Murder of Crows

CHAPTER 30

They drove for several hours before they turned onto an access road that wasn’t used by humans. A short time later, the minivan pulled up within sight of the compound, at a spot where Joe Wolfgard waited for them.

The Wolves who had been their drivers and escorts got out and joined their leader.

“Stay here,” Simon told Montgomery and Lorenzo. Then he got out of the minivan and approached Joe.

“This isn’t your territory,” Joe said. “We appreciate the help you gave us to locate the enemy, but this isn’t your fight.”

“Not my territory, not my fight,” Simon agreed. “But a common enemy.”

“Yes,” Joe said. He hesitated, as if trying to decide what should be said. “I was one of the leaders who made a promise to your Meg.”

“I made a promise too.”

Joe nodded. “When the enemy is dead, you can come in and hunt for the promise. Will that satisfy your Meg?”

That will depend on the outcome, Simon thought. But he said, “That will satisfy her.”

Needing to know what was happening, Monty stepped down from the minivan. The Wolves had left the van’s parking lights on. That probably wasn’t for the Others’ benefit, since they all seemed to have excellent night vision. He thought it was considerate of them to provide light for their human guests. Then he saw them and wished they hadn’t been considerate.

Three of the Wolves had stripped off jackets and shirts and then shifted their torsos into a furred and muscled shape that accommodated heads that were fully Wolf. They looked at Monty and growled. Then they ran toward the compound.

“Gods above and below,” Lorenzo breathed as he stepped down beside Monty.

“I’m not sure the gods are going to listen to us today,” Monty said as Simon tipped his head back and howled.

Earth, riding Twister, smashed through a part of the compound’s wall, and the Wolves followed, slaughtering everyone in their path. Water followed on Fog, blinding the humans who guarded the gates of the enemy’s lair, leaving them vulnerable to the Crows, Hawks, and Owls. Air shook the buildings and rattled all the windows, finding the tiniest openings. The Sanguinati, in smoke form, followed Air. They surrounded the security guards armed with guns, drinking enough blood to render them unconscious. Shifting into human form, they opened the doors for the Wolves.

And then things got messy.

The ground shook. The wind roared.

Jean sat up in bed. Her cell wasn’t near any of the main corridors of the building, but she could still hear the Walking Names shouting and pleading and screaming.

She reached out and pushed the light switch on the wall. Once her eyes adjusted, she studied the dresser.

Most of the drawers held clothing or items for personal hygiene. But one drawer had a lock, and the Walking Names kept the key. It was just another way to tease and torment the girls.

She stood, then waited a moment to let her damaged foot accept her weight. A few shuffled steps took her from bed to dresser. She ignored the screams outside her cell and pulled the drawer open. Then she picked up the folding razor.

Pretty flowers on one side of the silver handle. A lie.

The plain designation, cs747, on the other side. Truth.

The ground shaking, the wind roaring, the screams, and the drawer that should have been locked but wasn’t. She knew what they meant.

“It’s the end,” she whispered.

Holding the razor, Jean went back to her bed and sat down to wait.

The Controller swallowed another dose of gone over wolf, slapped a fresh magazine into his pistol, then ran through a corridor filled with nightmares that would make the dark gods rejoice.

A Wolf turned toward him. He fired into its mouth and kept running, barely able to restrain his own howl of triumph as his enemy fell.

Had to get to the special room. Had more weapons there. Had victory there. It had taken three cuts on that bitch cs747 to get enough useful images to ensure his escape. He hadn’t told his staff about the attack; the chaos and slaughter were necessary for his own survival. Staff, like prophets, could be replaced. But the knowledge and skill he could offer the Humans First and Last movement were irreplaceable.

He fired again and again, hitting his own people, hitting the Others. What did it matter? He was glorious, invincible. He was the answer humans had been waiting for!

He rushed into the room that held the key to his freedom. As he stumbled over a smoldering body, he saw the automatic rifle nearby, saw the spent casings littering the floor. The weapon he’d counted on was useless!

Movement at the corner of his eye. He turned, firing his pistol at the blaze that suddenly surrounded his torso. Smoke covered his face and acquired fangs that sank into his neck. Released by Fire, the Controller stumbled forward before being knocked back when something with a Panther’s head swiped at his belly, ripping it open. As he fell, a Wolf grabbed his wrist, biting through bone and charred flesh while the Panther bit through his other arm.

