“Hold on,” I said. “Slow down. Do you know where the rest of Enkidu’s forces are?”
“Some are out in the Midwest licking their wounds after they got their asses kicked in the Chicago fight, and I think Sinclair, Del and Arête likely have the attention of the rest.”
Ah, well. Hoskins wasn’t as good as he thought he was. “How is that?” I said.
“You don’t know, ma’am?”
“The last information I know of has Sinclair being held captive by the Hunters.”
Haggerty took a deep breath, less sure of herself than a few seconds ago. “Enkidu’s made a big mistake. He put the Law on Sinclair and tried to turn him, but because Sinclair’s a Crow Master, it didn’t work. Instead, Sinclair staged a revolt. We don’t know the details, but I sent Del and a Crow Guru named Arête off to help Sinclair. They were supposed to lead Sinclair and his revolutionaries back to us, but Sinclair’s group blundered into part of the Hunter group that’s after us. We skirmished with the Hunters he ran into, once, in Oregon, and according to a couple of baby Hunters we picked off, Sinclair still has an altered version of the Law on him, and he’s out converting Hunters to his way of thinking. After he grabbed a full Hunter with his Crow Master tricks, the other Hunters decided to run like hell before they got converted as well.”
“Commander!” Duke Hoskins said, as he walked in. Red-brown land crab, long and low, almost as wide as he was tall. He needed to turn sideways to fit through the door. I hoped Merlin’s tricks would hold and cover his bellow. “Alright! You’re here. We’ve got’m licked now!”
I shook my head. Now that both of them were here to talk to, it was bad news time. “The two of you have done a great job getting this far. I’m guessing that you’re keeping these extra Major Transforms of yours under wraps from the Hunters?”
Haggerty nodded and Hoskins clicked crab claws. They told me about the Familia, what Brujas and Duendes were, and their grievances against the Hunters. All very good.
“Your plan would work, except for one problem: the fight in Chicago wasn’t a loss for the Hunters.” I went on to explain to them why Enkidu staged the Chicago fight, what I learned regarding Pack Mistress capabilities to reconstruct Hunters, and what the Madonna of Montreal showed me in her nightly Dreaming sessions. “Enkidu’s been spending the last two weeks gathering his troops at a Hunter base in the mountains just north of Cold Springs, Nevada, poised to take I-80 through the Sierras. If I’ve figured this out correctly, Enkidu’s going to hit your rear with most of the rest of his effectives as soon as you start to fight Bass. Given what we’ve seen in the Dreaming, the renegade Hunter task force you’re talking about is still part of the Hunter empire and still obeys Enkidu’s orders. Their orders are to swing around the southern end of the Sierras and come up through Bakersfield, if my Dreaming information is correct. They’re Enkidu’s blocking force, keeping us from easily fleeing south. After Enkidu and Bass slam you, they’re going to go after Webberly, the Stone Point barony, Inferno and the united Bay Area Focuses, and win. After that, they can mop up the rest of us in detail.”
Haggerty and Duke Hoskins turned and looked at each other, and Duke Hoskins groaned. “Even if we got Stone Point Barony and Arm Webberly to help us, we’ll still get slaughtered if Enkidu concentrates his forces on us,” Duke Hoskins said. “Not that I’m disparaging your abilities, ma’am, but your personal household won’t be enough to tip the scales for us.”
“I know that.” I smiled. “That’s the attitude I want you to maintain right through the fight.”
“You have reinforcements?”
“I’m not going to be telling,” I said. Hell, I hoped I could actually get my reinforcements here fast enough. It would be a hell of an embarrassment if I couldn’t, but I wouldn’t likely be worrying about that, now would I, if I was dead or a Huntress. “One other thing,” I said. “Your reinforcements. Continue to keep them under wraps, if you can. Keep up the pretenses of being weak and helpless.” I wasn’t sure about the Familia, but I wouldn’t be turning down any help we could get. Amy had done an excellent job in putting together an army from nothing – starting with just herself and her people, she grabbed Del and Hargrove, talked Sinclair’s barony into joining up, turned a Hunter and Enkidu’s pack mistress, suckered in some potent Crows, and, not the least, recruited foreign Transforms to the Cause, the first time anyone ever managed that. Not counting the Canadians, of course. The Familia was exactly what we needed to give Enkidu some big ulcers in the fight if Amy managed to keep them hidden.
