Written in Red (40 page)

She locked him out, then stripped off her sweater and turtleneck. Taking the razor out of her jeans pocket, she opened it and laid the blade flat on her arm, its back against the previous scar. Then she turned her hand, bringing the honed edge against virgin skin—and pressed down lightly.

The sensation of skin parting, as if it were fleeing from the steel.

Lifting the blade, she placed the razor on the sink and braced for the pain. It flowed up from some dark place inside her while the blood flowed from the wound.

That interior road, just past Erebus’s home. Not much snow on the pavement, but snow falling, heavy and fast. Dark outside, but she couldn’t tell if it was early evening or late night. A sound like a motor mated to hornets. Driving alone in the dark at a reckless speed, no lights to give away her position. That sound closing around her. And behind her, Sam howling in terror.

But safe. This time, he was safe.

Coming out of the prophecy, Meg braced herself against the sink and swallowed the need to scream from the pain. So much worse than that little cut on her finger. Maybe even worse than the cuts that had shown her the Courtyard and Simon Wolfgard.

At least the prickling under her skin had stopped. She had gotten that much relief from the cut.

Gasping and crying, she washed the cut before putting on antiseptic cream and taping a thick pad over it, hoping to hide the smell of blood. Then she cleaned the razor and made sure she wiped the sink. As a last step, she used the toilet, not sure how long scents could be picked up by a Wolf nose.

She put on the turtleneck, careful not to pull the bandage, then the sweater, and left the bathroom. She expected to find Sam dressed, more or less, and waiting for her in the kitchen with his list of desired snacks. She found him still in Wolf form, huddled by her front door. He looked at her and whined but wouldn’t come to her, wouldn’t move away from the door.

Uneasy, she didn’t push him. She brought him a couple of puppy cookies, which he refused to eat. He just huddled by the door, shivering.

She knew the moment Simon started up the stairs to her front door. Sam alternated howling and clawing at her door.

“Get out of the way, Sam,” she said. “I can’t open the door with you standing there.”

As soon as the door was open, he bolted out of her apartment and down the stairs, racing past Simon.

“He’s upset,” she said. She tried to shut the door in Simon’s face, but she wasn’t fast enough. He didn’t force his way in, didn’t make any demands, but she was sure that the flickers of red in his eyes and the way he sniffed the air meant he knew exactly why Sam was upset.

Returning to the kitchen, she poured a glass of orange juice. Then she sat at the table and waited for whatever Simon was going to do.

He had washed the cage and put it in one of the basement storage bins. He was willing to look the other way about the harness and leash for a while longer, especially now that he knew why Sam wanted to keep wearing it, but he couldn’t tolerate looking at that cage anymore.

And yet, when he opened the door to their apartment, Sam ran for that spot and huddled where the back corner of the cage used to be.

Simon removed his boots, went into the living room, and knelt beside the shivering pup.

Besides the smell of blood on Meg.

Whining, Sam climbed into Simon’s arms.

Barely a whisper, but at least Sam was responding.

Whining and shivering. Then,

Stupid bitch,
Simon thought as he cuddled Sam.
Why slice herself when the pup was still with her? Why couldn’t she wait until he’d gone home and wouldn’t pick up the scent of fresh blood?

Why indeed?

As the scent of her blood faded, replaced by the familiar scents of his own den, Simon’s anger also faded.

No euphoria if the words of a prophecy weren’t spoken. Only pain.

There were other reasons for a blood scent, especially in a female’s bathroom. Could have been an accidental nick. Could be a different kind of blood that a pup wouldn’t know about yet.

No.
That
kind of blood wasn’t mixed with a medicine smell.

He didn’t realize he was growling until Sam began licking his chin and making anxious sounds.

He’d been wrong the last time he accused her of cutting herself. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Simon called.

Relief washed through him. Maybe his own memories of finding Daphne and Sam that terrible night made it hard for him to be rational about Meg being hurt. Maybe he was just as vulnerable as Sam in that way.

“Sam? I need to talk to Henry. Can you stay by yourself, or do you want me to ask . . . Elliot or Nathan to stay with you?” It told him how much she had become one of them that Meg was his first choice to stay with the pup.

Sam shifted. Simon enclosed the naked boy in his coat, letting his own heat warm cold skin.

“Can I watch a movie?” Sam asked.

“You can watch a movie.”

