Between (Alternate Places Book 2)

by Power, P. S.

  “You really are like this all the time aren't you?” For the first time he saw the Vampire smile, if only for a moment, though it didn't reach his eyes.

  “Gold will work, cash is good, some transactions could be done in precious gems or even large amounts of drugs.” This last he added almost as an afterthought, disliking the idea, but knowing that giving complete information tended to work better than holding things back, at least for basic information like that. His Shadow fell silent though, as if trying to hide his thoughts.

  Zack called out to Lisa and asked how long it would take to get a quarter million dollars in cash or gold. It turned out that they had it on hand, though Zack would have to go and get more to replenish the stock from the bank the next day, in Switzerland.

  Loading the tall Vampire up, Zack took him to his destination and forgot about him.

  Finally, after he almost thought he would be safe, when he almost let his guard down, it happened.

  He took a fare to the reptilian lands, the colorful ones whose name he couldn't even hope to pronounce. It sounded like a slow hiss, kind of like a tea pot getting ready to whistle, at least to Zack. The transfer, an older male, by appearance, that wanted to travel to some sacred point just once before he died. He hadn't thought that he'd be able to do it, until Zack had come on the scene, making it just possible to accomplish before the end came. He thanked Zack, bowing to him before he left. Not knowing what else to do, Zack bowed back, which seemed to make the being very happy, from what the reptilians Shadow told him.

  When he turned to step back into the Node, something seemed very wrong.

  In place of the Node, a greenish black wall hovered just in front of it, stopping him from going through. It didn't physically block him, he just couldn't enter the Nexus. His hand passed right through it, and he could walk to the center of it without trouble, but the void remained out of reach.

  When he walked out to find another Node, to see if this was just here or if maybe it would turn out to be something in his mind, he came under attack. There were six of them, Human he thought. Dressed in black, like a hybrid between a ninja and a soldier. They all had automatic weapons and opened up on him immediately.

  A bullet ripped through his chest, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground. That first bullet saved him, he realized. He ended up able to crawl behind a stone block designed to be sat upon. If he hadn't been knocked off his feet, the men would have torn him to bits in the hail of bullets they proceeded to unleash.

  Zack shut off the pain, realizing he'd bleed to death in a few minutes, if he didn't do something fast. The men just kept blasting away, reloading when they were done with a clip. He needed time to think, without it he was simply dead. He focused his mind as much as he could. So much that he courted death doing it. In that he'd almost locked himself into a single focus so tight that to go any farther would be to forget something essential, like breathing. Knowing he damaged himself moving that fast, he darted his head up, saw where they all stood, mainly behind cover, and memorized their locations.

  Thinking for a few seconds, he realized he needed to strike first without leaving cover. He only knew one thing that could do that, something he hadn't used a lot in the last year. Empty force. That circulation of energy outside the body that forced people to dance away, unable to control themselves no matter how hard they fought it. It wouldn't stop anyone, or even hurt them, but it would distract them for a bit.

  He shifted, feeling blood gush out suddenly as he did, ignoring it, he triggered the energy flow and shifted it around rapidly until no one fired any more.

  Then standing as fast as he could, using the more focused concentrations of black energy he preferred for most things. He walked out from behind cover, striking as he went, killing the first, then second man. The third fired a weapon at him, but he made it explode in the man's hands.

  He hit the weapon of the fourth and then killed the next two as he blacked out.

  As he went down, unable to keep to his feet any longer, no matter how hard he tried. The fourth one got back up and ran at him with a knife, at least he thought it might be a knife, he couldn't make it out. As the man stabbed him, he summoned the sword Merri had given him, Shield of Innocence and slashed down once. If he hit the man at all he didn't know.

  In the darkness, he saw his friend, Big Shadow, yelling something at him. It seemed so far away though, that he couldn't hear it. His friend yelled louder and louder, until he finally only heard a roar that sounded like the sea.

  In this white noise, he saw a light in front of him. A white light, though it didn't make a proper tunnel at all, looking a bit flat, he mused. Finally, after a long time, a figure walked out of it. Someone familiar.

  Someone dead.

  “Hello Courtney. How have you been?” He asked her in a way he hoped seemed courteous. He'd always felt bad that he'd gotten her killed, that knowing him had ended her life. A life that shone brightly and gave pleasure and happiness to others.

  “Zack! When they told me you'd come for a visit, I couldn't believe it. I didn't know that your powers allowed you to reach here yet. I should probably book passage and go visit my daughter.” She smiled at him, then came closer and hugged him. She felt solid and even smelled like he remembered.

  “Actually,” He admitted candidly. “I have no clue where I am. I mean, the land of the dead or something like that? It probably means I'm dead though, right? Because I don't think this is exactly on the normal Nexus routes.”

