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

side.  I had been cranky ever since.
    “I wouldn’t call this a challenge, I would call this boneheaded and stupid,” I said.  “However, this wouldn’t be the first time Haggerty’s boneheaded social stupidity got taken as a challenge.  I’ve certainly knocked her around enough for her nonsense.”
    Bass snorted.
    Ahead of us I spotted Tonya Biggioni and Geraldine Caruthers, two of the Cause’s more important Focuses.  They huddled with their heads together, chattering away, likely about nasty Focus backbiting politics.  No bodyguards or attendants, though.  In fact, I didn’t spot anyone here in Room D who wasn’t a Major Transform.  There were times when I wanted to wring Haggerty and Lori’s necks for their thoughtless prejudices.
    I didn’t see Lori – Focus Lorraine Rizzari – but I did metasense her, in the hallway behind Room D, deep in a discussion with Haggerty, Focus Polly Keistermann (not a part of the Cause, but a friend) and an unknown Focus.  Like a surreal wedding, the other Arms in attendance, Webberly (dark brown), Billington (light brown), Naylor (Mediterranean olive), and Whetstone (maggoty white), sat on the left side of the hall, near the front, while the Noble and Master Crow contingent, that being Guru Shadow, Master Occum, Master Sinclair, Duke Hoskins and Count Dowling, sat on the right and farther back.  Crow Gilgamesh, my lover and confidant, sat with Flo (Focus Florence Ackerman of Boston) and Linda (Focus Linda Cooley of Chicago, my current top hometown Focus).  A large contingent of Canadian Focuses and their Crows, most of whom I didn’t recognize, took up the rest of the occupied chairs.  I didn’t see or metasense Crow Sky, Lori’s mostly live-in Crow, but I wouldn’t expect to.  He didn’t like crowds unless he was performing.
    I watched the younger Arms in particular, mentally daring them to show me the least bit of challenge.  They sat stiff and tense, so afraid of the world around them they actually clung to other Arms for support.  None of them more than two years past their graduation, they were out on their own, with no support, and big red targets on their chests.  Now that Haggerty had stopped hounding the FBI, I wondered how soon the FBI would manage to pick off one of those young Arms.
    Worries ran through my mind.  How successful did Haggerty’s ‘heroic’ quest need to be for Lori to label the success ‘beyond 10’ on a 1 to 10 scale?  Haggerty had been off attempting to suss out the secrets of the so-called Progenitors, the long-dead previous efflorescence of Transforms, if one believed the hypothesis that Transform Sickness had showed itself before.  Had she found something esoteric and hand-wavy enough for me to deny the success of her discovery with regard to our wager?  I hoped so.
    My gut, though, said I was screwed.  Lori’s bounce and metasensed exultation seconded my gut.
    The hallway contingent came in and they all took their seats, except for Haggerty.  She looked like shit, a badly used Arm, and I metasensed that she had been living off Monster juice for far too long.  Her mood, though, was triumph.  The Focus I didn’t recognize was dark-haired, waif-like and beautiful, with metasense protections radiating ‘pay no attention to me, I am a generic Focus’.  She sat next to Polly, who pointed out people in the crowd and named them for her.
    Haggerty stood in front and took a deep breath.  “North we were called, into the unknown, by the dreams of the Madonna of Montreal and Crow Nameless.”  God.  I was about to be subjected to yet another of Haggerty’s ‘heroic tales’.  In language straight out of some B-grade movie.  Haggerty named her quest companions in a similar heroic fashion and gave their various fates; none attended, even Haggerty’s Crow companion Midgard, due to wounds, mental horrors, psychological breakdowns, or juice problems.  I sat up straighter, in shock; the unknown Focus was the Madonna