All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) Read online

  “Can you vanish from sight?”

  “Close enough. Nine thugs with guns I can handle,” Hephaestus said. “If I lose control, it will only be because there are more of them, or if we’re looking at Hunter packs.”

  Hunter packs. I didn’t want to face Hunter packs, either. I would lose.

  I wondered how stupid I was being. Either Arpeggio was Rogue Crow or Rogue Crow besieged Arpeggio. I judged the latter more likely. If the former, Hephaestus should take me out right now, from the front passenger side seat of my car. Or try. The way Hephaestus sweated, gripped the dashboard and concentrated, with an ever-growing miasma of foul juice around him, made me believe Hephaestus thought Rogue Crow besieged Arpeggio, and we were heading in to rescue his boss.

  Nevertheless, we were underpowered. To do this right I needed a real army, chock full of stout Major Transforms and Transforms. I counted on my shock charge flustering the enemy. Rogue Crow already faced one Crow Guru. He was about to face two, with the extra added plus of an Arm with her dander up.

  I couldn’t turn down the chance at a shot at Rogue Crow.

  No matter how risky.

  Gilgamesh: January 27th, 1969

  One of the counterpoints to Arpeggio’s whistled song filled Gilgamesh with dross, an incredibly painful process reminding him of being peeled alive. He leapt to his feet and sought cover. Chair? No, illusion of a chair. Worthless. Couch? Illusion of a couch, but his time was up, and he hid behind it anyway.

  “Arpeggio,” the lawman at the door said.

  “Who the hell are you?” Arpeggio said.

  “The name is Wandering Shade, which you and your crowd of shit-soiled cowards who call themselves Gurus well know.” His rough voice contrasted harshly with the musical beauty of Arpeggio’s. “My friends here are Patriarchs, and they work for me. Show’m, boys.”

  Wandering Shade, appearing as a blend-into-the-crowd police officer, signaled to the two Beast Men at his side, each seven feet of granite, in man-shapes and wearing police uniforms. Their raised their weapons, which from Carol’s firearms lessons he recognized as .707 Monster rifles, and aimed them at Arpeggio.

  Arpeggio’s tune faltered, and the dross wave he rolled at Wandering Shade and the two Patriarchs vanished at his house’s front door. “What do you want?”

  “Gilgamesh.”

  Gilgamesh realized the large duffle that one of the Patriarchs dropped before raising his rifle contained a Crow. Echo.

  “He’s a Crow, not a commodity,” Arpeggio said.

  Wandering Shade flicked a finger on his left hand; the Patriarch to his left fired. The report of the overpowered rifle panicked Gilgamesh, sending him flat to the floor and skittering, metasense full up. Amped by stress, he saw through Arpeggio’s illusions, at least for a moment. The illusions distorted perceived space, of course, bending not only light and sound, but also his metasense. But not exactly. Whatever metasense was, it didn’t function as light or sound did. Perhaps the Good Doctor was right, and there was an important scent component to the metasense. In any event, the disparity allowed Gilgamesh to visualize, in his head, the real floor plan of the nearby areas of Arpeggio’s house.

  Arpeggio flinched at the gunshot, but didn’t panic. “Come inside, friend. Perhaps we can make a deal.”

  Wandering Shade laughed. “I’m not coming into your polluted lair, not while you’re alive,” he said. “I’m no imbecile.” He laughed again. “You don’t know who or what I am, do you? You’re more of a fool than I dreamed. I didn’t imagine I would be able to maintain my masquerade in front of a Crow of your talents, a member of your all exclusive club of hide-behind-the-curtains Crow bosses, but color me amused by my success.” He paused. “I am the Law. Understand my vision, my reality, because it will soon be yours.”

  Gilgamesh penetrated the mystery of Arpeggio’s illusions as Wandering Shade spoke. If he crawled forward and to his right for ten feet, then sharply turned right, he would be in a hallway and not exposed to the front door. The walls in this old ranch house were made of mortared stone. Gilgamesh skittered until he felt safe, and stood up. To his senses, he still stood in direct sight of the front door.

  “I understand your vision, but it changes nothing. Go away.”

  Wandering Shade laughed again. “Make me, you Focus.”

  Wandering Shade planned to wear out Arpeggio. Probably with a combination of gunfire, ample dross tricks and cutting insults.

  Eventually, Arpeggio would lose.

  Gilgamesh reflexively reached into his pack for his rotten eggs, but they were long gone, discarded by Echo. He paused, looking for something useful to do. Nothing.

