Keeley Thomson (Book 3): Mistress of Souls (14 page)

"As to other guys..." She still had nothing. Not a single one came to mind and she actually froze, not knowing what to say at all. Hardly smooth, but it did fit the act she had going on, didn't it?

Maria shook her head with a slightly strained smile.

"Mitch Barris likes you. After he saw you talking to me a couple of times he asked if I knew you. This was back when you wore glasses all the time and didn't suddenly look like a supermodel. I doubt that hurts though. You should ask him out. He's nice." She sounded half defensive about it for some reason, which became clear when Hally looked at Eve and they both started laughing.

"He's a geek Keels." Eve could be pretty blunt when she didn't bother to censor herself.

"I mean full on Star trek uniform in the closet, lightsaber fight on YouTube, geekdom. Not just someone a little socially awkward. On the chess team too. Plus, he's not exactly great looking. I could do one or the other, but both is a bit much. Unless I was drunk." Then she laughed again.

Before Maria could rally a defense for the boy Darla did, her tone smooth and calm.

"Also a straight A student, like you are Keeley, and socially involved in clubs at school. His fashion sense is irregular, but if you notice Eve, he goes for looking
different
, not sloppy. In all I think Keeley should give him a shot. If nothing else going out with her, even a few times, will help his social standing. Honestly Eve, I'm a little shocked you haven't made a play for him yourself. It would be a step up from some of the men you've been hanging around lately." That line had weight to it, but no explanation came.

They bantered back and forth until about two in the morning when people started falling asleep. She tucked Maria and Hally into her bed and gave Eve the sofa. They had a futon in the garage that was moved to the living room for Becky, who looked uneasy for a bit.

"You two can share it. I can sleep on the floor. I don't want to put you out."

This got waved away by Darla.

"We're going out and probably won't sleep. We'll be back with breakfast at about eight though, so don't worry about us."

She seemed alright with that idea for some reason and didn't even ask where they might be going that late. Then, to Becky they were the "cool girls" so they might just be going to meet up with some men or possibly do drugs or whatever it was that people like them did. Keeley read it out of her mind easily enough and nodded subliminally. It reinforced the idea in the mind of the girl who was too tired to think critically anyway.

It required getting dressed again, and in very nice clothing, a black dress shirt and a tight mini-skirt that hugged her backside so completely Keeley had to shut down her feeling of embarrassment again.

Nothing was said as they snuck out and while Darla looked askance at the black tennis shoes that Keeley wore she didn't mention them.

When they were safely out of earshot of the humans, walking toward Darla's house, she explained.

"I have a job. Two actually. It's rather a fortuitous combination of events. Bente... You remember me mentioning her?"

"The fashion Demon? I don't know another title for her." Keeley hadn't even known that she was a female before either, come to think of it. Titles could be important though, depending on the Demon involved. Keeley didn't want to meet the woman and have to fight her right off the bat or something. That would be annoying, especially since she might need her for fashion tips later in life.

"She's known as "The Pristine". You won't have a problem remembering it when you meet her. Anyway, she has a guest right now, the Greater Demon Fram. He and I have a... history. That's not important for you though, personal business. What I need you to do is take the Geordes for me and revive one of Bente's models that managed to die somehow. She has a show tomorrow and doesn't want to get a replacement, since the gowns were all created specifically for the woman's form. True, no one else in the world would notice the difference, but we all have out pet interests. Bente would know and it would bother her." She walked a little faster, still wearing a long pink night shirt. Looking down Keeley noticed she was also barefoot. It didn't look normal, but it wasn't a long walk.

"It's in Italy. Bente knows to expect us. In fact she's quite frantic about it. Willing to pay top rates for our time. It will be hard magically and I can't afford to be weakened, so... Do you think you can take the time device and revive the girl? It's a longer trip than to my house and I don't know if you can lift it yet..." In short Darla was floundering, asking at things that she didn't think were really within Keeley's abilities yet. Which meant that she really wanted to do whatever else it was she had planned.

