The Gates of Troy (Lopez Time Book 3)

by Phillip S. Power

  “Troy, you can’t let this go to your head. You need to know though… You’re doing well. Even my people wouldn’t go out of their way to bug you. That’s no small thing, for a vampire. Anyway, you should…”

  Troy nodded.

  “Stay humble? Not become a giant tool-bag? Guard the gates of my mind from the warping of my ego?”

  There was a nod.

  “All of that. I was about to say that you need to wipe the corner of your mouth. You have a bit of blood. Right here…” He pointed at his own mouth, to show where about he meant.

  The paper napkin did come away with a streak of red on it.

  “Thanks. That would be embarrassing. Going around like that all day. Anyway, you’re coming on Saturday, right? I have my phone on me now, and it’s charged like it’s supposed to be. What else am I missing?”

  After the rest of the pie, which was half of one, was rapidly finished, Zack waved his fork in the air.

  “You need to get with Tarsus. Without Kind being there. He’s supposed to be helping you anyway, so you should look into it. I’ll see you before ten tomorrow? Remember, my work is more important than paperwork for the police. Keep that in mind?”

  Troy just sat for a moment, as Zack ate.

  “Yeah. I can do that.” Then he had to wait for Kind to get done. For a guy that had spent millennia away in prison, he didn’t finish all that quickly.

  It was sort of impressive, Troy had to admit.

  Chapter thirteen

  The next morning, at eight-thirty, Troy walked into the Lincoln police department, his head held artificially high. There was a bit of a feeling of shame, trying to dance around the back of his skull. Haunting him, over how things had ended there.

  That part, failing like he had, tried to leave him annoyed.

  He grinned and didn’t remove it from his mind. For one thing, he needed his weak and insufficient magical power to actually get some work done at the moment. The flow of power through him, it’s collection and his ability to think. It was building up slowly, with effort and a bit of discomfort. Holding the pain of sunlight away was in the mix as well. Adding a minor emotion to that work load simply wasn’t worth it to him.

  It meant that, when the other people, the men and women in their blue uniforms mainly, looked at him, they seemed tight and tense about him being there. Also, he understood totally why that was. They didn't think he’d done the wrong thing, because he hadn’t.

  When five people tried to kill you, you fought back. Any of them would have done the same. More to the point, they knew that about themselves. You didn’t become a cop if you weren’t at least willing to fight for your own life. The looks he was getting was because, to their minds, he’d been forced out, due to politics. It wasn’t really true. He would have been, in about six months, if he’d stayed. It just hadn’t happened yet.

  The others there felt ashamed of themselves, due to the fact that they hadn’t fixed things for him. Even if that didn’t really make sense. If five vampires had come for any of them, they would have tried to do the same exact thing. Of interest was the idea that about half of them figured they could win that fight. It wasn’t true at all, naturally. Humans could win against the undead but they needed to be creative and smart about it. Taking them during the day was the main trick used but large explosions and modern military weapons would work for a lot of them as well.

  Getting in a battle with only a nine-millimeter handgun or even a more powerful three-fifty-seven magnum wouldn’t work. Not even part of the time. Out of a hundred fights with those parameters, an individual officer would survive about one time out of two or three hundred. They’d win about once every ten thousand times or so, mainly when the vampires stumbled into each other or fall onto a stake by accident. Happenstance and bad luck doing all the real work.

  On the force, they’d had one way to handle the impossible things. That they knew about. Troy. Then, when he’d served his purpose one measly time, showing that he was a good person to have at their backs, the rules forced him to leave. They would have, at least, which was a thing that every cop knew instinctually.

  When they killed, right or wrong, they were given a lot of slack. No one wanted to be the person that ordered a man or woman to prison knowing they were going to be beaten, raped and killed. The judges sided with them, since they were part of the same system and the prosecutors didn’t love the optics of going after police. Worse for them, if they did it too often, the other police would be more hesitant to help them out. A big part of getting any convictions at all rested in the data collection. That rested almost totally with beat cops, detectives and the forensic teams.

  It paid not to leave them feeling too threatened.

  Still, if you took the heads off of five people with a knife, even if it had been the right thing to do, you weren’t going to be left a police officer for very long. It was, in part, why Troy had quit when he had. The rest of it was simpler than that. He just didn’t love the work. It didn’t feel to him like it was making a valuable difference at all. Sure, he’d probably left the guys feeling pretty bad about their chances of survival but the truth was that the police, as a group, were really safe.

  About a hundred of them died annually, on duty. Of those, most of the deaths were car accidents, almost totally due to the officer speeding, not someone hitting them. Or they died of heart attacks. A good diet and meditation was the best protection against that. Shootings made up the rest of the dying for those in blue, each year. Once every few years, a cop would walk into a knife and buy it.

  In short, the vampires, shifters and other things in the world didn’t go after them very often at all. Even the criminals from those groups didn’t really. The biggest danger to police were their own fears. That had been part of the training. Teaching them all to be afraid, all the time. To keep them safe from things that barely existed. A kind of shoot first attitude, which wasn’t needed at all.