  Well, he might do something, if Wandering Shade gave him a minute. Those Patriarchs looked rather seedy and young. Gilgamesh began to order his dross, a particular image in his mind.

  “I’m content to wait,” Arpeggio said. “The longer I wait, the closer I get to cracking your disguise and your other protections. Your call.”

  Arpeggio returned to his whistling. Wandering Shade clenched his fists and muttered. Tiny tendrils of dross sprung from both and intertwined in the air.

  Perfect. No gunfire. Gilgamesh completed his treasures, put his will into them, and loosed them.

  Tiamat and Kali appeared beside Arpeggio and charged the front door, burning juice. Their glows weren’t perfect, nor were their movements, but they were the best Tiamat and Kali illusions he was able to produce in a stressful situation.

  Wandering Shade and Arpeggio ignored his amateur efforts, as he suspected they would. However, the Patriarch on Wandering Shade’s right opened fire. Boom. Boom. Boom. The other one panicked, dropped his rifle, drew a thin sword, and charged into Arpeggio’s house. Perfect!

  Arpeggio dropped and rolled to his left, coming up singing something operatic that carried with it a metasense-blinding wave of dross. The Patriarch who charged into Arpeggio’s house fell, unconscious, and Gilgamesh’s Kali and Tiamat illusions faded. He hadn’t been able to hold on to their integrity past the first Patriarch’s Monster rifle shot. Rock dust billowed around him, following the house’s illusion, all the result of the bullets’ impact on the ranch house’s real limestone walls.

  “So you understand your doom now, eh?” Wandering Shade said. Only he didn’t sound like Wandering Shade any more.

  He sounded like Shadow.

  Gilgamesh looked over to the front doorway, startled. Backing away from the door he saw Shadow, in a police uniform. “You repressed me once, but you botched the job,” Shadow – Rogue Crow – said. “I’ve become more powerful than any Crow has ever been!” He cackled. He sounded like Shadow, if Shadow had completely lost his mind. “Die!”

  Shadow loosed dross, formed into a smaller version of the Rogue Crow demon bear. It charged into Arpeggio’s house, ran into a wall and through it, vanishing.

  Arpeggio didn’t answer with words, but by sending another metasense-blinding wave of dross at Shadow. The dross wave dissipated around Shadow, and Shadow cackled some more. “Shoot at him and don’t stop until he falls!” he said.

  The remaining Patriarch aimed and fired. Gilgamesh flattened. Rock dust and rock fragments pelted him and the Monster rifle retorts deafened him. Arpeggio ignored the gunfire.

  At Gilgamesh’s far metasense range, he sensed Tiamat and Hephaestus. Coming this way. He waved, signaling them to run like hell the other direction, but neither noticed.

  Arpeggio changed to a rhythmic clap. “Fool. Tiamat’s coming and you no longer have time to wear me down.”

  Shadow showed the first bit of panic. He tried to move, but something held him in place, some construct created by Arpeggio.

  Arpeggio continued to clap.

  Carol Hancock: January 27th, 1969

  I skidded into the gravel ranch driveway and gunned the car. I metasensed nothing but a hot blur ahead. I rounded a curve with a crunching of tires on gravel and spotted Arpeggio’s place, an old-style stone ranch house. A short black-haired man stood on the front porc
h, not moving, a tall man beside him, and a line of police officers armed with far too many heavy weapons darting from cover to cover, toward my caravan.

  “Ditch!” I said.

  “That’s Shadow!” Hephaestus said, at the same time. With my right hand I grabbed him, with my left I opened the car door, and leapt.

  The police opened up on me and my thug parade with Monster rifles and RPGs. My car exploded from grenade fire as it left the driveway, as did the lead car in the thug parade. The rest skidded to a stop, my men leaping from their cars as fast as they could, seeking cover.

  My mind clicked in recognition: the tall man beside Shadow was the Patriarch Glacier, one of the lesser Patriarchs who had survived unscathed in the fight in Kansas City. I hugged ground and hand signaled orders to my men, sending half toward me, while the other half hid in the scant shelter of the yaupon bushes and fired at the police officers.

  I looked at Shadow and my gut said ‘enemy’. He had a Patriarch bodyguard. Gilgamesh and Sky both said that Shadow worked with the FBI. He was Occum’s Guru, Occum ran the Chimera Nobles, and Keaton said that Rogue Crow ran at least three different groups of Chimeras. I had known all that, and discounted it because Shadow lived in New York City and all my Crow friends vouched for him.

