“I can see why the FBI thought that Anna ruled us all,” said Da, sitting in the mud. The hunting song had died down to a more subtle thing, but Charles could still feel his da’s amusement trickling through it.
“Is there a reason,” Da asked delicately, “that Anna is using the hunting song to project Queen?”
“Yes.” Anna was staring at the limp tentacle. “It’s not dead. Is it?”
Da sighed. “No.”
THERE WAS ONE more flashlight inside the cave entrance. Leah turned it on and concentrated on her footing as she retraced the way she and Anna had taken earlier.
Memories of Zander flooded back. A gift, she thought bitterly, from the Singer.
Zander had been four when Sherwood came. He’d been a brighteyed, affectionate child. Her new baby had been colicky. When she lay him belly down across her legs and patted his back to make him more comfortable, Zander would pat his tiny shoulder.
She had loved her children as she had never loved anything else in her life. Of course, back then, she had not remembered how they had been conceived. She remembered now.
She still loved her children.
The flashlight fell on a trail of blood, following it to the man propped up against the side of the cave. The light fell on his face and she looked her fill.
The adult Zander could have been her own father’s double. Line breeding did that. The Singer could supply the spark of life—but required two human vessels to complete the act.
None of that was Zander’s fault.
His eyelids wiggled and then his eyes opened. His mouth moved and she read his lips. Mama.
This was what the Singer had been occupied with while they waited for him to attack them. Memories and music were his powers, not life and death, so keeping Zander alive had taken the Singer time and power.
“I almost told her that the bullets wouldn’t kill you,” Leah said, kicking the Glock out of his hand. He didn’t have the strength yet to use it—but she didn’t know what would happen when the Singer became aware of her here. Maybe he’d be preoccupied with Charles and the sword. “The Singer couldn’t afford to lose you yet. Those new children are not even born—and he cannot leave these caves. Not until he Becomes.”
Becomes something more, she thought. A god. A more powerful being. She thought of the damage that the Singer might cause once free of the caves, and found the determination she needed.
“I thought I could give you a chance.” She knelt beside him and put her hand on his face. Leaning forward, she kissed his forehead at the same time that she unsnapped the sheath he wore on his belt and took out the knife.
ANNA WAS WAITING for her when she came out of the cave. Like Leah, Anna wore her human shape, though she was clothed. The perceptive Omega wolf did not say anything, just walked at Leah’s shoulder. Leah raised her face to the blessed rain so that it could bathe away the evidence of the price she’d paid to kill the Singer.
Bran and Charles both stood up and left Tag to trail after her. Jonesy’s sword rose out of the blackened flesh like a cross on the top of a hill. Crosses made her think of her father, and Leah had the odd thought that she might at last make peace with that memory.
Her father had been weak. He’d believed his god had forsaken him in the wilderness—no matter that all of the choices that had led them there had been his own. It was no wonder that when faced with another god, one that required nothing more difficult than obedience, her father had not even struggled with the decision.
She jumped on top of the tentacle. The weakness in her damaged leg and her inability to use either hand made her wobble. Bran caught her elbow and steadied her. Then he let her go.
It took her a moment to realize that she was going to have to set down the knife before she could pull the sword out. It was truly stuck. Why had Charles felt it necessary to bury the damn thing? But she managed—Bran steadied her again.
Then she shoved her right hand deep into the cut the sword had made. She took a breath and then crushed her son’s heart until it quit trying to beat. She stood up and fumbled because both of her hands were slick with blood, but she managed to get the point of the sword into the cut and shoved it back in.
She jumped down—but would have fallen to her knees if Charles hadn’t held her up. He released her and she took a step, stumbling because sometime in the last few minutes her leg had gone from being painful to not working right. When Bran put his hand on her arm, she jerked it free.
“Okay,” he said, glancing up at the sky. “But we need to get back.”
“Here,” Anna said. And Leah was able to let her daughter-in-law help her, because Anna didn’t make her feel any uncomfortable or hurtful things.
They stopped when Bran quit walking. Then they all turned to look back at the lake and the cross on top of the hill.
Bran looked at Charles.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Charles said. “There’s no reason for it to work again.”
But when Bran didn’t say anything, Charles grunted. Then he raised a hand to the sky and said, in a quiet voice but one that carried power that reminded Leah of the scent of the Singer’s magic, “Now.”
Lightning struck the blade of the sword. And after that, it seemed to Leah as if nothing happened quite as it should have.
The strike should have blown the metal to pieces, she thought. Then she remembered who had built that sword.
Lightning should be instantaneous. A crack and then gone. But the blinding light lingered, emitting a buzzing sound that made the bones of her skull vibrate. She had to look away from the brilliance. Only then the thunder rolled and the ground grew so electric that it bit at Leah’s bare feet.
When the sound was gone, the forest was darker, and it felt so very quiet after the endless thunder that even the wind whistling through the trees seemed like a whisper. Leah looked toward the lake and saw the sword slowly falling over in the ashes that were all that was left of the Singer. And her son.
Leah managed to control her fall so that she simply sat where she’d been standing. But that didn’t work the way she’d expected, either. Because she kept falling until her wet cheek was pressed into the slime-covered mud, and her eyes closed.
