Among the Living (Tyler G Book 1) (23 page)

"Hey, Palma?"

"What can I get you? Do you
need more food? It won't take but a moment."

He smiled, and shook his head.

"Nope that was
really
good, but I'm stuffed. I was just wondering if you wanted to come to my
birthday party next week? It's not going to be a big thing, but I wanted to
make sure you knew you were invited. After all, I'm as close to you as anyone
here." That was pretty close to true, he realized.

The woman, who had curly hair and
was a bit blocky looking, smiled in a way that seemed entrancing.

"Ah! Wonderful. Do I get
with your girl Calley on that? I was hoping I'd be asked. Thank you, Mr. Tyler.
It will be so much fun!"

He wasn't certain of that, but it
was good that at least one person was looking forward to it as much as he was.
If nothing else it would be an excuse to eat cake.

At ten-twenty or so there was a
sudden change in Tyler's life that he wouldn't have expected. Personally he was
going to blame Zack for it, if he could catch his breath enough. The man, or
Greater Demon, as it turned out, had walked out onto the bookstore floor, where
the books were being straightened and things tidied, just in case he was a bit
late getting in for his real job. The cute guy took his hand, almost sweetly,
and led him into the owl room.

"We need to go now. I'll be
back to get you in an hour."

It took a second, or more like
ten, to work out what was going on. There was no sign, they just walked, and
with a bit of a bump, he was suddenly in a room, looking through a glass sheet
at two men who were wearing big headsets with large cups on them, both in a
soft silver color.

Rather than jump, or do anything
like that, one of the men, a rather dumpy looking fellow in a t-shirt that
claimed he worked for WKZR absently waved toward him. That got a woman with a
clipboard to walk toward him from the room he was in, over to the side.

She had fluffy hair, nice dark
skin, and was chewing gum, which detracted from her looks by nearly a full
point on the scale of one to ten. She was dressed down too, which worked for
him, since his brain was still filling in what was going on.

The Mistress of Souls, Keeley,
had mentioned doing a radio thing. For some reason, he'd figured it would be
done over the phone. More to the point, he'd kind of forgotten about it.

The lady smiled at him
charmingly.

"Hi honey! Are you the new
sandwich guy? I have the orders right over here." She started to move
away, but didn't seem to be looking down on him about his perceived job all
that much. Then, she also didn't give him a chance to explain that he wasn't
just a job. More to the point, the job she thought he was there for.

Before she got all the way back
to her desk over on the far side of the room, which was a cluttered looking
thing, he cleared his throat. The words that came out were a bit more dry than
he would have figured they would be, truth be told. Almost like he was pissed
at being mistaken for a sandwich guy. That wasn't true. Working in a bookstore
was only a half step above that.

"Tyler Gartner, Coalition of
Nations. I'm pretty sure I can't get you any food right now." That wasn't
true, since he was as able as anyone to take a list of what people wanted to a
deli, but it got the woman to spin in place, her face suddenly strained.

"You look so young! I...
Didn't think..." Then she winced, her face going dark. "You should
have said something."

That was a strange thing to say.
It was
his
fault that she'd instantly compartmentalized him and set in
her mind that he had to be less than he was? From her facial expression it
seemed that she was going to get upset with him if he didn't placate her
instantly and let her off the hook. The thing there was that it wasn't a huge
deal to him. Sandwich guys were people too, and just as good as anyone else.
No, it was just a manipulative power play on her part.

Only he had no stake in this
particular lady. She was cute enough, for an older woman, but being around all
those Alede had skewed his thoughts that way. His exposure had given him a kind
of armor against women that he hadn't had before.

Instead he smiled at her, his
face a bit cool.

"I
did
. It was the
very first thing I said even." It came out calmly enough, his voice not at
all upset, as far as he could tell. She still seemed upset. Like he was supposed
to have done something else entirely.

After a few tense moments of half
glaring from the woman, she finally went on, her attitude shifting a little bit
when he didn't back down instantly.

"Are you sure you're Tyler
Gartner?"