  So much for Crow vouching. I quickly peeked up from behind the third of my thug parade’s abandoned cars and put a bullet through him with my rifle. Nothing. I hadn’t missed. He just wasn’t where I aimed, a damned senior Crow trick.

  Hephaestus loosed foul juice crap at a police officer. Nearly a thousand feet away, the police officer fell. Slowly, ever so slowly, Hephaestus readied another load.

  Too slowly. My blood was boiling; I wanted to take the fight to the enemy and force them to make some mistakes. “Around the back of the house, full circle,” I said. I gave the signal and we ran, dodging behind the nearest corner of the house.

  It didn’t fool Shadow or someone in his crew, because as we rounded the house from the other side we were met by a fusillade of gunfire and RPG fire from four of the surviving police officers. Shadow stood motionless less than fifty feet away, still held in place by an Arpeggio trick. I metasensed the foul dross they used as they attempted to kill each other from where I ran…and I fell. Gunshot wound. Again.

  I took cover in a small dip in the yard, way too damned exposed, and took stock of my condition. I couldn’t feel my right arm, and found it severed three inches above my right elbow, attached by a few remaining strands of muscle, sinew and skin. My left hand dropped my rifle and reached for my belt knife. On its own.

  I fought back, freezing my hand in place. Blood gushed from the remains of my right arm. I tried to heal it closed, burning juice, but as I started my left arm and knife moved toward my neck.

  Dammit. I was under the sway of a nasty senior Crow trick. I had fucked up and lost.

  The gunfire stopped and I heard boots crunching soil and limestone gravel. “Take her.” One of the policemen approached, but two steps away he fell, clenching his head and screaming. Another one ran up, only to claw at his face and puke, reeking of foul juice. Hephaestus’s work.

  “Surrender,” Hephaestus said, reappearing from wherever he hid. “Shadow, it’s over.”

  I looked and found Shadow ten steps farther back from Arpeggio’s doorway. He had extricated himself from Arpeggio’s hold. Glacier, his Patriarch bodyguard, had fallen in a pool of his own bright red blood back at the door.

  “Never,” Shadow said. Sweat rivulets cut his grimy face, and I metasensed the foul juice surrounding him. He reached into a pocket and took out a tennis ball.

  Shit.

  “I finally mastered Gilgamesh’s trick,” Shadow said. “This treasure holds an entire duel worth of dross constructs, a fitting final strike to your pathetic attempt to take me down. You’re nothing, not a one of you, hardly worth my efforts.” He cackled, sounding unhinged, deep into some private psychosis. His body language said otherwise. It said to me ‘I’ve won’.

  But what could he have won? He was about to flee the battle.

  I mastered my hand and rolled, and when I rolled I tossed the knife at Shadow.

  It flew through him. Dammit.

  Shadow tossed the tennis ball at me, underhand, and I skittered away. Whatever was in the tennis ball detonated when it was only half way to me, and I fell into blackest night.

  ---

  “It stopped bleeding on its own, but Tiamat’s right arm is ruined. You need to amputate.” I didn’t recognize the voice.

  I opened my eyes. “Bind it in place, bone to bone,” I said. “I’ll have Hank fix it later.” I was inside Arpeggio’s cabin, lying on a coarsely woven carpet on a stone floor, and if my eyes didn’t deceive me, his ranch house was now on the moon. I ignored that bit of Crow insanity and looked around. Gilgamesh curled in a fetal ball beside me, shivering. Alive, thank God. Hephaestus lay flat on his back on the floor eight feet away, scratching at himself and moaning. Arpeggio, or at least someone who matched the looks of Hephaestus’s Arpeggio statue, tended to Hephaestus. I faintly metasensed the dross flowing from him. Me, I knew I had taken a nasty load of bad juice. I itched.

  The voice came from a picture on the wall, of someone I couldn’t remember the instant my eyes flickered away from him. The picture next to him also moved and talked, this one a picture of a Crow fop. I made the necessary mental connections. “Thomas the Dreamer. Chevalier. I’m Carol Hancock, the Arm.” I turned my head to Arpeggio. “Arpeggio, sir? How bad off is Hephaestus?” This was no place to get all Arm-panties-in-a-twist. I could be a Crow in Crow circumstances as much as Gilgamesh could be an Arm in Arm circumstances – passable, I hoped.

  “He’ll recover.”

  I had never met Arpeggio, but after this chase with Hephaestus, I felt like I knew him already.

