On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3)

by P. S. Power

  Jelly and Kate walked into Candles and More just before nine, finding Lisa already there, fielding phone calls in the back. On the Mage side of things that was pretty much the job. The Ambassador took phone calls, and occasionally organized some large magical happenings. On rare occasions there were meetings with other Ambassadors, but so far, for some reason, no one had invited Kate to many of those.

  She was going to guess that it was down to ageism.

  Putting a hand on the phone she signaled the girls to sit while she finished the call she was taking. She rolled her eyes up at the ceiling and made a little “talking” hand gesture with her free hand. That indicated that whoever she was talking to was a bit boring at least, since she wouldn't have done that if someone called in with anything important. Like a lost cat, or the need to get the forms to cast a love spell. Finally she made some polite noises and told the person on the phone that she'd see what she could do.

  Then she hung up, a bit more firmly than was strictly needed.

  “Sorry, still getting a lot of calls about what Troy did a month ago. Love the boy, but he couldn't have made more problems for me if he'd gone in there and told them I was a Demon. Half the people calling want his head, the other half want him to run for office. On the Mage side of things, even if he is a Human. Seriously. If he was twenty years older I might suggest it to him. That was... Masterful. Anyway Jenifer, for the next two weeks you're the official junior attaché at Underwood. Welcome aboard. So, remember that what you say actually carries political weight, even though you don't have any political power. That basically means all you can do is mess up. If no one lynches you in the next few weeks, take that as a sign you're doing all right. When in doubt though, beg off. You don't have to answer any questions on the phone, and if anyone insists you do, it's probably someone trying to trap you into something, so pass it on to me. If I'm not around, call this number.” She passed a piece of paper over to her.

  “That's Gregory's cell. He's the Ambassador here. He's pretty happy with us all here right now, since Zack went searching the world for a cure for his wife who was dying and found it. He may or may not be in more often now that his wife is well again. If he comes in, let me deal with him. He's nice, but he can be bossy and you are just the intern. He'll have you off settling full Mage disputes if you aren't careful. Since I generally try to avoid doing those alone when I can, I suggest you do too...”

  Kate, seeing that Jelly was in good hands went to check on the store itself and grabbed the transfer schedule for Zack, so that she could organized the days node traffic, having done it for about a year off and on. That way Lisa could actually handle training the young Mage correctly for embassy duty, something that had never happened before as far as Kate knew. Most Mages avoided embassy duty like the plague for some reason.

  Probably because they knew what pains in the ass most of them were. They didn't want the job of having to put up with people like them after all.

  She swept and mopped the floor before Zack got in. Mainly out of habit, having had the job for many months before. He walked in carefully, trying to only step on the parts that had already dried so he wouldn't leave foot prints. It wasn't perfectly done, but nothing showed either, so she didn't have to scowl and run to redo all the work. Not that she knew how to scowl for real, but she could pass that idea along if she had to. When the floor finished drying they both started organizing the shelves, making sure they were straightened nicely and writing down inventory numbers when they found bare patches on the shelves. There weren't a lot of those, since most people that came there weren't actually looking for scented candles. Still, if you were running a store as a cover, it paid to make it all look right, didn't it?

  At ten in the morning, people started coming in to the store for transfers to various locations. Most of them going to Lesser Shia early, since that way they could spend the whole day shopping and come back in the evening. A lot of them took a full week there though and sometimes longer. The cost of getting there had come way down compared to when the Demons were in charge of the lines, but it still cost a lot to go and only the richest people could actually afford it. That fact didn't stop them from keeping Zack busy for hours each day. Traffic to and from other lands, like the Alfric and Skenic zones seemed to have gone up while she was gone, Kate saw. Zack was busy until lunch time, taking only a few breaks, one for food, one to go and have sex with someone at Beautiful Plus. She wasn't sure, but she thought they actually had a rotating schedule for who got to do that each day. At lunch time Lisa kicked Jelly out of the office and locked herself and Zack in.

