Damsel no more, p.4
Damsel: No More, page 4
part #1 of Damsel Series
There was a pause then, that lasted for long enough for a group of pterodactyls to fly past the mouth of the cave, as Hannah turned to look at them. When they flew past, she turned, half expecting to find the enigmatic and wise seeming woman gone. Instead she found her there, in her simple costume, smiling easily.
“You can leave this place and no one will ever have to know about it. Turn your back on what will come otherwise and live a good life. Others will suffer for the lack, but you can have everything you might dream of, without effort. It will all be handed to you, like it always has been. There is no harm in that. Having a gift you didn’t earn isn’t a moral wrong. That is, in fact, the nature of such things.”
Hannah tilted her head, then shook it.
“No. I get the idea. I’m rich. I’ve never wanted for anything. The hardships of my life have been minor things that people would make memes about if they knew they existed. Except for the times when I nearly died, or was taken away, to use as a bargaining chip. I won’t let other people suffer the same things, if I can help it. No one will lack for high priced little soaps, not with Hannah de Peyser on the job!”
There was no grin after the words. From either woman. It was out of place, and insane sounding, she started to apologize, when Lashondra nodded.
“Very well then, Hannah. Come back here tomorrow, at dawn. We will begin what training you need. As I mentioned, I won’t be doing all of it. Your path through reality is, in the end, rather different than my own. That is to the good. Most who walk the path I have end up going mad. If you can avoid that, you should.”
Hannah stood then, and turned, to look at the waterfall, in the back of the giant cave.
“So... Is this some kind of illusion, or virtual reality thing?”
Lashondra nodded.
“In a way. You could also call it an alternate reality. That or the land between worlds. All of those things fit, in a certain fashion. It will be different in the morning when you come back. Just a basement, most likely.”
She nodded at the unusually dressed woman then.
“Because you were putting on a show to impress me?”
That got a laugh.
“Oh, no Dear... I was putting on a show to frighten you away. It didn’t work, so now I’m going to have to put all that effort into you...”
Then, almost magically, the cave vanished, leaving both of them standing in an empty, but clean, basement. Under a house, outside the city.
Chapter three
The trip home took too long for a sensible commute, and as always, Hannah arrived home in darkness. Not that her schedule wasn’t about to change. A thing she wasn’t truly looking forward to. Getting up after too little sleep once was possible. Doing it every day, which she had to assume was the point Lashondra was making, having her arrive at dawn, would require actual effort on her part.
It wasn’t until she settled on her sofa, in her living room, pondering the wisdom of a glass of wine, that she nodded to herself.
“She had a different reality... In her basement. That... is not normal.” Not that it couldn’t have been something else. Mind control or projected thoughts from the woman herself. Even from someone else. Hypnosis was also possible, though not really. Hannah had been hypnotized before, to help her remember what had happened during various kidnappings. It didn’t create different worlds like that.
She recalled smelling the damp moisture of the waterfall and feeling the air on her skin, as well as seeing and hearing the whole thing. Virtual reality was another possibility, of course. Not that it really mattered how it happened.
Oh, it was impressive if it was real, but clearly something odd, even if it was just a high-tech show. None of it had scared her though. Not as much as showing up at some stranger’s house like she had.
“I can’t believe I did that.” It was, even if it worked out in the long run, going down in her diary as one of the stupidest things she’d ever done.
Not that she wasn’t going back, the next day. After all, if Lashondra could make her basement into a cave like that, the woman might just have a trick or two that could help Hannah out.
That idea settled, for the moment, she tried to recall what had been spoken of, looking for clues as to what she was going to be doing. For all it sounded hard and unpleasant, there hadn’t really been a strong sense of a specific plan or anything like that. More of a we’ll see what comes, kind of vibe. There had been a lot of information though, dumped in a short time frame. A lot of it about her, which meant doing some work.
First, and possibly easiest, she called her father again. It was late, but only about ten in the evening. He’d still be awake. Probably working, too. The man simply did not get the real point of being incredibly wealthy, and never had.
He picked up, on the third ring.
“Charles de Peyser here.”
She spoke then, after clearing her throat.
“Hey! It’s Hannah... I was wondering... Is it possible that I’ve had like... Thirty-seven death threats and a lot of assassination attempts that no one mentioned to me? A bunch of stalkers, too? This is kind of important, so I need the truth. I’m checking someone else’s data, for veracity.” Even if it would be fairly frightening to learn about.
A bit of a betrayal, but she got that part. People wouldn’t have wanted her to worry and wouldn’t have thought she needed to know about that kind of thing, since there was nothing she could do about it, being a little princess like she obviously was. The words could have pissed her off, but this time she simply grinned at the idea. After all, short of using force, no one was putting her in a box any more. Not inside her own head.
After a moment of silence, her father cleared his throat.
“That’s... Close, actually, you have to understand, I wasn’t trying to hide things from you as much as...” There was dead silence then, as if the man had stopped even breathing. Probably thinking that his bratty teen daughter was going to scream at him and force a large load of drama into his lap.
