The Commander didn’t expect them to win.
“Also, it’s imperative Gail makes up with Van,” Tiamat said. “She doesn’t need to know that when I got to him, the only thing wrong with him was that his arm was on a bit crooked, and he had a bit of lung stress that would cause pneumonia later. Webberly outdid herself; I didn’t think she had it in her. Actually, she didn’t, and you’re going to spend some time pulling Crow duty on Webberly, since she juice-sucked all of Dowling’s élan and she’s rather, um, bearish right now.” And Mouse wouldn’t be up to paying a visit to the Good Doctor’s impromptu hospital, Gilgamesh knew.
“What about Dowling?” Gilgamesh said. He didn’t like the game Tiamat played with Gail, but he wasn’t sure what, if anything, he could do about it. Besides support Gail.
“Let’s just say we might need to start over with him. Hopefully he remembers his name when he wakes up.”
Gilgamesh smiled, though it wasn’t a happy smile. Noble heroes doing the noble thing and sacrificing themselves. It always gladdened him to see that at least one variety of Chimera turned out well.
Quiet for a moment, Tiamat sent over. I need to put more work into coming up with a plan to survive the end of the world, and I’ve got less than two hours before the big meeting where I need to tell everyone what to do.
Gilgamesh quieted his thinking and allowed himself to fall into a meditative trance.
They pulled into the parking lot at Inferno’s Oak Valley Retirement Community, and parked amid the chaos of mobile wreckage that was some Focus’s household. People were moving out of the place as he watched. Non-combatants. Gail got out of the car on her own, and walked, zombie like, toward the clinic. Mizar, all seven feet or so of him, waited just outside the entrance to greet the three of them. He let Gail walk by, and then turned to Tiamat and Gilgamesh. Transforms packed the entry room and all the rooms he could see from the entrance. At Gilgamesh’s feet, Transforms rolled over in sleep, and Focus Gladchuck, who he had hoped never to see again in his miserable life, appeared out of nowhere and pushed in front of him.
“Don’t you know there are people sleeping here? Who the hell are you, anyway?”
Tiamat and Mizar walked inside the building, ignoring Focus Gladchuck, leaving her to Gilgamesh. “I’m a Crow, as I told you last time,” he said.
Focus Gladchuck looked at him, and surreptitiously patted her panties and bra. “I see,” she said. “You go bring Arm Webberly out of Monsterhood, dammit, or I’m going to make you wish you were never born.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gilgamesh said. “I fully understand.”
He pitied whatever poor Crow ended up with her. He did note the obvious compatibility between Focus Gladchuck and Arm Webberly, though. Neither were his style of Major Transform.
He slipped by Gladchuck and inside, very happy to have to jog to keep up with the predators. “…and the price for the peace between the two groups is that someone on our side needs to deal with a rogue Mexican Chimera that’s taken on the name of Chupacabra,” Mizar was saying as they walked the hallway toward the dining room. “Goat sucker, myth creature – he’s terrorized the local Crows into a permanent panic, and played the Bruja/Duende alliance against the normal Focuses for as long. He’s a self-stabilizer and decently brainy, but the obvious happened, like with your friend here who took on the name of a Hero and turned himself into one.” Mizar gave Gilgamesh the eye. Gilgamesh gave him the eye right back. “You know, he fits our little quadrature much better than Sky does. Is it…”
“Lady Death will fillet you into Enkidu-chow for even suggesting that,” Tiamat said. “Focuses and Crows are monogamous, or at least need to be so to remain sane. Trust me, Lori wasn’t when she wasn’t.” Tiamat paused. “If that makes any sense to you at all.”
“Hrrrr.”
“Now you’re supposed to suck my beast,” Tiamat said to Mizar. “It’s up.”
“Now?” Mizar put his massive arm around Tiamat’s shoulder. She twitched, but accepted his touch. “We’re going into a war. You don’t need less beast,” Mizar said.
Tiamat froze for a moment, and then shifted position slightly, as if someone suddenly dropped a heavy load on her shoulders. Or maybe the shift was to a position more like a stalk. There was suddenly something fierce about her, and the reek of Arm basement filled the air.
