On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (25 page)

She found Jelly sitting alone at a table in the small dining
room off the main one, where they normally met for dinner. She went to join her
and noticed that the girl looked awful, like she hadn't slept at all, her eyes
wide and scared, darting around while she picked at her food. She nearly
panicked when she saw Kate, then relaxed.

“Kate! God, I think I'm in trouble. Look, you saw what I did
yesterday? Pointing that thing I had at the guy that attacked Blaine, well,
it's
technically
not a legal device and now someone's investigating me.
My uncle called, he's got contacts that told him... I don't know what to do!
I'm so scared. I only made it to defend myself, which
is
legal, but I
let
you
see it... Gah!”

Kate patted her hand and told her to stay calm.

“I'm not a Human, Jelly. So no need to freak out there.
Neither is Blaine. I'm pretty sure that Morgan saw it too, but he seemed to understand
and didn't mention it. I don't think there will be a problem. The investigation
into you, well, that's probably because I told my friend Lisa about you and
she'll want to check you out, just to make sure you aren't an assassin or something.
So, really, I think you're fine. OK?”

She had to explain what an Alede was to the girl, since
apparently Mage schooling covered other races even less than her own had. After
a while she calmed down and looked almost normal.

“Say, can I stay in your room today? I'm just going to skip classes
and sleep, but my roomie is going to be in and out all day. Nice girl, but
noisy.”

Kate told her that she could, but that she'd probably want to
be awake by dark, since that's when the Vampires underneath the bed would wake
up. This got a laugh and the girl hugged her tightly, a nice full body hug that
distracted her for a bit. After getting her set up, she went to work in the
library until math class, then came back again after to do her homework for
that class before art history. Professor Eilis asked her to stick around after
class. A woman came in and sat next to him, holding the paper she'd given the
week before.

Kate looked at the woman who seemed normal enough, on the
surface. Dark hair turning to gray, gold wire rimmed glasses, white hose under
a skirt, and a soft cream colored blouse. Her hair was down and had been
permed, but looked nice enough. She was a little horsey through the face, but
didn't seem angry or anything, which always made people seem more attractive to
Kate.

“I had a couple people read this, just to make sure I wasn't
being influenced by your looks. It's not something I'm proud of, but it
can
happen,
so I gave it to the others in the department to check. Everyone agreed that it
was thesis level work. I checked it through every database I could find,
including translations of foreign papers. Every one of them assures me that it's
original work. I've got to tell you that I'm jealous. If I could have done work
like that when I was a freshman I wouldn't be teaching here, but at Yale or
Harvard. Maybe even working at the Smithsonian. Now, this isn't an ambush. We're
not even going to suggest that you go into
this
field, unless you want
to, but Professor Ornbacker here is your student advisor, and she tells me you
haven't met yet? I thought that it was time you did. Now
I
have office
hours, so I need to get there in case anyone has a question for me.” The
balding man let his face beam at her. He seemed genuinely happy about her work
at least, which she found did make her feel good. She liked that someone good
in their field thought she'd done a good job.

Professor Ornbacker asked her about her interests, and didn't
even seem overly shocked when the first one she listed was sex. She just
laughed and asked her to go on. Her second choice, other cultures, got a bit
more attention and was written down on a paper the Professor had, her third
interest, martial arts, also got written down, and a raised eyebrow, but no
comment particularly.

They talked for about half an hour and the professor finally
asked her if she'd like to take a test that might tell her what she'd really
find interesting, subject wise? She agreed and they scheduled a time, about two
weeks later. The woman handed her a piece of paper with the date and time on it
as well as the office number she'd need to find.

“Don't let yourself get lost Miss Swanson. College can be a
wonderful tool,
if
you use it well, but it can also be a huge speed
bump, especially for the most gifted. Stay focused and interested.”

That little speech told her a lot. A thing that she'd never
even imagined to be true really. These people thought... That she was smart.
Not just a little bit either, but enough to be worth taking time to groom. Even
if they weren't going to get sex out of it. Not that they couldn't, of course,
but they didn't know that, and were still interested in helping her succeed?
That was... Well, it was their job. They didn't go to extra lengths for just anyone
however, did they? Not that she'd ever heard.

Later that night Jelly had a minor melt down, realizing that
there were actually
real
Vampires sleeping under her bed. It was cute
really, since she gasped and sputtered, but then merely smiled as the women
both climbed out from under where she'd been sleeping all day.

A while later, as they all sat and chatted, the RA, a
slightly older looking girl for their floor that Kaitlyn recognized more for
her blue hair than any other feature she possessed, came and knocked on the
door. At first Kate worried that they'd been too loud or that someone had
complained because they had too many people in the room, but the girl had just
come around with an official announcement instead.

“A student, a sophomore, was killed last night. They found
his body on the commons, in the bushes outside of the admin building. Right now
the police are asking for everyone to stay calm, and to not go anywhere unless
they really have to. If you do travel, to meals or something, try to go in
groups of at least three. This is probably an isolated case, but we don't
really know anything yet, so stay safe.” The words sounded like a prepared
speech, the girl probably having given it a half dozen times already.

Blaine worried out loud that it would be one of the people
that had attacked him the day before, marking
them
as guilty, but it
turned out to be a drama student named Mark Williams. They heard this, or
rather overheard this as people passed in the hall.

Jelly looked down and started crying then, fat tears running
down her cheeks leaving pink tracks behind them. She didn't cry noisily,
though. Britney held her and rocked her for a while, until she was ready to
talk.

“I know him. Mark... He's, he was, really nice. I used to
tease him about the blue beret he always wore, because it looked really gay. He
always laughed and said it was just advertising.”

