Bah.
He found Whisper living in the same place Whisper had lived for ages, an abandoned apartment complex just north of Highland Park. He still lived with his tamed Monster, Marla. Gilgamesh pedaled close, stopped in the parking lot of Greenfield Union Elementary School, empty for the Christmas holidays. He undamped his glow and waited for Whisper to metasense him. Whisper took half an hour, an appalling bit of Crow laziness.
As a polite Crow, at least for the moment, Gilgamesh didn’t press. As another polite Crow, Whisper came out to meet him, Marla in tow.
“Gilgamesh. I hadn’t expected to run into you in person, so soon,” Whisper said, making his way past the chain link fence into the empty lot. Marla came up to sniff him, filled with happy emotions. Marla was a Sweater, the Crow name for the common sheep-mimicking Monsters. Sweaters only mimicked sheep to the untrained eye; they were actually bears, with omnivore dentition and nasty claws. Marla was an old Monster, and although she couldn’t speak she understood pretty much everything people said. Gilgamesh had gotten over his fears on his first visit to Detroit and Marla no longer bothered him.
“I hope you’re well,” he said. “Have you seen Newton around?”
“Nah. I expected him to show his pimply face when Kali showed up, but nothing.” One good result of Gilgamesh’s work with the Arms was that Crows no longer fled when an Arm showed up. Well, some Crows. Two Crows who had avoided Gilgamesh in the past had left Detroit, or at least shifted locations. One of them, the Crow who currently fed off Hard Luck, the older Focus who was Clumsy Angel’s friend, would be missed. “Are you moving here?”
“No, just visiting, doing business and hunting up mysteries,” Gilgamesh said. “Have you ever metasensed any extremely non-standard Focuses here? Or any groups of Sports?” The latter was a guess about the salt mine Focuses; he feared they might metasense as Sports instead of Focuses to a Crow.
“Just Stalin,” Whisper said. “She’s got the most changeable glow I’ve ever metasensed on a Focus. Always on the move, always making me nervous. Nothing else.”
Hmm. “And the Lions?”
“They only won four games this year,” Whisper said, disgusted. “I’d swear…”
They talked football in the icy parking lot until Whisper groused himself out.
“So,” Gilgamesh said. “Have you made any progress with Clumsy Angel?” He had hoped his phone conversation with Focus Rickenbach had cleared up Whisper’s problems.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Whisper said. “I’ve given up on her.”
“What did she do this time?” The Clumsy Angel and her people didn’t have the first idea how the Transform community worked. There were times when he thought Focus Rickenbach might be as spectacularly impossible as his personal annoyance, Focus Gladchuck.
“In her last letter, she flat out told me to stay away from her household,” Whisper said. “Just because I can’t meet her in person!”
Gilgamesh sighed. “Let me talk to her again and see if I can get this straightened out.”
---
“No, nothing like that,” Invalid said, answering Gilgamesh’s question about non-standard Focus and Sport sightings. His Crow nickname came from the fact he had been wheelchair bound before his transformation. Invalid, an older but not particularly talented Crow, lived off the Detroit Transform Clinic, and had for years. “Just the damned Beast Man who rampaged through town a couple of months ago, and good old peripatetic Stalin. She’s actually been doing Crow-hunting around her place, starting right after the Beast Man rampage.”
---
“Focus Rickenbach?” Gilgamesh said, speaking into a supermarket pay phone on the corner of Joy and Schaeffer.
“Speaking,” Clumsy Angel said. This time her people kept him on hold for only five minutes. “What can I do for you today?”
“I’ve heard you and Whisper haven’t made any progress,” he said. “I think…”
“He won’t agree to talk it out like adults, in person,” she said, interrupting him, loud. He bit the inside of his cheek and barely kept from fleeing in a mixture of panic and annoyance. He also didn’t answer.
“With all the ruckus going on in town, I’m not sure I want to deal with anyone who can’t meet me in person,” she said, barreling on. “Including you.” Pause. “Not that you’re doing anything more than arranging things. Still.”
“I see,” Gilgamesh said.
“Would you be willing to meet me in person?” Clumsy Angel said.
