Radio stations throughout the Northeast continued to interrupt programming with special bulletins about the region-wide hunt for Cyrus Montgomery, a man accused of abducting a young woman from the city of Lakeside. The police had issued a description of the man and the car, including the license plate number. They also gave a description of the young woman—short black hair, gray eyes, fair skin. A scar on the right side of her jaw.
Even radio stations in towns too far away to be within the target zone were running the story, keeping their citizens apprised of the dangerous situation—not because they thought this man would reach their town before he was caught. No, they were keeping the citizens apprised because they had seen the Hawks and Eagles soaring over the roads, watching; they had seen the Crows flying low, attempting to inspect any car coming into town.
They didn’t know why this particular woman was important enough for this kind of attention, but they knew if the terra indigene were this involved in the hunt, there were good reasons for humans to be afraid.
? ? ?
Meg didn’t struggle when Cyrus hauled her out of the trunk. Her legs were too stiff and she felt a little dizzy. Lack of food, loss of blood. She couldn’t think about those things now. She had to focus on the moment when she would escape.
“You left out a few things, bitch,” Cyrus said, looking and sounding menacing.
Meg kept one hand on the car. Her legs and feet tingled and burned, but she thought that was circulation and not prophecy. “When the cassandra sangue speak prophecy, we don’t remember the images. It’s up to the listener to remember.”
His hand closed into a fist. “You didn’t say it right.”
“Maybe you should have been listening instead of playing with yourself.” The words fell out of her mouth as if she’d rehearsed them—or read them somewhere.
Cyrus gave her a nasty smile. “Don’t need to be playing with myself when you’re so wet and horny after you’re cut.”
Had he . . . ?
Her courage started to crack as suppressed memories threatened to rise and overwhelm her, but she didn’t have time for old hurts. Cyrus didn’t know much about blood prophets, and that lack of knowledge was a weapon. “If you used me for sex, then it’s your fault that you’re not getting accurate prophecies.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“They don’t use us for sex,” Meg lied. “Ever. It dilutes the accuracy of the prophecies. Being used that way can drop the accuracy of the prophecy by fifty percent for several days.”
“If you’re not seeing things right, it’s not because of me.” Cyrus stared at her. “You been doing the nasty with that Wolf?” He stepped closer. “Is that why you’ve been telling me stuff that’s wrong?”
“I don’t remember most of what I see, but I remember one thing, Cyrus Montgomery. The Crows are going to eat your eyes.”
Images collided for a moment, and she felt a blow before his hand connected with her face so that she was already turning and falling against the car.
She looked up and saw the freight truck. About half the size of a tractor-trailer, it could handle the roads that wound through the wild country to small human communities that needed supplies. It wasn’t a huge truck, but it was big enough.
The sharp look on the driver’s face. The warning blast of the horn.
Meg bolted in front of the truck and avoided being struck by a finger’s length. She ran across the road, ran across the grass verge, and disappeared into the trees, following the game trail she had seen in the visions. She ran hard—not play-prey pursued by friends who would gently bump her and lick her and laugh a little at the panting human. This time the predator was real.
She heard Cyrus shouting, swearing, searching. But she was short and wasn’t wearing bright clothes, and the game trail forked. She took the right-hand trail and kept running.
? ? ?
“You come back here, bitch! You come back right now or I will beat you black!”
After searching for several fruitless minutes, Cyrus scrambled back to the verge and crossed the road to the car. He didn’t have time for this shit. The truck hadn’t stopped after the bitch dashed across the road, but he’d had the impression that the driver was reaching for a radio or mobile phone, was going to tell someone about the car and the girl.
Had to move, had to get away from here. Just because the truck hadn’t stopped, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t pull in to the first place on the road where there were other people.
He’d backtrack; that’s what he’d do. That way he wouldn’t end up behind the truck and the man who had seen the bitch. Yeah, he’d backtrack, maybe stop at one of those little towns in the Finger Lakes long enough to pick up bleach or some other shit that would erase the blood in the trunk. Then even if the cops found him, what could they prove? He’d rented a car, all legal and aboveboard, and gone for a drive. He was heading back to Lakeside to return the car. What was all the fuss? They couldn’t prove the bitch had been with him. If she took off, what was that to him?
Jimmy turned the car around and headed back the way he’d come—and didn’t notice that the right rear tire was rapidly going soft.
? ? ?
“Simon!”
Turning at the sound of Greg O’Sullivan’s voice, Simon dropped the books he’d been moving off the display table in order to have something to do.
O’Sullivan burst into the front area of Howling Good Reads. “The car’s been spotted.”
Simon glanced at Vlad, who had been working behind the checkout counter, then focused on the ITF agent. “Meg?”
The ITF agent shook his head. “Not—” He pulled out his mobile phone and looked at the caller’s number. “It’s Burke. Yes, Captain? They were? Where?”
Simon moved closer to O’Sullivan, trying to hear.
“I’ll be ready.” O’Sullivan hung up. “A truck driver reported seeing a man and woman arguing by the side of the road. The woman’s general description matches Meg’s, and it was on the same road as the first report of the car. Police from the communities nearest to those locations are on the roads right now, searching for the car. Burke is picking me up. Lieutenant Montgomery and Officer Kowalski will be following in a second car. We’re heading for the last known location.” He hesitated. “The truck driver thought the woman ran into the woods. We can arrange for a couple of officers with search-and-rescue dogs to meet us there if you’d rather wait . . .”
“The Wolfgard can find Meg better than some dog,” Simon snarled.
O’Sullivan looked relieved, which made Simon feel more forgiving about his suggesting dogs in the first place.
“I’ll be ready when Burke gets here.” He rushed upstairs to the office, stripped, stuffed his clothes into a carry sack, then shifted. He dragged the carry sack to the stairs, then gave it a push so that it rolled to the landing. Another push landed the carry sack on the floor of the stock room.
O’Sullivan arrived at HGR’s back door carrying a daypack. “Water and food. The police already have first-aid kits in their vehicles.” He opened the back door just as Burke’s black sedan drove up the access way.