Marked In Flesh

CHAPTER 8

Windsday, Juin 6

“More disputes are heating up in the aftermath of the storm that swept up the East Coast yesterday. Some boat owners, whose vessels were damaged during the storm, are claiming the damage was done by members of the HFL movement because the boat owners refused to let the HFL use their vessels for ‘questionable activities.’ Representatives of the accused HFL chapters vehemently denied the allegations, saying the boat owners were targeting them because ‘You can’t sue the damn ocean for damaging your property.’

“Here in Lakeside, a number of businesses were vandalized last night. The police have no leads as yet on the person or persons who broke windows and painted obscene suggestions on the buildings. One store owner said he was going to leave a dictionary on a public bench so the vandals could at least spell the obscenities correctly. It was noted that none of the vandalized businesses displayed an HFL logo in the window. Police Commissioner Kurt Wallace, who recently admitted to being a member of the Humans First and Last movement, was not available for comment. This is Ann Hergott at WZAS, bringing you the news . . .”

Monty turned away from the break room doorway, having heard enough.

“Lieutenant?” Kowalski hurried out of the break room. “You ready to go?”

“Not yet. Did you hear anything on the news about bison being killed?”

Kowalski blinked. “Bison? Around here?”

“No, not around here. Anywhere in Thaisia.”

“Didn’t hear anything like that.” Kowalski leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Is that a concern?”

“Could be. I need a minute with Captain Burke; then we’ll go.” Monty went to Burke’s office and knocked on the doorframe—and wondered what Burke’s cousin Shady was really doing in Lakeside, since the man spent most of his time at the police station. “Captain? Can you spare a minute?”

“I can spare two,” Burke replied.

Monty wasn’t sure if that was literal or a joke. “Simon Wolfgard called. A hundred bison were shot in Joe Wolfgard’s territory this morning. Simon wanted to know if we’d heard of any other incidents.”

“Bison?” Shady asked.

“Large grazing animals that travel in herds,” Burke said. “They’re mostly in the Midwest and parts of the Northwest Region, although I think they can also be found in the High North. Some farming and ranching organizations feel that the bison are the impediment to opening up land humans need to grow crops and graze livestock.”

“And if the bison are eliminated?”

“If you eliminate the bison, elk, deer, and everything else the terra indigene hunt for food now, the Others will end up eating the cattle, sheep, goats, and, most likely, the pesky humans who made a land grab.”

“If it’s an isolated incident caused by a few troublemakers in one Midwest town, that’s one thing,” Monty said. “If there are more incidents . . .”

“Then it could be a concerted effort by the HFL to antagonize the Others,” Burke finished for him. “Or by another group altogether, but the HFL would be my first choice. I’ll make some calls, see if I get any answers. You heading for the Courtyard?”

“Not yet. I heard on the news that some buildings were vandalized last night, so I want to check on Nadine Fallacaro. She’s been supplying food for the Courtyard’s coffee shop. She could be a target because of that.”

“Nothing reported in our precinct, thank the gods.” Burke leaned back in his chair. “All right, Lieutenant. You check on Ms. Fallacaro. I’ll see if I can find out anything about bison.”

Monty turned to Shady. “I will be at the Courtyard sometime today, and I’ll ask Simon Wolfgard about human guests.”

“Appreciate it,” Shady said.

Of course he would be at the Courtyard sometime today. Monty was splitting his time between the one-bedroom apartment he’d rented when he’d first arrived in Lakeside and the efficiency apartment in the Courtyard that he was using as a place where Lizzy could stay while he was at work. Both places had disadvantages, but they would muddle through until he could move into one of the two-bedroom apartments on Crowfield Avenue. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about having the Others as his landlords, but he knew he wouldn’t find a safer place for Lizzy to live—or a more dangerous place if Lakeside exploded into a violent collision between the people who supported the Humans First and Last movement and those who believed that progress depended on maintaining peaceful relations with the terra indigene.

