38

A SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT

Tula and I were in the Apraxins’ cellar, packing, cleaning, and destroying the laboratory there. It was foul work. I was the most powerful werewolf in Abalmar, at least temporarily, but I was also the only one protected against curses, and there was some ungodly stuff in that basement. We found disturbing illustrations and organic-looking things in glass jars that we didn’t want to identify and notes written in a language I didn’t recognize. Looking at the words made my mind itch as if spiders were crawling over it, and the writing seemed to move while I stared.

There was also a small chance that the surviving Baba Yaga would come back for something she had left behind. If she did return, I either wanted to be there or make sure she didn’t find anything she valued.

“Phoenix will want these,” Tula commented, holding two notebooks up.

“Put them in the bonfire pile,” I said shortly. “This place is a poison tree. I’m not going apple-picking.”

“I’m not arguing.” Tula shivered. “But Phoenix won’t be happy, and he has a lot of pull with Bernard these days.”

“Well, I’ll make sure to blame it on you,” I promised. “How do you think I made it to upper management?”

Tula rolled her eyes.

The front door of the house opened and Stacy’s voice sounded down the stairs. “HEY, JOHN, THE EXORCIST IS HERE!”

I yelled back. “YOU REALLY THINK YOU’RE GOING TO GET RID OF ME THAT EASILY?!?”

“Ha-ha,” Stacy said when she realized how close I was. “You’d better get up here, because I’m not going down there.”

That was probably wise, and I did want to check out the exorcist. Someone had to take a good, hard look at those Russian olive trees. I had been tempted to just burn them, but if there were souls or spirits trapped in those things, I wanted to make sure we sent them on their way properly.

Her scent reached me a second before I made it to the first floor, sex and butter pecan, but my brain didn’t accept what my nose was telling it. My feet kept walking mechanically.

Sig was standing in the kitchen.

“Hello, John,” Sig said quietly. The long blond hair was braided, something she usually only did when she was going into combat, and she was wearing a blue overcoat, probably to cover whatever weapons she was carrying. Her body looked the same but its language was different. Her movements were smaller and her blue eyes were shadowed, and not with makeup. She looked like she’d been through hell.

I think Stacy might have been in the kitchen too. I’m not really sure.

“What are you doing here?” I asked stupidly.

Apprehension and irritation went off behind Sig’s eyes like flash powder and burned out, quickly replaced by confusion. “You asked for my help.”

I cocked my head the way a dog does when it’s waiting for things to start making sense. I know some of those words you’re speaking, my expression said. But somehow, they have no meaning.

Comprehension made Sig’s eyes go wide and popped her mouth open. “Parth.”

Ohhhhhhhhhh.

“You thought I would try to contact you through Parth.” I tasted the words in my mouth. They weren’t sweet.

“You might if you were desperate,” Sig said. “He told me he’d been in touch with you, and it’s not like him to lie outright.”

“Parth hacked into the system of a computer guy here.” I shot Stacy a dirty look that was completely unfair. Oh, yeah, I guess she was there. “Carl and Parth must still be talking.”

“Oh,” Sig said.

“Let’s start over,” I said. “What are you doing here?!?”

Now Sig looked at me like I was the one not making sense. “I think I just explained that?”

“You’re violating the agreement!” Why was I getting louder?

“What agreement?” Sig’s voice, on the other hand, was becoming dangerously low.

I pulled it down to a muted snarl. “The agreement where I turned myself in to the knights if they promised not to harm you or the others.”

Sig clenched her teeth. “I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it. You lied to me.”

“I did not,” I informed her testily. “I told you I was going to do something you wouldn’t like. And I had an escape plan! I was almost out of there when the werewolves you sent butted in! Now I’m in the middle of a war! Thanks for bailing me out of trouble, genius!”

“Yeah, I heard all about your brilliant plan from Awesome Sauce!” Sig said sarcastically. “It really sounds like you had everything under control.”

She was giving me attitude? “Who or what the hell is Awesome Sauce?”

“HE’S THE SPRITE YOU SWALLOWED, YOU MORON!” Sig yelled. “YOU DIDN’T EVEN LEARN HIS NAME?!?”

“WELL, IF YOU’RE ON SUCH GOOD TERMS WITH THE LITTLE BASTARD, WHERE IS HE?” I demanded. “I’D KIND OF LIKE TO HAVE A WORD WITH HIM RIGHT NOW MYSELF!”

“HE’S PROBABLY AFRAID YOU’LL SHOVE HIM UP YOUR ASS NEXT TIME!” Sig shot back.

“NO, I’M GOING TO SHOVE HIM UP YOUR ASS NEXT TIME!”

“Uhum?” Stacy cleared her throat from where she was still hanging back in the opening between the hallway and the kitchen. “We’re surrounded by werewolves, you know. Everybody within a mile can hear you.”

Sig and I both glowered at her.

“I get it now,” Tula said from behind me.

Dammit! People only sneak up on me when Sig’s around. I turned and saw Tula standing at the top of the cellar stairs with her arms crossed. She was wearing a small smile.

“Get what?” I demanded.

