Dead and Everything (Eve Benson: Vampire Book 2) by P. S. Power

I’m supposed to be working with you tonight.” She grinned, and spread her
hands. Then spoke a little more loudly. “Security, but cleaning up, too. So you
know, same old thing as always?”
    The man
looked at her, his broad shoulders a bit slumped. He had a blue jacket on,
which was slightly shiny and warmer looking than her own was.
    For a
second she thought that he was going to make a comment about her being undead,
but while he had a concern, it was different than that.
    “We’re a
man down for the night. Brian got in a car accident earlier. He’s pretty busted
up, it sounds like. He called, but has a broken arm, and some cracked ribs. That
gives us a team of four bodies, if I have you too, but you’re a bit small for
the work.” It was all considering, and true, so she didn’t take offense at it.
She also didn’t let him know that, being a Vampire, she could handle it.
    The
point wasn’t that she could kick ass. The man was already willing to
trust that she could do that , since she had the needed fighting skills.
No, it was that being big could get a lot of drunk people into line that might
not do it otherwise. A small woman would get fights that a large man could
avoid. That was all. It had nothing to do with who would be winning.
    She
nodded at the words.
    “I hear
you there. I’ll mainly keep an eye out, and handle the women?”
    That was
the standard plan, so he moved to let her in, touching her shoulder as she
passed. It was friendly, and a bit flirtatious, but not exactly grabbing her
butt.
    It was
too bad about Brian though. He was probably the security guy she was closest to
there at the club. Not that she’d been around forever, having only been there
for a little over a whole week already. So, still the new girl.
    The rest
of the night was remarkably calm for a Friday, actually. No one started
freaking out and screaming about her or Barb being walking corpses, which was
nice. No one seemed to really get that part of things, it seemed. There was a little talk about Vampires, but it was a casual thing that didn’t really take
off as a topic for anyone there until the place was closing down, at a bit
after four in the morning. Troy was back in the office, doing the paperwork.
That left Barb, who was the assistant manager, to make sure the bar was being
taken care of and that the rest of the place was cleaned up and straightened
well enough. It wasn’t the hard part of the night but most of the people there
were tired.
    Of being
at work, even if it was about the coolest job around. Well, as long as
you didn’t have her part of it. The girl that cleaned the restrooms wasn’t
actually going to brag about that part of things, was she? Still, it paid the
bills.
    Not that
it really did, because she worked for free, but that was just part of her life
now. It would be for a long time.
    As they
were cleaning the tables and setting the chairs up for a final sweep and mop,
the topic of the day came up. It was Tammy, the short, cute, and perky breasted
waitress that brought it up.
    “Can you
believe that stuff about Vampires in the news? If it’s real… I don’t know. Should
I get a cross, do you think? Wear garlic around all the time?”
    She was
joking, but underneath that seemed just a bit scared. The funny thing there was
that she was talking to both Barb and Eve. No one else. The rest of them
cleaning up the bar area.
    Barb
froze, at a loss for words, but Eve kept cleaning, then looked at the woman for
a half second.
    “Why?
Are you planning to invite one to church with you? I hear that might
work. It seems that all the Vampires are really devout, and are into community
service? Working at soup kitchens and all that? Saving animals and whatever.
Who knew, right?”
    That got
a laugh, even if it wasn’t funny, and a strange look from Barb. She didn’t add
anything though, letting them all get back to work.

Chapter five
     
    “Oh, for
the exciting and heady days of being a regular working