Demon Bait (Keeley Thomson) (17 page)

That was the real plan too. A
full on grilling. It was cute. At least to her, since the woman didn't have any
real way to do that. She wasn't going to beat Keeley or lock her up, for
instance. Instead she was planning to try intimidation.

They moved, alone, since Mark was
asked to guard the door, into the back office, which had a solid wooden door on
it, making it seem like the kind of place that something illegal might well be
going on in.

Then the woman with the strange
almost orange brown eyes and bottle red hair turned on her, frowning and
showing fang. Her eyes did turn red then, without any whites showing, which
worked pretty well, Keels had to give her.

"You're what, one of the New
Breed? I had word of you going out today, so you're either ancient, or one of
them. You move wrong for that. Unless..." She glared, but the timing was a
bit off, and she ended the line by going very still, thinking hard. "How
old are you?"

"Sixteen." It was true,
so she just smiled at the other woman, and waited for her to process that.

She seemed not to believe it.

"Right, you're
sixteen
.
I suppose you know Barbara from school? Or The Line Walker? Who sent you?"
She moved in a bit, trying to be menacing. It didn't work too well. She smelled
of cloves and a bit of cinnamon, which was a trick some of her kind used to
remind people of comfortable times. Vanilla was also popular for that one.

"Sent me? You came to
my
house. I just live there. I'll admit that I did work you around to going out
with me, a bit, but nothing too harsh. Just what you saw me do."

"Um... Sorry?"

Keeley shrugged, since it was
going to come out eventually. It was almost always better to do things like
that on the terms that you set.

"I live here, in Sparks.
This is my territory now. Not that it will interfere too much as far as your
business goes, or anything like that. I know Barbara through Zach. I know him,
because I'm his Aunt." That was enough information, she thought.

Except that the Vampire was in
deep enough denial her eyes moved back to their regular color, ruining the
intimidation a lot. Her lips flushed with color too, making them look shining
and a bit pink, in the dim fluorescing light. Slightly damp with lip coloring.

For some reason that reminded her
of Hally, just for a bit. They didn't look much alike, however.

"His Aunt? I..."

They stood there for a while, and
finally furrowing her brow enough that it seemed nearly joking, the woman
stepped back, and did her best impression of a person losing their mind. A
Vampire doing that, which meant going completely still and not drawing any
attention to herself.

"What... Who, are you,
Keeley? I don't think I understand?" There was a bit of a lost little girl
behind her eyes, but it didn't speak of violence, so that was fine.

"I'm The Mistress of Souls.
Greater Demon. This is my new territory, not your club specifically, but this
city. What that means for you is... Really, not all that much. I might have
some things for you from time to time. Money making opportunities, political
help and things like that. On the other hand, I'll be available for you and
your friends to come to, if you need anything. For a price, naturally. Tonight
however, my best guess is that my sister got Zack to come here to check up on
me, and it was just a coincidence that Vaughn wanted to come too."

"Oh." There was an
obvious attempt to not lose composure, but no shaking or aggressive movements.
"Isn't sixteen a little young to be out on your own?"

That one took her off guard, and
she smiled about it.

"That's true. This seems
like a good enough place for it, however. I don't really get a choice in the
matter. So, the situation here is actually pretty good for you, as long as you
don't... You know, freak out? In the main, I think you should tell people that
you feel sorry for me and are trying to make sure that I don't fall in with the
wrong people. That way you can come around and not have to tell everyone in the
world that I'm me. That can get people to act funny, when they find out. Not
that they
shouldn't
, but you get the idea, keeping this between us probably
isn't a bad idea." She didn't say deal, but got ready to, and actually
back it up, if the Vampire went off the rails.

It was close, she could tell. For
one thing, she was starting to breathe heavy, and it didn't seem to be
something she was faking up at the moment. Vampires didn't breathe, and had to
remind themselves to do it at first. For her to fall that far back into old
reflexes probably indicated a fight was about to take place. Except it wasn't.
Keeley would take her as a slave first, if she had to.

She managed to get herself under
control, and sank to her knees, looking at the floor.

"Mistress."

Keeley put a single palm on the
top of the woman's head, resting it there gently, as if she were a pet. It
wasn't that far off from the idea she was going for. Except that the parts
where she had to feed her and clean up after her were a lot less onerous with a
Vampire.

"You may rise. I have some
plans for the area, that might be good for you and your people to get in on.
First, I think we should set up a blood collection center locally. That will
keep your people happier and give them a chance to profit from the whole thing.
I can have Rebekah call you tomorrow? Then, I think we need to go over the city
council here and make certain they're our kind of people. Good and law abiding,
I mean. Or at least not evil. I don't know about you, but I hate having to deal
with that kind of person. It's best to stomp them down early, don't you agree?
Can you get the other Vampires in the area to switch to either the new blood or
animal, like your people have? I hear that alpaca is actually decently tasty,
if you can't get Human for a few days. I'll get some in, as soon as I hire
someone to watch them. I have the room, finally. So I won't have to just have
three of them." She could also just take a slave or two for that, but...

Well, not doing that was stupid,
wasn't it? As long as she did it right, they'd be, if not safe, then no worse
off than they might be otherwise. She should get a Hsreth in too, to take care
of her place. Do the cooking and cleaning. That would take some care, so that
she didn't ruin anyone's life. Some good guards... And possibly someone to take
care of the building projects for her, since that was going to end up being a
lot of beings, and they'd need someplace to stay.

It was a plan, and not a horrible
one, though she also needed to get through the next weeks first. It probably
wouldn't be happening. It was hard for her to believe that, but there were
things that she, as inexperienced as she knew she had to be, just wasn't ready
to face. There were even things that
no one
was. They didn't show up in
her memories, but now that she knew what to look for, she wondered if there was
a pattern to things that Tarsus hadn't given her? A shape to The Void, whatever
that was. Delusion, another Greater Demon, or something else...

