In this Night We Own (The Commander Book 6)

by Randall Farmer

  Viscount Robert Sellers: October 24, 1968

  “She’s moving,” Sellers said. “If we angle to the right a bit, we should be able to metasense her in an hour.” The sun shone down over the rocks, grass and weeds, but provided little by way of heat. Winter came early this far north.

  “Finally,” the Duke said. They had searched for over a week before Sellers had managed to pick up any real sense of the Monster with his special Farsight tricks. Before then, the best they could do was eke out vague hints of a proper search direction with the Duke’s cloud vision.

  All three of them were hungry, cold from hunger, and now, because of the amount of time they had spent hunting, low on juice.

  “Damn, but this has taken too long,” Count Knox said. “Each day, the weather gets colder.”

  “You worry about the Commoners too much,” Duke Hoskins said. He stopped and stretched, working out the kinks in his carapace. Or so it appeared. Sellers pawed the rocky ground, impatient. “It hasn’t snowed in days.” The Duke waved his crab claw hands in the air. “And all the early snow has melted, if you’ve noticed.”

  The Count gave his boss a demonic frown and turned away, edgy. “Garawwwaah!” His shouted annoyance ended with a leap at the Duke, and there they were again, fighting.

  Knox had gone after Sellers three times yesterday, and this was the second time today he had gone after the Duke. This hunt had strained all their tempers; Sellers himself carried healing scars from his last fight with Hoskins, after Hoskins had intimated he would make a good guard dog for Inferno…and then started describing an imaginary spiked dog collar for him.

  Something was wrong, Sellers decided. Not with the fighting – he and his peers regularly fought, at times over the most minor aggravations, or just sparred because they were bored. The why of their recent fighting bothered him. He backed away, to avoid getting caught up in the combat, and considered the question. Was this enemy action? Not according to his metasense. If not, they had likely run into another flaw in the household structure. He would alert Master Occum when they returned; this wasn’t the first time they had uncovered one of these flaws, and it wouldn’t be the last. Their Noble household constantly struggled with problems of this nature – too much structure sapped people’s initiative, while too little structure gave their beastly instincts too much play. Perhaps they needed official times for combat, then they…

  Sellers caught a faint metasense flash, interrupting his train of thought. A metasense flash from the wrong direction. He barked warning, enough to attract the Duke’s attention from where he sat on Count Knox’s back, pounding the Count’s face into a large tuft of dead grass.

  “She’s hunting us, sneaking up from behind and downwind,” Sellers said.

  “The Monster?”

  Sellers answered with a growl, and pointed his nose in the Monster’s direction. The Duke got up, grabbed Knox with his larger claw, shook him, and stood him on his now wobbly hooved feet. “Shit. I can’t metasense a thing.”

  “She’s just under three miles out.”

  “We need cover.” The Duke scanned around, for something, anything, and pointed to a rock knob sticking up perhaps thirty feet above the surrounding terrain. This was a bad spot for a fight, rocky, relatively flat, with an unnamed lake to their east and no forest anywhere near. In fact, this area was the first huge open area they had found on their search, a several year old forest fire scar. They had spent too much time circling and backtracking in this ridiculous terrain that was more like ‘islands in a single lake’ than ‘many lakes’.

  Huh. The Monster’s timing was no coincidence, was it?

  “The Monster planned on attacking us here, my Duke,” Sellers said. “Look at this place. This is the first large open space we’ve encountered…”

  “Why in the hell wouldn’t the Monster want cover, though?” The Duke paused, and smashed his lesser claw into his larger claw. “Oh, shit. It’s because she’s big.”

  “What? Big?” Count Knox asked. His face remained bloody, but he didn’t stagger as he walked. With an enemy to fight, Knox’s problems with both of them dissipated into the past.

  “You can’t trust the Focus’s Dreaming. It isn’t accurate,” the Duke said. “It’s a known problem. We need to be ready to run.”

  He situated them behind the rock knob, plotted out an escape route, and gave them strict orders not to charge the Monster, or speak.

  They didn’t wait long. Sellers spotted the Monster and pointed with his nose, what the Duke had annoyingly called ‘on point’ far too many times.

