“Twyla then. I want to talk to Twyla.”
“No.” Burke pulled out a photograph of the unlabeled jar of skin cream and set it on the table. “Want to tell me where you got this?”
“Piss off.”
He shrugged. “We’re testing it—along with all your other lotions—but I’m pretty sure this is what injured the Sanguinati who bit you. So you should know that, no matter where you resettle, the Sanguinati are going to be watching you from now on. They’ll know everyone you talk to, everyone you sleep with, every purchase you make, legal or otherwise. And sooner or later, they will kill you.”
“You’ve got to protect me!”
“No one is going to start a pissing contest with the terra indigene to protect you, not when it could end with the whole city being destroyed.”
“I’ll never be safe,” she whispered.
Burke leaned forward and tapped the photograph. “Tell me about this. Tell me where you got it, what you know about who’s making it—because this is a death sentence for the people of this city, maybe for people in every city. We’ll have corpses stacked floor to ceiling in the morgue just like we did after that storm last month. You tell me where you got this, and I’ll arrest you for possession of drugs and you can go to jail for a little while. Long enough for the Sanguinati to forget about you. You wouldn’t be free, but you’d have a place to sleep and three meals a day because the prisons have their own farms and grow most of their own food—and you’ll stay alive. That’s a better deal than you’ll get outside.”
In the end, she told him what he wanted to know and he arrested her for the drugs and had her taken away to be processed.
Already tired and knowing they had a long way to go before any of them could breathe easy—if they could ever again—Burke walked out of the interrogation room and found Commander Louis Gresh waiting for him.
“You heard?” Burke asked, tipping his head to indicate the observation room.
“Sometimes you’re a bastard,” Gresh said quietly.
“I got the information we needed, and I made the deal that would give Sandee and Clarence a chance to live.”
“Deal with who?”
Burke shook his head. The phone call hadn’t come from Vladimir Sanguinati; it had come from Stavros, who had been the Toland Courtyard’s problem solver—the one who made all kinds of problems disappear. And Stavros had made it very clear how the Sanguinati would respond if Burke didn’t uncover information about the new weapon the humans had developed to smear on their skin.
Thank the gods it hadn’t been meant as a weapon against the Sanguinati. It was petty and personal and cruel, but he was confident the investigation would confirm that Sandee Montgomery had been the intended target.
“I have work to do.” Burke pushed past Gresh and almost ran into Monty.
“Steve Ferryman and Roger Czerneda are here,” Monty said. “They have information—something we need but can’t show to the terra indigene. They’re waiting in your office.”
The three men hurried to the office, Burke in the lead.
Oh gods, Burke thought when he saw their faces.
Roger Czerneda pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. “License plate number. I’ve already sent it to the authorities in the Intuit communities that might be anywhere along the route.”
“Where did you get this?” Monty asked.
Louis Gresh took the paper. “I’ll call the motor vehicle department and start looking for the vehicle’s owner.”
The moment Gresh was out the door, Burke turned to Ferryman. “What else?”
Ferryman hesitated. Then he opened a manila envelope and pulled out a piece of paper but didn’t turn it around for them to see. “The Intuits have communications cabins near the tip of Lake Superior, one in the Midwest Region and the other in the Northeast. They’re located close enough to deliver messages from one region to the other via citizens band radios. An urgent message came in from Tolya Sanguinati, who had received it from Jackson Wolfgard.”
Burke felt his blood go cold. An urgent message from Jackson Wolfgard meant one thing: the young blood prophet living in Sweetwater had seen something.
“So Hope saw the license plate?” Burke asked.
“And this.” Ferryman turned the paper around, revealing the drawing.
Monty sagged against Burke’s desk.
Hope’s vision drawing was a partial map showing the roads leading out of Lakeside. Only the roads running south and east, and one road was drawn heavier than the others—the road Cyrus Montgomery must have taken.
The drawing also showed the back of a brown car, with the license plate clearly rendered. The trunk was partially open. Meg Corbyn looked out of that dark space, her arms and clothes smeared with blood.
But it was her eyes that chilled Burke, because he couldn’t tell if those blank eyes meant she was seeing visions or if they meant she was dead.
CHAPTER 26
Thaisday, Messis 23
Needing gas, Jimmy found his way back to a paved road and drove until he came to a cluster of businesses, including a gas station and a place called Miller’s Trading Post. He pulled up to a pump at the gas station and filled up the tank. There was a small diner, but the trading post might have food and drinks too, and the cha-ching should be properly grateful for some food by now. Then he saw the way the old guy at the cash register looked at him and looked at the car when he came in to pay for the gas.
Fuck! Did the cops know about the car already? How’d they find out? The kid who owned it had rented it to him for the day and wouldn’t be calling the cops about it yet, so how did they know what he was driving?
He stared at the old guy, daring him to pretend he had balls enough to take on a man years younger and heavy with muscle, not a beer belly.
Having sufficiently cowed the old guy, Jimmy walked out of the gas station, not looking at the other businesses. But he was pissed that he couldn’t go into that trading post and pick up a few things for the road, pissed that he couldn’t sit down in the little diner for a while.
