Shapechanger's Birth

by Laer Carroll

  In the end she and her two escorts stayed late to accommodate one last patient, an elderly man with a large cancer in his abdomen. He'd been enduring the pain for a long time because he feared doctors and their actions. Facing a woman was somehow easier for him, possibly because he met her in a decidedly unmedical setting.

  She reached inside him, killed the cancer, had his body encyst it, and instructed his body's self-repair system to slowly dissolve it over the next several months. She left him with spurious instructions involving willow-bark tea and hot compresses.

  In the carriage after they left the party Mary said to Katherine, "I apologize for keeping you out so late. I really could not turn away that last one."

  Mrs. Kane patted Mary's hand. "Think nothing of it. I found the whole evening delightful."

  The woman turned to Edith. "I should have known that all your companions would be extraordinary."

  "And how were your endeavors?" Mary asked. Edith and Mrs. Kane had come to the party to gain support for the fledgling research institute at the Queen's College Cork.

  Katherine smiled. "We met with several distinguished gentlemen. None of them opposed the institute — or admitted it anyway. And I believe that we quite intrigued Professor Sullivan."

  Professor and Doctor William Sullivan was a friend of Kane's. They had done research and published a well-received monograph on the chemistry of the sugar beet which had sparked the creation of several sugar refineries. He was a medic who taught at Dublin's Catholic University of Ireland. Earlier in the day Lady Katherine had mentioned that he was a good candidate for recruitment to Queen's College. He was increasingly disillusioned with the University's ecclesiastical fear of science and promotion of clerical over secular professors.

  Shortly afterward the Kane's carriage dropped Mary and Edith off at their hotel. Edith went to her room and quickly to sleep, but Mary as usual stayed up late.

  Before she could spend a few hours reading and planning, she first spent a few minutes relieving herself of sexual tension. This was only a stopgap. When she returned to Cork City she would have to find a new lover.

  This was always complicated. She had to use one of her alternate identities to provide a context for her relationship with him. Her persona must have a private residence where she could take her lover, not only for sex but also other activities. He had to be moral enough so that she could like and trust him, but also not someone who wanted a permanent relationship. And he must be someone who would not bore her, and who was attractive to her.

  Several days later, just before its closing time, Jane, Edith, and Mary entered a Dublin tavern a few blocks from the waterfront. They had an appointment with the owner an hour after closing time. They were early to ensure that no ambush awaited them. Mary was quite sure there would none. The Organization's ferocious response to attacks was known in criminal circles all over Ireland. Still, she preferred being sure.

  Jane had been bargaining with the owner to merge his share in the prostitution trade with the Organization. He had tentatively agreed. Tonight they were supposed to finalize the details — after he met the legendary cat lady. He was cautious, smart, and good to his women. He had much to gain from a merger, but he also wanted to make sure that he wasn't being conned by someone pretending to be an Org emissary.

  Mary sneaked away from the main room and prowled the building in her Maggie persona, her senses set to hypersensitivity. She wanted to be sure that all her intelligence about the establishment was accurate.

  The other two women bought drinks in the bar, found seats, and nursed them there. They did their own surveillance, of the crowd in the bar.

  Mary found no problems and returned to her companions just at closing time. People were being herded out.

  "Come on, ladies. Finish up. You can come again t'morrah."

  Mary just looked at the burly bouncer. Jane said, "We're supposed to meet Donogh Butler. He's expecting us."

  He looked at her skeptically. "And who is 'us'?"

  "Tell him 'Jane.' And friends."

  After staring at the three women for a few moments, he shrugged. "I'll go tell Butler ye're here."

  Mary waited till he stepped through the doorless entry to the gambling salon, a quieter and more luxurious room. Then she and the other two women followed him. At the last moment she sheered off and walked casually to a closed door further along the wall. It opened into a storeroom that had a steep ladder up to the second story. Inside, she quickly disrobed down to her body-fitted grey wool suit, folded and placed her clothing behind some boxes, and converted her appearance to that of the cat lady.

  Mary then climbed up the ladder, entering another storeroom on the second story. This opened onto a hallway. One of the doors in the hall led to a balcony inside the gambling salon.

  She cracked the door and peeked through it. As reported by Org spies, the balcony was mostly in darkness. It was also very dusty and it held no one and nothing except various boxes and other junk that had evidently been there for years. Mary settled down to wait for the right moment to act.

  She had a good view of the gambling room. It had several tables, all round or oval except for a long table on one wall that held various drinking glasses and bottles and such. Red and gold tapestries hung on the walls, and all the wooden chairs had arms. In a corner sat a roulette wheel that had just been tidied up by two men, who were even now leaving the salon.

  All tables but the biggest were empty. Seated around its oval edges were about a dozen men, cards and drinks and money before them. Jane and Edith were standing before a very dandily dressed man whose jacket and trousers were all red and who sported a gold foulard tie.

  Most of the other men were dressed ordinarily, some in work clothes. Two of the men wore expensive dark suits. As Mary watched they got up, donned top hats, and walked out. They seemed unhappy that their fun had been cut short.

  Mary's attention was drawn to another man at the table, partly because Dandy Donogh Butler was telling him that he had to leave.

  He was obviously tall even seated as he was. He had a powerful build with a narrow waist, short black hair, and skin tanned brown. He was dressed all in black, even his shirt. He sat perfectly at ease but nevertheless seemed poised to act. Which he did. Casually he opened his jacket to reveal twin revolvers holstered at his belt, butts pointing forward. Their brown wooden handles gleamed in the lamplight.

  Dandy Donogh grew angrier. The dark-clad man seemed to grow more relaxed, if that were possible without falling into a deep sleep. Dandy spoke to two of the rougher-dressed men sitting at the table. They stood up. Blacky merely glanced at them, but they froze, then very carefully stepped back. Mary grinned.