A thing that started to happen, until she sighed.
“I get the basic idea. We can’t do that any longer. It’s part of the changes I’m planning to make. I’ve arranged for some training, so I can protect myself. Part of that means I need to be informed about any threats that might be taking place. For instance, do you have anything on the Red Trio?”
There was a clicking then, the sound of a keyboard being used, rather efficiently.
“They’re still in New York, though not in Manhattan. I have a man who does some work for me... using special abilities. A psychic of some actual skill, in fact. He thinks that they will attempt to harm you again, in three days. It’s not as clear as his normal efforts that way, for some reason.”
Hannah felt a knot of fear, hearing about the idea, then forced a dark chuckle.
“Got it. That’s probably because, if worse comes to worse, I’m going to be out of town, out of reach, when that happens. See, this new communication thing we’re doing is already paying off!” She sounded a bit bitchy then, so laughed again. “I heard that they won’t actually come for me again, from a source of my own, but there was no claim of psychic powers that way from him. The guy who handed them their behinds? He just figured their psychic would understand that doing that wasn’t going to easily work.”
There was a sharp inhalation then.
“You met this person?”
She thought about not mentioning what had taken place, since it was very weird, but if she ended up buried in the woods, missing suddenly, someone needed to understand what had taken place. The biggest risk was that her father, sensibly, almost had to tell her to avoid people like that.
Because he was her dad.
“He found me, last night and teleported into my apartment. A man, or at least I think so. He wasn’t a giant or anything and sounded manly, but these days that could be a lot of things. He had telekinetic powers and like I said, seemed to teleport. He also didn’t get mad at me when I went flying at him with kitchen knives. They were just taken away, then I was floated in the air... Then...”
There was a soft gasp from the cell phone pressed to her head. It was making her ear warm.
“Did he do anything to you?”
Hannah got to nod then, since it could sound like that.
“Other than make me float in the air, so I’d stop trying to kill him? Not really. He apologized to me. For getting in the way earlier, before I could kick the Red Trio’s behinds for them. His language was good. Polite, compared to mine. I didn’t get a name. I figured he’d want money, or... you know, for the damsel to put out for him? That was... Well, he didn’t really say no, but it was almost totally ignored, like it wasn’t a real thing. I offered both things, to be clear.”
It had to be freaky for her dad to hear her talking about things like sex, but she was in the tabloids several times a year, being seen with different men. Some women as well. A lot of them weren’t just dancing at the club with her. That didn’t mean her family needed to hear all the details that way.
Her father simply grunted then.
“I’m liking him better already, then.”
“Actually, he came to help me set up that training. Not to be like him, just so I can learn not to be as much of a goof while I’m fighting. He was kinder about it than that, but... Yeah. So, I went earlier, to meet the woman in charge of that. She was... Interesting. I start classes in the morning, if I can get up before dawn and make the commute in time. If not... Well, I will. Somehow. It’s going to be hard, without drugs.” That was the truth, even though Hannah wasn’t really addicted to anything.
Not on a level that a little rehab wouldn’t have taken care of. She badly wanted a drink, thinking of it, but didn’t go to get anything from the kitchen.
Her father sighed then.
“Let me look into this situation? I won’t tell you how to live your life, and you seem to have a real plan, so... I still want all the names and addresses. I’ll be calling people, if you give them to me.”
That sounded like a good way to get in trouble with Lashondra and Debbie, but after a moment, Hannah shrugged, with no one to see her do it.
“Be polite? Here though, I’ll give you what I know. After all, if I vanish doing this...” Well, she could do that even without it being related, so didn’t suggest anything at all.
“Hold there for a bit? I’ll make some calls, first thing.”
Why wasn’t spoken of. She contemplated watching something on her giant television, when she recalled something else from what she’d been told.
Alistair Marks.
“That is a fucked-up name for a sixteen-year-old. He sounds like an English professor. From fifty years ago, at that. Poor kid. He can go by Al though, which isn’t too bad. That will set him up to be a plumber in no time, I bet.”
It was strange enough that she found there were only three people in the country with it, and two of those were over sixty. She had to do a reverse name search, but was signed up to a good service for that sort of thing, already. It was the same one that private detectives used, which was where she’d gotten the idea of having it on tap. One of the people she used to check on prospective dates had told her about it. Not that she didn’t run things past the woman anyway, still.
“Alistair Alan Marks, of Springfield Illinois. Junior at Folworth High School, which is...” She had to look that one up, since the name meant nothing to her at all.
It was a public school, which seemed off, the kid having a name like Alistair.
“That must be fun, being a telepath. So, he’s either rolling in pussy or the geek everyone beats up on, I bet.” There was no information showing either of those things were true, but there was an online yearbook, which had him in it. The previous years, which showed him in the background, since he wasn’t a senior. It was a bit odd, but the guy was just...
There.
On the basketball team, even though he was only about six-two. He was also represented in track and was on the mathletics team, which sounded like a joke to her.
