Beguiled damsel book 5, p.21
Beguiled (Damsel Book 5), page 21
At least it felt like that, until late in the day, after having missed three full meals, and barely drinking any water at all, when she headed back to the camp. It was then she noticed that the others were doing their training, and both Devy and Kate were sitting at a small fire, staring at it, seeming at least as dead as she felt.
“So, you weren’t napping all day, either?”
Devya, looking almost exactly like her sister, groaned.
“No. I was moving all over the country, playing taxi for the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons.” She glanced at Katherine, who nodded, tiredly.
“I was working a different project but it wasn’t easy or anything. How about you?”
“Prisoners and clean up teams, mainly. Materials for that, too. Well, good. Not that you were abused too, but that I can whine without having been the lazy one. So, you know… Whiiiiine.” She grinned after making the nasal tone. “Worse, I’m letting the Trainees down. I’m supposed to be here, patting them on the back and telling them they’re doing a good job.”
There was a nod, if a small one, from Devy.
“I know. Still, we, all of us, took back all but seventeen of the escapees. Inside hours, not years. People are kind of impressed. Rick was called and congratulated by the President already.”
That had Kate, dressed in fresh camping style clothing, to agree.
“Lashondra was as well. That doesn’t happen every day for The Requiem. Hitoshi and Red Menace are still hiding. Too well for us to find, so far. Really, we need you in on that. After you sleep? You did it before.”
Hannah had, but there were parts of that she hadn’t shared with her friends. One that had her wincing, now.
“I… Managed to move inside the field, once. It was pure torture, but… I can do it again. I think I can probably break it, now, too. Only…” She shrugged. After all, if it hurt like that, it was probably going to be damaging her. It wasn’t just a bad migraine. It had felt like her head being ripped in two, with burning spots inside.
No one spoke for a while, then Devya nodded.
“Just find where they’ll be? If we can do that, it will be enough. I heard that your group… Handled the worst ones for us?” The woman was hard seeming, but not a killer, by nature. Even if she thought it was the right thing to do in the moment.
Not that anything in her face or body language indicated that idea. She just seemed blank about it.
“Yeah… I… Brought them in, buried in the ground, with only their heads showing. That caused an explosion each time. Most of them didn’t survive it. If you have to do that, make sure they’re at least a football field away from you, each time.”
Her best friend, Katherine, winced.
“That’s horrible. That you had to do that. It worked, though? We might all need to be able to do that, soon.”
“It works. Not a hundred percent. Some of them walked away from it and had to be taken down in other ways. Having Null shut them off, then shooting or stabbing them, that worked each time. Pairing Don with Vidya is pretty close to brilliant. He could work well with Luther, too.”
That had been one of the pairings the night before. She didn’t go into it, not caring enough at the moment. After a while of sitting, planning to go off to the shower, if she could drag herself that far, Molly and Kevin came over, with mugs of hot cocoa and plates of food that seemed almost restaurant quality. It was an identical dish for each, of chicken and rice pilaf, but it smelled good.
“This looks great. Thanks, both of you.”
Kevin chuckled.
“Thank Kara. She worked out how to get the food directly on each plate. The hot chocolate is just hot water with a packet, and kind of sucks. I did that part. Amazing, right? It’s not wonderful, but coffee in the afternoon seems like a horrible idea.”
Nodding, Hannah drank some of the beverage from the metal cup. Kevin was correct. It wasn’t good at all. It also wasn’t evil, just not being high quality. The temperature was perfect, so she drank half of it.
“Yeah. I need to go to bed early tonight. Molly, you’re my buddy for that? So, you know, get ready to wake me up in the morning, if you have to. Be careful, if that’s needed. Stand back and talk to me, don’t yell or try to shake me. I sleep with weapons on me.”
The slightly round girl seemed annoyed by the idea, but Hannah didn’t let her off the hook. The girl nodded, slowly.
