Wilderness Hannah, page 1
part #3 of Damsel Series
Damsel: Book Three
Wilderness Hannah
P.S. Power
Orange Cat Publishing
Copyright 2021
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter seventeen
Afterword
Chapter one
“Fuck this...”
Hannah was about to finish that intelligent statement, with the word noise, spoken in a sassy tone, perhaps with a neck pop, or whatever that kind of head movement was named, to show exactly how much she wasn’t afraid of the beast man in front of her. Instead, she was flying to the side, having been backhanded with enough force that she went black. Dark gray, at least.
Not all the way out, for some strange reason. There were blue and black shining sparkles though, and her remaining ability to actually see moved into a hazy spot about the size of her own head, directly in front of her. With a big black dot directly in the middle.
She was shooting the whole time, tracking her target even as the world went dark, hitting with each bullet. She thought so at least. The creature, which looked a lot like a wax figure made to look like a wolfman, after a fashion, being mostly covered with brown fur, showing a little bit of tan skin around the eyes and literally slavering, barely moved back, even if she was almost certain she was hitting him with every single bullet.
A thing she wasn’t even proud of. She felt oddly blank, in fact, instead of cowering in fear as she probably should have been. She’d simply faced too many threats, in VR, for that to happen now. The gray steel forty-four was a decently powerful weapon and about all she could hold down, but when dealing with superhuman beings that didn’t always mean much. At two feet though, she wasn’t going to miss. Not even as she started to pass out again.
The thing was looming, really well. It was huge after all. Over seven feet tall, Hannah thought. She fired upward, given that.
It occurred to her that running away would have made a lot more sense than standing and fighting had. Except, of course, that she was on a city street, in New York, and with the quarantine having just been lifted, there were way too many people for her to have simply abandoned them there, to die.
So, not being a victim, she’d let herself become a fool. Now she was going to die for that mistake. Which didn’t keep her from dropping the gun, which was now empty, including her extra magazine being all out of little boom cartridges. So, as if it made any sense at all, she pulled the large folding knife that she always carried with her. It took both hands for her to open it.
Not that it would do anything for her.
If the gun didn’t work, the knife wouldn’t either, but she stood up, fighting the urge to cry or vomit, after being hit so hard, and just started stabbing. Like she was in a prison yard, and the biggest bitch in the joint was going down. As she suspected though, moving in, her arm pumping like a freaking sewing machine... Nothing much happened at all. The blade hit flesh, then just stopped. It wasn’t hard, like brick or iron, just flesh.
Too thick for her to poke through. Too strong.
So, feeling a bit weak about doing it, Hannah spun to the right and started to walk away. Flowing from the fourth gait, into the fifth. Barely keeping ahead of the beast, which was jogging after her. Thankfully not traveling at its full speed. She was nearly certain it was baffled by what she was doing, which was more of a skating motion, than running. She had to look funny, but was moving side to side quickly enough that she could have been slightly hard to actually catch.
At least in theory. If a normal person had been after her, not a superhuman beast man, who didn’t seem to be all that interested in anything other than killing. At least four people were already down. That she’d watched happening, as she’d gotten her weapon out. Now she was just a tiny woman, with a useless knife, and a cell phone.
Of course, the police were generally armed with things even less powerful than what she carried. She’d just hit the thing breathing down her neck with twenty rounds, half of them coming in point blank. Before the thing had closed with her, she’d hit it at least five times in the head.
That hadn’t even distracted it. Not as far as she could tell.
So, dialing emergency services wouldn’t help anyone at all. It would probably just get the cops killed, if they even tried to do anything. More likely than not, they simply wouldn’t show up. Not in time to be useful. Meaning, once she died and wasn’t being frantically chased, others would start to die again. That, of course, wasn’t going to take too much more time.
Throwing her knife down, not able to safely put it in her pocket, she dug for her phone. That slowed her down, which was rewarded with a swipe of very sharp claws, across her back.
She hissed, even if it wasn’t all that deep.
At least she could still use her legs, which meant her spine was probably intact. She forced herself to speed up, and stabbed at her cell phone with her left thumb, until someone spoke.
“Hello?”
It was a man, though she wasn’t at all certain who it was. Someone on her friends list, probably. She wasn’t totally certain.
“This is Hannah. Help! Um, second and...”
She didn’t know what to expect, but the man didn’t speak, at all. Whoever it was. She scrambled, pushing for every last bit of speed she had, which saved her from another blow. Then, for some reason she fell down. It was from a blast of wind, that didn’t pick her up first, moving almost straight down.
The wolf beast thing howled. In pain. When she struggled to move, three seconds later, she saw that the creature was dangling, limp, and being held up by a single arm. The man holding him was in blue tights, with a red cape dangling behind him. He floated in the air, hovering about four feet over the pavement.
