CHAPTER 23
Thaisday, Messis 23
Vlad looked around the table in the consulate’s meeting room. He’d expected Captain Burke to arrive as soon as he’d heard the news, but he hadn’t expected Mayor Walter Chen and Police Commissioner Raymond Alvarez to be part of this meeting.
He also hadn’t expected to be outnumbered. Besides Chen, Alvarez, and Burke, Montgomery and Kowalski were also in the room. He and Elliot Wolfgard, who was the Courtyard’s consul, were the only terra indigene at this meeting.
“Mr. Simon Wolfgard will not be joining us?” Chen asked Elliot.
Elliot hesitated. “He’s too upset to be around humans right now.”
Chen nodded as if that was the expected response. He looked at Alvarez, then at Burke. “What are we doing to find this young woman and return her to her family?”
Interesting choice of words, Vlad thought. But he detected no hypocrisy in Chen’s voice.
“We’re doing everything we would do for any abduction,” Burke replied. He looked Vlad in the eyes. “With some help, we can do more.”
“What kind of help?” Vlad asked. “I’ve contacted Stavros Sanguinati. If that Cyrus goes to Talulah Falls, Stavros will find him—and Meg.”
Burke nodded. “I called Roger Czerneda. He’ll patrol River Road between Ferryman’s Landing and the Lakeside city line. It’s not likely that Cyrus will go there either—too easy to get boxed in—but that route away from Lakeside is covered.”
“I have contacted the station chief of every precinct in Lakeside,” Alvarez said. “All the stations are being mobilized, and roadblocks are being set up as we speak.” He hesitated. “But we still need a starting point, especially if this man is already beyond the city limits.”
“Starting point?” Vlad asked quietly. He could think of two places to start. Wouldn’t need to break too much of that Clarence for the pup to wail everything he knew. He’d prefer breaking the Sandee, who had been so hopped up on something that just contact with her skin had injured Leetha. The Sanguinati bodywalker was optimistic that the wounds in and around Leetha’s mouth would heal without permanent damage. Vlad hoped that was true.
And he wondered: was the Sandee’s life force as contaminated as her skin or could she be a meal for a Harvester?
“Jimmy . . .” Lieutenant Montgomery stopped. He looked ill and angry. “Cyrus couldn’t take a struggling woman on public transportation. We’ve checked with the taxicab companies. None of them sent a taxi to pick up a fare near the Courtyard’s Main Street entrance. Right now we have people at the Chestnut Street station making calls to all the car rental places in the city.”
“He might have stolen a vehicle,” Burke said, looking at Vlad. “That’s what Commissioner Alvarez means by a starting point. Cyrus Montgomery can’t have used any kind of public transportation—not taxi, bus, or train. Which means he’s in some kind of private vehicle. You need papers to cross borders these days, so Cyrus can’t travel to another region. And Agent O’Sullivan already spoke with Governor Hannigan about the situation. All the official border crossings are on alert, and I just don’t see Cyrus having the skills needed to try to go off road through the wild country to reach another region.”
“He could drive north to a town and take a boat across Lake Tahki,” Alvarez said.
“Possible,” Burke agreed, “but all the villages along the Northeast side of Lake Tahki are Intuit, terra indigene, or human settlements controlled by the Others. I talked to Steve Ferryman, who is the mayor of Ferryman’s Landing. He’s sending out an e-mail alert to every Intuit village he can reach, informing them that Meg Corbyn was abducted.”
Burke leaned toward Vlad. He wagged a finger to indicate the humans at the table. “First we need to identify the car. Then we need to know what help you can give us. It’s possible that Cyrus has found a hidey-hole in the city and is lying low, thinking the search won’t stay hot that long.”
“It will stay hot forever,” Vlad whispered. “Or, when Winter hears of this, it will stay very, very cold for a long time.”
Burke paled—the only sign that he understood exactly what the threat meant. “Cyrus won’t want to stay in a city where he can’t exploit Ms. Corbyn’s abilities. Assuming he’s already beyond the city limits, he’s in the wild country. We’ll figure out how he got Meg out of the city, what kind of vehicle he’s driving. What information is most useful to the terra indigene in the wild country? A shape? A color? I’m assuming make and model of car means nothing. I’m also assuming not everyone understands human letters and numbers.”
“Colors and shapes,” Elliot said. “Most of the terra indigene who would watch the land around the right-of-ways would know a big truck from a pickup from a car.”
“And the Crowgard are very good at recognizing faces,” Vlad added.
“We have a recent photo of Cyrus,” Montgomery said, sounding like he was swallowing tiny shards of bone. “From when he was brought in for questioning about the theft of meat in the Market Square. But Ms. Corbyn . . .”
“Ah . . .” Kowalski raised a couple of fingers. “I took a few pictures recently of Meg, Merri Lee, and Ruthie. I also have a shot of Meg and Sam. Before coming to this meeting, I gave my digital camera to Lorne at the Three Ps. He’s over there now, cropping one of the photos and running off some copies.”
“Well done,” Burke said. Then to Vlad, “With your permission, we’ll e-mail the shot of Ms. Corbyn to every police station in the Northeast.”
Vlad hesitated. Most of the cassandra sangue were well hidden from the humans who would abuse them. At least, the ones who had wanted to get away from the compounds were well hidden. Meg’s picture had been on a wanted poster a few months ago when her owner was trying to find her. He wasn’t sure it was smart or safe to remind too many humans that she was out here. After all, what she was learning about herself and how to cope in the outside world was the reason so many other blood prophets were managing to survive without benevolent ownership.
“No,” Elliot said. “Simon would never agree to telling humans that Meg was vulnerable. Someone else might kill Cyrus in order to take her. Then we would never find her.”
“We understand.” Mayor Chen looked at the other men around the table. “Perhaps the photo of Cyrus Montgomery and a description of Ms. Corbyn would be enough?”
Vlad nodded.