by P. S. Power
It wasn't a hard topic to master, but Lenore acted like she was a samurai, and that anything less than perfection was an insult to both the company and her personally. She dumped most of the things that he made, even when they were right, insisting he strive to do even better. Poor Barb wasn't doing even that well. Finally she snapped, not yelling at Lenore, who she clearly feared, but him.
"I hate you. How are you doing this? I swear I'm doing the same things, but it's not right..." There was an undertone that spoke of him getting special favors, which was probably right, since Lenore was glowering at the girl, looking ready to snap herself.
"Um, well, to start with, I'm not in trouble, so that probably gives me about a twenty-five percent edge right off the bat. You can't really help that part, so you'll just have to suck it up. Then... I don't know, it's like you're mad at what you're doing. I'm looking at these and wanting to eat each one, you seem to want to throw them against the wall. Which, by the way, please don't do. We'll be here all night cleaning it up. I... I don't know, try pretending that it's someone tasty, instead of a punishment detail you hate?" The truth just came out, but the girl bared her teeth at him anyway, looking angry. For about five seconds. Then she stopped and froze in place, her eyes closing for about ten seconds, when she opened them she nodded, sounding far more in control of herself.
"Right... Sorry, been a hard week for me. OK, let me try that."
Lenore dumped her treat and examined it closely, but actually gave the woman a single small nod.
"Better. Not perfect, but I think we can work from there. I know that Zack needs to sleep, working all the time as he does, so this should be enough for the first lesson. We can work on the rest of things later. How to make the ingredients and culture the base properly. Thank you for coming in this late Zack." She smiled at him, looking pleased.
"No problem. Anyway, I really am going to be in early in the morning, for me at least. I arranged to watch both places Saturday. I'll be here, and put a sign up across the way. That's alright, isn't it?" It was taking moonlighting to a whole new level, but Lenore seemed fine with it.
"Certainly. Especially if your focus is here."
The others said goodbye, including Barb, who looked down and then stuck her tongue out a little, which made her look dumb, instead of playful, not making eye contact with him.
"Thanks for the help." It was a little grudging, but he didn't get the impression that she wanted to kick his ass in the parking lot over it so he nodded.
"Anytime."
The walk home was cold, worse than it had been, but dry and not snowing at all. The parking lot was far from empty, with a good dozen people, most of them Vampires, waiting, some in cars, some just standing, not looking cold at all. Only a few wore warm looking jackets or coats, which was kind of a giveaway. Eighties hair was there with his friends, looking menacing, but he didn't do more than glare at Zack, being busy talking to several others. A delicate blonde woman who was just... tiny, walked over to him before he got half way across the lot.
"Excuse me. Do you know if the Vampire embassy is open yet or not? I know that there was a meeting of some kind, but I don't want to leave my daughter alone for too long." She looked too young to have a daughter, and wore gloves as well as a long and warm looking tweed coat, complete with a fuzzy white scarf and hat. Those were signs that she was old enough to have learned to blend in. Most of the people around him hadn't mastered that yet. Or they didn't care to at all.
"I'm not certain. I think so. Here, let me go check so that no one gets in trouble." That got everyone to look at him, some of them seeming more than a little angry at him for it.
Like it was his fault?
It didn't take long to find out that Lenore was staying late to help them catch up, and Barb was actually on store front duty, Edom doing a bit of both jobs. He jogged out and spoke to the woman directly, so she wouldn't get stuck in the crush.
"It's open for business. Thanks for waiting everyone." He waved a bit, knowing they heard him, a few bothering to nod back, one man across the lot raising a hand in acknowledgement.
I few minutes later he was back home, finding the place empty. That made sense, Thursday was, oddly enough, the third busiest club night of the week. Monday was the slowest, according to what Troy had always told him. If Edom was off doing yoghurt stuff, and Barb wasn't in, that meant Troy probably had to be at the Terran 2 LA. Someone had to be after all.
