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“You haven’t called in ages, babe,” Keaton said. Tonya smiled at Keaton’s voice and ignored the Arm’s lie. For once, Keaton had returned a ‘call please’ message left with her answering service.
“I’ve got an offer for you.”
“Right. Sure. Babe, you’re not going through channels. This sounds rather sweet.”
Keaton always sounded like someone new whenever Tonya talked to her, an affectation, trying to psych Tonya into believing Keaton was around the bend. Today, Keaton sounded like she was high on drugs.
Someone screamed in the background. Probably her Arm trainee. Tonya didn’t want to know.
“I’m not going through channels because it involves having you move.”
“Move? I thought the word you’d be using was ‘mediate’. Fuck this…” Keaton hung up.
Tonya waited. The God damned turf hungry Arms were rather predictable. Right about…
The phone rang.
“The offer is approximately two million five hundred thousand dollars of stolen military hardware, and it’s to a city I know you claim,” Tonya said. Tonya wanted to strangle someone for this. The price was about $300 a Transform for each living Transform in the nation. This was a criminal waste of money.
“I’m not doing anything blind, not even for that much payola,” Keaton said. “Who’s behind it, babe?”
“I don’t know,” Tonya said. “I have my guesses, if you want to hear them.”
“I’m not even going to listen to this heavy shit unless you can come up with some real information.”
“I got this offer through Suzie Schrum. She’s not happy about it because, well, to tell you the truth, she’d rather find some way to fence the hardware and keep the money.” Actually, Suzie had made a half-serious suggestion that they fake Keaton’s acceptance, fence the hardware, and split the money. Get Keaton in trouble for welching on the deal.
“One of the other first Focuses, then, babe. In that case, I know the city and the debutante who’s behind it, and why,” Keaton said.
Sweat seeped into Tonya’s dress, typical for a conversation with Keaton.
“Who?” Why? Would Keaton’s guess match Tonya’s surmise?
“Focus Adkins. Enkidu’s night of rage got her attention big-time, and I know she’s still pissed that the police and FBI haven’t been able to find the perp who absconded with her favorite torture victim oops I mean favorite household Transform. She wants me to move to Detroit and protect her. However, she can’t say so openly, because she’s publicly anti-Arm. Typical Focus bitch behavior – present company excluded, babe.”
“You’re most likely correct,” Tonya said, annoyed the Arms had been able to pin a name on the Chimera. “I’m surprised you’re even considering this, though. You know it’s only a matter of time before Wini changes her mind and turns on you.”
“I’m cool,” Keaton said, um, cool. “She’s hiding something, I can just feel it, and I need to be on-site to figure out what she’s hiding. Protecting Detroit from the Hunters is just gravy for me.” At least one thing hadn’t changed: Keaton still hungered for Hunter blood. Keaton paused, thinking. “I agree to the offer in principle, but I want the specifications on the hardware before I make it official.”
Tonya sighed. Keaton would willingly walk into Adkins’ trap. The negotiations would take days to iron out. She made a note to herself to make sure she kept up her eating and her hydration. The note got decorated by drops of sweat before she put it in a safe place.
Gilgamesh: November 20, 1968
Gilgamesh wondered if using this phone number was cheating – he had stolen it from Focus Caruthers’ purse during the Chicago espionage mission, along with the rest of Caruthers’ personal phone list for all the UFA Focuses. He shrugged and dialed anyway – if there was one Crow rule he was most likely to break, it was the one about interfering with the lives of other Major Transforms.
The phone rang, and he let it ring. Yes, it was four thirty in the morning, Michigan time, but most Focus households had someone on night shift duty for answering phones, and most Focuses would already be awake. He was hoping he could get through this time; crank calls from normal humans came primarily in the daytime and evening, according to Lori.
Someone finally picked up the phone on the other end of the line. “Hello?” A woman’s voice, bleary and cranky.
