“Four.”
She didn’t know all the Wolves personally, but between the ones who looked after the puppies and the Wolfgard Complex and the ones who, like Simon and Nathan, worked in more visible parts of the Courtyard, she had a fairly good idea of how many Wolves lived in Lakeside.
“Were they scrawny men?” she asked.
Simon narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. “Not what I would call scrawny. They weren’t fat, but they were bulkier than Kowalski or Debany and just as tall.”
“And the pack ate four of them?”
He sat back, looking a bit put out. “No. The two Elders who are in the Courtyard each ate one, and the rest of the terra indigene ate the other two.”
That explained Jester’s comment about breakfast. “Did Sam . . . ?”
Simon shook his head. “We didn’t give any of the special meat to the puppies or Skippy. They’re playing with human pups now, and we didn’t want to confuse them.”
Meg sighed out a breath. She couldn’t say why the thought of Sam and Skippy chomping on a hunk of human bothered her more than Simon tearing into a person, but it did. And it made her wonder about something.
She ran her fingers up and down her glass, wiping away the condensation and avoiding a direct look at the Wolf sitting across from her. Should she ask? Could she ask? “What does human taste like?”
Simon scratched behind one ear. “Doesn’t taste as good as deer but better than chicken.” He thought for a moment. “Lots better than chicken.”
She tried to visualize the illustrations on a prophecy card that would rank the tastiness of meat. On a scale of one to ten, deer would be a ten and chicken a one? Would cows and pigs be a seven or eight and humans be a four or five?
“Meg? What are you thinking?”
She told him.
He stared at her before saying slowly, “You don’t need a prophecy card like that.”
No, she didn’t. But . . . “How accurate would it be if the card was illustrated that way?”
“Close enough.”
“So special meat isn’t special because it tastes so much better than other meat; it’s special because you don’t get to eat it that often.”
He seemed relieved when his mobile phone started yelping. He hauled it out of one of the cargo pockets in his shorts and said, “What?” He listened a moment and looked at Meg. “Kowalski is making a pizza run. You want one?”
“Yes.” She’d even cut up and sauté one of the zucchini for the vegetable side dish.
“Thanks,” Simon said, then hung up.
Meg started to rise but realized she had one more question. “If those men had tried to steal anything but food, would you have killed them?”
“Last summer? Yes, we would have. Now?” He met her eyes. “We would have torn into them as a warning to other humans, but we probably would have howled for Montgomery and let the police pack deal with the intruders.”
After Simon drove the BOW to the Market Square to pick up their pizza, Meg got everything ready to cook one of the zucchini.
Death, police, jail. Those things had happened today and would result in danger, which would result in her being connected somehow to a woods and a grave.
She should tell Simon. She would tell Simon. But not tonight. Saying anything now would stir up the Others, and she didn’t want to get everyone riled just because her tongue was prickling again.
Meg braced her hands on the kitchen counter. She didn’t want to make a cut on her tongue. Too easy to make mistakes and do permanent damage. And a cassandra sangue who couldn’t speak clearly wasn’t any use to the people who had traveled to the compounds to buy a look at their future. But sometime soon her tongue was going to bleed and she would see the prophecy waiting to be revealed.
• • •
The more time he spent around humans, the more confusing they became. Every other predator the terra indigene had absorbed had a social structure that made sense. But humans!
Simon pulled into the employee parking lot, got out of the BOW, and opened the wooden door that provided access between the employee and customer parking lots.
No sign of Kowalski yet.
They might not eat each other, but humans killed humans all the time. He’d seen that for himself when Lawrence MacDonald had been shot and killed at the stall market when men from the HFL movement attacked their group. While the human pack had grieved, their behavior didn’t change toward the terra indigene. In fact, the deaths of MacDonald and Crystal Crowgard made the bond between the human pack and the Others even stronger.
Were they that accepting of the terra indigene seeing humans as meat because they realized that those who lived in the Courtyard didn’t see them that way anymore? Or were they accepting because they understood that they, too, would be seen as meat by the terra indigene living beyond Lakeside and the connected places of Great Island, Talulah Falls, and the River Road Community?
Simon watched Kowalski and Pete Denby pull into the customer parking lot. He saw Montgomery leave the apartment building and walk as far as the public sidewalk. The lieutenant seemed to be listening for something, but Simon didn’t detect any unusual sounds.
Kowalski opened the back door, pulled out a party-size pizza, and said, “I wasn’t sure if Sam and Skippy were joining you tonight, so I wanted to make sure you’d have plenty. Half is pepperoni and sausage; the other half has veggies.”
Simon took the pizza box. “That’s good. I owe you money.”
“It’s our treat tonight.”
Trying to make up for something other humans did. Trying to help take care of the pack.
Kowalski closed the back door, then hesitated. “Do you have any meat at home? Something frozen?”
“Hunks of bison.”
“Ruthie made a pot roast the other day. Beef. She froze part of it in a couple of containers. A container probably wouldn’t be enough for big appetites like ours, but for the girls, for Meg . . .”
