An Age Without A Name Page 11

  “It’s almost cruel. I don’t like being cruel like this, and…” Beth said, and then stopped. Put a false smile on her face.

  “You’re not happy with men in general, because of what the Newt and what Sinclair did, and you’re afraid you’re only agreeing because of that.”

  Beth nodded.

  “Let this be entirely on my shoulders, then,” Del said. Beth just sighed in response.

  “Gather round,” Beth said to her Transforms. “We’re doing several things here, this afternoon.” The presence of every Transform in both Beth and Modesty’s households made even the huge command tent seem small. The restless crowd blew nervous.

  “Can we ask what’s going on?” Phil said.

  “No,” Beth said. “Just pay attention, and follow my lead.”

  Phil Ballard shook his head, and shivered. He served as Beth’s head of household, and Del didn’t think he possessed enough strength for the position. Still, he did have a good head on his shoulders, and he was good at organization. Besides, he was almost a celebrity in his own right, in the Transform community, as the tax accountant who specialized in Focus household taxes. Phil was still a young man, and he did have a lot of long-term leadership potential. For one thing, he would make an excellent politician once the Transforms stopped their constant fighting with each other.

  Del watched Beth signal to one of her male Transforms. He stepped forward out of the press of people, until he stood next to Del. Del did the same, signaling to Bruja Modesty to step forward, with her smaller household. Just a few steps, all there was room for in the crowded pavilion. Modesty did so, with her household leader, Promise, at her side. Promise, Enkidu’s former pack alpha under the name of Cleo, was in a far stronger leadership position than Phil, because Bruja Modesty now followed the weak Focus model. Promise was in charge of the day-to-day management of Modesty’s household, including discipline and, when Modesty was in range, Promise ran the juice moving as well. Modesty had progressed far enough with her juice music skills to be able to utilize the juice music score known of as “Connie Four”, which set up that particular piece of near magic. This juice pattern actually guided the Focus’s subconscious to move the juice, so that the Focus didn’t need to concentrate. Promise’s official status change, and her final acceptance of her new name and status in Del’s extended household, had finally come after the exposure of the Judges. Although nobody had bothered to ask, which Del thought an oversight at least on her part, it turned out Promise had had a long history of butting heads with the Judges, especially Guru Athabasca. Her knowledge had won her a large amount of recognition from the rest of the Major Transforms today.

  “Bob?” Beth said.

  “Yes, Beth?” Bob Hilton said, the man Beth brought forward with her charisma. He towered above them all, a tall man, muscular and beefy.

  “Many of us have noticed that you aren’t comfortable in the household anymore,” Beth said, the smile gone from her face.

  “Ma’am?” He paused, ready to deny, but then got a good look at his Focus’s and Del’s face, and gave up on that tack. “I’ve never said anything about it. It’s not my place to complain.” Bob was her head of security, and very protective of his Focus.

  “It’s still true,” Beth said.

  “Ma’am. I’m sorry.” Beth’s Transforms started to murmur unhappily, but Beth did something to their juice, and they quieted.

  “Well, uh, ma’am, I have a hard time with the way you risk yourself, these days.”

  “I was a fine Focus for you when I was helpless and needed protecting,” Beth said. “Now, as a trained witch, I’ve changed. I’m not the Focus you gave your heart to protect. I don’t really need that much protecting, anymore, actually. At least not in the ways you’re used to protecting me.” What Beth really needed were a couple of loyal full-Monster woman guards. She had said so several times, and Del agreed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bob said, and studied his feet.

  “Tony Oughton,” Promise said. “Get over here.” Promise was in charge of this exchange. Despite the fact that Modesty was her Focus, all Modesty could do to steady herself today was to kneel and whisper ‘Ma’am’ on an irregular basis.

  Tony walked out of the cluster of Modesty’s people. “So, punk, you want to tell the nice people why you can’t stand my guts?” Promise said.

