The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Three (2 page)

“Let’s talk about this later,” Hank said.  “First off…”

“The Arm didn’t shoot them,” Tonya said, in a whisper.

“Who did, then?”

“Assassination squad, going after me.”

“Or the Arm.”

“How would you know that?  Look at me,” Tonya said.  Hank
turned his eyes to the Focus.  He couldn’t avoid it.  “You’ve met her, haven’t
you?” Tonya said, voice suddenly sugary.  “You met her and didn’t report it to
the Network, you bastard.”

Yes, another bad Biggioni encounter.  His temples
started to pound as she tried to flummox him into ooze.

“She treated me better than she treated you.”  Several
of Tonya’s Transforms murmured and slid toward their Focus, protective; anyone
able to stand up to her verbal sparring was by definition a danger.  “Arms are
juice consumers who must hunt down their victims, and as any, well, predator,
they don’t take well to threats.”  Hank glared back at Tonya, and of all
things, Tonya backed down and looked away.  Yet another correct guess.

“I figured that out, okay,” Tonya said.  “She took my
purse with my Network contact information in it.  Your phone number and mailing
address was in there, too.  She’s too dangerous to work with, Hank.  Look what
she did to me!  She’s a Monster, just like the Monsters I hunt down.  Only…”

“Only she talks and reasons and is likely as smart as
either of us,” Hank finished.  “She has to be, to hunt down Transforms for
their juice and not attract a posse of Focuses after her.  She’s been free now
almost a year, and needs juice every week or two.  How many household Transforms
has she grabbed?  Not many, according to the information available to me.  She’s
hunting, her prey as she terms it, unattached Transforms.”

Behind Hank, the rest of the farmhouse cleared out.  Including
several of Tonya’s so-called bodyguards, who should have been more protective
of their Focus and less worried about their gorges.  Bunch of weak-stomached Transforms. 
Hank wasn’t impressed.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Tonya said.  “The Monster
grabbed one of my Transforms, right in the middle of the fight.  Killed her.  Said
it was recompense, because we killed the Transform who led the attack to us.  Does
her so-called logic make any sense to you?”

“Unfortunately, it does,” Hank said.  “Once an Arm has
fixated on a Transform she’s going to take juice from, she can’t back off.  At
least the Arms
I’ve
known.”  Emphasis, there.  He was the Arm expert,
she wasn’t.

“Monsters,” Tonya said.  “Inhuman things.  Animals.”

“All the Major Transforms I’ve seen work very close to
the level of basic instinct,” Hank said, shooting Tonya a rather pointed glance. 
She made a moue at him, acknowledging the hit.  Behind him, the squeaking of
dolly wheels announced the arrival of Dr. Kepke and Hank’s trunk.  “Let’s set
up the fold-up stretcher as our impromptu operating table,” he said to his
assistant.  “Over here, right next to the Focus.”

“You’re going to operate
here
?” Dr. Kepke asked.

“What options do I have?” Hank said.  “What hospital,
even Harvard Medical, would allow a Focus into the operating room to assist the
surgeon?  The only way either of these surgeries will succeed is with the
Focus’s help.  Her metasense, Frank, is what’s going to make this possible.”

Frank took a quick look at Tonya, quailed, and pointedly
turned away.  “That’s why any doctor who’s going to operate on Transforms needs
to become comfortable with Focuses and their charisma,” Hank said, as he started
to sterilize his equipment.

“He may be an arrogant jerk, but at least he’s a
competent arrogant jerk,” Tonya said, to no one in particular.

Hank smiled at the like minds think alike moment, but
decided not to comment.  Instead, he immediately got to work, for he foresaw this
would be a rather long set of operations.

Last up was Tonya herself, and when they finally worked
the sheet off her, and cut off her dress, Dr. Kepke ran for the door and
vomited.  Someone in this shape should have the sheet going the other way, over
her head, toe tagged and ready for autopsy.

“Focuses can survive a hell of a lot worse than this,”
Hank said, over his shoulder to Frank, tsk tsking at the damage the Arm did to
Tonya.

“A little worried, Hank?” Tonya said, still
conversational, despite the pain of her condition.  “If Keaton had done this to
you, where would you be?”

