Vision In Silver

CHAPTER 10

Firesday, Maius 11

At the Addirondak station, Nathan Wolfgard boarded the westbound train. He walked through two cars that were too full for comfort. The third had a few humans clustered near the front of the car but was otherwise empty.

Nathan sighed with relief. He’d hoped taking the earliest available train would reduce the number of humans on board. He’d spent almost two weeks in the Addirondak Mountains, running with one of the packs who guarded that piece of wild country, and he wasn’t ready to interact with humans anymore than necessary.

He stopped at a seat and discovered this part of the car wasn’t quite empty. Across the aisle was a human female scrunched in the seat next to the window.

He thought about moving a few rows farther down, but he had to get used to being around humans again. One small female was a good way to start.

Stowing his carryall in the rack above the seats, he pulled a book out of the side pocket and took the aisle seat. Too easy for a lone Wolf to get trapped if he was in the seat by the window.

He wasn’t due back at the Lakeside Courtyard for another two weeks, but he missed being there. That was a surprise to him as well as the host pack. Even a Courtyard as large as Lakeside’s could feel too small when it was inhabited by terra indigene whose forms were adversaries in the animal world. Earth natives didn’t absorb everything from the forms they had chosen over the long years the sun had risen and set over Namid. They were first and always terra indigene. But they learned from the predators they became, and certain traits were passed down to the young of each form.

Yes, there had been danger, threats, even attacks in the Lakeside Courtyard during the past few months, but there had also been a new kind of fun. Meg Corbyn, Human Liaison and squeaky toy, provided a different kind of interaction with humans. And her presence changed how some other humans approached the Others.

During the day, the Addirondak pack had hunted and played as they usually did. But after dark, after they sang to the world, the Wolves had asked about the Courtyard, about things they’d heard but didn’t quite believe. Sure, the Intuits who lived in the human settlements tucked in the Addirondaks traded fairly with the Others. But none of those humans played with the Wolves. This Meg really played with him?

So at night he told them stories about Meg’s first encounter with him after he’d been assigned to guard the office; about how she had coaxed Sam, Simon Wolfgard’s nephew, out of a cage and how well the pup was doing now; about Skippy, the juvenile Wolf they had sent to Lakeside, catching a mouse and chasing Meg; about how she had met the leader of the Sanguinati—and had befriended Winter and the Elementals’ ponies.

He told them about her sweet blood and the cuts she’d made in her own skin to see the warnings that had saved the ponies . . . and Sam. He told them about cookies that were being made now especially for Wolves. Well, for other terra indigene too, but mostly for the Wolves.

He’d learned more about humans in the past few months than he’d learned in all the time he’d trained to work in a Courtyard and cope with the close proximity of so many humans. He spent as much time in Wolf form as in human form. He ran and played and hunted in the Courtyard just like he could in the wild country. But then he could shift to watch a movie or read a book . . . or play an active, physical game better suited to the human form.

When the pack leaders asked him to talk to Simon about allowing a few Wolves to visit Lakeside to learn these extra human things, Nathan worried that he might have told a few stories too many. But Simon had talked about closing the stores to most humans so that terra indigene could learn about different kinds of stores and merchandise, and safely interact with humans who could be trusted.

Another reason he was heading home earlier than expected.

He had tried to call Simon, and then Blair, yesterday to tell them he was returning, but all the phone lines were busy, busy, busy. This morning he’d fielded so many last-minute requests from the pack that he’d barely gotten to the station in time to show his travel pass and receive a free ticket before the train pulled out. Now he realized no one yet knew he needed a ride home when the train reached the Lakeside station.

He’d call Blair when the train made its next stop. There were a lot of miles between the Addirondak Mountains and a city on the shores of Lake Etu.

After the conductor came through and checked his ticket, Nathan opened his book, a thriller by a human author. He’d read it when it came out a couple of years ago, but most of the Addirondak Wolves found it difficult to visit the human settlements and go into stores to purchase things, so he’d traded the two new books he’d brought with him for this one to read on the way home—and made a mental note to ask Meg’s human pack for ideas about how the terra indigene could get more stories.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when a human male walked by his seat. Nathan raised his head and bared his teeth.

Intruder!

No, he thought, fighting for control. Not an intruder, as such. It was the pungent scent of the man’s cologne that had triggered Nathan’s response to a strange male trying to mark territory where he didn’t belong. But the man might not have been trying to claim anything. The man could have come from the dining car and needed to pass through this car to return to his seat.

The terra indigene didn’t like the smells humans used to disguise their own scent, but for the first time, Nathan wondered if males drenching themselves in a nose-pricking smell was equivalent to Wolves rolling on a dead fish to leave behind a stronger scent marker.

Now that he thought about it, that particular scent had been in the car when he sat down. It had been diluted by the fresh air that entered with the people going in and out, but it had been there.

Troubled by that but not sure why, Nathan took stock of his surroundings. Except for the stinky man, no other humans had entered this car since it left the Addirondak station.

Why was that wrong?

He looked down at the book but moved his head enough to study the passenger on the other side of the aisle.

Girl. Young enough that he would still consider her a puppy. Skin the color of milk chocolate. Big dark eyes. Braided black hair that was tied just under her ears and stuck out like two finger-long tails.

