The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) Page 30

  “There’s something real for me to do?”

  “Uh huh. You’re going to the Crow duel,” I said. “It’s all arranged. We need an Arm representative there, and you’re better suited than my initial idea.” Which had been to send Zeke Burnstead, my free-lance reporter slash spy, as a member of Gail’s household. Given Gail’s people, I was sending coal to Newcastle; if I needed a reporter’s take on things, I could just ask one of her crew, who were already going.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Giselle said, continuing the apologetic formality that started after her return from grabbing the young Arms. “I won’t disappoint you this time. I hope the Crows can cope.”

  “I talked to Guru Shadow, and he said that if you attend unarmed, in a wheelchair or on crutches, you won’t cause any more of a problem than Gail will.” I paused and got a better read on Giselle’s emotional state. I also took a moment to grab the flapping tent door to pull it shut; the wind had turned to the northwest and now howled at over twenty miles an hour, and eddies through the flapping door blew papers off tables and made a mess. The camp’s coffee consumption had increased by a quarter ever since the front blew through. “I know in strict Arm terms, your last mission counts as a failure, coming back wounded and unable to participate in the Pittsburgh battle. However, Giselle, from the greater Major Transform perspective, it was a major victory, and you came back a hero.”

  “Arms aren’t heroes. Arms get the job done, and then move on to the next job.” She wouldn’t meet my gaze. Major injuries left Arms psychologically vulnerable, as they always carried the taint of failure with them.

  “You stopped Bass,” I said. “You kept the younger Arms out of Bass’s grasp long enough for help to show up. Patterson told Bass to go grab control of the Arms, and she’s failed.” The Arms were mine, now. I had every one of the free Arms tagged, except Bass. “Bass lost, and you’re the reason she lost.” Bass didn’t even know Giselle existed before the Loading Dock fight.

  “That’s mostly Sokolnik’s work, not mine,” Giselle said, finally turning to meet my gaze. “She’s the one who found the way to snap Rose and myself out of the challenge fight mentality.”

  Interesting. This was the first I had heard about this. “Tell me. How the fuck did she do that?” For a ‘graduate’ Arm, Del was worse at combat than I had been when I graduated, and that took work, as I graduated before Keaton knew how to properly train a baby Arm. Her predator was exceptional, but not when compared to Giselle, Rose or Bass’s predatory force.

  “She challenged Bass, in a pointed and quite insulting fashion,” Giselle said, a smile crawling across her face. “Her challenge didn’t last more than a few seconds, but Bass tried to kill her instead of fighting her. That showed Bass for what she truly was: a monster, not an Arm. So Rose and I ganged up on her.” Pause. “So, how am I going to protect myself from Bass if you’re sending me off alone to this Crow duel?”

  A reasonable worry. “Guru Shadow will be going with you, along with Gilgamesh and Gail’s household.” Not that Gail would know.

  “If this Shadow is as talented as Guru Arpeggio, that should suffice. Senior Crows are far more terrifying than I ever imagined.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  Focus Keistermann caught me by my car as I was giving Tom and Ila last minute instructions. “Commander, I would like to ride with you to Pittsburgh.”

  I looked up, and saw her standing beside me. I hadn’t noticed her approach. She was as wary as always, closed off from everything around her, but at least she wasn’t using the ditz Focus persona I hated so much. Of the witches, she was the one I knew the least about, and the one most cautious with me. We had many differences in the past, including her reluctance to join the Cause until after the Eskimo Spear proved the Progenitors real.

  Keistermann had enough control to keep her charisma completely leashed when she wanted it leashed. Such as now.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” I said. Diplomacy. I sighed and leashed my beast as best as possible.

  We rearranged people in vehicles, and set off. Sokolnik drove my car, with Tom beside her in the front seat. Polly and I sat in the back. Polly didn’t even mention taking her bodyguards with her.

  Of course, in the Battle in Detroit, she had Armenigar as a bodyguard. At some level, she trusted Arms to keep her alive.

