Wild Sign

CHAPTER 9

“Ms. and Mr. Cornick, I believe you agreed to speak with me,” Underwood said after Daniel and his nurse were well on their way. “Let me take you to my office, where we can talk uninterrupted.”

He turned and headed out on a trajectory that wouldn’t lead him to the path they had originally taken from the main building, making the assumption that they would follow. Which was a safe enough move, if not for the reasons Underwood expected. Brother Wolf all but purred with anticipation.

Anna followed him without demur, and Charles could see the frail net of Underwood’s magic clinging to her, though it thinned more as the spellcraft worked in the garden fed upon it. Even at full power, Underwood’s spell was indirect, relying upon cooperation from the person it was laid upon to have full effect. It was something Anna herself could have broken if Underwood had been asking her to do something she was actually opposed to doing.

Underwood’s assumption of their compliance told Charles that the doctor hadn’t realized Charles had largely neutralized the magic Underwood had been trying on Erasmus. If he had, he would have realized that Charles might be more than he could take on by himself. The desire to keep Underwood in the dark had been the reason Charles had kept his own working subtle. After watching Underwood trying to calm the old man, Charles could see how the doctor might think it had been the old witch himself who had pushed back Underwood’s magic.

The predator in him took note that Underwood was so unskilled that he didn’t understand his spell had not been able to dig into Charles at all. That hadn’t been anything Charles had consciously done, but such a weak construct stood no chance against Charles’s natural shields.

Charles didn’t like leaving Underwood’s influence attached to Anna, but he didn’t want a confrontation just yet. Underwood was no threat. But the garden . . . that was another matter. He knew that most people who could work or sense magic thought of it as a lifeless power, but he’d been taught by a man who understood that the world was full of spirits, of life. Charles was sure that the garden, whatever the witches thought they had, was a living being.

If he and Underwood had a fight out on the stone walks of the garden, he wasn’t sure either of them would survive intact. Even Brother Wolf acceded to Charles’s judgment in leaving Anna bespelled, because fighting on uncertain ground was better avoided.

And it was necessary to find out what Underwood had in mind, what he wanted from them. Charles didn’t like to think there was any kind of connection between the witches running this place and whatever had happened at Wild Sign. Black witches were not a fate he would wish on anyone.

Except Daniel Erasmus, Brother Wolf reminded him.

But the hungry expression on Erasmus’s face as he ranted about the power his granddaughter had robbed him of highlighted the fact that the witches in this place might have a reason to be curious about Carrie Green. If the werewolves were going to find themselves going up against witches as well as the Singer, it would be a good thing to know.

Charles paced behind Anna, occasionally blowing the garden’s tendrils of power away from her when they attempted to brush up against her skin. They were welcome to Underwood’s spellcrafting, but he would not allow them to try to feed upon Anna. Anna was not witchborn, so probably the spells in this garden would have done her no harm, but Charles saw no reason to risk it.

The garden made no attempt to touch him.

FROM THE VANTAGE point of the window of Underwood’s second-floor office, the hungry garden looked like nothing more than a well-tended green space. Outside of admiration for its outstanding design, the view elicited nothing more worrisome than the realization of how much money this place spent on labor to keep such an extensive space better groomed than a golf course.

Unless someone was like Charles, who could feel its soothing power reaching through the walls of the building. Funny how Anna, doing basically the same thing, made Brother Wolf content and peaceful, while the garden kept him in a state of near violence. Well, that and having to leave Anna under the influence of Underwood’s magic.

Underwood’s room was obviously designed to facilitate meetings with wealthy people who needed their problem responsibilities dealt with. Everything from the rich leather chairs to the subtle scent of tobacco was designed to inspire confidence.

“Please have a seat,” Underwood said.

Anna perched on one of the leather armchairs, but Charles ignored Underwood’s suggestion and stood behind her. He reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder, his thumb brushing the skin of her neck.

With that touch, Charles swept away the last of Underwood’s spellweaving. It was not a great feat to give Anna a little protection at the same time, and it soothed Charles. If someone else wanted to bespell her, they would have to make a real effort now.

Which we will not allow, stated Brother Wolf.

No, they would not.

He waited for Underwood to react to Charles freeing Anna. But he’d overestimated the witch. Underwood continued pulling out his chair and settling in it without pause. He straightened his desk in a manner that seemed to be calculated to prove to himself that he was in control of the situation.

