Sinclair took the bowl and looked. Inside he found very finely shredded pieces of various vegetables: lettuce, bell peppers, broccoli, radishes, and carrot peelings. Not the carrot, just the peelings. He ate a bite.
“Excellent. This is perfect.”
Callie smiled, relieved. “You don’t think we cut it too small? We couldn’t remember how big the pieces should be.”
“That’s the wonderful thing about salads,” he told her. “All sorts of different sizes work. This is just fine, and if you chopped the pieces larger, that would have been just fine, too.”
A normal might not care for Callie’s odd salad, but compared to the food he ate back when he was eating from garbage cans, Callie’s salad was practically gourmet.
Callie almost glowed with happiness and sat down on the bed beside him, on top of all his books. Sinclair winced, and quickly put a gentle smile back on his face before Callie noticed. She snuggled up close and put his arm around her. All the girls had a constant need for physical contact. Commoners lived a rough life, and the only counter to the pain the girls suffered was the stark fact that without the pain, they would be dead. The options for a Transform without a Focus weren’t good.
In Callie’s case, though, he suspected she had a little more on her mind than just snuggling, and he was proved right just seconds later when her hand found its way between the buttons of his shirt and down under his belt. She was eighteen days along, just three days from peak, and high juice lent a certain urgency to her body’s needs.
Sinclair checked the time, 4:32, plenty of time before his appointment with Sir Randolph at 5:00, and reached for her. His own juice count wasn’t doing too badly either, and those odd gray lips of Callie’s were soft and sensitive, and very mobile.
The books would just have to manage on their own.
On his way to the barn, Sinclair deposited Callie back in the kitchen, and waved to Anne as she attempted to cook dinner. Hopefully, they wouldn’t end up with crispy blackened ‘boiled’ vegetables again. He checked, and as usual, Greta scrubbed the bathroom floor. Greta had a thing about clean bathrooms. On his way out back, he found Diane, Angie, and Hazel in the living room knitting. Knitting was an excellent activity for many of the girls. They didn’t knit anything very complex, but they made up in quantity what they lacked in quality, and the knitting did steady their minds.
Sinclair stepped outside and found David pulling weeds in the yard. David was another one of Sinclair’s successes. Most male Transforms in Noble households weren’t allowed out of the house.
Sir Randolph McGee was out in the barn, shadowboxing. Sinclair checked the time and paused. He needed to be ready exactly at 5:00, not a second before or after. Nobles needed order.
Before he joined Sinclair’s household, Sir Randolph had drifted a long way from human. To start with, they had returned him to his human shape, to bring his mind back. Now, with his mind stable, they taught him an improved beast form to replace his old non-combat usable one. Sir Randolph’s old beast form was almost nine feet tall, with pallid hairless skin and an even dozen unnaturally long and flexible arms and legs. With small toothed suckers. Sir Randolph’s new form no longer possessed the extra appendages that once sprouted from his shoulders, the dome of his skull was no longer wide and flat, and his skin oozed corrosive slime only when he wanted. He maintained a human-normal intellect in his beast form these days, the biggest improvement of all.
Sinclair waited by the door of the barn until his watch said exactly 5:00, and then went in.
“Is it time, Master Sinclair?” Sir Randolph asked. His voice was soft and sibilant.
“It is time, Sir Randolph.”
“Must we?”
“We must. It’s the Rule.” Always the same questions, always the same answers. Sinclair suspected the questions themselves had become a rule. Obsessive, but Sinclair would never argue with a Noble who craved more rules, especially one of the lesser nobility.
“What change today, Master Sinclair?”
“Today, we’ll work on stabilizing your hips and shoulders. This will give you additional strength and speed, beneficial in a physical contest.”
Sir Randolph nodded, and his pale, soft features looked sad.
“I have some pictures for you,” Sinclair said, and opened the manila folder he carried. It held a number of pictures from magazines, mostly of track and field, with some weight lifting thrown in. Lean athletic bodies running, jumping, lifting weights. The Olympics would start in a few weeks, and many magazines showed pictures of the athletes. He turned the pictures towards Sir Randolph. Sir Randolph dutifully looked them over. Tension had become visible on his soft face.