  “I thought... Isn't Lisa dating someone named Maryl? She has a picture of them on her desk and told me about her. She sounds nice...” Jelly asked, sounding baffled.

  Kate nodded, “Right. That's Libby's aunt, she runs Bat Street, the new store next to Beautiful Plus? They handle, well everything really. Zack makes deliveries to anywhere that people won't sell to people in need. They also do a lot of mail order, fed-ex and stuff. Most of the orders come in online I hear. Not just Bats either, but anyone that's being ostracized. It turns out to be a lot more than you might think. Oh, Zack and Lisa... Well, you know, Zack feeds all those Alede each day? It's like with Don, where it kind of messes with his system and makes him want sex a lot more than if he wasn't feeding them and it gets more intense for them than if they were just regular guys too, so you know, rather than have Zack walking around at full mast all day... Also, if it makes you feel better about the whole thing, Zack and Lisa are married, so it's all right that way.”

  Jelly looked shocked at that news.

  “Don't worry, Zack's married to a lot of women. It wasn't his idea though, so blame them not him. Let's see, Lisa, Val, Merri, Claire from across the way, she's the Vampire Ambassador by the way, so you should go visit her later. Networking and all that. Um... Hilda, Rose and Yasmine. I'll take you around and introduce you to everyone later if you want. We should get lunch as soon as those two are done. Zack actually comes out and runs the store for that, so that we can have a real lunch too. Maybe we can get the others and go to the food court? The food here's actually good. Like five star restaurant good. Possibly better. I can't prove it, but I think the Alfric actually use magic to make the food. They keep claiming they don't but I'm not convinced yet. Cheap too.”

  Twenty minutes later Zack and Lisa came out of the office. Lisa had a big, dreamy smile on her face. Kate suspected that she was addicted to pure pleasure, which was about as addictive as anything could be. If Zack had actually done that, they'd be having words later. She'd suspected it for a long time now, but hadn't had the courage to check, since she loved Zack and didn't want to make him mad at her. Still, it was always a mistake to let someone get addicted to you at that level. Tempting, of course, but it always ended poorly, usually in the death of the addicted person from suicide if the pleasure ever got taken away. At least Lisa knew a half dozen people that could do the same thing for her. Between that and the speed Lisa popped when she thought no one noticed, the Mage was gearing up for a world of hurt.

  They walked toward the food court, making the rounds as they did, first hitting Frozen YoGurt, where Claire worked with Troy, who manned the counter, letting her actually spend most of her time in the back room, handling actual diplomatic situations. The Vampire sent the Human off to lunch with them, smiling as they walked out the door.

  Troy put an arm around Kate and told Jelly he was glad to see her there. She replied in kind, but didn't seem to pay that much attention to him. Troy shrugged this off and kept walking. They all stopped in at Bat Street, where Maryl came over and gave each of them a hug that would probably have been illegal in a few states, since Kate was technically only seventeen, even though she was also something like five hundred.

  She'd always liked Maryl though and had sex with her more than once, as both herself and Kyle. She may be Libby's aunt, but Weres tended to age differently than regular Humans, most of them slower. Some a lot slower. Ang the
Dragon was a couple hundred years old and looked about thirty, tops. Maryl was about forty or forty-five, but looked late twenties or so.

  This time Troy largely ignored the other woman, but Jelly seemed to like the attention. Behind the counter Kate spotted Chi who also got a hug from her, since the Bat boy was someone she considered a friend, even though she hadn't had sex with him. Maybe they'd get time while she was back? That could be interesting, since he looked an awful lot like Libby and Maryl, right down to Maryl's thick glasses.

  They picked up Charli at Something Wonderful, Don at the Apothecaries and much to her surprise, Riley the Trickster and Yasmine the Djinn, even though Kate knew for a fact that Djinn didn't eat food. The Trickster gave her a slow smile that warned her things might get interesting. Yasmine didn't look at her at all, staring almost exclusively at the back of Jelly's head. When this crowd descended on the food court, heads popped up behind the counters.

