Not what Gail expected to hear. She grunted an encouragement.
“I don’t want you to go, either. I’d miss you.” Gail blinked, and turned toward the voice, that of Roger Grimm. He and Vera had come over, and they too knelt down beside Melanie.
“The whole household would miss you,” Vera said. “You have a good heart. You’re doing more to hold us together than anyone else.”
Melanie sniffled and shook her head. “But I messed up so bad!”
“We all did,” Roger said. Gail noticed he hadn’t shaved in several days, and his whiskers were coming in mostly gray. “We’re all to blame. Don’t go, please.”
“Okay,” Melanie said. Vera smiled and gave Melanie a motherly hug, and Melanie sniffled again, then again, almost as if waiting. Gail, though, metasensed someone, a Crow, climbing the outside of the building. Up to the roof. She didn’t think it was Gilgamesh, though she did suspect the older Crow knew how to fool her metasense if he wanted. “Uh, Focus? Yoo hoo?”
Gail blinked. “Sorry. Distracted. Yes?”
“You’re supposed to retag me now.”
“Oh, right.” Gail did so, and Melanie’s laughter mixed with her tears. Gail joined in, as did Roger and Vera.
The Crow reached the roof and hung back, unwilling to approach. Gail thought through the situation, and realized the problem. “Roger, Vera, I’d like to talk with Melanie for a moment, in private.”
“Sure, Focus. No problem,” Roger said. He and Vera left the roof, and neither of them noticed the Crow.
“Focus?”
Gail, slow and carefully, pointed her left index finger at the Crow. Melanie followed Gail’s finger, her mouth opening in an ‘O’ when she spotted him.
The Crow slowly walked over and spoke in a whisper. “Focus Gail, whatever you did here isn’t something that’s good for your household.”
“Crow Whisper?” she said. She recognized his voice. Whisper was a short ratty young man, dressed in rags that should reek, but somehow didn’t. Similar to Gilgamesh, he looked ‘off’, as if his arm and leg muscles were in the wrong places. He had dark brown hair, worn long and tied back in a ponytail by a brown-stained shoestring. His hair didn’t look like it had been washed in months.
He nodded.
“I can take care of this dross now, while it’s still fresh, but I can’t if we let it age,” Whisper said. His quiet voice rasped.
“Do you need us to leave?”
Whisper frowned. “I think I’m beginning to understand Guru Shadow’s comments about fear and necessity. How heroism comes from need, and how embracing the fear can make you functionally braver.” He paused. “Oh, uh, sorry, ma’am and ma’am. I’m too used to talking to myself. You two don’t need to leave, but it would be a good thing if nobody else came up here for the next several hours.”
“Okay,” Gail said. “I don’t untag people often. I guess I’d better never do it inside the household, then.”
“Untagging? That’s what caused this?” He frowned and skittered back ten steps. After a moment, he walked forward again. “That’s nasty punishment, Focus Gail, but you didn’t seem angry when you did it.” He shook his head, puzzled.
“It’s our household’s chosen punishment, I guess,” Melanie said, laughing quietly. “I did ask for it, and I don’t mean that figuratively.” She smiled at the Crow. “My name’s Melanie.”
“I’m Whisper,” he said. He turned to Gail. “Focus Gail, would you be so kind as to assign Melanie the task of talking to me? Nothing against your husband Van” who Gail had talked into exchanging letters with Whisper “but he’s, um, too forceful for me to be comfortable with.”
“Sure,” Gail said. “No problem.” Van? Forceful? Gail gave this a moment of thought and decided his dealings with the various Focuses and Arms had made him more self-confident and less bendy.
“Do I get to ask you questions?” Melanie said, to Whisper.
Whisper nodded. “If it’s safe, I’ll even answer them.”
“Can I get to meet Marla?” Melanie asked. She was one of the few people in Gail’s household who believed Whisper’s story that Marla was a tamed Monster.
Whisper paused for a moment in thought, and nodded again. “You might even be able to help me convince her to come out of her den. The wedding reception fight scared her silly and…” Whisper’s voice trailed off for a moment. “I found the fight scary, too.”
“We all did,” Gail said. “You were there?”
