Demon Bait (Keeley Thomson) Read online

  Keeley Thomson:

  Demon Bait

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2014

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter one

  The trick, Keeley knew, to defusing a bomb under a car, was to locate it first. Normally that wouldn't be a problem for her, if the thing had been placed by anyone even close to normal. A Human for instance would do the trick pretty well. Even a Lesser Demon would have most likely, not that any of them were all that technologically savvy.

  This one however was placed all the way to the center of her car, underneath the thing, meaning whoever had tucked it into place had, for some unknown reason, lifted the whole thing up, probably with one hand, and then connected it to the undercarriage of her little beat up plum and primer colored vehicle with the other. It was, to say the very least, annoying.

  So much so that even she, a Greater Demon, nearly missed the cute blond boy waving at her from across the Raintree high school parking lot. It was after the last bell and Keeley, much like the boy that was rather high handedly summoning her to walk over to him, was done for the day. Actually, for the year, since it was finally over.

  School, as the old song went, was out for the summer.

  "Keeley! Can I talk to you for a second?" Quince, the Captain of the football team, who'd lettered in three sports and always seemed personally impressed with that feat, smiled at her lazily.

  As if he weren't getting her to move away from her car, just as it was about to explode.

  She sighed and pasted a smile on her lips. The boy was after all, cute, in a healthy and slightly too well muscled way. In a regular Human that might have meant either an obsession with working out, or steroid use, but in his case it was just a subconscious manipulation of his physical form. He wasn't a real boy, after all was said and done. Just a Durg mercenary that had pretended to be one, in order to get his brothers back from an evil woman that had kidnapped and enslaved them all. They were dead now though, Keeley didn't really think he knew that.

  She brushed her dark brown hair out of her face, having worn it back in a ponytail for the day, which meant that some of the strands had pulled loose. Or, more exactly, that she'd let that happen, to make herself seem more like a real teen girl. Just like she'd added a few blemishes to her face and hadn't worn makeup that day. That left her looking like a solid eight, rather than the ten that had become normal for her all year long. It wasn't a mistake either. Looking good was helpful at times, but with the Second Crucible upon her, she knew that looking like a hot teen girl wasn't really going to help her for much longer. There was a reason that all the Greater Demon leaders looked like crusty old men all the time.

  What that was, she didn't know, but it wasn't lost on her that they all did it.

  She jogged over, making herself seem excited by the prospect of the good looking guy talking to her. He wasn't unpleasant really, though Durg, as a race, tended to be a little slow. About like an average Human. Sure, that was a relative thing, since Greater Demons just functioned on a different mental plane most of the time, but it still had his kind being thought a bit less of, by hers. Which, she knew, was foolish. A Durg was at least as dangerous as anyone else could be, unless they were made into a slave. They were strong, fast, and fanatically loyal to their brothers and sisters. Their leaders too, if they had them at the moment. It was why they were among the best mercenaries in history. Once bought, they stayed that way.

  "Quince! Or are you going back to Kevin, now that you're done with school? For that matter, didn't you graduate last week? What are you doing here?" Placing a bomb under her car came to mind, which, when she leaned in to give the old creature in front of her a hug, she picked up very clearly.

  His life slammed into her, the thousands of years of memories running through her head in an instant. She held it all away from her inner self, just a bit. There was a lot of violence, and more than a little bit of evil involved in his mind. Things done to him, certainly, but mainly things that he'd done. Eating people, raping them, torturing creatures of a hundred kinds.

  Cheating on his finals.

  She nearly lost it and smiled at that last one, since that, lacking in honor as it was, actually made him feel bad. It was charming however, but she didn't want him to feel like she was making fun of him, so schooled her face without locking down her emotions, and looked into his fairly attractive blue eyes. She could see herself reflected in them, the bright Arizona sun glinting off the moist surface just enough to show that he wasn't looking back at her directly, but at her poor little car. The one that he was about to destroy, trying to get the attention of the Greater Demon that had killed his brothers.

  It was so clear that he knew all about what had happened that she nearly sighed. He wasn't totally certain that it had really taken place however. The boy, who was at least four thousand years old, had wondered if this was about a Greater Demon, but couldn't prove it. It really was of course, since her half sister Darla, who was known as The Technician, had slaughtered them all, in retaliation for them killing Rob. A friend of hers. They'd been the tool that had done the work for the Gatherer, and not in control of themselves, but as everyone sane knew, you didn't go up against a Greater Demon if you could help it.

  One of the reasons everyone thought that was simply situations like this. Asymmetrical response patterns. In this case a troop of Acadian Apples, powerful mercenaries despite the fruit flavored name, had allowed themselves to be taken as slaves to a Human with a magical device. Their punishment for failing to resist that, and killing in her name, was death. It wasn't fair, or good, but it sent a strong message to everyone that heard about it.

  Don't screw around with Darla Gibson.

  The boy glanced at her, tension just visible around his eyes, meaning that the blast was close. She stayed relaxed, and didn't let herself be more than a little impressed that Quince, who was a minor celebrity at the school, was there to chat with her.