Could she find out what pattern
it had left behind?
Was
there one? She didn't know if that would be the
case, but she had a starting point.
Everything
had a name. She had more
than one, and so did all the Greater Demons. All of them. Except one. That, and
the Council was sort of nameless too, for some unknown reason. They weren't
even called anything. No one ran organizations that way, which meant it was an
issue. A place to start searching.

Felecia didn't stand up, until
Keeley took her hand and pulled gently. Then she kissed the slightly taller
woman on the cheek. It was cool, and pale, all hint of freckles being gone, if
they'd ever existed. Moving back she touched the other cheek softly.

"I have a lot to do. Most of
it has nothing to do with you, or yours, however. Don't let this be a bad
thing. We can be friends, if you want." She meant it, but knew that it
wouldn't be happening easily. There was too much terror coming from the other
woman still. So much that she didn't even bother trying to attack.

"I... Guess. I should
probably get back to the club." It hadn't been long, but Keeley got what
she meant, it was time for a certain Greater Demon to get out of her hair.

That was a bit rude, since they
hadn't hung out at all really, but she just winked at the other woman, then
gave her a quick hug.

"I'll go then. We should get
together soon though. We have that blood center to set up. Really, what we need
to do there is diversify. I'll see about getting those animals in. If we have
both Human
and
fine animal resources, more Vampires will be able to use
them, rather than just lying about it and keeping on with their old
habits." It wasn't a horrible idea. Vampires were prejudiced against
eating animal blood, and some of it
was
harder to use for energy links,
but Alpaca was good. So was horse, but they were harder to work with.

It tasted different, but there
had to be ways to spice it up for flavor.

Walking away, she considered the
idea, being aware that Felecia was simply trailing behind her, even out to her
car, parked well down the street, past some old buildings that looked
abandoned.

Looking at them, seeing the
broken windows and boarded up doors, she waved at it.

"This used to be some kind
of manufacturing center?" She pointed at it and looked closely for signs
of what was going on now. That...

The door had tool marks on the
right hand side, which meant that someone had removed the padlock that used to
be there. Junkies, from the smell coming from within. All poor Humans would
eventually use someplace near their own dwelling as a toilet, and whoever was
in there had been for a while. There were broken out windows, and several of
them weren't covered with anything, but a few were. Two had boards in place on
the outside, but several had sheets and blankets put up to keep the light out.
Daytime sleeping dens. There were wrappers and cigarette butts near the front
and more around the corner, just peeking out from the edge, where someone often
stood to watch for... The police, most likely. That reminded her that she
needed to gain control over the department as soon as possible. This place too,
if it was the local drug den, like it seemed. One of them.

Sparks was big enough to have more
than one, and nothing was being produced here. Just sold. As she stood and
watched, Felecia suddenly stopping to stare at the front of the place, there
was a sound from within. A rather panicked female voice, saying no, several
times. She seemed to be decently young. The Vampire grimaced a little, and
looked away.

"The dealers, some of them
get the runaway girls in there..." Whatever they normally did, it didn't
sound all that consensual at the moment.

That Felecia knew about the place
just made sense, given that her main business was less than a block away.
Keeley shrugged and walked over to the door, a bit interested to find that her
new friend came with her, without being asked. That was a better sign than she
would have hoped, given that Vampire rules basically told people to mind their
own business, most of the time.

They weren't met with a lot of force.
In fact, other than a stench that reminded her a bit of The Vile, meaning it
needed to be blocked out, no one stirred to notice them. The sounds of the
attack, and it was that, she realized, came from the second floor. Jogging a
bit and getting ready to fight, slowing time, she found the right room, and
simply walked in as two thin and rather seedy looking druggies tried to pull
the filth encrusted blue jeans off of a black girl that didn't seem at all
interested in being helpful to them. Keeley could see that, given that they
kept hitting her for not moving fast enough. At least that was what they said.

"Fuck, bitch! Stop fighting,
or I'll knock you the fuck out!" The man that said it, who couldn't have
been thirty, and needed a solid shave, moved in to strike the girl, only to
find that he fell over sideways first. He'd
been
standing, but the kick
to his load bearing leg made a snapping sound and he went down.

Screaming.

"
Fuuuuuck
!" The
other man had a knife, which Keeley took, not even bothering to slow down time
in order to do it. They just weren't all that fast, she realized. Not compared
to her. She kicked him too, but in the groin, since the target presented itself
pretty clearly.

Then she looked at the black
girl, who was far from pretty, but was too young to be hanging out in a crap
hole like this one. Too far gone into drugs to free herself just then, and not
smart enough to realize that chemicals had to be
managed
in order to
help a person in life.

"Hello! I'm Keeley, and this
is Felecia." She waved at the other woman and then sighed a bit, if to
herself. There were several things that she could have done, but she knew that
playing to her own strength would be for the best. Especially since she needed
servants that she wouldn't mind losing, if it came to it. There was too much to
get done on her own. True these were a fixer upper project, but a little elbow
grease and some water would get them going pretty well, she figured.

She started with the screaming
man. He had black hair, the kind that always seemed a bit greasy, unless
scrupulous care was taken with it. His t-shirt was too light for the
temperature, and filthy. A red and yellow logo on the front proclaimed that he
liked a certain kind of beer, which was probably true, given that it was the
cheap kind that
all
the kids liked, for their weekend parties. Keels
didn't even try to make a deal with him, just setting the link.

"You're a slave." Then
she pointed to his partner and did the same to him. "You too. You, miss...
What's your name?"