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

by P. S. Power

  “I don’t hear anyone coming. I got the explosion of the device or whatever was used… That wasn’t very loud. We should go out and see if anyone is trying to sneak in?”

  Everyone moved then. Including Ravi, who didn’t seem to be upset yet. Then, the shooting hadn’t started. Taking his hand, Keeley led him toward the back of the place, going through the door into the back yard. Followed by Will and Steve York. The rest of them all went in different directions. Jogging, in the dark, got them behind the guest house just as the first of the missiles hit the lawn.

  They didn’t explode, moaning, instead. In pain. So, it wasn’t even a good thing to frighten them with. On the good side that noise clearly showed where the new land mines were.

  She grimaced and faked concern for them. It was a thing she didn't really feel at all, since her focus was on the threat actually coming at them. Being normal seeming wouldn’t hurt anything, so she did it, even if no one else would really notice it in the moment. It would influence them later, however.

  Keeley faked a wince to go with her voice, even if no one was looking at her directly at the moment.

  “Crap. Those are people. Regular ones, I think. Someone is dropping them.” She pointed upward, focusing, attempting to find who, or what, was doing that. “Calley, Scotty! We’re being hit from above. I can’t properly make them out… I think that they’re flying. Humanoid, not flapping. Some kind of energy levitation. I’m going up. Everyone else… Take cover. Being hit by a body like that would hurt.”

  It would be different for each of them, of course. Scotty was quick enough to get out of the way if it started to happen that way. So was she. Tyler was almost impossible to hurt, and if anyone managed it they’d be shocked at how very fast he repaired himself. Instantly wasn’t exactly true. Just too close to that for most to be bothered judging him on.

  Steve was actually of the Bey line, so the speed would come into play again. All of that kind of classic vamp had that gift. It was their defining trait. Unfortunately, the rest of them would be hurt if they were hit, with L.C. and Ravi probably dying from it, if she couldn’t save them in time. Which was probably a good plan for the bombs that had been dropped on them. They’d hit the soft lawn, so even though they were messed up, they all still managed to make noise. First, she needed to stop the attack. That or run from it.

  The trick she used to lift into the air was possibly the simplest one that her people could use for the task. It played off of their very nature, given that they all drank energy from the world around them evenly. Most of the time. She pulled in energy all the time, from all around her. By limiting that effect on one side, she could produce lift. It wasn’t incredibly fast, doing it that way, given the limits on how much power she could take from reality at any one point. She was able to fly at about two hundred miles per hour however, without using any real energy to do it. She wasn’t drinking in as much as normal while doing it, cutting off about a fifth of what was average, which could cost her eventually. If she tried to fly around the world, she’d need to stop and eat, every hour or two.

  Instead of getting complicated about it all, she simply rose upward directly, causing a very soft buzz in the air around her, that was incredibly high pitched. That was on purpose, instead of being a side effect of the flight, which was normally pretty silent. A single word, that simply said Keels, over and over again. The magic it took was worth it, to her way of thinking. That way the Bat Shifters would be able to tell which person in the air was her.

  Preventing being slammed into or kicked in the head was a good thing to set up, to her way of thinking.

  There were six people, or people like beings with two arms and legs, flying around, none of them holding a person to drop any longer. They were hard to see, being totally black. Like bits of the night had wrapped around their bodies. That covering moved gently as they transported themselves through the air. The feeling of it, the power they used was familiar to her, being much like that Tyler used. They were only a few hundred feet over the house, which meant they were probably baffled when she got there, ready to fight. Coming at them in a way that had to seem like she was invisible, on an energy level. It was a good thing.

  They were attacking, after all. Thinking about it, she decided to go with a rocket launcher for her counter to their clever Human bombing run, since that would work better than a firearm, while she was flying or even floating in space. Before she could get that out of the pocket dimension she carried around her, two other forms started toward her, bobbing in the air. Flapping in to fight. A thing that the flying black covered beings seemed to understand well enough. At least they flew off then, not staying to fight.

  Possibly to avoid talking to them. No one would want to be asked about why they were pranking them with a bunch of falling people in the yard. None of them had hit the house and when she put the events together, from what she’d seen, it was clear that the people had been dropped from about fifty feet, instead of hundreds.

  The trick there was that they didn’t move that fast. Just enough faster than she could using her current method of propulsion to keep ahead of her. After about ten miles, her chasing them at her best speed, it became clear she wasn’t catching up to them. That bugged her, though she simply flew back, landing in the back yard gently, arms held out gracefully to the side, just as the lights came back on.

  She nodded at that.

  “So, whatever it was, the EMP wasn’t powerful. Enough to trip the lines, without being enough to fry everything inside the house. Probably put directly on the line.” It wasn’t a horrible plan, really.

  An EMP was limited as a weapon, due to the need to spread through the atmosphere, which made the effect weaker, thanks to the area that was being covered. Doing it from a few feet away was far more efficient and probably easier to pull off. Several ways to do it occurred to her. Only half of them used magic, which was how she thought that the black beings had done it. Using the collected power of death.

