Demon Bait (Keeley Thomson) (26 page)

"Great! Don't forget."
She seemed nearly happy to be coming for a visit now, and didn't hesitate to
get her the number for the camp. It made sense that they had one, since worried
parents would want to get in touch.

When she finally got the number
dialed, whole seconds later, Zack answered it himself. He started to give a
little speech about the place, as if
she
were sending her kids there,
but she cut him off, with a happy lilt to her voice.

"Line Walker? Would you be
able to help me with something? I need to pick up a cake and find Darla. I have
her birthday present ready,
and
the element of surprise. That's months
away still, so I bet it will be a nice shock to her. A pleasant one though."

"Ah. Um... yeah, let me... I
can do that. What kind of cake? I can probably pick one up for you on the way
in. It will take less time?" That was a question, because he was smart
enough to know that Keeley wasn't really just going to call him in to talk
about
cake
. Though, really, she should. What better topic to bond over?
She decided to make a point of doing that, or at least something similar soon.

"Italian cream cake. It's
her favorite, last I heard."

"No prob. I'll be there in,
call it, twenty minutes? More if I have to try more than one place for the
right kind." Then he hung up, without saying anything polite sounding,
because he did things like that still. It was part of his insanity, she
thought, rather than him trying to be rude on purpose.

She didn't leave the park, even
after a few people started to give her suspicious glances. Apparently in Utah
all
the drug dealers and hard core gang members looked like casually dressed teen
girls. It would have made sense if it had been mainly men, or if the women
doing it had seemed sketchy themselves, but it was a bunch of regular people,
as far as she could tell. That ended after a bit, since she was in a park, and
it got too dark to see her, lacking good lighting.

Zack stepped out from behind a tree,
a ways off. That had to be on purpose, since she hadn't felt him coming, which
was a level of skill that she had to admire and couldn't match. In his hands he
carried a large pink box that had to have an entire sheet cake in it.

"Keeley! Um, I have cake."
There was a young and almost awkward sound to the way he spoke, his face not
really clear to her, even from fifty feet away. She could see better than most
in the dark, but it was still far from perfect. She could tell that he was
mainly in blue, and while he had a button up shirt on, his shoes were built for
running.

Hers weren't, being tennis shoes,
but they were her old ones, that had arcane looking symbols that meant nothing
all over them, in black ink. Doodles to make her seem more interesting than
she'd felt like she was, once upon a time. Months ago now. A lifetime away,
back when she'd been a Human girl, and not herself. Not who she'd become.

The Mistress of Souls.

That had a nice dramatic ring to
it, she decided, smiling.

"Hey Zack. We should go,
since there's a busy night ahead. Cake to eat, and all that. Presents to pass
out. I
might
have one for you, too." If he wanted in on it, that
was.

If not, then she was going to be
in trouble.

"Darla is in Austria. Oh,
she um, passed her Second Crucible. It wasn't an easy one, like yours, from
what I can tell. It was three or four days of fighting. She's fine, herself,
but it was close for a bit there. I'll let her go over it, if she doesn't get
side tracked by the party. I wish you would have told me about this earlier, so
I could have something for her, too. Now I'll look a bit like a jerk. Not
caring enough to get her anything."

That was an odd thing about Zack.
He sounded a bit too much like he really
meant
it. A Greater Demon, but
one that almost never remembered to control his emotions yet. He'd learn, no
doubt. If someone didn't kill him first.

Walking over to her, he handed
the big box to her, which smelled good, and correct for the scene that was
about to play out. Rich and decadent. Then he took her arm, using his fingers,
not grabbing, just gently touching, almost with a kind of sweetness, and caused
a rift to open up in front of her. A node. It glowed purple, though she would
have seen it anyway.

"Don't fight it. Just focus
on the other side and step through. The only one of us to get that almost right
so far is Gregor. Darla fights each time, like I'm kidnapping her."

She smiled and nodded.

