In this Night We Own (The Commander Book 6) (45 page)

“It appeals to me and it scares me,” I said, both humbled and terrified.  “I’m not even the top Arm.  I’ve done nothing to merit such confidence.”  People would be crazy to trust me with their hopes and dreams.  I was a sadistic murdering Arm!  With plenty of screw ups in my ledger, and no guarantee there wouldn’t be plenty more.

Lori nodded.  “Many of the examples I mentioned served under others as well.  Also, there’s nothing wrong with keeping this quiet until you’re ready to claim it, Carol.  But the time is coming, soon, when by necessity you’ll be forced into the claim.”

Shit.

“You’re talking like I’m the only possible candidate.  Isn’t there anybody else who qualifies?”

“Conceivably yes.  In practicality, not real likely.  That’s a pretty rare collection of traits, after all, and military leadership and overthrowing the old order are pretty visible.  If there was somebody else out there, we’d know.  Plus, think about it.  Even if there were another candidate for the spot, you wouldn’t want to let them have the role.  This person is going to be an important Transform leader in your area of expertise.  Do you really want to be following someone else’s vision of what we should be?”

Do all the Transforms really want to be following
my
vision of what the world should be?  Time for another subject change. “So, have you figured out if it’s a boy or a girl?” I said.  “Have you settled on a name?”

We talked about more mundane and domestic issues for hours, even after Hank showed up.  The most amazing surprise of the evening turned out to be the fact Hank hadn’t known that Lori was pregnant.  Lori eventually mollified his high annoyance only after promising to turn over her research notes about her pregnancy.

Everyone but Hank thought his antics endlessly amusing.

Chapter 11

Crows are innately conservative in their philosophy, because change is stressful.

“The Life of Crows”

Tonya Biggioni: December 10, 1968

December in Houston was a cheat, weather that might be called early fall in Philadelphia.  Too beautiful for Tonya, who wished for cold, dreary and ugly, to fit her mood of the day.  Instead, the sky was bright blue, the air cooled by a crisp dry north breeze, and the temperature was in the mid-60s.  She was disgusted.

She didn’t much care for the stress, either.  Far too many years had passed since she had left her bodyguards so far away.  She had given each of them a long hug as she left, and dried Delia’s tears on her blouse on the way out.  If things went bad, and she didn’t come out of this alive, they knew what to do.  Contingency plans involving Focus Caruthers and Focus McWill, both of Tonya’s circle of Focuses, had already been arranged.

A weasel-like thug who introduced himself as Ricky drove the car that picked her up from the motel.  In the front seat beside him was a dangerous hungry-eyed man who aroused Tonya’s defensive instincts, introduced as Fred.  The third man in the car, who shared the back seat with her, was a personable thug named Rikard.  Rikard attempted to put her at ease.  He spent the time spinning Texas yarns and complaining about the local Houston politics, which seemed dominated by real estate developers whose main game was fleecing oil barons of the money they should be watching over more carefully.

Hancock’s house showed signs of recent work and was much larger than Tonya had anticipated.  Most of the houses in the area where Hancock lived were suburban tract houses, but Hancock’s house squatted in an upscale enclave, nicer houses on larger lots.  Old trees and well-established bushes hid her house from the road, and her yard sported several overturned patches of dirt indicative of recent construction.  A large trash dumpster the size of a flatbed truck sat on the lot, filled to the brim with construction trash.  Tonya repressed a growl – she had squeezed full households into houses smaller than this, if you included the recently finished additions.  It just wasn’t fair.

The thugs stopped the car in the driveway and Rikard let her out, before escorting her to the front door.  Clearly following a script, he left her there, returned to the car, which then drove off.

Tonya rang the doorbell, and waited.  To her surprise, Tim Egins, one of Lori’s bodyguards, answered the door and escorted her in.  When she saw who awaited her, she breathed a sigh of relief.  In her abbreviated negotiations with Hancock, Tonya had tried to make sure that Stacy, Lori and Hank Zielinski were included in her interrogation.  Carol hadn’t agreed.

The group included Lori, Hank Zielinski, and another man, a skittish Transform Tonya marked as a Crow.  Gilgamesh?  Most likely.  In addition, Terry, Tim and Tina were there, Lori’s favorite bodyguard trio.  However, once Tonya entered the house, Lori’s bodyguards left, probably to take up distant guard outposts in Carol’s yard.

Carol wasn’t present.  Neither was Stacy.  Thankfully, Sky wasn’t present.

“Hi,” Tonya said, nervous.  The living room was nicely furnished, but not exceptional, with comfortable chairs and walnut end tables.  She turned to the Crow.  “You must be Crow Gilgamesh.  My name is Tonya Biggioni.”

