Other Places 1: Shortcuts

by P. S. Power

  "Fine then, if you've truly changed. Far be it from me to stop you." He looked at Zack and shook his head slightly. "Not that I can see it happening. But we do strange things for family sometimes. I need a press form? Seven 'B' I think. Intent to cause a major working? My neighbor is being a pain, figured I'd help him move along. Maybe get a new job that pays better? Nothing dark, mind. I want him gone, not hurt or anything."

  That was harder to do than it sounded, since all the forms were in Lisa's office, which was unexplored territory. Finally he had to call Bob, which meant hobbling back to the room himself, since he wasn't ready to trust Hiram that much yet. When he spoke into the phone the man on the other end sounded bemused, more than anything else. The first words out of his mouth were, "you honestly have Hiram Stone working for you? How did you manage that?"

  The explanation was one that got full attention for a minute, the man on the phone clearly thinking that Hiram was planning to rob them. Zack didn't think so, but he didn't have proof of that. It could just be that the guy hadn't had enough time to formulate a plan yet. If so it was stupid, which he explained shortly after locating the correct form and handing it over to the man that had come in.

  "After all, this is a chance for a new life. You can move up the organization. I don't know how they all do it, but very few of the people at the top seem poor. I can't pay you personally, but this could be the toe hold you need to con your way to riches and power, if that's the kind of thing you want. Plus it puts you in a place where you can actually help your niece. Or you could get a few thousand from the safe and make more enemies than it would ever be worth. That isn't a threat by the way, just me pointing out the obvious."

  "No shit, you think I didn't get that part? What am I a moron?" The man waited as if expecting him to say he was, but other than being greedy he didn't seem too bad that way. A bit impulsive maybe, but he had some skills. Mainly in theft, but those had to translate to other things too, didn't they? Hiram actually did alright with people, as long as they didn't know who he was. So there was that, and he really didn't seem afraid to do what was needed. Or, if needed, stabbing some people if they didn't do what Zack said. There was just a hint of hostility there at times, that lasted until his niece, Jennifer, got there.

  Then he smiled happily.

  "Jelly! See, I told you that I had this place hooked up." He smiled at her and gave the familiar looking girl with brown hair and glasses a hug. She was slightly round faced, but Zack knew he'd seen her before. Talked to her even. She'd been in before and gotten some candles with a friend. Just before that strange visit he'd had. It reminded him that he needed to chat with someone from the Vampire group across the way about the man that had the sign from the movie outside his home.

  The girl swallowed nervously, patting her Uncle on the back kindly, then turning to Zack.

  "Um, is this really alright? I know that sometimes Uncle Hiram can... misunderstand the rules. I don't want to get him in trouble or anything." It was about then that Zack decided he liked her. Her first thought was protecting someone else. True it was from him, but there was an honesty about her that seemed kind of sweet.

  "Yep, real. Unpaid internship, but if you make it work for you it's a great place to build contacts. Right now I need you to go over to the place across the way and chat with the lady there. Lenore Hawthorn. She's the Vampire Ambassador. Real nice woman and first contact for you to start working on. I just need you to ask if she could pass on a message to the proctor for this area, to make sure that no Vampires are targeting a specific address. Normally I wouldn't send someone on something like this in their first three minutes, but I know for a fact that she can hear me, so it won't exactly take her by surprise. Try to impress her, since she might want to hire you part time, to work mornings. I work over there too, but I doubt I'm going to be much use to her for a bit." He glanced down at his arm, the one in the sling and then back at the girl in front of him. She seemed to get it.

  Nervous or not the girl didn't hesitate, moving over to the other store gamely, coming back with three different types of treats on a tray.

  "I got the job! I didn't even have to ask, so how great is that? Also, free stuff. Mine is this one. Um, do you need me to feed this too you?" She glanced at his broken and splinted arm, not asking what had happened.

  He nearly said no, but it turned out he did need some help. Zack could hold the cup or work the spoon left-handed, but not both at once yet. That was going to take some healing time he didn't doubt.

