No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) Page 37

  “You’re the boss,” I said. “Ma’am.”

  Keaton laughed, still a little winded. “Next time either of us are up against the damned Chimeras, they’re going to have a big surprise.”

  My head to toe ache and I nodded to Keaton, as enthusiastically as possible. We had both gotten better, a lot better, at fighting. The graduation day Keaton wouldn’t have lasted a minute against either of us. The graduation day Hancock should have just saved herself the trouble and surrendered first.

  “Get showered off. I want a full report on what happened in the Rogue Focus fight and the prelims you had with the Crows.”

  Said prelims I hadn’t said a thing about. She had someone monitoring me. I wasn’t surprised.

  Back in the pale living room of Keaton’s main house, sitting on a white hassock, I spoke for three hours. First the data, no observations. Then my interpretations. Then my wild-ass suppositions. Then the one line response I had gotten to the letter I sent to the Madonna of Montreal, a quote: “In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves – the Buddha.” Then an endless round of questions. Throughout my presentation Haggerty served as an extra pair of ears, as well as waitress and dishwasher. Hank snored in a far bedroom, exhausted. He had nodded off before I finished the first pass on my data.

  Keaton leaned back in her chair thoughtfully. She didn’t say a word, but after several seconds of thought, she snapped her fingers with a crack that sounded like a rifle shot. I had to cover the urge to jump at the sound.

  Haggerty appeared at the door to the kitchen, soapy dishrag in hand. Keaton pointed to a spot on the floor about six feet from both of us.

  “Down,” she said. “I want you to listen to a story of mine. Then I want your analysis of Ma’am Hancock’s piece as well as mine.” Haggerty nodded her head and knelt on the floor where Keaton pointed.

  All right, what the hell was this?

  “The local Crow boss is named Chevalier, and we’ve been in communication,” Keaton said. Ah hah. Gilgamesh had told me about the twit. “We’ve never met, but we’ve exchanged letters.” Keaton cleaned and polished her fingernails as she talked, an affectation she had picked up recently. In fact, Keaton’s appearance was far better than during any time I had known her – she was actually keeping her hair properly cut (short), bathing regularly, and buying decent clothes.

  “Chevalier’s a jerk. He told me that if I didn’t keep my hands off of his local Crows he would expose everything I did until the authorities grabbed me, an obvious bluff. On the other hand, he didn’t care if I messed with, in his words, Shadow’s Crows, Innocence’s Crows or Thomas’s Crows. He’s also been forwarding, to my message service, sporadic information on low quality male Transforms who hadn’t gone to the Transform Clinics and who were close to going over. From his viewpoint, he’s hired a trash collector. From mine, he’s feeding me free juice. I’m still watching my back.”

  Damn.

  I was about to ask a question, but I sensed a slight hesitation from Keaton, as if she had more to say, but wasn’t sure whether she wanted to say anything or not. I doubted anyone else would have caught the hesitation, but I had gotten good at reading Keaton over the years. I shut my mouth and waited for her.

  Keaton leaned back in her chair and stared into the distance. Haggerty looked from Keaton to me, aware something was going on but not sure what. I silently mouthed ‘quiet’ at her with a murderous glare threatening death, so she sat back on her heels and waited also.

  Five minutes passed before Keaton continued. “I’m not sure this is relevant, but it might be, so here’s another one. Earlier this month I had an encounter with what has to be a Mountain Man, up near Redding.” She went on to tell a long and involved story of a firefight she had between a lone Chimera and his harem. Over half of them, including the Chimera, had gotten away. “I’m convinced the harem leader was the brains of the outfit,” she said. “Although she looked nearly human, albeit a bit furry and with a tail, she spoke the clearest of the bunch and was handling their battle tactics. She metasensed like an old Monster.”

  “Ma’am, may I ask if she got away?”

  “She did, missing her left arm, which I preserved for Hank.” So that’s what had his attention today. I had never seen him so oblivious during dinner.

