Storm Cursed

by Patricia Briggs

“Good,” he said. “I was afraid I’d broken it.”

  He strode over to Uncle Mike and took the knife from him. He looked at it a moment, weighing it in his hand. Then he jammed it point first into Uncle Mike’s scarred wooden desk. It sank two inches, more or less, and then he snapped it.

  I sucked in a breath as a wave of horrid, filthy magic burst out and left me staggering. I did not fall into Ruth’s miserable huddle and the solidifying liquids surrounding her. But it was a near thing.

  Judging from the past few days, witchcraft affected me more powerfully than other sorts of magic. Black magic was worse than the other kind. Or maybe I was just getting more sensitive to it.

  “Was that wise?” Uncle Mike asked Sherwood with a raised eyebrow. “You might have blown us to Underhill doing it that way.”

  “Only way I know of,” Sherwood said, tapping his head. “I have to work with the limits of what I’ve got.”

  Speaking over his shoulder at Sherwood as he made his way briskly toward Ruth, Uncle Mike said, “If all you needed to do was break the blade, I could have done it at the beginning.”

  “No,” said Sherwood. “I needed to do it. I’ve got a touch, a link with our enemy, thanks to my work with Ruth—and the witches’ work, too. Breaking it that way will have hurt the owner of the athame, almost as much as she hurt Ruth. And if it had tried to blow up in our faces, I could have contained it.” He looked at the broken blade on the handle that he still held. “I’m pretty sure, anyway.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ruth, scrubbed and dressed in fresh clothes, had not had a lot to add to what she’d already told us. She was frightened, for which none of us blamed her. Uncle Mike assured us—and her—that since Sherwood had broken the witch’s hold on her, he and his could keep her safe.

  “You did it,” Sherwood told her.

  “Did what?” The pub was warm enough, but one of Uncle Mike’s people had brought Ruth a blanket and she had it wrapped around her as if it were a shield against the dark.

  “By coming here,” said Uncle Mike. “You put the fox in the henhouse for them. If you had arrived at Mercy’s house with that knife, I don’t know that anyone could have broken what they tried to do. But you came here and created a weakness in their curse. Sherwood here was able to break the rest.”

  Uncle Mike looked at Sherwood. “I didn’t know you were witchborn.”

  Sherwood shrugged.

  “But they are all dead,” Ruth said. “And they have Jake.”

  “There wasn’t anything you could do about that,” I said. “But you held out against them. You won us a chance to find the senator and get him back from them.”

  I was worried that the witches had Adam and the pack, too. That the pack bonds were strong was good. That I couldn’t tell a darned thing from them, except that everyone was healthy, was worrying.

  There was still the faint possibility that the president had shown up and all the werewolves had turned off their phones. But that seemed increasingly unlikely.

  “Because you held out,” Sherwood said—and it was Sherwood again—“we have dealt them a blow, and we have a chance to find them.” He held up the broken knife, which he was carrying in a kelly green take-out box from Uncle Mike’s.

  We left Ruth in the safety of Uncle Mike’s hands. As we stepped out into the parking lot, Sherwood held up the box again.

  “The trouble being,” he said, “I don’t know how to use this to find them. May—”

  He stopped abruptly and turned in a slow circle.

  “It’s just me, wolf,” said the goblin king, emerging from the shadows along the side of the building.

  Larry seemed more tired than he had the last time I’d seen him. He usually looked like a smile was a moment away, if it wasn’t already on his face. Not tonight.

  “I’m here to give you some information,” he said. “In exchange for calling me out to your hunt the other morning.”

  I had sort of thought the ball was in the other court, but I wasn’t about to argue with him.

  “Don’t go to the senator’s house in Pasco until daylight,” he said. “And don’t let anyone else go, if you can help it. We goblins lost much to the witchcrafting around that place.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I sent three of my best to follow Ruth Gillman after your lunch with her,” he said. “One of them was my daughter, who I have had in my heart to be my successor when I quit this duty. She called me to tell me that the witches had set up an immense circle around the house. They set up watching places outside the circle as I directed her.”

  “That is a very large circle,” I said.

  He nodded. “The work of days and much power,” he agreed. “If they had been working in town where my people patrol, we would have seen it long since. They waited until the witches left with Senator Campbell. They knew that all were dead inside except for Ruth—do not ask me how, because I will not tell you. Our survival depends upon us being aware of things that others try to hide from us. She and her compatriots could feel Ms. Gillman’s distress. They thought that the witches had missed one of their targets. She called me and explained all of this. I told her not to go in.”

  He looked off into the distance. “She made her own decisions, my daughter, from the time she first learned to walk. It was why I chose her to replace me. A leader needs to make her own decisions.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  He sighed. “The other two tell me that she crossed the circle with no trouble. Took another two steps, then turned and looked at them. Said, ‘Tell Father I was wrong.’ And she died, standing on her feet.” He closed his eyes. “But I had to kill her body and we lost four more of my people before we managed to kill them all.”

  “Them all?” I asked.

