“No one raided the kitchens here and took the green gelatin?”

“Nope. The hospital has its full complement of the stuff.”

“Goody.” Light banter. An effort to say nothing important. “Barb?”

“Neither doc here is a surgeon, but they got the bullet out. Barb might have some trouble with that arm and shoulder, but the doc expects she’ll heal up fine otherwise.”

“Frontier surgery.”

“Wasn’t quite that bad. Modern facility—or as modern as a place like Bennett could afford to have—and plenty of people to help. She’ll be all right. So will you.”

“Her family lives in Lakeside. Someone should tell them.”

“Tolya will take care of that.”

They heard Virgil snarl, a sound ramped up several times from his usual unfriendly greeting. And they heard someone say, “It’s time for her pain medicine, so move your furry rump.”

Jana looked at Tobias. Tobias looked at her. They both looked toward the door as Sarah Gott walked into the room.

“Honestly,” Sarah said as she approached the bed. “He won’t come in, he won’t stay out. He just blocks the doorway and scares everyone.”

Jana drifted in and out for the rest of the day and night. Whenever she surfaced, Tobias was there to talk, to hold her hand, to read to her until she drifted back to sleep. And Virgil was there, blocking the doorway and making a nuisance of himself.

But when she woke shortly before dawn, she felt something under her hand and realized Virgil must have come into the room at some point. And at some point, someone must have explained to him about germs and keeping things clean in a hospital, because what she found under her hand was Cowboy Bob carefully wrapped in a plastic bag.

CHAPTER 37

Earthday, Frais 2

Jesse tapped on the doorframe of the mayor’s office.

“Jesse Walker,” Tolya said, his voice cold and precise. “Come in.”

“I guess I started this by pushing you to let Bennett be a viable town again. I’m sorry for that.”

“Those humans, the outlaws, would have come sooner or later.”

“Yes, they would have.” But you would have killed them the moment they arrived instead of leaving yourself open to a threat. “How is Nicolai? Does he need blood? Do you?”

“No.” Sharp. Almost cutting.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Softer now. “No. Thank you. A Sanguinati bodywalker is coming to assess what can be done for Nicolai. Until then …” He left it unsaid.

“And you?” Jesse asked.

He held up his right hand, showing her that the first joint of the ring finger was missing. “A small but valuable lesson.”

She wondered how humans were going to survive that lesson. She saw the predator, devoid of any feelings for anything but his own kind. But she had a feeling that, given time, some measure of friendship might be accepted again.

“I’m going to talk to Kelley. I heard Dina’s body was found.”

“Yes. She was killed by a human.”

More than killed. Tortured. Raped.

There was nothing more to say, so she turned to leave.

“Jesse.”

She looked back.

Tolya studied her with those cold, inhuman eyes that maybe—maybe—held the tiniest bit of remembered warmth. “Fire told me what you did to help us.”

“To help all of us. My people and yours.”

“That choice will have weight in whatever we decide to do about Bennett.”

Jesse nodded and left. She had been shaped by the wild country just as much as the terra indigene who lived in the Elder Hills, and she could be just as fierce and as ruthless when it came to protecting her own.

Nothing she could do about the dead—not Dina or the men who’d burned—so she would do what she could for the living.

* * *

* * *

Tolya stood behind his desk in the mayor’s office and faced Yuri, Isobel, and Anya. “We are the keystone form of terra indigene here. We’re the form most adapted to human places.” Urban places, not places like this. “If we leave, no other form wants to take over the leadership of this town. If we leave, most of the terra indigene will abandon the town as well.”

“Will Scythe leave?” Yuri asked.

“This will become her hunting ground.”

“You’re deciding this without asking Grandfather Erebus?” Isobel asked.

“I was given the task of securing the town so that the railroad station wouldn’t be taken over by humans who were enemies of the terra indigene. The only way to do that was to bring in more Sanguinati and other forms of terra indigene—and particular humans. But I was too indulgent, allowed too many humans to come in too quickly. And I waited instead of killing Parlan Blackstone when he first arrived. We paid dearly for my mistakes.”

They didn’t disagree with him. They’d lost Stazia. They would never know what had compelled her to partially take on a form vulnerable to human weapons, but she hadn’t been able to shift fully to smoke before being struck by a bullet and damaged beyond saving.

They had taken her into the Elder Hills and buried her in a secret place—and had agreed that they would not acknowledge to any human that a Sanguinati had been killed in the fight because humans might be able to figure out how it had been done and try to do it to the rest of them. If anyone asked, Stazia had left Bennett.

