.

Then he moved on her as hard as
he could. Hands raised high, body hunched, he stopped most of her attacks as
they came in. She was better than a good fighter, being into the realm of
great, easily. The thing there was that he, too, was near that level. That
meant that they slammed into each other for a bit, then went to the ground when
that didn't work for her. It was a fast and hard double leg take-down. A thing
popular just then in the sports fighting world.

Ty ripped her left eye out as she
did it, which didn't stop her. There wasn't even a groan of pain. That was
tough, but a moment later he was totally blind, since The Storm repaid him in
kind. That was fine. It didn't hurt, and blind or not, he felt the entirety of
the world around him, including all the life within her. A thing that started
to fade, as she struggled to heal.

He did the same, but forced the
world into place, using the darkness that had to be coaxed to do the work. It
should have been slower, but there was just so much of it, everywhere. What he
lacked in finesse, and willingness on the energies part, Tyler made up for in
brute force. As they fought, he was able to see rapidly, then was left blind
again. He broke limbs as he fought, snapping the smaller form's arms, over and
again, forcing her to use the energy within her. There was desperate biting,
which was a good idea, so he started to do the same.

Almost as if she didn't
understand his plan she tried to set him on fire, which he didn't douse
instantly, even though he could have. Her magic, possibly all magic, was his to
take away now. Even life itself was, if he could remove the source. It would be
too much of a fight to do that with a Greater Demon, though if he had enough
time, he could eventually wear away at any living thing that way. On purpose.
It was the same reason that he couldn't just return to life, really.

A being like him could drink life,
like a Vampire, but he was too dead for that not to harm others. Greater Demons
were beings of life though, in the end. They drank it in, but also
made
it, at a level that put most other creatures to shame.

Struggling on the side of the
road, taking turns being on top, they kept going. Tyler stayed the same, though
he did lose an arm after a while. She pulled a blade from somewhere that wasn't
where they were, and took of his left arm at the elbow. While she stabbed him
in the middle with the red glowing thing, he took the power from it, and passed
it away from himself. To Lucy.

Then, hitting her with his other
hand, he held the stump out and tacked the now free hand back in place, forcing
his flesh to repair itself. The thing floated back to meet him, without even
seeming to move. A bit like teleportation, he guessed. He got a bit of rock and
dust in the move, but that didn't matter. He was, in part, made up of things
like that. Tyler was more than a body. He always had been.

He was an idea made real.

Finally The Storm threw him off,
and did something that was truly unexpected.

She turned and sprinted away. He
could have chased her, and started too, but after a moment he realized that
she'd slipped into the lines, and that was a place that he couldn't go on his
own. It would always take too much life energy to get there. Not a lot, if he
could learn to do it as well as Zack, but still more than he had inside of him.
Which, at the moment, was nothing.

He was well and truly powered by
only darkness now. Not that it made any difference.

Ty started walking then, and got
home about fifteen minutes later. The trip wasn't dismal, but he wasn't happy
either. There had been a chance to take her out, and the Greater Demon had gone
and done the sensible thing and just
left
. How was he supposed to fight
that? The answer, of course, was that he couldn't.

Now the real question was, would
she regroup, call a few friends and come back for him, or was this over for
good? The answer really, had to be both things at once. She was insane and
thought of him as hers, so wasn't going too easily give up. On the other hand,
Tyler, in his own person, had proved that he could take her in a fight. Not a
foot race, maybe. Unless he had a chance to prepare first. If he'd been in the
correct mental space for that, she might not have made it far enough away to
get into the lines.

Then, if there had been a bag of
kittens there, she might have been distracted playing with them, and not
noticed what he was doing, too. Not that he would have done that. There were
things too dark, even for him. They had Greater Demons for that kind of thing.

