Simon growled softly, as if warning off a rival. “We want to hire the Jana to go to Bennett and be a deputy. We want you to confirm she’s properly trained to do the fighting and hunting.” He paused, then added, “But you don’t have to test if she can ride a horse. Someone in Bennett will do that.”
Well, damn. “Let me see that transcript again.” If she were a man, he’d definitely want her as one of his patrol officers. “What about the sheriff? Will he have a problem with a female deputy?”
“Virgil will have more of a problem with her being human, but Tolya thinks they need a human to help keep the peace.”
“Does Virgil have any training in law enforcement?”
“He was a dominant enforcer. He knows how to kill.”
Struck by a tone in Simon’s voice, Burke studied the Wolf. Had Virgil lost family members when the Humans First and Last movement killed so many of the Wolfgard? Wasn’t a question he could ask, but he had the feeling Virgil Wolfgard had never had the tolerance for humans that Simon did.
Suddenly he could see the value of having a human female police officer to balance a male Wolf’s aggressive reaction when it came to humans disturbing the peace.
“When do you need to know?” Burke asked.
“Can you test her tomorrow? If she qualifies, she can go with the others who are leaving on the train the day after.”
“I’ll meet her here and take her to the firing range. We’ll go on from there.”
“Barbara Ellen will need a roommate besides Buddy. The Jana could live with her.”
“About Buddy.” Michael Debany had been rattled after receiving the news about his sister’s living arrangements, and Burke kept a close eye on officers who were rattled for any reason.
Simon opened a desk drawer, removed a piece of paper, and handed it to him. “Vlad asked. Tolya replied. We told Debany.”
Burke read the message and laughed. Well, that explained why Debany had looked a bit sheepish these past few days whenever anyone asked about his sister.
“Once the Jana arrives in Bennett, Barbara Ellen will have a roommate with a gun. She will be safe from unwanted males, so Officer Debany doesn’t need to worry anymore.”
It sounded like an attempt to reassure, and it made him curious. “Would you want Meg to have a roommate with a gun?”
Simon looked puzzled. “Why would Meg need one? She has me when she’s home and Nathan is the watch Wolf when she’s in the Liaison’s Office. And if someone defeated the Wolves, they would have to deal with Vlad and Henry and Tess and the girls at the lake.”
The slightest change in Wolfgard’s eyes, in his stance, made Burke realize Simon had been wearing the persona of the bookstore owner for these interviews—and had, for the most part, maintained that persona while talking to him about Jana Paniccia. Until now.
“We’ll keep Meg safe,” Simon said. “And Theral.”
Burke stiffened. “Has Jack Fillmore tried to see her?”
“Some humans were sniffing around where they shouldn’t have been. They were driven off before they caused trouble. We don’t have the scent of that Jack Fillmore, so I can’t say if he was one of them. But Theral doesn’t need a roommate with a gun. Not in the Courtyard.”
Message received. “I heard that Katherine Debany will be working for Elliot Wolfgard.”
“Yes. She starts tomorrow. Miss Twyla will also work there in the mornings, helping with the files.” Simon smiled, showing a canine that was a little too long to be human. “They both looked at the files this morning. Elliot said he’s never heard a human say so much by just saying tsk.”
“A skill some women perfect.” Burke pushed out of the chair. “We’ll see you and Ms. Paniccia tomorrow morning.”
He went downstairs and spent a few minutes looking at the books on the display table, finally selecting a thriller by a terra indigene author and a story by a human author that was set in a frontier town from a hundred years ago. He had a feeling that living in Bennett was going to be somewhere between the two.
He paid for the books, then returned to the Chestnut Street station to inform Lieutenant Montgomery that he and his team would be helping to review the qualifications of a young woman who was going to wear a badge, carry a gun . . . and ride a horse.
Late that night, an odd silence followed the Elders’ path as they moved through the Courtyard unseen.
They prowled around the denning place where the Wolf and Grizzly and other terra indigene lived. Where the howling not-Wolf lived. They spent time learning the scents of the humans who did not leave proper markers around the patch of turned earth but were present often enough that their scent rubbed off on the ground and on the plants. Then they moved on to the buildings across from the Courtyard, identifying the dens of the humans the Elementals had told them belonged to the not-Wolf’s pack. Standing on their hind legs, they had looked in the upstairs windows of one den with mingled male and female scents. Was the female in season? That was interesting, but the male suddenly sat up as if he could sense their presence. A hunter in the human pack?
They returned to the Courtyard before the human became too uneasy and sounded an alarm. Even so, they heard a door open, saw the male come out to the open part of the den and look around. He would not see them. Could not see them since they were in their true form. But he’d known something was out there in the dark, watching him—watching his mate. Not many humans sensed their presence. That made this human different from others of his kind. Different, a hunter, but not seen as a threat by the smaller shifters. That was interesting too.
They circled the building that was the not-Wolf’s other den—the place where they had found the tasties hidden inside a tough shell. The female pushed at the door, curious about what they might find in the den this time. Then they heard a human stirring upstairs, caught the scent of metal and oil when the door above them opened—a scent they associated with a human weapon.
Another hunter in the human pack?
So easy to grab the male from his high perch and crush him in their jaws, tear open the soft belly with their claws.
Then a Wolf howled. Had the first human hunter sounded an alarm after all?
It was a single voice, but it would be enough to wake the pack. Both packs.
Disappointed that they hadn’t found the tasties, they still felt pleased by the reaction of both kinds of hunters to a potential threat. Retreating to the spot in the Courtyard that they had chosen for their resting place, they considered what they had learned—and decided it was time to let the Wolf and Grizzly know they were here.
Dear Douglas,
I hope this finds you well. Brittania survived the recent storms, which only gave our island a glancing blow on their way to Cel-Romano. The savage retaliation against the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations for the deaths of so many shifters and the attempt to seize some of the wild country and bring it under human control has caused plenty of sleepless nights for everyone here in Brittania—especially government officials and those of us in law enforcement. It has made me grateful that I was able to spend a little time in the Lakeside Courtyard when I visited you in Juin. Having some knowledge of how to work with the Others has been a tremendous help.
Everything we’ve heard about Cel-Romano is just scraps of information coming from people who live in fishing and farming settlements in the wild country and have traded goods with Brittania for generations. And their information comes from rumors from border villages that were spared the full force of the attacks.