Living Proof (Tyler G Book 2) (25 page)

That got him growled at.

"What, I'm your secretary
now?" She seemed pissed at him over it.

Ty was however, intrigued.

"That sounds
good
.
Thanks. Yes, you can be the secretary. High enough up to get into trouble, low
enough down to place all the blame on me. Or Kyle here, since that seems right.
So, you can do that part?"

There was a long suffering sigh
and then a chuckle.

"So I
can't
turn you
into my lapdog using fear? Well, it was worth a shot. Fine, then, boss. Still,
if I have to get you coffee, don't expect me to put out in the break
room."

"We get a break room? Coffee,
too? Man, are you the best secretary ever or what? I was kidding, but consider
yourself hired, for the normal rates." Since that was all he could afford,
so far.

"That being free?"

"Yep. It comes with a title.
K
. That way no one will instantly realize who you are, and run away
screaming. We can get you cute little glasses like Kait wears, and you can
pretend to be a nerdy receptionist when you aren't fighting crime. Oh, a cape
too. I need to get you a
cape
." On her it would look cute.

There was a laugh, just before
the phone hung up on him. Hopefully that was a sign that he was charming, and not
about to be hunted to death.

The scene that night in his
living room, was tense when he came in. Calley was sitting in gray colored
sweats, just lounging and trying to fight a smile from her lips. Ginger however
looked incredibly worried. Her face was tense, and since that kind of thing
was, he thought, generally fake on Vampires, it meant she was working pretty
hard to seem like she was.

"Hey all. Well, another day
in the coal mine. Except, you know, easy and filled with light chores and book
stacking, rather than manual labor and claustrophobia." That wasn't an
issue for him, but even pretending his life was all that hard was silly.

Then he passed out hugs, which
turned to kissing, since Calley was involved, which, nicely enough, turned to
other things that involved nudity and the liberal use of oil that was provided
by his glasses wearing Bat friend. It made a bit of a mess, so after they were
done he cleaned it up for them. He was the one with practice and skills in that
area, after all.

Still naked, and looking cute
doing it, Ginger swallowed and looked away, while being cuddled by Calley.

"I was given a promotion
today." She sounded gloomy about it, so he looked over at her, wondering
if she was afraid. Leaving home could be hard, after all. It was a big step,
and while she wasn't exactly living with her parents, going that far away would
be a first for her, as far as Ty knew. For him too, now that he considered the
idea.

"Really? Shift
manager?" Calley grinned about it, as if it made sense, which it kind of
did. Yoghurt World could have the kind of thing, if it wanted.

"No. I was made the
Assistant Ambassador of Nevada. It... This is really big. Gene, from the
Council, he called me himself to tell me about it. I can't say no. I mean, I
can, but this is
huge
. The thing is, I have to move there. The embassy
is in Sparks. I looked it up. Near Reno? I have to go next month."

She looked at him, and then
Calley, who was closer to her physically.

"What am I going to do? I
just
got you both. I don't want to go alone, but... I might never get an opportunity
like this again. Not for centuries, if I don't take it now."

Calley was acting like it was a
real issue, and not letting her in on the whole thing, which was mean.

Tyler cleared his throat then.

"So, Lenore
didn't
tell
you about the rest of it?"

"What? No. I haven't spoken
to her. What's the rest of it?"

He took a breath, and pointed.

"Calley is the new Shifter
Ambassador for that area. Most groups are sending someone. It will have a lot
more activity than Westfield does, since it's a real set up, not a fake mall.
Even the Coalition of Nations is getting an office there. Just a little one
though, since it's only a part time thing."

It took her a second, but then
the naked girl looking woman jumped up and hugged him.

"Wait, we're all going?
Awesome!" There was kissing then, and a bit of chatter about where they
would live. He had a place, and with a single call it was worked out that they
could share his room with him. After all, two of them didn't sleep.

Keeley did suggest that they
could get their own place eventually.

After he hung up Calley bit her
lip, and reached out to touch him intimately, stroking him gently.

