Scales (Avery Rome Book 1) Read online

  They were just unclean. That was all. Tainted by the touch of darkness that had left them without a second form.

  A thing that probably wasn’t even a little bit true. She reminded herself of that as she looked at the man in front of her. He seemed fine to her, actually. He hadn’t tried to steal from her, or trick her out of anything so far, even. If he managed not to touch her for another few seconds he’d even beat both Chi and Scotty for restraint that way.

  Avery nodded, not knowing what had just been said.

  “I really need to eat. Sleep as well. I have food coming. Across the way? You can come over when you’re ready? I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’ll try to hurry.” She yawned, feeling like her eyes wanted to close on her, food coming or not.

  The man nodded, held up a finger and looked away. Then he nodded.

  “Ten minutes? Less probably. I just need to get a word with Lisa. The boss here?”

  Then he turned to head toward the back, as Avery moved away. Toward the food that she didn’t really want suddenly. Sleep wasn’t in the cards, so she stumbled in and sat at the second booth, waiting. She lost track of the world for a bit, she realized, since there was suddenly a treat in front of her, with a spoon in it. Blinking she shook herself and yawned again.

  “All right. I’m not going to be good for much longer. I need to eat, then get someplace to sleep for a while. Edom said I was supposed to find him?” She didn’t really know that one, but Barb answered anyway, coming around the counter with several large containers of what looked like giant sundaes.

  “That’s right. I can call him for you? He’ll be a few minutes getting here, so I should call that in now. If you’re going to be around in thirty minutes?”

  She could be, of course. It might take some rushing around, but that was fine. If she wasn’t going to sleep on her feet, movement was a good way to prevent it.

  Steve came back and it was actually easier to get him to the mansion that he lived in with his friends and band mates than to get to the Sparks Embassy. There was a small node in the front yard of the place, after all. It wasn’t powerful, only going to about ten places or so. One of them was to the complex there, however. The Vancouver Embassy. Which, she realized after a bit, made sense. She’d been told about how that worked, after a fashion.

  Zack the Greater Demon, the Line Walker with capital letters, regularly made the trip to pick up and return Steve. For some reason. Regardless, it meant there wouldn’t be twenty minutes of shortcuts and walking. After they stepped through, Avery took a deep breath.

  “Can I use this node do you think? For other things, I mean? Bringing people from the Embassy here has to be easier than what I’ve been doing. How far is it from there?” It was possible the Human man wouldn’t know, of course.

  Secrets weren’t as closely held now though, so he might have a rough idea.

  He was a bit better than that.

  “A little over two miles. Two point two? Down the street to the right. The complex was built because Tyler was here, instead of the other way around. As for doing that… Almost certainly. What do you have in mind? We can probably get you a room. You look like you’re about to fall down.”

  She was, but shook her head.

  “I have a place for tonight. Um… We could get a van or something, from there to here? Not all the time, but this is a… I don’t know what to call it. A baby node? It’s stable and goes to enough places to be useful. Even if I have to take people to the Yoghurt World or someplace else at the mall, Brand Village maybe? That would still be faster than walking most of the time.”

  The man nodded, then started to move toward the door, looking back at the top step.

  “I’ll let everyone know. Can I call that in someplace? The Shifters, right?”

  “Um… Get with Eve? She’s… Kind of like my sister.” It was the first time she’d spoken that out loud, which suddenly seemed insane, rather than just wrong.

  York seemed all right with the idea for some strange reason.

  “I’ve heard that before. From other line walkers. They spend all that time doing nothing but focusing on the other person, so feel really connected to them when they get back. It happens. I can do that though. Get with Eve. We’re buds.”

  She walked away then, being rude. Hopefully he wouldn’t think ill of her. She was just going to fall asleep soon. It was either leave then, or risk having to sleep in the large yard. That might be a little chilly, given the season, so finding a room was the better plan. That or something softer than the floor to lie down on. In the end that was what happened, with her settling on the plush, very comfortable sofa in the back of the Vampire shop.

  Which meant that sometime later, not being aware of what had taken place at all, she found herself coming to in a strange room. There was a bed, with a nicely soft and very clean comforter on it. That smelled of laundry detergent. You could never really get all of it off of fabric. It felt soft and warm enough. It was the light that came through the window that got her to sit up however. Because, while she figured this was probably Edom and Eve’s place, if she hadn’t been kidnapped by the world’s nicest and most friendly captors, she had things to get to. Hopefully she hadn’t slept for three days or anything.

  Getting out of the bed she half expected to be undressed. Possibly wearing different clothing, if not totally nude. That wasn’t happening in this case, thankfully. She even had her socks on still. By the door she noticed that her shoes had been put in front of it, so that she wouldn’t miss them when she got up. There was a note on the brown wooden thing, though she needed to turn the light on to read the white paper. The handwriting was finely done. Almost pretty, considering it was just in pencil.

  It told her that she was, indeed, at Ed’s. Also that there were toiletries for her in the restroom, which was to the left, inside her own room. Given that there was a door there, that probably meant it was private. Inside, when she finally got her eyes to focus enough to see where she was going, she found soap, shampoo, various brushes and pastes, as well as a set of new, clean clothing.

