by Anne Bishop
“A white hand,” O’Sullivan murmured. “Not Cyrus Montgomery, then. As a member of the governor’s Investigative Task Force, I can mobilize the police in every city in the Northeast.”
“Hasn’t the governor already done that?” Ruthie asked.
“Yes, but my being part of ITF means they’ll give any requests coming from me or the other agents top priority.” O’Sullivan looked at Simon. “Any sense from Meg if the body was adult? Male or female?”
Simon tried to think. Couldn’t remember.
“Well, I’ll do what I can,” O’Sullivan said.
Simon understood what wasn’t said: there were a lot of humans missing these days. Some had disappeared by choice, while others hadn’t survived the Elders’ wrath. A lot of those bodies would never be found.
O’Sullivan hurried back to the consulate to make his phone calls, leaving Simon with the female pack.
“We’ll find her,” Ruthie said.
“She didn’t see anyone else in the dream?” Merri Lee asked. “Then she got away from that man.”
Alone and thirsty and scared. Was that better? “When?” he countered. “A day from now? A month? A year?”
“Why not an hour ago?” Merri Lee demanded. “Meg is smart.”
Simon retreated to HGR. Yes, Meg was smart and had escaped a bad human once before. But he also knew better than the female pack how many “smart” blood prophets had died in the past few weeks when they could no longer cope with the outside world.
• • •
The Elders’ anger rippled beneath the skin of the world, making big trees shiver, scaring flocks of birds into flight. The Elementals’ fury was a scent in the air, a taste in all the creeks and streams that flowed in the Northeast.
That anger, that fury, became a message to all the terra indigene.
The sweet blood. The howling not-Wolf. Broomstick Girl. Taken away from the terra indigene by a human.
Find the human.
But more important, find the not-Wolf.
• • •
Jimmy backed into what looked like a farm road—dirt with no road sign or marker at all. Taking a bottle of water, he walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk.
“You want some water, cha-ching?”
“My name is Meg!”
“Now it’s cha-ching. You know why? Because that’s the sound of money.” He opened the bottle of water and tipped it so the water began to pour onto the ground.
“Stop!” Meg said.
“Ask nice.” He saw the defiance in her eyes. Well, he could fix that. He dropped the water bottle, shoved her back in the trunk when she tried to scramble out, and pulled the razor out of his pocket. He pinned her down with one hand, flicked the razor open, and held it over her face. “You sass me, I’ll cut your face. I’ll cut you so much you won’t look human anymore and people will run from you, screaming. You want that? Do you? Answer me!”
“N-no.”
“Then do what you’re told.” Remembering the way she became a hot pussy after speaking prophecy, he added, “And maybe I’ll give you something nice.”
Yeah, he could haul her out of the trunk and put her on the backseat for a few minutes. Maybe even let her stay there for a while as a reward.
He grabbed her right arm, moved it into position, and made another cut across the old scars. “Where do I go to keep ahead of the cops? Speak!”
“Crows watching roads. Photo of Cyrus Montgomery. Crows looking at cars. Calling police.”
“Where?” Jimmy shouted. Fuck! They had a photo of him? “Where?”
She sighed, her visions revealed.
He pulled her up and made another cut. “How do I avoid the fucking birds?”
He listened hard, too scared to be distracted by lust as she spoke route numbers and a name. He listened, looked at his wristwatch. “Shit.” Had to get moving right now if he was going to stay ahead of the search.
He closed the trunk, got back in the car, and drove off as fast as he dared. He had to find that roadside diner where he could blend in. If the cops put up a roadblock before he reached it, he didn’t know the names of any places where humans were living around here—if there were any places. But as sure as shit, the cops would know. No reason to think they knew about the car yet, so he just needed to find a place to catch his breath. Needed to get ahead of the freaking birds and the freaking cops.
Jimmy drove, glancing in the rearview mirror, looking to either side, as sweat beaded his face and made his hands slick on the wheel.
Maybe the cops weren’t the worst things looking for him.
• • •
The visions from old prophecies collided with the images from the new cuts, producing things that looked so bizarre they made her queasy. Clocks melted, dripping over the edges of tables like ice cream on a summer day, and Skippy ate all the numbers that ran off the clockfaces. Stumps of trees tore roots out of the ground to become twisted legs that scampered through the woods while the stumps themselves sprouted black feathers on the tops and grew huge mouths with teeth made of saws. Just before her mind shut down, Meg saw a series of images that revealed the next stage of the journey. Then rocks rolled together to form the shape of a wolf—and they howled.
• • •
“I don’t need supervision, Crispin,” Twyla said as she folded another small top and set it on the bed. “I’ve packed a carryall before.”
“Procedure, Mama,” Monty replied holding a pen and small notebook. “We need to inventory everything we’re removing so that no one can claim later that someone took his or her possessions.”
Twyla turned to him. “You think Frances is going to make a fuss over a shirt after what happened today? And if something is missing, one of the Wolves can come over here with her and help her find it.”
“She’s not the one who will make a fuss.”
