by P. S. Power
The old woman swallowed loudly enough that Keeley could hear it.
"I'm sure that I'm just being a fussy old lady. I'll just wait a bit."
The problem there was that Keeley could hear the sound of a window being broken in the background. Either that meant that Gladys was daydreaming the whole thing very hard, or there really was someone trying to get in.
"Gladys, I'll be there in a moment, I'm almost there. I'll get the police. Right now I want you to go into your bathroom and lock the door. Hide in the bathtub. Don't come out until I tell you to." Or the police did, but that went without saying.
Sherry looked at her and frowned, but didn't ask why she was running out the door. Going by car would take too long, so she stopped and headed out on the Inroads. It would take care to get to the right place, but she could manage it. In fact she stepped right out onto the woman's doorstep. The back one. Just in time to see a pair of male legs go through a window to the side. They were in black jeans, and the sneakers on the feet looked decently new and sporty. Not the kind of thing a desperate addict would be wearing.
"Right." She broke the lock on the back door with a simple twist, not even having to bother increasing her strength. There were three of them inside. All men, and none of them past their mid-twenties. The house was well cared for and clean, but not the kind of place that looked like a very wealthy person lived there. Gladys had enough, but she wasn't secretly an heiress or anything, so the people breaking in probably weren't looking for loot at all.
That didn't leave a lot for them to be after.
She didn't bother hiding her presence, just walking to the living room where one of the men stood, a black mask on his face, his posture looking completely shocked when he saw her.
"The fuck!" It had a nice, scared tone to it, so she nodded and kept walking even as he started to point the gun in his hand at her. That just got slapped aside. The contact with his hand showed her what the plan was at least.
An all day rape party, with little old Gladys as the favor. Culminating in death and a burned house. No one would check for anything, since she was old, and people like her forgot to turn off the oven or stove all the time, didn't they?
It was a decent plan really, except for the part where she showed up and took exception to it. Who knew, Gladys had cool friends.
Keeley didn't let herself feel anger at all and simply stepped in and placed her leg behind the larger man's. He smelled like cigarettes and coffee. The weapon hadn't fallen from his fingers, so she took it as he made a distressed sound, prying it from his gloved hand and then used the butt of it to hit him in the head several times. It made a mess, but he was still alive.
Then the other two, hearing the noise, ran in, thinking that the party was starting without them. It was, just not in the way they expected. They had guns too, so that was the first order of things. She didn't even have to use much greater than normal speed, since they were so shocked to see her. Instead she simply walked over to the first one and hit him in the temple with the gun in her own hand, then kicked the body into the third man. It took a little more of a beating than that to get the last weapon, but it worked.
Then, without waiting, she called the police. After a fashion. Actually, she called the Chief directly.
"Miss Thomson? What can I do for you today?" The words were polite and a little servile, but then, the man knew that she was a Greater Demon and a bit about what that meant, so it wasn't totally unexpected. Plus, she regularly brought him and his men treats. It was time to cash a bit of that goodwill in, she decided.
"Three men, mid-twenties, broke into Gladys Miller's house. They have guns. Had. I have them now. They were looking to rape and murder her. Burn the place down to cover their tracks. They're all alive still. Do you want the arrest? I have a feeling that they'll all give written confessions." Which would mean she needed a few minutes to work before the cops got there, but it was that or kill them. They weren't getting away with this.
"We're on our way! I'll have a car there directly. Perhaps best not to be holding a gun when they get there. Are you in any danger?"
She wasn't, but it was nice of him to think to ask.
"Not at all. Gladys is safe too. Hiding in the bathroom."
"Good. I'm coming."
The work she needed to do would take at least a minute apiece and require her to do something she'd never tried before. It was basically a way of linking someone's mind to her own and then thinking for them. Technically it required either eye contact or touching a person, but she got through the first two before anyone showed up. That last man, who was white, and looked like a college student with his short hair and too nice clothing, started calling for a lawyer before the uniformed men were even inside the door, weapons out and pointed at the floor.
That wouldn't do at all.
One of the cops was slightly older and had a salt and pepper mustache. A guy that worked the front desk part of the time. He'd taken his family to the Cortechs' Halloween party, and liked snicker doodles. She'd made him some a few times since then, so he recognized her instantly. The other man was younger and cute, in a slightly blocky way. He looked a bit scared though, which was probably warranted, given everything. The men had guns after all.
"I demand a lawyer! This is a frame job! You don't have a warrant to be here." It was just a string of likely sounding things to say, if you watched enough television, coming from the last man, even as the police pointed their weapons and started demanding the men all lay down and roll onto their stomachs.
Once the cuffs were on, the last of the creepy would be rapists started screaming a bit.
"It's her, that girl! She used some kind of hypnosis on Tim and Aaron. She told them to confess." It sounded pretty close to what happened even. Keeley was sort of impressed that he was aware enough to realize all that. Most people would have missed it.
The officers didn't seem to be buying it though. Not at all.
