Read Online Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) by Randall Farmer - Free Book Online Page B

rest out, and each of the three Crows would do their part, sucking down the muck as if they were gathering useful dross.
    “Are you dealing with this crap all right?” Sky asked Haiku. Haiku was sweating and shaky, but he was still here.
    “I’ll make it,” he said, and then dared a question. “You work with her , though.  How can you stand to be so close to her?”  Focus Rizzari.
    Sky looked up from where he was attempting to scrape out a nasty little mess in the ventilation system.
    “It’s a matter of choosing your risks,” Sky said. Choosing risks was a concept all Crows understood. “All Major Transforms are dangerous.  However, some Focuses are easier to deal with than others, and at least most Focuses understand the benefits of working with a Crow, and won’t abuse us.”
    Haiku shook his head, unwilling to believe. “But you aren’t even hiding from the Focus . I hear you even live with her.”  He turned to Gilgamesh.  “And I hear you even deal in person with an Arm !”
    Gilgamesh nodded. He refrained from mentioning just how ‘in person’ he dealt with Tiamat, or how Sky lived with Lori.
    “But she’s a predator . It’s crazy to deal with her at all.”
    “As Sky said, it’s a matter of choosing risks,” Gilgamesh said. “I make myself valuable to her. If I’m going to live near a predator, I’d like her to be more interested in protecting me than killing me.”
    Haiku shook his head, unable to understand the idea that someone might choose to work with a predator. Gilgamesh leaned forward toward him.
    “It sounds odd because it’s different,” Gilgamesh said. “But it works. We share the same enemies.”
    “Interesting.  I’m going to need to think about this,” Haiku said, turning away from them and working on sucking down yet another clump of foul dross.
    Sky gave Gilgamesh a thumbs-up sign.  Slowly, one Crow at a time, they were growing the Cause.
     

Can’t Handle Slippery
    “Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.” – Alexis de Toqueville
     
    Tonya Biggioni: September 1, 1972
    Tonya Biggioni stepped out of the back seat of her car to face the menacing gate.  The gate was eight feet of layered chain link fence, topped with loops of barbed wire.  Beyond the gate was a second chain link fence, again topped with barbed wire, and then a Focus household.  Delia and Mark Otwell joined her, formally attending her a half-step behind, and deathly silent.
    “Focus Biggioni,” Tonya said.  “Focus Schrum is expecting me.”
    The guard studied her, silent, and slowly opened the gate, just wide enough for them to pass.  Tonya nodded, pretending he had showed her the courtesy due her station.
    Tonya knew from experience not to use her metasense while visiting Suzie Schrum’s compound, but even so, a bad-juice headache began its low throb at the base of her skull.  Bad juice always choked the place, and Tonya never understood how Suzie lived here, much less passed juice to her people.  The question would remain unresolved again today.  Again, Tonya wouldn’t dare to ask.
    “I hate this place,” Delia said, as they passed up the dirt driveway, between seedy trailers and mobile homes.  As Tonya’s personal aide and representative, she spoke for Tonya when Tonya couldn’t be present herself.
    No children played among the lodgings of this household, not ever.  The people here hadn’t been young fourteen years ago, when they helped lead the first Focus’s escape from Quarantine.  Now old, they glared at Tonya with cold eyes from under their dirty and worn metal trailer awnings.  Many of them had large dogs at their feet, dogs as contaminated by bad juice as everything else in this place.  The dogs growled at Tonya and her people.
    Suzie Schrum was one of the eighteen surviving first Focuses, one of the nine who ruled the other first Focuses, and using Focuses