“I don’t think Cyrus is going to call and ask any of us to forward his clothes, do you?” Twyla checked the closet and chest of drawers. She went down on her knees and one hand, lifted the sheet and lightweight blanket, and checked under the bed. “This place needs a good cleaning. The only thing that woman ever tried to keep clean was herself, and even that . . .”
Monty helped his mother to her feet. “Right now this apartment is part of the investigation. After . . . Well, I think Eve will appreciate some help cleaning it up.”
She placed her hand over his. “Why are you here, Crispin? One of the young officers could be doing this. You should be out there, helping Mr. Simon find that girl.”
“My brother abducted Meg. My nephew created the diversion that helped him do it. If my involvement provides a loophole . . .”
She gave his hand a light slap. “You’re feeling guilty. So am I. Cyrus was here because we are here. We’re not responsible for what he chose to do. But either of us using Cyrus as an excuse for not doing what we can now?” She shook her head. “When you needed help with Lizzy, Mr. Simon stood by you, helped you protect your own. Now you do the same for him, as a police officer and as a man.”
Monty put his arms around her and held on for a long moment. “You’re right, Mama. You’re right.” He released her and stepped back. “Two of these carryalls need to go to the station, so I’ll wait until you get everything packed. Then I’ll go to the station and see what I can do about locating Jimmy.”
Clarence’s clothes were mostly in a pile on the floor. Twyla picked up a piece, sniffed it, and made a face. “I’ll wash these first. See if you can find anything clean for him right now.”
Monty found a T-shirt that looked like it had been run over by a lawn mower, but it smelled clean enough. “Is tattered the new fashion in Toland?”
“Boys,” Twyla said with a shrug.
Not sure how to interpret that, despite having been a boy himself, Monty went into the living r
oom to call Captain Burke while Twyla went into the other bedroom to deal with Sandee’s clothes and personal items.
“Any news?” Monty asked when Burke answered the phone.
“Nothing yet, but we’ve eliminated all the car rental places, so the vehicle Cyrus is driving was either stolen or rented from a private citizen.”
“Needle in a haystack.”
“Officers are going to places around the university that might have bulletin boards for such things.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Crispin?” Twyla called.
“Supply whatever assistance you can to the Courtyard,” Burke said.
“Crispin!”
“Captain, I have to go.” Monty ended the call and hurried into the bedroom where Twyla had been packing up Sandee’s things. “Mama?”
Twyla held out a plain glass jar with some kind of white cream inside. “Careful. It looks like skin cream but it has a sharp smell, like something I would use for cleaning. Could this be the stuff that hurt Miss Leetha?”
Monty opened the jar and took a cautious sniff. Then he closed the jar. Had someone developed something that wouldn’t harm a human but was toxic to the Sanguinati? Or had the substance been aimed at anyone living in the apartments—especially the women, who would be more likely to use a moisturizer—and Leetha had been injured by accident?
“I have to take this in and get it tested,” he said. He eyed the makeup and powders and lotions. “I’ll take all of this into evidence. Don’t touch any more of it, okay, Mama?”
Twyla nodded. “I’ll pack up the clothes.”
He noticed she didn’t offer to wash anything for Sandee—or for Jimmy.
Pulling out his mobile phone again, Monty called Vlad and told him his suspicion about the skin cream and suggested that the Sanguinati healer talk to a doctor at Lakeside Hospital if the healer didn’t have any experience with treating someone who had ingested a toxic human-made substance. Then he called Burke in case the substance was intended to harm any human who put it on her skin. Finally he called Debany, since Kowalski was escorting Clarence from the hospital to the station. The boy had stitches on his back and shoulders from the Hawk’s talons, but she hadn’t raked him as deeply as she could have—as she would have if she had known about Meg being abducted.
“Officer Debany, I need evidence bags brought to the apartment.”
“But we checked everything,” Debany protested.
“We missed something.”
• • •
Jimmy sat at the end of the counter, chomping on a hamburger and fries. He’d found the diner with the name the cha-ching had given him. So far he was ahead of the cops and the freaks, and he intended to stay that way.
Two cars pulled in. A deeply tanned young man and woman got out of one car and three teenage boys got out of the other. As they walked into the diner, they were all talking.
“Weirdest thing I ever saw,” one of the teenage boys said. “Keeping pace with the cars.”
“It was creepy the way they kept trying to look into the car,” the woman said.
“I slowed down and took off my sunglasses,” her companion said. “They seemed okay with us driving on after that.”
“They’re looking for somebody,” another teenage boy said. “Did you see the roadblock? We saw a couple of cars the cops had pulled over and were searching. I think if you didn’t slow down enough for the Crows to look at you, they signaled to the cops somehow to block the road. Like if you didn’t slow down, you had something to hide.”
Jimmy dropped the hamburger on the plate. It wasn’t sitting so well anymore.
“We heard on the radio that roadblocks were being set up at all the towns in the Northeast,” the woman said. Then she shuddered. “A manhunt like this? Somebody must have done something really bad.”
