Shield of Innocence (Alternate Places Book 4) (15 page)

Then he grinned at her.

"You
still
have to do
your job here. I can't do it, make the baskets, so, you know, you're it."

That got Libby to come back
again, her face smiling, but her inner self questioning. To her it seemed like
the other girl
hadn't
made it. That was part due to a lack of faith, but
also to the fact that to her they'd only been gone for about half an hour. There
was no way to measure time in the void really, since it was too fluid that way.

Zack forced a wink. It had to
look fake, but a lot of times that kind of thing wasn't noticed.

"Charli is the newest line
walker. She'll need some time to readjust, since I kept her away from here for
a long time. Thousands of years. Thankfully you don't forget your regular world
life when you come back. Just while you're there." Even that wasn't total,
but it could happen.

The Korean girl nodded, her dark
brown hair moving a tiny bit. It caused lines of sound and power to cascade
into the room. It wasn't her really, Zack guessed.

Just him noticing things that he
hadn't before.

Libby smiled, and sighed.

"Fuck.
I
didn't make
it five years in there before I had to leave. I got horny, what can I say?
Still, maybe I should try again? Otherwise my people won't have anyone that can
do it."

Zack looked at her, and then took
a deep breath. Then he looked at her, examining her for that certain something
that the other line walkers had. It was an ephemeral quality, but there, inside
of her innermost self, he saw it. Small, and rough, but present.

"You can do it. Eve will be
able to help with that. I... Are you willing to let Troy teach you? I'll be
there too, so it will be safe, but I need to make sure that we have other
people that can do the training. Charli, you're in for that as well,
right?" He was going to explain, but the girl agreed with him, her voice a
bit dreamy.

"Okay. Should I go get
him?"

Troy was still working, at Lesser
Shia, so Zack nodded.

"Meet us back here in ten
minutes? Come on Libby. Let's abuse Eve's good will before she's gone."

That was a real factor, but it
occurred to him that they could have taken people to her world for that part.
The others could do that, when he was gone. Even before that, given everything.
The girl had a real skill when it came to getting people to do well at things,
it seemed.

Troy had to go in first, for a
very long time, and learn his skills on a level that would have seemed insane
the day before. Not just then, since Charli had been through it all.

Then, together, they all went
into the line to teach Libby Paterson, the Bat- girl, how to survive in the
void. Better than that, this time, Libby lasted about five hundred years, and
managed, with a lot of trouble, to get not just herself, but all of them, out.

That
left her gasping and vomiting on
the floor, but Zack was kind of impressed. Charli didn't get it yet, but Troy
smiled and clapped.

"Awesome! I tried that
earlier, with three people? I did the same thing. Poor Hathe nearly called a
medic for me."

Zack nodded then.

"It's pretty much always
like that if you do more than one person at a time. Two, and I'm out of breath.
Three or more and it's like
that
." Then he looked around the room,
made a face that was, he hoped, pleased and after a few minutes of waiting for
Libby, helped her up. They were going to need to clean the floor. Zack moved to
get the mop and bucket from the closet and started in on that while the others
lounged a bit. Troy had worked longer and Charli was still a bit drifty, not
having been allowed to really find her real world legs again yet.

Libby smiled at them, and
shuddered a little bit.

"I hate getting sick. So, no
more than two at a time?"

Zack mopped, and nodded at the
same time, the movements synching up.

"
Exactly
. What I want
now, soon, is for all of us to start training people. We should have at least
ten or twenty thousand line walkers, in the end. Spread out all over reality.
Realities? I don't know how we find volunteers yet, but we can work on that.
Are you all in?" If they weren't it would slow things down.

Troy was however, and Libby
nodded. Charli was just standing there, a loopy grin on her face.

"I don't know. That's a lot
of time to spend in the void. Millions of years. That doesn't really... I
mean... I don't know."

Zack could see that, and it was a
great point.

"Now, let's go and get some
food? We all eat, and haven't for a while. Or..." Zack looked at the
clock, which said it was just after nine. They'd shut the store down early, so
that everyone could leave, but it was about half an hour before they could go
get Merry from work.

He would have gone and helped her
clean up, but that would make her angry, though she'd hide it. The job was hers
and doing her work for her, was a major Elth no-no. To the level that she'd
even yell at him, if he did that.