  “Ma’am. If you insist, ma’am.” Tony said. “I have a hard time taking orders from someone who likes to listen to Sinatra and Crosby records. Ma’am. Reminds me of my Ma.” He transformed three months after coming back from ‘Nam. He stood a strapping six foot three, well-muscled, and left the Army as a non-com 2nd Lieutenant. Young. Liked the Beach Boys and the Stones. He liked to sleep around, as well, which really bothered Promise.

  “Miss Promise,” Bob said, looking up at Bruja Modesty’s head of household. “Sinatra?” Bob was in his mid-forties. Promise looked young, in her part Monsterish way.

  “The Hunters thought I looked old and baggy, since I’d transformed when I was in my fifties. They redid me to look like this,” Promise said, and wiggled the feather tufts on her head. “Think you would have any trouble working for an old fart like me?”

  “No, ma’am,” Bob said.

  “Good. The Bruja is looking for an older Transform, a male Transform who’s been a Transform for nearly a decade, for some delicate experimentation. The usual risk-your-life-to-change-the-world shit. You’re exactly what we’re looking for.”

  Bob took a deep breath. “Okay, ma’am. Miss Promise. I’m game.”

  “Good,” Promise said.

  “There’s only one problem with this trade,” Del said. Here it came. “The Focus and Bruja households support a radically different form of juice structure in their Transforms. We can’t just exchange tags. We’d likely kill the both of you, or in the best case, render both of you useless for months.”

  Bob and Tony winced. “I assume you have a way around it, Arm Sokolnik,” Tony said. Tony knew her far too well. He hit on her the day she grabbed him for Modesty’s household, and hadn’t taken no for an answer. She explained her lack of interest in men, and the fact that as a young Arm, she didn’t have the skills to avoid getting pregnant, but that didn’t stop him. He just showed up the next day with a pack of condoms and tried again. Now he wanted her to give him some Arm training in hand-to-hand combat, and he still hadn’t stopped with the advances.

  “Yes. I can do the transfer, if you’re dead. Temporarily dead.”

  They both winced, again, but after they thought through what Del implied, they nodded. Del wished they groused a bit more, because she didn’t look forward to this part of the day’s activity. For one thing, she could easily slip up and kill them. No, it figured, they would pick this time to meekly acquiesce.

  Beth ordered them to take their shirts off and lie down in the middle of the tent, while all the households gathered in a circle around them. Del knelt, took off her own shirt, and signaled with the juice for Modesty to stand and come over. Beth knelt behind Del, and a fearful Modesty in front, and both put their hands on Del’s shoulders. Then Beth stopped the two men’s hearts with juice witchery.

  Del put one hand on each male chest. Then she started her work, depending on Scout to yank on the tag when she made any mistakes. They had talked this around for several hours, trying to decide which of the three of them would best be able to make the necessary changes. Four of them, if you counted Scout, who denied repeatedly that he would be able to do anything of the sort. This wasn’t delicate work, thank heavens, but strong work, something the juice resisted. Take their tags, and morph them into each other. According to Amy and the Commander, tag manipulations were the strength of the Arms. This wasn’t a perfect solution, and it would harm them a little, but that’s what Crows were for, to fix the harm later.

  This approach, harmful as it was, was nowhere near as harmful as doing it the normal way. Two Focuses in this situation would just do new tags – but Modesty, as a Bruja, could no lon
ger metasense Focus tags, and Beth, as a Focus, couldn’t metasense Bruja tags. Del could metasense Bruja tags, but couldn’t metasense both at the same time, save for the fact that with her affinity links to both Modesty and Beth, and with them touching her, she could borrow their metasenses and see the tags simultaneously. In theory, Modesty and Beth could borrow each other’s metasenses as well, but when they tried, it hadn’t worked well. Del suspected a subconscious Major Transform effect messed them up, and without Sinclair to work the shaman end of things, it was up to Del to do the transfer.

  Del, however, had a very hard time not draining the two male Transforms. That was one of the reasons she had three untagged Transforms in her range, prey she hunted down personally. That trick supposedly convinced her subconscious and her juice hunger that she didn’t need to think about these two Transforms as prey, since she already had ample prey available to her.

  She promised herself the chance to deal with those three, just as soon as she ended this step of the ceremony.

