by P. S. Power
There would have to be classes, too, and lessons. Things that were monitored, and all that. She’d done it for herself, with guidance from a few others, but the point was to make sure these people would have a chance to be the best, and most in control, Vampires they could be.
Grabbing a pad from the back, she started making notes for herself, about what would be needed for that. At seven, when David came in, later than he had been, Ginger took off her apron, and sat right next to her, taking the notebook like she had a right to it. Rather than snap at the girl, Eve pointed at a few different points.
“So, do you want to take on a few of the people, if we get anyone that wants to try it? The two of us can probably handle them all, but I don’t know if traveling with Lenore will really allow that all the time. Then, she probably doesn’t really need you yet. Vaughn never had a secretary with him, for instance. Not that you shouldn’t learn that job. Plus all the paperwork stuff here, and a few other things. I’ll handle that part though, so anyway, what do you think? It’s all right to say no. This is experimental, and for all we know, no one will want to even give it a shot, once they learn what it’s going to really entail.”
She was proud of herself, having used entail in a sentence that didn’t involve small furry animals. She’d known what it meant for a long time, but it hadn’t really come up a lot in her life before that. It wasn’t a huge word, but did sound professional, she though.
Ginger smiled at her.
“Well, now that I’m practically a kick-butt day walking Vampire that doesn’t need sleep, it does kind of change up what I can do, doesn’t it? Do you think I can really work that closely with Humans though? I mean, is it safe, for them?” There was practicality to the words, and no fear in the slightest. It was what Lenore would be asking, later, without a doubt.
“Yes. I really do. I mean, don’t cuddle one for hours at a time yet, but I’ve seen you with the public. You can deal. Just hold to that, and remember that you have to be a good example for the children. Not that all of the ones coming, if any of them do now that it’s a real thing, are kids. A few are. I was thinking that we should get them all to hold off until they’re at least twenty-one. What do you think?” That was the age she’d been, and still was, actually, her birthday coming soonish.
It wasn’t lost on Ginger though, what she meant. Looking fourteen made life a lot harder for you, even if you were undead. Maybe less so now that they could all whip out I.D. and say they were actually hundreds of years older than they looked, but even then, you were treated differently, if you seemed too youthful. The girl across from her got that already.
“Hell yeah. Maybe even a bit older than that. That’s a good bottom age to start with though. I’m in. If you really want me? I know that I might not be all that useful yet, but I’ll try hard, and learn all I can.”
Just as she was about to answer, Keeley walked over, coming from the front of the store, being followed by a Vampire. The other woman looked nice, but not too hot really. Her best feature was that she had slightly orange eyes, ones that were brown around the outer rim. The rest of her looked regular though. She was thin, but in a normal way, not really skinny, and had brown hair that was full enough, but kind of straight. The look was of a twenty year old white woman, if not a few years younger, but that didn’t mean anything much. It was dark out now, so she either wasn’t alive during the day, or had been busy.
Eve stood up, and gave Keels a big hug.
“There you are! This is my buddy, Ginger. She’s been learning to stay up all day, and pretty much has that down now. She’ll also be doing part of the new Vampire training for the Council. We were just going over some notes for that. It hasn’t really started yet.” She glanced at the other, brand new, Vampire, waiting for an introduction.
The woman nodded at Ginger, and locked eyes.
“Amazing. That’s why I’m here, too, to see if I can get some help with that. I tried on my own, but at about nine in the morning I just go down, hard. I know that it’s going to hurt, but I can take the pain, if I have to.”
Eve moved back to her seat, but pushed over so that Keeley could sit next to her. She did, moving close enough that Hally would have glared at her a bit, if she saw it.
Keeley waved at the other woman, as she moved in, a bit more tentatively, next to Ginger.
“Yes. Zack mentioned the good work you’ve been doing that way here, so we decided to come and see about signing up for lessons. What will it cost me? Felicia is a great person. Sparkly attitude, and only a tiny bit whiny in the face of discomfort. Better than most, that way. I know that you might be busy soon, what with your plan to kill the Greater Demon Fram, and all that. Is there anything I can do to help with that?”
Eve nodded.
“Come hold my hand while we hammer out the details and make sure I don’t end up too dead trying to get this done? It’s really about stealing a slave from him, and so far he’s been agreeable about the whole thing, but that can change, and probably will. As for learning to day walk… Well, I can help with that. Ginger can, too. Don’t be confused by her youthful good looks, she’s tough as nails. It really does hurt though, so if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. I think that a lot of this has been about something more than just willpower so far. I don’t know what, exactly, but so far every Vampire that’s tried here has made it happen. It’s not fun, and being up all day never is, but it can be done.” She was trying to be honest about it all.
Felicia flipped her hair out of the way, and placed her right palm down flat on the yellow Formica table top.
“I’d like to try? I can pay, a bit. A few thousand? More than that if you want to trade for something? I have some bonds, and a few nice diamonds, if you like that kind of thing?”
Keeley nodded, but Ginger shook her head.