"
Fu
-!" Zack ran
then, having realized that he'd promised hamburgers for people and then gotten
side tracked, coming up with two new line walkers.

Xan looked up, worried, and
wondering if he were about to die, as the group of most ancient beings came for
him. Charging directly. He nearly summoned his sword, and did pull the mop in
front of himself, realizing that one of the beings was his love. Charli.

Not that she knew about
that
part of things. He'd never told her about how he felt.

Zack waved at him.

"Are we too late? I said
that I'd get people food and got distracted in the void. Well, I guess I can
take the kids something from Burgerville. They should still be open."
There was no manipulation to his words, just a new plan. It would mean taking a
shortcut and walking a bit, but he could get that done in about half an hour.

Stopping suddenly, Xan glared at
him, his inner self covering for the fact that he'd been worried about death
moments before.

"I can make something. I
have no plans, and it would be an honor to cook for you and your people. Line
walkers."

He was staring at Charli, and she
looked back evenly.

Finally as he turned, to do his
work, he turned back.

"Miss Charli, would you like
to attend a function with me, soon?" He expected her to say no, and given
the moment, Zack kind of did, too.

Instead she smiled, almost
seeming like she was drugged.

"I
would
like that.
Tomorrow night? After you get off work?" It made sense, given that the
Elth man worked nearly every day. As far as Zack could tell his people didn't
have the concept of weekends.

They both agreed to that, which
meant Xan was very pleased as he took the food order and made more food than he
probably had during the rush earlier.

It took all of them to carry the
bags of food back without crushing it. They also had Hilda and Merry with them,
which meant that the flavor of their little group changed a lot when they got
back to the house.

Merry gasped however when she
realized that the food, in part, was for
guests
.

"We can't serve them this!
It wasn't made fresh. It's old now, and less than proper." She was really
concerned about it, and looked half panicked about the whole thing.

Troy smiled, hearing about the
whole thing, and patted her on the back, lovingly.

"No problem this time.
School kids being out this late won't expect even free stuff, so this will be
fine. Plus, Xan
just
made this stuff. This is good. If you make them
real food, it would seem wrong to them."

Merry was not convinced, and set
to making sweets, in case they were needed later, after the poor quality food
that her work cohort had made was roundly rejected by the minor gods that Chris
would have chosen to be his friends.

She didn't say that, but it was
there in her every movement, and her shining inner shadow seemed to think it
was real enough. It was bad enough that Zack had to give her a hug, then leave
the room, to ensure he didn't laugh at her over the whole thing. Then he took
the food to the dining room, and set the bags on it.

Poking his head into the front
room, he noticed that Clarissa had moved to sit by poor Jamal, who was ignoring
her so hard it wasn't really cute or funny. Each time she moved to touch him,
he pulled away, subtly. Inside he was annoyed, and kept staring at the girl,
growling softly at her.

Leave me alone.

That he didn't want to be a jerk
about it was also clear. So he was fairly happy to see Zack standing in the
doorway about sixty feet away.

"Hey all! I got that food.
Sorry I'm late. I got sidetracked at work." It was before ten still, but
these kids weren't spending the night. At least it would make no sense for them
to. Two girls and two boys in a mansion filled with succubi and vampires
didn't
seem like a thing that anyone's parents would be thrilled to hear about. Even
if they didn't know those groups were real, they probably would have pulled
their children from the place on hearing it was even a make-believe option for
the night.

Waving, Zack got the kids to get
up and follow him to the other room. Chris moved lightly, and without the
clumsiness that his lanky, admittedly nerdy, form should have allowed him.
There was a smoothness to it that Jamal thought of as being fit, and probably belonging
to a natural athlete. Beth didn't really notice it, and Clarissa thought it
looked feminine, based on the idea that
she
wasn't that interested in
Chris. Not with the larger, more powerful looking black guy there.

It was a bit troubling, since it
was clear that Clarissa was, more or less, just a normal girl. A bit too
emotional, and prone to thinking of herself before anyone else, but she wasn't
really being bad. None the less, she was annoying Zack, too. On the good side,
Chris just walked toward the front of the group, smiling.

