In this Night We Own (The Commander Book 6) Read online

  I had heard of shadow Crows from Gilgamesh. He believed we needed some psychotherapist Focuses on our payroll to deal with these dysfunctional Crows. Right now, we had nothing. “In that case, I’ll make sure that Talisman gets an extra-large donation.”

  Midgard grunted. He was unhappy with my largess, only mollified by the fact that I kept the scale small.

  “I’ve got an idea I want to pass by a Crow to see if it sounds tacky,” I said, leaning forward and sifting through papers on the coffee table. The Houston Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Also Guns & Ammo, Soldier of Fortune, Newsweek and the Economist, plus three medical tracts Hank wanted me to read, two papers on eastern bloc brainwashing techniques I had gotten from the Network, and a first draft of Gilgamesh’s new book I was supposed to be reviewing. Of the set, the only ones I wasn’t behind on were the brainwashing papers and Gilgamesh’s book. I found the legal paperwork under a New England Journal of Medicine article on cortisol rates in Focuses. “I’ve just put together a lease on my nascent research facility,” a nearly abandoned tiny office building, “and I was thinking that I might put a petty cash bin there for any and all Crows to use. Is this too crazy an idea?”

  “Hmm. That sounds like a very good idea, but it’ll need protections. I’ll bet I can arm-twist Hephaestus into providing them, though,” Midgard said. Hephaestus was the local top Crow, an actual Crow Guru. We had a good, but distant, working relationship. “If I can arrange the protections, you won’t need to worry about misuse. If anything, you’ll have the opposite problem.”

  I wasn’t willing to even ask. I had a theory that among the Major Transforms, Crows’ thought processes were the least like normal humans.

  “That would work,” I said. “So, any feedback from Hephaestus’s students?” Before I found and recruited Jeannie, I had a talk in Memorial Park with Hephaestus about our proposed Crow-Arm art gallery. His students were scheduled to get close enough to talk, if they wanted, but I hadn’t heard a thing.

  Midgard sighed. “Pork Belly, the youngest, panicked himself crazy, and the other young Crows caught it. Sorry.”

  “I understand. With experience they’ll get better.” I hoped. I didn’t understand Crows well enough to have a good feel for them at all. I was starting to put some credence into Sky’s wild theory that there were over a dozen Crow varieties, each as different from each other as Arms were from Focuses.

  Next on my list was some more thug recruiting. I took a deep breath and plowed on.

  Enkidu: August 3, 1968 – August 4, 1968

  “This job is punishment, Cleo,” Enkidu said, sitting on the edge of the mold-blackened tub as he watched Cleo dress.

  “Punishment?” Cleo glanced at her pancake makeup face in the cracked bathroom mirror. “Dressing me up as a Focus is hard work and pretty disgusting, but how could this be considered punishment? We’re going after our enemies, dammit.” With care she attached a set of eyelashes to her left eyelid. Her real form, part Monster, didn’t have eyelashes.

  “Our Master is of the opinion I somehow tipped off Focus Casso, allowing her to flee before we attacked.” She had been his promised Focus, dammit, and his Focus hadn’t been home when he showed up. Nor any of her people. They had vanished in the night, hours before Enkidu arrived. “Which is patently impossible, as we were still here when she left.” Here being his pack’s ramshackle farm and stockade, on the Fox River just west of Oswego, close enough to Chicago to do his Master’s bidding and hunt for potential pack Transforms. He paused to let the bad taste out of his mouth. “The real problem is this Focus we’re going to collect is going to Odin.”

  “Okay, now I believe it’s punishment,” Cleo said. She stuck the fancy wig on her head, somewhat cockeyed. “Tell me what you think, hun. Do I look like a Focus now?”

  “I think we’d better cut the lights to the place first,” Enkidu said.

  Cleo hissed and cuffed him, hard, before going back to her makeup job.

  “They’re the Master’s orders,” Enkidu said. “We cut off the lights, go inside, get all haughty and push people around, distribute the evidence he’s dreamt up, snag the Focus and her household, and leave. They’re going to be light-staffed today. Something Wandering Shade’s arranged.”

