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

  Beth winced. “Gail, I don’t know if I want to congratulate you or cry. Focuses don’t do well in intimate relationships.”

  “Yah, I know,” Gail said. “But I don’t know what I’d do without him. Besides, some Focuses have spouses, at least according to what I’ve read.”

  “Some. Not many.” Beth turned away. “I suspect nearly all of them are marriages of convenience only. One that I know of – God!”

  “What?”

  “No names. Don’t even think about names. The Focus married the man for money, with the idea that she could satisfy him with a ready-made harem of unattached Transform women. What I’ve heard is the Focus turns him on with her charisma, then pumps her poor Transform woman until she’s, well, ready, and then sits and watches while they, you know.”

  “Um, right.” Gail shuddered. She already had a little of the Focus charisma stuff the authorities said would take a couple of years to show up, and she wanted more. “I’m not staying with Van for the good of the household. I’m doing it because of, well, love.” Gail winced at her own comment. Her words sounded sappy, even to her. They didn’t come close to expressing the depths of her feelings. He was the one she confided in the most, and the only one whose judgment she trusted.

  “Well, there’s ways,” Beth said, in a whisper. “It takes work, though.”

  “Ways of what?”

  “You know, so you can get a little bit in the mood. At least enough so you can keep from going round the bend with a screaming fit if some horny guy touches you.”

  Gail almost dropped her bowl of homemade cottage cheese as the blood drained from her face. “It’s going to get that bad?”

  “What?” Beth said. “It’s not already that bad?”

  The light dawned and Gail blushed from head to toe, totally mortified. When Beth described a Focus’s frigidity, what else could she be talking from except personal experience? With horror, Gail realized Beth had been describing her own reaction to men. “Sorry,” Gail said. “I’m really sorry.” Small tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “I shouldn’t have brought this up.”

  “Look, don’t worry about it,” Beth said. Firm, but not angry. “I’ve had plenty of years to get used to it. So,” Beth said, her happy face returning instantly. “Tell me how you react in bed.”

  The flush of a moment ago wouldn’t go away, but talking was fun, too. Gail hadn’t talked girl talk in ages. “Cuddling is fun. I get a little interested, but rarely enough to get, well, juicy. I fake my orgasms.”

  “Ooookaay,” Beth said, then paused to think. “I’ll give you some advice, but only if you promise not to forget about me when you become a big shot Focus bitch.”

  “Sure. But me? A big shot? Why do you think I’m ever going to amount to anything?” She barely had her own life under control, and leading a household by example wasn’t working out as well as she had once hoped and dreamed. This sounded like one of Van’s screwy ideas; he believed she was on the fast track to Focus stardom. She didn’t, couldn’t, believe. She couldn’t afford to.

  “I’ve been waiting to hit you with this one until you got your feet on the ground, and now’s as good a time as any,” Beth said. The look on Beth’s face was priceless. Beth was about to get her good. “You have a full triad more in your household than I have, and I’ll bet you can support at least one more. That’s one.”

  “Uh, all right. The Clinic people don’t seem to agree.”

  “Idiots. Tell them you can take another. Demand it. The more Transforms you support, the better off your juice will be, and the more juice you have, the better your emotional state is. This includes bedroom activities.”

  Gail nodded. With all her problems, she liked hearing she had some advantages as a Focus to fall back on.

  “Then there’s sex. Gail, most Focuses have a hard time with body contact of any form, save from their own Transforms, and that’s different. That’s two.”

  Two? “I don’t like where you’re going with this, Beth.” She had spent the last six months excusing her difficulties by thinking she was a piss-poor Focus with screwed up abilities. Two advantages meant she would have a harder time making excuses for herself…and that Van, the ratfink, was right.

  “Then there’s the way you move juice. ‘Whoosh!’ I quote. Gail, some new Focuses can’t move juice at all without touching their Transforms, it takes them minutes and minutes to reset them to their optimums, and most can’t tell when their Transforms are in trouble, juice wise.” Pause. “That’s three.”

