The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) (12 page)

Gail nodded, sharply.

Sky’s eyes remained narrow in anger.  “This afternoon, while I was spending time with a most attractive young lady of Inferno, I picked up the signature of an Attack Focus driving toward Littleside.  Ah, you likely do not know what an Attack Focus is.  Attack Focuses are a development of one of our targets, Focus Adkins.  We thought her Attack Focus program shut down, her Attack Focuses ahem reprogrammed ahem into being normal Focuses, many years ago.  Sadly, mademoiselle Focus, we were wrong.”

Gail stared at Sky, boggling at his long-winded explanation in the middle of a crisis.  His eyes never lost their narrow fury as he continued.

“In any event, I hit the alarm bells and signaled to
The Focus
and Arm Hancock that Littleside was about to be attacked.  They didn’t make it here in time to save you; no, gracious lady, you and your household managed to save yourselves from the Attack Focus and her thugs.  Most impressive.  Attack Focuses aren’t to be sneered at.  All of you, and your people, stopped an Attack Focus leading thirty-some thugs, each with various juice pattern support.  See?  Advanced bodyguard training is worth it, after all.”

Lori snarled in impatience while Beth ignored Sky and watched Lady Death with a terrified stare, mumbling pleas for mercy.  Sky nodded at Lori and brought himself back to the point.  “On the other hand, there was a dangerous parallel going on, one you would need to understand Focus Adkins’s history to anticipate.  A parallel to the Arm Flap, and the rescue of Arm Hancock from the CDC.  Alas, my knowledge of Adkins is far greater than I would like it to be, because of many past, um, experiences, and I was able to find the gasoline tanker truck she planned to use to blow Littleside into ashes.  Luckily, I found the tanker before it arrived.  The tanker didn’t surprise Carol; the fact the enemy specifically torched Gomorrah, Carol’s mission RV, meant this was a revenge mission.  The results of the tanker truck fight should be self-evident: the truck didn’t make it to the loading docks, but did make it to Littleside property and did explode.

“I thought the job too slick, and mentioned my fear to
The Focus
, just before she went to cope with what little remained of Arm Hancock. 
The Focus
ordered me to scan for spotters and traitors, and low and behold, I found one.  Someone who planned this attack didn’t take the Crow Sky and his ability to read deeply hidden emotions into account.  To cut the story shorter than I would like to tell, I found one of Focus Hargrove’s tagged Transforms acting as a spotter.  I apprehended the miscreant, knocked him out with Crow tricks I don’t advertise, and marched him back to
The Focus
.  Sadly, by such time,
The Focus
was in her healing trance, but I knew the emergency code words to awaken her.

“As to the tableau in front of you, Madame Rickenbach-Schuber, I believe that my gracious lady Rizzari, Lady Death, suspects Focus Hargrove is a traitor.  I have strong suspicions, myself.”

“She couldn’t be!” Gail said.  “She’s my friend.”  The room went deathly quiet except for Beth’s pleas, and Lady Death caught Gail’s eyes.  Her word wasn’t going to be enough.  “Please?”

Hell, if Beth was a traitor, Gail wanted to do the job, herself.  She had never thought of herself as bloodthirsty, but there it was, laid out before her. Anger.  Gail just couldn’t make herself believe Beth was a traitor.  Beth’s pleading became even weaker, reduced to just repeating ‘anything’.

“Beth, answer me!” Gail said.  She had never hit her friend with her real charisma.  Beth folded, instantly.  “Were you working for Focus Adkins?”

“Nah nah, uh, no,” Beth said.  Lori didn’t interfere, but instead gently grabbed Beth’s chin and held it up to meet Lori’s eyes.  Just like Carol when she interrogated.  To Gail’s surprise, Lady Death’s charisma felt just the same as Carol’s predator.  Beth’s heart skipped beats, and she blubbered piteously.  “No!”

“Did you know or suspect Focus Adkins had suborned any of your Transforms or normals?” Gail said.

“No!” Beth said.

“Has Focus Adkins suborned your people before?”

“Three normals, over the years.  I check on all my people as close as I can.  I got rid of all three, one of them just before I fled Detroit.”

Gail and Lady Death locked gazes.  With a start, Gail realized that her own charisma was an image of Carol’s predator as well, to match Lady Death’s.  What did this make Gail?  She wasn’t sure.  Lady Hard-to-Kill, perhaps?

