Daniel and Jennifer Erasmus—and now that he thought on it, she had been born into the Green family—had been the masterminds behind the trafficking and the magic that broke those children’s minds. Charles had killed Jennifer himself. He had hunted Daniel off and on for years, but even whispers and rumors of the witch’s activities had died. He’d assumed someone else had managed to kill Daniel, but apparently not. Daniel had taken on his wife’s name, possibly because the Green family had been a prominent one. Daniel was the only witch Charles knew of who carried the Erasmus name. Maybe Daniel had changed it to throw off the werewolves who were looking for him. If so, Charles was embarrassed it had worked.

Charles glanced up at the huge building looming behind them. Just walking through those halls had left Charles wishing for a shower to wash the ichor of foulness from his skin. They were torturing the old and infirm for magical power. He did not think that Erasmus, that Daniel Green, was an exception.

Charles remembered the first group of children he and Aaron had found in a mobile home out in the mountains. They had been looking for cocaine, and they’d found that—nearly half a million dollars’ worth—stored behind the skirting around the building. They hadn’t been expecting the children. They hadn’t been able to save any of that group, though all of the children were still upright and breathing when they’d found them. Whatever the witches had done to them had destroyed their minds. Charles had laid them all to rest himself because Aaron hadn’t been able to bear it that first time. The next time, the Wasatch Alpha had helped.

Charles could not imagine a better place for Erasmus to end up than this house of horrors. He hoped the old witch lived forever.

He was glad that Anna knew neither what Erasmus was nor what they were doing to him in this place. They needed the information that he had, and Anna’s usual charisma was getting Erasmus to talk. If she knew what the witch had done, she wouldn’t be able to give him the smile that was keeping the weasel talking.

Charles kept quiet, kept his senses open, and stayed just out of the old man’s sight.

“What was the bargain?” Anna asked the old man, her voice soft and coaxing, as if she were dealing with a human being instead of Daniel Erasmus. Doubtless she was more effective that way.

“Power,” the old man said. “And safety. You know what life is like for a white witch. Carrie might as well have painted a target on her back and held up a sign saying ‘All-you-can-eat buffet.’” He scowled, fisting his hand.

Charles wondered how Carrie had protected herself from the old man if she had chosen the least powerful path open to a witch. He had no doubt that Erasmus would have taken every scrap of power she had, granddaughter or not, once she had defied his wishes.

“It promised them a safe place to live, free from being hunted.” Erasmus’s voice was tight. “A second bargain was that if they fed it, it would give them power.”

Something drew the old man’s attention. Charles felt it, too, glancing to the source: Underwood. Erasmus had broken the technology that was listening in—but Charles had no doubt that Underwood had some other means of eavesdropping. Because he used his magic to tug on one of the spells wrapped around the old man.

“Fed it with music?” hazarded Anna, oblivious to the currents of magic in the air.

She’d made a good guess, Charles thought. Whatever lived in those mountains had pounced on Anna while she played “The Minstrel Boy.”

“What?” Erasmus asked, turning his head to frown at Anna. “What are you on about? Who are you? Where is my nurse?” With each question, he became more querulous.

“What did they feed the Singer in the Woods?” Anna asked.

The old man snarled at her. “What the fuck do I care?”

Charles stepped in front of Erasmus, breaking Underwood’s line of sight. Anna scooted over on her seat, but Charles went down on one knee in front of the old man.

“I am Charles Cornick,” he said, his voice harsh as he used the old man’s fear to brush away Underwood’s cobwebs. “You know who I am. What did your granddaughter do for the thing in the mountains? What did it want in return for safety? For power?” There had been two bargains.

“Carrie?” His old voice was shaky, but the volume had increased to the point that Charles was sure Underwood could hear it from the path he was hurrying up. “She was a musician. A fiddler.”

“She played music for it?” Anna asked, her voice gentle. Charles felt Anna’s power encompass the vile old man, and he wanted to snarl.

It would be so easy to reach out and break his neck.

