“Why don’t you be a nice Crow and go find out what in the hell’s wrong with Sir Munch. I can’t for the life of me figure out why he hasn’t snapped out of it.”
Without thinking, Tonya made the juice flow, her normal half-subconscious juice-balancing she had been doing for fourteen plus years.
“Um, Tonya?” Stacy said.
“What.”
“How did you just give me juice?”
Tonya turned to Stacy. “I did, didn’t I.”
“Yes,” Lori said. “That was real strange.” Tonya blamed the tag they accidentally created in the fight, which didn’t metasense like anything Tonya had ever metasensed before. The strange mutual tag hadn’t gone away, either. Hell, if her metasense analysis was correct, the tags couldn’t ever go away.
Stacy lifted her hand, frowned at the missing fingers, and flexed. “If you don’t mind, could you find me a warm place to curl up for a long healing sleep,” Keaton said. “I’ve got big holes in my body and bigger holes in my mind. And keep the goddamned Crow away from me, will yah?” Lori helped the Arm to her feet, and led her to the front of the refrigerator truck, where they had set up a smaller area, not refrigerated, for the recovered to, well, recover some more. Lori bundled Stacy under plenty of blankets and walked back. Tonya wondered if she needed to go and comfort the Arm, and decided to let Keaton cry herself out, first.
“She’s real messed up, Tonya,” Lori said, looking deeply into Tonya’s eyes. “How are you doing?”
“My mind’s filled with unwanted predator thoughts, and worries about what I did in the fight. How many?” There was no need for Tonya to elaborate. Whenever a Focus asked that question, in that way, she asked about how many of her household died.
“Five.” Five of Tonya’s best. Bad, yes, but no worse than her worst Monster hunts.
“Of yours?”
“Eleven.”
Tonya grabbed Lori, and they hugged each other, and let loose their tears. Nothing hurt a Focus worse than losing her own people, and eleven was too many. No wonder Lori felt broken. What would this do to her?
They stood entwined for many minutes, each lost in her own grief, sharing comfort.
“And Polly,” Lori said. Snorted, and wiped her eyes. Polly, Lori’s teacher these last few years. Another loss for Lori…and for everyone else who had been tolerably close to the emotionally distant Focus. “Unless you can figure out anything to do. I don’t know what Patterson did, but when she died, I think she took Polly with her.”
Tonya and Lori knelt, and put their hands on Polly. Only the faintest signs of juice remained. Well beyond dead. Tonya had a flicker of memory, a shock running through her.
“What?” Lori said, a tiny whisper.
“Patterson drained Polly’s juice, as if Patterson was an Arm. Then an Arm took Patterson. What Arm did we lose?”
“Ah,” Lori said. “Carol finished off Patterson, but at the time, the only part of Patterson remaining was her head.” As they held hands, Tonya felt Lori’s mood grow darker and vicious. “That bitch should have suffered more, but in the end, it was clean,” Lori said, of Patterson.
This wasn’t good. Broken, falling into darkness.
“What are we going to do with you, and Carol, and Sky?” Tonya said. “The darkness inside you will consume you as easily as it consumed Patterson, and faster, with Carol and Sky feeding it, as well.” As well as her own reawakened predatory desires. She doubted the Commander would need to lead her into the nether darkness. She had never fully shucked her Monster-hunting induced darkness, and the tag with Keaton made it worse. How long would it take for her and Stacy to turn on Carol and Lori? Likely not long at all.
“I don’t know,” Lori said. “I don’t want this thing inside me, but it won’t go away. I don’t know what we’re going to do. The three of us are too powerful, and none of us possess the will to stop our urges.” Tonya took Lori in her arms again, and held her close. Just held her.
Gilgamesh:
At least he got to hold Gail in his arms while Shadow and Chevalier dueled. No, fought. Duel implied control. This was mayhem. Wild dross effects, incomprehensible illusions, figures out of nightmare that ate at the reason. One dross effect blackened all the grass in a twenty-foot wide swath almost two hundred feet long. Another sent every insect in the area fleeing. Quite a few more would have done terrible things to any bystanders, if any had been foolish enough to be close, or without protection.
