*
Even though he wasn’t going to participate, Elliot felt the interview with the police would have more weight if it was held in the consulate’s conference room, and Tess agreed. That was why she and Nyx were sitting across from Captain Burke—and why they’d chosen the seats that would keep Burke from noticing Vlad, in his smoke form, blending into the shadows in a corner of the room.
<Burke looks nervous about being in a room with us,> Tess said.
<He should be nervous,> Nyx replied.
Burke held up a small notebook and pen. “All right if I take notes?”
“Of course,” Tess replied. She saw the flash of alarm in the man’s eyes when her hair began to coil, but the hair remained brown, a sign that she wasn’t feeling angry or threatened.
After a moment’s hesitation, Burke opened the notebook. “Mr. Wolfgard said he’d been warned to leave the stall market, that they were in danger. I’m assuming that warning came from Ms. Corbyn?”
“Yes,” Tess said.
“What can you tell me about what happened here?”
Tess told him what she knew. She’d been in A Little Bite. John Wolfgard had been unpacking books in HGR’s stock room, and Elliot Wolfgard had been doing some paperwork at the consulate when they all heard a weird-sounding howl. Then Sam and Skippy howled a warning that brought them running in time to see Meg dash up the stairs to the efficiency apartments and fall, cutting her knee. John grabbed the youngsters and took them away before Meg began to speak, leaving Elliot and Tess to hear the prophecy.
No, they didn’t take notes. They’d been unprepared, and there was no time. Meg had held on for as long as she could before speaking. The prophecy? Thieves entering the apartments to search for something. Danger to Simon, to everyone who had gone on the field trip to the stall market. Meg had fainted out of fear of what she’d seen. By then many of the terra indigene who had been in the Market Square had gathered in response to the howls.
Elliot called Simon. Meg was taken to the medical office. Tess, Nyx, and Blair removed the personal belongings from the apartments to thwart the would-be thieves. They were in the process of moving the belongings to a safe place when the thieves must have broken in. As far as the Others could tell, none of the furnishings provided with the apartments were taken. There was some urine on the floor of Merri Lee’s apartment. Assuming it was some kind of gesture of contempt, Tess had cleaned it up.
No, she hadn’t seen a vehicle and could only assume there had been at least one human.
<He knows enough about us to know that Blair could sniff the area and tell him how many thieves had come up the stairs from the street-side door,> Nyx said. <Could even tell him how many intruders had entered each apartment.>
<Which is one reason why Blair isn’t at this meeting,> Tess replied. The other reason being that the dominant enforcer was too furious about the attacks to be trusted around any human, even one who usually would be tolerated.
“That’s it,” Tess said, looking past Burke. “Anything you want to add about the attack at the stall market?”
Burke jerked as Vlad shifted to human form and joined them.
Watching Vlad, Tess thought the decision to close their stores to the general human population was a good one. She didn’t think the Sanguinati or the Wolves were going to have much tolerance for human misbehavior for a long time.
Vlad placed his hands flat on the table and leaned toward Burke. “The rallying cry of the humans who attacked us was ‘Humans first, last, and always.’”
“That sounds like an HFL rallying cry, but there is no proof that the HFL movement planned the attack,” Burke said.
“The shots came from behind us,” Vlad continued. “Two guns, two shooters. I heard four shots. I don’t know who else was hit. I don’t think they’d intended to shoot across that much distance and take the chance of hurting humans. I think they had planned to lure us to the back half of the building and wait until we were close to the table where men were selling what looked like trinkets but the packages they handed to their customers made me think weapons were being sold.”
“Which would be illegal at that stall market,” Burke said. “There are knife and gun shows where weapons are bought and sold, but selling weapons at the weekly stall and farmers’ market is a violation of permissions granted to the building’s owners by the city.” He sighed. “But in the chaos that followed the shootings, and the amount of . . . merchandise . . . that was rearranged by gusts of wind, it’s not likely we’ll find the guns.”
Burke’s mobile phone rang. “Excuse me for a moment.”
Tess watched sadness fill Burke’s eyes as he said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Problem, Captain?” Vlad asked when Burke ended the call.
“That was Lieutenant Montgomery calling from the hospital. Officer MacDonald didn’t survive his wounds.”
The three terra indigene exchanged a look.
“We’re sorry for your loss,” Vlad said.
“We liked him,” Tess said.
Burke put his notebook and pen in his pocket, a sign he was preparing to leave. The sadness had burned out of his blue eyes, leaving behind a fierce fire. “I may not be able to find the guns used to kill my officer and the Crow, but I will damn well find their killers. That’s a promise.”
Tess looked at Vlad, who straightened up as Burke pushed away from the table and rose.
“You won’t have to look far,” Vlad said. “You’ll find them among the dead.”
Burke stared at him.
Vlad smiled, a bitter yet satisfied expression. “I wasn’t close enough to stop them from shooting, but I caught them before they could blend in with the other humans and escape.”
Burke continued to stare. “Anything I should know about those deaths? Anything that would make someone think a Sanguinati was responsible?”
Vlad shrugged. “Lots of things flying around when Air blew to the rescue. Sharp things that might slice a person’s throat. Easy enough for someone else to slip in all that blood and fall the wrong way, breaking his neck.”
Burke nodded. “That’s plausible. I imagine quite a few people had similar, if less fatal, injuries.”
“Quite a few, according to the special news report I heard,” Vlad said.
In other words, nothing that would point to one of us killing “innocent” humans, Tess thought. Of course, there were attackers who were killed by tooth or claw. But that’s a problem for the city and the police.
Burke pulled out a card and handed it to Vlad. “I need to get to the hospital. If you think of anything else, let me know. Or give Lieutenant Montgomery a call.”
“Tell Lieutenant Montgomery and Merri Lee that we tidied up the apartments and put things back as best we could remember,” Tess said. “We don’t want them to be alarmed if they notice that something isn’t exactly the way they left it this morning.”
“I’ll tell them.”