Keeley Thomson (Book 2): Keelzebub (16 page)

“Keeley… This isn’t what it looks like.” He sounded lame and Quince just walked with her, watching someone to the side of them. Hard and with hatred on his face. It was nearly rage, which got her to jerk his hand down a little, distracting him.

Glancing, Keeley saw who it was. Edith Givens.

“To what do we own the pleasure this evening? I knew that Miss Thomson was coming by, but she didn’t mention bringing a date. Dates? And such cute ones too.” There was an almost subliminal growl buried under the words, something no human could make. Gary didn’t react, but Quince did, his hand tightening on hers.

“Not dates, unfortunately. Not mine at least, This is Gary and… Kevin.” It was Quince’s “real” name, the one on the school paper work. Darla had mentioned it, and funny thing, finding out the guy was a nearly immortal mercenary kind of kept the information fresh in her mind. He gave her a funny look, but didn’t correct her.

“They’re two of my assistants for the night. There are five parties and all of them need to have the events seen to. Plus a head count, and to make sure that the right people get on camera if reporters come around. There should be a few.” Keeley figured the Chief would have done that at least. It wasn’t proper PR without the public knowing about it.

“We’re having a raffle for everyone attending, just names in a hat, but the one picked get’s a hundred dollars. I’ll be back with the cash, but we need all the names ready to go for that. Could you help us set up a table?”

The woman looked ready to backhand her for impertinence, but gave a frosty smile instead.

“Certainly, or, more to the point, I can get the writing materials from my car while these two young men do the manual labor part. Perhaps you’d join me?”

Right, like that wasn’t menacing at all. Keeley let go of the boys’ hands, just in case an attack was coming. She started walking, pointing just a little toward the right.

“Over here?” She could see the vehicle, off to the left a bit, but didn’t want to give away that she knew that. Not yet.

Hopefully the woman didn’t read minds. Whatever a gatherer was. It was probably in her memories, but she didn’t have focus to spare at the moment. The old bat led the way at a quick walk, shoulders tense, right hand in a fist. She spun by her own car door and hissed.

“If you get in my way, it won’t go well for you girl. I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m watching you. Step out of line and I’ll be on the phone to your parents so fast you won’t know what hit you, do you understand?” The implied threat kind of paled compared to what she’d expected, and Keeley had to fight to seem even a little cowed. She was going to call her parents? The woman’s go to move had been vehicular assault originally, so that probably meant she’d decided that Keeley was actually innocent, if annoying. She looked down, copying the humble look that Clara had used earlier.

It wasn’t fun at all. Focusing she remembered being scared, like standing next to Balthias. It made her shake a little, which came across well in her voice.

“Yes, ma’am. I really don’t know what this is about though. I’m just organizing parties to help keep some kids safe.” Voice trembling, she stood, swallowed hard and waited while the woman snorted, then turned around to get a notebook and some pens from a briefcase on the passenger seat.

It took a second, but Keeley finally got why this woman was so dangerous. She was insane.

“Good then girl, as long as we understand each other. Perhaps I was mistaken about you. You seem like a normal young lady now, don’t you?” It didn’t sound like that was a good thing to the women at all.

Keeley nodded and didn’t make eye contact. It meant shy in almost any situation after all. As they walked back she had to keep the act up, arms hugged just under her chest, as if suddenly cold. Both the guys were moving a long red cloth covered folding table, and looked up nearly at once, anger flashing over Quince’s face, and worry over Gary’s, seeing her so distressed.

When the woman turned from the scene, paper on the table, topped with writing implements, Keeley reached out gently and touched her hand, ready for a flood of information, or possibly nothing at all, instead finding that the woman, who was indeed a “Gatherer” was merely human.

An evil, evil human.

She did have some power though, collected over the years, gadgets and implements that allowed her to do things no regular person could, being the main portion of them. That, and people, creatures and beasts that Keeley had hardly known existed. She had her eye on the Hsreth and held a dozen others, trying to find an angle to enslave them forever. She didn’t really know that her plans wouldn’t work there either. Not with the Hsreth.

