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

  The juice moved.

  “So, are you going to tell us what’s going on, or do we need to force it out of you?” Lori said. She was almost a foot shorter than Gail, a gymnast pixie with black hair and brown eyes. She and Gail faced the two Crows across the same meeting room table Gilgamesh and Sky used earlier to hatch their plots. With two hostile Focuses present, the tiny room seemed even smaller. Gilgamesh had the urge to go hide somewhere, as Lori’s glare was hot enough to boil water, but he forced the panic down. This was necessary. The household Affinity bond remained feeble and unfinished. The two Focuses needed to join, as well.

  “We’re trying to bring the households together,” Sky said. “You two need to tag each other.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Lori said. Both he and Sky nodded. “Okay, why?”

  “It’s the next step. We’ve already gotten the households to tag each other,” Sky said. He pushed a piece of paper across the table to Lori and Gail, outlining all the steps they had gone through so far.

  Gail nodded, her attitude softening as she read. “Neat!” she said. “I was hoping someone would come up with something to deal with the problem. I wasn’t looking forward to living at Littleside every Friday night. How’s it working so far?”

  “So far so good,” Sky said. “Unfortunately, it’s incomplete and inadequate.”

  Lori closed her eyes, and thought. “You’re missing a big step in your plan,” she said. “The households need to be able to tag their Focuses, as well.”

  “That sounds quite intriguing, especially coming from a Focus. There’s only one big problem, outside of the psychological, emotional and political – how, dearest Lori, would you propose that happen? Technically speaking and all that, eh?”

  “I don’t know. The Inferno household superorganism can’t do anything like that. Yet. All I know is that what you have here isn’t the final solution. I’m willing to give this partial cure a go, though.”

  Gilgamesh understood. No household had ever tagged their Focus before, and Transform Sickness was always cruel to the pioneers. The risks they had already taken terrified him. Lori was right, though. Having a household tag their own Focus was a much bigger step, and necessary. Eventually. Everything else was just a twist on what the Noble baronies already did. “How much can a household superorganism do?” he asked. Typical Lori. Sitting in front of today’s solution, she wanted to think and talk about tomorrow’s problems.

  “Theoretically, anything that any of the member Transforms inside the household can do. Practically, well, although we’ve been working on this problem for years, the answer is ‘not much’. Communication, mostly. Triggering juice patterns that a Focus sets up specifically to be used that way. We’re missing something big, Gilgamesh. We’ve been able to come up with only a few practical uses, enough so that we occasionally wonder if we’ve flubbed our basic theory behind the superorganisms.”

  “How do we do this today, though?” Gail said, reminding everyone of the real problem. “When Lori tagged me on Tuesday night that was about the most disgusting thing I’d ever experienced.”

  Lori nodded. “The standard Focus-Focus tag is foul. I think we need to go a different direction.”

  “You have an idea?”

  “Yes.” Lori paused. “It involves a bedroom and the creation of the deep Affinity link. I think that will be close enough to a tag to count.”

  Gilgamesh took a step back, trying to get his head around the idea of Gail and Lori making love to each other. The idea seemed wrong to him, and he wasn’t sure if it was his Crow instincts or a bit of his former pre-Transform life creeping back into his mind. He expected Gail to explode, but instead of losing her temper or shouting ‘no way’ or something Gailish, she shrugged.

  Lori walked up to Gail and stroked her left arm. “You’re thinking of something. Something you’ve seen or metasensed.”

  “Uh huh.” Gail frowned. “Something or someone’s trying to keep me from remembering something, though.”

  “Let me help,” Lori said. She gave Gail a hug, resting her head between Gail’s breasts, and doing something tricky with the juice.

  “Oh!” Gail reddened. “When we fought the White Witch Tuesday night, in the Dreaming, she tagged me, and it wasn’t awful. Well, it was awful, because I didn’t want that monster tagging me, but the tag itself wasn’t awful.”

