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

by P. S. Power

  What she wanted was for good to be her default, instead of the thing she thought about and worked to make happen. For a moment, as Ravi moved down the hallway with her, toward Will’s office, doing that felt helpless. Emotions tried to swirl up inside of her, all at once.

  Anger, frustration and annoyance with a thousand little things. On top of that laid a thick layer of ownership as well. Not just over Will and Ravi, though they were to her mind, clearly her people. Everyone at Sparks. Everyone in the city of Sparks, Nevada, as well. Her territory. Even if that kind of thing wasn’t real, any longer. Then, no one had claimed it couldn’t be. If she felt that way, it was possible that the rest of her people were going to be thinking the same way.

  The tension increased with each and every step she took on the tile floor, under the fluorescent hallway lights. Anger tried to make her lash out, until she actually, finally, subdued it with magic. That ancient trick still worked, thankfully. Not that she’d doubted that it would. She’d lived under total control like that, using her powers to pick and choose her feelings, for a decade and a half.

  In a single moment she went from anger and feeling almost wild and out of control over nothing, to a sense of peacefulness and calm. It was artificial and didn't allow her to experience what she really was, naturally. On the good side, it was a way for her to enforce being a good person in the short run, while she battled her true heart back into being something more normal for the world she was in.

  At Will’s door, a thing left open, she tapped on the frame, to get her boss to look up. The massive man smiled on seeing her and went slightly wider when he noticed Ravi behind her. Taking in how he was dressed. Probably figuring the man was coming to apply for a job.

  Which wasn’t that far off, really.

  “Thomson, Mr. Pendar. What can I do for you this morning?” There were papers on his desk already, and his computer was clearly in use, the screen being moved to the side on the rolling system that had been put in place.

  Keeley, still holding herself in a relaxed and calm state, forced a bit of friendliness into the whole thing.

  “Ravi managed to get his line walker training early, doing it all last night. Well, Troy Lopez wants him to do the rest of the training in the coming weeks. The hard part has been done. Ravi spent about fifteen hundred years in deep meditation, without a break, learning to travel through node spaces. He doesn’t know how to make his own yet. The plan so far is to try and get him a job here. If we can, Zack Hartley is willing to build a permanent node here, at the complex, in exchange for some publicity. We need to get with Tyler on that one. To head up the effort for us, I mean.”

  Will looked slightly baffled for a moment, then worked out what was going on, having learned enough about line walking to get the basics. Such as he had a real line walker in his doorway, dressed for a job interview with Division Six. That and an offer on the table to get them an official node that the man could use, which had been a big issue for them there, over the years.

  Or it would have been, if they’d had anyone that could have taken the ambassadors places using that kind of thing on a regular basis.

  Rather than shout or act like it was a huge imposition to talk to them, Will nodded and waved them in. Well, he did that for Ravi. She was actually shewed away, if with a rather cold smile.

  “Nope. He doesn’t get to have his girlfriend hold his hand on this. Granted, the line walking thing is a big deal. Impressive. Just having that kind of training makes him worth looking into. A thousand plus years of intense mental training is interesting as well, since we’re dealing with the strange and new. We still need to see where he might fit in. Why don’t you…” He didn't order her out, directly, though it was clear he meant for her to do that.

  She snorted a bit.

  “Fine, fine… Just remember, I get the finder’s fee on him, if there is one. I guess I can get with Tyler on the node portion of things?”

  Ravi moved in, hand out to shake with Will. It was, interestingly enough, kind of clear that he’d expected to be interviewed for the job, even if Keeley would have expected to merely be begged to work there, if it had been her. Then, the truth was that Will Dern was a Human being. The other groups mainly held line walking in higher esteem, since it was a rare thing and valuable to those who came from other realities in the first place.

  Their Human boss knew what it meant, intellectually, without being as influenced by the idea of it as many other groups would have been. It put him in a better position to bargain, actually. Plus, Ravi, for all he’d spent a very long time in training, wasn’t going to think to ask for millions for his work, even though having a full-time line walker on staff was probably worth a few billion per year to the Embassy there.

  Behind the desk, as Ravi settled, Will glanced up at her, making a face.

  “The Coalition doesn’t own the building or the grounds, do they? I’ve never been clear on that one. Gartner isn’t even in charge. Who do we need to get with, in order to smooth over having something like a node put in here?”

  Keeley, looking peaceful, her full lips smiling instead of smirking, nearly lied. It wasn’t what a good person would do, but being truly calm, using magic to hold her emotions in check, she felt her old habits coming back. A thing she fought against.

  “I own it, so can sign off on that kind of thing. We can even put in a new building for it, out back. We have the room for it and it won’t cost that much to have the work done. Distorting space that much can do damage to infrastructures, so a smaller, less expensive building is a better plan for that kind of thing. Let me run over that with Tyler. If he’s even in today. I’ll… Be back in half an hour?”

  There was a wave and a head shake.

