Abominations Read online

  “Um, Wallace?” Gwen asked, baffled.

  “Wallace is Detective Wilbur's first name,” Beth added, sounding a little morose.

  They scrambled around looking for things to tie them up with, reusing what they could of the ropes that Emma had brought for Beth and sacrificing some of Katherine's clothing to make new gags and some makeshift ropes. Gwen doubted that these would hold for long, so broke the leg off of one of the dining room chairs, which sat in the kitchen, so that the unconscious people could be knocked out again if they started to struggle too much. She had enough money saved to buy a new chair.

  Bethany made a call, not to Darrick directly, but to the Westmorland headquarters, quickly reporting everything. The voice on the other end told her that help would arrive within twenty minutes. Then, suddenly shy, Beth covered herself with hands and arms and walked into the bedroom to get new clothes.

  A few minutes later she came out dressed in a dark blue military outfit for some reason. This one had pants and a sturdy looking shirt, rather than the stewardess looking thing she'd worn to the party a few weeks prior.

  She asked Gwen for her PC. That made her blink and look around for a laptop that had been hidden all this time. Beth saw her looking around and realized she needed to explain herself.

  “Oh! The thing you picked up, it's in your pocket? It's a power conduit. We call them PCs for short.”

  Pulling it quickly, she handed it over. Beth's outfit had a special little pocket just for that, Gwen noticed, a part of the heavy shirt, not the trousers as she'd have suspected. Heavy looking leather boots finished the outfit in a shiny black.

  Gwen swallowed hard, “Ah... a PC's a totally different thing where I come from. I wonder why it didn't work for her?”

  Bethany looked at it and held it in her hand for a second.

  “It's locked to me personally. Similar to the way a door pad works. Anyone else trying to use it can't make it work at all, no matter how good they are.”

  They stood guard, Gwen behind Emma, who she'd turned to face a corner, so that she could see if the woman tried to work her way out of the bonds. As an afterthought, Gwen decided to rip off another piece of the older-looking heavy dress they'd used to make the ropes and form it into a blindfold. It may not help in regards to magic, she told Bethany, but it would help to keep her a little more disoriented.

  Wilbur came to first, after only a few minutes, but he just sat, unmoving, barely blinking. Emma started a keening whine through her gag when she came awake, sounding piteous. That wouldn't work on Gwen. Not now at least.

  Darrick showed up with Kelvin in tow, and the woman that had worn armor the night before, now wearing a uniform exactly like Bethany's. Others were there, but guarded the building perimeter, wearing full armor. They hadn't gone back to headquarters yet, deciding to stick around for a bit and help, in case another hit team was called in. They'd taken away the men that had attacked, one of which turned out to be still alive in some kind of trance-like state. Probably to slow the blood loss, Kelvin let her know, sounding halfway interested in the idea.

  Darrick took Bethany aside for a report, in private, possibly due to the fact that Wilbur still didn't have any pants on. As her friend explained in hushed tones, the woman from the day before, who looked about thirty and had reddish brown hair came over and introduced herself.

  “Got a bit sidetracked last night and forgot to introduce myself. Heather.” Her hand came out professionally, shaking with firmness but not going overboard. “Heather Westmorland, obviously.” She waved her hands at the uniform. Then she asked what Gwen knew about all this, wanting her to start at the point they'd parted the night before.

  It didn't take long, even adding in the part about her crying over the men she killed for hours, waking up clutching the knife, then the attack and her response. Kelvin stood shaking his head.

  “You special service types... I mean, I can see crying over the dead, the trauma, all that, sure. Who wouldn't? But to turn around and instantly do it again without hesitation... Not training I've had.”

  Heather didn't glare at the man, but did look a bit sad as she spoke to him.

  “Kelvin, just because we have to kill sometimes doesn't mean any of us like it. Anyway, Miss Farris isn't one of us. She's a civilian.” The woman reached out and patted her hand then exactly twice, as if remembering suddenly to treat her like a victim rather than a colleague.

  Kelvin just shook his head at that and disagreed, then listed the events as they knew them so far. He added in events that Gwen hadn't thought would have been noticed at all, her catching the would-be escapee at the district house and how she'd gotten him to talk. The masher on the bus and even what she'd said while unable to move on the stone slab. Gwen tilted her head, wondering how he'd found out about all that, but didn't ask. Bethany knew about it, after all, she'd probably reported it at some point. It was just that Gwen making anyone's report seemed bizarre to her. Of course, being from a different reality did make her seem infinitely cooler sounding than she really was.

  Kelvin spoke with authority that didn't match his rather youthful face.

  “You don't accidentally take on thirteen Saracen mercenaries and luck into that effective of a response, not twice at least and I count seven discrete events here, not just two. No matter how she got into it or why, Miss Farris is not a civilian. Besides, she works with Bethany, so she's part of our organization.”

  He grinned at Gwen then and walked over to her, taking her right hand in both of his warmly, if in a way that seemed a little comical.