“Comatose, in shock, and fighting for my life,” Hank
said, looking at Tonya’s legs, twisted into pretzels by the Arm.  Her skin had
already healed around the bones sticking out of her body.  “Ten hours
untreated, with four compound fractures, and with all the dirt and crap ground
into the wounds like this, I’d be facing four amputations due to incipient
gangrene.  If I hadn’t bled to death already.”  Hank paused and examined Tonya’s
wounds again.  No, he wouldn’t survive an attack of this nature, and Keaton’s
extravagance was worth worrying about.  Glory would be chiding him about bad
dreams for months due to this.  “To fix your arms and legs, Tonya, I’m going to
have to rebreak the bones and rupture the new skin your Focus healing
created.”  Another pause, after realizing what he hadn’t been seeing.  “You
must be starving, Tonya.”  Healing of this magnitude took a lot of food to sustain.

“I’ve been wounded like this before, Hank, and I believe
you were the one who told me to lay off the eating to avoid setting in the
damage.”

“You overdid it this time, Tonya,” Hank said.  The
hunger control evidenced here was more than impressive.  He hadn’t realized any
of the Focuses possessed such an insane level of self-control.  “Your body’s
been cannibalizing your major organs and muscles.”

“You mean I can eat?”

“Yes, starting now.  Fluids, too.”  Hank turned to Focus
Abernathy, who had crept back in during the first of the surgeries, unable to
resist the instinctive call to help a Focus in need.  She had helped Hank
immeasurably, holding down Tonya’s Transforms when they started to thrash in
their comas during the surgery.  Because of the manual labor involved in her
farm work, Abernathy was as strong as an Arm of similar mass, or so he
suspected.  Warned by previous bad experiences, Hank hadn’t given Tonya’s Transforms
anything more than topical pain killers – total anesthesia shut down a
Transform’s juice-based metabolic maintenance system, an often fatal occurrence. 
The woman Transform patient might have lived through anesthesia, but the
gutshot bodyguard would have died.  Nor could he anesthetize Tonya – both
Focuses and Arms had such vigorous juice-based metabolisms they resisted any
painkillers, even the topicals, with relative ease.

“Marcia, could you rustle up some high calorie food for
Tonya.  Milk, too.”

She nodded and rushed off.

“You’re going to have a patient eating during surgery?” Dr.
Kepke asked.

Hank nodded.  “You’re in for a show, Frank.  Surgery on
a Focus is nothing like you’ve ever seen or imagined.  Pain killers don’t work,
for one.”

“God.”

“Luckily, Tonya here is a master at pain control.”

“Not exactly true,” Tonya said, grabbing at the first
plate of food that Focus Abernathy brought in, and stuffing cold leftover tuna
casserole into her mouth without bothering with the silverware.  “I feel the
pain,” she said, around a mouthful of food, “but I’ve taught myself not to let
it affect me.  It’s the pain responses which will cause all the big problems.”

“Inhuman,” Dr. Kepke said, his voice low.

“How are you going to deal with my legs, anyway?” Tonya
asked, repeating an earlier question and ignoring Dr. Kepke.  Her question gave
Dr. Zielinski a good reading on the Focus’s juice level.  All Focuses exhibited
significant short-term memory issues when their juice levels got too low. 
Tonya would be aghast at her slip; he larded it away for their next verbal
sparring session.  “It doesn’t appear you’re going to amputate, which is what I
feared needed to happen.  I wasn’t looking forward to a year and a half of leg
regeneration.”

Frank turned green, as Hank got a bone saw and a hammer
out of the trunk.  “I’m going to rebreak them, then I’ll use metal plates and
screws to put them back in place.  You might want to tell Frank and Marcia here
some of your Monster hunting stories.”  Hank paused, at Tonya’s frown.  “Consider
that an order, Mrs. Biggioni,” he said, in his commanding voice.  “You’re going
to need all the distractions we can arrange.”

Tonya nodded and started to talk.

Hank swung the hammer.

“So, why do you have me walking around like this?” Tonya
said.  Monday evening fast approached, though the grey cloud deck muted the
effect.  Hank held Tonya’s elbow, quite gentlemanly, and tried to ignore the
hostile and awestruck ring of bodyguards around him as he led Tonya around
Focus Abernathy’s farm.

