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

by Randall Farmer

  Hoskins returned when Gilgamesh had nearly completed the second construct. The Duke carried a Transform woman with him, who looked none too happy about the situation. Engrossed in his work, Gilgamesh didn’t notice Hoskins until Hoskins reached him, and Hoskins’ appearance so startled him he dropped the construct and the construct imploded.

  “Dammit, your grace,” Gilgamesh said. “Don’t you know better than to pester a Crow when he’s working?”

  Hoskins looked blank. In the dry heat, his sweat evaporated as soon as he produced it, and salt stained his bright red shirt. Chimera bodies didn’t cope well with heat. They were too big, and burned too much energy. “What are you working on that couldn’t be interrupted, Master Gilgamesh?”

  “Where am I?” the woman wanted to know. She was no older than twenty, and she wore a satin teddy and sleep-tussled short blonde hair. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “I was trying to protect us,” Gilgamesh said to Hoskins. “So we’re not dragging a damned beacon along with us announcing ourselves.”

  “You missed, then, Master Gilgamesh. Your protection only covered one side of our vehicle.”

  “I know that! The protection might have covered more if you hadn’t interrupted me.”

  “What is going on here? I want to go home!”

  Gilgamesh looked over at the woman, still in Hoskins’ arms. “What is going on here?” he asked. We were going to try and avoid” he waved his hand at the woman “complications this trip.”

  “You always knew we might encounter complications. Why else would Master Shadow teach you, Master Gilgamesh?” Hoskins said.

  “You were out hunting!”

  “I’m a predator, Master Gilgamesh. I do that.”

  “Not now! We have other things to worry about. You’re not supposed to hunt unless you need to.”

  “Ow,” Hoskins said, as the woman took a bite out of his shoulder. He pried her loose and held her out at arms-length.

  “Y’all kidnapped me!” she said, but then her tears drowned out her screams.

  “What do you two idiots think you’re doing?” a fourth voice snarled hoarsely from Sumeria’s doorway. Sinclair stood there, wobbly and holding tightly onto the door.

  “Sinclair!” Gilgamesh said, at the same time as the startled “Master Sinclair” from Hoskins.

  “What happened to your sense of responsibility? You have a commoner in trouble! Saving commoners comes before any personal problems.”

  No one spoke for a long time. Even the woman Transform fell silent. Finally, Hoskins looked down at the ground.

  “Of course, Master Sinclair.”

  Sinclair rocked on his feet. “I think I’ll go take a nap,” he said in a weak voice, as he turned back into Sumeria.

  Gilgamesh turned back to the woman, feeling rather abashed himself.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” she asked, weakly.

  “You have Transform Sickness, and you’re a Transform,” Gilgamesh told the woman. He wasn’t sure how this got to be his job, but with Sinclair unconscious again, Hoskins insisted talking to the woman was a Crow’s responsibility.

  He had told the woman four times already, but this was the first time she believed him. He stayed as careful and gentle as possible.

  “Am I going to die?”

  “No, you should be all right.”

  “But don’t I need a Focus?”

  “We could drop you off in a Clinic in Los Angeles,” Gilgamesh said. “The odds aren’t good they’ll be able to find you a Focus with an open slot before you go Monster. However, there are other alternatives that don’t make the newspapers.”

  “What?”

  “Duke Hoskins and I are Major Transforms ourselves, and…”

  The woman, Brenda Sander, interrupted him. “Duke?” she said. “Wait a minute. Wasn’t he on TV a while ago? He’s like, famous.”

  Gilgamesh winced. “Yes, that’s him.”

  “Oooh, that’s great. He is so gorgeous. So he can, like, save me?”

  The wince was worse this time. “Yes,” Gilgamesh said. “Together we can save you. You’ll be a commoner in a Noble household. The Duke and I will take care of you, and you’ll go through cycles. In a few days, you’ll have built up enough juice, and then we’ll take the excess away from you, so you’re down pretty low. Then you build it up over the next three weeks or so, and we do so again.”

  Brenda’s smile faded. “So, like, how long does this last? Do I stay alive forever, or does something happen?”