“Hopefully we can all sleep after all of this? This… Well, everyone in charge thinks it’s incredible training, don’t they? Just enough practice, with real things for us to try and manage, at the same time. Kara mentioned that Hitoshi was still out there? We have to catch him. He killed… I lost friends, when he took out everyone with Black Soda in them. Five of them. I know that almost everyone knew someone, but I’m not letting him get away with it.”
Given that the girl could blow up a large chunk of the world, if she wanted, as well as take in hit teams, possibly small armies, she might well be able to back that up, pretty solidly. Instead of telling her not to be silly, since little girls didn’t take on super villains, Hannah simply drank more of her cocoa.
Devya raised her own cup, almost as if toasting.
“Agreed. Hannah needs to sleep first. The same with everyone else here. There’s very little we can do right now, that the major teams can’t. We’ll find him. You can help get everyone in place and we’ll let the top fighters do the hard part? That might sound weak, but…”
Molly, plump and young, looking decently cute, even without makeup, laughed then. It wasn’t real at all.
“I hear that. When they send me in to fight the bad guys, you know things are getting desperate.”
Hannah had to agree with that. She nodded even.
“You and me both. Which, yeah, Hitoshi doesn’t walk from this, even if it’s just us going for him. Red Menace… That was a set up the whole time. I can’t prove that, but it almost had to be. Demon magic was involved. The man is possessed. Which, well, that doesn’t tell us a lot, but it might be a lead to whoever is behind all of this? We’re under massive attack, but we don’t know who’s running things at all, do we? At least not that anyone told me yet.”
She looked at Katherine, who was better connected in certain areas than she was, just fixed her with a brown eyed gaze that was almost dead inside. That was held for a long time, but she didn’t explain it, or speak. That probably meant she knew things and wasn’t going to talk about it. There could be a real reason for that, of course.
In magic, it was often thought that saying the name of a powerful evil was the same as summoning it. On the other hand, Hannah wasn’t a superhero or on any of the teams for that. It could be that she was simply being kept out of the loop, because she wasn’t one of the gang.
She could have taken that personally, but didn’t. Several of them had asked her to join them and she’d said no. It left her free to act, but also would have some downsides. The big one probably being held away from all the real information that way. To that end, she needed to get with people who would share things she wasn’t supposed to know with her.
Which meant John Fawks, so far. There was a real danger there, since the man wanted things from her and would lie, to get them. If someone told you that about themselves, you needed to pay attention. Even she understood that much about life.
If nothing else, he might know more about the demon inside Red Menace. After all, if the man hadn’t been making things up to impress or scare her, he’d been the one to put it there in the first place. The man could lie though, which was also a thing she had to keep in mind constantly, when working with him.
None of that was taking place that night. No, as soon as she ate, even if it was too early, Hannah decided to curl up in her tent for twelve hours.
Chapter fourteen
“Hannah? Time to get up.” The voice was that of a girl, or at least a young woman, even if she couldn’t place it at first. There was light coming through the side of the blue tent, but the face of the female form, standing with her back to the open cloth doorway, was black. Shadowed enough that it was impossible to tell who was there.
After a moment, her eyes open and hands creeping toward the forty-four on the ground next to her, she got the idea. It was Molly, who had been asked to get her up, if it was needed. More to the point, she worked out that anyone gently calling to her wasn’t a real threat. So, instead of arming up for a fight, she sat up and tried to seem cheery.
It came out sounding like she was a sleepy little kid.
“I’m awake. Thanks. Let me…” She stood all the way up, and blind from the introduction of light to her eyes, grabbed her shower gear, and headed out, with Molly moving first, so she wasn’t blocking the way. It was freaking early, Hannah understood. The fires hadn’t been started yet, for instance. No one else was even up. Not even Max was out and about.
She didn't have a watch on, but looked up, realizing it was probably about six in the morning. That meant it really was time for her to be awake for the day. That the girl had gotten up in time to get her was impressive, since the lack of bodies meant that it had been a late-night training, the day before.
