CHAPTER 11
Thaisday, Messis 9
Abigail made her voice and hands shake a little as she set the plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of Kelley. She’d spent two days pleading with him to look at the house she wanted, and when he finally did go with her, all he’d said was “If that’s what you want.”
He still loved her—or his memory of her—enough to move into the house. But she’d read the tarot cards last night and they indicated that he wouldn’t be staying very long.
“Do you want me to pack you a lunch?” she asked after fetching him a glass of orange juice.
He watched her, the food on his plate untouched. “Why are you doing this, Abby? Why do we need a house this size?”
They didn’t need a house this size. She didn’t need a house this size. But she did need her friendly neighbor who would unwittingly help her solidify her sweet Abigail persona, regardless of what Kelley might tell people.
“Why are you volunteering to sort through other people’s things? You always claimed you were extrasensitive to the residue other people left on objects, and that was the reason everything we owned, even stuff that was brand-new, had to be washed and set out in the sun before you could stand having it in the house. Books you got out of the Prairie Gold library were ‘aired’ before you could read them. And now you’re going to put in forty hours a week pawing through things owned by strangers who were killed by the terra indigene?”
“It has to be done.”
“A few days ago, you were willing to clean any kind of commercial building in order not to clear out private residences, and suddenly you’re okay with it?” Kelley pushed aside the plate of food. “I can’t tell if you’re lying to yourself as well as to me, but I’m pretty sure you’re lying to me, if not now, then before when you made such a fuss about things.”
“I’ve never lied to you.” Well, he hadn’t caught her in a lie until now.
“Fine. You’re not lying; you’re just being less than truthful. Does that sound better?” His voice had an edge it had never had before. “The point is, I’m not sure I want to live with less than truthful anymore.”
“We were happy in Prairie Gold!” she cried.
“You were.” He pushed away from the table. “I have to get to work.”
“But you haven’t eaten anything!”
He didn’t reply—and he didn’t kiss her before he left the house.
Abigail stared at the eggs and toast a full minute before she sat down, pulled the plate over to her place at the table, and began to eat with a gusto she couldn’t have shown if Kelley were still there.
Fetching the jar of strawberry jam that she’d opened the other day, she slathered jam generously over one piece of toast.
She had used her real name when she and Kelley had married, just in case she needed the marriage to be legitimate, and when she’d realized the name had meant nothing to him, she’d felt staggering relief. He’d seen himself as the hero rescuing the maiden from her abusive father. He would have started questioning things a lot sooner if he’d known her father was the leader of a clan of Intuits who gambled and swindled and conned everyone they met. They would roll into a town, pluck all the prey they could, and then move on before the law got a little too interested in them and their deals. And they always had a feeling about when it was time to move on, just like one or another of them knew who to play for the biggest score.
No one knew they were Intuits, because they had avoided Intuit towns. But anyone who did learn that little secret . . .
She never found out how her father had arranged the evidence to finger a man addled by drink as the person who killed a deputy in a small West Coast town. The man was a drunk who could barely hold a knife to cut his own dinner and certainly didn’t have the skill to do . . . what the newspapers said had been done to the deputy. The lawman had died because he was sweet on her—and she’d told him the family’s secret in exchange for his help in escaping from her father’s control.
She had escaped, but two men had died—the deputy and the man accused of killing him. That was typical of how the Blackstones dealt with problems before they moved on. Her father called it “taking out the trash.”
It was just a matter of time before someone from her family would arrive in Bennett—and then someone else would die. She just had to make sure the someone wasn’t her.
Tolya reviewed the e-mails from Lakeside, as he had since the first one arrived on Sunsday. Because there was no longer direct communication between the regions that made up the continent of Thaisia, e-mails and telegrams had to go through Intuit communications cabins that had been set up near the borders. Letters and business correspondence sent by anyone who wasn’t Intuit or terra indigene traveled by train and eventually reached the destination cities and the recipients who lived there. So even “fast” communication between regions could take up to twenty-four hours before being received.
The single exception was the connection between Sweetwater, which was in the Northwest, and Bennett and Prairie Gold, which were in the Midwest. Tolya and Jackson Wolfgard had pleaded with the Elders to allow them to have direct communication with each other because there was a connection between Jesse Walker in Prairie Gold and the blood prophet pup living with Jackson in the terra indigene settlement at Sweetwater.
