Dead Heat

Joseph had severed the fae creature’s spine with the knife. As Charles dragged himself closer, he watched it try to reach the blade. But Joseph had, by luck or intent, found a place it couldn’t get its hands. The flesh around the knife moved as though there were something under the mottled and bumpy green skin that was both repelled by and attracted to the steel.

  The fae gave up trying to reach the knife. Instead it focused on … Mackie. It levered itself up on its arms and began crawling toward the helpless girl at a speed roughly twice what Charles could manage.

  The chestnut mare whinnied shrilly and galloped between the fae and the girl. She’d been running all over the place, so Charles didn’t pay her any more attention than the fae did. Until she did it a second time, blasting past with more attitude than speed, ears pinned and feet hitting the ground with extra force.

  She did a pretty little rollback, her left rear planted in the sand as she rotated her body around, crossing her right front leg over her left in approved reining style. Then she trotted back across the fae’s path, her tail flagged over her back, her head up, and her tiny ears sharply forward. She did a rollback in the other direction.

  And this time she planted herself between Mackie and the fae, pinned her ears flat, and ran past it. She snaked her long neck down, snapped her teeth at the creature, spun, and caught it with a nasty full-force kick right under its shoulder blade.

  The fae let out a high-pitched cry, falling away—and the mare was back. This time she struck with her front feet. She pulled the fae underneath her and stomped it twice before hopping over it and bolting away with a triumphant squeal.

  She came back again, snorting and side-passing until she stood between that thing and Mackie. Then she flipped her head in the classic warning that meant go away or die. She half reared and squealed—like a mare protecting her baby. Protecting Mackie.

  Anna didn’t need to go to the house. She could feel Charles in the barn and she sent Bella that direction. The big mare was laboring; by Anna’s reckoning they’d run about four miles. But she ran willingly through the dark doorway that opened into the arena, and she cleared the huge arena fence by six inches.

  Anna kicked both feet free of the stirrups then and jumped off as the mare gathered herself to keep running. She took in the scene of the arena in one comprehensive look: Mackie down, Joseph down, two werewolves down and unmoving, Charles on his feet but not by much, and the fae thing: huge, hideous, with a knife sticking out of its back. It was going, slowly, after Mackie. The only thing in its way was a big red mare.

  Anna had no weapon, so she aimed herself at the knife sticking out of the fae’s back. She put one foot on its back and grabbed the knife. She twisted it until the blade was parallel to the creature’s spine. Using the strength of the wolf, she dragged it, still embedded in bone, up the body of the fae. At first the flesh healed behind the knife and it was hard to keep her balance because the fae wallowed and writhed underneath her. But as Anna continued dragging the knife forward, the healing slowed and then stopped and so did the fae’s motion. Its stillness deceived her and as she approached the creature’s head, its neck elongated, allowing it to bite down on her bicep. Anna just shifted her grip to the hand with the good arm and forced the blade all the way up until the point rested inside the fae’s skull. The fae was still again. Limp. But Anna remembered the rapid way it had healed itself at first, remembered Brother Wolf telling her that fae were tough. She took a better hold on the now-slippery handle. She thought about Mackie, about the bodies littering the arena sand and those that had been stacked in the hot attic of that little house, and she cut the monster’s head all the way off.

  As soon as its teeth released her arm, she flung the head all the way across the arena. As quickly as it had healed its spine, she wanted no chance that it would repair the damage she’d done.

  The body buckled unexpectedly, and Anna lost her balance at last. She rolled right underneath the feet of the chestnut horse, who reared and bolted away to join Portabella, who was standing, head down, on the far side of the arena.

  Brother Wolf landed on the fae’s body and began savaging it. All that she could feel through their mating bond was a red haze. The other wolves were getting up, none too gracefully. Joseph didn’t move.

  About that time, Mackie sat up and began to scream. Anna managed a half run, half hobble toward her. She wrapped her arms around Mackie and turned her, gently, because one arm was bent wrong, so that the child was facing away from the monster who’d tried to steal her away and the other monster who was trying to destroy the corpse.

