Free Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) by Randall Farmer

the Vinote brothers, Pete and Zach, managed to shoot and kill the former Mrs. Colson before she killed anyone else.  However, we’ve got a problem.”
    “A problem?” The heavy air still carried the scent of conflict.  Tonya recognized the ozone smell of Monster transformations and dead Monster mixed in with the reek of death.  The scents brought back unpleasant memories from when she had been a young Focus.
    Tommy tilted his head toward the house.  “Look for it,” he said.  “You’ll see it better than I can.”
    Tonya frowned.  Tommy didn’t refer to her vision, but to her metasense.  She spotted Rhonda and Danny first.  They wore the tags Tonya used to mark her household and they shone with the bright glow of Transform health.  No problem there.  Her metasense found no sign of Ralph.  Again, no problem.  He was a normal, not a Transform, part of her household because his wife had transformed. 
    Farther afield, though, behind the decrepit shack, Tonya spotted another Transform.  A woman.  She was untagged, not a part of any Focus’s household.  She was certainly not a part of Tonya’s household, and so her presence was ill defined.  Tonya sensed little else about her.
    There shouldn’t be a Transform here.  Transformations didn’t happen in clusters, and the appearance of a second Transform so soon after the death of Alice Colson, especially out here in this sparsely populated country, stretched the bounds of credibility. 
    “That is not …” Tonya said, but voices from inside the shack interrupted.
    “Y a cain’t take her,” one rural-voiced male said.
    A second male voice replied firmly and authoritatively.  “Sir, it’s state law.  Her remains have to be taken to the State Transform Detention Center for autopsy and burial.”
    Trouble.  Tonya entered the shack through the broken door and nearly gagged.  The air reeked of blood and death, raw on her sensitive nose.  She stepped carefully through a wasteland of broken furniture, blood and bullet holes, depressed by the familiar poverty of the tiny hovel.  The Monster transformation had taken place inside. The resulting fight had started here, traveled out the back door, and finished outside.
    A flannel shirted man brandished a hunting rifle in his arms at two gray-coated officials.  Next to him, a second local watched the confrontation with tight lips and hard eyes.
    Sometimes normals amazed Tonya.  She couldn’t fathom how they ignored the fetid odor, but they seemed oblivious.
    “I refuse!  Y a cain’t, I won’t let ya,” the first man bellowed with a wave of his rifle.  The official who had spoken carefully laid his hand on the other man’s rifle and gently lowered it. 
    “We got a family burial ground,” the second local said, his voice softer than his eyes.  “Got ’a honor the dead, even if Satan cursed ‘em.”
    What a mess!  Tonya shook her head and lassoed the eyes of the local with the gun.  “It’s the right thing to do, Clem Colson,” she said.  “The officials know their job.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Clem said.  He lowered the rifle and turned away to hide his tear-stained face. 
    The two officials backed away from Tonya, knowledgeable enough to recognize Focus charisma in use.  One of them muttered the Lord’s Prayer.
    Tonya pretended not to notice their prejudice.  These officials weren’t too far removed from the backwoods themselves and hadn’t lost their suspicion of all things unexplained.  The early years of Transform Sickness had generated many superstitions – the mark of the devil and all – and many of those lingered.  Science had made great progress in the years since, but rational explanations always traveled slower than fear. 
    These officials hadn’t even been the ones who’d survived Alice Colson and her Monster transformation.
    Tonya turned to Tommy Bates, who, along with Rhonda, Danny and Ralph had followed Tonya into the now crowded shack.  “Would you be so