Scales (Avery Rome Book 1) Read online

  “I’m good, for now. We should see to getting people out if we can. I need to check in with some people in about an hour. I can take the first group then, or come back for them?”

  The Bat moved, not saying anything, sprinting to her own office door, leaving Avery just standing there. With nothing at all to do. After a bit she decided that no one would care if she sat down on one of the sofas. Sleep wasn’t a great plan, since she might need to get back up again, after a few minutes, so she just sat. Waiting.

  It wasn’t until about fifteen minutes later that she looked up to see someone striding toward the door that Calley had hidden behind. It was a Vampire, she thought. A short man, who had brown hair, pale skin and the look of a Bat Shifter. Rather than tap on the wooden frame the man stopped, then turned to smile at her.

  “She’s on with someone. I should wait.” That meant the dead man moved over toward her, his hand extended. She took the cool thing, not bothering to jump at the temperature of it. She’d been ready after all. “My roommate Steve… He works at one of the Mage Embassies, stocking shelves and sweeping. Basic clerk type duties? Anyway, I’ve come to see about pressing my great-great-great niece into having him picked up and delivered home, if possible. He’s Human, but is known to consort with the likes of me and my friends. We have a band, you see, so it’s a known thing. I’m a bit worried about the boy. What if the Humans choose to make an example of him?”

  The twitchy man, who was much worse about that kind of thing than Chi or Calley normally were, possibly due to his worry for his friend, plopped down next to her. Directly next to her, so that his leg touched hers along most of its length, even though there was a whole sofa over to the side.

  It was far too near for a stranger to be to her.

  “Um… Scoot. Over a bit? Please?” It was weak and soft sounding, but the man did it, his eyes going wide.

  “Sorry there, lass! That was a bit of an invasion. Forgive me. Nerves, you understand?”

  She didn’t really, but nodded. It truly did seem to be a Bat thing. At least all of them had done that kind of thing so far with her. The Vampires were better than way. They touched you, but didn’t start out with aggressive rubbing. Even Troy hadn’t been doing that and he was kind of flirtatious.

  “Um… Steve. Which embassy is he at?”

  “Westfield? That’s in the Northwest. He shouldn’t have gone in to work, given the attack the other day, but the boy is actually a good employee. We’ve had him in training with the Snowflake, to become one of us.” The man froze then, seeming a bit too still compared to what had just been going on.

  After a moment his energy shifted and he took a long, very slow, breath.

  “A… Vampire. I don’t know if I mentioned that bit. I hope that doesn’t alarm you?”

  “I picked that part up. Um… I should be back there, in about an hour? Is that good? I don’t know the schedule after that, but I should be able to get back here eventually. I can run him in then? It sounds kind of shoddy of me, but there’s an emergency, or I’d go and do that first.”

  The Vampire smiled at her.

  “You’re the new line walker then? Calley mentioned you! Avery isn’t it? That would be really kind of you. I don’t know that Steve has enough cash for that kind of a trip. Normally Zack does the work, but he’s busy suddenly. What would you like? I have some nice silver coins I could part with? Or some assorted gems? Shiny things. Dragons enjoy that, don’t they? I don’t want to be one of those stereo typing people, but I’ve heard that one is kind of real?”

  She’d never thought about it, but it probably was. At least the offer sounded a lot more interesting than a collection of dull paper bills to her.

  “It would make a great present, but I’m going to be there anyway. He might have to hang out for a while before I can get him into place too, so I wasn’t going to ask for anything for it.”

  Scotty stood up then, pacing around the waiting space. There was a coffee table, though it was empty, except for a flower display. When he stopped, the Vampire nodded at her.

  “A present instead of payment? That sounds like a plan. Good then. I won’t have to try and wheedle favors from Calley. She’s a sweetheart but it’s so much harder to get things from people when you can’t flirt with them first. We’re related, so that would be an issue. Wonderful though. Thank you, Avery.”

