He quickly placed it at the base of the stone he had been sitting on earlier, and resumed his vigilance with the binoculars.
The wind blew against his face. He turned, and it blew against his face again. Ah, it was the spell at work. He would be upwind from where the crowds were, from where he needed to be hidden.
Peering through the lenses, he adjusted his vision until he started spotting some of the vendors that he had noticed earlier. The one advertising Savourye Meat Pyes was doing a brisk business, but there were no tall men there.
He moved the binoculars to the table in front of it. It was a family of redheads. Man-wolf had auburn hair, and the males in this group didn’t have his build. The next table had people in costume, including a large fellow with the right build that wore a brimmed hat. Cadmus had to keep his binoculars trained on him, in hopes that he would lift his head at some point for a better view of his face.
At last he looked up, to reveal—someone considerably older than the man-wolf, who Cadmus judged to be in his mid to late twenties or, possibly, early thirties.
With a disgusted sigh, Cadmus moved the binoculars away to another table.
The pendulum seemed to leap up in his pocket.
It was him.
The same hair, the same shoulders. The same face. The man-wolf was standing in the table areas, and then Cadmus noted that there was a group seated in the table nearest him that held six males — four with similar builds. Two of them were seated on the table itself, a blond male next to one with wild, dark hair and a dangerous look.
He could gauge their large size by the two smaller males in their group, who were more or less like everyone else in the area. The two smaller—or regular sized males were seated on the benches and laughing at whatever the blond male was saying. One of the males was slender, with a shock of dark hair over his forehead and glasses he kept pushing up. He would be sacrifice-worthy, if he weren’t surrounded by these more suitable, desirable offerings for His Terrible Majesty. The male seated next to him was perhaps as old as Cadmus looked, in his fifties, although he likely did not havemagicksextending his life span as Cadmus did.
Were the other four large males also capable of turning into Wolves or similar, powerful beasts?
Nestled between two of the larger men on a bench was a female, which Cadmus immediately dismissed. He moved his binoculars back, training them on the man-wolf that he was excited to find. He seemed at once part of the group, yet separate. Worse, he seemed to be sniffing the air, as if….the man-wolf looked in Cadmus’s direction, and Cadmus immediately put his head down.
It would not be a good time to find out that the cloaking spell hadn’t been working after all, or had worn off. Cadmus had to leave. But he had noted the bright yellow cords hanging from the necks of the five large males. He knew from Jordy what that meant.
Staff.
He would be able to find them again, and learn more in the meantime so he could successfully retrieve them for His Terrible Majesty.
It was worth wearing synthetic fibers and a Dad cap for.
* * *
Col tried to pinpoint where the scent was coming from, but the crowds around him were obscuring his senses. Which he already didn’t trust. There were too many smells and odors that he had to sift through, and the sights and sounds were a cacophony of stimuli that blended altogether when he attempted to locate that one scent, and link it to its source.
He would have a better chance in his wolf form, but he knew that was out of the question. Simon and Miller had impressed that upon him and the otherBredhrenwhen they first awoke. This was not a world as he once knew, where he and otherShiftwereslived alongside those limited to one form. Instead, he and hisBredhrenwere likely the last of their kind. If theirShiftwerenature were known, they would be captured by the single-forms, possibly killed. Their mission would be over, and the sacrifice they had made, being put to sleep all these eons, would be in vain.
No, Col could not shift. And in this form, he could not communicate telepathically with hisBredhren. But somehow he needed to alert the others, most specifically hisVixar.And he needed to do so without betraying any of this to Katie Cooper, who sat pressed between Merek and Simon, enrapt in what Aylwyn was saying in front of her.
He heard the beginnings of a growl, and realized it was emanating from his throat. Fortunately the crowd noise covered it up, but Tybalt’s sensitive hearing had him turn his head towards Col.
Here was his chance. He caught hisVixar’s eye, and tapped his nose gently, a subtle signal that Tybalt acknowledged with a slight nod. Having communicated with theWar-PackAlpha effectively, Col took off immediately, weaving through the crowds, and leaving behind the cluster surrounding Katie Cooper.
The one he was not, and could not, be part of.
