by Anne Bishop
He thought about Sierra as a young woman with her first job, struggling to pay the rent on a tiny box of an apartment but proud to have her own place. Except . . . had she struggled financially because her job didn’t pay quite enough, which is what she’d told him when he’d treat her for lunch, or because Jimmy had been coming around every few weeks and squeezing her for money? And later, when the man who had fathered her children took off for good, had he accepted the excuses for the lost jobs or the final notices on utilities because he truly believed them or because his life with Elayne and raising his own little girl was his own excuse for not asking hard questions?
And now it had come to this: Sissy feeling betrayed, feeling like an outsider, because her family loved her enough not to help her continue on this path.
• • •
Meg slipped off her sandals and rubbed one calf with the bottom of her foot to try to relieve the pins-and-needles feeling.
“You’re not eating,” Simon growled, “and you’re itchy.”
She’d eaten just enough not to feel empty, but she wasn’t enjoying the food. “I’m mad at Sierra for spoiling the nice dinner we were going to have, and I feel bad about feeling that way.”
“Why? The whole female pack feels that way.” Simon cocked his head. “Do you want to go bite the Sierra?”
“Yes!”
He narrowed his eyes and leaned back a bit, as if worried that she might bite him, and that made her smile.
“Not for real,” she amended. Then she clenched her hands. For the past couple of weeks, she’d put the silver folding razor in a dresser drawer when she got home. That made it easy to find if she really needed to cut to see a prophecy, but she no longer carried it with her all the time. Right now, sitting here in the summer room with Simon, the razor felt too far away. And yet, she really didn’t want to make a cut. Not for Sierra.
“Vlad is still in the Market Square,” Simon said. “So are Henry and Tess. Do you want them to bring back the box of prophecy cards?”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head.
But what if something bad happened, something her warning would have stopped?
What if the something was actually a good thing?
“I think something is going to happen tonight,” Meg said.
Simon took a bite of his sandwich and studied her as she raised her leg and rubbed the calf, trying to relieve the prickles.
“Blair and I will go back to the Market Square and keep watch,” he finally said. “Nothing bad will happen to the Sierra and her pups.”
The prickles faded. Her words had been vague but, apparently, they had been enough. Or had the prickles faded because Simon promised to keep watch?
What did that mean for herself, for the other blood prophets, if a vague warning sometimes could be enough because someone really listened?
Simon picked up her sandwich and held it in front of her mouth. “If you’re going to bite something, bite this.”
She did. And because her teeth scraped one of his fingers when she bit down, she had to hold her own sandwich for the rest of the meal.
• • •
In Wolf form, Simon trotted back to the Market Square. Allison Owlgard, Vlad, Blair, and Elliot were already in position to watch the Sierra’s apartment and the area around the building. If Meg hadn’t been itchy, none of them would have been out there watching a human they didn’t like.
The Wolves had been keenly aware of the odd silence filling the Market Square since the Sierra had challenged him. Did the Elders understand that firing her was a human way of asserting his dominance as the leader of the Courtyard? Maybe he should tell them to make sure they understood this kind of dominance since they might see it in other places where humans lived.
A breeze suddenly ruffled his fur. Blair and Elliot looked at him in surprise.
he told Jester.
With all the windows open to let in the cooler night air, Jester would be able to hear if Meg got up in the night—or opened a dresser drawer. He would alert Nyx, if she didn’t understand the significance of that sound.
Nothing else to do, so Simon and the others settled down to keep watch.
• • •
Shortly after daybreak, before most of the humans were awake, a taxi pulled up in front of the stone apartment building.
The Wolves and the Sanguinati watched the Sierra carry luggage to the curb, watched the taxi driver quietly load the carryalls into the trunk. They watched her lead her pups to the taxi and tuck them in the backseat. They watched her return to the building just long enough to close the outer door very quietly.
They watched the taxi drive away.
Lights were on in Nadine’s den. In a few minutes, she would come over to A Little Bite to start her baking.
Kowalski stepped out on the top porch of the two-family house across the street, yawning and rubbing his head but looking around in a way that made Simon think the human wasn’t as sleepy as he appeared. Had Kowalski heard the taxi and come out to investigate? Or did he do this every morning?
Kowalski spotted the Wolves who were watching him and froze. After a moment, he raised a hand in greeting.
Simon raised a front paw in acknowledgment but didn’t add a friendly arroo. No reason to wake up everyone yet.
Vlad, in smoke form, flowed across Crowfield Avenue and joined the Wolves.
Quiet voices in Miss Twyla’s efficiency apartment. Simon eased to the edge of the parking lot and cocked his head. Radio. Maybe television. Ah. Weather report. As if a human knew more about weather than the girls at the lake.
