Scales (Avery Rome Book 1) Read online

  Thankfully the uncomfortable woman left then, with Chris waving to Claire as he walked past.

  “We should be back in a few hours, I guess? I’d invite you, but you don’t eat.” The boy was slightly teasing, but the Vampire took it with good humor.

  “I’ll be fine, thank you, Chris. If nothing else I could always snack on you?”

  The boy snorted then, took Avery by the hand and pretended to drag her from the store. Not that he was being rough about it. Once they were into the mall, which wasn’t as well decorated as Westfield, or as busy, the boy let go of her hand, smiling.

  “Claire is nice. We need to go to Something Wonderful, since the shortcut we need is in the back there. Zack put it in. It goes directly to the back door of the house. You’ll see.” He kept walking, speaking after they were about halfway to the store they wanted. A thing that didn’t exist at all in her world, she didn’t think. It was a place that packed up gift baskets. Made to order ones. Avery would have never thought of that as being a thing, until she saw it. Then the idea made sense.

  You could tailor a gift for others, with the people there helping you do it, in case you didn’t have the imagination for it. It explained why there was a pleasant seeming Human girl running the place when they got inside. Also why the place was decorated for Halloween. There were carved pumpkins and pictures of black cats. No witches or anything, though there was a large silver globe hanging from the ceiling that was clearly supposed to be the Moon. There was also a lot of hay on the display tables, where different readymade baskets were laid out.

  A person that needed something for friends or family might walk into the place and leave with something impressive inside a few moments. At least if they had money. Even if she did, Avery had to figure that it wouldn’t have worked there anyway. Not unless they were willing to deal in silver or gold.

  The woman behind the counter appeared to be Asian. She was small, but perfectly poised at the same time. Made larger by her focus. A bit like Chris was, now that she’d noticed the concept. Avery was probably similar, after all her time in the void. Given they were going to the Human woman’s business to find Zack’s home, she was probably a line walker. Not that she was going to presume that. Asking seemed a bit rude as well, since so many failed at doing it.

  The woman had short black hair that kissed her collar in the back, but was very well taken care of. Avery had tried a bit, but her mess of curls made it really hard to arrange anything that looked good most of the time. She coped in the main by not worrying about it, day to day. At the moment she felt a bit self-conscious about the whole thing.

  “Chris! With a girl? I’d be amazed, but you are the coolest high school senior I know.” She seemed to mean that bit, or at least wanted Avery to think she did. Either way it seemed like a positive thing over all.

  The boy next to her, who wasn’t one, even if he was, a lot like her, seemed pleased to see the woman.

  “Hey Charli. This is Avery Rome. We have a date. I’m going to impress her with my incredible mansion, then take her to different worlds until she decides I’m a miracle worker. Think that will work? I could also get her a fruit basket, maybe? That would do it, don’t you think?”

  Charli, which was a funny name for a girl, went very still for a bit. Then she shrugged.

  “That would probably be trying a bit too hard, but yeah, that would actually work. If you showed me all of that, I know that I’d be interested in not letting you get away. Of course, you’ll seem insane if you can’t pay off. That’s the risk with that kind of promise. I mean, other worlds? Hard to back up for most.”

  The other kid sighed.

  “I know. Not that it would actually work with either of you. This is the new Shifter line walker. From Eve’s world? I’m taking her to meet the guys. Don will probably alienate her so much that she’ll never come back. Not that he isn’t great, but Avery hasn’t made the sign of the cross in my face yet or anything. I’m sure that will seem too cozy and sexual for him.”

  There was a bit of disgruntled anger to the words, along with a real glare, which wasn’t aimed at Charli or her at all. The line of energy ran toward the back of the place, to the small rift in space near the main node. The larger thing was slowly drinking the lighter one in, but it would last for a while. Fifty years or so, at a guess.

  Chris rolled his eyes, letting his mood smooth out a lot, almost instantly.

