Murder of Crows (35 page)
We’ll make do,
he thought as he checked the list of pictures he was supposed to look for.
Most Courtyards don’t have any human employees except the Liaison. Even Lakeside didn’t have other humans working for us on a regular basis until I became leader and opened a couple of stores to human customers. Most Courtyards don’t have humans like Lorne running a little printing business that is strictly for us.
Now most of those humans were gone. Would the
terra indigene
who couldn’t pass for human feel more comfortable shopping in the Market Square now? Would the human employees who were left respond badly to Others who didn’t look like them?
No point in chewing on a bone that wasn’t there, so he focused on the task he could see.
He had found half of his list of images when he gathered up the books and magazines and headed for the Liaison’s Office. He just wanted to see Meg, make sure she was all right. He deserved a reward for politely calling the office instead of rushing over when Vlad told him about Meg’s vision. No reason to think Vlad would make light of anything that hurt Meg, so the injury really was nothing to howl about—just a puncture so tiny that Meg hadn’t realized why she’d seen the vision until Vlad had scented blood and checked her hands.
It probably would be considered bad manners to sniff her just to make sure the Sanguinati hadn’t missed another injury—especially if the other girls were still in the office.
Neither he nor Vlad understood why the prophecy meant Heather had to leave the Courtyard today, but they didn’t challenge Meg. For one thing, none of the other leaders had seen a
cassandra sangue
speak prophecy. When they did witness a cut, he wanted them to have no doubts about the accuracy of what was said.
Interpretation was something else. Meg wasn’t always right when it came to interpreting images. She’d thought she was going to die in the Courtyard because of the prophecy she’d seen about herself. And she had come close to dying. But she’d survived, which proved her wrong.
Not something he intended to mention.
Charlie caught up to him as he walked out of the library and headed for the Liaison’s Office.
“Tess the Scary says the girls should take a break. Get some food and fresh air,” Charlie said.
“That’s a good idea.” Too bad they couldn’t play prey. Meg was a fun squeaky toy when she was the pretend prey, but there was too much risk right now of her getting hurt by a Wolf who wouldn’t remember it was pretend. And seeing a human being chased might scare the other girls into resigning. Once all the guests went home and everyone settled down, there would be time to play again. “And don’t call Tess names.”
There was no one around them, but Charlie lowered his voice. “There are stories about her kind throughout the world, and those stories are very old.” He studied Simon. “You do know what she is?”
“I have some thoughts. Henry knows for sure.” He’d found and read some of those old stories, but he hadn’t told anyone what he knew about Tess’s kind of
terra indigene.
Not even Henry. Safer that way for all of them.
“And yet you let her stay.”
“My choice,” Simon said in a tone that would have warned anyone else that the conversation was done.
“Did you know they’re called Plague Riders in some parts of the world?” Charlie said.
He did know. In contrast, calling them Harvesters made them sound more benign—until you saw what they could do.
“You would be wise to keep that information to yourself,” Simon said. “Especially while you’re here.”
A beat of silence. “Wasn’t intending to share it with anyone but you.”
They walked into the office. The girls had taped maps on the walls and then pinned notes on the maps. Spread out on the table were photos of trains and buses and pictures Theral must have printed off the computer of signs that read
WELCOME TO
… some town or other.
Seeing the images, Charlie grinned, then said in a conductor’s voice, “All aboard! Next stop, Wheatfield!”
Meg spun around so fast she stumbled into the sorting table. “What did you say?”
Charlie backed up. “I don’t know. I was just—”
Merri Lee leaped at Charlie and held up a list. “Say the names of these towns, just like you did that other one.”
When Charlie looked at him for some explanation, Simon just shrugged, too busy trying to keep his ears from shifting. His human ears hadn’t heard whatever Merri Lee and Meg had heard, but the Wolf ears wouldn’t do any better because it was the tone that had significance. Human ears could hear that just fine. His brain understood but his instincts weren’t convinced.
Charlie obliged, saying the town names the way a conductor would. Meg shook her head or nodded. Merri Lee wrote in that damn notebook while Ruthie made notations on the map. When Charlie called out the last name, the girls sagged, and Simon realized Tess was right—they needed to rest.
“That’s it,” Merri Lee said.
“What’s it?” Simon asked.
“That’s what I remember of the journey to Lakeside,” Meg said, sounding too weary. “It’s broken up, and there are too many possibilities of how I got to the first town name I remember hearing. I’m sorry, Simon. I don’t think I can get closer than that.”
He looked at the map. “Nothing to be sorry about. We started with the whole continent this morning. You’ve narrowed it down to a region.”
