Abominations

by P. S. Power

  “Mitch, Miss Farris agreed to help here, she has a plan, but we'll have to play footman for a bit...”

  “Right. We'll let you take over then, and thank you for it, miss.” He looked genuinely grateful to Gwen, not happy about the situation, but willing to do what was needed, even if he had to give control over to an unknown woman to get it done.

  Making her way over carefully, slowly, hands clasped in front, steps slow and almost timid, head slightly bowed, she stopped about six feet away from the woman.

  “Hello... I'm Gwen. Gwen Farris. Would it be alright if I came a little closer and talked to you for a bit?”

  The other woman nodded slightly, not looking up at her.

  “Thanks. Is it alright if I sit? I know it's not really true, but I feel like I've been on my feet all day practically, you know?” Her hand found the back of one of the wooden chairs sitting along the wall near the woman, but she didn't sit, waiting for permission. She'd seen this on police procedural shows a couple of times. For all she knew it was nothing but hot air, but it made sense, giving power to someone that may feel like it had been taken away, so she'd try it. If it didn't work she'd see if she could borrow Bethany for a few minutes and get her to read the woman's mind, but that would be another violation, if what had happened to her was one to begin with, so she'd avoid that if she could.

  After about five seconds the woman realized Gwen was waiting for a reply and nodded again.

  Gwen pulled the chair closer to her, but not too close, so that her head would be out of arms reach when she finally sat down, that way she'd never seem to be looming over the woman who, she noted, would be almost half a foot shorter than Katherine's body. So about five foot. Not exactly huge.

  The woman clutched at her shawl tighter, since it seemed to keep trying to slip out of her grasp. Her fingers looked swollen and she had blood around the nails of her right hand. A dark bruise covered the third knuckle of the pinky finger. A wound Gwen recognized immediately. It happened sometimes when a person unused to fighting hit something hard. The finger may be broken, she knew, having done it herself a time or two, when she was young and being attacked on the school playground by bullies.

  Looking over her shoulder at Detective Haversham, the meaner looking of the two detectives, she winked, hoping he'd get the air of all this and play along.

  “Bertie? Would you be a dear and get my coat for me? I think it might work better for Miss... Sorry, I didn't get your name...”

  “Laura Zourller... ma'am.” The voice came out quiet, so soft it was almost hard to make out the words clearly.

  “No need to call me ma'am. I'm just Gwen, you know... Anyway, is it alright, do you think, if Bertie gets my coat?”

  A soft nod came again.

  Haversham didn't blink or mutter, he simply went to get the coat and, apparently having been paying attention, presented the coat to Gwen, standing well away from Miss Zourller.

  “Here you go... Gwen.” He added, keeping his eyes down now, not looking overly at either woman.

  “Thank you. Laura... Is it alright if I call you that?”

  She waited again, the woman finally nodding after a few seconds.

  “Laura, would you like to put my jacket on? It should fit and you won't have to hold it closed, I don't think.”

  It took time, but slowly, with the detectives' help the woman opened up and explained everything that had happened. How a group of men from her neighborhood, working class near the high crime district, had cornered her, and while they didn't rape her, they called her names, tore her clothing and beat her when she wouldn't perform for them sexually. Apparently her reputation wasn't too good, having had several boyfriends over the years, but not being married yet.

  “I told them I was a good woman and didn't do things like what they wanted me to, but they kept calling me... whore and worse. I'm not! I never...” She cried then, the events finally breaking through the shock.

  Gwen moved in and held her, feeling awkward, but hoping it would be the right move. The woman clutched at her and didn't let go for a long time. The detectives looked uneasy as well and quickly moved off, Mitch leaving the office altogether for a bit, coming back about ten minutes later.

  Since Laura seemed calmed down by the time the other detective came back, the man waved Haversham and her over, using eye contact to make it clear that he wanted both of them.

  “Right, so I'm having the local constables pick up the men she named. If they have any marks on them, that should be enough for a conviction. They won't do hard time for this, because they stopped short of rape, but I don't think they'll try anything like this again. They'll be watched closely for a while though. I doubt any of them will be walking right after the beatings they get tonight. I put in a “special order”. What else should we do with Miss Zourller here? Normally our job would be done for the night, but you're lead on this now, so what do you recommend?”

  The clean shaved man, whose suit did look freshly pressed and cared for – probably meaning he was either married or had hired a really good cleaning woman – directed this toward Gwen. Instead of telling them what she really thought, which would be an unsatisfactory response of I don't know she thought for a few moments instead and walked back over to Laura.

  “Laura, here's where things stand right now...”

  She filled her in carefully.

  “But... it's just my word against theirs. They said they'd lie and say I wanted it if I told anyone.”

  The detectives nodded a bit. The men might be roughed up a little by the constables, but they'd probably walk away without actual jail time, if they stuck to their story like that. Haversham looked more angry than Gwen had seen him be yet. For a minute she was worried he might stroke out.

