Living Proof (Tyler G Book 2) (21 page)

"All clear. Who's
first?"

Keeley walked forward, as the
node started to glow. It was a soft purple color, and Zack spoke softly to her
first, as she approached.

"Don't fight it. I'll do the
work."

Then he made a face as she went
into the light. After a second he made a disgruntled noise.

"
Aaand
she fought it.
I hate transferring demons. Greater ones anyway. It never comes up with Lesser
Demons. Now
there
are some people that do their own work. It won't be a
problem for you. You'll come out in front of the right place."

Tyler nodded, holding his little
bag, his old school knapsack, in his right hand. The trip was instant, and didn't
feel like anything. He'd been worried about that, he realized. On a deep level
he was kind of panicked, since it was moving so far away from where he was used
to.

It didn't really feel that
different. The place he came out was just a mall, and while it
did
look
a little strange, it was pretty normal seeming. Closed down it seemed, being
night time, but the Yoghurt World was lit up.

Inside there were four people
already.

Eve was one of them, and she was
hugging Keeley, so he walked in too. It
seemed
like the right thing to
do, given he was being paid for it.

The two men there stared at him
though, fangs coming out with audible pops, at least for one of them. The pale
man on the right came for him instantly, his eyes solid red in color. That was
always
a great  sign, when dealing with the dead.

Luckily, Tyler didn't feel pain,
or the crunching sound his spine made when he was picked up and carried into
the metal support near the front door would have probably stunned him. The
injury was bad enough that his legs weren't working, which was interesting,
after a fashion. Before that moment he hadn't realized for certain that he
needed a spine to keep moving. To hold him upright, well, that part just made
sense. Everyone needed that, if magic wasn't going to do the trick for them
somehow.

The fight wasn't over though, and
like always Eve just stood there, watching impassively. It could have been that
she didn't want to get involved in his business, of course, but this one time
it seemed a bit more like it was a different reason calling to her. So, with a
broken back, and unable to stand on his own, Ty got to the business at hand.

Vampire butt kicking.

It was an interesting and very
different battle than the ones he'd had before. This time, instead of taking a
well covered stance, with his fists held high, so he could guard his delicate
throat, he had to grapple and eye gauge through the whole thing. It was hairy a
few times, too. With his right arm wrapped around the undead neck of his new BFF,
he had to use his other hand to try and strike the right points. It took a
while, and there was much screaming to be had when he got it right.

One
of them felt pain, it seemed.

Then, after he had the other man
blind, streamers of blood running from where his eyes had been, Tyler got half
on top of his wriggling form and started striking with his right hand, over and
again. To the face, neck and throat. Eventually, and it really did take a
while, the other fellow went limp.

Just
in time for his legs to start
working again, if not perfectly yet.

Standing up, a bit shakily, he
glanced over at the other man, who looked a bit smaller than the first had.
Hispanic, if very pale now. The other man had been too, but younger and taller
looking. Not that it meant anything. It was, he realized, why anyone in the
other communities listened to him really. They couldn't tell at a glance how
old people from other groups were, and that passed on to him too. These men
were both older than eighteen, and had been when they'd died.

He nearly thought that they
were
older, one of them being truly and finally gone now, but he stirred on the
ground, making feeble and pained noises. His eyes still weren't back though,
and Ty was ready for him now, so the next fight would go a bit more smoothly.
In fact, he looked around, saw a mop in the corner, and picked it up, ready to
beat the downed Vampire with it, when he got up. He didn't break the head of it
off, since it wasn't his to damage, but it probably wouldn't last the battle to
come.

Strangely both Keeley and Eve
were smiling. Standing there like this kind of thing was perfectly normal.

"As I was saying, Julio,
this is Tyler Gartner, who's agreed to help us for the next few
days
.
He'll be in charge." She looked at the man, who was about her size, but
seemed like he was pushing fifty. It got a nod from him. Then, only after that,
did she go on. "During the times that you and Martinez
can't
be
awake. I get that your boy here didn't want to lose his position, but he really
should have let me finish speaking first. I mean, a whole sentence isn't that
much to ask for, is it? Ty is the head of the
Coalition of Nations
. Not
a Vampire, and
not
staying. I
trust
that this won't be a
problem?" She kicked the man on the ground a little, who was already
rallying.