“So what’s the deal with the bison?” Kowalski asked.

“Could be an isolated incident. Or it could be the first volley in Cel-Romano’s war against the Others.”

“But I thought Cel-Romano was preparing to wage war in their part of the world.”

Monty looked out the side window. “Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to think.”

Vlad set a small bowl on the sorting room table and smiled at Meg. “I brought you some strawberries.”

She reached for a berry but didn’t take it. “You’re not giving up your share of the berries, are you?”

“No, I bought a quart of the berries that are for sale in the Market Square and decided to share them with you.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

He waited until she’d eaten a berry before broaching the real reason he was there. “Meg? What upset you this morning?”

He watched her throat work as she swallowed. Throats, with the blood in them so easily accessed by a kiss, always drew his attention. But with Meg, it was like looking at a delicate piece of art that could be admired but not touched because the cassandra sangue were Namid’s creation, both wondrous and terrible, and their blood was not drunk by the Sanguinati.

“I had a bad dream. Then I woke up. I guess I was loud about waking up.”

“You screamed and threw yourself on top of Simon.” With windows open to cool the apartments, her scream woke everyone in the Green Complex. But Meg tended to scream when she saw a mouse, so they all wouldn’t have come rushing into her apartment if Simon hadn’t yelped like he was also in trouble. To the rest of them, that yelp meant physical trouble. In a way that had been true, since Meg had been clinging to Simon while he’d been trying to get out from under her without hurting her. At least, he’d put on a good show of trying to get out from under her when the rest of them came rushing into the room. “What did you dream about?”

Color blazed in her cheeks. “I don’t remember.”

Vlad studied her, wishing he could believe there had been some erotic element in the dream that she didn’t want to reveal, but that wasn’t the reason for the blush. Meg had just lied to him.

“Why is a bad dream so important?” she asked.

“It wouldn’t be if someone else had the dream. But you’re a cassandra sangue.”

“I didn’t make a cut, and my skin didn’t split because of weather or anything, so it wasn’t prophecy; it was just a dream.”

He nodded as if she’d convinced him, but he presented the one thought that troubled him, the thought that had brought him to the Liaison’s Office. “It’s just odd, don’t you think, that three significant things happened at the same time of day? You had a bad dream, something compelled Hope to make a drawing that frightened her, and bison in Joe’s territory were killed. All at daybreak.”

“But daybreak in the Northeast Region is two hours ahead of daybreak where Hope lives.”

“Two hours ahead of daybreak in Joe’s territory as well. But you don’t remember your dream, so we don’t know if you had some kind of vision about the bison.”

The sorting room filled with an awkward silence until a truck pulled into the delivery area.

“I have to get that,” Meg said.

“And I have to get to work.” He walked out the back door of the Liaison’s Office, then stopped. He didn’t want to go to Howling Good Reads yet, didn’t want to talk to Simon.

Meg had lied to him about not remembering the dream. It wasn’t that he’d thought she couldn’t lie. She was human after all. But he’d never thought she would lie to any of the terra indigene who had befriended her.

Was their friendship less valued now that there were more humans around? Or was he making too much out of things that weren’t important?

Too agitated to work, he headed for the Market Square to sit and think.

The moment the deliveryman walked out the front door, Meg rushed to the back room and peeked out the door to make sure no one was around. Then she opened the door all the way and leaned against the doorjamb.

She had lied to Vlad—and had lied to Simon and Henry and Tess earlier that morning when they asked her if she remembered the dream. She remembered enough. More than enough.

She’d dreamed about making a cut, had dreamed so vividly she could still feel the razor slicing her skin. Prior to the cut, she had run her hands down her arms, down her legs. But the buzz hadn’t been in her arms or legs; it hadn’t been on her back or her belly. In the end, she laid the razor along the right side of her jaw and pressed the blade against skin. Then her dreamself had endured the agony that came before a cassandra sangue began speaking prophecy, had continued to endure the agony by staying silent. And that dreamself had seen something so terrible that Meg had flung herself on Simon to protect him, to save him.

