Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,128

grabbed Rusty’s collar with one hand as she turned the locks and opened the door with the other.

“You have to come,” Kenneth said. The burly schoolteacher looked ready to faint. “Maddie cut herself and we don’t know what to do. She’s … We don’t know.”

“Is Evan home?” she asked, then snapped, “Quiet, Rusty.”

“He’s dealing with the other children,” Kenneth replied. “They …”

They want to lick the blood. Michael Debany had hurriedly told her a few things about dealing with blood prophets if she should cross paths with one, and one of those things was that the Others should not consume cassandra sangue blood because it produced a reaction in the terra indigene.

“Go home and help Evan,” she said. “Do not let the other children lick Maddie’s wound or any of the blood.”

“Wounds.” Kenneth sounded devastated. “More than one.”

Gods. “I’ll be over in a minute. You go now.”

Yelling for Barb, Jana dragged a now-whimpering Rusty back to her crate and stuffed the puppy inside. Not a kind thing to do, but she could feel the seconds ticking and knew something was very wrong if a girl as young as Maddie had suddenly made multiple cuts.

“What’s the matter?” Barb asked. “Why are you being mean to the puppy?”

“Maddie cut herself.”

Barb gasped.

“Grab a pen and paper. You have to help me.”

“Me? Why me? Where are Evan and Kenneth?”

“They have to keep the other kids away from Maddie. Come on, Barb.”

Jana ran out the door, trusting that Barb would follow. She stopped outside Maddie’s house, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled, “Virgil!” Then she yanked open the screen door and stepped inside.

Maddie knelt in the middle of the living room, smacking her bloody hands on a sheet of drawing paper and making a strangled sound as if she wanted to scream but couldn’t even get that much out. Kenneth held on to Zane, and Evan had a tight hold on Mace, who kept snarling and saying, “Let me lick it. I wanna lick it.”

No sign of Charlee, but Jana didn’t ask about her. If the young Hawk wasn’t in the room, she wasn’t an immediate problem.

Jana dropped to her knees in front of Maddie at the same moment the screen door opened. As Barb dropped down beside her, looking white with dread but holding a pen and pad of paper, Jana closed her hands over Maddie’s wrists. “Speak, prophet, and we will listen.”

Maddie suddenly stilled and stared at her with terrifyingly empty eyes that turned dreamy as the girl began to speak. “Puddle, puddle, red red red. Grandma hair walk her dog. Big water. Bumpy dark.” The girl sighed and slumped forward.

Jana lowered Maddie to the floor, then looked at the two men and the boys. “You boys go to your room and stay there, or I’ll arrest you.”

“You can’t—” Mace’s protest was silenced by the savage snarl that came from the other side of the screen door.

Virgil bared his teeth as he focused on the boys. But Jana saw him quivering and took a moment to admire the strength of will that kept him on that side of the door instead of tearing through it to reach the girl with the bloody hands.

“Boys,” Evan said firmly. “Go with Dad Kenneth.”

Zane and Mace allowed Kenneth to herd them to their bedroom, but Mace, the young Wolf, kept looking back as if to be sure Virgil was still there to reinforce the order.

“Get some water and a cloth to clean up her hands,” Jana told Evan. “We’ll take the papers that have blood on them.”

“And do what with them?” Barb whispered.

“Burn them.” As far as she could tell, the drawing paper didn’t hold anything that would help them—not a picture or any other kind of clue. “Evan, do you know what Maddie was looking at just before this happened?”

Evan shook his head as he began cleaning Maddie’s hands. “We were making breakfast. The children were out here. We didn’t know there was anything wrong until Charlee ran into the kitchen and told us that Maddie had cut herself. I don’t know what she used, what was in the room that could …” He glanced around the room. “That issue of Nature! wasn’t on the floor before, and I don’t know where that picture book came from.”

“I’ll take them with me and see if I can figure out what she was trying to tell us.” Jana rose and gathered up the magazine and picture book.

“Should we take her to the doctor?” Evan asked. “The