Etched in Bone

Nathan also studied the turkeys.

Simon said. Of course, the Sanguinati in smoke form made no noise in the dark, left no scent to disturb sleeping birds that didn’t realize they were roosting among predators. Turkey blood was sipped when preferred prey wasn’t available, and old birds that had been drained a little too much were helped over the Chambers’ black wrought-iron fences to be available meat for other Courtyard residents. Even then, the Wolves usually left the meat for the other gards instead of dealing with mouthfuls of feathers.

he asked Blair and Nathan.

they replied.

he asked the Hawks.

The Wolves flushed their prey, sending the turkeys skyward. The Hawkgard struck three of the turkeys with enough force to drive the birds back to the ground, where the Wolves finished the kill.

Blair took the largest turkey—a black-feathered male—and trotted off to deliver the special order. Nathan and Simon took the other two turkeys to the Hawkgard Complex. One would provide food for the Hawks. Boone would dismember the other and take the pieces to the butcher shop to sell to other humans who might want some poultry—once he figured out what parts of the bird the humans would, and wouldn’t, eat.

Nathan said.

Simon said. This hunt reminded him of playing with the badminton shuttlecock—sending it into the air for the Hawks to catch.

What about a pack with only three or four members? Something to think about, along with deciding which pack member would have to learn how to cook the meat. He’d wait and see if Meg wrinkled her nose at this kind of turkey the way she did when he brought home a hunk of bison.

Pleased with themselves, Simon and Nathan ran to the Market Square to start the humans’ idea of a workday.

Meg sharpened pencils, lined up pens according to color, arranged the order of the CDs she was playing as that week’s musical selections. She checked the back door, the sorting room’s side door, and the office’s front door.

She even looked under the Wolf bed in the front room, which she knew was ridiculous because there would be a Nathan-size lump under it if the Wolf was playing a trick and trying to hide from her.

Nathan wasn’t there, and he was never late.

But Simon had left early to do some Wolfy thing with Blair this morning. Maybe Nathan had gone with them. Wouldn’t he have called? If he was going to be late for work, he should have called so she wouldn’t be worried about him.

She wasn’t sure he received any pay for being the watch Wolf for the Liaison’s Office, but there had to be some way to impress on him that not showing up wasn’t acceptable. And then she knew exactly what to do. She would tell him that the next time he was late and didn’t call, she would dock a couple of Wolf cookies from his quota of weekly treats. So there.

Then she saw Blair trotting across the delivery area, hauling a big black-feathered bird, and forgot all about Nathan. She pushed the door open and dashed to the sidewalk as the Wolf turned right, heading for Crowfield Avenue.

Turkey. Her brain kicked in to supply a training image of the bird as she trailed behind Blair, who ignored the people on the sidewalk and the cars that were in danger of becoming part of fender-bender gridlock because the drivers were staring at him instead of paying attention to traffic. With Blair’s jaws clamped around the base of the turkey’s neck, its head swung like a metronome and its toes bumped along on the sidewalk.

Blair reached the corner. He looked at a woman standing near the crosswalk, then pointed a front paw at the “walk” button on the pole and made a sound. Meg wasn’t sure what the sound was supposed to mean, since Blair had a mouthful of turkey neck, but the woman pushed the crosswalk button and received a milder sound in response.

The light changed. The crossing sign lit up, and Blair and the turkey trotted across the street and turned down Crowfield Avenue.

Meg kept pace with him on her side of the street, then stopped when he trotted up the walk to the Denbys’ residence. He hauled the turkey up the porch steps and pressed a paw against the doorbell, then stepped aside to avoid getting smacked in the nose when someone finally answered the door.

“Meg?” Merri Lee poked her head out the door of Howling Good Reads. “What’s going . . . ? Oh goodness. Is that . . . ?”

Eve opened the screen door after Blair whacked the doorbell a couple more times. When she didn’t say anything—probably couldn’t with her mouth hanging open like that—Blair dumped the turkey on her porch before retracing his route back to the Courtyard.

Eve disappeared for a moment, then came outside, calling someone on her mobile phone.

“Come on,” Merri Lee said. “She’s not calling us, so we’ll have to find out what’s going on some other way. Besides . . .”

“Arrrroooo!” Nathan, howling from the currently empty Liaison’s Office.

“Arrooooo!” Simon, upstairs in HGR’s office, howling for the Wolfgard to hunt down one little human who might not be at her office as expected, but had not been late for work, thank you very much.