“Can I have a snack?”

“You can have a snack that I will make for you.”

Worried gray eyes looked into his. “Simon? Is Meg going to die and leave us?”

Simon shook his head. “If Meg was badly hurt, she would tell us. And she didn’t look hurt, Sam.” Actually, she did. Her face, her eyes, still showed signs of pain when she answered the door and tried to pretend everything was fine. “I’ll check on her after I talk to Henry.”

He couldn’t do more than that for boy or woman, so he made a snack for Sam and put in the movie before he went over to Henry’s. The Grizzly had returned and was making tea when Simon walked into the Beargard’s kitchen.

He waited until they were seated at the table, the tea steaming in cups, before he told Henry about Sam and the scent of blood.

“Did she look wounded?” Henry asked.

“She’s not wounded,” Simon snapped. “She cut herself. You know it and I know it. But I don’t know what to do about it.”

“It’s not your decision.”

“I’m the leader. It
is
my decision.”

Henry sipped his tea and said nothing for a minute. Simon struggled to keep his canines the proper human size while he waited, understanding that Henry was making him wait.

“How many humans do you trust?” Henry finally asked.

“Not many. Hardly any.”

“I think our Meg trusts even less than you. In her own way, she is even more private than
terra indigene
,
and I think she has been allowed so little privacy. Will you be like the human who used her and thought he owned her, or will you be a friend she can trust?”

Simon bared his teeth and snarled at Henry. Then the snarl faded because the Beargard had revealed the trap. If Meg cut herself, she saw a prophecy. If he forced her to tell him what she saw, she might believe she had traded one kind of controller for another. She might run again.

He sighed, a sound full of frustrated acceptance. “If she averages one cut a week for fifty-two weeks, how many years can she survive at that rate?”

“I don’t know,” Henry replied quietly. “The question to ask is, Where do you want her to spend those years?”

“With us. I want her to spend them with us.” He pushed away from the table. “Thanks for the tea.”

On the way back to his apartment, he climbed the stairs and knocked on Meg’s door. She answered so promptly, he suspected she’d been waiting for him.

“Sam thought you weren’t feeling well,” Simon said. “That’s why he was upset.”

“I’m fine.”

She didn’t sound fine, and she looked tired. He didn’t like her being alone when she looked that tired.

Wasn’t his place to push or demand. He didn’t like that either.

“Anything you want to tell me?” he asked.

She hesitated, then shook her head.

“All right. See you tomorrow.”

He went down the stairs, alert for the slightest sound from her, the softest call to come back.

All he heard was the gentle closing of the door.

Asia closed her eyes and thought of elegant dining, polished hotel rooms, and men who knew more about sex than that widget A was supposed to go into slot B. That most of the people she’d seen eating at Meat-n-Greens were actually enjoying the food was reason enough to call in exterminators—the kind that had the hardware to eliminate all manner of pests. She’d had no complaints with her fillet until she made the mistake of asking what kind of beef it was, and learned it was horse.

Except for the picture it put in her head, horse wasn’t as bad—or gamy—as Darrell’s fillet of moose. Apparently, one description fit any meat.

And the apartments the Courtyard’s upper echelon used for intimate entertaining! She couldn’t imagine women wanting to spend an hour here for anything but bragging rights—or a lucrative ulterior goal.

As for the sex, the less she thought about it the better, especially when she was going to have to accept another invitation from Darrell. She’d seen just enough tonight to have a plan, had been risqué enough to have Darrell panting for more without coming across as
too
knowledgeable. That alone should be worth a bonus—and prove the caliber of her acting skills.

Asia Crane, Special Investigator. She could imagine Darrell in a couple of years, bragging about having slept with Asia, superstar of a hit TV series.

She sighed, kissed Darrell’s chest, and started to wiggle out of bed.

“Where are you going?” he asked, trying to draw her back to him.

“Honey, it’s late. I have to go.”

“I thought we were going to spend the night together.”

“Oh no. I can’t do that. Not the first time. It wouldn’t be right. And my car’s in the Courtyard parking lot. What if someone notices it was there overnight?”

Darrell frowned. “Are you still worried about Simon Wolfgard being jealous? Because he knows about us. He gave his approval for the guest pass I got for you.”

