Hell, In a Troy (Lopez Time Book 2)

by Phillip S. Power

  Interestingly, dressed up in a dorky but probably adorable, white outfit, Mark Steinberg came out and started patting people. Mainly on the arm. There was no particular attention paid to anyone, so it had the feeling of being slightly planned on the other man’s part. Even Troy would have probably been more involved in patting the ladies than Tobin or Troy, if it were him. It wasn’t about sex. That much was clear.

  No, it seemed to be about team building.

  “Good work tonight. Very good. I know that it couldn’t have been easy the whole time…” The man looked away a bit but didn't comment on why that had been.

  Troy understood it, having listened to a lot of what was happening out on the floor all night. The President and his family had been there but so had their detractors. As well as half a dozen people from different realities that he didn’t know about at all. At least he didn’t recognize the people, specifically. The blue lizard woman in flowing robes was of a people that he’d met a few times but the individual didn’t seem to know him any more than the other way around.

  He grinned anyway.

  “A few of your friends from here did seem a bit down on infected people for some reason. I have to admit, I didn’t get that one, myself. They were mainly focused on tearing down your leader though, so at least he was standing out front, taking that particular hit for the others.”

  The man was older, a little over tanned and had badly dyed hair. He spoke like a poorly educated dock worker as well. He’d also refused to back down, when people tried to make him express hatred of infected people. Troy wasn’t totally aware of what that really was but he knew it had something to do with super powers.

  The chef in charge, or whatever they called the man in white, grimaced.

  “Yeah. Thanks for coming out for this. I was impressed with how smoothly the drinks came out all night, I have to admit. Normally when you just throw people at things, it doesn’t go that smoothly.”

  Troy, who wasn’t going to be their private bar tender for the next five years, kept his mouth shut about that part. It wasn’t that hard to do, if you knew a few basic things, after all. Tobin, looking almost identical to him, grinned.

  “We had a professional running things. Troy held it together for us. I have to admit, I would have been lost without him.” There was a bit of pushiness in the words, as if the guy was letting them all know they better be appreciative of the strange vampire.

  Kerry managed the same thing, without seeming like he was the special-ed kid that needed to be patted on the back.

  “That worked. Next time we need more people working the floor. I think that having one server for every twenty-five or so people? We managed it but it was close to falling apart the whole time. None of us stopped or slowed all night. If anything had happened, someone getting sick, or too tired, we wouldn’t have made it.”

  Interestingly, Mark pulled a pad, and made a note of it. For real. Actually writing it all down. That got the bar tally handed over. Troy had no clue what to do with it, otherwise. The man flipped through the thing, got the times and what was written down and nodded.

  “Good work! We have to pay the hotel for what we used, so this will let us show what that was. Not that they can’t get away with claiming we used it all. That’s one of the bad things about events like this. So, what’s the plan? Are you coming back to the base with us?” The words actually came with a slight leaning in, as if that was a great plan. “You must both be tired. We can get you rooms, if you aren’t too picky?”

  Eve wrinkled her nose, making a point of being cute. She was good at things like that.

  “Nope. I need to get back home. You have the node for us, Troy? I need to chat some people up before we clear out.”

  Needing the practice, he nodded at her.

  “Yep. I should have that ready in twenty minutes or so? It takes me a bit, still.” No one looked at him like he was being lazy or anything.

  Really, he needed to make the whole thing happen faster than that. Thinking about it for a moment, he rolled his eyes. It was, essentially, using magic. Except without the energy component. He was using pure focus and the concept of space bending to do the work. Slowly. Adding a bit of energy could just speed it up, if he did it right. The trick would be in doing it carefully, so he only used energy he was harvesting with each breathing cycle.

  “Or… Sooner than that. Let me try for ten minutes?”

  Eve gave him a funny look but also winked.

  “Do that and Kerry will give you a blowjob. Don’t worry Tobin, we’ll get to watch. Do you have a camera?” It was a crude joke but the other him just winked back.

  “I don’t have one on me. Now, don’t trade my girlfriend away like that? At least without getting her permission first.” There was no heat or anger in the words. He sounded like he was just talking about the weather. Nice and relaxed, actually.

  As if that kind of banter was normal enough in his life that he didn’t feel a need to fight to protect his property. Troy probably would have been a bit tenser about the whole thing, if it were the other way around.

  He gave a small, near bow, to the man in the tux.

  That got him to touch his own front.

  “Oh, right! I need to make sure this stays here. It isn’t mine. One second.” It took longer than that, because he had to move to the back changing room but he folded it carefully and had it back a minute later. Packed away in its hanging bag. Eve took it from him and waved.

  “Ten minutes from… now.” Then she vanished. The others wandered off as well, not waving or saying goodbye.

  It was different, adding the magic to it. At first, he couldn’t get that to work very well at all. Just pushing power at the idea didn’t really work. Not until he altered the sense of how the power was interacting with space. Then, even using bare sips of things, Troy had to stop, dropping the whole thing, because he nearly ripped space and time open. In a few seconds. No more than ten. On the fifth try he did it right though. Eve was back by then and had to stand there, while he worked.

