On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (45 page)

She found Troy standing next to Hilda and waved to him, the
room having gotten pretty crowded over the last hour, with nearly two hundred
people in it now, some being far more exotic than what they normally saw at Underwood.
They both put and arm around her when she walked over, Hilda holding a small
plate of hors d'oeuvres with her other hand.

She looked at Troy.

“Um, Troy, it was suggested that you might introduce me to
Luthor? If you think that's all right, of course.” He kissed her cheek and
turned doing the same to Hilda.

He led them both over toward the interior corner of the room,
where a small clutch of Vampires stood, an empty space around them that existed
in only two other places in the room. In one the Demons all stood together,
looking out at the room as if they feared attack.

In the other a nice looking man stood, glancing around
pleasantly. He wore a neat suit of gray material, seeming about like everyone
else in the room, if a little more normal. His head looked bald, but it was
mainly that his blond hair had been cut so short, she saw after a moment. As
she watched at least three people moved toward him, got into the ten feet, and
moved out of it within fifteen seconds each time. No one looked at the man in
more than passing, they just didn't seem to want to be near him for some
reason. Maybe he smelled bad? She doubted it though. He looked clean and tidy
to her, not like someone that would fail at basic hygiene.

As they walked past, she focused, trying to understand what
the deal was. It took looking deep within
herself
but at about ten feet
from him she understood. Within that range, he could kill you. It wasn't any
kind of magical threat, it just felt like the second she got within that range,
he'd planned out dozens of ways to dispose of her, depending on what she did.
He'd assessed her, knew her and her patterns and made ready for battle. The
sense of this was powerful. She'd been close to some other creatures and beings
that had felt a little like this. Hungry Vampires. An enraged Djinn. Merri if
you tried to thank her... but this blew those out of the water. It wasn't even
a sense of anger, but rather one of... peace. The man was totally calm, relaxed
and even happy about everything. Also totally ready to kill them all at an
instant's notice.

She smiled up at him, trying not to back away. She caught his
eye and saw him smile back at her, a genuine and kind thing that reached his
eyes. Swallowing, she walked toward him, Hilda and Troy both obviously uneasy,
followed her, trying to cover their discomfort, Troy began to shake slightly as
they came up to the man.

“Um, hello,” Kate began, “I'm Kate. I don't think we've been
introduced, or met before?”

The man gave her a big smile, “Hi Kate! Finally someone here
talks to me! I'm nobody important. I hope it's OK that I'm here? A man appeared
out of thin air, and gave me an invitation and told me that I may be needed
here tonight, but didn't say why. I can't imagine the reason myself, unless you
need more people to pass out drinks or something? I thought at first that maybe
you'd need help in the kitchen. I have some training there, but that seems to
be working flawlessly. After cooking and basic carpentry, I'm afraid my
relevant skills kind of fade pretty quickly...”

Everything about his words and demeanor claimed him to be
exactly what he seemed. She asked about the man that appeared to him, and he
described Riley the Trickster perfectly. She told him that she didn't know what
he was there for either, but that he should enjoy the party and if anything
came up, she'd come and get him, if that was all right? If there was a
trickster involved, she informed him, something would probably happen. He
nodded and stood looking around in his little bubble of personal space in the
crowded room.

Kate didn't shake her head, and tried to reconcile how nice
the fellow seemed on the one hand and how very terrifying he
felt
on the
other. As they walked away Hilda looked at them, and then back at the nice man
behind them.

“I don't know why, because I think he's a Human. Just normal,
at least his scent is, but for some reason, I think that if I fought him, it
would be the last thing I did. That fight wouldn't even last very long.”

Troy didn't speak, he just led them to Luthor, the ancient
Vampire leader. He looked reptilian after a fashion. His skin didn't have
scales, but it
felt
like it should. The head Vampire's face looked flat
and smooth somehow, but it was hard to pin down. He stared at her boldly as she
looked up, but kept himself from staring too long, just long enough to make
sure she didn't pose a threat directly. The man moved to pull his jacket into
place, something that had probably cost five or six thousand dollars in Europe,
by the way the cut fell on him and the style.