“Please close your eyes, Sir Randolph, and let me guide you,” Sinclair said. His voice remained even, but he watched Sir Randolph warily and unhappily.
Sir Randolph’s face twisted into a snarl, and a low growl rumble from his throat to become a roar that shook the barn and made Sinclair’s ears ring. The Noble turned and punched his soft fist all the way through the wall of the barn. Dust cascaded from the rafters. One long board in the wall split completely around Sir Randolph’s fist, and the long jagged edges cut deep gouges in his skin from the fingers nearly to the elbow.
Sinclair’s heart raced at the noise, and the panic gripped him like it hadn’t in a long time. Calm, he told himself. The Noble wouldn’t hurt him. He forced himself to unclench his fists and pushed the backflowing juice back down where it came from.
“Destruction of household property.” The soft even tone cost Sinclair all the control he had. “That is against the Rules. For penalty, you will repair the damage and then clean the barn. Raising your voice in temper. The penalty is five extra minutes of exercise.”
Sir Randolph pulled his fist back through the hole, gouging his arm again on the way out. Blood gushed, and Sinclair saw a brief glimpse of bone exposed to the air. For a moment, Sinclair thought Sir Randolph’s temper would take him again, but the lesser Noble regained his control.
This was in the Rules, after all.
Sir Randolph took a deep breath. “I apologize for my misbehavior,” he said, holding his bloody arm in his other hand. Under other circumstances, Sinclair might have tended the wound, but not when Sir Randolph had earned his wounds so thoroughly. The damage would be an appropriate lesson. Logical consequences lived in the Rules as well.
“Please close your eyes, Sir Randolph, and let me guide you,” Sinclair said. This time, Sir Randolph closed his eyes. “Feel your hips, and think of running…”
---
The Duke came back just after midnight, the day after Sir Chet’s graduation. Sir Chet was off to Arkansas, with two commoners in tow.
Sinclair sensed Hoskins coming five miles away, and he had another Chimera with him. The gamble had paid off, and they now had a replacement for Sir Chet. He might be a Chimera now, but Sinclair and Duke Hoskins would turn him into a Noble. Hell. This one metasensed as more Beast Man than anything else, but at least he followed the Duke. This wouldn’t be an easy conversion.
The Duke had succeeded, though. They had hoped the Duke would come back with the young Chimera, corral him before he succumbed to the beast, but there were always risks. Risks for all of them.
A half hour later Duke Jeremy Hoskins arrived with the new Chimera. The Duke was no minor Noble. He was nearly seven feet tall, a big man, with broad muscular shoulders and an imposing presence. His hair and beard were red-brown and thick, and he was completely human to all appearances.
The Chimera following him wasn’t even close. He was covered with golden fur, walked on all fours, and sported a broad muzzle filled with multitudes of sharp teeth. He hadn’t bothered with clothes, unless you counted his leonine mane.
Sinclair waited for them outside the shed. He didn’t attempt to conceal his metapresence, but a Crow’s presence was inconspicuous at best and the Chimera was barely fifty feet away when he noticed Sinclair.
When he did, he roared with thunder and l
eapt, charging with a Chimera’s supernatural speed. The Chimera’s juice level was low and he saw Sinclair as prey. Sinclair shivered as the panic clawed at his heart for a grip.
Duke Hoskins caught the Chimera’s foot as he leapt and slammed him down to the ground. Then he grabbed hold of the Chimera’s other foot with his other hand, and slammed him down again. The Chimera hit with a massive thump as all 500 pounds of him crashed into the ground. The roar turned into a scream as bones broke.
“You going to behave yourself now?” the Duke asked.
The Chimera groaned and didn’t answer. The Duke slammed him into the ground again. The earth rumbled in response. Inside the house, someone turned on the light in the girls’ bedroom and Sinclair saw curious faces looking out the window, but the lights went out after the shadow of Sir Randolph’s massive form passed in front of the light.
