Storm Cursed

13

“I can ask the earth to put them to rest,” said Zee.

I pulled away from Adam and looked over at the old smith. He stood on the balls of his feet, looking just like he usually did: expression subtly sour as if a scowl were ready to break out at any moment. He looked like a wiry old man who’d done hard physical work his whole life and could outwork any teenager in town—not like a legendary fae who had just faced battle with a foe who had so greatly outnumbered him.

Tad stood just beyond him. And there was an almost existential serenity gathered about his whole body. I had never seen Tad look so at peace with himself.

“They will just dig them up,” I said prosaically. “Someone twenty or thirty years from now will decide they want to build a housing development. Stick a backhoe into the ground and—whoopsie.”

“A lot of dead people here,” said the senator, limping very slowly over to us. “A lot of families who need closure.”

“Too many old zombies,” Zee said. “They are a feast for the crows.”

We must have looked blank—or I did, anyway.

To me, Zee said, “The black-magic users will come to use their bones. I know creatures of the fae who will be drawn to their corpses. I can put them to rest in the ground so that none will find them again.”

He looked at the senator. “The goblin king took care of the dead at your brother’s house. You won’t find the bodies of your people, either. But Uncle Mike tells me that your Ruth has photos, so you can identify them.”

“Took care of them?” he said. Then a little less hostilely he said, “The goblin king?”

“He would have treated them with respect,” I said, and I was sure I was right. Though what respect meant to a goblin and what it meant to Jake Campbell might not be quite the same thing. “His daughter was among the dead there. She tried to see what was going on and was killed by the witches.”

“I see,” he said.

“I will need help to lay them all out,” said Zee. “Tad and I can do it, but it will take longer and we want to get the bodies out of the way before the neighbors awake, yes?”

“The wolves are on their way,” said Adam.

“Did you call them?” I asked.

He shook his head. “But I opened the bonds and they have been looking. They will be here in a few minutes.”

The senator had been steadfastly not looking at Adam or me, and now that matters had calmed a bit, I knew why.

“I’ll just go get some clothes for us,” I said. “And the first-aid kit for your leg, Senator.”

I went to the garden first. I gathered up my clothes and put them on, including the concealed-carry holster and my gun—which reminded me that my cutlass was out there in the darkness somewhere. I’d have to go look for it when things calmed down.

I tied my tennis shoes and then took two steps into Elizaveta’s garden. The crow’s magic was gone. It was just an inanimate husk tied to a scarecrow now.

I was glad Elizaveta was dead.

I would miss the person I’d thought she was, even though that person was plenty scary. I would miss having her as one of the pieces I counted on to keep the people I loved safe. I worried about the vacuum she left behind. Someone would come, another witch, to take over this territory.

I was still glad that Elizaveta was dead.

I jogged over to Adam’s SUV and grabbed the first-aid kit and the spare set of clothes he kept in his gym bag. I started to go, and then turned back and grabbed a wet wipe out of the package he kept in the SUV to clean up messes.

Adam was talking to the senator when I got back.

“—can take you to a hotel, or Uncle Mike’s, or you can go wait at my home if you’d like,” Adam said.

The senator said, “I think I would like to see this through to the end.”

“Okay,” Adam said. “If you change your mind, just let me know.”

I gave Adam his clothes and watched him dress. When he was finished, he caught the expression on my face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I reached up and, very thoroughly, used the wet wipe to clean his mouth. Because I’d had time to analyze what I’d seen in his eyes right before he kissed Elizaveta. It had been horror.

Adam didn’t react, just let me finish washing away the stains. Not his stains, but the witch’s filthy magic and the results of Elizaveta’s choices brought to fruition and set on Adam’s plate. I cleaned those things from my mate. He closed his eyes when I was done and rested his face against my hand.

When he opened them again, they were blazing yellow.

“That is mine,” I told him sternly. “Be careful what you do with it.”