  It kind of matched the stuff from Brand Village, so had probably come from the mall location. These were a bit lighter, as well as more trendy. At least she was willing to bet that was the case. They seemed nice. There were also new shoes. Those were just powder blue tennis shoes. In the right size for her feet, she noticed, which was impressive. Not that it was all that hard to find her size, but getting that right without trying things on was hard for most people.

  Thanks to her training, Avery knew to scrub fast and hard. That meant she was clean and ready for the day about fifteen minutes after getting up. Wandering out of the room meant trying the door. Which wasn’t locking her in or anything. That lead to a different note, which was written by someone else as far as she could tell.

  It just said, try the back yard.

  Which made no sense until she got there. The space was just a flat grass area with some flowers around the edge. To the side though there was a shortcut. It wasn’t perfect, but it only took her two passes through different distortions to reach a node. That one, oddly, seemed to be in Norway. At least that felt right. From there she went directly to Steve York’s house.

  The rift there was still strong, not having changed at all. She hadn’t figured that it would. Interestingly enough, there were several people lined up, not too far away. Sitting there, on their luggage or in a few cases the lawn, in the cool breeze. It was clearly still morning. Hopefully that meant no one had been waiting for way too long.

  “Um… Hello? I’m here to get people to where they need to go? Over here, by the glowing hole in space? The one most of you probably can’t see?” She didn’t manage playful, but the bit of sleep she’d had did make a big difference. She had energy again now.

  It took a while to process them all, but there had only been about thirty people, most of them travelling in small groups. She had to take them one at a time, but no one seemed to think she was being lazy, doing i
t that way. After the last being got to the right place, a male who had blue scales on his skin, along with bright white robes over loose flowing trousers, Calley came out the front door.

  Holding a cup that smelled like it had coffee in it.

  Avery couldn’t tell if it was the good kind or not. She’d had it before, but at battle camp, which didn’t always go all out as for comforts or quality on food. That was on purpose, she’d heard, so that people wouldn’t become horribly soft and whiney. Not that the others hadn’t complained as often as not. Even Shifters did that if they felt like things weren’t fair.

  The rust headed Bat smiled, which was a bit dorky looking for some reason. Part of that would be down to the thick glasses she had on. The rest was due to the fact that she was wearing an oversized T-shirt that had a cartoon character on the front. Which one, Avery couldn’t name.

  Calley looked around then, her face cheery.

  “Okay. I go and take a nap for a few hours and boom, you stole all my Ambassador buddies? Niftier than I would have imagined. It’s early still, too. I told them that we might be here a few days. It isn’t even ten yet. Yay. We look pretty good now, I bet. They only came in at six. Tyler got them here in a bus. Chartered.” The whole thing was punctuated by a large sip of whatever was in the cup. Then the Bat woman locked eyes with Avery, her face almost blank for a few moments.

  Avery just stood there, trying to think about what would be needed for the day. It took a while for her brain to really start working, still a bit foggy from sleep and all the work she’d been doing over the last day or two. Blinking, she nodded and pulled out her notebook. It didn’t have anything in it, but she managed to scratch out a short list.

  First she needed to check in at the Vampire yogurt place, in case anyone had tried to get in touch with her. Then, if they hadn’t, she needed to try and find her team again. Bey first, since he was the one that everyone seemed to be focused on. A news update would be nice as well, but she had no clue as to how to get at that kind of data. Not unless someone higher up wanted to let her know about what was going on. She was pretty much a grunt, after all.

  Almost as if she were a mind reader, Calley Hale moved off the porch smoothly, speaking as she did it.

  “The news is still talking about the attack. All of it, the Human and ours. Public opinion is split. A third of the people seem to blame the government. About the same for it being all Bey all the time, because Vampires are evil, clearly. Then the rest are a hodgepodge of things. You’re in there, since you were all intimidating and black. Too bad you didn’t fly away. If you’d done that you’d be in the lead for certain. You’ll have to work on that if it comes up again.” Another sip came then.

  Probably because the woman expected to have to explain to her why people would think that, when she was clearly so awesome personally. Avery understood the basic idea, however. Death Serpents were known by most groups, after all. People feared and loathed them, in the main.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then shrugged.

  “I’ll see what I can do, transport wise? We should go in to Colorado personally. Later though? I need to find some people, some food and probably a chair for a while. Call it… about two in the afternoon?” She didn’t know that Calley needed to be at the national headquarters, but if she was planning to take over some day, being seen in that kind of location might not hurt her chances. Especially if she managed to do anything at all useful.

  Rather than correct her foolish and overly ambitious plan for the day, the woman nodded.

  “That sounds great, if it isn’t a problem? I can’t actually pay for that kind of thing. It isn’t your job to carry me around like that, either. I mean, is this actually an emergency? Even at that, we have limited rights to your efforts. I have even less, since there’s no way that I’m in your chain of command.”