Tula ignored me and addressed Sig. “John and I were in a house together for three days while we were staking this place out. He never hit on me once. I just thought he and Carl were involved.”

Sig tried to keep the same expression on her face, but something shifted under it. It was like watching ice crack.

“It’s because I’m your claw leader, Tula,” I said, irritated. “To hell with both of you. I’ve been having sex all over the place.”

Tula scrunched her face up. “Gross.”

Sig suddenly moved away from the counter she was leaning against and examined it critically. “Oh my God, what about here? You haven’t had sex all over here, have you?”

“Give me a minute!” I snapped.

Sig’s mouth twitched. “It’s good to see you, John.”

“Don’t you go getting mature on me,” I warned. “I’m pissed.”

“I’ll go if you really don’t want me here.” Sig adjusted her purse strap. Since when did Sig carry a purse around? I guess I’d never seen her when she wasn’t actively hunting something.

I swallowed an angry comment about always wanting her there. Holy shit, John. Bipolar much? “Dammit, Sig.”

“What, John?” She folded her arms. “What are you really upset about? Help me out here.”

I rubbed my hands over my face as if trying to wipe it clear like an Etch A Sketch. “You said in that letter that I’m always in the middle of chaos.”

Sig leaned back against the counter again and held her hands out, indicating the kitchen, the house, the Clan, Wisconsin, the world.

“I’m not arguing the point,” I said quietly. “It’s just, the one thing I’ve been getting any comfort from with all this craziness is the fact that you were out of it.”

Sig began to unbutton her coat. “I get what you’re saying. I really do. Do you know why I’ve never thanked you for giving yourself over to the knights for me?”

“Yes,” I said.

Sig took me at my word. “Then do you know what I discovered about myself while I was creating a safe, chaos-free environment?”

“No,” I said.

“I don’t handle safe, chaos-free environments well,” Sig said. “It’s nice to take a break, but I need something to take a break from.”

I didn’t know whether to smile or be sad.

“Seriously, John. Do you think I’m ever really going to live safely?”

“I… no,” I admitted.

Sig moved so that she could drape her coat over a chair. She was wearing a fuzzy white sweater and an old-fashioned holster, one that held her firearm under her right armpit. “I came because I wanted to, John. And if I wasn’t here, I’d be in some other messed-up place where messed-up things were going on.”

I was a step closer to her. “You wanted to come here.”

Sig tried to toss her hair with a head flick. I guess she forgot it was braided. Her heart was going pitter-pat. “That letter wasn’t really fair. I mean, it was, because I needed time to work some things out. But it wasn’t.”

“So, have you worked things out?” I took another step.

“God, no.” Sig was watching me carefully. “I’m more messed up than ever. Don’t kiss me.”

“I can’t promise that.” I stopped.

Sig stood there looking at me, not quite smiling, not quite frowning, and then she stepped into my arms. She was stiff and awkward for a moment, but when she relaxed into me, it was all at once. Her hands went to the small of my back and pulled me in. Our heads rested on each other’s shoulders as if we were puzzle pieces that had just come together.

I pressed my lips against the side of her neck. Her skin was silk and warm and her pulse was thrumming beneath her skin. She shivered, and her hands smoothed out between my shoulder blades and pulled me in closer.

“This is just creepy,” Sig observed. “I feel like I’m in a fishbowl, except I’m the one watching the people outside it.”

We were walking along the boundary of the hot zone. A crowd had gathered to gawk while police and FBI combed the neighborhood. A neighborhood homeowner had found blood and shell casings outside the hot zone despite our best efforts to clean up. With the media frenzy on the recent serial killings still in high gear, reporters who were already in Abalmar anyhow were talking into cameras. Bloggers were on site too, speaking into cell phones while they held them up to record images. Some old-fashioned types were actually talking to each other. But nobody was actually looking at the Apraxin house, and somehow recording devices were always angled away so that we weren’t in the background. A clear line was delineated where people had just stopped without thinking about it, their backs pressed against the edge of the hot zone as if against a stone wall. They were facing away from us, and none of them seemed to hear as we walked behind them.

“The hot zone is the only reason I haven’t burned the house down yet,” I said. “We need its cover to clean this mess up.”

I waved to Marty, a short wedge of muscle who was standing next to the Apraxins’ mailbox, thought about introducing him to Sig, and then let it go. I wasn’t sure if the Clan wanted to know Sig or vice versa.

“What’s he doing?” Sig asked, barely glancing Marty’s way.

“He’s there to help werewolves across the ward,” I said. “Even though they know it’s there, they still wind up milling around. It’s kind of funny to watch from this side, actually. They’ll get close to the field and then get distracted by something and then forget why they’re here. Or they’ll stand right there with their backs to the thing and look north, east, west, and then start over without ever looking south over their shoulder. But if they stand near the mailbox, Marty can reach across and pull them over.”

“That’s… disturbing,” Sig said quietly.

“It’s one of the most powerful wards I’ve ever seen,” I confirmed. “I think it actually taps directly into the Pax Arcana and channels it, like someone stealing power from their neighbor. The Baba Yaga who escaped… she’s not just twisted; she’s crazy powerful, Sig.”