Tiamat’s beast was under control, but control was a lot different than eliminated. Controlled beasts needed to freed occasionally. At full strength. Or more.
“I think your friends will thank me later,” Mizar said, cheerfully. Mizar, it seemed, was as impossible as Tiamat herself. It shouldn’t have surprised him.
“They’re not thanking you now,” Tiamat said.
Mizar turned to Gilgamesh. “You hate Enkidu, don’t you.”
“I’m responsible for him, and his actions,” Gilgamesh said.
“Ahh. Responsibility. What’s Gilgamesh supposed to be doing, Carol?” Mizar asked.
“Motherfucking Guru Crow crap,” Tiamat said. “Preparing the battlefield, so that when the Hunters attack, it’s fucking hell for them.”
Battlefield? Meaning the placid business district, Church row and suburb that surrounded the Inferno Rest Home? Gilgamesh said to himself. My god. What are we about to do?
“Fine,” Mizar said, and turned to Gilgamesh. “What she said. With fire.”
Suddenly, all Gilgamesh could see was Enkidu roasting over an open fire, screaming his lungs out. Yes. Yes. Yessss. He turned to Mizar and gave him the thumbs up. Oh, he was really getting to like this particular Chimera.
He jogged off to prepare a battlefield.
Carol Hancock (3/27/73)
“Jesus God in Heaven, please let it be alright. Let Van be fine and healthy. I don’t care if he ever loves me again, just let him heal,” Gail prayed, kneeling over Van on the linoleum floor of the Inferno infirmary.
I avoided snarling and made damned sure Van remained conscious enough and functional enough to retain those words in his short-term memory. I wanted nothing more than to take apart a Hunter or two in long, slow bits, but, instead, I got stuck playing marriage counselor. Yes, this was necessary, but damn.
I didn’t understand why Mizar roused my beast. I could see the value of it, especially in my current mood, but this wasn’t at all what I expected. He wanted me to be his little wifey. Little wifeys don’t get a thrill from slowly torturing their enemies. His action didn’t make sense.
Too little about Mizar made sense, and he didn’t share his true feelings with anyone, least of all me. He wanted me to be weaker, and yet the link between us made me vastly stronger. I liked my new strength, and my every contact with other Major Transforms reminded me how much I liked it, but I couldn’t make myself trust it. I wondered if Mizar wanted, in some devious fashion, to take my strength away from me.
I suspected that our link made him stronger, too. I wondered what he thought of that. Younger, perhaps?
Gail started to pray again aloud, on her knees, holding Van’s arm. Head bowed, resting on his shoulder. Poor Hank remained splayed out on the floor, twitching. Gail had used juice tricks when we entered the room to try to fix him, retagging him and slapping a palliative juice construct on him about thirty times more complex than she had any right to be using. Working instinctively again, eh? Despite her efforts, though, Hank remained on the floor.
I hugged Gail so I could borrow her metasense for a moment. She didn’t notice. I swore as I scanned him. Juice overuse, bad, bad, very bad. Lori had mentioned offhand that Hank killed himself as a Transform faster than anyone she had ever seen. I didn’t understand what she meant until now. My old friend, and exceedingly reliable tool, was absolutely fried. Giving a Doctor the ability to heal others Arm-style was like giving a ton of heroin to a mainlining junkie. Not one of Inferno’s best ideas.
Well, Hank was my responsibility, and he needed to be functional before the sun rose. I let go of Gail and dumped Hank over my shoulder. I paced, dodging wounded Transf
orms and the occasional drugged out normal. What could possibly cure juice overuse? Was this even possible? Which Major Transform could do it? Ah.
Stacy could. One of life’s truisms was that anything that stopped Keaton once she put ample work into making sure wouldn’t stop her twice, and juice overuse was one of those. Unfortunately, she remained out at the ammo dump warehouse Focus Caruthers had commandeered for us, readying her toys. I didn’t know where in the hell she got that piece of Russian crap from, but I suspected the multi-tube rocket propelled grenade launcher on wheels would rather discommode Enkidu – and whatever neighborhood lay behind Enkidu at the time. I had already ordered Haggerty to lean on the local police to evacuate the locals. The evacuation would bring in the reporters, but at least no innocents would die. We did not need the political fallout that would arise if we killed a bunch of normals. It would be bad enough when we blew their fucking neighborhood to Honduras.
