The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) Read online

  I nodded. I suspected that if I untagged her completely her mind would snap.

  Shirley Patterson was dead meat.

  “Hank, I need something else from you.” He raised his eyebrows, and the wrinkles of his forehead followed them up to the bald spot where his hair had once been.

  “I need you to put three of my Focuses into the cells in the Littleside basement and keep them out of trouble until I find time to deal with them.”

  “Three? Which three?”

  “Julius, Morris, and Teas. Julius has been sleeping since Billington captured her and killed her multiple times. Be kind to Morris, see if you can win her over to our side. Be wary of Teas. Her charisma isn’t as strong as she thinks, but she’s got enough schemes for any ten people, and I’d hate to see anybody here fall under her sway.” Zielinski nodded and I smiled faintly. “If Teas has a rough time of it while I’m gone, that wouldn’t bother me any. She’s a fool and in need of some hard life lessons.”

  “I know Teas,” Hank said. “If she tries her Focus tricks on me, I think she’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise,” he said. I believed him. Heh. Zielinski could outmaneuver both Lori and Tonya. He would eat Teas for lunch, and his anger at the first Focuses was old and powerful.

  “Good.”

  “Julius, though…” He paused. “I hate to say this, but kill her. Now. Before she recovers. You have no idea what sort of trouble she is. The rest of the first Focuses, including Patterson, kept her locked away out of fear, Commander.”

  I sneered at his thought of danger. A goddamned junior Arm took her out, for fucks sake. “No,” I said. “She knows too much, and I need to learn what she knows.”

  Hank took a deep breath, and shrugged, more worried than he let on. He would be spending money I didn’t have to increase Littleside’s security. Perhaps rigging some bombs to blow Julius into red mist at the slightest provocation. “What about Wini Adkins?” he asked, too casual.

  “Not your problem,” I said.

  “Carol,” he said, but I cut him off.

  “I have plans for her, and I’m not going to ask you to contribute to them in any way. Appreciate that.”

  Zielinski looked away. Outside the window, sleet dripped down the window pane of the Littleside examining room.

  “Carol,” he said. The downside of my ensuring his loyalty was that he now focused on my personal business like a laser. “I would like to talk to you about those plans. Are you sure it’s wise to let your darker side…”

  Cathy cut him off with a hiss of raw fury. I held her back to keep her from attacking him with curled fingers like claws.

  “My business,” I said, cold. Zielinski looked at the rage in Cathy, and my cold hostility and wisely refrained from pushing the subject any further.

  “Sibrian will be coming by in a few minutes with the Focuses,” I said. “In the meantime, I have Arms to corral and a battle to arrange. If you need me, contact me at the Adirondacks number.”

  Dolores Sokolnik: December 21, 1972

  “Zulu! Zulu!” The static-degraded voice came from Webberly’s large backpack. Del froze with her arms extended, in the process of handing the heavy box of Keaton’s notebooks to Theresa. Theresa, responsible for stacking their accumulated Keaton records inside the military surplus truck, blinked and stopped moving. Webberly sped to her backpack, against the wall only ten feet from Del, and took out another bit of military surplus gear, this a radio-telephone unit. Del hadn’t realized it had been on.

  “Copy. What’s the situation, Mouse?” Mouse must be the Crow that Webberly worked with.

  “Incoming.” Static, followed by garbled words. Webberly tensed. Theresa had lost all interest in Del’s incoming box, and Del put it down on the floor of the truck. She listened intently.

  “India Mike India.” Please repeat.

  “Seven incoming. Two Arms, five captive Transforms, and myself. Moving…” More static. Del wondered how far away this Crow was calling from.

  Del concentrated on her metasense, and as Webberly got Mouse to repeat the message again, Del spotted one of the Arms and all of the captives. Two of the captive Transforms were unconscious, in shock, and not long for life. “Got them. I only metasense two Major Transforms, though, and one of them metasenses as me,” Del said. “Convoy of two vehicles, both station wagons. Just under a half mile out.”

  “Merry! Giselle! Incoming!” Webberly said, her voice loud enough to rattle the walls of the entire converted barn housing Keaton’s loading dock. “Get everyone here, now!”

