by Eileen Wilks
Mr. Smith’s eyebrows climbed up on his forehead. “Remarkable.”
Mama said in her don’t-argue-with-me voice, “Zipper, too. In writing.”
Mr. Smith had laughed, shaken his head, and said, “You win, Margaret. If you’ll sign, I’ll waive the no-pets rule—in writing. She can take her dog with her.”
Then Mama had said, “Light of my heart”—she called Demi that sometimes—“come here.”
She did. Mama looked so tired.
“I won’t be here to take care of you much longer. No, don’t phase out on me! I love you more than the moon and stars. You know, that, don’t you?”
Demi nodded, her throat so tight she couldn’t squeeze a single word through it.
“And you love me,” Mama said as if Demi had spoken everything that was stuck in her throat. “And you don’t want to hear this, but you have to. The damn cancer is winning. Now, we’ve talked about Sally taking you in if worst comes to worst, but she doesn’t have much money, and my life insurance isn’t going to stretch very far. There sure won’t be enough for college, and you’re going to go to college. So after I’m gone, you’ll go stay at a place Mr. Smith operates called the Refuge. You and Zipper. You’ll work for Mr. Smith two weekends a month, and he’ll see that there’s money for college.”
Mr. Smith had told her about the Refuge then, but she didn’t remember that part. If you aren’t paying attention, your brain doesn’t make any memories, and Demi hadn’t been paying attention. She couldn’t think about anything except “after I’m gone.” She knew vaguely Mama had said that before, but this time was different. This time the words were like marbles she couldn’t put down. She kept rolling them around in her mind, trying to make sense of them, but their meaning was sealed up inside glass. She couldn’t touch it.
Six days later, the glass shattered.
Three days after that, she left home forever, moving to the Bright Haven Refuge for Gifted Young People. Her and Zipper.
* * *
ON a moonlit night four years and four months after her mother died, Demi walked with Rule Turner down a dirt road in a river of silvery moonlight banked by the dark shapes of trees and told him about Asperger’s. She used the short explanation, the one Nicky had helped her work out because, he said, people stop listening when you tell them too much at once.
But Rule Turner didn’t seem to get tired of listening. She told him about Mr. Smith—“Edward Smith, no middle name. He’s fifty-six. He’s worked for the NSA for thirty-one years. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in . . .”
As they crossed a small, grassy meadow, she told him how she’d set up her back door into the NSA’s computers, but not why. Well, she did slip up and mention Amanda’s name, but she stopped because she didn’t know how much she should say. And as they set off down a path she couldn’t see into another sprawling patch of woods, she told him about her plan. How long it had taken her to get the financial data that she’d sent to the reporter. Why she’d sent it. What was in the other two files—and how key data had inexplicably changed overnight to implicate Ruben Brooks instead of Mr. Smith. “I thought if he knew that I had solid data, he’d have to shut down the Refuge and let the kids go, but it went wrong somehow. I don’t know what happened. It all went wrong.”
Demi had thought she was in good shape. She’d walked every day in Whistle, and almost every week she’d taken a long hike to build her stamina. But even on her long hikes she hadn’t walked for twelve miles. She hadn’t walked through woods dense with darkness where ups and downs, roots and stones, conspired to trip her.
Twice more he asked if he could carry her backpack. Twice more she said no.
It was good that he asked. It reminded her that she couldn’t trust him. She needed the reminder, because he was awfully easy to talk to. Over those twelve miles, she told him a lot. More than she should have, probably, and a lot of it wasn’t about Mr. Smith at all. She talked about canine arthritis and what various studies on glucosamine supplements suggested and how she’d picked the spot for Zipper’s grave.
He didn’t get impatient. He seemed to want to know whatever she wanted to tell him. He didn’t get mad when she said, “I don’t want to answer,” though she had to say it several times because she wasn’t sure what it was okay to tell him. She’d have to think about that later.
Most of all, she didn’t tell him about Nicky. She protected her friend’s secret.
