Mr. Hartley (Alternate Places Book 1)

by P. S. Power

  “Hi, Kaitlyn. Let yourself relax and draw back the feelings you're projecting. Do that now, it's easy... You know how to do it.” His voiced coaxed her, soft and reassuring.

  Suddenly on the Shadow level, he screamed at her, a powerful bellowing, DO IT NOW! Comply totally. NOW!

  The girl froze in place totally unmoving, the sense of lust gone, it felt like a pressure had been released off of his chest.

  “Good, now, clothing, both of you. Quickly please. Don't make me clap at you or act like a jerk now... Hurry."

  They both scrambled, but Kaitlyn moved as if under total compulsion. Fast, not focusing on anything else, simply doing what she'd been told.

  Keane pulled the man out, insistently, but not roughly, and took him away rapidly.

  After the girl dressed, Zack noticed that a link existed between Patty and the girl, an ephemeral line of lightest gold to his way of seeing things. That and the fact that Kaitlyn's Shadow self kept saying things like, 'don't be mad, mom, please.' and 'I'm sorry, mommy', even while under control like this, indicated to him that he'd just met Patty's daughter.

  “Kaitlyn, come with us, please. Don't speak to anyone right now. We need to collect some people and get out of here. Stay close to your mother, and keep yourself under total control. You have it now.” The girl complied instantly. Huddling close to her mom, a slightly vapid expression on her face.

  He faced the room and spoke normally, even though the crowd had begun to return to normal, people still danced without shirts. A lot of them. They'd come to have a good time, and that social barrier was already out of the way.

  “Anyone leaving with us, we have to go now. Problems and such, you know... the norm. Please meet us in front of the building within five minutes. Thank you! Oh, and get Lisa, Merri, if they can't hear this please. Thanks again!”

  Patty led them outside. She shook, though he couldn't tell why at first, until her Shadow told him how scared she'd been, and still was, for her daughter.

  Tears glistened on her cheeks as she held her little girl next to her, keeping her close. She kept sobbing quietly as the others came out. Merri walked over and held Zack's hand. The other Alede stayed away, almost as if afraid to go too near Kaitlyn, as if the taint of her actions could rub off on them. Then again he didn't know them all that well yet, so maybe it could?

  His people, Patty and her daughter, and the other Alede all came with him. The other Vampires stayed at the club in case of trouble. Keane promised Patty he wouldn't go too hard on the young man. The server obviously couldn't really be expected to help himself, given everything, she told them through tears, which were blotted away roughly on the back of her hand.

  Leading the way Zack took everyone home with him, guiding them through the rift in space that existed in the alley behind the club. He opened the door and let everyone in. Escorting Patty inside, Kaitlyn trailing just behind her, once everyone else had gone through. They all sat, except for Patty who stood in the middle, as if she were on trial, and Kaitlyn who hung on to her arm, just as she had been ordered to.

  “I... This...This is my daughter, Kaitlyn. My only child. Please forgive her for her breach of protocol. I don't know what she was thinking... Honestly she probably wasn't, who thinks at that age? She's only sixteen, you all remember being that age. I know this is serious. I'll... I'll take steps... I'll think of something, please....” Her pleading caused all the Alede to tear up.

  “Patty, please, you know what we have to do...” Val could barely contain her sobbing.

  Libby raised a hand. “I'm sorry, but I don't know what you have to do. What is it that would make Patty cry like this?”

  Norris looked at Libby, then the rest of them.

  “When young, there comes an age when Alede aren't really ready to be out on their own, but they have all the drives, desires and powers of an adult. During this stage, they can be incredibly dangerous. Some are more prone to excess and lack of control than others are. This girl, Kaitlyn, went full rogue once already. She'd been sent to a special school to help her learn to control that, but it doesn't seem to have worked. She's too wild. I don't know if you realize what almost happened tonight...”

  Claire broke in.

  “Near riot, rape, murder, passions run amok – that kind of thing?”

  Norris nodded and looked at her.

