Written in Red

indigene never understood.

Three deliverymen, all holding boxes and all standing back from the counter. Dropping the pen it was holding, the Crow cawed at them, walked to one end of the counter, selected another pen, then returned and tapped the pen on the paper clamped to the clipboard.

The men hesitated to approach, as if that small distance would make any difference. If Nyx wanted to feed, there wasn’t anything her prey could do to stop her. If she had been wearing jeans and a sweater, the men wouldn’t have known she was one of the Sanguinati. But Nyx preferred wearing a long, black velvet gown that had a modest train and those draping sleeves—the kind of garment female vampires often wore in the old movies Grandfather loved so much. Wearing it amused her because she said it was a way to tell her prey what she was, even before she began to feed.

Still in her winter coat, Meg took the pen from the Crow. Smiling and talking to the men, she quickly filled out the information while they set the packages on the handcart and kept glancing at Nyx.

Realizing none of the men were leaving, Vlad said, <Nyx.>

<I have done nothing. It is their own fear that holds them,> she replied, her dark eyes watching the men while she remained perfectly still. <Meg will do her work, and I will remain where I am.>

<Why stay?> he asked, although he made no move to withdraw.

<To teach the humans that they’re not prey when they are in this office. They will learn we do not harm those who deal with Meg, even if she is delayed. They will value her because of that and be a different kind of guard.>

<Have you heard something to indicate there is a reason for another kind of guard?>

<She pleases Grandfather. That is reason enough to keep her safe,> Nyx replied.

Meg smiled at the deliverymen as they walked out the door together and got into their trucks or vans. She continued to smile until they drove away. Then she blew out a breath and turned to Nyx and the Crow.

“Thank you for opening the office. I don’t mean to be late every morning. Things have gotten complicated the past couple of days.”

Looking over his shoulder at Sam, who was still busily sniffing his way around the sorting room, Vlad said, “That’s understandable.”

“It was entertaining,” Nyx said. “And Jake knew what to do.”

The Crow who was pulling pens out of the holder and arranging them on the counter looked at them and cawed.

“I think there is a package for Mr. Erebus from the movie place,” Meg said. “Do you want to take it with you?”

Nyx laughed. “And deprive him of a visit from you? No. But I will tell him a package has arrived.” She changed to smoke, from feet to chest, and floated over the counter. Returning to solid form, she held out her arm to the Crow, who hopped on to be taken outside.

Meg stared as the Crow flew off and Nyx changed completely to smoke that flowed toward the access way leading to the Market Square. Then she stared at the counter, and finally at Vlad. “Am I the only one who needs to use the go-through?”

Feeling Sam come up beside him, Vlad grinned at her. “No, you’re not the only one. At least for now. I’ll park the BOW in the garage for you. If you don’t find your key, let me know and I’ll drive you home.”

He didn’t wait for her answer. He needed to open HGR, and he wanted to let Henry know Sam was with Meg—assuming Jake hadn’t already told the Courtyard’s spirit guide.

And he still needed to find a subtle way of warning everyone in the Courtyard that, until Simon returned, he and Henry Beargard would be looking after Meg and Sam.

Meg put out kibble and water for Sam, smoothed the fur under the harness, and let him roam the sorting room without the leash. After she barely missed stepping on his tail or toes a couple of times, he settled down where he was out of the way but could watch her sort the mail and packages. The package for Mr. Erebus from the movie place was small enough to go with the mail, but remembering what Nyx said, Meg put it with the afternoon deliveries—including a special delivery for Winter that she hadn’t yet had a chance to make.

The morning passed quickly. When she heard the ponies, she snapped the leash to Sam’s harness and slipped the other end over her wrist before opening the outer door, just in case the pup decided to bolt outside. But Sam, while intrigued, was happy to stay with her as she walked back and forth from table to ponies. For their part, the ponies seemed curious but unconcerned about the pup.

Congratulating herself on getting through another week without getting eaten or fired, she tapped the stack of papers that held her notes about the week’s deliveries. Her little finger slid along the papers’ edge.

A shiver of pain came before blood welled from the slice along the joint. She stared at her left hand, trying to remember something from her lessons that would explain the cut, unwilling to believe that paper could slice skin. Then the pain came, smothering her chest and twisting her belly.

Sam howled in terror.

She looked at the pup to reassure him, hoping to shape ordinary words before the prophecy began flowing through her.

Except Sam wasn’t howling. He stood next to her, watching her anxiously as her own body told him something was wrong.

Sam wasn’t howling. But she could hear him. Even now, knowing he wasn’t making a sound, she could still hear him.

The vision had started. She didn’t know what was coming, what images she would see. But if Sam was part of it . . . If she spoke to experience the euphoria, she wouldn’t remember enough, if she remembered anything at all, and no one would know why Sam was afraid. But if she didn’t speak, if she swallowed the words so that she could see the prophecy . . . For Sam’s sake, could she endure the pain?

“Stay here,” she said through gritted teeth. She hurried to the bathroom and shut the door before Sam could follow her.

Her throat felt clogged with terrible things. Leaning over the sink, she struggled to breathe as pain crawled through her and the vision filled her mind as if she were watching a stuttering movie clip.

Men. Dressed all in black. Even their faces, their heads, were black. Some had guns; others carried rifles . . . skip . . .One man was grabbing at something, but she couldn’t see . . . skip . . . A sound like a car mated to a hornet . . . skip . . . Snow falling so fast and fierce and thick, she couldn’t get a sense of place, couldn’t tell if she was seeing the Courtyard or the city or somewhere else that had a snowstorm . . . skip . . . But Sam was there, howling in terror.

Meg came back to herself when the muscles in her hands cramped from holding on to the sink so hard.

Focus on breathing, she told herself. The pain will fade. You know it will fade.

She washed her hands, taking care to thoroughly clean the little finger.

Such a small slice along the edge of that joint. If she sliced it again to lengthen it, maybe she could see more. And maybe she would see another prophecy, but it would be mashed with the images she’d already seen in this small cut. The Walking Names called the result of cutting over a previous cut a double vision, that nightmarish occurrence when one prophecy imposed itself over another and the images collided in ways that usually had terrible, mind-breaking consequences for the girl who saw them.

Sometimes the colliding images weren’t terrible. Sometimes, if the girl could accept what she was seeing, the images could change a life. They had changed hers when the Controller had cut across old scars as a punishment. The colliding prophecies had shown her the first steps of her escape.

Just because she had survived double visions before didn’t mean her mind wouldn’t break if she tried it again.

She dried off her hands, got antiseptic and a bandage from the first-aid kit, and took care of the slice. Moving slowly, she returned to the sorting room and Sam. Opening her personal notebook to a clean page, she wrote down what she had seen while the details were fresh.