The two groups split up as the waitress showed them to their booths. But other men eating at the counter turned to ask them about the roadblocks and the Crows who were pacing cars.
The men at the counter shook their heads and agreed that this was a bad place to be if the Others were looking for you. Crows and Hawks were often seen around the rest stops or small places like this. The men who drove delivery trucks and made regular runs along this route swore the Others knew their trucks and their faces. Didn’t bother them any. In fact, it was advantageous when some of their deliveries were made to little towns that looked human but weren’t.
Stomach burning and appetite gone, Jimmy paid for his meal and accepted the offer of a to-go container because leaving the food would give the waitress a reason to remember him. He bought a small bottle of water and went to the car.
As soon as he opened the trunk a few inches the bitch tried to push the lid up a little more.
“Get your fucking fingers back inside or I’ll slam the lid on them.”
Her fingers retreated.
He tossed the water bottle into the trunk. “If you mess yourself before I let you out, you’ll be breathing in the stink.”
He closed the trunk, got behind the wheel, and dropped the to-go container on the passenger seat. Then he headed south. He’d passed unmarked dirt roads that intersected with the paved roads. He’d take one of those as soon as he could.
• • •
Meg struggled to open the water bottle. After she got it open and managed a couple of sips, she felt the rough edge of the plastic screw top. Nothing a normal person would think about, but it might just be sharp enough to cut her kind of skin.
But not yet.
She screwed the top back on the bottle. She’d probably dump the water when she made the cut. She didn’t want to lose it, so she would wait. She needed to wait. She’d seen enough when Cyrus opened the trunk to know this wasn’t the right place to escape even though she’d heard voices and thought there were other people around.
Then the car made an odd turn and bumped hard. Because she was unprepared, her teeth snapped shut, catching the edge of her tongue—the spot that had prickled and burned a couple of times over the past few days.
Meg swallowed the blood, swallowed the agony, swallowed the words. She heard the warning blast of a truck horn and saw the moment when she would run away from Cyrus Montgomery.
• • •
Douglas Burke walked into the interrogation room, dropped a folder on the table, and sat down opposite Sandee Montgomery. They had taken her to Lakeside Hospital for treatment as soon as Monty called about the substance in the jar. Judging by the way her chest and shoulders looked, he thought the lab that tested for poisons and toxic substances would find a stew of caustic chemicals mixed into that skin cream. She hadn’t even noticed that something was wrong until she started to come down from whatever she’d taken, and he wondered what would have happened to her if she hadn’t gone outside when the kids were fighting, if Leetha Sanguinati hadn’t been injured from contact with her skin.
He had some thoughts about why she might have been targeted, but discussing that with the station chief would have to wait.
“Where’s CJ?” Sandee demanded.
“Not available,” Burke replied, giving her his fierce-friendly smile.
“I want a lawyer.”
“You can certainly call one, although you’re not being charged with anything.”
“Then why am I here?”
Burke sat back. “Where can you go?”
“Back to the apartment.”
He shook his head. “You broke the terra indigene’s no-drug rule and have been evicted, effective immediately. Your belongings are being held here at the station until you decide which train you’re taking tomorrow morning. Not a lot of choices first thing in the morning, but if you’re still in Lakeside when that first train pulls out, the Sanguinati will gather in force and hunt you down.” He opened the folder and put a handwritten list on the table, turni
ng it for her to read. “These are the towns where you’re allowed to resettle. They’re still in the Northeast, but they’re all small. No Toland, no Hubb NE, no Shikago for you. Small, isolated towns where everyone will know your business before you have time to unpack. I imagine some of those towns would have need of a prostitute. That is how you earn a living, isn’t it?”
Her eyes flashed with anger, and she looked like she might try to rake him with her long nails. “You got no right to talk to me like that. You got no right to try to run me out of town. What about my husband, my kids?”
“I’m not the one running you out of town. In fact, the Others would like you to stay, if only for the excuse of killing you slowly. As for your children, Frances has been removed from your home for her own safety. Or weren’t you aware that your son was making the first moves to pimp his little sister?”
She knew. He saw it in her eyes before she looked down at the table.
“Clarence is an accessory to the abduction of a young woman, and he will go to prison.”
“What?” Fear, and a hefty dose of shock, filled her face.
“Cyrus Montgomery abducted a young woman around noon today. He managed to get out of the city with her. Every police department in every city in the Northeast is now involved in the manhunt. We will find him. The only question will be if Cyrus and Clarence are charged with kidnapping or with murder if the woman doesn’t survive.”
Sandee swayed. “What?” The word was barely a sound. “Clarence is a boy. He’s just a boy.”
“His crime is not a youthful mistake, Sandee. His actions, like yours, were an attack on the terra indigene. Going to prison is the only chance he has of surviving. The Others don’t often kill children, but I can tell you with no doubt at all that Clarence won’t last a day if we release him.”
He’d gutted her, finally got past her self-involvement for her to understand how bad things were.
“I want to talk to CJ,” Sandee said.
“No.”