The man who'd promised them breakfast had a rifle trained on the road behind Felicity. From where she'd crouched under the shop awning, she'd only been able to see the barrel. When something started dragging a foot through the broken glass farther down the road, the rifle followed it. Knowing which way the gun pointed helped. Looking up and finding a second one on the opposite roof helped rather less.
"I thought you said these were your friends," Felicity whispered.
"I said I worked with them. I wouldn't let some of these bastards look after a houseplant." Victor stepped into the sun with empty hands. "You're early, Voss. Where's my breakfast?"
The wolf in the old military vest held up an empty paper bag. Blood spotted one corner. "Had to give it up to something with two mouths on George Street. I hope it gets heartburn."
Victor laughed. Until then Felicity hadn't realized she'd only heard him do that with her. She liked meeting somebody who knew what he was like on a day when he didn't have a half-dead woman to haul around. She put the knife away and came out beside him, keeping half an eye on the corner where the dead thing dragged its foot.
The wolf had amber eyes and one crooked ear. His vest hung open over a broad chest, and the clink she'd taken for a loose buckle came from the medals tapping against its buttons. She couldn't tell if he'd earned them. She could tell he'd put a man at each end of the street and two on the roofs before he let himself look at her.
"I'm Felicity," she said. "If the one behind us gets close enough to bite, I'd appreciate some warning before the gun goes off. It's been a rough couple of days for my ears."
He signaled the riflemen with two fingers. A man dropped from the low awning, crossed behind them with a tire iron, and dealt with the shuffling thing at the corner. She heard one ugly crunch. Voss waited for the man's signal before he offered her a hand. "Welcome to what's left of Snow Team. I run the street when Victor isn't here. When he is, I get the pleasant job of telling him all the things he missed."
Victor introduced Rose while the men greeted Finch with a round of backslaps that would have knocked Felicity into the gutter. For a moment these were people happy to find their friends breathing, and Felicity felt like an ass for keeping track of the guns. Then a beastman with cut antlers bent so close to her neck that she felt his breath through her hair.
"Whatever you're looking for, I promise I don't have a second breakfast hidden in my bra." She backed up. Victor's wing opened between them, and a long black-tipped feather caught the man squarely across the nose. He took two steps back to everyone's deep satisfaction, including his own once he saw Victor's face.
"That's enough," Voss said, and the amusement went out of his men. "Tell her what you saw at the station, so she understands why everybody's acting like they've never seen a woman."
The antlered man had checked the platforms with two others. Between those platforms, two shopping centers and four blocks of flats, they'd found three women alive. He could still remember which jackets they'd worn. He couldn't tell Felicity where they'd gone after the team got them out. He said that last part to the ground, and this time she thought she understood his face.
"Three that you found," she said. "If I'd heard that many men and guns before I met Victor, I'd have picked a good hiding place and let you walk by." She thought of Rose holding a phone above the stream. Somewhere five blocks east, another woman might have turned her ringer off and kept her head down. She wanted Rose to hear that possibility too.
Voss rubbed his thumb across one of the medals to keep it quiet. "That's fair. I could use you telling me where you'd have hidden. We've been wasting time shouting into empty buildings."
It was the first time since they'd met that he'd asked what she thought. He remembered things quickly. Felicity made a private note to be careful what she told this one about herself, particularly anything she'd be embarrassed to have him bring up later.
Their lookout signaled from the roof. Voss wanted to move back toward the river and the hospital streets before the noise from the shops attracted anything worse. Snow Team had a base there. Victor wanted a straight answer about whether the invitation meant a bed for Felicity or a guard on her door. While the men discussed the difference, a broad kangaroo beastman introduced himself to Rose as Giddy and suggested she might prefer his company on the walk.
Finch heard him say it. Felicity had seen that polar bear pick up a whole shelf of medicine. Giddy looked him over, grinned and pointed toward an empty loading yard. Apparently the collapse of modern life had given men everything they'd ever wanted, including an opportunity to settle a difference by taking off their shirts in a parking lot.
Rose let them go. "I've known one of those idiots for two days and the other for two minutes. Should I tell them neither of them has asked where I want to walk?"
Before Felicity could answer, a shock went through the soles of her shoes. The shop sign slipped its last bolt above the loading yard. She heard the little metallic snap, looked up, and found both idiots standing directly under it.