At the front door of the mansion,
or more truly about fifty feet back, he noticed that several beings were
standing on the front stoop. Four of them. One was Keeley, looking like she
always did, but behind her, spread out a bit, were three others. A man that
looked about thirty, and rather normal, a giant with the head of a bull, and a
tiny doll like girl that had fairy wings and who sparkled in the dark.

He waved, not knowing what this
was.

"Hello! I kicked The Storm's
ass, but not well enough, and she managed to escape into the lines. Did you all
come to help me get her? That was nice of you, but a bit too late. Like I said,
she skittered away already." It was that, or kill him for being too tough.
Since he was nearly certain that these were all Greater Demons, ones with slave
links to Keeley, he really doubted he could survive a battle with them.

Rather than act like that was
even an option, Keeley moved forward and hugged him.

"Seriously?
That's
impressive." He felt a tendril of life energy move over him, drinking the
pattern of his life inside of her. Powered differently or not, that trick still
seemed to work. He could feel the pattern flowing from himself to her even. It
was a very complex thing, really, that transfer of data.

When she stood back, she waved
behind her.

"You three may go, for now.
Stay ready to come back and fight, in case it was a trick. I doubt that, but
better safe."

The other three all acted in
different ways then. The plain looking man, who was dressed like he was ready
for a day at the office, stepped to the right. The bull turned and ran off,
charging into the void somehow. The Fairy... She waved a wand with a tiny
glowing star on the end, and giggled as sparkles surrounded her. It was all in
purple and green. Frankly, it was adorable. Like a cartoon made life without
being creepy at the same time.

That left him there with Keeley.
For her part she smiled and gave him another hug. This one real, not just an
excuse to take in his information.

"Well, that didn't fix it,
did it? Too bad you couldn't get her killed a bit faster. Not that it would
have worked. She would have just realized she wasn't going to get the job done
and left sooner. If you were fighting one of the others..." She stopped,
and then shook her head. "Honestly, most of us wouldn't have bothered. No
one would have even had to trade with you for a truce over this, because they
wouldn't have bothered in the first place. Even she will know that she can't
beat you one on one, now. That would just get the same result. That trick of
yours is too good for her to beat directly. A massive energy spike would work.
A nuke or something big like that? I doubt she'll do that. Really, if it were
me, at this point,
I'd
come and suck you off. You're still a teenage boy
after all, in your head. The best she can do is be your friend. She's kind of
burned the muffin basket route to that though, hasn't she?" She gave him a
look, that was a bit lingering, but that he understood well enough. Bedroom
eyes.

Meant to get him to be
her
friend. Probably with that blowjob too, if he wanted. He shook his head, not
falling for it. He was worth more than just that.

"Nope. If you want to be my
friend, you're going to have to earn it, by actually
being
my friend. No
tricks or shortcuts."

Caught, she smiled at him, and
nodded.

"Fine, fine, be that way. We
already have that truce, so I'm safe enough. Still, you can't ever have too
many friends. So, brunch this Sunday? You can bring the girls, and get Eve to
come? Bey too. He's my favorite Vampire. Don't tell Eve or Lenore I said that.
My house, at ten in the morning?"

"Um, sure? I'll ask, and get
back to you about how many can make it. So, do you think I'll have to fight
again tonight?"

The lawn was a mess, from the
storm earlier, but the place was more or less holding together. Glancing
around, he figured that if there were broken windows they'd all be on the far
side. Not the back, but the north side.

Keeley understood where he was
looking and why, but didn't walk that way.

"Most likely not. You cost her
a lot, and while she won't be scared, she
will
be cautious. If she comes
back too soon, you'll win. My best guess is that she'll take a few days to
rebuild her energy, then start making the rounds of her friends, to see if
anyone can be gotten in to go after you with her. Really, she might just send
in a team for you. Or, honestly, show up on your doorstep at first light in
lingerie. I don't think that one is likely, but you offered her that option, so
taking you up on it would be a good move. Or just leaving you alone. She
has
to get that you won't go for her. Really, you can't. Not being able to walk the
lines yet."