Asia slumped in her seat, peering over the dashboard as the Courtyard bus pulled out of the parking lot.
“Gods,” she muttered when White Van pulled out moments later. “Can you be more obvious?” The fool had been walking toward Meg and was barely a handful of cars away when that police officer approached her. Cops and Crows and a freaking vampire all watching the parking lot. Watching
Meg.
Did that idiot really think he could have gotten away if he’d even made a grab for her? At best, he’d be having a long chat with the cops. At worst, pieces of him would be all over the damn parking lot.
Satisfied there was no one left who would notice her, she started her car.
Time to call Bigwig to see if he had any other information about Meg Corbyn. Someone who was supposed to be a thief shouldn’t be getting police protection. Could be a cover story. A woman on the run being smoked out of hiding by a false accusation of theft. She’s taken into custody, and one cop believes her story and helps her escape. Then the two of them are on the run, racing against time to uncover a deadly conspiracy.
That kind of movie could be a hit. She’d have to write up the idea and talk to Bigwig about it. Instead of a movie, maybe it could be a two-part special story in the Asia Crane, SI, TV show that would introduce the cop who might be an information source and/or lover.
While she was discussing that story idea with Bigwig, maybe he would be able to find out why so many people were paying attention to the Courtyard’s Liaison.
Meg knelt in front of Sam’s cage. She had hoped that everyone else would still be working, but apparently even the businesses available to human customers sometimes closed on a whim.
Or maybe the pizzas Henry took up to the social room were the reason the residents of the Green Complex were home early.
If she waited until dark to try this, they had less chance of being seen, but it might be scarier for Sam. So they would do this now.
“Sam,” she said. “I think we should try the buddy system so we can go outside together.”
He whined and shivered.
“When humans climb mountains, they tie a rope around themselves that connects them to their buddy. That way, if one of them gets stuck in a snowdrift, the other can pull him out.”
She was mashing images together in a way that might not make a realistic whole, but she figured Sam wouldn’t know that. Besides, there weren’t any mountains in the Courtyard, but there were significant drifts that could bury either one of them.
“So I bought these.” She held up the leash. “See? It’s a safety line. I loop this around my waist, like this.” She slipped one end of the leash through the wrist loop, then stepped into the bigger loop and pulled it up to her waist. “This end clips to a harness that you wear, since that’s better than squashing you around the middle.” She clipped the leash to the harness and held it up for him to see. “Want to try the buddy system? We wouldn’t go far. Just a walk around the inside of the complex. What do you think?”
She opened the cage door. She was pretty sure Sam couldn’t get out of the apartment, but she remembered movie clips of what a house looked like after a dog, chased by a human, ran through it.
If that happened, Simon would take one look at his home when he returned and eat her.
Sam crept to the door of the cage and stretched his neck to sniff the harness. He looked at the harness, then looked at her . . . and stepped out of the cage, making anxious little sounds.
“All right,” she said brightly. “Let’s go walk in the snow!”
She shimmied out of her end of the leash and put the harness on him, double-checking to make sure nothing was too tight. Then she put on her coat and shimmied the leash back up to her waist. Sam hesitated and looked ready to bolt back into his cage, but he followed her to the front door and pressed himself against her legs, which made putting on her boots a balancing act.
Zipping Simon’s keys into her jacket pocket, she opened the front door, and she and Sam stepped outside.
Closing the door, she took a deep breath, grabbed her end of the leash before the loosened loop slipped down, and moved away from the building. After a moment, Sam followed her.
“There’s Henry and Vlad,” she said, spotting the vampire and Grizzly on the other side of the complex. “Let’s go over and say hello.” She started walking but stopped as soon as she felt a tug around her middle. She looked back at Sam, who hadn’t moved but was now studying the red leash stretched between them.
Meg smiled. “See? Safety line.”
His tail began to wag. He trotted up to her, and the two of them followed the walkway until they reached Vlad and Henry.
She couldn’t identify the expressions on their faces. Since they weren’t yelling at her—or threatening to eat her—she gave them a bright smile and said, “Sam and I are mighty adventurers, just like in the movies.”
“I can see that,” Henry replied after a moment. He looked at Sam. “You can follow a scent better than she can, so you make sure our Liaison doesn’t get lost.”
Sam replied in Wolf, and she and the pup continued their circuit around the complex.
Watching the woman and Wolf pup, Vlad felt relieved that Simon wasn’t going to be within easy reach of a telephone. When he’d promised to keep an eye on those two, he hadn’t anticipated Meg doing anything like
this.
“That’s Sam,” he said, struggling to keep his voice neutral and not provoke the Grizzly.
“It is,” Henry agreed.
