Living Proof (Tyler G Book 2)

  Tyler G. : Book Two

  Living Proof

  P. S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2015

  Chapter one

  The rather large man pushed against the center of Ty's chest, forcing him back into the wall with a meaty thump. He just took it, and had to hide a laugh. Not two weeks before someone had done that to him so hard he'd made a hole in the wall. Compared to that, this guy had barely even nudged him. True, this one had some buddies with him, but it wasn't really going to help him a lot.

  They were in his bedroom, in the house he shared with Ginger and Calley, but he hadn't let the three men in. No, that had been Ginger, since it was her job for the event.

  Each of them had their part to play.

  She was also acting like a Human girl, instead of like a Master Vampire. That meant she was yelling and weakly pushing on the six foot plus man who was blocking the doorway. He was a bit chunky, but like the other two guys had short hair, black slacks and dark blue polo shirts that each said Christian Hope Youth Center above the left hand breast pocket.

  It made them look like Christian book store salesmen. Ones that were going to put the hurting on prices, in a late night television commercial.

  Tyler was a lot smaller than the men that had invaded the space, so it was a bit intimidating, even though he'd been ready for the visit. On the good side, they were all Human, or so it seemed. Ty however was, when you got down to it, dead. That meant that he didn't really have to worry about certain things, like being hurt by these guys. For instance, there was no pain when he was pretty much thrown backward into the wall again. It was meant to shake him, and leave him in shock so he wouldn't resist.

  That wasn't going to happen of course.

  Oh, he had a plan, one that had been worked out with several other people, so he wasn't attempting to fight with the attackers that had come at three in the morning for him. No, his struggle now was one of words. Things meant to be captured on the cameras that were inside the house. Even when they got outside they were going to be followed with cameras and people tracking them constantly. Better they, the Coalition of Nations and the Vampire Council, even knew where he'd be taken. The CHYC compound in Arizona. A teen brainwashing camp.

  It was a mistake of course, since that was in the U.S. They had laws and shit, or so he'd heard tell. Kidnapping was a crime, and this, even if the men didn't know it, was that in spades. The real trick was going to be for him to offer them ample ways out of the whole thing. The others had helped him come up with a script, and even practice it. Even the acting portions had been gone over, so it would seem real, and not like he was reading it all from a page.

  "What is this? I don't have any money." He tried to sound scared, since he wasn't supposed to be a fighter really. The fact of the matter was though, that even being smaller and thinner than the men looming over him, Ty could have pretty much kicked their asses at will.

  He was decent in a fight, at least unarmed, and was really hard to hurt. Supposedly it would be almost impossible to kill him, without taking out his mother, who was a Greater Demon, as it turned out. Not his real mom, but the woman that had raised him. That was supposed to be really hard to do, so short of these guys ganging up and raping him, there wasn't a lot they could do that would really throw him off balance. They were Christian camp thugs though, not prison gang members, so he was probably decently safe that way.

  The pushy one growled at him, breathing in his face. His breath was warm, and smelled of cherry candy. That nearly got Ty to laugh, but he listened instead.

  "You can have clothes. You're coming with us. We have papers that say you don't get a choice. Your mother signed off on them. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, but you're coming."

  That would be the real trick. They needed this to go the hard way, without him just taking the men out. The Vampires had already gotten pictures of the abuse in the compound, Human kids being beaten and locked in small rooms for the sin of wanting to become a Vampire. It was as illegal as fuck, but if they wanted the Human authorities to take it seriously they had to have evidence of crimes happening at every point in the chain.

  Right now they needed to make sure these men kidnapped him. They also had to give them an out, so they could realize their mistake and walk away. If they did that, then the organization probably wasn't half as criminal as they thought. They still needed to be shut down, but it would take a lot longer to get done.

  Unless he just let the Vampires go in their way, kill all the counselors in the place, and liberate the kids. That idea had been tempting, actually, when he'd seen how they were being treated. Hit, forced to do painful exercises all day and night, and basically brainwashed into a Christian mindset. They were starved too, from time to time, then punished harshly for stealing food.

  Ty stared at the man, trying to look incredulous.

  "I... My mother? Not that it matters, since I'm eighteen and live on my own, but I don't think she'd do that. She's not even in town right now." Which was all true. Provably so, if they bothered to let him show his I.D. and give her a call. Not that she'd answer. Lucy, his mom, hadn't been in touch for nearly a week. Five days now.

  Where she was at the moment he didn't actually know, either, but a week before she'd told him that her plan was to go and see about a bit of a kerfuffle she was having with a Greater Demon called The Storm. She was still alive, but out of touch.

  If she wasn't, then he would have died instantly. It was good to know, actually.

  The signature on the paper was actually that of Judy Swan. The famous actress. Even a Christian group would have had people that knew the name. She'd been in a lot of family friendly movies, as well as some science fiction and action adventure things. She was an Alede, which meant a succubus, as well as an incubus, but no one really knew about that gender flipping part yet. The attractive blonde had used her own name however, when she'd paid the seventy-five thousand dollars to have her adult "son" kidnapped and brought to Christ.