  Jelly got the honor of holding the cup, since it made him feel a little less helpless than the other way around. It was a peanut butter dish, which was why he had it, since Jenifer informed him she was pretty allergic to peanuts.

  "Not on contact, like some people, thankfully, but if I eat it, I'd need to dose myself with Benadryl pretty quick. I carry some with me all the time. So, you know, if you ever see me gasping and digging in my bag, with a guilty looking jar of Jiffy nearby, you'll know what to do."

  The girl was a little chatty, but friendly about it, and even Mirror Him didn't suggest they do it in the back room. That was more about him not being able to than her youth, Zack figured. No doubt he'd get all the intern jokes he could ever want soon enough. The girl was cute enough, in a slightly round way. Adorable, rather than hot, but as long as she was too young and working for him, she was relatively safe, Zack decided, trying to act like a responsible adult.

  She even answered the phone without being asked, setting the frozen treat cup down and then freezing as he whispered the words to her.

  "Um, Candles and More. How may I help you today?" After a few seconds her eyes went wide and she covered the mouthpiece. "Maddy Morse! Oh my God... She's..." After a second she swallowed and spoke, sounding only a little excited. "He's right here, one moment, ma'am."

  The phone got held to his ear, which was strangely awkward, but he spoke with only a little slurring from the concussion.

  "Hi Maddy. What's up? Is everything alright?"

  "Zack... Not exactly. We have an opportunity to score some major points with the Therites, and Eric Weise kind of overstepped and promised that you'd go to their land to pick up their princess for her father. Today. He didn't seem to think he needed to ask first however, since you're one of us. I spoke with him about it, but... well, we'll look bad if we don't do it. Is it possible?"

  "How bad will we look?" OK, so he felt a little grumpy about the whole thing, hurting and lacking sleep, but he could probably do it, if Barb was around to help. So far it was too light out, but he wasn't due to pick anyone up for hours. The big problem was trying to find out where, and exactly who, he was supposed to find. It took a lot more work than he thought it would.

  On the good side that meant he had some time to find his assistant. She was on the early shift at the bar, but Edom volunteered to take her place transporting people, as soon as he got in, figuring that he could work out the timing with a little practice. That meant all he had to do was get the right place.

  It turned out that the Therite princess didn't travel alone, and while she was a charming enough young lady, her guards were less than thrilled about either him or Edom being all that close to her. The girl looked like a regular human to him, but she didn't speak at first, just sending out waves of peace and love. It really helped him like the little girl, a lot. She must have been five or so.

  "Don't worry, these are good people. Father wouldn't send them if they weren't." It spoke of a level of trust that was uncommon. Especially given how paranoid the others around her were. It took eleven full trips to get them into place, with another six for luggage. On the good side Edom managed the whole thing perfectly, leaping at exactly the right point to not put any stress on him each time he hobbled painfully through the node.

  Maddy didn't say anything to begin with, just standing with the others in the back room at the Denver node, just staring at him until Eric led the princess out with her people, from the rather nice room they were in, a place
that had actual art on the walls, and a carpeted floor, done in a gold color. She hung back for a second and started to touch him, then didn't, realizing that almost everything had to hurt, looking like he did.

  "What happened?"

  Edom did the speaking, which made him sound way more heroic than he really was.

  "A Master Vampire attacked him and his assistant. Zack went toe to toe with him for nearly two minutes. Unarmed. Gave Barbara time to get help and some weapons. They held him off until our site manager came. Westfield is one of the very few places with a Djin Ambassador. We're hunting the attacker down now. The Bey is doing it himself. From the sound of it, Lazar wasn't after anyone in particular, just looking to strike back. We've stolen his army from him over the last few days, instead of killing them all. New policy, trying to save them if we can. It was easier the old way." Then instead of stopping, he smiled grimly and stared at the woman a bit, in a way that wasn't exactly polite. "A broken arm, a concussion and several cracked ribs. His breathing is labored, and he hasn't slept in over a day and won't get to for a good while more. Yet he came to help you save face. Next time, I suggest you call first. Not that it's my place to say that, just being his assistant for the day."

