The Living and the Dead (Tyler G Book 3) (32 page)

That idea was possibly outside of
his deal with Keeley however, so he put it on the back burner. After all,
making waves wasn't a great plan at the moment. What he needed, more than
anything else, was to have friends. You didn't do that by taking away their
favorite playthings. Not even if it was the right thing to do.

It would work. He could feel that
in his bones. If he could notice the line, he could smother it in darkness, and
strip it of power long enough that anyone made a slave would be left free.

In theory, at least.

The problem with having the power
to break a Greater Demon's ability to hold a slave was that doing that meant
fighting that Greater Demon. Though, when he stopped to think about the idea,
Ty got that there was a possible service involved in the whole thing. As far as
he knew, if people wanted to break slave line like that right now, it involved
killing someone and then bringing them back.

He thought that there was a
better, and safer, way. One that didn't involve the use of time manipulation
machines. That was really cool, true, because people that died might be brought
back, if you cared enough about them, in certain cases, but...

Well, fighting to save people he didn't
know wasn't going to be happening. He wasn't pro slavery. Not by any means.
That didn't mean his role in the world was to save them all, either. He
couldn't even save himself, so that idea was just a bit too ironic for him.
Still, before he did anything in particular that way, a test was in order, so
he decided to go to the source of most of the new slaves herself.

The Mistress of Souls.

This time, for once, he got a
ride to her house, and knocked on her front door. It was... Different. He and
the band lived in a giant mansion. One owned by the girl herself. She, on the
other hand, lived in a modest single level home that was nice on the outside,
but not grand in any way. It was clean and there was a small forest of trees
and bushes around it. Given the terrain around them, that was impressive. A lot
of them looked like fruit trees too. Given how much her kind ate, that seemed
like a good idea.

As Rebekah drove away, not
looking at him, since she had no clue why he was there, Tyler knocked again.
There was a sense of life, a rushing inward of it in fact, that moved toward
the door. When it opened he smiled.

"Hey, Mistress of Souls. I thought
I'd come visit with you." Unannounced which was rude, but really Ty didn't
want to give her a chance to say no. At least not for the wrong reasons.

"Ty! There you are. I was
starting to think you didn't like me. One little rape and people start to freak
out. We made up though, so that's over. Did you come over for a reason, or just
to try and get a date? That could be fun. I'm free this coming Friday?"

He rolled his eyes a bit and then
shook his head.

"Allison and her friends are
coming, which you know. Besides, we still have brunch tomorrow at ten, so it
seems like we should set things up
after
that. This is about something
different."

"Oh? All right. Well, come
on in. Are you selling Amway now? I know you were worried about getting some
more money in."

He nodded as he walked past her,
not really knowing what that was, but getting that it was some kind of door to
door sales thing that was probably annoying.

"A little like that. Here's
the pitch: let's say that you're The Mistress of Souls. You collect slaves like
some people do little statues of dolphins. On occasion though, you might just
want to reward one of them with their freedom, or they might just be more
trouble to keep than to get rid of, but killing them means having to eat the
body, and you really want a nice fruit pie. What's a girl to do?"

She turned to him, smiled at his
bit of patter and spoke like she was in an info-mercial.

"I don't know, attractive
and manly spokesperson. What
is
a hapless Mistress of Souls supposed to
do?"

"I'm so glad you asked! All
you need is a handy Tyler G. With one simple visit, I can remove the slave
link, leaving everyone totally unharmed. To prove this I'll give you a free
sample, today. You can't beat a free sample!"

She sobered then, and raised her right
hand a bit. It was telling, considering she had to call out, too.

"Jasmine, would you come
here, please?" There was a bustling sound, and a woman who looked to be in
her mid-thirties or so came out of what he assumed was the kitchen. She had
mid-toned dark skin, curly hair that was a bit big, and slightly fuzzy, and a
pleasant smile.

"Yes, Mistress?"