The next day he got up extra early, after only six hours of fairly fitful sleep and went to the twenty-four hour grocery across town. He couldn't do all the shopping they needed, since he could only carry so much, but he made three trips, which actually put food in the house again. Then for the first time in four or five months, he had a real bowl of cereal, with real milk. It was heavenly. A simple thing that he hadn't thought about missing until it was there again.
Zack showered and finally got to use deodorant, which left him feeling a whole lot more confident about himself. He was still in Troy's clothing, of course, but he pulled five hundred dollars out of what he'd gotten and left it wrapped up in a note on the sofa. He owed a lot more than that, but hopefully, if he could pay that in every week for a while, things would balance out.
The rest of the day was calm and quiet for him. Hardly anyone came in at all, except for one older woman that asked if he could get her a deal on candles, since she was making special wreaths for her friends at church, as well as table center pieces. She had one of those with her to show what she meant. They were pretty nice he had to agree. Green and red, made out of real holly, with berries still attached.
Looking around he realized again that this wasn't a real store at all, so he helped her pick out twenty Candles that she liked and sold them to her wholesale.
"Oh, thank you! I know you can't do that for everyone, but I'll be sure to tell all my friends at church how kind you were. Here... I don't know if you can use it, but it's the least I can do..." She handed over a centerpiece, that was tied bright a bright red bow and made mainly of real plant leaves. It needed a candle, but it was really nice. Smiling he set it up on the countertop before she left, putting in a candle immediately, a nice expensive one that came in a jar.
It seemed to make her happy, and helping her was a lot nicer than the just sitting around that he would have been doing anyway.
After she left he felt a little lonely, since things were so slow. That thought made Mirror Him laugh. The image was pointing out the front door, at the crowd of people that was clearly moving to come in.
It didn't seem like he was going to be alone long.
Chapter seven
"Run Zack, run." M.H. looked half panicked, his voice actually worried for once as the hoard descended on them. It really wasn't that many people, just seven, but it looked like a crowd after all the days of no one coming in at all. They all spread out instantly, except for one man who marched over to the counter, looking like he was about to start screaming at him. The throbbing veins on his forehead couldn't be a good sign.
The guy couldn't be a disgruntled customer though, since that wasn't a thing for Candles and More. Or at least Zack hadn't thought it was a thing. The man disagreed however.
"I demand that this situation be taken care of immediately! I talked to some woman on the phone, and she said that I'd have to wait! Each night for the last week they've been painting on the walls of my house! I haven't caught anyone doing it, but I know who it is..." He leaned in and hissed, a long drawn out sound. "Vampires!"
"How do you know that?" Not that Zack didn't believe him, but it seemed a reasonable question.
The man twitched, his face jumping as his lip curled up.
"They signed their work with a 'V' inside a circle, who else would it be?"
Zack blinked. Then he pulled a pad and drew the symbol that had been in that movie Troy had shown him. The one with the man in the mask.
"Like this? Possibly in red spray paint?"
Pointing the man tapped it seve
ral times, excitedly. "Yes! That one right there. What are you going to do about it?"
Mirror Him had recovered from his shock at seeing the people walking in and snorted, saying a few derisive things to the man, that he didn't hear, which was just as well. The guy didn't seem reasonable at all.
"Um, do you work with kids at all? Maybe some that would be a little angry at you? This is from a movie, it's a little older, but there's a group online that uses it as their sign too, so it's a thing, and doesn't mean 'Vampire' at all. Though that would have been kind of cool, if they'd thought of it first."
The guy gave him a funny look, then shrugged. "Vice Principal of a high school. It isn't anything that I've noticed however."
It turned out that the man didn't watch television and seldom bothered with movies at all, so he'd just missed the thing totally. After a minute he seemed to have calmed down a good bit, and seemed surprised when Zack got his address.
"I mean, it's fine, but why?"
