Shapechanger's Birth Read online

  A woman came up to her, the one detailed to search Billy. She held out her hands. There was a wallet, some keys, and a couple of rings. The woman had pulled the rings off Billy's fingers.

  Mary waved them away. "Put them on the floor. As you can see I don't have pockets."

  There was some surprised laughter. The women were losing their fear.

  "Everyone sit down. Not you two." She pointed at the men, motioned them to the side .

  The women sat down on the dusty warehouse floor, some with expressions of distaste. The chocolate-haired woman and the woman with Billy's things sat in the very front of the semicircle around Mary.

  She gestured at the two men. "Do these deserve to stay alive? What did they do?"

  The two men jerked back, made protesting sounds. One glanced at the door, obviously decided he would never make it, to judge from the resigned expression on his face.

  "Yeah! Kill 'em both!" was mixed with some objections.

  Mary looked at the chocolate-haired woman. "What's your name? And what do you say?"

  "Jane Willison. No, they're slime, but no worse than most men."

  "You?" Mary nodded at the woman who still held Billy's things.

  "Eliza Shea. Henry's OK. Ricky took free samples without asking."

  "Yeah, but he's got a lot of stamina!" This from a gray-haired woman with a childish face. Her name was Cathy. There was laughter.

  "Sit down, Henry, Ricky. You're going to live. Henry, lie on your back. You're sick and I'm going to fix it."

  The two men sat, Henry lay on his back, not without some apprehension.

  Mary went over to him. "Relax. This will not hurt."

  "Doctors always say that," he mumbled.

  "I'm not a doctor. Relax. I need you relaxed."

  She sat down cross-legged beside him. The floor was very dusty; Mary better understood the expressions of distaste she had seen on some women's faces.

  She put both hands on the man's lower abdomen and bowed her head, closing her eyes. She did not need to do this, but it looked better.

  She probed inside Henry, found the cancer, and killed it. She told his body to get rid of the dead cancer and gave his immune system a boost.

  Mary said, "You were dying. Haven't you felt pain here?" She prodded his abdomen with her finger.

  "Yes. I was worried. I hoped it would go away. Sometimes it seemed to."

  "Am I OK?" That was Ricky, anxiety on his face.

  Mary leaned over from her cross-legged position on the floor and touched his closest knee. She probed through it, gave his immune system a boost, and withdrew her hand.

  "You're fine. I've fixed it so you'll be healthier now."

  Mary stood up and turned to the sitting women, most cross-legged, a couple lying on their sides. Not one seemed frightened now. They watched her with great interest.

  Mary went around the semicircle, having the women stand up and give their names, even the ones she had gotten names from before. She put a hand on each of them and probed their bodies. Most were not too unhealthy. She gave each of them an immune-system boost. She also made sure they could not get pregnant for at least five years.

  Two she had to work on. The venereal disease of one was easy. Much worse was the other's bad heart. It took Mary several minutes to rebuild it.

  At last they were sitting in a semicircle again, Mary the focus of it. The two men were now part of the semicircle, Ricky and the woman who appreciated his stamina sitting side by side.

  "Here is the situation," Mary said. "I now know each one of you and I can always find you, no matter where you go. Even the ends of the earth. So do not make me angry."

  She let them think about that a moment. It was not true. They could escape if they went far enough away or hid in a big enough crowd to mask their scent.

  "On the other hand, I don't want slaves. Slaves are useless to me. You can always disagree. I will not punish you for that. But when I decide something, after you've disagreed, you have to accept it. Or leave my service."

  She pointed at the door. "You can leave this minute. I will not kill you, hurt you, or harm you in any way. Unless...

  "Unless you tell someone about me. You must never do that. I will kill you for that. If you go to confession, you must not talk about me. Or even hint. If anyone does believe you they will try to kill or capture or exorcise me. I will not stand for that. I hate to kill priests, but I will if I have to."

  They were looking at her, some shocked, one or two disbelieving.

  "Loan me your knife," Mary said to Jane. The chocolate-haired woman handed it to her.

  "I cannot be killed," she said and stabbed the knife into her forearm, then all the way through it. She released the knife handle and lifted the impaled arm high so that all could see it.

  This feat was more impressive than harmful. She had blocked all pain from that extremity and struck through the muscle, the blade angled parallel with the fibers of the muscle. There was no artery in this part of the muscle though she had cut any number of smaller blood vessels.

  She withdrew the knife, sterilizing, healing, and sealing the wound behind the knife. She handed the knife back to Jane.

  "I cannot be exorcised, because I'm not a demon. Sylvia, hand me your cross."

  The woman did so and Mary kissed it. "A demon could not do that." She handed it back.

  "If you stay with me, you will first continue as you have before. Except you will be able to say no to a customer. If one of them threatens you or hurts you, tell Jane. She will have Henry or Ricky or both of them punish the customer."

  She looked at the men. "But don't kill them. If anyone needs killing I will do it."

  She looked at the two men. "That's if you are going to work for me. If not, tell me before you leave tonight so that I can hire someone else."

  The two men looked at each other, shrugged. "I'm in," said Henry. Ricky just nodded his head.

