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“Sergeant Eichenzeit,” Sinclair said, into the telephone.
“Master Crow, Focus Keistermann can see you now.” Shot Eichenziet belonged to Focus Keistermann’s household.
“We’ll be there in half an hour.” Sinclair made his farewells and hung up. He opened the door to his room and called into the hallway for Sir Chet to follow him, as bodyguard. One minor ceremony lay between Squire Chet becoming Sir Chet, but in Sinclair’s mind, he was Sir Chet already. “Find Audrie,” Sinclair said, when Sir Chet’s shaggy brown-haired head came into sight up the stairwell. Follow the sound of the crying and wailing. “We’ll take the van.”
Sinclair ran a comb through his short hair, adjusted his shirt, put on a tie, tie tack and suit coat. In the mirror, he checked himself over. Perfect, as needed for his always formal meetings with Focus Keistermann. At five eight, and with a light build, he wasn’t at all menacing, and since he was a Crow, he had no need to worry about shaving. His preferred formality, though, took work. He checked carefully for dirt and smudges, and found none, which was good. Being a Crow Master was a hands on job, and dirt was always a problem in his barony.
Focus Keistermann’s estate had started as a farmhouse and its associated barn. An agribusiness had purchased the farmland a generation ago, leaving a four acre homestead the Focus and her household purchased in the mid ‘60s after the original owners passed on. She filled the homestead with trailers and newly built houses, a Focus household turned into a private suburb, matching the suburbs encroaching from the west. In a few years this beautiful Long Island community would join the New York metropolis. In the evening near dark, Sinclair sensed the encroachment through the lighting of the western sky.
The barn now served as the home base of the Focus household’s catering business, which supplied the high-ranking Focus and her household with plenty of money, with enough extra to also keep Sinclair’s Long Island Barony afloat. Barely. In return, he swept the dross, the noxious-to-Focuses byproduct of juice use, out of her household. His service saved Focus Keistermann the expense of rebuilding her household’s dwellings, moving, or hiring one of the official Crow housecleaning crews. Crows consumed dross, meaning Focuses and Crows who got along formed a symbiotic loop
The ‘getting along’ was the issue.
“Master Sinclair,” Focus Keistermann said, as she welcomed him and his people into her study. She extended her hand and he gave it a polite sniff, which she returned graciously. As a high-ranking Focus, with the tremendous responsibilities she carried on her shoulders, she should have looked haggard and old, but her Focus transformation kept her nineteen in appearance. Instead of projecting youth and beauty, though, she projected wisdom and trustworthiness. When he first met the Focus, she had used tricks of makeup, hairstyle and clothes to make her appear older, but recently, she had taken to wearing business suits and heavy corporate makeup, giving her the appearance of a young and overly serious Wall Street intern.
The study was a big room for its function, maybe fifteen by twenty feet. Most Focus households wouldn’t have the room to spare, but Focus Keistermann ran a successful business. Books and ledgers lay in shelves along the walls in the tastefully done room. Polly’s big desk sat at one end of the room, and on the other, a comfortable sitting area with a couch, two high-backed chairs and three low trapezoidal tables. The television in the sitting area showed a news program, some special report, the volume low. Another Major Transform, under Focus Keistermann’s metasense shields, sat on the couch with his or her back to them, watching the television, engrossed. “We’re a little busy here, tonight, but I understand this is an emergency,” Focus Keistermann said, projecting Crow calmness, a unique skill for a Focus.
“Yes, Focus,” Sinclair said. He had first met Focus Keistermann three years ago, in the run-up to the Battle in Detroit, and instantly took a liking to her. For a high ranking Focus, Keistermann was quite pleasant to deal with, though the force of her personality caused most Crows to flee in panic. This never bothered Sinclair, since his force of personality, expressed through his perseverance and determination, matched hers quite well. After he finished learning to be a Crow Master, the two of them worked out a deal. Despite their business relationship, Focus Keistermann remained distant, even in the best of times, and difficult to truly befriend.
“May I present to you Audrie, a woman Transform who I’m sure you can sense is in big trouble.”
Focus Keistermann nodded her elegantly coifed head, and the person studying the television turned and smiled. Arm Haggerty, currently number two in the Arm hierarchy. Sinclair winced.
