Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2)

by Randall Farmer

  Three minutes later, the young man died. He felt no pain and died in pleasure. Mary passed out on top of him, a smile on her face. The Arm’s fate was in Gail’s hands. Gail wiped away tears and used her charisma to fight off the urge to vomit.

  Gail made her decision. Her heart cold as winter, she stood, hunted down one of Teacher’s phones and called home.

  Betha Ebener answered. “Find me Daisy,” Gail said, her voice flat and cold. She was going to catch hell from Van for this, and would deserve every clipped syllable and short stony glare.

  The damned Arm was going to wake up horny as all hell, and Gail had no desire to sleep with a cold-blooded killer today. Today’s lesson was over.

  “You’re kidding,” Daisy said, when Gail explained the situation. “Do you even need to ask? Of course I will!”

  “Fine. Get a bodyguard crew here to take me home. I want out of here, now!”

  Carol Hancock: September 5, 1972 – September 8, 1972

  “Hi, Connie,” I said, to Connie Webb. I didn’t expect to see her here at this emergency meeting, all the way from California. She was a tall women, as Focus beautiful as the rest, with short, ash-blonde hair and an expensive suit. She and her household had given me some valuable training several years ago. Thanks to her, I was an accomplished private investigator when I needed to be.

  “Carol,” she said, and gave me a barely noticeable smile. “Who called this meeting, anyway?”

  “That would be me.” I turned, and found Shadow sitting in some shadows, in the corner of the unlit room, right next to the fifty gallon coffee tank. I didn’t jump, thank you very much, but it took work. I had been sitting at the table and cogitating over my various problems for twenty minutes, under the assumption I was the first one to arrive at the Concord Best Western. I hadn’t noticed Shadow, by his design, a particularly annoying but standard Crow trick. Had he been here when I showed up, or did he show up later? Hell, he was wearing his finest metasense shields as well, which I had only seen once, in the Battle in Detroit. Disturbing.

  At least this would distract me from my war preparations. I now had two hundred goons ready for battle, if battle came my way. I also had begun work on my new combat methodology and had bothered the crap out of Lori as we brainstormed Bass defenses.

  “Crow Shadow,” Connie said, every inch the exacting corporate lawyer. “Why are you geared for battle?”

  “For the obvious reason,” Shadow said. “My associates and I encountered some rather serious Crow political problems, and I thought I needed to fill in the other leaders of the Cause.” Meaning we were supposed to pass this along. Shit. This I didn’t need. This the world didn’t need. I had hoped the Sinclair quest would have shown our Crow enemies the futility of their actions.

  “How much can you tell us, Shadow?” I said. The Cahokia Room in the Best Western wasn’t large, just a long table and sixteen chairs. Since I thought I was the first one here, I had ordered room service. Hell, the charges would all go on the Cause tab, which I mostly funded anyway. I grabbed a doughnut (Zielinski wasn’t going to be happy at my food selection) and several slices of roast beef.

  “More than I should.”

  Then he clammed up, and waved his hands. A moment later, a loud clumping announced the appearance of the Noble rep, as invisible to my metasense as Shadow. Shadow probably had the Noble out scouting around for trouble, under Shadow’s substantial protections.

  The Noble who walked in wasn’t Duke Hoskins, but a tall dirty-blonde man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail. He exuded masculinity in a palpable ursine fashion.

  “Count Frederick Dowling,” Shadow said, to us women. Dowling appeared far buffer than in my last meeting with him, and far sharper mentally as well. To Dowling, he said “Focus Connie Webb and Arm Carol Hancock.”

  Dowling nodded at both of us. “Focus Webb. Commander.” He was moving up in the world. I kept a soft spot in my heart for Dowling, as I had been the one who captured him, as a Beast Man, back in my Houston days.

  “Count Dowling is up for the next new Barony, and he’s been selected as Duke Hoskins’ primary stand in,” Shadow said.

  I knew better than to ask how the Nobles made the ‘selection’. I didn’t understand how internal Noble politics worked. Yet. Keeping track of their obscure title conventions was bad enough. For instance, the Count title indicated that Dowling was a greater Noble, meaning in theory he was qualified to run a Noble household, these days termed a Barony. He had been teaching young Nobles for years, though, stuck in Duke Hoskins’ doghouse.

