Strangers and Lies

by P. S. Power

  Her gaze turned to the man, and she nodded a few times.

  "I'm Katherine Vernor. Of The Vernor's. Where am I?"

  It took a few seconds for anyone in the room to respond at all, so Gwen tried, wondering if it could possibly work. She didn't have to fight to the front or displace anyone, she just spoke, like she always did.

  "This is the Westmorland central headquarters. Well, a shed off to the back of the compound." The words sounded fine and came out exactly like they should have, sounding very different this time. The Telepath nodded at her, but didn't speak, since he was in a deep working state at the moment.

  There was pause, and then the girl screamed softly, apologizing after a few seconds.

  "Sorry! Sorry, I didn't say that, I mean it came from my mouth, but it wasn't me. What's going on and how did I get here? More importantly, can I leave? My parents must be frantic."

  Regina actually did the speaking then, which probably made it easier for the girl.

  "You were set-up for a human sacrifice about nine months ago, some kind of magical ceremony. It went wrong and your mind was traded out for one of a woman from a different world. At least everyone thought you were replaced. It seems that something else might have happened. We should call someone. Your parents..."

  The telepath stared at Katherine and let out a single slow word.

  "Nooo." It was a soft and breathy thing, but he didn't elaborate and probably couldn't. It was enough, since one thing that the Westmorlands were really good at was teamwork, which meant catching hints from your fellows, like being told that something was a bad idea.

  Gwen risked speaking again.

  "Get him out of state so he can explain." It was probably what they were planning to do next anyway, but she was a little impatient. The man that had been questioning her, and Katherine, said the correct code, asking the man to return to alpha.

  The instant he did the fellow pointed.

  "That is Katherine Vernor, but she knows a lot more than she's claiming. She's trying to control her thoughts, but enough is leaking through that I know she had something to do with the whole sacrifice thing."

  It didn't make sense, but he was put right back into state and Regina slapped Katherine's face hard.

  "Alright then, talk. What do you know about Erin Debussey and Baron Mathews?"

  It was followed by another, harder blow that had a lot less control to it. It was kind of clear that this whole thing was messing with Regina and probably some of the others. It was showing with increased violence.

  Katherine didn't say anything, which got another blow that was hard enough Gwen tasted blood for real this time.

  "Hey, easy there, I'm in here too." She mumbled the words but the Westmorland actually looked taken aback by them.

  "Forgive me, I forgot for a moment." There was a look of actual chagrin, but it was followed by another sharp blow to the knee. It was what she had been assigned to do after all. More than that, Gwen herself had set the task, after a fashion. Not Katherine however, but it seemed that the girl might actually be a suspect in this whole mess or something like that.

  "I suggest you talk, it will make it easier on both of us." The words flowed out easily, as if she wasn't talking to herself or anything even half that strange. "You know, use your words and don't force them to kill us. They will if they have to you know."

  Not that they would, most likely. Still, it might just be the easiest thing to manage, if Katherine didn't cooperate. Gwen waited, trying not to even think anything, in case that might mess with the telepath's ability to pick up what Katherine was thinking. It seemed so strange, sharing a brain with someone else. Worse, this wasn't her rightful body. The other girl had a lot more right to it than she did, so it kind of looked like her time here was done anyway.

  "Fine, I'll talk, but stop hitting me. It wasn't any big issue after all."

  Regina went very still and stared at the girl for a while, "stealing a body isn't a big issue for you?"

  There was a soft sound that Gwen decided must have been exasperation.

  "We, Doctor Debussey, Baron Mathews and I, along with some others, weren't trying to steal a body at all. Don't you understand? We just wanted the information to be carried from one distant world to another. It was my turn, since most of the others didn't have the needed talents for it. I always scored high in mental skills, magically speaking. It was my idea, once I learned that there was more than just this one reality." She seemed almost proud of the fact for some strange reason. "Erin said that I was gifted and kept trying to get me to go to school with her. I think she just wanted to have me around more. I probably shouldn't have dallied with her like I did, but it was fun. Does that shock you?"

  This got said to the man that had been doing the questioning earlier, but he just looked at her without blinking, not bothering to say anything until it was clear that the girl had stopped giving information. Regina hit her again. Not too hard, but it got a womanly wail from Katherine at least.

  "I suggest you keep explaining. If you weren't stealing bodies, then why kill them afterwards? That clearly had a ritualistic style to it, didn't it? Were you supposed to be a willing sacrifice?"

  That got the girl to go silent for a while, finally speaking in a tone that was a lot harsher than was really needed.

  "No. I wasn't supposed to be a sacrifice at all. We made the transfer, one way, which probably killed the person we took the information from. Since this is my body, I figured that I'd be in control after that, but I wasn't. Mathews, he was kind of a friend of my parents, which is how he and I got into the whole thing, making friends at a party a few years ago, he could tell that I wasn't in charge I think, and decided to use just me for my energy, since no one knew what would happen. It was the plan, but I didn't think we actually had to use it. We couldn't just let someone run around in my body, of course, they could be insane or something. Worse they might have told on us. So it turned into a ritual, but only after the fact. What they didn't realize was that it had worked. Perfectly. She was even the one we wanted, or as close as we could have gotten."

