Other Places 3: Detours

by P. S. Power

  Zack shook his head, "that's too powerful a target. My guess is that they'd go after Canada. Possibly Switzerland. That would be a mistake though, since any of those targets would put them against The Cleric, I think. Maybe not. Human wars are pretty common, after all."

  "Yeah." She shrugged, and stretched, her breasts showing nicely as she arched backward. "Well, I can't fix that, not today and probably not ever. What I can do is go and make sure all our customers are being serviced. Oh, right, Judy Swan called. Grandma, so she asked me to make sure you were really willing to pick her up. Australia Nexus at seven tonight, our time?"

  "Got it."

  That left nearly eight hours, which meant he could straighten all the shelves and sweep... Except that when he looked it was clear that had already been done, and pretty well. Which meant he had very little to do unless he was going to offer to have sex with the bald undercover police detective that walked in. He wasn't subtle at all, swaggering around as if he owned the place. He was decent sized, but a little soft around the edges. From the folds in his ear lobes he was a bit too far gone into heart disease to last much longer, which was a shame, since he was a young man really. Forty-one, Zack knew, picking it up from him casually.

  He waved, gesturing for the man to come over, which he pretended to ignore.

  "Detective! Detective McKenzie! Over here!" The man winced, but didn't walk out, looking pissed, as he stomped over. He literally did it too, like a little kid with too much stubborn, and not enough spankings in his history.

  Zack blinked at the colorful thought, and realized that it was Mirror Him thinking that, after a fashion. He was still there after all. Half of the whole picture now.

  Not waiting for speech he waved at the man again.

  "Good to see you! Are you looking for a book? Some of the best sellers don't look to bad, and we have some older ones too... you can read, right?" He rolled his eyes, and then crossed his eyes a bit. "Sorry, old habit, not thinking like that. Of course you can, or you wouldn't be able to fake your reports. Now, what's going on? You didn't come to get my phone number." Zack made himself blush and pretended to bat his eyes then, "did you? I have a girlfriend, but as long as you brush your teeth and put on some fresh clothing, I guess I could give that a try. I get to be the man though. You definitely seem like the kind that would want to be on the bottom anyway, right?"

  "Fuck you, queer." The detective squared his shoulders and pushed at Zack's chest with a finger. The game was a simple one. Normally, the police did things like that trying to hurt a person enough so that they'd move away, which was fleeing arrest, in the paperwork. Or they'd bat at the offending hand, which was written up as assault.

  The problem here was that Detective McKenzie was playing outside of his weight category by far too much and simply didn't know it. Another finger jab came in, as they stood at the front of the store. It was noticed, by two people. One of them was Kait, who looked worried, the other was a man walking down the central hallway. The physical plant manager. He turned and stared at the back of the Detective's head, which meant Zack looked at him and smiled, shaking his head a bit. That worked, thankfully. Otherwise there would have been a flaming Detective torch in his store. The Djin gave a single nod back and moved away, calmly.

  "What, you think this is funny? I hear you're running girls out of this place. Prostitution is illegal, I could take you in right now."

  Except of course, he couldn't. For one thing, there was no prostitution going on. Giving sex away to willing people wasn't illegal, or even wrong. The other thing was that Zack was getting just about everything the man had been thinking, which pretty much meant that he was desperate to find out why his friend Detective Baconni was after them all hard and heavy one day and had just given up the next. Literally not caring about it at all, suddenly.

  It was simple really, since Bey had used his Vampire persuasion ability to get him not to think there was anything to Vampires at all. No one had bothered with McKenzie yet, other than making certain he never saw anything too good.

  Which meant he didn't have anything on Zack at all. He knew it, too.

  Not that lack of evidence was going to stop him. He'd come ready this time, with a baggy of crack to drop in Zack's pocket, if he could make up a reason to search him. Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but for some reason he couldn't understand, the skinny geek hadn't responded to his provocation tactics at all. Yet. The next trick would be to spray spit in his face, and then pretend Zack took a swing when he tried to wipe his eyes.

  There were a thousand ways, after all, if the police wanted a man.

  Instead Zack nodded.

  "That isn't what's going on here, but clearly, it isn't normal, either. Would you like to really see what is? I can prove it all to you, but knowing about it... You might not be able to understand. Some people can't."

  Thinking that he'd just won some kind of minor victory, the man smiled himself.

  "Try me. You might be surprised."

  One of them would be, at any rate.

  Chapter seventeen

  It was tempting, Zack realized, to simply get rid of the problem the easy way. After all, the man next to him, Terry McKenzie, was unpleasant to be around, overly aggressive, and smelled bad. Dumping his dead body a few hundred thousand miles away would have taken a lot less time than doing almost anything else would. Worse, at the moment, he was actually busy, trying not to let his mind fly apart.

  It took focus to keep himself from simply acting and taking that easy and simple way out of things. Real discipline too. In fact, he had to search through the memories he had for a way to manage it all. There was a lot of information in there, but finally it was something pretty simple that caught his attention. What he wanted to do was to acknowledge the problem and hold it fresh in his mind, while relaxing and not letting the emotional content make any connections. If he did that long enough, he wouldn't develop new pathways for it.

