Vision in Silver(48)

            Blood. Dried now, but the matted fur smelled of blood. If it hadn’t been for the man’s stinky cologne masking other smells, he would have caught the scent of blood before now.

            Nathan took another delicate sniff. Not the girl’s blood. The crusty around Boo Bear’s ears smelled like her, but the blood didn’t.

            Nathan eased back, watching her as intensely as she watched him.

            “Where’s your . . . mother?” Took him a moment to remember the human word.

            Lizzy lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug and pulled Boo Bear close again.

            “Did she come on the train with you?”

            Head shake.

            He didn’t like that answer. He didn’t like it at all. A pup shouldn’t be traveling alone. But she had a ticket. In fact, she must have had two tickets. Otherwise, the conductor wouldn’t have put two LAK strips over the seats.

            So. No mother on the train. “Where’s your father?” Nathan asked.

            Now she perked up. “My daddy is a policeman. He lives in Lakeside.”

            Nathan studied her. “What is your daddy’s name?”

            “Crispin James Montgomery. If you’re Wolf police, do you know my daddy?”

            Nathan watched the conductor enter the car and slowly walk its length. The man didn’t stop when he reached their seats, didn’t ask any questions, but Nathan had a feeling the conductor and security guard would be walking through the cars a lot during this trip. He’d flushed out one human predator for them, but there could be more, and the guard’s presence would keep the young protected.

            Boo Bear’s nose poked Nathan in the arm.

            “Do you know my daddy?” Lizzy asked.

            “Yeah. I do.” And I have a feeling he’s not expecting you.





CHAPTER 11




Firesday, Maius 11


Simon stared at the two stinky children who stood between Pete and Eve Denby. Not an unclean kind of stinky; more that there were so many smells covering them he couldn’t identify them. Not without a closer, and more thorough, sniff that would have the parents snarling at him.

            Not that he would blame Pete and Eve for snarling. All the humans who had returned to work this morning were pretending he hadn’t been “bite all humans” angry yesterday, but they were as wary of him as they’d been before Meg started working in the Courtyard.

            He wondered if there was a way human males said they were sorry about something without saying they were sorry. Because he wasn’t sorry about being angry. All the terra indigene were angry about the blood prophet pups being killed. But he was sorry that he’d tried to bite Ruthie and Merri Lee, who weren’t the kind of humans who would drown puppies or kittens . . . or babies.

            Neither were Pete and Eve Denby, who had shown courage by coming here—and a confidence that their pups would be safe with the Others.

            Which brought him back to the children, who looked as if they were waiting for him to sprout fur and grow fangs.

            Irritating whelps. As soon as Pete and Eve were gone, he’d chuck them outside.

            Caw, caw.

            And having them outside would make it easier for curious terra indigene to observe them.

            “This is our son, Robert, and our daughter, Sarah,” Pete said. “Children, this is Mr. Wolfgard. He runs the bookstore.”

            “Can you really turn into a wolf?” Robert asked.

            “I’m always a Wolf,” Simon replied. “Sometimes I shift to look human.”