Cry Wolf (37 page)

At her own volume, she muttered, “Have the sense not to stand out in the rain.”

Most of Abraham’s followers left, slinking off into the forest away from the sanctuary—the ones that weren’t already dead. More than one of them had committed suicide after a bite.

They wouldn’t go to the police—magical conflicts were not the law’s realm of concern, nor their area of expertise. If anyone asked where Father Abraham was, his followers could just say that he had gone missing on a trip up north and that they didn’t know where he’d been going. Perhaps they would say that he was on some kind of journey for further enlightenment. Kelly didn’t care what bullshit they scared up, as long as no more police came sniffing around the sanctuary, and as long as none of Salvation foolishly came after her.

She heard murmurs of their justifications not to engage with the Valkyrie in the middle of the clearing. They told themselves that they could do more good with those willing to change, that they could continue Abraham’s legacy better if they were alive, and that all they had to do was wait until one of them amassed the same power as Abraham. All excellent arguments for Kelly going back to Missouri and torching the spell book in case it fell into the wrong hands, someone who could discover a way to read it. In fact…

Kelly closed her eyes and focused on the book in his room. Abraham had put it back in its place. Fire magic wasn’t her speciality, but she put a mere fraction of her subsumed fury into the casting and made sure that only the book received the brunt of the punishment. Whatever she felt about Salvation’s hosts, she didn’t want to burn down the farm.

Kelly left the Salvation building standing. She decided that destroying the building would not only harm the people still in it, but it would fail to end the slow slaughter of self-hating magical creatures. If anything, torching the facility might elevate their Father’s death into more than the fall of a martyr but instead a call to war. There was danger of that happening anyway. Kelly saw no point in stirring the cinders.

If they decided to avenge the death of their leader, then Kelly would return the favour, but Kelly didn’t feel comfortable with preemption. If she could allow the shifters and the werewolves to join her in this fight, in spite of every natural instinct not to, then she had to let the people of Salvation follow their own paths, no matter how despicable. The werewolves and shifters stumbled out of the forest into the clearing, most of them worse for wear. Ironically, most of the damage to the shapeshifters had been done with silver blades from the shapeshifters protecting the werewolves. And there must have also been some special magic in the blades. Nothing short of death should have transferred injuries from their dog skins to the human skins, and none of them were dead, although Malcolm carried a semi-conscious Ki in his arms and Leslie and Lotus had to lean against each other to stay upright.

Jake immediately ran to where Britt and Max held Renee. He ripped off the sleeve and wrapped it around her upper arm to create a tourniquet. Fortunately, the gunshot wound didn’t seem to be very bad, aside from the fact that it was a gunshot wound. Renee was unconscious, but her bleeding had already slowed, and her lips still had most of their colour. Kelly would tend to it when they arrived back at the sanctuary. Renee would be scarred, and maybe that hand wouldn’t work as well as it had before, but she would certainly survive.

The werewolf pack wasn’t in much better shape, since they had lost a member. They’d left him in the woods—their friend was gone from that body. They would mourn later in their own ways. The werewolves’ skin, though, was already knitting back together from the burns and enspelled infections the Salvation members had flung at them. Landon had been the only one poisoned by silver. Kelly counted them lucky.

But the shifter and werewolf packs were not the only ones who came out from behind the trees.

Two men—it always seemed to be men with Salvation, Kelly noticed with some residual anger—came out towards them. One of them threw his weapons down, both the half-staff that acted as a wand and his long silver knife. He held up his hands so she would see he was unarmed.

The other didn’t surprise Kelly at all. Ahmir approached, hanging his head. His knuckles were bloody but already healed, and his forearms showed signs of dog bites. But if he had really applied himself to hurting the shifters to the fullest extent that Abraham had wanted him to, the shifters likely would have died. The werewolf was the size of a rhinoceros. She doubted that a boxer and a kelpie could have even made a dent, although he certainly could have made a dent in them.

The werewolves and shapeshifters were immediately on their guard.

Leon and Damien snarled, baring their teeth at Ahmir, offended that one of their own would attack them in Abraham’s name.

Leslie winced away from the human. Kelly noticed that the man had more than average magic simmering inside him—the way she could tell that a soup was hot by the steam. The human was wary. Ahmir was defeated.