  Del relayed information, staring blindly across the dock’s parking lot into the brush on the other side. “One vehicle stopped just over a quarter mile out, the one carrying the Transforms and the entity mimicking my metapresence. The other vehicle, with one unknown Arm, is coming here.”

  “The echo effect is a known trick of the Crow known of as Echo,” Webberly said. She scanned the loading dock area as she spoke, memorizing her environment in preparation for conflict. “Gail’s crew was apparently correct again. They had hypothesized that Bass’s Crow, Snowcone, was merely an identity of Echo.”

  “This is Bass?” Del said, flustered and instantly regretting her inane comment. “Ma’am.” She fought off the urge to run.

  “Bass is masking herself from your metasense, but not mine.” Webberly grimaced. “Her metapresence has changed. The other Arm is Bartlett’s age and severely messed up.” Pause. “I doubt she’ll be a challenge for even you.”

  Merry and Giselle sprinted into the loading dock, herding Duval, Mona, and Dottie, door slamming behind them with a bang. The approaching station wagon entered Keaton’s driveway and parked at the edge of the crushed gravel lot, about forty feet from the loading dock. Bass climbed out of the station wagon, a tortured and wild-eyed young Arm in tow.

  “Well, well, well,” Bass said, walking forward toward the broad, open expanse of the loading dock. Del attempted to parse everything that had changed about Bass in the few days since she last saw her, and gave up, overwhelmed by the numbers. The most prominent changes were to her hands and eyes; both had turned silver. Bass had grown an inch or two, and her leg musculature had changed. “Y’all have saved me a lot of work by gathering yourselves here. Welcome to The Glorious Day, my new Arm organization.”

  They all froze, save for Arm Debardelaben, who grabbed Mona and Theresa and hustled the two student Arms out of Bass’s view behind the truck. Bass leapt up to the loading dock floor and smiled, followed by the wild-eyed young Arm.

  “Del, it’s nice to see you’re still well. I’ve learned quite a lot recently, from Gloriana, on the science of withdrawal imprinting.” Bass’s smile widened. “I’m going to make you a star.”

  “Gloriana?” Webberly said. Del didn’t recognize the name. From various reactions, only Webberly and Merry did. “You’re openly serving Patterson?”

  Del took an involuntary step back, into a fighting crouch.

  “I serve no one,” Bass said. “True, I was once Gloriana’s student, but I graduated over two years ago. I’m now her ally, at least for as long as she holds to her end of the deal.”

  “You betrayed Keaton?” Webberly said. “You’re insane. She’s going to flay you alive for this.”

  Ma’am Keaton is dead, Del thought. Only a lunatic would attempt to hold Ma’am Keaton after capturing her.

  “Keaton?” Bass laughed. “Keaton now wears my tag, as does Rayburn. Gloriana is currently training them and showing them the truth. Soon, they’ll understand we’re all equal before the holy light of God, nothing but dirt and mud, fated to live fast and die young.” Bass’s predator effect blazed forward, echoed by the unknown Arm, likely one of the missing baby Arms that the Rickenbach crew hypothesized had been taken by the Chrysanthemum corporation. Dottie echoed Bass’s predator as well, at least until Del yanked on Dottie’s tag, reminding her of her true loyalties.

  “I will not…” Webberly’s voice stopped, overwhelmed by Bass’s predator. She was going to say
‘serve you’.

  “I betrayed nobody,” Bass said. “All is fair in a dominance fight, and that’s what I waged against the Commander and the Boss. Both fell to me, and through their fall I’m now the boss of all the Arms.”

  “Armenigar is going to have something to say about that,” Giselle said, from the back right side of Bass, appearing from around the truck. “You have no right to…”

  “Shut up, you pathetic nobody,” Bass said, sending the tall Arm a sneering glare. “You’re not an Arm, just some useless over-tagged tool of the wretched Focuses.” Giselle glared back but didn’t respond; Del had spent enough minutes around the likeable Arm to read her silence as coming from the struggle to hold in her anger, not from being cowed by Bass’s predator. In fact, her ability to sneer at Bass’s predator came from the stature of all those tags.

  “I serve the Commander, not you, Arm Bass,” Webberly said. Giselle’s comment had shifted Bass’s attention and given Webberly the room to wiggle free of Bass’s predator. Beside Del, Arm Duval, a thoroughly unpleasant sort and around Merry’s age as an Arm, unsheathed her daggers, licked her lips and tensed, ready to charge in and defend Webberly. Tag loyalty. “Defeating me won’t change that.”