  She seemed to work out the whole thing though.

  “Okay. I’ll blow you then. That’s good work. I’ve seen greater demons that barely managed it that fast. This is neater work than most of them manage, as well. Probably because they don’t really care about being tidy, when they go onto the lines. So, let’s get back? Where are you staying for the night?” She managed to sound concerned, knowing that he didn’t have a place yet.

  Focusing on the space in front of him, since that had to be held if he didn’t want the rift to collapse on him, he took a slow, energy filled, breath.

  “I’m just living out of my car for the time being. I can shower at the station, and pick up blood at Westfield, so really, I’m good that way. I need more clothing. That will probably have to come from Walmart, for the time being. I get tomorrow off, so…” Honestly, he didn’t have plans for the day. There were things for him to work on but other than the cult group and their trapped god, he didn’t really have a lot to do.

  Even at that, he was kind of done, for the time being. He knew who was doing it, and that he couldn’t really stop them. There might be nuance to the whole thing but that was just coloring in the lines. Going over the picnic plans wasn’t even really needed at the moment. There was nothing, in particular, that needed a Troy fix up or hand in.

  “I guess I should visit with Leslie and Nevi. I’m storing them at my place in Vancouver, which means I own them now. I should get you to hook me up with sexual responses, so I can at least use them for something.” He winced, faking it. “That’s a bit rude of me to say, isn’t it?”

  Eve took his arm, pulling enough to get him to step into the void, through the rip in space he was holding open. The void was a blink, then he was gently pulled out into the parking lot of the station.

  “A bit. Then, you’re talking to me. I do manage crude pretty well, most days. I mean, to me, if you’re going to store women at your house, then using them just makes sense. I’d
rather you fuck them than drink their blood.”

  She would, since part of her training had been about not munching the people around him. That had been hammered home for several years.

  Troy shook his head a bit.

  “I… I don’t know. Maybe we should grow up a bit? I mean, that kind of thing… We should try to take into account how other people feel, right? That’s the whole thing with not drinking their blood. So, we don’t have to think about them as food. That way we can let them be real people to us again.” That made sense to him, if nothing else.

  Eve closed one eye but managed a cute nod.

  “Ah, my young Padawan, you have taken the next step. Impressive. So… Yes. I think we can do that. Get your sex drive back for you? I’ve been meaning to do it. You have ten minutes, right?”

  He did. Actually, he had pretty much a full day, plus a bit.

  The very pretty vampire woman took him by the hand but didn't pull him into the building at all. Instead she moved over to his little blue and white beater of a car. Looking at it, she grinned.

  “There was a time when I would have suggested you get something nicer. A muscle car, maybe? Now… It’s odd. I mean, I have hundreds of millions of dollars and still have my old car, too. Sitting in the garage at Ed’s, not even being used most of the time. Things are a lot different than I would have thought, you know that? This whole being a vampire thing…”

  That got him to smile, as he opened the door.

  “It could be worse. I…” He sighed and shook his head slowly, trying to be dramatic about it. “I hate being a cop. I mean, I just loath it. I get up in the morning and… Well, I don’t get up but you know what I mean. I start into work and half my brain wants to just walk in and quit. There’s no real reason for it, even. Everyone treats me well enough here. At least as well as at Yoghurt World or the bar. It isn’t that. You’d think that the other cops would all be d-bags but that isn’t true, either. They’re pretty much just people. Half of them are even nice, more or less. I just can’t manage to click with it.”

  Eve waited for him to reach over and get the passenger side door for her, then climbed in and settled in silence. Only the seat making any nose at all, until the door was pulled shut in the cool nighttime air.

  “I can get that, I think. Part of it is that we, you and I… Probably Bey too, though he never mentioned the idea to me, we live life all the time. There’s no break, really. We don’t die for the day but we can also get things done really fast. The training sort of pushed us all toward wanting that kind of thing as well. So, you probably can’t just be a regular cop now. You don’t do the job, then spend most of your day living your life. It becomes your whole world. Then, there are all those rules.” She grinned, as if she got it or something.

  He tightened his lips in a move that would have made them go white if he’d had blood inside his skin any longer.

  “You don’t know the half… Like this current thing, with the cult that tried to kill us? I know who they are, what they’re doing and how to find them. I could jog over to their compound, kill them all and save a lot of problems but I can’t since I have a duty to follow artificial rules made up by people that didn’t even know mages were a thing when they came up with them. So, right now, we’re all just sitting on our hands, waiting for them to slip up and do something that we can prove as them having done it. The problem there is that, while we know who’s doing what, we can’t take action, because claiming that they’re using magic isn’t admissible in court.”

  She shrugged.

  “That sounds about right. Humans are quick enough to work things out on the individual level but they aren’t great at moving governmental systems around. Our people do a lot better that way. The Council may not be perfect but they would have taken care of this one already. Probably a week ago. Now, close your eyes and don’t think of anything for a bit.”

  She didn’t touch him or anything, though there was a stirring of thought and a hint of magic as she did… Something. It interacted with him but didn’t feel like much of anything. Not to him. Not until she reached out and touched his leg, pulling her fingertips downward, toward his knee.

