Written In Red Part 53

Tess waited until evening before she walked to a bus stop a couple of blocks away from the Courtyard. As part of the agreement with Lakeside, the terra indigene could ride any public transportation in the city for free. But using that bus pa.s.s would bring attention she didn't want, so she paid the fare, putting in her coins like the humans before taking a seat a few rows from the front. She kept her hair bundled under the wool cap, but she loosened the scarf she'd wrapped around her neck and mouth.

She transferred to another bus, finally getting off at a stop a few blocks from the apartment complex where Darrell Adams lived. She walked briskly, fighting her own nature with each step. She wanted to shift closer to her natural form, but it was important to remain recognizably human. No one who looked upon her true form could survive. Since she was here to test someone else's weapon and send a warning to the police, an apartment building full of corpses would be overkill.

When she reached Darrell's apartment, she heard the television through the closed door. Were the neighbors annoyed by the volume? She c.o.c.ked her head as music suddenly drifted out from another apartment. Or did they all turn up the sound to hear their own choice and drown out the compet.i.tion?

She knocked on Darrell's door, then knocked again loudly enough that the door across the hall opened and an old woman peered out. Tess ignored the woman and knocked again.

Darrell finally answered, the television program now blaring into the hallway almost muting the sound of the door across the hall being vigorously shut.

"What do you want?" Darrell asked when he recognized her.

Tess let the tiniest bit of her true form show in her eyes as she looked right at him. "We have something to discuss."

He staggered back from the door, and she followed him inside, catching him by the arm and leading him to the recliner that was clearly his preferred place to sit.

Only a momentary heart flutter, only a temporary weakening of the limbs from that brief glimpse of her. He needed to be in good health for the test.

She pulled off the wool cap. Her hair-black with threads of red-tumbled around her shoulders, coiling and moving. She removed the small jar from a zippered inner pocket of her coat, unscrewed the top, and held the jar out to Darrell.

"Take two," she said. "Eat them."

"Why?"

"You can choose between the sugar or this." Looking into his eyes again, she let the human mask fade from her face a little more.

Darrell wet himself.

She shook the jar. "Two."

He took two sugar lumps, popped them in his mouth, chewed a couple of times, and then swallowed. She brought her face back to the image her customers and the terra indigene were used to seeing, but her hair remained the death color with those few threads of red.

As she watched him, she tapped two sugar lumps onto the floor near Darrell's chair. She didn't have to wait long. Twice she turned up the volume on the television to drown out his screams, and twice those screams eclipsed the sound.

Someone began pounding on the door, shouting, "What's going on in there? We've called the police!"

Busybody, Tess thought, annoyed. And because she was annoyed, she stuffed her wool cap in her coat pocket and walked out of the apartment, leaving the door open. She kept her eyes averted, but her true form was close to the surface and her coiling hair drew the eyes of those she pa.s.sed. She savored the little bit of death that touched every person who looked at her.

She walked and walked, her hair still black but starting to relax. She still kept her eyes averted, although it was doubtful any of the people in the cars even glanced her way, and there were very few people on foot.

A man lounging in a doorway spotted her and stepped in her path. She didn't know if he intended to rob her or rape her. She didn't care. With him, she could slake her hunger.

She looked him in the eyes and held his gaze while he collapsed. She stepped around him and kept going. Eventually, when the cold had more bite than her anger, she tucked her hair under the wool cap, walked to the nearest bus stop, and took the next bus home.

On Firesday afternoon, Monty was at his desk, enjoying a cup of hot tea while he chipped away at reports. By yesterday evening, the egging had stopped-mostly because the grocery stores were out of eggs and the little neighborhood markets were keeping the eggs in the stockroom and only bringing them out for known adult customers. The firecrackers were still going off here and there, and someone had set fire to a section of junipers that the Others had planted as a privacy screen between the Courtyard and Parkside Avenue. A handful of men riding snowmobiles in Lakeside Park claimed they saw two people drive off in a pickup truck just before one of the riders spotted flames.

Fire engulfed the bushes, mostly because none of the snowmobilers had remembered to bring a mobile phone with them, and no one in the pa.s.sing cars had thought to report seeing flames. By the time the fire department arrived, there was nothing for them to do because something had ripped up the bushes and dumped them, a section of the Courtyard's wrought-iron fence, and more than two feet of snow across the northbound lanes of Parkside Avenue, bringing traffic to a skidding halt.

The damage was consistent with a tornado, although every meteorologist Monty called that morning swore there had been no indication of a weather pattern like that, and even if they had seen something, a selective strike was simply not natural.

He thought using a tornado to put out a fire was over the top, but it was a grim reminder that the humans didn't know half of what lived in the Courtyard and watched them.

