Demon Bait (Keeley Thomson)

by P. S. Power

  That left her where? Lost and alone, unable to even talk to anyone about her troubles. Well, she could go to a few people, but who would understand? Darla? She'd freak, especially if Keeley was right, and not delusional. She really hated Christians after all. Enough so that finding out that anything related, Angels or God, was real might just cause her to spiral into denial. That wasn't a natural state for her, sane and rational, kind of Greater Demon.

  Which was a real point. Even the insane of her kind knew, without a doubt, that God didn't exist. Gods, if you counted the various Demons playing make believe, and those that came before who'd done the same, but not the big bearded sky daddy. If someone was clever, and could introduce the idea well enough to them all, might that change things? Say, drive part of the sane Greater Demons over the edge?

  No, that could only happen if God honestly existed. Then, if they went into some kind of spin trying to deny it, there could be trouble. They weren't supposed to deny reality. It was a cornerstone of their very beings. If that could be shown to them, that even the sane were doing that, then... Yes, it might just warp a few into having breakdowns. Then the worst portions of evil would have much greater sway over the world.

  She walked away, traveling on foot through the quaint little village, the sky being truly dark now. It wasn't that late, but there was no one out and about anymore. The whole place was pitch black, not having streetlights. What looked cute, and old timey, during the day seemed sinister and like a great place for an ambush now.

  Given that thought, Keeley used some magic, and forced her way onto the inroads, trying to not be a bully about it starting half way through. Zack did it so smoothly that you hardly noticed it happening at times. She managed not to spray the whole world with power, but it was never as well done as all that. She did think it was a skill that could be learned however.

  Half of her mind was alert to threats, and she nearly pulled a sword on the Demon that approached her on the lines, not recognizing him, but whoever it was, the silver form just waved to her and sidestepped, letting her pass without harm. It wasn't impossible to encounter another being on the lines, but she hadn't before when it wasn't an attack. Spying at the very least. Then, how much time had she spent on the lines? Less than a day, all told, so far. It could be simply a factor of her own inexperience with the subject matter, rather than anything else. Regardless the other being had treated her politely enough and not attacked when she passed, so it was a good sign that things like that could simply take place, from time to time.

  So, she walked home, across the ocean, the ground always flat and firm under her. It was the way of the inroads. The water was around her, being several feet over her head, making it seem like she traveled most of the way in a tunnel. When she got home some ten minutes later, Keeley just waited in the line, and watched through the portals that gave her a glimpse into the more normal reality outside the silver lands. That was a better name for the place than the inroads, but she was too young to change it quickly. It would have to be used for a long time before it caught on. Even if it was better.

  She stopped at home, when she was certain that no one was waiting to kill her, and ate until there was no hunger left, then showered and cleaned up, changing into something casual, but dressy, for visiting. She wore makeup, but didn't over do the whole thing. Her mother wasn't going to be impressed if she looked hot, Keels didn't think. No, she'd care about well fed, and in one piece. It was the point of the trip, to reassure her of that fact, wasn't it? That, or it might just be that Keels wanted to be comforted. This mess of confused ideas was hard to deal with, wasn't it? She felt half mad already and kind of wanted to be told it would be all right. Knowing that about herself, she took a moment to change her mind, holding the Angel data in place, and stripping her feelings about it away.

  After all, when the Baby Demon feels something they didn't like... They changed it. That was a saying that she'd heard more than once, and a thing it paid to remember. Having an ability and forgetting to use it was the same as not having that particular talent at all.

  Then, without calling first, she went to find everyone else. Her mother first, just to say hi, and then Zack. Darla might still be busy, so a call would be in order, if it could be done. Really, even if it would be difficult, she needed to talk to her sister about things. God, mainly. Angels too. It was an idea that she dreaded, but was only fair. If it was real, her people needed to know. If it wasn't then... Well, what they needed to understand was that she'd lost her mind.