  Then she snapped her fingers with the cracking shot-like sound again. “Analysis,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Haggerty said. She straightened up and visibly organized her thoughts. Keaton waited for her. I studied both of them, trying to figure out the interpersonal details. Keaton had done this to me once or twice, but never as formally. She valued Haggerty’s analysis more than she valued mine. I buried my anger deep.

  “Ma’am,” Haggerty said after a moment. “Several areas immediately present themselves. I’ll address the metasense issue first, if you agree.”

  Keaton nodded. This was a different side of the Keaton – student relationship than I had suffered through. Her progress with Haggerty was astounding. I wondered how much of it was truly recent, and how much of this was the result of Keaton’s good mood from the amazing haul she made while impersonating me. “We know the Crow and Chimera metasense reaches out to about five miles. From Ma’am Hancock’s description of the fight and what you hinted at about Crow Chevalier, I believe some of the Crows, likely all the senior Crows, can use their metasense to sense other things besides Transforms, juice and dross. On the other hand, from your description of the Redding fight and the library reports about the other Chimera encounters you and Ma’am Hancock have had, I think we can say the Chimera metasense is geared toward picking out Transforms, especially moving Transforms, at a distance. Even if a target’s metapresence is masked, I believe a Chimera can metasense the target if the target is moving.”

  Haggerty stopped for a moment. Keaton grunted. “That’s worse than I thought.” I kept my mouth shut. Haggerty had indeed picked out several bits of information I hadn’t realized before, justifying Keaton’s faith in the baby Arm’s analysis. I felt threatened. I buried the inappropriate emotion immediately.

  “Ma’am, another thought occurs to me,” Haggerty said. “I posit that Chevalier is one of the six senior Crows who are suspected of being Rogue Crow. We also know the Crows Innocence, Shadow and Thomas the Dreamer lurk east of the Mississippi River. This implies the senior Crows are geographically spread out; for either this reason or friendship Chevalier is protecting the followers of the two unknown senior Crows from us Arms. Either way, I suspect Chevalier believes Rogue Crow is one of the three senior Crows who sent Gilgamesh on his mission.”

  Keaton’s jaw set in anger. I kept my face blank. Crows did things like what Haggerty suggested, nonsensical whimsical things, artistic statements, and bald lies filled with misdirection.

  “Ma’am, there’s more,” Haggerty said. “It’s possible your relative population estimates for Major Transforms are being skewed by their capabilities.”

  Uh, right. This was information from Keaton’s private library, which I didn’t have access to. I mentally smothered some choice curses.

  Haggerty continued. “Chimeras leave a path a mile wide around them – they can’t help but be noticed. They’re not stealthy at all when they’re doing things, they can change their shape over time, and they can heal from damned near anything. I suspect the Chimeras are the most visible of the Major Transforms and because of this, your estimates for their numbers may be high. With the Crows we have the opposite problem – we only see them when they want to be seen. Thus, your estimates for their numbers may be significantly low.”

  Keaton cocked her head at Haggerty. “What you’re saying is that my estimation that they can’t keep track of us because they don’t have the numbers is likely wrong. If Van Riejn’s fact-free arm-waving is right and there are roughly as many Crows as Focuses, then there are enough Crows to be metasensing us all the time.”

  “Yes, ma’am,”
Haggerty said.

  Her statement sat hanging for a long time, as we each individually considered the idea that some Crow had been constantly metasensing what we did ever since we transformed. Eating, sleeping, screwing, killing. I had many things I wanted private. I knew Gilgamesh had metasensed me in Philadelphia, back when I lived with Keaton, doing things I never wanted anyone to see. He was just one Crow, however. The trouble I faced was the number of Crows who must have been hovering over me, metasensing me, during my entire Arm career.

  Keaton turned to me. “You’ve been sitting on one of your screwy ideas all night. Give.”

  “Ma’am,” I said. I got up and started to pace. This was important, but this wasn’t the moment when I wanted to spring my idea. Not after Haggerty’s disquieting analysis. “I had an idea I believe follows from my presentation. I spoke of this earlier, as part of my speculations on Transform ecology. I believe the Rogue Focus operation proves my idea can be made to work, and I want to formally propose we follow it.”

