Shield of Innocence (Alternate Places Book 4)

by P. S. Power

  They actually all agreed with that plan, as if it weren't a joke. Then, for all they knew their other selves would be pains in the ass, or really evil. After all, he could be the good version of him, who wasn't a demon. Maybe other people were like that too.

  So far they seemed like people to him, really. Polite ones that didn't go around starting trouble. So he was a bit surprised when he got to the back of Yoghurt World to find several people standing there, two of them looking angry. Like they wanted to fight.

  One of them was an older looking woman, who had red eyes, fangs out, and a bit of gray in her short cropped hair. In a business skirt, which was a solid brick red. The other lady was... Well, from her interior being, she was a woman, but she also had elements of being a man. Mainly a female however, and she was in a dress, so Zack decided that was good enough. She was cute after all, and didn't seem to have her fangs deployed to rip at his throat. Not like her friend.

  There was an argument going on, and it wasn't directed at him, but rather a combination of a small, very thin, bald man with big ears, and Eve. The older looking woman was going after her, growling and not willing to attack.

  "No! We can't send away two of our most important people like this! There's no way to know what these beings have planned, or what they actually are, even. Even if we have to send Eve, and director Hawthorne, we can't risk Bey." She coward away, both inside and out as she said the name, though the small man simply smiled at her. Even the giant beast inside of him did that.

  "I'm certain that it will be fine. Eve has scouted the area, and tells of people not so different than our own. Kinder perhaps? Trusting enough to send young Nicole from their world to ours, knowing that we would keep her safe. There is some risk, but there always is in life. Should we not give them the same respect they have shown us so far?"

  The other woman, the one that was part man, shook her head.

  "This is a bit sudden, and set up by a greater demon. Even if no harm is intended by these others, we should be... Wary, perhaps? If they take you, then we're not going to fare well. You are the heart of the council, Bey. Please reconsider." Her words were nicer outside, but her beast growled them, which was picked up by most of the other people in the room.

  The big thing there was that Zack could kind of see it, and it wasn't perfectly safe. They had threats where he was from, and while these people could probably handle it, they might not know what all of them were. On the other hand, he was in the same boat there, and so far nothing too bad had taken place, so they could probably handle it.

  The tiny man shook his head and clapped.

  "We should not let fear rule us too often, Marissa. I shall go and do this thing, and report back. If I do not, then we will have an answer to the unasked question of threat and intent." Then the man turned, and bowed toward Zack, picking him out instantly.

  "Mr. Hartley? I notice that you have Lenore with you?"

  He nodded.

  "I need to get the others too. One second?" It didn't take long, and he brought Calley in last, since she was, oddly enough, the most easily injured out of all of them, if a fight broke out. Things weren't a lot calmer when he finished the last trip, about a minute later, but no one had come to blows yet either.

  The back area was a tiny bit crowded, but not too bad. Horrible if there was a super human battle about to take place, but for the most part they simply bickered a bit, which was annoying, but not anything he couldn't put up with.

  Eve stood back and winked at him.

  "So, food while we wait? Ty, Mr. Hartley, Calley, treats for you? Lenore do you want some blood? Ginger?" That last was said with a bit of a glare however. From the interplay of shadows it wasn't due to Eve hating the girl either, just that she'd trained her to be a master vampire, and part of that was learning not to crave blood all the time.

  At least she was supposed to resist the urge, which was pretty powerful.

  "None for me, I had some a few days ago." She resisted an urge to stick her tongue out, since there were all those important people there. Like Bey, Marissa and of course, alien Zack.

  It was strange to be called that, but kind of true, anyway. It made Eve happy to hear about, since her friend getting all lazy would be hard to correct, now that she had some real political power. Lenore declined as well, because it wouldn't look good for her to do that if the children were able to control their urges. She'd been forced to learn a lot of self-discipline over the last year, because of Eve. She was even a kind enough person that she didn't hold a grudge over it.

  The conversation wasn't going to be stopping any time soon, it seemed, as the angry woman, Chief Sims, as in the head of the local police department, was pretty worried that she'd be blamed if anyone went away and didn't come back. The other vampire lady wasn't won over yet either

  Zack nodded, and waved the others toward the front.

  "I can make them. I've worked part time at Frozen YoGurt, anyway. The set up..." He looked out at the counter, and the machines behind it, which was very familiar. Nikki waved at him, from behind the counter, and smiled.

  "It's nearly identical. Eve and Lenore put in waffle cones however, which we don't have. They smell good. Here, I can make you all something? I have a new dish that I want to try out. A cone really."

  "Thanks. I have a tab here? I can buy for everyone?" It was true, and oddly enough Eve didn't try to say otherwise, though there was something in what he said that was hilarious to her.

  "Thanks, Nik. Let's see the masterpiece?"

  It wasn't that, really. What it was however was good. A little too sweet for him, but it was essentially a peanut butter and banana sandwich, with the bread being bits of waffle cone placed inside the outer one, and strawberry jelly swirled inside the vanilla frozen yogurt. The whole thing was covered with thick whipped cream, and dusted with powdered peanuts.