  A feral smile came over Gwen's face.

  “Not with a Westmorland detective sitting in the other room, I don't think...”

  The woman in the chair winced hearing the Westmorland name, but she didn't say anything, just sat, looking scared again. Gwen looked at her carefully and wondered why that would be. Didn't people know anything about the Westmorlands other than their ability to blow up spectacularly? Did the name itself simply bring out that kind of fear in people?

  A picture formed in her mind, that of an atomic bomb being wheeled into the room on a cart, knowing what it was, but not having any way of controlling it. The image became one of Bethany tied to a rolling cart while people cringed in terror, making her want to smile, she held it back, but it took some work.

  Gwen nodded to herself. That might, she knew, be enough to cause a bit of fear, if you didn't know better.

  “Don't worry, Laura... Bethany Westmorland isn't the kind that blows up. She's the kind of Westmorland that makes sure bad people don't get away with hurting the good ones. Though by the time we're done questioning these men tonight, I don't doubt some of them might wish she'd just explode instead.”

  It took hours to get everything done, but both Gwen and Bethany were back at the apartment by one in the morning. Nothing new had really broken in regards to the sacrificial murders, just repetitions of the same nicknames from the other men.

  The men who'd attacked Laura wouldn't be walking the streets again for a while, months at least, and Gwen had to agree that the special order Mitch had put in seemed effective. All of the men looked worse than Laura did at least.

  Haversham bluntly told them in front of the whole room that if anything at all happened to Laura over this, ever, he'd have them dropped into a hole that they'd never get out of. It took Gwen a minute to get the grave reference, not being slang she'd ever heard before. It was a death threat that the attackers all got. Bethany nodded along with this and told the men that he really meant it, even though she wasn't in her telepathic state. They all blanched, except for the ring leader who turned beet red. Gwen hoped his anger wouldn't come back on Laura later. The response was wrong. Instead of being ashamed of his actions or fearful of Haversham, he kept staring angrily at Laura, as if she
caused the problem. It was fucked up, but typical enough. Bullies always blamed their victims and rapists, or would be rapists, were at heart, bullies.

  At about seven in the morning, she got up, tired, but hearing a knock on the door. When she went to open it, carefully, because apparently the peep-hole didn't exist here, not that she'd seen anyway, she found a small wire basket with a tiny bottle of milk and four eggs as she'd requested be delivered every two days.

  Now she could make breakfast for them at home.

  Yay.

  Provided, of course, she could figure out how to turn the stove on. She found what she thought might be the stove, more like a large, totally flat copper griddle, easily enough. The controls baffled her completely. It had a small metal ball mounted on a pole, kind of like a telestator, but it didn't turn on the stove when she touched it. She stood there for about fifteen minutes trying to make it work, becoming increasingly frustrated with it when Bethany finally came in and saw what she'd been up to.

  “Oh! That's not crystal powered. Bit of a hassle, but you need to focus on the orb there to get it to heat up. It's like charging a crystal... um... well, just try focusing on the orb intently and don't let your attention waiver.”

  Gwen raised her eyebrows and gave Beth a glance, but then stared at it trying to make sure she concentrated. Nothing seemed to happen as far as she could tell. Beth came over and put her hand above the copper plate, then pulled it away rapidly.

  “Well. That certainly did the trick. I wasn't sure if you could do it or not. Only about a third of people can get these to work. I'd thought it likely... Katherine had to be fairly powerful to be worthwhile as a sacrifice, didn't she? Anyway, you won't have to stare at it all the time, just keep focusing on it as you do the other things you need to do. The tray underneath? That can be used to keep things warm, if you have to wait for any reason. Just use the top for frying up breakfast. A pot will be needed for boiling of course.”

  Cooking here, Gwen found, seemed to be about the same, once the issue of turning on the stove and keeping it going had been dealt with. It felt weird to be powering something with her mind, but she adapted, mainly by pretending she was playing a videogame instead of living through it. She tried to imagine a little point tally going up as long as she kept her focus on the sphere.

  Inside twenty-five minutes, she'd made them each a single egg, a small glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, a slice of bread that still seemed fresh and soft, and a strip of bacon. No one did toast here it seemed. Another concept that hadn't caught on? Beth got out little bowls for cereal and the milk.

  Gwen understood now why old fashioned glasses of juice had been so tiny. Squeezing both glasses took four oranges and gave them barely enough to half fill the little containers. Oh, for a carton of Sunny-D.

  It still, even after nearly two weeks, seemed odd to her, eating so many tiny courses at each meal. Everyone ate slowly too, taking tiny bites. Even the single detectives at the office did it and put away their other work while they ate, if they didn't go out to lunch, which they did most of the time.

