Written In Red Part 62

"We don't have room for . . ." Simon stopped.

Monty held his breath.

"Maybe," Simon said. "But allowing this doesn't change the fact that most of you are still just meat."

No, it doesn't change that, Monty thought. But most of us is a long step from all of us, and if you can learn to trust some of us, all of us have a better chance of surviving.

"I'll discuss this with the Business a.s.sociation," Simon said. "Maybe Dr. Lorenzo can come and talk to us about an office-and check on Meg while he's here."

"I'll tell him to call Howling Good Reads and set up a time with you."

He could read body language well enough to recognize Simon was feeling closed in by all this talk about more humans in the Courtyard, even if he was the one allowing them access. So this conversation wasn't going to last much longer.

"I have work to do," Simon said, a growl of warning under the words.

"Then I'll be brief," Monty replied. "Your anger at the hospital was excessive even under the circ.u.mstances. I think you know that. Do you have any idea what caused that enhanced aggression?"

"No."

Flat. Cold. The voice of a leader who will allow no challenge.

And a lie.

"All right," Monty said, taking a step back. "I'm willing to help. Please remember that."

Red flickered in the Wolf's amber eyes.

The sound of a door closing. A moment later, Jester approached them.

Giving the Coyote a nod, Monty walked out of the stockroom. He stayed in the store a minute longer, scanning the display of mysteries and making a selection.

Humans have courage and resilience and they endure, Monty thought as he paid for the book and left Howling Good Reads. Roads would be opened, buildings repaired, and life would go on.

And the humans who had contact with the Courtyard would do their best to help everyone survive.

Simon stared at the Coyote while Montgomery's words circled around him, closing in.

"Your anger at the hospital was excessive even under the circ.u.mstances."

"How much did you hear?" Simon asked.

"I like it here," Jester said. "I want to stay."

Montgomery's words seemed to echo in the room.

"Do you have any idea what caused that enhanced aggression?"

"How much did you hear?" Simon snarled.

"I won't tell," Jester said. "I'll never tell."

Quick-thinking Coyote who sometimes saw too much, heard too much. But unlike many of his kind, Jester wouldn't break his word.

"You can stay." Of course, what wasn't said was if he couldn't trust Jester to stay, he also couldn't allow the Coyote to leave. But he figured Jester knew that already.

"Thanks, Simon." Jester backed away. "I'll go check with Meg and see if she wants the ponies to come up today."

Then he was gone, and a moment later, Simon heard HGR's back door closing.

"Do you have any idea what caused that enhanced aggression?"

Oh yes. He'd had plenty of time to think about it while they'd waited to take Meg home, and he had a very good idea what had caused that strange anger. Even the Sanguinati wouldn't drink the sweet blood of the ca.s.sandra sangue, and he'd licked up plenty of it from the gash in Meg's chin.

Winter and Air hadn't paid attention to him on the race to the hospital, but Jester had been with him. And Blair and Vlad had been with him at the creek when they pulled Meg out of the water. Give either of them enough bits of information, and they would figure it out too.

He would keep his suspicions to himself for a few more days. Then he would talk to Henry before deciding who else needed to know what he suspected: that the blood of ca.s.sandra sangues was the source of the sickness that was touching humans and Others in the West.

But that was for another day, and Henry already carried the weight of another secret.

Simon had been at the hospital guarding Meg when Asia Crane was found. He hadn't seen her, but Henry had. And all Henry said to him was, "I know what Tess is. We will never speak of this."

Dangerous to be the only one who looked at a body and understood a truth about the predator who did the killing. Or maybe wise to be the only one to carry that burden. Either way, Tess was still running A Little Bite and baking chocolate chip cookies for Meg and Sam.

"Enough," he growled. "You have a business to run." And until he pulled these books so Heather could fill the orders, he had to stay here instead of going over to the Liaison's Office to play with Meg for a few minutes.

Checking the list, he pulled more books off the shelves in the stockroom and thought about Meg, because thinking about Meg made him feel calmer, happier.

She had been released from the hospital on Moonsday, but he'd used Sam's need to stay close to her as a way to keep her home for a few more days. And he'd also pointed out that most of Lakeside was still shut down, so the stores couldn't send out any deliveries. Even then, she'd been stubborn about staying indoors.

