by P. S. Power
After a second, there was a deep breath from the man, who still had his face in the soil. Then without any fanfare at all, he stood up, and looked around.
"Where am I?"
The girl waved up at him, using only the tips of her fingers. Then she gestured around at the purple world they were in. Land, really, Zack thought. It was part of the world that he'd always known, just a very different part of it. One with two moons. Because, sure, that had been covered in home school, hadn't it?
"He has to do whatever I tell him to now. I have to add power though, every few days, or he'll stop working. He's smart, not like a zombie or anything. Pretty neat, huh?" She asked it as if expecting him to praise her for the effort.
So he nodded.
"Yeah. That's actually really good. Complex. So, what do you think I need?"
The girl looked at him suddenly, her face going angry, but she didn't snap at him, just pulling the power out of the man, and then, as Zack watched, his remaining life force, which showed where she got her name from. The decay that came was hard and fast. Wet too. There was no turning to dust for the guy, just a damp pool on the ground. Even the bones went with it.
Then she giggled again, because that seemed sane and healthy. Which was no doubt her point. With a name like The Rotted, she probably wasn't on the good guys' side of things, was she? No, this little Demon went to market, and her basket of sanity was all empty.
She grinned, clearly having been reading his mind.
"Oh, you're one to talk, Line Walker. The pot is definitely speaking out of turn there, to a good kettle like myself, too." Ann didn't really move much then, just waving at him. As if that meant anything at all. Then she reached for the front of his pants again, rubbing. It wasn't all that fun at all, he realized, even as he started to respond a tiny bit.
It wasn't her looks either, but the fact that she was staring in his eyes, looking for signs of discomfort. As if teasing him were a game?
Or a test.
He kept everything locked down, including his biological functions, then, even as she kept after him. Since she clearly was a perv, too.
She nodded.
"You get bored after a while, and try new things. It will happen to you too, sooner or later. Probably sooner, since you're about as apathetic as one of us ever gets. Even the goody-goods tend to have more emotional range. I don't mean what you're shutting out right now either, just you, all the time. You should work on that, because right now you seem a little bland. If you have to be a crazy piece of shit, at least be an interesting one, right? Anyway, you asked a question. What do I think you need?"
There was a long pause, and she moved closer to him, her tiny hands touching his hips on either side.
"Protection, bitch. Here, grab my belt loop and follow me around..." Shaking her head she let her eyes roll, playfully. "No, sorry, seriously, you need friends. The ones you have aren't treating you right at all. Look at the Mistress of Souls... Trying to make you her slave like that! Notice how when I come to chat, I show you neat tricks and offer to suck you off, even if you don't want to right now. What does she do for you? Tries to make you think she was going to enslave you, so that you remember all that horrible stuff. She didn't even try to really make it right after that, did she? 'I know, I've been bad. I'll make it up to you.' She won't even let her mom bang you, so what do you think she's going to pay you with? You don't do slaves, or, clearly, kids, so what does she have? You don't even care about money that much. She should have offered you her ass, but no, Polly Priss there is too good for that, isn't she? You can have my ass though, if you want. Or, I can do yours, if that's your thing. I'll even look older for you. I am, you know. Old. Ancient and dry, like the dust of the desert. But what I think you need are some real friends." She stepped back then, smiling. "What do you say? Me love you long time..."
She pushed her glasses back up then. It was disturbing, but that was, no doubt, part of her charm.
"Well, I'm not turning friends away this week. What does that mean to you? Being someone's friend?" Because he wasn't making any deals bargains with The Rotted, if he had a choice. It just wasn't happening.
"Oh, you know, sleep-overs, and doing each other's nails and hair. Dishing about boys. Or girls. Or if you want, livestock, since I don't judge like some people might. If you get into minor trouble, I'll give you advice, and maybe even the other way around. You can help me out, if I need quick travel places, and I'll help you with any dead you need brought back. That kind of thing. It will be all sweet and nice, don't you think?" The scary part was that she actually sounded sincere.
