Shield of Innocence (Alternate Places Book 4) (11 page)

Then he got things underway for
the day. Lesser Shia wasn't ready for line walkers yet, but managed to get
things started about half an hour after they got there. After the first few
trips, Zack stood back, and watched, pushing Eve to do it all for him. She
snorted, called him lazy, and didn't do it as fast as he could, but there was
no whining about it either. Kate and Don both did that a bit, if internally.
Chris, oddly, didn't. He was so much slower that it wasn't even funny however.

At ten he left Eve doing that,
and went back to the candle store, to get Cavendish his pay envelope.

That
meant he dawdled a bit, feeling
terrified that the man would end his very being as he walked slowly to the old
shortcut that took him to his old house. His home, even now, at least in his
mind. When he knocked on the door he half expected there to be no answer.

The day was cool, and rainy, even
in early December. A fine mist was in the air, and from behind the closed white
door, there was a soft sound of a man exercising. To instrumental Christmas
music. Half the sound stopped after a moment, as if listening, so Zack knocked
again.

That got a smiling man to open
the door, his face looking kind and gentle, even as Zack wanted to gibber and
flee.

"Is there another emergency?
I can be ready in a few seconds..." The man started to move, but Zack
shook his head and forced a smile.

"Nope. I just have your pay.
You haven't been picking it up. From now on you need to get to Underwood and do
that each Friday. This will get you up to date. Part of it's in gold, but we
can help you sell that if you need. Here you go. Oh, also, you need to start
reporting in, at least a few times a week. We'll probably want you to work on
training with Blain. He's off at college right now, but will have some time off
in a few weeks."

The man just stood there for a
few moments, and then cleared his throat.

"I don't understand. Am I
working for you now? I didn't fill out my w-two's if that's the case."

Zack smiled, meaning it, and
nodded.

"Yep. You
have
been.
Kate hired you, months ago. So far you haven't done much though, for the day to
day things? So, you get the idea, get ready for that?"

Then, as if he didn't feel like
he was going to die while doing it, he handed over the white envelope, and the
tan colored coin purse, and walked away.

After he rounded the corner, he
started to run, just in case he was being followed.

Not that he was.

The rest of the day was varied,
which was a nice change for him. In the afternoon he had Troy with him in
Lesser Shia, and while he was still slow on the lines, his friend was in good
humor the whole time, and worked hard. They all had, really. Still, the stand
outs that way so far were Eve and Troy. Neither of them slowed or quit, even
when they got tired or bored.

It meant that later that evening,
when he went home, Troy stayed for a while, to make certain that everything got
done for once.

The people at Lesser Shia,
instead of being upset by the change in schedule, all seemed
ecstatic
. Hathe,
the leader of the city, their general manger, or whatever his title actually
meant, even came to thank them both personally, before Zack could get away.

"This is incredible, line
walkers. If this can be kept up, we'll be able to expand into countless
lands!" The man, who was a bit older looking, and had on bright blue and
red robes at the moment, smiled at Troy like he was about to ask him out on a
date.

Luckily his shadow spoke of mere
greed. It wasn't even bad that way, there also being real concern for their
safety and well being flowing from the man. That part, his worry over
their
lives, was stronger than his own desire for gold or goods. In a way, even that
was buried by the idea of getting those things for his people,
and
the
others that would be helped by having a new line walker there.

Being a genius, which Zack
thought the man really might be, he even understood that Troy was the only real
new line walker, and that Eve and Lyn were going home soon. That meant he was
planning to court Troy harder than those others.

Much so.

"We could, if it serves,
arrange for a palace to be built for you here? In the city itself, so that you
might feel comfortable, coming and going each day?" Hathe spoke warmly,
and the translator next to him, all in blue, spoke the words in that eerie
fashion they all had. It was nearly right on top of what the man said, but not
distracting. How it worked Zack didn't know, but it was easy to get used to.

He glanced over at Troy, who
shook his head slowly.

"No? For one thing I
wouldn't need a
palace
. A room with a kitchen would work. For now
though, I have a place, and should stick with working from there. If I can
learn to get faster with all of this, I could put in a shift here every day for
a while. Well, five days a week. Out of seven? I want my weekends free."
There was hesitation there, as if he feared the man wouldn't see that as
enough, but Hathe bowed to him, his face gleeful.

