by Anne Bishop
“By itself, it probably isn’t worth much,” Meg replied. “The second thing I stole is this.” She pulled off her sweater and tossed it aside. She pushed up the left sleeve of the turtleneck until it was above her elbow. Then she held out her arm.
He stared at the evenly spaced scars.
An old woman, her bare arms browned by the sun so the thin scars showed white, sitting behind a little table where she set out cards and told fortunes to earn the money that paid for her room and board. A little community of humans who eked out a living at the edge of an earth-native settlement that amused itself by taking tourists into the wilds for pictures and stories and sometimes even movies that would be shown in theaters. Some taught the Others basic skills like weaving or carpentry. Some assisted with the tours. And there were always a few who were looking for an excuse to die and were just biding their time, knowing the Wolves and Grizzlies would oblige them eventually.
She sat there in the baking sun, her head covered by a straw hat, smiling at the youngsters, human and Other, who laughed at her as they went by in their various groups.
But he hadn’t laughed, hadn’t walked by. The scars intrigued him, bothered him. The look in her eyes unnerved him. And then . . .
“Not much good skin left, but this was meant for you . . .”
The silver razor flashed in the sun as she took it from the pocket of her dress. A precise cut on her cheek, its distance from an existing scar the width of the blade.
What he saw that day, what she said that day, had shaped his life.
“Blood prophet,” Simon whispered as he continued to stare at Meg. “You’re a cassandra sangue.”
“Yes,” she replied, lowering her arm and pushing down her sleeve.
“But . . . why did you run? Your kind live in special places. You’re pampered, given the best of . . .”
“Whether you’re beaten or pampered, fed the best foods or starved, kept in filth or kept clean, a cage is still a cage,” Meg said with fierce passion. “We are taught what the Walking Names want us to know because what good is a prophet if she can’t describe what she sees? We sit in classrooms, day after day, looking at pictures that describe things that exist in the world, but we’re never allowed to know one another, never allowed to have friends, never allowed to speak unless it’s part of an exercise. We are told when to eat, when to sleep, when to walk on the treadmill for exercise. They even schedule when we take a shit! We are alive, but we’re never allowed to live. How long would you last if you were kept like that?”
She was shaking. He couldn’t tell if she was cold or upset, even when she retrieved the sweater and put it on.
“Why don’t more of you run away?” he asked.
“I guess living in a cage and not having a name doesn’t bother most of them. Besides, where would they go?” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Will you let me stay until dark? I might be able to slip past whoever the Controller sent after me if I can stay here until dark.”
Simon tipped his head, struggling to understand her. “You’re going to run again?”
Now she looked at him. “I would rather die than go back there.”
A quiet statement. The honesty scared him because there was a little too much Wolf in her voice when she said those words. She wasn’t terra indigene, but she also wasn’t human like other humans. She was a confusion, and until he understood more, all he had to work with was instinct.
A few days ago, she came looking for a job because she wanted to live. If that wasn’t true, she would have gone to sleep in a snowbank somewhere. Now she was willing to die?
He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.
He pocketed the silver razor and the wanted poster.
“The razor is mine,” she protested.
“Then you’ll have to stay until I give it back.”
“Mr. Wolfgard . . .”
“You’re staying, Meg,” he snarled. “Until I say different, you’re staying.” He heard a truck pull in, then another. “You’ve got work.”
As he passed through the back room, he grabbed his boots but didn’t stop to put them on. Instead, he ran back to HGR.
Cs759. The meaning of the letters was clear enough. He didn’t want to think about the significance of the number.
That Controller was trying to set the police on her trail. Were other kinds of hunters searching for Meg? Was it a hired predator who had tried to break in the other night?
After telling John and Heather he was back, he went up to his office and put on dry socks. While he waited for the members of the Business Association to arrive for the meeting, he stared out the window that gave him a view of the Liaison’s Office.
Power. When the terra indigene dealt with humans, it always came down to power and potential conflict.
He was the leader of the Lakeside Courtyard and what he wanted would carry weight, but this choice was too big for him to make alone.
* * *
Meg turned off the CD player. There was no point in playing music to learn what she liked. Instead, she pulled mail out of the last old sack and tried to keep her mind on sorting it, on finishing something before she herself was finished.
A white room and one of those awful beds. And Simon Wolfgard. She had seen those things in the prophecy that had revealed her own future.
Was he going to hand her over to the Controller, maybe even barter for some prophecies? Or now that he knew what she was, would he do the same thing the Controller had done? Would he know how? Was that why she’d seen the bed that was used when the girls were bound for the most intimate kinds of cuts?
She focused so hard on not thinking about what Simon would decide, she jolted when she heard the neighing outside the sorting room’s outside door.
“Oh, gods,” she muttered, glancing at the clock. She’d meant to run over to the grocery store for carrots or apples. No time to do that now. “Just a minute,” she yelled when the neighing became a chorus. She could imagine what Elliot Wolfgard would say about the noise if the workers at the consulate were disturbed.
Rushing into the back room for her coat, she looked around for something that would serve as a treat. She didn’t want to think about the reaction the ponies would have if she didn’t have something for them.