Jackson and his mate, Grace, had discovered that Hope Wolfsong had the ability to draw the visions that came to her and didn’t need to cut her skin. Drawing didn’t release the visions for most of the girls, but Hope’s ability encouraged other girls’ caretakers to explore different ways that these girls could reveal prophecy without the cutting that would eventually kill them.
Like Meg Corbyn, the blood prophet who lived in the Lakeside Courtyard, Hope Wolfsong was highly gifted, and while those who received the drawings of her visions weren’t always able to interpret the pictures correctly, she and Meg had been instrumental in saving many of the Wolfgard from the slaughter organized by the Humans First and Last movement. The warning hadn’t come in time to save the adults in the Prairie Gold pack, but it had come in time to save the pups as well as the Intuit town.
What all of that meant to him was a picture from Hope Wolfsong couldn’t be ignored.
Tolya still hesitated to download the file. Jackson had called the picture a warning. Vlad had told him unauthorized humans most likely would be arriving in Bennett along with the humans selected during the Lakeside job fair. That meant he and Virgil should be at the station to assess the humans as they arrived—starting today, since they couldn’t be certain that the strangers wouldn’t arrive before the Lakeside migration.
He hesitated a moment longer before downloading the file and printing two copies. Then he studied the picture.
Silence.
Tolya almost pitied the humans who might be viewed as intruders. Almost. He understood Virgil’s rage against humans. He just wasn’t sure what he would—or should—do if the Wolf couldn’t contain that rage and started killing the useful humans who wanted to live in Bennett.
Not something he needed to deal with today. Slipping the copies of the picture into a slim briefcase, Tolya left his office, then stopped at the book room to check on Barbara Ellen and Joshua Painter—who were doing fine. Too fine? No, they were fine, still getting acquainted. No reason for alarm or to send any messages that would cause undo excitement in Lakeside.
Even so, he’d remain vigilant until the new deputy arrived. Then she could keep watch over Barbara Ellen Debany.
Leaving the two humans to their book sorting, he walked to the jewelry store and was pleased to see the Open sign on the door.
“Mr. Sanguinati,” Kelley Burch said.
The human looked tired, strained. Whispers had reached Tolya that something wasn’t right between Kelley and his mate—something serious enough that Jesse Walker was concerned. Not that she had said anything, but every time he mentioned Kelley or Abigail, her right hand closed over her left wrist. Trouble between human mates wasn’t his business, but Kelley was the only person qualified to assess the jewelry and run this shop, and having someone in town to do that work was Tolya’s business.
“What can you tell me about black stones?” Tolya asked.
“Was there anything in particular you wanted to see?” Kelley asked in turn. “I have jewelry here that has onyx or hematite stones. I have a jet necklace. I even have a ring with a couple of black diamonds as part of the setting. There are probably more stones in the back, including some tumbled stones that I haven’t sorted yet.”
“Are any of them significant? Preferred by a certain kind of human?”
Kelley thought for a moment, then shook his head. “The diamonds are valuable stones. The others are considered semiprecious, so by themselves they aren’t worth a lot of money. I might be more help if I knew what you were looking for. Loose stones? Something in a silver or gold setting?”
“I don’t know yet,” Tolya replied. “But I want to know about anyone showing interest in black stones.”
Kelley looked uneasy. “All right. There’s nothing sinister about liking those stones. Black doesn’t mean bad.”
Tolya didn’t respond to that. Instead, he returned to his office and called Jesse Walker’s mobile phone, since he knew Rachel Wolfgard wouldn’t answer Jesse’s personal phone.
“I’m in town,” she said.
“Virgil Wolfgard and I will be meeting the train. I’d like you to be there.”
A hesitation. “Is there a problem?”
“Maybe. Before that, there is something I want to show you. Can you come to my office?”
“I’ll be there soon.”
While he waited, Tolya sent an e-mail to Vlad, asking if Tess knew anyone named Scythe. Vlad would understand that he was asking for information about another Harvester.