Sure, she’d wanted people around the Courtyard to know Darrell was her boyfriend, but it hadn’t occurred to her that Simon would know she was the woman up here with Darrell tonight. But Asia Crane, SI, would have expected Simon to know about this romp and figured out a way to use it.

Yes. Simon knowing she was here tonight was good. Better than good, because now he wouldn’t have any reason to question her scent being somewhere he might not expect.

She gave Darrell’s chest a quick kiss. “No, honey. I’m not worried about Simon Wolfgard in any way. I made it clear the other day that I’m looking for a
real
man, not a Wolf pretending to be something he’s not and never can be.” Okay, she hadn’t said it in those words when she took that last shot at flirting with Simon, but she didn’t think Darrell would ask the Wolf, so no one would know.

She felt a change in Darrell, felt the possessive way his hands now stroked her body.

“Then what’s the problem?” he asked.

“I already told you. I might not be able to resist being passionate with someone special, but I’m not the kind of girl who has dinner
and
breakfast on the first big date.” She stroked his chest. “Besides, I didn’t bring anything with me for overnight.” She pressed a finger against his lips before he could argue. “Don’t spoil it. Please. Just tell me how soon I can pack that overnight bag.”

“Just as soon as I can arrange to have the room again.” He rolled, pinning her. “But we have time for one more. Don’t we?”

“Oh yes.” She wrapped her arms around his neck as he settled between her legs. “We surely do.”

CHAPTER 19

“H
ello?”

“Did you get my present? The items were selected just for you.”

“A special messenger delivered it, even though I never gave you my address.”

“Information can be acquired if one knows who to ask.”

“Well, I love my present. I can use a number of these items on my date tomorrow evening.”

“Would you like some company? That special messenger has a variety of skills. In fact, two dozen messengers from that company are now in the city. They’re trained to handle delicate or volatile packages.”

A light laugh. “No, thanks. I’ll do just fine on my own. And I expect to find a little bit of something to send back as a thank-you.”

“In that case, I’ll look forward to our next conversation.”

Asia hung up the phone and put on the thin gloves used in a hospital’s contagious ward. As she examined each vial in the carefully packed box sent by Meg Corbyn’s owner, she silently thanked Bigwig for all the information she’d been given about various drugs and the penalties for possessing them. At the time, she’d thought of it as useful information for her TV role. Now it was vital information for real life.

Some of the items in the box were easy enough to come by, because there were few, if any, aftereffects on the person who was dosed. Some were worth several years in one of the rough prisons just for possessing the stuff, and a life sentence if you were caught using it. One item was something she’d never heard of, something called gone over wolf. Until she found out what it did, she wouldn’t ignore the warning to use it sparingly.

Asia lifted the last vial, read the label, and put it back very carefully.

And some items would earn a person a one-way trip into the wild country. No prison. Nothing so kind. Just a long ride into the Others’ territory, and then you were set loose with no food, no water, no shoes.

There was no record of anyone surviving that particular punishment.

Her new benefactor, as she’d begun to think of Meg’s owner, might be able to pull enough strings to keep himself safe from the penalties for having any of these items, but she was under no illusion that he would be that protective of her. And she had no doubt Bigwig and his group of backers would distance themselves from her if she was caught with any of the prison-worthy drugs, let alone the one that carried an automatic death penalty. So it was in her own best interest to use that last vial as soon as possible.

And she knew just how it would do her the most good.

“You know what I would really like to do?” Asia said to Darrell as she drove down the access way and parked her car behind the Liaison’s Office. There it was protected from potential thieves and out of sight of patrol cars who might take too much notice of a car left in the Courtyard parking lot overnight. On Sunsday, the car being in the lot had been her excuse to leave. Tonight, having it tucked away meant Darrell was the only one who knew for sure she had come back to the Courtyard with him.

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Darrell replied with a grin that looked a tiny bit off, just a little mean.

“Before
that.
” She turned off the car’s headlights and could barely make out the shape of the man in the other seat.

If any of the Courtyard businesses had outdoor lights by their back doors, no one had remembered to turn them on—not even the one she knew was at the top of the stairs she would be climbing shortly. Was a light too much courtesy to show a human, or had the Others assumed Darrell would take care of it?

That thought made her wonder if there would be clean sheets on the bed, and if anyone else had used the room yesterday.

“What do you want to do?” Darrell asked, that hint of mean gone as if it had never been there.