  Her laugh tinkled like silver bells. This being her real laugh he understood, not the one she had used as an actress before her murder.

  “Oh, I don't know Zack. If it was anyone else standing here, I'd just guess dead too, but being you, I'm pretty sure you have some options. You could go on... Come with me, into the light of course. Always an option in cases like this. Goodness knows you deserve a rest. Or, if you want, you could just stay here, or even return to the world as a ghost, haunting those that killed you. Well, if you hadn't just killed them all first, I mean. Finally, you could do what your friend over there keeps screaming at you to do and go into the void. Most doing that would die, of course, vanish into nothingness forever, but you rather have a talent with that part of reality, so this could end differently.”

  She kissed him warmly.

  When she broke off a while later she held him and asked what he wanted to do.

  “I have an odd feeling that my job isn't done back there yet. Not that I have any clue what it's I'm supposed to do, you know?” He grinned at her and stepped back, taking her hand.

  Nodding she told him what he had left to do if he went back, or a small part of it at least.

  “Of course, there's no way of knowing if you'll succeed or not, not given the players in your particular game. If you lose in the wrong way, at the wrong time, you'll go the way of those Demons you keep destroying and just cease to be. So there's more danger here if you go back than in just dying. If you don't do it though, well there's so much that the others can't do alone.” She waved her hand and a mirrored shimmer appeared in the air.

  In the shimmer he saw a bit of the future to come and points where he might make a difference if he managed to survive that long.

  She kept speaking as he watched.

  “Young Kaitlyn. With your help and support she'll eventually grow into a power in her own right... Something truly amazing. Without you, her fate is, well, let's just say I'd rather suffer my own death a thousand times and have her share it with me feeling each moment than what lies in store there. And I like her, so you know it has to suck.”

  The image shifted to a scene in which an armored Troy stood over the fallen body of Hilda, oddly with Beatrice in her armor standing beside them, a horde of dark things, beasts of spirit or something else, flowing toward them, eating them like acid, trying to get to the children that stand behind them, cowering.

  Shifting again, to Lisa, sitting alone in a dark room, in her apartment, working some magic
he didn't understand for days on end, and finally at the end pulling out a hand gun and shooting herself in the head.

  “She's not as strong as she seems. She fears not being loved more than anything. More than even her own death. ” The Spirit told him.

  Images came then, of children and women, beaten, raped and murdered, he didn't recognize any of them. Brave seeming men dying alone, against armies arrayed before them, desperately trying to hold them off so that others could flee. A being of light, looking like nothing but a floating orb, being eaten by the Shadow of something... Insanely huge.

  “Ripples. These aren't people you will save. These are the ones you already have saved and what would have happened if you had done nothing. By removing the people that would harm them, they live normal lives now. Some happy, some not. But they'll have the chance.”

  She shrugged then, mocking his habitual gestures with a smile. She'd been an actress after all. It looked better on her though. Right.

  Then he saw a strange sight, Merri, in shining armor, more like Troy's than what he had seen before, with her sword that looked too big for her, swinging, killing at speeds that baffled even his mind, next to the tall Vampire. This stretched down through the ages, her only joy killing those that would harm those that her husband, the great one, would have saved...

  The Vampires, lead by Keane, striking out at the Demons, believing that they were behind the death of Zack and Claire, fighting until they all died the final death.

  Val, Sarah and Patty drifting off into a haze, just existing day to day, only bothering to survive because it hurt too much to waste away.

  And Libby. Libby who also would not live through the day, taking her own life in her grief, when they found Claire had gone. Flying as high as she could in the dark of the night and transforming back to her Human form, diving straight into the hard rocks below.

  The woman in front of him spoke again finally.

  “You can stop most of this, if you can survive long enough. It's... It's not fair Zack. Everyone knows it here. No one will blame you if you just can't take it anymore. We know what you've done, what you've gone through, and for reality to throw this at you now...”

  Hugging him again suddenly she started crying.

  “If you go back... I'm not supposed to tell you this. I'm just supposed to show you these things that will get you to go back. That will get you to fight. But, if you go back, there will be pain Zack. Pain like no one has ever experienced, lasting for longer than you can imagine, or would want to imagine. And loss. You have to fight all the battles, but you can't win them all. Not even close. So many things, so much worse than I can say. It's not fair!” Tears flowed down her beautiful face then.

  “But, it has to be your choice. Rest here and be happy. Or go back and fight, suffer, and just maybe, if you can hold on long enough, make things better for others.”

  Holding him, she almost didn't hear him. Her tears turned to sobs as she worked out what he meant to do.

  “They said that would be your choice. Even knowing what waits for you. When I lived I thought I was in awe of you. Now I know that I didn't understand what true awe was. If you survive to die properly, I'll be waiting for you here. No matter how long it takes.”

