Demon Bait (Keeley Thomson)

by P. S. Power

  The rest of the plan was harder than she'd thought, since she had to go and find Zack for the next part. He should have been at work, or home, but he was actually off at his summer camp. Keeley didn't know where that was, and didn't really feel like invading one of his places just to chat with him. Kaitlyn told her where he was however, her voice sweet.

  "Oh, are we still on for a visit? That's... in two days?"

  "I wouldn't miss it! I have a whole bunch of new friends for you to play with, too, if you'd like? You won't starve, I can guarantee." She ate sexual energy, and Demons weren't able to make it, using it all for themselves, being inherently selfish that way. Humans were good about that however, and she had a lot of them suddenly. Most would be pretty happy to spend time with an Alede too. It was a win-win situation as far as that went. Food and sex, all in one package for her friend, too.

  "Great! Don't forget." She seemed nearly happy to be coming for a visit now, and didn't hesitate to get her the number for the camp. It made sense that they had one, since worried parents would want to get in touch.

  When she finally got the number dialed, whole seconds later, Zack answered it himself. He started to give a little speech about the place, as if she were sending her kids there, but she cut him off, with a happy lilt to her voice.

  "Line Walker? Would you be able to help me with something? I need to pick up a cake and find Darla. I have her birthday present ready, and the element of surprise. That's months away still, so I bet it will be a nice shock to her. A pleasant one though."

  "Ah. Um... yeah, let me... I can do that. What kind of cake? I can probably pick one up for you on the way in. It will take less time?" That was a question, because he was smart enough to know that Keeley wasn't really just going to call him in to talk about cake. Though, really, she should. What better topic to bond over? She decided to make a point of doing that, or at least something similar soon.

  "Italian cream cake. It's her favorite, last I heard."

  "No prob. I'll be there in, call it, twenty minutes? More if I have to try more than one place for the right kind." Then he hung up, without saying anything polite sounding, because he did things like that still. It was part of his insanity, she thought, rather than him trying to be rude on purpose.

  She didn't leave the park, even after a few people started to give her suspicious glances. Apparently in Utah all the drug dealers and hard core gang members looked like casually dressed teen girls. It would have made sense if it had been mainly men, or if the women doing it had seemed sketchy themselves, but it was a bunch of regular people, as far as she could tell. That ended after a bit, since she was in a park, and it got too dark to see her, lacking good lighting.

  Zack stepped out from behind a tree, a ways off. That had to be on purpose, since she hadn't felt him coming, which was a level of skill that she had to admire and couldn't match. In his hands he carried a large pink box that had to have an entire sheet cake in it.

  "Keeley! Um, I have cake." There was a young and almost awkward sound to the way he spoke, his face not really clear to her, even from fifty feet away. She could see better than most in the dark, but it was still far from perfect. She could tell that he was mainly in blue, and while he had a button up shirt on, his shoes were built for running.

  Hers weren't, being tennis shoes, but they were her old ones, that had arcane looking symbols that meant nothing all over them, in black ink. Doodles to make her seem more interesting than she'd felt like she was, once upon a time. Months ago now. A lifetime away, back when she'd been a Human girl, and not herself. Not who she'd become.

  The Mistress of Souls.

  That had a nice dramatic ring to it, she decided, smiling.

  "Hey Zack. We should go, since there's a busy night ahead. Cake to eat, and all that. Presents to pass out. I might have one for you, too." If he wanted in on it, that was.

  If not, then she was going to be in trouble.

  "Darla is in Austria. Oh, she um, passed her Second Crucible. It wasn't an easy one, like yours, from what I can tell. It was three or four days of fighting. She's fine, herself, but it was close for a bit there. I'll let her go over it, if she doesn't get side tracked by the party. I wish you would have told me about this earlier, so I could have something for her, too. Now I'll look a bit like a jerk. Not caring enough to get her anything."

  That was an odd thing about Zack. He sounded a bit too much like he really meant it. A Greater Demon, but one that almost never remembered to control his emotions yet. He'd learn, no doubt. If someone didn't kill him first.

  Walking over to her, he handed the big box to her, which smelled good, and correct for the scene that was about to play out. Rich and decadent. Then he took her arm, using his fingers, not grabbing, just gently touching, almost with a kind of sweetness, and caused a rift to open up in front of her. A node. It glowed purple, though she would have seen it anyway.

  "Don't fight it. Just focus on the other side and step through. The only one of us to get that almost right so far is Gregor. Darla fights each time, like I'm kidnapping her."

  She smiled and nodded.

  "That makes sense. Um, don't mention it to everyone, but Gregor, he's actually an Angel. Those are real. That, or I'm being punked big time. We can't really keep that in mind, so most of us, Greater Demons, can't admit to that being true. I don't know if you can or not, but it seems likely to me. You're not sane, and trust me, which should be enough for you to get past that hurdle. Of course, you aren't their special chosen one yet, or whatever I am. Otherwise they really would have been better off approaching you first. I'll bring that one up at the next office meeting."

  Zack shrugged.