Jesse walked in a few minutes later and settled in one of the visitors’ chairs. “Tobias wanted to bring a couple of horses to the livery stable here. They’re younger animals and well trained, but he didn’t feel anyone at the Prairie Gold ranch was the right match for either of them.”
“He felt they might suit one of the newcomers?” Tolya asked.
She nodded. “You think there’s a problem heading our way?”
“It’s heading our way or it’s already here. Virgil and I received a warning. I’m showing this to you because you have seen such warnings before. I’m not sharing this information with anyone else. Not yet.”
He waited for her to nod again before he removed one of the copies of the picture from his briefcase and set it on the desk—and he watched Jesse Walker pale.
“I’d say Hope Wolfsong was a genius if her drawings weren’t so disturbing,” Jesse said quietly. “People made of black stones rendered so well you can see they’re made up of many stones and aren’t statues made from a block of stone.”
The drawing was the street outside the Bird Cage Saloon. Rendered as ordinary humans were Barbara Ellen and an unknown female with brown hair pulled back in a tail. Both were laughing as they headed toward the saloon, although there was something in the unknown female’s expression that made Tolya think she wasn’t as unaware of the people around her as she first appeared. Standing at the doorway of the saloon was a human shape made of black stones, with two more of the stone humans nearby. Stazia Sanguinati was also in the picture, looking angry as she started to shift to her smoke form. And Virgil, standing upright and still dressed in jeans and a checked shirt, looked like a snarling Wolf.
But it was the woman taking up the bottom right corner that was the main reason Tolya had wanted Jesse to see the picture.
“I’ve only seen her a couple of times since she and her mate arrived, but isn’t that Abigail Burch?” Tolya said.
“Yes.” Jesse said nothing else for a minute. “She’s dead. In the picture, she’s dead.”
“Yes.” The staring eyes told him that much.
“Why . . . ?” Jesse swallowed hard. “Why is blood trickling out of her mouth?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you wondering if Kelley is going to kill her? Something happened in Prairie Gold that put a crack in their marriage. Abigail has secrets. She acts sweet and a bit simple, and she acted the part so well that no one in Prairie Gold realized it was deliberate until the scene with Kelley a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, I’m surprised she went with him, and I’m surprised he’s still living with her. But I’m not feeling any indication that he would kill her for any reason.”
“We’ve been warned that unauthorized humans will be arriving in Bennett looking for work, looking for . . . opportunities,” Tolya said. “That’s why I want you to join me and Virgil when the train gets in. Your instincts are different from ours. I’m not opposed to additional workers, but we need to be careful.”
Jesse sat back and looked away from the picture. “Yes, we do.” She ran a hand over her hair. “I’ll let Tobias know we’ll be here for a while.”
“I was about to walk up to the train station, but I can arrange for a ride if you prefer,” Tolya said.
She let out a little snort that sounded equally amused and annoyed. “The train station is just up the street, and I’m not infirm. A walk will suit me just fine.” She looked troubled. “I’m not happy with Abigail at the moment, but I don’t want her to come to any harm.”
“Then let’s try to keep that from happening.” Tolya slipped the picture back into his briefcase, led Jesse out of the office, and locked up. “And let us both remember that a warning is intended to help prevent something from happening.”
Virgil didn’t like having a human behind him, even if it was an older female who didn’t meet his eyes or challenge him in any way. But she was there, standing in the space Tolya Sanguinati had left between the two males.
All right. He couldn’t argue with that, because all humans were the enemy but some were also a threat to the terra indigene and the humans who were, regrettably, considered not edible.
Humans who were threats to the terra indigene or broke human laws would be bitten. Savagely. Maybe lethally. But he was going to get Tolya to agree that nipping the nonedibles was permitted by the sheriff and his deputy—just in case he had another reason to haul Barbara Ellen to jail for some “me time.”
The baggage door opened at the same time Nicolai Sanguinati walked out of the delivery area of the train station, pulling a cart that had webbing on two sides that could be raised and lowered for loading.
“You expecting anything in particular?” Nicolai asked, looking from Tolya to Virgil.
Some meaty bones would be nice, but Virgil figured he and Kane would have to hunt those down for themselves.
“Passengers,” Tolya replied.
