by P. S. Power
"Say, I'm looking for a way to get free from the whole energy thing I have. You know, being connected to The Rotted? Not that I don't love her, I just kind of want to not be a slave forever. Can you help with that? Ideas or something?"
That got a shrug and a wrinkled brow.
"Noooo. I don't think so. What you'd need for that is one of the Greater Demons. I'd suggest you get with Tarsus, or The Technician. You're on good terms with both of them, so that should work. I'd try Darla first. Tarsus will charge you through the rear for any help."
Tyler nodded, then stopped.
"He actually owes me a few favors. Medium sized things. I don't know if that will be worth anything with him."
The girl smiled at him, and touched his shoulder, letting her hand linger.
"It might? Just for clues as to where to look. I... Really, you probably can't do that. Getting free that way doesn't seem possible. I mean, you might learn to change your energy draw needs, or where you can get it from, but you can't die to break the slave connection. It might be hard to get Anne to kill herself to free you. Even at that, if you can't power yourself independently of her, it's not a real point... Which is what you were asking about. Right. Good thinking."
Then she moved into the front room, and waved at Marissa.
"Hey girl!" There was, rather typically for Eve, but strange for Vampires in general, a warm hug for the Council member. "I hear that you came to check up on me? Let's go do that? I need to meet everyone anyway. Rebekah and her junior boy wonder are down the street, hiding from you. Do you want to go get them first?"
After a few moments of chatting, they left, meaning that he was alone for a while.
Finally.
Limping still, though his movements were much smoother, he got to the living room, and settled onto the sofa. In his spot. The place where he normally settled, or had so far. It was a great place, the mansion as a whole, but more than he needed, he realized. The house was pretty, and a bit eccentric, with its odd furnishings, and slightly skewed proportions.
The thing there was that he really would have been fine being back in Vancouver, in the little room that he was renting from Calley. It hadn't been grand, but it was clean, and had his stuff in it, which was, in the end, all he needed. That kind of thing, how little he wanted, was different, when he stopped to think about it. For a moment he considered that it might be due to the fact that he wasn't a normal, real, man. Then he had to think about all the people that he knew, and realized that wanting nice things around you was more of a Human woman thing than anything else.
Men had nice houses at times, they just didn't really seek them for themselves. They got those things for the women in their lives. That seemed strange to him on a level that he knew wasn't normal. Men provided for their women, and this situation was being put together for him. Okay, Ginger and Calley had gotten in because of him, but he didn't own it. Then, neither of them were a Human, which might change how they felt about the whole thing. Or, and he knew that it was just as possible, he could be wrong about what women wanted in life.
Still, it was a nice place. He could see that one.
Picking up his keyboard, he started to play. Making up new tunes, and writing them down for a long while. Then he went to his room, sneaking in since there was a sleeping Calley in there still, and got his notebook. The one he was filling out with all the info he'd gathered on the Other groups. Taking an hour, he wrote down everything he could think of, and tried to keep things organized.
Then, almost on a whim, he picked up the phone and considered who to call about his lifelong problems.
At first he sort of wanted to get in touch with Darla, The Technician, but that was probably just due to the fact that she seemed less scary than The Liberian. At the moment, it was most likely better to face his fears, and keep them in mind solidly. Zack had been right on that one. He couldn't let himself trust any of his kind. Darla wore her pretty face for a reason, and part of that was so she could trick men like him into wanting her. Getting his phone, Ty quickly dialed the number he had for the Greater Demon man, and waited while the phone rang three times.
"Hello?" The voice was different, sounding young and a bit higher than what Ty associated with the Greater Demon leader.
"Librarian? This is Tyler Gartner?"
"Clerk. What may I do for you today?"
"Um, I'm mainly looking for information. I need a way to get energy, without eating living people, or drawing it from The Rotted. The idea is that eventually I'll not be dependent on her, so I can work toward getting free. I was wondering if I could trade one of those favors you owe me for it?" It seemed fair to him, but he knew that a Demon might just think that data like that was outside of what they'd agreed to when he'd gotten a few Greater Demons to meet with him a month before or so. It hadn't turned out to be hard for him to get it done, so maybe that would influence what the man was willing to pay for it.
Instead of telling him to go stuff his head deep up his own behind, the man laughed a bit.
"Oh? Very good. Yes. I'll need to research that one. It isn't a thing I already know for certain. Not in any ways that you'd want to use. It's a unique situation, as you know. There are however a few areas that might be fruitful. The difficult part is, of course, not the energy draw. I could teach you how to do that in a few years time. Indeed, you might even figure that out on your own, with a bit of help. No, it's doing it while a slave to another, if she doesn't wish it done. I'll see what I can find for you however. Anything else?"
"Nope. Is... How are you doing?" He was trying to be polite, but there was another laugh. One that seemed nearly kind, which was a trick.
Obviously.
"Well, if you're going to ask... I'm doing fine. I might have a task coming up that would fit your skill set however. I could, perhaps, if I can work out a method for you to use, teach you how to gain energy, say in exchange for that effort? I will tell you how to do it, if I figure it out, at any rate, but there is often a difference between knowing what a thing is and how to actually perform an action. It might be worth doing."
