"Etched in
Bone" to ostatni tom opowiadający o losach Simona
Wolfgarda i Meg w Dziedzińcu
Lakeside, ale z tego co ujawniła autorka nie jest to ostatni tom Innych.
W świecie zdominowanym przez znacznie silniejszych i
potężniejszych Innych nieliczni ocaleni walczą o
przetrwanie...
(tak przynajmniej zaczyna się opis książki na goodreads.com).
Najprymitywniejsze i najbardziej śmiertelne formy terra indigene postanawiają poobserbować ludzi, aby zdecydować o przyszłości całego ich gatunku. Jedynie ze względu na "słodką krew" (wieszczki krwi) powstrzymują się przed wyeliminowaniem całej populacji.
Podczas, gdy niektóre ze społeczności zaczynają się odbudowywać (tym razem pod władzą terra indigene). Lakeside ma się całkiem dobrze, przynajmniej do czasu aż próżniaczy brat porucznika Montgomery'ego przybywa wraz ze swoją nieznośną rodzinką (żoną zajmującą się prostytutcją, synem biorącym przykład z ojca i zachowującym się jak młody przestępca).
Para Starszych wysłana do Lakeside jako obserwatorzy uznaje, że to idealna okazja do nauczenia się jak odróżniać złych "człowieków" od tych "wartych zachowania".
Z kolei zmiennokształtnymi i wampiry, a także sama wieszczka krwi - Meg przewiduje poważne problemy z nowym przybyłym.
W tej części świetnie
wykreowane są relacje pomiędzy członkami rodziny Montgomery. Nie
tylko, ze względu na relację zależnej psychicznie siostry i toksycznego brata
(przybrane rodzeństwo znanego czytelnikom z poprzednich części porucznika).
Istotną rolę odgrywa tutaj zarówno kochająca, jak i zdroworozsądkowa postać
matki Montgomerego, którą nawet Inni traktują
z szacunkiem. Niektóre starsze panie mają to do siebie.
Czytelnicy, którzy czekają na sex pomiędzy Simonem i Meg - niestety lub stety - się rozczarują. Książka utrzymana jest na podobnym poziomie jak poprzednie, więc nie ma zmian w poziomie ani w sposobie przedstawienia opowieści.
Na szczęście nie brakuje tutaj również specyficznego humoru charakterystycznego dla całego cyklu.
Niesamowity świat, jaki wykreowała Anne Bishop nie bez
powodu przyciąga czytelników. Zastanawiam się nawet, czy wyrażenia takie jak
"specjalne mięso" wejdą do kultury masowej?
Poniżej możecie przeczytać fragmenty opublikowane przez autorkę jeszcze przed wydaniem 5 tomu, tj. 7 marca.
FRAGMENTY
Prologue
End of Sumor
As they gathered in the wild country between Tala and Etu, two of the Great Lakes, their footsteps filled the land with a terrible silence.
They were Elders, primal forms of terra
indigene who guarded the wild, pristine parts of the world. To the smaller
forms of earth natives—shifters like the Wolf and Bear and Panther—they were
known as Namid’s teeth and claws.
Humans—those invasive, two-legged
predators—had made war against the terra indigene, killing the smaller
shifters in the wild country that bordered Cel-Romano, a place that was on the
other side of Ocean’s domain. And here, in Thaisia, so many of the Wolfgard
were killed that parts of the land were empty of their song.
As the humans in Thaisia and Cel-Romano
celebrated their victory over the smaller forms of terra indigene, the
Elementals and Namid’s teeth and claws answered the call to war. They destroyed
the invaders, then began the work of isolating and thinning the human herds in
those two pieces of the world.
But now they faced a problem.
{Some of us will have to watch the humans,}
said the oldest male who had made the journey to this place. {Some of us will
be poisoned by even that much contact.} A beat of silence as they considered
taking over the task the smaller shifters had performed for many years. Then
the question: {How much human will we keep?}
{Kill them all!} snarled another male. {That
is what humans would do.}
{You would kill the sweet blood not-Wolf?} a
female asked, shocked.
A heavy silence as they considered that question.
The sweet blood, the howling not-Wolf, had
changed things in the Lakeside Courtyard—had even changed some of the terra
indigene living in that Courtyard. She was not like the human enemies. She
was not prey. She and her kind were Namid’s creation, wondrous and terrible.
No, they could not kill the sweet blood
not-Wolf, the one called Broomstick Girl in the stories that winged their way
into the wild country and amused even the most dangerous forms of Elders.
