Demon Bait (Keeley Thomson) (25 page)

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 set 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.

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 mind 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.

The rest of the plan was harder
than she'd thought, since she had to go and find Zack for the next part. He
should have been at work, or home, but he was actually off at his summer camp.
Keeley didn't know where that was, and didn't really feel like invading one of
his places just to chat with him. Kaitlyn told her where he was however, her
voice sweet.

"Oh, are we still on for a
visit? That's... in two days?"

"I wouldn't miss it! I have
a whole bunch of new friends for you to play with, too, if you'd like? You
won't starve, I can guarantee." She ate sexual energy, and Demons weren't
able to make it, using it all for themselves, being inherently selfish that
way. Humans were good about that however, and she had a lot of them suddenly.
Most would be pretty happy to spend time with an Alede too. It was a win-win
situation as far as that went. Food
and
sex, all in one package for her
friend, too.