by P. S. Power
The one next to her didn't talk on the drive.
Not at all. It was eerie and portentous. No one that didn't want to scream at you stayed quiet for that long as a rule. Keeley couldn't think of any reason for the girl to be mad at her though. Knowing her “secret”? Well she was the one that told them all, wasn't she? Kind of rich for her to be blaming anyone else for that. She could have just as easily hit with ergot first. Not that it would have flown in Keeley-land, but she wouldn't have thought demon. Probably witch, if she'd been guessing. Or maybe something she'd just never heard of. So yeah, she better not blame her for just believing what she said. Plus she left all those obvious clues all over the place.
Keeley reflected and realized she didn't feel bad about the demon girl either though. Darla hadn't done anything except be a good host the whole time. Friendly and polite. OK, there was an attack by some strange ghost things, or creatures, but that really didn't seem like it had been planned at all. So she supposed that, if she wasn't going to be sacrificed for some unknown reason, she actually kind of liked the blond.
Which was freaky, her being a cheerleader and all.
They pulled into the driveway of the blond girl's house calmly, moving slowly so that the garage door would have time to open, the white expanse of it folding upward on the twin tracks as the electrical machine did the work for them. As she watched it work, worried about what was going to happen, wondering if the other girl would try to lie to her or hurt her, Darla watched with a sudden focus, all of it on Keeley.
“Um, Keeley?” She said, voice hesitant.
That had to be fake. Why would a demon have any worry at all? Especially about her? Darla continued her voice calm and smooth. Velvety.
“Would you...” She took a deep breath and then rushed into the rest.
“Help me fix my floor? I know we just met, but as your new semi-official-best-friend and vice-versa, it kind of comes with the territory. Plus... It will give me something to do while you grill me over... everything.”
“Help with the floor?” It was unexpected, which was probably the point, a mundane task to set her mind at ease. Maybe to get her to let her guard down? If so, why?
No, that didn't make sense.
If it was a trick she'd just use her powers or whatever. This was something else, like... Maybe she really meant what she said? Didn't demons lie all the time?
She'd have to ask. Though really what would she do if the girl said they did?
“I guess so. Not exactly in my skill set, but I can try. Do you know how to do it? Woodworking or whatever I mean?”
“Oh, sure. It's good to have hobbies, I figured we'd just reset it though, manipulate time to a point before the damage took place? I have a device for it. Kind of cool. Shouldn't take maybe half an hour, less probably. Here, I'll show you.” Darla hopped out of the car once she pulled in and seemed suddenly a lot more energetic, less subdued.
“Come on, it's actually kind of neat, messing with the structure of the universe and all.”
She moved into the house as the garage door closed, waving for Keeley to follow.
“OK, but if it takes a blood sacrifice we're using yours. Just saying...” Keeley held her hands up and shook her head wryly as she spoke.
Darla laughed.
Chapter six
“Grab the carpets and the boards I put down, will you? I'll grab the... well, its proper name is a little complex in English, but time manipulator will work well enough for now. I'll teach you the proper name for it later, if that's alright? I mean if you want to know.” She didn't wait for an answer, charging up the stairs as if wanting to get back before Keeley could bolt.
That wouldn't work of course.
Darla knew where she lived.
On the good side she could walk home in a pinch. Or even if it wasn't a pinch. It was less than three blocks away and an almost straight shot at that. Sighing she pushed a strand of dark hair out from in front of her glasses and got to work. It was easy enough, the three carpets weren't huge, about four by five, and they rolled up easily. The boards were funny looking, made of wood chips pressed together, the pattern alternating, to make it stronger? She flexed one against the floor, her foot in the middle. It seemed to be the case at least. Darla walked in to see her doing it, which made Keeley feel like a moron for a moment.
“Oriented strand board. Kind of a modern marvel. It's a good use of materials too. Pieces that size would have just gone to waste as little as thirty years ago. Not even a demon invention an actual human one. A lot of thing aren't, not originally.” The girl grinned as if proud of the fact.
Her hands were full, a trunk in them a drab olive green, with tarnished metal on the outside and a sturdy looking handle on each side. Very thick metal handles that looked to be hooked to the iron bands that ran all around the thing. It wasn't huge, but looked to be awkward. Setting her board down Keeley moved to help, but Darla just winked at her with a smile.
“I... don't think you could lift even half of it Keels. It weighs about eight hundred pounds. Maybe later? Lift some weights first, that kind of thing?” She set the box down off to the side of the room and gestured to it.
“Give it a try? Might as well test it out for yourself. Besides that way I can get a sense of how strong you are.”
