When we met the first time, I had considered her beautiful, mesmerizing, a miracle of the juice. I had wanted to possess her. This was something more. Deeper. I suspected now that my initial reaction would be similar for all Focuses. This, I very much hoped, would not be. It was too powerful, too intrusive. Lori, I sincerely hoped, was special.
Ann Chiron picked herself up from the muddy ground, glanced at Lori and me, and slumped her shoulders in despair. She had ducked for cover instead of going for a weapon. Smart woman. “Ohhhhhh shit. This was always a possibility.”
“What are you talking about, Ann,” Zielinski said, from where he hid, behind one of the vans. He finally got his weapon, a big hulking Monster-rifle, pointed roughly my way. I flickered an annoyed glance his direction, and he lowered it. “You’re way too slow to be able to shoot an Arm with that thing,” I said, my voice husky with emotion. “It’s not worth the hassle.” He shrugged. He hadn’t intended to shoot me anyway.
Lori and I continued to stare at each other’s juice, and we both fought to keep vacant grins off our faces. Looking into her eyes, disquieting urges crept into my traitorous body, urges most recently satisfied in my life by a man named Bobby. Lori echoed my reaction with a faint flushed warmth suffusing her.
“What possibility?” Lori said, to Ann, in a deep and distant voice.
“That with Zielinski here as a compatibility vetting mechanism, both you and Arm Hancock would be emotionally and intellectually compatible, leading to some form of juice-level compatibility.” Her comment shocked me out of my love stupor. Anthropologist. Right.
Zielinski muttered an “Amazing” and crept forward to join Lori, Ann and myself, as Focus Rizzari’s bodyguards crept back, disconcerted at having me so close to their Focus. Tough.
“However, ma’am and ma’am, I believe this to be unwise,” Ann said. “Unknown juice effects are hazardous. I don’t want to go to your funeral, ma’am.”
Lori blinked, turned away. Her face hardened into its usual icy blank mask. “Disquieting.”
I set aside my own bodily urges as well, with both reluctance and relief. I found my instinctive desire for some snuggle time with Lori, someone I had only met once before, to be unnerving. The Arm part of me recognized her as my Focus, while the more rational part of me shrieked ‘No no no! She’ll turn you into a pet.’
What had changed in her juice structure to make her so beautiful? The engrossing complexity? The rich tone? Whatever the reason, she was magnificent.
“So, if I may ask, Arm Hancock, how did you find us?” Ann asked, after flickering a half-accusatory glance at Zielinski, for keeping secrets.
“I can’t tell you, because I don’t understand it. All I know is that I picked up your Focus’s scent from about fifty miles away, something I can’t normally do.” Even with the scent in my nostrils, I still took three hours to find them. I wondered if scent was the right word. Certainly I hadn’t smelled Gilgamesh, but I had noticed him also.
Hank pulled out a notepad and took notes. In darkness, because the Transforms with the lanterns had dropped them to pull weapons. Which they still attempted to point my direction.
“Of the Chimera and his pack, this one was the toughest to take down of the ones we killed, even tougher than the trainee Chimera I took out,” Lori said. “Henry thought there was something special about her, and he was right. With a bit of work I metasensed that she had a Monster-style metacampus…and now we have physical proof.”
Now I was flummoxed. “Monsters have metacampuses?”
“Only the old ones. This woman hadn’t been a Transform for more than six months. This was induced.”
Our enemies had tricks we didn’t have. That didn’t make me happy.
“Now, if you could do me a favor, Lori, would you please tell your people to point their weapons somewhere else?” I swore I must have had twenty rifles pointed at me. Three of Rizzari’s people had swords out, as well. I suspected Gilgamesh, who hadn’t followed me into this armed camp but was somewhere close, was having conniptions.
Lori’s people put their weapons down. She had signaled them to do so with her juice, if I wasn’t mistaken. Neat trick.
“I’ll tell you my story if you’ll tell me yours,” I said. The timing on her hunt tonight was quite suspicious.
“Yes, but first let me finish up here with the autopsy.”