"Um, sure? I mean, I'll need to know what the job is first, and be able to get it done, before I really agree, but if I can, and it seems fair, I guess I could work that out?" He didn't really want to agree to things he didn't know about, which wasn't lost on Tarsus, it seemed.
"Very careful of you. Better than some of the young of my own kind manage. I will speak to you soon, Clerk. Yes. I think perhaps that will work well for us both. Make sure you don't keep your mother in the dark on this. My guess is that she will be far more amenable to you finding your way free, if she knows you are making that effort."
"That's probably true. Thanks. I'll do that. Talk to you later, Librarian."
There was a click then, and he redialed the phone, calling his mother. It rang again, but instead of picking up, a knock came from the front door.
Honestly, Tyler expected to see Lucy there. If not in her normal mom form, then one of the little girls that she pretended to be most of the time. Instead it was three people standing there, and none of them looked all that much like the woman he'd known most of his life. They didn't feel like her either, which was probably more important, the way things had been going in his world of late.
One of them was a woman, and she seemed fine enough. Like a Human, being delicious and normal that way. Her face had a forced smile on it, and her hair was both long and brown, but there was a hint of gold to it in highlights. Her eyes were a gemlike green, too. That all could have worked to leave her pretty, but it didn't. The man next to her wasn't huge or anything, looking a bit more run down than the woman, even. Stooped, and broken seeming. He had a fake smile on his lips too, and a day's beard growth or so.
It was the man in front of them that got Ty's attention however. He seemed to be a mountain man. A trapper from a seventies Disney movie if Ty had it right. The man was dressed in all leather buckskin, with moccasins on his feet made out of something similar. H
e had a lot of muscle, and a salt and pepper colored beard that looked like it never had seen either a comb or a pair of scissors. The eyes were a plain brown, but held something that seemed wild behind them.
Not anger, as much as a lack of sensibility.
"Hello!" Tyler didn't know what else to say, but when no one else said anything he went on anyway.
"I'm Tyler Gartner. From the Coalition of Nations. Do you need my help?" Really, he should have plugged the band too, while he was at it, but none of these people seemed like the kind to like standard pop music.
In fact, the idea of the man in the front doing that kind of thing, listening to any sort of entertainment, felt off. Wrong.
It was that one that finally spoke, his voice deep, booming and a little off.
"I am Goethe. Known as The Wilding. I seek The Storm. Do you offer her your protection? If so, prepare for battle!" He started to move in, but with a roughly Human speed, which meant that it was a bluff. A threat, rather than a deadly attack.
Because Goethe was the name of a Greater Demon. The one that was hunting The Storm. So, as far as he went, one of the good guys. At least a weapon for his own side, which had to count.
"Protect her? No. I don't know where she is, but I might be able to find out. Eventually. She kidnapped me three weeks ago. I haven't seen her since then." Holding his walking stick, ready to use it, even if that wasn't going to help him, Tyler wondered what was going to happen.
It was different than he would have figured.
"I see. Tell ya what. You get me The Storm, and I'll trade with you."
Tyler looked at the wild man and figured that it was probably better than being eviscerated, more or less. Not that he'd feel it, but his leg wasn't totally healthy yet, so having it ripped off would probably be a bit annoying.
"If I can do anything, and I'm not saying that I can, what are you offering for it?" He was thinking favors, since that was mainly what he'd dealt in so far with Greater Demons, but got just from the look in his eyes that this man wasn't one to trust that way. "Also, I can't take down a Greater Demon. I could find out where she is, or at least recently was, maybe. Is that good?"
"What I meant. You stupid or something? Get me The Storm, tell me where she is, and I'll... Fuck. I don't know. You want this bitch here?" He waved at the woman with him, who didn't really respond at first. Not until the man finished talking. "You're dead. You eat her kind, right?"
That was a bit more astute than he really liked. The wild eyed man with his bushy beard and funny leather clothing stared directly. Looking for some kind of lapse on his part. For him to demand the slaves, which was what they probably were, to be freed. That wasn't happening. Ty couldn't even do that for himself.
Though he had heard that living people could die to get away from their Demon masters. If it was done correctly, it seemed like most of the ones he knew could pull it off. It cost though, and was rare. Dangerous too, most likely. Most living people didn't easily come back from death.
Glancing at the two people, the broken seeming man and the still beaming woman, Ty shrugged.
"You want me to go up against a Greater Demon, just for two Humans? Ones that are already yours?" He didn't add the magical part, since he didn't know for certain.
Goethe laughed.
"I said the bitch, not the man. They're mine, true. I ain't asking you to take out Stormy. That's my job. That slut wants me dead. That won't be happnin." The Demon was working really hard to play up his hillbilly trapper persona.
Ty did not let himself be fooled by it. No Greater Demon, not even the insane ones, had been stupid yet. They all used some kind of an act however, as far as he could see, to get people to let their guard down. That's what he'd noticed with each of them so far.
Keeley and Darla both went around looking like hot young women. Lyn, Zack's grandmother, looked a bit older and a little less lovely, but still presented as a tiny Japanese woman, and her looks could still turn heads as well as most actresses.
