On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (51 page)

“Charli! We need to gather all the walkers, and any fighters
we can. I think something is about to happen at Lesser Shia, but it could be
nothing. I can't take that chance. A Trickster is involved... I have to go, but
I'll be back if I can. Just in case though, get everyone you can?”

She didn't wait for an answer, just ran, her sneakers pounding
the red brick tile floor as fast as she could go, passing all the stores and
not even bothering to stop and warn anyone else. Charli would do it, and she
couldn't spare the breath to talk right now. In the parking lot she hit the
natural rift that would lead to Zack's old place. Trying to remember what he'd
always done, she moved to step through, trying to twist and shift in a pattern
she must have seen hundreds of times.

Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing.

Not knowing what else to do, she focused as tightly as she
could, concentrating her mind to a point where the world around her nearly
stopped moving, or she thought that might be the case with the last bit of her
mind that wasn't purely committed to the problem at hand. Then that bit locked
in too place as well.

The links were there. She couldn't walk this rift, it was
wild and shifting, too much for her meager skills. What did she have that would
allow her to make it happen? She looked inside, searching every part of her
being for the key, and finally found it. The single greatest strength that she
had as an Alede and even as a being. Her friends.

She turned and ran back to Candles and More, hitting the door
so fast that the glass cracked as she opened the door. Zack was at the desk
eating a sandwich, which didn't shock her too much, he ate a lot now, after his
link had been formed to Claire. It looked good, but didn't seem like something
Merri would have made him, Xan's work then, probably. It had cheese and
vegetables on it and smelled of a tangy sweetness.

“Zack! Help... Your old house,
now
!” She didn't wait
for him, just turning and running again, not hard enough to hurt herself, but
moving a lot faster than she normally would. Claire followed them from her
store, at the rift Kate turned and saw her, matching them all easily, her light
blue skirt swirling around her legs as she moved. Her shiny black slipper like
shoes tapping the pavement softly compared to the clomping sound her own feet
made at these speeds.

“Claire, organize with Charli.” She called, holding her arm
out for Zack, who jerked her through the rift so suddenly and hard it almost
dislocated her shoulder. She shrugged it off as they stood under the tree, in the
yard across the street from the little white house that hadn't looked like it
had changed at all since she'd last seen it.

She looked at the address and cast about, explaining the
numbers to Zack.

“It's odd, and that side,” She pointed to his house. “Is even.
So it's this side of the street...” It took them about five minutes to find it,
walking down the street several houses before they realized they were going the
wrong direction. They cut through the yard with the elm tree they had just
appeared under, so they could see the front side of the houses where the
numbers were. They walked up and down the street twice before seeing that the
green house, the same one that they'd trespassed into the yard of just moments
before
was
the house they were looking for.

Kate shrugged, “Look, this could just be to get us out of the
mall or something. It's info from Riley's aunt, but I don't know how
trustworthy she is. She may have just been getting rid of me... I know she has
Don doing something that he really doesn't want to, but no one told me what it
was. That
can't
be good, given the situation there at school.”

Zack shrugged too, and pointed at the door.

“We're here. Should you knock?” He said this with a flat
sound to his voice. She noticed that they were both moving faster than normal
still, and tried to slow down enough that whoever answered the door, if anyone
did, might have a chance of understanding her. She thought Zack did the same
thing, but she couldn't tell for sure. He
always
seemed a little out of
step, and like he wasn't exactly meshing with the world around him. He smiled
at her as they moved up the front walk and matched her speed.

From inside the house, Kate heard a strange sound, like
popcorn popping. Staccato beats, without timing or rhythm, but faster than that
and louder. She couldn't place the sound at all. She went to the door and
knocked firmly, hoping that this wasn't just a wild goose chase. Nothing
happened for a time, so she knocked again and called out, “hello?”

Just as she was about to turn and walk away, Zack put his
hand out and the door handle started turning. The door opened slowly,
tentatively. Shyly a head peeked around it staring at them. Kate felt it then,
that fear, a desire to run almost over took her then, but she held her ground.
Zack actually took a half dozen steps back.

The man in gray. No longer wearing gray at all, but shirtless
and wearing spandex exercise shorts, covered with sweat, looked at them both
and smiled sweetly.

“Hi! I... Didn't think I'd see either of you again. I was
just exercising...” He didn't seem to know what else to say and just stood,
obviously feeling a little awkward. He invited them in, telling them that he
needed to throw on clothes if he were going to have guests.

Inside the house the whole thing felt humid and smelled
vaguely of sweat. It wasn't stale though and the smell underneath it showed
that the place was scoured with cleansers regularly. The living room was a gym.
There was no sofa or even chairs in the place, just heavy punching bags and
weapons along a wall, a wooden man, something Kate recognized from her own
training, but had never used herself, stood in the far corner. The floor was
hardwood and worn to a dull smoothness instead of polished.

The man left them standing and called out to them to make
themselves at home with a chuckle, clearly knowing how strange that idea would
be to anyone other than him. He came back a minute later, looking a little
drier, wearing a t-shirt that hugged his lean form and a pair of loose pants.
He sat and slipped on a pair of soft looking shoes that looked like slippers
that had a single separate space for his big toe on each foot, kind of like
mittens. Kate swallowed and tried to overcome her desire to flee from this
place.

If the man had felt deadly at the party in the open room,
this place seemed a thousand times worse. She took a deep breath and nearly
choked. The pheromones weren't right, she could tell, not signaling sex, but
violence and danger. She took a second and started again, humid air tickling
her skin.

“Um, hi. I was told I needed to come and get you and take you
to someplace really far away. I wasn't really told why, but I'm guessing that
if we're getting you it isn't to going to be about eating cotton candy, you
know?” Kate found herself shaking a little bit, but tried to hide it. No need
to insult the man after all. As things stood, she, they, owed him already.
Probably more than they could ever repay. The man kept smiling.