I nodded and stepped back, content to wait. The delay would give me more time to stare lustily at the magnificent Lori.
“I had a thought about Odin’s werewolves,” I said. Lori, Ann, Hank and I sat on camp chairs at the entrance to her pavilion, still under the watchful eyes of several bodyguards, but at least no drawn weapons any more. The soft buzz of breathing from a half-dozen sleepers came from inside the pavilion. The sun had risen and we had mostly exchanged stories, although Lori had twice dodged the timing issue. I suspected another Focus ability, similar to her supernatural-sounding ‘map scrying’ trick. “Transform Sickness keeps coming up with surprises that are no surprise at all. Werewolves. Amazon warrior Arms. Crows that act like storybook Elves. Focuses who can mimic Pagan Goddesses. People wonder how Transform Sickness got so complex, but the complexity makes sense if this isn’t the first time around. We see its olden-day effects in our myths.” My background was literature and history, and I had read a large amount of European folklore. My explanation made sense, at least to me. I fully expected this more expert crew to shoot down my idea.
Lori, Ann and Hank stared at me with surprised eyes. “It’s called the Myth Hypothesis,” Ann said. “I came up with it when I first heard about Van Reijn’s work.” Lori nodded. “Nobody outside of our household considers it worth the paper it’s printed on.”
I smiled.
“I was skeptical when the Focus and Ann first told me about it,” Hank said. “I’ve become more open recently, based on the work I’ve been doing on Transform training.”
I followed his gaze to several of Rizzari’s bodyguards, and, yes, I could see their recent improvements. “Heroes and heroines with abilities beyond what normal humans can have? Check.” I paused and shook my head. “It’s a great theory, except for one problem: why would Transform Sickness ever go away?”
Lori’s eyes glowed. “We don’t know either, but consider this: before our modern age and our modern transportation methods, when a Transform Sickness outbreak occurred, it was likely confined to a few tribes in a few small locales. It couldn’t spread far, similar to some of the strange diseases you find in the equatorial regions. We suspect people become immune to it and it mostly dies out, before coming back again later. Lots of diseases work that way.”
I nodded and let the inevitable highbrow discussion start, a huge smile on my face. My Focus, my ideas, my allies in a fight. Perfect.
Lori turned to me once we finished speculating on the unknown and chewing through far too many bits of technical terminology. “Carol, I think you should come back to Boston with me.”
I blinked and fought back the urge to say ‘yes’. I hadn’t expected her request. “Why?”
“Safety in numbers,” Lori said. “Neither of us killed either of the boss Chimeras we encountered, and we know of at least one other boss Chimera, Enkidu, who lives in this part of the Midwest. They’re going to try for you again.” She paused. “Also, some Focuses are worried you’re poaching household Transforms. If you’re in Boston, I can be in a much better position to vouch for you.”
That was nearly an accusation and it set my hackles rising. Someone had leaned on her, likely the Network. My muscles tensed in sudden anger. “I’m not poaching household Transforms,” I said.
While Lori chewed on that, I spent some time reading the people around me. Lori, of course, was the most difficult to read, but she thought she meant well. Ann thought my moving to Boston was a wonderful idea, but she didn’t want me living anywhere near the Rizzari household. She didn’t want to die due to a young Major Transform’s mistake.
On the other hand, H
ank didn’t want me to move to Boston. He wasn’t happy being stuck in Boston, either. He didn’t trust Lori.
He also noticed my rising anger. I didn’t like to be pushed. Pushing people was my job.
“Focus, ma’am, Carol isn’t a Focus,” he said. She frowned at him for stepping into the conversation, but he didn’t stop. “Aggressive charisma use, which is the bread and butter of any real Focus discussion, is an attack from an Arm’s perspective.” Lori momentarily flashed anger – at Hank – before she suppressed her emotions.
My knives slipped into my hands and I stood into a battle crouch. Thanks to Hank I finally realized the dynamic around me. Lori, my supposed Focus friend and now juice-level love partner, had been using her charisma on me, trying to control me, and I hadn’t even noticed.
