Dead Certain (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 3) (41 page)

Them giving up didn’t happen. On
the good side, when they turned to fight, screaming, they all went for Ginger,
who flickered out of existence, and started beating them senseless, not being
touched at all, by any of the would be thieves. She wasn’t acting lethally, but
they were still going down, and being contained to the back room. Sometimes
because she tossed them there when they tried to rush past her. None of the
others moved to help her, so Eve just stood back and called out to the would be
attackers.

“Give up! Beg for mercy, it’s the
only thing that will save you!”

Funnily enough, after about five
minutes and a few iterations of her own shouting, they actually did it.
Dropping to their knees, those that still had weapons tossing them away. Then
they begged, long and hard.

Ginger stood there, looking at
them fiercely, as several of them started to die for the day.

As the last one went down, Bey
moved in and clapped Ginger on the shoulder.

“Ah!
Very
good, Miss
Harris, you have subdued them all,
and
left them alive for questioning.
We should call for transportation and take them to a safer place, where they
won’t be harmed, when they wake, until after they can be examined. Can you find
that information and make the arrangements, Ginger?”

The girl nodded, seeming pleased
with herself. She should be, so Eve didn’t let herself feel jealous, even if
Bey was paying attention to her. It hadn’t been great fighting, but her speed
had been enough, and she’d taken on ten angry Vampires all at once. It got Eve
to smile, since not every Vampire would have done as well. Most wouldn’t have,
since it was creeping up on time for them to die for the day.

“Cool. I have a thing, later
tonight, but I can help load these guys and gals when the truck gets here?”

Bey looked at her, his face a bit
annoyed.

“Truly? What do you have to do,
that is of more value than finding out who sent these beings to us? They were,
it seems directed at you, if ineptly.”

Eve grinned at him, understanding
his thoughts on the matter.

“Well, I need to go and find a
way to free Maggie Sims from a Greater Demon. We’re having that meeting
finally, to try and get her free? You’re invited, by the way. As a guest of the
Greater Demon Fram, The Bold, so that you won’t feel the need to go after him
later. That’s the thought anyway. It should be fun? It was supposed to be on
Sunday, but I’m pushing it ahead if I can, to keep Fram off guard.” She needed
to let him know about that, but she could call in a bit for that. He’d probably
expect it, but it was just about all she could do to mess with him, inside the
rules they had.

Bey, seeming suddenly like second
Christmas had been announced beamed at her. It was a nice thing to see, but she
waved at Ginger, not wanting to steal her moment.

“Besides, this was taken care of
already.”

Ginger dashed to the back office
moving toward the front of the shop, and Eve started to clean up the mess that
the scuffling had made. It wasn’t too bad, considering how many Vampires had been
about to die if
she’d
done anything.

That she wasn’t even joking
caught her off guard though. So did the fact that having Ginger do it was the
better option by far. The girl wasn’t a killer in the same way she was.

It was tidier.

Lyn showed up at six, dressed up
in a nice outfit that was probably pretty close to what a slightly dressy
soccer mom might have worn to a PTA meeting. Eve was just in a black set of
clothing that had the dressiness of a potato sack. They were new clothes
though, and some of the tough ones she’d gotten on the shopping trip. She even
had on black running shoes to match. It worked for both working at the shop,
and a spot of Demon killing.

If she didn’t end up just talking
and not getting anything done at all.

She’d called Fram, who acted like
it had always been on Saturday, even though she was certain they’d said Sunday
before. That was either because she was confused about her world, or he was
trying to throw her off. This time, she really thought it would be that second
one.

She glanced at the Japanese
looking Greater Demon as she stood in front of the stone topped sales counter.

“I’ll trade you some of the new
waffle cone products for your opinion on them, if you want? We’ll want real
feedback for them.” It was a Demon thing, or at least a Greater Demon one. They
didn’t
offer each other food for free. Eve had tried to hold to that,
too, in case it wasn’t polite for Vampires either.

The lady in front of her smiled,
seeming happy enough with the whole situation. Then, she was going to be able
to get her spy on, without being more than a slightly nosy grandmother. It was
all above board even, and agreed to by all relevant parties, so no one would be
risking anything, having her there, pretending to be Eve’s new mentor. As
insane as that sounded.

“That would be nice. I’ll try to
be as accurate as possible.”

It took a few minutes to get the
new cones going, since they were best when sort of fresh. Not too much so,
since they needed to be cool enough not to melt the soft serve. It took a bit
of technique to drizzle in the sauces right, making it a part of the extruded
line of creamy treat, but she’d gotten, if not good at it, then proficient
enough that it still looked
pretty
good.

