by Power, P. S.
Finally the glass door opened a crack. It had a black curtain behind it, so that those inside couldn't be seen easily. Devon peering out carefully. Seeing that only Zack stood there, and held a box of donuts with the top open, he relaxed greatly.
“Thank you. What do you want in return for these then?” The Demon asked flatly, as if he and his people were under siege already.
“Well, peace if we can manage it. But that may be above our pay grade. Other than that, nothing. Here you go.” He handed over the box. It disappeared quickly inside and the door closed. After a moment he heard a female voice, Beatrice, their second in command call out, “Thank you!”
Then Zack collected Maryl and Libby, walking them back to the candle store.
Chapter eight
It became clear that food would be an issue, so Zack hired Beth and Barbara to cater the crises for Underwood. He let them decide what they wanted to provide and simply opened a line of credit for them through Lisa. When she asked why Zack felt he should pay for it, none of the trouble being his.
"I heard a rumor that I need to start putting my money back into the community, so I thought I'd start with Barbara and Beth. I can't remember who I heard that from though.... Hmmm..." Trying to be silly he turned away from her, obviously watching her from the side of his eye.
This got a smile, since she'd been the one telling him that for the last two months, at least once a week. It was a good point and the truth was, he probably needed to do more than that.
At noon the word came down to all the ambassadors that a meeting had been scheduled for midnight at the Weres North American headquarters, which had been offered by Clyde as a meeting place due to its location next to a Nexus. A call came in from Eloise, which Lisa picked up, then rapidly called Zack to the phone to speak to the older looking woman. He already knew what she had in mind, which was obvious.
“Hello Zack... Well... We need to get people to this conference we're having. The Demons can take themselves to it, but everyone else will need some help getting there unless we want to hold it sometime three years from now. What would you need to feel comfortable picking them all up?” She spoke carefully, as if choosing each word, so as to not scare him away.
“Well, I need the pickup chambers to be cleared, except for the people going. I'd like there to not be any weapons and a general understanding that if anyone attacks me, regardless of who they are, I reserve full right to self-defense, even if it means killing a king or president. I don't want to walk into some ambush only to have the world after me later because it turned out to be some high muckity-muck decided to take me out thinking I'm a Demon in disguise or something...” He thought for a bit, then went on.
“On the far side, I'd like the chamber we come into to be cleared each time. Just for everyone's safety and peace of mind. I'll be going slow and checking on every jump. If something looks at all suspicious, I'll move on to the next transfer and whoever can't follow the rules will just be left behind. Does that seem reasonable?” Zack didn't think it sounded reasonable at all, but Eloise did and told him that he could even opt out if he wished, though her Shadow self also told him that without this meeting, war would almost certainly break out within the next few days.
It also might even with it.
He got a list of pickups, one the Lisa painstakingly transcribed over the phone for him and it turned out that most of the eighty transfers he needed to make were in locations he'd been to before. Three he just couldn't find and two others the Vampires, Claire specifically, had been to at some point and could help him find the right places without too much work.
It took six hours to get everyone though, because while he moved slow for him, taking about two extra minutes per person, the Dignitaries took many times longer on average. The three assassination attempts didn't speed things up either.
The attaché to the Vampire's ancient leader, Luthor, tried to run him through with a large knife as he stepped out of the void. The other Vampire had been in the other room, but broke through the door and attacked so fast that the only thing that saved Zack from being a shish-ka-bob had been Luthor. Who struck out at the other man, destroying his prey instantly.
Zack could tell that the old Vampire honestly had no idea that his assistant had planned any kind of action whatsoever. His giant Shadow being scrambled for a way to explain this to Zack, but not understanding what had happened, couldn't find the words. Zack didn't push the issue, "I do kind of wish I could take you along with me on the rest of these things today, with reflexes like that. I'm sorry about your... friend here." If a pair of legs and bit of pelvis could count as a friend. As they watched, the man melted. Ruining his really expensive slacks.
The Vampire kept trying to apologize, worried that he would think that they, his people were behind the attack. Zack assured him that he understood that he, Luthor, had nothing to do with it, and that he didn't think that the Vampires as a group did either. The ancient Vampire simply bowed to him, holding it far longer than Zack felt comfortable with.
The next attempt came about an hour later, an attempt to bludgeon him with something like a chair by the leader himself. It was an odd shaped piece of wood, all of one piece, but heavy and solid seeming. It turned out that this leader had mistaken him for a Demon and thinking himself attacked, had tried to protect himself as best he could. Zack had disarmed the man, using a trick that Master Dan, his martial arts instructor, had shown him less than a week before. It was good to know that he could carry it off during an actual attack. Dan would probably be pleased to hear it, since the physical part of martial arts weren't coming very quickly for Zack.
Since this man, if male, belonged to a race of colorful, and in Zack's experience, very polite reptile like beings, he'd been greatly saddened by the attack, until he managed to figure out that the leader had simply made a mistake and come at him out of fear. Then he laughed it off and took the man through without further comment. After all, mistakes happened, and this time no one got hurt.
The third attack came toward the end and proved to be a lot more serious.