  There was also that part of things where she needed to ask if the current BS was the actual Second Crucible, even if her sister wasn't allowed to talk about it. That seemed far more like a real test than some silly dispute over maps, didn't it? Sighing she went, and made a point of spending about half an hour with her mother. It wasn't like they hadn't been together in the last two weeks, so there was no massive greeting, just a hug. It was a girlish thing, since, she noticed, her mother was younger without her around. Not that she was an ancient hag the rest of the time, but she seemed happier now. Relaxed and holding a genuine smile on her face the whole time.

  It hadn't been hard to find her, since she was at Zack's house in Vancouver Washington. Cleaning, when Keeley knocked on the door, but again, her mom was doing it happily. Not perfectly either, which was amazing. That, she took from her mother's stream of memories, was all about Zack, who'd really helped her with her OCD. Using magic, and a few psychological tricks.

  Sex too. Lots of that. Enough that Keeley had to block it out, since... Mom sex. That wasn't supposed to bug her, given what she was, but she still felt like a little girl, catching her parents "naked hugging" when she opened the door to their bedroom at night. Horrible, disturbing hugging...

  Smiling, because that's what people did when they magically shut down disturbing thoughts, at least in her experience, Keeley let it fade from her mind. It was, she realized, part of growing up.

  Understanding that at some point, everyone else was just a person too. From her own parents to her third grade teacher. It took most people longer to work that kind of thing out for themselves, and a lot never really made the leap, thinking of most people as more than they were on some level, or less, but she didn't have a lot of time to fix reality, did she? Not if she were going to be shaken up like she had been in the last few days.

  Angels... That shouldn't be able to exist. Oh, it wasn't like she knew everything about reality, but there were certain things she'd figured not to be true that... Unless she was losing it, might be.

  Her mother losing her mental health problems and finally getting to be happy, that was worth a lot though. More than Keels had ever really counted on, until it happened. Sitting there, seeing a relaxed and happy expression that she knew to be real, she understood something.

  They... were never going home again. They couldn't. Not and be happy.

  She'd go to her own place and Sherry would live her new life, doing whatever worked for her. For now that was hanging with Zack and his friends, but eventually that would change. Who knew what would be waiting for her? A new business arranging flowers? An international singing career? Not that her mother could sing, but it was something that Keeley still could have arranged if Sherry wanted to try it, and she didn't really doubt that Zack couldn't do the same. That, or modeling. She was old for it, being in her late thirties, but Sherry was still cute and a lot could be done to make an image turn out a given way, if you had the skills. Camera tricks and Photoshop. Or causing her to change shape. Darla had a device that could strip years from a Human's face, for instance.

  "What do you have planned?" The words echoing her own thoughts, if in another direction, took her by surprise. It was a sign of how discombobulated she'd become that it could.

  "Oh, normal things. I have school to finish. Probably in Sparks, so I can meet up with some new people there. That's my new territory. You'll like it, when you come to visit. Not that you aren't welcome to move there, too, but you seem pretty s
et here. I'm..." She shook her head, looking at the suddenly more serious face of her mother, who was worried that she wasn't doing the job very well, abandoning her little girl like she had. Of course that wasn't the reality, was it? Keeley had sent her away.

  Because as a Greater Demon, she was the one in charge.

  "You know what, mom? I'm really proud of you. Things haven't gone smoothly all the time lately, but you really did what you needed to and are... growing. It's good to see."

  There was a more somber nod, and Sherry did the expected thing, because related to her or not, the woman was only Human. Keeley simply wasn't. It caused problems to deny what you were. That didn't mean she couldn't grow, herself, however. Did it? Expand, no matter how hard it was, and find a way to understand the world was simply more than she'd thought.

  It might mean leaving her old world behind, or it could simply be that she had to learn a few new tricks. One way, or the other, her mother's change had taught her something. Yes, the work for the change had come from The Line Walker, but the alteration to Sherry was still real. In a way that was what Gregor and his phantom of a brother, Mikey the Angel, were doing with her. Showing her that there was more to things than she thought, and urging her to become more than she'd been.

