Hell, In a Troy (Lopez Time Book 2)

by Phillip S. Power

  “Damn. I sure hope we’re winning.” The words were muttered. Angrily, even though he was focused at the moment. Holding the lack of pain and rapid healing over himself as strongly as he could. If that was working, he couldn’t tell, his flesh being eaten faster than he could possibly fix it.

  Still, he did it. After all, the smoke and flame was mainly inside the container. Dropping the trap might let it out again, wasting all their effort. As his hand disintegrated on the right, leaving only bone and bits of moist meat, the cloud actually got inside the device. Finally. Using his left hand, he slapped the lid on. That one was better off. He was missing some fingers but that was all.

  Even if it took a while, they would grow back.

  Which, he realized, might not take forever. Looking at his right hand, moving in slow motion, there was flesh already trying to climb back into place. The strain on his links was incredible though, at a guess. If he didn’t want the cows to die, he was going to need to let the links go and trade off with new ones every hour or so.

  As he stood there, healing, Troy tried to keep grabbing as much energy from the universe as possible. It still wasn’t enough. Not by half. Probably not by a hundred times, given what he was doing. Making matter out of energy like he was.

  The older lady moved over to him, looked at what was going on and smiled.

  “Not too shabby, for a vampire.” She held out her hands for the jar then. “I’ll have a little talk with our friend here, and see if we can’t come to a better conclusion. At least the whole city wasn’t set to flame. This is… Well, annoying comes to mind. I’ve seen greater demons go down to this kind of being, several times, over the centuries. This isn’t a baby, either. I need to find out what the instructions were. If this wasn’t just a creature acting alone. That isn’t likely but stranger things have happened. Now…”

  The woman didn't stop dead but she did look around, her face going a bit sour.

  “This is a pickle, isn’t it? Let me… I own a few hotels in the area. I can open up some rooms at cheap rates for everyone here. Not free. Some of them won’t be able to afford even that. How are you planning to pay for them?”

  It was a strange thing for her to mention at all. As if the people in her territory were his to care for, not hers. The issue there was, of course, that she was a greater demon. In a very real way, she probably couldn’t do much for them, without gaining from it in some fashion. Regular people didn't mean that much to the likes of her, and honestly, they weren’t going to be able to help her out that much. The answer there was simple enough.

  Troy smiled and looked at his hands. They were still, slowly, growing back. It was going to take a while, even if he could keep up with what he was doing. Even if the damage hadn’t been near what Eve had taken that one time.

  “Easy. Cortechs and Krista Hall are offering to match any funds raised from the community, to help everyone displaced out. I’ll start things off with a million-dollar offering out of my own pocket. That should be worth ten times its value just in advertising alone. Just… Make sure you mention my community picnic? Heck… Call it your community picnic, just mention it? June fourteenth, two to two.”

  Instead of slapping him, or laughing at the stupidity of his clumsy bargaining, the old woman, holding the jar, set that on the ground.

  Then she got a cell phone out.

  The first call, was to Krista, interestingly enough.

  “It’s Darla.” Her voice sounded younger then. Like it was being dubbed in, instead of coming from the old looking mouth. “Your mom’s apartment just burned down. It took out that whole wing of the complex. It looks like an electrical fire but it moved fast.”

  There was a gasp from the other side of the conversation.

  “What? A fire? Is everyone all right?”

  There was a wicked grin then.

  “Troy was injured, saving some people. Everyone, to be exact. Possibly in the whole city, though I didn’t mention it that way to him. It was more than a simple fire. We can cover that later. His right hand is nearly gone. On the good side, he’s already healing. He lost pretty much everything he had here. Oh… Can we use your name for a fund drive? Troy is putting up a million for it, himself but he can’t have his name attached to it… Police don’t have that kind of cash lying around, as a rule. We need to put some people up in hotels and see about getting them new places to live. Food. That kind of thing.”

  To her credit, Krista Hall, actress and show runner, didn’t hesitate much at all.

