Murder of Crows

CHAPTER 6

On Moonsday morning, Meg closed her apartment door, then muttered, “Garbage day,” and went back in for the paper bag she’d left in the kitchen.

In the compound where she had lived most of her life, garbage was collected by people who worked for the Controller, and the girls’ knowledge of how waste products were handled came through photographs or drawings of equipment and activities, or in a training video. Even now, she had only a vague idea of how humans dealt with all the debris that came from day-to-day living. She knew they recycled some things out of necessity, but she didn’t think they were as particular about the rest.

The Others wasted almost nothing, so living in the Courtyard meant that sorting garbage was not an all-in-one-bag exercise. Fruit and vegetable waste went in one container. Meat scraps went in another. Bottles were placed in one bin while cans and anything metal went in another. Catalogs that had to be exchanged in order to receive new copies went back to the Liaison’s Office, while other kinds of paper went into a different bin for recycling.

If they weren’t spoiled, cores and other bits of fruit were left on feeders scattered throughout the Courtyard—a food source for birds. If they were spoiled, they went into the compost piles. Edible vegetable bits were scattered on the ground near the feeders for squirrels and rabbits or whatever else liked that kind of food. Meat scraps were distributed in the Hawkgard’s area to feed the rats, which, in turn, kept the Hawks supplied with healthy meat since the rats didn’t wander into human neighborhoods where the food might be laced with poison.

By the time they were done sorting and recycling, the weekly trash for an entire complex usually fit into a big tote that was picked up and taken to the Utilities Complex for final disposal.

When she’d first moved into the Green Complex, she’d divided her trash into compost, garbage, and recycle. It was only in the past couple of weeks that Simon showed her the holding bins downstairs and gave her all the household containers she was now expected to use. At the time, she’d seen that expectation as another sign of acceptance. Now …

How do you mend a friendship? she wondered as she locked up her apartment and went down the stairs someone had swept clean of snow so she wouldn’t slip.

She deposited her bag of garbage in the big tote that had been placed next to the road, then retraced her steps and went to the garages behind the complex to get her BOW and drive to work.

Spending time with Simon had been so easy. Now just seeing him felt awkward. And yesterday, Earthday, had been downright uncomfortable because she hadn’t been invited to go for an afternoon romp with him and Sam. And when Simon invited her over to watch a movie with them in the evening, he had stayed in human form and sat on the other end of the sofa instead of curling up next to her as a Wolf—something he’d done every movie night since the first invitation.

It was Simon as Courtyard leader and business owner being friendly toward an employee rather than Simon spending time with a friend.

And that hurt. It surprised her how much feelings could translate into physical hurt.

“You started this,” she muttered as she drove to the office. “You’re the one who made a big deal out of … something.”

But Simon hadn’t tried hard—hadn’t tried at all, really—to convince her that his being in her bed as a naked human had been totally innocent. If fact, he’d seemed relieved to have an excuse to back away from being friends with her.

“Think of something else.” She parked the BOW in the garage behind the office, checking the vehicle’s power bar before shutting it off. Didn’t need to charge it, so that was one less task to do before she could go inside and open the office in time for the morning deliveries.

Not many deliveries since the storm earlier in the month. Lots of stores were claiming to be out of stock of any item ordered by someone in the Courtyard. Seeing those same items listed on sale in the Lakeside News wasn’t easing the tension between humans and Others. If human businesses claimed goods were in short supply in order to avoid selling to the terra indigene, how long before the terra indigene cut off the resources to make those items and turned the short supply into a reality?

If that happened, everyone would be picking through the garbage for anything still usable.

The pins-and-needles feeling filled her arms so suddenly, she dropped her carry bag and purse in order to scrub at her skin through all the layers of clothes. That prickling under her skin used to happen just before she was cut for a prophecy. Now that she was living in the Courtyard, it happened a lot. Sometimes it was a light prickling that went away after a minute. Sometimes it acted like a detector, easing or disappearing altogether when she went into a different room or stepped away from a particular person.

And sometimes the pins-and-needles feeling became a painful buzz that told her something was going to happen. And the only way to find out was to cut her skin to see the visions and speak the prophecy.

She stood outside waiting to see if the feeling would fade or intensify.

Then she heard the Crows cawing nearby. Jenni and her sisters, heading out to …

She cried out as the prickling became the painful buzz.

“Meg?”