When he looked up, his friendly, fatherly persona was intact. Then he saw Charles standing behind Anna and frowned a little, as if surprised that Charles hadn’t followed his directive.

It might be, Charles thought, that with this place steeped in so much witchcraft, Underwood just wasn’t sensitive enough to tell what was going on with his own spells.

Such an unobservant man, noted Brother Wolf, working in a place like this is doomed. If we kill him now, we would just be doing him a favor.

Brother Wolf was a lot more talkative than usual. Charles couldn’t figure out if it was the emotional upheaval of the Singer’s attack on Anna or Underwood bespelling her—or if it was a side effect of all the magic in this place.

This is a very interesting place, Brother Wolf enlightened him. I have hope that we will kill some witches here before we go. This one would do.

“Anna and Charles Cornick,” Underwood said. “Your names are familiar to me. Very familiar.” He gave Anna a sad-eyed look, and a soft billow of magic puffed out to land upon both Anna and Charles. “Carrie Green was an only child and she was not married. You are not her sister-in-law. But the Cornick name is well-known among people who are witchborn.”

“Is it?” said Anna, who was, hit by Underwood’s magic, supposed to feel guilty. But for now, her politeness looked close enough to guilt for Underwood, because he looked faintly satisfied.

“Charles Cornick, the scourge of werewolves, the Marrok’s assassin—and the woman who rules him,” Underwood said.

Was that what the witches were saying about his Anna? True enough as far as that went. He wondered who else was saying that. Maybe that was why the FBI agents had concluded that Anna was the Marrok. If Anna had wanted to rule them all . . . Well, Charles couldn’t see his da giving over the care of his wolves to anyone while he lived, but Da listened to Anna. They all did.

She could have ruled them all, Charles thought, but only because she would never think to rule any of them. Being the ruler of all she surveyed was just not anything his Anna desired—which was one of the reasons they could let their guard down around her.

She was more than up to taking point against a second-rate witch like this. And she was better suited to get information out of him than Charles was. People liked to talk to Anna. People liked to run away from Charles. Both of those things pleased him.

“Yes?” Anna said in response to Underwood’s I-know-who-you-really-are reveal. Her mild tone made Underwood’s lips thin.

The best part, as far as Charles was concerned, was that the question in her tone meant that she wasn’t lying to the witch. It wouldn’t be her fault if Underwood misunderstood.

Witches couldn’t smell a lie, but they had their own ways of detecting untruths, not that Underwood was using any of them. If Charles were to hazard a guess, it would be that Underwood did not have the magic to spare. He wondered how much of Underwood’s magic went to just keeping him safe from the black witches who employed him.

As I told you, he would be better off if we killed him now, agreed Brother Wolf in a lazy tone that fooled Charles not a bit.

Underwood settled back in his chair and rocked it a little. “Did you think you could come here, into the heart of our power, and leave without a payment, Anna?”

Charles could feel Anna’s intention to produce Carrie Green’s check—though she knew full well that wasn’t the kind of payment that Underwood was talking about. He tightened his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

It could be dangerous to give something to a magical being, especially something like a check, which was, in essence, a payment for things owed. Magic tended to be symbolic. It was the reason that Anna’s gift of song in that amphitheater had allowed the Singer to attack her. She had offered a gift—and the Singer had taken her up on her offer.

He didn’t think Underwood was powerful enough for that to be a real threat. But Charles was here to guard Anna against any possibility of harm—and Underwood wasn’t the only witch in play here.

As if in answer to that thought, Charles heard someone cat-footing it down the hallway. Like everything else in this place, they did not stink of black magic, but the power that one carried . . . the last time he’d faced someone that strong, he’d nearly died. And witches only gained that weighty realness, the kind he could sense in his skin, from stealing death and pain from their victims.

Anna, apparently unaware of the more dangerous opponent approaching, asked, “What do you want from us, Dr. Underwood?”

The footsteps stopped. Whoever was out there—and he’d lay odds it was a woman, both because of the power she held and because of the faint smell of some flowery perfume—was listening on the other side of the door.

I am ready, Brother Wolf told him. And there was none of the unreliable violence in his voice that sometimes accompanied their encounters with witches.

Charles prepared himself for a quick shift. He could deal with magic at the level of a witch of Underwood’s power. But he’d found the werewolf to be more effective against anyone of greater ability. It was hard for a witch to shape magic with fangs in their throat.

Anna knows the threat is outside this room, Brother Wolf told him. She is prepared to deal with Underwood. Which she can. Some would underestimate her physical speed and power, but we do not make that mistake.

