Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel (17 page)

That
made sense. After all he'd just been serviced by a professional woman, and if
Gwen's memory was right and not just something she invented, Regina was the
man's
girlfriend
.

He
tried to cover at least, which told her a lot about the situation.
"Correct. I was under the impression that Doctor Professor Grainger wasn't
that impressed with the quality of her efforts yet, however. Did he mention her
to you?"

"No.
That's correct however, about her work, but I have some ideas that might help
her. I was also planning to hire her on as a tutor and lady's assistant, part
time. She's a friend of yours, isn't she?" Gwen realized that, after she
said the words there was no way for the poor guy to
not
take it as a
threat from her to blackmail or extort things from him. A dark letter.
Blackmail
.
Duh. The connection just clicked in her head, which probably meant she was
being far too distracted to have not gotten that before.

Carter
sighed.

"Well,
we were close, but recently had a falling out. She'd make an excellent
assistant however, if you don't mind a rather outspoken woman at your side all
the time. She... took up with another fellow in the program. It wasn't my
choice, but in such things you never really have one, do you?"

Gwen
felt relief pour over her and smiled, actually meaning it.

"Good.
I'd have hated to think I was sending Sally after someone already taken. Well,
all we need then is your alibi, which means your whereabouts for the murders
that took place, and why you're going to that region now?"

The
man looked away again.

"Honestly?
I'd heard that there was a problem with magics in the area and had traveled
there to find out what it was. I was on the train, for each of the
murders."

Because,
Gwen thought,
naturally
he was.

She
nearly fell asleep while questioning the man. It took more than a few covert
elbows from Bethany to keep her on task, and Carter finally called a halt to
things, seeing that she really wasn't doing well. He hadn't provided any kind
of proof that he wasn't guilty of the crimes, at all. In fact, if it were a
movie, he would have looked pretty guilty about then. The red-herring meant to
throw her off? In real life though, the people that seemed to be guilty
normally
were
.

That
would be sad, since they had friends in common, and the man had been in her
hallucinated world as a minor player and everything. That didn't mean he wasn't
a killer, and to be involved in that level of radiatives, he had to be
knowledgeable about magic in general. That part kind of fit, didn't it?

It
wasn't too great of a stretch to think that someone like him might know enough
about ceremonial magic to have a project that needed some death to make happen.
He'd probably had classes in the subject and everything.
Possibly
with
Erin Debussey. Gwen just couldn't get herself to ask that, not yet. If the man
was guilty, and Erin had gotten to him, then he might not even know it.
Magically enhanced mesmerism should have worn off by now, however. At least
that was the theory. Gwen wasn't really certain that was the case, in reality.
Not given the fact that Erin had been using some psychological reinforcement
techniques. If that was the case, then he might try to kill himself if he were
about to be captured. It had happened before, and she didn't want to lose
anyone else, if she could help it.

"We're
going to have to pick this up later. I guess that it's incredibly rude to do,
but I need to find a place to lie down soon. I know, I'm a wimp. Still, I'm
going to sleep, and might as well do it while flat, or my neck will end up
killing me." Gwen packed her notes away, by closing the little yellow pad,
and stood, which had everyone else standing up too.

Bethany
fixed Carter with a harder look than Gwen would have, and smiled. It wasn't a
flirty or good-looking thing either, but told the fellow that he'd better not
leave town. Gwen smiled too, if tiredly. What was the guy really going to do?
Hurl himself off the train? It was physically possible, given the speed they
were traveling, but she doubted that was his plan. He'd get all dirty, rolling
on the ground if he tried, and he just didn't seem the type to risk it. Not
that he seemed fussy, but he was just too well dressed for her to credit that
at all.

It
was, she figured, a mental failure on her part. People would do anything to
avoid arrest, right? If he had to throw himself from a slow moving train, she
had to guess that the man would do it, even if he wasn't a very physically
oriented person over all. Everyone would. Hell, for all she knew the man could
just float to the ground after he jumped, or even fly away. Almost no one could
have done that, but
she
could, so didn't it pay to assume that everyone
else might be able to as well?

Bethany,
being a good friend and kinder boss than most people would have credited, took
her by the arm and signaled Sam, the muscular porter, to attend them. He worked
his way over with a smile, but didn't ask what they needed, just waiting to be
told.

Beth
smiled tightly.

