by Anne Bishop
The woman looked startled, then studied Meg with unnerving interest. “Grandfather Erebus says you may enter the Chambers and set the package before the door. Stay on the walkway, and you will come to no harm.”
“I was told I wasn’t allowed to enter the Chambers,” Meg said.
The woman’s smile sharpened. “Even the Wolfgard accommodates the Grandfather.”
Which meant Mr. Erebus was a very important person in the Courtyard.
Smoke flowed swiftly over the snow, gathering to one side of the gate. Part of it condensed, becoming an arm and a hand that pulled open the gate before changing back to smoke that moved away.
Something about smoke and the name Sanguinati that she needed to remember.
Pushing open the gate a little more, Meg walked up to the mausoleum. A hand curled around the edge of the door—an old hand with knobby joints, big veins, and yellowed, horny fingernails. A dark eye in a lined face peered out at her.
Not quite looking him in the eye, in case that was offensive to him, Meg carefully set the package down on the dry marble stoop.
“I’m sorry it took so long for you to receive your package, Mr. Erebus. I’ll watch for them from now on and get them to you as soon as I can.”
“Sweet child,” he whispered in that dry-leaves voice. “So considerate of an old man.”
“I hope nothing spoiled,” Meg said, stepping back. “Good day, sir.” She turned and walked back to the BOW, aware of all the smoke gathering just inside the fences. The gate closed behind her. The woman continued to watch her as she got into the BOW and drove off.
She had another set of packages for another address in the Chambers, but she was feeling shaky and wanted to get away from that part of the Courtyard. She continued driving until she passed the last of those ornate black fences and was heading for the Hawkgard Complex.
Then she remembered. Smoke. Sanguinati.
She hit the brakes and almost slid into a snowbank. She managed to put the BOW in park and crank up the heater before she started shaking.
Vampire. In one of their hurried, forbidden conversations, Jean had told her vampire was the street name for the Sanguinati. Smoke was another form they could take when they were hunting.
And when they are killing?
Now she understood why it was so dangerous to set foot on their land—and why no one who did left the Sanguinati’s piece of the Courtyard.
But an old, powerful vampire had given permission for her to enter the Chambers and deliver a package.
“Oh, I feel woozy.” She leaned back and closed her eyes. A moment later, she opened them, too uneasy about not being able to see what might be approaching.
How many of them had been out there, watching her?
That didn’t make her feel any less woozy, so she put the BOW in gear and trundled the rest of the way to the Hawkgard Complex, which consisted of three U-shape buildings, two stories tall, that were separated by driveways that led to garages and a parking area.
Every apartment had a patio or balcony with its own entrance. What she didn’t see were mailboxes or the nest of large boxes for packages. Which meant there had to be a room somewhere for those things.
Pulling up in front of the middle building, Meg got out of the BOW.
“What do you want?”
She squeaked and grabbed for the door handle before she regained control enough to look over her shoulder. The brown-haired, brown-eyed man who stared at her didn’t look the least bit friendly.
“Hello,” she said, trying out a smile. “I’m Meg, the new Liaison. I have some packages for the Hawkgard Complex, but I don’t know where I should leave them. Can you help me?”
He didn’t answer for so long, she didn’t know what to do. Finally, he pointed to the center room on the ground floor. “There.”
“Does each building have a mail room?” she asked, wondering how she could figure out what package went to which building.
He huffed. She could have sworn his hair rose like feathers being fluffed in annoyance.
“There.” He went to the back of the BOW and opened the door. He sniffed, then began rummaging happily through her ordered stacks.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Mouse,” he replied, picking up each package and sniffing it.
“There aren’t any mice in the packages.” At least, she hoped there weren’t. “But there were mice around where the packages were stored.”
He stopped rummaging, apparently losing all interest. But he did help her carry the packages to the mail room. Judging by the cubbyholes built into one wall and the large table at a right angle to them, this was where all the mail for the Hawkgard Complex was delivered. The cubbyholes had numbers but no names, and most of the packages were addressed as Hawkgard with a number.
Come to think of it, a lot of the mail she had sorted for all the complexes was the same way. The gard and maybe an initial was the most identification shown. Hard to know how many of each race was living in a Courtyard if only a few, like Erebus Sanguinati and Simon Wolfgard, provided a full name.
Were they that uncaring about such things or that cautious about how much humans knew about them?
What did that say about Erebus that he used his full name? Was it a way of indicating his lack of concern about who knew he was residing at the Lakeside Courtyard or was it a warning?
She thanked the Hawk for his help, and had the impression he had to dig into his knowledge of humans for the “You are welcome” reply.
When she reached the bridge that spanned Courtyard Creek, she pulled over and studied the map. If she kept going straight, she would be at the Wolfgard area of the Courtyard, and she didn’t want to go there and take the chance of running into him. Besides, she needed to head back to the office. But she had time to look at one place that made her curious. So she drove over the bridge and turned left on the road that ran along the small lake.