  Dowling took out a stack of papers and a pair of reading glasses. They weren’t an affectation, which meant he could likely count the hairs on the back of a fly at a thousand paces. “I regret to inform you that Focuses Rizzari, Biggioni, Ackermann, O’Donnell, and Caruthers are all under political attack,” he said, and flipped to the next sheet. Okay, real big letters, there. I knew about the hit on Lori. She was back in Boston sorting out issues with the Boston College administration. Damned bastards. Both the administrators and the Crows who exposed Lori. “They and their associates are in major trouble with their Focus superiors, federal law enforcement authorities, local law enforcement authorities, or other bureaucratic entities, tying them down and preventing them from attending this meeting. We do know who is behind this, but we don’t understand why they are limiting their activities to this particular region of the country. The victims of this heinous attack asked us for help, and to pass this information along to you.” Dowling flipped over his seventh sheet of paper, took his reading glasses off, and stared at us. No, smoldered. Oh, this guy might be fun, I thought. What a hunk. Too bad he was a Chimera. Nervous as all hell to be on display, thrown into the deep end like this, but a hunk nonetheless. He tempted me to experiment, to see if I could unlearn my aversion to Beasts in bed. I could see why a Noble of his persuasion got chosen as Hoskins’ number two.

  I turned to Shadow. “So. Who’s behind this?”

  “Chevalier and his associates,” Shadow said. “Without a doubt.”

  Connie cursed long and loud in Latin, and then took a deep breath. “The oldest Crow is out after us, Crow Shadow?”

  “The oldest surviving American Crow,” he said, and nodded. “He wants to stop our work, and me in particular. I’m afraid it’s personal, ma’am.”

  Son of a bitch. Bass’s attacks on me were also personal. This wasn’t good, to say the least. “What chance does he have of pulling off something like Wandering Shade did?” Connie said. She radiated nervousness, quite unlike her.

  Shadow laughed. “Nil. That particular problem is Chevalier’s worry, from me and my friends. Here’s the problem: the other leading Crows convinced Chevalier to stop directly harassing Crows, and he’s now turned his efforts to other Major Transforms, and those who work with them, and especially those Major Transforms who work with Crows.” He turned to me and met my gaze; he expected Chevalier to hit me again, and soon.

  “Well, the Crow I work with has vanished,” Connie said. Connie worked with a Crow entrepreneur named Waveguide, a more distant relationship than mine with Gilgamesh. He had moved near Connie, in specific, so she could represent him in court – and she certainly didn’t mind the extra business. They were both space buffs, and on their infrequent ‘dates’ toured places like the JPL, in Pasadena. “I’m also having foul dreams, similar to the aftereffects of being hit by a dross or élan attack. Waveguide said that he couldn’t metasense anything wrong with me…just before he vanished.”

  “Hmm,” Shadow said. “Not good. Waveguide follows a Guru who follows a senior Crow who I thought might be open to persuasion. Apparently not. Unfortunately, it sounds to me like someone reined in Waveguide.”

  “I know what’s causing your bad dreams, Connie,” I said, connecting this to my own internal Arm problems. “Bass, the Arm behind the Phoenix church massacre and the attack on Focus Daumarie in New Orleans, relocated to southern California a month ago, and she’s now working directly
for Keaton and against the Cause.” Connie lived in San Diego, far too close to the action.

  Connie winced, and nodded. “Thanks. I’ll implement some of your security suggestions I hadn’t needed before.” Ever since Gilgamesh and I stumbled into introducing ourselves to her, Connie, Gilgamesh and I had maintained a productive trading relationship. For instance, Gilgamesh had introduced Connie to Waveguide.

  “So, Shadow, what can we do about this, if anything?” I asked. “Any, um, more quests I can help with?” Our allied male predator Major Transforms lived in a mythic world of their own creation, or the juice’s creation. Quests, heroic deeds, courtly love, chemical magic – and, of course, frequent tournaments to draw down the excess adrenaline. Most of the time the world of the Nobles made my brain hurt.

