Dead Certain (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 3) (45 page)

“I found those three Demons, I
think? They’re busy eating waffle cones right now. Would you like to get the
others around? I can’t prove it, but I doubt they’ve come to join in the
wonderful peace treaty I put together. A bit of a shame, but two of them are
clearly insane on a level that means they might not be all that reasonable. The
other…” She shrugged.“I didn’t get it before. He’d fooled me totally, Zack.
Everything about him was perfect, too. I mean, completely. I don’t know why he
wouldn’t want to be friends with Keels though.”

Zack was brilliant, being a
Greater Demon, so he made a leap, that was probably just about perfect, if it
had been a story, or movie. It did show he could be wrong, which was good to
know. Unless, of course, he was faking it, which, she understood as he formed
the single word, that he was.

“Ben?”

“You’d think, right? Me getting a
boyfriend that hasn’t run off yet. No… It’s Bob. Bob Millhouse. The Mage Ambassador.
Everything about him is Demon, now. He’s sucking in energy like the rest of you
do all the time, like the world’s collapsing in on him. I guess it could be
someone else pretending to be him, but if so, they got it all down perfectly.”

Zack stopped, and then shook his
head.

“That…” After a second, he
nodded. “Okay. It doesn’t matter if I missed it before, if it’s true now. I’ll
get everyone in for it. We should go in as a group, if anyone will come. If
not… Then I think you should run. You aren’t responsible for these types of
things.”

“No doubt. I like that plan. Just
in case, ask Darla to bring me her special artwork? I’ll pay her for the loan
of it. Ten million.”

It wasn’t enough, for a bomb that
could destroy half of North America, but she wanted to start the negotiations
off low.

Zack ran to the phone, using the
one in the front, and speaking fast, hanging up with a single finger and
dialing again, over and over. After about ten seconds she felt them coming.

It was like they were running
fast, like she did, but it was all just slightly different. As soon as Keeley
came through, she understood what it was.

Demons, walking the lines.

Keeley ran to her, slowly, after
stepping out of a glow in space.

“Eve. Where are they?”

“Yoghurt World. We need to hurry.
They’ll be done with their delicious cones soon.”

If they weren’t already.

After all, from all indications,
the things really were pretty good.

The group that showed up was a
slightly larger one than Eve would have expected. Keeley wasn’t alone, it
seemed, for all that seven beings had decided to kill her off. Lyn, Finias,
Darla, Zack, Fram and Gregor were all there for her, almost instantly.

Half a minute later, after The
Cleric had appeared from the Node room, Tarsus showed up, looking like Kenneth,
the little ancient Vampire.

He waved to them all, his voice
sounding slightly annoyed.

“Let’s get this done. I have
things to do, and don’t have time for this kind of thing right now.”

Keeley glared at him, her model
pretty face going sharp for a moment.

“Oh? Then why did you start it in
the first place? Don’t try to tell me it was Fram here that did it, either.
You’ve had it out for me since the first time we met, and you know it. I’d
thought we’d smoothed things over, and then you pull this kind of thing. Why is
that, exactly?”

“Because you’re a danger to us
all. It isn’t really that hard to work out, is it? Now, do you want my help
with this or not?”

She actually crossed her arms and
looked ready to tell the man to take a flying leap, but went with a sensible
nod and kept her lips closed, being the reasonable one like she was.

They all started walking, most of
them moving ahead of her, since having a nice shield of demons made sense to
her. Darla moved in alongside her, and handed over the blue and green artwork
bomb from her living room.

“You can’t activate this. Only I
can.” It was just a statement, but Eve understood why it would be created that
way. Just as she knew that it wasn’t really true. It would be really hard to
set off, if you weren’t Darla, but not impossible. Nothing could really be
created that way. There was always a way to get around that kind of thing, if
you were clever. She didn’t have six centuries to figure it out, however.

Things were kind of pressing at
the moment.

“Stay by me then, and back me up?
Even if I don’t seem sane?”

Darla smiled at her, but it
looked dark and grim.

“Understood. I’ll be ready.”

When they got to the shop, they
all stood outside, which meant the three beings, who were indeed nearly done
with their treats, came out to them, instead of being trapped inside. That
would be a good thing, if the mall wasn’t destroyed. No tipped or smashed
tables, for instance, or broken machines.

Eve cleared her throat, loudly,
which got everyone to look right at her.