Keeley honestly didn't know though. Maybe if she downed a container or two of Crisco first? She'd never tried it before, but it might work, energy wise. Tentatively she nodded.

"I'll need your kitchen, coming and going and you have to pay for my time and effort. Cash and a favor to be named later. Thirty percent of whatever the monetary value that Bente is giving you. The favor being one that I get to name, but that will be within the bounds of our current relationship. So you know, it won't be making you kill babies or sleep with ugly people." There wasn't a lot that Demons wouldn't do after all. The terms were really a little too polite, but they were family. True, if Bente was paying in favors herself it wouldn't mean much, but it was mainly about keeping up appearances, nothing else.

"Agreed. Let's hurry then. The longer we take the more effort it will be to turn time back far enough."

They jogged to her front door, which took a minute, but entered quietly enough. No one was sleeping, instead they were all sitting in front of Darla's television watching what looked like a twenty-four hour news channel. Rebekah jumped up when she heard the door, but the others froze in place, realizing it was too late to hide what they were doing.

Keeley waved.

"Not here for a visit this time. Just in and out. Go back to what you were doing. It's a good idea to keep up on current events. Don't discount fiction though, knowing what regular people watch may help you out later." It was as close to showing approval that she could manage while walking, but she smiled and waved her hand a few times as Darla ran to her own room a lot faster than they'd been jogging outside. Unlike Keeley it didn't take burning magic for her to move extra fast. It was the weakest area for her.

That reminded her to ramp up her strength and speed as she started eating. It took a moment of thought to block out the idea of eating pure fat, and then another minute to allow her to actually do it fast enough, fighting the gag reflex while she did. The brick she opened had a buttery flavor at least and wasn't bad, but it was still hard to do. She polished off six of the things before Darla came down a few minutes later.

She looked at the pile of wrappers and smiled.

"Good thinking. I wasn't sure you'd be able to though. Not unless you were starving." She sounded pleased about it and looked good, but not like she was going to a party like Keeley did. She wore loose brown pants and a brown top that were a dark color. In Greater Demon society that would be a sign of age, when visiting another of their kind. Or great social standing. That dark of a shade meant that Darla was probably proclaiming herself to be very far above whoever she was visiting. Keeley's black didn't mean anything except maybe that she looked good in it.

Keeley nodded at her.

"Going for a fight then?" It made sense to her, since the woman had weapons hidden on her person in several places. One of them was a new device that she hadn't made, part of the stockpile they'd taken from Edith's.

"I am. Amazing that you picked up on it so quickly. Shall we go? I left the Geordes in the living room." She seemed uncertain again, looking at Keeley as if she couldn't do it.

She just washed her hands in the sink after throwing the slightly slick foil wrappers away. She made sure her hands were very clean. Oily fingers on the handles wouldn't help at all.

"Lead on then." She took a deep breath and tried to look confident, then made herself feel it. She wouldn't do better for being filled with self-doubt after all.

The wooden box in the living room was big enough, about four feet long and easily awkward enough to be a pain to carry at the best of times. The metal inside was gold though, and that meant it would weigh in at around six to eight hundred pounds. Keeley increased the rate of healing and her feeling of strength, straining a bit to reach both the handles on the side. It felt light enough though, and nothing in her back shattered from the weight, even as she killed the pain in her body so she wouldn't notice it if it did.

Darla nodded slowly and led to the front door.

"I'll go slow. Try to keep up."

Just outside the door she stepped into the inroads without hesitation, which made Keeley scramble a little to do the same. She wasn't as fast at it yet apparently. Not even a bit. Once on the path she was able to see her sister, though she looked distorted and a bit silvery. The case didn't have a lot of weight, but she had to push it along, like it wanted to stick in place. The effort was a lot greater than anything she'd tried before. It took a while to make the trip since Darla kept stopping to make sure she was staying with her. They couldn't talk though, so Keeley just had to wait for her to show the way.