  “No new quests at the moment,” Shadow said, a half smile on his face. I don’t think he was fully sold on the idea of quests, either. “Focuses should be as careful and as legal as possible. Arms?” Shadow frowned, trying to think things through. Drawing a blank.

  “Master Shadow, if I might?” Dowling said.

  “Go to, your grace.”

  “Make sure you always have two escape routes. Change where you sleep, often. Vary your routines. Socialize with other Major Transforms, so if you go missing, someone will notice. Use multiple layers of bodyguards – not that you need bodyguards, Commander, but bodyguards make you less appealing for any interfering Crows.”

  I nodded along with him. More security would be useful. A senior Crow could go after an Arm personally, with a decent chance of success. I had survived Rogue Crow’s attention, barely, and didn’t want any more of that sort of attention. Ever.

  “Thank you, your grace,” I said, to Dowling. He preened, none to humbly, either. Damn, he was a hunk.

  If I didn’t have a visceral yuck reaction to Chimeras of any variety…but I did.

  ---

  “So, do you have an extra untagged Transform or not?”

  Zielinski glanced up from his microscope, in his shiny new private laboratory in the Littleside Transform Research Center in Chicago. He was immersed up to his receding hairline in his juice pattern project, processing all the information from Gail and attempting to tune his theories to the actual results.

  “Carol! Thank God.” I hadn’t visited since I got back from New Orleans, and even though I was snarly, he was glad to see me. “I heard all sorts of horrific rumors…”

  I counted to ten and attempted to bring my temper back under control. His joyous exuberance didn’t merit my wrath.

  “Too many are real,” I said. “Bass is our enemy. She’s working under Keaton now, and Keaton isn’t holding her back, at least outside of the Los Angeles area. Worse, according to Shadow, Chevalier’s turned his attention from the Crows to those who associate with Crows, and Shadow expects us to get hit, soon. Which means you, here, in Littleside.” Pause. “Can you spare any of those three untagged Transforms I sense, or are they claimed for other purposes?”

  “One of them is available. The other two are still running moderate juice counts, and we’re attempting to find Focuses for them.”

  I stopped mid pace and frowned. “What? Where the hell did you get them from?”

  “They walked in the front door. The Tribune covered the Center’s opening this Sunday, and since then we’ve had a stream of normals coming in to request testing. It didn’t seem wise to turn them down.”

  I shook my head. Transforms walking into an Arm’s lair, just asking to be killed. Bizarre. I gave Hank the eye – three free Transforms to play with sounded real good to me now, after the last week and a half of shit.

  He gave me the eye right back. “We’re a public facility. It would seem a little suspicious if none of the Transforms that came in here ever made it to a Focus.”

  Perhaps I was being too greedy. “Well I hope you’re vetting them. I don’t want any but the top-of-the-line people going out to the Focuses.”

  Zielinski pulled back from his microscope and rolled his stool over to me, keeping eye contact. “Carol,” he said, “I…”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I know where you’re going, and I’m not interested. I’m perfectly willing to play God. The top quality Transforms get Focuses, and the dregs and the merely average are mine. Now, I’ll vet them if needed, but I’d much rather that you did the job.”

  Zielinski sighed. He was a healer, and I asked a lot of him when I asked him to decide who died. “Triage,” he said.

  I nodded. “Triage.” The sorting of the wounded to decide who got treatment and who was left to die, the job of doctors for hundreds of years.

  He didn’t like the responsibility, but he would cope. He was a hard man. I suspected that he would have come to the same decision on his own given some time.

  I didn’t have time.

  “So can you tell me what happened with Keaton?” he asked.

  I snagged a matching rolling stool and sat down. “Is there anything for an Arm to eat around here?”

  He stood. “There’s a refrigerator down the hall.”

  I rolled over to the fridge, grabbed some food, rolled back and told my story. “I don’t understand what Keaton means when she says she’s going to ‘probe’ the Focuses,” I said, at the end. “Worse, she ordered me to stay away from this steaming pile of shit.”

