Wolf's Bane

by Kelley Armstrong

  HDs? Half-demons. Right, that’s what Elijah is posing as.

  “Just find the curs. The sooner we’re rid of these parasites, the better.”

  Parasites. That’s a common insult for vampires. But Tricia obviously is including werewolves in that.

  Across the way, Logan tenses. My gaze shoots to him. Through the wall, I hear Mason say, “What the fuck?”

  “Someone’s coming to take you and your canine buddies out of here. Unless you’d rather walk.”

  “I might. Could use the exercise. But if you want me gone, just say the word and let me grab my shit.”

  “It’s packed and outside. Now come on.”

  I relax. Okay, the situation isn’t as dire as it seemed. I have no idea what happened to the poor girl rotting in the bed above me, but I’m going to guess no one here is to blame.

  Whatever happened to Mason also happened to her, and this morning, her roommate presumed she was sleeping off a late night.

  That means others are in danger from whatever’s going on, but Paige can resolve that tomorrow. Right now, we’re being kicked out, and considering I didn’t plan to stick around, that’s fine with me.

  “You heard all that?” Logan says as we slide from under the beds.

  “I did. It’s the excuse we need to leave and get someplace where we can notify Paige. I’d like to see whether Holly and Allan will join us. We should probably warn Elijah, too, in case they realize he’s a werewolf.”

  “He isn’t coming with us,” Logan says, face darkening.

  “Nope, he’s not. But he deserves a warning. Now let’s get out of here.

  * * *

  On the way to the stairs, Logan whispers his theory. Whatever’s happening here, it’s affecting the half-demons. Well, the hormonal part, that is. Something else is up with the necromancers, and it’s probably connected to those ghostly encounters we had in the forest. I suspect they’re being pestered or harassed by ghosts, and they’re too exhausted and distracted to notice what’s going on with the half-demons.

  “Could it be possession?” I whisper. “Half-demons are more susceptible to it. I’ve never heard of mass possession, but that could be the answer.”

  “Except they don’t seem possessed. They aren’t acting like themselves, but they aren’t not acting like themselves, if that makes any sense.”

  It does. Tricia is no longer the bubbly young woman we met when we arrived, but it’s been a gradual change, not the sudden one of possession.

  “What about the guy who tried to cut your Achilles tendon?” I say. “He’s a sorcerer.”

  “Mob mentality. He’s not actually affected, but seeing the rest act out gives him an excuse to do the same. There are others like him, I suspect, who’ve joined in.”

  And there are some who won’t join in even if the half-demons try to convince them. Some who will rebel in horror.

  I think of the dead counselor’s Team Witch shirt.

  Had she realized something was wrong, and they murdered her for it? I don’t want to think that. I can’t. Literally cannot. It goes too far.

  Cutting Logan’s tendon is crazy, but it’s the sort of thing that does happen when a mob gets out of control. Murder goes beyond that, and if that counselor was killed because she was interfering with plans, I don’t even want to know what those plans are.

  I need to believe that, whatever’s happening here, it’s manageable insanity, which we will manage by gathering Holly and Allan and any other spellcasters who want to come with us, and then we’ll get Paige and her resources to truly squelch this fire before it spreads.

  We can hear voices outside. Once, I catch a snarl from Mason. Seriously, the guy missed his supernatural calling—he snarls and growls and grunts more than any werewolf. Whatever he’s bitching about now, it’s only a snarled word that I don’t catch, and then he falls silent. Probably some token protest against being kicked out. He doesn’t want to stay, but he won’t like leaving at the end of a boot, either. Can’t say I blame him. If I didn’t suspect we were dealing with something more than paranoid teens, I’d argue the point, too.

  But whatever has gone wrong, it’s otherworldly. Demonic. Ghostly. Something else altogether. This is not the sort of thing you can treat rationally. It’s time to get the hell out and look forward to having a lifelong excuse to never attend a supernatural leadership conference again.