  Daaaamn. At least he had described the Monster’s approximate shape correctly, Sellers thought. She was, however, over thirty feet from snout to tail, far weightier than he had imagined, and he had missed her chameleon-like ability to blend in to the landscape. She was a six-legged creature, but he had missed the horns on her head, and the frond-like short tentacle-appendages hanging from her mouth.

  She was no lizard. She was a dragon.

  Hoskins shook his crabby carapace, his equivalent of shaking his head. He gave the signal to run, and run they did, around behind the rocky outcropping and away.

  At least the heavy dragon Monster was slow, and couldn’t chase them down.

  Three miles away, safely escaped from the exposed plain of the maze of lakes into a sparse forest of stunted pines, they stopped running. Now that Sellers had seen the Monster, she couldn’t mask her glow enough to keep him from locating her.

  “She’s a goddamned dragon, a goddamned huge dragon,” Count Knox said. His demonic head horns steamed in the cool afternoon air. “There’s no way we can subdue that thing. And she’s got juice tricks!”

  “We don’t have the juice for a fight with a Monster that stout,” the Duke said. They had never before seen so large a Monster, much less fought one. “We’ve used it all up in the search. We’ll have to go back to camp.”

  Their camp was over two days away. Sellers growled in disgust.

  “If she found us here, she’ll be able to find our camp,” Count Knox said. “She might go after them.”

  “You doubt our Master’s ability to handle a Monster?” The Duke clawed at the ground. Sellers took a moment to raise his right hind leg and pee on a tree, and gave the problem some thought. What advantages did they have?

  They were Major Transforms.

  Their Terror calls would be more powerful than any Monster’s fear roars, despite her age and size.

  There were three of them, and one of her.

  Given the creature’s size, none of their advantages would guarantee a victory…and Sellers couldn’t come up with anything else.

  Tonya Biggioni: October 24, 1968

  “Ma’am, hello,” Beth said, over the phone. Tonya leaned back and closed up the manila folder on the yearling Focus Brueggen and her never-ending money problems. Cocktail party dresses and gold jewelry! The crazy Focus had blown her household’s savings for their next place to live on dresses and jewelry!

  Some Focuses needed a large kick in the head.

  Beth, not at all in the same category as Brueggen, sounded overstressed. From the background noise Tonya knew she wasn’t calling from her home phone. “I’ve got a problem and I’m in over my head.”

  “Talk to me,” Tonya said. All her spies reported good news: Carol and Lori weren’t speaking, Lori was on the defensive trying to keep her rebellion from fracturing, Keaton absorbed the information Tonya dribbled out to her and was reacting just as Tonya wanted. With any luck she would finish reeling in Carol within two or three weeks and this distasteful episode would finally be over.

  “Ma’am. Uh, last Monday, the 18th, I was officially ordered to visit the house of Focus Adkins. She told me to cut off contact with Focus Rickenbach until she specifically lifted this restriction. Even indirect contact.” Beth sounded ready to scream.

  Well, phooey! The day had been going so well. “Let me think on this for a moment,” Tonya said, feeling the weight of her work pressi
ng down on her shoulders again. Wini definitely knew how to hold a grudge, but this was extreme for even her. “Do you know if it’s just you?”

  “No, ma’am. Uh, I mean, yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.” The well-flustered Beth paused to collect herself. Tonya didn’t bother with any encouragement. “Focus Adkins told me the local Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Ontario Focuses are similarly restricted. I was also ordered not to speak of this to anyone, including you.”

  Well, this had just gone from annoying to unprecedented in a hurry. “Why are you talking to me, then?” Tonya said, gentle but demanding. This kind of pushing was far outside of Beth’s normal comfort zone.

  “I like Gail and think what Focus Adkins is doing is manifestly unfair,” Beth said. Hah. Give Gail another couple years and she would have a half dozen Focuses or more slavishly following her every whim. Tonya would make sure Gail was a firm ally by then. “And, ma’am, I’d like to think your setting me up as Gail’s official Focus mentor counted as orders from a superior authority.” Beth sounded far surer about her first statement than her second.

  “Unfortunately, it doesn’t,” Tonya said. Beth could have handled this herself if she had the political skills and the self-confidence. Ah, well. Time for a little teaching. “Which means you’re on the hook for this phone call.”

