Wild Country
Page 47
“Do the Elders know about these packs of humans?” Tolya aimed the question at Virgil but looked at Air.
Virgil shrugged, but Air said, “They know.”
And have done nothing. After seeing some of the Elders who lived in the hills, he wasn’t sure he wanted them to do anything, but he also didn’t want to see Virgil, Kane, and John dying the way Joe Wolfgard had died.
“Those humans haven’t crossed into our territory,” Virgil said. “Not yet.”
“But they’ve sent scouts.” Tolya held up the list of hotel guests that Anya had provided. Two of them claimed to be in the cattle business and were in Bennett looking to buy some stock. One was a gambler who didn’t sneer at the betting limits that had been set for play in the Bird Cage Saloon, and for some reason, that made Freddie Kaye very uneasy. Another who had spent time in the saloon didn’t seem to have a profession, but Yuri believed the human was a predator waiting for his chosen prey. “And then there is Parlan Blackstone, who seems to be here without the rest of his pack.”
“They’ll be coming if they’re not already here and hiding,” Virgil said.
Tolya nodded. “Blackstone asked for a meeting and should be here at any moment.” He looked at Air. “Could you stay, quietly?”
“And then tell the Elders what is said?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t need me here,” Virgil said. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” Tolya agreed. “But depending on what Blackstone says, you should prepare for a fight.”
Virgil gave him an odd look. “I’ll prepare for a fight no matter what he says. But I’ll tell you now, if the humans start a fight, I’ll keep killing them until they take my last breath.”
* * *
* * *
Parlan had thought about how to approach Tolya, how to play this hand. Should he go in as the tough leader who had the force behind him to take control or the man who would have preferred a quiet life but felt he had to stand up for his people?
He couldn’t read the damn Sanguinati, but remembering the last time he’d met Tolya in this office, he decided to go in soft.
“Appreciate you seeing me,” Parlan said as he settled in the visitors’ chair.
“Have you decided which saloon you would like to run?” Tolya pulled a yellow legal pad to the center of his desk and picked up a pen.
“Ah. Well. That might not be happening for some time.”
“Oh?” Tolya set the pen on the pad.
“You’ve got a problem, Mr. Sanguinati. The town has a problem. Nothing that can’t be sorted out, but some changes need to be made.”
“Oh?”
He wished he could get a sense of what this vampire was thinking. “People—humans—need a place to live.”
“Which is why we have allowed some humans to return to Bennett,” Tolya replied.
“And humans need to be governed by other humans,” Parlan said, watching the vampire. “We can get a little crazy when we start feeling like cattle in a pen.”
“But you are cattle in a pen, Mr. Blackstone,” Tolya said pleasantly. “Bennett may be a large pen without any visible fences, but it is still a pen that provides some shelter from the wild country. That is true of all towns in Thaisia. It’s even true of the cities. It has always been true. Humans who think otherwise are foolish or delusional.”
“We can’t view ourselves as prey animals,” Parlan replied sharply. “We aren’t prey animals to be slaughtered on a whim.”
Silence except for a clock ticking somewhere nearby.
“What did you come to tell me?” Tolya asked.
“Humans have been pushed out of so many places in the Midwest, there’s nowhere else for them to go. So they’re coming here. But they need to live in a human town governed by humans.” Parlan took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “I’ve talked to some of these men, listened to the citizens who are setting up homes and businesses. Something has to change, or things will get ugly. That’s why, Mr. Sanguinati, I and some like-minded men are going to challenge you and the other town leaders to a fight for dominance.”
Tolya blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“My former business associates must have been talking after they left Bennett about how humans could take control from the Sanguinati.” Parlan doubted the blowhards had remembered the comment, let alone said anything, but they were long gone, so he could claim they’d said whatever he wanted them to say. “And, somehow, men who have been coming into town lately are thinking that I’m going to be the next mayor, that humans will uphold human law in Bennett.”
“So the packs of men who have gathered in houses just beyond the town boundaries are here because they believe you can participate in a fight for dominance and win?” Tolya sat back in his chair. “That is . . . unfortunate. Quite regrettable.”
“What do you mean?” Parlan’s hands were cold. “You said . . .”
Tolya sat forward, his folded hands resting on the pen and legal pad. “My dear Mr. Blackstone, those men misunderstood.”