  “You know, you can stop now, Beth,” Gail said, an empty pit in her stomach creeping in from nowhere. She checked her Transforms, and, yes, ‘whoosh!’ she had stripped the closest ones right down to the low juice line. She gave them back their juice.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Beth said, her grin as wide as Gail had ever seen. “There’s the stunt you pulled with your metasense when I came in. That’s four. You can tell your Transforms apart with your metasense, can’t you?”

  Gail nodded, a little flushed with embarrassment. She had always been able to do that, from the day she had woken up cursed, as a Focus.

  “Many, if not most Focuses can’t. On the other hand, some Focuses are even good enough at metasensing to see through the eyes of their Transforms. So they say.”

  Gail flushed deeper. “You can do that, too, eh,” Beth said. “That’s five.”

  “This is special? Seriously?”

  “As death,” Beth said. “Then there was the time when we first met, when you kept me from stepping on a nail. That’s another well-known metasense trick, colloquially termed ‘seeing through walls’. That’s six.”

  “Beth, I can’t…” Gail said, her voice trailing off. “I mean, it’s just sensing where the ambient household juice isn’t.” Her face had grown so red she had to turn away. “I’d thought the only neat unique trick I had was my ability to metasense bad juice in Clinics, a pretty useless trick at that.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper and she felt as if someone had firmly yanked the rug from underneath her. This was far worse than Van’s explanation for why he was convinced she was going places: her un-Focus-like willpower.

  “Ooookaay, that one is a rather rarified talent. And that’s seven,” Beth said. “There’s an eighth, too, the most important sign: good charisma. I can’t reach you at all with mine, which is quite a trick for a young Focus like you. I’ve even seen a few flashes of active charisma in you. I’d be willing to bet you a hundred bucks your charisma’s going to start coming in within the next six months, and that it’s going to be hellacious.”

  Early charisma did sound good to Gail. “You’re saying I’m some sort of super Focus or something?” Gail said, with a little shiver. “Like I should wear a big red S on my shirt?”

  “Only time will tell; there’s Focuses, and then there’s Focuses. I’m not exactly shabby,” Beth said, with a smile. “I mean, Focus Biggioni wouldn’t have tapped me to advise you if I wasn’t ‘not shabby’. Wait until you meet a low end Focus. There’s one in Detroit, Judith Stell, who’s about as low end as I’ve ever met. Focus number twenty-eight, one of the older ones they call the ‘second generation’, like Focus Biggioni. Transformed years ago, in ’59. Only Stell can barely keep her puny six triad house afloat, and Focus Adkins makes all her decisions for her. I don’t blame Adkins one bit for that stunt, either, by the way. Stell is a hazard, and if my memory serves me correctly, she’s lost – that’s a euphemism for dead, Gail – over a dozen of her people in her career.”

  “Shit!” Gail said, wincing. She couldn’t imagine how horrible being a Focus without any abilities would be, and with so few Transforms she would never be able to escape peri-withdrawal. The thought brought tears to her eyes. Plus, Beth’s story put Focus Adkins’ original comments in a new light. Adkins might be a bitch, but she had just cause to worry if she was stuck having to support a Focus who lost a Transform a year.

  “On the other hand,” Beth said, “there are a few who are r
eal top end ‘do everything a Focus can possibly do’ types, like Focus Biggioni. They don’t publish anything about what sets these Focuses apart, but, well, you’d never guess…we Focuses gossip.”

  “Never,” Gail said, deadpan. Gail couldn’t think of herself ever being up to Focus Biggioni’s caliber, but on the other hand, perhaps she would find some other way to shine. Gail wondered if there might be any call for a hot shit Focus newspaper reporter.

  “So all us old timer Focuses know what qualities a top end Focus has,” Beth said. “You’ve got all the signs, so far, and then some.”

