Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel (7 page)

They
weren't rough about it, but the guards took the woman out, bodily, one of them
daring to pick her up, ignoring her feeble and untrained kicks. As she was
nearly out of sight, she screamed, but it had words and wasn't in pain.

"I
hope you die. As soon as possible!"

There
was a tickle of magic that came with the words. More than a little bit, in
fact. It hit rather like a slap, and Gwen had to wonder at the force of it.

Bethany
Westmorland, Detective, Special Service Operative, and in her own way,
humanitarian, hit Lisa Wendell in the side of the head with every bit of
strength her body could manage. Against a man the move would have rocked a
person. Given the size differences here, it took the blocky woman to her knees,
even with two large people holding her up.

"You
cursed
her? A death curse at that? You stupid little twit! Hold her.
We're going to have to get the local constabulary involved, I'm afraid. We
tried very hard to avoid that for you, Lisa, but now you've left us no
choice." The men actually moved in on the women, though they looked
scared, rather than manly or stoic.

Even
Christophe seemed terrified. He went directly to Gwen and proper or not, put
his hand on her arm, very gently.

"A
death curse? I... Under my roof too. Yes, Clemens, lock Miss Wendell in her
room. See that she has nothing with which to harm herself with. We can't let
this get any worse than it already is. Gwen, you'll stay here, of course. I'll
call in the best experts in the field. Don't worry, we won't let this harm you.
The very top people will be here within the day, and-" He stopped as
Bethany shook her head lightly. It was very deferential, since the man was a
Duke, and she was conditioned not to challenge him too much, but Christophe was
actually smart enough to realize it meant more than her dismay.

"Miss
Westmorland? Do you have an idea that will work better?"

She
let her mouth go tight and then nodded.

"Yes.
Much better, actually. It won't be fun for Gwen, but the truth of the matter is
that the very best person in the world at breaking curses like this happens to
be a Westmorland. Not that we need to bother her. Lisa just isn't that strong.
We have protocols for this. Don't let it worry you, by morning we'll both be on
our way to our next destination, and there won't be any harm done at all."
She didn't seem happy about it, and that meant she was
serious
when she
said they had protocols. That was pretty much Westmorland code for torture Gwen
until she can't be cursed, didn't it?

She
made a face, but tried for a wry look. She'd been practicing that one in the
mirror too. It was one of her better ones, but there hadn't been a lot of
chance to use it yet. This seemed like the perfect time.

"Well,
that
should be fun. We'd best get to it then, before I lose my nerve.
Anyway, Chris, let's actually stay in touch? I'm working for the next bit, and
that could be for months, but I'll see you at the party, if possible? If not,
you should definitely go anyway. We'll set up my new helper to handle the
Teletransport on that. Peter Westmorland. You'll like him. He's twelve."
She added that last bit so she wouldn't have to go over the whole thing about
it just yet.

For
once someone just nodded, as if a male being anywhere near a female wasn't a
huge and vast crime just waiting to happen.

"Peter
Westmorland. Very good, I'll remember the name. I'll be in touch with central
for that then and let them know. I can do that now, since the promotion."
He could have seemed a lot sadder about taking his father's place, and he still
had a black band on his left arm, but the truth was, the old Count had been a
pain in the ass and had always looked down on his son and heir, because he
wasn't magical enough. Over the years that had to wear away any real family
feeling that a child was supposed to have for a parent, Gwen supposed. She
didn't really know, but was her own situation all that different? The Farris's
had turned out not to be her real parents at all, just some people paid a lot
of money to watch the deformed and crippled girl like they were. They'd never
mentioned anything about her not being theirs, but they'd pulled back, after a
while.

Probably
about the time the money had run out.

As
it stood, she doubted that anyone in her old world would have even found her
body yet. She didn't go outside very often and owned her little house. The
power would be off, but there was no landlord to come and see why she hadn't
paid her rent. Her "parents" might send a card, twice a year or so,
but they didn't call very often, and she was known for dodging calls. It could
be years before anyone figured it all out.

Even
then, it would probably just look like she'd gone to sleep one night and her
deformities had finally killed her. Maybe it was for the best? She'd lived her
life largely alone, and died that way. Now she had a new life, and even
prospects that were sort of amazing.

Like
learning to break curses.

That
should be fun. She was lying to herself, actually, and fighting a physical
convulsion, just from imagining the pain that was coming. It took a lot to
force a smile, but she did it gamely enough, and touched Christophe on the arm.
It was enough that he flushed a bit. People here took a lot of things that were
pretty innocent as being flirtatious.

Then,
the man had just asked her to marry him. It seemed about right to her.

"We
need to go. I'll try to stay in touch, like I said."

"I,
as well. Until we meet again, Miss Farris?"

"Until
then."

It
was very formal, but she thought she got it about right. She hoped so anyway.
This was her first on and off again relationship, after all. The news that he'd
actually broken up with her because he thought she wouldn't want to see him was
interesting, but overall, she'd never held any hard feelings at all toward him.
It still might not work out, but it was worth trying. Provided this death curse
thing didn't kill her.

Beth
had seemed pretty confident though, so Gwen tried not to think about it and to
just keep walking beside the woman, after saying her goodbyes. Once they got to
the lawn she pressed the top of her Teletransport sphere and walked forward
again, with her friend simply being there about ten seconds later.

They
walked into Park Street without knocking, since they lived there, and Beth
sighed at her, with a very odd look on her face.

