Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) (42 page)

“Keaton’s going to destroy us if we tag each other.  My hierarchy is already too big a threat for her to cope with.”

“Let her try.  What can she do?  If Keaton tries the multi-Arm predator effect on me, she needs to untag you first.”

“Similarly, you can’t go after Keaton if you’re tagged by me.”

Lori knelt beside me, reeking of blood and the sweet odor of lust.  No, in no way did I want to fight Lori, not with her own beast awakened.  I wanted to, lusted to, wreak havoc on the world with Lori at my side.  “Carol, as long as Keaton’s plan works, it’s the
right plan
.  Keaton will need to confront reality if she wants to preserve her ‘Arm freedom of action’ idea.  If her current advisor disagrees?  Well, we’ve seen how quickly Keaton can turn on her advisors.”

Lori was right about the last.  “And what if Keaton doesn’t succeed?”

“I’ll help you pick up the pieces.”

Right.  This was a manipulative Focus talking, no doubt about that.  “What about Sky?  What about your baby?”

“Sky?  Sky’s darkness is as bad as ours is, but we can’t bring him in with us until we grab Inferno, because he’s gone to ground inside the household.  He’s there if and when we need him, though.  The baby? Well, we’re past the first trimester, and…”

“And what?”

“Dead is dead, Carol.  The method isn’t important,” Lori said.  I heard the struggle inside her between her words.  She wasn’t totally sold on her own plan, but she would follow my lead and trust in my love.  Dammit!  She had fallen in love with me long ago, seduced by my darkness.  I never had to awaken her beast; when Keaton and I broke her and remade her as Lady Death it wasn’t to awaken her beast, but to help her find a way to
leash
her beast and keep her from wildly careening from guilt to triumph and back.  Her beast had always been lying in wait for my beast to re-emerge and lead her over the edge.  She would never pull me back into the light.  She was the one who joined me in the darkness, and would remain there beside me through whatever black realms we traveled.

For a moment I remembered Lori was a Focus, someone who should be preserving life, not taking it.  In that moment, if I could have gotten away with it, I would have knocked Lori out, tossed her back to Inferno, and told them to take better care of their Focus.

The moment passed, and Lori was far too powerful for a cheap trick like that to work, anyway.

I should have understood, long ago, why I never needed to excise the dark parts of my mind to love Lori.  My beast loved Lori because the dark parts of our minds had always been soul mates.

“This path at least leaves me in control of my own destiny,” Lori said.  “I could never just sit passively in Boston, waiting for some idiot Arm to come by and get herself killed while harassing my household.  Even if her death would trigger the
real
Focus-Arm war.”  Lori paused.  “Besides, once we tag each other, there’s something the two of us need to do that we’ve been avoiding for far too long.”

I nodded and slowly raised my hand to her cheek.  “I missed you,” I said.  Her juice shivered at my touch, and I left my hand on her cheek as her juice and my juice nudged back and forth between us, electric fire.

She nodded.  “We both chose the hard path a long time ago.  I love you for it.  I always have.”  She raised my hand to her lips and kissed the tip of each finger in turn.  “I wish this didn’t hurt so much.”

“If we didn’t suffer so much pain, we wouldn’t have grown so strong.”  Her dark hair straggled across her forehead, damp with sweat and a few drops of blood.  I carefully pushed her hair back into place.  Our eyes met, and for a moment her eyes became my world, just like the old days, when we first met.

“I’m tired of pain,” she said, breathing hotly on my fingers.  “I want a few hours where the pain isn’t mine for a change.”

“I can oblige,” I said softly, and smiled.  So beautiful.  So mine.  I rose to my knees and touched Walter gently, let him twitch as I covered my hand in his blood.  I stroked my bloody fingers across my love’s pale cheek, streaking it with red.  Then the other, matching marks, equipping her for war.  She touched her cheek and took my hand.  Smiled.  She raised my bloody hand up to her mouth and slowly licked the length of my index finger.

I chuckled, low and deep in my chest, and slowly undid the clasp of her black cloak.  Pushed it off her shoulders to the floor.  I started on the buttons of her blouse and her breath caught.

