by Anne Bishop
she said.
He hurried to his apartment. As he put his key in the lock, Nathan said,
Simon finished unlocking his door, but went up the stairs to Meg’s porch. Nathan’s fur had a light coating of snow, making the watch Wolf nearly invisible in his chosen spot.
Nathan cocked his head.
He didn’t have a chance to respond before Tess called,
A BOW wouldn’t do anyone any good on the city’s streets, especially in this weather, but someone could get fairly deep into the Courtyard before finding roads the ponies hadn’t cleared at all.
Simon went back down the stairs. Nathan followed him. They stood perfectly still—and listened.
* * *
Jester looked at his charges, then at the big flakes of snow that would have been prettier if there hadn’t been so many of them.
Twelve little ponies all snug in their stalls, he thought. And one Coyote who was going to snuggle into the straw with them.
No point going to the Green Complex. He had everything he needed right here. And he wanted to keep an eye on the ponies, especially old Hurricane, who wasn’t having an easy time making his way through the snow. That was something he needed to mention to Winter. The Elementals’ steeds were slow to age, but even their time in the world came to an end, and their place was taken by youngsters who filled the same niche. Still, it was never easy when a pony reached his time, and Hurricane was a favorite of Air and Water.
He started to close the door all the way when he heard a sound and stepped outside to pinpoint the direction. A motor, yes, but not a BOW or any other vehicle used in the Courtyard.
Baring his teeth, Jester shifted his ears to their Coyote form to catch the sounds better. More than one vehicle with a buzzy motor.
Hadn’t Meg said something about buzzy motors? And now that he heard them in a slightly different way, he realized he had heard this sound around the Courtyard over the past few days. But not inside.
His own warning was eclipsed by an explosion coming from the direction of the Utilities Complex.
* * *
Simon heard the explosion, pinpointed the direction, and shouted,
No response. None was needed. Anyone coming in to blow up a part of the Courtyard would have guns.
Another explosion, the sound fainter and coming from the western side of the Courtyard—the side closest to Lakeside Park, the side where there was a gap in the fence because of the fire a few days ago.
Howls in the west from the Wolves responding to that threat. Nathan beside him, growling and restless, wanting to rush off and help the same way he wanted to meet the enemy and destroy them.
As Simon spun around to tell Meg he had to leave, Crows were screaming about attackers. And then he heard Jester’s fear-filled and angry shout,
* * *
Jester listened as the Crowgard raised a call to battle, listened as that buzzy motor sound came closer and closer to the Pony Barn. He watched as smoke filled the winter sky above the Utilities Complex and thought,
What else had Meg told them about the buzzy motors? Men dressed in black. Men with guns. Sam howling. But Sam wasn’t howling. Plenty of other Wolves, but not the pup, so . . .
Hurricane bolted out of his stall in the back of the barn and cantered toward the open door where Jester stood, followed by Cyclone and Fog. A moment later, one stall window shattered, then another. And a moment after that . . .
“Out!” Jester shouted at the ponies as fire suddenly roared up from the deep beds of straw in two of the stalls. “All of you, get out!” Then he added in a shout to anyone who could hear him,
Hurricane bolted out the door.
Buzzy motors. A gunshot. Blood spraying the snow as Hurricane went down.
Jester howled in fury and ran to the pony. Another shot as he dove for cover, Hurricane’s dying body shielding him from the bullet.
The rest of the ponies shifted as they surged out of the barn. While they looked like horses, they were now the Elementals’ steeds, and the screams of rage that rose from deep within the Courtyard as Hurricane died came from Earth, Air, Fire, Water . . . and Winter.
Cyclone and Fog were the next steeds out the door. As Fog ran, he instantly veiled the land all around the Pony Barn, while Cyclone whipped up the fallen snow into a smothering, stinging weapon. They chased the buzzy motors, no longer bound to flesh that would stumble in deep snow or be stopped by bullets.
Quicksand and Twister raced after Fog and Cyclone, while Tornado and Tidal Wave raced for the Utilities Complex, the snow spinning into a funnel around the hooves of one and rising in a growing wave behind the other. Avalanche kicked up the snow around the barn, smashing through the barn wall and sending a river of snow into the stalls to smother the fire.
Earthshaker and Mist galloped off, heading for the trouble in the western part of the Courtyard. Thunder and Lightning were the last two who leaped out of the barn, cracking the sky with savage light and a rumble that shook the ground.
“Wait!” Jester shouted at them.
They turned back, snorting and stomping.
He didn’t know what to tell them. He took care of them as his service to the Courtyard, and they listened to him up to a point. But they weren’t his to command.
Then he didn’t need to decide what to tell them. In a voice filled with fury, Winter said,
* * *
Simon rushed up the stairs and almost knocked Meg over when he bounded into her apartment. He grabbed her arms, aware of Sam running out of the kitchen. The boy’s eyes were bright, but Simon didn’t have time to consider if that brightness came from excitement or fear.
