No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) (10 page)

“No, sir.  Neither directly nor indirectly.”  Something about this room relaxed Gilgamesh, making him chattier than normal.  Making him think Chevalier was his friend.

The room played with his mind.  Typical senior Crow behavior.  Gilgamesh shook his head and concentrated, but he couldn’t shake whatever Chevalier’s room did to him.

“Then it isn’t my business,” Chevalier said, with a haughty sniff.  “Unless you would care to share.”  Chevalier dusted an ornate bust, realist style, and realized it showed three heads, each pointing a different direction: Chevalier, Innocence and Shadow.  Some of the normal art here was Crow made, too!

“You may find the letter disquieting,” Gilgamesh said.  “If your reputation is correct, my mission deals with matters far outside your interests.  If you are curious, though, I have no problem showing you the letter.”

“Curious, yes, and worried as well,” Chevalier said.  “I advise all who call me Guru to avoid all contact with other Transforms.  History has shown no good will come of such contacts.”

“Some contacts cannot be avoided,” Gilgamesh said, thinking of the Beast Men who still haunted his dreams, hunting him.  He handed Chevalier the letter, who read it and handed the letter back to Gilgamesh with a flourish, shaking his head and sighing an overly artful sigh.

“Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, when will you ever learn,” Chevalier said.  “Yes, my rapidly maturing Crow friend, the letter is indeed from Thomas, as is this scheme you’ve been caught up in.  I do have to make you an offer, although it is mildly inappropriate.  Extenuating circumstances etcetera etcetera, such as being a Crow with a conscience.  If you wish to become one of my flock, I can save you from this onerous mission.”

Gilgamesh licked his lips.  He would rather go back to being Keaton’s domestic servant.  Chevalier was overly civilized, in his opinion.  “I thank you for your kind offer, but I’m afraid I must turn it down,” Gilgamesh said.  “May I show you something?”

“Certainly,” Chevalier said.  If anything, he looked relieved Gilgamesh hadn’t taken him up on his offer.  The senior Crow put down his feather duster and stuck his hands behind his back.

Gilgamesh took out one of his rotten eggs and triggered it, creating a life-sized dross-art sculpture of Enkidu in his wolf-man form.  “I’m no artist, sir, but I created this from my memories, as best as possible for one of my meager talents.”  Compared to a real picture, or real dross art, it was closer to a cartoon than the real Enkidu.

“A Beast-Man,” Chevalier said.  “Having heard of your Philadelphia exploit, I may impolitely render a guess that this is Enkidu.  Such a foul Beast he is.”  Chevalier sniffed.  “Foul smell as well.  You aren’t half bad at this, you know, Gilgamesh.”

“I try.”  Gilgamesh paused.  “It’s my hypothesis that Enkidu, a personal enemy of mine, is working with the Crow Killer.  Although I might wish some other Crow would do my mission for me and save me from the dangers involved, I have no objection to the mission.  The mission must be done.”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Chevalier said.  “They hunt us, these Beast-Men, and someone of power directs them.  Crow Killer shows more talent than any Beast should have, though, and the Beast-Men danger strikes me as far separate from the dangers of the Crow Killer.  Beyond that, I do not wish to speculate; as you have correctly intimated this issue lies far beyond my area of expertise.  Now, let me show you something.”

“Certainly.”

Chevalier conjured up a dizzying array of dross constructs, shadows of dross reeking of efficiency and complexity.  One slowly moved toward Gilgamesh, extended a pseudopod into his head, and stopped.  Gilgamesh stood stock still, panic-ready to flee, yet unwilling to move and disturb the dross construct in play.

“Wiggle the tip of the teacher-construct,” Chevalier said.  Gilgamesh took a moment, but he was able to do so, using the same tricks allowing him to manipulate and consume dross.  “The location is special; it’s the place in your brain where your memories interact most directly with your ability to manipulate dross.  Get a feel for its wiggle; if you master the wiggle, you will be able to bring up your Enkidu cartoon without having to store it ahead of time in whatever strange contrivance you have created, at least in quiet surroundings.  I fear that heavy emotions would ruin such a trick, alas, without excess practice.  This is, for instance, the method your compatriot in inappropriate Crow activities, Sky, uses to store his signature night sky illusion.”

Gilgamesh understood, despite the unfamiliar terminology.  This would be useful in non-stress situations.  “Thank you, sir.”

