Weregirl (17 page)

Where is his insanity? The loss of soul, the dark evil I’ve come to expect? He turns from me, tries to pull himself away, whimpering louder as he claws at the snow.

Magic stirs beside me, Femke appearing in a rush of power, her pale face pink in points on her high cheeks. She stares, eyes wide, hand extended, a large ball of blue fire ready to fly. I feel them close in, her witches, as the revenant collapses into the snow, sobbing openly now.

Femke glances at me, gaze wild. “This isn’t what I thought it would be,” she says.

I shake my head. “Nor I. Something isn’t right.” I crouch in the snow, reach out one paw and touch his foot. He twitches and jerks away from me, huddling, half-naked, a soft howl rising from his chest. “He shouldn’t be acting this way.” The image of the ravening insanity of the revenant I encountered as a child fades as I take in this man’s terror and hurt. “I have no idea what’s going on, but he’s not a real revenant. At least, not of the kind we weres are accustomed to.”

Femke nods. “Could they be getting closer to their goal?” She refers to the sorcerers we assume are behind this. “Is this the evolution of revenants?”

I stand and sniff the air again, sensing something, but not certain what. I need to tell her about Caine, but as I look down at this damaged normal, I begin to doubt myself. If the sorcerers have already perfected their technique with Caine and his people, why is this mess of a man lying in the snow in Siberia?

Am I wrong? Is Caine’s taint something entirely different?

I gesture at the weeping creature before me. “Whatever the case,” I say, “we must investigate further.”

Femke squeezes my shoulder. “Agreed,” she says. “And at least this one we can take alive.”

I have no time to react, nor do the gathered witches, when two werewolves bound into view, scattering snow in every direction. I recognize Roman and Viveca, realize then they were missing from the throne room earlier when I spoke to Caine. They are on top of the screaming normal before I can do anything to stop them. Roman’s arm rises as Femke shouts at him to stop, falling as her whip of magic crackles through the air.

Too late. Blood gushes, Roman flying backward, his talons sending a spray of crimson over the snow as he hurtles away from the body, impacting a tree. Viveca finishes the job, her teeth tearing out the man’s throat before she bounds to her brother and stands over him, snarling.

Femke’s fury makes her look like an ice queen, one of the old Norse warrior goddesses come to life. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

Viveca continues to growl as Roman shakes his head. “Our duty,” he snarls back. His dull eyes land on me. “No werewolf shall suffer a revenant to live.”

Old law. He’s quoting old law. To me. I want to tear him apart as he has the dead man before me. But I can’t. I have no ground to stand on. Femke turns to me, trembling with rage, but I shake my head at her.

“Correct,” I snap.

She tosses her hands, takes a moment to collect her temper before pointing a shaking finger at Roman and Viveca. “And you two are here just in case something like this happens?”

I scowl at them, shaking off the shock of the last minute, the scent of blood and viscera drowning out everything as the stench of dead revenant rises from the steaming body in the snow.

“We were alerted a revenant was sighted,” Roman says while Viveca glares at me. “It is our duty and our honor to serve.”

There is nothing I can say or do in response to that. “Your new masters brought you here, I take it?” The Dumonts. They had to be involved.

Roman shrugs, stands while the gathered Enforcers loom with ominous anger. “We did your job for you,” he says.

“You went against the will of the European Council,” Femke shoots back.

Roman bares his teeth at her. “Werenation business,” he says with a hint of spite.

Femke gestures her Enforcers back. “Considering this isn’t were territory,” she snaps, “I want you out of here. Now. And if I ever see your ass out and about again, I’ll skin it myself.”

Roman and Viveca bound off with one final glare for me. I let them go, though I should follow them and find out how they got here. Who transported them?

“That,” Femke almost spits the words out, “was a setup if ever I saw one.”

I nod, glum now, turning from the dead body, no longer willing to look. “Agreed,” I say. “There are things you need to know.”

We stand in the snow as I inform her of everything I suspect, including Caine and the Dumonts, while the Enforcers clean up the mess. The air turns cold, the fat flakes spinning to tiny strikes of ice. But neither Femke nor I move a muscle as I tell her all I fear.

