It was much later, almost seven, when several cars pulled up into the driveway. Sam and I had been out on the porch watching the evening roll slowly in as the cars had arrived. The last car belonged to the ranch and contained several family members who had let the others in at the gate. Sam and I rose and watched the other shapeshifters getting out of their cars. There seemed to be some established order in who came out first, and there was a great deal of tension between the first two groups to reach the doors. One of them looked at me and snarled like an angry cat.

“Humans?” he spat. “Here?”

Susan appeared at the doorway, and the speaker subsided, glancing at her and then away in deferred challenge.

“Our people have often taken human partners to keep the bloodline from becoming too staid,” said Susan firmly. “They have as much at stake with their mates in danger as you do, Natrix.”

The shapeshifter glowered, then entered the house under Susan’s glare. The next group consisted of three heavily built, shaggy men who gave the impression of having horns even without showing their forms. Susan greeted them cordially, and then followed several others who I guessed were bears, wolves, and eagles from the way Susan addressed them. The eagles looked around keenly, and their movements were decidedly more birdlike. The wolves moved with an economy of power, and the bears lumbered. Last were several graceful men and women who Sam whispered were the cervid clans – elks, moose, and deer.

When they were all inside, Susan ushered us to the living room. All of the adults were in the room, but the children had been taken to the big family room on the other end of the house. Teddy was probably the youngest member in the living room, and he seemed nervous to be there.

“Welcome,” said Susan. “I realize this is sudden, but the problem has been growing as of late, and I felt that this meeting was well overdue. We are not here to talk about you changing anything in regards to your sovereignty. Your lands and beliefs remain your own. We want to share what we know about these Mystery Seekers as they are after all of us. Percival, could you please recount to us what happened to you last week that prompted your call to me?”

One of the bearlike men stood and looked around at the others.

“I found a man stalking me,” he said. “He was armed with a tranquilizer gun and seemed to know our trails with ridiculous ease. I managed to get behind him and knock him out; took a look at his belongings. He had maps, photos of us as animals and men, names…We have not been careful enough, my friends.”

“Did you kill him?” asked one of the wolf clan, calmly but with a touch of steel under his breath.

“No,” said Percival. “I left him without his possessions but alive. Here.”

The big man put a backpack and a gun onto the table in front of everyone and proceeded to pull out photos from the bag, spreading them out around the table. Several people apparently recognized themselves or family members in the photos as there were a number of grumbles and outraged noises.

“Well,” rumbled one of the other cat clan members, “this is unexpected. How do we deal with this? None of us have seen them, but they have obviously seen us.”

“We can move,” muttered one of the buffalo clan. “Herds are always on the move. The rest of you, though, may not be so lucky.”

“Yes,” said another of the wolf clan. “We have homes nearby here.”

“We thought you might like to know,” said Susan. “We are facing the same problems you are. Our only saving grace is that we can pretend to be regular horses, and we live on this ranch. Other than that, we are in the same position. Not all of our members live here. Those who live on the East Coast are having problems finding a place to change, and there has already been one incident where my son lost control and changed in the center of town. We were lucky that it was his mate who found him, but it could have been worse and reports of a loose horse got back to this group causing a number of problems.”

The other shapeshifters looked around at each other in surprise.

“This is more serious than we imagined,” said one of the eaglemen, looking sharply at Susan. “What can we do?”

“The only solution is to look out for each other,” said Susan. “Until this is over, put aside petty differences and work together to keep them from finding any of us.”

“We can ask the corbies to help,” said one of the wolf clan. “They are often our eyes and ears while hunting. They would benefit from this as well.”

“We can agree to this,” said one of the cat clan, “until the clans are safe again. A truce?”

“Truce,” agreed the others one at a time. “Truce.”

Susan nodded her agreement as well.

“We’ll need a plan to tell the others,” said one of the eagles, a young man light of build, but muscled like an acrobat. “The corbies are the most urban of our groups. They can get the word out most effectively, I think, to others in the cities. Not all of my people live up here, Susan. Some do live close to or in the cities, especially around the Great Lakes area. We can put out the word that we will be helping the other clans, get the message to the various loners.”

“I think we might also alert our brothers in other countries,” said one of the wolves, a woman with a hungry look to her. “After all, this might be a coordinated effort.

The others nodded in agreement, and they broke into their various clans to make lists of who to contact of their kin. Several members of the groups cast uneasy glances at me and the other human family members. Susan and Sam exchanged a look, and Sam signaled to me to follow him to the dining room. The seven other human partners joined us, barring Meredith and those born into the clan. Sam gave me a hug and returned to the living room. The rest of us looked around at each other with worried eyes.

“This affects us too,” said one of the men who I had met briefly earlier whose name I couldn’t recall. “We have almost as much at stake as they do. We all love our partners, and I can’t help but think that we would not fare well if they are caught either.”

“Well, what can we do?” asked Sherri, getting herself a cup of coffee and sitting down at the big table. I also grabbed a cup as the rest of the human partners took their seats.

“For one, we need to find allies,” said Paul, whose name I did remember. “We need to have people we know will back us. Those we can trust who are in a position to do the most good.”