  We chit-chatted for a short time before talking about business, voices barely louder than the thrum of the engine. Sokolnik politely gave no sign of her intent listening. Tom, of course, couldn’t hear us above the noise of the car.

  “Patterson expects to destroy us,” Polly said. “In the Dreaming, she was being cagey just before Keaton’s attack. Fear, trepidation, gloom, doom, desperation, the victim act. However, just as she took Keaton, I caught a glimpse of something else, for only a moment, before it went back to gloom and doom and desperation, as it is now.”

  I already knew what Polly was saying. I had hoped that with the Canadians, I had solved that issue. “What did you see?”

  “Immense satisfaction.”

  I didn’t want to hear her words, but I had suspected them.

  “So you’re convinced she suckered Keaton in, and she’s now suckering us in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Should we postpone the attack? Get more Crows and Focuses?” This was the moment to strike, I was convinced of it, but I wanted to see what Polly thought.

  Polly shook her head. “Patterson has sleepers out there, Commander. Focuses, Transforms, and normals that she can call on in emergencies. I know of only one sleeper Focus she’s totally suborned, but I suspect she owns at least a dozen. These are Focuses who aren’t politically powerful, but with personal strengths and deviously trained talents that would make putting together a larger opposition force against Patterson nearly impossible. Even if we win, mopping up Patterson’s sleeper Focuses is going to take months, if not years. As far as her other Transforms are concerned, and whatever normals she’s suborned, I have no idea, but I suspect they’re going to be a problem, too, later on. We can’t give her enough time to gather those in to help her defend herself against us, or give her sleepers time to nip at our flanks. I only hope the time we’ve given her hasn’t been too much.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Since more of us is not an option, we’re just going to need to be better than Patterson thinks we are, and give more of ourselves to the fight than we might otherwise do. I’m hoping she’ll underestimate the Nobles, and I know she doesn’t know the strengths of Lori, Amy, Sky or Pearl. I have one important suggestion, though.”

  “Yes?”

  “Get me to Patterson. One on one, I don’t think any of us, including myself, has a chance against her. However, I can at least delay her, cause her to put all her effort into me. I don’t mean to brag, but I don’t think anyone else, even Armenigar, can attract her attention like I can.” Polly smiled.

  So, it was personal, eh? Just like between Enkidu and me. I could live with that.

  Sinclair:

  “You can’t be serious,” Sinclair said. “Of course I’m going with the Nobles to Pittsburgh. It’s my household!” He dragged his small duffle of supplies from the Blue Ridge Barony stack and sat down on it, dejected, sheltered from the gusty and cold northwest wind by the bulk of the school bus they had ‘borrowed’ from a nearby school district.

  “I’m afraid I am serious, Sinclair,” Shadow said. “Think of this as an honor, recognition that you did such a good job as a Crow Master of Nobles that you don’t need to be with them when they go into battle.”

  Sinclair looked up, at both Shadow and the Duke. The Duke nodded in agreement.

  “In truth, there are many reasons for my decision,” Shadow said. “First, I need a Crow Master at the duel, to represent the interests of the Nobles and the other Crow Masters. Second, all the other Crow Masters, save for Master Watchmaker, are going to be in Pittsburgh. If a disaster occurs, we need someone able to teach new Crow Masters, and that per
son is you.”

  Sinclair sighed. If the other Crow Masters fell, not only would Watchmaker be unable to teach new Crow Masters, he would likely desert his post and vanish into the culverts. “Okay, I guess,” he said. He owed Shadow too much to balk at this ‘suggestion’.

  “Don’t worry, Master Sinclair,” Duke Hoskins said. “I’m sure we’ll be all right without you.”

  There were times when he wondered why he bothered staying a Crow Master of Nobles. “I think I’ll go and wish the combat ladies good luck.” Far too many of the Monster-form commoners wouldn’t survive the fight, he knew, and several of them, such as Diane, were among his favorites.

  Gilgamesh:

  Two more hours of planning. Three hours after that of practice. Two dozen golf bombs. It was just after supper, and they were on their way. Gilgamesh wanted to curl up in the back of Sumeria and let unconsciousness claim him.

