Charles hoped that Jonesy had enjoyed the peace that she had bought him with her name.
“Godspeed, Hester,” Charles whispered. “Sweet dreams, Jonesy. Good journey.”
On the tail end of his last word, there was a cracking noise inside the cabin and the fire leaped upward, and Charles felt the increase in heat on his face and his skin roughened with the breath of … something.
Correlation not being causation, it hadn’t been Charles’s wish that had caused the small explosion. Asil met his gaze (briefly) and shrugged. That explosion had been something they’d missed in their search. Fae magic was elemental magic, based in aspects of earth, air, fire, or water and those same elements could have unpredictable effects on fae artifacts. He had no hope that the fire would destroy everything they hadn’t found. He really hoped they hadn’t missed something that was going to kill everyone in the clearing.
He sensed Anna approach just about the time that Charles was ready to go look for her. Anna set her cheek against Charles’s arm. “I think the fire was good send-off for them both.”
Yes, agreed Brother Wolf. But Charles thought it was more a statement of support for Anna than any real opinion about what they should do with the bodies of their fallen. Once someone was dead, Brother Wolf was usually pretty unsentimental about the remains.
Anna gave him a little smile of agreement. She knew Brother Wolf, too.
Her face beneath the smile was pale, the small muscles of her jaw tense.
“What’s wrong?” Charles asked—because it was obvious to him, once he paid attention, that something was.
She tucked her arm in his and led him away from the others. Then, in a very quiet, not-to-be-overheard voice, she said, “I know one of the dead men in the back of the van.” She let go of him and stepped back—and he didn’t think she knew she did it. Her voice shook a little, and she spoke faster. “I don’t know his name, but I saw him at Leo’s. We should get a photo of him to the Chicago Alphas as soon as we get somewhere with cell reception.”
Leo had been the Alpha who had ruled his Anna’s first pack. Charles had killed him for his crimes. Anna’s expression meant he didn’t have to ask her if the dead man had been one of those who’d abused her at Leo’s behest.
Charles didn’t reach out to touch Anna, not when she had just stepped away from him—and not when there were such ghosts in her eyes. He couldn’t say anything for fear that the thing he would say would be the wrong thing. She didn’t need his rage. He waited for her to do something that would tell him what she needed from him.
After a moment, she let out her breath and shook her head. She stepped into him and twined her right arm around his left, gripping his arm hard briefly before her whole body softened against him.
He took that moment to glance around, but no one was watching them—and if they’d overheard what Anna had said, they were being circumspect. Anna was being quiet—but they were surrounded by werewolves. It was unlikely that they had been entirely unobserved or unheard.
Anna stared at the fire, though he didn’t think she was really seeing it. But after a while, she said, “Fire is a powerful thing. It cleanses as it destroys—and it brings light to darkness.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I think I understand why some cultures burn their dead,” she said. “It feels like a celebration, doesn’t it? The final conflagration.” She paused. “Burn bright, Hester. Drive away the shadows, Jonesy. Sleep with the heroes and the saints.”
With the cabin and all the other things burning, the scent of burning flesh was very faint. Charles rested his chin on the top of her head and reflected that it was for the best that, as young as she was, she probably couldn’t distinguish the scent of the fire devouring Hester’s body from the scent of the rest of the burning things.
He’d have burned Anna’s past for her if he could have—but memories are not so easily set alight as a cabin.
? ? ?
ANNA AND CHARLES left after most of the others. There were still flames, so five of the wolves stayed—and would stay until the last ember was out.
Charles got into the passenger seat, but before Anna started the car, he put a hand on her arm.
“Wait,” he said, then pulled a folded paper out of his pocket. “Asil and I found this in the bedroom while we were looking for things that might blow up the mountain if they caught fire.”
She spread it on the seat, but it was too dark to read. Before she could turn on the cab light, Charles illuminated the page with the much dimmer light of his cell phone. Kara had brought both of their cell phones with her. Hiding Hester’s home was no longer a directive; if they couldn’t find a blazing house fire, the feds were welcome to track their phones. It would be a long time before anyone lived near this clearing again.
She read it and absorbed the implications. Hadn’t she just been thinking that there was no way any member of the pack would betray the others? It looked like maybe she’d been wrong.
“Traitor,” she said slowly. “Do you know how we have been betrayed?”
“For a start,” Charles said. “someone told our enemy where Hester lived. And probably the timing of the attack means that they knew Da was not here. I’ve been thinking about other things, too, since I found this note. Maybe Gerry Wallace didn’t go out looking for someone to finance his weirdly complex assassination plot against Da. Maybe someone recruited him. Last winter, someone fed a lot of information about Adam’s pack to the rogue CANTRIP agents.”
“Right,” said Anna after a moment. “Jonesy left this for you?”
Charles nodded. “It looks like it. After Hester died.”
“She could talk to him, mind to mind, the way Brother Wolf and I do?” Anna asked.
Charles shrugged. “I don’t know—though Tag might. But it sounds as if she had some way of communicating with him.”
Anna nodded slowly. “She told him some of it before they managed to kill her. He tried to tell us what she’d want us to know.”
She started the truck up, and he turned off the light.
Still thinking about the implications, she said, “Can you keep an eye out on the phone reception? I want to send a photo of the dead man to both of the Chicago Alphas to see if they recognize him, too. Maybe they can give us a name.”
“All right,” he agreed.
They drove awhile in silence. The track was not made better by being negotiated at night. “Hester knew,” said Anna. “She knew who it was—or they thought she knew. That’s why they killed her. So she couldn’t tell us.”
“That’s what I think,” agreed Charles.
“Is it someone in the pack?” Anna’s stomach was tight at the thought. These were her family as much as her birth family had been. Some of them might be difficult or horrifying—but they were still family. “Or is it one of the wildlings?”