Other Places 3: Detours (26 page)

"Good.
That would take a few hours, but it's
completely
fair to negotiate for
things like that. Instead, you should probably scout out this delivery that
Tarsus asked for. It's strange that he didn't come to you directly for it. Or
that he isn't just doing it himself. It could be a trap, since Gregor won't be
as wary about substitutions as the rest of us are at the moment. Not that he's
easy to fool. We should eat something first."

"Cake.
I already have some, after all. Then I need to check people at work and see
what my schedule is for the day. Where's Lisa?" He found her with his
mind, lying down on his bed, but not sleeping. She was still too wired by the
Wistra for that.

They
ate in silence for a while, and at four Zack just stood, his face relaxed.
After all, he was either about to be jumped by a bunch of super powerful and
insane beings, or he wasn't. If that happened and they wanted him dead, odds
are he would be. If, on the other hand, Darla was correct, then Xenses and friends
would probably want him alive and well. It made sense to him not to get
involved in other people's messes at least, which meant, as long as no one
pushed him to do anything too hard, he could be taken off the playing field.

Of
course, some of them, like Tarsus, would probably figure that out and decide
that a dead Zack could open up a spot for a nice, new and totally sane version
of him to come into the world. In that case the good guys, as they liked to
think of themselves, would probably be the ones killing him.

The
sad part there was that poor Darla was stuck in the middle, either way. Sure,
she'd only taken the job as a way to use him as bait, so that she and Keeley
could kill Xenses, but other than that she'd done a decent enough job, hadn't
she? He knew all those useful fighting tricks because of her, and had cooking
skills now.

Why,
as soon as they moved on to dressmaking, he'd be set.

"I
need to go and visit with Bente soon." He spoke without warning, but Darla
was too old to be taken off guard.

"Well,
she is pretty, so that would be a good person to have sex with. Or did you mean
for a new wardrobe?"

Zack
shrugged.

"I
was thinking I'd start a modeling agency. Just as a lark. She probably has
connections in that world and I have some that might help." He waited for
her to either praise him or suggest that he was a moron and it wouldn't work,
but she just nodded.

"It's
a plan. Do you want to go now?"

That
got a head shake.

"Nope.
I need you to stay here with Lisa, since she's practically your new girlfriend,
while I go and set up... Things. I know, the bad guys are after me, and so are
the good ones, but the fact is, if they're going to kill me, they will. I
appreciate you holding my hand all night, but right now I need to stand on my
own feet, or no one will respect me. Not that they will anyway, but you
understand the psychology of that kind of thing, right? I can act tough, or
weak, but neither thing changes the situation. I'll be..." He wanted to
say that he'd be all right, but the truth was he had no way to know that at
all. The best he could do was give a rough time schedule for his day, so he
didn't bother. "Let's plan for lunch at noon? Here?"

She
looked at him, but with something approaching respect, rather than anything
else.

"Fine
then. Stay ready, and if it comes to a fight, stick to your real talents, and
run
.
Doing anything else for the time being is foolish."

They
were both silent for a while, and he went to change clothes, just doing it in
the slightly dark room, as Lisa looked on. It wasn't as if he weren't wearing
cute underwear, and he was, he knew, the wrong gender for the woman to really
be interested in. Even if she still had a crush on him. That was less physical
and more mental anyway. It would make it harder for her when they had sex,
but...

He
smiled and kept changing clothing, putting on rather standard looking black
socks, slacks and shiny shoes that were comfortable and had textured soles to
them, in case he needed to be on his feet a lot.

From
his bed, which was a king sized thing that Lenore had gotten him, and had a
nice gold and red bedspread on it that shone, even in the near dark, Lisa
spoke, her voice trembling a little.

"What
am I going to do, Zack? Everything is ruined and I have nothing, do I?"

It
was clear she was crying, but he kept putting his shirt on. It was blue, and he
had a tie to go with it, which was a real one. That was just black, so he could
look the part of working in a book store as a manager, rather than seem like he
was ready for television. Then, after he arranged himself, he moved to the bed
and laid down next to Lisa, working his arm under her neck. That wouldn't be
comfortable for long. After about ten minutes he patted her head a bit, and
kissed her, first on the cheek, but then the lips. She did it back, more out of
reflex than desire. He could tell that without even getting her mildly panicked
thoughts.

"Now,
I need to get off to work, unless you want to have sex? If you remember, the
last time you came and cried like this I
did
mention that it was a time
honored guy tradition." It was a distraction, and she winced, turning away
a little, as if having said that meant she were about to be raped by a Demon or
something.

"I...
All right." She didn't mean it, but said the words anyway. Because, clearly,
she owed him and if he wanted to use her that way, he should be allowed to. She
didn't have any value at all, otherwise. Not inside her own head. Not at the
moment.

Worse,
the idea made him go hard, even blocking out his emotions at the moment.

"Good.
That's the spirit. We'll do that later? Probably after you get back from your
retreat. I don't want you blaming the drugs for wanting my sweet, sweet
body." He chuckled then, since, at best, he looked like a too skinny
scarecrow, rather than a sex symbol.

"Okay.
I... Thanks, Zack. I know you don't have to do any of this. I..."

She
didn't finish the thought, but it was pretty clear anyway. She just didn't know
what to do.

Luckily
he did, and got up, ignoring the tightness at the front of his pants. He really
did have things to do, after all.

"Off
I go then. I'll be back in a few hours, if the Mage Guild doesn't send someone
for you. If so, have Darla check them out first? Make sure they really have
your best interests at heart and all that?"

