Among the Living (Tyler G Book 1) (14 page)

He went to each location, which
took most of the day. Not everyone was interested in what he was saying in
particular, but most of them at least listened. The man that ran the curios
shop on the upper floor took the list and filled in a lot of information,
without even saying a single word. Really, it was enough to get the whole thing
done.

Tyler thanked him profusely, and
got a bow in return. No words from the man in the very dapper looking suit. He
seemed to be about forty, and was probably Middle Eastern, as well as
incredibly helpful. It was the last place he went, naturally. Next time, if it
ever came up again, he planned to start there, and work around the other
direction.

Well, he was new, so learning
that kind of thing was just part of the job. His chances of getting one probably
wouldn't be all that great. Then, he hadn't had to do a lot either, really.
True, it had taken a few hours, but that was worth about eighty dollars of his
time. Less if they took taxes out first.

The bookstore was suffering from
him not being there, it was clear. He could tell, because as soon as he came
in, Kait nearly tackled him.

"You're here! Thank god.
I've been trapped on the till for hours. Both of the reading rooms need to be
cleaned, too. There have been some problems. I can do it, but not work the
register and the front at the same time, only, I could use some time. I need to
eat."

That it seemed, seemed to be
food, and not some comely man or woman, because she ran back to the cafe. Just
as an older lady came up to the front with a small stack of books. Rolling his
eyes, he headed around the counter, and smiled at her. She was normal seeming,
and not unpleasant or pushy at all. They made some polite small talk about the
weather, which was sunny and nice.

The woman, who was in green pants
and had a bright purple top on, looked around a bit before going on.

"Are you going to see the
fireworks on the Fourth?"

That was a thing there, in
Vancouver. Every year there was a huge party in central park, one that was so
large it escaped the boundaries of the place, spreading out over several miles.
Capped with tens of thousands watching a vast fireworks display. It was kind of
a big thing in the area.

So he nodded.

"Yep. How about you?"

"Oh, I go every year. Wouldn't
miss it. Well, take care. Have a great day!"

"You too!"

The place wasn't really busy, so
he managed to get the rooms cleaned up, and the front half of the store
straightened up, wearing his t-shirt and jeans, with no name tag. That didn't
seem to stop anyone from walking up to him and asking questions. The first one
was just a guy that wanted to get laid.

"Is this the place with the
succubus'?" His pencil thin mustache twitched a little on his thin face.
The guy reeked of being a creep. It was bad enough that he nearly said no, and
tried to get him to leave.

Unfortunately Kait ran up,
bouncing a bit.

"Hi! Why not come back here,
and we can talk about it?"

That made them both vanish, and
while Kait actually tried to help out when she was there, the other Alede just
used the place to get laid. Not that he couldn't see how they might want to do
that, but he had to wonder if they were getting paid for it. If so, it probably
wasn't really fair.

Then, no one had ever told him
life would be. That knock out gorgeous women had an easier time in life than
average looking men
wasn't
a vast shock to him. Plus, for all he knew
they worked for the energy and nothing else.

There at least. Most of them also
worked at Pretty Plus, so maybe it really
was
something like that. They
had real jobs, and this was just a hang out for them. If so, then leaving poor
Kaitlyn in charge of the whole thing was sort of mean.

By the time Zack walked out of
the owl room to the side, to get some food it seemed, since he went straight
back to the cafe, it was about four in the afternoon. When he came back, he had
two large trays filled with things to eat. Sandwiches, that seemed to have been
toasted and smelled wonderful. He affected a puzzled expression when he came
back, stopping in front of the counter.

"I... Thought you had the
day off?"

That got a nod, and a wave at the
side rooms. One of which needed to be cleaned soon.

"I came in to ask a question
and was waylaid by a certain Alede, who
promptly
ran off. You can pay me
back though, by calling Anne, and letting her know that I found out what she
wanted me to find?" He pulled the yellow list, and waved it at his boss a
little bit, trying to seem playful, rather than pushing.

It got raised eyebrows, but a
head movement that seemed to tell him to tuck the paper onto the brown tray on
the right.

"All right. Next time ask
first. It's just a call though, so this one time. That's... Not too bad. I
figured it would take you a few months, really. How did you do it?"

"Went around here and asked
everyone. It wasn't that hard. Calley suggested it."

That had Zack looking at him
funny, but he didn't say anything about it, just walking off. Halfway across
the store, he called back however.

"Can you hold out here for a
few minutes? Ben will be in soon."

"Sure." After all, he
literally
had nothing better to do. That was, he realized, incredibly sad. After all,
most guys his age did stuff. Played video games and talked about girls, mainly.
The thing there was that he didn't really have people to do that kind of thing
with. Yet.

That was a thing that other
people had, and while he was shy, as a rule, that kind of thing could be
fought, if he tried hard enough. It was scary, but not five vampires trying to
kill you on the street frightening. He could gain some perspective from things
like that. It was the kind of thing he did. Or could do, if he tried hard
enough. Why, even that day he'd reached out to meet something like fifteen new
people. That was huge in his life. In the past few days that was closer to
twenty-five. Thirty if he counted the dead Vampires.

Which he decided not to. Being
that they
weren't
going to come to his birthday party. The thought was a
bit cold, and brought back to mind a scent of earth, loam and a vision of a
Vampire woman losing her head. That wasn't the kind of thing Tyler really
wanted to be dwelling on, but it hit him hard, and didn't let go for about half
a minute.

