Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) (7 page)

“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.

Haiku grimaced at the foulness of the gristle dross when he first helped move the cut sludge, dropping his end.  “Grab it like you mean it,” Gilgamesh said.  “This isn’t bad.  The Focus’s rooms will be much worse.” Haiku looked momentarily panicked.  Gilgamesh smiled encouragement.

Haiku took a breath and then clenched his teeth as he grabbed the cut gristle dross. His face twisted and his eyes watered, but he didn’t let go. Gilgamesh nodded approval.

“You’ll make it. Keep going.”

By morning, the household was a cesspool. They had cut apart and moved all the gristle dross out into sunlit areas, where several days of sunshine would do its thing and degrade the dross into nothing.  The cutting stirred up the rest of the dross, a heady mixture of regular and gristle dross that churned restlessly like some sort of rotting swamp, contaminating everything it touched. Gilgamesh felt foul and bloated with the poison of it. As a Crow, he lived off dross, and usually dross was good, but this dross was far past usable.  They needed to clean the rest out, and each of the three Crows would do their part, sucking down the muck as if they were gathering useful dross.

“Are you dealing with this crap all right?” Sky asked Haiku. Haiku was sweating and shaky, but he was still here.

“I’ll make it,” he said, and then dared a question. “You work with
her
, though.  How can you stand to be so close to her?”  Focus Rizzari.

Sky looked up from where he was attempting to scrape out a nasty little mess in the ventilation system.

“It’s a matter of choosing your risks,” Sky said. Choosing risks was a concept all Crows understood. “All Major Transforms are dangerous.  However, some Focuses are easier to deal with than others, and at least most Focuses understand the benefits of working with a Crow, and won’t abuse us.”

Haiku shook his head, unwilling to believe. “But you aren’t even hiding from
the Focus
. I hear you even
live
with her.”  He turned to Gilgamesh.  “And I hear you even deal in person with an
Arm
!”

Gilgamesh nodded. He refrained from mentioning just how ‘in person’ he dealt with Tiamat, or how Sky
lived
with Lori.

“But she’s a
predator
. It’s crazy to deal with her at all.”

“As Sky said, it’s a matter of choosing risks,” Gilgamesh said. “I make myself valuable to her. If I’m going to live near a predator, I’d like her to be more interested in protecting me than killing me.”

Haiku shook his head, unable to understand the idea that someone might choose to work with a predator. Gilgamesh leaned forward toward him.

“It sounds odd because it’s different,” Gilgamesh said. “But it works. We share the same enemies.”

“Interesting.  I’m going to need to think about this,” Haiku said, turning away from them and working on sucking down yet another clump of foul dross.

Sky gave Gilgamesh a thumbs-up sign.  Slowly, one Crow at a time, they were growing the Cause.

Can’t Handle Slippery

“Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.” – Alexis de Toqueville

Tonya Biggioni: September 1, 1972

Tonya Biggioni stepped out of the back seat of her car to face the menacing gate.  The gate was eight feet of layered chain link fence, topped with loops of barbed wire.  Beyond the gate was a second chain link fence, again topped with barbed wire, and then a Focus household.  Delia and Mark Otwell joined her, formally attending her a half-step behind, and deathly silent.

“Focus Biggioni,” Tonya said.  “Focus Schrum is expecting me.”

The guard studied her, silent, and slowly opened the gate, just wide enough for them to pass.  Tonya nodded, pretending he had showed her the courtesy due her station.

Tonya knew from experience not to use her metasense while visiting Suzie Schrum’s compound, but even so, a bad-juice headache began its low throb at the base of her skull.  Bad juice always choked the place, and Tonya never understood how Suzie lived here, much less passed juice to her people.  The question would remain unresolved again today.  Again, Tonya wouldn’t dare to ask.

“I hate this place,” Delia said, as they passed up the dirt driveway, between seedy trailers and mobile homes.  As Tonya’s personal aide and representative, she spoke for Tonya when Tonya couldn’t be present herself.

No children played among the lodgings of this household, not ever.  The people here hadn’t been young fourteen years ago, when they helped lead the first Focus’s escape from Quarantine.  Now old, they glared at Tonya with cold eyes from under their dirty and worn metal trailer awnings.  Many of them had large dogs at their feet, dogs as contaminated by bad juice as everything else in this place.  The dogs growled at Tonya and her people.

Suzie Schrum was one of the eighteen surviving first Focuses, one of the nine who ruled the other first Focuses, and using Focuses like Tonya, ruled all the Focuses in the United States.  Of the nine, four were members of the inner circle, and Suzie was one of those as well, second only in political power to their leader, Focus Shirley Patterson of Pittsburgh.

“Pretend otherwise,” Tonya said.  Harsh, but this was no time for weakness.

Suzie Schrum owned Tonya.  She knew Tonya’s little secrets, and a few secrets that weren’t so little.  The things Tonya once did to keep her household afloat, in the early years.  The harsher things done because she could, back when she didn’t know any better.  Suzie had been willing to keep everything a secret.  All Tonya needed to do was take Suzie’s orders.

