Sherwood caught Adam’s worried expression before his Alpha hid it. If whoever had killed the people in that house came back, Mercy, herself, had very few defenses. Even a werewolf wouldn’t be much use against this kind of magic.
We could do this for her, insisted the wolf. Keep Mercy safe by doing this in her place.
Sherwood liked Mercy, and he knew her better than most of the rest of the pack. She was tough and funny and held her own in a pack of werewolves when her coyote wouldn’t have been much more than a mouthful for one of her packmates. She should have been a liability—but she wasn’t.
If we had our memories, our power back, she would not have to risk herself.
This time he wasn’t sure it was his wolf speaking or his human half. But the deathbringer here was gone and had already feasted on the deaths. It was unlikely the killer or killers would return.
What if, he suggested to the wolf, I take that barrier down and whatever is still feeding on our memories eats it all? We would have nothing and our enemy would be enriched by what it steals?
He could feel the wolf pause, tasting his questions and finding merit in them.
The barrier tastes like you, the wolf said. The Marrok thought so too. He thought you should rip it away and regain all that we have lost.
What do you think? Sherwood asked. If I put that shield around our memories, do you think it is a good idea to take it down? The Marrok thinks I am hiding from those memories—but it doesn’t feel like that to me. It feels like I did it to protect those memories—and whatever else I have hidden.
The wolf was silent a moment, then suggested, We could go hunting. Find whoever it is who is stealing our memories and kill them.
Sherwood chose not to argue with the wolf. Right now, we have to keep Mercy safe, he said instead.
Let me come out. A wolf would be better protection for her.
Someone needs to open doors, Sherwood told his wolf. It would take too long to change—fifteen or twenty minutes sometimes. And he didn’t trust his ability to control the wolf in the basement if he were wearing his wolf shape.
He felt his inner beast consider that and agree with the faintest whiff of condemnation for Sherwood’s lack. Sherwood controlled a huff of inappropriate laughter.
Unlike a werewolf, Mercy didn’t take long to change. Between one blink of the eye and the next a coyote stood where the woman had been. Mercy shook out her fur like a dog emerging from a bath and stretched. Then she turned her eyes toward the house.
Sherwood gave Adam a nod—which was a promise to keep her safe—then headed toward the house, the little coyote at his side. Adam kept the rest of the pack well back so they would not interfere with Mercy’s senses.
Sherwood’s prosthetic leg thumped on the imitation wood of the porch. He could move silently when he chose, but there was no reason here. He opened the door and the darkness he could perceive but could not see made him hit the light switch.
The coyote gave him a puzzled glance. It was still daytime, and this part of the house had vaulted ceilings that rose to the full two-story height and sported a pair of skylights as well as large windows. But the sunlight streaming into the room did not touch the darkness he felt—not that the artificial light could help with that.
Still.
“This house is dark,” he told her. “A little light doesn’t hurt anything.”
She walked in ahead of him and, aware of his Alpha’s intent stare, Sherwood pulled the door closed behind them.
Trapped, said his wolf.
Mercy hadn’t made it very far in. She stood in the middle of the room, the light from the windows showing the multitude of colors that made her coat look almost blond. The hair along her spine was raised and she sneezed at the foul scent of death—and maybe whatever else she could feel that he could not.
“I know,” Sherwood told her. “But you get used to it.”
The oily magic that had killed Elizaveta’s family had left the house reeking of black magic so strong that he thought even a mundane human would smell the rot. Fourteen witches lay dead within these walls, but the magic worked here had been more lethal than that. Every mouse, every bug, every house plant was dead, too.
Mercy sighed and headed into the kitchen where the closest corpses lay. From her flattened ears, the dead bothered Mercy more than they did Sherwood. But she did not shirk from exploring the bodies. Her tail drooped and tucked a little when she saw that one of the bodies belonged to a young woman—Adam had known that one, too.
Sherwood followed, hanging back a little, as Mercy moved from body to body, then room to room. He spoke as little as possible, letting her concentrate. She was thorough and she noticed every trap, though he couldn’t tell if she caught scent of something or if she was sensing the magic. Even though most of them were scribed with runes, he was pretty sure that she wasn’t picking up on them by sight because a lot of them were in obscure places.
Obscure enough places that he had no idea how he’d found some of them. They’d seemed obvious at the time but looking at them again he realized that they had not been.
Too much magic in here, observed the wolf. It’s calling to the hidden part of us.
He rubbed his fingers together and felt a faint tingle in the air. He was very much afraid that the wolf was right. Uneasily, Sherwood followed Mercy up the stairs.
This part of the house held a long hall with six bedrooms. The dead lay below them, and he’d discovered no traps up here when he’d explored it earlier. He told Mercy that and waited in doorways while Mercy tracked through the rooms. The last and largest room belonged to Elizaveta. Mercy took her time here, ears pinned in unhappiness. She wiggled under the bed and emerged a few minutes later a little dusty. She sneezed twice, looked around and then nosed Elizaveta’s closet open.
Sherwood frowned at Mercy’s disappearing tail as she pushed under the tightly packed hanging skirts. He hadn’t checked the back of the closet. He was already striding into the room when the deadly magic flared to life.
Sherwood was a dominant wolf whose instincts were to protect. Mercy had been given into his care. He didn’t even hesitate.
He ripped off the protective barrier that blocked his memories—his magic. As knowledge flooded him, he threw up his hands and wiped the structure of the witch’s warding so that the magic that charged it drifted harmlessly into the ether before it had a chance to touch Mercy.
The enormity of his lost memories—not just centuries but millennia—and unexpected power flooded him with staggering force. Cold sweat ran down his face and he struggled to breathe through the storm.
And at that moment, when his defenses were down under the influx of power and information—his enemy struck, engulfing him, swallowing everything it could in huge gulps.
He knew this enemy. Remembered.
A divine spark had awoken in the wilderness, a nascent god waiting to become whatever its worshipers conceived. Usually, without a civilization to feed it, such things fade away. But this one had lured a small group of people to it, had fed them beauty and consumed them in return. And so it had starved more slowly than it should have, growing into something twisted and wrong.
Sherwood—or the person he’d been before he’d been Sherwood—arrogant and sure of himself had gone in to…to do something. Save the people it held captive. Destroy it. Maybe. Probably.