Written in Red

CHAPTER 21

On Moonsday morning, Meg opened the office, prepared her clipboard, and breathed a sigh of relief. After Darrell’s dismissal and Asia’s public banning, all the humans who worked for the Others had been edgy, especially the humans who worked in the Market Square and would have a harder time escaping if the terra indigene turned savage. But with the exception of more patrol cars driving past the Courtyard, Firesday and Watersday were ordinary workdays. Earthday had been an enjoyable balance of chores and a long, fun romp in the snow with Simon and Sam in their Wolf forms. The romp had tired her out so much, she fell asleep while they all watched a movie that evening.

And Simon didn’t say a word about her using him as a furry pillow.

She still wasn’t sure why Darrell wasn’t supposed to visit the Green Complex. He had worked for the consulate, after all. Surely there was more sensitive material in that office than whatever could be observed in the dark about the outside of buildings.

Except Darrell had brought Asia, who really wasn’t allowed to be there.

Meg gave her arms a brisk rub, relieved when the prickling under her skin subsided. Going out at night to look at the Green Complex was odd, but she’d seen plenty of training images of someone sitting in a dark car, watching a building. Obsessed ex-lovers. Stalkers. Police. Asia didn’t fit any of those labels, but Meg thought the other woman was impulsive enough to jump at a chance to see any part of the Courtyard. And since Asia had been so curious about Sam, maybe she’d hoped to get another look at the puppy.

Did Asia know Sam lived with Simon at the Green Complex? Meg shook her head, unable to remember. Well, it didn’t matter anymore. Asia was gone and Darrell was gone, and neither of them had been part of her vision about men dressed in black.

Giving her arms a final rub, she dismissed thoughts of Asia and Darrell and went about her day. She chatted with Harry when he came in with his deliveries, laughing at his jokes even when she didn’t understand them. She spent several minutes trying to convince Nathan that he couldn’t have entire boxes of dog cookies and had to choose which kind of cookie he wanted for a snack. When he insistently pointed a big paw at each box, she ended up giving him two cookies of each flavor, which he took back to his Wolf bed to crunch.

Around midmorning, she got tangled in a bizarre game of tug between Nathan and Jake. She didn’t know which of them had brought in the length of rope as a toy, but the Wolf, still lying on the bed, had his teeth in one end of it, and the Crow had his feet clenched around the other and was madly flapping his wings. Her mistake was thinking she could break up the game by grabbing the rope right in front of Jake’s feet. Suddenly Nathan was on his feet, wagging his tail while he growled at her, and Jake’s caws sounded suspiciously gleeful. Because the floor was a little snow-slick and her shoes didn’t have enough traction, she was pulled from one end of the room to the other and couldn’t figure out how to let go of the rope without falling on her butt.

She got out of the game only because Dan walked in with a delivery and started laughing so hard, he almost dropped the packages. After signing for the delivery, she retreated to the sorting room and pondered what game the Wolf and Crow really had been playing: tug the rope or trick Meg into playing with them.

It said something about human resilience that a week after Nathan had been assigned as the office’s watch Wolf, most of the deliverymen were accepting of his presence, if still justifiably wary. A few tossed a “Hi, how’s it going?” in Nathan’s direction before they took care of business with her. Only one company had a new driver coming to the Courtyard, replacing the man who had refused to enter the office the first time he saw Nathan.

Once the mail was sorted and packages going out to terra indigene settlements were properly tagged for the earth-native trucks, Meg peeked into the front room. Jake was on the counter, fluffed up and dozing. Nathan was on his back, paws in the air, also snoozing. At that moment, they didn’t look like much security, but she knew they’d be awake the instant they heard footsteps or tires in the delivery area.

Leaving them to their morning nap, she headed for the back room. The ponies would be here in half an hour, and she wanted to be ready.

When she stepped into the room, a sickening rush of images filled her mind. Old hands, young hands, male hands, female hands, dark hands, pale hands. All reaching for something and . . . Shrieks of pain. Cries of anguish.

Meg stumbled out of the back room, shaking. Was she sick? Was she going insane? Was this what happened to cassandra sangue when they didn’t live in the compounds? Was this why they had originally been brought to live in such isolation? Maybe this was the reason the girls were allowed so little personal experience, why their lives were so sterile.

She rubbed at her arms, at her legs, at her belly, at her scalp, wanting to dig and scratch and claw until the painful prickling went away. It had never been this bad, and she had never seen actual images before a cut.

But there had been that moment on the road the other day when she had slipped into a vision without cutting.

