Void Domain, Book 07 полностью

What to do with him?

“Perhaps,” Eva said, watching as he slumped further. “Perhaps not.”

Pulling out the notebook she had borrowed from the recently deceased leader, Eva looked over Jack’s entry.

There was nothing listed apart from him dealing drugs on the wrong side of town, invading the ‘turf’ of the gang that Eva had essentially dismantled. Of course, she doubted that they would list anything about him being a known sex offender or other degenerate tendencies. Almost all entries in the notebook were about people who owed the gang money in some manner or other.

“Tell me, Jack, have you ever kidnapped anyone?”

His eyes snapped up to meet hers, mouth open to answer. As soon as he made eye contact, he flinched away.

“Answer truthfully. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

Maybe, Eva thought. She could watch his heart rate, but it was erratic enough at the moment that it was doubtful that she could tell a lie from a truth. Jack didn’t know that, however.

“No,” he said, keeping his eyes glued to the floor. “Never.”

“Murder maybe?”

“No!”

“Really?” Eva asked, glancing over to the gun he had tried to kill her with. “No rival drug dealers? No former customers that might have failed to pay you?”

“Look,” he said, meeting her eyes again. This time he managed to hold his gaze. “I sell drugs. Kids mostly, in high school. Dropouts. Some older clients. But I never killed anyone man, you gotta believe me!”

Eva hummed, tapping her finger on top of the book. After a moment of thought, she snapped it shut and tossed it to him.

“I’ll be back. When? Who knows. Maybe in a week, maybe in five years. What I want from you is to find me a list of people who no one will care about. To be clear, I don’t mean homeless people with no families. I’m talking about gangs, murderers, rapists, and pedophiles especially.”

“Wha–Why?”

“I’m sure that within the next few days, you’ll hear about seven deceased people all missing their hearts. Yet, I need more. I had to spend far too long hunting down those scum. Next time I need hearts, I want to come here and get a nice neat list from you.” Eva tapped the book with one of her sharp fingers. “Maybe that will help, maybe not. You might be able to make money off it, I don’t care. Though I’d keep it a secret as it is tied to the dead.

“Change your name, move away, blah-blah-blah, I’ll hunt you down and take your heart. Do your job well and there might be rewards.”

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.

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.