  Mary pointed at the keys in Eliza's hands. "Are those keys to Billy's home?"

  Eliza nodded. Mary asked and got the address of the dead man. "Tomorrow at 2:00 everyone meet there who wants to stay with me. If you don't come, I'll know you've decided to leave my service."

  She stood up, waved down a couple who made to rise. "I can change shape. I can also take over someone's body, for a while. So you will never know what I will look like. Tomorrow I will send someone in my place. She will say to you, 'The cat lady sent me.' You will obey her as you would me."

  She walked over to Billy's body, leaned down, and extended her invisible hands, set to dissolve. In seconds the body was dust.

  "Wait five minutes before you leave. Ricky, Henry, take the women whereever they want to go. Then you are free to leave my service. Ricky, no more freebies."

  There was some laughter at that, but the cat lady was gone.

  Three months later Mary McCarthy sat drinking tea at an outdoor café on the southside quay just off Patrick's Street, looking out over the North Channel of the River Lee. She was enjoying the breeze and the bright May weather which put a sparkle on the surface of the river.

  To her right several hundred yards away she could see the masts of boats at the marina where the north and south branches of the Lee came together. Beyond that the Lee widened out before turning south toward the ocean.

  The story of how Billy's former prostitutes had gotten a new boss had been too good to keep secret. Dozens of prostitutes had become eager to make a similar swap, and the cat lady had reluctantly extended her protection to them. One former pimp had tried to shoot the cat lady. Mary had cut him to pieces and left the parts scattered to serve as a warning to others who might try to attack her.

  Mary now owned three brothels. More than a hundred prostitutes worked for her, some in the brothels, some in the streets. About two dozen pimps — who were now called managers — also worked for her. Some of the "managers" were women. Each manager had an "aide" who was multitalented. Among the talents these assistants had was the ability to handle fi
sts and weapons in a deft and restrained fashion. Sometimes customers and other pimps had to be reminded that prostitutes were valuable property.

  A dozen or so prostitutes were starting new careers, mostly menial. One reformee was turning out to be a competent investor, partly because of the underground information flowing over the Cork City whore's network, and Mary had given her some of the profits from the prostitution ring as capital. Men never believed that whores had ears or were intelligent.

  Mary got up and began to walk, putting a bit more sway into her hips than she normally would. She wore the appearance of the somewhat-used woman she'd assumed when she contacted Billie. She called herself Maggie. Her dress was demure but not over-loose. She moistened her red lips.

  Without seeming to "Maggie" kept in view a man walking toward her down the street. He did so with a slight swagger. He was good- looking in a rough way, though he did know how to dress well. He was a small-time crook who was almost as smart as he thought he was, and he read books and went to the opera now and again. Mary had been hearing other good things about him, among them useful facts about his lovemaking skills. And he had no current girl friend.

  Yet.

  The Organization at War

  Summer, 1858

  Mary McCarthy sat in a Cork, Blackrock, and Passage Railway passenger car as it rocked and rumbled east on the south side of the Lee River in Cork City. At just past noon on the first Saturday in July in 1858, the day was dark, the clouds above almost black, and the south coast of Ireland was being slashed by cold rain.

  Inside the car the kerosene lamps mounted about the interior cast a warm glow that made the darkness outside seem even darker. Beside her Jane Willison shivered and pulled her coat more closely around her, breaking in on Mary's reverie.

  Roused, Mary noticed that one pane of window glass did not seal properly within its frame. It was this crack that was letting in a bit of cold air. She had not felt the cold because her body had automatically adjusted her skin to protect her.

  Mary leaned across Jane and pressed the glass tightly against its frame with the physical part of one hand and let the esoteric part of the hand expand into the frame. With this hand she dissolved a thin layer of the wooden frame that touched the glass and a thin layer of the glass that touched the frame. Then she turned off the dissolution effect, letting the commingled glass and wood relax into hardness again. The glass and its frame were thus welded into one piece at that point. There was no more draft .

  "Thanks, Maggie," said Jane. Mary/Maggie nodded. She was in her disguise as Margaret, a lieutenant of the supposedly supernatural cat lady who ruled a large stable of prostitutes, grown to over 500 in the last eight months. She had migrated fat into her face to make it a bit plump and to alter various contours and she wore Margaret's trademark lime-green dress under the heavy grey coat. She had also adjusted her voice box and the inside of her throat to give her voice Margaret's distinctive husky sound.

  Jane said, "Think this do we're putting on in West Passage is going to work?"

  "Maggie" nodded again and turned to look out the window. She was pondering her current big problem — her criminal gang was growing, and rapidly, when what she wanted to do was be rid of it.

  She had begun her life of crime with good intentions — protect a prostitute named Caroline and the nine other prostitutes ruled by an especially vicious pimp known as Big Billy. In her cat lady persona she had killed him, in view of the other prostitutes and his two henchmen, in a suitably dramatic manner. Then she had offered them a deal. She would take the women under her protection and do what she could to help them get out of their profession.

  Some of them had made an effort to get out, usually successfully, for Mary ensured they had help. But most had made no effort. As Mary had enquired into why she discovered that there several reasons, beside laziness or stupidity. Some of the reasons were complicated, some surprising.