  Gilgamesh sighed, and explained the harsh reality of her situation.

  When he was done, Brenda said in a small voice, “I don’t really want to be a Transform.”

  “I know.”

  Gilgamesh held out his arms, and she leaned on his shoulder and cried.

  Sinclair woke again the next morning. Brenda remained asleep and Hoskins was out on his morning prowl, so Gilgamesh fixed breakfast, attempting not to bump anything critical in the tiny motor home kitchen.

  “Gilgamesh,” Sinclair said as he lurched into the front part of the motor home.

  “Would you like some pancakes?” Gilgamesh asked.

  “Pancakes. Yes, pancakes would be good.” Sinclair sat down in one of the two tiny chairs.

  Gilgamesh gave Sinclair the cooked pancakes and set about making more. He didn’t ask any questions while Sinclair ate. Crow courtesy. No pressure.

  “So you really think you’re going to fix me?” Sinclair asked, after he finished. Gilgamesh nodded, and decided Sinclair must have heard and understood some of what they discussed while unconscious.

  “Huh,” Sinclair said, and was silent.

  Hoskins interrupted their not-really-a-conversation when he barged through the door. Gilgamesh winced as Hoskins bumped, yet again, the small table by the door as he attempted to maneuver his bulk in the cramped motor home. The table leaned these days, from all the Hoskins bumps.

  “Master Sinclair, you’re awake again!” Hoskins said.

  “Yes, your grace, and if you could be just a little quieter, I would very much appreciate it.”

  “Right,” Hoskins said, in a quieter voice as Brenda shifted restlessly in the top fold-out bunk toward the back. “Are you healed now, Master Sinclair?”

  Sinclair shook his head and looked away. The look of hope faded from Hoskins’ bearded face.

  “Not at all?”

  “No.”

  Gilgamesh reached out a hand, trying futilely to offer some comfort to Sinclair, but Sinclair refused to look at either of them.

  The smell of burning pancakes brought Gilgamesh’s attention back from Sinclair, and he hurriedly turned back to the tiny two-burner stove. The thin motor home walls creaked from Hoskins’ weight.

  “We may have a little problem,” Hoskins said to Sinclair. “I need to do the draw on our new commoner, and I was hoping for your expert help, Master Sinclair.”

  “Well, I have no expert help to give. Gilgamesh will need to do the honors.”

  Hoskins eyed Gilgamesh, unhappy.

  Sinclair picked up the now empty tin plate and threw it across the few feet to the wall of the motor home. The plate hit with a bang and Gilgamesh jumped. Hoskins didn’t jump, but his eyes went wide.

  “What the hell is going on with you two!” Sinclair said. Loud. “I’m the one with the burned out metasense, and you two are acting like complete assholes! I’ve been listening to you go at each other for days! Grow up!”

  Sinclair buried his head in his hands, and his back shook. Gilgamesh reached forward again to try to comfort him, but Sinclair raised his head and glared at him.

  “You! What do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be a Master Crow, with responsibility over my household – my household! And you can’t even be bothered to figure out what your responsibility is, much less live up to it!”

  Gilgamesh stepped back, shocked, and bumped into the stove. Hoskins spared a glance of contempt for Gilgamesh before he stepped forward t
o Sinclair, but Sinclair wasn’t having any of Hoskins either.

  “And you, your grace. You’re supposed to be the war leader of all the Nobles in the country, and you’re so stuck on your pride you’re going to let your quest fail rather than use your normally useful brain. Did it ever occur to you to find out why Gilgamesh has a problem with Chimeras? No? Instead, you spend all your time yanking his chain so you can’t work together.” Sinclair’s face turned bright red. “Grow fucking up, dammit!” He slammed his hand across his cup of orange juice and sent it flying across Sumeria, spraying orange juice everywhere. “Leave me alone so I can fucking sleep! And if you would shut the fuck up, I might even get better!”

  Sinclair stood up and almost fell, but steadied himself on the corner of the bunk where Brenda lay. She, awake now, watched them all with wide eyes. As Sinclair tottered unsteadily toward the larger bed in the back, she slipped down off her bunk and followed him. She sat down next to him when he sat, and held him.