A man wearing a shirt with the railway’s logo on the pocket and across the back stepped down from the baggage car while another man tossed him the mailbags, which he and Nicolai loaded into the cart. Next came the luggage and packages that were designated for the Bennett station. The railway men moved quickly, efficiently. Nervous, but not afraid. Bennett might be controlled by the terra indigene, but the men understood they were safe at the station—or as safe as any human could be in Thaisia.
“That’s the last of the cargo,” the man on the platform said as he held out a clipboard for Nicolai to sign. “Anything to go out?”
“One bag of mail to the Northeast Region,” Nicolai replied. “I’ll bring it out.”
Virgil caught Kane’s scent before he heard Jesse Walker’s quick intake of breath. The Wolfgard were significantly bigger than regular wolves and could take down prey a wolf couldn’t. He looked back at Jesse Walker. “You’ve never seen one of the Wolfgard in that form?”
“Haven’t seen an adult in a while,” Jesse replied. “Rachel is a juvenile Wolf, so she’s not nearly as big as your friend. I guess she still has some growing to do.”
Virgil knew Morgan and Chase had taken over the Prairie Gold pack, but if Jesse Walker hadn’t seen them in Wolf form, it sounded like they weren’t inviting the humans to howl with them and weren’t expected to be that friendly.
He envied them.
Then the first humans stepped off the train.
A pack of five young males, all dressed in dark trousers, white shirts, and the straps that held up clothing instead of using a belt. And hats.
The wind conveniently changed direction, bringing their scent to him and Kane. They smelled of clean soap and animals—and nerves.
“Simple Life,” Tolya said quietly. “It is their custom for the males to dress that way.”
Virgil studied the clothing carefully. Other males might try to disguise themselves by wearing that kind of clothing, but he didn’t think any other male would be able to reproduce their particular scent.
The males looked at Nicolai as he came out of the station with a mailbag. Nicolai pointed to Virgil and Tolya.
Hesitation. A flash of fear when they noticed Kane and understood what he was. But they came forward, removing their hats.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” The male Virgil considered the dominant one among them nodded to Jesse Walker. “Ma’am.”
“What brings you to Bennett?” Tolya asked, giving the men a smile that showed a hint of fang.
Another hesitation. It was one thing to be told the terra indigene were in control of a town; it was another thing to look that truth in the eyes and hope it didn’t eat you.
The man looked at Jesse Walker, then must have realized she wasn’t the one he needed to convince, because he focused on Tolya. “My sister married a man who lives on Great Island. Have you heard of that place?”
“It’s near Talulah Falls—and Lakeside.”
“Yes.” His relief was almost a taste in the air. “My sister sent a message that there was work here.”
“Did your sister tell you this is a mixed community and what that means?”
“It means we must accept the customs of those who are not like us,” another man said. He stood apart from the others just enough to make Virgil think he might be the same kind of human but he hadn’t come from the same pack as the other four.
Kane growled—and Virgil agreed. It wasn’t what the man had said but the way he’d said it. Virgil didn’t smell anything wrong about the man, but . . .
he said to Tolya.
“Don’t fuss,” Jesse whispered. “I have a feeling he won’t be here long.”
“Collect your baggage and put it in the van that’s waiting in the parking lot,” Virgil said. “Then walk down to the Bird Cage Saloon. We’ll meet you there to sort out the paperwork.” Not that he would do any sorting. He was the sheriff. He got to bite wrongdoers. Tolya had to deal with paperwork because he was the town’s leader.
The thought of being able to give that one Simple Life male a hard bite or two cheered him up, so he smiled, showing his teeth.
The one with the stick up his tail had opened his mouth—probably to yap about going to the saloon—but one look at Virgil’s smile and he hurried away to fetch his luggage.
The next group was a family pack made up of an adult female, a younger adult female, a boy, and . . .
Virgil cocked his head to one side, trying to figure out the third female. She didn’t look like the others. She was short and blocky and her face wasn’t shaped like any human he’d ever seen. She had to be a juvenile, but that didn’t feel right.
She gave Kane the sweetest smile and hurried toward the Wolf.
“Doggy!”
“Becky, no,” the dominant female said sharply, grabbing for the girl and missing.
Virgil leaned toward the girl, just enough to draw her attention from Kane. “Not a dog. A Wolf.”
