by P. S. Power
The man did the same with Eve and Karen too. Not Edith or her female friend though. They looked either pissed off or as if the touching would be unwelcome.
“Let’s get started then, we need a venue, I was thinking the conference center, unless anyone else has an idea?” Bob looked around as if expecting that no one else would have anything at all. He was used to dealing with business people and this group might not have business sense overly, but they had creativity in spades, didn’t they?
Eve shook her head.
“Not a horrible idea, but we might be able to do it more cheaply, and seem a little more accessible to the general public. How about that spooky abandoned church downtown? It has both creep factor, and if we can do some work in there, both the sheer space and its own cobwebs.” She grinned, showing it was a joke, but everyone else looked uneasy.
Edith growled though, nearly a literal thing.
“Don’t be a moron. Today’s youth, never planning properly. It would cost too much and we don’t have time for major renovations.” The woman glared. Hard enough that Daryl followed suit, staring hard at Eve for having made his love upset.
Keeley gave a single nod, thinking.
“How about the Farmers Hall instead? It’s not as nice as the conference center, but it’s centrally located and really, I’d rather pay fifty dollars for the rental for a night than ten thousand.” She held up her right hand, palm out.
“I know, cheap of me, but we can set up a walkthrough haunted house and really, I think more people will be willing to bring their kids to something that isn’t quite as fancy.”
On the far end, of the room, nearly out of it, standing in the living room doorway, keeping her distance from them all, stood Clara, who had a list in her hand.
“The Farmers Hall goes for sixty-five per night. The conference center two-thousand. Either way we should get at least four nights, one for the actual event on the day itself, and three lead up, so we can actually do proper preparations. We could also possibly get the Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting center. They have a good space there. If we bring them in on this, playing a part, we can probably get that for free and they’ll host and man the bar. Not a free bar, but at a family event that should probably be avoided anyway.”
The rest of the planning actually went smoothly, the only problem was that Keeley kept reigning in what was being spent, with Bob ignoring her on that and Dan Carmichael just agreeing with everything. Clara had a contact at the VFW and had the whole thing arranged within an hour, just making two phone calls. Even getting some of their guys to help with the haunted house. Then she sat quietly making calls in regards to real cow brains and animal entrails. Plus blood. Fake blood though. Real blood would be harder to get out if it spilled after all. That Clara knew how to get the real stuff off the top of her head reminded Keeley to arrange for Rebekah to chat with her. That might be handy. The Vampires could live off of animal blood, she’d said.
“How about snakes?” The dowdy woman, Lyn, who was with Principal Givens said, looking around. “Real snakes would scare me at least. If we can keep them warm enough, I mean.”
Bob smiled at her, suddenly interested, as if he hadn’t really noticed her before.
The food and drink would be traditional enough, a soda fountain, punch, various snacks with no meal served. It was both cheaper and made more sense. Who served dinner at a Halloween party? Especially a giant public one.
It went pretty smoothly, with Edith complaining about everything that wasn’t her idea, while managing to add a few decent things, like the need to advertise. Keeley wrote that down and got some suggestions as to where to do it and how. Mentioning it to the local news outlets and all that. She needed to build some contacts there, it was clear. How to do that, she had no clue. Maybe take them some cookies?
Laughing to herself she decided to do just that. It probably didn’t have to be anything major after all. Go in, say hello and get some numbers to call, just in case something came up.
It all went happily enough until Just before nine, when Daryl, Lyn and the giant hairy man suddenly all froze. It wasn’t that obvious at first, they just didn’t move. Or breathe. Then they started to shake horribly, screaming, flesh turning red as everyone looked on in horror. After nearly a minute of that they all stopped, panting. But still all alive.
They clearly looked pissed too.
Keeley stood and clapped a little.
“That was fantastic! Yes, if you three could do that, we can make room in the haunted house for it. Ooh, I know, we’ll work you into each group going through and make it seem like you’re all under attack by some kind of creature. Brilliant idea guys. If you come up with anything else, please let me know? I think that on that note we might all want to get to things. What we can this late at night.” Keeley chuckled, gasping a little as if out of breath.
“I haven’t been scared like that in a long time. Thanks everyone. Bob, anything to add?” She was trying to keep everyone busy and distracted from what had just happened. It had been weird and the three newly freed people seemed to be in shock still. That or they knew enough not to go all crazy in front of the new people. Either way worked for her.
No one was really buying it though, but that just meant they got out of there fast, at least Bob and Keeley’s Principal did. Everyone else lingered, with the giant hairy man standing firmly in front of the door as Edith tried to walk out.
“I don’t really think so, Gatherer. I’m free, witch. I don’t know how, but I’m not yours and love you no more. You no longer own my mind.” He didn’t sound friendly about it, but the voice wasn’t threatening either. The vast size, and obvious power, was probably enough there.
Lyn stood at the ready too, a heavy glass piece that looked like a mermaid on a rock and must have weighed six pounds in her hand to use as a weapon. Karen looked at the scene and held out a hand, as if begging them all to be reasonable.