  Ravi, Will and Jonas had moved to the downed people, and were providing first aid. Ravi had already pulled his phone out, probably dialing nine-one-one instantly, without asking if he should or not. To him that would make sense. Really, it was probably a good enough idea, since they had six people lying in the yard, moaning. Someone was going to have to cart them away.

  Technically she could heal them even. A consideration that she nearly didn't act on. Not because she didn't want to, only that, for half a moment, she wondered if it would seem to weak, leading to her attack. It was a real risk, if the others decided that it was better for them to be Greater Demons again. If that happened, there would be a reckoning for her soft and easy ways in the moment.

  Which she shook her head at. After all, even if she wasn’t a great person, pretending to be one meant she could fix the hurt people. Being she wasn’t planning to give up on being a better being yet.

  Otherwise, it made far more sense to let the police and ambulance show up and do the work. They didn't know who or what had attacked them, after all. Just to make certain it wasn’t the man she’d brought to the party, since his powers might well be able to do everything they’d seen that night, she moved over and held his arm at the wrist. Making skin on skin contact.

  To him it was clear that he figured she was comforting either herself or him. He nodded to her, seriously, as he spoke on the phone.

  “That’s right. Some kind of being dropped six people on us. They, hurt people, all fell about a hundred feet.” He seemed calm enough about the whole thing, considering the pained moans at the moment. She drank his memories in and sorted them rapidly.

  Proving, to her at least, that he was clear, moments later. His entire life didn’t pour into her, since she instantly tucked most of it away in the library that floated outside of herself. His life had been the first one that she’d tried to record and place there, as a matter of fact. Which meant that she hadn’t really examined it yet. Other than making certain he hadn’t formed the black shadows above t
hem due to stress, she didn't look into it then, either.

  The first thing she needed to do was to make certain they knew where the downed men and women were. If someone got left out, due to being a quarter mile away, they were probably going to die. Some of them might anyway, if they’d landed poorly.

  They all seemed to be adults, and as she moved from one to the next, only two of them needed to be fixed right there, before anyone else got into place to see the damage. Of those two, one was just a simple fix, using shape shifting. It wasn’t the only healing trick she had, just the fastest at the moment. Both of them had broken their necks, having fallen in such a way as to be nearly dead by the time she got to them.

  One of them technically was dead, to be honest. The force of life had left him, probably about ten seconds after landing on his head.

  That meant using a very different kind of magic. Time manipulation. A power that took far more focus and energy than she liked given the situation they were in. All to try and unwind time in a very small space, in order to save one dead man. Instead of using the much easier to manage shifting. A situation that meant she was going to have to be careful, with the rest of the healing she did that evening. She could build back up and wasn’t drained, just made tired by the effort.

  Keeley had to push hard enough on that gentleman she ended up feeling faint, from lack of energy. It was mainly a lack of time and practice. That or having enough food. It hadn’t really occurred to her to add in time manipulation to her practices that way. Not until that moment.

  Now it made sense. After all, if she could learn to bend space using not much more than thought and focus, with a tiny bit of magic added, time shouldn’t be too much harder. Not that she was going to be doing that in the next few minutes.

  Sitting on the grass, panting, she had to let her dining companions save the other four injured people. Interestingly, L.C. ran over to her with a large bowl of pasta, that had a full loaf of bread on the top of it. That and a serving spoon. It was exactly what she needed at the moment. Taking it, she started to eat, without saying thank you. Not that she wasn’t grateful. Just in a hurry.

  If another attack was coming, she needed to be ready. L.C. didn’t stand there waiting for her to tell him what a good boy he was, either, taking off directly to get more food from inside, for Scotty and Calley. Blood for the Vampire, who wasn’t ready to change back yet.

  Calley Hale managed it though and needed to eat, since two rapid changes like that inside a few hours was incredibly hard for her people. She was, in fact, a special talent that way. Clearly Scotty did all right as for raw speed in a change as well. They’d both managed to get into the air inside a single minute. They also hadn’t tried to hit her in the air, which remined her to stop the magic that was blasting her name over and over again to them.

  As soon as that stopped, Calley, sitting in the yard naked, a piece of bread in her hand, took a very deep breath.

  “Oh. Thanks. That worked, but was loud. Did you get a good visual on what those things were? I could tell they were there. That was about all. Sonar isn’t great for getting pictures. They seemed like blobs to me, more than anything.”

  Eating for a moment, still wearing clothing, since she hadn’t had to change shape, unlike the President of the Shifters, Keeley nodded. A thing that needed to be remedied before the Humans got there for the dropped people. As a group, regular Humans didn't understand the concept of people being hurt and someone else taking their clothing off to help. To their minds it would speak of rape or even darker things if they had a good imagination.

  Every Shifter would understand it instantly. It was the first thing you did in an emergency for a lot of them. So that they could shift without destroying their outfit.