Because, outside of legend, she didn’t know that Demons were real.

Keeley wondered at that. Durgs were distantly related to Demons. Kind of the junior league version. Not much by way of magic, strong and fast, hard to kill, and she realized, able to change shape, but only over the course of years, not hours like Darla did.

So… good. The woman wasn’t ready for them at all.

When she turned back, Keeley dropped the act. Part of it. She still pretended to be a sixteen year old girl, since it was the current plan. Keeley just didn’t bother looking scared any more.

“OK, you guys are in, she doesn’t realize who you are, either of you. I… Look, she had something to do with Rob’s death, she ordered it. I can’t prove that yet, but be careful. We don’t need two more dead people.” It was true. Edith had done it, ordered her six Durgs, part of Quince’s troop, the rest of them, his brothers in arms, to do it, so that Wilson High would have a better chance of winning the football game.

A stupid football game.

True, she’d ordered an attack, not a death, but the guys she had under her control didn’t play by the same rules she was used to, to them a “beating” meant going after someone until they drew breath no more. Restraint wasn’t exactly part of the training of an Acadian Apple.

They were hard core. Always.

Probably how they got away with having such a wimpy sounding name.

Both the guys stared at her. Hard. Finally she made a face.

“What do you think I’m here for? Checking up on one of the best caterer’s in town? That would just be wasting time. Now, get everyone’s name. The raffle has a hundred dollar prize and it’s a free drawing. One entry per person though. I’ll be back with some of the others later. About an hour. If worse comes to worse… Go punch one of the cops so they’ll arrest you.”

At that she turned and walked off. She needed to get to Darla and get help with all this. It was, really, her deal. Keeley was just helping out her sister. That and making her parties work.

Stupid murdering Gatherer. Who got people killed over a game? Just to keep her team wining? She’d done similar things before too. Several times in the last two months. She’d had the Durgs for years though. Trapping them nearly a decade before.

It probably explained why Quince planned to kill the woman. That and to try and break them free of whatever hold she had on them. It was a decent plan, except for the fact that killing a High School Principal at this particular party would make Keeley look kind of bad. The police too.

And Coretechs.

So, it was time to run off to Darla so that she could use her hundreds of years of experience to handle the situation. Well, that or get the gang together so that they could ignore common sense, proper planning and decide the very best thing to do was to run into danger alone, eschewing all help, so that they could save the day.

Because that would work. In a children’s movie.

Kind of like Quince and Gary were doing, come to think of it. At least Quince had an excuse. He really wasn’t very bright. Gary on the other hand was nearly a genius, or at least comfortably bright and should have figure it all out on his own. Grief for his loss would explain it, but it was still idiotic.

On the good side, there were at least fifty people at the party by the time she left.

So, yay. Definitely a bit of a success. Glen was lighting the bonfire himself.

When she got to the park by Raintree she had to admit to feeling a little taken aback. There were hundreds of people. Not all kids either, parents, and possibly a few perverts lusting after firm teen flesh, stood off to one side, dancing awkwardly, and in a couple of cases, drunkenly.

“Woooo!” One woman yelled as another lifted her shirt to get a guy to toss her some mardi gras beads. About thirty teenage boys stared with rapt attention. Becky from Taco Bell did too, her mouth hanging open as Keeley walked up to her.

“Becky, have you seen Darla around anywhere? Maybe with Hally or Eve?”

The girl looked down and blushed brightly, very much so.

“No. Um, I think I have to leave in shame now.” She pointed at the woman who’s breasts still hung out in the night air.

“That’s my mom. God, I can’t go back to school now, can I?”

Keeley patted her on the back and smiled.

“No worries there. Just walk up to her and do the same thing, she’ll back off it I think. That or you’ll be incredibly popular next Monday.” Scanning the crowd she caught a hint of red hair above a pink dress.

Hally.

“Or, you know, you could just walk over and ask her to stop before the police kick her out. Either way. I’d go with you, but I really have to run. Talk later?”

