Friends and Enemies (Gwen Farris Book 5) (18 page)

"This is rather different than I'd been thinking, yes. Even if it isn't... We can't leave you running around able to do that, can we? We can't stop you from leaving either, and even in a cell..." She seemed scared, which was better than having a PC in her face, if harder to take.

Because now her buddy was considering a real betrayal. It almost ripped across every part of her being, and screamed at Gwen with a force that had to be telepathic projection.

"Honestly? It isn't that big of an issue. The fact is, I
won't
rift. Anywhere. I won't give away the secret either. Even if it means dying. I can't do it by mistake. It's too hard.
Way
hard. I pretty much can't be taken over, and you know that I'll die first, before letting anyone do that. Well,
Kate
can take me over, but you said that she really doesn't have my magical skills? So she knows
how
to do it, but can't, herself?"

Beth went pale, but slowly began to nod.

"That's true. All of it. What are we going to do though? Trying to kill you, which is the only thing I can think of to stop you, would force you to fight back. Adam just wanted me to move you away from this current situation, and to make sure you wouldn't lash out, being under the stress that you are." She pulled the PC again, and shot Gwen with it.

The wave of light that hit her tickled. A
lot
. She tried to jump away, but Beth held her under the beam, smiling a bit.

Enough that even with the shock of it taking place it made her giggle.

"Okay, enough!
Eek
! So you weren't
really
going to force me to go and waste a month of my life? That's good to know. Risky, coming at me with a tickle attack, but I guess I can forgive it, this once."

She sighed, and shook her head.

"I really
do
have orders to get you out of the city here. Adam... You know that he doesn't actually hate you, don't you, Gwen? He really did do all of this with your best interest at heart."

Gwen let both her eyebrows come up. She really wanted to slam o
ne
up, the left one in this case, but couldn't do that yet. It was a shame too, since she really wanted to steal Mr. Spock's line about things not being logical. Instead she went with her own words, which just weren't the same.

"Sure. He loves me, and secretly wants me to tickle his..." She stopped, not able to think of what he might want rubbed by her that was naughty and silly enough not to sound gross when she said it. "Whatever. This is a convoluted mess now, and it's a bad,
bad
idea to leave me not knowing what's going on right now. I thought we were past that kind of thing. Haven't I proven myself to you people enough yet? What does it take? I helped saved the world twice in the last year. Is there some reason to hide things from me? I
thought
it was all about me being too dangerous, but if you didn't know-"

Bethany Westmorland
shrugged
. It was strange enough that Gwen got it. She was well and truly confused, too.

"It could be that Adam and Mona worked it out.
Or
that they have access to prescient information that says leaving you at Park Street isn't the best plan at the moment. Or it could be a thousand other things. I do know why, but I'm not allowed to tell you. What are we going to do? If we tell them that you can rift, or even think you can, they won't be able to leave you alone, will they?"

That all made sense, and her first response was to freak out a bit, and plan out how to flee. Run away, probably to Europa, or some different portion of the Western Kingdom, where at least she spoke the language.

Then she shook her head, Katherine's voice coming out.

"You Westmorlands are silly, like little children, aren't you? Go and tell them that Gwen can do this, and that
you're
able to handle her without issue. After all, you just threatened her life, as far as she knew, and what did she do about it? She stood there and
discussed
the issue with you. You know that
I'm
not able to do anything she can, so that isn't a problem. Then we'll go and follow the little plan that Adam came up with for us. You know Gwen, I really do think that you're too hard on him. I bet you'd get along better if you had sex with him."

She rolled her eyes, meaning she had control over herself, even if Katherine was coming out unasked like that, and shook her head.

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. The man can't
stand
me. If I offered to do him, he'd probably cut it off first, just to keep himself pure and safe from me. He'll probably have me killed over this. I really just figured that he knew already. It should be obvious, shouldn't it? Once you have the needed information and skills, you can rift." She nearly said that it wasn't hard, but that wasn't the case.

It was nearly impossible. The big thing with the Westmorland program was that they had to nearly kill people in order to get the job done. Erin Debussey had gotten it done too, but no one knew how exactly. Using her new technique, to seize minds.

Kate did something to their face, around the mouth. It wasn't a smile, or grimace, but she didn't know what it was at first. Then she figured out that it was her fighting a smile.

Because she was also fighting a chuckle.

"Don't be ridiculous, Miss Farris... He's a Westmorland. He could no more order your death than he could ask you to the ball. Now the
king
could have us killed. If what we've been told is true however, I don't see that happening. If he wanted that to happen, he'd just get on the Telestator and tell you to do it, for the safety of all. Which you
would
, being a bit of a simpleton that way. Why would he risk himself or his people against you, when all that would be needed is a sensible argument?"

There
was
a bit of truth to that.

Beth smiled, but didn't mean it, and did it too hard, the whites of her eyes showing all the way around. That was a thing that Gwen had seen before. Terror. Normally it was all about her, but she could tell that it was a bit different this time.

The Detective ran out, not looking back, since the thing that scared her wasn't behind her this time. It was in front of her.

"Great. Well, any bets as to how long we live now?"

There was a pause, and then an answer, which seemed to be surprised.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much. You dying right now would be a scandal, and one too hard to hide from your supporters. Now, if they could claim
I
took over, and perhaps killed you in some way, then it would be fine. It's one of the reasons that you're truly safe, Miss Farris. If I did more than you allowed at any point, things would
not
go well for me."

It was probably just her, but Gwen felt confused.

