A Wolf After My Own Heart MaryJanice Davidson (children's ebooks online .txt) 📖

“Which, naturally, was also the most felonious way he knew how,” Nadia added.

“I was right behind her,” Oz said, “but she scraped herself badly on a low fence, and that’s when Lila found her, and then I tracked them both to her house.”

“Your Stable?”

“Uh. She’s a Stable, yeah. Not mine. She doesn’t, y’know, belong to me or anything. She’s not my property. She’s not anyone’s property. I mean, I would love it if she was mine… Well, now I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Anyway, it’s not like that. She’s her own person. So she’s her Stable, is how you could put it? Not mine? I guess? But I don’t think of her like that. Just as a Stable, I mean. She’s Lila. Is it getting warm in here?”

David chuckled while Nadia’s bright blue eyes had gotten still brighter. “Oh. My. Goodness.”

“Settle y’self, lad. She’s independent and you admire the hell out of her, we get it. Must be formidable, given all her disadvantages. So this fine, competent lass—”

“That’s not what I—”

“So this Lila lass, she found Sally and took her in. And then you found her. You all did. And Lila knows about your true natures. How long have you known her?”

“What day is today? Uh…four days. No, five.”

Magnus’s eyebrows arched. “Is that normal in this part of the world?”

Fair question. And a complicated one. Shifters lived and worked parallel to Stables when it was unavoidable (e.g., when you had to visit the DMV). But in general, they preferred to keep to The Beneath. Which, generally, worked fine and should as long as they were in the minority. There were only about sixteen million Shifters in America, less than half of one percent of the population.

But while all-Shifter agencies like IPA existed, there really wasn’t a group whose job it was to figure out which Stables knew about which Shifters, and then decide what to do about it and act accordingly. No clandestine black ops teams ran around the country executing random Stables because they Knew Too Much. Shifters didn’t have a central government (though Minnesota’s current lieutenant governor, as well as two Cabinet members, were Shifters).

So when something like Lila happened—well, not really, she was one of a kind—when a Stable figured out Shifter secrets, it was on the individual Shifter to deal with it. Or not. Depending on the circumstances.

Of course, on the rare occasion a lot of Stables figured out a lot of Shifters…well, then you ended up with the Salem witch trials and Shakopee, but the former was centuries ago, the latter a decade ago, and there hadn’t been a flare-up since. Or at least, not one he’d heard about.

Magnus, meanwhile, had picked up the photo that triggered his initial outburst, and sighed. “Oz, were ye sayin’ you were going to show these pictures to my goddaughter?”

“That was one option,” he admitted. “I thought it might help her come to terms with her parents’ deaths. Because she simply wouldn’t believe me or any of us.”

“Possibly, only possibly because her deceased father kept calling.”

“Nadia…”

“Terribly sorry to interrupt, Oz. Go ahead. You’re doing wonderfully.”

“What with one thing and another,” he continued, “we haven’t had a chance to show her this part of the file. But as you’re here, can you tell us if that looks like your plane?”

“Oh, aye.” Magnus picked up another photo. “You can even make out some of the tail number here…and here.”

Oz had been intrigued to find out that actual plane crashes didn’t look like what he’d seen in the movies. The wide scattering of papers was the first surprise; it was like a giant had thrown a confetti party in the muddy field. Who knew there were so many papers in a small plane? And that they were the first thing you could see when you looked at the site? How well some parts of the plane had held together on impact, while other parts looked like they’d been run through a metal shredder had been another surprise. An armrest was intact, while one of the doors looked like someone had balled it up and tossed it out.

And in the upper left part of two pictures, what looked, very obviously, like remains. Some inside the plane, and some…not.

“I don’t think these would have convinced Sally,” Annette observed. “Not to be crude, Mr. Berne, but that could be anyone. Your friends—”

“Friend.”

Oz looked up. “Sorry?”

A finger the size of a bratwurst stabbed at one of the pictures. “I see one friend. Sue. I don’t see Sam anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t he be in the cockpit? Er…most of him, that is?” Nadia asked with unusual tentativeness.

“I certainly hope not, lass. Sue’s the pilot, not Sam.” A short, difficult pause. “Was the pilot.”

“But the body we can see…”

Tattered blouse, a small, feminine arm…

“And she wasn’t buckled in,” Annette observed. “And she didn’t shift to her other self. She didn’t even put her coat back on.”

“But that doesn’t make any… What about the black box?”

“Too many movies, lad,” Magnus said, kindly enough. “Smaller aircraft aren’t required to have them. They’re heavy, besides, and not as helpful as the movies make ’em seem.”

Why did she leave the cockpit? And why wasn’t she belted in? And where’s Sam? How could he possibly have survived the crash that killed his mate?

“Magnus, what’s a ferry pilot?”

The man blinked at what he probably thought was a subject change. “You live in Duluth or Dublin or wherever and buy a plane. I’m the one who flies it to you.”

“Huh.” From Annette. “I had that all wrong. I thought an actual ferry was involved.”

“And they haven’t cleared the crash site yet, right, Annette?”

“No. Only the cor—they’ve removed the remains and taped it off.” She looked across the table at Magnus. “Which I imagine is the other reason you’re here. To identify your friend.”

He nodded. “I’m to be at the ME’s office in an hour.”

“How about after?” Oz asked. “Feel like taking another trip?”

Chapter 24

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