Evil is... (Once a Demon Book 2)

by P. S. Power

  Seeing them, she nodded.

  “So, you realized that Tyler G. is famous and decided to bring flowers for him? Brilliant plan. I knew there was a reason I liked you.” Her tone was playful enough that he nodded at her instead of denying his clever plan to woo the head of the Coalition of Nations.

  “Got me! Well, I guess I can just give them to you, if that plan is already bust. I feel silly, bringing them. I mean, it’s kind of nineteen-fifties, isn’t it?”

  Rebekah laughed at the words, smiling enough to show it wasn’t really at his expense.

  “Old timey… Or the kind of thing that guys do when they want to make a good impression. One of those. Anyway, not to be a killjoy, but I think Jonas was looking for you, Ravi? Keeley got you a gift, for the party later. Or… well, I guess it’s not really a party, is it?” She seemed slightly confused as to what might really be going on that way.

  A thing that Keels understood, since she hadn’t really just come out with the problem they were having at work. Mainly because there was too great a chance that the building they were in would be bugged. She kind of needed to have the whole place swept, first thing. Not that they had anything to hide, directly. No, it was simply that they might, at some point in the future.

  Just because she was sweet and could hear Jonas coming into the room before he got there, Keeley smiled at Ravi, then moved in to take the flowers. She knew for a fact that they had vases there, since cut flowers were around almost constantly in the mansion.

  “Jonas offered to run up some calling cards for you, in case you forgot to bring any? I didn't really mention that part of things earlier, but you should make a point of meeting everyone here. Get their contact information and all that. It’s not how I normally run my first dates…” She stopped then, since the truth was she’d only been on six of the things in her entire life. She’d slept with a lot more women and men than that, over the years. Enough that if she were a Human woman, she’d probably have to consider herself a bit of a slut. Especially since almost none of that had involved a date at all, at any point.

  Which had always struck her as a bit foolish of them, feeling slutty. After all, women that liked sex were rare enough that it was a form of social power. She certainly wouldn’t have judged anyone for simply knowing what they liked to do with their evenings.

  None of that, including her dating inexperience were mentioned at all. Rebekah moved over to the far cupboards and pulled a decently large white vase out, then took the flowers gently and made certain they had water. At the same time, Jonas passed a nice stack of rather professional cards over to Ravi, who looked at them closely, smiling as he did.

  “Ravi Pendar. Human. That’s me! Thanks… Your name was Jonas?”

  That got a hand to come out, to shake.

  “That’s right. I’m a Vampire. New Vamp, which is… A bit different than the other kinds. You’ve met Rebekah? She’s a Vampire, too. Have you heard of the band Living Proof?” The question was a bit leading and had a disappointing answer, when Ravi shook his head.

  After a moment he spoke, since everyone else had gone silent.

  “I kind of just listen to the radio, so I don’t always know who sings what. Sorry.” Then, wisely, he shut his mouth, since anyone claiming to be in a band would, normally, be in something small that played in either tiny clubs or a friend’s garage.

  Rather than get worked up, Rebekah chuckled a bit.

  “Good. If you don’t know who we are, you won’t have to go all groupie on us. Not that we aren’t incredible. We’ll play some things for you later, if we get a chance? There’s a thing after the meeting. In Arizona. Keeley mentioned taking you along for that, which is cool.”

  Ravi, clearly not knowing what to make of the words, just nodded a bit, smiling to cover for the fact that he was just about clueless. The thoughts coming off of him spoke of understanding that he was in a really nice house at the moment. A mansion in the true sense of the word. It was so incredibly different from how he lived that he kind of worried about Keeley not liking him when she figured that part out. A thing that would probably happen as soon as she tried to go back to his place with him, and he had to beg off, since his brother Steve, while nice, wasn’t really going to let him entertain women on his back porch with the kids in the house.

  Pocketing the cards, he stopped for a moment, then pulled two of them out. Those got passed to Jonas and Rebekah. Only one of them had a card to pass back, however. Jonas, since it was the kind of thing he needed to have for work.

  Ravi blinked at it.

  “You work for Representative Richard Swerlin? That’s kind of awesome. It sure beats my job, putting groceries into bags at the store.” The words were humble sounding, as if he were embarrassed by the fact that he had a job that some might not think of as all that important.

  It was Rebekah that saved that part of things for them.

  “Maybe. Still, I heard that you have two jobs? That’s not bad. I mean I have more than one job, if we get to count being in a band as work. Jonas doesn’t though.” She grinned, which got a nod from her boyfriend.

  “True! Anyway, I think people are starting to arrive. I’ll get the blood out? Someone should help with the table set up…” He didn't look at anyone else in the room, so didn’t notice when Ravi nodded, agreeing to be useful, right off the bat.

  In a stranger’s home. Rebekah saw it however, and moved to clap the new man on the back.

  “Come with me then, Rav. I know where everything is. We can do this in about five minutes. Is that good enough… Keeley?”

  She nodded, taking the garlic cheese bread from the oven. It still needed to be grilled, to get the cheese the way she liked it. That was more work, but not hard in particular. There was a lot of it, though.

  “ETA, eleven minutes.”

