Текст книги "Fair Game"

Автор книги: Patricia Briggs

Соавторы: Patricia Briggs
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Anna made a sound of agreement.‘I know this is not the time, but, watching you brood over here, it occurs to me that you have evidently forgotten something and I think I’d better remind you. I should have reminded you this morning.’

He did turn to her then. Like him, she was staring off into the distance, her shoulder brushing his like the wings of a butterfly.

‘What’s that?’

‘You are mine.’ She didn’t look at him but her hand closed possessively over his on the rail of the boat. Her voice was soft and without emphasis; not even werewolf ears would have heard her ten feet away. ‘Your ghosts cannot have you, Charles. So exorcize them before I have to.’ The lastwas a clear order, sharp as a shard of ice.

Brother Wolf grunted in satisfaction. He liked it when their mate got possessive and asserted her rights over him. So did Charles.

‘Go ahead and smirk,’ she said, seriously, though her body was relaxed against him. ‘Just keep it in mind. Maybe you don’t have to fight all of your battles alone.’

‘I’ll remember your words,’ he told her with returned seriousness, though he pictured Anna taking her grandmother’s rolling pin after the ghosts who haunted him, and it made him want to

smirk again.

‘That’s better,’ she told him smugly. ‘No more brooding.’

And she was right.

The boat swayed a bit as both Isaac and Malcolm moved suddenly and there was a zing of expectation in the air.

‘About time you got here, woman,’ Isaac called out in tones of real affection.

Startled, Charles looked over to see a woman walking down the pier to where their boat was docked. She was taller than average, taller than Isaac, who had vaulted up off the boat to trot down the pier to greet her. He kissed her, leaning into it, lingering.

‘He’s sleeping with the witch he told us was too devious to be trusted to gather information from Jacob’s body?’ said Anna, sounding disgruntled.

Charles laughed and pulled her closer so he could put his chin on top of her head.‘Gutsy,’ he said. ‘But he’s forgotten the first rule of the men’s locker room.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t stick your

’ He didn’t need to be crude, so he corrected himself. ‘Don’t screw with crazy, no matter how pretty it is.’

She snorted.‘You don’t know her.’

‘I know witches,’ he said. ‘They are all crazy.’

‘What about Moira?’

Moira was the white witch who was on the Emerald City Pack’s payroll. Anna had met her a couple of years ago and they had become fast friends.

‘Except for the blind ones,’ Charles allowed.

They watched as Isaac introduced his witch to the FBI agents as Hally Smith. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was striking with dark coloring, a long, elegant nose, and a wide, generous mouth.

Isaac helped her down into the boat. To Charles, she stank of black magic as she neared and he wondered how Isaac stood it. Moira, Anna’s friend, was a white witch. She generally smelled of the herbs, spices, and magic of her gift. Hally reeked of death, old blood, and ghosts.

The witch looked at Charles as if she could read his mind, which he knew damned well she couldn’t.

‘Well,’ she said in a low, husky voice. ‘I’ve heard so much about you, Charles—’

Isaac made a noise in his throat and she smiled.

‘CharlesSmith. Look, we even share a last name. How delightful.’

‘Her last name really is Smith,’ Isaac told him.

‘Convenient,’ said Anna. ‘People will think you’re lying even when you aren’t.’

‘But not you,’ said the witch, and Charles fought the desire to grab his mate and set her behind him where he could protect her better. ‘You and your kind can tell if I’m lying.’

‘Only if you aren’t a good liar,’ said Anna, half apologetically and half honestly. Being a good liar might keep a young wolf like Anna from discovering a lie, but an old wolf like Charles could almost always tell.

Anna continued to clarify matters.‘If you believe your own lies or if telling lies doesn’t bother you, we can be deceived. In fact, we’re even easier to fool because so many of us assume we’re infallible. I, personally, am always careful not to underestimate how well people lie.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ Hally smiled and accepted a life jacket from Isaac, then handed him her satchel, a waterproof canvas backpack, to hold while she put it on. There was an unspoken arrogance about the act that set Brother Wolf on edge: Isaac was neither her mate nor her servant whose service was to be taken for granted. She snapped the vest on over her serviceable wool sweater.

