Dead Certain (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 3)

Eve Benson: Vampire

Dead Certain

P.S. Power

Orange Cat
Publishing

Copyright 2015

Eve stood, her legs feeling
wobbly and raw underneath her. That was due to them being pretty damned close
to brand new. A week and a half before they hadn’t existed, the old ones having
been burnt off. Her arms were the same way. Existing now, and looking normal
enough, but feeling odd and like they weren’t real, yet. It was all in her head
though, she was ninety percent certain. Most things were, for Vampires. That
had taken her a while to understand, but once she started to grasp the freaking
idea, she’d been able to work with it.

It wasn’t correct to claim that
the whole thing came down to confidence or belief. That new age kind of
thinking would get you exactly as far as it always had in life. Not very. No,
you had to have the needed skills,
and
be willing to use them, no matter
what it cost you. In this case she’d managed to use magic to increase her own
healing rate.

Sure, that meant she
was
incredibly awesome, she knew that one, but everyone had a healing ability, so
it wasn’t that special. Even when she was a Human she had, which had been cool,
now that she thought about it. Not having things bleed forever was a good trick.
Now she was able to throw a bit more energy that way. That was all.

Her legs were bare, just like her
arms, but she only smelled a bit like a pork barbeque now. The charred flesh
had been brushed away over the last days, as she’d gotten bored and things
started growing back. Now she just needed to go and get a shower, then find the
people, the beings, that had done it to her in the first place.

The only problem with that, she
knew without having to do the math on the equation, was that either one of
them, Maggie Sims, who was an ancient and powerful Vampire, or Fram, the
Greater Demon, would hand Eve her ass on a platter. In the Demon’s case, that
would possibly be a literal thing, if she wasn’t careful. She really wanted
them both dead though, and everything inside her heart cried out for vengeance.
To get them for having hurt her and leaving her helpless.

She
hated
that.

Being strong and powerful was the
entire reason she’d become a Vampire in the first place. It was also why she’d
learned to control herself, even before it had happened, becoming dead like she
had. So that she could be the best Vampire she could be. It had been that, or
joining the Army.

Then some assholes come along,
and use their powers to turn her into a fucking float toy. Not that they would
have known that. Being able to fly was a brand new thing. Her telekinesis
hadn’t been that strong at first, so she hadn’t been able to float around, like
a happy little fairy. In fact, she still couldn’t really do it very well. With
all her effort, she could go about five or six feet up, and then had to land
after about half a minute. The gift was really handy for fetching drinks from
the front room of the shop though. By day five she’d learned to heat the water
in the warming pan, and the tiny jars of animal blood even, using only her
mind. Well, and the hot plate they had for it. She wasn’t making fire or
anything. Even if she could figure out how to get that done, she’d probably
have a mental block that way now. Fire being an actual
thing
for her
now.

People had come back to check on
her, every six hours or so, and they’d restocked the blood a few times, so that
she could change the energy links out regularly. Three times a day. That way
none of her cows would be killed, exhausted by the effort of trying to re-grow
her limbs magically.

Shuffling a bit, Eve moved into
the front area. Barefoot, her old clothing almost hanging off of her. She
hadn’t asked for anything, so no one had given it to her. They would have
thought of it, she was certain, but for some strange reason, everyone had been
busy almost the whole time.
Probably
avoiding her.

Like a little bit of healing was
going to make
her
cranky? Smiling, she saw that David was behind the
counter that night. He was cute, having hair nearly as dark as her own, and
blue eyes. Hers were a plain brown color, but nice enough. On the good side
they both looked fit. She’d been kind of afraid that she was going to stretch
her already thin frame even more, lacking the needed mass to make things
happen. Instead she seemed pretty much like she had before. Thin, but toned,
and kind of hard for a girl, but not anorexic.

The Vampire behind the counter
wore a white apron, since it was the uniform there. It had green letters on it,
that proclaimed the name of the place as Yoghurt World. That part was
interesting now, since for a long time the idea had been for them, their kind,
to stay secret. Hence setting up an embassy in a mall, disguised as a frozen
treat shop. Which it was.

A really high end one too, for
all they looked like a generic chain store. Everything was made from scratch,
except for the multi-colored sprinkles. They mainly did soft serve dishes
though, which was, Eve decided right then, a problem. They should have some
cones, and hard serve, too. That would mean losing some of the front counter
space, but it wasn’t a bar. No one ate sitting up front, they used a booth, or
left the place totally. It would probably take some lobbying to get that one
through though.

“Hey. I’m going to take off for a
bit, then I’ll be back to finish the shift. Because Eve rules. You should
memorize that last part.” She said it like that was a real thing. She hadn’t
been working there for nearly eleven days, and David was good enough that he
didn’t need her to come and babysit him. If anything the job would have been
the other way around, except for one thing.

He had construction skills, and
she didn’t. That meant he could be useful in helping down at the other end of
the mall, fixing the mess that Maggie had made. She didn’t mention that part
though, waiting for a reaction, which was actually the decent looking guy, who
seemed to be nearing thirty and had been dead at least that long, not aging
from the point of his death, staring at her dumbly for about ten seconds.

Then he faked a smile.

If you wanted genuine
expressions, you didn’t work with dead people. It was a thing that left in the
days after you died, and took practice to get right again, for some reason.

“All right,
that’s
impressive. Did you trade with one of the Demons for it? The arms and legs, I
mean?”

She shook her head, getting what
he meant. The Greater Demons could do things like that, if they wanted. They
weren’t limited by much of anything, she knew. In fact, her buddy Darla had
offered to turn back
time
for her, so that the damage would have never
taken place. The events still would have, but she’d declined the offer. It had
come on day seven, and she’d been nearly certain that she was going to be
walking inside a month anyway. It had happened faster than that though.