  "This is really good! You should get with Claire and see about setting it up for Frozen YoGurt." He ate, and so did Ty and Calley, which was a bit odd, since Tyler wasn't alive. Still, a line of energy moved away from him, using up the food as he consumed it, sending the power to someone else, who he was clearly tied to very tightly. Like a mother was with her child.

  Before it was born.

  That wasn't his business, so he sat in a booth, and relaxed for a bit, hoping that the conversation in the back wasn't going to take too long. After all, they had a deadline, and there were other vampires waiting for their turn to have a sex drive woken up inside of them. Plus people to train, which couldn't be done there. Not all of it.

  That got him to look at Eve, who was watching the back closely, and smile.

  "Hey, why don't we go over your part of this here? I still want to take Lenore, Tyler, Ginger and Calley with me, and you, if you can get away, but your buddy Bey can be your first test subject. He's pretty old actually. Um, so I'll do you first, and then him, so you can watch, and you can do the others? Then we can go for our visit and not be late?" It was kind of an issue, unless he wanted to try time travel.

  Which was clearly a real thing, in the void, now that he thought about it. It just wasn't in the works for that night, since it could take a while to learn and master. There would probably be an arch-demon waiting for him to come hang out.

  Eve was sitting across from him, and sighed. It was a mighty thing, designed to influence the rest of them, including the people in the back, who could all hear her doing it.

  "See, this is why I like you. We can do that, I suppose. I still think that Bey should get to go too, but we can part things out, so that we aren't taking too many risks with him. Being that, you know, we have to coddle him so carefully, being delicate like he is. A virtual flower, really." That was for the others, since it was kind of clear that the great vampire beast inside of the fellow wasn't soft, or easy to hurt.

  Zack nodded, and focused, trying to work out what was going to be needed for those involved at the moment. Eve had proven resistant to his mental control before, but if he made him
self seem larger and more powerful than her on the shadow level, it could still work. That was the basis of vampire compulsion after all. They overwhelmed the minds of others with fear and awe. Then spoke simple orders to them.

  The big difference with him doing it was that he could fake being pretty much any size he needed to be on that level. So he did that, suddenly and without warning, focusing all of his energy on Eve directly. That was about not doing Ginger yet. Which was hard to manage. She'd be the easiest for anyone there to deal with that way, he was willing to bet. She was tough, and mentally strong, but not like the rest were.

  Except Nikki, but Zack had already gotten her a sex drive going. Rebekah didn't need one, so that was out too, which was a shame. The woman was just about right for Eve to practice on. Old, and strong enough, but not as much as the others in the back.

  It worked pretty well, with only a few minutes of orders, which this time the girl just took. She did give him an uneasy look after a while, understanding what was going on, but it still worked, even as she looked up at his shadow, understanding what had taken place.

  Then he got up, walked around the table and leaned over Ty, to kiss her. She didn't really respond at first, until he ran his hand up her thigh, then the vampire jumped.

  "Agh! All right, that works! Coolness. Who do I screw first?" She looked at him, since he'd done all the hard work. She was even mildly attracted to him, he noticed.

  True, she was more attracted to Ty, by about a hundred times, but Zack could live with that. Most of the women he knew were more involved with other people, rather than him. He was, when you got to the heart of it all, just a good way to social climb, and nice enough to be worth putting up with for the perks. Ginger took a bit to catch on, but as soon as Eve started getting Tyler to do things to her, over her clothing she went wide eyed.

  "Oh, you did it? I don't suppose I can go next?"

  She could, and did, of course. The trick there was walking Eve through the whole thing, which meant reminding Ginger what sex felt like, and what being turned on was all about. The pleasure of it, and all that. It wasn't actually real, being more about a strong imagining of pleasure, but it was close enough for people that had nothing else, if done correctly. Eve over did her part of it a little bit, which would, Zack knew from past personal experience, on Nikki as it turned out, leave the younger woman a bit more attuned to sexual responses than not. It worked though, and Ginger, being Ty's girlfriend, demanded him back from Eve, who sighed.

  "So, we can go try the others? I don't know if that will end the argument, but it's a nice enough present, if we're going to just abandon them all here."

  That got him to stand, and Eve to do the same, going with him. For some reason the rest of them wanted to hang out in the front, where there was less upset sounding bickering. He just walked, smiling at them all.

  Then, like Bey had earlier, he clapped his hands several times and smiled politely.

  "All right, would..." he looked at the beasts arrayed around him, and understood the rough power structure there almost instantly. Lenore and Sims were about the same age, or at least in the same rough power class, and were a lot smaller as far as inner shadow beasts, than Marissa, who was in turn about half the size of Bey. Inside.

  "Actually, Eve, would you do up Lenore and Chief Sims first? You'll have to go larger than you did with Ginger." He did it himself, knowing that her inner being would follow that part now, and understand what he meant. It would be hard to sneak up on the girl that way again. That basically meant that no vampire was really going to be able to dominate her mind very easily ever again.

  It was work for her to grow that large, but took a lot longer to get the women up to speed. Part of that was due to age, and how old and dusty their memories of pleasure were, but the rest was just that being bigger like they were made a vast difference.