She leaned toward him, found the zipper on his trousers, and tugged it down an inch. “Take a little drive.”

“A drive?” His voice rose, almost cracking as she pulled the zipper down another inch. “Where?”

“To the Green Complex and back.”

His hand clamped over hers. She didn’t think his panting was solely due to lust.

“Asia, are you crazy?”

“Humans are allowed in the Green area.”

“Only if they have a pass! And even then it’s risky once you’re away from the Market Square.”

“But you do have a pass,” she said, putting a heavy dose of honey in the words while her fingers worked his zipper down another inch. She had slipped a few flakes of gone over wolf
into his last drink at the Saucy Plate, just to see what would happen. And so far, the answer was nothing at all. Maybe she had used it a little
too
sparingly. “And I
want
to be the kind of woman who is brave enough to do something a little risky. Like spend the whole night with a man,” she finished as she tried to move her hand away from his zipper.

His hand tightened on hers almost painfully before he let her go. Withdrawing her hand, she sat primly, her eyes looking straight ahead.

“I just thought we could have a little adventure before . . .” She moved her body to convey embarrassment. “I wanted to do something special for you tonight. Something like that girl was doing in the movie we watched the last time. That you wanted me to do but I couldn’t. I even bought a book. You know. One of those manuals. Went to a bookstore clear across the city to buy it. But I guess you don’t want . . .”

He gulped air, and she knew she had him.

“We aren’t getting out of the car,” he said, a tremor in his voice.

“Oh, no,” she agreed. “That would be
too
risky.”

“We can’t take your car,” he said after a moment. “They don’t use cars like this inside the Courtyard. We’d be spotted a minute after we got past the Market Square. But
anyone
could be driving a BOW up to the Green Complex for a visit.”

Good to know,
Asia thought. “Then what should we do?”

“Wait here. I need to get a key from the consulate.”

After Darrell left the car, she counted to twenty before she opened her door and got out. She unbuttoned her coat and reached for the camera she had hidden in an interior pocket. Then she looked around. No point trying to get photos of this area. Even the camera’s flash wouldn’t give her anything useful.

Darrell returned, puffing as if he’d run a marathon. Or had been running from a pack of Wolves
.

“I’m not sure which BOW might be available, but the key fits any of them,” he said.

Also good to know,
Asia thought as she watched him open and close the door of an empty garage slot.

“Here’s one.” He waved at her to join him.

She took her keys and locked her car. Her overnight case—and the special accessories—were in the trunk. She wasn’t planning to wear any of the clothes, so it didn’t matter if they were stiff from cold. And the powders in the vials wouldn’t freeze.

Hurrying across the snowy pavement, she slipped into the BOW’s passenger’s seat. She wondered whether the thing had a motor and hoped it had a heater.

It had both, more or less.

She clenched her teeth while Darrell backed out of the garage, then spent time closing the garage door.

“If an Owl spots the open door, it will sound the alarm,” Darrell said as he drove out of the Courtyard’s business district.

“Oh. I’m glad you thought of that.” They were still in sight of the business district when she spotted a yellow tube of light next to the road. “What’s that?”

“Solar light,” Darrell replied. “The Others put them at forks in the roads. The Green Complex is on the outer ring.”

“Where does the left-hand fork lead?”

“The interior of the Courtyard. Or maybe it goes to the Corvine gate. I don’t know.”

He sounded too nervous, so she stopped asking questions.

There were no streetlights, so there was damn little to see and no landmarks she could describe to someone else. As far as she could tell, there was a whole lot of nothing in the Courtyard until they reached the Green Complex, where Simon Wolfgard lived. When Darrell backed into one of the visitor’s parking spaces across the road from the complex, Asia swallowed her disappointment. It was just a U-shaped apartment building that didn’t even have symmetry to give it a finished look. This is where the members of the Business Association, the movers and shakers among the
terra indigene
,
lived?

Plenty of lights here. Plenty of Others at home?

“Humans are so much better at this stuff,” Asia said.

“What stuff?”

“Buildings and cars and
everything
.”

Nodding, Darrell made a disparaging sound. “
They
think they’re living fancy because they have running water and central heating and don’t have to take a shit in the woods if they don’t want to.”

Such language from Darrell? Asia studied him with more interest. Where had that spark of anger come from? “I thought you liked working at the consulate.”