Anything for the Cause. “Yes.” This was going to turn out bad, he just knew it. “I’m not going to be in town for long, though, and…”
“How about tonight?”
Gilgamesh blinked twice. He hadn’t expected this very un-Focus-like response.
“I can do that.”
They arranged to meet in Dingeman Park in three hours. Very puzzling. What sort of Focus would be willing to meet a Crow at midnight, on almost no notice? Perhaps this wasn’t another Focus Gladchuck.
---
“Okay, beanpole, what are those things you’re carrying in your backpack and hands, anyway?” Watchmaker said, as he appeared in the alley behind the Woolworth. As before, Watchmaker came armed to a Crow meeting, and as before, he had his pack of mangy street dogs ringing him and patrolling nearby. This time Gilgamesh was able to pick up seventeen of the curs. Either Watchmaker had increased his security or Gilgamesh had missed half of the watchdogs the last time.
“Sir, they are my protection,” Gilgamesh said. Given the dogs and the way Watchmaker swung his gun around, Gilgamesh would have rather stayed hidden among the garbage cans, but unfortunately, that didn’t make for good conversation.
“Protection? What sort of protection can you get from what appear to be dross illusions stuck inside tennis balls, anyway?”
“Distraction, so I can run.”
“Oh, right, you’re one of Shadow’s Crows. Stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong and then run when you piss people off. I know your type. Just like that fool, Whisper.” Whisper had joined up with Shadow, mostly on Gilgamesh’s recommendation. Watchmaker followed Thomas the Dreamer, though Gilgamesh wasn’t sure how the laid-back Thomas could stand Watchmaker.
Gilgamesh made small talk and stated his questions.
“No Sports, no abnormal Focuses, nothing along those lines,” Watchmaker said. “Beast Men, though. Too many of them. All the time.”
“Really?”
“Yah,” Watchmaker said, punctuating his words with a wave of his handgun. One of his dog pack, a poodle-collie mix, came up to sniff Gilgamesh’s legs, then walked away. Gilgamesh held his ground, but he did change his rotten egg selection from a metasense scramble to one able to cause fear in animals. “The others don’t believe me because they don’t have the metasense to pierce the masking they or the Beast’s Crows are furnishing.”
“Are there any out tonight?”
“Nope. Actually, I haven’t sensed any of them since the damned Arm moved in a few weeks ago,” Watchmaker said. “There’s one Beast who was real strange, though. He was spying on Hard Luck’s place and he wore the form of a man.”
“Interesting,” Gilgamesh said. “Any idea why?”
“Not a clue.” Watchmaker paused. “Now be a fine Crow and hand over the tennis ball in your left hand to Rex.”
Gilgamesh sighed and handed the fear rotten egg to a disquieting German shepherd, who took it back to his master. Payment, he suspected. “Has Stalin been doing anything strange recently?”
“That bitch?” Watchmaker shook his head. The older Crow lived close enough to Stalin’s place for Stalin’s tamed gristle dross cloud to weigh heavily on Gilgamesh’s mind. He wondered if Stalin was able to move it to here, a mile and a half away. Or how fast she could move it. “She’s been quiet, housebound as normal, with her usual meetings with politicos and hard cases.”
This didn’t match the other stories.
“I heard a rumor she’s been doing Crow-hunting.”
Watchmaker snorted. “Beast hunting, my guess. She and her storm troopers canvassed the area around her dark tower for a week or two after the Beast Man rampage. Nothing since.”
“Thank you very much, sir, for the information,” Gilgamesh said. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave. I have an appointment I need to get to.”
“Thanks? For what? Whatever mystery you’re hunting this time, it won’t be found around here,” Watchmaker said. He holstered his pistol.
Gilgamesh waved and got on his bike. Mystery solved.
---
Dingeman Park wasn’t much of a park, a few acres of frozen grass and naked trees, along with a few dingy piles of snow near the small parking lot. The Focus and her seven uncomfortable people had arrived early, gotten bored, and were having a snowball fight while they waited. Only two of her people stood, doing guard duty.
This Focus had no understanding at all for how the world worked.
