Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [22]
“Bumblebee made a move on her, but she handled it well.” Head Wolf considers, swinging back and forth, his feet anchored on a cable. “You have been working her hard. Give her a rest—I’ll absorb the fee.”
“Thanks.” Abalone’s tone is threaded with emotions I am too drained to reach after. “Beer and pizza.”
That dawn, we are heading back to the Jungle after spending the night with Professor Isabella when Peep intercepts us. He draws us away into the trash-filled alcove between two rusting tanks with a conspiratorial jerk of his head.
Something in me hurts as I look at the transformation the Tail Wolves have wrought in him. He has been poured into a skintight yellow tank top and a pair of matching pants that hug his little boy’s ass. His sun-bleached brown hair has been styled so that his bangs drop coquettishly over his left eye and his M&M eyes have been ringed with eyeliner. The pupils are wider than they should be, even in the dim light.
“Edelweiss said keep quiet and the Tail Wolves, they say so, too. The Four, they not so sure, but I make up my own mind.”
He smiles at us, an innocent boy’s smile from which the streetwise cynicism vanishes for a moment. Then he draws us closer.
“I decide for me”—he pokes himself in the chest—“I hear you saved my conejito for me, when I left it this nighttime.”
I nod, quivering at the memory of what Betwixt and Between’s talk with Conejito Moreno had released. Abalone steadies me.
“She did,” she confirms. “You thanking her?”
“Yes, I pay my dues.” Peep hesitates, then, “The Home is hunting Sarah—they want to take her back.”
Inadvertently, I tense, but Abalone is still holding my hand.
“How do you know this, Peep?”
“The word’s out.” He shrugs. “The Home has room and wants back those that they let loose—like her. Some might be real happy, but I don’t think she’d be—she’s one of the Free People, like you an’ me.”
He touches the running wolf that fastens his belt and Abalone raises a finger to her tattoo.
“Yes, Sarah’s one of us,” she agrees. “Thanks, Peep, I’ll check this out.”
“We be of one blood ye and I,” he confirms, and with a brotherly grin for me, moves out into the street.
Abalone and I wait to let him get clear before following.
“The Tail Wolves never have liked that you didn’t join them—but don’t take that personally,” Abalone says. “They’re still your Pack. We’ll sleep on this—no one’ll find you here. In the evening, we’ll go and see if Professor Isabella has heard more. We can also speak with Jerome or Balika and ask how hard the Home is looking or if this is just a gesture to make peace with the public for throwing nutcases out into the streets.”
We duck into the halogen-lit tangle of the Jungle, alive with the Pack returning from the night’s hunting. Music dins from a dozen sources; lithe bodies with hair and skin in every color planned by God, and many never anticipated, hang from the Web. Laughter and joking compete with the music.
Peep, Conejito Moreno snuggled under his arm, sucks his thumb in his hammock while Bumblebee rocks him. Deep in conversation with Midline of the Four, Head Wolf pauses from painting a denim jacket. Edelweiss and Chocolate arm wrestle near a camp stove.
An ordinary dawn before sleep stills the Free People. I climb to my place, loving the colorful chaos with my eyes as I cannot with words.
Abalone tucks me in with a tenderness she has rarely shown since her earliest days as my Baloo. She makes certain that Betwixt and Between are near at hand.
Despite her tenderness, fear that I will lose all of this makes me shudder.
“You okay, Sarah?” she asks.
“There’s no place like Home,” I say, struggling for her to understand.
“Don’t worry, Sarah. I won’t send you back unless you want to go.”
Reassured, I drift off to sleep, hearing the Jungle settle in around me. My dreams are peaceful.
When night comes, with amazement Betwixt and Between tell me that Head Wolf had spent the day perched in the Reaches near my head, unmoving, but ready to battle