Nicolai, on the other hand … Jesse Walker was the only human still alive who had seen Nicolai, was the only one who knew how badly humans could damage one of the Sanguinati. Nicolai had fought hard, had killed so many, but at least one of the enemy had delivered a crippling blow. One side of his face looked crushed, but he couldn’t shift it out of its human form. He also couldn’t shift one arm and most of his torso. And the parts that were smoke sometimes almost shifted to human or, usually, shifted to the Sanguinati’s true form.

With the help of a Sanguinati bodywalker, Nicolai would find his way back to a single form or he wouldn’t. If he couldn’t, he, too, would have to leave Bennett.

“If we stay, there must be changes,” Yuri said.

“If we stay, the humans who are here now will be under our protection,” Tolya said. “Strangers who come to Bennett will be prey. Humans like Parlan Blackstone and his clan will not be allowed to survive long enough to become a threat.”

“If the Elders now consider ‘outlaws’ as a dangerous form of human who act in a particular way, there won’t be many of them who live long enough to reach Bennett,” Yuri said.

“There will still be prey.” Tolya said, knowing that even among the humans who would have their protection, very few of them would not be considered prey. Not anymore. He made a small hand gesture to indicate Yuri. “You’ll take over the train station?”

Yuri shook his head. “I’ll stay at the saloon. Saul Panthergard said he’d handle the station until Nicolai is well. And Joshua will stay at the bookstore and help John.”

A three-legged Wolf had no chance of surviving in the wild country, but a man who had lost an arm could still do work and provide himself with food and shelter.

Tolya looked at the Sanguinati. Anya, Isobel, and Yuri met his eyes and nodded.

“We stay,” he said.

As they turned to leave, Anya said, “Parlan Blackstone survived. Where is he?”

Tolya’s lips curved in a grim smile. “He’s with Scythe.”

* * *

* * *

Parlan had a bad feeling that the rope around his chest was the only reason he was still able to sit in the chair. His arms and hands weren’t bound. Neither were his legs. It didn’t matter. They’d stopped working. His heart labored to keep pumping. His lungs labored to draw in each breath.

“Where’s my son?” he gasped, barely recognizing the weak, quavery voice as his own. “My brother?”

“Dead,” the thing replied. “All dead.”

“I issued a challenge, all right and proper.”

“Nothing about your challenge was right or proper,” she said. “You knew what would happen if any of the outlaws killed one of the terra indigene. And yet you thought you could stack the deck, that you could cheat in your dealings with us and somehow win.”

“Not true,” he gasped, fighting to breathe. Of course it was true. It should have worked, but it all went wrong. “If I’ve done wrong, then I should stand trial.”

“There is no need for such human things here. Besides, Virgil and Tolya already decided what to do with you.” She brushed close to him and suddenly leaned down, her face right in front of him, giving him no time to look away. “They gave you to me.”

He didn’t look at her for more than a wavering heartbeat.

As she walked away, her black hair coiling, he felt the strangest sensation.

He felt it start to rain inside his skull.

CHAPTER 38

Thaisday, Frais 6

“Easy, now.” Tobias opened the truck door and held out his hand. “Let me help you.”

Jana didn’t argue about receiving help. After two days in the hospital and two days at home, she was glad to be back to work, even if it was desk duty.

She was glad to be alive.

Standing on the wooden sidewalk, she studied the new sign in the window of the sheriff’s office. “Did you do that?”

Tobias shook his head. “Virgil did. He called you his pack sister, when he thought you were … Well, you know.”

She blinked back the sharp sting of tears. Pack sister? Really? Ah, geez.

Ignoring her quiet sniffle, Tobias said,“He’s missed you. He hasn’t forgiven you for thinking you were big enough to stop a bullet, but he’s missed you. He even filled the little fridge in the office with containers of green gelatin because someone at the hospital told him it was a food humans liked when they were injured and needed to get well.”

“Oh gods,” Jana groaned. “Now I’m going to have to eat it.”

“Yep.”

Jana thought about that. “Barb is going stir-crazy at home, and she still needs plenty of help doing things. And I’m going to need to take breaks and little naps throughout the day.”

“Darlin’, why does that sound like you’re about to pull Virgil’s tail?”

“Because you’re getting to know me?” And if she gave Virgil a reason to snarl at her, he would know she was getting better.

Tobias laughed.

Before they went into the office, Jana took another look at the sign and smiled.

HE HAS TEETH.

SHE HAS A GUN.

THEY ARE THE LAW.

* * *

* * *

Virgil stared at Jana’s desk. Her empty desk. His pack sister was supposed to come back today. Why didn’t she come back? No, her scent was here and fresh. A little different because there was stinky human medicine smell mixed with it, but no wolverine sitting at the desk. Didn’t she want to be police pack anymore?