Bracing her arms on the sorting table, Meg fought to think.

Sensitive skin. She had overheard the Walking Names once when they were reviewing the value of the girls. They said prophecies from her were the most expensive because her skin was so sensitive, it became attuned to the visions even before she was cut. She just had to be around something connected to the prophecy.

And Simon had speculated that this prickling was a sign her instincts were waking up because she was living and doing and experiencing for herself instead of seeing the world as labeled images.

Was the prickling under her skin not only a warning but also a measuring stick? A little tingle that was annoying but faded quickly indicated a small choice that wouldn’t have major significance, while the harsher, painful buzz . . .

Meg returned to the back room, staggering as the images flooded her mind again. But she couldn’t figure out what was causing the reaction.

“Something there,” she whispered, fleeing to the sorting room. “Have to do it. Have to cut out this vision hiding in my skin.”

But she needed a listener this time, because whatever was struggling to break through was too big for her to endure alone. And she was scared that she wouldn’t be able to sort out the images of the prophecy, wouldn’t be able to recognize the warning or put the pieces together.

Who to call? Not Simon. He’d be angry that she didn’t call him, but he’d be angry about the cut too, and she felt certain that they didn’t have time to argue.

She tiptoed to the Private door. Jake and Nathan were still napping. She closed that door as quietly as possible and turned the lock. Then she called A Little Bite, hoping that whatever guardian spirit looked after prophets would guide Tess’s hand to answer the phone.

“A Little Bite,” Tess said. She sounded cheerfully annoyed, which meant the coffee shop was busy.

“Tess? It’s Meg.”

Silence. “Is something wrong?” Tess’s voice was no longer cheerful or annoyed. Now there was something in it that made Meg shiver.

“Yes,” Meg said. “I need your help. It’s urgent. Can you come now? Just you.”

Tess hung up. Meg hoped that was a positive response. Going into the bathroom, she thought about what she would need and what Tess would need. She almost reconsidered, almost called Henry. But she didn’t call him for the same reason she didn’t call Simon: it just wasn’t smart to be in a room with a carnivore when she slit her skin and spilled her own blood.

“I have to go,” Tess told Merri Lee. “Call Julia. Tell her to come in as soon as she can. Tell Simon you need Heather to help you until Julia arrives.”

“He’ll want to know why,” Merri Lee said. “What do I tell him?”

“When I know why, I’ll tell him,” Tess replied. She pulled on her coat and left by the back door, striding toward the Liaison’s Office.

Why didn’t you call Simon, Meg? Why call me? Do the prophets have any idea what I am? Did you call me out of knowledge or ignorance?

“Thanks for coming,” Meg said, locking the back door as soon as Tess slipped inside the office.

“Why didn’t you call Simon?” Tess asked.

“I thought this would be too dangerous with a predator in the same room.”

Ignorance, then, Tess thought. If Meg was trying to avoid predators, she wouldn’t have knowingly called one most of the terra indigene feared.

“I need to cut,” Meg said, her words tripping over one another. “Something terrible is going to happen, and there is something in this room that is a part of it.”

“But you don’t know what it is?”

Meg shook her head.

“What do you need from me?”

“I need someone to listen to the prophecy, to write down what I say.”

“All right. Where?”

“In the bathroom. It’s private there.”

“What will I need?”

Meg pointed at the items on the small table. Her hand shook, telling Tess how much effort it was taking for Meg to hold on and not slash herself indiscriminately. “The tablet of paper and the pen. When a cut is made, the images come as they come. Write them down. Then someone will have to figure out how they fit together in order to understand what they mean.”

Tess tipped her head toward the front of the office. “What did you tell Nathan?”

“He and Jake are sleeping.”

The Wolf wouldn’t be sleeping much longer. Their breed of earth native had keen senses, and the lack of sounds in the sorting room would alert Nathan just as much as an unfamiliar one. Once the Wolf realized Meg was locked out of reach, he’d call the enforcer and call his leader, and there was no telling who else would respond.

“Let’s get this done,” Tess said. She shrugged out of her coat, hung it on a peg, removed her boots, and followed Meg into the bathroom.

Meg’s hands hovered over the button and zipper on her jeans. “I think this needs a bigger cut. I think the skin on my legs will work best. I need to remove my jeans.”

“Arrroooo?” A query. Not loud, since Nathan was in the front room and they were in the back, and there were several closed doors between them. But it meant the Wolf was awake and aware.

