Hell, In a Troy (Lopez Time Book 2)

by Phillip S. Power

  “I need to use it as a safe house. Can you get the keys? We need protection as well. Avery is taking over a shop here in town for a week or so. It’s a mage thing, so she’s a natural for it. Oh. We also have a meeting here on Saturday, for the community picnic. You’re both up for that. Can you get the others in for it? It might mean line walking. If so…” Well, the truth was a community picnic wasn’t going to rate, in that case.

  The vampire chuckled, softly.

  “Don’t worry. I get the idea. Just don’t tell anyone. We’ll claim that it’s a trade. When are people coming?” He glanced up, not knowing if Avery had heard it all. He would have, standing there, not five feet away but he was a vampire.

  She nodded though and spoke out loud.

  “Half an hour or so? They’ll need to pack up. Then we need to go to the store, so I can learn to do that. So, call it two hours?” She looked at Leslie, then Nevi, to see if that was right. The girl wasn’t exactly a shopkeeper, after all.

  The blonde mage, Leslie, nodded. She was skinny enough that Troy decided that making sure he had food at his house was in order.

  While they went to pack, Troy thought for a second.

  “Can you watch this place for a bit. I’m going to… Try to open a rift.” There were no rules against him doing that, really. Technically, there was only a suggestion that he get things done without using his line walking abilities publicly. It was fair game for him to open a node though, inside a closed room. Two of them, if he could. Getting Avery to do it for him wasn’t really any better though. Plus, it was a good trick, if he could work it out.

  The dragon girl let her face go blank then.

  “Do you need me to show you how to do it?”

  “No? Maybe but I should try it myself, first. I’ve always learned better by doing than seeing or hearing. So, let me see here.”

  The work was done with intent. As in space itself was warped under his regard. Pulled and folded like taffy. At first, he didn’t think it was going to work but Troy kept going. Folding and pulling, until there was the tiniest tear in the world. Directly in front of him. It looked like… Nothing at all. From that point, just like Avery had earlier, he was able to stretch the edges of it. Folding them under, so that they didn’t try to close in on themselves as easily. It took will to keep it open but it wasn’t nearly as hard as breaking space in the first place.

  It would, if he stood up and took a step or two, lead him to the void between worlds. From that point, he could go almost anywhere. Which wasn’t the point at the moment. Instead of doing that, Troy kept going. Bending the space at the edges of the rift. Finding the location of the shop, and then, using just as much focus as the first time, opened another hole in space. Then he wrapped the edges together. It was tidy, and strong looking. At least, when he looked up, he could see inside the shop, which was miles away.

  Avery, Jainy and Marks looked at it too.

  Only Avery got what it was however.

  “That is… incredible, Mr. Lopez.” She moved over to it and waved, then lifting her her leg a bit, stepped over the bottom, through the hole. After a moment, she came back the same way.

  Waving she looked at Marks.

  “You should try it, sir. Just walk. You have to fit through the circle but it’s huge. Not like a shortcut at all. These spaces are linked now. It’s like a doorway.”

  The other man did it fairly easily.

  Troy still had to hold it open, or it would have collapsed but it just took focus, not vast magical powers or anything like that.

  Jainy waited but stepped into the store, grabbed a handful of quartz crystals from the store and brought them back. They were nice sized, being about the length of her palm.

  Instead of pocketing her loot, she moved to the dining table and tapped one of them on the top.

  “Okay. That’s… Real? Not a seeming or projection? How did you do that?”

  Nevi came back, carrying a real suitcase that was made of something like hemp, with Leslie right behind her. Troy explained the whole idea, not knowing if anyone would get it. Other than Avery.

  “I made a rift that could be linked to the void between worlds. Then I created another one in the shop. It was done the same way. Then I wrapped the edges together. I still have to hold it open but it’s stable otherwise. That could come in handy. It’s in the same world, so isn’t technically line walking. It took forty minutes to make happen, so there’s that. It might be worth it if you had a lot of people to put through. Instead of driving them, or chartering a plane.” That or running. It would have been faster to drive the distance of course. Still, it could be useful. If nothing else, he knew that he could get into the void from almost anyplace, if he had to.

  Avery laughed. It was warm and very soft.

  “Only Will has worked out how to make his own node openings yet. Eve almost has it but is still learning. The rest can’t do it, for some reason. I’m hoping it’s just a practice thing.”

  It could be useful for all of them.

  “To the shop, first?” Avery spoke, her voice calm, as if people opened up that kind of thing a hundred times a day in her world.

  Which was about right. Not exactly the same thing but close enough for it to not seem like a huge deal. The others had various levels of amazement at the production Troy had put up. Jainy went through first, to check the place out. She pulled her handgun at least, and aimed it like she knew what she was doing. That meant she was ready for most things on the other side, if they showed up.

  She could hit what she aimed at, better than most, after all. He’d seen her at the range. She was better than merely good with a firearm. From her actions, she knew how to clear a room as well. Avery went next. Unarmed but still more dangerous than anyone else in the room. Including him.

