Marked In Flesh (The Others #4) Read online

  “I’m saying Bennett isn’t the concern of the terra indigene located in Prairie Gold,” Tolya replied. “Shall we continue?”

  Tobias slipped into the driver’s seat and started the truck. Nyx slipped out and flowed over the side of the truck, settling in back next to Joe, while Tolya sat up front with Tobias.

  Joe told Tolya.

  Tolya countered.

  Joe didn’t like the trail the Sanguinati was following.

 

  Joe argued.

  Tolya said nothing for a minute.

 

 

  There was a warning in those words.

  But Tolya had a point, Joe thought with a sigh. He’d learned enough about his new territory to know that the humans living in Bennett hated the Others for setting the boundaries of what humans could and couldn’t have, and they resented the Intuits because Prairie Gold had something the human-owned ranches didn’t have: water that flowed down from the hills and followed natural channels to watering holes that made it easier for the Intuits to run their dairy farm and produce farm and the ranch that raised cattle and horses. And a few men, over the years, had gone into the hills and come out again with gold. But what one man might be able to do, a dozen could not. Believing there was untold, and unclaimed, wealth in the streambeds that could make a man rich beyond his wildest dreams but couldn’t be reached was becoming a different kind of sickness in some humans. They wanted what they couldn’t have because something already claimed that land and that water, not for wealth but for life.

  Joe didn’t know exactly where Tolya and Nyx stood with their pack, but he wouldn’t be surprised if their jobs were the equivalent of enforcers or guards. Why send them here to deliver some books? Or did their arrival have more to do with the drawings made by Jackson’s prophet pup?

  When Prairie Gold came into sight, Joe shifted back to human form and got dressed. Their first stop was the motel, so that Tolya and Nyx could check in and drop off their personal luggage. That’s where they heard the news that a fuel truck had exploded on the highway the day before. The two men who drove the truck were killed. There was some argument about whether the explosion was an accident caused by driver error, or if the drivers were already injured or dead when the truck exploded.

  “Supply and fucking demand,” Tobias said when he heard the news. Then he looked at Nyx. “Pardon my language, ma’am.”

  Whether it was deliberate or not, Prairie Gold wasn’t going to receive its expected—and needed—fuel until the Others arranged for a different supplier.

  The worry over a gasoline shortage dimmed Jesse Walker’s pleasure when they brought in the boxes of books for her store, but she was gracious in her thanks and polite to Tolya and Nyx. Shelley Bookman, on the other hand, took one look at the Sanguinati when they entered the library and seemed to have trouble catching her breath.

  After receiving Tobias’s promise to drop off the boxes of books at the place where the terra indigene received human goods, Joe watched the human drive away before giving the two Sanguinati a tour of the town. Humans watched them from doorways and windows.

  “How long are you staying?” Joe asked. “Should I ask some of the terra indigene to stay close to town?”

  “This is an Intuit settlement on terra indigene land,” Tolya countered. “Is there a reason to fear these humans?”

  “No. They remind me of the humans who make up Meg Corbyn’s pack. They want to be members of a larger pack.”

  “That is wise,” Nyx said. “I will be staying a few days before returning to Lakeside. Tolya will stay longer.”

  “If that’s acceptable to you,” Tolya said, looking at Joe. “Grandfather Erebus wants the Sanguinati to be more present in the Midwest. He wants us available to help the shifters. And my staying at the motel means I can keep an eye on the Intuits while you keep watch over everything else.” He paused. “I think the terra indigene should visit Bennett as little as possible.”

  Joe agreed with that, but he hadn’t liked being there to begin with. “We don’t need to go anywhere in Bennett except the train station.” As the implication of his own words struck him, fur sprang up on his chest and shoulders, and his canines lengthened to Wolf size. He stopped walking and took a moment to shift back to fully human.

  “Our scent here becomes a sign of acceptance,” he said. “It sends a message, an indication that these are humans who work with us.” Would the Elders respect such a marker?

  Tolya nodded. “That lack of scent also sends a message, does it not?”

  Another warning under the words—especially after Tolya’s suggestion that the Others avoid visiting Bennett and his earlier remark about reclaiming the land.

  They walked back to the motel. Nyx wanted to explore beyond the town. Tolya wanted to make a couple of phone calls. And Joe wanted to shake off thoughts of troublesome humans, go home, and find out what books Simon had sent to the Wolves.

  At Tolya’s invitation, he stripped out of his clothes, folded them, and put them in the bottom drawer of the dresser.

  “You may want to become a long-term renter of one of these rooms,” Tolya said. “It would be a convenient place to store clothes and have water to wash in when you had to be in human form.”

  It was a good suggestion, and he would consider it. Instead of a Courtyard, the Others often had a house in a small human town, but there weren’t any empty houses in Prairie Gold. They had built only what they needed. A room would be sufficient, and having it might encourage more shifters to experience limited contact with humans.

  Tired but satisfied, Joe left the motel and headed home, slipping behind buildings instead of trotting down the road. But thinking about markers and who could be a more devastating enemy to the people here than the yappy humans living in Bennett, he stopped long enough to lift a leg and mark Jesse Walker’s store.