Lori turned to me and her face fell. “Uh, uh, um, sorry sorry sorry,” she said, noticeably abashed, without the slightest bit of aggression in her. She stood and extended her hands, but hesitated in the face of my hostility.
I couldn’t read whether she was truly sorry or just being polite, so I answered her with a growl and a large dose of predator effect. The awake bodyguards in our audience drew their weapons and got down in fighting crouches. Even Hank flinched. Lori stood stock-still and stared at me, save for a martial art’s style adjustment of her left leg back four inches. Ann did something with the juice I had never imagined possible: she engaged in a rapid juice exchange with Lori. A full conversation. From the look on Ann’s face, I guessed Ann was royally chewing out her Focus.
“This is my charisma use,” I said, continuing to radiate predator. “Want to dance, bitch?” How stupid was I being, trying to take on a Focus surrounded by a bodyguard cadre as strong as Rizzari’s? Especially since my traitorous heart likely wouldn’t let me finish Lori off? I counted on their ignorance of how to fight an Arm. For one thing, their Monster-rifles were far too heavy to aim at someone who moved as fast as I did when I fought.
“I surrender,” Lori said to me. She got out of her fighting stance and let me read her: embarrassment and shame. “I made a mistake.”
“My answer to you about moving to Boston is ‘no’,” I said. I refused to let anyone push me around, and Chicago was mine. I backed away, slowly, and didn’t drop my predator effect. Lori followed, unarmed, away from her guards and in among the clustered pickup trucks. Now that I knew what to look for, I could easily metasense her juice signals to her people.
“You’re still in danger out here where you live,” Lori said.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “These Chimeras aren’t all-powerful and they fight like fools. As long as I’m living in a place they can’t get to, I can make them fight me on my terms.” A narrow opening would stop most of them, which my new place possessed in abundance.
“What about their master?” Lori asked.
“Your Transform bodyguards could take out Officer Canon if you protected them from her juice tricks,” I said. “There’s a reason she’s using Chimeras – she’s weak.”
“My gut says you’re wrong,” Lori said. She studied my feet, still open to me. She did fear for my life. “I want to help you, darn it.”
She wanted to make up with me. Now that we were out of her bodyguard circle, I relaxed my predator effect. It wasn’t having much effect on Lori anyway. Facing down predators was nothing new for her.
“I know,” I said. She wanted to give me a hug, but I signaled ‘no’. She was crestfallen. “If you want to help me, I need information – on Chimeras and on any research involving Transform Sickness. I’m months away from making a lair safe enough for Zielinski, so I need for you to protect him, keep him doing his damned research, and pass along the results to me.”
“Done!” Lori said, relieved to be able to help me, if only in a small way. “If you give me a PO Box I can send you the information you need.”
“You don’t trust Focus Warren?”
“Not for the real research Zielinski and I do.”
I nodded and rattled off a PO Box I kept in Lake Geneva. “Don’t use it for time-sensitive stuff; I don’t check it often.”
“I can do that,” Lori said. She looked me in the eye, still supremely embarrassed. “I’m sorry again about the earlier. This isn’t the first time I’ve messed up with other forms of Major Transforms…and, I dare say it, this was nowhere near my worst. I don’t think any of us knows what we’re doing with inter-Major Transform diplomacy.”
I thought back on my first conversation with Odin, where the chance to make peace with the Hunters had been lost because Odin had made the mistake of not meeting with me in a neutral location. “I can vouch for that,” I said.
Now I let Lori hug me and wish me good luck. Despite her betrayal, her attempt to control me with her charisma, she had earned herself a fair amount of slack. I hadn’t asked her to help me with the Chimera problem. She had volunteered, not just personally, but her and her household. That couldn’t be easy for a Focus.
I metasensed her like a hawk watching a mouse during that hug, though. I owed her and loved her, but, no, I didn’t trust her. All of this gave me a much better understanding for why Gilgamesh didn’t want to meet me in person. We Major Transforms really were too powerful and too clumsy for our own good. We had a long and hard road to walk before we found a way to civilize ourselves and find real ways to cooperate.