“That’s still a lot of towns and cities,” Ruthie said, sounding uneasy.
“It’s fine.” He tried a smile. When Ruthie and Merri Lee paled, he ran his tongue over his canines. Damn. Those were definitely not human anymore.
“We should take a break,” Meg said. “Get some air. And I could use another sandwich.”
There was something too deliberate about the way the girls set their notebooks on the sorting table before heading out.
“Can we look at these?” Charlie asked, reaching for Merri Lee’s notebook.
“I don’t know,” Simon replied, wishing he knew either more or less about human females.
While they waited, Simon studied the map. Either Meg had been scared witless or she’d been attempting to hide her trail from a hunter. She’d been right to assume the Controller had sent men after her, but he’d seen rabbits with a Wolf on their tails zigzag less than she had. And since the bus station and the train depot were both in the downtown part of Lakeside and south of the Courtyard, how had she ended up
north
of the Courtyard in order to head back down until she reached the Liaison’s Office and Howling Good Reads the night she applied for the job?
She may have been a brainless female for being out in a storm that night, and she probably arrived on the last bus or train that had reached Lakeside, but she’d gained enough time to escape capture and find the
terra indigene.
The room usually felt like it had plenty of space, but with so many earth natives crowding around the map, he was glad he didn’t have a tail right now that could get stepped on.
“So, the enemy
is
in the Midwest,” Joe Wolfgard said. “That’s confirmation enough for us. We know what we need to do.”
“That can be the last choice,” Simon said. “First, we’ll try to narrow the search for the prey.”
They didn’t want it to be a last choice. He saw that truth in the eyes of the Midwest leaders. Humans were causing too much trouble. It was time to seriously thin the herds. He wasn’t opposed to thinning if it needed to be done, but that would mean abandoning everything humans made in that part of Thaisia or asking
terra indigene
to take up those tasks. Which meant more of the Others staying in human form for hours a day in order to do the work.
Maybe the Midwest leaders were also considering what they would have to ask of their own because Cheryl Hawkgard finally said, “How do we narrow the search?”
He bared his teeth in a smile. “Now we get the police to help us.”
W
hen Simon walked into A Little Bite the next morning, he found Meg, Merri Lee, Ruthie, and Theral sitting at a table scribbling in notebooks and talking in voices so low he’d have to shift his ears to hear them.
But it was Tess who caught his attention. Her hair was solid red and curling wildly—a sign her temper had turned savage but not yet lethal.
“Something wrong?” he asked, going behind the counter to stand beside her.
“The bakery truck didn’t make a delivery this morning, and when I called to find out why …” Tess stopped speaking. Black threads appeared in her hair.
Simon resisted the urge to take a step back. As leader, he couldn’t. As a sensible Wolf who now knew what kind of predator he faced, he wanted something more than air between him and her.
“Call that bakery in Ferryman’s Landing,” he suggested. “See what they can provide.”
“Having some baked goods to sell here is not the point and you know it,” Tess snapped. But she kept her voice low enough not to attract the girls’ attention. “If humans aren’t going to keep their side of the agreements, they shouldn’t be allowed to live in Lakeside.”
They shouldn’t be allowed to live is what you really mean,
Simon thought.
It was a sentiment he’d heard too many times yesterday as the leaders from other regions talked about their increasingly unsuccessful dealings with humans. Was Lieutenant Montgomery’s arrival in Lakeside Namid’s way of maintaining balance? If the lieutenant wasn’t making an effort to work with him and keep relations between humans and the Courtyard as cordial as possible, would the businesses who refused to provide goods or services have tipped the scales sufficiently that he would have been voicing the same anger and hostility as the other leaders? Probably.
Unlike those other leaders, he did have humans like Montgomery making an effort to understand how their kind fit into the world. And he had employees like Merri Lee, Lorne, and Ruthie. Even Heather hadn’t given him anything to snarl about. All of them had, in fact, given him reason to feel obliged to protect them as he did his own kind.
And then there was Meg with her strange skin and underlying sweet nature that made her not prey.
Could a few humans keep a city balanced enough to avoid a serious fight when the rest of the humans seemed to want to start trouble that would end with many of them dying? Or would these ordinary humans who wanted to live in harmony with the
terra indigene
become the next group who was persecuted by the rest of their kind? Would the Wolf lovers become like the Intuits and form their own small communities in order to survive?
Did those prejudiced humans understand what would happen if they drove out the very people who were making
their
presence tolerable?
Can’t do anything about other cities, but maybe, with our pack of humans helping, Lakeside can survive.