Not too far away, the phone rang, and some sort of commotion started.
“I’m to be under Webberly’s command, then, Commander?” Amy said. Her hands clenched into fists for a moment, and when she relaxed and her thoughts turned elsewhere, they clenched again. No wonder she seemed so happy to see me. She thought I would be saving her from the ignominy of being under Webberly’s command.
“Nominally. Yes, follow her orders, which will be for your group to join her down in San Jose. Don’t worry about the fact it’s going to look ill-coordinated and sloppy – that’s what I want. I want Enkidu thinking he has the last effective members of the Cause on the ropes. Pretend that I’m not anywhere…”
Beth Hargrove, that idiot, burst into the tasting room. She was the last person I wanted to know I was here. Merlin’s hand found its way onto my shoulder, and I caught myself before I slapped it away.
“Ahem, sorry, Amy, Duke Hoskins, I’m not interrupting anything, uh, personal?”
Oh, really? Busy with all the men, eh?
“You have news?” Duke Hoskins said. He caught on immediately that Merlin was hiding Sky and me from Hargrove.
Hargrove wasn’t as much of a loser Focus as before Pittsburgh, much to my surprise. She knew witchery now, including some of the good stuff, and could tap her juice buffer and give juice to an Arm. She didn’t wear Haggerty’s tag, though, but Del’s, along with several other Major Transforms I didn’t recognize. When I had a free moment – when? – I was going to have to do a little leaning on Haggerty about the subject of tags.
“There’s some sort of confrontation going on down in San Jose,” Hargrove said. She didn’t have her usual ‘smile for all occasions’ pasted on her face, either. Her presence was much more of the VIP Focus variety.
Hell, was Enkidu down there? Already? I couldn’t believe it. According to my Dreams last night he still waited on a half dozen packs straggling in to his Cold Springs base. He shouldn’t have been able to get his people organized this quickly.
“What sort of fracas?” Hoskins said.
“Inferno and the Stone Point people are under siege by some local Focus, and Arm Webberly and Count Dowling are stuck outside and can’t get back in.”
Hoskins and Amy looked at each other, and juice-signaled, very faintly, to each other. Cute trick, but not as information rich as Gail and Gilgamesh’s equivalent. “Tell them we’re on our way,” Amy said. “I think we’re going to move our entire group down there. We can’t go after Bass and the Hunters if we have a problem in our rear.”
Great. Real chaos. Fake chaos would have done fine. We really didn’t need the real stuff.
I wasn’t surprised. Mizar’s dire warnings convinced me that there was far more going on here than any of us realized.
Sudden pain lanced through my head, the sort of pain I felt when someone juice linked to me died or got severely wounded. A couple seconds later, I got another jolt.
“Hold that thought,” I said, already moving. “React like I wasn’t even here. Gotta run. Bye.” I grabbed Sky and sprinted toward one of the Corpserider motorcycles.
“Carol?” Sky said, reacting in panic, not used to anyone able to surprise him and treat him like baggage. He didn’t skunk me, thankfully.
“Webberly, Van Schuber and his sister, Daisy, have all been killed, or severely wounded.” I shoved Sky on to the motorcycle, started it up and punched it. Webberly still lived, the attack still ongoing, and I worr
ied it with my mind.
Count Dowling had been with her. If both of them died or ended up incapacitated, we were in a whole hell of a lot worse trouble than any of us realized.
I concentrated on the traffic with every Arm predator trick at my disposal. I was coming through, and they were going to move out of my way, or else.
Henry Zielinski (3/26/73)
Hank held his hand out and Rose squeezed it. Her hand was warm, heated by her Arm metabolism and the afternoon sun shining through the windows of the makeshift operating room. Conscious again, after 19 hours out. Rejuiced, thanks to Ellen’s witchery. She couldn’t talk and could barely move, but she understood his tag pull and complied with his request.