  The man stopped, holding back for a moment, then held a hand out again.

  “Scotty. I’m the drummer for Living Proof. The band? I don’t know if you’ve heard of us?”

  Interestingly, she kind of had, from some of the people at battle camp. Not that she knew their work.

  “Um… Only in passing. I’ve been kind of… Away from the world for a while.” Her entire life, more or less.

  Even traveling around, she wasn’t really a part of the greater world. She never had been, now that she thought about it. The Gray moved a lot. Constantly to be fair. That was done to keep them away from the world though, not get them deeper into it.

  That part of things, that habit, had stuck with her.

  It probably was a personal pattern that she needed to break, if she could. Like it or not, she was alone in the world. That meant it would be dangerous to avoid it too much.

  Scotty looked at the office door, just before it opened. Calley smiled as she popped her head out, her high pitched voice seeming younger now, somehow.

  “We have the first team up in fifteen minutes. We can meet them in the lobby?”

  Chapter fourteen

  Her wonderful plan of quickly moving through the shortcuts was baffled by the people that had decided a few miles of walking wasn’t too much for them. A few were really out of shape, but two of them came from a place where gravity itself was simply lighter. Significantly so. That meant it was a real struggle for them to keep up. At the same time, they clearly held to personal pride on the matter. The woman allowed Avery to carry her baggage at least.

  Interestingly, that was Samsonite. High end quality bags that looked like leather. What the tall woman, who was very thin and light skinned had with her wasn’t heavy, but was close to being more than she could even drag along with her. The lady, like the man, had a nicely large nose and goofily big ears that stuck out from under matching bowl style haircuts.

  So a trip that should have taken even the older people no more than an hour stretched to nearly twice that. Worse, when Avery did a bit of mental math, it was clear that these two were probably athletes back home. Endurance runners with a decent level of muscular power for their kind. She could tell, since the man was carrying his own gear, strapped to his back like a pack. From the look of him he probably weighed in at about a hundred and eighty pounds, with gear that would add an extra hundred to the equation. If his normal gravity was one fourth of what Earth had, which was a guess based on what they’d said, then it would be similar to a regular Human man trying to walk while weighing nearly eight hundred pounds. Over several miles.

  At the end, as they got to the easiest node point in the area, which was outside of Las Vegas, the lady of that pair gave Avery a worried look.

  “Sorry about this. We should have waited for the transportation group. We slowed everyone down.” A few of the people, many of whom were clearly not Human looking at all, had to fight a nod or speaking up on the idea negatively.

  Avery just shrugged.

  “It was impressive. I’m sure that no one minds that much. Who’s ready to go?” The answer was, it seemed, everyone. Except the tall people, who clearly felt bad about making everyone else go as slowly as they did.

  Finally, she had to just smile at a woman, one who looked older and was alone. She was also very large, with rippling muscles under her heavy seeming robe.

  “I can find the right place, if you know where to go? Just think about it and touch my arm?” It was harder to do with some people compared with others, but this particular one wasn’t that bad. The line that came from her was more silver, like a mage, compared to th
e pink that Vampires used, or the near red of a Human being.

  Interestingly, the last people to go, her new slow friends, were clearly regular Humans. Just ones that happened to live on the surface of Mars. In a different reality. They weren’t the only members of the group that had to travel that far, but the rest were from Earth, if different ones.

  The node there was on the surface, which meant it was really hard for her to breathe suddenly. The people with her looked a bit concerned, at first. Avery just took slow, very deep breaths. It wouldn’t be fun to run there, but she could do it, if it came up. Interestingly the sky was a brilliant blue when she looked up. The place was cooler, temperature wise, but not enough that she needed special gear. Not where they were standing at the moment.

  She nodded then, smiling.

  “I’ve never been on the surface of Mars before.” A large silver and gold ship took off in the distance, making a low rumble that tried to shake the core of her being. “I went to a different Mars earlier. That’s all underground, I think.”

