First the skinwalker would chant and dance to ready his mind, Coyote had said. Then he would chant and dance to gather power. Has he started gathering power?
A pause. Yes. How close is she now?
Benedict checked his mate sense for the dozenth time since they began this hellish vigil. Four or five miles.
She’s not very fast.
He growled.
All right, all right. I know her old injury won’t let her run over rough ground covered by snow in the dark, but . . . what?
She’s coming faster now. Benedict paused, checked again. It made no sense, but . . . A lot faster.
Chapter Twelve
Twenty minutes later, Benedict decided the waiting was over. She’s almost here. I’m going to her.
In your other form. You need to tell her about him.
I don’t intend to hop to her. And if he Changed here, he’d be reduced to hopping. The wound on his right haunch would translate to his upper thigh. I’ll Change when I see her. It was a lot of Changes in one day—a day when he’d covered twenty miles or so after being wounded. But that couldn’t be helped. You . . . Havoc won’t be too cold?
The little terrier snorted. I’m going with you. Moving will warm us.
The two-hundred-pound black wolf and the fifteen-pound, mostly white terrier set off together, one of them on three legs, the other’s four legs working hard to keep up.
A single low hill separated them. Benedict crested it and saw Arjenie, Josh, Sammy . . . some distance away, Seri struggled to keep up, and while he didn’t see Adam, the wind carried his scent. And in spite of everything, he grinned in the way wolves and dogs do.
His mate had found a way to move quickly. She rode piggyback on Josh—who could have left the human Sammy behind, even with his burden. Arjenie didn’t weight much. That he hadn’t meant . . . what?
Benedict headed down the hill to her.
“Benedict,” she whispered as he drew close. “Oh, it’s so good to . . . Your leg! You’re hurt. I knew you were, but—how bad is it? Oh, you can’t answer. Josh, put me down, I need to get down—”
Benedict stopped. Let the moon’s song reach through him, uniting with earth . . . and wrenching into one solid, shrieking pain.
His fourth Change of the day took longer than the first three. Most of the pain vanished as soon as he stood on two feet once more, except the wound. Which had opened up slightly when it shifted from haunch to hip and thigh.
A hundred and twenty pounds of warm woman wrapped herself around him. “You must be so cold. I’ve got Adam’s jacket—he’s roving in wolf form—his pants and shirt, too, if you want those. Your poor leg.”
He breathed her in for one second, then leaned back to look down at her. It was a lot colder in this form than the other. “No time. I won’t stay in this form long. You and Josh and Adam need to know what we’re up against.”
She nodded seriously. “A skinwalker.”
He grunted in surprise. “You . . . How could you know?”
“I figured it out. And I talked to Nettie, and she agreed and told me what to—is that Havoc?” Delight lifted her voice.
“Partly. You talked to Nettie?”
“She would know, wouldn’t she? About skinwalkers and how to deal with one. And she did, which is why she taught Sammy the chant. He’s not Wiccan anymore, so he can use it, but I am, so I can’t. And what do you mean, that’s only partly Havoc?”
“The rest is Coyote. He’s riding inside her. Long story. We’ve found the skinwalker.”
“Oh, thank the Light! Benedict, did you see him? He stole a little girl.”
This time his jaw dropped. “How could you possibly know about her?”
“Aunt Robin was trying to Find the child. She felt it when the skinwalker crossed onto her land and she felt the little girl. She called me. Have you seen her? The little girl? Is she all right?”