Among the Living (Tyler G Book 1) (22 page)

"Will do."

The walk home, in the dark,
wasn't exactly comfortable for him. Not that he didn't think anyone was going
to come for him in particular, but if someone was going to make a point by
jumping anyone from the mall, he'd be the smart one to go for. Not that he
couldn't fight at all, which he'd kind of shown earlier with that Vampire guy,
but that didn't mean a person with a baseball bat couldn't take him down a lot
more easily than say, one of the gym people, or Eve.

That thought got him to look
around, since having a piece of wood to the back of his head sounded like it
would suck big time. Nothing happened at all, because most people, or other
beings, weren't like that. He knew that one for a fact, since if they were,
they wouldn't have managed to stay invisible to most people for the last ten
thousand years.

The simple fact was that the
world was no more dangerous now than it had been five years before. If anything
it was a little bit less. If Vivian had come and shot up Westfield back then,
or worse, someplace else, then she probably would have died. A lot of people
would have. The cops couldn't have handled things, and even if they caught her,
they'd probably have died in the bear attack to come later.

That situation wasn't done yet,
but there was a chance that it could work out in the end. He had hopes. The
door was locked when he got there, but after a few seconds the door opened,
Ginger standing there, dressed up in a funny outfit. It said Yoghurt World all
over it, in white and green, but wasn't what Eve had been wearing a few minutes
before. It was far more fast food like, with a green shirt and a little
matching cap that was cute, but different.

"Hey! I was just about to
leave. Cormack needs me to cover a day shift for him. That's at the Iowa node,
which means I have to start running soon if I'm going to be there by ten. He's
the ambassador there." She said it in a relaxed fashion, as if trying to
make it seem like that
wasn't
her secret boyfriend. Not that Tyler cared
about that. She didn't have a sex drive, so that meant that if she was doing
that kind of thing with other people, or even with him, there was some other
reason for it. That wasn't nearly as threatening as it could be.

"You can run there in eight
hours? That's pretty fast."

"Not that great. You should
see Eve, or Bey. They're
really
quick. Like more than twice that. I do
all right that way, but mainly due to a lot of practice. That's the big thing.
Nothing worth doing is easy, or just handed to you. It was a lot better when I
was Human that way. As a girl I didn't realize what actually having to pull
your own weight meant."

That got him to go in all the
way, and give her a hug.

"Well, I doubt anyone young
does. I know that being in the working world is a lot different than I thought
it would be. I mean, no one told me about all the demons, or that I had to put
together public action groups." That got her to look at him funny, which meant
explaining the Coalition for the fourth time that day.

Honestly he needed to get some
pamphlets printed out. It was going to get old, going over the same few catch
phrases, a hundred times a day. Ginger, new woman in his life or not, seemed
impressed.

"That's incredible! I...
Really need to get going. Um, you don't need me to do anything for you first do
you? I could maybe..." She was looking bashful, which was his line
normally, so he shook his head.

"Thanks. I'm good right now.
I mean, horny, but I'll live. It isn't more important than getting to work on
time." He kissed her then, which took a minute, but after that she was
simply gone. The door clicked, which sounded funny, since it didn't seem to
move.

After that he got to bed, and
forced himself up five hours later. A quick run, some sit ups and a shower
later he headed back toward the Mall.

"I have an odd feeling I'm
going to come to hate this place." Not that it mattered. It was his job,
and that meant doing it, no matter what. Well, the paying parts anyway.

A big part of things was simply
that he didn't know what the heck he was really supposed to be doing. A big
part of that, the hard portion, was handled for him though, when he walked into
the bookstore, not knowing where else to go. A rather attractive woman he didn't
know moved to him directly, and stuck her hand out toward him. She had long
dark hair, smooth skin, and didn't seem like an Alede. She was in a sleeveless
black sweater like thing over a pair of jeans. Her body was slender, but her
bust line was a bit too large for the rest of the picture. Not huge, but enough
that he kind of noticed it as being off.

"Tyler Gartner? The
Clerk?" The hand was there, so he took it, to find it warm and dry. The
handshake was firm, without breaking any of the small bones in his hand.
"Keeley Thomson. The Mistress of Souls."

That meant she was a Greater
Demon, like Zack was. Most likely. He'd heard the name before though, in that
regard.

"Hi! Did you come to get in
early on the Coalition of Nations? Great plan. You should do that, of course.
Or... Do you have an issue? Or need a book ordered? That could be a thing,
right? Maybe to use my employee discount in the cafe? I think I get ten percent
off..." Not that he knew that, since he actually got food for free there.

The woman winked at him and
smiled.

"Some of those, actually.
I'm in, not that it will help you much. What I can do is some basic PR work and
a bit of help to get you started correctly. Can you be ready to go on the radio
at ten-thirty? Also, there's a small issue setting up in Florida, with the
De'geru. I think their people can take care of this, but they need to know
about it. That's the people that have the pet store here. I can give you a data
packet on that. Oh. Also, I got you a phone for business. If you make long
distance personal calls, I expect you to cover that."

She was speaking fast, and pulled
out a bag that he hadn't noticed before. In fact he was nearly certain her
hands had been empty before that. It was probably magic. There was a cell phone
in the tan cloth thing, as well as a pile of tri-fold pamphlets that pretty
much said what he'd told Eve the night before. Before he could make an
accusation of spying, or possibly bugging his bathroom, she smiled at him.

"Eve told me about it. I got
a call earlier. I don't sleep, and figured it might help you out a bit. This,
and some information will have to pretty much be my contribution, unless you
want someone taken as a slave? That's my thing, so you know, I'm here for you,
if you need me. To strip someone's will from them. More popularly, to use that
as a threat."

