Between (Alternate Places Book 2)

by Power, P. S.

  Florence hugged him, "That would be good. I always got along famously with Agnes. Oh, the things we used to get up to. I remember once, when we cast a hex on this boy at school... Baron, was his name. It caused him to strip naked and... I mean... Why, I haven't seen her for years, nearly two decades now. We have so much to catch up on.” She grinned slyly, knowing full well what she'd just done.

  Clyde, the Were leader, insisted on coming down himself, so instead of making him fly all night, Zack agreed to go and pick him up, as long as he didn't mind coming in with the cooks.

  As it turned out, almost everyone from the mall would be there, as well as about twenty Vampires, a dozen Alede and forty Mages Zack had never met, at least not that he knew of.

  Everything looked great by the time that people started arriving, just before night fall. Nikki came out of the bedroom she shared with Troy and asked if Zack would feed her again, since it seemed to hold her over better than blood. As she normally did, she managed to lift her top up higher than needed, flashing her breasts. This time though she didn't offer to have sex with him, since everyone had gotten the word that the topic would be off limits while they had visitors.

  From behind him he heard a slight knock, just as he finished with Nikki.

  It turned out to be Rebeca, who worked part time at Something Wonderful now, with David and Blake standing behind her.

  “They just closed down the Mall, since everyone's going to be here all night anyway. Um, we were wondering if you could do that with us, too?” She gestured at Nikki, indicating the energy feeding they had just finished.

  “Claire seemed to think it would be rude if we tried to eat your guests. Go figure?” Her voice came across as being very shy. She had her hair pulled back, not hiding the scarring on the left side of her face, near her mouth. He hadn't asked what the scars were from, figuring she'd tell him if she wanted him to know. They didn't detract from her looks though, he noticed. She'd taken to getting artificial tans, the chemical kind, which looked fake, but no worse than anyone else's fake tan. She looked pretty Human really, he decided.

  Blake moved to the front, since he technically had seniority here, after Nikki had finished, of course.

  He finished all of them in about fifteen minutes, Rebeca opening her shirt just enough to allow the needed contact, he noticed, without a hint of flirtation. David flirted, but Zack wrote that off as some kind of joke, since the others laughed about it. Even though, honestly, he knew that the man meant it. His Shadow had told him that clearly.

  Most days he really did have to service people in order to get a bit of blood. The idea of blowing Zack for a full tank of energy not only didn't bother him, but seemed like he would be cheating the Line Walker.

  When the guests started pulling up out front, they all went down to greet people, Claire insisting that this is what had to be done.

  His grandparents both handled it expertly, which made sense he realized, though he couldn't imagine his grandfather as some kind of world leader. Given everything he could barely imagine him as anything but a regular person.

  For that matter he couldn't imagine Eloise as a world leader either. He'd always though she had some lower position, head Ambassador or something.

  Vaun came up to Zack, and asked for an introduction. Trying to remember how the old vampire had introduced Montmercy and his companion at the big meeting in Nevada that Claire had taken him to a few months before, he led the Vampire over.

  Walking in front of Vaun, he approached his Grandparents.

  “Is everything going well?” Zack asked them, knowing he sounded too formal, though they just smiled and murmured that it had been.

  Stepping to the side and turning slightly, so that he included the Vampire into the group, he tried not to mess the introduction up too much.

  “I have someone here that you should meet. A friend of mine... This is Vaun, he's Claire's boss's boss or something like that. Vaun, this is my Grandfather James Hartley and his wife, my Grandmother, Florence.” He stepped back slightly while they all shook hands and made small talk.

  Troy signaled to him from across the room, wearing a sports jacket and tie, both in bright colors that didn't exactly fit what everyone else had worn. No one came in a tux though, but some of the women clearly wore designer dresses.