“You going to behave yourself?” the Duke asked again. He stooped over the Chimera with his hands still on the Chimera’s ankles, ready. Sinclair noted that the Duke’s jeans and canvas shirt were torn and damp, and yes, those were bloodstains he saw in the starlight.
“Yes,” the Chimera said with a groan. “Please, just help me.” His words came out of the animal muzzle, barely intelligible, but they were still words. This was important. Sinclair would be able to turn a talking Chimera into a Noble immediately, unlike one who had degraded completely into a Beast Man.
Blood oozed out from underneath the Chimera. “It’s not me you need help from, it’s him.” The Duke nodded his head over toward Sinclair.
The Chimera looked at Sinclair and his eyes went wide. A moment later, horrified shock covered the leonine face.
“No! Please, I didn’t mean to! Please help me, please.” Then, incongruously, the Chimera began to sob, giant wracking heaves. “It hurts, it hurts. It eats my mind. Please, please help me.”
The Duke didn’t let go of the Chimera’s ankles. Sinclair looked him over with his arms crossed. Attacks on his life made him testy.
“I can help you recover your mind, and make the hurting stop, but you have to do exactly what I tell you.”
“Yes,” the sobbing giant howled. “I’ll do whatever you say.”
“You want to become Noble.”
“Yes, yes,” the Chimera said in his slurred, inhuman voice.
“In that case, listen closely. I’m going to tell you about the Rules.”
Sinclair didn’t finish settling Page Alexander DeWitt into his new home until just before dawn. First, the explanation of the Rules. Next, the joining ceremony as Page DeWitt became Noble and part of the household. Then came the little scene where the new Page rebelled at being locked in the shed and Sinclair got to prove why he was called Master Sinclair.
Next came a half hour of repetitious drumming, until the beat took over the mind and you couldn’t think about anything else. Sinclair had heard the drumming so many times the pattern lived in his mind now, always. This was the goal for Page Alexander, as the drumming played on a tape just outside the shed, over and over and over. The drumming, in combination with the Great Enabler dross construct, the Rules, and the rituals of living that would control his days, would allow his mind to stop the spiral of decay into Beast Man and begin the long slow climb back to sanity.
Patterns.
The next few months were going to be a hell of a lot of work; unlike Occum, the first Crow Master, Sinclair couldn’t just wave his hands, stare down a Chimera, drum at him for a day, and turn him Noble. Sinclair shook his head as he made his way back into the house, his eyes gritty with exhaustion. He metasensed the Duke in the living room, waiting up for him. He wouldn’t be getting any sleep any time soon. He sighed and rooted around in the cupboard above the refrigerator, where he had hidden the candy bars. The commoners would eat sweets until they were bloated if he didn’t hide them away. He pulled out a couple of Hershey bars.
“How did the settling go, Master Sinclair?” the Duke asked. He slouched back in the big chair, with his legs extended out in front of him. He had showered and changed, and was dressed in a formal suit with waistcoat that looked like it would be more appropriate in a turn-of-the-century English drawing room. Duke Hoskins was the second oldest surviving Noble in the United States, and the most powerful. Occum, Sinclair’s teacher, had raised him years ago. He had joined Sinclair’s household on the day Sinclair had left his apprenticeship, to protect him while Sinclair got started.
Duke Hoskins looked every inch a Noble, big and handsome and masculine. Sinclair thought he needed a stiff drink in his hand to complete the image, whiskey or bourbon or some other expensive poison of the upper crust, but the Duke’s transformation had left him immune to the effects of alcohol.
“It went well, your grace. I expect that Page Alexander will have made enough progress to advance to Squire in a month or so.”
“Good.” The Duke’s voice was deep and authoritative. He didn’t say anything more, and Sinclair suspected that something was on his mind.
“How did the trip go?” Sinclair said. “I noticed blood on your clothes when you came in.”
“A little fracas over in Westport. A local police officer noticed our young Page Alexander and took offense. He gathered a few of his friends to defend their fair town, and Page Alexander took poorly to the challenge. I’m sorry, Master Sinclair, but several of the normals died.” His words expressed sorrow, but the predator smile on his face told another story. Sinclair had no doubt the Duke had tried to prevent the altercation. He also had no doubt the Duke had enjoyed every minute of the altercation once it occurred.