  “My older brother. Except that now I’m a few hundred years older than he is. Zack is my cousin. One of them thinks that I’m still twelve, so won’t let me have a girlfriend. Hint, it isn’t Zack.”

  The woman behind the counter made a funny face, wrinkling her nose like she smelled something unpleasant.

  “That’s not wrong. Don is sweet, really, but it’s too hard for him to understand that Chris isn’t just the kid he seems like anymore. This has been going on for years now. Long enough that it should have ended already. Line walkers tend not to age once they come back from the void. It’s making things tough for a few of us. Especially in regards to Don.”

  They both seemed to agree on that point, but Avery didn’t get the idea. If his brother wanted him to not date or marry, then he couldn’t. At least if his father didn’t countermand that. There had been no mention of other family, so she didn’t bring it up. Avery didn’t want to start that conversation since the obvious trick to deflect that would be saying how about you.

  The kid, who was at least her own age, or older, moved toward the back then, leaving Avery to wave at Charli.

  “Nice meeting you? I guess we’re going?”

  There was a nice smile then.

  “Yeah. All of us line walkers get weird. It will happen to you too, don’t worry. The best we can hope for is that we don’t get too annoying for other people to put up with. See you soon!”

  Chris got to the back first, but waited when they got to the shortcut.

  “I don’t know if you can see the smaller rift here? Not everyone can.”

  She could. It was very clean at the edges. Enough so that almost anyone could have walked through the thing, with a bit of practice.

  “It’s very nice. You said that Zack, the Human line walker, made it himself? That’s impressive. Eve didn’t even tell me that was possible. Our Zack mentioned I should learn that kind of thing, but only in passing.”

  “Yeah. No one else can do it. Not here. Some people in other realities can do it. They’re mainly Zack though. Not all of them. This one guy makes nodes into these magic huts. It’s incredibly cool. I should go and get some of those… Troy said that they work on different worlds, not just places that have magic like that. Then, that’s on Mars, or so I hear.” He spoke the last bit as if it was supposed to be impressive.

  Which it was, when she thought about it.

  “I have some baskets I need to take back there. To that specific Mars, I think? I’ve heard they have a magic shop, is that where you get those huts?” That really would be handy, being able to put things anyplace you wanted like that. Especially if you needed to evacuate people in an emergency. You’d still have to go to the fight first, in order to set things up correctly, but from there people could be removed much faster than walking two miles to the closest nice shortcut.

  Looking at her, smiling, there was a head shake in response. It was a little thing, but visible.

  “See… This is why dating a line walker will never work for me. I mention something cool and there’s too big of a chance that you’ll know more about it than I do, isn’t there? I need to find a nice Amish girl, so that my clever patter about line walking will seem impressive to her.”

  “Amish? I’ve never heard of that.” She glanced at the man, who wrinkled his smooth forehead, then walked through the rift. The smaller one. Avery followed along, hoping it wasn’t an ambush on the other side.

  It wasn’t. It was just a door. The back one, on a giant house. Chris had said mansion, but she’d figure it would be a bit more humble for some reason.
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br />   Looking up, she could see a random woman being impressed. It was probably the largest such building she’d ever seen.

  “So, if we get married we’ll live here, with your family? Right now I have a room in Edom’s house. That’s… Eve’s Vampire father? She lives there, too. It’s a bit smaller than this and they aren’t family really, so if we move there we’d have to get our own place. That or a trailer, so we can move around? That’s how I was raised. The Gray… We’re Travelers. Moving from place to place constantly?” She didn’t know how to explain it, but Chris blinked a few times.

  Then he moved to the door. There was glass that let her see no one was standing on the other side.

  “Like Gypsies?”

  The inside of the place smelled delicious. Roasted meat, spices and something sweet filled the air. It was the kitchen, which had apparently been used recently, as Chris had mentioned. By someone named Merry. It was a happy sounding name.