"Right.
Oh, Zack, the summit. Do you have people working on that? Maybe I should go and
check..."

"Nope.
I'll handle that. For now, just try to rest for a while." Then he left,
since he was oddly annoyed by the whole situation suddenly.

After
all, she was messing things up, and not even putting out for him. Okay, she'd
offered
but, for some reason, he suddenly wanted sex a lot more than he used to.

Which
was part of what Mirror Him had always been. That left him sad for a moment.
Not because he didn't like sex, but because, in a strange and probably
codependent way, he missed the voice in his head a bit.

He
walked to work, but had to go in the back door, since the mall was in
lock-down. No one had called about anything, so it was strange. Roland came
when he pounded on the door, and the front of the place had the steel gate
drawn tight already. Looking through it, he noticed that almost everyplace
along the way did.

Zack
looked at the man, and his Vampire lady friend and sighed.

"Crap.
Someone managed to start a war?"

Rowan
looked freaked, but at least had on nicer clothing than before. It all fit, for
instance, and while it was pretty casual, it was unstained and new. So did
Roland, though Zack didn't care as much about that.

"There
was an attack, Zack. On New York. No one knows who did it. Bombs and things
like that? It's on the mainstream press. The Ettarian Ambassador told us all.
So we locked up. Is that right? People might have attacked us, here, since, you
know, we're Vampires and the last thing like that was sort of our people? It
could be terrorists too, but..." She was scared. It didn't show a lot
outwardly, but inside it sort of did. Zack needed to find out more about it. To
that end he opened a node to his house and pushed both of the Vamps through,
with instructions to guard Darla and Lisa. At least until they fell asleep for
the day.

Then
he very nearly moved off to the City, since a late night attack wouldn't have a
lot of news in particular, yet. Instead he went to the node room and used it as
a looking glass, to see what he could find out. That... Wasn't great. The
events were small, but in four locations, and three of them seemed strange to
him, since space warped in the area, just a tiny bit.

Zack
didn't understand it at first, but finally worked out that the bombs that had
gone off, mainly on the rooftops of high rise buildings, had nuclear material
involved, which was spreading over the whole area. It wasn't a horrible plan,
if messing with the economy was the purpose. New York was central to that,
after all. Nine-Eleven had shown that one, to any group that was willing to pay
attention.

That
meant it almost certainly wasn't Vampires doing it. They actually cared about
things like the population, since they wanted a large and healthy food source.
Sick people didn't get fed on, and radiation made Humans sick, if they didn't
just die outright. They might execute some of them, or torture them, to make a
point, but just poisoning the well? No, that didn't seem correct, did it?

The
problem, for him, was that there was a node in the city. A Nexus complex. One
of the largest in the Human world, at least as to how many groups were there.
He sighed, and looked again, noting that the blasts weren't that close, but
that some of the radioactive dust was headed that way.

He
wondered what to do for a moment, until the phone rang. At first he figured
that it would be someone he knew, but it was actually the Vampire Ambassador...
from there. Speak of the devil, Zack thought.

"We...
Request aid. I cannot reach our embassy there, but if the Line Walker is
available, I will pay to have my people removed from this location." There
was a tension to the words, but also something like defeat. "I have
children among them. My own. I do not know what kind of attack we are under, but
if it grows, I'd not have them perish."

Zack
was silent for a moment, and then shrugged.

"Fine,
half of what you own. You can pick which half, but don't cheat me. That will
work for getting everyone in the complex out however, if you can spread the
word and get things ready there? I'll be in... Half an hour from now. There's a
cloud of radioactive particles heading your way. Dirty nukes."

"Fuck.
Are you certain?" The man sounded angry at least, instead of just
defeated. It was probably better that way. Anger led to action, after all. He
just had to manage that part.

"Pretty
much. I can get people to their embassies, if they have a place to go. We need
to avoid major cities..." Because that only made sense. If it was a
terrorist action and he were in charge, they wouldn't try for only one place,
would they? No, he'd hit at least three, and try for more, if he had the
supplies.

Really,
he needed a television, he decided. For once the cable news channels might
actually be useful. Normally they just distorted reality too much to be useful,
even to him.

"I
will have all that wish to come ready, in half an hour. For half of all I
own." If that was too much, the man didn't complain. It probably meant he
was poor, or something. Zack was actually
fine
with that. Half of ten
dollars was still half of the whole, and he could sell that as being a good
enough sacrifice for his services, right? Really, it was probably too much, but
he was supposed to gouge a bit during emergencies. It was what people did.

Just
as he set the phone down, he got another call. This one from Los Angeles.

"We've
been hit here too!" There was no attempt at saying hello, just that.
"This is Erin Probest, I was with one of my lovers and saw it happening!
What do we do? I...
Help
!"

"All
right, Erin. Where are you? Are you near a node?"

"What?
No... Wait, who is this?" Since she'd called
him
that seemed a bit
odd, but he got the idea, she'd slammed some buttons down, and didn't know who
she'd connected with. From the tone of voice, even when panicked, she was
probably an Alede. She sounded sexy at least.

"Zack
Hartley. Get to your embassy and... Get all your people there, if you can. I'll
set up retrieval from here. You can do modeling, right?"

"Um,
sure... I used too, but... bombs?"

"Exactly.
Let me
check
, but assume that there will be more attacks and radiation.
That's what hit New York. I'm evacuating there first. Can you set that up?
Getting people ready to leave? Everyone too, not just your people." Zack
meant all the non-Human's, but there was no time to say that, since she just
gasped.