On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (27 page)

The only new thing in Valerie's life involved a woman that
kept coming into the store recently, trying to pick her up.

“She's a dear, but sooo slow off the mark! I mean, she could
have had me a month ago just by asking, or any time now by making up some
reason for us to get together. I've flat out
told
her I'd have sex with
her if she wanted, but she seems to think I'm kidding. I know she likes girls,
but, seriously, big time low self-esteem I think. I haven't been that active,
since I get all the energy I need from Zack, well
you
know, so I can
even afford to be picky... I can't get her to seem to understand that though.
Humans! That's about all that's new with me though, you?”

Kate gave her the run down on everything, and Val, being as
cool as she was, acted interested, even at the boring parts, like school work.
Val wanted to hang out with Don again though, which would be good, since they'd
need to take turns with him like the others did with Zack now, Kate informed
her.

“Ooohhh! Got it bad then, huh? Well, there's enough of us to
go around. Any one of us could service him enough really, though that could get
a little boring for him after a while. As it is I think we're going to have to
fight Libby for him half the time. We can throw your friend Blaine at her a few
times. That should keep her busy enough.” The blonde ran her hand down Kate's
stomach gently, running her fingers through her pubic hair as she finished the
movement. Kate squirmed a little, trying to get the other woman's hand
someplace just slightly more interesting for her. She rolled a little sideways
and licked Val's nipples, which were sensitive, since they'd done this just a
short time before.

Then they made love again. Slowly, taking their time and
making sure the other had as much fun as possible. They spent most of the night
this way, alternating talking with love making. When morning came they both got
up and showered together, taking their time and enjoying the hot water, since
the mansion had an incredible hot water system. She didn't know how it worked
really, but wanted to learn since the thing never let the water go cold at all.
No matter how many people were using it at one time.

The next morning when Zack took them to work, Don surprised
everyone, including himself, by walking through the rift without Zack.

 “I did it! Wow... I can barely see it hanging there, but
once I knew where it was and saw what Zack did, I could kind of follow along. Or
at least thought I might be able to. Cool! I wonder if I can learn to do it
again?” Zack sent everyone else ahead while he showed Don how to find the rifts
and walk them. The interesting thing there was that no one seemed to think it
was a huge deal except Don. Her too, but she hid it, getting the basic idea. If
he could walk the rifts, the little shortcuts that Zack took, then it was
almost certain that he could do the rest and open a node on his own too.

That would mean there were two Line-Walkers in the world. It
was the kind of thing that would have had her offering to screw someone just to
be near, if she wasn't already doing it. Both of those things, being near all
the time already.

Jelly and Kate walked into Candles and More just before nine,
finding Lisa already there, fielding phone calls in the back. On the Mage side
of things that was pretty much the job. The Ambassador took phone calls, and occasionally
organized some large magical happenings. On rare occasions there were meetings
with other Ambassadors, but so far, for some reason, no one had invited Kate to
many of those.

She was going to guess that it was down to ageism.

Putting a hand on the phone she signaled the girls to sit while
she finished the call she was taking. She rolled her eyes up at the ceiling and
made a little “talking” hand gesture with her free hand. That indicated that
whoever she was talking to was a bit boring at least, since she wouldn't have
done that if someone called in with anything important. Like a lost cat, or the
need to get the forms to cast a love spell. Finally she made some polite noises
and told the person on the phone that she'd see what she could do.

Then she hung up, a bit more firmly than was strictly needed.

“Sorry, still getting a lot of calls about what Troy did a month
ago. Love the boy, but he couldn't have made more problems for me if he'd gone
in there and told them I was a Demon. Half the people calling want his head,
the other half want him to run for office. On the Mage side of things, even if
he is a Human. Seriously. If he was twenty years older I might suggest it to
him. That was...
Masterful
. Anyway Jenifer, for the next two weeks
you're the official junior attaché at Underwood. Welcome aboard. So, remember
that what you say actually carries political
weight
, even though you
don't
have any political power. That basically means
all
you can do is mess
up. If no one lynches you in the next few weeks, take that as a sign you're
doing all right. When in doubt though, beg off. You
don't
have to answer
any questions on the phone, and if anyone insists you do, it's probably someone
trying to trap you into something, so pass it on to me. If I'm not around, call
this number.” She passed a piece of paper over to her.

