Silence Fallen (Mercy Thompson #10)(43)

Zack.

If this woman were male and had been starved for six months, then she’d be a dead ringer for our pack’s sole submissive wolf, Zack. It wasn’t just a passing resemblance. I’d seen twins who didn’t share as many similarities.

Zack had come to us a restless wanderer who showed signs of abuse. He’d gradually settled into the pack, losing most of the wariness he’d arrived with.

But Zack still thought he was going to take off again for someplace else someday real soon, but that “real soon” had changed in emphasis as if it were gradually lengthening from “probably tomorrow” to “next week” and finally a vague time receding into the future.

He was rooming with Warren and his human partner, Kyle, another temporary situation that was sliding into a permanent one. Warren’s presence kept the pack happy with the safety of our submissive wolf (something that preoccupied the wolves in a way I’d never understood until Adam had made me part of the pack’s magical ties), and Warren was never obvious with his protectiveness. Unlike almost any other old wolf I’ve ever met (and Zack had once told me he’d been a werewolf for over a century), Zack was not homophobic and seemed content with the place he’d made for himself in Warren and Kyle’s home.

The whole pack was trying to make a home for Zack with us, and we were all holding our breath, hoping he wouldn’t notice until it was too late and he already belonged to us. A submissive wolf was a gift to any pack. They tended to cut down the petty bickering that was part and parcel of having a roomful of dominant personalities, and they settled the pack, made it feel, for everyone, as if pack was more than a necessity, that it was a good thing to be a part of. A submissive made the survival of all the wolves in the pack more likely.

I don’t know how Zack had become a bone of contention between Libor and Bran—but I would bet all the money I didn’t have at the moment that he was at the bottom of their feud. Because there was no way that lady could look so much like Zack and not be closely related to him.

“There’s a ghost here,” said Libor.

I looked at him and sighed. “I try not to pay attention to them,” I told him. “There’s no good to be had from it.”

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Don’t tell him,” said the ghost, still sounding like she’d grown up in Aspen Creek, Montana, like I had. Some of the stronger spirits did that—they communicated so forcefully that I heard them without any distortion, as if death granted them a universal language, a quick conduit to my brain without language at all, maybe. I found it very disturbing when they did that. “It would hurt him to know that I watch over him still.”

But she didn’t, not really. This wasn’t truly the woman she resembled, just a skin of personality shed when she’d died however long ago and her soul had gone to wherever souls go. I didn’t know why some ghosts stayed fresh and strong while most others faded—though sometimes it was because the living paid too much attention to the dead. But that didn’t make the ghosts into the person whose face they wore; it just made them stronger ghosts. I’d seen souls tied to their ghosts once, and I’d never again made the mistake of thinking of a normal ghost as a real person. This woman’s soul had gone on a long, long time ago.

I was coming to believe that ghosts were something, though, something that could think and plan and do. Not living, precisely, but not inert, either. It was a belief that went against everything I’ve ever heard about ghosts—but I interact with them more than most people.

Still, even though she was not the person who had been Libor’s wife, she had once been part of her. She knew Libor, and I chose to follow her advice.

“I don’t know, and I’m not going to talk about it long enough to give it more power,” I told Libor. “Look, ghosts are like discarded clothing left behind when a person dies.” Of so much I was still sure. “I’m sorry to distract you from the matter at hand. I wouldn’t have if I weren’t tired.”

“Is it my wife?” he asked softly. “She was a tiny thing, but rounded where a woman should be rounded. Her eyes were blue as a Viking’s.”

“I don’t talk about ghosts I see,” I told him. “No good comes of it.”

The ghost of his wife smiled at me. “He doesn’t like it when people don’t do what he says. I’d watch my step if I were you.”

Another ghost had found its way out to the courtyard, attracted by the attention I was trying not to pay to Libor’s dead wife. This one wasn’t anything anyone would have called pretty. Werewolf killed, I’d guess from the damage. If I were a normal human, I’d probably have been more appalled. But my other self is a coyote. I might not take down humans (or any other large prey), but I’ve eaten a lot of field mice and rabbits. I let my gaze pass over that ghost.

“Is it my wife?” Libor asked intently, and this time there was a bit of growl in his voice.

“I don’t talk about ghosts,” I told him. “I don’t describe them. I don’t name them. I don’t look at them if I can help it.”

We had ourselves a little bit of a stare-down again. Three more ghosts, one of those I’d seen in the main room of the bakery, drifted in. I was busy staring at Libor, and it weirded me out that I still knew they’d come in. Usually I have to use my eyes (or ears or nose or some normal thing) to know when they are around. Evidently not today. Stupid golem.