Other Places 3: Detours (21 page)

"Hi
Bob. I'm collecting my Lisa up now. She's going to rehab, or magic camp, or
something, and then still has her job here. You're good with that, right? I
mean, as long as she stops acting like a freak and actually gets and stays
clean?" Then he stopped, distracting the man on purpose. It wouldn't be
enough to really derail him, since the man was competent, but it would make it
seem less like Zack had just ordered him to take the problem child back.

Which
he had.

"Wait,
do Mage kids get to go to magic camp? I never got to go, myself. Is it only for
the geeky ones?"

Bob
looked at him and then tilted his head.

"Well,
I
always liked it, so probably. Now,
our
Lisa, is going to a
retreat?"

"That's
the plan. She agreed to it and everything, on the condition that we don't run
her through the mall naked. Oh, wait, no... That was on the condition that you
and I don't do that? Sorry, I think I got confused." He smiled and so did
the other two, if weakly. "No, seriously, she's going. Please let her keep
her job, if she does."

The
man, who looked younger than his assistant by ten years, at the moment, sighed.

"Sure.
I don't suppose I can get you to come in a couple of days a week, while she's
gone? Eric Weise won't love it, but frankly, I don't care. If nothing else,
think of all the free, or at least really cheap, node travel we can get."
He was clearly kidding, so Zack smiled.

"I'll
watch the store, but I suggest you get a real Guild member in for the rest of
things. You should get Jennifer Stone for that. She's going to be
interning
with Maddy this summer, you know. She already has contacts on the Vampire High
Council, too.
Plus
she knows how to balance the till. So, a win all the
way around." He let his face look bland for a bit, and then glanced at the
store, which was in need of a good scrubbing down and arranging already, even
if he had only been gone for a few weeks. "I was serious about the store
part. I'll try to be in Monday for that?"

Bob
nodded.

"I'll
run all that by the people at the top, but I think we can at least use Jennifer,
part time. That's good thinking. Oh, say, not to be a pest or anything, but
have you been in touch with your grandparents? They've both called after you
here, but didn't have a number to reach you, otherwise."

Zack
froze for a bit, and then shook his head.

"Not
at all. I guess I need to get on that soon? Maybe go and visit?"

It
wasn't that he hadn't thought about them at all, as much as just
assuming
he'd been disowned and disavowed when Lisa had freaked out on him and the Mage
world seemed to suddenly hate him. That probably wasn't right, and he at least
needed to let them have a chance at telling him to buzz off on their own,
didn't he? That sounded like the polite thing to do, considering they'd changed
their entire lives for over a decade so that he'd be protected from the world.

That,
was not going to be fun, he didn't think.

No
matter how it went.

It
went more slowly than he would have liked, since Darla
might
have been a
little worried about him, vanishing like he had, but they managed to get back
to the book store a few minutes later, to find his mentor staring at the clock.
It was pointed, and done on purpose he knew, as if she were timing him or
something.

"A
bit slow. Not horribly done otherwise. Plus you collected a woman as a prize?
And here you told me you were a bit socially awkward. Way to go!" She
smiled and actually held her hand out to Lisa, who clearly didn't get that the
attractive blonde girl simply wasn't what she seemed.

She
shook back at least.

"Lisa
Weise." She made solid enough eye contact, and even a bit unkempt and
shaking held to a professional enough air, really. Zack patted her on the back.

"This
cheerleading powerhouse in front of you is my friend, Darla. She's in charge of
me for the time being, so, you get the idea, don't freak out and make me look
bad, but she's a Greater Demon. Now, very carefully, don't wipe your hand off
on your pants leg..."

He
waited, and Lisa managed not to, her skin clearly crawling a bit since he'd
mentioned not doing something like that.

Darla
laughed.

"That's
a bit mean, Zack. So, this is Lisa? Well, good to see you've come around to at
least tolerating our mutual friend here. Are you off to a retreat tonight
then?"

Zack
interrupted, sighing.

"No
time really. She'll have to stay with us, which isn't perfect for her. Unless I
can get master Wu-Li to help her out again? Samsara root... I don't know if
that will work again. I think it might be too hard on her system, since she
just had a round of it within half a year." He didn't mention that
relapsing that soon was stupid, since everyone knew that. Small children that
had never even heard of Wistra would have gotten that one.

His
mentor made a face and then patted the woman on the back too. Supportively,
since clearly she was backing him up in whatever she thought he had in mind.

"All
right. We move as a group, so let's go take a shower? It should be safe enough
to go to your house for now."

He
nodded.