  It wasn’t his problem. Not now. That part was kind of nice, actually. The cops there were just people, not monsters in blue that wanted to kill the world, out of anger or fear. Still, not having to hold their hands officially was kind of nice.

  Walking into the small supernatural division office space, he found Santos, diligently working away already, even if they didn’t have to come in until nine. She glanced up, over her shoulder. She was fit, for a woman. Her face was slightly round but that was due to bone structure considerations, not laziness or being prone to overeating. He noticed that there were lines on her face, around her mouth. Bulges that showed an impact there at some time. Likely years ago.

  It wasn’t a thing that he would have ever noticed before that point in time. The data was there but his mind would have never bothered to find it. It didn't really detract from her looks. She was solidly past average but only just that.

  “Honey, I’m home…” There was a sing-song lilt to his voice.

  The woman, who was dressed in a pant suit, her jacket off, which made her look a bit butch, grinned at him.

  “Jainy was just asking about you last night. She wants you to come over tonight. Apparently being off the job here means jack-over-shit to the super natural community, did you know that? I have to lie to half of them and claim that I keep you in my back pocket on speed dial, so that they’ll even talk to me. It’s a pain and a half.”

  Troy rolled his eyes then.

  “If they keep trying that… Well, they will, for a while, until they understand that you’re on their side, too. Most of them don’t really trust that anyone human will help them at all, if they know what they are. Not other than close friends. So, in five short years, about half of the most prickly will be on your side. At least you’re a woman.” That part actually made sense to him.

  After all, he’d been thinking about it for a while, thanks to Doctor Boyajian, and her hippie feminist clap trap. The woman, who had turned out to be Riley, The Trickster, shape shifted into a fifty-year-old woman, hadn’t been totally wrong.
r />   Women had their powers, after all.

  Maria didn’t seem to get that one.

  “What, you expect me to bake for them? Give them all handjobs behind the bar until we bond?”

  He nodded, smiling.

  “See, that exactly. Not that you should be passing out handies to all and sundry. That’s got to be a fast track to carpal tunnel. Just, if you need to, you can bring cookies or hold hands and no one will think twice about it. You can call people up to check on them, just because, where a man would be suspect, even if it were part of his job. You can also show up at community functions regularly, and just seem like you’re interested in bonding. A dude trying that would probably be seen as a threat, doing the same thing.”

  The words, oddly got a smile. He was being a bit crude but she really had started it.

  “Fine. I’ll keep that in mind. I was feeling a bit at a disadvantage. I mean, most of the people in any of those groups can kind of kick my ass. Even mages could.”

  The words got him to hold up a single finger.

  “That isn’t totally true. Anyway, we’re going to try and get you some upgrades. I need to do some more work on that end of things but it will help. Not that it will be needed most of the time. You already have what you need. Plus, let’s be honest. If you shoot most mages in the head, they lose their fight, like anyone else. They don’t walk around ready for that kind of thing. Most don’t.”

  There was a rustling from the hall, as Kind stuck his head in. That was just to look, and the nice looking but normal seeming man didn’t speak at all, just watching and listening.

  Maria lit up a bit.

  “Can I help you?” She managed not to sound snotty about it, even though that was hard to pull off with those words for a lot of people. She was a pro, after all. Even in uniform she’d managed it most of the time. That ran hot and cold for a lot of people.

  Troy waved at the other man, then was just honest about the whole situation, since Maria needed to be up on things.

  “This is Kind. He used to be the Sumerian god Enki. Now he’s throwing in with the line walkers. The other main option is being a greater demon, which he is, biologically. That’s less fun, so he’s skipping that one. I’m adopting him, until he gets up to speed with the new world.”

  That was about the whole of the tale. Kind waved, seeming a little awkward and nerdy in the motion. There was real skill in it. Perfect manipulation. That was a trait of his people, after all.

  Santos, looked a little troubled but nodded anyway.

  “Neat? Nice to meet you then, Kind. I’m Maria Santos. Police officer, assigned to the supernatural division for Lincoln, Arizona. Which is where we are right now. I enforce laws and help make sure there are no problems, for beings that are other than human, strictly speaking.”

  The words, which seemed like over sharing, got the being to light up, almost exactly like Maria had when he’d poked his head around the corner.

  “I’m living here, in the city, with Mr. Lopez. So, if there’s an issue, I need to get in touch with you, here?” He looked around the room. There was no real judgement in it, just him memorizing the space.

  Troy nodded, even if Maria seemed skeptical about what she might do for a former god.

  “Exactly. If you get lost, or even confused, you can come here and she’ll try to explain things to you. By that same token, you have to be ready to help her out, at need. Most people wouldn’t have that going on but you actually know her now. Big mistake, coming in here…”

  He was playing, which Kind got. He nodded anyway.

  “That makes sense to me. I need to prove my good will and ability to stay true to the course of my plans. Good works will allow for that. This is my new city. I will help Officer Santos rule it.”

  Maria sighed then.

  “You’d think but no, I just enforce the rules, I don’t make them. Even my boss and his boss don’t do that. We have a complicated system, which largely keeps things from happening too fast. It works best when no one gets their way too often.”