Having agreed that killing all the humans in
Thaisia wasn’t the answer, they considered the problem as the sun set and the
moon rose.
{If we allow some humans to remain, then what kind of
human should we keep?} the eldest male finally asked.
A different question. A
caught-in-thorny-vines, stuck-in-the-mud kind of question. Many of the smaller
shifters who had survived the human attacks had withdrawn from human-occupied
places, leaving the humans who lived there to the Elders’ sharp mercy. Some
returned to the wild country, retreating from any trace of humans, while others
chose to resettle in towns that had been reclaimed—places that had buildings
and human things but no longer had people.
But the Elders who guarded the wild country
usually kept their distance from human places unless they came to those places
as Namid’s teeth and claws. They didn’t study humans the way the smaller
shifters did. The teaching stories told them there were different kinds of
humans, but what made one human respectful of the land and the boundaries that
had been set while another killed and left the meat, or tried to take away the
homes of the feathered and furred? The HFL humans had made war on the terra
indigene. Were there other kinds of humans who were enemies—kinds the Elders
did not yet recognize?
If humans migrated to the reclaimed towns,
would they fight with the shifters who were turning those places into homes for terra
indigene who didn’t want to completely abandon the human form? But earth
natives didn’t absorb just the form of another predator; they also absorbed aspects
of that predator, traits that became woven into the shape. Were there human
traits the terra indigene should not absorb? Where could they go to
study humans closely enough to learn what could not be allowed to take root in
the reclaimed towns?
As one, the Elders turned north and east,
looking in the direction of Lakeside.
{That Courtyard was not abandoned, and it has
a human pack,} the eldest male said.
It also had the Wolf and howling not-Wolf who
intrigued so many of the Elders. Witnessing the stories that would flow into
the wild country was worth the risk of human contamination.
All of them were curious, but only two
Elders—a male and a female—were chosen to spend time in a small piece of land
surrounded by humans. They had been in Lakeside before, when, as Namid’s teeth
and claws, they had roamed the fog-filled streets, hunting human prey.
Satisfied with their decision, most of the
Elders returned to their pieces of the wild country, while the two selected for
the task of studying the human pack began the journey to Lakeside.
Chapter 1
Windsday, Messis 1
Eager to join his friends for an early
morning run, Simon Wolfgard, leader of the Lakeside Courtyard, hurried toward
the terra indigene Wolves who were using trees and shrubs for
camouflage as they watched the paved road that looped the Courtyard. Actually,
they were watching the man who was riding on the road at an easy pace.
{It’s Kowalski,} Blair growled. It was a soft
growl, but the human suddenly scanned the area as if his little ears had caught
the sound.
{On a bicycle,} Nathan added.
{We gave him permission to ride on the paved
roads,} Simon said, a little concerned about their focused attention on a human
they knew fairly well.
Karl Kowalski was one of the human police
officers who worked directly with the terra indigene to minimize
conflicts between humans and Others. Because of that, he had been labeled a
Wolf lover and had had his share of conflicts with other humans. The latest
incident had happened last week when a car “accidentally” swerved and almost
hit Kowalski while he was taking a bicycle ride before work. Because the terra
indigene viewed that as a threat to a member of their human pack, Simon,
Vladimir Sanguinati, and Henry Beargard—members of the Courtyard’s Business
Association—decided to allow the human pack to ride on the Courtyard’s paved
roads.
Simon had thought all the Wolves had been
told about the Business Association’s decision—especially Nathan, who was the
watch Wolf at the Liaison’s Office, and Blair, who was the Courtyard’s dominant
enforcer—but this was the first time any of the humans had ventured to ride on
a road that still had Trespassers Will Be Eaten signs posted as a warning.
{Bicycle, Simon.} Blair’s growl wasn’t as
soft this time.
Must have been loud enough for human ears,
because Kowalski started to pedal a little faster.
Oh. Bicycle. Now Simon understood the
real focus of the Wolves’ attention, the reason for their excitement. Humans
had ridden bicycles up to the Green Complex as well as a few other places in
the Courtyard, and the Wolves had been intrigued by the two-wheeled vehicles.
But those instances had been about transportation to or from a task. This could
be something else.
{A game of chase?} Jane, the Wolfgard
bodywalker, asked hopefully.
{Kowalski could be play-prey,} Nathan said.
{Does he know how to play chase?} Blair
asked.
