The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) (26 page)

I despised being anyone’s pawn.

“When did Patterson tag Bass?” Van asked.  He was all nerves, terrified for all our lives, most especially Gail’s.  I didn’t blame him.  When I ordered Gail to protect my mind in the Dreaming, it was as a contingency plan, not a plan for her to be the primary target of my enemies.  Van was going to pay for this later, helping Gail cope and helping her put herself back together.  “For the attack on Dr. Littleside in Denver?”  Mere months before Van and Gail got married and served as targets in the Battle in Detroit.

“Yes,” Cathy said.  She shivered and clutched my hand in a tight grip, fearing that any second now Patterson’s parasite tag would return.  Unlike with Tonya, she hadn’t regained any tricks or raw power when we excised the parasite tag.  Too much juice structure damage for far too long.  “I never learned why, though.  After Dr. Littleside’s death, they discarded Bass, thinking her of no further use.  After Keaton and Carol rescued Bass, and after Keaton’s training and Bass’s graduation, the tag was long gone, but enough of a connection remained for Patterson to call her to Hilltop in secret.”  Using symbolic juice manipulation, a standard Shaman Focus trick.  “There, Patterson used her charisma to entice Bass into staying and becoming her student.  There, off and on, but to this day, Patterson’s been training Bass and forging her into one of her strongest allies.”

Van shivered and went wide-eyed.  I frowned and willed him to speak his new fears.  “Focus Elspeth, was Bass behind the recent baby Arm kidnappings?” he asked.  Oh.  Of course.  Bass had been a fucking knife in our backs ever since the Battle in Detroit.  She knew about United Toxicol and the Chrysanthemum Corporation because she was part of them.

“Bass was Patterson’s muscle,” Cathy said, nervous and leaning heavily on the double tag.  “Patterson herself did the political dirty work, and, although I hadn’t realized until earlier this evening, I did the charismatic dirty work.  All the kidnapped Arms went to Patterson.”

On top of everything else in this steaming mound of shit, Patterson had her own baby Arm army, and enough time to train them up.  Taking her no longer looked like an easy task.

“Patterson’s hold on Bass was her training,” Cathy said.  “Nothing of the juice someone might sense, but simple blackmail – Patterson could ruin Bass at any time by revealing the fact she was Bass’s teacher.  Bass had no choice but to play along and deal equitably with Patterson, and take her suggestions as orders.  What you told me about Bass’s philosophy of Arms as unconstrained predators came from Patterson, who wants the Arms to be the
unholy evil monsters
, a threat only she can stop.  The same for Bass’s philosophy of power.  Bass’s belief that ‘the Transform apocalypse helps us’ is Patterson’s teaching; Patterson opposed the Cause not because it was a rival power center but because Patterson
wants
the Transform apocalypse to happen.  Aiding the Transform apocalypse is her holy mission.  Everyone is to die except her holy elect.”

Van leapt over to me, a bit of involuntary and pointless desire to protect me.  I supposed he could stop a bullet or two, but only low caliber slow ones.  Side effects of the tag he wore.  “Commander!  You said the Progenitors wouldn’t take sides between you and Patterson.  This means they don’t care if the Transform apocalypse happens.”

Exactly.  I nodded to him; this was one of the reasons I invited him over, to see if he would come to the same conclusion I had.  No, the Progenitors weren’t our friends, not if they thought the Transform apocalypse might be a good thing.  They could easily turn into our enemies.  I had been right with my initial paranoia.

Van leaned over to Cathy, forceful enough to get her to shrink back into me.  “Why did Patterson grab Bass’s family, then?”

“Patterson didn’t.  Fingleman did,” Cathy said.  Van backed off and balled his fists in frustration at the typical Focus backbiting stupidity.  Patterson was an unknown to him, one of the first Focuses who refused to let him interview her in person for his book.  However, he had interviewed Focus Fingleman and because of the way she treated him, he wanted her dead.  He had taken months to recover his full health after his Fingleman visit, and he still occasionally suffered nightmares.  “Although Donna and Shirley often work together, Donna’s always trying to get a leg up on Patterson.  Donna didn’t know the now mature Arm Bass was the same hapless tool she and Shirley used to kill Dr. Littleside until after the Clearing of Chicago.  Or that Bass was Shirley’s secret Arm trainee.  She needed to take steps.”

