Other Places 3: Detours (29 page)

"Um,
well, you, me, Ann, I was going to ask Darla if she wanted to come along too?
Lenore, my girlfriend. Don't listen to The Rotted, we aren't really dating, her
and I. Just friends, at least by the agreement we made the other day. Edom the
Vampire, Richard Swerlin, the politician... That's about all. Did you want
anyone included? We could invite the President, since I'm
sure
he wants
in on this, but I don't think he'll be allowed to go." He was being a bit
of a smart ass and knew it, but the man on the phone just seemed to take it all
in stride then.

Like
it was normal. That wasn't the case, since most things like this were just
ignored by their kind.

"Very
well. I'll be there shortly. I agree, however, that we should elicit a full
confession from them, before allowing them the rescue of death. They killed far
too many of my people this day. I thank you for your aid, Line Walker."
Then he hung up, probably so that Zack wouldn't have to figure out what to say
after that.

If
so, it was really pretty nice of the man, because Zack didn't have a clue at
all.

Turning
to the others he made the next phone call. After that, well, it would be time
to see to some very bad people.

Ones
that even God couldn't love, he didn't think.

The
church wasn't much of one, as far as impressive trappings went. It was a
slightly blue tinted gray color, with white trim, and a nice, but not huge,
sign out front. It just had their name on it, but didn't explain that the hate
group, and that was their true nature, was made up mainly of one family. Forty
members strong and often in the press, but only for their egregious behavior.

Zack
opened a node to the front of the building, and just had people walk through.
It was a bit harder to do the Demons with them, but not all that much. It was
mainly that all of them, to a person, tried to struggle and do the work
themselves. The problem there was that they wanted to do it
wrong
. They
all started trying to spray power around, sloppily ripping into space, instead
of simply walking through the neatly provided gap he made.

Really,
if he could train people to focus on where they were going, and made the rift
glow a bit, anyone should be able to use them, without the extra work on his
part. It was something to consider, but later, after the events of the day.

Keeley
had come too, inviting herself along, since Darla had decided to be a pain, and
tell her about Ann. The Mistress of Souls didn't seem to trust her at all.
They'd never met or anything, but just the fact that the crazy Demon saw things
a bit differently was enough, it seemed. As if insanity for their kind meant
particularly
bad
? None of them were actually sweetness and light after
all. He was pretty close to the best there, and that was mainly because he was
so new to it all that he hadn't been forced into being dark and evil all the
time just to survive.

It
would come, in time. That was in the memories that Tarsus had given him too. They
all went bad, eventually. Oh, it varied as to how much damage they did, but
that was it. He could cannibalize nuns and babies in front of Gregor and the
man probably wouldn't do more than suggest a good wine to go with. White, most
likely. Something dry, to cut the salty taste that all westerners had? That
this knowledge was in his collection of information wasn't comforting at all,
so he let it go and smiled.

"We
should knock?" They looked like a strange group, really. Teens and their
chaperone, who seemed like a Catholic priest, at the moment. He was dressed
like one and everything, since he'd come from work. Actually, a lot of them
had.

Apparently,
powerful didn't mean you got to be all that lazy, did it? Even Keeley had come
from school, where they were holding a rally all night, so that people wouldn't
have to be alone. It was nice.

He
didn't wait, for all that he asked what he should do. There were at least ten
people inside. That was easy to see, and there was also a dirty bomb, in the
basement. The radiation warped space a little. He cast that idea out to the others,
and then realized that, if he focused enough and added some power to it, Lenore
and Edom would get the idea too.

'Ten
people inside. Eight women and girls, one boy of about fifteen and their
leader. Also a bomb in the basement. I'll go in first. Everyone else stay back
a way.'

That
got a mixed response, since crazy or not, Ann backed off, just walking toward
the rainbow colored house across the street that had a Gay Alliance sign in the
yard. Edom held his ground for a moment, but was pulled away by Keeley, with
Lenore being led by Darla.