She looked up and saw Vlad leaning out the open window of HGR’s upstairs business office. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nathan racing around the corner of the Liaison’s Office.

“Meg?” Smoke flowed out of HGR’s window and down the side of the building. Vlad in his other form.

Meg closed her eyes, doing her best to ignore Vlad, who was now flowing toward her, and the Wolf who was crowding her.

In another moment or two, they would both shift to human form and demand to know what was wrong. Before she could tell them, she had to figure out what was wrong.

She’d been thinking about garbage, so she began recalling every training image that was related to garbage or collecting garbage or the containers for garbage and recycling. Something about metal garbage cans buried in snow or shiny in the sun? No. The black, wheeled totes like they had in the Courtyard? No, but … Garbage truck. The clang of cans, the sound of the brakes or hydraulics or whatever it was that made that distinctive sound you could hear a block away. Feathers and blood in the snow and …

“Jenni!” Meg screamed. When Vlad, now in human form, grabbed her arms, she grabbed fistfuls of his black turtleneck. “That was the sound. In the dream. The garbage trucks. That was the sound. The Crows have to stay away from the garbage cans, the trucks, all of it. If they go near them, they’ll die, Vlad. They’ll die!”

She jolted as Nathan suddenly howled. Moments later, he was answered from the Utilities Complex, from the Wolfgard Complex, from wherever the Wolves were taking care of business in the Courtyard.

“I’ll deal with this,” Vlad said. “Can you get into the office by yourself?”

“Yes, I—”

“No cutting, Meg. Promise you won’t use the razor. Promise.”

“I promise. For now.”

Not good enough. She saw that in his dark eyes even before he pointed at Nathan and said, “Don’t let her out of your sight.” Then Vlad ran to A Little Bite’s back door. Moments after that, she saw a Hawk flying away from the Courtyard and realized Vlad must have sent Julia Hawkgard to find Jenni.

Nathan bumped his head against her hip. When she didn’t move, he clamped his teeth on the sleeve of her coat and started pulling her toward the office.

“All right, all right, let me get my purse,” she said. “We can’t get inside without keys.”

He let her go but didn’t stop crowding her until she had unlocked the back door and they were both inside. Even then he stayed close enough to grab an arm or leg if she did anything he considered suspicious.

The prickling remained a torment as she unlocked the office’s front door and set up her clipboard for the day’s deliveries.

She’d given the warning. The prickling should be fading by now. The fact that it wasn’t fading made her wonder if the dream a few nights ago had been a real prophecy. After all, the skin that split along the curve of her nose hadn’t bled, and prophecies came from a cut that bled.

And she wondered if, by making that promise to Vlad not to cut her skin, the next warning would come too late.

After dropping Sam and some other pups at the Courtyard school, Simon drove toward HGR. When he heard the howling, he stopped the BOW and rolled down the window to listen as other Wolves took up the song. That first warning howl had come from the direction of the business district. Wasn’t likely to be John, so that left the Wolf on guard at the Liaison’s Office.

he called.

Nathan howled.

Simon shoved the door open and got out. Smarter to stay in the vehicle if he needed to move quickly, but he couldn’t stand being closed in until he understood what they were facing, especially since Wolves all over the Courtyard continued answering Nathan’s howl.

he asked.

Before Nathan could reply, Vlad cut in. now. But it’s collection day, and the damn Crows aren’t listening! I sent Julia after Jenni and her sisters.>

A chill went through Simon. The Crows who were killed in Walnut Grove had been picking around the garbage when the dogs attacked.

he shouted.

she replied in a greedy tone that said she would ignore him for as long as possible.

No, he thought. No. Every week the Crows checked out the neighborhood streets around the Courtyard to see what humans had left at the curb that might strike their fancy. Anyone planning an attack would know where to find them—and what to put out for bait.

Just like someone in Walnut Grove had known what to put out in order to attract the birds.

Simon shouted. She’d agreed to pay attention, which wasn’t the same thing. Right now, he was hoping she didn’t remember that.

shinies, Simon.>

And he was going to find out who had baited those trash cans. He swore silently and viciously. If he wasn’t getting through to Jenni, he wouldn’t get through to the rest of the Crowgard. So he’d stop trying to reason with them.

he snarled, sending his words to every terra indigene within range. forever.>

Multiple cries now because the Crows knew he meant it. Give up the shinies and other treasures today, or be sent to terra indigene settlements in the wild country, where the pickings would be slim. And they knew him well enough to understand that he wouldn’t just ban them from Lakeside. If they disobeyed him, he would use his influence with every Courtyard leader in the Northeast Region to ban the Lakeside Crows from every human city in this part of Thaisia.