She had bled in a dream and seen prophecy. Something bad was going to happen to the Wolves. Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen the prophecy, so she couldn’t tell anyone what was coming, couldn’t give a warning.

Were any of the other cassandra sangue who were living outside the compounds having similar experiences of seeing visions without making an actual cut? Hope was making drawings that, until that morning, had been a different way to reach the visions without cutting. What about Jean, who was living with a Simple Life family on Great Island? Was she sensing things now without cutting?

The visions the three of them saw seemed to intertwine, but were they seeing the same things? She and Jean and Hope had come from the same compound, had been taught the same images, so they had that much in common when they described their visions. But now their lives were so different. Jean lived on a farm. Hope lived in a terra indigene settlement in the Northwest. And she lived in the Lakeside Courtyard. Each of them was absorbing new images every day, but not the same images. That was true of all the girls who had been freed from benevolent ownership. Would the younger girls, growing up without that rigid training, be able to communicate at all when they saw the visions of prophecy? Would it matter?

Meg clenched her teeth as the skin over her entire head suddenly filled with that pins-and-needles feeling.

It would matter. Maybe not here, maybe not right now, but it would matter.

So how could girls living outside the compounds achieve the same kind of image consistency in order to communicate with one another?

She needed to find another, already available, source for images. Wasn’t that part of her job as the Trailblazer, to help the other blood prophets find the tools they needed to survive?

The prickling beneath her skin faded. Going to the doorway between the back room and sorting room, she hollered, “Nathan? I’m going to the Three Ps. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Arroo?”

Yes, it was unusual for her to leave the office during her work hours, but if another delivery arrived, Nathan—and Jake Crowgard, who was perched on the wall between Henry’s yard and the delivery area—would let her know.

She hurried out the back door and across the access way. She’d been inside the Three Ps only once and had been overwhelmed by the amount of paper products Lorne Kates managed to carry in the small shop. She kept her eyes focused on the counter and rushed toward it as Lorne came out from behind the chest-high wall panels that separated the computers and printers from the retail part of the shop.

“Morning, Meg.”

“Good morning.” She braced her hands on the counter.

“You all right?”

Meg nodded. “I’d like some postcards.”

“Do you want to take a look at what I have in the spin rack?” Lorne asked.

“No. I need sets of pictures, images. If I see Talulah Falls in a vision and need to convey that I’m seeing that particular waterfall, I want another cassandra sangue to pick up the same image so she knows exactly what I mean.”

“Haven’t you been creating a binder of images to help identify things in your visions?”

“The binders are too big.” As soon as she said it, she knew it was true. Binders would be useful for collecting images that appealed to each girl, but the blood prophets needed something else for the consistent images, something about the size of a postcard.

Why was she so certain of that? Had she seen something during a cut, or heard about something that she couldn’t recall?

They both turned toward the door when they heard the howl.

“Someone is looking for you,” Lorne said. “I’ll pull one of each postcard and drop them off at the Liaison’s Office. After you look them over, you keep the ones you want and give back the rest. All right?”

“Yes. Thanks, Lorne.” Huffing out an annoyed breath when Nathan howled again, Meg rushed across the access way but stuttered to a stop when she saw Blair Wolfgard leaning against the office’s back door, waiting for her.

Blair was the dominant enforcer in the Courtyard and didn’t have much use for humans. To be fair, she was pretty sure she’d caused him a considerable amount of trouble since she started working, and living, among the terra indigene. So there was always the possibility that Blair would forget—or ignore—the “don’t bite Meg” rule.

“You caused a commotion at your place this morning,” he said.

“I had a bad dream, and I sort of fell on top of Simon.” How many times did she have to say it?

“What was the dream?”

“I don’t remember.”

Blair’s amber Wolf eyes studied her. “You would tell me if I needed to keep watch for something, wouldn’t you?”

