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

"Your father doesn't want to, but I'm in. Why?"

"I'll just send you along to the dinner with the others then. You should see if Dad wants to go though, since it will allow him to network with some Coretechs people." It was true and Charles Thomson was really into getting ahead at work. It was practically his hobby.

"Well, he might be up for
that
. Sure, if you set it all up, I'll see if he can be persuaded."

That meant she had nearly an hour to finish her ice cream, do her homework and make those calls. She changed the order, calling first, because she could do school work all night if she had to. In fact she probably needed to get in touch with her people off at Darla's so they didn't feel too lonely or anything as well. Rebekah and Elis had only been with her for a few days after all and might just want to be reassured. The girl Vampire anyway. The guy was her slave and was probably worried that she'd order him killed at any moment.

Because she just might.

He'd used mind control on her friend Eve and then had non-consensual sex with her. It didn't seem to be traumatizing the girl because she was both accustomed to being used for sex and couldn't remember it, but that didn't mean
Keeley
wasn't considering how to best make the creep pay. So far she was just leaving that part of things to Eve, who'd decided to use her new pet Vampire to kill some child molesters. Ones that had molested her as a child, so the girl was one hundred percent certain they were guilty. After that who knew what Eve had planned? Honestly probably not death for Elis, but it should be something bad enough to make him suffer a little. As far as she was concerned the appropriate punishment would be for him to be raped a few times, but it was Eve's call, not hers. Not until the girl was satisfied at least.

It was tempting to call there first, but made more sense to catch Karen Benson at home early. The Chief would probably still be at work, since the man was a serious workaholic, but Karen would know the best times for everything.

Strangely it was Eve that answered the phone. Not that strange, being that the Chief was her dad, but she'd been a little uneasy about getting too buddy-buddy with her step-mother and didn't live there, even if it would be a thousand times better than being in with her mom.

"Um, Benson residence, this is Eve Benson, how may I help you?"

"Hi Eve. I was just calling to reserve the Chief and wife for dinner tomorrow night. I have a new friend for them. A television reporter. We met earlier today. I really think they'll hit it off."

"Keels! Are you alright? We've been worried sick about you. Karen got word that you were seriously injured, but the television said that you just kicked some guy's ass. I take it that you didn't lose that fight too badly? Is there anything... else going on?"

It wasn't meant like it sounded, Keeley knew. No, Eve wanted to know if it was something really dangerous. Just in case she had to be ready to fight. Keeley didn't have the heart to tell her that almost anything she'd need help with would simply kill them both if the girl was around.

She gripped the phone as she sat on the sofa in the living room, wondering if she could talk her parents into letting her have a cell if she paid for it. It would be handy. True, they fried your brain with microwaves, but she'd heal from that. It was really about her father trying to keep her from dating, or more exactly, from having sex. Like that could actually stop her. Keeley didn't have sex because she didn't want to yet. The second she did, all bets were off though. It wasn't like she could get pregnant and her ability to control her emotions and physical sensations kind of meant she was guaranteed to have at least an OK time of it.

"Just a purse snatcher. I just pulled him off balance and he hit his head. It wasn't anything big. Anyway, I need to set that dinner up if I can. Meet up with me at school tomorrow? We need to make some plans too."

"Will do. Here's Karen..." The phone made noises like it was being passed, which led to a five minute conversation to set the time of the meeting. She didn't even try to get out of it at all.

The timing was nearly perfect, because just about then her father came home, slamming the door on the way in.

He didn't say anything for a long time standing just inside the closed door at first. Finally he moved a few feet and just sank onto the sofa and shook his head as his wife walked in to greet him. The look on his face was angry, but he didn't glare at either of them, which he would have if he had any reason at all. Placing blame was another of his hobbies after all. Without warning he stood and turned so that he could see both of them at once.

"Sorry... It may be nothing, but there are rumors that the accounting section is coming under some scrutiny at work. It seems like someone has been embezzling funds and..." He shook his head again in denial.

