Abominations (50 page)

      The armored woman closed her eyes briefly.

      “Yes, that would do it alright.”

Chapter twenty-seven

      It took the whole night and part of the morning to get everything that could be done in motion as far as the search for Debussey went. A Westmorland, Darren, had been contacted over the telestator and given all the information they had on the woman. His job right now consisted mainly of finding people's locations, but he could do other things too, they told Gwen after the connection had been cut. For some reason they kept what exactly these other things were very vague. They spoke of him with amusement... and a bit of awe.

      Beth grinned and told her, “Gwen, Darren is... special. He does things that no one really thinks should be possible at all and does them constantly. If anyone can find her, he can.”

      At about ten in the morning, Darrick, who seemed to be in charge of the investigation now that an important duke had become involved, let them go home to get some sleep, requesting that they both remain available in case something requiring their individual skills came up.

      In the back of the white lorrie that James brought for them, Gwen turned to Beth and raised an eyebrow. “Since when do I have skills that may be needed? I doubt anyone here needs my great crystal charging abilities, right? And while I guess I did OK in that fight back there, most of that had to do with those Saracens hesitating instead of hitting or killing a woman, I think. If it wasn't for that, I'd be dead right now. Though if you guys need a web-site, I'm all over it.”

      Bethany laughed and leaned into her companionably. She rested her head on Gwen's shoulder and murmured sleepily that Darrick had just given her the same speech that any Westmorland in charge of an operation gave all the others involved each time they parted.

      “It just means that he forgot you weren't one of us, is all. Don't take offense. It was a long night for everyone...”

      Take offense? She thought, keeping the words to herself. That someone she'd just met had thought her competent enough to count as one of an elite group of what amounted to super-soldiers? She supposed that some people here would be offended. The stigma of the group being so great that being included would be off-putting. Maybe stupid people would think that or hate-blinded bigots.

      In truth it felt a little off-putting to her too, she realized, but only because she'd never had that happen to her before. Being included in a group like that. Any group. The closest she'd come to that before was the way that the Vernors treated her, or maybe the crew of the Peregrine. She'd been a medical subject, with a group around her, true. Even the head of web-design projects, but those were all done at a remove, online, so no one ever saw her face.

      This felt different. Darrick, even though tired and mistaken, had included her. That kind of thing would take time for her to get used to. For right now she had to hang on to consciousness until after they got home, exhaustion pushing at her, trying to drag her into sleep.

      In the apartment itself, a horrible thought occurred to Gwen. If this were a movie or even a videogame, then Debussey would be coming after them as they slept, when their guard went down. Probably in the bathroom. Yeah, they always waited for you to take a shower for some reason. When Bethany went to take a nap, Gwen blearily sat on the sofa in the living room, clutching a kitchen knife, just in case something happened.

      Nothing did of course, until around six in the evening, when Wilbur came to check on them. Bethany opened the door cautiously, after staring at it for a few seconds. “It's Constabulary Detective Wilbur.” Gwen realized that the woman had checked who stood there telepathically and the words had more to do with letting Gwen have time to hide the knife in her hand than not wanting to open the door.

      “Good to see you too, Miss Westmorland!” He did sound enthused and after the door closed behind him gave the woman an immodest hug. Bethany looked at the man kindly for a second then stood back, remembering that Gwen still sat on the sofa.

      “Hey... um... I've been up for a while now, you two up to standing guard while I try to sleep?” Gwen stood, knife in hand, making Wilbur's eyes go wide. Bethany smiled and gave her a playful wink, then told her that they could indeed stand watch for her.

      She slept for a while, dreaming of death and how many people she'd killed the day before. Body after body hit the floor as she pointed a broom handle at them saying “bang, you're dead,” to each one in turn. Finally a man came with a big knife, a scimitar, like the sword she'd seen earlier, this time made out of gray plastic. Her broom pointing powers weren't enough for him, because every time she said, “bang, you're dead,” he stopped her by calling out that he had an invisible force field.

      When she woke, it was with a start, wracked with a horrible sense of guilt over the men she'd killed. Tears flowed down her face, she kept the sobbing in so that she wouldn't concern Beth or Wilbur in the other room. After a couple hours of this, a soft knock came at the door.

      “Miss Farris,” came Wilbur's voice, sounding slightly amused. “There's someone for you at the door...”

