“For fixing household experimentation disasters. Such as my left kidney, which currently isn’t,” Autumn said.
Occum snorted. “If he can stand still long enough, I can teach him.”
“Thanks for the support, oh most puissant nearly a Guru Crow Master,” Sky said. He juggled glass canning jars as he spoke. “You all probably need to know that we’ve finished our end of the household redefinition project as well as the first round of documentation. Based on our documentation, we’re starting to retune Charade” Focus Ackermann’s Boston household “with the help of her household Crow ally, Orange Sunshine.”
Gilgamesh turned away. He knew this was coming, but the final news still hurt. He and Sky had been wooing, to abuse a poor defenseless word, Focus Lorraine Rizzari for several years, the winner being the one to best show the way forward for integrating Crows with Focuses and their households. His household dross-cleaning service hit the big time first, but its benefits paled before the possibilities of the household redefinition project. The household redefinition project would save lives, unlike the simple monetary savings of Gilgamesh’s dross-cleaning service, and lives touched a Focus’s heart in ways money never would.
“Could you explain the last to me in small words?” Sinclair said.
“I’m training Sky as a Guru as well,” Shadow said, from his favorite dark corner. “Another new path. Like a Crow Wizard, Sky works with dross constructs. Like a Crow Master of Nobles, he works at the subconscious level. Everything he does is based on his enhanced metasense. I even found a way for Sky to train other Crows to enhance their metasense. Sky doesn’t have followers yet, but he will.” Shadow smiled slightly. “Likely trouble-making, adventurous Crows.” The other Crows laughed. Quietly, of course, as they were Crows.
“As you may have heard, Focus Rizzari and I have been working off and on for years on a project to tune a Focus household’s juice structure. We tried all sorts of ideas that didn’t work.” Sky paused, thoughtful, and then tilted his head to the side. “Well, perhaps that’s too harsh. Some ideas did work, but they didn’t leave the household Transforms in very good shape, as per Autumn’s comment about her kidney. Some ideas only worked on a few Transforms, not the entire household. The tricks behind the household retuning are the tiny juice patterns and dross constructs Focuses and Transforms naturally create, what we call naturals. Out of the thousands of naturals the Focuses and Transforms spontaneously create, we found fifteen important to household functioning, and formalized them.
“The Focus and I finished the last hard slog a month ago, leaving us with months of busywork and the fear we would never be able to find a way to teach anyone else what we had done. However, after Shadow started beating Guru into me and I found a way to augment my metasense with mathematically crafty dross constructs, I found a way to plow through the months of busywork in just a few days.” The other Crows winced. Sky’s metasense was legendary to start with. “Once Focus Rizzari and I got our methods codified and written down, we ran some tests on Charade and found the tricks worked there, as well. We’ve got a first draft of our operations manual out, and we’re working on a better one, but any decent Crow and non-pathetic Focus can make this work. The only trick the Crow needs is that he needs to be linked to the Focus with an Affinity bond.”
“Back to Affinity?” Sinclair said. Sky had tried Affinity bonds, by a different name, early on, and the attempt had failed in a spectacular fashion, driving a full quarter of Inferno into phobias and worse.
“Yes, and this time, it’s working.” Sky waved his hands flamboyantly, the mason jars balanced now on his left knee. “We’re doing now what you do when you bring a Noble or a Transform into your barony.” Affinity links were ubiquitous among the Major Transforms, created when they shared senses or metasenses. Normally they didn’t last. “Lori does the manipulations, using my metasense to sense into both the juice and dross realms, and we personalize the link for each Transform. I’m the Crow version of the household psychologist. I identify the ties between juice structure and the Transform’s personality and behavior.”
Sky went on for well over an hour, describing the details. Gilgamesh tapped his feet in impatience, as Sky had become even more long-winded. He was scientific for once, though, his language now precise. No more ‘glow’, it was all ‘metapresence’ and ‘juice structure’, finally separating the two, fixing a problem bedeviling Crow research efforts since Gilgamesh’s Philadelphia days. Even better, in the entire hour, he didn’t say a single word in French.