“Meg, I have to go. The Courtyard is under attack. You and Sam stay here until I get back. Do you understand me? Stay here.”
“Go,” she said. “We’ll be all right.”
He raced down the stairs, and he and Nathan trotted toward the BOW. Then he stopped. Three entrances into the Courtyard could accommodate vehicles when the roads were clear. Someone must have come in through the Utilities Complex gate to cause that explosion. But there were also those two breaks in the fence where someone could sneak in. Someone had come in through the one on Parkside Avenue to cause the explosion in the western part of the Courtyard. The other one . . .
Growling, Simon turned to Nathan. “The hole in the Main Street fence is between our stores and the Green Complex.”
“They have runners they can put on their feet. Skis,” he corrected, thinking of the human word. “And those sleds with motors.” Buzzy, annoying things, but maybe useful. “I’ll find Blair. You check that hole in the fence and make sure none of those monkeys invading our land are trying to come here.” He looked back at Meg’s apartment.
Nathan took off. Simon ran to the BOW and headed for the
Utilities Complex at a reckless speed.
* * *
Meg rubbed her sweaty hands on her jeans, then held one out to the boy. “Come on, Sam. We’re going to stay at your house until Simon returns.”
“But I wanna stay here,” Sam protested.
She shook her head, unable to explain, even to herself, why she wanted to be in a place where the door opened to ground instead of stairs.
He whined quietly as she led him out the kitchen door to the second-floor entrance in Simon’s apartment. When they reached the living room, she knelt in front of him, that gray-eyed boy who made her wonder if she had any younger brothers. She had never heard of a male cassandra sangue, and lately had begun to wonder what happened to the male children who were born to the girls who were bred. Were they abandoned? Killed? Fostered somewhere for some other use? She would never know. But for a little while, there had been someone in her life who could have been her little brother, and she loved him.
“Listen to me, Sam,” she said quietly. “Some bad people have come into the Courtyard, and they’re causing trouble.” She could feel him shrinking into himself. When she took his hands, they were furry and no longer shaped like a human’s. “You need to mind me and do exactly what I say. All right?”
He nodded. She wasn’t sure he could speak anymore.
“I want you to shift to Wolf form. You’re stronger and faster as a Wolf.”
He struggled to form words. “Safety line?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not this time. Don’t let anyone put you in a harness or attach a safety line to you. If anyone tries to do that, you bite them as hard as you can and you run. You understand?”
“Bite and run.”
“Yes.”
She helped him out of his shoes, sweater, and shirt. “You shift now.”
Sam went behind the couch to finish pulling off his clothes. Meg sat back on her heels. Might not come to anything. Maybe she was being foolish or had misunderstood. Prophecies could change. A different choice in a string of choices could change everything. She and Sam were here, in the apartment, not out there where there was fear and pain and death. Why would they need to leave here until Simon and Nathan returned?
The prickling under her skin suddenly returned, and in the quiet that surrounded the Green Complex, she heard the sound of a BOW.
CHAPTER 26
Vlad, Nyx, and a handful of their kin flowed over the snow like segments of a black serpent as they headed for the Utilities Complex. Other Sanguinati were headed for the western breach to help the Hawks and Wolves fight the intruders.
He and Nyx hadn’t questioned Erebus’s command to destroy whatever dared touch the terra indigene. Would these monkeys have started a war with the Others if Meg hadn’t come to the Courtyard? Maybe not. But someone the monkeys wanted back so much was someone the terra indigene were determined to keep.
Besides, he liked Meg, and her diligence in delivering Erebus’s movies gave Grandfather an untarnished pleasure the Sanguinati patriarch hadn’t experienced in many years.
A funnel of snow racing toward the buildings in the Utilities Complex. Beside it, moving just as fast, was a rising wave of snow.
Gunshots. A scream of pain. And the buzzy sound of snowmobiles.
Vlad and his kin flowed past the charred wing of a Hawk but didn’t see the rest of the body. As they rounded one corner of the main building, he saw a handful of intruders on snowmobiles. He saw Ferus trying to crawl away from the part of the building that was blown out and burning—and he saw one of the intruders raise a gun and shoot the already wounded Wolf.
Vlad shifted partway, catching the gunman’s attention. Distracted by smoke starting to take human shape, the man didn’t see Blair, who was in the between form, until the Wolf knocked him off the snowmobile and tore out his throat.
The rest of the intruders are going to get away, Vlad thought savagely. Their machines would get them out of the Courtyard, and they would use the storm to hide among the rest of the monkeys.
Then he realized the funnel of snow was heading straight for the Utilities gate and would reach it before the intruders could. As for the wave of snow . . .