  “A bit. The religion is very different. We met up a lot though, traveling in similar circles. They’re Humans, but it had to be done at times. The Gray… Um… Shifter Supremacists? Humans are unclean.” It sounded rude to say that, so she went on, telling the truth. It was hard, but really, it wasn’t about her. Just her past. “The only thing worse is a Death Serpent. A Dragon. Well, or a Demon, of course. So when I changed for the first time, they tried to kill me. Except, you know, giant Dragon… So they died. Not the entire clan, but a lot of them. Six. They were my family. Not now.” She left off exactly how they perished, Chris moving at a good pace toward the front of the house.

  “That’s horrible. Well, we aren’t like that. As a rule we work with everyone. We accept anyone that can travel the lines into the Line Walker Nation. We even have two different Demons associated with us. Three if we count the Zack from your world. That’s messed up though, your family trying to kill you like that. My dad… He tried to kill me. Or, actually he’d been possessed by a Demon who did it. It was kind of a mess. Anyway, he’s dead now. My mom… She’s not a bad person, but kind of needs other people to take care of her. We send her money and live here. Zack is cool.”

  He stopped then, his face creeping into a grin as they got into a dining room. One that had several people already sitting, waiting for them to get there, it seemed. There were only two seats left at least. One of the men waiting to judge her was Troy. Except this one was alive and not a Vampire at all. Next to him was a pale skinned but fit looking fellow and a slightly taller but similar looking man with light brown hair. That was clearly Don. At least he looked too much like Chris for it to be coincidence.

  It was the one she couldn’t guess at that spoke first.

  “I’m Zack. This is Troy and Don. You’re Avery? Chris mentioned you earlier.”

  She felt like rubbing her sweaty palms on her dress suddenly, but knew that her hands wouldn’t be moist at all. It was just a left over thing from childhood. Instead she smiled, trying to seem warm and kind. It wasn’t really a lie, since she made the effort to be that way all the time. Even if it didn’t always work that well. Chris moved toward the table and pulled a chair out for her, but let her move it in for herself. Then he settled next to her, his face bland.

  She spoke softly, trying to seem like a regular person and not an Amish. Just in case that was a bad thing.

  “Nice to meet you, Zack. I’ve heard about you. I know Vampire Troy, of course. The other version of you. Not well, but we’ve met.”

  She just had to hope that they were going to eat soon. That or someone else would come up with something to say, because she was out, personally. Nothing was coming to mind at least.

  Troy nodded then. He smiled, staring at her a bit. He broke eye contact right before it became uncomfortable, but just by shifting the line of his attention. It was mainly on her face. A few times it flickered to her chest, but not more than most people did the same thing.

  “Vampire me. I’ve never met him. Is he as awesome and wonderful as me, however? That’s what everyone wants to know.”

  That was hard to answer, so she lied, getting the idea on that one. The man wanted to be reassured. Even if he was probably kind of incredible. It had to be very hard for a Human to become a line walker, after all. They had a lot of them there though, so it seemed a thing they could learn.

  “He’s very nice, so yes? I don’t know him very well yet, to be honest.” It was contradictory, but the man smiled anyway, as if she’d been praising his looks or value directly.

  Zack got up smoothly, passing food containers around the large table himself. The thing was big enough for forty or fifty people, leaving a lot of elbow room. They were all in one portion however, with Zack at the very end. The silver serving trays were covered with domes. Inside the food was in ceramic containers, which looked very expensive. The patterns on them were incredibly delicate seeming. Almost invisible even to her eyes. Twisting things that called to her gaze, until the food was offered to her. It was roasted and braised beef, with vegetables, fresh bread of three kinds and a lot of sauces.

  It was, in short, incredible. There was even a lot of it. More than five people would need if they were at all normal. Zack glanced at her, focus nearly stinging her skin for a moment. Then he loaded her plate to a level that would have been embarrassing normally. No one else there even glanced at that part. Mainly because Zack took about the same amount when he got back to his own seat. The others didn’t however, which was interesting. No one bothered explaining that part to her however.

