by P. S. Power
He let everyone know which place to go to and let other people deal with the fall out, figuring someone would come to get him if he could do something useful.
Trying not to show how shaken he felt turned out to be harder than it should, due to the remaining damage from the poisoning. Zack had to admit he really felt a lot better now though, after his time in the void. He'd have to find some time to spend there if he could. He shook in reaction from what he'd just done though. Hands trembling, legs feeling weak and shaky too.
The biggest issue had to do with how close, how very close, he'd come to aiming at the man's head, instead of his gun. If he hadn't been more concerned about protecting Lisa, making it so the man couldn't fire at her, Daryl, would be dead now.
With a bit of concentration, he took several deep breaths and stopped thinking. For about thirty seconds, until his body had returned, at least largely, to normal. He remembered to go hug Lisa, hard, because she'd just had a gun pulled on her, not a normal event in her day, though after this and the attack on them at Lesser Shia, that may be changing.
Hilda came, along with Val and Sarah, and they stayed with Lisa while Zack headed over to the YoGurt shop with Claire.
“You need something to eat. Go start, I'll have something for you in ten minutes, all right?” Claire put a hand on his cheek lovingly.
“That would be wonderful. I love you, you know.”
“You love me? Do you know how many men have taken me out to dinner in such an impromptu fashion? I'm sure it's happened, but none come to mind right now. Now, let me wash up and get something for you.” She managed a cute grin for him then.
He actually got the whole line coming in transferred inside that ten minutes, then a lull hit for long enough that he could eat the food she provided. Not frozen yogurt at all, but two of Xan's 'Zen Burgers.' How he knew to bring them down baffled Zack. Xan had added pickles to the burgers, dill and sweet layered one on top of the other this time, which worked well, he decided. There were some french-fries with it, just regular, but warm.
He ate sitting at one of the tables in front.
As he finished, Lisa and Hilda came in.
“The next batch should be here soon. Are you sure you're well? I don't know what you did, but it had to take a lot of energy.” Lisa put a hand on his arm and left it there.
He nodded. “Yeah, I should have extended,” he pushed his hand out in demonstration. “Then drawn the energy back. I think that was something like half my life energy. Big mess up. I'll have to practice withdrawing my energy when excited I guess. I was just so... scared.”
Lisa's blue denim skirt pressed against his legs this time as she hugged him close, her face pressed again his chest. Her brown leather boots had heels that raised her by about two inches, leaving her only a little shorter than he was, four inches, maybe five. He felt her breasts pressed against him.
“Of course you were scared, who wouldn't be? He had a gun. We could have been shot.”
Hilda shook her head and spoke slowly, catching Lisa's eyes.
“I don't think that is why he feared... The gun, from what I was told, never pointed at him, it pointed at you, and that's why he reacted so... forcefully. Remember Lesser Shia? They all pointed guns at him then and he just waved at them and made them dance backwards. He did much more today. He feared more for you than himself.”
“Oh?” The Mage hugged him even tighter and teared up. “That's so sweet.”
People started coming in, directed by those still outside, so he gently broke free of the hug and waved people to the back. Lisa followed him to organize the new arrivals, so no one ended up in the wrong place. It was a good thing too, because he almost took an older woman, very nicely dressed, to Lesser Shia instead of Yugoslavia, where she wanted to go. That would be awkward.
Hilda stayed all afternoon, holding Lisa's hand and hugging her when she needed it. Zack felt really cold-hearted, going right back to work like this. There wasn't a point to prove or anything, these people had already paid to go to their destinations though, and Daryl James Wilson's poorly thought out plan shouldn't keep them from going.
Claire called glass places and got an estimate to replace the front window of the store, even going over and carefully measuring the window twice, with Hilda holding the other end of the tape. They were told it would be fixed first thing in the morning the next day.