“Focuses heal too fast for any sort of bed rest to help. 
Don’t forget that in addition to the bone damage and soft tissue damage, there
was quite a bit of muscle damage.  You also cannibalized enough of your normal
muscle tissues to make a difference.  In any event, I want you more active than
normal, doing everyday activities, for the next week or two.  Walking,
stooping, lifting light objects.  Normal muscle use.”

Tonya nodded.

“I also wanted to talk to you about Keaton, away from
prying ears.”

Another nod.  “You don’t think we’ve seen the last of
her, do you?” Tonya asked.

Hank nodded.  “Despite our personal differences, Tonya,
I think we’re going to have to cooperate on this issue.”

“I’ll think about it,” Tonya said.  “I’d rather say
‘over my dead body’, but this brings up another question – with the Arm’s
murderous reputation, do you have any idea why she left us alive?”

“I think she’s begging for help.  At least from her predatory
viewpoint.”  Two points made a line and all that.  “I’m guessing she decided
she can’t survive alone.”

“Well, I’m not going to go out of my way to help her,
not after this episode,” Tonya said.  “I’d truthfully rather never run into her
again.”

“I can understand that,” Hank said.  “I don’t believe it’s
going to be up to us, though.”

---

“Zielinski?”

Hank glanced across his office, and waved away Dr. Sellstrom. 
They had been going through a batch of CVs – curriculum vitae, what passed for
resumes among the PhD set – to replace Dr. Kepke, who quit the Transform
program two weeks ago.

“This is my friend from Phoenix, isn’t it?” Hank asked
as Dr. Sellstrom closed the door, though he didn’t recognize the voice.  He
suspected someone had tapped his phone again.  His FBI contact and Focus
Network colleague, Special Agent Tommy Bates, had grilled him for hours just
after his return from his surgical trip to the New York City area to stitch up Tonya
and her people, and Tommy hadn’t been happy to learn about his contact with
Stacy Keaton.

“Oh, you’re good, aren’t you, Dr. Zielinski.  Yes.  It’s
me, hun.  Did the bitch live?”

Tonya.  “Yes.  She wasn’t impressed with your skills in
Celtic knotwork.”

“Huh.  Good.  I’ve tried to get in contact with her, but
her damned phone screeners keep hanging up on me.”

“Try the third number.”  Tonya’s private line.

Pause.  “I’ll do that.  The idiots behind the last
episode made another attempt.  They had some tomato stacked out ready to be
squeezed, and I walked into it like a fucking idiot.”

Whatever Focus caused these troubles – a name he hadn’t
been able to squeeze out of Tonya, no big shock – had set up a prey Transform
as bait for Keaton as a trap, to try to kill her.

“You walked out again, too, I take it,” Hank said, not
quite a question.

“Not without damage, though nothing too serious.  I
stole their professional.”

“I don’t understand,” Hank said.  Professional?

“Another in the same line as tall, dark and snotty.”

Oh, another Monster hunter, as was Tonya.  “One like me,
or one like tall dark and snotty?”  That is, a normal or a Transform.

“Just a guy.”

A normal.  Hank took a deep breath.  “May I ask why you’re
telling me this?”

“Just so that if you see some reports in the newspaper
about someone helping me, you won’t get jealous.  He’s teaching me all the
professional tricks, you see.”

Crap.  Just what the world needed, someone teaching
Keaton about the proper use of modern weaponry.  Keaton was starting to get
serious about long-term survival.  No more fumbling around with pawnshop pistols.

“So, how reliable are the other phone numbers on this
list?” Keaton asked.  “Some of them were a real surprise.”  Ah, the real meat
of the conversation.  She wanted to know which Network people would be safe to
deal with.

“For the moment, avoid the suits,” Hank said.  The Focus
Network had more than a few FBI and police officers helping them – several who
had Transform spouses.  Their opinion of Keaton wasn’t printable.  “The guys in
the white lab coats should be safe.”  Doctors, like him.  “The beautiful ladies
are the big problem, and to make your determinations about them, you’ll need to
talk to tall, dark and snotty.”  Hank didn’t have any idea which Focuses would be
helpful, and which would not, and only Tonya had a chance of answering Keaton’s
question.  “However, most of the white lab coats on your list are going to be
spooked much more easily than I am.”

“Figured that out, Zielinski.  Later.”  Dial tone.

Grendel and Wandering Shade

Élan.

Once dinner possessed élan.  No longer.  Sometimes
dinner lived through losing élan.  Sometimes not.