Well, he could be stubborn too, especially when dressing Meg had turned into a game. He and Vlad and Jenni had raided the Market Square stores for clothes to keep Meg warm. They made fingerless gloves for her, and then demanded that she wear mittens over them if she so much as stuck her nose outdoors. If she actually went outside for even a minute, she had to wear an undershirt, a turtleneck, a sweater, and a down vest zipped up all the way so her chest would stay warm. Plus her winter coat and a scarf and wool cap. And two pairs of socks with her boots.

None of them had given the colors of the clothes any thought until Merri Lee came back from visiting Meg on Windsday afternoon and grumbled about her friend being dressed like a paint-store explosion.

Shortly after that, he'd overheard Merri Lee, Heather, and Ruthie ordering clothes that, they said, would work with what Meg already had, so he figured the clothes game had run its course.

But there was still the hat game.

He scanned the shelves again when he didn't find two of the books he wanted.

"We're out of that one too?" he muttered as he added another caught-in-a-storm thriller to his list of reorders. Despite the lack of customers today, he'd been on the move since he unlocked the door, and he'd done nothing but pull stock to fill orders going to terra indigene settlements!

He refused to consider why the Elementals had put in a request for a handful of the caught-in-a-storm t.i.tles.

He stopped and let a shudder run through him. Even among the terra indigene, it took a little time to stop feeling afraid when the Elementals lashed out in rage.

But even Winter was calmer now that Meg was home.

Elliot's meeting with the acting mayor had also helped calm everyone. The man had been quick to a.s.sure the Courtyard consul that all the wanted posters that had provoked such a tragic case of mistaken ident.i.ty had been destroyed, and the police would do their utmost to apprehend anyone who caused Ms. Corbyn any distress in the future.

All the Others living in Courtyards throughout Thaisia would be watching to see if the human government in Lakeside would keep its word.

The man who sent the enemy into the Courtyard, the man who had given Meg a designation instead of a name, was still out there. Her skin was still worth too much profit for him to stop trying to get her back.

That Controller was still looking for her, and now the terra indigene were looking for him. The governor hadn't known much, but he'd told the Elementals who came visiting his house in Hubbney everything he knew about Meg's enemy. Sooner or later, the Others would find the man, and a human piece of Thaisia would be reclaimed by the wild country.

Simon looked at his hands, which had grown furry. He snarled when he couldn't get them back to looking human, a sign that he was too agitated to wear this skin. Since he didn't want to scare off Heather, he did the sensible thing.

He stripped off his clothes, shifted to Wolf, and went to the Liaison's Office to have a few minutes of playtime with Meg.

Meg put in a music disc and turned on the player. She didn't want to listen to the radio anymore. She didn't want to hear about the people who died in the storm or the damage the city had sustained. Maybe she should feel bad about not wanting to listen to the news, but what happened wasn't her fault. If she had let those men take her, the Elementals still would have savaged Lakeside for the death of old Hurricane, if for nothing else. She could argue that, being the reason the storm ended, she had saved more people than she had harmed by being here.

Didn't make her feel any less sorry for the people who had been hurt. And it made her wonder whether Lieutenant Montgomery felt the same way.

She had expected to die in the Courtyard, had seen the images from the prophecies come to pa.s.s. But the outcome had been different. Not only had she survived, but she had also prevented Asia Crane and those men from taking Sam.

She would always be short, but she wasn't helpless and she wasn't small. Not anymore.

She glanced at the clock. Bracing for the sound, she set the mail on the sorting table a moment before Nathan howled. Apparently, he intended to do that on the hour, every hour, while the office was open.

The Meg Report. Meg is here. Meg is fine.

She hoped he would grow bored with this particular game very soon.

Hearing a sound from the back room, Meg picked up a stack of mail and barely glanced up when Simon trotted into the sorting room.

Something had changed between them while she was in the hospital. She wasn't sure if Simon considered her a friend, a playmate, or a valued toy, but he seemed to enjoy playing games with her.

Speaking of games . . .

