Storm Cursed

by Patricia Briggs

  I dressed, then pulled out my phone. I had a message from Warren.

  Warily I listened to it.

  “Mercy, when you get this, call me back.”

  Nope.

  I called Zee instead. I knew, as Larry had told me, that Siebold Adelbertsmiter would help me. I called him, knowing exactly what that help could cost him. But I was hoping that Zee was as formidable as I thought he was—and therefore the Gray Lords would be looking for any excuse not to enforce their death penalty on him.

  After I told him who else I was planning to ask for help, I gave Zee the option of staying away. I’m not sure if I would have given him the option had I not been absolutely certain of Zee’s response.

  “Nein,” Zee said. “These witches hurt my son and tried to kill you. The Gray Lords will afterward do as they will. Should we succeed in saving Senator Campbell, the Gray Lords will be quite happy with us, I think.”

  “You don’t think they can ensnare you?” I asked.

  “Liebling,” he said. “I am not infallible. But witchcraft doesn’t work so well on the fae. I have had a talk with Uncle Mike tonight. Uncle Mike informed me that the goblin king was quite clear that I should avoid direct confrontation with the witches.”

  He’d said very nearly the same thing to me, I thought.

  “I take it to mean that as long as I fight the zombies and minions and leave the witches to your”—there was something in his voice I could not read—“other ally, we can be reasonably certain . . .”

  “Of what?” I asked when he paused.

  “Certain of doing what the goblin king wishes me to do,” said Zee. “Since they have just killed his favorite child, I do not think the goblin king would advise us to do anything that would aid them.”

  I’d kind of thought that the goblin king had been telling me not to ask Zee for help. Interesting that Zee and I had the exact opposite takes on that advice. I decided to believe Zee because it cheered me up and made me feel less guilty.

  He continued, “I will not leave you alone to battle them with no one that I trust to have your back. If you are not here in ten minutes to pick me up, I will drive my truck to the witch’s house.”

  And that ended that discussion.

  But when I pulled up to Zee’s house, it wasn’t just Zee who came out. Tad, looking as though he were dressed for a Lord of the Rings reunion, carried a long duffel bag that probably contained some of Zee’s weapons.

  “I know, I know,” Tad said, opening the sliding door and setting the bag on the floor. He opened the front passenger door and said, “It’s you or me, dog.” He picked up Scooby and set him in the two-butt seat that was the middle seat of the bus. To me he acknowledged, “It’s a weird shirt, but Dad insisted.”

  “Is it mithril?” I asked in awe. “You glow in the dark.”

  Tad looked down at himself and let out a curse. “It’s doing it again, Dad.”

  “I regret the costume-like appearance,” Zee said. “It wasn’t costume-like when I made it. But the tunic will redirect witchcrafting aimed at him. Some of the time.”

  He leaned into the bus and tapped the shoulder of the mail-like overcoat that Tad wore. The brightness winked out and it blended with the darkness almost too well.

  “It hasn’t been out in a good long time,” said Zee. “It’s a little giddy.”

  “Giddy,” I said.

  Zee climbed into the bus, slid the door shut, and then made his way to the far back. It wasn’t that he minded sharing a seat with Scooby; it was that Zee always sat so that no one could sit behind him. It was why he had a truck.

  “Zee,” I said. “Not that I don’t love Tad, but I thought it was only going to be you flinging yourself into the hands of fate. The Gray Lords might decide that you are scary enough to leave alone, but Tad isn’t.”

  “The Gray Lords will hold me responsible for Dad’s actions anyway,” Tad said, belting himself in. “I might as well contribute. Where are we going next?”

  “I am not sure,” I said, and pulled out my phone.

  “You haven’t asked yet?” asked Zee.

  “Nope,” I told him. “I was putting it off until the last minute.”

  “Mercy,” Marsilia answered. “Have you killed them yet?”

  “Nope,” I told her. “I’ve lost track. Do you owe me one, or do I owe you?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Wulfe was waiting for us when I drove up to the seethe.

