Keeley Thomson (Book 4): Demon Trap (14 page)

That probably meant that he realized she wasn't really going to make him hurt too much and would eventually get him free of his slavery. It would pay for him to be her friend when that happened too after all.

Eve looked pensive still, and the others didn't speak at all, though Bal watched her closely, almost as if waiting for her to crack and ask him to kill the girls for her. That was
one
way to fix things, of course, but probably not needed.

She smiled.

"So, I'm on little kid clean-up duty. I don't suppose that they're in this state? That might make it easier to get them a good place and protect them." She used that language on purpose, and Eve looked shocked to hear the words.

"We aren't just going to kill them? Or, you know, I don't have to go to prison? I shouldn't have let them see me. Or, after they did, I should have killed them both. I shot that woman. I could do it. I should have." There was a hardness to the words, a thing that Keeley had noticed before in her friend. She wasn't a psychopath or anything, but her life had taught her to be tough in some ways. She would have felt the deaths and regretted them later, but she
could
have pulled the trigger at the time, if she'd planned on it.

Giving her friend a dry look, she walked around the sofa and sat next to the dark haired girl. She looked sporty and thin, a slight bit of Hispanic ancestry making her seem exotic, but in a way the most would have just thought of as pretty. Her brown eyes looked scared though, underneath the strength she was projecting.

"Kill them? Maybe. Probably not though. It would look really suspicious now. I might have to grab a prosecutor or a judge though, which is a pain in the behind. Next time, try not to be seen. It will make my days easier." There was a lightness to the words, and Balthias nodded, as if it were only common sense.

When you go killing, it was best not to let anyone know it was you after all.

"Indeed. Do you wish for me to see to this Mistress of Souls? Or will
you
be taking the lives of those others and enslaving them?"

She shrugged and threw an arm over Eve's shoulder. It was a bit possessive, but the girl needed to know that they were still friends, and that things going a bit wrong wouldn't have her abandoned.

"A bit of both, most likely. I..." It was very irregular, but Keeley actually had a place to put the girls, didn't she? With the Yorks. That wasn't going to be easy, but she nodded and decided to see about that, if nothing else could be worked out instead.

"Come with me, Bal. We'll get this going, and see what's needed."

The giant beastly creature stood, hunched over to prevent marking the ceiling with his horns and then waited for her to indicate what she wanted done. They needed to find the girls first, and set things up carefully, she thought.

She gave the order, and then followed Balthias onto the inroads, making sure to use the energy she'd been storing for it, rather than biological resources. It wasn't any harder to do, but it had a slightly different feeling to the whole thing. It was as if she were buzzing slightly. It kind of tickled, to tell the truth.

On the ground, at the police station, it was a very different scene than she expected.

First, it was very clear to the police that the girls, or at least the older one, had done the killing. The Detective in charge was certain of it. There was no doubt there at all in his mind, and the older man was being pretty hostile to the young blonde, who was holding her arms across her chest as she went over and over the same story.

Keeley nearly just grabbed the man, to make him stop, but she waited as the evening turned into solid night, the girl not being allowed to sleep at all.

"Now, Wendy, tell me... Your step-dad... did he touch you? I know that if someone had done something like that to me, I'd want to stop it from happening again. Is that what happened? He came and did things to you at night and you and your sister decided you had enough? No one would blame you for it. You can tell me. I can make sure you don't get in trouble if that's what happened." It was a lie, but the girl started to nod, making the man far too happy suddenly.

"He... made us do things. A lot. I didn't hurt them though. Mags either. It was..." She swallowed and then looked directly at the man, her face suddenly very blank. "There were three of them, I think. I don't know what they wanted, but one of them saw me. Like I said. White men. One had dark hair, that's all I remember." She started shaking then, but the man clearly wasn't buying the lie.

Keeley stood on the inroads to watch it all, Bal right next to her, the room they viewed looking a bit distorted and warped through the gap.

If the girl could hold to her story...

Keeley decided to short circuit the whole thing and found three pretty raunchy criminals that were easily bad enough to be worth sending to prison, and had Balthias scare them all into confessing. It took time, but the girls weren't being blamed for it all by morning. Now they were just orphans that had to be placed somewhere else. On the good side, child protective services found some relatives of theirs that were willing to take them. She'd need to check those people out, but it sounded legitimate enough. An aunt from the mother's side of the family and her husband.

Keeley would have run off to check the woman out at that moment, but decided that her other plans still needed to be seen to. It would be hard to explain to the Mayor and the City Council why she wasn't at their lunch meeting after all. Plus she had to get with the Yorks and make certain that they understood the situation. Hally was paying for things by performing a task after all. It wouldn't be good for them to go all parental and try to stop her or something.

That meant getting back to her house, which was empty, except for Eve, who was sleeping on the sofa, and Sherry, who was up already, working in her office space. The sounds were familiar, so Keeley pushed her head in the door and smiled.

"This is a busy season." It was the kind of inane thing that people said to one another. Most talking was done to bring people closer together, and cement community bonds, rather than to share real or new information. It was kind of an important thing to remember. After all, it took time to do it right, but forgetting to try made you look hostile to most people. That or sad.

"Oh, hi honey. I'm coming to learn that it's always the busy season when the Taggards are around." She was busily working with about twenty poinsettias, tying gold ribbons around them, with holly leaves and berries attached. It was a decent enough look, but not really up to her normal level.

Before Keeley could ask, she pointed at the things.

"I know, less than perfect. Another emergency party. The economy is starting to do a bit better, so a instead of closing their doors Winstonian Paper Works is throwing a party. It's a good thing, but they only made the decision yesterday. One of the owner's wives decided to splurge and try to get Clara for it, but it means we have to make due, materials wise. It isn't horrible, but..." She shrugged.

