Shield of Innocence (Alternate Places Book 4) (14 page)

Zack got up, answering the firm
sounding knock himself, and wasn't too surprised to find that it was a group of
three youngish looking high school students. Two girls, and a guy that looked
like he'd be on a basketball team if the school had half a brain. He was at
least six-seven, after all. Thin and lanky. He had dark skin, and was dressed
casually. Clean and tidy, however, so that he could make a good impression.
Next to him was a girl that was about five-six, a bit heavyset, wearing a warm
sweater, a sensible jacket, and thick glasses.

The fourth person was dressed up
like a gothic vampire. All in black, with heavy black lines around her eyes,
making them sink into her skull. Her hair was a soft pink, and she was so pale
there was obvious makeup being used to cause it to happen. Her clothing flowed,
but was all in black, and didn't look warm enough for the chill December air
outside.

Zack smiled, but didn't offer to
shake hands, since kids didn't as a rule, and he wasn't Chris's dad.
Thankfully. His father had been a demon possessed asshole.

"Hi! Did you come to study
with Chris?"

The gothy girl nodded, sneering a
bit at first, then stopping herself. Her shadow just looked at him and spoke
gently.

He lives here? This place is
amazing. He must be loaded.

There was a lot more that came
through, about how Chris was suddenly a lot more interesting. She'd really only
come because she wanted Jamal, the black guy. That, and she figured that a geek
like Chris might actually be able to help her study.

The slightly plump girl was
impressed too, but was kinder about it inside. Chris was, more or less, a
friend of hers. They sat at the same table at lunch, and would talk from time
to time on the phone. She wasn't exactly crushing on the boy, but she was
friendly that way with him.

Jamal... Was actually there to
try and get a
good
grade for once. Chris had been helping him the whole
quarter, pushing at him to do a good job, if subtly. It was working, and that
meant that if his new bud wanted him to spend a Friday not getting drunk, then
he was willing to do it. Besides, he figured that Chris wanted to get lucky
with one of the girls, and
kind
of hoped that he was going to pick Beth.
The chunky one.

Not because he wanted the other
girl, but because of the two of them,
she
was the one that wasn't a
complete bitch.

Zack got all of this inside an
instant, before Clarissa, the bitchy Goth one, if Jamal was right, could speak.

When she did, the words were a
bit snotty. That took talent, to start a conversation that way, Zack realized.
Still, everyone had some skills, even if they were different than most.

"Like, yeah. Are you his...
You know, dad?" She didn't think he was even close to being that old, but
was
trying
to be rude to him, just because she could get away with it.
The other girl stiffened a bit, because she thought that Zack must be his
brother, Ben, and Jamal looked away, annoyed.

Zack just smiled.

"
Cousin
. Come on in?
He's set up in the front sitting room."

It was a bit of a walk to get
there, but not that bad of one. Once they got to the all white and cream
colored space, Chris stood, looking the longest at Beth, thankfully. Just from
the tiny bit of time the three had been there, she and Jamal were already the
clear favorites, as far as Zack was concerned.

Chris wasn't that gay, but if he
were going to turn out that way, or wanted to experiment, he could do worse
than Jamal there.

Everyone else had moved back into
the kitchen, to get out of the way. That was the vampires, but an image of
Claire walked forward. It was her shadow, so no one else heard her. Chris might
have, since he glanced that way, but there was no outward indication that he
heard her speaking.

We should offer refreshments.

That did seem like the sort of
thing that a real adult might do, at his own home, so Zack nodded a bit. Then
he spoke out loud, knowing that the vampires would hear him.

"I need to run out for a
bit, but I think Claire will be here. Would any of you like anything to drink?
Or eat? I can pick up some burgers and fries? I should be back in a few
hours." Or sooner, if the vampires didn't take too long. He could warp
time enough in the void that the whole thing would only take a few minutes, if
he wanted. Deciding on that he watched the various new people thinking, which
was different than he would have thought of.

Jamal had five bucks on him, and
was willing to part with it, but didn't know if that would even cover his part
of things. He was starving, which was the norm for him, and food sounded really
good about then. He didn't want to be that guy that everyone else had to pay
for though.

Beth
wanted
to eat, but
didn't want to seem like a pig in front of the boys, or Clarissa, who would
make fun of her later, if she wasn't careful.

The last one was wondering if she
could get some beer and turn the whole thing into a party. A place like they
were in
had
to have a wine cellar, or something like that. They could
sneak in and steal something, if that was the case. At least if it wasn't
locked.

Before anyone could speak, he
collected their orders, understanding that Beth was a vegetarian. Chris spoke
up, sounding normal for him.

"Some sodas? I don't know
what we have in the fridge..." There was a bit of hesitation there, on
that one, since he had to know that Merry wouldn't let anything like that into
the house. She had a collection of handmade syrups for that kind of thing.
Luckily Zack knew where they were, and so did Claire.

"I don't know either. I'll
ask in the kitchen on my way out? Be back in a bit."

None of them really cared about
that, except that he was being polite, which went over with three of the people
there well enough.

All he could do was hope that if
Chris
really
liked Clarissa, that David turned into a girl that was cute
enough to turn his head away from her.
Otherwise
he was going to have to
try and throw Nikki at him. Smiling he got to the kitchen and sighed, but
managed to speak normally.

"Would it be possible to get
some drinks for them? We should probably
not
serve alcohol, since
they're kids and the one that really wants it probably isn't the kind of young
lady to allow to get drunk."

Claire was already working away,
knowing what to do more or less. She worked with food for a living after all,
so it wasn't amazing that she could do other things as well.