  No one had ever said life would be comfortable, had they? If so, that person was dead wrong. Darla had certainly never promised her that. Or Finias. Or... Anyone that she knew. Her dad, Charles, certainly hadn't raised her to assume anything came without earning it. Xenses... While a horrible being that had to be consumed by the universe before she'd feel safe, had delivered that message to her on a level she could never forget. Life, even for the powerful, wasn't fair, and often wasn't even remotely good.

  That lesson had come when he'd tossed the head of her Human father to her, behind the building that a Halloween party was being held in. While looking like an attractive high school cheerleader. That one act had blown away a lot of her own preconceived notions, hadn't it? That her father, who was kind of broken inside, was strong, and capable. He had been, even, in his own limited way. Xenses had also shown her that pretty didn't equal good. She'd known that, intellectually, but now she just assumed that looks didn't make a difference. It had become part of her. So has the idea that you could trust your friends. Barb, the cheerleader form of her older brother, had been a person that she trusted, more or less. One of the gang, or at least a person becoming one of them. Now that was all gone, taken away in moments, behind the VFW meeting hall.

  Then, he wasn't called The Defiler because he liked to sprinkle blue cheese on his broccoli, was he?

  That lesson led to this one, in a curved and warped, but still visible, line. Oh, it was nearly as hard, but having learned that things weren't what they seemed before, suddenly like that, set her up to be able to think about reality not being what she'd thought it was, now. Not that she wasn't going to kill Xenses for what he'd done. In that case, she didn't care what Tarsus had told her. The Demon had to die, and in a way that meant he'd never be able to return. No trap could really assure that. Death could, if she were careful.

  That thought shocked her, because she knew that was what she was going to do. What she might have to, in order to feel good about things again. She was going to kill Xenses.

  The rest of what other people wanted, well, they could work that out later, if she lived.

  Yes, she was desperately clinging to something, anything, that would allow her to carry on, but it had been a long term goal, removing her older brother, so she could see that coming up under stress.

  Looking at Sherry, she smiled and then winked, playfully.

  "You know, I think I do have some things to do. I can't say what now, but it should be... fun."

  Then, after a few more hugs, knowing that her mother didn't need her anymore, she got up and left.

  Chapter thirteen

  Not that her visiting would be totally done yet. Just, for the time being, she was putting some things off. Like figuring out where her sister was at the moment. It would be fine to interrupt her, for what was coming. If not, well, then Keeley and maybe Zack, could handle it for her. That was less than ideal, since Darla, as much as anyone in the world that still lived, had reason to hate Xenses.

  There had been tortures there that Keeley had never even bothered to think about. Things so horrible that Xenses had used on Darla, for fun, or to do whatever it was that his broken and deranged mind thought was needed, that he'd never even approached doing with Zack. Zack had been a baby then. Not even that, by their standards, his powers not having come in at that time. Only nine or ten.

  Darla had been older, and tricked into making a deal with the beast. It hadn't gone well for her.

  In the main, one Greater Demon didn't take another as a slave. It wasn't about being polite or kind either. It was, for most of them, just a very hard thing to do. A constant drain on the energy reserves that meant fighting with a being that had everything you did, and who might just reply to your attempts with a bit of death or mayhem, if not just grabbing you up for themselves as a counter move.

  That meant, when it came to dealing with bargains, most of the others were careful, deliberate and took a long time to set things up. It wasn't, for the others, a matter of just saying "deal" and shaking hands. The other beings involved had to agree, and mean it.

  Not that she bothered with all that, but whatever had tricked or trapped Darla had been... Big, then. A thing that Xenses had held over her on a level that probably wouldn't even make sense now, to either of them.

  Zack had a pretty good reason to want his father dead, too, since the man had pretty much left him insane at an early age, breaking him so completely that he probably wouldn't survive very long, all things being equal.