He hadn’t gotten as far from Lakeside as he needed to go. He’d thought he’d have at least a day with CJ sending out inquiries and shit to places like Shikago and Hubbney. But he was still in the middle of the Finger Lakes, which was fucking nowhere, and he had to find a place where he and the cha-ching could go to ground near a bus depot or train station so that he could ditch the car. If an old fart at a nowhere gas station had heard something that made him look at the car, then the cops were going to be all over anyone driving any of the roads heading away from Lakeside. He’d thought that talk about a region-wide manhunt was just a reporter’s way of hyping a story. But if all the cops really were hunting for him . . .
Had to get some distance from this place before the old fart decided he had balls enough to call the cops. Had to find an empty piece of road. Then he had a few questions for the bitch in the trunk.
• • •
Meg drifted among the visions that folded into one another—the result of tangled prophecies. Unable to anticipate the jolts and bumps, she knocked her arm against something in the trunk, and one of the new cuts reopened, leaked blood. Showed her . . . things.
Human bodies mounded on cracked, baked soil, rotting in the sun.
Bloated bodies washed up onshore, a feast for crabs.
The land burning, the sky a cloud of black smoke. New things? Old things?
Cities drowning while blood dripped from water faucets.
Sitting in the back of a car, hugging Simon.
Nail. Tire. Balloon leaking air.
Sam bringing down his prey—a human—while another human hit Skippy with a club that had a metal hook at one end.
Old things? New things? Had she told the Cyrus Controller about those images? Had he asked? Didn’t have to tell if he didn’t ask. Wouldn’t
tell if he didn’t ask.
A tombstone made from a mound of old leaves.
Was that past or future?
She was property again, a thing again. Weak. Helpless.
No. She wasn’t weak or helpless. She lived with Wolves, and she could run fast and far. There was a place where she could hide from the Cyrus Controller. She would follow the images and escape. Like she did the last time.
Then the car slowed down. Stopped. And Meg had one clear thought as Cyrus Montgomery opened the trunk and hauled her out: it’s time.
• • •
Radio stations throughout the Northeast continued to interrupt programming with special bulletins about the region-wide hunt for Cyrus Montgomery, a man accused of abducting a young woman from the city of Lakeside. The police had issued a description of the man and the car, including the license plate number. They also gave a description of the young woman—short black hair, gray eyes, fair skin. A scar on the right side of her jaw.
Even radio stations in towns too far away to be within the target zone were running the story, keeping their citizens apprised of the dangerous situation—not because they thought this man would reach their town before he was caught. No, they were keeping the citizens apprised because they had seen the Hawks and Eagles soaring over the roads, watching; they had seen the Crows flying low, attempting to inspect any car coming into town.
They didn’t know why this particular woman was important enough for this kind of attention, but they knew if the terra indigene were this involved in the hunt, there were good reasons for humans to be afraid.
• • •
Meg didn’t struggle when Cyrus hauled her out of the trunk. Her legs were too stiff and she felt a little dizzy. Lack of food, loss of blood. She couldn’t think about those things now. She had to focus on the moment when she would escape.
“You left out a few things, bitch,” Cyrus said, looking and sounding menacing.
Meg kept one hand on the car. Her legs and feet tingled and burned, but she thought that was circulation and not prophecy. “When the cassandra sangue speak prophecy, we don’t remember the images. It’s up to the listener to remember.”
His hand closed into a fist. “You didn’t say it right.”
“Maybe you should have been listening instead of playing with yourself.” The words fell out of her mouth as if she’d rehearsed them—or read them somewhere.
Cyrus gave her a nasty smile. “Don’t need to be playing with myself when you’re so wet and horny after you’re cut.”
Had he . . . ?
Her courage started to crack as suppressed memories threatened to rise and overwhelm her, but she didn’t have time for old hurts. Cyrus didn’t know much about blood prophets, and that lack of knowledge was a weapon. “If you used me for sex, then it’s your fault that you’re not getting accurate prophecies.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“They don’t use us for sex,” Meg lied. “Ever. It dilutes the accuracy of the prophecies. Being used that way can drop the accuracy of the prophecy by fifty percent for several days.”
“If you’re not seeing things right, it’s not because of me.” Cyrus stared at her. “You been doing the nasty with that Wolf?” He stepped closer. “Is that why you’ve been telling me stuff that’s wrong?”
“I don’t remember most of what I see, but I remember one thing, Cyrus Montgomery. The Crows are going to eat your eyes.”
Images collided for a moment, and she felt a blow before his hand connected with her face so that she was already turning and falling against the car.
She looked up and saw the freight truck. About half the size of a tractor-trailer, it could handle the roads that wound through the wild country to small human communities that needed supplies. It wasn’t a huge truck, but it was big enough.
The sharp look on the driver’s face. The warning blast of the horn.
Meg bolted in front of the truck and avoided being struck by a finger’s length. She ran across the road, ran across the grass verge, and disappeared into the trees, following the game trail she had seen in the visions. She ran hard—not play-prey pursued by friends who would gently bump her and lick her and laugh a little at the panting human. This time the predator was real.