      Gwen got up, realizing that she hadn't even changed out of her clothes from the day, no, two days before. She hoped it wasn't anyone she needed to impress, because that didn't really feel possible right now. Her eyes would still be puffy, from all the crying, even if her face was dry.

      She went out cautiously, still clutching the knife she noticed, which she must have picked up from her table while she slept. It amazed her that she hadn't cut herself somehow. When she got to the door, two masked men dressed in the all black uniforms that the Saracen mercenaries had worn the night before rushed her, swords drawn.

      She fought on instinct then, slashing with the ten inch kitchen knife as they moved toward her. As before, the men paused slightly before engaging, giving her a chance to jump to the side and cut first the one closest to her on the arm and then, using his body as a battering ram and shield all in one, as he responded to the pain, she slammed the other into the wall using the injured man.

      Slam, it turned out, was too generous a term. Nudged him into the wall seemed closer to the truth, as it didn't even stun the man. It did tie up his arms long enough for her to reach over the shoulder of the man she'd pushed into him and slash him across the eyes with the knife as hard as she could. He screamed.

      Reversing directions suddenly she drew the knife over the neck of the closer man for good measure, since he'd started to resist now, his momentary shock having worn off. The blade cut deep across the right side of his neck, finally rasping on bone, large splashes of blood going everywhere. She cut him across the face on her backslash, going for his eyes but missing. He fell to the floor and stopped making noise. She turned and kicked the now blinded man into the wall, which did a lot more than the little nudge she'd managed earlier, and cut downward across his neck as well, at an angle, slicing deep with the knife.

      Wilbur stood in the middle of the room, naked from the waist down, wearing no shoes, just a pair of brown socks. On the same sofa where Gwen had waited trying to stand guard earlier, Bethany lay naked, face down, tied up with rope in some kind of complicated fashion, her arms and legs under her, pushing her rear up into the air.

      After a moment, Gwen saw movement from behind and to the left of Wilbur. At first she thought it was Debussey, come to stop them from looking into the duke, but finally she made out who it actually was.

      Emma Forster.

      The undergrad that they'd already cleared and suggested to Debussey she take under her wing. Well, Gwen reflected a bit bitterly, that worked out.

      She didn't bother to think about what to do next, she threw her knife at Emma to distract her, knowing that it wouldn't do much – if any – damage. Knife throwing was more art than fighting skill she knew, since she'd practiced it for a while. It looked cool in movies, but the odds of a knife hitting and sticking in a real target were about twenty percent. These odds didn't go up much when you got better against targets either, the trick involved control of the throwing distance and the spin of the blade in the air. Besides, this knife had a rounded tip. Gwen just wanted Emma to focus on ducking out of the way – in case the woman turned out to be armed – while she rushed Wilbur, hitting him in the jaw as hard as she could with the palm of her right hand, pulling on his shirt front with the other. Because of her forward momentum, the whole move proved to be more than a little awkward, but the large man went down and stayed on the floor without moving.

      Emma had a small silver rectangle in her hand, like the one Darrick had used the night before. She brought it up as if to fire on Gwen, or whatever the thing did. It didn't make any noise or flash or anything, if she remembered correctly, people just fell down and died when Darrick had used his. Nothing happened, so Gwen flew at the slightly smaller woman, a novelty in her life, fighting someone that didn't outweigh her significantly, and began to beat her, mainly blows to the head, using palms, elbows and knees. After a minute of this, the woman stopped fighting even weakly, allowing Gwen a clean kick to the back of her head as she lay on the ground.

      She picked up the silver weapon and slipped it into her pocket, then retrieved the knife from the floor and cut the ropes that bound Bethany. Gwen helped her remove the gag that prevented her from speaking.

      “Wilbur was already under when he got here. I should have known something was up when he wanted to tie me up before sex. I resisted a little, but, well, I figured he was just being playful or something, so I didn't want to get too loud and disturb you. Then Miss Forster there came in. We need to bind them both, gags too. I don't think Wilbur knows any mesmerism, but who knows what they've been putting in his head. Then we need to call in Darrick and the others.” Bethany's head hung for a moment.

      “I'm so sorry, Gwen! I thought you were just being paranoid, insisting on a guard like that. I didn't think that Wallace could be compromised. He seemed fine at the door! Totally normal, only thinking about having come to see me and maybe... well. Yes.”

      “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.