"No, Senora." It was a
bit mumbled, but seemed heartfelt.

"Good! Because trust me, if
you hadn't taken him by surprise you'd probably be dead right now. The bad kind
you can't come back from. Apologize, and we can get to cleaning this place up.
It's a stupid time to have dominance struggles, and from now on we aren't doing
it this way. You pay attention to orders, or I'll replace you." She
sounded all bitchy, but the man on the ground, struggling to sit up, mumbled
again.

"Forgive me, Mr. Gartner. I
acted in haste." His words sounded old fashioned. A lot more than fifty
years would have allowed for.

Closer to several hundred.

"I'm sure it won't be an
issue. Like Eve said, I'm not staying. I just came to help..." Looking
around, he noticed the place, which was not in good repair. Sure, they'd been
fighting, and there
was
a single piece of bent metal, where his back had
broken near the front door. It was painted blue, but the whole place was a
thousand different colors, none of them particularly purposeful looking. The
seats on the booths were cracked vinyl, and the table tops had more drawings on
them than empty space. There was a large metal frozen yogurt machine, but it
wasn't, he noticed, turned on. That probably meant it wasn't normally in use.

The tile floor was thrashed too,
and seemed to have seen better days. In the forties, perhaps. The thing there
was that it looked like it had once been very high quality. Dark slate, instead
of something cheesy and newer. Over time it had been scraped and broken, under
feet, moving desks and large pieces of equipment, and probably hundreds of
other things he couldn't imagine.

The feeling of the place was that
of never having been a real shop. It had just enough trappings to fool...
Really, it probably didn't fool anyone. The Police would have just thought it
was a front for drug dealing.

Locking eyes with Eve he sighed.

"What kind of a budget do we
get for this?"

She smiled at him and shrugged.
Then glanced at Keels and the older looking Vampire, Julio.

"We have new equipment
coming, which took about half of it. On the good side we won't have to worry
about that part of things. New flooring too. That leaves about sixty thousand
for the rest of the place. Do you think you can work with that?" The words
were directed to Keeley, not him, he noticed. Then, she was the one that
probably had experience with things like that.

He hoped so, given that he had no
clue at all what would be enough.

The hot girl nodded.

"Barely, but we'll make do.
If we do the work ourselves, that will cut costs. We need tools. Julio, since
your friend is out of commission for the time being, could you help us out that
way? We could use some pry bars, sledge hammers and a nice general use set of
things, if possible?"

The man grumbled at her, his face
vicious looking.

"Don't order me around,
chica. I'm not your slave." It was said fiercely, and more than a little
angrily.

That, it turned out, was a
mistake.

Because Keeley snapped her
fingers. It looked cute, and playful, but the Vampire went still. Actually, so
did Eve.

"Damn. I forgot. Well, we
can fix that. You are now. So, go get me those tools, as quickly as you safely
can? By the way, you can't struggle against me, lie to me, or do anything to
seek your freedom. Understood?"

The Vampire nodded, a slightly
absent thing. His face was blank.

"Si, Mistress." Then he
ran from the store, like he was on fire. To go get those tools, no doubt.

Eve glared at the Greater Demon
and then shook her head.

"Jesus Keeley. I hate it
when you do that. I keep waiting for the day you forget I'm your friend and do
that to me."

Tyler could see that one. It
probably didn't apply to him, since he'd die without being attached to his mom
like he was. Stop moving and rot, or something similar, at least. He was already
dead. That meant he could call a certain demon on her bullshit though, and not
worry too much about what would happen to him.

"Um, you're supposed to be
pretending to be a Human, aren't you?" The words were polite and calm
sounding, but she made a face at him, like she'd been slapped.

"
Fuck
. You're right.
That was the agreement. I'd reframed it in my head, over the last few days. I
don't suppose you'd be good with me starting now?" There was a winsome and
hopeful expression then. One meant to play on the idea that he could get lucky
with her, possibly.

That wasn't happening, so he was
in a position of power that she might not be ready for.