He dropped down on one knee, took my hand, and kissed the palm. “As you wish,” he said.

I kissed the top of his head. “I love you, too.”

He put his face against my belly and whispered, so softly that only I would hear it.

“Nudge.”

I laughed and ruffled his hair. “Work now, play later.”

“Promise?” There was humor in the quirk of his lip, but his eyes were serious, almost grim.

“I will not ask her to care for the black-magic users,” Zee said, coming up to me where I sat on one of the few unbroken chairs.

I was bone tired and I needed a shower. It took me a moment to figure out that “her” was the earth.

“All right,” I said.

“That would be profane,” he told me, as if I had argued with him.

I took a breath, girded up my loins (figuratively speaking), and thought about what he’d said. He had a problem. We had a problem. I could figure out problems if they came at me one at a time.

“We need to burn the house,” I said. “I don’t want whatever witch comes to take over to start with this house. We can put Elizaveta and the Hardesty witches’ bodies in there to burn.”

“It’s not just them,” Zee said. “There are black-magic practitioners who were made into reanimates, too. Rivals, maybe.”

“There are over two hundred zombies out there,” I told him. “I don’t know that I could pick out the difference between zombies who were turned into zombies by black magic and zombies who were also black-magic users.”

He nodded his head shortly. “I can. I will. We will just use the wolves to move the bodies.”

“We buried the ashes of Elizaveta’s family in her garden,” I told him. “We found the bones of her victims buried there.”

He grunted. “The ashes won’t be a problem, though it is good to know that they are there. And I wouldn’t recommend anyone eating out of that garden. I think I can take care of that at the same time.”

See? Life is about problem-solving. Although I was pretty sure that most people’s problems weren’t things like what to do with dead witches and two-hundred-plus zombies.

Adam and the others were gathering around the remains of the dragon. Zee started over toward them, and I heaved myself out of the chair and followed.

“It’s smaller than I expected a dragon to be,” said the senator into the reverent silence. His voice was solemn and the volume was appropriate for a church—or a library.

“I lived for nearly a century in a valley below a dragon’s lair,” said Zee. “I met her twice. The first time, she came to my workshop in the guise of an old and mute lady. She brought me a flower and while she watched, I built her one like it of gold and gemstones. She took it with her when she left. Five or six years later, she showed up at my doorstep, and I have never seen anything so beautiful. That was the only time I saw her in her natural form.” He crouched down and touched the dragon’s neck. “She was as large as a school bus nose to tail. This is a baby.”

The pack came and helped Zee sort out bodies. The senator and I stayed out of the way—and after a very short while, Adam joined us. I think he was afraid I was going to fall out of my chair. But Mary Jo had given me two energy bars and a thermos of hot cocoa. It wasn’t as good as what I made, but it was hot and sweet and it helped. The senator had gotten a thermos of coffee and a pair of the same energy bars.

Warren and Darryl had taken it upon themselves to carry the bodies of the witches into Elizaveta’s house. They carried the first two bodies in, then spent a while inside the house. I could hear furniture moving—and breaking.

“What are they doing?” the senator asked me. Adam had cleaned and wrapped his leg earlier—and attended to a few other minor injuries. The worst of those were bruises. He’d feel all those wounds tomorrow and the day after that. In a few weeks, he’d be fine, physically at least.

“Making a pyre,” Adam said. “To make sure the flames will consume the bodies.” He looked at me. “We have both Joel and Aiden coming—I asked Lucia to bring them after we’ve taken care of the rest of the dead. Aiden doesn’t need to see this.”

“Aiden?”

“He’s a firestarter,” said Adam. Which was an answer without being a lie. He had been hanging out with too many politicians.

Darryl and Warren came out and gathered the last of the witches—Elizaveta and Patience. I shivered. I don’t think I could have touched either of them.

When they came back, Darryl went to help in the field and Warren headed over to grab the last body on the patio. He bent down to pick up Wulfe—and Wulfe wrapped both of his arms around Warren’s shoulders and gave him a hug and a big fat smooch on the cheek.