  Shadow, Smoke and Sinclair rode with Gilgamesh in Sumeria. Gail and her people followed in two cars, accompanied by the wounded Arm, Debardelaben.

  This was it.

  Why couldn’t he be a nice, normal Crow, and never have anything to do with duels?

  Sea Green Eyes

  December 24, 1972

  Sarah Teas – Focus #14 – March 1957. Focus Teas is the current President of the South Region of the UFA. During the time of the Quarantine, the Breakout and the underground existence of the first Focuses after the breakout, she was known as the most energetic of the first Focuses, the ‘sparkplug’ that kept the first Focuses moving. Focus Teas is known for being the first Focus most interested in trying ‘new things’, and for being the friendliest and most helpful of the first Focuses to the younger Focuses.

  “Lives of the Focuses”

  Gail Rickenbach:

  “You’re worried,” Van said. “Brooding, too.” Gail sat in the middle of the back seat, between Van and Sylvie. Not the most comfortable seat, but the most protected. Her household had become paranoid recently.

  Gail nodded. There was comfort in being on the road again, listening to the hum of the engine, feeling the vibration of the road in her bones, but she remained uneasy. Pleasant as it might be, their Chicago home didn’t feel like home to her. Unreal and unrealistic. They had an Arm with them for the Crow Duel, but instead of Carol, they had Giselle Debardelaben, wheelchair confined and relegated to diplomatic duty. “Pittsburgh. Carol. The fight and the duel. Van, this isn’t like the Transform rights movement, where we lose, lose, lose, hoping to win a little somewhere. These Transforms are playing for keeps. Losses here could be fatal.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Uh huh indeed. Real fatal. You slept through Maybelle’s treachery last night; you missed seeing how fatal things can get. What’s more, these other Transform groups do this crap all the time. Have you spent any time talking to Connie Yerizarian about what Inferno really does?” Gail found the Inferno household leader to be one of the most interesting people she had ever met. Complex, driven and very human.

  “A little,” Van said. “She’s normally too busy to chat. I can say I’ve never met anyone like her.”

  “Inferno hunts Monsters, and organizing that is Connie’s number one job. Now, consider that you never heard of such a thing. What does that tell you?”

  “Well,” Van said, “I knew they hunted Monsters from my talks with Ann Chiron. Um, secret, huh? Lori must use that devastating charisma of hers to scare the media away.”

  Gail smiled, a little. “That’s what I thought, until I learned that Lori only goes with them when they’re hunting old Monsters, and Sky never goes with them, though he used to. Van, hunting the Monster and avoiding the media is done by the household, that is, the Transforms and the normals. What’s worse, they often hunt Monsters these days with Nobles, and Inferno isn’t linked in any way by any forms of tags with them. No, they somehow get along without such things. They can’t afford to lose, or be exposed to the media.”

  “Well, okay, that’s just Inferno.”

  “Right. How about Mercury Catering?”

  Van furrowed his brow for a moment. “Focus Keistermann’s household.”

  Gail nodded. “Mercury Catering brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and is a hundred percent legit. They aren’t publicly a Transform business, and their clientele includes several Fortune 500 companies who normally refuse to hire Transforms. The Crows attempted to expose them and ruin them…and failed. How?”

  “Judicious use of Focus charisma, my guess. Focus Keistermann is the head of the Focus Council.”

  “Yes, but her charisma isn’t much better than mine. Here’s the deal: Mercury Catering is also a private army. They don’t do jobs as often as Inferno, but they do them often enough to keep in practice. A large amount of the firepower in the Patterson fight comes from Mercury Catering. There’s a lot of talent in that household; Polly does as much cherry picking as Lori does, my guess.”

  “I’m seeing a trend, here,” Van said. “You can skip Tonya. She’s another Council member, and there’s certainly a reason for Council members to maintain private armies. What about Pearl Innkeep and her people?”