"Shut up, now, what's the situation here?" The words had the two men that were lying on the soft blue rug explaining it all, in great depth. They even included the part about why they were doing it, which had to do with the last man, who hated Gladys personally. After all, she was his Grandmother. That was a thing that Keeley had missed, not making actual contact with the man. The others had the information in their heads though, so it was all right there once she checked.
His life hadn't been that great, and instead of thanking her for all the help she'd given him before, he decided to hate her for not taking him in now. Given that his go to response was to set her up to be raped and murdered, that seemed like a pretty good plan on her part, to Keeley. The man kept proclaiming his innocence too, even as Roy walked in with about six other men.
He made a face after getting a repeat of the report, very quickly.
"We need to get Mrs. Miller out here. I can't believe this. Good thing you were nearby Keeley. It's handy having a civic minded martial arts expert in the neighborhood." It was a good enough story for the rest of the police at least.
"Well, you know the drill. Kung-fu, Krav-maga, Batman. Try to keep my name out of the papers. Luckily you were all able to get here on time." That seemed to almost settle things then, except the man on the floor loudly proclaiming his innocence, and her mind powers.
Finally she moved to the man, the police officers around her seemed about ready to apply a bit of force to make him a little more tractable.
"Tell you what," She leaned down to whisper to him, but knew that everyone would hear her anyway. She hated to do it, but the guy wasn't going to get away with it. These others deserved prison, but he was the worst of them by far. "You can keep talking, but you have to tell the truth, deal?"
She locked it into place and felt slimy for doing it. Balthias was a Lesser Demon, and Elis was a mind controlling rapist, but neither of them could hold a candle to some of the things that this man had done. She picked it all up instantly, just like she would have if she'd touched him.
; He was in the middle of confessing when Gladys came out, still wearing her night robe.
"Then I was going to have them take turns, do her in the ass, bust her remaining teeth out with a broom handle so she couldn't bite, you know, all that kind of thing. Show her for thinking she was too good for me!" He went on in that vein, even as she clutched at the front of her clothing and started to weep.
"Bryce? Why would you... I don't understand? Who are these men? What are you doing here?" It took a while for it to all come out, but the other men were just freaks that he'd found, digging around on the Dark Net. The plan had been in the works for a while now, but he especially liked the idea of doing it right before Christmas. He knew how important the holiday was to his Grandmother, and being evil, he wanted to use that to hurt her even more than just killing her would.
He was a psychopath, but worse than that, he was pretty much a serial killer in the making.
After they took him away, Gladys called for some of her other friends from church, who came right over, there were six of them, so Keeley felt secure in leaving her for a while.
"You have my number though, so if you need anything, or feel scared, call. Day or night." She had to walk home, not having her car with her, but didn't mind overly. It was only a few miles. When she got in Sherry was loading the van, Bertha, which had the refrigeration unit in the back turned off. There were, as promised, a new box of candles inside, a bit of red showing at the top. It seemed like it should be the right color.
"Zack got here alright then?"
Sherry smiled and stood up after dropping a large box into place, stacked on two others that seemed to be the same.
"He did! He only charged me wholesale plus twenty percent too. I tried to tip him, but he wouldn't take it. I didn't insult him did I?" She made a bit of a face, but Keeley shook her head and picked up a box that was marginally heavy, loading it easily.
"I doubt it. He's just a good person that way. Plus, after a fashion he's rich. I mean, not like us, but he's worth a few million now at least. Passing him a twenty probably isn't worth as much to him as you liking him."
Sherry grinned.
"Then that ten probably wasn't even half way there, was it? Well, we should get him a present then. What do you think he needs?"
It was a good question. There was a real answer to it too, but it wasn't the kind of thing that you gave someone for Christmas. He needed answers. So did she, come to think of it. To start with, she needed to know who'd set Fram on her for certain.
Sure, it was probably Xenses, but just having the names of the Demons helping him would mean a lot to her. Even if she couldn't do anything about it at the moment.
"He needs new furniture. He's been thinking about getting a new sofa, since someone sort of died on the one he has now. Other than that, I can't think of much. Friends? He has some already, but you can never have too many of those. So that or socks."
Sherry climbed into the front of the professional van, which said "Sherry's Flowers and Designs" on the side of the dark blue paint in white letters. There was also a very cute red rose to the right hand side of it, in case someone needed the extra clue.
"Alright. Well, he's your friend, so I'll let you work on that. Do you think you'll be dating regularly?"
It was an awkward sort of thing to ask, but Keeley honestly didn't know.
"Probably, at least casually. He has a girlfriend already, but he's a good business contact. We should invite him for dinner soon, or something, if nothing else. I'll try to find a gift for him that won't be too tacky or out of place." It wasn't like he had everything, so it wouldn't be that hard.
"Wonderful. Just let me know when and I'll make sure to set aside the day to clean. I need to go get Eve now. Will you be here later in the day?"
"Yeah. I'm going shopping with Hally at noon, but that won't take too long. A few hours. Then I actually have the rest of the day all to myself." If that lasted. Which, of course, it wouldn't.