‘Are you planning on lying?’ asked Leslie Fisher with interest. Anna gave her a quick look and then glanced up at Charles. He let her see that it didn’t bother him, and she relaxed.

Hally’s smile deepened. ‘I don’t know yet. Isaac said you’d have some of Jacob’s body for me?’

Goldstein took the seat next to Leslie’s with his back next to the stern of the boat. He pulled out a Baggie from his life jacket pocket that contained a two-inch square of skin and a pinch of dark hair and handed it to Hally, who took it with the enthusiasm of a child being given a lollipop.

‘Splendid,’ she said. ‘It would probably be best to wait until we are out in the harbor before I start to do magic. All I will get is distance and a direction, not the closest route there. It won’t last forever, so I’d rather wait until we’re somewhere it will do us the most good. Isaacfilled me in’ – she looked at Charles – ‘and promised me recompense.’

She hadn’t been cheap. If it weren’t for the time factor, he could have had Moira and Tom fly out from Seattle for considerably less expense.

‘Ten thousand,’ Charles agreed.

Leslie whistled.‘No wonder we don’t consult with witches much.’

‘You pay for the best,’ said Hally smugly. ‘Shall we set sail?’

‘Motor,’ Anna said, pointing at the stern. ‘No sails.’

8

Charles kept a close watch from the bow as Malcolm threaded theDaciana around boats and other assorted obstacles with all the sailing skill of a pirate and a cheery rendition of‘The Mary Ellen Carter,’ a song about men reclaiming a sunken ship, whistled off-key. If Bran had been with them, doubtless he’d have joined in the song. Charles’s da loved impromptu concerts, especially with people who sang – or whistled – Stan Rogers songs, though considering the boat’s passengers, ‘The Witch of the Westmoreland’ might have been more appropriate.

The rise and fall of the ocean made Charles’s stomach roil – another reason he didn’t like boats. Anna was kneeling on the bow as far forward as she could, with her face in the wind and a peaceful expression that made Brother Wolf want to kiss her feet and other places – if only he wouldn’t have thrown up the moment he bent over.

‘Gets me, too,’ said Isaac, coming up from the rear of the boat. He braced himself on the wall of the console and talked in a voice nicely calculated to carry just over the noise of the engine, but not so loudly that anyone else was likely to hear. ‘Once I throw up, I’m okay.’ Then he raised his voice. ‘But I’m the Alpha of the Olde Towne Pack, damn it, and I can’t afford to upchuck in front of a bunch of strangers. They might find bits of that annoying salesman I ate last night.’

Charles scowled at him.‘Thanks for the visual.’

Isaac threw his head back and laughed.‘You’re all right, man. Malcolm says he’s headed to a spot that he thinks is pretty much a clear shot to most of the islands. There are also lots of abandoned warehouses along the shoreline, thanks to the crumbling of the fisheries around here. Lots of places to hold and torture people without anyone hearing. You really see Indian spirits and talk to them?’

‘Spirits,’ corrected Charles. ‘Nothing Indian about them other than we believe they exist and most of you white-eyes don’t. Yes.’

Isaac cackled.‘I can’t believe you just called me a white-eye. Better than a pale-face, I suppose, but it just seems soBonanza.’ His face softened. ‘My granddad, he could see ghosts. When he was really old, he would rock in this old, dark wood rocking chair and tell us kids about the murderer who haunted the house he grew up in and tried to make his life hell when he was too young to read and write.’

‘Ghosts are different from spirits,’ Charles said.Yes, howled the ones who haunted him,tell him about your ghosts, make us a little more real every time you speak of us, every time you see us or think about us. Tell him that ghosts of people you kill can come back and kill the ones you love if you are dumb enough or too clueless to figure out how to set them free.

