Moving around the office to the yard behind his studio, he saw the flicker of light in the sorting room. Taking up the full Grizzly form, Henry braced a paw on the wall and looked in the window.
Meg, sleeping on the sorting table.
Meg, who wasn’t in the apartment where someone would expect to find her at this time of night.
Moving away from the window, Henry called, <Owls!>
Five of them answered his call, landing on the wall that separated his studio from the delivery area.
<Why do you want us?> Allison asked.
<Intruder,> he said. <Keep watch here. Meg is inside the office.>
Two of the owls flew off, taking up position on the roof of the consulate. Another flew up to the roof of his studio. Allison and a juvenile male remained on the wall.
Satisfied that he would have plenty of warning if the stranger returned, Henry ambled back to the efficiency apartment, changed to human form, and retrieved his clothes where he had left them in the stairwell. He made himself a cup of strong black tea generously laced with honey, then settled into the rocking chair near the window that gave him a view of the Liaison’s Office. As he drank his tea, he wondered about the female who had suddenly come into their lives.
Throughout the rest of the night, he wondered a lot.
And he wondered what Simon was going to say in the morning.
CHAPTER 6
Simon got out of the shower and rubbed the towel briskly over his skin. He didn’t like conforming to the way humans chopped up days into little boxes. The sun and moon and change of seasons should be enough for anyone. But if he had to conform in order to run a human-type business, he shouldn’t have to think about it on the one day each week when he could live as Wolf from one sunrise to the next.
Earthday was the day of rest, the day the Courtyard was closed to humans so that the terra indigene could run and play and be what they were: earth natives. It was the one day he didn’t have to shift into the skin that was useful but never felt like home.
Because he dealt with humans so much, he needed a day with the Wolfgard, needed his own kind. That was the trap for Others who had excessive contact with humans—if you adapted too much in order to deal with them, you ran the risk of forgetting who you were and you could end up being neither and nothing. That was why even Sam’s distress at seeing him as a Wolf wasn’t enough for him to give up what he needed for himself.
But Henry’s message on the answering machine this morning had him breaking his own rule, since the Beargard had made it clear that it was the Wolfgard in human form that was needed at the studio.
He got dressed, then stopped in the living room to make sure Sam had food and water—and hadn’t messed in the cage. Since he was in this form anyway, he’d take the pup out before shifting to fur and meeting Blair and some others for a run.
After considering the benefits of walking from the Green Complex to the studio in order to give the human form exercise, he went around to the garage and got one of the BOWs. He made sure this form got plenty of exercise. Today, the sooner he could shed this skin, the happier he would be.
A couple more inches of snow had fallen overnight. Combined with what was still on the Courtyard roads, it added a little sliding excitement to an ordinary drive—and reminded him to talk to the terra indigene who worked at the Utilities Complex and also handled clearing the Courtyard’s roads. If Meg was going to be out making deliveries tomorrow, he’d have Jester explain about sticking to the main roads to avoid getting stuck. The BOWs could handle the snow just fine—as long as the driver wasn’t stupid.
When he reached the Courtyard’s business district, he parked the BOW in the employee parking lot, which put him in between the Market Square and the other shops, including Henry’s studio. Getting out of the BOW, he stopped and listened to the rhythmic sound of someone using a snow shovel.
Leaving the parking lot, Simon walked around the garages, then stopped when he saw the footprints outside the Liaison’s Office. There were no deliveries on Earthday, so there shouldn’t be fresh footprints coming out of the office this morning.
He walked up to Henry, who was shoveling the area between the back doors of the shops and the Liaison’s Office. Removing the snow. Eliminating the footprints.
“Hard not to leave a trail when there’s fresh snow,” Henry said. The look in the Grizzly’s eyes made Simon wary, especially after Henry added, “We had a visitor last night.”
Simon looked at the office’s back door. “An intruder?”
“Not there,” Henry said, tipping his head toward the office. Then he wagged his thumb toward the stairs leading up to the efficiency apartments.
For a moment, Simon just stared at Henry. Then he absorbed the meaning of the words and snarled as his canines lengthened, his nails changed, and fur sprang out on his chest and back.
“I told Meg we had rules about visitors. I told her . . .” He choked on the fury rising inside him—fury that wanted to rip and tear and destroy this strange and awful feeling of betrayal and the person who had caused it.
“Simon.”
He’d thought she was different from the other damn monkeys. He’d thought there was finally one of them the terra indigene might be able to work with, despite the way she made him half crazy with the not prey confusion. He’d consented to let her have a map of the Courtyard because she seemed to want to do her job. If he’d wanted a liar as their Liaison, he would have hired that Asia Crane!
“Simon.”
Hearing the warning in Henry’s voice, he made an effort to stuff himself back into the human skin.
“If you want to sneak a visitor past us, you don’t have him break the lock on the street door. And you don’t call attention to someone’s presence by yelling loud enough to be heard by the Grizzly staying in the apartment across the hall.”
“She didn’t know you’d be there,” Simon said, choking on the effort to get his teeth back to human size.
“Yes, she did. I saw her in the Market Square yesterday and told her I would be there so she wouldn’t be frightened if she heard me.”
Frightened. The word cleared away his fury and let him think again.
Meg was hiding from something or someone. He’d realized that when he hired her, but he’d been chasing his tail so much because of her—or dodging to avoid having it stomped on by someone else—he’d forgotten she had run away from something or someone.
He looked at the footprints coming out of the office.
“After the intruder ran off, she slipped out and spent the night on the sorting table,” Henry said.
Too afraid to stay in her own den? Unacceptable!
It took effort to shape words. “Did you see the intruder?”
“Not well enough. But I got the scent of him, and I’ll recognize it again if he comes around.”
If this stranger was hunting Meg, he would come around again. “Can’t get that lock fixed until tomorrow.” A Wolf and a Hawk were learning how to change and fix locks. They might be able to replace that broken one, but the Courtyard had an understanding with a lock company, and being willing to teach Others this skill was the reason Simon did business with Chris at Fallacaro Lock & Key.