  “You’re speaking of this crazy Crow – Arm symbiosis idea of yours?” I nodded. “This idea didn’t work well between Gilgamesh and I.” Keaton glared at me, her voice chilly. Her idea was Arms on top, period. She could visualize a single Crow like Gilgamesh as an underling, but not as a peer.

  “Oh,” Haggerty said, figuring out my point. Keaton’s glare turned to her. “It’s the numbers difference, ma’am. There’s somewhere between ten to fifty times more Crows than there are Arms. We shouldn’t be thinking in terms of one Arm one Crow, ma’am. We need to be thinking of one Arm ten Crows, replacing quality with numbers. That’s the equivalence.”

  “Ma’am,” I said, pushing on despite Haggerty’s interruption, and not correcting her analysis. “Once, two years ago, I remember you told me that every human being on this planet was my enemy, a point you reiterated during my recovery. Up until the Rogue Focus takedown, your statement was true. But now we have Crows who have helped us.”

  Keaton cut me off. “Sit down. I don’t like you pacing around.”

  “Ma’am,” I said as I sat. She cut me off again as I started to explain.

  “Crows are chickenshit cowards with hearts of butter,” Keaton said. “Not counting Sky they’re worthless in a fight, and Sky’s got the same elderly Major Transform head issues the first Focuses have. Crows aren’t worthy of being our peers.”

  Except for Gilgamesh, Keaton didn’t like Crows. I had seen hints of this when she interacted with Sky. Crows were dangerous, untrustworthy, sometimes inimical, and they knew too much. They were a threat, and Keaton wanted control of them.

  “Ma’am, please,” I said, and repressed a shiver. I was arguing for something counter to an Arm’s basic instincts, and the smart thing to do would be to shut the hell up and let Keaton do what she wanted to do.

  Keaton’s Crow attitude was a mistake, though. If we tried to dominate the Crows, first, it wasn’t going to work, and second, we would do spectacular damage to ourselves. Every Arm instinct cried for this, but Arm instincts could hurt us all so easily here. Just one phone call to the FBI could take out an Arm. Whoever had named them had missed – they were Skunks, not Crows. You certainly can’t tame a wild skunk by force. Worse, the Crows had far too many different types of skunk spray in their arsenal.

  “Ma’am,” I said. Keaton reacted no better than before.

  “Do you actually have something useful to say, or are you trying to make me listen to your soft-core whining? Because if you need to whine, I’ll give you something to whine about.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, and my voice was strong. I offered my knife to her, hilt first, the small one I kept on my right calf. “You may use my knife if you wish. Let me say my piece. When I’m done, you may deal with me as you feel appropriate.” I pulled on my tag to quell my fears. The tag did its job. I knew I was right, but being right didn’t mean I would be able to convince Keaton.

  Keaton took that knife, flipped the knife in the air and caught it. She smiled her sardonic smile. “All right,” she said. “You’ve bought yourself five minutes.”

  I took a breath. Haggerty watched us like a hawk and didn’t say a word. She understood this byplay.

  “This is straightforward, ma’am,” I said. “Guru Shadow’s Crows are inclined to support us because of what happened in Philadelphia. They are allies of convenience. Right now, they’re providing some amount of help and are not working against us in any way we know of. The senior Crows teach their students not to interfere with the affairs of other Major Transforms, and they won’t, unless pushed. We don’t want to push them, as the Crows are capable of working against us effectively. They could betray us to the FBI with one phone call. The smart thing to do is coddle them. Bring them in closer and make better allies of them. Never ever do anything risking alienating them.”

  Keaton’s face turned icy. “Coddling them will just encourage their weakness. I want more Crows like Gilgamesh. Crows we can trust, not those other idiots.”

  Bullshit. Her issue with the Crows wasn’t the fact the Crows were weak, it was that they were a threat and she didn’t have control of them. This wasn’t going well. I needed to hit her harder.