She'd gone from thinking that the Elder Gods had brought a man back to life, to realizing that Adam Westmorland was a prick inside an hour. Her best friend had held her at PC point, but it had been a joke, meant to tickle her. Not kill, or hurt. That was a good sign. She hoped that was the case. A test, meant to see what she would do. What Katherine would do maybe, if threatened.

She didn't forget the fact that she'd straight up had a legit sense of the Elder Gods coming for her, at some point. That part was odd, since in the main, that kind of thing was no more than a minute or two out from her in time. This felt like it would take a while. Months, or years. So far off that she couldn't see it as relevant, as frightening as she found it all.

It still kind of hurt that her friend had kind of betrayed her, even if it wasn't for real, so she tried to think her way through it all. What she'd been seeing from everyone was probably all about her mood, and not her new abilities, and the fear that might have brought about. If that was really the case, she might well actually die that day. How anyone could have missed that she'd be able to do things already didn't make sense to her.

It would happen suddenly, if that was the case. Part of her brain suddenly leaving its rightful skull room. Teletransported away without warning. Gwen would learn about it about the same time she fell down. Coming at her head on, or worse, ordering Beth to kill her, wasn't going to work, was it? Even if she didn't fight using her new ability to rift, she could run from anything now. Armed men? Well, they'd have to catch her first.

That the Westmorlands might be able to do that was just a thing. One that couldn't be gotten around easily.

They were good, and could take her out, if it came to it. If she pushed them too hard that way, they might just send in someone to rift wherever she was, without warning. Which was overkill, since she really wouldn't do that kind of thing. Like she'd told Beth.

Would Adam Westmorland ever believe that however?

She ended up waiting there, alone, for over an hour. It was long enough that she started to get a bit antsy, and was about to go and see what Beth was up to. Possibly with some secretive eavesdropping involved. She came back almost exactly at the point Gwen had been about to go crazy and start running around the room in a big circle, just to have something to do.

When Bethany came back in, she seemed relaxed, and
didn't
have a real weapon in her hand. It was either a very clever trick, meant to lull Gwen into a sense of false security, or a good sign.

Her friend seemed genuinely pleased however.

"Well! It seems that no one is nearly as concerned about your new abilities as we are. They didn't know it was the case, but Adam and Ferdinand were both pleased to hear about how sensible you're being about everything. In fact Ferdinand has offered to allow you to come to his summer home, instead of on the investigation that Adam recommended. He still wants us to go do that, however. Adam, I mean. There are enough things involved that are interesting that someone needs to see about collecting that data. It might as well be you and I, don't you imagine?"

Gwen didn't see it, personally, but why not? Travel was a thing that she'd never done much of in life, so going and seeing a different part of the kingdom seemed like a good idea to her.

"Should we abandon Ethyl and Robert right now though? If we stay here, there's that many more people left to protect them, if they come under attack. What would have happened that first time, if they hadn't had me to stab? I should be near, if nothing else. What if they need me?"

There was a snort then, and Beth waved at her.

"Teletransport. If anything happens, you can be with them nearly as quickly that way if you were locked in your bed chamber."

She could see that, but wrinkled her nose. She tried at least. It would help to practice it in the mirror.

"By that token, I could just stay here, and go do the investigation stuff, too. During the day. Both of us could. They don't need us on The Falcon as loaders that badly, do they?"

It
was
possible, since a lot of people from the air shipping service had left, months before, and rejoined the Air Navy. There had been some pretty serious terrorist attacks going on, and it had made sense. The thing there was that Gwen had helped deal with that already, but the men and women that had joined up with the military would still be under contract for several years. It had led to some personnel shortages.

"I don't know about all that. I was just thinking it would be fun to go and do something. You're still recovering from the stress of that attack, and then what we did to you in training. If you were one of us, a Westmorland, you'd be on soft duty for at
least
three months after all of this, back to back as it was. I guess that's what Adam is thinking for you, too."

Gwen shrugged, "I hope that's all it is. The problem with trying to be all tricky like this is that now I don't really trust him. I keep getting flashes of this being a trick, or trap, coming from him. I can't figure out why, so it's bugging me." It was coming from Beth as well, but she didn't say that.

The woman was her best friend, but when it had seemed she was done with her, and about to betray her, Gwen had bought it.

There hadn't even been a moment of hesitation about it.

That was because, she knew, in the end you were always on your own.

Chapter eight

Gwen hadn't gotten much sleep, as they traveled. No one had expected much from her, but the Vernor Industries fleet wasn't exactly meant to hold passengers. They'd been tucked into tiny quarters, sharing a room, once they were on The Falcon. It was one of the staterooms, too. What officers would have gotten if they were working the cruise.

The craft itself was vast, taking up a lot of the large hangar it was in. Hundreds of feet long, just for the gondola section under the bag. It had taken several minutes to walk to the room they were in, which was in officer country. Up front and near the top, being on the fifth of the six decks the thing had. The load of goods was carried on the bottom, for the most part.

For some reason everyone seemed surprised when she climbed into one of her tan jumpsuits, and headed toward the loading bay. From her time on the Peregrine Gwen knew that everyone was needed to do that work. The boring and physically challenging part of the whole thing. It sped things up and shared the load, if nothing else. So she was a bit shocked when everyone there looked at her like she had two heads on her shoulders.

"Ma'am? Can... I help you? Do you need the galley, or to see the Captain?" The person that spoke to her was a younger man who had the clean cut look that a lot of the people on the boat did. Ex-Air Navy, most likely. Why he hadn't joined back up was a question, but the simple answer was that the guy had probably gotten out in the last month, so just hadn't had to bother.

He seemed polite enough, but looked concerned, as if she were trying to steal something. Not that she was going to get away with it, if she tried. The space was too large and open for that.

"Here to load. When's the next wagon coming?"