“I’m looking to talk to Focus Rickenbach,” Gilgamesh said. “My name is Gilgamesh.” He had learned not to stick in any ‘I am a Crow’ comments. Either the Focus would already know that from his name, or wouldn’t know what Crows were. With a Focus as new as Rickenbach, he suspected the latter. The phone duty lady would likely get upset either way.
“Oh, hell,” the woman said, sounding a bit more awake. “Hold on a second while I move to my office.” The woman on the other end of the line put down her phone, picked up another, and a moment later, the first phone got hung up. “Sorry, just wanted some privacy. So, this is Major Transform business of some sort?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gilgamesh said. Was this the Focus herself? “Are you Focus Rickenbach?”
“That’s me.” Her voice sounded exasperated. “Who are you, who do you represent, and why did you call?”
Gilgamesh fought the urge to hang up the phone and find a place to quell his nerves. He took a deep breath of Tiamat’s office, and found Carol’s lingering predatory presence did help him. Focus first contacts were always a potential disaster. Especially for him.
“I’m a Crow, and…”
“Prove it.”
Gilgamesh took another deep breath, practically shaking from the force of the Focus’s interruption. “Ma’am, real proof would be quite difficult, as I am calling from far outside of Detroit. I have seen your household’s new residence, though, and I find the idea of you and your people living in one of those old Detroit churches to be quite intriguing. When last I metasensed your household, you were living in the second floor library.”
Silence from the other end of the line. “Ma’am?”
“You’re far more forceful than the only other Crow I’ve ever dealt with; he couldn’t handle anything more than messages under rocks,” Focus Rickenbach said. “He said he was removing the bad juice, but later got scared off by something I did to my household.”
Very interesting. “I hadn’t realized any of the Detroit Crows had made contact with you in such a fashion,” Gilgamesh said. “My business with you is to arrange for a Crow friend of mine to take your household’s dross, and he is a similarly skittish Crow. May I ask, ma’am, if the Crow you had contact with told you his name?”
“Are all you Crows this polite?”
Focus Rickenbach was supposed to be both talented and smart; unfortunately, she was also supposed to be a cub reporter. No, she wasn’t a mental fluff head unable to stay on topic during a conversation, she was, instead, attempting to milk all the information out of him she could.
“Any Crow able to call a Focus on a phone will be polite,” Gilgamesh said. “Politeness reduces the stress.”
“Well, if you say so. The Crow who finked out on us named himself Watchmaker. Do you know him?”
Watchmaker? What in the hell had Watchmaker been doing out south of Ann Arbor? “He’s not my favorite Detroit Crow,” Gilgamesh said. “He is polite in his letters, but not in person, and he does not use phones. He is old fashioned; I would not have picked him to be so forward as to leave you notes.”
“Uh, I think I spooked him,” Focus Rickenbach said. Gilgamesh waited, didn’t hear an explanation of how some newborn Focus had managed to spook an old Crow like Watchmaker, and decided this was one of her secrets. “So, this other Crow friend of yours, what’s his problem? Can’t he just skulk by in secret and take this dross stuff?”
Gilgamesh smiled. Now, this was more like the conversation he had imagined. “Your church residence is problematic; although there is adequate cover near the manse for my friend – who goes by the name Whisper
– to take dross from the place, he cannot take dross from the church proper without getting inside.”
“Why not?” Gilgamesh was about to answer, but while he gathered his nerve, she continued speaking. “Oh, you guys probably have the same issues I have – the church’s old stone walls degrade my metasense and my juice moving.” The Focus sniffed. “So, are you telling me we need to let him inside or something?”
Gilgamesh shivered. Focus Rickenbach was as forceful as Focus Gladchuck or Focus Rodriquez. “Yes, but…”
“After what happened with Watchmaker, I’m not willing to let some unknown Major Transform into my household without meeting them first.”
Like that was ever going to happen. “I do understand your issues,” Gilgamesh said. “Would it help if I gave you a post office box address for Whisper? By exchanging letters, the two of you might be able to come to some sort of mutual agreement.”
