by P. S. Power
She held the phone out to him. Lisa reiterated that he could just grab some money if it became pressing. He tried to explain that he didn't want to push his luck at his new job. For some reason that he didn't exactly get, this made her laugh.
“It looks like Friday's good for me, which is... okay, I actually have no clue what today is. We need a calendar or something in here.” Shadow Claire, looking a bit less Human now growled to him that, Today is Thursday. I need to get an appointment now. You can't count on walk-ins any more like you used to. I'm so hungry! Are you sure you aren't food?
He stared at her for a moment with his own Shadow. Indeed, I'm not food.
“You need to go, I see. Um, do you need me to make your hair appointment for you? I don't know how pressing it is that you eat first or not...” He hoped she didn't, because he knew nothing about making hair appointments. Troy had cut his hair the last three times and he'd never been to a barber that needed you to make an appointment in his life.
“Oh! No, that's fine, I have a girl that can call for me at home. I just need to go now. The end of the day tends to be a little hard for me lately, for some reason.”
Her inner Vampire beast came to the surface then, all fangs and blood red eyes. She purred at him in an almost sensual fashion.
You see, Zack, I really, really want to drink your blood. I know it's wrong, but I get so famished! You smell so... tasty...
She just turned on the spot and left the store. Her Shadow turned and blew him a kiss though.
Several hours passed without any problems, allowing him to plan out a new display for the front of the store. Those things should change about once a week, he figured. He'd need more material in a single color, maybe something shiny? Some of those dead stalk things, the ones that looked like bamboo, could work as well. While he pondered this he looked out the window.
A woman stood in front of the shop. A fairly cute brunette, who was maybe thirty by looks. Nicely dressed in a dark striped skirt, medium high heels, a cream-colored blouse and bright red lipstick. He would have thought her really pretty, except that she unfortunately had a Demon right in the middle of her.
Slamming everything into a black ball, Zack tucked his Shadow inside of himself as deeply as he could. He tried to work it back further and further inside. After a few moments, the Demon blinked and looked through the window. She shielded her eyes as if against glare and pressed her forehead to the glass.
Even though he stood not four feet from her, she didn't seem to be able to locate him.
Not a muscle twitched within him. He kept focusing on hiding himself, pushing his Shadow self, his soul tucked within it, into a place where even Demons couldn't see or follow. He heard a voice coming from his deepest memories.
That's right Little Shadow, just a little bit more. Slowly, don't let them see.... Carefully now...
Keane threw down the cloth he used to wipe the counter inside his shop and leaped over the counter. His speed had him to the door of Candles and More so fast that Zack couldn't track the whole thing with his eyes.
“What the bloody hell did you do you bitch! If you've harmed him in any way that's in violation of the treaty, you and your kind will be out of this Nexus come hell or high water for a decade. Do you understand? What did you do to him!” His inner vamp surfaced fully, fangs out, eyes blood-red, his fingertips reshaped into hardened talons. He didn't swipe at her, which clearly took self-control.
“I'm just watching him. I don't know where he went. Maybe he teleported or whatever he does? There's no breach of treaty here. We're allowed to spy on one another. I need to report this to Devon. Now.” Demons may not be as fast as Vampires, still, the brunette moved pretty well none the less.
Keane came all the way into the store. “Mr. Hartley! Are you killed, Mr. Hartley? I hope not, Claire will have my head if I let you die before she gets her day off....”
“Is she gone?” Zack spoke without dropping his concentration. Keane didn't seem to hear him.
Slowly letting up on his focus, he tried again.
“Keane, is she gone?”
Keane, a Vampire, brave and strong, jumped back screeching like a small schoolgirl. “What the bloody... Ah! Don't do that to a bloke! You're alive then? Where did you go?”
“I didn't go anywhere. I've been standing right here the whole time. I just hid from her to make her life harder. I didn't realize you were watching. Thanks for coming to help. Demons freak me out.” His Shadow apologized for getting him worked up.
Keane relaxed nearly instantly.
“That should teach her, at any rate!” The Vampire laughed for a few seconds.
They spent a few moments going over some things. The demoness turned out to be Beatrice, who worked with Devon at the Demon's clothing store. Apparently she did fittings and fine tailoring. Neither of them knew why she had been watching him like that, though Keane wondered out loud if they were trying to intimidate Zack for some reason.
Zack allowed that, if intimidation had been her intent, it had worked well enough. This made Keane chuckle a little, as if he'd heard a joke.
The rest of the night managed to actually be quiet.
He went home carefully, watching for Demons the whole way. You never knew what they were going to do, and that... Was always bad, wasn't it?
Chapter nine
The YoGurt shop stood dark when he got there. Unlike other stores in real malls, there were no pull down metal meshes to protect the merchandise or money. This probably had to do with the fact that most of the places here were barely real anyway. Stealing from these “stores” wouldn't be worth it, in more ways than one, he imagined.
The long stone planter between the shops made a handy place to sit while he waited. Inside it the plants turned out to be fake. This made sense, considering there couldn't be a lot of light at this end of the mall, much less a sky light, given all the Vampires. They were good fakes, with no threads hanging loose or obvious plastic sheen at least.