His cold hand, hard like stone and white like marble came out
at her, it wasn't held out, it hovered somehow, as if floating in the air
rather than supported by anything like a body. He gave off a baffling sense of
both being more solid than anything around him and not being there at all. She
took the hand which closed on hers delicately, as if he treated her hand like a
butterfly, trying to make certain he didn't crush it.

“Miss Swanson! I've heard wondrous things about you. The
tales of your beauty did not do you justice, and your ability to walk the lines
is amazing. My people did not think that any but Hartley, or perhaps a relative
of his could do such a thing. Do you know how you've managed it?” He asked this
with a smooth voice, it didn't order her to answer, but made her
want
to.
She smiled and told him what she thought, even though she hadn't really planned
out the words in advance.

“I spent the better part of half a millennium in the void,
with only Zack for company. No bodies, nothing but thought. I think that, along
with skills learned while doing that, I also became a lot like him. On a deep
level I'm very nearly Zack Hartley. Not perfectly so. I still think of myself
as Kaitlyn, but it's there. These abilities are mine and aren't at the same
time. That's just a guess. It could also be something else.” She looked the
Vampire in the eye and smiled.

He asked her a half dozen more questions, most of them pretty
normal. If he wanted to date her at some future point. Her favorite season,
what holidays she preferred, who she might be seeing at the moment. Then he
asked her, almost subtly, if she'd been telling him the truth and if she
could
lie to him right now.

“I could, but I admit that I don't want to. Whatever you're
doing is great that way. Subtle and very refined. I think that I wouldn't
answer if it were something I didn't want to, but I can't think of anything I
can't tell you anyway. Should I try to fight it? Go ahead and ask me
something.”

He asked her what her name was again and she told him Glenda
Goodfellow, she felt surprised herself that she'd come up with something that
wasn't a person she knew of, or a fictional character. Hanging out around Don
must have rubbed off on her a little. Luthor blinked, then smiled, giving her a
single nod of the head and faded back into the center of the group of Vampires,
obviously signaling the end of their interaction. Just as she got ready to turn
and walk away, Vaun stepped forward and bowed to her, so she bowed back,
guessing that would be protocol here.

The Vampire looked at her and grinned.

“Luthor is very impressed and wishes you to know that he
would like to pursue a treaty, if possible between your people and ours. There
is no time schedule for this, but if at any time you wish to do such, please
have Claire get in touch with me and I'll pass the information directly to the
top levels. Thank you.” Before he turned to leave he added something. “The
attack the other day? According to the one that survived, a Vampire sad to say,
it appeared to be a kidnapping attempt. They thought to grab one of you before
any treaties were in place. It seems to have been a small faction, most of
which are dead now.” He bowed again and floated back toward the cluster of
Vampires again, walking backwards carefully, not turning his back. Since she
probably wouldn't be the reason he did that, she looked around and noticed that
the kind seeming man from earlier had walked over to her and stood about three
feet behind her, smiling still and looking at nothing in particular.

“I'm sorry to bother you like this, but, is there a restroom
available? A little too much punch earlier...” She pointed the way and asked if
he wanted her to show him the way, shaking his head he told her that probably
wouldn't be needed and thanked her for the help.

As the man walked across the room, he suddenly struck the air
in front of him, then twisted, kicked twice, very fluidly and skipped to his
right, everyone else backed up, not knowing what he did, but Kate could hear
the sounds of impact, as muted as they were when he struck. Hoping that Riley
wouldn't send her a crazy person unless it was needed, she called out for
security, as they arrived seconds later, she told them to stop and watch.