{He’s a police officer,} Nathan replied. {He
chases other humans all the time.}
{Doesn’t mean he understands our game.}
Simon thought Nathan’s opinion of police work was skewed more toward hopeful
than accurate. Still, they could offer to play. If Kowalski didn’t accept, they
would just enjoy a run. But . . . bicycle. Simon really wanted
to chase one. {Let’s find out.}
The Wolves charged up the road, Simon and
Blair in the lead as they swiftly closed the distance between the pack and
their play-prey. But would they have a game?
Kowalski looked back. His eyes widened—and he
pedaled faster.
Yes!
{We don’t catch, only chase,} Simon said.
{He’s fast!} Jane surged ahead of the males,
pulling up alongside the bicycle’s back wheel in seconds.
{Don’t grab the wheels,} Nathan said. {If you
catch a tooth in the spokes you could break your jaw or worse.}
{I was listening when Officer Karl told the
puppies about the dangers of biting wheels,} Jane snapped, clearly offended by
Nathan’s unwanted warning. She moved up a little more, now in position to
play-bite Kowalski’s calf.
Kowalski glanced at Jane and pedaled faster.
Instead of going over the bridge that would take them into the Hawkgard
section—and commit the human to the big loop within the Courtyard’s three
hundred acres—Kowalski turned onto the road that ran alongside the Elementals’
lake, heading back toward the Green Complex.
The Wolves ran, maintaining their distance
even when Kowalski slowed down while going up a rise. They took turns pacing
the bicycle and pushing their prey to run and run. Or pedal and pedal. As they
reached the intersection with the Courtyard’s main road, Kowalski swung left
toward the Green Complex instead of turning right toward the Market Square.
Most of the pack, having slowed to a trot as
their prey tired, circled back toward the Wolfgard Complex. Nathan headed for
the Market Square and the Liaison’s Office, where he would keep track of the
deliverymen and guard Meg Corbyn, the Courtyard’s Human Liaison. Simon and
Blair followed Kowalski until they reached the Green Complex. Then Blair
continued on to the Utilities Complex while Simon dashed for the water trough
in the common area that formed the open center of the Courtyard’s only
multispecies complex. He lapped water, then shifted to his human form and
dunked his head, flinging water as he stood up and tossed his dark hair away
from his face. He splashed his arms and chest, then grinned when Kowalski
parked the bicycle and approached the trough warily.
“That was a great game of chase!” Simon said
happily. “You understand how to be play-prey.”
“I do?”
“Yes.” Simon cocked his head, puzzled by the
human’s wariness. Hadn’t they just played, had fun? “Want some water?”
“Thanks.” Kowalski splashed water on his face
and neck, then on his arms. But he didn’t drink.
Simon pondered the not drinking for a moment.
Humans were clever, invasive predators who had recently shown the terra
indigene once again why they could never be fully trusted—not even by each
other. But physically they were so much weaker than other kinds of predators.
This not drinking, for example. Nothing wrong with the water in the trough.
Someone had already drained yesterday’s water, using it on the potted tree and
other plants in the open area, and refilled the trough with fresh water for
drinking and splashing. Humans would drink water pumped from the well if it was
in a glass or a bucket or some other small container but couldn’t drink the
same water from a shared outdoor container?
It made him wonder how they had survived as a
species long enough to become such a problem.
“So who doesn’t understand about play-prey?”
Kowalski asked, rubbing a hand over his face.
“The female pack. Every time we invited them
to play, they stopped riding their bicycles and asked if they could help.”
Simon spread his arms in a “what’s that all about?” gesture. Then he pointed at
Kowalski. “But you invited us to play, and we all had a good run.”
Kowalski snorted a soft laugh. “Well, I sure
had a good run.”
“Since the females can’t pedal as far or as
fast as you, maybe they could play chase with the puppies.” The pups would
learn how to run as a pack without the risk of being kicked by real prey.
Simon studied Kowalski, who studied him in
turn.
“I’ll talk to Ruthie,” Kowalski finally said.
They both heard the clink of glassware and
looked toward the screened summer room below Meg Corbyn’s apartment.
“Must be later than I realized,” Kowalski
said. “I’d better go home and get cleaned up for work.”
Simon watched the man walk toward the
bicycle—and the summer room. For a moment, it looked like Kowalski was going to
go in and talk to Meg, and Simon felt his teeth lengthen to Wolf size as his lips
pulled back in a silent snarl. But Kowalski just raised a hand in greeting,
said, “Morning, Meg,” and rode away.
Simon walked around the trough, then stopped
suddenly when he realized he was naked in his human form. It had never mattered
until Meg came to live in the Courtyard. But humans reacted in various ways to
seeing one another without clothing, even when clothing wasn’t needed for
protection or warmth. Meg had adjusted pretty well to friends shifting to human
form to give her a message or answer a question before shifting back to their
preferred furred or feathered form, but it was different with him—maybe because
their friendship was different from any other she had with humans or terra
indigene.
