Marked in Flesh Read online

  When she wasn’t feeling so out of sorts, she would talk to Ruth, who had taught school, or Eve Denby, who was a mother, and get some guidelines so she would know when the anxiety justified a cut and when it should be dismissed as normal. She’d like to feel as easy around the children as she did around the Wolf pups, whose games were a lot more rough-and-tumble but didn’t make her afraid.

  Which brought her back to the prophecy cards someone had dropped on the floor.

  Meg braced her hands on the table. Had she locked the door when she’d left for her midday break? Had Jenni, who had a key to the back door of the Liaison’s Office, come in to pick up the mail for Sparkles and Junk and forgotten to lock the door on her way out? Had the children, bored with themselves and their available toys, tried the door and, finding it open, come inside to poke around? And finding the cards, had they decided to play a game, and then dropped the cards when they lost interest—or heard something that reminded them they weren’t supposed to be in the Liaison’s Office in the first place? Nathan would know. If she asked, he could sniff around the room and tell her exactly who had been there. But that would get the children in trouble.

  Meg stared at the cards and realized two designs were missing. She rushed to the drawer where she’d kept the decks. The nature deck was still there in the back of the drawer. She pulled it out, removed the cards from their box, and shuffled them in with all the others scattered over the table.

  Shuffled all of them in, including the cards with the drawings Jester had warned her to keep a secret.

  After making a space at the top of the table, Meg closed her eyes and ran her hands lightly over the backs of the cards. Dozens of cards. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of combinations. Wasn’t that always true with prophecy? Thousands of learned images and sounds and smells still came down to the particular images and sounds and smells that answered the question the blood prophet was expected to answer.

  She didn’t have a question, didn’t know why she was fiddling with the cards instead of sorting them back into their decks and getting on with her work. She just felt odd today and made a decision to see what she might see.

  Three sets of three, she thought as she selected cards based on the severity of the pins-and-needles feeling that stabbed her hands, her legs, her chest. Three sets of three. Subject, action, result.

  She opened her eyes and flipped over the first set of three—and realized the prickling along the right side of her jaw increased as each card was revealed.

  Bison. Rifle. Tombstone—a thing that still existed in some parts of Thaisia from a time when cremation wasn’t required to conserve space in city burial grounds.

  She flipped the next set of cards.

  Wolf. Knife. Hooded figure with a scythe.

  “No,” she whispered as she turned over the last set.

  City skyline. A montage of Elemental forces—tornado, tidal wave, fire. And the last card . . .

  Put them in with the nature cards and hope you never see any of them again. That’s what Jester had said. But there was one of those cards representing the result of something that was going to happen.

  The prickling along her jaw became a buzz.

  “Where?” Meg cried in frustration. “When? How will I know?”

  “Arroo?” An idle, conversational query from Nathan, who was snoozing in the front room.

  Her right hand buzzed. The index finger burned. Meg turned over the card beneath that finger.

  A communication card—drawings of a telephone and a telegraph key.

  Breathing hard, Meg looked at the phone on the counter.

  “I’ll get a call.”

  “Arroo?” No longer an idle query.

  “It’s nothing.” Meg raised her voice enough to carry to Nathan. “I’m just talking to myself.”

  That would stall him for a minute, maybe two. Then the watch Wolf would come into the sorting room to have a look around.

  The prickling faded in her hands, in her jaw.

  Meg retrieved a notepad and pen and wrote down the three sets of cards in their proper order, and then added the communication card. She left the pad on the counter, facedown. Then she scooped up all the cards and dumped them in the drawer. She would ask Henry to make her a special box big enough to hold all the decks. A box with a lock. A lock with two keys. She would keep one. Who should hold the other? Simon? No, too easy to find a key if left at Howling Good Reads or his apartment. Henry or Tess?

  Grandfather Erebus. Yes, the Sanguinati should hold the other key to the box.

