by Anne Bishop
• • •
Vlad took a seat at the big table in the consulate’s meeting room. After hearing the report about Nicholas Scratch, he understood why Stavros Sanguinati had lingered around Toland instead of coming here to assume his position as terra indigene leader of Talulah Falls.
It also explained the backhanded slap Ocean had given Toland. She had been hunting specific prey, and, with Stavros’s help, she had silenced the enemy’s voice.
Now Stavros was on his way to Lakeside, riding in earth native or Intuit trucks that were going in the right direction. It would take a little longer for him to get to Lakeside, but until they were sure the “metal snakes” really would be allowed to run through the wild country during the daylight hours, it was better for the terra indigene to use other means of travel.
Vlad nodded to Agent Greg O’Sullivan, who looked pasty and trembled slightly. Taking a seat, O’Sullivan dropped a folder on the table and muttered, “Gods above and below.”
“Problems?” Vlad asked.
“Plenty to go around.”
Simon, Henry, Lieutenant Montgomery, and Captain Burke walked in, followed by Elliot Wolfgard. The humans took seats on one side of the table; the terra indigene took seats on the other side, with Simon at the head of the table.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” Burke said to O’Sullivan.
“I’d rather not consider the alternative to these discussions,” O’Sullivan said grimly. He spoke quietly, but he wasn’t trying to hide his words from all the sharp ears in the room.
Vlad wondered what O’Sullivan had heard—and how he’d heard it.
“I’ve been on the phone for the past hour and have so much information, I’m not sure where to start,” Simon said.
“There is a saying: all roads travel through the woods,” Burke said. “Let’s start there.”
“All right. Trains will be allowed to travel in the Northeast Region, but only during daylight hours.”
“We’ve already put that policy into place. For the most part, the railways have followed it, at least for the passenger trains,” O’Sullivan said. “How is this different?”
“From now on, there is no safety in the dark. The earth natives in the wild country will destroy anything that moves through their territory after dark.”
O’Sullivan frowned. “No safety in the dark. Does that apply to vehicles on the roads?”
Simon nodded.
“So we’re back to closing the stockade gates.” O’Sullivan sighed. “Can people go about their business after dark within the boundaries of land leased to humans?”
Simon hesitated. “Maybe. But humans invaded the wild country and erased the boundaries, so now there are . . . gaps . . . in your stockades that you can’t mend, and I don’t think some kinds of Elders are going to stay away from the human cities anymore.”
“Sounds like cities are going to have to establish, and enforce, curfews,” Burke said.
Vlad noticed that neither Burke nor Montgomery mentioned that police officers, of necessity, would be out after dark to enforce the curfews and other human laws. What about the humans who drove ambulances or put out fires?
No way to tell. Not yet. But Vlad was sure of one thing: no matter how hard or terrifying life would be for humans in Thaisia from now on, it was going to be much, much worse for the people living in the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations after Namid’s teeth and claws retaliated for the deaths of the shifters as well as the humans’ attempt to claim a part of the wild country.
“What about travel between regions?” Montgomery asked.
Simon shrugged. “I only know the new rules for the Northeast.”
That wasn’t quite true, Vlad thought. Because of the drawing Hope made, Simon and I—and Jackson—know more about what will happen between regions than anyone else. “You already know that lines of communication between regions have been severed,” he told O’Sullivan. “You can no longer call, send an e-mail, or even send a telegram to a person or business in another region. But there has been no sign of train tracks or roads being destroyed at regional boundaries that would deny travel or the flow of mail and merchandise between regions. I’m guessing that travel is still possible but will be difficult, especially if any form of transportation that is hauling freight has to be off the roads or at a train depot by dark. Or docked at a harbor if the cargo is going by boat.”
“No sign of tracks or roads being destroyed yet,” O’Sullivan said. “I heard the word you didn’t say, Mr. Sanguinati.” He paused. “The governor’s office is working on a list of towns and cities in the Northeast that are still accessible to humans.”
“Has anyone heard from the people in Toland?” Montgomery asked.
“Radio stations indicate the damage to the city is serious, and the death toll is rising,” O’Sullivan said. “Telephone and telegraph lines are down. Could be days before they’re reconnected.”
“Could be months, could be never,” Simon said. “Thin the herds, then isolate the herds.”
Silence. “We could be cut off completely from the other cities?” Burke finally asked.
“The HFL caused trouble throughout Thaisia,” Simon said. “Even though a breach of trust had been declared, and you all knew it would get bad if you broke that trust further, you did it anyway.”
“Not all of us, Simon,” Montgomery said.
“Not all of you,” Simon agreed. “But the monkeys chattered over the telephone wires to plot against us. So the wires will not be allowed to stretch between regions anymore. Maybe not even between cities.”
“Mobile phones might still work,” Vlad said. “Radio and television can still convey information over a distance.”
“The Elders broke the link they could see,” Henry said. “And they will keep it broken since those wires were strung across the wild country with their permission, which they no longer give. But the Elementals know how to silence radio and television if humans try to use them against us.”
