“You knew,” Gail said, her voice reduced to a breathless whisper.
Tonya’s voice was sad. “I guessed,” she said. “This is a common mistake among young Focuses who can easily move the juice and who haven’t become household dictators.”
Gail put her head in her hands, miserable. This wasn’t the conversation she wanted, or expected. She was supposed to be the morally superior one, holding her nose and tolerating Tonya’s cruelty to her people. Somewhere, she wasn’t sure where, everything got all turned around on her.
“Tell me, Gail,” Tonya said, oh so gently, “you’re trying to avoid manipulating your people through the juice, right?”
“Uh huh,” Gail said, naked to Tonya’s far too accurate guesses.
“So you try not to strip people. But when you get upset, you strip people anyway, because you can’t help it, right?”
“Uh huh,” Gail said, after a moment of thought, an admission as hard as pulling her own teeth.
“But you’re a lot better about keeping from accidentally pumping people?”
“Yes,” Gail said. She stripped people regularly, by accident, but she almost never pumped anyone by accident or otherwise, at least not anymore.
“So look at the results,” Tonya said. “Your people suffer pain on a regular basis. They’re intimately acquainted with the penalty of being a Transform. But, where’s the pleasure? A Transform’s life has wonderful benefits to counter the hard things, but how often do you give that to them? It’s a hard life when all you see is pain.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Gail said, her voice nearly cracking. “I just don’t want to manipulate them.”
“You can’t avoid manipulating them. You lost that choice when you became a Focus. All you can do is understand what you’re doing, and use your power to do the best for your people that you can. Give them some way to earn your favor. Some way they can earn the pleasure that comes with being a Transform. Give them something in their lives besides fear.”
Gail didn’t know what to say or what to believe. “Uh, um, okay,” Gail said. She thought she had been making progress, figuring things out, but right this instant she was more lost than ever. “This is horrible. No matter what I do…” Her voice trailed off in misery.
Tonya’s voice never changed from her kind, gentle tone. “There are lots of things you can do. If you don’t want to reward them for doing things for you, reward them for something else. Find something for them, though. Give them some pleasure in their lives. Help the ones in your household that are hurting. Improve the love lives of troubled marriages…”
“What?” Gail’s face turned red with embarrassment.
The smile came through Tonya’s voice again. “Transform Sickness strains marriages. If you pump up your Transforms when they come together with their spouses, this has a big impact. A good love life will do a lot for a troubled marriage.”
Tonya got serious again. “Do something, Gail. Give them some pleasure, so their lives can be a little less bleak. But whatever you do, be consistent, so at least they can have something they can trust.”
Viscount Robert Sellers: September 13 – September 14, 1968
“Good news,” Master Occum said, walking through the cloud of dust raised by their work. “The quest is now fully arranged.”
Viscount Sellers grunted, and following the Duke’s lead, they put down the hefty hunk of concrete they had been hauling. It hit the floor with a seismic thud. At least they hadn’t been going at this mess with the jackhammer when Master Occum walked in.
Sellers smiled at the news. They, the mature Nobles, had all known they needed a quest to prove themselves to the other Major Transforms. A good quest, something dangerous, something the other Major Transforms of the Cause couldn’t just hire some muscle to accomplish. Sellers wore his man-shape today, tall, dark and handsome, as he had every day since they had come to this benighted candy factory. He had liked their old place better, the old camera shop and the ‘import distribution center’ behind it (something illicit, but the Inferno household had bought the place for them long after the departure of the previous owners). They had finished cleaning the old place out, though, and given it back to Inferno for resale.
Now they had the damned candy factory to clear, fix and repair. The place was too damned small, the weather too damned warm for this sort of manual labor, and their Commoners – the Transform women and a few men they protected and kept alive with their Chimera skills – were always complaining about the dust. And the place stank. Neither Master Occum or any of their other Crow visitors could smell the odors, but to Viscount Sellers, once named Rover, and still possessing a more sensitive nose than his fellow Noble peers, the place was a charnel house of chemical horror.
