The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Four (2 page)

The man in the police uniform waved his hand and Sir
Sellers’ world turned black.  He fell, hard, to the rocky ground.

Sir Sellers awoke, his ears ringing, the rest of him dizzy
and nauseated.  Danger!  He rose to his knees and looked around.  Sadie lay
slumped on the ground beside him, unmoving but still alive.  The flame-broiled
demon Beast also lay flat and unmoving, a few feet away.

Master Occum stood behind a properly protective Hoskins,
facing the police officer, who still sat on his Monster steed.  What were
they?  He could metasense neither of them.  He only recognized the ostrich as a
Monster by her looks.

“Well, we tracked them, too,” Occum said.  Sir Sellers
had awakened in the middle of a conversation.  “Only we tracked them, fought
them, subdued them, and after all that joined them to our family.”

“So you did, but my claim takes precedence,” the police
officer said.  “Besides, what good can you make of these?  Turn them into more
of your still-Beastly horde?  As I am the true expert in this area, you have no
claim.”

“Still Beastly?” Hoskins said, ignoring a ‘shush!’ from
Master Occum.  “There is more to being a civilized Beast than looks.  Hear me
talk, Mr. Wandering Shade.  My half-Beast form lets me fight and deal with
Transforms.  Can you do better?”

“So it talks and reasons,” the police officer, this
Wandering Shade person, said.  “Your other one isn’t worth tossing a doggie
bone to.”

“Hey,” Sir Sellers said.  His world still swam around
him, keeping him from being able to charge this obvious enemy.  “I talk, too. 
What’re you, anyway?”

The police officer laughed.  One instant he was a male
police officer riding a Monster, the next a bus-sized dragon with smoke
streaming out of his mouth, the next a short scantily-clad woman with the most
absurd muscles Sir Sellers had ever seen on a human, the next a tall white-blonde
haired fairy princess riding a white charger.  “I am what I am, weak one.”  The
fairy princess turned back into a police officer.

Sir Sellers shook his head in annoyance and, yes, fear. 
Throughout the display, he metasensed no juice, élan or dross use.

“I would rather keep this simple, Wandering Shade,”
Occum said.  “But you are out of line here.  Your provocations will lead to a
fight, against all four Beasts and myself.”  To mark Master Occum’s point, both
of the recently humbled Beasts stood, ready to fight to defend Master Occum. 
Sir Sellers managed to make it to his feet as well, and of the lot, he was the
least steady.

Their opponent noted Master Occum’s trick with mild
admiration.  “Your methods may have their advantages, but my strength and skill
dwarfs yours,” Wandering Shade said.  The night sky above them began to writhe,
becoming a mass of fire breathing dragons.  “Leave me to my new charges, and I
will forget this ever happened.”

Sir Sellers readied to charge, as did the flame-broiled
demon Beast who now served Master Occum.

Hoskins didn’t ready a charge.  Instead, he stood tall
and strong, his glow as if the light of the world was upon him.  Sir Sellers
paused, wondering what Hoskins was doing.

“Master Wandering Shade…may I call you that?” Hoskins
said.

“You may,” the police officer said.  “Do you have
something to add?  Some other purile threat?”

“You are similar to Master Occum, are you not?  The
other Major Transform master of Beasts?”

“Why, yes,” the police officer said.  Sir Sellers
recognized what Hoskins was doing.  He was being
charming
.  For a Beast
who wasn’t yet Noble, the
charming
trick was quite potent.

“You live in the west, my Master says.”  Hoskins must
have been paying attention to Master Occum’s lessons while Sir Sellers had been
off frolicking with the women.  Sir Sellers was ashamed he didn’t know what
Hoskins even referred to.  “How far east have you ever grabbed a Beast Man?” 
Hoskins gently lowered his right arm to where he could hold back Master Occum,
who felt nearly as beastly as the Beasts, right now.

The police officer smiled.  “A fair question, Beast
Hoskins.  Jackson, Tennessee, which lies not many miles east of Memphis.”

“For west, for us, this is the most,” Hoskins said.  “Much
land lies in between.  Perhaps we can make a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Don’t trust his words,” Occum said, a low whisper.  “He’s
playing with your mind.”

Hoskins shook his head.  “You said my thick skull
protects me.  I will protect you.”

