Marked In Flesh (The Others #4)

by Anne Bishop

  Not just the Prairie Gold Wolfgard had been lost today. Tomorrow was soon enough for a reckoning.

  • • •

  In his official capacity as a lieutenant in the Lakeside Police Department, Monty placed Robert, Sarah, Lizzy, and Grr Bear under house arrest. The girls insisted that Grr Bear was innocent and that he’d tried to tell them they were playing where they weren’t supposed to, but Robert wouldn’t listen.

  Because of the difference in their ages, he’d never had this kind of sibling squabble with his sister, Sierra, but if they’d been closer in age, he thought there would have been times when Sissy would have thrown him under the bus—or thrown him to the Wolves.

  When Eve Denby stormed in and demanded he arrest the children and take them to jail for reckless endangerment and being a pain in her ass, he’d thought she was playacting and went along, especially when Pete, as the children’s attorney, threw himself on the mercy of Mother Court and tried to plea-bargain.

  It wasn’t until Eve agreed to a week’s house arrest with no TV, no movies, and no treats that Monty realized her mood wasn’t driven by the children misbehaving. It wasn’t until she took him outside and told him about Prairie Gold that he understood some of the reason Hannigan had locked down the Northeast Region. The HFL movement had stopped talking, stopped their petty attacks.

  While Eve marched off with Ruth and Merri Lee, Monty called Burke to let him know the HFL had declared war on the Wolves, if not all the terra indigene.

  • • •

  Jester rushed outside as the BOW pulled up. Hadn’t the human pups caused enough trouble? Why did the adults have to be stupid too?

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” he snapped.

  Eve Denby reached across Merri Lee, who was driving, and said, “Give that to Simon or the Wolfgard bodywalker.”

  Jester took the folded sheet of paper. “What is it?”

  “I heard . . .”

  Caw!

  Jester looked at Jenni Crowgard and growled.

  “. . . that Simon has a girl and a puppy covered in puke. I wrote down instructions—what I would do if I had to deal with it. You can give it to him or not, but if I was in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to go very far with them in that condition.”

  “Oh.” Jester looked at the paper. “Good point.”

  “I told Vlad we would clean up Meg’s office and air it out, so that’s what we’re doing now.”

  Merri Lee put the BOW in gear, did a five-point version of a three-point turn, and headed back to the Liaison’s Office.

  Jester put the instructions in a small cloth bag that had wooden handles suitable to be held by teeth, stripped off his clothes, and shifted. Then he ran to the place where the Wolves were still pondering how to get Meg and Sam clean without anyone having to touch them.

  • • •

  Rage became a scent in the wind, a taste in the water, a heat that rose from the earth. It rushed across Thaisia as fast as the news reports spilled out of radios and televisions.

  Beneath the rage, these words shivered through the wild country: This is what it means to be human. This is what humans do.

  To: Pater

  All eyes are focused on the central part of Thaisia. Strike now and the human race will triumph on both sides of the Atlantik.

  —NS

  To: Erebus Sanguinati

  It is not prudent to kill Nicholas Scratch at this time. He is too well protected, and striking at him now would make the humans in Toland vigilant to other kinds of attacks. However, I don’t believe he will stay in Thaisia once Namid’s teeth and claws respond to the deaths of hundreds of Wolfgard in the Midwest and Northwest regions. Ocean is rising in preparation for striking the East Coast of Thaisia, especially the cities that sent out the ships responsible for poisoning fish and killing some of the Sharkgard. The Sharkgard have guaranteed my safety from Ocean’s wrath if I remain near the Toland docks and tell them when Scratch sets sail for Cel-Romano.

  —Stavros

  CHAPTER 38

  Watersday, Juin 23

  All the weapons and machines that had been built and tested in secret, and all the men who had been conscripted from all the nations that made up the Cel-Romano Alliance, headed for the borders that separated human land from the wild country.