Charles had to wait a moment before he could continue, and disguised it as his motion sickness from the boat ride by swallowing heavily.‘The spirits I see are more

a way for nature to talk to those with the eyes to see and the ears to hear. They never were human. I don’t see ghosts’ –Liar! cackled one in his ear– ‘not the way your granddad did, but I’ve met a couple of people who do. Not an easy gift.’

‘My granddad, he was a tough old bird. I’d guess he was tough even when he was five years old and faced down a haunt no one else could see.’ Isaac grinned. The sun was down now and his teeth gleamed in the light of the waxing moon. It was two days until full moon. ‘Tough like me.’

Tough and stupid, thought Charles with a sigh.‘You are sleeping with the witch?’

Isaac smiled whitely.‘Yessir. And she makes me breakfast in bed, too.’

Charles liked this young, tough Alpha, so he wanted to warn him.‘Black witches are untrustworthy lovers.’

‘I get that,’ Isaac said. He shook his shoulders to loosen them. ‘I’m a werewolf; I can’t afford to be delicate – but I could never fall for a woman who tortures kittens to make love potions, even if she doesn’t do it around me. She’s just scratching an itch and I’m enjoying it while it lasts – and I’m clear with her that’s all it is.’

‘Women hear what men say,’ Anna said without turning around. ‘That doesn’t mean they believe them. A witch isn’t anyone to screw with, Isaac, and they get as possessive as any other woman. You’re beautiful, strong, and powerful – she’s not going to let that go easily.’

‘Are you trying to steal my man?’ Hally didn’t seem to have any of the trouble the rest of them did moving about the bouncing boat. And she was good at sneaking around because Charles hadn’t noticed that she’d gotten up from her seat to round the opposite side of the console. She still had her satchel – and was holding the Baggie next to her face as if it held a rose instead of a piece of dead boy’s skin.

Anna kept a hand on the railing and rolled to sit with only one hip on the ledge at the bow so she could face the witch. His mate smiled one of her big, generous smiles.‘No. Just warning him about sleeping with dangerous things. Tigers are rare treasures – and they will eat you and not give it a second thought.’

The witch preened, her ire sliding away. His Anna was so good at managing people– him included. It was a good thing that the witch was looking at Anna and not Isaac, because Isaac had clearly heard what Anna had said, too. And when an Omega talked, the wolf listened no matter what the man thought. Isaac looked like he’d been slapped.

‘Tigers need to be wary around wolves,’ Charles said, to keep her from looking Isaac’s way.

Hally narrowed her eyes. She reminded him more of a snake than a tiger– they were beautiful, too, beautiful and cold survivors, killing with poison rather than fang or claw.

‘You are sticking your nose into places it doesn’t belong, wolf,’ she said, as if she thought he ought to be worried about her.

Hally had overstepped, and so Brother Wolf met her eyes and let her see that they had killed more powerful witches than she was– and that it wouldn’t bother them to do it again.

She swallowed and stepped back, stumbling when a wave threw her off balance.

‘You scratch whatever itches you choose,’ Charles told her, his voice cold and quiet. ‘Enjoy yourself. But at the end of the day, you remember that Isaac belongs to my father – and to me. He is necessary to us as you are not. You will leave him unharmed or I will hunt you down and destroy you.’

She hissed at him like a cat. When he just stared at her, Hally scrambled ungracefully around the far side of the console, out of his line of sight.

Isaac was watching him, his eyes bright gold. And then he tilted his jaw, exposing his throat. Charles lunged forward and nipped him lightly before releasing him.

From the back of the boat Beauclaire watched them with inhuman eyes, and Brother Wolf wanted to teach the fae man respect the way he’d just put the witch in her place. The moon urged, the ghosts in his head howled

and Charles took a half step away from the gunwale railing.

‘You made yourself an enemy,’ Isaac said, his voice quiet and soft, distracting Brother Wolf. Beauclaire dropped his eyes at last and the moment was gone.