  No one had even asked for any proof that they had a relationship.

  The big dickhead kidnapper pushed him again, making a thud against the wall. The whole house shook a little, which had Calley there, holding a large silver handgun at the back of one of the men's head. She was about to speak, which would have been bad, since they needed a confession from these men. Driving them off with force wasn't part of the arrangement, but no one had clued their roommate in. The Vampires hadn't wanted her involved, because she was a Shifter. It wasn't so much that they were prejudiced, thankfully, just that she was also the Assistant Ambassador for the local area for her people. It would have, they believed, created a lot of needless paperwork.

  That was a mistake, clearly. She was tiny, and he had no clue how strong she was, but almost all Shifters had a lot of military training. If you grabbed ten of them, you had a military unit. Any ten, as long as they were over eighteen. He wasn't really sure about the age thing either. Some probably started younger.

  Thankfully Ginger understood that part of the plan, and whisked the Bat Shifter away, waving at her and whispering so softly that Ty couldn't make it out as even a hiss. They both would, since Bats and Vampires both had wickedly good hearing. For his part he was totally normal that way. Disaster averted though, for the time being.

  The large guy leaned in, acting like a real thug.

  "Tough shit. We have a paper, and that's all we need."

  "Nooo, it isn't. I'm eighteen, and on my own. That paper doesn't mean anything, unless it's a court order. Those aren't served by church thugs, as far as I know. This is home invasion, and if you take me, it will be kidnapping and false imprisonment. You don't want to do that. You'r
e already guilty of assault and intimidation. You might want to call it good at that?" There, it was too advanced for some kid that had been woken up in the middle of the night to have come up with on the fly, but the planning let him seem fairly intelligent.

  How these goons didn't get what was going on, he didn't know. Ty had projected well, and his voice held that quality that kids had when they were reading their lines for the grade school play. Loud, and a bit disingenuous. Which would make Judy, who'd coached him on it, proud no doubt. They just hadn't had a lot of time to spend on it. That was what he was going with, rather than acting being too hard for him to ever master. It was just his overall lack of practice that did it.

  That was all.

  They just didn't understand what was happening. That was made clear almost instantly

  "Screw that. Get him some clothes. If you give us any trouble, we'll hog tie you, and drag you through the airport that way."

  This was the part that they needed the cameras for. There were three in the room with them, hidden in the walls just for this event. Possibly also to spy on him having the odd happy moment alone, or actually doing something with Ginger or Calley. They were all dating, but he had no illusions that Calley, who'd put the things in herself, hadn't made it so she could collect pictures and video later. Not that he was so stupid he couldn't take out some cameras.

  "No. I'm not going. Don't touch me. You need to leave right now. You have no right to be here. Go. Ginger, call nine-one-one." He called that one out, managing to make it sound a little more panicked and real. Under his breath he whispered to softly for the men to understand him. "Don't. This is going great."

  That got him pushed again, and when he raised his hands to stop the meaty arm coming in, punched in the face six times. It didn't even stun him, being that he didn't feel pain. There was a time when he would have imagined that he did, but now the things just pushed him back.

  If there was damage it wouldn't last too long. He could bleed, but it was just a seeping thing, not coming out under pressure. You needed a beating heart for that kind of thing. That seemed to be happening just then, since one of the other men pointed and cursed.

  "Fucking great Alan. One word from him in the airport and we'll have the police all over us." Ginger was back, standing behind the men, pretending to be scared. Maybe she even was. That didn't seem likely however.

  She was too tough for that.

  What she did lend to the whole thing was a cuteness factor that probably threw the Human guys off in a major fashion. She was nineteen, but had died at fourteen, so still looked that age. She'd been a little thinner than average when that had happened, and had sort of frozen in place with that look. To round it all out she was wearing a powder blue nightshirt, with a picture of Tweety on the front. The large yellow bird was staring at the scene, looking bemused, as far as Ty could tell.

  The little yellow jerk.

  Alan, his personal kidnapper for evening, just sneered at the other man.

  "He can't tell if he can't talk. Hold him, while I break his jaw."

  That got him to struggle, if only from pure reflex. The trick there was in letting the two other men, both of whom actually seemed to be worried about doing it at least, keep him in place while the asshole hit him with the base of the lamp that Calley had lent him. It was, of course, going to be ruined.

  At least three teeth were knocked out then. His face was cut up too, and finally the bone shattered under the repeated blows. It was pretty certain he wouldn't be making a lot of intelligible conversation for a while. At least he wouldn't have, if he were a regular person.

  Pretending to sag, he forced the men to carry him away, while Ginger screamed in horror. It wasn't real. If it had been, the three morons would be dead. Now, hopefully it had all been captured on the various cameras. If so, then these three were probably going away for a very long time already, even if they didn't know it yet.