That got him to laugh. He looked
wrong for her mind, so now she was questioning his identity. That made sense.

"As far as I know. Would
anyone ever think to fake being me?
That
would be interesting. I have my
license on me." No car, but he could drive. His mom had suggested he get
it when he turned sixteen. It hadn't been a rule, she'd just pointed out that
it was a good idea at the time, so he'd jumped through the hoops, and practiced
enough over the years to keep the skills sharp.

Lucy had always been good that
way. Making suggestions to help him in life, rather than giving him orders to
make her own life easier all the time. He'd never had a curfew for instance,
she'd just talked to him about making good choices. When Vampires had come out,
she'd pointed out to him that being able to protect himself was possibly a good
skill for a man to have. She'd even been supportive the last time they'd
talked, on the phone, about him doing a good job at work, and not bothering to
feel too shy about it all.

It had really helped.

For instance, instead of getting
angry, he just showed his I.D. picking up on the fact that this woman was
subtly trying to push him around. He could leave, in that case. Having a
liaison to the super natural world might be a good idea, but it probably wasn't
an emergency. He was about to mention that when she glanced at his name and
then sighed, like he'd done something wrong.

"Why don't you have a seat?
We'll get you into the booth and set up at the break, which is in... Seven
minutes. Jeff will want to introduce you. We have an info sheet already that
your secretary provided."

Then she bustled off, glancing
back at him with a hard look on her face. It was probably his age, he decided.
That, or she figured he wasn't Human and had a problem with that. Nothing else
came to mind as to what it could be specifically. Not unless she
really
wanted that sandwich.

He did sit, on a tan, cloth
covered, love seat thing. It was rough, but soft enough for him not to be
uncomfortable. Almost exactly six minutes later, the woman stood again, someone
talking to her over a subdued headset, that she'd been wearing the whole time.
It was small, sleek and barely showed against her dark skin.

She smoothed her dress, and
walked to the door into the other room, which was sort of close to her desk.
She pointed at it, rather commandingly.

"It will be one minute.
Karen will take you once you get in. Move directly to the inside booth, where
you'll be hooked up." She had a watch, which she stared at, instead of
making eye contact with him. It could have been part of her job, but when the
door opened Tyler saw a slightly younger woman, who was about thirty, who
smiled at him warmly.

Karen, he supposed. She was a bit
less good looking than the darker woman at the front desk, but she actually
seemed like a nice person, who wasn't judging him.

"Mr. Gartner? Karen Hart.
Glad to meet you. Sorry about the rush, but we only have five minutes to get
things set up. Mr. Smears did the first intro, so after the break, when we come
back, he'll do that again, then say hello. After that all you have to do is
answer the questions. This is a very conversational program."

"Sounds good! I was told
about this about two hours ago, so I have nothing prepared really. Hopefully he
has the good questions. I don't have an internet porn tape to go over or
anything. That's a bit of a shame, since it would be more interesting than my
real life."

"No doubt. Well, when in
doubt, pretend to get angry and storm off the show? Not that this topic really
needs that. Fake controversy is controversy too, though, and that sells. I'll
signal you to do that, if we start to get stuck?"

He nodded, and smiled at the
woman, who did it back, even as they moved. There was enough eye contact to
leave him feeling like he was really there and everything. Unlike the woman in
the front part of the place.

There was a bit of winding around
to get into the room with the two white men in it. The chubby one that had
waved earlier half stood and leaned across the table things were set up on, and
gestured toward a rather nice black chair.

"Jeff Smears. Nice to meet
you."

"Tyler Gartner. Call me Ty."

There was a nod, and the man sat
himself down, picked up a pen and made a note, presumably of what he wanted to
be called. The other man rolled his eyes, and waved from across the table.

"Denny. I do color
commentary a few times a week here. I have some material about Vampires and
werewolves..."

Tyler winced.