The last was said with such pride in their mate’s prowess that Charles had to work not to smile. Anna could handle Underwood.

“I want to know where Wild Sign is,” Underwood said. “Carrie was nothing when she brought Daniel Green to us. She had barely enough magic to light a candle. Without that artifact she carried, he would have eaten her alive.”

Ah, thought Charles, that’s why no one had eaten Carrie Green. He had heard of artifacts, tuned to the witch who wore one, that could prevent power grabs by other witches. He’d never seen one himself and knew they had attained a mythical status among most white witches. But Charles had seen other mythical magic artifacts, and he was willing to believe Carrie had such a thing.

Anna did not speak into the silence Underwood gave her.

He gave Anna a real smile. “Without that artifact, we might have eaten her alive, too. If you find it, you should bring it to me—a silver necklace with a moonstone flanked by diamonds.”

This influence spell was stronger. Precast, Charles assumed. A spell Underwood used often enough to make up for the trouble of setting runes under the oriental carpet or perhaps on the client chairs. But it wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the protections Charles had set upon Anna.

The corner of Anna’s mouth quirked up, which wasn’t really the agreement Underwood obviously took it to be. Charles assumed that Brother Wolf was keeping her apprised of the magical attacks aimed at her.

Underwood tapped his desk with his hands. “Where was I? Ah, yes. When Carrie Green brought her grandfather to us two years ago, she was a powerless white witch with a necklace to keep her safe.” He sounded like he was a little surprised the necklace had accomplished its task. “The last time Carrie Green attended to her grandfather, she was still a white witch with the amulet—yet she bore such a wake of magic that we all felt it when she walked onto the grounds of the garden.” He licked his lips, and his hunger smelled almost sexual.

“Interesting,” said Anna.

She was not wrong. It was verification that what Erasmus had told them had been true. Something had given Carrie Green more power. That it had been the result of an entity exchanging power for music was indeed interesting.

There was a link between music and magic. His grandfather had used music as part of his healing and his spiritual life. In the hands of such a man as his grandfather, the patterns of music rendered in chords, rhythm, and tone called and shaped magic.

“Ms. Cornick,” Underwood said. “You will tell me the location of Wild Sign, or you and your husband . . . mate? Mate, yes. You and your mate will not leave this building.”

Silence grew in the office while Underwood made the journey from smugness to anger as he realized Anna had no intention of giving him what he wanted. He increased the power of the magic he was using, breaking into a sweat with the effort.

Charles watched, but the magic continued to slide off the protections he’d laid on Anna. If that changed, it would be time to kill the witch.

“We are werewolves,” Anna told Underwood when sufficient time had passed to make her point—he couldn’t make her do anything. “Your magic does not affect us.”

Both true statements, thought Charles happily. Maybe, depending upon who was listening, the witches here might start wondering if all werewolves had some undefined immunity to witchcraft. Then more witches would be told that. He could feel the intensity of the witch lurking in the hall, hanging on Anna’s words.

“If you want to leave here,” Underwood whispered, “you will tell me what I want to know.”

“I don’t think so,” said Anna. “Besides, I don’t deal with underlings.”

Charles did not grin as she stole the tone directly from the most arrogant wolf he’d ever met—but it was a struggle. He would make her use it on Asil and see if that old wolf recognized his own medicine.

Behind them, called by Anna’s words, the door opened, revealing a slender woman of much less than average height. She wore glasses, red lipstick, and a suit that seemed like it was supposed to make her appear businesslike—but actually made her look like a teenager playing dress-up.

Warned by Charles’s abrupt grasp on the back of her chair, Anna picked up her feet. Charles dragged her chair around so that both of them had their backs to a wall and a good view of the witches. Anna put her feet down delicately as he released the chair.

“Well, hello,” Anna said to the newcomer in dulcet tones. “Are you in charge around here?”

For a moment Charles could see the newcomer consider a “Who, me?” response, and then her personality lit her face. She gave him a wicked smile. Him, not Anna. Her mistake—and an interesting one for a witch to make. Exactly the opposite mistake Underwood had made.

Wolves were pack animals. It made them stronger. Both of them were dangerous.

“Not me, precisely,” the witch said. “But close enough.”

She looked at Underwood. “You are lucky that Mary Frank thought to tell me Daniel Green was to have visitors and who they were.”

