by P. S. Power
She took a bite and beamed at Merri in a way that fell just short of being an invitation to have sex. “That's so good! My mom never tried that kind of complex seasoning, she pretty much piled on brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon. There's not even sugar in it, is there? It tastes sweet though. If we weren't about to be punished, I'd ask you to make me some.”
After a few minutes more of eating, and watching the interplay between their deeper selves, reassuring each other, holding their metaphorical breaths, he asked who's idea it had actually been, though he thought he knew.
His suspicions were confirmed when Merri said softly, “Twas me...”
He let them talk until he had the full picture.
Merri they said, had a gift, that let her walk into other people's dreams. Since this is a little bit similar to the Trolleinkein communications technique that Hilda knew, she could pop Hilda in as well. The two of them had been doing this every night for a while, they said, monitoring his dreams and making sure he could fight the dark things. They told him that two nights before he hadn't had dark dreams at all, not compared to what had been before. Instead he'd dreamed of Val.
“So you decided to set her on me without my permission?” He asked with no particular inflection.
Hilda took the lead here, saying it had been her that chose Val for the job.
“If you, how is it said, freaked out, then later, when things got better, Val would have the greatest chance of reconnecting with you, because of her nature. It would have to be her or Claire for that, but Claire had to work all night.”
He ate a bit more while thinking. He hadn't felt bad about what happened, except that it hadn't exactly been invited. The rest of it had been all right and more to the point, he hadn't been forced to relive the memories of abuse from his childhood. Since that really had been why he'd stopped even thinking about sex recently, maybe he needed to be a little more open and actually try?
“New rule and this is hard and fast, so no pushing me on it, all right?” Looking at each in turn they all nodded. Merri looked like she thought she might be cast out or something, tears creeping slightly into her eyes, she held her head high though.
“No doing stuff to me in my sleep without permission and for now I won't be giving permission to do anything sexual while I sleep. I have to admit though, the dream stuff seems to be working, so I can't complain about that. Just... don't hide stuff like that from me from now on, okay?”
He went on to say that he'd try being more sexual with them, but that they needed to go slow, to make certain he didn't trigger anything that had recently been opened back up if they could help it.
“Look, you all know what happened to me as a kid... No, look...” A deep breath. Followed by another. He increased the circulation of qi as Wu-Li had taught him.
“I was sold as a child to be a sex slave. My parents knew it too, they didn't think I was going to a good home when they sold me, they wanted the money for their addictions. And...I think there might be more there, but I don't want to look yet. Over the course of, I don't know exactly to tell the truth, ten months maybe? I was beaten, sodomized and forced to perform sex acts on men, women and children. Possibly animals too, I don't really remember. I was little, even for a seven year old, which made me even more in demand. I couldn't fight, they were adults and beat me, sometimes horribly, when I tried. When I stopped fighting they told me it was because I liked it. They told me it was me, that I made them do it. That I was too sexy for them to resist. Not all of them, some were more honest with themselves, but a lot of them said things like that. Finally, when I couldn't take it anymore, I slipped away one night and got to a window. It was high up. I dove through it, trying to kill myself, so that I could stop them. Stop them from hurting me anymore.”
He wished he had something to drink, Merri didn't serve drinks with meals though, not often, for some reason.
“Then, I was in a dark place, and a giant thing, a Shadow in the dark, told me it would be all right and locked those memories away, saying I could deal with them better when I was older. When I had time. The Big Shadow, that's what I always called it – I don't think it has a name, it just doesn't have the concept – anyway, it taught me how to do... stuff.”
He described how it taught him how to move in the void, how to come and go, how to look out of it. How to hide from demons, and at times, how to hunt them. The big Shadow made the actual kills though. He was too little for that since demons don't die easily.
It seemed to go on forever, finally the Big Shadow said he needed to go back, that it would be safe for him now.
It sealed his memories, made him forget the rapes and abuse, locked away most of the time in the void and sent him back.
“When I went into the line to get Jennifer, everything came back. The blocks were designed to go away when I went back in. If the Big Shadow hadn't caught us and gotten me to cover Wu-Li properly, we'd both have died right then. Anyway, I couldn't deal with all this then. It's still hard to speak about, but I have to face it or it'll cripple me. So, I locked away my thoughts. I remembered that from the void the whole time, and how to see Shadows and bend points, warps. I always called them shortcuts, same thing though.”
He saw concern, but not pity on their faces.
“So, when it comes to sex, it needs to be consensual from now on. Okay?”
No one spoke for a while. Just as he got up to leave for work, Hilda asked, “How long were you gone? In the line I mean.”
He told her that he didn't know for certain, but most probably seventeen to eighteen months.
Val caught what Hilda meant and turned to him with a questioning look.
“Isn't that a long time in a line? I mean everyone, even demons, speak of it as a timeless place. If you where there for a year and a half our time... How long where you there to your perception? It must have been...”
Merri finished the sentence for her, “Oh aye, millennium, maybe a hundred of them. Tens at least. Didn't you already know that? The King told me straight off...”