“Hi, Sinclair. I didn’t know you were bringing me a present!” She was a tall woman, dressed all in black. Black pants, tight black t-shirt, and black leather bomber jacket. Rich chestnut hair, heavily muscled as all Arms were, but Focus beautiful. She didn’t stand up, but the flash of her predatory Arm face was enough to cause Sir Chet to take several steps back and growl and to cause poor Audrie to faint. Focus Keistermann lowered her eyebrows and glared at Haggerty.
Unclaimed Transforms were prey for Arms like Haggerty. “Sorry, Amy,” Sinclair said. “Not for you.”
“Shucks,” the Arm said. She turned back to the television, very unlike her. Normally, she would be all over him and Sir Chet. Verbal or physical friendliness or harassment, depending on her mood, but something. Haggerty didn’t just ignore people. Plus, Arms didn’t ever ignore unclaimed prey.
Sir Chet took a deep breath and steadied himself. Haggerty visited the barony often to spar and schmooze with Duke Hoskins, and she had humiliated Sir Chet on several of those occasions. She had no truck with frisky young Nobles who didn’t know their places.
“I take it she’s not suited for your Noble household, then?” Focus Keistermann said.
“Audrie failed nine out of the ten criteria. Which means, from a Focus perspective, she passed nine out of ten criteria. She’ll make some Focus a perfect Transform.”
“What was the one she passed?”
“Intelligence. IQ over 120. She’s potentially a leader Transform.”
“Well,” Focus Keistermann said. “We don’t use the term ‘leader’, but you’re essentially correct. I hate to have to do this, but I need to tag her to keep her alive. She’s not going to like leaving my household, when it comes to that point, since I don’t have any openings for her.” Focus Keistermann knelt and laid her hand on Audrie’s head. Audrie woke up with a start and then skittered into a corner. “Dear,” Focus Keistermann said. “It’s okay, now. You’re safe. I’ve tagged you, and I’m going to make sure you get to a new home and Focus within a week.” Audrie nodded. “Sergeant Eichenzeit, why don’t you go find Audrie here a place to stay.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Focus Keistermann let Shot Eichenzeit help Audrie to her feet and steady the new Transform, as he led her out of the Focus’s study. Then she smiled. “I’ve got one for you, Sinclair. A ten for ten woman Transform, perfect for a Noble household.” To satisfy the authorities’ current requirements and the informal rules the Focuses followed, any movement of Transforms involved a trade. Some poor woman Transform, already tagged by a Focus, would end up in his household, with a significant chance of dying within a year or two. The methods Noble households used to preserve women Transforms always worked worse on the newly transformed.
“A ten out of ten, eh? I thought unlivable spitfires like that got sent to be tamed by Focus Biggioni.”
“They would, save that Tonya never has enough open slots. So,” Focus Keistermann said, “Have you heard the news?”
He shook his head.
“Come over here, then, you’re going to want to see this.” She motioned, and he followed, claiming the high backed chair on the other side of Amy Haggerty.
“What’s going on?” Sinclair said. The television showed a daylight shot of a building on fire.
“One of the Arms massacred a church full of congregants just before dusk, in Phoenix, Ar
izona, before she set the building on fire,” Focus Keistermann said. She settled in the other high backed chair. “The picture is from an hour or so ago.” Right. Phoenix was two time zones west.
“How’d they know an Arm did this?” Amy sat in the center of the couch, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, engrossed and feeling the responsibility of being the number two Arm. Sinclair wondered if she would bore a hole in the television with her glare.
“They’re not saying,” Focus Keistermann said. “Or describing the horror inside the church.”
“What sort of Arm might do this?” Sinclair said. “Do we have a Rogue Arm? Or is this something Kali” the head Arm, Stacy Keaton, “ordered?”
Amy shook her head, never moving her gaze from the screen. “This isn’t Keaton’s style,” she said. “If one of mine did this, there’s going to be hell to pay.” That is, Arms Hancock and Sibrian. “I could see either Bass, Naylor or Billington doing this – sick crap is their style. More likely, though, is one of the recent Arm graduates. I’m not impressed with either Whetstone or Bartlett’s self-control.” Sinclair nodded in agreement. Young predators, whether Arm or Chimera, lacked the iron self-control their elders possessed.