The only things in the kitchen area besides a jar of instant coffee and bags of herbal tea were a box of sugar lumps, a box of crackers, and a storage tin that held an open package of chocolate cookies.
She shrugged into her coat, grabbed the box of sugar lumps, then rushed to open the door, because the next chorus of neighs was now accompanied by the cawing of the Crows.
“I’m here, I’m here,” she panted as she got the door open, set the box on the sorting table, grabbed the first stack of mail, and began filling the baskets.
The ponies shifted, jostled, nipped at her coat in a way that made her think of a child tugging on an adult’s sleeve in a bid for attention.
She didn’t have enough mail sorted to fill the baskets for the eight ponies who had shown up, but she made sure they all had something to carry. Then she opened the box of sugar lumps.
“A special Moonsday treat,” she said, holding out two lumps to Thunder. He took them happily. They all did. So happily, in fact, they all tried to get in line again for another serving.
When she closed the box and waved bye-bye, they all stared at her—and the box—for a long moment before trotting off to deliver the mail.
Sighing and shivering, Meg closed the door, returned the sugar to the cupboard in the back room, and continued with her work.
* * *
The Business Association’s meeting room had a ring of wooden chairs set around a low, round sectional table. It also had a secretary desk and filing cabinets, as well as a computer on another desk that could be used for e-mail or placing orders with human companies.
Since the Business Association’s office filled the other half of HGR’s second floor, Simon was the first to arrive. He chose a seat
and waited through the usual shuffling for position that took place because the bird gards wouldn’t willingly sit next to one another and none of them wanted to sit next to the Sanguinati.
Vlad and Nyx arrived a minute after he did. Everyone else came in a moment later, leaving their outer garments on the coatrack in the small waiting room and delaying their entrance long enough for the Sanguinati to choose their seats.
Vlad sat next to him and Nyx sat on Vlad’s right. From there, the chairs around the table filled in—Jester, Blair, Jenni Crowgard, Tess, Julia Hawkgard, and Henry. Allison Owlgard took the last chair.
Jenni was part of the Business Association, but Julia and Allison weren’t. Which meant the leaders of their gards had probably chosen them as representatives because they did work around or in the businesses that had contact with humans.
“We’re all here, Simon,” Henry said in a quiet rumble.
“Lieutenant Montgomery came to see me this morning,” Simon said.
“We stayed on our own land yesterday,” Blair growled. “Or on the sidewalks that butt up against it, which are considered public property. The humans have no cause for complaint about that.”
“I heard some youngsters had fun digging in the compost pile,” Jester said. “Could someone have reported that?”
Blair shook his head. “That’s technically our land, but we let the Lakeside parks and utilities people use it too. Both sides add to the compost piles and can make use of the material. The park and utility workers don’t mind us digging. Saves them some work turning the piles. Besides, the youngsters didn’t have that much fun with it. The stuff is frozen just like everything else right now.”
“He wasn’t here about our being seen or about the compost,” Simon said. Shifting his hip, he pulled out the paper and razor from a pocket. He opened the paper and set it in the center of the round table.
“Oh,” Jenni said, sounding pleased. “The Meg looks more like a Crow in that picture.”
Jester sat back, as if he wanted distance from the poster. Vlad shifted uneasily, and Nyx was unnervingly still. Tess’s hair turned green and began curling wildly.
Blair’s eyes were filled with hot anger, but his voice was quiet when he asked, “What did she steal?”
“This.” Simon set the silver razor, designation side up, on the poster.
“Shiny!”
Jenni made a grab for the razor, then jerked her hand back when Blair turned his head and snapped at her. She made a show of holding her hand protectively against her chest and leaning toward Tess.
Henry leaned forward. “What is cs759?”
“Her designation.” Simon hesitated. “Meg is a cassandra sangue.”
“A blood prophet?” Jester said. “Our Liaison is a blood prophet?”
Simon nodded. “She ran away from the place where she was kept. That’s how she ended up here.”
“It’s rare for them to be out in the world,” Henry said thoughtfully. “We know little about her kind of human because so few of them are out in the world. I wonder if Meg doesn’t smell like prey because she is a different kind of human.”
“I don’t think the Owlgard knows much about them except for a few rumors, and those always make them sound special and pampered,” Allison said.
“Caged. She said they were caged,” Simon said. After a moment he added, “She said she would rather die than go back there.”
An awkward silence. Caging a terra indigene was considered an act of war—which was why keeping Sam in a cage for the pup’s own safety was killing Simon a little more every day.
“Did you see any scars?” Nyx asked.
He nodded. “On her left arm, above and below the elbow. Evenly spaced.”
Jester blew out a breath. “Meg is the first decent Liaison we’ve ever had in this Courtyard—at least since I’ve been living here. But if the police have this poster and are showing it to you, they know she’s here. Do we want to get into a fight with them over another human? We don’t even know enough about blood prophets to know if it’s worth the fight.”
Tess suddenly shifted in her chair—a jerky, angry movement. Her hair was now bloodred with green streaks and black threads.
Jenni looked at Tess, let out a caw, and scooted her chair as close to Blair’s as she could.
“Don’t ask me how I know these things,” Tess said in a rough voice. “Just know that they are true.”
