The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1) (12 page)

“However, Jane, you do need to know that you are the first human-stabilized commoner to go through her first draw and retain the ability to read.  Or to remember what happened during the draw process.  Human stabilization is unnatural, and the élan fights against it.  Thus, the pain.”  Shadow arched an eyebrow at Jane.  Élan was the mixture of juice and dross that Chimeras survived on, what a woman Transform produced when her juice structure overloaded and she went Monster.  In the Noble baronies, they stabilized commoners not by keeping their juice level constant, but by letting them cross the boundary into Monster and then protecting them from the effects.  Mostly.  “It’s your choice whether you want to continue along these lines or not.”

“Sinclair says that I’ll lose my ability to read in the next draw, no matter what,” Jane said, eyes suddenly downcast, as she gripped her hands into fists.  “I’ll probably start to forget the pain, too.  If this is so unnatural, why go this route at all?”

“Retention of humanity,” Duke Hoskins said.  “What Nobles do to be able to keep human shape and human thought patterns is also painful.  The natural route for Chimeras and their consorts has no place at all in the modern world.  The natural route leaves Chimeras in beast forms, unable to speak, with packs of tamed unspeaking Monsters for élan.  Even the uncivilized brutish Hunters refuse to go that route.  The real question is whether you’re committed to this test procedure.”  The Duke turned away for a moment.  “This procedure is very dangerous.  If we mess this up, you’ll end up as one of our Monsters, or, truthfully, more easily end up dead,” he said, with a catch in his voice.  This was hard on the Duke.  As a Noble, his responsibility was to protect the Commoners, not to risk them for a not particularly large chance they might end up improved.

“Awwwh,” Jane said, and patted the Duke on his hairy forearm.  “I know, I know.  But you guys have already convinced me to give this a shot.  I know this is dangerous, but I think it’s worth the chance.”

“What’s the theory behind this attempt, Shadow?” Sinclair said.

“As you know, what we’ve been looking for is the symbolic analog to Pack Alpha creation,” Shadow said, crossing his legs and pressing his fingers together.  “When the Hunters create a Pack Alpha, they imprint the ‘whole Law’ on a stable woman half-Monster.  We’ve been stuck on figuring out what the term ‘whole Law’ means.  Our working hypothesis for this test assumes that the term ‘whole Law’ means the Law the Hunters themselves get.  The symbolic analog of that, for the Nobles, must be the patterning that a Chimera must learn to become a Noble, coupled with the Crow Master’s symbolic joining of the Chimera into the Noble Barony.”

Jane shivered suddenly.  She hadn’t realized there had been other, failed, tests.  Sinclair had participated in one of these tests nine months ago, and he still had nightmares.  Until Arm Haggerty became the leading Arm in the Cause, and demanded they all resume their experimentation, he had assumed he would never experience another of these tests.

“So I’m going to have to listen to a bunch of drumming, after you do the Crow Master thing to my mind and my juice to open myself up?” Jane said.  “Where’s the danger?”

Shadow rubbed his chin, and gazed off into infinity.  “With this test, the danger is in the side effects of the opening.  We have no idea what side effects are possible.  The procedure itself is quite simple, one any Crow shaman can do once taught.  This is based on a form of hypnosis discovered by accident by a quite important human doctor who was treating a Crow stuck on the edge of withdrawal.”

“Let me guess,” Jane said.  “You’re talking about this Good Doctor person the Nobles carve busts and statues of, to sit next to their statues of the Crow Occum.”  Shadow frowned, and Duke Hoskins had the grace to blush.  Sinclair wondered if Hancock’s pet researcher even knew how important he had become in the Noble belief set.

Shadow took a deep breath, and projected calm across the room.  “So, are you ready to start the test?  We don’t have the slightest clue what sort of effect this will have, even if we’re successful.  I’m hoping this will at least aid your draw stability and allow you to keep more of your humanity.  Beyond that, we’ll just have to see.”

Jane nodded.  “Yes.  Let’s give it a try.”

Sinclair steadied himself.  This wasn’t the first Transform he had condemned to a high chance of death, and certainly not the last.  Birthing the Noble society wasn’t for the squeamish.  Not at all.

Sinclair paced in the hallway, as worried as a father awaiting the birth of a newborn child.  Despite Shadow’s reassuring comments, the part he fretted about the most was the joining of a commoner to the Barony ‘as if she was a Noble’.  The joining involved a great deal of new symbology, and after they joined her, Jane had indeed passed out.  They had made some sort of deep alteration to Jane’s juice structure, all a part of the plan.  Now Sinclair waited.  And paced.

