Mr. Hartley (Alternate Places Book 1)

by P. S. Power

  The Vampires couldn't go there. Night there pretty much meant day here, so they slept when they'd be of use there and were awake here when they would catch on fire if they went there – or melt, it seemed to vary from Vampire to Vampire they told him. Still, there would be logistics and the need to move things rapidly on this end, most likely. So a team of them standing by could help a lot.

  “We can't plan for everything, but having good people ready to help can't hurt.” He looked at Claire when he said it, hoping that she wouldn't feel like her people were being left out.

  The Trolleinkein were the only ones that could move the masses of food over there without having to carry only a few pounds of at a time. Zack didn't know if he could handle that much mass or not, but didn't mention it. If it could be done, he'd do it. If not, they'd just make more trips.

  Finally, the Alede had near perfect immunity to everything, and could distribute things quickly just by going door to door, if the government could be distracted.

  Dan said he'd see to it, but didn't mention how.

  Master Dan then pointed out that having clear weather would be helpful to the speed of things, which caused Claire to spring up and go over to Candles and More. When she came back she told them that she'd arranged for perfect weather in the region they needed to work in for seventy-two hours.

  They'd have to pay for it, and it would be about ten thousand gold, but worth it, in her estimation.

  “Well, then, I think we should give it a try.” Zack said.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The next night some sixty people showed up for the emergency relief effort, as it had come to be known. Oddly, the biggest snag turned out to be the local government of the village where the Masters stayed. Dan and Wu-Li had pulled strings to get the military and police out of the way for about ten hours. Instead of driving the streets all day, they'd pull back and hold the perimeter. The local head man, mayor or whatever, had decided he should have most of the food under his control, just in case things got tough later. This way, he rationalized, he could distribute food at need to others. Of course, by most it seemed he meant all.

  Wu-Li and the local healers tried to talk him out of it, but to no avail. It looked grim for a while, in fact they were told to not even bother coming until the situation had been resolved. Finally, Claire got in touch with Vaun, who contacted some Vampires that knew people in China, which, in a roundabout manner, handled the problem.

  In the early morning, as most of the village slept, just as the sun began to rise, a several-hundred-year-old Vampire paid the man a visit and the problem went away. Since no one mentioned how it went away, Zack presumed the man hadn't just been threatened, coerced, or compelled. Past that, he decided, he really didn't need to know what happened to the man.

  Over half the people involved were unknown to Zack, people from the other end of things in and around the nexus in China. They'd wait, staged to take food as it came through and then to be passed through the shortcuts taking it to the village. Zack would have to cover the greatest distance, moving as fast as he could to keep the whole thing flowing smoothly.

  The Trolleinkein came through, carrying huge loads of food each, then came back for more. On the other side, the newcomers – who obviously worked with greater than Human strength, if not nearly Trolleinkein levels – loaded themselves down with as much as they could carry.

  Before they'd started, Master Dan had taken him aside and explained how to increase his running speed, by moving the center of his qi flow. When this point moved, so would he. He tried it, doing it well enough that Dan figured he had it down. He warned him not to move the point too far away from his body, or else all of his life energy would be gone and his body would just die.

  He promised to keep that in mind. For some reason this made Master Dan smile at him and clap him on the back.

  “Good! One less thing for me to worry about today then. I figured that you may need the extra speed today though, to keep everything moving.”

  When everyone on the other side had loaded up, he began taking people through the line, one at a time, into the other nexus. He managed sixteen trips in less than a minute.

  From there he led them to the nearest shortcut, passing them through with him, twisting just right in space to move both individuals and food packages along, getting them clear for the next person and doing it again.

  They did this three times, taking everyone to the staging area. Then he ran back through all this and the line, and repeated it all, only this time with more lightly loaded Alede. This leg, the hard part for him was keeping his attention on what he needed to do. That many Succubi and Incubi were distracting.

  Patty, their leader, went through last. She held her sexual energies in nearly perfectly, which was probably why she led them, Zack thought. As she passed him into the staging area she stopped.

  “You know, when I offered the services of my people for five years, I kind of thought it would be more along the lines of a quickie on your lunch break. Not that I'm complaining! We're all more than happy to help and would have even without a deal in place. It's just not where most people's minds would have gone first, if they had that kind of an arrangement set up, is all...”

  Then she moved into the staging area and started to put food onto small trucks that had been provided from somewhere locally with everyone else.

  It took two more trips to get the food into place, doing the whole thing over four more times for Zack, in order to move everyone into place. Since this came after a full day of transporting people, Zack started to feel it by the end. His body grew heavy, like it did when he lifted weights at the gym. This wasn't the first time he'd felt the effects of moving things through the void, but it certainty felt the hardest.

  He sat down while everyone else helped to move the food onto trucks and the Alede went out into a country where they didn't even know the language, to take food to people that may yet die anyway. He felt lazy and wimpy, sitting down while everyone else worked hard, so he got to his feet to try and help.

