Simon looked at Sam. “Go with them.”
Sam stared at his uncle for a moment before running to catch up with Nathan.
Which left Lizzy literally hugging the stuffing out of Boo Bear while Simon, Blair, Kowalski, and Monty formed a circle around her.
“Daddy?” Now the tears began to fall. “Boo Bear got hurt.”
“I know, Lizzy girl. But . . .”
“I have called the Wolfgard bodywalker,” Henry Beargard rumbled as he stepped through the archway and joined them. “She will meet us at the medical office and do what she can.”
“But he’s a bear,” Lizzy wailed. A little more stuffing dribbled out from the torn spots.
“So am I,” Henry said. “But I am the only Grizzly in the Courtyard, so when I am hurt, the Wolf tends to me.” He held out a big hand.
“Henry is the Courtyard’s spirit guide,” Simon said. “He is wise.”
Lizzy hesitated, then gave Boo Bear to Henry.
The Grizzly studied the toy bear. Then he sniffed the face, the places where the legs had been torn off, the seam along the back.
Watching Henry’s face, Monty eased Lizzy behind him. He felt Kowalski shift position to provide additional protection.
“There is sickness here,” Henry said. “The bodywalker must tend to Boo Bear.”
The Others did know Boo Bear was a toy. Didn’t they? Now that he considered it, the Wolves had talked about Boo Bear in much the same way Lizzy did—as if the stuffed bear was alive in some way.
“Is he going to need another operation?” Lizzy asked, her eyes swimming with tears that tore at Monty’s heart.
“Perhaps,” Henry said. “But I will stay with my brother bear.” He exchanged a look with Simon.
“Where is Ruthie?” Simon asked.
“She wasn’t scheduled to work, so she’s at home packing,” Kowalski replied.
Simon studied Kowalski. “Don’t leave until we talk.”
Monty bristled at the Wolf’s assumption that he could order Kowalski around, but they were all moving toward the back door of A Little Bite and then out to the medical office in the Market Square.
Theral MacDonald was closing up her desk when they walked in. Kowalski greeted her and would have stopped if Simon hadn’t growled, “Kowalski, we need you back here. The Lizzy should stay out front with Theral.”
“Mr. Wolfgard . . . ,” Monty began. Pointless to protest about Wolfgard giving orders to a police officer or making decisions about a human child. This was the Courtyard, and humans had little, if any, say about anything.
The door opened and a female Wolf walked in. She had fur instead of hair, and her ears were Wolf—a bizarre combination with a human face. But not terrifying like the blends he had seen a few weeks ago when a man named Phineas Jones had tried to hypnotize Meg and convince her to leave with him.
The female Wolf hesitated.
“Jane, this way,” Simon said, leading them all to the examination room Dominic Lorenzo had put together to provide medical care for the humans who lived or worked in the Courtyard.
Henry put Boo Bear on the examination table. Simon set the detached front and back leg next to the main body.
“There’s something inside,” Simon said. “Something that doesn’t smell like the Lizzy.”
Monty was about to point out that Boo Bear had been made by hand and might smell of the person who had stuffed him. But Lizzy had been three when she fell in love with the furry toy, and after four years, would there be any scent beyond the ones in the apartment and the people Lizzy came into contact with often?
“The child mentioned another operation,” Henry said.
Jane bent over the bear, sniffing as her fingers moved over the fur on the bear’s back. Then she rummaged around in the drawers, no doubt destroying any order Lorenzo had created. Not finding whatever she was looking for, she went out to the front desk and returned with a box cutter.
Monty didn’t have time to protest before she slit Boo Bear’s back.
Simon leaned over the table, poking at the stuffing. Suddenly all the terra indigene focused on the bear, as if they’d heard something.
Simon pulled out a small cloth sack. He opened it and poured the contents on the table.
Emeralds. Sapphires. Rubies. Even a few diamonds. And some kind of designer ring made of white gold or platinum and set with several diamonds.