“Hmmm... not right now? I don't think I want to give away how strong I am until I know what the situation is.” Keeley knew that she wasn't strong enough to lift the box, or at least she got the idea when the lid opened to show eight disks about fourteen inches across and eight inches thick each. They were made of metal. It looked like gold, at least on the outside. If so they must have weighed more each than she could pick up, let alone the box.
Darla just started setting them up, using all of them to roughly circle the area.
“Now, I don't know what you've heard about demons, be we do not, normally, use pentagrams for anything in particular. That's all human magic, and eighty percent of that doesn't work at all. So, help me with this? I'll let you run it if you want. It's not hard, just line the directional indicators up, the little spiny bits with the bars on them? Like this...”
It took a minute to understand there were actually two gold bars on the top of each one and they had to line up fairly precisely as if making a rectangle with an imaginary line. There were delicate engraved patterns on each one, though it didn't sparkle or anything when they were put in place. A bit of a letdown. Magic should glow, right? Maybe Darla didn't like Disney movies and hadn't learned that yet.
A shame.
“OK, just do the last one there and it will work, make sure you don't take your hand off until the floor's fixed. It will take energy from you, but you get it back with food, it may make you a little tired though, until you eat again.”
“Oh? Not stealing my soul or damning me to hell or anything, is it? Not that I'm all that religious, but...” But there was a self-professed demon in the room. It was a valid question.
Darla took it seriously.
“No, where to start... Let's do the floor first, so I can put off explaining for a bit? That sounds like a plan to me.”
“Right. OK. Just turn it to point at that one?” She gestured by looking at the next gold round piece over.
It got a big nod.
When she turned the bar to line it up, nothing seemed to happen for a second. Then a wave of exhaustion flowed over Keeley. As if her energy was just draining out. It didn't make anything happen though, no lights or strange sounds, just a sense of really wanting to sleep suddenly, as if her eyes were too heavy to keep open. She nearly let go, but just as she started to, the floor suddenly smoothed and went back to normal. It was like a blink, not some slow morphing. It was just right again. Perfect. Keeley stared for a second.
Well, that's what the device was supposed to do, wasn't it? Incredible, but she really couldn't get all enthused at the moment, as exhausted as she felt.
“That should do it Keels. Good job. Go ahead and let go now, or I'll hav
e to carry you to the kitchen to feed you.”
She did, fast, realizing that this situation was way out of her depth suddenly. No, she realized, it had been for nearly a day, this wasn't sudden at all, she was just now really getting it. Darla was a demon. A real one. And she'd been watching her for days, maybe longer. Why? Human sacrifice?
The cheerleader certainly didn't need her for fashion tips.
Or apparently heavy lifting.
Keeley stood up all the way, and the blood rushed from her head, making the world go a little dark. Not too bad, but enough she noticed it. The other girl watched her and then smiling, started to put the large gold rounds back in their slots inside the box.
“We need to get you some food, but I learned a long time ago not to leave things like this just sitting out. You never know who's going to be coming around after all and most people seeing it won't think “Hey, cool, time manipulator” they'll just see all the gold. As if it wasn't worth a million times more than the metal it's made of. There are only five of them in existence and only one demon anywhere can make them.”
A time manipulator would be priceless, wouldn't it? Keeley could see that. A lot of governments would probably pay billions of dollars for one of these. Especially if it did more than just floors. Fixing a broken super computer or missile for instance. Yeah, that would be worth it to some people. That or other things.
“Wait, if we had a body on the floor and they died a day before would this...”
“Fix them? Make it so they functionally hadn't died? Yes. It's a poor idea, unless you're getting paid for it and few have anything worth trading something like that for, but it works. Hard to keep a low profile if you go around doing that though.”
“Ah, you mean hiding from humans?” Keeley knew it was part of all the stories, but that had never made sense to her, if you were all that strong, why hide? Especially from people you could easily just dominate.
It earned a funny face from the demon.
“No, not at all. If I walked up to a group of people and told them all about myself, demon heritage and all, what do you think they'd say? Or if a vampire did the same thing?”
Keeley shrugged, that was just obvious. “That you're a nut job and that Vlad needed to check into an institution, most likely. That or maybe that the role-playing had gone just a little too far or that your drugs were better than the ones they'd taken. It would probably depend on how cute you were.”
Darla nodded as she finished getting the second to last of the rounds into the case.
“Exactly. Like the vampire that ran for Governor of Main a few years ago. He ran as what he is openly and everyone just thought he was a loon. Richard Swerlin. Not a bad guy for a vamp. Maybe I'll introduce you if he comes into town? Or we could go to some of the others' parties when you're ready? There's almost always something going on. That could be fun.” She spoke as the last piece went away, the green painted top being closed and latched firmly.
“One sec. Hey, meet me in the kitchen? I'll be right back, just want to get this put away.”
She ran out of the room with the box.
Ran.
