“I can’t,” she gasped.
“I know,” he replied, holding her against him, the only comfort he knew how to give right now. “I know.”
He heard Jenni still cawing a warning, heard Crows responding—and heard a couple of Wolves respond as well.
<We’re all right,> he told Jenni. Then he looked around and tried not to tense, tried not to show that he knew he was in the middle of a dangerous potential explosion. The ponies surrounded them, some of them so close Simon could feel their breath—and worry about those clompy pony hooves being so close to Meg’s feet.
“Meg.” He said her name as both warning and plea when the smoke that had been rushing toward them shifted into Nyx and Grandfather Erebus, who was the leader of the Sanguinati and doted on Meg. Having the Sanguinati wanting an explanation was bad enough. But most of the Elementals who lived in the Courtyard were also there.
“Did the humans upset our Meg?” Fire asked.
Not a question he wanted to answer.
As if unaware of everyone around them, Meg started finger combing Thunder’s forelock. That seemed to calm her.
“Did they?” Erebus asked, his dry-leaves voice producing a skitter of fear down Simon’s spine.
“What’s all the howling about?” Jester asked. He had patches of fur on his torso and arms, indicating his haste in shifting to his human form after running up from the Pony Barn. Fortunately, enough of the Coyote was hidden by Mist’s body that Meg wouldn’t notice he was naked. “Doesn’t Meg want to spend the morning with us at the Pony Barn?”
Damn Coyote, Simon thought when all the ponies tried to crowd in a bit more as if to encourage the correct answer.
“What?” Meg said.
Thunder lipped her chin.
“You. Me. The ponies. All of us being sensible and staying away from the chaos in the Market Square,” Jester said. “Simon already made arrangements for the mail to be brought there so you can sort it and the ponies can make the deliveries.” He looked at Simon. “Didn’t you tell her?”
Meg twisted in Simon’s arms in order to look at him. “What?”
“Stupid human books,” he growled. “It was supposed to be a nice surprise. Human females are supposed to like nice surprises.” On the other hand, he’d been concerned about Meg’s reaction to the job fair and only skimmed a couple of the kissy books they still had in stock, so he might have missed the part that would have told him that this was what usually happened when a male tried to give a female a nice surprise.
“Oh.” Meg petted Lightning’s nose. “We were going to the Pony Barn?”
“Yes. I was going to drop you off before going to Howling Good Reads to deal with the last group of humans.” He really wanted someone unsuitable to show up today and give him an excuse to take a bite or two.
“Caw?”
<Meg is fine,> he said. Hopefully Jenni would pass along that message.
“I would like to go to the Pony Barn,” Meg said.
“Good,” Simon replied.
<Wolfgard,> Erebus said, his voice sounding too courteous.
“Can you walk back to the BOW and pick up your carry sack?” Simon asked Meg.
She blinked. Her eyes widened as she finally took in who had reacted to her panicked flight. She nodded.
Jester shifted to his Coyote form and quickly got out of the way of all the hooves as the ponies sorted themselves into two lines.
“Sorry,” she said under her breath.
He gave her waist a light squeeze to tell her he’d heard her. Then he let her go and watched as the Elementals, led by Fire and Summer, and the ponies escorted Meg to the BOW and then on to the Pony Barn.
Jester looked at Simon. <Meg will be fine.> He ran, passing Meg and her escorts in order to reach the Pony Barn first.
Simon turned to Erebus and noticed Blair standing by the side of the road, watching Meg. Then the dominant enforcer shifted to human and joined Simon and the Sanguinati.
“Why is the sweet blood so upset today?” Erebus asked.
Before Simon could decide the best way to respond, Blair said, “I was wondering the same thing. Why is Meg more upset today?”
“Overload,” Simon replied. But was that all of it? “There were humans other than Intuit and Simple Life who came in yesterday. Vlad and I didn’t recommend any of them to go on to Bennett. We wouldn’t have hired them, so we weren’t going to send them to Tolya to cause problems for him. But word about the job fair has spread beyond the preferred employees, so there are bound to be humans today looking for work.”
Having human employees wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Barbara Ellen Debany was human, and Tolya was pleased with her as an employee and new resident of Bennett.
“Vladimir said he found unknown humans in the stock room yesterday,” Erebus said.
Vlad hadn’t told him that. But that explained why HGR’s comanager wanted the back door of the store locked during the day. Humans could be as curious as Crows, so an unlocked door could be the next best thing to an invitation to come in and look around.
“Nathan ran off a human who had been sneaking toward the Market Square, but the man escaped through the door between the customer parking lot and the employee parking lot,” Blair said.
He hadn’t been told about that either. As the Courtyard’s leader, he should have been told. Then again, he was handling the interviews of the humans Vlad felt had potential—or weren’t obviously unsuitable—so Vlad and Blair probably felt he didn’t need to know about things they’d already dealt with.
“I’m going to put up sawhorses to make it harder for someone to sneak down the access way, and Nathan and Jake Crowgard will handle the Liaison’s Office,” Blair continued. “Marie Hawkgard is going to watch the door between the parking lots. Any human trying to get in that way will get whatever she feels like giving.”
Marie’s talons would certainly make an impression.
“And I’m going to keep watch around the consulate,” Nyx said. “Like a tourist guide, directing humans to where they’re supposed to be—and away from where they shouldn’t go.”
And feeding on every one of them.
For a moment, Simon envied the Sanguinati’s ability to feed so subtly that the prey didn’t know anything had happened. If a Wolf tore off a chunk of meat, it was pretty obvious.
Damn. He needed something to eat before he started talking to all those humans.
“The question was not answered, Wolfgard,” Erebus said. “Why is the sweet blood so upset today?”
Simon thought about Meg and the prophecy cards that indicated trouble was coming. But what if the trouble was already here and had no connection to Lieutenant Montgomery’s pack, despite Montgomery’s concerns about his brother?