“I know, this is a lousy sales pitch,” Sky said, at the end of the hour. “Here’s the kicker: the retuning allows us to add four triads to Inferno.”
Gilgamesh sighed. Four triads meant eight more women Transforms lives saved and four more male Transforms lives saved, in just one household.
Occum, ever the realist, dispelled their revolutionary dreams.
“Don’t get your hopes up. This sounds good, but how many other households can we work with that closely? These are Focuses, don’t forget. They’ll betray you in a heartbeat, and it’s going to be years before Joe the normal Crow is going to be willing to walk into Jane the random Focus’s household and build the trust necessary to construct a household Affinity bond. The only way we get away with it in the baronies is because we build it in from the start.”
Nobody answered Occum’s comment, and the room stayed quiet for over a minute.
Sudden inspiration drove away Gilgamesh’s fears and sadness. “I need to learn this,” he said to Sky. Ideas crashed through his mind, ways to make his Guru practice more than a sedate salon or artist studio. “Will you teach me?”
Sky chuckled. “Are you thinking about getting yourself a household?”
“I’m paying off Tiamat for her help in the Sinclair quest by helping her with the Clumsy Angel’s household. I’m going to need something like this to get her attention.” What better way to teach Crows about how to deal with Focuses than by introducing them to the country’s most interesting Focus household.
“Oooh, her. She’s rough on Crows. Luckily you already know her.”
“It’s because I know her that I know I’m going to need this. Once she understands the benefits, she won’t be able to resist,” Gilgamesh said. “How about a trade? I teach you the gristle dross handling techniques in return for the tuning technologies. If what I’ve metasensed about the dross buildup inside Inferno still holds true, you’re going to need them.”
“Deal.”
The people in the room applauded, Sinclair’s slow clap reeking of sarcasm. The two Crows, divided by their love of Focus Rizzari, were back on speaking terms.
“This is all well and good, but aren’t we forgetting the danger that triggered this?” Gilgamesh said, anxious to change the subject. “Tell me, Occum, how are you going to defend yourself if Guru Chevalier tries to disable your metasense?”
“Hah. He can’t affect it,” Occum said. “Not any of the Mentor-class wizards.”
“He’s right,” Shadow said. “Occum works with the subconscious mind, his own most of all, and that’s where the metasense lives. No one else would be able to wrest his subconscious control away from him without killing him. Speaking of which, Gilgamesh, there’s a dross construct I need to show you that you’re far enough along to learn. It will defend your metasense against disruption.”
Gilgamesh smiled, pleased.
“Occum, my old friend, you probably need to show these kind people what you can now do,” Shadow said.
Occum turned away. “I suppose,” he said, and started his demonstration. Occum raised his hand and flocks of birds descended on the house, he whispered and wild animals crawled up on his lap, he gave an order and the household dogs obeyed as if they had human understanding. Illusions crawled from the pine walls, and he put the commoners to sleep with a touch. The demonstration was magnificent, all extensions of the Crow Master skills, but writ large – he used symbols to manipulate the dross, tricks able to affect
the body and the sub-sapient parts of the mind. Working with Shadow, Occum took these skills farther than any Crow ever had. Occum’s tricks had Sinclair bouncing in his seat with excitement and envy.
“So what do we do now, Shadow?” Occum asked. “The mighty heroes have returned triumphant. We wear our white hats and the problems are solved?”
“We won this round,” Shadow said, his voice sad from his shadow. “We did some things right, and Chevalier and his crew did some things wrong. Our response convinced Thomas the Dreamer to lean on Chevalier and get him to quit harassing other Crows. Unfortunately, this doesn’t decide the war, as there’s nothing in his agreement about harassing other Major Transforms, which he shouldn’t have been doing to start with. Because we all work with other Major Transforms, it means that despite this agreement, we’re still targets. I’m sure they’ll strike again, this time at our friends and associates.”
“So what now? We just sit around and wait for the next attack?” Occum said.