  Gail forced herself to nod. This wasn’t something she had prepared herself for, not in her wildest dreams.

  “Now, if you want to know the bedroom tricks…” Beth said. Gail nodded again. “Let me tell you. First, you need some women Transforms, all willing to rub up against you…”

  Disgusting. Gail turned red, listening to Beth’s lengthy description. The question was: would Gail be willing to do that for Van?

  Damn straight.

  “So,” Beth said, a few minutes later, “what do you get when a Focus puts a bullet through her brain?”

  “Huh?”

  “You get a Focus who complains less and moves juice better.”

  Gail barked laughter, spreading breadcrumbs all over the room. “Dead Focus jokes?”

  “Uh huh. You think being a Focus is all seriousness, all the time?” Beth said, shrugging and sweeping her long luxurious hair aside, so that it sparkled. “So, how do you make a dead Focus float?”

  “How?”

  “One glass of root beer and two scoops of Focus.” Pause. “If you’re on a diet, use only one scoop.”

  Gail put her head in her hands and shook with laughter.

  “What’s brown and keeps its juices in?”

  Gail waved her hands in surrender.

  “A dead Focus in an oven bag.”

  “Stop! Stop!” Gail said, tears pouring out her eyes.

  “What’s grosser than seven dead Focuses in a dumpster?”

  “Noooo!”

  “One dead Focus in seven dumpsters. What’s…”

  Carol Hancock: November 8, 1968

  When I went outside to pick up the morning newspaper, I found a present I hadn’t metasensed until I got ten feet away from him. Someone had tied up an unwanted male Transform and dropped him off in front of my house, right next to the Houston Post. Either one would be enough to bring down the property values if the neighbors noticed. Whoever delivered him had rigged him so I wouldn’t metasense him until I got close. I went into full paranoid mode, pistols drawn, the works.

  Good thing I did, because in my paranoia I found a note tied to a rock about half way up my driveway.

  Tiamat,

  The person who dropped this off is the Focus Hera. She has a team of nine Transforms and normals with her. She did not leave Houston after dropping him off. At the time I write this note, she is set up in contact with a normal bodyguard of hers, and the bodyguard is located in the pale blue house down the road, just out of your range. My guess is that she’s ready to act if you take the Transform and go beddy bye. BEWARE.

  Crow Midgard

  I wished I had noticed the rock earlier. I had gotten too close to the formerly metasense-masked Transform and was into my stalk. Without the warning, I would have taken the Transform anyway and ignored the risk. I had burned too much juice in my healing to turn down free juice when it showed up.

  Damn, this was a good trick, the knockout punch Biggioni needed to finish me off after her Keaton manipulations. With Lori and Keaton both no longer allies and free juice in the offing, I would fall under her control just for the support she offered. I knew from experience the destination the lone Arm path led. I preferred other paths out of my current hole. Luckily, my Crow allies had saved me again. They were worth every bit of craziness I went through to keep them happy (such as what to do with the personal checks, foreign cash and Crow-to-Crow IOUs that kept showing up in my Crow petty cash bin).

  I wasn’t safe yet. Never in my life had I ever backed out of a stalk from a kill this close, but right then, my freedom depended on doing so. I understood the bitch’s game. If I took the Transform gift somewhere safe and she didn’t capture me immediately, Biggioni would play drug pusher and keep feeding me gift Transforms until I relented. She would have her tamed Arm either way.

  I dragged the fresh juice into the garage, cursing to raise the roof, and tossed him in the back of my nondescript white van. Oh, I wanted him very badly, but this time, as when I graduated from Keaton, I refused to allow myself to take him. Instead, I walked back into the house, called Zielinski, told him what I wanted, and how fast: now.

  I drove off.

