All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) Read online

  “You’ve convinced me, Commander,” Keaton said. “Do the grab tonight.”

  ---

  “You don’t seem to be having any problem with the flight,” I said. First class, Houston to Chicago. Ballsy, but part of the point. The other part of the point was that in our several Chicago capers since the Hunters took over, I had always come in from the south, staging in Indianapolis. Too much warning and too much pattern repetition.

  Hephaestus radiated neither panic nor nervousness. I hated plane flights myself, because I wasn’t in control.

  “I’m surprised,” he said. “The takeoff was bad, but now I’m okay. Not, Carol, that I would volunteer to do this without a cause. The psychology of what we’re doing makes this work, though.”

  I nodded. He had to, so he did. The psychology of the goal was of utmost importance to a Crow. We were rescuing a Focus.

  Crows instinctively loved Focuses. That is, until a Focus betrayed their love. Then Crows got as snarly as jilted lovers, and Crows held grudges for a long, long time.

  Hephaestus reeked of bad juice, larded down with Arpeggio tricks, in addition to his own. No way would I climb into bed with him in this state. I had slept with him, part of what I needed to do to make him ‘my Crow’, but as a lover he was nothing more than a normal with a little extra stamina. Shadow’s Crows were a lot better in bed, mercurial, explosive, and willing to engage their Major Transform natures.

  A lot better in bed but a hell of a lot more work to lure under the covers. If Hephaestus was typical of Arpeggio’s Crows, I would say they were all cold fish, dispassionate and distant. On the other hand, all I had to do to lure Hephaestus into bed was hint at my availability.

  He wasn’t coming with me to Detroit; neither was Focus Laswell. They didn’t have enough of a juice tie to this problem. I could strong-arm them, but I decided not to, and advised Keaton not to try, either. She agreed. From her viewpoint, uncommitted and unmotivated allies were just cannon fodder for any enemy attempts to sabotage us.

  ---

  “How bad is it?” I said, nervous, while we waited in the car rental line. I did not give into my impulse to clear the line with a little Arm predator.

  “Zilch,” he said. Nothing within five miles. We exited O’Hare and drove south, carefully not following the main roads. Part of our purpose here was to gauge the Hunter strength, if possible.

  The cheery spring sun shone down on us, announcing a gorgeous day. I hated it. I didn’t trust Arpeggio worth shit, thus the nerves. For this snatch to work, Arpeggio’s tricks needed to work, which presumed that Guru Arpeggio had been honest with me. If Arpeggio set me up, though, he also set up his own man, Guru Hephaestus. Not the sort of thing Crows usually did.

  My logic was a hell of a weak reed to stand on, and my nerves informed me of this without hesitation.

  “Got something,” he said, almost an hour later. We were cruising the back roads to the northwest of Joliet, setting up for a run at Odin’s place. Currently, we were twenty-five miles northwest of Odin’s east-of-Joliet Frankfort lair, assuming he and his lair hadn’t moved.

  “What do you have?”

  “Stop, stop,” he said, panicky. I stopped, pulling off the road next to a pasture of sedate-looking Guernsey cattle.

  “Let me see.”

  He nodded and we got out of the car and stood among the brown-eyed susans that bordered the road. We shared our metasenses and scanned.

  Hell. I counted nineteen Hunters and sensed more Monsters, part-Monsters and Transforms than I could count. They were at maximum Crow metasense range from us, located in what had to be farmland, nearly due west of Plainfield. The blood drained from my face as I borrowed the Crow trick and read their emotions.

  “There can’t be that many of them,” I said, dumbfounded, now worried sick about the wedding fight. I knew Shadow’s goal now – slaughter. Mindless, gory, no-holds-barred slaughter. No mercy. No quarter.

  “I make out five top-end Hunters, seven who have the minds of men, and seven more who are of lesser mental stability,” Hephaestus said. “Twelve packs. A bunch of altered normal men as well, more than I can count.”

  “The seven of lesser mental stability are probably trainees,” I said. “Not full Hunters if they don’t have packs. What’s the difference between the intermediate and the top-end Hunters?” Each of the Crows metasensed different things. Neither Sky nor Gilgamesh had commented on this difference between the intermediate and top-end Hunters.