  “Do it. I can… I’ll be right there. We need to… I guess mom can stay with me, here for a while. It’s still a hotel but she’s actually been being helpful. Answering phones and working on the script. Did you know she could write? Anyway… Is it safe there?” She sounded worried.

  As if an attack might be in the works. Which, given everything, it probably was.

  The Technician just smiled, glanced around and then lied.

  “It’s fine. Things seem to be quieting down a lot here. Troy has the cult situation in hand, for the time being. An accord of sorts with the leader of that group. You and he are staying with me for the time being. You know where that is. When can you be here?” She looked at the building, which was still on fire.

  That was being fought though, and conquered by the fire department. They seemed to be good at what they did, really. First, they protected the surrounding structures, then they battled the core of the flames back. It wasn’t just going away, even if the djinn was well and truly locked up and out of the picture. That was a bit of a shame.

  “Ten hours? Maybe more. I have to get a plane ticket. Let me… I’ll call back when I have that set up? Thanks for calling me. Tell Troy that… Tell him that I’m coming?”

  That last bit was weird of her to say but The Technician glanced at him.

  “I will. He’ll be fine. This is a minor inconvenience for him, not a life altering event.”

  “Good. I’m coming.” Then she hung up. Her voice hadn’t really seemed relieved at all.

  The old faced demon, who was a bit singed at the edges herself, grinned at him.

  “You’ll need blood. What would a limitless supply of that be worth to you right now?” She said it as if he was too stupid to work out how to get that for himself. Bottles of cow’s blood were sold in stores, after all.

  Troy simply snorted at her.

  “About seven dollars a bottle? I can do that one. The tough part is going to be getting enough magic to keep this going. My little battery is going to run out.” He didn't know when, not having worked with it all that much. At a guess, he had half an hour of healing in it, so about twenty minutes of power left.

  The words got a nod and narrowed eyes.

  “That’s decently clever, by the way. Hmm. I could sell you some energy… Or, I could tell you how to make changes to yourself, so that you can hold more and take more from the world around you? It isn’t a fast process but you need to learn it. How about both? Only half a billion dollars.”

  That got him to make a move that was similar to gagging. He actually bent over a bit when his mind caught up to what she was saying.

  “Right. I have that kind of money laying around. It sounds like a neat trick but… Not at those rates. Who do you think I am, Zack?”

  She winked at him then, and reached out, to pat him on the shoulder.

  “Not at all. You are distinctly yourself, Troy. You still need to know how to do that, even if only to hold up your little act here. It really is worth that much… Still, you can probably figure it out for yourself. Here’s a hint. The healing you are doing. There, if you can’t figure it out with me holding your hand like that… Well, then half a billion dollars. I’m fair that way. I won’t even make fun of you pretending to be slow like you are right now.”

  He really doubted that but nodded.

  “Let me work on it first? Most vampires don’t have to do this kind of thing.” That meant he could probably manage without it, or by banking a lot more
power for the future. Taking more into himself kind of made sense. At the moment, he wasn’t storing anything at all, internally. Not even life energy from his links. He could take in enough to keep himself going though. He’d done it before. Eve did it all the time.

  That meant it was possible.

  Nothing came to mind as a fix though, instantly. What he needed was something like the crystal bundle that he’d invented, only inside of his body. Implanting one of those might work but there was probably a better way to do it. Then he could learn to add power to it all the time. Hopefully while also feeding himself. Then, if he lost focus for a bit, he’d have a reserve to live off of, or could use it for magic, at need.

  Mrs. Gibson straightened, then turned, waving to someone in the distance. That, it turned out, was Chief Benson. Dressed in a suit that was now nicer than the one that Troy had on. The man walked over, staring at Troy’s hands.

  “Holy… We need a medic…” He started to call out but Darlene Gibson stopped him with a wave of her left hand.