‘She is a black witch,’ Charles said, equally quietly. ‘We have always been enemies. For right now, we are aimed at the same target; that is all. If your target is pleasure and you’re sure that’s what hers is, too, that’s fine. Just remember – a black witch doesn’t love anything butpower.’

Isaac swallowed and looked away.‘White witches are just food for the rest. Hally had a sister who died when she was sixteen because she refused to take the black route to power. A big, bad wicked witch ate her down.’

Charles nodded.‘You can admire the survivor – but Hallydid survive. She’ll make sure shealways survives. You better make sure that the same is true of you.’

The little boat slowed; the engines quieted. The sky was inky except for the silver moon and the thin ribbon of cloud that crossed between them and her.

‘Here,’ said Malcolm unnecessarily.

The witch took her satchel and the Baggie Goldstein had given her and climbed up the aluminum ladder to the fishing platform above the console. It was the best place to do it– a flat open surface on a crowded boat – but Charles was sure that the witch knew and enjoyed the fact that the height put her onstage and made the rest of them her audience.

Standing on the top of the ladder, Hally took a small rug out of her pack and laid it out flat. While she was snapping it into place, Charles caught a glimpse of circles and symbols and realized that she’d woven into the rug the protections that a witch would normally have used chalk for. It was a clever thing, something that would save her time and trouble – and also work admirably well on a boat in the rain.

Kneeling on the rug, she took out four or five small pottery jars and set them up as if their placement was important. She did the same with eight silver candlesticks holding dark-colored candles– probably black candles, but some witches worked with red. She adjusted and moved things around for a while. At last she set a tall candle in the center of her work.

‘Light,’ the witch said, in an ordinary voice a half beat before the candles lit themselves despite the salt-sea air. The flames on the wicks burned steady and true though the wind whipped the strands of hair that had worked their way out of his braid. Magic. Her voice hadn’t been the trigger, just a distraction or embellishment. The smoke told his nose what Charles already surmised – there was human blood worked into the candles she burned.

The way witches cast spells differed from one witch to the next depending upon a lot of things: their family background, who their teachers had been– and a little of their own personalities. This one was a wiggler and moaner, but she did it with all the grace of a talented belly dancer, and her moans were both musical and mesmerizing. Charles felt her magic rain down upon their little boat and found himself agreeing with Isaac’s assessment: she was a power.

It made him wish that he’d called the white witch Moira after all. Hally didn’t scare him, but his paranoia didn’t like being in the middle of the ocean on a boat with his mate with a world-class witch who would – as Anna had helpfully pointed out earlier – as soon kill them as not. He intensely disliked being in someone else’s power.

If we jumped up there, she’d scream and fall in the water, Brother Wolf assured him, because he didn’t like being in her power, either.Or we could just kill her and save her the trouble of drowning.

Hally put the contents of the Baggie in a small ivory-colored pot shaped like a toad with big black cartoon eyes, its back open as if it had been made to hold a candle or a small plant. It fit into the palm of her hand. She pulled a vial out of her bag, pulled a cork stopper out with her teeth, and poured the liquid into the pot. By the smell, Charles knew it was brandy, and not the good stuff. Annie Green Springs, Everclear, or rubbing alcohol would have probably done just as well.

Storing the empty vial back in her pack, she held the pot over the flame of the middle candle with both hands and continued her melodic chanting. After a few moments, she slid her hands away and the pot hung over the candle without moving. She sat back on her heels and lifted her face so that the moon caressed her English-pale skin and slid down her hands, which were shaking feverishly about three inches from the pot. Theatrics designed to hide which were the important bits, in case another witch was watching.

Charles started to turn away from the show, but the corner of his eye caught something and he froze. A shadow thicker than steam slid out of the mouth of the frog. It sank to the rug and grew even thicker and darker, filling the space between the witch and the candles. He glanced around at the others, but no one looked worried or excited so he supposed he– and Beauclaire, who was slowly rising to his feet – were the only ones who saw the shadow.

In the middle of her music, at the height of her dance, the witch stilled and said,‘Darkness.’