We reached our destination, a portly man in a big, puffy blue coat and a cap with ear flaps, standing in the back of the crowd taking pictures with a professional-looking camera.

“At least the crowds mean we don’t have to worry about the knights sending out a strike team for some kind of massive retaliation anytime soon,” I continued. “They just have a few spies who aren’t affected by the ward out in the crowd. Like this rocket scientist. He keeps turning his camera lens into the sun to take pictures of us. He might as well be flashing mirror signals.”

The man tried to pretend that he didn’t hear me, but his pulse was pounding. I put my hand on the back of his coat and yanked him into the hot zone with us.

He was of the bloodline, and he’d had training at some point before washing out. Probably as a page. It had been long enough ago that he’d let himself get out of shape anyway, and he was only in his early twenties. He was making a weird sound that wasn’t crying and wasn’t screaming but was somewhere in between. It definitely wasn’t a battle cry, though he was using the hand holding the camera to try to backhand me.

I caught his wrist easily and twisted, leaning down on his elbow so that he could either drop or get his arm broken. He went down to a knee, then tried to go lower and use the slack to hook his ankle behind mine, but I came down on his back like a ton of bricks and pounded him down into the ground.

By the time he got his cool back, I had my knife between his legs.

No one in the crowd I’d yanked him out of turned around to watch or paid any attention to his yells.

I removed a silver steel knife, a can of mace that smelled like wolfsbane, a space-age-looking Taser of some kind, and an asthma inhaler that judging from his breathing was just an asthma inhaler. Less interesting was his wallet, a cell phone, and a small semiautomatic. “Tell the Order that the blonde didn’t come here to fight.”

He didn’t say anything, just kind of blubbered, and I smacked his head against the pavement to get his attention. “Tell the order that the blonde didn’t come here to fight. She’s not taking sides. She’s just here to exorcise the grove that killed a lot of knights.”

“All right!” he gasped.

“We’ve been taking your picture too. Now, get any family you have and leave Wisconsin,” I said.

I rose and lifted him up bodily with one hand just to make a point, then kicked him back into the crowd. Several people protested as he stumbled through them, but he didn’t apologize. He didn’t look back at all. He ran.

“Do you really think that’s going to make a difference?” Sig asked.

“No,” I said shortly. “But I’m like the ant with a rubber tree plant.”

She just looked at me.

“High hopes,” I said. The reference was probably before her time. “Let’s go ahead and get your sword and spear out of your car.”

“How do you know I brought them?” she asked.

I gave her a look. “Please. This might be the first time I’ve ever seen you when you didn’t have all kinds of pointy steel edges sticking out. You’re like the human version of a Swiss Army knife.”

She laughed and punched me in the shoulder. Is it sick that I’d missed that?

“You seem more solid somehow,” she remarked as we walked toward her car. “Being yourself around people has been good for you.”

“You seem more unsettled,” I told her.

“I’m just not putting up as much of a front.” Sig was looking at her feet while she walked. “I was pretty unsettled when you met me.”

“I didn’t say it looked bad on you.”

She punched me in the shoulder again, more gently this time.

“You should probably get everybody out of the hot zone,” I told Matthew. It’s possible that I didn’t have to phrase it as a suggestion. Matthew seemed a lot more thoughtful and humble since discovering that Brett and his wife were making major decisions and moves without Matthew’s okay. The way some of Matthew’s own crew had obeyed Brett rather than him had been a bit of a wake-up call too. Matthew hadn’t just lost his best friend; he was dealing with the idea that he’d never had one.

“Why do you want us out?” Matthew asked. Not arguing.

“The wards don’t just keep normal people out,” I explained. “I think they keep the magic of this place in, and Sig is about to release some pissed-off spirits.”

There were five of us standing on the Apraxins’ back porch, watching Sig walk down toward the grove with her sword on her back and her spear in her hand.

“Let me guess.” Tula might have sounded slightly wry. “You’re staying behind with her.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I can’t be possessed.”

“Yes,” Tula said. “That must be it.”

Stacy shook her head. Her mouth was a sardonic line. “A blonde. A six-foot blonde.”

“She’s a Valkyrie.” I felt obscurely defensive; I’m not sure if was on my behalf or Sig’s. “I think it kind of comes with the package.”

It’s not as if Sig looked like a runway model. Her shoulders were broad. Her frame was sinewy and sturdy. Her hips and bottom were a thing of beauty, but nobody would ever call her willowy.

“That’s some package,” Matthew reflected. He was looking at Sig as if he were watching a unicorn.

Stacy smacked Matthew on the back of the head.

Matthew laughed and rubbed the back of his skull. “I wasn’t disrespecting John’s woman. I was just saying, is all.”

What the hell? People will surprise you, but… what the hell? Apparently, Matthew and Stacy had found time to have a serious heart-to-heart while I wasn’t around to hear it.

“Sure, why not?” Stacy muttered as she walked off. “Witches. Werewolves. Why not Brunhilde?”

“She’s not clan,” Gabriel said from the back doorway. “And she never will be.”

I moved to follow Sig. “I know.”