Dead Heat

CHAPTER 5

“Market’s back up, is it?” Charles asked dryly, looking at the sales list Kage handed him.

“Sort of up,” said Kage. “The very top-tier horses, the ones that will win at Scottsdale, nationals, or Paris, they sell as high as they ever did. Higher maybe. Last year a stallion sold to Saudi Arabia for five million dollars, but he was a freak of nature. The second-tier horses, good pedigree and nice horses that aren’t quite topflight—those are harder to sell and make a profit on.” He grinned at Charles. “Those are the ones I’m going to be showing you. Before we start, though, you’ll notice Hephzibah on that list.”

“Yes,” Charles said, his eyes crinkling in humor. “Her price has a negative sign by it. Does that mean he’ll pay me to take her?”

Kage laughed. “I won’t sell her to anyone. Hosteen put her on the list. My wife loves that mare. Only horse that Hosteen’s ever failed to ride. I think that’s why Chelsea likes her. Too crazy to sell, too healthy to put down. Beautiful enough that the temptation to breed her will someday overwhelm us all. A nastier horse I’ve never been around. She is all sweetness and goodness, until she goes after you.” He sobered. “She put two of our grooms in the hospital and nearly killed another. Only Hosteen or I handle her now. Treacherous. Her sire, to my knowledge, has never sired another horse with a bad disposition. Her dam was an old mare we got in trade, and Hephzibah was the only foal she had for us.”

A Hispanic man came up to them. “Hey, Kage. These the folks who wanted to look at horses?”

“Mateo—” Kage started to introduce him and paused. “Where is Teri?”

“She’s getting the first horse saddled. You wanted them in the small ring, right? You head over there and we’ll bring them to you.”

“Good. Mateo and Teri are going to wrangle horses while I do the salesman thing.” Kage grinned. “We’ll use the little ring because the big one is being prepped, as you saw. Mateo is our senior trainer, but like all of us, he steps in where we need him. Teri is one of our apprentices and she rides for us in shows.”

“Lots of people working for you these days,” said Charles.

Kage nodded. “It’s because we do the whole thing: breed, train, show. And we show in whatever class the horse is suited for. That means lots of people on the payroll, but we’re diversified. Right now the halter horses are bringing in the biggest money, but Hosteen thinks too much specialization is bad for business.”

And Hosteen would always run this place, would never grow old and gradually let his grandson take over. Anna wondered if that bothered Kage.

As they walked to the smaller arena, all along the barn aisle horses put their heads out over the stall doors—stalls that were both cleaner and fancier than a lot of hotels Anna had stayed at. As they walked, Kage chatted lightly—to Anna and Charles and to the horses.

“We train our horses, but we train other people’s horses, too. Heyya, Bones, are they feeding you enough? Most of the horses I’m going to show you are ours. But a couple of them belong to other people. That’s my girl—aren’t you lovely today? No carrots, sorry. What you are primarily looking for should not be an expensive horse. Show horses, good show horses, are expensive—so mostly what I’m going to present to you are horses unsuited, in one way or another, to the show ring. But Hosteen put a few show horses on the list, just in case. Are you my good, great beastie? Yes, you are.”

The small pen was a round arena about a quarter of the size of the big arena they’d walked by. The fence was made from plywood sheets that were scarred and battered—though still solid. Kage ushered them inside; before he closed the gate, a tiny woman who was rawhide and leather led a smallish bay mare, already saddled with a western, silver-bedecked saddle, into the ring.

“This is Honey Bay Bee,” Kage said. “She’s twelve. We showed her halter at the regional level when she was a yearling and then hunt seat for a year as a futurity horse. She is no longer breeding sound, so we’ve put another year of riding on her and are selling her as an amateur prospect.”

Anna tried to look like she knew what he was talking about, but he lost her at “regional” and “hunt seat.”

“Go ahead and ask,” said Charles.

“Hunt seat?”

“English saddle,” said Kage. “But horses trot long instead of high like they do in the English classes. You’ll see what I mean.”

Teri hopped up gracefully and walked, trotted, and cantered the mare around the pen. Teri had a big smile on her face; the horse looked vaguely annoyed.

