"But not the mist, huh?"
"That's dangerous and you know it. If word of that got out," Adele didn't finish.
"Yeah, I know," Ashe said glumly. If anyone, particularly the Vampire Council, learned of that specific talent, Ashe might become a desirable target for more than just the Elemaiya. "Mom, I gotta go before Sali eats the last two nachos."
"All right. We'll talk more when your dad wakes."
Ashe hung up the cordless with a sigh. Sali handed over the plate with the designated two nachos on it. "Dude, you really are a tapeworm," Ashe said.
* * *
"I heard him, Marcus. He said this was Ashe Evans' fault. Everybody inside the school cafeteria heard it," Denise DeLuca said. Marcus had just walked through the door of their Cloud Chief home after a busy day at DeLuca's Locksmith Services in Cordell.
"Denise, we've known for a while that those two bully some of the younger ones. If it were only Chad, I could have a talk with him. But Jeremy is a shapeshifter. We don't have that much control over them."
"You don't think Chad put him up to it?"
"The boy lost both his parents. I expect Chad to be rebellious."
"That's no excuse to be cruel," Denise went to pull dinner from the oven. "Sali's on his way home. Mr. Winkler will come by before he leaves with Ashe tonight."
"I'm glad it's the weekend," Marcus said. "Have we heard from Marco?"
"Mr. Winkler says he'll come home for a week before going back to Dallas and working for him the rest of the summer."
"I'm worried that our oldest will become a member of the Dallas Pack."
"There are worse things to be," Denise said softly. "Being a member of the Dallas Pack holds a certain amount of prestige."
"Oh, and being a member of the Cloud Chief Pack isn't important?"
"You know that's not what I meant."
"Sorry, it's just too near the full Moon." The full Moon was in two days, on Sunday, May third. Everybody in Cloud Chief felt it. Marcus wondered how Winkler was going to handle getting humans to their hidden community around that event. Shrugging off the thought, Marcus went to wash his hands. The back door clicked shut as Sali walked into the kitchen; Denise told him to wash up, too, while she put dinner on the table.
* * *
"We have to get this out of the way fast; full Moon is Sunday," Winkler said, driving down I-35 toward Dallas three hours later. Ashe, buckled into the passenger seat of a Winkler Security van, listened while the Dallas Packmaster spoke.
"Mr. Winkler, do you know anything about those kids?" Ashe asked quietly, his blue eyes focused on the Dallas Packmaster's face in curiosity.
"I don't think those kids know much about themselves. How can we know anything? I'm not sure Bill gave them any kind of explanation when they relocated their families; just that someone was hunting them." Winkler turned dark eyes briefly on Ashe before directing his attention to the highway again.
"I assume they know about the deaths and disappearances of the others? How many of the disappearances do you think are actual deaths and how many are kidnappings by the Bright Elemaiya?"
"Kid, you worry me at times, knowing more than you should," Winkler tapped the steering wheel absently as he drove through the Arbuckle mountains in south central Oklahoma.
"I know the Bright Elemaiya went to that clinic for a reason. What reason, other than getting children, could there be? And if they wanted children, then they wanted them, instead of letting humans keep them. Doesn't that make sense? It's like the cuckoo, laying its eggs in another bird's nest."
"Yes—they sound like brood parasites, don't they?" Winkler agreed.
"But the cuckoo chick pushes the eggs or the nestlings of the parent birds out so it can get more food," Ashe pointed out. "You haven't heard of that happening, have you?"
"No. But we don't know much at all about these families. If Bill will consent to answer questions, I suggest you ask him."
"Bill Jennings, the Director of the Joint NSA and Homeland Security Department? That Bill?"
"Yeah. That Bill." Winkler grinned at Ashe. In the dim interior of the van, Ashe barely saw it.
"Sounds like you know him pretty well."
"I do. We've been working together for twenty years."
"You really are connected to National Security, aren't you, Mr. Winkler?"
"Yep. But don't let that out. It's a secret."
"Got it." Ashe turned to look at the cut-rock sides of mountains through which they traveled. They shone in the nearly full Moon overhead. "News said it might rain tomorrow," Ashe added.
"I hope it doesn't rain on Sunday," Winkler chuckled. "Wet fur and mud isn't fun."
"I just stay inside and flap around the house," Ashe said. Winkler laughed.
* * *
"This is your house?" Ashe stared openmouthed at the three-story mansion.
"No, my house is next door," Winkler said, leading Ashe up the wide, multicolored brick walk to a mansion. "Mine is a little bigger. I bought this one for someone before she died," he added. "Never had the heart to sell it afterward. The families will be brought here initially, for the announcement. Trace and Jason are inside—they'll stay here with you."
"When are the families coming?"
"Tomorrow morning," Winkler replied. Ashe watched as Winkler unlocked the substantial front door and punched a code into the security alarm keypad just inside the house. A massive, gleaming wood staircase split and went up both sides of a gallery; the tiled, oval floor of the entryway was of polished marble and shone in the dim light. Winkler hit a switch, bathing the entire foyer with brightness.
"How's the bustling metropolis of Cloud Chief?" Trace walked in with a soda in his hand. He'd heard Winkler and Ashe enter the house and walked in from the kitchen to greet the new arrivals.
"There's nothing bustling about Cloud Chief or anything else within a hundred-mile radius," Ashe grinned at the nearly seven-foot werewolf. Jason followed Trace and hugged Ashe.
"How are you, son?" Jason smiled.
"I'm good, Mr. Landers," Ashe assured the older werewolf. Trace had told him the year before that Jason was more than a hundred fifty years old.
"We'll be coming to Oklahoma with you, to help out with those kids," Jason said. "And we'll be giving regular reports to Mr. Winkler and the Director."
"So I'd better behave, huh?"