  When the airplanes flew overhead, carrying the weapons that would make this a swift war, the men who came from the big cities cheered at the metal promise of more land, more food, more space. But the men who had been conscripted from the villages that touched the wild country looked at the airplanes and whispered to their comrades, “You don’t know. You don’t know.”

  Bombs dropped from the airplanes destroyed the terra indigene settlements, those simple dwellings that provided a gathering place for the Others who watched the borders. The men and machines flowing up the roads in the wake of the bombs’ destruction killed the wounded and the weak and the young. And they killed the terra indigene who turned and tried to fight to protect their wounded and weak and young.

  It quickly became clear that the humans now had weapons that the shifters couldn’t fight. So the gards fled in advance of this enemy.

  For a full day, men and machines moved up the roads, killing and conquering. Then they stopped because there were no roads, and the machines could not move forward on the narrow game trails.

  The leaders looked at the conquered land and declared the human race victorious.

  That night, no one but the men who came from small villages on the border noticed the odd, and terrible, silence.

  • • •

  In all the Cel-Romano nations, old men and women slipped away from their villages and followed trails into the wild country that had been made by generations of humans. Or they slipped away to isolated places where the land met the Mediterran Sea. There they set out traditional foods that were given to families during a time of mourning.

  “They were our friends,” voices whispered to the night. “We share your grief. They were our friends.”

  Nothing answered them. Nothing stepped out from among the trees, or rose from the sea, to accept their mourning gifts. So they returned to their villages, and their neighbors asked the question: “Do you think it will make a difference?”

  And they answered: “We will know soon enough.”

  • • •

  They watched the two-legged predators. And they listened, not to the upstart species but to the world itself.

  The humans had broken the boundary between the land Namid had given to them and the wild country that belonged to the terra indigene.

  No boundary now. Not in this part of the world. And when there was no boundary, Namid’s teeth and claws knew what they had to do.

  • • •

  Anger sharpened the wind as Elementals called Air raged through Cel-Romano, uprooting trees to form barriers across the roads. Anger quietly rumbled along the skin of Elementals called Earth, who tested the ground beneath the places that had built the flying weapons. Anger rained along the coastline and fell into the Mediterran Sea, drawing the attention of ancient Tethys, the Elemental who watched over the sea.

  Then the wind and rumbling and rain were gone as if they had never been—and the humans in Cel-Romano began to believe this was all the terra indigene could do, began to believe they had conquered the Others and would hold all of this new land.

  Began to relax.

  • • •

  Flowing around her home in the Fingerbone Islands, Alantea listened to the stories in the surf—stories that came through the seaway from the Five Sisters, who knew much about Thaisia. She listened to the cries of anger coming from Cel-Romano’s western shores and the strait that connected her domain to Tethys’s home.

  There was a malignant current running between Cel-Romano and Thaisia, a current that didn’t touch the other parts of the world. At least, not yet.

  A question had come from Thaisia not long ago, and she and the gards living in her domain had helped find the a
nswer. Might she not ask a question in return?

  And when she had the answer, she would decide what to do.

  To: Tolya Sanguinati

  Grandfather wants you to stay in Prairie Gold and keep him informed about what is going on in that area. He is especially interested in hearing about things the human news isn’t reporting.

  —Vlad

  To: Crispin James Montgomery

  No trains running. Will leave with Sierra and her girls as soon as we can. Cyrus called several times, wanting to be included in this visit. Didn’t say anything about bringing his wife or children. Once I told him we were staying with your boss, he lost interest. Doesn’t mean he won’t get interested again. Thought you should know.

  —Mother

  CHAPTER 39

  Watersday, Juin 23

  With the exception of Meg Corbyn, all the humans currently residing in the Courtyard had spent the night elsewhere, even if elsewhere was just across the street. Merri Lee had stayed with Ruth and Kowalski; Nadine Fallacaro had slept on the Denbys’ couch, while Chris Fallacaro had bedded down in a borrowed sleeping bag; and he and Lizzy had stayed in the half of Captain Burke’s duplex that had been previously occupied by the Denbys.