  “Hey, Zack. Um, not that I'm complaining, but Merri had me all set up to pass out drinks and stuff with David and Blake...The guys in the waiters uniforms seem to have taken over. The only thing is, I can't find anyone that hired them. So, I figured, maybe if you could do that thing you do, and make sure they're alright? Probably just me being paranoid...” He held the glass loosely in his hand, almost spilling the bubbly alcohol inside.

  Zack laughed, as if his friend had said something funny and turned after a second to focus on the back of one of the waiters heads.

  He seemed to just be a waiter, hired by someone through an agency.

  The next two seemed to have the same thought, glad that they had gotten work at such a cushy gig, one hoping he could pick up one of the ladies after work.

  The final man however seemed intent on slipping something into the drinks. Zack didn't hesitate, he simply targeted the man from across the room and knocked him out using a light gray beam of force, withdrawing it slowly enough that his life energy wouldn't follow the line back to him, stripping the fellow to death.

  He ran to the man, no one noticing what had happened except Wu-Li, who'd felt the energy move suddenly, catching his attention.

  “He planned to put something into the drinks, I don't know what. He has it here...” Troy dug into the man's vest pocket, where Zack pointed, removing a small vial. Wu-Li smelled it and then called Dan over to do the same.

  “It smells like an emetic.” Dan said, Wu-Li nodding at this.

  Looking lost by this, Dan explained.

  “You give someone an emetic to induce vomiting. It's like someone wanted to make people feel like they had food poisoning or something.”

  Claire came up suddenly, using her Vampire speed.

  “Or it could be the prelude to an attack. We need to secure the area and make ready, just in case. Quietly though, so as to not alert our guests more than we already have.” Her Shadow spoke of saving face, not allowing their guests to come to harm and most of all, stopping any attacks that may take place.

  Claire helped the man to his feet, still unconscious, Troy took the other side, mumbling something about the man having blacked out.

  The other Vampires suddenly went outside without being asked to, checking for danger, and setting up a perimeter in case of attack. Only Vaun stayed inside, still talking genially to his Grandparents.

  Patty came up smiling and whispered to him that he needed to keep mingling and keep his attention open to anything odd. She took over hostess duties from Claire smoothly, moving from person to person, group to group, making certain everyone had a good time. She introduced a few people to others that she felt might be interesting to them.

  Keeping his filtering low, almost too low for a room like this, Zack picked up everything. A couple of Mages intended to sneak off and have sex in one of the bedrooms, so he suggested that the rooms at the far end of the east hallway were all empty, much to their surprise, making the woman, an average looking brunette, blush a little, though that could have been the alcohol.

  A male Alede he didn't recognize seemed very interested in Kaitlyn, which got his attention, since the man didn't seem to want her for sex, though he found her engaging and attractive, Zack saw. Instead he seemed interested in finding out about how she came back from the edge of going rogue. He seemed to be some kind of official.

  Brin stood, her back to a wall, near a corner, with Libby and Maryl standing on either side of her, as several Weres of varying kinds, including two bats, stood in front of them aggressively. Zack signaled to Patty and they moved in quickly.

  One man, a wolf Shadow rising within him, adding to his menace, confronted Brin.

&nb
sp; “You and your...Family... Almost cost us everything Brin! What if Hartley had decided to cut us off from the lines? Six months ago that wouldn't have mattered, but now we have nearly half a Billion dollars in business going through the lines each week! You just got what you deserved. I don't know what you're playing at, showing your face here, but I have half a mind to have you thrown out. I suggest you leave now before someone sees you!” The man seemed almost ready to shift and attack in his anger.

  Stepping forward, Zack tried to project calm to the man, speaking to his Shadow rapidly, explaining and helping him relax. He sagged a bit, the tension and anger leaving him suddenly.

  “They're my guests. More to the point, they live here now. I think,” he raised his hand, catching Clyde's attention. “That, Clyde will be able to explain it more clearly than I would though. Here we go.” Pointing out that there seemed to be a slight miscommunication he asked Clyde to see if he could explain it to the man, to prevent misunderstandings from taking place.

