The Mask of Omegon (Gwen Farris Book 6) (18 page)

Too close would have her hurt or
dead. Interestingly enough, no one else seemed to be there. At least no one
came when she called out.

“Hello? Anyone home?” She felt a
bit like a sneak thief, breaking in like she was. The interior decor was rather
plain, holding what seemed to be offices, along with desks. On the first floor,
toward the back, there was a complex piece of machinery made all of metal. A
printing press, she thought.

The stairs were also back that way.
On the third floor she found her man, behind a brown door that said Tomas Moore
on it. Not his real name, for some reason. Possibly to protect the Harrison
family reputation from his odd hobbies. It could have also been about him being
so cool.

She knocked, which had her
boyfriend standing there, smiling, not too long later.

“That was quick.” Then, looking at
her he blinked a few times. “
Gwen
! I thought you were the lunch order.
Come in! Come in. I didn’t know that you even knew about the offices here. It’s
the print location for the next books? I wanted to make certain I had some
things done up ahead, in case I run out of time for it? Since I seem to have
other plans coming up. Come in, please.” Rather than be shocked at her sudden
unannounced arrival, the man genuinely seemed happy to have her there.

So she did that, going in, then
looked around with a bit of curiosity. It was a bare place, meant to be worked
in, not a secret cave filled with proof of Omegon’s vigilante ways. That was a
good sign to her mind. It was one thing to have a rich fantasy life. Another to
live it all the time. If nothing else he was keeping up with a good level of
security for his special projects.

“Neat. How long before lunch
comes?”

“About… Ten minutes? Why?”

She nodded then and hugged the man
around the neck. Then she kissed him.

“We should hurry then? Otherwise
we’ll get caught, which would be embarrassing.”

The door was shut with a soft bang.
Being propelled by the back of her left heel like it was.

All they really got to do was kiss
for a few minutes, cuddling while standing near the door. Then she had to help
Tomas get the lipstick off his mouth and fix her own before the delivery man
came with the food. That was a bit of a treat, since it wasn’t just some kid on
a bicycle that showed up. No, the cart she saw out the window was pulled by a
donkey, had two wheels and a blue umbrella over the whole thing. It wasn’t a
hot dog cart either, Gwen didn’t think. Mainly because the food was delivered
in ceramic carrying boxes. The ones from the day before being returned by Tom
when the uniformed man delivered it all, in his basket.

The guy was older, very thin, and
dressed in all white, with a red bandana tied around his neck. It was different
than anything she’d ever noticed before. Then, this was the real world, if a high
level of it. Middling high, at a guess. Tomas seemed a bit embarrassed by
something, so it might not have been as posh as all that. No mets changed hands
however, which meant it was something done on account, or prepaid. You couldn’t
just put things on a credit card in the Western Kingdom, she didn’t think.

Not that anyone had mentioned to
her at any rate.

It didn’t take too long for her to
work out what the problem was though. After the man left, Tomas looked at the
white boxes on his desk and then gave her a strained smile.

“I didn’t know that I’d have you
here for the meal…”

Gwen got it then, so was able to
smile herself.

“Ah! Okay, I can handle that one
then. I knew that
something
was going on. I just didn’t understand what
it was. Cool then. I’m a few hours ahead of you, so had lunch earlier and it
isn’t dinner time for me yet. Anyway, I have some news on things? We’re both
expected at the Peregrine tomorrow. Which is early, but will let us get locked
on to what we need to do. I have to do my new telesar program first. It’s only
an hour a week. I should be able to keep up with it, if I’m careful.” She had
to go over the whole idea then, adding in the part about not knowing if she was
allowed to mention him or not.

“After all, we just started going
out. We’ve only been on
one
date. You might not want to be attached to
me or anything. This way if you get bored in a few weeks, or decide I’m a pain
in the rear, which I
am
, you can just skate. You know, stop taking my
calls?” Not that it would help him much, since she could just show up at
random. She probably would too if he didn’t get in touch often enough. Not that
she wanted to be the clingy psycho girlfriend. It was just too easy to find
him, now that she knew who he was.

He grinned at her, setting himself
up to eat, since it was his meal time and everything. He still seemed a bit
uneasy, however.

Like he was starving her or
something like that.