  He cried.

  They stopped for the night just short of the California border, off on a side road in the desolate Yuma Desert, where even to a Crow’s eyes there was little sign of human habitation. Hoskins eyed the empty expanse as they drove with longing in his eyes, and Gilgamesh could tell he thought the desert was beautiful. Gilgamesh found the desolation depressing.

  Gilgamesh and Hoskins hardly spoke to each other, and when they did, they did so with exaggerated courtesy. Brenda spent much of the morning with Sinclair, and then came to the front passenger’s seat to talk to Hoskins. Gilgamesh rode in the back while Hoskins drove, looking out the window and weighing his diminishing odds of surviving this quest. Tonight they would draw Brenda, and Gilgamesh’s stomach churned at the thought.

  Sinclair stayed awake, thank heavens. He and Gilgamesh sat together outside Sumeria as Hoskins took Brenda to look at the stars.

  Gilgamesh had never seen stars like this, so clear and so bright. His Crow eyesight let him see things that normals couldn’t see without a telescope. He had never dreamed there were so many stars. The darkness sucked his gaze out to infinity, and he wished he could stay out there, far from the earth and its troubles.

  Hoskins and Brenda did much less stargazing. They were barely beyond a small rise when Hoskins began to stroke her skin. Brenda, not quite at peak juice count but close enough, responded. Soon, things progressed further.

  Something in Gilgamesh kept expecting Sinclair to tell him when, but Sinclair couldn’t. Without his metasense he couldn’t sense what Brenda and Hoskins did behind the rise. He only saw now with his eyes. Gilgamesh wondered if Sinclair’s enhanced Crow eyesight would fade too, over time.

  Gilgamesh stood, wishing he understood the procedure better. Sinclair nodded at him, encouraging. They crept around the rise to where the couple remained entwined. Brenda started when she felt Gilgamesh’s hands on her shoulders, but Hoskins whispered in her ear.

  “Shh. This is how it’s done. Enjoy yourself.”

  Hoskins’ body was magnificent when nude, and Gilgamesh couldn’t help feeling as if something sacred gathered around this ritual of sex and life under the desert stars. He sensed some of the same otherness about Hoskins he felt about Tiamat, a god come to earth, inhabiting the primordial passions of humanity.

  Hoskins shifted on top of Brenda, and did things that normal men couldn’t do, and she screamed her pleasure to the glittering stars. Gilgamesh frowned over her in concentration, and slowly, and oh so carefully, did the trick Shadow taught him and destabilized her juice structure as Brenda panted and screamed, and Hoskins’ breathing deepened.

  This wasn’t where Gilgamesh wanted to be, and he couldn’t help the fear as he destabilized her. He turned her Monster with his one act, five days before she would have gone on her own. The mixture of dross and juice he created, élan, exploded around him, a thick sludge a Crow couldn’t take.

  Brenda’s life now depended on his speed and effectiveness. Hurriedly, he used Shadow’s second trick, the more important one, the trick separating the élan into dross and juice. With his will, he held as much of the dross as possible away from her, keeping it from contaminating her juice structure. Some juice came with the dross, no problem, as the Noble would feed on both.

  Hoskins fed, drawing that mixture of dross and juice into himself as his own passion gripped him. Under him, Brenda screamed again, not pleasure this time, but pain and horror at the destruction of her life. Sinclair said commoners learned to enjoy both the pain and pleasure over time, but Brenda hadn’t learned any such thing, and she only knew the pain.

  So fast. Gilgamesh stumbled over himself, and felt the dross slip through his metapresence fingers as he worked, trying to pick up every last bit and feed the sludge to Hoskins. Was too much juice coming with the dross?

  “Stop,” he heard Hoskins say, and he looked up.

  “No! She’s still got so much!”

  “Stop,” Hoskins ordered again. “She’s gone into withdrawal.”

  Gilgamesh stopped.

  Hoskins lay on top of Brenda, pinning her down, and she still screamed. A hysterical note crept into her screams now, a note of madness. Spittle flew from her mouth.