“Then Bass is one of the two unknowns who left Patterson’s compound after Keaton fell,” Van said, shaky, speaking through shuddered deep breaths.  “The traitor who arranged for Keaton’s fall, likely with one of the baby Arms as her thirty pieces of silver.”

“My conclusion as well,” I said.  I wanted to throw up in disgust.  Spots danced in front of my eyes from low juice.  “What’s worse, I sent Rose and Giselle out to corral Keaton’s student Arms and grab Keaton’s library, and they haven’t reported back.  I’m now afraid I sent them into a trap, and Bass captured them.”  Anger turned to horror in both Van and Daisy’s eyes, as they cared for both Rose and Giselle.

I collapsed in exhaustion and let the double tag slip back into being a full tag, giving up my wonderful, terrible connection with Cathy.  I returned from the mountaintop to the mundane normality of everyday life, visions of Patterson adding not only Keaton, Rayburn and Bass to her defenses, but Rose, Giselle and Keaton’s student Arms.

Cathy screamed!  Mad, horrible, wrenching misery, as bad as Adkins earlier in the basement.  She thrashed and clawed at her face and I realized with a shock she wanted to kill herself.  Van scrambled away, as shocked as myself.

What the hell was this?  I held her tight, but she fought me in her panic.  As fast as I could, I put the double tag back.

The instant I got the double tag back in place, she quieted.  Shivering, she nestled against me.

I muttered obscenities to myself as I realized what was going on.  She was using me and my double tag to fill the void left by Patterson’s powerful, miserable, ancient parasite tag.

Shit.  We had yet another problem.

“Physically, she’s well enough, except for a couple of points of dross corruption in her juice structure,” Zielinski said.  He was still as tough as my mother’s overcooked pan-fried steaks.  Even after our little discussion earlier today, his hands were perfectly steady and his voice was calm and rock solid.  I knew him too well, though, and easily sensed the little internal shrieks of terror and his desire to be somewhere else.  Anywhere else.

As soon as Zielinski finished with his examination, Cathy climbed down off the table and nestled under my arm again, kneeling on the floor next to my chair.  “Mentally, it’s another story.”

I nodded.  I had seen the results as he tested her.

“Any suggestions?”

“Her condition isn’t one I’m equipped to treat, unfortunately,” he said as he folded up her chart.  “My recommendation is many weeks of rest and the attention of a talented Crow.  It’s possible that she’ll heal some of the mental damage over time and need less of your support.  What are you going to do about her household, Commander?”

I shrugged.  “Nothing yet.  I think she should have her household near, but I don’t know if the household would survive the experience.”

“Well, unless you’re planning to take her with you into Pittsburgh, you’d better take the chance.  She’ll need all the support she can get when you leave her.”

I sighed, and absently hugged Cathy a little tighter.  I felt her delight down the pipe, and resisted the urge to lose myself in her reactions.

“I can’t hold this tag for much longer, because I need to cadge some juice.  She’s going to need to spend some time with a full tag whether she can deal with it or not.”

He nodded, and I resisted Cathy’s fear at the thought.  “If you must, you must, but keep the stronger tag on her as often as you can.  And for heaven’s sake, don’t lose the full tag.”

I nodded.  I suspected that if I untagged her completely her mind would snap.

Shirley Patterson was dead meat.

“Hank, I need something else from you.”  He raised his eyebrows, and the wrinkles of his forehead followed them up to the bald spot where his hair had once been.

“I need you to put three of my Focuses into the cells in the Littleside basement and keep them out of trouble until I find time to deal with them.”

“Three?  Which three?”

“Julius, Morris, and Teas.  Julius has been sleeping since Billington captured her and killed her multiple times.  Be kind to Morris, see if you can win her over to our side.  Be wary of Teas.  Her charisma isn’t as strong as she thinks, but she’s got enough schemes for any ten people, and I’d hate to see anybody here fall under her sway.”  Zielinski nodded and I smiled faintly.  “If Teas has a rough time of it while I’m gone, that wouldn’t bother me any.  She’s a fool and in need of some hard life lessons.”

