The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1)

by Randall Farmer

  “Not a hint of a metacampus or a metamygdala.”

  Gilgamesh’s comments relieved Sinclair. The coma was most likely, as Shadow predicted, just recovery from a major alteration in Jane’s juice structure.

  “Any chance you can tell me what’s going on? With you and Shadow?” Sinclair asked. He was very curious about Gilgamesh’s presence here; his Chimera-distrusting friend wouldn’t normally be caught dead in a Noble barony.

  Gilgamesh smiled that enigmatic smile he had picked up from Arm Hancock. According to Shadow, a Crow nearly always picked up some of the characteristics of the Major Transforms they associated with, which was why it was important for a Crow shaman to work dross with symbols and to strengthen his subconscious. Otherwise, a Crow Master of Beasts might become a beast himself. Sinclair knew he had picked up a great deal of the gruff and straightforward nature of his Nobles. Likely some other things he couldn’t see in himself, as well.

  Gilgamesh, of course, had picked up a great deal of Arm-ness from Hancock.

  “I’ve received word that we’re going to have a little meeting here in a couple of days, with a few Focuses and at least one Arm. I’ll save the panic-inducing explanations until then,” Gilgamesh said.

  There were times when Gilgamesh even sounded like the wisecracking Arm.

  In the next room, Jane slowly sat up, and let out a deep heart-felt moan. Sinclair rushed in, likely followed by Gilgamesh, though with Gilgamesh’s tricks, there was no way for Sinclair to tell. Jane rubbed her eyes and then held her head in her hands.

  “How are you doing?” Sinclair sat down on the bed next to Jane, and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Headache,” Jane said. Her black hair was stringy and her face stained with sweat and tears, but Sinclair was so relieved to hear her speak that he didn’t care. “The price I’m going to pay for being your Pack Alpha and keeping my human form is going to be pain, isn’t it? I can just tell.”

  “We’ll have to work on that,” Sinclair said. “How do you feel?”

  Jane thought for a few moments. “Normal, I guess,” Jane said. “Damn. I guess the test failed. Whatever changes were supposed to happen, didn’t.”

  “Wrong,” Gilgamesh said.

  Jane turned to Gilgamesh and hissed. Instantly, Gilgamesh filled his hands with his rotten eggs and he slowly backed out of the room.

  “Jane! You be polite to Gilgamesh,” Sinclair said.

  “He’s not one of us.”

  “He’s not an enemy. He’s one of Shadow’s Crows.” Sinclair turned to Gilgamesh, who was now through the door and back into the hallway. “You behave, as well. You’re not facing a Beast Man. Jane’s just a commoner.”

  “No longer,” Gilgamesh said. Then he vanished.

  A moment later half a dozen of the Barony’s commoners came streaming through the door, cooing and purring and making happy noises. They gently elbowed Sinclair away from Jane, and rubbed up against her.

  Then the rest of the commoners slithered in.

  ---

  “Focus Keistermann, Focus Biggioni, welcome,” Sinclair said. Both of the senior Focuses had trooped down from Keistermann’s house, with the usual entourage of bodyguards, said bodyguards now being entertained by Page Alexander and Sir Randolph. Good experience for Page Alexander, who needed practice interacting with humans as he climbed his way back from beasthood. Sir Randolph would handle Page Alexander if he got out of line, a good responsibility test, as both Sinclair and Duke Hoskins would be entertaining the VIPs.

  Sinclair exchanged a polite sniff of the hands with Focus Keistermann, but Focus Biggioni was already concentrating on other things. “Where’s Shadow?” Focus Biggioni said, her normal impossible self. “I need to talk to him, right this instant.” Perhaps more impossible than normal.

  “He’s talking with Arm Sibrian and Duke Hoskins, in the meeting room,” Sinclair said. Meeting room? Ha! The meeting room was their indoor training and testing room, the only place big enough for a Noble in his combat form to stretch out. It had once been a garage, and still exuded a faint odor of motor oil, gasoline and car tires.

  “Calm, Tonya,” Focus Keistermann said. “There’s more going on than your little complaint.”