Keeley smiled at her, looked at
Tyler like she wasn't certain, and shrugged, which looked wrong on the thin and
pretty girl, then waved at him.

"Would you like to be free?
Tyler here thinks he can break the line between us, if you want. From what he
said it should be safe enough. I don't really know, it could hurt. I'll leave
that up to you. What would you like?"

There was a nervous swallow, and
a look down at the floor.

"Being free is better. I
don't want you to think that I don't appreciate all you've done for me though!"
She seemed scared, but it was very clear that Keeley wasn't playing games on
this one.

Breaking the line was easier than
walking across the room. Ty just surrounded it with dark death energy, and then
killed the flow of life that moved from Keeley to Jasmine. Before the woman
from the kitchen could even finish stammering, it was done.

Perfectly.

Keeley went slightly wide eyed.

"
Well
! Okay. How much
do you plan to charge for this service. I have about ten slaves that have
earned their way free. Not if I have to risk their lives,
or
rent
Darla's geordis, it isn't worth that much to me. I'd go, say ten million a
pop?"

Tyler shook his head then.

"Nope. Ten thousand dollars
for the lot. A special onetime deal just for you,
but
you have to tell
any of the other Demons that might want that service about it too. The idea is
to make it so cheap that they'll use it, rather than just kill the slaves when
they don't want them anymore." He waited, since it was probably too
little, but she nodded at him.

"Charge more than that, but
I get the idea. Are you open to trading for things, too? If so, a lot more of
us might do that. Even the insane can have favorites, and doing this cost me
nothing
.
No magic, or energy even. Jasmine, can I get you to stay on? I'll pay you, so
it will be worth your while that way. Also, I sort of want to make sure you
don't relapse. There are other things we can do to make certain you stay clean,
now that you're past the first bit. Without enslavement. For one thing, if you
start to relapse, I can just look at you all sad. Like this..." She did
twenty seconds of a pitiful expression that would have worked on Ty.

So he nodded.

"That's probably good
enough. Do you do drug treatments too? I can..." He tilted his head, and
changed what he was thinking a little. "If you can get them clean, without
pain, and help get them to change, I can break the lines later, when it's time.
For free, as long as you cover the other side of things?"

There was nothing in it for
either of them, not that he could see. Before he could even pull the offer back
she laughed.

"We can charge for it.
That's not bad. I'll split the profits with you. Twenty-eighty? That isn't
really fair, since there are some five hundred and thirty Greater Demons that
could do my part in it. I'll be putting up the starting funds for the
facilities and training people to get the rest of it done. Doctors and all
that. Or are we doing this openly? That would allow us to do it faster and cut
out a lot of the need to string things out. They could come in on Thursday
night, and be done on Friday by noon. How often can you do what you just did?
Ten times a day?"

He tilted his head, and then
shook it.

"As many as you need? It
doesn't take much more than some concentration on my part. How about you?"

She smiled, which was a big,
vulpine looking thing. In fact it was nearly scary seeming.

"About the same. That, and
some orders for each person. It doesn't even just have to be drugs. We can fix
pretty much anything. Help with weight loss, and all that. Anything that people
want to have changed about themselves. All right. Now, are we hiding this or
not?"

He shook his head.

"No? I mean, my plan is to
make it cheap enough that Greater Demons can come to me if they want it done.
I'm
not
going to go and break all their slaves free if they don't want
it, so fighting with me won't be worth it. Really, it should be a net loss for
them, right? If I'm there to work for them, cheap, then messing with me
otherwise would be a poor idea." He was a bit shaky on that part, but
tried to fake confidence.

Keeley glanced at Jasmine and
then nodded.

"That sounds about right.
After the thing with The Storm, well, when it's learned about, a lot of the
others will be worried about what you really are. You aren't a Demon. I think
the best presentation would be to suggest that you're a powerful necromancer.
It's... Honestly that's about the case. Have you tried bringing the dead back
yet?"

