No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) (42 page)

He tried not to think about Carol’s newest fashion statement, handcuffs worn as bracelets.  Too much thought along those lines might be a bit distracting.  Or her kiss.  That hadn’t been an ‘I’m about to rape you’ kiss or a ‘let’s be friends’ kiss.  That had been a ‘let’s go make hot sweaty love’ kiss.

The Clinic didn’t have guards or defenses worth thinking about, and those who might have spotted him decided to take a nap, courtesy of a few cheap dross constructs.  The multi-building Clinic complex reminded him of the old old days, back in the 50’s, when the Transform Clinics and Detention Centers were new and Transform Clinics and the like hadn’t become completely clogged with sludge and gristle dross.  Lori and Flo had gathered the two Focus’s households together.  They stood, shoulder to shoulder in the wide clinic entryway, facing the Clinic Focuses and their households.  Next to them glowered a trim Oriental 30-ish woman Transform radiating power and fierceness as well as carrying a half dozen juice patterns.  She gave him a sideways glance of buried hostility and slickly pulled a second pistol from a shoulder holster to match the one already in her left hand.  This had to be Dahlia Woo, the supposed diplomat from first Focus Fingleman’s household, here to collect Rogue Focus.  Sky suspected the ornate pins holding up the diplomat’s long black hair were also weapons and lockpicks.

Far away, a third Focus and her large armed entourage had just entered the Clinic in a line of cars and trucks.  Focus Laswell, if Sky remembered correctly.  Was she late?  He probably should have kept a closer watch on the plan.  He hadn’t expected he would end up being a part of it.

“Emergency,” Sky said, growling and skidding to a stop behind Lori, Flo and Dahlia Woo as the door banged behind him.  The entryway was wide, but not enough to hold the dozens of people trying to cram themselves in, and it was packed.

“What sort?” Lori said, as she turned and elbowed her way toward him.  Tim and Tina stayed by the Focus’s left elbow, pushing their way through the mob to follow.  Woo backed off and turned, so she could keep an eye on both the Clinic Focuses and Sky.  The place reeked of tension.  The two Clinic Focuses weren’t cooperating.  At least they hadn’t started shooting at each other.  Yet.

He and his love were currently on the relationship upswing; worry and affection covered Lori’s face.  “Carol’s been…”

Lori took off at a dead run, leaving her bodyguards behind.  The door banged again.

He should have seen this coming.  Lori, you besotted fool!  Soap opera Focus indeed.

Now the weight settled onto his shoulders.  Time to act like a goddamned Major Transform leader again.

“Sadie, Ann: go make nice with Focus Laswell,” Sky said, his voice echoing long-forgotten Arm cadences.  He pointed.  Sadie and Ann took off at a dead run.  “Inferno bodyguards?  Your Focus heads toward the fight.  Follow.”  Tim looked at him blankly for a moment, wondering if he was who he appeared to be.  Tina shook Tim and started giving orders, following his instructions.  “Focus Ackerman?”  Flo turned to him, her eyes narrow with concentration.  Damn.  Without Lori she wouldn’t be able to hold the Focuses in place with her charisma for much longer.  Focus Laswell was on her way, but slowly, not realizing how close the situation was to disaster.

Sky didn’t have any choice.  He was the senior Major Transform here, this was a confrontation but not a physical fight, and these two enemy Focuses weren’t particularly inimical or powerful.  He cranked the knob on his fierceness aura up to ‘high’, focused two ‘on your knees and surrender to me’ dross constructs through his hands, and strode forward.

“Focuses, I am
Crow
!” Sky said, face just inches from one Focus and then the other.  “I am the Focus nightmare, the enemy of reason, the bringer of insanity.  You can’t help but love me and be my friend, despite how much you hate me.  Kneel!”

They knelt, smiling, as did every last member of their households.  Dahlia Woo backed off, both her pistols aimed at him.  “Don’t you even think about doing that to me,” she said, a low whisper.

“Ma’am, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sky said.  He had other plans for Woo if she got even the least bit twitchier.

He held the Clinic Focuses until Ann and Sadie brought over Focus Laswell and her well-armed and currently not very friendly bodyguard cadre, elbowing still more people into the packed entryway.

“Ann, see?” Sky said, over the heads of Dahlia Woo and a half-dozen Inferno fighters.  “This is what should have happened at the Medievalist Tournament to Lori and Inferno.”

