On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (8 page)

If Don knew about everything, he
might
be able to
handle casual sex with Britney, which would be about the best that they could
really do, other than being friends. But they couldn't just tell him. For one
thing, he probably wouldn't just accept the information, it would be a pretty
hard sell to anyone raised in the normal world. Plus, that kind of information
had to be hidden from regular people.

The reasons for hiding the truth were clear and solid, they'd
all learned them in school, between maths and French kissing. The Humans, the
regular Humans that all the other races mocked slightly when they weren't
around, had to be kept in the dark about what actually existed in the world. Because
every time they learned otherwise, horrible things had happened. Five times in
the history of the greater world, everything, every person, every being, every
land, had nearly been destroyed. Not just wars or famines or natural events,
but total and absolute, nothing left at all, destruction.

In each case, Humans were behind it.

Humanity held incredible powers within them, magics and
physical strengths certainly, but those were all things that a lot of other
races could match or even beat, some of them hands down. No the greatest power
of Humanity was their creativity. Their ability to make things up and recombine
things into new patterns. Over and over again. They rapidly figured out how to
take small bits of power, or even other beings' work, effort or abilities and
magnify it, turning things that should have been safe into deadly forces that
could and
had
, shaken the firmament of reality itself.

A lot of races had fine arts and skills, powers that boggled
her mind to think about at times, even, but Humans... The other races had gone
as far as trying to destroy them all once, over ten thousand years before.
That
ended when everyone realized that the Humans were planning to take everyone
with them when they went. So now, a much as possible, they couldn't know what
was really around them.

As nice and sweet as some of them were, they were also
dangerous
.

So all the other groups worked to keep the Humans in the dark
as much as possible. In her life Kate had only known a small handful of regular
people that were told anything at all about the greater world around them.
Charli, who worked at one of the most important embassies anywhere, pretty much
by chance,
she
knew about things. Troy knew and actually
did
things in the world that she didn't think most of their family would be aware
of. For one thing, he kept going places with the Demon Beatrice, though the
woman swore to her that Troy hadn't made any deals with her at all and was in
fact working with her at
her
behest, so if anything would be owed, it would
come
from
the Demon. Kate had told her that it had better stay that way.
Not that she could
personally
back up a threat like that against a
Demon, but she promised that she'd find out how to do it if Beatrice forced her
hand by harming her friend in any way.

Beatrice had simply promised her that she wouldn't cause or
allow Troy to come to harm if she could stop it by any means. Kate didn't
understand it, but the Demon had actually seemed a bit scared when she said that.
Maybe because she thought that Kate would sic Zack on her? He was one of a
small handful of beings that could really destroy a Demon for good. Most of the
time, if you killed one, you just destroyed their host body and they'd just go
and get another one.

Barbara, who was a friend of her old boss Lisa, ran a bakery
with her girlfriend Beth, who was a Mage, she knew some things.

That was really about it. Well
and
Zack who both lived
in the greater world and
was
Human, but he kind of showed why the rules
were in place, right? Sure, he'd turned out to be one of the greatest forces
for good in the world, but what were the odds of that happening twice? The
amount of power within him, even bits of his power, in the wrong hands, could
turn the world on its ear.

So, this left poor Britney kind of stuck for now. She loved
Don, but couldn't be with him, because that would almost certainly end poorly
and possibly damage him in the process. If she were a worse person, she could
have had sex with him anyway, possibly hoping that Don would be one of the rare
people that could handle that kind of situation. A person without ego that
simply didn't take
anything
personally. Kate didn't know him that well
yet, but he didn't seem to be that kind of person at all. Not a bad guy by any
means, and obviously worthy of kindness and love, but without ego? If that were
the case he wouldn't have felt bad about Britney not sleeping with him, too.

Really the whole thing seemed just a tiny bit tragic. Luckily
they were young and would probably get over the whole matter in a few decades.
Unless they stayed friends, then who knew how long the whole mess might last?

“Don't worry, I won't steal him forever. Just long enough for
you two to figure something out, whatever that is, all right?” Kate hugged the
other girl again, only vaguely noticing that Blaine had been calling out to
them.

“Good job! Good match both of you. Decent aggression out of
you for once Brit, way to go. Let's keep that up now and by having you kick my
butt, right?” They started almost instantly, Britney rushing her brother and performing
a slightly weak, but technically correct double leg take down, that caused both
of them to end up laying on the floor in a tangle of limbs, struggling for
position. The whole thing looked pretty dirty when two hot people of the
opposite sex practiced ground grappling. Actually, it looked pretty dirty no
matter who did it, which Kate suspected was part of why it worked. Most people
in a fight wanted to avoid as much bodily contact as possible. Someone laying
on top of them doing things that could be misconstrued as highly sexual
probably disturbed a lot of people that wanted to think of themselves as manly.

She went to stand next to Don and noticed that yoga girl was
at it again, this time clearly oriented toward them, flexing and stretching,
even looking at them for a bit, when she sat up between movements. Kaitlyn
softly asked him if he knew their watcher at all, since she seemed pretty
interested in him.

“Ah, no. I mean I've seen her
here
, but I always just
figured she was here to watch Blaine or Britney, or, you know, actually work
out. That happens right? This
is
a gym and she looks to be pretty
dedicated and all.” He stared at her for a minute. “I mean, doing
that
kind of stuff, she certainly has no problems getting a date."

Kate agreed, "Here, step away from me, to the left, like
you want to see the match between Blaine and Britney better."

The woman's eyes and orientation followed Don as he moved
then held her position as she kept working through poses. It could have been
something else, some other kind of interest, but she clearly checked out his
behind, which, Kaitlyn agreed, did seem pretty nice.

