Dead and Everything (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 2) Page 13

  Alone, the other woman would have been killed, or would have had to call in Bey. Possibly Ed and Lenore. People would have died, and it would be an even bigger mess at the moment. Instead, she’d been there and done something unexpected. Unless it had all been the plan?

  She set that line of thought aside. If they were going up against Greater Demons, then they wouldn’t know about it, most likely. No one outthought that kind of being. It just wasn’t going to work, if that was the case. In that case, she’d have to count on her Greater Demon friends helping her out.

  A horrible thought occurred to her then.

  What if being locked in a box for six months was the best possible thing for her at the moment? She didn’t really need it just to learn how to keep a link open. Oh, she might not have that down yet, but if she could make it for four weeks, she’d probably have it down. Certainly by six. So why that long? Just to get her out of the way? How important was she then?

  Eve smiled, and didn’t let her head shake. There was no reason to, and she was being watched. Instead she tried to hold the feeling of not being hungry, deciding to do that and nothing else, until the hunger went away.

  That one took a while. The better part of a week, she thought. Eve didn’t let her eyes open the whole time, and while she had some rather spectacular hallucinations, none of them were really worth much. When she opened her eyes, feeling a bit disturbed for some reason she noticed something strange.

  There were three men, all fairly thin, filming themselves masturbating in front of her box. One of them was sitting on top of it, like he was trying to ride her face. They wore masks, but were really going to town, jerking it while gesturing at her. One of them noticed her looking at them, and jumped back, then, after the others all laughed, started doing his thing again.

  It was a mixed race group, each having different colored skin, but they were all kind of small. Dick wise. Eve knew enough to get what normal was, and she had seen smaller, but they weren’t porn stars trying to fill some kind of kinky Vampire masturbation niche. Besides, if they were going to do that, they should probably consider getting some girls in. No one wanted to watch what was going on outside her prison.

  Worse, when they finished, one at a time, they didn’t clean up, and smeared their man juice on the front and top of the container, so that she’d have to look at it. For months.

  She memorized the men’s faces, because she wanted to have a chat with them later, if she could find them. It didn’t work very well, given the masks, but she got what she could. They were all different. One was a kids Spider-Man Halloween thing, another a stocking cap pulled down with eye slits sloppily cut in with a razor.

  The last one, the lightest skinned guy, had on a really fabulous gold thing that reminded her of masquerade balls in old movies, except there was a strap, not a stick to hold it in place.

  She closed her eyes again, since there was no reason to watch anymore. They’d do what they’d want, because there was no one there to stop them.

  On the good side, she realized something. For the first time since she’d become a Vampire, she wasn’t hungry anymore. Smiling, she decided to work on her anger next. It took longer, since that had been a part of her constantly for most of her life. Then she had to scramble, since she noticed that her links to the cows that were keeping her alive were starting to fade.

  That took days to make sure they wouldn’t again, and after that she made a point of working to keep those strong. It worked, thankfully, but she couldn’t afford to get sloppy with it.

  Days turned into weeks, and she got a good handle on a few things. Clearing her mind for instance, worked pretty well. She even learned, after a fashion, to make boredom go away. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than screaming and clawing at the inside of her cage. Since that was the other option, Eve tried to go all in on the meditation thing.

  About halfway through though, she ran out of things to really do.

  She could beat hunger, the thirst for blood, which was a constant drag on her, and took active work to defeat, but it was possible to do now. The horrible and never ending anger was about the same. Pain, well, she could make it better, but she still felt the sun above her when it was up. Agony cut by a quarter, but it was still pretty bad.

  So for a few days she just lay there, staring at the cum stains that those twerps had left on her window, wondering what she could manage to do while she had the time. Finally, when her small pricked friends came back, the only people to have visited, she had an idea.

  They wore different masks, but she actually recognized them as soon as their pants came down. It was really in their individual styles of handling themselves that gave them away.

  What if, and she didn’t know if it was even possible, but what if she could compel the men, through the glass? It wasn’t a thing that she’d ever thought of trying before, but was it possible? Could she first catch their minds and then get them to do anything, without being able to speak to them? She looked at one of them, the lighter skinned one, and focused with all her will, trying to catch him. Nothing much happened, she didn’t think. At first.

  Then his eyes raked across hers, and instead of jumping away from her brown eyed gaze, he froze. A slight buzz thrilled through her head then, which she was going to assume was the man being caught by her. Entrapped by her mind.

  Smiling, she focused on the feeling, not letting herself blink, in case that made any difference. Then she was a bit stuck, since she had no real way of giving him instructions. She tried to think what she wanted him to do, which was step toward the glass box, but it didn’t work. Finally, she dropped the effort, and waited for one of the others to look into her eyes.

  That took a long while, since they were all busy again. She finally managed with another of the men, the one with the camera. Then something occurred to her. She could feel a buzzing, and focused on it, but what would happen if she tried to focus on him feeling something? Like she did when she kept herself from being hungry? That wouldn’t give her much of a sign, but there were a lot of things that the fellow might feel too, wasn’t there? Pain came to mind, but other than getting him to just hold still, nothing really took place.