  He’d been a teenager when he died and he looked it. Tonight he’d dressed in a black hoodie, jeans, and white Converse tennis shoes. He looked like he should be going to a rave or a kegger. He also had both of his hands. Stefan had cut one of them off the last time I’d seen him.

  Vampires weren’t werewolves—they couldn’t just grow them back. I was pretty sure they couldn’t just grow them back.

  He bent down to look in the car to see who was in it. He did an exaggerated double take when he saw Tad’s magic garb. Tad huffed indignantly. Satisfied with Tad’s reaction, Wulfe opened the sliding door and got in. He belted Scooby in before he belted himself.

  The hair on the back of my neck tried to run away. I was really glad that Zee was sitting behind Wulfe to keep watch. If anyone was a match for Wulfe, it was Zee. I was also glad that Scooby was in the seat directly behind me.

  “If I’d known we were going medieval, I’d have worn my hair shirt. I’m sure I have it around somewhere.” The vampire snapped his fingers. “Damn. I left it at home. It will probably be another half millennium before I get a chance to wear it again. Oh well. These things do tend to come back in fashion.”

  A lot of the vampires have accents. But Wulfe, today, sounded like any other teenager born and raised in the Tri-Cities. Other than the fact that I would be surprised if there were more than one or two teenagers born and raised here who would even know what a hair shirt was.

  He raised his head and sniffed like a dog. “You brought me a present? How kind. Give. Give it to me.”

  Tad looked at me and I shook my head. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Wulfe made an impatient sound. “You have something that belongs to the witches.”

  I had grabbed the box with the broken athame when I got out of Sherwood’s car. It hadn’t been difficult. I’d been carrying it while he drove—and he’d been worried about making sure the garage was safe before he left.

  Sherwood’s wolf had thought that he could use it to hunt down the witches. I didn’t want him anywhere near these witches, so I had taken it when he wasn’t looking.

  I reached between the front seats, grabbed the take-out box, and held it up.

  “Ooooo,” Wulfe said, taking it. “Looky here. What naughty children to let this out of their hands. Pity it’s broken.”

  “Why is that?” I asked him.

  “Because the witches could have done all sorts of nasty things with that tonight, and I could have watched them. If they really do have an almost completed coven—”

  I had given Marsilia a play-by-play of the last day, which had ended about a block from the seethe. I had left nothing out. I didn’t know if it had been a mistake to tell her that there was a witch out there who could control werewolves, but she’d told me about Frost, who could control vampires, hadn’t she?

  Evidently, if he knew about Sherwood’s assessment that the witches were running with the power of an almost coven behind them, Wulfe must have been listening the whole time.

  “—they could have used it to take over anyone who held this knife. Lots of mischief to be done. I’d say they killed five or six people to make this athame—and that’s if they had plenty of practice. They won’t be happy that it is broken. It’s useless now.”

  He tossed it back to the front seat and the box spilled the separate pieces onto the floor. Tad bent over and collected th
em while I put the bus in gear and pulled away from the seethe. Marsilia’s home base gave me the creeps.

  Not that driving away from the seethe would help much, not when Wulfe was in my car.

  “What does it mean?” I asked him. “That there are ten families in their coven. A lot of what I know about the witches comes from Wikipedia; it told me that a coven had thirteen witches.”

  I could feel him staring at me. I was careful to keep my eyes on the road.

  “I get the best spells from Wiki,” he said. “Have you read what it says about werewolves? I keep editing the article, but someone—and I think it’s Bran Cornick—keeps changing it back.”

  “Vampire,” said Zee. “If you don’t answer the question, I will.”

  “So touchy,” said Wulfe, admiration in his tone. But then he said, “Back in the bad old days, a coven of witches was thirteen witches, one from each of thirteen families. If you had a complete coven, then you were limited in power only by your imagination.” He sighed. “But, since they are witches, usually that only lasted a few months or a year at a time before someone fought with someone else and the next thing you know, there would be bodies all over the place. Untidy folk, witches.”