“So, you’re involved in stuff. Decent looking without it being a big deal. Not a fat kid and probably not bullied. The jocks almost never are.” At least her all girl’s private academy hadn’t had problems that way. Then, bullying there had mainly been about suggesting that certain girls were sluts or bitches.
Even in high school Hannah had known that she wasn’t afraid of sex, so had ignored the prude squad when they’d tried to come at her that way. Then, while not the single nicest person in the world, she wasn’t that hard to get along with either, so the other main claim had missed her as well.
“At a bet, you don’t have either of those problems, do you Alistair?”
It took digging to find out what his troubles might be, given that. Lashondra had mentioned him having a bit of a hard time. On the screen he seemed like he should be fine. Good grades, but not perfect, being a good student, and clearly not using mind powers to get perfect test scores. Smart enough for that math team though, which showed that something was going on. Otherwise his grades would be better. At least Hannah figured it might be. Plus, Lashondra really had mentioned that part.
It wasn’t until she figured out that his parents had a bakery, which was in an economically depressed area, that she got it. They had a web-site, which had several pictures of Al there as well. Working in the kitchen and manning the front counter. It took more digging, but she, eventually, found what the issue was. The bakery wouldn’t be able to stay open for much longer, since poor people didn’t splurge on fine pastries when times got hard. Fancy bread, either.
An idea that was nearly foreign to her.
“Of course, that also means that your parents are either saints or don’t know that you have powers. Insider trading would keep them afloat, after all. If I can work out how to do that, this kid could.” It wouldn’t take more than ten minutes online for him to work out who he needed to read each day, either. Oh, it would be work, but that and even a few thousand dollars would set them all up, in fairly short order.
If not that, then something else like it. Unless Alistair refused to abuse his powers like that. Which she had to assume was the real case of the moment. An idea that, for some reason, got her to tear up. She smiled at the same time, though. As a tear ran down her cheek, she wiped at it, which hurt, since that side of her face was still a fairly massive set of bruises. She was up for a few weeks of that, she knew. On the good side, her head had stopped aching, while she was in the cave under Lashondra’s house.
At two in the morning she nearly groaned, since it was kind of clear that sleep wasn’t happening that night for her. Not if she was going to be outside of the city by the time that the sun rose. To that end she called for a cab, since, like most people in New York, she didn’t bother having a personal car. She dressed for the events of the day, in something that she hoped was correct for training. A jogging suit, which was simple, and meant to be worked out in. That and her running shoes. Then, after showering and this time leaving her makeup off, she headed out.
At three-thirty in the morning. That meant after a ride and a big tip for the man in the red and white cab, she was at the red brick suburban home, just a bit after the sun was truly up.
“Seriously? I left in the middle of the night. Great, now I’m the late girl. Everyone hates that bitch.” That was, very nearly, true.
Tapping on the door had Lashondra there after a minute or two. This time dressed in a light pink Chinese peasant outfit. Complete with split toe slippers.
Seeing how Hannah was dressed got a smile.
“Good, you’re planning to take this seriously. We need to eat before we start. Nothing too heavy. Do you like fruit?”
“Yes? I don’t really eat a lot, most of the time.”
That got a snort, coming from the kitchen, as she was led inside in a new direction. Debbie was there, actually slicing things up already. It seemed to be bananas and grapes, with pear on the side.
“That’s pretty clear, honey! If I wasn’t so jealous of your figure, I’d ask how you managed it. Still, if you’re going into the bardo, you’ll want a snack first.”
Lashondra nodded, not mentioning the idea. Not until she gestured at the plain wooden kitchen chair that Hannah was supposed to sit in. A plate, a light blue thing made of glass, was put in front of her. It wasn’t loaded down with food, thankfully.
Finally, the woman in charge of her nodded.
“We won’t be sending you into the bardo this time. You aren’t being trained in magic, really. I was thinking we’d see where you resonate most powerfully as far as psychic work goes, which isn’t that dangerous. Not unless your mind snaps under the strain, that is. It won’t, though. Then, a bit later in the day, I have some people for you to meet. They might not work with you. That will be up to them. Then again, they might. At least one of them isn’t a jerk...” She grinned at that, with Debbie groaning from across the table.
“Carl is coming over? I hate that guy.”
Lashondra simply nodded, not speaking for nearly a minute.
“Hannah needs to learn weapons, though. There are very few people in the world who are much better than he is in their use and no one who is better at teaching others such things. He... The man isn’t happy with life, and tends to take it out on everyone else... He is good, however. We also have Pleny coming.”
That got a different reaction from Debbie.
“Wait... Really? How did you get that to happen?”
There was a soft head shake then and a softer grin, looking across the table at Hannah.
“I didn’t. Bartolome asked him to see if he could help our new friend out. He called me, to suggest we make time in her training for him, as well.”
Hannah nodded then, as if she understood what they were going on about. Other than the idea that one of the men coming, people at least, since Pleny could be a woman, or even a robot, for all she knew, regardless of the pronouns used, was unpleasant.
