Wild Sign

by Briggs, Patricia

  “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.

  C H A P T E R

  10

  There was no more activity at the old gas station when they passed it for the second time that day than there had been the first. All three of them watched it go by. No one said anything about it, but Anna met Tag’s grin in her rearview mirror.

  They had passed the Sasquatch gift shop sign before something that had been tapping at the edge of Anna’s instincts coalesced into certainty.

  “Cathy Hardesty was pregnant,” she said. “It didn’t strike me as important at the time, but I think I was wrong about that.”

  Charles nodded, and from his face she knew that he understood what she had. Maybe he’d seen it from the start.

  “She let us go too easily,” Anna said. “And maybe that was because she was pregnant—and because you honestly scared her, Charles. But knowing black witches … If she, like Underwood, thought we were a path to greater power, she would never have let us get away without a fight.” She paused. “They would never have let us go.”

  “Agreed,” said Charles.

  “Just like they wouldn’t have let Carrie Green go, once they’d noticed the new power she carried,” Anna continued. “I don’t care what kind of artifact she had. And the Singer in the Woods—” She felt a flash of indignation. “I feel very unhappy that every time I say ‘singer’ I will have that thing in my head. ‘Singer’ is a thing you are, Charles, a thing we do that is ours. And I love the woods. I don’t want to give that word to some creepy primordial god.”

  Charles gave her a half smile. “Creepy primordial god?”

  “Whatever,” she said with a wave of her hand. She got back to her original point. “That thing wants walkers. And we think that means children.”

  “It would have been easy enough for a witch or two to follow Carrie back to Wild Sign,” Tag said, proving that he’d been thinking along the same lines that Anna had. “They can hide themselves pretty well from most things that aren’t werewolves.”

  “Would the magic on the trail to Wild Sign have kept them out?” Anna asked.

  Charles shook his head. “It’s meant to keep mundane people from wandering in. Maybe if the Singer actively wanted to keep them out, it could. But the warding on the trail was easy enough to push through. A witch could do it without much trouble. Maybe even use the wardings to find what they were hiding, the way I did.”

  “How far along is she?” Anna asked. “It is late September, and whatever hit Wild Sign did it in April. That is five, five and a half months. She could be that far if the baby is small.”

  “I wonder,” said Charles softly, “how many of the witches who run that rest home are pregnant. How long that garden has been alive. How long they’ve had the power to waste on covering up the stench of black magic. As a rule, not even black witches waste magic on permanent spells.”

  Chills swept up Anna’s spine. That was further than she’d thought through, but it made sense. She didn’t want to go up against witches again—not when they were also going up against the Singer. Maybe it was time to call in the troops.

  “So maybe the witches followed Carrie back to Wild Sign,” Tag said heavily. “When they got there, they informed the Singer that the witches of Wild Sign would never supply it with mothers for its children. A witch could tell what other witches had done to themselves—we are of the opinion that was how they broke their bargain, yes? The white witches of Wild Sign—” He frowned. “And doesn’t that sound like a line from Gilbert and Sullivan? An
yway, those white witches had kept the women of Wild Sign from becoming pregnant—and the black witches told the Singer what they had done. What if black witches brought Wild Sign down—and offered the Singer a new bargain? Power for children who would be witches and walkers both?” He paused and said in a mild tone, “It is speculation, but that scenario would account for everything we saw up there, expect maybe for the pet graveyard.”

  “Cemetery,” Anna said, the echoes of a long-ago monologue by her father ringing in her ears. He was something of a pedant. “Graveyards have to be next to churches.”

  “I know that,” said Tag, with feigned indignation. “If that amphitheater wasn’t Wild Sign’s church, I don’t know where they worshipped.”

  “I thought that you didn’t consider the Singer to be a god,” Anna observed.

  Tag licked a finger and made an imaginary score in the air. “Point to you.” He paused. “But since I think that they considered it a god, I stand by my nomenclature. No point.” He put up the same hand and made an erasing motion.

  “Proving you can believe two contradictory things at the same time,” Charles observed.

  “It’s a talent,” agreed Tag.

  Anna went back to the original discussion. “We haven’t found anything that sounds very good for the people who lived in Wild Sign. Are we counting them dead?”

  “I think that’s a safe assumption at this point,” Charles said gently. “But we knew, given the length of time between when they disappeared and when we were called in, that this was unlikely to be a rescue. Our job was to get information.”

  “Which we did,” Tag agreed. “So we tidy up our loose ends, and then what?”

  “Intercept Leah,” said Charles. “After we have her safe, then we’ll lay it all out for Da. I don’t expect that we are going to leave this alone. I expect we’ll be back with more firepower to clean the Singer out of these mountains for good.”

  Anna thought that if it weren’t for Leah’s involvement, Bran was quite capable of letting the Singer prey upon anyone it wanted to as long as it left the werewolves alone. She had very few illusions about her father-in-law. Charles, however, would not agree to let it be. Someday he and Bran were going to find themselves on opposite sides of something like this, but she didn’t think it would be this time.