Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel (2 page)

Gwen put the pad away and stood, then
stretched a bit, her arms going over her head. It wouldn't have been polite, to
do that in public, but it was her own room and Beth was a bit more free
spirited than some of the people here. She didn't seem to notice at all.

In fact, she seemed a little
preoccupied.

"The first leg of our journey will
begin in the morning. We're likely to be gone for several weeks, and possibly
longer, depending on the nature of the case. There are some strange reports
from the area. Mainly the ones of magic simply not working at times and then
restarting later. It's one of the reasons that Central is sending
us
in.
If my abilities falter, it may be up to you to ensure our safety."

Gwen rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure Adam put the request in
for me personally? He does love me so." There was sarcasm in her words,
and she smiled after them. The man
didn't
love her. In fact, if she had
a Westmorland enemy, it was Adam, their boss. She thought it was just that she
was an unknown, or something like that, but whatever it was, they didn't get
along well at all. It was his fault too. She had her moments, and
could
be a bitch, but that man was an asshole all the time. To her at least.

"No, I believe it was actually
Darrick
that put in for you and I to catch this one. He holds your
capabilities in high esteem you know. Especially your ability to get things
done without utilizing magic. Adam wanted to send in a whole Special Service
cohort, but that was overruled. The odds of this being more than some kind of
magical ritual sacrifice are low. Most crimes such as this, multiple murders,
are, after all." Bethany smoothed the front of her dress with her right
hand, moving over the small bulge made by her power conduit. Gwen didn't have
one on her, since no one here walked around armed all the time. Except for the
super-soldiers.

Well,
and
her, but this was part
of her own bedroom, in a safe place. She'd actually forced herself not to carry
anything for the moment, to try and keep from moving into full blown paranoia.
So far it wasn't helping, but she kept trying. Taking little steps.

After all, it wasn't like the universe
itself was really going to rip open in front of her, releasing things from an
unknown hell dimension to destroy them all. It just
felt
like it would. All
the time. It was the one thing that everyone that had been there for the event,
when Doctor Debussey had tried to pry open reality using mass death, to let the
Elder Gods into their world, agreed on. It felt like they were going to be
eaten up by a mountain of fear and death at any moment.

All the time.

She looked up and didn't let that sense
of things win. It wasn't going to happen, and pretty much couldn't. It had
taken the fear of a good chunk of the world's population, and a lot of human
sacrifice to get it nearly done that one time. She and the others, mainly
Westmorlands, had closed the rift themselves. It wasn't an easy thing to do,
either way. Some man or woman in their basement wasn't going to manage it by
accident. Her fear wasn't going to accidently cause it either. She'd checked on
that with experts, several of them, and they all agreed. They were safe from
that.

"Ah. Well, part of my new wardrobe
should be in tonight. We'll need to travel light, and be ready to leave
anything that's too heavy, if we're going to have to walk. Are we going in as
innocent travelers, or as Special Service? The uniforms at least don't have a
skirt. Well, at least if we don't get invited to a fancy dinner." She was
joking, a little, since it was well known that she wasn't wild about dresses
and skirts. Some of her new clothing reflected that, being what people called
women's
suits
.

Wearing one pretty much told the world
that she was either a magician or a lesbian, but Gwen didn't care about either
of those things. They were a lot more practical, if you had to fight, which
always took top billing in her own mind. The uniforms were even better, and
while hers were tailored, they were still cheaper. All in a nice dark blue too.
It worked, as a color for her now. Not that she was getting
vain
, but
Katherine was only in her early twenties, and her face and body were
attractive. Like the plucky sidekick on the vampire detective show she used to
watch. So a real world eight or so. Solidly good-looking.

Beth nodded, almost making Gwen blush,
fearing the woman had been reading her mind or something. She could do that,
with work. The Westmorland protocols had been used to help make that difficult
for her, to protect her mind. She didn't do it often however, which was nice.
They had a signal worked up, in case Gwen needed to tell her something in
secret, which was touching her left temple. She hadn't done that though, so it
was probably safe.

"My thought as well. We'll go in as
officials, in working uniforms. If nothing else it will keep the mashers off of
us. A bit at least. There are always some. Well, that can't be changed today.
What do you have planned for the afternoon? More writing?"

She shook her head and put the pad away,
though she was going to take it with her on the trip. That was one thing she'd
learned about this place. You learned to keep busy. If you weren't actively
working on something you had to make some kind of entertainment. That or go to
a show, or, as a last resort, listen to the Telesar. That was basically radio,
but if it was built by mean spirited hate mongers to spread their message. Not
all of it, but the majority was that way. Even the nice stuff could be a bit
catty at times. Some of the music was catchy enough however.

As long as you listened to the right
stations. She liked the instrumental things. It was sort of reminiscing of big
band music from the nineteen thirties or forties, she thought. Back home she
hadn't listened to a lot of things like that. She was more of a modern pop or
classic rock kind of girl. You adapted though, or died. She was pretty certain
that was a real thing too. She had to keep learning the rules, or she just
wasn't going to make it.

"I was thinking of practicing in my
armor for a few hours, going on a run and then seeing if you and Charles wanted
to spend a bit of time on unarmed combat? We need to keep in practice. That and
go over my own magical studies later." That last part was new. She had
some tricks, thanks to a bit of brainwashing, and they were very cool ones too,
since she could just point her finger at someone and blast them with a bolt of
energy,
and
fly. Not that far, only a few miles, and not that fast, but
still,
flying
. It was awesome and she couldn't claim otherwise. Even if
it had been forced on her.