"Right,
I need to get Roland and Rowan in here too. We should get some blood for them,
since they should be waking up any minute. I don't want them to push too hard
that way yet, since they're young still." Not babies, but they'd try to
snack on Troy and whatever guests he had, if there wasn't something else to eat
right away. That wouldn't kill anyone, unless they went overboard, of course.
His roommate just needed his own energy for work, that was all.

It
meant that he had to take everyone down to Yoghurt World, where there was still
a Vampire Council meeting going on in the back. That was a bit of a shock,
since they couldn't possibly have that much to chat about really. There it was
though, with Gene making suggestions about war preparations, just in case they
failed to make peace.

"We
should be making overtures to the Trolls." The tiny boy looking ancient
Vampire said the word simply and without any venom behind it at least.

Zack
heard him from the other room and sighed, then popped his head into the back
room.

"I
know
, how about you start by not calling them that? They hate it. Like a
racial slur. If
you're
the ones that start treating them right, they're
going to be a lot more likely to throw in with you." Then, as the four
Vampires stared at him, with Marissa looking a bit red-eyed from either hunger
or anger, he pulled back and waved to Edom, who was there to relieve Lenore for
a few hours it seemed.

Zack
had to focus to pick that up from him, but it was the same thing as touching
him. After all, space didn't exist, did it? Not really. Time either, for that
matter. It was part of what Darla had just been showing him, though she didn't
say that out loud. He supposed there was going to be a test on it anyway,
later.

"Hi!
Could I get a basket of blood to go please, and... How about one for the back
room? My treat." He pulled out his card, taking it from the leather wallet
that Lenore had gotten him, since his old habit of just stuffing things in his
pockets seemed to rankle her, on a deep level. It was too disorganized.

The
dark skinned Vampire smiled.

"Coming
right up." He bowed a bit, and was clever enough to realize that anyone
with him might well be important. Or at least might be someday. "Lisa. I
hear that you're going to be away for a bit? Let me know if you need anything
to make that easier. We're all here for you."

Then
he bowed to Darla, his face pleased enough looking. She was pretty and Ed
wasn't adverse to that in women, it seemed.

Zack
had to think pretty hard about it, but he realized that Edom had never actually
met even a fake copy of his mentor. Still, he should have gotten the too
perfect features as being fake, right?

"This
is The Technician. My mentor. We should speak later, if we get a chance. Since
there are things going on that you need to know about. For right now..."
Honestly, Zack didn't know what to tell him at all. Anyone that could fake
being him, or one of the others, was simply too much for the Vampires to
handle. Even getting him to call Zack might just make problems. "For right
now, you must be getting excited about the show later. I know I am. Troy is
getting me in. I don't suppose you have an extra ticket or two I could
purchase? For Darla and Lisa?"

The
man worked the whole time, efficiently, starting to warm four servings of
blood, taken from the small mini-fridge in the closet. Lenore refused to keep
it up front, even if it was doing as much business in sales as the dairy
products did. Especially at night.

"I
think that might be arranged." A nice wicker basket, one that was deep
brown, and held six glass bottles that were hidden from view by pristine white
cotton napkins that were wrapped around each of them. It was passed over the
counter, carefully, with the Vampire using both hands the whole time. The
charges for all ten drinks had been processed and went through, though Zack had
to sign for it, since his card required that for anything over five hundred
dollars. It was a safety feature, in case his identity was ever stolen.

Because
clearly, no one that would take over his identity would
ever
bother to
fake his signature. Still, it was what the bank wanted and didn't cost him
anything to do, so he went along with it. It would probably seem funny, his
spending a thousand dollars at a yogurt place, but as long as he didn't
complain about it, no one else would. That was the modern system after all.

Edom
didn't have any tickets on him, but simply called the club to have them put on
the door list. It was a normal enough thing that no one would question it, Zack
didn't think.

The
man was a bit tense, but didn't ask for them to stay, only smiling politely and
bowing to The Technician as she left. Zack was his buddy after all, so it
wouldn't be needed there, but the other Greater Demon could do anything at all.
Including killing him
and
the council in back, which would probably send
the entire Vampire world into centuries of war. They needed their leadership,
even more than most groups.

It
was a thing to be avoided, as far as he was concerned.

Zack
didn't stop reading minds as they left, so he picked up that Lisa was both
attracted to, and repelled by, Darla, on a personal level, and was a bit
worried that she was going to be taken off and killed, for having insulted him
so often over the last weeks. She'd kind of known it wasn't right, but it made
so much sense, didn't it? If Zack was trying to set her up to be his slave,
then her failures were all explained away in an instant. It wouldn't be that
she was a waste of space, or a moron that had overreached and made a thousand
bad choices. No, it was
him
. Even before he'd walked in probably. Except
that it didn't make any sense.

