Strangers and Lies (4 page)

"We should check things out first, on the scene. Still, if we need to mobilize, can we do that? We don't have a lot of time. I don't want to waste effort, but these kids..." She sighed and shook her head a little, which got the men behind her, in their armor, to stop for some reason. It was that, or they just realized that they were going to have to float to get into the wagon. It was doable, if they were strong enough. Gwen thought she could do it at least, since Heather had made her practice for hours. It made her head hurt, trying to generate that kind of power, but certainly these fellows...

Couldn't do it much at all. One managed to get nearly a foot and a half up and the other... maybe six inches. It was kind of pitiful, but Bethany just nodded and waved to her for some reason.

"Gwen, give them a boost please?"

It wasn't a thing that she'd considered before, but the suits were basically just radiative devices, if very complex ones. If she added charge to them, one at a time, it should work, shouldn't it? She'd just have to get the timing right and focus from a distance.

"Right. OK, blue first, on three... two... one." Then she added what energy she could manage to the situation, as fast as possible.

It worked decently well, allowing the man to float gently into the back of the rather rough and dirty looking thing. Then he sat in place, the second his metal boots touched, obviously understanding the need for urgency. The white one did the same thing, if a little more awkwardly, not having as good of control of himself in the air. It worked and after that one was down she scrambled into the back, moving toward the front a bit. Barley came with her, looking awkward, but Beth just got herself into the front seat, cradling the device she held to her stomach, as if she were willing to shield it with her body. Hopefully that wouldn't be needed, since it really had cost a lot to put together.

There were only five of them in existence after all.

One of the men grunted after they were moving, the one in the white armor, then, after a few seconds he spoke, his voice a mellow sounding tenor.

"I need to take you along with me more often. That was incredible. I expected a leg up, but that..." The man sounded a little bit in awe.

Bethany just spoke, her voice ever so slightly harsh.

"Focus on the job at hand, Finn. We can go over basic techniques later. Now, how long until we arrive?" This was asked to the driver, who was an elderly man that must have been pushing eighty or so. He flicked the leather straps in his hands and looked ahead of them passively.

"The traffic and conditions seem right, so I'd wager half an hour." Then he stopped talking and just did his job, which seemed to be enough. After all, she'd just told them to focus and it seemed he was going to do his part. It took a while for the idea that he wasn't wild about riding with Westmorlands to sink in. The funny part there was when Gwen realized that the man was glaring, not at the armored men, or even Beth, but
her
. She was the one that had shown greater than normal powers after all, wasn't she? She was dressed right for the role, so didn't correct him. That came when Barley spoke to her, a few tense minutes later.

"Miss Farris... What should we do when we get to the place?" It sounded confused as if the idea of going after missing kids was something that no one here would have thought of, if not for a small chance that they'd be used as a sacrifice by evil people. As if it wouldn't have even been worth mentioning otherwise. She got the idea that the children were probably poor, maybe even street people, but for no one to try and help them seemed... Out of character for these people.

"First we'll sweep the area, try to find witnesses, clues, anything at all that might help, then we'll have Finn and... Sorry, didn't get your name..." She craned her neck to look at the shiny blue one who didn't seem to move at all. That was probably an illusion, since you could turn your head inside to look around a bit and see everything clearly, as long as you kept powering the armor.

The voice that came from that armor was deeper.

"York, ma'am."

"Nice to meet you both. Then these two will stand behind you and ask questions of people while Beth reads their minds for more information. Odds are no one will lie on purpose, but we might find things out that way." She nearly wanted to hit herself in the head then, remembering that Beth had precognitive abilities too. "Right now we need Bethany to see if she can find anything out, if that's safe to do while we're moving?"

She had to explain it all and then take the case, holding it safely herself, but after a few minutes they were able to find out that, inside six hours, the children would be dead. All of them. It wasn't a great thing to hear at all, since they had no clue where to find them. It meant they'd have to hit the ground hard and really work the situation. It was something that she felt a little bit poorly about, but Gwen decided that they couldn't afford to leave people with rights in this case. She didn't mention it, since being a jack booted thug wasn't something she actually aspired to.

The actual abduction spot wasn't anything special as far as she could see at all. Beth however looked around and nodded, pointed to where the road widened, a pull out for people to move into for loading and unloading of lorries. It had a stone curb, but that was low, only about six to eight inches high, meaning, the detective pointed out, that the kids could have easily stepped, or been pulled, over it.

"This was, if nothing else, a coordinated effort. The people doing this have done similar things before." The words came out of Gwen's mouth, but they sounded a little strange, flat and cooler than what she normally sounded like. "The driver stayed ready and didn't throw up a fuss when the children were tossed into the back. The first two taken were girls, with the boy being the one they hadn't counted on, probably only taking him so that they'd have a chance to get away." Without understanding why, not even questioning anyone, she started jogging, the idea making sense to her after a few seconds.

It wasn't a nice thing.

The kidnappers didn't
need
the boy, and trying to control him was probably a lot of work, since he'd come to fight, smaller and outnumbered or not. So, if they were brutal and evil, they'd simply get rid of that kid as soon as possible. Hopefully alive and well. She didn't realize that Bethany was following her until several blocks later, when she opened the lid on a very large trash bin to find the boy, his throat slit and covered with filth, eyes staring straight ahead. Dead, of course.