She raised her hand up to me, but the blood on it was old and cracked, so she put it down on Walter’s wounds.  This time he screamed.  When she raised it from him, blood dripped in runnels down her arm.  She traced a bloody path from my mouth, down my neck to between my breasts.  She smiled, long and slow and cayenne pepper hot.

Darkness grew.

Tonya Biggioni: November 25, 1972

Delia opened the door to Tonya’s office and poked her head in.  “Rizzari on line two,” she said.

Tonya hesitated a moment and shook her head.  She had just finished a long conversation with Pearl Innkeep, convincing her to move her household to New York for the interim.  Polly gathered up as many Focuses as she could, checking them out to see how willing they would be to commit their lives, offering her secrets as bait.  Pearl had been balky, not because she wouldn’t pledge her life and household to the Cause, but because she didn’t want to move.  Pearl had operated alone, with such minimal support, for so long that she couldn’t understand her danger.  Before Pearl, Tonya had been chatting with Maybelle Roznovsky, a graduate of Lori’s witch program, one of the young witches Polly wanted brought in.  Her problem had been money and political worries; their money was so tight they couldn’t swing the short move from Scranton to Polly’s place on Long Island, and Maybelle worried about Focus Collins’ disappearance.  Tonya had arranged a loan for Maybelle from her own household fund.  She couldn’t say much about Focus Collins’ disappearance; Tonya feared Collins had gotten caught in Focus Teas’ current feud with Focus Schrum, decided to go gypsy and had fled to the West Region.

Now Tonya needed to talk to Lori, a task requiring complete calm.  The putative head of the Cause took her Chicago move and her help to Gail and Zielinski more seriously than Tonya liked.  Lori treated the move as permanent.

“Lori!  So good to hear from you!  Did you have a fine Thanksgiving?”

“Hello, Tonya.”

Lori’s voice sent a shiver up Tonya’s spine.  “What’s up?”

“Tell Polly I’m joining the Commander.”

For a moment, Tonya’s voice caught in her throat.  Surely she had misheard Lori.  “What?”

“Keaton’s a much better choice for boss than the first Focuses.  Unless Keaton goes after Polly’s witches, I’m in.  I’d strongly advise you to consider following my lead.”

So much for calmness.  Lori had changed sides.  Dammit!

“You’re crazy.”

“We’re all crazy, Tonya.  Tell me that breaking Transforms and gathering blackmail materials on new Focuses so we control them instead of the first Focuses isn’t crazy.”

“What?  You haven’t complained about my breaking Transforms for years.”

“I’m not complaining,” Lori said.  “I’m just trying to point out the fact that you aren’t a saintly paragon of virtue and sanity.  There’s a lot to be said regarding taking our destiny in our own hands.  It’s called freedom.  How much easier would life be if we just ignored the oppressive government and chose our Transforms ourselves?”

Tonya almost dropped the phone in appalled shock.  “Keaton’s way involves institutionalized violence!  You’ll drive yourself insane!  You’ll drive all the Focuses insane.”

“Tonya, we’re already insane, and nothing you or I do will change the fact.  Focuses are tough.  Don’t forget the deeper plan: if the Arms refuse to negotiate, the worst that can happen is exactly what you and Polly are leading us to – a war against the Arms.”

Lori-land with a vengeance.  “You and Carol tagged each other, didn’t you?”

“Yes.  Witnessed by a few trusted Inferno members and Carol’s entourage.”

“How many people did you kill?” Tonya said.  She understood what darkness looked like when the Arms went wild.

“In a tagging ceremony?  That’s no place for death.”  Lori laughed.  “No, we hunted as part of our celebration, later.  We’re making Chicago a much safer city.”

Tonya wanted to vomit.  “
Lori!
”

“No innocents.  Carol doesn’t prey on the weak and innocent.  Even Bass can’t order Carol to do so.”

“Keaton will, just to prove she can.”  Dominance.

“Trade-offs, Tonya.  If Keaton pushes Carol too far, Carol will drop Keaton’s tag.  Remember, that’s what you want.”

God.  I get my way, and split the Arms, but only if Carol balks at killing innocents, Tonya thought.  Utterly insane.  What am I supposed to do to further my faction, convince Keaton to order Carol to massacre a pre-school?