  There were no prayers or invocations first. No one insisted she moved to the other room to eat, being a woman, either. They ate in silence for about thirty seconds, with Don finally fixing on his brother, his face a bit frozen seeming.

  “So, did you meet up with Lyn? I know that you try to do that when you go over there. To get your pervy groove on with my girlfriend.”

  Chris nodded, seeming to be not at all upset by the words. Unimpressed by the implied attack or the rebuke that went with it.

  “Kaitlyn was there, in fact. She was going to come to dinner, but there’s a big emergency over there. Military attacks on people? Avery was doing all that. Moving people around and things? I didn’t ask for specifics, since I won’t know the players anyway. Not all of them. I’m the main liaison for there from here, but that doesn’t mean I’m up to speed on everything. I should make a point of going in and seeing about that this weekend, in case our people there need help. They may not know to ask us for anything.”

  That part was interesting, since she hadn’t really been thinking of herself as one of their people, yet. A line walker, but not part of a collective. The idea that she was felt nice. Accepted. It meant she recounted the whole tale for them, then. It took longer than it should have, since it was only a few days long. Troy doubled back on the tale after a while though, seeming curious.

  “Wait… So you didn’t go to school. You went to a military training camp for three years straight instead? That’s… Awesome. Really. I mean, totally bad-assed. Still, didn’t that make going to the prom kind of difficult?”

  She nodded then, her face still and bland as she stalled for time by taking a bite of food.

  After it was done, she had to speak though.

  “I don’t even know what that is. Prom? So, that… Amish… Probably a million other things here. Though… I didn’t go to high school. I could, I guess? I’m still young enough, legally speaking. If I don’t have to run away from my reality thanks to this war. I’d ask for that help, but… Really, my job is making sure we find who’s been killing people. Innocent ones that happened to not be Human, well, some of them were. This whole thing with the attacks is pretty much stopping that, because it’s probably the same group. That doesn’t give us a target to fight or punish.”

  Zack, at the head of the table, clearly being the oldest one there by enough she couldn’t guess at the concept, finished a whole roll before saying anything, taking a long time to speak. He seemed drifty and off, as far as his
connection to reality went. Like he was so far from sane that it took an act of will not to jibber constantly.

  “That sounds right to me. You might have to take care of that yourself, from the sound of it. What resources do you need for that? You can handle military matters and travel better than most of us can already. I mean, I can’t even drive a car.”

  She had to think for a while. It was going to make her seem slow, she bet, but the truth was she didn’t know the answer. If it was an easy thing to do, she’d have probably already gotten it done. Started at least.

  “I need investigators. If not the team I had, then at least a team. Probably someone to be in charge as well. That kind of thing isn’t really my strong suit. I could get with Bey? He’s busy though, since part of the attacks were on him, personally. Everyone there is going to be busy.” Except that of course, that wasn’t really true.

  Avery didn’t say that out loud, but interestingly Zack responded as if she had.

  “Exactly. There are always people that have time to do things, no matter what’s going on. This is an issue that’s bigger than a few government officials. Go and set that up? We can do it for you if you really can’t manage it, but I think you can. After dessert, of course. Merry will be hurt if you don’t eat some of her cobbler. I mean… Seriously upset. So eat up! Then Chris can get you back to your reality?”

  She didn’t need her hand held, but the words weren’t for her. They were for Don.

  “Oh? So he can sneak away with Lyn on the other side?”

  Zack shook his head then, his face seeming a tiny bit sad.

  “It’s time for you to stop doing this, Don. It’s not just getting old, but getting in the way of your brother having his own life. I know you want to protect him, but in some things you can’t. Not without damaging him so much that he’s stunted, later in life. Besides, I was thinking something different. He was talking to Avery about getting married earlier. I see no particular reason they can’t get to know each other a bit better, given that. He’s more than old enough to think about settling down. So are you, for that matter.”