  After a little less than a minute, Del finished the tag swap with only four yanks on her tag from Scout. The fact the two men were temporarily dead made it much easier for her – being dead meant their juice structures did none of the normal jostling of a living Transform’s juice structure. She needed far more experience before she would be able to do this to a living Transform. Once Del finished, she restarted both of their hearts as Beth and Modesty redid the morphed tags to put in their own personal touches. Both Transform men opened their eyes, and scuttled away from Del as fast as possible. In fact, when Del looked up, she noticed a rather large number of hostile Transform eyes on her.

  Projecting too much juice-hungry Arm, she decided. Nor would she shut this off, not yet.

  Del stood. “I’m a Monster,” she said. An entire room full of Transforms assented to that statement. “You’re my prey.” More assent to that. Only the steadiness of the Focus and Bruja kept everyone in the room from fleeing in terror. “You’re also my Transforms, under my protection. We need to make this official, so I’m going to tag you all. But, prey, I think you need to understand this particular Arm much better than you already do. You need a part of me in you, to experience what I experience, and you need to see the world from the point of view of a predator. Draw them all down,” Del said, to Beth and Modesty.

  In a moment, every Transform in the room dropped into periwithdrawal. Now, they all shared her juice hunger.

  “Come together,” Del said. Modesty and Beth put their hands back on Del, and all of the Transforms stuck their hands out and touched their Focus or Bruja, as appropriate. Instinctive. “Ben, bring in the first one.”

  Ben was one of two Corpseriders Del had borrowed for the afternoon. They were in charge of keeping track of Del’s prey Transforms. Del had cleared this over the phone with Amy, and Amy, who would get juice from these three prey eventually, via Del, let Del borrow these two Corpseriders because they had helped Amy hunt once or twice. Normally, Amy hunted in utter secrecy, but emergencies did happen, and these two Corpseriders had strong stomachs. Considering what would be happening, strong stomachs were a necessity.

  Mind games. Everything here was a mind game: showing the Transforms how Arms did their thing, having three prey outweigh Del’s juice hunger for the two Transforms she had tag swapped, and Del tagging both households. Everyone here would be remade, in one subtle juice manner or other – and it was Del’s trick with the True Hunters that proved in the end to be too strong that convinced her she finally possessed the strength for this level of juice manipulation.

  Del hoped they all would emerge sane.

  Ben and Tommy, the other Corpserider, brought in the first prey, a man. Holding her will firm, Del started the drain, taking it slowly. As she did, she let the two Focuses take juice from her and give the juice to their Transforms – hot, just drawn, predator created juice, alive with Del’s tag. Focuses had no problem taking juice from an Arm; going the other way was the problem. And, if Modesty was correct, there was a Bruja method to give juice to an Arm, quite different than the witch Focus method, and much easier to learn. Hopefully even survivable by all involved. That was her experiment, why she wanted Bob Hilton.

  In the midst of the first draw, Del spoke, her voice low and bedroom husky, the only sound in the entire tent. “You think this could be yourself, in this situation. You’re right. What you don’t realize is that any of us could be in this position. Focuses, Arms and Crows are all prey for Chimeras. Even other Chimeras are prey to Chimeras. All Transforms share the experience of being prey. Now, let us all share the experience of being predators.”

  Without any other prey available, Del couldn’t have let the Focuses take this newly drawn juice, not until she was fully satiated. Yet another mind game. Five minutes later, she called for the second prey.

  Five minutes after that, the third. When she finished the last draw, the two Corpseriders dragged the last of the spent prey, a woman, out of the room, and let the canvas fall over the opening into the pavilion. Del let Beth and Modesty take her juice down to her stimulation optimum, then let the Focus and Bruja finish distributing juice to their people. Then Del broke the physical link with Beth. Beth and her people dropped in a dead faint of pleasure, the same pleasure Del felt every time she drew juice. Tagged deeply, each and every one of them. Now they all understood about being an Arm, the good, the bad, and, given the corpses, the weight on one’s conscience.