“I know Teas,” Hank said.  “If she tries her Focus tricks on me, I think she’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise,” he said. I believed him.  Heh.  Zielinski could outmaneuver both Lori and Tonya.  He would eat Teas for lunch, and his anger at the first Focuses was old and powerful.

“Good.”

“Julius, though…”  He paused.  “I hate to say this, but kill her. 
Now.
  Before she recovers.  You have no idea what sort of trouble she is.  The rest of the first Focuses, including Patterson, kept her locked away out of
fear
, Commander.”

I sneered at his thought of danger.  A goddamned junior Arm took her out, for fucks sake.  “No,” I said.  “She knows too much, and I need to learn what she knows.”

Hank took a deep breath, and shrugged, more worried than he let on.  He would be spending money I didn’t have to increase Littleside’s security.  Perhaps rigging some bombs to blow Julius into red mist at the slightest provocation.  “What about Wini Adkins?” he asked, too casual.

“Not your problem,” I said.

“Carol,” he said, but I cut him off.

“I have plans for her, and I’m not going to ask you to contribute to them in any way.  Appreciate that.”

Zielinski looked away.  Outside the window, sleet dripped down the window pane of the Littleside examining room.

“Carol,” he said.  The downside of my ensuring his loyalty was that he now focused on my personal business like a laser.  “I would like to talk to you about those plans.  Are you sure it’s wise to let your darker side…”

Cathy cut him off with a hiss of raw fury.  I held her back to keep her from attacking him with curled fingers like claws.

“My business,” I said, cold.  Zielinski looked at the rage in Cathy, and my cold hostility and wisely refrained from pushing the subject any further.

“Sibrian will be coming by in a few minutes with the Focuses,” I said.  “In the meantime, I have Arms to corral and a battle to arrange.  If you need me, contact me at the Adirondacks number.”

Dolores Sokolnik: December 21, 1972

“Zulu!  Zulu!”  The static-degraded voice came from Webberly’s large backpack.  Del froze with her arms extended, in the process of handing the heavy box of Keaton’s notebooks to Theresa.  Theresa, responsible for stacking their accumulated Keaton records inside the military surplus truck, blinked and stopped moving.  Webberly sped to her backpack, against the wall only ten feet from Del, and took out another bit of military surplus gear, this a radio-telephone unit.  Del hadn’t realized it had been on.

“Copy.  What’s the situation, Mouse?”  Mouse must be the Crow that Webberly worked with.

“Incoming.”  Static, followed by garbled words.  Webberly tensed.  Theresa had lost all interest in Del’s incoming box, and Del put it down on the floor of the truck.  She listened intently.

“India Mike India.”  Please repeat.

“Seven incoming.  Two Arms, five captive Transforms, and myself.  Moving…”  More static.  Del wondered how far away this Crow was calling from.

Del concentrated on her metasense, and as Webberly got Mouse to repeat the message again, Del spotted one of the Arms and all of the captives.  Two of the captive Transforms were unconscious, in shock, and not long for life.  “Got them.  I only metasense two Major Transforms, though, and one of them metasenses as me,” Del said.  “Convoy of two vehicles, both station wagons.  Just under a half mile out.”

“Merry!  Giselle!  Incoming!” Webberly said, her voice loud enough to rattle the walls of the entire converted barn housing Keaton’s loading dock.  “Get everyone here, now!”

Del relayed information, staring blindly across the dock’s parking lot into the brush on the other side.  “One vehicle stopped just over a quarter mile out, the one carrying the Transforms and the entity mimicking my metapresence.  The other vehicle, with one unknown Arm, is coming here.”

“The echo effect is a known trick of the Crow known of as Echo,” Webberly said.  She scanned the loading dock area as she spoke, memorizing her environment in preparation for conflict.  “Gail’s crew was apparently correct again.  They had hypothesized that Bass’s Crow, Snowcone, was merely an identity of Echo.”

“This is Bass?” Del said, flustered and instantly regretting her inane comment.  “Ma’am.”  She fought off the urge to run.