“He stole from the store,” the Hawk repeated. “If you steal from us, you lose a hand.”
“Nailed him good,” Emily Faire said loudly as she examined the teeth marks in the boy’s hand. “Lost a little skin, and he’s going to have a beaut of a bruise, but I don’t see anything to worry about.”
“Need to get my boy to the hospital,” that Cyrus said.
Simon stared in disbelief. Hospital? It was a bite. From a puppy using mostly human teeth. You just licked it clean and let it heal.
Emily snorted. “I used to get harder bites from my little brother.”
He wanted to object. Even in human form, a Wolf’s jaw had more power than an ordinary human’s, so Emily’s brother couldn’t bite harder than Sam. Then he realized that, as an Intuit, Emily was trying to defuse the anger in the Market Square. She might not be able to tell where all the anger was coming from, but she probably had a feeling that human emotions weren’t that important right now compared to the rest of the beings who were involved in, or observing, this ruckus.
She looked at that Cyrus. “I can take him inside the office, wash his hand with soap and water, and put some healing ointment on the scraped skin, or you can go to the emergency room, wait your turn, and then pay lots of money to have a doctor do the same thing.”
“You should pay for the hospital,” that Cyrus said, glaring at Simon.
“Shut up,” Simon snarled, “or we’ll take the pup’s hand as punishment for stealing and be done with it.”
“Simon,” Montgomery said, sounding courteous but weary.
But Montgomery didn’t hear the odd silence, didn’t realize the Elders were in the Market Square right now watching all of them—didn’t know this was exactly the kind of clash that would get humans killed in other parts of Thaisia where the Elders were the only ones deciding who lived and who died.
Simon focused on that Cyrus. “Your pups are banned from the Courtyard. We will permit them to go into A Little Bite or Meat-n-Greens for food, but only with an adult. If we find them anywhere else or on their own, we’ll take more than a hand.”
That Cyrus stared at him. “You can’t.”
“Yes, they can,” Montgomery said. “Come on, Jimmy. I have first-aid supplies at my place. We’ll take care of Clarence’s hand.”
That Cyrus didn’t move, and the boy looked like he wanted to start another fight when Kowalski tried to lead him away.
“Jimmy,” Montgomery warned. “Let’s go.”
Simon studied the hatred in that Cyrus’s eyes. Hatred, yes, but fear too. And no concern at all about the wailing female pup who had been buried under snow—and who had run to the female pack at the other end of the square instead of seeking comfort from her sire.
When the police and that Cyrus were gone, Simon turned to Emily Faire. “Your brother can’t bite as hard as a Wolf.”
She shrugged. “I’m going to take care of my other patients now.”
Meg. He had taken a step toward the medical office when Vlad called him. He hesitated, but Jane knew about not licking Meg’s blood and she knew how to care for Sam. And Theral and Jenni were inside to help as well. So Emily Faire didn’t need anyone else crowding the office.
He walked over to where Vlad and Henry stood next to Starr Crowgard. Henry pointed to the words chalked on the pavement.
White car. Man. Pain face. Bullet. Numbers and letters that Simon realized must be a license plate.
Those images were the answer, but what had been the question?
“The police pack is dealing with that Cyrus and his pup,” Henry said.
“Shall I call Captain Burke?” Vlad asked.
Simon nodded. “And we’ll show this to Agent O’Sullivan as well.”
Burke swore under his breath when he saw Agent O’Sullivan waiting for him outside the consulate. “I heard about the fight. A tempest in a teapot.”
“If Cyrus Montgomery gets his hands on a weapon, it will become a lot more than that,” O’Sullivan said, reaching for the door.
Burke shot out a hand, stopping the other man. “What do you know that I didn’t hear?” Had Monty downplayed the severity of the collision between Sam Wolfgard and Clarence Montgomery? Or was Monty, caught between loyalties, unwilling to consider the worst about his brother?
“I think Cyrus is a bully who uses charm or belligerence to get what he wants, depending on the situation. I had the impression that he thinks shoplifting is an insignificant act when his children do it, and he becomes resentful when they’re caught and held accountable. Seeing Sam Wolfgard in a form that wasn’t completely human freaked him out, and he’ll use ‘he’s not human’ as a justification for any harm he does to the youngster—or anyone else in the Courtyard.” O’Sullivan hesitated. “I didn’t see anything, but there was something in the Market Square that seriously spooked Simon Wolfgard and the rest of the shifters.”
Elders. Gods above and below. “Anything else?”
“I don’t know if he understood the significance of her bleeding, but Cyrus did see Meg.”
Not a cut with a razor, but that didn’t make any difference for a blood prophet. If they were all lucky, Cyrus wouldn’t have noticed the evenly spaced scars. But he didn’t think they were going to be that lucky.
O’Sullivan opened the door. “None of which is what Simon wants to talk to us about.”
When they walked into the consulate’s meeting room, Simon didn’t give him a chance to say anything about the altercation or inquire about Meg and Sam. He held out a piece of paper.
Burke looked at the words and sucked in a breath.
Simon touched the paper. “Meg said she saw Sam get hit and thought about needing a doctor. When she was hit and her lip split, she saw this.”
“Dominic Lorenzo drives a white car,” Burke said. “I don’t remember the license plate, but that information is easy enough to find.”
“The doctor was supposed to spend some time in our medical office every week, but he hasn’t been here in a while,” Simon said. “That’s why we hired Emily Faire to be the human bodywalker in the Courtyard.”
“Isn’t Dr. Lorenzo part of the task force that was checking on the blood prophets?” O’Sullivan asked.
“He is,” Burke replied. And the last time I saw him, he’d expressed concern that members of the Humans First and Last movement might waylay him on a stretch of empty road and interrogate him for the hidden locations of the blood prophets. The Others put an end to the HFL movement, but greed could motivate men as much as a political agenda, and those girls could make some men very powerful and very rich.
An uncomfortable beat of silence before O’Sullivan said, “I’ll call the governor’s office and make some inquiries, see if they’ve heard from Dr. Lorenzo recently.”
“And I’ll do what I can to locate him.” Burke folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Since prophecy was about the future, maybe they could find Lorenzo in time to stop the pain and the bullet. Maybe Steve Ferryman could help with that, since most of the girls who had been freed from the compounds were hiding in Intuit communities. “Are your nephew and Ms. Corbyn all right?” he asked Simon.
“They will be.” Simon pulled another piece of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to Burke.
“Ravendell on Senneca Lake? What’s this?” Senneca was one of the Finger Lakes, but he wasn’t familiar with Ravendell.
“That’s where the Sierra and her pups are now,” Simon replied. “Ravendell is a human village within settled terra indigene land.”
Not land leased and under human control, which meant there were no boundaries, no delineation between what was human and what was Other.