“You know, I think we should
announce it, if it comes up? Is that too soon for you? I know that I won’t be
hurt by being linked to you that way in particular. As it stands I’ll be
thought a pervert soon enough, if I don’t show at least some interest in a
young lady. Not that I am one, but appearances must be kept up.” The man
brushed at his dark brown hair and shook his head. “That sounds worse than I
intended by far! I just meant that I don’t hold a secret that way. It would be
annoying to have others think of me in that light, that’s all.”

She got that part, she thought. For
one thing it would make it harder for him to pick up an extra woman on the
side. Not that she wanted to encourage that kind of thing, but it would
probably happen. She was kind of strange after all. Exotic, possibly, but also
just weird, compared to people that had grown up in the same world that Tomas
had. At least she assumed as much.

“Cool then? I can work it in if
anyone asks? If not, then I won’t. It isn’t really their business.”

He started eating then. After a few
bites he set down the small fork he was using for what seemed like a tiny
portion of coleslaw. It was almost a paste, compared to what Gwen was used to
that way.

“Gwen? I heard something rather
troubling yesterday. About you?” He didn’t look up at her but did swallow as if
it were something serious.

“Oh? Which thing? I have a few new
ones to go on about. All of them are mainly taken care of for the time being,
as far as I know. Hopefully it’s one of those? That would either be the one
where I foolishly went into battle to get some prisoners of war back or the
tabloid… Um, The Scan? They managed to get photographs of us doing some things
at the hotel the other day? Literally through the keyhole. You didn’t show up
in those by the way. I
did
, pretty well. Enough so that it really did
look like me doing it.”

Her boyfriend went a bit wide eyed
at both of those and shook his head.

“No? I mean I’d heard about the
first one in the news. Where you’d gotten prisoners back? Not the particulars,
naturally. A secret operation of some sort. I figured that I’d be best served
simply asking about that one, if I’m allowed to know? The pictures… What are we
going to do? I suppose I could hire some men to make certain they never see the
light of day. Dark work, but your reputation…”

She rolled her eyes then, but
smiled.

“I already stole the pictures. The
negatives, too. That part isn’t a problem at all now. Without those all they
have are rumors that I was doing something in a hotel. Which I was… So, fair
enough. If it wasn’t either of those, then what did you hear?”

For half a moment she was going to
bet that it would be pretty bad. That Tomas was going to tell her about how
everyone in the world hated her. That, or how she’d made some kind of massive
mistake. A social error that would show just how alien she really was. Then, after
half a second, it occurred to her that being from a different world was
actually a pretty good excuse for a lot of things. Not
all
of them, but
enough that she could just pretend that using the wrong fork, or overpaying,
were just things that she’d grown up with.

Tomas looked over his shoulder, as
if suspecting that someone would be spying on them as he spoke.

“It was that the Vernors are
keeping you against your will, with the help of the King? That wasn’t what I
noticed the other day, but if it is like that, I can help you escape.” There
was an earnest expression on his face, as if he thought that it might actually
be true.

Gwen laughed a bit, trying to make
certain she wasn’t being a bitch about it all.

“Ah. You mean how they keep me in a
mansion, let me do whatever I want,
when
I want and keep offering to
give me all their money? Lucre?
That
diabolical prison they have me in?
Well, I suppose, if you look at it that way. A prison of obligation? Except
that they don’t try to make me do anything at all. Even Ferdinand doesn’t do
that.
Except
getting in my way when I suggest doing things that might be
too hard, or uncomfortable. Then I occasionally have to go behind their backs.
Everyone here seems to think that I’m made of glass for some reason.” It was
kind of a constant refrain, but Tomas at least seemed to get what she was
saying.

Which was close to a first that
way. Even the Westmorlands sometimes acted like she was a delicate flower. Then
they’d turn around and help her into great heaping portions of pain, but no one
had ever said they were exactly sane as a group.

Her boyfriend, a term that was
still kind of wild to even be thinking about for her, just nodded a few times.
Clearly working things through.

“I suppose I can see that now.
Knowing that you can teletransport at the level you can kind of puts the quiet
to that idea, doesn’t it? I… You might be able to go home, even. If you wish? I
looked into it a bit, reading up after the other day. That kind of thing isn’t
truly unknown. Part of you should identify with it. Resonate to that frame, so
to speak. So if you merely try hard enough, it may well work.” He sounded a
little sad about suggesting the idea.

That didn’t stop him from
mentioning it though, she noticed.