“Now if you have any pull with those Arms, it would be most kind of you to convince them to decamp to another location.  Far away.  I find having to actually wear metasense protections on a day to day basis to be highly distasteful.”

Gilgamesh bit the inside of his lower lip, mostly to stifle laughter.  “Returning at the present time would put a strain on my relations with them, sir, one I do not wish to risk.”  The Skinner called such comments ‘Transform doublespeak’ and encouraged him to master this somewhat distasteful verbal art form.

“I feared as much.  I sense an urge for you to be on your way, to be as far away from the Arms as you can be.”  True.  However, the last thing he wanted to explain was the fact he was in love with one of the Arms and feared his own cheating emotions could easily lure him back.

“Thank you, sir.  I will be on my way.”

And he was, as fast as his feet could politely take him.

Chapter 4

Anti-bullying policies are nothing more than a Transform Conspiracy, Rev. Loomis says.  “You know what they want…”

“Hunter Activity Near Chicago and Media Responses”

Carol Hancock: April 19, 1968

Keaton said she would tag me if I proved myself an Arm by completing a solo hunt, and I had been bouncy and high ever since.  Only four days had passed since my last kill and my relatively low juice wasn’t enough to damp my enthusiasm.  I could bench press two hundred and fifty pounds.  I had taught myself enough of an old chop-socky movie trick of leaping and fighting in mid-air to rate Keaton’s rapt attention.  She said I fought like Focus Rizzari, though.  Her comment brought a warm glow to my heart and a suspicion my change to a more Rizzari-like physique after my withdrawal episode hadn’t been at all coincidental.

All this papered over a sense of dread.  I hid something from Keaton: after Gilgamesh left I was pretty sure my IQ dropped about forty points.  I didn’t like this, no, not at all.  The bitch Teas was right.  The juice was alive, intelligent and out to get us.

To hunt I had to drive.  To drive, I had to have a vehicle.  I asked Keaton what she would prefer me to do about wheels and she provided me with a beat up ’63 Dodge.  I hunted.  Keaton said not to bother with a hunt grid, just hunt by instinct.  I wondered if she had something up her sleeve, but the question fell out of my mind when I found a juice trace of an untagged Transform. I followed the juice trace until it went into an office building.  Since office buildings blocked my metasense, I slipped in, putting together an impromptu disguise from the duffel Keaton prepared for me.  I made a passable temp secretary if you didn’t look too close.

My victim turned out to be a low-end insurance problem solver of some kind or another.  His telephone was his life.  He looked ill to me, poor man.  At lunch, I went up to him, introduced myself as Martha from marketing, and talked him into taking me to lunch.  On the way to his car, I convinced him he needed to go to a hospital because of his illness.  He was kind enough to let me drive.

We didn’t go anywhere near a hospital.  Instead, he went with me to a quiet secluded vacant apartment where he died in my arms, after I convinced him to write a suicide note.  Following some hints I picked up, and with a better sense for magic, I concentrated on ‘getting back to being a real Arm’ when I took his juice.

I didn’t know if my trick worked, but I definitely came out of my swoon feistier.  My disposal plan this time was the classic blow your brains out suicide in a public location.  Getting him to the location I chose was a challenge, but my muscle tone was improving.

I drove back to Keaton’s place, afterwards, chortling and enjoying myself.  She glared at me for attitude problems but had no complaints about my hunt.  She did say she wanted to understand what I was doing when I hunted now.

“Easier to show than explain,” I said.  Especially when I had to burn juice to put more than two words in a goddamned sentence.  Sticking in a ‘ma’am’ wasn’t worth the effort when it cost juice.

“Show,” Keaton said.  I was getting on her nerves.

I took her to where I found the juice trace.  The juice trace hadn’t moved, lying on the ground.

“There,” I said.  “Can you sense the juice trace?”

“No,” Keaton said.  “This is insane.”

“No, it isn’t.”  I pointed the juice trace out to her.  Repeatedly.  No matter what I did, she couldn’t sense the juice trace.  She did believe me; I certainly wasn’t trying to hide the truth or pull the wool over her eyes.  Lying wouldn’t have been proper teamwork.