Shrugging he tapped the symbol again, "this would make a really good call sign for a Vampire group too, I'm going to ask around about it and make sure it really isn't that. It probably will just turn out to be some kid you suspended or something, but better safe than sorry. I'll try to get back to you as soon as we have anything. If we do."
The guy smiled, which was a gray thing that didn't seem real, but he sounded polite, so that counted as far as Zack went. He made a point of shaking hands before he left. The rest of the crowd came up one at a time after that, or at least one group at once. The first were two girls that looked to be in their teens, both of whom were clearly Mages. The taller one, who had straight blonde hair, just stared at him for a while. She was possibly seventeen, but probably not that old. Her friend bought a few candles. Inexpensive ones in red and green.
"For spells. Did you hear about that thing with the little girl the other day? It's so great they got her back. I heard..." The short girl had brown hair, was a little plump and had a nice round face made more so by her glasses. "That some ancient Demon came and got her. Did her mother really... sell her soul to get her back?" There was a hushed tone to her words, but it wasn't enough for several other people to pretend to casually be moving closer.
Zack got it then. They were gawkers. Not even very well informed ones. He wanted to bury his head in his hands, but had a feeling that letting Erin Soars even be associated with something like that would be bad for her.
"Oh, God no. There was a Mage, um, probably a Taoist, though I didn't ask, who went through the node with me to get her. He did all the hard work, I just helped get him there. I'm definitely not a Demon. You can all see that, right?" He held his arms open, but only about half of the remaining six people seemed to really be looking at him in the correct fashion to check his claim.
"Clearly." This came from an older woman, one that looked to be in her eighties at least. "I've seen those before, and you aren't like that at all. You look like a Mage. A slightly ill one."
He gestured toward her.
"So, no selling of souls or anything stupid like that at all. Just Me and Master Wu-Li."
It should have been enough, and at least the girls left, wide eyed and looking back at him several times. It was a weird thing, both of them smiled, but also seemed nervous. It wasn't flirting either, just kind of like they didn't know what to say or do. The older woman came up then, and started to talk to him. About her cats. They sounded like they were nice enough, but the topic was frustrating to the other people, who tried to look like they were shopping, but really weren't.
"Then Mr. Fancy hit little Snowie in the head. It knocked him hinny over teakettle! I felt so bad for him, I never could stand a bully. I gave Mr. Fancy such a talking to."
Mirror Him was actually listening to the woman, as well as watching the others, his eyes alternating between normal and glaring at the remaining woman and two men. One was old, and had warps and rifts floating around him constantly, the other two seemed like a couple in their thirties.
The lady in front of him finally laughed into her hand and looked around. "Silly me, no one here wants to hear about my cats. Forgive me."
"Oh, cats are cool. I haven't had any pets myself. I always wanted a dog, but my grandparents felt that would be too much for me. Hopefully Mr. Fancy will listen to you. If not bring him here and I'll talk to him. I don't know if it will help, but we can try it."
The woman smiled, as if he might be kidding. They chattered back and forth, until the couple walked up to the counter, standing there politely, which got her to take off too.
"May I help you?" They didn't have anything in their hands, until the woman dug out a picture of a young boy, one that looked about twelve or so.
"This is our son, he... ran away a few months ago. We adopted him when he was two, and when we told him, well, it didn't go well. We can't have children. Would... Can you help us find him? Anything you can do will help. Even just knowing that he's alive and alright..."
The other man stared then, his face blank. Waiting for something. Zack shrugged, not knowing if he could do anything at all. Really, it wasn't too likely. Still, he could take a peek into the node and see if the kid was visible at all. He didn't expect much, but noticed the boy huddling in an alley, over a metal grating that seemed to have warm air rising from it. Not thinking about it he stepped through, realizing that he might not be able to get back easily at all. That would suck, since he'd left the store open with people in it. The kid didn't ask who he was, or what he wanted, just rushing him, with a knife in hand. A little one, luckily. He dodged it, picked the boy up and half fell through the warp in space that took them back into the shop.