Underwood had gone white and he sat very still. If Charles hadn’t been able to feel the woman’s power, Underwood’s reaction would have warned him.

“Carrie Green was something of a puzzle,” she said, returning her attention to Charles. “It was inevitable that she would draw attention among the”—she glanced at Anna—“underlings. He is right about this: we certainly took notice of her sudden elevation in power without accompanying corruption. We all make choices. We give up some things for power. It is”—she smiled again—“a little bit enraging when someone seems to gain the prize without the sacrifice.”

Is she trying to charm us? asked Brother Wolf. Does she think we are stupid?

Anna waited, giving Charles a chance to take over, since the newcomer was addressing him. He chose not to. When he didn’t say anything, Anna spoke. “What do you want from us?”

“That is a proper question,” the witch said, still speaking to Charles. “First, I will deal with my problem.” She looked at the man behind the desk and sighed.

She walked past Charles and Anna. And as she walked, Charles noticed the way she balanced her body and the way the excellently tailored clothes were a tad bit loose around her waist. She was pregnant.

Well, that put a fly in the ointment. Charles had no qualms at all about killing a black witch—but a baby . . . a baby changed things.

The witch rounded the desk and put her hand on Dr. Underwood’s. From the way his eyes widened until they showed the whites like a nervous horse, Underwood did not want her to touch him. But he did not pull away—and she was not using magic to make him stay where he was.

After a few seconds, the doctor’s body relaxed. His expression softened to bemusement.

“Hey, Dr. Underwood,” the witch said in a cheery voice. “I heard your daughter is missing you. I think you should call home and check up on her. Use the staff lounge for privacy because I requested the use of your office. Mom co-opted mine again. When you get off the phone, it will be time for your rounds. You won’t think much about Daniel Green’s visitors. They came and talked for a little, but it turns out he wasn’t the person they were looking for. Daniel Green is a common name.”

“Okay,” he said. He gave Charles and Anna a mildly embarrassed look. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have to go call my daughter.” He smiled pleasantly and then hurried out the door.

When the door shut behind him, Charles spoke, having changed his mind about how to deal with this witch. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Anna to handle the witch—Anna was much less likely to turn this into an unnecessary fight. But he did not know this witch, except that she was powerful. He decided to keep her attention on him and not on Anna. Against black magic, it was his job to be Anna’s shield.

“You paid for your power with corruption,” he told the witch. “Carrie paid for hers with her life—and she got very little use out of the power she gained. My father sent us to find out what happened. Daniel Green—who I know as Daniel Erasmus—”

The witch made a comical wince—yes, they had changed his name when he came here.

“—has given us the final keys to the mystery of what happened at Wild Sign. My father will see this flawed avenue of power destroyed. It need not concern you further.”

He had a reputation that he had carefully cultivated. It said that he did not lend himself to long, involved explanations to the enemy.

The witch gave him an amused look. She started to say something, but Anna spoke first.

“Is it Dr. or Ms. Hardesty?”

That made the witch pay attention to his mate. It also made Charles pay attention. Hardesty was a name they had come up against recently. How had Anna known this was one of the Hardesty witches?

“Ms.,” the witch said. She smiled prettily. “My mother is the MD and PhD. You can call me Cathy if you’d like.”

“Cathy, this is not the cross you want to hang your family on,” Anna said, coming to her feet. “Your family has lost power this year already. Twice.”

Once with them, once with Charles’s foster sister, Mercy.

“Neither event involved a direct confrontation with Bran himself. You want to leave it that way.” Anna gave Ms. Hardesty a sweet smile—a match to the one the witch had been throwing around. “Trust me.”

Anna walked toward the door. The witch blocked her.

“Your people might be able to stop us leaving,” said Anna in a low voice. “But not before my mate tears your throat out.”

Charles took that as a hint and let the change from man to wolf rip through him. With the excess magic in the atmosphere, the change took even less time than usual. He smelled the witch’s sudden fear at the speed of his shift—and perhaps at the sight of the big wolf. He snarled softly and enjoyed the stink of her fear spiking.

Anna stared at the witch. “Be smart,” she said. Then she shrugged and said in a bored voice, “Or be dead.”

When she started walking again, the witch moved out of the way. Charles followed her, but he walked so he could keep his eyes on Ms. Hardesty, who seemed to be amenable to allowing them to leave, though she didn’t say as much. He wondered if her actions, like his, were hampered by her pregnancy.

