Finally Dead (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 1) (18 page)

The tall
thin man nodded, looking at her as if she were clever or something, while she
managed to get Marcus back to work. He wasn’t
good
at it, being slow,
clumsy and whiny, but he
did
it. Hopefully that would be enough to start
with?

The day
was a drag, in a way that made her want to kind of throw up. Not that she could
do
that kind of thing anymore. At least she’d never noticed a Vampire
doing that. The only good side was that the sun that hit her through the thick
walls of the mall and the ground of the upper parking lot, wasn’t even a tenth
as painful as being out in it.

Still,
she was dead on her feet.

It hurt
enough that the pun wasn’t even funny to her. Not that she loved that kind of
thing. She was more of a stand up girl, when it came to comedy. Funny stories
with wicked punch lines, rather than clever turns of phrase.

She made
up her batch of anti-coagulant, put it into the blood carrying container that
she’d gotten for the job, and sent off her fatbearded minion. That, she
decided, was a good thing to have. Lackeys. He still needed to be cleaned up,
she realized, but that would have to wait. It was all she could do to hold her
feet at the moment, and she knew that she didn’t dare sit down, even for a
second. As it was Eve couldn’t be totally certain that she wasn’t kind of
nodding off, even as she moved. She lost time more than once, but never went
down all the way. Hopefully that would count as far as Zack went. He didn’t
come to help her out at any point, but then, if she wasn’t going down, she
didn’t really
need
him to, did she?

It was
nice to have your hand held, but after a while you had to step out on your own
and run. In this case, stumble. Slowly. She did it though and found herself
moving from store to store, cleaning and talking to people. Just the Candles
and More and Yoghurt World, at first. Then at about four, feeling a little
better, and her eyes being clearer than they had, she went to Hartley and Co.

There
was no real reason to do it. She didn’t think so at least. When she got there
though, she found that the place was packed, and that all of the girls were
busy… helping other customers. In the back. That meant Zack was scrambling to ring
people up alone, and there was no one on the floor at all, since they only had
four people on this shift. Without even thinking about it, she jogged over,
still feeling heavy, but lighter than she had for hours, and started manning a
till. Because she was just incredible that way. Clearly. It wasn’t like she was
sucking up or anything. Not that at all.

It was…
Busy. Not just with guys trying to hit on hot chicks either, which was the norm
for the place. There were people there, who seemed to be looking for things to…
buy
. Actual books and things like that. It wasn’t unheard of, but this
far away from Christmas it was a bit unusual.

She had
the patter down, from long practice working there, and forced herself to move
more quickly than she thought she could given the hour.

“Did you
find everything all right today?” She asked this of an old man, who squinted up
at her, his face a bit wry looking. She was taller than he was, but also
standing on a raised stage that people on the other side of the counter couldn’t
see. It made her taller than most of them, unless they were very big people.

“I was
hoping to find a good nudie magazine, but the pickings are a bit slim. Keep the
good ones behind the counter? I could come back there and help you look?”

Eve
smiled, getting that she was
supposed
to be scandalized. Instead she
just grabbed a pen and paper.

“What
kind do you want? We’ll try to order them for you, and if we can’t we’ll find
the closest replacement available. If you don’t like them, you don’t have to
buy.” It wasn’t policy, but Zack turned and nodded to her, even as the man said
a few things that made the woman behind him in line blush. Eve just wrote, rang
up the rather plain and boring auto repair book that the man actually had
decided on and moved to the next person.

That
woman was still red in the face. She was a bit stuffy looking for a woman that
couldn’t have been thirty yet. Squared bangs that reminded Eve a bit of Maggie
Sims, and chunky enough that she remembered the girl from the other day. The one
that had been given to her to kill. That reminded her to try and make sure she
was still all right. It cost her very little to do that kind of thing, and
would make her seem like she cared.

The
woman in front of her put her books on the counter.

“That’s
so gross. What that man said?”

Eve got
it, but winked.

“Because
it had a dude involved in it?”

To her
surprise the woman nodded. Either playing along or outing herself directly.
Either way it was done without irony.

“Yeah. I
mean, I
know
people do that, but do the breeders have to be so
blatant
about it? That kind of things needs to be hidden away from the eyes and ears of
the good, innocent, public.” She kept turning red, but it
was
joking, so
Eve just rang things up, trying to be efficient.

“Did
you
find everything all right?”

The lady
had, so she was able to help get things caught up. Nearly forty minutes later
she hit the main floor, and started straightening books on the shelves. There
were bare patches in places, so she ran to the back, feeling better now that
dark had come outside, and pulled the wooden stocking cart out, to start
filling things. She just worked until Marcus came in, at six-thirty. His face
was flushed red, from exertion, but he was damp, and smelled clean. Eve was willing
to bet that Lenore had sent him down, not wanting to put up with him herself.
It was a brilliant plan, to be honest. He was a bit of an annoyance, even if he
did smell like her new favorite food.

“I got
that stuff you wanted. The, uh, girl at the ice cream place said that it tasted
fine. Good, I guess? It’s in the cooler there, so you can find it? I was going
to take off.” There was a sullen tone to his words, as if he felt abused.

Poor
him, having to slave away, being useful and all that. For once in his sorry
existence. One of the girls came out of the back then, with a young thin guy
who looked sheepish. Also like he was playing
way
out of his league. The
brunette with him was so far beyond hot that it wasn’t funny at all.

Kaitlyn.
She’d been gone at college for most of the time that Eve had been working
there, but they recognized each other on sight. The girl abandoned her conquest
of the moment and moved over to her, giving her a hug. It wasn’t like they’d
never made out or gotten busy. Eve had even done it with her guy form several
times. Kyle.