“OK. I guess I can see that, but why you'd need me I can't
guess. I don't suppose I have time to shower first?” He smiled and made eye
contact with them both. Zack shook his head, but stayed back as if trying not
to close with the being in front of him at all.

The man locked the door on their way out, just following him as
they walked to his back yard. Zack took Kaitlyn's hand, standing in front of
the elm on the street side, she reached out for the man's arm, but he took her
hand instead. Panic raged through her, her breathing becoming shallow and she
had to force herself to not try and shake his hand off.

He looked hurt, it showed in his eyes, but he followed them
through the rift to Underwood without comment.

“You're the ones that kept walking into the tree? I'd thought
I'd lost it there for a while. So you were going to a mall? OK.” He chuckled a
bit when he said it, trying hard to show them both that he was friendly. Zack
stepped away as soon as he could, but Kate held her ground, even though she
felt a bit like she might wet herself.

She knew that the effect he had must be powerful, since she
didn't even start sending sexual signals to placate him first. Her own biology
had realized that wouldn't work and simply tried to get her to flee. Her only
hope of survival here, it screamed at her, ordering her to run from the gentle
looking smiling man.

She opened her hand and he let go instantly, as if dropping a
burning ember, rather than the hand of a soft looking girl. They jogged to
Candles and More without speaking. It was tense, and scarier than it should
have been, Kate thought.

They found a crowd in the back, near the node, ready to go.
Into a war, it looked like to her.

Alfric standing in two lines, each in shining armor. Next to
Hilda and Troy stood a wall of Trolleinkein. Riley stood in combat armor that
looked like something a swat team member would be wearing, standing next to his
sister Rose, who was dressed in armor too, but hers looked more like chain
mail. Near the back of the decently large node room stood three Djinn.

They walked in, Zack first, then Kate, followed by the
smiling man. When he entered everyone in the room moved back, away from him,
except Ghurian. The ancient Djinn held his ground and moved forward after a
beat. He bowed to them all.

“We were told by the Tricksters and by the Lady Charlotte of
your embassy that there may be need of us, but no one knows more than that. Is
there more information you can provide?”

Kate hated to tell them no, but she really didn't know more.
She shared exactly what Riley's aunt, Yoga Girl had told them. Riley laughed
when she referred to the woman that way, but didn't share a name, just letting
her talk.

“So, all I know is that I have to take this man,” She pointed
to one standing between her and Zack. “To Lesser Shia and then to an address
near the college I go to.” She shrugged.

Everyone agreed that she and this being next to her should go
first, just in case that turned out to be important, but promised to follow
with Zack hard on their heels, just in case.

She took the man's hand, shaking a bit more noticeably this
time, and stepped into the node, then out of the void to Lesser Shia. Booming
sounds came from the market place, and screams. She dropped the hold and ran,
as fast as she could then. She outpaced her friend, but not by as much as she
would have thought she might, knowing that in her rush she'd pushed herself into
a blurring speed for a bit. Faster than the quickest Human sprinter by far.

When they got outside, it looked like a war was taking place.
Being a simple market place, it didn't
have
any defenses, except for the
guard, a group of beings that were more used to clapping a being on the back
and suggesting a different course of action than even slapping them into
shackles. If they saw three fights a year it would have shocked Kate to no end.
Today they bravely moved into the streets, trying to protect the citizens of
the city. And died.

The man, if he was Human at all, started fighting without
hesitation. Whirling away and making things, both visible and not, fall with
loud impacts. Unlike the last time she'd seen him fight, this time he didn't
hold back. The idea that he
had
before shook her. She didn't let it stop
her, summoning the energy lines around her hands, trying to form blades like
before. She went after the closest thing she could find, a being that looked
familiar, a bit like the invisible ones from the party, only smaller and
helpfully enough, visible. A soft silver color that was nearly translucent. She
cut it in half and moved to the next one.

Suddenly she felt her body move to the right, fast and hard.
A shot went through the space she'd been, causing the wall of the building
behind her to blow up, pelting her with stone like shrapnel. The man, her
friend, she guessed, had kicked her out of the way and moved to keep fighting.

After a bit, others started joining them in the fight. People
coming through the void from Underwood as expected, but also the remaining
guard, and shop keepers fought. Some with whatever they could pick up, sticks
and rocks. Some with weapons that a modern army could have only wished for.

It was a stand still except where Kate and the strange man
fought. There death followed them. Kate kept up with the other as best she
could, until Plenthi the Demon ran out into the street where they fought, a
bunch of the large invisible things this time and passed the man a small silver
box. He yelled at the man, telling him how to use it as the white form of the
Demon was picked up and tossed aside, crushed and ruined.

The box turned out to be a blade of sorts, kind of like what
she was doing herself, only it seemed flatter and broader, making a green sheen
in the air in front of his hand. It cut just as well though. After that, the
creatures just started to die, silver armor or invisible, they fell. Kate had
to hide more than once, to avoid being shot, jumping out to slash something and
then hiding again, but the man, wearing nothing but a t-shirt, soaked with
blood, red for all that these things were clearly not Human or even mammal, and
armed with nothing but what a Demon had handed him as his dying act,
didn't
hide. He killed and destroyed, moving from one being to another, not moving
faster than she could, but doing it so well that nothing seemed to touch him.

That, she saw, wasn't perfectly true, he had
some
wounds, but he didn't seem to notice them, and he didn't slow down or stop. His
movements weren't rhythmic she noticed. No, he struck without pattern, without
form that she could recognize. It wasn't that he did anything wrong, but just,
she saw, that for all her practice, she'd never really learned to fight at all.