“That's Gregory's cell. He's the Ambassador here. He's pretty
happy with us all here right now, since Zack went searching the world for a
cure for his wife who was dying and found it. He may or may not be in more often
now that his wife is well again. If he comes in, let me deal with him. He's
nice, but he can be bossy and you
are
just the intern. He'll have you
off settling full Mage disputes if you aren't careful. Since
I
generally
try to avoid doing those alone when I can, I suggest you do too...”

Kate, seeing that Jelly was in good hands went to check on
the store itself and grabbed the transfer schedule for Zack, so that she could
organized the days node traffic, having done it for about a year off and on.
That way Lisa could actually handle training the young Mage correctly for
embassy duty, something that had never happened before as far as Kate knew.
Most Mages avoided embassy duty like the plague for some reason.

Probably because they knew what pains in the ass most of them
were. They didn't want the job of having to put up with people like them after
all.

She swept and mopped the floor before Zack got in. Mainly out
of habit, having had the job for many months before. He walked in carefully,
trying to only step on the parts that had already dried so he wouldn't leave
foot prints. It wasn't perfectly done, but nothing showed either, so she didn't
have to scowl and run to redo all the work. Not that she knew how to scowl for
real, but she could pass that idea along if she had to. When the floor finished
drying they both started organizing the shelves, making sure they were
straightened nicely and writing down inventory numbers when they found bare
patches on the shelves. There weren't a lot of those, since most people that
came there weren't actually looking for scented candles. Still, if you were
running a store as a cover, it paid to make it all look right, didn't it?

At ten in the morning, people started coming in to the store
for transfers to various locations. Most of them going to Lesser Shia early,
since that way they could spend the whole day shopping and come back in the evening.
A lot of them took a full week there though and sometimes longer. The cost of
getting there had come
way
down compared to when the Demons were in
charge of the lines, but it still cost a
lot
to go and only the richest
people could actually afford it. That fact didn't stop them from keeping Zack
busy for hours each day. Traffic to and from other lands, like the Alfric and
Skenic zones seemed to have gone up while she was gone, Kate saw. Zack was busy
until lunch time, taking only a few breaks, one for food, one to go and have
sex with someone at Beautiful Plus. She wasn't sure, but she thought they
actually had a rotating schedule for who got to do that each day. At lunch time
Lisa kicked Jelly out of the office and locked herself and Zack in.

“I thought... Isn't Lisa dating someone named Maryl? She has
a picture of them on her desk and told me about her. She sounds nice...” Jelly
asked, sounding baffled.

Kate nodded, “Right. That's Libby's aunt, she runs Bat
Street, the new store next to Beautiful Plus? They handle, well
everything
really. Zack makes deliveries to anywhere that people won't sell to people in
need. They also do a lot of mail order, fed-ex and stuff. Most of the orders
come in online I hear. Not just Bats either, but anyone that's being
ostracized. It turns out to be a lot more than you might think. Oh, Zack and
Lisa... Well, you know, Zack feeds all those Alede each day? It's like with
Don, where it kind of messes with his system and makes him want sex a lot more
than if he wasn't feeding them and it gets more intense for them than if they
were just regular guys too, so you know, rather than have Zack walking around
at full mast all day... Also, if it makes you feel better about the whole
thing, Zack and Lisa
are
married, so it's all right that way.”

Jelly looked shocked at that news.

