Support Team, page 38
part #6 of Damsel Series
“No. That’s probably too convoluted for even the best group to pull off, like you said. The timing wouldn’t work. It’s... I just noticed it happening, though. That... she really did have a preexisting condition. I think she just stroked out and that forced her to crash. She didn’t make it.” She sounded small, and as if she were really just reporting on the death.
Which fooled no one there. Gregory looked horrible for a moment. He stared at her, his expression bleak and still. Which, she realized, was the boy faking it. He didn’t manage stillness without an act of nearly iron will.
“That’s... Well, we should check that out? What are the odds of that happening?” It wasn’t a real statement, and no one answered the boy. He stood, then looked at Aliza. His mentor, even if she was only about twenty. “I don’t how to check on this? A car accident?”
Lichen stood up as well, looking at the kid.
“It won’t be showing in the press, yet. If we can get a location we can call the local police however and tell them that one of our psychics noticed it happening and wants them to try and stop it?”
Alistair closed his eyes.
“Green Bay. Near the corner of Deckner and Danz, on the south bound side. A red sports model. It won’t be hard to find. It’s in the building there.”
The man, and the boy, left at a firm walk. To make calls or do whatever was needed that way. Possibly just getting away from her. Hannah got that. If someone had killed her mom, even if she was angry at her, and knew she needed to die, there would be words over it. Maybe hatred. Possibly from more people than just that.
June wasn’t even glancing at her, and Al was carefully watching Portia. Carl... seemed fine, not even pretending the issue was one for him, and Alex looked relieved, but a bit guarded on the topic. Willing, perhaps, to pretend to be sad, if his niece needed him to do that for her peace of mind.
Logan seemed to be getting ahold of himself, for some reason. Not that he’d been freaking out the whole time, but after he’d gotten sick earlier, there had been some tense moments. Interestingly, he spoke up then. His voice low, and nearly harsh.
“Port... I know that this was horrible, but it had to be done. This... If she was willing to do those things, how much other stuff has she done? She raped Pete as a kid....”
The girl made a face, tilting her head back, fighting tears.
“I know. She let men rape me, too, growing up. There wasn’t a reason for it.”
There was, but Hannah wasn’t going to share that part of things. Not to protect Portia from the truth, but to guard Pete, even if he didn’t strictly deserve it. He was trying to be a con man, after all. A thing he was raised to be, at the hands of a person who might well be called a master of the subject.
Aliza just spoke.
“It was a lot worse than that. She had three kids, not two. The other one...” She looked at Carl then and made a face. “I don’t know where they are. I think... I couldn’t find them, but my guess is dead. I can’t prove anything, but she thought it was yours. She wasn’t certain, so killed it when it was about two or three. Years after Port was born. They weren’t raised together, she paid for the work to be done with the others, and would have with you, Portia, but I think she wanted to make it seem like she had to struggle, in case things ever went to court.”
Carl growled.
“I didn't sleep with her after the divorce. I hated her by then.”
The dark skinned, lovely, superhero nodded then.
“Stolen sperm. She wasn’t playing around when it came to trying to get your money. She had artificial insemination, but the clinic had a scandal later, so she couldn’t be positive it was yours and I think she’d realized it was a bad plan to show up with a second child like that, anyway.”
That would have been, of course.
Hannah still didn’t comment on anything. She just let people talk, vent and eventually point out that they knew that Hannah had done it. Everyone there had realized that, after all. The big issue there was that, when it happened, it was Carl, who looked her dead in the eyes first.
“Oh, H.? Thanks. I know that this kind of thing isn’t fun. I won’t forget who stepped up to help protect my family.”
He looked at the others there as well, including June, who gave him a sad smile.
Alex bowed his head.
“Nor will I. Still, seeing the future is inside of Miss de Peyser’s known talents. Unfortunately, her range isn’t that great in time, thus far, or perhaps the accident could have been prevented?” He spoke loud enough to be heard, which was interesting, since Lichen came back in, holding a phone to his right ear.
“Thank you, Captain. I’ll be sure to let them know.”
When he hung up, he locked eyes with Portia.
“I’m sorry, but your mother didn’t make it. She died on the scene. It was a car accident, but there’s no thought to doing an autopsy, unless you request it? Well, or a spouse or another child. Perhaps her parents? We should seek to locate them, if possible. Not that it’s the duty of The Society, specifically. Only a courtesy, since Portia is employed here.”
Feeling sad, if only for her new friend, Hannah nodded. Then located every living relative that Angela Morrison had. One of those was, of course, Port. The other was Peter. If the woman had anyone else in the world, they didn’t come to her as being family at all. When she focused harder, there were only a series of graves. She couldn’t prove it in any way, but the feeling of them spoke of the same person having put them there.
The sense she was getting that way seemed a lot like Angela, but it really could have been her projecting. Trying to find another reason to have killed the woman. Not that the one she’d had wasn’t good enough.