  “Are you willing to give your word you’ll behave?” Arpeggio said.

  Even after all this Crow-fighting, I suspected he could lay me out cold with nothing more than a whistle. According to Hephaestus, Arpeggio directed dross with song.

  Unlike regular Crows, Crow Gurus were able to challenge. “I just rescued your ass,” I said as I sat up, cradling my injured arm. “Why wouldn’t I behave?”

  “In this she is akin to Kali,” Chevalier said. “Far too full of herself.”

  Chevalier was the first Crow I talked to who I instantly disliked. However, he wasn’t here. Arpeggio was. I refocused my diplomatic skills, such as they were at the moment, on the present-in-the-flesh Guru.

  “That was Shadow, wasn’t it, Guru Arpeggio?” I said, in my calmest Crow voice.

  “It appeared so.” He finished with Hephaestus, came over to me and motioned for me to lay down again. He started to bind the remains of my right arm as I desired, cleaning the bad juice off of me at the same time. “He also metasensed so.”

  “He didn’t speak as Shadow speaks,” Thomas said. “He sounded to me like he was someone else.”

  “Are we talking something screwy like a Crow with a multiple personality disorder, Guru Thomas?” I said.

  “That’s the simplest answer,” Thomas said.

  On the wall, the picture of the old-style youth woke up, wearing short pants, suspenders, and a beret. “Dear me!” he said. “Did Focuses do this?”

  Ah. Innocence, the senior Crow Gilgamesh said was the worst of the senior Crows in his hatred and fear of Focuses, and who had supposedly withdrawn from the world to meditate.

  “Dear Innocence,” Arpeggio said. “It wasn’t Focuses. It was Shadow, who’s revealed himself to be Wandering Shade.”

  “That cannot be!” Innocence said. “Not my student and friend Shadow!”

  Chevalier snorted. “You’ve defended his insanity for far too long, dear Innocence. You must face the reality that he’s ruined himself.”

  Innocence fled, hand over his mouth, from the picture, which returned to being a painting. I suspected Innocence wasn’t much of a Crow. From anybody’s point of view.

 
; Arpeggio finished binding the remains of my right arm. I sat up and confronted the moonscape and this world of moving pictures. “Thank you, Guru Arpeggio.”

  “She can be polite,” Chevalier said. “I like that. She also came here to rescue a Crow. I like that even better. Nor is she frothing at the mouth or making ridiculous demands.”

  “Sir, yoo hoo, I’m sitting right here.”

  Three senior Crows sighed in unison. “Tiamat, I must apologize,” Chevalier said, acting as if his earlier words were a preamble to a much longer drawn out speech that I so rudely interrupted. “My espionage mission to keep tabs on Gilgamesh, to help him, appears to have blown up in all of our faces. In recompense, I will no longer oppose any of your actions aimed at Rogue Crow.”

  “Neither will I,” Arpeggio said. He squatted on his heels and watched me warily.

  I looked at Arpeggio and didn’t like what I sensed. Yes, he did Crow fierce better than any Crow I had ever seen, but I knew guilt when I saw it. I flickered my eyes at Gilgamesh, who pretended to be unconscious, and silently implored him to give me a hand. He uncurled and skittered over to me. To behind me.

  I read the truth in Gilgamesh’s actions. “You bought Gilgamesh from Echo.”

  “I paid his ransom,” Arpeggio said. “Echo was in the wrong.”

  “Guru Arpeggio was going to free me,” Gilgamesh said, in a whisper. “But only after an extensive interview. You know the type.”

  A Crow mind scrape.

  “You owe me,” I told Arpeggio. I don’t know how I kept my currently well justified Arm temper in check, but I did. “I know what I want, too. I want you to free Guru Hephaestus from your orders to not ally with me.”

  Arpeggio snorted and stood. “A worthless payment. He already disobeyed that order.”

  Yup. Crow. Couldn’t bargain worth shit.

  “Tell Tiamat what I want, boss,” Hephaestus said, a whisper so tiny I thought it was a rustle of snow the first time through. “And what you’re willing to do to help.”

  Arpeggio shrugged and sat down in a well-used leather easy chair. “What my friend Hephaestus is referring to is what he likely was going to try to extract from you in return for his own help in this sodden disaster,” Arpeggio said. I couldn’t keep a frown off of my face, but Arpeggio held up his hand. “He’s caught the action bug from you, and he thinks you’re making a cruel mistake by leaving the captive Focus, Frasier, in the hands of the Hunters.”