by Anne Bishop
Had Burke sent the part of the interview about Elayne and Lizzy staying in a hotel the previous night, or about the phone call from Leo Borden that precipitated the flight from the hotel to the train station?
Had the transcript that had been sent to the Toland police mentioned finding the jewels inside the bear?
A strange thought bubbled up.
Was Scaffoldon wondering if the terra indigene were staring at him with such focused attention because of what he was saying or because they were thinking about dinner?
Scaffoldon ran out of questions about the same time the novelty of being the center of so much adult attention wore off for Lizzy. In another minute, she would start pestering or pouting, sure that whatever Sarah and Robert were doing at A Little Bite was much more exciting than talking to police officers.
Scaffoldon couldn’t read Lizzy’s signals, but apparently Vlad could.
“I think that covers everything, don’t you?” Vlad asked, looking at Stavros.
“Everything,” Stavros agreed with a chilling smile directed right at Scaffoldon.
“Mr. Denby,” Vlad said. “If you and Nathan could escort the Lizzy to A Little Bite, she can join the other children for a snack.”
Pete looked at Monty and Burke before putting his notepad and pen back in his briefcase. “Sure.”
Man, Wolf, and child left the conference room.
Burke slapped his hands on the table. “Now that that’s settled . . .”
“Nothing is settled,” Scaffoldon snapped. “The child needs to be returned to Toland and her family. She’s a witness.”
“To what, exactly?” Stavros asked. “As she just told you, she didn’t see who hurt her mother, and she’s already answered all of your questions. At least, she answered the questions you chose to ask.”
“Meaning what?”
“I, too, have a few questions. Not for the child, but for you.”
Scaffoldon went so pale, Monty wondered if the man would faint.
“I don’t have to say anything to you,” Scaffoldon said.
“Which says everything I needed to hear.” Stavros stared at Scaffoldon. “There is no reason for you to return to Lakeside. There is no reason for you, or anyone you work with, to speak with the child again. If you stay focused on her, the Sanguinati are going to become focused on you. And your associates.”
Oh gods, Monty thought, noticing the color draining from Burke’s face while Scaffoldon’s face filled with dark fury. Is Stavros threatening to have the Sanguinati square off against the Toland police force?
Getting to his feet, Scaffoldon looked at Burke and didn’t try to hide his animosity. “You’re backing the wrong side.”
“No, I’m not,” Burke replied.
“I’ll escort Captain Scaffoldon to his car and see him out of the Courtyard,” Elliot said, opening the conference room door in a silent command.
Giving all of them one last look, Scaffoldon walked out.
“Mr. Wolfgard.” Burke fished his car keys out of his pocket. “Captain Scaffoldon needs the box of evidence that is stored in the trunk of my car. Since he won’t be returning to Lakeside, we wouldn’t want him to leave without it.”
Elliot took the keys and walked out, and that left two vampires and two cops in the room.
Vlad looked at Burke and smiled. Burke, regaining some color in his face, returned the smile.
Monty breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Then he looked at Stavros. “Would the Sanguinati really attack the Toland police force?”
Stavros looked surprised. “Why would we? They have not provided sufficient provocation for such a decision.”
“You said you would focus on Scaffoldon and his associates.”
“I wasn’t referring to the police. Not all the police,” Stavros amended.
Burke nodded. “Humans First and Last movement.”
Stavros turned to Vlad. “Why did you and Captain Burke find that human’s departure amusing?”
Vlad smiled, showing a hint of fang. “Because he’s scurrying back to Toland with a battered toy bear he was sent to retrieve.”
“Why?”
“Because that bear has a bag of jewels hidden inside it,” Monty said, reminded of the most likely reason that Elayne was dead and Lizzy had been in danger.
“Ah.” Stavros gave Vlad a curious look. “Is that why Grandfather Erebus waved away any discussion of jewels yesterday? Because he was allowing the gems to be returned to Toland, despite . . .” He stopped, then studied Vlad and Burke.
“Where would a young girl get a bag of gemstones?” Burke said. “It’s more likely that she was pretending to be a jewel thief or some other such thing that she’d seen in a movie and had stashed a bag of colored glass inside her partner in crime.”
Stavros looked delighted. “Colored glass?”
“Such pretty colors,” Vlad murmured. “Blues and greens and ruby red.”
Stavros laughed, long and loud.
Monty felt queasy. “When the HFL find out . . .”
“The Wolves tore off an arm and a leg, but the bear’s torso was untouched,” Burke said. “Scaffoldon didn’t say one word, didn’t ask one question about jewels. He has no reason to think we found them. That being the case, he certainly wasn’t going to tell me about them.”
“Especially since there have been many reports of jewelry being stolen from the Toland elite,” Stavros said. “And news reports have droned on about a couple of jewelry stores also being robbed. Humans were trying to blame the Crowgard, which is ridiculous. If an earring or a ring is dropped on the sidewalk that borders the Courtyard, a Crow won’t resist claiming it. But they don’t go into human houses and steal—and they don’t remove the gems from a piece of jewelry and discard the setting.”