“I would. And I will. But there’s nothing to tell you now.”

He opened the back door and stepped aside to let her enter.

“Meg!” Lorne hurried over to her, casting a nervous glance at Blair. “Take a look at these. And here’s a catalog from the place that prints the postcards. Keep it awhile. You can make up a list of the images you want me to order for you.”

Meg took the postcards and catalog. “Thanks.”

With another glance at Blair, Lorne bolted across the access way and back to the safety of his own shop.

“I’m going back to work now,” Meg said.

But the enforcer’s eyes were focused on the second floor of Howling Good Reads and the Wolf standing at the window. Blair walked away without saying a word.

Shivering even though the day was turning warm, Meg went inside the office and laid out the postcards on the sorting room table.

Common images for blood prophets living in different parts of Thaisia. But these weren’t the pictures she and Jean and Hope needed. These were scenic and pretty, and prophecy was rarely about things that were pretty. If that wasn’t true, blood prophets wouldn’t need the euphoria to veil what they saw and cloud their memories.

She had lied about the dream because Simon, Vlad, and the rest of her friends would be upset if she told them about the part she remembered.

There was no scar along the right side of her jaw. But there was going to be. Sometime soon she would make that cut to save Simon and the rest of the Wolves.

“Vladimir.”

Looking up, Vlad forced a smile. “Grandfather. What brings you to the Market Square?”

In his human form, Erebus Sanguinati looked like an old man with a lined face. His hands had knobby joints and big veins, but the fingernails were not as yellowed or horny as they used to be—a slight adjustment in appearance that had been made after Meg began delivering packages to the Chambers, the Sanguinati’s part of the Courtyard. His voice had a slight accent and belied the lethal nature of the vampire who commanded all the Sanguinati in Thaisia.

Erebus sat beside him on the bench. “Our Meg saw a couple of movies at the store here that she thought I might enjoy. So I have come to look. Then I saw you.” He smiled gently. “You are troubled?”

Meg lied to me. Not something he would say to Erebus now or ever. Grandfather doted on Meg.

“Yes, I’m troubled,” Vlad admitted. “I keep coming back to what happened this morning and how prophecy usually works.”

“Prophecy is about the future, about something that is going to happen. Is that not so?”

“Yes. And sometimes that future possibility is just minutes away, leaving a person with very little time to act.” Vlad blew out a breath. “Daybreak. That’s what is bothering me. A mound of bison is bothering me. They must be connected with the dream Meg had and the drawing Hope made, but Joe Wolfgard said the bison fell where they died. They weren’t mounded.”

“You think the sweet blood saw something else, something that hasn’t happened yet?”

Vlad nodded. “And whatever Meg and Hope saw, each in her own way, is connected to something that will happen around a place called Prairie Gold.”

Erebus said nothing in a way that kept Vlad silent. A minute passed. Then two.

“We are more suited to hunting around larger human cities than other forms of terra indigene,” Erebus finally said. “Not so well suited for small human places, like so many of the towns in the Midwest Region.”

“I’m aware of that, Grandfather.”

“But now the leader of the Lakeside Courtyard and our sweet blood are connected to two places that have no Sanguinati among the terra indigene who are keeping watch over the humans. You are concerned that the Wolves will not relay information?”

“No, it’s not that. I trust Simon, and he trusts Jackson and Joe. But Wolves and Sanguinati have different strengths. I’m just wondering if our not being present in so much of the Midwest makes other kinds of terra indigene more vulnerable to an attack.”

Erebus’s laugh sounded like skittering dry leaves. “You would tell the Bear and the Panther that they are not capable of defending their land? You would say such a thing to the Wolves?”

“We’ve fought well together here. We can fight well together in other places.”

Another silence. Then, “This place where the bison died. Could the Sanguinati shelter there?”

Vlad nodded. “There is a motel, so there are a few rooms that can be rented. I asked when I was speaking with Jesse Walker, the woman who runs the general store.”

