by Anne Bishop
A look of loathing aimed at the skippy girl filled the fifth man’s face before he looked at the younger of the adult females and his face filled with something else. Then he noticed Scythe watching him and became busy filling out the form.
Garnet led the Gott pack to another table, taking some of the forms from Yuri as she passed him, leaving him—and Scythe—free to keep an eye on the males.
They’d barely settled the Gott pack at a table when Tolya, Virgil, Jesse Walker, and a bouncy female entered, followed by Barbara Ellen and Joshua Painter.
“All right if we come in for a drink?” Barbara Ellen asked.
“Just belly up to the bar and I’ll fix whatever you like,” Yuri said, hesitating for a heartbeat as he met Joshua Painter’s eyes.
“Oh, this is wonderful,” the bouncy female said, turning in a circle as she clutched folders to her chest. She focused on Garnet. “Are those feathers real?”
Tolya looked at Scythe.
As an answer, she looked toward the table with the five men—and frowned. What was that odd male among them staring at now? She followed the line of his focus right to Barbara Ellen, who was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.
“A woman should not expose her limbs and incite a man to lust,” he said loudly. Then he licked his bottom lip.
“This is not a Simple Life community,” one of his companions said. “The other people here are not bound to live by our rules. And we are here because we want to explore other possibilities while holding on to our core values.”
Scythe watched Joshua Painter turn toward the voice at the same time he slipped his right hand into one of the pockets in his trousers. As he withdrew his hand—a hand now wearing a leather glove that had Panther claws at the ends of the fingers—he bared his teeth and stepped in front of Barbara Ellen.
“Joshua,” Virgil warned, moving toward the male.
“The marsh,” Joshua snarled. “It’s the marsh. It looks safe but it kills. I told Saul. Ask Saul.”
The words made no sense to her. They didn’t make sense to Tolya or Virgil either. But Jesse Walker swayed and looked like bleached bones.
Scythe didn’t know who had contacted Saul Panthergard or what was said, but suddenly Tolya, Virgil, and Yuri were converging on the table where the five men sat. The odd man leaped up, knocking over his chair as he bolted away from all the males and ran straight toward her, mistakenly thinking he could get past her.
Turning squarely to face him with her back to the rest of the beings in the room she said,
She heard the terra indigene scrambling to pull the humans to the floor or shield them in some way. Those seconds gave the odd man time to grab her arms and try to shove her aside. And in those seconds, her hair turned black with streaks of red—not revealing so much of her true nature that just looking at her would kill her prey, but sufficient for her to consume enough of his life force to make his heart flutter, to make his limbs weak.
One heartbeat. Two. Three. He collapsed and Scythe ran into her office and closed the door to protect the rest of them.
She’d been here just long enough to want to stay.
Scythe sank into the chair behind her desk. She didn’t have to leave. Then another thought as she remembered Barbara Ellen was in the saloon.
That made her smile.
She felt her hair relax from coils to loose curls, knew the black and red were changing to mostly gold and blue.
Feeling calmer but not quite calm enough to go out among the rest of them, Scythe reviewed the inventory of alcohol that had been brought in from the uninhabited houses.
* * *
* * *
Tolya guided Jesse Walker to the sofa in his office. He wasn’t sure if the previous occupant of the office had used the sofa for informal talks or to take a nap—or to mate with one of the females working for him, which was something human males who held a position of authority often did. At least that was something the Sanguinati had heard about human males.
If he asked Virgil to sniff the sofa, he would find out all kinds of things he didn’t want to know, so he hadn’t asked.
“Are you sure you don’t want to lie down?” he asked for the third time. Jesse Walker had downed two whiskeys before leaving the Bird Cage Saloon and had insisted that they needed to talk in private.
“Are you concerned about Madam Scythe?” he asked.
Jesse shook her head. “She’s dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“More dangerous than you.”
“Yes. She is a Harvester.” He’d already told her about Scythe. “It’s not Scythe who troubles you.”
“No.” Jesse pushed her hair back with a trembling hand. “What do you know about Joshua Painter, about how he came to live with the Panthergard?”
“Almost nothing. He was found and a Panther chose to raise him, help him survive. He wasn’t taken, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, that’s not what I’m asking.” She hesitated, then turned to face him. “Tolya, we need to know about Joshua Painter.”
“Do we? Why?” He waited, wondering if she was about to confirm what he suspected about the boy. When she hesitated again, he added, “This will stay between us until we both agree to tell others.”
Her body sagged with relief.
“You think he’s an Intuit?” he asked. It was a reasonable question. Saul had said the boy had a strong sense of the world.
“He’s an Intuit, but not quite in the same way that I am. I think . . .” Jesse hesitated again before saying quickly, “I think his mother was a blood prophet.”