TWENTY-THREE
RULE’S companion hadn’t complained once in their four-hour hike, and she’d retained custody of her backpack as if it held her heartbeat. But she was drooping badly by the time they drew near the campsite.
She must have seen the flicker of firelight through the trees. She stopped suddenly and directed an accusing look at him. “You can’t have a fire when you’re hiding. That’s stupid.”
“I’m hiding differently. Come on.”
The only reason she did, he suspected, was that she was too tired to argue, or to go looking for an unlit hiding spot on her own. He resisted the urge to pick up the pace. The girl with him didn’t feel his urgency or his relief. She couldn’t see the dark shapes slipping from tree to tree alongside them. She couldn’t smell what he did, nor would it have meant to her what it did to him.
Clan. Not Nokolai, but his other clan. Many Leidolf waited for him just ahead. He was surprised at how much the scent welcomed him.
At the edge of the trees she stopped again, staring at the clearing where they’d set up camp. “That,” she said in a funny voice, “is not a different kind of hiding. That isn’t hiding at all.”
The clearing was about a block wide and several blocks long. Directly ahead, roughly in the center, was the crude stone hearth they’d fashioned for cooking. The tents had been erected on the west end. They didn’t have enough of those for everyone—but wolves don’t care much for sleeping in tents, and over half those present were on four legs.
What was the best way to hide a wolf? In the middle of other wolves. Humans were not good at identifying one particular wolf unless his coloring was unusual, and Rule’s fur was the brindled black-and-silver shared by every other wolf in that clearing. That had been his chief criteria when he’d spoken with Alex that afternoon and asked him to send fifty Leidolf clansmen.
“There must be two dozen of them,” she said in a hushed voice.
“Fifty-six now,” José said, walking up to meet them. Several of the sleeping wolves had woken at the sound of voices and were looking their way. “Eight more arrived an hour ago.”
Rule spoke clearly so everyone would hear. “José, this young lady likes to be called Danny. She is ospi and has placed herself under my protection and authority for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty hours now,” Danny corrected him, “approximately. I didn’t look to see exactly what time we made our agreement, but we walked for at least four hours after that.”
Rule smiled and went on. “Twenty hours now. She’s hiding from the authorities, as I am. Danny, this is José.” When she didn’t respond, he added gently, “Don’t be afraid. They won’t . . .” And stopped. The rest of his speech was clearly unnecessary.
Danny was gazing at the piles of wolves with the wide-eyed wonder of a toddler on Christmas morning. She whispered, “Can I meet them? Pet them? I know they aren’t dogs, but I . . . it would be so wonderful. Please?”
The girl who didn’t much like touching was dying to touch the werewolves. “Mike,” he said. “Come here a moment, please.”
The wolf he addressed wasn’t among those dozing in the camp. He’d been part of the escort Danny hadn’t been aware of, and came trotting out of the forest behind them.
Danny spun around. “Oh! Oh, he’s beautiful!”
Mike was a handsome wolf, true. He was also unusually large, even for a lupus, all of whom were bigger than natural wolves. Rule’s nostrils flared as he checked . . . Danny felt no fear at all, though Mike must have startled her. Good. Nor was there any tr
ace of desire in her scent, which was a relief. A few humans took an erotic interest in lupi in wolf-form, and while he hadn’t thought Danny was of that bent, he hadn’t been sure. She’d spoke of fantasizing about him, and she clearly knew more than most about his people. “Danny, this is Mike. He’ll take you to meet some of the others. They dislike being looked in the eye. Wait to pet until you’re invited. If you aren’t sure if someone is inviting you to pet him, ask.”
She nodded seriously.
“Mike, our guest is seventeen. She would like to meet some of our four-footed clan. I place her in your charge.”
Placing her under Mike’s protection was probably unnecessary. No lupus would intentionally hurt the girl, protected as she was by her sex and her age. But a few of those here tonight lived at Leidolf Clanhome because they lacked the level of control needed to live among humans. Then there was the prevailing attitude in Leidolf about women—the nineteenth century at its most perverse. Among other things, they considered sixteen the age of consent.