"That makes sense. Um, don't
mention it to everyone, but Gregor, he's actually an Angel. Those are real. That,
or I'm being punked big time. We can't really keep that in mind, so most of us,
Greater Demons, can't admit to that being true. I don't know if you can or not,
but it seems likely to me. You're not sane, and trust me, which should be
enough for you to get past that hurdle. Of course, you aren't their special
chosen one yet, or whatever I am. Otherwise they really would have been better
off approaching you first. I'll bring that one up at the next office meeting."

Zack shrugged.

"Oh? All right. I can't see
that it makes a difference. Gregor is one? I should talk to him about that
then? Or, not. Hey, does that mean the whole God thing is right, too?"

"I don't know. They, I've
met two or three to talk to, some of them
said
it was true, but, I can't
prove any of it. I'm playing pretend right now, just to tell you this. You
might want to hide it from Darla for now?
That
info isn't your present,
by the way. Though, it
should
count. I mean, who else gives you
information like that? Not Tarsus, that's for sure." Which was part of the
problem.

She stepped through, and
instinctually fought the whole time, which got her glared at on the other side.
The place they were in was... Bland. A hotel room, but neither big or well
decorated. It had a chair, which was made all of wood and didn't seem
comfortable, a small bed with an old and well worn spread on it and an
attractive and well dressed blonde woman standing in the middle of the room.
She held a gun, or something a bit like one, made of crystal and copper wire, wound
in intricate ways. Some of the twists dipped into another part of reality,
Keeley thought.

Darla. Looking different than she
normally did, but still familiar. Attractive, but about forty. Other than a few
new lines and a slightly heavier jaw line, she was the same sister that Keeley
had met first, the October before. The Cheerleader version. In this case, her
good looking mother, perhaps?

"Happy birthday!" She
said the words brightly, and ignored the weapon that was still pointed at her.
"Italian cream cake? That's what you asked for. I didn't know what to get
you at first, but something came up. You have to share with Zack. Since it's
kind of a big deal. I know that won't be a problem. We should put this
somewhere first, so it won't be ruined when it gets here. The present, I
mean."

Darla looked at her closely, and
then grinned.

"Cake? My favorite kind,
too. I
do
recall saying that, but it isn't my birthday, Keels." The
part where she said if it
is
you, didn't get spoken out loud. It was
heavily implied, enough so that she nearly rolled her eyes.

"I know, it's a surprise
party. I... you know, here, I can
prove
I'm me. You might want to be
armed for it though. Let me see, Zack? You too." She didn't know if he
went around armed, but reaching behind him he pulled a plain black pistol of
some kind. That nearly got her to blink, but even he needed to take steps, if
he wanted to survive. "Good, let me..." She pulled a sword, a katana,
with a Toledo steel blade on it, rather than one made in traditional form. The
Kobold that had made it was creative that way.

"So... Xenses, attend us
here
."
She had to send a thought out with the words, and back it with a pulse of
magic, but nothing happened at first.

They had a wait, after all, but a
few minutes later he came, moving into the space between them all, carefully.
Then, standing there looking a lot like how Zack used to, unable to do anything
else, was their prey.

The Greater Demon that had
murdered her father.

"Happy birthday, Darla.
Zack. Now, let's kill this thing, and get rid of the pieces?"

She expected some kind of
argument, or more of a fight from Xenses, who wasn't even allowed to talk,
since she
wasn't
letting him have that much fun with the whole thing.
There would be no room for last minute insults, or recriminations from him. No
chance to escape, or even beg for his life. There wasn't anything like that,
just Darla slapping up a slow time bubble around them, which would change how
things sounded from the outside. It didn't muffle them so much, but it would
distort things enough that the screams and explosions would sound different.

Or, as the case turned out to be,
the grunting that happened.

Darla moved in her face a grimace
of rage and happiness that was horrible to look upon, and took an arm, the left
one, putting her well shod foot on the man's side.

Zack shook his head at her then,
causing them all to stop.

"
Wait
." He put
his gun in the back of his pants, or more likely in a holster there, and moved
in himself, also smiling. "I'll do the other one. That way the forces will
balance better."

