“I thought you didn’t remember the witches,” said Carlos in a tone that tried very hard to be neutral. “All you have is the memories after you were freed.”
That wasn’t quite true.
Sherwood had a few scraps of the time before he’d spent those years—maybe decades—a captive of witches. They were bits and pieces of memories, though—foggy at best. He had a vivid one of being on the deck of a storm-tossed ship, watching one of the sailors be sick on the deck. Seawater boiled over the ship and washed both sailor and spew into the sea, making Sherwood wonder if his decision to travel to England in search of who he had been mortally stupid. In that fragment he was in human form, and he had two good legs but no memory of his past. He might have gone into the sea after the sailor. But maybe not, because werewolves don’t swim well.
What was true was that he had no memories of being among the witches. Carlos was right again—there was no reason that he’d been able to spot the traps they had laid inside that house. Though he had done. There was no reason for him to believe he could keep Mercy safe while she used her quirky relationship with magic to look for clues about who killed Elizaveta’s family and, possibly more importantly, how it was done.
We can keep her safe, but we could protect her better if you freed our memories, suggested his wolf slyly. Some things are lost, but—
The wolf might know language, but it spoke more often and more clearly in images and impressions. It chose now to share the weight of the knowledge, the memories, that lay beyond the solid barrier in his mind.
How could his memories, all that he had been, lay behind that barrier if he was continuing to lose memories? Did the barrier itself eat his thoughts like some parasite? Or was there something lurking in his brain that had nothing to do with magic?
You could take down the barrier, insisted the wolf. Are you a coward? Afraid to know what you—what we once were?
The wolf fought him for the memories sometimes. Recently, Sherwood had found them leaking out in small ways—it had started before he’d come here. Another reason he’d asked to leave the Marrok’s pack. Some memories disappearing while others returned unbidden did not seem like something he could have hidden from the Marrok for long.
“Sherwood?” asked Zack.
“I can protect Mercy in that house,” Sherwood told them, believing it to be true.
He’d kept Adam and Darryl safe already. He could keep Mercy safe.
“Darryl says it is bad in there,” Carlos said.
“Elizaveta is a grey witch,” said Zack.
“Darryl says that there are signs the black witches had some time to play, maybe since the day Elizaveta left.” Carlos said darkly. “The basement cages…”
Sherwood nodded. “It is bad. I will keep her safe.”
The laboratory of a grey witch didn’t look much different from the laboratory of a black witch. Both witches fed on pain and suffering. The difference was in the willingness of their victims. Because of that, grey witches tended to treat their victims better. And they didn’t torture animals. There were animal cages in Elizaveta’s basement.
His pack bond flared. Sherwood looked toward Adam. He wasn’t surprised to see that his Alpha was looking at him. As soon as their eyes met, Adam nodded. Sherwood left Zack and Carlos to their worries and made his way to where his Alpha and Mercy waited, now a little apart from the rest of the pack.
A photo of Adam Hauptman would show a man of average height and movie star good looks. It could not capture the fierce personality that made even Sherwood’s stubborn knees want to bend a bit in his presence in an old-fashioned gesture of obedience. Adam’s innate power had nothing to do with the magic that had made him a werewolf. It was the kind of charisma that had allowed Alexander the Great to conquer most of the known world before he was thirty. Thankfully Adam had no ambition to conquer the world, he just wanted to keep his pack and those under his protection safe. He was a very strong Alpha.
We are stronger, said Sherwood’s wolf, but Sherwood ignored it because both of them, wolf and man, knew that they would not be able to keep their pack safe the way that Adam could. Stronger did not make one a better Alpha.
“Sherwood?” Mercy asked, glancing at the house and then back to him. She sounded worried for him.
Like Adam, she was average in height and unusually fit—the second being a byproduct of being a shapeshifter. He’d heard her father was a Native American. He’d also heard her father was Coyote—but that could have been an attempt to elevate her status. Having a coyote shapeshifter as the mate of their Alpha could have been a political liability for the pack. Naming her Coyote’s daughter, even fictionally, made her sound cool.
Her hair and skin agreed with the Native American, Sherwood was still making up his mind about the Coyote part. He hadn’t detected a whiff of the divine about her, but trickster gods could be subtle. Today her shoulder-length hair was working its way out of her usual French braid, and she looked tired. She’d been out hunting zombie goats.
Adam answered her before Sherwood could. “Sherwood knows the dangers better than anyone else here. I trust him to keep you safe.”
Sherwood’s wolf thought rude things aimed at Sherwood because he still believed they could keep Mercy safer if Sherwood freed the parts of himself he was keeping imprisoned. And unless he did that, the wolf was very much afraid they would die in the spiritual darkness of the black magic that dwelled in the basement of the house. The wolf was, Sherwood knew, viscerally afraid of going back in—but he wasn’t trying to get out of going. They both knew, with very little real evidence, that they could protect Mercy better than anyone else here.
Mercy frowned at Adam, then looked at Sherwood. “I thought you didn’t remember anything of your captivity?”
He thought of Zack’s assessment and said, “Apparently some things are imprinted in my skin. Like that—”
He thought of the basement laboratory that felt so familiar in its black malevolence, the place that threatened to send his wolf into paroxysms of terror.
Adam made a subtle gesture and Sherwood remembered that Adam wanted Mercy to go into that house without any idea of what she was walking into. He needed her unbiased opinion. That was the main reason Adam was staying outside. He and Mercy were true mates. It was entirely possible that Adam’s opinions would influence her if he were the one to go in.
So instead of continuing, Sherwood shook his head and said, “Never mind.”
Mercy glanced at Adam then gave Sherwood a rueful look and a shrug.
“No sense putting it off,” she muttered and started stripping off her clothes. Her coyote was better at sensing magic and identifying people than her human self.
Politely, Sherwood looked elsewhere until his nose told him that she’d shifted into her other form.
The little coyote’s nose for magic was better than any wolf’s in the pack. Adam needed her to glean whatever information she could get from the crime scene inside that house. She was the best the pack had, but all she had was a nose for magic and a chaotically occasional immunity to the same. She’d just been cleaning up a mess left by someone working black magic. Odds were that the zombie goats and the dead witches were connected, but it would be good to get confirmation of that.
But, more importantly, Adam was counting on her to confirm a hunch. That was the real reason why Adam was staying out. He didn’t want her to pick up on his reactions. Sherwood hadn’t felt the need to explain that to Carlos and Zack. What he had told them had been true enough.