“Seduce the women,” she said, her accent a flawless copy of Asil’s. “It is the women who run everything, anyway. If a man’s wife says, ‘do this’ he does. Simple. If you want a government to do thus and such, get their wives and mistresses on board.”
It sounded like a quote. Charles gave Asil an interested look.
“I was teaching Kara about your Revolutionary War,” Asil said with dignity.
Sage grinned—she was a beautiful woman, but her grin transformed her face. Made her less beautiful and more approachable. “Or how Benjamin Franklin’s skill between the sheets managed to win the war.”
“Which is true,” said Asil.
“True-ish,” admonished Sage. “And, in current times, incredibly sexist. A lot of the people in power are women. What are you going to do, seduce their husbands?”
Asil smiled slowly, his eyes bright. “Want to watch?”
“Getting back to your question, children,” said Charles, deliberately using the word Asil liked so much, “assuming we can put world domination, sexual politics of the seventeenth century, and flirting aside for the moment, I don’t think this is a government operation. Too much money in some areas and not enough in others. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some glory hound watching for a chance to change the game. I don’t want to give anyone something they can hold over us.”
He dumped his overfull backpack on the bed of the nearest convenient truck, and Anna did the same with hers. Laid out in the open, it made an interesting pile in several ways.
Tag pursed his lips. “Helicopter. Trained men and werewolves. Twenty thousand dollars of equipment. You’re right: too much money to be casual but not enough for official government.”
Anna sorted out the tech by nose until she had three piles. “Tech guy the first,” she said, pointing at one pile. “Tech girl” was the second pile. “Tech guy the second” was the third pile. “Just guessing, but from the wear and tear and the scent of tech gurus, this was set up in three waves.”
Tag nodded his agreement. “That first group was out here last fall—you can see the effects of winter—maybe eight months ago. The second was put out this spring. The third batch looks new. Two weeks, maybe a month. Each set of equipment is topflight, bleeding-edge stuff. I was off by maybe ten thousand on the cost.” He tapped his finger on the first group. “Prices on this have gone down since last winter. Someone spent thirty grand on tech to keep watch on Hester and Jonesy—who mostly didn’t do anything interesting.”
“I bet they wanted to know what they were going to be dealing with,” Sage said thoughtfully. “I mean, they came here specifically for Hester—that damned cage was meant to hold a werewolf. Maybe they were being careful, trying to make sure they knew what they were getting into.”
Tag grinned suddenly, showing his teeth. “Jonesy. I didn’t catch it until it was all laid out.” He looked at Charles. “Do you see the pattern?”
He did.
“Jonesy found all of the tech when it went up—probably right away,” Charles said, thinking of the forest spirits. The fae probably had some other name for them, interacted with them in some other fashion than Charles did, but they had been much too in tune with Jonesy and with his death for them not to have had some kind of contact with him. “The oldest set were simply disabled, the power destroyed with a surgical blow.”
“Zap,” said Tag, popping his lips.
“The second bunch were damaged a little more severely,” Charles said.
“Double-zap,” said Tag.
“That is not a technical term, I hope,” murmured Asil.
“Only the most technically advanced people can use ‘double-zap’ correctly,” Anna told Asil sotto voce. “You and I shouldn’t try it.”
“By the third wave,” Tag said, “Jonesy was insulted. He was a chess player—and these idiots had used the same gambit three times in a row and expected different results. Thus this third wave of tech is not just zap or double-zap but truly borked.”
“So why didn’t he tell Hester about them?” Anna asked. “Or did he? Did she know they were being watched? Why didn’t she tell Bran?”
Somberly, Sage said, “The only people who know the answer to that are dead.”
Charles found himself considering that last question. Tag said Hester was faking her troubles so that she could protect Jonesy. He said, and Charles agreed with him, that probably Bran had known that.
So why hadn’t she called his father about the planes that had been flying over them? Had she known they had people trying to spy on them?
But as Sage said, the only people who knew that were dead. Unless, he thought, Hester had called his da. He considered that for a moment—and decided that, while certainly possible, the idea that his da had known about someone’s flying over Hester’s cabin and not alerted the pack carried some uncomfortable possibilities with it.
• • •
THE GROUND AROUND the wooden building was raw where the backhoe Tag brought up had done its work. After careful consideration, the chain saws that had cut the ATVs free had been employed again to cut down a tree that stood midway between the house and the rest of the forest. Better to lose one centuries-old tree than thousands of them.
They laid Hester on the bed next to the remains of her mate. The room was too small to hold the pack, so they entered the cabin in twos and threes while the wind played background music, with the trees as its instrument.
Charles let Leah and Anna sort the shuffle of pack and sought out Asil, who stood a little distance from all the hustle.
“Fire,” Charles said, “may be a purifying force. But it is not one of the usual methods of destroying fae magic.”
Asil made a considering noise. “Do you think there are fae artifacts in that cabin?”
“I didn’t feel anything when Anna and I were in there earlier,” he told the old Moor honestly. “But according to Tag and to Brother Wolf’s independent assessment, Jonesy was a power. I think he could hide his toys well enough that they would not attract my casual attention.
Asil said nothing for a moment. “You think I could find them?”
Charles chose his words carefully because flattery was not something he did. Anna had (often) suggested it as a good way to get cooperation from Asil—and pointed out that the most effective flattery had only truth.
Charles decided that now was as good a time as ever to test out her advice.
“I think that any wolf who has survived as long as you have has at least as much a nose for fae magic as I do. I would appreciate it if you would come down there with me and help look. I’ve asked Anna and Tag to keep the crowd occupied with stories about Hester while we go in.”
The Moor snorted. “You just want help searching the field for land mines and are looking for cannon fodder.”
But despite his words, he came with Charles and slipped into the cabin with him under the guise of paying last respects. It shouldn’t take them too long, Charles thought. Tag could tell stories all night, though, so they had time.
They began in the basement.
Asil paused beside the bed and touched the surface of the blanket between the remains that had been people just this morning. Then he raised both hands, palms flat, and said, “ Allāhu akbar.”
Charles, recognizing the sacred when he heard it, in whatever language or religion, fell still, folding his arms and saying his own prayer, as Asil folded his hands in front of his chest.
Asil’s prayer was soft for the most part, punctuated by several calls of “ Allāhu akbar.” When he was finished, the Moor touched his hand to Hester’s hip, and said, “Good-bye, formidable lady.”
“I thought that the funeral prayer was only for Muslim people,” said Charles.
Asil’s face lit with a smile that he was using to hide some emotion he didn’t want Charles to see. “But I am a very bad Muslim—and Hester was old. One believes many things in a very long life. Who knows if she was not Muslim in her heart of hearts?”
“You knew her?” Charles asked.
Asil shrugged. “I knew of her—the stubborn woman who would belong to no pack. She killed a dozen wolves—some of them Alphas—before they let her alone. I did not meet her. Bran said that she and her mate wished to be isolated, or I would have paid my respects. It saddens my heart when the great ones die. This world is the less for her passing.”