  “Her household’s my next case,” Gail said. “Pearl’s black, deep south black, and she’s often stuck living in areas where there’s still institutionalized segregation. Her world, and that of her household, is so different from mine that I had a hard time coming up with anything to talk to Pearl or her people about, until Gilgamesh, bless his heart, brought up Transform rights work. He knew Pearl from his travels back when he was doing his detective work finding Rogue Crow.

  “Turns out that Cathy maintains – maintained – multiple Transform rights groups under her wing, and keeps them separate, so if one falls, they don’t take down the rest. I’ve been involved for years and never suspected a thing. In the deep South, Transform rights is tied in with the civil rights movement, the same way it’s tied to the woman’s movement and the anti-war movement in the Midwest. Turns out that there’s quite a bit more violence involved with their fight than with ours.”

  “Makes sense, with the Nativists becoming the home of the public anti-Transform movement. If Wallace hadn’t been able to add in his anti-Transform message, I don’t think the Nativists would have lasted until the ’72 elections, nor would Wallace have gotten as many electoral votes as he did.”

  More electoral votes than McGovern of the Democrats. Gail shivered, wondering where her country was headed.

  “In any case, Pearl’s Transforms are as well trained as the Inferno Transforms, and have seen as much action, and they manage, somehow, to keep a low profile. They’ve had to move around a bunch, though, shuttling from Atlanta, Tallahassee, Mobile and Jackson, because of their paramilitary activities.”

  “What you’re saying, hun, is that we’re on that road now, too. Not just you, but the whole household as well.”

  Gail nodded. “I don’t like it. I don’t want to spend my time attending funerals of my people. Yet, that’s what Lori says I need to do: push things to the point where all my people are at risk. Accept the fact my household is going to be fighting and I’ll be attending funerals. I don’t like this path.”

  “Gail, it’s unavoidable,” Van said. “We’re just choosing to jump into the abyss before we’re forced. Assuming nothing interferes, in the late 70s and early 80s the total number of Transforms will be doubling each year. I can’t see how we’re not going to be at risk.” Van patted Gail’s belly. “Junior there isn’t even going to be a teen, yet.”

  “I know,” Gail said. She frowned. “I’ll do it, but there’s no turning back once we start on that path. Consider the duel. Most Crows don’t want us there, and just being there invites the Crows to go rogue and take us out. This won’t be our household’s only dangerous game. There’s a war against the Hunter Transform civilization coming, and in that one, we’re all going to be soldiers. Some of us will die. And the fighting won’t stop there.”

  Van nodded.

  --
-

  The gravel parking lot held several cars already, and Gail’s car was the nicest of them, which was saying something. Gail’s Transforms hugged their coats around them and shivered in the evening cold. No one had yet come up with a way to maneuver Giselle’s wheelchair through the bumpy grass of the campground, and so, ten minutes after they arrived, Gail and her household were still milling around in the parking lot. Given the attention they were attracting, Gail guessed they wouldn’t leave the parking lot for the entire afternoon.

  “Focus Rickenbach-Schuber,” Shadow said, after he finished introducing himself to the wheelchair-bound Giselle. Giselle wore nothing more than a light jacket against the cold, and Gail suspected even that was only to avoid standing out. Shadow took Gail’s hand, bowed elegantly, and sniffed it. That hand sniff routine was becoming popular, so Gail knew enough to sniff his in return. The sun hugged the northwest horizon, but the Cooper’s Lake Campground, the place the duel was being held, an hour north of Pittsburgh, was already crawling with Crows. Gail didn’t know why Inferno suggested this place, but they insisted that it had good ‘battle vibes’, whatever that meant. To Gail’s metasense, which could pick up Crows when no one else could, the campground felt homey. Focuses and Transforms had been here before, in numbers, and the whole place seemed lined with exactly the right amount of dross to make a Focus happy. She shook her head when she realized that some of the dross lining had Sky’s distinctive signature, which was strange, since he was down in Pittsburgh.

  “Shadow,” Gail said. “How are things going?”

  Shadow didn’t answer, but instead turned to a cluster of nine Crows stalking toward them from a nearby copse of trees, as confident as if they owned the world.