Keeley Thomson (Book 2): Keelzebub Read online

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Electronic Publishing Division

  2012

  All rights reserved.

  Orange Cat Publishing books by P.S. Power:

  The Infected:

  Proxy

  Gabriel

  Cast Iron

  Gwen Farris:

  Abominations

  Monsters

  Dead End:

  A Very Good Man

  A Very Good Neighbor

  A Very Good Thing

  Keeley Thomson:

  Demon Girl

  Keelzebub

  The Young Ancients:

  The Builder

  Knight Esquire

  Knight of the Realm

  Ambassador

  Counselor

  Stand alone titles:

  Crayons

  Keelzebub

  By

  P. S. Power

  Chapter one

  Keeley would have complained about Darla hitting her in the nose, except that the next three blows to the head came too fast for her to say anything about it. It really hurt too, the strikes stinging against her flesh, making solid clapping or thunking noises, depending on where they hit precisely.

  Darla was holding back, of course. Keeley didn’t have to even think to understand that fact. If her half sister hadn’t been, well, Keeley would be dead, instead of just wishing she were. Super Demon level strength could do that to a girl after all.

  “Block, like I showed you Keels. I’m going slowly enough for you to at least make an effort.” As if to prove the point, the perky blond cheerleader hit another four times in less than a second. Sure, it really was slow for her, that was clear. Probably boring even.

  To Keeley it was all just a blur of pain and generalized suck.

  Tired of just being beaten she jumped back and tried to remember what it felt like to not ache. One of the perks of being a Greater Demon, she’d found. If she imagined something hard enough about herself, say an emotional state, or feeling of being energetic, it actually made it real. Darla had assured her that even humans could do the same basic thing, most just didn’t bother. Demons were better at it, making it something to actually use all the time. If she could remember to, that was.

  A wash of calm and confidence got added to the mix, as soon as the pain left, and a feeling of strength for good measure.

  Then she tried to block, putting her arm in the way of the next movement perfectly.

  Just to have it blown out of the way, the open palm of the pretty pink hand hitting her just under the jaw on the right, traveling at an upward angle. It took her all the way off her feet, landing on the carpeted living room floor, a nice, and very expensive, cream colored thing. Wall to wall, but definitely not something gotten at the local Home Depot. It didn’t even scratch against the side of her face as Keeley drooled on it. Comfy.

  She rolled to her feet, trying to be game about it, but really, there had to be a better way to learn to fight than just being beaten up over and over again. Before she could mention it, pushing her pulled back dark brown hair out of the way, Darla chuckled. It didn’t sound evil, but it probably was, Keeley thought, feeling a bit bitter about the whole thing for a second.

  “Sure, I could spring for eight years of martial arts lessons instead of doing it this way, but you might, if we totally get lucky, have eight days to get ready. Maybe a few weeks, but not years. That no one has really attacked you in the two weeks since I met up with you is amazing. It’s coming though, so you have to be ready. You need to assume it will be one of us too, a Demon.” The blond swiped at her, an exaggerated move to get Keeley to jump back, so that Darla could rush her most likely.

  That was something she could figure out even without knowing much about fighting, that it was a trap meant to control her motions. What she didn’t get at all was what the heck to do about it. With no time to think, and no fear, not even of the inevitable pain that was coming, thanks to her ability to damp that down, Keeley jumped in, and for the first time since they started, nearly half an hour before, attacked.

  It was just a single punch, one moving straight out, but with all her weight behind it. The thing wouldn’t land of course. Even thinking that was stupid. Darla was really good, having had hundreds of years to practice, and a real reason to do it, not wanting her older brother to kill her thrice. No, it was her own, hastily put together, trick.

  As soon as Darla blocked, a fluid movement that could just barely be tracked by the likes of her, Keeley…

  Fell to the floor. She just collapsed as if going unconscious. Limp and slightly sprawling.

  Darla didn’t freeze or anything, but she also didn’t move her lead leg, the left one, fast enough to prevent a nice solid side kick from landing. It was a little awkward, the kick, but it made a nice meaty thunk when it landed on the shin.

  Finally, a bit of payback for the beating she’d been getting. A warm feeling of accomplishment flowed through her then. Happiness almost. Not everyone could have pulled that off.

  Darla didn’t even shift her weight at all, just lifted her foot and hit Keeley right under the ribcage, hard.

  “Good, don’t stop though. One attack won’t take anything down. Not until your strength kicks in. Really, we need to start some training for that too. It won’t hurt, and sometimes that can help jumpstart things. We are, more than almost anything else on the planet, good at adapting to new stressors.” While she spoke, calmly, almost academically, wearing a happy smile the whole time, the incredibly lovely girl, who only looked about eighteen, kicked her. Hard. Several times.

  Sweet of her.

