Marked In Flesh (The Others #4) - Anne Bishop Page 0,30
heard about something that she couldn’t recall?
They both turned toward the door when they heard the howl.
“Someone is looking for you,” Lorne said. “I’ll pull one of each postcard and drop them off at the Liaison’s Office. After you look them over, you keep the ones you want and give back the rest. All right?”
“Yes. Thanks, Lorne.” Huffing out an annoyed breath when Nathan howled again, Meg rushed across the access way but stuttered to a stop when she saw Blair Wolfgard leaning against the office’s back door, waiting for her.
Blair was the dominant enforcer in the Courtyard and didn’t have much use for humans. To be fair, she was pretty sure she’d caused him a considerable amount of trouble since she started working, and living, among the terra indigene. So there was always the possibility that Blair would forget—or ignore—the “don’t bite Meg” rule.
“You caused a commotion at your place this morning,” he said.
“I had a bad dream, and I sort of fell on top of Simon.” How many times did she have to say it?
“What was the dream?”
“I don’t remember.”
Blair’s amber Wolf eyes studied her. “You would tell me if I needed to keep watch for something, wouldn’t you?”
“I would. And I will. But there’s nothing to tell you now.”
He opened the back door and stepped aside to let her enter.
“Meg!” Lorne hurried over to her, casting a nervous glance at Blair. “Take a look at these. And here’s a catalog from the place that prints the postcards. Keep it awhile. You can make up a list of the images you want me to order for you.”
Meg took the postcards and catalog. “Thanks.”
With another glance at Blair, Lorne bolted across the access way and back to the safety of his own shop.
“I’m going back to work now,” Meg said.
But the enforcer’s eyes were focused on the second floor of Howling Good Reads and the Wolf standing at the window. Blair walked away without saying a word.
Shivering even though the day was turning warm, Meg went inside the office and laid out the postcards on the sorting room table.
Common images for blood prophets living in different parts of Thaisia. But these weren’t the pictures she and Jean and Hope needed. These were scenic and pretty, and prophecy was rarely about things that were pretty. If that wasn’t true, blood prophets wouldn’t need the euphoria to veil what they saw and cloud their memories.
She had lied about the dream because Simon, Vlad, and the rest of her friends would be upset if she told them about the part she remembered.
There was no scar along the right side of her jaw. But there was going to be. Sometime soon she would make that cut to save Simon and the rest of the Wolves.
• • •
“Vladimir.”
Looking up, Vlad forced a smile. “Grandfather. What brings you to the Market Square?”
In his human form, Erebus Sanguinati looked like an old man with a lined face. His hands had knobby joints and big veins, but the fingernails were not as yellowed or horny as they used to be—a slight adjustment in appearance that had been made after Meg began delivering packages to the Chambers, the Sanguinati’s part of the Courtyard. His voice had a slight accent and belied the lethal nature of the vampire who commanded all the Sanguinati in Thaisia.
Erebus sat beside him on the bench. “Our Meg saw a couple of movies at the store here that she thought I might enjoy. So I have come to look. Then I saw you.” He smiled gently. “You are troubled?”
Meg lied to me. Not something he would say to Erebus now or ever. Grandfather doted on Meg.
“Yes, I’m troubled,” Vlad admitted. “I keep coming back to what happened this morning and how prophecy usually works.”
“Prophecy is about the future, about something that is going to happen. Is that not so?”
“Yes. And sometimes that future possibility is just minutes away, leaving a person with very little time to act.” Vlad blew out a breath. “Daybreak. That’s what is bothering me. A mound of bison is bothering me. They must be connected with the dream Meg had and the drawing Hope made, but Joe Wolfgard said the bison fell where they died. They weren’t mounded.”
“You think the sweet blood saw something else, something that hasn’t happened yet?”
Vlad nodded. “And whatever Meg and Hope saw, each in her own way, is connected to something that will happen around a place called Prairie Gold.”