Marked In Flesh

CHAPTER 37

Firesday, Juin 22

Simon felt the exact moment when Meg relaxed.

It’s over, he thought. At least for us.

He’d lost track of time, had no sense of how long they’d been hiding in that dip of land. Since he didn’t have to worry about Meg now, he considered the other problem.

he asked Blair.

He considered the next, and more immediate, problem.

Simon sighed, then moved his head, resting it against Meg’s back. It was the only part of her that smelled more like Meg and less like vomit.

Monty gave Kowalski full marks for his driving skills, but he still wished cars had brake pedals on the passenger side. As it was, Kowalski whiskered by the patrol car assigned to block the intersection of Parkside and Crowfield avenues.

They would have been heading for the Courtyard earlier if Captain Burke hadn’t called everyone in for emergency assignments. No one, including Burke, was sure of what was going on. But after Burke received a call from Pete Denby, he had placed an urgent call to Agent Greg O’Sullivan, who, in turn, must have called Governor Hannigan. Despite the slim amount of information available, the governor had issued emergency orders that amounted to an ultimatum for the entire Northeast Region: block access to every Courtyard; block every street that led to a settlement controlled by the terra indigene; arrest anyone who tried to get around the barriers. Trains were detained at whatever station they were in. No travel of any kind between towns until further notice. The severest measures allowed by law would be taken against anyone who attacked, or attempted to attack, any of the terra indigene or any human who worked with the terra indigene.

Hannigan’s orders were a declaration of war on the Humans First and Last movement, and he expected the police departments in every city to uphold that declaration. And any officer who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, obey those orders was expected to resign immediately.

Plenty of speculation but no explanations. And no one on Monty’s team had told anyone outside the “police pack” about the frightened phone calls that had come in from Merri Lee and Ruth. There had been some kind of dustup between Robert Denby and Nathan at about the same time that something had happened to Meg, and now the Wolves were gone. All of them. Didn’t close up the stores, didn’t even close doors. They just ran off.

The girls couldn’t find Tess, couldn’t find Vlad or Henry, couldn’t find a single Crow to tell them what was going on, but they believed there was a serious problem.

Pete Denby said much the same thing to Burke. Something very bad was happening, and not just around Lakeside. The children were in the Market Square medical office. The terra indigene were . . . gone.

Armed with that information, Burke had informed O’Sullivan and then circumvented the Lakeside police’s chain of command by calling patrol captains Zajac and Wheatley for help. Before Police Commissioner Kurt Wallace, who was a member of the HFL, even knew there was a potentially lethal problem, the police were locking down the city—and bracing for whatever was coming.

“Gods, this feels creepy,” Kowalski muttered as he pulled into the Courtyard’s Main Street entrance and then eased the patrol car down the access way.

“Like a ghost town you read about in stories.” Once the car was parked in a space usually reserved for the earth native delivery trucks, Monty hurried toward the medical office. “Did Ruth and Merri Lee say where they would be?”

“With the kids and Theral and Pete Denby. Safety in numbers.”

He hoped that was true.

Vlad hung up the phone with exaggerated gentleness just as Eve Denby strode up to Howling Good Reads’ checkout counter. He’d managed to avoid dealing with the female pack since the Wolves went into hiding. Now . . .

“Did my son cause whatever this is?” Eve asked.

Vlad shook his head.

“Then I’ll hand out a suitable punishment.”

He said nothing. Tolya’s voice on the phone. So flat, so . . . empty.

“I’ll clean up Meg’s office. Being a mother, I’ve dealt with my share of puke.”

He said nothing.

“Hey.” Eve reached out. Almost touched his hand. “Is Meg really hurt?”

He looked at her. Honest concern. Would that make any difference now? “Joe Wolfgard is dead.”

“Oh.” Immediate sympathy. “Some kind of accident?”

“No. We called to warn him, and he tried to stop the pack from running into the trap, but . . .” Vlad sighed. “Except for the nanny who went with the pups, all the adult Wolves in the Prairie Gold pack are dead. Slaughtered. By humans.”