At first, the relationship had been symbiotic.  Tonya did what Suzie wanted, and in exchange, Tonya got political power.  Tonya became the Northeast Region Council Representative because of Suzie Schrum.

Three years ago, though, Tonya had changed sides.  Tonya was the Cause’s mole now, and she only pretended to be Suzie’s loyal servant.  Officially, the Cause advocated technological advance and cooperation among the various forms of Major Transforms.  Radical, but at least an arguable viewpoint.

Unofficially, the leadership of the Cause worked to throw the first Focuses out of power – including Suzie Schrum.  Keeping Tonya’s secret agenda secret was a dangerous business.  She was as glad to be here in Suzie’s White Plains compound as she would be glad to eat bugs and worms.

Suzie’s own dilapidated doublewide trailer sat near the center of her compound, a beat up beast with a porch that sagged at one end.  Tonya ascended the two creaking stairs, and the guard whistled and knocked.  In an ordinary household, the whistle wouldn’t be necessary, but in an ordinary household the Focus would be able to metasense her visitors.  Another pair of growling dogs guarded the porch, Dobermans this time, a matched set.

The East Region Focuses often spoke of a rumor, about a pit under Suzie’s trailer.  A place she would put Focuses who displeased her, where she let her dogs gnaw on them.  Most of the East Region Focuses thought this an exaggeration, a tall tale.

Tonya knew otherwise.  From personal experience.

“Sit,” Suzie said when Tonya and Delia entered.  Mark stayed outside.  Procedure.  Tonya sat.  Delia didn’t sit.  She stood behind Tonya and didn’t move.

Suzie sat behind a hard-used WWII vintage metal desk.  Five telephones sat on top of the desk, along with piles of papers and manila folders.

Papers and folders filled the entire living room of the trailer.  Also books, ledgers, and coffee cans filled with office supplies.  Shelves of raw pine lined the walls, those too piled high with papers.  No one else was in the room.

“I want some answers about Amy Haggerty,” Suzie said.  She was a thin woman with colorless hair and colorless eyes.  Suzie would possess the usual Focus beauty if she bothered, but Tonya hadn’t seen Suzie even try in the last five years.  Suzie wore her light brown hair tightly back in a bun, and her clothes were always conservative and shapeless.

With a start, Tonya realized Lori Rizzari was the same way about her appearance.  Fanatics, the both of them.  She was briefly fervently glad that at least her ally in the Cause didn’t share Suzie’s darkness.

“What about Amy Haggerty?” Tonya said.  Courtesy among Focuses meant Suzie should make small talk first.  Offer Tonya some food.  Ask about her household.  Tonya ignored the inescapable insult.

“What about?  It’s about what the hell that idiot is doing!  I thought we had a leash on those Arms.  Instead, she’s
killed
someone, one of our Network people!  She wasn’t even subtle about the murder.  She just waltzed into the Albany FBI office like she had every right to be there and blew his brains out.  She’s got Claunch spitting nails.”  Suzie said the last with the barest hint of a smile.  Michelle Claunch was the first Focus who ran the Network, and a political opponent of both Suzie and Tonya.

“There’s some infighting going on with the Arms,” Tonya said.  Arm Bass had used one of the Network’s friendly FBI agents to track down the Commander, in an attempt to kill her and Focus Daumarie of New Orleans.  Amy Haggerty, the Commander’s current boss, took offense and removed the traitor from existence.  In Lori’s words.

“Infighting?”

“I don’t know the details, but you know how it gets among us Focuses when tempers start running hot.”  Tonya shifted uneasily in the rickety wooden chair and wondered why Suzie had bothered to summon her here.  This particular issue was a distraction.  “Then double or quadruple the heat.  These are Arms, remember.  The idea of the Arms going through channels on an internal Arm issue is ludicrous.”  Tonya didn’t particularly appreciate being stuck defending the insufferable workaholic Haggerty, or any of the Arms for that matter.  If she never had to deal with another Arm in person, that would be a day to celebrate.

“Freelancing’s simply anarchy.  The Council’s good at policing the Network.  The Arms should let us handle the Network problems.”

Tonya nodded.  “I agree with you and I’m angry about it myself.  I’ve heard their point of view, though.  They think we’re too slow.”

Suzie shrugged.  “Hotheads.  Idiots.  Well, what’s done is done, and the Network is Claunch’s problem.  If she can’t keep a leash on her people, I’m not going to shed any tears over them.”  Suzie paused.  “If you want to be useful, you could figure out how to re-establish your control over the damned Arms.  I’m not happy with the job Rodriguez is doing.”

Arms represented power to Suzie, and Suzie wanted power in whatever form she could find it.  Tonya thought Suzie was dreaming if she thought she was going to regain control of the Arms, especially since Focus Lupe Rodriguez’s first Focus backer, Donna Fingleman, was yet another inner circle first Focus, and not one who often agreed with either Suzie or Tonya.  Unfortunately, little details like feasibility never interfered with Suzie’s dreams.  “Consider this a new job assignment.”