CHAPTER 12
Firesday, Messis 10
Jana stowed the cheap carryall in the overhead rack and took a window seat, setting her daypack on the seat beside hers to discourage anyone from joining her until she had time to think. The carryall, which she’d purchased yesterday at a store near her hotel, held the clothes and toiletries she’d need during the trip. Her two suitcases and three boxes of belongings were in the baggage car, along with the possessions her fellow travelers were bringing with them to Bennett.
Karl Kowalski hadn’t been there to see her off, but Michael Debany had been waiting for her. Or maybe he had been assigned as the police presence that morning to make sure no one caused trouble for any terra indigene who might be boarding the train that day. Either way, she’d spotted him scanning the crowd and realized he’d been looking for her.
“Karl did a little digging on that phone number you gave him. The captain shut him down fast when a name popped up.”
“Why?”
“This guy is out of bounds. You don’t ask questions about him unless you want some powerful people paying you a call. And by powerful, I don’t mean human.”
“Gods, I’m sorry. I just wanted to be sure someone at the academy wasn’t screwing with me. I didn’t mean . . .”
Debany took a step closer—almost close enough to feel uncomfortably intimate. “Man out of bounds. A cryptic message. Karl and I
figure he’s getting some girls to safe houses. You know what I’m saying?”
She nodded. Blood prophets. There had been a lot of talk at the academy about those girls. At least, there had been a lot of talk about them until the war between humans and the Others eclipsed every other topic.
But . . . Didn’t someone have to ask a question before a girl spoke prophecy? Why would someone ask a question about her? Or had the girl seen something moments before an accidental cut that had ended with that phone call?
“I looked up the name last night,” Debany said. “On my own time. Public records. Your caller is an ex-cop. Was involved in some sort of scandal before he fell off the grid. The newspaper reports were suspiciously lean on information and totally devoid of speculation. That means everyone wanted this to go away. Even at the academy no one was telling stories, which should tell you something. But the call was legit, and this job is legit.” He stepped back and held out his hand. “Good luck, Deputy.” After she shook his hand, he stepped in close again. “If you come across one of those girls . . .”
Information hurriedly offered before Debany stepped aside so that she could board with the rest of the passengers going to Bennett. Even then, despite having the travel papers that proved she was part of the group, it had taken John Wolfgard’s intervention to convince the conductor that she was supposed to be seated in the car reserved for the terra indigene.
When the train began to pull out of the station, John Wolfgard held up a list and said, “Simon Wolfgard asked me to be the liaison for the people traveling to Bennett. Before we get too far away from Lakeside, I need to check the papers of everyone in this car.”
Jana opened the daypack, which held her traveling papers, a notebook and pen, and a couple of books, among other things she wanted within easy reach. John barely glanced at her papers, since he’d already seen them a few minutes ago, but he gave everyone else’s papers a thorough look before he checked their names off his list.
The conductor walked in and conferred with John, who then signed off on the passenger list of people riding in the earth native car.
Once the train picked up speed and they were really on their way, Jana sat back and watched the land roll by—and wondered where they would be when the train pulled in to observe the “no travel after dark” curfew.
* * *
* * *
Before entering the government building for this early morning meeting with Tolya Sanguinati, Jesse stopped and looked around. People were up and about, heading for their jobs. How much would change over the next few days as the new residents arrived?
The dining room had been buzzing with speculation about the new arrivals. Most of the young Intuit men who had been doing the sorting and moving furniture talked about apprenticeships and which professions might be filled as different businesses opened again. Would there be a doctor and a dentist? What about a garage mechanic? What about . . . ? What about . . . ? What about . . . ?
She hoped there would be enough trained adults who stayed after they realized what they were facing, enough diversity in professions to fill the basic requirements of a community. The gods knew, Prairie Gold had one doctor and a nurse practitioner who doubled as a midwife, and she was grateful to have them in her town, but there was no one here in Bennett.
Nothing she could do about that. Besides, this meeting wasn’t about the newcomers. This meeting was about Joshua Painter. Or more to the point, what he represented.
“Thank you for joining us, Jesse Walker,” Tolya said when she entered the conference room across from his office.
As she said hello, Jesse realized she was looking at the town council—looking at who really ran this town. And she wondered if there ever would be a human included in the group.
The six Sanguinati were present. So were Virgil and Kane Wolfgard. They were all strong predators and were in control of the government and law, as well as the vital businesses like the bank, post office, and train station. The surprise attendee was Garnet Ravengard, who worked in the saloon and wasn’t what Jesse would have considered a dominant predator.
The last individual in the room, standing apart from the others, was Saul Panthergard.
Saul fixed on her and snarled, “You think we stole a human cub?”
Surprised by his anger, Jesse took a step back.
“An orphaned cub isn’t stolen,” Tolya said soothingly. “Jesse Walker knows that.”