Time to go home and catch a quick nap. He had a feeling there would be a lot of howling from the humans today.
Dear Douglas,
Here in Brittania, it’s business as usual, which, for us humans, feels surreal. Fishing boats go out and bring back a catch. Hunters trade some goods in order to enter the wild country and bring back a deer or two to sell at market. While we aren’t receiving the same quantities of foodstuffs from Thaisia, ships are coming in to our harbors with needed cargo, the manifest carrying both the signature and seal of the harbormaster overseeing the point of origin as well as the signature of the terra indigene assigned to approve any shipment of food. We’re even receiving shipments from the human territories in Afrikah and Felidae, as well as merchandise from Tokhar-Chin. No one mentions Cel-Romano. It’s like there is a big hole in the world that we’re all working around as it fills in and takes a different shape.
Some Cel-Romano refugees have made it to coastal villages on the continent—human places that were established in the wild country outside the Alliance of Nations and have been allowed to exist for generations. The refugees call the war the Destruction of Cel
-Romano and the Alliance of Nations. The Others I’ve talked to call it the Thwarted Human Invasion of the Wild Country. A truth seen through different eyes. The invaders were not only stopped; they were hamstrung so that they will have no time for anything but survival.
While that is true of the cities with factories that made the weapons of war, the country villages, especially those along the original border between Cel-Romano and the wild country, celebrated the return of most of their sons and are living much as they had before the war. There is more wariness, more concern about provoking an attack, but the same can be said for the people in Brittania who deal with the Others.
Recently I met one of the terra indigene who is considered a historian and scholar. I can’t tell you what kind he is because I only saw him in his human form and he didn’t offer a name that indicated his form or gard. He showed me a map he claimed was five hundred years old. The map showed human places I’d never heard of—places that had once been great civilizations, until humans forgot the world wasn’t theirs to claim. He told me remnants of those civilizations still exist, with statues that were great works of art standing sentinel in pastures. The surviving people live in isolated communities on the land that wasn’t reclaimed by the wild country, coming together for major celebrations that provide an opportunity to trade merchandise and arrange marriages. They live simply, and few humans in other parts of the world even know of their existence anymore.
I think he showed me the map so I would understand that the land that had once been the largest human-controlled area in the world is gone forever. The people who still live in Cel-Romano will adapt to a simpler way of life or fade away as many did before them.
Business as usual, but nothing will be the same. I think you, better than I, understand that.
—Shady
CHAPTER 12
Moonsday, Messis 13
As he started up the stairs to Sissy’s apartment, Monty nodded to the Sanguinati who stood watch in the building’s front hall.
Yesterday his mother had shown up early, asking him to take her to the neighborhood Universal Temple, saying they should all spend a little time on Earthday thanking the guardian spirits for their blessings and asking them for the strength to meet coming challenges. When he suggested they take Sissy and the girls with them, Twyla told him to let Sierra have some room to think. She’d been a bit sharp with him, which had made him wonder if she’d spoken to Sissy that morning and already knew the response to that suggestion.
After visiting the temple, he had taken Twyla and Lizzy out for lunch. They met up with the Denbys, who also wanted a day away from the Courtyard. All of them went to a beach on Lake Etu where the children could look for shells and play at the water’s edge. They picked up pizzas from Hot Crust on the way home and spent the evening at the Denby residence playing board games.
There were no lights on in Sissy’s apartment when Monty watched Twyla cross Crowfield Avenue and go up to her efficiency apartment above the seamstress/tailor’s shop. He heard no footsteps overhead while Lizzy got ready for bed. But he hadn’t thought much about it since it was the girls’ bedtime and Sissy might have turned in early too. His mama had told him that morning that Sissy didn’t need anything. He had taken that to mean she had come to some arrangement with Tess and Nadine to supply Sissy and the girls with some food before all the Courtyard shops closed for Earthday.
But this was a new week, a new beginning. He had followed Simon’s orders and not given Sissy any food on Watersday, and he’d stayed away from the Courtyard most of yesterday. But the “no food” command didn’t apply now, so there was no reason he couldn’t buy breakfast for Sissy and his nieces before he went to work. Maybe, having been given a day to herself to consider her actions and the serious consequences, Sissy would really talk to him about what kept happening between her and Jimmy. Or if she wouldn’t talk to him, maybe he could convince her to talk to Theral MacDonald, who had gotten away from an abusive relationship.
He raised his hand to knock on Sissy’s door, then realized the door was ajar, as if someone had stepped out for a moment.
Monty pushed the door open a little ways. “Sissy?”
No answer. No sounds.
Monty pushed the door open all the way and wished he had his gun. He stepped inside, cautious, listening. “Sissy?”
