All Beasts Together (The Commander) (48 page)

I understood Hank’s agitation now.  The female corpse was one of the half-Monster Chimera pack women, a black-skinned Caucasian with a thick pelt of black fur and inch-long claws on her hands and calloused feet.

I forced myself out of my love-induced stupor. “Uh, Lori?” I asked, ignoring the formalities.  “What’s a half-Monster doing with a metacampus?  Have the damned Hunters found a way to turn their pack women into Focuses?”  This impossible creature carried a juice load about a third of the way between Transform and Focus levels.

Everybody near me except Lori
dove for cover and pulled out their weapons, their adrenaline spiking.  Lori looked over at me with her eyebrows up.  “You’re supposed to be a blasted killing machine half way to being an animal, not an academic,” she said.  She had sensed my approach, but hadn’t bothered to tell anyone.  I smiled.

“Zielinski here taught me the basics,” I said.  I had seen a picture of a hippocampus and a metacampus in “Transform Variations”, a book Zielinski had been one of thirty contributing authors to.  That and my Arm memory did the rest.

Lori froze and her eyes opened wide, as if seeing me for the first time
, and I slipped back into my own stupor.  She reached out and took her hands in mine, staring into my eyes.  My heart melted as I stared back.  Our attraction was mutual.  How had I missed the wonder of her when we first met?  What had changed?

When we met the first time, I had considered her beautiful, mesmerizing, a miracle of the juice.  I had wanted to possess her.  This was something more.  Deeper.  I suspected now that my initial reaction would be similar for all Focuses.  This, I very much hoped, would not be.  It was too powerful, too intrusive. 
Lori, I sincerely hoped, was special.

Ann Chiron picked herself up from the muddy ground, glanced at Lori and me, and slumped her shoulders in despair. 
She had ducked for cover instead of going for a weapon.  Smart woman.  “Ohhhhhh shit.  This was always a possibility.”

“What are you talking about, Ann,” Zielinski said, from where he hid,
behind one of the vans.  He finally got his weapon, a big hulking Monster-rifle, pointed roughly my way.  I flickered an annoyed glance his direction, and he lowered it.  “You’re way too slow to be able to shoot an Arm with
that thing
,” I said, my voice husky with emotion.  “It’s not worth the hassle.”  He shrugged.  He hadn’t intended to shoot me anyway.

Lori and I continued to stare at each other’s juice
, and we both fought to keep vacant grins off our faces.  Looking into her eyes, disquieting urges crept into my traitorous body, urges most recently satisfied in my life by a man named Bobby.  Lori echoed my reaction with a faint flushed warmth suffusing her.

“What possibility?” Lori said
, to Ann, in a deep and distant voice.

“That with Zielinski here as a compatibility vetting mechanism, both you and Arm Hancock would be emotionally and intellectually compatible, leading to some form of juice-level compatibility.”  Her comment shocked me out of my love stupor.  Anthropologist.  Right.

Zielinski muttered an “Amazing” and crept forward to join Lori, Ann and myself, as Focus Rizzari’s bodyguards crept back, disconcerted at having me so close to their Focus.  Tough.

“However, ma’am and ma’am, I believe this to be unwise,” Ann said.  “Unknown juice effects are hazardous.  I don’t want to go to your funeral, ma’am.”

Lori blinked, turned away.  Her face hardened into its usual icy blank mask.  “Disquieting.”

I set aside my own bodily urges as well, with both reluctance and relief.  I found my instinctive desire for some snuggle time with Lori, someone I had only met once before, to be unnerving. 
The Arm part of me recognized her as
my Focus
, while the more rational part of me shrieked ‘No no no!  She’ll turn you into a pet.’

What had changed in her juice structure to make her so beautiful?  The engrossing complexity?  The rich tone?  Whatever the reason, she was magnificent.

“So, if I may ask, Arm Hancock, how did you find us?” Ann asked, after flickering a half-accusatory glance at Zielinski, for keeping secrets.