  He had an agreement with Xenses though, that basically meant he couldn't kill him, for the time being. The specifics had never been spelled out for her, but Keeley was willing to bet that they weren't good and were probably meant to trap Zack, later. Using his youth against him in a game that was rigged from the start. If not, Xenses should have been doing that. After all, Defiler. It was spelled out right in the name. Greater Demons didn't often go for a lot of subtlety in things like that.

  It was tempting to go straight home, and use that as a base of operations to find the creature that was her brother, using new slaves and connections to do the work. Except that, she realized, she probably didn't have to. It was risky, treating him like a Human, since Xen would fight, if he realized it was needed and would have to know who to go after if that happened. He might possibly even know where her new place was, making it easier to try and kill her, if things got interesting that way. She hadn't hidden where her territory was. Not even a little. Doing that would defeat the whole point.

  She found a nice park to sit in, using the inroads to get there, and selecting it at random. It was, she thought, in Utah. That was based on the look of the people around her, walking and sitting in the mid-afternoon sun. There were subtle things that were telling. The shape of the face on the men, for instance. Not all of them, but there had been a singular lineage in that area that caused them to look similar in an almost racial manner. It was a family resemblance, but one that was due to inbreeding, and line crossing over generations. It wasn't about their mothers dating their fathers, in the main, or anything that close. Just people from the same part of the world settling in an area where one man might father hundreds of children. That, even if it was a rare event, made an impression on the place.

  Plus, there was a sign across the street that claimed the building was the Salt Lake City Bank and Trust. That was a pretty good indication, too.

  She wasn't dressed to lay out in the sun, and didn't want to be that vulnerable, just in case things went really wrong, fast. So she sat on a bench made of stone and concrete, and developed the package of information she wanted to put in place. It was, very nearly, like a computer program. Once downloaded into Xenses, it would take over, like a virus, ordering his min
d into a shape that should, if she didn't leave too many gaps, lock him into being a total slave, with no hope of escape. Ever.

  That would last... Whole minutes, if she had to guess. The trick there would be in not letting him know what was going on, until it was far too late.

  So, easy and safe, just the way she liked things.

  It was just getting dark, so about eight o'clock, local time, when she reached out with her mind, searching for the being that had killed her father. He was in hiding, so it made sense to find him in Arizona. Probably no more than a few miles from Darla's house. So that he could watch her, and plan his next move. Less than that, she realized, getting the basic sense of things. He was, almost certainly, hiding in her own larger house there.

  The jerk.

  It was clever, of course. She would have never thought to look for him there. It wasn't the ranch style place in town that she tended to use when there, but one of the places that she'd bought and owned outright. The one that had been shared by her old slaves, before she'd died, and set them free. It was sitting empty, and there was no reason in the whole world for her to even think about going there. Except for him being there visiting so nicely, now that she knew about it. Anger started to rise at the intrusion, but she shut it down with an image of puppies in her head, and a touch of magic.

  That left her feeling compassionate, but it would work, for the time being. She felt nearly bad for the fool, who thought that because she was young that meant she wouldn't be able to do anything to him. Without waiting, since giving him a chance to put up stronger shields wasn't going to help her, she got the package of information and command ready, and held it in her mind, near where Xenses was, but not close enough for him to feel the magic of it, or set off any alarms.

  Then, without warning, she started to take his mind, using his heart beating as the needed sign that he agreed with her, and would be her slave forever. It was a delicate operation, and he didn't struggle, not realizing he should yet, so the pack of information for him was put in place and triggered inside three seconds. There was a mental sign that it was working, as the connection between them settled into being, just like all the others that she held. This time, unlike the last, there was no fighting, or attempt to kill her. She wasn't worn down either, which really helped, she decided. Part of her had feared that Xenses was just too tough for this kind of thing. Unless he was faking, it had happened smoothly and with no ripples in the magic that formed his thoughts. Not easily, but if it worked, and Xenses died that day, she decided to be relatively happy about it. Pleased with her own work, even.