The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Three Read online

  “What do you want from me?” the new Gal said, her voice soft and nervous. She was an old one, early fifties perhaps, her brown hair streaked with gray. She was short, a little bit dumpy, but old laugh lines creased her face, which held a kind of comforting wisdom, even when she was terrified half out of her mind. Her juice, not yet élan, glowed richly virgin, untouched by a Focus. He figured she had a few more weeks to go before she became a Monster.

  “You’re a Transssform, and when you become a Monssster I’m going to take your élan,” Grendel said.

  “Me? The Shakes?” the woman said. She tried to skitter away, but in the pitch-black darkness, she didn’t get any farther than the wall six feet from Grendel’s couch. “I’m too old.”

  “Don’t run and you won’t get hurt,” Grendel said. “I’m getting better. I haven’t lost a new Gal this month.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Perhapsss,” he said, amused by this Gal’s spunk. “You’re going to be one of my Gals.”

  Now he expected her to make a break for freedom, screaming into the night. “Monster? If I have a Focus, I won’t become a Monster.”

  She knew the basics. Good. “You don’t need a Focusss, you’ve got me. When you become a Monster your juice becomes élan, my special treat. I take that” and fuck you, but he didn’t want to say that yet “and you get to live.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound so bad,” she said. As coincidence would have it, the Gals in the basement decided to get in a few howls, and the new Gal curled up on the floor, hugging herself, hands over her ears. “What was that?” she asked, when the howling ceased.

  “Oh, that’s just the Gals in the basement.”

  That did it. Grendel had to leap and catch the new Gal before she ran away or got herself killed by her panic. Now the Law said he should put the new Gal in the basement. He unlocked the basement door, and she kicked and screamed and panicked all the way down the stairs.

  The basement wasn’t a welcoming place. Marcie was the worst. She had gone Monster three times and he had a sweet spot for her. She was a virgin, of course, but more, she seemed to be taking some pattern from him. She grew gray-green scales like his, but with a few little brown spots on them. Her face was becoming elongated like a snake, and her teeth had fallen out to reveal the beginnings of fresh points coming in, fangs, mirroring the ones he had. Unfortunately, her mind held nothing but mindless fury and wild insanity. He would have to kill her next time.

  Juanita had gone Monster once, thus explaining the slimy skin and rubbery bones. She produced an overpowering rank odor, enough to be noticeable even through the normal cesspool reek of the basement. Her eyes had become layered in slime and Grendel suspected she had gone blind. In the darkness of the basement blindness didn’t matter, of course, but softening bones and slime would likely be a problem. He suspected she would be able to slip his chains and ties by the second time she went Monster, and he wouldn’t be able to hold her anymore. He would have to kill her then.

  His third, Estelle, hadn’t gone Monster yet, but she was still a bitch. She had been a bitch ever since he stole her from that Focus household in Salt Lake. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Grendel thought he might let her steep in her élan a little extra time when she went Monster. The longer she stewed, the more she would hurt. Going Monster hurt a lot.

  The new Gal’s protests inflamed all three Gals, although if any of them could see each other Grendel knew the fury would be worse. He beat his way past the Monster Gals and their mindless turf defense. They would even fight each other if he didn’t chain them in place. The new Gal would hate the basement. She was too nice not to.

  He knelt down at her appointed spot, felt the chains and found the locks. “Sssssheissssster!” he said, his favorite cuss word. He had taken the keys to the basement door, but had forgotten the keys to the padlocks on the chains!

  Well, he didn’t have any choice but to cope. He grabbed the new Gal, put her back on his shoulder, and trudged back up the stairs. When he closed the stairway door, the basement Gals quieted again.

  The new Gal relaxed and stopped her carrying on. “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much,” she said. She thought he had granted her a reprieve. She relaxed her tight grip on his back. It would be hard to take her downstairs again.

  “What’s your name?” he said, as he pawed through his stolen dresser de-messer in the darkness for the padlock keys.

  “Cleo,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  Her reasonableness touched his heart. “My Master calls me Grendel,” he said. He had another name not too long ago, but he had forgotten it.