Pam and Suzie, their stoutest Commoner women, and the ones with the best minds, put down the rebar rod they were carrying to the dump truck and hurried over. Pam was a recent acquisition. She had been a member of Focus Untermeyer’s household for five years, until unknown enemies had kidnapped poor Pam from her place of work and held her long enough for her to go Monster. All because Focus Untermeyer supported the Focus Queen Rizzari’s Cause. Or ‘had’, as Sellers wasn’t sure the low-end Focus hadn’t permanently ditched the rebellion after being spooked by the attack. Queen Rizzari believed she could talk Focus Untermeyer back into the fold, so there was still hope.
In any event, the Nobles had brought Pam back from her Monsterhood, and more successfully than anyone had expected. Pam was fully human again, in looks, but, well, sadly, her trip into Monsterhood had ruined her mind. She could still talk, but she didn’t often have much to say, and she needed help getting dressed in the morning. Despite Focus Untermeyer’s tears of joy when they saved Pam, the Focus couldn’t support her anymore. Something in Pam’s glow had changed for the worse.
Suzie was different. She had been a Monster for years, and when they brought her back to mostly human, she had mostly kept her Monster smarts. She did complain, though, that she had been smarter as a Monster. She wasn’t fully human in looks, alas: she looked like a bipedal cartoony pig. Just don’t say anything to her about it, Sellers knew. She was sensitive on the subject, and had a nasty temper.
“What sort of quest, Master?” Suzie said as she came close, every step raising little puffs of powdered concrete. She blinked coyly at them, male Major Transforms all, and smiled her best smile. She was the smartest of the Commoners; the Good Doctor’s Great Enabler had not only brought her mind back to fully functional but also returned to her the ability to speak, which she did, constantly, and with decent eloquence. She claimed to have been just as smart before the Great Enabler allowed the Nobles and Master Occum to fix her, and said her speaking problems had come from some form of crossed wires in her mind, what Occum termed aphasia. “I know the boys want something to slaughter, but if it’s not going to be a blood and gore fest, I want in.” After Suzie had fully regained the ability to talk, she and Tina, a woman Transform from Inferno, had negotiated for Inferno-style training for Suzie. The training taxed all of the Inferno resources, given Suzie’s Monster-ish past, but she had come out stronger, quicker and dedicated to the Cause.
The training hadn’t helped the other test-case Commoners, alas. They were too new as Transforms. Due to the Great Enabler, though, the Nobles no longer had to keep them chained or shackled.
And, yes, Sellers did want something to slaughter, or at least hunt down.
“We’re all going, and it’s not going to be a goddamned gore fest, or at least I hope not,” Master Occum said, his usual grumpy self. “We’re going on a Transform rescue.”
The Duke stood up tall, or at least taller. He was short for a Chimera, barely more than six feet, with red brown hair and a Chimera’s muscular build. “How is this a quest? What’s our opposition, Master?”
“Hold your horses, Hoskins,” Master Occum said. “I don’t know the details, but we’re going to be rescuing a Sport who got herself caught in some sort of Majo
r Transform-made doohickey, way up north. Northern Canada, that is.” He paused, and if Sellers was correct, used a Crow trick to up the verbal tension as he paused. “Oh, and an Arm, a Focus and her household failed at this.”
“Well, then,” the Duke said. “This does have promise. Why’ve you been spending the last two weeks making arrangements? Why didn’t we just go? Two weeks is a long time if you’re held in captivity.”
Master Occum shook his head, raised his gnarled right hand and counted on his fingers. “Diplomacy, which we’re not done with yet, as our first stop is on the outskirts of Montreal, to visit the Madonna of Montreal.” Master Occum moved to another twisted finger as Viscount Sellers curled his lips in a half snarl. The Madonna of Montreal was a Focus of legendary strangeness. “Transportation. You three may be able to pass as human in your human forms, but Page Dowling cannot.” At the mention of his name, Dowling came over, trailed by their third Noble peer, Count Horace Knox. “We need cover for our trip.” Knox’s human form was of a pro football linebacker of Nordic extraction. Dowling’s form was, um, different. No matter what Master Occum tried, Dowling remained stuck in his squirrel-tailed blond bear form. Master Occum had used the Great Enabler to trick Dowling’s mind back into functionality and speech, but hadn’t been able to convince Dowling’s mind to accept any new shapes. Sellers thought Dowling’s bear voice quite high and reedy for a bear, and gave him grief over his failings on a regular basis.