She was cheek to jaw with a fuzzy brown bear, and both of them were looking in his direction.

Why did humans give their offspring fake versions of predators that would happily eat those offspring?

Those two faces side by side did look cute, though.

Then he noticed the small dark hands clamped around the bear’s hips, and those thin fingers squeezing and squeezing. He looked away because that was just creepy.

He caught the pungent cologne scent as the same human male entered the car again, walked through, then out the other door. But this time, Nathan caught something new in the scent that made him watch the human until the man left the car.

Then he gave the girl a quick look and realized what was wrong.

Humans and Wolves had one thing in common: they didn’t leave their young alone for long. So where were the adults who should be around the girl? She’d been alone when he’d taken his seat. Had the adults gotten off the train and left her behind? There were stories about lost children. Wolves didn’t like those stories. Maybe the girl should have gotten off at the Addirondak station?

He looked at the two strips of heavy white paper tucked above the seats. LAK on both, meaning there was someone else sitting with the girl who was also going to Lakeside. The conductor had tucked the same kind of strip above his seat after checking his ticket.

Okay, she hadn’t missed her stop, which brought him back to the question of the adult. If the person left the girl alone in order to use the toilet, how long did it take to pee or poop? Or, on the other end, even if the adult was buying food and there was a line in the dining car, the other human should have returned by now.

The door at the far end opened, and the same man entered the car for the third time. As soon as the man passed the seats containing human passengers, his eyes focused on the girl in the same way Wolves would focus on an unprotected calf when they were hunting.

Nathan stepped into the aisle and snarled loudly. His fangs lengthened to Wolf size, and his amber eyes flickered with red, the sign of anger. Fur sprang up on his chest and shoulders. Fur covered his hands. His fingers shortened, and his fingernails changed to the sharp Wolf nails that would be more useful in a fight.

A woman sitting near the front of the car looked back at Nathan, sprang out of her seat, and ran from the car. A moment later, a conductor and security guard rushed in.

“What’s going on?” the conductor asked.

The security guard’s hand hovered over the gun still in its holster.

“Keep this male away from the child,” Nathan snarled.

“There’s just been a misunderstanding,” the man said.

“He stinks of lust.” That had been the scent the man had been trying to hide beneath the stinky cologne. “If you won’t keep him away from her, I will.”

No doubt in anyone’s mind how he would keep the man away.

The conductor stepped forward. “Honey, do you know this man?”

The girl shook her head and held the fake bear in front of her like a shield.

“Sir, come with us,” the security guard said tightly. Ignoring the man’s protests, the guard led him away.

Nathan didn’t know, or care, where they took the man, but the conductor and security guard knew enough about the terra indigene not to try to walk the man past him.

He stood for a minute, struggling to shift back to looking human enough so the rest of the passengers in the car wouldn’t panic. Then, instead of resuming his own seat, he sat down next to the child.

“I’m Nathan Wolfgard.” He waited a beat while she stared at him. “Who are you?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

That sounded like as good a rule as “Don’t tease a skunk,” but it wasn’t helpful now. “I’m not a stranger; I’m like the Wolf police.” He was pleased he’d thought of that as a way to explain being an enforcer for a Courtyard.

Of course, human police didn’t tend to eat wrongdoers.

“Oh.” She thought for a moment. “I’m Lizzy. And this is Boo Bear. He’s my bestest friend.” She thrust the fake bear close to Nathan’s face.

He jerked his head back and took shallow breaths through his mouth.

Boo Bear needed a bath.

But . . .

Nathan leaned forward and sniffed the bear. Smears of old food around the nose. Peanut butter? Something human smelling that had dried crusty around the ears, as if she’d used the bear to wipe her nose. And then, on the bear’s haunch . . .

Blood. Dried now, but the matted fur smelled of blood. If it hadn’t been for the man’s stinky cologne masking other smells, he would have caught the scent of blood before now.

Nathan took another delicate sniff. Not the girl’s blood. The crusty around Boo Bear’s ears smelled like her, but the blood didn’t.

Nathan eased back, watching her as intensely as she watched him.

“Where’s your . . . mother?” Took him a moment to remember the human word.

Lizzy lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug and pulled Boo Bear close again.

“Did she come on the train with you?”

Head shake.

He didn’t like that answer. He didn’t like it at all. A pup shouldn’t be traveling alone. But she had a ticket. In fact, she must have had two tickets. Otherwise, the conductor wouldn’t have put two LAK strips over the seats.

So. No mother on the train. “Where’s your father?” Nathan asked.

Now she perked up. “My daddy is a policeman. He lives in Lakeside.”

Nathan studied her. “What is your daddy’s name?”

“Crispin James Montgomery. If you’re Wolf police, do you know my daddy?”

Nathan watched the conductor enter the car and slowly walk its length. The man didn’t stop when he reached their seats, didn’t ask any questions, but Nathan had a feeling the conductor and security guard would be walking through the cars a lot during this trip. He’d flushed out one human predator for them, but there could be more, and the guard’s presence would keep the young protected.

Boo Bear’s nose poked Nathan in the arm.

“Do you know my daddy?” Lizzy asked.

“Yeah. I do.” And I have a feeling he’s not expecting you.