  He would like to have someone to talk to in those many days when his Master was gone. “Do you think you can be reasonable?” His Master’s Laws would allow him to keep her upstairs as long as she stayed reasonable.

  “Yes, I’ll be reasonable. Just don’t put me down there,” she said, her voice muffled against his back.

  He put her down and led her out into the living room. The sun hadn’t yet risen above the horizon but the moon gave enough light for a normal woman like Cleo to be able to see him for what he was. “Look at me.” She did. She didn’t back away. “You mussst be happy,” he said, his quieter voice softening his hissy sibilants. “I’ll care for you until the end, if you’re happy.”

  “The end? When I become like them?” she asked, looking down.

  “Yesss.”

  The smile on her face was ghoulish and hideous, but she smiled. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her dirty sleeve and licked her lips. “I’ll be happy. Very very happy.”

  ---

  Grendel sat in his easy chair in the living room and read, with a couple of pieces of paper and a pencil by his right hand. Every few minutes, he wrote something down, looking intently from the book to his paper. Five days ago Wandering Shade had done something to the Law in him after he had Juanita. Painful. Afterwards, Grendel was able to read again. Wandering Shade was happy.

  Grendel owed everything to his Master.

  He was in a two-legged form right now and so used the chair. If he had been in his four-legged form he would have curled up on the floor. Off in the kitchen he heard Cleo banging around trying to fix a traditional dinner for him. Doing so was impossible without gas or electricity in the house, but she kept trying. Her struggles were cute. She would do anything to keep herself out of the basement.

  He heard the clank of her shackles and chain again as she came toward the living room from the kitchen. He waited for the pause. Just before she entered the living room, the pause, the same as always, a long moment spent gathering herself to make sure she stayed happy.

  “I have dinner for you, sir,” she said, smiling and happy. He liked the way she called him ‘sir’. She made him feel so respectable.

  Dinner consisted of a plate of sandwiches, made with three-day-old bread from a night raid on a grocery store, and sliced raw dog meat from a dog who had made the mistake of coming too close last night. Fresh dog was a special treat, even more special to have someone prepare and serve dinner for him.

  Life was good.

  She didn’t look too bad for a Gal. Oh, she had gotten a little thin, her clothes were filthy and the shackle around her neck was raising all sorts of sores, but this was still a lot better than most of his Gals after even a few days.

  She brought the sandwiches over and held the plate for him as he reached out and downed sandwich after sandwich. He smelled the scent of fear on her but she held on to her smile.

  “Is it going to hurt much when you take my juice?” she said, finally, in a small voice.

  His poor little Gal. He had never had children and Cleo was old enough to be his mother, but she was his little Gal all the same. He wanted to lie to her and tell her everything would be all right. He couldn’t do that to her.

  “It’s going to hurt,” he said, and motioned for her to sit on his lap. The chair was almost at the end of the range of her chain, about ten feet from the doorjamb, but she co
uld reach if she wanted. He stroked her hair and rocked her. Back and forth, back and forth.

  “Would you tell me about it, please?” she asked. “I’m starting to have headaches.” Grendel thought she relaxed a bit as he spoke. Truth. She believed him, and trusted him a bit.

  “The headaches will get worse. The last couple of days are hard.” Hard. He gave her a little bit of truth, but not too much. She didn’t need to know how hard those last few days would be.

  “I’ll be there for you,” he told her. “I’ll be right beside you when you get close. When you do go over and your juice turns to élan, I’ll catch you. I’ll be right there the minute it happens and I’ll draw up the élan as fast as I can. I won’t let it hurt you a minute longer than it has to. I promise.” Wandering Shade taught him. Each time Grendel did it better.

  She nodded again, a rubbing of her cheek against the top of his chest. He felt a little shudder, and a funny catch of breath, and realized she cried. She had kept her tears inside for days, but she couldn’t hold them anymore. Her arms wrapped around his chest, tight. Cleo sobbed. All the hurt, all the loneliness, all the terrible grinding fear, all coming out on his chest in a tiny hurricane of sobs and tears.

  Such a lonely little Gal, so alone and so afraid, and the only one she had was him. He rocked her, and stroked her, and he loved her, more than he ever loved anyone in his life.

