by Anne Bishop
“We can widen that road,” Hershel said. “Going to have to pave it anyway.”
Ilya smiled, showing a hint of fang. “Mr. Dane does not own the access road. Therefore, it cannot be altered without the permission of the landowners, and any attempt at alterations will forfeit the right-of-way and the road will be closed.”
“You can’t do that!” Yorick protested.
“The landowners can—and they will,” Ilya replied mildly. “I repeat: Mr. Dane has claim to the five buildings Honoria Dane built within the boundaries of this terra indigene settlement and nothing more. Before you continue making plans for this place, I suggest you read the original document again since you will be bound by it.”
Yorick followed Ilya Sanguinati to the front door. “This is ridiculous! We need to expand the buildings and improve the access road. Our guests will expect it.”
“Then you should adjust your guests’ expectations, Mr. Dane.” Ilya turned toward the sound of a vehicle coming up the road.
Yorick swore under his breath as the pickup hauling a boat trailer pulled up near the house. Mark Hammorson and his friend had arrived early.
Ilya studied the boat on the trailer, then looked at Yorick. “Please advise your guests that motorized vehicles of any kind are forbidden on Lake Silence. Signs are clearly posted at the public beach at the southern end of the lake.”
“But not here,” Yorick said quickly.
“There has never been the need to post them here.” Ilya waited for his driver to open the door. “But post a sign by all means, if you think your guests will not abide by that rule without one. Be assured, whether you put up a sign or not, the penalty will be the same if you break that rule.”
CHAPTER 60
Ilya
Thaisday, Sumor 6
Ilya said nothing until Boris stopped at the end of the access road and turned to look at him. “Back to the lodge or to the office in the village?”
“The office,” Ilya replied.
Aiden had appeared at the lodge just long enough to tell him that Victoria had gone into Sproing with Julian Farrow. At least, the description Aiden provided, along with talk of shelving books, sounded like she had gone to the village with Farrow. Confirming that she hadn’t been lured into a dangerous situation by some other male wasn’t meddling or interfering or undermining self-confidence or whatever a human female might choose to call it. Silence Lodge had a vested interest in Victoria DeVine, no different than their interest in a few other humans in the village. The terra indigene considered such humans nonedible prey because they were useful and could not be replaced easily. Protecting such a human was sensible, especially a human prone to those anxiety attacks, which left her vulnerable in ways that made it difficult to remember that she was not edible prey.
Well, once he verified that Victoria was working with Julian Farrow at the bookstore, he could focus on peeling back the layers of the Tie Clip Club to figure out if the humans who had arrived with Yorick Dane were secondary members, like Detective Swinn, who had been sent to drive Victoria away from The Jumble, or if they were the real enemy. Once he knew that, the Sanguinati would invite themselves to The Jumble for dinner.
“Those new humans brought a boat with a motor,” Boris said.
“They did,” Ilya agreed.
“You know what will happen when they put that boat in the lake.”
“Of course.” He met Boris’s eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled. “I’m looking forward to seeing the Lady’s response. Aren’t you?”
CHAPTER 61
Aggie
Thaisday, Sumor 6
Aggie flew to the porch railing of the Crowgard cabin, then cawed in surprise when Jozi flew to the porch next to theirs, which was where the Hershel and Heidi humans were staying. The latticework on the sides of the porches provided some privacy, which Miss Vicki had said would be important when they had human guests, but right now it got in the way of Aggie seeing why Jozi had gone to the wrong cabin.
Eddie came out of the Crowgard cabin holding one of the Wolf Team books that Miss Vicki had loaned to them when they had packed up her library. Well, she would have let them borrow the books if they could have asked her.
Aggie would fly over to Miss Vicki’s new nest soon and tell her the Crowgard had borrowed the books.
Aggie fluttered to the ground, then walked to the front of the other cabin to see what had caught Jozi’s interest.
Catching sight of the sparkly, Aggie moved closer. Earring. A shiny that human females pushed through holes in their ears, which sounded awful.
Did finding the shiny dropped on the porch floor mean the female no longer wanted it?
When two more males showed up this morning, that Yorick human had tried to tell the Crows they had to leave, but Aggie told him that she and her kin had rented the cabin for the summer and they didn’t have to leave. Then Yorick said they had to move to one of the other cabins because they didn’t need the fully renovated place. But Ilya wanted them to stay here and keep watch over these cabins and the main house in case the humans started any trouble. Besides, the rest of the buildings already had terra indigene occupying one or two of the cabins in order to keep watch.
When Eddie said he would call Ilya Sanguinati and tell the attorney that Yorick Dane was reneging on the rental agreement, which would mean the terra indigene were also free to renege on their side of the agreement, Yorick had backed away, defeated.