That was just the truth. It wasn't
horrible
, it just wasn't the kind of thing that she normally would have done.

"The ribbon should be white velvet. About an inch and a half thick?"

Sherry stopped and stared at her.

"That's exactly what I had planned, but I didn't have enough. I called, but no place around here does right now. Not that's open at least."

Keeley actually had to think then, and try to figure out who would have something like that. It was the twenty-second, so most places would be open, she was certain. It was just a matter of finding someplace with the needed item. Nothing came to mind though. Shrugging she got her phone out of her room, since she hadn't taken it with her, and called the first person that came to mind for it.

It nearly didn't make sense, but she had all of her daughter's memories, and the woman was pretty well prepared, as far as fripperies, and making her own things along those lines.

"Hello? This is Valerie Fargo, may I... service you today?" She sounded halfway to being a phone sex operator, but managed to keep the words just on this side of normal. It sounded like she was probably a bit slutty, but that was a positive thing, for an Alede.

After all, when dinner was had by collecting sexual energy, you kind of wanted people around that loved to have sex. Being a bit trampy would work
really
well for that. It was kind of what Eve did, but she only wanted attention. The Succubus on the phone would want quite a lot more than that.

"Hi, Valerie. You don't know me, I'm a friend of Kaitlyn? My name's Keeley. Anyway, I was wondering if you might have some white velvet ribbon I could buy from you? I need it for some poinsettias." She waited, wondering if the woman would get who she was talking to at all, but if so, there was no change in voice to indicate that.

"I... You know, I have quite a bit of that, to tell the truth. In the back here. How much do you need?" The tone did shift though, into something slightly questioning, but professional, rather than like she was actively going to try and poach her daughter's next meal from her. That was the sign of a good mom. For her kind of being at least.

Not that Keeley could be used as that kind of an energy source. Greater Demons didn't let go of energy when they had sex. Not the women at least. That was the primary difference between the genders really. The men could do that, so they could sire children. The women just couldn't, making them infertile. It wasn't a brilliant plan, as far as reproduction went, but they were pretty long lived, so it made some sense. Otherwise there would be far too many of them, if they could breed like people did.

She looked at Sherry and smiled.

"About twenty meters?" That got a nod from the older woman, who seemed interested in what was being said at least.

"Ah... I have that. I'll let it go for... Say two-fifty per yard? That's what I paid, more or less."

"Deal." She said the word automatically, and nearly laughed, because the permanent link tried to form between them, just from that, even with over a thousand miles between them at the moment. Keeley didn't let it happen though. She didn't really need any more slaves. As it was she probably needed to cull a few, just so she wouldn't have to worry about them.

The woman seemed to be decently chipper about the whole thing at least.

"When do you need it? Like I said, I have it here. I'd love to meet you. Keeley, you said?"

"I can be there in a few minutes."

There was a soft, almost sultry chuckle, since her words were taken as being slightly over eager it seemed.

"Westfield won't open until nine. It's only seven-forty."

It was clear that Sherry had all day, but sooner would, of course, be better than later.

"Is it alright if I come a bit earlier than that? The doors are all unlocked." That was a fact. After all, the place was really a meeting place, and some kinds of creatures didn't need to sleep at all. Others worked only at night. The place would be open.

"Certainly. I'll unlock the front of the store for you?"

"Great! Be right in." She hung up then, because the woman was about to start fishing for information. Knowing that the place was always open would mean that Keeley knew
something
wasn't normal there. Humans didn't shop there at night after all. That could mean a lot of things though. One of them was that she was a regular human, and that Kaitlyn couldn't keep her mouth shut. If that was the case, which it wasn't, Keeley figured that a certain Alede was going to be grounded.

She turned to Sherry.

"I should have that for you in a bit here. A mother of a friend of mine has a clothing store and they do some role playing. The sex kind, not the sci-fi convention stuff. Still ribbon is ribbon." She waited, wondering what Sherry would say. Probably that she was happy about the whole thing.

For once, her mother surprised her a bit.

"Oh? I... Are you having sex with anyone?" She blushed a bit at least. "I know we had a talk about that kind of thing a long time ago, but..."

Keeley had to fight down the embarrassment that wanted to rise inside of her, it took a few seconds and was actually trying to come back as she spoke. That was rare anymore. Normally she could just turn things off, like there was a switch. Not this time though, but she managed a smile anyway.

"Not yet. I might soon. Probably with Hally. I made out a bit with Eve the other day, but that wasn't anything serious."

Her mother nodded and looked away, avoiding eye contact.

"I... Do you only like girls then? You went out with Zack..." There was clear confusion in her body language and several hesitant looks at her daughter, or at least the thing that her baby had turned in too.

"He's nice, isn't he? I... Well, I think the rules are different for me really. I
can't
get pregnant, or catch diseases, so functionally speaking the only possible downside for me is other people's emotional fallout from what we do. Morally speaking... Well, all of that is just there to control people. It sort of makes sense, from a societal perspective, since pregnant girls running around who don't know who the father is plays merry havoc with the economy, and girls who only like women are harder to control, since they don't need men. There's more to the whole thing, but none of that really applies. Not to me. I'm pretty sure that I can do what I want that way." She smiled again, since she wasn't trying to be hostile, just sharing enough so that when her mom walked in on her doing a goat some time, there wouldn't be as much to explain.

The thought made her want to wince. She really hoped that wasn't something that would be coming up any time soon.

Her mother seemed content enough with the idea though.

"OK. Well, I support you no matter what. I do like Hally. She's very sweet."

Keeley thought so too, but that wasn't her point, not really. The girl was her friend, but also an asset. Or at least a potential one. Given everything it only made sense to not have her loyalties split between Darla and herself. Since she liked Keeley already, that made a simple, and easy way to bond her in place, without as much hassle as having another slave would be.