  The gravity there had been about the same for her, but everyone else had seemed to think it was normal seeming. Chi had at least. Eve as well, but she was a Vampire, which meant that little changes like that might not be all that important.

  Interestingly, the man moved in, still wearing his pack which rested more easily on his shoulders suddenly and hugged her.

  “Thank you! If we need to return, do we schedule that with you?”

  Avery had no clue on that part of things. Really, how anyone was going to get back, she didn’t know.

  “Can you get a message to me? If so, I can come and get you. I don’t know…”

  The woman moved in then to hug her as well.

  “We can do that. We got there by finding the line walker Hartley. The Human one? He had a boy move us however. Chris, I think it was? Nice guy. A bit youthful, but he did good work. Are all of you very young?” She touched her large nose, as if the Martian air was making it itch. Just a tiny bit.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so? I’m probably the youngest, from what I heard. It took me about five hundred years to learn how to do all this. If you can get with him again… I’ll set that up? Not that I’ve ever met them, but I probably should.” She laughed a bit, fighting a big yawn. “After I get some sleep.”

  Her new friends seemed to think that was a great plan. Her getting enough rest to not accidently leave anyone in the void. Not that they spoke the words out loud, but if their expressions tracked with the same ones that she’d grown up with, it was implied heavily. Probably because the couple had performed an incredible feat just walking to the shortcuts. It would make it easier for them to assume it all had been hard for her as well. It took a lot of intense focus, but that was all.

  Which, as she went back to her own place in the scheme of everything, she had to think was kind of important. Mainly because she ended up going directly to Westfield, even though it hadn’t been her intent at all. Not that catching a bit more food wasn’t going to be welcome. Her stomach wasn’t grumbling at her though. The eating food trick did work, but only for around six hours or so. Most days she could go longer without food without feeling like she was going to drop suddenly. Even if she’d been up for a little while.

  That had happened in her life more than once, thanks to survival training. That was low food, low sleep and high stress most of the time. Never once had she felt like she did at the moment while doing that. Probably thanks to the fact that in that portion of her life she’d never changed shape twice in a single day on top of being in real combat. Then doing line travel all over the place. It could add up.

  Not that she was about to drop or anything, but going to the mall hadn’t been her actual choice. Not that anyplace else had been.

  She’d just gone to where she felt the most comfortable. At least as far as nodes went. Home, more or less. It was an interesting idea, given that she was mainly alone in the world. The person who came to see who’d walked through the line was familiar, but not very. Avery had seen her before, working right there. Barbara. She thought that was the right name. Hopefully it was, because insulting a Vampire by getting that part wrong would be a poor plan.

  “Hello. Um… I’m Avery? We met? Barbara, right?” She held her breath then, not really knowing if she had the correct pale skinned, dark brown haired Vampire. If she was going to get that wrong, it would be there, at the frozen yogurt shop. They had so many of them, after all.

  There was a smile though, which seemed fairly warm, given everything.

  “Hey! Right. Barb, if we’re going to be friends. You just missed everyone. I was told to give you any messages that came in? So far nada. Just lots of calls asking if we need to start taking out the local politicians.” She shook her head, then looked around, leaning in to whisper. “The answer is no, for now. Word is that might change in the next few days. D.C. isn’t exactly working with us. The only good thing so far is that we have several video sources of what went on. Troy got some footage, along with a street cam and a waiter inside the restaurant who managed to get what was going on inside. It’s making it harder to sell the whole thing as Bey going insane and simply trying to kill innocent Humans for lunch.”

  There was a slightly smug air about the woman. She was in black, except for her white and green apron. That was very tidy seeming, with a pen in the breast pocket. Also a notebook in the lower front portion, the yellow edge sticking out about an inch, making it visible. After a few seconds of examining the other woman, Avery made a face.