Now he could heal again. He had run out whatever juice fraction or fractions allowed him to heal others with his superorganism trick. To heal, he needed more than juice. He needed something chemical from his healing support, in this case Arm Webberly. It must be a catalyst of some variety, although technically he should think of these particular juice components as enzymes, because that’s what they needed to be to work. If they were a simple ‘battery recharge’, he would have run out long before.
There had to be at least one paper in this discovery. And at least ten other avenues of investigation to pursue, which he would do as soon as he recuperated the required brain cells.
Right now, he needed to work. Rose’s intestines still lay exposed, and blood dripped onto the linoleum floor. Rose’s healing capabilities were at best an order of magnitude less juice efficient at healing bullet wound damage than his healing, and in most cases two orders of magnitude worse. This wasn’t because Rose was worse at healing than the other Arms, or because she was about fifteen percent Monster bear at the moment, it was because he knew what he was doing as a surgeon.
“I would think, as a Transform, that operating on an Arm who could juice suck you at any moment, would be terrifying.” Hank blinked. He eyeball scanned the room, but the voice came from nowhere.
Lori’s voice. Not too much of a shock, considering that it was an invisible Carol and Sky who delivered Rose, Van and Count Dowling here, along with a very bamboozled police escort. He wondered if Mizar was available, and whether the ancient Chimera could heal others, as well.
“I would never approach a wounded Arm who didn’t have a full tag on me,” Hank said. “Not until I find a way to borrow something to keep me from being inadvertently juice sucked.”
“More likely you’ll find a way to borrow the ability to do temporary backwards tags on unconscious Arms,” Lori said. He located her voice near the remains of Count Dowling. “From me, for instance.”
Hank smiled a half smile and went back to work on Webberly’s abdomen. He was a long way from the capabilities of someone like Ann Chiron, who could borrow nearly any trick a Major Transform offered her. “Not any time soon.” Right now, he worked on removing the remains of Webberly’s large colon. He had already removed one kidney, half of another, most of her liver, and far too much small intestine. Once he got everything rerouted and the blood vessels properly reconfigured, he would be able to close up Webberly and let her regenerate.
His mental commentary about efficiencies of wound damage healing didn’t hold for actual tissue regeneration. He wasn’t that good, at least yet.
“So, Lori, what brings you to my fine sick ward today?”
“Élan delivery for Dowling. If at all possible, we need him on his feet for the battle.”
He watched out of the corner of his eye as Count Dowling visibly healed, and winced as an itchy wave of élan rolled past. Hank had finished stitching in a feeding tube to the Count’s sewn-up stomach three hours ago, and he swore the gallon bag of ground up goop on the other end of the tube went down as he watched.
The rattling of carts behind him announced more wounded, inbound. “Two of Focus Leoni’s bodyguards,” Sadie Tucker said, pushing the lead cart. The feeling of Lori’s presence vanished. He finished sewing two pieces of Webberly’s colon together and rushed over. She twitched as he worked, and let out a tiny moan of pain, but he ignored the distraction, a veteran of many surgeries on Arms, all of whom remained conscious while he worked.
“How?” Hank asked. Both of the bodyguards had multiple gunshot wounds. Both fairly bad.
“Snipers again,” Sadie said. “Can you do anything for them?”
Hank nodded. “I’ll get them stabilized, but I need to get back to work on Rose ASAP.”
Hank began his work. Sadie suited up and stayed with him, doing nurse duty. He had trained her in this, years ago, as a battlefield medic. “Tell me the latest news,” he asked. He needed the distraction. Lori’s appearance and disappearance was hard on him; when he admitted it to himself, he knew he was more than a little in love with the person he considered his ‘real’ Focus.
“It’s confirmed – the reason Enkidu’s army’s in the area is Arm Haggerty’s army, which is maneuvering north of San Francisco somewhere,” Sadie said. She handed him a clamp before he asked, which brought a smile to his face. Visions of operating theatres manned by superorganism wielding doctors and nurses played in his mind, each responding to the mental needs of the other instead of relying on imprecise verbiage.
