Dead Letter Day (34 page)

“Who here can?” I demanded. Everyone was putting themselves at risk here. It wouldn’t be just me. We were all putting it on the line for Paul, just like he’d always put it on the line for us.

“Most of us,” Chuck said, glancing over at me. “Look. We know what happens if a human gets bitten. We watched
it with Hollinger. The effects of werewolf blood or saliva wear off eventually. It won’t be pretty, but we know how to deal with it.”

I started to respond, but he held up his hand.

“We haven’t seen what happens when a werewolf gets bitten by a Ulfhednar, but it can’t be worse than being bitten by another werewolf and frankly that happens all the damn time. There’s way too much roughhousing in the Pack sometimes. It’s like dealing with an entire herd of teenage boys.” Again, he held up his hand before I could say anything.

“What we don’t know is what this virus would do to an unborn child. We’re not risking it. There’s no reason to. Please don’t argue with me, Melina. You know what I’m saying is true. You know it’s right. For once, don’t be contrary just for the sake of being oppositional.”

I started to open my mouth again, but this time, I shut it myself. He was right. There was no way around it. It wasn’t a risk worth taking. I slumped back in my seat.

Ted put his hand on my shoulder, but wisely didn’t say anything. We rode the rest of the way in silence.

Chuck pulled the wagon up to a place that really didn’t look like anything but the rest of the woods around it. There wasn’t a clearing or a special stump or a ribbon tied around a tree. “Here?” I asked.

“About a half a mile in.”

Ted got out of the car and stretched. “How can you tell?”

Chuck waved his hand. “You get to know a place when you live there for a few decades. Trust me on that.”

Ted shook his head. “I’ll have to. I don’t think I’ve ever lived in one town for more than three years.”

Chuck shuddered.

Within the next five minutes two more carloads of werewolves in human form, Sam among them, arrived. More than
a few snarled at me, earning them some low growls from Chuck. I guess being right about something didn’t make you popular. Shame, that. Sam avoided my eyes and kept a healthy distance between us. I wasn’t sure if it was anger or a cover. I didn’t care. I was getting what I wanted. We were rescuing Paul.

“We’ll walk in. We’d cover ground faster as wolves, but the tunnel will be easier to navigate in human form and I don’t want any of us weakened by changing in and out too fast.” A change could take a lot out of a werewolf. He was right. They were going to be a far superior force, but there was no reason to take any chances.

“I’ll be here,” I said as they started to march in, Ted among them. “I’ve got Sudoku on my phone. Don’t worry about me.”

No one laughed. I checked the time as they walked in. Four twenty-five. I’d give them one full hour before I came after them.

I did not do a Sudoku. I couldn’t focus on the little numbers. I couldn’t stay inside the car. I paced for a little while, but there really wasn’t a lot of space to do it. Finally, I found a rock to sit on and sat and listened. At the very least, I would hear them coming. It was the best I could do.

There wasn’t anything. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There were insects and birds and some squirrels, but they were just insects and birds and squirrels. They weren’t even Arcane insects, birds or squirrels.

I put my hand on my stomach and felt my little peapod swimming lazy circles inside me and I let my heart ache for a moment for Inge. She had done this three times, but had only two sons left. No wonder she was willing to go to any length to protect her children. Her pain must have been unimaginable.

That’s where I was when the two giant crows swooped over my head in the direction that Ted and Chuck and the
rest of them had gone. Crap. Huginn and Muninn. I was pretty sure that meant Inge had reinforcements on the way. I texted Ted’s cell phone to warn them and heard it buzz inside the car. Damn it. I tried Chuck’s and heard it in the car, too. They must have all left their phones here.

If I wanted to warn them or help them in any way, I was going to have to find them. I stood and headed into the woods.

IT WASN’T TOO DIFFICULT TO TRACK WHERE THE WOLVES and Ted had gone through the woods. That large a group leaves a fairly large collective footprint. What I didn’t want to do was go in the same way they had, though. If Huginn and Muninn had already alerted Inge and brought in the cavalry, I needed to find the front entrance and surprise them there. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure where that was. I figured I would see where Ted and Chuck had gone and find my way around to the front entrance from there.

I don’t exactly move on feathered feet, but I can be pretty quiet when I need to be. I slipped along disturbing as little as I could without giving up speed. I could not—would not—be too late.

Meanwhile, I listened. I was perhaps a quarter mile in when I started to hear the commotion. The snarling of wolves. The beating of hooves. I heard a hoarse scream and found myself repeating “Please don’t let it be Ted” over and over again. I know it was selfish, but I’ve never pretended to be anything else.

I slowed as I got closer so I could get a look at what was going on. I hardly needed to worry about staying behind the trees. No one would have noticed me unless I sprang into the middle of the melee.

Ted was at the back of the pack and I let out a sigh of relief,
although he was far from out of danger. At least he wasn’t up front where a ridiculously tall woman with blonde hair dressed in gray was warding off wolves with a staff. It had to be Syn, another one of Frigga’s handmaidens. She was charged with protecting thresholds. In the middle of everything, Gna, yet another handmaiden, rode a huge horse with nine hooves, striking out and leaving wolves wounded. Still, it was clear which way the tide was turning. There were simply too many wolves, no matter how many hooves that damn horse had. What was wrong with a basic four anyways?

I took one last look at Ted, sent a prayer for his protection up to I don’t know who and started making my way around what was left of the structure.

I heard something, something big and moving fast in the woods. It was more than one. I reached my senses out toward the ones moving toward me and instantly recoiled. Not wolves. Not Paul. Ulfhednar. Inge was headed this way with her two sons. They were not alone either.