Did they destroy her?  Or did they turn her into a Monster with a Monster metacampus, as the Hunter’s pack alphas possessed?  Or did they just plain fail?  Complete failures weren’t uncommon, either.

“Pacing won’t help, Sinclair.”

Sinclair jumped in the air, damped his panic and his urge to defend himself, and turned to the voice.  Gilgamesh sat in a chair against the wall of the room outside where Jane lay in a coma.  Sinclair hadn’t heard or otherwise sensed his friend approaching.  Gilgamesh had turned into a very spooky Crow.

“Do you think Jane will be alright?”  Gilgamesh’s exceptionally detailed metasense, gained from his long-time association with Arm Hancock and his in-depth work with his dross rotten eggs, allowed him to do Focus-like metasense tricks that drove all the other Crows batty with envy.

Gilgamesh shrugged.  “You’ve greatly complexified her juice structure, to the point where it practically reeks of your Noble household.  She’s not a Monster, though, if that’s what you’re worried about.  Nor about to turn into a Chimera, thankfully.”  Sinclair shook his head slightly at Gilgamesh’s snark.  His old friend had never liked Chimeras of any variety.

“Any sign of metacampus development?”  The metacampus, the small growth on the hippocampus allowing the sensing and manipulation of juice, was the major difference between a Major Transform and a Transform.  Monsters developed a metacampus after several years, if they survived that long, which seemed to imply that there was some way for run-of-the-mill Transforms to develop the capabilities of Major Transforms.  The ‘why’ remained a mystery.

“Not a hint of a metacampus or a metamygdala.”

Gilgamesh’s comments relieved Sinclair.  The coma was most likely, as Shadow predicted, just recovery from a major alteration in Jane’s juice structure.

“Any chance you can tell me what’s going on?  With you and Shadow?” Sinclair asked.  He was very curious about Gilgamesh’s presence here; his Chimera-distrusting friend wouldn’t normally be caught dead in a Noble barony.

Gilgamesh smiled that enigmatic smile he had picked up from Arm Hancock.  According to Shadow, a Crow nearly always picked up some of the characteristics of the Major Transforms they associated with, which was why it was important for a Crow shaman to work dross with symbols and to strengthen his subconscious.  Otherwise, a Crow Master of Beasts might become a beast himself.  Sinclair knew he had picked up a great deal of the gruff and straightforward nature of his Nobles.  Likely some other things he couldn’t see in himself, as well.

Gilgamesh, of course, had picked up a great deal of Arm-ness from Hancock.

“I’ve received word that we’re going to have a little meeting here in a couple of days, with a few Focuses and at least one Arm.  I’ll save the panic-inducing explanations until then,” Gilgamesh said.

There were times when Gilgamesh even sounded like the wisecracking Arm.

In the next room, Jane slowly sat up, and let out a deep heart-felt moan.  Sinclair rushed in, likely followed by Gilgamesh, though with Gilgamesh’s tricks, there was no way for Sinclair to tell.  Jane rubbed her eyes and then held her head in her hands.

“How are you doing?”  Sinclair sat down on the bed next to Jane, and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Headache,” Jane said.  Her black hair was stringy and her face stained with sweat and tears, but Sinclair was so relieved to hear her speak that he didn’t care.  “The price I’m going to pay for being your Pack Alpha and keeping my human form is going to be pain, isn’t it?  I can just tell.”

“We’ll have to work on that,” Sinclair said.  “How do you feel?”

Jane thought for a few moments.  “Normal, I guess,” Jane said.  “Damn.  I guess the test failed.  Whatever changes were supposed to happen, didn’t.”

“Wrong,” Gilgamesh said.

Jane turned to Gilgamesh and hissed.  Instantly, Gilgamesh filled his hands with his rotten eggs and he slowly backed out of the room.

“Jane!  You be polite to Gilgamesh,” Sinclair said.

“He’s not one of us.”

“He’s not an enemy.  He’s one of Shadow’s Crows.”  Sinclair turned to Gilgamesh, who was now through the door and back into the hallway.  “You behave, as well.  You’re not facing a Beast Man.  Jane’s just a commoner.”

“No longer,” Gilgamesh said.  Then he vanished.

A moment later half a dozen of the Barony’s commoners came streaming through the door, cooing and purring and making happy noises.  They gently elbowed Sinclair away from Jane, and rubbed up against her.