When she spotted the girl skating on the lake, she stopped the BOW and got out. The air was so clean and cold it hurt to breathe it in, and yet the girl, wearing a white, calf-length dress with short sleeves, didn’t seem to notice.
Meg made her way to the edge of the ice and waited. The girl looked at her, circled away, then skated over to where she stood.
A girl in shape, but not human. The face, especially the eyes, passed for human only from a distance.
“I’m Meg,” she said quietly, not sure why she thought this girl was more of a threat than the Sanguinati.
“You stopped,” the girl said. “Why?”
“I wanted to introduce myself.” She hesitated. “Are you alone here? Where are your parents?”
The girl laughed. “The Mother is everywhere. The Father doesn’t spurt his seed in this season.” She laughed again. “You don’t like the spurting? Never mind. My sisters and cousins are with me, and that is enough. Our homes are over there.” She pointed to a cluster of small buildings that were made of stone and wood.
“I’m glad you’re not alone.”
An odd look. “That matters to you?”
“I know how it feels to be alone.” She shook her head, determined to shake off the memories of being isolated in a cell—or watching a movie clip in a room full of girls and feeling even more alone. “Anyway, I’m planning to make regular deliveries from now on, so I wondered if there was anything you wanted from the Market Square. It’s a long walk for you and your sisters. I could give one or two of you a ride up to the shops.”
“Kindness. How unexpected,” the girl murmured. “There is a Courtyard bus that comes through twice a day that any terra indigene can take up to the shops, and the ponies are always willing to give me a ride. But . . .”
“But . . . ?”
The girl shrugged. “I put in a request for some books fr
om our library. They weren’t dropped off.”
“Wait a moment.” Meg went back to the BOW, retrieved the notepad and pen from her purse, and retraced her steps back to the lake. She held them out. “If you write down the titles, I’ll go to the library after work and see if any of them are available.”
The girl took the pad and pen, wrote several titles, then handed the pad and pen back to Meg.
“If your sisters are out when I return, whom should I ask for?”
Another odd look that was frightening because there was amusement in it.
“My sisters mostly sleep in this season, so only my cousins might be around,” the girl replied. Then she added, “I am Winter.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Winter,” Meg said. Her teeth began to chatter.
Winter laughed. “Yes. But you’ve had enough pleasure, I think.”
“I guess so. I’ll look for those books.” She hurried back to the BOW, but once inside with the heater doing its best to thaw her out, she waved to the girl.
The girl waved back, then turned to stare at the Crows and Hawks gathered in trees on the other side of the lake. They all took off in a flurry of wings, as if they were nervous about drawing the girl’s attention.
But Meg noticed at least some of them followed her all the way back to the office.
She and the BOW crawled into the garage, one turn of the wheels at a time. The opening was almost twice as wide as the vehicle, but Meg’s nerves still danced until she got the BOW inside and turned off.
Her nerves did more than dance when she got out of the BOW and saw the man standing there. Dressed in a mechanic’s blue jumpsuit, his only concession to the biting cold was a thin turtleneck sweater under the jumpsuit. He had brown hair, the amber eyes of a Wolf, and an annoyed expression that said plainly enough she had already messed with his day and he didn’t like it.
“I’m Meg, the new Liaison,” she said.
“The Wolfgard says I’m to take care of charging up the BOW for you this time.”
“Oh.” She looked at the cord and buttons on the garage’s back wall. “I suppose I should learn how to do that.”
“The Wolfgard said I’m to take care of it. You’re supposed to get food and open the office before the deliveries start arriving. The fools won’t get out of their trucks if they see a Wolf instead of you, and I’m waiting for parts.” He ran a possessive hand over the BOW’s hood. “Wouldn’t have been up this close to the monkeys if I wasn’t waiting for parts that are supposed to come today.”
“Then I’d better get my lunch and open up the office,” Meg said brightly as she edged away from him. This one seemed wilder than Simon in a way she couldn’t explain, and she wasn’t sure “think before you bite” was a concept he understood. “Thank you for taking care of the BOW.”
“Just because he slams your tail in the door, the rest of us have to be polite,” he grumbled. Then he sniffed the air, sniffed again as his head turned in her direction. “What did you roll in to make your fur smell that stinky?”
Irritation wiped out caution. Were they all obsessed with smell? “I didn’t roll in anything. And my hair stinks less than it did.”
“So does a skunk.”
Since that seemed to be his final opinion, she marched over to the back door of A Little Bite.
Tess took one look at her face and grinned. “I see you’ve met Blair.”
“Maybe,” Meg muttered. “Does he like any humans?”
“Sure,” Tess replied cheerfully. “Although he’s pretty opinionated about the lack of lean meat on most of them.”
“I don’t think I want lunch.”
“Yes, you do. Vegetable soup and a turkey sandwich. I’ll pack it up for you.”
Meg followed Tess back to the counter. “So, who is he?”