Kelly squeezed Ahmir’s arm in encouragement, letting him know that there was at least one person in the group of people who didn’t want to sink her teeth into him.

“Still believe you’re an abomination?” she asked.

“Yes,” Ahmir said. “But Father Abraham is dead and so is his secret to saving me. The people he left behind don’t like us much. Abraham tolerated us better. No offence, Sebastian.”

“None taken.” Sebastian was a tall drink of water, younger than he looked. He wore his buttoned-up clothing like a shield and looked overwhelmed by the presence of so many naked people, most of them creatures he had been taught to fear.

“And you, what’s your business with us?” Jake said, not bothering to conceal his antagonism.

“I’m what most of them call a—” Sebastian began.

“Traitor,” Ahmir finished for him.

“Coward. Look who’s talking,” Sebastian snapped. “The word Abraham used was ‘seeker’.”

“The only reason he let you stay was—” Ahmir started.

“—because I actually came by magic naturally. I didn’t know that until I came to Salvation,” Sebastian said, ignoring Ahmir and addressing Kelly instead. “He taught me how to use it. At first I believed in the cause. Everything else he told me was true, and the rest
sounded
right.

“But after a while, I noticed that the people who came to him for help weren’t leaving. The lower leaders told me what was going on, and it just didn’t sit right with me. I’d thought he was saving them. Abraham knew how I felt, but he was confident he could convince me. I’d already burned bridges with my family, didn’t know where else to go. But then you told us… They won’t miss me, I promise you that,” he said.

Kelly ran her hands through her hair, dense with water. The rain had thinned to a sprinkle, and to the northwest blue sky peeked through the clouds.

“I wasn’t expecting a human when I offered my invitation, Sebastian,” Kelly said.

“Oh.” Sebastian stared at her breasts, the thin downy hair between her legs and the tattoos bright over her body—now back in their original places as though they’d never been torn from her—but he wasn’t leering, so Kelly assumed that it was involuntary.

“I had other magical beings in mind,” she said. “I mean, you can probably just slip in with any local coven.”

“Where?” Sebastian asked.

“There are at least four covens within a two-hour drive from here. You haven’t even looked?” Kelly asked.

“I didn’t know I was leaving,” Sebastian replied defensively.

“You can stay with us while you get your feet on the ground,” Renee said, a little louder than a whisper as she slowly regained consciousness.

“Woman, if you keep being all nice and philanthropic and flinging open doors, I’m going to pull your head off and twist it back on straight,” Jake said. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Renee said. “If you harm my shapeshifters or my dogs, we’ll kick you out so fast you’ll wish Kelly had struck
you
with lightning.”

“Why stop there?” Kelly asked, kneeling down next to Renee. “If he does anything, I
will
hit him with lightning.”

“You’re that girl who owns the dog sanctuary a few miles away, right?” Sebastian said. “Abraham said that’s where we were headed. I looked you guys up.”

Renee shot upright, her eyes going wide. “He didn’t send anyone there to attack them, did he?”

Renee’s pulse raced, pounding like a ritual drum to Kelly’s sensitive ears.

“Attack the dogs?” Sebastian asked. “Good Lord, no. Actually, he told us in no uncertain terms
not
to go after the sanctuary.”

“And why should we believe you?” Britt accused.

Sebastian rocked nervously where he stood as he struggled to find some way to prove that he was trustworthy to those he’d tried to kill. When an idea came to him, he fell to his knees near where Kelly knelt next to Renee.

“May I?” Sebastian asked, reaching for Renee’s wounded arm.

“Over my dead body,” Britt snapped. Jake knocked Sebastian’s arm away, but Kelly stopped him.

She looked Sebastian in the eye. He squirmed, but Kelly could see that Abraham had done this to him, too, looked for his honesty, so he recognised what she was doing.

“It’s okay,” Kelly finally said. “I was going to heal her when we got back, but if you’ve got something more efficient, by all means be my guest.”

“I’ll need my wand,” Sebastian said.

The wand came flying, smacking soundly against her palm.

“I’ll kill you twice if you hurt her,” Kelly told him.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” Sebastian replied.