“How badly are you injured?” Sinclair asked. The Duke shrugged his huge shoulders.
“A few cuts and bruises,” he said. Sinclair waited. He knew the Duke well. “A couple of bullet wounds,” the Duke finally said. “The bullets went all the way through. Nothing worth worrying over.”
Sinclair waited some more, but Duke Hoskins didn’t admit to any more wounds. He looked a little embarrassed to admit that much. “I picked up some money from our attackers. About $100. I added it to the cookie jar.”
Another embarrassment. Stealing didn’t fit any of their definitions of civilized noble behavior, but money was tight, and they had never gotten around to writing it into the Rules.
“The money will help,” Sinclair said. “But otherwise? Everything went all right?”
The Duke didn’t answer, semaphoring the importance of Sinclair’s instinctive questioning. Sinclair waited.
“I ran into Enkidu,” Hoskins said, later. Sinclair leaned forward, disturbed. He hadn’t spotted Enkidu in the flow.
“Where? What happened?” General Enkidu was an enemy, the leader of the Hunters, and stronger than the Duke.
“He also wanted Page Alexander.” The Hunters were a Chimera variant, the Nobles’ competitors. The Hunters used the Law to stabilize their minds, a quick but inflexible trick.
“But he let you have him?”
“He was willing to let Page Alexander choose, and he chose me.” The Duke watched the window, where the curtains drifted in the night breeze.
“But?”
The Duke looked over at Sinclair. “You know me too well, Master Sinclair.”
“Enkidu tried to recruit you.” Why else would the leader of the Hunters be slumming all the way out east?
The Duke nodded. “He said we’re all the same kind, and we should stick together. He said he needed a top lieutenant, and I should bring the Nobles to come join him.”
“So what did you say?”
The Duke smiled that predatory smile again. “I said I’d be more impressed if he wasn’t wearing a fur coat.”
Sinclair leaned back, reassured. “He still grows fur?”
“Brown and white and furry.”
Sinclair grunted, unimpressed. “He give any other information?”
“He said if I ever changed my mind, I should go out west to the empty lands and he’d find me.” The Duke’s foot tapped restlessly. Sinclair noted
it, and waited. After a moment, Hoskins continued, “He also suggested I should bring you with me.”
Sinclair’s eyebrows went up. “He thought I’d be willing to join the Hunter civilization?”
The Duke looked at him sideways. “I don’t believe there was any implication of ‘willing’.”
“Oh.”
Hoskins bounced out of the chair and paced. “You know I’d never betray you. I’ve never betrayed a loyalty in my life, and I don’t plan to start now.”
“Enkidu’s doing too much recruiting out here,” Sinclair said. This wasn’t the first hint of Enkidu working on this side of the Appalachians.
“We’re too far behind the lines,” Hoskins said after a couple of laps up and down the front of the room. “Things are happening out in the world and we’re stuck in this isolated little pocket where the conflict doesn’t touch us at all.”
“Oh, no. It’s perfectly safe…”
“That’s the point. This isn’t where we belong. Too small. Too civilized. This is Long Island. We’re practically living in New York City. We’re stuck in a Potemkin Village wilderness. We might as well live in cages at the zoo.”
“I thought you liked Long Island,” Sinclair said. He certainly did. Quiet and safe and civilized.
“The Farm is a lot better than living in downtown Boston, but this isn’t where we belong. We need someplace wild, someplace we can roam for miles and hunt Monsters. Someplace out where things are happening.” The Duke’s intent face matched his fast and aggressive steps.
“But what about money?”
“Fu—.” Hoskins stifled the obscenity and took a breath before he tried again in a calmer voice. “I know Focus Keistermann has been very helpful, and she likes having her pet Noble household down the road, but she didn’t buy us with the money she gives us.”
“I think she expects us to defend her, though.”
“She can get an Arm to defend her. Arms like cities. I’m not willing to stay here just because Focus Keistermann gives us money. If she wants a whore, she can buy one somewhere else.”
The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1) Page 8