He dropped his bike out of sight of the crew and crept across the park into whispering range. The Focus didn’t notice when he whispered to her, or even when he waved. He crept forward, hidden, to just outside of Focus metasense range, and slowly nerved himself up to whisper again.
Before he whispered again, the Focus whistled at her people, who stopped the snowball fight. They chattered at her, each one talking over the other, but as they chattered she grabbed one, whispered something into his ear, then grabbed another one and did the same. Those two quieted the rest of the Focus’s crew down, and they spread out around her. Then the Focus walked directly toward Gilgamesh, crunching snow under her feet, with a young woman Transform in tow.
Okay, Gilgamesh thought. Absurd metasense range for a Focus, about a hundred and twenty yards. No problem picking up a Crow’s glow. As he had metasensed before, she natively hid her emotional state from him. The Transform she dragged with her was excited and thought she was on an adventure. And, yes, there the rest of the Focus’s bodyguards went, moving to surround him as well.
He remained invisible to them, though. They were just obeying Clumsy Angel’s hand-signaled orders.
Gilgamesh ran through the sparse trees, until he reached the edge of the Focus’s metasense range. She didn’t appear pleased.
“Your bodyguards need to not threaten me,” he said.
The Focus turned to her Transform. “Did you say something, Sylvie?”
“No, Gail. Are you sure he’s out here?”
“He’s right there,” she said, pointing directly at Gilgamesh. “What’s wrong with you people? Can’t you see him?”
She could see him. She was extraordinary. Her people weren’t. They couldn’t see him.
Gilgamesh tried hand signs. The Focus stopped, tried to puzzle them out, then shrugged and continued forward. Gilgamesh ran away, again to the edge of her metasense range, betting she wouldn’t follow him this time. He wouldn’t.
She didn’t. She put her hands on her hips, pouted, thought, before whistling again, calling her bodyguards over. An argument started. The young man, head of her security and a normal, stuck a finger in the Focus’s face and barked at her. The young Transform woman separated the two, and Gilgamesh caught enough of the byplay to realize ‘Sylvie’ was the wife of the head of security. Sylvie shushed them all up.
“The Crow’s here alone, without any bodyguards,” the Focus said. “You guys are scaring him off. So I’m going in alone.”
“Not on my dime,” the guy, Kurt, said.
Frown. Frown back.
A wince from all the Transforms, as the now heated Focus stripped them all. Standard nasty Focus bitch behavior, though not normally followed by a “Sorry.” After apologizing, she gave them all back their juice. Clumsy Angel indeed.
“Can you read his emotions, like you can read ours?” Sylvie said. She had to be the Focus’s number two, something she hadn’t been the last time he looked in on this household. Changes in Clumsy Angel’s household didn’t surprise him. Clumsy Angel’s household dynamic could be best termed chaos.
“Shh!” the Focus said. “Dammit, Sylvie…” Said comment was followed by two of the Transform bodyguards complaining to their Focus about the fact they hadn’t known she was able to read their emotions, and how unfair of her to have yet another absurd trick. Eventually Sylvie quieted them down again. “Yes. He’s as scared as we are.”
Gilgamesh ran, then stopped and slunk back, fighting through his panic. This was insane: a Focus able to metasense Crows without any problems, and one able to read Crow emotions? Well, he had known Clumsy Angel was extraordinary, from before. She was no Hera, though. Not at all dark, not at all inhuman. She was inexperienced with her power, though.
And as scared of him as he was of her. That helped.
He looked around for a way to be less threatening to the Focus and couldn’t find a single place to sit; the locals had trashed all the park benches years ago. He got a better feel for her and her emotions. Despite her words, she and Sylvie weren’t scared scared, but more like roller coaster ride scared. Her other Transforms had picked up on the Focus’s unconscious signals and thought him a threat.
Gilgamesh sat on the ground, back against a small tree, crossed his legs, meditated and waited. He wasn’t happy with his own moment of panic. Given everything he had faced in his career, Clumsy Angel and her crew were about as harmless as threats came.
The meditation did the trick. The Focus and her number two came up alone and sat. Sylvie probably shouldn’t have, given that she wasn’t a Major Transform and would be cold and unhappy soon.