“So far no one has had to pay. I think the idea is that you have to be a pro-Council stooge, like the rest of us, if you want in on the secret techniques. Or are we open to being paid for this?” The girl looked a bit worried then, as if she were about to be hit for losing them a few thousand dollars, which was probably about right for the work being done.
“No, that sounds fine. You’ll need someone with you all day, until you get used to not dying all the time. That takes about half a month or a little more. Ginger is creeping up on that right now, so she can help you with that part. There will be running, and work, during the day, since you have to keep moving, if at all possible. Other than that… Well, you know, be ready to grin and pretend to love life while you’re on fire all day long? No one likes a miss grumpy pants, and it will come up. It does for everyone, every day. If you’re good with that, then we can give it a try?”
There was a hand on her arm, which got Eve to look to her right, where The Mistress of Souls sat, smiling as if she’d just been given a present.
“Wonderful. Thank you, both of you. This means a lot to us. Now, I’d love to come and visit with Fram. I hear he’s been in some minor trouble? Killing people in Zack’s territory without permission like that is asking for problems. I know that Fram has to be thinking that Zack is either too nice, or too young to protect his holdings, but that isn’t really true. In a fight, even a magical one, Fram might very well lose, and do it much faster than he thinks can happen. You have a plan though?”
Keeley would already know it all, but Eve told them about the whole thing, and even went into the why of it, since Maggie Sims, arm and leg burning fiend or not, was sort of a friend of hers, so had to be saved. Also how Fram had pretended to be a Mage called Marcus, which got Keels to stare at her for a moment, then act like it hadn’t been a sign that Eve was supposed to ask her a question about it.
“What do you think you know? You reacted to the name, Marcus. Why?”
“Well, that name is the one used by an insane, but rather nice, Greater Demon known as The Vile. We don’t tend to repeat names a lot, since there aren’t that many of us. Fram would know about that one too, which means that
it was likely on purpose. The Vile wouldn’t have a vast problem about it being used, but it’s strange. Fram wouldn’t challenge him however, if he could help it. So, it’s a bit of a mystery. Not one of vast importance though, I’m certain.”
The Vile? It was a new name to Eve, but she had to wonder now if it were someone that she’d met? Possibly as Brian, the bouncer at the club?
He hadn’t seemed all that crazy, but most Greater Demons could pass for normal when they wanted to. It was because, by their standards Human beings were all as crazy as anything could be, most likely. They lied to themselves about reality all the time, unable to even hold things they knew as fact in their heads, if it was too different from what was normally around them.
Whoever had been Brian Smith totally had pulled the act off, for instance. Which took some doing. So sane or not, that had already happened. It could be this being then. Or not. For all she knew, he’d been Marcus part of the time. There might even be another Mark out there, waiting to spring on her at some point. She’d seen two of that sort play the role of one person before, at different times. One of them had been Fram, too, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t think of the idea now, was it?
It was also possible that it was just a name, and had just been the best one for the part, for some reason that she didn’t know.
Whichever it was, she put it on the back burner of her mind.
After all, Keeley, her old friend, was there, with her for some reason, and that was too much fun to allow herself to get sidetracked like that.
Chapter thirteen
As something to do, since the plan for the night seemed to be sitting there, talking like they were at Denny’s, rather than going out, Eve winked at Ginger.
“Hey, I know, why don’t you go and make one of everything on the menu? We don’t have waffle cones yet. I keep trying for that, but the truth is I need to get on the interwebs and look some shit up. Lenore has a machine for it, but she’s managed to get busy somehow. I don’t really know what she’s doing. Taking a break, hopefully?” The woman hadn’t had a real vacation in longer than Eve had been alive, she was willing to bet.
Keeley nodded, her face looking a bit wicked, for some reason.
“I heard that she’s in the Swiss Alps right now. Zack bought a place for her, not too far from my father’s. Speaking of which, he was talking about you the other day.”
The look was still a bit too playful to be good, given the kind of being Keels was. It was hard to believe this was the same girl that she’d known in high school. The first girl Eve had kissed, even. At the time things had been a lot more innocent, but now, given all she’d seen and knew, it was easier to see the frayed edges of her act.
This wasn’t a young girl thrust into being a Greater Demon, which was how she’d always assumed the thing went. No, Keels was a powerful being, one that often made her own rules, that was playing the part of an attractive young woman because it suited her for the time being. Next week she could be eighty and running a retirement home, or a man, and trying to get all of them at the table into bed.
Almost as if she knew what Eve was thinking, her face fell a bit, but there was a somber nod, not a denial.
“It’s taken me a while to really adapt to everything myself.” It seemed to be coming out of the blue, but Felicia just sat there, ignoring anything had been said, and Ginger, understanding things or not, was busy on her own project. So really, only Eve got what was being communicated. Keels went on, her face turning to a happy expression, without smiling at all. It was subtle, and extremely clever.
Eve really needed to learn how to fake that kind of thing soon. Everything she did was too forceful all the time. It was either totally blank, in a resting bitch face that would make people from New Jersey feel right at home, or a bright and cheery smile that would probably be about right on a clown, or an actress in a McDonalds commercial.