He didn’t respond to the arguments or pleas coming from various Crows. He got back in the BOW and drove as fast as he could to HGR. That’s where the Crows would expect to find him.

he called.

she replied.

Shinies and a toy in plain view. How many building sets had the Crowgard ordered from the nearby toy stores in the past month or so? Meg would know, but he suspected there had been enough for humans to guess that at least some of the Crows would be drawn to the box if it was sitting in the open.

After Julia told him which street had drawn more Crows than usual, she added,

He hesitated. Was this a challenge to his authority, an excuse to stay in order to snatch some coveted item, or the Crowgard’s need to have a report from one of their own?

Besides, he was going to be there too.

As soon as he reached the Courtyard’s business district, he parked his BOW near HGR’s back door just as Vlad stepped outside. He raised a finger to indicate the vampire should wait, then said,

Blair asked.

Satisfied that the Courtyard’s dominant enforcer was on the way, Simon turned to the next Wolf on his list.

the Wolf replied.

“Did you tell Nathan to stick close to Meg?” he asked Vlad.

“I did.”

Since he didn’t think Vlad had intended for the Wolf to be underfoot, he said, then nodded to Tess when she came out of A Little Bite, shoving her arms into her coat. Moments later, Henry opened the wooden gate at the back of his studio’s yard and joined them.

Simon told them about the Crows’ resistance to giving up this collection day and repeated his ultimatum even though they would have heard that part.

“What do you need?” Henry asked.

Simon looked at Vlad. “I’d like you to come with Blair and me. As a Sanguinati, you might notice something we miss.”

“All right,” Vlad said. “What about Meg?”

“I’ll close A Little Bite and help Nathan watch Meg,” Tess said.

Simon shook his head. “Better for you to stay open. If humans are watching to see what we do, let them think we’re not aware of the baited street and the trap yet.” He thought for a moment. Did Nathan really need someone else in the Liaison’s Office to help him watch Meg? Or would having Tess and Henry nearby be enough?

“Henry, I need you to handle the Crows and make sure they all return,” Simon said. “I gave Jenni and Starr permission to stay and watch the street. Something is wrong with Jake. Crystal is helping him get back to the Crows’ complex. Talk to their bodywalker. See if anyone can figure out what happened to him.” He looked over his shoulder as Blair pulled up in the small passenger van they used when they needed to travel on human roads.

Blair got out of the van and slipped inside the Liaison’s Office. He returned a minute later with an armful of clothes, which he tossed inside the van.

Good idea, Simon thought. That way Jenni, Starr, and Julia could pull on some clothes if they needed to shift and talk to any humans.

Like Lieutenant Crispin James Montgomery? For a moment, Simon wondered if he should call Montgomery and tell him about the baited street.

No. The lieutenant wasn’t a hairless gibbering monkey like so many humans were, and he had helped protect Meg when she was in the hospital, but that didn’t make the man part of the Courtyard. Besides, the Crows had followed orders, so nothing had happened that required the police.

He would go to the baited street first. If he saw something pertinent, then he would call Montgomery.

“Nyx will come up to the office and stay with Meg,” Vlad said, breaking into Simon’s thoughts. “Grandfather Erebus is concerned about our Liaison. If something is wrong, Meg might tell another female something she wouldn’t tell Nathan.”

Nothing to be said about that, not even by the leader of the Courtyard. But Simon noticed that Tess’s hair had turned solid green and was tightly coiled—a sign she was feeling agitated or uneasy.

Only Henry knew what Tess was, but Simon had his own thoughts about that and was certain having her uneasy about the Sanguinati could be dangerous for everyone. A shape-shifter had little chance of surviving a fight with a Sanguinati. Would a vampire be able to survive a fight with an earth native like Tess?

He hoped that was a question that would never be answered.

“We have to go.” As he and Vlad got in the van, Simon heard the bitter cawing of the returning Crows.

A moment after that, Julia Hawkgard screamed,

Monty rapped on the doorframe before entering Douglas Burke’s office.

