The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1) (31 page)

Gilgamesh shook his head.  “He is.  He waited until we couldn’t sense him, and then he called.”

The Duke’s voice grew artificially patient.  “If he’s out of your range, how do you know what he’s doing, Master Gilgamesh?”

“His expression flickered when I told him who attacked Sinclair,” Gilgamesh said.  “I don’t know if or who Hephaestus will talk to, but he easily might be reporting us to Sinclair’s attacker right now.  Or to Chevalier, for that matter.  We need to go a few more miles north, and then take the back roads to go around Las Cruces back to I-10.”

“In the first place,” Hoskins said, “you can’t base a major change of plans on nothing more than some flicker of an expression that might not even be meaningful.  And in the second place, I don’t know the back roads around here.  We’ll just get lost, and then we’ll be
more
vulnerable, not less.”

“Your grace, no. Dynamo is going to cause trouble.  We’ve got to get out of here, and lay a false trail.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.  Master Gilgamesh.”

“Your grace, you said in a fight, trust a fighter, and you made your point.  But when you’re running, trust a Crow.”

Hoskins ran his hand through his hair in frustration.  “All right, all right.  I’ll try to take us around Las Cruces back to I-10.  But I still don’t know the roads around here, and the atlas doesn’t show the level of detail we need.  We’re going to get so lost we’ll be sitting ducks.”

“Actually, your grace, I have a map.”

“You have a map.”

Gilgamesh winced.  “Actually, I always get maps, wherever we go.  They make me feel safer.”

“All right,” Hoskins growled.  “Give me the damned map.  I’ll get us around Las Cruces.”  He muttered inaudibly after that, but Gilgamesh picked up the occasional ‘Crow’, and the rest didn’t sound complimentary.

Ten minutes later, they exited the highway and started the long trek through the desert back roads.

The map said Deming, New Mexico, and Gilgamesh sat out by the side of the trailer, building dross constructs, and ignoring the insane dry heat while Hoskins did whatever Hoskins did out beyond Gilgamesh’s range.  Gilgamesh just hoped he didn’t bring his prey home with him.  Only a couple more days to Los Angeles, if they kept up with their current pace.  Slow, because they kept stopping to talk to various Crows along the way.  Ah, both nostalgia and panic.  The last time he did this stunt, he had been bait for Rogue Crow.  If someone had told him he had been playing patty cake with a Crow Mentor back then, he would have died of panic on the spot.  Now, here he was, being bait again.  He hoped they had really fooled Dynamo.

He missed Carol.  Nearly his entire Transform life, he had lived in Carol’s shadow, and every one of those few occasions where he had made his own way had been hell.  So what did he do?  Of course, he went out on his own again.  And what was he facing?  Hell, of course.  He wondered what kind of idiocy possessed him.

He wouldn’t be the almost-Guru he was now except that he had chosen to associate with the Arms, and Carol in particular.  They supplied him with nearly infinite dross, so he never suffered the low juice issues of most young Crows.  Both Keaton and Carol had trained him.  He had gained confidence and courage far beyond the normal for a Crow just by learning to deal with them.

He missed Carol’s laugh, and her wicked wit.  He missed her ferocity when anything threatened him.  He missed the fabulous love they made together when the world gave them the chance.

The stars shone like beacons in the dark moonless night.  They had parked in an otherwise empty dust-choked campground just off I-10, three miles from the town.

Gilgamesh worked on a construct to block Crow metasense.  He thought he possessed the math to put together the complex but low-powered construct, and he really wanted to protect Sumeria so they couldn’t be sensed as they passed near enemy territory.

Even better, he made the shields one-directional, so he could still use his metasense to sense out.  This was similar to Wandering Shade’s area masking trick, only object-linked.

Carefully, he aligned the threads and echoes and derivatives, and maybe his work did look like an engineering blueprint, but he still thought the construct beautiful.