  “Charles,” she said, but the wolf continued his attack on the dead fae. “Brother Wolf? I need you.”

  The wolf froze, let out a single savage growl, and then changed. Charles stood atop the dead thing’s body looking as clean and collected as he had when they’d left the house this morning. He wasn’t. She could feel his white-hot rage, his need to destroy. That he’d come to her call while feeling like that …

  Well, she loved him, too.

  “I have Mackie,” she said. “You need to check Joseph.”

  Anna had come. When she cut off the abomination’s head, he and Brother Wolf would have howled in pride and triumph. But he didn’t regain his ability to do that until the deed was already done.

  Brother Wolf thought the creature might still live. Very old fae could live for quite a while without their heads. He was determined to make sure that it didn’t survive its beheading. Charles let him out to do what he wanted.

  That thing had killed all of those children. They’d died horribly and very, very slowly. If the spirits of the dead joined Brother Wolf’s savagery, he was inclined to allow it.

  Until Anna called him.

  She sat in the sand holding Mackie against her.

  “Check Joseph,” she said.

  First he went to her. She’d taken damage, but the wound in her arm was already healing over.

  “I’m okay,” she told him. “Mackie will be okay. Listen to her healthy lungs. Go check Joseph.”

  Charles knelt beside Joseph. To his surprise, the old man was still breathing.

  “Dead?” Joseph asked in a breathy whisper.

  “It’s dead,” Charles told him. “You severed its spine. It won’t be killing any more children.”

  Joseph’s eyes closed and he concentrated on breathing, not that it was doing him much good.

  “Maggie?”

  Charles closed his eyes, too. When he opened them, Joseph was looking at him.

  “Thought so,” he said. “Will see her soon. She’d be happy to die for our girl.” A half smile crooked his lips. “I hear she’ll be fine.”

  “Good lungs,” acknowledged Charles. Mackie was still screaming.

  “Better’n mine,” agreed Joseph with a smile. “Give knife to Max.”

  “I will,” Charles said.

  “Show him. Show.”

  “I’ll show him how to use it. As I showed you.”

  Joseph nodded. “Good. That’s good.” He took another painful breath and then grinned. “It was fun to be … to be me again.”

  Charles sat beside him, holding Joseph with his eyes while his ears told him that Hosteen and a whole slew of other people were accumulating in the arena. Mackie quit screaming. Kage sat on Joseph’s other side. Joseph couldn’t talk anymore, but he held out his hand and Kage took it.

  Charles had known this moment would come, ever since he’d understood that Joseph had no intention of becoming a werewolf like his father. Every moment spent in his company had been a moment closer to this. Had it been worth it in the face of Joseph’s death?

  He thought of all the experiences they’d shared. He felt the huge hole that Joseph’s death was carving in his spirit, a hole that was even now filling with pain. Had it been worth it?

  “I am so grateful to have had you as my friend,” he told Joseph. He would not have given up any of those times to avoid this pain of separation, let alone all of them. Yes, it had been
worth it.

  Eventually the arena got quieter. Max came and said good-bye. Kage got up, put an arm around his son, and left. Hosteen sat down in his place. Anna came and sat close to him.

  Joseph tried to say something to Hosteen, but he didn’t have the voice. The hand that Charles held was very cold.

  Hosteen said, “I love you. I will miss you. I am so proud to have been your father—and prouder to have been your friend. You have enriched the world with your spirit, my son. Don’t be afraid to let go.” He kissed his son’s forehead, and then, like Charles, settled in to wait.

  Night fell.

  Joseph took one breath. Let it out. And then he took no more. Charles opened his mouth and let Brother Wolf howl his grief.

  CHAPTER

  15

  There was no funeral. Charles and Anna loaded the dead fae into the trunk of Ms. Edison’s car and tucked the dead fae’s head into a box and put it in the backseat. They drove it to the day care parking lot, locked it, and drove away. Then they called Leslie and told her where to find it.