The patrol captain of the Chestnut Street station was a big man with neatly trimmed dark hair below a bald pate. His blue eyes, like his smile, usually held a fierce kind of friendliness. Today the smile was absent and the eyes looked sad as he handed a piece of paper to Monty and said, “We got an answer.”

Monty read the paragraph, then read it again. “This happened on Trickster Night?”

“Yes,” Burke replied. “Months before our friends in the Courtyard gave us that cryptic warning.”

Not exactly cryptic. A few weeks ago, Meg Corbyn had cut her skin because she’d sensed something wrong in the back room of the Liaison’s Office and couldn’t identify the source of her uneasiness. The resulting visions and prophecy had revealed poison in the sugar lumps she usually gave the Courtyard ponies on Moonsday. Among the images she’d seen was a skeleton in a hooded robe, passing out sweets to children, and those children dying in the same way the ponies would have died. Simon Wolfgard had told him what Meg had seen on the chance that the police might find the place and the person in time to save the children.

But it had already happened months ago in another city.

If the police in that city had had access to a cassandra sangue like Meg Corbyn, could that tragedy have been averted? Or would a different blood prophet have seen some other prophecy, and the children’s deaths would have occurred anyway?

And was justifying the use of one group of humans for the benefit of the rest of them the reason a law supporting benevolent ownership had been passed in the first place? Was the argument that these girls would cut themselves anyway and keep cutting until it killed them sufficient justification for restricting their lives and using this compulsion for the good of government or profit?

Maybe it was better for everyone that the only blood prophet in the city of Lakeside was surrounded by the terra indigene.

“Lieutenant?” Burke said.

“Sorry, Captain. My mind wandered.” Monty set the paper on Burke’s desk.

Sighing, Burke sat back and linked his fingers over his abdomen. “My people immigrated to Thaisia from Brittania a few generations back, and I still have family over there. Went over to visit in my younger years and have kept in touch with some of my relatives, especially the ones who work in law enforcement. Brittania is about one-quarter the size of Wild Brittania, so the people there have few illusions about what watches them on the other side of the agreed-upon boundaries. Those of us living in cities like Lakeside have that in common with them.”

Not sure where this was going, Monty just nodded.

“According to my cousin Shady Burke …” Burke’s smile warmed for a moment. “Shamus David Burke, an officer of the law in Brittania. Usually goes by Shay, but there was already a Shay at his first posting, so my cousin was called Shay D., which quickly became Shady.”

“Unusual name for a police officer,” Monty said.

“He’s quick with his tongue and quick on his feet. Has to be one because of the other.” Burke’s smile faded. “Anyway, Shady is very good at mixing in where he can hear things of interest. Lately he’s been hearing rumors that somewhere in the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations there is a factory building airplanes—machines that can fly.”

Still not sure where the conversation was going, Monty said, “Is that a problem?”

Now Burke gave Monty the typical fierce-friendly smile. “A hardship for the people, I would think, if another industry wants a share of the metal and fuel available to the nations. Shortages and stricter rationing would be just the start of the troubles there.”

For a moment, Monty considered the wonder of traveling through the air, high above the ground. The closest thing to air travel in Thaisia was hot-air balloons. Most of the time the balloons remained tethered to prevent them from wandering over land that belonged to the Others. Sometimes photographers or moviemakers were permitted to float over the wild country to take pictures and film herds of animals or places on the continent that humans couldn’t see any other way. Those trips were strictly supervised, of course, because the Others would never permit anything on or above their land that might pose a threat to them. “Why didn’t the terra indigene forbid such a machine from being made in the first place?”

“Cel-Romano is the largest land area in the world that belongs to humans, and those boundaries haven’t altered since the first record of human history. Gods below, the boundaries were set even before humans spread out to reach what we call the wild places. The Others understood before we did how much of the world the human race could claim, and they haven’t given humans a single acre more. One-third of all the humans on Namid live there. The terra indigene don’t care what humans do within the boundaries of human land, but the moment human activity touches their pieces of the world …” Burke gave Monty that fierce-friendly smile again. “Maybe the Others don’t know about the airplanes yet. Maybe they know but don’t care as long as the flying machines remain within the boundaries of Cel-Romano. But when ships sailing the Mediterran and Black seas can easily provide transport to all the nations, one has to wonder how the manufacturing of airplanes at this time might be connected to the Humans First and Last movement. You remember that slogan, Lieutenant?”

