As Evil Does Read online

  Instead of acting shocked, and even though Fram currently looked like a fairly cute thirty-year-old man with pale skin and black hair, Hally snorted.

  “You always did want me, didn’t you, Barb. Not that I can blame you, since clearly, I’m incredible. How do we get these things open, exactly? I’m not doing it if my hands are going to be blown off or something like that.” She seemed firm on that point.

  Not the Keeley blamed her. The others didn’t seem to either.

  She pointed.

  “Do you see that hash mark looking thing there. Touch it and hold your finger there. It will probably shock you. Like touching a doorknob in the winter. Nothing you can’t handle. It should work, anyway. Why set it up for a Human specifically, I don’t know. Someone wanted you two to get out, eventually?”

  Fram sighed then.

  “That’s probably correct. Ementiel did it. One of the fallen. He’s new, only having been part of the physical world for a few hundred years. Thankfully it was him. He knew enough to understand that food is a good idea for us. We’d figured that it would be about twenty years before we got out, however. Human’s really are in short supply in this part of the world. Still, you didn’t tell me what the cost is yet, Hally.” He licked his lips, which was actually sexy, even if he was a man. At the moment.

  Keeley shrugged.

  “Can you float her a loan? She was thinking about getting some anti-aging treatments while we’re here. It should come to a few gold, I think, from what we were told. I could give it to her, but you know, I’m the ex, so… Not happening. Her choice. I’m not being that petty at all today.” She shrugged as Hally moved in and touched the sigil on Fram’s wrist with a single finger. Hesitantly. She did jump when it shocked her, but the cuffs fell off, instantly.

  She did Gregor next, the men both being on their feet a second later.

  The older looking fallen Angel smiled beneficently. That was mainly for Hally, but Keeley was given a glance as well.

  “We need to hurry. My kind, those unfallen, are planning to take those of your people, Miss Thomson. I had word from Michael, my brother…” He stopped and shook his head. “Which you can’t recall, can you?”

  Wrinkling her nose, she nodded.

  “I can, now. I think we took care of that problem, in part, last night. There’s a meeting coming up in a month, with the Angels and the Wise Ones. We… Most of us had to become good in order to take care of things. It altered the playing field a bit.”

  There was silence then, with neither man moving for a moment. Then, slowly, Fram reached out and took her hand. His was warmer than her own. Not burning though, just pleasant.

  After a moment, he hissed.

  “Oh. My. Check my work here, Greg? I do believe… Well, you do it.” He moved to the side then, his eyes locked on her tightly.

  Gregor moved in slowly, taking her hand for a long time, he stood with his eyes closed, his wrinkled face moving into a slightly less shocked version of what Fram was doing still.

  Then he chuckled and let go.

  “That is pretty different. For all intents and purposes, you’re an Angel now, Keeley. I hadn’t thought that was possible, to tell the truth.”

  She simply shrugged.

  “Neat? Now, I left the meter running on the translator in the hallway. We should probably get to a node and go? After Hally gets that work done, I mean?”

  All of them nodded at the plan. They skipped eating the free food, and simply left, instead.

  Chapter sixteen

  “Mimic, attend me.” She didn't add in a please to the end.

  The situation was just a bit too tense for that.

  Keeley stood with Tyler Gartner in his living room. Interestingly, Jonas had elected to stay, to stand with Keeley, as a friend, even when the others had decided that the best plan was to get out of the house for a while. Not Don or Steve. They didn't get a choice in the matter.

  They were slaves, after all. So was The Mimic. A minute later, a surge on the inroads opened up in the front yard. There was a knock, shortly after that, since she’d given a command. Dawdling too much wouldn’t play, even for a powerful being like the thin man who entered the room when Tyler let him in.

  “You summoned me, mistress?”

  Keeley nodded, since no matter what you called it, that was exactly what had happened.

  “Yes. Hopefully for the last time.” She sighed, then waved at Don and Steve. “Tyler, if you’d free them? The other slaves as well, except The Mimic.” Nickels the actor had improved a lot and Keeley had made a point of working on him, so that, even when freed, his new work ethic was going to stick around for several decades, if not longer.

  The two terrorists had already been drained of information, by the Feds. That meant she didn't need to hold them any longer, either.

  A wave of blackness wove itself around the links between her and the two men, the ex-sex addict and the brilliant Human Wizard. Both of them had earned their freedom. Steve had the harder road that way, having had to learn to control his powers over the last three months. They’d had to create a magical language for him to use, but that had left him fairly powerful. About at the level of a regular Mage, if they’d bothered to go to school to learn magic instead of playing things by ear as most of them did.

  Things had changed, meaning it was time to free the slaves. Finally. It was a thing that The Mimic needed to hear about. He had a choice to make, after all. Doing that while informed was only fair.

  She managed to sound fairly formal about the whole thing.

  “The Wise Ones, have made an agreement with the Angelic host. We keep all of our old powers, but have agreed to use them for good.” She grinned then. “Well, good might be a bit of a stretch. We still get to be pretty selfish, if we want. No eating people, or wholesale murder of populations is allowed. Torture, rape and cannibalism are technically allowed, but the idea is for us all to become good enough beings that it isn’t really common.” That was the entire thing they’d put together. Over the course of ten days of trying to work with the Angels.