Hoskins hadn’t fallen over when the police officer did
his trick, Sir Sellers realized.  Well, Hoskins did have a thick head.  It went
along with his stiff neck.

“I haven’t shown a tenth of what I might do, if
provoked,” the police officer said.  “Still, I would rather negotiate than
fight.  Your Master Occum is someone I would like to remember as a friend.”

Sir Sellers bristled at the weasel-words and dug his
toes into the rocky ground for a charge, but waited to see if Hoskins could
make the deal he wanted.

“I propose we split the booty; one Beast for you, one
for us,” Hoskins said.

Oh, I get it, Sir Sellers thought.  We can’t transport
both of these Beasts back.  Hoskins is offering up something not ours.  Well, not
counting the fact Master Occum made both Beasts into family.  That’s what had
Master Occum upset.

“Mark this line on the map,” Hoskins said, drawing a
pencil line from north to south at their current position.  You don’t recruit over
here” he said, pointing to the east “we don’t recruit over there.”  Pointing to
the west.

“That’s actually…equitable.  Reasonable.  Something
unexpected from a Beast,” the police officer said.  Sir Sellers thought their
enemy got the better part of the deal, a larger piece of the map, leaving them with
more of the actual Transforms who lived in the United States.  That couldn’t be
a good thing.  Could it?  “I agree.”

Sir Sellers recalled telling himself to quit trying to
bargain with Hoskins, as he lost every time.  Perhaps Hoskins had a
special
skill
, as Master Occum termed things.

“Go, then,” Occum said, unhappy.

“But which of these Beasts should I take?  Shall we flip
a coin?”

“Do you prefer either, sir?” Sir Sellers asked, the
words slipping out into a conversation he possibly shouldn’t be sticking his
snout into.  He had a preference, the same way he knew which way to go to hunt
down Beasts and Monsters, the same way he knew Shere Khan was flawed.  The
bear-Beast had been a Beast Man for too long, and being a Beast for too long had
irrevocably scrambled his mind.  Sir Sellers feared the bear-Beast would never
be more than an automaton, unable to meet his responsibilities with any
creative thought.

“I prefer the armored bear, as should any right-thinking
Master,” the police officer said.  “Far more tractable, older and more powerful.”

“I suggest we keep the flame-broiled demon for our
family,” Sir Sellers said.  Master Occum turned to him and mouthed the word
‘why?’ without speaking.  He shared Master Wandering Shade’s sentiments about
the Beasts.  “I say this as Farsight.  His name is Horace Knox.  He is one of
us.”

Master Occum smiled, catching the code word and the
nuances.  “I think I’ll agree with my charge’s assessment.”

“It is done, then,” the police officer said.  “May we
never again meet in person.”  The police officer turned to the bear-Beast. 
“Come along…” pause “Horace.”  The bear-Beast walked off with the police
officer, no longer feeling like family.  Soon their adversary’s entourage
vanished into the distance.

To Sir Sellers’ surprise, Hoskins still glowed in
Sellers’ metasense.  Not a standard metasense glow, but a family glow.

“Hoskins, go see to Sadie,” Occum said.  “Sir Sellers,
what’s going on in that fool canine skull of yours right now?”

He didn’t remember the word ‘canine’, so he shrugged. 
He would rather be waking up Sadie.  He thought this would be an excellent time
to prove to her that she was, indeed, a woman.  “The other Beast was bad.”

“Shere Khan bad?” Occum asked.  “He didn’t feel that way
to me.”

“Different bad.  A book without letters.  Teaching him human
would make you very grumpy for a long time.”

Master Occum shook his head, not understanding.  “Well,
you sensed something, so that’s good enough for me.  So, what are you sensing
about our friend Hoskins?”

“Good things.  Brother Hoskins, do you feel odd?” Sir
Sellers asked.

“I do,” Hoskins said.  “Stronger.  More a part of the
family.”  He paused.  “But I didn’t do a quest.  How can this count?”

“I would say a great deed of valor on the field of
battle – and your deed was great, as I believe your diplomacy may have saved
our small family from extinction – makes a Beast into a Noble as much as a
completed quest does,” Master Occum said.  “When we get back home, I think I’m
going to have to knight you, Hoskins.”

Hoskins, soon to be Sir Hoskins, smiled.