“Steve Ferryman says the Intuits had already built communications cabins at two settlements near the tip of Lake Superior,” Simon said. “One is in the Northeast, the other in the northern Midwest Region. The operators are using citizens band radios to talk to each other and convey messages between regions. Each cabin also has telegraph and telephone wires, so the Intuits can make phone calls and also use e-mail, but only within their own region. They feel that, if they use the radios carefully, the terra indigene in the wild country will not be provoked into destroying the cabins and that means of communication between the two regions.”
“They will send and receive messages for a fee?” O’Sullivan asked.
“Of course—but they haven’t worked that part out yet. For now, they’re only taking messages for Intuits and terra indigene.”
And probably will continue to do so, Vlad thought.
Simon handed Vlad a folded half sheet of paper. “Ferryman received this for us.”
Vlad opened the paper. We’re safe at Prairie Gold and Bennett. Heard from Jackson Wolfgard. Everyone at Sweetwater also survived. Tolya.
He handed the paper back to Simon, a little surprised by the depth of his relief. He had expected Tolya to survive. What surprised him was how much the confirmation meant to him.
“A lot of humans—and a lot of human places—are gone,” Simon said. “We don’t know how many. It’s not the Lakeside Courtyard’s job to know. Our job is to watch over this city, but from now on, we won’t be the only ones who are watching.” He looked at Burke. “The wild country begins right on your doorstep now. It will prowl your streets in ways we never did. The next time the humans in Thaisia turn against us will be the last time.”
“Understood,” Burke said roughly. He brushed his elbow against O’Sullivan’s arm. “You have any questions?”
“Do any of you have a suggestion for where I could set up a small office for the ITF? I’ll talk to Governor Hannigan about it, but I think it would be wise to have an ITF agent st
ationed here in Lakeside.”
“There are desks here in the consulate going unused,” Elliot said. “You could make use of one of them for the time being.”
“Thanks.”
“Just don’t expect any clerical help. It’s in short supply.”
“Understood.”
Vlad watched everyone but Simon leave the room. Resting his chin in his hand, he studied the Courtyard’s leader. “Think O’Sullivan and the other humans really understood?”
“How much human do the terra indigene want to keep?” Simon countered. “Or more to the point, how many humans do we want to keep? The ones we let in. We’re stuck with them now.”
He couldn’t disagree with that. “We have a Courtyard, a village, a city, and a community to work with, including the land that supports them.”
“We can’t feed all of Lakeside.”
“We’re not supposed to. Predators gather when there is a bounty of food and stay until the food source crashes and they begin to starve. Then some stay but more leave to find another place to hunt. There are empty places now, Simon. They’re not human controlled anymore, but there is work, and where there is work, there will, most likely, also be food.”
“Tolya and Jackson are all right. So is the Hope pup.”
“And Stavros is on his way to Lakeside to talk to Grandfather before going on to Talulah Falls.” Vlad pushed his chair back. “Go find Meg. Check out the garden and let her see if the green things survived.”
“They’re probably floating, with the ground being so soggy.”
Simon was a friend, but every once in a while Vlad couldn’t resist pulling the Wolf’s tail. “If you don’t want to be out there trying to mop up the water to unsoggy the ground, I suggest you sound more optimistic.”
“Meg wouldn’t want to do the mopping thing.”
“Are you sure?”
Simon just growled and walked out of the room.
Vlad smiled. None of them were sure what the female pack would think was a reasonable thing to do, but the one thing he was sure of was that the Others weren’t going to ask those females what should be done for baby plants stuck in soggy ground. They might think mopping the garden was a fine idea.
Amused—and wondering if he should mention the garden to Jester and let the Coyote be the one to start a little trouble—Vlad returned to Howling Good Reads to deal with humans who hadn’t been harmed but still had good reason to be terrified.
CHAPTER 52
Cel-Romano
In villages all along the Cel-Romano border, people regarded their restless, fearful animals and, remembering stories passed down through generations, knew what was coming.
After sundown, when soldiers bivouacked around the villages wouldn’t see and report them to the Important People, they placed bowls of sweetened milk on their back doorsteps, or a slice of bread with a bit of oil or butter, or a slice of cake that had used up precious rations. They placed their gifts and whispered, “For our friends,” before they gathered their children close and prayed they would see the dawn.
They heard the rat-tat-tat of gunfire and the truncated screams of the soldiers who had laughed at the villagers for their superstitions about the creatures that lived in—and guarded—the wild country. They heard things bump against their doors, sniffing around the gifts. And they held their loved ones tight as a terrible silence brushed against their homes and continued on its way to the Big Cities where the Important People lived.
• • •
Elementals rode their steeds through the cities on the western half of the Mediterran Sea, tearing through factories and warehouses, leaving nothing but rubble and fire in their wake.
Elementals rode their steeds through the cities on the eastern half of the Mediterran Sea, the pounding hooves shaking buildings into pieces, or cracking the land to swallow buildings whole.
And the leaders of the Humans First and Last movement, fleeing their cities, saw a truth about the world just before Namid’s teeth and claws tore them apart.