Lights came on as Claire moved into view, she had probably come in through the back. The Vampire did something with the door, turning a dead bolt and a small latch it looked like. “You're here bright and early I see. Let's get you situated, and then I'll be on my way.”
The term “whirlwind of motion” had never made much sense to Zack before, not until that moment. She moved fast, flipping switches and dials, checking temperatures and moving to a small notebook that sat on the counter next to the till. The notebook had an old feel to it, as if many hands and eyes had touched it over the years. The cover was a faded blue, the paper holding a slight yellow color where it could be seen on the unopened edges along the side. Lines of thought and activity clung to it, most of them Claire's, he realized. This must be a treasure, he decided, something very important to her.
He glanced at the register. It had the operations key already in place. In all ways that he could tell, it seemed to be the same kind of machine as the candle store had exactly.
“Well, that's easy then. I can use this register.”
She nodded and pointed to the notebook next to it.
“In this small book are all of my recipes and secrets, at least the ones that deal with frozen yogurt. Few have seen it. I trust you will not be selling my secrets to all and sundry?” A serious look on her face, she held his eyes with hers. Shadow Claire rose to the front and grinned at him. “They've taken decades to get just right you know.”
Holding his right hand up in a three-fingered salute that Troy said the Boy Scouts used, he intoned “I promise not to let any of your secret recipes or yogurt techniques leave my lips.” Inner Zack spoke the same words at the same time. This cemented his promise more concretely than Claire expected apparently, because she blinked suddenly several times. Zack felt he may have overdone things again, hoping that she wouldn't notice too much.
Notebook in hand, she started speaking and pointing to various machines. She pointed out the vanilla soft serve machine, the different flavors of hard fr
ozen yogurt in the cold case. Then showed him where they kept the cream for whipping and watched him make a caramel fudge twist, with nuts and whipped cream as she called out instructions. Then she simply tossed it in the trash when he finished.
“Good! Now, you probably won't actually sell anything today. When in doubt, give people more than they ask for, rather than less. For today, free extra toppings for everyone. That should keep you out of trouble. Eat all you want and give away products to your friends. Just make sure that you make quality items, eh? We have a reputation to uphold, after all.”
Then the other directions for the day came.
“There's nothing planned for today, no hearings or anything you should need the back room for. If anyone comes, use your own discretion. There will probably be Human serv... Humans during the day, with some petty problem or another. Most of the time they just need someone to tell them what to do while their, er, Vampire friends are asleep. Sometimes they call on the land line. Here's a number you can call if anything comes up you can't handle.” From deep inside her she spoke, It's my home number.
After covering everything again she patted him on the arm and grinning happily left through the back.
Nothing happened. He noticed when the lights came on in Candles and More about nine thirty, and Lisa popped her head in about ten. She held a small, but thick, envelope with his name on it.
“It's Friday. That's payday by the way. Each Friday, unless you ever need it sooner. If so, just let me know, or take it out of the till if it's there.” She smoothed her grayish tan skirt with her hand after handing him the package. A bit of a nervous smile on her lips.
“Now, I didn't know if you had a bank account or anything, so I put it all in cash this week. If you want direct deposit or paper checks I can do those too.”
He looked into the envelope, which held twelve hundred dollars. Freezing in place came naturally to him at that moment. This being more money than he had ever made in a single month, at least after taxes, much less a week. Three full work days really, it just seemed longer.
Recovering, swallowing on a dry throat, he pulled half of the money out and tried to hand it back to his boss.
“I got that advance, it came to about six hundred after everything.”
Her Shadow spun out of her surface being and told him not to be silly.
“Oh, I figured you'd say something like that, so I already took it out. That's the remainder.” Holding up a hand to stop him from speaking she continued. “Don't try to say it's too much! You've been doing more than what a simple store clerk would all week long. You do the job you get the pay for that position. Eloise's orders in fact.” Tugging at the bottom edge of her short, turquoise blue jacket and standing straight she spoke in a more official voice, “I quote: 'If you let that boy get away you can just find yourself a new job, girl.' Unquote. Now, I don't think she's serious, but if you need more money, let me know. Pretty much anything you need I can get you with full backing from the Council.”
“Eloise?”
Lisa blinked.
“Oh! I guess we were a little short on introductions the other night. You met her though, the older lady that put the necklace on you? That's her. She's kind of, well, she's my boss's boss, I guess is the easiest way to put it. Everyone listens to her. She likes you, I think. You should have heard what she said to George after you left!”
It took him a few seconds to remember. “George, is that the lawyer guy who thinks I'd deal with Demons?” His voice held derision on the word Demon and he let this carry through on the Shadow level.
This made her nod, but uneasily. She explained that he actually had a law enforcement position in the guild, a kind of lawyer mixed with a police officer.
“He can be a bit officious, don't take it personally though, he's trained to expect the worst in everyone and normally finds it. Eloise ripped him a new one, in front of everyone, when you left. It was funny, but a bit awkward.” Dad...