“That’s Sam
on a leash
.” Because their second form couldn’t be contained by such things, the Sanguinati didn’t have the hatred of chains and cages that filled the shifters, but even he felt anger at seeing a
terra indigene
being treated like a . . . a . . . dog. He could imagine what Blair or, even worse, Elliot would say if they found out.
Hearing the Crows, he amended that thought to
when
they found out.
“And that’s Meg with a leash around her waist,” Henry said as Sam ran around her in circles and pulled her legs out from under her, dumping them both in a snowbank. “Hard to get away from what’s on the other end, but a good way to haul someone back if there’s trouble.”
A good way to capture two instead of just one.
But Vlad didn’t say that. He just watched while girl and pup got untangled and climbed out of the snow.
“Something frightened her at the plaza,” Henry said. “For a moment, the air carried the scent of the man who tried to break in to the efficiency apartments. But with all the police around, it was not a good time to hunt.”
Vlad watched as Meg and Sam started the second circuit around the complex, heading back toward him and Henry. Sam was ahead of Meg now, sniffing at everything. Then he bounced back to Meg for a moment before bounding into the lead again.
This was the Sam he remembered before Daphne was killed—an exuberant pup. How could a piece of leather that should have offended make so much difference?
Why
did it make so much difference?
Sam was digging at something in the snow, and Meg was watching Sam. So neither of them saw Blair standing at the entrance to the complex, his mouth hanging open as he stared at the leash and harness.
“Henry,” Vlad said.
“I see him.”
Before Meg and Sam noticed him, Blair stepped out of sight. Not gone, no, but watching as Sam took a running leap and disappeared in a drift.
He howled that squeaky-door sound that couldn’t be mistaken for any other Wolf. Meg laughed and took a step back. “Climb, Sam. Climb! We are adventure buddies scaling the mighty snow!” She pulled, and Sam climbed until he got out of the drift. He shook himself off and looked at Meg, tail wagging, tongue hanging out in a grin.
“Time for dinner?” she asked the pup.
His answer was to set off at a brisk pace, pulling her along behind him.
When Meg and Sam were inside Simon’s apartment, Vlad watched Blair reappear at the entrance, looking wary. That harness and leash would infuriate all the Wolves in the Courtyard. Without Simon’s presence, Blair, as the Courtyard’s main enforcer, would either defend Meg or let the other Wolves have her for this offense. Which would bring the Wolves into conflict with the Sanguinati, because Grandfather Erebus was entertained by the Liaison and her courtesies, and he had made it clear that Meg was under his protection until he said otherwise.
Blair looked at them, nodded, and walked away.
“What do you think?” Vlad asked.
“See what you can find in the books or the computer about adventurers and ropes. See if you can find out why Meg did this.”
“I can look. Or I can just ask her.”
“Or you can just ask her.” A thoughtful pause. “She does not think like other humans, and she does not think like us. She is something new, something little known and not understood. But she found a way to quiet Sam’s fear, and that should not be forgotten.”
No, that shouldn’t be forgotten, which was something he would point out to Blair.
Henry blew out a breath. “Come. There is pizza and a movie. What was chosen for the entertainment?”
Vlad smiled, revealing the Sanguinati fangs.
“Night of the Wolf.”
CHAPTER 11
H
er coat dangling from one arm, Meg rushed back into Simon’s living room and shrieked, “Sam! What are you doing? Stop that! Stop!”
The pup continued chewing at the cage and pushing his little paws against the wires so hard that it looked like his toes had elongated into furry fingers that were trying to reach the latch.
She banged the cage with the flat of her hand, startling him enough to take a step back.
“Stop that!” she scolded. “You’re going to break a tooth or cut your paws. What’s wrong with you?”
He talked at her. She threw her hands up in exasperation.
“You have food. You have water. You already ate the cookies, and we had a quick walk. I have to go to work now. If I’m late again, Elliot Wolfgard will
bite
me, and I bet he bites
hard.
”
Sam lifted his muzzle and wailed.
Meg stared at him and wondered what happened to the sweet puppy she had brushed yesterday evening, the puppy who had snuggled on the couch with her while she watched a television program. He’d been fine about going into the cage when she said it was time for bed. He hadn’t made a fuss about her going back to her own apartment. And he’d been fine when she came over this morning—until she tried to leave.
“You can’t go to work with me,” Meg said. “You’d be bored, and I can’t be playing with you. You stay home all the time when Simon goes to work.”
Sam howled.
“I can come back during my lunch break for a walk.”
Sam
howled.
If she left, would he stop howling? If she left, would he
still
be howling when she got back? How much longer before Vlad or Henry or Tess started pounding on the door to find out what was wrong? Or was this something Sam did every morning and the residents were used to it?
Maybe they were, but she wasn’t.
“All right!” she yelled. She opened the cage door. “Out! Out out out. Wait for me by the door.”
Sam rushed out of the cage and busied himself trying to tug harness and leash off the coat peg by the front door.