  “So you say,” Biggioni said. “I’m not sure I trust your dream-based information.” The VIP Focus Bitch and Wicked Witch of the East (though she had been supplanted as queen of Transform nightmares recently by Focus Lori Rizzari, Lady Death) stalked off toward the meeting room on her own. Sinclair met Focus Keistermann’s eyes, and Focus Keistermann just shrugged and followed.

  Sinclair held back, calming himself. Unlike many Crows, he didn’t fear or hate most Focuses. Some Focuses just rubbed him the wrong way. Actually, most Focuses. Focus Biggioni was the worst, always the worst.

  “Hera’s been hit, somehow.”

  Sinclair jumped into a corner at the unexpected voice, then took a deep breath and tried to push his heart rate back where it belonged. Gilgamesh, again.

  “Hit?”

  “Injured, although with Hera, I’d guess the injury was something obscure and political,” Gilgamesh said, using a Crow name for Focus Biggioni that likely hadn’t been used by any other Crow in the last three years. “Shall we go join everyone?”

  “Sure. Why not?” Sinclair said. He felt like a fifth wheel amid all this Transform royalty, and hoped the work he had put into cleaning the barony house and arranging refreshments would work out acceptably. He also smelled politics, which meant poor old Gilgamesh would be bitching and moaning later about incomprehensible motivations and trying to get Sinclair to explain all the political nuances. Up ahead, he heard Duke Hoskins’ voice introducing everyone to each other.

  “Ah, there’s Gilgamesh,” Shadow said, when they got to the meeting room. Yup, fifth wheel. Furniture.

  Sinclair walked over to sit next to Duke Hoskins. Mercury Catering delicacies weighed down the table, as well as some of the Barony’s own treats – marinated raw meats – for the Duke and Arm Sibrian. Both kinds of predators did best when they stayed away from any form of processed food, and a diet of raw meat and other internal organs, with the rare vegetable and whole grain, was best.

  Table was a misnomer, though. They had arranged four card tables in a square and covered them with a lopsided commoner-tatted tablecloth. His Barony hadn’t appreciated his wit when he had called them the knights of the card tables, so he held his tongue regarding all the witty comments that came to mind when he looked around at the meeting.

  The participants made a quite distinctive tableau. Shadow, the Focuses and Sinclair himself were all dressed in business suits of varying cuts and quality, with Shadow’s being the most rumpled and worn, and Focus Biggioni’s woman’s business suit being the most severe and starched. Duke Hoskins wore a locally made and slightly lumpy navy slacks and polo shirt; the Duke thought it important to honor the commoners by wearing the clothes they sewed for him, even if the suits were a little, um, uneven in their cut. The Duke couldn’t wear off the rack clothes in any case, because of his height and the width of his shoulders. Arm Sibrian wore a red gauzy silk outfit, striking and distinctive, as well as a red bandanna on her head, mostly concealing her close-cropped black hair. Gilgamesh was done up as some sort of bon vivant ready to hit the more expensive nightclubs. Sinclair remembered the bad old days when Gilgamesh got his reeking clothes from town dumps, and he appreciated that Gilgamesh had found a better way. These days, Arm Hancock or one of her people bought Gilgamesh’s clothes for him, likely in self-defense.

  “I have some complaints about Crow activities that violate the spirit of the Cause and our agreements for working together,” Focus Biggioni said. Shadow just smiled patiently, and nodded at the Focus. Hell, Sinclair said to himself, Shadow likes the Focus bitch. Who would have thought it was possible for anyone to like her!

  “A great many of us have complaints about Crow activities, Focus Biggioni, including myself,” Shadow said. “I’d like to start off with Gilgamesh, th
ough, if you don’t mind.”

  Focus Biggioni minded, but didn’t say anything. Shadow turned to Gilgamesh.

  Gilgamesh shrugged, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “I received this in the mail at the end of January,” Gilgamesh said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a grimy and folded piece of paper. Gilgamesh flattened it out and passed it over to Arm Sibrian, who read it and passed it on. When it got to Sinclair, Sinclair noted that the paper had been crumbled up several times, and was about to fall apart.

  The letter was short and to the point – become a Guru or go back to hiding in culverts. Sinclair’s stomach plunged to see so harsh an attack on another Crow. No signature, as Sinclair would have expected from a senior Crow. Sinclair passed the letter on to Duke Hoskins, who gave the note a quick scan before he passed it to the Focuses.