As he stepped out of the Node to pick up a member of a race he'd never seen before, a Demon stepped out of the Node right behind him, made a gasping sound and started firing into his back with the pistol he carried. The impact knocked him face forward onto the stone floor in front of him. He focused, after a moment of shock, eliminating the worst of the pain and then rolled to his left, feeling odd squishing movements in his back, about halfway down it, as he impacted the floor.
The Demon jumped back into the line to escape, as Zack rolled in a strange half circle into it as well, both of them moving in to the void at the same time.
He focused again, as he had the previous night, letting himself come as close to perfect focus as he dared. He watched the Demon slow, almost stopping in place. Instead of killing it outright, he decided to try and follow it, to test how well Demons could manage multiple transfers in sequence. He'd heard once, that they found it hard, and wondered if they had some kind of limit on how many trips they could manage in a day.
Settling in for a long chase, Zack followed him through the void, coming out in another empty Node. To keep from being shot, he grabbed the gun hand from behind the Demon, reaching past his body and using both pushing and pulling on the gun hand managed to turn the muzzle toward the Demon's left, where he couldn't shoot anything.
They both translated again and then once more, on the fourth stop, the Demon started to panic, unable to move through the void any more it seemed to Zack.
“Good, come with me then.” He told the Demon, pulling him into the void, where he realized he could simply destroy the gun by scrambling space around and through it. This took the Demon's hand as well, though the Demon didn't seem aware of it yet.
He dropped in to the Node room of the Were Complex in Canada. Once through he pushed the Demon down as he suddenly started screaming, probably due to the loss of his hand. While clearly in pain, the stump had been seale
d almost perfectly, if in a bubbled looking mess, so no blood shot out of it.
Guards came in, not certain what to make of things at first.
Zack pointed, speaking quickly, and forcing himself to match tempo with the guards slowing himself down, at least mentally, a lot.
“Demon. It tried to kill me. Don't let him die, I want to question him later.” Then he backed into the line and went back to Candles and More.
Kaitlyn didn't hesitate, seeing the wounds. Not even letting him fall to the floor, she started changing him, a complete change, letting the transformation heal him, even though she didn't know everything that had happened to him. He heard a small plinking sound as the bullets fell out of his body one by one. Lisa came out of her office and stared at what had happened. Libby and Maryl had moved to his side, grabbing at things to use as pressure bandages before they realized what the girl was doing to him. They, being Weres, got the idea instantly, even though their Shadows told him they hadn't known that Kaitlyn could do this.
After a few moments, Kaitlyn set him all the way down on the ground, from which he instantly sat up. They all looked at him amazed. He, she now, Maria realized, held up a delicate light tan hand and asked for silence.
“Don't say anything.” She cautioned them. “There are reasons not to. I can't explain right now...”
"I need to go back now." He spoke to Kate, who nodded. She didn't even ask if he meant back to being Zack, or into the Node again. It took less time going from hot girl to average man, the transformation back into his normal shape always being faster, taking about half the time, it seemed to him.
When it had finished, he told them about the Demon attack.
“I need to get back, but after I finish getting the rest of the leaders to the conference. Oh, and I need to find out if they bothered with translators, because most of those guys didn't speak English at all. They may not have a common language. Maybe the guys from Lesser Shia can help? I'll check on that if they don't have anyone yet.” He promised to be back soon, then spent a few minutes making sure Kaitlyn had a full charge of energy. Just in case they needed her again.
Lisa stared at him strangely as he left. Her Shadow self worried about him and also wondered if she'd see that beautiful woman that he'd turned into again. The idea of him as a girl intrigued her.
It took another two hours, and he did end up having to go to Lesser Shia and hire all the translators that were willing to go, about forty of them, which was almost a perfect number, he realized. These translators seemed to be a lot more than met the eye, he knew from past experience. Though covered from head to toe, even wearing blue veils that covered their eyes, he knew what lay underneath. Pale skin, eyes about two or three times larger than his own. They also had really even, flat, teeth that were broader than Human, almost like smooth plates compared to what the people he normally hung around with all had. He suspected that they had some kind of hive mind, at least in part, but he hadn't asked them yet, because it just hadn't come up. If they did, it wasn't total, since he'd met a man of their kind that had been exiled once.
He headed out of the Node, still wearing his blood soaked shirt and nearly starving, when he had the last translator in place. They at least, lined up quickly in a single file line and came at him with nearly perfect timing. It took about a minute to bring all of them across, almost as if they had done this before. Not knowing who precisely sat under the veil for each one, he realized that he may have taken each of them somewhere before for all he knew. Regardless, they were a pleasure to work with.
He asked to be taken to the Demon that had attacked and tried to kill him, as soon as he found a guard. One of the Weres that had grabbed the Demon earlier he saw.
When he got to the room, a cell he saw, having actual bars on the front, the man with a Demon in him, sat, clutching his right arm with the missing hand to his body, talking in a strange language to another Demon, probably one of the delegates, Zack thought.
