On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (10 page)

A tug on her arm indicated they needed to keep moving. The
front door to the shop stood open, even though the lights were off for the day.
Nothing had changed here since she'd left, for all that it felt like it had
been a long time. They ran toward the end of the mall, moving as fast as she
could go, she had a sneaking suspicion that the thin man next to her had simply
matched her speed out of politeness. It used to be that she could beat him in a
foot race, but since he'd come back from things a month or so ago, his
movements seemed off, as if he had to slow everything down most of the time
now, to interact with the regular people.

At the end of their run he turned right, into Frozen YoGurt,
the Vampire embassy, rather than left toward the candle shop. Inside they hurried
past the front counter. Blake, one of the Vampires, looked up and smiled when
he saw her. The counter was a gleaming white expanse between them, a cash
register toward the door and large silver machines toward the back. She waved
on the way past, realizing that she'd never had sex with him, even though his
looks were more than good enough and all the Vampires around here had learned
how to enjoy having sex again lately. She didn't know for sure, but she'd bet
that it had something to do with Zack from how secretive they were all trying
to be about the whole thing. She'd have to see if he got a break or something
before she left, if there turned out to be time.

In the back of the shop, near the node, three bodies, all
men. Humans by the look of them, though that could be misleading, since a
number of groups looked perfectly Human as well. They were all laid on the
ground, covered with blood. Wu-Li, the master healer, moved from one to the
next, waving his hands over each of them. She couldn't see it herself directly,
but this pattern of movement meant that he'd been trying to keep the men alive
by passing them energy directly, which he only did when things got
really
bad.

She looked at them as she walked up, seeing the bloody
clothes with slashes and stab wounds, mainly in to the torso. The one closest
to her had been hit across the eyes as well, leaving a gaping line with a badly
damaged left eye and no right one left at all, blood and a milky fluid marked
his face, tracks running down to the ground. She focused as tightly as she
could, jumping, almost
diving
, toward the closest one and began fixing
the wounds. Letting her energy out, focused on a small space about the size of
a quarter, she began to shift small bits of flesh from male to female, allowing
the skin and bone to heal underneath her gaze instantly, then quickly
transferred it back to male flesh, so that the tissues would remain compatible
long term

It took time, but using this technique, she healed the first
man completely inside ten minutes. The next one over had died from blood loss
while she worked on the first, so Claire, the head Vampire around their area, motioned
for her to move to the man farthest away as soon as she'd stood up. A man in
full Alfric armor moved in and put a blade to the throat of the man she'd just
healed, preventing him from moving. He started to say something, but she had to
focus on the last man and didn't really catch what he cried out. He
didn't
sound
happy to be alive.
Ingrate
.

After she finished with the last man, she finally got a
chance to look around the room, seeing several people that she didn't expect,
and hadn't noticed when they'd ran in, her attention having gone to the men on
the ground immediately. The room wasn't big, about fifteen by fifteen. With a
red brick floor, which meant no one had ever bothered to finish the room from
mall standards, which made sense. Vampires not really using the nodes themselves
in the main. There was art on the walls, true, but that was new. She remembered
when it had first appeared about six months before.

Beatrice the Demon stood next to Hilda, the tall blonde woman
towering over the smaller, slightly pale brunette. Hilda wore a black military
style outfit, the cloth hanging well on her. Beatrice was dressed in what
looked like a sci-fi geek's idea of female battle armor. Black snake like
tendrils covered her flesh, cupping her breasts and accentuating her crotch, a
shiny black over a skin tight buff black base that looked almost like her skin
had been painted, instead of clothing put on. It looked
hot
. Sexy as
hell, Kate admitted, but not like very effective protection. Then again, she
doubted the Demon would have worn it if it didn't do something for her and
since this didn't seem to be latex fetish night, it probably had some real
world use. Beatrice was a lot of things, including alluring in her own way, but
frivolous
wasn't one of them. Kate hadn't had a lot to do with any of
the Demons really, but the female always seemed capable and hard working, which
surprised her most of the time. Demons were supposed to be crafty and
conniving, not... normal.

Standing a bit away from them, was a tall Vampire. Nearly
seven feet or slightly more, and thin, almost skeletal, with dark hair that hit
that line between deep brown and true black and brown eyes that always seemed
just a little too close to blood red. The color that vamps eyes turned when they
were about to attack or feed. The whole package was a bit too much for Kaitlyn
to feel comfortable around him, but he waited calmly. She'd seen him before,
and had even talked to him. He did something that involved children, she knew. Something
good
, since Zack gave him free passage anywhere he wanted to go without
an appointment. Kate didn't even know his name, and really didn't know if
anyone in the room did. Zack had certainly never mentioned it to her if he
knew.

Hilda tied the men that lived up, not being all that gentle
with them, while the armored man held his sword on them. She used silver duct
tape instead of rope, wrapping them up with a lot more strands of the stuff
than Kaitlyn would have used. Then again, she didn't even really know that
these men were regular people. Maybe their kind
needed
that much duct
tape to hold them?

As soon as the men were taken care of and Hilda stepped back,
watching them, the armored man's sword disappeared, followed by the armor,
including the eerie mirror finished face plate that some of the Alfric had been
showing up with lately. Which Merri, the resident expert on all things Alfric,
had told her had to do with protecting their faces from bullets. Standing in
front of her wasn't one of the people from the food court at all, but Troy. He
turned to her and wrapped her up in a big hug.