Willie chomped again, swallowed and licked his lips.  Tasty. 
Downstairs, his Gal, Marcie, gave up on her screaming for the evening.  Unlike
this one, Marcie had lived through his taking her élan.

The television flicked on, all on its own, a blue light
in black darkness.

“Massster?” Willie said, all pins and needles, restless
energy coursing through his lizard body.  He didn’t like being startled.

“Grendel.”

Willie relaxed to the sound of his Master’s voice.  Wandering
Shade had returned and he sounded peeved.  Many things about Willie made his
Master peeved, enough to lead him to name Willie ‘Grendel’.  Willie, not at all
unlearned in his former life, recognized his new name as an insult.

“The hunt wasss a sssuccesss,” Willie said, looking at
his Master, lit by the glow of the television.  As normal, his Master dressed
as a policeman.  He was a policeman in many different police forces.  Willie
had even ridden in his Master’s police car several times, though always in the
back.

Wandering Shade grunted.  “Watch the news.”  Wandering
Shade had been Willie’s Master for the last three months, ever since Willie
transformed.  His Master kept him alive.

Willie looked up from the tasty remains to gaze at the
television and the clock above it.  Twenty-five after.  Time for the California
story.  Sure enough, on the television some fidgety beat reporter talked into a
microphone, next to a doctor, somewhere sunny with mountains behind them.

“Today we have Dr. Lewis Jeffers, Transform Specialist
at the Communicable Disease Center, speaking to us today from Sunnyvale,
California.  Dr. Jeffers, can you tell us the significance of the Hancock
escape from the St. Louis Detention Center?  It’s been fourteen years and we still
have no cure for Transform Sickness.  Why?”

“She essscaped, Massster?” Willie said.  He knew about
Hancock, a fellow Major Transform, one unjustly incarcerated.  Seemed she hurt a
few people by accident on her way out.  Willie sympathized.

“Listen.”

“Transform Sickness has been around for longer than
fourteen years, Dan,” Dr. Jeffers said.  “The media dates the start of
Transform Sickness to the appearance of Anne-Marie Sieurs of Nancy, France, who
transformed in 1952 and became the first Focus, the first able to keep any
Transforms alive.  In reality, Transform Sickness existed before the advent of
Miss Sieurs.  As far as Mrs. Hancock?  Although the FBI calls her an ‘Arm’, to
us doctors she’s nothing more than a Failed Focus, a victim of the mind and body
warping Armenigar’s Syndrome that turns a Focus into a Monster.”

“Undisclosed sources say her escape was an inside job, Dr.
Jeffers, that some of the doctors and nurses caring for her aided in her
flight,” the reporter said.  “Why would anyone help a Monster?”

“I don’t believe she had any inside help,” Dr. Jeffers
said.  “The strength of a transformed victim of Armenigar’s Syndrome cannot be
underest…”

The television flicked off, returning the room to a
darkness broken only by the distant city lights of Missoula.  Willie saw nearly
as well in darkness as he did in daylight.  As did his Master.

“Aww, Massster, it wasss just getting interesssting.  Thisss
Hancock soundsss cute.”  A woman Major Transform who understood his urges.  Wouldn’t
that be something?

“Cute?  Think, Willie, what do you know about Arms?” Wandering
Shade said.  Quick as lighting and without a sound he sat on a couch on the far
side of the room.

“Well, jussst what you’ve taught me, Massster.  They’re
juice consumersss and hunt down men and women Transformsss.”

“And you?”

“Well, I hunt men and women Transformsss as well, but I
consume their élan, not their juice.”  He paused to think, difficult for him
now.  He had lost so much when he transformed.  With work, he figured out his
Master’s puzzle.  “The Arm bitchesss are our compet… pet… petitorsss?”  Even if
they consumed different substances, they still pursued the same prey.

“Yes.”

“Damn.”  Willie hissed, and went back to his chomping.  Hunting
was hard enough without competition.  Although Transform Sickness had existed
for quite a while, as Dr. Jeffers said, it generated few victims.  “Massster, I
need more Gals.  Thisss one,” he nosed the prone body which bled all over the
Master’s polished oak floor, “didn’t make it.”

“She didn’t survive your initial élan draw because you
didn’t follow my suggestions,” Wandering Shade said.  “Which, alas, I’m going
to have to do something about, my dear Grendel.”