Cold, cold, cold. So cold his fingers almost couldn’t bend. “It sounded clear enough to me.”
“When I said a fight for dominance was the only way leadership would change, I meant between one group of terra indigene and another. Humans can’t challenge us for dominance.”
“Why not?”
Tolya gave him a sympathetic smile. “It can’t happen because the Elders allowed humans to return to Bennett and resettle the town on the condition that the town was under the control of leaders who were terra indigene. The day that is no longer true, the town will cease to exist. The train station will close because trains will not be allowed to reach the town. Nothing will come in—and nothing will go out. Nothing. Anyone living here will not be allowed to travel through the wild country. That is the Elders’ territory, and to them, you really are nothing but prey.”
So cold. So fucking cold. How had his luck changed so much and so fast?
A thought occurred to him—and rage warmed him just enough to consider how to get out of this mess.
He wouldn’t be able to save all the men who had gathered on the outskirts, but he might still save the clan.
“There’s no stopping it,” Parlan said regretfully. “There’s going to be a fight. But we can keep it to a display of strength, at which point I and my people will concede and withdraw our challenge.”
“In exchange for what?”
“For me and my family being allowed to remain and open our saloon and become citizens of Bennett.” Parlan leaned forward. “Look, I didn’t ask to represent this group of people, but I have enough of a reputation that I have some influence over them. If I and my delegation meet you and yours, and we are seen to concede after acknowledging that you’re the stronger leaders, the other men will have to agree or leave. And, frankly, it will prevent a slaughter on both sides.”
Tolya hesitated.
Gotcha.
“So this challenge will be made without you using human weapons? This will be done without a single shot being fired?” Tolya stared at him. “You do understand what will happen if I agree to this and a single terra indigene is injured or killed? One shot, Mr. Blackstone, and you all die.”
“I understand.” If he had to sell out the rest of the men who had come here in order to keep his family alive, so be it.
“I must take advice and will get back to you this evening with a decision.”
“Take advice? You’re the leader.”
Tolya studied him. “I am amazed by the human ability to be willfully blind. How can you come to a place like this and not understand what’s out there?” He stood. “I’ll have a decision this evening about your faux challenge. In the meantime, perhaps you should encourage the men you can influence to get as far away from here as possible before nightfall.”
Parlan smiled grimly. “Leave so they don’t die?”
“Oh, they’re still going to die. But they won’t be here to fire the shot that will kill you and your family.”
CHAPTER 33
Firesday, Messis 31
Air rode Thunder deep into the Elder Hills, the steed’s hooves drumming the earth, a herald for the oncoming storm. She rode until she reached the place where Namid’s teeth and claws met with Elementals when a decision was required.
The Elders were already there, waiting for her.
Air said.
Air waited while the Elders considered what was about to happen in the town that bordered their home.
Elementals had their own connection to the world and took care of the world in their own way. They seldom interfered, for good or ill, with the creatures that lived in the world, and were usually indifferent to the help or harm they caused the smaller species—except when they or the Elders were needed to reshape a piece of the world. Then they worked with Namid’s teeth and claws to thin out herds that had grown unchecked—or to eliminate a species that had become too much of a threat to the rest of Namid’s creations.
They had joined with the Elders across the world to eliminate a certain breed of human, so Air waited now for the message she would take back to Tolya—and then share with the rest of her kin.
Air felt the change in the rest of the Elders. This one hadn’t taken on a two-legged shape recently, when the decision had been made to assume a humanlike form in order to hunt down the humans who used to live in Bennett. Whatever its true form, this Elder’s shape stood on two legs but there was nothing humanlike about it. It was an ancient form, fanged and furred and terrible in its making—and, Air noticed, feared by the rest of the Elders.
That he was here, now, was a choice she found interesting. But she could afford to find this Elder interesting. She and her steed were the only beings here that he couldn’t harm.
Air understood now. The Elders who had gathered to thin the human herds were scattered again, hunting and moving within their territories as prey moved to feed. But here, in these hills, there were many Elders—more than enough to destroy this particular kind of human.
What had Tolya told the Blackstone man? Cattle in a pen. Yes. Knowing there were many Elders here, these humans who preyed on their own kind had been herded toward Bennett. Toward this one Elder in particular.