“So you basically can metasense where Transforms have been?” Keaton said.  I nodded.  “Tell if they are prey quality or not?”  That is, whether they were tagged.  I nodded again and let it show in my face that I couldn’t identify the tag, just whether the Transform was tagged or not.  “What drawbacks does your new sense have?”  She knew there was no free lunch.  Gain something in one area, lose something in another.

“I can’t sense into autos, busses or office buildings anymore,” I said.

Keaton looked like she had sucked on a lemon.  “You’ve lost parts of the basic metasense.  Was this something you worked at in Chicago or did it show up after I brought you back from withdrawal?”

“Just here.”

She had known my metasense was funky, but she hadn’t wanted to press the issue until Gilgamesh left.  “So how long does a trace last?”

I waved my hands in the air and tried to explain what I had seen on my hunt.  “A day.  Less?  It sits there.  It drifts, too.  Wind.  Lots of wind?  Gone!  Water sprinkler?  Gone!”

“How far away can you sense a trace?”

“Over to the fourth light pole.”

Keaton whistled.  “Okay.  One hundred yards.  Understand what that means?”

I shook my head.  “Sorry, ma’am.”  The logic was beyond me.

“A hundred yards is the metasense range of a Focus,” Keaton said.

“Yes, ma’am.”  I didn’t understand her logic.  I wasn’t a Focus.  “I still have my old range for open air direct sensing of Transforms, ma’am.”

“But not into office buildings.”  I nodded.  “I hope to hell you can make this work.  This is crazy.”

To that I had no comment.

“Understand that you’re going to be working for me after this,” Keaton said, expansive, her gestures practically covering the width of her pale great room, with its white furniture and ivory carpets.  “I have a goal, remember.  To reach my goal we’re both going to have to be working our asses off, so now you’re working for me.”

I nodded in agreement, still bouncy from my successful hunt, and filled with unsatisfied lust.  Midafternoon was a wonderful time for satisfying unsatisfied lust.  I anticipated some fun, soon.  “Yes, ma’am.  Two heads are better than one.  You check on me, I check on you.”

She blinked.  “I didn’t hear that, Hancock.  Did you just say you were going to check on me?”

I nodded again.  She growled.  “We all make mistakes,” I said.  “So you said.”  Now she got hostile.  “Hey!  I didn’t say I’d be foolish enough to give you anything but suggestions.”  Her hostility took all the fun out of my lustful anticipations.

“Your attitude today leaves a lot to be desired, Hancock,” Keaton said, ice cold.

So tag me, bitch.  Then let’s fuck like minks.

Her ice turned cryogenic.  “You’re making me change my mind about my pledge not to torture you, scag.”  In her gaze I was nothing.  Less than nothing.  A piece of meat to care for.

I no longer appreciated her look.

I dropped my weapons into my hands and settled into a fighting stance.  “I
am
an Arm,” I said.  And I was fucking tired of not being treated as one.

I guessed my juice draw trick worked.  Jazzed up right now, I was open for anything, and not particularly happy about Keaton’s damned domination of me.

Keaton dropped her weapons and went after me in a fury, no sound, just lightning fast motions.  She tried to end the fight immediately, showing me a trick I had never seen before, burning juice into specific muscle sets.  The first time she burned into her lower back and calves as she punched at me whip-crack fast.

I avoided her blows, faster.  Without burning, I circled her, throwing in my more lightweight punches when I sensed an opening.  When she tried a spin move I kicked up and over her, then spun myself and flattened her.

Old Carol could have just sat on her and won the fight, but of course old Carol had never come close to flattening Keaton.  I leapt on her back, jabbed nerve clusters to paralyze her, but didn’t get enough of them to put her down.  For my efforts I collected a face full of boot and a short trip across the length of the mansion’s great room.

With a running start I got on her before she was ready and hit her with a mid-air head kick that staggered her.  She tried two disguised punch moves on me that failed, and then burned juice to run at me to grapple.  I burned juice to match her speed and stuck an elbow in, just below her ribs, on the way by.  With my current body form, any grapple with Keaton would be a loss.

Heh.  I had her.  She had never fought anyone like me; although she had said I fought like Lori, her comment missed the point that I had double Lori’s weight and the ability to burn juice.  I really had Keaton.  I would win this fight.  I hardly believed my luck, anticipating that I would be tagging Keaton, not vice versa.

