“I’ll get a full report later.” She ran out of the saloon and across the street. Flinging herself on Mel’s back, she galloped north.

She had to catch up to Virgil. Had to stop him before …

Had it been trash talk that warranted a strong suggestion that the man leave town—or even warranted a bite from Virgil—or had it been more, a real threat that could have ended in rape or abduction? As law officers, they needed to determine that. And she needed Virgil to agree that they had to agree that someone was a Cyrus human before they acted. He couldn’t go around scaring people into giving him an answer that would end up involving the Elders.

Galloping, galloping. She and Mel whipped past the town’s new border—where human law ended. Mel dropped back to a lope while Jana looked for some sign of a man or Wolf as they approached the original town boundaries.

A scattering of buildings on the right, and a road leading to what the maps in the land agent’s office had indicated was the newest developed area, which included a new building for the sheriff’s department—a facility she’d never see, let alone use. Nothing on the left now but open land—and Virgil running in the middle of the road up ahead. But there were tire tracks and skid marks to the left, indicating that a vehicle had gone off the road and continued overland. He’d missed those.

She didn’t hesitate. She followed the tracks, followed the miscreant. Technically she was out of her jurisdiction, but she’d worry about that later. First she’d arrest the fool and get him back within the town boundaries, and then …

Jana spotted the car. Not moving. Car door open but looking odd.

She spotted the birds circling high above the car. Circling and circling, as if waiting.

Mel stopped so abruptly she almost went flying over his head. He snorted and backed away. Tried to turn and run.

“Easy, boy. Easy.”

She tried to coax him forward. He wasn’t having it.

Then she remembered what Tobias said about paying attention to what the horse was trying to tell her.

Stopped car. Circling birds. She was probably too late to do anything more than report a death, but … Maybe Virgil was on the trail of the man who had been in the saloon, and that’s why he’d ignored these tire tracks. Maybe this car belonged to someone who had been squatting in one of the houses and got spooked by something and tried to go overland instead of staying on the road. Maybe someone was injured and needed help. Being foolish shouldn’t be a death sentence.

It was her duty to find out if someone needed help, her job to bring them back to town and human law. She hadn’t gone back the other day to find out what happened to those people who had been poking around the houses. She was a cop. She should have gone back. How could she believe she could do the job if she walked away again?

“Okay, boy.” Jana dismounted and ground tied the gelding. It wouldn’t keep him with her if something more spooked him or he smelled a predator, but if there was something nearby, she wanted him to be able to get away.

She scanned the land around the car, looking for what Mel had sensed. She didn’t see anything except some cloth fluttering near the car, didn’t hear anything. She hesitated; then she approached the car, debating with herself every step of the way. Should she draw her weapon now or wait? Were the birds circling above terra indigene or regular ravens or vultures or whatever else was up there? She needed to …

Needed …

As she reached the car, the wind changed direction and smelled of death.

The lower jaw lay next to the left front tire. The rest of the head was caught in the smashed windshield.

Jana swallowed hard to keep her stomach down and looked at the fluttering cloth.

They hadn’t eaten the body. Not all of it. Maybe there hadn’t been time. After all, Virgil had been in pursuit minutes after the man left the saloon, and she’d been minutes behind Virgil.

She didn’t see any legs, and the torso had been cracked open, all the richest organs scooped out and consumed—or carried off. But enough of the body had been left for the circling birds, for …

A shimmer in the air, like heat rising. But the rumbling snarl that was too close, too close, oh, much too close, wasn’t a sound made by heat.

Her hand twitched, moved toward her gun.

Teeth clamped on her wrist, causing her to gasp because she was suddenly too scared to scream. Then the breath of a growl on her skin.

She hadn’t worked for him that long, but she’d recognize Virgil’s annoyed growl anywhere.

He tugged. She stepped back. He tugged. She stepped back.

Step by step they retreated from that shimmer in the air until Virgil swung her around so that she was facing Mel. Her legs were stiff with the effort to walk toward the horse instead of running.

Mel didn’t have that problem. He’d held on to courage and loyalty as long as he could, but the moment she mounted and gathered the reins he whirled around and ran toward the town, which looked incredibly far away.

Had to get to the acknowledged border. Had to …

Virgil ran beside Mel. Ran and ran. Then the Wolf slowed to a lope—and Mel matched the pace, as if understanding that they needed to keep moving, yes, but the danger was behind them.

They slowed to a jog. Finally, when they crossed the line on a map that now separated Bennett from the wild country, Jana reined in the gelding and slid off his back. She took a couple of steps away before she bent over and threw up. She’d barely finished when Virgil grabbed her by the back of the shirt and hauled her a few feet away from the puke.