She felt annoyed, too, when Anna mounted much less gracefully. She walked, trotted, and cantered for Anna with as much enthusiasm as a kid doing homework. Her ears weren’t pinned, but they weren’t up and eager, either. Bored, bored, bored, they said.

At least she didn’t shy at anything.

Charles shook his head before Anna got off.

“She gives me a baseline,” Kage said. “But no.”

Anna rode four horses that night. By the third horse, she lost most of her shyness about riding in front of virtual strangers who knew a lot more than she did. Which was good, because the fourth horse they brought for her was a tiny gelding who was “English pleasure but not quite a park horse,” whatever that meant. Mateo rode him for them first. Anna saw immediately what Kage had been saying when he’d told her English was up instead of out. The tiny powerhouse snapped up his knees and hocks with enthusiastic energy.

“Could I ride him in a western saddle?” she asked.

“English saddles suck if you are riding in the mountains.” Kage grinned. “Of course you can. Heylight won’t care. He’s all about getting down the road and having fun.”

Evidently they weren’t going to get the western saddle now, though, which was kind of what Anna had been asking. Anna eyed the itty-bitty scrap of leather that was missing the horn for her to grab on to.

“Don’t worry about it,” Charles said as he adjusted her stirrups. “Western or English style, it doesn’t matter. Ride balanced. The seat support is still there. Your rump will know it even if your eyes tell you differently.

“The turn signals for English are like steering a bicycle: turn by pulling his nose a little in the direction you want to go and give him a little more rein with the other hand so you aren’t just pulling back.” He demonstrated with his own hands, moving them together. “You’ll still steer mostly with your body and legs—just like at home.”

“If I screw up on the steering,” she told him, “we’ll just go round and round in circles, anyway.”

He gave her a quick grin and stepped back. She asked the gelding to move off.

The little gelding had stood perfectly still when she got on, but the minute her calves put pressure on his sides, he powered off at a trot instead of the walk she was expecting. It wasn’t the gentle slow trot her usual mount had, either. She bounced around like a rubber ball until she found her seat a little farther back than she was used to. After a few more minutes she settled in and felt a big grin cross her face. He was probably going slower, as far as distance traveled, than the first mare had been with her long striding gait, but it felt like they were flying. The gelding was like a high-performance sports car. The faster he went, the more responsive he got. The best thing about him was that although speed was always available, so were slow and stop.

Reluctantly she slowed him and brought him to the middle of the arena, where Charles, Kage, and Mateo watched.

“Usually we post that trot,” commented Kage with a grin when she stopped. “Not many people would try to sit it.”

“Is that bad?” she asked.

“Heylight’s ears are up, so you weren’t hitting him in the back—but it’s a lot of work to sit a big trot like that.”

She wasn’t sure he’d answered her question until she glanced at Charles, who gave her a nod—it was a compliment.

Charles walked all the way around the horse and then asked, “Does he even make fourteen hands?”

“Wasn’t it you who was just complaining because we’re breeding Arabs bigger and bigger?” asked Kage. “Yes, she could take him in a pony class. Still, she doesn’t look too big for him. I wouldn’t have brought him out for you. He could carry you, but it would sure look funny. We’d have to put wheels on your stirrups or they’d drag in the dust. How big is he, Mateo, do you know?”

Mateo shrugged. “I’ve put a measuring stick on all the horses. I can get his real height from the office if you want me to. But it’s easier to categorize horses as small, medium, and big. Most people can’t tell the difference between fifteen hands and fifteen two anyway, so why confuse the issue? This horse is size small with a size big heart.”

Anna patted the horse and laughed when he leaned into her hand.

Kage put his hand on the horse’s forehead and rubbed lightly. “I kept waiting for this horse to grow. It shouldn’t be about size, but this guy really just isn’t tall enough to compete in the big ring. He also has the problem that in an English class his gaits are sometimes too big and he gets penalized. In a park class his gaits usually aren’t big enough and he gets penalized. We could maybe fix that if we grew his feet out to the maximum and stuck the heaviest shoes that are legal for the show ring on him. But his right front foot is soft and the big shoes don’t stay on it. So we’re selling him as a junior-to-ride horse: English pleasure. He’s not nationals quality, for the reasons I told you, but he could take a regional championship with a good round and a judge who didn’t care about size. That’s why his price is as high as it is.”