Kowalski whistled softly.
Simon cocked his head and looked at Monty. “Do humans usually stuff jewels inside bears?”
“No.” Monty swallowed the sick feeling in his gut. Gods above and below, where was Elayne? And what was she doing hiding a fortune inside Boo Bear?
Or had she been the one who had hidden the jewels?
“Brown bear eating jewels,” Henry said. “That was one of the visions Meg saw yesterday when she made the cut.”
“I have to report this,” Monty said. “I have to . . .”
“Take care of your pup,” Simon said.
Monty looked at the Wolf. “Yes.” Lizzy came first. Someone else could call the police in Toland and ask about Elayne. Ask about stolen jewels.
“Maybe Lieutenant Montgomery and Lizzy could stay in the efficiency apartment you set aside for the team?” Kowalski said. “The Courtyard is closer to the station, and Lizzy could rest for a while.”
Henry nodded. “A good idea. The child has traveled far enough today.”
“What do we do with the bear and . . .” Jane waved a hand over the table, indicating all the bits.
“We leave it exactly as is,” Monty said. “I’ll call Captain Burke.” He hesitated, not sure how Wolfgard would react to the next part. “Police will need to examine this, ask questions of all of us.”
“Police who are not connected to you because the Lizzy is your pup?” Simon asked.
“Yes. Until we know what happened, it would be better if it wasn’t anyone on my team.”
“But one of the police we know and one of our enforcers will watch the unknown police.”
That was more of a compromise than he’d expected, so he agreed.
When he walked into the reception area, Lizzy jumped off a chair. She looked at his empty hands, then at the door of the examination room.
“Boo Bear has to stay here and help the police with their inquiries,” Simon said, addressing his words to Lizzy. “Theral is kin to police, so she and Henry will stay with Boo Bear. Officer Kowalski will bring your carryall to the efficiency apartment where you and Lieutenant Montgomery will wait and rest while the police do their sniffing. Blair will wait at the delivery entrance and will escort the unknown police back here.”
I’m off balance and not being much help, Monty thought as they left the medical office and followed Simon to the efficiency apartments above the seamstress/tailor’s shop.
The last time he and Simon had dealt with children, they’d been bringing five girls from the Controller’s compound to Lakeside. He’d been overwhelmed by what he’d seen when he, Simon, and Dominic Lorenzo had entered the compound. Savagery and slaughter. And heartbreak when he saw the girls, the cassandra sangue, who were being raised and trained for someone’s profit.
Simon had looked after the girls, and he’d made the arrangements for the Intuits on Great Island to take care of them. Now he was giving the orders again.
Take care of the pack. Protect the young.
It wasn’t quite that simple when you were human.
Jewels inside a toy that Lizzy took everywhere. Blood on Boo Bear. Elayne injured in some way—and feeling desperate enough that she’d told Lizzy to make the trip to Lakeside alone. Why hadn’t she called her mother or brother? They lived in Toland and could have fetched Lizzy if Elayne had needed to go to the hospital. Why send Lizzy all the way to Lakeside . . . unless staying in Toland wasn’t safe anymore.
br /> Gods above and below, what was Elayne mixed up in?
* * *
One advantage to living with predators is we know how to wait, Tess thought as she and Meg sat at the little table in the back room of the Liaison’s Office.
Meg didn’t seem to be in distress. She wasn’t digging at her skin—a sign that she was plagued by a pins-and-needles feeling that indicated something that might be revealed in a vision.
How much was too much? When you thought about how many things had happened to Meg since she stumbled into the Courtyard a few months ago compared to how little had happened to her during her first twenty-four years, was it any wonder that her mind was overwhelmed? Of course, what had happened to the girl during those first twenty-four years might have been repetitive, but Tess didn’t think any of it had been kind.
