The color drained from his face. “You don’t know what you’re up against. He’ll kill you,” he whispered. “He’ll make you suffer in ways that you can’t imagine. He’ll make your loved ones suffer. Let it go.”
She felt ice running through her veins, but she stood firm. “My people can protect you,” Isadora protested.
He threw back his head and let out a long, hollow laugh. “Nobody can protect me against him! Nobody can protect you, either. Go back home, little girl.” And abruptly, he shifted, exploding out of his clothes, and before the rifle fell and hit the ground he’d grabbed it in his jaws. Then he turned and ran, jaws clamped firmly on the rifle, vanishing into the woods.
Isadora’s mood was gloomy as they slogged back to the Hobo camp. She’d have to wait for further instructions. She’d heard that Pyotr was squirrelly and paranoid, and it was a miracle that she’d managed to get this close to him. Others had tried and failed.
All that she could do was check in with her boss and await further instructions.
When Isadora got back, Thomas and Sally were awake, and there was a new Hobo by the fire, an older hyena shifter in his fifties. He was sitting next to Thomas and Sally and Delia, who were all eating bagels with cream cheese. He wore a denim jacket and jeans, faded but relatively clean. His long brown hair was shot through with gray.
“My Uncle Bo. Look what he bought us!” Thomas said enthusiastically, around a mouthful of bagel.
“I got more. You want one?” Uncle Bo gestured at a big cardboard box. “I made some money doing construction up north. Nice to eat human food once in a while.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Isadora settled in next to them. She felt her tension loosen a little bit. Now that there was an adult in the picture, she wouldn’t have to worry about Thomas and Sally as much.
“Isn’t he a sweetheart?” Delia said enthusiastically.
Uncle Bo winked at her. Hmm, Isadora thought. This could work. A hyena and a bear? Weird combination, but she’d seen stranger. Maybe Delia could be a domesticating influence on him.
She grabbed a plastic knife from the bag, and began smearing cream cheese on a bagel.
“So, how long are you going to be in town?” she asked Bo.
Chapter Six
Dash glanced around to make sure that none of the Wardens, or the Shaman Cody, were within earshot. They were standing by their pickup trucks; after their long drive from Timber Valley, they’d pulled off on a dirt road and scattered into the woods to relieve themselves. Now they’d shifted back into human form, which meant their hearing, while still superior to humans, wasn’t as acute.
For the moment, they were just standing there jawing, and stretching out their legs. Cody was there so that as soon as they captured Isadora, he could compel her to talk.
He quickly punched in the number on his cell phone.
When Steele answered, he felt his gut tighten. He was breaking the law by calling him. He’d been raised to believe in following the law to the letter. There was no bending it, there was no skirting it, the law was the law. It was what kept shifters safe, and concealed from humans.
Still, Steele was his family, and he might be in danger, and the same went for the other shifters in Lonesome Pine. If he didn’t warn them, they could be kidnapped, or killed. What was Dash supposed to do when the right thing to do and the legal thing to do were two different things? He’d never been faced with this dilemma before.
He could ask the Chief Warden, or the Sheriff, for permission to contact Steele, if he wanted to stay on the right side of the law, but if they said no, where would that leave him?
“Dash?” Steele answered, sounding puzzled.
“Hello, Steele,” he said. “Long time no speak. Yeah, I know, that’s all on me.”
When Steele had fallen in love with the human female and run off with her, Dash had been the one to report it to the Wardens. Dash had his reasons at the time – the human female had seen shifters, and her memory had not been properly erased. That posed a threat of exposure to all shifters – and Steele had taken her out of their territory before their Shaman could come and erase her memory.
Shifters had kept their existence secret and survived in modern society by following the law rigidly: any human who’d seen a shifter changing form had to be immediately taken into custody and held there until a Shaman could erase their memory for good. There were no exceptions.
So Dash had done his duty, but he hadn’t felt great about it. Still didn’t.