  “Okay, so you get part of it. The other problem is that if one Alede goes, it can set off a chain reaction in the others near them. Kaitlyn got close. Three more minutes, and I may be being kind to our own control saying that long, and the rest of us would have gone as well. If Zack hadn't been there...”

  Zack stood up, beginning to see a picture developing, a troubled kid, one others couldn't understand, trying to get by in the world, messing up because the rules they thought should work didn't exactly. It sounded familiar.

  “If I hadn't been there, Hilda would have knocked her out, or one of you would have done it. My way was just gentler.” The girl watched him, still standing next to her mother, more than a little afraid of him. “Or maybe not so gentle, just less physically damaging.”

  Norris continued.

  “So, if there are multiple strikes, if the Alede can't control themselves and can't be controlled, they have to be put to death. We aren't proud of it, but we've never found any other way to stop the tragedy that such individuals eventually bring.”

  Zack sat down next to Claire and let things play out, seeing where they led themselves. He held her hand lightly. Libby came and sat next to him, taking his other hand. They could all tell how serious this could be, since a girl's life hung in the balance.

  They talked for hours. Patty begged, and made promises, they all cried. The Alede – Norris and the others – seeing no real way to control Kaitlyn, Patty saying she'd find a way, somehow, something. Hilda cried too. She hugged a pillow and stayed away from the Alede, whose smell seemed to make her particularly upset right now. Merri just looked sad and didn't speak.

  An hour later, when they were about to make the call that would probably lead to the end of the girl's life, Zack decided to try something. There was nothing to lose after all.

  “Kaitlyn,” he spoke to her softly. “Keep a relaxed demeanor for us, will you? Full lock down on your abilities, keep listening to what I say, but for now, go ahead and go back to your normal self, other than doing what I say, all right?”

  Stirring a little, she spoke suddenly. “I know I messed up, he was just so cute and I'd gotten so hungry on the bus ride, it took, like, twenty hours. I went to the club, because I saw there were a bunch of people, and this guy told me that all the cool people hung out there, he introduced me to Tyrone, the guy, you know... I was going to go to mom's after. In the club everyone was having fun and that guy, did you see him? He liked me! He let me in and everything, I didn't make him do it or bribe him with sex. There wasn't anyone around to pass me energy, that I knew of at least. What was I supposed to do?”

  The adults all agreed that if she'd stayed where she had been and not run away without thinking about that, then the whole thing wouldn't have happened. Her counter was to list grievances, like not being allowed to go home for Christmas and being locked up all the time. They didn't even allow her to have friends, she wailed. Zack checked with her Shadow, to make certain 'friend' meant buddies, not sex partners. He found out to her it meant both, often at the same time, hence it not being allowed.

  “You don't understand, I was so lonely. I just wanted to see my mom!”

  Why do I do these things, he wondered silently, careful not to project it, knowing his thought held far too much selfishness to be allowed, even inside his own head. So he stopped it. Shut it down and removed it from being.

  “All right. She's under control right now and will stay that way, as long as she stays in town. So that problem is solved for now... right? I know a little about mental control, learned over time. I can teach her that, or make certain she can't misuse her powers again if she can't learn. Is that enoug
h to gain her a reprieve. I mean, when you consider that if you take action that will probably kill her – even if you mean well, which I think you all do – I'll bust her out and take her away with me, even if it means leaving everything here to do it... So, is that enough to start with at least?”

  They looked shocked, as if the idea hadn't occurred to them that he might just have an issue with a girl being killed. The real problem, their Shadows told him, with that was they all had, at least in passing, wondered if he could or would do that. Steal the girl away if she faced death. They'd have to feed her, which meant extra feeding for all of them, but that could be done if they shared the load. They desired it, but couldn't ask, because no one had ever made such a thing work. Not even master Vampires or Mages.

  “Do you know what you're offering...” Norris asked.

  “For once in my life, I think I might have a small clue. I'm giving her one last chance at life, with someone that has a small idea of what she needs to do to master this. As for the rest, the headaches and broken vases, well, no. If I did, I might say no.” He smiled a little.