  He did the other two himself, at the same time. It was no harder that way, and while Bey was truly difficult to remind about sex, Marissa was nearly there on her own. Even not getting anything from the act for over a thousand years, she still enjoyed being close to people. Now she smiled, moved in, and put a hand on his arm.

  "This is amazing. Perhaps I was wrong about you, and yours?" She practically purred, since she was getting a bit horny, the new sensations hitting her firmly already.

  He just smiled, and started working everyone that was going with him through the node. They were probably late already. Hopefully no one would be too mad at him over that part of things.

  Chapter fifteen

  The front sitting room was filled with people from two worlds, which was kind of incredible, Zack had to allow. It would have been easy to take it for granted, in a lot of ways, since many of the people were so familiar, but the differences, the tiny ones, were kind of wild to see.

  For instance, Lenore was at least an inch taller than Claire was. Otherwise they could have walked out into public and pretended to be identical twins and no one would have ever called them on the idea. The bigger change ups were interesting too, like Chris and Ginger.

  No one else was getting it, since they didn't look all that similar. Not on the outside. The feeling coming off of their internal shadows was so similar that it was nearly glaring to him. To Merry, too, though she wasn't speaking of it. Libby however was getting along pretty famously with Calley Hale, however.

  They both looked at each other before anyone else said much of anything, and smiled, identically.

  Then, as one spoke.

  "Threesome!" It got a laugh, and both of the girls to hug, almost instantly. From across the room, Chris raised his hand. Volunteering. It was cute, when he did it. Like the excited kid in the back of the class who really wanted to give the answer.

  Zack shook his head.

  "No can do, since you're up to learn the new trick for the day. Don, too. I... Don't really know if Kaitlyn can manage it or not."

  That one turned out to be his own mistake, doubting her like that, since she easily did Luthor, the vampire leader, who was ancient, powerful, and purring at her like a kitten after about half a minute. She didn't even have to get more than a hint about how Zack did it, either. Her ability to communicate on that level was limited, and it didn't matter for once in the slightest.

  Sex was her thing, and what she was good at.

  Don was the one that had trouble with the whole thing, though in the end, he got it too. Then Merry scurried out of the room, to make food for the others. Without saying anything Eve went with her, which didn't make a lot of sense, until they were all settled at the main dining table, and some containers of blood where brought out. Their vampires didn't seem to think it would come to much, but enjoyed it after a few movements.

  Luthor actually smiled.

  "It lives? The force of life still flows through each sip, but it is in a cup? How is that possible?" The man was ancient, and held a slightly lizard like aspect to his bearing. His eyes however locked with Eve, guessing who was responsible for it.

  She smiled and nodded. There was a strange bit of connection underneath the surface level, but it wasn't exactly clear what was going on.

  "We have a system in place, and a good anticoagulant that doesn't taste too horrible. This is human blood, but we also have a much less expensive version that's made of cow. That gets sold in stores in different places. Publically? In the meat department, normally so as to not squick out the normies. People use it to drink, but also for blood pudding, if you can believe that. Which makes no sense, given they have to force coagulation then, but hey, it works, so, why not?"

  Zack looked down the table and caught Luthor's eye. There was a quiet excitement there, as well as a slight wariness.

  He spoke to the ancient being directly, staring a bit.

  "They're all public there. Vampires, shape shifters, and pretty much everything else?"

  The ancient being turned, this time toward Lenore, who was the oldest of the visitors there. That was his rationale at any rate. It poured
off of him, in wonder.

  "You aren't hunted down in the daylight? Or condemned as unholy by the religious?"

  "Oh, some of that has gone on. Not so much on the hunting side, to be honest, but the condemnation is there. It's amazing how easy it is to refute when you're actually invited on the television talk shows to do so. Rebekah here, she's a Manthori, which I haven't seen here? She's done some of that for our people. Before we were put forward, which wasn't our choice, she and some of her friends had a musical band. The All Vampire Band. It was thought a harmless ploy to gain listeners by the humans, which it was, but when we were made public, she was available as a familiar face to deal with the public. It worked remarkably well."

  That started a conversation about things, but Luthor wasn't planning to jump in immediately on coming out in their world. That was both a shame, and understandable in a lot of ways. The leader of the vampires was so old that changing anything would be seen as a threat to his mind, more likely than not. On the other hand, it would be nice to not have to try and hide the strange things of the world all the time.

  In that other place, Lenore explained, a politician who for some reason had been able to run for office as a vampire and won, had put them out to the world.

  Eve giggled at that.

  "Richard ran as a Republican, too. The incumbent was so corrupt and horrible that people just assumed Swerlin was crazy, and still better than what they had. The big problem there was that a greater demon or two got involved and put him up to coming out for real. Medical tests, showing off how strong he was for the camera, and that kind of thing. Then others did, so... We came out. People there have a real issue though, in that they forget anything too strange, until it becomes familiar to them. So, we exist now, but a lot of the other groups still don't, to the minds of most. You don't have that here, do you? It's really strange."