  Some prostitutes actually liked their job, for various reasons. Some liked the sex (at least with a few of their customers), for reasons ranging from simple physical pleasure to psychological reasons that completely baffled Mary. Also, the hours were flexible, especially important for those who had children. The pay was better, at least for many, than almost any other profession open to women. And whoring might be unpleasant, but many other professions open to women were even more unpleasant, such as daylong stints of cleaning up public toilets and animal excrement in the streets.

  One surprising discovery for Mary was that middle- and upper-class women actually had much less freedom in training for and choosing professions than lower-class women. The latter were held in such complete contempt that they were almost literally invisible to the " better" classes. No one important cared if they lived or died, but neither did the "Quality" care if they worked for a living or what that work was. Rich people did not care if poor people were married or single, heterosexual or homosexual, had any bizarre religion short of Satanism. Nothing could make them more contemptible, so almost anything was possible to them.

  A woman of the Quality, however, had only one profession open to her — mother. This meant wife if married and that shameful mother-substitute, governess, if not. Whatever she owned before marriage became her husband's the instant they married, never to be returned even if he immediately died or abandoned, divorced, or ignored her. Leaving a husband or divorcing him (almost impossible to do) changed the situation not at all. And once without property or income her formerly "loving" family all too often completely abandoned her, not even hiding her away in some shameful shadow-place.

  Then, without training in self-reliance or any useful skill, she could literally starve to death almost in plain sight, only shuffled out of sight by authorities to keep up appearances.

  There were, of course, all sorts of governmental and charitable institutions, but even the best were poorly funded and short-handed and the worst even worse than life on the streets.

  Screeching brakes and a gradual lessening of speed signaled the train's approach to the Blackrock terminal. Mary got up and walked down the aisle toward the front of the passenger car. On each side women and a couple of men looked up from their books to see what was going on, but relaxed at the calm shown by "Maggie."

  Some actually looked back down at their books again. Except for a few random citizens everyone in this first-class passenger car was an elite member of Mary's gang. They were working either to get out of it (which they were completely free to do) or get promoted to an ever-wider range of jobs. And not only were they highly ambitious, but they also knew that she was either the cat lady or one of the cat lady's top lieutenants. Or they believed she was the cat lady temporarily taking over someone's body. They wanted to impress her with their diligence.

  As the train slid to a halt Mary opened the door at the front. It swung inward, letting in cold wet air but no rain. The platform of the station was only a foot away and a few inches down, and the roof hung over the platform enough that the slanting rain was blocked off .

  Mary stepped out onto the Blackrock platform as the train rolled to a stop and looked around. A few people left the dozen passengers cars and a few more got on. There was also some on- and off-loading of small boxes and other cargo in the caboose at the very end of the train, reserved for railway personnel. The caboose also carried incidental goods small or important enough to receive special treatment, rather than travel on the bulk-goods trains which carried few if any passengers.

  The train sat while a few men came and went at the locomotive just in front of Mary's car. Mary strolled forward to the end of the platform and looked at the loco.

  It was an impressive machine, all black and metal and huffing-puffing noise, quietened down for the moment like a lounging dragon. The biggest part of the locomotive was its middle, a long steel box mounted on spoked iron wheels as tall as a man. There was a big metal dome atop it near the back, with what she thought was the steam whistle atop it.

  Emerging from the front of the bo
x was a rounded complicated boiler/engine device surmounted at its front by a man-tall smokestack which flared out at the top into a large soup-bowl shape.

  Attached to the rear of the long box was the cab where the driver and his assistant stood, and from which the engine was fed from the coal car behind them. The cab was completely open to the elements, except for a tent-like covering obviously jury-rigged to shut out the rain. Mary wondered what kind of idiot designed a device that did not provide well for the workers needed to work the device.

  Maybe there was a clue there for one of the reasons for her mushrooming-gang problem, Mary thought as she walked back the way she had come. Peripherally she was aware of a second train coming up the track behind her on the opposite track, with much whistle tooting and hissing release of steam.

  She wandered through the station to its other side where the incoming train was sliding into place by the passenger platform there, stared unseeing at the few passengers on- and off-loading from the second train. It had only one passenger car. The rest were open-topped bulk-goods cars with tarpaulins tightly roped over the goods to protect them from the rain.

  No one seemed to realize that the people who tended and ran machines were, in a sense, as much part of the machine as the metal and wood that made it up. Machines had two parts: the hard, mechanical part and the soft, people part.

  Come to think of it, businesses were like that too. She remembered the Cuvierian Society lecture she had attended a few years ago, when Sir Robert Kane gave a talk on efficiency of manufacturing enterprises. "We fatten our cattle for the market; we must fatten our workers for their jobs. Take care of your people and they will take care of your machines."

  He had been trying to change business owners' shortsighted treatment of workers, despite his callous phrasing.

  Her train was giving some complicated shrill steam whistles and a station attendant was calling to her, asking if that was her train that was about to leave. She gave him a sweet absent-minded smile and hurried to board her first-class car — which as far as she could see was different from lower-class cars only by a better paint job and hard pads on the hard wooden seats.