"I
should have seen that one coming. It makes perfect sense, really. Duke Aubry is
a little low on the marriage scale, but a Duke, none the less. For your part
you're the woman from another world, which really does mean that most people
will have to give you much greater allowance than they would anyone else. It's
a good match that way. I'm sure that Ethyl will be most pleased to hear about
it. It might even take the sting out of the whole death curse. That silly
little monster, cursing a person like that in anger. She could get the death
penalty for that, even if you don't die." The tone was far too casual and
without worry for Beth to think that last bit was the plan. A little hesitant,
maybe?

Gwen
nodded.

It
was probably the truth, all the way around. It was a good thing. She nearly
blushed again, but thought she managed to prevent that. Katherine's looks were
fair, so it really showed when that happened.

"Great
idea, telling everyone, well, let's do that first then? Then recharge the
crystal packs in the spheres and all that? I'm betting that I won't really feel
like doing it in the morning." Not that she knew that, but her friend
seemed to agree. It wasn't a great sign.

"I
need to connect with Central and have some people brought in. We do need to get
to this in the next few hours, I'm afraid. On the good side you should only
need to do this once, and you can rest on the first train in the morning. It
isn't like we won't have days of travel to get things done."

She
walked away, not even looking back, and worse, smiling. Hopefully over the
engagement. Gwen walked around for a while before finding anyone, since the
place was just that large, and the woman she found, a thirty-odd year old
serving maid that she recognized, but didn't know by name, pointed toward the
back of the mansion.

"Mrs.
Vernor is back in the master office. Is there anything else ma'am?" She
seemed a bit eager to get back to her work, which seemed to be dusting at the
moment. There was no harm in taking pride in what you did though, so Gwen
nodded.

"Just,
I know that I've been around for a while, but I'm a bit shy, believe it or not.
I don't know your name, and have been too embarrassed to ask."

"Oh?
I'm Andrea, ma'am." She looked down, as if expecting to be punished for
having a name or something.

"Gwen.
Well, good. That's one name down and only about eighty to go. I'll see you
around, I guess." The words felt really awkward, and the woman in front of
her, seemed to feel she was being put on the spot, so Gwen walked out, careful
not to say anything stupid, like
goodbye
. She hadn't realized that
people could curse others on purpose like that. From the reactions of the
others that had been there, it seemed to be about the same as pulling a knife
and slashing away would have been.

Important,
and very serious, but not at the level of say, body theft. That was one of
their most feared crimes here.

Mrs.
Vernor and her husband were both sitting in his office, looking worried and
tense when Gwen found them. For them. It showed around the mouth and in the set
of the shoulders mainly. It was a dark thing, and when they both looked up at
her, neither smiled.

Gwen
did. Then she waved her left hand a bit.

"That
thing with the letter is all cleared up. Christophe's secretary seems to have a
crush on him and heard him mention something about thinking that breaking up
with me might have been a mistake. She reacted rather harshly to that news.
Beth and I have that in hand." She waited a beat, to see if that would get
either of the others to relax a bit, and it did. In fact there was a light
chuckle from both of them, which sounded identically relieved.

Robert
spoke first, explaining.

"Excellent.
A secretary can be gently reminded of her place and things set to right without
much trouble. It would have been a lot harder if the threat of a dark letter
had come from a Duke. Did you see the man at all? If so, I take it that his
part on this is in the best interest of social grace?" He'd shifted into
some secret code that she didn't understand at all. She wasn't even going to
try and guess really.

"I
don't take your meaning." It was the polite thing to say, though it did
imply that one of them was either a bit dense or being improper. She'd gotten
that one down.

After
a bit, and taking a deep breath first, Robert tried to explain it to her.
Again.

"Duke
Aubry isn't insisting that this is nothing but a prank on his secretary's part?
He isn't trying to shield her from correction?"

Gwen
got it then and shook her head.

"We
made it a matter of personal honor, so we didn't tell him all of it. I'm not
telling
you
either, since it would embarrass the woman, Lisa Wendell,
more than we should allow to happen. Unfortunately she got a bit angry when
Chris asked me to marry him again, and I said yes, so she sort of put a death
curse on me. Some Westmorlands are coming in soon to help me learn to break
that. So, you get the idea, another long night, probably with screaming. We
should probably set up in one of the far wings for it, so everyone can
sleep."

She
had, she realized looking at their faces, broken the poor couple with too much
conflicting information at once. They were normally very proper and knew just
what to say, but even Ethyl just sat there, her mouth alternating between a
smile and terror. Then a happy expression with raised eyebrows, and another
horrified expression.

Robert
just shut down totally, clearly being more focused on the news about death
curses and more Westmorland style training.

"That's
not a good thing, a death curse. The woman is in custody, of course? That sort
of thing can't be allowed. How confident are you and Miss Westmorland that you
can break this? Tricky things, curses. I accidently cursed a boy at school when
I was ten. He was a bully and deserved what he got, since it was only that he
learn better manners or not be able to move, but I was caned daily for a whole
month. I nearly died just from that." He didn't seem happy in his youthful
remembrance, but went on. "To do that as an adult is attempted murder
however. We can't allow that to stand."

Both
the others looked at her, worried again, but she wrinkled her nose and forced a
smile.

"Beth
seems to think that I can do it and be at work first thing in the morning. I'll
probably end up sleeping on the train though. The part that you should be
focusing on is the marriage thing, I think. If I can hold on to it this
time." She wondered about that, but Ethyl smiled now, clearly looking
happy for her.

"We
should have him over soon then. To dinner perhaps?"

"I
invited him to that party? As my date, given everything. I'll need to send a
proper invitation, or at least get you to do it for me, if I'm out of reach. He
already said that he'd be coming however, even if I can't be there. No one
wants to miss one of your parties after all. Not among the people that
count." She was flat out lying there, but Ethyl gave her a rather vicious
look that seemed thrilled to hear about it.