<That was a bad human thing,> the female replied. <The small male was bitten by the Wolf pup, and the taking made all the adults angry.> And a small amount of the not-Wolf’s blood had been spilled while the pups were fighting. That scent from Namid’s terrible creation had carried through the air, dangerous and alluring.
They continued to prowl around the cluster of buildings, finally ending up at the back door of the not-Wolf’s working den. How did the not-Wolf know when to supply the tasty for the Wolves? How did the not-Wolf know what to bring to the smaller shifters when she got into her box and did the baby-bunny scoot around the Courtyard?
<The Wolf receives little papers from terra indigene in wild country settlements,> the female said. <Little papers that say what they want.>
<We will tell the not-Wolf what we want.> The male studied his hands and the clawed digits that could do the writing thing.
<Yes,> the female agreed. <We will learn how to do this and tell the story to our kin in the wild country in case the learning is needed when they keep watch over humans.>
They went to the building across the access way from the not-Wolf’s working den. The male yanked on the door, snapping the locks. While he went inside and selected paper and a writing stick, the female went hunting for something they could leave in exchange.
Exchange, after all, was different from taking. Taking was bad, but exchange was something humans did.
? ? ?
As he drove them to work, Simon kept glancing at Meg. She’d been broody last night, despite watching the Wolf Team movies with him and Sam, and it seemed that mood hadn’t changed.
“Is your lip bothering you?” It looked sore, and he wanted to take care of her by licking it—something he knew he shouldn’t do.
“It hurts, but not too bad.” She huffed. “You have to talk to Skippy. He can’t keep pushing at people’s feet to get them to corral his dish when he eats ice cream.”
“He wasn’t pushing at people; he was arranging your feet to hold his dish.”
“Well, I’m a people!”
“But you’re the one who taught him to do that.”
She sputtered. “I didn’t think he would remember. He forgets everything else.”
“Not everything. Skippy remembers what’s important to Skippy.” He looked at her and laughed. “You’re wearing your grumpy-pony face.”
“Ha-ha. You are so funny.”
He felt good. The cut on Sam’s face would heal just fine. There was a question about whether Meg’s lip would have a scar, but since it wasn’t a likely place for her to deliberately make a cut, he didn’t think it was a concern—unless it interfered with her ability to eat. In the wild country, an injury that prevented a Wolf from consuming food or water usually meant death.
But Meg had eaten scrambled eggs for dinner and had her ice cream in a bowl yesterday so that she wouldn’t have to bite into the cone. She might not be able to eat everything she wanted, but she wouldn’t grow weak while the wound healed. Simon pulled up behind the Liaison’s Office, then watched while Meg unlocked the back door and went inside. He parked the BOW in the garage and connected it to the power hookup to charge. As he headed for Howling Good Reads, he passed Chris Fallacaro, who had a bag of tools slung over one shoulder.
“Have to replace the lock on the Three Ps’ front door,” Chris said. “Lorne already talked to Mr. Sanguinati about it.”
The human smelled . . . odd. Not quite frightened but more than nervous.
Uneasy now, Simon hurried to the bookstore. But he glanced back at the Liaison’s Office and wondered if he should tell Meg to lock the back door.
Vlad stood behind the checkout counter, setting up the cash drawer in the register. “There was sort of a break-in at the Three Ps last night or early this morning.”
Simon scratched behind one ear. “Why? There’s nothing but paper and office supplies in there. And how do you have ‘sort of a break-in’?”
“Well, it’s ‘sort of’ because someone entered by destroying the locks on the door and then took some paper and maybe a marker or pen. Lorne isn’t sure how much is missing. He doesn’t think it’s much, and it was only the untidiness in a couple of places in the shop that helped him guess what was taken.”
“If it was taken, it’s theft,” Simon growled.
“Not when a woodchuck is left on the counter as a kind of payment.”
Simon looked at Vlad. Vlad looked at Simon.
“Oh,” Simon said. “Why would they want pens and paper?”
“When you find out, let me know.”
? ? ?
Meg opened the back door and scanned the surrounding area. Returning to the sorting room, she studied the scrap of paper that had been slipped under the door sometime before she’d arrived that morning.
want cukkies
“You may want cookies, but what you need are more spelling lessons,” she muttered. And there was something about the thick pencil strokes that made her think it was a demand, not a request.
Well, she knew what to do with a demand.
“Arroo?” Nathan queried from the front room.
“Nothing,” she replied as she crumpled the paper. Had Ruth met the teacher or teachers who taught in the Courtyard school? Maybe Henry knew who they were. She’d thought the terra indigene youngsters were learning some basic human lessons like reading and writing and arithmetic. Sam could spell better than this, and what puppy paying any kind of attention would misspell “cookies”?
She almost tossed the message into the recycling basket. Then she smoothed out the paper and looked at the message again. It was the first time anyone had left a request for cookies. Usually when a delivery arrived from Eamer’s Bakery, the Wolves were happy with whatever they received.
Still, giving in to demands would be a mistake. Yes, it would.
Meg picked up the phone and dialed the number for Eamer’s Bakery in Ferryman’s Landing. Just because she wouldn’t respond to a demand, that didn’t mean she couldn’t be ready to fulfill a request.
? ? ?
Jimmy sat out on the apartment’s porch, ignoring Sandee’s bitching and whining about the brats being stuck in the apartment without anything to do since the rest of the kids were in school and Clarence and Fanny couldn’t even hang out in the Market Square.
Maybe Sissy had the right idea—light out without saying a word. With five hundred dollars in his pocket, he could catch a train back to Toland or go to Shikago. Maybe even go to a human-controlled city in the Southeast Region. Shake off the bitch and the brats and start fresh.
But first he had to take care of his part of the plan.
Jack, who had been watching the Courtyard for a while now, told him that late morning was the time when everyone was beavering away at their jobs and that’s when there would be the fewest freaks in the Market Square. He just needed to push CJ into returning to the apartment building at the right time.
Jimmy looked at his wristwatch—and waited.
? ? ?
Something thumped the back door of the Liaison’s Office hard enough to startle a growl out of Nathan, who was in the front room, and had Pete Denby, in his office upstairs, hurrying toward the back of the building to check things out.
Meg opened the back door, then stepped on the scrap of paper that almost fluttered away. She picked it up.
want cukkies!