“I can’t tell you, because I don’t understand it.  All I know
is that I picked up your Focus’s scent from about fifty miles away, something I can’t normally do.”  Even with the scent in my nostrils, I still took three hours to find them.  I wondered if scent was the right word.  Certainly I hadn’t smelled Gilgamesh, but I had noticed him also.

Hank
pulled out a notepad and took notes.  In darkness, because the Transforms with the lanterns had dropped them to pull weapons.  Which they still attempted to point my direction.

“Of the Chimera and his pack, this one was the toughest to take down of the ones we killed, even tougher than the trainee Chimera I took out
,” Lori said.  “Henry thought there was something special about her, and he was right.  With a bit of work I metasensed that she had a Monster-style metacampus…and now we have physical proof.”

Now
I was flummoxed.  “Monsters have metacampuses?”

“Only the old ones.  This woman hadn’t been a Transform for more than six months.  This was induced.”

Our enemies had tricks we didn’t have.  That didn’t make me happy.

“Now, if you could do me a favor, Lori,
would you please tell your people to point their weapons somewhere else?”  I swore I must have had twenty rifles pointed at me.  Three of Rizzari’s people had swords out, as well.  I suspected Gilgamesh, who hadn’t followed me into this armed camp but was somewhere close, was having conniptions.

Lori’s people put their weapons down. 
She had signaled them to do so with her juice, if I wasn’t mistaken.  Neat trick.

“I’ll tell you my story if you’ll tell me yours,” I said.  The timing on her hunt tonight was quite suspicious.

“Yes, but first let me finish up here with the autopsy.”

I nodded and stepped back, content to wait.
  The delay would give me more time to stare lustily at the magnificent Lori.

“I had a thought about Odin’s werewolves,” I said.  Lori, Ann, Hank and I sat on camp chairs at the entrance to her pavilion, still under the watchful eyes of several bodyguards, but at least no drawn weapons any more.  The soft buzz of breathing from a half-dozen sleepers came from inside the pavilion.  The sun had risen and we had mostly exchanged stories, although Lori had twice dodged the timing issue.  I suspected another Focus ability, similar to her supernatural-sounding ‘map scrying’ trick.  “Transform Sickness keeps coming up with surprises that are no surprise at all.  Werewolves.  Amazon warrior Arms.  Crows that act like storybook Elves.  Focuses who can mimic Pagan Goddesses.  People wonder how Transform Sickness got so complex, but the complexity makes sense if this isn’t the first time around.  We see its olden-day effects in our myths.”  My background was literature and history, and I had read a large amount of European folklore.  My explanation made sense, at least to me.  I fully expected this more expert crew to shoot down my idea.

Lori, Ann and Hank stared at me with surprised eyes.  “It’s called the Myth Hypothesis,” Ann said.  “I came up with it when I first heard about Van Reijn’s work.”  Lori nodded.
  “Nobody outside of our household considers it worth the paper it’s printed on.”

I smiled.

“I was skeptical when the Focus and Ann first told me about it,” Hank said.  “I’ve become more open recently, based on the work I’ve been doing on Transform training.”

I followed his gaze to several of Rizzari’s bodyguards, and, yes, I could see their recent improvements.  “
Heroes and heroines with abilities beyond what normal humans can have?  Check.”  I paused and shook my head.  “It’s a great theory, except for one problem: why would Transform Sickness ever go away?”

Lori’s eyes glowed.  “We don’t know
either, but consider this: before our modern age and our modern transportation methods, when a Transform Sickness outbreak occurred, it was likely confined to a few tribes in a few small locales.  It couldn’t spread far, similar to some of the strange diseases you find in the equatorial regions.  We suspect people become immune to it and it mostly dies out, before coming back again later.  Lots of diseases work that way.”

I nodded
and let the inevitable highbrow discussion start, a huge smile on my face.  My Focus, my ideas, my allies in a fight.  Perfect.

Lori turned to me once we finished speculating on the unknown and chewing through far too many bits of technical terminology.  “Carol, I think you should come back to Boston with me.”

I blinked and fought back the urge to say ‘yes’.
  I hadn’t expected her request.  “Why?”