• • •
Alantea rode Hurricane across the waters of her domain, gathering a storm full of fury and vengeance—a storm unlike anything that had been seen in a very long time. She caught small ships and snapped them in half, driving the debris and toxins inland for miles as she struck her enemies’ shores.
On the eastern side of Afrikah, Indeus rode Tsunami, heading for the strait that Earth and Earthshaker had expanded to accommodate the monstrous waves that struck that part of Cel-Romano minutes after Alantea and Hurricane galloped onto the western side of those lands.
And on her island in the Mediterran Sea, ancient Tethys summoned the waters to rise and reclaim the land she had once, long ago, ceded to Earth.
• • •
As the waters of the Mediterran receded and the surviving humans stumbled around the ruins of their cities, looking for the living and mounding the dead, the Plague Riders came down from their isolated lairs to feast and breed and establish new territories within the broken cities.
CHAPTER 53
Thaisia
Drops became a trickle, which became a stream, which became a raging flood of failures as the structure connecting the human places in Thaisia broke.
While roads between some cities remained untouched, other roads became asphalt-littered mounds of earth—or disappeared into sinkholes that would expand and deepen if more than a loaded pickup, or a loaded wagon pulled by horses, tried to get around the hole in order to transfer crops or goods and send them on to people hoping to buy them.
Trains were allowed two passenger cars—one for humans and one for the Intuits and terra indigene—and no more than two dozen freight and livestock cars. If some of the cars held goods destined for Intuit villages or terra indigene settlements, all of the freight was usually allowed to migrate across regional borders, but passengers had to disembark unless they had a letter from a terra indigene leader stating that the person had permission to travel to a specified destination.
At first, the railroads defied the restriction about the number of cars they could hook up to an engine, and the first few trains did reach their destinations. After that, no one had to ask why the tracks were destroyed halfway between two stations, stranding passengers and crew too far from any human habitation. And no one asked about what police officers had seen when they finally found what was left of those trains.
There was no mercy in the wild country, and no safety in the dark.
As letters traveled slowly across the continent, humans learned, piece by piece, what the Humans First and Last movement had cost the people of Thaisia.
To: Douglas Burke
For all intents and purposes, the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations is gone.
—Shady
CHAPTER 54
Moonsday, Sumor 9
Tolya Sanguinati waited at the Bennett train station for the town’s new arrivals.
He had argued for days that phone lines connecting Bennett and Prairie Gold to Sweetwater were necessary, that the sweet blood living with Jackson Wolfgard should not be cut off completely from the beings who would help her stay alive.
At first, the Elders had ignored his arguments as well as Jackson’s pleas because Prairie Gold and Bennett were Midwest towns and Sweetwater was located in the Northwest, and all the wires humans used for their talking had been torn down along every regional border—and no one who tried to repair the lines survived the wrath of Namid’s teeth and claws.
Then came a question: this sweet blood was a howling not-Wolf?
After careful consideration of what that might mean, Tolya told the Elders that the Hope pup was a friend of Meg Corbyn, who was friend to Simon Wolfgard, leader of the Lakeside Courtyard.
The next day, work crews were permitted to repair the phone lines that crossed the regional borders and connected Bennett and Prairie Gold with Sweetwater. And although they were watched every moment, the men on those crews survived.
Tolya wasn’t sure wh
o was on the train. Some Intuits, upon arriving, had taken one look at the town and said they would stay a week to help clean up and clear out the houses, but they had a feeling this wasn’t the place for them to settle and asked for an assignment in another town. Some didn’t even leave the train station before asking for a return ticket home.
It wasn’t an easy place for any kind of human. One of the Intuits said the town felt like it was filled with ghosts. Tolya didn’t tell the young man that it wasn’t human spirits that were spooking him; it was the more primal earth natives who continued to prowl around and through the town—and the most terrifying among them were the ones who shifted to a clawed, furred form that walked on two legs.
The train pulled in. A few passengers got out.
Tolya was a mature, adult Sanguinati in his prime. He certainly wasn’t old. But he looked at the fresh-faced humans getting off the train and felt like a pack’s nanny. It made sense that adults who hadn’t found a mate yet would be the most likely to travel to a new place like Bennett, but did they all have to be so young?
The four males—he guessed they were Intuits by the way they looked around—saw him and kept their distance. They knew he was Sanguinati and he was in charge of this town; they couldn’t have come here without receiving that information. But they weren’t used to having contact with his kind, if any of them had had actual contact with any of the terra indigene.
The female, on the other hand, gave him a bright smile and walked up to him, her hand extended. “I’m Barb Debany. My family calls me Bee because my name is Barbara Ellen, which makes my initials B.E., so . . . Bee. But, new place and all, I would rather be called Barb.”
Wondering why she told him about a name she didn’t want to use, Tolya shook her hand, shifting his palm to smoke for just long enough to get a taste of her blood and know if the chatter was natural or induced by some chemical.
He sensed nothing but the adrenaline made by nerves and excitement.