"Sure. No do-overs though,
starting... Now. Though, clearly, you can protect yourself, or me, if something
starts. Other than that, you is da Humanz." That bit of funny talking got
a grin going, from Eve, though Keeley just sighed and shook her head.

"So, I need to go and sleep.
I can camp out." She waved at her gear, which made sense to him, but Eve
made a face.

"Rules lawyer. You
forgot
when it came to taking my people as slaves, but you remembered to bring a tent?
Fine, you can set up out back. I'll clear it with security."

That got a giggle from the
Greater Demon, but she didn't back down, or change her mind about sleeping.

When Julio came back, at a run,
he was loaded with tools, some of them electric. Without waiting they all
started in on breaking the place apart. It went pretty fast, really. They had
several people with super powers, and Martinez, looking like he should be
selling drugs, rather than running an embassy, pitched in as soon as he rebuilt
his eyes enough.

Eve had to help him with that
part, which got the man to go very quiet around her after that. Keeley smiled
at him, and whispered why that was.

"Only one Master Vampire has
that kind of healing ability. The Snowflake. Really, by rights she should have
vaporized his head when he attacked you, but I think she wanted to see how you
were going to win. Now, since I'm a helpless Human girl, help me rip these
booths out?" That took using a ratchet set, and a sledge hammer, but by
the time the other two Vampires left for the day, at a little past four, the
place was pretty close to empty inside.

That meant a hundred trips
carrying things out to the special dumpster that Eve had hired for the job, but
Keeley didn't actually run off to get that sleep. It meant that she wasn't
working very hard to pretend to be Human, but that wasn't a big deal to him.
The help was more important.

Then, slowly, things started to
come in. The first thing they did was strip the walls patch things and then
paint. Eve, for her part waited until noon, then came and gave each of them a
hug.

"I'm out of here for a
while. My real job is in finding who set up the attack on our people. Speaking
of which we have a few of them coming in... That will be at two. Feel free to
set them to work. The ones that refused to help were fired. This place hasn't
been running well for a long time." Then, without waiting for him to ask
questions, she took off.

Vanishing like she did. Moving so
fast that he couldn't see her doing it.

His part in the whole thing was
work. At the moment that meant getting the first coat of paint in place. The
fumes were probably headache inducing for others, but he was fine with it. He
could get the scent, he realized, but there was no real reaction to it. The
paint was bright, a cheery yellow. That wasn't what he would have picked for
the place, but it did match the Yoghurt World in Vancouver. Even with the floor
being torn up the place looked better by the time the two men and one woman
came in, a bit before they absolutely had to be there.

Keeley nudged him.

"This is your show. You had
to fight for it, after all."

"Ohhh, true. Hi everyone!
I'm Ty and this is Keeley. Eve Benson, the new boss here for the time being,
asked us to help you get this place in order. We need to get another coat of
paint up, and then start on the flooring. The tables and new booths won't be in
until tomorrow, but if we work hard we'll be ready. The new front counter will
need to be done at the same time." He liked the way he sounded, but the
woman, who looked about thirty, and was whiter than he was, made a face.

"I hate to be a pain, but do
we get paid for this? The lady on the phone basically said that I had to get my
ass in here if I wanted to keep working, and not ask too many questions. I know
that Vampires might not play by the rules, but I have to make my rent."

Ty didn't have an answer, so
lied.

"Yeah. In fact you, the ones
that showed up, get
raises
. The amounts of those will vary, but the
harder you work now, the longer the hours and the more effort you put in, the
more you get paid." Hopefully Eve would back him up on that. They all
seemed pretty pleased with that however, and Keels nodded along, like it was a
thing that had been spoken about.

It only took a little bit of
prompting to get the others to work at near the same speed that he was. Keeley
stopped after a while though, and looked at him meaningfully.

"I need to get something to
eat."

For her that was probably a big
deal too, not just a hamburger or two. At least Zack ate constantly, and he'd
kind of let Keeley go hungry for half a day now.

"I can give you some money.
Can you pick something up for everyone?" That seemed about right, since he
was in charge at the moment. The girl seemed happy with that, and took what
cash he had on him, which wasn't a lot.