"I know a few ways to stymie fae magic," said the witch without pausing in whatever she was doing to the granite stone. "The Irish and German witches are well-known for their ability to disrupt your kind of power, one way or another, and Caitlin told me that this guy got his rune spell from an Irish witch. There's a dozen ways to make charms that I know, some more effective than others."
Beauclaire looked at her, face taut with hope. "There are," he said. "There are indeed."
Isaac started stripping off his clothes and so did Anna. Charles moved until he stood between them in answer to a small fit of territoriality and unfounded jealousy. Brother Wolf was feeling possessive tonight.
Not bothering to take off his jeans, he began his change. It was harder this time because he'd been changing a lot today, and the last time he'd pushed for speed. His shift was slower and it hurt more, leaving him with the dull ache in his bones that told him he would pay for the next change back to human. If he could, he'd wait until they got back to their condo before attempting it.
He still managed the full change before the others and was shaking the tingles and cramps out of his muscles when Isaac staggered to his feet, a wolf of medium height and a gold coat that reminded Charles of Bran's mate, Leah. Anna was still changing.
Charles left the others to recover and started to explore the ground with his nose. Like the FBI agents, he concentrated his efforts along the edge of the clearing. He found nothing on his first pass or his second and was starting a third - Beauclaire pacing attentively by his side, a hand on the long knife he wore in a sheath on his belt, a knife Charles didn't remember seeing on the boat - when Anna called him over with a couple of demanding yips.
He took his time, casting around where Anna stood, but he scented nothing, not even the ubiquitous rabbits and mice. She whined at him when he lifted his head and he tried again. The second time he lifted his head, she yipped and started trailing something he couldn't smell.
Frustrated at his inability to perceive what she had, doubly frustrated because if he hadn't messed up their bond somehow, she could have told him what she found, Charles stalked after her with Isaac and Beauclaire following. Probably because he was so annoyed, it took him about fifteen feet to figure it out.
Nothing. He smelled nothing.
As if something that disguised scent had trailed by here many times, he smelled absolutely nothing. His mate was very smart. He touched his nose to hers to let her know he understood. She smiled at him, her tongue lolling happily between sharp white fangs.
"Wait," said the witch.
Charles stopped and looked at her.
"Isaac said that you won't be able to see or hear this fae you are chasing."
Charles gave Isaac a dark look. He'd told Isaac what they were hunting when he'd called him for help tonight. That information had not been for general distribution, and the Alpha wolf had known it.
"Peace," the witch said. "Isaac only told me because I was putting myself at risk in coming here, and he knows that I do not talk. This fae has been eating the essences of the people who died here, and that Isaac did not need to tell me. I talked to Caitlin about the nature of the magic they were using. So. I can give you some of that power and it will recognize the fae - sympathetic magic, wolf, like to like. There is enough to give it to only one of you."
Charles flattened his ears at Isaac when that wolf would have stepped up. If there was a risk, it was for Charles to take - of them all he was the one with the best chance of taking on the enemy.
He trotted over to the witch and waited for a lot of smoke and dramatic gestures and dancing. Instead she simply bent until her face was level with his and blew on him.
He coughed and then choked and gagged at the smell. It hurt, too. Like getting stung by a thousand bees at once or leaping from a car onto asphalt that shredded the skin off of him - both of which he'd done before. But that wasn't the worst of it. It felt like used motor oil had been poured over his body and clung there, smelly and greasy.
Brother Wolf growled and hung his head low, his ears pinned. Isaac whined and took a step forward, as if he might try to get between Charles and the witch. The ghosts inside of him began howling and laughing. Then Anna brushed up against Charles, silencing the voices inside with a radiant peace, the gift of the Omega, that let him regain control.
Only then did the witch move. She stood up and dusted her hands briskly. "My apologies. I didn't know that it would affect you so adversely. It will stay on you until dawn dispels it - and likely it will only be enough for a quick warning, so pay attention."
Calmer now, if not more comfortable, Charles nodded his thanks - it was not her fault that it hurt, or that it made him long to go jump in the ocean to clean the oily filth of it off his fur. Or that she gave him orders, because Isaac hadn't taught her any better. The spell, if it worked as she said it would, allowed them a chance if they ran into the fae. For that, he could forgive her a great deal.
Hally the witch stood before him unafraid - and so fragile in her humanity.
She could not help being a witch any more than he could help being a werewolf. Both of them born to their otherness. Isaac was right that most white witches died while still very young, unable to defend themselves from their blood-magic-using kin. She had, within the limits of what she was, been very helpful - and he would remember it.
THE WOLVES AND the fae left the others behind to the dubious safety of the little clearing, and the guardianship of Malcolm and the witch.
Charles let the other wolves take the lead, as his nose was not at its best under the burden of the spell the witch had used. They traveled slowly because it was more difficult to follow no scent than it was to trail any given odor.
Isaac picked up on what they were doing after a few hundred feet and his nose was better than Anna's, but Anna caught him once when he'd taken a false trail. Eventually their noses led them to a door rough-set in cement that seemed to be attached to the side of the hill. Charles ran uphill to the top of the cement where it was capped by a crude roof, about two feet by three feet. A possible entrance or exit if they needed it, he thought, but better if they went through the door.
The door, when he ran back down to study it, looked as if it had been purchased used and rehung on new hinges. It was locked with a steel bolt lock latch. Steel wasn't as damaging to fae, he'd been told, as iron, but it would still resist any magic Beauclaire could bring to bear.
The fae had evidently had the same thought. He stood up from where he'd been scrounging in the bushes with a big hunk of stone in one hand. He muttered a few words until the stone glowed mud green and then chucked it at the door. It hit with a bang more reminiscent of a grenade than a rock and shattered into dust, leaving a good-sized dent in the door. Neither the lock nor the latch survived the encounter. The doorknob was aluminum and didn't seem to give Beauclaire any trouble opening it.