She shrugged. It was a bit reluctant seeming.
“I… Stopped drinking. Like you said I should? Smoking pot, too. I’m a bit old for that kind of thing. It’s easier now. When I was younger life always seemed so hard but now? It’s as if everything is finally clicking for me. I’ve even been going out with someone. Barry. He’s wonderful. He works over in lighting.”
She was still hugging him, so he patted her on the back, in the universal signal for let me go now. Not that he couldn’t appreciate having a potentially interested woman pressed up against him. She was a little older looking than he liked, strictly speaking, and there was no way he was doing her for kicks, with her daughter working with his fiancée. Even if that last part felt off to him.
Not fake off, or like it was being arranged by a greater demon or anything like that. Even though, now that he thought about it, that part was probably just going to turn out to be real and true. Avery had a mentor and while Troy didn't know Bente really, they had met a few times. Mainly at the yogurt shop. The woman was a friend of Eve’s, so had come around a couple of times over the years.
That indicated he was on her radar. A single meeting would probably mean that kind of thing would be happening if he fit into whatever plan she had at the moment. Hopefully, if that was the case, he and Avery could manage things all right. Demons weren’t tricksters but they were close enough to being that way that he wasn’t certain there wasn’t a bit of racial crossover that way.
Kathy finally took the hint and moved back.
Looking at her, he grinned.
“Oh, right… You’re doing the travel booking now? You should check out the new Bridge portal system being set up. Direct teleportation between two points. It’s a lot faster than flying. Safer as well. No crashes, for one thing.” Also, harder to blow up, at least in theory.
“I haven’t heard about that one.”
He shrugged, then tried to act cool.
“It won’t be starting yet for commercial traffic. Everyone here is heading to Lincoln on the fourteenth, for the community picnic? You’re meeting here at noon. In case you need to set that up for people. Back to here at two in the morning. Using that kind of thing, so everyone can see if they like it.”
He backed out of the room, smiling while he did it, so that Kathy would get that she was appreciated. Then, in the hallway, trying to be silent about it, he moved to the council chamber, thousands of miles away. It was in a node complex, so he came into the front room again. Calling probably would have been enough. Then again, it might not be and he really wanted to avoid whatever punishment Ann might come up with for him.
He couldn’t think of anything she could do that would bother him all that much. Meaning she’d have to get creative about it. That could, of course, end up being a problem for him. Probably humiliating as well.
Marissa, The Accountant of the Council, one of the most feared individuals in the vampire world, walked into the room, holding a single travel bag. It was old fashioned being made of carpet from the look of it. Her outfit would have looked right in a movie about the old west. That was tan and sturdy looking but had a bustle in the back, making her behind look huge. She had a round hat on her head, with black lace coming off of it. Only it wasn’t that at all. It was the stuff that veils were made out of. That was different, he thought.
He didn't know the name for it.
“Mr. Lopez. I didn’t know you were coming today. I fear that I must travel to California, on the other side of the continent. Going by automobile. It’s an audit but nothing out of the normal as far as that goes. It’s the work we do here.” She giggled a little then. “I don’t suppose you could open one of your wondrous constructions that my driver could take us through? That would be something to see. No one has done that, as far as I know. Showing up via the node is impressive but along with both my vehicle and driver? Not that I can justify the cost. I should have tried to contact you ahead of time, but things are so new that I didn’t wish to press you that way.”
Winking, Troy waved for her to follow him out front, in the direction that she’d been heading. The car, an old thing that was perfectly cared for and very expensive looking, was a lovely blueish silver. The chrome on it shone, being polished beyond what anyone would normally bother with.
A slight feeling of jealousy ran through him, even though he could have gotten one for himself, if he wanted. It just didn’t fit his current lifestyle. Except that it wasn’t true now. It didn’t fit with vampire Troy’s life. Bridge making line walker Troy could have that kind of thing, if he wanted. Things, even nice cars, weren’t really all that important to him, however. Not that it wasn’t a sweet ride.