“We wait, but not sitting around. We consolidate and build our strength. Jane, you’ll need to go to Fog, Iron Mountain, Diamond, and Borealis Baronies, to talk to them about the benefits of having a Warden in the barony. Student Crow Master Zero and Count Dowling” the Noble next on the list to head a barony “will accompany you, for all the obvious reasons. Sky, you need to publish your work and spread it around to the above-average Crows and Focuses. Gilgamesh, you need to go back to Detroit. Gather followers and publicly act the Guru.”
Gilgamesh frowned. “I’ll be a target.”
Shadow nodded. “We’re all targets, and you should continue to be a moving target. If our opposition plays by the rules, then your position as a Guru should protect you from any sort of cavalier disposal.” Gilgamesh groaned. “That’s the advantage of the public way you did your Guru quest. Half the Crows in the country already knew you were something special, and now the other half are learning. They’re going to need to treat you with the respect due a Guru.”
“And if they don’t play by the rules?”
“If they don’t, then we can’t predict what they’ll do, but they will earn the opposition of a lot of neutral Crows and Arms.”
“And the Nobles,” Count Dowling said. Dowling, huge as always, exuded newfound power. His long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, and properly cleaned up and shaved he looked like he had stepped off the cover of a romance novel. “If the Crows play by their own Rules, it’s an internal matter, and individual Nobles may support you, but not the Nobles as a whole. If the Crows don’t, that’s different.”
Hoskins growled agreement. “The Nobles don’t think much of Crows who won’t follow their own Rules. Especially senior Crows.”
Shadow nodded to Gilgamesh. “Don’t take any needless risks, of course, stay close to Tiamat, and use whatever defenses you can come up with, but we need you out there.”
“Yes,” Gilgamesh said. “Can you spare a couple of days more training before I go play target again? I’ve accumulated a ton of new questions about dross constructs.”
“Absolutely,” Shadow said. “Also, I’ll come and visit you occasionally to keep your training up. It may take you a while to learn the standard skills, but I’ve also been thinking about your unique way of working, and I’ve got some new tricks to teach you that will better suit you.”
Gilgamesh sighed, relieved. Perhaps this would work.
“What about Noble protection?” Hoskins said. “If he’s going to stick his neck out, he needs more support.”
Shadow shook his head. “No, he’s a Wizard, not a Shaman. He’s going to need to stand on his own two feet. Besides that, didn’t you get enough adventure to last you a little while?”
“Hah! You’ve got to be kidding. I haven’t had that much fun since the Battle in Detroit.” Predators!
“You have other things to do, your grace,” Occum said. “You’re letting yourself go to seed.”
“I’m not letting myself go to seed, Master Occum,” Hoskins said.
“In that case, both you and Sinclair need to stay with me and learn a few new things. You’re due for another upgrade, and Sinclair needs to learn how to manage the changes, as well as learning the new commoner stabilization techniques.”
Sinclair nodded and Hoskins’ eyes lit up. “You learned more about improving Nobles?” Hoskins said.
“I do work over here, your grace, as opposed to some of us who go gallivanting around the countryside. I think we can get you a few more physical enhancements, plus a couple more points of IQ. Shadow thinks he’s figured out a way to speed up your change into your combat form by several hours, if there’s adequate élan available, and I should teach you that as well, since your adrenaline’s up. Also, you need to learn a few meditation techniques to give you a better sense of your own body. Allow you to manage yourself better on your own.”
“Good,” Shadow said. “Occum, we need a proving quest for you, to get you recognized as a Guru. We’re going to need a good one, if we’re going to get you the stature you need.”
“What about you, Shadow?” Gilgamesh asked. “What are you going to be doing?”
Shadow leaned back. “Now, I establish myself as a Mentor. I’ll be doing some politicking with the senior Crows, which will involve some traveling. Also, I’m going to declare our position. It’s time for us to go public, which will mean some pretty hefty risks.” Shadow paused. “It’s time for me to publicly work with the Focuses. My first stop will be Inferno, in Boston. In the daytime.” The other Crows backed away from him, even Sky.