At noon they ate lunch, Chinese food, which reminded him that he hadn't seen Merri. He decided to walk down to the food court to check on her, just so she wouldn't worry or anything. Mac stood out front and quickly finished with a customer as he walked up.
“Zack! Good. Merri's in the back. Maybe knowing you're all right will calm her down... I had to lock her in the safe storage to keep her from running to your aid. I told her you'd be fine, but she wouldn't have it. Tried to cut me in half with her sword. Let's see if she'll calm for you.”
Mac took him to a small door in the far back of the food court area. It had a lot more space than the other places did, probably because the Alfric tended to actually live at their shops all the time.
From inside he heard a howling, a keening really, that tore at his soul. Mac pounded on the door. He said something in his language that Zack didn't have time to translate using Mac's Shadow self.
The noise stopped.
“Merri?” Zack called out. “Are you okay, honey? Everyone's all right. The only person hurt was a confused man that accidentally pointed a gun at Lisa. Well, I kind of blew out the front window too, but the people are all right. Can you come out please. This is scaring me...”
He called to her on the Shadow level.
Are you well, love? Are you safe and free of wound? Do you need my help?
He asked Mac to open the door, which proved to be steel, about four inches thick, except for the middle where it looked like someone had been trying to dig through it. Sharp looking chunks of metal lay on the floor of the dark room.
“Love? Oh, Zack!” A form flew at him, nearly taking him to the floor. He found himself showered with kisses. “Oh, love, oh, love, oh, love” she chanted for a moment.
“Are you all right, Merri? I didn't see you so I came to check.”
She described what happened to her, how she heard the noise and knew her husband would be near it, so she tried to run to him, but Mac told her it may not be safe and that she should stay. After that, she said, she didn't really remember anything.
Mac explained with a wave.
“Battle rage. It takes some in our family, if things get pressing enough. You'd have thought you died or something, the way she carried on though. When I finally found out what was going on, I couldn't calm her at all. Good thing you came when you did, else she would have been out of the cell, er, safe room, and seeing that whoever killed you either met the same fate or killed her, too.” Shaking his head he looked at the little woman clinging to Zack.
“I told you he was fine. Silly.”
Thinking about what happened he thought he understood what it may have felt like to her. He'd released a large blast of energy. If he'd died suddenly this energy, unfocused and un-concentrated would have released as well, signaling his death. Maybe she'd somehow perceived this? He knew that she spoke to him with awareness on the Shadow level, so it seemed possible at least.
When he told them this, Merri nodded solemnly and hugged him. He asked Mac if he could keep Merri with him for the rest of the day.
“Aye, and you should. She won't be any good to me today. Off you go now.” He went back to work, making sure everything stayed ready to eat and the surfaces were clean moving from one area to another a bit more quickly than even a motivated Human ever would.
He took Merri by the hand, she clung to his arm and didn't let go. Her hands were tiny, but her body perfectly proportioned. She didn't look like a midget or a child, rather like an adult woman standing far away, he thought again, for about the thousandth time since he'd met her. It always amazed Zack when he thought about it.
Back at the Frozen YoGurt, Merri didn't want to let go of his arm, so he offered to take her to Lesser Shia with him, if she didn't mind that he wouldn't be able to talk a lot while he worked.
"I'll guard you, while you work. No one will touch you, I swear." This was spoken on both levels, even if the threat that day hadn't really been about him that much at all.
He told the people there what had happened and asked them to move everything up as much as possible schedule wise. So he got his normal work done in about three hours instead of four, with only a little rushing. Merri smiled at him every time he stepped through the nexus point on that side of things.
When they got back to Frozen YoGurt at four on the dot, he sat at a table with Merri, who crawled onto his lap, so he cuddled her to him. At the same time he focused on circulating his energy and rebuilding it as fast as possible trying to collect a little more from the universe with each breath.
Libby walked in, looked at the situation and hugged Lisa, then sat next to Zack moving her chair close to him and putting Merri's legs across her lap, then reached over and held them both.