"A
sleeping cubby? One of the nicer ones, I think, if they aren't already
taken?"

The
man didn't blink about it, but started to try and take their bags again,
stopping when Gwen glared at him a little. She wasn't letting him have her
weapons after all. The man was bright enough to get that, without feeling
offended, she thought. He smiled and nodded instead, then gestured smoothly
toward the front of the rail car.

"This
way please, ladies?" He didn't start into pricing until they were all the
way out of the car they'd been riding in. At first she didn't get the reason
for it, but it clicked, the mental fog slowing her uptake processes, but not
stopping them all together.

It
was so they could opt for a less expensive option, if they didn't have the
funds needed, without being embarrassed in public.

"A
sleeper is ten cents per night, per person. A top sleeper is twenty per night,
per person, and it's forty for the best chamber. Per person." He looked
slightly uneasy, and stopped as if he didn't know where to go.

Gwen
handed him three singles. The ink and pattern was on only one side of the paper
script, not both, but it was very high quality for all that. How they stopped
counterfeiters she didn't know at all. She suspected there was some kind of
magical process involved, but she'd never just sat and tried to figure it out.
The paper was high quality, and not made of what people wrote on. Rag paper,
she thought, like the cash back home was.

"We'll
take the biggest one, whichever that is. Is that the best?" It made sense
to here, since size, not anything else, would be the thing that was expensive
on a train.

Sam
should his head no, however.

"For
space, if you don't have a price concern, I'd get two side by side Top
Sleepers. You only have to spend forty per night that way, for the two of you,
and you can leave the suite door open."

Gwen
shrugged, not caring if he got that at all.

"Sounds
like a plan then. Lead on, please?"

Sam
took them three cars forward, since they had a lot more space than they had
people to fill it. Then he let them enter the two rooms they were being
allotted, and ran to get their keys. It gave Gwen a minute to look at what was
in front of them. She'd expected small, even paying for space, and she wasn't
disappointed. The room had two stacked bunks in it, and while they were padded,
the things weren't exactly soft and high quality beds. They had sheets and
blankets on them, but looked like military issue things, not anything better.
There was nothing else in the room. It was about the size of a medium sized
walk in closet. Really, she was glad she wouldn't have to share, even with
Beth. They could have done it, and she wouldn't complain about it, but it
wasn't much room, if they were going to be traveling for several weeks.

She
glanced at Beth and smiled a little.

"So,
if we'd cheaped out, we'd be stuck sharing with Carter and Eugene?" She
was being a little crude, but Beth let her head tilt to one side and then she
sighed.

"If
we were lucky it would be Sally and Clara. It isn't unheard of on a crowded
train for such things to happen. These things are notorious for rapes and
harassment of single women. Most won't use them if they have any choice at all.
On this trip I imagine that everyone will have no more than a shared same sex
room however. If Sally is bright she grabbed the key for the room she'd gotten
for her services earlier, and certainly has enough to cover the cost of the
trip. You rather overpaid, I think. Her eyes went so bright when you handed her
ten mets that I thought she was going to lose herself in the moment." Beth
didn't explain what she meant, but her voice was playful, which probably meant
it was naughty.

Gwen
didn't have the energy to work that out.

"I
thought so. I wanted to give her enough money that she wouldn't stand on rules.
That she did it went a long way to confirming that she was what she said. I
should have insisted on watching, but..." She yawned. "I'm not a big
enough perv for that, I guess. At least I got to insult Clara. I'm almost
positive that if a pro said she did backdoor work back home it would have meant
butt stuff." She grinned wickedly, and her friend cleared her throat,
making her seem slightly stuffy.

"I'm
nearly
certain that it means the same thing here, and that she was
merely embarrassed to have it bandied about in public. Hence me offering
another thing for it to be. She took that rather easily, didn't she? It's not
like I know what things like that mean."

"Oh."
Gwen tried to care, but it wasn't happening at the moment. She pulled her pad
out and made a notation of that by the woman's name. She just wrote "butt
stuff". It was enough, she hoped.

Sam
came back, and just handed over the keys, not lingering at all. He had change,
which was a single note and a pile of coins, all decs. Dimes, basically. She pocketed
them all, and as soon as she had her room key, laid down on the bottom bunk.
Beth pointed at the door between rooms and opened it, but left it closed when
she walked through.