---
Gilgamesh and Sky waited behind the Gallivan Boulevard Testing Clinic, one of the new Neighborhood Testing Clinics sprouting up in every major city. The clinics would conduct tests for any number of diseases and conditions for anyone who walked in off the street, but the real point was to identify Transform Sickness. This was a bright idea from the CDC, now the Center for Disease Control and Prevention rather than the Communicable Disease Center, and the idea was that anyone who felt some suspicion that they might be coming down with Transform Sickness or any other communicable disease could just drop in for a quick test. No hassles, and a very low cost. The authorities wanted to catch a much higher proportion of Transforms before they went into withdrawal or became Monsters.
The Neighborhood Testing Clinics also collected fingerprints and pictures of Transforms, for the obvious uses. The public and media didn’t know this, yet – and whether to rat them out was the major current Crow topic of conversation on the Grapevine at the moment.
These clinics even worked. More Transforms did come in, looking for a Focus so they could survive. The clinics were an imperfect solution, though. Just last week, the newspapers blared a lurid story about a Monster conversion in one of those clinics and the expected mayhem and gore.
Gilgamesh shook his head and checked his watch again. Ten fifteen. Haiku had been due at ten.
“You think he’s chickened out?” Gilgamesh asked.
Sky shrugged. That was the sort of thing you could never predict about another Crow. It would be nice if Haiku would wait until he actually did something risky before he let the fear take him, though.
“Let’s wait until 11:00,” he said. Gristle dross removal was a multi-Crow job, the more Crows the better. Gilgamesh preferred Orange Sunshine, but the beefy Crow was sleeping off some sort of Charade disaster. Gilgamesh was starting to suspect the household tuning trick wasn’t as easy as Sky claimed.
Haiku showed around 10:30, coming by way of a beat-up Pontiac down slow side streets, in from his normal Cape Cod home turf. Haiku was taller than Gilgamesh expected for someone of Japanese ancestry, almost as tall as Gilgamesh, with the lean build and youthful appearance of most Crows. According to Sky, he was just over three years old.
“Gilgamesh, Sky,” he said politely, from twenty feet away. Gilgamesh and Sky nodded back, respectful of the younger Crow’s wariness.
“Any questions? Are you ready?” Gilgamesh asked.
“Are there any Focuses or Arms around?” Haiku asked.
“No, nobody here but us skanky Crows,” Sky said. Little runnels of sweat beaded along Haiku’s hairline, possibly from the heat, but more likely from tension. Haiku gave a quick nod. Sky indicated his vehicle, and Haiku nodded again. This time the motion was shaky.
Sky’s vehicle was a Volkswagen bus, one of Inferno’s many appalling rides. If you didn’t count the fact the engine, wheels and back door had been replaced, and the van repainted several times, this was the van Inferno used when they rescued Tiamat from the FBI all those years ago. Gilgamesh joined Sky in the front seat, and Haiku sat in the back while they made their careful way to North Reading. They parked in the alley behind Focus Francher’s currently deserted household, an old brownstone apartment building, three stories tall and black with gristle dross. They were the only car in the alley.
Sky used his key to open the heavy deadbolt on the front door, and they followed him in. Several chairs and a couple of tables filled the edges of the small lobby, right in front of the ancient elevator. The table up against the wall held a briefcase, right next to the brass lamp and stack of magazines. Gilgamesh opened the briefcase and counted the money, money that would go to Haiku, as this was a discounted training operation.
“You understand the rules?” Gilgamesh said to Haiku. “If you’re still here when we’re done, you get paid. Otherwise, nothing.” Haiku nodded.
“What do I do?” he said.
“Our goal is to make this place as clean as the day the Focus moved in. What we’re doing is removing the gristle dross. I know, not only can’t you use it, you can’t normally move it,” Gilgamesh said. “Let me show you how. It takes two Crows at a minimum.”
Gilgamesh started the show. Unlike normal dross, which a decent wind could almost blow away, gristle dross was glue, attaching itself to objects, the denser the better, and attracting normal dross, which would turn into gristle dross itself over time. The trick, which Sky learned immediately, and which took Haiku an hour to understand, was to have two Crows visualize their ability to move dross as a knife, stand on opposite ends of a gristle dross deposit, and cut toward each other. Once cut, they picked up the gristle dross and moved it out of the house.
Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) Page 5