“Tell us,” Simon said, struggling not to make any changes that would look aggressive.
“Cassandra sangue,” Tess said. “Blood prophet. A Thousand Cuts. Apparently, someone determined that was how many could be gotten out of one of these girls. The distance between cuts is precise. Too close and the prophecies . . . smudge. Too much space and skin is wasted. A precise cut with a very sharp blade to produce the euphoria and the prophecies. The girls become addicted to the euphoria, crave it beyond anything else. Which is what kills them in the end. Unsupervised, they might cut too deep or nick a vein and bleed out while their minds are within the euphoria and prophecies. Or they cut too close and the mixed prophecies drive them insane. However it happens, most of them die before they’re thirty-five years old.”
“Then the caging is done as a kindness?” Henry asked, sounding reluctant.
“You’d have to ask someone who has lived in that kind of cage,” Tess said. “While she has any skin that can be cut, Meg is a valuable asset to someone—a source of potential wealth to someone. Like every other kind of creature, the cassandra sangue have different levels of ability. A cut on a thick-skinned, thickheaded clunker is still worth a couple hundred dollars. A sensitive skin, combined with intelligence that has been educated? Depending on what part of the body is being cut for the prophecy, you’re talking about anywhere from a thousand dollars a cut to ten thousand or more.”
Blair whistled. “That raises the stakes.”
Simon looked at the people around the table. Yes, that raised the stakes. Meg could be worth thousands of dollars to the human who had controlled her.
What is she worth to us?
“I gather the reason you called us here was because of the potential fight if we allow Meg to stay,” Vlad said.
Simon nodded.
“Then Nyx and I would like to add some information that the rest of you need before you make a decision.” Vlad looked at Nyx, who nodded. “Meg met Grandfather Erebus.”
Everyone jerked in their chairs.
“She came by delivering packages,” Nyx said, “and she fretted over one that wouldn’t fit in the boxes. It had been in the office for a while, so she didn’t want to take it back, and she wouldn’t leave it in the snow the way other humans would have done. So Grandfather gave her permission to enter the Chambers and place the box in front of his door. It turned out to be the box of old movies he’d been waiting for these past few months.”
“He has decreed that the sweet blood may enter the Chambers to deliver packages, that the Sanguinati will do nothing to harm or frighten the sweet blood within the Chambers or anywhere else in the Courtyard,” Vlad said.
“Sweet blood?” Simon said. “Does he know she’s a cassandra sangue?”
Vlad shrugged. “Does it matter? There is a sweetness about her that appeals to him, and he’s made it clear what he expects from his own as far as Meg is concerned.”
Simon didn’t comment. Meg had an annoying appeal, but he wouldn’t call her sweet. Puppylike in some ways, which would interest Wolves, but definitely not sweet.
Now Julia and Jenni shifted in their chairs.
“She met the girl at the lake,” Julia said.
Jester whined.
“Which one?” Blair asked.
“Which one would be out there skating, wearing nothing but a short-sleeved white dress and shoes?” Julia replied.
“Winter,” Simon breathed. “Meg talked to Winter?”
“The Hawks and Crows were warned off. Apparently, the Elemental didn’t want to share the conversation. We don’t k
now what was said, but she and the Meg chatted for a while, and then the Meg left.”
So at least one of the Elementals also had an interest in Meg. And Winter, if provoked, could be a terrifying bitch even for other terra indigene.
They looked at one another. Then they all turned to him and nodded.
“Meg stays,” Simon said in confirmation. “And we’ll make sure Meg—and the police—know we consider her one of us now.”
“How are you going to do that?” Tess asked as the black threads faded from her hair.
Simon picked up the razor and the wanted poster. “With a slight change of address.”
* * *
Meg didn’t need to see the deliveryman suddenly tense to know Simon was standing in the Private doorway. When the man left, she continued to stare out toward the street rather than look at the Wolf.
“Should I close up the office?” she asked.
“The office is closed from noon until two p.m., and it’s almost noon,” Simon said. “So, yes, you should close up until you reopen for afternoon hours.”
Now she turned to look at him. “I can stay?”
“With some changes.”
“What kind of changes?”
“Close up, Meg. Then we’ll talk.”
She closed up the office, put on her coat and boots, then followed him out the back door, which he locked before she could pull out her keys.
He led her to a BOW parked near the door and stuffed her into the passenger’s seat. By the time she got herself sorted out, he was behind the wheel and headed into the Courtyard.
She started to ask again what changes she had to make, but he was frowning more and more. Then he hit the brakes, and the BOW slid sideways before it stopped.
Those amber eyes stared at her. The frown deepened. “How were you taught things in that place where you were kept?”
She noticed he didn’t say where she had lived. At least he understood that distinction. “We were shown pictures. Sometimes drawings, sometimes photographs. We watched documentaries and training films. Sometimes scenes from movies. After we were taught to read, we were given reading assignments, or an instructor would read aloud. Or we read aloud in order to learn how to speak properly and pronounce words.” And there were things that had been done to them “for the experience,” or things they had been made to watch being done to a girl who was used-up or too deficient to earn her keep through the cutting.