The news special changed back to the anchor, who started to go into the history of Transform fights and massacres, including the Battle in Detroit, in which Sinclair had participated. He had managed to stay out of the Clearing of Chicago, and of course had no problem avoiding the Bavarian Insurrection, as it was in East Germany. On the other hand, Amy’s tight, predatory smile grew fiercer at each of these that they mentioned, as she had managed to be involved in all of them, especially the Bavarian Insurrection, where her successes had earned her her Arm nickname, the Hero. The anchor went on to reiterate last week’s atrocity, where a group of four Monsters, probably Hunter led, killed seven people in a Kansas City coffee shop, two of them senior managers at some pharmaceutical company named United Toxicol. Little Transform-created problems surfaced every month or so. Sinclair shrank back, worried as always about the fact the Transforms and their problems no longer flew under the media radar.
“Now if there were only some way to reign in the Hunters,” Amy said. “Besides fighting them, of course. Which we can’t get much support on, Polly.”
An old issue. Focus Keistermann sighed. “Most of the Council Focuses just aren’t interested in any sort of aggressive fighting, Amy. I’ve tried.”
“You could lean on them.”
“Leaning – strong arm tactics and blackmail – is exactly what the Cause is trying to avoid,” Focus Keistermann said. She was new to the Cause, converted to public support only after the revelation of the Eskimo Spear. “We can’t be the ‘good guys’ if we use the same old rotten tactics the first Focuses use when we’re trying to get our way.”
Yes, a very old and well chewed argument. Unfortunately for the Cause and its desire for inter-Major Transform cooperation, this little group in Focus Keistermann’s study was about as good as it got, with all four varieties of Major Transform sitting together and talking. Well, save for Sir Chet, who had fallen asleep on his feet while serving as Sinclair’s nominal bodyguard.
“Wait!” the news anchor said, on the television. Startled. “This just in, from Chicago.” Another aerial shot, of another burning building, this time in the darkness of night. “The FBI apparently found and attacked one of the monstrous Arms, in Chicago, the Arm said to be responsible for the Phoenix massacre. At this point, all we have is preliminary information, but it appears that no one made it out of the house alive.”
Shit! The Commander? Sinclair turned to Amy, expecting to see the Arm doing something wildly emotional and hazardous to his health. Hancock, the Commander, was Amy’s responsibility because of their tagged relationship, and she was Chicago’s Arm. No matter which one bossed the other around, though, the two Arms were very close and worked together well. Amy frowned, unhappy, but didn’t go berserk.
“I don’t think so,” she said, in a whisper. She closed her eyes, to meditate.
Focus Keistermann did the same. Sinclair decided to spend the time and the juice to meditate and contact the pheromone flow. He should be able to determine whether a senior Major Transform, such as the Commander, remained among the living.
The Focuses termed the shared mental space of the Major Transforms ‘the Dreaming’, but each variety of Major Transform named and experienced the place differently. Sinclair, as with all of Guru Shadow’s Crows, experienced the pheromone flow as a big game board, with important Major Transforms and other important people as game pieces. All illusion, of course. No one understood how the pheromone flow worked, as with many of the screwy Major Transform senses involving radio, chemical scents, and other imponderable things. In his mind, he thought of himself as a crow in a business suit. Focus Keistermann appeared as a woman army officer figure, and Amy as a motorcycle helmet. He ranged out across the country, though place was a difficult concept to translate into the flow. Distances weren’t constant, but in his own mental map, he found Chicago and Crow Newton, the Newt, with ease. He found the Commander a moment later, appearing as a butcher knife, which meant she was both alive and pissed. When she wasn’t pissed she appeared as a butterfly.
Another figure appeared in his mind, the angelic Madonna of Montreal. She picked up his presence in her illusionary arms and carried him like a baby out west. Nobody else in the flow could move him this way, but the Madonna was always a special case.