  They had Gwen doing the driving today. Gwen didn’t like doing so, but she could pass as a man if she dressed for the part. No Focus would have just one male bodyguard, and although Enkidu did fit the part (male, clean-shaven, huge), none of the pack Boys did. They were too hasty with outsiders and left far too distinctive a trail of destruction when they passed by. Hoffman, his student, still hadn’t mastered his man form, so he, the Boys and the more Monster-like Gals had been left behind.

  “So, if this Focus isn’t for you, when do you get one?” Cleo said. “Are you getting anything out of this?”

  “I’m getting a surprise, according to Wandering Shade,” Enkidu said. He leaned forward and peered over Gwen’s shoulder. “Stay on Ogden until we get to Western, then turn left.”

  “Gotcha, boss,” Gwen said, her voice a gargle of barely audible clicks. By necessity she would be portraying the strong silent bodyguard when they got to the Clinic.

  Enkidu leaned back on the tour bus seat behind Gwen. He worried about the tour bus. It smelled like ass, the engine ran on for minutes after they turned off the ignition, and it rattled worse than any vehicle Enkidu had ever known. They should have stolen a better bus.

  “The Master should have allowed us to rush in and take Casso’s place without all the preparatory pussyfooting around he wanted,” Enkidu said. “The time we spent scouting out the area around her house, watching her guards for patterns, figuring out when her household Transforms came and went, all that stuff? Worthless. We should have just hit the place at dawn, taken down her guards in one big rush, and counted on speed and surprise. Smart tactics my aching mange!” His mind felt like mush; his Master had revised the Law again and although it left him stupider than the last version, he did feel more aggressive. ‘Too much debate, not enough action’ his Master had said, explaining the necessity of the change. The memory of the change in the Law was fading away; Enkidu suspected he would forget about the change completely within a month.

  “It’s his day job,” Cleo said. “All the time Wandering Shade spends as a police officer has infected his mind with the weaknesses of the normals. Still, without his job we wouldn’t have access to the fancy weapons and the weapons training.”

  There was that. Enkidu couldn’t help but growl at the Master’s overelaborate over-cautious plans. “We’re Hunters. We’re supposed to be fast and terrifying. Consider what we’re doing today – another plan that’s not going to leave a trail of destruction. It’s like he doesn’t want the world to know we’re here and what we can do.”

  Which led Enkidu into his worst nightmare – he feared the Hunters would eventually become the Hunter Police Force instead of the Hunter Empire.

  “Focus Casso?” the Clinic guard said. “Ma’am! We’re having a situation…”

  “I don’t care about any situations,” Cleo said, haughty. It was Enkidu’s idea to disguise Cleo as the Focus he had lost. When the guard didn’t immediately move, Enkidu backed up Cleo with a muted terror growl. “I want Focus Frasier now. We’re moving her to a more secure facility.”

  “Ma’am, but…”

  Enkidu growled again. The guard backed off several paces, allowing Enkidu and the five other pack Gals masquerading as bodyguards through the entrance.

  The Clinic stank of humanity, a foul reek urging him to lash out and gut someone, anyone. Three guards lined up to stop them, but with a Focus leading the way they kept their weapons holstered. Focuses were precious, or so they thought. Precious princess bitches one must obey.

  One more growl and they too gave way. Deena and Mary herded them to the far side of the common room, where they couldn’t cause problems. Enkidu, Gwen and Cleo badgered the head guard until he led them, terrified, to where Fo
cus Frasier and her tiny household were staying.

  “Focus Frasier? I’m Focus Casso, acting on Focus Council orders. We’re here to escort you to a more secure facility,” Cleo said, after she knocked on the door to the Focus’s tiny Clinic room. The Focus opened the door, bleary and scared. Dim battery-powered emergency lights lit the hallway. Several of the Focus’s people opened their doors and peeked out into the hallway as well.

  “Monsters!” The more-intelligent-than-Enkidu-expected Focus screamed out her warning before Enkidu could put a meaty hand over her mouth. As his Master said, Frasier was a new Focus without any of the standard Focus tricks. She was normal-ugly, disease-smelly and had no Major Transform charismatic presence at all. He bent down to her ear.

  “You will cooperate, or you will die,” Enkidu said, a forceful growl. With his charisma. “You will not talk. If you speak even one word, you will die and your people will die. Nod if you understand.”