Then he scrambled away, holding his hands out.
"Look around, this obviously isn't normal. I'm a friend, just giving you a ride home. Your parents asked me to find you." He waited for the kid to tell him about their horrible abuse or something, but he just stood, looking at the back room as if it wasn't real.
"I don't have parents. The Kirks just took me in like a puppy or something."
"That's not enough? Did they beat you or force you to have sex with them, or their friends? Lock you in a closet and starve you?" It was a real question but the kid shook his head.
"No. That doesn't mean they love me." It was sullen and angst ridden.
Also about the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. He gestured at the knife and for the kid to walk out into the store, speaking as he did, trying to keep it conversational. The only problem was the Mirror Him took over, without warning.
"Listen kid, you got people that care for you enough to come and deal with some guy that might have been a Demon. People don't do shit like that lightly. If nothing else I can damned sure tell you that selling your mouth and ass on the street for the rest of the winter trying to get enough drugs to keep you warm is a lot less fun than having a nice room with people that bother to care for you. So how about you stop being a little dipshit and go hug them? Otherwise I'll have to take that knife from you and shove it places you do not want it put. Got it?" Then, after everyone in the room had clearly heard him say all that, he let Zack have control again. The boy, apparently really not wanting any major repositioning of his weapon, jogged forward and threw the blade to the ground, hugging the Kirks, who started to make a good bit of fuss.
Picking up the blade, since it was a safety hazard, Zack went back behind the counter and then pushed the photo back across so that Mr. Kirk could have it back. He certainly didn't need it now. After meeting the kid it just wouldn't be that hard to find him again.
"I..." The man was crying, looking happy but concerned all at once. He seemed good at bringing that out in the people around here. "What do you want for this? You can have anything."
It sounded pretty noble, as if he expected to pay an awful lot for it, which didn't make sense, it had only taken a few minutes. Zack looked at the scene with Mrs. Kirk, who was pretty enough, the man looking down when he saw it, swallowing hard. They really looked nothing l
ike the boy at all. He was dark enough skinned it had to be a hard sell that they weren't the adopted parents. The boy really shouldn't have been taken by surprise.
Shaking his head, he shrugged.
"Just give him a good home and remind him that if I have to come and find him again there will be a spanking involved. Not from me either, since I'm all scrawny and weak. I've got some big friends though." He grinned and tried to distract things by looking at the man behind them, the old fellow who'd watched the whole thing, his eyes mild and face extra saggy.
"What can I do for you today sir?" He focused himself, hoping that the Kirks would leave, which they did about then, understanding that he really wasn't planning anything nefarious. Or at least hoping they could avoid it by getting out of the way fast enough.
He heard his mirror self then.
"Mrs. Kirk was pretty hot, I bet they would have let you hit that, if you wanted. That dude seemed ready to. Maybe him as well, if you're in to that kind of thing." M.H. spoke, no reflection showing at all this time, which he normally did when there was nothing shiny around. There were reflections though, so it was a little strange.
The older man, who had thinning gray hair and wire rimmed glasses, gave a single nod to him, a cryptic thing that didn't exactly make sense. He stared for a bit, as if trying to decide what to say. In the end he gave the tiniest bow.
"I just came to see the curiosity. Most interesting. There hasn't been even a story about a functional line walker in several hundred years. Some of the Thugee cult of India were said to possess such abilities, but if they had that secret without vast cost, it was lost to time. My thought has always been that they paid a vast price in death for it. It fits, they took an awful large amount of lives. I won't bother you further, not today. I'd say however, that you need to start charging something for your services. Otherwise people will walk right over you. The Demons take the souls of those they aid, or at least hold them to strict deals. I wouldn't suggest that for you, but perhaps some favor or trade of work? Riches pale quickly, so I can't recommend going that route exclusively. Do something however, or people will inundate you. You deserve to have a life, little friend."