  “No need. He’ll be good as new in a day or so. If you look carefully, he’s healing already. Krista Hall, the actress, has arranged for everyone to be put up in hotels, at her expense. It’s actually Lopez here paying for it all but we need to hide that, given his current job. Can you set that up? We’d get your new division in on it but Troy is going to need to be out of the public eye for a while. This was clearly an attack on him. A djinn. We managed to capture it. Hence the injuries.”

  The man might not have been supernatural in any way himself but he got what all the words meant, it seemed. Including that Troy had the kind of cash that bought food and lodging for hundreds of people. At least for a while.

  “All right. When will you be back at work, Officer Lopez?”

  “Ah…” He stopped and looked at his hands. It would be hard to keep up the rate of healing he was doing at the moment but if he had fresh links constantly, it was possible to keep up a better rate than he normally would have, using a tightly held concept and his best focus. Even if he had to spare the magic a bit on the action. “Three or four days? Maybe sooner but I don’t want to over promise. Get Maria Santos in as a stop gap. She said she was going to put in for the job, anyway. We can use this to rush her into place.” He glanced at Darlene and shrugged.

  The older woman got it.

  “Excellent. I should put the information about the hotels in with her?”

  Troy waited for Roy Benson to nod, then did it himself. Following the lead of the boss, as it were.

  “Good. She knows that you’re a greater demon, so just call her up and let her know what’s going on. If she’s on the team, we need to make sure she can actually do her job.” He was willing to argue the point but there was just a slightly wicked smile from the owner of the biggest local employer.

  “You know, Troy… That sounds like a plan. I’ll handle it. I can just take the funds from your account? One million?”

  “Do it. It isn’t like I could stop you anyway.”

  That got a wink from the older woman, and his arm touched again. Then she bent over, a bit too fluidly for her apparent age, and picked up her jar of djinn. When she stood up, the lady locked eyes with him.

  “You’re staying with Darla. You’ll pay for your food but I’ll make sure to have fresh blood in. Cow. You’re going to pay your taxes first?”

  That was going to be fun, having a hand and a half missing but it was what his plans were for the evening. If he ended up having to fight, it was going to be a pain, he didn't doubt. Still, that could work. It would show a certain amount of power on his part, as well as the fact that he wasn’t planning to start problems. If that were the case, he would wait, to be on the top of his game going in, not the bottom.

  This way it would show that he trusted the vampires there not to come for him.

  “That’s the plan. I have the papers with me for it. So, yay. I lost everything else at a bet but can still do that. Not that a fire like this would get me out of paying. Vampires are assholes that way.”

  It was more or less true, he knew. Thankfully they weren’t insane about it. Troy had a few more people to call about things though. If he were being attacked at that kind of level, having Avery in town was probably a poor idea. Then, she was a line walking queen dragon. A little thing like a fire, or even a hungry kami, weren’t going to do much to her. The trouble wasn’t that the girl wouldn’t be able to fight off an attack though, it was that he didn’t want to risk having her bothered by idiots, if it wasn’t needed.

  “I also need to talk to Cheyenne Stodermier. Possibly with a spanking involved. The unfun kind.” He also needed to find where he’d left his papers. The Vatican files and his tax data. That was, he thought, still sitting across the parking lot, on the ground. Near his car.

  Looking down at his hands, he focused again, pushing his left hand to heal faster. It was the least damaged of the two and nearly healed already. A bit raw and thin looking but not weeping all over the place or anything gross like that. His right hand was just starting into rebuilding muscle.

  Roy looked at him like what he was saying didn't make sense, even if the report about earlier had gone across his desk. That didn't mean the man had understood it all. He was good on that kind of thing, as far as keeping it in mind but that didn’t mean he’d connect the mother of a dead boy to a compelled djinn going after him. If that had been the real case.

  The thing had hit his building but, when he’d tried to get it to chase him personally, it had ignored him. Even when it resisted going into the jar, it had hit his hands, trying to make him drop the thing. Not his head, which would have done the same basic thing. Except that would have probably killed him.