  “The top-end Hunters have tricks, Carol,” he whispered. “They’re like you, and presumably like Arm Keaton. The intermediate types are Hunters without tricks, like Arm Haggerty.”

  This wasn’t good news. We were seriously outnumbered. “How about Focuses?”

  “I’ve got one, marked deeply by the Law and old as hell,” Hephaestus said. “My God!” He clutched me tightly. Brown-eyed susans bent underneath him. “She knows about us. She’s a top-end Dreamer.” Crap. “Wait. She knows about us but she can’t figure out what we’re doing. Something’s messing with her mind. The person in charge, a giant wolf, is waiting until we get close enough for them to charge us and grab us.”

  Scenarios ran through my mind. Enkidu commanded the Hunters now. I wasn’t sure how he had managed to grab the leadership, as last I knew Odin was the big boss of the Hunters. I used my part of our shared metasense and identified the three Hunters familiar to me: Odin, Enkidu and Joshua. According to my metasense, Odin was still dominant. My guess was that he, or he and Shadow, had made Enkidu the battle boss.

  My ‘Commander’ title would be short lived, I realized, if we didn’t win the wedding fight. Enkidu’s position mirrored mine, on the other side, while Odin mirrored Keaton’s position.

  Enkidu was a rival Commander, dammit. All of a sudden, I got all Arm-possessive about my previously hated title. Enkidu? No way in hell would I let this stand.

  “Where’s Shadow?”

  “I’m picking up no signs of any senior Crows,” Hephaestus said.

  If we fled, would they assume we got scared off? Would they chase? I would. Hell.

  “Back in the car,” I said. I consulted my well-worn Will County map and plotted us a path. No more back roads. Speed was of the essence now. “Hang on and close your eyes. I’m about to drive like an Arm.” Time to use my tricks. I focused my predator effect on making the road mine, getting everyone else to move out of the way, and gunned the engine.

  Odin hadn’t moved his lair, the arrogant fool, and he had left only a minimal home guard behind, four part-Monsters, four male Transforms and three juice-altered men. The latter were what we called juice zombies, a general catch-all term for anyone under the control of the juice but not a functional Transform. I parked outside Odin’s farm and we snuck in. Hephaestus signaled a lack of Hunter and Rogue Crow signs.

  I would say the snatch was too easy, too much like a trap, and that nobody could be caught with their pants down like this, but if not for our Dream help, we wouldn’t have this chance. I carried a satchel full of weapons and ammo that we had checked through as baggage, ready for use. I didn’t get to use them, though.

  We climbed the side of Odin’s house, pried open the window to the captive Focus’s room, snuck in, used my predator to quiet the Focus, unshackled her, dropped an Arpeggio duplicate of the Focus on the bed, and left.

  The guards missed us entirely. We were literally invisible to them, not the normal Crow faux invisibility where you don’t register someone is near you, but true invisibility where the guards could see right through us. I could appear, visible, to Focus Frasier, but not to anyone else.

  All of which got me thanking the Lord that senior Crows of Arpeggio’s skill level weren’t at all aggressive. If they were, they would run the Transforms. This sort of thing gave me a good idea how the Purifier, the Crow that ran Western Europe’s Transforms, could have done what he had done, and how Shadow, as Wandering Shade, did all the Transform and Major Transform snatching and killing attributed to him
.

  Half way back to the car, Hephaestus signaled ‘Hunters, in vehicles’. We ran to the car, got in, and split. The Hunters never came close to catching up to us.

  “I’m a Focus? For real?” Focus Frasier said, from the back seat of the car. We were on our way to St. Louis, where we would ditch the car and take a plane back to Houston. Assuming the Hunters didn’t find us first. I would drive us all the way back to Houston if I needed to. “They called me a Pack Mistress, or, more commonly, a failed Pack Mistress.”

  Interesting name, that. “Yes, you’re a Focus. I’m Carol Hancock, an Arm. This here is Guru Hephaestus, a Crow.” Frasier healed the Law out of her head as Hephaestus and I watched with our shared metasenses, an interesting show. Her trick gave me yet more respect for the self-healing abilities of Focuses, even the young ones, and an understanding for why the senior Hunters hadn’t grabbed another three Focuses for their use. Focuses were blithering pains in the ass.