No sign of struggle. What was left of a package of crackers sat on the kitchen table, along with an open jar of peanut butter. Crumbs on the dishes, milk residue in the glasses. Was this from last night or early this morning? Had he misunderstood and Sissy had been left for a whole day without food?
He looked in the bedrooms. No one there. He checked the bathroom. Then he checked closets and drawers and the medicine chest.
And then he rushed back down the stairs.
“My sister,” he said, wondering if the Sanguinati could sense how fast his heart was beating. “Did you see her last night or this morning?”
“I saw her just after daybreak on Earthday,” the Sanguinati replied. “She and her young left in a yellow taxi. They had luggage.”
“Didn’t you try to stop her?”
“Why would I?”
A grown woman leaving with her own children. No reason for anyone to stop her. After all, the Sanguinati was there to prevent anyone who wasn’t authorized from entering the building, not to detain someone who lived there. “I don’t suppose she said anything about where she was going?”
“No, but you could ask Vlad or Simon. They kept watch that night. They might know more.”
“Thank you. I will.” Monty returned to his apartment. Pulling aside the sheer curtains, he studied the Courtyard stores across the street. No lights on in Howling Good Reads. No lights in the front part of A Little Bite, but Nadine would be there by now, making the breads and pastries that would be offered for breakfast.
He checked his watch, then pulled out his mobile phone. He would call Captain Burke and . . . tell him what? This wasn’t a manhunt where every minute counted. No crime had been committed—at least none he knew about.
But his sister had packed up and left without a word to anyone.
He looked across the street to the efficiency apartment his mother had chosen to make her home.
Maybe Sissy had told someone. Maybe that explained his mama’s sharpness until they were away from the Courtyard—until he wouldn’t have reason to notice Sissy’s absence for a full day.
Monty reined in his impatience when he saw the untouched food on Lizzy’s plate. Breakfast had turned into a weird little power struggle, with Lizzy dawdling and dawdling until he pushed back hard because being late meant missing the bus and having to spend money on a taxi in order to get to the station reasonably close to the start of his shift. Burke was willing to give him more leeway than other officers because the constant interaction with the Courtyard was like being on call 24/7, but it wasn’t fair to other officers and certainly wasn’t fair to Kowalski, who was his partner and would wait for him.
He didn’t have time for power struggles this morning. Lizzy hadn’t touched the two slices of the peach he’d cut up to share between them, and the half slice of toast had a single bite out of the soft middle.
This morning he wasn’t going to cajole or scold.
He picked up Lizzy’s dish, put the peach slices into a container, which went in the fridge, and dumped the toast into the sealed bucket that held scraps that would be used as food for the critters the terra indigene ate.
He poured the rest of her milk down the drain and heard her shocked “Daddy!” as he rinsed the dishes and left them in the sink—and was glad his mother wouldn’t see them.
He fetched his service weapon from the gun safe in his bedroom. Lizzy was still sitting at the table. At least she was dressed for the day. “Let’s go. You need to stay with Miss Eve until it’s time for school.”
“I have to brush my teeth,�
� Lizzy protested.
“You’re out of time, so you’ll just have to go to school with stinky breath and fuzzy teeth.” Monty walked to the door and opened it. “Let’s go.”
Lizzy slid off the chair and clutched Grr Bear as a column of smoke flowed through the open door. The Sanguinati’s head, chest, and arms shifted to human form; the rest of him remained smoke.
“Do you want me to stay with the young one until an appropriate human comes to fetch her?” he asked.
“Appropriate human” meaning someone who wasn’t Jimmy or Sandee.
No reason to think the Sanguinati would hurt Lizzy—or feed on her. He wouldn’t have hesitated if Vlad had made the offer, but he didn’t feel comfortable leaving his girl alone with someone he didn’t know well, human or not.
Lizzy settled things by rushing over to him and grabbing his hand. “Grr Bear and I want to go with Daddy.”
The Sanguinati nodded, shifted back into a column of smoke, and returned to his position at the foot of the stairs, guarding nothing.
Monty locked the door but left the screened windows open. Providing intruders with easy access to one’s residence was not what the police department recommended, but he knew the Hawkgard and Crowgard made use of the porch railings and the shade as they kept an eye on the activity in the Courtyard apartments—and watched for small furry meals.
He hustled Lizzy across the yards and up the porch steps. Pete Denby met him at the door, a question in his eyes.
“Hi, Monty,” Eve said too brightly as she joined her husband. “Lizzy, Miss Ruth hasn’t gone to the schoolroom yet, so why don’t you come in? Sarah is just finishing her breakfast.”
“Daddy poured my milk down the drain,” Lizzy announced as she and Grr Bear went inside.
“I should put a sign around my neck,” Monty muttered.
Pete forced a smile. “Don’t bother.”
They both heard the caws as Crows winged back to the Courtyard.