Like she really meant it.
"All right. We can be friends, but no tricks, or using it to spy. At least for anyone else. I mean, we can't really help that kind of thing, for ourselves, can we? But no setting me up for bad things, and if you want to have sex you have to look at least twenty. Probably stay a woman for now too. Are you, by the way?" He meant a girl, but didn't have to explain that, since Greater Demons, even the crazy ones, tended to be smart, didn't they?
"I am! This is wonderful! I really thought you were going to act all superior to me, since you've been hanging around with The Technician and her little sis. That girl always takes things so seriously. I mean, she's been your mentor for what, three weeks, and I bet you haven't gotten a break at all yet, have you? It's all, 'you need to be ready at any time' and 'you're too broken to live, they'll kill you if they have a chance.' Am I right? You're young and should be out doing things, not sitting in a room, being lectured about how little time you have left. Plus, I have it on good authority that almost half of us, the ones on the other side from the snooty bitch brigade? Only some of us even particularly want you dead, so how's that for awesome?"
"Better than I'd feared?"
"Like you have fear? It's good though. Most of us think that you have a lot of promise, Zack. I may call you that, right? Since we're friends? I'll call you Zack, and you can call me Snookums. We'll be ever so close. Say, do you want to get together later and fuck? Or we can catch the Mistress of Souls and take turns using her? She sort of deserves it, for hurting my new friend like she did."
She really did. Zack didn't even have to fake thinking that, though he wasn't going to rape anyone. Not even her. For one thing, she was under age. Not that Ann would care about that, but he did. It was an issue in his world. A thing that he needed to reconsider, at least with Greater Demons. If he was one day going to have to have naughty dolphin sex with some hung over male shifter, in order to get his shipment of Kit-Kats or whatever it would turn out to be, then he probably needed to not worry about age that much. Not past sixteen or so anyway.
The girl shrugged, listening in openly.
"Fine, fine. You should at least write her a stern letter, like you told that old Vampire man. Make sure she knows not to mess with you again. That, or take off one of her arms. She'll grow it back, but if you time it right, she'll be caught out, having to force herself to do it at the wrong time, messing up her plans. Or a leg, but that's actually easier to fake, so you should go with something more visible. Say, I don't suppose, being pals like we are now, if you'd take me back with you? I can do it myself, but it would be a pain, and you're so much faster than I am at this. Xenses may be a pain in the ass, if you let him, but he sure knows how to make a Line Walker. I mean the pain in the ass part literally. He has this trick that he likes to do where he makes himself grow huge, and then..." She stopped and shrugged. "Well, I can't recommend it. So, ride me home?"
That image was ridiculous, but he was tempted to jump on her little back anyway. She giggled at the idea too, and took his arm when he offered it, jumping at the right time to end up back in the node room of his place. Then without waiting for him to go over what they'd said to each other, she bowed to him, her face pleased.
"I'll look different when next we meet. Thank you, for the wonderful outing, sir. I look forward to the next." Then, the air in front of her making five distinct bubbles, she stepped i
n a twisting fashion, going between them and backwards at the same time. He could track that, and even do it himself, he knew.
It was just a bit awkward and clumsy for him to bother with.
A lot of the Greater Demons were like that, in regards to the lines. The inroads, as they called them. Each did it in a different way, and most of them wasted vast amounts of energy doing it. True, he was wasting energy keeping his mind together at the moment and it wasn't being nearly as efficient as he could be, so maybe he wasn't one to talk? He was covering the mess up, and controlling himself, but that wasn't going to fix anything, was it?
Worse, the bad guys kept coming and treating him a lot more nicely than anyone said they should be. Why seek him out as a friend? Even as a trick? Killing him, or trapping him into doing their bidding, he could see, but just to visit and make nice? That didn't make any sense at all, did it?