Monty felt a shiver of alarm. “Yes, I remember. Our previous mayor was trying that out as his campaign platform.” The mayor had died in the storm that had almost buried Lakeside, but he had died in his bedroom. Winter and some other Elementals had come calling on His Honor. So had the Sanguinati.

“Humans First and Last has become a rallying cry throughout the Cel-Romano Alliance,” Burke said. “Speakers are mesmerizing crowds, exciting them with the idea that they can have more. And since the nations in the Alliance have had a habit of expanding their cities and building over good farmland, even the wealthy there can’t always buy enough food anymore.” Burke’s smile faded but the fierceness remained. “That’s not a bad incentive if you’re looking to start a war.”

“War?” Monty groped for the visitor’s chair and collapsed into it. “You think there’s going to be a war?”

“Shady and some of his contacts believe the Cel-Romano Alliance is heading that way, if for no other reason than to winnow down their population. I just don’t think their leaders realize how much winnowing the terra indigene can and will do.” Burke paused. “There is no indication that the people in Tokhar-Chin or the human sections of Afrikah are aware of what is happening in Cel-Romano … or would be willing to risk their own people. And the humans who live in Felidae or Zelande are too far away to become involved in a confrontation with the Others living in the wild country beyond the Mediterran and Black seas.”

“What about us?” Monty asked. Gone over wolf was a drug that hyped aggression to the point where self-preservation wasn’t a consideration. That wouldn’t be a bad drug to have if you were looking to start a war. Was its appearance in some Thaisian towns at a time when trouble was stirring elsewhere in the world just a coincidence, or was Thaisia the testing ground for a bigger conflict?

“For now, war, like the airplane, is just a rumor floating to us from the other side of the Atlantik. Let’s hope it remains nothing more than a rumor.” Burke rubbed the back of his neck. “Lakeside is in the extraordinary position of actually having a dialogue with the Others who run the Courtyard. As long as we have that, we have a chance of protecting our own city. Maybe protecting even more than that.”

Monty felt a weight settling on his shoulders. He and his team were the contacts between the police and the Courtyard’s leaders. Elliot Wolfgard, Simon’s sire, was the consul who met with human government, but it was Simon who made the decisions that affected humans as well as Others.

“I’ll …” Monty began.

Kowalski suddenly appeared in the doorway, all the color drained out of his face. “Lieutenant, we’ve got trouble.”

Blood and black feathers in the snow. Broken bodies.

Flanked by Blair and Vlad, Simon walked down the middle of the street and looked at every dead crow.

If not for Meg’s warning, many of them would have been Crowgard.

Vlad said.

you are the reason the sweet blood still begs for the razor despite having bled.>

She promised me she wouldn’t cut, Vlad thought grimly as he shifted to smoke and headed back to the Courtyard. Meg had promised not to cut, and she’d been guarded by Nathan and …

A hesitation before she replied.

A chill went through Vlad. What kind of danger had Meg seen that would threaten the Sanguinati? Or, since Simon was also called back to the Courtyard, was the danger to more than one kind of terra indigene?

Since the answer was in the Courtyard, he used all the speed he had in this form to reach his people.

terra indigene.>

Simon growled. When Blair glanced at him, he said, “It’s Henry.” he asked the Grizzly.

With trouble brewing among the humans, this wasn’t the time for two of the strongest groups of predators to be snarling at each other.

“Get us back home,” he told Blair, his voice grim. He looked over his shoulder at Jenni, Starr, and Julia. None of them had shifted to human form.

As they pulled into the Main Street entrance that serviced the Liaison’s Office, the consulate, and the Market Square, Simon looked in the office window and saw John Wolfgard in human form, leaning against the front counter and chatting with Meg.

Simon asked the other Wolf.

John replied.

No answer.

Blair parked the van close to the back entrance of Howling Good Reads. Leaving his enforcer to deal with Julia, Starr, and Jenni, Simon hurried into the store and up the stairs to the Business Association’s meeting room. Along with its entryway and coatroom, the meeting room filled half of HGR’s second floor and held a ring of wooden chairs set around a low, round sectional table where they sat to talk over Courtyard business. It also had a secretary desk, filing cabinets, and a computer workstation they used for e-mail or placing orders with human companies.