  Still, he offered, it had to be up to her, ultimately. If she wanted to try or not, or take her chances with whoever made those decisions on the other end of the phone. It was her life, and while she had limited choices here, she had some.

  “She'll live with you?” Norris looked at him frankly. Almost as if that just made sense.

  “No, she'll live with her mother. She'll work in the Candle shop, and possibly at Beautiful Plus. She'll be with me from morning till night, then she's your worry. But I expect everyone to help with this. She has to get an education and if she needs sex, you get to line that up for her... I can't deal with that. I'll show her how to control her mind though. If that's what she wants...”

  The girl sat hunched over as everyone else talked about her. A gentle shaking overtook her.

  “I want to, but, um, you're really scary.” Her words were timid. Still, even without trying to be cruel some of the people in the room chuckled.

  “They're chuckling because I'm actually a pretty nice person, I think... I had to scare you on a very deep level to get you into a state where you could control your abilities earlier. I may have to do this again. Maybe a lot. I won't hurt you, but I may make you do things that are really hard, even dangerous. You can have friends though. Even have sex, but get with me first, so I can make sure you won't have a control issue. We'll work out those details later though. Right now I'm exhausted, so I'm taking everyone back to their cars who wants to go. Please hurry, because I'm planning on being in bed inside ten minutes and asleep within the hour.” Then, patting a yawn which was real, Zack tried to put his face into a small grin.

  He hoped he hadn't seemed too dour or anything. More than anything it would be bad for the girl to get the wrong idea. This wasn't going to be easy for her. It may even drive her insane. Still, better to have a chance than to just be dead.

  Patty hugged him on the way out. She'd finally stopped crying at least, but was, wisely, still scared for Kaitlyn though. After all, she had some idea of what Zack considered dangerous and it didn't match up with her own at all.

  Once that had been finished he hugged and kissed everyone and grabbed Libby's hand, and Claire's on the way by, pulling them off to bed with him. It technically should be Libby's night alone, but he wanted the extra comfort of having Claire there too. He asked Libby if she'd be all right with this.

  “Do I get to have sex with you?” She asked bluntly.

  “Well, wait a week for actual sex, but oral stuff... Yeah.”

  “And do I get to have sex with her?” Her grin grew slowly into a smile.

  “That... depends on what she says, ask her.”

  “What do you say, Claire? A little three way action?”

  The Vampire didn't blink, just walked to the bed and climbed in, a small seductive smile on her face.

  Chapter thirty-five

  The morning came early again. It was getting annoying, actually.

  Day after day I give it a chance to come at a decent hour and yet day after day it fails me, Zack thought as he sat up, bleary and still tired, having only gotten about five hours of sleep.

  Carefully climbing out of bed, his groin turned out to be a little sore. Claire and Libby had gotten a little competitive over him and since he utterly refused to name one the victor over the other, they both refused to give up. In skill, Claire clearly dominated. Hundreds of years of practice can do that. Libby tried so hard though and she smiled a lot. That helped him feel at ease about everything. Plus her mouth produced saliva and Claire's didn't. That meant Libby had an edge there.

  Still, after an hour and a half he'd had to call a halt to the whole thing. Claire had spent some time entertaining Libby, while he drifted to sleep.

  When he got in to work a sixteen-year-old succubus stood outside of the Candles and More. Claire hugged him goodbye.

  “Good morning, Kaitlyn. In case it got missed last night, I'm Zack.” He held out a hand to her, which she took smoothly, shook properly, but didn't want to let go of. Looking at her for almost thirty seconds he finally said, “And now you let go...”

  “Oh, sorry! I'm... I just didn't get a lot of contact for a while, any really. I know they meant well, but we, the Alede, need contact. They know this... Sorry. I'll be good.” Her breathing came faster, fearing punishment.

  He put an arm around her shoulders and walked her to the door of the shop. Using the key he let them in. The store hadn't been straightened much, so they had their work cut out for them. The mini-succubus took stock of the place.