“I can do that,” Focus Rickenbach said. Gilgamesh gave her Whisper’s address, and although he knew it, she gave him the church’s.
“Say,” she said, her voice filled with what Gilgamesh privately termed ‘the Focus wheedle’. “Why are you bothering? Why are any of you Crows bothering? From what I’ve learned, the Focus establishment doesn’t get along with Crows.”
Ah, a chance to evangelize the Cause. Lori would be proud. “The old Focuses and Crows don’t get along. Some of us disagree with them, and some younger Crows like to help younger Focuses, and vice versa. A friend of mine thinks Crows and Focuses form, in nature, a symbiotic relationship: dross removal helps both the Focuses and the Crows, who consume it.” He paused, and wondered how much Focus Rickenbach knew about herself. “As to why you in particular – you are a promising and powerful young Focus, and those I work with, who include all the varieties of Major Transform, believe you are worth the help. Also, from a more pedestrian standpoint, because of all the stonework in your church, we believe it will go bad much faster than a modern house would.”
“Well, thank you, I guess,” Focus Rickenbach said. Her voice had turned on him, arch and proper. “Nice story. I’m not sure I believe it, though, given what I’ve read of the other Major Transforms.” Shit, he had overdone the evangelism. She now thought he was a crank, or worse, a Transform groupie. “I guess I can mail this supposed Whisper supposed Crow, and see what he answers. If this turns out to be another con job attempt, though, I’m not going to be happy.” She hung up the phone without giving Gilgamesh a chance to respond.
Damn, he thought. I never got a chance to politely tell her that someone in her household wasn’t forwarding Whisper’s letters to her.
Gail Rickenbach: November 27, 1968
Gail snuggled close to Van in the car and grinned. He put his arms around her and smiled a smile of huge relief and happiness. This afternoon had been the day of his dissertation defense, and he had passed.
Not just passed, but passed with flying colors. 4.0 worth of flying colors.
“How are you doing, Dr. Schuber” she said, her voice warm and fuzzy with happiness. Gail had made plans to do some heavy rubbing up against her woman Transforms tonight, just before bedtime. She had been working on ‘not moving juice’ all day, because ‘not moving juice’ was supposed to increase her own juice supply. She hoped this idea wasn’t another unbelievable story about the crazy Boston Focus, Rizzari.
“They liked my dissertation,” Van said. Marvel filled his voice. “They really liked it.”
All the years of study, all the months of work and research around the Seven Year’s War between England and France, the one called the French and Indian War in the US but was so much more than that, the digging through obscure papers and fragile reference materials in five different languages, and he had done it. The course work, the research, and the dissertation. Now, the PhD.
They were celebrating. The Perfesser and Lucile, Van’s parents, had given them money for a fancy dinner and she and Van had enjoyed the fancy dinner wonderfully. She and Van had gotten a congratulatory phone call from his wickedly crazy sister Daisy, currently stuck as a freshman at Cal Tech, attempting and mostly failing to fit in among what she termed the alpha geeks. Kurt and Sylvie had arranged a party with their old friends in a few days, or at least the ones that could manage to tolerate Transforms, and they would celebrate again.
For now, there was just the two of them in the back of the warm car, and as much pure happiness as Gail had known in a long time.
In the passenger seat in front, Vic Crawford watched all around them with unceasing wariness, and glowed happily from the overflowing supply of juice Gail had filled him with in the morning. Even Gordon Armelin smiled, caught in the general happiness, even without the juice.
Gail still marveled at her bodyguards, honest to goodness people who would take a bullet for her. With the recent Monster rampage in Detroit, everyone in the household understood the need for bodyguards. She wouldn’t have thought she would be able to find any, and now she had four who shared duty. Vic was Elaine’s husband, and they and their little baby had been young and dirt poor even before his transformation. He had adapted to the change with a comfortable simplicity. She was his Focus and he was alive because she supported him. He didn’t see anything complicated about the issue and considered it obvious that he should volunteer to protect her with his life. The only thing he asked of her was that she would care for Elaine and the baby if anything happened to him, and of course she had agreed.