She stared at Virgil. “Wollllff.” Her hand suddenly rose and came down, as if she was going to clobber Kane. Then she stopped the movement and said, “Gentle, gentle.”
Sometimes Wolf pups were born with a skippy brain that made it hard for them to learn how to hunt—made it hard for them to survive. If they managed to reach adulthood, many of them outgrew the skippiness but most didn’t live that long in the wild country.
“She doesn’t mean any harm,” the dominant female said. “She’s a good girl and a good worker.”
“Will her brain get better?” Virgil asked.
The female’s mouth tightened and she looked like she’d been driven out of more than one pack because of the girl. “No. She’ll always be this way.”
Huh. Virgil glanced at Tolya.
“Your name?” Tolya asked.
“Hannah Gott. I’m Simple Life.” She gestured to the long dress and white apron. All three females wore white caps over their hair, although the skippy’s hat had food stains on the tie strings. Virgil smelled some kind of fruit and gravy made from beef.
Hannah Gott introduced her sister, Sarah, then her niece, Becky, and finally her nephew, Jacob.
“I’m guessing you have clothing here,” she said. “Lots of it that needs to be sorted into what is good and what just hasn’t been cut up into rags yet. There are plenty of people now who need clothes but can’t afford to buy new. I think it’s possible to find communities that are in need and sell them the excess goods that are here for a reasonable price.” She looked at Virgil but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m guessing your people might appreciate a little help when it comes to buying human garments. Especially if it’s a new experience.”
“Because we have Intuits, Simple Life, and humans living here as well as terra indigene, we are establishing communities so that people can live among their own,” Tolya said.
“That’s not necessary for us.” Hannah Gott sounded sharp. “We would prefer to live among people who are tolerant of differences.”
Her response made Virgil wonder what usually happened to skippy-brained humans.
The two railway men offered to haul the Gotts’ luggage to the van, and Kane was assigned to lead them to the saloon.
And that left the last human who was waiting for their notice and permission to enter Bennett.
“Not another one,” Tolya said under his breath, causing Jesse Walker to huff in a way that sounded like laughter.
The smile and the look in the female’s eyes were things Virgil also recognized from his dealings with Barbara Ellen. Here was another bouncy fluffball.
“I’m Lila Gold.” Her arms were full of books and folders with papers sticking out the tops. “I heard you say there’s a saloon. Is it wonderful? I bet it’s wonderful.”
“You want to work in a saloon?” Tolya asked.
“Uh-huh. I’ve studied frontier towns since I was a little girl. It’s kind of my hobby. Or passion. Or vocation. Something like that. And I always thought working in a saloon would be fun. Not the more carnal things that used to go on, but the dancing and singing and talking to people. I worked as a waitress while I went to school, so I know how to wait on customers. And I took a self-defense class, so I know what to do with my knee if I need to. You know?”
Virgil didn’t know. Was sure he didn’t want to know. She was like a puppy who couldn’t resist grabbing his tail.
“You went to school,” Tolya said. “What did you study?”
The smile dimmed a bit. “I took secretarial classes but I don’t really—”
“So you can type and file and answer phones?” Tolya interrupted.
The smile dimmed a bit more. “I wanted to do something different.”
“You’re an Intuit,” Jesse Walker said. “You had a feeling that if you came here, you could have something different, something that would make you happy.”
“Yes!” Now Lila Gold focused on Jesse. “I was good at my job. I really was. But I’d come home at night and . . .” She waved a hand to indicate Bennett—and almost dropped all the books and folders. “A couple of weeks ago, I thought why shouldn’t I give it a try? No, it was more than that. I knew I should give it a try. So I quit my job and packed up my belongings and bought train fare to Bennett because this is the only frontier town that still has a train station. Well, not the only one, but it was the first one on the list because the name starts with the letter B.” She smiled at them.
She didn’t have freckles on her face but she did have yellow hair and blue eyes like Barbara Ellen. What were they supposed to do with a pack of bouncy fluffballs? Could two fluffballs be considered a pack?
“We need secretaries,” Tolya said. He held up a hand. “We need people who can do that work. However, if you’re willing to use your skills in that area for part of your required work hours, I’ll talk to Madam Scythe about giving you a chance to work in her saloon.”