Zack nodded. A lot of these communities seemed to either be smaller or at least tighter than the regular Human world.
“So, if he's your dad, then Eloise is what? Your grandmother?”
Shock covered both her faces. The surface one showed it a lot more than the secret face did. “What? Who told you...” Shaking herself a bit for a second then going on, “My great aunt actually. She's never liked George much. How did you know?”
Since no one seemed to be coming in to The YoGurt place for the moment, he motioned for her to sit and tried to explain how he saw things. About how everyone had a Shadow inside them that talked to him and to other people, all the time. How he could ask questions directly to them and get information. How this inner part seemed to be honest all the time, even if a person tried to lie on the surface.
“So, like telepathy?” She asked.
“I don't know. I don't hear thoughts, not really, I just talk to people's Shadows. Sometimes people can show up and talk from far away though, so maybe it is some kind of telepathy?” Shrugging he went on, “I really don't know. When I was locked up the drugs made it really bad though. For a while almost all I could see was the Shadow level of things. I had to learn to ignore it in order to pretend I was well enough to get out of there. I think the doctor in charge, Dr. Marsh, suspected I was faking, but he eventually decided that if I could fake it that well, for that long, I should be safe enough to let go.”
Her Shadow reached toward him, a sad look on her face.
He smiled and stood straighter. “Good to know I'm not insane after all. That all this stuff is actually real. I thought I'd lost it the first few days here, to tell you the truth. Vampires and Trolleinkein girls, walking through the lines again... That's what did it though. After that I remembered everything. I'm still avoiding thinking about most of it, there were... Some bad things that happened to me. But I remember it, I remember why I had to forget...” Sadness touched his voice then.
Looking up he noticed that a man looked through the window of the candle store, pointing this out caused Lisa to scurry over to see what he wanted. Zack put his pay in his pocket and decided to get to work. He started wiping down all the surfaces with a cloth from behind the counter, dampened in the sink. He just finished when the man walked out carrying a bag.
Lisa came back smiling.
“A real customer! I almost passed out when I asked him if he needed help and he asked for advice on scented candles!”
They both laughed, then Zack shooed her out so he could sweep and mop. She shook her head, but left quickly enough. He finished both of those tasks quickly. Unlike Candles and More, the Vampires working here seemed to really put a lot of effort into keeping the place spotless.
Waiting for the floor to dry, caution sign out in the middle of the floor, the notebook called to him. Not literally, it just seemed more interesting than sitting and doing nothing. He'd had objects call to him for real before, so he knew the difference.
Claire hadn't been kidding when she described it as a book of secrets. Inside, it gave detailed information on everything. How much sugar, exactly, the average person liked in whipped cream, what grades of whipped cream worked best, depending on the item being served and if it would be eaten there or taken away from the store. Heavy cream if it needed to travel, medium grade otherwise. Light cream if the sauce or yogurt had peanut butter. How to grind regular table sugar into an extra fine powder, because commercial powdered sugar had corn starch in it which could make some things seem slightly gritty.
It went on like this, with each aspect being covered. About halfway through she had even drawn a diagram of how to tie two cherries together by the stems in a loose granny-knot she called a lovers twist.
He actually read the whole thing before two in the afternoon when Hilda walked by carrying a food container. She went into Candles and More. After a few minutes she came over smiling.
“There you are, Zack! I could tell you were here somewhere, but you weren't in your store. Lisa said I could find you here. So it s
eems that Claire took you up on your idea?”
“She did! I'm here all day until about five-thirty when Keane is supposed to take over for me. And it wasn't my idea. It was your idea. A good one too!” He let her know on a deep level how much he appreciated her advice.
The large woman smiled and blushed at the praise. In short order the food had been laid out on one of the tables meant for two people. Today the food looked and smelled different.
“Mae, at the Italian place, complained that the Chinese place was hogging the new man. She made this for us special. It doesn't have any meat in it at all. This is Eggplant Parmesan, this is spaghetti with a spinach sauce and this is garlic bread. I really like it. I have it almost every time I eat there. She also added a salad. I guess that must be for you?”
Hilda served, putting about twice as much food on his plate as he could actually eat and placing the full container of salad in front of him. She opened the salad dressing and smelled it deeply. It had some kind of creamy base, ranch style by its look.
“Hey, this is good. They've never given me this before! Is it a sauce for the noodles?”
Smiling he took it and dumped about half of it on the huge portion of salad. She looked chagrined, blushing. He pushed the container back to her and said, “Try dipping the bread in it.”
Her eyes literally rolled back into her head in pleasure. Her giant Shadow self started making grabbing motions toward the bread, but stopped at the last second, showing a bit of self-control. Zack took two slices of it and passed the rest over. It made sense to him, knowing how much she probably had to eat, because of her size, that her natural inclination would be toward higher calorie foods.
They ate in silence for a while, Hilda eventually said, “You really don't eat very much do you?”
Her other self bent toward him and asked if this explained his skinniness, not liking food much.
