Things are getting serious for our heroines.

Where can they turn for safety so deep in unknown territory?

VI. The Chariot. VI.

Jake had just been sitting down to do a puzzle in the small apartment he now called his own when he heard a noise outside. It was a rapping on the loose board in the wall that he used to enter and exit.

Jake walked over and pushed the board aside. He immediately saw a certain lavender-eyed white wolf, standing there and shivering. "Lilly?" he asked in confusion.

Then he noticed his old girlfriend behind her. "Cadpig? I thought you were still mad at me."

He dodged quickly as a dagger whizzed past his ear and embedded itself in the wall opposite.

"You are still mad at me," he responded. "I just never knew weapons were your style."

Cadpig smiled devilishly as she pushed her way in. "They aren't. But if I was mad enough to use them, I wouldn't have missed."

Lilly followed her. Jake could tell that the wolf was almost on the point of tears. Cadpig led Lilly to the homiest spot in the room, a stack of papers in front of the puzzle, a 100-piece puzzle of a motorcycle not even half-finished, and sat her down.

Then she walked over to the wall and pulled out the dagger. She handed it to Jake. He took it, not sure why, but mostly likely to keep her from using it for a more lethal purpose. He was not wholly convinced that her miss was intentional.

"Some wacko just attacked us with that!" Cadpig barked accusatorily.

Jake looked up at her, concern in his eyes. "You were attacked? Cadpig, are you…."

"Save me the pity party. Of course, I'm alright. Lilly's the one who nearly had her face made into Thanksgiving dinner."

Jake looked over to where Lilly sat. "She did! Is she alright?"

"I'm… I'm fine," Lilly answered, only briefly looking up. Jake now noticed something about her; her bangs had fallen over her left eye. Somehow, she did not seem so threatening any more.

"Which may be more than I can say for the blue-hooded maniac who threatened her with this!" Cadpig said, tapping the dagger. "I thought maybe you'd have some idea about what this is."

Jake looked it over. "Ah, yes. The steel suggests that it's from the Indian subcontinent. Probably 16th Century, I should think. They used to give daggers like these out to the soldiers of the Mughal Empire when they were sent off to war."

"Really?" Cadpig asked.

"I have no idea," Jake answered. "I don't know anything about daggers! Why are you even asking me in the first place?'

"I don't know; you live in this town and you're the only person who knows me, so I thought maybe you'd be involved somehow!"

Jake shook his head. "Hold on! Let's get a few things straight. I've only been in this town three weeks. Not enough time to learn about any sort of hooded, dagger-wielding crazies and where to find them!"

"And yet, Walton seemed to be awfully familiar with you."

"Walton? Oh, yeah, him. Buffoon. You can't go by anything Walton says. I'll tell you that right now, Cadpig, you can't trust him!"

Cadpig smiled another devious smile. She batted her eye-lashes as she said this. "And what caused you and him to become such close… enemies?"

Jake shook his head. "Walton gets easily offended. He didn't like some things I said and did that were really none of his business."

"That's one-sided logic!" Cadpig shot back, her smile widening.

Before this moment could go any farther, Lilly sneezed and shivered some more. Cadpig immediately turned to check on her. "Jake, don't just stand there! Find her a blanket or something."

"There's one right behind her."

Lilly turned to get it herself, but Cadpig quickly ran over and placed it on Lilly's shoulders for her.

"Thanks," Lilly said quietly.

"Don't mention it," Cadpig responded gently.

As Cadpig walked back toward Jake, she asked, "Anything else you need? Maybe something to eat? You haven't eaten in hours."

"Cadpig!" Jake said. "You can't just be coming into my home and demanding I give your friends any food off my back!"

"Shut it!" Cadpig said, trying to speak low enough that Lilly would not hear but knowing that Lilly had heard anyway.

"A caribou liver would be nice if you've got it," Lilly said with a polite smile, trying to thank Jake with her eyes.

"I'll go check," Jake said. "Cadpig, can I speak to you in the kitchen?"

Cadpig followed Jake into the kitchen area, which was just a small alcove beside the main room. This was obviously a rather nice, if small, apartment, but one that clearly seen no human tenant reside there for a while.

Jake walked over to a small refrigerator. He opened it to reveal darkness; it was unplugged and there was no food at all to be found within. Without looking, he called out, "Looks like we're fresh out of caribou livers, sorry!"

"Thanks anyway!" Lilly called back from the other room.

Jake had, this whole time, not taken his eyes off of Cadpig. She herself was busy looking through some things he had placed in here.

"Cadpig, that's personal! Don't touch any of that!" Jake said.

"There was a time when you were fine with me going through your personal stuff," Cadpig said without stopping.

Jake sighed. "Cadpig, why did you have to bring that friend of yours here? To my home, of all places! And how did you even find me?"

"Please. I may not have Rolly's nose but I know your scent well-enough that I can pick it up a mile off!"

"Still, I don't like that she's here! She just asked me for a caribou liver, as though it's perfectly normal to keep caribou livers in the refrigerator! How weird is that?"

