Page 83 of Red Boar's Baby

“More like to clean up in shifter fights,” Vic said. “I mean, I didn’t know this was exactly what was going on, and neither did any of my informants. But remember the card I showed you. Regular fighters are tracked and logged, and their shift forms are known. Think about how it might go if you were betting on a fight between a low-ranked raccoon shifter and a bear. But then the raccoon turned out to have wings. You could get some unexpected betting upsets. Anyone who knew what was going on could clean up.”

“That is insane,” Diana said flatly.

“People will do a lot for money,” Costa pointed out.

“That’s true, but why give wings to a baby?Shecan’t fight.”

Costa was still chewing that over when Delgado arrived to join them. “Hey, Chief, I was just talking to your aunts, and since there’s plenty of room, I think I’m gonna spend the night out here. Farley too. I need to check in, but I can’t get a cell signal.”

“Use wifi calling,” Costa said. “I’ll show you how.”

A couple of minutes later, he was thoroughly frustrated. Delgado’s phone simply wouldn’t get on the wifi. Costa went to find Aunt Brill, probably the most technologically adept of the elder relatives.

“Oh, it might be down again,” Brill said over her shoulder as she and Aunt Lo loaded the dishwasher. “It happens now and then. Try the computer, or she can use the land line.”

Costa sighed and tapped the household computer to wake it up. Brill was right, there was no wifi signal. “Use the phone,” he told Delgado.

“You guys really are living in the previous century,” Delgado remarked. She picked up the cordless phone, a clunky white model that was fifteen or twenty years old if it was a day. Then she frowned and tapped the buttons a few times. “Hey—I’m not getting a dial tone. You don’t have to press anything for an outside line, do you?”

“What? No, you don’t.” Costa snatched it from her and listened. She was right, no dial tone. He pushed some buttons. The screen was lit up, but it was blank. “Aunt Brill, did Uncle Roddy do something to the phone?”

Uncle Rodrigo woke with a snort in his armchair, nearly spilling his cup of spiked coffee. “What? Me? Who? I was nowhere near her!”

Aunt Brill came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel. “What’s wrong?”

“Phone’s down,” Costa said. He set the phone back in its cradle. Alarm bells were jangling in the back of his mind. “Vic, there’s a tethered phone upstairs in the hall, the old-fashioned receiver kind. Go see if it’s working.”

Vic nodded and took the stairs two at a time.

“What’s wrong, CeCe?” Aunt Brill asked him quietly.

“Nothing, I hope,” Costa said just as softly. “When did the wifi go down?”

“I don’t know. It was working earlier when Lo was updating the family farm blog.”

Costa gave her a startled look. “We have a blog?”

“You haven’t been checking the blog?” She snapped him with her dish towel. “I know you know about it. Lo sent you an email.”

“Do you have any idea how many emails I get in a typical day?” Somewhat guiltily, Costa recalled that he had all family emails set to go to a particular folder that he checked once in a blue moon. Mostly his aunts sent him memes, chain letters, and links to petitions with topics like saving a local artesian well or amending sales regulations for eggs from small chicken farms.

Vic came downstairs. “No dial tone,” he reported.

“Great.” Costa swept a swift gaze around the room. Aunt Brill looked curious but uncomprehending, Uncle Roddy blank. The other aunts were clattering around in the kitchen. Jenny and Jay, as far as he knew, were up in their house on the back of the ranch. As for his people, Delgado looked quietly alert, Diana alarmed but calm, and Farley blankly worried.

“Okay, people,” Costa began, “I think we have a situation,” and just then the lights went out.

CHAPTER28

It wasCosta’s alarm that set Diana into a low-key churn of contagious anxiety, but when the living room plunged into blackness, her heart leaped into her throat. She heard Delgado exclaim.

The lights were only out for a few seconds before coming back up, not as many or as bright.

“What happened?” Diana asked anxiously.

“Power dip,” Brill said, patting her arm. “Don’t worry, hon. We’ve switched over to house power. There’s a battery bank, and a generator if it lasts too long. We get outages out here all the time.”

But Costa had gone swiftly to the window. “The main gate light’s out,” he said.

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