  Or, with time, he could remove any old ones.

  For him that meant using magic, like he was, but bringing those old and horrible thoughts to the surface in a concentrated fashion, while removing all their damaging power. Simple, but different than what he'd been doing, which, naturally, was mainly hiding from what was there. That was what Mirror Him had decided to do, all those years ago, and that part of him had kept that up, even after they integrated. Now though, he had the ability to really make the pain go away.

  In theory.

  He worked on that, starting slowly, as he waved the Detective along to the node room. The man actually was aware enough to look at the door to it, with all its owls and books on either side.

  "Yeah, this fits. So..." He looked around the almost empty store, just in time to see Claudia come in, holding hands with a man that looked to be about old enough to be her grandfather. He tried to spin, in order to follow her, but Zack moved forward.

  Holding the thought of being repeatedly sodomized in his mind, as if it were happening at that moment, while using all the magic he could to strip any emotion from the scenes that came at all. It was no worse, mentally, than what he'd been living, but meant that he was slightly annoyed with the man next to him, for being that easily distracted. If one of them had a right to that sort of thing in the moment, it was him, darn it.

  "This way, we need to make a phone call first, I think."

  That got the man to glare at him, mainly by the virtue of not knowing what was going on and being too impatient to wait, or slow to figure it all out. He was bright enough to follow along and not make a grab for Zack, even as he looked around the marble floored node room. It was a nice space after all, but so out of place that even a regular person had to notice it.

  The man seemed almost relieved when they got to Zack's plain and white walled office. It was almost boring, compared to the rest of his life. Familiar to the man, most likely, since it was like all new work spaces everywhere in the Western world. Lacking any imprint of being owned at all. Crisp and clean, but not reall
y interesting yet. No pictures of cats with funny captions, or of his wife or kids. He was young still, so he could get by with some pictures of his friends, possibly climbing a mountain or something?

  Zack gestured at the phone.

  "Dial nine to get out. Can you call your Chief of Police directly?" The answer was no, Zack knew, but he was making a point. McKenzie didn't have that number, off the top of his head, and wouldn't need it day to day. He'd met the woman, and talked to her hundreds of times, but he had a boss that he went through, and when she wanted to hear from him, she called him in to stand in front of her desk, like a naughty school boy.

  "What? Why would you..." He looked around, but the words just didn't make any sense to him. Not really. To his mind that meant it was a trick, or trap. That or Zack claiming that he knew the woman.

  The idea that there was some kind of insider corruption made sense to him, so he nodded.

  "I can probably get a call through, if I use the right channels. Why?"

  "Because, I'm going to blow your mind, and I want you to hear that what I'm saying is real, from someone you trust. Go ahead and get that all started. I'm going to run and get a snack, from the cafe, do you want anything? A coffee?" He wasn't offering treats, since the man needed to watch his weight, at least a bit. If Zack had to put up with him, the man was at least going to survive another year or to.

  That was a point, as well.

  "Or tea. I'll get you tea. You like that now." It was a strange way of putting it, and the man looked at him as if he were an asshole and picked up the phone to dial.

  "You going to make a run for it?"

  Zack nodded.

  "Yep, this is all a clever ruse to distract you from the absolutely nothing you actually have on me. Please, call Chief Sims and I'll get you something. This will take a while. Try to be open minded."

  Then he jogged to the door, just so the man would have to wonder if he really was taking off. Ten minutes later he came back in with a mug of mint tea, plain, and having eaten about six thousand calories without stopping. They still had to wait for the woman to pick up, since it was early in the day for her, and she was going to be a tiny bit slow still. Vampires were like that, and she was old, but only about Edom's age. It showed, around the edges.

  Zack managed to hit the right buttons to put the thing on speaker though, well before the woman bothered to answer.

  "Althea Sims. You have something for me, McKenzie?" There was a tired and slightly annoyed sound to the voice that came over the device, but the Detective spoke anyway, sounding just a bit servile. People were, with their bosses.

  "Yes, ma'am. Possibly. I'm at Westfield Mall, and a man here asked me to get in touch with you? Name is..." He looked at Zack, his eyes a little vapid and blank seeming.

  The man didn't know who he was even. Great.

  "Chief Sims? This is Zack Hartley, The Line Walker?"

  "Ack!" There was a panicked gulp that came over the line, and the bald man next to him made a face. "Sir! I, what can I do for you? We, what can we do for you?"

  That got a slow reaction from the man next to him, at least, who seemed to be understanding that at least something strange was going on there. Plus, Zack had gone, rather suddenly, from someone to attempt to provoke, into a person called sir, by his highest direct boss. It was out of place, which meant there was no way for the Detective to really understand anything yet, but that was the plan.

  Zack explained it all, out loud.

  "McKenzie here has been being a bit of a nuisance, for the last month or two. Nothing too bad, and, really, he's trying to do the right thing, to his own way of thinking, but today he came into my store and accused me of... What was that again Detective?" Zack looked at him and actually waited, while silence filled the air.

  "Running a prostitution ring?" At least he managed to sound uncertain of himself this time.

  There was a gasp from over the phone and the Chief spoke, her voice soft.