Whisper’s eyes opened wide and he skittered back three steps. “No way, I’m not that sort of Crow,” he said. “I only metasensed it. From the edge of my range. When I wasn’t panicking and running, of course.”
Gail nodded. Yes, she decided, her life as a Focus was indeed back to its normal insanity.
Loss
Gilgamesh walked up to the front door of the Inferno household and knocked. The Arms were still here, Kali in her extended healing trance, Tiamat sleeping for unknown reasons, and Supergirl walking a patrol around the Inferno perimeter. She had healed up all her damage already.
The door opened. “Good morning, Gilgamesh,” Tim said. “The Focus is waiting for you out in the cabana.”
“Thank you,” Gilgamesh said. Tim wasn’t normally one to answer the front door. Something must be happening. Gilgamesh did a quick metasense scan and found Lori in the cabana. She sensed healthy to him, well on her way to a full recovery from her latest gunshot wounds. Which meant the something happening was personal. He followed Tim into the house.
The Inferno household was quiet this morning, and tense. Disquieting. Gilgamesh walked out the back door, down the steps, down the path past the kitchen garden, past the pool, over to Bob’s Barn, and to the far end of the pool and to the cabana. Lori sat, reading. She looked up when he approached, put her book down, and stood. She hugged him tight.
“Is something wrong, Lori?”
She nodded. “Have a seat.”
Gilgamesh sat in a cheery looking lawn chair, the only cheery thing in Inferno today.
Lori took a deep breath. “Gilgamesh, I don’t know of any way to say this kindly. I’m going back to Sky.”
Gilgamesh took a sudden breath and looked away. Wobbly, a gaping chasm opened in his mind and in his stomach. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t gnawed on that possibility, in the back of his mind, ever since the conclusion of the wedding reception fight. Sky had been a wreck afterwards, proportionately more damaged for a Crow than Lori had been as a Focus, at least after Lori’s first few hours of healing under the Lieutenant’s direction. Crows healed so slowly, and the Good Doctor had contemplated having to amputate both of Sky’s legs. The last time he saw Sky, he had a third of the Inferno Transforms waiting on him hand and foot, like he was their Focus, including attention from Lori, despite her own severe injuries. Wounded Crows were almost irresistible.
“I don’t understand,” Gilgamesh said.
“At the household funeral I found things in the juice I hadn’t ever found before,” Lori said, leaning forward intently in her chair. “Sky’s more deeply tied to Inferno than I knew.” She paused and captured his wandering gaze with her eyes. Tears streamed down her face. “I feel about two inches tall for what I’ve done to you.”
“I’m sorry,” Gilgamesh said. His soul hurt. First Shadow, then Tiamat, and now Lori. The losses kept adding up. Innocence, too. He had respected the senior Crow, once. Then Innocence had destroyed himself by becoming the Law and ruining his mind. For what? Quicker development of juice tricks? How could that be worth sacrificing one’s soul?
If only Gilgamesh could shake the fear he might have done the same to himself by associating with the Arms...
Lori wiped her eyes. “I just can’t let go.” In an instant, he found Lori in his lap. His own wounded leg, healed by Tiamat in the battle aftermath, twinged in pain for a moment. Gilgamesh focused an impromptu dross construct at his leg, and the leg relaxed. “I love you, I’ll never stop loving you.”
Gilgamesh held
Lori in his lap for many minutes. Holding her kept the pain and darkness away.
“The Inferno doors will always be open for you to visit me and our child,” Lori said, after a loud snuffle. The reek of charisma filled the air; Lori used it just so she could speak rationally. “I’m not willing to give up on you and do the monogamy thing with Sky – or vice versa – until I can understand the choice I’m making at the juice level.”
Crazy Lori. “Do you have any idea what’s needed?” Tell me! That way I can go do whatever it is.
Utter futility, though. He was a Crow organizer, a tale-teller, a dross-weaponry researcher and apprentice military leader. Helping Focus households sounded so far outside of his field of expertise he wouldn’t know where to start looking.
“I don’t have a clue. Neither does Sky,” Lori said, her voice a Crow whisper.
“I don’t either.”
Lori snuggled up against Gilgamesh for a few minutes, moments he didn’t want to ever end. After several wonderful moments, she wiggled around and kissed Gilgamesh and he breathed in her spicy scent.