  Lori turned, grabbed Gail’s shoulders, and kissed her like a lover. “That’s it! Patterson puts her households together in the Dreaming. That explains a lot of things I’ve experienced in my espionage work over the years.” Gilgamesh wasn’t sure what Lori was talking about, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “I’m willing to give this a try if you are,” she said. She turned to Sky and then to Gilgamesh. “Do your crazy Crow poo and block us off from both reality and our metasenses. Gail and I need to get to the Dreaming, and she’s going to teach me how to move juice there.”

  Gilgamesh and Sky did so, and then waited and watched as Lori and Gail entered the Dreaming together, huddled in each other’s arms. An hour and twenty minutes later, he metasensed the juice move. When Gail and Lori returned to normal consciousness, they were happy with the tags, and not disgusted.

  ---

  “Okay,” Tiamat said, across the table from Gilgamesh, Sky, Lori and Gail, six feet of blonde hair, bad temper, and muscled predator. “What the fuck did you do to my mind this time! I want to screw the lot of you, and I know I didn’t feel that way until I came into the Branton. Didn’t we just do this last night?” Tiamat ate her late supper in the Branton dining room, at Gilgamesh’s suggestion, a larger late supper than normal. Tiamat was much more tolerant with a huge meal in front of her. With a little help from the Focuses, the room was empty except for the Major Transforms. The late night Inferno kitchen crew had left as soon as they served Tiamat.

  “We’re getting the households to tag each other,” Sky said, wrinkling his nose again at the carnivore dinner spread in front of him. He wasn’t eating. Gilgamesh was, not willing to turn down better quality food than Gail’s household served.

  “Hell,” Tiamat said, and cut herself another slice of the roast. “You and Lori haven’t even tagged each other, yet. Why are you rushing into this?”

  “To reduce household friction,” Gilgamesh said. “Having two Focus households coexist in a single building has been a painful procedure. I’m not sure you need to do anything but not say ‘no’.”

  His comment earned him a glare from Tiamat. Perhaps he was trying to be a little too slick.

  “Hey, I thought last night was fun,” she said, now more Carol than Tiamat.

  Sky shook his head. “Perhaps we should ask if your partner from last night shares your opinion on this subject.” Pause. “Oh, we can’t, because she’s still curled up in a ball in her bedroom, reliving the experience.”

  “A mere tactical issue,” Carol said, grinning. “It would help if I tagged everyone in Inferno, individually, the same way I tagged everyone in Gail’s household. Give me more people to play with on Friday nights.” She paused and sighed. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, though. My reaction was a bit extreme when I tagged Gail’s household, and I’m not sure I can afford that, right now, not with a potentially dangerous visit to Keaton coming up on Thursday.”

  “Tag Connie,” Lori said. She and Gail had been walking around, hand in hand, their eyes glazed and their emotions reeking of exhaustion and satiation ever since they returned from the Dreaming. Neither he nor Sky had mustered up enough nerve to ask the obvious question about what the two of them did in the Dreaming to build the tag. “Visualize her as the embodiment of Inferno.” Gail nodded. She and Lori sat together, opposite Tiamat, still hand in hand and now radiating the peace of the Buddha, something he thought well beyond Gail’s abilities. He wouldn’t want to push either of the two Focuses now, as their combined charisma felt unstoppable.

  “I could do that,” Tiamat said. “I should probably renew my tags on everyone I’ve tagg
ed, as well, and renew my tag on Sylvie the same way.”

  “What about me?” Sky said.

  “Keaton had such a fit about my mutual tag with Gilgamesh that I’m not about to repeat that mistake.”

  “That will weaken…”

  Tiamat glared at Sky, bloody meat cleavers in her eyes.

  “Pretend I didn’t say a thing,” Sky said, Crow quiet for once.

  “The situation is too delicate for me to be carrying any more tags. I don’t like this any more than you do, and I do want to exchange tags with you, Sky. The more Crow tags I carry, the better my chances of survival feel.” She sighed. “For the moment, though, we’re just going to need to accept our limitations.”

  “So, what’s the urgency?” Gilgamesh asked as they reached the door. Tiamat had practically dragged him to his maze-infested room in the Branton. She turned and gave him a hot glare that almost melted off his clothes.

  “I see.”