  "Oh? All right. I can't see that it makes a difference. Gregor is one? I should talk to him about that then? Or, not. Hey, does that mean the whole God thing is right, too?"

  "I don't know. They, I've met two or three to talk to, some of them said it was true, but, I can't prove any of it. I'm playing pretend right now, just to tell you this. You might want to hide it from Darla for now? That info isn't your present, by the way. Though, it should count. I mean, who else gives you information like that? Not Tarsus, that's for sure." Which was part of the problem.

  She stepped through, and instinctually fought the whole time, which got her glared at on the other side. The place they were in was... Bland. A hotel room, but neither big or well decorated. It had a chair, which was made all of wood and didn't seem comfortable, a small bed with an old and well worn spread on it and an attractive and well dressed blonde woman standing in the middle of the room. She held a gun, or something a bit like one, made of crystal and copper wire, wound in intricate ways. Some of the twists dipped into another part of reality, Keeley thought.

  Darla. Looking different than she normally did, but still familiar. Attractive, but about forty. Other than a few new lines and a slightly heavier jaw line, she was the same sister that Keeley had met first, the October before. The Cheerleader version. In this case, her good looking mother, perhaps?

  "Happy birthday!" She said the words brightly, and ignored the weapon that was still pointed at her. "Italian cream cake? That's what you asked for. I didn't know what to get you at first, but something came up. You have to share with Zack. Since it's kind of a big deal. I know that won't be a problem. We should put this somewhere first, so it won't be ruined when it gets here. The present, I mean."

  Darla looked at her closely, and then grinned.

  "Cake? My favorite kind, too. I do recall saying that, but it isn't my birthday, Keels." The part where she said if it is you, didn't get spoken out loud. It was heavily implied, enough so that she nearly rolled her eyes.

  "I know, it's a surprise party. I... you know, here, I can prove I'm me. You might want to be armed for it though. Let me see, Zack? You too." She didn't know if he went around armed, but reaching behind him he pulled a plain black pistol of some kind. That nearly got her to blink, but even he needed to take steps, if he wanted to survive. "Good, let
me..." She pulled a sword, a katana, with a Toledo steel blade on it, rather than one made in traditional form. The Kobold that had made it was creative that way.

  "So... Xenses, attend us here." She had to send a thought out with the words, and back it with a pulse of magic, but nothing happened at first.

  They had a wait, after all, but a few minutes later he came, moving into the space between them all, carefully. Then, standing there looking a lot like how Zack used to, unable to do anything else, was their prey.

  The Greater Demon that had murdered her father.

  "Happy birthday, Darla. Zack. Now, let's kill this thing, and get rid of the pieces?"

  She expected some kind of argument, or more of a fight from Xenses, who wasn't even allowed to talk, since she wasn't letting him have that much fun with the whole thing. There would be no room for last minute insults, or recriminations from him. No chance to escape, or even beg for his life. There wasn't anything like that, just Darla slapping up a slow time bubble around them, which would change how things sounded from the outside. It didn't muffle them so much, but it would distort things enough that the screams and explosions would sound different.

  Or, as the case turned out to be, the grunting that happened.

  Darla moved in her face a grimace of rage and happiness that was horrible to look upon, and took an arm, the left one, putting her well shod foot on the man's side.

  Zack shook his head at her then, causing them all to stop.

  "Wait." He put his gun in the back of his pants, or more likely in a holster there, and moved in himself, also smiling. "I'll do the other one. That way the forces will balance better."

  Then, working together, as a team, the other two pulled the Greater Demon apart. He couldn't fight, or flee. There was no healing on his part either, but Zack moved in and kept him from dying with a judicious bit of magic. It was decently well done, and clearly a thing that he'd been studying up on. He was getting the job done, but not blasting power into it. More a tiny bit of guiding, rather than brute force. That he saved for limb pulling. Hence the grunting.

  From the outside it probably sounded like Darla was getting pretty lucky. With several people at once, since they wanted her help, when it came time to take the head off. She offered to use her sword, but Darla and Zack both opted for twisting it, until it popped off. It took a while. About fifteen minutes, or there about.

  The floor was a mess, but no one seemed worried on that score. The floor was red and sticky, the blood there beginning to dry already.

  When it was very clear that no life existed in the form in front of them and never would again, Darla left, coming back about ten minutes later on the inroads. She carried a large and rather nice chest with her. A familiar one. Inside, Keeley knew, beneath the heavy iron bands and nice sturdy wood, was the Geordis. A time machine of sorts, that ran on magic. Anything it surrounded would be undone, the time it happened in never having taken place.

  The elements of it were all large, perfectly round, cylinders, about as big as a dinner plate in cross section, and about fourteen inches tall. Made of solid gold with little pointers on the top. Keeley had used it before, a few times. Getting the idea, she helped Darla set it all up, and stood over the body as her sister used the dials.

  "Ready Keels?"

  She was, and nodded, set to grab him again, as time was turned back and he came back to life, having never been dead at all. The packet of data worked for this too, and he never even took a free breath. It was, she understood, good practice for anything else like this she might need to do, later.