Interesting, but not something she intended to do anything
about. If they were meant to be together, then one of them or the other would
eventually have to make a move. She wasn't going to listen to Brit confess her
love for the man and turn around to coach him in hooking up with someone else
in the same ten minute time span. Especially since she hadn't gotten any sex
for herself out of the situation yet. Now if the whole thing lingered on too
long, she may just do that, getting those two together, but she hoped not.
After all, that would be Britney's job if all went well.

Blaine walked her back to her room, not because she wouldn't
be safe on her own, just because men were almost always safer from being
attacked than women. At least in random attacks. Guys got attacked a lot more
when the situation was planned she knew, having been a guy herself more than
once. Really good looking guys attracted attention from other men that felt
insecure about their own sexuality, which often led to hostility. He hugged her
at the door, but didn't suggest he come in. Seeing what lay in the center of
her room, she called him back almost instantly though, before the door had even
finished closing, he pushed it back open, looking ready to fight.

“Presents! I mentioned to my friends how much you loved the
juice the other day and they sent some for you and Britney. Don too, it looks
like. Also some food, not just drinks, since Merri knows how hungry we all probably
are, having to make do on school food.”

Blaine smiled and pulled out his cell phone, telling Kate
that this was so nice of them, tears actually coming into his eyes at the
kindness. Plus, he didn't think he could easily carry it all the way across
campus without dropping anything. He'd call so the others could come carry
things too.

“Britney said she'll be over in a bit, but I can't reach Don.
Probably nothing, since he doesn't turn his phone on hardly at all. His parents
are a little strapped for cash, so he tries to keep his expenses down, which
means the phone doesn't come out until his plan's free hours. He explained it
to me, but I really don't understand it all, except that he's trying to save
money, which I can get behind, myself.” He looked worried then as if he'd told
some dark secret of his friend, but she just shrugged. College kids were
supposed
to be cash poor. Kind of a rule. That she wasn't stood out more than anything
else about her so far, even her looks got less attention, at least as long as
she dressed down a lot and used make-up to slightly mess up her skin tone.

Hugging her again and asking her to thank Merri for all the
stuff, he took his package, carefully marked with his name in both English and
Alfric, though he didn't comment on that last part, and headed out, leaving her
to work on her paper again. She almost had it done by the time Britney came by
a few hours later.

“Ohhh! Things! Some of that expensive juice and food. You're
so cool! Are we
actually
trading Don for this stuff?” She joked, using
it as an excuse to bring the boy up, being alone now.

“Nope, didn't even mention that as a possibility. Merri's
Alfric, so you know, don't
thank
her for this stuff, even if you meet
her in person. Just tell her how you appreciated the thought, or enjoyed using
the things. It can be hard to do, but you'd insult her less if you told her to
eat shit and fuck herself with a broom handle, and no, I
don't
know why.
The Alfric won't talk about it. We need to make sure that Blaine knows that
too, I don't know if it got covered in your school? It didn't at mine...”

As the girl often did, she went wide eyed at this
information.

“You know real Alfric, like, personally? No wonder you know
so much about Hartley, knowing Vampires and Alfric and stuff. I've never met
anyone except Humans and the Alede at school. Not that I know of at least, I
mean, I probably wouldn't know a Were unless I saw them change or they told me
and Mages basically look Human, right? So I could have seen some and just not
known it. But you've actually seen some of these kinds of things and even know
some? Awesome.”

Kaitlyn shrugged and tried not to wince at the others girl's
use of the word
things
to describe her friends. “Well, you know, they're
just people once you get past the surface stuff, like everyone else. Except for
the Trolleinkein, but not for the reasons you'd think. They smell fine, and are
all
fastidiously
clean, by the way. They
have
to be, because
their sense of smell is incredible. But, well, they think we, the Alede, kind
of stink. We smell like sex to them, all the time. Probably the pheromones that
come off of us all, but anyway, in their culture someone that smells like sex
gets left pretty much alone by everyone else for a few days, because messing
with them could start a fight. I mean they work with them and things like that,
but they don't get cuddly with them when they smell like that. Which would be
fine, except that we don't just smell like we've been having sex, we apparently
reek
of it. So to them, we always seem hyper aggressive and like we're
directly challenging them to a fight if we do so much as offer to shake hands
with them.

“And trust me, you do
not
want to fight with one. I
saw one once literally pull a Were's head off and crush the skull like a beer
can after. Now, it was an
evil
Were that really deserved it, but still,
not a group to mess with, best to be as polite to them as possible, keep your
energy locked up as tight as you can around them and stand downwind.”

The other girl sat down then, "Really, who else have you
met? I mean, what kind of people?" She settled on the bed, but actually
seemed interested in the topic.

“Well, I know a lot of Weres, a few Demons, some Djinn, a
couple Tricksters, some Alfric, bunches of Mages, a lot of Trolleinkein who are
all really nice considering everything by the way and at least one Kovalding.
I've seen and talked to more kinds of people than that, but those are the ones
I'd call friends. Lots of Alede and Humans too of course, but I didn't think
you meant
them
.”

Britney looked at her suspiciously then, as if wondering if
the other girl lied to her just to impress her, but then looked around the room
and rethought that, giving her a considering look instead.

“How did you meet all those people?”

Kaitlyn explained that her mother worked at one of the Nexus
locations and had gotten her a job as a part time clerk at one of the
storefront locations. It wasn't really
embassy
work for the most part,
though she did allow that from time to time she'd fielded calls from some
important people and things like that. Mainly sitting there and being yelled at
by them until she could transfer the call to her boss.