by Anne Bishop
The most chilling statement was made by Elliot Wolfgard when reporters cornered him after a meeting with the mayor.
“The earth natives who reside in Courtyards are property managers, the middlemen between humans and the rest of the terra indigene. We may speak for the earth natives who live in the surrounding wild country, but they are Thaisia’s final voice, and they will decide what happens next.”
And they, whoever they were, could not be bargained with, because anyone who managed to find them didn’t survive. That was assuming humans could communicate with them at all.
Tess had done a fair job of putting all the personal belongings back where she’d found them. If he’d walked in unprepared, he would have known someone had gone through his things, would have sensed differences before he searched out the confirming details. Something folded a little bit off or put in the drawers in a different order. Since he’d been told the Others had taken his and Lizzy’s things and then put them back, he’d given drawers and closet no more than a cursory look.
Going into the little kitchen, Monty cracked open a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a healthy glass. He didn’t drink much, but tonight he wanted something to smooth off the edges, especially since Lizzy wasn’t here.
When he called the Denbys to tell them about Lawrence MacDonald, Eve had insisted on Lizzy staying with them overnight. There were unanswered questions about the attempted break-ins. He didn’t doubt there had been an attempt, just as he didn’t think the timing of the break-in and stall-market attack was coincidence. But Boo Bear and the jewels were gone. The people in Toland who were involved with Elayne’s death had to know that. He didn’t think Captain Felix Scaffoldon was directly involved in Elayne’s murder, but he’d bet the captain was keeping someone in the information loop.
Which meant there was still a piece missing. Someone was still searching for something and thought it had reached Lakeside. Could some of the jewels have been hidden in something besides Boo Bear?
Monty stood absolutely still, letting that thought coil around him.
Something in a story he’d been reading to Lizzy before he’d been transferred to Lakeside. Pages of a book had been cut to form a secret compartment. She’d been excited when he’d read that, had wanted to turn one of her own books into a hiding place for secrets. He’d intended to look for a used book so that she wouldn’t ruin one of her new books. But she hadn’t brought any books with her, just . . .
“The diary,” Monty whispered. He set the whiskey glass down and rushed over to the dresser, pawing through the drawers. Why bring a diary if Lizzy had lost the key? Unless the diary wasn’t being used as a diary but was, in fact, another hiding place, and Lizzy had never been the person who had the key.
He checked the closet, checked the suitcases, checked under the bed and behind the few bits of furniture in the apartment. He checked under the mattress, shook out all the bath towels and extra linen. When he was done, he searched it all again.
Then he sat on the narrow bed and thought for a long time.
Tess had returned everything except the locked diary.
CHAPTER 51
Earthday, Maius 27
It was early morning when Tess walked into one of the Courtyard school’s classrooms to wait for Nyx. No one would be there to interrupt them or ask questions. Equally important, the school had been built in the interior of the Courtyard, so humans didn’t have even a glimpse of it from the surrounding city streets. Most humans didn’t know it existed.
Yesterday’s attempted break-in didn’t make sense. Trying to snatch Boo Bear in order to reclaim the jewels that had been hidden inside him would have made sense. The Sanguinati made it a point to learn about things that had value in the human parts of the world, and Nyx had told her that the jewels that had been concealed in Boo Bear were worth a lot of money.
But Boo Bear had been handed over to the Toland police, and the bear had been stitched up by the Wolfgard bodywalker so that no one would suspect that anyone had poked around inside the bear’s body. Thieves shouldn’t be looking for sparklies among Montgomery’s possessions. Not anymore.
No, this wasn’t about jewels. This was about secrets hidden inside a pink book.
Nyx flowed into the room as her typical blended form of smoke and human. “I brought the book.”
“Now we just need . . . ,” Tess began. She stopped and turned toward the door. Her hair began to coil in anticipation of dealing with the noisy intruder. Then she blinked in surprise as the Courtyard’s dominant enforcer entered the room.
Blair Wolfgard usually moved quietly because it was his nature, but he wasn’t making an effort to approach with any stealth as he walked in and shook a small toolbox.
“Tools aren’t that easy to acquire right now, so I’m not handing them over unless I know what you intend to do with them,” he growled.
“You don’t have to hand over anything,” Tess said. “You just have to open the lock on this book. That’s why I told you to bring your tiny tools.”
Nyx tipped her head. “That sounded nasty, but I’m not sure why.”
The Wolf showed his teeth and held out his hand. “Give me that thing.”
Nyx handed him the pink book with gold stars on the cover.
Blair fingered the catch. “Where’s the key?”
“Don’t know,” Tess replied. “That’s why you’re here with your tiny tools. We need to know what’s in that book.”
“Why?”
“Because Meg saw a pink book with gold stars that is connected to a secret. And because someone is still searching for something that the Lizzy brought with her.”
“You care if anyone knows we opened it?” Blair asked.
“No.”
He selected a tool and broke the lock.