“You’re helping Carol hunt, aren’t you.”

Lori snorted.  “She doesn’t need me to help her hunt Transforms.  Psychopaths, though.  Carol’s good at reading people, but psychopaths fool her techniques.  As a witch, I’m not fooled.  We’ve been having all sorts of fun.”

“What is this going to do to you, Lori?  Do you care?”

“Ask Polly.  She practically ordered me to drench myself in blood.”

Tonya bit down on the shriek trying to bubble its way up from her chest.  “Wait!  Carol is fooled by psychopaths?  Her Nibs is a psychopath, remember.”

“Carol knows the danger.  You know I can’t say much on the subject, but I can at least pass along the information that your earlier surmise, that Keaton would be handling that particular problem, is correct.  Join us, Tonya.  It’s the right thing to do, and I’m convinced Keaton’s going to need help, your variety of help.”

Shit.  “I’ll talk to Polly.”

“Do that.”  Lori hung up.

---

“Polly,” Tonya said.  Another phone call.

“Yes?”

“Lori’s joined Carol.  They tagged each other.”

“Great!”

“Are you crazy?  Do you think we should join…”

“Not yet, Tonya.  Calm down.  What’s Lori’s position about us?”

Tonya took a deep breath.  “Lori says that she’s with Carol unless Keaton goes after the witches.  Lori also says you planned this.”

“In a way,” Polly said.  “I’m gambling that with Lori by her side, Carol will be willing to break with Keaton if she’s ordered to go after us.”

“If you lose that gamble, we’re screwed.  Lady Death is nothing to sneer at, and I for one would not want to face Lori.”

“Tonya, don’t forget, Lori’s
my
apprentice witch,” Polly said.  “If she’s a problem, you would be shocked how fast I can take her down.”  Polly paused thoughtfully.  “I think I’ll teach you a few of those skills next time you come to see me.”

“I sure as hell hope you’re right, Polly.  I sure as hell hope you’re right.”

Gail Rickenbach: November 26, 1972

Wow, if she felt any higher she would be on the top of the world.  Gail wanted to lose herself in the ecstasy, but that wasn’t what she was here for.  She tried to remember the notes – a D clarinet, an F-flat trombone, and then that complex series of trumpet chords that was so much fun.  There, she got the pattern dead on, and at sufficient speed.

“That’s the link,” Carol said.  Gail could never understand how Carol could seem so unaffected by the pleasure of the cycling juice, but her eyes never lost their hard edge.

Okay, Gail successfully linked to her juice buffer.  The next step would be to transfer juice to Carol, but she didn’t know the pattern required.  Instead, the plan was to instinctively try patterns until she got something, ran out of steam, or something drastic happened.

Fortunately, except for one time last night when a pattern of hers produced an incredible quantity of dross, drastic results were rare.  Arms natively resisted attempts to mess with their juice of all kinds, harmful and beneficial, so accidents of any sort were unlikely.

They were in one of the spare bedrooms, and Gail and Carol occupied the bed, holding each other tight.  Gilgamesh was on guard, ready to identify promising juice effects and to try to prevent disasters.  Zielinski stood ready with his vials and instruments.  He had a shunt installed in the top of her foot, and every ten seconds, he took a small vial of blood.  Van sat in a chair, opposite, taking notes for his own research and for Zielinski.

“Ready?” Gail whispered in Carol’s ear.  She nodded.

Gail began to play complex, beautiful improvisational juice music.  Music for the metasense.  Over the last couple of weeks, she had slowly developed a feel for juice music improv, and the better her feel the more beautiful the juice music became.  She used a few standard themes as a base, along with appropriate chord sequences: the incredibly complex trombone chord sequence that meant Arm, and Carol in particular, her personal signifier, the juice buffer signifier, and the simple beat associated with moving juice from her buffer to a household Transform.

Gail added endless variations and complexities to the last, trying to make them into a more complex pattern.  She could spend hours like this, flush with the pleasure of the cycling juice, able to draw on her juice buffer to keep herself functional, and attempting to make beauty out of juice patterns.