  Kind smiled, a huge thing that seemed sincere, and held his right hand out.

  “I can, if I touch you, get information about your life that might help me understand. Is that allowed? It’s all right to say no.”

  Santos actually paused then.

  “Um… Then you’d know all my dark secrets?”

  That one had gotten to Troy as well, back when he’d still been human.

  “That’s right. The honest truth is that he won’t care about anything you could do. I mean, if you spend your spare time having sex with corpses and cannibalizing them, he’d just file that away, possibly with a better idea of what to get you for Christmas. At least all the demons do it that way. He might report you for it. To you, in this case, so I doubt that will put too big of a crimp in your day.”

  She actually grinned then.

  “Nothing like that. It’s mainly just my thoughts, a bit of petty theft when I was younger and a few rules being broken. Plus, the one affair I had. Um… That was with Jainy, and broke up my last relationship.” A little nervously, she stuck her hand out to be taken.

  It wasn’t held long or anything. Kind nodded at her a few moments later.

  “You’re better than most people, I think. There was nothing there that would be easily used against you or anything like that. Not that I’d do that. It’s never been my way.”

  Before that part was explained, Detective Tran came in, holding her purse in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. It was a real mug, though it looked a bit like it could use a good washing. She did that daily but drank at least six cups a day at her desk. Probably filled with things that contained a lot of calories, since her people needed to eat almost constantly. She stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Holy fucking hedgehog.” She didn’t go on, though some energies raised around her. She didn't even try to run into the lines.

  Kind had let Troy do all of the work that way, watching closely, and trying to learn the needed steps for later, when it was his turn to try things out. First, they were doing the line walking portions since they knew that worked as a training order, so Troy did the actual construction of the bridges they were using.

  The rather normal seeming man waved at her.

  “Hello! I’m Kind. You’re…” He didn’t pause that much but was clearly searching his memories of things. “Ann, The Rotted? I think we used to know each other? I was Enki, back then?”

  She didn’t move for a bit. When she did it was oddly enough, a deep bow.

  “My lord.”

  The former god shook his head.

  “No. Kind. You don’t do gods here and now. This world is… Different than I would have made it but not filled with horrors. I’m going to be learning the new skills of void travel, from Master Lopez, as well as working at several different jobs, so I can learn about the world first hand. I have some data. I mean, being inside humanity’s collective conscious for two thousand years will give you a leg up that way. The outer world is different than that at the same time. I think that I’m going to keep aiding at the book shop and… to work here, when the need arises?”

  Interestingly, she stared, not at Troy, the obvious culprit in all things Enki related but at Santos.

  “You signed him on as an intern?”

  Maria rolled her eyes.

  “Of course not. That’s too close to my own job description. We get him for backup, if we need it. I think that was the idea. So, on-call, at least part of the time. We need to get you a cell phone. Troy can do that for you. That way it won’t have to come out of my pocket. I’m clever that way. Spreading the cost of things out like that?”

  Shrugging, Troy agreed.

  “That sounds about right. So, Ann… There’s paperwork?”

  There was. It was also boring and not important enough to really bother him in person about. She did the writing, putting the data directly into the computer. It took all of two minutes. It could have happened over the
phone just as well. Possibly better.

  “There we go! Now, mentee of mine, I have some tasks for you to fail at. Or succeed at. You can do that one too, if you like? I see that you’re working on your intelligence, which is good. No one wants to work with a moron. The first thing on the agenda is for you to get little Maria here up to speed, power wise. I want full genetic changes, not just a talisman or special kind of laser gun. I’ll give you… Until Saturday, for that? Go and learn how to do that.” She stopped then, acting as if she hadn’t just told Troy how to get the whole thing done.

  At least in part.

  There was at least one world where magicians knew how to do that kind of thing. Their form of magic was different, naturally, which could be an issue. That was the clear point of what she was saying. He was supposed to head out, to a different reality and learn how to get the job at hand done. How was, mainly, up to him. Troy knew that. Still, Ann was coaching him and had to know that his ideas as to what would be needed and useful were probably going to be limited.

  It still sounded like he didn't get a lot of time for it.

  “That sounds fun. I can try to go after work today. For now… Well, I have an actual job to do. Building bridges and bringing people closer together.” Or further apart but the metaphor was only going to work as long as no one questioned it too harshly.

  A lot of things were like that in life.

  Kind followed him outside, seeming relaxed about the whole thing. There was no speaking, until they were on the far side, in the marble floored node space in Zack’s shop. That needed to be swept, he noticed. It wasn’t bad, just enough to show that people used the thing and tracked in dust and dirt with them.

  Troy was early, so headed to the back of the book store.

  As he walked, he glanced at Kind.

  “I’m up for a half shift I think. We normally do things in eight-hour sections that way. About forty hours per week. Working here, we’ll do more than that, at least part of the time but we’re just starting the new operation, so it might be slower, at first. I could have to leave, to be on television or something. Do you want to work over here, with the books? You can watch me if you want but that might be a little boring for you. Remember, you get free food.”