Gail and Gilgamesh’s group waited on a small slope a little over a hundred yards away. Only the Major Transforms saw more than occasional flashes in the darkness. Van sat in front of Gail and leaned back on her. The rest of the household switched in and out, staying close to their Focus, and to Gilgamesh. Several of the unattached Transform women nuzzled Van as well, on the way by, and Van accepted the practice with a newfound casual ease. Arm Debardelaben, not really a part of their group, sat fifteen feet away in her wheelchair, armed and dangerous again. She and Jigget were having an animated discussion, with lots of hand waving and pointing. Something about the Canadian Focuses and their deficiencies.
Gilgamesh and Gail shared their metasenses. Gilgamesh had given up trying to explain the fight to the household. How many times could he answer “Hey, that’s new to me, too,” or “I don’t understand how they did that.”
In any event, the fight had settled down to a contest of attrition after the first fifteen minutes. Chevalier and Shadow sat on the ground, about twenty feet apart, and pressed on each other’s dross constructs. An even match.
Perhaps once one got to Mentor talent levels, duels and fights couldn’t settle anything. Thomas had dropped a hint along those lines during his exasperated rant.
Thomas and his people had stopped by to chat, as they made the rounds to all the Crows, politicking. Gilgamesh wondered if he should do so as well, but decided against it. Crow politics was barely understandable in the best of circumstances, and now? He just felt like a target, or worse, embarrassed because his win had been by forfeit.
Poor Sinclair, excused from bodyguard duty by Shadow’s Crows to go out and wave the flag. The rest of Shadow’s Crows sat about ten feet in front of Gail’s household, virtually invisible, supporting a group dross shield to keep Gail and her people from being inadvertently skunked.
When Shadow and Chevalier finished, some poor low-rank Crow would end up spending a month cleaning up this place.
Merlin ran up and plopped down in front of them, excited. “Your Pittsburgh crew is on the way. They’re about twenty miles out. They won!”
They won. Whoop de do. One set of problems exchanged for the next set of problems. Gilgamesh couldn’t conceive that Carol might die in the fight, win or lose. He worried about the others, though. Lori and Sky, especially.
Around him, Gail and her Transforms shouted and hugged each other, and danced and yelled. Merlin got his own set of hugs and kisses, which embarrassed the reserved Crow, but he accepted the attention as the price of telling Gail’s household the news. Gail, in her angelic ways, had won over even Merlin.
“Yes, yes, there were casualties, but I can’t tell who. No, that isn’t my metasense range, I’m using repeaters. Yes, Tiamat survived. Yes, Focus Rizzari and Sky survived. Yes, Focus Innkeep survived. No, I don’t know enough about the others to be able to pick them out.”
Gilgamesh sat without celebration, worried about what Tiamat would be like now that the war was over. She had become so dark over the last few months. As bad as Kali, in the end. No, worse than Kali. Kali at least had the word ‘restrained’ in her vocabulary. Tiamat, as the Commander, had misplaced the word years ago.
He couldn’t do a thing about it, save for the usual. She would drag him along for the ride and he would support her to the best of his abilities.
Then he thought of something, stood, and ran over to where Shadow and Chevalier fought.
Gilgamesh stopped about fifteen feet away from Chevalier, at the edge of where his personal dross shields began to
leak. “I thought you two should know that Tiamat’s on her way,” he said. “She won. Patterson is dead. Tiamat’s vision of all Major Transforms working together is now the controlling vision. You might want to clean this up by the time she gets here, so the Crows can present a unified front.”
He stepped back a few paces, and waited. The news worked its way into Chevalier’s mind and sapped his will.
“Cooperative Crows will get to choose their own Focuses,” Gilgamesh said, with admittedly a certain amount of vindictiveness. “Uncooperative Crows? Well, I wouldn’t put it past Tiamat to consider an uncooperative Crow in the same light as she views an uncooperative Chimera. I think her reaction to rogue Crows will be rather strong, given her history. I doubt she’s going to stand for any more.”
Gilgamesh paused and studied the beads of sweat growing on Chevalier’s forehead.