Even Ahmir leant in to see what Sebastian was doing as he pressed the blue chalcedony crystal at the end of his wand over the gunshot.

“Good thing it’s through and through,” he muttered. “Honestly not sure what I’d do with a bullet.”

“When did I even get shot?” Renee asked blearily.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kelly said, taking her hand. “It isn’t important.”

Sebastian closed his eyes, and as he began to whisper, Kelly thought she heard phrases like ‘knit together’ and ‘blood flow’, but more important than the words was the magic. Sebastian had a particularly strong aptitude in healing, which was encouraging to Kelly. Besides, she hadn’t heard a single lie come out of his mouth. It was up to him to earn the others’ trust, but he was a good candidate for temporary aid, if just for a few weeks.

“There,” Sebastian said, pulling his wand back and wiping the blood on the wet grass. “It’s not the best, but it’ll at least hold her together and repair some of the damage. Most of the damage.”

Kelly inspected the wound. He was right—it wasn’t a full healing, but it was a damn good job. Kelly would have to give Renee one of her potions later, but Sebastian’s magic would do for now.

“Hey, man, I’m sorry I went after you,” Sebastian said, looking at Leslie. “I knew when I was swinging a knife at an American boxer of all things that something was wrong with what I was doing.”

Leslie nodded, but he didn’t say that Sebastian was forgiven. Sebastian didn’t seem to expect it.

“Thanks,” Renee said. She sounded much more awake. “The shapeshifter barn has got a lot of space. You can stay there.”

“You think we’re sleeping with this dude?” Lotus asked.

Renee looked up at him. “Do I need to remind you of our policy? We have a system. What about Kelly’s promise? Are you going to make her a liar?”

“No,” Lotus said grudgingly.

“Good,” Renee said. She reached up for help to stand, and Lotus tugged her up with her uninjured arm. Malcolm and the other werewolves kept their distance. Kelly’s mouth watered, too, from how utterly delicious Renee smelt, but for some reason, Kelly didn’t even feel compelled to taste. She realised why when she tried to stand as well and almost collapsed back down. She was exhausted.

Both Ahmir and Malcolm tried to catch her before she fell, but Malcolm snarled. Ahmir stepped back.

“You have a place in your pack for Ahmir?” Kelly asked Damien, alarmed at the way she felt like she was sinking as she stood.

“The hell you say.” Jada shoved herself to the front. Tanya grimaced. There was a wound over her stomach that looked nasty, even though it was healing, and Jada bumping her made it tear anew.

“We’re not taking him into the pack, are we?” Lily asked.

“I’m not defending
that
,” Leon said evenly. There was nothing to outwardly indicate that Landon’s death had affected him, but Kelly could see deeper than that.

Kelly was honestly surprised that more of them weren’t blaming
her
for the injuries and deaths, given that everything could have been avoided if she had taken care of Abraham a few days earlier. Maybe the briquette that used to be Abraham was adequate compensation for her error in their eyes. She was square with the house, but Ahmir and Sebastian still had to prove themselves.

Damien shook his head, holding up his hand to stop the rest of his pack from attacking. Ahmir was used to being ashamed, so Kelly knew the rejection was nothing less than what he felt he deserved. He
wanted
to hear it, an excuse to walk away, an excuse to continue hating himself and other werewolves.

“He hasn’t earned my pack,” Damien said. His tone brooked no protest. “If he wants to join a pack, I’ll find one for him. Until he learns what it truly means to be the wolf, however, I won’t give him the honour of serving under me, especially given the things he has done against our kind. Blood must be repaid.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Kelly said. It was a good thing that Sebastian had healed most of Renee’s bullet wound, because Kelly was sinking, sinking, sleep wrapping around her in a rejuvenating blanket. Malcolm caught her.

The rest would have to sort themselves out without her. But for now, there was nothing she could do to stop herself from shutting down.

Chapter Thirteen

Kelly slept for almost twenty hours and woke up starving.

Butch Cassidy had tucked himself happily against her belly and meowed balefully when she tried to get up and deprive him of her body heat. He eventually took it in his stride, which was a good idea for a little fun-size snack like him—or at least that’s what she told him.