Burn Bright

by Patricia Briggs

  “Are you up for this?” asked Charles.

  It took Anna a minute to realize he was asking her.

  She put her feet on the floor and stood up. “I’m okay,” she said. “I won’t be up to a Wild Hunt, but I’ll be fine.”

  Wellesley said, “I need to eat and rest.”

  Asil gave him a frown. “You weren’t invited, my friend. I’m very glad that your wolf has evidently been freed from a witch’s curse—but that’s a long way from being safe and dependable.”

  Wellesley laughed, but his eyes were wary. “I suppose it is.”

  “I could stay with him to make sure he’s okay,” offered Sage. She gave the artist a brilliant smile. “I’ve been a fan for a long time. I’d love to commission something if you are willing.”

  Wellesley shook his head. “I’d rather be alone if you don’t mind. I have a lot to absorb. A little rest and a lot of food will see me right as rain. As far as a painting is concerned—I’ll get back to you on that. Most of my paintings were done to stave off madness. I don’t know what I’ll want to paint now.”

  “Leave him,” said Charles.

  “Come on, children,” said Asil. “You are dawdling.”

  * * *

  • • •

  WITHOUT DISCUSSION, CHARLES climbed into the driver’s seat of Sage’s SUV, setting the Viking’s axe in the back. He nodded to Anna to get into the passenger side. Evidently, the keys were in the SUV because it started right up. Sage didn’t look happy about her car being co-opted—or maybe just about being left to ride with Asil. But when Anna started to get out, Sage waved her hand and gave her a quick grin.

  There was no room to turn around, which didn’t seem to bother Charles a bit. He gunned the engine and backed up the twisty, scary, narrow track up the cliffside at about thirty miles per hour.

  Anna choked back a laugh, made sure her seat belt was tight, and closed her eyes. “I hope Sage has good insurance,” she said.

  “I don’t like this situation at all,” Charles said instead of responding to her banter—unless he had flashed her that quick grin of his. Had she missed it by being a coward?

  The SUV took a sharp turn and reversed directions. She opened her eyes, and they were back on the safer track, headed down it at what would have been a crazy speed if anyone else were driving.

  “Which situation?” she asked. “Wellesley’s unexpected curse? Missing werewolf? Or bodies at the missing werewolf’s house?”

  She couldn’t find it in herself to be as concerned about the bodies as she would have been before Hester was killed. They could have been random hikers who had gotten way, way, way off the beaten path and run into a crazy werewolf. But she was making the assumption that they were the enemy because cooler heads than hers were considering other possibilities.

  “What are they trying to accomplish?” Charles said. “It’s bad to have an enemy with the kinds of resources these people apparently have—but it is infinitely worse to have crazy people as enemies.”

  “Evidently,” Anna said, “you also consider it a certainty that the bodies that Leah found belonged to our enemy and not Canadian hikers who have been wandering around the mountains lost for a few months.”

  He started to say something, then closed his mouth. He gave her an assessing look. “Why Canadian?”

  She held up a finger. “Local hikers would figure out that downhill and south mean safety, uphill and north just gets worse. Downhill and south would take them away from our territory.” She held up a second finger. “Casual hikers would have fallen down and died before they ever reached anywhere near here—I don’t know exactly where Jericho lives because I’ve never heard his name before, but I’m assuming it’s in this general direction.”

  “And lost Canadian hikers are the only ones who could get here by going downhill and south,” he said. He grinned at her. “It’s not quite true, we run hikers out of our territory all the time, and there’s a lot of federal land between us and Canada.”

  “And,” Anna said, holding up a third finger, “Canadian hikers would be too polite to end up as bodies. Thus the bodies must not belong to random hikers.”

  He gave a shout of laughter. “I love you. I came to the same conclusion by a different path. I’m pretty sure the bodies at Jericho’s belong to the same group who went after Hester and Jonesy.”

  She looked at him. “How did you get there?”

  “There are no such things as coincidences. The last time one of our wildlings interacted with a normal human was six months ago. Now we have two in two days.”

  “Leah didn’t say how old the bodies were,” Anna commented. “When was the last time someone heard from Jericho?”

  He shrugged. “Da has kept me busy with other things. I haven’t talked to any of the wildlings since last winter.”

  The Marrok used Charles, Asil, and a couple other of the older wolves to check on the wildlings once a month or so as soon as the snow flew, saving a few of them to visit himself. Not that the wildlings couldn’t take care of themselves, most of them—it was what they would do to take care of themselves that worried Bran.

  “Why do you think going after Jericho makes no sense?” Anna asked. “They went after Hester. What makes him different?”

  “They have werewolves, so they don’t just need genetic samples.” A deer stepped onto the road, and he braked, slewing the big rig sideways in an effort to miss the doe. He stopped about three feet from the deer, who had frozen.

  “Go on, little sister,” he told her. “There is no one hungry today.”

  Released from whatever instinct had caused her to plant her feet and remain still, she bounced up the hill and into the trees.

  Anna looked behind them, but there was no sign of Asil and Sage.

  “There are several ways to get there from Wellesley’s,” said Charles as he put his foot down on the gas again. “I expect Asil hopes to beat us there.”