The candles and every one of the boat’s lights went out.

Malcolm swore, dove for his console, and frantically played with the switches. He put a foot on the first rung of the ladder, presumably to go up and confront the witch for meddling with his boat.

Malcolm was under Charles’s protection, so Charles shoved past Isaac (still watching the witch instead of Malcolm), trusting that the Alpha wolf would have enough presence of mind not to fall overboard. He caught Malcolm by the shoulder when he was two rungs up, pulling him back to the deck. Interrupting a witch was not a good idea for anyone who wanted to survive long. Malcolm wrenched himself free of the unfamiliar hold and snarled. The noise cut off as soon as he saw who it was who’d manhandled him.

A dim light began to glow on the top of the fishing platform, distracting both of them.

‘What in

’

In hell, thought Charles, as the light resolved itself into the three-dimensional shape of an eight-year-old boy.

The smell of the black magic made Charles’s earlier seasickness rise with a vengeance, and he moved as far from the center of the boat as he could get. Anna’s cold hand closed on his. She was shaking. Not with fear. Not his Anna. No, she was shaking with rage.

‘Tell me this was necessary,’ she said.

‘No,’ Charles answered. He knew Anna didn’t mean the witch; she meant the method the witch had chosen. Directional spells were easy. He didn’t do them himself, but he had watched them cast. Calling a ghost as a compass was a major spell, a show-off spell, and entirely unnecessary.

‘Tell me she doesn’t get to keep him.’

‘She won’t get to keep him,’ Charles told her. He was no witch, but his grandfather had taught him a thing or two. He might not be able to get rid of his own ghosts because he had to somehow fix himself first, but Jacob Mott, held by black magic, would be no trouble.

‘All right,’ Anna said, her voice tight, trusting him to keep his word.

‘Jacob, I invoke thee,’ the witch said, her voice like honey rising over the wind and slap of wave. ‘Jacob, I conjure thee. Jacob, I name thee. Do thou my will.’

The boy’s figure, glowing with silvery moonlight, stood with his back to her, his head bowed, reluctance in every line of his body. But Charles could see his face – and there was no expression at all upon it, and his eyes glowed red as fire.

‘Where did they kill you, Jacob Mott? Where did they sacrifice your mortal being?’

The boy lifted his head, looked south and east, and pointed.

‘I can’t run without lights,’ Malcolm said. ‘It’s illegal, for one thing. And I don’t want to get caught with candles made with human blood. I don’t mind fines, but jail isn’t going to happen.’

‘My magic needs darkness,’ said the witch in a midnight voice.

Beauclaire got out of his seat and touched the rail of the boat. The lights came back on and the witch turned to glare at him.

‘Your magicis darkness,’ said the fae repressively. ‘The rest is cheap theatrics.’

The witch ignored him and put her hands on the shoulders of the boy, caressing him in a not-motherly fashion.

‘Thanks,’ said Isaac to the fae.

Malcolm, his face tight– he had to stand directly under the taint of black magic in order to run the boat – turned theDaciana. When the direction the boy was indicating lined up with the point of the bow, Isaac said,‘That’s good,’ and theDaciana steadied on course.

Malcolm got busy with his charts and then called out loud enough that people who were not werewolves or fae could hear him over the engine and waves,‘Looks like we’re headed to Long, Georges, or Gallops Island.’

‘What do you think?’ Isaac asked; then to the rest of them he said, ‘Malcolm makes his living hauling anyone who will pay him out fishing or exploring. He’s been doing it for thirty-five years and he knows the harbor as well as anyone living.’

‘Could be any of them, I suppose. Georges has a lot of people during the day, which would make me nervous if I was trying to keep live prisoners.’

‘What about Long Island?’ asked Leslie. ‘It’s accessible by car, too, right?’