Los Angeles, perhaps? He spotted two Arms, Kali (her image in his mind matched her name) and another Arm he didn’t recognize who appeared as a set of brass knuckles. Sinclair went deeper into his mind, and dredged up a name: Arm Billington. He also picked up the fuzzy munged-together signatures of Kali’s student Arms. He didn’t spot any of the senior Crows he expected to see in that area of the country, to his surprise. Then, for no apparent reason, the Madonna picked him up again and moved him all the way over to the other side of the country. Bleeding crab? Hell, Hoskins, you idiot! What the crap are you doing fighting!
Duke Hoskins, the Noble head of Sinclair’s barony and the leader of all the Nobles, wasn’t in the flow and thus out of contact, but Sinclair did sense Hoskins wasn’t hurt badly. The words he heard when he saw Hoskins in his mind, incongruous for a place as quiet as the Pheromone Flow, he ignored for now.
Sinclair opened his eyes, jolting his mind back to Focus Keistermann’s quiet and very concrete study after the mystical symbology of the Flow. “The Law is a lie,” the voice had said in his head. Typical Flow nonsense.
A few moments later, Amy and Focus Keistermann opened their eyes as well. “I’ve got to get going,” Amy said. “Carol’s one righteously pissed Arm right now, and I need to be there to support her.” Amy was notoriously piss-awful at the Dreaming, and Sinclair doubted she even got into the Dreaming proper, but she at least seemed to be able to pick up a few emotions over a tag link.
“Don’t forget the information I gave you, Amy,” Focus Keistermann said. Amy patted her black leather motorcycle jacket.
“Got it,” Amy said, and vanished at Arm speed. A moment later, Sinclair heard the roar of Amy’s over-powered Harley dopplering into the distance.
Something from his meditations clicked in his mind. Symbols. As a Crow Master, he was, if one used the terms of the Cause, a Shaman. Everything he sensed, or did with dross, was symbolic. “Focus Keistermann, the information you gave Amy regarding Arm Billington is connected to this, somehow. What was in it?”
Focus Keistermann gave him a puzzled look. “I just passed along some technical information. How could that be connected to this mess?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
Focus Keistermann raised an eyebrow, gave him the ‘Crows are screwy’ look, before calling for one of her people to bring in some more food. The food previously on the coffee table a moment ago had suddenly vanished – suddenly being when Amy left.
“Arm Billington went into her baby Arm trainin
g as a white woman and came out a black woman. I was just making sure Zielinski knew.” Then her face lit up. “The Madonna pointed this out, right?”
Sinclair nodded in understanding. Screwy information of dubious use directed toward the Good Doctor, as Dr. Henry Zielinski was known among the Crows and Nobles? Standard behavior for the Madonna of Montreal.
“Did you have the feeling, Focus Keistermann, of this being some sort of attack on the Cause?” Sinclair asked. One never knew where one got any of the screwy ideas in the flow. Crow Nameless, the Crow mind behind the Eskimo Spear quest, now believed that many of these screwy ideas came from the recently awakened dross network of the last Transform efflorescence, the Progenitors, which didn’t make Sinclair at all happy.
A large plate of deviled eggs, stuffed olives, stuffed mushrooms, egg rolls and petit fours arrived. Focus Keistermann made an immediate grab for the stuffed mushrooms. Her catering business had some excellent cooks.
“Yes, Master Sinclair, just as Tonya and Shadow feared. Unfortunately, I don’t understand the connection. Or connections. Or who or what was behind this. Did the Madonna seem upset to you?”
Sinclair shook his head. One of Shadow’s big worries was that the Progenitors might turn out to be an enemy. He grabbed a stuffed olive, and thought dark thoughts. Yes, the dual attacks carried all the stench of bad times coming. He was going to have to think on this, and talk to Duke Hoskins and Shadow.
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Callie came into Sinclair’s room with a bowl with a little bit of green salad in it. She had been an attractive woman once, but now most of her hair had fallen out, and her lips had become thick and gray. Sinclair sat in the middle of his bed, surrounded by books and notebooks. Today, his prize was a book sent over from Japan, in Japanese, on social structures during the Tokugawa Shogunate.
“Master Sinclair,” she said in a soft voice.
“Yes, Callie?”
“Could you try the salad for us? Anne and I couldn’t remember if we were doing it right.”
The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1) Page 7