  “Give me an example of what they did,” I said.

  “Stonehenge,” Wulfe said promptly. “The Little Ice Age. A couple of volcanic eruptions. They weren’t responsible for the Black Plague itself—but I know that in several instances they used plagues to discipline rulers who worked against them. The Great Plague of London killed a hundred thousand people in eighteen months. I think Bran himself took care of that coven.”

  “Holy wow,” I breathed.

  “But they don’t have a real coven,” said Wulfe. “The best the Hardesty witches managed—with nine different families represented in their coven—was 1816.”

  Zee grunted.

  I had a history degree, but 1816 didn’t ring any bells. The War of 1812 ended in 1815. In 1817 James Monroe became president of the United States—and I only knew that because I’d written a paper on him in college.

  Wulfe was waiting.

  “What happened in 1816?” I asked.

  “It was the Year Without a Summer in New England,” said Tad.

  “I see it isn’t true,” said Wulfe, “what they say about modern education.” He sighed. “Pitiful attempt, really; with a full coven they could have frozen the whole Atlantic seaboard for a couple of years.”

  Enough of that talk or I was going to pull over and run screaming into the night. I was already scared. We only had two witches to deal with, I reminded myself.

  “Elizaveta said she knew when a witch came into her territory,” I said, thinking out loud. “Will they know when you get too close?”

  “This was my territory a long time before Elizaveta Arkadyevna Vyshnevetskaya came here,” Wulfe said, his voice suddenly a purr of power. “So subtly did I lay my hold on the land that she did not, does not even feel it—no more than did the new intruders. They will not know me until I choose.”

  “I thought the vampires called you the Wizard,” Tad said. “Are you a witch or a wizard?”

  Wulfe preened. “Yes,” he said.

  Witches had power over the living—animals, trees, people. Wizards manipulated objects with magic—bending spoons, moving furniture, that kind of thing. Wizards were a lot more rare than witches because witches deliberately bred themselves for power. I didn’t know if wizards ever tried it. Maybe they did. But I’d never heard of a wizard family. That he was both . . . and a vampire as well . . .

  “Why did they set up at Elizaveta’s?” I asked, changing the subject back to the matter at hand. “Isn’t that a little obvious?”

  “Misery is a thing that seeps into the walls and the floors,” Zee said. “A house like Elizaveta’s would add power to their spells and protections. Black magic would not be driven from a place where it has taken up residence without a powerful blessing.”

  “The only place better for their purposes in the Tri-Cities would have been the seethe,” said Wulfe. “And they did try that, didn’t they? When Frost came up. If Frost had won back in November, we’d have had no way to prevail today. Funny how fate works out.”

  I glanced into the rearview mirror to see Wulfe smiling, his eyes fixed out the window. Wulfe had been on the wrong side of that fight. Maybe.

  He caught me looking and his smile widened until it displayed his delicate fangs. “Go ahead and ask me,” he said.

  “Whose side were you on?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember,” he lied.

  “Why do you have both hands?” I asked.

  “Because two is better than one,” he said.

  He saw me looking at him in the mirror again and blew me a kiss.

  “Don’t encourage him, Mercy,” said Zee. “And you might look where you are going. If you have a wreck before we get there, we might be stuck out in the open when the sun comes up. That would be a shame.”

  Wulfe laughed, his whole body shaking.

  I took Zee’s advice then and put my eyes front and center.

  “There will be zombies,” I said. “I don’t know how many or what kind. But they were thick on the ground when I explored about an hour ago.”

  “Human mostly,” said Wulfe. “I went out and peeked last night.” I gave him a look of surprise.

  “Of course I checked them out,” Wulfe said. “A good vampire always knows his enemy’s secrets. A few dogs and the like, but mostly human.” He paused. “And the ogre.”

  “Ogre?” asked Tad. “An ogre zombie?”