  We sneak down the stairs, moving quietly despite the empty and silent floor below. When we reach the bottom, someone clears a throat, and I spin. It’s one of the counselors, flanked by two campers, all three in Team Half-Demon tees.

  “Hey,” I say. “I heard you guys were looking for us.”

  “Outside,” the counselor says with a jerk of his chin.

  “Did I hear you want us gone?” I continue. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but . . .” I point at my ear. “Werewolf hearing. Can’t help it. You can imagine how much fun that was for our parents—we heard all the grown-up conversations, and we didn’t need to put a glass to the door.”

  “Outside,” the counselor says again.

  “Sure,” I say. “We don’t want to be anywhere we aren’t wanted. But I left my notebook under my bed. Just let me grab that and—”

  One of the campers steps forward. He’d been partially hidden by the counselor, and as he moves, I see something in his hand. It rises, and I fall back against Logan with, “Holy shit!”

  It’s a gun. A hunting rifle. I remember the long, empty lockbox upstairs in the office. This is what had been inside it.

  “A gun?” Logan says, bristling with mere annoyance, as if the guy pulled a water pistol. “I can assure you this is not necessary. Kate asked politely to retrieve her notebook. If that isn’t possible, then just say so. Now lower the gun—”

  “No.”

  Logan’s voice hardens. “We are the Alpha’s children. You are threatening us with a rifle when we are complying with your orders. Unless you want to invoke the wrath of the werewolf Pack, please show a little respect and lower—”

  The guy raises it to my chest. “No.”

  Logan rocks forward. The guy’s finger moves to the trigger.

  “Lo,” I whisper, and he stops.

  “It’s okay,” I murmur under my breath, heart pounding. “We’re fine.” Louder, I say, “Take us outside, and we’ll go.”

  The trio leads us down the hall. At a noise down a side passage, I glance as discreetly as I can. It’s Elijah. He’s half out of his room, poised there, as if spotting me, ready to retreat. Then he sees the rifle. His eyes widen.

  Hand at my side, I gesture for him to go back into his room. Do I hope he’ll stand firm and refuse? Stride down here and demand to know what’s going on? Better yet, sneak down and wrest the gun away from this guy?

  Yes, I do. But I also know that isn’t the smart move. Elijah makes the smart move. He eases back into his room and closes the door quietly, and I try not to be disappointed.

  “I heard you say someone’s coming for us,” Logan says as we reach the door. “That isn’t necessary. We’ll walk out. We know the way.”

  They don’t even acknowledge he’s spoken. One pushes on the door, and the noise from outside rushes in. Hoots and hollers and jeers. Clearly, the half-demons are looking forward to seeing us banished.

  Fine by me.

  We’ll give them their show. It’ll sting, but we’ll do it. We’ll walk away knowing this will be resolved later, and every adult half-demon in any position of power will be tripping over themselves to assure the werewolves and vampires no insult was intended—it was all a mistake. That’ll give Mom plenty of political ammunition. We’ll get concessions from this fiasco, and that’ll help our standing in the supernatural world.

  I keep telling myself this as they push us through the door at rifle point. I pay little attention to our surroundings, caught up in my own thoughts of the future. Keep my mind on that, and I can endure this humiliation. In the end, we will win.

  There’s a cro
wd ahead, at least a dozen campers ringed around a campfire. It’s not lit, thankfully, because one of the idiots is standing in the middle of it.

  “Mason?” Logan whispers.

  I frown over to see Logan staring at the firepit. I follow his gaze back to it and realize the idiot standing in the middle of the piled wood is Mason.

  No, he’s not standing in the middle.

  He’s bound to a pole in the middle. With wood and kindling stacked at his feet and a gag over his mouth, he snarls and writhes as the half-demons jeer and catcall and wave lighters and matches over their heads.

  And beside him? Two other firepits. Two other poles.

  Two funeral pyres.

  Waiting for us.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Logan

  I am a werewolf. You may not need a silver bullet to take me down, but the threat of a mere hunting rifle is not enough for me to step into a firepit to be burned at the stake. I cannot be taken that easily. I’m a trained fighter with superhuman strength.