  “All of the dead rose as reanimates—you call them zombies. With my daughter’s fate to warn us, my people crossed the circle and dealt with the dead. I brought them out. But any who cross that circle before daylight without my intervention—and I will not go back there—will suffer the same fate as my daughter.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He made a slashing gesture with his hand. “Not your fault, Mercedes Hauptman. But Uncle Mike told me you are out hunting the witches, and I thought to tell you what we found. The witches are not where Ruth Gillman came from tonight. Doubtless there are clues to be discovered, but they will do you no good until daylight cleanses the land. Do not repeat my daughter’s mistake.”

  I tried to figure out when Uncle Mike would have had time to contact Larry. When Ruth was showering, maybe.

  “The senator’s residence was the first place I would have gone searching,” I told Larry. More carefully I said, “I appreciate your warning.”

  “We destroyed the bodies,” Larry said. “But their wallets are piled by the front door so that their deaths can be made known to their people.”

  “Good,” I said. “Ruth took pictures, so we’ll know who they are.” That part of this day wasn’t going to be my job.

  He nodded, turned to leave, and then, with his back to me, said, “You’ll be tempted to go to Siebold Adelbertsmiter and his son. You probably know that there is a good chance that the old fae will go with you.”

  He turned back to me, his features stark. “You could probably ask me, after this night, and I would go with you, too.”

  “But,” I said.

  He nodded. “But. It may be that without us you will fail, and with us you will take the day. But the Gray Lords have been quite clear. They will not—cannot allow any of us to take part in this battle. They will make sure that if any helps you in direct confrontation with the witches, that fae will die in this day and all days.”

  “But,” Sherwood said in a low voice, “warning us of a trap—that is not direct confrontation.”

 
Larry nodded. He tipped his head toward Uncle Mike’s. “And giving shelter is part of the guesting laws, as is protecting an innocent victim.”

  I looked at Larry. “That’s why he couldn’t break the spell holding her.” Because that had bothered me. Uncle Mike wasn’t a Gray Lord, but other fae walked warily around him. That he could not break a witch’s spell . . . had made the witches seem a lot more powerful than I had thought they were.

  His face became bland. “I don’t know what Uncle Mike can or cannot do, Mercedes. All I can tell you is that if he had broken the spell, he would have faced the wrath of the Gray Lords. He asked me if I thought you were clever enough to have a path forward that he did not see.”

  “Nope,” I said. What if we had not had Sherwood? Then I felt a touch of relief. I could have called upon Elizaveta or even, heaven help me, Wulfe. “Not that clever. But I am a coyote and apparently stupid lucky.”

  Larry did smile then. “And that is exactly what I told him.”

  11

  I checked my phone on the way to Sherwood’s Toyota and stopped dead. Somehow I’d silenced the phone, and I’d missed a call from Adam. I tried calling him back. This time it rang through to his voice mail.

  “Adam called you?” Sherwood asked.

  I nodded and checked my voice mail. Sure enough there was a new message from Adam. Two of them. The first voice mail was from around the time we’d left home to come to Uncle Mike’s.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Adam said. “Sorry for being out of communication all day. POTUS decided he wanted to have a day at the zoo. Expect pictures of him bravely petting Warren in tomorrow’s papers.” His voice was very dry, but there was a frisson of excitement behind it.

  He’d voted for this president, canceling my vote as apparently we’d done all of my life and would do for the foreseeable future, but Adam didn’t really approve of him. Still, he had a reverence for the office itself that I didn’t feel. The president of the United States had come to visit—and Adam was thrilled.

  My worries for him fell away, and I found myself smiling.

  “Anyway, we’re all headed home, see you soon.” He ended the message.

  Sherwood smiled at me. “POTUS,” he said. “I called it.”

  The time stamp on the second message was about five minutes later than the first message. Before I could listen to it, my phone rang again. This time it was my half brother, Gary.

  “Kind of busy here,” I said.

  “I’ll call back later,” he said. And he hung up.

  My half brother had called. And, I remembered abruptly, last night I’d had a dream that I couldn’t remember. A dream that apparently involved Coyote.

  I called him back.

  “I thought—”

  “What did you call me for?” I asked.

  “It’s pretty stupid,” he told me.

  “Just spit it out,” I said.

  “Our progenitor called me a few minutes ago and asked me to call you—and see if you’d reached for your dreams.”

  And that was all it took.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  “He is, I suspect, no one’s son,” Gary said apologetically. “Created rather than born. What’s he done?”

  “Interfered,” I said.

  “For good or ill?”

  “I can’t tell,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I survive. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Do you need me to come down?” His voice was serious.

  “No,” I said. “Yes. But there’s no way you could arrive in time. If it helps, your part in this might have saved the day. If the day is saved.”

  “Good?” he said, a question in his voice.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.” I disconnected.

  “Mercy?” Sherwood asked.

  I held up a finger. I needed to think. To absorb what I remembered.

  I knew who and what the Hardesty witches were because I’d spent weeks in the mind of Sherwood’s kitten. I knew what they wanted—and Sherwood was on the top of their list. I knew what they could do—and I didn’t want any of the wolves within a hundred miles of those witches.