They finally stepped through a gap that brought them out in front of a huge mansion. It was daytime, and looked like late evening. Darla knocked on the door, using the little clapper in the center of it, a thing that looked to be covered in gold. It should have been gaudy, but managed not to be somehow. It was just the right amount of ostentation for the rest of the place.

The woman that opened the door wasn't a butler, that was certain. Nor was she Bente. She looked far from pristine for one thing. She also wasn't a Demon at all. Just a human. A very well made up one though, except for the tears that ran down her cheeks, the smeared mascara making her look a bit like a raccoon.

"Hallo? You are Americans?" Her English was decent enough it sounded like, but the words were a mush of distress.

"Come!" The woman turned and ran down the hallway, a nicely carpeted thing with a short red pile.

Keeley followed, but Darla patted her once on the back and pointed down a side hallway. She had other things to do after all.

The dead girl looked to be about her own age and not too different in basic looks. Long dark hair that had been pulled back into a complex hairdo instead of the simple pony tail Keeley had, the dress she wore cream and white gauze with pale stockings that showed at the top.

She'd been beaten pretty badly, bones in the face crushed, but by repeated blows, not superhuman strength. Keeley could make out the knuckle imprints. It had been done by a man. They were too large for a woman unless she was a giant. The bloody disarray of undergarments showed that whoever had done it had probably been raping her at the time, or near enough. It made more sense to do it before the act, or after, since the distance would have made it too hard to punch with that much force otherwise.

Keeley had to shut down all her emotion hard to make herself work and not be sick.

The floor was hardwood in the room and polished to gleaming, so she was careful to set the heavy box down on a rug some ten feet away, then tried to recall how to make the device work. It would be set up around the space to turn back in time in a rectangle, the six gold metal pieces set at an equal distance. Then she just had to orient the little gold bars on the top so that they pointed at the devices next to them and when she turned the last one it should turn on.

It worked perfectly, but unlike the last time she'd used the device, she could see the effects working backwards rapidly. This had happened within six hours, instead of most of a day. Meaning that Darla had been contacted while she was actually at the party. It was a trick Keeley needed to learn for herself. As soon as the woman opened her eyes Keeley stopped and turned the bar.

She was drained and had an aching head from the trip on the inroads pushing the heavy box, but she didn't need to collapse or anything. The shortening had done the trick then. Good to know.

There was a soft sigh of fabric and metal behind her which got Keeley to spin, not sure if running or trying to fight would be the best course. The woman she looked at was dressed in a deep red colored gown that had some similarities to a robe. It had gold trim and what looked like a phoenix on the front, embroidered by hand. The face above it was eerily flawless. Perfectly so. In her hand she held a spear, but it wasn't pointed at Keeley exactly.

She spoke without raising her voice, it sounded like dark velvet sliding against polished oak. However the heck that worked. It was the only way to describe it though.

"You are not the Technician. I felt you come with her... you are?" She didn't presume to try and name her. Getting it wrong could start a fight and with Greater Demons you never knew what they might bring to a conflict if you didn't know them. Except Keeley did. The memories in her head held a lot of information about the being in front of her. She was decently old, but her main power was being popular. Everyone loved her. Not just for being beautiful either. It was her magic.

"Call me Keeley. Also known as The Mistress of Souls. We haven't met yet. You are The Pristine? I was asked to see to your girl here by the Technician. Perhaps we should get her something to drink?" She gestured to the form that was much healthier looking now. Alive again. The time in which the bad things had happened just didn't exist for her. It was a neat enough trick, but wasn't actually bringing the dead back to life at all. It just got around whatever killed a person. That could work for violent death, Keeley realized, but not so much for things like cancer or illness.

For that you needed to cure it first. Buying a few repeated hours wouldn't do much at all in that case.

"Honored to meet you, Mistress of Souls, called Keeley." The words were very smooth and the second she got to the last syllable she moved to her friend, cooing a little over her and helping her sit.