Tess flushed the toilet. “That will buy us a little time. But the next time Nathan doesn’t get an answer, he’s going to call Simon and Blair.” No need to mention that Henry and Vlad would also be looking for answers if the watch Wolf started making a fuss.

Meg stripped off the jeans and dropped them in a corner of the bathroom floor. On the toilet seat, neatly laid out, were the razor, ointment, butterfly bandages, a package of gauze, and medical tape. On the floor was a hand towel. Color stained her cheeks when she sat on the floor and examined the scars on her legs.

“How do you choose the place to cut?” Tess asked, sitting back on her heels so she was facing Meg and could watch the girl’s body and the expressions on her face as well as listen to the words.

“The Controller chose, based on how much the client was willing to pay for the prophecy.” Meg stared at her own skin. “Until I ran away, I didn’t make my own cuts. I don’t really know how to choose.”

“Yes, you do,” Tess said quietly. “It’s part of who you are.” She picked up the razor, opened it, and handed it to Meg. “You know where to find this prophecy.”

Meg took the razor and closed her eyes. Her free hand moved over her left leg, upper and lower, front and back. Her hand moved to her right leg. Her fingers stuttered just below the knee. Opening her eyes, she laid the razor on the right side of the shin bone, turned her hand, and cut.

Tess watched Meg’s hand shake with the effort to set the razor down with the blade turned away. She watched the girl pale, saw pain in those gray eyes that she found arousing, but there was also trust in those eyes instead of fear. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, kill trust.

“Speak,” Tess said, her voice rough with the effort to deny her own nature. “Speak, prophet, and I will listen.”

Box of sugar lumps. A hand withdrawing. A man’s hand wearing a thin leather glove. A woman’s hand, the nails polished a pretty rose color. A dark winter coat that had nothing distinctive. The sleeve of a woman’s sweater, the color a bright, unfamiliar blue. The ponies rolling on the ground near the barn, screaming and screaming as black snakes burst out of their bellies. Skull and crossbones. Sugar full of black snakes. The ponies screaming. A skeleton in a hooded robe, passing out sweets to children. A skull laughing while children screamed and screamed as the black snakes ripped their way out of those young bellies.

“Hands,” Meg whispered, her strength visibly fading. “Skull and crossbones. Black snakes in the sugar.”

“Your words have been heard, prophet,” Tess whispered. “Rest, now. Rest.”

With a moan that was wantonly sexual, Meg laid back on the floor. Her eyes glazed and her body suddenly had the scent of a different, and enticing, kind of arousal.

“Arrrrooooo!”

Out of time, Tess thought, springing to her feet. She looked at Meg, at the hand towel soaking up blood that continued to flow from the cut. She wasn’t sure how much blood was too much, but she knew what she had to deal with first.

As she pulled open the bathroom door, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the sink. Hair the color of blood turning black as the grave. She strode into the back room at the same moment Simon unlocked the outside door, leaping in ahead of Henry and Blair. Nathan squeezed between Henry and Simon, everything in him focused on the blood scent.

“Get out,” Tess snarled. “All of you, get out of this room. Now!”

“Don’t you dare give orders to me!” Simon snarled in reply. His head began changing to Wolf to accommodate the jaws and fangs that would serve him better as weapons.

“Stay out!” Tess said again. Something in her voice must have gotten through to Henry, because he grabbed Nathan by the scruff just as the Wolf launched himself toward the bathroom.

Nathan snapped and snarled, but he couldn’t break Henry’s hold.

“You all have to leave. That goes for you too, vampire,” Tess said as smoke flowed through the open door. If a fight broke out now, someone would die. If one of these males died, the rest would realize what she was, and she would have to leave. She didn’t want to leave. It was rare for her kind to find acceptance, let alone cautious friendship, even among other terra indigene. “Simon, there are things you all need to know, but it’s dangerous for you to be in this room right now. Meg needs tending. Let me help her.”

His eyes were red with flickers of gold, a sign he was insanely furious.

“You can do this?” Henry asked, his voice a quiet rumble.

Tess nodded. “She asked me to come and hear the prophecy. She asked for my help. Let me finish helping her.”

“There must be something we can do,” Henry said.

She started to deny it, then realized it was an order—and she realized why. Simon was snarling, almost vibrating with rage. Maybe it was the scent of blood pushing the Wolf, maybe it was because he, too, valued friendship. One of his pack was hurt, and because Meg wasn’t a Wolf, he didn’t know what to do.