But she offered no future here, and so he broke the clinch and kissed Lori’s tears off her face. “It’s insane,” Lori said, after he finished. “I can’t even talk about this without using my charisma to keep me from falling apart.” The fight had left her an emotional wreck, and the relationship stress wasn’t making it any better. “I don’t want to lose either of you! Each of you fulfills a different need in me. That’s the juice talking, love, not just Dr. Lorraine Rizzari’s messed up psychology. I know what I’m doing is wrong, but I don’t know how to make it right. Or keep it from continuing to mess up your relationship with Sky.”
Gilgamesh couldn’t help a low chuckle. “Sky and I have always been testy with each other, even before either of us met you. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Well, that’s something,” Lori said. “A first.” She paused. “It would be better if the two of you could learn to be less testy with each other. Sky, this is a private conversation.”
Gilgamesh looked around and with effort found Sky, in a wheelchair, on the path leading up to the cabana. “I couldn’t resist, not with my name being so cruelly abused, my most gracious lady,” Sky said. “I, for one, am not yet convinced of this monogamy” clear throat “hypothesis. Besides, I want to apologize to Gilgamesh.”
“You do?” both Gilgamesh and Lori said at once.
Sky laughed. “What you did in Detroit, Gilgamesh, convinced me you’re as important as the Commander is for our future. I’m willing to teach you all my tricks, whatever you can learn of them. I’m afraid you’re going to need them, Student.”
“Thank you,” Gilgamesh said, and cocked his head at Sky. He wondered if ‘apology’ meant something slightly different in Quebecois. “In return, I can teach you better ways of dealing with Carol. She’s not Armenigar.” Of which there was much rejoicing. Armenigar took impossible to heights unimagined by the English language. “You’ll need it, Sky, if the monogamy” clear throat “hypothesis turns out to be true and you and Lori end up together, because I don’t think Carol will ever give up on Lori.” He couldn’t resist tossing in the zinger.
“Well said.” Sky laughed again.
“You two,” Lori said. “This is not being testy with each other?”
“It’s being less testy,” Sky said. “Face it, my lady. Our personalities are just a wee bit different. That is, I’m an old Crow who’s a loudmouth romantic blowhard, and Gilgamesh here is a quiet, serious and realistic young Crow. And we both wield more power than we know what to do with.” Sky wheeled over to them. “Besides, when business comes up, we can be perfectly civil with one another.”
“Shouldn’t you still be in traction or something?” Gilgamesh said. He had the urge to put Sky back in traction. Even for a Crow, Sky was insufferable.
“Blame that on Shadow. He’s been instructing me on how to use dross constructs to speed up the Crow healing process, and providing me the dross I need.”
“Shadow’s here in Boston as well?” Gilgamesh said.
Sky nodded. “He’s been living with the Nobles ever since he got attacked in New York. He’s also been trying to undo whatever Innocence did to Kali in the fight that dropped her into a never-ending healing coma.”
“This I’ve got to see,” Gilgamesh said. He wanted to get Shadow to tell him what the hell happened, and why the disappearing act.
“Good luck with that,” Sky said, reading Gilgamesh’s mind. “Shadow’s being more spooked and paranoid than I’ve ever seen him.”
Arm Care
Zielinski brushed back another tear, as he put the last picture of Tina in his special photo album. The special photo album with his pictures of Julie Bethune, Rose Desmond, Francine Sarles and Elsie Conger, the Arms he had failed to keep alive. The albums with his pictures of Jim Simpson, and the pictures he cadged of the other Transforms he had known and lost, including Karen Forsythe, the Focus who died of cancer while in his care.
Across the room, Keaton still slept the sleep of a healing Arm. Carol hadn’t originally wanted to move her entourage temporarily to Boston, getting all Arm-possessive about defending Keaton’s territory. After he pointed out the danger of having the entire Arm contingent within Focus Adkins’ reach, given Adkins’ earlier plans to leash the Arms, Carol had given his argument some thought and decided Inferno would be a safer place for all of them to recover. She had also ordered him not to be depressed about his injuries, or the deaths, which had only partly worked.