Sir Sellers turned to Sadie, who rested in Hoskins’
arms.  “Are you ready for a game?” Sir Sellers asked her.  “I want to play ‘prove
to Sadie she’s a woman’ with you.”  Of all the wooing words he had stated so
far, he thought these were the best, his most inventive of the bunch.

Sadie, alas, did not.  “Occum!” she said, with a loud
enough shout to make Master Occum twitch.  “Fix this, please!”

Sir Sellers frowned.  He would need another long talk
with the household women.  This just wasn’t working the way he wanted.

Carol Flees Enkidu
[Carol Hancock POV]

The world swam as I drove and I struggled to remember my
last five minutes.  Not good.  Enkidu’s rape I remembered.  He wasn’t here,
though, implying an escape or a rescue.  My still excessive wounds meant I had
rescued myself.  I needed to get away from the Quad Cities.  Enkidu would be
able to track me with a schnozzle like his.  Would he heal faster than I did? 
Was he as low on juice, or whatever served as his equivalent to juice, as myself?

Why did the road wiggle so damned much as I drove?

I blinked, and shook my head.  I didn’t move anymore. 
In fact, my car sat in a ditch, steam rising from under the hood.  I must have blacked
out and crashed.  I must not have been driving very fast – I didn’t seem any
more injured than before.

I remembered Enkidu raping me.  I must have escaped, but
what should I do now?  I didn’t know where I was; one Illinois corn field looks
like any other around the end of September.  If I
was
in Illinois.  I might
have crossed over to Iowa.  The corn fields over there looked just the same.

Call Bobby?  Right.  He was sweet, I loved him, he knew
how to box, but for a situation like this he was nothing more than a bed toy.  Finding
me out in some random part of Illinois would be beyond his capabilities.  My
other recruits?  I barely trusted them when I stood over them.  No way would I
let them near me, injured.

Hmm.  My recruit style had problems, didn’t it?  I
promised myself to deal with that issue soon.  First, I had to survive.  Get
juice.  Get back to Chicago.

Time for me to walk.

I blinked and woke up.  I lay in the mud, cold, down in some
corn stubble.  I remembered Enkidu raping me.  I must have escaped…but to
here?  What had I been thinking?  I lifted my head from the ground and glanced around. 
Less than two hundred feet away police and wreckers surrounded a car, guns out,
and two uniformed officers attempted to open the trunk.

That must be how I escaped.  The police knew the car was
mine.

Soon the bloodhounds would come out.

I was cold.  Wait a second.  I couldn’t be cold.  Arms
are immune to the cold.  I held out my right hand in front of my eyes.  My hand
shook.  I glanced again at the bright police lights.  Bright, painful.

Cold grue flooded my stomach.  I neared withdrawal.

So this was how death came to an Arm: lying in cold corn
stubble, the frosty night above, watching the stars, near withdrawal, memory
failing, waiting for the hounds to track me down.  The hounds wouldn’t have
much of a problem.  I couldn’t move.

I felt my body with my hands, attempting to find out the
problem or problems.  Pat pat pat.  Bandages everywhere.  My left arm barely
moved.  My breasts were gone completely.  Blood seeped from an impressive throat
wound, which threatened to gape open at any second.  I was crazy thirsty and I
knew why: the last time someone cut my throat (Keaton, the bitch) I had needed
gallons of liquid to replace my lost blood.  I won’t even describe my hunger,
for juice or for food.

If I lived, I would learn whether I regrew breasts as
well as I regrew earlobes.

My abdomen remained my worst damage, damage I remembered
well from the rape.  I didn’t know exactly what went on in there, but my lower
abdomen hurt like hell.  I only hoped that my natural healing would suffice.  I
still bled from those wounds.  As I lay in the corn stubble, I endured sudden
stabbing agony whenever I twitched.

I had gone from high on juice to the edge of withdrawal,
and I still wasn’t fully healed.  The remnants of my black rage at Enkidu still
lingered inside of me.  I still had his hand.  His hand still twitched.

I tried to think things through while I watched the
stars and waited for the hounds, or for my body to be able to move again.  I had
gotten the kill.  Enkidu came in immediately afterwards. 

No coincidence there.

I hadn’t picked him up with my metasense until after the
fight, because of the diffuseness of the Chimera metapresence.  I would be on
the lookout for it next time.

If I remembered.