  That is the thought screaming through my mind as I go down under the barrage of blows and kicks.

  This is not going to happen.

  The moment Kate and I saw what lay ahead, we swung on our captors—and a half-dozen campers jumped from their ambush spot by the door. The others around the fire join them, and we are swarmed by twenty supernaturals. We fight as if we’re the ones demon-possessed, but ultimately, we fall under those blows, under the very crush of our attackers’ bodies.

  Even when they have us down, we still fight, but it does no good. We’re bound and dragged to the firepit, and all of our struggles only earn us more blows, only sap our strength, until we’re hauled onto a pyre. They don’t bother with the third stake. They put us both on one, back to back, and the last view I have of my sister’s face is blood and dirt and impossibly wide eyes. Eyes wide not with terror but with shock. Those eyes scream three words: I don’t understand.

  I know my sister, and I know what she’s been telling herself. That no one here killed the witch counselor. She was not silenced. She was murdered by a ghost or demon or other supernatural force. That makes sense to Kate. This does not.

  “Why?” she croaks as they tighten the nylon ropes around our wrists and ankles. “Why?”

  She isn’t asking why this is happening to us.

  She’s asking why it’s happening at all.

  How it can be happening. How twenty fellow supernaturals could want to kill us in the most terrible and symbolic way possible.

  Burned at the stake.

  It’s the fate of so many of our kind—all of our kinds. Sorcerer, witch, necromancer, werewolf, vampire, half-demon. We have all been burned at the stake for the “heresy” of our powers. Such a death rings with symbolism to every person here. It is what humans have done to us. It is not ever what we do to one another.

  Kate asks why, and they don’t answer. They sneer, and they mock her, but they don’t answer.

  If forced to respond, they might say they fear us. They might say we are a danger or an abomination.

  None of that is the reason, though. It’s just the excuse. It’s what they tell themselves, while the truth blazes from their eyes, rings from their laughter. They’re doing this because they want to. Whatever fills them, that adrenaline and rage, this is how they’ll exercise it.

  Exercise it, not exorcise it, because they don’t want to be rid of it. This rage is exciting. It makes their hearts beat faster, their adrenaline pump. It makes them feel powerful.

  And all that, while a lovely little revelation, does not resolve the fact that we’re bound to stakes in a laid firepit. Reflecting on it, however, is only a way to keep me calm while I do something about it.

  When we were first bound, we tried the ropes, of course, but they aren’t anything we can snap. They’ve been careful about that. Now Kate’s working at the knots while exhorting the non-demons in the crowd to do something.

  “You’re surrounded by half-demons,” she’s saying to someone. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  A chorus of catcalls drowns out any response.

  “Whatever this is,” she says, voice rising, “it’s affecting demon blood. They have an excuse. You don’t. You’re about to commit murder.”

  “No,” a girl yells. “We’re about to exterminate parasites. Kill you before you kill us.”

  Kate keeps arguing. Trying to reason with those in the crowd who should be open to reason. Those uninfected by whatever has ignited the blood of the half-demons. Normally, that would be what I’d do. Right now, though, I’m working on a backup plan.

  My mom has a trick she taught herself, one my dad can do but less expertly, lacking the patience to learn it. Mom can localize her Change, specifically her hand, allowing it to shift to a stage between human and wolf. It seems like a parlor trick, yet it comes with one very useful advantage: her fingers become claws. With it, she can pin a werewolf to a wall with nails sharp enough to rip out their throat. The fact she’s still human means she can threaten or negotiate.

  I’ve been practicing this mostly to improve overall control of my shifts. Now, as Kate engages the crowd, I focus on shifting my hand, feeling hair sprout on the back of it. I keep my fingers cupped away from the crowd so they won’t see what I’m doing.

  Sweat beads, and I blow upward, trying to unstick hair tickling my forehead.

  You think it’s warm now, just wait until they light that fire.

  Slowly, my fingers begin to Change, thicker, stubbier, the nails thickening, too. I pluck at the nylon. My nails aren’t sharp enough to cut through the rope, but I can slice threads. It’s slow going.