She heard Cyrus shouting, swearing, searching. But she was short and wasn’t wearing bright clothes, and the game trail forked. She took the right-hand trail and kept running.
• • •
“You come back here, bitch! You come back right now or I will beat you black!”
After searching for several fruitless minutes, Cyrus scrambled back to the verge and crossed the road to the car. He didn’t have time for this shit. The truck hadn’t stopped after the bitch dashed across the road, but he’d had the impression that the driver was reaching for a radio or mobile phone, was going to tell someone about the car and the girl.
Had to move, had to get away from here. Just because the truck hadn’t stopped, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t pull in to the first place on the road where there were other people.
He’d backtrack; that’s what he’d do. That way he wouldn’t end up behind the truck and the man who had seen the bitch. Yeah, he’d backtrack, maybe stop at one of those little towns in the Finger Lakes long enough to pick up bleach or some other shit that would erase the blood in the trunk. Then even if the cops found him, what could they prove? He’d rented a car, all legal and aboveboard, and gone for a drive. He was heading back to Lakeside to return the car. What was all the fuss? They couldn’t prove the bitch had been with him. If she took off, what was that to him?
Jimmy turned the car around and headed back the way he’d come—and didn’t notice that the right rear tire was rapidly going soft.
• • •
“Simon!”
Turning at the sound of Greg O’Sullivan’s voice, Simon dropped the books he’d been moving off the display table in order to have something to do.
O’Sullivan burst into the front area of Howling Good Reads. “The car’s been spotted.”
Simon glanced at Vlad, who had been working behind the checkout counter, then focused on the ITF agent. “Meg?”
The ITF agent shook his head. “Not—” He pulled out his mobile phone and looked at the caller’s number. “It’s Burke. Yes, Captain? They were? Where?”
Simon moved closer to O’Sullivan, trying to hear.
“I’ll be ready.” O’Sullivan hung up. “A truck driver reported seeing a man and woman arguing by the side of the road. The woman’s general description matches Meg’s, and it was on the same road as the first report of the car. Police from the communities nearest to those locations are on the roads right now, searching for the car. Burke is picking me up. Lieutenant Montgomery and Officer Kowalski will be following in a second car. We’re heading for the last known location.” He hesitated. “The truck driver thought the woman ran into the woods. We can arrange for a couple of officers with search-and-rescue dogs to meet us there if you’d rather wait . . .”
“The Wolfgard can find Meg better than some dog,” Simon snarled.
O’Sullivan looked relieved, which made Simon feel more forgiving about his suggesting dogs in the first place.
“I’ll be ready when Burke gets here.” He rushed upstairs to the office, stripped, stuffed his clothes into a carry sack, then shifted. He dragged the carry sack to the stairs, then gave it a push so that it rolled to the landing. Another push landed the carry sack on the floor of the stock room.
O’Sullivan arrived at HGR’s back door carrying a daypack. “Water and food. The police already have first-aid kits in their vehicles.” He opened the back door just as Burke’s black sedan drove up the access way.
By the time they crossed the area behind the stores and reached the back of the Liaison’s Office, Burke had turned the car around. He stepped out of the ca
r, opened the back door and the trunk, then held up one finger to indicate he would be a moment. He walked up the access way.
Simon eased into the back of the car, careful not to leap and smack his head on the doorframe. He dropped the carry sack with his clothes on the floor behind Burke’s seat, then stretched out on the backseat.
Blair called.
he replied.
His heart pounded. His body quivered with anxiety and anticipation.
The humans had found the car. The Wolfgard would find his Meg.
• • •
“So,” Burke said dryly, “instead of one Wolf to help us track, we have three?”
Monty nodded. “Blair and Nathan were scratching on the back doors as soon as Kowalski pulled into the delivery area. Don’t know what they know, except that the police found something and they’re coming with us.”
“They can track as well as the dogs,” O’Sullivan said. “And if we have to leave the road and the right-of-way area for any reason, the Wolves can smooth the way, right?”
“How much did you tell Simon?” Burke asked.
“That the car was spotted, giving us a starting point for the search,” O’Sullivan replied. “And the woman ran into the woods.”
Monty’s stomach churned. “You didn’t tell him about the blood the truck driver saw on her clothes?” Jimmy had cut Meg. Of course he had. He wouldn’t resist the chance to hear predictions about his future or how to acquire easy money. Wasn’t that the reason he’d taken her in the first place? He’d force her to help him avoid capture. So why had someone spotted the car this quickly? Was it a diversion?
“No reason to mention it yet,” Burke said, “or to tell any of the Wolves about Hope Wolfsong’s vision drawing.”
“Simon may think we’re being dishonest,” Monty said quietly.
“When Meg Corbyn was last seen, she was alive and well enough to run away from Cyrus,” Burke countered. “For now we stick with that. Besides, you’ve got two large Wolves filling up the backseat of that patrol car. Do you really want them more upset than they already are?”