Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson #11)(76)

“They’re all dead,” Ruth wept, her hands in front of her face as if she could not bear what she’d seen. It reminded me oddly of the weeping angels from Doctor Who. “I have to tell Mercy.”

“She was sent with a message,” murmured Uncle Mike. “She can’t deviate from it without a great deal of effort. I’m a little concerned about what else they’ve done to her.”

He took a better grip on her, then nodded at me.

“I’m here,” I told her.

The weeping stopped as she sat up suddenly. She lunged toward me, but Uncle Mike kept her still.

“She’s alive,” I said, relieved. Her lunge had put her close enough to be certain.

He nodded. “That was our first thought as well, given all the zombies we’ve had running around the town. Some of them can look very much alive for a while. That reminds me I should have told you that my people took care of a pack of dogs yesterday.”

“They are all dead,” she told me intently, as if she could not hear Uncle Mike at all.

“They have her under a compulsion,” he told me. “I think she’s been fighting for all she’s worth.”

“Who are all dead?” I asked.

Not the pack, I was certain of that much. Ruth’s face grew eerily still, and her voice became a monotone that sent off warning signals in my hindbrain. “I was in the study with the senator. Two women, spectacularly beautiful goddesses, walked into the room, with our security team escorting them as if they were knights to their queens.”

She gave me a panicked look. The effect of the sudden flash of emotion was a little schizophrenic—as if she were fighting off the hold the witches clearly had over her, only to lose control again.

“The senator asked them who they were, and she, the Ishtar—”

I’d heard that word before. “What is an Ishtar?” I really wanted to know, but I also wanted to see if she was allowed to answer questions. Especially a question that Ruth Gillman would not be able to answer.

Had they preloaded the lines they wanted her to say? Or were they in active control?

She paused midword and breathed in and out a few times. “The dark goddess,” she said, “the goddess of death.”

“Hubris,” Uncle Mike grumbled. “Why is it that all the witches carry with them so much hubris?”

“Like a marionette,” said Sherwood quietly.

I glanced at him. He thought they were actively controlling her, too. I suppose they could have fed her that information, but it seemed more likely that they were here. Sherwood’s face was tight with something: fear or anger. Maybe both.

I wondered if Ruth knew that, too. If that had been why she’d been keeping her eyes covered.

“Ishtar was like Aphrodite,” I said. “The goddess of love and sex and spring, right?”

Ruth started to smile; I could see it try to break out, but it was gone. I couldn’t tell whose smile it was because I didn’t know Ruth well enough.

“Ishtar is the right hand of the coven,” she said.

“There are no more covens,” Sherwood growled. “Just make-believe attempts. You don’t have witches from thirteen families.”

“Ten,” she said hotly, as if his words had stung her pride. “We meant to take one of Elizaveta’s. That would have given us eleven. But none of them was strong enough.”

Were they after Elizaveta herself?

Before finding out that she’d been working black magic, I’d have said that she’d never join with them, especially after they’d killed her family. But I obviously had not known Elizaveta as well as I’d thought.

They set things up so that there are many ways for them to win, Elizaveta had told us. Was one of those possible wins getting Elizaveta to join them?

After a moment, I spoke, repeating the words Ruth had been reciting when I interrupted her, exactly how she’d been saying them. “The senator asked them who they were, and she, the Ishtar—”

“—and she, the Ishtar, brought the Death and all fell to her power,” Ruth said, speaking the first four words at the same time as I had. Those words, I thought, were rote. Something they’d pressed upon her earlier, not something they were actively feeding her. Real people don’t use the same exact words each time they say something.

“They died for her glory,” Ruth said. “All but the senator and I. They took the senator and left me to make a record. My phone.”

She reached for her purse, but Uncle Mike prevented her from touching it. Sherwood reached in and took out her phone, which was lying on top.

“It’s not locked,” he said.

He tipped it so Uncle Mike and I could see, and went through the photo gallery. Pictures of ten dead bodies, most of whom I didn’t know. Spielman was there. The skin around his eye was still bruised. I’d liked Spielman. There were a couple of others who might have been in the meeting I’d attended. None of them were my pack.

Even though the pack bonds were live, I’d half expected to see one of the pack among the dead. The witches terrified me—partially because I really had no good understanding of the limits of their power.

“I suppose they might still be alive,” Sherwood said. “If you can think of a reason they’d be acting dead.”

“I am . . . I was to drive to your house. The address was programmed into my car,” Ruth said, in a completely different voice—her own voice. Then she gasped as if she were having trouble breathing. “I came here instead. Thought the fae could help.”