The break in the fence bothered him because it was another point of entry, along with the hole caused by a pickup jumping the curb late last night and punching a hole in the fence that ran along Main Street. Two different pickups and two random acts? Or the same people?

Monty shivered. There had been too many random acts lately. And that made him wonder whether someone was trying to cause trouble.

I guess I'm not the only one thinking along those lines, he thought when Captain Burke, dressed for the outdoors, approached his desk. Burke stopped, not looking at Monty while he pulled on his gloves.

"Get your coat, Lieutenant," Burke said so quietly that Monty was sure no one else could hear. "We're going for a walk. I'll meet you outside."

Even more uneasy now, Monty complied and met Burke outside the station.

"Let's walk a bit," Burke said, heading up the block.

"Anywhere particular?" Monty asked.

"Just away. Do you have your mobile phone?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now turn it off."

Oh, G.o.ds.

They walked two blocks, then three blocks before Burke spoke again.

"I got a call from Captain Zajac a few minutes ago. You remember Darrell Adams?"

Monty nodded. "He worked for the consulate and was fired a few days ago."

"He died last night. It appears he ate some poisoned sugar, since two sugar lumps were found near the chair where he collapsed."

They walked another block before Monty was able to speak. "We didn't help them, so the Others did their own test on the person they believed responsible?"

"I don't think Mr. Adams would have gotten out of the Courtyard alive if the Others had believed he was the one who attempted to poison some of them. But he wasn't chosen at random either."

"Will the lab put a rush on the results for this death?" Monty asked.

"Now, now, Lieutenant. Don't sound bitter," Burke said lightly. "They have good reason to put a rush on it. The officers who responded walked in thinking they were confirming a suspicious death. After what else was found, Zajac is scared down to his toes, because he doesn't know how many more deaths may follow."

Monty frowned. "I don't understand."

"We're a.s.suming Adams ate some of the sugar. He's dead. But there's one of the neighbors who says he pounded on the door, and when he looked at the woman who walked out of Adams's apartment, his left arm and shoulder went numb. He was taken to the hospital. No injury, no wound, but the muscles in the arm and shoulder are dead. Another neighbor, an old lady who claimed to see the woman arrive and peered out her door in time to see the woman leave, has a dead eye. No sign of injury, no explanation. Shortly after that, people began showing up at hospital emergency rooms, claiming shortness of breath or dizzy spells or chest pains or a sudden weakness in their limbs. By this morning, most of them have recovered without any explanation for what caused the physical symptoms. The only thing they have in common is they were near Adams's apartment last night, all around the same time."

"How are the officers who responded?" Despite the cold, Monty realized he was sweating.

"They're fine." Burke paused while they waited for a traffic light to change. Once they crossed the street, he continued. "So are the man and boy who came in just as the woman was leaving. The man says he caught a glimpse of her and immediately turned his back, putting himself between her and his son. He also held a hand over the boy's eyes. He told the officers, We didn't look at her. I remembered the myths, and we didn't look.' The man wouldn't tell the officers anything more, and Zajac is understandably reluctant to do more probing."

"Wouldn't he want to know?" Myths? Would the university have someone on the faculty who could find the source of the myth?

"No, he doesn't want to know. And neither do we." Burke's stare warned Monty that he meant it.

"You know how some people say If looks could kill'?" Burke asked after a moment. "Well, it seems there is something among the terra indigene that has the ability to do exactly that."

CHAPTER 24.

". . . travel advisory in effect until six a.m. tomorrow. WZAS is recommending no unnecessary travel. Figured we'd say it before you hear an official announcement from city hall. So get your milk and toilet paper and head on home, folks. We've got several inches of snow already clogging up the streets, and there's more coming. Current projections say the entire city of Lakeside could get up to two feet before this lake-effect storm blows itself out, and we're not even going to think about measuring the drifts. Wind chill could dip to minus twenty by this evening. We'll have a full list of closings on the half hour and hour. This is Ann Hergott bringing you the news and weather reports, whether you like it or not. And now, from last year's blockbuster movie, let's listen to the hit single If Summer Never Comes.'"

Monty turned off the radio and pulled on his coat and boots. He wasn't on duty today, but everyone was on call. He'd seen a few bad storms during the years he'd lived in Toland. There had even been a few times when the Big City had closed down for a day. But listening to Kowalski, Debany, and MacDonald yesterday-men who had lived in Lakeside all their lives-he realized he hadn't seen the kind of storm they considered bad. And they were all gearing up for bad.

Checking to be sure he had his keys, he went outside.

