Among the Living (Tyler G Book 1) (2 page)

"Here... Wait." She
walked to the pipe guy, and stole his shirt, ripping it from his body without
taking his jacket off first. It was a dark blue, and had been pretty nice,
before the total destruction part of things. It was quickly wrapped around his
arm, so that he wouldn't bleed to death.

"Thanks. We... Should call
the police. Or..." He didn't really know, actually. "The Vampires?
These five were going to kill that girl. I tried to fight them, but... Well,
you saw." He'd been about to die, and was saved by the rising sun. Luck
had really been with him in that.

The prettier one, and they were
both
better looking than he was really comfortable talking to as a rule, just nodded
and looked at the bodies on the ground, then she bent over, picked up the cell
phone and turned it off.

"Here, help me get them out
of the street? Cars are coming." She moved rapidly, then, and with enough
speed and ease that it was confusing. Particularly when he tried to drag some
of the men out of the way. They were all heavier than they looked, but she
wasn't having any problem with it. Even the smaller girl picked up one of them
by the belt and moved him to the sidewalk.

Then she nodded to him, looking
like a fourteen year old who was trying to seem important.

"I'm Ginger, and this is
Eve. From the Vampire Council? We got your instructions, so ran over."
There was an almost glib bit of lilt to the voice. At first he didn't get it.
It was playful sounding, which was right out of keeping with what had been
going on. Teasing, if he didn't know that no one would do that to him, after
being fucking
stabbed
.

The rest of the information
trickled into his awareness slowly.
These
were the people that the
Vampire had been calling. There was no car there either, which meant that
they'd literally run to them. Unless they worked out of the Burgerville, then
that probably meant they weren't normal young women.

That thought, the young part, got
him to shake his head. The one looked about fourteen, but the other seemed
older. In her early twenties or so. He wasn't even turning eighteen for a week
yet, himself. It was a bit rich for him to go around acting like they were kids
or something. He could have dated either of them without getting any comments.
At least if he were smoother with the ladies. His mother had mentioned, more
than once, that he shouldn't let pretty girls turn his head. Lucy was good that
way, trying to make sure he knew what he needed to grow up as a man. That had
to have been hard for her, being a single mom.

"Right. We should call the
police. Or..." Honestly, he didn't know the law on that one. The older
looking girl, the woman, winked at him, and pulled her own cell. It came out of
her slacks pocket. The style was a bit strange, and the whole outfit was tan.
Not a bad look. A bit warm, considering the time of year. The
other
girl
looked right, being in shorts and a t-shirt that showed off the fact that,
round face or not, she worked out.

The dark haired one tilted her
head at her phone.

"I know the Chief here. I'm
friends with her daughter... Hello? Chief Sims? This is Eve, Benson. We had a
small difficulty, over by Burgerville? You probably don't want to let any of
your men come out for it. A fight." She smiled a bit and started nodding,
looking at the scene. "Five Vampires, Classics, went after Tara the
Manthori. Pipes and knives. A jogger intervened."

There was a swearword from the
phone then, and a woman's voice. Before that it hadn't been loud enough for Tyler
to hear any of it. That probably meant that the local Chief was a woman. He
hadn't known that before, but it didn't seem impossible. After all, being in
charge didn't mean she had to wrestle drunk bikers herself every Saturday night
or anything. Then, for all he knew, she could.

Maybe that was why she'd been
elected. Unless that was an appointed position. The truth was Ty had never
really bothered with that kind of political stuff much.

The girl with the long black hair
laughed and looked at him.

"Fuck no, Chief. If we bury
him
now
, it will be hard for him to breathe. He kicked their little
Vampire tushes. All of them, at once. On his
own
. Were talking some
sweet Bruce Lee moves here. True, it was nearly sun up, but still, it was
impressive
.
He got stabbed once, but I'll cover that. Barely a scratch anyway. I'll get him
in to be healed. I think Lyn is going to be in, over at the Candle shop? That's
better than a doctor for things like this anyway. I doubt they could handle
this one. I need a car." She looked around, for all the world like she was
just going to grab one off the street.

There was a bit of noise making,
with some sounds that indicated she wasn't all that interested in the topic
anymore. At least they were the ones that Tyler used for that kind of thing.
Then she nodded, and hung up.

"Good news! We won't have to
go to court for this." Looking at him directly she explained, getting that
he wouldn't know the real answer. "The truth is, as much as they hate to
admit it, the Police can't keep a Vampire yet. Not even overnight, if they want
to leave. So we handle that kind of thing for them, most of the time. To be
fair, it doesn't really come up very often. Not like
this
. So, that
means that you're with us, Batman. On the good side, I have a friend that works
over there, and see her car, so you
might
not have to run to
Westfield."

Why he'd be going there, he didn't
know. Before he could ask, the younger looking one, Ginger, smiled at him.

"We have a friend that's a
mage healer. She does really good work. That way you won't have to go to the
hospital, since you'd need to report this to the cops if you did. It won't take
too long, I don't think. We need to take these people with us too. I... Maggie
only has a hatchback, I don't think that part is going to work." There was
a slightly defeated sound to her words, which got the Eve to seem joyful.

"We'll run them in. Really,
we could do it with you, but that
might
be uncomfortable.
These
folks won't care, and we only have to be careful with one of them. Normally I'd
just get
you
to run the fifteen miles too, naturally, since you clearly
aren't a pussy, but with that scratch it might be a bit much to ask. So you
understand, I'm doing it this way to make the
Vampires
look good, not to
say you can't do it. Here, let me jog over and see if I can set something
up?"

Then, without so much as a
whisper of sound, the woman vanished. She was just
gone
.