Of course, if they were all insane, that might be the reason right there, right? Shaking his head, he decided that a snack was in order. A large one. It meant going to see if Palma had anything around, but of course she did, since the woman was a miracle worker. All her kind were, in the kitchen. With homemaking in general, he knew. It was all there in the library that floated around with him.
That got him thinking, as he moved toward the food, walking past people in the bookstore. Was there a way to fix his mind? Before, people, mainly Finias and Darla, had said that it probably couldn't be done at all, but the instant he remembered everything, Mirror Him had clicked back into place. On his own. That was the part that wasn't supposed to work, wasn't it? It had anyway, and now he was fighting the pain of things, but was sane. Or... Well, possibly not that. He wasn't understanding things like the others did after all, was he?
Still, it was all a bit confusing, wasn't it? Keeley had tried to break his mind, so that he wouldn't side with Xenses... That made some sense, after a fashion. To her it would be better if he went insane or died, rather than going over to the other side.
Except that action pushed him toward the end she didn't want, didn't it? It was such a huge thing, to him at least, that Zack could actually consider letting Xenses get away with all that he'd done to him as a child, because...
But Keeley wasn't some airheaded school girl that made mistakes like that. Anyone would have guessed at that effect, especially if they had access to his mind.
Darla hadn't told him that she was planning a business weekend before either... Not that she wouldn't spring that kind of thing on him, but Ann had said some interesting things about her and one that was clearly right was the fact that Darla sat around telling him how he was going to die at any moment. She also checked on him daily, only hadn't, in the last bit. Not even a phone call? From his own personal Greater Demon Council mother hen?
Finias... Had come to him in a form that Zack had never seen before, and invited him to a party at Gregor's. In Rome, with all the other side? As far as the memories told him The Cleric was actually one of the least likely of all Demons to hang out with that crowd of people, wasn't he? Even Darla was more likely to do that.
It was almost as if someone was screwing with him on purpose.
Not bothering to call first, Zack moved out of the Cafe, without even eating anything, and hurried to the marble floored node room. Then he forced a bubble to open up on Darla's doorstep, in Arizona. He didn't knock, just feeling with his mind, noticing that there were several people inside. One of them at least felt like his mentor.
Another was just as clearly Keeley.
They came to the door, moving at normal speeds, since there were regular people in there with them too. So he knocked. That was normal and polite, after all.
It was Darla, looking blonde, pretty and young, who smiled at him when the door opened.
"Zack! There you are. I thought you said that you were going to be busy all weekend? I got your note."
Even to his slow and insane brain, things started to click into place. He looked at the two girls in front of him, and then, very carefully, opened six node rifts at once. He let his left hand come up, a bit dramatically, holding the palm toward the floor. It wasn't needed, but it gave him a good reason to have a hand almost ready, if a battle started. He didn't think anyone else could do that, but Keeley went wide eyed and moved slightly closer, her face going scared.
"Zack? I..." Pulling the door shut, so that she and her sister were outside, the girl whispered. "Balthias, attend me please?" Which got the giant red and slightly brown horned being to show up, holding a coffee table. Before anyone could say anything he tried to hit Zack with it, really hard.
He dodged, warping space a bit so that the whole thing seemed to be in slow motion. To him at least.
Then he ignored the being, as Keeley stopped him from trying it again.
"That won't work. I saw Balthias at Westfield last night too. Rebekah, you, and Darla as an old woman?"
Darla made a face and looked at the six nodes that he was still holding open, with no visible strain.
"We were here the whole time. You sent a note, on the computer, saying that you planned to be so busy that you doubted you had time for training for two days? You promised to eat and be good about practicing what you could." She pulled something from her pocket and waved it at him, but it only glowed, a light pink color that came out of a crystal on what seemed to be a copper box. Keeley did the same and so did she.
"Which confirms that we're all us, to me, I can't think of anything that would do much more right now. We have people here... This has to be dealt with however." She started to reach out, to touch him, but pulled back at the last second, as if he was going to strike her or something. Then she dove in, her hand latching onto his left arm. Not hard, but her entire life sprang into being for him, as she took his in return. She was older than he'd thought, and had a darker past than he would have imagined.