“Lastly,” Master Occum said, folding down another finger, this one twisted so far his fingernail pointed sideways. “Focus Rizzari’s pregnancy issues.” He cocked an eye at them, and Sellers metasensed wonder and agitation in the old Crow. “If you prove yourselves with this quest, I prove myself as well. I think the Great Enabler can help Focus Rizzari regain her self-control, and she’s willing to give it a shot.”
All three mature Nobles stood up straighter and puffed out their chests. They knew full well the importance of their Master’s last statement. The senior Crows had ruined Master Occum physically, turning him into a gnarled, ugly, scarred and bent man. Because of this, their Master would meet only with a few others in public; the one he feared to meet in person the most, Focus Rizzari, Queen of the Cause, was the most important for him to meet. Or so Duke Hoskins said.
If they succeeded, Occum would be meeting Focus Rizzari in person. He would have to, for the Great Enabler to work.
They had to succeed on their quest.
---
“An eighteen wheeler?” Count Knox said, when he saw their transportation. He sneered, putting a little of his Terror into his expression. “How Hunter.”
“What I want to know is how Inferno managed to acquire the thing,” Duke Hoskins said, in as close to a whisper as he could manage. Sellers chuckled; he suspected the ever-crafty Inferno Transforms had acquired it in a shady manner. It had most likely been non-functional and in great need of repairs, and they fixed up the vehicle and trailer on their own, cheap.
Sellers sniffed at the tires and the inside of the trailer. “This was last used as a grocery supply truck. We’re going to be groceries.”
“Quit the goddamned bitching and moaning,” Master Occum said. “It wouldn’t be a quest if it didn’t kick you out of your comfort zone.” He turned to Pam and Suzie. “We need all the bedding, nesting materials, and trip food loaded in before the Commoners can get settled.”
“We should give them a hand,” Sellers said. Count Knox joined him, but Hoskins didn’t, content to help supervise. Once they loaded the trailer, they led out the more helpless of the Commoners. Frankie and Don were the worst, the only two male Transforms they could support. Physically, their two men remained human, but their minds hadn’t been able to take the juice flux, or the élan component of the juice that slipped through.
“Don’t mind mind no, it’s okay, okay?” Frankie said, slurring his words.
“Not okay, not okay, not okay,” Don said, echoing, quiet. Sellers gently led the twitching man up the short ramp and shepherded him as he stumbled into the bed of the trailer. The Viscount felt bad for Don, as it was his small slip during the juice transfer which had scarred Don’s mind and given him his whole-body palsy. The two men would never get better, and Don’s current life was barely worth living, but if Sellers, in one of his Farsight missions, hadn’t found the man, Don would already be dead from juice withdrawal. There were so few openings for male Transforms in Focus households, and few survived even a month past their transformation.
“Next stop, Montreal,” Occum said as he closed the trailer door with an echoing clang. He and the Duke were going to be sharing the driving duties. Sellers had no idea how they were going to make it past the border, but he suspected Occum’s secret phone calls with Focus Ackerman this morning might be related.
---
“Hello,” the dowdy Focus said, after she and her entourage exited the now parked station wagon. “I’m the Madonna of Montreal, but you can call me Annie, or Focus Annie if you’re feeling formal.” Sellers nodded, not sure what to make of a Focus who was talented enough to mask her glow, completely, from his metasense, as well as the glows of her Transform guards. She was disquieting, to say the least. He didn’t know exactly where they were, some park to the southwest of Montreal, where green leaves edging into scarlet and gold made bright arches high above the dark soil. The air was rich with the scents of decaying leaves and the charcoal fires of long passed picnics. Early morning dew collected on the picnic tables and fallen leaves, but no normals dared the chill and darkness.
