Grimshaw went through the motions of collecting evidence and taking statements. They might be despicable people, but they were still humans he had sworn to protect. Not that he had a chance of arresting Constance Dane’s assailant. Or assailants. After all, Water couldn’t have turned into a frozen hand without the help of an Elemental like Winter. And the thought that something had woken up Winter during the second month of summer scared him spitless.

It was full dark when he walked out of the house with Dr. Wallace and Julian. The EMTs were still there, in their vehicle, waiting for them.

The men looked terrified.

“The lash of cold has disappeared,” Julian said as he opened the cruiser’s passenger door. “It feels like the temperature is warming up, returning to normal for this time of year.”

“Monkey man.” A whisper in the dark.

Grimshaw paused, one foot in the cruiser.

“Mooooonkey maaaan.” A different voice whispering the words. Mockery or threat?

“Wayne, let’s get out of here. Please.”

Was this the reason Hershel and Heidi had called their friends in a panic? Were these the voices they had heard?

“Wayne.”

He heard the plea in Julian’s voice.

No mercy in the wild country. No safety in the dark. As long as Dane and his friends stayed inside, they should be all right. But the doc and the EMTs were his responsibility, and a cruiser escorting another vehicle had the best chance of ensuring that everyone reached safety.

He drove back to Sproing, lights flashing to indicate he was on official business. The EMTs drove to the firehouse, where they would bed down until morning. He and Julian escorted Dr. Wallace to the man’s home.

Julian had been unnervingly quiet throughout the drive, right up until they reached his cabin. Smoke rose from the chimney at Vicki’s cabin. She must have figured out how to work the woodstove that heated the place. If Julian didn’t start a fire in his own cabin, he would be in for a chilly night’s sleep—if he slept at all.

“I wonder what those things are,” Grimshaw said. “There were two of them.”

“Five.” Julian stared out the windshield. “There are five of them.”

“How do you know?”

“I recognized the voices. Five of them come in once a week to buy books. They’re the terra indigene who named the bookstore. I don’t know what they are beyond that.”

Grimshaw thought about that. “You don’t feel threatened when they come into the store?”

“No.”

“But you felt threatened tonight?”

Julian hesitated. “Not really. We didn’t try to reach the cabins, so they had no reason to attack us. And those whispers? A warning, I think.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too.” He just wished he knew where the line was that would tip a warning into an attack.

CHAPTER 58

Vicki

Thaisday, Sumor 6

It’s funny how quickly a person can adjust to a routine. I started to put on my bathing suit before I remembered that I no longer had access to the lake, could no longer take a quick, refreshing dip before doing morning chores. Of course, the fire in the woodstove had gone out sometime during the night, so the cabin’s temperature was better suited to jeans and a sweater.

Then I stepped outside. Chilly enough for jeans and sweater, but that would change by noon and we would be back to summer. Still, if I couldn’t go for a swim, a walk would do just as well. If I kept the creek to my right going away from the cabins and to my left on the way back, I couldn’t get too lost.

“Vicki? Wait up!”

And I had a better chance of not getting lost if I had company.

I smiled at Julian when he caught up to me. “I was going to take a walk before . . .” I looked at him. “I was going to say before work. Guess I’m just taking a walk.”

“I’ll go with you if you’ve no objection,” Julian said. “It’s a pretty walk, and even beyond the water mill, there is a footpath that follows the creek.”

“Is there a wading pool?”

“A what?”

“Someplace where you can sit on a rock and dip your feet in the water? Seems like it would be a pleasant thing to do on a hot afternoon—bring a book and something to drink and dangle your feet in cool water.”

He smiled. “I don’t know. I haven’t walked the path with that in mind. And this is my first summer here too. By the time I got the store up and running, it was a bit too cool to think of wading in the creek.”

“Speaking of cool, thanks for sending your friend to help get the fire started in the woodstove. It would have been wicked cold last night without it.”

“My friend?” Julian sounded odd.

“Aiden. Although, considering his choice of hair colors—red hair with blue and yellow tips—maybe he’s Ineke’s friend. Anyway, he showed up a few minutes after you and Officer Grimshaw drove off and said we had a mutual friend, so he wanted to check on me and make sure I knew how to work the stove because it was going to be a cold night. Not a freezing night, so I didn’t have to worry about water pipes and farmers didn’t need to fear for their crops, but it would be more comfortable with a fire.”

“You let him in?”

Oh, definitely odd. “It would have been hard for him to show me how to work the stove if I hadn’t. Anyway, he put in the wood and somehow got the fire started while I was still searching for some long matches. When I asked him how he’d done that, he laughed and said his name was a Brittannian word that meant . . .”

“Fire.” Julian looked pale.

“Yes.” I stopped walking. Not that I didn’t trust Julian, but he was acting a bit weird.

“Vicki, when he said you had a mutual friend, he didn’t mean anyone human.”

Oooohhhhh. “He’s terra indigene?”

Julian nodded. “One of the Elementals, I’d say.”

“Fire.” Oh golly. I had invited Fire into a cabin full of combustibles.

I bent at the waist and braced my hands on my knees, feeling anxiety wash through me.

“Vicki!”

I felt Julian’s hand on my waist and wanted to pull away, wanted to shout at him not to touch me where he would feel the roll of fat—the roll that Yorick used to say made him want to vomit when he touched it while we were having sex.

Odd that it didn’t seem to stop him from wanting to have sex even when he was exercising the Vigorous Appendage with someone else. It’s not like he was worried that anyone else would come sniffing around. He’d told me often enough I didn’t look good enough to screw.

But I couldn’t say any of that. First, Julian would either agree with Yorick or would think I was nuts. Second, I heard a horse cantering toward us.

Julian’s fingers tightened on my waist. So tense.

“Is she all right?” Aiden’s voice.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Don’t give Aiden a reason to turn Julian into a large briquette.

I turned my head and squinched my face. “Hi, Aiden.”

I couldn’t see Aiden’s face, but the horse . . . Black legs and a dark brown body. Pictures I’d seen of horses with that coloring usually had a black mane and tail. This one had a mane and tail that was the gray of storm clouds—and I was pretty sure I’d seen a pony with that coloring grazing around the cabin yesterday.

“What’s your horse’s name?” I asked.

“Twister.”

Oh, I so didn’t want to know that.

“Are you hurt?” Aiden sounded a bit testy.

“She’s got a tight muscle in her back,” Julian said. “That can happen when someone lifts a lot of boxes instead of accepting a friend’s offer to help. Am I pressing the right place?”

It took me a moment to realize the question was directed at me. “Closer to the spine.” Not that I had any muscles that were . . . “Ow! Yeah. There.” Guess I did have a few owie places.

“Is this typical in humans?” Aiden asked.

“It hadn’t felt like I’d overworked the back muscles when I was moving things around yesterday,” I said once I realized Julian wasn’t going to jump in with an explanation. Probably just as well.