“That was stupid,” the old man said as he hauled Daniel to his feet, letting him go with a little shove when the rest of them arrived. “Get in the truck,” he said, pushing him again. “Now.”
Daniel stumbled, his sock feet cold on the hard pavement. “You’re making a mistake,” he said, thinking Quen should have stayed with Trisk and he should’ve gone into the desert to die.
“Hey!” Orchid shrilled, dropping down to make everyone gasp and back off. “Get your hands off my person, you mangy mutts!”
“Holy shit!” the youngest Were exclaimed. “Is that a pixy?”
“That’s right, puppy.” Orchid poked the kid in the nose with a tiny sword, darting back when he tried to smack her away. “And if I’m with him, then you know he’s not a human, and therefore not getting in that truck.” With a clatter of wings, she landed on Daniel’s shoulder, shivering from the cold. “Go away. Bad dog.”
“I told you I smelled pixy,” the youngest man said in excitement, never taking his eyes off her. “Didn’t I say I smelled pixy?”
“Yeah, you did.” The old man pushed past him, standing with his hands on his hips.
“I’m not sick,” Daniel said again. “I have to get to the police station. Please.”
“You’re blistered,” the Were he’d kneed said, and Orchid shivered her wings, shedding a thin green dust that spilled down Daniel’s front to pool on the pavement.
“He’s blistered because I pixed him,” the tiny woman said, clearly proud of it. “It was the only way to get him out of the pen they put the humans in.”
“I need to get to the police station,” Daniel said as they all cringed at the word human. “They need to know that eating tomatoes causes the plague. As far as I know, there’ve been no vampire or Were deaths from the pox, and even humans won’t get sick if they don’t eat anything with tomatoes in it.”
They exchanged nervous glances as he threw their secret around so casually, not even hearing what he was saying about the source of the plague.
“Keep it up,” Orchid whispered in his ear. “They know you’re not a witch, vamp, or Were, but you’re acting like an Inderlander, and they don’t know what you are.”
“It’s in the tomatoes,” he tried again, desperate to get them listening. “Vampires who eat them get sick, but we won’t die like humans do. Just stop eating tomatoes.”
“You’re kidding,” one of them said, absently touching the second dog as it trotted up and sat beside him, and Daniel felt his shoulders ease.
“And how come you know this and no one else does?” the alpha male asked suspiciously.
“Because I’ve been stuck in a cage, that’s why,” Daniel said belligerently. “You’re the first people I’ve seen since rolling out of that morgue truck.”
The dog whined and pawed at his nose, and Daniel stiffened when the man he’d kneed leaned close, his eyes narrowed as he took a big sniff. “He smells human to me,” he said.
“Duh.” Orchid pressed against his neck, clearly cold. “Did you not just hear him say he was in a truck full of dead humans?” But they weren’t going for it, and Orchid took to the air. “Do you really think I’d be seen with a human? He’s an elf, and he’s helping me find a buck. Have any of you seen one? Just one?”
Her plaintive question brought a smile to the older man’s eyes, and seeing it, the rest of them relaxed as well. “No, little warrior. More’s the pity,” he said, and Daniel heaved a slow, hidden sigh of relief. “Fine, you can go,” the man added, and the circle around him broke up. “But be more careful. Especially with that pixy rash. We heard about what happened in Detroit, and we’re not letting it happen here. If any other pack finds you, they might not listen.”
“I will,” Daniel said, his mood brightening when one of them handed him a pair of shoes with peace signs drawn on them. He smiled his thanks at the werewolf in fur who nuzzled him to put them on. “What happened in Detroit?”
No one said anything, and Daniel looked up from slipping the shoes on to see haunted expressions. One by one, the men fell back into the dark until only the old guy and one of the dogs were left. “I haven’t heard a radio broadcast or read a paper in days,” he said, suddenly uneasy. “What happened in Detroit? I was supposed to meet someone there.”
The alpha male grimaced, his eyes on his pack as they gathered under a nearby light. “The vampires freaked out. Started taking witches. The witches used magic to fight back. Detroit was wiped out to preserve the silence.”
“My God,” Daniel whispered. “Are you sure?”
“That’s why we’re keeping the streets clear,” the old Were said. “Living vampires breaking curfew go to the police to be locked up with their masters, humans to the hospital, morgue, or containment area. I don’t know what to do with elves.”
Daniel would have said the Were was exaggerating—you couldn’t just destroy an entire city—but Orchid’s dust had turned a dismal blue. And then he wondered at the many other societies that had vanished suddenly and without explanation. Maybe there was a reason after all.