I drove back to town in a good mood. I was making progress on my relationships with Lori and Gilgamesh, my Chimera-trap plan had worked to perfection and I had added three more Chimera corpses to my count. I was good at this shit, and I knew it. It was time to clean up the mess…and have a party.
Sky: March 2, 1969
“Okay, you’re here,” Lori said
Sky nearly jumped, coming out of his un-panic meditation. Lori was sitting near him, but not next to him, company in her glorious attic.
Great. His instincts now told him Lori was safe, allowing her to sneak up on him with impunity. He might as well give her a knife and invite her to stab him in the back.
This was his first visit to Inferno since he had stalked out on Lori last month, this time a business trip, to escort the two recently freed Canadian Sports back home. After he finished the business of the hand-over, which included a panic-inducing meeting with Focuses Biggioni and Ackermann, he had retreated to the attic until the time came for him and the two Sports to fly back to Toronto.
A flight he didn’t look forward to. Flying was the most panic-inducing thing he had done in the last two years. Crows were not meant to fly on airplanes!
“Lori! What a surprise. Have I ever told you how beautiful you are when dressed in your formal attire? Ah, you are a sight to behold, my gracious lady.”
Lori was beautiful today, so beautiful he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her, one of the reasons he had been attempting to meditate his panic away. She sat on an old cushioned chair Sky had moved next to his nest of blankets, a diamond in the rough setting of her attic and its worn contents. She wore a calf-length aqua strapless dress with a white sequined shawl. She had her hair professionally styled and the barest hints of makeup she wore made her almost superhumanly attractive, a starlet on Oscar night. In comparison to Lori’s quite different American Focus peers she was a wonder of calm sanity. Add in her knockout glow and Sky couldn’t keep from goggling in wonder.
He was embarrassed at his sartorial inelegance. His clothes looked like the clothes of a bum, rag-picked from the Salvation Army or the town dump. Because they were.
“Sky, it doesn’t have to be this way,” Lori said. Her hands waved gracefully at his nest.
“What way? I’m out of here, tomorrow. Best for both of us if you don’t…”
“Shut up, Sky.”
Lori’s voice of command was unstoppable. Sky shut up.
“I’m sorry about the mess I’ve made of things,” Lori said. She stared down and twisted her right foot in nervous circles, abashed; the mess with him wasn’t the only mess she had made recently. She too
k a deep breath. “Connie, Ann and Tim all want you to know they want you to stay with us.”
“Why?”
She glanced up again, intent. “They’ve seen the same thing I’ve seen, Sky. You’re wasting yourself, your potential, up in Canada. You know it, too. That’s why you’re so restless.”
He met Lori’s eyes, saw she was serious, and turned away. “I know. I want to help, help all the Transforms, but I don’t know how.”
“Inferno wants to help you find out how, Sky. They want you to help us save the world.”
Sky shivered as he thought of all the wonderful ideas he had come up with through the years, nearly all of which he discarded as impractical for a Crow. “That’s an impossible project for anyone to think about rationally, Lori.”
“Not impossible for a group of people, though. The entire Inferno household is behind the Cause. Others outside of Inferno are as well. Focus Cathy Elspeth, who’s working on Transform rights. Crow Occum, who’s trying to find a way to save Chimeras from turning into inhuman beasts. If you can keep a secret, even the new Arm, Carol Hancock. She’s got it, bad. Even as a brand new Arm she’s trying to find a way to contribute to the Cause, with practical results, and she’s even found herself a Crow to work with.” Lori’s eyes spoke fire. “Let me tell you about how Inferno just helped her.”
Sky leaned against the backside of an old dresser which formed the rear of his nest and listened to Lori tell him a nearly unbelievable tale of a Monster hunt in Wisconsin that turned into a fight with a Chimera and his pack. Her tale was too pat, he wasn’t catching something. He did catch one of the undertones of her tale: Inferno had missed him and his input on this adventure.
“You’ll help me find a way to contribute? You and Inferno?” Sky asked, after she finished her story. Even Annie hadn’t been able to provide such help.
All Beasts Together (The Commander) Page 35