It was settled, then—or as settled as anything could be when humans were involved. The Elders and Elementals would keep the human packs currently in the wild country from entering the fight, and Tolya would allow the Blackstone man to challenge and yield in order to prevent a fight that would kill the Wolfgard in Bennett.
As she rode back to Bennett to give Tolya the Elders’ decision and then meet with her kin, Air wondered if the Blackstone man would keep his word. And she wondered which human was going to break the rules and get them all killed.
* * *
* * *
Parlan searched his hotel room, then searched it again. During the third search, he finally found the slit in the mattress—and the black stone that had been placed inside.
Fucking bitch, trying to sour his luck with one of her fucking stones! But when had she slipped into his room? Or would he find a similar stone in other rooms at the hotel? Who else’s fortune had Abigail soured? Not the people who were looking to stay in Bennett. She wouldn’t need to play that con with them, not at first. But there were a limited number of rooms available for transient guests. Had the bitch put a dissonant stone in each of those rooms? If she had . . .
William and Wallace Parker. Sleight-of-Hand Slim. Durango Jones. They were all staying at the hotel.
Despite being an Intuit himself, Judd didn’t believe that gemstones could bring a person good fortune or sour a person’s luck. He didn’t believe Abigail’s claim to recognize which stone could alter a person’s fate. He’d always said she was playing a con within a con while doing her spiel with Lawry.
But Parlan believed there had to be something real about her ability—and that’s why he began to sweat as he studied the black stone now sitting on the bedside table.
Now he knew why his meetings with the vampire had been going sour. His bitch of a daughter had set him up to fail even before he arrived.
Parlan twitched when the phone rang. “Hello?”
“This is the front desk,” a female voice said. “Mr. Sanguinati would like to see you at your earliest convenience.”
“Thank you.” He hung up. A couple of minutes later, he left the hotel and walked to the building next door.
“I thought you were going to take advice,” Parlan said when he entered Tolya’s office.
Tolya smiled. “I did.”
“That was fast.” And made him wonder if the vampire had tried to play him.
“Sometimes it is.” Tolya stood in front of the desk. “Your proposal to challenge and then yield has been accepted. You and your delegation and I with mine will meet in the town square. Once the challenge is concluded, as long as no weapon is fired and no terra indigene are injured, you will be allowed to leave town by car or train.”
“We agreed I could take over one of the saloons,” Parlan protested.
“We did, but the Elders overruled that agreement,” Tolya said softly. “If you remain in Bennett, you will not survive very long. Your family will not survive.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, that is a statement. Now I must go. I have other business to attend to this evening.”
Parlan walked out of the government building, Tolya beside him.
A Wolf howled, somewhere nearby. Then another howled a few blocks away. Then a third.
And then something else howled. Someth
ing that made Parlan’s skin crawl just from the sound of it.
“What is that?” he whispered.
Tolya Sanguinati shuddered. “That, Mr. Blackstone, is a warning.”
* * *
* * *
Standing outside her house, Jana shivered, frozen by the sound of that last howl. The one that didn’t belong to a Wolf.
Barb stood just inside the screen door, looking at the street. “What do you think it means?”
Nothing good. “I’m going to check on the neighbors.”
“But dinner is almost ready.”
“I won’t be long.”
Jana jogged across the street to the Gotts’ house. They were home and dinner was on the table. She declined an invitation to join them, then hesitated. She wasn’t an Intuit, but she was learning to be a cop and trust her instincts.
“Stay home tomorrow,” she told Hannah. “All of you. Stay away from the town square.”
“Trouble?” Hannah asked, looking toward the Elder Hills.
“Maybe.”
She went up the street to Maddie’s house and talked to Evan, asking that he and Kenneth stay home with the children tomorrow.
That something howled again and reached inside her past the place of rational thinking. But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow herself to be too afraid to think.
The Ravengard had reported sightings of strangers moving into houses within the town’s borders, but Craig and Dawn Werner, as the town’s land agents, had issued no paperwork for houses on that street. When she told Virgil, he wouldn’t let her check it out and threatened to lock her in the Me Time cell if she defied him.
This had something to do with outlaws, with the men coming into town these past few days. But until someone broke the law, she didn’t know what to do about it.
* * *
* * *