Indigo Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

directions took the raccoon through a section of Norinton she usually stayed clear of—the area around the boarding house had been unlovely, but this area was positively dismal. All the windows had bars, but few had glass. Most walls remained unpainted beyond crude messages from vandals. Trash piled forgotten in the streets. Even a human nose would find the air rancid, but she didn’t see a single human, only suspicious-looking L’rovri and Melifen, Vraini and Rilima she refused to meet eyes with. She gripped her knapsack tightly, wishing—not for the first time—she’d replaced the cheap little dagger that she’d lost on her journey from Orinthe.
    Once on Andersen the atmosphere improved, although it never quite returned to the merely ramshackle heights of the boarding house’s neighborhood. After three blocks, Roulette studied the building to her left, a long brick warehouse. It didn’t look like any of its high, small windows had ever had glass to be knocked out. No address, sign, or even door could be seen.
    She walked along its blank front. Maybe the Society was farther along the street? No, past the warehouse was a once-stately wooden house now doing time as a bail bonds office. Frowning, she looked down the wide alley between the two buildings.
    There it was: a wooden sign halfway down the length of the warehouse jutting out over a plain wooden door. Simple, newly painted white letters read PAN-SPECIES AID SOCIETY.
    With a glance around to see if anyone seemed to be looking her direction—no one was—Roulette hurried up to the door and rapped on it.
    “It’s open,” a woman’s voice called from inside.
    The floor of the small room she stepped into was so sandy it took Roulette a moment to be sure stone lay beneath; there was barely enough space for the receptionist’s desk and a wooden waiting bench. Pipes hung from the ceiling rather than being hidden. The air smelled faintly of charcoal and must.
    “Good morning,” the Rilima behind the desk said, looking up. “Can I help you?”
    Roulette brushed back her hair, finding herself looking away from the mouse woman. “I don’t know. I was told to come here.”
    “We can provide shelter, food, clothes, help finding work, and legal aid.” The receptionist took on the cadence of someone reciting from memory. “We’ll need your name and a little about you.”
    “I’m Roulette. Lisha sent me here.”
    The mouse’s gaze abruptly sharpened, and she hesitated before continuing. “Roulette, are you in some kind of trouble?”
    “Yes.”
    The receptionist stood up. “Wait here. I’m going to go find one of our advisers.” She waved at the bench, then stepped through a doorless opening to the right of her desk.
    Roulette sat down. The bench creaked alarmingly.
    She closed her eyes momentarily. Lisha had sent her to a damned homeless shelter, hadn’t she? In the name of the Three Lords, she didn’t need or want this kind of charity. She’d been getting by just fine on her own since coming here.
    Of course, assuming Lisha wasn’t lying, she’d never had someone trying to kill her, either. She couldn’t see why the vixen would lie to send her here, but she hardly had a reason to trust her.
    Sighing, she twisted her hands in the cloth of her skirt, suppressing a desire to crack open the door and see if anyone shady was glancing down the alley.
    “Hello! Good morning!” an energetic male voice came before its owner came into the room. A trim orange tabby, a few inches taller and a good thirty years older than she was, stepped in, followed by the receptionist. He wore a tan tunic and dark brown breeches, a fashion long out of style. “Roulette?”
    “Yes.” She stood up, clutching her bag.
    “I’m Tiran Tharp.” He smiled, sweeping a hand toward the opening he’d just stepped through. “If you’d accompany me?”
    Smiling back hesitantly, she followed him.
    Past the office, the warehouse revealed itself as one huge space divided into a