Keaton retreated to a defensible corner and sneered at me.  “Dumbass cunt, your brains have turned to utter shit.  If physical prowess was all that mattered, we’d automatically lose to any Chimera who challenged us.”

She had a point.  “I’m no fucking dumbass Chimera.”

Keaton smiled at my echoing repetition.  Now she thought she had won.  I had no idea why.

“I win, poser, because I’m the
real
predator.  I rescued
you
.  Before I got shot up in the rescue, I hadn’t even fucking been shot
at
since before you transformed!”  She put a fucking lot of predator into her statement.

I burned juice into my own predator to keep up.  Doing so loosed my true feelings.  “I went through hell and I still came out sane.  Blaming all your quirks on a few minutes of withdrawal is a lame excuse.  The problem is yours.  It’s time you owned up to it.”

Even I was shocked at what I said.  The comment just slipped out, greased words spitting through my normal sense because I had burned juice into my own predator effect.

Keaton went all the way to a purple face, but she didn’t charge.  She studied me, subtle predator use.  “Bobby died because of your weakness, bitch.”

I froze.  Bobby was still alive.  He had to be.  I hadn’t given him up.

“He killed himself because he was jailed,” Keaton said.  “Why was he jailed?  Because Sanchek, the utter loser who squealed to the cops, had seen him.  Once.  Why was that?  Because a particularly insecure Arm wanted to show her lover how nasty she could get.”

I shivered.  I had no comeback at all.  Keaton’s purple faded as she fearlessly strode toward me.

“The cops you supposedly owned found and questioned Bobby, but you weren’t there to manipulate them anymore.  He was weak.  He couldn’t betray his Arm lover.  So he hung himself, taking the only way out he was strong enough to cope with.  Your love is dead, Hancock, because of your failures.  You think you’re so fucking complicated and brilliant, but you never ever have any useful fallback plans.  You always think you’ll succeed.  That’s arrogance, and
your arrogance
killed Bobby.”

Keaton towered over me.  I bowed my head.  It took all my meager will to bury my emotions.

Bobby’s death hurt.  Oh, God, did it hurt.  Oh, Bobby, your lopsided smile, and the beautiful muscular curves of your back, and the ferocious way you made love.  Did anyone even care when you died?  How terribly you must have hurt in prison, alone.  I was gone, left you on your own, and all the demons of hell came after you. You couldn’t stand up to the stress, and I wasn’t there to protect you when I said I would.  Instead, I had given you into their hands.

“Now do you remember how badly Arms can deal with other Arms?” Keaton said, smelling pain.  My pain.  “You still want
me
to tag you?”

“Ma’am,” I said.  I groveled.  She put her foot on my neck, just like in the old days.  “I’m yours.”

Keaton paused.  “Dammit, yes!  You’re mine.”

The juice moved.  The Arm tagging ran through me like a chain of fishhooks, intense, blinding and painful.  When the fishhooks passed, the absence of pain became utter and total pleasure.

The juice had won, again.

The English language has a word, epiphany, that comes mildly close to describing the experience the two of us had right then.  An entirely new part of myself had opened up.  I was more than I had been.  Something had become right with the world because of the tag.

Keaton didn’t react to the tag in the same way.  She leapt back with a snarl in her voice and a knife in her hand. “What the fuck did you do to my mind?”

“Ma’am,” I said, still kneeling.  I had nothing else to say.

Keaton took a slow, careful breath and put her knife away.  I saw her thoughts on her face as she tried to understand the change the tag made to her.  Her face might have been a large-print book.  I hadn’t expected this, but it made sense.  Reading another was something that took time.  Another shortcut.

This had to go both ways, though.  I wouldn’t be concealing my thoughts from Keaton any more.

I poked at myself mentally, trying to figure out what the tag did to me.  Yes, there it was, an echo of Keaton’s juice structure in mine.  My tag idea had worked!  The Arm tag even metasensed as a Focus tag.

“All right,” Keaton said.  “Spill.  Exactly what are you feeling and what have you figured out about this damned tag?  And get up off the fucking floor.  You look ridiculous down there.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  I got up and sat on the end of the white couch.  I closed my eyes and tried to analyze the difference in my mind.  “I’m yours, ma’am.  I’ll follow your orders.”  I thought.  “I no longer want to challenge you.  Am I giving off challenge signals at all, like before?  I don’t think I should be.”