Erebus smiled. “Very well, Vladimir. Perhaps it is time to reassess our presence in the Midwest Region. I will ask two of our kin to visit this Prairie Gold.”

“We could supply them with a legitimate reason to visit. The terra indigene collect the gold that is found in the streams that flow in the Elder Hills. Sanguinati could trade human money for the gold and bring the gold back here or take it on to Toland. Also, Jesse Walker didn’t sound like she trusted the humans in Bennett, the railway town where the Intuits buy many of their supplies. We may be able to supply some merchandise directly.”

“All right. But, Vladimir, you will inform the Wolf there that the Sanguinati will be arriving. As a courtesy.”

“Of course, Grandfather.”

Erebus stood. After giving Vlad’s shoulder a pat, he walked over to Music and Movies to consider the movies Meg thought he would like.

Vlad sat for a moment longer before returning to Howling Good Reads. The Sanguinati who were heading for Prairie Gold could take the first order of books with them.

One window of Nadine’s Bakery & Café was fitted with a piece of plywood, replacing the broken glass. Painted across the door and other window were the words Wolf fukker.

“I guess the vandals do need a dictionary if they can’t spell that right,” Kowalski said.

Guilt produced a queasy burn in Monty’s stomach. He’d talked Nadine into providing baked goods and sandwiches for A Little Bite. The Others had come to her place early two or three times a week to pick up an order. They’d come quietly, in a minivan that looked no different from a thousand others in the city. But someone must have figured it out, must have said something.

Monty walked into the pretty café, with its handful of tables and the big glass display cases that were usually full of mouthwatering treats.

Not much in the display cases today.

Nadine walked out of the back room where she did the cooking and baking. “Lieutenant.”

“Ms. Fallacaro, I am so sorry this happened.”

“Could have been worse. Those little bastards could have—would have—done more if Chris hadn’t run downstairs with a baseball bat and started swinging.”

Chris’s father was Nadine’s cousin and the owner of Fallacaro Lock & Key—and a member of the Humans First and Last movement. Chris’s refusal to join the HFL was the reason he was currently staying with Nadine. Monty wondered whether Fallacaro knew or cared that the HFL had targeted members of his family.

“He thinks one of them might have a broken arm,” Nadine continued.

“He’s lucky they didn’t jump him,” Kowalski said.

Nadine gave Kowalski a bitter smile. “They belong to the right kind of human. They didn’t expect the likes of us to object to anything they chose to do, so they weren’t prepared for someone to fight back.”

Not this time, Monty thought. But if there’s a next time? “I’ll explain the situation to Tess. I think she, and Mr. Wolfgard, will understand why you can’t provide—”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Nadine sniffed. “If I give in, then the next demand will be to join the HFL. You think I didn’t notice how many stores are sporting that decal this morning? No, Lieutenant. I’m not closing my café, I’m not letting fools with an agenda tell me who can buy my baked goods and other foods, and by all the gods, I am not putting an HFL decal in my window.” She sniffed again and squared her shoulders. “Besides, anyone who wants to defy the HFL in this neighborhood needs to buy food somewhere.”

Monty extracted one of his business cards, turned it over, and wrote his mobile phone number on the back. “If you or Chris have any more trouble, you call me.” He held out the card. “You call me.”

“You going to the Courtyard?” Nadine asked.

“I am.”

“Could you take a delivery?”

“I can.” Monty turned to Kowalski. “Officer, why don’t you drive the car around to the delivery door.”

“Yes, sir.” Kowalski walked out.

“Discretion, Lieutenant?”

“Practicality.”

Nadine rubbed her hands over her arms, as if trying to warm herself. “You tell Tess that I’ll have the extras she asked for next week.”

“I’ll tell her.” A ringing sound startled him.

“Have to take those cookies out of the oven. Come around to the door over there.”

She opened the Employees Only door for him, and he followed her as she hurried to the back of her shop to pull out the cookies.