Keeley actually laughed, clearly getting the idea from Eve’s mind.
Winking, the woman in front of her, who was less good looking than she used to be, even while looking the same, moved a bit, like she was restless.
“This place needs music. You should lobby Edom for it. That’s exciting, isn’t it? Him getting a promotion like that? Your Cormack, too. There’s been a lot of talk about all of you in the Council lately. Mainly about how to keep you in a lowly position without making it seem like a direct punishment. It’s ageism, rather than hatred for you though, so keep that in mind before you get too upset at them for it. I mean, you’re less than a year old, and already running one of the biggest and most important industries in the Vampire world. Also Bey’s apprentice, and are in charge of the new training program. They’d have gotten together to kill you already, but Bey refused to help them do it, and the rest of them are too afraid of how many of them you might take out when you went.”
The first item on the list, was a plain frozen yogurt cup, which was put down in front of Eve, so she could examine it. The peak was good, but a little bit off center. Not enough that anyone would ever care about it or send it back, but Lenore would notice, so Eve pointed it out.
“Try holding the cup a little bit closer to the nozzle at first. Check for air bubbles every third of the cup first, too. Remember, we sell frozen yogurt, not air.” Eve pushed the thing across to Keeley to eat, since it was that or dump it out, and then froze. “Oh. My. God. I’ve turned into my own mother.”
That got a smile from everyone else, if not a laugh.
“I mean Lenore, of course. Not my mom, since to make that happen I’d have to start pimping Ginger out for drug money. David too, no doubt.” It took work, but she grinned about the line, and went on, leaving it. “Well, in for half a dollar… Why don’t you try it again? Eat faster Keeley. I always wanted to see how much food you could take before you popped.”
The rest of the night was casual conversation, tucked over and around Ginger working as fast as the machines could go, and Keels stuffing her face. On the good side, with only a few minor points, such as getting a tiny bit sloppy with some of the sauces trying to keep up, the young looking girl in her store apron really seemed to have the operations of the front section down pretty well.
Finally, at about four in the morning, Zack came in, gave everyone a hug, except Ginger, who was busy working, and settled in next to Keeley, practically sitting on her lap, since there were three beings on the other side of a four person booth. It was cute, and looked fun enough.
“Oooh, free food night? And I missed it? Damn. Well, I just came to see what you were all up to anyway. Believe it or not, I don’t have any transfers scheduled for the next three hours. Whatever should I do with myself?” There was a glance around the table, that actually looked a bit hungry. Not for treats either.
Eve went still, and nearly suggested that she have sex with him, since he was clearly hinting that someone should, but then stopped and glanced over at Ginger, who looked cute, if a little young.
“If you don’t mind pretending to be a Human, we should let Ginger practice having sex on you. Warning, you might get bitten. Still, I think she can handle it. I know, she looks young, but you’re a perverted Greater Demon, and she really isn’t. She’s nineteen.”
To her credit, even if she looked a bit scared, Ginger didn’t freeze up. Really, she didn’t even seem all that intimidated. It was exactly what Eve would have wanted her to be feeling, from the look on her face. Calm, with just enough apprehension that she didn’t mess up and attack anyone.
Zack hopped right up, and smiled.
“Great idea. We’ll be back at my store? It has a better set up for that kind of thing. Come on, Ginger, it will be fun. More for me than you, but I promise, we won’t do anything not in the Kama Sutra.”
They left, almost directly, with David looking troubled, and Keeley staring at her.
“What?”
The Greater Demon cleared her throat, and then smiled a bit.
“No wonder so many day walkers have been coming out of
here. You’re using magic on them. Propping them up in what they’re doing. It’s not a bad idea, but it explains why not just anyone can get it done, doesn’t it? You’re throwing focused energy at the other Vampires, programmed to keep them moving, and doing what they need to. I’d thought it might be something like that, since I can see the hair growth, and know what that has to mean, but…” She stopped and then dug into the tan handbag she had with her. Finally she pulled a pair of silver scissors and a comb. “Let’s give you a trim? Outside though, so we don’t end up with Eve hair in all the food. Come on.”
Eve thought that it might just be a way to get her out of the mall, but Keels really just wanted to cut her hair, and went short with it. Not above her collar, but it had kept growing, if a bit more slowly, for several days, and was below the middle of her back now.
It was probably a funny thing to see two girls sitting on a sidewalk, cutting hair, but it was still dark out, and the world was quiet outside.
Finally, as she finished, and pulled a little brush from her bag, Keels leaned in.
“You have more energy now, and can get more. You should try working with magic a bit more firmly. The more you can add that way, the more things you’ll be able to do. Don’t tell the world about it though. Keep it secret, for now.” Then, very carefully, as the sun broke above the horizon, her friend removed every hair from Eve’s neck and t-shirt. It was done with her hands, using careful, but very efficient brushing motions.
“I know, you can start with Felicia. See if you can’t make the first few weeks of her being up all day a lot easier? That would be good, if you can pull it off?”
Then she got up, and pretended to give Eve a hand in standing. Her cool skin contrasted nicely with Keeley’s, which was hotter than normal by a good bit.