Written in Red

  “I’d like to make a copy of this and take it to Mr. Wolfgard,” Monty said. “I’ll show it to him and let him decide.”

  “Just remember, that woman is the only one who knows where the stolen property is hidden. We need a live person, not a DLU. Make sure he understands that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get your copy made and keep me informed.”

  Monty took the poster, made his copy, and returned the original to Burke. When he finished, he found Kowalski leaning a hip against his desk.

  “We’re going to the bookstore,” Monty said.

  “Going to ask about the Wolf sightings?” Kowalski asked.

  Monty carefully folded the Most Wanted poster into quarters and tucked it in the pocket of his sports jacket. “Something like that.”

  As they drove to Howling Good Reads, Monty considered various ways to approach Simon Wolfgard with this information. He didn’t know if there was a way to get the result the mayor and governor wanted, but he did know one thing: if the Others chose not to cooperate, that Most Wanted poster could be as dangerous to the humans in Lakeside as barrels of poison were to another city a couple generations ago.

  * * *

  Simon pulled all the slips of paper out of the envelope and arranged them on the counter according to gard. Most were book orders from the terra indigene settlements that were serviced by the Lakeside Courtyard. A few were orders that he’d pass along to other stores in the Market Square.

  Like telephones, electronic mail through the computers was a useful way to communicate when information had to travel from one Courtyard to another quickly or when dealing with humans. But terra indigene who didn’t have to deal with the monkeys had only a passing interest in electrical things, so a territory that covered three times the area of the city of Lakeside might have a dozen buildings that had phone lines and the electricity for computers. Except in emergencies, most Others still used paper when sending an order or request to a Courtyard.

  A Little Bite always did a brisk business on Moonsday mornings, but HGR was usually quiet until lunchtime, which was why he set aside this time for filling orders. Retrieving a cart from the back room—and taking a moment to make sure Heather was actually working and not curled up somewhere in an effort to hide from him—Simon returned to the front of the store. After a quick scan of titles, he rolled the cart to the new-books display and filled the top shelf with a handful of each book. Then he rolled the cart back to the counter, picked up the first slip of paper, and began filling the order.

  “Rubber bands,” he muttered. Rubber bands were small, useful items and were a perk that came with placing an order. Even if only one book was ordered, he sent it out with a rubber band around it.

  Before he could vault back over the counter to get the bag of rubber bands, the door opened and Lieutenant Montgomery walked in.

  The lieutenant and his men had been very much in sight since that first meeting last Thaisday. Not a dominance challenge or anything foolish like that. More like a quiet version of a Wolf howl—a way to say we are here. Kowalski had come in and bought a couple of the horror books the day after the arguments had closed HGR and A Little Bite.

  Simon wasn’t sure Kowalski or his female was interested in those kinds of books or if it had been an excuse to look around. He had a feeling the police officer had been as relieved not to see any fresh bloodstains as the other customers were disappointed by that lack of excitement.

  The lieutenant approached the counter. “Mr. Wolfgard.”

  “Lieutenant Montgomery.” Simon absorbed the look on the face, the expression in the dark eyes, and the smell of nerves that wasn’t quite fear. “You aren’t here to buy a book.”

  “No, sir, I’m not.” Montgomery pulled a piece of paper out of his sports coat pocket, unfolded it, and set it on the counter between them. “I came to show you this.”

  His mind took in the words most wanted and grand theft, but what he saw was the picture of Meg.

  He didn’t realize he was snarling until Montgomery eased away from him, a hand brushing the overcoat and sports jacket out of the way in order to reach the gun. Knowing what he would do if the hand touched the gun, he stared hard into Montgomery’s eyes. The man instinctively froze, not even daring to breathe.

  Satisfied that Montgomery wouldn’t do anything foolish—at least not right now—Simon looked at the poster again.

  “It’s not a fuzzy picture,” he said after a moment. “So why is there no name?”

  Montgomery shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I watch your news shows sometimes. When you catch a picture of someone stealing in a store or bank and don’t know them, the picture is fuzzy. When you have a picture like that”—he pointed at the poster—“the police always know the name of their prey.”

  He’d known she was running from someone. He’d known Meg Corbyn wasn’t her name. He should have let her freeze in the snow instead of taking her in. But now that she was in, what happened to her was his decision.

  “Why is there no name?” Simon asked again.

  He watched Montgomery study the poster and smelled the man’s uneasiness.

  “Looks like an ID photo, doesn’t it?” Montgomery said softly. “Like a driver’s license photo or . . .” He reached into a pocket, pulled out the leather holder, and flipped it open to show his own ID. Then he put the holder back in his pocket. “If someone could supply that kind of photo, why wouldn’t they be able to supply the name?”

  Simon was going to get an answer to that question. He’d decide later if that answer was something he would share with humans.

  Taking the poster, he refolded it and slipped it into his trouser pocket. “I’ll talk to the members of our Business Association. If we have any information about this person, we’ll let you know.”

