Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(70)

10


There was no more activity at the old gas station when they passed it for the second time that day than there had been the first. All three of them watched it go by. No one said anything about it, but Anna met Tag’s grin in her rearview mirror.

They had passed the Sasquatch gift shop sign before something that had been tapping at the edge of Anna’s instincts coalesced into certainty.

“Cathy Hardesty was pregnant,” she said. “It didn’t strike me as important at the time, but I think I was wrong about that.”

Charles nodded, and from his face she knew that he understood what she had. Maybe he’d seen it from the start.

“She let us go too easily,” Anna said. “And maybe that was because she was pregnant—and because you honestly scared her, Charles. But knowing black witches . . . If she, like Underwood, thought we were a path to greater power, she would never have let us get away without a fight.” She paused. “They would never have let us go.”

“Agreed,” said Charles.

“Just like they wouldn’t have let Carrie Green go, once they’d noticed the new power she carried,” Anna continued. “I don’t care what kind of artifact she had. And the Singer in the Woods—” She felt a flash of indignation. “I feel very unhappy that every time I say ‘singer’ I will have that thing in my head. ‘Singer’ is a thing you are, Charles, a thing we do that is ours. And I love the woods. I don’t want to give that word to some creepy primordial god.”

Charles gave her a half smile. “Creepy primordial god?”

“Whatever,” she said with a wave of her hand. She got back to her original point. “That thing wants walkers. And we think that means children.”

“It would have been easy enough for a witch or two to follow Carrie back to Wild Sign,” Tag said, proving that he’d been thinking along the same lines that Anna had. “They can hide themselves pretty well from most things that aren’t werewolves.”

“Would the magic on the trail to Wild Sign have kept them out?” Anna asked.

Charles shook his head. “It’s meant to keep mundane people from wandering in. Maybe if the Singer actively wanted to keep them out, it could. But the warding on the trail was easy enough to push through. A witch could do it without much trouble. Maybe even use the wardings to find what they were hiding, the way I did.”

“How far along is she?” Anna asked. “It is late September, and whatever hit Wild Sign did it in April. That is five, five and a half months. She could be that far if the baby is small.”

“I wonder,” said Charles softly, “how many of the witches who run that rest home are pregnant. How long that garden has been alive. How long they’ve had the power to waste on covering up the stench of black magic. As a rule, not even black witches waste magic on permanent spells.”

Chills swept up Anna’s spine. That was further than she’d thought through, but it made sense. She didn’t want to go up against witches again—not when they were also going up against the Singer. Maybe it was time to call in the troops.

“So maybe the witches followed Carrie back to Wild Sign,” Tag said heavily. “When they got there, they informed the Singer that the witches of Wild Sign would never supply it with mothers for its children. A witch could tell what other witches had done to themselves—we are of the opinion that was how they broke their bargain, yes? The white witches of Wild Sign—” He frowned. “And doesn’t that sound like a line from Gilbert and Sullivan? Anyway, those white witches had kept the women of Wild Sign from becoming pregnant—and the black witches told the Singer what they had done. What if black witches brought Wild Sign down—and offered the Singer a new bargain? Power for children who would be witches and walkers both?” He paused and said in a mild tone, “It is speculation, but that scenario would account for everything we saw up there, expect maybe for the pet graveyard.”

“Cemetery,” Anna said, the echoes of a long-ago monologue by her father ringing in her ears. He was something of a pedant. “Graveyards have to be next to churches.”

“I know that,” said Tag, with feigned indignation. “If that amphitheater wasn’t Wild Sign’s church, I don’t know where they worshipped.”

“I thought that you didn’t consider the Singer to be a god,” Anna observed.

Tag licked a finger and made an imaginary score in the air. “Point to you.” He paused. “But since I think that they considered it a god, I stand by my nomenclature. No point.” He put up the same hand and made an erasing motion.

“Proving you can believe two contradictory things at the same time,” Charles observed.

“It’s a talent,” agreed Tag.

Anna went back to the original discussion. “We haven’t found anything that sounds very good for the people who lived in Wild Sign. Are we counting them dead?”

“I think that’s a safe assumption at this point,” Charles said gently. “But we knew, given the length of time between when they disappeared and when we were called in, that this was unlikely to be a rescue. Our job was to get information.”

“Which we did,” Tag agreed. “So we tidy up our loose ends, and then what?”

“Intercept Leah,” said Charles. “After we have her safe, then we’ll lay it all out for Da. I don’t expect that we are going to leave this alone. I expect we’ll be back with more firepower to clean the Singer out of these mountains for good.”