"Now, Molly," Mr. Carlson said quietly. The tent was emptying fast, save for a few people with questions for either the bishop or Touchet. Valentine escorted Molly to the exit, following her parents, and paused to look back at the podium. Touchet was looking at him and speaking to the bishop. The Wolf smelled trouble at that look. He hurried out of the tent, racking his brain as he tried to remember if he'd ever seen the lllinoisan's face before.
What was there about him that would draw the golden touch?
* * *
Back at the wagon and buggy, the Carlsons ate a quick dinner out of their baskets. Flanagan joined them, helping himself to a choice meat pie.
"He left a few things out, you know, Gwen," Flanagan said, treating them all to a view of half-chewed food. "In his lecture to the patrols, he elaborated a bit about how he got out of the jam after he was caught helping those folks hide animals from the commissary. While he was sitting in the depot, they offered him his life back if he would turn in each and every farmer who withheld so much as an egg or a stick of butter from the commissary. Turned out he had a real good memory," Flanagan chuckled.
"It was all part of the talk he gave on duty this morning. Oh, and the brass ring he threw out into the audience is a phony. But don't tell anyone I told you. Don't hurt nothing to have those folks believing they got it made, as long as they stay in our good graces."
"Duty, Mike?" Mrs. Carlson said. "I bet you could tell Mr. Midas there a thing or two about devotion to duty. Like putting it before family. You're an expert at that."
"Don't start, Gwen. That's in the past. I've done plenty for you since, even a few things that would get me on the next train to Chicago. Oh, shit, it's starting to rain again," Major Flanagan grumbled, looking at the sky. "Bye, kids. Stay out of trouble. Glad to see you showed up for the meeting, Saint Croix. Maybe you're smarter than you look."
On the ride back, Molly drove the buggy. Valentine was unsure of himself on the rain-wet surface, and they decided a pair of experienced hands on the reins would be best. Valentine and Molly sat together under the tarp again, but he couldn't recapture the half-excited, half-scared mood of the trip down when he first felt her close to him.
"You didn't fall for any of that baloney, did you?" Molly asked.
"No, but he did know how to tell a good story. He had me spellbound for a while."
"Yes, he's one of the best I can remember hearing. That's what you'd expect right before they increase the reckoning." She paused for a moment. "You seem a million miles away."
"I didn't like the way he looked at me. At the end, when he was talking to the bishop. Almost like he was asking about me.Funny, because I've never seen him before in my life."
"Well, according to Uncle Mike, he really is from Illinois. You ever been there?"
"I passed through it on the way here, but we stayed in the uninhabited part. Or mostly uninhabited, that is. Sorry if I seem preoccupied. You sure pegged the baby thing. How did you know?"
She smiled at him. "Just because I'm eighteen and hardly been more than twenty miles from home, you think I'm ignorant. There's a fresh batch of vampires up in New Glarus. Nobody knows when they came in with their Master exactly, but it seems like they're here to stay. That's more hungry mouths. How often do they need feeding, anyway?"
"That is one of the many things we don't know about the Reapers. According to the theories out of this group that studies them down in Arkansas, how much they need "to eat depends on how active they and their Master are. We think a lot of times the Kurians have about half their Hoods shut down. This is just guesswork, but the fewer Reapers a Kurian has to control, the better he can control them. Sometimes when he's trying to work all thirteen at once, they just turn into eating machines and do stupid stuff like forget to get in out of the daylight. But the Kurian can't control too few, either. He takes a risk when he does that. If the link for feeding vital auras to the Kurian Lord gets shut down, like say if he's got only one Reaper left and it gets killed, we think the Kurian dies with it."
Molly rewrapped the thick reins in her hand. "That's interesting. It's funny to just be able to talk about them with somebody. Discussing the Kurians is a taboo subject here. Too easy to say the wrong thing. So a Reaper can be killed?"
"Yes," Valentine said, "but you need to put that at the top of your 'easier said than done' list. I've seen six trained men pump rifle bullets into one at a range of about ten feet, and all it did was slow it down. Of course, those robes they wear protect them a lot. If they're hurt, you can behead them. A lot of times we're satisfied just to blow them up or cripple them so they can't move around much and they're easier to finish off. But again, even catching one where you can gang up on it is hard. They're usually active only at night, and they see better than us, hear better than us, and so on."
"So how do you do it?"
"It's a long story. Kind of hard to believe, too, unless it's happened to you. Now I know I've told you there are also people like the Kurians, but they're on our side."
"Yes, the... Lifeweavers."
"Good, yes, you have it. Long time ago, I think we worshiped them, and made them out to be gods. But they have the ability to awaken latent... I don't know, I guess you'd call them powers... within a human. About four thousand years ago, they made it very totemistic so the people would accept what these gods or wizards or whatever were doing. "The spirit of a wolf is in you.""
"Can they do it with anyone?"
"I don't know. The Lifeweavers select you for it, I know that much. Down in the Ozark Free Territory, they have three kinds of warriors they create, each named for an animal.
Maybe they use different animals elsewhere, like lions in Africa maybe. We're called the Hunters. We all carry a blade of some kind to finish off the Reapers. In the Wolves we just use a short, broad-bladed knife. It's a very handy tool in the woods, too. The Wolves are like the cavalry. We move fast from place to place, scout out the enemy troops, and fight guerrilla actions, mostly. There's lots of Wolves. Those Cats are spies, assassins, and saboteurs. I don't know about the Cat training, seems like they're just really, really good Wolves who prefer to work alone. I've known only one Cat. They go into the Kurian areas and mess with the Reapers. Maybe there's one around here somewhere. But if there is, he or she probably doesn't know I'm around. As I told you, I was just running the mail up to Lake Michigan. Then there are the Bears. They're the meanest bunch of bad-asses in the Southern Command, I can say for certain. I don't know what the Life weavers do to the Bears to make them the way they are, but I've heard of a single Bear taking on three Reapers and killing them all. They're like human tanks. We Wolves always make room for them at the bar when they come in."
They listened to the clip-clop of hoofbeats. Luckily it was an asphalt road, with only a few gravel stretches. The Morgan trotted steadily behind at the end of his lead, enjoying his exercise. Molly slowed the buggy to a walk and let the horse breathe, to give the rest of the family a chance to catch up a little in the plodding wagon.
"Do you win often?" Molly asked. "I mean, actually go out and beat the Reapers?"
"Sometimes. The Ozarks are still free, aren't they? But it costs people. Good people," Valentine said, remembering.
"Don't think about that too much," she suggested. It makes you look all old and tired. You're what, twenty?"