Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(27)

“Witchcraft,” said Charles. “Someone warded the trail—that’s what all those runes were. I doubt most people would even have noticed the first one before they found themselves wandering off somewhere else.”

“That’s why you picked the trail,” Anna said. “Was there magic?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know why I picked it. It just felt right. But it stood to reason there must be a trail of some sort. One of the things missing from the report Goldstein and Fisher left for us was a note of how the people who lived in Wild Sign traveled back to civilization, which they obviously did, because they had a post office box—a real post office box—in Happy Camp. Law enforcement used a helicopter to get here. Dr. Connors’s daughter either has magic of some sort or she found a different way in. I . . .” He shrugged. “We are not what it was guarding against, so it let us in.”

“What were they hiding from?” Anna asked. “The people at Wild Sign, I mean. Do you think it found them? And maybe that’s what happened to them? Do you feel anything here?” She couldn’t help a little shiver as she glanced around, looking for a nonexistent threat. She knew it wasn’t there, because if there had been a threat, Charles would be more concerned.

Charles, ignoring her wariness, shrugged. “Other witches? The warding was all white magic—and laid by more than one person. And there is one thing white witches fear more than anything else.”

“Black witches,” said Anna. All witches started out as white. A white witch drew her power from within herself. A gray witch drew power from the suffering of others, from other people’s pain—but not from unwilling victims. A black witch tortured and killed for power—and white witches were their favorite victims.

“Do you think Wild Sign was settled by witches in the first place?” Anna asked. “Like some sort of white witch sanctuary? Did a black witch—or black witches—come destroy them?”

Charles glanced around at the deserted town. “Hopefully we’ll find some answers here. Keeping in mind there were several witches here, I think we should stay together.”

Because Charles could tell if someone left a magical trap for the unwary.

“What about Tag?” she asked.

Tag hadn’t bothered taking human shape before he set off exploring on his own. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him through their pack bonds.

“Tag should be all right,” Charles said. “He knows his way around witchcraft. Where would you like to start?”

Anna brushed off the last of the tingles left over from her change. She was conscious of a deep and growing unease, as if something were watching—or waiting. It hadn’t bothered her until she’d changed back to human, so it probably wasn’t anything real. She had a lot less imagination when she ran on four feet. Still . . .

“Do you feel something wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing definite,” he said, which wasn’t a no. “The witchcraft doesn’t bother the wildlife, but it’s keeping the usual forest spirits at bay. That makes this place feel even more empty.”

He took her hand.

Immediately the eerie effect of the empty town lessened and the knots in her stomach eased. She was a werewolf, she reminded herself. Whatever had happened to these people, it had happened months ago. But it was Charles’s warm hand wrapped around hers that reassured her enough she regained a bit of the excitement she’d been feeling since she’d first heard of this place.

It wasn’t quite a lost civilization, but sure as God made little green apples, it was a mystery. She felt a little ghoulish for the thrill—she was pretty sure the only way the people who had lived in Wild Sign could be silenced for months was if they had been killed. But it looked like no one else was pursuing this the way they—her pack—could.

“Let’s go look at the post office,” she said. “Maybe we’ll find some clues about who lived here.”

The post office was easy to pick out—it had its own sign. The door was ajar and the two windows were open to the air, the shutters designed to protect the interior from bad weather still hooked back.

There was a flutter of black wings and caws when Anna stepped inside. Even after the birds had escaped out the windows, the interior smelled of crow. It wasn’t a large space, maybe ten feet by ten feet. Shelves lined the wall opposite the door, empty of everything except a couple of birds’ nests. A newish, dust-covered camp chair emblazoned with the name of its manufacturer had been shoved against the shelving—Anna could see the drag marks in the dirt floor.

“They cut this lumber themselves,” Charles said, a hand on one wall. “It was well done, but there’s just a little more irregularity than you’d expect to find in commercially produced boards.”

“I don’t see any clues here,” Anna said, glancing at Charles to see if he had noticed something, something more than the lumber origin. But he shook his head in agreement.

So she said, “Your turn to pick where we go next.”

“Latrines.” He backed out of the post office and brushed aside a spiderweb trying to attach itself to the back of his neck.

She found herself grinning—because the speed of his decision had indicated he’d been thinking about it, and it was a very good place to look . . . and because it was honestly the last place she’d have suggested.