  Magda—that was the name of the zombie witch—was a Love Talker, all right. And her power was a lot bigger than Elizaveta had thought. I was pretty sure she would have no trouble controlling a werewolf, because she had taken them before.

  “Mercy, are you all right?” Sherwood asked.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I told him. “Since the pack is fine—” They were. I had to do this without telling a single lie. Sherwood would know if I lied. “—could you drop me off at the garage?”

  He frowned at me. “Sure.”

  I nodded briskly and got into the passenger seat of the car.

  We were on our way when Sherwood said, “Does the reason I’m dropping you off at your shop have something to do with the phone call from your brother?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I have some thinking to do—and it’s a madhouse at home right now. The shop is quiet.”

  He smiled. “That it is.”

  I watched the road ahead of us and asked, “How is your cat doing?”

  “I stopped in to check on him after work,” he said. “It looks like he’s going to make it.”

  “Good,” I said.

  Sherwood’s lips turned up again. “He purred when I held him.”

  “Tough cat,” I said.

  “Yes.” He sounded happy.

  When he pulled into the dark parking lot, he insisted on coming into the garage with me and sniffing around for intruders. He wasn’t happy when he left, but he did leave.

  As soon as he turned out of the parking lot, I listened to Adam’s second message. I had waited until Sherwood was gone because I didn’t think that Coyote would have timed my brother’s phone call so precisely without a reason.

  “Hey, love,” said Adam. “Elizaveta just called. She wants to check something out at her house, and she doesn’t want to do it alone. I’m going to go pick her up. Don’t worry. Love you.”

  Yes, I thought, I’d have had trouble convincing Sherwood that I just needed a quiet place to think for a while if he’d heard that message.

  I grabbed a set of keys, turned out the light again, and relocked everything up. Then I got into Stefan’s bus and headed for Elizaveta’s house for some recon. As I traveled I called Stefan’s phone and got his voice mail—which I’d expected.

  “I stole your bus,” I told him. “And I am headed to Elizaveta’s to look for Adam. I believe that the Hardesty witches are there, and that they have Adam and Senator Campbell. If I don’t call you back in a few hours, would you call Darryl?” Hopefully Marsilia didn’t plan on keeping Stefan bound and gagged for long. “Tell him that I think the zombie witch can control werewolves and he should take precautions.”

  I found a place to park the bus next to a haystack about a half mile away from Elizaveta’s. With any luck, it wouldn’t draw too much attention. It wasn’t exactly a stealth vehicle, but at night it wasn’t as noticeable as it was in the daylight. I gave Scooby a pat on his fuzzy head for luck, then stripped to my skin, opened the driver’s door, and hopped out.

  I shut the door quietly and shifted to coyote. Then I went off to do the thing that coyotes do best—sneak.

  There were lights on in Elizaveta’s house. I slunk down the edge of the driveway from shadow to shadow, moving as slowly as I could bear. Quick movement catches the eye. If I had been dealing with mere humans, I’d have trotted right along. But I had no idea how well the witches could see in the dark, so I crept.

  Elizaveta’s driveway was nearly a quarter mile long, and there was a newish RV parked between the house and the garage. Adam’s SUV was parked right in front of the house, as was a Subaru Impreza. I watched the yard from under a raspberry bush. The underbrush had been cleared out and the bush trimme
d, so there was plenty of room for me to hide.

  I watched for maybe five minutes but saw no movement inside or out—despite the lights in the house.

  Maybe they were all in the basement.

  That thought had me sliding out of my hiding place. I was halfway out when a sound made me freeze.

  A bluish-gray wolf, distinctively marked with darkened feet, muzzle, and tail, walked across the yard. Adam. The deliberate pace of his movement, his pricked ears, and the slow swing of his head told me that he was on patrol.

  I stepped out of the shadows and let him see me.

  He walked right past me, as if I weren’t there.

  I am to patrol the grounds and alert them if I come across anything that might threaten them or is unusual.

  The thought brushed my mind lightly, as if I were overhearing a conversation that had nothing to do with me. It whispered down our mate bond, and if I had been ten feet farther away, I doubt it would have touched me.

  There is nothing threatening or unusual in a coyote running around Finley, he noted. Just for a moment his gold eyes brushed mine, and then he moved on.

  But if I were that coyote, I would leave.

  And then, as if he could not even think the name, an image floated in my mind’s eye: a wolf’s face with a red X across it.

  Adam was warning me not to let the pack come here.

  * * *

  • • •

  Of course I didn’t leave.

  If Adam was here, I could safely assume the senator and Elizaveta were also here. So all I had to do was get a look at their defenses. I had the bare bones of a plan in my head—I didn’t like it and I wasn’t sure it would work.

  I expected my explorations to last longer, even given that I now had to avoid Adam. But after the third zombie in twenty feet, I had all the answer I needed.

  I was going to need help.

  They had Adam, I thought, trotting back to the bus; I couldn’t afford to give them the whole pack. But I had other friends to call upon, which was a good thing. No matter what orders Coyote had given me, I wasn’t going to be able to kill those witches all by myself if the witches had an army of zombies to protect them.