Finally Dead (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 1) Read online

  Eve Benson: Vampire Book One

  Finally Dead

  P. S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2015

  Chapter one

  The blade was covered with red.

  A slick covering of life, pulsing with energy. Tasty looking and shiny, even in the relatively dark room. It looked pink to her now, that energy, which was a thing that she’d been told to expect, but actually seeing it was different. Exciting, and almost painful to notice. Tiny tendrils of power came off of the dripping scarlet, as the scent hit her.

  It came at her differently than she could have imagined. The blood smelled like… Blood. Stronger than it had ever been for her before, but still coppery, with an overtone of iron and salt. The big change up was that now it called to her. It held something she needed, that hadn’t been there for her even the evening before. Life.

  Paying attention she saw that there was a line of the stuff, the power of life, stretching between the line of red slowly moving off the glinting silver to the floor. It was faint, but real and moved directly to the little girl that had just been sliced open. Young, to be fair. The crying made her seem younger than she probably was in truth.

  The one she was supposed to attack.

  That part was really clear. No one sane would put a Human in the same room with a Vampire that had just woken up for the first time. That would end in death, every single time. Cutting her was a thousand times worse. It was like chumming the waters to get hungry sharks to feed. Starving ones.

  The man with the knife, well, he wasn’t a person at all, was he? A Vampire, kind of like Eve was now. His skin seemed pale to her, and Eve could make out the pale core of pink life within him, too. It ran to him in weak lines, rather than coming from inside. There were no fangs though, and his eyes weren’t the color of red that a Classic Vamp would have held. Like hers probably did at the moment. He looked young. Healthy and strong, with high cheek bones that marked him as good looking, or would have, if she weren’t transfixed on the knife.

  The rest of him was good, but not movie star quality. That was the pattern for the New Vampires, she’d noticed. The modern world required Vampires to be good looking, but being too much that way would turn them into a joke. So he was about a seven out of ten. She actually hit a bit above that, Eve knew. Her lean form and clear skin would make her nearly a nine, now. At least once made up. Her face was structured to be just a bit too round for true beauty, but no one had ever kicked her out of bed for it, or tried to stick a bag over her head, had they?

  She smiled at the thought, noticing her new fangs were protruding. Begging her to move on the line of pink being offered to her. The one that ran to the bit of food. The snack. The Human being that she needed to protect, from herself. If she could. No one would be able to though, would they?

  The man smiled back.

  “Your control is amazing for one so… Fresh. Come, take this child. Drink her blood, and become one of us. There is nothing to be gained through restraint, is there? Not in this place, or time.”

  She knew the drill, at least in part. As a newly created Vampire, having just woken in the small dark room, she was supposed to be without the ability to control herself. That was what the new Vamp was probably counting on. For some strange reason. She could feel the call of that, even though she’d trained for years for this moment. It was a powerful thing, the desire to get that life within her. That energy that would keep her going. Animate. Giving her life when she otherwise wouldn’t have it.

  Honestly, Eve knew that she pretty much had to do it. The thing there was that she also knew, and had drilled the idea into her own mind, that there was no need for her to kill. It wasn’t just not needed, but was actually a bad idea. The dead fed on the living. By using a link of blood to form a line to the people that created energy, which could be drawn on constantly.

  The whimpering girl, who’d been cut on the arm, a bare thing that dripped with red, called to her, as if screaming that she were a snack cake. The iced kind, with strawberry filling.

  “No… Please! Don’t hurt me. I won’t tell anyone. I want to go home.” It was pitiful.

  Also alluring, which was the man’s point, she didn’t doubt.

  Eve was supposed to attack the girl, who looked to be about fourteen. To feed on the young lady to the death, which would bind the newbie Vamp to him, and no doubt, his group. Feeders. If that’s what they were. It could be something else. It just really seemed like that kind of thing.

  Feeders were Vampires that had chosen to go against the Council ruling that said they weren’t allowed to take blood directly from Humans. Not in most cases. They were especially forbidden to kill them. Not for food.

  It pretty much had to be the plan, didn’t it? Make her kill first thing, and then tell her that it meant the council would kill her if she didn’t avoid them and fall in with whoever these people were? What she wanted to know was how they’d gotten to her, Eve, in particular.The last she remembered was drinking blood from Edom, her master now, as he drained the last bit of her life from her veins. She should have woken up with him. He might not be the oldest or strongest of his kind, but this Vampire in front of her wasn’t going to be able to overpower him, she didn’t think.

  That wasn’t just wishful thinking either. Classic Vamps, like Ed and she were, just had a raw physical power edge over the new type, like the fellow in front of her. The being smiled and wiggled the blade a bit, casting the scent off into the air. On purpose. To get her to kill the little girl.

  The bitch, taunting her like that.

  Her mouth didn’t water, but it kind of wanted to. That part was weird and left a longing inside. Her old reflexes were too strong still. She was, essentially, still Human, in her head.

  He saw her looking at him and winked. Charmingly, because that was sane, wasn’t it?

  “Come, have this one… It’s all right.”