"They think that it might be me."

Chapter two

The idea seemed silly to Keeley at first. Crazy even, since it was her dad that these nebulous people were accusing of theft. He was a lot of things, including petty and nearly pathological in his belief that all women were busily off having sex with every man in the world except him when not watched like a hawk, but he wasn't a thief. At least he never had been before. Not past the rather normal taking of stray pens and paperclips from work. Those always ended up going back though, used to get his job done on his own time in the evenings, so it was a net gain for Coretechs.

"What?" It really didn't make sense to Keeley at all, until she walked over to where he sat on the beige sofa and touched his arm, patting it a little, trying to be comforting. Then the whole thing flooded into her mind in an instant. She normally avoided contact with people because of that effect, that rush of intense information was almost always too much. It was hard knowing anyone too well and could cause problems. Most of them did things they weren't proud of, or at least wouldn't want known by someone like her, like lying, cheating and masturbating. Sometimes the secrets they held were worse than that though.

The people at work weren't just looking at him because he was the new guy. Not at all. The data trail came back to him over and again, like a mobius strip of inexpert crime. It pointed to one person only and it wasn't a mistake. Because he was guilty.

Keeley looked at her mom, eyes going slightly wide, which got two things to happen. The first was Sherry stopping dead in her tracks and staring, not at her daughter, but her husband. The second was Charles sighing and starting to complain. It was his go to move when things went wrong. Whining about how unfair the world was.

"Someone is setting me up. I don't know why..."

Rolling her eyes Keeley nearly growled the next words, it came from deep within her chest and was a sound that was just shy of being truly human. She knew the whole plan after all, it wasn't like she didn't get it.

"No. The account in Grand Cayman with four hundred and seventy-two thousand dollars in it is yours and
you
have the account number. Plus the ticket to Aruba... Those are both things you put together personally. What the hell dad? Only one ticket too. Kind of a jerk move, isn't it? You've been planning to run away ever since you got here, haven't you? Just abandoning us? Move us to a new place we don't know anyone in and then just take off?" She had to kill the anger in her voice, then decided to dampen all her emotions, choosing to be peaceful instead.

At least one of them was going to need to be calm and collected and she doubted it would be either of her parents anytime soon.

"I... how did you know? Have you been spying on me?" He stared at Keeley hard and looked affronted at the idea. Shocked and scandalized. Because her spying on him would be so much worse than major theft.

She just shrugged. It was as good a way for things to have happened as any and didn't take superpowers, just brains and a willingness to pry into other people's business.

"Yep. I'm a nosey pain in the ass, but
I
wasn't going to abandon everyone. Why? What did I do to you that caused you to want to just run off like this? I..." She knew the answer already. It wasn't her at all, not really, it was about his own fear of being replaced.

She was a teenage girl, so of course she'd eventually find someone, if she wasn't already sleeping her way through the boys at school and possibly all the men at Coretechs. It made perfect sense to his mind. Dan Carmichael had popped up in his thoughts more than once in that regard. He also thought she might be a lesbian, what with her being so close to her new friends. That the ideas totally countered one another didn't even seem strange to him. But it wasn't honestly about that, it was that he thought Sherry might be doing the same thing.

Even though she almost never left the house without him.

Brilliant.

It took a few seconds for Keeley's mother to catch up with it all. She wasn't stupid. Far from it in fact. But the idea of her husband doing something that selfish and illegal took her by surprise for a few seconds. Good people really weren't able to understand bad things very easily, like the evil ones were, it meant that she had to play catch up for a while.

"Charles... You did this?" Her face looked pale over the curly brown hair and her lip twitched just a little. The tone was pleading though, as if begging him to deny it all.

"I... yes. I just can't stand all the cheating and lying anymore." It was an old argument, based on no real information at all and largely untrue.