  “Bomb?”

  “Me actually. Uhg. I should tell you the whole thing. Basically a guy came in and threatened us with a gun, which he pointed at Lisa, our boss here. I came out of the back and not knowing he was just a confused shlub that had lost his kid in a custody battle in the Mages' council, I blew his hand off. He flew through the window, so, I kind of made most of the mess. Sorry, thanks for helping clean it up?”

  She looked at him, tilted her head and licked her lips in what would have been an alluring fashion, if he hadn't totally locked away his libido before leaving the house. With her though, she probably didn't know she constantly did just the right thing to catch attention, not on a conscious level anyway. She told him exactly what she tried to do on a deeper level though. He communicated to her to cool it a bit for now.

  “We may find bits of gun or hand laying around. Apparently I actually made the gun explode somehow... I don't know how thorough the people picking up the pieces were. Today was supposed to be my day off, but what with everything... It's a cleanup day. The people are coming to replace the window between ten and two. Before then I want to tidy and straighten everything, sweep, but we'll leave mopping until after the window is in, then this afternoon we'll redo the Christmas display in the window that Daryl – the guy who had the gun – kicked over trying to be intimidating. I don't know what he'd been thinking there, after all, most people would be happy enough to just be intimidated by a gun, right?”

  Whoever had cleaned the pieces of hand and gun up did a good job it seemed since they didn't find anything when they swept. He showed her how to straighten the shelves, explaining to her how to empty her mind, and think only about the action she took at the moment, while working.

  “Is this like that old Karate Kid movie? I work learning seemingly random stuff and end up with cool martial arts skills?” She pretended to focus, while thinking about a dozen different things rapidly. Two of them involved having sex with him.

  He nodded, in reference to the movie.

  “If by random skills you mean exactly what you need to know, and cool martial arts you mean focusing your mind, then yes, exactly like that. I won't lie though, you're one-half being babysat and one-half being used as free labor because we really need the help. By tomorrow I expect no more than twenty percent babysitting, all right? Oh, and what do you want for Christmas. Don't say sex, it's tacky.” He
warned her suddenly with a smile before she could speak. A small list of completely reasonable things quickly appeared, mainly clothing and some music she wanted. Zack pocketed it.

  They had things in reasonable order by the time the glass men got there. He sat her down and they went over ideas for a window display. She actually asked for budget concerns on it. He gave her an upper limit of a thousand dollars, just to see what she could do with it. That turned out to be a flowing green velvet back ground, with silver ground covering, a flocked white tree, fake though, ornaments, in silver as well, then wrapped packages with candles on top. She wanted to leave the hanging snowflakes.

  “All right, we'll do that. Sounds cool actually.”

  At ten-thirty on the nose, Lisa rushed into the shop.

  “I'm so sorry I'm late, I just couldn't sleep when I got home, so of course, when I got to sleep, I slept too long. Hi, Kaitlyn, Zack filling you in on everything?” She walked over and hugged the girl.

  The girl went still, then wrapped her arm around the woman in return, holding her tight. Zack broke them up when Succubette started rubbing her lower back suggestively.

  “Actually, I wanted to take Kaitlyn on a tour of the Mall and introduce her to everyone, since she may need to run errands, get us coffee, yogurt, or import goods. She may also wish to know where the food is. That kind of thing.”

  “Wait a sec. Could you grab me a coffee? I'll give you money for it.” She headed to the back.

  He smiled and told her that Lisa had all the money and handled the accounts, so if she needed funds past her paycheck, she needed to talk to Lisa about it.

  “I get paid? How much? When?” While she'd been fairly attentive and well behaved her attention suddenly focused greatly.

  “Payday is Friday and you get paid very little. The more you do and the better your control, the more you get paid. It's a sliding scale, for incentive. I'm making this up as I go along, but you'll earn the money. Don't expect everything to be exciting though. Sometimes you'll end up just waiting or cleaning things that you know are already clean. Part of the job, learning to focus past the boredom.”