“Kaitlyn! Thanks for coming and, you know, helping us with
this.” He moved in and kissed her gently on the lips, but didn't turn it into
anything more passionate than that, not in front of Hilda, who he'd been dating
for a while now. Not that
Hilda
would have minded. Her people didn't
really go in for kissing, since they were normally covered with hair, and their
idea of having a relationship tended to be more along the lines of sleeping
with anyone you wanted, as long as you gave an appropriate waiting time between
partners. So it was all cool with her, but Troy worried about the whole thing
like a Human guy, which he was.

Hilda came over and gave her a hug too, being one of the few
Alede she could actually stand being that close to for any length of time. Mainly
because Kate had learned to functionally not leak energy all over the place and,
she understood, having not had sex for a while, probably didn't seem off
putting at
all
to the huge woman at the moment.

Beatrice surprised her by also closing in for a hug, which
she gave back without even thinking about it at first. After a few seconds of
this the tall Vampire cleared his throat and broke in. His voice was deep,
almost so deep that it felt like it tickled her someplace deep inside when he
spoke. It was a nice feeling, as far as she was concerned.

“Thank you, for coming to our aid. I understand that you're
one of the Succubi? Can all of you heal like this? I don't mean to pry, but
it's come up in the past that people needed healing and I wasn't able to help
them. I've seen another one of your kind heal some children before, but I thought
that might be a special case.” He stopped suddenly and simply stood looking at
her, without any movement at all, almost dropping beyond notice, like a
mannequin or piece of the background scenery, seen but not seeming special to
her at all. Not calling attention in any of the thousand ways everyone else in
the room did.

Claire stepped forward, a quiet and dainty movement filled
with presence and answered for her, since by
Vampire
rules, things too
convoluted for an Alede to bother with, Kaitlyn would be one of
her
people, even though by Alede rules she could make an equal claim on Claire,
since they were so close. So if they ever ended up at a party with Alede, she'd
get to return the favor. The idea of her driving off all comers as they tried
to steal her Vampire friend made her want to laugh, which would have been a bad
idea, since old Vampires didn't generally like being laughed at and explaining
would be difficult right now.

“The one you saw heal those children was Patricia, Kaitlyn's
mother. She is indeed a very special person, but Kaitlyn here is perhaps the
most proficient of the Alede healers in the world. I believe it is she who
taught Patty what she knows about the subject, as backwards as that may seem.
There are energy issues involved however, so only a small handful of Alede can
actually heal others this way safely. Like us, most rest too close to
starvation to spend power like this. Kaitlyn will have to feed soon in order to
make up for her efforts here tonight.” Claire put no special emphasis on the
words, but it seemed clear that she didn't want the tall Vampire to know that
Zack could feed her without cost to himself.

She smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, it can really wipe you out. But when your friends
call, you do what you can, right? So, who's going to hook me up? Hmm?” She made
her voice go sultry and seductive then, more so than she had in a long time.
Over a week at
least
. She noticed that Zack's eyes stared into the
distance then, locking down all his sexual impulses she knew. It was his normal
habit around her anyway. Sticking her tongue out at him would have been
inappropriate, but she still wanted to do it. Troy turned toward her a little
bit, stiffening she saw, and in a good way as far as she was concerned. Turning
to him hopefully she licked her lips, wetting them to a soft sheen, but the man
shook his head, trying to resist her influence. He
managed
it, which
impressed her a little bit. Sure, she wasn't spraying him with pure lust or
anything, but he'd
had
sex with her before and his body would want to repeat
the experience again, since Humans naturally sought pleasure when they could
get it. That he thought something else would be more important right now amazed
her.

“Sorry Kaitlyn, you know that normally I'd gladly do it, but
right now...” His glance went to the two men tied up on the floor and the
corpse next to them. She'd forgotten about the corpse for a bit, not that it
bothered her. Over the last year, she'd seen a lot of dead bodies. This one,
covered in blood and mouth agape, didn't look that different from most of them.
It made her feel a little sad that she'd lost her shock and outrage about such
things, her innocence, but it had to happen sometime. At least she hadn't been
trying to heal this one when he died. That always affected her deeply, like a
little bit of herself died with them every time she failed.

The tall Vampire noted where her glance went.

“Yes. These men are all Human traffickers. They mainly sell
and trade children and young women for the sex trade. And worse... still, Troy,
if we owe this woman recompense for her work, perhaps you should leave the
questioning up to us and see to it? We may need her again someday and we'll
want her to come to us knowing that she'll be taken care of. On that note, we
also need to work out what kind of payment she'll receive for this.” The tall
Vampire turned to her and looked at her closely for a moment, tilting his head
slightly before going on.

“I hope you realize that our,
organization
, isn't
exactly cash rich at the moment. Still, there may be services that we can
render, or if not, perhaps you would be all right with us owing you a favor?
The Line Walker brought you to us, so I assume that he has some plan for
repayment for his part, but on top of that?”

Again Claire stepped in for her before she could speak, Kate
decided to go with whatever she suggested, since this situation seemed to have
moved into the area of Vampire politics again. Claire moved to stand in front
of her physically, almost seamlessly, in that smooth way she had that crept up
on you if you didn't pay attention.

“Two favors and a third to be delivered if these men provide
useful information.” She countered, her voice sounding flat and hard.

The tall Vampire smiled and shook his head.

“I think not. We want her trust and services in the future,
not to be enslaved to her whim, wishing for this and that regardless of what we
can provide. Two favors, but they must be within our abilities to provide
without great hardship. No asking for the moon or anything like that.”

Claire raised her eyebrows and smirked, as if she had him
exactly where she wanted as far as this negotiation went. Her light green skirt
swayed in the breeze from the air conditioner that ran constantly in Underwood,
her brown shoes shining just a little as she stood there, poised and confident
looking.

“Two, within the confines of your collective abilities, which
are great enough that clarifying that way is specious... and two to be
delivered if these men provide usable information.”