The real trick was decorating the
things so they looked incredible, like a sundae, while leaving them stable
enough that a person could still eat them without making a vast mess.

For about twenty minutes, after
the first batch of ten cones was done, she just fed the other woman, who had claimed
a booth, and actually did make good suggestions about the products. Eve wrote
it all down, since it was good info to have. A normal person might have slowed
in their eating, but this woman, as small as she was, just took the things in
with no sign of needing to stop.

At fifteen till, she stood, and
used a single napkin to wipe her hands and face, which didn’t seem to need it.

“We should go and make certain
the space is ready for us. Do you have someone coming to watch your place
here?”

She looked out the front, and
then made a face.

“Yes? David should be here.
Actually he should have come in forty-five minutes ago. That… Well, he’s not a
horrible person, but if he wasn’t waylaid in order to mess with my time
schedule, then it’s probably something like he got caught in traffic, or his
car broke down. That could happen, right?” Eve knew it was a bit over the top
suggesting that kind of thing, not having any evidence, but Lyn nodded.

“It could, of course. I think we
can assume…” She stopped since a Vampire ran in then, moving fast enough to get
her attention, but not enough to really freak anyone out.

It was David and he looked
panicked, but also contrite and not like someone had removed half his face.
When he slid to a stop, leaving marks on the floor, he looked at Eve and made a
face.

“Sorry! I got side tracked,
talking to a guy about a new car, and didn’t realize how late I was running.”

Eve could have thrown a fit about
it, and she did feel a bit upset. After all, she had a big, possibly fatal,
meeting to go to, and here he was late, because he wanted a prettier ride? That
he was concerned with looks, and not just having a second, more reliable
vehicle was just a fact in her mind. It was who he was. Not truly lazy, but not
motivated enough to really get ahead. Not stupidly vain, but into how things
looked enough to throw the world around him off, just a bit.

“No big thing, this time. I need
to run, so handle things here?” She moved quickly, taking her apron off and
leaving it tucked below the counter, even though they were supposed to be hung
up in the back.

She’d fix that later, but it
occurred to her, as she walked out, that David being late was influencing her
actions.

“Hey, is this, David being late,
me putting my apron beneath the counter, because it’s faster, is that part of a
trap? We’re dealing with Greater Demons, and the idea that Fram isn’t acting
alone isn’t exactly news, right?”

Lyn smiled at her, and patted her
on the back, gently.

“Good thinking. Probably not
however. If you were made late to this, Fram would simply have to wait. To do
otherwise would be courting war, with enough of us in attendance that even he
wouldn’t risk it. Now, you have a plan for the proceedings?”

They were walking quickly, so got
to the side door of the Node room, the little one that looked like it was
probably to a hallway, if not a supply closet, but that opened into the large
stone floored and wood paneled room. Inside there were several beings, all
familiar to her.

Zack, of course, who was glaring
a bit at a good looking tall man with blonde hair and broad shoulders, standing
not three feet from him, near the back of the space. Keeley was there too,
dressed in a black skirt and a white top, making her look a bit like a sexy
schoolgirl, if a bit too old to really pull that off outside of a strip club
anymore. Plus, it really should have been plaid for that. Darla was next to a
device on the floor.

Eve assumed it was that kind of
thing, anyway. It had eight large gold colored round things, set in a
rectangular pattern, around a space that was about ten by twelve or so. Off to
the side was Dan Carmichael, next to both Maggie and Bey. They seemed a bit
odd. Not nervous, but definitely not all that happy to be there.

Eve walked up to the one person
she didn’t recognize. They were all shape shifters, so she could work out who
it probably was. Either that, or she was going to have to hunt Fram down, for
breaking their deal.

“Bold? Are you ready?”

The man turned to her and gave
her a look that promised sex, and that it would most likely be done skillfully.
Like that was going to influence her?

“I am. Now, we came to discuss
breaking the link between myself and Maggie Sims. It seems like there’s some
kind of plan in place, but no one has mentioned what it is to me.”

Eve shrugged.

“Yeah. If you go into that
rectangle, made by those devices, that will let us break the thing, without
killing you. That’s right, isn’t it Darla? This is the thing I paid for?”

The blonde ex, and possibly
current, for all Eve knew, cheerleader, nodded, her face efficient, and
clothing very workman like. It was a black colored jumpsuit. Brown really, but
so dark in color that it nearly couldn’t be counted that way. Finias was in a
shirt and trousers that was just a bit darker than that, and, she noticed that
Zack was dressed in brown too, though his clothing was a plain shirt and
slacks, with a normal seeming leather belt.

Good looking Fram was in a color
that was similar, matching about what Zack had on.

Keeley and Lyn practically looked
like spots of color compared to the drabness of the rest of them.