  “What does this mean?” Focus Keistermann said.

  “Among Crows, one must be officially cleared to teach if one is to teach many. The historical reasons behind this aren’t relevant to this discussion. A Crow cleared to teach is termed a Guru, which you likely know is my station,” Shadow said, and smiled. “The danger to the Cause from this is great; among the many things Gilgamesh instructs, Gilgamesh is the only one of us who teaches Crows how to clean out gristle dross. Uh, in Focus terms, how to remove the bad juice from a Focus household.”

  “So he can’t teach anymore?” Focus Keistermann said, and pursed her lips. “House cleaning is important.” Left untended, dross would build up in a household until the household became so contaminated that the Focus could no longer move the juice. The constant relocations this forced were one of the things that kept Transform households in grinding poverty.

  “To get around the restriction stated in the letter, Gilgamesh must become a Guru, not a trivial activity,” Shadow said. “I’m currently teaching him Guru-hood. Understand, though, by Crow tradition, Gilgamesh does not have enough housecleaning students to qualify as a Guru, and certainly not enough students to be called on his imagined transgressions. I inquired by letter to other knowledgeable Crows, and found the reason for Gilgamesh’s letter: many Crows count all of Gilgamesh’s students together, as a single group, since Gilgamesh teaches other subjects besides house cleaning. Also, many of my formerly friendly Crow contacts have politely informed me that they are no longer going to be exchanging letters with me. Suddenly, I am deemed unacceptable, for my quiet advocacy of the Cause and my willingness to sit on the Focus Council as an advisor.”

  “Hrrr,” Duke Hoskins said. “Will they come after me for the same?” Hoskins, Shadow and Arm Hancock held non-voting seats on the ruling Council of the United Focuses of America, as advisors. The Focus Council was the de facto center of Transform politics in the United States.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’m unclear as to how impolite the Crows behind these letters are willing to be,” Shadow said.

  “Extremely impolite,” Focus Biggioni said. “What happened to me was extremely…”

  She stopped, as Arm Sibrian stood and drew her swords. Her target was, improbably, Diane, one of the commoners, who had been bringing in another tray of food for the meeting. She was one of the barony’s commoners who had decided to stabilize in Monster form, in her case, that of a larger-than-normal large-brained chimpanzee.

  Focus Biggioni joined Arm Sibrian, just behind the Arm, and if Sinclair guessed correctly, about to offensively wield some Focus juice abomination at Diane.

  “What’s the problem, ladies?” Duke Hoskins asked, as he stood and interposed himself between Diane and the hostile pair.

  “You have Monster slaves now?” Biggioni said. “I can’t imagine anything more unsafe.”

  “Huh?” Hoskins said. “No, Focus Biggioni. She isn’t a slave. Diane’s one of our commoners.”

  “That’s no part-Monster commoner, that’s a full Monster.” Sinclair winced. Biggioni mustn’t have realized how many Commoners took full Monster forms these days.

  Arm Sibrian just hissed. Diane didn’t move a muscle. Shadow cleared his throat, trying to attract attention, but as he did so, Jane skittered into the room, behind Diane.

  “Put your goddamn weapons down, Focus,” Jane said. “You’re not in danger from Diane.”

  Arm Sibrian studied Jane intently, and then made her weapons vanish. Focus Biggioni relaxed, as well.

  Well. This was unexpected, Sinclair noted. The charisma Jane had picked up when they made her a Pack Alpha, which mirrored Sinclair’s own ability to calm others, appeared to work on more than the Commoners and the Nobles.

  “You’re not a standard Transform,” Arm Sibrian said, to Jane. She had a beautiful voice, rich and melodic, with a trace of a Spanish accent. “Your Barony has full Monsters in it, now, just like the Hunters?” she said, to Hoskins.

  Sinclair wanted to shout “It’s my Barony, too!”, but he decided that he would let the others handle a hostile Arm. This was definitely turning into one of those days he would rather forget. He surreptitiously wiped sweat from his brow.

  “Diane decided to take a different path,” Hoskins said. “She’s not a tamed Monster, Arm Sibrian. She’s a woman Transform, the same as our other commoners.”

  Sinclair did note Jane mouth ‘Arm Sibrian?’, and back off a step. He fervently hoped Jane didn’t faint and embarrass the Barony even more.