Very slowly, he stood up and turned toward Sumeria, bringing the construct with him.  Carefully, he tied the construct into the side of the motor home.  Very carefully, as he had blown the object-tie twice already at this exact point.  He worked for a half hour, slowly tying one strand after the other, but the construct didn’t fall apart.

When he finished, he sat back done on the ground, exhausted and shaking.  Success!  He couldn’t metasense Sinclair inside Sumeria from here, but he could if he went around to the front.  He opened the door and went inside, and metasensed outside as if through a translucent curtain.  Not perfect, but this would work.

The dross construct didn’t even collapse when he opened the door!

Gilgamesh took a deep breath and decided to give himself a half-hour of recovery.  He would need three more constructs to cover all of Sumeria, and he would be able to manage one more tonight, and finish tomorrow.  They would travel all day tomorrow only partially hidden, but he had covered the right side, the side facing their enemies, especially the disquieting enemy Dynamo said lurked in Flagstaff, Arizona.  Gilgamesh wondered if such an enemy really existed, or if Dynamo had only been spreading lies to cause them problems.

Hoskins returned when Gilgamesh had nearly completed the second construct.  The Duke carried a Transform woman with him, who looked none too happy about the situation.  Engrossed in his work, Gilgamesh didn’t notice Hoskins until Hoskins reached him, and Hoskins’ appearance so startled him he dropped the construct and the construct imploded.

“Dammit, your grace,” Gilgamesh said.  “Don’t you know better than to pester a Crow when he’s working?”

Hoskins looked blank.  In the dry heat, his sweat evaporated as soon as he produced it, and salt stained his bright red shirt.  Chimera bodies didn’t cope well with heat.  They were too big, and burned too much energy.  “What are you working on that couldn’t be interrupted, Master Gilgamesh?”

“Where am I?” the woman wanted to know.  She was no older than twenty, and she wore a satin teddy and sleep-tussled short blonde hair.  “What the hell is going on here?”

“I was
trying
to protect us,” Gilgamesh said to Hoskins.  “So we’re not dragging a damned beacon along with us announcing ourselves.”

“You missed, then, Master Gilgamesh.  Your protection only covered one side of our vehicle.”

“I know that! The protection might have covered more if you hadn’t interrupted me.”

“
What is going on here
? I want to go home!”

Gilgamesh looked over at the woman, still in Hoskins’ arms.  “What
is
going on here?” he asked.  We were going to try and avoid” he waved his hand at the woman “complications this trip.”

“You always knew we might encounter
complications
.  Why else would Master Shadow teach you, Master Gilgamesh?” Hoskins said.

“You were out
hunting!”

“I’m a predator, Master Gilgamesh.  I do that.”

“Not now! We have other things to worry about.  You’re not supposed to hunt unless you need to.”

“Ow,” Hoskins said, as the woman took a bite out of his shoulder.  He pried her loose and held her out at arms-length.

“Y’all
kidnapped
me!” she said, but then her tears drowned out her screams.

“What do you two idiots think you’re doing?” a fourth voice snarled hoarsely from Sumeria’s doorway.  Sinclair stood there, wobbly and holding tightly onto the door.

“Sinclair!” Gilgamesh said, at the same time as the startled “Master Sinclair” from Hoskins.

“What happened to your sense of responsibility? You have a commoner in trouble! Saving commoners comes before any personal problems.”

No one spoke for a long time.  Even the woman Transform fell silent.  Finally, Hoskins looked down at the ground.

“Of course, Master Sinclair.”

Sinclair rocked on his feet.  “I think I’ll go take a nap,” he said in a weak voice, as he turned back into Sumeria.

Gilgamesh turned back to the woman, feeling rather abashed himself.

“What the hell’s going on here?” she asked, weakly.

“You have Transform Sickness, and you’re a Transform,” Gilgamesh told the woman.  He wasn’t sure how this got to be his job, but with Sinclair unconscious again, Hoskins insisted talking to the woman was a Crow’s responsibility.

He had told the woman four times already, but this was the first time she believed him.  He stayed as careful and gentle as possible.

“Am I going to die?”

“No, you should be all right.”