Most nights, he slept with her in his Wolf
form. They had their own apartments, but those places were connected by the
summer room and a back upstairs hallway, and more and more it was becoming one
den instead of two. But they weren’t mates in the same way Kowalski and Ruthie
were mates. Then again, terra indigene Wolves mated only once a year
when females came into season. Meg did the bleeding typical of human females,
but she hadn’t shown any physical interest in having a mate.
Except . . .
She’d asked him to go skinny-dipping with her
a couple of weeks ago. Both of them naked, in human form. She’d been nervous
about being in the water with him, and she seemed scared after he’d kissed the
scar along the right side of her jaw—a scar made by the cut that had saved the
Wolfgard in Lakeside as well as many other Wolves throughout the Northeast
Region and even beyond.
He’d kissed her before—on the forehead once
or twice. But when he’d kissed that scar, he’d felt a flutter of change inside
him, and in the days that followed he began to understand on some instinctive
level that he wasn’t quite the same as the rest of the Lakeside Wolfgard. Not
anymore.
Maybe it wasn’t just for Meg’s sake that,
after the kiss, he’d invited her to play a Wolf game despite their both looking
human. Then she wasn’t afraid anymore. And since then . . .
Well, it wasn’t lost on him that, in summer weather like this, human males wore
next to nothing in and around their own dens and no one thought anything of it.
“It’s hot upstairs,” Meg said, not raising
her voice because she didn’t need to. His ears might look human, but he was
still a Wolf and could hear her just fine. “I brought some food down here for
breakfast.”
“I’ll take a quick shower and join you.”
He hurried inside and up the stairs to the
bathroom in his apartment. Washing his hair and body didn’t take long, but he
stood under the shower, enjoying the cool water falling over him as he thought
about the complication that was Meg Corbyn.
He had brought her into the Courtyard,
offering her the job of Human Liaison before discovering that she was a blood
prophet, a cassandra sangue—a breed of human females who saw visions of
the future when their skin was cut. She had escaped from the man who had owned
her and used her, and Simon and the rest of the terra indigene in
Lakeside had taken her in.
That sounded simple but it wasn’t. Nothing
about Meg was simple. She was the pebble dropped in a pond that was the
Lakeside Courtyard, and the ripples of her presence had changed so many things,
including the terra indigene who had befriended her. Because of Meg,
the Courtyard’s residents interacted with humans in ways that were
unprecedented—or, at least, hadn’t been considered in centuries. Because of
Meg, the terra indigene throughout Thaisia had tried to save the rest
of the blood prophets who had been tossed out like unwanted puppies by the
humans who had owned them. Because of Meg, the Lakeside Courtyard had a human
pack who provided an additional learning experience for terra indigene who
had a human-centric education and needed to practice those skills with humans
who wouldn’t take advantage of mistakes.
Because of Meg, he had the uncomfortable
feeling that a little bit of being human had become attached and inseparable
from his Wolf form.
Plenty of human females over the years had
wanted to take a lusty walk on the wild side and have sex with one of the terra
indigene. And plenty of terra indigene had been equally curious about
having sex in their human form. But that was about pleasing the body for a
night and walking away. Or, for the Sanguinati, it was about using lust as a
lure in order to feed off the blood of their preferred prey.
Sex was different from becoming someone’s
mate. Mating was serious business. It was about pack and family. Some forms of terra
indigene mated for life; some did not. Even among the forms that usually
mated for life, the bonds didn’t always hold. Simon’s sire, Elliot, never
talked about why his mate had left him. And Daphne, Simon’s sister, had told
them nothing about her mate or why she had shown up in Lakeside alone just days
before her pup was born.
No, the mating bond didn’t always last, and
most of the time, the repercussions were small. A pack might break apart if the
dominant pair split. Some might leave for other packs, even other parts of the
continent. But ordinarily, a species wouldn’t become extinct if a mating bond
broke—and that could happen if his bond of friendship with Meg became something
more but couldn’t survive being something more, couldn’t survive a physical
mating. He knew it. Tess and Vlad and Henry knew it. Maybe some of the humans
knew it. But he didn’t think Meg knew it, wasn’t sure she would be strong
enough to carry that weight on top of what she had been asked to do already.
She had been hurt by the humans who had caged
her and used her. Hurt in ways that made her fearful of the human male form.