By the time I’m done, my guilt is at war with my need to act. I’ve broken my grandfather’s orders again. But I know from the anger in Femke’s eyes, I’ve done the right thing. We must learn to work together if we are to survive these challenges.

“Thank you,” she says, though her tone still carries her temper. “I take it you weren’t to tell me any of this.”

I don’t respond. I’ve betrayed Oleksander enough already.

Femke finally sighs out her frustration, shivering and hugging herself inside her heavy black robe.

“Now that I know,” she says, “I might be able to guard against them next time.” No accusations in her voice, and I’m grateful. She turns, gestures to one of her Enforcers. “Track how those two werewolves traveled here,” she says before turning back to me. The black-robed witch dashes off through the snow in their wake as Femke speaks. “Can you come back with me, to Oxford? I think you’re aware this body is very different.”

I nod, glad to have this moment over. “Of course.” Maybe I can uncover the truth, now I know something isn’t adding up in these new revenants. But I’m not holding my breath.

***

I stand over the body, cleansed of blood and gore, neatly laid out on another steel slab. At least this time Femke has kept him separate from the others. It’s much easier to focus with only one revenant in my presence—or am I growing accustomed to the stench?

She hovers behind me, keeping her distance, has since the Enforcer she sent after Roman and Viveca came to whisper in her ear. But I feel her eyes on the back of my head, making my hackles rise as much as the hunt did, even in my human form. I need to focus on the dead body before me, reaching out, though it disgusts me to the core of my being, and laying one hand on his bare shoulder.

It takes a moment for my inbred need to run howling from the feel of him to settle before I can continue my investigation. Oddly, this would have been much easier to accomplish were he still alive. Carrion—the worst kind of carrion—turns my wolfish stomach as much as my human one.

“Could it be,” I say, more to myself than to Femke, “he hadn’t yet reached the point of insanity? Am I wrong about him and he is yet another revenant only slower to reach the darkness?”

She doesn’t comment, clearly sensing I’m only speaking so she can understand my thought process. I probe him with my magic, feel for answering power that isn’t there. Of course, he’s dead, but I sense even when he yet lived he didn’t possess what I do.

“No magic,” I say. “When we are born to werelife, we are born with the inherent power of our parents. But he has no magic.” I shake my head, remembering this train of thought from the forest. “Could that be the key to the revenant’s failure?” I turn to Femke, addressing her at last. “Because our bite is so virulent,” something I never understood, a flaw in our makeup surely the Black Souls didn’t intend, “our shapeshifting abilities are easily shared. But our magic is not.”

Femke nods slowly, brow furrowed. “That makes sense,” she says. “Though I’ve never thought of it that way before. Almost like waking a latent who doesn’t have access to their magic.”

I suppose so. “Has a werewolf ever bitten a witch or a vampire?”

Femke shakes her head. “If they have,” she says, “there’s no record of it.”

“Then it’s possible werewolfism is only contractible by normals.” My questions for myself in the woods come back to me.

Femke looks startled. “That’s a leap,” she says.

“Is it?” I shrug. “If there are no records of witches or other magical races becoming infected, I could be right. After all, over all the centuries, the odds not one was bitten is a set of longer odds than my theory.” Femke nods slowly as I go on. “So if a magical creature can’t be infected, that leads to the conclusion I mentioned earlier. Only normals are at risk. Because they don’t have magic.” Which makes things worse in many ways. If these revenants are to spread, the likelihood of my people being exposed to normals grows with their number. And that means putting not only our race, but all races, at greater chance of being uncovered by vengeful normals.

My wolf chuffs for my attention and I turn back to the body. She’s sensed something I missed in my speculations. When she shows it to me, I gasp softly.

“What is it?” Femke moves forward in a jerky motion, coming to stand next to me in the bright light of the room, hovering like a pale ghost over the washed-out remains.

“It’s there,” I say. “Sorcery.” I’m not surprised, per se, just shocked to feel the black remains. “The magic they used to try and turn him.” My fingers trace down his shoulder and to his forearm where a nasty bite stands out red against his corpse-pale skin. “They bit him on purpose while a sorcerer attempted to control the change.” I release my touch and turn to Femke. “But they failed.”

