“When you speak prophecy, you don’t remember what you see; you don’t remember what you say. How do you know you were more accurate?”
“The Controller’s clients wouldn’t have paid so much if I wasn’t,” Meg whispered. She avoided his eyes. “Where is Simon?”
“He’s having a run with Jackson and Blair while he tries to figure out what to do with eleven large, smelly mistakes.” Vlad sighed. “Maybe it isn’t your prophecies that are suddenly inaccurate; maybe it’s the skills of your interpreters. After all, this is a new experience for everyone in the Courtyard. But you’ve never had anyone show you what you said or draw little pictures like Merri Lee has done to figure out the images. You’ve never seen your own prophecies come to pass, so you’ve never seen if they were true.”
“Until now.” Meg looked around the sorting room.
“I haven’t been keeping score, but I think at least half of the time since you’ve been living in the Courtyard, what you’ve seen hasn’t happened because you saw it. Think about it, Meg. The ponies didn’t die of poison, because you saw them dying and identified where we’d find the poison. Nadine Fallacaro didn’t die when her shop was set on fire, because you saw images that warned enough of us about who and where. So many of the blood prophets were rescued because you saw the danger.” Anger burned in him again. “In fact, Ms. Corbyn, your prophecies have been so accurate, it is your fault that we ended up with those stupid bison!”
She took a step back, despite the table being between them. “But I saw them! When Simon wanted to know about the River Road Community, I saw the bison. And . . . and Hope drew a picture of them!”
“You saw them. Hope drew a picture of them. And everyone just followed all the steps that would make that happen without stopping to think if it was something that should happen!”
Meg blinked.
Vlad paced the width of the room a couple of times, the only thing he could think to do with his agitation.
“The Sanguinati are urban hunters for the most part. What do we know about bison?” Nothing at all until he did a little research, but the bison were already on the train by the time he received a message from Tolya expressing some concern about the scheme. “Henry, who grew up in the Northwest, didn’t oppose the idea. Neither did Elliot. And Simon . . . All right. I understand his thinking to some degree. Fresh meat on the hoof. Lots of meat. Enough to feed the terra indigene and the human pack. But it takes a pack experienced in hunting an animal that big to succeed without getting hurt.”
“Hurt? The Wolves could get hurt? No one said they could get hurt.” She sounded bristly, and the fierceness that filled her eyes made him wary.
Vlad stopped pacing. He could picture her, a human who could be felled by a paper cut, waving her broom at a bison, ready to smack it senseless to protect a Wolf pup. The idea that she might try to do exactly that was funny and frightening in equal measure.
Time to steer Meg away from thoughts of critters with hooves. A Wolf could be hurt by a deer’s well-placed kick, or be injured by antlers. Since the Wolves weren’t going to stop hunting deer, he wasn’t going to volunteer information that might cause friction in the Green Complex every time someone trotted home with a hunk of meat.
“You could get hurt too, which is something we hadn’t understood,” he said. “These bison are still young, still growing. But there’s no way to tell how they’ll react to the sight of a BOW, especially once they mature.” And the thought of Meg injured and bleeding in the BOW was beyond anything he wanted to imagine. Not that she wouldn’t be found quickly; even when she drove around alone, there were plenty of terra indigene keeping her in sight.
But it wasn’t a thought he wanted Grandfather Erebus to entertain. Once that happened, the bison would be bled out before Simon had a chance to make a decision as the Courtyard’s leader—and that might create tension between the Sanguinati and Wolfgard that neither form could afford when there was all this turmoil with the humans.
“The point is, two blood prophets saw bison coming to this area,” Vlad said. “But we should have asked if that was the future we wanted—and what the consequences might be when we brought an animal into an area that wasn’t part of its natural territory.”
Meg took a deep breath and blew it out. “Pick a deck.”
“What?”
“You wanted to know how this worked. Pick a deck.”
He picked the same deck he’d looked at previously, then watched Meg’s fumbling effort to shuffle the cards before setting the deck on the table with her hand resting on the top card. “Ask your question.”
“What should we do with the bison?” Then he added silently, Speak, prophet, and I will listen.
Meg closed her eyes, breathed in and out a couple of times, then cut the deck and turned her hand to reveal the card.
It was the same card he’d drawn—the table full of food and the big roast in the center.
Vlad laughed. “Show that to Simon.”
Meg looked at the card and made a face. “Simon was so excited about the meat Joe sent, and he and Sam liked it so much I didn’t want to spoil their pleasure, but . . .”
He laughed again. “You didn’t like the bison burgers.”
“No.”
If she’d told Simon, that would have settled the question of bison in the Courtyard before the damn things were put on the train, Vlad thought.
<Delivery truck is pulling in,> Nathan said.
“Time for both of us to get back to work.” He walked around the table and smiled at her as he opened the Private door. He followed her to the counter and leaned against it, noticing that Nathan was on his feet and watching the human who got out of the truck. Not a regular, then.
Meg frowned at her clipboard as she wrote down the name of the company on the side of the truck.
“Delivery.” The man set a package on the counter.
It was the way Meg shrank away from the man and package that warned Vlad and Nathan that something was very wrong. Vlad stepped up to the counter, gently nudging Meg toward the Private door while Nathan silently moved to block the front door.
“Wait,” Vlad said when the man backed away. “I haven’t agreed to accept this package.”
“You have to accept it.”
“No, I don’t.” The package was addressed to Ms. Wolflover MacDonald. The “company” address said “Dead Cops Club.”
Smiling enough to show a fang, Vlad picked up the phone on the counter and called Burke’s direct line at the Chestnut Street station. “Captain? We’ve just received a package from something called the Dead Cops Club. What would you like us to do with the man who delivered it? Yes, he’s still here. Well, you can arrest him, or we can eat him.”
The man gasped. Meg dropped her clipboard on the sorting room table and made an odd sound. Since she was safe from the stranger, Vlad ignored her, more interested in Burke’s moment of silence before saying he would send a car.
Vlad hung up.
A long minute later, Officer Debany, in uniform, entered the office at a run, almost tripping over Nathan, who still blocked the front door.
Must have been getting ready for work when Burke called.
“You’re under arrest,” Debany said.
“I just delivered a freaking package!” the man protested.
Hesitating, Debany looked at Vlad. “Do you believe that?”
Vlad looked over his shoulder to check on Meg and saw her slice the underside of one finger on her right hand.
“Arrest him or we’ll kill him,” Vlad snapped. “Either way, I want him out of here!” <Nathan, go outside with Debany.>
<Why?> Nathan snarled.
<Go.> Vlad rushed into the sorting room, cursing Meg and himself. After calling Burke, he should have let Nathan guard the stranger while he kept watch on Meg.