  They got nothing of note in return, of course. That had been the real sticking point. Greater Demons had been a bit too into bargaining for everything for that to happen easily.

  She went on, letting her face remain serious.

  “It’s work, holding to that kind of pattern. Well, you know, since you’ve already been doing it. If you want, you can be free now. I’d like to survive it, if you can see your way toward that end? If not…” She would have normally suggested that, if he couldn’t fix himself, he could die. He certainly hadn’t earned her favor, in particular.

  Finally, after years of asking him if he were ready to be let go, he nodded. It was a somber thing, his fairly old face, lean and familiar, nodded.

  “I can agree to that. It’s clear to me now that you aren’t a threat to me. If you were, I wouldn’t be alive right now, would I? That, the fear of what you represented was too great before. Now I understand that the situation isn’t what I’d imagined. I won’t come for you, if you let me go. I’ll even try to be good and keep to the collective bargain you mentioned.” He smiled then. “As long as that’s real. If not, then I might change my mind. I won’t, if you’re dealing with me fairly.”

  Keeley got the idea there. If it was a trick, then she’d be fighting for her life, within the next days. Otherwise, it might be more or less okay. Unless he changed his mind after being set free. It was a risk. The trick there was that the being before her wasn’t a Greater Demon. He hadn’t been, for over a month.

  “Agreed on those terms, then. Ty?”

  It took longer to free one of her people, the link between The Mimic and her being thick and ropey, compared to the tendrils that were needed to hold a Human. The recently freed men weren’t tense or anything, as they stood there. Not even as The Mimic had the link severed, death energy killing the line between them perfectly.

  On the good side, the being didn't turn on her instantly. Instead
he just stood there, his face bemused.

  “So, now what? I’m not a Greater Demon any longer. I’m… Good, I guess. It’s a bit different.”

  She nodded, having had the same feeling, herself.

  “I know. You can do it. Probably better than most of the others, really. I mean, your strength is in being a mimic, right? You’ll nail that being good part of things. At least on the outside. That’s all that really matters. We, as a people, keep to our word pretty well.” At least if whoever it was with was powerful enough to make certain it happened. The Angels were, more or less.

  That was the old way. Now, they were all doing better that way. At least from what Keeley had heard about.

  There was a nod then.

  “Well, I’d say it was nice working with you, Keeley, but I could do without being a slave, if it’s all the same. I’ll leave, unless you need me for something else right now?”

  She waved at him.

  “Fly, be free. Remember, we don’t have to be friends, to not be enemies.”

  The man laughed. It was dark, sinister and all he did as he left. No one said anything until the front door clicked and the being, the Wise One left on the line. Politely, using the partial node in the front yard.

  Then Don spoke.

  “Hey, Keeley, Doll…” He paused, since part of him wanted to ask her for a sexual favor. He didn’t. Not because he was scared of being taken as a slave again, either. He actually had some self-control now. It would be enough, as long as he kept trying. At least enough for him to hold on to his job, for a while.

  Smiling, she winked at him.

  “Yes, Donald?”

  “Krista was on with me earlier. We’re moving the shooting schedule up on Reality Wars. Can you get some time free in two weeks? We need to shoot the pilot and see if it will be picked up anywhere. It will, but you know how it goes, we all have hoops to jump through, right?”

  Tyler rolled his eyes, but nodded.

  Keeley just agreed with the producer.

  “You know, we really do. All of us, pretty close to all the time. Now, I need to get you two home and then go and pick up my boyfriend. It’s date night. We’re finally doing that thing with Lenore. I was thinking we could take in a concert. You know, before the fun parts?”

  The men there all got it. Only Steve blushed. That was adorable to see, since it was only about sex.

  Things were going well with Ravi, over all. Hally, after their mission to Lesser Shia, hadn’t called again. That was probably for the good, of course. They were, after a fashion, doing all right. They couldn’t be friends, of course. That would be too hard to put anyone through.

  Interestingly, Hally had actually gotten with Will and Tyler several times and was working on a program of public relations with Division Six. That was mainly about the known groups at the moment. That and generally promoting the idea that the things in the night, the dark beings that could be scary, really weren’t. They were going to be helpful sprites that could be bargained with and entreated to do things that helped regular people.

  It was going to take a while to make that happen of course. The general flavor of the collective unconscious tended toward the negative, after all. That was going to have to change, if they were going to survive. Then, life almost always required adaptation.

  Waving a bit, she gave Tyler a hug, then got the other two men to follow her to the front yard. The portal she made had Don going home first, with Steven being put into place about thirty seconds behind him. Then, her work done for the day, Keeley got to take herself home for the evening.

  Ravi would still be at work until seven or so. Then she was going to come back to meet him there, at the mansion.

  She smiled, since things really were going well for her.

  Really, without being ironic at all, she felt good.

  Very good, actually.