“This isn’t about Joshua.” Jesse tried—and failed—to keep her right hand from closing over her left wrist as the feeling that she was standing on a precipice almost overwhelmed her. “Not about him alone.”
Tolya guided her to a chair. “Sit down. Saul has agreed to tell us what he remembers of Joshua coming to live with the Panthergard.”
Jesse sat. So did all the Sanguinati. Virgil and Kane remained standing, along with Saul, whose hands shifted into paws.
“I was young,” Saul said. “Not a cub, but still young enough that I was living with my mother, still learning how to hunt. My mother’s sister had an overlapping territory and they often hunted together. Unlike the cats whose shape we can take, the terra indigene are not as solitary.”
Jesse nodded to indicate she understood. No matter what shape they took, the terra indigene were first, and always, terra indigene. They might mate based on the animal shape they could assume, thus reinforcing that form, and that shape might have some influence on their nature over decades or centuries, but that didn’t change the basic fact that they were a species that had been the dominant predators since the first creatures began to walk or fly or swim and had branched out to wear the shapes of other predators in order to remain dominant throughout the world.
“My . . . aunt . . . had lost her cub,” Saul continued. “She was wandering, grieving, not really hunting, when a human cub suddenly ran toward her and scrambled under her belly just like a Panther cub who was frightened. She led him to a place where he could hide, and somehow he knew to remain hidden, just like a Panther cub.
“She retraced his trail and heard humans. Angry voices. Harsh voices. Searching for the cub. Then one of the males said, ‘Forget it. He won’t survive out here.’
“She followed them to a place filled with death. Male cubs about the same age as the cub who had found her. That’s what she guessed since she’d never seen human young before. All those cubs had been clubbed to death and left for the carrion eaters.
“The humans would kill the cub if they found him. She’d lost her own cub. My aunt returned to the human cub and led him to her den, then asked my mother for help. The Panthergard didn’t spend time around humans. They didn’t know how to care for a human who was so young. They asked for help from terra indigene who could assume human form and did sometimes go to a trading post. I don’t think my aunt ever told anyone beyond the Panthergard about the dead human cubs. What was the point? She was interested in the living cub.
“My family learned how to shift to human form, learned how to speak human words so that Joshua could learn. We learned what foods were safe for humans and how to cook meat so that he would not get sick. And we taught him how to be Panther. And he . . .” Now Saul hesitated.
“And he knew things,” Jesse said softly. “What happened when Joshua got cut? A human boy was bound to get cuts and scrapes growing up. My boy certainly did.”
Saul thought for a moment, then shrugged. “My aunt licked the wound clean. It healed. When he got older, Joshua would take pieces of plants and sometimes mash them up with water and put the mess on a wound to help it heal better and faster. He knew things about our territory that we didn’t know, just as we knew things he couldn’t know since he was human and not terra indigene.”
“What difference does it make?” Virgil growled. “Joshua is grown. He survived because the Panthergard helped him.”
Jesse looked at all the terra indigene in the room. “What doe
s he smell like to you? Why would a Panther, seeing a human, not see prey? Why did none of your kind make use of the . . . meat . . . left in that place of death?”
Noticing the sharp way Tolya looked at her, Jesse thought, He knows why I’m asking about the boy’s smell. And he suspects the same thing I do.
“If Joshua survived, could there have been other boys in other places who survived because they were raised by someone other than the humans who had been their original keepers?” she asked.
“You’re wondering if other male offspring who were at the breeding farms somehow escaped when they were taken away to be slaughtered,” Tolya said.
“Yes,” Jesse replied.
“Why kill the males?” Stazia Sanguinati asked. “Wouldn’t you want them to breed with the sweet bloods?”
“One stallion with the traits and bloodlines you want can cover a lot of mares,” Jesse said. “And based on what I saw yesterday at the saloon, Joshua has too dominant and aggressive a personality to be easy to handle and would have caused too much trouble at a breeding farm. I have a feeling that was true of any male toddler who managed to escape.”
Silence. She felt their anger crawling over her skin like bugs she couldn’t see. So many of their forms mated for life or raised the dominant pair’s young as a pack effort. She’d heard about the abandoned cassandra sangue, had even entertained the idea of fostering one or two of the girls who had been rescued. And everyone had heard about the callous treatment of the infant boys.
“You think Joshua is an Intuit,” Tolya said. “And yet you’ve seen him many times in town with Saul and said nothing about this until now.”
Neither did you. “I didn’t get a feeling about him until yesterday when he said that Simple Life man was a marsh. I knew what he meant. Treacherous. Dangerous. And I had the feeling that women of a certain age and look wouldn’t be safe around that man.”
“Like Barbara Ellen and Lila Gold?” Tolya asked.