  Gilgamesh metasensed Brenda, and examined her tattered juice structure. Withdrawal. He had botched the élan separation, and taken too much of her juice with the dross. She screamed in pain now, but soon the pain would overwhelm her and she would pass beyond screaming.

  Worse, he had taken too little dross with her juice. Dross thoroughly contaminated her juice structure, termite damage in rotting wood.

  She remained a Monster, a Monster in withdrawal with a shattered mind. The whole point of the Noble draw was to keep a Transform woman from going Monster, and he had failed.

  If Sinclair had done this, Brenda would have been fine.

  Hoskins stood, still holding Brenda in his arms. She screamed more, and tried to bite him and claw him with her fingers. Blood seeped out of the skin on her back as her Monster change began. Hoskins ignored the wounds she inflicted on him and looked at her gently.

  Then Hoskins twisted her head around and broke her neck.

  Gilgamesh sat on the ground with his back to the front driver’s side wheel of Sumeria, and tried not to think about anything. A faint breeze stirred his hair, the silence so complete it crowded him. Sinclair was inside Sumeria, asleep or unconscious; his mind was as far from here as possible. Hoskins remained at the shallow grave, where they buried the brand new and now dead Monster.

  Hoskins had taken the rest of her juice before he buried her.

  No, don’t think. This was no worse than Tiamat. Tiamat certainly would have done the same.

  He had killed the woman. Hoskins broke her neck, but he killed her. His miserable incompetence.

  She had trusted him. She thought they would save her.

  No, don’t think.

  What brand of idiocy made him decide he was qualified to be a Master Crow to a Noble? Transform Sickness had corrupted his brain at last, driving him crazy. Not the first bit of evidence of his madness, starting with the fact that his lover was an Arm. Hell, maybe he had always been crazy, Transform Sickness nothing but a mad fantasy. Any minute now, the men in the white coats would come and give him his shot, and everything would be fine again.

  He tried to ignore Hoskins as he came back to the motor home, but Hoskins came around to Gilgamesh’s side.

  “What do you want?” Gilgamesh’s voice shocked the silence.

  “This is my fault, Master Gilgamesh,” Hoskins said. He was clothed again, in his slacks and golf shirt.

  “What? What’s your fault?”

  “It’s my fault the draw went bad.”

  “How the hell is this your fault? I’m the one who screwed up,” Gilgamesh said.

  “Yes. But it’s still my fault.” Hoskins squatted down on his haunches and the dry ground scrunched under his shoes. He settled farther into the squat than a normal human would, and his knees went slightly higher than normal, r
eminiscent of his crab-like combat form. This was the first time Gilgamesh had seen any hint that his current form wasn’t perfectly human.

  “I should have compensated more for your inexperience. I’m the more experienced of us, and it was my responsibility to cover both of us.”

  “What could you have done?”

  “I should have watched what you were doing more closely. If I’d been trying, I could have gotten more of the dross. Also, I should have called a halt sooner. Bad habits on my part.”

  “Huh.” Gilgamesh glared at the stars, and they didn’t say anything for several moments. “So how was this supposed to work?” he asked. The stars hadn’t answered his glare.

  “Theoretically? You should have been working with an older Crow, until you gained enough experience to do this on your own. We work the same way with young Nobles. There’s always an older Noble with them the first several times.”

  “You should have had a real Master Crow with you on this trip, not me.”

  Hoskins shrugged. “There weren’t any available.”

  “Hell.”

  “Don’t take things so hard. If we hadn’t come along, she would have probably died anyway. Most Transforms do.”

  “You say it so easily.”

  Hoskins stared down at the ground for a moment, drawing random patterns in the dirt with a small stick. “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t kill people, Master Gilgamesh.”

  Gilgamesh blinked, startled by the comment. “Not even before your transformation?”

  “I don’t remember before my transformation, or what passed as my life as a Beast-Man. My earliest memories are of Master Occum.”

  “Oh,” Gilgamesh said. Depressing, to lose all one’s memories. Gilgamesh wondered what Hoskins had been before his transformation, and what was special in him, allowing him to survive when so many others died.