“Oh, right. I had to resign at work. Some local vampires attacked me last night and died. That doesn’t make the police look good, since the press is going to report it as a violent cop killing five people with a knife. So I had to protect their good name. It was a trap, set up by a god. Possibly Loki? That last part is a guess, made by The Technician. So if you see the guy, don’t blame him yet. I don’t want to jump to conclusions. It was… Basically a very fancy set of knives that were designed to kill me. It didn’t work.” He waved down at himself and grinned. “Obviously.”
She actually held her left hand to her chest. That wasn’t a huge thing but did look real enough. Small but tight. She wasn’t fat or anything even close to that. Her hips were good that way as well. Whatever had made her a hermaphrodite, it had certainly hit the female edge of things harder than the male.
“My! Are you well, given that? An attack by a living god? I’ve not heard of such a thing in… I don’t even know how long, to be honest. Nearly a thousand years, at the very least. You seem fine?” There was real seeming concern in her eyes, which took some real acting skills on her part.
“I’m good, actually. I think it was more of a test. Not a direct attempt on my life. The five vampires died. It’s probably unfortunate, really. They were said to be powerful. I didn't really see that. Then, I didn’t give them much of a chance to do anything.” He’d cheated a bit, using his personal focus.
That had let him push into greater speed than he would have managed without using magic.
Helping Marissa into the back of the Rolls-Royce, and getting her bag into the trunk, he opened a large, square, portal. It wasn’t perfect but Marissa tucked her head out the window, smiling as she looked across the parking lot at the building. It was a mall location. About a quarter of all the node complexes had something like that going on. This one was the strip mall type of thing.
“This is the location! I didn’t know you could do that so accurately.”
“I’ve been there before, so it wasn’t hard. Let me walk through first and make sure it’s clear, traffic wise. I’ve never done this with a car before.”
The driver hadn’t either but the man, who seemed young and a bit like he could have been an excellent horse jockey, gave him the nod when he waved and then drove through perfectly, without hesitation. The vehicle didn’t explode or anything fun like that. It just passed through smoothly. Then it pulled away, to deliver Marissa to the door. Four days early. That would probably go over well. Troy decided to make a point of keeping his phone on him.
Walking in, looking for Bey, he didn’t find him. Instead he wandered into Memes, the strange looking vampire. A Nosferatu. She had long pointed ears, wispy pale hair and a lot of triangularly pointed teeth. Her fingernails were nearly talons, and dark black. Her eyes were a nice red. Freaky looking and friendly at the same time.
Looking at him, she tilted her head, then nodded.
“Welcome. May I be of aid for you, this day?”
It was kind of clear she didn’t recognize him at all. That was fine, since they hadn’t met often or anything.
“I was looking for Bey? Um… I’m Troy Lopez. I had to leave my human job with the police earlier. He’s my maker?”
Something in what he’d said got her to light up a bit. It was freaky when she did it. A
lot of what she did kind of was.
“We have been talking of you then. The new far walking system is your doing, is it not?”
“That’s right. Do you need to go anyplace? I just got Marissa and her driver off to her next appointment. I forgot to tell her that she can just call me when she needs to return. Probably tonight, given what I’ve heard about how hard working she is.” With numbers. It was supposed to be very intense, actually.
Nearly a super power.
The strange seeming vampire bowed to him, her gray dress moving slightly as she did it. She smelled a bit like dust. It wasn’t unpleasant, even if it was very earthy. Like she actually slept in a grave. In the ground, at least. She wasn’t covered in dirt, however. Not that he was going to judge, either way.
She was on the council after all. That didn’t happen without a reason.
“I can, I would consider, pass that to her if she contacts us here? As for The Lord, he is gone for the time being, with his new love, Eve, The Fair. They wish to have a dalliance, after removing a small army, in the southern lands. The far south… Bruiser?”