“Have you ridden him outside a ring?” asked Charles.

Kage nodded. “Well, not me. Hosteen took him out on one of his weeklong treks into the desert last fall. Said he did fine after the first couple of days. It was just the once, but he also has two years of showing, too. That will sack out a horse but good.”

“Sack a horse out?” Anna asked, picturing people beating on a horse with paper sacks.

“Desensitize him to the kinds of things that could make a horse spook,” Charles said. “They used to take feed sacks and rub them all over the horse until it quit being frightened. The sacks were handy—and scary because they were light-colored and noisy. Showing exposes horses to all sorts of situations, and they learn not to be afraid every time they run into something new.”

“Most of them do,” said Kage. “Eventually. But he’s honest and brave. Mackie’s riding him in the show, and I wouldn’t trust my girl to just any horse.”

“We’ll keep him on our likely candidate list,” said Charles.

Anna slid off reluctantly. “Don’t I get a say in it?”

“The big grin on your face already said a mouthful,” Charles told her. “Mere words are not necessary.”

“You might try her with Portabella,” said a breathless voice just outside the arena.

“Dad?” Kage sounded shocked. “What are you doing down here—you should be in bed.”

Sure enough, Joseph Sani stood watching with both hands on the upper surface of the arena fence. “I’ll have plenty of time to lie down when I’m dead.” He nodded at Anna. “Portabella is full of fun like that. She’d like to spend her days in the mountains up there in Montana. She’d like that.”

“You named a horse after a mushroom?” asked Anna.

“Her name is Al Mazrah Uhibboki,” Mateo said. “We had to call her something pronounceable. Her grandsire is Port Bask—so Portabella.”

“Her real name is what?” Anna asked.

“Al Mazrah is the stud farm that bred her,” Kage said. “Uhibboki means, we think, ‘I love you.’ So Al Mazrah Uhibboki. Al Mazrah stud is in Indiana and no one there speaks Arabic. No one here speaks Arabic, either, so I don’t know for sure. And we are probably pronouncing it wrong anyway.”

Joseph laughed, and then he coughed harshly a couple of times.

“Dad,” said Kage.

“Don’t fuss,” Joseph said. “When I’m dead you can fuss. I needed to smell the horses again.” He closed his eyes and took a shallow breath. He opened them and said, “Better than medicine for an old man. And I need to talk to Charles. Ernestine said you were at the barn.”

“How did you get here?” Kage asked.

“I took the last UTV,” he said. “But I think I’ll let Charles drive me back up. We can talk on the way.” He glanced at Kage. “You and Mateo might want to show Anna some of the new babies. I hear that our Kalli had a filly yesterday that everyone is over the moon about.”

Charles waited at Joseph’s unspoken request while Mateo and Kage took Anna off to look at the foals. When they were out of sight, Charles said, “Do you need me to carry you? Won’t be the first time.”

Joseph laughed. “That’s for damned sure. There was that one week I was determined to drink every bar in the town dry.”

“I don’t remember that,” said Charles gravely. “But I was thinking about when that mustang dumped you and you broke your leg twenty miles from anywhere. Horse made it back and your dad and I finally went out as wolves to find you. He ran back for help and I carried you halfway home before help came.”

“Really?” said Joseph tentatively. “You don’t remember?”

“Someone asked me not to,” said Charles. “And I told him I would oblige him. So no. I don’t remember.”

Joseph nodded. “You know, I think I could make it back to the UTV, but I’m sure that if I did, I couldn’t talk with you and that’s important. I’m too old for pride.”

Charles picked him up with considerably less effort than he’d used to carry Joseph on that long-ago walk into town, because a frail old man weighs a lot less than a wiry cowboy. Charles wondered if the reason his dad did not associate much with humans was that they grew old and died. He did not enjoy the sorrow, but he would not have missed the years that he and Joseph were friends, either. Such joy was worth a little sorrow.