“The police have no leads?” Burke asked blandly.
“The police investigating the thefts all wear little HFL pins on their lapels. So do the humans who were robbed. So do the owners of the jewelry stores that reported the theft of loose gems.”
“Elayne might have been caught up in the glamour of being with Nicholas Scratch and rubbing elbows with society people who wouldn’t have acknowledged her otherwise, but she would not have stooped to stealing jewels, and she certainly wouldn’t have put Lizzy at risk by hiding them in Boo Bear,” Monty said hotly.
Vlad leaned forward and said gently, “She found the secret, and she tried to run. They had to stop her.”
He rubbed his face, suddenly tired. “She should have left the jewels. Dropped them in a closet, scattered them over the floor so someone would waste time finding them.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference. She still had the secret. So did the Lizzy.”
“Unlike the Toland police, we don’t think anything has been stolen.” Stavros pitched his voice to be low and soothing. “We think these were arranged . . . donations . . . for the HFL movement.”
“With the added benefit of pointing a finger at the Crows and feeding the animosity growing between humans and terra indigene,” Burke said.
“Exactly.”
Sickroom voices, Monty thought. Do they think I can’t, or won’t, handle the truth, whatever it may be?
“Someone should question Leo Borden,” he said. He couldn’t picture Leo being able to pull off a jewel heist, but he could see the man as a courier—and he could easily imagine Leo thinking that Boo Bear would be a good hiding place for a fortune in gemstones. After all, who would look for them in a child’s toy, especially a child living under the same roof as Nicholas Scratch?
She doesn’t have anything else Scaffoldon or Scratch would want, so Lizzy is safe now, Monty thought. The father wanted to believe it. The cop knew it wasn’t true, could feel it wasn’t true.
“What will happen when the HFL discovers the gems Scaffoldon brought back are fakes?” he
asked.
“I believe you humans call it a domino effect,” Stavros replied as Elliot slipped back into the room. “Which brings me to the reason I came to Lakeside. I will, of course, talk to Simon directly, but Grandfather Erebus decided select humans as well as the terra indigene should be prepared.”
“Gods above and below,” Burke muttered. “Prepared for what?”
“According to humans, Toland is Thaisia’s center of commerce,” Stavros said. “Many ships dock there, and a great flow of goods comes into the city from other parts of the world. Just as great a flow of goods goes out.”
“Do terra indigene ships also dock there?”
“No. We have other harbors for our little ships, harbors we share with the Intuits.”
A sharpness in the words made Monty wonder if there had been trouble in the past: fights, sabotage, other kinds of incidents that had encouraged the Others to keep their distance.
“Our ships don’t dock in the Toland port, but we still pay close attention to what comes into Thaisia . . . and what goes out.”
Monty wondered if the weight suddenly clinging to his bones was a feeling of dread.
“What is going out?” Burke finally asked.
“The Crowgard can probably tell you more than the Sanguinati since they like to poke around in everything, and my kin tend to visit the area around the docks at night,” Stavros said. “I can tell you that ships coming in from Brittania aren’t receiving all the cargo they expected to load, but they’re still being charged for the full amount. Any captain who protests is threatened with being struck off the trade list.”
“What happens to the cargo that isn’t loaded?” Monty asked.
“We noticed that ships bound for the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations are now loaded late at night when there are fewer observers. We suspect the cargo that is held back from Brittanian merchant ships finds its way into the holds of Cel-Romano ships.”
“Another form of piracy,” Burke muttered. “With your permission, I’d like to have a quiet word with a cousin of mine. He’s a police officer in Brittania, and he keeps me informed of rumors coming out of Cel-Romano.”
“Would he also be willing to use his influence to provide discreet assistance?” Stavros asked.
Burke stared at the vampire for several heartbeats. “I think that would depend on what he was asked to do.”
“Very soon, a storm in the Atlantik will blow a Cel-Romano ship off course. It will run aground off the coast of Wild Brittania and everything will be lost.”
“Including the crew?”
“Oh, especially the crew, since it was the Sharkgard who passed the message along to the Sanguinati with the understanding that that bounty will be shared.” Stavros smiled, showing his fangs. “However, the ship will run aground in such a way that the cargo, and the ship itself, will not be damaged and can be claimed as salvage, divided equally between the humans who assist and the terra indigene. With one exception, which is where your cousin, the Brittania police officer, would come in. As that particular ship was loaded the other night, the Sanguinati who were watching heard some of the boxes crying—boxes with air holes.”
Monty braced his hands on the table. “You think they’re shipping humans to Cel-Romano?”
“We think they’re shipping cassandra sangue. Cargo worth thrice its weight in gold,” Stavros said. “Especially to leaders of the Humans First and Last movement.” He looked at Vlad, his eyes full of unnerving sympathy. “Those girls . . . Most are not like your Meg. At least, not the ones who are already addicted to cutting. They don’t want the challenge of having a life. Many have found another way to be sheltered.”
“Prostitution?” Burke asked, his voice stripped of emotion.