When he got to the doorway, he gave the witch a careful, eyes-up-and-watchful bow. Then he resumed his human form, closed the door between them and the witch, and followed ten feet behind his mate all the way out the front door.

TAG WAS SITTING on the hood of the SUV playing games on his phone. He stayed there until Anna opened the driver’s side door, and then he hopped down. There was a bit of a depression in the metal of the hood.

“Hope what you found was worth it,” Tag murmured, passing Charles on the way to his door. “This place is a witch-hive, and they started swarming about ten minutes ago. They are giving me the creepy-crawlies for sure.”

The parking lot was certainly fuller than it had been when they’d arrived, Charles noted, though Tag was the only person visible.

As soon as everyone was belted in, Anna—in a very un-Anna-like fashion—gunned the SUV out through the open gates, which swung shut behind them. There was nothing mechanical involved in their movement.

Charles wasn’t sure of the exact message the witches intended for them to take from that. Don’t come back? We could have trapped you anytime we wished? Leave us alone?

No one said anything until they were on the highway back to Happy Camp.

“Are you going to tell me what you found?” Tag asked. “Not that I’m curious about what the two of you got up to in Witch Central or anything.”

Anna filled him in on everything. When she was finished, she said, “Tell me why we left that old man to be tortured.”

“Daniel Erasmus—” Charles began.

“Erasmus?” roared Tag, jerking forward in a motion that threatened to rip his seat belt out of the Suburban. “You found Erasmus?” Then, calming somewhat, he growled, “Tell me that you left him in little pieces that somehow clung to life . . . or—” He paused, smiled in understanding, and relaxed like a big cat in the sun. “Or maybe you left him in the care of black witches who torture him every day and will eventually kill him and feed on his death to extract every bit of his power.”

Charles had forgotten that Tag had been one of the wolves his da had brought to help clean up the mess in Utah.

“What did he do?” Anna said, but less like she was worried that she’d left an innocent man to suffer needlessly.

“Made me kill children,” growled Tag.

“Trafficked in minors,” said Charles.

“Sex trade,” said Tag, in case Anna had misunderstood Charles’s terms. “Erasmus and his wife got their hands on children and then used magic to eat their minds. Left behind puppets.” He shivered. “Evil.”

Anna gave a sharp nod. “So it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” she said. By now she’d slowed back down to her usual grandma-going-to-church pace so she could safely take a hand off the wheel to rest it on Charles’s leg. “Okay.”

“How did you know the witch was a Hardesty?” Charles asked.

“Wild guess,” Anna said. “But there were nameplates in that hallway of offices where Underwood’s office was. One had ‘Ms. Hardesty’ and the other ‘Dr. Hardesty.’” She paused, then said in a low voice, “And she had Sage’s mouth.”

“She was pregnant,” Charles said.

His phone rang and he checked it. “It’s Da,” he told them, and hit the green button.

“Update?”

There was something heavy in that single word. Doubtless whatever lay under it would be made clear in Bran’s own time.

“Charles found Erasmus,” Tag said, his voice steeped in satisfaction. “And we left him helpless in the hands of a nursing home staffed by black witches who will make sure that he survives to suffer a very long time.”

“Daniel Erasmus?” said Bran softly.

“Carrie Green’s grandfather—the reason she was trying to mail a check to Angel Hills Assisted Living,” Tag told him.

“He won’t hurt anyone ever again,” said Charles.

“Good.”

That’s what I said, agreed Brother Wolf, still caught in his oddly talkative mood.

Rather than going through their two days moment by moment, Charles gave him a more ordered version of the story they’d put together about Wild Sign.

“There are white witches who use the wilderness to hide from their predators,” he said. “Some unspecified time ago—more than two years but fewer than five—one of them ran into the Singer in the Woods, Leah’s nemesis. The Singer offered the witches two bargains. Power for music. Safety for—and I quote—‘walkers in the world.’” The pause hung, then Charles continued, “Carrie Green’s grandfather called the Singer a god. Whatever one’s opinion of his character, his magical education was sterling. I am inclined to lean toward his assessment—this thing is at least a powerful manitou.”

“It broke the bargain,” observed Bran. “It did not keep the people of Wild Sign safe.”

“Erasmus was under the impression that the white witches broke the bargain first,” Charles said. “He implied it was a breach in the spirit but not the words of their bargain. What does the term ‘walker in the world’ mean to you?”

“It wanted some of the witches to go out and act and spy for it,” said Tag.