  “An hour. Then… We have some reports in about the issue that the Shifters noticed. There have been more sightings. Related. A few attacks. Like the one we saw the other night? People dropped from the air, at the homes of various people. I have a list for that.”

  She nodded, then left, not getting that first thing. The truth was that the beings that were attacking, if it was about that kind of thing at all, weren’t really her problem. Division Six was there to investigate things, not go out and fight them. Plus, if their go to attack was picking on regular Humans, they probably weren’t all that dangerous.

  Her mind felt cold as she moved up the stairs, using those instead of the elevator. Tyler had a small office space on the first floor, off to the the left. Near the back. That had been chosen on purpose. Placing the Coalition in a place where it was easy to find, coming in the door, without the trappings that the Ambassadors commanded in the main. It was designed to give a sense of both humility and importance at the same time.

  That kind of thing was needed, since different groups acted in different fashion. Her trick was all about getting the best cross over for the largest amount of people.

  Beings, in some cases.

  Not that it was always needed. For instance, when she moved back into Tyler’s office space, standing in front of his rather cute secretary, who was a fit looking man that drank the world from all sides into himself, meaning one of her people, there were two younger looking men. One of them about six feet tall, and who was rather average looking, except that he seemed hard and in great shape. The other was lovely, in a way that was totally wrong for a man.

  She could have fixed that for him, without really making him any less attractive. Men could be good looking. Whoever had done the work on this one had gone for pretty, rather than handsome, however. He was very tall, and rather thin, which helped a bit. Really, he was a bit over seven feet tall. Seven-four at a guess.

  His light-colored skin was perfect, of course. So was the man next to him, once she noticed him standing there for more than half a moment. The taller one had more of a feeling of age, as well as fairly intense focus about him. When she walked in, the man, the bigger one, spun in place, and bowed. Both hands stiff by his sides. She did it back, instantly, since a lot of people would
think you were being rude if you didn't answer their greetings in kind. On the good side, there were far more groups that wanted you to simply do what they did back than who required complicated counter greetings. It was a risk, just not a huge one.

  In this case, the larger man smiled warmly.

  “Well met! I am Torrance Baker, temporary liaison from my land. Noram. This worthy is James, who is my… Guide? He is from this world and has been assigned to prevent me from making too many mistakes. Assigned to do that by the Ancient one Darla Gibson, known as The Technician as well as Ancient Troy Lopez, The Officer.” The words were spoken with a slight accent. The kind of thing that meant the man had put real effort into sounding like everyone else around him, even if it was a second language for him. The truth was that most people wouldn’t have noticed that he had an accent at all.

  James looked slightly stuffed, and out of place. He managed to smile then and started to explain things to her, as her own hand went out, first to the smaller man, since it was his job to protect Torrance the liaison. His information was interesting to notice. Mainly due to the fact that he was just a high school student that Troy had altered to have super human strength and toughness, as well as slightly better looks.

  A bit of extra intelligence as well. His last months had been spent in a different reality, learning to speak another language. A thing that had been worked on for several years, in that place, since time didn't run the same way there.

  Tor, the other man, put his own hand out, leaning in, as if he were from the country. She did the same, taking a copy of his life and filing it away. That was interesting, since the man wasn’t just too pretty, he was also a magic user. One who was potentially very powerful, even if the system he used was slow and slightly cumbersome. Highly efficient in power use, though. He and his people used their powers to create space ships out of nothing, for instance.

  Even there, in her world, she’d seen examples of this man’s work. Not the largest things either. Just some simple things that weren’t important to the fellow at all. Objects that had been spread out of his world to many others, since they were so impressive.

  “Well met. I’m Keeley. Keeley Thomson. I work in the basement here.” That was vague enough to seem unimportant, while also being mysterious at the same time. Behind the two men, who were facing her, the good-looking ex-demon snorted a bit.

  “This is Darla Gibson’s sister. An Ancient, as you put it, Mr. Baker. Also, my great-grandniece.”

  Meaning that the man behind the desk was Lanchias, The Clever. Or possibly Fram, since that was probably the name he’d been using when they’d all decided to give up being demons.

  She nodded, and smiled.

  “Right. I need to talk to you… About how you set up our new cultural change? That was subtle work. I clearly need pointers on that kind of thing.” Glancing at the others, she shrugged. “We, our kind, used to be Greater Demons. Evil beings that did the worst things. Then we decided to give that up, mainly. About half a year back. Really, I’d kind of figured that it was Troy Lopez that set it up to begin with, being an ancient god like he is and a Trickster. Only… no. Fram here has been working on a project for so long that even the other old ones had forgotten about it for the most part. That took a lot of skill to pull off.” If he actually had and she wasn’t just blowing smoke up their collective behinds. Not that doing that couldn’t have been fun to try.

  Her mind was calm and clear still, so at least she wasn’t acting out of her own emotional immaturity at the moment. It was even clear to her that she was stunted that way, having grown used to using power to control herself, instead of internal discipline. Not that both couldn’t work. It was merely that she was defining herself in a different way now.