“Thank the heavens for functional household superorganisms,  then,” Ann said, in her quiet voice.

Sky snorted.  “Most honored Focus Laswell, I now release these two fools into your custody,” Sky said, making a hand gesture only partly for show.  The rest was a tug on the minds of his captives to fall into Focus Laswell’s sway.  They did so.  Behind him, Flo breathed a sigh of relief.

“Ah didn’t know Focus Rizzari had a senior Crow on staff,” Focus Laswell said, eying the two Focuses while at the same time trying to eyeball Sky.  She didn’t know Crows personally, but she did know the theory.

Ann, who had managed to make her way to Sky’s side, started to correct Focus Laswell, but Sky put his finger against his lover’s lip before she could get a word out.  “I don’t have the official status a senior Crow does here in the States, mademoiselle Focus, as I follow my own path, but I am somewhere between the tenth and fourteenth oldest surviving Crow in North America.  Pardon my pissiness, as this situation is difficult for a Crow.”  To say the least.

Ann gave him the look.  She hadn’t realized his overblown stature.  His omission would get him a stern talking to later, he realized.

“It’s difficult for all of us,” Focus Laswell said.  She turned to the subdued Clinic Focuses and cranked up her charisma.  “Focus Gipson, Focus Roberts, y’all need to surrender for real.  Focus Peshnak and her thugs are no longer in charge in Houston. 
I am.
”  The two Clinic Focuses complied.  Well.  Focus Laswell’s home field advantage had paid off.

Sky backed off, leaning on Ann, woozy from his exertions.  Woo finally holstered her pistols.  “Any advice, dear one, would be greatly appreciated,” Sky Crow whispered.

Ann chuckled.  “Let’s organize the cleanup.  Lori and Carol will be just fine.”

Sky wasn’t nearly so sure.  At least Lori wouldn’t do anything to endanger their baby.

He froze and almost panicked.  What was he thinking?  Of course Lori would take those risks if she didn’t have time to think about them beforehand.

Carol Hancock: July 20, 1968

“There.”

Much of the fog cleared from my mind.  Lori stood beside me, wary.

I had been herding the battle around by force of my predator, I realized, which accounted for Lori’s wariness.  We were about half way between Rogue Focus’s household and the Feds’ safe house, on a street of narrow urban homes with well-manicured lawns, and Rogue Focus and her remaining thugs had taken cover down the street on the grounds of one of the urban homes, hiding behind bushes, cars and corners of the home, carefully moving from position to position, always heading west.  I stood with Lori behind the garage of a different urban home, among the remainder of my own people.  Between us, bodies lay groaning on the street and on various no longer perfectly manicured lawns. A couple of Rogue Focus’s thugs lay moaning on the ground less than 20 feet from me.  I still thought it would be a bad omen if her thugs got to the safe house.

“I’m still thinking magically,” I said.  “I can talk, though.  That’s an improvement.”

“I ripped all the active juice patterns off of you,” Lori said.  “I can’t do anything more, now, to help you.”

I studied the battle with my metasense while Lori muttered about symbolic juice patterns and why she couldn’t affect them easily.  My walkie-talkie was long gone.  Lori handed me hers, figuring out what I was thinking.  Right.  “Let me read what you’re thinking.  Please.  I’ll explain later.”

She figured out what I wanted.  The world became clearer.  “Gilgamesh?  Anyone?  What’s going on outside of where I can see?”

“Focus Laswell and Focus Ackerman have taken the Clinic Focus’s surrender and separated them from their households,” Gilgamesh said over the static of the walkie-talkie.  “Sky over-exerted himself and is out of action, in the Clinic.  Fred has secured Rogue Focus’s household and is, um, looting it.”  Fred Raindorf, God’s gift to thuggery, had his own twisted priorities.  I doubted he would end up rich with the proceeds.  “Eleven of your people are down, there, most from Rogue Focus’s defensive juice patterns.  Several are engaging in mid-battle sex.  I’ve moved the Crow observers so Hephaestus can visually watch Rogue Focus’s place and Sinclair can visually watch you.  I have Newton on the Feds’ safe house for at least a few more moments, as both of the agents there are still asleep.  No other surprises.”

“Ten-four,” my instincts said.  I had no idea why.  The battle had devolved into a stalemate.  I needed to do something to change this.  Lori’s presence was a good omen, maybe enough to change that stalemate.  “Lori?  Piggyback ride time.”