“Her name is Madam Scythe? Really?” The bounce was back. “That would be awesome!”
“Then let’s go up to the saloon and go over all the requirements for residency in Bennett.” Tolya looked past Lila Gold. “Nicolai?”
“Should we take these belongings to the van?” Nicolai asked.
“Yes. It looks like everyone will be staying,” Tolya replied.
“Then I’ll tell the conductor the train can go on to the next stop. He’s been waiting to make sure no one needed to board. They want to leave soon to make all their stops before dark.”
“Tell them we appreciate their waiting.”
Jesse Walker took some of the books Lila Gold was carrying, and the two women headed for the Bird Cage Saloon.
“We have to do this for every train from now on?” Virgil asked.
“The humans migrating from Lakeside will have papers. We’ll send them on to the saloon,” Tolya said. “It’s the ones without papers that we need to look at carefully. There is something I need to show you and Kane. Will you be back at the sheriff’s office later this afternoon?”
“I’ll be there.”
But first he was going to go back to the office and strip off the human clothes and shift out of this human skin, and he was going to run and run in order to feel like who, and what, he was.
Standing in her office doorway, Scythe brushed a hand over the sapphire dress, enjoying the feel of the material. Not quite like the pictures of dresses worn in a frontier saloon, but close enough for now. Garnet Ravengard and Pearl Owlgard had found a shop where humans had had their pictures taken wearing frontier costumes and had found some clothing that looked appropriate for a saloon. They brought back all the costumes they could find and chose two outfits each. They also brought back dresses they thought might suit the owner of a saloon.
Did they know what she was, know what she could do to any of them? All of them?
The desire to belong had to be stronger than the compulsion to feast. Most of her kind didn’t have enough control. Better to feed and feed until there was nothing left and then move on. But sometimes one of them wanted more—and showed others among their kind that it was possible. Not easy. Never easy. But possible.
It took years to learn how to have that control. Years and mistakes. Villages devastated by a mysterious illness, where there might be a single survivor who ended up with a dead eye after glimpsing a black-haired stranger heading away from the village—a stranger who was too sated on the lives already consumed to take one more.
Or a crop bursting with life and ready for harvest—and the whole field changed to dead and rotting plants overnight.
It took years to learn how to sip a little life energy from many and even eat food the way a human would.
She might have settled in one of the little towns that had been emptied of humans—towns the terra indigene had reclaimed—and lived on whatever she could find until fresh prey arrived in the form of two-legged scavengers. She had been heading toward one of them when she came across the strange girl bleeding out on the side of the road. The girl should have been prey but wasn’t.
She hadn’t known about the sweet bloods, the humans who weren’t prey because they were Namid’s creation, both wondrous and terrible.
That day, Scythe had felt the life force flickering in the girl and knew there wasn’t much left to harvest, even if she hadn’t felt uneasy. But she’d crouched beside the girl, careful not to touch the blood.
“You live in Bennett,” the girl had said. “You wear pretty dresses and run a saloon. You have friends. Yellow bird.”
“I’m a Harvester. A Plague Rider. You think I’ll be wanted in a town?”
“You help protect the town.” The girl breathed out the words “black stones” and died.
Scythe picked up the girl and carried her away from the road. Hid the body under stones and brush. And then she found her way to Bennett.
The Sanguinati who ran the town and the Wolves who were the enforcers didn’t trust her but they had agreed to let her stay, let her run this place. Eventually they might even accept her living among them—as long as she could resist the compulsion to devour all the life force of a being that mattered to the Sanguinati and Wolves.
Yuri Sanguinati, one of the saloon’s two bartenders and the only one working today, turned toward her when she stepped out of the office to join him behind the bar.
“Tolya is sending some humans our way,” Yuri said. “Potential workers and residents.”
“From Lakeside?” Barbara Ellen had stopped in a couple of times to say hello and show her how to take care of Yellow Bird, and had told her about the humans who were migrating to Bennett from Lakeside. The girl had also told her about meeting Tess, which explained a lot about why Barbara Ellen had approached a Harvester in the first place. The friendliness was genuine, but the girl also seemed to be making a point that she would choose her own friends, regardless of Tolya’s concern or Virgil’s growling.