“Fetch a pillow and a couple of blankets,” she said. “And not ones that stink of those other humans.” She wasn’t sure if Asia’s scent would matter to Meg, but it mattered to her. “There’s a wheelchair in the bodywalker’s office. Fetch that too. And someone call Jester. He needs to be part of this discussion.”

Simon asked.

He couldn’t vocalize as a human despite his head having shifted back to looking human? Not good.

“You can call Jester, or you can call the girl at the lake. One of them needs to hear this.”

All the males flinched.

“I have to take care of Meg. I’ve left her long enough. We’ll meet in the sorting room in ten minutes.”

None of them liked it, but they all filed out of the room. Simon, of course, was the last one out. He looked at her hair.

“I’ll take care of her, Simon Wolfgard,” Tess said softly. “You don’t know yet how much we owe her, but I do.”

He left, closing the door behind him.

Blowing out a breath, Tess hurried back to the bathroom. Meg was still on the floor, but she turned her head and looked at Tess.

“Did you get an answer?” Meg asked.

“I got one.” She filled the sink with warm water and found a couple more hand towels. “We’re going to have to think about what you need in this bathroom if this is typical of what happens when you cut. No, stay down. I’m not sure how much blood you lost, and you’ve already upset the Wolves, the Grizzly, and the vampire. You can’t afford to get dizzy and fall down.”

After soaking one towel in warm water, she carefully washed the blood off Meg’s leg, then bent closer to examine the cut. “Looks like it’s starting to clot now. Do you usually cut this deep?”

“It has to be deep enough to scar,” Meg replied. “Although cassandra sangue skin does tend to scar easily.”

Did Simon realize that? Or hadn’t it occurred to him that Meg could be injured while romping with Wolves, even if the Wolves didn’t mean to hurt her?

After patting the leg dry, Tess applied the antiseptic ointment, used the butterfly bandages to close the wound, then covered everything with gauze and medical tape. She rolled the bloodiest towel in the other two and put them all in the wastebasket.

“I’ll help you up so you can sit on the toilet,” Tess said, doing exactly that. “What usually happens after a cut?”

“We’re given a little food, then taken back to our cell to rest to make sure the cut closes properly.” Meg hesitated. “Tess? Am I going to have to talk to Simon?”

“Yes, but not until you rest.”

“Could you hand me my jeans? I should get dressed now.”

Tess looked at the bandage she’d wrapped around Meg’s leg and considered the jeans. She shook her head. “You need something looser, so we can keep checking the cut. Stay there.” Not much time left before the rest of them returned.

Taking the last hand towel, she went to the cupboards and rummaged until she found a small, clean jar. Using the towel to avoid touching the box of sugar lumps, she dumped some of them into the jar. She left the box on the floor with the towel, sealed the jar, and put it in her coat pocket. Then she helped Meg into the loose fleece pants she found in the storage bins. They were too big for the girl, but they had the advantage of being easy to push up past the knee.

She tore off the pages that held the prophecy, folded them, and stuffed them into her back pocket. Leaving the tablet and pen on the little table, she walked into the sorting room. As she opened the outside doors, she realized they had one other problem: where to put Meg while they had this meeting. She didn’t want to leave the girl in the back room with the box of sugar, and she didn’t think Meg would want to be around Simon and the others who took an interest in her until they knew why she had made the cut. The front room was too exposed, but they could lock the door and refuse deliveries.

The abovestairs room that Darrell hadn’t used was a possibility, but what else might be up there that the Others hadn’t sensed?

A BOW pulled up to the sorting room’s outside door. Blair and Simon got out. Neither looked friendly—or forgiving.

“Meg needs to rest,” Tess began, “but we shouldn’t use the back room yet.”

For answer, Simon pulled a Wolf bed out of the BOW while Blair pulled out the wheelchair. Henry had pillows and blankets. Vlad had one of the food carriers she used for deliveries. Jester was there, looking concerned as he noted what the others were carrying. And Nathan, still in Wolf form, just looked at her and growled.

They all marched past her. Simon raised an arm to sweep all the stacks of mail off the table. Yipping, Jester hurriedly put the stacks on the counter so that Simon could put the Wolf bed on the table. Henry laid one blanket over it and set the other one aside with the pillows. Blair opened the wheelchair. Vlad set the food on the counter, avoiding the mail only because Jester reminded the vampire that Meg had sorted that mail, and ruining her work was an insult.

“Now,” Simon growled. “Meg.”

“She’s in the bathroom,” Tess said. “I’ll bring her in.”

“I’ll get her,” Vlad said.