She was asking a question, so he nodded, and made a correction.
“Brazil?”
“Yes. That is the place. There is a rather large happening there. So, we send both. Marvelous people, both of them, don’t you think?”
“I really do. Both of them are friends of mine. Please remind me to Marissa for pick up, if she wants that? I need to go and see some demons. The greater kind. One is The Line Walker, the other The Rotted. Guess which one wants me to do things for them?” He smiled.
“Both, I would wager. That kind is canny and rarely misses a chance.” She reached out and patted his arm, like she was his grandmother.
Which was creepy but did remind him to call his granny. It had been a while since he’d gotten with anyone in his family. That was down to being busy though, not hating them or anything. Life was like that, from time to time. Honestly, for a moment, he searched his mind for an image of his grandmother. Nothing at all came to him. Shaking his head, a bit, he focused on the woman in front of him.
The woman smiled at him, her face looking troubled as she did it.
“You need to take care there. Even one such as you, a powerful vampire, can be taken or used by trickery. It has happened to all of us here, at some point or another. Even myself.” Then, turning as if she hadn’t been speaking at all, the being wandered away, looking at the tapestries on the wall.
The only thing there was that she was very clearly still focused on him. Intently. He could feel it. It wasn’t a strong thing. One that was enough for him to notice, while paying attention. Troy waved at her then, getting that at least part of her demeanor was an act.
“Nice talking to you, Councilor Memes. Please let me know if Marissa needs me later.”
There was no answer. When she’d gone far enough down the hallway, he opened a bridge to the node room at Hartley and Co, in the Westfield Mall. The space was empty, at first, until about a minute and a half later. Then Zack Hartley came through the faintly glowing and moving disk in the air. The node. The pressure in the room changed when it happened, so it warned Troy early enough to look up.
“Hi, Zack. I decided to start working here early. Oh… You gave Finias a billion dollars for me, right?” He didn’t smile about it.
Neither did Zack.
“Half a billion. I used our friendship as a way to talk the whole thing down a bit. I heard about last night, with Loki? That’s interesting, isn’t it? I notice that you were barely annoyed by it. Given that a lot of greater demons would have died under the same attack, that isn’t bad. Sure, it comes down to your specific skills but that’s the same for everyone, all the time. It does make it seem like I might not be wasting my money. Not that I had any doubts.”
“Yeah. It’s a mess. I need some more data. I think I need to get with The Librarian for that? He knows everything, right?” That was kind of a joke but got a shrug.
“Sort of. Get a copy of the demon library, if you can. Are you going to track him down, or wait for him to come to you? Both ideas have merit. I’d wait, if it were me. I mean, he’s not nice, really but he gets the job done. If you have a real reason to see him, he’ll make a point of getting it to happen. This case with the gods, right now, means that he’d be here if he could. The rest of the greater demons are a bit worked up about the whole thing. That Riley thinks you can handle it… That’s meant as a signal to the rest of us, I think.”
Troy smiled then. Zack wasn’t really going to be making that much fun of him, he didn’t think.
“That these gods can’t be all that, if Troy can handle the issue?”
“Exactly. Not that it won’t be hard for you. I mean, Eve and Bey were in the other day, trying to get me to buy a short bus for you to ride around in. I found a few that should do the trick. Do you want a matching helmet for that? American chrome… It’s that yellow bus color.”
Troy twisted his face up then. He was supposed to get annoyed but didn’t bother. In fact, he locked down all of his emotions, using a bit of magic again.
“You think I don’t know what American chrome is? I do want the nifty helmet, by the way. Plus, matching water wings so I don’t drown in my cup of blood?”
Zack laughed. It was way more real than anything he could pull off anymore.
“Oh, that does it… You do know what you’re getting for Christmas this year, right?”
“Socks? Not that I need any. Oh, hey, Avery asked me to marry her. I think we might be actually doing that. Is it the worst plan ever, or only a horrible idea?”
