the back of his jeans. He could see the darkness and hear the silence, but he couldn’t feel what I could.
“Wait up,” I whispered. “There’s a lot of magic right here on the stairs.”
Adam turned and gave me a quick kiss. “Mercy,” he said in a normal voice. “Neither you nor I can do anything about the magic, and one of my wolves is on the other side.”
I released him. “When you put it like that . . .”
He continued down, and I followed. As his foot hit the fourth step down, inky shadow boiled up, like a weird, black, dry-ice fog. Adam didn’t even hesitate. I put a hand on his back as he waded into the darkness ahead of me.
Maybe I should have stayed upstairs where I could have called for help if no one came back up. But he hadn’t asked me to do that, and I wasn’t going to suggest it. One of our wolves was trapped down there.
I knew when we came to the bottom of the stairs because I was counting, and because Adam stopped abruptly. He snarled and the muscles under my hand tightened to rock-hard as he put pressure on whatever lay in front of him.
“Blocked,” he grunted.
“Let me try,” I said, slipping by him.
The barrier that had stopped him felt like a giant warm cushion blocking the way. It tried to keep me out, as it had Adam, but everywhere it pressed against me, it softened and yielded. Going forward felt like I was voluntarily suffocating myself in warm wax that slid into my ears and nose and required almost more bravery than I possessed. But Adam had my back, and that knowledge combined with Sherwood’s need kept me moving forward.
I shut my mouth before any of the nasty, witchcrafted jelly goop could invade my mouth as well. I grabbed Adam’s hand as I struggled forward, hoping I could pull him in my wake.
It wasn’t easy or quick, but I made progress. Cool air touched the top of my head, and then I could hear the furious roar of Sherwood’s wolf as the warm, insidious magic slid reluctantly away.
As soon as my nostrils were free, I could scent black magic and . . . a strange werewolf whose scent was overlaid with something I’d smelled a lot today. I didn’t dare open my eyes until my lids were clear of the barrier, but my nose told me enough.
We had a zombie werewolf in the basement.
I’d leaned forward, so my upper body cleared the barrier first, which meant I was trapped from the waist down and blind when there was a zombie werewolf less than thirty feet away.
I wiped at my face with my free hand, pushing aside the magic until it felt safe to open my eyes. My legs were still stuck in slow motion, but at least I could see.
This zombie was different from the goats, better made. His black coat didn’t exactly glisten with health, but it wasn’t ragged, either. Hard to tell for sure, with both combatants moving so fast, but I thought the zombie wolf was a little bigger than Sherwood, which would put it in the same size category as Samuel or Charles. If it hadn’t been for the smell, I might have believed that it was a living werewolf.
The goats I’d dealt with this morning had been driven by one purpose: to feed. That had made them easy to hunt because they had been blind and deaf to anything else. But this dead wolf fought with intelligence and training.
Sherwood was missing one back leg—which was annoying, I’m sure, even in his human shape. But it was a huge liability in a fight where he was a wolf, as he was now. He compensated for the lack with tactics, forcing his opponent to move into his space, where his hampered maneuverability wasn’t such a problem.
Outside of Adam, I don’t think there would have been a wolf in the pack who could have taken Sherwood if he’d had four legs. But he was losing his battle against the zombie.
“Mechanical damage,” I yelled to Sherwood, as if he needed my help. With my newly acquired experience with zombies, I continued more quietly, “They don’t feel pain. So you have to do mechanical damage. Getting you some help in a minute.”
I redoubled my struggle to get my legs free without losing my balance. I pulled my left foot out, turned, and reached back into the barrier and locked my