  The others went when Jainy and Avery waved for them to do it. Troy held the linked spaces together. After all, his car was on the far end. The same would be true for the others. That meant he shopped for things, which he paid for with cash. Looking in his wallet, he smiled. He had some twenties, which was enough for a few crystals, and some silver wire. He got four nice rocks but a tiny spool of thin wire. The stuff was expensive and their credit card machine was down. Interestingly, Avery knew how to use one. She didn’t explain how that had taken place. Troy could do it as well, since it was the same kind they used at Yoghurt World.

  Honestly, it was the same kind they’d used at the nightclub that he’d both tended bar at and later helped to manage as well. He could have set the thing up in his sleep. If he still did that. Still, for a little over forty dollars, which Avery made change for out of a locked box, he got a small paper bag for his goods. That actually had Leslie smiling, if a little bit sadly.

  “Forest was good at this, too. You would have liked him, I think.” She didn’t tear up or anything after talking about the boy. Nevi didn’t either. Then, he wasn’t their kid. He was a sacrifice that they’d run away with. It occurred to Troy that he needed to get a timeline on that. If it had been years before that was different than a few months. They had a shop there though. It was run down looking but didn't seem new at all.

  He decided to ask later though. Not the day after the boy had died. Blowing his own head off. It had been stupid of him. Also, heroic on a level that legends should have been made of. They seldom were, of course. Most legends were about some brawny guy that punched people a lot. Saving lives through violence to others was acceptable. Doing that violence to yourself, a lot less so.

  For a moment, Troy kind of had a feeling that most people were assholes.

  Avery moved around the place, finding where everything was. Convincing the rest of them that she might not actually destroy the place.

  Leslie stopped, just before they all went back into her house, which was about five miles away. Or seven feet, if they used the convenient shortcut that he was holding for them.

  “What if they come here, looking for me though? She’ll be all alone.”

  Tha
t got the rest of them to look at him, as if to say that the woman had a point. Which she didn’t. Not really.

  “Oh… Dragons are immune to magic. More or less. Also, things like gunshot wounds, small bombs.... Possibly jet liners crashing into them. Avery is a trained mercenary, so I doubt picking a fight would be a great plan. If they come… Well, then I have to imagine they won’t do much. If they do, then Avery will capture them. Or kill them. She’s not a cop, after all. If they push too far, they get what they get.”

  The mage woman, who was passably cute, made a face then.

  “I thought that was just on the show. I mean, I know that you’re a dragon in real life too but the rest…”

  Avery shrugged.

  “They wrote the part for me, so a lot of it is just taken from my life. We open at nine?” There was no sign saying that.

  Nevi smiled, then covered it with her right hand.

  “If you do that, it will be the first time in half a year that we’ve managed to crack the door before noon. That should be fine. Noon to six in the afternoon or a bit later if there are people in. Not all of the customers are mages…”

  Avery shrugged.

  “I’m not prejudiced that way.” She meant it, and seemed a bit defensive.

  To Troy it was clear that Nevi had meant they might not know about the shop being more than it seemed. It would be fine though, as long as she just sold things. That and possibly gave autographs.

  “You’re going to need a disguise. Some sun glasses or something. Anyway, let me pull this apart here. I’ll try to keep this end for you to use, Avery.”

  It took a lot less time to seal the other side smoothly and for Avery and the two women to go through to Yoghurt World than it had to build the whole thing to begin with. Then he took down and smoothed the weak spot in space that was in the middle of the living room. When they left, Marks made sure the place was locked up tight. Not that it would stop anyone who really wanted to get in. They were secluded enough that the nearest neighbors for the house were visible but might not hear things like doors being kicked in.

  They’d see the smoke though, if a fire started. In that case, it was just as well that no one was there.

  The older looking fellow, who was a fraction of his own age took off then. He had a truck. One that looked fairly new and well kept. Jainy had her van with her that day. A suburban, actually. He knew the difference, since it had been part of what he’d learned at the academy. How to identify cars. It had actually come up, daily, when he’d been on patrol with his mentor.

  He tried to recall the man’s name but nothing came to him on it, for some reason.

  It was strange but after a moment, he let it go. It would come to him later, he was certain. Things like that always did.

  The purple and tan haired woman, who glinted in the moonlight, since she had a lot of metal sticking out of and through her face, seemed tired.

  “Maria doesn’t know.” The woman stared at him. Then went on when he didn't speak. “About me being a mage? I’m not special that way or anything. I can do some basic things but never really had a lot of training. A lot of us don’t bother.” She shrugged, as if that only made sense.

  “Wait, you have perfectly good super powers, with no real downside but don’t use them… because you’re lazy? I have that right?”

  She made a face at him then but didn’t deny it.

  “About like that. It makes me different but I don’t need powers most of the time. I never really saw the point. If you don’t go around getting into trouble, then how much do you need to know?”

  He could see that philosophy, even if it didn’t fit her very well.

  “But… you shoot? That’s a hobby but not just something you wave a hand at. I mean, I won’t tell you that you have to tell Maria but you might as well. I mean… I get that you’d be embarrassed about being so lame but it was hardly even lying really. Not mentioning that you don’t really use magical powers can’t come up all the time. Still… Lame. I just want you to know that part.” He smiled, then winked at her. Feeling old as he did it. It was phony seeming, he knew.

