Hunting him down might be annoying. In fact, if he ran, Eva doubted that she would bother. But, as with her claim that she could pick out his lies, it was all about the image she gave off. Right now, Eva was going for scary.
Eva had no idea what those rewards would be, but she was sure that she could come up with something. Even if it was just a cheap enchanted object from one of the stores around Brakket. For a mundane person, a safe that could turn invisible would probably be amazing.
But not something she had to worry about now.
Eva built up her magic and teleported away.
Disappearing without waiting for a response should add to the mystique of her presence as well as lock him into agreement.
Besides, she had wasted enough time on him. She had to make a quick pit stop at her hospital.
Then, back to Brakket.
Chapter 003
Eva stepped out of the women’s ward gate room to find a corpse lying on her couch.
Somewhat unusual. Not exactly what Eva had been hoping to find immediately after teleporting home. Especially because she was still feeling somewhat wobbly and wanted the couch to herself.
Slumping into one of the chairs, Eva sent a glare in the corpse’s direction.
The corpse didn’t even look up from her book.
“Curls today? Your hair was straight at the cathedral.”
The vampire sat up on the couch, resting the book–one of Eva’s blood magic books–on her lap. “What? A vampire isn’t allowed to style their hair?” she huffed. “For your information, my hair is naturally curly. I straightened it for Wayne.”
Eva opened her mouth to retort, but changed tracks. She really didn’t care about Serena’s hair preference or her preference for middle-aged men.
“I thought you were afraid of this place.”
“This place? Nope, nope, nope.” Serena shook her head side-to-side, sending her blond hair bouncing around her face. “When Wayne told me that you had a miniature Death God roaming around, I decided to keep my distance.”
Eva blinked. It took her a minute to relate ‘miniature Death God’ to Ylva. Hel was the death god, not Ylva. And, being a giant, Ylva was anything but miniature. Most of the time.
“But you’re here now.”
“Mini Death God isn’t here now, is she?”
“Why are you here?”
“It smells nice here. You smell nice.” A flash of hunger appeared in the vampire’s eyes.
Eva immediately tensed and shut her own eyes. She didn’t think the vampire would attack. Better safe than sorry.
After seeing her fight in tandem with Wayne against a handful of nuns, Eva wasn’t entirely sure that she could take her on if needed. She could try to remove her blood from the ward system, but Eva didn’t know if that would stop the vampire.
Her wards worked on blood and the vampire’s wasn’t moving.
Closing her eyes at least kept the vampire out of her head.
As if sensing her tension, Serena let out a soft giggle before flopping back over on the couch.
“Besides. Wayne is looking for me and I needed a place to hide.”
“I was under the impression that you were enamored with him. Or something similar. Wouldn’t him looking for you be a good thing?”
“He’s fun to tease,” she said with a wistful sigh. “But apparently I have had too much fun in the last month all on my own. I told him but he wouldn’t hear a word. Sis will be fine without me. She’s a big girl and can take care of herself.”
Eva had no idea who Serena was talking about. Neither did she ask. The small talk with the vampire was enough to occupy the time it took for the post-teleportation wobbles to wear off.
“Well, feel free to hide out here, I guess. Just don’t go into my room.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Eva wasn’t sure if she should believe that.
“I’m off to the shower,” Eva said, standing. “I don’t mind you reading my books, but put them back when you’re finished.”
“Yes mother,” Serena said, waving an arm back and forth.
Eva had the distinct impression that she would be picking books off the floor later on.
But that could wait. Shower first.
Her shower at the hospital in Florida was almost identical to the one in the women’s ward. She had used the same rune configuration to conjure and heat water. There were no real settings on it. As soon as she rotated the shower heads to line up the runes, everything turned on. Moving it too far turned it back off again.
And yet, the women’s ward shower was much hotter. Much more comfortable. Whatever mistake she had made in the heating rune had been for the best.
In short, Eva had missed her home during her short vacation. It didn’t compare to the bath in Ylva’s domain, but it was a comfortable second.
The sun had been high in the sky when Eva left Florida. Not noon, sometime after. Possibly as late as four o’clock, though there was a bit of time difference between Florida and Montana. She couldn’t actually see the sun from inside the women’s ward. Her overhead lighting was on and working fine, but someone had taken the trouble to hang up a set of blankets over the windows.
Three guesses as to who, Eva thought with a roll of her eyes.
By the time that Eva felt she had enough and twisted the shower head to the off position, the clock on the wall read five o’clock.
“Do you always walk around naked?”
Eva didn’t hesitate in a single step as she walked through the common room towards her bedroom. “Usually,” she said, pushing her door open. She left it open for the purpose of conversation as she fished a clean skirt and shirt out of her dresser. “Habit of living on my own since I was six years old, I guess.”
“Young,” was the vampire’s only response.
“Circumstances conspired. After my mom died… well, I wasn’t going to stay with Edgar. I had already run away twice before then and third time’s the charm. It helped that I had met Arachne and had started learning magic before then.”
“Liberating isn’t it?” Serena called out as Eva tugged her shirt around her waist. “No parents to tell you when to go to bed or what food you should eat.”
“Or to wear clothes around the house?”
Serena laughed. A cold, mirthless laugh.
It set Eva’s hair on end.
“That as well.”
“It wasn’t much different from living at home,” Eva said. She shut the door to her room and retook her seat in the common room. “My mother worked evenings and nights and my father only acknowledged me when it suited him. Usually in the form of beatings while drunk.”
Her stormy eyes met Eva’s for a brief moment before she turned her gaze to the ceiling.
“I didn’t want to leave my home. I loved my parents and my sister dearly. Still don’t know why my sire murdered them, but that was around the time I had to move out. I spent a year with him–there was nowhere else to go–as he taught me about the ‘night life’ and how to feed, etcetera.
“And then he left. Abandoned me when he got bored or maybe died at the hands of another vampire. Don’t know and don’t much care anymore–that was sixty-something years ago. But left alone in a city with two large clans of vampires and several independent strains? Scary stuff. Different strains tend to not get along with each other.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Eva said during a pause in the vampire’s speech, “but a sixty year old vampire has got to have a lot of life to their story.” She hadn’t really asked for her life’s story either.
Serena looked back with narrowed eyes. “A vampire with a lot of life in their story. You’re a funny woman, Eva.”
I wasn’t trying to be, Eva didn’t say.
“But there’s a point to this. Listen to your elders.” Serena narrowed her eyes again, this time to thin slits. “And I’m only sixteen, I’ll have you know.”