He didn’t like the way Ilya and Stavros stared at him and Julian now that Julian had brought up a possibility that could trigger another purge of humans if a human was behind the killing of terra indigene.
“You’re not fools,” Julian said. “You must have considered it. But things spun out of human control when the Elders and Elementals closed off any way to escape Lake Silence and Sproing after the first killing—spun out of control enough to have the Sanguinati’s problem solver show up, in secret, to help hunt down whoever is responsible.”
“How were the Sanguinati youngsters chosen for this opportunity to interact with humans—or at least a select handful of humans?” Grimshaw asked. “I imagine there were plenty of youngsters who might like the adventure. Did you pull names from a hat? Or was there something about at least some of them that made the Sanguinati uneasy, that made you all want to observe these youngsters in a different, more contained setting?”
“Or get them away from a bad influence?” Julian suggested.
“Take Lara out of the mix,” Grimshaw said. “She’s a kid and doesn’t fit the profile. I think having Lara stay with a different . . . shadow? . . . and exposing her to Vicki and The Jumble’s residents is like sending a human child to a summer camp experience of working on a farm, for example. It’s an adventure and a chance to meet different individuals. Select individuals.”
“The profile of what?” Ilya asked in a voice that held a cold warning.
Grimshaw ignored the question and the warning since he was certain that Ilya Sanguinati, canny attorney and leader of Silence Lodge, knew perfectly well what he meant. “The boy who dressed up as Crowbones. The boys who blew up the store, intending to kill some of us. The two Crows who were connected with those human boys. Three of the Sanguinati fosterlings. Humans, Crows, Sanguinati. I think what they all have in common is that they’re teenagers.”
Stavros nodded. “And adolescents that age are more vulnerable to influence.”
“And peer pressure,” Grimshaw said. He looked at Ilya. “And wanting to impress someone.”
“That’s true of humans at that age,” Julian said. “Maybe someone is trying to find out if that’s true of other species. Maybe someone is conducting experiments to manipulate behavior.”
Ilya brushed his fingers lightly over the dots on the map and said quietly, “If that’s true, then The Jumble wasn’t the first place where those experiments were conducted.”
Stavros added just as quietly, “But it will be the last.”
CHAPTER 76
Vicki
Moonsday, Novembros 5
I was at my desk, busily organizing the bills to be paid so that I could tell myself I’d done something toward paying them without actually doing anything that required too many brain cells. After putting the bills in the Bills to Pay folder, I was debating if I should organize my one sheet of postage stamps when I was saved from that intellectual gymnastic by the phone ringing.
“Good morning. The Jumble. Vicki speaking.”
“This is Meg.”
I couldn’t tell if the woman was usually quiet or trying not to be overheard. “Meg?” Something about the name made my stomach flutter. Who did I know named Meg?
“From the Lakeside Courtyard.”
Oh golly. Now I knew why I knew that name.
“There isn’t much time,” Meg said. “You have to listen and write it down.”
Oh gosh golly. “Did you see something in your prophecy cards?” She was the one who read cards, wasn’t she?
“The cards said I need to do this. I won’t remember what I’ve said, so you have to listen and write it down.”
Gosh golly with whiskers. I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m ready.”
Ready? Really? Not a chance.
I heard her let out a shuddering breath, and then she spoke. Her voice changed, sounded dreamy, like some part of her wasn’t really there anymore, was someplace else.
Word images. Phrases. I could feel her effort to tell me something vital in the only way she could.
Then she made a sound I could imagine a woman made after a very intense orgasm.
“Meg?” I asked, unsure what I should do now.
“Meg!” The word was a roar, a snarl, a violence of sound that made me bobble the phone. Then that voice was right in my ear, saying, “Who is this?”
Couldn’t let him find me. Couldn’t let him know . . .
My stomach got that awful foamy-milk feeling, and I knew I was about to have a full-blown panic attack and throw up. I dropped the receiver back in the cradle, shaking so hard I was close to having convulsions. Bad panic attack starting. Bad, bad, bad. Had to get over it, had to tell someone that Meg needed help, needed to be rescued from that roaring, snarling voice.
cops. fangs. betrayal.
problem solver. ally.
feathers and bones.
a no sign over pity.
lakeside. peace.
I pushed myself to my feet and stared at the words written on the paper—and realized that, because of the first warning, I didn’t know who I could trust with this information if I couldn’t tell a cop or someone with fangs. Had to think. Had to throw up first—and get to a toilet really fast before I inconvenienced everyone—then had to think.
I saw the last line of the prophecy or vision or message or whatever this was.
rubbings. pencil on paper, revealing secrets.
I remembered a cop in a show lightly rubbing the side of a pencil over what looked like a blank sheet of paper, revealing an address that was an important clue. I looked at the pad of paper in front of me.
I tore off the top sheet of paper, folded it, and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I tore off several more sheets and shoved those in the Bills to Pay folder, which I put back in the drawer with the other hanging files. Then I wrote a list, pressing a little harder on the paper than I usually did.
Peanut butter. Jelly. Crackers. Cheese. Milk.
I tore off that page, left the pad on the desk, and was about to drop the pen into the cup that served as a holder for writing implements when I thought of one more thing.
On the back of the next piece of paper on the pad—a piece that carried a faint impression of words—I made a small mark in one corner.
Then I dropped the pen and ran for the downstairs powder room, reaching it moments before my stomach gave its last blurp of warning and I donated my breakfast to the porcelain bowl.