by P. S. Power
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.
“Are you sure you want to do that? I have no problem with a magical tether that means you have no reason not to hear my orders all the time, but I was thinking you might.”
She hadn’t thought of it that way,
but it wasn’t like she did anything but work anyway, was it?
“I’ll risk it? Say, what are the plans for the night? Are Ginger or I needed for anything? I was thinking that we might jog over to the Iowa Node, and spend the day there tomorrow. Do we have coverage if we’re not here? I don’t want to leave anyone in a lurch.”
There was a rustling of paper from the back, and Edom cleared his throat.
“I can hold the fort here. Make sure to check with Ambassador Cormack first though, before just showing up to visit.”
Eve froze, having not thought about that at all. She nodded, and went wide eyed, which got Barb to cover her smile with one hand.
It was probably funny, if you weren’t the heavy handed a-hole in the situation, that had nearly invaded without even a call first.
She hopped up, dashed to the front counter phone, and did it then, reaching him at the Node. Cormack actually seemed pleased, when she reached him. Happy, it sounded like.
“Visitors? So soon? Wonderful. I’ll get with my assistant on that. Sandra. Great lady, you’ll love her. We could use a bit of help, setting things right here, shop wise. The paperwork is perfect, but, well, you’ll see. It’s better than it was, but not up to standards yet.” He sounded a bit embarrassed about that, which could mean anything.
On the good side, everyone was fine with them leaving right away.
Except Ginger.
For some reason she didn’t really want to run halfway across the country like that.
That was just plain silliness, of course.
Chapter eleven
The run, which would have taken Eve a bit less than an hour, she thought, took fifteen with Ginger along. They’d started before six in the evening, so walked through the doors of the Plentiview Mall, where Iowa kept their best Node complex, at nearly nine sharp. In the morning.
It was strange, traveling like that with Ginger. Then Eve only had two other Vampires to compare being on a trip with. Bey, who made her feel slow and clumsy the whole time she did anything with him, even as he beamed at her as if she really were a special snowflake, like Barb kept claiming she was, and Nikki. Ginger fell somewhere right between the two really, as far as traveling companions went.
The girl was slow, even though it was clear she was trying. Her best speed though, pushing as hard as she could go, was maybe a hundred miles per hour. She had picked up the idea of walking instead of trying to run however, on the physical level. It was more stable and easier to make sure you didn’t miss a chance to push or pull off of anything. Not that it helped much at those low speeds.
On the other hand, little Ginger, the Vampire child that should have never been, young in every way imaginable, and from a white bread and pampered background, never once asked to stop. She didn’t whine or cry that it seemed to take a month of walking either. If she got bored, the dear thing kept it to herself, too. So while she wasn’t exactly going to win speedster of the month, Eve was pleased with her over all. Not everyone had to be super powered at that level, and being willing to stick with hard things was important, too. Maybe more so than having a particular skill was, in the end.
When they got there, the place looking a bit more commercial than Westfield really did, plus a little bit busier, given the time of day, Ginger didn’t even scream, having remembered to empty her lungs first.
Eve went in, watching carefully, walking slowly through the length of the single story complex. It was smaller than what she was used to, but every store front had a shop in it, meaning it was a lot more lively than Westfield, at least in how it felt. There was no food court, but the place did have a few food locations, all of them tucked in the center, with one on each corner of where the two main halls met, with a large water fountain in the middle. The thing made the air moist, but it wasn’t warm enough to really feel humid.
There was a Mrs. Fields cookie place across from the Yoghurt World, and to the right was a Burger stand. It was actually called that, even though it had a real store attached to it. The Burger Stand. There was a man working away there, who looked over and smiled at them, but then went directly back to work. He looked incredibly normal, which could mean any of a thousand things. There was also a place that sold what seemed to be whole roasted chickens and turkeys, if the sign out front was any indication. At least Eve could tell who was running that place, since the three women there were all clearly Trollienkeine.
Shaved to an inch of their lives, too. Other than their heavy features and large size, they could pass pretty well for Human though. Basically because they all looked like they must be starving to death, for their people. Eve could see that one, she thought.