  “Ma’am,” I said. “Yes, Sky and Gilgamesh are Crows who can work with us face to face. Crows are diverse, though, and possess many different specialties, and yes almost none of them are worth anything to us in a fight, with what we consider useful fighting talents. You don’t like it. Hell, I don’t like it. But nobody asked my opinion when they made the world. I must deal with the world as it is, not how I would like the world to be. You taught me this yourself. Survival doesn’t necessarily come from indulging my own wants and desires.”

  Keaton’s voice turned icy. “Are you accusing me of wishful thinking and emotionalism?”

  I let the question lie there and didn’t answer. Answer enough.

  Keaton leaned back and flipped the knife in her hand again. The snap of the knife’s fall into her hand was cold with threat. “Four minutes,” she said.

  Well, I had stuck my foot into it now. Either my blatant potshot was enough to break through her reactions to start her thinking or I had just done enough to ensure me extended torture time.

  “If we alienate the Crows we’re screwed,” I said, playing to Keaton’s paranoia. “They can hurt us too much. We can’t risk that. Whatever else we do, we have to treat these Crows with kid gloves. I believe the ruling Focus’s refusal to acknowledge the Crows has done them immense harm, and…”

  Keaton cut me off. “Haggerty, how much damage could the Crows actually do to us?”

  I covered an immense sigh of relief. A rational question. I had Keaton thinking. Now all I needed was for Haggerty to be as good as she seemed.

  Haggerty turned a ghostly white. She had figured out how high the stakes had risen and didn’t want to be even remotely involved. She considered lying for a moment, giving Keaton the answer she wanted to hear. Keaton saw this too, and for a moment the knife was pointed at Haggerty rather than me.

  Fortunately for her, Haggerty thought better of lying and answered honestly.

  “Ma’am, Crow Chevalier might not have been bluffing,” she said. Hesitant, unwilling to commit. “I also don’t believe he’s the only one who can destroy us. The method isn’t complicated: the Crows, known to have some FBI contacts, can keep the police and the FBI constantly alerted to our presence; they can also interfere with our hunting by alerting our kills to get themselves checked for Transform Sickness; they might also lure the Chimeras in to attack us. Ma’am, knowledge is power, as the Purifier proved in Europe. I can think up an infinite number of ways they might be able to damage us.”

  Keaton grunted unhappily and sat back in the chair. The steady whir and fall of the knife as she threw it was the only sound in the room. I attempted to ignore the fact my five minutes passed by silently as she thought.

  “All right, Hancock, keep going,” she said, catching the knife between her ring finger and pinkie. I estima
ted I had about two minutes left.

  “Ma’am, the Rogue Focus fight showed us how useful Crows can be as extra sets of eyes, ears and metasenses. With about as many Crows as Focuses, the same arguments you gave me about why we should cooperate with the Focuses can also be applied to the Crows. Trade for what the Crows can give. There’s more to being an Arm than fighting. Imagine Crows lured into the business side of our operations, for instance. With more Arms we’ll find more variations in what the Arms can do; my prediction is we’ll find more ways for the more diverse Crows to cooperate with us.”

  “Since you’ve got this all planned out, years in advance, I want to hear some specifics about how you’re going to handle whatever Crows you’re going to work with in Houston.” Keaton sounded testy and disgruntled, which was good, because she sounded like she gave me credit for being right.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m not going to hunt them or crowd them. I’m their friend. I’m going to help them out, protect them from the free Chimeras and Rogue Crow’s packs, and give them gifts. Right now most of the Houston Crows are frightened of me and extremely defensive, hiding behind Hephaestus. Over time, I’d like to see their defensiveness relax. I’m going to hint that what I want back, in the Crow gift exchange, is information. The price I’m going to pay for this strategy is speed. My plan will take time.”

  “Keep going,” Keaton said. She was cold, but I hoped not so hostile.

  “Second, I arranged a potential meeting. I convinced several of Guru Shadow’s Crows to meet with us in the park where you and Gilgamesh first met in person.” A park out of Crow metasense range of Keaton’s estate. “One of them, Sinclair, is high enough in Shadow’s trust to make provisional deals with you.” You deal with the Arms by making deals with the head Arm.