She tried to console herself for a moment. Not over the killing, but the fact that too many people knew, or at least thought, that it had been her. Which was correct. Now, after the fact, as the rage she’d been feeling faded, Hannah kind of had to think that part had been a mistake. Staying out of the whole thing might have been the better plan. Then, later, when no one suspected her at all, the woman could have passed on, which still would have seemed suspicious, but not like she’d done the dirty deed. Not for certain.
Oddly, she understood why she’d killed Angela Morrison. Why, from the moment she’d heard even a fraction of what the woman had done to her own children, the lady had been fated to die. Much like as with her, both Port and Peter had been subjected to a lifetime of betrayal, at the hands of people who should have been there to protect them.
For Port and her half-brother, it was worse, in some ways.
After all, Hannah had been kidnapped, probably raped, even if she still wasn’t ready to talk about that with anyone, as well as beaten and threatened. She’d been told she was going to die and had honestly believed it. She’d known that no help would come. But it did. Over and over again. Only, it had never been her mother who had done that to you. Never her father.
Her brother had endured horrors, to save her, for years. Which out of all of them, won the prize for the most scarring. Not that it was a contest. The thing was, her family, especially Nate, had done the opposite of what Angela had.
Portia and her brother had been betrayed from nearly the start, if not before that, by the one person they should have been able to count on for certain. Carl had been as well, by a woman who would have been better served marrying the man, if she’d been an actual human being and not a fucking monster. All of that was worse than anything she’d had to undergo. At least in the long term.
She blinked then, and looked at June.
“Uh... Does Kapinski have the power to make you tell the truth?”
Her grandmother bobbled in place, her head moving side to side.
“It’s different than that. More like he can allow people to face things inside of themselves that they might not be able to otherwise. It works pretty well with his job.”
“Ah. That makes sense. Sorry, I was sidetracked for a second. So, this is dismal. What do we do now?”
That, it seemed, was going to be going home, for her. Part of her wanted to go and hug Portia. To protect her from the bad things in the world. The rest of her realized that to her now, maybe to everyone there, she was the bad thing. That little Hannah, when the chips were down, was the monster under the bed. The witch in the closet. When she stood up, Alistair did, which had Portia doing the same thing.
“Hey, can I stay at your place tonight? I don’t really want to go home. Pete is there. I know that I should tell him, but until we have proof, or a lack of it, then... I kind of hope you we’re all wrong and he isn’t my brother? Then he was just raped by a freak who adopted him, not his mom.”
It was a real point, so she nodded.
“Yeah. Sure. If you can stand to look at me, we can do that. I have a decent sofa you can sleep on? Or we can make Al sleep there and you can take his bed?” She nearly offered to share, but that wasn’t a great plan. Not at the moment. Maybe never.
It was true that Hannah wanted someone in her life, but another troubled young woman wasn’t going to mesh well with her. She, and Portia, both needed someone stable. A person who could balance out the crazy of their lives with sensibility and wisdom.
The problem was that she didn't really know anyone like that at all.
Male or female.
Rather, she knew a lot of them, but no one who could be in a relationship with her, or who would.
So, if she was going to fix herself, Hannah understood that she needed to start looking. In some new places, too. Hooking up with strangers in a club wasn’t a great long term life strategy. Dating the first guy she met and could entice into sex wasn’t going to work, either. So, something new was going to be needed. What that was, so far, she didn't have a clue of at all.
Then, she did have some time, so it wasn’t anything that gloomy.
Even if it felt like it.
That she understood, was a feeling that would pass. Like they all did, in time.
Chapter twenty-five
It honestly wasn’t until she was sitting in the dining hall at The High Command in Texas, with her cousin Rich standing over her that she recalled that she’d missed work the day before. The man didn't even look upset with her, his plain, slightly accountant looking face seeming no more than mildly concerned. She winced anyway.
“Oh, fuck! I...” She was sitting and closed her eyes. “Honestly, I had to see a therapist, then hard on that I was looking at a friend’s mother while we were talking about her, and she had a car accident and died. So I ended up totally forgetting about things here.” Her jaw tightened, since that wasn’t a good excuse. Everything they did was life and death, or could be.
Her cousin, who she’d only met that year, and had only learned was a relative about a month before, awkwardly patted her on the shoulder.
“That’s pretty rough. Are you alright? It can impact people, seeing death like that up close.”
She nodded, not feeling the effects of that, at all. Which the man would probably understand. After all, he’d witnessed her kill people, or at least a person and heard about a lot more.
“It wasn’t that. It... Portia Darius’s mother wasn’t a great person at all. We were discussing how to have her arrested when she had a massive aneurism and crashed into a convenience store going around a corner. No one else was hurt, thankfully. Still, there was other stuff... Which I’m not really allowed to go into.” She grinned, even if it was out of place. Looking up into his eyes she could see what seemed to be real concern, not something faked or put on like a mask.
After a moment she explained herself.
“It’s not even official business. If you want to know about it, you’ll have to get with Portia yourself.”
The thin, slightly goofy looking man, his skin mildly bumpy and eyes bulging just ever so slightly, simply nodded.
“I don’t know the name. Is she powered?”
Hannah nodded, since it was his job to know things like that, if he could find out. Plus, if Portia could be drawn away to a better position, then Hannah needed to set that up for her, or at least help with the basic opportunity.