“No,” Yuri replied. “Those humans should arrive on Watersday, if the train stays on schedule. These humans heard there was work here.” He picked up a stack of papers off the bar. “Don Miller worked on the computer yesterday and made up these forms for potential employees. He said he had a feeling you would find them useful, and they might be useful now for dealing with these strangers.”
Don Miller, her other bartender, was an Intuit who had a sense of what people needed. Freddie Kaye was another Intuit, but he had a feel for numbers and wanted to work as the house gambler.
“Are there enough forms?” she asked.
“Won’t know until the humans walk through the door, but I won’t be surprised if there is exactly the number of copies that we need today.”
“We’re going to have customers?” Garnet Ravengard sauntered over to the bar and smiled at Yuri. She had the dark eyes and black hair typical of her form of terra indigene. Except for a couple of black feathers mixed in with her hair, she looked human—and had more of a bosom than she’d had yesterday.
Had the Raven been able to alter her human appearance or had she achieved that effect by using some kind of clothing beneath the garnet red dress?
“The dress looks good on you,” Yuri said.
“And you look like a frontier bartender, right down to the little black tie,” Garnet replied.
The Sanguinati did look the part in the white shirt and black vest and trousers—and the black string tie.
No telling if the humans would appreciate the costumes and the rest of what had been done to give the saloon a particular flavor, but Scythe realized that everyone who worked there would have fun. And that pleased her.
A minute later her pleasure faded and her gold hair suddenly had streaks of blue and red—and a warning thread of black—and began to curl as five human males walked into the saloon.
“I’m Madam Scythe,” she said. “Welcome to the Bird Cage Saloon.”
Four of the men removed their hats in what she assumed was a gesture of courtesy. The fifth man did not.
Something in his eyes. Something that scratched at her instincts to feed. She moved toward him slowly as her hair changed to red with streaks of black and threads of gold and blue—and it coiled.
“We should not be required to be in this house of fornication,” the fifth man said loudly.
Yuri vaulted over the bar one-handed, drawing everyone’s attention, including hers. A movement, a reminder to be careful.
“We sell a variety of drinks,” Yuri said, showing a hint of fang when he smiled at the men. “Our girls are here to talk to customers, even do a little singing and dancing. But Madam Scythe does not allow fornication in this establishment.”
The man looked pointedly at the stairs that led to Scythe’s suite and the rooms the employees could use during breaks or as dressing rooms.
“As you can see,” Yuri said with a nod toward the stairs and the red velvet rope that was attached to the wall and newel-post, “the rooms are for employees only—and that rule is strictly enforced.”
There was enough bite and warning in the words that Scythe understood that Yuri was also uneasy about that particular human. Adding to her own sense of wrongness was the way the other four men were looking at their companion, as if they, too, recognized something odd about his behavior.
“Now, if you gentlemen will fill out these forms, that will assist everyone when the mayor comes in to talk to you about what work you might do here.” Yuri handed out the forms. “On the second page, where it says ‘Miscellaneous’? Please provide the reason you left your previous place of residence.”
Garnet went into Scythe’s office, then reappeared with two pens and a pencil. “Here are writing implements if you need them.”
One man approached Garnet but glanced at Scythe as he accepted the pens and pencils. “I don’t know why he is saying these things,” he said quietly.
“He’s your friend?” Scythe asked just as quietly.
“No. He joined us at the border station. He said he was coming here and asked if he could travel with us. We thought, because of some of the things he said on the journey, that he was from a community that lives by stricter rules than our own, but that doesn’t explain his rudeness.”
Scythe nodded. “I’m sure Mr. Sanguinati is already aware of your companion’s difference.”
He returned to the table and handed out the pens and pencil just as the next group arrived, led by Kane in Wolf form. Two adult females, a boy, and . . .
A look of loathing aimed at the skippy girl filled the fifth man’s face before he looked at the younger of the adult females and his face filled with something else. Then he noticed Scythe watching him and became busy filling out the form.
Garnet led the Gott pack to another table, taking some of the forms from Yuri as she passed him, leaving him—and Scythe—free to keep an eye on the males.
They’d barely settled the Gott pack at a table when Tolya, Virgil, Jesse Walker, and a bouncy female entered, followed by Barbara Ellen and Joshua Painter.
