Murder of Crows

CHAPTER 4

The Controller walked through the corridors of the compound, nodding to his staff as he made his way to one of the prophecy rooms. Dressed in a tailored three-piece suit, crisp shirt, and subtly patterned tie, he looked like a CEO of one of the top businesses on the continent.

In a sense, he was. His great-grandfather had started the family business as an institution for the preservation of an odd branch of humans who could foresee the future when they were injured. The girls could, anyway. The boys carried the seeds of that ability but not the ability itself. So little by little, the institution became a haven for the girls who would otherwise be shunned at best or, at worst, stoned or burned because of fear of what they knew and would say.

Great-grandfather had been praised as a humanitarian by some and condemned as a profiteer by others. But caring for the girls cost money, so what was wrong with using the knowledge that was gained when they deliberately hurt themselves in order to experience euphoria? Especially when that foreknowledge didn’t harm anyone else?

Of course, businesses had sometimes soared or crashed depending on whether or not Great-grandfather bought into or sold his shares in a particular company. And yet, overall, little changed in the pieces of the world humans had some control over. Yes, there were inventions, innovations, new skills and technologies. But no matter how fancy it all looked or how large the city, humans were still closing the equivalent of stockade doors at night and shivering in fear of what watched them from the woods and fields.

Great-grandfather had been a humanitarian. Grandfather had been a businessman more interested in profit, and he discovered that a few other families who were saddled with these dependents were also looking to shake off their humanitarian roots and acquire some serious wealth—the kind of wealth that could have an impact on the world.

Laws supporting “benevolent ownership” were passed in the regions where these prophet barons resided. People were hired to teach the girls, look after the girls, even breed the girls and sort the offspring. Benevolence turned into a very profitable business, and the compounds changed into an open secret among wealthy, discreet clients as cutting the girls’ skin became a regular, controlled procedure.

But you couldn’t breed out all the undesirable tendencies without losing some of the abilities, and it was unfortunately true that intelligence and a tendency toward defiance were linked with the sensitivity to produce the very best prophecies, and none of the efforts of the breeding program had been able to change that. And sometimes fresh blood was needed to revitalize the stock, which was why young girls were occasionally acquired from parents who were frightened by the girls’ unnerving addiction to cutting themselves. Sometimes parents gave up a girl willingly, sometimes not. But even if they hadn’t been willing, they seldom reported an abduction. After all, if the local government discovered why a girl had been taken, the whole family could be placed under benevolent ownership—for their own good, of course, because that tendency to cut did run in families.

He had expenses and overhead just like any other business. But he no longer had to put down the girls who were difficult to handle and didn’t have enough viable skin left to be worth their upkeep. Those girls were now the source of a different kind of product.

Don’t always sell the best and use the scrap girls for yourself, his grandfather had said. Your future is just as important as your clients.

Sound business advice. Even sound personal advice. That was why twice a month he selected two girls to provide prophecies about his own interests. A year ago, he began hearing the letters HFL in those prophecies. Only in the past few months had those letters made sense as talk about the Humans First and Last movement became included in the background discussions he sometimes had with his more influential clients.

For a man who owned prophets, it wasn’t a fluke that becoming aware of the movement coincided with the discovery that there was more swimming in the blood of the cassandra sangue than prophecies.

The Controller opened the door to a prophecy room and took his seat as the staff strapped the first girl into the chair.

Opening a notebook, he removed a pen from his inside jacket pocket and said, “My new business venture. What is the next step?”

He repeated the words over and over while the Cutter selected a spot on the left thigh and used the girl’s personal razor to slice the fresh skin exactly one-quarter inch from the scar made by a previous cut.

Her face twisted with the terrible pain that came before the first words of prophecy were spoken. Then the girl began to speak, and pain changed to the addictive euphoria that appeared similar to sexual arousal and orgasm.

“Man looking in a mirror. Little bits of paper on his face, spotted red. Fluffy cat clawing a chair cushion. Letters H, F, L.” She moaned, her pelvis tipping up in invitation despite the straps holding her to the chair.

So little for a thigh cut, he thought angrily. “Take her back to her cell and prepare the second girl. I’ll return in a few minutes.”

He went to his office and turned on his computer. While he waited, he made a list of words that were associated with those images. “Cut, scrape, nick” for the first image. “Claw” and “scratch” for the second. Once he got online, he used a search program and played with combinations of the words. Nothing and nothing. Then he typed in “nick,” “scratch,” and “HFL.”

And there it was. Nicholas Scratch. Recently arrived from the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations. Currently staying in the city of Toland to give several talks about the Humans First and Last movement.

The Controller smiled. Nicholas Scratch wouldn’t be easy to reach, but he would reach the man. No matter what face they put on the movement publicly, Humans First and Last was the spearhead for the fight to wrest the world away from the terra indigene’s control, and he was the only person who could supply them with ingenious weapons that could make that possible.

For the trial runs, feel-good and gone over wolf were dirty street drugs. But he wouldn’t be selling the HFL movement drugs for their armies. No, he would provide them with pharmaceutical enhancements that would, on the one hand, soften the enemy and, on the other hand, create a berserk army that wouldn’t hesitate to face the terra indigene for the glory of the human race.

Yes, contacting Nicholas Scratch was the next step for his new business.

Pleased, the Controller returned to the room for the second prophecy. While technically also a business question, it felt personal because cs759, the bitch who called herself Meg Corbyn, was still free. And even though every cut brought them one step closer to dying, blood prophets in the wild could be powerful enemies. That she was speaking prophecies for the Others made her, and them, too dangerous. Especially now. So he needed to reacquire her—or kill her—before she saw a prophecy that exposed his new business and his intended association with the HFL movement.

“Tell me about the Wolf at Lakeside,” he said. “What happens to the leader of the Lakeside Courtyard?”

The blood flowed, and the prophecy flowed with it. But this time, instead of speaking, the girl struggled to free herself from the straps and the chair.

“What happens to the Wolf?” the Controller said in a commanding voice. “Tell me about the Wolf!”

The girl looked at him and never stopped screaming.

“That’s enough from this one. Patch her up.”

“Why are we collecting the nose blood? It’s got snot in it.”

Sharp, hard laugh. “Who cares? The ones who are going to buy it and swallow a slug of it won’t know that. He wants everything from this one. She’s the most potent producer we’ve got. Guess being crazy makes the product even better.”

She listened to them talk about her, but the words didn’t matter any more than the few pumps it took for them to ejaculate inside her. Sometimes they slapped her, taunted her, pushed her into anger. Other times, they used fists to draw blood from the injuries as well as the cuts. They were cutting her too close to previous scars or cutting across old scars. Either way, whatever she screamed had no meaning to anyone.

Except her.

She didn’t fight them when they sealed up the cuts and dealt with the bleeding nose. She was passive now, drained of strength and prophecy.

“See you soon, cs747,” one of the Walking Names said, giving her an evil leer. “You’re still worth a bit of cash, so don’t die on us.”

I’m not the one who’s going to die, she thought as she heard the door of her cell close, heard the key turn in the lock. I’ve seen … so many things. A white coat who is more than a Walking Name, a man with salt-and-pepper hair. A dark-skinned man riding in a police car. And the Wolf. I’ve seen Meg’s Wolf.

So many things were going to happen because of Meg and her Wolf.

“I’m not cs747,” she whispered defiantly as she shifted on her cot in order to lean back against the wall. “My name is Jean.”