  “It was several hundred years old, I think,” Wulfe said. “They had a few very-well-made zombies—made by a different witch.” He beamed a smile and I realized I was watching him again. If I wrecked the Mystery Machine, Stefan would be unhappy.

  “Such craftsmanship,” Wulfe said. “You just don’t find zombies like that anymore. Because the lady who made them had an unfortunate accident with one of her pets. The Hardestys have such hope for Magda, you know, because she has the same combination of gifts. But if you ask me, she is far too careless with her workings.”

  Wulfe sounded like someone gossiping about his neighbors. And he knew more about the witches than I’d thought he did. More than I’d gathered. Hopefully he would be on our side this time.

  “I brought one home to examine, to be sure,” he said. “It was about two centuries, give or take a year. He was exquisite, not a whiff of rot on him. My mother’s coven would have been envious. He could have passed for human, I think, unless you had reason to look very closely—or talk to him. I am positive it was Lieza’s work. And I think she was the only one who would have been foolhardy enough to try raising an ogre.”

  “A zombie ogre,” said Tad. “An ogre zombie.”

  “Do you have a glitch?” asked Wulfe. “Or do you always say the same phrase over and over?”

  “They have to be well made not to rot,” Zee said. “If they are older, they get smarter. Don’t fret, vampire. Tad and I will take care of the zombies. Even the ogre,” Zee said. “Once we are done with them, we will aid you with den Hexen. The witches.”

  Wulfe started to bob his head, as if he were listening to drums. Or my heartbeat. The rat.

  He bobbed faster as he spoke. “I can deal with one of the witches—that will leave the other to you, Coyote’s daughter. Do you know how to kill a witch?”

  “Nope,” I said, though I was pretty sure that if I could get close enough, my cutlass could do the job. I was really glad I’d started carrying that cutlass wherever I went.

  “I wouldn’t shoot at them,” Wulfe advised. “Witches this old can protect themselves from bullets.”

  “Noted,” I said. I’d pulled the gun from the safe at work, another Sig. It was now in its concealed-carry holster in the small of my back. I’d never regretted having
a gun with me in a fight.

  “Don’t worry, Mercy,” said Tad heavily. “Witches die like everyone else.”

  I gave him a startled glance that he didn’t see. I wondered if that was the something he’d learned in college that had seen him return home lacking the indomitable cheer he used to carry with him wherever he went.

  “Pretty basic plan,” observed Wulfe.

  We didn’t know enough to make more extensive plans.

  “Kill the bad guys,” Tad said. “Kill the dead guys again.”

  “Hey!” said Wulfe with mock affront. “I think I belong to both of those groups.”

  “Except for our allies,” I said. “Are you our ally?”

  Wulfe smiled at me and said nothing. I realized I wasn’t watching where I was going again. If we all survived, I’d make someone else drive so I didn’t have to have Wulfe lurking behind me.

  We did work out a better plan, but Tad wasn’t wrong about the basics of it: kill the bad guys, lay the zombies to rest. We did not specify that Wulfe got to pick a witch and I had to take the other one. Whoever had a chance to kill them would do it.

  * * *

  • • •

  I parked the van in the same place I’d found earlier this evening. Hopefully none of the pack would drive by it and figure out where I’d gone. I had turned off my phone after I picked up Wulfe. No sense making it easy for them to find me.

  About halfway to Elizaveta’s I’d begun to feel a bit of pull from the pack ties. Adam would have been able to find me—find any of the pack he wanted to locate. But they weren’t the Alpha, and the best they could (hopefully) do would be to know that I was terrified out of my mind.

  Zee had had another word with the tunic that Tad wore, and Tad became very, very difficult to see. Wulfe gave a soft whistle when he saw it change.

  “So that’s what that is,” he said. “I thought that surcoat was lost in the War of the Roses.”

  “Someone made it,” said Zee. “Someone took it. Someone took it back. It was not lost.”