Nyx shifted to her human form from the waist up, grabbed Ferus around the middle, and flowed over the snow, half carrying, half dragging the wounded Wolf. Vlad shifted all the way to human, grabbed Blair’s shoulders as the enforcer continued to tear at the enemy, and almost had his face ripped open when the Wolf turned on him and lashed out.
“Come with me!” Vlad shouted. “Now, Blair!”
A glance behind him was enough. Blair ran, and Vlad, shifting back to the safety of smoke, flowed after him as Tidal Wave released the snow and sent it crashing down, catching the three monkeys who had tried to evade Tornado. One man, jettisoned from Tornado’s funnel, flew over their heads and landed in a circle of smoke that grew hands and mouths and fangs.
Ignoring the feast, Vlad headed for the spot where Nyx waited with Ferus.
“Tornado left the Courtyard,” Blair said, shifting all the way back to human as he trotted up to them. “There’s going to be some damage to the monkeys’ part of the city.”
“Do we care?” Vlad asked.
Blair looked at Ferus, who was turning the snow red. “No. We don’t care.” He studied the ground and buildings around them. “Come on. I think we can muscle one of the BOWs out of the garage and get Ferus to the Wolfgard bodywalker.”
* * *
A frantic knocking on Simon’s front door.
“Meg? Meg! Are you in there?”
Meg looked back at Sam, whose furry face peered at her from behind the couch. Then she went to the door, pulled it open, and just stared at the blue sweater showing under Asia’s white parka.
“Meg . . .” Asia began.
“I don’t know that color blue,” Meg said, feeling cold inside as Asia stepped into the apartment.
“I know I’m not supposed to be here,” Asia said in a rush. “But, Meg, you have to listen to me. Some men are coming for you. All the other things that are happening now are just a diversion. And the other things that happened over the past few days? Those men were studying how the Wolves react. I have a BOW. It’s right outside. I’ll help you get away.”
“I don’t know that color.”
“What difference does that make?” Asia shouted.
“I saw that blue in the vision, with the sugar and the skull and crossbones,” Meg said, her voice so rough it produced an answering growl from Sam. “You tried to poison the ponies.”
Something in Asia’s face shifted, erasing all pretense of concern. “It was just a means to an end, like this is.”
“Like what is?”
“I meant what I said. They’re coming for you, Meg, but I’m not interested in you. Just give me the pup. I’ll be on my way, and you can run. You might even make it out of the Courtyard and find another place to hide for a while longer. Maybe forever.”
Stalling for time, Meg realized. All the talk was just a way to stall for time. But there was one thing she needed to know. “Why do you want Sam?”
Asia smirked. “I know some men who would love to have some leverage over a Courtyard leader. They’re powerful men who could get a lot of concessions for us humans. A couple of them might even enjoy having an exotic pet for a while.”
He’s not property, Meg thought as the cold inside her gave way to a furious heat. Giving Asia a hard shove, she shouted, “Run, Sam!”
Asia returned the shove, knocking Meg into a wall. Sam exploded from behind the couch. He had filled out a lot in the past three weeks, making up for the lack of growth during the years he’d been f
rozen by his mother’s death. His teeth didn’t sink into anything but Asia’s parka sleeve, but his weight and the way he swung his own body to bring down his prey was enough to throw her to her hands and knees.
Meg pushed off the wall, shouted “Sam!” and ran out the door. She wasn’t dressed for outside—no coat, no boots; nothing but jeans, her heaviest sweater, and shoes. But she ran to the BOW Asia had driven and yanked the door open. Sam jumped in and scrambled out of her way as she got in, turned the key, and put the BOW in gear before she closed her door. She was driving away from the apartments by the time Asia reached the road.
Glancing in her rearview mirror, she saw staggered lights approaching the Green Complex. Those must be the men Asia said were after her.
“You did good, Sam.” She’d heard the explosion and knew there was a problem up ahead, so she made the first left-hand turn she could, pushing for speed on a road oddly stripped of snow. “You did good.” Then she added silently, Now it’s my turn.
* * *
At first, it didn’t look like there was much wrong with the Utilities Complex. Then Simon spotted Blair kneeling beside Ferus and saw the bloody snow. He pulled up close to them, put the BOW in park, and jumped out.
“How bad?” he asked Blair, adding a silent call to Vlad, who immediately stopped his efforts to shift the snow around the garage doors and strode toward them.
“One of the Hawks is dead, and Ferus took a couple of bullets,” Blair replied. “Not sure how bad he’s hurt inside, but he’s bleeding plenty. We need to get him to the Wolfgard bodywalker.”
Simon sprang up and opened the BOW’s back door. In the winter, most BOWs carried some basics: two blankets, a short-handled shovel, a snow brush, and an ice scraper. He grabbed the blankets and laid them out in the snow next to Ferus. He and Blair lifted the wounded Wolf onto the blankets, wrapped him, and eased him into the back compartment. Blair went around to the passenger’s seat, but Simon waited for Vlad.