Her husband had slipped a handgun into Sylvie’s purse before she came over. There was deviousness here. They weren’t the fools they appeared to be. No, they just liked chaos.
“Hello,” Gilgamesh said, exiting his zazen state (which he knew Carol was going to give him grief over when he told her about it; it wasn’t his fault that Inferno’s tricks were useful). “I’m Gilgamesh.”
“Gail Rickenbach,” the Focus said, and stuck out her hand for a lady-like shake. He shook the Focus’s hand, despite the fact he wanted to run like mad.
“Wow, you are different,” Gail said after doing the Focus juice-feeling trick. She turned to Sylvie and spoke as if Gilgamesh wasn’t even there. “The person I should have brought was Van.” Sylvie muttered something about Van being allergic to midnight and shook her head. The Focus turned back to him. “I’ve never met a Crow in person before.”
This was more than obvious, which he didn’t say. Instead, he nodded. “When I told you over the phone that all Crows were creatures of darkness, I wasn’t talking good and evil, but day and night. We hide in the shadows.”
Gail blushed.
“He can read you?” Sylvie said. She put her hand in her purse, fast on the uptake.
She was dangerous, another Hank Zielinski or Ann Chiron. Not what his world needed.
Gail shushed her number two. “No households?” Gail said.
“Some of us tame animals and other things.”
“Uh, what?”
“Sorry, Focus,” Gilgamesh said. “I carry many secrets I cannot explain.”
Gail and Sylvie looked at each other for a moment, before turning back to him. “Can you tell me why this Whisper Crow is being so obnoxious?”
He nodded. “As with Focuses, Crows have many different skills and temperaments. In short, he’s too scared of you to meet you in person.”
“More than you?”
Gilgamesh bit back a comment about rudeness and nodded. He found the young Focus’s prickly nature both amusing and naïve.
“Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve been warned by others to keep an eye out for strangers. There are evil Chimeras and Crows in Detroit, I’ll have you know.”
She spoke from personal experience. Her comment filled in the blanks in some of Kali’s more cryptic observations. “You’ve talked to Arm Keaton, haven’t you?”
“Yes?” She blinked. “You know her?”
“I work with her,” Gilgames
h said. “She’s the boss of Arm Hancock, the Arm I work with most of the time.”
The Focus metasensed around.
“Neither are here, now.” Alas. He would have liked some Arm backup right now.
Gail blushed. “Well, if Arm Keaton is willing to vouch for Whisper, perhaps we can do business without having to meet,” she said.
Gilgamesh closed his eyes for a moment, trying to shut out visions of negotiating this bit of insanity with Kali, or what it would take to convince Whisper to come within whispering distance of the Arm. “Arm Keaton can vouch for me, and I can vouch for Whisper.”
“Sir?” Sylvie said. Gilgamesh opened his eyes. “May I ask a question?”
“Certainly.”
“You’re as extraordinary a Crow as Gail here is as a Focus, aren’t you?”
“There are many extraordinary Crows,” Gilgamesh said. Yes, just like the Good Doctor and Ann, Sylvie was far too perceptive. “They are, however, as you are intimating, all far older as Crows than I am.”
“Do you ever have the feeling the world doesn’t make sense to you and none of the other Focuses, or, well, Crows you are acquainted with have any idea what you’re going through?” Gail said. Focus Rickenbach and her number two were clearly on the same wavelength.
“Yes. And if you do say what you’re going through or what you’ve figured out, they blink at you in incomprehension, or say that what you’re doing isn’t proper for Crows. Or, um, Focuses.”
Sylvie laughed. “I thought so. It’s too bad you...” Gail put her hand over Sylvie’s mouth.
“Thank you, Gilgamesh, for being willing to talk to me in person,” Gail said. “Do you have any way we can get in contact with you?”
He nodded and fished out of his wallet one of the business cards Carol had arranged for him. It displayed his name, an Austin PO Box and the phone number to Carol’s answering service. He handed it to Gail. On a whim, he also handed her Carol’s card, which following Kali’s orders showed Kali’s PO box and answering service phone number. “You’re not based out of Detroit, are you?”
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