"Ahha! Indeed then! I thank
you, and so do those that I serve." The man seemed about to go on at
length, being happy like he was, but Zack had learned a while back how to
handle the man, which was simply to explain what you were about to do. Then
he'd get out of the way and let you do that, work being seen as pretty
important in his world.

"I'm headed home now, to
take some vampires into the void. Troy, you said you were staying for a
while?"

"Yup. I want to see what I
can get done without you hovering over me all the time. Being like a mother
hen. Well, you know how
you
get." He meant it, but there was also a
bit of goofing around inside him over it. He didn't really mind Zack that much.
It was just that having anyone observing him all the time set his nerves on
edge.

That got the man in charge there
to bow and call something out that wasn't translated. Zack didn't know, but he
expected it was having a lot more goods brought in for Troy to work on. The
real money was earned by taking people places, including to and from Lesser
Shia, which
was
a major destination. The thing there was that
transporting goods helped more people survive, in the long run.

Rather than explain all of that
to Troy, Zack waved to both of the people he was talking too, and then added in
the translator, who didn't outwardly acknowledge that it had happened, and
stepped into the ambush.

Right into the void, where not
one, but six, very vast and powerful things waited for him. As soon as they
came, Zack was surrounded. One on each side, with no way for him to escape.
Even the gaps between them were too small for him to squeeze through. Rather
than panic, he focused his entire being as tightly as he could.

Everything he had then went into
the concept of reducing time to a single point. The basic idea was to give him
a moment or two to work out what was happening. So far these giant shadows
didn't destroy him, or warp the space around him in a way that would leave him
incapable of ever moving to another location again. If that happened, there probably
wasn't a lot he could do about it. Except to fix the warping and leave. Zack
didn't think they knew he could do that part however.

The issue of the moment, he
understood, was that if he attacked one of the things, beings of a size and
power that he really wouldn't have thought they could exist before he felt them
there, the others could easily end him.

So he tightened down his essence,
pushing himself into being one single thought. Time rippled at first, the
subtle movements around him casting lines and warps into the void itself.
Things that were always there, but that were not normally perceptible to him.
Then, watching and waiting, over the course of thousands of years, he
understood something.

There was no way for him to leave
that spot. Not alive. Not unless these beings wanted to allow him to go free.

It occurred to him that they
hadn't been waiting for nearly as long as he had been, sitting there for no
more than a few moments, as he pushed nearly to destruction. So, finally, after
it was clear that nothing else he could do would work, he tossed an idea off to
them. A strange thing that was tight, and so focused that the things around him
took forever to respond to.

Hello. I can't help but notice
that you're in my way. Is there a reason for that, or is this just a mistake?

He didn't see how it could be,
but after a moment several of them moved out of the way, floating to the side.

Then a booming voice, probably
coming from one of them, though Zack couldn't tell which, came back to him.

NEITHER, GATE. WE MERELY TEST TO
SEE IF YOU ARE READY. THE DAY AND HOUR DRAW NEAR.

Then, before he could even ask
for some clarification, the things vanished into nothingness. That was a nifty
trick, since it left rents in space and time
all
over the place. Holes
in reality. A mess that someone had to clean up. Sighing, at least in spirit,
he moved over the things and closed them. Smoothing the mess that had been
made. He didn't know why that had to be done, but Big Shadow, his friend, had
always told him to do that.

The way it had always felt was
more along the lines of not being a slob, than anything else. Zack wanted to be
tidy however, so over the course of about a thousand years of hard work and
focus, he did it. Just as he worked on the last bit of things, the sixth rent
in the nothingness around him, Big Shadow finally made an appearance. After the
hard work was all finished, of course.

Not that Zack was going to blame
him for not helping earlier, with those giants. His friend, the largest and
most powerful being he'd ever encountered before, was a midget compared to the
new monsters. If he would have tried to do anything, they might have destroyed
him, too.

The being touched him, their
information merging on the outermost layer of existence.

No, little friend. I was merely
distracted elsewhere, far from here. Those servants of the dark would not have
tried for you like that if I had been near. They are no match for the
Gatekeeper, and know it.