The other women just sat for a bit, dumbstruck.
“Did you think I learned to walk the lines and all that overnight? Honestly, I don't know how long it was. There was no way to count. A long, long time though.”
Nothing left to say for now, they all headed off to work.
When he got to work he discovered that Lisa had gone insane.
Oh, she seemed fine, smiling, being playful and joking, at least outwardly. Her Shadow cried and told him how Deidre had left her. He didn't mention it, since she hadn't told him yet, not on the surface anyway.
No, the insanity came about because she threw herself into her work, trying to forget her pain by distracting herself with activity. Apparently right now that meant booking his schedule as tightly as possible. He spent the first two hours standing in the back. A person, or at least a being that could mainly pass for one, would come in, give his or her destination and he took them and popped back, usually just in time for the next person to walk in. Lisa swore it had only been forty people though.
After two hours she'd scheduled him a break of half an hour. He went to the bathroom, then over to Claire's across the way.
As he entered, she handed him a small drink that she claimed would help. He nearly gagged it was so sweet. She told him it was a pick me up that Vampires gave to Human servants if they drank a little too deeply, mainly made of flavored sucrose.
He moved around the counter and hugged her, firm and cold under her clothes. When he let go he spoke softly, but with a small hint of laughter in his voice.
“Claire, if I don't make it, you're in charge of the family...” He smiled after a few seconds.
“Humph! As if I'm not already.” She retorted. Then let out a low chuckle that had such a seductive air it would have made Valerie proud.
“We should go dancing again soon. We can take everyone. The Tarantula remodel is almost finished, so you should go to support Troy when they re-open... Besides, you've be
en doing well in the lessons I've been giving you, you should show off your skills a bit.”
He asked her to arrange it, though it couldn't be on the seventeenth.
“Right! Hilda said you were going with her to her mother's and taking some of the men from the Gymnasium? That took her quite by surprise you know. She thought it was to be just the two of you...”
He looked at her trying to catch her meaning from her Shadow. Oddly enough that part of her stayed silent and merely smiled.
“Hilda and her kind don't seem to go in for relationships, so I don't think I'm hitting a 'bad boyfriend' thing here, am I?” Concern filled him. The large woman had enough to deal with in life without him messing things up. Maybe this was supposed to be a special trip just for her or something?
“Oh no! She has such a big heart that her only concern is that half of the men have to stay and work, while the others get to go have fun at home for a day. She said the battles for position are fierce. I swear I felt the ground shake a little bit earlier...”
He nodded, looked at the clock and scampered back to his own work, the place had filled up while he stepped out for a few minutes.
He delivered a family of people that all had huge, black eyes with no whites. They looked Human otherwise, though pale, more pale than Claire even. Their teeth were flat and solid looking though. They looked thin, but fit, otherwise. To save time he took the kids two at a time, all four of them in two trips.
This caught some attention. Lisa asked if he could do that with adults too.
“I'm afraid to say yes right now, you might double up the work load. Honestly though... yes, if it's to one location and they aren't too big. I mean I can take Trolleinkein with no trouble, so as far as mass goes...” He shrugged.
She made a note and kept the line going.
At one she sent him to lunch, telling him that the schedule in the afternoon would be lighter, if more complex, since he had to go to some of the people first, bringing them back with him, and others go find them, then take them to a third point.
He waved to Claire on his way past, and she ran out, giving him a sheet of paper to give to Valerie. He handed it off as he headed to the food court, accepting a light kiss on the cheek as he left.
Merri let the fellow from the Burger Joint – whose name Zack had missed, being a mouthful of syllables that he didn't think he could actually make with his Human palate and mouth formation – fix lunch for him. The man seemed very pleased about that, as if the woman was sharing a treat with him.
“As you don't eat any meat, I thought to put on a new menu item, a 'vegetable' hamburger. I don't have a name for it yet. If you like it, perhaps you could help me name it?” The man looked to be normal enough, except that his hair had an odd copper color with gold streaks. Not blond, or even honey, but copper and gold, as if someone had spray painted his head with metallic paints, perfectly coating each strand of hair. Shorter than Zack, but not tiny at all, about five six or seven.
He served this with more of the seasoned french-fries, though not made out of sweet potato this time, as he didn't think the light flavor of the veggie patty could take the competition. He also added three onion rings. Perfect golden brown rings, each about the size of the palm of Zack's hand.
It had to be one of the most amazing meals any such place had ever come up with. Zack considered that he didn't know how good Merri's hearing might be and not wanting to inadvertently offend her, told the man that it had just the right touch and he could recommend it to his friends, if they ever came to the Mall.
He hesitated and then asked the man his name again. He still couldn't hope to pronounce it and told the man as much, a bit embarrassed.
“Oh! Right, Humans can't. People here call me Xan though.”
Zack suggested calling it something like a Xan burger, though that found itself dismissed rapidly, seeming too egotistical to the man. Zen-Burger however tickled him, once the multiple meanings were explained to him, zen being meditation, his name being Xan, which sounded close, and Zen Buddhists often being vegetarian.