Tyler got it, and nodded a bit,
his arm aching and burning the whole time. He thought. It was a bit hard to
tell. The worst of the bleeding seemed to have stopped, so there was that.
There was just a tiny spot of pink on the outside of the makeshift bandage.

"That's impressive.
Invisibility? Or... Was she an energy projection all along?"

Ginger shook her head.

"Nope. Eve is just
that
fast, when she wants to be. I mean,
I
have super speed too, but not like
her
. Which is why making three trips to the mall carrying these jerkwads
is going to be a lot less than fun. Oh! Sorry, I didn't get your name?"

"Tyler. Gartner. Call me Ty."
His voice had dropped a bit in volume. It would seem like he was fainting, but
that wasn't it. He just really did
not
do well around attractive women.

Not that he didn't
like
them. That would be silly, they were, as a group, his favorite kind of person.
He just couldn't get himself to talk to them, that was all. Right now he could
though, because it was about business, and fights to the death. It made a
difference. He'd do better as he got to know them,
if
that happened.

Sighing he smiled at the smaller
woman.

"Well, I suck at running. I
mean, I can cover some distance, using a trick or two, but I'm pretty slow. I
mean, for a regular guy. Eight miles an hour is fast for me, and I normally do
six
."

That got him patted on the arm.
His good one.

"That's not bad. When I was
alive I could barely make it around the track at school. I think I might have
had asthma, not that I paid much attention to that kind of thing. You practice
fighting too though?" She waved at the downed people, except the all white
one, who was off to the side, not piled together with the others.

Tyler felt blood rise into his
face.

"I... Kind of. I try, you
know, out of books? On my own?"

The girl with the dark hair was
back then, suddenly, standing there and nodding her head like she'd been part
of the conversation the whole time.

"Seems to work! We need to
clean up the bodies here first, then I can drive you over to Lyn? The healer?
It won't take too long, I don't think. Even if we have to wait for her to show
up. She won't be in until around ten. Are you cool with that, Batman?"

Before he could nod, both girls,
and two of the bad guys, since he was going to call them that, Ty decided, were
gone. Nothing happened for a while, a few minutes, so he moved over toward the
Vampires that were on the ground, standing a bit closer to the all white one.
He tried to look more like a guard and less like a nervous jogger that had
found a collection of bodies on the street.

It was mainly true, since he
hadn't really found them all that way. Explaining that they were Vampires
wasn't going to work too well though, for most of them. His Vampire friend,
well, she looked that part. The others just seemed like slightly seedy drunks
that had passed out from partying too hard. Which, when the cops pulled up, in
several cars, he nearly said.

"Trouble here?" The
first man out looked normal enough for a Saturday morning at this time. Awake,
since he'd probably had the night shift, and alert enough that he noticed the
white girl first thing. His eyes widened, and he seemed pretty scared, which
got the rest of the men, and the one woman with them, to stiffen up.

"Um, hi? Uh, these Vampires,
I know they don't look like it right now, but the man and two women in that
pile? They were trying to kill this one here. They're being transported by the
Vampire, er, Council, someplace safe. It might be a while before they get back.
I'm supposed to wait here?" It was a question, and sounded weak, but no
one pulled a gun on him. Just on the others. The downed people.

That got him to roll his eyes a
little, since they were all aiming at his new friend. The obvious looking one.

"No,
she's
the
victim. It happened at sunup, so they all went down. I-" He jumped a
little, since the girls were back. Given that they'd
run
, while carrying
people on their shoulders, and covered about thirty miles, it was freaking
impressive.

It meant that one of the officers
started shooting, since he was startled. Aimed at the downed girl still, too.
The pale, sleeping one. Ty didn't see it happen really, but Ginger was in front
of her, and took the bullets that came. Once one of them fired, they all did.
They
also
figured out that it was just a reflexive thing on their own.

"Cease fire! Cease
fire!" The woman was the one calling that out, her very short, almost
butch looking blonde hair shining a bit in the early morning sun. It was a good
look for a female cop. Efficient.

Ginger frowned at the men cutely,
her hands by her sides.

"Ow! Really? Hello is too
hard for you? I'm going to be healing from that for, like, maybe half an
hour."

Eve, who was over to the side
still, cleared her throat a bit awkwardly.

"I take it that Chief Sims
hasn't gotten in touch with you, yet? I called this in. Really, you shouldn't
have responded. Mainly because of
this
kind of thing, given the time of
day. Just thank god you shot Ginger and not Tyler here. He's... Um...
Human." She looked over at him, and then shrugged her shoulders, the tan
fabric rising smoothly. "True, an
awesome
one, but asking him to
soak bullets after fighting five Vampires single handedly like that is a
bit
much to ask of a man that was just out for his morning exercise, don't you
think? Anyway. Why don't you go call this in and get your orders? I'll keep
moving the prisoners." She didn't wait, or ask if it was all right, and
two of the remaining people vanished with her.

That got the police looking
panicked again.

Finally Ty rolled his eyes.

"This is under control. The
Vampires are taken care of it. Why not do what Eve suggested? Call it in and
make sure that it's all cleared already?" If it wasn't they were probably
going to have some trouble. Ginger was hurt, and so was he. True, her body was
pushing bullets out onto the street, but that didn't mean she could fight all
of these armed people if it came to that. Not that he could either. Unlike the
Vampires, these men and women weren't half asleep. Worse, they were actually
scared. Thankfully that was of the dead people on the ground and not him, but
still, nervous people with guns couldn't be a good thing.

Thankfully the female officer,
who looked cute in her uniform he noticed, did make the needed calls, over the
radio in her car. Within a minute there was a reply, which got her to come out,
her face a bit embarrassed looking.