“I’ll ask her. Thank you for the pizza.” Simon went back to the BOW, pausing long enough to close and lock the wooden door between the two parking lots. He wasn’t surprised to hear someone rattle the door—Kowalski, checking to be sure it was locked.
On the way back to the Green Complex, he thought about what was said. Appetites like ours. A Wolf could eat pounds of meat at one time, far more than a human stomach could hold. But Kowalski had made it sound like the difference was between what males and females could consume, not humans and Wolves.
He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he thought it was interesting.
• • •
Jimmy sat on the porch, brooding. He’d been on the porch since that cop drove him back here. If Sandee had been out when he returned, he would have packed one carryall, taken his stash of money and the couple of pieces of jewelry she kept hidden, and slipped away and caught a bus to anywhere, free of that bitch and her brats. But she’d been home, whining about food and money until he showed her his fist. He didn’t need to use it—not often, anyway—to make her shut up quick and leave him alone to think.
Nothing wrong with his plan. It should have worked. His crew should have gotten in and out instead of being dead and . . .
He swallowed hard to keep his gorge from rising.
What was wrong with the people in this town, acting like it was normal for those fucking freaks to eat people? That had never happened in Toland! In Toland, regular folks didn’t have to see those Others, didn’t have to worry about being clawed or bitten or worse. This wouldn’t have happened in a big human city, a proper human city. But here the cops were all bent, bought off by the freaks. Even that bastard Burke must be working for the Others. Why else would he be going after a man just looking to take care of his family instead of shooting those freaks? Why else would that Wolf lover Kowalski go after a man who had been tricked into buying . . .
Jimmy pushed that thought away.
Those freaks had known his crew was coming. They’d known before he’d made the final plans. How was that possible?
He became aware of the commotion inside—crybaby Fanny squealing for Mommy, and Clarence . . .
Jimmy flung himself out of the chair and went inside to stop whatever shit the brats were doing, but he halted in the bedroom doorway.
Clarence held a butter knife and was chasing Fanny around the living room, laughing as he jabbed at her face.
“Gonna cut you, bitch,” Clarence said. “Gonna turn you into a scar girl. Then you’ll tell fortunes and make us a pile of money.”
“Mommy!” Fanny screamed.
He’d heard something about scars and girls, but how was he supposed to remember with Fanny screaming like that? And if she kept on like that, how long before one of the fucking cops started pounding on the door?
“Stop it!” he roared. “What is this shit?”
The glee on Clarence’s face that he might “accidentally” cut his sister changed to wariness when Jimmy stepped into the living room. “We’re just playing, Daddy.”
“What’s this about scar girls?” He ignored Fanny, who ran out of the room crying for Sandee, and focused on the boy. “Well?”
“The girls with all the scars. You remember, Daddy. We saw them on TV. The girls who can see the future.”
“Sure, I remember. Why are you teasing Fanny about them?”
“They got one of those girls in the Courtyard. Her name is Meg. She has really short black hair and pals around with the cop bitches.”
A vague memory of being warned away from someone named Meg. Then he remembered more. He’d seen her when that Wolf brat attacked Clarence. His boy had been wounded, had needed a trip to the hospital, but everyone had been looking after some bitch who didn’t have more than a bloody lip.
That was Meg?
A hard rap on the apartment door. Sandee eased out of the kitchen, glanced at him, then hustled to answer it.
Jimmy saw CJ at the door holding a big pizza box. Did CJ think buying a pizza would set things right after the way he’d let the other cops treat his own brother? After the way he’d treated his own brother, showing him those sick pictures of a severed arm, trying to scare him into confessing to something he didn’t do?
No. Not CJ. Burke. Yeah. Burke had it in for him, was trying to set him up. Bastard could have killed his crew and taken all the meat from the butcher shop, could have cut off that arm himself and paid the freak to make sure it ended up in the hands of a man just trying to feed his family. Yeah. Burke had set him up—and CJ was helping to put him away.
Sandee took the pizza box, closed the door, and hurried to the kitchen. Jimmy hurried after her, grabbed both kids by the arms, and hauled them away from the table. He came first. Sometimes they forgot that.
The dishes were still in the sink, so Sandee pulled a wad of paper towels off the roll to use instead. When she opened the box, Jimmy felt anger burn his stomach.
“What’s this?” he demanded.
“CJ bought a big pizza to split with us,” Sandee said, looking a little frightened by his tone.
“He tosses you what he doesn’t want, and you’re ready to drop to your knees and give him a big kiss.”
“Jimmy!” She looked appalled as she glanced at the brats. Then her face got that hard look it always did when she stopped trying to please him. “If you don’t want your brother’s leftovers, don’t eat any. But there’s nothing else in the house.”
He looked at Fanny, whom CJ had taken an interest in lately. Was she another example of his brother’s leftovers? No wonder he’d never warmed to the little bitch.
Sandee reached for the pizza. He shoved her away from the table. Taking a stack of pieces and the last beer in the refrigerator, he retreated to the porch to eat in peace, letting the three of them squabble over the remains.
He bit into the pizza. Chewed. Swallowed. Thought and thought of how nothing had gone the way it should have since he arrived in Lakeside.
