Comfort the Wolves

5. Acid and Ink

Rumours of healings and demons aside, Miss Finn's life was rather simple.

She worked at a laundromat into the afternoon, visited the motor garage across the street, and attended her altar for confession in the evening. It was the garage that turned out to be the most eventful, since the repair shop doubled as a communal gathering point: serving terrible coffee in return for Beltan's latest gossip.

The job became so predictable, Ivan felt comfortable handing off the day shift to the pups. Thomas took the close guard and Curt, who was scrawny enough to pass as a this-sider, stayed out of sight to gather intel from the shadows. Ivan, for his part, took the night shift and caught up on his paperwork, which was relentless even on leave.

Several days in, he was revising the infirmary's budget when his two wolves returned. They bared their throats in greeting.

"You're back early," Ivan said, taking them in from over his spectacles.

"Only a quarter of an hour or so," Thomas said, shrugging out of his vest.

Thomas' eye caught on the sealed envelope on the kitchen table. "Beta," he said, impressed. "You are the only wolf I know who dares let a missive from Kate sit unread. I'd bet Alpha himself sweats to see her handwriting. Though I see she sent you your files." He tossed his vest over a chair and gestured to the black folder under the letter.

"She did," Ivan said, leaning back in his rickety chair. His files on William had arrived that morning with Kate's letter; he just hadn't the time nor the stomach to read them yet.

"Miss Finn was asking about them," Thomas said.

Ivan paused in the folding of his spectacles. "The files? How did she know about them?"

"Well, I didn't say anything." Thomas shrugged, sauntering over to the fridge. "Curt?"

Curt dignified the question with a look of disdain. He turned to Ivan. "She mentioned something about catching a messenger boy last night and serving him tea."

Of course she did. How that woman continued to surprise him was a miracle in and of itself.

Thomas swung open the fridge and sniffed for food. "She invited us to dinner, though." He opened a glass jar, smelt the contents and coughed. "Hell. What did Mrs Whimble eat?"

"The souls of her cats," Curt said, coaxing one of Mrs Whimble's many cats off the stovetop so he could start the kettle.

"Cats have no souls, you sympathizer," Thomas growled and slammed the fridge closed. "Here's to hoping Miss Finn can cook as well as she's rumoured to shoot."

Ivan set his spectacles on the table. "Unfortunately, that is a dinner invitation we will have to decline."

"What?" Curt said, sloshing water from the kettle onto the counter.

Thomas blinked at Curt's sudden show of emotion, but gestured to the smaller wolf. "I, uh, second the pup's outcry."

Curt's pink skin pinkened further.

"No dinner with the potential," Ivan said, determined. "If I can smell Miss Finn on you from here, you need a break from the exposure."

"I don't know why you're so worried about us getting too attached to her," Thomas complained, rummaging in the cabinets for something not labelled Fishy Feline Friends. He settled on a tin of sardines; while still fishy, they weren't exclusively feline. "That woman makes my skin crawl."

"Oh?" Ivan said. "I didn't think you believed in demons."

"I don't." Thomas pulled out the chair across from Ivan and sat his mass down with a creak. "But everything they say about that woman chills my blood. Dreaming every baby's birth and death before it happens is creepy enough, but that she darkens the doorstep of every family just after they've lost a child—stillborn, sickness, you name it, and without them telling her, mind—that's just not right."