No, I knew exactly what sort of Transform would be able to bring Hank back from the creeping whatevers. I left Gail to moan about how much she loved her husband, and trotted out of the Inferno Rest Home and over into the Duende traveling sideshow, Hank slung over my shoulder. I found the one I wanted on what remained of the lawn of the Rest Home, staring at the sky and muttering prayers in neither Latin nor Spanish, praying to Gods who should stay far fucking dead, thank you very much.
“Bruja Torres.”
She looked up at me as if she saw a ghost, and rose quickly to her feet. We had talked for about two minutes earlier today, but she only knew me by my exceedingly overblown reputation.
Not likely to be less overblown by this, especially given my current beastliness.
“Yes, Commander?” I terrified her. Good. She hadn’t been terrified of enough Transforms recently, and complacency was a drain on the soul.
“My doctor friend here has driven himself into juice overuse,” I said. “You can cure him of this.”
I dumped Hank at her feet in a puff of powdered lawn clippings. She looked at him, and then nodded.
“Someone must pay the cost,” the Bruja said, studying me as if her life depended on her answers. It didn’t, but I saw no reason to correct her assumptions. There were too many around here who thought of us Arms as nice friendly predators, firmly leashed to goodness and light. I was gratified, in some primitive fashion, to deal with someone who saw us Arms as the monsters we really were.
“I’ll take the hit. I’ve got a lot of spare juice use capacity.” The only time I ever came close had been in the Battle of Detroit.
“So be it,” the Bruja said. “What’s your personal symbol?”
Personal symbol?
Hell. What else could it be?
“Meat cleaver, the butcher’s tool.”
I did not feel the least bit butterfly-like today, nope, not since Mizar said ‘sic em’.
Some properly obedient female Transform produced a meat cleaver, and after a few moments of subconscious juice manipulation that I made no pretension of understanding, I felt tired and worn out.
“Carol?”
“Hello, Hank. Good job with Webberly. Let’s talk.”
I helped him to his feet. Suddenly, touching a Transform, I realized I needed a few extra points of juice. Say, perhaps, a dozen. Not good. I closed my eyes and contacted Lori, who stood among a cluster of dusty tents only a hundred yards away, deep in conversation with Beth Hargrove and Mary Sibrian.
I smelled trouble. Those three were trouble incarnate. Lori said she would be by in a few minutes. In the meantime, I pointed Hank back to the Inferno Rest Home and we walked. The Bruja appeared most glad to be rid of us.
“What do you want to talk about, Commander?” Hank said.
“Overuse of thedamnedsuperorganism,” I said. He nodded. He knew exactly what he had done to himself, and he would keep doing so until he expired again. “I have an order for you. You don’t get to do that unless it’s an emergency or the battle is over. Emergency meaning you’re putting a predator back on the field that won’t get back any other way, mind you.”
“You sure?” As we left the Familia area, I spotted Hargrove looking around for someone, and I made sure it wasn’t me by covering the two of us with metasense protections of the predator-derived variety.
“This is your Commander talking. You’re not useful if you fall into juice overuse,” I said, perhaps a bit too loud. I spoke the rest just above a Crow whisper. “Which, as a caduceus-worshipping pagan, you’ll do on the first lost cause you see.”
“It’s power,” Hank said, his voice also lowered to a whisper. Jesus! “It’s seductive.”
“Addiction is no excuse,” I said. Three Crows – Wrangler, Midgard and Merlin – joined us on our way to the Rest Home, each hauling a dolly of explosives. They were as hidden as me, but we acknowledged each other, Major Transform to Major Transform, and continued by without talking.
“Remember your behavior three months out?” Hank asked.
Oooh, nasty. The bastard even backed it with enough of my own charisma to make sure I listened. “Point taken. We all think better of you, though, Hank.”
“I’ll do my best, ma’am.” He didn’t mean a word of it. Always a hero.