“Let me get cleaned up quick and then I’ll get the fires started for the day. Unless we’re doing without?” She didn't know the plan that way, so acted like it was up to Molly.
Who of course, took it to be a directive for her to do the work. Which wasn’t what Hannah had meant at all, but was better than the woman being too lazy.
“I can do that. I mean, I had lessons the other day. I don’t suppose you have matches with you?”
She did, so nodded. Using a bow drill, or worse, bare hands and a stick, was a poor plan for that kind of thing.
“In the outside center pocket of my pack. Raid it. I have some pine resin crystals collected in a baggy. They work well to keep the fire going at first. Get that, too.” The light amber colored collection would have probably had her arrested, if any cops found it, of course.
Not because it was illegal, just because they probably wouldn’t understand what they were looking at. Not at first. She didn’t explain how to use that, but by the time she was back, feeling more awake, dressed in clean, if casual clothing, with her weapons on her person and running shoes on her feet, Molly had a small, but real, blaze going.
Rather than congratulate her for being competent, Hannah smiled and used the first fire to build three more. Then she took the bucket over to the water spigot, about a hundred feet away, making trips for a while, to set water to warming, filled pots sitting next to the burning wood, not really getting hot. It wouldn’t until they could situate things on the coals directly.
It did mean that, about an hour later she was able to sneak in and raid Max’s stash of coffee, which woke him up for the day as well. Unlike with her, he had a weapon pointed at her head, as he did it. She couldn’t tell what the man was planning to end her life with, but she did pick up that speaking would forestall it, so went with that trick, first thing.
“It’s Hannah. Stealing coffee.” Her voice was hushed, since the man might want to go back to sleep. Instead, he moved the gun down, which looked like a short-barreled shotgun, and chuckled, gently.
“Near the back here, in the plastic case. Not that it would stop a bear from smelling it. I should hang it up, but the truth is we hit the ground running here and I just didn’t get to it yet. Today. You can help me with it.”
That sounded fair, really. The whole training event had been her idea, originally. Not even a plan that anyone else had much to do with. She thought about that and cleared her throat.
“Yeah. You know, this thing became way more official, suddenly. Liberty, from The Society? She’s kind of in charge there… Anyway, I told her about it and she kind of started to act like it was an official government project, for some reason, instead of some basic training for a group of regular kids. Then I got carried away and put everyone in to have superpowers, with the committee that decides that sort of thing. It hadn’t been my plan, at first. The rest of this… I don’t know.”
That uncertainty was, she realized, about taking Kevin and Don with her the night before. The others were adults and really, Don Welling was as well. Old enough to be a soldier or cop, even. He was in college, but wasn’t a freshman. She’d never asked, but he looked to be about twenty to twenty-four or so. In an age range that her dating him wouldn’t have even been creepy.
“I… Kevin shouldn’t have been out there last night. We killed about fifty people. I mean, it had to be done, and I stand by that, but he’s only seventeen. He didn’t have to kill anyone, but he was there for it, the whole time. I’m… He shot at people. That might have killed one or two. I’m not sure.”
Max, setting the shotgun down, nodded as she moved toward the set of food filled plastic cases.
“In the top there. As for the boys, you might want to ask them how they feel about things, instead of assuming that you did damage there, first? Don mentioned that they both had some kind of training so it won’t impact them as much, which was why they were selected for it?”
That was, of course, more or less true.
“VR training. We all shoot and stab people daily. Hundreds of times, really. It looks and sounds pretty realistic, which… I mean, really, we’re all basically war veterans, in our heads, due to that. I killed a bunch of people and don’t feel a thing, other than having a slightly sore back. I’ll get with them both on that. The whole team, really. Good idea.”
There was a slow nod then.