‘Right.’ Malcolm was quiet. ‘Long Island has the public health facilities, and people who live and work there every day. But there are lots of places no one goes. Places for someone to hide people in, more than either Georges or Gallops. Those old hospital buildings have tunnels going from one to another. There are a few empty buildings – the old concert hall, the chapel, and a couple associated with the old hospital. Fort Strong is falling down and full of good hidey-holes. The old Alpha had me lead a couple of full-moon hunts out there. We hunted Gallops, too – ought to do some more there because there are rabbits doing a lot of damage. As long as no one notices the boats, it would be cool. We don’t have to hunt quiet there ’cause it’s been quarantined for the past decade. Gallops has old military buildings full of asbestos and there’s no money to clean it.’

‘Our UNSUB knows a lot about the local area,’ Anna noted.

‘Always seemed that way to me, too,’ agreed Goldstein, who had gotten up and worked his way around the boat until he could get a better look at the dead boy who guided their trip. ‘He does that in most of his hunting grounds – uses the territory more like a native than a traveler.’

Goldstein stopped and frowned up at the softly glowing boy.

‘Is he a ghost?’ he asked.

Anna looked at Charles and everyone else followed suit.

The witch looked at him, too, and smiled.

Charles ignored her and did his best to answer.‘Not his soul; that’s gone on. She couldn’t have touched it.’ He believed that, believed that the only person who could destroy or taint a soul was the person whose soul it was, even though his ghosts were laughing as he spoke.You tainted us, they told him.You stole our life and tainted us.

He continued, stoically ignoring the voices of the dead.‘A ghost is the little left-behind bits, collected together. Memories held in buildings or things – and here by flesh and hair.’

‘It’s not really the boy?’ asked Leslie Fisher, and from the tone of her voice, if he said yes, she would have shot Hally without a second thought.

‘No. More like a sweater that he wore and discarded,’ Charles told her. The red eyes, he was pretty sure, were caused by some aspect of the witch’s magic.

Leslie looked at him, and he thought that if she looked at her children that way, they would squirm. Then she nodded her head and made her way to the rear of the boat– and sat next to Beauclaire instead of the backward-facing seats behind the console that would have left her back to the witch. He didn’t blame her.

After a while, Malcolm said,‘It’s not Long Island or Georges. We’re either going to Gallops or someplace along the coastline.’

‘It’s not the coast,’ said the witch, lifting her face to the night sky. ‘Don’t you feel it? It’s glorious. They must be amateurs to leave such a feast behind unconsumed.’ She smiled, and it was a terrible smile because it made her look so sweet and young – and the cause of the smile was the death of Jacob Mott and others before him.

‘It is too bad that so many of us, so many witches, are afraid of water,’ Hally said to Charles. ‘Otherwise we’d have known about this a long time ago. They’ve used this more than just this season.’

The Hunter had hit Boston twice, Charles remembered.

‘If this were springtime, we’d have trouble accessing Gallops,’ said Malcolm. ‘As it is, there are some docks that are still usable. I’ll take us around.’

‘We know where we’re going,’ said Charles to the witch. ‘Release the boy.’

‘I thought he was just a collection of memories,’ she murmured. ‘Just an old sweater discarded when Jacob died.’

Charles jumped to the top of the railing of the fishing platform and bent his knees, balancing with the sudden lurch the force of his jump had caused and then settling more comfortably as the rise and fall of the boat steadied to the ocean’s hand.

He caught the witch’s eyes and, bringing Brother Wolf and all of his power to the fore, said, ‘Let him go.’

She obeyed before she thought, his sudden appearance and the force of his order dictating her actions. She dismissed the ghost with a flick of her power. Then her jaw dropped in outrage, and magic gathered around her.

‘Don’t,’ said Charles before she could complete whatever mischief came to mind. ‘You won’t like what happens.’

He hopped down beside her and picked up the little frog pot. The sickly magic residue tried to crawl onto his fingers, but flinched back from Brother Wolf’s presence at the last moment. His instinct said that whatever ties the contents of the pot had to Jacob were gone, used up – and that was good enough for him. He tossed the frog out over the side of the boat, making sure that it spun upside down and scattered its contents as it fell.

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 woresome 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 rainforest 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.