“I’m sure you will,” I said, putting a little more drill sarge into my voice. “Stay under cover. I have a feeling assassins are out looking for you personally. Bass, for one, is likely after you for your various discoveries regarding healing. You’re old pal, The Man, for another.”
“Again? In the middle of a war?” He knew of the warnings, but discounted them. The damned idiot always looked at Transforms and saw heroes. Now, as a Transform with a tiny bit of power to wield, he thought he had joined the hero ranks. Right. Sure.
“Just the usual non-scientific feelings, but all four of us in our family quadrature have a bad feeling we’re not seeing everything that’s going on. Also, Hank – our enemies are specifically going after successes. We’re not sure, but it’s certainly no coincidence that someone went after Webberly and Dowling, and they’re the predators in the first successful public quadrature. Don’t risk yourself at all, understand.” Every goddamned time we had a battle, he somehow managed to weasel his way onto the battlefield ‘to help’. Last time out he transformed. “Stay in the protected areas behind the lines, don’t ditch your bodyguards, and let the wounded come to you.”
“Yes, Commander. I understand entirely,” Hank said. I had successfully put butterflies in his stomach. Finally. I hoped they would serve Hank well.
Out there, I smelled the Hunters coming. Ten seconds later, my Monster amulet went crazy, picking up dozens, then hundreds of Monsters trotting toward us, now within five miles of us. We didn’t have time for any more planning meetings. We didn’t have time to do anything but continue to use my fallback plan to use our staging area as a battle ground. I closed my eyes for a moment and snarled, adjusting my mind from planning meetings to a quick session where I gave orders and people moved to obey them.
Enkidu, rival Commander that he was, had stolen my best trick from me and conjured up some Commander-style speed. He would be hitting us before we were fully prepared.
This would be one hell of a complicated fight.
---
“Plan Scheme 2,” I said into my walkie-talkie. I stood in the middle of the driveway at the entrance to the Rest Home, and chaos surrounded me.
“Yes, ma’am,” Keaton said. She began to bark out orders on the walkie, and I turned the volume down so I could cope with the last of my preparation issues.
“Focus Minton,” I said, attempting to leash my beast enough to keep the relatively dainty Focus from fleeing in terror. The last time I met Mimi Minton she had been a wreck, a closet-housed victim of her own household. Now, she reminded me of Focus Wendy Mann after Keaton’s training – all muscles and attitude. A fighter, not an officer.
“Yes, ma’am.” Despite my tag on her, her heart rate spiked. Her bodyguards, all Inferno people, ignored both of us, too focused
on the approach lines to the Rest Home.
“Guru Chevalier?”
No answer. He I didn’t have tagged, and he wasn’t Focus Minton’s Crow. Focus Minton’s Crow went by the name of Hardscrabble, and remained far too young of a Crow to be anywhere near this fight and remain sane. “Oh, Guru Chevalier, I know you can hear me. Have you managed to come up with an acceptable Crow for us?”
Again, no answer. I don’t think he trusted my beastly self. Fancy that. Neither did Focus Pitre, who made sure to keep an entire building between us.
“I’m here,” a voice said, one I didn’t recognize. I turned to see the strangest-outfitted Crow I had ever seen, coming out the Rest Home entrance. He stood about five ten, wore what appeared to me to be a dark blue British gentleman’s evening suit, complete with a bowler on his head and a carnation in his pocket. The suit jacket kept his weaponry hidden, and his weaponry included two pistols, a dozen or so shurikens, and four thin-bladed knives. He also carried a garrote in his headband.
“Martial arts training before you transformed, I take it?” I asked. He nodded, but didn’t flee. Impressive. “I’m Carol Hancock.” I held out my hand for him to sniff.
He walked forward, cautiously, and did sniff my hand. “Commander, both Sky and Chevalier can vouch for me, if that’s necessary. You requested a Crow companion for Focus Minton for the battle, and I’ve been chosen to be the answer.”
I took a moment to look him in the eye. He gazed back, non-threating, but not backing down, either. Nor had he given his name.
Ah, a test for me as well as for him. “You must then be Flowerpot, the Crow go-between Arm Keaton and Guru Chevalier used before her move east.” I knew about this Crow only by name, with no description given either of his appearance or personality.
An Age Without A Name Page 31