All the terra indigene who were present were in human form, and there weren’t as many of them as there were sometimes for a business meeting. But everyone was standing and the room felt too crowded, especially with Erebus present and flanked by two male Sanguinati as well as Nyx. Tess stood between the Sanguinati and Nathan, and her hair was completely red and coiling—a sure sign of anger. Even worse, Henry wasn’t adjusting his hands to eliminate the Grizzly claws.

Trapped in the small space behind Henry and Tess, Nathan paced and panted, despite being in human form.

“What’s going on?” Simon demanded, moving around the low table and the surrounding chairs until he stood closer to Henry than to Erebus.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Tess replied, watching the Sanguinati.

“This one bit the sweet blood.” Erebus pointed a finger at Nathan.

“I did not bite Meg!” Nathan gave Simon a pleading look. “I was just trying to hold on to her while she was fighting with Nyx, and my teeth slipped.”

Before Simon could demand an explanation from Nyx, Vlad arrived, followed by Blair. Blair immediately took a position where he could help defend Simon and Nathan. Vlad carefully took a position between the two groups, not committing himself to either side. That earned him a cold look from Erebus, but Simon felt relieved. Not only did he and Vlad work together at HGR; they were neighbors in the Green Complex.

“Nyx?” Vlad said quietly. “You were at the Liaison’s Office helping Nathan guard Meg. Did he bite her?”

After giving Vlad a long stare, Nyx sighed and looked at Erebus. “It wasn’t Nathan’s fault. When I walked into the sorting room, Meg started screaming. There wasn’t any warning or sign of danger. When she pulled the razor out of her pocket, I grabbed her wrists so she couldn’t cut herself. But she kept screaming and struggling …”

“What was she screaming?” Blair asked.

“That’s not important yet,” Simon said. “Is it, Nyx?”

“No, it isn’t. Not now when …” She glanced at Vlad before continuing. “Nathan grabbed one of Meg’s ankles to hold her, and she jerked her leg away from him. That’s when his teeth—a tooth—scraped her through her sock. We didn’t realize anything had changed until she stopped struggling and …” Nyx hesitated.

“She started smelling lusty,” Nathan said.

Simon snarled, and his canines lengthened as he turned toward the Wolf he had trusted to guard Meg.

“I wasn’t trying to smell her,” Nathan protested.

“She stopped struggling and started saying the same things over and over,” Nyx said. “Glass jar. Smoke. Pickles. Hand.”

Erebus hissed. The sudden rage filling his old-man face made it terrible to see. As a friendly warning, Vlad had hinted a few times over the years that Erebus ruled more than the Sanguinati in the Lakeside Courtyard. Was, in fact, the dominant vampire in more than the Northeast Region.

For all Simon knew, Erebus could be the one giving orders to every Sanguinati on the whole continent of Thaisia.

“That’s all Meg saw?” Vlad asked, sounding puzzled.

“She saw enough,” Erebus snarled.

“Wait a minute,” Tess said. “I read this. It’s a horror story written by one of the terra indigene, I think. A Sanguinati goes out hunting one night in his smoke form. As he closes in on his prey, the human swipes at the smoke, traps some of it in a glass jar, and manages to run away. When the Sanguinati shifts back to human form, the smoke in the jar turns into a hand—the same hand the Sanguinati is now missing.”

“A truth and a warning hidden as a story,” Erebus said.

Everyone froze.

“That’s possible?” Simon said, turning toward Vlad, who looked shocked.

Vlad swallowed hard. “A horror novel published last month and written by a human had a similar storyline. I didn’t mention the book to any of you because I didn’t think such a thing was possible.”

“It is possible.” Erebus stared at Vlad. “You will give me the name of that human.”

“If the human dies suddenly, it will give weight to the story,” Simon said.

“You will give me the name of that human,” Erebus said again.

Simon looked at Vlad and nodded. The terra indigene who lived in the Courtyards were always at risk from the humans they watched. If the human who wrote the story knew this was an effective way to harm Sanguinati, he had gotten the information from somewhere or someone. Even if he made it up, there would be humans foolish enough to try to capture a vampire in a jar just to see if it could be done. And if even one human was successful … “Vlad and I will look for other books with similar stories—especially anything written by humans.”

“Why now?” Tess asked. “Why are stories about trapping Sanguinati being published now?”

“There have always been such stories,” Erebus said. “We will deal with this as we have done in the past.”

“How is that?” Simon asked.