“But don’t I need a Focus?”

“We could drop you off in a Clinic in Los Angeles,” Gilgamesh said.  “The odds aren’t good they’ll be able to find you a Focus with an open slot before you go Monster.  However, there are other alternatives that don’t make the newspapers.”

“What?”

“Duke Hoskins and I are Major Transforms ourselves, and…”

The woman, Brenda Sander, interrupted him.  “Duke?” she said.  “Wait a minute.  Wasn’t he on TV a while ago? He’s like, famous.”

Gilgamesh winced.  “Yes, that’s him.”

“Oooh, that’s great.  He is so gorgeous.  So he can, like, save me?”

The wince was worse this time.  “Yes,” Gilgamesh said.  “Together we can save you.  You’ll be a commoner in a Noble household.  The Duke and I will take care of you, and you’ll go through cycles.  In a few days, you’ll have built up enough juice, and then we’ll take the excess away from you, so you’re down pretty low.  Then you build it up over the next three weeks or so, and we do so again.”

Brenda’s smile faded.  “So, like, how long does this last? Do I stay alive forever, or does something happen?”

Gilgamesh sighed, and explained the harsh reality of her situation.

When he was done, Brenda said in a small voice, “I don’t really want to be a Transform.”

“I know.”

Gilgamesh held out his arms, and she leaned on his shoulder and cried.

Sinclair woke again the next morning.  Brenda remained asleep and Hoskins was out on his morning prowl, so Gilgamesh fixed breakfast, attempting not to bump anything critical in the tiny motor home kitchen.

“Gilgamesh,” Sinclair said as he lurched into the front part of the motor home.

“Would you like some pancakes?” Gilgamesh asked.

“Pancakes.  Yes, pancakes would be good.”  Sinclair sat down in one of the two tiny chairs.

Gilgamesh gave Sinclair the cooked pancakes and set about making more.  He didn’t ask any questions while Sinclair ate.  Crow courtesy.  No pressure.

“So you really think you’re going to fix me?” Sinclair asked, after he finished.  Gilgamesh nodded, and decided Sinclair must have heard and understood some of what they discussed while unconscious.

“Huh,” Sinclair said, and was silent.

Hoskins interrupted their not-really-a-conversation when he barged through the door.  Gilgamesh winced as Hoskins bumped, yet again, the small table by the door as he attempted to maneuver his bulk in the cramped motor home.  The table leaned these days, from all the Hoskins bumps.

“Master Sinclair, you’re awake again!” Hoskins said.

“Yes, your grace, and if you could be just a little quieter, I would very much appreciate it.”

“Right,” Hoskins said, in a quieter voice as Brenda shifted restlessly in the top fold-out bunk toward the back.  “Are you healed now, Master Sinclair?”

Sinclair shook his head and looked away.  The look of hope faded from Hoskins’ bearded face.

“Not at all?”

“No.”

Gilgamesh reached out a hand, trying futilely to offer some comfort to Sinclair, but Sinclair refused to look at either of them.

The smell of burning pancakes brought Gilgamesh’s attention back from Sinclair, and he hurriedly turned back to the tiny two-burner stove.  The thin motor home walls creaked from Hoskins’ weight.

“We may have a little problem,” Hoskins said to Sinclair.  “I need to do the draw on our new commoner, and I was hoping for your expert help, Master Sinclair.”

“Well, I have no expert help to give.  Gilgamesh will need to do the honors.”

Hoskins eyed Gilgamesh, unhappy.

Sinclair picked up the now empty tin plate and threw it across the few feet to the wall of the motor home.  The plate hit with a bang and Gilgamesh jumped.  Hoskins didn’t jump, but his eyes went wide.

“What the hell is going on with you two!” Sinclair said.  Loud.  “I’m the one with the burned out metasense, and you two are acting like complete assholes! I’ve been listening to you go at each other for days! Grow up!”

Sinclair buried his head in his hands, and his back shook.  Gilgamesh reached forward again to try to comfort him, but Sinclair raised his head and glared at him.