“Glad to meet you, Focus Biggioni.”  The Crow looked her over with what Tonya decided was a detailed Crow-style metasense scan.

“What’s next?”

“Carol would like to talk to you in private before we get down to business,” Lori said.  “You still want to do this?”

Lori was uncomfortable.  Good.  This meant her months of work driving wedges between Carol and the rebel Focus still held.  Lori’s discomfort, as well as her late stage pregnancy, might give her the edge she needed to survive if she couldn’t roll the Arm.

“No.  This is what I want,” Tonya said.  Lori shrugged.

“Third door on the left,” Lori said, a tremor in her voice.  “Down the hall.”

Here we go, Tonya thought.  Hancock, like Keaton, would be difficult to roll.  Tonya thought of the risks she took and her stomach clenched painfully tight.

She walked down the richly appointed hall radiating false confidence.  Not Adkins quality, she decided, with a mental sniff.  She reached the door and knocked.  She kept her metasense purposely reigned in.

“Enter,” Hancock said.  Her voice hadn’t changed from…  Better not go there, Tonya reminded herself.  Part of any successful use of charisma was the right attitude, and regardless of what she attempted to accomplish here, the CDC events were a mistake on her part.

Tonya opened the door, hand threatening to tremble, palm damp.  As she feared, a barely lit torture chamber awaited her.  The room’s only light dimly illuminated a reinforced metal cot in the center of the room.  Carol wasn’t visible, hidden in the darkness at the edges of the room.  No Keaton.  Tonya walked in and the door shut with tomblike finality.

“On the bed,” the Arm said, from behind her.  The predator, the same sort of stalked by the boogie-monster feeling Keaton gave off when aggravated.  What Hancock had named the predator effect.  Lust filled the Arm’s voice, the predatory lust for the kill.  Yes, this was going to be bad.  She noted how the restraints were arranged, and climbed on the bed facing the correct way.  She lay down.  Surrender.  Submission.  Weakness.  No panic at the predator.  Tonya had faced many predators before.  She knew how not to panic.

The restraints practically leapt around her ankles and wrists.  The Arm had to be burning juice to move that quickly, quickly enough to be no more than a blur to Tonya’s eyes and make her tense up in fear.  Damn.  Submission.  Think submission.

“Why?  Why are you here?  Why did you agree to this?  What’s the trick?” Carol said, from out of Tonya’s sight.  Lions stalked the night, hunting.

“I’m surrendering.”

“I find this surrendering hard to believe.”

Agony shot through Tonya, a stabbing pain in her shoulders.  She had no idea what method of torture Hancock employed, something to do with pressure on nerves, but this was utter agony.  Tonya screamed, and reacted in no other way.

To think she had once thought of Arms as
victims
of Armenigar’s Syndrome.  As
failed Focuses
.

“Why?” the Arm said, the cough of a lion.  Millions of years of primate instincts in Tonya implored her to react, take cover, and defend herself.  Panic.  Tonya fought her instincts, the predatory fear at the heart of an Arm’s charisma.  She knew how.

“Why don’t you care what I’m doing?”

The decisive moment arrived, and the game was on.

“I can’t be broken by pain,” Tonya said, her voice steady but not strong.  Hancock knew little about Focuses, their strengths and their weaknesses.  “I’ve been tortured before, by other Focuses.  I’ll tell you about the episode, if you’re interested.  To save you time, I’ve killed in cold blood, I’ve tortured others, I’ve…”

“Enough.”

Pain again, from her elbows.  Tonya screamed.  Eventually, the pain stopped.

“I’m far less human than you are, Carol, years less human,” Tonya said.  Now that the game had started she felt more confident, her voice stronger.  “I don’t mind screaming, or having to scream.  Screaming is catharsis.”

Pain again, from her hands.  Bones were broken.  Tonya screamed.  She envisioned Suzie Schrum slowly squeezed in a vice, blood pouring out her orifices.  A good vision.

“Keaton told me to fear you.  Why?”

Tonya told a truth.  “At any point in time, if I choose to, I can kill you.  You cannot stop me.  If you have anything similar to Keaton’s skills, I would not survive the experience.”  Not the real answer.  Keaton knew all too well the potency of Tonya’s charisma.

Hancock didn’t answer with words.  Ribs cracking make a hideous noise, and of all the horrors Tonya had experienced, she had never heard the sound of her own ribs cracking.  Tonya ignored the pain of each breath and spoke with her normal conversational voice.  Self-control was the key.  No Focus on the Council lacked the self-control to deal with situations like this.