But that was a problem for tomorrow, not tonight. He’d make his expectations clear when Danny wasn’t in earshot. As she went happily off with Mike, Rule spoke to José. “Have you had problems with any of them?”
José was the only Nokolai here. Carson remained in town, keeping track of what the various law enforcement personnel were up to. In spite of that, Rule was determined to have José as his second. It was asking a lot of the man, he knew. José was smart, dominant, and an excellent fighter, but there were a few here who might think they could beat him—and one who probably could. That one was Mike, but Mike wouldn’t challenge José. Rule had established his wishes on that score quite clearly last year.
He’d needed to make himself clear to the rest, so before leaving, he’d spoken to them. He would, he’d said, consider any resistance to José’s authority a formal Challenge to himself—and if he had to stop looking for his mate in order to kill some idiot, he would not be happy.
“They’re not all smiley faces, but they’re behaving.”
“That will do for now. None of the patrols have found anything, I take it.” José would have told him right away if they had. “And no one with a badge has dropped by for a visit?”
“Not exactly. A helicopter hovered overhead a couple hours ago. State police, by the insignia.”
“Hmm. Well, we knew law enforcement would take an interest in us.”
Eventually, some type of cops would show up in person. When they did, Rule would be four-footed, and José would explain that they had gathered to look for Lily. Their story had the advantage of being true. Patrols were actively searching for any trace of her or the brownie who’d spoken to her. “Have you heard from Peter?”
“Briefly. They won’t let him go beyond the tourist section.”
Rule had sent Peter Armstead to the brownie reservation to speak with their elders. He would have preferred to go himself, but he couldn’t be two places at once, and confronting HSI’s suspect took priority. He’d expected Peter to have trouble pinning the brownies down; he hadn’t expected them to refuse to allow Peter into the private area of the reservation. “They accepted Peter as my emissary?”
“Yes. According to him, they were very apologetic, but there’s some kind of community ceremony or religious observance going on, and outsiders can’t be admitted.”
“Hmm.” From what he’d seen, brownies were not religious in the human sense. They seemed to be cheerful little pagans, but with a feeling of camaraderie rather than worship. Dirty Harry spoke of the Green Man as if he were an interesting but touchy neighbor—someone he didn’t want to offend, but not an object of awe. Still, there was much Rule didn’t know about brownies. “Did they answer his questions at all?”
“Oh, they answered—and answered, and answered. Peter said he could hardly get them to stop answering, but he couldn’t make sense of anything they said.”
That fit what Rule knew about brownies. “Their behavior is suspicious, but not conclusively so. Brownies are slippery little devils, even when they intend to be helpful.” And if they didn’t intend to be helpful, they could tell you the sky was blue in so many ways that you’d end up believing it was orange. He’d have to deal with them himself. “Peter may as well return.”
José sent a quick text, looked up, and smiled. “Your underage terrorist is having herself a great time.”
Danny knelt on the ground, surrounded by wolves. She was scratching Jimmy Bacon behind the ears while Ed Grinowski poked her with his nose, asking for the same treatment. Saul Freeman sat in front of her and presented his paw for a shake, but Claude Bristow, a grim and grizzled veteran, shoved Saul out of the way. He then flopped down in front of her, offering his stomach for a belly rub. She laughed in delight.
“She is, isn’t she? The men seem to be enjoying themselves, too.”
“We don’t often meet out-clan humans who have no fear of us, even in wolf-form.”
“Danny’s . . . different.” In many ways. “Have you heard of Asperger’s?”
José’s eyebrows lifted. “Autism Lite, isn’t it?”
“It’s on the autism scale, yes. Some people with Asperger’s are extremely successful.” Such as Bill Gates, Alfred Hitchcock, Einstein, Mozart, and Sir Isaac Newton, according to Danny. Rule wasn’t sure how accurate her list was, but it was impressive. “Some have more trouble functioning. All have difficulty with facial expressions and social cues. Danny is also an orphan. Her parents weren’t married, and her father died before she was born.”
“Her mother’s dead, too?”
“Four years ago, of breast cancer.”