Eve looked out the store’s windows. She’d been working across the street. She would have heard the sirens, seen the police cars. Probably had a call from Pete since she knew about Nathan dealing with Robert.

Eve rammed her fingers through her short hair. “Does Simon . . . Does anyone else here know?”

“Not yet.” He felt so strange. The Wolfgard and the Sanguinati were different forms of terra indigene, but he felt so strange. One death was sorrow, but a whole pack . . . Maybe it was because Tolya had sounded so empty when he called.

Or maybe it was because Vlad thought he would sound the same way if it had been Simon.

“Can I do anything for you?”

He focused on Eve. “No. Thank you.”

She nodded. “I’ll get Ruth and Merri Lee. We’ll give Meg’s office a good clean and airing. Put the Closed sign on the door.”

“Yes. All right.” Had to tell Grandfather Erebus.

Eve hesitated. “I heard on the radio . . . I don’t know if it makes a difference, but it sounds like Governor Hannigan is doing what he can to support the terra indigene.” She walked out of the store.

I don’t know if it will make a difference either, Vlad thought.

He checked the front door and made sure it was locked, then went through the archway to A Little Bite and turned the lock on that door. Maybe the coffee shop should stay open to give the police drinks and food, but he saw no sign of Tess—and no sign of Nadine Fallacaro, for that matter. Well, if Nadine showed up and wanted to serve food, she could.

Returning to HGR, Vlad went upstairs to check the e-mails, but after reading a couple, he shut off the computer.

Not just the Prairie Gold Wolfgard had been lost today. Tomorrow was soon enough for a reckoning.

In his official capacity as a lieutenant in the Lakeside Police Department, Monty placed Robert, Sarah, Lizzy, and Grr Bear under house arrest. The girls insisted that Grr Bear was innocent and that he’d tried to tell them they were playing where they weren’t supposed to, but Robert wouldn’t listen.

Because of the difference in their ages, he’d never had this kind of sibling squabble with his sister, Sierra, but if they’d been closer in age, he thought there would have been times when Sissy would have thrown him under the bus—or thrown him to the Wolves.

When Eve Denby stormed in and demanded he arrest the children and take them to jail for reckless endangerment and being a pain in her ass, he’d thought she was playacting and went along, especially when Pete, as the children’s attorney, threw himself on the mercy of Mother Court and tried to plea-bargain.

It wasn’t until Eve agreed to a week’s house arrest with no TV, no movies, and no treats that Monty realized her mood wasn’t driven by the children misbehaving. It wasn’t until she took him outside and told him about Prairie Gold that he understood some of the reason Hannigan had locked down the Northeast Region. The HFL movement had stopped talking, stopped their petty attacks.

While Eve marched off with Ruth and Merri Lee, Monty called Burke to let him know the HFL had declared war on the Wolves, if not all the terra indigene.

Jester rushed outside as the BOW pulled up. Hadn’t the human pups caused enough trouble? Why did the adults have to be stupid too?

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he snapped.

Eve Denby reached across Merri Lee, who was driving, and said, “Give that to Simon or the Wolfgard bodywalker.”

Jester took the folded sheet of paper. “What is it?”

“I heard . . .”

Caw!

Jester looked at Jenni Crowgard and growled.

“. . . that Simon has a girl and a puppy covered in puke. I wrote down instructions—what I would do if I had to deal with it. You can give it to him or not, but if I was in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to go very far with them in that condition.”

“Oh.” Jester looked at the paper. “Good point.”

“I told Vlad we would clean up Meg’s office and air it out, so that’s what we’re doing now.”

Merri Lee put the BOW in gear, did a five-point version of a three-point turn, and headed back to the Liaison’s Office.

Jester put the instructions in a small cloth bag that had wooden handles suitable to be held by teeth, stripped off his clothes, and shifted. Then he ran to the place where the Wolves were still pondering how to get Meg and Sam clean without anyone having to touch them.

Rage became a scent in the wind, a taste in the water, a heat that rose from the earth. It rushed across Thaisia as fast as the news reports spilled out of radios and televisions.

Beneath the rage, these words shivered through the wild country: This is what it means to be human. This is what humans do.