  The others all scurried from the room, except Jonas, who needed a bit of stove space, in order to warm the bottles of Human and animal blood for everyone that would be there. It wasn’t hard to do, but meant working side by side for most of ten minutes. The man didn't bump into her too much. Just enough to show that, for whatever reason, he both wasn’t trying to get her into bed and didn't feel particularly afraid of her.

  Which probably meant that, somehow, he’d managed to miss the part of things where she used to be a demon. The man was nervous enough around other important people, after all. Interestingly, he knew that she could change shape and do the same for other people. He’d seen her do the latter, with his own girlfriend. That, if nothing else, was a pretty high-level ability.

  For some reason he was able to at least pretend she was just part of the crew there, anyway. Which would probably last right until he learned the truth. At least when he integrated the knowledge that he already had inside of him.

  Working together they had the table filled with food and body temperature bottles of blood, just as everyone arrived. The last person to sit, Calley Hale, had a familiar face next to her. She might have been in a serious relationship with Tyler and Ginger Harris, but she was a bat shifter. Meaning she also had as many people on the side as possible. It was one of her best traits. The woman liked everyone, instantly, unless they were truly vile to her.

  In this case it was L.C. Marks, the actor. The man smiled at her, but didn't wave or do anything that showed he recognized her. Then, he wouldn’t, having never seen her in that particular form before. It was new, so blaming him for not recognizing her wasn’t exactly polite.

  The man was right next to Calley on one side and Ravi on the other, leaving a place for Keels right next to him, with Felicia on the other side of her, Will Dern directly next to her. Which gave her an idea. Felicia was, after all, an Ambassador at the Sparks Embassy. Also, she was single and not too hard on the eyes. True, she was cute without being fantastic looking, perhaps. Good enough looking that Will smiled at her several times, getting one in return.

  Which, most likely, meant that Keeley had wasted her time earlier in the day, trying to go with th
e easy route, hooking her boss up with an Alede. Felicia might not be a succubus, but she was a good person, for a Vampire. A master of her kind, who had complete daylight training and everything.

  Simply telling her that Keeley wanted Will taken care of, sexually, would be enough, since the lady was still terrified of her, personally. Then, good people didn't really go around making demands on others like that. Instead of opening her mouth, she let her short leg move to the side, to bump Ravi. She lingered there, since not paying attention to her date wasn’t going to fly, if they were going to be as weird on their outing as she had planned.

  Tyler was down the table, with a rather large bowl of pasta, one of the three they had for the meal, near him. Smiling, he winked at Keeley.

  “Thanks for fixing this. It smells wonderful. I notice that you have Ravi with you?” There was a small wave, propelled by a moving of dark energy around the man. No one else there seemed to notice it, so she pretended not to either. It could have been a shock that Tyler knew who Ravi was on sight, but it made a certain amount of sense. After all, Tyler did most of the food shopping for the people that lived there and ate food, that being Calley and himself. Safeway wasn’t the only store in Sparks, but was the closest to the mansion other than Walmart.

  That the big box store was ignored by Ty kind of made sense. They didn’t treat their workers very well, and he wouldn’t want to contribute to their success as a company, if they weren’t going to be better than that.

  Next to her, Ravi waved.

  “Oh, hey! I thought you looked familiar. You, too.” That last bit was for Calley, who leaned forward, seeming a bit puzzled. At first. Then she nodded.

  “Hey! Nifty. I do actually recognize you, then. This guy next to me is L.C. I don’t think I know your friend?”

  Ravi nodded, the idea that shape changing was part of the problem, at least the likely one, occurring to him pretty quickly. Not instantly, but there was no long pause before he spoke.

  “This is Keeley. She’s um, a Wise One?” Most of the table turned to look at her then, as if she might have been lying about that to her date. No one outed her, so she did it herself.

  “Which is the new name for my people. It’s a bit gentler sounding than Greater Demon, don’t you think?”

  Glancing around, she noticed something strange, which was that most of the people there simply nodded at her. Felicia actually leaned forward to look at her though.

  “Mis… Keeley? That’s you? You look… fantastic! I love what you’ve done with your hair.” For all the world, the words came out sounding like that was the only thing that had changed about her.

  She patted it a bit, nodding.

  “Thanks. We should get to the food and blood, before it gets cold.” Not that she’d refuse to eat just because of that. It would just be a bit better that way.

  For a few minutes, everyone simply took what they wanted and helped to pass things around. She filled her plate and would need more than that from the meal to be happy with it. Tyler was doing the same thing, as well as Calley. L.C. had a sensible portion of food, which Ravi matched, while Will took a good bit more.

  The rest of them there started with either blood or water, just sitting and talking with the rest of them. Tyler was the one that started the conversation, moving right into work. Then, he probably understood that it wasn’t just about showing off her brand new Ravi to everyone there.

  If it had been about that, she would have mentioned it on the phone so that everyone could be warned to be on their best behavior. Not that anyone was being anything other than polite. The only ones being a bit off were Calley and Scotty, since they were looking at the new man at the table a bit more than was totally correct. Clearly, they needed to wait for her to be out of the room before trying to steal her date.