“Of a sort. A few prime establishments have sprung up in Toland. Or rather, the same establishments are now calling themselves by a different name. The blood prophets are now paid for each cut. They are pampered, indulged, and want for nothing—as long as they can pay for the care they receive.”
“But they’re still being used,” Monty protested.
“A girl provides the service she was hired, and paid, to provide,” Stavros said. “No coercion, no talk of ownership, benevolent or otherwise. The transition was done so smoothly, and so quickly, we suspect the men who run the establishments had warning that this might happen, even if they didn’t know what would start the chain of events.” He paused. “The girls in those establishments . . . Being there is their choice, and since they are on land that is currently under human control, we will not interfere with them. But the girls who were packaged like cargo . . . Humans have no say when they enter Ocean’s domain.”
After an uncomfortable silence, Burke said, “When that ship goes aground, what is my cousin supposed to do with the girls?”
“That is something the humans in Brittania must decide,” Stavros said. “But the message I was asked to convey is this: Ocean will not be pleased with Brittania’s humans if those girls end up in Cel-Romano.”
* * *
Vlad listened while Elliot escorted Burke and Montgomery out of the consulate. Then he turned to Stavros, who said, “Do you think your police officers understand the significance of the terra indigene not docking ships in Toland?”
“Montgomery is thinking of his child and keeping her safe, which is only right, but I think Burke will understand eventually,” Vlad replied. Thaisia’s center of commerce could disappear overnight if an Elemental like Ocean unleashed her wrath on Toland.
“Whispers around the docks,” Stavros said. “Thaisia is not the only land dealing with shortages. A lot of things are in short supply in Cel-Romano too. Especially food.”
“A bag of gemstones could have bought a lot of wheat and corn. I wonder if the shortages in Thaisia will disappear now that the real gems are being stored in the Chambers.”
Stavros gave Vlad a brilliant smile. “Know what I’m wondering? How many bushels of wheat and corn will the HFL movement be able to buy with a bag full of colored glass?”
* * *
Meg looked at the envelope, picked up the envelope. Sniffed the envelope.
“Doesn’t smell like a farm,” she muttered.
Carefully opening the envelope to avoid a paper cut, she pulled out the single sheet of paper.
Dear Meg,
I tried to write a couple of letters to you since arriving on Great Island, but I couldn’t write them, couldn’t send them. It feels like getting here ate up my ability to do anything.
It’s so hard living outside the compound. I didn’t remember it being so hard. I sent you out in this, so sure it was better. Now I’m not sure of anything. Some mornings Lorna Gardner brings me food because I can’t face even the simple life and people beyond the walls of the guest cottage.
Some nights I remember the things I’ve seen in prophecies when they were using me to make gone over wolf. Terrible things.
Some nights I wonder if I started what’s going to happen by helping you escape. But this morning, I managed to go outside and watch the sun rise—and I wondered if, by helping you, I did the one thing that might save some humans from what is coming.
Take care of yourself, Meg.
Your friend,
Jean
Meg read the letter twice, then returned it to its envelope and tucked it in the drawer where she kept the notebook that held her lists. Taking out the five postcards she’d gotten at the Three Ps, she set them on the counter and studied the pictures.
The red rocks, the plateau? No. Too different and out of reach.
The pictures of Talulah Falls? Also out of reach.
She looked at the picture of the deer half shrouded by mist. She turned it over, then picked up a pen.
Dear Jean,
I have seen a deer. I have petted a pony. I helped plant a garden. I have smelled earth and felt it in my hands. You
watched the sun rise. These things are worth the struggle to live outside.
Your friend,
Meg
Simon,
Can the cs see visions without cutting? The scarred girl drew a picture of a Wolf song, so we wondered. Ask your Meg what safe toys we can give the girl. We bought her drawing paper and many colored pencils. She hasn’t cut since she’s been here.
—Jackson
Jackson,
Meg says maybe about the visions. The cs weren’t given a chance to try anything besides cutting. Your girl may be finding a new path. Books are good toys. Give the girl photos of the settlement and surrounding land. That will help when she is ready to go outside.
—Simon
N,
Ship blown off course during storm. Search found nothing. Ship, merchandise, and all hands declared lost.
—Pater
Douglas,
Half of the aunties’ gifts arrived broken beyond repair. Am taking the next ship to Thaisia to discuss with you in person.
—Shady
CHAPTER 40
Windsday, Maius 16
On Windsday afternoon, Steve Ferryman and Roger Czerneda pulled up in front of one of the semidetached houses in the River Road Community. As he got out of the car and waited for Roger, Steve spotted the six columns of smoke gathered near one of the houses farthest from the entrance to the community.
He raised a hand in greeting. The Sanguinati’s only response was to shift to human form—four males and two females.
Steve didn’t recognize any of them, wasn’t sure how much contact they’d had with humans. Enough that, from a distance anyway, they looked like human teenagers, but looking human and being able to act human were very different things. While the Sanguinati in Lakeside had made it clear that residents from Ferryman’s Landing were not to be harmed, it was obvious to him that six against two were not good odds—especially if the vampires were hungry and willing to overlook their promise to behave.
