“Yes, sir.” Christina held the phone to her ear as she walked through the tall grass between the houses. It had taken a few days, but she finally felt comfortable enough to be outside in the open.
The blast they’d conjured had gone all the way out past the property line.
“It looks like it went a good three or four hundred feet past the legal land line in all directions. But that's where it gets sketchy.”
Westerfield already understood what she meant by “sketchy.”
“Sketchy” determined who had stood back up after the blast felled everyone.
On the de Gottardi/Little property, the wolves and family members had all lived through the blast. Everyone had been flattened, but of the others—the invading soldiers—none had stood up. At least, not at the last count Christina had been given.
Many of them had little cuts all through their clothing. Wade and Noah speculated that these were made by something like the black shards that had gotten them the first time. There were no answers, because again, there was no remaining evidence. The agents truly had no idea what they’d done, only that it had worked.
“The woman?” Westerfield asked. “The witch in red. Did you find her?”
Christina shook her head. “So far, no.”
She still had her fingers crossed, but everyone was looking and no one had reported seeing her. They’d scrubbed the area where Walter had shot her. It had been easy enough to find by the blood, but she hadn’t been there, or in the tents, or anywhere else they’d looked.
“And you said they called her … Alyssa?”
“Maybe?” It shouldn’t have been a question, so she tried again. “Close, but with a slightly different pronunciation. More like Ah-less-ah.” She emphasized the softer “e” sound in the middle.
“No.” Westerfield’s single syllable rang through the air toward her, and Christina had a sinking feeling. He asked, “Alesse Dauphine?”
When she didn’t have an answer, he continued. “Black woman? Stunningly beautiful. Dark skin.”
“Yes.” It was Christina’s turn to draw out the word. She hadn't mentioned any of that. So she must have been dealing with someone already known to the unit. She waited, confident she wouldn’t like the answer.
“Dauphine.” This time he spat it out.
The name meant nothing to her, and that's what she told him.
“Son of a fucking bitch,” was his only reply.
The pause between them told her that he knew something she didn't, but he wasn't sharing it. Maybe she could figure it out on her own. She filed away the name Alesse Dauphine for the next time she managed to get her hands on NightShade records.
When he didn't say anything else, she changed the topic. “We have the bodies of Shray Menon and Murray Marks. We need to bring in a team to move them and let GJ decide where they should be buried.”
Another pause, but Christina would rip him a new one if he said no. This was GJ’s grandfather. And she'd had to kill him herself. Twice.
Christina was only grateful that the bodies were here now. They'd already been hauled back onto de Gottardi/Little property. Though she had initially considered burying them here and doing the service themselves, while that might be kind to GJ, having their bodies buried on the property would be horrifying to every family member.
“Okay,” Westerfield finally said, giving in, as though he had sensed her silence for the stubbornness it was.
Good, she thought. “I'll let GJ know.”
“Reports on my desk in two days,” he said and hung up.
That was it, Christina thought. Westerfield had declared the case closed.
In the distance, smoke still drifted up into the sky. Two of the houses had been thoroughly burned, damaged even worse than from the first fight. Will had merely waved a hand and dismissed it. “We hadn't rebuilt them yet anyway. It's hardly any change in damage.”
Still, it had turned Christina's stomach.
She hit the button to hang up her phone as though she had any control at all over the fact that the call was already done. Then she headed back to the main house. But Will was already walking out in the field toward her.
It was clear from the way the wolves were working—some bandaged, but some fully upright, as they piled and cleared away the dead soldiers bodies—that they didn't want any of this lingering on their land.
“Have them pile up the bodies, but don’t move them,” Christina called out to Will by way of greeting. They were long past a casual Hello. “Westerfield will send a team to come and claim them. He just confirmed.”
Will nodded, probably thankful that they wouldn't have rotting bodies on their property, nor would they be responsible for burying the people who had tried to kill them. If someone discovered a mass grave at some point in the future, the authorities would have to investigate.
Though Christina had no idea what Westerfield was going to tell the cleanup team, she figured he would cover it.
Tipping her head to Will, she felt the change in blood flow, her head still pounding from the blast. It had been almost forty-eight hours now, but everyone else was reporting the same sensation. So at least she wasn't odd. The strange dizziness had already begun fading, and she took that as a sign of hope.
“Will,” she asked, “did all of your wolves—all of your people—stand back up?”
He knew what she was asking.
Did the mole get taken out with the soldiers? Or maybe more than one mole?
Once they'd realized the sorting system the spell had used, she and Noah had discussed the possibility that it had taken care of the problem for them. But as Will looked at her, he replied, “Yes. Every single one.”
Her heart sank. But there was nothing she could do about that right now.
The camps outside the property were full of those who had died in place. Those who had survived had fled. The remaining bodies would be taken care of by the team that Westerfield was sending. Will and his family would rebuild soon.
They'd left the bones of Aegis in the library.
GJ had studied them briefly, and Christina got the impression it was heartbreaking to leave them behind. After all, they’d been stolen from GJ’s own lab. But they’d all agreed the bones belonged with wolves rather than in a collection.
So GJ had lovingly sorted them into four separate, odd groupings and placed them into four distinct-looking trunks in the corner, hoping that no one who came in would even begin to see what they had.
Will and his people would guard them just as they guarded the books and the records and the other artifacts she’d seen in the hidden room.
But the de Gottardi/Little family still had a problem on their hands.
And Christina had no idea how to solve it.
“We have about six more hours,” she told him, “and then we have to head out to catch red-eye flights tonight.” Her team was going in five different directions. From what Westerfield said, Noah Kimball was heading back to Miami to put in for his official transfer to NightShade. That made her smile. She’d already put in a bid to have him assigned as her partner. It might take a little while for the paperwork to go through, but she'd not gotten her own next assignment yet.
“I've got plenty to do,” Will said, “and I don't mean to be rude, but I might not see you before you go. So I’ll tell you again, I cannot thank you enough for the work you and your team have done here. You made a real difference.”
He reached out and Christina did the same and shook his hand. Their firm grip was more than professional, better than just friendly.
“Keep your eyes open,” she told him.