Then, not having anything else to
do, he worked the bookstore. That was all about straightening things for the
time being, since all the product was on the shelves. Sort of. There were
things that had been added to the side of some of the shelves, and a few erotic
novels that people had picked up that were in the wrong section. Disturbingly
there was an illustrated Kama-Sutra in with the little kids' picture books. Not
that he'd ever noticed a child in the store, but what kind of asshole would do
that?

That section of the store had a
little wooden table with tiny child sized chairs in it. Also a basket of
crayons was set out, all of them looking new and untouched. There was a stack
of free coloring books on the table too. At least, he figured they were free.
If he were five and saw that set up, that's what he would have presumed.

The whole place was pretty quiet
really, now that he thought about it. They had rushes, and a steady stream of
bodies, but in the main it wasn't more than he could handle. Especially if he
worked to move like Palma, the cafe chef, did all the time. Flowing without any
gaps from one movement to the next. It took focus, but gave him something to do
while he cleaned, tidied and got things ready for Ben to get there.

In fact, he had nearly an hour,
between four and five, when no one came in at all. That meant that Kait came
back, looking a bit bashful, and Alexis walked over to the cafe.

"Um, I hear that you aren't
working today? I didn't think I noticed that on the schedule. Sorry." She
actually seemed to be feeling bad about it now. That could be a trick, meant to
manipulate him, but given who, and what, she was, if that had been the case
there probably would have been a lot more hinting at sex being thrown at him.

"We have a schedule?"
That was news to him. More to the point, it might be handy for him to go and
look at the thing, if he didn't want to show up late or too early, all the
time.

That got a sudden, and rather
sunny, grin. Then the hot nerd woman who wasn't really fooling anyone with her
thick rimmed glasses that were all for show, reached under the front desk.
There was an all black binder there, with a nice leather cover. It only had
three sheets in it, when it was opened. One that had basic instructions as to
what Zack wanted done in the place, the other two were what people were
expected to work for the next two weeks.

Grabbing one of the yellow legal
pads, he made a copy of it, getting the whole thing down, because knowing who
else would be there when might actually make a difference at some point. Not
that he could think of when it would, but so far in life doing a bit extra
hadn't really hurt him most of the time. His mother had told him that, more
than once.

Don't be shy about pulling out
the stops, since no one punished you for being
too
good.

No, they went after you for being
weak, or for seeming too much like a victim. That was part of the reason he ran
and had taught himself how to fight, and would
keep
working on it. He
couldn't really go toe to toe with some of the people around him biologically
speaking and he knew it. Even the woman next to him could probably take him out
by just being so sexy he couldn't do anything except what she wanted him to. It
wasn't a fun thought, but just standing there, working on making sure he had
his work hours down, he had a hard-on.

Worse, she would have gotten to
her knees, possibly right there behind the desk, and done him, if he did
anything
to indicate that he'd let that happen. It meant she had vast control over him,
he knew. All women kind of had that kind of power over men, and pretty ones
were a lot more able that way.

Alede were simply designed to
pull the stopper out of that kind of thing, and fuck it in the ear. Besides, he
was pretty certain that Kaitlyn was actually working pretty hard to
not
do that to him. She stood there, turned away a bit, not looking at him too
much, or doing anything all that sexy. Rather, everything she did was, and her
cute butt screamed at him to appreciate it, but that wasn't her fault. It
wasn't some extra psychic ability that she was using however, or pheromones.

He could tell the difference now,
since just about the time he was done writing and got the book back into place,
Alexis came back.

She was younger than Kait, it
seemed, but only by a few years. That got him thinking, since he had a notebook
to fill out about what he learned, and needed things to put in it.

"Hey, how old are you
two?" It could be anything, most likely, but Kait smiled at him, a bit of
interest coming from her and a look his way being enough to causes a
pleasurable thrum through his body.

It really did tell him something
special was going on that way.

"I'm twenty-three. Alex,
you're what, seventeen?"

The woman, who looked about
twenty-three or so, just like Kait, nodded and licked her lips moistly. Then
she reached out and touched Ty on the arm, her fingers lingering, driving his
attention to that single point until he shook his head and took a step back.

"That's right. We're the
same age, right Tyler?" She tried to move in, following him, but Kait, who
was clearly his buddy now, moved in front of him, guarding him from the
predatory sexual advances of her other friend with her own body.

"Whoa there Alexis. He
told
us all on the first day that he was trying not to get sucked in with us. It's
our job to make sure he can resist, if he can." It wasn't a conversation
he remembered really having with anyone, except possibly Roberta, but the girl
nodded, and let out a long suffering sigh, then moved nearly ten feet back.

"I know. Sorry, Ty. I'll go
and see if anyone needs me?"

Kait nodded, but Tyler smiled,
his words coming out sounding a bit bland.

"The first reading room
could probably use being spruced up?"

It made sense to
him
, but
the idea that super hot demon women, or whatever Alede were, might just not be
up on the concept of doing their own work that way floated suddenly through the
air. The girl did make a face
and
a frustrated sounding moan, that was
just about like every teen girl confronted by an unpleasant task ever, and then
went, when Kait crossed her arms and nodded.

"That's a real point, Alexis.
The guys
aren't
here to slave away for us. We need to pull our own
weight. You and I especially. Zack pays us to be here, and while we do bring in
a bit of business, just being around, it isn't enough for us to get
lazy
."

There was no discussion which
might tell him what was happening, but it was good to hear. It was even good
that the other girl went away, since aroused or not, she'd been humming like a
blast furnace that way, spraying sex
all
over the place. To the point
that it was actually hard to think around her. On the great side as soon as she
got about thirty feet away, that portion of things eased a lot, even with Kait
right there with him.