“Sorry it took so long. I went to the wrong street, first. Now, we need to handle this. There are people injured, back there.” The man made a tight face then, as Hannah got up. “You’re bleeding. Your back...”
She nodded.
“How bad is it? I mean, are my slacks soaked with blood in the back or...”
There was a head shake at least. The messy haired man cleared his throat.
“No, um... There’s blood. They aren’t good wounds, but more like bad scratches, I think?”
She nodded.
“Got it. I’ll try for first aid then and call-in help? Ambulances. Oh, um, thanks? That thing wasn’t going to be stopped using kind words. Not that I got to try that.” Her back felt like it was on fire, but she moved back down the street, in the direction she’d come from. Almost everyone had fled, of course. Only three people were doing anything, and out of those, only one, an older man, had even tried to use direct pressure.
She did that as well, ripping her shirt off and using it as a makeshift bandage. That meant her blood was getting on and possibly in, the young woman she was trying to save. She had some bad wounds, but they weren’t in any of the zones that should kill the poor thing. Not that Hannah knew about.
It took talent to hold the blood in and use her phone at the same time.
“Nine-one-one, what’s the nature of your emergency.”
She gave the location first.
“Six or seven people are down. Two or three are still alive, I think. The Red Cape stopped the attacker.”
“The Red Cape?”
Hannah stuck her tongue out, and rolled her eyes in a way that was certainly going to be flattering, later, when she was seen on television. Not that the fact that she wasn’t wearing a shirt and her bra had come off from the single swipe of claws, wouldn’t be the main issue. That and the bloody wounds would, no doubt distract from the fact that she was being rude and making faces at the woman on the phone. Schooling herself, she tried to do better than that.
Not for anyone else, just because it wasn’t the sort of person she wanted to be.
“Superion X?”
“Oh. Got it. He saved everyone?”
Hannah didn’t point out the obvious, that there were dead bodies on the ground, just taking a deep breath.
“As soon as he found out something was going on. There are people who didn’t make it, before that.”
That was on her, of course. If she would have pulled back and called first thing, some of those people, maybe all of them, would still be alive. She didn’t say that, of course. Instead, she just tried to hold pressure on the wounds.
The line was kept open, so they could record the screaming, if more wolf people came, or whatever the logic of that was. She set the phone down, and before the police got there, was able to pass the medical tasks to the EMTs, who did a much better job of it than she had been. Her shirt was, of course, ruined. So, topless and hurting, she moved to collect her weapons. The knife was the harder one to find, but she was only about twenty feet from where she’d let go of the forty-four.
Red Cape was gone, having taken the furry beast guy with him.
Wondering what to do, one of the cops on the scene, just showing up, yelled at her.
“Jesus! Medic! Get a medic over here!”
He grab
Never talk to the cops. Not without a legal professional being there, on her side of things, working for her, directly. Even if you were the victim. To that end, she made a call. This time getting who she meant to, on purpose.
Not just who she needed, by blind luck.
“Lionel Burgess.”
“Hannah de Peyser. Shooting, self-defense. Superhuman wolf-man. Four dead. Not by me. Superhuman intervention cleaned it up for us.”
“Ah?”
The man didn’t ask a lot of questions, not that it wasn’t going to be coming, later.
“Understood. Where are you?”
“At the scene still, getting help. I was wounded, by the attacker. A superhuman wolf-beast-man of some sort. Superion X stopped him. I shot that thing twenty times, and stabbed it at least eight. It did nothing. Self-defense, but...” She was whispering, not wanting to give the police any knowledge they didn’t already have. Just in case they wanted a scapegoat.
“What precinct are the police from?”
That was the seventh, which meant very little to her, of course.
Burgess cleared his throat.
“Don’t say anything other than that you want a lawyer. Nothing else. I’ll be right there. Lock your phone as soon as you hang up.”
She repeated the line given, several times, asking for a lawyer, which meant that she got to go down to the station, even if it was pretty clear she hadn’t done anything illegal. On the nice side, even though no-one had a tiny shirt for her to wear, she did get a scratchy wool blanket to wrap around herself. It felt funny, on her back, where the wounds still burned.
The EMTs hadn’t given her anything for the pain, so she tried to fight that herself, dropping into a trance, as she sat in the back of the police car. That wasn’t easy to do, but it meant, by the time they were at the police station, with her wrapped in a blanket, that said NYPD on it, she was pretty well calm and collected. Not even shaking any longer or anything. She had been doing that, earlier, of course.
Not because she’d lost the fight, either.
It was freaking cold outside and her goosebumps had been working on gooseflesh of their own, out there. On the good side, her nipples had been pert and tight, on her chest. That would show up pretty well on the video, she had to think.
Smiling, Hannah figured that she was going to be waiting for hours, or days, even, to be let go. If there wasn’t a huge court case. The police tended to feel insecure around the super types, so the courts, most days, went out of their way to act like that sort of thing wasn’t really an issue. That meant, according to the law, she might be considered an attempted murderer. Shooting someone twenty times, then stabbing them, certainly was that, after all.