"Is every one eating with
us?" His shadow turned to Zack, on purpose, and tilted his head. The
meaning was clear even without words. He wanted to know if the vampires were
going to just sit there with them at the meal.

Not because he didn't like them,
but because they didn't eat food, and while it was normal for them, knowing
that their friends were filled with energy and not hungry any longer, it might
seem strange. How could they explain that to the kids that didn't know who, or
what, the other people were was the actual question then.

Zack simply didn't know.
Shrugging he tried to send back that message, but it wasn't very helpful of
him.

Everyone there, the kids, seemed
surprised to find that there were other people around. They'd been left alone
for hours, and had only seen Claire, so there was a surprised feeling from
everyone except Chris, who knew what was going on.

It was interesting to see the
reactions, but Zack realized something, settling into his chair. As his behind
hit the soft fabric cushion that was there, and he looked at all the people
around the table, his awareness came to a conclusion that was just different to
anything that had ever come up before.

He didn't
care
what these
other people thought.

Oh, not to the level that he
wanted to be mean, but most of his life he'd measured what people were saying
inside carefully, and had always tried to make their days smoother. They'd get
tense, or upset by new things, and he'd work hard to make certain they didn't feel
more stress than needed. If they had an issue with him, he'd even go out of his
way to correct the perceived flaw, if it was one.

Now, glancing with a small smile
on his lips, he understood that it wasn't his job to help everyone on every
little thing. True, it was mainly because Beth was sitting there, looking
longingly at the food, wondering if she should have some or not. She was
hungry, but had problems stopping once she got started, and felt fat, sitting
there with the bevy of super models that had walked into the room. Her mind
didn't have any other way to classify them, but it was intimidating.

Clarissa was less self-aware and
actually thought that she was, if not
as
good looking at Val, Lyn and
Eve, then she was, at the very least, above Beth, Denise and Claire. The big
problem there was that it wasn't true. Worse, Jamal quietly had decided that
he'd rather sleep with anyone else in the room, other than her. That included
Zack, Chris and Troy, and given that the guy wasn't even remotely gay, or even
bi, meant something special.

That wasn't his problem either.
Not unless he had to put out for some reason, which wasn't going to be
happening.

So, without feeling shy about it,
he took several burgers, and some fries, knowing that he at least needed the
calories. Everyone else took normal amounts of food, except Eve and Claire.
Beth saw that and winced, then looked down at her plate. Merry insisted on real
dishware being used, and scampered to come to the table, Hilda along with her,
since there was free food in the offing.

That got more staring, since they
contrasted so nicely. Merry was tiny and delicate, Hilda nearly a giant.

Rather than address anything the
kids were thinking, Zack waved down the table at Charli. She'd managed to go
unnoticed, by keeping her inner self very still. It was a good trick. People
knew she existed, but no one had been thinking about her.

"You should eat. You haven't
for a while. Even if you don't feel hungry yet." The words got everyone else
to look that way, and Claire grinned.

"I take it things went well
enough? There's no terrified gibbering, which I
have
to take as a fine
sign."

He nodded, and took a bite of a
veggie-burger. Xan did a really great job with them, making the patties
himself. There was a savory and sweet quality to them that hit just about all
the right taste receptors perfectly. It was still warm, and regardless of what
had been said by Merry, the food was perfectly fresh. The lettuce was crisp
still, and the tomatoes and onions were delightful.

After he finished enjoying the
bite, he spoke, deciding not to care about what the kids heard. If they thought
he was weird, then so be it.

"Charli is a line walker
now. Libby, too." He felt for his Bat-girl, to find that she was in the
other room, with a full bag of burgers. She didn't want to make a pig out of
herself in public, but had to eat a lot more than most of them did.

It wasn't really true, but people
could accept that the giant Hilda ate more than most, without thinking about
it. Merry, tiny as she was, needed a lot too, but did that in secret. She felt
shame over her part of the resources it took to feed her. Which was ridiculous.
They had vast amounts of gold and cash with which to purchase food.

Claire looked up at him, sharply,
having lived for hundreds of years in secret from humans. Boldly stating the
facts made her feel uneasy.

Eve however nodded, and looked up
at him.

