Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(44)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"Thanks," said Isaac to the fae.

Malcolm, his face tight – he had to stand directly under the taint of black magic in order to run the boat – turned the Daciana. When the direction the boy was indicating lined up with the point of the bow, Isaac said, "That’s good," and the Daciana steadied on course.

Malcolm got busy with his charts and then called out loud enough that people who were not werewolves or fae could hear him over the engine and waves, "Looks like we’re headed to Long, Georges, or Gallops Island."

"What do you think?" Isaac asked; then to the rest of them he said, "Malcolm makes his living hauling anyone who will pay him out fishing or exploring. He’s been doing it for thirty-five years and he knows the harbor as well as anyone living."

"Could be any of them, I suppose. Georges has a lot of people during the day, which would make me nervous if I was trying to keep live prisoners."

"What about Long Island?" asked Leslie. "It’s accessible by car, too, right?"

"Right." Malcolm was quiet. "Long Island has the public health facilities, and people who live and work there every day. But there are lots of places no one goes. Places for someone to hide people in, more than either Georges or Gallops. Those old hospital buildings have tunnels going from one to another. There are a few empty buildings – the old concert hall, the chapel, and a couple associated with the old hospital. Fort Strong is falling down and full of good hidey-holes. The old Alpha had me lead a couple of full-moon hunts out there. We hunted Gallops, too – ought to do some more there because there are rabbits doing a lot of damage. As long as no one notices the boats, it would be cool. We don’t have to hunt quiet there ’cause it’s been quarantined for the past decade. Gallops has old military buildings full of asbestos and there’s no money to clean it."

"Our UNSUB knows a lot about the local area," Anna noted.

"Always seemed that way to me, too," agreed Goldstein, who had gotten up and worked his way around the boat until he could get a better look at the dead boy who guided their trip. "He does that in most of his hunting grounds – uses the territory more like a native than a traveler."

Goldstein stopped and frowned up at the softly glowing boy.

"Is he a ghost?" he asked.

Anna looked at Charles and everyone else followed suit.

The witch looked at him, too, and smiled.

Charles ignored her and did his best to answer. "Not his soul; that’s gone on. She couldn’t have touched it." He believed that, believed that the only person who could destroy or taint a soul was the person whose soul it was, even though his ghosts were laughing as he spoke. You tainted us, they told him. You stole our life and tainted us.

He continued, stoically ignoring the voices of the dead. "A ghost is the little left-behind bits, collected together. Memories held in buildings or things – and here by flesh and hair."

"It’s not really the boy?" asked Leslie Fisher, and from the tone of her voice, if he said yes, she would have shot Hally without a second thought.

"No. More like a sweater that he wore and discarded," Charles told her. The red eyes, he was pretty sure, were caused by some aspect of the witch’s magic.

Leslie looked at him, and he thought that if she looked at her children that way, they would squirm. Then she nodded her head and made her way to the rear of the boat – and sat next to Beauclaire instead of the backward-facing seats behind the console that would have left her back to the witch. He didn’t blame her.

After a while, Malcolm said, "It’s not Long Island or Georges. We’re either going to Gallops or someplace along the coastline."

"It’s not the coast," said the witch, lifting her face to the night sky. "Don’t you feel it? It’s glorious. They must be amateurs to leave such a feast behind unconsumed." She smiled, and it was a terrible smile because it made her look so sweet and young – and the cause of the smile was the death of Jacob Mott and others before him.

"It is too bad that so many of us, so many witches, are afraid of water," Hally said to Charles. "Otherwise we’d have known about this a long time ago. They’ve used this more than just this season."

The Hunter had hit Boston twice, Charles remembered.

"If this were springtime, we’d have trouble accessing Gallops," said Malcolm. "As it is, there are some docks that are still usable. I’ll take us around."

"We know where we’re going," said Charles to the witch. "Release the boy."

"I thought he was just a collection of memories," she murmured. "Just an old sweater discarded when Jacob died."

Charles jumped to the top of the railing of the fishing platform and bent his knees, balancing with the sudden lurch the force of his jump had caused and then settling more comfortably as the rise and fall of the boat steadied to the ocean’s hand.

He caught the witch’s eyes and, bringing Brother Wolf and all of his power to the fore, said, "Let him go."

She obeyed before she thought, his sudden appearance and the force of his order dictating her actions. She dismissed the ghost with a flick of her power. Then her jaw dropped in outrage, and magic gathered around her.

"Don’t," said Charles before she could complete whatever mischief came to mind. "You won’t like what happens."

He hopped down beside her and picked up the little frog pot. The sickly magic residue tried to crawl onto his fingers, but flinched back from Brother Wolf’s presence at the last moment. His instinct said that whatever ties the contents of the pot had to Jacob were gone, used up – and that was good enough for him. He tossed the frog out over the side of the boat, making sure that it spun upside down and scattered its contents as it fell.

She hissed and flung something that slid off him like water. Charles shook his head.

"Do you think I would have survived this long if some hastily constructed spell could harm me?" It wasn’t a lie. He was just asking her a question. If her answer was the wrong one, it was not his fault. Half of his reputation rested on stories people told about him. He’d been lucky. He wore some protections, and being a werewolf was another kind of protection, but no one was invulnerable. The secret of being safe from magic was to make people think it was useless to attack him by that method.

Charles swung back over the platform railing and landed lightly on the deck below. He took a seat on one of the benches that served as bait containers near the bow, and his mate scooted over and sat on his lap.

Anna kissed his jawline and he felt the ghosts’ predatory rumblings. Closer, bring her closer, they said, cackling. We shall eat her and share her among us.