“Third Wolf, after Simon and Elliot. Those two deal with humans and the world outside the Courtyard. Blair takes care of the inside of the Courtyard. He keeps track of the game on our land, leads the hunt when the butcher puts in a request for venison, and is the primary enforcer. He’s also the one here at Lakeside who is most intrigued by mechanical things and energy sources, so he oversees the terra indigene who care for the windmills and solar panels we use to power most of the buildings outside the business district.” Tess smiled as she handed Meg the carry sack. “Keeps him busy and limits his contact with humans—which is the way he and Simon like it.”
“He’s waiting for a package. If it arrives, whom should I call?” Meg asked. Tess looked at her until she sighed. “I should call Simon.”
The BOW’s garage door was closed by the time she reached the back door of the office, and she didn’t spot a Wolf lurking nearby. But when she unlocked the front door, she did see three trucks idling while the drivers waited for her—and she saw the black sedan stuck behind them, unable to enter until at least one truck departed.
It looked like the kind of car she imagined a consul would drive—or would he have a driver?—so she signed for packages as quickly as possible, making hasty notes so that she wouldn’t be the one causing a delay. It seemed the delivery people shared that feeling. Within a couple of minutes, they were gone and the sedan pulled up in front of the consulate door.
The man who got out had a slim build and receding hair. He stared in her direction, then went inside.
“If that’s Elliot Wolfgard, I guess I won’t be getting any gold stars from him,” she muttered.
She could live without gold stars. Today she would be happy if she got through the rest of the day without being eaten.
She put the turkey sandwich and soup in the fridge, too unsettled to consider food. After a peaceful hour of sorting mail and packages, she called Howling Good Reads and left the message that there were a couple of items for B. Wolfgard, as well as other packages simply addressed to the Utility Complex, and was informed that Blair would pick up all of them after the office closed.
Maybe there was an advantage to having stinky hair if it encouraged the Wolves to keep their distance.
Cheered by that thought, she warmed up the turkey sandwich and enjoyed a late lunch.
* * *
Looking out the back window of HGR’s office, Simon watched Blair come out of the Liaison’s Office with a package and load it into the BOW assigned to the Utility Complex. The Wolf had waited only long enough to be sure Meg had left for the day before going in to retrieve the bits and pieces for whatever he was currently tinkering with.
She had headed for the Market Square, which meant she would be coming back this way when she went to her apartment. Better for both of them if they didn’t see each other. Better for him, anyway. Henry would smack him if an encounter with him upset Meg today—and getting smacked by a Grizzly wasn’t fun, even for a Wolf.
He put on his coat and stopped at the counter long enough to tell Heather, one of his human employees, that she was supposed to inform Vlad if Asia Crane entered the store. Then he went out the back door and walked over to the Liaison’s Office.
“You got your parts?” Simon asked when Blair came out with another package that he tucked in the BOW.
Blair nodded as he closed the vehicle’s back door. Then he locked the door of the Liaison’s Office. “You need a ride?”
He didn’t need a ride, but maybe he could coax Sam to spend a little more time outside if he got home while it was still light. And if Blair was unhappy with Meg for some reason, it was better to know before blood was spilled. “Thanks.”
Neither spoke until they were headed for the Green Complex. Then Blair said casually, “The Liaison. Think we could wash her in the same solution we use for youngsters who get skunked?”
Simon barked out a laugh. Then he considered the appeal of doing just that—and the consequences—and reluctantly shook his head.
Blair sighed.
“Didn’t think so.” A pause. “Elliot might want to have words with you. The delivery trucks backed up for a couple of minutes while the drivers waited for her to return, and his shiny black car couldn’t get around them.”
“He doesn’t care about the shiny black car.”
“No, but he does care about maintaining status in a way the monkeys understand, and I don’t think having to wait for your human to open the door for afternoon deliveries is going to encourage him to tolerate her.”
“She’s doing her job.”
“And causing trouble.”
Simon growled—and noticed the way the other Wolf’s lips twitched in amusement.
Blair didn’t say another thing until he pulled up at the Green Complex. Then he looked straight ahead. “It’s still deer season, so there will be some bow hunters in the park for a couple more weeks.”
“So?” Simon opened the passenger’s door and got out.
“If she doesn’t wear a hat, the Liaison won’t need the orange vest hunters use to keep from shooting each other.”
Simon closed the BOW’s door a little harder than necessary, but he still heard Blair laughing as the Wolf drove away.
Fishing out his keys, Simon walked to his apartment. The Green Complex apartments were a mix of sizes that shared common walls and accommodated the different species of terra indigene who chose to live there. Some were more like two-story town houses, while smaller apartments were contained on a single floor. Like the other residential complexes, the Green was U-shaped, with the connecting section containing the mail room, laundry area, and a social room on the second floor where movies were played on the big-screen television and a couple of tables provided an area to play board games the Others had converted from the human versions of those games.
The moment his key slid into the front door lock, he heard the squeaky-door sound that was Sam’s howl.
His big living room had a carpet and a sofa, a couple of lamps, a television and movie disc player, a low table with storage baskets, and the cage where Sam lived.