“By giving humans a reason to tell a different kind of story.” Erebus looked at Nathan. “As for the Wolf …”

“My decision,” Simon said. “And Meg’s. If she wants Nathan to remain as the office’s watch Wolf, then he’ll remain.” He met Erebus’s eyes, refusing to back down. Erebus might be the leader of all the Sanguinati in this part of Thaisia, but he was the leader of this Courtyard.

“Yes,” Erebus finally said. “I will accept your decision.”

More truthful, Erebus felt a mix of wariness and affection for Meg, so he would abide by her decision.

“In that case, Lieutenant Montgomery will be here soon to talk to Jenni, Starr, and Julia about what they saw when the humans ran over the crows on the baited street. I’ll talk to Meg.” Simon took a step toward the door, then stopped. “And everyone in this room is going to think about why Meg went crazy twice in one morning!”

“She did not go crazy, Simon,” Henry growled.

“She was grabbing for the razor when she was already out of control,” Simon growled in return. “What do you call it?”

Not waiting for an answer, he strode out of the room, then rushed to the Liaison’s Office. John and Meg were in the sorting room. When Simon walked in, she bristled and said, “It wasn’t Nathan’s fault.”

“Go back to work,” Simon told John. He waited for the other Wolf to leave, then took a position on the opposite side of the sorting table from Meg. It occurred to him that they often had the table between them when they had something to discuss.

How many other terra indigene instinctively did the same thing in order to avoid touching her skin during a potential argument?

When Simon was sure they were alone, he said, “Let’s see the wound.”

“It’s not a wound. It’s barely a scratch.” Meg sounded snappish in the way of many small creatures when they were cornered and tried to sound threatening.

“It bled,” he snapped in return, showing teeth that were a little too long to be human. “It bled enough for you to slip into speaking prophecy, so let me see the wound.”

“Well, you can’t see it when you’re standing over there.” Snappish. Defensive. Scared.

Why scared? He wouldn’t hurt her. Okay, he used to threaten to eat her because she annoyed and confused him so much, but that was before she almost died leading the enemy away from Sam. Besides, he’d sensed from the very beginning that she was not prey and, therefore, not edible.

As he walked around the table, she put her right foot on the top step of the step stool she used to reach the higher mail slots in the sorting room’s back wall. She pushed down her sock.

He crouched to take a look. She’d smeared her ankle with the stinky ointment humans used when they got hurt. To him, that medicine smell meant wound. But the scrape above her ankle bone? She could have done that brushing against a branch or a stone. Definitely not a bite. Just a layer or two of skin stripped off by a tooth. Just enough for blood to replace the missing skin.

Is she really that fragile? Simon thought as he studied the scrape. Can it take so little to damage her? Then again, her skin had split just because the winter air was dry.

How could she live among them? How could she play with Sam—or with him? No matter how careful they were, there would be bumps, scrapes, nicks. How long could she survive? It was said the cassandra sangue’s body had a thousand cuts. Was that just the cuts with the razor, or did every little scrape count as well?

As soon as he stood, she pulled up her sock and moved away from the step stool.

“It wasn’t Nathan’s fault,” she said. “If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine. I needed to cut. Something was going to burst inside me if I couldn’t get it out.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Did something happen to one of the Sanguinati?”

“No.” But it could have. Vlad had gone off alone without telling anyone anything, not even the direction he was heading. If he hadn’t been called back … “No, all the Sanguinati are back in the Courtyard.” He took a step toward her, immediately stopping when she tensed. “Meg, this isn’t good for you. Twice in one day? There has to be something you can do, that we can do.”

“What? Put me in a cage?”

He flinched. “I’ve had enough of cages.” He’d kept his nephew Sam in a cage for two years after Daphne was killed. It had been the only way to keep the pup safe. That had been a strain on all the Wolfgard living in the Courtyard. He wasn’t going to do it again—even if it meant letting Meg die young. “If you cut when you’re out of control, you could kill yourself.” He might have to let it happen, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight against it.

“I know.” She hesitated. “I want to think about this for a little bit.”

She sounded dismissive. Resentment swelled up inside him.

“Why are you shutting me out?” he shouted.

She jolted, looking as skittish as a lame rabbit. Then her gray eyes lit with anger. “I’m shutting you out? I tell you I’m not ready to have sex, and you treat me like I’m diseased!”

“What?” Shit, fuck, damn. Females! “I thought we settled this. And I wasn’t treating you like you were diseased. That’s ridiculous.”