  “There’s a hidden benefit to this household crap we’ve been doing that I want you to keep quiet about,” Tiamat said, as she opened the door, yanked him inside, and shut the door with a single motion. “After I refreshed the tags and tagged Connie as the embodiment of Inferno, I suddenly felt far stronger. Not physically stronger, but stronger in stature. It doesn’t fully outweigh Keaton’s strength that she gets from her Arm entourage, but with my Arms…”

  Ah, an echo of Lori and Gail’s newfound combined charisma. “You’re thinking of challenging her?”

  “No,” she said, stroking her hands up his sides. “Ever since I joined up with Gail’s household, even before I flipped Haggerty, I’ve been able to break free of Keaton and make it stick. Doing so would just split the Arms, so I didn’t even bother to bring it up. Now, thanks to my beating Haggerty, and what you and Sky did, I’m even stronger. Unfortunately, I’m still not strong enough to flip the dominance and make her a subordinate. However…”

  “You’re wondering what you could do to get more stature?

  Tiamat nodded. Gilgamesh barely blinked and Tiamat had his clothes off him. “Yes. You weren’t trying for this, but you and Sky’s trick combining the households is worth a lot to me.”

  “There’s always Hargrove and Newton.”

  “Hargrove! Adding in someone that weak is not going to add to my stature. Besides, all Hargrove and Newton are doing is screwing each other silly. There’s nothing real there to add until Newton moves in and starts improving Hargrove’s household.”

  Gilgamesh nodded. “Not any time soon. The Newt still says he’s too scared.”

  “Fine. Hargrove isn’t up to my standards, anyway,” Tiamat said. “Now, shut up and pay the price…”

  Pay the price for making me horny as all get out, Gilgamesh finished for Tiamat. He metasensed Van and Sky paying similar prices in different rooms in the Branton. No, Tiamat wouldn’t be doing much talking for a while.

  Tonya Biggioni: December 9, 1972

  “You have a supplier?” Lisa Rippel said. Tonya suppressed a grimace; although Focus Rippel was part of Tonya’s Philadelphia corporate Focus circle, her taste in scents and colors always made Tonya wince. Yes, on Lisa, muted mauve and orange did look good, but Tonya’s gut said nobody should wear that combination. Ever. And where in the hell did she get her perfume? Skunk cabbage smelled better. Gerry’s common room would take days to air out.

  “That I do,” Gerry said, smiling from her throne-like chair, the gracious hostess. Tonya had made a point of finding a different seat in the large room, declining to claim what was obviously Gerry’s personal chair. Focus Geraldine Caruthers wore a heart-stopping short black dress and Chanel #5, and it was glaringly obvious what she had been doing with her life ever since she mastered access to her juice buffer. “They’re called Perfect Size units, and they’re a side product of, of all things, One Stop, the parent company behind the One Stop Dry Cleaners chain. Washers and dryers too large for standard residential use and too flimsy for large commercial use.”

  “But we don’t need dry cleaning units,” Debbie Barilleaux said, frowning and making Tonya wince as she hit the crew with an inadvertent bleat of Focus charisma. Young Focus Barilleaux made up for the strength of her late-developing charisma with the weakness of her mind.

  “The One Stop chain pairs a dry cleaning establishment with a mini-laundromat,” Lisa said, physically looking down her nose at Debbie. Tonya had thought such a thing a figment of the English language until she ran into Lisa. “They’re going…”

  Tonya forced herself away from the conversation and went back to her reading, in this case a two-inch thick binder containing her household’s newest emergency escape plan. In specific, how to go gypsy without losing all their assets. The details of Marty’s plan made her extremely nervous, and she played through one disaster scenario after the other, testing the plan.

  “Tonya?”

  Tonya realized Gerry had said her name twice. She glanced up at the now empty room, save for her and Focus Caruthers. Tonya took a deep breath and calmed her nerves.

  “I did it again, didn’t I?” Tonya said. “I hope you don’t mind my offloading more of my local corporate household duties on you, Gerry. I’m sorry. After making you the head of new Focus mentoring in the Northeast Region, I’m not exactly being fair.”