Another bit of metal caught a beam of sunlight. The back of the earring.
After Yorick retreated, the human females had come down to the cabin to peck at Heidi, yelling that she hadn’t done anything about clean towels and straightening the rooms at the main house. And Heidi pecked right back, saying she wasn’t their maid and they could wash their own damn sheets and towels. Then they squabbled about who would go into the village to purchase the sheets and towels the new males needed, even though they didn’t have a bed for the sheets.
Finally Heidi went into the cabin and fetched her purse. She locked up the cabin and stomped up the path to where the humans had to park the cars, saying she would buy the towels just to get away from the rest of the females.
The three remaining females had squawked at one another—or to one another; it was hard to decipher—before going down to the beach to lie on towels and overheat in the sun.
Jozi hesitated.
Jozi hadn’t watched cop and crime shows with Miss Vicki, hadn’t seen the story where a female had dropped an earring while struggling with a male who attacked her and then took her away from her nest. It turned out the dropped earring had been a clue for the cops who were searching for her. And Jozi hadn’t had time to study humans closely enough to know that humans reacted differently to losing something and having something taken.
Jozi grabbed the sparkly piece of the earring and flew off to hide it in her treasure tree. Aggie flew over to the Crowgard’s porch and went inside their cabin
to shift to her human form and put on clothes. There had been something about the way these new human males had looked at her and Jozi that made her wary of them seeing her without clothes.
By the time the males called Mark and Tony came in sight, she and Eddie were on their own porch, sipping cool water from the plastic glasses Miss Vicki had bought for the cabins.
The males walked by, predators assessing potential prey. She watched them too because something about the way they wore their shirts bothered her. Not that by itself, but combined with the look in their eyes . . .
she said.
Eddie cocked his head.
Aggie nodded. First she would warn the rest of the Crowgard, who would warn the rest of the shifters living in The Jumble. Then she would tell the Sanguinati, and they would tell the Elders and the Elementals.
And all of them would make sure these two-legged predators never came close to Miss Vicki’s new nest.
CHAPTER 62
Vicki
Thaisday, Sumor 6
I had ignored the increasingly sharp hunger pangs—brought on, in part, by skipping breakfast that morning—until Julian set a plate in front of me that had the sandwich special from Come and Get It, along with thick-cut fries. The sandwich—corned beef and sauerkraut with Helen’s special sauce on toasted rye bread—was one of my favorites. So were the diner’s thick-cut fries. Julian had just uncovered his own plate when he heard the store’s screen door close with enough sound to be deliberate.
“Stay here,” Julian said quietly. He left the office break room, moving swiftly. Within moments I heard him say, “Oh. Hi. I was just about to close for lunch, but you can browse.”
Someone he knew.
I relaxed and took a big bite of my sandwich. All right, too big a bite. My cheeks resembled a chipmunk’s when it was gathering food for its winter stockpile.
Of course, that was when my yummy attorney walked into the room. He stopped in the doorway, looking startled. Then he walked up to the table and studied the paperback near my elbow.
Ilya smiled. “Feeling Wolfish?”
“Mrph.”
“Chew, don’t choke.”
I felt like a fool, burning up with embarrassment. Stuffing my face like that wasn’t my usual way of eating, but hunger had overcome good sense and any nod to manners.
I chewed . . . and chewed . . . and chewed before I finally swallowed.
“Sorry,” I said.
His smile was still there, but it had an edge now. “Don’t you have food at the cabin?”
“Plenty.” Did the Sanguinati ever binge eat because of stress? Probably a question I didn’t want to ask. “I was going to have breakfast after taking a walk, and then I met Aiden and . . .”
“And?”
I put the sandwich down and wiped my fingers on the napkin to give myself time to figure out a safe way to explain. “I’m grateful for Aiden’s help in getting a fire started in the stove last night. But this morning, when I realized who he was . . . I felt intimidated.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s Fire. An Elemental.”
“The Lady of the Lake is also an Elemental. Does she intimidate you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Huh. Good question.
“Is it because Aiden is male?” Ilya asked.
Ooooooooooh, trick question coming from my male attorney. And I hadn’t been afraid of being around Aiden when I thought he was Julian’s friend or Ineke’s.
If Fire mates with Water, are the children called Steam?
Focus, Vicki.
“It seems silly to be scared of someone who has minnows swimming around in her tummy. But Aiden . . . When he asked me if I was all right this morning, I was afraid of what he might do to Julian, who was with me. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing.”
“You’re often afraid of saying the wrong thing to men.”
It wasn’t quite a question, so I didn’t feel obliged to answer.