The lights were off in the big arena, and no one saw Joseph being carried out to the utility vehicle. The old man had pushed himself too far. Even if the spirits had granted him strength, muscles that had lain in bed for three months were not as able as they could be.

He didn’t say any of that, because Joseph knew it as well as Charles did.

He put Joseph in the passenger seat and climbed into the utility vehicle beside him. “You’re going to have to tell me how to start this thing,” he said.

“You don’t use ATVs or UTVs up in those mountains of yours?” Joseph asked. “I thought there was a lot of country too rough for trucks in Montana.”

“That’s what horses are for,” Charles told him, and Joseph laughed, though Charles hadn’t meant to be funny.

With the old man’s help, he got the vehicle started and heading the right way.

“Chelsea,” said Joseph in a low voice. “Was that because I wouldn’t let you change me? My father thinks it is.”

“Chelsea was because of Chelsea,” Charles told him. “If she had not belonged to your family, I’d have done the same thing.” And because it was Joseph, he shared the full truth, shameful as it was. Consent was important; it ought to be necessary. “I’m glad I knew she was Kage’s wife, that I could contact him to get permission. My wolf admired her toughness. There aren’t many people who can face down a fae geas. I think that he would have insisted we Change her no matter what Kage had said.”

Joseph listened, and said, “That’s pretty messed up. But it will probably work out okay.”

“I hope so,” Charles said.

“Brother Wolf isn’t going to try that with me?” Joseph’s voice was wary.

Charles laughed, a small laugh that sounded like it could have been something else. “Brother Wolf is already in mourning for you. He’d roll over and die for you, but he won’t do something you’ll hate him, hate me, for. You’re safe.”

They drove for a little while.

“I like Chelsea,” Joseph said, breaking the comfortable silence. “She stands up to Hosteen when everyone else backs down. She is tough.” He paused. “I would not have chosen this for her, though. Death is a gift, Charles.”

“When you are ready to go,” agreed Charles. “But not when you have three young children who need you. Do you think she would have chosen death over being a werewolf?”

Joseph didn’t answer. It was a big question, and he liked to take his time with those.

“He’s softer than I remember him,” Kage said as he drove Anna back to the house. “Your husband, Charles. Dad would be so happy when he’d come visit, but he scared the pants off me. Mom would get this funny look and do her best to find some reason to go visit relatives. Sometimes she’d take me with her. He always looked at me like he was deciding how best to kill me.”

Anna couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve seen that look,” she said. “If it helps, I think it’s his default when he’s worried about something. Not usually murder.” Usually when he kills, his face is very quiet. It doesn’t look like he’s thinking at all.

“But he wasn’t like that today,” Kage said.

She made a neutral noise and then caught herself. She didn’t talk about her husband to people, but he was right, Charles had been softer with him. “You know what his job is, right?”

Kage nodded. “Bran’s troubleshooter and assassin.”

“That’s right,” she said. “It means that he can’t care about anyone, you know? Because that might be the guy who goes nuts and starts a bloodbath Charles has to finish. It was worse after the werewolves came out because it meant that little bit of gray area that allowed him not to kill every-freaking-body who didn’t toe the line disappeared.”

Kage stiffened.

“Chelsea’s not home free,” she told him. “But she’s tough and she controls herself, right? I’ve seen her kids; they’ve grown up with rules tempered with love. That’s a good place to start if you become a werewolf.”

“But he could be the one called to take care of her if something goes wrong,” he said.

“Probably not,” she disagreed. “That would be your grandfather.”

“Hosteen?” Kage swallowed. “He’d kill her just because.”

She started to protest, then swallowed it. She didn’t know Hosteen; she couldn’t offer reassurances about what Hosteen might or might not do.

They bumped along quietly for a little and then, when the lights of the house were visible, Anna said, “Anyway. Charles is hard. He has to be. Justice and law, right? Because without those he cannot function. He doesn’t get close to people—just his father, his brother, his foster sister, and me. And Joseph. That makes you important to him.”