  She wasn’t happy with them, but she called back after they’d retrieved the body. “Better you than us,” she said. “That body is going to keep Leeds happy for the next five years.”

  “Better him than me,” Anna told her.

  “Be well,” Leslie said.

  “You, too,” Anna told her. “Give your husband a hug from me. I expect we’ll see each other again. Charles thinks that there will be worse to come.”

  “Cheerful, isn’t he?” Leslie said grimly. “I expect that you both are right. However, I, for one, intend to celebrate this victory. There may be all sorts of horrible fae in our future, but this fae isn’t going to be killing any more children.”

  They stayed a few days more. There was no funeral, but the family mourned and they were willing to share their grief with Charles. It seemed to help him, but he was more uncommunicative than usual, so Anna couldn’t be sure. Anna baked, babysat, and did anything she could to make things easier for the rest.

  Bran came and he brought Moira the witch and her werewolf Tom. Moira came to help Chelsea and to make sure Amethyst was free of the fae’s magic. Anna was pretty sure that Tom came because no one wanted to tell him to stay home, not even Bran. Anna and Charles flew back to Montana ten days after they’d left.

  Katie Jamison surveyed the ruin of her house ruefully. If she hadn’t been drunk, would she have had the brains to tell the FBI special agent and her friends the werewolves to go to hell? And if she had, would they have listened and spared her the headache of dealing with more construction in her house?

  But they’d found that fae, the one who’d been killing children. She’d seen it in the news. And she’d seen a werewolf in his—and her—natural state. Too bad those photos hadn’t turned out. Magic could be odd that way, her garden fae told her.

  So she didn’t have photos of the big wolf running amok in her living room, the ones she’d taken without permission. But the photos of the black wolf in her garden were lovely. Not as interesting as the ferocious and angry werewolf had been, but beautiful.

  The cleaners had come and gone. Her favorite contractor had called this morning to tell her he was sending a guy down to replace her front window today. “And this time,” he’d told her dryly, “don’t marry him.”

  Yes, well, she admitted to herself. That had been a mistake—and she admitted it. But he’d been so pretty.

  This one was pretty, too. His smile was warm—and his muscles were hard. He didn’t have a ring on his left hand. She admired that hand, thinking about what it would feel like to have it touch her skin. He was awfully young for her.

  “Are you married?” she asked.

  He smiled. “I was. She took off with the bank account, my best friend, and my dog. I sure do miss that dog.”

  Too young, she thought, watching him work.

  “Hey,” she said. “Would you like some lemonade? It’s fresh-squeezed from lemons I grow in my garden.”

  “That sounds really good,” he said, and she noticed he had dimples.

  Maybe not too young, she decided. Then she went to pour him some lemonade.

  Trent Carter hung up the phone and thought seriously of getting into his car and driving off a cliff. But that would leave his daughter alone. Five years old was too young to be alone.

  “Daddy?”

  He loved his daughter with all of his heart. She was the only thing he had left of her mother. But he didn’t know how to save her. Didn’t really know how to save himself.

  “You look sad,” she said.

  Sometimes, like now, she acted like a normal kid. She’d play with her toys and dress her dolls and invite him to make-believe tea parties.

  Last night her babysitter had called him and told him that she could no longer watch Iris. “She was torturing our kitten,” she said. “Pulling out her whiskers with tweezers. I can’t do this anymore. I am sorry. You need to get her into therapy.”

  He didn’t argue, didn’t tell her that he already had her in therapy. That hadn’t worked with the last babysitter. It probably wouldn’t work with this one, either.

  He’d called in to work today and told them he had to stay home because he didn’t have anyone to take care of Iris. His boss had just called to let him know he didn’t need to come back to work at all except to collect his things. That was his second job in six months.

  “Daddy?”

  “No worries, sweetheart,” he told her. “I’m just not feeling good today.”