Then the vampire, Wolf, and Panther screamed in rage and ran out of the room, juiced with a double dose of gone over wolf, while the Controller lay on the floor, burned, bleeding, broken. Dying.

Understanding.

That bitch cs747. Somehow she’d managed to tell him only part of what she’d seen. Instead of showing him how to escape the attack, she’d identified images that would lead him into a trap.

That … bitch … lied to him.

Monty couldn’t see much from where he stood with Lorenzo and Simon Wolfgard. But he heard more than enough.

Gunfire, quickly silenced.

Screams, prolonged and terrible.

And all of it over too fast to give a human any hope.

Then the Wolves howled, and the fog vanished as if it had never been.

“Time for us to go in,” Simon said as he started walking toward the compound.

Sirens in the distance, coming closer. Horses and riders moving toward the smashed gates of the compound.

“Should I wait at the gate and talk to the police?” Monty asked.

“The Elementals are going to deal with the police,” Simon replied. “The Midwest terra indigene want all three of us over here.” He pointed at one of the buildings.

Monty figured Dominic Lorenzo had seen some bad things as an emergency room doctor. As a police officer, he had seen some too. But neither of them had ever seen anything like what the terra indigene could—and would—do to humans they hated.

Walls splashed with blood. Floors slick with gore. But as he stood there, too stunned to move, he watched a Wolfman tear off the sleeves of a white medical coat and the shirt underneath, rip the arm off at the shoulder, and take a bite while another Wolf …

“He’s eating that man’s liver,” Lorenzo said in a voice that had the calm of someone too shocked to feel.

One of the Wolves shifted back to a mostly human head and stood up. As he gave his bloody paws a couple of licks, Monty realized it was Joe Wolfgard.

Joe said, “It’s good meat.” Then he looked at Simon. “Do you hear them?”

“I hear them.”

Monty suddenly noticed that Simon’s ears were Wolf-shaped and furry. That change struck him as almost comical compared to everything around them. “What do you hear?” he asked.

“The girls.”

Simon said.

Joe protested.

Simon said. There would be plenty of time to explain to Lieutenant Montgomery and Dr. Lorenzo that he had included police and doctors in that promise. It was the only way to give the two men a reward for standing witness to the destruction of the enemy called the Controller.

Monty watched Joe’s paws shift into something resembling hands. The Wolf held up two digits. “You can each take two girls.”

“Six girls?” Monty said. “There are only six girls in the compound?” Left alive? he added silently.

“You can take six,” Joe repeated.

“What about the other girls?” Lorenzo asked. “They’ll need …”

“Six or none,” Joe snarled. “That is five more than we promised the Lakeside Wolfgard.”

“We’ll take six,” Simon said. He turned and walked away, his ears pricked toward a sound the humans couldn’t hear.

Monty hesitated; then he and Lorenzo hurried past the Wolves who were feeding on one of the bodies and caught up to Simon. The Lakeside Wolf probably wanted to feed like the rest of the Others, but Simon, at least, recognized Monty and Lorenzo as more than meat, so it was safer to stay close to him.

A stairway led down. They followed it to more corridors. Simon stopped and looked at them. Red flickered in his amber eyes, and Monty wondered how much longer he would stay in control.

“I’m only here for one,” Simon said. “The Lieutenant can choose three.”

“What will happen to the rest of the girls?” Monty asked.

“That is for the Midwest terra indigene to decide.”

“They think these girls are poison,” Lorenzo protested.

“If you try to take more than five, the terra indigene will kill them all,” Simon said. He stepped away from them and howled. Then his ears pricked and he strode down the corridor, slipping a little in the blood. He turned a corner and disappeared, leaving Monty and Lorenzo facing a corridor of locked doors.

“Gods above and below, how do we choose?” Lorenzo asked.

Monty picked up a set of keys lying next to a body and opened the door in front of him. The girl trying to hide in a corner of the room was maybe a year or two older than his daughter, Lizzy.

He thought about Meg Corbyn, struggling with an addiction to cutting that would most likely kill her while she was still young. Would she have felt compelled to cut if she’d lived in a place where she could receive some support, where her skin wasn’t a commodity?