“You’re not supposed to be calling me, are you?” Steele asked.
“No, and I’m going to have to keep it short. I may have to hang up at any moment.” He glanced across the grove. Two SUVs were pulling in, and he thought he scented mountain lion shifter. That would be the local Pride Patrol, come to assist with Isadora’s capture. They knew the terrain and could hunt down a cat shifter much better than he or the Wardens could.
“Have you heard about Isadora?” Dash asked in a low voice.
“What about her, specifically?” Steele’s tone was cautious, and it told Dash that Steele had likely still been communicating with members of his family, even though the Council of Elders had forbidden it. His family had probably told him about Isadora being charged with treason and going on the run.
“Long story, and I don’t have much time. Basically, we had reason to monitor her phone conversations, and she is communicating with humans. We followed her and saw her meet with them, and give them blood samples that she’d stolen from the Timber Valley Medical Clinic. Then we overheard her talking with the humans and apparently planning the kidnapping of a wolf shifter.”
“Are you sure about that?” Steele sounded shocked. He clearly hadn’t gotten that part of the story. “That doesn’t sound like her at all, and I’d like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character.”
“I know. If I hadn’t heard her talking to the humans, I wouldn’t have believed it myself.”
“Maybe she’s working as some kind of double agent?”
Dash sighed. “It would be great if that were the case. But for who? All of the shifter species work together when it comes to things like this. We’d know if she was working undercover for any of them, and she isn’t.”
“She came into the tunnels with us to rescue those kidnapped shifters. If she was working with those men, wouldn’t she have warned them that we were coming? We managed to get right on top of them and wipe them out,” Steele said. “She had plenty of opportunity to tip them off before we got there.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me either, but when we went to take her in to custody, she didn’t even try to explain herself to us. Then she escaped from her jail cell and went on the run. That’s why I called you. We monitored Karen’s email, and Isadora had sent her an email from on the road, telling her to be careful and keep an eye out for her family. We traced the ISP of the computer she’d sent it from; the email came from a location that’s fairly close to you. I’m here with a bunch of Wardens, meeting up with the local Pride Patrol. We’re maybe two hours’ drive from you, looking for her. You and all of your people need to be on guard. If Isadora’s helping humans kidnap another shifter, they could be targeting your community.”
“All right,” Steele said. “But listen to me, Dash. You’re a smart guy, when you think for yourself.” Ouch. That was a jab, and probably a well-deserved one. “What I’m saying is, trust your instincts. And thanks for the warning. Call me if you need me.”
“Likewise,” Dash said. “I’ll let you know how it turns out. Just watch your back.” And he hung up and tucked his phone in his pocket, and went to rejoin the others.
“Dash, these are Officers Leonides and Magnusson,” Warden Kerrigan said, nodding at two mountain lion shifters. “They’ve heard reports of a blonde female lynx in the general area, who may be Isadora in disguise. The lynx shifter fit the general description, if Isadora wore a wig and dressed to hide her tattoos. She was seen with two children who appear to be Hobos.”
“Children!” Dash was shocked and angry in spite of himself. Isadora couldn’t possibly be intending to kidnap shifter children…could she? He’d seen her around kids. She used to babysit Karen’s kids. She was great with children, even though she didn’t see herself that way. She’d probably be a great mother some day…if she survived this treason charge, that was.
“Yep. She bought them a bunch of stuff, new clothing, shoes, new backpacks, and she paid for it in cash,” Magnusson said.
“This information may help us narrow down where she is,” Kerrigan pointed out. “There are a couple of Hobo camps in the area. Apparently it’s pretty Hobo friendly around here, so they tend to use this as a way station from all over the country.”
“Okay,” Dash said. “So we split up and check out the two camps? I’ll go west.”
“You know where the camps are?” Officer Leonides asked, looking surprised.
“Ah, no, I was just guessing.” It was more than that. He thought he’d caught the faintest whiff of Isadora’s scent. Once he was in wolf form he’d know for sure.