“All right if we come in for a drink?” Barbara Ellen asked.
“Just belly up to the bar and I’ll fix whatever you like,” Yuri said, hesitating for a heartbeat as he met Joshua Painter’s eyes.
“Oh, this is wonderful,” the bouncy female said, turning in a circle as she clutched folders to her chest. She focused on Garnet. “Are those feathers real?”
Tolya looked at Scythe.
As an answer, she looked toward the table with the five men—and frowned. What was that odd male among them staring at now? She followed the line of his focus right to Barbara Ellen, who was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.
“A woman should not expose her limbs and incite a man to lust,” he said loudly. Then he licked his bottom lip.
“This is not a Simple Life community,” one of his companions said. “The other people here are not bound to live by our rules. And we are here because we want to explore other possibilities while holding on to our core values.”
Scythe watched Joshua Painter turn toward the voice at the same time he slipped his right hand into one of the pockets in his trousers. As he withdrew his hand—a hand now wearing a leather glove that had Panther claws at the ends of the fingers—he bared his teeth and stepped in front of Barbara Ellen.
“Joshua,” Virgil warned, moving toward the male.
“The marsh,” Joshua snarled. “It’s the marsh. It looks safe but it kills. I told Saul. Ask Saul.”
The words made no sense to her. They didn’t make sense to Tolya or Virgil either. But Jesse Walker swayed and looked like bleached bones.
Scythe didn’t know who had contacted Saul Panthergard or what was said, but suddenly Tolya, Virgil, and Yuri were converging on the table where the five men sat. The odd man leaped up, knocking over his chair as he bolted away from all the males and ran straight toward her, mistakenly thinking he could get past her.
Turning squarely to face him with her back to the rest of the beings in the room she said,
She heard the terra indigene scrambling to pull the humans to the floor or shield them in some way. Those seconds gave the odd man time to grab her arms and try to shove her aside. And in those seconds, her hair turned black with streaks of red—not revealing so much of her true nature that just looking at her would kill her prey, but sufficient for her to consume enough of his life force to make his heart flutter, to make his limbs weak.
One heartbeat. Two. Three. He collapsed and Scythe ran into her office and closed the door to protect the rest of them.
She’d been here just long enough to want to stay.
Scythe sank into the chair behind her desk. She didn’t have to leave. Then another thought as she remembered Barbara Ellen was in the saloon.
That made her smile.
She felt her hair relax from coils to loose curls, knew the black and red were changing to mostly gold and blue.
Feeling calmer but not quite calm enough to go out among the rest of them, Scythe reviewed the inventory of alcohol that had been brought in from the uninhabited houses.
Tolya guided Jesse Walker to the sofa in his office. He wasn’t sure if the previous occupant of the office had used the sofa for informal talks or to take a nap—or to mate with one of the females working for him, which was something human males who held a position of authority often did. At least that was something the Sanguinati had heard about human males.
If he asked Virgil to sniff the sofa, he would find out all kinds of things he didn’t want to know, so he hadn’t asked.
“Are you sure you don’t want to lie down?” he asked for the third time. Jesse Walker had downed two whiskeys before leaving the Bird Cage Saloon and had insisted that they needed to talk in private.
“Are you concerned about Madam Scythe?” he asked.
Jesse shook her head. “She’s dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“More dangerous than you.”
“Yes. She is a Harvester.” He’d already told her about Scythe. “It’s not Scythe who troubles you.”
“No.” Jesse pushed her hair back with a trembling hand. “What do you know about Joshua Painter, about how he came to live with the Panthergard?”
“Almost nothing. He was found and a Panther chose to raise him, help him survive. He wasn’t taken, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, that’s not what I’m asking.” She hesitated, then turned to face him. “Tolya, we need to know about Joshua Painter.”
“Do we? Why?” He waited, wondering if she was about to confirm what he suspected about the boy. When she hesitated again, he added, “This will stay between us until we both agree to tell others.”
Her body sagged with relief.
“You think he’s an Intuit?” he asked. It was a reasonable question. Saul had said the boy had a strong sense of the world.
“He’s an Intuit, but not quite in the same way that I am. I think . . .” Jesse hesitated again before saying quickly, “I think his mother was a blood prophet.”
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