“Eve!
How have you been? Did you bring me a present?” She looked at Mark and smiled
like she saw something good to eat.

That got
her to look sideways at the Human, who
was
a possible food source for
the girl. The skinny guy wandered off then, not even looking back, since he’d
gotten what he wanted from the succubus. Not that she hadn’t taken her fair
share of things, too.

“This is
Marcus. He’s actually in trouble right now. So don’t do anything too fun for him
for the time being. Tell you what though, Mark, why don’t you go back into that
little room with Kait here? Then jerk off for her. She can grab the energy from
it, so it’s not actually just me being mean. If you do that often enough, well
enough, you might get something out of it eventually. Not
yet
though.
Got that Kaitlyn? No free shows to help him out or anything. Well, nothing with
your clothes off.”

It
didn’t matter to the succubus where the energy came from, really. Other people
having sex near her, masturbation, whatever got someone off, worked for all of
her kind. They’d collect the energy up as it was spent. Without even taking it
from the person directly. They’d already used it, after all. That was what Eve
had been told anyway. Not that she was one to judge.

What was
a Vampire, except for a being that did the same kind of thing while not looking
as good? That got Marcus’s hand taken by the pretty girl, as if he didn’t have
a choice about things, which he actually did. She nearly said that, but then
shrugged.

He was a
grown man, and
had
his free will, didn’t he?

She
worked then, until the cart was empty and Mark left, walking out without
talking to her. Embarrassed. Kait grabbed the other carts, and actually did
some work then, mainly helping people, since they naturally gravitated toward
her. When the last of the five full rolling shelves was empty, at about seven,
she waved to Zack, who was about to have a snack it looked like. At least he
had a heaping tray of food from the café in the back of the place and was going
toward his office.

“Hey.
Can I get a package or two delivered? Richard Swerlin, and Marissa. Alice the
Assistant Ambassador in Australia. Anyone else you want to take things to? It’s
a bit like getting a jet pilot to deliver samples from my lemonade stand, but
you have to admit it would look good. Not that I can afford your rates. I don’t
suppose you’d count this as business related?” She wasn’t really going to count
on that, but Zack, being incredible all the time, as a rule, nodded.

“We can
do that. Let me eat first, then I’ll go and collect the samples. Meet me in
fifteen minutes in the back of Yoghurt World?”

That
would, if she hurried, be just enough time to package things up. They had
little glass bottles that were used to sell four ounce servings of Human blood
at the store. She could repurpose some of those, just this once. She needed
some notes to go with the things though, at least for the people she knew she
was sending them to. That meant she kind of ignored Lenore at first, when she
got in, rushing to do what she had planned. The woman didn’t call her on it,
even if it was pretty rude. She’d been gone for hours, so she needed to say at
least
something
on her return.

The work
came first anyway.

“I’m
sending samples off. You got one? It was all right? I was worried that the
vanilla flavoring would be too strong.”

“A touch
too much? You should try some of it. I think its fine enough that no one else
will notice, but different palettes perceive things differently.”

That
meant warming a serving of it, and drinking the thing down in small, controlled
sips. Savoring each drop. Trying to pick up the tiniest differences. It was a
bit heavier than Human blood, she thought. The links that set, the one that she
got from it since the others hadn’t faded yet, felt different. It was as
powerful, perhaps even more so, but the energy really
did
feel a bit
slower somehow. Not as refined.

If you
had a choice, she could really see how a person might choose to go with Human
feeding over this. Still, it was energy, and seemed to mesh with her system
well enough, after a few moments. The flavor was fine though, at least to her.
She nodded, and made a quick note to try dropping the flavoring a bit. If
Lenore thought it was too much, others might too. Perhaps they could have
different variations based on that? Regular blood, and then types with
different undertones? It could be an interesting idea to test out. She needed
essential oils for it, but from what she’d seen vanilla was one of the most
expensive of those. Anything else she went with would be a cost savings.

She was
able to write everything in time, moving fast enough again that the world seem
to slow around her a lot, and she started to hurt from forcing things that
much. It seemed to be the cost of using that kind of speed. Pain. If that was
the case, then, she wondered, did greater speed actually come about when you
increased how willing you were to take the discomfort? If she was willing to
really do it, could she move like Bey, say? By being willing to simply
do
it?

The
thought of even trying seemed scary, since she really wasn’t fond of
discomfort, but she had to give it a shot, didn’t she? If it was another way to
power, on a level that very few had, then she
needed
to go down that
road.

Lenore,
being nice, in her own fashion, got some delivery baskets together. They
weren’t presented with fine linens, but had red and white checked cloths in
each one to go around the individual bottles. A little instruction sheet was
put in each one. They were the ones from the Human blood packages, but the
heating instructions would be the same. Warm water bath was the best way to
gently heat it, and you wanted to avoid letting it touch metal. You didn’t want
it to get too hot, or subject it to microwaves for too long, though that could
work if you only warmed it for ten to fifteen seconds. Otherwise you’d cook the
blood and kill off all the energy links.

Zack
walked in from the back, moved over to Lenore and gave her a little hug, then
headed out, using the travel Node in the back room. They
had
one there,
but really, the only person that could use it was him. Other Greater Demons
too, and she was willing to bet that most Lesser Demons
could
. They just
didn’t want to. She’d known a few of those over the years and they traveled the
lines pretty easily, since they didn’t really exist.

They
were beings largely created from people’s thoughts and fears. Things made up of
thought and energy. The will of millions of people, bringing something into
existence.