“While both are Elementals, the Lady of the Lake’s domain has boundaries,” Ilya said as if there hadn’t been an awkward beat of silence. “Fire does not. That makes him more dangerous. In that, you are correct. But he bears you no ill will. Please keep that in mind.”
I nodded. “Was that what you came to tell me?”
Some subtle change of expression. “No. I came to tell you that Yorick Dane’s new guests have come to The Jumble with guns and other weapons, and you need to stay away.”
“Aggie.”
“Don’t worry about the Crowgard. The terra indigene who live around the northern end of the lake will help keep watch over The Jumble.”
The sandwich didn’t taste as good after Ilya left, but I ate it and the fries. I couldn’t say if I was trying to store energy or was using food to pack down stress, but I ate everything in order to get ready for whatever was coming.
CHAPTER 63
Grimshaw
Thaisday, Sumor 6
Since Ilya Sanguinati had declined to sit in the visitors’ chair, Grimshaw pushed to his feet to face the vampire. Julian had called to tell him that Vicki DeVine would be at Lettuce Reed today. Not an ideal situation, but they didn’t have any reason to suspect she was in danger, except for Julian’s reaction to the Murder game.
But Ilya’s news added weight to the concern.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“No,” Ilya replied. “The Crowgard didn’t see any weapons, and I suppose there are many reasons males don’t tuck in a shirt.”
“Did the Crowgard hear the men’s names?”
“Not their full names, but other terra indigene saw papers that had their names—Mark Hammorson and Tony Amorella. Air says they run a security business.”
Air. Gods above and below. There had always been stories about terra indigene called Elementals, just as there were rumors of forms known as Elders. Or there had been those kinds of stories where he had grown up. His grandfather had told him time and time again, “Mind what you do; there is always someone watching.” When he was young, he thought it meant the adults in the family, who seemed to know when he made some mischief. But that wasn’t the meaning of his grandfather’s warning. There could be another form of terra indigene in the police station right now, listening, watching, judging, and he wouldn’t know unless that being chose to appear—or attack.
And yet this was the world they lived in. Until the Humans First and Last movement started a war with the Others, most of the terra indigene had paid no attention to the humans who crowded together on the land they were allowed to use. Now all the terra indigene paid attention, even in an unremarkable place like Sproing.
Except Sproing wasn’t unremarkable anymore because Vicki DeVine had unwittingly begun to restore a terra indigene settlement called The Jumble, and that one decision had attracted all kinds of potentially dangerous interest in this little village and the people who lived here.
Which circled back to the reason Ilya Sanguinati had come in to talk to him. Men with weapons had entered The Jumble. Yorick Dane might say the two men were there to protect the humans, but what could an armed man do against a sink full of water that suddenly took the shape of a hand and choked a woman? You couldn’t shoot it. And taking potshots at any of the shifters . . . He’d seen the pictures of how the terra indigene responded when someone did that.
“I guess I should go out and take a look at those men.”
The station door flew open and Osgood ran in. “Sir! A couple of flatbed trucks hauling construction equipment are heading for The Jumble!”
“Y
ou need to stop them before any of that equipment touches the access road,” Ilya warned. “I told Dane yesterday that the access road wasn’t part of his property and he couldn’t do anything to it, or use it for anything but personal vehicles, without the terra indigene’s consent.”
“Could someone have given consent? Maybe someone who wasn’t actually authorized?” Didn’t seem likely, but it was possible Dane had dangled the right bait in front of a shifter and gotten an agreement, figuring if he worked fast, the deed would be done before anyone could object—if you ignored the fact that Elementals like Air and Earth would be aware of the transgressors the moment those humans set foot in The Jumble.
If this underhanded way of doing business was typical of Dane and his pals, it made sense they would need security—and need men who also belonged to their special club.
Grimshaw checked his service weapon and made sure he had a couple of extra clips. Then he headed for the door. “Osgood, you keep an eye on things in the village. I’ll be at The Jumble.”
“I’ll be in my office for a while if you should have need of counsel,” Ilya said.
Grimshaw ran to the cruiser, tossed his mobile phone on the passenger seat, and drove away, lights flashing and siren wailing. Probably should have waited on the siren. He hadn’t gotten past the village boundary when Julian called.
“Trouble?” Julian asked.
“Not if I can stop it.” He ended the call and focused on driving. But his mind circled around the timing of all of this.
First Dane showed up in Sproing and his friends showed up at The Jumble for a long weekend. By Sunsday, Vicki DeVine was evicted from the home and livelihood she had worked months to renovate. Two days later, two men in the security business arrived, swiftly followed by construction equipment, which must have been brought in from Hubbney since he doubted any construction company in Bristol or woo-woo Crystalton would have taken a job at The Jumble right now. Which meant Dane and his pals must have arranged for the arrival of men and equipment before they took possession of The Jumble.