The girl ducked her head, curly hair not moving above the powder blue sweater she wore.

“That sounds good. You can help me with the note I write to explain why I’m running away.”

“OK. Seriously though, don’t worry about it. Just have some fun. No one here cares half as much about that as you do.” Well, except for the guys staring, but Keeley really doubted they were going to think less of Becky over the whole thing. Her mom had decent breasts, even if she was a little on the heavy side.

It actually took some work, and dodging through the crowd, to find Hally, who stood alone, not dancing or even talking to anyone. Her eyes lit up when she saw her friend walk over, so Keeley gave her a little hug, just a friendly one armed thing.

“Have you seen the others? I have a Darla centric emergency. Gary centric too.”

Hally grimaced and made a dark face.

“The jerk took off and left me at the dance. Alone. I get that he’s really upset about Rob, but if he didn’t want to be there with me, he could have just said so. I wasn’t his original date or anything, but still… He left with Quince. There probably off having hot man love right now. They should have asked. I would have liked to watch at least.” She seemed sad and serious for about five seconds then gave it all away with a smile.

“Seriously though, I don’t know where they are. I can call, you don’t have a phone, right?” It wasn’t a judgment, just a statement of fact. Her small pink cell came out about then and she dialed a number. Then hung up and tried another. After a few seconds she looked at the device and tried again.

“I have reception bars, four of them, but it’s not dialing out for some reason. Kind of odd. I wonder what’s going on?” She tried several more times before Keeley started feeling really uneasy. It was like she was being watched.

Hunted.

Looking around she didn’t see anything too strange at first. Then she noticed that one of the glowing lamps was missing. As she watched, another one vanished, then a third. Inside thirty seconds all the lights were gone. People started to notice. Taking Hally by the hand, she moved, carefully trying to avoid the people around her as the crowd, unhelpfully, began to make noise. The whole thing just didn’t feel right.

Then it happened.

A sound, like thunder, came from the loudspeakers. Then a strobe light lit. four of them, all working in unison.

Then a blast of music came as the six people ran out. Wearing very little. Not strippers, but still exotic dancers none the less. Barely clothed, all in things that showed their behinds and the shape of whatever they had in front pretty clearly, the three women with tops that had just enough cloth to cover the nipples.

Mostly.

The lights slowly came back as they danced through the crowd, not letting anyone touch them, but moving close enough to. People were laughing and dancing at least, and it certainly was more interesting than a raffle. It had Darla written all over it.

Possibly Eve too.

That didn’t explain the cell phones though. Taking Hally by the hand, forcing a giggle, she walked over to the adult side of the event, trying to find someone with a cell phone. She found such a person in the form of Dan Carmichael, who was busily trying to chat up Ginger York as her husband stood by, amused by the other mans antics. They were still both looking pretty happy.

“No Steve?” Keeley asked the girl next to her, who shook her head.

“Nope, invited to come with, but he decided to stay home and get to bed early. Probably to jerk off while spying on the neighbor lady. Too bad, he’d have liked to see this I think. I probably shouldn’t say that in front of you. I think he has a crush on you, you know. Since the other day he keeps asking when you’re going to come over, and if you have a boyfriend. Since my parents aren’t acting half as freaky now that nothings hanging over them, I should have you and the girls over for a party. A sleep over. Then he can spy on you all to his heart’s content. His little, totally perverted heart.”

“As long as he isn’t spying on you or your mom, I wouldn’t worry over it. We should definitely do that though. The sleepover. If I can ever get my dad to agree. Let’s see if we can get another phone… Dan!”

The Demon that was Finias pretending to be a medium-high level office worker or whatever his job description was, turned and waved to her with a happy smile.

“Girls! OK, I know Keeley, but who’s your friend?” He made enough eye contact that it would have been considered flirting if that wouldn’t have gotten him a swift kick to the groin. She doubted it would land, so decided not to try, but the idea was fair.

He did look at her though, making just as much eye contact, but with a more serious look to it. She smiled back and gestured around firmly, trying to seem professional.