  Below, Dandy was glaring at Blacky. Then he seemed to twitch infinitesimally, and turned his glare on the two men.

  "Sit down, you two. Who's this?" He turned his attention to the two women.

  "This is Edith."

  "Is she the — one who I asked to meet."

  "No. She'll be along later."

  "The deals off if she don't come."

  "She'll be here. Now let's just go over what we agreed ...."

  Dandy told the two men closest to him to get other seats. They got up and moved halfway around the table. Jane and Edith took their places.

  Mary could tell that Jane guessed that Donogh needed time to cool off. There was no need to summarize what she and Dandy Butler had spent several days negotiating. But she began to speak, not in her vigorous no-nonsense manner, but droning on in monotonous style.

  Minutes later Donogh Butler shifted impatiently in his seat.

  "Fine. Fine. All that. But where is She?"

  Mary launched herself off the balcony, leaping a dozen feet forward and falling in an arc thirty feet down. Twisting in the air, she thudded down less than a yard in front of Blacky, facing him and Butler, her body compressing almost to the point of kneeling to absorb most of the momentum of her plunge before rising to her full height.

  Every m
an at the table leaped to his feet except for the one who tried but caught one foot under his chair and fell back over it. And except for the black-clad man. He continued to sit comfortably. He looked into her eyes and raised his brows infinitesimally. Mary had no trouble guessing his thought: Amusing .

  Mary gave him a sliver of a smile and a microscopic tilt of her head. Yes, I know it's melodramatic. But it impresses them.

  The dark-clad man replied with a bland look and a smile so slight only she could detect it. Amusing. But you hardly expect to impress me.

  A slight release of breath that was a ghost of a snort. Hardly. Do I look stupid? Don't answer that.

  I won't. What happens next?

  Mary turned fully toward Donogh Butler.

  "As you asked, I am here."

  The final negotiations were completed in three minutes. In two more minutes the three women were gone. In another minute Mary had retrieved her clothing from the storeroom. Two minutes later, on the deserted street outside the tavern, Mary dressed, her skin flowed, and she became Maggie again.

  By then the carriage waiting for them a block away was rolling up to them. The three women climbed in and the carriage started up, the clop-clopping steps of the horses loud as they pulled the carriage away down the street, where it turned down one side-street after another.

  Inside the tavern's gambling salon Roberto Rodriguez climbed lazily to his feet and put his winnings away. He made a brief bow to the tavern owner, now another member of the "Organization." This seemed to be a sort of labor union of prostitutes, led or aided by a most extraordinary woman.

  "Thank you, Mr. Butler, for a very entertaining evening."

  Dandy Donogh scowled at Roberto. "Keep your mouth shut about this. Or ..."

  Roberto nodded to him and walked away.

  Outside in the cold Rodriguez increased the sensitivity of his ears and nose, caught a trace of the three women's scents, began to run after them, but stopped where they had ascended into a carriage. There he dropped to the ground in a pushup to keep his clothes clean, and sniffed at the scents left behind by the carriage and the horses that pulled it. Flowing instantly from pushup to upright to running, he shapechanged his hands so that the dust and garbage from the street fell away.

  Roberto pursued the carriage for a half mile before giving up. The buildings here were close packed but not enough to keep the wind from dispersing the scent of those he was chasing. And the only scent on the ground was left by the iron-shod wheels of the carriage and hooves of the horses. These were too similar to other scent traces on the ground to distinguish between them.

  He stopped and sighed. Given time, he should be able to find his fellow shapechanger and her two companions. But he had a ship to catch in the morning.

  Roberto Rodriguez had been born in 1702. He had died the first time in 1727 at the hands of Comanches in what today was known as the Staked Plain in Texas in the United States of America. That made 157 years of life. He had long ago learned patience.

  He had centuries, perhaps millenia, of life ahead of him. Plenty of time to find the one he sought. Still, it was hard to learn the lesson of patience yet again, now that he had finally met a female shapechanger.

  He stood there for a few seconds, debating. If he stayed in Dublin he should be able to track her down through the prostitution ring. But it would take time, and he had plans long made that would take him elsewhere. And when he did meet the female shapechanger there was no guarantee that she would be friendly. Indeed, she might even want to kill him.

  Roberto sighed, turned away from the path he'd tried to follow, and began to run again, toward his hotel. There he would catch a few hours of sleep, pack, and be away to catch his ship. But now he knew her scent. Nor would he forget it. Someday they would meet again.

  What Happens Next?

  Mary's Future

  There are many possibilities for what next happens to Mary. She is immortal and we could follow her into the 20th and the 21st Centuries, at the very least. Who knows? Perhaps someday she'll be a talky movie star, or the head of the American Medical Association. Or further in the future she might be a starship captain, and meet aliens.

  But in the 19th century she has a good deal of unfinished business. She still has to divest herself of the ultimate guardianship of the Organization and its people. She is financing a revolution in science and technology at the Queen's College Cork. The upcoming American Civil War will give her much to think about as the Irish Republican Brotherhood begins to agitate more for independence from the United Kingdom. At the very least there is material for a trilogy.

  Next scheduled to be published is Shapechanger's Progress . In it Mary, pretending to be an assistant to rich eccentric Dame Edith de la Roche, starts a publishing venture. In that role she will meet many of the literary lights of the day, including Charles Dickens, George Elliott, and Disraeli (who was an author as well as a politician). She will also meet George Sand, the pen name of Baroness Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin. And in other personas she will save Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort, from his death in 1861 from (perhaps) typhoid fever and thereby change the future in directions very different from the one we know.

  She will also meet other less benevolent people, including Jack the Ripper. Who was not made happy by the event.

  The Shapechanger Tales universe is huge. Stay tuned !