The tumor had been particularly fast-growing, but it should have been caught earlier. Demi had explained at length how it had been missed, what type of cancer it had been, the various treatment options, the type of treatment her mother actually received . . . and why it hadn’t worked. She’d spoken clinically, without obvious emotion, and in great detail. It was her way, Rule understood, of reporting on a grief too vast to explain. “She didn’t have any family to take her in.”
“An older kid with Asperger’s, plus she’s black—”
“Biracial.”
“Either way, I’m betting she wasn’t adopted. Foster care?”
“No. Her mother signed over custody to the Bright Haven Refuge for Gifted Young People.”
José pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “That’s the outfit Ruben is supposed to have secretly funded.”
“According to Danny, it’s Mr. Smith of the NSA who diverted funds, and until yesterday, she had proof of that. She sent those financial records to the reporter who broke the story. Those records mysteriously changed, and not just the ones the reporter had. Every copy of them, no matter where it was stored, had been altered.”
“That’s not possible.”
“She agrees with you. And yet that’s what seems to have happened to point the blame at Ruben.” Rule ran a hand over his hair. “I need to talk to Cullen, dammit. I suspect some type of sympathetic magic was used, something similar to what Cullen did to ward our accounts, but I need to talk to him about it.” And couldn’t. And maybe he’d never speak to his friend again . . . stop that, he told himself firmly. Though he did need to give some thought to what kind of enemy could snatch Lily in Ohio and make Cullen vanish in Mexico.
For now . . . “I need to brief you, but I prefer to do so while I brief Theo”—as a Leidolf councillor, Theo had to be included—“and two nunti.” Nunti meant messengers. The position was mostly obsolete now, but until thirty years ago formal communication between the clans had been handled through these oral messengers. “I think Hal Brownbeck is here?”
“Tall guy, white hair, dark skin?”
“Yes. He used to act as nuntius for Leidolf. I’ll want him and one other. Present Theo with my compliments and tell him I need him to select someone with an excellent memory to be my second nuntius. He’ll know who would be best.”
“You believe her, then?”
José asked.
Rule looked at Danny, who had at last abandoned her backpack so she could romp with half a dozen wolves. They were playing statues—the lupi version, which mixed the human game with tag and hide-and-seek. A couple of two-legged clan stood nearby, grinning. Maybe they’d explained the rules to Danny.
Statues was a favorite game for clan children to play with four-legged adults. The wolves were treating Danny as if she were a lot younger than seventeen. They were right. In some ways, she was very young still. In spite of everything. “She could be wrong about some elements, and she hasn’t told me everything,” he answered José. “But I believe she’s been honest with me. Oh—she’s going to need one of the tents and a sleeping bag. After you speak with Theo, you’ll have to redo some of the sleeping arrangements.” He found a smile. “And while you’re hard at work . . . I smell coffee.”
“Ed made it. It’s strong enough to hop into your cup on its own.”
José hadn’t exaggerated much. Rule sat near the low fire sipping coffee stout enough to rival the bottom-of-the-pot brew at a cop shop and thought about the girl he was responsible for. For the next twenty hours, that is.
Danny was alone in the world in a way few people are. No family. Her mother’s parents had reacted badly when she began dating a black man. They’d cut off relations entirely when they found out they were going to be presented with a biracial grandchild. Danny had never met them and didn’t want to. Her father had been a Haitian immigrant, brought to the United States as a child by his grandmother after his parents died, probably killed by Baby Doc. His grandmother had raised him and watched proudly when he graduated from college. A year later, he’d died in a car accident. The old woman had moved in with Danny’s mother and helped care for Danny after she was born, but she’d died when Danny was six.
Death on top of death. Danny had been thirteen when she went to the Bright Haven Refuge for Gifted Young People—a large home in the West Virginia countryside where two Gifted children already lived. The place had seemed like a refuge at first. The houseparents had been “nice enough,” the rules strict but reasonable, and Mr. Smith hadn’t put her to work immediately. He let her get her feet under her at first and see that the other kids weren’t being treated as research subjects.