Richard
Swerlin stood up straighter, not having gotten the message, so Zack sent it
again, just for him. Then the man... Nodded.

"This
is my job. I'll go."

He
wasn't wrong, Zack realized. These people had attacked America and he was,
Vampire or not, a member of the
House of Representatives
. It was
literally his job to help protect the land they were in. Mainly by making laws
and taking bribes, or however it was done, but Zack had no real doubt that
anyone that knew what was going on would have done something similar.

Plus,
undead, and with super powers.

Gregor
came too, actually moving in front of them, pasting a smile on his face. He
knocked firmly, which, after a moment, had an eyeball pressed to the peephole
in the door. As if the cameras weren't enough?

They
opened the door, and the man that did it, his blue eyes rimed with aged
yellowed and slightly bloodshot whites, sneered. Because that was how you
treated guests, wasn't it?

"I
think you have the wrong place, heathens. This is a house of the Lord and only
the elect may pass within. State your business and be gone. This is a dark day
for the whole world, but the light is coming!"

Zack
looked at the man, and then nodded. He could see the sense in it, after all.
From the perspective of an insane and deluded bigot, what he was saying was
just fact. They were unclean, not being
him
. God was, of course, on his
side, because, naturally, his reading of the bible entitled him to act as he
did. It was right there in the word, after all.

He
popped his head around the other Greater Demon a bit, so that the old and
wrinkled corpse of a man could see him clearly.

Then
he waved a bit.

"Hi!
I'm Zack, this is Gregor, who's also called The Cleric, and this other
gentleman is Congressman Richard Swerlin. You know the name, since I'm pretty
sure you've preached against him a time or two. Anyway, I was wondering if we
could help you out of the bind you've gotten into here?" He said it
sweetly enough that bigoted hate fiend or not the man paused.

"Say
what? I... Is this about our protests? God really
does
hate fags, boy.
You can't be saved, but you should know that. God hates all your kind. The
sodomite, the perverse, the Satanist... The Catholic. Those papists are the
worst of the lot. I don't have time for games, right now." He sounded
bitter and angry, but only half as much as the few times Zack had heard him on
television. He walked forward, and slammed his palm against the door as the man
tried to slam it, realizing that something was actually wrong and that they
weren't there to leave a religious pamphlet.

The
door was made of heavy metal, and had very sturdy hinges. Like what smart drug
lords used on crack houses. He could see that as they flew off, the whole thing
pressing into the old man, who was falling. Only to be caught by Gregor.

After
all, they wanted the man to be presentable for his public confession later.

Zack
decided to do it the easy way, and reached out, to help the man stand up. On
contact he saw it all...

Oh,
you'd think the guy was probably a closeted homosexual or child molester, but
he really wasn't. Other things though,
including
guilty as sin.

Zack
looked at the man and waved his hand a bit.

"Check
him for me, so that we both can confirm this?" The man tried to scramble
back, but Richard, being kind and gentle about it, moved to his side, the
mighty crash causing people in the back room to run and look.

The
Cleric touched his cheek, which was almost a soft caress, rather than the grab
that Zack had used, and then laughed.

"I
understand. Well. You'll be confessing to that soon."

Zack
nodded, but didn't really care, though the people in the back, a few of whom
had guns, seemed to want to know what they were talking about. He spoke, but
only so that Richard would know what was happening.

"They're
all cannibals. I mean, I normally wouldn't cast stones there, since I've had
more than my share of the
other
, other white meat in my time, but there
it is. They also planted those bombs, and plan to do more, in time. You know,
making the sinners pay. The unclean. So, people that don't eat their friends, I
guess?"

The
politician made a face, and then sighed.

"I
could forgive an unusual diet, perhaps, or even deaths to feed yourselves, but
not wholesale contamination of my own food. Even if it wasn't my job to protect
people. Which, as it turns out, it is." He started to move and was shot
once, which didn't do much to him.

Zack
slowed the happenings and paid attention, finding the rifts in space where no
bullets would be flying. The people were too packed in for that kind of thing,
and were, no doubt, about to die at the hands of the government representative.
Except that Gregor was getting there first.