  “Good to have you aboard. The pay sucks, the hours are hard, and no one will ever give you credit for anything, but other than that, it's a great job!”

  Heather looked scandalized and hit the man on the arm.

  “You can't say that in front of a lady.” She laughed though, a grin on her face.

  Finally, not getting it, Gwen had to ask which part couldn't be said in front of a lady. Heather laughed again and told her.

  “Right, you're not from here. Well, here, suck, sucks, or sucked refers to, um, sucking a man... So it isn't something to use in polite company.”

  Gwen smiled and shook her head softly. “It means the same thing back home and almost no one would blink if you used it anywhere. Little kids say it all the time.”

  Darrick and Bethany rejoined them, and suggested they set up to question Miss Forster as soon as possible. They didn't want to lose her like they did Debussey the night before. If whatever Debussey had done to herself to prevent telepathic information gathering was in effect here, it could take a while.

  He hinted broadly that they might have to use force, in order to distract Miss Forster from whatever mind control she attempted to protect the information she held. Gwen knew that he wanted her to leave, but instead she got up from the sofa, picked up the chair leg she'd broken off and moved to the girl. When everyone looked ready, Gwen delivered a light, but highly focused blow to the left kidney, hitting it precisely and causing the girl to moan.

  “Hi, Emma. You remember me, don't you? Gwen? I've knocked you out, what, twice now? So, we're old friends right?” The voice that came out of her sounded sickly sweet, even to her own ear. “Right now, you and I are going to play a game. It works like this. We ask you a question, and you think the correct answer. If you don't, or if I even think you might be lying, or maybe if I just remember how pissed I am at you, then...” This time the end of the chair leg hit the right kidney, not hard at all, just enough to cause pain without doing damage.

  “I know that hurts, but trust me, I'm holding back a lot, I could easily cripple you this way if I wanted or cause you to feel pain you can't even begin to imagine. Go ahead and try it now, we'll wait... Nope, not even close to what I can do to you. Now, normally, if we were just torturing you, we'd spend hours, days even, just making you uncomfortable, making you think we were going to hurt you... But if I understand this right, all I have to do is distract you, while others do the real work. Is
n't that fun? Because, you see, Emma, right now, I really don't like you very much. If you were smart you'd probably start begging for one of the special service professionals to do this instead. They'll be far kinder and more gentle with you... but, oops, you have a gag on! Too bad for you.”

  She let the table leg rest briefly on the bound and gagged girl's shoulder, then run slowly down her sleeved left arm. Suddenly Gwen brought the piece of wood around and tapped lightly on the back of the other woman's right elbow, making a soft popping sound, causing another muffled scream. Gwen didn't bother feeling bad for the girl, she'd only hit her “funny bone” after all.

  Once the questioning began, Gwen hardly had to do anything at all. On occasion the wood would be placed on the girl's body for a second, making her cringe, but they only had to use pain to actually distract her twice. Once when she tried to avoid thinking about how she'd resisted giving evidence before and once when the subject of the duke came up.

  Bethany related the whole story of how Debussey, working with Mathews, had come up with a way of conditioning responses in people, so that when asked specific questions, they'd instantly think about the desired answer, not the incriminating one. It used mesmerism, traditional magic, and something new, psychology, to get around even the best telepaths. It worked too, at least so far it had on several occasions. The only ones they'd broken were the people that hadn't undergone the whole process. Jonathon Phillips and his friends, who were basically pawns in the greater game.

  Gwen blew out a big breath, “Operant conditioning, positive and negative feedback and aversion probably. I can see how it might work.”

  Emma made a noise, so Beth checked her thoughts again. When she came out, looking amazed, she told them that at least some of these words were the same ones the girl said Debussey had taught her.

  Emma had learned it too, at least in part, and had been working on Wilbur for weeks, since she saw in the papers that he'd taken Bethany to Ethyl Vernor's birthday party. It was just a matter of getting him alone, not that hard to do, even for a bookish and plain-looking girl like herself, and then reconditioning him to do what she wanted. It was supposed to have just been spying, but Emma had gotten adventurous.

  The girl had tested her programing of the detective by making him go to gentleman's clubs, a euphemism for what amounted to a gay bar, Gwen guessed from the way everyone reacted, and perform sex acts on men after tying them up, much like Beth had been. Emma liked to watch and tell him what to do, then, depending on her mood, she'd have him either let the men go or beat them into unconsciousness.

  As for the Saracens, they were working directly for the Duke of Aubry, at least that's what Debussey had told her. They seemed to be the real thing and did exactly what she'd told them to do, without needing to be mesmerized first, at least not by her. If it had been done before she didn't know about it.

  Past that she didn't seem to know anything.

  Then, Gwen hit her again, asking the same questions, waiting each time to see if the responses changed. The only one that did involved Wilbur and some sex acts that she'd had him perform on her. This earned a few more selected shots, mainly to points where nerves ran directly over bone, on the collar and ribs. Darrick asked her not to mar the face, since that would require more paperwork later, trying to explain exactly what they'd done. This interrogation had been legal, so far, but a girl with a beaten up face tended to develop sympathy that a few hidden bruises didn't. His dry tone earned a small smile from Gwen, who nodded that she understood.