Meg grabbed his food and water bowls and hurried to the kitchen. Finding a clean, empty coffee can with a lid in one of the bottom cupboards, she filled it with kibble and threw a few cookies on top, poured the water down the sink and dried the bowl, then grabbed one of the big carry sacks hanging from a peg and filled it with Sam’s things. A moment’s thought about snow and puppies had her running upstairs to snag a bath towel from the linen closet.
“I’m late, I’m late, I’m late,” she muttered as she ran down the stairs. She stuffed Sam into the harness, ignoring his complaints because she didn’t smooth all of his fur in the right direction. “I’ll fix it after we get to the office.”
Pup, purse, her carry sack, Sam’s carry sack. The towel over one arm, the leash looped around her wrist. Juggling everything, she opened the door, fumbling for the keys in her pocket. Just as she pulled them out, Sam jerked on the leash, yanking her off balance.
She dropped the keys—and an olive-skinned hand caught them before they hit the ground.
“Need a hand?” Vlad said, smiling at her.
“Or a mallet.”
He looked baffled—and very amused. “I don’t understand.”
She shook her head.
He locked Simon’s front door and handed her the keys.
“Thank you,” she said, dumping the keys in her purse and digging for the BOW’s key. “I’m having a difficult morning. Sam! Stop tugging at me!”
“Is it that time of the month?” Vlad asked.
Some feeling blew through her. It might have been embarrassment, but she suspected it was closer to rage.
“What?”
He studied her. “Is that not an appropriate question to ask?”
“No!”
“Odd. In many novels I’ve read, human males often ask that question when a female is acting . . .” Puzzlement as he continued to study her face. “Although, now that I consider it, they usually don’t make that observation to the female herself.”
“I have to go to work now,” Meg said, enunciating each word.
“Ah.” He looked at Sam, then at the carry sacks and the towel. “Where is Sam going?”
“He’s coming with me.”
Something in Vlad’s eyes. Surprise? Panic? She would be okay with panic. It would mean she wasn’t the only one who felt out of control today.
Although a vampire feeling out of control might not be healthy for the people around him.
“I’ll help you with those,” Vlad said.
She didn’t argue, especially since she hadn’t found the BOW’s key yet. Vlad flung the towel over his shoulder and held the handles of the carry sacks in one hand as if the sacks weighed nothing, then led the way to the garages, leaving her to deal with Sam. She shortened the leash to keep the pup from running around her in circles. The way things were going, she would end up face-first in the snow. Again.
The way things were going, if she didn’t put her foot down, she would end up puppy-sitting a little tyrant.
She was still trying to find her key—and wondering if she’d left it on her kitchen table—when Vlad dipped a hand in his pocket, pulled out a key, and opened the back of her BOW.
“What?” she stammered. “How?”
“Any BOW key works for all the BOWs in this Courtyard,” Vlad said. “Makes it easier, since very few of them are designated for a particular individual.”
While she stared at him, he picked up Sam, wiped the pup’s feet, then placed pup and towel where Sam could look out between the front seats. He tucked the sacks in the back. “Are you riding in the back?” He wagged a finger at the leash still looped over her wrist.
She stripped off the leash and tossed it in the back. Vlad closed the door and walked over to the driver’s side. He was courteous, and except for that crack about PMS, he was polite. But she had the distinct impression he was laughing at her.
“It’s my BOW, so I’m driving,” she said.
“Found your key yet?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Since I do have a key, I’m driving—and neither of us will be too late for work.”
She made a growling sound that had his eyebrows shooting up in surprise, but she was beaten for the moment, so she went around to the passenger’s side and got in.
The BOWs were built to tootle around an enclosed community like a Courtyard, but knowing Elliot had been grumbling over the Liaison’s tardiness, Vlad nudged the vehicle to its top speed, aware that Meg was trying to watch him without appearing to watch him. From what the members of the Business Association had been able to piece together by observing her, Meg absorbed what she saw and heard with unnerving clarity, and those remembered images became her reference to the world. What she saw she could repeat and do—up to a point. There were gaps, omissions of information, that they suspected were deliberate, so that blood prophets could do very few things independently. From what Tess had gleaned from questioning Merri Lee, Meg could identify a lot of objects, but she knew what very few of them did.
Which made her escape from the compound where she had lived to her arrival at their Courtyard all the more remarkable. Somehow, she had figured out enough to run away—and stay alive while she did it.
Thinking about what Henry and Tess—and Simon—would say if Meg ended up in a ditch because of watching how
he
drove, Vlad slowed to a moderate speed and took care not to do anything that would be considered bad driving. That was something they had agreed on—be precise when showing the Liaison how to do something so that she learned what she needed to know.
Of course, Simon had ignored that completely when he rushed off and dumped a Wolf pup in her lap.