Her feet barely even made a sound as she did it too. Keeley decided not to get in an arm wrestling match with the girl. Or a fist fight. She must be really good at those cheerleading lifts though. That and her looks would be enough to get on the team most likely. Especially at a fairly small school like Raintree.
The kitchen was clean still and smelled slightly of bleach and floor cleaner, but not too much. Just enough so that Hally and Eve felt that the mold couldn't have possibly survived. That it hadn't been there to start with assured that at least. Keeley leaned against the counter for a second, suddenly weak and a little shaky. Low blood sugar? It felt right, but then maybe this was what having your soul sucked out felt like? Not that she had any reason to think that Darla had lied to her, except, of course... demon.
As a group they didn't exactly have the best reputation in that regard, did they?
The blond bounced back into the room about a minute and a half later, smiling as she did and holding up her right hand.
“Wait, emergency rations... Here.” She went to the freezer and got out a container of ice cream, a new one, from a specialty shop it seemed. The label was bland looking, a plain brown container, and on the top it said peanut butter ripple in large dark brown letters that looked hand stamped. There were no other markings on it at all.
Right now, Keeley decided as she was handed a silver spoon, she'd have eaten it if it said it was squid flavored. Hunger tried to tear out her middle. Actually cramping from it. That was something she'd never really experienced before. She'd gone without food a few times in her life, mainly trying to lose weight, but this felt like she hadn't eaten in days. When she remarked on it, between bites, Darla grinned.
“Well, you powered a fifteen hour or greater time reversal. You didn't think that would be free did you? In energy it would be about like you having run that entire time at top speed... figure that you lost four pounds of fat from it and you won't be too far off.” She shrugged.
“Eat. I'll talk like I said I would. What do you want to know first?”
Keeley stopped, pointedly not eating. What did she want to know first? There was so much, a thousand questions crowded her mind and didn't leave her room to organize everything properly. The central one was clear enough though. The one thing that actually pulled all the oddities together.
“Demons?” She said simply, then found herself sticking the spoon in her mouth taking a large bite from the half gallon container of frozen goodness.
The blond shrugged.
“Right, well, to the table so we can sit while I go over it.” She gestured, a far more fluid thing than Keeley had seen from a human form before. Eerily smooth, it made her eyes itch to see it. Her mind tickled and ached just a little from it.
She followed to the other room though, sitting and waiting for the girl to talk, eating automatically, hunger forcing her to split her attention.
“So, demons...” Darla sat across from her. “Well, we aren't what you think we are. We aren't fallen angles, that's just propaganda from the cult of the shared imaginary friend. Christianity. I swear those people have done more to screw with us than any other group. They won't even apologize for it. It's always “get behind me demon” as if that's not hugely insulting?” She sighed.
“We're an active sub-species of humanity. Related obviously. Very long lived. Our nature allows us to see part of the template of reality, which allows us to do things that humans don't. We get some other perks too. Shape changing, once you learn the skill, very long lives, though we can be killed if enough force is brought to bear. So getting cocky is a really bad idea. Things like that.”
Keeley had embarrassingly gotten through about a quarter of the container of ice cream already. She tried to slow down, but Darla caught the move.
“Eat... So, the name, demon... Originally it came from Greek, daemon, and just meant “wise one”. Early on a few of us pointed out the dangers of the Christian cult so they vilified us, there's a bit more to the story and not all of it good, but later for that? You'd think that people would have caught on to the fact that they were basically saying not to trust the intelligent thinkers, but there you have it. People are, in general, easily led to any conclusion you want. That's why religion works. Politics too.”
This, it seemed, was the explanation. Keeley took a delicate bite, which still took an act of will, because it was hard not to just ram it in her mouth as fast as she could, and decided on what to ask next.
“Um, alright, so long lived wise ones. Propaganda from the church... So all that business about deals for souls?”
“Fake.” Darla tilted her head then and wiggled her right hand in the air, a gesture to show there was room for debate.
“Kind of. We don't deal for souls and even the definition of that, the soul, is spotty at best. I personally think that it's the background pattern impression any
organized field makes on reality, but that's just me. Other people have different ideas. We do make deals though. Binding ones that can't be broken once set. If you're going to live for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years, it makes sense to be comfortable while doing it. It's kind of the family business after a fashion.”
She stood, Keeley thought to pace, but instead she walked to the kitchen through the swinging saloon style wooden doors, a blond color that matched the dining room, not the kitchen, and kept talking as she made rustling noises in the other room.
“So, we make deals with people. We help them reach a goal, say to be rich, or loved, happy or what have you and in return they provide services for us. Now, granted, depending on who you deal with those services may not always be pleasant. I recommend you avoid anything like that for a while. If a demon offers you anything like a deal, just say no.”