“The tagged Transform who Adkins’ turned must die, of course,” Gail said.  A part of her inside shrieked at her own words.  The part of her that thought no one ever deserved death.

The part of her that faded fast.

“However, does Beth need to die?”

“Huh,” Lady Death said, her voice barely audible.  “She’s just been soft and stupid.  If I killed all the Focuses who’ve been soft and stupid in their careers, we’d have very few Focuses left, and I wouldn’t be one of them.”  She took her hand off Beth’s chin, and Beth fainted, drawing herself into a fetal ball.  “If she’s going to be part of this mess, we need to toughen this one up.”

Mumble mumble lick lick.  Carol still worked on John’s spine.  “I know, but you’re going to need to tag her anyway, Carol,” Gail said.

More mumbling.  Lori giggled at Carol’s profane response, Lady Death gone from her face.  Then Lori passed out again, into Sky’s arms.

“Gracious ladies, please.  None of you are taking proper care of yourselves.”  Sky frowned at Gail, plaintively, as he said that.  Me?  Gail took stock of herself, and realized she had lost a bit more blood than was healthy, her heart beat funny, her skin was dead pale, and she hadn’t taken in any fluids or food to replenish her blood supply.  There was more to healing than closing wounds and stitching together muscle.  That would teach her about the consequences of lying about battle damage, as well as depending on her uncanny ability to function in a normal fashion while badly wounded.  Lady Hard-To-Kill indeed.

“Here.”  Someone shoved a cold meatball grinder into her hands.  She ripped off the plastic wrap, and started to eat.  Standard Zielinski refrigerator food.  She turned to her benefactor, and saw the back of Dr. Zielinski, walking over to Carol with a tub of steaming raw hamburger. 
Yuck!

Perfectly good Arm food, though.  Gail suspected some warm hamburger might do her some good as well.

Carol sat up and wiped her mouth, finished healing John’s neck.  “That’ll do the spine.  He’s going to need a transfusion, Hank.”

“On it,” Dr. Zielinski said, and rustled in a team to immobilize John and get him on a gurney.  “You did a hell of a job, people,” Zielinski said.  “No household deaths.  However, we’ve got media and police, so if you Major Transform types could do me a favor and make yourselves scarce…”

“She doesn’t get to tag me,” Carol said, mumbling around a mouthful of raw hamburger as she shed blackened skin and walked into the tunnel system under Littleside that led to their emergency exits.  “Not Hargrove.  No way.  Never ever ever.  I don’t care how friendly you are to her, Gail…”

Carol Hancock: December 17 – 18, 1972

I didn’t bother with a disguise.  The lack of hair and the crispy charred bits of skin still falling from my body, the oozing burn damage underneath, and the gasoline odor still clinging to me would be misdirection enough.

“People,” I said.  They turned and saw me for the first time, and the lot of them backed away in terror.  From their perspective, I had just appeared out of a seemingly magical invisibility.  Luckily, none of them were armed, or this might have gotten stupid.  “This place of yours, this storefront church, you’re using it as a mundane meeting room as well?”  These were my Church of the New Humanity people, and they didn’t know they were mine, as I never appeared in front of them as an Arm, only as Angela Sebesta, a woman Transform and somewhat unhinged religious visionary.  Angela appeared nothing like I did now.  Angela slouched when she walked and dressed the way your immigrant grandmother did in the gay 90s.

“Ma’am, yes,” an older man said.  “Several evenings a week.”

“You are?” I asked, though I already knew both his names.

“Here, I’m Crow Dusk.”

“You aren’t a Crow.”

“I’m an Appointed Crow.  That’s the way we do things here.”

I rolled my eyes in feigned disgust.  “The world has enough Crows already without someone needing to fake being one,” I said.  Lying.  The ‘appointed Major Transform’ thing was my idea.

“Ma’am, if there’s a problem…”

I interrupted him.  “Who’s the real boss, here?”

A younger man wearing a worn yet conservative suit raised his hand.  His hand shook, and needed washing.  “I am.  I’m Reverend Louis Michnik.”

“Are you a real minister, or are you just appointed, like this supposed Crow.”