Something new, Henry had said about her. Something little known and not understood. She was all of that. And she was a potential threat, because someone with Meg’s ability to remember images and accurately describe them could tell an enemy too much about their Courtyard and about the
terra indigene
.
He pushed those thoughts aside when a Hawk, an Owl, and four Crows all came winging toward them from the direction of the Liaison’s Office.
He wasn’t far behind them, so a minute later he pulled up at the Liaison’s Office, parking close to the back door. “You go in and get settled. I’ll bring Sam and the bags.”
“Thanks,” Meg replied, jumping out of the BOW.
Sam tried to scramble into the front seat and follow her, but Vlad grabbed him as Meg closed the door. The pup struggled for a moment, then stared out the window, making anxious sounds.
No answer except that shallow, anxious breathing, accompanied by a whine.
Vlad sighed. How had Simon endured this silence from a pup he loved?
He got out of the BOW, carrying Sam so he wouldn’t have to dry off the pup. After setting him on the floor in the back room—and watching while Sam rushed into the sorting room to find Meg—he took the sacks and towel out of the BOW and carried them inside.
Moving silently, he entered the sorting room. Sam was sniffing one corner of the room, now oblivious to everything except the scent he’d found. Opening the Private door all the way, he looked at the tableau and thought,
A Crow, a prophet, and a vampire walk into an office . . .
Then he huffed out a breath. It sounded like the beginning of one of those stupid jokes the
terra indigene
never understood.
Three deliverymen, all holding boxes and all standing back from the counter. Dropping the pen it was holding, the Crow cawed at them, walked to one end of the counter, selected another pen, then returned and tapped the pen on the paper clamped to the clipboard.
The men hesitated to approach, as if that small distance would make any difference. If Nyx wanted to feed, there wasn’t anything her prey could do to stop her. If she had been wearing jeans and a sweater, the men wouldn’t have known she was one of the Sanguinati. But Nyx preferred wearing a long, black velvet gown that had a modest train and those draping sleeves—the kind of garment female vampires often wore in the old movies Grandfather loved so much. Wearing it amused her because she said it was a way to tell her prey what she was, even before she began to feed.
Still in her winter coat, Meg took the pen from the Crow
.
Smiling and talking to the men, she quickly filled out the information while they set the packages on the handcart and kept glancing at Nyx.
Realizing none of the men were leaving, Vlad said,
she replied, her dark eyes watching the men while she remained perfectly still.
Meg smiled at the deliverymen as they walked out the door together and got into their trucks or vans. She continued to smile until they drove away. Then she blew out a breath and turned to Nyx and the Crow
.
“Thank you for opening the office. I don’t mean to be late every morning. Things have gotten complicated the past couple of days.”
Looking over his shoulder at Sam, who was still busily sniffing his way around the sorting room, Vlad said, “That’s understandable.”
“It was entertaining,” Nyx said. “And Jake knew what to do.”
The Crow who was pulling pens out of the holder and arranging them on the counter looked at them and cawed.
“I think there is a package for Mr. Erebus from the movie place,” Meg said. “Do you want to take it with you?”
Nyx laughed. “And deprive him of a visit from you? No. But I will tell him a package has arrived.” She changed to smoke, from feet to chest, and floated over the counter. Returning to solid form, she held out her arm to the Crow, who hopped on to be taken outside.
Meg stared as the Crow flew off and Nyx changed completely to smoke that flowed toward the access way leading to the Market Square. Then she stared at the counter, and finally at Vlad. “Am I the
only
one who needs to use the go-through?”
Feeling Sam come up beside him, Vlad grinned at her. “No, you’re not the only one. At least for now. I’ll park the BOW in the garage for you. If you don’t find your key, let me know and I’ll drive you home.”
He didn’t wait for her answer. He needed to open HGR, and he wanted to let Henry know Sam was with Meg—assuming Jake hadn’t already told the Courtyard’s spirit guide.
And he still needed to find a subtle way of warning everyone in the Courtyard that, until Simon returned, he and Henry Beargard would be looking after Meg and Sam.
Meg put out kibble and water for Sam, smoothed the fur under the harness, and let him roam the sorting room without the leash. After she barely missed stepping on his tail or toes a couple of times, he settled down where he was out of the way but could watch her sort the mail and packages. The package for Mr. Erebus from the movie place was small enough to go with the mail, but remembering what Nyx said, Meg put it with the afternoon deliveries—including a special delivery for Winter that she hadn’t yet had a chance to make.
The morning passed quickly. When she heard the ponies, she snapped the leash to Sam’s harness and slipped the other end over her wrist before opening the outer door, just in case the pup decided to bolt outside. But Sam, while intrigued, was happy to stay with her as she walked back and forth from table to ponies. For their part, the ponies seemed curious but unconcerned about the pup.