Willie shivered.  He hated the punishment.  “At leassst
let me finisssh.”  The punishment, the altering of his Master’s Law inside him,
was extremely painful and always knocked him out.

The punishment had benefits, though.  The Law kept
Willie from becoming a mindless beast.

Wandering Shade nodded and Willie tried to nod back,
difficult because he was far too much the lizard these days.  He stood slightly
under seven feet tall, had smooth hairless gray-green scaly skin and a short
stubby tail.  His hands and feet were now almost two feet long, and his
original-sized fingers ended in razor sharp claws.  His face had elongated a
little, though he didn’t have a muzzle.  Although his nose had shrunk to mere
nostril openings, he still retained his human ears, which he thought odd.  His
penis?  That hadn’t gone lizard.  That had grown larger.  Willie was proud of
his penis.  “Isss sssomething elssse wrong, massster?”  Wandering Shade wasn’t
normally so harsh.

“There’s another like you now, Grendel,” his Master said. 
No, not harsh.  Bothered.

“Like me?  You’ve massstered another beassst?”

“No.  Another Master has mastered another Beast.  I
didn’t think he had it in him.”

“An enemy?”  The thought excited Willie.  “Someone to
fight?”  Willie liked to fight.  A lot.

“We’ll see.  Not yet.”  Wandering Shade chuckled.  “As
long as this new Master and his beastly charge don’t interfere with my
plans…well, then he’s my friend, isn’t he, Grendel?”  His Master let loose a
low and scary laugh.

“Yesss.”  Too bad.  Willie’s fighting fantasies fled his
mind.  He calmed himself, which took work, as well as several more chomps of
his dinner.

“Once I fix you up with some new Laws, we’re going to go
east, where the hunting is more advantageous,” Wandering Shade said.  “I think
I can better preserve your intellect if I can keep you in more élan, which
means more Gals.  I think more Gals will survive if I can keep you smarter.”

“Not the cccity landsss again?”  The city lands stank!

“The cities are where the Transforms are.”  Wandering
Shade stood and paced.  “For some unknown reason, the middle Mississippi Valley
area is crawling with Transforms.  We oppressed male Transforms have to learn
to stick together.  If we can unify we might be able to change the moronic
domineering system the back-stabbing Focus bitches put together and get
ourselves some justice.  Get ourselves some proper notice, something outside of
the check-out counter tabloids.  Hell, I just read a poll that rated interest
in Transform Sickness down between Dutch Elm disease and Alewives in the Great
Lakes.”  He got to the far edge of the room and paced back.  “If no one else
will take this stand, I might have to.  How very revolutionary!  I’ll…”

Willie tuned out his Master’s oft-repeated rant and went
back to his meal.  He hammered his bony hand down upon the side of the barely
post-pubescent girl Transform’s hours-dead head, shattering it.  He began to
scoop out and eat what sat inside the skull, a delicacy he greatly enjoyed.

Willie always appreciated brains.

---

The woman on Grendel’s shoulder had given up on her yelling,
pawing and crying miles ago.  Because of her he ran on threes, not fours.  Up
ahead, his abandoned farmhouse stood in the brushy bottomland south of Memphis. 
He climbed the two steps of the porch, brushed aside the wooden door attached
to the doorjamb by only one hinge, and turned sideways to enter.  Home.  It
stank just the way it should.  His Gals howled in the basement below, just as
they should when they heard him enter.  He got the keys.

However, he had run for too long and even a beast like
him needed to rest occasionally.  He dropped the woman on the floor of the
living room and spread out on the couch.  The springs wept under his weight.

“What do you want from me?” the new Gal said, her voice
soft and nervous.  She was an old one, early fifties perhaps, her brown hair
streaked with gray.  She was short, a little bit dumpy, but old laugh lines
creased her face, which held a kind of comforting wisdom, even when she was terrified
half out of her mind.  Her juice, not yet élan, glowed richly virgin, untouched
by a Focus.  He figured she had a few more weeks to go before she became a
Monster.

“You’re a Transssform, and when you become a Monssster
I’m going to take your élan,” Grendel said.

“Me?  The Shakes?” the woman said.  She tried to skitter
away, but in the pitch-black darkness, she didn’t get any farther than the wall
six feet from Grendel’s couch.  “I’m too old.”