He didn’t have any problems picking me out, though.  He had
come in when he sensed me kill the Transform.  He came in thinking he would
kill me, but I seduced him instead.  Fine, he was vulnerable to Arm seduction
tricks.  Unfortunately, all the fruits of my labors got me was the prick.  He
had tried to snuff me anyway.

Once he injured me, he started stealing my juice, which made
him horny.  Just like an Arm.  Also, just like an Arm, he started enjoying
himself too much and forgot to finish killing me, a mistake on his part.

I suspected he wasn’t much older than me, as a
Transform.  However, he hadn’t been trained, and I had.  That’s why I walked
away from this debacle and he had crawled.

More police vehicles approached, and as I suspected, out
came the barking dogs. 

I decided to try a trick the FBI inadvertently taught me,
back in the Detention Center.  Could I cow bloodhounds the same way I cowed
other animals?  I remembered cowing some German shepherds the FBI had set up to
test me once, guarding my Transform prey.

That was a good memory.  I focused on the feeling, how I
cowed McIntyre’s damned dogs.  Stared through the corn stubble.  Buried myself
deeper in the muck.

At least the police didn’t have the choppers out.  Yet.

I’m over that-a-way.  Far away.  Go!

Downwind of me, the dogs shouldn’t have had any problems
sniffing out my presence.  I think they did find me, but decided they didn’t
want any part of me.  Instead, the bloodhounds made a bee-line across the road
and across the next field, making the high ‘hot on the scent’ yelp.

I started to crawl back toward my car.  The police had
my duffel, my supplies, my keys, my money, my weapons, everything.  They had
everything but me.

I slurped muddy water and chewed discarded field corn as
I crawled, rested, and waited.  Fifteen minutes later, I saw my chance.  I
stood and started forward.

I would give them me.

Despite my bulk, I stealthed like a sonofabitch when I
needed to, and I needed.  I risked burning a tiny bit of juice to get my zombie
shuffle up to a run.  I ran down the bank and flipped myself into the open
trunk of my car.  The blinding pain nearly did me in.  The five policemen still
at the scene, waiting for the dogs to chase me down, didn’t notice a thing.

I remained woozy.  Craving juice.  Nearing withdrawal.  Actually
in withdrawal?  Hell if I knew.  I had no idea how fast I might heal in this
condition, but heal I did, at least a little.

The wrecker driver finished towing my car out of the
ditch and paused to chat for a moment with one of the police officers and
scratch out a signature on the official documentation.  Thankfully, not too
much later, the wrecker driver drove off, presumably to take the car to the
police impoundment lot.  In the distance, say three or four miles away, I heard
the rumble of the Interstate.  Somewhere out there close was I-80.  East, down
I-80, was Chicago.  Home.

I had screwed up horribly with this kill.  I hadn’t
disposed of the body, leaving it behind for the police to find.  I had left
blood everywhere, and, unless Enkidu took souvenirs, the remains of two
breasts. 

I clutched my own souvenir in my useless left hand.  A
choice between easy juice or keeping Enkidu’s hand?  Well, I would take the
juice but at least think about keeping the hand instead.

I hadn’t wiped prints.  They had my car and my duffel. 
If I lived in the Quad Cities, I would have to move.

The tow truck stopped at the Interstate, but didn’t
turn.  I rolled out of the trunk and skittered behind a trash bin at the
inevitable corner ESSO.  The friggen middle of nowhere, and I needed juice.  I
couldn’t drive, either, not in this condition.  I oriented myself by the road
signs.  Perfect.  The eastbound side of I-80.

I needed a ride to Chicago, but in my condition, I wouldn’t
be able to bluster my way there.  I waited.  Eventually, I found a likely
target: tourists.  Tourists towing a camper.  In this case, a small camper, one
of the ‘fold up’ types, all folded up.  There would be almost no room inside. 
Perfect.  If I could get in.  I stealthed over, found the unlocked door at the
back of the camper, and opened it to find folded down canvas and other vacation
crap.  I wiggled in like a sardine and got the door shut behind me. 

Amid the folded down mess I found one cabinet filled with
food.  I ripped a hole in the door to get at the food, and found staples. 
Sugar, flour, oil, crackers.  Heaven tastes like a fresh unopened bottle of
catsup, I discovered.

The rhythm of the road soon led me to sleepy slumber and
healing land.

I should have looked at the plates on the damned camper.