  She did have a point though, that was clear. Baby Demons, like her, only sixteen after all, generally didn’t live to see twenty. Almost anything in the world that found out exactly who, and what, she was would try to kill her. Because if you waited, you got a mature member of the species to deal with and that, apparently, was something no one was ever really happy about. Not even other Demons for the most part. Go figure?

  At least she had a chance to be a nice one. Some of them were pretty much just born crazy or insanely violent. Keeley was nice and calm about most things.

  For the time being though, she needed to roll, and put a bit of energy into it. Darla seriously wasn’t going to hold back anymore it seemed, and while it was clear that it would take more than a few punches or kicks to kill her, it still did damage and she didn’t know if she could regrow teeth yet, so keeping them in her head made sense.

  The next hour was hard. Possibly the hardest one she’d ever had in her entire life. It wasn’t until she finally grabbed a heavy coffee table and tried to swing it at her sister that Darla stopped, laughing.

  “Took you long enough. In a real fight, you can’t afford to play by rules Keels. In an unarmed fight, the very first thing you should do from now on is arm yourself. The second thing is to really cheat. Lie, sabotage, and run away, anything you can think of that might work. I’ll let you off easy this time, because it’s only the first lesson, but I think we both know you can do better than this.” The Demon girl winked at her.

  It was a bit annoying how often she did that. Winking. Keeley thought it was a throwback to an older time, when people did it a lot. That or Darla knew it bugged her and did it just because she could.

  Taking a very deep breath, but not panting, having stabilized her oxygen level already, on purpose, which Darla was clearly doing too, Keeley sighed. It wasn’t a big put upon thing, but it got a raised eyebrow from the other woman.

  “Problem? Think I’m being unfair maybe? That I should take it easy on you? Feed you half a cake and rub your tummy while you take a nap?”

  The words, for all the s
nark in them, weren’t really mean. Playful came to mind as a term, though honestly it wasn’t something that Keeley did herself too much. Play. She was kind of serious. It was her thing. One of them at least. She forced a smile though.

  “You have cake? That actually sounds pretty good. Don’t rub my tummy though please. That’s just a little too creepy sounding for me yet. Do we, um, Demons, get used to stuff like that or is it just, I don’t know, inborn? I mean, am I just how I’ll be or…” Or would she grow up like a normal person. Get older and learn, develop. Or was this it?

  What she didn’t know about real Demons could fill volumes, but Darla wasn’t hiding anything really, so at least there was that. It was just that Keeley didn’t really even know most of the right questions to ask. Who would? She’d grown up with the idea of Satan and the fiery pit, only to find out that was all just propaganda.

  “Normally I’d tell you to use the information in your head, but the truth is that it varies so much that could be hard to do. What I can tell you is that you, personally, have the ability to pick who and what you become Keels. Not all of us really do, but the calm ones, like you, they always can. The rage filled, the spiteful, and the pure evil, some of those types don’t have a choice at all. It may not be automatic for you though, you’ll have to pick and choose, and make yourself into what you want to become with constant practice and application of will.” She spread her hands, gesturing at the white outfits both of them wore.

  Pure and almost untouched for Darla, red and white for Keeley. It had been a nice clean white when they’d started, but Darla really hadn’t held back a lot. Except for the fact, Keeley knew, that she really had. There were fist prints with blood soaking through, and even a few palms and foot outlines in blood, but nothing had actually been ripped off her body and no holes had been punched all the way through.

  It had been white when they started after all, which reminded her to speed up her healing processes fast. She’d have to be home in an hour or two. Her dad may have ungrounded her, but he was dead certain that his only daughter was out sleeping with half the boys in town every time she left the house. It was hardly a fair thought either, since she was a virgin. She’d told him that, but he wasn’t convinced.

  That it shouldn’t have mattered either way didn’t faze the man at all. That, if anything, was his thing. Really Charles Thomson did not trust women at all.

  Hence the sneaking around she was doing. Right now she wasn’t supposed to be a few blocks away from home at Darla’s house, but rather across town at the small little public library, helping to tutor her friend Hally in math. The funny part there was that, while her father was pretty certain that she was “dating” Darla, his bosses granddaughter, it was Hally, the cute and lightly freckled redhead that she would have been doing anything with, if she swung that way.

  Which she hadn’t decided yet.

  Hally was a sweetheart though, either way. Plus, though her father didn’t know it, Darla was her sister. Half sister, but close enough. He suspected that his wife had slept around on him. Which she had, once, almost pushed into it by his constant jealousy, but he didn’t know that Keeley wasn’t his. Not for certain. Neither of them knew what she was though. A Greater Demon. A Daemon, which just meant wise one in ancient Greek.

  At least the rest of it, the whole falling from heaven thing, was a myth. That would have been annoying to put up with, to say the least. Angles constantly making fun of them and all that.

  Still, “dating” her own sister was just a gross idea. Yeck.

  Darla grinned at her, a charming thing, but then, she’d had time to practice. Almost everything she did had style, or charm, or was just right in some way or another.