She might have fought to stay conscious, but she thought it might be nice, just for a little bit, to quit hurting.
SHERWOOD POST SAT up in his bed and remembered his name.
C H A P T E R
14
Da slipped off the light waterproof jacket he’d been wearing and covered Leah’s limp body with it. He scooped her out of the mud and stood up, hesitating for a moment as if contemplating what to do next. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for a week—though nowhere near as worn down as Leah was.
“You take Tag and her back home,” Charles suggested as Brother Wolf shut down the hunting song, because it didn’t appear that his da was going to do that, and it wasn’t doing it on its own. Tag was out of danger; the pack bonds were sufficient to keep him on this side of death now. Da gave Charles a sharp look, but didn’t interrupt when Charles kept talking. “Anna and I can clean up the leftover mess here. It might take us a couple of days. More if you want Anna and me to deal with the storage unit.”
Da shook his head. “I can’t spare you. I’ll get the pack in Bend to send down a team to clear it out. Do you want everything sent home?”
Charles nodded. “Yes.”
“I will make it so,” Da said. He looked at the sword.
Anna strode over and picked it up gingerly. It had been buried in ash and slime. She did the best she could to clean it off in a clump of wet grass, but the results were mixed. It had been scorched and blackened when they’d found it in Jonesy’s body. It had been hit by lightning twice today—and it still looked scorched and blackened, now with an added coat of slime and ash. Anna used the bottom of her shirt to clean off the cool blue cabochon stone in the pommel. It looked odd in the framework of the filthy sword, but it seemed to satisfy her.
Wh
en she reached them, they all started hiking toward Wild Sign, where the helicopter waited. Charles picked Tag up along the way. Like Leah, Tag was skin and bones—healing that much damage took energy. They walked the whole way in silence; Charles figured that his da had a lot to think about. Anna was just exhausted.
There were blankets at the helicopter as well as water and some emergency high-protein bars. They roused both Leah and Tag enough to eat and drink. Charles helped the pilot get Tag wrapped in a blanket and strapped in. Da did the same for Leah, who batted at his hands like a very tired toddler.
He gathered her bloodstained hands in his and said, “Stop.”
She let him buckle her in then, but she didn’t look at him.
A week ago, Charles would never have imagined himself feeling protective of his stepmother.
She saved us all, at great personal cost, Brother Wolf said.
“Do you mind if we keep the sword and bring it back when we’re finished?” Anna asked. “I want Charles to look at the … the people of Wild Sign.”
“You found them alive?” Da’s eyes widened in surprise.
“I don’t know,” Anna said; she sounded every bit as tired as she looked. Charles had managed to get a couple of protein bars down her, too. “They smelled dead, looked like mummies—and they were breathing.”
Da’s eyebrows shot up.
“I just …” Her voice trailed off.
“I’ll go with you to check things out,” Charles said. The caves would need to be cleaned out in any case. He didn’t want to be explaining bodies found on Leah’s land to some law officer fifty years in the future. That would be a task for later. And if it had been up to him, he would get a good night’s sleep and return. It might come to that, depending upon what they found. But it wouldn’t hurt to look at things now. To his da he said, “If Leah … if you need a rundown on today’s events, we can talk later.”
“Can I take the sword?” Anna asked again.
Bran nodded. Charles had the distinct impression that Anna could have said, “I want to throw it in the ocean,” or “I want to give it to the owner of the local gas station,” and she would have gotten the same response. Da wasn’t thinking about the sword just now.
“You should go,” Charles said.
Bran nodded. “I will see you when you get back.” He lifted a hand in good-bye and started to walk around the helicopter to take the copilot’s seat.
“You should talk to her,” Charles said, and saw his da’s steps falter. He did not say, You should have talked to her a long time ago. She was hurt and you did not see it. You should have seen it. But he had no doubt that his father heard those words, too.
“Yes,” Da said, without looking around. “We will need to talk.”
Anna tucked herself under Charles’s arm and leaned her cheek against his chest. “Do you think they’ll be okay?” she asked. He knew she assumed that the sounds of the helicopter powering up would hide her voice.
He was pretty sure that wasn’t the case, but he told her the truth anyway, because his da should hear it. “I don’t know.”
THEY WERE VERY nearly stymied at the mouth of the cave because he’d forgotten that they would need light to travel inside.
“There was one left,” Anna said.
“There are flashlights in the Suburban,” Charles said. “Or we could come back tomorrow.”
“No,” Anna said stubbornly, but there was a wobble to her voice.
It surprised him—and he took another good hard look at his mate. They were all exhausted, in need of food and sleep. She didn’t look as bad as Leah, or Da after he’d kept Tag from dying. But that was just a matter of degree.
We need to get her home, Brother Wolf said, and he didn’t mean the hotel. Her jaw was set and she had her lower lip caught between her teeth to keep it from trembling. Charles could tell she knew she was being irrational.
But she was tired, worn to the bone mentally and physically, and he wasn’t going to argue with her when she was in that state. Briefly he worried that they were going to have to go into the cave system in the dark.