  Darla did it an entirely different way this time, getting Zack to help her paint Xenses with a white acid from a little jar. It ate his flesh off, as he suffered, over the course of hours. The desire to kill him faded on the fourth turn they took, and after Keels grabbed him that time, they removed themselves to a forest that Zack knew about, in a place so remote there were two moons in the sky. One was regular, like at home, but the other was small and yellow, being misshapen. The foliage of the place was mainly purple, with some orange and green mixed in for contrast. It was pretty, reminding her a bit of rotting flesh.

  Which wasn't a sane thought, but still true. Everything had its own beauty, didn't it?

  This time she helped cut the body up, which was burned on five separate pyres. Big ones that threatened to set the whole world around them on fire.

  "Lovely." Darla shook her head a bit however, and looked over at Zack, who'd brought the cake with them. "We should eat some of that now. How are we paying for it?"

  That was part of being an adult in their world, as annoying as it was at the moment. An adult didn't get offered free food, and didn't ask for it.

  "Three way split?" Keeley said it without pause, knowing that she needed to get more food herself soon. Zack had actually left for a while, as Xenses dissolved earlier, to get something to eat. Darla hadn't. It was too important to her for things like that to get in the way of her fun. Her final revenge.

  That got a nod.

  "I can do that. Thank you for the present, Keels. This was... Incredible. I knew I was the best mentor ever. This just proves it, don't you think? Even after we finished all that, you came back to reward me for it." She grinned, but didn't take it back, since that would ruin the teasing she was doing. She'd hardly done much at all compared to most mentors for their kind. Not for Keeley. She still had seventy odd years with Zack though, so she could make up for it with that.

  "Not too bad, actually. I could have used a bit more seasoning first, but everyone knows that. I'll muddle by. Mainly by complaining uselessly at you, Darla. Zack too, but less so."

  That got a more considered look, as Darla turned to the fire, while Zack stepped away and almost right back, with plates and a large basket filled with food. It was wicker, but so huge that it had to have been specially made. It was bigger than the box the Geordis was kept in, by about fifty percent. It was a full picnic, since the fires weren't going to burn out anytime soon, being so large. Xenses was mainly gone already, and the hotel had been left fine, and unstained, due to their use of time control devices. There was no blood traces left, since in a very real way, nothing had happened there in the first place.

  They spent a long time eating then, after letting Zack know that he'd be paid for the food, which he already knew. Then they ate and chattered back and forth for a long time, until even the embers were gone.

  Finally Darla stood up, and waved to each of them.

  "This, is the end of Xenses. The Defiler. Killed thrice, never to walk the world again. It was a long time in coming, and my only regret is that I didn't kill you more."

  It was as far from being a prayer for the dead as was possible, but still clearly heartfelt. Zack didn't add anything, but Keeley did, not realizing what it was going to be until her mouth moved, almost on its own.

  "This is the end. Goodbye, brother. The world is better for you leaving it. Don't come back. If you do, we won't be as kind."

  Then they pushed dirt over the remains of the five blazes and packed things up, leaving to their own places in the world. One that, as she'd just pointed out, was better for not having a certain Greater Demon in it. That might not last, since when one Demon died, another always tried to take its place. An insane being like her brother might well be replaced by something just as bad, or worse, but that, she decided, wasn't her problem.

  Neither was all the rest of what people wanted her to do. Hunting the other Greater Demons to the death? Trapping them in far off realities? Even if she could manage it, she really had to wonder if that was the best course of action.

  Tarsus had said that trapping them away from the world was the best thing to do, and that all of the universe might be destroyed if those others were allowed to stay in it with their full powers. He was even right, given what he knew.

  The thing there was that he didn't have all the information, and even if he had it, he wouldn't be able to understand what he was really seeing. It was crip
pling and led him to errors, unknowing. Keeley couldn't see a way to fix that either. Really, if she had it right, it was all part of a plan. Maybe she was supposed to kill those Greater Demons? Or, just possibly, she was supposed to help trap them, just like Tarsus wanted?

  There was also the chance that she was supposed to get herself out of it all, somehow. Beg off in a way that could be acknowledged as sensible by everyone involved without getting her killed? For some reason, even if not backed with facts, that last one felt right. She'd go and... Well, that was the hard part. She couldn't explain to anyone. That Zack had heard the word Angel and not laughed at her was a vast deal, and she knew it. Tarsus would probably ignore her, thinking it a clever, or possibly stupid, ploy to get out of risking herself.

  Which would be totally fair of her to try, so not unexpected.

  Michael, well, she didn't even remember talking to the man. If that part of things existed, then she'd have to deal with that too. Somehow. Maybe by having Gregor do it for her? How did you deal with things that you simply couldn't think about or consciously hold on to as a real concept? Humans did it, all the time, but most of the problems they had in life were due to that very fact about themselves. They constantly had to make decisions about things that they couldn't comprehend, and it led them to the wrong answers, over and again.