Second entry for The Watchers, Enjoy and give me feedback.

Shepherd Benjamin saw himself as a quiet scholar, a seeker of truth and the higher planes of existence. He do not care for the thrills or dangers of violence, but this was inhospitable and unprovoked! He tapped his staff against the doorstile, stepped back in front of the doorway, pointed the staff’s end into the interior, closed his eyes and spoke a few, seldom-used phrases. The flashes of light that followed were all any mid-summer festival could have hoped for in pyrotechnics. Screams and grinding metal sounds preceded a break-building explosion. He shivered. “Ugh!” The place still stank. He turned and walked away, mumbling brief prayers for the souls of the sapient beings his staff had just turned to ash.
When he reached the far side of the fountain, the beggar girl moved in beside him, matching her pace to his own. “That was impressive,” she enthused. “What happened to those inside?”
Benjamin stopped and took a deep breath, letting the clean, stenchless air he was now moving through his lungs linger in his nose and throat. “I am afraid that all those inside were overly sensitive to light. It is possible that they separated.”
“Separated? Life force from body?”
“Indeed. Their bodies have departed. I know not where their life forces now reside.”
“You use strange verbs, holy man.”
He chuckled, allowing himself a nervous look at his most-recent savior. “You have a strange way of understanding them. Thanks for the warning …and the flash bomb.”
The girl gave him a brief, fierce look then shrugged and cupped her right stump in her left hand and rubbed. Head tilted back slightly, she returned his look in the same manner as before. “Where do you go now, holy man?” she asked.
“Back to my lodging, I guess.”
“You do not wish to examine the place you just incinerated?” she asked.
“Hmm. Had not considered that.” Benjamin stopped, turned around and studied the worship house. It appeared unchanged except for faint streams of pale smoke that continued to drift from the doorway and several small, shattered windows set in its upper dome. Nothing now would be alive inside—not even the elders he had sought—if they had yet been resident. No, he needed the fresh air and these clean, sanded streets, not rooms half-filled with burnt meat. “No, child. I think I have done enough here.”
“Then I shall,” the girl answered, and left him. He watched her skip and weave her way back to the entry, tapping the fountain’s basin edge with her good hand as she passed it and whistling a simple melody that he was sure he knew but could not at that moment place. She waved to him once, then disappeared inside.
“‘You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din,’” he quoted, sighed and resumed his retreat as the fire sirens began scream their warnings. It was only the next day that he realized that the girl’s melody was Bach’s “That Sheep Might Safely Graze.”

Fox Girl (copyright 2008) Wes Loder

The bleat was more scream than cry. The boy pivoted, put down his cup and stared out of the open dutch door. “Elsie? Elsie!”
A second cry hit his ears, but he was already taking the porch steps two at a time and tearing toward the barn, the screen door banging behind him. The barnyard’s gate was closed, but—never mind—he scaled it, spotting the cause of Elsie’s cries just before he dropped over the other side. His family’s favorite ewe and her three days old lamb were both outside. So was another, older lamb and something red—like flame and anger flashing—all four circling and jumping in a frantic dance together.
Without thinking, he charged right into this circle of snorts, bleats and sudden, high-pitched barks—the barks sounding like the horn at the start of a race, or a dog’s last cry as it discovers the inflexibility of a moving car’s bumper. The red-furred animal was the boy’s target. He swept aside the bigger lamb and dove at the creature still spinning in the manure pile, caught between Elsie and himself. He had a dim, break-of-dawn vision of a small, narrow-snouted dog, all flame-colored except for black feet and a white chest. Then it was under his body and he had it by the throat and jaw, his right hand clamping its mouth shut.
Suddenly his grip slipped, for the nose he had just held was flattening, and changing from black to white, the creature’s head growing rounder and its ears shrinking. The flailing, furry, dark paws were morphing into hands scarcely smaller than his own, a fuzzy red dress replacing what had been fur and bushy tail.
A moment later, and he was staring into frightened, blue eyes set in a pale face and framed by the brightest red hair he could ever imagine. “Hu, huh” the girl gasped.
“Wha …?” The boy let his hands go limp and panted several times before more words could come out. “Where’d you come from?” he finally managed.
“Ah-mm, Mmp?” the girl seemed to be able to manage only meaningless noises from deep in her throat.
“I’m sorry. I’m sitting on you, aren’t I?” The boy rolled off the girl. He was about to offer her a hand when he spotted the first drop of blood dribbling from the side of her mouth. He backed away, holding up his hands with the index fingers crossed. Yes, he could see that the older lamb was limping and the wool of Elsie’s near shoulder was turning a dark red. “Go away,” he cried. “Go, go back to your own world. Leave our sheep alone. Go on. I’m sorry I hurt you, but begone.”
The girl got up on her knees, then stood, brushing bits of straw and turds from her dress. She stared at him, her eyes wet and anxious, then she licked away the blood on her chin with a long, black tongue.