  “I must emphasize that we’re looking to apprehend and question this person about the theft.”

  Simon smiled, deliberately showing his teeth—especially the canines that he hadn’t been able to get all the way back to human size. “I understand. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Lieutenant Montgomery. We’ll be in touch.”

  Dismay. Worry. But Montgomery had sense enough to walk out of the store without further argument. There was nothing the police could do about whatever happened in the Courtyard.

  He waited a few moments, then called Vlad.

  “Simon,” Vlad said. “Nyx and I need to talk to you.”

  “Later,” Simon replied, trying not to snap. “The Business Association has something to discuss. I need you to call them. I want everyone who’s available in the meeting room in an hour. And call Blair and Jester. I want them there too. And a representative from the Owlgard, Hawkgard, and Crowgard.”

  “Anyone else?” Vlad asked quietly.

  He knew why Vlad asked the question, just like he knew which group of terra indigene was being left out of this discussion. But they were never interested in such things.

  “No, that should be sufficient,” Simon said.

  “In an hour, then. But, Simon, we still need to talk. It’s important.”

  Simon hung up. Then he shouted for Heather, passing her on his way to the stockroom. “Man the register and work on filling the orders. Call John. Tell him to come in.”

  He put on his coat and boots for the walk to the Liaison’s Office. That was acting civilized and controlled. If he didn’t stay in control . . .

  She lied to him.

  . . . he was going to shift to Wolf, and they would never be able to clean up the blood well enough to hire someone else after he tore her throat out so she couldn’t lie to him anymore.

  The office’s back door wasn’t locked, so he slipped inside, removed his boots, and padded across the back room in his socks. He could hear low music even through the clo
sed door that connected to the sorting room. As he entered the room, he saw Meg take a CD out of the player and say, “I don’t like that music.”

  “Then why listen to it?” he asked.

  She whirled around, wobbling to keep her balance. She put the CD back in its case and made a notation on a notebook sitting next to the player before answering him. “I’m listening to a variety of music to discover what I like.”

  Why don’t you know what you like?

  “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Wolfgard? Today’s mailbag hasn’t arrived yet, but there are a few pieces of old mail. I put them in HGR’s spot.” She indicated the cubbyholes in the sorting room’s back wall. “Also, I’m still not clear if the ponies deliver mail to the Market Square businesses or if someone from the businesses is supposed to stop in for that mail.”

  Right now he didn’t care about the mail or packages or any other damn monkey thing.

  He took the poster out of his pocket, opened it, and set it on the table. “No more lies,” he said, his voice a growl of restrained menace. “What happens next will depend on whether you answer two questions honestly.”

  She stared at the poster. Her face paled. She swayed, and he told himself to let the bitch fall if she fainted.

  “He found me,” she whispered. “I wondered after the other night, but I thought . . . hoped . . .” She swallowed, then looked at him. “What do you want to know?”

  The bleakness in her eyes made him just as angry as her lies.

  “What was your name, and what did you steal?” Couldn’t have been a small thing. They wouldn’t be hunting for her like this if it was a small thing.

  “My name is Meg Corbyn.”

  “That’s the name you took when you came here,” he snapped. “What was it before?”

  Her expression was an odd blend of anger and pride. It made him wary because it reminded him that she was inexplicably not prey.

  “My designation was cs759,” she said.

  “That’s not a name!”

  “No, it isn’t. But it’s all they gave me. All they gave any of us. A designation. People give names to their pets, but property isn’t deserving of a name. If you give them designations instead of names, then you don’t have to think about what you’re doing to them, don’t have to consider if property has feelings when you . . .”

  Her eyes stayed locked on his, despite her sudden effort to breathe.

  Simon stayed perfectly still. If he moved, fangs and fury would break loose. What did they do to you, Meg?

  “As for what I stole, I took this.” She pulled something out of her pocket and set it on the wanted poster.

  He picked it up. Silver. One side was decorated with pretty leaves and flowers. The other side had cs759 engraved into it in plain lettering. He found the spot that accommodated a fingernail and opened the thing to reveal the shining blade of a thin razor.

  He had seen one of these twenty years ago. Seeing another one now made him shiver.

  “It’s pretty, but it can’t be worth all that much.” His voice sounded rough, uncertain. He felt as if he’d been chasing a rabbit that suddenly turned into a Grizzly. Something wasn’t right about this. So many things weren’t right about this.

  “By itself, it probably isn’t worth much,” Meg replied. “The second thing I stole is this.” She pulled off her sweater and tossed it aside. She pushed up the left sleeve of the turtleneck until it was above her elbow. Then she held out her arm.

  He stared at the evenly spaced scars.

