Aggie backed away from the door. She’d read enough stories to know what bandages and those kinds of shadows meant.

She dropped the envelope as she bolted across the screened porch and out, letting the door bang behind her, forgetting that she’d intended to be quiet. No, she should not be quiet. This was bad. So very, very bad.

She didn’t just send the warning to her Crowgard kin. She sent the warning to all the terra indigene around Lake Silence.

<Somebody attacked Miss Vicki!>

CHAPTER 27

Grimshaw

Firesday, Juin 16

Partially dressed, Grimshaw grabbed his mobile phone on the second ring, knowing no one called a cop early unless they needed something.

“Grimshaw.”

“Wayne, get to The Jumble,” Julian said. “Something is happening, and I don’t think it’s good for any of us. I’m heading there now to see if there’s anything I can do.”

“You have a feeling?”

“I saw . . . Gods, I’m not even sure what I just saw. A male and female on horses, galloping toward Vicki’s place.”

“A man and woman on horseback doesn’t sound serious.” But Julian sounded . . . odd. Scared. And that was not good.

“The riders weren’t human, and despite what the animals looked like, I don’t think they were actual horses.”

Police officers who worked highway patrol studied every scrap of information they could about the kinds of terra indigene they might encounter, and what Julian had just described was among the most dangerous and feared. “Elementals.”

“That would be my guess.”

“I’ll be there. Wait for me at the chain. Don’t go up to the main house on your own.”

Instead of answering, Julian hung up.

Swearing fiercely, Grimshaw finished dressing and rushed out of his room and down the stairs.

“Coffee’s ready,” Paige said with her usual cheer. “We have—”

“No time.” He went past her as Osgood popped out of the dining room.

“Sir?”

“Man the phones.” Grimshaw kept going. He yanked open the front door and almost knocked down the bank’s former manager.

“I want to make a complaint!” The man was red-faced.

“Osgood!” Grimshaw shouted. “Deal with this.”

He heard indignant whining about being fobbed off to the junior officer, but he ignored it as he ran to his car. He pulled out of the parking lot, spraying gravel. He hit the lights and the siren.

He should call for backup, shouldn’t go into this thing blind. He didn’t want to bring Osgood. The kid had already had a bad experience at The Jumble and he couldn’t be sure Osgood wouldn’t freeze if he encountered more terra indigene. If he called dispatch for backup, the closest cops around were Swinn and Reynolds, and their presence would aggravate the situation, whatever it might be. And, gods, if they were dealing with angry Elementals, the whole community could be kindling and corpses in the blink of an eye.

No, he’d count on Julian Farrow for backup and hope they both survived long enough to get the situation under control before the terra indigene took care of things in their own lethal way.

CHAPTER 28

Vicki

Firesday, Juin 16

I answered the phone at the same moment a column of smoke flowed through the kitchen’s screen door and shifted into a very angry attorney. Okay, partially shifted, which raised all kinds of questions about anatomy that I was sure the Sanguinati would never answer.

“Vicki? Vicki!” Ineke’s voice blasted out of the receiver and sounded stressed.

“Uh.” I’m not at my best first thing in the morning, and under the circumstances that was the sum total of my vocabulary.

“Something is happening. Grimshaw just peeled out of here like a maniac.”

I heard the siren. It was getting closer. Then I heard a jingle and looked past Ilya Sanguinati. Aggie stood on the other side of the screen door. I thought I’d seen her on the porch a few minutes ago, but she was gone by the time I walked across the kitchen.

A gust of wind rattled the house. I started adding things up and wished I had my little calculator handy because there was a lot to add.

The siren sounded so loud now, I pictured Grimshaw driving right through the front of the house like one of the cops had done in a recent TV show.

A car door slammed. Then another door slammed. Then someone— or something—growled as it headed toward the kitchen.

“Vicki!”

“Ms. DeVine!”

Add one Crow, one angry attorney, one police officer, one bookstore-owning friend, a second gust of wind that might be an opinion, and one Panther that entered the kitchen just ahead of the two men.

“I’ll call you back.” I hung up on Ineke and considered the variety of upset males filling up my kitchen and staring at my face. Oh crap. Crappity crap crap.

“What happened?” Officer Grimshaw asked at the same time Julian said, “You need a doctor.”

“I don’t need a doctor, and nothing happened,” I replied.

Ilya Sanguinati hissed. Cougar growled. Julian made a huffing sound that might have been an angry laugh.

Grimshaw said nothing. Somehow that made him the scariest one of all.

“Nothing happened?” Julian said. “What? You walked into a door? Do you know how many times police officers hear that excuse?”

Double crappity crap crap.

Aggie had eased into the kitchen and worked her way around all the male bodies until she stood next to me. She took my hand—gently. That told me who had blabbed to Ilya and Cougar, but who had said what to Julian and Grimshaw that had them tearing up here right on the Others’ heels?

Suddenly feeling tired and achy, I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat. Then I sighed. “I had a very weird, very scary dream, and when I tried to get away from the gauze-headed monster, I fell out of bed and scraped my head on the bedside table. It’s embarrassing, and it’s nothing to fuss about.”

“You have a blackberry toe!” Aggie said, pointing at my left foot.

We all looked at my big toe, most of which was a solid purple-black.

“Huh. I thought that was a shadow.” I hadn’t turned on the bathroom light when I’d taken a shower, figuring the dim morning light was sufficient—and a lot less upsetting when I could look at my face and pretend I was seeing shadows and not bruises.

“You need to see a doctor,” Grimshaw insisted.

“I agree,” Ilya Sanguinati said.

“No.” I was firm about that, despite my ribs starting to clamp around my lungs in response to male voices that were too loud to be safe. But I was firm until . . . whomp.

I’d always thought my thighs were chunky, but I couldn’t see me under Cougar’s paw. It was a big paw. And when he wrinkled his lips and showed me his teeth, I noticed that they were a perfect set of cat teeth—not a misplaced human tooth among them.

I should have been intimidated. Gods, I should have been terrified. Maybe I would have been if Cougar had growled at me. But he was one of the boys here at The Jumble, and while it wouldn’t be smart to trust him not to mistake me for lunch if I was actively bleeding, the paw on my thigh felt oddly comforting, like it was his way of telling me it was safe to stop and think.

“All right. I’ll go to the doctor’s—but I don’t want to ride in the police car.” I sounded like a whiny six-year-old, but I didn’t care. I’d had enough of riding in cop cars, and I could feel the anxiety attack starting again, just waiting for the final push.

Focused on my breathing in an effort to avoid the meltdown, I almost missed the significant looks between Grimshaw and Ilya Sanguinati.

“Fine,” Grimshaw said. “Julian can drive you.”

“Happy to,” Julian said.

Ilya shook his head. “My car is on the way. I will escort Victoria to the doctor.” He focused on Aggie for a moment. “But perhaps we can all meet up after the doctor’s visit?”

“At the boardinghouse?” Julian suggested. “I can call Ineke and see if she can provide lunch.”

“Can I say something?” I raised my hand halfway, which was childish or snarky. Hard to tell at that point.