“I am, or was, until I got disgusted with my old denomination, which…”  I chopped my hand to cut him off; I knew as Angela that Michnik could prattle on for hours about absolutely nothing.

“You need to move out of Chicago,” I said.  My predator effect was full on, now, and the lot of them cowered in terror, as far away from me as they could scramble.  “Look at me.”  They did.  How could they not?  “Earlier today, my enemies staged an attack on a place I consider mine.  I barely survived.  I allowed you to stay in my city, as I think your group is sort of cute, but my enemies are going to go after anything that even hints of being mine, and that includes your group.  I don’t have the resources to protect you.”

Their expressions turned from terror to horror, but in the face of my predator, they didn’t say anything.  “You don’t need to go far.  Milwaukee would be fine.”  I would slip them some money so they could survive.  “Consider this another piece in your ongoing spiritual transformation.  Every Transform goes through something similar to what you are about to go through; your people should do so as well.”

They nodded, as this did fit with what some of their group already said, if you define ‘some’ as my tamer alter ego, Angela.  With any amount of luck, they would regroup in Milwaukee as a proper Transform household would.

I wasn’t sure, though.  They might need more prods.

I would provide.  Eventually.

---

“So what did we learn from the Littleside attack?” I said.  I had my entire Arm crew coming by, tomorrow – no, later today – and I wanted to sleep and get juice from Gail and make up with Lori and kiss her into submission.  Eat a prime rib roast.  Finish healing.  Take another shower.  Mourn the loss of my mission RV, Gomorrah, blown to bits by RPG fire during the initial Attack Focus assault.  On purpose, given that nothing else in the parking lot suffered more than surface damage.

Little charred pieces of crispy Carol still wafted from me whenever I moved.  I
refused
to look in a mirror.  Damn, burns hurt like hell.

But, no, I was stuck chairing a goddamned meeting at one in the goddamned morning.  No Hank; the bastard had held out on us until he practically fainted from blood loss from the bullet he took in the fleshy part of his right leg.  That left Gail, Lori, and Sky in the River Room of the Branton.  The room was a comfortable place filled with old overstuffed chairs and littered with miscellaneous newspapers and magazines.  A plate with half of a two-day old cinnamon roll hid behind somebody’s barf-green hand-knitted afghan.  If I didn’t know I was going to get some real Arm food once I finished the damned meeting, that half a roll would already be gone.

“Adkins doesn’t know our real capabilities,” Lori said, slumped down in her chair and half asleep.  A judgment I agreed with.

“Well, I learned prophetic warnings aren’t useful.  Also, having combined households let Lori tag back a wounded Transform of hers that I tagged for support purposes without forcing my tag off,” Gail said.  She remained nervous and hyper-aware, typical for any Major Transform after her first real battle.

“Not unexpected,” I said.  “Patterson has multi-tagged Transforms.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Sky said.  He sat curled in his chair with his arms around his knees, Crow nerves finally catching up with him.  I expected him to start shivering at any moment.  “Now we’re at best only five years behind her.”

“For once, I saw no signs of Bass in the attack,” I said.  “Did any of you?”  Heads shook around the room.  “I guess that’s something.”  Was Adkins the only one of our enemies Bass wasn’t cooperating with?

Gail tapped a well-chipped index fingernail on an end table, loud.  “What was going on out there, anyway?  Why were you letting Carol juice suck you, Lori?”

Lori watched Gail, heavy lidded.  “I had to do something about Carol’s battle damage.  I know a few tricks other Focuses don’t seem to be able to learn.”  Crap.  Here’s Gail putting all this work into learning how to give juice to an Arm, and Lori manages to feed me juice just when she needs to.  I wondered how I would be able to convince Gail that just because Lori could do something didn’t mean any other Focus in the world could duplicate it.  We needed something repeatable, not just another insane Lori Special.

“But what did you
do
?” Gail said.

“I sequestered my fundamental juice so Carol couldn’t get at it.  Then I just gave her a bit of my supplemental juice to get her started, pumped in juice from my juice buffer, and let her go.  I figured I could cut it off when I needed to, and she wouldn’t do any damage because she was only taking supplemental juice.”  Lori grimaced.  “My trick didn’t work.  Carol’s too strong.  She sucked up the juice patterns I was using for the sequestering and drew my fundamental juice anyway.”