I couldn’t kill it. Couldn’t even fight it because I was locked in a cage. Couldn’t free it—
I closed my eyes and stretched with my senses, the ones I’d used to contact Stefan, to find my pack and Adam through our bonds, but this time I directed my attention toward the golem.
He ripped at the bottom stair, and it gave with a squeak of nails and cracking wood.
I couldn’t do anything with the spellcrafting that held the golem together. But the energy, the magic he’d stolen from the dead . . . that was mine.
I opened myself up—and found Adam. As if he were in the same room with me, I found Adam. He always had my back when I needed him.
There was no time to ask for permission, no time to try to communicate anything because the golem had grabbed someone and pulled them out from under the stairs. I couldn’t tell who it was because the golem’s body was blocking my view.
I centered myself, pulled on the connection between Adam and me, and spoke one word. “Sunder.”
I hadn’t meant to say that. “Sunder” means to divide, to part, to separate—I’d meant to try to do what the rabbi had done. I’d planned on saying, “Die.” I’d hoped that with that command, I could force the golem back into the limbo I’d brought it out from. But someone who sounded suspiciously like Coyote whispered that word in my ear as I opened my mouth.
I could not touch the manitou with my magic because it was not dead. I could not touch the kabbalistic spells because that was not my gift. But Kocourek had named me death walker, and the dead obeyed me, no matter how much I tried to ignore that. And it was the power of the dead that held the golem together.
My power, the power over the dead, driven by the energy I borrowed from Adam and focused by the single word I’d used, washed through the golem. He staggered, dropped his prey, then turned toward me. He took two quick steps and brought his fist down on the cage.
I think we were both surprised when his fist bounced off. It made sense because the cage had been built with steel, silver, and magic. It had been built to hold werewolves. But I was still surprised he hadn’t killed me with a single blow.
I reached for Adam a second time, and this time he gave me . . . everything. The first time I’d tried this, he’d had no warning, and I had just taken what I could. This time he pushed power at me. I could feel his authority, built by the belief of the pack that he was the one who could keep them safe, as it settled over me. Belief is the most powerful magic of all. He gave me that, trusted me with it.
The golem was still waiting for the cage to collapse under his fist, his face not a foot from mine. His fist still on the top of the cage. I reached up and touched his clay flesh with a finger through the mesh. Then I used everything I had, everything I was, and everything Adam had given me when I repeated the word.
“Sunder.”
I felt the word hang in the air for a moment; it was like waiting for the rumble of thunder after the flash of lightning. Then the magic of that long-ago rabbi shuddered under the weight of the command. The newer spells the golem had woven himself gave way as the power of the dead tore them to shreds, leaving chaos behind.
I’m a mechanic; I fix things that are broken. I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote. I have powerful friends. But when it comes right down to it, my real superpower is chaos.
The golem’s clay body fell to the ground and shattered as though it had been dropped from a hundred feet onto rocks. Clay shards bounced off the mesh of my cage, mostly harmlessly. One or two got through but only one caused me any damage. And for a very long moment, the reek of the mess that Mary had made of her seethe gave way to the smell of springwater, the kind that bubbles up clear and pure from the earth. And then it was gone, and the whole place smelled of the dead.
14
Mercy
It was hard to look like I’d won when I was still stuck in the stupid cage.
MINUTES PASSED. I GOT A GOOD LOOK AT THE PERSON the golem had pulled out from the stairway. He was the middle-aged man who had led the other humans. I was still trapped in my cage. Galina tried to help, but her abilities to interact with the real world were limited to rolling heads around.
I tried to contact Adam, but my bond had fallen silent again: there but not there. As if I’d overloaded it.
The man moaned a lot. At one point, he started to crawl. I don’t know where he was going, but he didn’t get there. And there was nothing, not anything I could do about him. Nor could I do anything about the sunlight that entered through the broken corner and from the open door at the top of the stairs. I watched, helpless, as it crept closer and closer to the dead who waited under the stairway.
—
THE WEREWOLVES CAME JUST AFTER NOON. ADAM didn’t bother with the broken stairs; he just jumped over the handrail at the top. He stepped over the rapidly rotting body of the man the golem had killed.
His bright gold eyes on me, he took a step toward my cage and stopped with a grunt. I felt the magic flare up as it had not for the vampires, the ghosts, or the golem. Galina petted his shoulder and looked concerned for him. He took a half step back, then he squatted so his head was level with mine.
He didn’t say anything, just stared at me with those gold eyes, his hands clenched into fists.
If I had been free, I’d have climbed into his lap and buried my face in his shoulder and cried. It was probably better for my dignity that I couldn’t do that. I reached out and put my hand against the cage where it was closest to him.
“I think Coyote sent me here,” I told him. My voice was hoarse from the power I’d used to destroy the golem. “To fix things or make me crazy—it’s a toss-up.” I was almost certain that the reason I’d chosen “sunder” instead of “die” was because of Coyote. “I hope he’s happy. I think I’ve ensured that all of the vampires in Prague are dead. Except for the four people under the stairs.” Suddenly anxious for them, I leaned forward. “They are the good guys, I think. So make sure no one shines any sunlight on them, okay?”
He didn’t say anything for a while, just put a hand up toward me and then pulled it back with a grimace.
“Who hit you?” he asked, his voice in that deep place it went when the wolf was riding him. He didn’t say anything about the vampires, but I could trust him to take care of it.
Had someone hit me? I frowned at him, and he ran his hand down the left side of his face. I’d forgotten about that.
“Guccio,” I told him. “The pretty vampire. I think he’s been disposed of, though. That’s what the vampires under the stairs said. It meant they could quit following orders.”
“Guccio’s dead,” Adam agreed, so apparently he knew who Guccio was. “I killed him.” His tone was satisfied, so I expected there was a story that went with that. There would be a lot of time for stories.
“It took you a long time to find me,” I said. And it had. It had been hours since the golem had died—since the manitou who powered it had been freed at last to go and be what he was supposed to be and not what Rabbi Loew had turned him into. But my stomach was easing, and my body was starting to believe I was safe. Hearing Adam’s voice, velvety soft, was better than medicine for what ailed me.
“Your power draw knocked me off my feet,” Adam said. “I was out for an hour. No one could do anything until I was conscious, and it took a while for the bond to start functioning well enough I could use it to track you.”
“Sorry,” I said in a small voice.
“My love,” he said, his voice intent, “you are welcome to all that I am, all that I have. I would destroy the planet for you. I was even diplomatic for you, which was a bigger sacrifice. A little power drain is nothing.”
“An hour,” I said. He was a werewolf, and I’d knocked him out for an hour. “You could have died.”