  "I wanted to ask you something..." He stalled, clearly not wanting to involve himself with her too much. The plan was to create a distraction and then watch for atypical reactions. Why he'd picked her car... Well, he knew that one, and now, having gotten his whole lifetime of memories, so did she.

  Quince had targeted her, because he didn't think she was the one he was looking for. Keeley was, after all, just a pretty and nice, if slightly nerdy girl that got good grades and had friends on the cheerleading squad. That wasn't the kind of thing that real Demons did, to his way of thinking. No, he figured that the one he wanted was on the staff. In a position of power and influence.

  That kind of mistake, letting himself be distracted by what he thought he knew, was part of why his kind were thought of as a little slow, even if they were, otherwise, almost Greater Demons. They had the same base ability set, but were just a bit too lacking to make the cut. Given that most of what made her special had to do with learning and magic, it seemed pretty glaring to Keeley at the moment, but she knew that Quince was probably a lot more like she was than not.

  So she smiled at him, letting her mouth quirk a little at the sides and tilting her head, then licked her lips, wetting them as if it were a subconscious move. It worked and for half an instant he noticed that, thinking about other things
she might be able, and possibly even willing to do with her mouth.

  Then he shook his head slightly, remembering why he was there, glancing at the emptying parking lot.

  "I... Would you like to go out some time? I should have asked earlier, but..." He seemed embarrassed, but sounded nearly perfect. A popular and confident boy, awestruck by her loveliness, taking a last second chance to not lose out forever.

  If she'd been a real girl, it would have worked pretty well, to tell the whole truth. As it was, if she weren't about to lose her car, she still might have considered the idea. If he'd really meant it. Quince was decent at playing his role, but the truth was he couldn't be bothered most of the time to follow through when it came to sex. It was, she knew, too boring to him, most of the time. Not all Durgs became like that, but he had, over the last millennia. The mercenary played at it well enough, making stupid remarks and ogling the pretty girls on demand, but his heart just wasn't in it, most of the time.

  Even with her.

  She grinned a little and nodded, since there was no particular reason not to.

  "That sounds like fun! Let's do that? Do you need a ride home? I know that Misty isn't the best looking car in the world, but she runs pretty well. I don't think my mom is home right now, if you want to come over?" She was just a bit too casual about saying that, but it was true, since her mother had moved to Washington State about two months before. Going to live in a house provided for her by the Line Walker.

  Keeley's nephew, Zack.

  That wouldn't have been so bad, but he'd taken all her people away, or was going to. To protect them, true, which was why she hadn't charged in to fight him for them. For a Greater Demon, Zack was actually a sweetie, after all. Not that he wasn't planning on sleeping with all the girls she'd sent in.

  Keels knew that one because he'd told her about it. Or, well, he'd promised not to sleep with Hally, since she was Keeley's girlfriend, but he clearly had designs on her mother. More than that, she knew, fearing that they'd already been going at it for a while now. It was the kind of thing that she blocked out, because the concept of her mother sleeping with a guy that she had as well, was icky. Which meant that no matter what she thought of herself, she really needed to grow up a lot. Adults of her kind didn't have emotional issues like that. They certainly didn't play by Human rules. She needed to stop that, and fast.

  Not fighting a genuine smile at the ridiculous thought, she started to walk toward her car, getting Quince to put his hand out, stopping her.

  "That sounds good, I need to talk to someone first-" There was a sudden pulling on her arm, and Keeley's body whipped around firmly, so that he stood between her and the explosion. The movement started just before the sound hit them, which meant the thing had been timed pretty precisely. It was a dead giveaway, to someone like her, but most people wouldn't be able to get that he'd started moving before anything happened at all.

  First there was a boom, and then a lot of white smoke, coming from a canister under Misty. Poor, poor Misty. Everyone in the parking lot stared, except for Quince, who looked around for people acting out of place.

  For her part, Keeley yelped.

  "Argh!" It was a bit too dramatic, but she hammed it up a bit, letting her eyes go wide. Then she clung to the muscular, young looking Durg and started to hyperventilate. "Misty!"

  That was just to make him feel bad, for hurting her car. She didn't care that much, since she could get another pretty easily. Or given the nature of the smoke coming out, possibly just drive home after it cleared. It took thinking about and pulling from the memories that the Greater Demon Tarsus, The Librarian, had gifted her, but she could tell it was just a smoke grenade. If it had been planted correctly, the heat shouldn't be enough to really damage anything. It wouldn't melt metal, and Misty, for all she looked like a piece of trash junker, was practically a high end race car, under the hood. There would be no fuel leaks or anything to set it on fire.

  Still, she was a girl, and only sixteen, so tears were in order. That meant thinking about something very sad, to get the right effect. Then, as she focused, increasing the gain on that sense of things using magic, to really hammer the thing home, that moisture came as twin rivulets down her mainly smooth cheeks. It wasn't hard, unfortunately, since she had a lot to choose from. She nearly ran with the most traumatic memory she had, that of being tossed her father's head by Xenses, who as it turned out was her biological brother. Half brother, but since that kind of thing barely mattered to her kind, they didn't count it that way. Charles had been her dad, but not her biological one, even if she'd thought that for most of her life.