  The urge to simply do it screamed at her. Eve felt her body start to move, heading toward the girl in what felt like slow motion. Everything seemed like that to her now. It seemed bogged down, and nearly sedate, but she surged toward the source of energy, the food that the young woman represented to her now.

  Halfway to the girl, she changed direction. It was hard to do, because really, she had to eat soon. It was the first thing that anyone like her had to do. In fact, most of her kind just killed the first few people they fed on. Or animals, if that was all they could find. Even if there was a powerful Vampire mentor there to try and stop them from doing it. That was the real deal here, no doubt about it. This tool in front of her, the New Vamp, had somehow stolen her from Edom, and wanted to…

  Force her to kill?

  To tie her to him, so that she wouldn’t be in with the people in charge?

  Or something equally stupid like that.

  She lashed out at him, instead of the bleeding girl like she was supposed to. There wasn’t going to be a lot of second chances to get the job done, Eve knew. She was weak, and felt starving. Like there was no way to even stand, much less fight. The part of her that let the dead move needed something to keep it going. It felt like there was nothing else she could do, other than drink the life of the girl there.

  Reminding herself of that, her need to feed, but not kill, she punched at the decent looking man, grabbing at the blade with her left hand, and pulling. It was all so very trudging though. Painfully slow. He tried to move back, to avoid her, once he got what she was doing, but it was too late. She had the weapon, which was covered with blood. The knuckles of her right hand impacted with the white chin, casting the other Vampire backward. Then she…

  Stopped, to l
ick the knife. Like a little kid licking the beaters of a mixer, to get at the frosting residue on them.

  The pink energy hit her tongue, causing a spasm in her chest, as her body, altered by death, and the blood of her new master, picked up on the bits of life still held in the fresh red liquid, and built a gate to the young woman who was tied to the chair next to her.

  It was tempting to stop and linger over the whole experience. She could feel life surge into her then, the link solid between the victim, her food for the evening, and herself. It was actually best not to kill the girl, she knew. To string the energy out, and leave her alive. That way she would have power for about ten days, until that bond shrank and faded. Killing was the natural response of her kind when new, but it was the weakest way. The path of those lacking in self-discipline.

  That wasn’t her. She’d freaking trained for this shit, for years now.

  She whipped the long blade outward. It was thick, and at least ten inches long, making it pretty easy to use. After she slipped it along the jaw line of the man that had taken her, she pressed it into the veins along his neck. That took him to the ground, grabbing at the side of his face, a look of shock on it.

  Not that she could afford to stand and gloat. She was far too new to all of this to let him have any kind of a break. That meant she hit him with the sharp line of the blade many times until he stopped moving.

  It wouldn’t kill him. Even a weak, new form Vampire like he was would be back on his feet inside ten minutes. Maybe sooner than that, if he was older than he looked. That was hard to tell, she knew. What he seemed to be. A beings age on the outside was almost certainly going to be different than the truth internally.

  She turned on the girl, still tied to the wooden chair, and moved in fast enough the child screamed.

  Eve growled in response, because the screaming didn’t help them at all, did it? Worse, it made her want to lash out and kill the little thing. It was a reflex, and a thing she really hadn’t expected to be there. Oh, she’d been told it would be, but the desire to simply do it was nearly overpowering. Nearly was the catch phrase though, and she knew it. How she felt didn’t matter, only what she did.

  “Quiet! We need to get out of here. I don’t know how many others are around. When I cut the ropes, we need to run. Get behind me.” There was someone coming, she knew.

  Running toward them.

  It was the low thumping sound that gave it away. A slow thing that pulsed in the air. She felt it, rather than heard anything. It was loud though, and faster than she figured a Human could manage. Infrasound, she knew. A thing too low for her to have made out the day before. Now, well, it was all around her. There were a thousand different things that tried to call her attention, all at once. It was blinding, and confusing. For one thing, she was in a room that didn’t have a light source, but she could still see. It was monochromatic, but everything kind of had a shine to it.

  It meant she needed to cut the girl in the tank top some slack. She wouldn’t be able to see shit, after all.

  “Stay quiet. I have the knife, and the man that’s here is down, but not dead. We’re going to have to fight though.”

  She probably shouldn’t have said that part, since it got more whimpering. Sweet, sweet sounds that signaled where the food was. Her teeth actually ached, she wanted to bite the little piece of bloody meat so bad.

  It was, she knew, fucked up.

  The ropes were cut, and she moved toward the door, a black chasm in front of them both, just in time for it to be filled with a pale form. One that had chalk like skin, rows of fangs, and blood red eyes. A male Manthori Vamp. He was very tall, and impressive that way, if thin. She didn’t stop, just attacking for all she was worth, trying to review what she knew about that sort of being, as she did it.

  They were strong and fast, but their real power was that most of them had extremely good compulsion skills, and often other psychic abilities. Telepathy, precognition and telekinesis weren’t uncommon. Fire starting, too. This one had that, it seemed, since his right hand burst into brilliant blue flame as she used the knife on his face.