“She’s one of Namid’s creations, both wondrous and terrible,” Tess said. She nodded when they all froze. “No one should go sniffing around the towels I used for her. And no one should go sniffing around the box of sugar.”

Simon turned on his heel and went into the back room.

“What’s going on?” Jester asked.

“You need to handle the mail today,” Tess said. “Tell the ponies there isn’t a treat.”

“It’s Moonsday,” Jester protested. “There’s always sugar on Moonsday, and they all come up to see Meg. Even old Hurricane.”

“Not today,” Tess repeated.

Simon came back in, carrying Meg. Her cheeks were a blaze of color. His cheeks had fur forming and receding as he struggled to hold the shape he needed instead of the one he wanted. His fingers had Wolf claws instead of fingernails, but Tess noted how carefully he set Meg on the makeshift bed they had made for her.

“Would you like something to eat?” Tess asked.

“No,” Meg replied. “I’d just like to rest.”

Meg’s voice sounded pale, and Tess struggled with her own urge to respond. The death color had faded from her hair, but that pale sound brought strands of black back into the red.

Simon adjusted a pillow under Meg’s head and covered her with the other blanket. Then he leaned close. “Nathan is here to guard. Don’t lock him out again.”

A grumpy arrrooo from Nathan before the Wolf sat next to the table.

“Close those outer doors,” Tess said. “We still have a few minutes before the ponies arrive, and Meg should stay warm.” She flipped the lock on the Private door, then opened the go-through and kept going. She turned the sign on the front door to CLOSED and turned that lock.

They gathered in a corner of the room, far enough that Meg probably wouldn’t hear them, especially with the Private door mostly closed to keep the room warm.

“Something in the back room disturbed Meg enough that cutting her skin for a prophecy was needed,” Tess said. “She asked for my help.” She pulled the papers out of her pocket and handed them to Simon. “These are the images she saw.”

Henry and Blair leaned over his shoulders to read.

“Makes no sense,” Blair muttered.

“Pieces of a puzzle,” Henry replied. “We need to put the pieces together to find the answer.”

“The answer is poison,” Tess said quietly. “Skull and crossbones is a human symbol for poison. That is what Meg was trying to tell us. Someone poisoned the sugar in order to kill the ponies.”

Jester whined. Vlad took the papers from Simon to read the words for himself.

“This skeleton in the hooded robe and the children,” Vlad said. “That’s not about us.”

“Maybe this poison was used before or is about to be used elsewhere,” Tess countered. “Maybe these images are the only way the prophet can help someone identify this particular kind of death.”

“That means calling the police,” Henry said.

Simon nodded. “Montgomery.”

“Do we let him into the back room?” Vlad asked.

“No,” Simon replied. “But we’ll give him the box of sugar, let his people figure out the poison.” Now he looked at Tess. “What can we do for Meg?”

“She says she was given food and rest when she was cut before,” Tess said. “The back room and bathroom need to be cleaned and all the rags burned, along with anything that has Meg’s blood on it. I’ll do the cleaning. Merri Lee will help me.”

“After the police are gone,” Simon said. “After the poison is gone.”

Jester looked at Simon. “After the ponies have the mail, I’ll tell Winter. But I think she’s going to want to talk to you.”

Simon nodded. Then he looked around. “Where is Jake?”

“Probably informing the entire Crowgard that something happened to Meg,” Blair said sourly.

“Vlad, get a shipping box and packing tape from Lorne,” Simon said. “We’ll put the box of sugar lumps in that. I’ll call Montgomery and have him come here. And I’ll take care of any deliveries that come until the office closes for the midday break.”

Vlad opened the front door and flipped the sign back to OPEN as he walked out. Jester slipped back into the sorting room and returned with the stacks of mail, which he laid out on the front counter before going outside to wait for the ponies.

“Let the Crows spread the word that the Liaison will not be making any deliveries this afternoon,” Henry said before he left.

Blair walked out without a word to anyone, leaving Tess and Simon.

“I’m not sure the euphoria is worth the pain that comes before it,” Tess said softly. “She didn’t make that cut for herself, Simon. She did it for us. Remember that before you snarl at her.”

She walked out of the office, then hesitated before she headed for the sidewalk instead of staying within the Courtyard. She’d forgotten her coat, would have to fetch it later. As she walked the short distance to A Little Bite, her coiling hair turned red and black in equal measure, and she allowed the smallest glimpse of her true nature to show through the human skin.

And everyone who looked upon her died just a little.

Simon walked into the sorting room, looked at Nathan, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Nathan showed his teeth.