"As an Ambassador I should
have my own place. You too Ginger. Not as nice as
mine
, of course. That
wouldn't look right. Something like this. Then we can all stay at Ty's mansion
on the weekends. Rock stars, you know how they are."

The Vampire girl made a face and
then shook her head.

"I don't get that one."

"Yeah, I've been invited to
try out for a band. It's a bit more than that really, and might be a big thing.
Speaking of which,
I
need to go and see about getting a keyboard. I
don't suppose you want to give me a ride to Wal-Mart? I can't afford a really
top end one, but I need something to work out a few songs on, so that the other
kids will know that I can actually play. Maybe some original pieces? I have
some ideas."

Calley hopped right up, and ran
to her room, naked, her sweats in her left hand.

"I need real clothing. You
can come too, Ginger. If you want?"

It seemed to be the plan, because
by the time Ty was dressed and had his cash from his bedroom, the girls were
both waiting at the door for him. Calley danced around, her short rust colored
hair perfect already. Ginger had to fuss with hers a bit, being past shoulder
length. It was an off blonde, which was attractive on her. Really, they were
both more than good looks wise, in very different ways.

Even he did okay, he guessed. Not
like Kyle, but men that looked like that were rare, since they couldn't use
makeup to improve on what nature gave them. Both the girls in front of him had
some on, though that had been for work, so wasn't the full dress up experience.

Calley had a nice car, and the
Wal-Mart wasn't far, due to their policy of putting one next to every Starbucks
in the nation. That wasn't true, but the things were both all over the place.

As they pulled in, Ginger looked
around and sighed.

"I'm going to miss living
here. I've been in the area my whole life. What if Nevada is strange? Or the
people smell bad?"

He shook his head, knowing she
was kidding.

"They all smell like candy
and deep fried food. It's a law there. Really, we should get some Jolly
ranchers to rub all over our bodies for that before we go down."

The Bat woman moved in next to
him, and cradled his arm in hers, pressing her left breast against him lightly.
After a bit Ginger took the other side. Then they walked in. People glanced at
them, but only a few really stared. At first he figured that it was either jealousy,
him having two cute women with him, or ageism, people thinking that Ginger was
too young for him, even if she were older than that by a few years.

It wasn't until a group of ten
cross wearing individuals ran at them that he got it. Even then he wouldn't
have picked up on the whole thing if one of them weren't the woman that had
stabbed him before.

Ty took a breath and then shook
his head.

"Fuck. I nearly forgot about
them. That cult group that was torturing kids? This is them."

The person in the front, who was
a man, but seemed to be in his thirties or so, and wasn't anyone Tyler
recognized, pulled a small firearm from the pocket of his hoodie. That should
have been a sign, since it was way too warm outside for that kind of thing.

"Die, unbeliever! God will
deliver our brethren from your unholy wrath!"

Then he was targeted, not just by
that man, but three others.

It did
not
go well for
them. He'd never really considered it before, not in a real, this was happening
right now kind of way, but Ginger
wasn't
just some girl that was decent
in bed. Or well, he knew that, but when they'd fought, in practice, he'd always
won pretty easily. Because she worked slowly with him by her standards. It was
different seeing her suddenly Vamp out, going red eyed and fanged, and taking
on regular people.

The first thing she did was smart
though, and not all that violent. Calley was simply gone, and they both
vanished. Away from the bullets. Then while he was still being shot up pretty
well, the first of the weapons clicking softly to signal they were done, the
girl came back.

He tried to speak, to let her
know that they needed to leave them alive. He couldn't though, his throat
having been hit too many times for that. It didn't hurt, but he was kind of not
holding together properly, which meant he couldn't really jump in to save them
either. He did try, but the people were falling too fast for him to keep up
with them.

The ten of them had attacked, and
after a minute, the ten of them were
all
on the ground. At least
unconscious. He thought they were all breathing, but they
weren't
going
to be happy when they woke up, if that was the case. Most of them had limbs
that were at funny angles.

