Shield of Innocence (Alternate Places Book 4) (26 page)

Don patted her on the back, and
then headed back to her dorm room with Chris, Kate and Zack. Jelly tagged
along, her slightly round face seeming...
Annoyed
.

"WTF? Right? I could set
something like this up, using magic, but I can't think of a single reason to
really do it. If anyone attacks, they'll have declared war on us, and everyone
else, pretty much, will be on
our
side. If anyone tried to take or hold
any of us, well
that
wouldn't work for long. One bend in space and we'd
be free. I guess it could be about forcing one of us to give up our current
life, but even at that... I mean, any of us could just go live someplace else
now. Lesser Shia would even cover our rent, just to have us living there, I
bet." She
knew
that actually, having talked to Kate, who had
chatted with Troy about that very thing.

It was open to any of them too,
it seemed. No one had asked Zack of course, which was telling. For a moment he
wondered if that was due to him not being well liked there. The administrator
seemed to think he was okay, but they didn't let him into the market. Except
during the attack.

Recalling that there had been an
incident in India got him to stop for a moment. He'd actually forgotten about
that part of things. Mainly because it had happened so long ago, to his mind.
He
was
able to bring up all the data on it, mainly thanks to that having
been stored in his biological body. Crisp and clear, as if only a few weeks, or
maybe a month, old. It also felt dusty and like a thing that he hadn't bothered
to consider for so long that it was part of ancient history. Older in fact, to
him, than the battles of ancient Rome.

It was an attack on his own
world, where he lived, involving aliens. Zack hadn't heard anything about it on
television either. Oh, there had been reports of an attack, but not about what
had done it, or
who
had fought the things off.

Forcing a smile, he decided not
to worry about it too much it was hard to know who was coming for them, or why,
but he wasn't
really
in charge of that kind of thing. He had his own
problems and issues to deal with. For one thing, while he thought that the
angry arch-demon that had come for him was the gatekeeper, or would be, there
was no way for him to understand yet how that could work.

Time travel, no doubt. In the
void it was possible, but at that moment he couldn't go in and check that part
of things out. Not if he didn't want to be attacked, which was a thing he kind
of needed to avoid for the time being.

Big Shadow wasn't fully trained,
or reasonable, yet, but there was enough power there to eventually kill him, if
he got enough chances. Especially if Zack wasn't willing to do that to the
being first, in his own right. Kill or be killed came out all wrong if you kind
of loved the other person.

The options shrank down a lot,
until avoiding that kind of situation was all you could do.

So, he decided to ignore
everything, and pretend it would all be fine in the end. That
could
happen, after all.

He waved at the others then.

"Right, Kaitlyn, Jen, you
two are taking over the candle shop for a week. Chris will help you with that,
when he isn't over in the other reality, with his girlfriend, other Kate."
He was kidding a bit, but Chris nodded and Kate had to hide a snicker, which
she covered with a hand.

Don turned red.

"That is
so
not cool.
I know I can't stop you, but... You're
still
just a kid, Chris." It
seemed like a fight was about to blow up, when Chris just shook his head.

"I haven't been a child for
longer than you've been alive, Don. Including the hundreds of years you spent
between. You know that. I know that part of you wants to hold me in place like
that, but it isn't the truth. You can let me go now. Honest." There was a
gentleness to the words, but it was kind of clear from the way Don was holding
himself that the conversation wasn't going to be over.

"Don, can you work out of
Lesser Shia with Troy? He needs some time off to work at Frozen YoGurt."
Then he dropped the bombshell, and waited for the explosion. "
I
...
Am planning to get away for a bit. A few days. Rent a cabin in the mountains or
a bungalow at the beach. Before you ask,
no
, none of you can come."

After all, half the point of
leaving was so they wouldn't all be there with him. He needed a change to
actually think, and possibly just unwind for a day or two.

Kate
grinned
at him.

"We'll live. Are you leaving
today or... When?"

"In a few, most likely. I
don't even have a real destination picked out yet, much less anything rented or
reserved. I know, I could go anywhere, but I just need someplace to sleep for a
bit and hang out during the day. Not that I sleep." Which was a point. He
might want to go someplace entertaining. With shows and stuff. The problem
there was that things like that always held too much information to be
interesting or fun. The actors and singers always told him all about the
production, which ruined the whole thing for him, since they tended to be kind
of emotional people, as a rule.

Even videogames held layers of
information about the designers and creators. How people missed seeing it he
didn't know. It was right there, all the time, in every single message the
darned things put out.

Rather than point out all the
flaws in his master plan to escape, the younger people all just started
dividing work up. Don would do Lesser Shia,
and
Something Wonderful, while
the other three would take over at the candle shop for him and Lisa. It took
mentioning that portion of things, and also meant that Maryl was going to have
to have someone covering for her over at Bat Street, but that wasn't his part
to control.

Technically he owned the mail
order concern, at least part of it, which basically sent out packages to anyone
in exile, or who needed to have their food, clothing or other things delivered.
Thankfully it worked without him, or any of the line walkers, most days, and
operated at a loss. It had been set up to help out Libby and Maryl's family,
for the most part, which had smoothed out a lot now. For a long time it had
been hard for them, for any Bat shifter, to hold a job or buy anything, even if
they had the funds for it. They couldn't fix all the troubles of the world, but
making sure people could get groceries and some other things had seemed fair to
him.