Death really had been her goal, at the time. Claiming otherwise, at least to herself, would be lying.
She kept fighting for mental control, but instead of a general lockup, with ten other women, she was tucked away in an interrogation room. She knew that because, cleverly, she’d seen television. Also, of course, she’d been in that type of thing before. Being questioned, as a victim.
Still, she was a bit surprised when the Detective who came in, last name Goering, instead of Donutelli, cleared his throat.
“We have video of the whole event, from at least ten different angles. Your actions probably saved twenty lives out there today. Would you be willing to walk over the whole thing with us, Ms. De Peyser?”
Lionel Burgess, who had walked in behind the heavier set man, nodded, slowly. She did that back, blowing out hard enough that her cheeks puffed up with air.
Then she nodded, at her lawyer.
“My client is amenable to that.”
The Detective looked at both of them, then made a face. He wasn’t old, but wasn’t in shape, either. Not even for a police officer. Burgess looked more ready to throw down and he was a good twenty pounds overweight. Also, sixty-five or a little more. Gray hair kept tidy and suit well-tailored.
Not that he was being anything other than professional, at the moment. The man was paid five hundred dollars an hour, after all. Even wealthy people didn’t pay that much for shoddy work. Then Lionel Burgess didn’t know how to do that kind of thing.
He let her speak though, not cautioning her against saying anything. Then, she only lied once, in the whole thing. When it came to who she’d tried to call.
“My brother. Nate. He has superpowers. Nothing that big, but he can fly. That Red Cape guy got there first, which was good. Nate was probably in the shower, so would have taken too long.” That wasn’t holding up if they checked her phone, of course. That had been taken from her, when they’d removed her gun and knife. She’d locked it first, thanks to Lionel reminding her to.
If they got a warrant, that one was going to be kind of glaring. Then, Old Red hadn’t spoken, so she could claim it had been a wrong number and the rest was put together later, by her. Trauma victims had notoriously bad memories, after all.
The Detective gave her a look that spoke of him knowing that she was lying. She could actually feel the psychic resonance coming off of him for about twenty seconds. It wasn’t strong, probably just the kind of thing anyone could do, if they practiced a bit, but the Detective was actually trying to read her mind, using psychic powers.
Meaning he could tell she was lying to him.
“Um, more to the point, I made a call at random, while running and tabbing with my thumb. I called out for help, and tried to say what was going on. Then... Well, I nearly went down. I did. Because of the wind. After that, I honestly didn’t see what happened. It was fast. I was back up in a few seconds.”
That, for some reason, had Goering clearing his throat.
“I noticed that. In the video? You were down twice and got back up, almost instantly, each time. Why is that exactly, Ms. de Peyser? You weigh... What? Ninety pounds, tops? You didn’t do anything except run funny, shoot and stab. Nothing that showed superhuman abilities...” The man locked eyes with her. “But when I see things that can’t happen take place, I tend to become suspicious. You were put down, hard, and just climbed back to your feet. Are you working with some kind of greater than normal ability, by any chance? I notice you don’t seem to be bothered by the wounds you received.”
Lionel glared at the man, and was ready to tell him what wasn’t appropriate to ask, when Hannah grunted and shook her head.
“Not even a little bit, unfortunately. I’ve worked with some psychic things, finding lost people, mainly. It isn’t actually a power, really. I mean, you could tell that I was lying about the phone call, earlier, using your own psychic abilities. That kind of thing is pretty normal, even if most people don’t count it as a real power. That, meditation, some training in shooting and some other things. That funny running? That’s all. Nothing you couldn’t do. I’m just trying to fight the pain right now, ignoring it. It does burn though, I’m just not reacting to it as much, that’s all.”
That was all true, and the Detective froze, instead of calling her a liar.
“You noticed that? We call it the blue sense around here. A lot of cops have it. You pick things up on the job.”
She nodded, just a bit.
“A lot of people can do things like that. Find their keys and all that? I had to take lessons, is all. Now, is there anything more you need from me? Not to be a cunt, but it’s hard to hold this meditation state for pain I’m trying to use, and talk at the same time.”
That sounded weird, even to her, and she was the one trying to school her mind for the pain. It wasn’t totally working. She honestly wasn’t showing a lot of response, on the outside, but she was still mainly feeling it. She was too distracted to manage anything more than that.
The Detective held up a finger, left the room and then didn’t come back for a very long time. Over forty minutes. Hannah smiled, after a while, mimicking Lionel, who rather carefully wasn’t speaking. He didn’t explain why, but did glance up at the red light on the camera in the corner of the room, several times. That was enough of a warning for her. They had confidentiality between them, but no-one had mentioned that the room wasn’t being monitored.