Good thing we aren’t interested in locking it again, Tess thought when Blair handed her the somewhat mangled book, picked up his toolbox, and left.
Opening the book, Tess studied the writing. “I can’t picture an adult using a pink book with gold stars, but this writing doesn’t look like a child’s.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Nyx agreed. “But female, based on the human handwriting I’ve seen.”
“Time to find out what it says.” Tess settled a hip on the teacher’s desk and started to read.
* * *
Meg dreamed she was a luscious cake and someone kept licking her frosting.
She jerked awake when Vlad said, “You’d better stop that before she catches you.”
Pushing herself upright on the sofa in Simon’s living room, she stared at Simon and Nathan, who were giving her an “I don’t know what he’s talking about” look.
The last time Wolves had given her that “too innocent to be believed” look was when she discovered empty containers stacked in a cupboard in her sorting room—containers that had been full of Wolf cookies when she’d gone to lunch that day.
“You two have had enough frosting,” she muttered.
“How are you feeling, Meg?” Vlad asked.
Placing her feet carefully to avoid stepping on toes or tails, Meg stood up and took stock. Stiff, sore, hungry. And she really needed to pee—and probably wasn’t the only one. “I’m okay. I need to use the toilet. Would you open the door so Simon and Nathan can go outside? When Jane looked at them last evening, she said it would be better if they didn’t shift at all for another day.”
“Sure. You need help going up the stairs?”
“No, I can do it.”
As she went up the stairs—one stair at a time since the bandaged knee didn’t bend well—she heard Simon and Nathan struggling to get to their feet.
Jane Wolfgard would be here to check on the Wolves and Henry. She would ask the Wolf bodywalker to suggest some quiet activities that would keep Wolves occupied while they recovered. And Dr. Lorenzo should be arriving soon to check
on her. She really hoped she could convince him that the Others knew he’d taken good care of her and it was all right to remove the bandages and let her take a shower. It was, after all, just a cut.
Even the Controller, who had valued her skin for profit, hadn’t made this much of a fuss over her well-being. Then again, the terra indigene valued her more than they valued her skin.
You have no reason to feel guilty, Meg told herself. But she did feel guilty, and she dreaded the scolding that was bound to come now that things were quieter.
She would wait until Dr. Lorenzo and Jane had made their visits. And then, once Simon and Nathan were settled with a dish of food and some water, she would walk over to the other side of the Green Complex and visit Henry.
* * *
“Well,” Tess said a while later. “This explains why the HFL movement is still after the Lizzy. But I don’t think it’s sufficient proof that humans will do anything about it. They could say Elayne Borden made it up to cause trouble.”
“Would they have killed her if she’d made up what she wrote in the book?” Nyx asked.
“Truth or lie, it would have caused trouble,” Tess replied. “There are a lot of accusations here by a woman who wasn’t as important as she’d believed.” She might have felt a stir of pity for Elayne Borden if the woman’s judgment and actions hadn’t brought the trouble to Lakeside through the presence of the Lizzy. “Humans will say she wrote these things out of spite, or jealousy that the man who was living with her and making promises to her was also mating with other women. They’ll say she’s trying to discredit the HFL movement as a way to get back at him.”
Nyx thought about that for a moment. “Whether humans believe it or not doesn’t matter. It is human confirmation of what the terra indigene already know. We need to show this book to Vlad and Grandfather Erebus.”
“Simon is the leader of this Courtyard. He should be told first,” Tess said, wondering if there was a potential power struggle between the Sanguinati and the Wolves. There had been some tension between the two groups because of Meg.
“He is wounded and needs rest. Vlad and Grandfather are not injured. Besides, this problem began in Toland, and the Sanguinati control the Courtyard there.” Nyx paused. “In fact, the Sanguinati control the Courtyards in every human city that is a major port on the eastern coast. Urban settings suit our way of hunting, so we’re the best form of terra indigene to watch those places.”
Tess couldn’t argue about Simon needing rest. She hadn’t realized the Sanguinati controlled so many of the Courtyards in Thaisia, although what Nyx said about them fitting into urban settings made sense. They had that much in common with Harvesters, who were also drawn to the glut of prey packed into cities.
If the Sanguinati were usually selected to control the Courtyards in port cities, why was Simon the leader in Lakeside, the major human port on Lake Etu? Why choose a Wolf when there was such a strong gathering of vampires here, not to mention the presence of Erebus? Had they yielded to a leader from a different gard by choice, or had they been asked to yield?
“We’ll show this to Vlad and Grandfather Erebus,” Nyx said again.
“All right. But we should show it to Henry and Elliot too. And we should wait until Simon has a chance to see it before we make any decisions. Whatever we do with this information will affect Lakeside and our Courtyard.”
“In that case, Blair, as the dominant enforcer, should be included as well.”
“Agreed.”
She and Nyx settled into a thoughtful silence as they considered all the choices. Just like so many decisions they had made recently, whatever the Others in Lakeside did now would ripple through the whole of Thaisia. That made Tess wonder if it was this book or Simon Wolfgard who had been the real target yesterday.