“Now, June is involved in this? That’s… Well, I’d claim it was too strange to believe, but she called to tell me that Marina had children she hadn’t bothered to tell us about. Not that I didn’t know, before that. Larina got in touch as well, about you. Not really on the same topic. She wanted me to sweet talk you into working with her, instead of with your grandmother.” He stood up then, as she found the package of Folgers crystals, how that was different than coffee grounds she didn’t know, but she grabbed two of them, and the dry creamer container. That had been opened already. There was sugar and fake sweetener as well. It was hard to carry it all, so if she had to shoot or stab anyone, she planned to drop it, first thing.
“Did Larina know who you were, from the show?”
The man nodded.
“She’s seen this face before, so worked it out instantly. June didn’t get it, but that was about her not having watched The Life of Kate or much of the mini documentary we were in. I blame being old for that. I wouldn’t have watched it either, if I were her. I didn’t, in fact. I barely bother with television. We didn’t have that when I was a kid. Just to be clear, we didn’t have radio, either.”
The voice wasn’t even sly, just speaking as if it was clear that Hannah knew all about the subject matter of the moment. She didn’t. More to the point, she hadn’t.
“Just to be clear… Are you my grandfather, or another brother of his?” It could even be something else, of course. That being the case, she wasn’t too surprised when the man, seeming old and decently hard, chuckled.
“Neither. I’m the uncle no one ever bothered to tell you about. The twins are my much younger sisters. Different mother, same father. I can see them not mentioning me, actually. Larina needed to learn how to be a shape changer, when she was a kid, so was packed off to spend a few summers with me in the woods. Marina came along, too, but she was never that fond of living off the land or learning to hunt, which was pretty much all I had for her to do, back then. I tried to get them both ready for life, but Marina was a little sad, as a kid. She never was willing to simply use her abilities. I didn’t know why. I think it had to do with why my father, our dad, left. That wasn’t like him, really. He just walked off one day, from what I was told.”
She nodded, and waved for him to follow her.
“Got it. So, any other family members I need to know about?”
The man gave a nod, and grabbed two coffee pots, which hadn’t been left out.
“We’re a normal family, only a bit spread out, in time. Everyone with the shifting gift, or who’s ultra-long lived, is pretty much still around. There are cousins and all that. There’s a good chance that both of the girls have other kids. I know Larina has a boy, out there somewhere. He can’t change shape, but has the long-life thing Mom does. I don’t know a lot more than that. Really, short of asking directly, I don’t know that any of us do, really. I imagine there’s about a dozen or so people that we could look up, if it becomes important? Nate is your younger brother?”
She grinned then, as she walked, the man following her to where Molly was tending all the fires, by herself. That scene had Max grinning.
“Great work, both of you. I was just telling Hannah here that I’m actually her uncle. I worked my way into the show last year, using some old contacts of mine, after reading about you in the paper. Just to see what kind of a person you were. That was different than I’d figured on, to be honest. I’d been flat out told that all of you girls on the show would be crying and carrying on the whole time. Instead, you handled it like you were born to it.”
Interestingly, Molly, seeming curious, nodded.
“That was pretty cool. I watched the whole thing. I hadn’t realized that I’d met you before, at the time. Hannah… There was a thing, a while back. I’d opened a portal, like the fifth one that I’d ever done, to impress my friends. We were at this haunted house, and… Well, it got stuck open. Then these people showed up, and Hannah talked me through relaxing, so it would drop.”
Max winced.
“I saw you open that portal the other day. It works like a magical one?”
“Right. It isn’t magic, but a portal is a portal, I guess? Anyway, Ali, my teacher, he told me that everyone there had been ready to kill me, to make it drop, before it could go rogue and take out a big part of the state we were in. Except for Hannah. She’d just talked to me like it wasn’t a big deal. Standing there, about to die, smiling and telling me that I had infinite chances to get it right. That worked, thank God.” She shook her head a bit then blew out a gust of air. “Then I learned to do it right. It’s pretty safe, now, but… Yeah. Hannah saved my life and I hadn’t even known it at the time.”
