“No!” she shouted, finally getting out the door. “Boys! Stop this!”
Adults were coming out of the shops around the square, but none of them seemed to be in a hurry to reach the fight. The Hawk from the general store had the girl by the arm, preventing her from running away or helping the boy.
Sam ducked quickly enough to avoid a fist in the face, but he took a hard blow to the side of his head.
“Enough!” Meg shouted. Couldn’t anyone else see this wasn’t a little scrap about dominance? That older boy really wanted to hurt Sam!
She saw a glint of metal on a couple of the boy’s fingers right before he hit Sam again, splitting the skin along Sam’s cheek.
Oh gods, Meg thought, seeing the blood on Sam’s face. We need to find a doctor.
She didn’t think, didn’t wait for help from the other adults. She just waded in, intending to grab an arm, a shirt, anything to pull the boys apart and stop this. As she reached for them, Sam grabbed the boy’s wrist and bit the meaty part of his adversary’s hand before jumping out of reach, ready to attack again.
Screaming, the boy stumbled away from Sam and flailed his arms.
Meg didn’t feel the blow, didn’t even know she’d been hit as she staggered back and sank to her knees. Then she tasted blood, felt the agony that was the prelude to prophecy. She didn’t want to swallow the words, didn’t want to swallow the pain.
“Our Meg! Our Meg!” Jenni Crowgard knelt in front of her.
Shouts. Snarls. Motion all around her now. But all she really saw was Jenni, who took her hand and said, “Starr has chalk. Speak. We will listen.”
So she spoke, describing the visions. And as she spoke, she drifted on the euphoria that came from speaking prophecy, veiled from the visions she had seen . . . and the turmoil that surrounded her.
<Pups are fighting in the Market Square,> Blair growled.
Blessed Thaisia, Simon thought as he shelved stock. Did they have to misbehave today? <Who?> he asked, because it suddenly occurred to him that Robert was at home, being fed the midday meal.
<Sam and that Cyrus’s pup.>
But Sam was with . . . “Meg.” He hurried out the back door of Howling Good Reads, followed by Vlad, who had also heard the warning and flowed out the window of HGR’s office.
By the time Simon reached the Market Square, adult terra indigene were converging on the youngsters and Meg was way too close to the fight—because even from a distance he could tell this was a real fight, not a scrap or rough play.
He ran toward the boys. So did Blair, in Wolf form, and Nathan, who was wearing swim trunks—probably the first piece of clothing he could grab when he shifted to human. Vlad veered off to intercept Skippy before the juvenile Wolf joined the fight.
They were Wolves, and they were fast. But not fast enough.
The human boy hit Sam and broke skin. Sam grabbed the boy’s wrist and sank his teeth into the boy’s hand—a punishing bite, even if delivered with human teeth.
Mostly human teeth, Simon amended, seeing Wolf fangs when Sam leaped away and snarled.
The boy screamed, flailed—and hit Meg on the mouth.
“Meg!” Sam howled as fur suddenly covered his face and limbs and his head began to change to accommodate a Wolf’s jaws and teeth. He leaped on the boy, and Simon, feeling the same fury as he caught the scent of Meg’s blood, knew what would happen if Sam managed to get his teeth into the boy’s throat.
He grabbed Sam and hauled him away from the boy. “Enough, Sam. Enough!”
Sam snapped and clawed at Simon, trying to get away and reach his enemy. <He hit Meg!> Sam howled. <He hit Meg!>
Simon wrapped a hand around Sam’s throat, a loose collar to prevent the pup from biting him. He snarled, “Stop. Now.”
Then Blair was in Sam’s face, snarling his own warning. The leader and the dominant enforcer had both given the order to stop. If the pup disobeyed now, he would be punished.
Sam sagged in Simon’s arms, panting.
Simon released his hold on Sam’s throat but kept his other arm around the pup. Nathan held on to the human boy, who was wailing as if he’d received more than a bite bruise and a bit of a tear in his skin.
Now that the combatants were secured, Simon looked for Meg, who was sitting on the pavement a few feet away. Blood dribbled from her split lip, staining her summer top. Her lips moved. He couldn’t hear her, but he knew what was happening because Starr wrote on the pavement while Jenni held Meg’s hand and stared at her face.
Emily Faire ran out of the medical office. Her eyes went from Sam, who was still in a between form, to Meg, to the boy. Then she looked at Simon, and he understood: who should she help first?
Seeing Jane Wolfgard running toward them, Simon tipped his head to indicate the boy. “Deal with him.”
The girl broke away from the Hawk and tried to run. Blair leaped in pursuit, then stopped when the girl was suddenly buried under several feet of fluffy snow.
Simon stared at the white pony who was standing near the snow. Avalanche stared back and snorted.
Could have been worse, he thought. The girls at the lake could have sent Quicksand to find out what was going on. But he found it reassuring that the Elementals were keeping their promise to watch the Market Square while the Elders observed that Cyrus and the other humans.
<Blair, dig her out,> Simon said. <Let Skippy help. It will keep him from trying to lick Meg.> No telling what would have happened if the juvenile Wolf had thrown himself into the fight. Now he seemed intent on licking Meg’s wound and snarling at Vlad, who kept dragging him away from where Meg now lay on the pavement.
Theral finally appeared in the office doorway. She, too, hesitated a moment before going over to help Emily Faire deal with the boy.
No need to call the humans, Simon thought as he watched that Cyrus run toward them, shouting. Montgomery and Kowalski were a step behind him, and Debany was doing his best to hold back the human females who were standing at the other end of the Market Square.
<Simon,> Henry said as he moved to intercept the human males.
He didn’t need the warning. He felt the odd silence that suddenly filled the Market Square. And he saw the columns of smoke filling one of the archways—and would bet one of those columns was Erebus Sanguinati.
<Get Meg inside the medical office,> he told Jane Wolfgard.
She nodded and half carried Meg into the building with Jenni providing additional support.
<Nathan, get Sam inside. See if you can help him fully shift to one form or the other.>
Nathan released the human boy, who was making enough noise to attract the attention of every predator in the Courtyard, grabbed Sam, and took the pup into the office.
Blair, having uncovered the girl and provided a way out of the snow pile, stepped back, alert and wary but not sure which attack he might need to meet—human, Sanguinati, Elemental . . . or Elder.
Montgomery and Kowalski grabbed that Cyrus’s arms as Simon turned to face the human.
“Look what that fucking freak did to my boy!” that Cyrus screamed at Montgomery. “You gotta shoot that fucker!”
“Jimmy,” Montgomery said. “Stop. You’re in the Courtyard.”
“Who gives a fuck where I am? Did you see that thing? You gotta shoot it for what it did to my boy!”
“He received a bite,” Simon growled. “He deserved it.”
“The boy stole from the general store,” the Hawk said. “He should forfeit a hand.”
That silenced that Cyrus, but only for a moment. “What the fuck you talking about?”