“We choose the young,” he said, looking back at Lorenzo. “We choose the girls who will have the best chance of learning how to live in the world.”

Handing the keys to Lorenzo, he walked into the cell and crouched in front of the girl.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Lieutenant Montgomery. I can help you leave this place. Would you like that?” He held out his hand and waited.

She stared at him for a long moment. Then she put her hand in his … and broke his heart.

Simon smashed the door open, then stopped.

They would have done this to Meg, he thought, baring his teeth in a snarl.

Instead of showing fear, which would have been sensible since he’d just smashed through a door and was showing his fangs, the female smiled and said, “You’re Meg’s Wolf.”

Battered and scarred, she sat quietly on the narrow bed, her hands in her lap. One foot didn’t look right, and he wondered if she could walk on her own. She smelled foul, as if the humans had stopped caring for her and didn’t even let her try to care for herself.

“Jean?” He hoped she would deny it. How could he bring this creature back to Lakeside?

“Yes, I’m Jean. How is Meg?”

“She’s fine.” Reluctant, he stepped into the cell. “Meg is fine.”

“I helped her escape.”

“I know.”

“I’d like to ask you for a favor.”

He cocked his head to indicate he was listening.

“Don’t kill me in this room. Take me beyond these walls that I’ve hated for as long as I can remember. Beyond the compound. And use this.” She turned over her hands to reveal the silver razor. “They kept this locked in a drawer, so close yet out of reach, as a torment. But I knew that there would be a day when the Walking Names would forget to lock the drawer, and the next day Meg’s Wolf would come.” She brushed a finger over the razor. “So this is mine again. You should use it to kill me. If you bite me, it will make you sick.”

He took a step closer, then sank down to sit on his heels. “I didn’t come here to kill you. Meg asked me to take you away from here, to save you.” When she didn’t respond, he said what he thought Meg would want him to say. “She lives with us in the Lakeside Courtyard. You could come live—”

“No,” she said quickly.

He puzzled over that for a moment. “You don’t want to see Meg?” He wanted to see Meg.

“See her, yes, but not live in the same place.” Jean leaned toward him. “Meg is a kind of pioneer. Do you know that word, Wolf?”

He nodded. “The first humans to invade our land. Our first taste of the new meat.” He bared his teeth. “Meg is not a pioneer.”

Jean had a distant look in her eyes. Meg had that look when she was recalling images.

“Trailblazer,” Jean said. “Pathfinder. Someone who goes first, creating a path so that others can follow. Are those better words?”

“Better,” he agreed. At least those words didn’t mean an edible human.

“Meg needs to let go of the past.” Jean waved a hand to indicate her body. “I’m too much of a reminder, and she’ll think this happened to me because of her.”

“Did it?”

“Some of it, but it would have happened anyway. When she looks in a mirror, she has enough reminders of the past. She doesn’t need more.”

“Then what would you like?” he asked. Strange female. Crazy female? No, not really. The eyes that looked back at him didn’t belong to crazy.

“I don’t know. The images don’t make sense. Water falling. Mist rising. A sound that is a roar but not a roar. A jar of honey.”

“That’s where you’re supposed to go?”

“Yes. If I didn’t die here, that’s what I saw as my future.”

“Then it does make sense.” Simon stood and held out his hand. “I know that place. The people who live there are called Intuits. They can help you—and I think you can help them too.”

She held out the razor. “Hold on to that.”

He took the razor and shoved it into his pocket, not asking why she would let it go now that she’d just regained possession of it. Meg got nervous when she didn’t have control of her razor.

Meg the Pathfinder. The one who could show all of them the new path toward Thaisia’s future? That was a large burden for one short female, but he would help her. Somehow. He just hoped Meg leading the way didn’t mean all the blood prophets would do strange things to their hair.

“Time to go,” he said.

Jean struggled to her feet. She could walk, but she couldn’t have run away. Pity stirred in him. Had she seen what would happen to her after she helped Meg escape? Probably. And she’d said nothing so that Meg would run and not look back.

He let her hold his arm to help her walk. But he stopped at the doorway. “It’s bad out there. Maybe you should close your eyes.”

“Wolf,” she said gently, “I’ve already seen it.”