Nikki stared at Blaine, who had started crying too, finally
going over and patting him on the shoulder.

“God... Blue Beret guy is dead? I knew him, too. I must have
slept with him a half dozen times. I mean I
knew
his name, Mark, but I
know a lot of guys named that, so I always called him Blue Beret guy. Damn.
Who'd kill
him
? He was, like, totally harmless!”

Everyone simply stayed sad for the next few weeks. Blaine
finally healed up from his wounds and started regular fighting practice again
each day, pushing everyone a lot harder than he had before. He started
insisting that Don and Jelly work out too. Running and lifting weights, both
things Jelly sucked at, but Don did all right, even though he didn't understand
why his roommate pushed them in particular, instead of everyone.

Blaine had a dead look in his eyes when he told him why,
“Because you're the only ones that can improve from it. Us Alede, Kate and
Britney and I, we're pretty much what we are. If we worked out for ten hours a
day, we might get a tiny bit stronger for a while, but not enough to make it
worth doing. Same with endurance or even flexibility. We all do all right in
those areas, but we won't get better. The Vampires can already rip just about
anyone apart, but exercise won't help them either. You and Jelly though, it
might make a big difference for you... If anyone comes after you.”

That became the theme then. Everyone had to stay as ready as
they could, just in case. Even if it didn't make sense.

Kate kept her grades high, which surprised her, when she
stopped to think about it. After all, Alede weren't exactly known for their
scholarly talents. Still, the near daily feedings and easily ready sex weren't
hurting her concentration at all, which left her with a lot of time each day to
work on studying. Professor Eilis made a point of encouraging her at least once
a week and assigned her extra work for fun. Full research papers that the
others didn't have to do. She didn't mind though, if anything it
helped
,
since she had a lot of time to kill even having sex with four or five people
each day. They were all in their little group, for the most part, so it wasn't
hard to arrange. Even Jelly, who turned out to like guys a good bit more than girls,
made a point of sleeping with everyone, once she understood their needs.

It wasn't until the next murder that everyone
really
started worrying.

This time it was a girl, a liberal arts student. No one in
their group knew her at all, not even in passing, which seemed a little odd,
given how many people Britney and Blaine connected with each day.

The odd thing was that the girl had been found in
exactly
the same place that the first body had been. No one knew anything though, since
the police tried to keep everyone in the dark.

Kate watched as the campus emptied almost overnight. The
school decided to make it official and closed the campus for two weeks, due
more to the fact that every class was half empty or more, than the murders, at
least from what they told the students. Kate just shrugged to herself when she
heard and called Claire to see if they could bring Nikki and Rebeca back.

That turned out to be a problem, George Penbroke and his
cronies were still trying to find them, though what they planned when they did
was unknown.

“Troy arranged his threat rather masterfully. If anyone acts
against the girls now, the Mages could end up at war, one they cannot possibly
win. Still, that won't help
my
people if they're killed...”

Kate got with Don and asked him to help her try something.
She wanted, if it turned out to be possible, to transform Nikki and Rebeca into
men for a while. It would be a good trick, and no one would expect it, she didn't
think. Not this first time. Even people with magic didn't turn men into women
and vice-versa, did they?

Laying them out on her bed, one at a time, she started in on
the whole thing, feeling a little apprehensive. Just hoping that trying to
transform them wouldn't kill them, or something. They weren't living flesh
after all, so the whole thing had a chance of going catastrophically wrong. She
tried to direct each change, envisioning the man she wanted them to become as
exactly
as she could.

The effort was incredible, taking more energy than she could
actually hold at one time. She couldn't tell if it had to do with them being
Vampires or that she tried to direct the change. Either way, it wasn't easy at
all. She began to shake and not in a happy way. Don saw this and started
feeding her while she worked, picking up on what was needed without her even
mentioning anything, which allowed her to get them changed over the course of
about an hour.

“Not bad!” Nikki said, looking in the mirror above the
computer table. “I look a bit different than I
thought
I would, I have
to say!”

Don laughed and clapped the new man on the back. Nikki, who
they renamed Dwayne, had turned into a large African-American man. Tall and
thin, almost six-eight.

Rebeca was about the same height, but looked distinctly
familiar to the people that knew the Mall, almost
too
familiar.

Looking in the mirror she hesitated for a second then turned
to Kate.

“I'm Ang? The Were-dragon? How's that possible?”

Kate winced at her mistake. She'd tried to direct the change
of each of them and it worked, but she'd run out of ideas after Nikki, so tried
to use Ang as a model. It had worked too, but a little too well, obviously. She
explained this and waited for the inevitable outburst. Instead Rebeca just
smiled and told them she'd bleach her hair out.

“I really doubt that anyone looking for me is going to bother
seeing past this face or even think about it, as long as there's something
different enough to distract them. I could also get a tattoo on my face or
something...” The Asian looking man drew a cross on his cheek with a finger.
“What do you think?”

Kate hugged him without thinking, then realized that this
might be hard for the Vampire. He turned and kissed her on the cheek instead of
shying away, causing the big black man to stare. After a bit he nodded at the
smaller man, but didn't say anything. If the new version of Rebeca could bear
to touch people without flinching, it might just make up for the fact that she
looked too much like someone everyone in their circle already knew. Anyone
looking for her would know she couldn't handle the close contact by now. If she
could in this form, it was a godsend.

Kate looked at her work. Even though they looked different,
they were both certainly Vampires. The lines of energy coming out of them made
that
clear enough. The shock of red threads around the head like a crown on each
remained identical to what it had been before.

How to explain them showing up suddenly was a problem, but
Don thought about it for a minute and came up with an answer that sounded good
to her.