  Tyler felt himself dragged outside, and then secured with plastic zip style handcuff things. Behind his back, but that was all they used. It was a thing he could see. Ty was kind of out of it, at least in theory, from the horrible beating he'd gotten. No one noticed when his jaw clicked several times. It didn't hurt, but had started to fix itself before they even drove off into the early morning gloom.

  He didn't have to ask where they were headed, since the answer was PDX, over in Portland. It was the only large airport around, and these people didn't use private jets. No, he was about to be stacked onto a plane, sandwiched between two of these men, so he couldn't let anyone know he was being kidnapped. Not that he was going to tell on them. The second he was held at the compound against his will, the entire organization would be shown to be corrupt.

  Right now, at that moment, he was just being taken by these three guys. They weren't acting alone, but they could have been. That argument needed to be removed from use. Really, according to what the Vampires' lawyer had told them, they were going a tiny bit over the top. All that was really needed was to show that the bad guys were actually holding people against their will. The thing there was that some of the kids at the place had really been sent by their parents. That was totally legal, even if they were being abused.

  Oh, the fact they were being neglected and harmed wasn't, but keeping them from disclosing that, say to the police or government totally was. It was as simple as not giving them phone privileges, or letting them leave the fenced camp.

  About ten minutes into the ride, Ty noticed that his teeth were already coming back in. That one had been worrying, since he hadn't really known that he could do things like regrow teeth. That would mean keeping his mouth shut, literally, when they got to the airport. His head down too, since he was willing to bet that there was no swelling left now.

  It gave him things to think about as they pulled into the parking lot. He was riding in the back of a deep red colored luxury sedan, which was probably a rental. If so, the company was going to be pissed, since his blood was staining the seat in places. That would have made him feel bad, but being kidnapped kind of absolved him of wrongdoing in this case. Plus, it wasn't his name on the contract agreement.

  True to his word, Alan the goon marched him through the airport in the plastic cuffs, jerking him around, as if he were struggling the whole time, even though he was just walking, trying to be helpful. He kind of needed them to get him to the compound, so that the whole thing could be shut down, after all.

  The men didn't make that easy. Ty couldn't help but glare at them, since they kept hitting him, and pushing him around. It wasn't the abuse that was the problem, but they were calling attention to themselves like morons. Which naturally meant that airport security approached them, looking ready to throw down in order to protect him. There were four of them too, and they were all armed, so he was willing to bet that they were going to win if it came down to it.

  "What, exactly, is going on here? Jones, get that kid, and take him to the conference room. These men have some questions to answer."

  Alan, clearly the man in charge, growled at them, since it seemed to be his go to move.

  "We have a document, signed by his mother, giving us temporary custody. We're taking him to school. A boarding thing. He didn't want to go, and things got messy. All within the law. Here, let me show you the documents." Apparently it was the kind of thing that came up often enough that the men at the airport were familiar with the idea, but that didn't keep Jones, the black guy, from glaring at them and leading him away.

  "You okay kid? These bastards... This isn't the first time their kind has done this. What's up, your dad upset because you're gay or something? It's normally that, or drugs, and you look pretty put together."

  The hand on his arm was warm, compared to his cool flesh, but he waited until he was led into the conference room to speak.

  Then he did it in hushed tones.

  "I'm Tyler Gartner, the head of the Coalition of Nations. We work with different groups, as far as relationships with Humans go. R
ight now I'm being taken to the Christian Hope Youth Center in Arizona. You can check all that out, but the truth is, if I can get in there, I can help out fifty or so kids that are being held against their will. This is a kidnapping, right now, but also part of a real plan. Can you take me back after a bit and tell them that I refused to talk? They tried to break my jaw..." Shrugging he moved it side to side, and just told the truth, since it wasn't some kind of horrible secret or anything. "Actually, they did. We have it all on camera. At least I tried to make sure we were in frame for that. I healed. They just think I'm a Human, so don't realize that I'm not really in danger from them."

  "What? I... We need to run this past my boss."

  That got him to nod, since if he were just some slightly deranged kid being taken away, that's what he'd want them to do. It meant having to make some phone calls, and having his hands released, since, as Jones told him pretty frankly, that would have been the first thing they would have done, in a situation like that.

  Before the man could even move behind him, Ty took a breath, focused and flexed as hard as he could. Nothing happened at first, but after a few pulses that way, the plastic cuffs broke with a popping sound, letting him bring his hands around to the front.

  Then he grinned.

  "I'd wondered about that. I don't really have super strength, but I don't feel pain, so I can use all that I do have. The marks will heal pretty soon." He had red rings around his wrist, and some seeping blood in places. His body was just Human, after all. Dead, and self-repairing in a way that was really cool, now that he knew it could happen, but that was all. "Anyway, I can call some people? Actually, if you aren't squeamish, I can do it without a phone. There are people here, to watch out for me. Listening."

  Before he said anything else there was a polite knock at the closed door to the room. A female voice called out, loud enough for him to hear plainly.

  Eve, one of his friends. A Vampire.

  "Hello? We're the backup. Let us in, please?"