  CHAPTER 14

  Earthday, Juin 10

  Jackson Wolfgard knocked on Hope’s bedroom door and waited to hear the words permitting him to enter. Not that he should need permission. He was the dominant Wolf, and she was living with his pack. But human females Hope’s age were . . . peculiar. It wasn’t his fault that, when he heard alarming sounds coming from her room the other day, he’d burst in, thinking she was hurt or under some kind of attack. And the jumping around and . . . caterwauling . . . turned into screams because he saw her without clothes. As if that made any difference to him. He had a mate. Besides, Hope was not only human; she was too fragile to be considering a mate, so he couldn’t see why particular body parts made any difference.

  Of course, her screams brought more Wolves running, so plenty of Wolves saw those body parts—and wanted to know more about the thatch of fur between her legs and under her arms. Were those things that should be present on the females when they shifted to human form?

  They were still waiting for Meg Corbyn and her pack to answer that question.

  But it wasn’t fair to growl at him for responding
the way he had. How was he supposed to know that sound had been singing? It hadn’t sounded like any human singing that he’d heard. In fact, it sounded more like a young Lynx whose paw had gotten trapped in some rocks. Which was why he’d thought Hope was in trouble.

  Jackson knocked again and heard a timid, “Come in.” He stepped into the room, leaving the door open.

  “Enough, pup,” he said. “Grace and I don’t mind if you draw every day, but not all day. The pack’s nanny is taking the pups for a walk, and you’re going with them. Get your shoes and your hat.”

  “I lost my hat,” Hope mumbled.

  Meaning the pups “accidentally” got hold of the hat and tore it to pieces. “Grace bought you another one.” Several, in fact.

  He studied her. She usually obeyed, but she’d been a bit odd since the vision drawing she’d done of the dead bison. Since she continued drawing instead of putting her things away, he came over and crouched beside her.

  “I’m making sketches of cards Meg will need,” Hope said.

  Not finished drawings. Rough compared to her usual work. “Why does Meg need these?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to make the final drawings?”

  She shook her head.

  When the pencil stopped moving on the paper, he knew she was done, drained of whatever she needed to reveal. “Go outside, pup. Breathe in the good air. Play with the other pups.” He noticed the corner of another drawing that had slipped under her bed. “What’s that?”

  Silence. Then Hope sighed and pulled the drawing from under the bed and handed it to him. “Are you going to leave forever?”

  “I wasn’t planning to leave,” he replied as he studied the overlapping images. He was the Wolf herding ten . . . no, eleven . . . young bison. Then, in the center of the page, a train, its engine heading east through the grasslands of the Midwest. Then Talulah Falls, distinctive and unmistakable, and those houses she had drawn once before. The last piece of the picture was of him and Simon herding the bison.

  “You wouldn’t leave Grace, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t leave either of you. But I might have to make a trip to Lakeside.” He took the drawing and pulled her to her feet as he rose. “Outside. Walk, play, study the creek.”

  She blinked. “Study the creek?”

  “Yes. It’s clear water, not that deep. Look at what lives there. Then you can draw a picture of it when you get back.”

  She gave him the same brilliant smile that she’d given him when she’d told him her name was Hope.

  She put on socks and sneakers before bounding out of the room ahead of him. Grace, in Wolf form, held a straw hat between her teeth and blocked the outside door until Hope took the hat and obediently tied the ribbons under her chin.

  They watched the girl leap off the porch and run to catch up with the pups, who raced back to meet her.

  Jackson showed the drawing to Grace. “I need to go down to the communications cabin and call Simon.”

 

  “I have the number for his mobile phone. Even if he doesn’t answer, he’ll call back as soon as he gets the message.” He ran his human hand over her white head, enjoying the feel of her fur against the naked skin. “As soon as I get back, we’ll go for a run, just the two of us.”

  Laughter filled her amber eyes. She ran out of the cabin.

  He wanted to forget about drawings and visions and pesky humans. He wanted to run with his mate and have fun. But he would go down and make the phone call because he wondered what Meg Corbyn might have told Simon about the images in Hope’s drawing.

  • • •

  Simon trotted to the back door of Howling Good Reads and shifted a paw just enough to turn the knob. He’d had an enjoyable morning, even if it was spent with humans, and the Wolves who had accompanied Kowalski, Debany, and the gaggle of girls had learned the Squeaky Dance game, which was great fun even if it didn’t last very long.

  The Wolves from the Addirondak Mountains were arriving tomorrow, and Vlad had been a bit sharp about not getting help restocking the shelves. John Wolfgard had made the mistake of pointing out that Vlad was the one who had decimated their stock before this visit, which was why Simon was spending a couple of hours at the store helping Vlad instead of John coming in to work. Verbally nipping at Erebus Sanguinati’s most trusted weapon here in Lakeside was beyond foolish.

  And even though no one said anything, Simon figured Vlad was concerned about Tolya and Nyx being so far from any Sanguinati stronghold.