“Um… don’t tell anyone… Or I guess
it isn’t a big deal, really. I’ve
been
back. Time… This world runs more
slowly, I guess? Differently at any rate. It’s hard to imagine really, but when
I went it was nearly a hundred and ten years after I left there. Everything I
knew was gone. It had changed massively too. I have a friend, Jake, who’s from
the same time.
He
did it the hard way though, living through it all. You
should meet him sometime, if we ever get a chance. Zack, Ben and Brian as
well.” She spoke nearly without thinking about it. At least until he swallowed
hugely again. It was nearly a gulp.

“I suppose I can’t begrudge you
having…
Friends
. Are you close to all of them?”

Gwen, having grown up watching
sit-coms was fairly well prepared for the set up in front of her. She’d
mentioned a bunch of guys, so her new boyfriend, not knowing better, would see
them all as threats to his claim on her. That was because, apparently, when men
were friends with a woman, they actually wanted to bang her. At least that was
what television had taught her. It was probably even true. Not that it had ever
happened to her in particular. Except that now, in Kat’s body, it might.

“I know, you’d
think
that,
right? The thing there is that we
are
remarkably close, just not in a
way that would make any sense at all. Jake is just from the same town that I
was. Westwood. So is Billy. Um… Okay, that one needs to be explained! He’s my
brother? As in Gwen’s flesh and blood brother, from the same world? He goes by
Darren Westmorland here. But he’s really Billy Cavendish. Darren, the real one,
switched places with him by accident, learning to teletransport, when Billy was
sixteen.” She paused, waiting for the man to have a problem with that part, but
he simply nodded, as if letting her know that he understood that high
strangeness easily enough.

She grinned. After all, that was
rare to see happening.

“Sooo. Jake is from the same town.
We’d actually met, I guess, though I don’t really remember him from back then.
Anyway, he became this big religious leader there and lived for a long time. He
looks pretty young still though. Zack and Brian… They’re both me, from
different realities? Before you get
too
squicked out, half of
you
in other worlds is a girl, too. It’s just the way things really work. So, in a
way they’re kind of like brothers, I guess.”

Tomas lit up a bit then.

“Ah? So that’s promising. I was
worried you had a bevy of attractive men already lined up to be my competition.
That sounds much better. You mentioned a Ben?”

She nodded at that name.

“He’s insane. I mean… Gone in the
head.
Really
powerful telepathy? Now Dareg… He’s
Ben
, but from a
different world? He seems to be all right that way. A wizard? Really powerful
as well. I think
he
might like me. Then, he’s getting married soon, so
that probably isn’t that big of a deal. I should get them something. If I get
invited I can take you with me to the wedding? It will be in a different
reality, of course.”

Rather than suggest she was insane,
her boyfriend just started to eat again. After a few bites he tilted his head.

“That sounds amazing. We should
turn it into a graphic novel, or possibly books. Even if they’re real, it’s not
like anyone would believe it.”

The words got her to laugh a bit
again.

“No doubt, right? They are though.
I should make an effort to get in touch with some of them soon. Otherwise Zack
will probably come and look for me. There’s this massive war going on… You know
the thing about Debussey, right? Her and her friends trying to bring the Elder
Gods back to gain power?”

Instead of saying that of course he
knew, or nodding, the man went totally quiet and still for almost half a
minute. Then he took a single large breath.

“I was in college when that
happened. We were all lining up to go to war after the rifting of Worthington.
No one knew what to do at all. Erin Debussey… I’d seen her, many times. She
always wore man suits and seemed rather self-important. I wasn’t in any of her
classes, thank goodness. I did have religions with Baron Mathews however. He
vanished. I never did find out what happened to him.” The tone was musing,
instead of probing or anything like that.

Gwen locked eyes with Tomas then,
deciding how she wanted to play things with him for real. After all, she had a
few dark secrets in her life, but that was really one of the biggest ones.

“He and the others were the ones that
got Katherine to bring me here. In my world… Erin Debussey was my mother. Don’t
worry, I didn’t know her there or anything. Billy says that I didn’t miss
anything except crazy though, so I’m not that worried about it. That’s why I
was brought in though, so that Erin could sacrifice her daughter to open the
hole in space. It nearly worked. She had to kill my younger sister from this
world instead. It’s convoluted, but the original idea had been to kill me in
order to save the little girl. We didn’t manage to save her.”

It was a thing that still kind of
haunted Gwen. It would have even if the girl wasn’t in some strained and weird
way her sister.