He shook his head.

“She is somehow connected to the Hardesty witches,” I told him. “They revere her, anyway. Our zombie witch”—I tilted my head toward Elizaveta’s house, where Magda was waiting—“was hailed as the new Lieza because her powers mirrored the other witch’s. Lieza herself grew more daring as she became more powerful. She took a baby dragon and an ogre.” I kept my eyes on Sherwood. “And she took two werewolves. One she turned into a zombie. The other she used to power her magic. That one killed her.”

He breathed in and out slowly.

“The Hardesty family rushed to Lieza’s house, but all they found was her body. Other witches had been there to loot. One of the treasures they had taken was the werewolf.”

“Me,” he said.

“Yes,” I told him. “The Hardestys have made a centuries-long family quest of hunting down all of Lieza’s treasures—her zombies, her implements, and you. Some they pay for, some they steal, and some they have gone to war for. And over the years, you, who killed Lieza, have become the most sought-after prize. They almost had you in Seattle, but the werewolves took out that group of witches and you disappeared into the keeping of the Marrok, where they couldn’t get to you. But then you came here. They know your name—your current name. They know what you look like. And they know you are pack. The traitor in Bran’s pack told them.”

“I’m the reason they came,” he said.

“No. They had their eyes on Elizaveta—she was the most powerful witch they knew of who wasn’t a member of their clan—and they wanted her. Dead or with them.”

“Join or die,” said Sherwood. I couldn’t tell if he’d been quoting Benjamin Franklin or not. Likely not. Joining a coven of witches and joining the American Revolution were, I hoped, two different things.

I nodded at him. “It didn’t work out for them in the end, but that was their plan. Along with keeping the government from making a pact with the fae. They were—are still—all about stopping anything that might later be an obstacle to their power.”

“How do you know all of this?” he said.

I sighed. “The witches. Wulfe.”

He turned to look at me. “That’s all the truth, but it isn’t all of the truth.”

“Coyote dreams,” I told him.

“Your father, Coyote?”

I’d quit fighting with everyone about that. In my heart, my father was a rodeo rider named Joe Old Coyote, who had died before I was born. I would never, as my brother Gary did, call him Dad, or any other fatherly appellation. But I’d quit arguing with people about it. Mostly.

“That’s the one,” I said. “I dreamed one night, and I spent—” Eternity. Years. I swallowed and reminded myself that they were all dead. No kittens would be tortured here again. “I spent a few weeks in the head of your kitten. I am, Coyote tells me, the reason that your kitten survived when everything else died. We overheard things. I learned a lot about them. And when I finally woke up, Coyote made sure I didn’t remember it until he wanted me to.” I gave him a small smile. “When my brother called.”

“I see,” he said, when other people would have tried to take my story apart. Saved the kitten? I thought you said it was a dream?

What he asked when he spoke again was “Why did Coyote care about a bunch of witches? Was he taking care of you?”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “Heaven save me from that. No. I think . . .” I remembered what Coyote had told me. “I think it was the dragon.”

“Ah,” Sherwood said. “Okay. Is that all?”

“That’s all that I know,” I told him.

His body relaxed, as if he’d been braced all along for a hit that hadn’t happened. He let the pack magic keeping our conversation private slide away before asking, “Should I leave?”

“Why would you do that?” I asked. “I mean, do you want to? Where do you want to go?”

He gave me a look. “There are witches after me.”

“And?”

He waved a hand all around us.

“Oh, don’t take credit for this,” I told him. “This is Elizaveta mostly. And me. If you ever see me start to give a speech again, just step on my toes. Please.”

“But they are after me,” he said.

“Don’t feel too special,” I told him. “They—several ‘theys’—are after Adam, too.” I looked over to where Adam stood near the big fire where the senator was warming his hands. They, whatever “theys” they were, would not touch him. “And I turned the whole pack into a big fat target when I opened my mouth and made us responsible for the Tri-Cities.”

“I,” said Sherwood dryly, “am more special than you.”

“I am more special than everyone,” said Wulfe.

I jerked my head around, but he was still lying as if he were dead.

* * *

? ? ?

I almost expected Zee to drop his glamour. But when he pushed us all onto the patio except for the non-black-magic-using dead, he walked out in the middle of the field and stood there. A slightly battered, battle-grubby old man.

We stood in quiet witness, the only sound the rustle of leaves in the wind, as he began working magic.

It began slowly. He raised both hands to chest level, fingers splayed and palms down. After a moment he began tapping his foot on the ground. Zee in his human guise weighs maybe a hundred fifty pounds. I’ve seen his real form—and he might tip the scales at two hundred, two-ten maybe. But his foot made the earth shake.

“Mutter Erde, deren Schmied ich bin,” he said, his voice a rumble that resonated in my bones and made the concrete shake a little harder.

“Is that Elvish?” asked the senator, sounding a little in awe.

“German,” murmured Adam.

“He says, ‘Mother Earth, whose smith I am,’” translated Sherwood.

Zee repeated himself. “Mutter Erde, deren Schmied ich bin . . .”

He tilted his head as if he were listening for a reply. I didn’t hear anything, didn’t feel anything different, but evidently satisfied, Zee knelt on the ground. His toe was no longer tapping, but that deep, quiet boom boom boom continued.

He put both hands on the ground and began to chant, with a driving rhythm that played with the sound of the earth.

    ?ffne Dich, schütt’le Dich, atme und schlie?e Dich . . .

Erde, h?r’! Erbarme Dich,

Ein tiefes Grab er?ffne sich,

um Fleisch, Gebein verforme Dich . . .

und tiefer Friede finde sich . . .

“Open, shake, breathe, and close,” said Sherwood. “Earth, hear me, have mercy. A deep grave shall open, around flesh and bones deform yourself—or re-form yourself. Find a deeper peace.”

Zee quit speaking, but the ground rumbled and shuddered beneath us all, rippling and opening . . . A body near me dropped into the earth, as if the ground beneath it had turned to air. As I watched, more bodies disappeared, pulled down into earth.

“Dear God,” said the senator, very quietly.

When all of the bodies that I could see were gone—the dragon had sunk down sometime when I wasn’t looking, though I’d seen the parts of the ogre descend—when only Zee remained, he spoke again, this time in a voice that was achingly tender.

    Eile Dich, leg’ sie zur Ruh

und decke sie im Schlafe zu . . .

“Put them to rest swiftly, and cover them in their sleep,” murmured Sherwood, in the same tone as Zee had.

Zee stood up and tapped his foot again, this time matching the sound that had never stopped.

The heartbeat of the world, I thought fancifully.

He held up both hands and shouted,

?ffne Dich, rütt’le Dich, atme und schlie?e Dich!

On the last syllable he stopped moving his feet. The sound stopped. And once more, the only noise was the sound of the leaves in the trees.

All of the dead were gone—and so, I noticed, was the garden. It was too dark to really see, but I fancied that a cloud of dust—the ashes of fourteen black witches, Elizaveta’s family—blew away on the wind.

* * *

? ? ?

“What I don’t understand,” the senator said, setting his empty cocoa cup on my table, “is why Elizaveta waited until after they tortured her to kill them.”

Wulfe giggled. He’d been alternating laughing with silent tears—and I was beginning to feel sorry for him. Which just felt wrong.

We’d brought him home with us because I wasn’t sure he’d have been safe if I just dropped him off at the seethe. Marsilia told me that she’d send Stefan to pick him up, but it might take a while. If Stefan picked him up, Wulfe would be safe.