“She’s asleep. Or so I’m told.” He looked at the little dog—who wasn’t on the cold ground anymore but was being held and petted by Sammy. Well, Havoc deserved it, whether or not Coyote did. “Did your aunt understand what the skinwalker intends to do?”
She shook her head, her eyes large and worried.
“The Power the skinwalker serves has been asleep a long time, but he’s known to Coyote as one who hates the sidhe, and that hatred extends to those touched by sidhe magic—to Wiccans in general and your aunt in particular. He means to sacrifice the child in your sacred grove—the one consecrated to the Lord and Lady, where your coven meets. Where the token of your aunt’s land-tie is buried. He’ll create death magic there, blaspheming the land, and it will spread through the land-tie to your aunt, and through her to the whole coven.”
“Sweet merciful heaven,” she whispered. “Well. That stiffens my spine.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I have a plan. Well, the basic idea came from Nettie, but I fine-tuned it.”
A chuckle sounded in Benedict’s mind. And now you know why I wanted you.
Benedict repeated himself this time silently. What do you mean?
Why, to bring her here, of course. And your men, who may be needed. And that foolish, bungling young neophyte with them.
Solstice Eve. Members of her aunt’s coven would be getting ready for the circle to be held tomorrow night, the song and the music and the ritual. Just ahead of Arjenie, in the clearing consecrated to the Lord and the Lady, the clearing that faced the sacred grove, someone was getting ready for a very different ceremony.
She could see him. He’d lit a small fire, and she could see him moving in front of its dancing flame, bending and straightening rhythmically in his own dance as he chanted. The scent of the herbs he’d cast on that fire hung in the still air. She couldn’t identify all of them, but she knew he’d used sage.
Sage was for cleansing. For purifying. It was as horrifying for her to find it used in such a rite as it would be for a Catholic to witness the desecrated cross at a Black Mass.
The skinwalker was a tall man, though nowhere near as big as the bear whose hide he wore. It trailed on the ground behind him, muffling the shape of his body in the dim light, making him look half man, half creature even now, when he wasn’t transformed.
According to Coyote, via Benedict, the skinwalker could turn back into a bear with a single focused thought while he wore the skin, but he couldn’t perform the death magic ritual in that form. They’d adjusted her plan accordingly.
A small blanket-wrapped bundle lay on the cold ground near the fire, unmoving.
Arjenie watched from within the cover of the trees, a couple yards away from the skinwalker’s ward. She knew exactly where it was. When she used her Gift, wards spoke to her, telling her where they were and sometimes what kind. This was a simple warding, set only to tell its caster if someone crossed it. Simple, but powerful. A mouse couldn’t walk over it without alerting the skinwalker.
She could, though. She was pretty sure of that. She wasn’t at full strength, but her Gift was good at fooling wards. It had only failed her in that way once, and that had been an elf lord’s warding. Compared to that ward, this one would be a snap.
It was what happened after she crossed that ward that had her hands shaking so much it was hard to pull the blade out of the small pocketknife she’d brought.
The snow had stopped. A little over an inch of it tossed back what light reached the ground, making the night brighter than it had been. The clouds had thinned, too, enough that Arjenie could see a big, glowy spot where the moon rode, as if the lupi’s Lady was trying to reach them with her light.
Full moon. Wolf moon. Full moons arrived every 29.5 days, not a nice, even thirty, and twelve lunar months added up to about 354 days, which was eleven days short of the solar year. Which was where blue moons came from. Blue moons were the extra full moon that occurred every two or three years owing to this nonsynchronization of the lunar and solar calendars.
None of which had anything to do with what she did tonight, but her silly mind conjured and clung to facts the way other people might clutch a talisman or a teddy bear.
Her phone vibrated against her hip. That was the signal. She took a deep breath, pulled hard on her Gift, and stepped out firmly. She was quite sick with fear.
He didn’t see her, even when she stepped out from under the trees. He didn’t hear her, even when she stepped on a stick beneath the snow and it snapped, sounding horribly loud to her own ears. He wouldn’t. She knew that, even if her scared-spitless heart pounded as if it were trying to run away without her. Her Gift kept him from noticing the sight, sound, or scent of her.
It only failed with one sense. Touch.
He was ten yards away now, weaving his slow dance around the fire and the sleeping child, his voice rising and falling in atonal ululations that didn’t sound like words to her. He was naked beneath the bearskin.
If it hadn’t been a child sleeping beneath that blanket—only one blanket, and with it so cold!—Benedict might have balked, tried to stop her, sent himself and his men charging half a ton of bear. But combat put the little girl more at risk, so he’d agreed.
Whatever fear she felt now, his was worse. It was always worse to wait, to hold back and watch the one you loved walk into danger.
Five yards. The man lifted his knees high as he bent down. His legs were hairy. Arjenie’s mouth was so dry she thought she’d never be able to swallow again.
Benedict couldn’t even be close. Apparently the Power the skinwalker served could sense presences even without the wards, if those presences carried more than a whiff of magic. Which all the lupi did, of course, as did Havoc, given whom she was hosting.
One of them, however, had barely a whiff of magic to him. One of them had emptied himself keeping the deputy alive. Arjenie’s backup was her guilt-ridden, mischief-making, half-adult, half-kid cousin, who knew no more about fighting than she did. Maybe less. But Sammy wasn’t Wiccan anymore, and Coyote had added something to the chant Nettie had taught him. Maybe it would be enough.