Standing on his hind legs, Simon rested one forepaw on the table and extended the other to touch her nose. She suspected the name of this game was Plop the Hat on Meg. If her nose wasn't warm enough according to whatever criteria he was using at that moment, he would fetch the floppy fleece hat he had bought for her and make her put it on.

But she was no longer helpless or small. If she was going to be a squeaky toy for big, furry playmates, she was also going to have some say in the games. Starting now, with the choice of game.

She pulled back her head and glared at him. "If you try to touch my nose again today, I won't give you any cookies."

Simon withdrew the paw, seemed to consider that for a moment, then reached out again as if testing her.

"I mean it, Simon. No cookies for the whole day."

Nose or cookies. Hard choice. But in the end, the cookies won.

Read on for an exciting excerpt from Anne Bishop's next Novel of the Others.

Murder of Crows.

Now available in hardcover from Roc.

Nudged awake by his bedmate's restless movements, Simon Wolfgard yawned, rolled over on his belly, and studied Meg Corbyn. She'd kicked off most of the covers, which wasn't good for her since she didn't have fur and could end up catching a chill. To a terra indigene Wolf, catching something meant you wanted it, and he couldn't think of a single reason a human would want a chill, but apparently humans did and could catch one in cold weather. And even in the last days of Febros, the Northeast Region of Thaisia was plenty cold. Then again, if she started feeling chilly, she'd cuddle up closer to him, which was sensible since he had a good winter coat and, being a Wolf, liked the closeness.

If someone had told him a few weeks ago that he would befriend a human and care enough to watch over her at night, he would have laughed his tail off. But here he was, in Meg's apartment in the Green Complex, while his nephew Sam stayed with his sire Elliot at the Wolfgard Complex. Before the attack on the Courtyard earlier in the month, he and Sam had cuddled up with Meg to nap or even sleep through the night. But things had happened that night, when men had come to abduct Meg and Sam. For one thing, Meg had almost died while saving Sam from those men. For another, something had happened to him on the way to the hospital, causing him to feel out-of-control anger. He had suspicions about what had happened, which was why Sam, who was still a puppy and lacked self-control, no longer slept with him when he curled up with Meg.

Meg told people her height was sixty-three inches because, she said, that sounded taller than being five feet something. She was twenty-four years old, had weird orange hair that was growing out to its natural black, clear gray eyes like some of the Wolves, and fair skin. Strange and fragile skin that scarred so easily.

She was a ca.s.sandra sangue, a blood prophet-a female who saw visions and spoke prophecy whenever her skin was cut. Whether it was a formal cut with her special razor or a gash caused by a sharp rock, she saw visions of what could happen in the future.

The Sanguinati referred to females like Meg as sweet blood because, even when they were adults, these women retained the sweetness of a child's heart. And that sweetness, combined with blood swimming with visions, made them not prey. Made them Namid's creation, both wondrous and terrible. Maybe made them something more terrible than the terra indigene had imagined.

He would deal with the terrible if and when he had to. For now, Meg was Meg, the Courtyard's Human Liaison and his friend.

She began making noises and pumping her legs as if she were running.

She couldn't hear terra indigene speech, but he tried anyway since he didn't think this was a good chase-a-deer dream. Especially when he was suddenly getting a whiff of fear off of her. Intending to nudge her awake, he pressed his nose under her ear.

In the dream, Meg heard the monster coming closer and closer. A familiar sound, made terrible by the destruction she knew would follow in its wake. She tried to shout a warning, tried to yell for help, tried to run away from the images that filled her mind.

When something poked her under the ear, she flailed and screamed and kicked as hard as she could. Her foot connected with something. Terrified, she kicked again.

Those kicks were followed by a loud yelp and a thump that had her scrambling to turn on the lamp.

Breathing hard, feeling her pulse pounding in her ears, she first noticed that the bedside table matched the image she had of it just before she went to sleep, except the small clock beside the lamp said three o'clock. Comforted by the familiar, she looked around.

She was not in a sterile cell in a compound controlled by a man who cut her skin for profit. She was in her own bedroom, in her own apartment at the Lakeside Courtyard. And she was alone.

But she hadn't been alone when she turned off the light a few hours ago. When she'd gone to sleep, there had been a big furry Wolf stretched out beside her.