  Zielinski folded his arms and stared thoughtfully over at the blackboard in the corner. “So let me summarize, based on my understanding of the situation. Chevalier’s harassing the Focuses and the Network, soon to be joined by Keaton. Either the Focuses and their allies will respond to these probes with enough strength to defeat Chevalier and Keaton, or Keaton and Chevalier will get enough leverage on the Focuses to break their power. Either way, our two unallied fanatics and their followers will destroy the Cause.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  Zielinski nodded. “In that case, we need to get a move on our research. In specific, I need an assistant. Preferably Dr. Patrick, who started last week. I’m impressed with the work he’s doing, but I can’t tell him what I’m working on until you’ve recruited him.”

  I nodded. “I’ll do some checking and get him to you as soon as I recruit him.”

  “That will help. Oh, and based on what Amy’s been dropping on me, if you have about a month of free time, I’m positive we can now crack Eissler’s mind-enhancement trick. Not only would this speed up my research efforts, it might get Keaton’s attention in a positive fashion.”

  “No way,” I said. He had been wanting that month out of me for well over a year. “No time. I’ve got to get back to training Gail.” I sighed and looked away. “I also need more practice aborting my draw. Since you’ve got someone, it looks like we do it tonight.”

  ---

  “You don’t understand,” I whispered. “You think I’ll fight you again if you give me juice, but you don’t understand how bad this is. I couldn’t ever face it again. I’ll give you much better answers if you give me juice.”

  “I said, answer the questions.”

  “Please, I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Are you being difficult, Hancock?” McIntyre asked, his voice soft and threatening.

  “No, no, never.” I was so afraid, trapped in the CDC, chained and starved for juice and dying, as they tortured me hollow for the information I could give them. So far from home. Chicago was gone, lost. They had ripped my soul out when they took my territory, and now they trapped me here and tortured me. My mind shattered and my will snapped, and I couldn’t even think for the pain and the craving and the fear. The Beatles started playing ‘Long and Winding Road’, and the road was paved in blood.

  I woke up gasping.

  It took me a moment to realize where I was. A hotel bed, in my somewhat territory, Chicago.

  Nightmares. Bad ones, uncommon these days.

  Why had my loss of territory bothered me so much in the nightmare? Back when the CDC held me, the territory loss had been only one of the many mi
series.

  “Fuck.” I reached for the little dream notebook I kept by the side of my bed these days. I was sure something this traumatic possessed deep significant meaning, and I needed to record it. My hands shook. “Hell.” I tried to bring my heart rate back down. The clock on my nightstand said 4:23, and I was done with sleep for the night.

  Well, if I was going to take this Dream shit seriously, there was no time like the present.

  I meditated.

  I had a lot of experience with meditation, from the focusing meditation before I exercised, to the healing trances, to the meditation I did when I was attempting to learn new juice manipulation skills. This time, I let myself relax, and opened myself to my dream, carefully luring it back to me.

  The illusions created with the Dreaming were all in the mind, inventive interpretations based on tiny trickles of real information. Useful real information. I had been beat about the head often enough recently about the usefulness of the unexplainable that I was finally at the point where I could take what my transformation gave me without trying to fit it into one worldview or another. Things just were.

  The dream came back to me. Sorrow. Juice craving. Pain. My dream wasn’t, as I feared, fallout from Zielinski’s damned interrupted draw test, but from something else entirely. I had done the interrupted draw, but I didn’t like it. I lived. I hated. I needed to practice the interruption until I could interrupt my draw without flinching. Damn my instincts, though! Losing a kill was like losing Chicago again, or my discovery that Bobby had died, or touching the edge of withdrawal.

  The dream returned only for an instant, but the vision left behind the emotions, still as intense as they had been in my dream. I let them wash through me, and watched them with my inner eye.

  Loss, helplessness, rage.

  They weren’t my emotions. I let my mind range out.

  No, my mind would not extend outside itself. I let my metasense range out, and my metasense did.

  I went farther afield than I did when I was conscious, my metasense no longer limited to its usual quarter mile. Giddily, I felt myself stretching, reaching out endless distances. I felt like I held the whole world within me.