  Thinking about it, he decided to ask, later. When the thing could answer.

  The Technician looked at him, her face sly.

  “You know, do the thing with the taxes first? I think that I should have a conversation with her myself. We can both go. It will be fun. I’ll bring a paddle. I need to change first. It won’t do for a distinguished older woman like myself to be seen slapping around a grieving mother. I can do it in a different shape.”

  If that was meant to be shocking, she needed a better audience.

  “I should do that as well but…” He grinned. Lacking shape changing abilities like he did meant that wouldn’t be happening.

  The woman, the greater demon, just nodded.

  “You don’t have time to learn how to do that yet. Not and be believable as a vampire at all. Focus on healing and learning to increase the flow of energy right now. Go and do your taxes. It’s important to be a good citizen. Meet at Darla’s in… A few hours? Sooner if you need the blood. I’ll have that.”

  “Thanks. Yeah, I need to do that, if I can get my car out. I’ll probably skate on the obvious attempt to ingratiate me to you. It isn’t personal.”

  He could leave his little car but didn’t want to. It was silly but his old beater felt like all he had left. At least in the area. Sure, he had accounts with money in them, as well, which helped to reassure him a lot. In a pinch, he could even go and get other clothing, if not things as nice as what Avery had given him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling a bit dispossessed at the moment. From the look of the building, he wasn’t going to go in later to sort through his smoke-stained outfits, or save his television or sofa from the wreckage. The place was a hole, already. Probably one that had nothing but ashes inside. Worse, if it had been about him, which he knew it had to be, then others had been screwed just as badly, in order to get at a certain vampire.

  Kathy Hoader wasn’t coming back to collect her things, either, for instance.

  She had Krista though. A rich daughter that could care for her. These other people had… Well, some of them would have no one except him. Most of them probably didn't have insurance, even. He didn’t. That kind of thing hadn’t even been a consideration for him.

  His boss didn’t stop him as he walked away. The papers he needed,
the entire file, were sitting where he’d placed it earlier, when he’d taken the jar. His keys were, by habit, in his right-hand jacket pocket. His little car, even being near the smoke and ruin, started perfectly. It was untouched and while not made to look that nice, had been fixed up, as far as the motor went, it wasn’t a secret race car or anything but the engine in it was practically new. The brakes and wheels were as well. That meant it was sturdy and not going to crap out on him any time soon.

  That bit of reliability was nice, given everything else at the moment.

  It took about fifteen minutes of driving, in the dark now, or nearly so, to get to the Y Tavern. It was, as the name suggested, at an unusual point in the road, where it split. The tavern itself was kind of a hole in the wall sort of place. It had blue vinyl siding at the top and brown wood underneath. The whole thing had a dusky and uncared for feel to the outside.

  Troy had, of course, driven past it many times on duty.

  That he’d never been sent inside had missed his mind until that moment. It meant something. The other places in the city of Lincoln where people drank had a constant stream of problems. This place though, busy enough that he had to park on the far side, at the edge of the decent sized lot, never did.

  There was a gravel patch there, with some low plants in it. No sprinkler. That meant someone brought them water on a regular basis. It wasn’t a big thing but looked more cared for than the outside of the building. There was a door in the back, as well as one on the front.

  There was also a lot of glowing neon all over the place. Mainly beer signs.

  Troy took a deep breath, circulating the energy around and through him. His little battery of energy was probably going to run out soon, so, attempting to heal, hold off any pain and circulate energy, all at once, he also tried to stuff energy into the crystal for storage, while using energy from it.

  It was harder to do than it sounded like. The thought got him to smile. The trick was, he knew, to make it all into one concept, that would prevent him from being too split, mentally. That meant he stood there, on the edge of the paved lot, seeming to wait for some reason. It took about five minutes, then he was able to walk again. The energy was still going to run out before too long. If he’d bought himself a few minutes, it would be a miracle.