  Del eyed Modesty, who wiggled out of her people’s embrace. Modesty’s people dropped as well, though the most important one was Promise, who Del and Modesty had been pumping the entire time. It wouldn’t do any of them any good if Promise’s deep thoughts continued to hold loyalty to Enkidu, despite her dislike of the Law and disgust at the Judges. What they did today changed the little voice deep inside Promise that said “Arms – enemy” to one that said “Arms – friend”, with a great deal of Arm-style pleasure.

  Modesty smiled at Del and whispered “Ma’am?” The pleasure was both more and less than a normal juice draw for Del, more quantity, but less pleasure. As she expected, she hadn’t swooned. No, also as expected, she was just horny beyond all measure, something she made sure Modesty shared. Del ran her hand down Modesty’s side, and Modesty moaned.

  Finally.

  ---

  “Where is he,” Beth said. “Goddammit, you got La Brea, you did your attack. Didn’t you?”

  Del stood beside the distraught Focus, steadying her as best she could. La Brea knelt at Amy’s feet, horror on his face, utter horror. Thomas stood somewhere in the command tent, and Del felt his presence, but Thomas refused to become visible. Amy didn’t give off any fight vibes at all. She just shook her head at Beth and looked down at La Brea. Beside Amy, Duke Hoskins stood and quivered, radiating a towering homicidal Chimeraic rage.

  “Tell me!” Beth said. “Tell me.” Charisma rolled off the Focus like a tidal wave.

  “Ma’am,” La Brea said. “Please.” Beth didn’t back off. “Athabasca thought holding a Crow as powerful and well-connected as Sinclair was beyond our capabilities. He said you would be able to find him no matter how we tried to hide him. We gave Sinclair to the Hunters within minutes of the exchange.”

  “Nooooo! Noooo!” Beth collapsed into a heap, and Del went down with her, trying and failing to steady the Focus. Beth beat her hands on the ground several times, screamed, and then went limp. Thoughts fled from the Focus’s mind, leaving her sobbing. Then the tears stopped, and the Focus just stared at the green canvas roof of the tent, mind vacant. Through the affinity link, Del felt Beth moving juice to her people with every tick of the clock, just the normal tiny amounts. Eventually, Beth blinked. Beth had done something to herself with her charisma, something self-destructive and horrible. Del wanted to kill something. Preferably a Judge. They would need to watch Beth, likely around the clock.

  “Everything you feared was true, and more,” Thomas said, voice distinct and in pain. He remained invisible. Del longed t
o comfort him and sooth his pain, but he had closed her off. Nothing La Brea could do would prevent Thomas from learning everything, Del decided. “Far more. Sinclair wasn’t given to the Hunters, he was sold. Worse, there is no senior Guru ‘Jester’ – it was all a ruse concocted by Guru Athabasca for political gain. I and my companions” who, save for Crow Rumor, still remained hidden to all in their group “will be contacting the other senior Gurus. For the first time since the end of Mimesis, we have a Guru to cast out. We are going to end the Judges.”

  “You really can fight the Law!”

  Sinclair (3/12/73 – 3/13/73)

  He couldn’t even scream.

  He lost count of the hours long ago. She took his genitals early on. She took his eyes soon after. He couldn’t remember when she took his right leg.

  She did other things to him. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t escape into unconsciousness. He lost track of what else she had done. He wanted to lose himself in insanity, but he couldn’t figure out how to do that either.

  “You may not destroy him,” the Hunter said, his deep voice reverberating in Sinclair’s head. Colonel Leo? Yes, the Hunter Leo, one of the three of Wandering Shade’s original lines of Legalized Chimeras, the founder of the Mountain Men. All the Hunters sounded the same to him unless he worked at remembering. “Give him to me.”

  “I’m not done with him, yet,” Bass said. Though they called her Hecate, not Bass, and her appearance was that of a Monster, humanoid but silver from head to toe. She ran her fingers lightly down Sinclair’s back, and agony shot through him. He tried again to scream, and failed again.

  His raw nerves screamed for long seconds from Bass’s touch before the pain faded into the general agony that held him. He hoped desperately that Leo would distract Bass away from him. Even just for a few seconds. Anything.

  No eyes. He experienced only darkness, and the darkness held no escape from the pain.