I cast around looking for a good vantage point. Clambering up a tree was an option. I climb well, even now with things starting to feel a little out of kilter, I was sure I could scamper up the big pine tree to my right. Then again, I was guessing Inge’s sons could, too, and it was altogether too easy to run out of up. Then where would I be? At the top of the tree, either trying to fight or having to jump. Not good.

They were getting closer, covering ground quickly and not caring how many branches they broke on their way. They weren’t worried about leaving a trail and being followed, that was for sure.

I scanned the area once more. I could get on top of one of the nearby rocks. I like high ground when I’m fighting, but it felt too exposed. I could be too easily surrounded and too easily knocked off balance these days. I know I’d only
gained a pound or two and the shift in my center of gravity wasn’t huge, but while I don’t like to toot my own horn too much, I am a finely honed fighting machine. Those differences would have an impact and I wouldn’t know how to adjust until I was already in the middle of the fight and that might be too late.

Speaking of too late, they were nearly here. I cracked my neck, bounced on my knees a few times and turned to face where I was pretty sure they would emerge from the trees.

That’s precisely what they did about three minutes later.

Inge skidded to a stop in front of me. “You,” she said, her intonation making it very clear what she thought about me.

“Hey, Inge, I’m sort of surprised to see you here, too. I think my friends were planning on meeting you inside.” I kept my tone pleasant, but my knees loose.

“Your friends are easily distracted,” she said, giving me a tight smile. Erik and Sven moved to either side of their mother. It softened me for a second. They were good boys. They wanted to protect her. They were also, at the moment, sort of monstrous.

“Generally, not really, once they’re on the hunt.” It was hard to shake a werewolf loose once he was on to you.

She snorted. “Werewolves. Drip a little blood around and they go kind of crazy, don’t they? Especially if it’s werewolf blood.”

I cringed. “Paul’s blood?” I asked, unable to stop myself. I shouldn’t show weakness, and the tenderness I felt for Paul was definitely a weakness right now, but there it was. Stupid pregnancy hormones. Putting my heart on my sleeve.

She cocked her head to one side. “That would be the werewolf whose blood I have the easiest access to at the moment. Yes.”

“So he’s still alive?” I asked, relief flooding through me
at the idea. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t be able to heal from. As long as he wasn’t actually dead, he would be okay.

She shrugged. I couldn’t tell if that meant it didn’t matter to her or if she wasn’t sure. “I’m going to need you to get out of our way, Melina.”

I shook my head and swallowed hard. “I don’t think I can do that, Inge. I think we need to stay right here until my friends find us.”

She laughed. Not one of those crazy maniac laughs either. More like the way my mother would laugh when I asked her if I could do something like go to a concert in San Francisco and drive myself, as if what I’d said was actually funny. “Sorry, dear, but you need to get out of the way before you get hurt.”

I shook my head again. “No can do, Inge. You and your boys are going to have to go through me to get out of here.” I swallowed hard and hoped they couldn’t smell the fear. I did not want to fight those two boys.

Even a truly excellent fighter—and I am damn good, mind you—rarely gets out of a tough fight without the other guy getting in a few licks. In fact, letting the opponent think he’s scored on you a bit is a great tactic. It makes him let his guard down. I’ve used it dozens of time. People underestimating me is one of the things that have kept me alive and well for this long.

This time, though, a scratch or a bite from Inge’s Tweedle-Wolf and Tweedle-Wolfier could give me a lot more than a gash that might take some time to heal. This time it could turn me into a raving lunatic for a few weeks and no one knew what it could do to the little peanut swimming blissfully in its ignorance inside me.

I was still going to have to try, or at least to stall them until Ted and Chuck and the rest of them got through and rescued Paul. I strained my ears to see if I could hear anything and got
nothing more than battle noises, but I couldn’t tell what was happening. I couldn’t afford to be distracted now either. I was going to have to focus on the fight in front of me and not on the rescue that might be coming through the woods soon.

“That would be a shame, dear. I’m sure you don’t mean that.” Inge smiled at me. “Kevin tells me that you’re pregnant.”

“Yep. Got a bun in the oven,” I said, watching her sons. Generally, I like to keep a watch on my opponent’s eyes during a fight. This was a little trickier when there were two sets. One was definitely the bigger of the two and looked older. Did that make him the leader? If so, I could just watch his eyes. It is amazing what most people telegraph with their line of sight before they take a swing.

On the other hand, just bigger and older didn’t necessarily make you the leader in a fight. Sven was wiry and I bet he could use that to his advantage.

“Then I think you should back away slowly and let us through. You wouldn’t want to do anything to harm the baby, would you?” Her voice had more than a touch of steel to it now.

I gave her a touch of steel right back. “No. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to let you go either. I wouldn’t wish your kind of trouble on anybody else’s child.”

“What kind of mother would risk her own child in a fight like this one?” Inge shook her head.

“You are. You’re risking both your boys,” I pointed out.

She laughed again. “Have you seen my boys fight? You’ll be in ribbons in a matter of minutes.”

I laughed, too. “You haven’t seen me fight yet.”

“Au contraire. I saw you finish off Gefion’s cattle.”

I shrugged. “Wasn’t nothing, ma’am.”

“No. It wasn’t. You’ll need a lot more skill than that to beat my boys back.” She took a step toward me and both boys followed her lead.

I realized then that it was her eyes that needed following. I wasn’t sure how she was communicating with her sons, but she was and she was definitely in charge. I focused back in on her. I bounced a little on the balls of my feet, keeping my knees loose. They were fast. I knew that. I’d have to be ready. I didn’t like how they were closing the gap between us either. The shorter the span separating us, the less time I would have to react. I’ve got great reflexes, but it was two against one. “That’s close enough, guys. Why don’t you wait right where you are for now?” I tried to sound cheery. It’s not my natural state, so it was a stretch.