  Frasier struggled for a moment, and then got a good look at Enkidu’s wolf eyes. She shook and collapsed. Enkidu took her now limp form as a ‘nod’. “Very good.”

  “Follow your Focus,” Cleo said, dropping notes, letters, and other paperwork in Frasier’s room and in the hallway. False evidence. Wandering Shade had given them false evidence to distribute, to, in his words, ‘to plant the seeds of distrust and paranoia in the bitches’ minds. He hadn’t appreciated Enkidu’s counterproposal, to rape the Focus live on national television.

  Focus Frasier’s Transforms did as instructed. They now gave off the odor of pain and misery, not that Enkidu cared. One of the normals who accompanied Frasier’s household tried to take the Focus from Enkidu’s grasp, earning himself a growl and a cuff. He tried to flee, but Cleo snagged him with a free hand.

  “None of this. We’re taking you to a more secure facility.”

  The normal gave up his fight and followed Enkidu and Focus Frasier. They led the entire mess out of the Clinic and into the bus. To Enkidu’s surprise, not one of Frasier’s Transforms attempted to flee. Four of the normal companions of the Transforms tried to get on the bus as well, but Gwen and Enkidu tossed them back off, along with the normal Cleo had snagged, as soon as the crew of Transforms was settled. Enkidu’s pack had as many normal slaves as he could support, and none of this crew appeared to be keepers anyway.

  “In and out in less than fifteen minutes,” Cleo said, when they were on their way back home. She scanned the checklist and marked off the last item. “Clean.”

  Enkidu licked his lips and took another sniff of the Focus. “Bah. I’m not sure why we bothered.” She smelled as bad as a normal.

  ---

  “Very good, very good,” Wandering Shade said. The late afternoon sun scorched the wide expanse of the Illinois cornfields as he paced in front of the hog-tied Focus and her hog-tied Transforms, dressed as he had been for months as a high-ranking officer of the Illinois State Police. “Dispose of the bus.”

  The exchange point was down a narrow dirt road at the edge of Odin’s territory. They gathered among the daisies, goldenrod and thistle that filled the gap between corn and road. The fresh scent of wildflowers in the warm sun might have even been pleasant, except for the overwhelming odor of Hunter, Monster, and prey. Odin, in his half-beast form, paced anxiously across the invisible territorial line that snaked across the farmland west of Romeoville, a dozen feet from the cluster of cowering captive Transforms.

  “Master, the kidnapping worked as you planned,” Enkidu said, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his broad shoulders. Too much heat for a combat, but perfect for the post-combat celebration of victory.

  “It will always work as I plan, if my plans are carried out correctly,” Wandering Shade said. “Your understanding isn’t needed to obey orders.” He paused and sneered at Enkidu. “Bring out the surprise.”

  Four of Odin’s pack Gals dragged a tiny wisp of a man out of Odin’s semi-truck. They pushed him over the invisible territory line, where he stumbled and then fell with a clank of chains at Enkidu’s feet. Enkidu’s eyebrows shot up. “A Crow? Master, you’re giving me a Crow?”

  “I thought it fitting, given your incessant prattling about how you’d like to have that bastard, Gilgamesh,” Wandering Shade said. Enkidu wasn’t sure what changed, but Gilgamesh had done something to move him from being the butt of Wandering Shade’s jokes to the top of Wandering Shade’s shit list. He fully expected the Shade to parade Gilgamesh in similar chains someday. “It took me far too long to figure out the right method to alter the Law to grab a Crow slave’s mind, but I’ve finally got it. This one’s yours, but his real loyalty is to the Hunter Empire.” Wandering Shade’s voice turned soft and low. “Name him and figure out how to use him, Enkidu. Someday he’ll be a legend among the Crows, the object lesson for why the tricky minded Crows must cooperate with us…or else.”

  Enkidu bent down to the broken man, this shivering wild-eyed Crow, in terrible health and with seeping shackle-galls, and picked up one of the chains. “I’m Enkidu, your new Master.”

  The Crow wet himself, a sharp odor to join the rich scents of the Hunter gathering. Such a disgusting creature. Enkidu suspected this Crow had been in the Shade’s care for quite a long time.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m called Orange.”

  Perfect. Enkidu laughed loudly. “Not anymore. Your new name is Urine.”

  “Master,” Urine whispered. “I will serve you under the Law.”