While he occasionally wondered if having sex with a human would feel different
if the human was Meg, he wasn’t willing to risk their friendship, wasn’t
willing to break the bond they already had. So he needed to be extra careful
now for her sake, for his sake, for everyone’s sake. How much human would the terra
indigene keep? The Elders had asked that question without specifying if
they meant human population, human inventions, or the intangible aspects of a
form that were absorbed along with the physical shape if you lived too long in
a particular skin.
Simon shut off the water and dried himself
before pulling on a pair of denim cutoffs.
When the Elders had first asked that
question, he thought they expected an answer in words. But after the recent war
that had broken the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations on the other side of the
Atlantik, and the Elders’ decision to thin, and isolate, the human herds in
Thaisia, Simon understood that the answer would be shaped by what the Elders
learned from the things that happened in and around the Lakeside Courtyard.
Meg fussed with the dishes on the small table
in the summer room, but her mind was still replaying the image of Simon and
Karl Kowalski standing by the water trough, talking. Simon had looked happy.
Karl had had his back to the summer room, so she hadn’t seen his face, but he’d
seemed tense. She wondered why Karl would feel tense about something that
pleased Simon so much. Then again, a Wolf and a human didn’t often see things
the same way.
But looking at them, their bodies
communicating opposing emotions, she noticed the similarities. Unlike Henry
Beargard, who was big and muscled even in human form, Simon and Karl had the
strength and lean muscles of hunters who chased their prey—although she didn’t
think Karl usually had to run after the people he arrested. They both had dark
hair, but Karl’s was cut shorter than Simon’s. The real difference, at first
glance anyway, was the eyes. Karl’s were brown, while Simon’s were amber
whether he was in human or Wolf form.
And when Karl left, she noticed the parts of
Simon that weren’t usually seen. She noticed—but she wasn’t sure how she felt.
Scared, yes, but also a little curious. She and Simon were friends, and she
adored his nephew Sam. But more than that, they’d become partners who were
committed to keeping the Courtyard—and the city of Lakeside—intact. And they
were partners who were committed to helping the cassandra sangue survive
in a world that was too full of sensation.
In the stories she’d read, people who were
drawn to each other seemed to fight a lot or have misunderstandings or had sex
and then broke up before eventually getting together. But those were humans,
not a blood prophet and a Wolf. There were things that had been done to her in
the compound that her body remembered but were veiled from her mind—things that
made it much easier for her to be around Simon when he was in Wolf form. She
knew in her heart that Simon would never do bad things to her like the men in
the compound had done, but the furry Wolf still felt like a safer companion,
despite the teeth and claws.
And yet, this time, seeing Simon without
clothes . . . Scary, yes, but thinking about it made something
flutter inside her, something that made her wonder what it would be like if
they . . .
“You’re upset.”
Startled, Meg almost knocked over a glass of
water. She hadn’t heard Simon enter the summer room.
“No, I’m not.” But looking at him, she was
distracted by the male body that displayed everything but the scary bits, which
were hidden by denim cutoffs. Then she remembered that she wasn’t wearing
anything except a thin cotton shift and panties. That hadn’t seemed important
when she’d put them on after her shower.
She was asking for it. Meg couldn’t
remember if she had read that phrase in a story or if it was part of a
rememory—an image from an old prophecy. But she knew it was the excuse a man
used in order to blame a girl when he forced her to have sex with him.
She hadn’t given a thought to how little she
was wearing, but if she was noticing Simon’s body, was he also noticing hers?
And if he was . . .
She was asking for it.
No! A human male might think that way, but
Simon wouldn’t, not even when he was in human form. Her brain knew that; it
would make things easier for everyone if she could convince her body.
“Yes, you are.” Simon stepped closer, and his
amber eyes narrowed—but not before Meg saw the flickers of red that indicated
anger. “You smell upset—and a little lusty. But mostly you smell upset.” He
snarled, showing fangs that definitely weren’t human. “Did Kowalski upset you?”
“No.” Her insides were feeling shaky, but her
reply was firm and definite. The last thing she wanted was for Simon to be
angry with any of her human friends. “I was thinking of something that made me
unhappy.”
He stopped snarling and cocked his head,
looking more baffled than angry. “Why would you do that?”
She stared at him. She didn’t want to tell
him what she’d been thinking about, which would be his next question, so she
shrugged and changed the subject to one she knew would interest him: food. “I
couldn’t decide what to eat, so I brought a lot of stuff, including this.” She
picked up a container and a spoon, then hesitated.
“What is it?”