He needed to get out of this fucking city. It was too small, too constricting for an enterprising man like him. He needed something that would bring in money, that would give him clout, that would let him live large the way he was supposed to.
He chewed. Swallowed. Thought.
He needed a way to stay ahead of the freaks and the cops. He needed one of those prophet girls—and wasn’t it fucking fate that one of them was right here, ripe for the picking? Just cut her skin and make a fortune. He could offer a prophecy to a skilled forger in return for a new identity. Then he would become someone else in one of the big human cities. He could get around the travel restrictions and go all the way to Sparkletown on the West Coast and get into the movie business. Using the scar girl, he’d have the means of telling the wheelers and dealers if a movie would be a hit even before they hired the first actor. And he’d have his pick of beautiful women who would do anything he wanted for just a peek at their future.
Yeah. That was the way he should live. He just needed to shake off all this petty shit—and he needed to get the scar girl away from the Courtyard and get them both out of this fucking city. But this time, he’d do it alone. He wasn’t going to trust this plan to screwups like the ones who couldn’t take a bit of meat from a bunch of animals.
So he chewed and swallowed and thought. By the time the sun had set and the streetlights came on, Cyrus James Montgomery had a plan.
CHAPTER 21
Thaisday, Messis 23
Meg dreamed about the prophecy the cards had revealed.
The cards had grown tall, like trees, and surrounded her. Penned her in.
So thirsty. How long since she’d had a drink of water? So thirsty.
Hooded figure with a scythe. Police car. Man in jail. Danger!
More cards appeared, repeating and repeating until they formed a prison. Woods. Tombstone. Mirror. Woods. Tombstone. Mirror. They closed in slowly, relentlessly.
Hoping to find a way out, Meg turned, took a step, and tripped. Fell. A pile of leaves in front of her. Her hands reaching out to break her fall. Her hands disappearing into the leaves, slipping on something underneath.
She touched a cold hand.
Something touched her arm.
She screamed, thrashed, tried to hit whoever held her. She had a moment to realize she was free before something soft hit her back, her shoulders, her butt.
“Meg!”
He found me. Relief made her dizzy. He found me!
“Simon!” She threw herself toward the sound of his voice. Her hands closed on something soft, something not Simon. “Simon!”
Hands grabbed her again and hauled her toward something unknown, but what she grabbed in turn were thickly furred human shoulders.
A light came on, blinding her, and Vlad said, “Blessed Thaisia! What is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Simon growled. “Meg? Meg! Look at me. Are you awake?”
“I—” Was she awake? “It was cold. The hand was so cold.”
“My hands are not cold. Look at me, Meg.”
She looked at his face, not sure what had happened or why he was angry.
Was she really awake, or was this part of the dream?
“I am not naked,” Simon said.
She didn’t know why that was important, but she said, “Okay,” which seemed to satisfy him.
Something thumped the front door. Hard.
Meg leaped, wrapped her arms around Simon’s neck and her legs around his waist. His arms came around her, supporting her, protecting her.
“Meg, it’s all right. It’s just Henry,” Simon said.
“And Jester,” Vlad added. “And Tess.” After a moment, he added, “You can let go of Simon now.”
She tightened her legs and was
glad when Simon said, “She doesn’t have to.”
“I’ll let Henry in before he knocks down the door,” Vlad said. “Then we all need to discuss what happened.”
Once Vlad left the bedroom, Simon sighed, his breath warm against her neck. “Bad dream?” he asked.
Dreamlike certainly, but was it a dream? “I don’t know. I saw . . . felt . . . things.”
His arms tightened around her. “Then you’d better tell us what you remember.”
• • •
Simon took the pitcher of water out of the refrigerator and filled a glass. He drank half the water, refilled the glass, and put the pitcher away before going into Meg’s living room.
Meg sat on the sofa next to Henry, her knees drawn up and her arms around her legs—a scared little ball of human. Tess sat on the coffee table, Vlad leaned over the back of the sofa, and Jester crouched to one side of the table, where he could see and hear everything without being in the way. The Green Complex’s feathered residents were perched on the porch, where they could hear everything through the open window.
“Here.” Simon held out the glass to Meg, who just stared at it. “You woke me up because you were thirsty, so I got up to get you some water. That’s how this all started.”
She didn’t take the water, so he sat on the other side of her and put the glass on the floor. Her brain wasn’t working right, and that worried him. It was like she was stuck between seeing the images of prophecy and seeing the physical world and she couldn’t shake herself free.
Then Tess said, “Speak, prophet, and we will listen.”
Responding to the promise and command in the words, Meg kept her eyes on Tess and told her listeners everything she could remember. She told them about the cards she’d drawn yesterday and what came after the events the first three cards had revealed. She told them the details of the dream—details that provided substance, context.
Had Meg always seen this much detail but had been trained to compress what she saw into a series of images that someone else would interpret? Or was this like Jackson’s prophet pup, Hope, who could draw a few lines that could be recognized as a howling Wolf but could also make a detailed drawing that would reveal a specific Wolf? Maybe these kinds of dreams were the only way Meg’s brain could tell her more when she wasn’t cutting.