She hissed and flung something that slid off him like water. Charles shook his head.
"Do you think I would have survived this long if some hastily constructed spell could harm me?" It wasn't a lie. He was just asking her a question. If her answer was the wrong one, it was not his fault. Half of his reputation rested on stories people told about him. He'd been lucky. He wore some protections, and being a werewolf was another kind of protection, but no one was invulnerable. The secret of being safe from magic was to make people think it was useless to attack him by that method.
Charles swung back over the platform railing and landed lightly on the deck below. He took a seat on one of the benches that served as bait containers near the bow, and his mate scooted over and sat on his lap.
Anna kissed his jawline and he felt the ghosts' predatory rumblings. Closer, bring her closer, they said, cackling. We shall eat her and share her among us.
Mine, answered Brother Wolf. He tightened his arms around her when Charles would have sent her to safety. But Brother Wolf held her and stared at the moon, who sang serenely to him.
CHARLES JUMPED OUT with one of the dock lines as soon as the boat was near. The wooden platform felt sturdy under his boots and the cleat he tied his line off to looked new. He asked Malcolm about it as the others disembarked.
"The parks department comes out and they need somewhere to tie up their boats, don't they?" asked Malcolm rhetorically. "So they keep the dock up."
"Stick together," said Charles. "Malcolm, your job is to keep our FBI agents safe."
Leslie drew in a breath, but Goldstein held up a hand. "You and I can't see in the dark if our flashlights give out. There's a moon out right now, but given the clouds in the sky, that could change. We are slower and more vulnerable than they are - and if this is the killing ground, then someone might be here to guard their latest victim."
Leslie pulled out her gun, checked to make sure it was loaded, and then put it back in her shoulder holster.
"If you can manage without flashlights," Charles told them, "it will help the rest of us keep our night vision. But don't risk a broken ankle. I don't know how well you can see - we wolves can see just fine in the dark; most witches have a trick or two - " He glanced at Beauclaire.
The fae nodded. "I can see fine."
"So it's up to you. If you use the flashlights, please try not to shine them in our eyes."
"I have a question," said Leslie. "If you can see in the dark, why did Malcolm say he needed lights to find the island?"
"Because I'm not taking a boat that has parts not working into waters that aren't safe," Malcolm said. "There are some pretty nasty places around here if you don't know where you are, and her spell killed all of my instrumentation lights - GPS, depth finders, the whole kit and caboodle."
The witch smiled at them all. "Are you still talking?"
Isaac touched her shoulder. "Lead the way, Hally."
The fae followed Isaac and his witch, her pale skin standing out in the darkness like a candle in the night. The FBI agents followed the witch with Malcolm trailing them. That left Charles and Anna to take the rear guard.
Castle Island had been parklike with carefully planted trees and bushes. Gallops was more like a jungle. Not quite as dense as the temperate rain forest near Seattle, but the undergrowth could have used a machete or two to clear it out. Perforce they followed paths that had once been sidewalks or narrow roads before nature had started to reclaim them. Mostly they walked uphill - from what he'd seen on the water, the whole island was mostly one long, narrow hill. It wasn't very big, less than forty acres, he thought. It wouldn't take them long to find the place where Jacob had been killed, as long as the witch was telling the truth - that she could feel it.
Anna pointed out the cornerstone of a house and what was undoubtedly originally a planted hedge of roses that had gone wild. He pointed out some poison ivy and a pair of curious rabbits who weren't at all scared of them. Any hunt on