It
should have been hard for her to fall asleep, since everything in the room was
wrong for it. There was too much light through the side window, she was moving,
and the train, though quiet, moved side to side gently. For some reason that
didn't matter at all. She drifted off so fast and hard that she didn't remember
falling to sleep at all. Her eyes closed on their own, and then sometime later,
she woke up in the dark. Alone. Her head felt better at least. She hadn't even
worried about the monsters coming for her.

The
trick now was that she needed to sleep as long as she could, so that she'd be
able to be up when everyone else was later. In the moment however she needed to
find a bathroom. They wouldn't have showers on the train, but they had toilets.
If she had it right, that would be in the very last car. She worked her way back,
going through the several sleeping cars, and then finally the sitting car,
which only had one person in it. It was Clara, the bigot whore.

She
was drifting off, her eyes opening when she saw who was there, a small sneer
coming across her lips. She didn't speak however, looking away as if ashamed of
being there at all. Gwen didn't care, needing to see to her bladder rather
desperately.

"Restroom?"
She asked this softly, since the night pretty much meant that she wanted to
whisper the words for some unknown reason. It wasn't like there was anyone else
to bother at the moment, was there?

"Back,
three cars, it's in the last one." The answer came out sounding a lot more
kind than her facial expression would have indicated. For a moment at least,
she actually looked away awkwardly after that. Embarrassed again.

It
was a hurried walk to the little line of rooms, and she did her business, and
washed up a bit in the tiny sink with its little trickle of water that was the
only thing like it they had on the train. There was a dining car too, where
they could get food and water, but hungry or not, she and Beth hadn't gone to
get anything, and it would have to wait for morning she bet. At least her hands
were clean, after a bit of scrubbing.

When
she went back, the slightly hard woman looked away, her face set, until she
glanced at Gwen and actually blushed.

"I
didn't bring a lot of funds for extra's. Sent most of mine in for the relief
efforts last month." She might have been lying, but she was so embarrassed
that she actually blushed. It was one of those times where she didn't know what
the proper thing to do really was, given this place.

Thinking
about it, she realized that she was probably supposed to ignore the woman, and
act like she hadn't heard anything. That was what they did, when faced with
someone on hard times. It probably went double for whores. That this place even
had women that did that still amazed her really. It made sense, but no one had
ever mentioned it before. Of course, if Gwen were faced with a stranger from
another reality like her, she wouldn't have brought it up as a topic either,
would she?

She
looked at the side of the woman's face and then tilted her head.

"I
have an extra bunk in my room. It's the top one, and you'll have a Westmorland
in the space next to you, but it's yours if you want it? Everyone will think
your working, most likely, but I don't care if you don't. I just mean that you
can sleep there."

The
professional women blinked at her, and seemed worried for a moment. That Gwen
figured it would be about her not wanting to seem like they were doing
something, apparently showed just how different her mind worked than some of
the people here. After a bit she realized it was that polite thing they did
instead.

"I...
that's a most kind offer, ma'am. I wouldn't want to impose. Wouldn't your...
Westmorland, object? I was a bit coarse with her earlier. What if she rifts in
her sleep or something and I'm right there?"

She
looked at the woman, and realized that her first impression, that the woman
just wasn't all that bright, had really been true. It wasn't just ignorance,
there was a tone to her words, a stumbling quality and slowness to what she was
saying that implied that she just wasn't all that intelligent at all.

"Well,
first, Bethany doesn't do
that
, so it isn't a problem. Most Westmorlands
that go out in public can't. So if you ever meet one, they're safe. Second, if
you were near one that did, you'd never even know it happened. If you have to
die, that's the way to go. You do know that they didn't take out the Capital,
right?" She'd said as much earlier, but the woman still looked doubtful.

"Who
else could? You have to be one of them in order to do it. Least wise that's
what I always heard."

"Sure,
but only from people that have no more information about it than you do. If you
want to really learn about Westmorlands, you should just ask them, personally.
You have one right here on the train, and if you apologize for being mean to
her, I bet she'd tell you whatever you wanted to know, except for
how
to
rift or top secret things like that. But, you know, day to day things."
She knew no such thing, but it got the woman to stand, looking only a little
nervous. She pulled her two suitcases from the overhead bin, and started to
struggle along with them. Gwen put her hand on one of them, and the woman
stiffened, their fingers touching.