“I’ll give them one more chance,” Tess said, sounding reluctant to do that much. “I’ll call the bakery, give them my order, and tell them if they don’t deliver—or deliver inferior goods—I’ll take my business elsewhere. And if I have to take my business elsewhere, I’ll send a letter to the Lakeside authorities, informing them of a breach of the agreements between the city and the Courtyard.”
“Not as satisfying as biting the bakers on the leg—or in the ass—but that kind of letter will scare them just as much,” Simon said.
Tess huffed out a laugh. Half her hair turned green. “You win, Wolf. Aren’t you meeting with the police?”
“They’ll be arriving any minute now. Montgomery and Captain Burke. And Dr. Lorenzo.”
“Then go away so I can go back to eavesdropping.”
Simon eyed the girls. “I thought they finished yesterday.”
“They’re trying to figure out what kind of building or buildings make up the compound where Meg was kept,” Tess said, glancing over her shoulder. “I don’t think they’ve succeeded in doing anything except becoming upset and angry, but they might come up with something useful.”
The girls had noticed him, so it was time to retreat. He raised a hand in greeting. Meg smiled at him; Ruthie and Merri Lee looked at him warily. And a little guiltily? He wasn’t concerned about Officers Kowalski and Debany knowing what the girls had worked on yesterday. He was hoping the men knew—and had told Montgomery. That would make this meeting with the police easier, especially since a handful of the Midwest leaders would be there along with Alan Wolfgard and Charlie Crowgard. Being a writer, Alan was more articulate with human speech and understood more of their odd phrases than most
terra indigene
did. And Charlie had a knack for looking curious and harmless. Charlie was always curious. Being a Crow didn’t make him harmless.
As Simon stepped out of the back door of the coffee shop, a black sedan drove down the access way toward the employee parking lot.
Then Nathan reported,
Until Meg began working for them, the Others hadn’t allowed any humans but the Liaison to have access to the sorting room. But Meg was so efficient in delivering the mail and packages, there really wasn’t anything for other humans to see if they were trying to spy on the Courtyard. And he and the rest of the Business Association had adjusted the “no other humans” rule so that Meg’s human pack could be there with her without penalty. So letting police and the doctor into the sorting room wasn’t that much of a step beyond the new rules.
Besides, he had a feeling the girls would strip some fur off him if he moved their maps and any of their notes fell off.
When they went inside, Simon indicated that Burke, Montgomery, and Lorenzo should stand closest to the map of Thaisia that had been pinned over the pigeonholes that filled half of the sorting room’s back wall. While the three men frowned at the map, the
terra indigene
came into the room, spreading out so they blocked every exit.
Simon wasn’t sure if Lorenzo realized the humans were trapped, but Montgomery and Burke knew.
“A man called the Controller runs a compound where he keeps
cassandra sangue
and sells the cuts he makes on their skin to humans who want to know about the future,” Simon said. “We believe he is responsible for the drugs called gone over wolf and feel-good, as well as the bad meat that caused so much trouble in one of your Midwest towns. We’re also convinced that much, if not all, of the trouble in the Midwest that resulted in the deaths of
terra indigene,
as well as the attack in Jerzy, was instigated by this man.”
Burke’s face revealed nothing, although there was a hint of fear in his scent now that hadn’t been there when he walked into the room. Lorenzo looked puzzled, but he was on his way home after his shift at the hospital, so maybe he was too tired to be smart right now. Montgomery, on the other hand, couldn’t quite hide his alarm.
“The
terra indigene
have decided that this human is our enemy.” Simon looked each man in the eyes. “We’re going to put him down.” A human phrase for killing what they didn’t want.
He watched them. Listened to the catch in Lorenzo’s breath. Saw the way Monty flinched—an indication that the man understood what was coming. Only Burke gave no outward response to the words.
He pointed at the map. “As you can see, we put a great deal of work into figuring out where this Controller lives. We’ve narrowed it down to the Midwest. Now you’re going to help us find him.”
Lorenzo sputtered, “Why would we do that?”
Joe Wolfgard stepped forward, drawing the humans’ attention. “Because we’ll tear apart every human town, village, city, and settlement in the Midwest if that’s what it takes to find him. And if we have to do that, every human in those places will be considered an enemy and, therefore, prey—even if we have to dig them out of their dens in order to kill them.”
Shocked, the three men looked at the map.
“There are dozens of cities in the Midwest Region,” Burke finally said.
“And thousands of humans,” Simon said. “Today, anyway. Tomorrow?” He shrugged. “That depends on your people. The
terra indigene
are going to hunt down this enemy. If you don’t want us to attack all of those cities in order to find one man, give us a smaller target.”
