Evil is... (Once a Demon Book 2) Read online

  The rest of the team had been sent out, away to a three week long, rather intensive, training camp. They didn’t have a lot to memorize yet, since their job was too new for the ten thousand rules and procedures that most organizations had going on. Really, Keeley knew that they shouldn’t have their agents being trained yet at all, given that. It was a waste of time that wouldn’t help them get the work done.

  Will wanted everyone to know how to fight even if their day jobs were more likely to be about collecting data than anything else, so they were mainly focusing on that. Also, on working cameras and recording gear.

  Which was, if all went well, what their real jobs would be, more or less. That and keeping the police calmed down, when possible. That portion would be hard, when weird things started to happen openly. The veil over the minds of humanity being gone now meant that their own innate powers were coming back. Along with dozens of things that used to feed on their energies which had been choked off when an ancient god had locked up two dozen of his own people, thousands of years before.

  Tarsus, her grandfather, as it turned out. The god who used to be known as Enlil.

  Now long forgotten things were coming back. Faster than had been projected, by anyone that had bothered to talk to her about the idea. They were supposed to get hundreds of years. Instead there were daily reports of individuals projecting things into the real world. Without knowing what the hell they were doing.

  Human beings won the prize on being creative. They were near the bottom of the pile when it came to controlling their subconscious minds. Their returning powers were all about that deeper part of themselves, naturally.

  It was an inspired combination.

  Pulling Will inside, she shut the door, then leaned in and kissed him again, her breasts pushing into the bottom of his chest. A show for anyone watching, even if they probably weren’t. Being inside, she knew that one for a fact, so was kind of just using the moment to take advantage of her boss.

  Then, taking five seconds to focus intensely enough to bend space itself, using very little power to get the job done, Keeley opened a portal to a different place. A specific one that she’d been to before, if only once.

  Picking her boss up suddenly, his feet clearing the floor with her arms wrapped around his middle, she took a step backward, placing them both on a white sand beach. A lovely thing that sparkled a little bit. Sun glinted from the water and reflected from the sand itself. There was a scent of salt to the air as well. They weren’t dressed for the warm weather there, the move having been unplanned, which was the best way to throw off anyone that might be trying to follow Will.

  Not that it was too hot, really. It was still early in the day, if a few hours later given the difference in time zones.

  Being a good girl, or at least willing to pretend to be one, she stepped back and rubbed at her lips a bit. They tingled from the contact. A thing she wanted more of. Oddly, even though Will was fine that way, being a good person, she wasn’t particularly interested in him. She would be willing to sleep with him or even fake a relationship for a while. That was all though. There was no drive to replace her ex-girlfriend with the guy. A thing that probably meant she honestly needed to stop being a teasing cunt with the man. Even if she was willing to put out, she got the fact that doing that would be hard for him to handle, being her boss. The man was a good enough person that he’d actually worry about things like that.

  Given what she’d done that way, he already would be concerned about it all, on a level that would probably impact his work later.

  The truth was that she wouldn’t. To her the idea of going in for the day, working with him as a professional and then doing him all night long was fine enough. She could separate things like that. Her boss man wouldn’t be doing that very easily at all. As it was, in that moment, he was moving carefully, hiding the partial erection he had formed due to the bits of contact that had taken place.

  A thing that Keeley simply ignored, so he wouldn’t be embarrassed. No one else was going to notice anything that way. Not yet. There were people on the beach, near a small covered stand that sold drinks and some simple foods. The sign was hand painted, though fresh enough to show that the people working there were good at their jobs. They cared about what they were doing, day to day. It showed in everything they did.

  Rather than stop for a snack, even if she could have eaten with no problem, Keeley rubbed at her long, rather prominent nose and smiled.

  “We’re about three thousand miles from home. If we move closer to the water, no one will be able to hear us all that easily using any devices that work with electricity. Magic is possible but not likely given the time frame. Unless one of us has a spell on us already. If so, whoever did the work is better than I am. It’s possible but not likely. No one knows to look for us here, yet, which will give us a time window of a few hours. So, you found bugs?” The man knew that she could read minds, so didn't act as if her knowing that kind of information meant she’d planted the things.

  Not that it didn't occur to him that she could be involved. At least one of the new people, if not her. He was smart enough not to start out by blaming her for the listening devices at least. To him it was almost certainly some rival group. The trick there was which one would be bothering to listen to them at all.

  Seeming a bit annoyed again, once he was reminded why that had been happening, Will took a deep, slow, breath. Only after he let it out, in a gusty sigh trying to force relaxation, did he nod.

  “All over the place. I’m not certain who’s observing us, or why. It could be anyone. Any of the groups we have in there. The tech was pretty standard though... Things I recognize? That doesn’t mean they didn't just buy them locally or even over the internet. Really, I’m not certain what we should do about it. Run it past Gartner, I suppose. I just came to see you first on it.” The reasoning there wasn’t that surprising.

