He couldn’t sort out the memories from the tangle they were in. But this he knew, the mortals that divine thing had lured had been crumbs that kept it from dying immediately. But if it consumed Sherwood, with his years and his magic, with his ties to pack, that would be different. A feast. More than a feast.
If it ate Sherwood, it might have the power it needed to BECOME. The world would have a new god, the kind of being this modern world had no way of defending itself against. Even at his best he had been forced to lock his memories, his powers, away so that he could not access them either. Off-balance and vulnerable, Sherwood could not defend himself against it now. He would need some great artifact or solid faith to call upon another divine being to defend himself. The gods no longer walked the earth as they once had—and if Sherwood had ever had faith enough for summoning the God of Abraham or in one of the lesser gods, his memories were too jumbled to help him.
It was not his nature to give in, though. So, he fought with all the magic he had, all the knowledge he could pull out of the tangled skein of his mind. But it was useless against the thing that fed upon him, growing more powerful with every mouthful of Sherwood it gulped down.
It was his wolf, hunting for any weapon at hand, who found it, a small bit—a small memory of divinity that lingered nearby. Sherwood had no time to question how such a thing could be found in this house of death. He grabbed at it rudely and used it to coat the incipient shields he was trying to build from the shards of the old barrier he’d destroyed to protect Mercy. He pulled that remnant of divinity over himself like a child using a blanket to hide from night terrors, once more barricading his core–power and memories inside a vault.
Sherwood stood, breathing hard, in the witch’s bedroom and wondered how he’d moved from the doorway to the middle of the room without remembering it and why his body felt sore, as if he’d fought a battle. Under a bright pink ruffled skirt, Mercy’s tail stuck out just about as far as it had when he last remembered seeing it, so he couldn’t have lost much time. Even so, the sour smell of his own sweat and the way the back of his shirt felt clammy indicated that whatever had happened, it had been something big.
Yes, agreed his wolf. We have our magic back.
The wolf was right. Sherwood rubbed his fingers together. He could feel it now and the magic felt familiar and comfortable, as if he’d always had this connection.
Dangerous. That wasn’t the wolf, it was stark knowledge.
That he had magic was bad, something hadn’t been fixed right and it meant they were vulnerable. Abruptly pain laced through his head, sparking behind one eye and then the other. His attacker giving one last frustrated, rage-filled attack—
While he tried to figure out what had happened in the time that had been stolen from him, Mercy reemerged and shook herself briskly. She gave him a bleak look that distracted him enough to wonder what she’d found in Elizaveta’s closet, then headed for the stairs at a trot. He paused long enough to get a feel for the magic that lingered in Elizaveta’s room.
Adam had been right—the pack’s trust in one of its oldest and most useful allies had been betrayed. If he’d been on his game, he would have stopped Mercy then, because there was no need for her to go to the basement. But she was quick and, by the time he realized he might save her a few nightmares, she was down one flight of stairs. He caught up to her halfway to the basement.
He almost said something but rethought. He didn’t know what she’d found or how much she sensed. He didn’t know if she was suspicious or certain. She needed to see the basement so that Adam would be sure. Sherwood was certain—but Adam would believe Mercy.
So, Sherwood followed the coyote to the basement, hitting the light switch at the bottom of the stairs. The basement laboratory hadn’t changed in the past few hours. It was still a huge rectangular room strewn with cages of dead animals and tables and chairs to which living creatures could be attached. With his new sensitivity, it was worse than it had been the first time. The witches’ bodies didn’t bother him—there were seven of them, mostly in bondage positions that indicated they were actively being tortured when they had been killed. He did not feel sorry for any of them.
Because now that he could feel the magic, he could tell that every one of the dead witches in this room—with the possible exception of one—was a black witch. Just as Elizaveta was a black witch. Oh, her room hadn’t smelled of black magic—she must have some way of hiding the scent of it. But he didn’t need his nose to identify the greasy, clinging foulness.
Adam was fond of Elizaveta.
Sherwood couldn’t imagine being fond of a witch, even if she were a white witch. He rubbed his fingers together and then wiped them on his jeans as if that would clean them. There would be no cleansing until he was out of this place.
He paced back and forth between the pressure washer and the sink—torturing was a filthy business literally as well as figuratively. He tried to ignore the nearby racks of cages filled with the bodies of brightly colored frogs, turtles and a scattering of lizards. The alligator in the bottom cage was only two feet long—many of the creatures were babies. The young—of any species—had more power to harvest whether the villain was a witch or a fae.
We remember more about magic, observed the wolf.
That was true.
I remember more than you do, continued the wolf thoughtfully. I remember more about a lot of things than you do. I wonder why you did that?
The familiar smell of death combined with black magic was making his skin crawl.
I wonder, said his wolf, where I found a bit of divine—remnant you called it—just when we needed it.
That thought made Sherwood pause. He remembered that part, now that the wolf mentioned it—remembered using it to save himself.
A remnant is what’s left behind when a god works a miracle, the wolf told him.
He froze. If he had used such a thing to protect himself…
Then the creature hunting us is divine, agreed the wolf unhappily. A minor such being, or we would already be dead.
The gods didn’t walk the earth much anymore—there was a reason for that he couldn’t remember. He had no idea why a miracle had been worked here, or why the memory of it had remained, unconsumed, in this dismal and spiritually filthy place. But the next time whatever hunted them attacked, he would be unlikely to find another divine memory to save himself.
Mercy’s urgent yip reminded him that his job was to keep her safe—not be distracted by his own doom. His job, as long as he was still alive, was to protect those in his care. He strode over to the cages of dead mammals and opened the one Mercy was staring at. There were two half-grown kittens in it. The orange tabby was limp and lifeless, but the black kitten…
“We missed this,” he said.
He tried to be gentle as he extracted it from the cage, but it twitched back from his hold and tried to move away. The kitten stank of urine, feces and old blood—Sherwood could feel its spirit weakening. He was pretty sure it was dying—and maybe that would be a blessing for it.
Maybe it would have been a blessing if Sherwood had died in the hands of the witches, too.
He didn’t know—other than that obvious comradery of both surviving captivity by black witches—why the little survivor was suddenly important to him. Sometimes connections like that are made without warning or cause. But he found himself stripping off his shirt to wrap the little cat in to keep it from moving more in case it had broken bones, and also because his shirt was warm and softer than the floor. He had to set it down on in order to search the rest of the cages again.