  The race is on, thought Anna, but she didn’t say it. It was either a guy thing or a dominant-werewolf thing. Either way, Charles and Asil would enjoy the challenge.

  “So why does Hester make more sense than Jericho?” she asked.

  “Jericho is an atomic bomb waiting to go off. Questioning Jericho makes no sense at all.”

  “I’m not familiar with him,” Anna said. “But if he was on Leah’s list—didn’t she have the safer wolves?”

  “Jericho was on Sage’s and my list,” Charles said. “One of the dangerous ones. I don’t know what Leah is doing there.”

  “If they are recruiting,” said Anna thoughtfully, “they are being stupid about who they are choosing.”

  “Lethally so,” agreed Charles.

  “The only thing that makes sense from our end is that they want to cause chaos while Bran is away. But even that doesn’t quite work,” she said. “Because then all the surveillance equipment at Hester’s is a lot of risk and money for an end that is easier to reach different ways. If they have a helicopter, they could just drop something nasty on your father’s house from the air. More effect and less risk.”

  “They want something,” Charles agreed.

  “Maybe Jericho will know what they wanted,” she said.

  Charles made a noise.

  “That wasn’t a hopeful grunt,” she said.

  “Jericho can barely communicate on a good day,” Charles told her. “If there are bodies around, it isn’t a good day.”

  “We don’t have enough information to make sense of what they want,” said Anna.

  Charles nodded. “I don’t like being in this position. Reacting and not acting. We can’t get to an offensive position until we know more.”

  “Speaking of knowing more,” Anna said. “What exactly happened at Rhea Springs? Asil gave me what he knew—but there wasn’t much of it.” She tapped her fingers on the witch gun lying on
the seat between them. “Witches seem to be cropping up all over the place.”

  Charles pursed his lips. “They do, don’t they? There is no reason that Rhea Springs has anything to do with our current situation, though.”

  “Maybe not,” Anna said. “But Wellesley certainly has knowledge that someone might be looking for. If Wellesley is the wildling our enemy questioned Hester about, then maybe Rhea Springs has more to do with our situation than we think.”

  Charles nodded. “Wellesley didn’t remember anything when I got there,” he told her. “Most of what I know comes from the newspapers. Rhea Springs was a small town of about a hundred people in 1930, three hundred if you counted the people who lived in the general area. A hotel and a hot spring with reputed healing powers was the major source of economy. I don’t remember exactly what year it was, but the Alpha of the Tennessee pack sent us some newspaper articles about a naked black man found with the bodies of some white people. The details varied from article to article—one said four young women. Another claimed it was fifteen children. The naked black man, our informant told us, was a werewolf and gave us a name that wasn’t Wellesley. Da knew the werewolf in question, told me his story, and sent me out on the next train.”

  Charles quit speaking for a while. Anna waited, content to watch his big hands steadying the SUV as it bounced and slithered on the rough road. She loved his hands, broad-palmed and long-fingered. They were adept on the steering wheel, the fretboard of his guitar, or her skin.

  “News didn’t get to us up here in Montana with anything like swiftness. By the time I got to the town where he was being held—a slightly larger town some miles from Rhea Springs—his trial was already over. Considering the era, the place, the color of his skin, Wellesley’s fate was determined no matter what his defense. I’d known before I got on the train what the result would be. Capital punishment was the electric chair. I don’t know that electricity has ever killed one of us—but I doubt it would make him very happy. Leaving him to the authorities just wasn’t possible. My orders were to kill or rescue him, depending upon what he told me.”

  He fell silent again.

  “What did he tell you?” she asked.

  “That he didn’t remember anything. He wasn’t in good shape—his wolf . . .” He paused. “. . . what I thought was his wolf, anyway, would break in and babble some crazy stuff. A witch. Witchcraft. I didn’t smell the witchcraft on him—and I’d like to know how they did that. That had to be a major working to hold his wolf this long, and I didn’t catch the scent of witches anywhere.”

  “Did you check the crime scene?” Anna asked.

  He shook his head. “I knew his story. I thought he was talking about earlier. A stray Indian wasn’t much better off than a black man in that time and place, so I didn’t do a lot of wandering about. In the end . . .” His voice trailed off, then he shook his head. “In the end, I figured that Da could keep him safe with the other wildlings if he never recovered.”

  “His story was so close to what happened to your da,” Anna said softly. “You couldn’t bear to kill him—innocent or guilty.”

  “And once I realized that,” Charles said, “I didn’t bother investigating it further. I got him out of there and on a train to Montana.” He glanced at Anna and smiled. “No, I didn’t buy tickets. We rode freight to Billings, then took horses the rest of the way.”

  “I think,” she said slowly, going over what Wellesley had said—and what he hadn’t—in her head, “that he believed you broke him out of jail because he was innocent.”

  “I know,” Charles said. “I wish I could go back and investigate for him. I don’t even know, really, who the victims were. At the time, I didn’t care. Maybe he’ll remember more when he rests up.”

  “You didn’t want to find out that he’d killed fifteen children,” said Anna. “Because that would mean you’d have had to kill him.”