  ---

  Cleo lay curled in the center of the living room with her arms wrapped around her head. She shivered miserably. Occasionally when she breathed out, she made a weird little whimpering noise, a short, high little noise, as if the hell inside of her was escaping like through the valve on a pressure cooker.

  Grendel figured she had about a half hour to go.

  Outside, the sun sent long rays through most of the room. He moved Cleo into a dark corner, a spot as far removed from the cruel brightness of the sunlight as her chain would reach. Her whimpering changed to shudders and achy moans, a terrible noise to hear coming from his special one. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything for her. Monsters were like babies. They came in their own time and nothing he did would change it.

  Grendel sat, with his back against the wall next to her, and waited. Wandering Shade was off wandering, plotting and likely ranting about how unjustly male Transforms were treated. Grendel wished his Master were here to help. Things always worked better when his Master helped.

  Today Grendel wore a human enough shape to wear clothes. He stood tall and broad, a huge muscular man who would tower over any other man, and his scales were almost invisible. His face was a face again.

  He shifted positions restlessly. They didn’t make pants for someone his size. He had stolen the largest he could find, and gotten them big around besides, but the pants were still too small. The worst was the crotch. Grendel looked down into his lap with a glow of pride and knew he was looking at one of the better things his transformation had done for him. Normal men had piddly little things. Not him. He was considerably better equipped than normal men. Grendel never had to worry if he had enough.

  When he fucked some woman, she knew she had been fucked.

  He looked over at Cleo and realized she didn’t have more than another five minutes or so left. Time for him to get ready. He shucked off his clothes and threw them in a pile on the chair. He loomed over the helpless miserable Gal, naked, huge, layered with muscle and sheer physical presence.

  Life was good.

  He knelt down and gently scooped her up into his arms. Gently, because this was Cleo. She would give him everything he wanted from her. She struggled for a moment in panic, because of the pain, but she remained a fragile old woman. He held her tight against his chest and waited as her struggles faded.

  Then he sensed it. Cleo’s juice shivered once, the sign of her change into a Monster. A long moment, and then another shiver.

  At last, her juice became too much for her, and the entire internal structure holding the juice into a pattern collapsed into the raw chaos of the roiling élan. Cleo screamed, a noise of primal horror and madness, as her humanity left her and she became Monster. Grendel reached into her and pulled out the élan as she made it, every little bit he could grab. So much, so beautiful. So necessary to his life. The pleasure and ecstasy of it went through him, pleasure greater than any other.

  Finally, the élan flow slowed and stopped. The remaining juice settled into a new structure, simple and fragile, with a raw, tender newness. Flawed as well, flawed by the poison of the élan he hadn’t been able to take, like termites in the framework of an old house. But he had gotten more élan than he ever had before. His Gal, his new Monster Cleo looked up at him with wide eyes. Still human, those eyes. Whatever Monster she had become still had human eyes.

  He had finished the élan draw, but he wanted more from Cleo. The élan lit him with a hard fire of passion, a passion only Cleo could quench. He stroked her still human breast and Cleo shivered under his touch. Instead of pulling away from him, she watched him with her wide eyes. He continued to stroke her, and when he couldn’t hold back any longer, he rolled on top of her. Unlike his other Gals, Cleo didn’t fight back. Breathing heavily, she spread her legs and clenched tight. To his amazement, she was hot and wet and her bucking and clinging matched his as he pushed himself inside her. He had forgotten the glories of sex when a woman wanted it too.

  Finally, moments later and an infinite time later, he collapsed in the wonderful fulfilled exhaustion of high juice and spent love, off to the side a bit so he didn’t crush Cleo. Cleo’s sweaty face smiled. A real smile. A tired and happy smile. She turned to him, strands of dark hair stuck to her cheeks.

  “I love you,” she said, in a low, hoarse, but still human voice.

  I love you. How could she possibly speak? She was a Monster. Monsters couldn’t speak. Élan broke their minds. None of his dozens of Monsters had ever spoken a word.

