Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson #11)(102)

He drew in a breath and looked away from me, but he nodded.

“I learned a little of this from Wulfe,” I told him. I looked over my shoulder, but Wulfe still looked dead.

Sherwood looked at the vampire and called upon pack magic to seal us in our own little soundproof space. I could feel that it was pack magic, but I’d never seen anyone pull that effect off with so little effort. I wasn’t surprised that Sherwood had managed.

“Okay, then,” I said. “A few centuries back there was a witch. She was, probably, like these two—older than she should be. Her name was Lieza and she was a very good black witch. She was a Love Talker.” I could see that Sherwood knew what that was by the way his shoulders tightened. “And she made zombies.” I waved my hand out to the night. “Some of those out there are hers—the old ones. The ones who look as though they are alive.”

He looked down at his knee.

“Do you want me to stop?”

He shook his head.

“She is somehow connected to the Hardesty witches,” I told him. “They revere her, anyway. Our zombie witch”—I tilted my head toward Elizaveta’s house, where Magda was waiting—“was hailed as the new Lieza because her powers mirrored the other witch’s. Lieza herself grew more daring as she became more powerful. She took a baby dragon and an ogre.” I kept my eyes on Sherwood. “And she took two werewolves. One she turned into a zombie. The other she used to power her magic. That one killed her.”

He breathed in and out slowly.

“The Hardesty family rushed to Lieza’s house, but all they found was her body. Other witches had been there to loot. One of the treasures they had taken was the werewolf.”

“Me,” he said.

“Yes,” I told him. “The Hardestys have made a centuries-long family quest of hunting down all of Lieza’s treasures—her zombies, her implements, and you. Some they pay for, some they steal, and some they have gone to war for. And over the years, you, who killed Lieza, have become the most sought-after prize. They almost had you in Seattle, but the werewolves took out that group of witches and you disappeared into the keeping of the Marrok, where they couldn’t get to you. But then you came here. They know your name—your current name. They know what you look like. And they know you are pack. The traitor in Bran’s pack told them.”

“I’m the reason they came,” he said.

“No. They had their eyes on Elizaveta—she was the most powerful witch they knew of who wasn’t a member of their clan—and they wanted her. Dead or with them.”

“Join or die,” said Sherwood. I couldn’t tell if he’d been quoting Benjamin Franklin or not. Likely not. Joining a coven of witches and joining the American Revolution were, I hoped, two different things.

I nodded at him. “It didn’t work out for them in the end, but that was their plan. Along with keeping the government from making a pact with the fae. They were—are still—all about stopping anything that might later be an obstacle to their power.”

“How do you know all of this?” he said.

I sighed. “The witches. Wulfe.”

He turned to look at me. “That’s all the truth, but it isn’t all of the truth.”

“Coyote dreams,” I told him.

“Your father, Coyote?”

I’d quit fighting with everyone about that. In my heart, my father was a rodeo rider named Joe Old Coyote, who had died before I was born. I would never, as my brother Gary did, call him Dad, or any other fatherly appellation. But I’d quit arguing with people about it. Mostly.

“That’s the one,” I said. “I dreamed one night, and I spent—” Eternity. Years. I swallowed and reminded myself that they were all dead. No kittens would be tortured here again. “I spent a few weeks in the head of your kitten. I am, Coyote tells me, the reason that your kitten survived when everything else died. We overheard things. I learned a lot about them. And when I finally woke up, Coyote made sure I didn’t remember it until he wanted me to.” I gave him a small smile. “When my brother called.”

“I see,” he said, when other people would have tried to take my story apart. Saved the kitten? I thought you said it was a dream?

What he asked when he spoke again was “Why did Coyote care about a bunch of witches? Was he taking care of you?”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “Heaven save me from that. No. I think . . .” I remembered what Coyote had told me. “I think it was the dragon.”

“Ah,” Sherwood said. “Okay. Is that all?”

“That’s all that I know,” I told him.

His body relaxed, as if he’d been braced all along for a hit that hadn’t happened. He let the pack magic keeping our conversation private slide away before asking, “Should I leave?”

“Why would you do that?” I asked. “I mean, do you want to? Where do you want to go?”

He gave me a look. “There are witches after me.”

“And?”

He waved a hand all around us.

“Oh, don’t take credit for this,” I told him. “This is Elizaveta mostly. And me. If you ever see me start to give a speech again, just step on my toes. Please.”

“But they are after me,” he said.