Marked In Flesh

CHAPTER 46

Watersday, Juin 30

Jesse Walker opened the general store’s door, glad to have even that much relief from feeling closed in. She’d pulled the shutters over the store’s windows just before the storm hit. Prairie Gold hadn’t lost electric power—yet—but the lights kept flickering and annoyed her enough that she’d shut the damn things off, preferring the twilight and the reassuring hum of the refrigerated units to the constant reminder of how much food they could lose if the power went out in town.

“Arroo!”

“Rachel, honey, that’s enough. Come in now.”

The juvenile Wolf had shown up shortly before the storm hit and had stood outside the general store howling and howling. And her howls had been answered by two Wolves who had arrived in Bennett the day before—the new leader and dominant enforcer of the Prairie Gold pack. Jesse had expected them to continue on to the terra indigene settlement once they reached Prairie Gold. Instead, they had taken one of the rooms at the truck stop motel.

The howling of the wind and the howling of the Wolves started at pretty much the same time.

“Rachel?”

The Wolf looked at Jesse, then resumed her howling.

Jesse stayed in the doorway to keep Rachel company and because she had a feeling she would learn something important if she did. Besides, the wind had finally quieted and the rain was more a drizzle.

Gods above and below, no one would be able to travel on the dirt roads until they dried out some—assuming that the roads hadn’t washed out completely. At least the storm had passed over them quick enough. She saw some trash that had blown into the street, and a few shops had a shutter or two missing, but it didn’t look like too much damage.

“Arroo!”

A shimmer in the rain was the only warning that something moved out there. More than one. Intelligence and power. She’d felt that when she’d taken the human children and terra indigene youngsters to the hiding place in the hills. That same sense of something out there, thinking. Judging.

They moved on past the town. Jesse sagged against the doorframe, realizing only then how much they frightened her.

“We are here,” Rachel said, now a naked, shivering teenager. “That’s what we told the Elders. We are here to take care of the land, and you’re helping us.”

So they passed us by, let us live, Jesse thought. “Honey, either put your fur back on or come inside and dry off before you catch a chill.”

“Do you have warm milk?”

The girl sounded so hopeful, Jesse had to smile. “I can warm some up for both of us.”

Rachel followed her into the store, full of curiosity and questions about the unfamiliar human things piled on the shelves. The danger had passed, and the fear was shaken off like water shaken off fur.

As Jesse warmed up milk for them, she thought the Intuits would be wise to learn that skill, because she had a feeling that the Elders would never again be a danger seen from a safe distance.