Then the rest of the commoners slithered in.

---

“Focus Keistermann, Focus Biggioni, welcome,” Sinclair said.  Both of the senior Focuses had trooped down from Keistermann’s house, with the usual entourage of bodyguards, said bodyguards now being entertained by Page Alexander and Sir Randolph. Good experience for Page Alexander, who needed practice interacting with humans as he climbed his way back from beasthood.  Sir Randolph would handle Page Alexander if he got out of line, a good responsibility test, as both Sinclair and Duke Hoskins would be entertaining the VIPs.

Sinclair exchanged a polite sniff of the hands with Focus Keistermann, but Focus Biggioni was already concentrating on other things.  “Where’s Shadow?” Focus Biggioni said, her normal impossible self.  “I need to talk to him, right this instant.”  Perhaps more impossible than normal.

“He’s talking with Arm Sibrian and Duke Hoskins, in the meeting room,” Sinclair said.  Meeting room?  Ha!  The meeting room was their indoor training and testing room, the only place big enough for a Noble in his combat form to stretch out.  It had once been a garage, and still exuded a faint odor of motor oil, gasoline and car tires.

“Calm, Tonya,” Focus Keistermann said.  “There’s more going on than your little complaint.”

“So you say,” Biggioni said.  “I’m not sure I trust your dream-based information.”  The VIP Focus Bitch and Wicked Witch of the East (though she had been supplanted as queen of Transform nightmares recently by Focus Lori Rizzari, Lady Death) stalked off toward the meeting room on her own.  Sinclair met Focus Keistermann’s eyes, and Focus Keistermann just shrugged and followed.

Sinclair held back, calming himself.  Unlike many Crows, he didn’t fear or hate most Focuses.  Some Focuses just rubbed him the wrong way.  Actually, most Focuses.  Focus Biggioni was the worst, always the worst.

“Hera’s been hit, somehow.”

Sinclair jumped into a corner at the unexpected voice, then took a deep breath and tried to push his heart rate back where it belonged.  Gilgamesh, again.

“Hit?”

“Injured, although with Hera, I’d guess the injury was something obscure and political,” Gilgamesh said, using a Crow name for Focus Biggioni that likely hadn’t been used by any other Crow in the last three years.  “Shall we go join everyone?”

“Sure.  Why not?” Sinclair said.  He felt like a fifth wheel amid all this Transform royalty, and hoped the work he had put into cleaning the barony house and arranging refreshments would work out acceptably.  He also smelled politics, which meant poor old Gilgamesh would be bitching and moaning later about incomprehensible motivations and trying to get Sinclair to explain all the political nuances.  Up ahead, he heard Duke Hoskins’ voice introducing everyone to each other.

“Ah, there’s Gilgamesh,” Shadow said, when they got to the meeting room.  Yup, fifth wheel.  Furniture.

Sinclair walked over to sit next to Duke Hoskins.  Mercury Catering delicacies weighed down the table, as well as some of the Barony’s own treats – marinated raw meats – for the Duke and Arm Sibrian.  Both kinds of predators did best when they stayed away from any form of processed food, and a diet of raw meat and other internal organs, with the rare vegetable and whole grain, was best.

Table was a misnomer, though.  They had arranged four card tables in a square and covered them with a lopsided commoner-tatted tablecloth.  His Barony hadn’t appreciated his wit when he had called them the knights of the card tables, so he held his tongue regarding all the witty comments that came to mind when he looked around at the meeting.

The participants made a quite distinctive tableau.  Shadow, the Focuses and Sinclair himself were all dressed in business suits of varying cuts and quality, with Shadow’s being the most rumpled and worn, and Focus Biggioni’s woman’s business suit being the most severe and starched.  Duke Hoskins wore a locally made and slightly lumpy navy slacks and polo shirt; the Duke thought it important to honor the commoners by wearing the clothes they sewed for him, even if the suits were a little, um, uneven in their cut.  The Duke couldn’t wear off the rack clothes in any case, because of his height and the width of his shoulders.  Arm Sibrian wore a red gauzy silk outfit, striking and distinctive, as well as a red bandanna on her head, mostly concealing her close-cropped black hair.  Gilgamesh was done up as some sort of bon vivant ready to hit the more expensive nightclubs.  Sinclair remembered the bad old days when Gilgamesh got his reeking clothes from town dumps, and he appreciated that Gilgamesh had found a better way.  These days, Arm Hancock or one of her people bought Gilgamesh’s clothes for him, likely in self-defense.