“Don’t run and you won’t get hurt,” Grendel said.  “I’m
getting better.  I haven’t lost a new Gal this month.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Perhapsss,” he said, amused by this Gal’s spunk.  “You’re
going to be one of my Gals.”

Now he expected her to make a break for freedom,
screaming into the night.  “Monster?  If I have a Focus, I won’t become a
Monster.”

She knew the basics.  Good.  “You don’t need a Focusss,
you’ve got me.  When you become a Monster your juice becomes élan, my special
treat.  I take that” and fuck you, but he didn’t want to say that yet “and you
get to live.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad,” she said.  As
coincidence would have it, the Gals in the basement decided to get in a few
howls, and the new Gal curled up on the floor, hugging herself, hands over her
ears.  “What was that?” she asked, when the howling ceased.

“Oh, that’s just the Gals in the basement.”

That did it.  Grendel had to leap and catch the new Gal
before she ran away or got herself killed by her panic.  Now the Law said he
should put the new Gal in the basement.  He unlocked the basement door, and she
kicked and screamed and panicked all the way down the stairs.

The basement wasn’t a welcoming place.  Marcie was the
worst.  She had gone Monster three times and he had a sweet spot for her.  She
was a virgin, of course, but more, she seemed to be taking some pattern from
him.  She grew gray-green scales like his, but with a few little brown spots on
them.  Her face was becoming elongated like a snake, and her teeth had fallen
out to reveal the beginnings of fresh points coming in, fangs, mirroring the
ones he had.  Unfortunately, her mind held nothing but mindless fury and wild
insanity.  He would have to kill her next time.

Juanita had gone Monster once, thus explaining the slimy
skin and rubbery bones.  She produced an overpowering rank odor, enough to be
noticeable even through the normal cesspool reek of the basement.  Her eyes had
become layered in slime and Grendel suspected she had gone blind.  In the
darkness of the basement blindness didn’t matter, of course, but softening
bones and slime would likely be a problem.  He suspected she would be able to
slip his chains and ties by the second time she went Monster, and he wouldn’t
be able to hold her anymore.  He would have to kill her then.

His third, Estelle, hadn’t gone Monster yet, but she was
still a bitch.  She had been a bitch ever since he stole her from that Focus
household in Salt Lake.  Nasty, nasty, nasty.  Grendel thought he might let her
steep in her élan a little extra time when she went Monster.  The longer she
stewed, the more she would hurt.  Going Monster hurt a lot.

The new Gal’s protests inflamed all three Gals, although
if any of them could see each other Grendel knew the fury would be worse.  He
beat his way past the Monster Gals and their mindless turf defense.  They would
even fight each other if he didn’t chain them in place.  The new Gal would hate
the basement.  She was too nice not to.

He knelt down at her appointed spot, felt the chains and
found the locks.  “Sssssheissssster!” he said, his favorite cuss word.  He had
taken the keys to the basement door, but had forgotten the keys to the padlocks
on the chains!

Well, he didn’t have any choice but to cope.  He grabbed
the new Gal, put her back on his shoulder, and trudged back up the stairs.  When
he closed the stairway door, the basement Gals quieted again.

The new Gal relaxed and stopped her carrying on.  “Thank
you, thank you, thank you so much,” she said.  She thought he had granted her a
reprieve.  She relaxed her tight grip on his back.  It would be hard to take
her downstairs again.

“What’s your name?” he said, as he pawed through his
stolen dresser de-messer in the darkness for the padlock keys.

“Cleo,” she said.  “What’s yours?”

Her reasonableness touched his heart.  “My Master calls
me Grendel,” he said.  He had another name not too long ago, but he had
forgotten it.

He would like to have someone to talk to in those many
days when his Master was gone.  “Do you think you can be reasonable?”  His
Master’s Laws would allow him to keep her upstairs as long as she stayed reasonable.

“Yes, I’ll be reasonable.  Just don’t put me down
there,” she said, her voice muffled against his back.

He put her down and led her out into the living room.  The
sun hadn’t yet risen above the horizon but the moon gave enough light for a
normal woman like Cleo to be able to see him for what he was.  “Look at me.” 
She did.  She didn’t back away.  “You mussst be happy,” he said, his quieter
voice softening his hissy sibilants.  “I’ll care for you until the end, if
you’re happy.”