  She shook her head, soft brown curls coming into view since her hair was down. It was matted with sweat though, from the last several hour's worth of being beaten. It was a lot harder work than most people thought, especially if it was strung out like it had been. Gwen knew that she was tired, even as Katherine continued chatting.

  "I could have used a bit more time, to tell the truth. They were supposed to be my friends, but they turned on me almost instantly. It was Erin's idea too. I remember that much. Mathews didn't fight it though, did he? I don't think he really liked me much at all, come to think of it. Kind of a strict man, morally, for all that he wanted to help us bring back the Old Ones. That was for knowledge of course. They know everything, the Old Ones." There was a hint of wistfulness in her tone, then she let her eyes close, letting the world go black. She spoke anyway, probably so the beatings wouldn't return.

  If so it was a good plan. Regina didn't look impressed by her tale at all. In fact, the words "bloody minded" came, almost unbidden, in regards to how the Westmorland with the stick looked at the moment.

  "So, as it turned out, I was expendable the whole time, and only thought that I had value to them. After all that mental training from Erin too. They'd acted like I was important, but the instant there might have been trouble, the solution was to simply kill me. I ask you, does that sound reasonable to you? They could have at least given me a bit of a break. I could have gotten a lot more victims for them, if they'd wanted them. I'd gotten the two women and one of the men that had gone before I did, after all."

  That was news to Gwen, who wondered what the selection criteria had been for the body stealing thing? Or was it the mind stealing thing? Either way, it was a pain in the rear. Being an inquisitive person, she simply asked, which got the girl to stop and think for a few moment. No screaming about it this time though at least.

  "Erin picked you. There was a very definite t
arget. Her daughter, or the one that would have been her, if she existed at all in that other place. There was no assurance of that, of course, but the ties between mother and daughter would be very strong, making the magical component of a sacrifice tremendous. Now that I think about it, I should have known better. There's a bond between children and their mothers. A magical thing that she must have been trying to play off of, pretending that it was just a thing of interest to her for casual reasons." There was a grunt then, that didn't sound ladylike at all.

  For a second Gwen had to wonder if that was really her making the noise, since it sounded a lot more like the kind of thing that she'd do, compared to the well bred and no doubt very polite Katherine. Not that they'd really been seeing a lot of those good manners just yet. The girl was a bit of a pain, to tell the truth. For one thing it really sounded like she'd personally come up with the idea that kind of killed Gwen.

  That part wasn't lost on the Westmorlands either, since they all started to ask questions, except for the telepathic detective, who simply waited. Finally after nearly an hour he was released from the working state, so that he could explain what he'd found, if anything. It wasn't a lot of fun to hear about. Not for Gwen at least.

  "Well, it's clear that she's in on the whole thing. She definitely tried to kill Gwen, and knew that stealing her information would do that to her. So this isn't just mind theft, it's murder, if in a place so distant no one could ever prove it. She thinks that Doctor Debussey planned the whole thing, making her a pawn, which is a little odd, since they were pretty thick at one point, working closely on the whole thing. Katherine really isn't very self-aware. Magically talented, but only of average intelligence, and that isn't used very well at all. There was time for Doctor Debussey to make a lot of changes to Miss Vernor, but those don't intersect with Gwen at all."

  There was an outraged noise, but Gwen decided that she'd heard enough at least, and took control, coming forward with her own conjecture.

  "Which is probably why I'm in charge then, isn't it? Not that I'm claiming to be the world's smartest person at all, but that, plus the difference in how we were raised and lived, maybe even just being a bit older... Those probably combined to leave me the dominant personality." She wasn't having any problem being in charge at least. It was just possible that Katherine had been hiding on purpose, but Troy, the telepath, didn't seem to think that was the case at all.

  "No, she simply isn't in the same range you are mentally. Her mind lacks discipline and the ability to weather shocks and hardships. I don't think that she can stay in control of the two of you without your permission, which is odd, given that this is her body, as she mentioned. It rather presents a problem though, doesn't it?"

  That part the man didn't explain at all, but Gwen figured that she could guess what he meant. It wasn't what she thought however. It did lead to about an hour's worth of poking and some rather careful slaps to jar Katherine into position again, then close questioning in regards to what happened when Gwen was taken. She wasn't just mesmerized, the man that had done it, Jeffery, had been speaking to Katherine the whole time. As if he knew that she was there.

  He'd claimed that Erin had sent him and enlisted the other girl to help keep Gwen under, from the inside.

  It was a wonderful thing, in that no one in the room doubted that to be the case, but it meant that Debussey had been targeting her personally. She'd wanted Gwen for some reason.

  "Probably to kill." The words came from Katherine, but the idea wasn't lost on Gwen.

  She'd been a bit of a thorn in the woman's side and if Erin had brought her there to kill in the first place, then it stood to reason that she might want to finish the task. On the good side Katherine seemed to be more than willing to help stop her now, and gave up a lot of information about the people involved. There were way more than had been thought before, but the girl had been popular, if not overly respected, in the movement. So she had names. A lot of them.