  Lars came and pushed him back to a seated position. Noticing this, a large Chinese looking man, nearly as broad with muscle as he was tall with very yellow skin, gently placed a hand on his shoulder when he tried to get up again and in a surprisingly soft voice asked if he needed water or anything.

  Zack couldn't understand the language, but all Shadows spoke to him in English. Or, probably closer to the truth, all subconscious minds spoke the same language, and he translated from that to English without noticing the steps between. It worked though, and he knew what the man meant.

  They'd brought their own water, just in case the disease could be transmitted that way.

  The man smiled at him and patted his head.

  We carried in a small mountain and it was you who carried us on your back. Do you really wonder at being tired? No Demon has ever managed such that we know of. No Mage, not even if they all worked together could have done this either. You should be proud...

  Zack answered in the same way, projecting as clearly as he could.

  It took everyone working together. Thank you. Tell the others I thank them, too?

  He stood up and went back to work, a big smile on his face though he didn't say anything else to Zack out loud.

  Later as their time limit started to run out Wu-Li came and thanked him.

  He waved this away. After all, he pointed out, when people are in need, you help them if you can, right?

  For some reason he didn't understand, Wu-Li bowed to him then.

  Then he reminded Zack to keep his circulation exercises going, stood back to observe and simply nodded, finding no severe flaw, at least not one worth pointing out to someone so exhausted.

  The Succubi in the last truck pulled up just as the first military trucks started to pull into the town for the night. He got the last one out, Val, just as a vehicle came and parked where their staging area had been.

  It felt like he wouldn't make it near the end, get
ting the last few Trolleinkein through the nexus point and back home, but he managed it, if only just barely. He stepped through the void at last, feeling heavy and tired, but good about what they'd managed to do.

  Chairs had been set up and food brought in. Beth and Jennifer handed out pastries and little cakes on waxed paper to the people from the gym. Half of the Alfric had set up food tables right there in the back room of the Candle shop. Claire got Hilda a chair and seeing that Zack had dropped to the floor, came and picked him up as if he weighed nothing, and carried him to a chair set up next to the others. He knew that Claire, being a Vampire, had incredible strength for her size, but still, a girl in a skirt picking him up and carrying him must have looked comical. No one laughed though, which he thought showed great restraint.

  Merri cried out and ran to him, carrying a tray of food. She then sat on a chair and fed him individual bites, as if he were ill. He must look a sight, since her worried look didn't go away after he started eating.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Hartley?” Asked a voice near his shoulder as he sat, and he turned to see Jennifer, looking worried and holding a plate of little cakes. Merri snagged one of the cakes and put it to his mouth, he took a bite and started laughing.

  “I'm fine Jennifer. Just a little tired, I kind of pushed myself today. It had to be done though, you understand, right? Some people needed food and couldn't go get it themselves. I'm just glad that we could help.”

  He looked up at the clock on the wall and blinked, it was two in the morning, he stood up and smiled, still feeling heavy.

  “I need to get home. The morning's going to come early, at least for people that need to sleep. Thank you all for helping. It means a lot to me that you'd take time from your lives just to help people you don't even know. Thanks.”

  As he got up to leave, he heard Merle saying something in Trolleinkein. Hilda leaned over and whispered, “He said 'And when giants walk amongst us, will we notice'. It's from an old story of our people. A really famous one that everyone learns. I'll tell it to you someday...”

  In the parking lot a big black car waited. Claire put them all in it. The driver turned out to be a Vampire that looked vaguely familiar, but whose name Zack couldn't place.

  At home he felt himself being motivated, not carried really, more pushed in a controlled fashion on all sides. His clothes changed as he nodded off and he fell into bed and went out fast and hard.

  In the morning he had to struggle to get going, and fought with the new deodorant, beginning to dislike the waxy stuff a bit. Merri fed him then asked him to sit on the sofa for a moment.

  He sat, and found the small woman on his lap within seconds, kissing him passionately. He kissed her back for a bit, then asked her what reason she had for it.

  “Because you're wonderful, and push yourself too hard. I want you to get a real day off soon. If you don't I'll go straight to Lisa and make her. I'll get Hilda to help, yes, Hilda?” The large woman flipped her braid over her shoulder and agreed with a somber nod.

  Zack knew he should do it, since it had seemed like work just to get up today. So he agreed to ask about it and see what could be done.

  He dragged through the door at nine and Lisa started people coming through. He worked in a haze, though he got everyone where they needed to be without issue. It seemed like the line came faster than it had before, but the deliveries were simpler somehow.

  Claire delivered food for him at noon. Merri had gotten busy, so asked for her to step in making sure he ate.

  Lisa canceled everything for the next day, and the day after. He just hugged her. She hugged him back for a lot longer than he expected and seemed sad when he finally stepped back. He knew that she still hurt from her break-up. He wished he could fix it for her, though a magical repair for it would be her area, not his, so if she chose not to do that then there must be a reason.

  The rest of the day passed as kind of a blur.