Their people weren’t poor, as a group, but valued other things, like hard work and what you could make of the world with your own two hands. So they sent out people from their lands to fend for themselves. The trouble there was that in this case, they’d made a huge miscalculation, as far as what Humans would want from a mall location. They probably didn’t sell much at all, and what they did wouldn’t be enough to keep them all fed and housed, even if they lived together.
Being proud and strong people, they wouldn’t ask for help either. Oh, they’d take it, if it was offered correctly, but asking would be seen as weak. That was pretty much the Vampire and Human way too, so who the heck was she to judge? Eve wouldn’t have asked for help either, even if it meant she was going to die. These three didn’t seem that close, but they weren’t big and muscular, which was kind of the default for their kind, even if they were women.
Honestly, they needed a better store. She didn’t have one of those around though, so she just moved along, to the rather run down yogurt place. There was a chalk board on the outside that said they had a sale on milkshakes. Not that it was a horrible thing to sell, but the thing was half wiped off, and looked like whoever had written it was on drugs. That, or had failed to get their GED. While on drugs.
It was messy inside, too. Worse, it smelled. Like rotting dairy products, stale… Everything that could be imagined, and dirty machinery. Eve stopped herself from gagging, by not breathing, and then forced herself to inhale. It wasn’t really that bad, even with senses that were about sixteen times better than a dog’s, as far as being able to smell things went.
There was a young man behind the counter, who was a plain old Human, smelled like pot, and was wearing a shirt that he’d probably had on for half a week. No apron either. He did have a green and white Yoghurt World ball cap on though, which was cool. Everything inside the place was dirty though. The walls were covered in grime and grease, probably from either the skin of the people that worked days, or the other stores across the way. Since it smelled like roasted chicken, it was probably that one. It wasn’t unpleasant at least, when she focused just on that part of things. The rest of it was just a bit off. Not like it did smell of unwashed socks and body odor, but like it should.
She stopped in front of the counter, which wasn’t made of professional looking stone, but Formica, like the table tops at the booths. Those were all dirty, but the ugly orange color matched for all of them. She let her expression go, and went blank for a minute, then looked at the guy behind the counter, and smiled at him. There was no reason for her to blame him in particular. He wasn’t the one in charge.
Now that was Cormack, but it had been Sandra, whoever she was. She wasn’t up to day walking yet though, it seemed, so had been trying to run everything through other people. Honestly, given that it seemed like she’d been the only Vampire working there at all, and that it had all been done in secret from the Human employees, she’d probably done pretty well.
The place was still a mess. It kind of exuded a sense of grunge and grime that would have stopped most of the world from eating there. Worse, it should have stopped them, since it was probably an actual health hazard.
“Hi! I’m Eve, and this is Ginger. We’re from the corporate office?” She didn’t know how to bring things up, exactly, but the guy, who stoner or not seemed like a dork, used
his index fingers to make fangs by his mouth.
“From the Vampires? Mwa-ha-ha.” It was at least done with a good attempt at a Dracula accent. The guy’s shaggy brown hair and sleepy eyes made it seem a bit off though. Then he laughed. “Sorry, I get some variation of that one three times a day. People coming in to try and become one of them. I heard the thing on television too, but if there are Vampires around here, no one has told me about it. Honest.”
She nodded, then listened, to find that Cormack was in the back already, working on something. Possibly hiring all knew employees for his place? Running an embassy with two people was close to impossible, and for one person to try it on their own…
“What’s your name?”
“Jay. Why?”
“Let me short hand this for you, Jay. First, promise not to scream like a little wimp?” She waited, until the man gave a nod, then pointed at her mouth and popped her teeth down with an audible click, her eyes turning blood red in a flash at the same time. “Shee, fangsh.”
The guy did jump back, but laughed after a few seconds.
“Holy crap, that got me. So, this is for real? I’d kind of thought it was bullshit, to tell the truth.”
“Yep, we’re actually here to make you work and fix this dump up. We’ll start with cleaning.”
It wasn’t that easy, since Eve actually had to physically run to a big box store, about five miles away, and buy cleaning supplies for it. Then she started scrubbing, with Ginger doing the same thing without being told, and Jay standing there, like he had something better to do.
Eve cleared her throat.