“Walker,” said Charles, with a little more emphasis.

“Like Mercy?” Anna said.

“I think so,” said Charles.

His foster sister’s father was Coyote, one of the primordial powers. Such descendants, though most of them were not first-generation, were called walkers. Charles now wondered if the original name had not been “walker in the world,” which gave a different slant to the original purpose of such couplings. Certainly, Coyote had been making use of Mercy.

“Safety in return for progeny who would go out into the world and do its bidding, be its eyes,” said Da. “It wanted the witches to carry its children.” In his voice was the horror that Charles felt—and not for the missing occupants of Wild Sign, who were, after all was said and done, strangers.

They did not know for sure what had happened to Leah up in these mountains. But one of the babies his da had helped Sherwood bury had been Leah’s.

Charles thought of the haunted feel of the amphitheater. If every person who’d lived in Wild Sign last April had been killed there, it would not have produced the layered feeling of tragedy that overlay the broken land. But the deaths of Leah’s people might, especially if they were only the last people who had died there, not the first.

“She never said anything about her child,” Charles ventured. It wasn’t quite a question.

“No,” Da agreed heavily. “And I never asked.”

He should have, thought Charles.

Soul-wounded by Blue Jay Woman’s death himself, Bran had not been a fit savior for Leah. Sherwood should have known better. It was a wonder Leah had not killed them all in their beds, Charles thought.

From the backseat came a thoughtful voice that cut through the heavy atmosphere. “I don’t know about calling it a god. As a good Christian—” Tag paused, waiting for someone to make a derisive snort, but he was in the wrong car for that. “Anyway, as a good Christian, I’m happy to proclaim him not a god. That way we can go kill him. But the bastard is pretentious. ‘Singer in the Woods’ and ‘walker in the world.’ I wonder what he calls his shoes—‘Slippers of Justice’ or ‘Protectors of Soles’?”

Charles appreciated Tag’s intervention. Wallowing in guilt was never productive, but Charles decided to change the subject again before his da could decide how to respond to Tag’s flippancy.

“That’s all we found out about Wild Sign itself,” he began.

“Not quite,” Anna disagreed. “Daniel Green—Erasmus—said that the witches broke the bargain that guaranteed their safety. Correct me if I’m wrong, but given that witches have power over biological things, is it possible for a witch to keep herself from getting pregnant?”

“Yes,” Bran said. “Even the most powerless of them could keep herself from getting pregnant—and a small group of them could ensure that no one in Wild Sign got pregnant.”

“They kept the word of the bargain,” Anna said, “but not the spirit. That would have worked had they been dealing with the fae.”

“Not usually,” said Tag, sounding like the voice of experience. “If you break the spirit of a bargain with the fae, they can figure out some way to make sure you lose even without breaking the word of the bargain.”

“You had other news,” Bran said.

“Yes,” said Charles. “We found the storage locker that Carrie Green was paying for and bought the contents from the locker owner. And we found two witch families’ worth of grimoires—the Greens and whatever family Erasmus actually descended from, I think. I thought it better to wait until we get them home before I examine them. For now, I have them warded in a hotel room in Happy Camp. I had to let the spells the witch had laid upon them dissipate before I could go through the rest of her property for smaller items. We’ll try later today, but it might have to wait for tomorrow.”

Da didn’t say anything—which was odd. Whatever he was holding back was bigger than taking charge of a locker full of grimoires.

“There are some other things you should know,” Charles said. “At least two of the witches involved in running the facility we found Erasmus in are Hardestys.”

“Interesting,” said Da.

“They found a way to disguise the scent of black magic,” Charles said. “I could feel it—but not smell it.”

“Yes,” agreed Tag. “It’s an odd sensation.”

“I couldn’t feel it or smell it,” Anna said. “Not without bringing my wolf up to the surface.”

“And Anna and I walked down a hall with what felt like proper torture chambers on either side of us, and I still couldn’t smell it.”

“That knowledge has been in the world a long time.” Da’s voice was restrained. “But apparently someone decided to sell it to the rest of the witches. Mercy ran into that effect when she encountered the Hardestys.”

“Carrie Green had something that protected her from the black witches,” Anna said. “Something that predated Wild Sign. It’s the reason that Daniel Green—Daniel Erasmus—didn’t take her down for her power.”

“That is a different kind of thing,” Charles told her. “Though I’ve never heard of anything that could protect a white witch against the likes of the Hardestys or Daniel Erasmus.”