  She nodded.

  “So. What will it take to keep you quiet?” She didn’t offer anything.

  He understood what she meant. To her, men probably only wanted one thing. Which was never really true. They wanted a lot of things. It was just that they all came pre-addicted to sex hormones. In a way it made them easy to control by a certain kind of woman. Jainy wasn’t her though, and his addictions were well broken that way. He might earn that back, eventually. He may even learn to do it himself but until then, he was immune to her girlish charms.

  “Well, if you tell Maria, and actually start practicing, I guess I can refrain from mentioning to her how lame you are. It will cost you though. I want help with the community picnic.”

  “I meant to not tell Maria.”

  “I know. I can also tell both why you want to do it and that it’s your worse course of action. She’s open minded enough to handle it. Just go home and start talking about it. She needs to be updated on all of this anyway. If you turn it into some big thing, she might do the same thing. I doubt it though. When I mentioned that half of her friends from high school were greater demons and vampires, she barely blinked. I think she can handle this one. If nothing else, tell her that you barely have any powers, so don’t really identify that way. Then you can warm her up over time, while making sure she’s up on everything you know.”

  It made sense to him. She gave him a look that seemed to be promising a bullet to his right nut, if it went wrong. Since she might actually pull that off, he decided to be a bit more watchful around her for the next bit. That could be uncomfortable. He’d live and even heal from it, and she wouldn’t really do that but it was the kind of thing that he didn’t have time for just then.

  Jainy sulked away, as if she couldn’t just say nothing and expect him to keep it secret. He would, if that was the game plan. If the woman had come out as being all white, which she clearly was, and told him that she’d taken the name Santos for religious reasons, he wouldn’t have outed her on it. Being a mage wasn’t any different than that. It was a thing that she’d been born. Not a sin or anything like that.

  Troy tried to keep his word to Dr. Boyajian then and think like a woman on the subject. The one he picked was Eve, who would have not cared at all. Troy was nearly certain on that score. So instead of worrying over made up problems, he drove home. It took a bit, compared to walking through a ready-made rift. A lot less time than making one, however.

  When he got in, at about nine, he realized that half his pots and pans were back at the mage’s house. Part of the food had been eaten at least. He’d need to go and clean that up, or it would rot and stink their house up. Besides, that would give him an excuse to check the place out the next day, just in case someone was staking it out, looking for missing mage women.

  It didn’t take long to set up the crystals and work out what was needed. He used wire to wrap them all together, then just passed energy through the construction, with the concept of stopping there, until he needed it. After half an hour of that, he used it to make an intense light. That lasted for long enough that he got bored, holding the pattern. The charge was still plentiful in the stones even. So, for the next few hours, he sat on the sofa. Charging.

  While watching television. It was the news, not anything with Avery or Krista in it. That reminded him that he needed to make some phone calls. It was late enough that both of them should be fast asleep, hopefully.

  Still, he knew other people. It was an amazing thing but in the whole world, there really were other things for Troy to be doing at any given time. Things like checking in with his maker seemed like a good idea, even. It was a great time to call Bey, after all. Night. When all the good vampires were both awake and not being burned under the torturous furnace of the sun.

  If the man was in the country. If not, it wouldn’t work but that was how life went, most days.
/>   Chapter seven

  Bey, as it turned out, had gone away for a time. Checking with the Council pointed that out well enough. That meant he cleaned his apartment, instead of just sitting around like a lump. He had the energy, and didn't have anything else to do. Well, there was laundry but that was going to take a dry cleaner for a lot of what he owned now.

  The boring day to day issues of life didn’t totally go away, just because you became a vampire. You didn’t need to eat, or drink anything except for blood, sure. For him, since he was decent at resisting that particular urge, it took about an hour a week to keep himself well fed. That included going to the store to buy his blood, as well as drinking it.

  Cleaning though, that was a part of life for everyone. He was tidy enough, now, after years of working with people that would literally slap you down if you didn’t do a good enough job. It hadn’t ever been a huge problem for him, personally but he’d seen it happen to others a few times. They were, in general, good workers, too. So, the bar had started out high, when he’d crossed over.

  That was one of the good and bad things about working with Bey. He didn’t casually beat Troy into good behavior like some of the other makers tended to do. If he ever did, then Troy would probably die, which was the downside of that part of things. His behavior had been forced to be top end, from the start. A thing that he’d managed, thanks to the early training that vamps were able to get now. That was largely due to Eve.

  She’d worked out how to help the new kids a lot. Then, even being a vampire herself, she’d bothered to do it. To make her training into a thing for people like him. It was amazing, of course.

  He managed to kill about an hour on cleaning. The kitchen was scrubbed, top to bottom. The floors done for the whole place, meaning he had to pull out his vacuum, which was being used too early, for an apartment. He realized that when one of his neighbors, the guy that lived below him directly, woke up and started to mutter about losing an hour and a half of sleep to some druggy asshole.