<What do you want to do with the intruder?> Henry asked.
Vlad, in smoke form, drifted to the other side of the Grizzly. <We can’t kill him in the coffee shop. He is family to the lieutenant. It might cause trouble with the police pack.>
<Maybe. I don’t think Captain Burke would object too much if I swatted the intruder and snapped his neck.>
Vlad shifted to human form. <Simon? What do you say?>
<Wolf!>
He’d been expecting this summons ever since Blair told him that they had returned, but Simon still flinched at the sound of that voice.
<Simon?> Vlad said, studying him intently.
<I’ll be back,> he told Vlad. <Don’t let that Cyrus leave.>
Going to HGR’s stock room, he stripped off his clothes and hung them on the row of pegs installed near the back door. Then he stepped outside, shifted to Wolf, and ran toward the odd silence near the Market Square.
It didn’t take him long to find the two Elders. Their presence made him uneasy, but it didn’t surprise him that they had returned. After all, their curiosity about his relationship with Meg was the biggest reason they had not already exterminated all the humans living in Thaisia. Was it that curiosity that had drawn them back to the Courtyard so soon? Or something else?
<Wolf.>
They shifted from their true form and took on the shapes of other predators. The male stood upright, his furred body vaguely human. But he was huge, with powerful limbs and big claws that could score glass and tear through flesh, and he had a head that belonged to some ancient predator. Perhaps being upright wasn’t an attempt to look human. Perhaps it was simply one of the ancient forms no one remembered. The female was some kind of feline, but she was much bigger than Henry in his Grizzly form.
Were these the Elders who had been here during the storm that ripped through Lakeside? Were they the ones who had consumed the Wolf cookies Meg kept at the office for Nathan and Skippy?
<We watched the migrating job-fair humans,> the male said.
<How did you know about the job fair?> Simon asked. Elders preferred to have little or no contact with anything connected with the human species. And when they did have contact, their intentions usually were not benevolent.
A light wind ruffled his fur.
<The Crows told us about the job fair, and we told the Elders when they wondered about the human swarm,> Air replied.
Simon couldn’t see her—she hadn’t chosen to take a visible form—but he could hear her just fine. And he wondered what it meant that the girls at the lake had been aware of the job fair. Under the best circumstances, humans drawing the attention of the Elders or the Elementals was a bad idea. Or a good idea, since the humans rarely survived.
<Another male has arrived,> the male said.
Simon bared his teeth. <That male will not stay long in the Courtyard—or in Lakeside.>
<He will,> the female said.
Simon tensed. <He is a bad kind of human. We don’t want him here.>
<Why is he bad?>
There was something wrong with Lieutenant Montgomery’s sibling. He knew it. Vlad knew it. Henry and Tess knew it. But could any of them explain it?
<Can he make war on the terra indigene?> the male growled.
<No,> Simon replied reluctantly. <I don’t think this male is a big human predator—not like that Nicholas Scratch and the humans who followed him. But the humans who know this male believe he will cause trouble.>
<For them,> the female said. <Not for us.>
<For us too,> Simon argued.
<How?>
He tried to think of something big enough to be considered a reason to get rid of that Cyrus but small enough that the Elders wouldn’t attack all the humans in the Courtyard. <I don’t know.> A hard thing to admit.
<We must know,> the male said. <We must understand what makes this male a not-war-but-trouble human predator.>
<Why?> Simon asked, curious about their persistence.
<The smaller earth natives have left many human places unguarded,> the male said. <Now some of Namid’s teeth and claws must stay close enough to those places to keep watch. We must recognize the difference between a good human and a bad human. We must know what is a threat to the terra indigene and cannot be allowed to survive.>
<If this male is a threat to your pack, then his kind of human will be a threat to terra indigene in other places,> the female said. <The Elders will not allow humans to migrate through the wild country and den in the reclaimed places if we cannot recognize the ones that are dangerous. You saw many humans that are not members of your pack and did not howl the Song of Battle. We must learn why this one is bad, why he should be driven away.>
<What if he isn’t close by for you to watch?> Simon asked, feeling a trap close around him.
<We are not done thinning the human herds,> the male replied. <If we can’t recognize good humans from bad, we will kill all the humans who try to migrate through the wild country. We will do this to protect the land and the earth natives who survived the human attacks.>
Simon whined softly. The first group of humans from the job fair were already on their way to Bennett. If the Elders stopped all migrations, the train with the Simple Life humans aboard wouldn’t survive to reach Bennett. And the professionals who were supposed to take the train tomorrow would never leave Lakeside.
He wasn’t supposed to be responsible for more than the Courtyard in Lakeside, but the Elders were going to decide about every human place in Thaisia based on what they learned here.
How much human would the terra indigene keep? He knew it was risky to let that Cyrus stay so close to his Meg. But if Simon told her what was at stake, Meg would insist on taking the risk. She wouldn’t want to be the one who stopped a human like the Jana Paniccia from having a choice about the work she could do and where she could live. He couldn’t ask Meg to carry that weight, not when she was the Trailblazer who was looking for ways to help the rest of the cassandra sangue survive.
But he was still the leader of this Courtyard. If he was going to do this for the Elders, it would be on his terms. He wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks with Meg or Sam or the rest of his pack. His whole pack.
<We can let that male and his mate and young stay in one of the human dens across the street.> Simon pointed a front paw at the stone apartment buildings. <And we can allow him to shop in the Market Square so that you can watch how he acts around other humans—and around us. But in return, you must promise to help us guard the human female pack.>
He felt the Elders swell with anger. They were Namid’s teeth and claws. They were not used to having anything but the world telling them what to do.
Then Air said, <That is fair. Whatever trouble this male causes will distract the Courtyard’s enforcers, so others of us must help keep watch.>
Earth joined her sister, took on human form, and smiled at Simon. <We will help too, even though our Meg comes to visit us almost every day.>
<Meg?> the female said.