“She’s an Operator at The Society and has super strength, speed, reflexes and healing. You’ve worked with Luther?” He used to work for The High Command, she thought.
That didn’t mean that Rich would know him for certain or anything like that. The history there wasn’t a thing she was personally aware of and had never even tried to find out.
Interestingly, the man nodded.
“My former partner, in fact. For three years. Portia... That’s his daughter? I’ve heard about her, then. I didn’t know she’d inherited his powers. Now... Operator? That’s the new telepathic system you’ve been setting up? That’s... A good name for them. We use it as a slang term for hard core agents in the field, already, so it won’t be linked to telephones instantly, even if it kind of works on that level, too.”
That was the very meaning she’d been thinking of, so she cleared her throat a bit, and didn’t do more than let her head signal to the man. In part because Lewis, or the man that she’d been told was named that a few days before, walked over then and sat down. Then he looked at Rich, and waved at one of the other chairs.
“Brother! Have a seat, if you have a moment? We should talk more than we have been for a while.”
Hannah waved, and cousin Richard settled into a seat, seeming slightly wary, instead of relaxed and comfortable with the young looking, fake bearded seeming, man. He had dark hair, which was interesting to note. After all, June had mentioned being the first blonde person. Blue eyed as well. Also immortal, but there had been no mention of that being novel, so it probably hadn’t stared with her, meaning that the traits might not be linked, genetically.
After a moment, she realized that, since all blonde-haired, blue-eyed people weren’t immortal, that it had to simply be a fact. Immortality was, of course, rare. Even people in her own family didn’t always have it as a trait. She didn’t, naturally at least. Nate did, but not Cynthia... Only, she wasn’t certain on that one. All of them looked young. Not the same age as June, for Hannah or Nate, but honestly, she could pass for twenty, without even wearing makeup, most days. That was a thing she always claimed was due to be so small, of course. Nate...
Well, he was fit, lean and had been through a harsh life already, but still seemed like her younger brother.
She stopped and blinked, which was noticed by the men there. Lewis seemed quizzical.
Hannah snorted a little.
“Oh, sorry... I was just thinking that I don’t actually know that my little sister isn’t immortal. It turns out that my step-mother was actually my real mother, from the future, in an alternate timeline, at least we hope that’s the case. She came back and had my sister, so... There are two of her. Immortal and shapeshifter.”
Lewis, his eyes flashing into anger, for a moment so brief that she nearly didn't catch it, spoke instantly.
“There are reasons not to speak too openly. What if... What do you know about the enemy that we’re facing? Anything?” It was a challenge and seemed to be a thing from another time and place as well.
Some sort of ancient culture from a time that Hannah hadn’t even studied in school. Not that she knew that. It was just a bit off. Hostile, in fact. She wanted to bristle, but glanced at Rich and then the man’s older brother, who, currently, looked like the youngest person there. Which wasn’t correct, since she was pretty certain that honor belonged to her.
“Enough that I had both of you, and Larina, checked out last night by a team of telepaths. Your ability to block that kind of thing is good, Lewis. Not perfect, thankfully, so we were able to tell that you aren’t on the other side. Some of these people seemed to be in our own family. We’re, well, there are people doing some work, rooting that out. For now, don’t do anything about it, if you suspect anything. Note and report?”
The man, who had been hostile seeming just seconds before, grunted.
“That’s what was going on last night? I’ve never felt the like before, to be true. My head ached with fire, trying to keep the secrets of my life inside. I can defeat most that way, so it was annoying! Better to be known to be pure of heart, instead of the villain, no? You’ve had this done with mother and my brother here as well?”
She nodded.
“Both cleared, or I wouldn’t be talking to them. Or, I might be, but I’m not a spy or anything like that, and can’t block telepathy, yet. Not without using magic for it. We’re putting together a program to teach our side to do things like that, if we can work it out? I don’t suppose you’d be willing to help with that? It means working with kids and socialites, if you are.” She grinned, as if that was too much to ask of anyone, even if she’d been going around doing that kind of thing for months.
Her Cousin Lewis gave her a bored, dry, look then.
“I can spare some time for it, if it’s needful. It’s a trick I learned, long ago, and takes discipline and practice, but only that. Any person of good mind and will can master it. The trick is to use it so often, for so long that the walls of the mind are left protected, even when guard is not raised on purpose. That can take time. Years only, not centuries. The primary task of it can be taught in no more than some months?”
She didn’t let her excitement show, but managed a smile that might have given her away.
“Nice. As for the rest, we have some names that might be in with the enemy. There’s word out of Europe that some of my family, on my dad’s side, have worked into their ranks, but I only know that and it might not be true. The goal seems to be about killing all of humanity, or as much of it as possible. In the timeline that Karen, my mom from the future is from?” It could be a hard and confusing topic, but the men both seemed to understand instantly. “In her time, we’d lost. The immortals, a few shape shifters and a handful of others were all that were left. I don’t have exact numbers, but it wasn’t a large amount, from the sound of it.”
There was a sour expression from the older man, his beard twitching a bit.