“Carol’s basement is open for business, again, Chevalier. She’s very good at turning enemies into allies, you know. I think…”
“Enough,” Chevalier said, his voice strained from the fight. “I take it this is payback for my interference in your contest?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gilgamesh could see Shadow smile, tight and aggressive. That sensation of intense pressure increased as more dross leaked through his shields.
“If this was a formal duel, I wouldn’t be here,” Gilgamesh said. “As it is…”
“Yes?”
“The days of Crow standoffishness are over. The lives of millions will depend on living and future Crows, living in Focus households, doing our part. For once.”
“Words, my dear Gilgamesh, just words.” Chevalier’s voice was a hoarse whisper, and his eyes teared with the strain.
“Words have power. Consider, friend Chevalier. I’m standing here talking to the two of you in the midst of your fight, while Phobos is hiding in a culvert having hysterics.”
Chevalier’s defenses collapsed. Gilgamesh took a step back as Shadow’s vision of reality impressed itself on Chevalier. Chevalier’s mind changed, his outlook, his whole way of looking at the world, all in a few moments. Gilgamesh didn’t panic – almost – when he realized what had been decided in this battle. He had wondered how the other Mentor Crows punished Shadow for his support of the Mimesis organization a decade ago, and now he knew.
Crow minds were flexible. Too flexible. Even reality was subject to change.
Chevalier and Shadow both stood. “Who’s the Arm in the Bay Area? Webberly?” Chevalier said. Gilgamesh nodded.
“You convinced me, Gilgamesh. I need to meet her and ally with her. Perhaps some others of my Watchers as well. The Hunters are pressing on the area, badly. They even took out Birds of a Feather! I suppose cross-Transform alliances to stop their advance will have as good a shot at keeping the Crows alive as my idea about convincing the Crows to vanish into the night. I have considerable information on the local Hunters that I’m willing to trade, for information on how you and Sky are doing the trick with Focuses. Then I’m going to see if I can find one of the Bay Area Focuses I can stand,” Chevalier said.
“Try Enid Gladchuck. She’s a real hoot,” Gilgamesh said, as Chevalier ambled off. Shadow stood beside him, and sighed.
“Thanks, Gilgamesh. I think,” Shadow said, back in his normal voice. “You’re still on my side, aren’t you?”
Gilgamesh nodded. “Why would you think not, Mentor Shadow?”
Carol Hancock:
I stopped the car I was driving in a big open area of the muddy parking lot at Cooper’s Lake Campground. The semi with my people and the captive Crows stopped beside me. I tried to shake Tom awake, and mostly succeeded. I sighed. I was the only one in my crew still going strong.
Winning a battle made my heart soar.
I banged on the side of the semi, got Webberly’s attention, and then leapt up on top of the semi. Good. Gail and her people streamed over, along with a bunch of Crows. Lots of Crows. Lots and lots of Crows. Dammit, this was too many Crows!
Perhaps training my metasense to pick up on dross – and Crows – wasn’t my greatest inspiration ever.
I sure as hell hoped Gilgamesh had won. I couldn’t tell.
“Listen up!”
Everyone stopped approaching. I didn’t need a megaphone.
“Focus Patterson is dead. Patterson held six captive Crows. She turned them to her vision of reality, according to Crow Rumor. I’m not sure what this means for a Crow, but to me, they’re enemies unless someone can fix them.”
One Crow stepped forward, a Crow I had never met before. I scanned the crowd for Shadow and didn’t see him. Hell, there he was, way back, limping along, supported by Gilgamesh. Not good.
Well, there’s the easy way and the hard way, and by hell, I could do things the hard way if I needed to.
The cloaked Crow who stepped forward had more metasense fuzzing than year old cheese in a Transform refrigerator. Nothing under his cloak I could see, smell, or metasense that wasn’t illusion. Oh, hell. I knew this Crow far too well, from an animated picture on a wall.
“My name is Thomas the Dreamer,” the cloaked Crow said. “I will negotiate.” He was Rumor’s Mentor Crow. This was why he stepped forward. Crow politics.
“No negotiations.”
His illusory face showed shock. He stepped back for a moment, before he forced himself forward.
“Ma’am, then, what are your demands?”