Looking at the food she’d already made that morning, Monty figured she’d been up since the wee hours, cleaning up the glass and sealing up the broken window. And then cooking, baking, doing whatever she could with her hands, to ease the hurt in her heart.

“I wasn’t the only one who was targeted last night,” Nadine said as she boxed up the food. “Why do those people think anything will be better if we start fighting among ourselves?”

“I don’t know,” Monty said gently. Then he looked around. “Where is Chris?”

“He’s been trying to find some glass to replace the window. If we can’t get new glass, he’s going to the hardware store to figure out a way to seal up that opening a little better than just using plywood.”

After receiving Nadine’s assurances that she and Chris had things under control, Monty and Kowalski loaded the food in the back of the patrol car and drove away.

“We’re not a delivery service, and we shouldn’t be doing this,” Monty said since Karl wasn’t saying anything quite loudly.

“I don’t think she’s expecting many customers today,” Kowalski said. “She unloaded a lot of what she’d made.”

“I know.”

Kowalski glanced at him. “What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”

Monty sighed. “If things are starting to unravel like this in Lakeside, how bad is it in other parts of Thaisia?”

The computer finished downloading the first picture from Jackson. Simon put two sheets of the special glossy paper into the office printer and printed two copies. Then he went on to the next e-mail from Jackson and gave the commands to download the second picture.

He took a copy of the first picture out of the printer as Vlad, Blair, Henry, and Tess walked into the office. He held up the picture for all of them to see as the printer spit out the second copy.

“A mound of bison,” Henry said grimly.

“Hope is good,” Vlad said. “I’ve never seen a real bison, but part of me believes that if I touched the paper, I could feel the shaggy fur, the horns.”

“Smell the blood,” Simon said. “Well, Jackson certainly smells blood on the original drawing.”

Tess stared at the picture. “Bloody footprints—Wolf prints—all over the bodies piled up. Why?”

“We wouldn’t hunt that way,” Simon said. “We don’t hunt that way.”

Vlad shook his head. “We’re missing something—or misunderstanding something. Are you going to show this to Meg?”

A terrible picture. Wanton killing. Not for food or defense.

“Is that a huge paw print?” Vlad pointed at the bottom of the picture, at a shape that looked like it had been created in blood and absorbed until it was a faint impression in the grass near the bison mound.

“Could be a print in the foreground,” Tess said.

Simon looked at Henry. “The Hope pup couldn’t have seen any of them.”

“Who?” Blair asked. “Are you saying there are giant Wolves in the Midwest or Northwest?” He looked at Simon, then at Henry. “Not Wolves.”

“No,” Henry said. “Not Wolves. The primal terra indigene in their true form. The Elders are very large—even when they take a form close enough to what shifters like us have taken.”

“Even then, none of us are actually seen when we’re in our true form.” Simon looked at Henry, who was large in human form and massive as a Grizzly. But when Henry walked in his true form as spirit bear, he was even bigger.

Compared to the Elders, even Henry as spirit bear was small.

“Could they do that?” Tess asked, pointing at Hope’s drawing.

Simon hesitated, then nodded. “Some of them are big enough, and strong enough, to drag a full-grown bison and haul it onto a pile of carcasses. But they don’t hunt that way.” But like the rest of the terra indigene, the Elders studied other predators—and learned from them.

“Simon, you have to show this to Meg,” Vlad said.

The computer pinged, the signal that the second picture from Jackson had finished downloading. Simon put two more pieces of glossy paper into the printer and hit the Print key. “I’ll talk to Meg, but not just . . .” He looked at the printer. Stared at the picture printing on the paper.

“Simon?” When he said nothing, Vlad pulled the sheet from the printer the moment the first copy was done. “What is this?”