  "Except that you're correct. I'll make certain of it. Eric didn't mean any harm, I think he's just avoiding his daughter. He's an intelligent man about most things, but he's also a moronic homophobe. I won't deny the girl has had some minor troubles of late, but he certainly isn't making that easier for her. I don't know what to do about her drug use... I suppose it isn't your problem. I'll come and deal with that when I can."

  At least Zack had good news to share there.

  "She's working on that already. Getting clean right now, using Samsara root? It's supposed to be the hard but fast way to get it done. Then we're sending her to a retreat. Could you set that part up? I'm going to need someone from the head office to help me out for a bit. Bob... Millhouse, his wife Evelyn is sick, with pancreatic cancer. Master Wu-Li thinks he has a treatment, except it has a lot of rare ingredients. We'll need to go to a lot of far off places I guess, to find them. Anyway, I have an intern and hired a guy to help. Ex-criminal. Hiram Stone? The intern is his niece. So far she's doing a good job. So is he actually. It's just, she's young and he's-"

  "Notorious?" There was a serious tone to her voice.

  "Sure, I can work with that. Still, he seems halfway serious about turning things around. It won't help to make it harder for him. So, can we get someone in place? Soon? That and maybe pay them something?" He had to sleep first, but after that he'd have to go, hurt or not. From what it sounded like, Evelyn didn't have a long time to wait.

  Certainly not for him to be lazing around healing or anything like that.

  "I'll... see what I can arrange. We can certainly pay them however. Just log the hours and let us know what rate you set for them." There was a strange tone to her voice and her eyes were a little moist, but she didn't seem upset overly.

  He and Edom were back inside five minutes, to find that the store was busily being cleaned. Jenifer was working on the front glass, using liberal amounts of paper towel and blue cleaner, and Hiram was replacing the wards around the store, laying them so finely Zack had to stare hard to locate them. It was better work than what Lisa had done, by far, and she hadn't been slacking as far as he could tell. Whatever else he was, Hiram Stone was also a decent Mage it seemed. At least in certain areas. That wasn't a guess either, since he flat out told them that he was even better at taking other peoples wards down. Since that was kind of counter to what a ward was, it probably meant he was actually near the top in that particular field. Of course only criminals really needed things like that...

  "I added a bit to it. It will flare and make noise if anyone tries to steal from the shop, or do violence here. I, um, also added a shield. It won't stop a full attack or anything, but if someone throws a drink at the window again it will bounce off." That part made him seem embarrassed.

  It turned out that someone, a shifter, had noticed Hiram and didn't like the idea of him being anywhere but in a hole in the ground. That was why so much paper towel was being used.

  "I'll give you two thousand for similar work on my club. Can you filter for supernatural violence specifically? It's a club, so we have the occasional fight amongst drunk people, but we have that kind of thing well in hand. It's a normal part of the business after all." Edom looked interested and Hiram seemed to like the idea, though he looked at Zack first, before accepting the deal.

  "Is that... allowable? I don't know if I'm allowed to set up things like that from here. Being that I'm apparently a legit government official now."

  Zack shrugged, "sure. Just make sure you note what you do, within the bounds of client confidentiality I mean, so I don't know, this would be security work? That kind of thing? Who and roughly what. Mainly so that we can keep an eye on you for a while. It's better to log it all and get called on it, than get caught not reporting things. Anything not illegal is fair game though. It's how Mages earn most of their money." That was his guess at any rate.

  He left the two men to discuss what was possible and by the time Zack got out of earshot Hiram was already suggesting that he could improve the system a bit over what the shop had, if he was being paid for it. A night club could use some other things too, he whispered. Zack didn't think he wanted to know what those were.

  Jelly was busily working away at the front window, almost as if trying to do it before he noticed what was up. When he came out she blushed a brilliant red and stammered a bit.

  "I guess we're both fired?"