“Someone has noticed you’re not at work,” Merri Lee finished.

Meg followed Merri Lee inside HGR and yelled, “I’m here!”

“Arr—” Human found; hunt canceled.

“You could trade Wolf cookies for information,” Merri Lee whispered as they hurried to the back door.

“I was going to dock Nathan a couple of cookies for being late.”

“Do that next time.”

“Meg!” Simon appeared at the foot of the stairs, wearing jeans that were zipped but not buttoned—and nothing else. In that moment, he looked more, and less, human in a way that made her heart beat a little bit faster. But her heart might have been beating faster because of the teeth, which were definitely Wolfy.

“Have to go.” Meg gave him a wide smile as she opened the door. “Delivery just pulled in.”

“I didn’t hear—”

“You can tell me all about it after work.”

“Tell you about what?”

She ran to the Liaison’s Office and scooted inside in time for her imaginary delivery to become a real one.

Telling Katherine Debany she would be back in a few minutes, Twyla Montgomery hurried to Eve Denby’s house. Usually unflappable, Eve sounded close to panic—or hysterical laughter.

As Twyla caught sight of the mound of feathers on the porch, she understood why Eve had called.

“Come inside,” Eve said, opening the door as soon as Twyla stepped onto the porch. “There are cats in the neighborhood, so I don’t want to leave . . . that . . . unguarded, but I don’t want to be in public view right now.”

Twyla stepped inside. “How did you end up with a dead turkey on your porch?”

“A Wolf brought it over a few minutes ago.” Eve raked a hand through her short hair.

“Why?” She would have thought he’d want the meal for himself. Or herself.

“Boone only receives shipments of pork and beef twice a month, and we’re all getting tired of venison and rabbit. We’re even getting tired of beef. So I asked Boone if he had any poultry for sale. He said he’d try to get some.”

“He did that,” Twyla said, looking out the screen door.

“I was hoping to buy a chicken, not a turkey the size of a minivan.”

An exaggeration, but it was a big bird—and looked bigger with the feet and feathers and everything else still attached.

Eve sagged against the doorframe. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Well, you can’t tell them you don’t want it—especially if they went out and caught it just for you.”

“I know that!”

A neighborhood cat, a big tom from the look of it, must have caught the scent of meat. Twyla wasn’t sure if the animal didn’t see her through the screen door or didn’t care. He sauntered toward the porch, too focused on the free meal to notice the Crows until they struck. Twyla wasn’t sure which of the Crowgard she enjoyed more, the one who flew in and grabbed the cat’s tail, giving it a yank before letting go and flying out of reach, or the one who flew over and dropped a rotten tomato on the cat’s head. Either way, she didn’t think that cat would be looking to scrounge a meal at Eve’s house anytime soon.

Having successfully routed the thief, the Crows returned to their sentry post.

“You have a roasting pan big enough to hold it?” Twyla asked.

“No,” Eve replied. “I don’t have an oven big enough to hold it either.”

Twyla nodded. “They have big pans at Meat-n-Greens, and big ovens too. So this is what we’ll do. After work, we’ll have one of the boys help us take the bird back to the Courtyard. There must be a place where they prepare some of the game they sell at the butcher shop. That would be the best place to deal with the turkey. And anything we would waste, the Others might be able to use. In the meantime, let’s put some newspapers or cardboard under that bird so you don’t have to do more than hose off your porch.”

“That bird is going to be the family’s meat quota for weeks,” Eve said after they tugged the turkey onto a pad of newspapers.

“No, it’s not. You’re going to supply the meat for a residents’ potluck. The rest of us who want to come will each bring a dish. You’ll invite Mr. Simon and Miss Meg so they can have the experience of this kind of meal with friends. Better invite the Wolf who brought the bird too.”

“Not sure who he is.”

“Mr. Simon will know. I’d best get back to work.”

“Twyla? I’m good with tools. I like working around the house. But I’ve never lived in a country hamlet or on a farm. I don’t know the first thing about plucking that bird or doing anything else that’s needed to get it ready to cook.”

She smiled. “Good thing for all of us that I know a bit about that. Best have Ruth and Merri Lee join us for this. They should learn too.”

Twyla hurried back to the consulate to help Katherine Debany with reorganizing the files. Throughout the morning, Elliot Wolfgard was uncharacteristically quiet about the amount of time she’d been gone on a personal errand. But just before her lunch break, he paused near the filing cabinets and said blandly, “At least, being human, you don’t have to pluck the damn thing with your teeth.”