Ah. Too firm. The beast – my hungry beast – remained a problem. I needed to take some time off for some basement work. I didn’t need to keep a blood soaked basement, though. I could give that up whenever I wanted to. Perhaps I would, tomorrow.
Rationalizations? Yes, but I had pushed down the beast before. Doing so had taken nearly a year of work, a year of ‘tomorrows’, a year of relatively low stress. But I had succeeded. What worried me the most was how I was going to arrange to diminish the stress. Diminished stress didn’t seem likely, not with me in charge of everything.
“No demands,” I said. “I didn’t take these Crows from Patterson seeking payment. I took them to free them. I would free them now, save that they’re a hazard to all and sundry, stuck in Focus Patterson’s twisted headspace. I don’t consider it right for me to own them, as Crows are my allies. Yet I know of no Crows with the seniority needed to control these Crows.”
“You do now. Shadow is officially a Mentor.”
Those of my people who were awake started a celebration. I did a little jig as well, and let out a hoot. Hot damn. From his appearance, Shadow had been in a hell of a fight. Unexpected.
I sensed celebration in the morguemobile, as they pulled into my metasense range, just outside of the campground. Sky was still going strong, and – no shock – Biggioni was back to life. That bitch was one tough Focus. Keistermann was still, and from her appearance, quite permanently dead.
Keaton was sleeping, which was good. Soon, we would exchange words. Arm words.
The Canadians came in as well, behind the morguemobile. I hadn’t invited them, but, well, lack of invitations had never stopped them before. Besides, Nameless, in his panic, wanted to chat up Shadow for Guru training, now that he had discovered his warrior soul or whatever insane mystical Crow crap filled his mind. I guessed he had convinced his entire crew to escort him.
“I don’t know which of you has precedence,” I said. “Would it be okay for me to let the two of you work it out?”
“I doubt there will be a problem, Tiamat Crow-Rescuer.”
More cheers.
I got down off the semi before the Crows could drag me further into the mythic world where they lived. Crow-Rescuer, indeed. I wanted the political effects of my accomplishments, not the fucking name!
---
“Just tell me the name wasn’t your idea,” I said, as I glowered at Gilgamesh. Then hugged him and kissed him. The heat from Gail’s household campfire warmed my back.
Gail grabbed me and gave me a lusty kiss, as well. “You should hear the name they used to han
g on me, until Thomas the Dreamer changed it. Clumsy Angel.”
“Angel’s a good name,” I said, guessing the change. I hoped the name would last. I had my doubts. I suspected she would always be the clumsy angel…and loved her for it.
“We won?” Gail said. Not for the first time.
“We won. Not perfectly cleanly, but we won.” I bounced on the balls of my feet and captured Gail’s eyes with my gaze.
“Gail, you’ve proven yourself in combat, espionage, upper-end politics, and now in crazy leading-Transform insanity. Arms, like the Nobles, are big into graduation exercises, and your accomplishments in the last month counts as a big graduation exercise. Consider yourself graduated. Don’t get cocky, though, or I’ll make you wear a dress with a big red ‘S’ on the front.”
Her eyes opened wide, but she didn’t smile or laugh as I expected. She got all serious on me, putting on a passable version of an Arm’s stone face. “Thank you. Thank you very much, Carol.”
Gail’s household gathered round the campfire in the frigid December air, and amid the shouts of ‘tell, tell!’, I told my story. My tale took longer to tell than to do, to tell the truth. The household hung on every word, as this served as an impromptu version of one of Gail’s household’s rituals, story-time, and we were now all linked together by the juice.
Not too far away, at a different campfire, Tonya told her story to her survivors. Too much had happened during their separation, their minds in different worlds. Tonya and her people weren’t used to losing so many in combat, and grief poured from them like blood.
Lori and Sky wandered around, never more than a couple of feet from each other, with what remained of the Inferno battle squad at her back, introducing Sky around to the Crows as a new Guru. As she introduced Sky, she sold the Crows on the idea of training, both for combat, and training on how to deal with Focuses in households. Inferno had their own rituals for grief, which they would save up until they returned to Chicago. Despite their many household funerals over the years, this set was going to be bad. I would need to attend, as well. They were mine, too, these days.
The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) Page 38