Montgomery’s dark skin had lost enough color to make him look ill. Lorenzo, too, looked ill. Only Burke’s face didn’t change.
“We appreciate your candor, Mr. Wolfgard,” Burke said. “Obviously, reaching out to fellow officers and alerting them to the existence of such a dangerous enemy will not be a quick process. How much time do you think we have before the
terra indigene
take action?”
Simon looked at Cheryl Hawkgard and Joe Wolfgard.
“The next time humans try to use either of those drugs against us will be the last time,” Cheryl said.
“Clock is ticking,” Montgomery said so softly Simon was sure the man hadn’t meant for anyone to hear him.
Simon escorted the humans out of the building. He didn’t watch them walk back to their cars; he didn’t need to. Jenni Crowgard and her sisters were keeping an eye on the back of the Liaison’s Office and the parking lot.
Not a discussion he wanted to have right now. Then again, he’d rather discuss Nyx interacting with humans then have the discussions Burke and Montgomery would have to face.
“I didn’t sign up for this.” Standing in the parking lot next to his car, Dominic Lorenzo sounded frightened and angry. “I agreed to provide some medical services in the Courtyard, not help the Others commit mass murder. It won’t be just one person who gets killed. You know it won’t.”
“Keep your voice down,” Monty said, pretending he wasn’t aware of all the Crows gathering on the roofs that overlooked the parking lot.
“You might not have signed up for helping them hunt down a man,” Burke said, “but if you back out, the Others won’t forget it.”
“And you can live with that?” Lorenzo asked.
“I can live with that a lot easier than doing nothing and then watching the
terra indigene
destroy all the cities in the Midwest,” Burke replied. “But I think you’re forgetting the other side of the coin, Doctor.”
“And what is that?”
“Someone put a living girl into a meat grinder in order to wreak havoc in a town. Should that man, that murderer, be granted benevolent ownership of an unknown number of girls whose affliction is being used for profit?” Burke studied the Crows for a moment, then looked at Lorenzo. “You’re not the one who has to find this man. But you do need to decide if you’re going to help the girls who were his victims.”
Still pale, Lorenzo got into his car and drove off.
Monty and Burke didn’t say anything until they were in their car and Burke was driving toward the Chestnut Street station.
“Lieutenant, the Others are going after a man who has enough juice to influence governors and start a manhunt over half of Thaisia in order to find a girl who had escaped his control. He sent a team of trained mercenaries to Lakeside. It stands to reason a lot of important people will not want him to be found.” Burke looked grim. “Before I start making phone calls and shaking up police departments in the Midwest, I’d like some confirmation of just how bad the bad could be. So you know who you need to talk to.”
“Yes, sir, I do,” Monty replied. “But I think I’ll have a better chance of talking to Ms. Corbyn alone if I wait until this afternoon.”
Monty waited until late afternoon before returning to the Courtyard.
“Will you be able to get a cup of coffee at A Little Bite?” he asked Kowalski.
“If anyone has objections to me staying, Tess will give me the coffee and tell me it’s to go,” Kowalski replied. “Anything I should be doing there if they let me stay?”
“Keep your eyes and ears open.” Monty got out of the car and went into the Liaison’s Office while Kowalski drove the patrol car to the employee parking lot.
He recognized the watch Wolf, who sprang off one of the Wolf beds and blocked his approach to the counter.
“Good afternoon,” he said, raising his voice enough to be heard in the next room. “I’d like to have a word with Ms. Corbyn if she’s available.”
Meg stepped out of the sorting room, rubbing her left hand. “Mr. Wolfgard thought you’d be back. Come inside.” She opened the go-through.
When Monty took a step toward the opening, the Wolf blocked him again and snarled.
“Nathan, I know Simon told you Lieutenant Montgomery was here this morning and has permission to enter the sorting room,” Meg said.
Another deeper, wetter snarl.
“Nathan!”
He backed away, watching Monty and still snarling. As Monty slipped behind the counter, Meg pointed at the Wolf.
“If you start howling just to rile up the other Wolves, I’m going to forget where I put the order for the Wolf cookies,” Meg said sternly.
“Arrroooo!”
Monty noticed that Meg didn’t lock the go-through, and she didn’t close the Private door all the way.
“I don’t want to cause trouble,” Monty said.
“You’re not. Nathan is just being …”
“Thorough?” he suggested.
Meg smiled. “Yes.”
Monty returned the smile. “Can’t fault a security guard for doing his job.”