“Yogurt.” She swallowed a spoonful and
wondered why Merri Lee and Ruth said it was yummy. Was this an acquired taste?
“Try some.” She filled the spoon and held it out to Simon, wondering what he
would do.
He leaned toward the spoon and sniffed. Then
he ate the offering.
Meg held her breath, not sure if he would
spit out the yogurt or swallow it.
He swallowed. Then he looked at the other
food she’d brought down. “Why would you eat that when you could eat slices of
bison?”
Since she couldn’t honestly say she liked the
taste of bison, she didn’t see much difference. “Merri Lee and Ruth said yogurt
is good for a person’s innards, especially a girl’s innards.”
“Glad I’m not a girl,” he muttered as put a
couple of bison slices on a plate before considering the rest of the available
food.
Meg took another spoonful of yogurt before
closing the container. There. She’d taken care of her innards for the day. She
ate half the berries, then pushed the bowl toward Simon. She half hoped he’d
refuse the offer, saying he had plenty of bison to eat, but he happily accepted
his share of the berries without a word, leaving her to nibble on a slice of
sharp cheese.
“You’re not eating,” Simon said a few minutes
later.
“I’ve had enough for now.” Which was true
since she intended to dash over to A Little Bite before work and see what
Nadine Fallacaro and Tess had available at the Courtyard’s coffee shop.
They took the remaining food up to her
apartment and washed the dishes before Simon went to his apartment to get
dressed for work.
Meg stared at the clothes in her closet and
considered what might be appropriate office wear for the person who was the
Human Liaison and what was a practical way to dress on a hot, muggy day. She
chose a pair of darkgreen shorts, a short-sleeve, rosypeach blouse, and a pair
of sandals that looked nice and felt great.
After checking that the book she was
currently reading was in her carry sack, Meg locked the front door of her
apartment and went down the outside stairs to wait for Simon.
Lieutenant Crispin James Montgomery turned his
head to look at Investigative Task Force Agent Greg O’Sullivan, who was sitting
in the backseat of the patrol car. When O’Sullivan looked pointedly at the
third man in the car, Monty turned his attention to his partner, Officer Karl
Kowalski, who was driving them to a meeting with the new acting mayor and
commissioner of police.
Kowalski was a vigorous man in his late
twenties. A dedicated police officer, he believed that the best way to help the
humans in Lakeside was to have a good working relationship with the terra
indigene—a belief that had caused some personal problems with a landlord as
well as creating a rift between Karl and his parents and brother.
But after the slaughter of humans in some
Midwest and Northwest towns in retaliation for the slaughter of the Wolfgard in
those same areas; after the storms that raged across the continent of Thaisia
and slammed into Lakeside; after the humans saw the briefest terrifying glimpse
of the terra indigene who lived in, and guarded, the wild country,
Monty wondered if Kowalski still believed there was any hope of humans’
surviving the force and fury of the Elementals and the terra indigene who
were known as Namid’s teeth and claws.
And he wondered what he would do if Kowalski
and Michael Debany, the other officer on his team, wanted to work on another
team or even transfer to another police station in Lakeside.
“Are you all right?” Monty asked. Was it
pointless to ask with O’Sullivan in the car? The agent was doing his best to
create a dialogue with Simon Wolfgard and the other members of the Courtyard’s
Business Association, but no one knew him well enough yet to consider him a
personal friend.
Kowalski stopped behind a bus that was taking
on passengers instead of changing lanes to go around. If they stayed behind the
bus and waited at every stop, they would be late for the meeting.
Out of the corner of his eye, Monty saw
O’Sullivan cover the watch on his left wrist, a silent message: we can be late
for the meeting.
In looks, Monty and O’Sullivan were
opposites. Greg O’Sullivan was in his early thirties. He had green eyes that
were always filled with sharp intelligence, and his short dark hair was
starting to thin at the top. On the job, he had a burning intensity and a face
that made Monty think of a warrior who had chosen an austere life.
Monty, on the other hand, was the oldest of
the three men, even though he wasn’t forty yet. He had dark skin, brown eyes,
and short, curly black hair already showing some gray—and not all the lines on
his face came from laughter. Not anymore.
“I took a bike ride in the Courtyard this
morning and ended up playing a game of chase with some of the Wolves,” Kowalski
said. “I was the designated prey.”
O’Sullivan leaned forward. “Are you all
right?”
Kowalski glanced in the rearview mirror, then
swung around the bus when it signaled at the next stop. “More of a workout than
I’d intended to take with it being so muggy. The Wolves didn’t hurt me, if
that’s what you’re asking. Didn’t even try.”
