The Living and the Dead (Tyler G Book 3) (24 page)

The one that the Vampires sent in
when Vampire armies needed to be put down. Tyler focused, and held the concept
of speed, walking across the room. Running wouldn't help, and being stable
would.
If
he could pull the move off. Still he didn't use magic, and the
woman was stuck behind a row of seats, which she awkwardly had to climb over.
That let him get there in time, to be hit instead of the Vampire Council
member. He took the half dozen weak slaps to the face without feeling them.

They probably didn't even do any
damage.

"Stop that now." He let
his voice go cold, having had enough of these silly people. "I said stop!
What the hell do you think you're doing here? If you push these people, you
will
die
, and no one in the world will even be able to punish them for
it. If you want to do that, just get a gun and take your head off with it. It
will save lives."

He, for his trouble, was struck
again by the big red haired lady.

"You misogynist! You can't
tell me what to do. I'm oppressed!" She yelled it with no sense of irony.

"Um, if you're oppressed,
then you have to stop hitting me, because I said so. If you
aren't
then
you should stop oppressing me, please. Which is it?" He thought it was a
good point, but she screamed at him and hit again, making a loud clapping sound
using her hand and his face. That one made his head move, even though he didn't
feel anything.

"I'm being triggered! Help!
I'm being scared!"

That was the right reaction,
since Skalla walked over, and picked the woman up by the back of the head. It
was done with one hand, the other on the blade which seemed to be about to
behead the woman. Zack shook his head, as she started to pull her sword back to
strike. Tyler did the same thing, but the large warrior kept going.

Then he realized that she didn't
know that shaking a head meant no. At least not naturally and under stress. It
was a cultural thing, after all.

"Skalla, please spare her,
at least for now?"

The big red woman was tossed back
to her people, several of the men trying to catch her, which had them knocked
over, going down under her weight. Not that it wasn't a valiant effort. You
just didn't catch a hundred and seventy pounds out of the air if you weighed
that much yourself, or less. Not if you were a regular Human.

The woman wasn't hurt though and
got to her feet, reeling a little maybe, but still seeming ready to fight. So
at least there was that. She was loud, wrong, and violent, but
not
a
coward hiding behind the people she seemed to think of as being less than her.

"You... You can't do
that."

Bey smiled and bowed toward the
woman, his entire being seeming ready to have tea, rather than fight. If it
came to that however, it wouldn't be a battle. Just Humans dying. It was, in
the end, Ty's job to stop that kind of thing, if he could, using reasonable
methods. That should have been by talking to the local police, or government,
but this place was a school of some kind it seemed to him. A university. They didn't
even have security guards or campus cops in the place. That probably saved
their lives. If a real fight started, the Humans were going to die.

There was no need for the
innocent ones to do that too.

"We won't be oppressed by
you pigs!"

Tyler moved, standing between the
Vampires and the feminists, and shook his head.

"Yes. You will. These beings
are not your people. They don't answer to you, and if you keep coming at them
you are all going to die. No amount of chanting, calling the cops, or even the
army will help you. You've lost, because you've finally run into the people
that can actually oppress you. This, right here, is what
real
oppression
looks like. Learn what it is, and stop bothering people that have the power to
actually make you go away. Do that now, or die. You heard Skalla. There
is
no third option. You kept poking at things until you ran into what you truly
feared. You found it now, and it's going to pounce on you. Now, I need an
agreement, from each of you here, not to bother the Vampires any longer. Any
Vampires. If you don't then you'll be made to vanish. Right here, right
now."

That got him stared at by the
feminist.

One of the men, who reminded him
a bit of Will, the form that The Storm had taken most of the times they'd met,
having curly dark hair and being very thin, moved forward a bit.

"But... We have
rights?"

That got a laugh, from Eve.

"Seriously? Weren't you
paying attention? You were just saying that you were oppressed.
Fine
.
Oppressed people don't get to set the rules. Tyler does. Either you play by his
rules now, or you don't
live
. You had rights, right up to the moment you
pushed us into taking action. We
were
going to leave you alone, you
know. Feminism... That's not even a thing to us. You thought you had power
though, and acted like it. You tried to bully the wrong people finally, so now
the real oppressors are going to see what oppression really means. We should
kill one of them so that the others get the idea." She stalked forward,
slowly, to the heavy lady with the red hair. That got the skinny man to move in
front of her. Protecting this woman that he probably didn't even know, with his
own body. Against a Vampire.

Which got her to laugh.

"Can't you even see it?
These women claim to be oppressed, but even though it means dying, you moved to
protect
her. You're willing to give your all to save your master. That's
fine. I won't even argue that point with you. The part of a man is often to
sacrifice to protect his ruler. Let's not pretend she isn't in charge. The
sacrifice should be hers. Go ahead Red. Tell them that you'll go to your death,
in order so they can live. Any of these men would do that for your sorry ass.
You owe it to them."

The woman, getting that things
were not going too well, finally swallowed and took a step back, then two.

"No... I... You shouldn't
kill anyone. We're oppressed and weak."

That got a snort.

"Yeah, you can't take us in
a fight, but weakness isn't always about the ability to punch through a steel
reinforced door. Tell you what. You can sacrifice your life, or we'll kill all
the men here. You guys come forward now. If she steps up, you all live. Go
ahead. You don't get a choice anyway."