Even his own mother went around looking like a little girl part of the time.
This guy just had a different way of doing the same thing. Thankfully his way was also as scary as all get out, so it would be far easier for Ty to keep it in mind.
"Right. So, both these, and a medium sized favor?" The other man had to know that messing with The Storm was a big risk for him. Not that he'd admit it.
"These two, since I'm done with them anyway. I don't want to bother with no favors."
"Fine. We can do that. If I get the work done, you can't call them back however. They have to be mine, as much as the slave link allows."
That got a furrowed brow, and then a single, firm nod.
"Hard bargaining. So not a total idiot. Good. Agreed then."
"Agreed. Wait here for a bit? I need to make some calls."
He needed his phone, and then had to think. He really didn't have any way to find The Storm in particular, did he? If Lucy knew, there would be a fight going on, or at least some kind of hunting of the other Demon. They were on Keeley's personal ground, but she'd kind of set up Goethe to go after The Storm in the first place, which the trapper was going to have figured out, or soon would, so that was a poor idea at the moment.
Zack... Well, he might help. He was pretty good at finding things, people and places. It was part of his special power, Ty thought. It came up at work, a few times a week, so it was a thing.
For some reason, probably due to the fact that he secretly wanted to have sex with her, and was too easy to manipulate that way, Ty called Darla, who answered after two rings.
"Hey." It sounded informal, and younger than he remembered. A lot. Like a young girl. For a second he thought that he might have gotten the wrong number, but the name seemed right when he checked his phone screen.
"This is Tyler Gartner. Technician?"
"Oh, hi, Ty! I'm with some new friends of mine. I told them that I knew a guy in Rebekah the Vampire's new band, but they didn't buy it. I should get you to come play for us. Then they'll see who I really am."
It took him a bit to understand that he was listening to the Greater Demon saying two things at once. It was weird.
"I see. So you can't speak right now? Unless they really want to see us play? We're pretty good, so they should. You can come visit in a few days if you want? Let me know ahead of time, so we can do it on a night everyone can be here."
"Yay! We can come to your house? Next week? There are four of us. Maybe you can get your friend Zack, to bring us there?" Which probably meant she hadn't told them she was an ancient Greater Demon yet.
"I can ask. It might take some doing. Say, do you want to trade for it? I need to know where The Storm is, if you can help with that? I kind of have a Greater Demon on my doorstep, and I'd love for him to go away without killing me. I offered to trade for some of his slaves. Two of them. I think he means for me to eat them. They do look tasty enough, but I'm sticking to rice and tofu this week. Still, helping out Humans with problems like that does seem to fit my job description."
There was a laugh, which again, seemed like it was coming from a young teen, not a woman in her twenties.
"I can do that, if you want. I have some... You know? What you want?"
He built a picture of her playing with her hair twisting it around her finger, trying to flirt with him, even though he wasn't there.
"Can you get that soon?"
"Sure. I guess. Guys, I have to head out now." A male voice said something in the background, and it was also pretty young.
All he could make out was what Darla said.
"Hmmm, so you, or Tyler G. the singer... Let me think about it?"
There were fun sounds from the phone, but a bit later the voice changed a bit. The words were more certain, and a bit clipped.
"I'll have that for you in... Call it twelve minutes?"
"Thanks. I'll get Zack to take your friends here. Then back home. I have three trips with him. Though really, you should all go someplac
e cool. Not that this place is bad, but there are a lot of places to go."
"I know. These are my new batch of friends. I'm trying something a bit more open this time. I don't suppose you could arrange for Eve to be there too? Your Ginger and Calley too, naturally."
"I can ask?"
"Talk soon."
Then he had to go back out to the front. Not only hadn't the unwelcome people left, they were all standing exactly where they had been. Two men and a woman, just waiting, like they hadn't moved in the slightest. Because that was normal.
"I should have word in about eleven minutes. I had to get that from The Technician." Hopefully Goethe didn't hate her too much.
The bearded man did spit, but then smiled.
"That's not bad. I wouldn't have thought to bother there. Our kind costs dear for our own."
They did bargain hard, that was true. They were even worse with each other from what Tyler had heard. He'd gotten that one from his own mother. She'd made a point of telling him to not be too easy on them.
Not that way.
They all just stood there, and waited together. He didn't have to sit, since he didn't feel anything. Even if his leg hurt with the healing he wouldn't know about it, and it was nearly back to normal now. Not quite, but when he went in, shoes and socks wouldn't be out of the question.
When the phone rang, even though he kind of expected it, he still had to fight not to jump.
"Hello?"
"I have the location. It... Do you want me to talk to The Wilding directly? It will save a lot of time. I don't know if your agreement will count that way."
"It will. Here."
He held the phone out, kind of wondering if the big, leather clad guy was going to pretend not to know what to do with it, but it was just taken from his hand. A bit roughly, but it didn't do damage to him.
"Go."
Then the Greater Demon listened, and after a minute hung up, and gave the cell phone back.
"These two belong to you now. Go with this man and do whatever he tells you." There was a wave at Ty, in case they didn't get the idea, and then the dangerous being in front of him, turned and left.