  As the man turned to speak to Clyde, Zack walked straight to Brin and gave her a hug, holding it long enough that people would notice it. Including the bats that stood watching his reaction, instead of Clyde softly schooling the wolf man behind them.

  After hugging Brin long enough to ensure that at least some people would think they were lovers, he did the same with Maryl. He kissed Libby tenderly and held her hand after that, not letting go. The bats looked shocked at this interplay, not understanding it at all.

  Libby, walked him over to the man and woman, who looked only a few years older than Libby and Maryl, though it may have been their concerned looks, that aged them.

  “Zack, I'd like you to meet my mom and dad. Mom and dad. Zack.” She didn't give their names, he noticed.

  “Mom is Maryl's sister. Also from Australia, though she hides her accent better. Dad is Brin's son. Grandpa was a bat, and that tends to breed true most of the time. I don't know why they're here, to tell the truth. They didn't try to help any of us when things got tough, even after Clyde told everyone to leave us alone, they didn't try to get in touch...” Libby looked almost ready to cry.

  Looking at their Shadows, he got the sense of fear they held, the worry that the entire family would be blamed, that Hartley really would have destroyed the entire Were economy and been within his rights to do so, or even to hunt them all down.

  Now they'd heard that he held their family prisoner, using them as sex slaves. They'd come to get them back, armed and ready to fight if need be.

  “Wait!” Zack exclaimed. “Did you hire the waiters?” Seeing their Shadow response, even as they tried to muster denials, he laughed.

  “Libby... They think you're being held hostage, and forced to be sex slaves. They're here to fight for you against the evil Hartley. Oh. Okay, this is touching. Sorry I laughed. I'm just glad this is something minor and easily cleared up.” He hugged Libby with one arm quickly and stopped, so that they wouldn't think he tried to control her physically, explaining more slowly, what her parents had planned.

  He asked Patty to see if she could find Claire and let her know that things would be all right and that the attack probably wouldn't be happening now. Patty touched his shoulder lingeringly and then walked off, turning on all her seductive charm for some reason.

  Maryl shook her head, glaring at her sister.

  “This is why you have to call, or at least write. Let me see if I can clear this up for you. We all live here, which beats living in the woods, trying to make lean-to's in the winter, let me tell you.” She fixed her sister clearly with her eyes, her thick glasses mirrored by similar ones worn by Libby's mother.

  “As for being sex slaves... No one here has even hinted at having sex with me, at least, though I can't speak for Libby, or Brin...” She looked at them.

  Libby piped up instantly.

  “Well, I'm, er, dating Zack, so yes, I have gotten some lately. Though he's not into bondage or domination or anything as far as I can tell, so no slavery involved. Not even the fun kind.”

  Brin just glared.

  “No offers for me either, but I just got here. I'm sure it's just an oversight.” Her voice turned into a growl at the end. Funnily enough Zack managed to catch her eye and nod.

  "Seriously. With all the Alede around here, I'm sure it really is. I can suggest it, if you'd like?"

  The bat couple stood, mouths open and eyes wide. No one spoke for about a half minute, until Kaitlyn, having heard the whole thing walked over.

  “Maryl, Brin, you two should know that my door is always open, if you want. In fact, I'm free this evening if either of you is?” Her voice trailed off seductively.

  Libby's dad almost lost it when Brin answered.

  “Thank you dear. I think I may just be free later, if you have the time?” This came out very primly though.

  Stepping in then, Zack asked them if they'd like to stay for a few days.

  “That way you can see for yourselves that I'm not keeping anyone against their will, and maybe you all can mend some fences here? I mean, guys, they did come to steal you away from what they thought was some kind of evil... Really... I don't know, sex fiend? Which, while I don't think I'm evil, the sex fiend part kind of hits home a bit, honestly... So, should they be blamed for thinking the worst of me?”