He looked at her like he couldn’t figure out why she’d told him that.

“You can go to him for help,” she said. “That’s why he made you get mad at him—so you’d know he was safe. Hosteen has issues with Chelsea. If you think things are getting out of hand, you call us, okay? Charles isn’t soft. He can’t afford to be soft. But he is always just.” She smiled. “And he’s not afraid of Hosteen.”

Kage nodded. “Okay. I’ll keep it in mind.”

They pulled into the parking area next to the house. Kage walked back to the bedroom where his wife was, and Anna walked with him.

Chelsea slept, curled up in the corner of the bed. They’d left the lights on because nothing short of a nuclear explosion was going to wake her up.

Maggie was seated in a rocking chair, reading a book that she’d set down as soon as Kage appeared. Hosteen had a book, too, but his brooding unhappiness was strong enough that Anna’s wolf took a decided interest.

Maggie watched her son and then stood up. “Anna?” she said. “Could I have a word with you?”

“Do you think I did the wrong thing? Changing Chelsea instead of letting her die?” Charles asked, again. They were coming up to the house, but Charles drove past the turnoff for the driveway.

“Do I? Yes.” That was his friend. Blunt to the point of rudeness, but only with Charles. “Does she?” Joseph made an ambiguous sound that might have been a sigh if he’d had more air. “I think that in the heat of the moment, she would have fought for her life. Any kind of life. I think if you asked her right now, she’d say she was grateful. What she will say in five years or ten?” He shrugged.

“Did you know she was a witch?” Charles asked.

Joseph nodded. “She told me before she married my son. She wanted Maggie and me to understand what we were getting ourselves into. Black witches hunt down people like Chelsea; untrained witches apparently can feed them a lot of power. She’s pretty sure that her first husband was killed by a witch hunting her. She changed her name, bundled Max up, and moved from Michigan to Arizona. I told her that we already had werewolves; a witch would be a welcome change.”

“And Maggie?”

Joseph said, “It was the worst argument we ever had—and I don’t think either of us said a word about it.” He shrugged. “My father likes to argue, to use words. I think his way is better—but it is not Maggie’s way. So we were silent for a while and things went back to normal. Maggie likes her now.”

“But not Hosteen.”

Joseph frowned fiercely. “He keeps the old ways so alive he forgets what is true and what is false. He believes witches are evil because the Navajo stories of witches are all about evil witches. He still believes in the monsters in the stories his mother told him and her mother told her.”

“Navajo witchcraft is such that Navajo witches are evil. If they are not evil, then they are not witches,” Charles said. “And your father is right about the monsters. I’ve met a few of them. The worst monsters hide in plain sight.”

Joseph frowned at him. “Monsters here?”

“I’ve seen skinwalkers who wear the skins of dead men so they look like the person they have killed. I have seen the Cold Woman,” Charles said. He’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to Joseph. “So have you. Do you remember that woman in that old bar in Willcox? The persistent one who tried to get us both to come home with her?”

“Yes,” Joseph admitted. “You were pretty adamant that we had to wait for a friend we didn’t have.”

“Two men went missing that night and were found dead in their car a few weeks later a couple hundred miles away,” Charles said.

“She was the Cold Woman,” he said. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t know then, just knew that she didn’t smell human. She was gorgeous. In a room full of richer-looking, certainly better-looking men”—Joseph nudged him with an elbow—“she picks two dirty, tired cowboys? Felt like a trap. I figured out who she was after the bodies turned up. There were no wounds. Just two dead men sitting in a car in the middle of a pleasant spring day, frozen all the way through. The coroner figured someone had murdered them in an ice locker or commercial freezer, then staged the bodies.”

“The Cold Woman … why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“By the time I figured it out, you’d met Maggie. The Cold Woman wasn’t as important as other things.”

“I think I’m glad I didn’t know,” Joseph said.

“Too much knowledge can make you paranoid all the time,” Charles agreed. “It can also make you a target.” They came to the junction where the Sani road met the highway. He turned the UTV around and headed back to the ranch house.

“So if my father is right about everything—is Chelsea evil?”