An old woman wearing a straw hat, her bare arms browned by the sun so the thin scars showed white. She sat behind a little table, pointing to the cards that were spread out over the top. Her other hand held two cards. One was the image of a young Wolf—Simon recognized it as a picture of himself when he was a juvenile. The other card was a picture of Meg. But not Meg as he knew her. Younger. Lost. Eyes that held little hope. And yet just a touch of defiance in those eyes.

“Simon?” The sharpness in Vlad’s voice made Simon focus on the other terra indigene in the room.

“Part of a memory,” he replied. “And part something else.” The old woman hadn’t known about Meg specifically, so why would the Hope pup draw the picture like that? “Which females are working in the Courtyard today?”

“Merri Lee and Ruthie are downstairs, pulling stock to send to Jesse Walker in Prairie Gold,” Vlad said.

Simon reached for the picture Vlad held. “I want to show them this picture. I’d like you to e-mail it to Jesse Walker and Steve Ferryman. Maybe the Intuits will have a feeling for what it means.”

“Just this picture or both of them?”

“Would the Intuits on Great Island care about bison?” Henry asked.

Vlad shrugged.

“Send both,” Simon said. Taking the picture of the old woman, he went downstairs and found both girls in the stock room, busily depleting the stock he wanted in the store for next week’s visitors. “Look at this.”

They stopped and stared at the picture.

“I’m not sure what we’re supposed to see,” Ruthie finally said.

He wasn’t sure either. That’s why he showed them the picture.

“What kind of cards is she pointing to?” Merri Lee asked.

Simon growled softly. Couldn’t help it. “I don’t know. She told fortunes. With the cards.” Except she hadn’t used the cards the day he stopped by her table. That day, the old woman had opened a silver razor and cut her skin.

They cocked their heads, such a Wolflike gesture it startled him.

“Tarot?” Merri Lee said, looking at Ruthie.

“Maybe,” Ruthie replied. “But the woman is like Meg, a cassandra sangue. Would one of them use tarot cards? And how can you tell from the picture that she used the cards to tell fortunes?”

“I saw her once when I was a juvenile.” Simon studied the females. He wasn’t going to back away. Or run. But predators had that same focused look in their eyes just before they sprang at their prey.

They have little teeth and little claws that aren’t very sharp. And I can run faster.

“You met her,” Merri Lee said slowly. “So this is a . . .”

“Vision drawing,” he finished. “That’s what we’re calling the pictures the Hope pup makes.”

“A message.” Ruthie pointed to the bottom right-hand corner. “For Meg.”

That look again. “I’m going to show her,” he said, sounding, and feeling, defensive.

“There are some stores around Lakeside University that might sell tarot cards,” Merri Lee said.

“Better if you stay away from the university stores,” Ruthie said. “Karl and I can go after he gets off work.”

Simon nodded agreement. Not that they were considering his opinion at this point. But Merri Lee had been attacked by four students at the university because she worked in the Courtyard, and other students might recognize her if she went into a shop in that area of the city. The possibility of her being hurt by other humans was the reason she was staying in one of the efficiency apartments and hadn’t returned to school. For her to go back would be like a bunny wandering into a field full of wild, hungry dogs.

“All right. I’ll check the phone book and see if I can make a list of potential places,” Merri Lee said.

They started pulling stock again, then stopped.

“Is there anything else, Mr. Wolfgard?”

“No.” Since they were between him and the back door, Simon headed for the front of Howling Good Reads, then went through the archway that connected the bookstore with A Little Bite. Going out the coffee shop’s back door, he headed for the Liaison’s Office.

He wished he didn’t have to stay in human form to talk to Meg about the picture. He wished he could shift to Wolf and give her hand a couple of licks. He always felt better after giving her hand a lick. Couldn’t do that when he looked human. Could he? He hadn’t observed Kowalski or Debany licking their mates’ hands.

Just one more thing he didn’t know about humans.

Then he walked into the sorting room and found Meg standing at the table with postcards spread over the top—and wondered if, in her own way, she already had the answer.

“Meg?” Simon waited until she looked up. “I have something to show you.”