  Kate’s still shouting at the non-demons in the group, trying to make them see reason, but they’re caught up in the fervor, mocking her “nonsense.” To them, there’s nothing wrong with the half-demons. They’ve just had enough of parasites like us.

  They’re feeding on the frenzy of the others. It validates their own rage.

  See? I’m not wrong to feel this way. Others do, too.

  What will they do when they realize they’re wrong? That the half-demons have an excuse . . . and they do not?

  That’s the true horror here. Not the infected half-demons but the handful of others who have joined in, ready to light us on fire because it’s the rare opportunity to indulge their worst instincts.

  I’ve been worrying about what I’m becoming. How much I am like my father. How my own instincts are rising up and shutting down common sense.

  What am I capable of?

  Not this. Never this. Whatever lurks inside me, it’s dark and it’s frightening, but it’s not this.

  My darkness is cold steel. Dangerous and deadly, and I need to learn to control it. But it’s a weapon. Not a fire that consumes, a fire willing to set anything ablaze on the flimsiest of pretenses.

  My darkness is my father’s. And my mother’s, too. It’s the werewolf instinct to protect and defend at any cost. Yet they could never get caught up in what’s happening here. They don’t have a fire that needs feeding, a rage that demands an outlet. They’d be the ones trying to stop it.

  Well, they’d stop it to save Kate and me. Mom would fight for Mason if it wasn’t obvious suicide, and Dad would help because she’d want it, not because he gives a damn about a stranger.

  Just as I think that, Holly peeks around the far end of the building. She pulls back quickly and then Allan looks. I shake my head, trying to motion them back with my chin. They withdraw.

  Like I said, Mom would fight for strangers if it wasn’t suicidal.

  This is suicidal.

  Better Holly and Allan stay back and stay safe.

  They peek out every few seconds. I keep shaking my head, warning them not to do anything stupid. And I keep snapping these threads. When I’ve weakened my bindings, I do the same for Kate. She tenses as the rough pad of my finger brushes her. Then she feels the hard nail working at her rope.

  “Mom’s trick?” she says. />
  “Yep.”

  “Damn, when’d you learn that?”

  The words sound like Kate, taking this whole “burning at the stake” problem in stride, but her voice wavers, telling me she’s struggling to stay calm.

  When I’ve weakened her rope, I tap her arm with three fingers. Then I tap two, starting the countdown. Her fingers close around mine.

  “No,” she says. “Not yet.”

  “Why? You got more to say?” one of the half-demons yells. “We’re getting a little tired of your voice, blondie. Time to break out the marshmallows.”

  Hoots and hollers sound, and Holly peeks again. She motions something I don’t catch, and then she withdraws.

  Kate’s “not yet” wasn’t for the crowd—it was for me. After a burst of pique—what the hell are we waiting for?—I answer my own question. If we break free now, we’re right back where we were when we got jumped coming out of that door: facing this entire mob.

  I should have thought of that. Kate should have been the one leaping in without thinking it through.

  And does that matter? I keep putting things in terms of which of us “should” do them. This is a Kate move; that’s a Logan one, as if our roles are clearly delineated, as if I lose something by failing to do the “Logan” thing, and she steals from me by doing it herself.

  We are not children. We’re leaving those old roles behind. I have no idea what we’ll become, but it does no good to keep fighting the changes.

  My sister is correct. We need a distraction, and I’d love to be able to ask Holly and Allan to provide it, but there’s no way of doing that. We can only rely on each other.

  “Start with the vamp!” someone shouts.

  I can’t see Mason’s pyre. It’s behind me, and he’s facing the opposite way. The wood creaks as he struggles, and I’m sure every one of his grunts is a muffled expletive. He’s terrified, too. The stink of sweat and fear wafts from him, overpowering Kate’s lighter musk of anxious sweat.

  If Mason dies, he’ll come back to life. That doesn’t matter. I saw his terror when he thought he’d risen as a vampire. That is a fate to postpone for as long as he can.