They went back to the mansion
first, then the others all went off to take over their new posts. Not that he
wouldn't have let them take a day or two to have a vacation of their own. None
of them even
asked
about it. Zack would have.

Except, of course that he
really
would have just gotten to work, like everyone else was. Still, if he were going
to be gone, he needed a place to go,
and
to let all the ladies in his
life know about it before he simply vanished. After all, doing that would be
rude.

Tempting, too.

He could, at any time, simply
walk away now. The world didn't
need
him any longer, having lots of
other people that could do the same thing. Not that he was dead weight, but
things would go on without him. It was comforting, really. The world neither
started, nor ended, because of him.

It never had, but even the little
things were handled now.

His first trip was to see Claire,
who, dead or not, was his favorite wife. In fact, he was a bit worried that she
might feel hurt, if he left without her like he planned. Merry would actually
be fine, as long as she could get to work in time each day. Elth marriages held
certain requirements of both the men and women, but since she was cared for,
and had all the materials she needed to survive, Merry would feel fine about
him going off for a while, or even having a second household.

Hilda, Rose, Yasmine... None of
them would care that much about him walking off for a while. Seriously, two of
the three could probably find him anywhere he went, and Yasmine, a Djin, wasn't
human at all. Most days she didn't come around, just like he didn't seek her
out.

Lisa had plans too, at least
inside her secret thoughts, and Val had been remarkably distant of late. That
was due to the fact that she was taken care of rather nicely, and had been for
a while. Blinking he realized that probably meant that Chris had been passing
energy to her, and the others. Given his biological age that probably meant the
poor guy had been walking around hard almost constantly for weeks now. It
sounded fine, especially if you had all those Alede there willing to trade for
the energy they got, but he'd been at school during the day which had to be
horrible
.

Being around all those cute girls
and being able to do nothing about it. Though, since the police hadn't been
called and Chris hadn't seemed distressed all the time, he might have managed
to figure out how to control things that way. It was possible to do, Zack knew.
He'd
done
it. The body could be made to behave, if you had enough will
power.

Since the whole thing had to do
with magic, it was also possible that it just affected the younger man
differently than it did him or Don.

Still he went to find Claire by
going to the yogurt shop directly, using the node in the back. It was late
enough in the day by the time he did it that, while his vampire was still
there, a small, slightly dark skinned, girl was behind the counter, working
away.

She looked familiar, since it was
David, or at least the girl that he'd been turned into. Zack realized that he
could turn her back, if she wanted to do it. Though he didn't mention that,
trying to recall the name that they'd given her. The vampire girl was cute, but
not drop dead gorgeous. The big difference now was that she was dressed up in
jeans and a tight shirt, which showed off her better than average body well
enough, even under the apron she had on.

"Hey, Denise. I just came to
chat with Claire." It was the kind of thing that you said, though the
girl, who was clearly a man inside, just nodded, and kept cleaning happily.

"In her office? I could make
something for you, if you want? We have a bunch of bananas that need to be
used. They're good right now, but tomorrow we'll have to toss them
anyway." Then she started working, efficiently enough that Zack understood
he was going to be eating soon, like it or not. He was hungry, so that was
probably a good idea.

Claire came out, looking up at
him, wearing a light blue dress that he'd seen before, several times now. It
really looked like it would have been about right in the late eighteen
hundreds. The whole thing was faded with time, but she, too, had an apron on
over it.

"Zack! Is everything going
well?" That was her personal code for asking if there was an emergency.

"Yep! I'm planning to go on
vacation for a week and leave the rest of you hard working people here to carry
on without me. I just didn't want you to think I don't love you, so, you know,
I'm actually telling everyone about it first."

Inside her beast rose a bit, and
made a face that wasn't all that unpleasant. There were fangs involved and all
red eyes, but she still basically looked like herself, which was cute and even
kind of sexy.

I can't be gone now. The conference.

Zack didn't know what that one
was about, but nodded at her.

"I was just thinking that
I'd head to the beach, or something like that? Alone, if that doesn't seem to
mean? Everyone else is busy, and Lisa wants to get away with Maryl if that can
be set up. Say, Denise, you don't want to see about filling in at Bat Street
for a few days, do you?" It was possible that he'd be needed there, but
Claire smiled, seeming to mean it.

"
That
could be
advantageous. I'll have Eugene work here for a few nights, while you do that?
Courting the disaffected members of the shifter clans can't hurt, and you don't
have the old taboos." She glance at Zack and made a disgusted face.
"Some of the older vampires can't touch shifted beings. It's
psychological, but so deeply ingrained that they really can't manage it. That has,
as you might imagine, stopped more than a few wars over the centuries. The
younger people, like myself, seem less inclined to hold to that way of
believing. For us, now, it means that Denise here could infiltrate that
location well enough. Very good idea."

Zack nearly mentioned that she
was being silly about the whole thing, Since Zack
owned
Bat Street, but
then stopped. After all, if Denise here could work in over there, without his
help, that was probably good training. Since Zack could, he figured, get her to
look like anyone he wanted, one way or the other, it made sense for them to get
her some practice. Spies were possibly useful.

He let his head run from side to
side.

"That... Isn't really
too
bad of a plan. Um... We can get you a different shape though. A new name, too.
The new personality will be up to you, but live it, right?" This last bit
he whispered, and Claire gave him a puzzled look. She had to get the idea
however. If the bats hadn't noticed their plan yet, they would soon. After all,
they had
really
good hearing, as a group.