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.

When 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 grace”—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.”

* * *