  Things got even more interesting when Claire got there, his Grandparents in tow.

  Attack aborted, Libby's parents decided to stay for a while. Just to be sure of things.

  Zack fought back an impending sense of doom.

  Chapter nineteen

  Zack got through the next week largely by blocking it out.

  He had several conversations with his Grandparents, both of whom seemed to blame themselves for what had happened to him as a child, and especially for putting him in an institution as a teen. It had been a hellish experience, true, but what were they supposed to have thought? That he'd been whisked away to the void for thousands of years, and taught to see things that most never would? As a raw guess even he would have tried medical help first and he knew better. Now.

  It seemed clear to him that some outside agency had been setting up many of the events in his life, possibly starting before he had even been born. Claire mentioned to him something he'd forgotten, a theory that two opposing forces had been using him as a pawn, each setting up events in his life to shape him, or warp him, toward some kind of end he couldn't even begin to imagine.

  Eventually even his Grandparents could see that this seemed likely, though he could tell that knowing it really didn't make either of them feel any better about things. They kept asking themselves what they could have done, or should have done differently. Tried to understand him more, perhaps, or take him by force from his parents when they started to visibly go downhill.

  Libby, Maryl and Brin had their own work cut out for them. Mainly trying to both convince Libby's parents, which he found out did have names, being so fake that he almost didn't credit them at first, being John and Mary, that not only that they were free to come and go as they wish, but that none of them really wanted to go, not yet at least.

  By the end of the week, everyone believed that the situation was, if not exactly what it seemed, then at least nothing harmful to anyone.

  Everyone decided to leave on the same day, Zack getting them all home. It was faster and cheaper, since they didn't have to pay him for it.

  The night they left, he felt a deep sense of relief, a relaxation of tension he hadn't even known existed within him until it was gone. Merri told him that that night would be Claire's, though she got him in the morning before work. Lisa had the afternoon and Libby would share him with Val the next evening.

  He enjoyed the sex, having not had much in the last week, always feeling watched, by someone or another. He knew he spent way too much time on it, having sex, probably as a kind of rebound from not having any while still interacting with all those Alede each day. Much like with having to eat all the time, it lost a bit of its savor whe
n you almost had to do it, all the time. There had to be a way to get a handle on it.

  At noon though, he knew that Lisa had the time slot, but figured they'd just eat lunch together, since he didn't have the schedule allowance to be turned into a girl for her, and get back to work in time.

  She answered this for him though, with a bit of blushing and awkwardness.

  “I've been with men before, but... It's not my favorite thing. So, I was thinking, I could, you know, with my hand?” Her words were hesitant, but she made a little hand job motion the air when she said it.

  Closing her office door and locking it, to keep Felicia from walking in on them, she went to work. Fifteen minutes later, her forearm sore, she finished him off in time for them to both get lunch. He hugged her before they left the room.

  "Thanks. I know it's a pain, but that helped."

  She just blushed again.

  "Um, happy to lend a hand?"

  Summer went like that, passing his birthday in September, which only Troy remembered, and moving into October smoothly.

  He'd just finished in Lesser Shia, where they'd opened a new nexus in a part of the world that seemed to be underground, part of the 'Hollow Earth', which most researchers didn't think could exist, not understanding the true nature of the world yet. He met three new types of people, all of them interesting in their own way. A race of tall pale people that could have easily walked the streets in the U.S. with no more than a casual glance being given to them, because they were tall and all attractive enough to be worth looking at, and a smaller race of reptiods that looked a lot like the ones he had met before, except for their size and all being a fairly uniform greenish brown.

  The last group turned out to be shape shifters, ones that could take almost any shape, he'd been told. They looked Human to him, at first, though their Shadow selves had a shifting quality that let him know they weren't exactly what they seemed.

  This last group seemed very interested in him, asking him a lot of questions about what he did and how he did it. He answered as best he could, trying to describe what he felt and saw.