Monty and O’Sullivan waited.
“It was a game to them, and somehow I had
signaled my willingness to play. But, gods, seeing them around the Market
Square . . . It’s not that you forget how big they are, but I
didn’t really translate what their size means when they’re hunting. When I saw
them racing toward me, my instincts kicked in and I tried to outrun them.
Couldn’t, of course.”
“Do you know what you did to join the game?”
Monty asked quietly.
Kowalski focused on the traffic for a minute.
“Simon said the girls stop and ask if they can help instead of accepting the
invitation to play, so it could be as simple as me speeding up instead of
stopping.”
“Predator’s instinct,” O’Sullivan said. “If
something runs, a predator will chase it.”
“But they’ve never chased any of us before,
and we ride bicycles up to the kitchen garden at the Green Complex all the
time.” The traffic light turned yellow. Kowalski braked instead of speeding up
to slip through the intersection before the light turned red. “At first I
thought the Wolves chasing me hadn’t heard that we’re allowed to ride on the
paved roads. But I recognized Nathan and thought I recognized Simon. The roads
are posted with Trespassers Will Be Eaten signs, and when I first saw them
coming at me . . .” He blew out a breath and pressed the accelerator
when the light turned green. “Just a game. Simon thought we’d had great fun.
Bet the other Wolves did too.”
“And you?” Monty asked.
“We look at the same things, but we don’t see
the same things. It made me realize how easy it can be to screw this up and
send the wrong signal.”
Monty looked out the window and wondered what
sort of signal the new mayor and police commissioner were going to send.
Meg opened the Liaison’s Office, then glanced
at the clock. Nathan was late, but Jake Crowgard was at his spot on the
shoulder-high brick wall that separated the delivery area from the yard behind
Henry’s studio.
Just as well she had the office to herself
for another minute or so.
Her arms tingled. It wasn’t the
pins-and-needles feeling that warned of the need to cut and speak prophecy.
This was milder, more like a memo than a screeching alarm.
Opening a drawer, she lifted the lid of the
wooden box Henry had made for her and looked at the backs of several decks of
fortune-telling cards that she was learning to use to reveal prophecy instead
of cutting her skin with the silver razor. Maybe today she would finally take
all the cards out of the box and start discarding what wouldn’t be needed to
create the Trailblazer deck of prophecy cards.
She stirred the cards in a vague effort to
shuffle them. Not that it mattered. When a question was asked, her hands would
prickle, and the cards were chosen based on the severity of that feeling.
Meg closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t
influence her choice by recognizing the back of a particular deck. Placing her
fingertips on the cards, she whispered, “What will the appointment of the new
mayor mean to Lakeside?”
Nothing. Nothing. Her fingers brushed the
cards while even the tingling faded away to nothing. Then a buzzing in the
fingertips of her right hand. She brushed away the top cards until she reached
the one that created the buzz. She picked up the card and opened her eyes—and
knew the answer before she turned the card to see the image. The card had come
from a children’s game and had been mixed in with her prophecy cards. But the
images from the game had proved useful, even if the answers they provided were
usually unwelcome.
What will the new mayor mean to Lakeside? A
big question mark. Future undecided. Lakeside’s future had been undecided ever
since the terra indigene here realized the Elders’ response to the
Humans First and Last movement’s actions was going to be very, very bad.
But she’d hoped for a different answer today.
She’d put the card back and started to close
the box when she thought of another question. Lakeside was a human-controlled
city, but the Courtyard belonged to the terra indigene. Any outbreak of
hostility between humans and the Others could have terrible consequences in the
wake of the recent conflicts.
Meg closed her eyes and placed her fingers on
the cards again. When she’d first begun working with the decks, she had decided
that a three-card draw would represent subject, action, and the result. She
didn’t know if that was the way other people used fortune-telling cards, but it
seemed to be working for her.
“What is going to happen to my friends in the
Courtyard?” She repeated the question over and over while she searched for the
images that would provide the answer. When she selected the three that had
produced the severest prickling, she took them to the big wooden sorting table
and turned them over in the order she’d chosen them.
The first card had three images: train, bus,
car. The second image was an explosion. The third card . . . the
question mark. Future undecided.
That was not good.
She took a notebook out of a drawer, turned
to a fresh page, then wrote down her questions and the cards she’d drawn as the
answers.
She felt reluctant to put the cards away
before she called someone to look at them and felt equally reluctant to tell
anyone from the Business Association about this particular answer. Maybe one of
her human friends? Ruth Stuart lived across the street in the two-family house
on Crowfield Avenue, and Merri Lee was moving into an apartment in one of the
adjacent stone buildings the Courtyard had recently purchased to provide a
place for their employees to live if they were turned away from human-owned
rentals.