“Darling boy,” said Wulfe. “Where are we going?”

I hadn’t killed Wulfe—just made him more dead? Deader? Whatever. Wulfe was okay. I was tired enough to feel happy about that.

“If you don’t let go of me,” said Warren, still bent over Wulfe. He’d pulled his hands away, but Wulfe dangled from him anyway, held by the vampire’s grip on Warren’s shoulders. “I will break both of your arms.”

Wulfe let him go and dropped back onto the concrete with a thump. He stretched out both arms and legs and made snow angels. Or he would have made snow angels if there had been any snow.

Maybe he wasn’t okay.

“Wulfe?” I asked, sliding my chair around so I could see him without giving myself a crick in my neck.

He smiled, a wide, joyful expression—and oddly the fangs didn’t rob the smile of its charm. “I am at peace, Mercy,” he told me. He closed his eyes and quit moving his body. “Just like you told me. I will never be okay again.” He didn’t sound unhappy about it.

We watched him for a minute. But he just looked dead again. After a few seconds of that, Warren backed away warily and looked at me.

I shrugged and turned my chair back to its original position. Everyone took their cue from me and ignored the vampire as they gathered the dead.

The senator began to ask questions and I let Adam answer them, closing my eyes until someone put a hand on my knee. I could hear the murmur of Adam’s voice, so he wasn’t far away, presumably still conversing with the senator. But I was alone on the porch with Sherwood.

He sat on the ground next to my chair—one leg, his prosthetic, up and the other down. As soon as I looked at him, he let his hand fall away from me. My cutlass was on the ground next to him. It was dirty.

Sherwood saw my look and said, “The blade is fine. You just need to clean it.”

I’d stabbed a baby dragon with that blade. It had been the right thing to do and I’d do it again. But I didn’t know if I could wash that sin off the blade as easily as Sherwood thought I could.

“You got rid of me before you set out to rescue Adam,” he said after a minute.

I couldn’t tell what he felt about that.

“Of all the things the witches came here looking to do, retaking you would have been their top prize,” I told him.

“How do you know that?” he asked. Then he frowned. “And why did your brother’s phone call mean that you sent me away?”

“I know some things,” I told him. “Not who you were, or how the witches got you. But I learned a little of your story. Do you want me to tell you?”

He drew in a breath and looked away from me, but he nodded.

“I learned a little of this from Wulfe,” I told him. I looked over my shoulder, but Wulfe still looked dead.

Sherwood looked at the vampire and called upon pack magic to seal us in our own little soundproof space. I could feel that it was pack magic, but I’d never seen anyone pull that effect off with so little effort. I wasn’t surprised that Sherwood had managed.

“Okay, then,” I said. “A few centuries back there was a witch. She was, probably, like these two—older than she should be. Her name was Lieza and she was a very good black witch. She was a Love Talker.” I could see that Sherwood knew what that was by the way his shoulders tightened. “And she made zombies.” I waved my hand out to the night. “Some of those out there are hers—the old ones. The ones who look as though they are alive.”

He looked down at his knee.

“Do you want me to stop?”

He shook his head.

“She is somehow connected to the Hardesty witches,” I told him. “They revere her, anyway. Our zombie witch”—I tilted my head toward Elizaveta’s house, where Magda was waiting—“was hailed as the new Lieza because her powers mirrored the other witch’s. Lieza herself grew more daring as she became more powerful. She took a baby dragon and an ogre.” I kept my eyes on Sherwood. “And she took two werewolves. One she turned into a zombie. The other she used to power her magic. That one killed her.”

He breathed in and out slowly.

“The Hardesty family rushed to Lieza’s house, but all they found was her body. Other witches had been there to loot. One of the treasures they had taken was the werewolf.”

“Me,” he said.