“Huh?”

I pointed to my shoulders.  “You’re thinking of rushing Rogue Focus?” she said as she climbed up.

“Good idea,” I said.  I hadn’t figured out why I had wanted Lori on my shoulders, until she spoke.  “It would be a good omen if we surprised Rogue Focus.”

“Oooh kaaaay.  Let me blather at you, then,” Lori said, way ahead of me in the brains department right now.  “Rogue Focus is gambling she can get to the Feds’ safe house and secure the large weapons dump there before we can stop her.  Outside of her household she doesn’t have her household defensive juice patterns to fall back on.  I think she’s panicked by the situation.  You’re thinking I’m good enough to keep whatever symbolic juice patterns she tosses at us off of you while you do something to her.  I hope you’re right.  Remember, we want her alive.”

I ran, burning juice.  “It would be a better omen if she didn’t have her household around her.”

“What?  Holy moly!”

I hit full Arm sprint speed; Lori weighed less than the weapons packs I often carried with me when I trained.  I leapt over Rogue Focus’s ring of bodyguards as they attempted to make their way to the next house to the west, and landed two steps away from the bitch, not stopping.  On the way by, I grabbed Rogue Focus’s arm and tossed the bitch toward the street.  I still didn’t stop; instead I leapt, somehow ending up going a different direction than where I tossed Rogue Focus.  I bounced against the house, skidded through a turn and closed on my Focus target, who had bounced off a light pole, a car hood and the pavement, twice.  Her people’s handguns erupted then, for reasons I wasn’t fully sure about.  I didn’t sense any new juice patterns affecting me.  Good omen.  My rush in had been a surprise.

Lori was still on my back as I rushed over to Rogue Focus.  Memories of a conversation with Lori fortuitously echoed through my mind.

Ann Chiron: “Lori, how much damage can an Arm survive, anyway?  More than a Focus?”

Lori: “Fully trained Arms?  God only knows.  Zielinski told me about Carol’s last torture session with Arm Keaton.  Trust me when I say that what Keaton did to her was much worse.”

I believed my memory meant that if I raped Rogue Focus with a foot long steel prick, ripped her left shoulder half off her body and sliced through her throat she would still survive.  I had, when Enkidu did this to me.  I didn’t have a foot long steel prick, thank you very much, but Rogue Focus had landed near a no parking sign.  I pulled the sign out of the local black muddy dirt, concrete base and all, and loosed my pent-up anger at the territory-stealing bitch, using the sign’s pole and my knife to do the appropriate damage.  Rogue Focus’s metapresence dimmed.  Screams of terror and horror and I’m not sure what other emotions echoed around me, some from Lori, some from the fight.  I wasn’t sure why, but Rogue Focus’s cadre of berserker male Transforms, the ones she kept normally down near withdrawal so she could support more male Transforms than normal, who had made this fight far worse than a fight against a normal sized household, well, they all went into peri-withdrawal.  They mindlessly charged the mass of my own people, who had followed my charge.  I found this a good omen, despite the distress of my troops at the enemy charge.

“Carol!  Carol!  Stop!”  Lori had been repeating her words since I started in on Rogue Focus.  She did something to my metasense with one of her juice patterns, twisting my attention elsewhere.  I dropped the no parking sign with it still pleasingly lodged a foot into the Focus’s nether region.  I liked the symbology involved.  “You’re not yourself.”

Look!  Juice!  They weren’t tagged any more, these juicy peri-withdrawal male Transforms.  I barely had time to settle into my stalk before I grabbed one.

His juice came slowly.  “Burn juice into your mind, heal your mind,” Lori said.  She sounded like she was in horrible agony.  I did as she asked, but this form of healing was hard.  The male Transform’s juice came slowly, as if someone was in the way.  He also seemed to have far more juice than he should have.

The healing burn cleared out layer after layer of mental damage.

“You’re feeding me juice!” I said, realization flooding in as I regained my mental capabilities.  Lori remained on my back, and with the mental healing the wonderful metasense synch trick of hers finally kicked in and I could metasense what was going on.  Oooh, juice from a Focus’s juice buffer.  Only it came to me indirect, as she had temporarily tagged my kill and was feeding me the juice through him.  Smart Lori, figuring out I wouldn’t conk out if I got juice slowly.