  “I need stuff. A pad and pen. Also, to find uh…” She had the name, somewhere inside her head. It just wouldn’t come out at all. “Crud. I met this Vampire who was also a Bat Shifter? He said his boyfriend worked here. A Human? I told him that I’d try to get him back home, if I got a chance.” She felt horrible about not having all the information she needed.

  That was why she needed to start writing things down. At least if she was going to be expected to run all over the globe like she was. If she couldn’t recall the name of someone she was supposed to be working to find, she might be leaving people all over the place. That was a horrible thing to consider.

  Barb walked to the front, but stopped at a small office first, coming out almost instantly with a new notebook and a black ball point pen. Those were handed over instantly.

  “Here you go. That’s part of the stuff. The rest… Across the way. You want Steve York. Not Scotty’s boyfriend. Not that our Bat buddy hasn’t been trying for years. Kind of a shame. They’re both so cute… Anyway, Steve. Also, as soon as you get that around, we need to feed you again. I was told to force you to eat, if I had to. Then Eve assured me that you could pull my arms off if I actually tried, which Bey backed up. Did he really hit you full out in the head? That… People don’t live through that. No one does. How are you still alive?”

  Avery didn’t have a real answer. Just the plain one that everyone knew.

  “I’m a Dragon? That or he pulled back once he realized it was me. He seems kind. I’m sure it was an accident.”

  The words got a snort, as the woman went behind the counter and started to make things. Possibly for her.

  “He said that he didn’t. That you got in the way perfectly. On purpose, saving an FBI agent. That was unexpected, which is probably why it worked. Anyway. Steve. I’ll do the food part here. Go. Give me… Four minutes? I have to do this right.”

  She seemed to focus then, on the task at hand, waves of rough intent coming off of the dead woman. It was a sign that the time limit might be a serious one.

  Jogging a bit, her energy feeling low at the moment, Avery headed for the candle shop across the way. The place smelled a bit, if like perfume and soap. Chemicals along with more natural things. She picked that up halfway to the shop, even with the front door being shut. There was a sign in the window, which said the place was closed.

  That meant slapping the glass next to the painted green frame gently with her palm, since doing
anything else would probably cause a shattering mess. Not wanting to clean that up, or pay for a new door, she decided to be careful. It didn’t work very well, to be honest. After two minutes someone walked from the back of the space. A red headed man who was far too tall to be a Bat shifter, with hair that was way too long for military service. He was dressed decently, in black slacks and shiny shoes, as well as a colorful iridescent vest over a white button up shirt.

  His eyes lit up when he saw her standing there, for some reason.

  Instead of pointing at the sign, the gentleman simply worked the lock, slowly pushing the door out, to let it open. That meant she needed to duck to the side briefly. That or be knocked over by the glass and wood coming at her. It was tempting to let it do the work for her, but she moved, not wanting to seem as lazy as she suddenly felt.

  The man sounded happy enough to see her. In a polite and slightly bored way.

  “Hey. We’re closed for a bit. Are you with the Mage Guild? There’s a meeting in the back. We have some supplies. In from China, I hear. Magical things. For weapons and wards? Other materials, too. Gifts from the Vampires, so that part is kind of nice. Normally things end up being tense that way.” He looked at her, as if it was supposed to be her turn to talk or something like that.

  She managed a nod. It was tired seeming, even to her.

  “I’m here for Steve? To get him back to his home. I’m not sure where that is. I’ll need to eat first.”

  The man smiled at her then, his face lighting up a lot.

  “I’m Steve. That sounds nice. Zack managed to call and said it would take him a few days to be around, unless something breaks for him. I can hang out here, but it isn’t that comfortable. I don’t have my stuff with me. Are you Avery Rome then?”

  She nodded, feeling impressed that a Human would know who she was. Really that anyone would have that information. Humans weren’t stupid after all. No one said that. They were known to be rather clever actually. Creative and capable of a lot of interesting mental tricks involved in that kind of thing. It was one of the major risks of fighting them. They could simply see things that no one else had ever thought of, or would expect. Sometimes in an almost magical way.