“Stupid human,” he snarled. “Didn’t you learn how to follow a pack leader?”

His shoulders and chest were thickly furred. His face was recognizably Virgil but wasn’t fully the human form. She kept her eyes focused above his waist so she wouldn’t find out what else wasn’t fully human.

“You missed the tire tracks.” The moment she said it, she knew it was the wrong thing to say.

“Missed them? I missed them?” The words came out as an outraged howl. “Even a puppy couldn’t have missed them. You saw me. You were supposed to follow me.”

He’d known the message about the Cyrus human had gone out to the rest of the terra indigene because he’d sent it. He’d known the Elders had found the man before she’d had a chance to catch up to him and tell him the man might not be that particular kind of enemy.

He’d known and had tried to lead her away from what she had found. But, like a rookie, she’d followed a trail that couldn’t be missed and then justified approaching a potentially dangerous scene without backup. It could have been a trap, an ambush.

She’d been lucky today.

Virgil stepped back and let out a gusty sigh. “The hunt is exciting. The chase is exciting. It’s easy for inexperienced hunters to forget that prey can be dangerous—or that a larger predator has already found the prey and made the kill. Even when you’re focused on the prey, you should never forget about the other predators.”

She nodded since there was nothing to say. She was an inexperienced hunter. This had been her first high-speed chase, in a manner of speaking.

“We should check the glove box in the car for some identification,” she said. “There might be a wallet in the grass near … the remains.”

“I’ll go back and look for those things.”

“We should arrange to have the car towed. Don’t want gasoline or oil leaking into the ground.”

“Tomorrow.”

Jana hesitated, but it had to be said. “He wasn’t a Cyrus human. He was a bad man who might have done bad things, but by our agreed-upon definition, he wasn’t a Cyrus human.”

Virgil studied her. She wondered if he had studied juveniles in his pack the same way.

“Did you smell Barbara Ellen’s fear?” he asked. “Should a human female be that afraid of a human male?”

“No, she shouldn’t.” Jana realized she would be the one taking Barb’s official statement, which would include exactly what was said and done. “Why did he go off the road like that? He might have gotten away if he’d stayed on the road.” Mel couldn’t outrun a car. Neither could Virgil.

“He looked at Scythe and it did something to his brain,” Virgil replied. “He was already confused and dying before the Elders found him. Wounded animal trying to find a place to hide.”

She wanted to believe the man was already dying before the Elders found him.

“Take Mel to the stable,” Virgil said. “Then you need to talk to Barbara Ellen.”

She nodded and turned toward the horse. Then she hesitated because one other person would need an answer today. “Are you sure he was already dying?”

“Why does it matter?”

“It will matter to Candice. If he was already mortally wounded before he left the saloon, then her telling you the man was a Cyrus human, whether he was or not, wasn’t the reason he died. That will matter, Virgil.”

A long look. “Tell her he was already dying.”

She’d also sit down with everyone who worked at the Bird Cage Saloon and explain how the Bennett Sheriff’s Department defined “Cyrus human” so that any other wrongdoer who came into the saloon could be arrested according to human law instead of facing the Elders’ form of justice.

She mounted Mel and headed into town. But she looked back once and saw Virgil, in Wolf form, trotting back to the car—and the Elders who might be waiting there.

CHAPTER 28

Earthday, Messis 26

Despite this being the day of the week when no one was supposed to be at work or cause any trouble, the phone in the sheriff’s office rang. And rang. And rang.

Virgil bared his teeth at it, but it was just a stupid machine that didn’t know the pack member who would normally respond to its howl wasn’t in the office yet.

Why wasn’t the wolverine in the office yet? She had said Barbara Ellen was all right, and the human bodywalker had said nothing was broken in the hand that bad male had squeezed. They wouldn’t have lied to him. They wouldn’t have dared lie to him. But he knew from the teaching stories about humans that there were degrees of untruth between an actual lie and true speaking. Was Jana late because Barbara Ellen had other injuries and needed help and the females didn’t want to tell him?

He’d make it clear to both those females that there would be no not-telling. They could whine about that all they wanted, but he’d make it clear that …

“What?” he snarled as he grabbed the phone that wouldn’t stop ringing because it didn’t know enough to be cowed by the dominant Wolf.

“Sheriff?” Male voice. Adult. Upset but not whining, not sounding weak.

“Yes.”

“It’s Zeke.”

He didn’t know the human well enough that he would recognize the man’s scent, but he knew the name, knew Zeke was the leader of a business pack that was clearing out houses. “Yes?”