  Cleo spoke. I love you. For a moment, he hoped, when he thought he still had his Cleo despite the élan draw, that she hadn’t gone Monster. Then he looked into her eyes and knew.

  The mind behind those eyes had become the mind of a Monster.

  A hand tapped him on his shoulder and he looked up with a hiss on his lips. Wandering Shade. “Let me,” his Master said. He did his trick on Cleo. Grendel knew this trick, as his Master used the same trick on him, to keep him from going fully Beast. “Oh, this is so much better than dodging the damned Focuses and their hordes of trained slaves. This is real. I’m doing good.”

  Grendel sensed, again. Cleo’s mind was back. Not as good as before, but not a vacant Monster mind either. Her juice structure was different, now. Not like a Monster. Not like a woman Transform. Something else. Something new. “More,” Cleo said, looking back into Grendel’s eyes. “Want more love.”

  “I’ll leave you two love birds for a while,” Wandering Shade said. “You won’t need to keep her in the basement, Grendel, or even chain her up. She’s yours now. She’ll follow you wherever you go. It’s the Law.”

  Fired!

  Dr. Josephs tapped his pen on his notepad. “This Professor Rizzari you mentioned isn’t listed in my Boston College directory.” He said the last with a sneer. Dr. Joseph’s office surrounded him with chilly austerity, the only decorations his diplomas and surgery pictures. All with his face covered. Dr. Zielinski wondered if Josephs sneered during surgery.

  “She isn’t?” Dr. Zielinski said. He bit off a choice expletive and gave his putative boss’s comment some thought. “She’s new this fall, and she is a Transform. A Focus. You understand the problems a Major Transform might have.” He ran his hand through his thinning gray hair and sighed. He was too old for this crap. Cranky, too, because his wife had him sleeping on the couch.

  “Your alibi rests on her,” sniff, “existence, Hank,” Dr. Josephs said. His jowels wobbled as he spoke, concealing what little neck the man possessed. The lines on his face fell into frown lines most of the time, especially so when he dealt with Dr. Zielinski
. Dr. Zielinski gave Dr. Josephs a headache.

  Dr. Zielinski had scant sympathy. If the man would occasional look beyond the next budget cycle, his boss might not have so much trouble with him.

  “I don’t like the term ‘alibi’, Steve,” Dr. Zielinski said, lowering his head slightly and peering at Josephs through his bushy eyebrows. “That implies a crime, which I haven’t been accused of.” Yet.

  This wasn’t the first grilling Dr. Zielinski suffered through after Hancock’s escape from the St. Louis Detention Center. Not even the first from Dr. Josephs, the head of the Transform Research department at Harvard Medical. Dr. Josephs held Dr. Zielinski’s old job, before he had been bumped back to staff specialist in Transforms. The worst grilling had come last week, an all-day session with Assistant Director Joe Patrelle of the FBI. He and Patrelle had clashed before, and this time the FBI agent in charge of Transform crimes (among other things) was convinced of Dr. Zielinski’s involvement. Hancock had put Special Agent Patrick McIntyre, head of the FBI’s Arm Task Force, in the hospital with a knife to the gut – using a knife Hancock shouldn’t have possessed – and Patrelle was coldly furious. A merc knife, according to McIntyre, and ‘everybody knew’ Dr. Zielinski had ‘merc contacts’.

  It didn’t help Hank his ‘merc contacts’ stories were cover for his off-and-on work with the Arm Stacy Keaton, the FBI’s number one nightmare.

  “No one’s accusing you of anything save angering the wrong people,” Dr. Josephs said. “We want to help you.”

  Sure. Right.

  On the other hand, unlike his small-minded department head, the FBI had no difficulty getting in contact with Focus Rizzari, or believing his ‘alibi’ for Hancock’s escape. They believed their own agent, FBI Special Agent Tommy Bates, who had been breathing down his neck that night when he helped an unnamed Crow tame a Chimera menace. Unlike the Focuses, the FBI acknowledged the existence of Crows and used them, or at least those Crows who were willing and able to work with the FBI. Dr. Zielinski had only recently figured out this particular well-hidden secret of the Transform-friendly parts of the FBI.