What she was expected to do it if became a fight, Keeley had no clue. Hit her with one of the heavy metal chairs? Dan nodded just the tiniest bit. In response she smiled and tried to imagine what it felt like to be really strong, isolating that sense of things. That and make sure she didn’t feel pain.
No one stood, moved or spoke for nearly a minute. Finally it was Clara that broke the silence, voice shaking just a bit.
“To what do we owe the pleasure, ma’am?” It held a slightly deferential quality. The kind of voice you used with bullies at school, if you were the small kid and couldn’t fight well. It got the tan woman to sneer.
Keeley realized she’d never seen a real sneer before. Oh, in movies once or twice, and on TV, when she was little, but not on an actual, living and breathing person. It was ugly and didn’t suit the face, which would have worked better with distain, maybe disgust.
“Clara, Glen. I’d like you to do some work for me.” Her tone was icy and mean, so at least she had that going for her.
“There’s going to be a student party in the park on Elm, near my school. I was just told about it this morning. I’d love it if you two would see to making sure it’s not just some lukewarm Hawaiian punch and stale Nilla wafers. You can do that for me can’t you? After the dance. Maybe have some apples to bob for, or whatever kids like these days.”
Clara and Glen both looked frightened, which was making Keeley feel nervous too, so she killed that off without hesitating and cleared her throat.
“Sorry, but they already have a deal with me. Don’t you Clara? Glen?” They both nodded and Keeley nearly gasped as the energy of the magic locked on to them. They went wide eyed and panicked looking for a half second.
It took her a half second too, but Keeley recovered smoothly and nodded to them gently.
“But we can all relax, because we’re working toward the same end. We’re here to plan the same party I think. Which school are you from?” Keeley waited as the woman sneered in her direction, then got a slightly softer look when she really noticed Dan. It probably just meant she liked her men pretty, but then, who didn’t?
“Wilson High School. So you must be Miss Thomson? I have to say, amazing that you have things this well in hand. The Taggards are famous for throwing fantastic parties.” She glanced at the list in Glen’s hand clearly reading it, then nodded.
“Condoms? Well, that’s more thorough than I would have been. I’ll be out of your hair then. Until later? Clara… Glen.” The words were so loaded at the end they sounded like an actual threat. Keeley made herself smile as the woman left and didn’t say anything for a long time.
Finally she realized everyone was waiting on her for some reason. Her stomach growled, and she nearly doubled over in pain.
“Clara?” She said trying to keep the urgency from her voice.
“Yes… Master.” She looked at the floor forlornly, having already figured out what had happened.
“Could we try some of those sandwiches now? They smell wonderful.”
Dan had to fight a smile off his face.
Chapter five
“Two humans and two Hsreth in one day Darla. I tell you, the child is a natural. She did the last two so smoothly even I missed it until one called her Master. I wanted to applaud. Brilliant.”
Darla shook her head.
“Or stupid. Keeley do you have a vote on that score?” Darla looked calm and didn’t seem upset at all, not even to hear it was the Yorks that Keeley had gotten. Just as long as it wasn’t Hally, who she’d earmarked for herself.
They were all sitting at the dining room table in Darla’s house, Keeley eating her food nearly as fast as she physically could at the moment, simply consuming a jar of peanut butter with a spoon. Jar made it sound too small, too mundane. It was a five gallon plastic bucket filled with the stuff and currently it was half gone. It hadn’t been ten minutes prior to that. It was a new container. Hardly gourmet. She didn’t stop though, except to say two things, her mouth thick with the stuff.
“Three humans. Got Steve too. Oh, and the Wilson High Principal is freaky. She had Clara and Glen nearly wetting themselves from the moment she walked in. I don’t know what she is, but it isn’t just a loving school administrator. We need to check her out I think.” Then, large silver spoon flashing she started eating again.
After another third of the bucket she stopped for a second again. No one had spoken, they just watched her. It was eerie. She hadn’t answered the question, had she?
“Also, clearly stupid. I need to learn how to incorporate external energy or something. Is that possible?”