  "I... Please, let me deal with the man? I know I have no right to ask, given our last meeting, but I beg of you... He's one of my people, I... What do you require of me?" It was far from an inspired speech, but Zack didn't care that much, since he was too focused on thinking about far worse things than whatever she had in mind. At the moment it was the cannibalism of babies. Living ones. Of course, she probably expected to be raped with an armed sized penis. Which it was clear, she was willing to take, in order to protect the jerk standing next to him. It was pretty brave of her, really. Respectable.

  "Nothing much. I'm going to take McKenzie on a trip with me for a few hours, or weeks, and when he comes back, I'd like you to make certain he gets a medical check-up." He paused and looked at the man, smiling. "That sounds bad, doesn't it? He has a heart condition, a preexisting one, and it needs to be taken care of, that's all. He doesn't have the right mental character to really handle things, but he needs to learn what's actually in the world around him. So, just to start things off, would you tell him about yourself, Althea?"

  "I... You mean what I am? He won't believe me. He can't. We've checked him for the capability. Nicole, the local Proctor did."

  Zack looked at the other man and rolled his eyes.

  "I don't know, I think, with enough proof, he can do it. So, go ahead. We'll head out from here, through the node, after that's done."

  There was another sound then, that seemed terrified, but that one at least was only about the cost of what he was planning to do. As she pointed out, the man was one of hers, and if Zack had to handle this, the way he planned, it wouldn't be cheap. Surprisingly she didn't just offer to kill the man herself.

  Instead she spoke, almost gently.

  "Detective McKenzie, Terry... The world is a very different place than you know. Really, in most cases, it's different than you can know. You simply can't handle the truth. Not normally." There was a long intake of breath from the woman, before she went on. It sounded like she'd given the basic speech before, at least. "Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of sparing you that knowledge now, since you've managed to come to the attention of The Line Walker. You'll need to do what he says, and try as hard as you can to believe what you see. It might not be enough."

  Zack nearly prompted her to get on with it, but she managed after another breath.

  "I'm a Vampire. A real one. I don't expect you to simply trust in that, but you're about to see things that few ever do. Remember it, and try to accept that you aren't insane. Can you do that for me?"

  Without waiting, Zack hung up on her, since the man next to him just seemed confused, which was about perfect really. If they waited too long he'd start to make up reasons for why things were being said. The people around him all being liars, most likely, since it was the simplest answer. The easiest for a man like him to believe, even if it was wrong.

  "Good, this way. Quickly then!"

  Making the node glow a gentle purple color, and linking directly to a place in a far off land with purple foliage and two moons in the sky, one a small and irregular yellow thing, the Detective was pushed through, a little roughly. It took work to make it all happen while still holding his mind in the right state for his other work, but he managed it, well enough. Following the man through, he waited while he gaped.

  The Detective looked around at least.

  "Some kind of virtual reality?"

  "Nope. You're actually here. Your boss is really a Vampire, and Cheetos really do stain your fingers orange. Now, I want you to stay here, and not wander off too far, since I have things to do today. I'll be back in about six hours or so..." It was mean, but he had no real love for the man and that would be about enough time for him to start making sense of things.

  Except that, instead of gaping open mouthed in wonder, like a good little boy, the large bald man pulled a pistol and pointed it at him. Because that made sense.

  "You've drugged me! I'm in fear for my life!" Then, even as he stood in a very different world, the man started shooting.

  Z
ack simply stepped out of the way, tracking the rifts in space where the bullets weren't going to be and staying in them, while the man waved the thing around with one hand. It wasn't the way he'd been trained to fire, but he was so worked up that he did it anyway, which didn't work too well at all. Then, because it was something that everyone did, the man threw the weapon at Zack when he was done. At least he'd done that one, himself, before.

  Smiling he shook his head.

  "No. Not drugged. This is just what it seems. So, hang out here and wait for me?" Not giving him time to think, Zack just stepped back through the line, into the store. It would take about four hours for the Detective to acclimate to his new surroundings. Then he'd need to go someplace else and keep doing that until he learned that the world wasn't what it seemed.

  The man just wasn't up to the task though, so he might go insane, rather than figure things out.

  Either way, Zack won.

  Then, finally, he started making phone calls, since that's what real world grown-ups did, wasn't it? The first one he made was to his grandparents, since they needed to be dealt with. One way or the other. Hopefully without half the drama as a certain cop had created that morning.

  He did it from his office, since, well, he had it and no one was there to see him seem like a twenty-two year old goofball, which was a bit how he felt.

  The voice on the phone was familiar at least.

  "Hello, Brad Hartley here, how can I help you?" He sounded normal enough at least. Young, healthy and not beaten down by the world at all. Given what had happened over the years he certainly had a right to that, if he wanted, or to simply scream at Zack, for being what he was.

  Not that he'd ever had a choice in the matter.

  "Hi, Grandpa. I thought I should call, and maybe set up a meeting soon? I know that you've probably heard some things about me, and..." He tapered off, not really knowing what else to add. This could go so wrong, so fast. He braced himself for screaming, or even for the phone to be slammed down suddenly, in fear.