“Yes,” I told him. “The Hardestys have made a centuries-long family quest of hunting down all of Lieza’s treasures—her zombies, her implements, and you. Some they pay for, some they steal, and some they have gone to war for. And over the years, you, who killed Lieza, have become the most sought-after prize. They almost had you in Seattle, but the werewolves took out that group of witches and you disappeared into the keeping of the Marrok, where they couldn’t get to you. But then you came here. They know your name—your current name. They know what you look like. And they know you are pack. The traitor in Bran’s pack told them.”

“I’m the reason they came,” he said.

“No. They had their eyes on Elizaveta—she was the most powerful witch they knew of who wasn’t a member of their clan—and they wanted her. Dead or with them.”

“Join or die,” said Sherwood. I couldn’t tell if he’d been quoting Benjamin Franklin or not. Likely not. Joining a coven of witches and joining the American Revolution were, I hoped, two different things.

I nodded at him. “It didn’t work out for them in the end, but that was their plan. Along with keeping the government from making a pact with the fae. They were—are still—all about stopping anything that might later be an obstacle to their power.”

“How do you know all of this?” he said.

I sighed. “The witches. Wulfe.”

He turned to look at me. “That’s all the truth, but it isn’t all of the truth.”

“Coyote dreams,” I told him.

“Your father, Coyote?”

I’d quit fighting with everyone about that. In my heart, my father was a rodeo rider named Joe Old Coyote, who had died before I was born. I would never, as my brother Gary did, call him Dad, or any other fatherly appellation. But I’d quit arguing with people about it. Mostly.

“That’s the one,” I said. “I dreamed one night, and I spent—” Eternity. Years. I swallowed and reminded myself that they were all dead. No kittens would be tortured here again. “I spent a few weeks in the head of your kitten. I am, Coyote tells me, the reason that your kitten survived when everything else died. We overheard things. I learned a lot about them. And when I finally woke up, Coyote made sure I didn’t remember it until he wanted me to.” I gave him a small smile. “When my brother called.”

“I see,” he said, when other people would have tried to take my story apart. Saved the kitten? I thought you said it was a dream?

What he asked when he spoke again was “Why did Coyote care about a bunch of witches? Was he taking care of you?”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “Heaven save me from that. No. I think . . .” I remembered what Coyote had told me. “I think it was the dragon.”

“Ah,” Sherwood said. “Okay. Is that all?”

“That’s all that I know,” I told him.

His body relaxed, as if he’d been braced all along for a hit that hadn’t happened. He let the pack magic keeping our conversation private slide away before asking, “Should I leave?”

“Why would you do that?” I asked. “I mean, do you want to? Where do you want to go?”

He gave me a look. “There are witches after me.”

“And?”

He waved a hand all around us.

“Oh, don’t take credit for this,” I told him. “This is Elizaveta mostly. And me. If you ever see me start to give a speech again, just step on my toes. Please.”

“But they are after me,” he said.

“Don’t feel too special,” I told him. “They—several ‘theys’—are after Adam, too.” I looked over to where Adam stood near the big fire where the senator was warming his hands. They, whatever “theys” they were, would not touch him. “And I turned the whole pack into a big fat target when I opened my mouth and made us responsible for the Tri-Cities.”

“I,” said Sherwood dryly, “am more special than you.”

“I am more special than everyone,” said Wulfe.

I jerked my head around, but he was still lying as if he were dead.

I almost expected Zee to drop his glamour. But when he pushed us all onto the patio except for the non-black-magic-using dead, he walked out in the middle of the field and stood there. A slightly battered, battle-grubby old man.

We stood in quiet witness, the only sound the rustle of leaves in the wind, as he began working magic.

It began slowly. He raised both hands to chest level, fingers splayed and palms down. After a moment he began tapping his foot on the ground. Zee in his human guise weighs maybe a hundred fifty pounds. I’ve seen his real form—and he might tip the scales at two hundred, two-ten maybe. But his foot made the earth shake.