  This fight was a lot closer to being even. The man on the ground, the first one that looked very Human and normal, had gone down easy, compared to the Manthori. It wasn’t totally one sided at least, since Eve realized something. Armed with a knife, she was the equal to this one. Not him and his friends though, meaning she had to hurry and finish up. She burned where the large fist caught her, but the pain didn’t distract her all that much.

  Eve had, after all, been hurt before. It would happen again. That was part of the bargain that she’d made for power. Edom had made her promise to never give up, and to be willing to suffer if she had to, in order to be strong. She had, and wasn’t going back on her word now.

  Two more vamps came for her, and the little girl she was trying not to eat. One was like her, a Classic, the other a Manthori woman, who was shorter than her male friend. Actually, shorter than she was, being only about five feet even. Tiny for one of her kind.

  In short, this group was incredibly varied. Most Vampires didn’t hang with people that weren’t their own kind very often. There was no reason for it. It wasn’t a rule or anything, just what happened, most of the time. This group had three different types of Vamps though. It would have been confusing, if she was less well trained.

  The tiny woman got a boot to the middle, which was the first time Eve realized that she had clothing on. It was the same stuff from the day before, which made sense, being that she’d died in it on purpose. They’d even left her the awesome leather jacket she’d been wearing. It had been at least. Now it was smoldering a bit, thanks to the Manthori dude that had scorched it. He was down at least.

  The last woman was like her. Strong, fast, and a lot older than she was. Eve could tell, since she was hit six times as she tried to bring the knife around. That kind of speed came with age, for a Classic. Some were better at it than others, but as a rule, if a Classic was fast, they were old. It hurt, but not as much as the flames had. The raw fact was that this new lady was kicking her ass though, and there really wasn’t a lot she could do about it.

  Not until the Vampire very helpfully stabbed herself with the big knife. It really seemed like she did it on purpose too, jumping forward so fast that Eve wouldn’t have been able to stop her from biting the side of her neck, normally. As it was, the blade sliced the side of her face open, the woman screaming in pain.

  Distracted, the other Vampire got cut up as well as Eve could manage. That had them all down then, though it was clear they were also going to recover. They were all stirring and trying to get back up.

  “Run!” She took the Human juice box’s hand and fled then, pulling the slow little thing along with her.

  Or not that little. The girl was a bit chubby, to be honest. Healthy, and filled with life. Tasty energy.

  Stuff that was pulled from her into Eve, even as they ran.

  They had something around six minutes, at a guess, to get far enough away to lose the downed people. If there had been fewer of them, or if she’d been alone, they would have all died there. With the girl in tow, that would take too long and probably get the Human killed. So they did their best, the two of them, trying to get out of the place.

  It was easy enough to get to the door, since the place was just a house, not some kind of mansion or palace. Isolated, she noticed, and in the woods. There was a car out front though, and the keys had helpfully been left in the ignition. That meant shoving the girl into the passenger’s seat, but the big American muscle car, which was a bright yellow color, started with a deep and throaty roar. A minute later they were driving away at speeds that most Vampires would have had problems keeping up with on foot. Some could though, so she didn’t let up on the gas pedal.

  The girl next to her moaned.

  “God… God…”

  That wouldn’t help her though. It wasn’t even a proper prayer, was it? If she’d sounded just a bit happier, it wou
ld have worked for sex, but that wasn’t the feeling they were working on.

  “Bind the wound. On your arm?” She could smell the fresh blood flowing still. It was enough that the vehicle filled with the heady aroma.

  She had enough life energy now though. The link to the girl was strong, and she was pulling it in. Yeah, her nature called for her to drink it all, absorbing what life she could all at once, but that was the dumb way to do things. It took all her will power to leave it at that however.

  She’d practiced for it however, for years. Eve had gone without food, even while she was a regular girl herself, knowing that it would be hard to not attack people for their blood. It was different, she realized now, and a stronger thing than she’d been warned about.

  Well, that wasn’t really true. People had told her about how powerful the lure, the call to drink, would be. She’d just hoped that what she was training for was close to enough. So far it really had worked, so she wasn’t giving up, yet. It wasn’t like hunger though.

  It was different. More like thirst, but also kind of like what she’d always imagined jonesing for crack would have been like for an addict. An ache, and a calling, a hunger and a need, all hitting her on several different fronts at one time.

  The girl barely moved, holding her hand over her bleeding arm, but looking around for something to stop the bleeding with. There was a shirt in the back seat, which had belonged to a man, at some point. Eve could smell him on the pale pink fabric. It was strongly attractive. A natural thing, that would have been close to B.O. she thought. Now she really wanted to fuck whoever that man was. It was a bit different, really, since she hadn’t thought that she’d have a sex drive left at all. Most people didn’t really, once they became vamps.

  It had been one of the things she’d been warned about, actually. Many times. She’d be capable of having relations, but wouldn’t care for it, in particular. Really, she’d also been told that the older Vampires would rape her, as a corrective measure. It had taken her years to notice that no one really did that very much. Oh, it happened, and some of the Vampires, like the Manthori, actually wanted sex, but when she looked down at her skin, it was pretty normal seeming. Pale, but still her colored, not bone white chalk. So something was a bit off.