“Are the girls sure removing everything but essentials from the rooms won’t cause more trauma?” Steve asked.
“No, they’re not sure. But telling the blood prophet pups what to expect should help. I have to go. More calls to make.”
“Thanks for this. Really.”
Simon ended the call, then walked to the desk in HGR’s office. Pointless to write e-mail. The packs would be out searching. Probably pointless to call and leave messages on the phones. But some Wolves did put on a collar that had a leather pouch attached in order to carry a mobile phone or some other human item. A howl carried for miles and didn’t depend on poles and lines or metal towers to carry messages. A howl would travel from Wolf to Wolf, providing information to everyone within range. But police wouldn’t recognize an “I found something!” howl; they would need a phone call.
He called Jackson first and condensed everything Meg’s pack had told him into one sentence: treat the blood prophets like puppies who don’t know anything and are afraid of everything.
Wasn’t likely any of the girls would be found near Sweetwater, an area in the Northwest that contained an Intuit village and the terra indigene settlement where Jackson lived. A few weeks ago, a simple roadblock had been set up across the road leading to that area after a human village had been contaminated with gone over wolf, a drug made from the blood of cassandra sangue. No one could have left girls along that road without the Others knowing about it.
The phone rang under his hand, startling him enough to snap at the person on the other end. “What?”
“Simon?”
“Joe?” Something wrong. Terribly wrong. Kicked by a bison, ribs caved in wrong.
“We found . . . We didn’t know . . .” Joe’s howl of grief had Simon leaping to his feet.
“You found some of the girls?” Roadkill. Not all of those girls would have Meg’s strength and desire to survive. Was that why Joe was grieving?
“A few. They’re heavy with pups. All of them are ready to whelp.”
When the terra indigene attacked the compound run by the Controller, they hadn’t seen any gestating females. Pups old enough for schooling, yes, but no females bearing those pups.
Had the breeding females been kept in a different place from the girls who were cut? “What else?”
“We found the dead puppies,” Joe whimpered. “Simon, they killed the puppies.”
A horrible pain ripped through Simon. Memories of reaching his sister Daphne after she’d been shot. Memories of finding Sam cowering, his little paws covered in his mother’s blood. Memories of Meg the first time he’d seen her, stumbling into Howling Good Reads half-frozen and looking for a job.
“What puppies?” He could barely shape the human words.
“Many of the terra indigene who were searching for the girls only recognize humans from the Others who can shift to that form. The Eaglegard and Hawkgard saw humans throwing noisy sacks into a lake many times before today, but they didn’t understand. They just thought the stupid humans were fouling their own water supply. By the time some of the Crowgard flew by the lake and recognized the sounds coming from the last of the sacks as crying baby . . . Too late to save any of them.”
Would they have done this to Meg? Would they have bred her on some kind of farm like livestock? Would they have thrown her pup in the lake if it had been male and useless for prophecies?
Cleaning house. Isn’t that what humans called it when they wanted to avoid being punished for some wrongdoing? Cleaning house. Destroying the evidence that would show everyone they were bad, even for humans.
Maybe we should do a little housecleaning too.
He wasn’t sure what else he said to Joe, or what Joe said to him, before he ended the call with a promise to send information about how to keep the rescued girls alive.
Humans. He had tried to watch them, work with them, even help some of them.
Right now, all he wanted to do was get rid of them before they hurt Sam. Before they hurt Meg.
He could, and would, rid the Courtyard of the sickness called human before it contaminated the terra indigene, before it changed them. He was, after all, the dominant Wolf, the leader.
He went downstairs. John Wolfgard took one look at him and cowered.
Simon took the keys from his pocket and calmly locked HGR’s front door.
No escape from that direction.
“Simon?” Vlad’s voice. Sharp. Almost challenging.
“All humans are banished from the Courtyard. I don’t want to see them, hear them, smell them.”
“What happened?” Tess’s voice now. Just as sharp.
Simon turned and felt the fury explode in him when he spotted Merri Lee and Ruthie standing next to Tess, whose coiled red hair rapidly gained streaks of black.
Ignoring Tess’s visual warning, Simon rushed at the girls, his hands shifting to accommodate Wolf claws.
“Filthy monkeys!” he howled at them. Spittle flew from his mouth. He swiped at Vlad when the vampire stepped between him and the girls. “Filthy, greedy monkeys! Meg’s puppies aren’t something you drown like a bag of kittens! But that’s what you do, isn’t it? You destroy anything to get what you want, anything that isn’t exactly like you!”
He almost dodged Vlad when he leaped to attack Merri and Ruthie. He might have survived Tess. But Henry’s big, furry arms caught him, lifting him off his feet so that all he could do was struggle and rage.
“Get out,” Vlad said, pushing the girls toward the back door. “Get out of the Courtyard and stay away until I call you.”
“But I live in the efficiency—,” Merri Lee began.
“Find another place tonight,” Vlad snapped.
“Give her ten minutes to pack a few clothes,” Tess said. “Ruthie can run over to the Three Ps and tell Lorne to close up, then go to the medical office and tell Theral.”
Simon howled. The prey was getting away!
“Go!” Tess said.
The girls ran toward the back of the store. But Merri Lee turned back. “What about Meg?”
<Our Meg!> Simon screamed.
“We’ll look after Meg and keep her safe,” Vlad said, watching Simon. “Go.”
Simon panted. Hard to breathe. The prey was gone. No point fighting with the Grizzly now that the prey was gone.
“Simon.”
Fucking vampire was right in his face again. Bite him!
“Who did you talk to?” Vlad asked quietly. “Simon? Who told you about Meg’s puppies?”
Not Meg’s puppies, but they might have been.
His mouth couldn’t shape human speech. <Joe found . . .> Without the fury, he felt sick and too tired to fight with Vlad and Henry.
Henry hauled him up to the Business Association’s room. Unable to stand being in that filthy human skin a moment longer, Simon tore off his clothes and shifted fully to Wolf. The relief was almost painful.
He curled up and studied Henry, who stood guard at the door.
<Meg?> he asked.
<We’ll take care of Meg,> Henry replied. <You can see her when you’re calmer.>
Henry wouldn’t lie. With the humans out of the Courtyard, Meg would be safe.
Simon closed his eyes. Drifting in an uneasy sleep, he dreamed of Meg falling through the ice on Courtyard Creek, weighed down by bags that wailed and screamed.
Vlad hung up the phone with exaggerated care . . . and wondered how long Tess had been standing in the doorway.
“It’s bad?” she asked.
He understood killing to eat, to survive. He understood killing an enemy. He understood killing to protect family and home.