“Mutter Erde, deren Schmied ich bin,” he said, his voice a rumble that resonated in my bones and made the concrete shake a little harder.

“Is that Elvish?” asked the senator, sounding a little in awe.

“German,” murmured Adam.

“He says, ‘Mother Earth, whose smith I am,’” translated Sherwood.

Zee repeated himself. “Mutter Erde, deren Schmied ich bin . . .”

He tilted his head as if he were listening for a reply. I didn’t hear anything, didn’t feel anything different, but evidently satisfied, Zee knelt on the ground. His toe was no longer tapping, but that deep, quiet boom boom boom continued.

He put both hands on the ground and began to chant, with a driving rhythm that played with the sound of the earth.

Öffne Dich, schütt’le Dich, atme und schließe Dich . . .

Erde, hör’! Erbarme Dich,

Ein tiefes Grab eröffne sich,

um Fleisch, Gebein verforme Dich . . .

und tiefer Friede finde sich . . .

“Open, shake, breathe, and close,” said Sherwood. “Earth, hear me, have mercy. A deep grave shall open, around flesh and bones deform yourself—or re-form yourself. Find a deeper peace.”

Zee quit speaking, but the ground rumbled and shuddered beneath us all, rippling and opening . . . A body near me dropped into the earth, as if the ground beneath it had turned to air. As I watched, more bodies disappeared, pulled down into earth.

“Dear God,” said the senator, very quietly.

When all of the bodies that I could see were gone—the dragon had sunk down sometime when I wasn’t looking, though I’d seen the parts of the ogre descend—when only Zee remained, he spoke again, this time in a voice that was achingly tender.

Eile Dich, leg’ sie zur Ruh

und decke sie im Schlafe zu . . .

“Put them to rest swiftly, and cover them in their sleep,” murmured Sherwood, in the same tone as Zee had.

Zee stood up and tapped his foot again, this time matching the sound that had never stopped.

The heartbeat of the world, I thought fancifully.

He held up both hands and shouted,

Öffne Dich, rütt’le Dich, atme und schließe Dich!

On the last syllable he stopped moving his feet. The sound stopped. And once more, the only noise was the sound of the leaves in the trees.

All of the dead were gone—and so, I noticed, was the garden. It was too dark to really see, but I fancied that a cloud of dust—the ashes of fourteen black witches, Elizaveta’s family—blew away on the wind.

“What I don’t understand,” the senator said, setting his empty cocoa cup on my table, “is why Elizaveta waited until after they tortured her to kill them.”

Wulfe giggled. He’d been alternating laughing with silent tears—and I was beginning to feel sorry for him. Which just felt wrong.

We’d brought him home with us because I wasn’t sure he’d have been safe if I just dropped him off at the seethe. Marsilia told me that she’d send Stefan to pick him up, but it might take a while. If Stefan picked him up, Wulfe would be safe.

“She had to wait,” Wulfe expounded. “That’s how the magic works.” He continued less grandly, but there was admiration in his voice. “It’s a clever twist on the familiar spell, really. You can kill only people you are connected to if you want to harvest their death magic. She could have taken them as lovers—or tortured them herself. But getting tortured worked—pain and love bind us all together. It’s all about the binding together. She didn’t love them, but they bound themselves to her when they tortured her. There is a very strong connection between a torturer and the one tortured. Beautiful.”

I couldn’t tell what part of his speech the last word applied to. The spell, Elizaveta’s accomplishment—or the bond between the torturer and her victim.

“She—the other witch—didn’t know my people,” said the senator in a grim voice.

“That was just killing,” Wulfe said airily. “Anyone can kill like that.”

“Anyone?” asked Adam, suddenly alert.

“Anyone who spends three days building a circle, and that kind of a circle takes a lot of study. And has the power to wake it—which isn’t trivial,” said Wulfe. “Okay, not anyone, I guess. Me. Elizaveta could have—but she can’t now. Probably the Hardesty witches—they have some more arrows in their quiver.” He paused, and said again, “Me. But I won’t. Way too much work for too little satisfaction. If I want to kill someone, I prefer up close and personal.” He smiled, and the senator scooted his chair a little farther away, even though the table was between them.