He hadn’t parted from his first stay in Inferno on the best of terms, but over time, he had realized how much he missed the place. He looked at the pictures of Tina, and chewed his lip, as he slipped into the familiar depression that always accompanied his grief. Another loss. Eighteen months since he moved into Inferno to dodge his enemies, and he had already lost two of his close Inferno acquaintances, Jim and Tina. Both within the last few months. He dried his eyes again and rubbed his temples, eyes squeezed shut, head bowed in pain. Inferno had hung their pictures in the Inferno hall of heroes two days ago, to be forever remembered, and he had cried then too, sobbing like a baby. He hadn’t been the only one. Then Inferno put up pictures of Rev. Matt Narbanor and Count Horace Knox beside them, with the explanatory plaques underneath, and gave him enough hope to keep going. The Cause was slowly working, bringing all the Transforms together.
The last picture he put in the album had been of Tina and Bob testing out their newest anti-fogging corona electrode assembly in one of the cloud chambers. He had taken the picture just before Tina yanked his luminous wristwatch off his arm to use as a radioactivity source, ragging him about how dangerous it was to wear a radium-tainted watch. Not that he saw any effect of the radium luminescence in the cloud chamber, just the normal background radiation. He suspected Tina had been pulling his leg. Tina would have chosen no better way to give her life to the Inferno cause than protecting the life of her Focus.
He would miss the rough muscular engineer a hell of a lot.
---
Keaton screamed as she woke up. Zielinski put down the March JAMA, reached over, and patted Keaton’s arm. She grabbed hold of it with a bruising vice grip and took several deep breaths, calming herself, and stared into his eyes, recognition slowly arriving.
“I’m strapped down,” Keaton said, at the edge of panic. Strapped down, all but one arm. Carol had concurred with his guess that if Keaton awoke completely strapped down, she would go berserk and attempt to kill them all.
Zielinski nodded. “If you let me check you over, I’ll unstrap you.” He didn’t attempt to hide his emotions or thoughts. He wheeled his wheelchair over to his medical bag, wheeled back, and began the examination, starting with Keaton’s pupils and blood pressure.
“How does your left leg feel?”
“Short. Itchy. Lost another limb, did I?”
Zielinski nodded. “You got skunked bad by Rogue Crow in the fight as well.” Everything checked out, and he bega
n to unstrap the Arm. Once both her arms were unstrapped, she helped him with the rest.
“How long?”
“Five days.”
“Why are you in a wheelchair?”
“I’m in a wheelchair because a bird-headed pack-Monster leapt over Focus Hargrove’s people’s defensive position and stepped on my right leg, breaking it.” He had been hiding there with Focus Rickenbach’s groom, Van, as they tried to keep each other alive and non-panicked. He liked the serious young man. It said something positive about Focus Rickenbach that someone as intelligent and rational as Van saw promise in her.
“Why aren’t you dead?”
“Hargrove took out the pack-Monster hand to hand.” Which had been an amazing sight to behold.
“Heh,” Keaton said. “I knew getting her trained up would help.” She glanced around and shook her head. “I’m in the Inferno autopsy room? You know, this doesn’t give me any confidence in my current situation.” Keaton stopped working on the last leg strap, and grabbed Zielinski’s shoulders.
“You aren’t in any danger,” he said. “We’re here because we didn’t want you anywhere near Adkins while you were out, because the Feds have booted Carol from Houston, and because our new place in California isn’t ready yet. Besides, because of the fight, the Focuses love you. We’ve got Focuses raiding clinics for all three Arms throughout all of New England.” All organized by Flo Ackermann, trying to undo her guilt over not being brave enough to help defend the wedding reception.
“I still want out,” she said, quietly, voice hoarse. She had spotted the locked door. Zielinski looked carefully into Keaton’s eyes, and saw more panic than before.
“I do have to verify that you’re yourself,” he said. “As I said, Rogue Crow did something to you in the fight. Shadow said he’s cleaned off all the dross effects, but he wasn’t able to guarantee there wouldn’t be any lingering mental problems.”
“Huh.” She let go of him and went back to working on the last strap. “Where’s Carol?” He still sensed an edge of barely controlled panic in her voice.
The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Nine Page 8