  That got his attention. In more than one way.

  “Agh! Okay, that works.” His voice was a bit surprised and squeaky sounding. In his pants, he was at full mast already, which wouldn’t have worked if he’d been a human still.

  Vampire men were able to do that on command but it was a magical process, disconnected from anything else. Apparently, Eve had, magically, just made that connection again. Along with that, she’d managed to turn on something that had been gone. His ability to feel sexual pleasure.

  “Nifty then. So…” He looked around then rolled his eyes. He was more than willing to ask Eve to do things with him. That wasn’t going to take place in his car, parked in front of the police station, however. That probably meant he was a prude.

  She seemed to work that all out and shrugged.

  “We could go somewhere… except that I actually need to get to work. Crystal is taking a double shift so that I could be gone. She’s… Great, actually. I’d be jealous of her, if I wasn’t so incredible myself. As it stands, Ed has been talking about having me move out of the store there, as a yogurt girl. I’m not really needed for that now. Which…” She looked away, then grinned. “I’m too young to be an ambassador. Gene from the council won’t let me move up in the ranks, either. I could probably fight him for it but then everyone else would be worried, if I actually won. Working for Bey, well, that’s more of a part time thing, really. Avery doesn’t need me any more either. I’m kind of at loose ends. Think I should become a cop?”

  Troy nodded, not meaning it.

  “It’s rewarding and you get to help people… Actually, you should do something that you like. I mean, you talk about not wanting to be a yogurt girl but face it, that’s one of your true loves in life.” He didn't think that was really true, and she made a silly face at him.

  Then she stopped.

  “It kind of is.” She stopped dead, not moving at all for a bit, then faked a swallow. “God, that is not what I would have figured to be true… It is one of my favorite things though.”

  He didn’t judge her on that. Other than all the sex he was planning to waste his time on, Troy didn’t know what kind of thing he liked at all. Well, videogames but working as a pro in that field wouldn’t be fair to anyone else. Not on the pro-gamer side of things. Making them… Well, that wasn’t too bad of an idea. He didn’t really have the skills but he was immortal and had a lot of money. He could, if he wanted, get them. Troy had done enough in that area to know he kind of liked the idea, at least.

  Smiling, his pants still straining a bit, until he flipped the mental switch to turn that particular effect off, he stared into Eve’s big brown eyes.

  “Why not… A lot of the Yoghurt Worlds need to be updated and gotten up to speed. If you went from place to place, helping with that, I bet no one would mind. It would get the work done, and keeps you in a low enough place in the world that it wouldn’t seem like you were climbing the ladder too fast.”

  She sat back, then, oddly, reached into her back pocket. That she had one, in her tight slacks, was interesting, and not really what should have been there but it was. What came out, when she finished the move, was a small silver phone.

  Numbers were dialed, without speaking at all. There was one single ring, on the other end.

  “This is Marissa.” That was all that was said, and the voice seemed a bit tense, for some reason.

  “Hey, Mar. This is your best buddy, Eve.” The tone was playful but instead of being rebuked for speaking to a world leader that way, the lady on the phone just chuckled a bit.

  “How wonderful to hear from you. Is there an emergency? This is the council’s main line. I was manning it for the evening. Do you need aid with anything?”

  “Not really. I was sitting with Troy Lopez here and we were talking about what I should be doing in l
ife. He suggested that we all start a group relationship. You want in on that?”

  There was teasing in her words but Troy made a considering face. He had a sex drive now, after all. Though, if he were doing that kind of thing, he could just be with Barb. The vampire part of the equation was still there. Also, Marissa was a hermaphrodite, not just a regular woman. Instead of feeling strange about that, he could kind of see it as an option in life.

  There was another laugh then.

  “Tempting! We should speak about it at greater length, soon? I know that I was most impressed with Mr. Lopez, the other day. He managed to solve a tax issue for us.”

  Eve winced.

  “Ouch. That’s never fun.”

  The phone, or at least the voice on it, which was being held in front of Eve, in her lap, made a pleased sound.

  “Ah but you see, Snowflake… The Officer went to check on things, determined where the issue lie and handled it with an economic stimulus deal, instead of heads rolling on the floor. Half of the vampires in the area have volunteered to work with us on several new projects. There haven’t even been any threats needed, which is amazing. I’m planning to have Mr. Lopez in more often, just to see if he can do it again.”

  Troy spoke then, since there was no way the woman on the phone didn’t know he was there. At least that someone was. For instance, he could tell from the way the sound was echoing in the space Marissa was in that at least one other person was there. The older vampire was probably better at things like that than he was, having had more real-world practice that way.

  “I’ll need to brush up on how to read the books and what to look for. I know the basics but only from working at the club.” He felt a bit stupid, and a little embarrassed about admitting his failures but the vampire on the phone didn’t seem to hold that against him.

  “Perfect! You could come here and we could go over that? I’m rather tied to the Council House tonight but you know where that is? Or… No. You’ve been taking our prohibition against line travel to heart of late. Perhaps…”