Suddenly, behind him, through the outer door, a small group of people tried to crowd in all at once. Clyde, who's facility they stood in, pushed to the front and asked people to stay in the hall, except for Eloise and Master Wu-Li, both of whom were known to Zack, being close personal friends, the Were Leader told everyone, trying to keep any feathers from being ruffled, his Shadow told Zack.
Just to make it seem more real, he clapped Wu-Li on the back and gave Eloise a small, one armed hug, making sure he didn't get any of his blood on her.
The Demon that stood in front of him turned out to be the Demon Representative for the conference, not an actual leader like most of the others were. He quickly explained that the Demon in the cell, whose name he didn't give, Zack noticed, had simply been scared when he realized that Zack shared the Node with him and had started shooting only to protect himself from this killer.
The way he said killer, while nodding his head at Zack made him uneasy. It didn't hold derision or accusation. Rather it seemed that the Demon held him in some strange kind of esteem for having killed people and Demons. It creeped Zack out, listening to the Demon talk about what had happened.
“So, it's all just a misunderstanding. Such tense situations are bound to create such things. I think we can all agree that it would be...Unfortunate to allow this to derail all hope of peace, before we even get started.”
Zack didn't say anything, he simply made a point of shutting out all emotions as he stood listening.
He knew that Demons had no problems lying, if they felt it served them. It didn't even strike them as a lie, meaning that they didn't give any outward indication to Zack, even on the Shadow level. It did seem to Zack though, that the story, even if false, sounded plausible enough. He nodded.
“What were you doing in that Node, in particular? Armed, jumping into a non-Demon Node, it seems like you planned something that wasn't good at least, even if meeting me was accidental. Hmm?” Zack stared at the Demon in the cell, spoke to him directly, ignoring everyone else.
“I made the jump as usual, but missed the Node by two places. Things are tense and I made a mistake. It happens all the time, we normally just get to correct and move on though, without anyone even noticing we were there. When I saw you were in the room and realized that I was in the wrong place, I thought you meant to kill me. Really kill me, forever, like you did to those others.” He cringed a little at those words. Zack realized that Demons sometimes disappeared when making jumps, but they weren't actually destroyed outright by anyone before. Not that the other Demons knew about anyway. Some of the Demons obviously found this idea intimidating.
The Demon continued, glancing around the room quickly first, unease clear in his eyes.
“I had a gun for protection. Fighting could start at any moment, so we have orders to be prepared to protect ourselves. If I'd been trying to just kill you, I would have come in with the handgun already out, firing instantly right? Not scrambling for it like I did.”
Zack nodded.
He couldn't tell if the Demons lied or not, which he mentioned to everyone in a voice that he knew would carry out into the hallway.
“So, in the interest of peace, I'm willing to assume this was just an accident for now, as they claim. I'd like both of your names, your real names, so that you can be tracked later if it turns out you lied here and that this was really an attempt to kill me. This one,” He pointed to the man in the cell. “Needs to be kept here, out of the way, until this is all over though, just in case. I don't need more attempts on my life right now. Does everyone agree?” Everyone did, except the Demon in the cell, who said that he'd rather just go on his way.
Zack laughed, not meanly though.
“Understandable. But really, isn't a cell with nice food being brought to you and I don't know, maybe a television could be brought in?” Zack looked at Clyde who smiled strangely and nodded. “Good, and television, isn't that better than being dragged into the void and destroyed? Because that's kind of my other real option right now. I'll let you pick thoug
h, if you want...” He made his voice sound very sincere then, since he really meant it. It wasn't even sarcastic, Zack simply knew he didn't have any other option himself at the moment.
The Demon sighed and agreed to stay in the cell until things were settled, as long as they kept feeding him and didn't abuse him. Zack nodded and requested that television and something to eat for the Demon.
"And of course, no abuse, please."
No one laughed at it, but he'd meant it as a joke.
That done, he decided to wait for everyone back at Underwood, mainly because his stomach felt like it had started trying to gnaw through his back bone.
Libby and Maryl had headed over to 'Something Wonderful' so they could continue to work on getting the place ready. Libby had called in Charli to work too, since they could get her in through the outside door in the back and wanted the help.
Zack took Libby to the back and held her for several minutes, finally kissing her for a while. He had to clamp down on his reaction to her, not wanting to have sex with her knowing her aunt was in the next room, given the Bat-woman's hearing. That could be a long term problem if Maryl planned to stay with them, which seemed sensible, since she still didn't exactly have anywhere else to go.
Beth and Barbara were out getting dinner ready, which Libby told him would take a while without speaking the words. As he left to go and try to get some frozen yogurt from Claire's shop, Charli stopped him.
“Zack, you have blood all over you...” She seemed scared.
He assured her it he had been healed already and that all the blood belonged to him.
“Attacked three times, but I didn't have to kill anyone today. So...Things are looking up.” She smiled at him, wondering if he joked with her, he understood. Not wanting to think about the events of the last day, he didn't explain more though. He'd fill her in later, he decided, as she seemed to be part of their group now, and he didn't want anyone to be kept in the dark. That had always seemed to lead to problems for him in the past so best to avoid it in the future if it could be helped.