Black clouds were piled up like huge boulders waiting to fall on the world. As he stood there, his skin stinging from the cold, the snow came down faster and harder. A plow had gone by earlier, but the street was filled in again. And that made him wonder if anything was going to be able to get in or out of his street in another hour or two.

Returning to his apartment, he called Kowalski.

"What's your opinion of this storm?" he asked when Karl answered.

"It's coming in faster than expected," Karl replied. "I just heard on the radio that everything downtown is closing, and all social events for tonight have been canceled. Traffic is already starting to snarl because of the amount of snow on the roads, and it will get worse."

"The plows?"

"Will do what they can to keep the main drags open, but there's only so much they can do until this storm blows over."

Monty thought for a moment. "In that case, I'm going to pack an overnight bag and catch a cab down to the station while I can still get there. What about you?"

"You'll have a better chance of getting a cab if you tell the driver you'll meet him at the corner, since you live off one of the main streets. I don't think a cabby will try to drive down any residential street at this point. Too much chance of getting stuck. Me and a few other guys helped dig out a couple neighbors who had to report to work. Medical personnel, emergency aid, and firefighters are being called in." A hesitation. "Actually, I thought you were calling to tell me to come in."

Why would that be a problem? Monty wondered, hearing something under the words. More than the weather. He was getting the impression that Kowalski would resist leaving home for as long as possible.

"I tried calling the inns and hotels closest to Lakeside Park, but I guess some of the phone lines have already gone down, because I didn't get an answer."

Monty gentled his voice in response to the worry in Karl's. "That's a concern, but is it an immediate problem?"

"A group of men are in town for some kind of reunion. They have snowmobiles. I figured it wouldn't hurt to locate them and see if they might do some volunteer work."

"What aren't you saying, Karl?"

"We didn't think the storm was going to hit quite this fast, so Ruthie went to Run and Thump to work out and then was going to stop at the Market Square grocery store to pick up a few things." Kowalski hesitated. "n.o.body is answering at Howling Good Reads or A Little Bite, and I haven't gotten through to Ruthie's mobile. We're only a few blocks from the Courtyard, but I'm not sure Ruthie can get home at this point."

Monty watched a car slowly making its way down the street. "Karl? I have to go. Keep looking for those snowmobiles. I'll have my mobile phone with me, so let me know when you've made contact with Ruth."

"Will do." Kowalski hung up.

Monty quickly packed a bag, called for a cab to meet him at the end of his street, and headed out into the storm.

Asia rammed her rental car into the snow clogging the Courtyard parking lot, determined to create a path for her escape once she acquired the Wolf pup. She would have preferred parking across the street, but all the s.p.a.ces near the Stag and Hare were filled, and when she pa.s.sed the city lot that was available to the customers of all the businesses within that block, it was obvious that only the last car that managed to jam itself in was going to get out, and even that was doubtful.

She gunned the engine until the tires spun, then took her foot off the gas and put the car in reverse to back up enough to take another run at getting into the lot. Ignoring the blare of a horn from the car that just missed her rear b.u.mper when she reversed, she put the gearshift in drive and gunned the engine again. The car slewed and ended up stuck, completely blocking the other cars in the lot.

Swearing vigorously, Asia slammed out of the car. Piece of s.h.i.t. She had told the rental company she needed a car that could handle snow, and they had a.s.sured her this one could under most conditions.

Most conditions, my a.s.s, she thought as she reached in for the pack of supplies on the backseat. After pulling out the hammer axe, she slipped the pack's straps over her shoulders, then made her way to the back wall of the parking lot.

She tried the wooden door in the wall first, hoping the Others hadn't bothered to lock it. No such luck. But there was mounded snow that rose to the top of the wall. That would be easy to climb.

Using the hammer axe, she hauled herself up the mound, then got a leg over the wall and lowered herself to the snow piled on the other side. This side of the parking lot hadn't been cleared all day, and the cars in it weren't going anywhere for a while. She was going to leave a trail, but she couldn't worry about that.

She studied the padlock that secured the wooden door that provided access between the two lots, and swore. Had to find the key for the padlock. She wasn't getting out the way she got in, not with that pup in tow.

She slipped one arm out of the pack as she considered the one-story brick building that formed the parking lot's right-hand boundary. A garage door and a regular door. She tried the regular door first. When it opened, she slipped into a garage full of snow-removal equipment and gardening tools. Basically, a groundskeeper's shed.

Closing the door most of the way in case any of the Others were out in this weather, Asia pulled a small flashlight out of her coat pocket and swung the light along the wall next to the door. She grinned fiercely when she spotted the key rack. The last key in the row was on a loop of string and had the word PADLOCK written above it.