She made a face, which twisted into near rage, not him. Zack managed to stay calm and collected.
"Keeley..." She moved back and waved at him, her face being driven into blankness. The other girl moved in, but did so slowly. Then she did the same passing her much shorter and happier life to him in exchange for his own. She'd done that before, the other way around at least, but it was the first time he'd seen what she had to offer.
In the game of I'll show you mine, he was definitely winning that day, he thought. At least with Keeley. Her life wasn't perfect, but it had only a few really bad things to it. The death of her father, as Finias had mentioned, at the hands of Xenses...
Except what were the odds that the strange and somewhat dated looking man in his store had been the Mind Taker?
The dark haired and too good looking girl took a deep breath. It sounded shocked, but wasn't, he knew. She had better control than that. The pattern in space that she put out, the way that he'd been secretly identifying Greater Demons, that was hers, but it had been on fake Keeley too.
"You remember it all? Well, you seem to be handling it, better than I figured you would too. It's taking a lot of energy to manage, isn't it?"
He nodded.
"Yeah, I've been eating enough, so it's doable, but I have to figure out how to repair the damage. On the good side I'm practically sane. On the bad, all the crazy Demons want to be my BFF." He was about to whine a bit about it, when a head popped out of the cream and gold colored door. Darla had a nice house, but the girl the face belonged to wasn't anyone he recognized, for a moment.
"Becky? Hi! How are you doing?" He made himself cheery, since the girl wasn't a bad person at all. She looked different now, but that was because she'd lost about thirty pounds since they'd last met. That plus some really well done make-up took her from a solid seven, to a low nine. Or it might. He couldn't see her body yet, being hidden behind the door. It was a good face though.
"Zack? Hey! Come in. Eve and Hally are here too. We were just wondering what we should do tonight. Guys, it's Zack!" She seemed pleased enough at least, with him being there. Darla smiled too, but Keel
ey gave him a hard look, as if to warn him that not everyone in the room knew all about what they were.
Because he was too stupid to figure that out? Or, too honest to hide it?
She didn't get to say, since he was actually sort of tackled then, with Hally hugging him closely enough that he felt loved, even if he didn't understand the response. Eve moved in next, though they hadn't really met, in more than passing. When Becky did it, he picked up more about her life at least. For instance, she was The Technician's slave. It was how she'd gotten into such good shape so fast. She didn't know it, since the trick that got her into place had been pretty subtle, but she was trapped anyway. The process had probably seemed almost magical to the young lady, since Darla had only suggested she might enjoy exercise and not need to eat as much, now. It hadn't been overt or anything, so it was probably hard for her to see how it had happened, even if it had really just been diet and hard exercise.
Zack hugged her back, feeling her body a bit more than was probably proper, given their single meeting. She was toned, and symmetrical. Given that she'd been a bit chubby in the past, it was a major change.
Darla looked at him as if he weren't bringing trouble to her doorstep and winked at the others.
"Keels and I need to chat with Zack for a few minutes. Something has come up. Eve, you and Becky should go work out. I'm planning a big dinner tonight and you'll want to be able to have some." It sounded pretty rude, but no one called her on it.
The funny thing there, was that while the other two girls walked away, Hally, the cuddly redhead, stayed behind. She was pretending that, for some reason, she was part of the group needed for the discussion or something.
Zack looked at her and shrugged. She knew what he was already, and the others as well, so why not? Maybe she'd have a good idea or two?
"Someone has been appearing to me as people that I know, except it hasn't been them. Shape changing to fool me, for some reason. One of them, a Greater Demon, tried to make me a slave, while pretending to be Keeley. I think, at least. It could have been her, and this could be an act now, but it makes a bit more sense the other way around. I hate not knowing. I don't suppose you'd be able to vouch for them? Rebekah and Balthias too?" He looked at her closely, as the others moved all the way inside.