“I just heard. Nessa let me come over. I have to work until nine, but I'll be over, if you all want me...” She looked at everyone.
Claire informed her that the plan had them at The Tarantula that night. Libby grimaced at the words.
“Ah, that sucks. I can't get in there. Even dressed up I'm not pretty enough to make the cut at the door. I know, I tried it with Nessa once. She got in and left me standing. I had to ditch my clothes and fly home.”
Merri bent forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Then they're fools for not seeing you for what you truly are. Anyone that can't see your beauty isn't looking.”
Zack, agreeing with this, bent forward and kissed her cheek too. Libby looked down, pretending to be shy suddenly, then turned her cheek to Lisa and pushed toward her, pointing at her cheek playfully. Lisa, laughing, kissed it.
“Now I'm feeling left out, here I thought we were friends, Libby... Sigh.” Claire actually said the word 'sigh' out loud. It struck Zack as very cute, which, he reflected, had probably been her goal.
Libby jumped up and ran to her, flying over the counter, grabbed Claire around the shoulders and pulled her into a big kiss on the mouth. Claire kissed her back for several seconds and returned her to the table, bribing her with a treat.
Libby expected yogurt, but what she got turned out to be an invitation to come with them to the club. Smiling, Claire gave her word that Libby wouldn't be turned away from the door this time.
“Do you know somebody there?” Libby asked, excited. “I hear it's really cool after the remodel they just did. Have you seen it?”
Zack hadn't in fact been back since before the work had been done. Something kept getting in the way each time they tried to go, which was why he planned to go tonight, no matter what. It seemed like something would always be happening now, some emergency or another, some drama or something, so he needed to live in the spaces in between and not let himself be thrown off his plans too easily.
“Something like that. I own it. So if they don't let my friends in, somebody's in trouble.” She dimpled at the Bat girl when she said this.
Zack nodded. He already figured this out, a long time ago, before they started with the remodel on it as part of the deal about Charli. He hadn't wanted to say anything, because they, Keane and Claire, had worked so hard to hide it.
He looked at Libby, whose mouth worked, finally she said she would love to see the remodel if possible.
“You know, Troy works there too, so he could get you in, you two hang out enough he'd get you on the list if you wanted. Keane, who also works here is something like their Grand Poobah manager, something like that, he'd get you in just because, I think. He's pretty cool if you get a chance to talk to him.”
Leaning forward to look at Claire closely, her eyes focusing sharply, Libby admitted to the other woman that she constantly forgot her age had to be over three hundred years old, even though she looked about twenty, maybe twenty-one, if she pulled her hair up and dressed in her old person clothes. She just didn't think of her as being more than a shop manager and friend...
This caused the cute Vampire to dive her hand beneath the counter and pull out a calculator.
“Speaking of old... Zack, you said that you tried to test the time difference in the void, counting out an hour then coming back and found it to be two seconds you said?”
He admitted that it had been two seconds between him hitting the stop watch to start it and then again to stop it, so that time probably stood at a lot less. He knew he wasn't very fast physically and the watch had been sitting on a chair about six feet from the node itself.
“Okay, given that, call it about a second each way, no, wait... Zack, come with me.” Pointing to the back she rounded the counter and got a stop watch and came back. Waving it at them she made her way to the back. “I use it to time the cooking of hot fudge once it reaches the correct temperature.”
Her hand waved at him then the Node.
“When I say go, you go into the line. Count out an hour exactly, then come back. I should be able to trigger the time correctly, Vampire reflexes are... adequate. Ready, set, go!” She clicked the button on top of the watch.
He sank into the line and counted out an hour while sitting in the void. All the time sitting in the void, focused intently, made counting feel easy by comparison. When he reached his sixtieth count of one to sixty, saying one thousand each time, he came back.
“o!” She clicked it again, still finishing the last word she had said.