In the semi-rural splendor of the place, Focus Annie thought it appropriate to wear slippers on her feet, a bath robe, and a scarf over her head. A knitted scarf, at that. She was a medium tall woman with dark brown hair, thin and almost stooped. Her face, what he could see of it, was round and motherly, her brown eyes set wide, darting and nervous. She spoke with a thick accent, and given this was Quebec, he decided her accent had to be French.
“Thank you for venturing forth to greet us so early in the morning, ma’am,” Duke Hoskins said, as always in charge of diplomacy. He introduced their crew to the Focus, not naming either Pam or Suzie, who stood with the Nobles today, in front of the other Commoners. Master Occum stood at Page Dowling’s side, radiating nervousness edging toward panic. “In the way of our kind, I lead and speak for this Noble household.” All of them, save Dowling, retained their man-shapes.
Focus Annie took three steps forward and spent a long moment staring intently at Pam and Suzi. “Your household is amazing,” she said. “You have come farther than I realized, in so short an amount of time. I will want to speak to Crow Occum later, in private, if that isn’t inappropriate.”
Hoskins looked over the Focus’s guards, a collection of shooters, not fighters, and shrugged. “If it’s okay with Master Occum, it’s okay with me. We do, however, serve as his bodyguards, as much as your people serve to protect you.”
“A Crow with bodyguards? Different, and appealing in its symmetry.” She smiled, and Sellers felt her charisma for the first time. He shivered at its strength. He hoped this Focus turned out to be friendly, for if not, they were in big trouble. “Would you like to hear about my proposed quest?”
“Certainly, Focus Annie,” Hoskins said.
Focus Annie sat on a picnic bench and told her tale, slowly and carefully, as the morning sun rose above the trees. A park worker did his morning trash and clean-up run, ignoring them as if they didn’t exist, or have anyone as odd-looking as Page Dowling with them. Focus Annie was frightfully intelligent, sprinkling her story with unfamiliar words. Long words, such as ‘disaggregation’ and ‘provenance’. Sellers wasn’t sure what to make of her tale, especially about the Predecessors, a Transform society that supposedly existed centuries ago in the Canadian arctic. The story of the Predecessors didn’t sound real to him, too strange to believe. On the other hand, the trap their rescue target, the Sport Nancy Racshke, had fallen into sounded dangerous, as would anything capable of luring a
Major Transform to it from half way across the continent. If he understood the Focus’s convoluted tale, an unnamed Arm, along with a Focus Larson and her household, had searched out and found the trap, but had failed the rescue, unable to approach within grabbing distance of the Sport because of some Major Transform trickery. The worst bit of nonsense was the so-called artifact of the past, which Focus Annie showed them after she took it out of an ornate strong-box she called a ‘Faraday cage’. The so-called artifact was a baby walrus skull, with metal lines carved into it as, he figured, a form of perverse decoration. Out of its box, the so-called artifact buzzed and snarled at his metasense, like one of Crow Gilgamesh’s funky tennis balls, but, well, far larger and more glowy. Larger in a ‘more stabilized dross’ fashion, perhaps a hundred times larger, and showing an almost conscious dislike of the Nobles. He doubted the Focus understood the danger of her device, as in the juice metasense bands, the so-called artifact of the Predecessors barely glowed at all. He certainly didn’t believe the story she told about the skull summoning the aurora after the unnamed Arm dripped her blood into its golden eye-sockets.
“This sounds like a good quest, and quite appropriate,” Duke Hoskins said. “We are looking for ways to prove ourselves to the Cause, to Focus Rizzari and her Arm allies, and if we can succeed where an Arm and a Focus have failed, then our worth will be self-evident.” As the Nobles had discussed privately before they left Boston, Hoskins didn’t mention the real target of their proving quest, the Commander, recently revealed to be Arm Hancock. She girded for war against the Hunters, and their foul leader, Wandering Shade, and the Nobles ever so wanted to be involved in that fight. On her side.
Focus Annie nodded. “I have the necessary maps. You’ll be going into the northern forests, into the near arctic north of Labrador City, and you’ll have to go on foot from Lab City. It’s a wild area, and it’s become Monster territory, like all the wild areas in North America. The trap involves Transform tricks we do not understand and cannot duplicate, so be cautious.”
In this Night We Own (The Commander Book 6) Page 14