Enkidu’s army had been within fifty miles of them for over a day, now, and hadn’t attacked. At least them. Their real problem was Focus Pansy Wilson and her cronies, who continued to interfere with Webberly’s Focus allies’ attempts to move to the Oak Valley compound.
“What was that racket about a half hour ago?” Hank asked.
Sadie snorted and handed him a scalpel. “Focus Caruthers, her people, and a shit-ton of mercs from Chicago. Showed up, no warning, along with a fleet of school busses. She’s got an elaborate plan in the works, won’t say who from, and she’s organizing.”
“They drove here?” Hank asked. He focused his mind, healed a tied-off artery in his patient, and untied the suture. Perfect.
“From the San Jose airport. The busses are from the Mountain View school district, and I think they’re stolen.” Sadie paused. “This has the feel of the Commander to it.”
“It does, doesn’t it,” Hank said. He removed a bullet from the leg of his next patient, noting that unlike the ones he removed from Webberly and Dowling, these weren’t Monster hunter rounds, just normal 38’s. Focus Wilson’s idiots, then, not the unknowns who perforated Rose, Fred and Van. These patients, unlike Webberly and Dowling, were unconscious, making them much easier to work on. Great as Hank’s experience working on conscious patients was, even the most self-controlled presented special challenges.
“Hank, good, someone real to talk to,” Focus Geraldine Caruthers said, breezing into his makeshift operating theatre like a diva at a theater party. Sadie winced at the Focus’s words. Caruthers, now the Northeast Region President, ranked everyone here, easily felt through the Inferno superorganism. “We’re going to need to move your operating room elsewhere. At some point. Almost instantly.”
“Ma’am?” Hank said, confused.
“What I need are your needs. Does your operating room need to be indoors? Can tents do?”
“Staying here would be better.”
“Staying here is not an option,” Focus Caruthers said. She wore a dark pants suit today, severe and likely chosen to amplify her ability to intimidate. “What do we need, Doc?”
This time her words came with unstoppable Focus charisma. Hank told her what she wanted. As he spoke, Connie Yerizarian, the Inferno household president, walked in, followed by Andy Niallo, a 17 year old Transform currently serving as one of Connie’s aides. “Focus, what’s with the pillbox request? Why your people?” Connie asked.
“They volunteered,” Focus Caruthers said.
“If we’re evacuating Oak Valley, that’s going to leave…”
“That isn’t a request, it’s an order,” Focus Caruthers said. Hank finished stating his needs and Focus Caruthers finished writing them down. She turned and left, Connie trailing her and continuin
g to argue. “Enough.” Connie quieted, at least for the moment.
Hank finished with the second gunshot wound and returned to Arm Webberly. The Arm had fallen into an unresponsive healing trance. With any reasonable amount of luck, she’d be able to keep it going for a while as he worked. “Hank, what the hell’s going on?” Sadie asked. Honking from outside Oak Valley echoed down into his makeshift operating room.
“I have no idea,” he said. The Commander was indeed up to something, but what?
Dolores Sokolnik (3/26/73)
The camp was on the move again, now going south from Carson City. Del put down the binoculars, and sighed. She had hoped for a fight with Enkidu’s thugs, but no, after the envoy from Enkidu left, the straggler group from Enkidu’s army guarding the envoy headed off on US 50, toward Lake Tahoe.
She needed to talk with the Emperor again. She didn’t look forward to it.
“Did you notice the number of police in that straggler group?” Arête asked. He never left Del’s side, unless one of their superiors ordered it.
“Yes,” Del said. “You think there’s a Judge with them?”
Arête nodded. “I believe so. It would have been too much to ask for all the Judges to be home in Washington and Oregon. I pity the poor Judge. He’s going to be wearing the Law himself soon, if he isn’t already. I can’t think that Enkidu’s very trusting of Crows right now.” Given what she had heard from this crew, the person she really wouldn’t want to be was Colonel Loess. Not after Emperor Caveworm burned the Hunter HQ to the ground and made off with the Colonel’s small army.
An Age Without A Name (The Cause Book 5) Page 27