The magical practice wasn't for that
however, though she still needed to do that, because...
awesome
. It took
work to stay good and to get better. Everyone said that. So she'd been trying
to keep her hand in daily. Everyone else kept looking at her funny about it,
except the Westmorlands, who seemed to think she was one of the only non-lazy
regular people on the planet.

She had the time though. Even after she
packed. Gwen got up and started to do that without comment, which had Bethany
leave, presumably to do the same, once she caught on. Nobody said goodbye here.
It had taken her over half a year to learn why that was too. Any word could
become a spell, if a powerful person said it with the right amount of focus or intent,
so the superstition was that if you said goodbye, you may never see a person
again. Like a curse.

So when you were going, you just walked
away, without saying anything.

Her single canvas pack that looked like
it was old army surplus, and the more normal clothing bag, were both packed
inside about ten minutes. Then she went over what weapons to take. She sort of
wanted to pack along her magical Combat armor, but didn't bother to think about
that for more than a few seconds. Even if they could use magic, the stuff was a
pain to lug around on a journey. If magic went out, which she was assuming
would be the case, given the reports, then it would just be a hundred pounds of
metal or more. She didn't know for certain how much hers weighed, but it was
nearly impossible for her to carry any distance alone. She might make a mile or
two, if she had to, dragging it behind her. That wouldn't work for their
mission, and they sure as heck wouldn't leave it, if they had to leave on foot.
So it needed to stay in the little room that the Vernors had provided them for
it.

She decided she would take her little
reddish PC, as well as a Crin and several knives. She kind of wished she had a
real gun too. They worked in this world, they'd just never really been a
thing
.
Why would anyone bother, when the magical versions worked and were more
familiar to them? She'd seen some, brought in by some very bad people, from
another world, but those were all off with the royal examiners, or whatever
they called them.

The image that popped to mind was of a
giant warehouse that was filled with identical crates that all said
top
secret
on the side. Then, most of her idea about reality had been formed by television,
and the rest by movies. Well, with the occasional attack thrown in. That, she
realized, probably wasn't the healthiest way to grow up.

Tucking the last of her knives into the
pack, she found Mrs. Vernor standing in the doorway, her hands in front of her,
clasped a bit nervously.

"Dear, I was just going to sit down
to tea, would you and Bethany like some, do you think?" It was hard to
tell if the woman had something important to discuss, or simply wanted to be
polite. She was so good at what she did, social things, that it might be either
one, and the only way to find out would be to go and see. It was the accent
that did it, Gwen knew. Everyone sounded slightly British to her here. At least
in the Western Kingdom.

Smiling, but only a little, to show she
was pleased, she nodded.

"That sounds great. Beth and I have
to be off in the morning. To investigate those murders that have been in the
papers? The ones on the trains?" It wasn't like the case hadn't been
covered. After all, who killed people on a moving train? That was weird and
that
,
naturally, meant it was newsworthy. Just like in her world. Unusual things were
news. Always.

"Oh? That sounds worrisome.
Couldn't they send someone else? I can have Robert put in a word, perhaps, with
some of his contacts? Or you could speak to King Ferdinand? He's rather fond of
you." She said it very genuinely, which nearly made Gwen tear up. In her
entire life she'd only known one or two people that actually
cared
about
her like that. All of them were
here
too.

More than just two, she realized,
counting in her head. More than ten.

"Nope. Beth and I are actually the
right people to send in on this one. If I talked to Ferdinand about it, he'd
probably
still
send us. If magic is going to be spotty in that area, who
would
you
send?"

Ethyl Vernor was a society wife, but
also a good person, and not exactly a fool. She'd run an anti-terrorist squad
during the attacks that Doctor Debussey and her evil crew had been using to
create fear after all. In one case that meant going in to a bomb scene to
protect people herself. She actually took the information she had, and thought
about it for a bit, then sighed.

"I understand, dear. Make certain
to stay safe however. I... Well, perhaps we could speak of it over tea?"

That meant collecting Beth, who was
already packed herself, even though she didn't have a backpack.

"We need to get you one. Like mine.
Just in case. If we're running for some reason, I don't want you slowed down,
trying to lug that duffle around. I bet Charles has something that will work,
if we aren't too picky about appearances?" The thing there was that people
there were sensitive to that, almost always. Even the poor would wash
everything they wore and iron them daily. Even if it meant not having money for
food in order to do so.

Women didn't go out without makeup on
either. Even in uniform they'd have to have some along. It was a pain in the
rear, but it was the nature of the place. Their house, their rules. Writ on the
largest scale imaginable.

Their
universe
.

"Is that a logical conclusion, or a
prescient insight?" Beth looked at her coolly then. That, learning to tell
the difference was actually part of her magical training. Along with a whole
lot of reading.

After all, if you had magic, and all it
took to learn about it was reading and some practice, why
wouldn't
you
do it? That most didn't bother with it all that much amazed her still.

Dropping into a focused state, she
cleared her thoughts and tried to feel the sense of fullness that indicated to
her that magic was taking place. That or a tingling, but it was almost always
like a mild pressure when it was in regards to the future. It shocked her, but
it was really there. She thought. She took a few minutes, and finally nodded.

"I'm still learning, but I'm going
to go with it being prescient. We should have you drop into your own state for
that before we leave, just to double check it all. You're so much better at
that than I am."