“Safety in numbers,” Lori said.  “Neither of us killed either of the boss Chimeras we encountered, and we know of at least one other boss Chimera, Enkidu, who lives in this part of the Midwest.  They’re going to try for you again.”  She paused.  “Also,
some Focuses are worried you’re poaching household Transforms.  If you’re in Boston, I can be in a much better position to vouch for you.”

That was nearly an accusation and it set my hackles
rising.  Someone had leaned on her, likely the Network.  My muscles tensed in sudden anger.  “I’m not poaching household Transforms,” I said.

While Lori chewed on that,
I spent some time reading the people around me.  Lori, of course, was the most difficult to read, but she thought she meant well.  Ann thought my moving to Boston was a wonderful idea, but she didn’t want me living anywhere near the Rizzari household.  She didn’t want to die due to a young Major Transform’s mistake.

On the other hand, Hank didn’t want me to move to Boston.  He wasn’t happy being stuck in Boston, either.  He didn’t trust Lori.

He also noticed my rising anger.  I didn’t like to be pushed.  Pushing people was my job.

“Focus, ma’am, Carol isn’t a Focus,” he said.  She frowned at him for stepping into the conversation
, but he didn’t stop.  “Aggressive charisma use, which is the bread and butter of any real Focus discussion, is an attack from an Arm’s perspective.”  Lori momentarily flashed anger – at Hank – before she suppressed her emotions.

M
y knives slipped into my hands and I stood into a battle crouch.  Thanks to Hank I finally realized the dynamic around me.  Lori, my supposed Focus friend and now juice-level love partner, had been using her charisma on me, trying to control me, and I hadn’t even noticed.

Lori turned to me and her face fell.
  “Uh, uh, um, sorry sorry sorry,” she said, noticeably abashed, without the slightest bit of aggression in her.  She stood and extended her hands, but hesitated in the face of my hostility.

I couldn’t read whether she was truly sorry or just being polit
e, so I answered her with a growl and a large dose of predator effect.  The awake bodyguards in our audience drew their weapons and got down in fighting crouches.  Even Hank flinched.  Lori stood stock-still and stared at me, save for a martial art’s style adjustment of her left leg back four inches.  Ann did something with the juice I had never imagined possible: she engaged in a rapid juice exchange with Lori.  A full conversation.  From the look on Ann’s face, I guessed Ann was royally chewing out her Focus.

“This is my charisma use,” I said, continuing to radiate predator.  “Want to dance, bitch?”  How stupid was I being, trying to take on a Focus surrounded by a bodyguard cadre as strong as Rizzari’s?  Especially since my
traitorous heart likely wouldn’t let me finish Lori off?  I counted on their ignorance of how to fight an Arm.  For one thing, their Monster-rifles were far too heavy to aim at someone who moved as fast as I did when I fought.

“I surrender,” Lori said
to me.  She got out of her fighting stance and let me read her: embarrassment and shame.  “I made a mistake.”

“
My answer to you about moving to Boston is ‘no’,” I said.  I refused to let anyone push me around, and Chicago was
mine
.  I backed away, slowly, and didn’t drop my predator effect.  Lori followed, unarmed, away from her guards and in among the clustered pickup trucks.  Now that I knew what to look for, I could easily metasense her juice signals to her people.

“You’re still in danger
out here where you live,” Lori said.

“I don’t think so,” I said.  “These Chimeras aren’t
all-powerful and they fight like fools.  As long as I’m living in a place they can’t get to, I can make them fight me on my terms.”  A narrow opening would stop most of them, which my new place possessed in abundance.

“What about their master?” Lori asked.

“Your Transform bodyguards could take out Officer Canon if you protected them from her juice tricks,” I said.  “There’s a reason she’s using Chimeras – she’s weak.”

“My gut says you’re wrong,” Lori said.
  She studied my feet, still open to me.  She did fear for my life.  “I want to help you, darn it.”

She wanted to make up with me.  Now that we were out of her bodyguard circle, I relaxed my predator effect.  It wasn’t having much effect on Lori anyway.  Facing down predators
was nothing new for her.