“Wait, please…” She got a fireplace poker from the other side of the room and held it out to Lyn.
“That statue was given to me by a dear friend, she made it herself and it can’t be replaced. Could I trade you?” It was an incredibly bizarre scene but the woman nodded and made the exchange, as if expecting a trick.
For her part, Edith, clearly frightened, looked at Daryl.
“Sweetie? If you’d be so kind as to not let them kill me?” Now her voice held something close to kindness. It was a bit too late though, wasn’t it.
Or maybe not.
“You heard her. You two stand down. It’s not our place to take her life. Besides, she’s armed with weapons we can’t beat. Best to just let this go and escape while we can.” He made his voice reasonable and not smarmy at all when he said it.
It was so obviously a ruse that Keeley had to fight rolling her eyes and she was pretty sure Eve and Karen both actually did. Edith just looked triumphant. It was stupid of her. True she probably was armed, but that wouldn’t save the woman for long, would it?
“Um, what’s going on?” Keeley sounded scared and uncertain, Dan looked at her, then walked over and patted her gently on the back, as if actually consoling a frightened young girl.
“I think there’s been some kind of disagreement. But it looks like it’s resolving itself. Still, that’s for the best, I don’t imagine that inside the Chief of Police’s home is the best place for an altercation, do you?”
It really wasn’t, and Edith, trying to hide her fear, backed out the door, slowly, her right hand on the front of her shirt, over an object underneath. It made a lump the size of a silver dollar, half rounded through the heavy material.
She sneered.
“It isn’t as easy as all that to defeat one of my kind. I’ll just go and fix this little problem and get things back to normal. None of you can stop me you know. Not with my tools with me. I’m too clever for you by far.” She glared around the room as Keeley noticed the now familiar sense of someone walking the in roads approaching. It would take a few seconds,
but maybe they could stall the woman? It was Keeley’s part to keep her distracted after all.
It was Darla coming at least, so her part seemed to have gone well enough.
“Excuse me, I don’t understand? Is this over the venue? If you feel that strongly we could go with one of the other choices…” Yes, she was acting stupid, but it got Edith to freeze, not really ready for something that clueless. People did that, when taken by surprise. More, they didn’t realize how long they really went still like that, how much time the switch over in mental processing actually took.
Finally, just as two white hands wrapped around her throat from behind, Edith glared at her.
“No, how dull are yo-urk.” The sound choked off as Darla pulled the woman onto the in roads.
They were just gone. It was sudden and powerful, the absence into the blue flash, making everyone in the room stare hard for a minute. Keeley and Dan too. They needed to look like it was real after all. No one spoke for a long time, not even the creatures that Edith had brought, or Clara who was still hugging the far wall. Finally Lyn laughed.
“Was… that a Greater Demon? I’ve never seen one before. The Gatherer must have really poked into the wrong hole this time. Well, we have our freedom, for now. I think we should make ourselves remote, before it comes back for the rest of us.” She sounded relieved though, not worried.
They all left then, though Karen wasn’t about to be left alone by Keeley until she knew for a fact that everything was handled properly. It seemed like it, but experience had taught her not to take chances if all it would cost was a little extra work.
Dan looked at her and nodded firmly.
“You really have learned a lot in the last hundred years, daughter. Do make time in your schedule for my party however, this Halloween, and be sure to drag your sister along. I wish to present you to society.”
Keeley blinked, but it was on purpose. She didn’t let her mind do anything but stay clear and focused, all emotion fading away as she let her “natural” thoughts come to the front of her mind for a moment. She looked at Finias coolly.
“We agreed not to mention that part of things while I was here. I’ll get with my sister and see what we can do. Not to be rude, but other things might take us away. We have all these little side projects after all. Well, you know how that goes.” She forced herself back into being “Keeley” then and pretended nothing had been said at all.
Dan left and Eve stayed with her, as they got Clara off, Karen prepared a drink.
“I know, it’s cliché, but Roy likes to have a drink when he comes home, so I try to meet him with one at the door each night.” She glanced at Eve. “He drinks, but just the one per day, most of the time. I don’t want you to think he’s still, you know, like he was.”
“An abusive alcoholic?” Eve said the words gently though.
Karen nodded.
“Yes. He’s really changed a lot. Darla helped him do it. I know we weren’t really there for you like we should have been, but he did that to try and protect you. He’d hoped you wouldn’t remember him at all, really, I think. We really didn’t know about the sexual abuse. If we had…” She didn’t say what they’d have done, because the door opened then. It was Darla.
Part of her anyway.
Her right arm was gone to the elbow, crispy and blackened from an explosion of some kind. Part of her lower face on that side and her right eye was gone. Her hair had caught fire too. It looked bad, but she was clearly healing already.
“Hello.” Her voice sounded raw and burnt too. Horrible.
“Got her. She had some decent tricks. They weren’t enough.”
Keeley watched for a moment, until she saw for certain that Darla was healing. She spun and looked at Karen, barking orders more harshly than were probably needed.