  That could happen when you slept with enough people.

  Finally, after a time that was a lot longer, and more painful, than she needed to dwell on, the others let Gwen sleep. No one was all that worried about the damage done to her, not on a physical level, but mentally she was a lot more than a bit shaken.

  The whole thing that had gotten her there wasn't a mistake, it had been... What? An assassination? They hadn't even wanted information from her, though the technique had clearly been used for that later. The bombs and sniper weapons came from someplace else after all, that was clear. As well as the knowledge of terrorism. In short the whole thing was clearly and truly messed up.

  She slept then, not having a lot else to do and not knowing what the plan would be in the morning. They couldn't just let her go after all. No one mentioned that part of things, but it was so basic they didn't have to. The most sensible thing would be to lock her in a prison, or possibly to just take her out back and put a crin to her head. It didn't let her rest easily, but there wasn't a lot she could do about it either. It turned out that the person, one of the people, behind the whole thing was inside her head, and had been the whole time. That had to be a security risk that couldn't be allowed.

  In the morning she was brought some tea on a tray with a few small sandwiches, by Beth, who seemed more than a little distracted, which was probably fair. The first words out of her mouth were shocking however. Almost to the point that Gwen wondered if she was still in a trance or whatever it was that had happened to her before. Mesmerized. Left living in a fantasy of her own design?

  "We need to get back to Park Street, then you, Heather and I will be headed out to Morrisberg. That's where the main girls camp is being held for the Students Service. The boys camp as well, but we aren't working that one, for obvious reasons. It sounds fun. I've lived rough of course, in specialized military training, but I've never gone to a leisure camp out before." There was a delicate look about the thin woman and her face was a bit pale, which Gwen didn't trust at all. Bethany was strong in many ways, but she seemed a bit stiff and reserved suddenly. Which is what she did when she was worried and not allowed to do anything about it.

  "Alright." Gwen had to pause, not knowing how to put what she needed to say. Then she just shrugged and did it. "So... how do we deal with Katherine? I don't know if the situation has changed at all, but I kind of expected to be at least locked away from polite society. Possibly killed. That might not be the best idea, because we may still be able to get more information from her, but just setting me free doesn't seem... Brilliant." It was kind of stupid really. There was an explanation for it at least, which Beth provided rapidly then.

  "Which is what Darrick and Adam suggested. Imprisonment that is, neither called for your death, I'm sure you'll be heartened to know. In fact you're the only one to have mentioned that option. Ferdinand put his foot down however. We're to isolate you as we can, and try to find a way to question Katherine that doesn't include torture. They... really did a good job that way, didn't they, you're covered with bruises. What are we going to tell the girls at the camp out?" She didn't so much as crack a smile, and sounded very serious about the whole thing.

  Gwen just shrugged.

  "We don't have to tell them anything. If I show up and act like I'm not ashamed of it, they probably won't ask. If they do... Then we can just tell them the truth. It isn't a secret is it? The whole thing is so odd that I don't think anyone will be too scared. I really do seem to be in charge here so that part hasn't really changed much. You all can just keep pretending that I'm not allowed to know anything because I could be mesmerized, which is true..." The look on her friend's face was telling, with a complete turning away of her body and real blushing. It was a bit of a giveaway as to what had really been going on over the last weeks. Possibly longer. "So.. how long have you all known about this? That Katherine was inside my head. Or the other way around I guess..."

  There was a moment of silence, the kind of thing that indicated a person was scrambling to think of a polite lie
. Gwen had lived with a life full of those, normally from people that thought she was too disgusting to be around in her original warped form and who were scrambling for an excuse not to spend any time with her. This time at least that wasn't the case. Beth just didn't want to admit she'd been holding that information back. She did it though, after a few seconds of Gwen staring into her eyes. They were a pretty blue.

  "About a month now. A little longer perhaps? We only suspected that it was possible of course, a few of the things that I'd picked up from you now and again were the main clues. No one knew anything for certain however. I... didn't want to bring it up. It was possible that Katherine had left a trace of herself inside of you after all. Instead it seems she left the whole thing." There was a hard look then as if Beth was really angry. "Not that it matters. She tried to kill you, on purpose, knowing that would be the case. She probably did kill you. It's only fair and fitting that she has to lose her own life for it. I think that you should go into training right now and lock her away inside forever."

  The words came out in a sudden explosion, a thing that Gwen had seldom heard from her friend, even under some pretty tense situations. She was very clearly ticked... at Katherine.

  "Seems like a plan to me. I would have felt bad if she was accidently trapped in my world, in my old body, but screw that noise. She can hang out in the back of my head now, while I live a much better life than she ever bothered to and undo all the damage she and her buddies are trying to foist on the world. What kind of morons are they anyway?" Gwen answered her own question, letting her hands flip out in a sharp motion that spoke of some anger on her part to. It showed that she was pretty sore from the beating, no matter how careful Regina had been through most of it. "Evil morons, no doubt. Probably with a dozen different reasons for doing it too, with the main one being that they aren't perfectly happy in life, so they want to see the world burn. Even if it means dying themselves."