  An old woman, her bare arms browned by the sun so the thin scars showed white, sitting behind a little table where she set out cards and told fortunes to earn the money that paid for her room and board. A little community of humans who eked out a living at the edge of an earth-native settlement that amused itself by taking tourists into the wilds for pictures and stories and sometimes even movies that would be shown in theaters. Some taught the Others basic skills like weaving or carpentry. Some assisted with the tours. And there were always a few who were looking for an excuse to die and were just biding their time, knowing the Wolves and Grizzlies would oblige them eventually.

  She sat there in the baking sun, her head covered by a straw hat, smiling at the youngsters, human and Other, who laughed at her as they went by in their various groups.

  But he hadn’t laughed, hadn’t walked by. The scars intrigued him, bothered him. The look in her eyes unnerved him. And then . . .

  “Not much good skin left, but this was meant for you . . .”

  The silver razor flashed in the sun as she took it from the pocket of her dress. A precise cut on her cheek, its distance from an existing scar the width of the blade.

  What he saw that day, what she said that day, had shaped his life.

  “Blood prophet,” Simon whispered as he continued to stare at Meg. “You’re a cassandra sangue.”

  “Yes,” she replied, lowering her arm and pushing down her sleeve.

  “But . . . why did you run? Your kind live in special places. You’re pampered, given the best of . . .”

  “Whether you’re beaten or pampered, fed the best foods or starved, kept in filth or kept clean, a cage is still a cage,” Meg said with fierce passion. “We are taught what the Walking Names want us to know because what good is a prophet if she can’t describe what she sees? We sit in classrooms, day after day, looking at pictures that describe things that exist in the world, but we’re never allowed to know one another, never allowed to have friends, never allowed to speak unless it’s part of an exercise. We are told when to eat, when to sleep, when to walk on the treadmill for exercise. They even schedule when we take a shit! We are alive, but we’re never allowed to live. How long would you last if you were kept like that?”

  She was shaking. He couldn’t tell if she was cold or upset, even when she retrieved the sweater and put it on.

  “Why don’t more of you run away?” he asked.

  “I guess living in a cage and not having a name doesn’t bother most of them. Besides, where would they go?” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Will you let me stay until dark? I might be able to slip past whoever the Controller sent after me if I can stay here until dark.”

  Simon tipped his head, struggling to understand her. “You’re going to run again?”

  Now she looked at him. “I would rather die than go back there.”

  A quiet statement. The honesty scared him because there was a little too much Wolf in her voice when she said those words. She wasn’t terra indigene, but she also wasn’t human like other humans. She was a confusion, and until he understood more, all he had to work with was instinct.

  A few days ago, she came looking for a job because she wanted to live. If that wasn’t true, she would have gone to sleep in a snowbank somewhere. Now she was willing to die?

  He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

  He pocketed the silver razor and the wanted poster.

  “The razor is mine,” she protested.

  “Then you’ll have to stay until I give it back.”

  “Mr. Wolfgard . . .”

  “You’re staying, Meg,” he snarled. “Until I say different, you’re staying.” He heard a truck pull in, then another. “You’ve got work.”

  As he passed through the back room, he grabbed his boots but didn’t stop to put them on. Instead, he ran back to HGR.

  Cs759. The meaning of the letters was clear enough. He didn’t want to think about the significance of the number.

  That Controller was trying to set the police on her trail. Were other kinds of hunters searching for Meg? Was it a hired predator who had tried to break in the other night?

  After telling John and Heather he was back, he went up to his office and put on dry socks. While he waited for the members of the Business Assoc
iation to arrive for the meeting, he stared out the window that gave him a view of the Liaison’s Office.

  Power. When the terra indigene dealt with humans, it always came down to power and potential conflict.

  He was the leader of the Lakeside Courtyard and what he wanted would carry weight, but this choice was too big for him to make alone.

  * * *

  Meg turned off the CD player. There was no point in playing music to learn what she liked. Instead, she pulled mail out of the last old sack and tried to keep her mind on sorting it, on finishing something before she herself was finished.

  A white room and one of those awful beds. And Simon Wolfgard. She had seen those things in the prophecy that had revealed her own future.

  Was he going to hand her over to the Controller, maybe even barter for some prophecies? Or now that he knew what she was, would he do the same thing the Controller had done? Would he know how? Was that why she’d seen the bed that was used when the girls were bound for the most intimate kinds of cuts?

  She focused so hard on not thinking about what Simon would decide, she jolted when she heard the neighing outside the sorting room’s outside door.

  “Oh, gods,” she muttered, glancing at the clock. She’d meant to run over to the grocery store for carrots or apples. No time to do that now. “Just a minute,” she yelled when the neighing became a chorus. She could imagine what Elliot Wolfgard would say about the noise if the workers at the consulate were disturbed.

  Rushing into the back room for her coat, she looked around for something that would serve as a treat. She didn’t want to think about the reaction the ponies would have if she didn’t have something for them.

  The only things in the kitchen area besides a jar of instant coffee and bags of herbal tea were a box of sugar lumps, a box of crackers, and a storage tin that held an open package of chocolate cookies.