He made a face, then shook his
head.

"No. I'm animating myself,
so I know I can do it, but it's a lot of work, and I can't see how it would
benefit anyone. Real Vampires, or even zombies are kind of living. I'm very
different than that, and I don't think that I could really repeat the process
for anyone. Lucy probably could, eventually." He didn't know if it was all
her work that had made him, or if it was his doing. Probably a bit of both.

After all, he was just a Human. A
dead one that had taken years of care to become whatever he was now.

Keeley seemed happy enough with
that, and touched his arm, tickling him with energy. That got her to wink at
him.

"Very good. Necromancer
then. People, even Greater Demons, will feel more comfortable if they can name
you. Let's do this? I need to set some things up. Let's see... Oh, are you
willing to break slave links without telling the slave about it?" She
moved and put her hand on Jasmine's arm, and then nodded at Ty again. "It
doesn't feel like anything, so that can be done if they don't know about
it."

That made sense. He had no clue
how many slaves would be living without knowing how oppressed they were. Then,
Tyler had gone sixteen years that way, so it was possible that it was a lot
more common than he knew about.

"Sure. I have no problem
with that."

That got a smile, and another pat
on the arm. This time, as the tendrils came at him, the sucking bit of life
energy that was so apparent to him now, he killed them off, scattering the
power they held. It wasn't destroyed, after all, just disorganized. It still
worked.

The Mistress of Souls laughed and
shook her head.

"Careful there. If you keep
them from knowing what you really are, they'll think you're one of us. That
wouldn't go well. No one can fight a half dozen of us. Not alone. You need
friends. Luckily you have a good start. Zack, Darla, Anne, I hear you even know
that
Keeley
bitch?" She winked then, but explained. "Sorry, I
shouldn't do that to you. I was just being funny at my own expense, not saying
that I'm not me. You need to work on ways to test that kind of thing."

Which was true, no doubt, but he
had no clue how to get that done. It was probably going to change from one
Demon to the next.

He stood for a few seconds, and
then looked at Jasmine.

"Oh, hey, are you coming to
the party next Friday? It's at my house. You can meet the band. Living Proof?
It will be fun. Probably a few famous people will be there and all that."
The woman seemed to be scared for some reason though, and she looked at Keeley,
who smiled and nodded for her.

"If you want to, Jasmine? It
really
should
be fun."

That got a nod, but the woman
took a breath and looked at him. Instead of smiling at him and saying that
sounded like fun, or even that she was busy, her words were very different.

"What do I owe you? For
getting me free?"

Keeley looked at him, and seemed
to get that he was stuck, not really understanding the situation.

"Ah. To me you provided a
useful service. A convenience. To
her
you rescued her from lifelong
enslavement. I
do
see how that might make an impression. Are you asking
for anything though? I'll bet she'll do anything you want.
Anything
."

The idea was to tempt him with
sex, but he shook his head. He wasn't filled with life like a real man his age.
There was a desire for the
pleasure
of sex, but he finally understood
that it wasn't really a drive for him. Just training.

He'd grown up in a world that
told him that men wanted sex all the time, so he
had
, in order to seem
Human. He wasn't that. Not exactly. Yes, it was still fun, and he could do it
whenever he wanted, physically, but it wasn't real. It was him making it seem
like he was like everyone else. Nothing more. He wasn't trying to procreate,
since that wasn't a thing for him. It couldn't be. Not in any normal fashion.

So even as Jasmine nodded
slightly, he shook his head.

"Nope. You're free. That's
all. It was paid for by the person that caused the debt. That's balance, right?
Or in this case you benefited from a free sample, but hey, that counts. So,
come to the party or not. Go live someplace else, or stay here and get Keeley
to pay you well for whatever it is you do. Or, if you want, get in early on
this new business idea. It probably pays more than doing housework, if that's
what you do here. Someone has to do the work though, so why not you?"