“First, we need to deal with some
business. How did you like the waffle cones?” She let herself sound incredibly
dark and sinister, as if there was something in them, other than delightful
yumminess.

Bob, the Greater Demon, looking
thin, and like he was in his late thirties, even though he was probably closer
to ninety, or would have been if he were a Mage, looked directly at her.

“They’re very nice, Eve. I might
have another one, after we’re done here. Hello, everyone. So nice to see you
all.”

Lyn got who he was first, her
head shaking a bit, as if she felt stupid not seeing it before.

“Mimic. I should have known,
except of course, few would, hence your name. It’s been… Well, no more than a
few weeks, even if I didn’t know it.”

“Naturally.”

Eve spoke again, since it was her
job, after a fashion.

“All right, just to make sure we
don’t have a problem we don’t need, have you all come to sign up with the
treaty thing? You know about it, and the particulars?” She went through it all,
with Keels nodding along, as if it were all her idea. Eve knew it wasn’t, but
having the backing wouldn’t hurt.

The minotaur spoke next, his head
moving to look at Eve directly. He had a hugely thick neck, and was so tall she
could see straight up his nose.

“No, Snowflake. This cannot be
resolved peacefully. The Mistress of Souls killed friends of ours. The Rage,
The Chaotic, and The Helmsman. It was well done, by guile and using powers that
no one would have suspected one so young to have, but no being able to do that
would refrain from taking more. Not for long.”

Eve suspected that these wouldn’t
be the only ones that really felt that way, but they were the ones there, at
the moment.

Short of killing them, what were
they supposed to do, if they wouldn’t deal?

It was, she feared, going to get
her floors dirty.

Keeley sighed, and pretended to
look away.

“That was forced on me, as I’m
certain you all know.” There was no attempt to change their minds though, Eve noticed.

It was probably too late for that
anyway.

Bob, who was, she guessed, The
Mimic, moved toward the girl, taking just a few steps.

“No, this will end now, and for
good. It would have worked better if we had all of the original group, but we
can do it with three of us. We will destroy you, right here and now, Mistress
of Souls. Your friends cannot help you, without starting a greater war. No
Greater Demon can. You might take us, individually, with your power, but not
all at once. This is how it must end. There is no other way. I’ve worked for
years to make this happen. Even before The Line Walker was known, I’ve been
laying the groundwork for this.”

Eve waved a hand in the air,
“wait, did you set up those Vampires the other day? Who did that for you, Gene,
from the Council?” There were a limited number of Greater Demons, if she
accused enough of them, she’d eventually get one to admit to something.

It seemed that Bob the Demon was
willing to play ball too.

“Yes. He’s been my pawn for the
better part of a century. I was planning to soften up The Mistress of Souls’
allies here, using an attack that would be impossible to trace back to me, but
it was foiled. You, Eve, have done too good of a job, strengthening your people
here. So, not to be too much of a pain, but I suggest the rest of you step
aside, and allow us to handle this. It’s for the good of all of us. Either we
act now, or when it is far too late.”

It was kind of persuasive, which
Eve had to admit.

She waved the statue thing a bit,
holding it with her fingers around one of the side pieces, It was kind of
interesting to look at really, now that she paid attention to the whole thing.

“That’s a point. Still, I have
the hard won treaty thing going already, so, how about this. You all either
throw in with me on this, and we don’t have a problem, or I set this thing here
off. It’s…” she looked at it, her mind finally getting how it must work. Not
exactly
how
, but she could feel the links that moved away, toward the
pain orb in the sky. “Well, basically it’s a sun bomb. My guess is that if it
gets triggered, Darla and her friends here, will be hidden in a different
dimension, and the surface of the Earth will become the surface of the sun for
about half a second. You get the idea, burning hot, implosions due to the
incredible gravity, everything on half a continent being dead, including anyone
trying to escape on the lines. Is that about right, Technician?” She used the
name, to remind everyone who’d built the damned thing.

Darla looked slightly surprised.

“That’s actually almost
exactly
what it will do. Very good, Eve.”

The three Greater Demons didn’t
try to run, each one doing something different. Bob waved his hands, and
started to vanish, in a way that was different than walking the lines or going
into a Node. The big minotaur guy raised both hands and roared, which made the
air glow green, and the sparkling baby-doll woman jumped forward to try and hug
Keeley.

She stopped though after a
second. Then Bob did the same, freezing.

The roaring stopped after another
second too, and Keeley crossed her arms.