“Get food, enough for about forty people. Eve, help her please? You, get your butt in a chair and keep healing. Do we have any ice cream or anything high in calories that will be easy to get down fast?” Karen didn’t really know, being constantly on a diet, they didn’t have a lot. Looking at what they did have Keeley had to agree. She brought her sister a quart of vegetable oil and some bread.
Now that was good eats. But it had the basic fuel she’d need. To start. They needed protein too.
“Here, I’ll go get more. Karen, anything you have, feed it to her, until I get back. Eve, with me.”
It took a trip to the local grocery store, and they fairly shoved things into a cart, without much concern for more than having high calories and that it wouldn’t take a lot of chewing. As soon as they got in, just walking into the nice brick house as if they belonged, Keeley opened a large container of cream and handed it off, then opened the foil seal on a large container of peanut butter. Darla ate without comment, her face looking a lot better already, but her arm still gone.
When Roy came in he just nodded, eyes only for Darla, and started making sure she had what she needed. It was half an hour later that he looked up enough to see who had just handed him a whole boxed cake.
“Eve? I… How are you? Darla said you knew each other.” It was sad sounding, which they really didn’t have time for. Then, would they ever?
“Yeah. Um, Karen and I are supposed to be buddies now, so, you know, get used to seeing me around, I guess. Keelzebub’s orders and everything, so no getting out of it now.”
The Chief figured out who that had to be, not being a moron, but he gave Keeley a funny look, still holding the cake out for Darla, who ate rapidly, her arm slowly starting to come back, pink and damp looking, as is extended downwards.
She paused long enough in her eating to say just one thing.
“Lord of the Cheerleaders.” Her voice was nearly normal again, thank goodness. It was taking a lot of control for Keeley to ignore how very injured Darla was, it left her feeling uncomfortable, because it had to have come close to actually killing her, didn’t it?
And this was from something that had been deemed a minor threat, one hardly worth noticing, except that Edith Givens had killed someone through her own carelessness. It was frightening. At least to her sixteen year old self. Who she “really” was couldn’t feel bothered by the idea at all though. It made for an interesting trick, balancing everything. Remembering to try and feel and seem young.
They fed Darla for nearly a whole day, doing it in shifts so that Keeley could go to school, Roy to work and Karen could sleep. The others came, but they didn’t move Darla, even as she got better. Finally she stopped eating, at about ten O’clock the next day.
“That should do for now. Thank you all for your aid. Now, back to business. I have some Durgs to kill, first though, Keeley, would you take me home? I need to get some things, and I assume that you’ll be grounded for a while for being gone like this?”
Roy was home, it being late enough for that, so he shook his head with a grin.
“I don’t think so. I just told her parents that she was working out of here, helping to take care of my ailing mother, who’d just fallen and broken her hip. We got her a real nurse and Keeley off to school, so it was just for the one day. Thank you by the way. Her name is Mary, if they ask. Glad I thought of it, I nearly didn’t, but Eve mentioned that they liked to pretend to be overprotective, so I figured a bit of acting might just be in order.” The man played it down, but clearly wanted to be praised for it.
By Darla. The Demon cheerleader smiled at him and gave him a hug, pink right arm wrapping around him firmly. He was fit enough, so she could reach, even being shorter than he was.
“Very good indeed. Keels likes to keep a low profile at times. I don’t know why, and she won’t tell me. Still, it really does work out this time. Probably best for us all to remember that she’s only sixteen, unless told otherwise.” She didn’t let go for several minutes, then hugged each of the others the same way. They’d all helped after all.
Then they slowly headed for the door and finally the car, not talking of anything much as Keeley drove into the night. It r
eally wasn’t safe. More to the point, realistically, it probably was safe enough, but she didn’t like to take chances. Doing that just got you into trouble, after all.
They didn’t speak as they went into Darla’s bedroom, and the blond Demon just stripped, pulling on a clean pink nightshirt with tweety-bird on the front instead of more normal clothes. Keeley had never seen it before, but got the idea, the other clothes were pretty much destroyed, burned and crusted with bodily fluids, but her sister would want to get clean before putting on anything nicer than this.
A silver key was produced and got handed to Keeley, who focused harder on healing this time, as hard as she could and made it so that she couldn’t feel her hand at all, as reality shifted around them, pushing them sideways into a place no one could see or hear them. Not even another Greater Demon.
“Keels,” Darla spoke quickly, with no more preamble than that. “Danger. Some of the devices I found with Edith were of my own making. That means that someone, or several someones, gave them to her. Most with such things to hand out are Greater Demons. Not all, and I can trace which piece was where given time, but for now we need to be very, very careful.” She grinned, her voice moving faster.
“Finias told me that he tested you, to see if you knew about who he was in regards to us and that you didn’t. Since I know for a fact you do, that means you passed with flying colors. He’s also most impressed with how well you’re pretending to greater age. I have to admit, you can really sell a role. A few times I’ve wondered myself if you were actually much older than I though. Keep that up. We need to go quickly, but I wanted to tell you that you’re doing wonderfully. Go get something to eat and get home, “pretend” to be a normal school girl for a bit while planning parties and having fun. I’ll take care of the rest.”
