by Jane Keeler
She let it go as he ended the call and looked to her.
"The fish market has been closed as well as the other three markets in the area. They've all been close!"
"What, how can that be?" she asked.
"Terrible storms."
There had been a lot of rain, but none that could cause the markets to close. They were always open.
Dale told her what he had heard, "A tide came in and went over the barrier walls. Flooded the entire marketplace."
"The entire marketplace?"
"Yep, and it's shut down."
"Is everyone okay?"
He shrugged, then said as he remembered, "They did say some amount of people lost their food and goods. That's not the worst that could have happened."
He had done it for her. In the past he would have wrecked the area, causing some kind of suffrage and mayhem with the people there. He could never kill outright, but he was tasked with providing the opportunity for deaths to occur. But he hadn't done that this time. This time he had been sure to not let any deaths occur.
She was still displeased, "That's too bad for the district. They'll lose a lot of money with that happening."
"That is bad on that front, how could I overlook that?" he asked. "Why did I do that?" he asked himself.
"What?" She asked, "Do what?"
He had made the storm happen, made the waves crash over the voters who would be lending their vote to him. They would be angry, unwilling to compromise and vote for him.
"How could I?" he asked himself. He realized he was betraying too much to her and asked her to leave.
Surprised, she asked, "Why?"
"So that I can have some time alone."
"Dale, I found it really heartwarming to see you get this torn up about something like this."
He nodded and she let herself out.
As she closed the door, she realized. There were no pictures from Dale's time in Vermont.
She didn't know he had done it and he didn't want her to know, so he spent most of the day avoiding her. He was able to spend the night with her, though, and invited her to dinner, again. They went to a sushi restaurant and he felt her leg underneath the table. It was soft and supple and he wanted a taste of more. After desert, he got his finger to go up her leg until it reached her panties. He massaged her clit with his index finger and she groaned.
"Oh, Dale," she whispered. It was hard to see anything in the low lighting of the restaurant and their booth was tucked away.
He let his finger slip past the underwear and touched her already wet lips.
"Very good to see," he said. He brought his fingers up to his mouth, smelled his index finger, then licked it and put his hand in hers. She rolled his up in her hand and smiled to him.
"You're always a surprise," she said.
Dale wondered if she was what he had been missing all of his life. There were things he still had to do, though, that she wouldn't approve of.
"Tell me about this whole infatuation with driving?"
"It must have started--"
"Yes, when?" she asked, cutting him off.
"When I was at-- oh, God. When I saw my parents' accident. That is morbid..." he trailed off mid-word and realized he was caught in a lie.
"That's not what you said... the other night, though."
"That's what I meant to say," he told her. "That I saw it, but I got choked up about it," he said, making up the excuse quickly.
"That's fine," she said, but inwardly she was perturbed to find a hole in his story.
She wanted to know about Vermont and asked, "Where are pictures from Vermont?"
"What? Why do you ask?"
"I want to know because I haven't seen any."
"I want to, now."
"I have some on my phone," he said, taking it out and looking through the album with her. There were a lot of awkwardly posed photos and she almost didn't recognize the man she was looking at.
"You really have changed," she said as he put it away. "Or is that... not really you, Dale?"
He hurried to put the phone away and brushed his hair out of his face, smiling.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
He took her home that night as the next day was election day and the day after that, he would be mayor. With District 13 out of the way, he could be.
Dale and his election team stood around the offices with drinks in hand, large posters on the wall saying, "Elect Dale Houser" on them. They were crowded around the poll numbers and when they came in, everybody was in ecstatic uproar. Dale had won and he kissed Sasha squarely on the mouth, in front of everybody, when he found out.
"Because of you, I'm here," he said. It was true because he would have otherwise gone back to his office and started making the calls. It was time but he could put it off until the next day. He partied with the group and then took them out to a restaurant, all on him. The team was responsible for helping him win, but he could have done it if he was willing to shell out enough of his energy to keep making demonic deeds happen. To do that he would require a lot of sacrifices, a thing he wasn't into. He preferred to eat red meat and feast that way, albeit he was weaker because of it. For that reason he hadn't fixed the race but had actually worked hard to get it and he was proud of himself for doing it. The numbers were close and if he hadn't destroyed District 13 by bringing upon them another deadlier storm on election day, he might not have won.
The next morning at work, it was getting to be time for Dale to make his move as Mayor. He had already phoned in as many people as he needed to get the job done.
All at once, things began to happen. People could no longer drive on the roads as all the stoplights had their lights turned off. The bridges were closed down at all of the toll booths, so people driving from New York outside of the city and in it were encumbered. Then, in a stroke of brilliance, he had used the same formula his partner in the UK was developing, he shut down all metropolitan and underground lines. The entire city was at a standstill.
He had needed the title of Mayor to call through and get the right people to listen to his plan. Of course, as a demon he could convince them of anything, but each time he did, he grew weaker. For each small thing he did to get his plan in motion, some of his demonic soul burnt out a little bit. But the mayhem, the beautiful mayhem, was what he looked forward to.
Now that nobody could leave or go about the city unless on foot or bike, he was able to set up a catch kill virus into the TV broadcast coming from his own TV in the office. It was unlike any virus that had been made before, because it was demon sorcery and were able to disrupt the channels of every TV that it could connect to, which was almost infinite. Nobody could see the news or go to a safety center before he released the final part of his plan. Time stood still as he went to begin releasing the real destruction on the city.
But before he could, he thought back to Sasha. Wrapped up in his own plan, he had forgotten to say goodbye to her, to let her know that she could be safe. To have let her know at least to tell her to go to his house, the only stronghold. He needed to have done that, he knew.
He ran to the office, trying to find her. He saw at her desk that she and her bag was gone. He knew he needed to find her before he released true mayhem on the city. She was standing near the elevator and he unfroze time.
She looked to him and said, "You just appeared out of nowhere," she said.
He was caught off-guard and said, "Well I have to tell you something."
"What is it?" He needed to just tell her to go back to his house, to stay safe, but as he was about to say the words, he felt immensely bad for having to lie to her one more time. When she watched the world burn because of him, what would she say, though?"
He weighed the benefits and consequences to telling her and found it in his mind to know to tell her the truth.
"I can't let you be hurt, I can't do this," he said.
The elevator dinged and opened before she said, "Do this, between us?"
<
br /> "No, something that has nothing to do with you! Something that I don't want you to be a part of," he said as he walked in to the elevator and held her shoulders.
"Well why not?"
"Why not? Because it would destroy humanity."
"When is it happening?" she asked seriously.
"It has begun," he told her.
"When can we fight?"
"Now, but we have to find the seven other demi-demons that are stationed throughout the world."
"Bring it on," she said.
"You're really willing to not only believe me, but to find alongside me?"
"Who says I'm not? I'll always be there for you and you will do the same for me."
"I will," he said as he bent down to kiss her and locked lips.
*** THE END ***
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