Sherry had cheated on him once, nearly eighteen years before. Exactly nine months before Keeley was born. With a Demon, though the woman didn't know it at the time. Finias, who of course was Keeley's biological father.

The years of fighting though had never been over that, but the delusion that all women were untrustworthy all the time. People in general had their issues, Keeley knew, having the lives of too many stored within her to doubt that, but Charles was taking the whole idea into levels that weren't sustainable in reality. Even if most women wanted to be out having that much sex, a lot of them would have been throwing themselves at him, just to keep the numbers up. They would have had to. He didn't get that though. Charles simply couldn't.

Keeley sighed and shook her head, moving to the phone, dialing without really thinking about it. Calling Darla. Not only was she her mentor, it was her money that Charles had stolen. Neither parent really noticed her doing it at first, since they were having a heated discussion about cheating that had never happened instead. Like someone getting laid was the real issue at the moment? Charles had stolen nearly half a million dollars from a major corporation. That alone would have meant his life was close to being over, even if said business hadn't been run by a Greater Demon. He couldn't have known that part, but it could mean things going a whole lot worse for him than just going to prison for five to ten years. Horrible torture was the normal cost of stealing from a Demon. With a Greater Demon it often lasted a lot longer than a normal human lifespan. There were ways to keep people alive if you had enough power.

"This is Gibson. Go." Keeley had dialed Darla's house, but didn't feel surprised to have the phone answered by the older version of her sister given what was going on.

She had to have been expecting the call then.

"Hello Mrs. Gibson. I... you obviously know what's happening." It wasn't a question, but the voice switched to the younger one Keeley was used to.

"Yes. I've known for about a week. I picked it up from Charles when I shook his hand at the Homecoming after party. It's why I started the audit that caught him now, instead of in two months when we do the annual in-house. What do you want done about it?"

It was a surprising question. Keeley had figured she'd have to beg, maybe agree to be Darla's slave or something to keep her father alive and unharmed. She wouldn't do that of course. It would be better to try and run. She probably couldn't avoid Darla forever, but if she had a few decades to get ready...

"I'll cover the funds taken and add fifty percent. I'll..." Having the crime hidden was possible, maybe even the best course, but Keeley knew it wouldn't be enough.

Oh, it might be for Darla, who didn't seem worked up over it at all, but the law had to be taken care of too. So did Sherry. Her husband had been angling to commit a crime and then leave her and his kid with the fallout. They didn't need that kind of person in their life, did they? It hurt to think of, because flawed or not she loved her father, but the man had to go. There had to be limits.

She sighed into the phone.

"Can we have a week? I need to talk to you in person. Oh, and can you go to dinner with Roy and Karen tomorrow night? I want you to meet someone I'm grooming. She's a reporter. I think she can go places."

There was a chuckle over the phone, it wasn't dark or teasing, just an acknowledgement of what was happening. Keeley had tightened her emotional control to a level that only practicality was getting through. It was something a lot of young Demons had trouble learning. It was there in her memories, the ones that the Demon Tarsus had shared with her.

"Sure. I'll come over right now. I want a million though, not just fifty percent more. Final offer." She'd gone back to her older voice and it was filled with steel, as if no negotiation was possible.

Keeley snorted.

"Fifty percent more and I'll never let anyone know you have a bit of kindness in your soul."

"Eight hundred thousand and Coretechs will find an "error" so that Charles won't be hunted down."

Keeley tilted her head and thought for about three seconds.

"Alright. I agree to those specific terms." You didn't say "deal" to a Greater Demon. Making a bargain with one had to be explicit and exacting or it could end in slavery forever. Not for her, being a Greater Demon too, but even a few months or years of that kind of thing could be pretty damaging. Darla had mentioned the horrors she'd experienced at the hands of their older brother before she'd broken free. That was a scary idea once she thought about it. What had he done, what
could
he do, that was so bad Darla couldn't just make herself forget about it? True, Keeley's mentor wasn't Xenses, but why risk what you didn't have to?