  Zack knew that somebody gave him food, though he couldn't remember who'd done it. Somehow, he pulled off the rest of his scheduled work without simply stopping. At five he just sat in the back room for a while, not knowing what he needed to do. People talked to him, but he couldn't seem to track what they were saying clearly. Lisa called Claire over, a bit of panic in her voice. He didn't hear what they said, though they tried to get him to do something.

  Dan suddenly appeared in front of him. Again, he said things, asked him to do things, which he did, or tried to do at least... He just couldn't remember them later. Checking his pulse, breathing and other things too subtle for Zack to notice, he determined that Zack had been poisoned. It seemed to be some kind of toxin, but he didn't know the specific treatment for it.

  “We can give him Samsara, but this has been in his system so long... it may not help. I don't have enough as it is and we have no way to get it from Toronto. The thing is, he wore himself down yesterday, so he didn't fight it off like he probably would have if he hadn't pushed himself so hard. The effects seem to be getting worse. If we can't do something... I don't know what will happen.” The Master wanted to consult with Wu-Li and his Shadow let this slip to Zack.

  “Al'ight. Toroto. Samsra.” Zack said got up and staggered into the Nexus point.

  He fell in the unfamiliar room, making noise, Master Yang ran in and instantly began treating him as he would anyone else that came in stumbling and ill.

  “Sam'sra. Poision, tixn.”

  Yang didn't need to check, he recognized the valid diagnosis instantly and got the root, cut slices off until he had the needed amount and used a rasp to turn it into smaller bits, and made an infusion without pausing at any step.

  Fifteen minutes later he held the cup for Zack, a large vessel nearly the size of a cereal bowl, who drank it all. Then they waited the Master getting him to a small room with a metal folding table, that he took out without Zack seeing how he did it. Then he got all of Zack's clothes off, just before it hit.

  Everything he'd eaten came out of his system, fast, and his body became covered with a fine layer of reeking sweat. He vomited until only bile came up, then he kept throwing up without stopping. Occasionally a little more would come out, but not enough to be worth the discomfort. His mouth overflowed with saliva. Tears ran down his face and he wet himself and defecated as he lay in the middle of the floor, unable to stop it. The room spun, first one way then the other, this seemed to go on for hours.

  Master Yang gave him water, timed between bouts of vomiting. He couldn't keep it down, but it felt like it helped somehow. He also would leave every now and then, getting a bucket of water to pour over Zack, washing what he could down a drain in the floor, cleaning the rest away as best he could without moving the heaving man.

  Master Yang left for a few minutes, returned and gave him more water. Then... gave him another cup of the bitter tasting root. Everything repeated as before, though less came out of him this time.

  “Mr. Hartley. Dan said that you have managed a true circulation pattern and that this is what probably kept you alive through the night. Do you think... It may not be possible, but if you could do that now, do what you practiced and were taught... It may help you greatly...”

  The old man began to breathe as if trying to show him what to do by example, calling out suggestions to Zack, helping him remember what to do. Somehow, even as he felt his body melting, everything trying to escape, Zack managed to reestablish the pattern, bring in energy through the head, down the core, through the floor around and back through the top of the head again.

  He tried to focus the micro-circulations, though it didn't do much.

  After a while, he had some water and kept it down. He still cried freely, sweat pouring off of him.

  “Can you, do you think you can increase the power flowing through you, like this?” Standing up, Yang allowed the amount of energy to increase greatly, pulling in a little more from the world around him with each breath, the pattern looked different than Wu-Li or Dan's. Zack tried to copy it. He added
a tiny bit of power with each breath, then a little more, soon he added big gulps of power with each breath, greedily fighting to replace what had been lost.

  The Master had him hold to the power level he found after about an hour and simply focus on his breathing, following it as a guide for his energy circulation.

  Eventually, slowly, the worst of it stopped. He drank more water, then as much as he could hold. Every fifteen minutes he found another cup of water in his hands.

  After what seemed like too long, he managed to speak, a croak really, “How long?”

  “You've been in here for almost a full day. I had to administer the Samsara several times. Keep circulating your energy! That, I think, in the end, is all that kept you alive. I had doubts that you would survive for a while there, even knowing how incredible you are. Can you walk?”

  There didn't seem to be a shower or bath, so he bathed in a deep sink, actually climbing into it so that buckets of water could be poured over him. Twenty or thirty buckets later – thanks to some wonderfully strong soap that stripped away the top layer of skin – he felt clean, if weak and dizzy.

  He put on the clothes he had come in, not too dirty, since they'd gotten them off in time. He certainly had a new respect for what Charli had gone through and what Nikki had done too. He'd known it would be bad, this however made him really glad that Nikki had gotten that part.

  “I won't even ask what I owe you, you won't say enough. I'll send or bring gold soon. I don't know how well I'll be doing for a while though...”

  As expected Yang said not to worry about such things and suggested that he continue with his energy exercises and tried to increase the flow of energy each day, keeping it as high as possible. "This may, if luck prevailed, correct the nerve and tissue damage done. Most would simply be crippled from such a thing, but I think you can come to perfect health in a few weeks. Less if you are truly motivated."