War for the Oaks Read Online Free PDF Page B

teeth. "Eddi . . ."
    She didn't think he'd let her get as far as the pound. But she might manage a phone booth—yes, there was the blue-and-white sign on the corner.
Don't look at the phone. And don't run
. She strode across the street as if she meant to keep walking. At the last moment, she ducked into the booth and slammed the folding door.

    She braced her feet against the door and her shoulders on the opposite wall.
    "May I lend you a quarter?" said the infuriating voice. The black dog sat beside the booth, ears up, head tilted inquiringly.
    Eddi felt foolish, but she didn't take her feet off the door.
    "This call's free."
    "Ah. You don't mind, do you, if I listen? I want to know what you'll think of to tell them."
    She let her breath out slowly. "I'm going to call the cops. The squad car will come, and whether you're a dog, a man, or not here at all, I'm going to the station with them. If they won't take me, I'll hit one of them and they'll
have
to take me."
    The phouka's look of patient attention only intensified.
    "And once I'm there, I can use the same techniques to get them to keep me there. Then if you want me, you can break me out of jail."
    Why she hadn't already dialed 911, she didn't know. Perhaps it was the expression on the phouka's face, polite, intelligent, and doggy.
    "Very good," he said at last. "And I, for my part, could break one of these glass walls and sever the cable on that telephone before you could say hello." Eddi began a surreptitious move toward the receiver. "But I'd much prefer not to. It would set a bad precedent."
    "You mean like chasing me down the Nicollet Mall?" she snapped.
    To her surprise, the phouka's ears drooped a little. "If you were to call that ill-considered, self-indulgent idiocy, I would probably allow it to be true."
    Eddi would not have chosen any of those words, so she said nothing.
    "But let us reason together, sweet. I have
not
tried the walls of your fortress." He indicated the phone booth with his nose. "I have not offered you violence." Eddi snorted, but let it pass. "Will you not deal fairly, and let me bear you company, at least until I
do
transgress?"
    "Did it occur to you to try this approach down at the other goddamn end of the mall?"
    He looked offended and embarrassed, and both expressions sat oddly on his dog face. "No," he said irritably.
    Eddi decided it would be unwise to laugh. "What if I don't want to deal?"
    He stood. "I do not predict the future."
    Eddi stared at him. Her shoulders were getting sore, and one of herfeet was asleep. She was cold. For all she knew, he never got cold or tired. She would feel like a perfect idiot if she stepped out the door and he strangled her. But just now he didn't have hands. She unfolded the door.
    "You gladden a poor dog's heart," he said. He trotted to the curb and looked back; after a moment, she followed him.
    The phouka seemed oblivious to the effect a talking dog might produce; he chattered brightly to her all the way to her apartment building on Oak Grove. Fortunately, they passed no one else. She interrupted him only once, to ask, "Why me?"
    "Why you, what?"
    "Why are you picking on me? Why not grab some drunk off Hennepin Avenue and drop him on your stinking battlefield? They're all mortal, too."
    "Lay the blame on good taste. We're a fastidious lot." But a block later, he said, "I can't explain now. Later, when you know our ways, perhaps I can answer you and you'll understand."
    She felt strange holding the front door of the building for him. As she stood at the inner door, fishing in her pocket for her keys, he said, "There's a stink on this place."
    "Drunks come in here to get warm."
    "No, this is a reek of another sort. I smell rules and laws and Thou Shan'ts."
    She pushed open the second door. "Mm. That's Roberta, the caretaker."
    "Oho—a threat worthy of your guard dog! I shall go for her throat—GRRAAHRRR!" He bolted snarling down the hall and up the stairs, toenails clattering on the wood