“On Earthday, you didn’t invite me to take a walk with you and Sam. And when I came over for movie night, you were so distant, like you didn’t want to be bothered with me anymore.” Her eyes filled with tears.

Not fair, Meg. That is so not fair! “I wasn’t being distant. I was trying to be polite!” He paced for a minute, snarling under his breath. “There are always rules and more rules when it comes to dealing with humans. But I don’t know the rules for this because I’ve never had a human friend. I like spending time with you and playing with you. I like the way the three of us cuddle together on the sofa when we watch a movie. Those things are important to me.”

“They’re important to me too,” Meg said, sniffling as she wiped a tear off her cheek.

“Then why can’t we do that?” he asked, trying not to whine.

She looked away, her brow furrowed like she was thinking hard. “The other morning, why did you shift to human and get into bed with me?”

They were back to that? Really? “To talk to you. To find out what had scared you so much that you kicked me off the bed.” He growled in frustration. “All I wanted was my share of the covers.”

“But you have fur.”

“Not in this form.” He waved a hand to indicate his body. “Humans get upset when they see terra indigene in between forms, and you were already upset. I keep trying to be polite, and you keep slamming my tail in the door. Not my actual tail but … you know.” Did she know? With Meg it was hard to tell.

He huffed out a breath. “I just wanted to talk.” Human females were supposed to like talking. But Meg hadn’t been raised like a typical human female, so maybe this talking wasn’t any more natural to her than it was to him.

“You can’t communicate the way terra indigene can with each other, so I couldn’t talk to you in Wolf form,” he continued. “That’s the only reason I shifted. And I didn’t think cuddling for warmth would be a problem when you were okay with it when I was Wolf.”

He waited, giving her time to absorb what he’d said. That’s what Meg did. She absorbed images, sounds, experiences, and those things became the touchstones she used to convey what she saw in prophecies. But more than that, right now he wanted her to understand for herself why her friendship was important to him.

“A leader needs to look beyond his own kind, needs the obedience of everyone in the Courtyard because we’re surrounded by the enemy.”

“Who are, in turn, surrounded by the rest of the terra indigene,” Meg replied thoughtfully.

Simon nodded. “We’re here to watch the humans and to acquire the things humans make that we want to have. We may all be earth natives, but we aren’t the same kind of earth natives. And although we’ll stand together against the common enemy, not all Courtyards are … pleasant … places to live. When a leader spends too much time with his own kind, he’s not always trusted by the rest of the terra indigene living in that Courtyard.”

Meg said nothing. Then, “You’re lonely, aren’t you? But you have friends here, Simon.”

“I don’t want to cuddle up to Henry. Or Vlad.”

He could see her taking that in. Leader. Lonely. But not as lonely since Meg had come to the Courtyard.

“You want to be friends again?” she asked, studying him.

“Being friends isn’t a small thing, Meg.”

“No, it’s not a small thing.” She gave him a tentative smile. “But maybe we could have a friend rule to avoid confusion if you need to talk to me.”

He hadn’t been confused until she started acting weird about his shifting to human the morning she dreamed about the Crows, but he said, “All right. Like what?”

A genuine smile this time. “I don’t know. I’ll think about that too.” The smile faded. “Can Nathan come back and be watch Wolf?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll tell him he can come back. But, Meg? I want some rules too about you using the razor when you’re too upset to think straight.”

She hesitated. “It’s important for me to have the razor, to be the one who chooses.”

“I know that.” He hadn’t forgotten her telling him she could use anything to cut her skin. At the time it had been a threat to force him to return the razor that had her designation, cs759, engraved on one side of the handle. Now, realizing how many things she could use to violate her skin, he saw the razor as a necessary evil—a thin, precise blade honed so sharp it did the least amount of damage.

But every cut brought her closer to the one that would kill her.

Vlad said.

“I have to go. The police want to talk to Jenni, Starr, and Julia. I’ll send Nathan over.”

As he turned to leave, Meg said, “Simon? Nyx didn’t mean to hurt me either. Just so you know now and don’t get mad about it later.”

He turned back and saw her push up her sleeves. He stared at the dark bruises on both of her wrists. Sanguinati were strong. So were Wolves. But Nyx wouldn’t have held on with more force than necessary. How hard had Meg struggled to get those kinds of bruises?

“You think hard about why things went out of control today,” he said softly. “You think real hard.”

And so will I.