  Kate went to get some Chinese food, so Jelly and Don followed. Merri came at them from behind the counter giving them all hugs, even though she'd seen them earlier in the day and made them sit without ordering anything. Instead she brought several large trays of food out to them. Xan, from the Burger Joint did the same for the others, except Charli, who was waited on by Glen, from Fried Things, though he brought her Italian food. This got Kate's attention and she raised her eyebrows at the Alfric man, their Ambassador, wondering what he was up to. Hopefully just sex. Charli didn't get a lot at home, since she was kind of dating Zack, and got the most junior position there. If Glen could get her into bed, that would probably be all to the good. The only problem would be if the man had some other intention. Something involving prophesy for instance. Alfric prophesy never ended well as far as Kaitlyn could tell.

  Riley grabbed a burger and a container of fries and plopped down right next to her, physically scooting Don aside a bit, using some form of magic that didn't make sense, since Don didn't seem to move at all.

  “Kaitlyn girl! I haven't seen you in a coon's age, love. I look away and you come back with a new girlfriend and a new boyfriend? I'm hurt, I truly am....” The Trickster looked like a dark skinned black man and sounded like he was from the deepest south, about fifty years ago.

  Putting her arms around him from the side, she gave him a tight squeeze and then kissed him on the cheek. Linking arms with him she pressed her breast into his arm firmly enough for him to notice.

  “Why Riley! I didn't know you were interested in me! You know all you had to do was ask... Or even just stand in place long enough. No need to be hurt at all. This is Don, who you moved out of the way, and this lovely lady is my friend Jelly. You know everyone else. Now, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company, and yes it's all right if you just want to ask me on a date. Or any of the others. Though Don may be a little shy about that, still asking can't hurt...”

  Riley laughed long and hard at that.

  “Oh, nothing so innocent! Your friends have come to the attention of my people, and I wanted to give you all a heads up. You know the drill, keep the balance of the universe and basically do what we want, even if it sounds hard or silly? The less you fight it, the easier it will be. Got that Don? Because my aunt is particularly interested in you. So when some woman you hardly know comes up to you and asks you to do something strange, that you probably won't want to, give it a real shot. I did ask her not to try and trick you all. I don't know if she believed me or not or, if she thought it was just me trying to pull something on her.” He got up to leave then, but managed to feel up Kate's chest pretty well as he extracted his arm from hers. He grinned at her, so that she'd know he did it on purpose, then left.

  Yasmine stood as well and stared at Jelly as she did it. Her gaze was piercing and so intense that Kate could literally feel heat coming off of it. Literally possible with the Djinn, being creatures of fire and energy like they were. The look on her face didn't seem happy, but having seen her truly pissed once, Kate didn't think Jelly was in danger. Not yet at least.

  “I have a message for you, Jenifer Stone. If you persist in your current plan you will reap only ruin. If you wish to survive this, you will need to cease and trust in those you do not know.”

  She left then, either moving incredibly fast or going invisible.

  Jelly shook, literally trembling a little.

  Kate asked her what that meant, but Jelly just shook her head and started crying.

  Everyone stared at her for a bit, not knowing what to do, then they all moved in to pat and hug her, to reassure the Mage.

  Except Troy, who watched her carefully and didn't say anything. Kate looked at him and finally realized that he used an Alede hand sign, one that simply meant “Later”.

  Chapter seven

  If Jelly knew exactly what the Djinn had meant, she wasn't telling any of them at lunch. Troy kept looking at the girl, concerned it seemed to Kate, but not angry or suspicious. Given the timing of events, the Alede hand sign coming less than a minute after the warning from Yasmine, it seemed likely that the two were related, but the lines coming off of Troy didn't seem to be indicating the Mage at all and instead seemed focused almost exclusively off into the distance, splitting between three or four different factors.

