Burke felt his blood go cold. An urgent message from Jackson Wolfgard meant one thing: the young blood prophet living in Sweetwater had seen something.

“So Hope saw the license plate?” Burke asked.

“And this.” Ferryman turned the paper around, revealing the drawing.

Monty sagged against Burke’s desk.

Hope’s vision drawing was a partial map showing the roads leading out of Lakeside. Only the roads running south and east, and one road was drawn heavier than the others—the road Cyrus Montgomery must have taken.

The drawing also showed the back of a brown car, with the license plate clearly rendered. The trunk was partially open. Meg Corbyn looked out of that dark space, her arms and clothes smeared with blood.

But it was her eyes that chilled Burke, because he couldn’t tell if those blank eyes meant she was seeing visions or if they meant she was dead.

CHAPTER 26

Thaisday, Messis 23

Needing gas, Jimmy found his way back to a paved road and drove until he came to a cluster of businesses, including a gas station and a place called Miller’s Trading Post. He pulled up to a pump at the gas station and filled up the tank. There was a small diner, but the trading post might have food and drinks too, and the cha-ching should be properly grateful for some food by now. Then he saw the way the old guy at the cash register looked at him and looked at the car when he came in to pay for the gas.

Fuck! Did the cops know about the car already? How’d they find out? The kid who owned it had rented it to him for the day and wouldn’t be calling the cops about it yet, so how did they know what he was driving?

He stared at the old guy, daring him to pretend he had balls enough to take on a man years younger and heavy with muscle, not a beer belly.

Having sufficiently cowed the old guy, Jimmy walked out of the gas station, not looking at the other businesses. But he was pissed that he couldn’t go into that trading post and pick up a few things for the road, pissed that he couldn’t sit down in the little diner for a while.

He hadn’t gotten as far from Lakeside as he needed to go. He’d thought he’d have at least a day with CJ sending out inquiries and shit to places like Shikago and Hubbney. But he was still in the middle of the Finger Lakes, which was fucking nowhere, and he had to find a place where he and the cha-ching could go to ground near a bus depot or train station so that he could ditch the car. If an old fart at a nowhere gas station had heard something that made him look at the car, then the cops were going to be all over anyone driving any of the roads heading away from Lakeside. He’d thought that talk about a region-wide manhunt was just a reporter’s way of hyping a story. But if all the cops really were hunting for him . . .

Had to get some distance from this place before the old fart decided he had balls enough to call the cops. Had to find an empty piece of road. Then he had a few questions for the bitch in the trunk.

• • •

Meg drifted among the visions that folded into one another—the result of tangled prophecies. Unable to anticipate the jolts and bumps, she knocked her arm against something in the trunk, and one of the new cuts reopened, leaked blood. Showed her . . . things.

Human bodies mounded on cracked, baked soil, rotting in the sun.

Bloated bodies washed up onshore, a feast for crabs.

The land burning, the sky a cloud of black smoke. New things? Old things?

Cities drowning while blood dripped from water faucets.

Sitting in the back of a car, hugging Simon.

Nail. Tire. Balloon leaking air.

Sam bringing down his prey—a human—while another human hit Skippy with a club that had a metal hook at one end.

Old things? New things? Had she told the Cyrus Controller about those images? Had he asked? Didn’t have to tell if he didn’t ask. Wouldn’t tell if he didn’t ask.

A tombstone made from a mound of old leaves.

Was that past or future?

She was property again, a thing again. Weak. Helpless.

No. She wasn’t weak or helpless. She lived with Wolves, and she could run fast and far. There was a place where she could hide from the Cyrus Controller. She would follow the images and escape. Like she did the last time.

Then the car slowed down. Stopped. And Meg had one clear thought as Cyrus Montgomery opened the trunk and hauled her out: it’s time.

• • •

Radio stations throughout the Northeast continued to interrupt programming with special bulletins about the region-wide hunt for Cyrus Montgomery, a man accused of abducting a young woman from the city of Lakeside. The police had issued a description of the man and the car, including the license plate number. They also gave a description of the young woman—short black hair, gray eyes, fair skin. A scar on the right side of her jaw.

Even radio stations in towns too far away to be within the target zone were running the story, keeping their citizens apprised of the dangerous situation—not because they thought this man would reach their town before he was caught. No, they were keeping the citizens apprised because they had seen the Hawks and Eagles soaring over the roads, watching; they had seen the Crows flying low, attempting to inspect any car coming into town.

They didn’t know why this particular woman was important enough for this kind of attention, but they knew if the terra indigene were this involved in the hunt, there were good reasons for humans to be afraid.

• • •

Meg didn’t struggle when Cyrus hauled her out of the trunk. Her legs were too stiff and she felt a little dizzy. Lack of food, loss of blood. She couldn’t think about those things now. She had to focus on the moment when she would escape.