Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(99)

“Here,” Anna said. And Leah was able to let her daughter-in-law help her, because Anna didn’t make her feel any uncomfortable or hurtful things.

They stopped when Bran quit walking. Then they all turned to look back at the lake and the cross on top of the hill.

Bran looked at Charles.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Charles said. “There’s no reason for it to work again.”

But when Bran didn’t say anything, Charles grunted. Then he raised a hand to the sky and said, in a quiet voice but one that carried power that reminded Leah of the scent of the Singer’s magic, “Now.”

Lightning struck the blade of the sword. And after that, it seemed to Leah as if nothing happened quite as it should have.

The strike should have blown the metal to pieces, she thought. Then she remembered who had built that sword.

Lightning should be instantaneous. A crack and then gone. But the blinding light lingered, emitting a buzzing sound that made the bones of her skull vibrate. She had to look away from the brilliance. Only then the thunder rolled and the ground grew so electric that it bit at Leah’s bare feet.

When the sound was gone, the forest was darker, and it felt so very quiet after the endless thunder that even the wind whistling through the trees seemed like a whisper. Leah looked toward the lake and saw the sword slowly falling over in the ashes that were all that was left of the Singer. And her son.

Leah managed to control her fall so that she simply sat where she’d been standing. But that didn’t work the way she’d expected, either. Because she kept falling until her wet cheek was pressed into the slime-covered mud, and her eyes closed.

She might have fought to stay conscious, but she thought it might be nice, just for a little bit, to quit hurting.



* * *



*

SHERWOOD POST SAT up in his bed and remembered his name.





CHAPTER





14


Da slipped off the light waterproof jacket he’d been wearing and covered Leah’s limp body with it. He scooped her out of the mud and stood up, hesitating for a moment as if contemplating what to do next. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for a week—though nowhere near as worn down as Leah was.

“You take Tag and her back home,” Charles suggested as Brother Wolf shut down the hunting song, because it didn’t appear that his da was going to do that, and it wasn’t doing it on its own. Tag was out of danger; the pack bonds were sufficient to keep him on this side of death now. Da gave Charles a sharp look, but didn’t interrupt when Charles kept talking. “Anna and I can clean up the leftover mess here. It might take us a couple of days. More if you want Anna and me to deal with the storage unit.”

Da shook his head. “I can’t spare you. I’ll get the pack in Bend to send down a team to clear it out. Do you want everything sent home?”

Charles nodded. “Yes.”

“I will make it so,” Da said. He looked at the sword.

Anna strode over and picked it up gingerly. It had been buried in ash and slime. She did the best she could to clean it off in a clump of wet grass, but the results were mixed. It had been scorched and blackened when they’d found it in Jonesy’s body. It had been hit by lightning twice today—and it still looked scorched and blackened, now with an added coat of slime and ash. Anna used the bottom of her shirt to clean off the cool blue cabochon stone in the pommel. It looked odd in the framework of the filthy sword, but it seemed to satisfy her.

When she reached them, they all started hiking toward Wild Sign, where the helicopter waited. Charles picked Tag up along the way. Like Leah, Tag was skin and bones—healing that much damage took energy. They walked the whole way in silence; Charles figured that his da had a lot to think about. Anna was just exhausted.

There were blankets at the helicopter as well as water and some emergency high-protein bars. They roused both Leah and Tag enough to eat and drink. Charles helped the pilot get Tag wrapped in a blanket and strapped in. Da did the same for Leah, who batted at his hands like a very tired toddler.

He gathered her bloodstained hands in his and said, “Stop.”

She let him buckle her in then, but she didn’t look at him.

A week ago, Charles would never have imagined himself feeling protective of his stepmother.

She saved us all, at great personal cost, Brother Wolf said.

“Do you mind if we keep the sword and bring it back when we’re finished?” Anna asked. “I want Charles to look at the . . . the people of Wild Sign.”

“You found them alive?” Da’s eyes widened in surprise.

“I don’t know,” Anna said; she sounded every bit as tired as she looked. Charles had managed to get a couple of protein bars down her, too. “They smelled dead, looked like mummies—and they were breathing.”

Da’s eyebrows shot up.

“I just . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“I’ll go with you to check things out,” Charles said. The caves would need to be cleaned out in any case. He didn’t want to be explaining bodies found on Leah’s land to some law officer fifty years in the future. That would be a task for later. And if it had been up to him, he would get a good night’s sleep and return. It might come to that, depending upon what they found. But it wouldn’t hurt to look at things now. To his da he said, “If Leah . . . if you need a rundown on today’s events, we can talk later.”