“Hosteen is not right about everything.” Charles grinned at Joseph’s ironic tones. “And Chelsea is no more evil than you or I.” He paused thoughtfully. “Than I am, anyway. I don’t know about you.” More seriously he said, “There is a scent to black magic—I would smell it.”

“Ah, good,” Joseph said. Then he said, in the same tone, “My wife will ask you to Change her after I’m dead.”

Charles had no time to prepare. No warning to brace himself, and he felt as though he’d been punched: Maggie.

He had loved her once. She was a fiery warrior, Maggie. Tough and smart and funny—and unexpectedly tender. If he closed his eyes he could still see her, her beautiful bright eyes wet and luminous. There were many things in his years on earth that were faded by time, but not that night. That night was clear as cut glass.

“If you would have me, I would be yours,” Maggie said, moonlight softening her fierce young features into something more accessible.

He knew how hard those words were from this proud woman who did not believe in making herself vulnerable for anyone. Her childhood had been hard and hadn’t made it easy for her to trust.

The night air was crisp—spring in the desert. The wooden boards of her porch were uneven under his feet. He could hear the wild-caught horses in the corrals moving idly a dozen yards from the little house. Could hear the soft sounds of Joseph’s sleeping breath.

Her roughened hands reached out slowly, and he did not back away. They touched his face and he closed his eyes, allowing himself the comfort of her touch. To be touched with love was uncommon in his life, and he treasured it, absorbed it.

She was beautiful, but that had nothing to do with why he loved her. He loved her for her refusal to give in to a world that twice judged her wrongly, first for the color of her skin and then for her sex. He loved her for the joy she took in the sun on her back and the horses she rode. He loved her for the laughter she found in danger and storms.

And that was why he’d let it go this far. Far enough that she risked her battered heart—and he’d done it knowing that he would break it. There was no name for the depth of hell he deserved for doing that to a woman he loved.

He pulled back gently. “You don’t know me, Maggie. If you knew what I am you would not touch me.” But he knew her. And that knowledge gave him no hope to cling to—no excuse for letting her think that they might be more than what they were.

“I know you,” she said, trying to hide her hurt. She couldn’t hide from him, but he didn’t let her know that. Her pride he would protect as well as he could; it was easier than protecting her poor heart. His poor heart.

“We may have known each other for only four months,” she continued. “But those have been four months of sixteen-, sometimes eighteen-hour days. I know you, Charles Smith.”

You don’t even know my name, he thought in despair. And I don’t dare give it to you. He wanted to take what she offered, wanted to drown himself in her until he wasn’t alone anymore.

“I am not who you think I am,” he told her. I am a liar. I have lied because I could not bear for you to turn away from me.

“If you tell me you’re a murderer,” she said stoutly, “I’d say that whoever you killed deserved it. If you tell me you are a thief, I’d not believe it. Thieves don’t work as hard as you do, and I should know. My dad was a thief and a murderer—he killed my mother as surely as if he’d shot her. I know evil, Charles. And I know a good man when I see him.”

His father’s rules rang in his ears. No one must know what you are. Charles had lived long enough, seen enough, to know that his father was right—and still. She thought that he was a good man when he wasn’t a man at all.

“You know a good man, do you?” he asked, feeling anger sweep up and make him light-headed. “Do you?” asked Brother Wolf, hurt and enraged that he would be the cause of such tragedy. Brother Wolf loved her, too, but he knew that she could not love him. Would not love him. “Then see me, Margaret. See me and tell me again that you love me.”

In despair and anger then—knowing what would happen because even though she did not know him, he did know her—he did what he’d sworn he would not do. He let Brother Wolf’s shape take him, glorying in the odd quirk of magic that let him shift swiftly, faster now because it had been so long since he’d allowed Brother Wolf to stand out in the real world.

Maggie froze. For a moment there was no expression on her face at all, and then it went blank with fear. She screamed and stumbled away from him, falling to the ground and curling into a ball. Not physical fear, but fear of what he was, what he might turn her into. The Navajo had more experience than most with the ugly side of magic.