Darla nodded, then shook her head.
“Yes, that’s a real thing, and it works decently well, but I don’t know if you can learn it yet. It took me nearly two hundred years to master and a solid seventy to just get a feel for the basics. Still, we may as well try. Maybe need will motivate you to do better than I did?”
Keeley nodded, which got a strange, almost hurt look from Darla. She clarified her meaning.
“Motivation for sure. I don’t know if I can beat your time on it, but I know I have to do something. Maybe I could break the deals or something? How is that done? Do I just say, I release so and so?”
Dan looked serious suddenly, but Darla smiled, almost happily.
“Oh, no, it doesn’t work like that. You die, they die, or the deal stands. You don’t have to exercise your power over a person, but it’s always there, always a drain. I suppose we could kill them, but I’d like the Yorks to be there for Hally if possible. It would be a shame to get rid of little Steve. I was thinking of grooming him in a couple of years too, but you beat me to it. Well, it will be good practice for you. Which ones do you want to get rid of? Walking around with six links is a bit much for a girl that didn’t even know Demons don’t live in fiery pits less than two weeks ago, don’t you think?” She looked at them both as Keeley nodded, not really wanting to get rid of any of them.
Finias, still looking like Dan, gave Darla a look.
“Six? Who else?”
Darla smirked, “Not a who, a what. The Lesser Demon Balthias. Six days ago. You and Tarsus said the we should handle that situation ourselves, so she did. Alone too.”
“Seriously? I didn’t catch my first Lesser until I was over a thousand years old. Impressive.” He stood suddenly and started walking around, pacing. It was faster than normal.
“Very much so.” He nodded about something and gestured to Darla.
“A word, perhaps… where we can’t be observed?”
They went to Darla’s bedroom up the seven steps to the right, across the nice white expanse of carpet. It had a hand rail on the right hand side, but neither bothered to use it. They didn’t need too, both moving as if they flowed across the room. Keeley kind of envied that, feeling a little ungainly most of the time.
She had time to think as she finished of the last of the brown paste in front of her, about how she really felt about things in general. It probably would sound strange to anyone else, but she knew that hadn’t really happened yet. Not about most of what was going on. Part of that just made sense though didn’t it?
For instance, like it or not, she was a Demon. Nothing could be done to change that, it wasn’t a choice or decision, it was just what was. Being anything other than good with it would be a waste of time, wouldn’t it? She needed to feel happy about being what she was, and like she wanted to be the best Demon she could be. Anything else would just get her killed. That might be out of her control, of course, which was scary to think about.
But that couldn’t be allowed either.
Fear was a simple response built in to get people to act in a specific way. Normally to freeze or run away, or avoid a potentially dangerous situation altogether. In general that was good advice, and really, doing anything else would probably get her killed, most of the time. But going around acting afraid would too. Could there be a bigger giveaway that she was the baby on the block than hiding behind Darla or acting like she didn’t know what was going on?
Then there were the people, beings, she’d made deals with. Enslaved. Six of them. Her immediate reaction had been to set them all free, except Balthias. Setting him free would probably get her killed, at least for a hundred years or so. True, he couldn’t touch her directly, but he could use a tree or a car to hit her, say a dozen times, and that would probably just about do it. Kill a Demon hard enough and they were just gone, like anyone else.
But she didn’t really have a choice in all this, did she? She had the deals in place, and now she needed to honor them. Worse it had to be done in a way that wouldn’t make her look like a complete novice at the whole thing. It was pretty clear that her best defense was probably learning all she could, as fast as possible, mastering every skill she could manage and pretending to have been around for a long while.
Nodding Keeley sat with her eyes closed for about five minutes and held the ideas she wanted to reflect in mind. A feeling of confidence, strength, a good level of wariness mixed in with a sturdy cheerfulness. In short, she needed to pretend to be Darla. No one came back, so white and red tub in hand, she headed for the kitchen, got some beef out of the refrigerator, nicely thick cut steaks and pulled out one of her sisters nice, very well seasoned, cast iron pans.