  “Jane here has benefited from a recent development of ours,” Shadow said. “She’s the Barony equivalent of a Hunters’ Pack Alpha.”

  “Not even close,” Arm Sibrian said, after a quick metasensing of Jane. Hrrr. There was more to this Arm than met the eye. Sinclair had no idea that any of the Arms had such a detailed metasense. “Or are you talking symbolically instead of structurally?”

  “Symbolically.”

  “In that case, you need a different name, Jane, or you’ll end up imprinting the Barony with inappropriate Hunter attributes.” Arm Sibrian studied Jane for a moment longer. “You’re a Warden.”

  That would do, symbolically, Sinclair decided.

  “Isn’t Warden a male name?” Jane said.

  “I was going for gender neutral,” Arm Sibrian said, “because the changes made in you could be made to a commoner male Transform, as well. After the Nobles figure out how to bring your male Transforms fully back to humanity, of course.”

  Of course. This Sibrian was indeed a very strange Arm, Sinclair decided.

  Arm Sibrian studied Jane some more. “It’s all right, now. I’m not going to harm your Monsterish commoner.” Jane relaxed.

  A very strange Arm who could tune her predator to something close to Focus charisma.

  “You know,” Arm Sibrian said to Focus Biggioni, who hadn’t moved from behind Arm Sibrian’s left shoulder. “You’re wasted as a politician. You’d make a fine predator Focus.”

  “I know that,” Focus Biggioni said. “That’s why I’m a politician.” Biggioni stalked back to her seat, straightening her suit jacket and slacks, as composed as if she hadn’t moved from her seat to engage in a fight against a putative Monster.

  Just being around Biggioni made Sinclair want to go somewhere quiet and have a good panic.

  “So we’ve got Crow problems, again,” Focus Biggioni said, after she sat.

  “It seems so,” Shadow said. “What’s your complaint, Focus Biggioni?”

  “Three of the Cause’s leading Northeast Region Focuses, not including Polly, myself or Focus Rizzari, recently received notes from some group labeled ‘the Watchers’, saying that if they didn’t cease their secret support of Crows and Nobles, their activities would be exposed to the Region President.” Focus Biggioni paused. “I don’t need to tell you what a disaster that would be.” They all nodded. The Northeast Region President, Focus Suzie Schrum, was adamantly opposed to all aspects of the Cause.

  “More of the same,” Shadow said, exasperated. He turned to Arm Sibrian. “And your information?”

  “Master Shadow, Arm Haggerty discovered that the person who tipped off the FBI as to the locati
on of Arm Hancock’s Chicago home was a Crow or group of Crows, though as with Focus Biggioni’s foes, they called themselves ‘Watchers’. We must strongly protest that this is not acceptable behavior by allies.” Sinclair was glad the righteously pissed off Commander wasn’t here. Although she hadn’t been home when the Feds torched her place, she lost several of her people and a lot of stature. So far, this hadn’t been a good year for the Commander.

  “I doubt the Crows behind this are allies, Arm Sibrian,” Shadow said. “Unfortunately, we Crows don’t have a centralized leadership, and we do have quite a few distinct factions, of which these ‘Watchers’ are one. I must also reluctantly and likely redundantly point out that no run-of-the-mill Crow would ever contemplate writing or sending any of these letters, as even the thought of sending such threatening letters to other Major Transforms would bring on panic. I’m afraid we’re dealing with one or more senior Crows. This won’t be an easy problem to solve.”

  “There’s been more harassment as well,” Focus Keistermann said. “Arm Haggerty got one of these notes, threatening to expose all her activities unless she ceased her research. She has, so far, ignored the note. I also received a complaint from a West Region Focus, Focus Forrest, complaining about ‘unknowns, likely Crows’ who exposed all her employed Transforms, forcing her out of Barstow. I would like to point out that Focus Forrest isn’t associated with the Cause, keeps to herself, and has kept out of politics since the Battle in Detroit.” Focus Forrest had a reputation as a loner Focus, immensely powerful, as talented a witch Focus as Focus Keistermann herself. “Lastly, I have learned through backdoor channels” that is, the Dreaming “that the Hunters have similarly been harassed, forcing them to flee from their strongholds in the Tetons.”