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"Uue," Miz A said "He is safe froht, dear?"

Tia reached for a cucumber sandwich "Carlos is a dream Mr Leo and Miss Katie say I can be a blood-servant soon, if they get the right offer"

"Offer?" I said, hearing the edge in my tone

Miz A patted irl, "take your coffee and snack upstairs, yes? Miss Jane and I lets bobbing "Business I gotcha" She gathered up a handful of sandwiches and lided like a dancer, her big fuzzy slippers sliding on the wood floor At the door she turned and said, "Thank you for not killing Carlos" Before I could forone

"Offer?" I repeated "Slavery was abolished a long tio"

Miz A nodded and topped off my tea As she poured, she said, "It see their twelve-year-old daughter out of the trunk of their car" At rim as she placed another salirl’ssituation She put an end to it, but it was too late for her proper development She had been badly scarred, ereat deal of tiht protector for her" Miz A looked up at"She cannot live alone and she is too sexually aware and vulnerable to simply be set free on the city’s streets She would end up used, hoht eventually desert her A va as she lives She needs only the proper arrangement"

I had no idea how to respond to that so I ate my pretty little sandwich and didn’t say a word When I could get away, I thanked Miz A for the tea and snack, ju to blow the vaic built upon pragave me the willies

I tooled around the Quarter on Bitsa, sniffing things out, finding places where vaue trace--or h Imy way into the Lake Catouatchie area--which is mostly swamp and infested withthe sick vaht the distant scent of rogue and tracked it I ended up on a dead-end, crushed-shell street in the middle of nowhere

I slowedcat’s purr The house was sled house of maybe twelve hundred square feet, with the screened porch I vaguely re in the back It ell kept, with fresh-painted charcoal triarden that s called to s clouded in smoke and fear and blood And the sound of cereiyi Cherokee, to the white iyi was a Cherokee word I remembered it

A sweathouse was out back An elder of The People lived here And the rogue had hunted here, close, too close Stalking hih the sweat beading on my skin

Not quite sure what I intended, I turned off the bike and set the kickstand Propped the helmet on the seat I walked up the crushed-shell drive, shells crunching under my feet In the Carolinas, roads and driveere coated with gravel when unpaved, and stone waswas used Not much stone in the delta; they used as handy Shells Di away fro up the drive to an elder’s house I took the steps to the porch, noting only then that the house was on brick pylons, raising it up above hurricane flood line I pushed the bell It dinged inside

I stood in the heat Waiting Sweating Flies and bees buzzing around, the distantly re on the air And no one came This is stupid

I pushed the bell once more as I turned away and was startled when the door opened I don’t knohat I had expected, but the slender, black-haired woman in jeans and a silk tank wasn’t it She didn’t speak She just looked atthings where the earth seems to move

"Gi yv ha," she said, and held open the door

Come inShe had said, Come in And I understood her words

CHAPTER 8