“So not that many could work that kind of magic,” I said, wanting to be clear.

“Ten, maybe twelve witches alive today,” said Wulfe. “I’ll let you know if any of them come—” He paused, tilting his head, but I’d heard it, too: booted feet on our porch. I knew the sound of those feet: Stefan. “—knocking.” He timed the last word to the sound of the fist on the door.

The meeting between the fae and the government did happen. The pack—as represented by Zack, Sherwood, and me—hosted it at one of the big wineries on Red Mountain. A lot of talking got done, but no one said very much—at least not where I could hear it. Adam told me that the smaller conversation in the boardroom was more interesting. Hopeful, even.

Ruth sent Sherwood and me a thank-you note—and so did her wife. To Uncle Mike she sent a bottle of scotch without the thank-you. He wouldn’t have taken it wrong, but that was smarter anyway.

Senator Campbell calls now and again to talk to Adam. He told the families of the people who died at his brother’s home that they gave up their lives to protect him from an assassination attempt. The attempt had to be kept secret, but they should know that their kin died heroically, and he was grateful.

I haven’t told him that I think he’s a walker. I don’t see any profit in that for him or for us. I think the witches went to his brother’s home to kill him—and blame it on the werewolves in some convoluted fashion that counted upon Ruth doing as she was told. When he didn’t die, they decided to take him and see what made him tick. That fits as well as any other scenario.

Sherwood’s cat, Pirate, like Medea, has no trouble with the werewolves. Medea runs and hides whenever Sherwood brings him over—which is whenever Sherwood comes over. Since my cat isn’t afraid of vampires or werewolves, I figure she’ll quit being afraid of a friendly half-grown cat eventually.

Bran thought, based on our description, that the werewolf who had been made into a zombie was Abraham Lessing, a London wolf who disappeared a couple of hundred years ago.

And I can’t forget about the goblin king’s odd and unspecific prediction that we would need to trust him at some future date. That didn’t sound ominous at all.

I had a nightmare and woke up in a cold sweat. I rolled out of bed and began pulling on clothes.

“Where are you going?” asked Adam.

“To Elizaveta’s,” I said tightly. “To make sure.”

He didn’t ask me what I wanted to make sure of. He just drove me to Elizaveta’s and walked out to the ruins with me. There was only a blackened hole where her house had been. The concrete had melted here and there—Aiden had made sure, he’d told me, that the witches would never come back. But sometimes, like tonight, I dreamed a cat’s dream and I had to come out and make certain.

I shivered and Adam wrapped his arms around me, letting me look my fill.

“They are dead,” Coyote observed casually, hopping out of the hole that had been Elizaveta’s basement. Then he did an exaggerated double take at seeing Adam. “Hiya, Adam. Long time no see.”

Adam inclined his head warily.

“I brought something for you,” Coyote said, digging in the back pocket of his jeans.

He pulled out a scrap of newspaper and held it out to me. I took it cautiously, unfolded it, and saw the president of the United States looking terrified as he touched the head of a disgruntled wolf—Warren.

“People have been leaving these for Warren,” I told Coyote. “Under the wiper blades of his truck, tucked into his hat, taped to his mirror.”

“I did the one taped to his back,” said Coyote, sounding smug. “He never heard me come or go.”

“The dragon,” I said. “You wanted to release the dragon.”

Coyote’s face grew somber.

“That’s why you sent me after the witches,” I said.

Coyote looked at Adam. “Sometimes if you don’t kill the bad guys first, they kill you,” he said.

Adam’s arms tightened around me.

Then Coyote looked at me and his face lit up with a merry smile. “Of course it was the dragon, daughter of mine. Of course it was the dragon. Why else would it be?”