“I’ve taken my own life.  Twice.  Both were tests given to me by the first Focuses, to prove commitment.  Whether they were physical events or mental illusions is beyond my ability to know.  I have…”

Agony from the ribs, overriding her conscious control, keeping her from breathing.  Hancock squeezed her ribs.  Hard.  Okay, Tonya didn’t breathe.

“Where is your vaunted power, now, bitch!” the Arm said, all predator now.

“Under my control,” Tonya said.  She had long ago learned how to talk without breathing, a useful trick when being tortured or disciplined.  The pain actually helped her fight off the urge to cower and beg mercy from the predator.  “Unless I choose to attack you, I will not.  I have chosen to surrender to you, to give you the information and the satisfaction you desire.”

A huge knife rammed through her chest, carefully missing her heart, aorta, and spine.  The knife penetrated her left lung, but only a grazing blow, bisected a back rib, and stuck deep into the padding of the gurney.  Tonya noted the internal bleeding with disgust, forcing her to spend effort to keep herself from falling into a healing trance, effort she would rather be expending on her charisma.

“I am your worst nightmare!” Hot breath covered Tonya’s face and for the first time, Hancock appeared in her field of vision.  Finally.  Tonya hooked Hancock with her eyes and became one with the predator, despite her wounds.

“Arrogant bitch!” Hancock said, snarling, deep, deep into the predator, inches from Tonya’s face.

Tonya exerted her will through her charisma, her superhuman will forged through years of discipline. 
Free me from these restraints!  You’ve won!

Nothing.  Hancock ignored the order as if Tonya hadn’t exerted her will.  The edges of panic from Hancock’s predator effect started to seep into Tonya’s mind.

No!  She refused to give in to any such insanity.  She focused her will again and walled the creeping edges of gibbering panic away from her.

“My boss and worst nightmare is named Susan Schrum.  She’s a first Focus, the East Region President, and she holds more blackmail information on me than you and Gilgamesh do.  I believe she’s working a game to politically break me, and she’s a person we need to talk about.  Like the other first Focuses, she has little personal power, but her mind is twisted and delusional...”

The knife pressed on Tonya’s throat, Hancock’s face in hers.  “Submit!”

Well, if direct orders didn’t work, how about emotional manipulation?  Tonya projected charismatic calmness through the charismatic link. 
I’m not your enemy!  You’re in control!
“I have submitted.”

Yes.  Hancock was calmer.  Not much, but a little.

The point of the knife pierced Tonya’s skin.  “If you want to live, show proper respect.  Say ‘yes, ma’am’, bitch.”

Like hell.  Tonya sent a shiver through Hancock’s juice, ready to pull the Arm’s supplemental juice into Tonya’s juice buffer in an instant, if the knife didn’t back off.  A trivial trick, with Hancock so close.  Eyes locked, nose to nose, now their wills truly dueled. 
Honor your agreement!  Mind scrape, not beheading!

Hancock countered with the panic of her predator effect, but the predator wasn’t enough this time.  The Arm backed off, taking her knife from Tonya’s neck.

Tonya had won.  Finally. 
Now, free me!

Again, nothing.  Impossible.  Hancock’s will was hers!  This should be working.  It clearly wasn’t.  Tonya hadn’t won.

“Touch my juice again and the agreement is off,” Hancock said.

“I agreed to a mind scrape, not torture.”

Hancock paused, and reached behind her.  She showed Tonya a walkie-talkie.  “How much do you love your Transforms?”

Hancock was devious and slippery, given to intricate plans. This threat was obvious and well thought out.  Tonya slammed down on her emotions, afraid she might have already given away too much in the instant she recognized the threat.  The attachment of a Focus to her Transforms was both a strength and a weakness.  Many Focuses couldn’t stand the idea of sacrificing their own Transforms.  Tonya had done so many times in the past, on Monster hunts.  She hated doing so; the stress such sacrifices caused was why she had dropped Monster hunting four years ago.  Tonya had no doubt that Hancock’s thugs could take out Tonya’s entourage.

Again, she had to speak a truth.  “As much as a military officer loves his trusted subordinates.”

“I can feel your charisma, but it isn’t powerful enough to control me,” Hancock said.  Tonya carefully didn’t react to Hancock’s terrifying statement.  Only a handful of Focuses were good enough to sense Tonya’s charisma in use, and Tonya couldn’t roll one of them unless the situation gave her the necessary opening.  “My people are under orders to kill your people unless I countermand it.  Displease me in any way and I’ll give the order to have them killed.  Early.”

A part of Tonya wanted to beg for the life of her people.  Focus instincts, strong instincts.  Many a Focus would break at this point, or worse, lose control and attack if she could, or threaten if she could not.  Break in this way, and Hancock would end up with a tame pet Focus.