  The McDonalds’ on Main, right next to the OST split and a quarter mile away from the oversized South Main Transform Clinic, was the favorite emergency contact point for everyone in my organization. I pulled in at a little past 9:30 and waited. The phone rang at 9:45. Yes, some idiots tailed me, but I didn’t care. If Biggioni’s crew pushed me, they were dead, tagged Transforms or not. I would have loved to capture them, but I couldn’t pull off anything that delicate with my hands still messed up.

  Zielinski gave me the information I needed and I told him to call Consuela, my current housekeeper, and have her prepare an extra-rare prime rib, my favorite meal. I had followed the Houston tradition of Hispanic housekeepers and picked up Consuela in mid-September when I found her wandering the East End area of Houston wearing nothing but a bra and a half-slip. Her daughter and son-in-law had thrown her out of the house.

  Ordinarily, I would expect to feel sorry for a sixty year old woman thrown naked out of her own house by her own children, but not in Consuela’s case. In her case, I had more sympathy for the children. Consuela, a heavyset woman who knew how to throw her weight around, had ruled her household with an iron-fisted brutality, beating her family and terrorizing all the neighbors in the area. The local children thought she had the evil eye. Consuela didn’t lose her authority until her youngest daughter replaced her child-beating mother with a wife-beating husband, because the bigger and stronger wife-beating husband didn’t tolerate competition.

  Consuela was mine, now. I didn’t tolerate competition either, and so Consuela was an absolutely perfect housekeeper. She, like Fred, understood the fundamentals of power.

  Once I finished talking to Hank, I drove out to Clear Lake, the NASA suburb, and found our Transform a new home. Poor Focus Laura Kersh, only five months out of her transformation. She never knew what hit her. She didn’t even have armed bodyguards. “My name is Focus Biggioni,” I said, “and here is your new Transform. Tag him now, he’s about to go into withdrawal!” Did I say my ubiquitous white van carried a full disguise kit? Or that I was getting real good at the cold orders / instant response style of control? Or the fact I had spent some time with the poor Transform man, whispering ugly truths in his ear about how nasty old Focus Biggioni had him kidnapped from a Clinic, because he wasn’t going to be claimed, set him out as bait for an Arm, and that his life was being saved only because the Arm had been kind enough to actually find him a Focus to tag him. Arms are so misunderstood, aren’t they? We’re not the killers, the big shot bitch Focuses are…

  Lucky me, I guessed correctly. Once Focus Kersh tagged my prey, he became just another tagged Transform, and letting go of him turned out to be easy.

  I went home and, still a little shaky, ate a prime rib roast. The whole bloody thing.

  ---

  “Yes, Eileen, I know you’re not supposed to talk to me, but it’s an apocalypse-level emergency. I need to talk to Gilgamesh. No, I wouldn’t have any problem talking to the Focus, either.”

  The formality bugged me, but with Lori and I on the outs, formality was necessary. It had to be some crazy aspect of Focus charisma that made me refer to her – and even think of her – as ‘the Focus’.

  I waited, carrying my white phone and pacing the length of my living
room, for almost ten minutes before the phone got picked up. Twice.

  “Carol? What’s the emergency?” Gilgamesh said. Lori didn’t say a thing.

  “Sit yourself down,” I said. I ran through everything from my October 1st Keaton session, which I hadn’t shared with Gilgamesh, through today. “Zielinski and I have been speculating about Tonya’s involvement in all of this, positing she hired someone to break into his personal safe in his office, but we didn’t have any proof. Until now. Tonya thinks she’s backed me into a corner, fearful of being hunted down as Rogue Arm, friendless and without support. She thinks she’s just delivered the knockout punch.” Gilgamesh, Midgard and Sky would be getting some rather large Christmas bonuses this year. The Crows were my only remaining support, and Sky had been the one who figured out the greatly and justly feared Hera had suborned the Crow letter writing circuit. “Right this instant Biggioni’s sitting in the local FBI office, armed to the teeth, waiting for me to surrender or slip up.” On top of everything else, I might have to skip town and give up on Houston as my territory. I was not happy.