  Don watched her closely for a second, not picking up on exactly what she was thinking, it seemed, but instead watching how the energy flowed around the room and between the people seated, picking at and in a few places readily consuming, their food. Not having anything in particular to go on at the moment, the Human decided to hold back and wait for Kate to make a move. She knew this because he sent a line of focused thought at her, making this clear. The tendril that reached out to her had a purple hue, and felt friendly, if a little devoid of emotion.

  Jelly managed to get her tears under control and told everyone that she had just been taken by surprise and that the warning probably had to do with her family issues, rather than anything more immediate. Though she certainly had enough new people around to learn to trust in, if that became an issue. She looked at Troy and held his gaze for a few seconds, telling him specifically that she'd be all right.

  Kate noticed that this made Troy blink. That, at least made sense, given that the girl and he hadn't really met before, except in passing once or twice and today had been the longest they'd spent together. On top of that, the girl had seemed disinterested in him not ten minutes before, but now she seemed to be acting like they were old friends.

  The twin Alede decided to try and turn the conversation to more fun topics and suggested that they all get together soon and have a party. Kate smiled herself when the idea was presented. As a rule, Alede loved parties. People did things at them they ordinarily wouldn't dream of, often in ways that were good for harvesting energy. When everyone said this sounded like fun, Kate got elected by a show of hands as the person that got to find a place for them to hold it. No one seemed surprised when she suggested the living room, since everyone was already staying in the same house, unless they managed to invite some new people.

  Everyone that people thought should be invited already lived at the house or worked at the Mall at least. For instance, Chi the Bat or Birk the Trolleinkein, if they could dampen the scent of Alede enough. Don voted for Maryl, because she was cute, he told them winking at Kate when he said it, and of course Libby. Zack may have a problem scoring with Libby's aunt while dating her niece, Kate thought, but that wasn't a hang up that Don seemed to have. At least he didn't seem to be insisting they both sleep with him at once, since Bats had really different sexual rules than Humans. They might just do it, which would probably weird Don out a lot more than he'd think at first.

  That Maryl would be interested in Don seemed obvious to Kate, but cutely enough, Don didn't think it would work out that way. Still, she gave good hugs, he told her when she asked him about it, which made having her at the party worthwhile all on its own. Britney looked at him, clearly a little jealous, even though she'd gladly do both women too, at the same time even, if
she could manage it.

  Don also thought they should invite Patty and Val, which Troy thought sounded like a good plan. They could also invite Merle, the Trolleinkein ambassador, and of course Hilda. His mention of Hilda just got Britney to wave her hands at him, as if slightly frustrated.

  “Well of course Hilda! That goes without needing to be said, silly! If I thought I could go the half week without sex, I would so do her before we left...” Blonde hair falling to one side, she pushed it over her shoulder and stared at Troy. “You too, of course.” The blond girl licked her lips and made significant eye contact with him.

  Kate saw something trying to come together, but couldn't exactly put her finger on it. After a while she wondered out loud if they should just invite everyone. All their friends and extended family?

  “Right, so all the ambassadors and pretty much everyone from here? Anyone else that would be nice to have around? Eloise lives kind of locally, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings if we invited Clyde...”

  Everything went silent for a few moments while people thought. Troy, biting his lip looked at Kate hard and eventually spoke.

  “Well... I don't know if it's a good idea, politically speaking, but I'd like to invite Luthor. He's a good guy and if Eloise is invited, he should probably get an invitation too. Vaun as well, since he's like Claire's boss's boss or something along those lines. Oh and, well, the Demons should be invited too, especially Beatrice. She's done some things lately that, well, even Zack thinks she may be almost all right and he's not fond of their kind most of the time.”

  Kate looked around and noticed they were being watched by all the Alfric really closely. She winked at Xan who waved at her from the Burger Joint. Glen caught her eye and made a strange hand gesture, which turned out to be pointing to a line that ran from him to Charli. A complicated multi-colored strand of gold, rose and green. Kaitlyn had no clue what it meant, but nodded anyway, since it seemed clear that it meant something.