  She realized that if she didn't want them to have to eat out nearly each day, she'd have to learn more about cooking in general. What she'd made for breakfast had stressed what she knew about making things from scratch. Before, back in her old life, cooking had mainly involved opening containers of things, here, well, they had containers of things, cans and jars, but they were all ingredients, not the whole dish. She had an odd feeling that in a few months she might be willing to kill for a can of spaghetti-O's. Which of course, would be just wrong, since pasta really shouldn't ever come from a can.

  The breakfast dishes had to be done by hand, which Beth helped with, and the stove/griddle thing had to be cleaned. It cooled, once she stopped focusing on the gray metallic orb that sat at the back of it, so she just wiped it clean, then washed it with a bowl of clean water and a bit of soap, then rinsed it with more clean water and a cloth.

  She wondered out loud what they were supposed to do to get their clothes clean, fearing it might have something to do with a rock and a basket down by the river. Bethany laughed and showed her how to use the wash closet. This whole set up turned out to be a literal, if small, closet in the bathroom. Inside wire racks separated the clothing, pressing them together to hold them upright while water of varying temperatures sprayed onto and through the clothes themselves. This, Beth told her, used crystals for power, so she could load it in the morning and take them out at night, dried and ready to wear.

  “Well, some things will need to be ironed. My iron is kind of like the stove, but you shouldn't have a problem with it. Just don't put anything silk in the wash closet, it'll ruin it. Learned that one the hard way when I first used one myself. At the center we had other people to handle clothes for us and that was almost all uniforms, which are meant to be easy to take care of.”

  Gwen started a full load, making sure she selected only the right kinds of clothes for the machine. Then she got herself ready for the day, making certain they both looked alright and didn't have things in their teeth or major fasteners left undone. Then they headed back in to work.

  The office was empty when they got there. If it had been a movie, Gwen was sure the spooky music would be playing by now. She looked around carefully, to make sure there wasn't a bomb or something that had required an evacuation. The room looked clear to her, but then, if the explosives were on the floor below, they'd still be just as dead when it went off.

  Not a single person in the place at all, even Peals' office stood vacant. They hadn't even left a criminal sitting chained to a chair. It felt eerie to Gwen, who wondered if the rapture had happened or something, but then realized that the detectives all would have been left behind if it had, along with her and Bethany, since none of them believed in the required religion.

  Beth went to check the rest of the building to see if anyone knew what had happened. Finally, at almost nine, some of the others started to come in. Chuan, Wilbur, Haversham, and Chief Peals arrived almost at the same time.

  “Right...” Peals said loudly, his voice sounding stern and more than a little angry.

  Bethany hurried in from the hallway, hearing her commander's voice. The man waved for everyone to gather around.

  “If you haven't seen the papers... well then, lucky you. It seems that someone leaked word about Miss Farris here to the press. We expect this to turn into a national story within the hour...”

  “Hey... great...” She heard her own voice dripping sarcasm.

  Gwen snorted after she said it. This could have at least waited until after they'd caught the people that tried to kill her, couldn't it? Obviously not.

  A crowd of men and women, some with microphones, poured into the hallway from the stairs, each trying to push to the front, all calling her name. Peals walked to the door and kicked it shut in their faces.

  “Damned jackals.”

  Chapter fifteen

  She tried to collect her thoughts for a moment as someone, one of the reporters probably, began to knock on the door insistently. Taking a few deep breaths she tried to remember everything about handling the press she'd ever learned from watching television programs. Making an effort, she relaxed and stood up.

  “Chief Peals... we need to let them in. I have to talk to them or they'll simply ruin the Vernors with innuendo. The fastest way to look guilty is to not speak. Would you and Bethany come stand by me? Everyone else, could you keep them orderly do you think? Maybe give us ten feet of space, three meters I mean, so that we don't get overwhelmed?” The one thing that this place had in common with her world was that both English and metric measurements were used, with the English ones being the most common. Chuan however came from a place that used metric exclusively, so she threw that in too, when she remembered.

  Detective Chuan nodded his head, almost a small bow, and took up a position near the door, Wilbur followed immediately with Haversham moving forward a few moments later. They waited without moving, u
ntil Gwen asked them to open the door. The men stood, as if ready to fight for her, she thought, even though this would be a battle of words, not fists and nightsticks. She hoped so anyway. If it came to that, she'd bet on her side against the reporters. At least in the initial confrontation. The fallout would all go to the reporters, since they controlled the news people heard. Best to avoid that if she could then.

  “Miss Vernor!” An older man pushed through the crowd, or tried to, being pushed back by the reporters, on the third repeat of Katherine's name she recognized him as Benjamin Grimes, Mr. Vernor's solicitor.

  “Mr. Grimes!” she called out, making her voice a little haughty and her accent as crisp as she could get it without sounding phony. “Did Father send you to help me out of this...misunderstanding then? Please, let that man come forward. Please...”

  After a bit the reporters realized this wasn't a trick of some kind, and let the man move to the front. Gwen smiled at him and thanked him for coming on such short notice, asking him to stand next to Chief Peals, who stood slightly behind her on the right. Once he got into position, she turned to face the crowd.