  There was no evidence of what anyone had been doing in the sorting room by the time Nathan leaped over the counter and came in to sniff around. A Wolf didn’t need evidence. His growls made it clear that he knew exactly who shouldn’t have been in the sorting room.

  He trotted into the back room and returned a minute later in human form, wearing a T-shirt, denim shorts, and sandals—clothes he’d left in a bin in the storage area.

  “I need to talk to Simon.” Nathan gave her a hard stare. “Are you expecting any deliveries?”

  “No.” A message, yes, but not a delivery.

  “Jake will keep watch and give warning if anyone comes in.”

  “Okay.”

  She waited. Winced when she heard HGR’s back door slam. Then she braced her hands on the counter beneath the sorting room’s open window and shouted, “Henry? Henry, I need to see you.”

  Not telling Nathan about the cards was one thing. But someone needed to know. And it had to be someone who could know about the terra indigene prophecy cards that were mixed in with make-believe images.

  When Henry walked in, Meg picked up the notepad and hugged it to her chest. “I don’t know what it means, but there’s something you need to see.”

  • • •

  Gathered in HGR’s office with Henry and Vlad, Simon stared at the paper with Meg’s list of images. “We don’t have any bison in the Courtyard—at least, not on the hoof.” They’d killed the one yearling they kept and had packed every available freezer with bison meat, but there was no reason for Meg to see a vision about that. “And the terra indigene in Talulah Falls wouldn’t use revolvers or rifles to kill the bison we gave them.”

  “Rifles,” Henry said. “The bison are killed with rifles.”

  “There’s a revolver on the card too.”

  “I don’t think Meg saw the revolver. She wrote down ‘rifle’ because that’s what she saw.”

  Vlad rubbed his chin. “Selective seeing when there is more than one object on a card? That’s an interesting thought.”

  “But not one for immediate concern.” Simon studied the list. “Wolves being attacked with knives? Not a smart thing for a human to do, especially if there is more than one Wolf.”

  “Rifle card was already used,” Henry said. “Maybe Meg needed another human weapon. Rifle or knife, the result is the same. She saw death.”

  Simon looked at the last set of words and shivered. How much human will the terra indigene keep? He remembered the words the Elders had spoken, but it was Vlad who pointed to the list and said, “It looks like we’ve run out of time.”

  “We were out of time when the humans disregarded the significance of the Elders declaring a breach of trust and decided to cause more trouble,” Henry rumbled.

  “How did Meg know that card was supposed to be a terra indigene form?” Simon asked.

  “Jester knew,” Henry replied.

  Which meant at some point in his life, the Coyote had actually seen one or more of the terra indigene who were Namid’s teeth and claws.

  “He separated the forms from the make-believe creatures and told Meg she shouldn’t send that deck to other blood prophets,” Henry continued. “The Jesse Walker already has that deck, but only Meg knows that not all the images are make-believe.”

  Simon handed the sheet of paper to Henry. “We don’t know when it will happen.”

  Henry folded the paper until it fit in the back pocket of his jeans. “M
eg will receive a phone call, and that will be the battle cry. At least for us.”

  Simon felt grief already clogging his throat. “Some of us are going to die. If the Elders have made their decision, why are they going to hold back until some of us die?”

  “I don’t think shifters like us are that important to the Elders,” Henry replied. “But even if we do matter to them, maybe they have to wait for something to be set in motion before they act, even if waiting means watching some of us die.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Firesday, Juin 22

  Hope dropped the gray crayon, horrified by the drawing. She leaped up then half fell on the bed when her feet, asleep from being tucked under her for so long, couldn’t hold her. She felt warm liquid run down her legs, barely understanding that she’d wet herself.

  Shaking, sobbing, too scared to call for help—too scared that no one would answer—she forced herself to look at the drawing again.

  More than death. A horror that would never be forgotten.

  She looked closer. She didn’t know that face. He didn’t live in Sweetwater. Had she drawn that face before? She couldn’t remember.