Waving, Zack headed to the back, where his tiny office space was.
“It’s a great idea, actually. Not that you need it but she kind of does. Barbara… You know, that will work too, if you do it right. You’re showing total mastery over your emotions already, which will help. She needs to do that as well but I hear she’s been working that kind of thing with Eve, so it sounds promising that way. There’s no reason you can’t do them both at the same time. I know that I plan to.” He stopped then and grinned suddenly. “Not with Avery and Barb. I just meant having several women at once. You should do that too, or else Ann will use it against you. Really, you might want to nail a guy or two as well, if you can. She’s a bit harsher that way than Darla is.”
It was probably true. The words were also a deflection. From what, Troy didn’t get. He nearly had it but couldn’t really review fast enough to pick it up.
“I can work on that? Not that my plate isn’t already full. Anyway, I was supposed to meet a certain demon woman here. Ann has been working as Detective Tran. She claimed that the woman never existed. I wonder if that’s true.” He didn't really.
Odds were that he didn’t actually want to know the real answer at all. The one that she’d told him, that she’d faked the whole thing, was the good option. It wasn’t the easy one. That one would have been finding the person who was in the right spot to do what she wanted and making their body vanish. That would take a lot less work for a ruthless shape shifter to pull off than convincing fifty people that they were old friends would have.
Zack didn’t bother telling him the answer, or reassuring him, which didn’t bode well, he knew.
Mainly because a young girl, who looked to be about eleven, ran into the room. Fast and hard. Like she was being chased. Because that was totally in character with what everyone did at the node complex. Her shiny black, hard soled, shoes making slapping sounds on the marble floor. There was no skipping though, and the demon was moving so fast that it had probably gotten attention in the mall.
A child running inside wasn’t that big of a deal, so maybe no one noticed in particular.
When she saw them, she grinned. It wasn’t a happy seeming thing at all.
“There we go. One of your new god friends is following me, Troy. Genesh. He’s a nice enough guy but we have a history. We…” She looked at Zack and winked. “A long time ago, we were marr
ied. I had a different name back then.”
Troy nodded.
“Kali? The goddess of destruction and rebirth? That fits with the whole thing you do with the dead, now.” That and Krishna were the only names he knew off the top of his head from that pantheon. At least he thought that they were in the same group. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like that was probably wrong.
The girl stopped then. There was an odd look, before she flipped a pigtail over her shoulder.
“Right. I didn’t know that you were up on the old tales. Impressive, Troy. Anyway, the stories have gotten a little skewed, over time. I don’t really want him to find me though.”
Zack shrugged at the little girl in her black outfit.
“Are you in danger?”
That got a laugh.
“Only of falling for him again. He’s so dreamy… I should get out of here before he comes, or I might never be free again.” She seemed serious, which got Zack gesture at the node.
“This way then. He can walk the lines?”
She shook her head.
“Not really. He can’t be stopped and can pass through anything. He’s really sweet though. Make sure you don’t hurt him, will you, Troy?”
Then she left with Zack. Instead of heading out through the lines on her own. It didn't make any sense, power wise. Though, as the door opened, and a man with the head of an elephant walked in, his silken robes flowing, he got it.
There was god trouble and it was his job to handle that kind of thing. In fact, the demons weren’t supposed to at all. The problem was that Troy wasn’t ready for that kind of thing at all.
Not yet.
The being, seeming peaceful, folded its hands, while looking at him directly.
“You would be the being Troy? Officer?” He had a thick accent but the English was good, considering everything else. Like being locked up for thousands of years.
“I am.”
He got ready to fight. A desperate battle against an unbeatable foe, who wanted him dead, without cause or reason. He tried to figure out what to do against a guy that could pass through anything and couldn’t be stopped. His plans were bloody, violent and had a lot of warping of space involved.
The Gates of Troy (Lopez Time Book 3) Page 10
