Burke gripped the podium. “This next part has to stay with the people in this room. You’ll be tempted to tell other family members and friends and your next-door neighbors. If you do, you’ll only cause panic over something I hope will never happen.”
Extinction, Monty thought, feeling cold as he recalled Simon’s comment about not fearing humans because most of them would be extinct.
“Every family member should have a go bag,” Burke said. “A couple of changes of clothes, toiletries specific to each person, including any prescription medications that person needs to carry. Have a separate bag for general medications and first aid supplies, or put essentials in the bags for the adults. Include a list of bank account numbers as well as any important papers you don’t keep in a safe-deposit box. Put the go bags someplace where they can be grabbed by people scrambling to find them. You want your families to be out of the house in a couple of minutes.”
Silence. Uneasy looks.
Louis Gresh cleared his throat. “Having go bags is fine, but if they’re needed, where are our families supposed to go? If the terra indigene are going to attack us for what was done in another part of Thaisia, and if your point about there no longer being a right-of-way through the wild country means the Others are going to attack anyone who tries to leave the city, where can we go?”
“Here.” Burke sounded grim. “We’ve been working with the Lakeside Courtyard and have gained the trust of the leaders. I think if this is put the right way to Simon Wolfgard, he might know how to prevent a direct attack on this building and its personnel. He might be willing to help us.”
“Captain?” Kowalski raised a couple of fingers. “Why now?”
“Some of you met my cousin Shamus Burke, who was visiting from Brittania. I received a cable from him this morning, which is the second reason I called this meeting.” Burke glanced at the station chief. “I don’t know how far this news has traveled through official channels, but the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations attacked the terra indigene all along their border. They have new kinds of weapons—airplanes—that can fly over a long distance and drop bombs that can destroy buildings and kill a lot of people, no matter their shape. They bombed terra indigene settlements situated between Cel-Romano and the wild country. Troops followed and killed the Others who survived the bombing. The Alliance of Nations has expanded its borders by miles in one collected attack.”
“What have the terra indigene done in response?” the station chief asked.
“They’ve done nothing.” Burke looked grimmer, if that was possible, and pale. “They’ve done nothing. If you read Thaisia’s history—or the speculations that have been written about conflicts in the past between humans and the terra indigene throughout the world—you’ll see they do nothing while they consider the actions and behaviors of the predators attempting to take their territory. Those hours or days are usually the calm that precedes a catastrophic counterattack. I have no doubt the terra indigene are going to strike Cel-Romano. Maybe, if we’re lucky, the Others from the wild country won’t understand that the Humans First and Last movement is the common factor between the attacks on the Wolfgard in Thaisia and Cel-Romano’s grab for land that resulted in an unknown number of terra indigene deaths.” He paused. “That’s it.”
Monty filed out with the rest of the men. There was no answer at his sister’s apartment, no communication at all since his mother’s last message. They could be anywhere at this point—and nowhere was safe.
“Should I bring the car around, Lieutenant?” Kowalski asked.
Monty nodded. “I’ll take a minute to check my messages; then I’ll be ready to go.”
At the trailing end of dusk, Simon trotted over to the part of the Courtyard where the Elementals resided.
They were all there, except for Autumn and Winter.
“Wolf?” Air said. “You have an answer?”
<Perhaps.>
He’d talked it over with Blair and Nathan, with Henry, with Vlad and Nyx. He’d even talked with Tess in order to shape an answer to the question of why humans would have killed the Wolfgard in two regions of Thaisia when they should have known their so-called victory would be nothing more than a short-lived illusion.
<Sometimes a pack tests a herd to see which animal would be the best prey. But if the prey has been chosen already, some of the pack will go after another animal, splitting the herd so that the true prey is in a smaller group. We go after one in order to successfully bring down another.> Simon looked at the Elementals but wasn’t sure if he’d provided them with an answer that made any sense to their form of terra indigene.
“Go after one in order to bring down another,” Water said thoughtfully. “Attack in one place to distract anyone from seeing the beginning of the true attack.”
<Yes.> Simon tried to stay still. He felt surrounded by a dangerous charge, like a storm that hadn’t given a single rumble of warning thunder before it struck.
“We will give your words to Ocean,” Water said.
Dismissed. Simon trotted back to the Green Complex, moving as if he didn’t have a care. He didn’t think the Courtyard would be in danger from whatever was coming as long as he was sure that anyone within its boundaries wouldn’t be considered an enemy. He would have to think about how he could split the police pack to herd those he trusted into the Courtyard, where they would have as much protection as the terra indigene who lived here.
When he reached the Green Complex, Meg stepped out of the summer room.
“Simon? We need to talk. You don’t have to shift. I just need you to listen.”
He wasn’t sure he liked this arrangement of not being able to voice an opinion she could understand, but he could listen this time. He followed her into the summer room. When she sat on a lounge chair, he sat in front of her, his front paws on either side of her feet, bringing him so close her knees brushed his chest.
She told him about the cards she’d drawn when she wondered what would happen because of the death of the Wolves. She told him about the question mark after she asked about Lakeside.
“It wasn’t really a prophecy, but I thought you should know.”
He thought it was a pretty accurate prophecy. Jean had seen a vision of Lakeside being one of the few human places that survived. Now Meg saw an undecided future. After meeting with the Elementals this evening, he would agree with that. Whatever actions and decisions were made by humans and Others in the days ahead would decide Lakeside’s future.
He didn’t want Meg to feel unhappy, so he licked her nose and made her laugh. She stretched out on the lounge chair. He stretched out beside it and thought about human males and females and how females on TV often complained that the male didn’t talk to them, didn’t know how to communicate.
Even when he was in Wolf form, he and Meg communicated just fine. Maybe they communicated better than two humans because she didn’t expect him to talk.
That was an entertaining thing to think about, so he thought and dozed and, when she fell asleep, gave her hand a couple of friendly licks.
CHAPTER 43
Words became thoughts conveyed as a wind that riffled the surface of lakes; as a taste in grass; as the smoke rising from a short-lived natural fire. Those thoughts, those ideas, moved swiftly to the north, the south, the west, the east.