The woman stayed remarkably
silent, even as the Vampires rather gleefully started to pull the men forward,
so they could be slaughtered. The women all clutched together, sobbing a bit.
It was kind of sad, but given how they'd all been acting earlier, Ty was able
to shut that down by holding a very calm and collected concept. One mixed with
high situational awareness.

It was clear, at least to him,
that Eve wasn't putting on a show. The Vampires all got it, but none of the
Humans really did. Even Skalla seemed to understand.

"You, red one! Go forward!
It is the part of the powerful to protect the weak. These dead will kill your
men, if you do not! Are you a coward then, to hide behind them, rather than see
what claims you after you die? Go, or I will cut you down myself to save
them!"

The leader of the rabble didn't
move. She cried, and seemed scared, which Tyler could agree with, but she
didn't step up to save anyone else. Faster than seemed possible, the large
curved blade in the giantess's hand came around.

"Hold!" The voice that
rang out was, a bit surprisingly, Richard Swerlin. "I beg you for her
life, Skalla of The People. We need to find another way to handle this.
Please."

The blade stopped, but Tyler had
an idea, that might work well enough.

"Um, all right. Beg then.
All of you. Get on your knees, and beg for her life. You claim to have been
oppressed, because of... You know, I never really got that. It was that the
hardest working five percent of people tend to be men, isn't it? Or that you
were asked to get coffee in meetings? Well, now you live under true oppression,
and for you it isn't going away. Beg now, or we'll kill this woman. Notice
though, you only get that option because the Patriarchy is asking for it? The
same one that had these men about to die for you, Red."

That started more chanting, oddly
enough.

"This is what oppression
looks like! This is what oppression looks like!"

The ones in the front row, most
of the men, died then. Their heads vaporized suddenly. At first he didn't get
it thinking Bey, or perhaps Eve had done it. Then he noticed that Zack had a
few flecks of blood mist on him, even though he was still across the room. A
scream went up, but silenced after a while, on its own.

Eve sighed.

"Fuck. Well, yes, this is
what
real
oppression looks like. Notice, it's a little more serious than
catcalling in a bad neighborhood? It's about more than controlling how half of
all people are allowed to sit too. Real oppression is bloody, horrible, and a
thing that you won't survive if you don't adapt to it. Zack you should take out
the leaders too. Just getting those men and a few pawns won't be enough. I
could do it, but I don't want them to see who's giving the orders here. A
woman
.
Now, kneel, and prepare yourselves, because all of you are now our slaves. Kill
anyone in that group not kneeling in twelve seconds."

Two died. Both men who tried to
fight. The rest knelt, though a few of them died at Skalla's hand, the last being
the one that had failed to protect the men. That was even the reason the Amazon
gave. She looked at the others with a sneer.

"You were free. All of you
had choice. Power over the men of your world. Now you must serve on your knees,
and the fault is your own. This is what
you
made happen."

One of the women, near the back
of the huddled, kneeling collection spoke up. She was crying, and looked
horrible, her face twisted already.

"That's victim blaming, this
isn't our part,
you're
oppressing us!"

Eve sighed, loudly. It was very
fake.

"Don't you see?
Victims
don't get to choose if they're blamed or not. Not outside their own heads. We
are
oppressing you. Now, admit that you understand how your poor choices got you
here. That, or be beaten. You have ten seconds."

The girl, who was dark skinned,
had short hair, and a pierced lower lip that made her look funny, and a bit
wild, cringed.

"I shouldn't have taken
Gender Studies. I should have gone into Engineering like my mom said."

That was, it seemed good enough
for Eve, who smiled.

"All right, stand up."
The girl did, and was waved over to the side. "She learned a lesson here
today. Change majors. We'll be checking on that. You can leave when this is
over. You aren't going to blame others for your own decisions anymore however.
Bey, will you make sure of that? Compulsion, please?"

That got a big smile.

"Of course. Come, dear, I
just need to talk to you about your new life and career path. You'll be much
happier now, I'm certain of it." He held out his arm and walked over to
her, moving her away from the others gently.

One by one after that, Eve talked
to each of the remaining people. Not all of them earned their freedom, being
too stupid to just lie. Most of them got the idea.

It was a dismal scene, but was,
in the end, the only thing that would work for these kinds of people. They were
the powerful in society. They ordered others around in ways that would never be
applied to them, and couldn't see that they were the ones on the top of the
heap, oppressing others with their silly rules and laws.

Then, telling men they had to sit
to pee, while it wasn't a good thing, wasn't oppression, as Eve and Skalla had
shown. Zack too, though Tyler kind of thought he just didn't want to stay there
all night, hence his expediting things.

After a while Tyler walked over
to him, letting the Vampires clean up the mess. The ones they brainwashed into
being slaves did the work for them, carrying the bodies out to cars. That was
going to be hard to explain, nine people vanishing like that, but it wasn't his
problem really. His job had been to get the Humans out alive, and they'd gone
out of their way to make that hard on him. They'd been acting entitled and as
if being a self-proclaimed victim was a power. It was, really. Right up until
they got in the face of the wrong kind of people.

They should have known better,
but he got that one, too. No one had ever really taught these women, girls
really, that anyone could harm them. They'd grown up coddled and protected.
Even the few who'd been harmed by men had, for the most part. They honestly
thought that no one could touch them, and it showed in how they bossed the world
around them into doing what they wanted.

Worse, he understood that was the
issue that Keeley and he had really had. He'd gotten pissy and pushed her
around. She'd pushed back in a way that had a greater impact on him than the
other way around. Thankfully he hadn't had to die over it.