All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) Read Online Free PDF

scarring long before but hadn’t understood its significance.
    Lori nodded.  “Sky told me.”  She paused in thought.  “The location of these salt mine Focuses near Detroit probably isn’t a coincidence, either.  I’ll lay odds that Focus Adkins is their Teacher.  If Tonya’s story is correct, Adkins has her household bad juice tagged.  I’ve played with this, but couldn’t see any way for me to do such a thing; then again, though, I’m not a symbolic juice manipulator.  Perhaps Focus Adkins is.  She’s thought to be unable to use juice patterns, which would follow.”
    “Speculation, all speculation,” Keaton said.  Which Hank translated as: worthless.  “But it is an alternative to the Rogue Crow idea, and one we’ll need to look into.”  She turned to Haggerty.  “Congratulations, Arm Haggerty .”
    “Thank you, ma’am.”  Haggerty said, basking in the glow of her official graduation.
    “Congratulations,” Carol said.  “I’d like to…”  Her voice tailed off, as Haggerty had already left the room, Midgard in tow, ignoring Carol’s comment and presence.  Carol practically dropped into a stalk in anger.
    This Arm was going to be trouble, Hank decided.  Big trouble.
     
    Carol Hancock: December 24, 1968
    “Carol, we have several problems,” Keaton said.
    I had snuck out of the oppressive basement, where Hank and Lori were banging on each other about some obscure scientific detail I would demand a report on later.  Last I heard, the two of them had migrated to Lori’s basement lab, where Hank thought he would be able to dredge up evidence to support Haggerty’s crazy theory among Lori’s various Monster, Transform and Focus corpses and tissue samples.
    Keaton had followed me to my hidey-hole of the moment, the kitchen.  I had expected to be invisible here, helping the Inferno cooks.  My boss, though, had other ideas.  She was serious, and radiated stress from the close confines of Inferno.  She even used my first name.
    “How bad, ma’am?” I said, giving up on the leeks I was sautéing.  I passed the dish off to one of the regular Inferno cooks and looked for a promising corner to talk.  We had already talked about my problem, the Crow agent in my organization, if I believed Guru Snow.  She had ordered me to expose the bozo, but only as a medium priority.  My top priority now was disguising what I was doing.
    Keaton winced at the ‘ma’am’, grabbed my elbow and led me outside.  She wanted a real Arm-to-Arm talk.  At least the rain had stopped.  A half-moon shone down through a break in the omnipresent clouds, and illuminated the cold and wet.
    “So this place is getting to you?”  If she wanted informal, I could do informal.
    “Dammit, Carol, one of them actually gave me a hug.  A Transform giving me a hug!”
    And Keaton hadn’t bit her head off.  “Tina?”  Keaton signaled ‘yes’.  “Tag her.”
    My comment stopped Keaton short.  “But she’s your Focus’s Transform, Commander.”  I could have done without her ‘Commander’ snipe, but the two of us were definitely in ‘zing’ mode right now.  “I don’t want to poach.”
    Meaning she wouldn’t accept me tagging a Transform of one of her Focuses.  “Tagging isn’t poaching,” I said.  Arms were territorial hunters, and we sometimes got a little aggressive about what we considered ‘mine’.  Arms didn’t share.  Normally.  Except for normals and perhaps Transforms: instinctively correct, and definitely unpredictable.  “Consider Hank.”
    Keaton frowned and brushed away a drip from the oak above before it fell on her head.  “So you don’t think he’s a special case?  Hmm.  That might be a solution to one of our real problems.”  Pause.  “So, how do you feel about me tagging Tom?”
    Zing!  “He’s mine!” I said, barely before thinking about what I said.  My instincts, though, said ‘yes’.  I wasn’t about to, not without a good reason.