“No one think, or move. You can’t
struggle against me,
ever
. You can’t plot escape, or work against me in
any way, shape or form. Do you understand?”

As one, all three of the beings
spoke, their voices soft.

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good. Well, that’s done then.
Thank you, for the distraction Eve.” She spoke to her new slaves for a while,
making sure they couldn’t really do anything except what she told them. She was
thorough, but not perfect, even though Eve doubted anyone would escape her too
easily. When that was done, she turned to Darla and gestured at the ceramic
looking sculpture Eve was still holding.

“What does it really do?”

Her sister smiled and took it
back, “it’s a solar transposition bomb, exactly as Eve just said. The only
thing she got wrong is that it wouldn’t transport my friends here anywhere.
Just me. The rest of you would have died, if it had been activated. You knew
that though, didn’t you Eve?”

She actually had, but didn’t
mention it, just trying to think about what to do next.

“So, the rest of you are going to
leave now? I actually need to get to work. Some of us have day jobs, you know?”

Everyone seemed to find that a
good enough idea.

Keeley sent her new minions off
on errands to keep them busy. So Eve let David go home. Felicia came, and sat
in a booth near Keels, with Darla across from them, next to Zack. Finias was in
a booth across from Lyn, and Tarsus had been smart enough to take off already, along
with Fram. He at least waved to them all when he walked away.

Eve got to work, glad that the
shop hadn’t been ruined, and not thinking of anything in particular. Finias
wasn’t called the Mind Taker because he loved him some brain pudding, after
all. As if to prove the point, he looked at her, and chuckled at the idea.

Then he spoke, answering a
question that no one had asked.

“Your friend Bob died years ago,
Zack. Before you saved his wife from cancer. He killed, and ate him. His wife
is still enslaved to the Mimic, so we’ll want to break that for her, if we can.
I’d suggest killing her, like we did with Fram, if you don’t mind helping with
that, Darla? Zack can pay for it, since he has an investment there already.”

There was a sour look, from the
half Japanese looking guy, who was with her behind the counter, making stuff.
He nodded though.

“Yeah. That sounds about right.
On the good side things around here should be back to normal now. Or for some
of us, back to a normal we never knew. A lot of things around here have been a
little off for so long I’m not even certain I know what to expect now.”

Lyn slapped the table in front of
her, which was yellow, but very clean.

“Something better. It’s about
time. Now, why don’t we get out of here, before the ambassador comes? Eve, you
can clean up things here for us. I’ll be back later tonight for a while, so we
can work on increasing the number of links you have.” She moved to the door,
but flared with power and vanished, right outside of it.

Finias looked at her, and stood
up.

“I’m having a party, in a month
or so, I’d love it if you could come, Eve?”

“That might be fun. Let me know
when to be there?” She didn’t say she would go, since the less she had to do
with certain Greater Demons the better off she might well be.

Finias knew that, and seemed
happy anyway.

“I’ll send you an invitation.
Now, I’d best be off. I left a roast on.”

That left her, Zack, Keeley,
Darla and Felicia there, the Greater Demons all eating, since they always did.
They didn’t say much, and when their treats were done, about the same time Edom
came in, they all got up to leave.

Zack made a gesture toward him.

“Um, we found out that the Mage Ambassador,
Bob Millhouse, was killed and had his place taken by a Greater Demon several
years ago. We handled it, and he won’t be back, but Lisa doesn’t know yet. Eve
is going to tell her, when she gets in, and handle that side of things, with
the Mage Council. Keeley took him as a slave, so it should be fixed, for now.
I’d do it, but Lisa will freak if I tell her about this. As it stands, no one
has told her about Fram yet, so… Yeah, that won’t go over well. She’s going to
end up thinking everyone she knows is a Demon. That will have to be handled
carefully.”

“What?”

The whole thing, or the story
Edom was going to get from these others, wasn’t too far from the truth. A few
things had been left out, but mainly for time. No mention had been made of
Tarsus in particular, for instance. There was no mention of Lyn Hartley being a
Greater Demon, either. How she was going to explain her being around all the
time, Eve didn’t really know.

Finally, she decided to go with
the one that they’d been using. It was all a less than clever trick to let her
spy on Zack. Without actually spying. Because
grandma
.

It was a bit thin, but most
people wouldn’t even think to ask about it in the first place.

The others talked, while she
cleaned, and when they finally left, Ed came and stood by her for a bit, his
face a bit bemused.