* * *
Henry sat in the summer room beneath his apartment, sanding a wooden paw. The right side of his face hurt, and the furrow left by the bullet that struck him would leave a scar he would carry as human and Grizzly. He wasn’t concerned about that. Some scars were a part of life, while others . . .
Catching Meg’s scent, he raised his head and watched her approach his apartment. Then, when she realized he was in a summer room like the one she shared with Simon, he waited while she looked at him through the screen door.
“You can come in,” he finally said.
She opened the door and limped to the table he used for all kinds of work.
“What are you making?” she asked as she studied the pieces on the table.
“A replacement for Boo Bear.”
She reached for the head, then hesitated and looked at him for permission. When he nodded, she picked it up and explored the wooden bear head with her fingers.
“The carving is done. I’ll finish sanding the pieces this morning and give them to the seamstress to attach to the cloth body she made.” He put down the sandpaper and paw, sat back, and waited. She looked unhappy, and he was partly responsible for that because some scars were a part of life, while others . . .
Meg set the bear head on the table. “I didn’t make a cut on purpose. I fell on the stairs.”
“I know,” he rumbled gently. “I also know if you hadn’t fallen, if you hadn’t bled and spoken prophecy, we would have known something was going to happen at the efficiency apartments because you sensed that much without cutting, but we wouldn’t have known about the attack at the stall market. We wouldn’t have had any warning about that, wouldn’t have had time to call for help—and more of us would have died.”
“Are you mad at me?”
Henry shook his head, a small motion since the movement made his face hurt. “No, Meg, I’m not angry. This isn’t simple, and it’s . . . hard . . . for us. I am grateful that you gave us warning, and I am sad that you have another scar.”
“I’m not sad about this scar,” she said softly, waving a hand toward her knee. “I am sad that you’ll have a scar.”
He smiled carefully. “I’m not sad about this scar. I got it saving Simon’s life . . . just as you got your scar because you were taking care of us.”
“It feels different, this scar.”
“It’s a sign of a caring heart. It should feel different.”
She looked at the head and paws of the bear he had carved for the Lizzy. “We take care of each other, don’t we?”
“Yes, we do.”
A howl rose from the other side of the Green Complex.
Meg sighed. “I thought Simon would sleep longer. I’d better go before he does something foolish.”
Henry watched her walk back to Simon’s apartment. There were two grown Wolves staying there right now. He found it interesting that Meg had known it was Simon calling to find her.
* * *
Simon hobbled after Meg. Trees and bushes prevented line of sight between the human streets and the complexes where the Others lived, but the buildings had been located close enough to make use of the utilities the humans had to provide for the Courtyard and yet as far back from human sight as possible. Not an easy compromise, and yet the terra indigene had made it work. Had no alternative but to make it work, because someone had to keep watch and report behavior that would indicate the humans had become too much of a danger to Thaisia and all the creatures who lived there.
Despite his sister, Daphne, being shot and killed a couple of years ago, being able to hear the cars driving by hadn’t made him feel edgy. But he felt vulnerable now. He couldn’t rush forward to challenge an enemy or run fast enough to get out of the way if the enemy was too strong to face alone. Right now, he couldn’t protect his pack, couldn’t protect Meg.
He caught up to her when she reached the kitchen garden. It was, maybe, two stones’ throws from the Green complex, but he panted with the effort to walk even that far.
At least Meg seemed to be feeling better. Dr. Lorenzo had put a smaller bandage on
her knee, mostly to keep it clean—and to discourage anyone from licking the healing cut.
He hadn’t licked the cut last night after Meg fell asleep on the sofa. Neither had Nathan. But licking her hand and foot, which had dangled off the sofa right in front of Wolf noses, had soothed them both enough that they could sleep for a couple of hours before their injuries made them hurt again. Didn’t seem like a bad thing to do, and if she’d been awake, he was sure Meg would have agreed to let them have a couple of licks for medicinal purposes, but maybe he should have asked permission first. After all, Meg was Meg, not a bottle of medicine.
“Look, Simon. The seeds we planted are sprouting!”
Little green things. Not edible yet. Wouldn’t be edible for weeks and weeks.
He wanted some water.
Simon looked at the pump nearby. The pump and the well had been there before the city had put in pipes for its utilities, and the Others still used that water, along with water gathered in rain barrels, for the food they planted.
She couldn’t hear terra indigene speech and he couldn’t shift to ask.
“Arroo?” Simon hobbled to the pump, followed by Nathan. “Arroo?”
Meg looked at the pump and then at the garden. She limped to the pump. “You think the plants need water?”
He didn’t know about the plants, but the Wolves would sure like some.
Nathan whined, then licked the pump’s spout.
“Oh, you want water.” Meg studied the pump for so long the Wolves sat down to wait.
“I wasn’t paying attention to the water when we planted the seed part of the garden, but I think I can do this,” she finally said.