A knock on the doorway between the sorting
room and the back room made her gasp. Then she relaxed when she saw Twyla
Montgomery waiting to be acknowledged. The sorting room was usually out of
bounds to humans except for a special few, and with so many new people visiting
the Market Square, that boundary was being reinforced with snarls and sharp
teeth.
“Good morning, Miss Twyla,” Meg said.
She heard a scrambling in the front room and
realized Nathan must have come in while she was using the cards.
“Good morning, Miss Meg.” Twyla crossed the
room and set a travel mug and container on the sorting table. “And good morning
to you, Mr. Nathan. It’s going to be a sticky day, and I don’t envy you having
to wear a fur coat no matter how fine it looks.”
Silence. Then Nathan acknowledged
the words with a soft arroo and went back to the Wolf bed under one
of the big windows in the front room.
Meg smiled. Twyla Montgomery was
Lieutenant Montgomery’s mother. A thin woman with dark skin that was beginning
to sag with age, brown eyes that usually looked kind, and short, curly hair
that was more tarnished silver than black. But Twyla also had a no-nonsense
attitude and didn’t take sass from anyone—a trait that made the Wolves keenly
interested in observing her from a safe distance.
“Mr.Simon came into A Little Bite
grumbling about yogurt and girl innards and how you don’t like bison,” Twyla
said. “I thought he might have some kind of brain fever and was talking
nonsense, but Miss Tess said you must not have eaten enough for breakfast, so
she made an egg salad sandwich and a bit more for you.” A pause. “You skimping
on food, girl?”
“No, ma’am. I didn’t eat much at
home because I planned to pick up something when I got to work.” When Twyla
stared at her, Meg added, “I really don’t like the taste of bison.”
“I tried a slice the other day
and can’t say it appealed to me either. But I suspect if it was a choice
between eating bison and going hungry, I’d like it just fine—and so would you.”
Meg nodded. “If that was the
choice, Simon might learn to like yogurt.”
Twyla laughed. “You think so?”
Meg imagined being given a plate
of rolled bison slices dipped in yogurt. Shuddering, she wondered if you could
make a salad out of grass.
Twyla tapped a finger just above
the three cards on the table. “What’s this about? Or can’t you say?”
“These are fortune-telling cards,
but I call them prophecy cards. I’m trying to see if some of the cassandra
sangue can use them to reveal prophecy instead of making a cut.” A
thousand cuts. It was said that was all a blood prophet had before the cut that
killed her or drove her insane. Since most prophets didn’t survive past their
thirty-fifth birthday, Meg, at twenty-four, felt highly motivated to find an
alternative to the razor.
“What do these tell you?” Twyla
asked.
“I’m not sure. I asked what was
going to happen to my friends in the Courtyard. These cards were the answer.”
Meg waited until the older woman came around to her side of the table. She
pointed to each card. “Subject, action, result.”
Twyla frowned at the
train/bus/car card. “Does that mean travel or the transportation itself?”
“Could mean either. It was drawn
as the subject, so that should mean the thing itself, but it could mean that
one of these forms of transportation is bringing someone or something to
Lakeside. The explosion, being the action card, could mean a
call-the-bomb-squad kind of explosion or an emotionally explosive conflict
between groups of people. So maybe a group of people traveling to Lakeside are
going to cause some kind of trouble for the Courtyard. I’m getting pretty good
at finding the cards that answer the question, but Merri Lee and I are still
working on correctly interpreting them.”
As she watched Twyla study the
cards, the skin between her shoulder blades began to prickle.
“What does the question mark
mean?” Twyla asked, sounding troubled.
“Future undecided. That was the
same answer I drew when I asked about the city of Lakeside this morning.” Meg
studied the older woman. “You know what the cards mean, don’t you?”
“I have a thought, but nothing
I’d want to share. Not just yet.” Twyla walked toward the back room.
“Thanks for bringing the food,”
Meg said.
Twyla turned to look at her.
“You’re welcome. Don’t you be skimping on food. There’s
no need for that.”
Meg listened to the back door of the office
close. Then she reached over her shoulder and scratched at her back. She liked
Twyla Montgomery, and even the Others offered the older woman a trust they
rarely gave someone they’d known for such a short time. That was the reason Meg
felt uneasy now.
She just hoped Miss Twyla decided to share
her thoughts about the cards before something bad happened.