“Still, that means we have to figure out who to trust,” said the first man. “I am not sure I know too many who I would trust with Mary’s safety.”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “We all have one or two friends who we can trust, but mostly we can’t be sure. My friend Sarah was with me when I found out about Sam, but as for telling anyone else? I’m not sure.”

“There you are,” said Sherri.

We all looked around at each other for a few long minutes before one of the other women spoke up.

“Suppose we can get someone into one of the groups?” she said. “You know, get a spy into the midst of these Mystery Seekers and find out what they really know or don’t know.”

“It’s a possibility,” said another man; Bob, I recalled suddenly, was his name. He steepled his fingers in front of his face and looked thoughtful. “It can’t be one of us, though. Too risky.”

“I have a friend,” said Paul slowly, “who would be perfect for this. He’s a conspiracy nut to begin with, and he absolutely adores Sarah. I think we could get him to do it.”

“We might also consider having a private Facebook page where we could discuss this,” Sherri said. “Obviously not list anyone of ours by name, per se, but something where we could pass on information to each other.”

“We’ll have to wait until we’ve talked to everyone else after the meeting,” said the woman who had spoken about getting into the group. “It’s not a bad idea though. We can establish a group list now, and pass the info on to the others though our partners.”

She pulled out a notebook from the satchel she had with her, and everyone wrote his or her Facebook name down. We all read the names to familiarize ourselves with who was who, and then she put the notebook away and we sat listening to the murmuring of voices from the other room for a few minutes in silence.

“What do you think about them?” I asked finally. “You know, the other shapeshifters?”

“They make me uneasy,” said Barb, the woman who had started the list. “They are distinctly more alien than our folk.”

“Don’t let them fool you about the no humans thing,” said Paul. “Sarah is friends with one of the corbies near Chicago. That boy, Greg by name, has women and men around all the time, and they are all human. Crow shapeshifters are pretty gregarious, but because there aren’t many of them, they hang out with humans a lot. Greg has mentioned that quite a few of the Osprey and Eagles that he knows also take human partners. I think because the cats are so solitary, they just don’t get into meeting many other people, though it happens. The wolves and deer folk do, though, and some of them also have human mates. A lot more of them live in the cities than they let on.”

“Our mates are much more with keeping us informed, though,” said Sherri. “I have a friend who is with a bear shifter. A lot of them don’t tell their mates ever. Those that do tend to keep them from meeting the other members of their clan. It’s both protection and politics.”

“It’s so strange,” said Barb. “I mean, I’m used to the horse politics, I guess, but not those of the other clans.”

“I know what you mean,” said Tom, the first man who had spoken. “ Fran and I have been together ten years. I get what goes on around here now so well that I think I understand the herd better than my own family sometimes. The other clans are so alien.”

“Can you imagine what lion shapeshifters would be like? Or hyenas?” laughed Sherri.

“Eww,” said Barb. “No, I think I’ll pass on dating a hyena.”

“Vulture?” laughed Dean.

“Are you being speciesist?” asked Paul with a twinkle in his eye.

Bob groaned, “Oh, not that. Anything but that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.

“We have friends who are vegan,” Paul explained. “And they constantly lecture us about eating other animals and treating animals inhumanely. One of them met us in the park while I was riding Sarah one day and proceeded to harangue me about how ill-treated my poor mare was and how it as animal slavery. When we got back to where Sarah could become human again, she was torn between laughing and calling her friend to rip her a new one. We settled on just ignoring the outburst, but Sarah is still irritated with her.”

“But still,” said Nef, “when I do rodeo with John, I still end up getting lectures from some animal lovers about how ill-treated my poor gelding is. They never bother to check to see that he’s actually a stallion, by the way; they just assume that he’s been gelded. John has occasionally threatened to piss on their shoes for me.”

We all laughed at that, and looked around at each other in something akin to wonder.

“Sometimes,” said Dean, “I have a hard time believing my luck. I mean, I’m an odd duck to begin with, not only being a gay man, but being partnered with one of the few gay stallions out there. Then I think about how very lucky I am to know about this part of reality to begin with, and I’m awestruck, ya know?”

Everyone nodded and we sat silently for a few moments, absorbing it all.

“Paul,” said Nef, breaking the silence finally. Do you really think your friend can pull it off? And is he trustworthy?”

Paul sat up straighter and nodded.

“I believe so,” he said. “Steve has known us for years, and he is solid. He also could charm birds from the trees, so I think that if we approached him the right way, he could get us some pretty good information.”

“It’s worth a shot,” said Sherri.

At that moment, Susan, Sam, and the mates of the others entered the dining room. Behind them, the sounds of starting engines could be heard as the other clans left.

“They are going,” Susan said. “They want to get back and begin getting the word out to their people as soon as possible. I’m sorry we asked you to leave, but a lot of them really don’t trust humans.”

“That’s okay,” said Paul, glancing at his wife. “We have been making some of our own plans.”

He explained his ideas to the newcomers, and there was a lot of nodding at the ideas. Susan didn’t look completely convinced but looked willing to consider them.

“Paul is right,” said Sarah. “Steve is the perfect spy. I trust him more than any human I know, present company excluded, and he will not do us wrong.”

“Okay,” said Susan finally. “We’ll put this together. I do think that it is good that you have more of a network of information than we do, and if you folks want to run it, then do so. Keep us posted what you find out, and we can plan from there.