Demon Bait (Keeley Thomson) (5 page)

It took a few minutes for him to
get things verified, but they didn't live in the nineteenth century, so half an
hour later she officially was in the book as being the owner of Sparks Nevada.
Not that she wouldn't have to take it over still. Just having her name on a
page in a book, even if it was
the
book, didn't do that for her. The
quickest thing to do would be making the police chief and the city council into
her slaves. Only if she could ensure they'd survive, however. Otherwise it
would be a waste of time and effort.

"Say, I don't suppose you
have a number for Tarsus, do you?"

There was another laugh then,
this one a bit louder than before.

"I can do better than that.
I have the coordinates to his home, where I believe he is still, for the day,
unless his plans changed? Let me give you those. It's in Greece."

She wanted to sigh, but didn't.
It would be easier, perhaps, to deal with the being from a distance, but being
an adult, even if it was a set up, meant handling things herself and in person,
at least part of the time.

"Thanks. I'll get on that
one now. So, after all this is over? And you know, if you can look about thirty
years younger, that would be good." She smiled about adding that, but the
man cleared his throat.

"And here I was just
thinking that you'd make a delightful fifty year old."

"All right, I can do that
too. See you then? Maybe I mean?" It was less than certain, but she wasn't
totally sure that she'd live out the rest of the day.

"Delightful! Yes, I will
certainly see you then, Mistress of Souls."

"Cleric." There was a
soft click as the line went dead.

She hung up her cell, and then
put it away, making sure she had all her weapons with her. Sure, she might not
need them, but as certain as she didn't have them, something would come up. She
could feel it in her very core.

As soon as she'd checked it all
six times, she looked up, and then created a node with a lot of concentration
and more than a little magic. Stepping onto the line, she tried to keep the
destination in mind and started walking. It was going to take a while, she
knew.

A good long while.

The compound was, as Gregor had
suggested, both grand and easily identified. It was a walled thing, real stones
laid in with a fine mortar between each one to hold the whole thing in place.
For all that Greece was noted for its fine white work in that material, this
was mainly gray. Subtle shadings of things that showed wear, meaning that the
thing had been repaired a lot to keep it looking as good as it did. That, or
magic was used.

She had a long time to consider
that as she made her way around the barrier on foot. There was, laid into the
thing very carefully, a magical shield that made it impossible to pass in the
lines. From there the whole thing looked like a giant shining silver block of
force. A monolith that wasn't passable in any way. In the real world, it was
just a ten foot high and easily climbed looking thing, but no one sane would
have gone through all that work just to leave themselves open to casual thieves
or attackers with a good pair of climbing shoes.

What it would do to her if she
tried it, she didn't know, but given the five layers of arcane symbols faintly
glowing inside the stonework, she had to figure that it was something decently
serious. At a glance she was going to guess it was a demon trap. One that
distorted both space and time, as well as mental properties to lock a being
inside, with very few means of escape.

As she rounded the last corner,
which took about ten minutes of quick walking, she saw the inside of the place,
which had a large expanse of well trimmed grass. Also a hedge maze and four
large statues the size of her old house, off to the southern side of the thing.
The single level ranch that she'd shared with her mother wasn't huge, but these
statues were impressive, size wise. They were all Human men, facing outward in
different directions, each being of a different race. Also nude, but she didn't
let that bother her for once. They were, clearly, put there in order to distract
her thinking, she could tell.

That would have been more
unlikely if Tarsus hadn't gotten Gregor to ask
her
to get Zack to put
them into place for him. The idea had, she knew from what the Line Walker had
told her, been mainly about setting him up to fail. That would have sent
ripples down the line, causing her to be involved in that as well, and probably
Gregor. Zack, however, finished it in about five minutes, not even straining.
That kind of miscalculation on Tarsus's part was a huge gap, she had to figure.
A thing that meant he'd totally misjudged the young man that he'd been trying to
manipulate. Unless of course he hadn't, and the whole thing had been about
her
.

The wrought iron work of the gate
was well done. Made by a professional and highly skilled blacksmith, having
magic worked into the metal. It was done without visible welds, making the
whole thing seem like a single piece of bent iron rod. As far as she could
tell, that was simply the case, but if so, whoever did the work had to be
almost perfect at it. All the angles that were supposed to, matched perfectly. Humans
didn't do that level of work. Even their machines barely managed it. That
probably meant it was the work of The Smith. He wasn't a being that Keeley had
met yet, but he was legendary for his work. If this was an example of it, she
could see why.

It made the grand mansion off in
the distance seem poor, which it really wasn't.

Glancing around she looked for
some way to signal her arrival. She
could
have done a lot of things,
including forcing the magics of the wall to let her in, or destroying the gate,
though that would take work, and waste energy. She could also yell, scream or
send up a powerful flare of energy that would be seen by a Greater Demon even
through a wall. Or, of course, she realized after half a second, she could just
use the intercom off to the left hand side of the thing.

The device looked out of place,
being made of plastic and metal, with an old and dated look to the technology.
A thing from the early eighties, meant to not last all that long. The years
hadn't been kind to the casing, which had cracks and warps to it, as well as UV
damage from being outside all the time. When she pressed the ivory colored call
button however, there was a gentle buzzing sound from the device, which might
mean it worked.

She waited two minutes, and then
did it again. On the fifth time she was tempted to just keep it pressed until
someone noticed her, but a voice came almost instantly.

"Hello. Sorry about the
wait, I was in the other room." The voice was familiar to her. Creepy and
dry, which wasn't just her projecting that on to him either.

Tarsus clearly cultivated that
tone with her. Why that was, she didn't know.