  I already knew that, though.

  Frasier peed her panties at the word ‘Arm’. “Look, we rescued you, dammit,” I said, unimpressed. Oops, too much predator for her; she curled up in a fetal position and began to bawl. “You’re going to go to a Focus ally of mine in Houston, where she’s going to arrange for you to pick up a real Transform household, Transforms who won’t start growing fur and scales.”

  That didn’t stop Frasier’s water works. “She’s been traumatized, more traumatized than I’ve ever seen a Major Transform of any variety,” Hephaestus said. “Let me handle this.”

  He did, playing wise big brother to her. By the time we reached the St. Louis airport Frasier was back on her feet and cooperative. I gauged her to be a second quartile Focus, likely able to stabilize only 5 or 6 triads, but smart enough to break even when running her household. I trusted Thelma would be able to mentor her and turn her into a successful Focus.

  The world refused to cooperate.

  “Boss, you okay?” Tom said. I finally found him in my Austin back-up lair. I was calling from a roadside motel in St. Louis and I had practically worn my fingers out not getting through to anyone.

  “Not a scratch on me. What the fuck’s going on? I’ve got a Focus to deliver to Houston, but my answering service has the red flag up.”

  “The Feds and all the world’s police descended on your house a few hours ago.”

  Fuck. That explained Shadow’s absence in Chicago. He had been attempting another Chicago-style takedown on me. I picked up the phone and started pacing in the small gap between the window and the near bed. “How about my people?”

  “We’re fine,” he said. “We holed up in Hank’s lab, along with five Crows who wouldn’t even introduce themselves, and waited them out. A Crow named Talisman has taken charge of the Crows, and they provided us real time information on the Feds.” A good trick, given my place was outside of Crow metasense range from Hank’s lab. “The Feds trashed your place, then left.”

  “Did you have enough time to clean it out first?”

  “Uh huh.”

  If my disaster planning worked, the Feds would think a rich spinster oil money heiress, on vacation in Europe, owned my place. The misdirection would keep them chasing their tails for months.

  “Keep your heads down. I’ll drop off Focus Frasier with Focus Laswell and drive over to Austin.” I didn’t want to abandon Houston so cavalierly, but with the wedding just a week away, this wasn’t the time for a real move. Perhaps the Feds would give up and I could stay in Houston.

  Hah.

  I needed to get my people to Detroit, pass the results of my espionage along to Keaton, and start our final preparations for the wedding battle. I wasn’t happy, not in the slightest.

  Between what I learned about the Hunters and their army, and the loss of my Dallas operations and the heavily armed cannon fodder I had so carefully recruited, we were in big trouble: out-numbered, out-gunned and stuck in a passive defensive posture. The only way we could win this was if I out-commanded the enemy.

  I would either earn my ‘Commander’ title or die.

  Gail Rickenbach: May 11, 1969

  “These shoes don’t work,” Gail said, barging in to Sylvie and Kurt’s cold living room, where Vera Bracken and Betha Ebener pinned up Sylvie’s bridesmaid dress. Sewing materials, paperwork from the florist, and several sketches of the proposed wedding cake littered the already cramped room. The heat was off again in their ratty fix-up apartment complex, but thankfully they didn’t need any heat today.

  “Don’t work how?” Sylvie said.

  Gail stopped swinging the shoes by their straps and put them on. Simple high heels, though she didn’t appreciate their glittery white color. She got up on them, painfully. She couldn’t even take a step. “Look. They’re wrong somehow.”

  Betha came over, knelt and peered down at the wedding shoes. The motherly Betha had just turned fifty-eight, the oldest Transform Gail had ever encountered, and she had seen just about everything. “Focus, this is strange. It’s your feet, not the shoes.”

  Gail closed her eyes in frustration and almost fell over. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said. “I can’t see.”

  “Wait a second, Focus. I’ll get the mirror.” Betha stood and moved the oval full-length mirror from Sylvie’s perch over to where Gail teetered.

  Gail looked. Her feet and ankles bulged funny, as if the muscles and tendons had somehow rearranged themselves.