"
Wolf Shifters
. They
really
don't like being called werewolves. Pretty much anything with 'were' in it is
going to be insulting. You might as well start dropping N-bombs if we're going
there." He'd heard something like that, but the man went wide eyed, and
then made a face that spoke of passing a kidney stone, as far as Ty could tell.

"Fuck. I
just
did
three minutes of material. Crap."

The other guy, Jeff, just smiled
and shook his head. "Well, we'll get on top of that after the break.
Better to apologize fast. If this is the first you've heard about it, then
fixing it now is the best that you could have done, right?"

Tyler nodded, looking at the
slightly embarrassed seeming Dennis.

"That's true. Most Shifters
won't come after you for making a mistake. Not if you really try to repair
it." He didn't know that for sure, but it was better than telling the man
to keep on doing what he had been that way.

Then the man seemed to just sit
there for nearly two minutes, reading, as Karen set up a large microphone for
him, just pulling it into place and doing a sound check, then put a circular
nylon shield in front of it. That was in black. Most of the stuff was new
looking, more or less. The whole thing was nice, if not glamorous. A big pair
of earmuffs were slapped on his head, and adjusted for him, then Karen touched
his shoulder, and gave him a thumbs up, with a supportive smile to go with it.

Being encouraging.

Stepping back she spoke, which he
could hear since she had some kind of mic on, even if he couldn't see it.

"We go live in three,
two..." Then she made a fist in the air, getting Jeff to speak.

"Welcome back to the Jeff
Smears program. We have with us Tyler Gartner, from the Coalition of Nations.
That's an organization whose goal is to bring the Human and
other
,
communities together. Mr. Gartner has years of experience in dealing with the
problems and issues of various cultures, and has decided to use these contacts
to the benefit of all. Good morning, Mr. Gartner." He sounded polite
enough, and was busy reading the whole thing, which was
filled
with lies
as anyone should be able to see.

He was just too young to have years
of experience with almost anything. He barely had that with masturbation even.

"Call me Ty." His voice
was deeper than normal, sounded calm and a good bit older, even to his own ear.
"Thanks for having me here today."

They chatted for a bit, until Denny
broke in.

"Sooo, I seemed to have
stepped in it already. I made some jokes about werewolves and um, werechickens.
You said that that word, 'were' is kind of verboten? I did
not
know
that. I want to apologize to anyone I offended there. Seriously."

He nodded, but the words that
came out were a bit kinder than that.

"More like insulting.
Shifters won't get
that
worked up over it, but it isn't a great way to
make friends either. Basically, it's all good if you call them Shifters.
Sometimes the polite form will name their animal form first. Wolf Shifter, Bear
Shifter, Cat Shifter. I haven't heard of a Chicken Shifter, but I think that
would be the polite way of saying it. If not, I'm
certain
I'll hear
about it before the end of the day.
Not
shy about chatting with people,
the Shifters. Not as a rule. Most are decently nice though, so don't be afraid
to ask them all those annoying questions you want to know the answers to. It's
only fair to dump that kind of thing on them, now that they're out."

That might have been a problem,
but it probably wasn't one. After all, most people were never going to meet a
real Shifter anyway. Which was a thing he spoke about for a bit.

"Look, the real fact is,
most of the time, if there's a problem, it's really just going to be another
Human being bothering you, not one of these other types of person. There simply
aren't enough of them around for that kind of thing. But,
if
something
comes up, you can get in touch with us, we'll make some calls and talk to
people. That will probably fix things most of the time."

Jeff, gave him a look that said
he was an asshole, and smirked.

"Really? We have Vampires
out there. They drink blood for a living. That isn't exactly a soft and polite
thing, is it?"

He tried to shrug, then spoke his
words just flowing out smoothly.

"Most of them drink bottled
blood. The ones
I
know mainly drink the
animal
kind. Now that
doesn't mean that they might not take a sip if you open a vein for them, but
really Jeff, if I set a cake in front of you and
beg
you to lick some
frosting, are you going to resist forever? On the other hand, if I set a cake
there, and tell you that it's mine, and that you shouldn't touch it, are you
going to dig in anyway?"