  “How about I get Mr. Blanket and we’ll watch some TV until you feel better?” she asked.

  Someone rang the doorbell. “You do that. I’ll see who is at the door and then we can watch some cartoons.”

  He opened the door without checking through the spyhole. On his doorstep was a very average man so nondescript that he ought to work for the CIA. The woman was small and curvy, with black hair and wraparound sunglasses so dark he couldn’t see her eyes behind them. There was an unfamiliar car—a black Mercedes—parked just outside his building. A scar-faced man who looked dangerous was leaning against the fender of the car.

  Maybe this was the CIA. He thought back, a little anxiously, to his interview with the Cantrip agents. Had he said something wrong?

  He’d kind of expected to be visited by Child Protective Services—it would be his third visit. Somehow the bruises always were gone before CPS came. Both her bruises and his.

  “Mr. Carter,” said the man, holding out his hand. “I’m Bran Cornick. We were in town on some related business. It was suggested to me that we should stop in to help you with your problem while we were here.”

  His hand was very warm.

  “This is my associate, Moira.”

  “Daddy?” said Iris in her not-Iris voice. “Tell them to go away.”

  The woman brushed past him and into his house, her hand reaching down and closing on Iris’s wrist. She touched his daughter’s forehead and murmured a few words he didn’t catch. Iris, who’d been fighting her, suddenly stood still.

  “Yes,” she said. “He was right about her, Bran. This is definitely a case of demonic possession.” She turned her head toward Trent, and for the first time he realized she was blind. “This won’t take very long. Demons have a hard time getting a good hold on innocents.”

  Bran Cornick urged Trent into the house and shut the door, closing them in together. “Mr. Carter,” he said. “My associate is very good at what she does.”

  “Who are you people?” he asked.

  “The good guys,” said Moira. “We’re here to help.”

  Anna dreamed that it was summer and she and Charles were riding in the mountains. The air was fresh and clean and the sun was warm on her back. Heylight trotted down the trail with the same enthusiasm he’d demonstrated in the arena. She turned to see how Portabella was doing and frowned at Charles.

  “That’s a moose,” she told him. “Why are you riding a moose?”

  “Because Port
abella won’t be here until the spring,” Joseph told her. “Charles would never bring horses up from Arizona to Montana in the winter.”

  “That’s right,” Anna said. “We’re bringing them up in March.”

  “You should have bought Hephzibah,” Maggie told her, and laughed, but there was no malice in her laughter.

  The sweet sound of it rang in Anna’s ears as she woke up. It was still dark, so it was early. Charles wasn’t in bed, which was probably what had woken her up.

  She threw on socks because the floor was cold, and a robe because the house was cold, too. Then she shuffled out to the kitchen, where Charles was putting on the kettle. She shuffled right up to his back, warming herself on him.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” he said.

  “I dreamed of Joseph and Maggie,” she told him. “Maggie told me we should have bought Hephzibah instead of Portabella and Heylight.”

  “Kage won’t part with her, not after she saved Mackie,” Charles told her.

  “Hey,” she replied. “I’m just telling you what Maggie said.”

  He finished what he was doing and turned around so she was plastered against his front instead of his back. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

  “A dangerous pastime,” she warned, and was rewarded by the happy laugh that belonged only to her.

  “It was Joseph,” he said. “When he was dying, I suddenly realized all that I would have missed if I hadn’t known him.”

  “I liked Joseph,” she told him. “I wish I’d had a chance to know him better.”

  Charles smiled at her. “Love,” he said, “is always a risk, isn’t it? I’ve always thought that there were no certainties in life, but I was wrong. Love is a certainty. And love always gives more than it takes.” His hand was running up and down her back. “I think we should adopt. What do you think?”

  Adopt? She had wanted his children. His and hers.

  She thought of his face as he’d cradled Amethyst and crooned a silly children’s song, and Anna knew that any child who came to live with them would be his. His and hers.

  “That would be okay,” she told him, slowly, a smile growing with the words. “That sounds right.”