Blood Trail

attention back into the house but it was only Shadow coming down the stairs and into the kitchen. He sat in front of the refrigerator, had a quick scratch, then changed so he could open the door.

    "Ma, there's nothing to eat."

    "Don't stand with the fridge door open, Daniel."

    He sighed but obediently closed it and Vicki marveled at how universal some things could be ...
    "If you're hungry why don't you go out to the barn and hunt rats?"

    ... and how universal some things were not.

    Daniel sighed again and dragged himself over to lean against his mother's shoulder. "Don't know as I'm hungry for rats."

    Nadine smiled, brushing the hair back off his forehead. "If you catch one and you don't want to eat it, you can bring it to me."

    This apparently solved all problems because it was Shadow who put both front paws up on Nadine's lap and swiped at her face with his tongue before bounding outside. The screen door, Vicki saw, had been hung so that it swung freely in both directions with no latch to prevent a nose or a paw from pushing it open.

    "They grow up so fast," Nadine said reflectively, snatching a fly out of the air.

    For one horrified moment, with the rats still causing her a little trouble, Vicki was afraid Nadine was going to eat it but the older woman only crushed it and threw it to the floor. All things considered, lousy housekeeping was much easier to deal with. Vicki brushed a fly off the edge of her own mug and tried very hard to be open-minded. Rats. Right. If I don't eat until sundown maybe Henry 'II take me to MacDonalds.

    "Cloud comes into her first heat this fall," Nadine continued in the same tone, wiping her hand against the fabric of her skirt, "so pretty soon now, Peter'll be leaving."

    "Leaving?" Back on the lawn, Shadow was stalking the waving plume of Storm's tail.

    "It's too risky to have him stay. We'll probably send him away in early September."

    "But ..."

    "When Cloud goes into heat, Storm'll go crazy trying to get to her. Better for all concerned if the males are far away when their littermates - their twins - mature." Her voice shook a little as she added, "The bonds between twins are very strong with our kind."

    "Rose said something similar." Vicki traced the pattern on her mug with the tip of one finger, unsure if she should say anything about Sylvia's death. The pain shadowing Nadine's eyes was so intensely personal, sympathy might be seen as an intrusion.

    Nadine's nails tapped against the tabletop. "The wer see death as a natural result of life," she said, reading Vicki's hesitation. "Our mourning is specific and soon over. Jason was my brother and I miss him, but with the loss of my twin, I feel as though I've lost a part of myself."

    "I understand."

    "No, you don't. You can't." Then Nadine's voice twisted into a snarl and her lips lifted off her teeth. "When you have found this animal with a coward's weapon, he will pay for the pain he has caused."

    It was so easy, Vicki realized, to forget why she was here; to get caught up in the strangeness and lose sight of the fact that two people had been murdered. So some aspects of the case were a little unusual. So what. She put down her mug, unaware her expression almost exactly mirrored Nadine's. "I'd better get started."

Five
    "Why can't I come?" Daniel scowled fiercely up at Peter. "You always took me with you when you went places before."

    "It's too dangerous." Peter shimmied the track shorts up over his hips. Vicki tried not to watch and wasn't significantly successful at it. "What if the human who shot Silver and Ebon is out there?"

    Lips pulled back off small, pointed teeth. "I'd bite him!"

    "He'd shoot you. You're not coming."

    "But Peter. ..."

    "No."

    "Cloud?"

    She growled, her meaning plain.

    "Okay, fine." Daniel threw himself down onto the grass. "But if you get in trouble out there, don't go howling for me." He thrust his chin into his cupped hands and only glowered when Cloud gave him a couple of quick licks as she went by.

    Vicki fell into step beside Peter and the three of them headed for the nearly overgrown lane behind the barn.

    "Hey, Peter!"

    Peter turned.

    "Ei kee ayaki awro!" The words rose and fell in a singsong cadence, practically dripping with six-year-old indignation.

    Peter laughed.

    "What did he say?"

    "He said I mate with sheep."

    It hadn't actually occurred to Vicki that the wer would have a language of their own although now she thought about it, it became obvious. It