Darla though was made up to the
nines, and smiled with a sudden charm that would have made a lot of tents
appear at a Boy Scout jamboree.

“That’s right. Eve set this up,
at great personal expense, so that you wouldn’t have to suffer too much. I
don’t agree with that, personally, but it fits what I know about the conditions
of the agreement the two of you made. There is no trick being used, and no
intent to lessen you even. Notice, she even wears a color stating she’s beneath
you in the hierarchy. I wasn’t aware that she even knew about that.” Darla
seemed happy enough about the whole thing, and gestured to Fram. “So, just step
inside. It will hurt, but not kill. You have my word on that.”

Fram didn’t seem to believe her,
moving in to poke at the device a bit. He literally tapped one of the golden
drums, which was about ten inches around, and didn’t move, meaning it was
heavy, and likely made of metal. The things had little handles on the top,
turned to line up with the others, except for one of them, which was nearest to
Darla. She looked a bit bored, and pointed at the interior space.

“Go ahead, it isn’t a trick.”

Moving like the stone floor was
made of snakes, the man climbed in, walking between two of the round things. He
looked surprised when nothing happened to him.

“So, this is some magical
contraption of yours? How does it work?”

Moving into the pain of speed so
hard that Eve thought she might have heard the universe scream in sympathy,
actually having a sense of that, she moved on the man, the Greater Demon, and
hit him a dozen times, grabbing him each time, and pulling, so that he wouldn’t
fly all over the place. Even in slow motion his body flopped and tried to fly
around so fast it seemed like he was vibrating. Her first blow was to the back
of his neck, and it nearly took his head off. The others were all about making
certain the whole thing really worked.

That he was well and truly dead.
She had to be certain of that, since she wasn’t going to get two chances at it,
she didn’t think.

Dead certain.

Then, without even making a face,
or letting her anger and frustration at the whole mess show, she stepped back,
to where she had been. Then let time move back to normal, the Greater Demon
still falling, flopping lifelessly in the center of the rectangle defined by
the time device thing.

Darla giggled. It was an honest
to God, little girl seeming, annoying, tinkle of freaking bells.

“There we go! Perfect. I didn’t
even see you moving, Eve.” She glanced at her hands, which when Eve looked down
were clean. She hadn’t turned his head to vapor or punched big holes in his
body, so there was no major blood leakage.

Bey looked at Maggie, and after a
second so did everyone else. It was Lyn who approached her though, and touched
her arm, lightly.

“The enslavement is broken. This
woman is no longer under the control of anyone, Greater Demon or not. It is
done.”

She bowed a little bit and moved
back. Maggie, faking a swallow did it back.

“Thank you.”

Lyn waved that away.

“Don’t thank me. Thank The
Snowflake. I won’t tell you how to dispose of your personal debts, but know
this, not only did she just kill a Greater Demon for you, but she underwent
ordeals and trials, and spent nearly a half billion dollars worth of goods to
get you free. Most would not have bothered, even for a friend, or one they
loved.”

She moved back over to Eve,
standing with her, even though things were suddenly a lot more awkward than
they had been. She covered by pointing at the broken ruin.

“So, we turn back time now?” For
half a second she wondered if the whole thing had been a trick, meant to let
her kill Fram for good, without him fighting too much.

Darla nodded, then turned the
handle on the top of the one golden container that wasn’t lined up to point at
the others. It was an end piece, which she knelt by. When that happened, there
was no glowing light or magical hum, but Fram sort of rewound through what had
happened, his body moving backwards, flopping one way and the other, until he
stood there, looking like he had before she moved. Perfectly fine and healthy.

Fram looked slightly impressed.

“Ah? I see it’s worked. Well,
that was easier than I expected. I can’t feel the link, but it didn’t hurt at
all.”

Then Zack moved in, nearly as
fast as she had. Not that he couldn’t do it faster, but he, for some reason,
made Fram suffer a whole lot more. There was screaming in pain, though death
happened after a few seconds anyway. You didn’t play with a Greater Demon that
way.

When he stepped out of the
magical space, there were cracks in the floor from where Fram had impacted, as
well as a lot more blood. Darla turned the device again, and reset the whole
thing. It left Fram standing there, looking perfectly fine again.

Eve nodded.

“I see. Bey?”

They each took turns then,
killing Fram, over and over. She only did it the once, since that had been the
agreement, but Zack went three times. Once for each of the women at the nail
salon. It wasn’t enough, of course, but there was only so much they could do to
Fram, wasn’t there?

Keeley didn’t take a turn, but
Darla did, and so did Finias, apparently just for the novelty of it. Lyn
refrained, clearly being above such things.