  In the end they all came on the glass above her again, taking turns. Leaving deposits right over her face. It made her angry, and this time she didn’t bother to hide it. That got them all to laugh, but she shook her head, and made a much bigger effort to catch not just one of them, but all of the men. That… Actually worked, to her shock. They didn’t do anything, but they all stood there, frozen in place, not able to move, other than to breathe.

  Taking a moment, she pointed at the mess that they’d made, willing them to clean it up. She didn’t see any rags, but kept that one thought in her head. They didn’t have a choice, they had to get the thing clean. Nothing happened for a long time. It wasn’t until she remembered something that Keeley had told her once, about energy and magic that she thought to pull against the links she had, and push the power from that directly into what she wanted done.

  That, the idea, plus a trickle of energy, got an instant result. Almost in a panic, the three jumped forward, all trying to rub the glass clean. One of them took off his shirt, and used that to get the worst of the spunk off the glass. That didn’t work for the dried scum, and she didn’t relax, since they weren’t done yet. It was pretty gross, but they all started licking at the glass, finally, instead of running off to get a bucket, like she would have herself.

  Then she focused on the idea that they needed to leave, and not come back. Ever.

  She didn’t know if it would work, but as soon as they were gone she felt a bit bad. Not for what they’d done, since all she’d insisted on was the glass of the box being cleaned. It probably showed both the power of what she could do that way, and how sick some people’s minds were, all in one go. The problem was though, that once they were gone, there was no way to get in touch with them for any more fun. Now, if she’d had a blood link with them, that
might work.

  Blinking, which she didn’t need to do, Eve imagined having eight cows come to the cave and just stand there. It was funny, but she didn’t see any real reason for that, if it would work.

  Instead she tried to move things out in the cave. Little rocks and stuff. It surprised her when things actually shifted around a bit. The amount of power it took wasn’t really worth it though. The poor cows were being drained for what amounted to her moving things that weighed no more than a few ounces around. Maybe as much as a pound? Still, it demonstrated something to her. She, as a Vampire, could do real magic. Nothing all that cool maybe, but real stuff none the less.

  It was a tiny thing, being able to make little rocks move, but it was a start. The real trick would be to find a skill like that which wouldn’t kill her energy links. Internal things seemed to take less energy, of course.

  There had to be a useful technique in there somewhere. It was frustrating, but Eve really couldn’t find anything all that cool. She tried making fire appear, outside of her cell, but nothing really happened. It didn’t even use up energy that she could tell. It was just her laying there, as far as that went, no matter how hard she tried.

  In the end, she gave that line of thought up, being too frustrated with it. Instead she spent the rest of the time making sure her links stayed strong and trying to make herself feel horny. That one… Also didn’t work. She just didn’t seem to have that response anymore. What did work was making herself feel very peaceful, and calm. Adding energy to it helped, which, she finally realized, after several months of working on it, also helped with fighting off the pain of the day.

  Using energy from her links, she could shut off pain, almost completely. It was a bit of a strain on both her mind and the animals she was linked to, but it worked much better than just the meditation alone.

  Now all she needed was to have more energy, and it would be enough to do some real damage. That wasn’t a thing though, as far as she knew. She couldn’t have more lines than what she was born with. That seemed to be eight, for her. If anyone else had more, she didn’t know about it. Most claimed six or seven, but it really wasn’t a common idea. In the main it probably didn’t matter, really. Except, was that real? She’d never tried to hold a link, on top of the eight that just kind of happened, so how would she know?

  That was what she was thinking when they came for her.

  At first she didn’t really understand what was happening. She had her eyes closed, but heard people walking. No one was saying anything, and it was night time. That probably meant that they’d come to kill her.

  Because that was the only thing that made sense, wasn’t it? The villagers had figured out that she was trapped, so they’d probably come and try to burn her out. She made herself smile, hoping it wouldn’t look too insane.

  When the box she was lying in opened, Eve was ready to fight. So it was a bit strange when Ed’s face appeared above her.

  “Hey there. Your punishment is done now. Are you… all right?”

  There were other people there. Two of them.

  Bey and Lenore.

  Eve cleared her throat, which took breathing. The scents of the world hit her then. It was a bit musty in her little artificial cave. Not that it was hers. She wouldn’t want it, even if it was. Assholes kept sneaking in to masturbate, which had to hurt the property values.

  After about half a minute of looking from one person to the next, she nodded.

  “I’m awake.” It was an odd thing to say, but she made herself grin, even though she didn’t really mean it. That was part of being a Vampire though, so no one seemed to notice.

  More to the point, they all just stood there, warily, as if she was going to be half out of her mind or ready to kill them all for imprisoning her. That was silly though. The official story was that she’d done it to herself, which meant…

  Well, in public she had to own that for now. Possibly forever. She glanced at each of them, and then, very slowly, moved toward Edom, and gave him a hug. It took a bit for the man to realize he wasn’t about to be bitten it seemed, since he went stiff, but eventually he relaxed as Lenore moved in. She had a basket, with a glass bottle of blood. There was no label on it, but Eve knew it would be the expensive Human kind. She waved it away, and then hugged her too.