There was no dignity to it at all, the kid having soiled himself at some point, making the trash scent even worse. Bethany froze beside her, holding her wooden box in both hands. Barley panted up next, stopping as soon as he understood what had happened, moving to the side so that he wouldn't throw up on them or the body. The armored men got there last and then, slowly, York, the blue one, moved as if to pull the kid out of the bin. It was about the size of a dumpster from back home, though no bags were inside it, just loose scraps, most of them rotting vegetable matter along with some fairly obvious pieces of shit. Throwing the kid in this... Well, it probably hadn't been
meant
as an insult. Not directly. It was just handy, in an area without a lot of other hiding spaces.

"Wait." Gwen sighed and started to climb over the thing herself, even as the others stared. "We need a good reading of this, I'll work the wand Beth, and you can write down the readings." She really didn't want to go into the rotting crap heap, but making her friend do it would be worse. Brainwashed super-detective she might be, but the fact was, Gwen had come to realize, she was a little prissy about some things. Dead bodies being one of them. There were no complaints, and after about ten minutes of readings Gwen had the signatures of the four people involved pretty well in hand. The boy himself, which they could discount, who looked to be about twelve. Then there was a girl that was younger, perhaps eight or nine, and two men. Those were the ones they wanted. Doing something that Gwen didn't really understand, Beth made it so that those were isolated, the older one first, who was a man in his mid-fifties or so, with gray hair and brown eyes. The other was a blond that was nearly as old. Late forties.

"Now we can get the boy." Gwen did the lifting on that, noticing how heavy the kid was. They had to send for the constabulary, but at least had a little bit to go on now. It seemed a little strange at first that Beth hadn't been able to locate the dead boy, but she shook her head when Gwen asked about it. At first it seemed like she was upset about failing, but it wasn't that, not really.

"I'm not good with death. For some reason my mind glosses right over it. It has to do with the Westmorland Protocols. None of us can do it. You'll have to instead."

It didn't sound snide at all. Just like she actually meant it or something.

"Um, sorry... what?"

"
You'll
have to do it for us Gwen. We don't have time to find these kids using detective work right now, we need you to go to them and save them. You can do it. You have very high level precognition, it showed in the testing we did. It's related to combat for you right now mainly, but protecting these children has to be close enough." It sounded almost sensible, except for the part where she didn't know how to do that kind of thing at all. She wasn't trained in magic after all. She'd been tested, sure, but that part hadn't been put together yet.

Just as she started to mention that part, Finn made a disgusted noise and yelled at her for some reason.

"Don't just
stand
there you stupid moron! Those girls are going to
die
if you don't find them. Horribly and all alone, if you don't save them. Do it, just like you did with the boy... Go!
Run
!" A large metal hand pushed her, sending her staggering backwards hard, hitting the bin the boy had been in with a solid crack. "Those girls need you. Don't let them die. Shut off your brain and just run, we'll do the rest."

Only, she knew, running wouldn't get her there in time. How she knew that was a mystery, but it was right there.

"We need a fast lorrie. Now. I don't..." She started running then, and jumped into the middle of the street, stopping the only thing there that looked out of place. It wasn't large at all, but the driver stopped, since, she realized, she had a military crin in her hands. She would have done the same thing. He probably thought they were being robbed or something along those lines. "Special Service... we need your vehicle to find two missing girls."

She didn't know if she had the right to commandeer anything, since the rules for things like that for the rich and powerful were far different here than back home, but the driver just nodded as the back door of the brown thing opened, showing a rather stout older man, dressed in a very nice, conservative gray outfit. It was so nice it didn't even have that slight sheen to it that most did. It was a little hard to focus on his face, but he sounded nice enough. Kind and familiar, even though it was clear they'd never met. That part felt important to her for some reason. Her head was tickling a little as the driver stared at her, but he wasn't glaring, just being attentive, or so it seemed.

The passenger bowed a little, not even waiting to hop down, glancing at the armored forms first.

"Jeffrey, please take these ladies and gentlemen wherever they need to go. I'll... walk." It sounded like it was an inconvenience, but a thing the man was willing to do in order to help these children. The driver didn't question it however. He just hopped down to aid the ladies up into place. The only problem with that was that Gwen needed to be up top. She couldn't drive one of these, so it meant sliding in alongside him. It was close enough that Agent Barley was having a bit of a problem with it, her leg directly alongside the driver's, but Gwen started shouting for him to go, pointing with her left hand.

"That way!" She hoped. It felt right, but doing things in a panic, by feel, just didn't make sense, did it? Still, the others seemed to have some faith in her. That's what York and Finn both called out at least, moving back to the crime scene. They'd never fit in the tiny, but decently fast, little brown lorrie. She doubted that they'd make it through the door even. That put Bethany and the agent alone together in the back seat, but she really didn't think it would be a problem. Beth was a big girl, and the man, who didn't have a ring or anything, was still probably married. No one wore wedding bands here for some reason.

It was a strange thing to be thinking, but apparently it didn't matter since she kept giving directions and the man next to her made the correct turns, even as she had almost no clue what she was doing. Her right hand was tightening on the crin as they moved along at no better than thirty miles per hour. Finally they ended up at a very large estate, set back from the street and guarded by a black iron gate and a high, very well built, gray stone wall. No one came to let them in either, pretending not to be home or something, which made sense if you didn't want the cops to show up and bust you as you hurt little girls. Gwen looked at the place and nodded, since there was almost no way that a nobleman didn't live here.

"Crap." It was almost scandalous language, coming from a woman in this place, which made it much worse, coming from Bethany. The Westmorland was standing in front of the gate, looking defeated. "This is Count Kavas' home. We can't go in without a direct order from the King. That... Probably won't come Gwen. I'm sorry..." There were tears, and Agent Barley looked close to that state himself, which was shocking. Men didn't cry here as far as she knew. Then, he
wasn't
, the man was just tearing up a bit.