  Tonya’s comment elicited a telling gulp from Beth. “Ma’am. Although Focus Adkins didn’t explicitly threaten me, there was an implied ‘or else’ involved.” Meaning Focus Adkins would destroy any Focus and her household if the Focus didn’t obey her. That’s how the first Focuses ruled.

  “The ‘or else’ is to be expected, but that’s not what I’m getting at,” Tonya said. “Beth, what does Focus Adkins want?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  Tonya didn’t respond.

  “Ma’am, uh…”

  “Gail told you about her short meeting with Focus Adkins, yes?”

  “Uh huh.” Pause. “Oh. Focus Adkins wants Gail to apologize. Uh, and humbly beg for forgiveness.” Finally, a little rational-for-Focuses thought. “But Gail’s never going to do that.”

  Tonya wondered if she was going to have to draw Beth a map. She sighed. What she found so easy and obvious seemed so difficult for so many other Focuses to understand. Never knuckle under. Always negotiate everything. “Go to Wini and tell her that as Gail’s mentor you can’t obey Wini’s order, but promise that in time you’ll have Gail make up with her. Wini will negotiate a time limit; you should be able to buy yourself at least four months to get Gail to come around. If Wini refuses to negotiate at all,” which wouldn’t happen, as Wini was always open to negotiation about anything and everything, “you can then, and only then, tell her of my support.” Wini was the one who snagged the Transform volunteer who was supposed to go to Hancock, which caused Hancock to go into withdrawal. If Tonya told Hancock about the interference, Adkins was as good as dead. Tonya, however, predicted things would never go that far.

  “Ma’am! I can’t risk my household like that.”

  Everything always came back to protecting the household. “Yes you can, Beth, because you already have. Consider, for instance, what are you saying to Wini by giving in without a fight?”

  Beth thought for almost a minute. Tonya waited patiently. “Oh, crap. I’ve given in to the lunch money bully.”

  “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes, you have,” Tonya said, amused by yet another Focus who reminded her of her daughter. Finally, though, some good analysis by Beth. “If Wini decides you’re an easy mark, then there’s no telling what she’ll ask of you. You don’t want that.”

  Beth paused loudly enough Tonya almost heard her think. “You’re right, ma’am. I’m on it, ma’am, right this instant.”

  “Very good. Make sure and tell me how it goes.”

  Viscount Robert Sellers: October 28, 1968 – October 31, 1968

  “Failing a quest on the first attempt isn’t the end of the world,” Master Occum had said. “Fix the problem, and try again.”

  The Dragon had indeed followed them when they fled back to their camp, but hadn’t come closer than three miles away, as if she had a three mile metasense range. She kept one of the local lakes, a mile long, a quarter mile wide and shaped like a comma, between her and their camp at all times.

  Even Master Occum didn’t think a Monsterish metasense was possible.

  Sellers, full up on juice, stalked the edge of the well-forested camp, circling and thinking. The Count had just finished his last juice draw, finished his healing, and now entertained Pam behind a clump of fallen pines. The plan, as the Duke had drawn it up, was simple – a direct charge, a fight, and a kill. Even the Duke had decided there was no way they could subdue a Monster of her size.

  Sellers thought the Duke’s plan was stupid. He hadn’t said anything, because he hadn’t been able to come up with anything better. He looked up through the pine boughs as a darkening sky began to drip cold drizzle on him.

  “You seem worried,” Suzie said, coming up to comfort him. Well, as much comfort as Suzie could manage right now, which consisted of an arm across his broad canine shoulders as they paced together. She was worn out, from producing more juice than she had ever produced for them before, and from the afterwards activities. Even her pointy pig ears drooped.

  “I’m worried we’re overmatched,” Sellers said. “Big old Monsters have big old nasty juice tricks, and we don’t know what tricks this Monster has, or how many.”

  “Uh huh,” she said. “I’ve read the same letters and reports you have. Some of the old ones can even steal juice, Arm style.”

  “Or burn juice, Arm style,” Sellers said. “But what can we do? We’re young Chimeras, and about all we can do is fight.”