Then, working together, as a
team, the other two pulled the Greater Demon apart. He couldn't fight, or flee.
There was no healing on his part either, but Zack moved in and kept him from
dying with a judicious bit of magic. It was decently well done, and clearly a
thing that he'd been studying up on. He was getting the job done, but not
blasting power into it. More a tiny bit of guiding, rather than brute force. That
he saved for limb pulling. Hence the grunting.

From the outside it probably
sounded like Darla was getting pretty lucky. With several people at once, since
they wanted her help, when it came time to take the head off. She offered to
use her sword, but Darla and Zack both opted for twisting it, until it popped
off. It took a while. About fifteen minutes, or there about.

The floor was a mess, but no one
seemed worried on that score. The floor was red and sticky, the blood there
beginning to dry already.

When it was very clear that no
life existed in the form in front of them and never would again, Darla left,
coming back about ten minutes later on the inroads. She carried a large and
rather nice chest with her. A familiar one. Inside, Keeley knew, beneath the
heavy iron bands and nice sturdy wood, was the Geordis. A time machine of
sorts, that ran on magic. Anything it surrounded would be undone, the time it
happened in never having taken place.

The elements of it were all large,
perfectly round, cylinders, about as big as a dinner plate in cross section,
and about fourteen inches tall. Made of solid gold with little pointers on the
top. Keeley had used it before, a few times. Getting the idea, she helped Darla
set it all up, and stood over the body as her sister used the dials.

"Ready Keels?"

She was, and nodded, set to grab
him again, as time was turned back and he came back to life, having never been
dead at all. The packet of data worked for this too, and he never even took a
free breath. It was, she understood, good practice for anything else like this
she might need to do, later.

Darla did it an entirely
different way this time, getting Zack to help her paint Xenses with a white
acid from a little jar. It ate his flesh off, as he suffered, over the course
of hours. The desire to kill him faded on the fourth turn they took, and after
Keels grabbed him that time, they removed themselves to a forest that Zack knew
about, in a place so remote there were two moons in the sky. One was regular,
like at home, but the other was small and yellow, being misshapen. The foliage
of the place was mainly purple, with some orange and green mixed in for
contrast. It was pretty, reminding her a bit of rotting flesh.

Which wasn't a
sane
thought, but still true. Everything had its own beauty, didn't it?

This time she helped cut the body
up, which was burned on five separate pyres. Big ones that threatened to set
the whole world around them on fire.

"Lovely." Darla shook
her head a bit however, and looked over at Zack, who'd brought the cake with
them. "We should eat some of that now. How are we paying for it?"

That was part of being an adult
in their world, as annoying as it was at the moment. An adult didn't get
offered free food, and didn't ask for it.

"Three way split?"
Keeley said it without pause, knowing that she needed to get more food herself
soon. Zack had actually left for a while, as Xenses dissolved earlier, to get
something to eat. Darla hadn't. It was too important to her for things like
that to get in the way of her fun. Her final revenge.

That got a nod.

"I can do that. Thank you
for the present, Keels. This was...
Incredible
. I
knew
I was the
best mentor ever. This just proves it, don't you think? Even after we finished
all that, you came back to reward me for it." She grinned, but didn't take
it back, since that would ruin the teasing she was doing. She'd hardly done
much at all compared to most mentors for their kind. Not for Keeley. She still
had seventy odd years with Zack though, so she could make up for it with that.

"Not
too
bad,
actually. I
could
have used a bit more seasoning first, but everyone
knows that. I'll muddle by. Mainly by complaining uselessly at you, Darla. Zack
too, but less so."

That got a more considered look,
as Darla turned to the fire, while Zack stepped away and almost right back,
with plates and a large basket filled with food. It was wicker, but so huge
that it
had
to have been specially made. It was bigger than the box the
Geordis was kept in, by about fifty percent. It was a full picnic, since the
fires weren't going to burn out anytime soon, being so large. Xenses was mainly
gone already, and the hotel had been left fine, and unstained, due to their use
of time control devices. There was no blood traces left, since in a very real
way, nothing had happened there in the first place.