"Awesome! After this I need
to get back to my place. Edom has been covering for me himself, I bet. I don't
want to leave someone else doing my job for too long, or they'll figure out
that they don't really need me. Kaitlyn?" It was clear she was asking if
the Alede wanted to stay on there for a while or not.

There were strange orgies to be
had, and all that.

The girl surprised him a bit, but
wrinkling her nose cutely, and eating a single French-fry.

"I'm in the same boat at the
book shop. On the good side we can come back and visit whenever we want. Is the
plan to take Nik with us? For training?" She wasn't even bothering to be
cagey about her words.

Zack wasn't, so there didn't seem
to be a need to. After all, Lyn and Eve were both from a world where normal
people knew all about vampires and even Alede. They held no real fear that way.

Eve nodded, smiling around the
table a bit.

"Yeah. I want to take Chris
and introduce him around a bit, too, so that we have several people to move
bodies around. Are the rest of you going?" She looked at Jamal, Beth and
Clarissa then.

As if
that
made any sense.
It was really clear that they didn't understand what was going on at all.

Eve however, seeing that Zack was
thinking about that, shrugged at him.

"The humans here are
different than they are back home. I don't know why, but there, if I showed ten
people that I was a vampire, nine of them would
literally
forget by the
next day, and most of the remainder would by a week after that. Here people can
handle it. It's kind of neat really. Plus, this is
obviously
fated."

Claire seemed nearly white, which
had to do with how she held herself, not skin color. She was always pale. Vamps
were as a rule.

Her words were slow and even
however, even as her eyes started to turn blood red, out of concern or fear.

"Oh? How so?"

Eve laughed a bit and pointed at
the other people. The new ones.

"I recognize all of them. Beth
and Clarissa are
both
in my vampire training course. Older versions of
them, but them. They haven't been turned yet, but I think they'll make it. This
one is Darren over there. He works at Burgerville, with a friend of mine. He's
also shorter. A bit of a gamer geek there. Larping?"

It was very open and bold, and
Zack just shook his head.

"Let's not? If they want in
on that kind of thing later, they can get with Chris on it. Otherwise they can
just happily think all the hot women here are playing games? I'm not sure we
have time for that kind of thing right now." He meant babysitting, but
Troy, down the table, shrugged.

"Or, if they want, they
could try out for being line walkers? You did say we needed more of us."

He nodded, and ate more. That was
true. Not only had he said it, but they did kind of need to make sure that
happened.

"You can be in charge of
that part? Chat them up, after we eat, and see what they want to do?" He
glanced at Chris, who seemed no more than slightly interested in the whole thing.
His shadow wasn't protesting, but did feel baffled. After all, these people
were just there to study, and he didn't particularly think of them as more than
casual friends.

People he chatted with, but that
was all. Really, Clarissa had invited
herself
. She needed the help with
her grades, so he'd decided to put up with her attitude just to be a good
person.

Realizing that he'd been pushing
his own agenda on the boy earlier, assuming that he liked one of the girls,
Zack smiled and ate for a while. The conversation went on, with the cool
vampire parts being ignored by most of them. Jamal, oddly, was willing to buy
that bit, since everyone there was so good looking.

The other two just thought people
were trying to be entertaining. Beth thought it was
nice
of them, and
decided that she was allowed to eat a bit, if Hilda was going to consume ten
burgers in one sitting. Clarissa was just so self-involved that she figured Eve
claiming she was a vampire was the other girl trying to steal all the
attention. Which, to her teen mind, was
her
job. The trouble there was
that she didn't have any drama ready to go, in order to steal it back.

She was considering the idea of
claiming one of the guys raped her, or tried to, if she could get them alone
for more than a few minutes. Jamal, probably, since he was black, and everyone
would believe it. Her shadow laid out the plan, and even why it would be done,
since the boy had rebuffed her so clearly that evening. That would show him who
had the real power, after all. He didn't have a right to refuse her.

It was all Zack could do to not
offer the girl a one way ride to someplace very far away. Thankfully several of
the others caught on to what was happening, which meant they were able to come
up with a plan to get rid of the girl, without letting her be alone with anyone
male. It was a bit complicated however, and really, there was no need for that
kind of thing.