Mainly because of the time she’d
once spent locked in a box. Learning to use her powers in order to stay alive.

Keeley had kind of tricked her
into doing it, but now she thought it was kind of clear why that was. Her other
Greater Demon friend had mentioned that she’d wanted her to do something like
that, and had been looking for a way to get her to do it anyway, hadn’t she?
Her kind rarely lied, after all. They didn’t have to. They were so powerful
that telling parts of the truth was more than enough to get what they wanted. If
they didn’t just take it. Almost no one could stop them, if they wanted to do
something.

So
now
she couldn’t even
be secretly pissed at Keels for that one either. As much as the whole thing had
sucked it had also bumped her up in power by ten or more times. Thankfully she
had a handy Fram to blame for things, or she probably would have lost her mind
totally.

Eve realized that she was moving
very fast already, and slowed her reactions, shaking her head no.

“I didn’t need the help. It’s
part of my being awesome thing. Anyone, any Vampire at least, can do this. It
just takes focusing on healing for a while. I wasn’t doing anything else, so it
was worth trying, right? You could do it. Not that I recommend learning by
having things burned off your body, if you get a choice. Start with paper cuts,
or rug burns.”

David grinned, and it looked
nearly real. Charming, and very close to sexy. His eyes even sparkled a bit.

“Good to know, if it ever comes
up. Still, if I hadn’t seen you growing in the back like a houseplant for a
week, I wouldn’t believe it was really possible for anyone. You’re coming back
here?
Why
?”

Eve wrinkled her nose, blinked
several times, and tried to seem innocent, even though she knew she was being a
pushy pain in the ass with the guy.

“So that you can go and help
clean up, and rebuild Princess Pretty Nail? If they’re doing that at all. Three
of them died. I…” She sighed, knowing that
nothing
she could have done
would have made any difference. She still felt like it should, regardless. “I
should have gotten there sooner. Figured out that something was going to happen,
and.” She went to a dead stop, not even breathing, the world suddenly turning
into a wash of fire around her.

It wasn’t real, just a flashback.
Thankfully it turned from that into a vision of her being fucked up the ass
when she was about ten, by her “Uncle Jerry”. That was what her mother had
insisted on calling the drug dealers and pedo’s she sold her daughter to for
drugs and cash. Uncles.

Why not ruin everything for her,
including the idea of proper family, while she was destroying her innocence? It
worked out for her now though, since the burning to death thing was fresh and
new, and a
lot
of people had used her for sex over the years. That the
idea of being raped was a refreshing alternative to the horror that tried to
interject itself would have probably informed a lot of people about how bad off
she was mentally at the moment, but no one had asked, and she wasn’t planning
to tell.

David just nodded though. If he
knew what she was really thinking or not, she couldn’t tell. It was possible,
since some Vampires had various mental abilities, too. Maybe they all did, for
all she knew. Fire starting, for one, as well as telepathy, empathy, and
telekinesis. Even the ability to fly, though that was so rare that it was
nearly a myth. Technically
she
could do it though, so she wasn’t going
to doubt that others could manage it.

Shaking her head, she grinned. It
was an old, and very trained response, so it looked real enough for David. He
was
hardly
the perfect face reader, as far as she knew anyway.

“I need to go get a shower.
Otherwise I’ll make the tourists hungry. Call it half an hour?” She didn’t know
that she could run at the moment, her legs still feeling weak and uncertain,
but it
wasn’t
a real thing. That was in her head, that feeling that her
limbs would fall off at any moment, or that she’d be ambushed with fire again.
Turning and looking at the back wall, she noticed that she was, after a
fashion.

The sun was coming up. Rising
like it did every single day. She could feel it, a sense of warmth already, on
the horizon. The pain would follow shortly. It always did.

“Or, you can go and get some
sleep and I’ll be back in a bit anyway?”

“That one, if it’s all the same.
I have to hold out until seven, and I swear it’s like being put to death each
and every time. I really don’t know how you and the suck up crew manage it.”

That would be Cormack and Barb,
along with her, no doubt. The ones that could stay up all day, even if they
were pretty young to manage it.

“Really? I can tell you the
secret, if you want. It isn’t hard.” She nearly snapped the words at him, not
liking the idea that he was teasing her, but it came out all right. That was
the real trick to being an adult and mature seeming Vampire. Not being an
asshole to people. On the outside. Most of them still felt angry all the time,
or so she’d heard.
She
did at least, and Lenore might have just been
saying that to help her keep going at the time, but she thought it might just
be a real thing. It was possible to relax and fight some of that one off
though, along with hunger, so she did it, making herself seem peaceful.

“Oh? What’s that then, not being
a giant puss? I
know
it’s going to be something like that.”

Eve blinked, nearly taken aback.

“Um, Dave, if you already know
the secret, then why aren’t you doing it already? That really
is
the
whole thing, right there. Accept that there will be pain, and know that you can
beat it. You
can
, so… What’s the problem?”

That got something tossed at her,
which she saw fly at her in slow motion as she moved into pure, and blistering,
pain. It was as bad as being on fire had been, but instead of killing her, it
just let her move so fast the world seemed to be in slow motion around her.

It was just a white dish towel,
and wasn’t even damp enough to fly at her very fast. She snagged it from the
air, nearly throwing it back in anger, but just held it, and returned to her
normal movement speed. The trick to not being a bitch was a bit like the rest
of it. You just
did
it, and didn’t give up.