“Maggie?”
Charles closed his eyes, too. When he opened them, Joseph was looking at him.
“Thought so,” he said. “Will see her soon. She’d be happy to die for our girl.” A half smile crooked his lips. “I hear she’ll be fine.”
“Good lungs,” acknowledged Charles. Mackie was still screaming.
“Better’n mine,” agreed Joseph with a smile. “Give knife to Max.”
“I will,” Charles said.
“Show him. Show.”
“I’ll show him how to use it. As I showed you.”
Joseph nodded. “Good. That’s good.” He took another painful breath and then grinned. “It was fun to be … to be me again.”
Charles sat beside him, holding Joseph with his eyes while his ears told him that Hosteen and a whole slew of other people were accumulating in the arena. Mackie quit screaming. Kage sat on Joseph’s other side. Joseph couldn’t talk anymore, but he held out his hand and Kage took it.
Charles had known this moment would come, ever since he’d understood that Joseph had no intention of becoming a werewolf like his father. Every moment spent in his company had been a moment closer to this. Had it been worth it in the face of Joseph’s death?
He thought of all the experiences they’d shared. He felt the huge hole that Joseph’s death was carving in his spirit, a hole that was even now filling with pain. Had it been worth it?
“I am so grateful to have had you as my friend,” he told Joseph. He would not have given up any of those times to avoid this pain of separation, let alone all of them. Yes, it had been worth it.
Eventually the arena got quieter. Max came and said good-bye. Kage got up, put an arm around his son, and left. Hosteen sat down in his place. Anna came and sat close to him.
Joseph tried to say something to Hosteen, but he didn’t have the voice. The hand that Charles held was very cold.
Hosteen said, “I love you. I will miss you. I am so proud to have been your father—and prouder to have been your friend. You have enriched the world with your spirit, my son. Don’t be afraid to let go.” He kissed his son’s forehead, and then, like Charles, settled in to wait.
Night fell.
Joseph took one breath. Let it out. And then he took no more. Charles opened his mouth and let Brother Wolf howl his grief.
CHAPTER
15
There was no funeral. Charles and Anna loaded the dead fae into the trunk of Ms. Edison’s car and tucked the dead fae’s head into a box and put it in the backseat. They drove it to the day care parking lot, locked it, and drove away. Then they called Leslie and told her where to find it.
She wasn’t happy with them, but she called back after they’d retrieved the body. “Better you than us,” she said. “That body is going to keep Leeds happy for the next five years.”
“Better him than me,” Anna told her.
“Be well,” Leslie said.
“You, too,” Anna told her. “Give your husband a hug from me. I expect we’ll see each other again. Charles thinks that there will be worse to come.”
“Cheerful, isn’t he?” Leslie said grimly. “I expect that you both are right. However, I, for one, intend to celebrate this victory. There may be all sorts of horrible fae in our future, but this fae isn’t going to be killing any more children.”
They stayed a few days more. There was no funeral, but the family mourned and they were willing to share their grief with Charles. It seemed to help him, but he was more uncommunicative than usual, so Anna couldn’t be sure. Anna baked, babysat, and did anything she could to make things easier for the rest.
Bran came and he brought Moira the witch and her werewolf Tom. Moira came to help Chelsea and to make sure Amethyst was free of the fae’s magic. Anna was pretty sure that Tom came because no one wanted to tell him to stay home, not even Bran. Anna and Charles flew back to Montana ten days after they’d left.
Katie Jamison surveyed the ruin of her house ruefully. If she hadn’t been drunk, would she have had the brains to tell the FBI special agent and her friends the werewolves to go to hell? And if she had, would they have listened and spared her the headache of dealing with more construction in her house?
But they’d found that fae, the one who’d been killing children. She’d seen it in the news. And she’d seen a werewolf in his—and her—natural state. Too bad those photos hadn’t turned out. Magic could be odd that way, her garden fae told her.
So she didn’t have photos of the big wolf running amok in her living room, the ones she’d taken without permission. But the photos of the black wolf in her garden were lovely. Not as interesting as the ferocious and angry werewolf had been, but beautiful.
The cleaners had come and gone. Her favorite contractor had called this morning to tell her he was sending a guy down to replace her front window today. “And this time,” he’d told her dryly, “don’t marry him.”
Yes, well, she admitted to herself. That had been a mistake—and she admitted it. But he’d been so pretty.
This one was pretty, too. His smile was warm—and his muscles were hard. He didn’t have a ring on his left hand. She admired that hand, thinking about what it would feel like to have it touch her skin. He was awfully young for her.
“Are you married?” she asked.
He smiled. “I was. She took off with the bank account, my best friend, and my dog. I sure do miss that dog.”
Too young, she thought, watching him work.
“Hey,” she said. “Would you like some lemonade? It’s fresh-squeezed from lemons I grow in my garden.”
“That sounds really good,” he said, and she noticed he had dimples.
Maybe not too young, she decided. Then she went to pour him some lemonade.
Trent Carter hung up the phone and thought seriously of getting into his car and driving off a cliff. But that would leave his daughter alone. Five years old was too young to be alone.
“Daddy?”
He loved his daughter with all of his heart. She was the only thing he had left of her mother. But he didn’t know how to save her. Didn’t really know how to save himself.
“You look sad,” she said.
Sometimes, like now, she acted like a normal kid. She’d play with her toys and dress her dolls and invite him to make-believe tea parties.
Last night her babysitter had called him and told him that she could no longer watch Iris. “She was torturing our kitten,” she said. “Pulling out her whiskers with tweezers. I can’t do this anymore. I am sorry. You need to get her into therapy.”
He didn’t argue, didn’t tell her that he already had her in therapy. That hadn’t worked with the last babysitter. It probably wouldn’t work with this one, either.
He’d called in to work today and told them he had to stay home because he didn’t have anyone to take care of Iris. His boss had just called to let him know he didn’t need to come back to work at all except to collect his things. That was his second job in six months.
“Daddy?”
“No worries, sweetheart,” he told her. “I’m just not feeling good today.”
“How about I get Mr. Blanket and we’ll watch some TV until you feel better?” she asked.
Someone rang the doorbell. “You do that. I’ll see who is at the door and then we can watch some cartoons.”
He opened the door without checking through the spyhole. On his doorstep was a very average man so nondescript that he ought to work for the CIA. The woman was small and curvy, with black hair and wraparound sunglasses so dark he couldn’t see her eyes behind them. There was an unfamiliar car—a black Mercedes—parked just outside his building. A scar-faced man who looked dangerous was leaning against the fender of the car.
Maybe this was the CIA. He thought back, a little anxiously, to his interview with the Cantrip agents. Had he said something wrong?
He’d kind of expected to be visited by Child Protective Services—it would be his third visit. Somehow the bruises always were gone before CPS came. Both her bruises and his.
“Mr. Carter,” said the man, holding out his hand. “I’m Bran Cornick. We were in town on some related business. It was suggested to me that we should stop in to help you with your problem while we were here.”