  Instead of growling at her, or acting with fake charm, which was closer to the Fram she knew and loved, the ex-demon wrinkled his nose at her.

  “Heh. I doubt that you’re the only one of us to figure that out, but you are the first one to ask about it. It was a change that we needed to bring about. Our kind… We were becoming too powerful. Far too much so, to leave evil. A more neutral place will be better for us, I think. I hope. We can chat about it all, later? Right now, I need to get people in to see Tyler. I don’t suppose you’d all be willing to meet him…” He pretended to check a calendar, which wasn’t on his desk at all. It was well done pantomime, letting all of them know what he was doing. “Next Thursday at eleven?”

  Keeley rolled her eyes, trying to be a bit rude about it.

  “Meh. I just need to get some things set up with him. We might have a new line walker if Will Dern hires him. Ravi Pendar. Zack Hartley has offered to build a node here, if we can get him some free publicity for it. We have a plan, some raffled line travel, for anyone that wants to put a name in a hat, to sweeten the deal for the news. Making the story a bit more interesting. The Vampires are in with us on part of that. The free travel bit.” Not that the raffle had to be free, specifically.

  They could charge a dollar or even five and have a lot of people participating. Doing it for free was just better from an advertising perspective. Fram got that, and from the look of it, Tor Baker did as well. At least the sense of things coming off of him telepathically seemed to be saying that.

  What he was less certain of was what advertising was. James was there to answer that kind of thing, but the man didn't want to embarrass himself by showing his ignorance in front of the nice looking Ancient.

  Interestingly, the man was one of those himself. It was simply his people’s term for functionally unaging, rather than being very old. Rather than take advantage of her inside information, she smiled, taking in all of the people there. Including Fram.

  “So, if you want to pass that for me? We won’t need it if Will decides not to hire Ravi, of course.”

  That got a snort, from James. Everyone looked at him, which came out being interested on her part, since it was a different reaction than a guide should have had, directly.

  The boy frowned a bit.

  “Sorry. I was just thinking that if you don’t want him here, I can get him a job in at least two different worlds. I bet King Richard would love to have a dedicated node operation in Noram. The IPB world would like another walker as well. They have a couple already, but my guess is that he wouldn’t be turned away.”

  Tor tightened through the face, and seemed to be getting ready to apologize for the boy’s words, by laying on the ground and crying while asking that only his life be taken for the trespass, instead of a war starting with his entire world. Before he could do that, Fram laughed, from behind his desk.

  “No doubt. Really, we probably have a few hundred groups that would want to make offers for that kind of skill set, right here in the building. Not that Dern will pass this one up. Chances are that Keels here brought in her new boyfriend and her boss simply has to make it seem like he needs to prove himself. It’s important for people to feel like they earned their place, after all.”

  Which was exactly what Will was doing. That and making certain he was still in charge of the new division. Not that he wasn’t. Instead of dwelling on the idea, since there was something like a ten percent chance that Will would reject Ravi, just because he saw some sort of difficulty in having him there, she thought for a moment and then shrugged. After all, there were other things to think about, even at the moment.

  Tor wanted to meet with Tyler, since his world had the only other embassy that was being put together like Sparks. They were newer, though they had fewer worlds being represented there. His real mission was a form of head hunting, going to Sparks and getting people to also set up in his location. A thing that wasn’t a horrible idea, really.

  Having all their eggs in one basket was a good way to make a giant mess and lose all their tasty breakfast food items, if they weren’t careful. It wasn’t as dire as all that, while still being important to think about. Really, they had something like four hundred groups represented there at Sparks, from about fifty wor
lds. Once they passed two hundred different groups, it became too difficult for most of them to actually keep what was needed in mind. More, smaller, organizations made sense.

  She didn’t meddle in it though. Of interest, when the door opened and Tyler, who was the smallest man in the room, though not the shortest person, since she was there, moved directly in and started shaking hands. The blackness around him was flowing well enough to leave him seeming real. Like a living boy and everything.

  “Hello. Ty Gartner. Nice to meet you.”

  Keeley gestured at the others, pulling things from memory that she didn't have otherwise, at least for the younger man there.

  “This is Temporary Liaison Torrance Baker, of Noram. He and his people are setting up another embassy in their world, so he’s going to need introductions to different groups here. It’s a good plan, so we should throw in with them.” She waved to James then, her face light and pleasant. “This is James Bollings. He’s working for Troy Lopez, acting as a guide for people from other realities. He recently spent a few years in Noram, learning their language and customs, so has insight there that a lot of others won’t.”

  Tor bowed, his mind scrambling to work out what his part in things would be there at the moment. Interestingly, he decided to introduce her ideas to Tyler, covering the whole story of Ravi as he knew it and that Zack Hartley was willing to put in a node there. A thing that no one else could manage as far as he was aware.

  When he finished speaking, Tyler grinned.

  “That would be incredible. Especially if we can get it just for helping to set up a publicity event or two. I know that the Coalition will throw in. Are you handling that part of things, Keeley? Where it’s put and all that?”