“I think we're being attacked and that man is protecting us.
I can't see the attackers or hear them! But I can hear the blows landing...
Vampires and Alede act as spotters. Trolleinkein, where they point, hit as hard
as you can! Weres, to your best ability, if you can't find them, guard the
others. Walkers... To me!” She rolled this off as fast as people could hear it,
focusing as tightly as she could, finally she could see lines out of the air,
right now a dozen of them focused on the man that danced in the middle of the
room.

Focusing tighter she looked at the scene, trying to figure
out what to do.

It turned out to be Zack that made the next set of moves. He
seemed to go totally still for a few moments, then blurred out of existence
appearing where the man pointed suddenly, grabbing one of the invisible
creatures causing half a dozen Vampires to hit it at once. Whatever it was,
they couldn't hold it for long. It shook them off and moved again, invisible
the whole time.

The man in gray wove around, moving quickly, but without pausing,
flowing from one thing to the next as if it were a dance or something. He made
a flowing movement with his right arm, turning in place on the balls of his
feet and kicked suddenly at the air, causing a sound of impact about five feet
away. Everyone in the room started scattering.

“Hilda! Can you catch the scent?”

The big woman bellowed a loud “no!” that filled the room.
Nothing attacked anyone but the smiling man, who still, eerily enough,
smiled
.
After a moment he pointed again. Zack moved without hesitation and the Vampires
moved in again, this time Hilda was close enough that she could grab it and
start hammering on it with her right fist. The blows rang out, sending shock
waves across the room that Kate could feel in her chest. Soon three of the
giants were on the invisible thing, all holding it, pulling and striking with
everything they had.

The man in the middle of it all did something. It looked like
a simple punch and made a dull thudding sound, like someone being hit with a
meaty steak rather than a fist. The creature screamed and one of them finally became
visible. It was big. Too huge to have gone undetected in a room so full of
people, even though it had.

It had a vaguely Human shape, but looked wrong at the same
time. The arms were huge, as big as the legs, thick with muscle and covered
with fine scales of armor. Once visible they shone a slightly iridescent green,
a slight pearl luster to them. They'd be pretty if the creatures didn't look so
scary, Kate thought. The head looked broad and flat across the face, almost
like it was made of solid bone rather than flesh at all. The creature moved and
one of the Weres shot it, but no hole appeared, the bullet bounced off the
scales.

“We need to take them here, in this confined space. Extra
room benefits them, not us.” The man in the gray jacket and pants said, his
voice sounding cheerful and barely breathless at all. Pointing at another spot
in space, while he engaged two others, or so she guessed, there were two lines
of intent.

She thought hard about what she could do, and finally
remembered cutting the cement blocks with Wu-Li. She focused and created a wire
thin whip of energy from her right index finger. That was too small, so using
more focus than she thought she could while being attacked, she extended it out
as far as her mind could without losing track of it when she moved. In the end
she had a blade of sorts about three feet long. Without breaking focus she
walked to the creature in the middle of the room and cut its head off, just
moving her hand as if it had no weight and met no resistance. Her cut turned
out to be far from perfect, leaving part of the jaw and taking part of the
shoulder, but it worked.

Trying to hold her focus steady, she walked to the center of
the room, toward the man that still fought and directed the others, who had taken
two more. Once he made them visible, and held them, she cut those heads off too.
Troy had armor on and a sword out, but hadn't managed to hit anything, and
Hilda stood beside him, the leg of a table in her hand. Zack ran where the man
pointed, and then stopped and watched, waiting for the next indication of where
to go. Rather than run over again, he raised his hand and sent out a single
line of power, then drew it back, the thing it hit impacted the far wall, hard,
caving it in under the force of the blow, as if a car had hit the wall, but it seemed
to get up and rejoin the fight immediately.

Each time someone watching started to be attacked, the man in
gray moved to them instantly and forced the creature to focus on him somehow,
keeping anyone from being harmed that way.

Thinking of nothing else for a bit, knowing their new friend
would protect her while she did it, regardless of the odds against them, she extended
a line around her left hand in a similar fashion and moved to the middle of the
room, focused as hard as possible on holding these cutting lines in place.