  “Yes,” agreed Charles soberly.

  “That briar curse is interesting,” she said. “More interesting as you think about it. Asil said there was supposed to be a witch in the vicinity. I wonder if the dead people were all witches.”

  “I wonder if they were all the victims of a witch,” Charles said, “including Wellesley. I wonder if I let a witch free because I didn’t investigate further—and how many more people she killed before she died.”

  “Oh,” Anna said, understanding how Charles operated. He was responsible for the world, her husband. She couldn’t change how he felt. She put her hand on his leg. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I understand. Maybe you should do a little research on Rhea Springs? A place where the hot springs were supposed to be magically healing sounds like somewhere a witch might have set up shop, do you think?”

  “Black witches seldom do healing,” he said dryly.

  “Black witches have to start out somewhere, don’t they?” she asked.

  The next mile or so was traveled in thoughtful silence.

  “Not a lot of information left on Rhea Springs, I imagine,” Charles said. “And any human still alive who once lived in that place would have been a young child.”

  “Still,” Anna said, “maybe one of the wolves from that neck of the woods will remember something.”

  “Maybe,” he said. And from Charles that was as good as a declaration that he’d pursue the matter. He sounded as though the thought made him feel better.

  She only hoped that he didn’t find out that there had been a witch and that she had killed fifteen children. Witches had the same life span as any other human, though—with very few exceptions. The witch who cursed Wellesley, no matter what she’d done, was beyond justice now.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Leah’s truck was parked at the trailhead of the path to Jericho’s. Asil’s Mercedes was parked beside it.

  “Ha,” said Charles as they got out of the car. “I talked too much. Slowed me down.”

  Anna laughed, as he meant her to. Charles didn’t really care who got here first, and Anna knew it. Brother Wolf was grumpy about losing, though. He thought it would have been better to have been first.

  Anna hopped out of the car and waited while he looked around the interior of Sage’s SUV until he found the key fob so he could lock it. Maybe he was taking unnecessary precautions, but he wasn’t going to leave Jericho an easy way out. He also grabbed the axe. He left the witch gun, though. Jericho was crazy—but he would listen to an axe better than a gun.

  He checked the other two vehicles; they were both locked. Anna turned to start up the trail.

  “Hold up,” he said. “We have a missing werewolf. He could have come this way as easily as any other.”

  She stood quietly and waited while he examined their surroundings. She took in deep breaths herself but didn’t offer any opinions, so he could safely assume she didn’t detect anyone, either. If Jericho was hiding around here, he was doing a good job of it.

  A better job than Charles thought the wolf was capable of.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go—but keep an eye out.”

  Anna nodded. She’d been quiet the last part of the trip here, a thoughtful quiet that meant she was thinking. As they started up the trail, she linked her hand on his elbow—that was okay; he trusted her to drop her grip if they met danger. And he liked her hand on him.

  “Charles,” she said, “if our traitor isn’t one of the wildlings, who do you think it is?”

  “What has convinced you that it isn’t one of the wildlings?” Charles asked.

  She made a hmm sound, tightening her arm. “I don’t know. Wellesley, maybe. Unless you think there are more wildlings who are capable—like Hester.”

  Charles shook his head. “No. Hester—there were reasons for Hester.”

  “Jonesy,” said Anna.

  “Jonesy,” agreed Charles. “And Da certainly knew about her—he would. He probably
knew about the flyovers, too. I just wonder . . .” He stopped talking as a few thoughts crystallized into a whole.

  Anna started to say something, but Charles held up his hand, because . . . he didn’t want to be right.

  “There is none so blind,” he murmured as all of the oddities of the last few days fell into place. The enormity of it all brought him to a stop as he broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Charles?” Anna asked.

  Brother Wolf saw it as Charles had, understanding what it meant. He went wild with denial—and for a moment, it was all Charles could do to restrain the wolf.

  Not now. It’s not now, he told his brother. We will do what we have to do, but not yet.

  “Charles, what’s wrong?” Anna asked, beginning to sound worried.

  “I know why Da isn’t here,” he told her. Sick horror gripped him.

  “Charles?” Anna asked again. She leaned against him, and Brother Wolf quit fighting and simply braced himself.

  He breathed in her scent, and told her, simply, “He thinks Leah is our traitor.”

  She stilled against him. “Why do you think that?”

  He laid it out for her as he saw it. “If Hester was as normal as we all think, she’d have called Da as soon as she started to get flyovers. That would have alerted him of trouble. A month ago, Da asked Boyd for the files the Chicago pack has been putting together in their search for what Leo had been up to.”

  “Okay,” Anna said. “We knew all of this.”

  “I don’t know that he knew we had a traitor at that point, just that our enemy was active again,” he told her. “I think that Da was looking for that enemy with the threads we’ve been able to collect.”

  “Thus the files from Boyd,” Anna said.

  Charles nodded. “Then Mercy got into trouble—and he took those files with him. He might have other sources of information, but the files make the most sense.”

  “Okay,” Anna said. “But why Leah?”

  “Because he was headed home—and out of the blue he called up and told me he was taking a vacation in Africa with Samuel,” Charles said.