She
knew that too, Zack could tell.

If
a Greater Demon really wanted anything from her, the plan wouldn't take half a
year to come to fruition, would it? That left her having screwed everything up,
which was hard to swallow. Deirdre was gone, and wouldn't come back... she'd
debased and demeaned herself, and eventually lost the one thing in the world
that she'd thought she had a handle on. All on her own? Even beaten down and
with nothing, the remaining Wistra in her system cried out that she was just
one or two steps from taking it all back. It told her that she could regain it
all, and that it wasn't her fault.

Except,
naturally, that wasn't the case.

Zack
took them to his house the long way, walking out into the parking lot, since no
one would expect that, he didn't think. It meant boosting Darla through the
natural rift there, but she just pretended to be hugging him for a few seconds,
as if anyone would care about that. No one would notice it happening, after
all. Not Humans at least. Not even the Police officer that was watching the
back door of the candle shop again.

He
was big, as in about six-two and a little heavy, but like a biker, not a couch
potato. His shaved head was offset by his prison beard look, and unless he'd
changed his ways since the last time the two had met, he was probably in need
of a shower and a tooth brushing session. He didn't even bother to look over at
them as they vanished into thin air.

The
man was one of those people that simply couldn't wrap his mind around reality
not being what he always had been taught. If he'd learned that his own police
Chief was a Vampire, if she showed her fangs and ran around the local school
track holding him in her arms for an hour, the guy still would have blocked it
all out.

So,
naturally, when he'd noticed that another Detective had come to the mall,
thinking things were funny, and then backed off suddenly, he'd assumed it had
to do with a payoff. Because it just couldn't be that there was nothing going
on, could it?

That
reminded Zack of something. As he got to the front door of his small, rather
plain looking, white house, he spoke softly.

"I
need to write up that role playing game guide. Barb and I were planning to do
it, mainly as a joke, but I think it might just be a good idea."

Darla
smiled at him, and helped steady Lisa, who was at least not pulling away or
making frightened animal noises. That was an improvement over what she'd done
before. With Zack.

Enough
of one that he wondered if it was really her, for about the tenth time.

It
was dark outside, but just past dusk, so the Vampires on his bed were still
there, sleeping. They didn't really die during the day, after all, just went
into a state that seemed a bit like it. Their hearts slowing and their energy
use going way down.

It
clicked, as to why that was, suddenly.

During
the day, their Human energy sources would be up and active, needing to power
themselves. At night they'd slow down and sleep, making it so that the drain of
having an undead attached to them wouldn't be as taxing. If there was only one
energy source, it would show a lot, but by spreading that out over ten or more
people, things would probably not show much at all.

When
the Vampires got old though, they didn't need as much energy to keep going,
even as their powers increased, so they could stay up all day, without damaging
anyone they fed from.

It
was a bit different than the hunter/prey model that he'd always assumed was
going on. It was clearly designed to be cooperative and make some people
capable of staying up all night to protect against something.

"Lisa,
you should get the first shower. I'll start warming up a snack for our friends.
Then I'll make something for dinner." He hoped that she'd be able to eat
at least. He and Darla had to.

The
blonde girl took Lisa by the hand.

"I'll
take care of that part. Make something with protein in it? I want a good dessert,
too." She'd pay for it, so being a bit demanding was probably fair. If a
hassle, since Zack had really been planning to just open up six family sized
cans of ravioli. Then serve a few boxed cakes.

His
mentor intended him to actually cook, since it was one of the things she
insisted he learn to do for himself. He could, now, and was just being lazy.

Taking
a few moments to focus, he increased his personal sense of energy and got rid
of the feelings of tiredness that had crept in. It made a huge difference. Now,
instead of feeling like he couldn't breathe, what with all the Greater Demons
screwing with his life, he just felt slightly annoyed. It was better that way,
he decided.

So
he laid down three kinds of steaks, made some biscuits and started a big pot of
water for potatoes, so he could mash them. Then he laid out a tray with cookies
on it, which were all from a bakery, so at least not just something that
Nabisco was providing. Not that his mentor was too good for that. She just
wanted to make his life harder in the moment. On the good side, it was actually
about teaching him, not just being a pain in the rear, he thought. She
generally didn't do things just to be bitchy, as far as he could tell.