“Merri Lee, Ruth, and I watched a movie recently,” Meg finally said. “It had a large dog with lots of hair. Ruth says there are lots of breeds of dog, but we weren’t taught breeds, just general identification of animals.”
“Makes sense,” Tess said. “Why would someone pay for a prophecy about an animal unless it was valuable? Why are you thinking about the movie?”
“The dog kept getting into trouble. It didn’t mean to, but it did. It knocked things over or chased a cat through a party so that people fell into a swimming pool or ended up with gooey food spilled over them.”
Tess got up, rummaged in the under-the-counter fridge, and found a bottle of cold water. She filled two glasses and brought them back to the table.
“We had enough fuss with a cheese sandwich, a stuffed bear, and an idiot Wolf,” she said.
“Exactly!”
She studied Meg. “What exactly?”
“Merri Lee and Ruth said the movie was a comedy, that the dog getting into trouble and getting snobby people wet or dirty was supposed to be funny. But the people weren’t laughing. They looked angry and yelled at the dog.” Meg sipped water. “Some training images produce feelings. Like seeing bugs crawling on food. I didn’t like looking at those images. So that’s a bad thing.”
“If you’re someone who eats bugs, that would be a good image and show what kind of bait should be set out.”
Meg stared at her.
Tess shrugged. “For many things, good or bad is how you feel about it. If you see a picture of Wolves killing a deer, you might feel bad for the deer. Or you might understand that the Wolves have fed their family that day, the same as a human who kills a cow or a chicken to feed his family.” She considered what she knew about Meg. “You have all these images in your head. Thousands of pictures, and you absorb more images every day. But now that you’re having your own experiences, now that you’re learning your own likes and dislikes, you’re also trying to assign the proper feelings for all those images, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Some things are easy. Sam is easy. And working here, and knowing all of you. Those things are easy. I feel good working here. I feel good when I’m learning new things, at least until I get tired. But sometimes I don’t know how I should feel.”
“For instance, should you feel upset like Lizzy because Boo Bear was damaged, or feel embarrassed like Lieutenant Montgomery because his little girl saw a naked boy, or laugh because it was like watching one of those absurd movies.” Tess paused. “Or be like me—grateful that Skippy didn’t manage to eat any of the bear so I don’t have to deal with barfed stuffing all over the coffee shop.”
“One image, but feelings change how it can be seen,” Meg said quietly.
“I’d say that’s true of most things. Wouldn’t you?”
Meg took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
Relaxed. Balanced. She had provided the answer Meg needed.
“Your hair is brown again,” Meg said.
“I’m sitting here talking to you.”
Meg was rather like that big dog in the movie. Didn’t mean any harm but managed to set all kinds of things in motion.
“Why are you laughing?” Meg asked.
“Just thought of something no one else would find amusing.”
* * *
Simon filled a few book orders while he waited for Kowalski. Not much else he could do. Vlad was in the office upstairs, hopefully dealing with some of the paperwork that seemed to breed faster than bunnies. Nathan had messages from the Addirondak Wolves, but those would have to wait until the police finished sniffing around Boo Bear and asking their questions.
Which meant the only useful thing he could do right now was fill orders—and consider if he wanted to suggest to the terra indigene who ran small publishing houses that they should publish more books, maybe even a few by human authors. It was getting harder to purchase books from the human publishers, and written stories, like recorded music, were two human things the Others really enjoyed and wanted.
Or maybe the Intuits published books? Something to ask Steve Ferryman.
So many things to think about, at least until it was time to go home. Then he could shift and think about good things for a while, like the taste of water and the scents of bunnies and deer, and maybe playing an easy game of chase with Meg. Wolf thoughts.
Kowalski walked up to the checkout counter. He and Ruthie were going to be mates officially next month. Simon wasn’t sure why that made a difference since they were already mating—any Wolf could smell that—but apparently humans couldn’t tell, so Kowalski and Ruthie had to have a ceremony and be given a piece of paper so that other humans would know they were mating.