It was a thing that Zack had
heard before from the being. That things from other places had forgotten that
there
was
a gatekeeper, to prevent their plans from taking place. It had
been so long before that it took a while for the memory to come back, but it
was there, in the perfect clarity that was the norm of this empty, non-existent,
landscape.

They, one of them, called me the
Gate.

His large friend did something
that wasn't a laugh, but that gave a sense that something was humorous anyway.
A pleased thing, rather than a worried one. Zack felt nothing much about the
encounter, but knew that on some level he'd felt his doom there, in those long
moments.

Big Shadow didn't seem upset at
all.

Truth! You are, in this time and
space, the potential gate they seek. To allow purchase into the world of the
physical. This will happen or not, soon. At that time, you will... Change,
little friend. I cannot tell you into what, but it will either be what they,
the Adversaries, and minions of the darkest things wish, or you will become
something very different than that. That choice is now, and always will be,
yours. It will not be easy for you.

Zack was about to ask for
clarification on that one, since it was a bit cryptic, but the being moved
back, turned, and threw a thought to him.

Go now. Prepare, and ready your
people. All things end. Then... Nothing ends. This is not a thing to fear,
simply one to face.

The being left then, dropping
away much like the other things had, only without leaving a mess behind. It
happened faster than Zack could track, however. Sighing, or at least wanting
to, lacking a body, he moved back home.

It took a bit to collect everyone
up, but he didn't mention what had happened in particular. So far at any rate,
it seemed to be about him, and once inside the mall, going to collect his
wives, Zack put things together well enough.

As a child he'd been sold as a
sex slave, tortured and abused by an arch-demon. A creature named Cruxias. That
being had inhabited his own father's body, and had done awful things to him, so
long ago that his mind could hardly credit it as real any longer.

Later Zack, with the help of a
demoness, Beatrice, had worked out that there was a plan in place to try and
break the minds of a human child, in order to create a bridge from a place that
didn't exist, into the real world. Now, thinking about it, he had to wonder if
it had worked.

Those things had said outright
that he, Zack,
was
the Gate. They were just waiting for him to be ready.
It didn't take a vast mastermind to get that he was a bit different from most
people. Sure, Troy was a human that could walk the lines now, so would be
creative enough, perhaps, as well as holding the right sort of power. So were
Don and Chris. The thing there was that none of them were broken enough to make
it happen. As far as he could tell, the only being in all of existence that fit
the bill was, in the end, him.

So, it seemed that he was going
to be pushed into being that gateway somehow. The traction in the absolute
nothingness that would allow true horrors into his world. Walking to the food
court, he had to hide a smile.

After all, he was old. So ancient
that even the passing of thousands of years in the void weren't important to
him now. Yes, in the world of men and woman he'd lived only an eye blink. That
was a simple truth. The thing there was that he didn't fear not existing, and
he
would
cease to be before he allowed himself to be used to harm
others.

So, in a way, it seemed that he'd
already won.

Even better, he had time still to
get his people prepared. To set up the nation of line walkers, and get them
ready to go on without him if it came to that. There
were
worse things
that could happen to a being than simply having lived a long life. So, smiling,
he went to the Chinese Food store at the food court. That was where Merry was
working that day. At least she normally did, but this time she was in
charge
of the whole thing, her brother, Mac, not being there for some reason.

He, it seemed, was down the way,
running the Italian Food, location. The lack of imagination as to the names was
a thing that Zack had understood for a long time now. Creativity
was
the
human power. The special magic that set them apart from any other being. Others
were stronger, faster, harder to hurt. Some had powers of the mind that were
truly impressive. Many were even great artists, after a fashion. They held to
their traditions, and did the same thing over and over, nearly perfectly.
Things changed for them, but slowly. Those people were pushed from the outside
to alter, which was different.

Human beings ripped at the very
fabric of reality with their imaginings. Warping and shifting the world around
them greedily. Their very thoughts were, perhaps, the most dangerous tool that
existed. In them was the power to
dream
. To make things that didn't
exist at all.

Which, was the point.

A child broken well enough that
even space and time itself couldn't bind him, if pressed in the right way,
might allow a passage of sorts to come into being. Through his imagination,
mixed with a mastery of space and time that no one currently held. Zack could
see the basic outline of that road inside of him. Walking to the front of the
glass counter, that showed off the food that was available, he stopped. Merry
was helping actual people, it being the busy part of the year now.