At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(109)

“Easy, girl,” he whispered.

Could Diana and Addie have already found his map? Perhaps the police crept toward him through the woods even now.

He leaned into the silence, but nothing more stirred, and he feared the sound had been merely a late-night jogger passing by, oblivious to the unfolding drama.

Now another sound alerted him. He squinted into the semidark. Ginny, much clearer-sighted than he, swiveled her head. And suddenly there she was, Officer Sally Osborn, a woman who—in her grief and madness—had become something both more and less than mortal woman.

Agl?cwif. Monster-wife. She-wolf.

She strode into the small clearing and stopped a few paces away from where he was chained.

She’d swapped the uniform for jeans and a parka. Apparently modern-day ritual sacrifice didn’t require special clothing. Over one shoulder, she’d slung a messenger bag—Evan shuddered to think what was inside.

And she’d brought the sword. She drove the point hard into the ground and leaned upon the hilt.

“And so we begin,” she said without preamble. “Riddle me this, little man. Of my first victims, what sin filled each man’s pockets first with gold and then with earth?”

Evan wanted to cry out for her to slow down. To give him time to think. Together, they could discuss the path she’d chosen. And he could tell her that it was not too late—even now—to change the ending of her story.

Beowulf need not die beneath the dragon’s terrible power.

But she was waiting.

He turned the riddle over in his mind to make sure he hadn’t missed a turn or twist in her words.

She sneered. “Have I trapped you with my very first riddle?”

“Two men,” he said. “Two men, two sins, and both the same sin. Scott Desser sinned against the earth by aiding the men who peeled her flesh. James Talfour bought skins peeled from animals and sold them.”

He watched her face for any giveaway, but her expression was like marble.

“Gold filled their pockets,” he continued, “until the Others took their due and replaced their gold with the earth of the grave.”

She dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Well done. But riddles go from easy to hard. That is how the game is played.”

Wait! Please wait. But he nodded. “Go on.”

“Now this,” she said. “I flit as I will from fish to dog, from goat to cow, from bush to tree, from lake to pond, sipping the rich nectar offered me by wise women and weak men. Who am I?”

A bead of sweat formed at the top of Evan’s spine and slid with startling coolness down his back. Possible answers flicked through his mind like the fast-turning pages of a flip-book before slowing, hesitating, then settling on a single answer.

He said, “I am the spirit of the land who accepts all sacrifice—animal and human—by drinking the blood offered by seithr sorceresses and ergi men.”

This time, she frowned.

Behind her, something moved in the trees, and Ginny bobbed her head. A figure, indistinct in the dark. Hope exploded in Evan’s chest with a strength that almost dropped him.

He locked his eyes on Osborn lest he betray whoever approached.

“Riddle me this,” she said. “I am found in the grave, but I heal all who come to me, although they need no healing.”

A faint sound in the trees, which she seemed not to hear.

He breathed in. Breathed out. Focused on the riddle.

Thank God for Christina. And for Simon’s Viking books.

He said, “I am Hel, goddess of the underworld, which is also called Hel. I embrace all who die unwounded by battle.”

He could see by her expression that he was right. He wanted to cheer. One child is now mine! But he said nothing. How could he, when he held not a single card in his hand or up his sleeve? Except, perhaps, the knowledge that at least one other human was here with them. That they weren’t alone in the woods.

Whether that fact would help or harm remained to be seen.

When she stayed silent, he found he no longer could. “That’s three riddles,” he pointed out quietly.

She clenched her fists, her body rigid. “You will not win the other child.”

“Let us see.”

She slung the messenger bag from her shoulder and set it on the ground, then leaned on the pommel of her sword.

From the trees, a man’s voice cried, “Stop!”

Osborn pivoted in the direction of the sound, the hilt of the sword clenched in one fist.

A figure stepped clear of the trees.

Ralph Rhinehart.

Evan’s disappointment struck like the flat of Osborn’s sword. He stumbled back. “You!” was all he could manage. He should have known this. Expected it. Who else would know they were here? What hope had he that Addie or Diana would find his satchel? And that, if they did, they would discover his map and understand the meaning of it?

“Father,” Osborn said.

Evan thought he heard plea and anger both in her voice.

Rhinehart gazed at his daughter. The man’s hair was a snarl of snow-wet tangles, his light jacket surely of little use. He wore dress shoes and dress slacks and an expression of grief.

“Sally,” he said, the single word filled with both love and anguish.

For an achingly long span of time, no one moved or spoke. Then Rhinehart advanced, his hands raised.