  Standing up, her energy returning a little already as she processed the food, Keeley ran to find the pile of clothing that Calley had left behind, which was to the left of the front lawn. A thing visible in the light coming from the house. Another, neater, pile showed where Scotty’s outfit was. She collected up both of them, running back around the place, just as she made out the sirens in the distance.

  There was no way to hide Scotty, being all cute and batty at the moment like he was. That kind of thing would probably have him being shot when the police arrived. That or accused of being the one that had dropped people, even though that was insane, since he’d need his arms to fly, so couldn’t hold anyone as large as an adult Human being. So she walked over to him, focused on his Human looking form, touched his arm and helped him change back into his regular self, instead of a four-foot-tall bat. It only took fifteen seconds or so, and was a lot easier than messing with time. Most things were, at least so far.

  Interestingly, the plain truth was that, even if Keeley had worked with time flows before a few times, it had never been a particular area of study for her. When she tried to think about why that was, nothing came to mind. With shape changing it had been clear that Darla had held her back in that area on purpose. Slowing her progress for years, in what seemed to be an attempt to keep her from becoming too powerful, too quickly.

  That had taken place even before the other Demon had known about her ability to take slaves as easily as she could. With time manipulation, Darla had actually introduced the basic idea to her, several times. There had simply been no mention of her making any effort to use that kind of thing in particular. As if it were just too hard to do for a kid.

  Scotty, for all he didn’t really seem to like, or trust, her most of the time, didn't even blink at what had happened, simply taking his clothing from her other hand and getting into them so quick it was like he figured his girlfriend’s husband was about to come home from work early. Meaning they all had clothing on when the emergency services found the people in need.

  Four of them were still moaning even.

  Chapter five

  Keeley didn’t even have to grab control of the minds of anyone that had come to help them with their little issue that evening. For once, she just stood by, for the most part, while other people handled the police like old pros. That was mainly Tyler since his actual job was being the link between the world of everyone else and the Humans. Despite having a professional right there, Steve York stepped in a few times as a voice of calm and reason, even if he was a Vampire. Everyone there had to give a witness statement, naturally.

  When it was her turn to be grilled, as if she’d somehow created the rather messed up and strange situation, the cop questioning her, Ralph Simons, one of her former slaves, didn’t even ask why she’d failed to heal the rest of the hurt individuals. It was clear to everyone that she’d saved two lives already. If it had been her in his place, she would have asked about it. If only to save the other dropped people a bit of discomfort. Two of them, the ones that were injured from the fall onto the grass of the back yard, weren’t going to walk again, without help. She made a point of going to talk to them before they were rushed to the hospital, so she’d have their names and contact information.

  A visit to the hospital the next day wouldn’t be that big of a problem for her. It felt off, since no one had asked her to do it at all. Like she was being foolish or possibly butting in, where no one wanted her to be putting her nose.

  Tyler waited to speak to the rest of them, their dinner party, not doing so until after the last of the police left for the night. That took a while, since the cops all wanted to stay, in order to either examine the scene on their own, trying to figure the puzzle of how they’d kidnapped people and beaten them up, or simply to watch the famous people there for a while. It made for some real foot dragging. A thing that Keeley took in stride. They all did.

  “That was… Odd. Those beings were flying, using the same kind of energy that I do. I could feel the flow and flex of it up there. You know, to keep them from falling? I haven’t learned to do that yet. Clearly it’s possible.” There was a look at everyone else, all of them having moved to the front yard, near the wonderful hippo topiary, that needed a trim. It w
as dark out, though not all that late, as of yet. About ten in the evening.

  Still early enough for her to go and meet people. At least if the goal was to give them life changing gifts. That would work, she decided, as long as she used her energy wisely for the rest of the evening. At least until she could get to some real food in proper amounts. A thing she wasn’t going to do on her first date. Ravi didn’t need to know that she ate in a single meal what he did in ten days. Or that she often ate six such meals a day.

  Keeley nodded, getting what was being said by her dead friend. In the fight itself, she hadn’t really picked up that kind of thing from the flying beings. Not on the level that Tyler had. Her information was different. After all, even if she was intelligent enough most of the time, pretending that fact meant she was perfect or didn't have her own biases was silly. She saw things through a lens made up of her own predilections and skills, just like everyone else did. Even her people had to take into account that they tended to see what they expected. It was why they collected information as avidly as they did. A thing that she was going to keep doing, since it was a much better way to live than bumbling along like most beings did.

  “They had two arms and two legs and were wrapped in darkness. I…” She closed her eyes, reliving the whole thing again. Calling up the whole event on a level that allowed her to understand things that she’d missed in the rush of near combat, the first time. This time she froze the image of the first being she’d gotten close to, which had been about fifty feet from her. Floating in the air. Hovering at the time, as it missed she was there at all.

  The death energy was truly there, now that she noticed it. Really, it was a lot less powerful than what Ty had going on most of the time. All of the flyers didn’t equal his might as far as that sort of power went. The darkness was deeper, regardless, excluding far more light, with a nice juicy core of life in the middle.