  Gerry eased her tall frame down in the chair beside Tonya, not bothering to smooth her short black dress over her long legs. Gerry’s household didn’t mind when the Focuses took over the Caruthers’ household common room for their group strategy meetings, despite the stress this dropped on Gerry’s shoulders. All the Philadelphia area Focuses in Tonya’s corporate Focus group were skittish these days because of external Transform politics. All it would take would be one stray screaming two year old child to set them off. “Perhaps you can make it up to me by telling me what’s going on?”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Tonya said, slipping the documents into her briefcase and closing it. She took a deep breath. “Which won’t be everything.” Gerry nodded. “Arm Keaton’s on the warpath, and the first Focuses are her target. She’s hit Focus Schrum once already. One of her flunky Arms, Bass, killed one of Suzie’s Transforms.”

  Gerry inhaled sharply. “Why?”

  “Just to prove such a thing is possible.”

  Gerry leaned back in her chair and nodded slowly. “So, that’s why Suzie’s all nasty and shooting at shadows, and why her people and Sarah’s people have been brawling.” Gerry shook her head over a typical bit of Focus Sarah Teas’ idiocy. “And why it’s spreading. Apparently, yesterday, Focus Bentlow and Focus Claunch tried to bribe the same federal lobbyist, by rumor a defector to the Commander’s service, and one of Bentlow’s people drew a pistol on Focus Claunch’s people, and they got into a fight and one of Bentlow’s people got shot.”

  Tonya hadn’t heard of the episode, but it didn’t surprise her. The hot-blooded south region Focuses had always been more prone to violence. “I’m sure you heard about the problems the Commander’s been having this past year – losing rank to the Hero and ending up humiliated by Keaton.” Gerry nodded. “I think that’s been taken care of. A few days ago the Commander challenged the Hero, and won. She’s back to being the number two Arm again, and she’s come out of this with twice as many Arms following her.”

  Gerry turned away.

  “Gerry?”

  “I know about Focus Rickenbach and Focus Rizzari’s moves to Chicago,” Gerry said, her voice a Crow whisper. “Insane, from a parochial point of view, but if you think about the big picture, I understand what she’s doing. The Commander’s protecting her people from the first Focuses, Arm Keaton, as well as the Hunters. She’s putting together a Transform army.”

  Tonya hadn’t thought of the Commander’s actions as putting together an army, but it made sense.

  “You’re worried she’s going to call on you, and you won’t be able to resist,” Tonya said.

  Gerry nodded, but didn’t say anything. Gerry and the Commander shared many lin
ks, going back to when the Commander kidnapped Gerry so she could witness Crow Wandering Shade’s kidnapped Focus, Frasier, in captivity.

  “We all have our ties, and the Commander, I hope, is not our enemy.”

  “Tonya, if she’s putting together a real army, she’s going to need a logistics expert, and she knows of my talents in that area.” The Commander had chosen Gerry to run her logistics in the Clearing of Chicago battle, and Gerry had done an excellent job.

  Tonya shrugged. This wasn’t exactly new news. “There’s more, isn’t there,” she said. Gerry’s tension far eclipsed her stated worries.

  “Two things. When I think about what’s going on among the Focuses, I keep thinking ‘who is in charge of this mess?’ It’s almost as if someone wants the Focuses to fall apart.”

  “Well, the Crows, the Arms and the Hunter Chimeras all do,” Tonya said. Her blithe comment drew a glare from Gerry. “The reality of our situation isn’t anything any of us wants to think about, but consider this: some people would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

  Gerry blanched after drawing the necessary and obvious conclusion from Tonya’s comment. “You can’t mean…”

  Tonya cut her off with a charismatic yank. Gerry didn’t fight Tonya’s charismatic command. “As I said, don’t think about it too hard. Or say anything.” Tonya had put together, in her mind, far too many of her old repressed conversations with her former ‘owner’. Although she didn’t possess any proof of her assertions, her gut feel for the real problem behind everything going wrong among the Transforms did fit the evidence. “I could be wrong.” Pause. “So, what’s the second thing that’s worrying you?”

  “Success,” Gerry said. She took a small Wedgewood cameo, likely one of her family heirlooms, from the drawer of the small occasional table beside her. She gave it to Tonya. “I got one to work.”