  "For what? Someone threw a drink. If that's the worst thing we ever have to deal with here, then... yay? Just try to get all the stickiness out if you can. Otherwise it will collect dirt and make it look like we don't care. Then all the other embassies will make fun of us."

  The girl smiled, looking a little troubled and then got back to work. She even finished in time to run in and take care of some actual customers that came in, who were Mages, but who had actually just come in figuring they might get deals on candles for the holidays. They were right, and got twenty-five percent off just for shopping with them, and another ten for being guild members.

  They left, happy enough it seemed.

  That even left a bit of profit for the store, since it was still over the wholesale cost. They both stayed until closing time and then, surprisingly, Hiram insisted on walking him to the rift in the parking lot. Edom came too, looking at the somewhat seedy man that was clutching a clear crystal wrapped with silver wire as if it were a weapon. Nothing happened, thankfully, since Zack really had to doubt his ability to survive anything more than a hug at the moment, and that would actually hurt a lot more than not. He hadn't mentioned coming in the next day to the man, or Jenifer, but technically they could get the guild discount for employees on their dues already. It had been nice having the help though, and he really doubted the next day was going to be a lot easier for him in any way.

  He decided to risk going to sleep as soon as he got in, after eating some chicken flavored crackers from a box, along with some juice. It wasn't an advanced meal, but it was better than nothing and didn't require him to cook at all. That would require moving, which wasn't going to be fun for a while, so it was a good compromise. Instead of actually sleeping like a normal person, even being as tired as he was, he just kind of dozed, propped up with some pillows on the sofa. It was pretty clean after all, with all the visible blood gone, so that part wasn't a problem. The pain and aching was, but that just had to be dealt with. Nothing but time or drugs would fix it, and honestly, after seeing what Lisa had gone through, that later one was plain out. He could go for a few days without good rest, but he doubted that he'd survive an addiction.

  It meant that he was still sort of up when Troy got in, the rattle of the key in the door being a good sign he figured. After all, if it was Lazar, the door would have just blown open and he'd be dead. His roommate was alone and
just flipped the light on, since normal people would be sleeping in their beds, not sitting in the dark of the living room.

  Speaking first Zack found that his voice was croaking a little, "hey."

  "Argh!" There was actually jumping then, a hard look at his face and then another soft exclamation. "Shit! What the hell happened to you?"

  Waving slightly with his left hand Zack tired not to make a huge deal of it.

  "Got in a fight with a Vampire. The other day, it's why I didn't come home last night... I would have thought Barb or Edom would have told you. Barb too, same time."

  "No... no one told me anything. I mean, I got that she was a little the worst for wear, but when I asked she just said that there was a little difficulty at the mall. Did she do this to you?"

  He couldn't laugh yet, which he learned after the first bit tried to come out, shaking his head wasn't in the picture really either. "Not at all. She and Cormack saved my life. It was Lazar. I think, at least, he didn't introduce himself. The guy that runs the mall came and actually drove him off. Just a heads up, if you ever feel like littering or doing graffiti, I recommend not doing it there. That dude is such a bad ass that I'm pretty sure it would be the worst idea imaginable. Well, other than ticking off a Demon."

  Troy ran and got more pillows from his room and started building a little nest of them, as if Zack hadn't been sitting there for hours already. Then he offered to get food or go and find some pain killers for him. It was tempting, but he declined.

  "Nah, I need to be at work in a few hours, so I might as well get up soon. I need to wrap up my splint in a garbage bag, I think, so I can shower. Adventures in cleanliness!" It didn't come out all that loud, since he was exhausted. Then Troy insisted he leave the door to the bathroom unlocked, in case he needed help.

  Thankfully he didn't. Oh, it took nearly an hour and a half to get ready for the day and he ended up wearing an old pair of oversized sweats, so he didn't have to try and button or zip anything, and his hair looked like it had been combed by a four year old, but the store was opened on time. That was the important part, since no one was paying him to look good, just to get his job done. To his surprise Hiram was there already, standing out front, waiting for him.