  “And change shape,” Suzie said, taking a flirty glance at his hindquarters and crotch. “How far can you push it? Can you grow wings and fly? Or bulk up and armor yourselves?”

  Sellers licked Suzie’s face. “Nothing so useful. Besides, ‘pushing it’ risks losing our mind, our humanity. The last thing we want is to lose our humanity just to take out one old Monster.”

  Wait a second, Sellers thought. What about fighting this thing in something besides their combat forms? Surely this old dragon had fought other Monsters of similar shape to their combat forms, and possibly standard humans, but an enhanced human, with Chimera tricks? Highly unlikely.

  A plan suddenly came to him.

  “Duke, sir, a word?”

  “No,” the Duke said, scraping his claws in near-Terror annoyance. “We are not beasts of burden and common laborers.” Sellers had outlined his plan, and the Duke hadn’t been amused. “We fight, and since Knox is finally done satisfying himself, we fight now.”

  The one problem with getting all the Nobles juiced up was they all got more aggressive than normal, especially in their combat forms. More willing to leap at their problems without thinking. Anticipation melted Sellers worries away, as he began to imagine the coming fight.

  Adrenaline solved everything. Right?

  They strolled vaguely in the direction of the dragon Monster, about 60 degrees off a direct approach, until they were just under a mile away, and the path between them and the Monster no longer crossed a lake. The day was now cloud-dotted, and pleasant for late October, well above freezing, but Sellers sensed a distant storm coming in the puffy white clouds. Snow and ice, a good cold snap on the way. It was warm enough to rouse the late-season mosquitos, which hovered around them, clouds of flying hungry dust, as they slunk through the forest.

  Duke Hoskins signaled, and they charged, straight at the Monster. They immediately crossed a wide boggy stream valley, soggy enough to slow all of them. A forested bank faced them, above the boggy valley, and they climbed the bank, only to find another soggy boggy stream valley below them. Some speedy charge this was.

  When they crested the last rocky rise, all of them muddy to their knees, they paused in mutual disgust. The dragon had uprooted several dozen trees to create
an open combat area, and dragged the trees to the side, in a line, almost a fence. She roared and motored toward them, a crocodilian slither-charge, for that was the way of all dragon Monsters (all the dragon Monsters were altered gators, Sellers knew; most of the time they were even gator sized). The Duke took point, the Count the right, and Sellers the left, and all of them loosed their Terrors. Again. And again.

  Sellers lost himself in battle for a moment, before he realized that his eyes burned and he could barely see, and his claws and bites were doing nothing to the Monster’s heavy gator-plated body. He howled, and he heard Knox’s howl as well. Sellers turned, leapt up on the Monster, and over to Knox, who held his clawed paws over his demon face. A few blinks and some concentrated healing allowed Sellers to realize that the Count’s scimitar claws hadn’t penetrated the thick dragon hide either, but the dragon’s attack had burned both his own and the Count’s fur. His luxurious black pelt now showed yellowed burnt spots of nearly powdered hair and a few places where he was almost bald.

  He dragged Knox aside, and readied another charge, looking for some place without those damned gator-plates. He watched the Duke go at the Monster, while the Monster exhaled a yellow fog he could both see and metasense as she fought, what had to be the worst halitosis on the planet. Ah, this had to be the corrosive that had damaged his eyes and fur.

  Duke Hoskins’ upper body, his crab parts, weren’t bothered by the Monster’s halitosis, but his legs were, in parts burned down to the muscle, enough to slow the Duke down. As Sellers watched, and charged, the fronds around the dragon Monster’s mouth his target, the Monster clamped down hard on the Duke’s larger claw-arm, and the Duke’s greater claw cracked with a shotgun retort.

  Sellers leapt, and bit, and tore. The Monster screamed, and fell back, covering Sellers with the corrosive vapor. Keeping his eyes closed, Sellers grabbed hold of one of the Duke’s legs and pulled, scraping him back, away from the Monster.

  Count Knox picked up Sellers with his weaker left arm, and grabbed Duke Hoskins’ greater claw with his other, and retreated with them to the nearest bit of dense forest, the Duke cursing violently in agony the entire way. The dragon Monster followed, screaming and roaring, and exhaling her corrosive vapor, until the trees interfered and she could no longer keep pace.