Joseph barreled out the front door and saw Maggie and Charles. He’d always been quick; he took in everything at a glance. Joseph, the son of a werewolf, knew what Charles was, had known what Charles was from the first.

But Joseph was also the son of his mother, who had been so frightened when she found out what it was she had married that she’d left them and gone back to the reservation. Joseph understood the terror that had stricken Maggie silent, too.

Joseph knelt and gathered Maggie into his arms and made soothing noises. She quieted, her head buried against his shoulder so she couldn’t see the wolf. Joseph looked up at Charles.

“Give her some time,” he counseled. “Let her see that the wolf is still you.”

If he’d listened, maybe his life would have been different, and so would Joseph’s. But he hadn’t listened; he’d left at a run, knowing that she’d be safe with Joseph. When he came back a year later, he had not been surprised to learn that Joseph and Maggie were married.

“Did you ever think about what might have happened if you hadn’t left that night?” said Joseph.

It didn’t surprise him that Joseph understood what Charles had been thinking about. Dying left a man very close to the whole spirit of the world, and odd things made it through. As long as he didn’t draw Joseph’s attention to it, Joseph wouldn’t even notice.

“Yes,” Charles said.

Joseph laughed. “You ever lie?”

“Not unless lives are on the line,” he told his old friend.

“Yeah, I remember a few of those times,” he agreed. “Now that you mention them.” There was a natural pause. “The stories I’ve heard about you and Anna—they tell me that you’ve learned to fight for what you want.”

Charles let that ride for a moment, trying to frame the truth. “I think I’ve learned what I wanted. Maggie could never have loved Brother Wolf the way we needed her to. In a stupid way, I think that’s why I wanted her so badly.”

“Man, that’s twisted,” said Joseph. “You loved her because she only loved your human half.” He thought a moment. “Is that, like, sibling rivalry? Does that mean you have a ménage à trois now, you old rogue, you?”

Charles found himself smiling. “Maybe à quatre, don’t you think? Anna has a wolf side, too.”

Joseph fell asleep as Charles drove up to the house. He slept while Charles carried him up to the door. Maggie opened it before he needed to worry about how to get through it without waking Joseph up. She followed him silently up to Joseph’s apartment and watched as he tucked Joseph in. The host of medical equipment had been pulled to the side of the room and stood like a grim, silent reminder that this chance to talk with his old friend was a finite thing.

“You don’t sleep in here?” he asked. Because this room was all Joseph.

“He sent me away,” Maggie told him. “Right after the cancer came back. Told me I needed my sleep.” She leaned against the wall and looked at Joseph. “He probably meant it. But the pain makes sleep very hard for him to find; mostly he dozes because he can’t really sleep. I move in my sleep, I always have. He can’t sleep with me in his bed.” She pushed off the wall and walked to the bed.

“You could sleep with him tonight,” he told her. “He’s exhausted, and the pain shouldn’t be too bad.”

“An effect of your magic?” she asked. “It’s good that something could stop the pain.” She looked at Charles. “I know it’s not permanent, but it is hard not to hate you for leaving him alone when you could have helped. He’s been in so much pain.”

He opened his mouth to tell her that it wasn’t his magic. That he had no idea why the spirits had decided to relieve Joseph of his burden for a while. That they probably wouldn’t have helped earlier. But he closed his mouth without speaking. She didn’t need truth. She needed someone to be angry at because anger was easier than pain. He could give her that.

She sat down on the bed and turned her attention to Joseph, who slept like a child.

“Silly old man,” she said, brushing his hair with her hand. “Think a little magic is going to turn back the years? So you can go out and break mustangs and women’s hearts again?”

It can, Charles thought. Because he’d lied to Kage. He could pull Joseph through the Change whether or not his old friend wanted him to. Chelsea had taught him how to do it.

In his heart, he ached more for this man than he ever had for Maggie, and his heart had ached plenty for her.

“What am I going to do with you?” Maggie asked her husband.

Joseph didn’t answer her, and neither did Charles.

“Go away,” she told him finally, her hand on Joseph’s cheek. Just as she had touched him once.

A long time ago.

He left, closing the door carefully, and pretended he didn’t know she was crying.