  Fear grew inside her, its sharp edges slicing through her ability to think.

  Had to find Jackson and Grace. Had to run, escape, hide. Had to tell . . .

  A face in the corner of the paper, apart from the rest of the drawing.

  . . . the Trailblazer.

  Hope pushed to her feet. She could run fast now. She could run to the communications cabin and call the Trailblazer. She remembered the number. She would call because the danger would strike somewhere else before it came to Sweetwater. So she would call, and then she would find her friends and they would run and hide.

  She stumbled out of the Wolfgard cabin, almost fell down the steps.

  Caw!

  One of the Ravengard, watching her.

  No time to explain. Not until she had sent the warning.

  Hope dashed between the cabins that made up the terra indigene settlement until she reached the dirt road. Then she ran as fast as she could to the communications cabin, chased by the image of a drawing full of death.

  • • •

  Joe Wolfgard scratched on Tolya’s motel room door, then turned away and listened to the howl of Wolves in the distance.

  The Song of Battle.

  he demanded.

  came the answer.

 

  But the pack’s hunters and guards, enraged by more wanton slaughter, didn’t listen.

  Tolya opened the door. “Joe?”

 

  “In daylight? When we can recognize them?” Suspicion in Tolya’s voice.

  The humans had been careful so far. They had stayed inside vehicles so the Wolves couldn’t pick up their scents. But Tolya was right—humans wouldn’t reveal themselves unless they were doing something else that was sneaky.

 

  “Go. I’ll keep an eye on the humans here.”

  Joe raced in the direction of the pack and wondered if he had missed some new sign that humans were turning rabid.

  CHAPTER 31

  Firesday, Juin 22

  Hearing Nathan’s growl and Jake’s scolding caws, Meg rushed to the front counter to find out what was wrong. Then her mouth fell open as she stared at Robert, Sarah, and Lizzy playing with a large ball in the delivery area—a place where a large delivery truck, pulling in fast, could hit them. A place that was not a playground. They knew that.

  “Robert!” Lizzy shouted. “Grr Bear says we’re not supposed to play out here! We’re supposed to play out back!”

  Meg gasped and grabbed the counter as a painful buzz filled her abdomen and lower back. When she heard the creak of someone moving around upstairs, the buzz faded as quickly as it began, leaving an echo of pain.

  “Grr Bear is a poophead!” Robert threw the ball at Lizzy, who swung Grr Bear like a bat and managed to connect with the ball, sending it in a high arc.

  “Robert!” Pete Denby shouted from an upstairs window.

  Robert froze for a moment at the sound of his father’s voice. Then, seeing the ball arcing over his head, he turned to run after it.

  Pain. Abdomen, back, legs. Remembering training images of people injured in car accidents, Meg’s vision grayed, and she screamed, “Nathan, stop him! Stop him!”

  Footsteps pounded overhead as Nathan hurled himself out the door and caught Robert when the boy was just two steps away from the street—and brought him down in a way that guaranteed skinned elbows and knees. Then Pete Denby was there too, and the girls were crying because Pete was angry and Nathan was snarling . . . and the phone kept ringing and ringing.

  The pain in Meg’s body faded again, leaving her feeling weak, but the skin along the right side of her jaw began to burn.

  Focused on Pete and Nathan squaring off, she grabbed the receiver and said, “What?”

  “Meg?”

  The voice shook so much she wasn’t sure she recognized it. “Hope?”

  “Meg . . . run . . . hide. Death.”

  “Hope, what . . . ?”

  “Run!”

  “Hope? Hope!”

  The girl wasn’t there anymore. Meg listened to the dial tone, then dropped the receiver back into the cradle. She rushed into the sorting room and locked the Private door.

  Whatever vision she might have seen about Robert . . . That was done. She still felt weak and sick, but there was no prickle or buzz in her lower body. The pain was along her jaw now—the spot where she had dreamed of making a cut.