  “Tell you what, you go and get cleaned up, wash a bit of that blood off and make sure you don’t smell like a locker room, and I’ll fix some of my famous chocolate chicken?” She held up her right hand to forestall speech.

  “Before you ask, yes, I do have cake. Ice cream too. You need to eat more. I get the idea, that we’re trying to hide everything from your parents, but that can’t be allowed to keep you from food as much as it has been. You’re losing too much weight, too fast.”

  Keeley nodded.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m trying, but it really is hard. I mean, I can’t hide much in my room. Mom doesn’t like food anywhere but the kitchen and dining room, thanks to her OCD, and she cleans my room daily. Sometimes more than that. Great for keeping things tidy, but kind of hard to keep anything secret.”

  Darla just shrugged.

  “So don’t. Tell her that you’ve been secretly exercising a lot more than you used too and that I mentioned you’re looking a little anorexic. Get her to feed you more, just to reassure herself it isn’t drugs. OK, she’ll probably end up thinking you’re bulimic, but at least you won’t starve as much. I’ll send you with some extra stuff and you can just put it in the kitchen. Your dad doesn’t seem the type to inventory the cupboards.”

  Keeley almost sat down on the nice white sofa, but stopped herself, covered with sweat and blood after all, so she really needed to avoid touching anything. As it was she didn’t know how she’s get the floor clean. It had splatters on it.

  “Argh. OK, I need that shower first, is it alright if I use the guest room for that? The one without a Lesser Demon in it? I caught him trying to watch me in the shower the other day. He was “invisible” as if that would work, the door was closed, but that fear he projects all the time is a dead giveaway. If he ever realizes that’s what I’m using to track him…”

  Darla winked again.

  “Yeah, total perv. He hasn’t tried that with me yet, but then he’s probably trying to get information on you, to break your deal. Yes, though, go right ahead. Use the second one? I’ve designated that as your room. It has your clothing in it. The new things I’ve been getting you.” It wasn’t a hint to put any of them on, because they both knew there was a schedule.

  The shower water was warm and wonderful, the water red, then pink at first, and no nine foot tall brown and black Lesser Demons spied on her, not that she could tell at least. Bal was probably off watching the rest of her friends, to make sure no one tried to kill them. After Rob had been beaten to death a week before, she’d been worried about some of them. Mainly Eve, Gary and Hally. Hence a guard. One that had orders to not be seen or let them realize he was there. Bad enough they’d all seen him once already. Hally and Eve twice.

  The others had denied it the next day, which was really normal, even healthy.

  Humans made themselves not notice a lot of things, Darla had told her. Which Keeley already knew. That wasn’t holding for Hally though, who kept trying to talk about what had happened, fighting to make sense of something that just didn’t, unless you accounted for there being a giant supernatural creature involved.

  It was a problem, but not really hers, specifically. Keeley wasn’t in charge of them, they belonged to her sister. Oh, sure, she liked them all well enough, and felt protective of them, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to try and steal them from Darla. That also meant the much older girl could handle Hally in this situation. Or not, as she chose. Telling her the truth might work, if the girl could be coaxed into not telling anyone else that was.

  Going around telling people that Demons were real probably wouldn’t play very well, after all.

  The shower took longer than she wanted, because she had to wash her hair before the blood set. Normally she wouldn’t have, because it took a long time to really get dry, but coming home with matted hair would be just as telling as wet and this would be easier to hide in the long run. She could borrow a hair dryer, right?

  When she got to the table in the very nice dining room, just off the kitchen, not really a separate area, just one with a table off to the side, near the door, since, as Darla put it, the whole place was meant for friends, not guests.

  She had another house for that.

  Because she was also her grandmother, the owner of a multinational comp
any that worked in a dozen areas of technology. From computers to bio-tech. Keeley’s father worked at the headquarters, as an accountant. That job had been how Darla had gotten the Thomson family to move to the area.

  The table was set with nice plates, real silverware, and enough food to choke half the football team. The one thing that had really changed in the last weeks was how much she had to eat, when she could. If she let herself feel it, she was starving almost all the time. She had to use mental tricks to get past the almost burning hunger just to make it through the day. Even eating regularly barely put a dent in it.

  They ate in silence for a while, putting away more food than really should have been physically possible, she knew, but still was. She just wasn’t a person. A human. It processed so fast that even as she ate, with almost each bite, room was made for more. On the good side it was hard for her to get fat.

  On the bad, if she didn’t make a habit of wolfing down incredible amounts of food, she’d become a walking skeleton. Almost literally, if Darla wasn’t exaggerating to try and get her to eat more. She decided to just skip that part if she could.

  The half a cake Darla mentioned was dessert, a cloyingly sweet dark chocolate thing with butter cream frosting between the layers. It may have been half a standard sized round cake, but it had four full sized layers, making it more like a whole cake cut in half and set on top the bottom, to double the height. She ate it all, almost without notice. When she was done, oddly, she still wanted more.