I tuned Phil out, lagging after the group. When the lopsided mass of teens had all moved away from Tobias, I went to the exterior fence directly in front of the big wolf and crouched down, making it harder for Phil to see me behind the other people.
Tobias cocked his head with innocent curiosity. “I’m here as Maven’s representative,” I said quietly. “Show me that you understand.”
The enormous wolf didn’t respond right away, and after a moment I started to feel ridiculous. But then Tobias thrust his muzzle up quickly before moving it down and up again, and I realized it was a parody of a human nod. “Good. An hour after sunset, I’ll be by your back fence with a vampire. We have some questions. You will be there, and you will be in human form.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small metal object Maven had given me, making sure he saw the .45 caliber bullet that had been hand-poured out of silver. Some of the legends are true, Maven had said, sounding bemused. All of the Old World species came with their little vulnerabilities. The vampires were allergic to daylight, the werewolves to silver. And of course it was painfully easy to kill witches.
Well, most of us.
“Do you understand?” I asked. Another pause, and then Tobias shook himself, showing me a long, slow yawn. I had five dogs at home; I recognized this as Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I do what I want.
“Try me,” I told him fiercely, hearing the hatred in my voice. “I’d love that.”
“Miss?” Phil called, hurrying back toward me. I quickly shoved the bullet back into my pocket. “Please step away from Tobias. He is not a pet . . .”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I muttered under my breath.
Chapter 11
The sky was already darkening as the tour wrapped up at five. I spent a few minutes nonchalantly buying postcards in the gift shop—paying with cash, of course. I thanked Christy the receptionist and Phil the tour guide, and strolled out to the car like I didn’t have a care in the world. If anything happened tonight, I wanted to look like any other tourist visiting the wolf sanctuary. The place closed in a half an hour, so we were cutting the timing pretty close, but it was a necessary risk: We needed to figure out what was happening with the werewolves and resolve it quickly, before Hazel found out something was up. And we didn’t want to give Tobias any time to contact the other werewolves, just in case he had some way of doing so.
I drove back down the dirt road that led to the sanctuary, taking a few extra turns before I pulled over on a long stretch of road with no people or cars. I twisted around in my seat, knocked on the long, flat compartment where the backseat was supposed to be, and stepped out of Maven’s Jeep with my cell phone in hand. For some reason, I didn’t want to see Quinn climbing out of the vampire box. Assuring myself that I was just giving him some privacy, I leaned against my door and dialed Simon’s number. If anyone drove by, they’d assume I had a flat tire and was calling AAA.
When he answered, I could hear talking and music in the background, which implied he was still on campus. “Hey,” I said loudly. “How’s the hairball research?”
“Gastric pellet,” he said reflexively. “Hang on, let me get somewhere quieter.”
There was a pause, and I turned around to peek at Quinn. He was sitting calmly in the driver’s seat, right behind me, and I jumped, startled. He smirked and gave me a little wave. I stuck my tongue out at him, then circled the Jeep to climb into the passenger seat. Simon still hadn’t returned to the phone. “Early this morning, the police found a bundle of slimy clothes with a human hip bone buried inside,” I explained to Quinn. “Simon thinks it’s a gastric pellet from an enormous reptile that’s also the Rosetta Stone for magical systemics.”
Quinn’s face remained as inscrutable as ever, but he did give me one long, slow blink. “You have a serious gift for summary,” he deadpanned.
I grinned. “Thank you.”
Simon got back on the phone. “Okay, I’m here.”
“Did you find anything?” I asked him, holding up a finger to Quinn. Which was stupid, because he could probably hear Simon as well as I could.
“Yes and no.” Simon sounded exhausted, and I wondered if Lily had stopped to check on him. “There haven’t been any reports about giant lizards anywhere in Colorado, and I went back ten years. I’ve been checking records for fossil finds around here too, but the results are inconclusive.”
“Inconclusive how?”
He sighed. “There are thousands of dinosaur finds in Colorado, Lex. Not all of the remains have been identified. Plus there are things like preserved footprints and coprolites with no identified source.”
I had taken some of my cousin’s kids to the Dinosaur Resource Center in Colorado Springs; I knew coprolites were fossilized poop. “Hang on, you’re saying you think this thing is a dinosaur?” I didn’t bother keeping the skepticism out of my voice.
“No, not really. Its behavior doesn’t match our knowledge about any previously identified species.” There was a pause. “And I’m not convinced it has legs.”
Quinn’s eyebrow arched with curiosity. “Wait, what?” I said.
“This afternoon I went over to Chautauqua, where they found the pellet,” Simon explained hurriedly. “There wasn’t much to see, but I did notice some displaced dirt and loose soil, like something had dug a big hole that had caved back in on itself. The police barely noticed it, but I think this thing could be a burrower, a big one. It would explain why there weren’t any tracks.”