  Zack kissed her.

  Then threw himself into the void.

  The Big Shadow stopped screaming for him.

  You made it! I worried for a bit there, you seemed so far away. Your wounds are severe and need to be healed as soon as you get back to your other world, or else you'll perish and no will of mine or any other will save you.

  He watched the Node, waiting for her to walk close to the Nexus. Understanding why it had to be done that way. After all, he could just repair himself. That wouldn't be right though. Not now. She needed this. Finally after what seemed a long time, years, maybe more, the girl walked into the back and stared at something that Zack couldn't see.

  He stepped out of the void, almost into her arms.

  Kaitlyn reacted with speed he didn't know she possessed, changing him as fast as she could, then changing him back even faster.

  He lived, but didn't move.

  Not for a long time.

  Chapter thirty

  He woke up in the back of a car. Not one he recognized, something small, but new, he thought. He saw Libby driving, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, Claire held him, murmuring something. Finally he understood her.

  “I love you, too.” He fought to sit up, since he wasn't hurt any more, just incredibly tired.

  Libby yelped and almost ran off the road.

  “You're alive! And awake. Are you okay?” She kept driving, but he knew she wanted to kiss him and fawn over him instead. They could do that later though, if she still felt like it.

  Kaitlyn stared at him from the passenger seat, reaching out to touch him as he sat up. She didn't speak, her eyes wide, she just kept watching him, looking not at him precisely he saw, but following something that seemed to be going on around him.

  He nodded his head, finally getting upright, much more comfortable in the tiny back seat. The car ran almost silently he noticed.

  “I'm fine. Things were a little touch and go for a bit, but I think my friend from the void created a Node over me as I lay dying, letting me get back to Kaitlyn. Thanks by the way, again. Quick work there.” She nodded.

  Claire kissed him over and over again, in relief. Her arms wrapped around him a little tighter than he could enjoy, so he smiled at her and told her that he really felt fine now.

  Kaitlyn finally spoke what she had been thinking.

  “Zack... You, you... Died didn't you? I mean actually died, not just time for CPR type stuff?” Concern touched her voice as he explained the whole thing, what Courtney had said, what Big Shadow had told him, even how he thought the Nameless One had blocked the Nexus point from him.

  Zack mentioned seeing some of what might happen to the others. Mainly in passing.

  The only thing he left out was the last thing that Courtney, if it had been Courtney, had said to him, the part about horrible pain and suffering. After all, if the future wasn't already set, maybe he could avoid some of that, if he did things right. If not, then dwelling on it wouldn't help anyone, not as far as he could tell at least.

  He looked at the Succubus in the seat in front of him. Her Shadow, he finally noticed, watched things that he couldn't see, lines of energy and power, interconnections between things and people. He asked her what she saw, knowing that he should have done this much earlier.

  “Really, I don't know it all yet. I can follow some of it, but a lot of the lines don't seem to mean anything that I can see. They might have to do with the future or maybe the past. I could tell when you became Maria the Succubus that you really became her for a time. I mean, as far as I could tell, you really were one of us. It seemed eerie watching you do exactly what I would have done in your shoes or what Val or Sarah would do if they needed to feed regularly still.” Her eyes closed then.

  “I see the patterns even with my eyes closed. All of yours though, they look wrong now, like they were broken and glued back together. It feels...Off. Not bad, just like it can't happen.”

  He took this in, trying to remember it all, so that he could help her with it later, if the need arose.

  It turned out that they were taking him home anyway, so he just answered their questions while they drove. Claire asked him something that he hadn't noticed before.

  “Did Courtney tell you what you were supposed to do?” Her Shadow doubted it had actually been Val's mom, but didn't want to disturb him with the idea yet.

  “No, she didn't, come to think of it. She just told me about what others would be doing and some vague things that may happen, she didn't give me any direction as to what I'm supposed to do, except not die, if possible. I do like the sound of that one.” Truth, he hoped, would serve well here. It seemed to be all he had left in him, except for silence.

  When they pulled in he could see that the workm
en were still there, working on repairing the damage to the walls the Arch-Demons had wrought.

  As they walked in something popped into his head, almost as if put there from the outside.

  “You know... I really need to learn how to swim, I mean swim really well. Also, I need some armor. The really good kind. I don't know why, but these feel like really good ideas just now.”

  Libby simply nodded. Claire pulled out a pad and wrote something down as they entered the house.

  Kaitlyn smiled and asked if she still had to go off to school now, having proven herself so well that day.

  “Yeah.” Zack told her, winking at her over his shoulder, trying not to trip while he did it.

  “But I'll always be there for you, if you need me.”

  Inside he promised her, so only her Shadow self could hear him.

  Always.