  “Dammit! Not again,” Gail said, angry. So much for the ‘benefits’ of going out and running with her bodyguards. The other three women winced in pain. Gail sat down on the floor against the linen cabinet and put her head in her hands.

  “Out, out, I’ll handle this,” Sylvie said, nearly a hiss. Gail put everyone’s juice back and let the tears seep out of her eyes. If it wasn’t the shoes, it was the bridal gown, or the fruit display, or the balloon animals Van’s family of crazies thought necessary for all weddings, or…

  Sylvie put her arm over Gail’s shoulder. “Just six more days.”

  Gail wiped tears and forced out a painful laugh. “You aren’t helping.”

  “Here. Take a look. This’ll distract you.”

  Gail didn’t bother opening her eyes. She metasensed Sylvie reach over to a pile of mail on top of the cabinet, grab an envelope from the bottom, and drop the letter in her lap. “Hate mail?”

  “No, just strange.”

  Gail opened her eyes and looked at the envelope. The letter was addressed to her, in exquisite handwriting. Following household procedures, her people had opened the letter already. Gail reached inside the envelope and took out another letter. Addressed to Gilgamesh. Still sealed, unopened.

  “You’re right. Strange.” She bounced the letter in her hand, and decided it was short. “Where’s Gilgamesh?”

  “No idea,” Sylvie said. “I checked in the basement, but he wasn’t around.” He worked on boiler repairs, but at the oddest hours. Mostly after midnight. Or in the early morning.

  Gail took off the killer shoes and gave them a good toss. They clattered up against the bookcase and dropped with a low thud to the floor. “I guess I’m back to simple pumps,” she said. She stood and decided to try something Gilgamesh did regularly, flashing his metapresence. He always got her attention…

  “Shit! Owwwh! Stop that!” Sylvie said.

  Hmm. Gail wasn’t sure what she had done when she tried that trick, but her attempt had – sigh – accidentally stripped all the women Transforms in the household. “That probably didn’t work.”

  “You think?”

  When this damned wedding was over, her household was going to hold a party. She had been half torturing her Transforms, every day worse than the previous as the wedding approached. “Sorry,” she said, a whisper.

  Gilgamesh stayed, nearly always, within his absurd five mile metasense range of their place, and he always watched. Disquieting, but Crows were that way. The only saving grace was that his metasense acuity wasn’t close to hers; he could only do the
full voyeur treatment to one area at a time inside his range, his ‘focus point’. Her term. From what she had figured out, though, he served as part of Arm Keaton’s protections on her household, and should be paying attention to her. She pantomimed a big ‘G’ in the air, and slowly pointed to the letter in her hand.

  “You know, Gail, I keep thinking this wedding might be sending the wrong message,” Sylvie said. She hadn’t moved from where she sat on the floor. Gail sat back down, beside her.

  “Message?”

  “Uh huh. Remember the talk you gave to me before Kurt and I married?”

  Right. Weddings as playing into the hands of the men who ruled society. Cementing another brick into the patriarchy. Sylvie hadn’t taken her observations kindly. “So this is payback?”

  “Only a little.” Sylvie paused long enough to flash Gail a grin. Gail let her continue. “Kurt and I? We’re just people. Our marriage wasn’t much of a symbol, save to us. But you? You’re a Focus, high on the pedestal, and already a celebrity.” Another annoyance. There would be reporters at her wedding. Gail found that appalling. “Your wedding can’t help but be symbolic. ‘I’m too weak to make it on my own, so I’m taking another man’s name and hiding under his protection’. What you’re saying…”

  “I know the arguments,” Gail said. She didn’t roll her eyes, but it took work. “Your timing sucks, though.” She balled her fists in frustration. “I’m not sure I buy what you’re selling, either. I’m not an important Focus.” Not yet, but she and Van were already plotting. “And my marriage doesn’t mean I’m ceding any authority to anyone.” And she had already made sure Matt Narbanor’s wedding sermon wouldn’t go there.

  “Stand up,” Sylvie said. Gail didn’t move. Sylvie stood, reached down and levered Gail up. It took work. Although Gail still looked slender, she had gained over thirty pounds as a Focus. Much to her amazement, her muscles were rock hard these days. Why, if she clenched her arm just so, she could even see her biceps.