Owen’s face appeared in the crack. “Scarlett!” He swung the door wide. Then, to my surprise, he threw his arms around me for a moment. Almost immediately, he ducked away, embarrassed. “I’m glad you guys made it,” he mumbled. The bargest trotted over to him and inclined her head so he could scratch at her favorite spot, behind her furry ear. He obliged.
“Um, thanks,” I said, feeling a little guilty. I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but it must have been really scary for Owen, to escape the Luparii’s clutches and then watch his would-be rescuers walk right into a Luparii trap.
But now we were both obviously desperate to change the subject. “Uh, what’s going on here?” I said, looking around. The room turned out to be a surprisingly plush-looking conference space, with one of those superlong tables. Three-quarters of it was covered in papers and books, many of which looked old and kind of crumbly. Oh. This was why she’d made the joke about more information.
“Owen has been helping me with research,” Kirsten said simply.
“Where did you get all this?”
“Most of it was from my collection, but some of it came from Owen’s grandfather.” Kirsten gestured at on old-timey trunk lying open at the foot of the conference table.
“You took it from the crime scene?”
“Remember how I was helping my grandfather move?” Owen put in. “I’d already moved his trunk of Luparii stuff. I just went back over to the nursing home this morning and picked it up.”
“Smart,” I said.
Owen’s face fell a little. “Yeah, well, I think they were glad to get rid of his stuff. Make way for someone else.”
“You were saying about talking to another null?” Kirsten reminded me.
“Yeah! Rhys. He knew a little bit about the Wild Hunt spell, like the name of the stupid magical sword,” I offered. “‘Durendal.’ Don’t ask me how to spell it.”
“No need,” Kirsten said, sifting through one of the stacks. This one looked like regular computer printouts. “I’ve heard that before. Here.” She picked up a page. “Durendal was a sword of legend in France. Mostly known for belonging to Roland, one of Charlemagne’s famous knights.” She shrugged. “I haven’t seen it connected to the Wild Hunt, but there were rumors that Roland was a witch.”
“Well, according to Rhys, to run the Wild Hunt you need the sword and a magic scroll. Maybe that’s something we can use.”
“I read about a scroll,” Kirsten began, but her phone buzzed. She frowned down at the screen. “Hang on, Will is here. Let me go get him.”
When she left the room, I turned to Owen, determined to try again. I had my own shit going on, but this kid had been through a lot. “How are you holding up?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s just . . . surreal, you know?”
So far that day, I had seen two people die, made out with my best friend, and said goodbye to my brother, possibly forever. And that was just today. “Believe it or not,” I told Owen, “I kind of do.” I let a moment of silence pass before adding cautiously, “It’s good of you to help us with this.”
He focused on petting Shadow, avoiding eye contact. “The way I see it is, stopping the Luparii is the only way I get my life back. I won’t be safe until they’re dead or gone.”
There was something he wasn’t saying. “So it’s not about revenge?”
“That’s the thing.” He looked at me then, and I realized that his brown eyes were terrified. “I’m from a long line of murderers and torturers,” he said quietly. “What if I like it?”
That brought me up short, but only for a moment. “Magical specialty isn’t the same thing as destiny, kid. I know a boundary witch who could tell you all about that.”
His eyes widened, but Will and Kirsten came through the door before he could respond.
Will looked worried and haggard, wearing the same clothes as the day before. “How is Jesse’s brother?” he asked me.
I held up my phone. “Jesse just texted. The doctors are putting him in a medically induced coma until the swelling goes down. They won’t know anything else for a bit.” I looked at Kirsten. “Is Hayne coming?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He’s staying with Ophelia,” she said shortly. “This is it until Dashiell wakes up for the night.”
“Okay.” I couldn’t exactly blame her for wanting her husband to protect her kid. Besides, if what Rhys told me was true, they’d be safer together—away from anything supernatural.
“Tell Will what you told us,” Kirsten instructed me.
“Right. I called my null friend in Scotland,” I began, and this time I walked them through the whole conversation.
Will looked surprised. “Hang on,” he said. “You’re telling me the world’s most powerful witch magic has been locked up for the last fifty years in an attic in Long Beach?”
“That’s what I said,” I exclaimed.
“Has the spell always been with the Luparii?” Will asked. “I mean, they didn’t actually invent it, did they?”
Owen and Kirsten shook their heads. “I’ve been speaking with my aunt about the scroll Owen mentioned,” Kirsten said. “It’s fallen into the hands of any number of people over the centuries—it was even in Sweden at one point—which is partly why the spell is called different things in different countries.”
Owen looked through a stack of notes and pulled out the one he wanted. “In Germany it was the Furious Host, in England it was Woden’s Hunt, Mesnée d’Hellequin in France, and so on.”
“We think,” Kirsten added, looking at Will, “the Luparii got ahold of the scroll shortly after Charlemagne asked them to kill werewolves. The Wild Hunt may have been how the Luparii originally cleared Europe. They used it to kill werewolves for around three hundred years.
“Then, in the early twentieth century, one of the Luparii witches decided that the Wild Hunt magic was too powerful and destructive, and they hid it away,” she went on. “I can’t find any evidence of it having been used since then.”
“So how did your grandfather find it?” Will asked Owen, reasonably.
Owen puffed his cheeks full of air, then blew it out. “He . . . okay, well, during World War II, a bunch of the Luparii men signed up to fight for the Nazis—”
“Of course they did,” I muttered.
“And as they traveled around Europe, they kept finding signs of werewolves. They were pissed. When the war ended, all any of them could think about was how to cleanse Europe of the werewolves again.”
Owen was fidgeting, and I realized he’d skipped this part of the story earlier, when he’d talked to Jesse and me. Or maybe we just hadn’t had enough time for him to get to it. We had kind of rushed off to save Noah. “Just tell us,” I commanded.
“You asked me why I never bugged my grandpa about the scroll,” Owen said in a rush. “It’s because he was so obviously ashamed of belonging to a family that had willingly joined up with the Nazis. His own father—my great-grandfather, I guess—was a soldier. My grandpa was still a kid when his dad got back, maybe thirteen or fourteen, but he was really smart. Grandpa wanted to impress his dad, this badass soldier, so he threw himself into research. And he found the scroll. It had been hidden in some German library for almost forty years.”
Kirsten rested a hand lightly on Owen’s shoulder, which surprised me for a second. But then again, Kirsten’s whole job was taking care of wayward witches. I felt a little spark of hope. Maybe if we all survived this, Owen could actually join her group, if that was what he wanted.
The touch seemed to give Owen courage. “Grandpa didn’t tell me what the spell was about, but he did say he showed it to Werner—that was his father’s name. Werner was super happy. He told Grandpa how proud he was.
“But then, later, Grandpa overheard the Luparii discussing what they were going to do with the spell, and he realized what a terrible mistake he’d made. That night, he stole the scroll and ran, all the way to Los Angeles, where no one would ever think to look for him.”