Especially not since Barb's old car pulled up just then, parking legally on the street so that Sherry could get the van out. The girl ran over, her face a bit too bright and cheery to be believable really. Perky and happy.
"Keels! I'm so glad I caught you. We can spend the whole day together, isn't that great?" Worse, from what she was picking up from his thoughts, Fram was actually fairly happy about the idea, since it would let him get his new act down.
"Yeah, that's perfect. Hally will love to see you."
The words were dry and meant to be, but Fram acted like he didn't hear that part of it at all.
Chapter five
On the good side Keeley drove her own car, which was a wonderfully beat up looking plum and primer gray thing that had very uncertain parentage. That wasn't a mistake, since it used to belong to a man that was a rather successful smuggler, who used it to carry prescription drugs across the Canadian border, so that people in the U.S. could get treatments that the government didn't allow them to have. It sounded fairly noble, when she thought of it that way, but it wasn't the case. The man in question had been more than a little sketchy, gouging people that were dying of cancer and other diseases, just for a few extra dollars.
So in short, her kind of person.
Thanks to a brush with some law enforcement agency or another, the guy had to leave the country a little faster than was easily taken care of, so he'd sold the car to a friend of his for about five thousand in untraceable hard currency. That man had, in turn, sold it to Keeley for about double that. Externally it would seem like she'd been ripped off badly. Until you listened to the engine, realized that it had very high end tires and several very well hidden compartments for hiding things. It was also much faster than she probably needed to commute the slightly less than half mile to school each day.
As a status symbol, it was clearly lacking though. Perfect for her then. Her mother ran a start up floral business. True, it was doing decently well, thanks to the fact that Clara's Catering kept recommending her for special projects, but that only meant that Sherry had enough money to pay Eve slightly more than minimum wage and make sure they had food. Or at least it would if Keeley were a normal girl who starved herself to look like she did. They had plenty of cash to work with, since being a Greater Demon kind of made that simple to do, but the basic idea had been to blend in, and not seem like they'd suddenly won the lotto.
Thanks to the recent party chatter, that probably wasn't as needed now though.
Fram rode in silence most of the way, smiling happily the whole time, looking out the window, as if this were a grand adventure, instead of a potentially unwholesome captivity that might end in horrendous torture. When they pulled into the driveway Keeley turned to him and held up a single finger.
"Stay here. Hally wasn't a big fan of Barb, even before the whole thing where she killed my dad and was going to do some pretty rotten things to me too. I'll warn her first, so she doesn't try to dig your eyes out."
"Thank you. I was wondering, would it be possible for me to check on my slaves and assets later? I should be able to simply call. I understand that you can't trust me, even if I really can't fight this. Hopefully you mean to really set me free at some point. In the mean time, this really isn't that bad." He glanced at the house, the front door of which opened quickly with four people coming out without pause. Steve got to the car first, his slightly plump face less so than it used to be, since he'd taken to eating better lately. He had the same color hair that his sister did, and their mother, Ginger.
It was a fake name, but it worked well enough for now.
The parents held back a tiny bit, but Hally bopped over to the car smiling, not even waiting to see who was in the passenger's seat before climbing into the back.
Keeley suppressed a groan, but didn't wait to explain.
"Hi everyone. This isn't Barb. It's a lookalike I hired to play the role. His name is Fram. Treat him like you would have Barb, and it should be alright."
Steve heard her and turned to the g
irl in the front seat, standing near her door, which had the window half rolled down, so that the Greater Demon could catch the breeze.
"Hi. So... do you want to come in? I have a new song I've been practicing. We can go to my room..." This was spoken directly to Fram, who smiled wonderfully at the thirteen year old boy and leaned toward him just enough to be provocative.
Keeley had mentioned to him that she might not be the girl for him, and that someone closer to his own age would be better, but honestly, he was nearly fourteen and two years wasn't that huge of a jump, was it? Except that Fram was over two thousand, but how would Steve know that?
The other Greater Demon nodded.
"We can do that. Would you like to, I don't know, do something a bit more adult than that?" It was too blunt and made the boy look at his parents, but they just covered their smiles and looked away. It was kind of funny, watching him squirm. Not very nice though.
"Um, hey, Steve, you did pick up on the fact that I introduced him as a him, didn't you?"
That got everyone to chuckle a bit, even the kid. Hally joined in, but was leaning over the seat, staring at the new Barb's profile.
"This is amazing. You look just like her, Mr. Fram. I'm Hally, by the way. We should be friends. I should have been with Barb, but it was too hard. She was all evil inside, I think." There was a cuteness to the words that would hold the thin and rather delicate looking redhead well into her twenties. If she didn't change before then though, the act would become a mockery of itself. Then annoying to most people. It was a bit too young and helpless seeming, which fit the way Keeley viewed her. Also innocent, if in a very worldly fashion. It made for a nice contrast.
The Yorks waved as they pulled out of the driveway, with Hally sitting back now, since her seatbelt didn't allow for a lot of adventurous lounging.
She spoke to the new Barb though, her voice slightly strange sounding.