“Don't worry, Zack's married to a lot of women. It wasn't his
idea though, so blame
them
not him. Let's see, Lisa, Val, Merri, Claire
from across the way, she's the Vampire Ambassador by the way, so you should go
visit her later. Networking and all that. Um... Hilda, Rose and Yasmine. I'll
take you around and introduce you to everyone later if you want. We should get
lunch as soon as those two are done. Zack actually comes out and runs the store
for that, so that we can have a real lunch too. Maybe we can get the others and
go to the food court? The food here's actually good. Like five star restaurant
good. Possibly better. I can't
prove
it, but I think the Alfric actually
use magic to make the food. They keep claiming they don't but I'm not convinced
yet. Cheap too.”

Twenty minutes later Zack and Lisa came out of the office.
Lisa had a big, dreamy smile on her face. Kate suspected that she was addicted
to pure pleasure, which was about as addictive as anything
could
be. If
Zack had actually done
that
, they'd be having words later. She'd
suspected it for a long time now, but hadn't had the courage to check, since
she loved Zack and didn't want to make him mad at her. Still, it was
always
a mistake to let someone get addicted to you at that level. Tempting, of
course, but it
always
ended poorly, usually in the death of the addicted
person from suicide if the pleasure ever got taken away. At least Lisa knew a
half dozen people that could do the same thing for her. Between that and the
speed Lisa popped when she thought no one noticed, the Mage was gearing up for
a world of hurt.

They walked toward the food court, making the rounds as they
did, first hitting Frozen YoGurt, where Claire worked with Troy, who manned the
counter, letting her actually spend most of her time in the back room, handling
actual diplomatic situations. The Vampire sent the Human off to lunch with
them, smiling as they walked out the door.

Troy put an arm around Kate and told Jelly he was glad to see
her there. She replied in kind, but didn't seem to pay that much attention to
him. Troy shrugged this off and kept walking. They all stopped in at Bat
Street, where Maryl came over and gave each of them a hug that would probably
have been illegal in a few states, since Kate was technically only seventeen,
even though she was
also
something like five hundred.

She'd always liked Maryl though and had sex with her more
than once, as both herself
and
Kyle. She may be Libby's aunt, but Weres
tended to age differently than regular Humans, most of them slower. Some a lot
slower. Ang the Dragon was a couple hundred years old and looked about thirty,
tops. Maryl was about forty or forty-five, but looked late twenties or so.

This time Troy largely ignored the other woman, but Jelly
seemed to like the attention. Behind the counter Kate spotted Chi who also got
a hug from her, since the Bat boy was someone she considered a friend, even
though she hadn't had sex with him. Maybe they'd get time while she was back?
That could be interesting, since he looked an awful lot like Libby and Maryl,
right down to Maryl's thick glasses.

They picked up Charli at Something Wonderful, Don at the
Apothecaries and much to her surprise, Riley the Trickster and Yasmine the Djinn,
even though Kate knew for a fact that Djinn
didn't
eat food. The
Trickster gave her a slow smile that warned her things might get interesting.
Yasmine didn't look at her at all, staring almost exclusively at the back of
Jelly's head. When this crowd descended on the food court, heads popped up
behind the counters.

Kate went to get some Chinese food, so Jelly and Don followed.
Merri came at them from behind the counter giving them all hugs, even though
she'd seen them earlier in the day and made them sit without ordering anything.
Instead she brought several large trays of food out to them. Xan, from the
Burger Joint did the same for the others, except Charli, who was waited on by
Glen, from Fried Things, though he brought her Italian food.
This
got
Kate's attention and she raised her eyebrows at the Alfric man, their
Ambassador, wondering what he was up to. Hopefully just sex. Charli didn't get
a lot at home, since she was kind of dating Zack, and got the most junior
position there. If Glen could get her into bed, that would probably be all to
the good. The only problem would be if the man had some
other
intention.
Something involving prophesy for instance. Alfric prophesy never ended well as
far as Kaitlyn could tell.