“Because they couldn’t find a way to give him magic?” She meets my eyes.

“Maybe.” I bite my lower lip. “But why then, if they did fail, wasn’t he a soulless wretch? From what I know, it shouldn’t take long for him to turn to evil. And from what we saw of him, he’d been running for at least a day, if not more.”

Femke shakes her head, turning to retrieve a file from the counter behind us. She offers it to me with an apologetic smile. “I meant to show you this,” she says. “All the research we have on revenants.”

I finger through the pages in some awe, though she clearly expects me to be angry with her. “Where did you get this?” Black and white images of fallen revenants look up at me, pages and pages of written notes humming with magic, some old, crumbling around the edges despite the power holding them together, others crisp and fresh.

“The Council has been observing you for a long time,” she says. “This file only recently came to my attention.”

I wave off her worry. “This is fascinating,” I say, pausing on a page close to the back. “According to this, it can take a full seven days for a healthy human to turn to a revenant.” No wonder the illness spread. If the revenant wasn’t outed immediately, they could contaminate their entire village before changing into their ultimate form. But from what I was told as a child, the turn happened much quicker. “Seven days,” I say. “I thought it was within hours?” The Black Souls made sure we were afraid. But why would they lie about the amount of time it took for a revenant to develop? What possible purpose came from such deceit?

Femke nods. “I don’t want to naysay your oral history,” she says, “but the proof is here.”

I look up with breathless excitement. I shouldn’t be excited. This is terrible subject matter. But my people have endured centuries of being in the dark about our own abilities and development. This file—and if there are others—could shed some light on our beliefs. The elements know we, as a werenation, could use a good challenge to our old ways of thinking. The more I leaf through the file, the more I wonder just how much of who we were has been fabricated and turned to suspicion and superstition. I, for one, would love to uncover all truths about our race, if only to assist in our future growth.

Listen to me, going all wereprincess and everything.

“May I take this home with me?” I see her hesitation before she grins.

“Sorry, old habits.” She takes it from me, tapping it on her free hand. “I’ll have a copy made right away.”

“Along with anything else you might have,” I say.

Femke laughs with a rueful grin. “How well you know us,” she says.

“The weres,” I say. “Roman and Viveca. Did your Enforcer find how they traveled?”

Femke’s grim headshake answers me before her words do. “Covered their tracks,” she says. “Very well. Too well.”

“The Dumonts,” I say. “I know they are connected to this somehow.”

“If so,” Femke says, grim and dark, “I’ll find out how and make sure they stop.”

She leaves me there to ponder the body. The smell doesn’t bother me as much as it did, the cloying heaviness lifting as I cross my arms over my chest and frown at the dead man’s face. So many questions, though I’m even more certain the Dumonts have to be involved.

A shiver of worry strikes deep inside me. Sorcery. Could it be our old enemies have woken? Unlike Syd, I don’t believe the Brotherhood are gone. They are like cockroaches, hiding in the shadows, building their numbers. I never agreed with Eva Southway’s willingness to allow their broken number to join the Steam Union after Syd defeated Liander Belaisle.

It’s been years since his fall and subsequent disappearance. Could it be he’s readying his next move against us?

I take a deep sniff of the body, trying to taste the sorcery, but it’s no use. It’s as black and dark as ever, a hollow, hungry feeling I retreat from. I can’t identify the difference between users. It could be Piers’s sorcery for all I can tell.

Which makes me think of him and my guilt rises fresh. But it also gives me an idea. Maybe he can differentiate? If we can identify the specific sorcerer, he and his people might be able to track him or her down and put an end to this.

I’m about to reach for Piers when I feel his mind touch mine.

Charlotte
. He sounds tired, distant.

Piers
. I offer him my power, something I rarely do. He sips of it, his sorcery tasting me, but he does it gently, pulling away long before I can feel the effects of the drain.
I’m sorry, I can’t find him
.

My mind is on the sorcerer responsible and I’m about to ask Piers how he knew I was looking when a beloved face flashes in my mind.