Clapping his hands the man proclaimed that then to be the burger's name.
Zack found he had a few minutes left, and poked his head into the gym, to find Hilda spotting a small woman who seemed to be a normal Human, lifting about half again more than Zack's best on squats. When she finished spotting the set, she looked up and waved, he waved back and headed back to work, hoping he could make it through the day.
The afternoon passed in a blur, traveling to new destinations, twice not finding the person that wanted to travel, figuring out that one had gone to a different node – though at the correct Nexus – and the other simply never showed up.
At three he had a simple delivery to make, simple because he had been making the same trip every day. He took a pack of supplies to Wu-Li, still trying to stem the tide of illness in central China. Whatever the disease ended up being named, it managed to resist everything that had been tried. Master Wu-Li seemed immune, as did a few others. Everyone else that came into contact with the infected eventually got sick. The Chinese government had simply quarantined the whole area, waiting for it to burn out.
Wu-Li agreed with the quarantine. If they couldn't stop it from spreading, it could take out millions in mere months. So far they held it to about two hundred infected, thirty-seven had died already, mainly the elderly.
“We need food though. In the quarantine area, the peasants live on short rations most of the time. Without being allowed to leave their homes to collect food, everyone in the quarantined zone will suffer.” The Master feared that hunger would make the spread of the disease even faster, and that people, desperate and hungry, would slip the quarantine looking for food.
Zack asked how many people the area held, and how many needed food. It turned out to be nearly four thousand people. They had some, but their meager stores were running out. Fast.
Then it was back to paying work, handling a half dozen transfers. One to a place that adjoined the Alfric lands. He'd picked up the lady at the Lesser Shia Nexus and took her to what he learned happened to be the main Skenic Nexus. The lady dressed in very nice clothing of a material that didn't have seams at all. She looked a little like a frog, with green skin and a distinctive round face. Zack thought she seemed nice though.
At five Lisa called a halt to the work day for him.
“Lisa...Can we afford to get food for four thousand people. I don't know for how long, figure two weeks worth? Wu-Li needs it. The government there shut down the area, which he says is a good move, but people can't get food. I think, maybe, with some help, I can get the food there. Maybe tomorrow night for the first shipment, if I can find the food. It should be daylight then there and I won't miss any work here for it.”
She asked him to wait and went to the back.
After about five minutes the blonde woman returned her face smiling.
"Right now, if you only want to use your personal funds for it, not including services, you have... nine hundred thousand dollars, American, that you can put toward that. More if we use everything you made today. That will cover it and a lot more however."
“We, you mean. I don't think for a second I could have managed this mess today without you. I know for a fact I couldn't have done that and transferred people. I'd suggest you get a raise, but I'm about to spend all of the money that would come out of.” He looked at her until she gave him a weak smile.
Since he had time he made a round and asked all of the others to meet him at the Frozen YoGurt shop when they got a moment. He included Master Dan in this.
When he got to Claire she stopped to put in two phone calls. One to her house, where apparently Keane and several others lived and slept too. The other call she made to Betty at Zack's. Since it neared winter, even young Vampires like Nikki would be awake soon. She requested a return call as soon as she'd fed.
“Wait, Nikki's living at our house? I didn't even know she'd been around.”
Claire gave
him a devilish grin.
“Good to know. Yes, she's been there almost all the time for several days now. Cleaning the house as part of her punishment for letting Troy see her with blood on her mouth. Merri had the idea of requiring her to clean the house without being seen by Troy. I believe she's been ordered to do this while staying inside Troy's room during the day. I have to say, it's a brilliant idea. Hard, but not painful, yet still placing her attention on the details. A beating doesn't teach you anything except fear. This will require the girl to exercise all of her skill to the fullest, while providing her with a memory that should stick with her and give Troy a much cleaner room.”
Zack didn't really want to tell her how creepy it sounded that Troy had a dead girl in his room all day long. Luckily Hilda and Valerie came in then. Claire made all of them some of the peanut butter fudge swirls, which she seemed to have gotten to the stage where she needed to try different toppings and viscosities of whipped cream.
Hilda asked for another when she finished, suggesting a mix of hard chocolate cookies and almost powdered peanuts on top. After one bite she insisted that everyone else try a bite too, to back her up when she raved about it, she said. It did taste rave worthy to Zack.
Claire didn't beam under the praise, but rather took notes about specifics.
Dan showed up followed by Merri before Valerie had finished her dish of yogurt.
Claire provided tea for Master Dan, who demurred when offered something sweeter, and gave a small serving of the new and improved peanut butter fudge dish, with five cherries tied together on the top to the small woman. Zack realized he'd never seen her eat before. She did it daintily and with good manners, but quickly.
Laying out the situation in China quickly, he proposed using their combined talents to get some food to the needed area. Merri and her people at the food court knew where to get food from in bulk, and she told them they could get some of it in within twenty-four hours if they didn't mind spending a little extra for rush delivery.
Dan would have the same immunity that Wu-Li did and, the younger Master assured him, Zack would too, as long as he kept up with his constant circulation of energy like he'd been doing.