  She passed on that one though, since Misty, while a good piece of machinery, was still just a device. A tool to use, in order to get things done.

  Instead she thought about how much she missed her friends. Eve, Becky, Gary, and even her mother all came up in the mix, as her tears started to flow and she buried her head in Quince's broad chest. She still had Hally, for the day, which she was reminded of when the cute and lightly freckled red-headed girl ran to her, screaming. Or, to be more exact, calling out worriedly.

  "Keeley!" It was clear that she didn't see her, shielded by the Durg as she was, so the girl sprinted to the car, looking ready to dive into the smoky disaster to save her. It was very sweet of her, and really sold the idea that Hally wasn't the Demon that Quince was looking for. In fact, even as people came to help, it was pretty clear that no one there was. Even the slightly slow being she held got that. It was framed in his disappointment.

  He did rally pretty well, at least.

  "I... That doesn't look like a fire. Maybe we can save the car?" That meant he ran off, to get a fire extinguisher, which wouldn't help, Keeley knew. The grenade, or smoke bomb, was already dying down, and the haze had cleared by the time that the boy came back. She jogged over to Hally, her face still tear streaked and grabbed her gently, so that the other girl would know that she was really all right.

  That was a bit of a shock, though Keeley didn't let it show. Hally knew that she was fine, and had actually noticed her with Quince, and figured out that pretending she didn't get things was the better plan. As she'd run across the parking lot. It was, frankly, brilliant. Nearly enough that Keeley had to examine her carefully, to make certain she was really herself. It was a Greater Demon thing, taking over other people's lives like that. The best of them could make even someone like her believe the lie, too. That meant looking for any tiny thing wrong, and observing so closely that it became impossible to fool her.

  Even being careful, a couple of her people could have managed it. Tarsus for instance, who had it in for her, for some reason. The Rotted too, she was willing to bet. That had come up in conversation with Zack, since the insane female Demon was his girlfriend. Or at least she thought so. It was hard to tell if she was joking about that or not, according to her nephew. Not that it really mattered. Ann was hanging out around him, living at his home and eating his food without paying for it.

  If it had been given to her, that would have been an insult that would probably have ended with Zack being dead. Or at least Ann being removed from the world to a point where it would take her centuries to get back home.

  For her to just take it... Well that said a lot too, didn't it? It could have been her claiming that she was just that much stronger than Zack, but if she thought that, she wasn't going to be long for the world. Zack had killed Keeley several times, and she was sort of known for being good in a fight. Not the physical part of it, but in not losing. The thing there was that Zack was faster than most. He also didn't hesitate a lot when it came time to kill. He actually liked her, for instance, and had taken her down without so much as blinking.

  So Ann was, basically, announcing to the world that she and the Line Walker were a real team. A couple in a way that her kind seldom managed for long. Pretty much married, or as close to it as you could come without a piece of paper to seal the deal.

  Wiping her eyes she paid so much attention t
o Hally that the girl went a little wide eyed about it. It was a subconscious reflex, like her pupils dilating, but it was there and visible if you were watching.

  "Are you all right?" The pretty girl, who was dressed in a fairly normal looking t-shirt and jeans that day, the top being pink, looked horrified, but she relaxed when a nod came back in response from Keeley.

  "Yeah. I think this is a prank. A smoke bomb? I..." She laid down on the ground and looked under Misty the car, just in case there was a fire, but it was pretty clear that the homemade looking device was finished with its task, and the smoke was really clearing a lot. Quince knelt down, back with the bright red extinguisher, and ready to hit the undercarriage of her vehicle then, the nozzle being tucked in next to her face.

  "Don't bother. It was just a lame trick. I don't know why anyone would do that." She looked up, and let her eyes narrow and then took a deep breath. It was pretty clear to her, even to her innocent Keeley persona, what had happened. She thought about it for a second, since she wanted the whole thing to seem right. That meant about five seconds later she stood and pushed Quince back. Gently, making sure he barely moved. Otherwise it would have seemed wrong and possibly given her away. "You jerk! You scared me. I thought that someone had blown up my car!"

  There was a pause, since the Durg had to process what was going on. He'd been caught and that could mean a million things, including that she, Keeley, was more than she seemed. After a moment he managed to just shake his head a little, readying a denial, which he changed, halfway through.

  "I didn't do anything...." He looked at her and saw that she wasn't buying it and then forced a smile. It was pretty clear that he was bored with the whole project now, since it had clearly failed. Still, alienating Keeley was outside his own act, so he rallied enough to carry on. "I mean, sorry. It was a lot funnier in my head. It won't hurt anything. I made sure of that."

  That was true, so she just glared at him and hugged Hally closer, even as the school staff slowly came out. They didn't seem all that happy, but she just looked at the Principal, who was a friend of hers, and shook her head slowly. It took a while for him to get it, but he didn't walk over. Instead he grabbed a few teachers and chuckled.