“There is nothing like that in the Green family,” agreed Da.

“Carrie’s father was Daniel’s son, a man named Jude,” Charles said. “Her mother came from a witch family as well, but she had no power. Maybe whatever it was came to Carrie from her mother’s family. I’ll research it.”

“Is that all?” Da asked.

“Yes,” said Charles.

“Bright Things’s Zander is selling snow cones in Happy Camp,” Anna said.

“Really?” said his da, sounding dumbfounded. Apparently he knew who the photographer was as well. “What’s he doing there?”

“I know, right? I mean, he has to be somewhere, that makes sense.”

“But Happy Camp?” Bran agreed. He sounded almost as giddy as Anna did.

There was no reason to feel the slightest bit of jealousy over the pretty boy, Charles thought, looking at the excitement on his wife’s face. He had been able to tell that Zander had been flirting outrageously with Anna when he and Tag had interrupted them—but she had not been interested in the photographer that way. Charles wasn’t even sure that she’d noticed she was being flirted with.

It wasn’t jealousy, really, he decided, or not the suspicious kind of jealousy. Charles only wished that he could be like that boy for his wife—someone softer, gentler. Younger.

She is ours, Brother Wolf reminded him smugly. That one can find his own person. She already belongs to us.

“I didn’t ask,” Anna was saying to Bran. “Maybe he’s taking photos around the Klamath River, do you think? Anyway, he told me that he’s probably headed to Colorado as soon as the season passes.”

“Da,” said Charles. “What’s wrong?”

Silence filled the Suburban as they waited.

“Leah is gone,” Da said, finally. “She was gone this morning. I thought she had gone out running in the mountains. This business has been hard on her, and she’s taken to long runs. It wasn’t until she didn’t come in for lunch that I thought to look for her.”

“She’s coming here,” Charles said.

“Going to Wild Sign, I think,” Bran agreed. “That song she sang . . . it had the feel of a summons. I thought that— It doesn’t matter what I thought. Our bonds, pack and mating, are still intact, but I can’t open them further. Which is unusual. I am in the habit of keeping our bonds closed down, but I don’t usually have trouble opening them if I choose. I don’t have any sense of where she is.”

“The Singer messed with my ability to open our mating bond,” said Charles.

“Yes,” Da said. “You told me that.”

“I’ll head up to Wild Sign as soon as I drop Anna and Tag off at the hotel in Happy Camp,” Charles said. “I don’t want Anna up there again.”

“Leah won’t make it today,” Bran said. “I know she’s still in wolf form—it changes the shape of our bond.” He growled, and there was a crack as something wooden broke. In a velvet-soft voice he said, “I did not notice because it is my habit to leave our bonds closed. Has always been my habit.”

“You can fix that,” Charles said, “after we deal with the Singer. We’ll deal with the locker today—I don’t want to leave it any longer than we have to, because if there are any other artifacts there, they will start to attract attention now that I’ve taken down Carrie’s protections. Tomorrow morning, I’ll head up to Wild Sign. If Leah is running the whole way, she won’t get there before I will.” Even a werewolf had limits.

“I cannot leave here,” his da said raggedly. “Asil is in Billings, dealing with a lone wolf.”

There was no one else who could handle their pack.

“I will find her,” Charles promised. “She won’t get past us.”

“She is a ghost in the forest,” his da said. “If she doesn’t want you to know that she is there—”

“Pack bonds,” Charles reminded his da. “If I pay attention to the pack bonds, I’ll feel her as soon as she is within five miles of me.” Usually only an Alpha would be able to read pack bonds that well, but Charles could do it. His da was pretty upset to forget that.

“Yes,” his da said. And disconnected.

“First, we check on the grimoires at the hotel,” said Anna firmly. “Then we’ll go to the storage locker and get that taken care of. You’ll get a good sleep and go save Leah in the morning.”

She caught his sudden attention and shook her head. “I don’t think I should go up there, either. I opened myself up to that thing. I don’t know if it can get a hold on me again.”

Charles smiled, put a hand on her leg. “That’s not what surprised me,” he told her. His Anna was full of common sense. “It was your boundless confidence that I can save Leah.”

It had come out in her voice like truth.

Tag snorted in the back, but he was quiet enough about it that Charles could ignore him.

Anna grinned. “My hero,” she crooned—and that came out like truth, too. He wasn’t sure she knew that, but he and Tag did.

Charles felt his cheeks heat—which was ridiculous.