  “Oh, you shall,” Enkidu said, and smiled a carnivorous grin.

  Gilgamesh: August 7, 1968

  “How’d you get here so quick?” Sky said. Gilgamesh had parked his car five blocks away from the Inferno household and Sky had corralled him half way there, in a neighborhood of expensive estates and ancient oaks. The afternoon sun shone cheerily in a brilliant blue sky and the Boston summer heat was cool by Houston standards.

  “I was visiting Occum when I got the message.” Gilgamesh studied his erstwhile pseudo-Guru. The older Crow appeared settled, not overstressed as he had been in Houston after the Rogue Focus takedown. The short, stocky Crow wore yellow plaid shorts and a bright orange golf shirt, loud enough to make Gilgamesh wince. “Do we have an emergency?”

  They leisurely ambled down the shady sidewalks. In the distance, Gilgamesh heard children playing kickball. The latest kick had been foul. Or maybe not. The children were still arguing. “Perhaps. Lori’s been locked in her room for over a day, and she did something to me to make me forget where her room was.” Sky chuckled. “Which, by the way, is an excellent trick I’m still trying to figure out.”

  Gilgamesh did a quick scan of Sky and didn’t pick up any juice patterns on him. “Did she send for me, then?”

  “No, but I can’t imagine her turning you down if you showed up,” Sky said. “For one thing, I suspect the work I’ve been doing on the Commander’s suggestion may have something to do with it.” Without warning Sky vanished from Gilgamesh’s metasense. “I’ve got it to where I can cover two people if they’re standing close together.”

  “Great,” Gilgamesh said, twitchy. It made him nervous for people to vanish out of his metasense, even if they were standing beside him when they did so, and he could still see them.

  Dealing with Sky and Lori always resembled an amusement park ride. Inferno was just as bad, with their advanced training and extreme security consciousness. Sky’s sudden and still unexplained decision to rename his Tiamat as ‘the Commander’ practically gave Gilgamesh vertigo. The place made him feel inadequate, even with his extensive Arm experience.

  And there was Lori waving at him from inside her room, signaling for him to come up. Even though he was well outside her metasense range. Worse, Sky didn’t even notice, prattling on about the various missions he and Inferno were doing to further the Rizzari rebellion, interspersed with gossip about the fledgling Focus grabbed from a Chicago Clinic, supposedly by a low end Focus named Casso, on the orders of Focus Biggioni. Inferno had bagged two ‘agents�
�� in the last week, both attempting to expose Transform job-holders in allied households, and one of Inferno’s spies in Philly had alibied Biggioni for the evening the Focus vanished. Carol suspected the Focus had run off in fear given the confusing evidence left behind, including the ‘submit to me or die’ letter written on Focus Biggioni’s letterhead. She thought the ‘Focus Casso’ story a likely fabrication by the Clinic workers to cover their asses. Gilgamesh suspected worse.

  “I guess I’ll just have to see what I can do,” Gilgamesh said, gently leading Sky toward the Inferno household. Ann Chiron met them at the door, as if she owned the place. With the way she was cozying up to Sky and her aura of command he might have thought Ann was the Focus here, save for her non-exceptional appearance and lack of a Focus’s glow.

  “Uncanny as always, Gilgamesh,” Ann said. “Sky’s more worried than we are. Lori’s just having a bit of angst. She isn’t neglecting her Focus duties.”

  “I’ll knock first,” Gilgamesh said. From inside her tiny room Lori was sign-language strangling someone, likely Sky, Ann or both. Sky, from his ignorance, still couldn’t metasense Lori.

  Dealing with either of the three Arms was far easier than dealing with Inferno.

  ---

  He didn’t have to knock. Lori opened her door a crack, to verify it was him, and let him into her tiny room, nothing more than the closed off end of a hallway.

  “Focus Rizzari,” Gilgamesh said. He wasn’t sure which Lori he would be dealing with today. There seemed so many. He didn’t get any amorous vibes from her this time, but he did notice the box of tissues and wadded up mess of tissues overflowing the small trash can. “I was visiting…”

  “Shh.” Lori led him over to her undersized bed, sat him down, and sat down beside him. She leaned against him and put his arms around her. “Perfect. Uncomplicated and unconfused affection.”