  There was no way to really make that work, otherwise.

  Ty took a bite of bread, chewed and swallowed it, before talking.

  “So, not that I don’t love the extra company, but why are we all here for the evening? Is this just the first Division Six meet and greet? If so, we needed to invite a few more people. Maybe some representatives from the government here in the States?”

  Will didn't make her speak, doing it himself, his face a bit annoyed seeming again.

  “We found bugs all over the Embassy. Technological devices, which seem to lead back to several governmental agencies. NSA, CIA and probably FBI. I get the idea, but Thomson here suggested we cut down on the numbers a bit. We have the man power to run sweeps, or will as soon as everyone is back from training in two weeks. The problem is that doing things like that is well outside of our mandate as an organization. More of a Division Two situation, don’t you think?” The last was a bit of a dig, since there was no Division other than Six.

  Meaning they were starting out as a bit of a joke. A unit meant to handle novel supernatural problems and situations, not spying. They were just the people that had figured it all out, so had to report on it. If Tyler even cared at all.

  Rather than seem upset, he simply ate for a while. Calley snorted.

  “As the President of the Shifter Nation, I have to say I don’t love hearing we’re being spied on. I’ll have our office space cleared. We should pass the word on that. We’re all in embassies, which have been acknowledged by the U.S. Government. That means they don’t really get to spy on us. Well, not if they can’t do it without getting caught.”

  She looked over at Felicia, who nodded a bit. Then took a genteel seeming sip of animal blood. Donated Human was legal, but as a government official for the Vampires, she’d sworn it off. Even if it tasted better to most of her kind.

  “I’ll run this information up the line and see what they want done with it. We probably can’t complain too much. I mean, we could, but no one will listen to us on the matter, at a guess. We should at least consider letting everyone know about it and how to combat it. If it isn’t just in the common areas? What was hit that way, if I’m allowed to know, I mean?”

  The conversation wasn’t that interesting, most likely. Everyone sitting there mainly listened for a bit, then, instead of running out to fight for their right not to be listened to, simply changed the topic of conversation. That ended up being about the picnic that Tyler and his family were planning to hold for Labor Day. Honestly, the whole thing sounded pretty typical, for one of their get togethers.

  It would mainly be business acquaintances, along with a few dozen Hollywood types and their friends. Plus, enough other people to make things interesting. People from other bands, ambassadors from Sparks and probably half the line walkers, if they could be gotten away from work for long enough to visit.

  In short, the party was going to be amazing, from the sound of it.

  Tyler was even planning to have a light show set up in the back yard, to go with the live bands that he wanted to have in to play for them.

  A few people called out suggestions, mainly for music, or for special drinks that they wanted at the bar. Keeley didn’t bother, since she probably wasn’t going to get an invitation. Not unless she asked for one. Ravi was, clearly, thinking that he was in the same boat that way, if for a different reason. Which was probably a bit off. Tyler and Calley knew him from the store, which, to their minds, meant they were, loosely, friends. Being brought over by Keeley had, to their minds, probably included him in their group dynamic, even if she was still an outsider that way.

  Getting into the party would be simple enough, since Tyler wouldn’t be trying to keep her out. What would stop that from happening would, in the end, be the fear of others getting in the way. Then again, showing up and not acting like a demon would be better propaganda than staying at home alone that night, festering in her own bitterness over being left off the list.

  Interestingly, Tyler didn't wait for later to invite people, just waving at the table between bites.

  “Everyone is invited. Everyone here, I mean. Jonas, you can get Richard in, along with his wives and Macy, if they want to
come. She’s old enough for parties now, right?”

  Keeley knew that one, since the girl was a friend of hers, more or less. They weren’t that close, since she’d been too young to be interesting for most of her life. A failure on the kid’s part, of course.

  She nodded though.

  “Seventeen. Legal in this state and everything. Well, not for drinking, of course. Other fun stuff, if anyone wants to corrupt her that way.” She bumped into Ravi’s leg again, since contact was important. This time he did it back, grinning a little bit, as if she’d told a dirty joke, instead of putting out a simple truth.

  After all, Tyler G. was probably going to hit that, if the girl showed up more than once. For that matter, he’d probably be trying with Ravi and possibly her, if she held still for too long. It was one of his better traits, really. The man would sleep with anyone that wanted to give him a go. Better, he managed to do that without being skeezy about it all the time. That kind of ability was rare in the Human world.

  The flare of death energy mixed with electromagnetic force came from the right-hand side of the house. Far enough away that out of everyone in the room, only Keeley got it at first. It wasn’t strictly or totally a thing of magic, the pulse generated being electrical feeling to her. She got the idea just as the lights flickered the first time.

  “EMP. A small one. The power is about to go out.” As she got to the last word, the world plunged into darkness. “Which pretty much has to be an attack on this place. The device used wasn’t that big. Probably set off about a tenth of a mile, that way? Just enough to take out a single transformer. Which is considerate really. It probably didn't take out more than two or three houses in the area.” She pointed, knowing that most of the people there wouldn’t be able to see her do it.

  Will stood up first, going for a handgun that he had in his waistband. Rebekah was next up, speaking softly.