Cadpig now looked at Jake, her eyes saying, 'I can't believe we're having this conversation again.' "Jake, she's a wolf, a wolf who until today had spent her whole life in the wild. She only knows about eating caribou! Caribou livers for her are like microwaved ramen noodles for us! They are her normal."

"Her normal is my strange," Jake answered. "I don't like it. A predator's a predator, I always say. Are you sure she didn't organize the attack so that she could make a nice meal out of you?"

Cadpig chuckled. "So, instead of tearing me to pieces with her claws and fangs, she hired someone else and had herself attacked with a dagger? Seems like a long way to go for a bite to eat!"

"Canadians don't think like you and me," Jake said. "It might be perfectly logical in her frozen, maple-syrup-filled world."

"Trust me," Cadpig said, "I wouldn't hang out with a girlfriend who does assassinations and hits. She only does turtles."

"Well, there's a statement with a lot of uncomfortable ambiguity," Jake said. "Speaking of which, I've been meaning to ask you…."

"Yes?" Cadpig said, already suspicious of what he was about to say.

Jake smiled slightly as he said the next thing. "When you say 'girlfriend,' do you mean that you and her are… you know…." He widened and narrowed his eyes slightly to emphasize the last part.

His answer came as something between an offended slap and a powerful haymaker.

"Okay, okay, I was just asking!" Jake said as he held his paw to his face. "I was just worried that I might have messed something up when I left."

"Or maybe your overinflated macho ego wanted to believe that you did!" Cadpig retorted angrily.

"Cadpig, really, I–"

"No, this conversation is closed!" Cadpig said, turning to leave. But then she noticed something.

She tugged at what appeared to be a photograph hidden under some random papers. She pulled it loose and saw that it was of a familiar-looking Irish Setter.

"Maud?" Cadpig yelped. "You've got a picture from Maud?"

Jake took the picture from her hand. "What if I do? It's not like you and me are an item any more. So why shouldn't I be keeping my options open?"

Cadpig slapped her paw against her head. "That's it! The explosion we heard! It must have been Maud again! And here Walton said he was going to keep her from doing anything like that! I hope nobody was injured."

Jake shook his head. "I doubt it. Maud's big thing was a breakout at the pound tonight. So, if she succeeded, it's more cause for celebration than alarm."

"Aha! So you do know what's going on here!"

"Yes…. I mean, no…. I mean, everybody knows about Maud. But sinister conspiracies, I don't know anything about that!"

Cadpig studied him thoroughly, her one eye narrowed in thought. Eventually, she decided she could trust him. This was Jake, after all, and she had a feeling he would never put her in harm's way, no matter what he was involved in.

"Fine," she said at last. "But Lilly and I are staying here for the next few days."

This announced, she turned and walked out of the alcove.

"What?" Jake said. "You can't just do that! What if I have company? And her, in my home? I don't think so!"

"Jake says we can stay!" Cadpig announced to Lilly as she returned to the main room.

"Great," Lilly said, giving Jake a smile of gratitude.

"Now, look, I didn't say – My puzzle!" Jake shouted, walking over to where Lilly and the puzzle sat. "What on earth did you do to my puzzle?"

Lilly looked down in shame; she knew she had accidentally done something wrong. Jake and Cadpig rushed over and looked down at the puzzle. The 100-piece puzzle, barely even started when the two girls had arrived, now lay there, perfectly completed.

"Your pretty picture, it was all broken up," Lilly said innocently. "So I thought I'd try to fix it for you. I was lucky that it broke into pieces that were so easy to fit back together. I did have some trouble because some of the pieces looked like they got chewed or something, but I got them all to fit back into their places."

Cadpig smiled knowingly at Jake. But Jake was none-too-pleased.

"It's a puzzle! It's supposed to be broken up! I didn't need it to be fixed!" Jake snapped.

Lilly turned her eyes away. "I'm sorry. I thought it would make you happy."

Cadpig glared at Jake. "You can just break it up and put it back together again!"

"It's not the same," Jake responded. "Once it's been put together once, it's not the same when you do it a second time!"

"I… just… wanted… to… help…." Lilly choked out.

Jake was about to berate Lilly more when Cadpig stopped him in his tracks. "Leave her alone, Jake!" she barked, with enough force that Jake felt too frightened to disobey.

Lilly laughed a little. "You remind me of my mom sometimes, Cadpig," she said.

Cadpig smiled. "I'm sure I'd enjoy meeting her. She must be a peaceful and enlightened person."

"Something like that," Lilly answered, with traces of sarcasm.

Jake put out his paw to try and motion Cadpig to be calm. "Okay, okay, no more fuss about the picture. How about if I told her she did a good job, would that square everything? You did a good job, Lilly."

"Thanks," Lilly said.

"Now, are we square?"

"As square as a square peg in a round hole," Cadpig answered testily.

"Well, what else could you want?" Jake said. As Cadpig smiled at him he knew the answer. "Fine, fine. You can stay here. Both of you."

It is said that no good deed goes unpunished.

Will Jake find this to be true with his new houseguests?

And can he protect them from their enemies?

Read on.