Looking at the watch she stood up a bit straighter. It showed .06 seconds.
“Oh? Six seconds? Well I must have messed up the first time then. Oops.” Waving at him to be silent, she punched numbers, mumbling. “Point zero six, not six seconds. So each second represents Sixteen point six hours... Times sixty, makes nine hundred ninety-six hours per minute. Times sixty again equals fifty-nine thousand seven hundred and sixty hours per hour our time. Turning that into days... Divide by twenty four, then for years, three hundred and sixty-five. Hmmm...Lisa, will you check my numbers here?”
Lisa used the calculator nearly as fast as Claire did, speed built from years of practice tallying books rather than superhuman ability.
“We both got the same number: two thousand seven hundred and eighty-three. Rounding down.” Lisa agreed.
“And don't forget the twenty odd he has in for this world,” the Vampire said.
“Wait, so Zack's almost three thousand years old?” Libby looked at him strangely. Like it was a surprise or something.
Merri just hugged him around the neck again.
“Darn, now Libby's figured out I'm too old for her. You people and your math, darn you! Darn you all to heck!” He shook his fist in mock fury. Everybody laughed.
“It's not that, it's just, well, Weres age, but more slowly than Humans, I'm thirty-two, next month... I was a little worried I might be too old for you. I don't think I have to worry about that now.” Her index finger touched his nose. He bit at it. It had been covered in the book Patty had him read. The playful ferocity increased excitement. So, this would be flirting, he thought. He should ask Patty about that. She'd have pointers or another book for him to read on the subject.
As the clock reached five, he knew what he had to do. He decided to take Merri with him, hoping no one would mind.
“I should go to Master Wu-Li's, I'm sure that I'll have a lot of work ahead, after botching like that earlier. I feel ridiculous. See you all later? Lisa, you're coming too, and Hilda is coming, of course, unless she doesn't want to...” He looked at where the large lady sat, looking out the front, on guard.
“Oh, yes! I've never been Human dancing. May I come, Claire? I don't want to ruin your club or scare people away though. I know I don't look normal for a Human...”
The Vampire waved this away instantly. “We'll dress you in something sexy and the men
won't know what hit them. You know that you're the prettiest of us here, don't you? By our standards. Oh, you don't rate with the Succubi, but then who does? Don't let that be your ruler here or you'll never measure up.”
Zack walking toward her with Merri beside him, reached out and hugged her.
“Seriously Hilda. They'd let you in the club without even being on the list. Matter of fact, we'll let you go in alone, if you want, to see what the door man says. That will give you the truth.” Claire sounded confident. “If he doesn't let you in immediately you have my permission to beat him up and come in anyway.”
Merri kissed her on the cheek, and thinking it a good idea, he did too. It would help Hilda to know that other people thought she looked nice too, not just her friends, who might be saying nice things just because they were her people.
Wu-Li had no harsh words for him. He'd affixed twenty concrete blocks to the back wall and pointed to them.
“If you please, do what you did earlier. At one quarter past what we used last time for this exercise, as rapidly as possible, without stopping. I shall talk to the charming woman you're with while you do that. Continue until your lesson with Patricia or you collapse.” The serious tone told him he meant it.
He began.
An hour later Zack stood covered with sweat, still hitting the blocks from eight feet away.
“Good. We will continue to drill like this for a while, until you use the technique properly, even when in danger. I see you managed to keep your energy circulation going evenly while you did this? Excellent. I expect that all the time from now on. Now, go to your other lesson and do as well in that as you did here.” He looked wise, even though he didn't look a lot older than Lisa.
Patty didn't keep them long, though her Shadow self had to fight not to find a reason to retain the attractive miniature woman and find some reason to get her naked. An amazing array of possibilities crossed her mind in rapid succession. Zack felt flattered that some of them even involved him.
Merri held up the book that Zack had been reading and pointed a picture out to Patty, a diagram showing a woman using her mouth on a man.