Gordon was extremely protective of his wife and their two kids. Now that Gail supported his wife, he was protective of her, too.
At home, John Guynes served as her other Transform bodyguard and Kurt her other normal. She was surprised that Kurt had volunteered. He had plans for his Focus, refused to say anything about them, but believed Gail would figure them out eventually and act on them on her own. Oh, and protecting Gail protected Sylvie. Couldn’t forget that, either.
The back of the car was warm as Gordon drove them through the dark city streets, the snow drifting down outside the window and making little islands of magic under the streetlights. They turned the last corner toward home and Gail smiled again.
She still loved coming home. St. Luke’s was a much busier place than before they moved in. Matt preached every Sunday, and his wife played the organ, and these days almost a hundred people came for the services, most of them Transforms. Gail found it odd to see black faces in the congregation as well as white, but Grace Johnson’s household was black, and they came, too. Even a few of Wendy Mann’s household came, Wendy a new Detroit Focus who transformed four months ago.
Gordon pulled the car into the church parking lot and drove around to the side entrance to drop them off. The parking lot held several extra cars tonight, for the Wednesday night worship service. She sensed Matt up at the pulpit, preaching away. She passed him a little extra juice as she came close. She always pumped him when he preached and she had taken care of it before she left, but this was just a bit extra. The extra juice did good things for his sermons. He spoke with fire in the way he delivered them now. When he gave a sermon these days, you knew you had been preached at.
A few of the household remained with him, as well as about twenty people from other households. Sensing other Transforms in her own house still felt odd. Most of the rest of her people were up in the parlor, except for Helen Grimm and her husband, who had taken the temporary privacy in the manse to do what they did best. And constantly.
Gail turned red as she metasensed the Grimms at play. Gail certainly knew about sex, and she knew intellectually and by far too much observation since her transformation that even older people did it. However, she thought they could be at least a little bit restrained. That after thirty the sex ought to fade off or something.
Nobody seemed to have explained that to Helen Grimm, because she and her husband got down and dirty every chance they got. Any time of day, any time they could get some privacy. And the things they did! Gail considered herself moderately knowledgeable ab
out sex, but she had learned things from watching Helen Grimm that she would have never even imagined. Following Tonya’s suggestions about helping her people’s marriages, Gail ignored her embarrassment and pumped Grimm’s juice, taking her juice high enough to turn her on even more. She did this now with all her people when she metasensed them getting amorous, embarrassing the crap out of her every time. However, there was a heck of a lot more loving going on in her house than before. Her help hadn’t been enough to save the Carlow marriage, but she hoped her little extras would help some of the others.
Vic got out and opened the door for her. Gail and Van got out of the car and made their way into the church through the beautiful falling snow. The new snow covered the gritty blackened remnants of the older snow, and made the trees glitter and covered the church in peace. The snow crunched under their footsteps and under the wheels of the car as Gordon drove off to park it. Gail gave Van another kiss, while snowflakes drifted into their hair.
They headed up to the parlor then, while Gail wondered why everyone gathered there. The parlor was usually a busy place in the evening, but not as busy as this. She hoped there wasn’t something wrong, and suppressed the concern. She refused to ruin her happy glow with worry.
They made it up to the parlor and Gail stopped in the doorway in shock.
“Surprise!” her people shouted, grinning around a cake on a table in the center of the room. A giant sheet cake, with Congratulations Dr. Schuber written on it in blue frosting. The kitchen crew had outdone themselves, the cake fantastically decorated in frosting flowers, and someone had managed little frosting graduate caps and little frosting diplomas.
Gail turned to Van and grinned to see the pole-axed look in his eyes. She felt the delight at the surprise rising in her and ignored the little voice telling her they only did this for the juice. She firmly took the generous act at face value and shared her delight with everyone in the household.
In this Night We Own (The Commander Book 6) Page 29