“Working for a consulate looks good on a résumé,” he replied. “And with the credit at the Market Square that employees get on top of the wages, I’m paid almost twice as much by working for the consulate as I would receive from an equivalent position in human government. But this is just a stepping-stone, a way to something better.”

Which was the real Darrell Adams: the sexually inept milquetoast she had slept with the other night, or this angry man who probably spent his evenings fantasizing about putting a bullet through Elliot Wolfgard’s brain?

“You hate them, don’t you?” she asked.

Just as Darrell was about to reply, Vladimir Sanguinati stepped out of one of the apartments. The vampire glanced their way and paused, then seemed to focus on them too much for her liking.

“Have you seen enough?” Darrell asked, his bravado deflating as the vampire walked toward them. He put the BOW in gear and drove away, spinning the tires in his effort to put some distance between them and the Green Complex before Vlad got close enough to identify them.

She hadn’t seen enough. She still didn’t know which apartment belonged to Meg Corbyn and which belonged to Simon Wolfgard. But at least she had some of the information the special messenger would need.

And she needed to think about how a substance called gone over wolf had changed milquetoast to angry man, even if the change had lasted only a minute or two. A lot of things could be achieved in a minute or two if they were the right minutes. It might be worth another experiment, depending on whether she had to accept another date.

For now, she needed to finish this evening’s plans. So when they got back to the room, she was going to give Darrell the kind of sex he didn’t have balls enough to even dream about.

Asia watched Darrell for another minute before she slipped out of bed. There had been just enough gone over wolf
left in his system to make him interesting once he got aroused, but twice was more than enough. The knockout drops would keep him under for at least an hour, and that was plenty of time.

She put on Darrell’s trousers, cinching them with a belt she had bought yesterday so that the scents of all the other people who had touched it in the store would still be fairly fresh. She put on his shirt, even his socks. She put on his winter coat. Pulling the wool cap out of one pocket, she tucked her hair under it. She transferred her camera and a small flashlight from her coat to his, then put on her own boots, because she didn’t want to risk a fall.

Her hand hovered above her overnight case. There were all kinds of ways this could go wrong. But when she succeeded, the payoff was going to be sweet enough to make her the hottest star in Sparkletown.

She selected a vial and slipped it into the coat pocket. Taking the keys off the bedside table, she let herself out of the room and made her way to the back door of the Liaison’s Office.

Three keys on the ring. One was for the room they were using. One was for the other abovestairs room. And the third . . .

Yes!
Asia thought as she opened the office’s back door. She removed the boots, then twisted her feet to press Darrell’s scent into the floor. She took out the flashlight, turned it on, and looked around.

Typical back room of an office. A table and two chairs, the pseudokitchen with its mini fridge and counters. A washroom, and a storage area full of bins of clothes, some clean and some just this side of ripe.

Nothing in the fridge that was useful to her plans. But in the cupboard under the counter, she found what she was looking for: a partially used box of sugar lumps.

Wishing she could turn on a light, Asia put the flashlight on the floor and took the vial out of her pocket. The crystals didn’t look any different from sugar crystals, and from what she’d learned about this stuff, it didn’t taste much different either, which is why it was so effective and the penalties for using it were so high. She tapped crystals over the top layer of sugar lumps, then gently shook the box to coat more of the lumps. She continued doing that until she poured the last crystals over the sugar.

Putting the empty vial back in the coat pocket, she replaced the box of sugar, picked up her flashlight, and went into the next room.

Not much to look at. Who could stand working in such a boring room day after day? There wasn’t even a stack of mail that would give her a few names she didn’t know from the bookstore and coffee shop.

She opened a cupboard and found boxes of dog cookies. For a moment, she regretted using all those crystals on the sugar, then realized it was just as well she hadn’t been able to give in to impulse. If anything happened to a Wolf, it could be seen as an act of war. But she had never heard of Others named Ponygard, which meant the stupid ponies were just animals. They would be a distraction, a way to stir things up, nothing but collateral damage in the overall scheme.

Opening a drawer under the counter, she stared at a sheet of paper for a long moment. Then her heart bumped with excitement. She had found a map of the Courtyard. Gates, roads, buildings—everything the extraction team would need.

Payday!

Pulling Darrell’s shirt over her hand, Asia picked up the map with two fingers and put it on the big table. Then she took out her camera . . . and swore under her breath.