“Lizzy has her things,” Kowalski said. “Officer Debany and Nathan are at the medical office, observing while the bear and jewels are bagged. Captain Burke is there too and would like to talk to you when you’re available. And . . . Jane? . . . said to tell you she took Sam and Skippy back to the Wolfgard complex.”
And Meg? Simon thought.
He didn’t hear anything, even with his superior hearing, but he turned toward the archway when he saw Kowalski tense, then make a visible effort to relax.
“Meg is fine,” Tess said. “She’s with Henry in his studio. They’re talking about wood and listening to earth native music.”
He nodded, noting as Tess ducked back into the coffee shop that her hair was brown and the curls had relaxed to waves. So Meg was fine and Tess was calm. Both good things when humans who weren’t pack were sniffing around. He’d given his consent, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
“You wanted to talk to me?” Kowalski said.
Simon sniffed the air, trying not to be too obvious about it. Nerves. But not fear. That was good.
Since Kowalski was in the way, Simon walked around the counter instead of vaulting over it, flipped the simple lock on HGR’s front door, and stepped outside. When Kowalski joined him, Simon pointed to one of the stone buildings across the street. “Two bedrooms. I’m told it needs cleaning and paint. Is that a den you and Ruthie could live in?”
“Sure, but I don’t think we could afford it.”
“Once the Courtyard buys those buildings, you can afford to live there. The question is, would you?” Eve Denby would have first pick of the dens in the house across the street, and Ruthie could have the other, but he still wanted to know if the human pack would consider the apartments in the stone buildings as suitable dens. No point buying the buildings if their humans didn’t want to live in them.
Kowalski stared at the buildings on the other side of Crowfield Avenue. “Any space there for a small kitchen garden?”
“Not much. But for the human pack . . .”
He hesitated. It was his idea, but now that the moment had come to say something, did he really want to expose more of the Courtyard to humans? What if the humans couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept the terra indigene who couldn’t pass for human?
And yet Kowalski was the second human today to ask about land to grow food. Someday he and Ruthie w
ould have pups, so food was important. But why, at the beginning of the growing season, were humans thinking there wouldn’t be enough? The ground wasn’t quite ready for planting yet, and none of the earth native farms were reporting trouble.
He’d missed something. Maybe Vlad would know since the Sanguinati tended to pay more attention to human prattle.
“We have gardens where we grow vegetables,” Simon said. “We can expand some of them. We have fruits and nuts that we harvest. You do your share of the work, you get your share of the food.”
“Why are you doing this?” Kowalski asked. “You were pissed off at all of us yesterday.”
Simon sighed. “Maybe to say, ‘Sorry I almost bit you,’ to Ruthie?”
Kowalski stared at the buildings across the street. “We went out to all the farms yesterday, drove around for hours checking anyplace that might have been doing that to those girls. Lieutenant Montgomery, Debany, MacDonald, me. Even Captain Burke. And I’m pretty sure the captain had a quiet word with other patrol captains, because I saw men from other districts on the roads too, looking. It made you angry, hearing about what they did to girls like Meg, to the babies. It made us angry too. Maybe if I’d received a phone call like that, learned about it like that, I might have taken a swing at someone because I couldn’t think straight. Would have been sorry for it, and would have been glad that someone stopped me. What I’m saying is, we all understood why you lashed out. You don’t have to make up for being upset by offering Ruthie and me a place to live.”
He hadn’t expected understanding. Somehow that made him feel worse about snapping at Merri Lee and Ruthie.
“That’s not the only reason to do this. Maybe we want to find out if it can be done. The Intuits and the Simple Life folk have lived alongside the terra indigene for many generations, and each side fulfills parts of the bargain so that all sides have enough without constantly fighting for territory. But we haven’t made those kinds of bargains with your kind of human.” Wouldn’t have even considered making such a bargain until Meg started working for them and they had to allow for her need to have human friends.