Her voice was pleasant enough
when she spoke to put him at ease.

"So, these three will go
into the void today? Hawk wishes to try as well, but is serving as Vaun's
assistant for the evening. I'm rather pleased by that. He's very young, but already
doing well." There was no digging at these others in those words, since
they were planning to try and improve their lot in the world as well.

There was a sense from her words
however that combined worry, for her friends and children, with pride that they
were all willing to try. Even facing death to make their lives better. To gain
power that others didn't even reach toward normally until they were hundreds of
years old.

They each had their own reasons
for doing it, Zack noticed. Rebecca was the really interesting one, in that she
wanted the power to protect herself from harm. Her past had been traumatic
enough that she really didn't want to risk being used like that again, by
anyone.

Nikki was just willing to try in
order to give it a chance to work, or not. It was a more academic thing to her,
rather than having a drive to do it, no matter what. That
could
work
though, Zack knew. If the woman was able to learn to focus long enough, well
enough, then it didn't matter what the reason for it was in her head.

Betty just wanted to try and make
Claire, her maker, happy.

Just as the drinks were about to
be mixed and poured into the chilled glass tumblers, Eve, Lyn, Val, and the
girl that used to be David, walked into the room. Zack understood who she was,
but the look was incredibly different. She was youthful looking, seeming about
sixteen, and had smooth, deeply tanned skin. She wasn't a ten, but rather a
solid and cute seven or eight. It was a good look, and Lyn proudly pointed to
her.

"Denise. I did it. You said
this was fine? She can do the testing this way?"

Zack nodded, knowing that in the
void it wouldn't be a factor. There
were
no bodies there. Just pure
consciousness. So far both men and women had made it long term, and had also
failed at it.

Denise was dressed up in an
outfit that emphasized her hourglass figure, and belonged to Maria. Val looked
at him, a bit guiltily, because those were his clothes, more or less. Not that
he was unwilling to share. Patty, the Alede Ambassador had gotten them for him,
to wear in his female form. Maria.
Zack
wasn't using them that day
however, and it was better than having Denise run around in oversized sweat
pants. Or naked. That would be distracting, he didn't doubt.

Zack nodded, and started taking
people through the shortcut out back, about five feet from the kitchen door.
From the back of Something Wonderful, he went into the line with the others,
one at a time. The results weren't perfect really. Nikki hung in for the
longest, that being over a hundred years, learning to concentrate very nicely,
but she just wasn't going to be a line walker. Her ability to focus was high
level however, and her senses were both highly controlled
and
hyper
acute when they came out.

 Rebecca and Betty both failed
inside the first year, and had to be taken out quickly, so that their minds
wouldn't break.

David did better than that, but
at about ten years had to be released. It was that or end up going insane.
Denise was breathless when they came out, and she started to sweat, hard.
Making Maria's clothing all damp. It was a very interesting effect, given that
she was a vampire, and not a human. After a bit Zack understood that she'd come
out a bit differently than she'd gone in. That he, in the transfer back, had
changed her a bit. It could be fixed and would be as soon as she turned back in
to Dave, but it was an interesting idea to try out, if he ever got a chance.

She could, or anyone really,
become almost anything, if they did it right.

Looking at them all, Zack smiled.

"Nikki gets to go first
then. Denise after that. Now, where's Charli?" Libby came from the front
of the shop, her rust red hair and glasses gleaming. She was dressed in a nice
skirt, with a fancy green blouse. It left her seeming years older than she
normally looked, but still not her age. She was in her thirties and looked like
a young twenty-something.

Behind her, being dragged a
little, was Charli. She wasn't that pleased, but also wasn't scared or upset.
That meant he could take her back, when the others got to go home.

"Eve? You get Nikki here
first. She can't walk the lines, but I bet she's ready for your training. Can
you do that thing you did with Troy the other day, on Charli? The magic?"

It turned out that she could, and
Zack redid it again himself, to help the girl out at first. He should have done
it on the vampires too, but the fact was he didn't think they could walk the
lines, so hadn't tried that. If they went again he needed to attempt that
however.

To give them a chance to learn
how to focus like Nikki had, if nothing else.

Charli did really well, in the
void. Her mind adapted fast. Not the best ever, but probably as well as Kaitlyn
had. The best part of the whole thing was how minor her troubles were. Her mind
became solid and pure, after a few centuries, and at about a thousand years,
they came back out, the girl opening the node for herself, after only a tiny
bit of fumbling and figuring out how it was done. A decade's worth or so. That
meant she was a line walker really, though no one was there to see her do it.

Zack held up a finger in front of
his lips, and gestured to the node.

"Go in. Find Lesser
Shia." The girl, still glazed eyed, did it instantly. She'd been there
before, so it was an easy thing for her to do. Then, without being polite about
it at all, he ran her through the paces of everything he knew, including how to
do the energy work that might needed. She wasn't good at it, at first, so he took
her back into the void for a very long time, pushing her without mercy.

When they finally came back she
tried to shake her head, but it was a slow and disjointed thing.

"No! Smoothly. Remember to
react correctly. The things you are seeing and hearing are real, but it will
take work to not seem too strange. We've been gone for long enough that it can
be hard to remember that, but do. Here it hasn't been long at all. It's a
perspective thing." He smiled at her, watching her so intensely that there
was probably an actual force coming off of him that hit her.

His intent made ripples in her
energy field. Not strong ones but he could see it in the air. It was
interesting, since it hadn't happened like that with anyone else that he'd ever
noticed.