beat him to death. I'd called for backup, but ... They're dead, Mrs. Zeeman. They won't ever hurt you again. I am so sorry that I wasn't there earlier today to help you, both of you."
She nodded. "You saved my boy's life, didn't you?"
Maiden looked at the ground, then nodded.
"Then don't apologize to me," she said.
"What is a federal agent doing posing as a small-town deputy?" I asked.
"When Niley came nosing around down here, they put me under with Wilkes. It worked."
"You called the state cops," I said.
He nodded. "Yeah."
Another agent came over, and Maiden excused himself.
I felt Richard arrive. Felt them slip through the trees. And I knew that some of them at least weren't in human form.
I called the agent over that had given Charlotte his coat. "There are some werewolves in the woods. They are friends. They were coming to help. Don't let anyone shoot them, okay?"
He stared down at me. "Werewolves?"
I looked at him. "I didn't know the FBI was going to show up. I needed the backup."
That made him laugh, and he started telling everyone to put their weapons up and not to shoot the werewolves. I don't think everyone was happy about it, but they did what they were told.
A woman in EMS gear knelt by us. She started looking Charlotte over, shining lights in her eyes and asking silly questions, like did she know the date and where she was.
Richard was suddenly there, still in human form, though he'd stripped down to jeans and his hiking boots. Charlotte flung herself from my arms to his, crying all over again. I stood up and left Charlotte to her son and the medical crew.
Richard grabbed my hand before I could wander off. He stared up at me, tears shining in the moonlight. "Thank you for my mother."
I squeezed his hand and left them to it. If I didn't leave them alone, I was going to cry again.
Another EMS came up to me. "Are you Anita Blake?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Franklin Niley wants to speak with you. He's dying. There's nothing we can do for him."
I went with him to talk to Niley. He was lying on his back. They'd set up an IV bag and tried to stop the bleeding, but he was cut up pretty bad. I stood so that he could look up at me without straining.
He licked his lips, and it took him two tries to speak. "How did you pass the circle?"
"It was meant to trap evil inside or keep it out. I'm not evil."
"You raise the dead," he said.
"I'm a necromancer. I was kind of doubting where that put me on the scale of good and evil, but apparently God's okay with it."
"You stepped into the circle not knowing if you would be safe?" He was frowning, clearly puzzled.
"I couldn't just sit there and watch Charlotte die."
"You would have sacrificed yourself for her?"
I thought about that for a second or two. "I didn't think about it that clearly, but I couldn't let her die, not if I could save her."
He winced, closed his eyes, then looked at me. "No matter what the cost to you personally?"
"I guess so," I said.
He looked past me, eyes starting to lose their focus. "Extraordinary, extraordinary." His breath sighed outward, and he died. The EMS crew fell on him like vultures, but he was gone. They never got him breathing again.
Jason was suddenly beside me. "Anita, Nathaniel's dying."
"What are you talking about?"
"He caught two bullets in the chest when people were shooting at the demon. The feds were using silver shot because they knew what Linus was."
"Oh, God." I took Jason's hand. "Take me to him."
There were paramedics on either side of him. There was another IV, and they'd set up a lamp. Nathaniel's skin was pale and waxy in the light. Sweat covered him like dew. When I knelt beside him and tried to push my way past the paramedics, his pale eyes didn't see me.
I let the paramedics push me out of the way. I sat there in the weeds and listened to Nathaniel try to breathe through two holes in his chest. The bad guys hadn't shot him. He'd gotten caught in stray fire from the good guys. It was just a stupid accident. He was going to die because he'd been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, I would not let an accident take him. I would not lose another person I knew to bad timing.