“I’ll certainly do my best,” Tonya said.  And while she was working on that, she could throw snowballs in hell, too.  Tonya didn’t ask any questions about her new assignment, purposely leaving it as vague as possible.  Vagueness allowed more wiggle room on the impossible task, on any impossible task.

Suzie reached over to a stack of manila folders that sat on the shelf behind her and grabbed the top one.  She dropped it on her desk with a coffee-can rattling bang and opened it up.  “Claudia Francher is running a chop shop dealing in stolen cars.”

“What?” Tonya said, trying hurriedly to remember who the hell Claudia Francher was.  Tonya headed the Focus organization responsible for mentoring newly transformed Focuses, and as part of that, she monitored hundreds of young Focuses.

“Why did I learn that from someone other than you?”

Tonya closed her eyes and forced a juice pattern into being through the miasma of bad juice.  The effort felt as if she was driving an ice pick into her brain, but the pattern did allow her to summon up the memories of her notes on Claudia Francher.  Yes, she did know about Claudia’s chop shop operation.  Claudia’s mentor was an old friend of Lori Rizzari’s.  Lori swore her friend could be trusted.

“Suzie, as far as I remember, Claudia was completely clean,” Tonya said.  Claudia was a young Focus up in Boston, competent and gutsy.  Tonya hadn’t passed the information on Claudia’s blackmail handles up to the first Focuses.  Protecting young Focuses from the first Focuses was one of the things Tonya did to advance the Cause.

“You sure?” Suzie asked.

Tonya nodded.  “I catch most of the information about the young Focus’s troubles, but I can’t catch everything.  I do thank you for letting me know about this one.  I’ll follow up and get you the full information immediately.”  Tonya had hoped to protect Claudia, but that was a lost cause now, and Tonya needed to cut her losses.  Everything she found out about Claudia would go straight to Suzie after this.

“You should have known this,” Suzie said.

“Yes.  That’s my mistake.”

Suzie looked Tonya up and down.  “You’re capable of doing better.  Do you think my orders are no longer a priority?”

Damn, Tonya didn’t let herself say.  There were far too many ways that Suzie could make Tonya and her household pay for screwing up.  Sweat began to pool on Tonya’s lower back.

“No, no, not at all.  Let me get the information on Claudia for you, and I’ll certainly put more effort into making sure I don’t miss anything.”  She would need to feed Suzie something juicy soon, perhaps the Focus up in Maine and her smuggling tricks.

“I would hate to think you’re not giving me your best effort.”

“So would I.  I always try to do my best for you and for all the first Focuses.”

Suzie patted the tall stack of manila folders.  “Then why do I have an entire stack of folders like Claudia’s?”

Tonya paled.  The stack loomed, over a dozen high.  By numbers, the stack covered more than a third of the young Focuses Tonya withheld information on.  A dozen young Focuses who would now find themselves under the thumb of the first Focuses.  Someone had betrayed the Focuses.  More immediately, someone had betrayed Tonya.

She was dead.

Suzie smiled.  “This information came from a group of someones who say ‘they watch’. 
Them.
  I think you’ve made some unfortunate enemies, Tonya.”

The Crows.  Again!  “Fortunately for you,” Suzie continued, “I despise their scheming guts and I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of taking you down.”  Suzie smiled, and Tonya’s skin crawled.  “Your Cause is looking an awful lot like a lost cause, though, when you can’t even keep your allies from pointing out your mistakes.”

Tonya nodded and answered with real anger.  “I see your point about those watchers.”  Damn Haggerty and the thrice-damned Eskimo Spear!  Things had worked so much better when the Cause had been able to work in secret.

“In any case,” Suzie said, “I’m going to levy a fine of a thousand dollars per folder.  Fourteen thousand dollars, and I expect to see the cash within a week.  I’ve made you a copy of each folder, and I expect you to follow up on each one and report exactly what’s going on.”

“Thank you, ma’am.  I appreciate your forbearance.  I’ll get started on this immediately.”  Fourteen thousand dollars was a lot of money, but Tonya’s household was in good financial shape these days.

“
I’m not done yet
,” Suzie said, in a voice like ice, and Tonya froze.  “When you work for me, I expect you to give me your best effort.  You seem to have forgotten what
working for me
means.”

Tonya opened her mouth to give some false and reassuring response.  After looking at Suzie’s cold face, she decided not to.

“Come with me,” Suzie said.  She led Tonya and Delia down the narrow trailer hallway, while Tonya’s stomach did flip-flops.  She couldn’t help remembering the time when the Commander told the entire Focus Council what she thought of the Focuses’ betrayal during the Clearing of Chicago.  Suzie had held Tonya responsible for the Commander’s words.  That was the time Suzie tossed Tonya into the pit.  She still had nightmares about those few hours.

Suzie opened the door to a small bedroom and led Tonya and Delia in.  The smell of the room was foul and odd dark spots spattered the walls.  A man lay tied to the bed.  He was an ordinary-looking man, in his forties, and he gave his Focus a passionless gaze.