  Division Six had existed for one whole month. Almost exactly. They, the two of them, had been the first people officially involved. It hadn’t happened that way on purpose, but a case had come up and someone had to work that kind of thing. Even if it wasn’t official, Keeley Thomson had ended up being the de facto second in command, then put in enough hours over the first few weeks that she technically had more time in grade than anyone else in the division.

  So, instead of going to his boss first thing, Will had gone to his cohort. Really, to the man’s mind they were practically partners. A thing that the leaders of large organizations didn’t really get to have. Which was confused in his thoughts now, on a deep level, since she’d started making out with him.

  They couldn’t be partners really, so the idea that they might be closer than that, or dating, wasn’t really that far away from what could happen. Except that, as the man in charge, he couldn’t let anyone under him be that close to anyone else in the unit. That meant the rules had to apply to him as well. The thoughts nearly rippled off of him, even as his conscious mind filtered the information well enough that his surface thoughts were all about work and the real problem at hand.

  Shrugging, Keeley looked at the clear water of the ocean and moved toward it. This time she didn't take his hand, even if it was tempting. They were clearly enough a couple that no one watching them did more than glance over and smile. The tourists were mainly white, being from Britain or Japanese. They laid out on wooden lounge chairs, instead of towels in the sand. Most of them had alcoholic drinks next to them, with either bits of fruit on sticks or tiny umbrellas in the ice filled concoctions. They smelled good, even if it was too early in the day for her to drink anything. Even on a day off.

  That was a Human rule, but one that she tended to stick to. After all, ex-demon or not, she lived in a Human society. Faking their morals was, more or less, her current goal. Even if she couldn’t get drunk without using magic to fake the condition. Her biology simply wouldn’t allow for it to happen.

  Pushing her mind back onto business for a few moments, it was simple enoug
h to work out what was going on with the bugs.

  “My guess is a combination of things from the CIA, NSA and FBI. Really, we should take most of them down, leaving just enough that we can control what’s heard. If we take them all, then those agencies will freak out, thinking that we’re hiding things. On the other hand, if we ever do have to hide things, we need for that to be possible. No one was watching my place. I have measures in place to stop that.”

  While Will Dern was only a Human, he was also one of the smarter ones. Not very top end that way, but no one got to be the head of a new unit if they were a moron. Not if the project was supposed to succeed at all. That meant the man glared at her a bit.

  He really was intelligent, for a Human being.

  “Um… Then what was with all the kissing and carrying on? I’d figured that you were working on a cover. You know, for why I was there in the first place?”

  She nodded. Then, instead of manipulating him or lying, there was a grin on her face. Her lips were thick enough to put him in mind as to what she could do with them and her face, while not incredible, always looked made up, even if it was built in. She seemed to have eyeliner on and it never ran. Pink lip gloss as well. She seemed a lot like a six that had been a five before a bit of time in front of a mirror. Her long brown hair was just hair, so fluttered a bit in the breeze.

  “For the most part I was playing… I knew that no one was watching and that I could use it as an excuse to cuddle a bit. I shouldn’t do that. Not with you. After all, even if no one else at the CoN would care, I already know you won’t actually date me and can’t emotionally handle just having me as a regular booty call.” She rolled her eyes a bit then, and smirked. “Which… Really, you need to get with Judy Swan on that one. She’s an Alede and you already know her well enough for a regular date night. I can work transport for you, so that won’t be a problem.”

  The words got an annoyed eye roll in return. A sour expression hit his mouth, along with a negating head shake.

  “She’s a coworker as well, so that’s out. Even if it’s on a different project, where I’m not in charge. I have to admit, I’m surprised that thing, the Reality War show, is still happening. We were just using it as a cover for our operation. Our part in it I mean.” His blue eyes tracked the motion of the waves for a bit, before turning his body to look into her face more openly.

  Rather than argue that a succubus like Judy Swan would need sex with as many people as possible each day, even if they were on the same project, Keeley just nodded. It was a real enough thing for the man to get into his head. One that could be introduced later. If they ever had one of them, a succubus, on the team, then the Human boss would need to know that they weren’t being bad when they had sex with everyone.

  “Okay. Still, an Alede for a girlfriend wouldn’t be a bad idea for you. You’re good with the fact that they’ll be banging six other dudes and dudettes per day, right? If you aren’t jealous, they’re almost perfect as far as having a sexual relationship. Especially if you have to work fourteen to sixteen-hour days for a while. It’s that or someone else who’s as career driven as you, only working someplace else in the complex. That way you can actually date them and not worry about your silly morals.”

  That part was going to be a bit difficult for the man, Keeley understood. He was a Human and had lived in America most of his life. The rules as far as relationships were pretty set. Greater Demons functionally didn't have that kind of thing. Really, as a girl, she’d pretty much been ordered not to have that sort of thing at all. In order to survive Keeley had to get rid of the things she’d learned as a child. Letting go of social mores that way had taken her the better part of a decade, even using magic and mental conditioning exercises.