  Run. Hope’s screamed command burned under her skin. But run from what? The cards hadn’t supplied the answer.

  Meg opened her silver razor, laid the blade against the right side of her jaw, and made a long cut. Setting aside the razor, she braced her hands on the table and swallowed the agony as well as the words in order to see this prophecy.

  Images piled up like a stack of photographs being seen so fast she could barely understand. Wolves. Blood. Death. That was common in all the images. But the land . . . Similar places but not the same places. A sea of grass. Cabins built near mountains. More places that became a backdrop for death. So many more.

  For a heartbeat, she saw Simon at the Wolfgard Complex, one side of his face covered in blood. Then she saw . . . she saw . . .

  Turning away from the table, Meg bent over and vomited on the floor.

  Run. Hide the pack.

  “Sam,” she whispered.

  Turning away from the mess, she spotted the phone on the counter. She had seen . . . She knew that face.

  The address book, recently purchased at the Three Ps, sat beside the phone. Meg flipped to the W section and called the number.

  “Walker’s General Store. Jesse speaking.”

  She forced the words out. “This is Meg Corbyn.”

  “Meg?”

  If she didn’t get out of there soon, something inside her would break. Still she struggled to lay out the images in a way that Jesse Walker would understand. “Bison. Rifle. Death. Wolves. Trap. Death. Bodies. Bodies. Joe’s face. Fire, fire, fire.”

  “Meg?” Alarmed now.

  The images swam in front of her eyes, too horrible to bear. “Run. Hide the puppies. Hide the children. Run. Run!”

  Fear spurred her, and Meg followed her own warning. She snatched the BOW’s key out of her purse and ran out the back door, colliding with Vlad but unable to stop, unable to speak. She flung open the garage door, leaped into her BOW, and barely missed running over Simon as she backed out.

  “Meg!” Simon yelled.

  She looked at him, trying to find words, and could find only one. “Run!”

  She stomped on the power pedal, careened around the corner, and headed for the Wolfgard Complex as fast as the little vehicle could go.

  CHAPTER 32

 
; Firesday, Juin 22

  Jesse Walker ran into the middle of Prairie Gold’s main street and screamed, a sound that was part fear, part battle cry. People working in nearby stores ran out, but it wasn’t humans who could help her now.

  Hearing caws, she looked up and spotted several Ravens circling above her. And when she looked toward the other end of town, she saw smoke rushing toward her.

  “Meg Corbyn says the Wolves are heading into a trap! Sound the alarm! Stop them!”

  The Ravens flew away. The smoke continued to rush toward her. Just before it reached her, it rose into a column and shifted into human form.

  “Did Meg say anything else?” Tolya asked.

  “She saw Joe’s face. She said . . .” Jesse swallowed hard. “She said ‘bodies’ twice and ‘fire’ three times. She said to hide the puppies and children.”

  “Joe made a special arrangement with . . . Well, that doesn’t matter. What matters is there is a hiding place in the hills above the terra indigene village. Did he tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then grab only what you need and take the females and all the young to that place.”

  “But—”

  “Do it, Jesse Walker. Neither of us has time for words now.” Tolya shifted to smoke and raced toward the open land beyond the town.

  Neither of us has time. Gods above and below.

  “Jesse?” Phil Mailer started walking toward her.

  She shook her head. “Ring the alarm bell. We have to get out of here.” She ran back into her store and stared at the two wire crates on the counter that were already filled with jars of peanut butter, boxes of cereal, chocolate bars, cans of fruit. For the past hour, she’d been feeling uneasy without knowing why, had started packing emergency supplies for something to do.

  “What’s going on?” Shelley Bookman asked, running into the store.

  Jesse shoved an empty crate into Shelley’s hands. “Bottles of juice. Anything else that might quickly feed children. Get moving!” She dropped a box of flatware into one of her crates and two loaves of bread into the other. Rushing to the display of kitchen utensils, she grabbed a can opener and tossed that in the crate.