For his part, he just stood
there, not able to suggest dialing nine-one-one, or that Ginger get with her
people, since this was going to be a giant cluster in a few minutes.

Her eyes went back to normal
though, even after the fight, which had to be hard for any Vampire, and she
pulled her own phone, dialing with a slightly panicked expression.

"I'll call Edom. Crap. I
think I killed them. I tried not to, I swear. I was afraid for my life. They
were going to kill us all." That wasn't really true, since they'd just
gone for him, but the bullets hadn't all hit him, it seemed.

Calley came back, holding her
left arm, which was covered with blood. She could still speak, which was a cool
trick, all things considered.

"Come on! I pulled the car
up. We need to get out of here, in case of further attack." She looked at
him, her face freaking out as she did, which probably meant he looked pretty
bad. "Fuck. Ty..."

The employees rallied about then,
and several men ran over, to try and help. They at least didn't act like Ginger
or Calley were the threats. Or him, which was nice. Instead they just applied
compresses to stop the bleeding. He had some of that going on, but it was more
of an oozing in his case, and the bullets were, interestingly, pushing out of
his skin already. The ones that hadn't gone all the way through.

It was then that he had a moment
of clarity on the topic.

When he'd been shot the first
time it had taken over a day to really heal up. Part of that had been thanks to
the surgery that he'd gotten, and his denial about what was clearly taking
place.

Now it was happening much faster.
While it was possible that he was just getting better at it, or had even
imagined that he was hurt worse than he really had been before, Ty kind of
figured that it was different than that. The worse he was injured, the faster
he fixed himself. Thankfully, unlike the last time, he didn't have to imagine
the pain of it into being.

That meant he could move, and
while raspy, he had a voice now. After a fashion. He made a hissing noise as
air escaped from his chest.

"Don't forget the
keyboard." It was a stupid thing to say, but if he weren't going to be
arrested for being attacked, he still needed the thing. It was why he was there
in the first place. "Also... How the fuck did they know to be here?"

Thankfully one of the men woke up
about then. He moaned and cried in pain, having a broken leg, but Ginger moved
in and slapped him.

"Good question. How did you
know we'd be here? Answer, right now." The blows weren't too hard, but
people were acting like beating up an injured man was a big deal. The clerks
and other patrons. One of them, a large man with a big beard and a Hells Angels
jacket on even put his hand out, to stop her. From a good distance away, since
being a biker didn't mean fool, apparently.

"Little sis, maybe you
shouldn't be doing that here? The fuzz are coming, and they might not get
it."

Instead of acting like she was in
charge, the girl stood back then, and nodded.

"Right. Right. I'd still
like to know. How did you know we'd be here?"

The man on the ground, who had a
large cross out, shook his head, and gasped.

"We
followed
you. It
wasn't hard."

That was all he got out, before
the police came. They did try to arrest Ginger, but pulled back, when they were
informed, by the big biker fellow, that the Christian group were the shooters
and had lit the skinny fucker up. That, Ty realized, was him.

He was still healing, but the
bullets had stopped popping out, and the red oozing had pretty much stopped.
Calley was given a bandage for her arm, but waved off the paramedics when they
got there. Tyler did the same.

The Shifter explained.

"We're good. I can change
shape when I get home, and Ty will heal on his own. We have a mission here, so,
if someone can get one of your top end keyboards for us?" It wasn't like
they were going to be allowed to leave anytime soon.

This time, probably thanks to the
bullet wounds and the presence of men to blame for the crime, the cops didn't
try to attack him personally. Ginger was treated politely, and allowed to go
over her story, which involved a lot of her being in fear for her life, and for
her friend Calley. His name was in there too, but no one seemed to think he was
in any real danger, which, apparently, was the case.

He managed to dig out his money,
which had a bullet hole in it, just like his wallet did. That was handed off to
the Manager, who was a middle aged man with thin hair, glasses, and the
keyboard that Calley had requested. He didn't ask about it, just running over
to a line and having it rung up. Then he carried it back himself, and stood
there, holding the four foot long blue and white box.