The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

never to her face) thought Haggerty addled.
    They didn’t get along at all well.
    “There’s something that crazy out there?  Ma’am, why haven’t we done more to shut down this Chrysanthemum outfit?”
    I growled, irritated by the question, and didn’t answer.
    In classic and tense untagged Arm silence, we shuffled papers and read like fiends until we reached Chicago.
     
    “Ila?  Messages?” I asked my current aide-de-camp, after I showered, changed clothes, and mentally readied the meal menu where I would formally propose to tag Bass.  Little knots of stress in my head untied themselves as I settled back into my own territory.  I loved Chicago, in ways a non-Arm would never understand.
    “Oh, there you are, boss,” Ila said, looking up from her desk and bumping a rose-infested vase, which she caught before it spilled.  “Got an urgent one from Focus Rizzari, cryptic as usual.  She said ‘The Hero succeeded, over ten, and we’re meeting in North Tonawanda on the 16 th to boggle.’  Does this make any sense to you?”
    I stood blinking at Ila for a stunned moment.  Haggerty had been attempting something completely and physically impossible.  Success made no logical sense.
    Worse, when she had broached me on the subject, I had made a bet with her.  If Lori was right, which she usually was, I was about to suffer the wrong end of a big payout.
    But Haggerty couldn’t possibly have succeeded.  It didn’t make sense .
    “Yes.  Ila, plane tickets to Buffalo for two.  ASAP.”  So much for my fancy dinner and tag seduction.
    This was going to hurt.  This was going to hurt bad .
     
    ---
     
    “Not inviting either Arm Keaton or Arm Rayburn is both a challenge and an insult,” Bass said.  She radiated discomfort, which I echoed.  When we entered Room D of the Roman Conference Hall and Banquet Center, Mary Sibrian, in her red silks with her katana down her back, smiled to see me.  The Arm snagged a tray of deviled eggs from the food-laden tables along the wall and headed my way.  She wore my tag, and I felt an extra helping of tension echoing through it.  I also read relief at the appearance of a senior Arm with a shadow for her to hide under.
    Sibrian was the only one in the room who showed any pleasure at our appearance.  The other Arms clustered in a tense group on the other side of the room. Webberly was the closest and most senior, and she took two steps toward me, reflexively staking out her territory and non-verbally forbidding me to come closer.  I glared at the touchy black Arm until she came to her senses, nodding to me, giving me rank and backing off.  I hadn’t had any time to mend fences with her, Arm-style, although she was next up on my list, after Bass.  The other three younger Arms – Naylor, Billington, and Whetstone – reacted as a group with a similarly aborted dominance display.  I could have made the whole lot of them grovel to me for their wretched impoliteness, but I settled for a low growl and predatory flash, echoed by Bass.  They backed off and gave us rank as Mary handed me the entire tray of eggs and settled on the other side of me from Bass.  Mary didn’t say anything, possibly a first for her, and a strong sign of how spooked she was.
    Needless to say, we had the entire back of Room D to ourselves.  The building stank of cheap cigars and bad coffee. The building’s engraved granite cornerstone proudly proclaimed the place built in 1883, and from the quality of the rat-gnawed wood and the quantity of peeling paint, I doubted the owners had renovated the building since.
    Yes, I had been unlivable ever since phase two of what should have been the Great Hunter War turned to mush nine months ago.  In the end, the only ones left in my command were one other Arm, one Focus and household, one Noble household, and fifty-two mercs.  The rest were either in the hospital or bailed on us.  Bailing on me in the middle of a war is a guarantee to get on my bad