  It was kind of clear that she wasn’t actually trying to talk her way out of going. The woman was just being nice about things. Trying to make it seem like Avery wasn’t her slave or employee. Which was true enough. Still, it wouldn’t actually hurt her to be nice to people. If Calley could help figure anything out, then making that possible was a better plan than not doing it. Besides, they were almost friends, more or less.

  “Two then? Right here? I…” She left then, stepping through the advanced shortcut to Vancouver.

  When Avery got in she made a note of when she had to be back, so that Calley wouldn’t be forgotten. Edom tucked his head out of the office that the pad had come from, a phone to his ear still. He spoke softly but in a low tone that wasn’t difficult for her to make out.

  “We can likely set something up. Miss Rome just came in… I can check on that for you?” There was a noise from the hand set, which got Edom to pull the thing from his head, smiling. “Several members of the Vampire Council have been asked to meet with the President at eleven this morning, East Coast time. It’s at the White House… They’re wondering if anyone can get them there? It will take a bit of work. They’re willing to pay for it, but everyone else is gone at the moment. Even Barb was called away to help move some of our people out of harm’s way.”

  Avery nodded, pulling her pad out.

  “I need to know who to get, from where. Also, can I please have something to eat? I don’t want to impose, but the only other food I can get to right now is in a different reality.” Not that the trip was impossible for her. It simply felt a bit greedy, just going there for things like that. So was asking Edom, which she felt bad about suddenly. Almost everything about her was an imposition on everyone else. Not that it was the truth. Even she understood that her duties there, helping people travel, were considered valuable. It just felt like the people she needed, say Edom, were the ones that weren’t particularly benefiting from her being there at all.

  He just grinned.

  “We can do that.” Then he put the phone back in place, moving all the way out into the front area, holding the cordless thing as he did. “May I get the pickup locations? Miss Rome will be able to begin after she has something to eat.”

  Saying it that way made her sound petty and demanding, but whoever was on the device seemed to be fine with the idea, just giving the particulars without commenting on how lazy the new line walker must be. Avery wrote it all down, since there were three people going in that morning. Enough for it to seem real, not enough to end the Council forever if it was a lethal trap. When it turned out to be one of those.

  Even Avery got that part.

  Given the other day, that was pretty likely to take place, she knew.

  Meaning that it was her job to plan how to get people out, if that started to happen. It wouldn’t be easy, but that was part of the job of transporting people into danger. Making certain you had a way to get them away from it, if things went sideways.

  Chapter fifteen

  Edom sat her down before doing anything else and actually ran out of the store, leaving her alone for several minutes. When he came back there were two small people with him. Tiny beings that looked incredibly perfect. Pale, but fit seeming, for all they each had to be under four feet tall. The woman was wearing a plain dress with a white apron over it. The man had on trousers and a nice shirt, but also had an apron. They were each carrying a large tray of food with them. It was mainly meat. Chicken and beef, with a shiny vinegar and sugar based sauce over all of it.

  There was plain white rice as well, but not too much that way.

  The lady, who had copper and gold hair, with sparks coming out of her head in a halo of light, bowed to her.

  “Great one. We were asked to see to feeding you. These humble efforts…” The woman seemed terrified, swallowing several times as she waved at the food on the table. It was a jerky thing. Unsettled. “We hope… It was short notice…”

  Avery understood the idea then. She was afraid that Avery, who was kind of like a guest there, might not be happy with the offering. As if it wasn’t the best looking thing she’d seen all day.

  “
It seems wonderful. Tha-” Edom frowned, as both of the others looked down. She didn’t get the idea, but her Vampire friend was trying to tell her something. That she needed to not thank them for their efforts. His lips moved, actually saying that, if silently.

  She kind of froze for a bit. Then stood and bowed toward them. That seemed to be acceptable with almost everyone. They both smiled at least, doing it back, then scurried away rapidly, before she could ruin it.

  Ed smiled at her.

  “Their people don’t say thank you. It’s insulting to them, for some reason. They won’t tell anyone why, but it would start a real fight, if anyone did that. Best to avoid that kind of thing today if we can. We have enough useless violence going on already.”

  Avery sat, picked up the real metal fork and started in, knowing she had a time schedule.

  About halfway through she looked down.

  “I don’t have any money, but when I earn some…” She felt really bad, infringing on the man’s life. Forcing him to feed her. They weren’t even married or related, which made it much worse.

  The Vampire moved behind the nice marble counter, ready to serve customers, even if no one was coming in. The phone chirped quietly, then rang, which had him picking the thing up instantly. Almost as if he’d known it was going to happen.

  “Yoghurt World. Edom Freeman here. How may I help you?”

  Bey spoke from the other side of the line, his voice high pitched, but gentle. The man often did that part well. As long as you weren’t trying to insult his team or kill him. Then he was a little different. Avery listened, the sounds of her own eating making it slightly difficult to hear.

  “Edom! There seems to be a small issue? Explosions in Las Vegas? Targeting the Shifters there at the moment. It was suggested that we provide what aid we may, to evacuate the area. I’d hoped that Eve, or perhaps young Troy might be available for that? We’re going to be in great debt by the end of this current war, I fear. At least they are of good heart. Not that the Line Walker isn’t as well. We’ve been most fortunate in that regard.”