He nodded.

"Thanks. This will help.
I'll try not to do that. The enslavement stuff. If I have to threaten, I can
just call you up?"

"Well, don't actually bother
me with it if you aren't serious. You're a big boy and can do that part for me.
There
is
one more thing. You need to get in touch with Gregor, The
Cleric. He's in charge of North America for the Greater Demons. He'll let you
know what else he needs done. It's the fourth number in the phone. Mine is the
third one. In case you need me? Now, I need to run. If I stand around too long
here, the Alede will try to shoot me again."

That didn't seem likely, because
the woman was laughing, but then she waved toward their shop.

"I mean it, too. Like I'm
not an incredibly sweet and delicate flower to be cherished?"

"Well, you seem like that
now
,
but who knows what you were doing back then? My bet is that it involved a lot
of leather and little horns, on a headband?" It probably wasn't that
clever to say that, being a bad demon joke but she patted his hand and winked
again.

"You know, we should dress
up like that for Halloween next year. Matching teddies and little horns like
that. Talk to you later. Sooner if you need me. I sent some of those pamphlets
to a few friends of mine, so don't be shocked if you hear something."

Then, probably to show off, she
stepped to the side and vanished.

Before he could even decide to go
to the back of the room, the phone rang. The one in his hand. It was a bit soon
for him, so he nearly dropped it. Scrambling, trying not to dump everything he
was holding he dug the phone out, and hit the right button, on the fourth buzz.

"Coalition of Nations. Tyler
Gartner, how may I help you?"

There was a sound, that was kind
of like a swarm of bees. It wasn't exactly right though, for static.

"Mishter Ty?" Whoever
was speaking had a very thick and unfamiliar accent. The whole thing was a bit
damp sounding, but he could get the basic idea.

"Close enough. What can I do
for you?"

"Dish be's Mog-tow. De'geru
Head? I call, you tell Human warriors, no kill lake."

"Ah." It took a bit but
he worked out what was needed.

The man, or woman, on the phone
was one of the Creature From the Black Lagoon people. They lived in a lake, in
Florida. It sounded pretty big, and like it was a nice place, at least for
people that lived underwater. On the edge of the place though there was a camp
ground, and some people had seen them a few weeks, or possibly months, back.

Now the police in the area were
trying to kill them.

Because that was what you did
with people that looked a little different. The big problem was that after
being shot about seventeen times, the people that lived in the lake were
starting to get a little ticked off, and were considering responding in kind the
next time one of their kids was harassed. They clearly didn't take it as an
attack though, which was useful. Shooting them was
annoying
, but they
didn't really seem to understand that it would kill the Humans, if they did it
back.

"Okay. Don't do anything.
I'll handle it. First, I need to find out who to get in touch with. Can I call
you back?"

"Dish ist payphone?"
Which made sense. They all lived under water. It was probably hard to get a
land line.

"Understood. Call me back
here later today?" That seemed doable, so Mog-tow agreed to do that when
it started getting dark out, which would be at about six, his time, Ty thought.
Maybe six-thirty. Clocks, it turned out also tended not to work under water.

It didn't take too long for him
to find the right police station, but it was a lot harder to convince the
person answering the phones that he, some kid from a different state, needed to
talk to whoever was in charge. A short hour later he was speaking to a gruff
man that sounded like he was upset with life in general.

"What's this about?"

"Your men have been
attacking some De'geru in the area? Near a lake? Just to make this easier, they
kind of look like fish men."

There was a cough.

"Yeah. They don't go down.
People in the area are freaking out. Saying that dogs have been vanishing.
Puppies."

Tyler had to bite his lips then,
realizing where they must be going. In fact some of them were probably in the
store down the way right at that moment.

He ignored that part.

"They're people. They live
in
the lake there. On the good side they consider what you're people have been
doing as light harassment. By
warriors
, but still, not acts of war. On
the bad side, they're getting annoyed that their kids have been being bullied
when they go on shore, and are about to start pranking you back. Given that
bullets
aren't all that serious to them, I think you can see the issue here?"

"Fuck. We didn't know. I'll
put the word out. What are we going to do about the dogs? Are they eating
them?"

"On the good side, no. I
don't know for certain, but I think they're selling them in pet shops. I'll let
them know that isn't a good thing. Hopefully that will fix it. They run pet
shops."

That got dead silence for a
while, then another cough.

"Pet shops. Like with
guppies and shit?"

"That's it. I'll try to
check back in a few days, but it would be best if this doesn't become an issue.
I don't know who you think owns the lake officially for instance, but since
people didn't really know they were there, is it really a big deal? It might be
best to not let that become a thing. Um, basically think of it as diplomatic
immunity? For now anyway."

He explained the whole idea for a
while, and had to give his numbers, but even though the man was clearly an
asshole, he did seem to be willing not to go to war with beings that thought of
bullets as being slightly itchy. Maybe.

That meant he was able to get
with Jahn Samson, who wasn't ready to be picked up yet, having an actual job to
do for his own people. Plus, Nellie wouldn't be ready until nearly two. On the
good side, she'd been called into the Shifter embassy there, so Tyler could get
back in time for work at four. Hopefully.

That left him with time, so he
started cleaning. He wasn't certain, but it felt like he might not get a chance
to really do his job right later, if things kept happening. There was time to
stop for lunch though, at noon. The meal that Palma had for him was bulgur
wheat with a cabbage salad. There were spices, but no dressing on it. There was
also a nice mixed fruit salad with it. Somehow it was better than what he'd had
before that way. When it was finished, he took his dishes back.