  “I’m going to enjoy teaching you how wrong you are, Rose,” Bass said. She tensed, her predator changing from ‘sneering dominance’ to ‘challenge fight accepted’.

  Del’s stomach plummeted, terror now bubbling out of her quiet pools as the likely outcome of this played itself out in her head. Bass would easily defeat Webberly and take dominance over her. Forcing Webberly to obey, Bass would keep Webberly close until she took down the Commander and the Hero. The rest of them would either bow to Bass and accept her tag, or challenge Bass and be similarly defeated. Bass would take them down individually. It was the Arm way.

  The Arm way meant Del’s death.

  The way to defeat Bass was through a group attack, Del knew. Individually they were each weaker than Bass, but as a group they would be far stronger. Webberly, Debardelaben, Merry, Dottie. If they all worked together they would win.

  Except, Del realized with horror, since she ranked Merry and Dottie, she herself would need to participate in such a group attack. Every Arm instinct she possessed screamed in offense. She couldn’t even contemplate joining into an ongoing challenge fight between two other Arms.

  She was too weak, she realized, merely a student, not strong enough to override her Arm instincts, even when those instincts would kill her. She tried to think of ways around the Arm instincts, these immensely strong Arm instincts, and all she accomplished was the summoning of a chorus of jeers and laughter from the other minds inside her, the ones who should be quiet and dormant in the quiet pools. No, she wouldn’t be able to fight off the Arm instincts.

  Stupidity, though, wasn’t at all against the Arm way.

  “You only think you’re free, you deluded worm,” Del said, banishing everything except her arguments into the quiet pools. She couldn’t join a group attack, but issuing a challenge in her own right was entirely legitimate. Stupid, but legitimate. “Patterson’s reward to you, your young Arm torture victim, is Patterson’s eyes and ears on you. She’s your political minder, the Communist party officer ‘advising’ the military officer and keeping him in line. Every time you proclaim your freedom, Patterson laughs a little louder. You…”

  Not enough. Bass didn’t even react to Del’s challenge posture or her words, or take her seriously. Instead, she flicked her hands at Del, and three throwing knives appeared on Del’s body before Del could even twitch, one in her abdomen, a second in her chest, poking deep into her left lung and resting on her aorta, and the third in her throat. Webberly’s posture tensed, a reaction to an attack on one of her tagged Arms, but nobody else reacted.

  Bass had done worse to Del in the past, though. Mutilation was expected, and thus easily ignored. “I don’t think you even realize how much of a pawn of the Firsts you are,” Del said, talking around the knife in her throat. Talking made the wound bleed more, but she had already flooded her lungs with her blood, on purpose, so she ignored the issue. “Back when you were a newborn Arm, they used you as a throw-away weapon to kill Dr. Littleside in Denver. I’m sure you remember killing him, but you don’t remember the shadowy figures who controlled you, because you’re their pawn and they control your well-shackled mind.” Everyone but Mona could read the truth in what Del said. Del metasensed Bass’s thin-skinned anger explode. Now was the time to strike! “They imprinted you like a baby duckling, and you serve them with all the free will of a baby duckling as she follows…”

  Del charged toward Bass as she spoke the words ‘serve them’. Her idiotic challenge charge with three knives in her would probably kill her before she even reached Bass. The charge saved her life, though, as Bass’s attempted headshot instead went through the muscles of Del’s upper right arm. The impact of the bullet from the previously unseen high caliber weapon, combined with the effects of the three knife wounds, upset Del’s balance and sent her sprawling, long before she reached Bass.

  “Fuck this shit, I never served Keaton and I don’t recognize your authority,” Giselle said. She echoed Bass’s single shot with five of her own, zipping right over Del’s head. Only two hit, and before Del hit the concrete as a bleeding sack of uselessness, she got to see Giselle drop her subgun, switch over to sword and knife, and charge Bass, her sword held high and swinging toward Bass’s neck as she leapt over Del.