"This is the Mistress of
Souls, Librarian. I was wondering if we could have a little chat about what the
hell you think you're doing?" Because some people didn't respond that well
to politeness. Not that she was going to give him a chance to do that anyway.
Keeley didn't particularly want him as an enemy, since he was too powerful to
play with, but since he'd already promised to kill her if she didn't succeed at
an unknown and probably nearly impossible task, there wasn't a lot to lose.

"Certainly. I'll be in the
front section, near the fountain, outside. Come in. I won't be but a
minute." The gate moved on its own, a flare of magical force causing it to
swing silently. Smoothly enough that it was eerie, rather than dramatic.

She moved carefully, looking for
traps. The thing there was that every few feet, there actually
was
one.
Most were in the earth itself, showing themselves to her internal vision as
complex sigils made of energy, too faint to be noticed by most. She was decent
with that kind of thing however, so was able to not only see where
not
to step, but also figure out what each thing would do. There was a good level
of variety to it all.

The blue designs were holding
back energies that would burst forth creating devastating effects. The green
ones warped time and space in interesting and no doubt lethal combinations, and
the yellow created illusions.

She just stepped around them all,
not wanting to waste the time it would take to defeat them. That meant, about
four minutes later, because going carefully had slowed her pace, she was near
the front fountain, about twenty feet from the white door that led inside. Not
that she was planning to intrude that much. If the minefield that was his front
yard was any indication, then the man himself was paranoid enough that
anything
could be in that place.

She stood, removing even the
merest thought of being impatient with the Demon. It wouldn't help, and even
getting a bit upset about it would give him a lever to use, if he wanted. Not
that doing nothing didn't as well.

After ten more minutes the door
swung open, moving inward, and an average looking young man, who seemed to be
about twenty, stepped out. He had slightly olive colored skin, and his face was
smiling. His brown eyes were so dark they nearly looked black, to match his
hair.

Keeley nodded, getting who he was
from a thousand little clues.

"Librarian."

The man let his face go slack for
a second, as if he hadn't been expected to be caught out that easily. It was,
she realized without bothering to think too hard, a trick. Tarsus was many
things, but not stupid or lacking in forethought. In fact, he probably knew
everything she was about to say, and already had not one, but several plots and
plans in place, each designed to get her to do exactly what he wanted.

"Mistress of Souls. So, you
have some questions for me? I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time to spend with
you today, but that's always the danger of just showing up unannounced, isn't
it? I do have some few moments, however. Please, ask what you will." He
waved a hand at her gently, as if to hurry her along.

She grinned at him, which got the
man to clasp his hand to the pocket of his blue jeans on the right hand side.
There was a gentle flare of magic then, as he activated whatever was held
within. That would be a field designed to stop her from grabbing him as a slave
through brute force. It was good to know that he needed something like that,
since the one time she'd tried, her attempts had just slid off of the man. Him
needing an outside preparation meant that he might not be immune to her that
way after all. Or at least he didn't know that for certain, which could still
be useful to her.

"What I need to know? How
about what my part in all this is supposed to be? It isn't to beat this Second
Crucible. That isn't just some excuse to kill me either, or I'd already be dead,
wouldn't I? The raw fact is, you don't
need
an excuse." She looked
at the sigils arrayed in the nice lawn and noticed that the magic was already
fading. There were hundreds of the things, but they were far from permanent.
Not that they'd be gone in a week or two, but a year or so was about what they
had in them, if not refreshed. She waved at the things, knowing that Tarsus
would understand her meaning. "You set up a mine field, and just recently,
but in a way that you had to know
I
could avoid. That was no more than
an obstacle course for me. True that could all be about slowing me down, but
how likely is that? No, you have some kind of plan, and are working me to some
end. So, instead of coming at me like a jerk, how about you let me in on it, so
that I have some minor chance of actually surviving? Yes, it will cost you, but
if you try to leave me in the dark or set me up, I'll just walk away and not
play. Maybe you can work things around to make me do your bidding anyway, but
that will
have
to make it harder than just communicating, don't you
think?"

She waited, not knowing if the
man, who was a Greater Demon she reminded himself, would try to kill her then,
or enslave her himself. That was the biggest threat really, if he did have a
solid plan like that, a hundred levels deep. If there was some reason he wanted
her for whatever it was, then holding her mind would be enough to force her to
do whatever he needed. Until she killed herself to break the link. Except,
unlike Darla, she didn't know how to do that and come back for certain. Well,
possibly there was one way, but she hadn't made any arrangements for it yet.

Zack had killed her several times
and then caused her to return to life. She might be able to trade with him to
do that again. It would need to be set up however, so that, if she were ever
taken as a slave, he'd know to do it immediately. She'd do that for him, or
Darla, so it might be something they could arrange as a simple reciprocal
matter. A pact of beneficial mutual destruction.

The Librarian tilted his now
young and not at all sour looking face, and smiled hugely at her. It was
charming. Polite and friendly even. So, clearly, part of a trick.

"Can you come in? If we're
going to handle this like sensible beings, that is? I have a place we can
speak, unworried about listeners." He didn't hold out his hand, exactly,
but showed her toward the door with a wave of his left hand, palm up, to show
it held no weapons. That was fine, but his right was still placed against the
outside of the pocket on the other side. Hard enough that it made his movements
stiff and ungainly. That wasn't his normal way of behaving, so she was wary.

Ready to move, or fight. Except
of course that she didn't think she'd be able to win if it came to that. Not
unless she could take from him whatever was under his hand and shielding him
from her. That... Didn't seem like it would be easy.