  A thing she was suddenly realizing hadn’t been needed at all. Her body naturally worked to leave her feeling like sex with almost everyone was a great idea. She’d been using magic nearly that whole time and longer, to control her feelings and had masked that aspect of her being. Which to Darla, her mentor, had seemed like she was resistant to sex, when the fact was, she’d been forcing herself to be different than she should have. Which was interesting to note, and an idea for her to keep in mind for later. That Greater Demon sex rules hadn’t been made up simply to keep them in line wasn’t that strange.

  So, she shrugged.

  “Honestly, you need to step up and do that kind of thing, for your job. You aren’t going to be working only with Humans and while some groups will understand that kind of thing, a lot just won’t. I’ll get you hooked up that way. Call it… Twice a week?” Her face was left serious, since she wasn’t playing at all.

  Her new boss just chuckled.

  “Or, you know, I could just get a date online. That’s how things are done now, right? You swipe right until a woman says yes?” The man wasn’t old, only being in his mid-thirties. The idea that he was out of the loop on technology was a total affectation. A thing that wasn’t true at all, meant only to amuse her. It couldn’t be, for any of the new Division Six team members.

  Smiling, she took his hand again and gave it a single squeeze.

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head then, since that was a lie. A thing that she was trying not to do all the time any longer. Not that she couldn’t do it when it was needed. It simply wasn’t at the moment. “Rather, I do know… It’s just, you know, Hally and I broke up about a month back. A few days before we met, actually. It’s part of why I took the job. To give me something to do to keep my mind off of things. Which is why I’m lonely right now. We met in high school though. I’ve had other lovers, since we both did. You know, Greater Demon, so rules didn’t really apply at all. She was always there though. A constant in my life. It means that I didn’t really date though. Not like we’re talking about.”

  Rather than act like he didn’t get it, there was a solid pat on the back then.

  “I’d picked up a bit about that. Tyler mentioned some things, since he figured that I needed to be briefed on it. Just enough that I’d understand what was going on with you, not gossip.”

  All of which was in the information she had from him. The trick there was that it weirded Humans out if you knew everything about them, all the time. They had a biological need to communicate using words. Really, she had that same drive, herself. It was something that they had in common.

  Not wanting to be a bitch, even if talking about her breakup was a bit painful, she tossed her head from side to side a bit. Almost playfully.

  “Which was probably true. That you had a need to know, in case I started acting up. I could kill off my emotions on the matter, but no one really knows how my natural emotions will work with something like a break up, if I’m not using magic to lock them down all the time. So far, not too bad. Just to keep you updated. I miss her. I also understand why she had to leave. She wants kids and one day about five months ago she woke up and realized that she isn’t really a lesbian, and her girlfriend wasn’t just claiming to be a Greater Demon but actually was one. So, I get it and still feel betrayed and angry about it. Like it isn’t fair, even if it is and I know it.”

  Her tone was wry enough to show humor. The large man next to her, who was only eight inches taller than her own five-ten, nudged her with his shoulder. It was chummier than they’d been before. Then, they were on a romantic beach and had been making out, if briefly. That kind of thing could change the rules fast, if you weren’t careful.

  Even if he was trying to be good about it all.

  “That… I don’t want to side with the ex, but it really would be hard to have that happen. Even if you gave that up… I know that I didn’t get what it really meant, to start with. Gartner filled me in on parts of it. The kinds of things you had to do, in order to just survive for all those years, having the job you did.”

  She simply nodded.

  “What he said and a lot more. There were a dozen times when I killed people that didn’t need it, simply to make certain no one saw me as weak. I enslaved hun
dreds of people just so that the other demons would know not to mess with me. Even if most of the time no one was watching. I couldn’t take that chance. That’s not even covering the cannibalism. It wasn’t my favorite part of things. I did it though, without blinking. Dozens of times over the years. Worse, I paid for the food when it was put in front of me, if another Greater Demon was providing it. In case you’re wondering… Humans really do taste like pork.”

  There was a serious grimace from the taller man. One that indicated he was taking her words seriously. Also thinking about eating people, which caused him to reflexively swallow and then show disgust on his lips.

  His face softened though, after a moment. His life had been too hard in certain ways for him to have never dealt with the idea of cannibalism before.

  “And then you and a few of the others just stepped back from being what you always were and changed the rules. That has to count for something, doesn’t it? Besides, it can’t be cannibalism, unless you were eating other demons, right?”

  On that one she shook her head.

  “Greater Demons are Human, Will. We’re a different race or possibly a sub-species, not truly separate. Even if we tended to pretend we were. I mean, all of our mothers are Humans. That’s how we reproduce. Only the men are fertile, in case you’re ever worried about me getting knocked up. It literally can’t happen.”

  Which didn't mean she couldn’t adopt. The truth was that as a Greater Demon she’d been at too much risk for that to be viable. Even the ancient demons that had done things like that had hidden their children from the others, for the most part. It would be stupid to bring your own hostage, after all.