  After a while, others came in and took first Wilbur and then Emma away. Bethany sat on the sofa in her dark blue uniform and cried, since what had happened to Wilbur had been because the man knew her.

  “If I'd stayed away from him, he'd be fine now. I as much as delivered him to her!” She sobbed between even stronger bouts of crying. Gwen went and held her, patting her on the back. This didn't last long, about ten minutes, then she dried her tears and went back to work. Bethany looked strange, as if she wanted to find the people that had hurt Wilbur and do things to them that Gwen wouldn't want to know about. Gwen thought at her hard, not knowing if Beth could hear her at all or not. 'When it comes time, I'll help you bury the bodies. Or better yet... dump them at sea.'

  Looking at her Beth gave a single, very small, almost imperceptible, nod.

  As the others started to leave, Gwen had a thought.

  “What if Debussy's lying? About the duke I mean... What if she's just been telling everyone that he's a part of this, when the truth is that she's mesmerized him, using this new technique? I mean, I doubt that's the case, but if it might be, what would you all be expected to do? What would the king want done?”

  Everyone else looked blank, but Kelvin smiled.

  “Why, we'd have to use all due diligence to protect him, now wouldn't we?”

  Chapter twenty-eight

  What happened next surprised and amazed Gwen, or would have, she figured, if she'd been anyone other than her. Life had delivered a few important lessons. One of which, the oldest of them all, was that no one stands by you. She'd learned it on the playground as a child, when even the kids brave enough to play with the ugly girl eventually gave in to peer pressure and drove her away. When she lay bleeding on the side of the street and no one would stop to help her because she didn't look right. Not pretty enough to bother with. Not even average enough.

  When she got up in the morning, Bethany, and everyone else, had left. All of Beth's things had been packed quietly in the night, and taken away, probably in the first minutes after she'd fallen asleep. At least a note had been left, telling her to go to the Vernors' house and wait there. A likely enough thing to say, if you were giving someone the brush off. She could have at least mentioned that things were done.

  It wasn't so much that she'd felt like Beth owed her; if anything the situation would be the exact opposite. Beth had helped her get Mathews and while a few of the others that had been there at the sacrifice were still free, that had been the important one for her. Still, some hint that she'd been fired or something might have been nice. Maybe she could get a job charging crystals or something? Beth had mentioned that once, as something that might be possible. Or, maybe, if she could find a position, she could get a job as a loader somewhere? She had options, she realized. Even some money available from the Vernors, at least until they decided to dump her too.

  That thought made her smile.

  Was this then, what it felt like to be dumped? If so, then everyone was right, it felt horrible. Survivable. Sure. She'd felt a lot worse. Now she needed to move, to get things going and to not let herself sink into self-pity. That never helped, especially when things looked down. She stood, made her way to the bedroom and quickly packed everything, then did the same in the bathroom. In the kitchen, well, they had all that food, but most of it would keep. She'd ask Ethyl if the soup kitchen could use it or something.

  Then, the hardest part of this whole thing, for her at least, she called the Vernors. She didn't know what kind of response she'd really expected, but she didn't get it at all.

  “Gwen? Oh good! Are you ready then? Miss Westmorland called and arranged for you to stay with us. It's because of Yule, you see. We need to start in two days for the charity work... If you're still willing to help?” The voice hanging in the air in front of the spheres took a deep breath.

  “Oh! There were other messages from the Westmorlands too. A Heather Westmorland suggested that you run some kind of conditioning drills in this down time. She said you might know what that meant? And a Kelvin Westmorland suggested that you have some uniforms made to match Bethany's, that it would be important and that you get them as soon as possible. He tried to suggest they'd fund your clothing, but Robert and I won't hear of it. Oh and a very... odd sounding man named Darren Westmorland also left a message. I wrote it down, but I can't say I understood it all... Let's see. Ah, here. It says “Miss Farris, we've not met. I'll explain all this later. You haven't been dumped. Train hard
now.” At any rate, you should come over in case any more of them call. I can have your driver out to help you within the hour...”

  James didn't seem surprised that she'd be moving back into the big mansion, at least for a bit. He just helped her load the trunks of clothes and her small bag of toiletries and makeup into the big black lorrie he'd brought for the job.

  “The Westmorlands are more military than most, from what I've seen of them. They don't stay in any one place for too long, carry everything they want to keep and don't worry about things overly. If you're going to be working with one, you'd best learn the habit. Not that you need to hear such from me, ma'am.” He flushed a bit but went right on loading her things onto the roof of the vehicle.

  Palms going up, she sighed and then grinned at him a bit when he turned around. “If I don't hear it from you, then who's going to tell me? What do you think would be a good amount to get things down to, just in case I ever do have to move quickly?”