  “That’s my Arm!” Dottie Kent said, charging faster and reaching Bass before Giselle did. She charged to defend Del. Bass’s attempted headshot, an attempt to kill an Arm challenger instead of defeating her in combat, changed everything. Bass, of her own free will, had exited the rituals of the challenge fight in a fit of temper. Every Arm on the loading dock comprehended the change instantly.

  “Stop this insanity, I’m challenging…” Bass said, a predatory command, as she flicked Dottie to the side and conjured a sword from nowhere to block Giselle’s head blow. Dottie ended up on the curved canvas roof of the military surplus transport, but her guts ended up on the other side. As Dottie flew through the air, Webberly shook off Bass’s predator, and with an amazing burst of speed, swung her long fighting knife in an attempt to decapitate Bass.

  “Hands off my Arms!” Webberly said, as she swung. Bass blocked the latest decapitation attempt with a knife, sliced at Webberly, missed, then stuck a leg behind Webberly to trip her, leaving Webberly open for a death blow.

  The death blow never came, as Bass needed to turn to counter Giselle’s latest attack and Arm Duval’s futile attempt to help. Arm Duval’s charge in, alas, followed Kent’s exit, swiftly away, in this case spinning through the air, weapons flying, and one hand around a blood-spurting cut throat. Giselle and Bass traded blows only inches from Del’s head, Bass taking a deep cut across the chest, another across the face, a knife in the abdomen (unfortunately, the knife falling out of Giselle’s hand before she could rip open Bass’s guts), and a bone crunching blow to her left leg from the back of Giselle’s sword. They fought so fast Del could barely understand what she saw. Giselle screamed and something exploded in Del’s metasense, in Giselle’s right hand. As Giselle pirouetted away, she pulled out a knife to parry one of Bass’s knife blows, but Bass caught Giselle’s dropped sword and cut off Giselle’s right leg with it before losing her grip again. Giselle skidded away while defending herself from more expected blows from Bass, which never came. Del breathed a sigh of momentary relief as the fight moved away from her head.

  Merry Bartlett didn’t charge. Instead, she grabbed the flailing Theresa, who wanted to charge, and sprinted over to the truck. The truck started, Merry reappeared, and she gathered Dottie’s scattered remains and tossed them into the back.

  Bass’s tortured gift Arm didn’t do a thing save stand and radiate fear, her eyes swiveling back and forth over the fight.

  As Giselle skidded away, Webberly got back to her feet and pressed forward, fighting like
a demon, with the combat skills Del expected of a true mature Arm. Bass backed one step, then another. She tried something with a syringe, but the syringe went flying, as did two of Bass’s fingers. Webberly ducked left and kicked right, a short knife now sticking out of her right boot tip. It ripped into Bass’s left leg, and before Bass could exploit Webberly’s awkward posture, Webberly rolled forward and flipped one eighty. Del lost sight of the fight for a moment as she flew through the air, tossed like a sack of beans over the top of the melee and down to the hard floor of the surplus military transport. She removed all three knives from her body before she hit, not wanting to take any chances.

  When she came back to herself she was lying in a pool of her own blood and barely able to lift her head to follow the fight. She hastily started reabsorbing the blood from her lungs and barely fought off panic when she realized she didn’t have the juice to heal all her wounds. Webberly dodged two of five thrown knives, absorbed a point blank pistol shot through the gut before she kicked the weapon out of Bass’s left hand, and thrust a sword through Bass’s left shoulder. Bass rolled back, taking Webberly’s sword with her (Del was sure this was Giselle’s original sword), and she slapped at the blood-gushing open wound with her left hand. The blood stopped its spurting and Bass’s silver hand turned leaden and gray. Webberly pounced left, flicked up two semi-automatic pistols and shot them dry, forcing Bass to retreat off the loading dock platform, blood spurting from multiple wounds.

  Del lost track of the fight for another several moments after Duval’s bleeding mess landed on her, Duval panicky and wild. “Don’t move,” Del said, to Duval. Duval froze, captured by Del’s predator. “Concentrate on healing. Think on nothing else.” Duval obeyed, and her panicked thrashing turned into successful healing. Another burst of gunfire swiveled Del’s head back to the fight. Bass was out of sight, but not out of metasense range. She and her pet Arm were hoofing it toward the second vehicle, the one a quarter mile away with the Crow and the captive Transforms.