She needed more food and it had to be a real priority now, even if she had to get her mother to help her get more food. How would she do that?
Ask?
She also needed more money for that, so extra hours at work might help. Something to earn her keep at least. Darla was paying for everything right now, and that had to stop, didn’t it? The one in charge provided things for others, that was how relationships went between Demons. It probably wasn’t something she could change for real between them, Darla was her mentor after all, and Keeley desperately needed her. Probably more than she’d ever needed anyone, even her own mother as a baby.
But she couldn’t afford to act like a baby for the normal seventy years.
A tendril of fear tried to climb up her spine, but she smiled and turned it into excitement. She was going to do this. She had no real choice, so she might as well enjoy it right? Embrace being what she was?
A true Demon.
The steaks were on the table and half gone by the time the others walked back into the room. Keeley noted that Darla’s delicate fingers looked a little crispy on the right hand side, so she’d probably used the same silver key that she’d had Keeley use the day before. It meant that there would be a need for protein as she rapidly healed. Hoping up to get a new plate took less than fifteen seconds, she grabbed silver as well and a nice, deep red, linen napkin. Darla liked to have nice things.
That was probably a point, wasn’t it? Keeley lived with what her parents had given her, but she needed to fool anyone looking closely into thinking that her living with her parents was a game to her. What did she need though? A new bedspread? A better computer? She’d have to think about it. Maybe get things for the house itself?
What she did know though was that even getting a plate of food for Darla was considered an insult in Demon relationships, being the inferior one in the situation. That had to be smoothed over or it would probably lead to a punishment. Those could get creative, since any Demon could just decide to not feel pain, right? Spanking wouldn’t work.
Searching the library of knowledge took a while and she probably looked like a dork, standing there with a plate in hand, but finally she found what she was looking for, a loophole in the rules. She could get food for her sister, without insult, because it was food she’d provided. She needed to point it out though, so that Finias wouldn’t get the wrong idea. The cute man smiled at her before she spoke, as she finished loading nearly three pounds of meat on the fine china plate.
“I made some of your steaks, would you like anything else?” That was a balanced statement and probably conveyed more to both the others than she could imagine, Darla gave her a serious nod.
“Perhaps some of my bread? In the breadbox. And some of the whipped honey butter?”
At least Finias didn’t laugh at her attempts to act like an adult. Not in front of her, no he actually schooled his face pretty well, letting her see the smile, but keeping it small enough so that she wouldn’t feel like he was making fun of her. Keeley got what Darla asked for and helped herself to some as well. A lot of it. Eating this much was insane though. She really needed to get outside energy, or find some way to offset everything.
As it was she slightly dreaded going home, viewing it as the land of starvation.
That would just have to be fixed.
“Darla, do you have something like an invisible chest or bag, so that I can hide food in my room without freaking out my mother?” She looked at the older male Demon, figuring he already would have gotten more about her mom than Keeley ever had and spoke anyway, trying to be polite.
“She has OCD. I haven’t figured out how to keep extra food at home yet, so I’ve been losing weight, that has to stop, since it would be weak of me to just kill off my new people. They might be useful.” She tried to not sound like a total newb, but that probably wasn’t going to work with these two. They already knew everything.
Even that she was a little kid trying to act all grown up. Trying on mommy’s clothes in the closet and grabbing the car keys, before she even knew how to drive. Or how to get into the car. It was ridiculous, but it also made sense. At least she wasn’t three foot shorter than the others still. That would have made it a lot harder to sell the whole thing.
Darla tilted her head to the side and gave Keeley a vulpine smile. A slightly predatory thing. Before she could speak, trying to trap her little sister in a deal to teach her a lesson, Keeley raised her right hand.
“I’ll pay for it in work, but no bargain, deal or other trick applies here. Honest payment, but of my own free will and only on tasks I agree to at the time. If that’s acceptable. If not, can I borrow some tools, because I’ll need to build a hidden compartment in my closet.”