  Burke had told him he was welcome to use that half of the duplex as a temporary residence or even rent it if he wanted to stay instead of squeezing into the efficiency apartment in the Courtyard or hanging on to the one-bedroom apartment he’d rented when he’d first come to Lakeside. While the offer was generous—and Monty had no doubt Burke would respect his privacy—he couldn’t count on regular work hours, especially now, and he would end up leaving Lizzy with Eve Denby or Ruth Stuart anyway. Easier for everyone to have Lizzy staying across the street from her caretakers and playmates.

  And despite yesterday’s upset, the Courtyard was still the most protected place in the city.

  So many things he’d like to discuss with Burke—and nothing either of them could say with his seven-year-old daughter and Grr Bear sitting in the backseat.

  “Daddy?”

  Monty looked over his shoulder. “Yes, Lizzy girl?”

  “We really can’t watch TV or movies today?”

  “Mother Court passed sentence. No movies or TV for a whole week.”

  “But Grr Bear and I didn’t do anything bad.”

  “You were accomplices.” He saw Burke’s lips twitch.

  Lizzy conferred with Grr Bear. Boo Bear, Lizzy’s previous stuffed toy, had been her constant companion. Grr Bear, whose wooden head and paws had been carved by Henry Beargard, seemed more like a conscience that was less inclined to go along with “cute naughtiness,” let alone outright wrongdoing.

  But Grr Bear couldn’t discourage all misbehavior, especially when it was started by someone else.

  Monty suspected that, from now on, Nathan Wolfgard’s teeth would prove to be a more effective deterrent in that regard.

  Lizzy tried again. “Grr Bear thinks maybe not a whole week if we behave?”

  “Does Mother Court show leniency?” Burke asked so quietly the question wouldn’t carry to the backseat.

  “Not in my experience,” Monty muttered. Until yesterday when he saw her in angry-mom mode, he’d thought of Eve Denby as a practical, energetic, amiable woman. Last night he considered what would happen to any appeal for mercy once Eve teamed up with his mother, Twyla.

  Gods. If he were still a child, he’d give Pete Denby half his allowance each month to be the attorney on retainer.

  Monty turned his face away to hide his smile.

  “Daddy?”

  “Don’t know, Lizzy. I’ve never stood before that particular judge before.”

  “Oh.”

  The discussion lightened the mood in the car until Monty dropped Lizzy at the Denbys’ apartment, and he and Burke drove to the Chestnut Street station.

  “Didn’t think about it last night,” Burke said. “Was there anything in the kitchen for breakfast?”

  “Not really, but Eve had said Lizzy could have breakfast with Sarah and Robert.” And he would welcome a large cup of coffee—even what was served in the station’s cafeteria. “Have you heard anything through your grapevine?”

  Burke didn’t speak for a long minute. “Some trouble around Market Street—again. Trouble around what is left of Lakeside University as well as the technical college. Nothing that wasn’t expected here. Governor Hannigan locking down the region as fast as he did stalled any attempts to burn Intuit villages or any other settlements within the wild country. Or course, his actions might have saved the Northeast from at least some of what’s coming, but it pretty much destroyed his chance for being reelected if the residents of Toland have anything to say about it. And when it comes to elections, they usually have quite a bit to say.”

  “What about other regions?”

  “News bulletins on the radio this morning talked about human triumphs over the terra indigene.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  • • •

  Vlad stared at the images on the TV screen.

  There hadn’t been enough time to warn all the Wolfgard, and not all the Wolfgard keeping watch over human places had human allies.

  When had the clever monkeys stopped being clever? Did they think only humans were seeing these pictures of them dancing around piles of dead Wolves? Did they think only humans noticed the bodies of the puppies that had been killed along with the adults? Of course, humans thought nothing of killing their own young, so why should they hesitate to kill other species?