  It was strange, and felt unreal, like it wasn’t happening. She really couldn’t be certain it wasn’t a hallucination either. That would take time to tell. She’d had some that were pretty real seeming so far, and getting out of the glass cage was a pretty common one. So were dreams of people trying to kill her. She’d taken to acting peaceful in them, since coming straight out of her micro palace with fists flying might be taken the wrong way. Especially if the people doing it were Humans just trying to get in to have sex with her. That hadn’t happened, but it nearly made sense, if some were going to try and video themselves jerking it on top of her.

  It was Bey who spoke next, his voice very soft, as if he were afraid that even the most gentle of approaches would set her off.

  “Are you well, Miss Benson? We came as soon as the last moment of your self-imposed sentence was completed. Is there anything you need? Blood or…” He wasn’t leading her, she didn’t think. He just had no clue how she was going to react, did he?

  “Not really. It’s good to talk to people. I need an update on what’s been happening, and all that. Anything interesting?” She took the ancient Vamp’s hand, and he didn’t shake her off, or even stare at it, just giving a tiny squeeze instead.

  Edom smiled though, and seemed to relax.

  “Hell yeah there is. For one thing, we opened the Portland T2LA. Openly Vampire owned, which is the first business to do that in the U.S. So far we’ve only had two major attempts to burn it down. The biggest problem is that there have been six pretty major attacks on Humans. Mainly Christians, which even they seem to be getting as someone trying to set off a war. The Shifters came out, and so have the Mages. Most of the other groups are keeping quiet, but it’s pretty clear that it won’t last much longer. Oh! We’ve also set up a meeting for tomorrow with Gene and the rest of the Council members that voted against you. They should be in town in a few hours, if you want to sneak off to ambush them?” He seemed serious, and actually glared at Lenore and then Bey.

  The older being looked away, but nodded.

  “It is truth. They will not be coming, I do not think. Gene fears you now. He is right to, no doubt. Do you seek their deaths?”

  Eve thought she got that one. The man looked at her, scared to be asking the question. That was probably because he was under orders to put her down for the last time, if she said that she was going to try for revenge. That was silly though.

  After all, she really had volunteered to go in the coffin. Probably under mind control, or at least stupidly unaware of what it meant, but that still absolved them, unless one of them had gotten her to do it? Possibly even then. Her bet was still that Keeley had manipulated her into it, but, now that she was through it all, Eve could kind of see the point.

  If she played it all right, she could look very good, in the next coming months and years. Incredibly strong.

  So she smiled gently and shook her head.

  “Nope. This was my choice. Still, I’d like an actual order from the Council, so that the next time I have to do this kind of thing I can get away with a shorter sentence? Not that we should just run around killing Vampires, but if it happens, it would be good if the next one of us that has to take action isn’t going to be in for that, just to prove how law abiding we all are.” She waved at the clear coffin with its very thick top, filled with a foam of air bubbles in a few places.

  Bey shrugged, “we can see to that. Perhaps you would like to leave? We brought a conveyance for you? Young Edom feels that asking you to run at this time might be improper?”

  Eve winked, the move over exaggerated.

  “Nah. Bey and I can shuffle back. To the mall? Or am I on at the club? I missed work for a while, s
o…” Hopefully they hadn’t replaced her yet. She would have. Half a year… It had felt like every minute of it, but that was a long time to be missing from what she was supposed to be doing.

  It was dark out however, and from the feeling of it, around midnight.

  Lenore just turned and walked out. It was a strange thing to do, but there was no immediate suggestion that she wasn’t allowed back to work. That could be something the Council wanted though. Why have a criminal, even one that was trying to do the right thing, working in an important political position?

  Bey clapped, three times.

  “To the shop, first. From there we can make plans for the rest. There is work for you, however, in many places at the moment. If you will take it, and I do not have to seek the end of Eve? Truly, I had thought that in your rage you would try to kill me, or at least those others of our rulers who spoke without thought to your advantage.” He seemed happier suddenly, as they all got outside the concrete bunker. There was litter on the ground. Beer cans and a small fire pit that hadn’t been there before.

  Because clearly, outside the tomb of the Vampire was the best party spot in the world. Eve hadn’t even known people were there. Hopefully it had been fun.

  Her small bald friend looked at her, making direct eye contact. She was wary, and broke that off instantly. It wasn’t a vast thing, but by not locking eyes she might be able to resist being caught and compelled too easily.

  “Your plan however, to make an example of yourself, has worked. I think perhaps it is the main reason that we are not being driven as a people from this land. Those most prone to fear our kind, the conservative, they view you as a kind of noble law enforcement. A sign that Vampires will not be allowed to run roughshod over them. In fact, those of the Council have been dunned with letters and phone calls, suggesting that it is not you who should be punished for what you were forced to do, in order to protect others. There is truth to that, but, it is done. Shall we?”

  There was a gesture, as if for them to leave, and the old being started to walk, moving at a regular Human pace at first. Eve, for her part, focused her entire being, removed as much of the pain as she could manage, ignoring it rather than taking it away, she thought, and moved.