Shapechanger's Birth by Laer Carroll

Author:Laer Carroll [Carroll, Laer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-11-10T05:00:00+00:00

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.

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