Happily, before that happened, Anna spotted a flashlight that had rolled into some shrubs. She wiped the blood off it and headed into the cave.
They came to a place where three tunnels met, and Anna stopped. She pointed to a pile of ash. “I think that’s Zander,” she said.
“Good” was probably the wrong thing to say, Charles thought. She’d liked Zander, loved his photography—though perhaps she didn’t like him as much since he’d kidnapped her so she could carry Cthulhu’s child.
“Good,” he said anyway.
She put her forehead against his biceps and gave a laugh that was nearly a sob. “Good,” she agreed huskily.
Her flashlight fell upon a Glock pistol. Charles picked it up, took out the clip, and checked the chamber, which was clear. He put the clip in one pocket and tucked the gun in the back of his jeans. He couldn’t leave a loaded gun lying around for anyone to find.
The cavern of the dead was not far away.
Anna’s flashlight found the face of the first body just as the gem in the pommel of Jonesy’s sword flared with light. He didn’t blame it. Magic was so thick in here that he could barely breathe.
The Singer had been feeding on these people, had set up some sort of construct that pulled … something from them. Charles wasn’t sure what it was, only that he could barely perceive it. But with the Singer dead, the cave was filled with power.
Anna had been right. It had been important for them to come here now.
Anna’s description of the people of Wild Sign was right on target. As they stood in the entryway, every body he could see in the cool light of the gemstone sucked in a breath and let it out again. And she was right about what it smelled like, too.
“Are they dead?” Anna asked in a small voice.
He wished he could tell her yes. He knelt beside the closest one and put his hand on her forehead, then on the skin over her heart.
“No,” he said. “But there is no going back for them, either.”
She lifted the sword in question, shifting her grip as she did, so that she held it properly.
He held out his hand for the sword, and Brother Wolf spoke aloud. “Please.”
Because Brother Wolf was as tired as Charles, he reverted to speaking through their bond. Let us do this terrible, necessary thing.
“I can do it,” she said, raising her chin.
“I know,” Charles said. “But it will cost me less to give these poor souls the coup de grâce”—he saw her draw in an indignant breath and completed his sentence—“than it will cost me to watch you do it.”
She closed her mouth and gave him a disgruntled look. “That is so sexist it leaves me speechless.”
But she had heard the truth in his statement.
“I know,” he said apologetically, which made her sputter.
“And manipulative,” she said.
He bowed shallowly in acknowledgment. “I am my father’s son.”
She looked around the room and then held the sword out to him. Her eyes glistened wetly in the blue light.
He took the sword, then kissed her. “Thank you.”
It took some time. Charles wasn’t sure that Jonesy’s sword had been necessary to break the spell that held the bodies to a semblance of life, but there was no question that it accomplished the task.
When they found no more bodies, Anna said a quiet prayer.
Then she said, “Do you think they are at peace?”
He didn’t know how to answer that. Their bodies were dead, but he had no idea what the Singer had been doing to them.
Anna had her back to him—and a motion caught his eye. He looked over to see a narrow-faced, sharp-nosed coyote. Coyote.
Bless Mercy, he thought. She’d managed it.
“Yes,” he told Anna. “They are safe now.”
COYOTE WATCHED THEM go. He had not paid much attention to the Marrok’s son
, his daughter’s foster brother. He was more interesting than Coyote had thought.
But they were not why he was here.
He trotted into a damp cavern that held a clear, cold pool in its center. He nosed around until he found what he’d been looking for. A small squid-like creature, no bigger than his toenail.
Immortal things were truly difficult to kill.
It tasted like eel.
WHEN ANNA AND Charles emerged from the cave, the rain had stopped, though the chill that lingered in the air had an edge of winter in it. The next rainstorm in these mountains was going to carry snow, Charles thought.
He smelled the witches before they came upon them.
“Is something wrong?” Anna asked.
“Witches,” he told her quietly. “Black. Over by the amphitheater. The lake.”
Neither of them slowed—or sped up, either.
He pulled the Glock out of his waistband and loaded the clip. Their best weapon against the witches was likely to be the sword. He wanted Anna to have it, but he hadn’t taught her swordplay yet. If his da was going to continue to break out swords from his store of weapons, Anna needed to learn. But for now, it meant that he kept the sword.
“You still have your gun?” he asked, keeping his voice soft.
She nodded. “Six bullets.”
Brother Wolf thought there were fewer than six witches waiting for them. Charles handed the Glock to Anna, too.
“This is a Glock 21. It’s a .45 caliber. Thirteen shots—there is not one in the chamber right now. You’ve shot this gun before.” She hadn’t liked it. It hadn’t fit her hand as well as her Sig did.
We could just kill them, observed Brother Wolf. There are three of them.
Anna checked the Glock herself, then tucked it next to her carry gun in the small of her back. “We don’t want to start a war,” she told Brother Wolf. “They don’t have anything to gain by our deaths—and a lot to lose.” She looked up at Charles. “They’ll know the Singer is dead, right?”
“Probably,” Charles said. “If it was feeding them power, that would have stopped the moment it died.”
Wild Sign Page 30