  So many places. So much slaughter. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Wolves had been killed throughout the Northwest and Midwest regions. How many Wolfgard were left in those parts of Thaisia?

  Then he saw it, the picture that was different from the rest.

  Joe’s face looks like that.

  “Meg.” Vlad shut off the TV, rushed out of his apartment, and raced up the stairs to Meg’s place, just two doors away from his home in the Green Complex. Knocking softly, he tried her front door, hoping it was open, hoping . . .

  He pushed the door open just enough to lean in. “Meg?”

  “Vlad?”

  He opened the door all the way and went in. “Where is Simon?”

  “Peeing on trees.” She bent her head and sniffed herself. “I don’t know how many times Sam and I were washed yesterday, but I think I still smell like puke.” She held out her arm.

  He considered it an act of unrivaled gallantry when he walked up to her and sniffed her arm.

  “Still?” she asked.

  She sounded dismayed, so he said, “Not really.” He didn’t point out that Simon might have a different opinion.

  Taking both her hands, Vlad stepped closer. “Meg? Don’t watch the news today. Don’t read the newspaper. Please. As a favor to me, to Simon, to all of us, just don’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you saw Joe’s face.” And if you saw his face, you saw the rest.

  “It really happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Simon know?”

  “He knows Joe is dead, but he didn’t see . . .” Couldn’t finish.

  “All right. I’m going to the office. There will be mail, maybe some deliveries. But I won’t look at the Lakeside News or turn on the radio.”

  “Okay.” The female pack was bound to see something. He couldn’t stop all of them from seeing what had been done, but Meg didn’t need to see it again. “I’m not sure if e-mail is getting through. The phone lines have been jammed since yesterday. But I’ll try to get through to Jackson and find out how Hope is doing.” And he’d check with Steve Ferryman and find out how the five young cassandra sangue were doing—and Jean.

  • • •

  Simon hadn’t intended to go to Howling Good Reads today. He hadn’t wanted to do anything human except spend time with Meg. Outside.

  But he ended up at the back door of the bookstore before he realized he did
n’t have his keys. Or clothes. He found the back door of A Little Bite open and crept inside, wary of running into Tess if she was in a deadly mood.

  Instead of Tess, he found Nadine in the back room where Tess sometimes baked cookies.

  “Couldn’t sleep, so I’ve been here a while,” Nadine said. She tapped a container that sat on the edge of her worktable. “Special delivery from Eamer’s Bakery. Wolf cookies. I guess they were up early too, working. A lot of us are going to be up early. I heard you lost a friend yesterday. I’m sorry for that.”

  He whined to let her know he’d heard her. Then he went to the lattice door, let himself in to Howling Good Reads, and went up to the office. Not to deal with paperwork or read e-mail. He had added a simple wooden trunk—simple if you didn’t count the carving Henry had done on the lid—to the office furniture as a place to store a set of clean clothes and a pair of shoes. He dressed and went back downstairs. He’d check the stock, shelve a few books. Wouldn’t stay long since he hadn’t told Meg he was coming to the store and she’d be expecting him at the apartment.

  As he turned toward the stock room, he heard the familiar slap of paper on pavement. Copies of the Lakeside News.

  Fetching the spare keys from the office desk, he opened the front door, grabbed the newspapers, and dumped them on the checkout counter. The headline said, “Humans Triumph!” Beneath the words was a photo that filled half the front page.

  Simon stared at the photo. Stared and stared. Then he whispered, “Joe.”

  • • •

  Pouring himself a large mug of coffee, Monty half listened to the television news report and ignored the looks from some of the other police officers packed into the station’s break room to hear the news and see the “graphic proof” of the Humans First and Last movement’s triumph.

  “Humans have taken possession of thousands of acres of prime land through the HFL’s audacious strike against the terra indigene, creatures who have held a chokehold on Thaisia for decades. But not everyone is applauding the HFL’s actions toward land reclamation. One rancher near the Midwest town of Bennett had this to say.