“They fed that thing music and it gave them power,” said the old man, face twitching as he fought whatever Underwood’s leash was doing to him. “It should have been mine.”

We could tear out his throat, offered Brother Wolf.

His death would be too quick, Charles returned grimly.

We are not cats who toy with our prey, said Brother Wolf, but he didn’t sound scolding. He was thinking about those children, too. They hurt him here?

Yes, said Charles. He had not seen absolute proof of that, but he knew black witches.

Good.

“What did the Singer in the Woods want from Carrie in return for keeping them safe?” Charles asked again. “What did it want that they didn’t give it? How did they break their bargain with it?”

The old man blinked at him, his mouth opening and closing, a drop of saliva beading on the corner for a moment before he licked his lips.

Charles knelt, holding the old witch with his eyes, letting Brother Wolf brush aside Underwood’s magic, which would have kept Daniel silent. “Daniel Erasmus. By your true name, I require you answer me.”

The old man tried to break his gaze, his face twisting in pain at being caught between two magics. Charles didn’t care about Daniel Erasmus’s pain. At all.

Not until he heard Anna’s unhappy intake of breath, anyway.

We will make this quicker, agreed Brother Wolf, drawing power from the pack to increase the pressure they were putting on the witch.

The old witch jerked his head forward and snarled at Charles, “It wanted walkers in the world. Walkers to find things out for it and bring back food.”

“What is a walker in the world?” Anna asked.

Charles had a horrible thought—because he knew someone who was a walker.

“They come in the afternoon,” Daniel Erasmus told Anna, then let out a sound of rage and horror. “Fuck you. Fuck you all. They come in the afternoon and they feed upon me until there is nothing left.”

He laughed, a sly sound that made Anna sad for the lost titan. Charles could see it on her face.

“But I know something they don’t.” Erasmus gestured for her to lean closer.

Charles held her back with a hand on her shoulder; he wasn’t letting his mate get any nearer than she already was.

“They thought that it bargained like the fae,” Charles said. “That the words mattered. But this creature bargains with intent.”

“Words don’t matter to a god,” said Erasmus. “Stupid bitch. She was a ripe plum ready for me to pluck. So much power for a white witch. I could have eaten her and taken that power. Then when they came for me, there would have been such a reckoning.” He shook with frustrated rage as he spat out, “And then she got her stupid self killed. Fuck her.” His voice dropped to a raspy growl. “And fuck you, Charles-fucking-Cornick, for not hunting me down and killing me like you should have done.”

In the midst of his words, he flung out a hand, and a wave of oily black power poured out of him like a mist of darkness—as if Charles would let the old man harm Anna. Charles blew and the wind followed his request, dissipating the blackness into the air, where the hungry magic spells of the garden sucked in the power with more efficiency than a Hoover vacuum.

It would not, Charles thought, be a good idea to use magic in this place.

“Daniel,” said Dr. Underwood in a soothing voice that was somewhat contradicted by the heaving of his breathing as he trotted up the last step. “We need to remember that these are our guests.”

He is out of shape, observed Brother Wolf. And there is something wrong with his lungs. Can you smell the illness in him?

Brother Wolf was in full hunting mode.

Erasmus scowled and half rose out of the chair. The blankets that swathed him were dislodged, revealing the cuffs on his ankles and the binding around his waist. His arms would look unbound to eyes unable to perceive the world as it was. To Charles, the faint marks of a tattoo only a little darker than Daniel Erasmus’s parchment skin stood out like a brand. The inked spell held him with greater sureness than the steel chain attached to his ankles.

“Rest now,” soothed Underwood, touching the riled patient on the forehead. Someone else would not have seen the brutal magic that subdued the old man.

Yes, thought Charles, remembering the children, this was a very good place for the old witch. But the old man had been powerful and Underwood was not.

“She stole it from me,” Erasmus roared, spittle spraying the doctor as the old witch rocked forward in the chair. “She was mine to feed upon. That power was mine. Mine. Mine, and she gave it to a fucking god that sings in the woods. Stupid little—”

“Danny, be a good boy,” said the returning nurse, power in her voice.