Sam didn’t respond. The puppy pack had been learning this lesson as play: harry a larger predator away from weaker members of the pack while avoiding teeth or claws that could injure or kill. Snap and retreat, snap and retreat. Work as a pack to push, push, push the predator away from the den.
Vlad shifted to human as soon as he reached the other side of the street. He scooped up Sarah and rushed to the spot where the other girls stood. Then he and Leetha turned toward the boys to break up the fight. Realizing the Sanguinati would deal with the trouble, Merri Lee stopped fighting Simon.
Then the Sandee came out of the apartment building. She screamed as she ran toward the boys and raised something thin and pointed as if she intended to drive it into Sam’s back.
Leetha grabbed the Sandee and scraped her fangs over the skin between neck and shoulder. Then Leetha stumbled away, screaming in pain. Distracted, Robert didn’t react fast enough when that Clarence jabbed at him. He went down, leaving Sam facing that Clarence.
Releasing Merri Lee, Simon ran to the space in front of the crunched cars and prepared to leap into the other lane of traffic. The damn light hadn’t changed yet and the drivers on that side had sped up, trying to flee. Then two ponies galloped out of the customer parking lot and a small tornado made of snow slammed into some of the cars, knocking them sideways and turning them into a barricade that stopped all hope of fleeing. Within moments, the tornado expanded, burying several car lengths of the street under a furious snowfall.
With all the traffic stopped, Nathan bolted across the street and headed straight for the Sandee. He didn’t try to bite. Leetha was still on the ground, wounded somehow, and Vlad was guarding the girls and calling to Sam. No, Nathan hit the Sandee from behind. She flipped over his back and landed on her belly. Nathan spun and jumped on her back, his nails digging into her bare skin as she screamed and bucked.
Simon leaped into the whiteout to reach the other side of the street, bumping into trapped cars and pushing through snow already up to his thighs. He heard Merri Lee shouting, “There’s a snow tornado blocking Crowfield Avenue. You’ll have to come another way.”
Sirens. Smart human. Blocked from getting across herself, she had called the police pack.
<Sam!> he shouted as soon as he stumbled into the sunshine and heat of a morning in late Messis.
Sam leaped out of reach of that Clarence’s knife. Simon would have dealt with the enemy, but that was the moment Eve Denby rounded the back of the house and came running to protect her young. Not sure what she intended to do with the big wrench in her hand, Simon rushed to block her before she crushed someone’s head. As he wrestled with Eve, Marie Hawkgard dove and hit that Clarence in the back, driving the boy to his hands and knees. Her talons left deep furrows in his shoulders as she launched herself toward the porch railing of the apartment above Lieutenant Montgomery’s.
Then it was over. Panting, Simon released Eve Denby and looked around. All this in the time it had taken for a traffic light to change. He didn’t see any police cars, but Debany, Kowalski, and Hilborn were suddenly there, cuffing the Sandee and assessing who else needed to be arrested while Lieutenant Montgomery called for ambulances for Robert, that Clarence, and any wounded humans who were in the crunched cars. Tornado and Avalanche trotted back to the Pony Barn, leaving cars half buried in snow and a traffic mess that would take hours for the police to sort out.
Vlad carried Leetha up to the Sanguinati’s apartment and summoned their bodywalker. Merri Lee and Miss Twyla hurried across the street and took the girls and Eve into the Denbys’ home. Montgomery followed them but returned a minute later.
Sam stayed near Simon. The pup looked a little stunned, but he wasn’t hurt.
More sirens. Probably the ambulances.
Montgomery approached, looking closely at Sam. “Are you all right?”
Sam nodded. “Robert’s hurt.”
“They’ll take him to Lakeside Hospital. Looks like he’ll need some stitches, but I think he’ll be fine. I called Pete Denby. He was doing some work downtown today.” Montgomery looked sad. “Simon, I—”
Three gunshots in quick succession.
No, Simon thought as he and the police turned toward the sound. Then he ran to the delivery area in front of the Liaison’s Office.
? ? ?
Monty pointed at Debany and Hilborn, who was now a probationary member of the team. Hilborn hesitated, but Debany nodded and turned back to deal with the trouble at the Denbys’ residence while Monty and Kowalski ran after Simon.
Nathan overtook them, turning into the delivery area just ahead of Simon.
Greg O’Sullivan knelt on the ground next to Skippy, who was whimpering and trying to get up.
“He’s hurt,” O’Sullivan said. “Leg might be broken. Maybe some ribs. Looks like he also took a hard blow to the head.”
“Nathan, check on Meg,” Simon growled as he knelt and put a hand on Skippy to stop the juvenile Wolf’s struggles. “She’s not out here with Skippy, so she might be hurt.”
“She might be in the Market Square,” Monty said, hoping for a benign reason for Meg’s absence. He shuddered when Nathan made one of those disturbing partial shifts, looking neither human nor Wolf, in order to open the office door. The moment he was inside he shifted back to Wolf, leaped over the counter, and went into the sorting room.
O’Sullivan stared at the door, frowning. “That door should be locked. When I spoke to Meg a couple of minutes ago, I told her to lock the door while I picked up sandwiches at the Stag and Hare.”
“We heard shots,” Monty said.
“That was me.” O’Sullivan stared at the door while he wagged a thumb in the direction of the blue mailbox positioned outside the consulate. “I’ll arrest myself later for shooting government property, but I wanted to get your attention and I didn’t know who might get hit if I shot in the air.”
Blair arrived in a BOW, driving down the access way too fast to stop if someone had been heading up.
Inside the Liaison’s Office, Nathan leaped back over the counter, sniffed around the front of the office—and howled.
Monty didn’t need Simon’s and Blair’s reactions to know it was a battle cry.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” O’Sullivan said flatly, getting to his feet and stepping back from the injured Wolf.
Simon rushed into the Liaison’s Office, vaulted over the counter, and disappeared. He returned in less than a minute, his amber eyes turned red with rage.
Blair stayed outside guarding Skippy and watching all the humans as if they had just transformed into enemies.
“Maybe this was a crime of opportunity, but I don’t think so.” O’Sullivan scanned the area. “I do not think so.” He focused on Monty. “Where is Cyrus Montgomery at this moment?”
No. Jimmy couldn’t be that selfish, that stupid. What O’Sullivan was implying . . . Gods above and below. Would the city be torn apart because of Jimmy?
A crime of opportunity? He thought about the ruckus at the apartment and felt sick that they might have fallen for a distraction a second time. “Let’s be sure,” he began as Simon slammed out of the office.
“We’re sure,” Simon snarled. “That Cyrus’s scent is in the office—and Meg is gone.”