  Simon shifted to human form and reached for the pair of jeans he’d left on the chair next to the door. He growled at the empty chair, then did a quick search. Damn females! There was a reason he left clothes on that chair! They had to stop taking things and “putting them away.”

  Not finding anything, he strode to the front of the store, hoping to meet one of the human pack who would squeak about his being naked. But he hadn’t gotten that far when Vlad called out, “Simon? Is that you?”

  He bounded up the stairs and into the office. “The next time I find anything any of those females have left around the store, I’ll—” He stopped when he saw Vlad’s face. “Your kin?”

  “They’re fine. Joe met them at the train station yesterday. Tolya called me last night to give me the phone number of the motel as well as his room number in case I needed to reach him.” Vlad held out the receiver. “It’s Jackson.”

  Simon leaped toward the desk and grabbed the receiver. “Jackson? What did Hope do now?”

  Hesitation. “What do you know about bison?”

  What an odd question. “They’re tasty. Hard to hunt unless you’re with a strong pack or bring down a young one.” Things Jackson already knew. “Joe sent us packages of bison meat. They arrived yesterday. The female pack is cooking a roast to give all the humans a taste.”

  “What about live bison?”

  “What about them?” Then he remembered Meg’s prophecy about the River Road Community. “Meg saw some bison grazing at a mixed community we’re building—Others and Intuits.” And she saw you there.

  “Hope’s newest vision drawing shows me bringing young bison to you at a place around Talulah Falls.” A waiting silence. “Is this how it works with blood prophets in the wild?”

  “I don’t know,” Simon replied. “Maybe it’s because Hope, Meg, and Jean—because she’s part of this too—grew up in the same compound. Or maybe it’s because those three have a connection to terra indigene who have bonds to each other. This is new for the girls as well as for us.”

  Jackson sighed. “Hope sees me traveling to bring bison to you, and she’s asking me if I’m going to leave her and Grace forever. Your Meg sees me there. I don’t know what to do. Traveling alone . . . Things feel strange around here. Close to Endurance, the human-controlled town, the water tastes sour and the air feels hot. The Intuits who have gone there for supplies felt it too.”

  “You need books?”

  Vlad looked at Simon and showed his fangs. Simon revealed his own fangs.

  “We’re taking care of a human pup. Physically a juvenile, but you know what I mean.”

  He did. “It would be good for her to have books. We’ll see what we can send.” He’d have the female pack make a list of what a juvenile would like to read.

  “Nyx,” Vlad said quietly. “If Jackson is coming here, could he go to Prairie Gold first? Then he and Nyx could travel together.”

  Simon relayed the request.

  “I’ll do that. We didn’t have any trouble with bison being killed around here, but if trouble is heading west, I’d like to know about it.”

  “Let me know when you’re coming. We’ll meet the train and arrange transportation.” He’d make a call to Jerry Sledgeman on Great Island and see if Sledgeman’s Freight could haul livestock.

  “Our Hope and your Meg,” Jackson said. “They could be wrong.”

  �
��One of them, maybe, but not both.” Not when Jean was seeing a Thaisia cleansed of so many human cities. “Vlad has a number for the motel where Nyx and Tolya are staying. He’ll call her so that she knows you’re coming.”

  “All right. Simon? Tell Meg we’re doing our best to keep Hope well.”

  “I’ll tell her.” As he ended the call, Simon thought about Jean’s prophecy and what it meant to the Others. He looked at Vlad. “We can’t trust humans anymore.”

  “Did we ever trust them?”

  “No. But we counted on their desire to survive being stronger than their greed. I don’t think we can count on that anymore.”

  Dear Jean,

  Earthday in the Courtyard is a day when the stores are closed and the Others stay feathered or furry for the entire day because they don’t have to interact with humans. But it was hot and humid today, and Henry said he and the Wolves usually spend time around the swimming hole on a day like this. It’s not a hole full of water; it’s actually the small lake in the Crowgard’s part of the Courtyard. Anyway, Simon invited some of my human friends to come with us. It was a test, I think, to see how they would behave in a part of the Courtyard that was usually off-limits to humans besides me.

  Theral MacDonald rode in the BOW with me and Simon. Merri Lee, Michael, Ruth, and Karl rode bicycles. I’m not sure if the Others had never seen bicycles before or if they had never considered them as a useful form of transportation, but something about the bicycles made the Wolves quite excited. There was a lot of sniffing once we reached the lake, but everyone was polite and didn’t pee on the tires.

  The lake is one of three that, along with the creek, supply a lot of the fresh water in the Courtyard. The Others drink it, swim in it, and catch fish to eat. Michael and Karl wanted to know what kind of fish, but no one was interested in shifting to human form to tell them, and I didn’t know, so that’s something they can discuss tomorrow.

  Because the lake is waist-deep at one end and well over my head at the other end, it was fine for Wolves but not much fun for the Crows. So when Simon took over leadership of the Courtyard, he, Henry, and Blair created a connected wading pool where the water is only a few inches deep so that the Crowgard can splash around and play.