Calling
out he cautioned them, since there were rules to this kind of thing.

"Disarm
them! I'll check the device in the basement." Which he did by simply
running to the door which was just outside the kitchen. There were stairs
leading down, which were just made of painted wood. It was well worn, but not
untidy. When he got to the bottom he found a woman, who was clearly at least
her own Aunt, as far as bloodlines went, from the way her features were
arranged, and looked too much like the church leader's. She rather desperately
scrambled for the bomb, which was just sitting on a sturdy looking shop style
work bench. It was a lot like the one in his own garage that Darla had made him
build, as his first project. His was nicer, and painted, but this one wasn't
horrible.

You
just did better work with a Demon riding your behind.

"Don't
bother." Zack pushed the space in front of him, and walked sedately, which
probably made it seem like he was using blurring levels of speed to the woman.
He was on her fast enough that she clearly hadn't had a chance to do much, and
then he pulled her back, gently.

The
contact showed a few things, such as her ugliness not being due to inbreeding,
which had just been him being mean, it seemed. She
was
one of the
organization's four bomb builders however. They would have done more, but it
was harder to steal medical waste than it sounded like it should be. Then, for
best effect, they'd needed to powder it, which took a lot of work, to do it
safely.

She
felt rather proud of that part, since they'd managed it without anyone getting
sick at all.

Zack
could see it. The images in her thoughts were complex, but efficient. They'd
learned a lot, in order to be the best terrorists they could be. Then, they
were smart, as a group. Ten of them had law degrees, since suing people for
"infringing their rights" was how they made money for their hate
campaign projects. It showed in the quality of all they did.

"Calm
now. I can't let you set that off. Not yet. You'll need to do that later. After
you confess." He was holding her by the back of her neck, which meant choking
off the blood to her brain, since his hand wasn't all that big. Only partially,
since he couldn't reach around to both arteries at once. That meant, when he
went back up the stairs, they were
all
still alive. Unarmed and not
conscious, sure, but breathing.

He
didn't wait, just running to the front door and calling out.

"Got
em! Come on in!" He didn't yell, which meant that the Vampires were there
first, but only just by a few feet. The others dashed over quickly enough,
though Ann was smiling, her face both the second darkest in the group and a bit
manic.

"Did
any of them live?"

He
nodded, and then waved them inside, "yes. We need to find the rest of
them, but we have the leader and one of the bomb makers here. I..." He
looked at Keeley and then Ann, ignoring the rest of them for a bit. "I
think we should leave Festus here alive. Maybe let Keeley take him over and
then make him offer himself to people in prison?"

That
didn't go over too well, since people were waking up, including the man
himself.

"Heathens!
Devils!"

Ann
nodded at the man and moved in close, her face shining happily.

"Closer...
Keep going... Devils
and
..." She looked at him, and the man
grimaced his head clearly having met with a solid object while Zack was out of
the room. It didn't make him bleed, much. It was hidden by his hair too, so he
was going to guess that it was either Richard or the floor that had done it.
Gregor wouldn't have made a mess like that.

Then
again, he might be a little bit pissed that the religion he'd invented to
control people was being used so poorly. If so, that was probably fair. No one
wanted their work being taken over and claimed by evil people, did they?

Festus,
the bigot hate leader, made a face and turned a nifty color of red about then.
In part, Zack figured it was that Ann was choking him, but it could have been
his rage. It was hard to tell.

"Come
on... Devils and...." She led again, smiling, and then let the man go
suddenly.

"Fags!
Devils and fags... sodomites, all of you!"

Zack
looked around the room then and finally settled on Darla.

"Does
a blowjob count as sodomy? Because I've done that. On purpose, I mean. Or does
rape count? I mean, when people are doing you in prison, will that taint your
soul, or just the rapists?" Normally that would have been a real philosophical
debate, but he was just making conversation. The man on the ground didn't
answer, but Keeley raised her right hand slightly, which was out of place and
kind of cute.