Page 56 of Spirit Dances

Billy elbowed me and nodded toward the firewood ring just as movement caught my eye, too. Tia paced out of the ring like Lady Godiva sans the horse. A moment later Morrison, still very much a wolf, trotted after her, his head nearly level with her ribs. There were worse places for it to be level with, all things considered. Billy widened his eyes at me and I shrugged, as wide-eyed as he was. I didn’t know what had been going on behind the wooden ring. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know. I had a horrible feeling that at some point, I’d find out.

The idea made me exhale just a little too loudly. Morrison’s ears cocked and he looked my way, but Tia didn’t. Apparently werewolves didn’t retain canine senses in human form. I filed that away under “Thank God for small favors” and stayed where I was, stomach clenched as Morrison gave me a long, steady look to make it clear he knew I was there. A flicker of hope danced through me. Maybe hehadchased Tia in order to keep an eye on her. Maybe it hadn’t just been wolfy instinct out to get him—and eventually me—into trouble.

Nah. Nothing was ever that easy. I almost smiled, and Morrison caught up to Tia with a couple of loping steps, evidently uninterested in Billy and me. Billy performed a soundless collapse of relief which would have done Charlie Chaplin proud. I wanted to follow suit, but I remained as I was, tense and wide-eyed, for just a few seconds longer while I tried like hell to make out what was supposed to happen in this underground cavern.

A sacrifice, obviously: people didn’t go around randomly constructing wicker men in magic-born, power-filled chambers and then stuffing the wicker men full of expendables just for the fun of it. But if there were werewolf gods, I knew nothing aboutthem, including why they might want sacrifices, or whether this might be an annual thing or just a special occasion.

A penny dropped, quick twist of certainty at the back of my mind: it was a special occasion. The same special occasion which prompted the ghost dance killing. The moon was full, or would be tonight, and the equinox was only another day away. It still wasn’t a perfect alignment like it had been the year before for the banshee murders, but it was close enough.

The only question was, close enough forwhat. Not that it mattered, particularly: it wasn’t very likely Tia would sit down, explain it all and make such sense that I’d say, “Oh, well, okay, go ahead then, light ’em up.” A burble of relief slipped through me. I was a full day ahead of schedule, with the full moon not being until tonight. Between being here early and having stopped another ghost dance murder, for once I had the upper hand. Particularly since Morrison hadn’t informed his new lady love that we were there. All I had to do was tiptoe up and bash her unconscious without being noticed, and we could get all our answers later.

It sounded like a respectable Plan A. I very cautiously triggered the tamped-down Sight again, hoping it wouldn’t blast my eyeballs out. It merely filtered on, the way it was supposed to. Pleased, I tapped Billy’s shoulder and went into a complicated mime routine trying to explain what I intended to do. After about thirty seconds of playing peekaboo, which completely failed to get across the idea of “I’m going to wrap myself in an invisibility cloak,” he rolled his eyes, mouthed, “Just do it,” and hunched back down to await my antics.

If the Sight could knock me senseless for a couple minutes, I could hardly imagine how badly something that inherently screwed with the laws of physics might end up if I wasn’t careful. I delved into my magic more delicately than I’d ever done, trying not to do more than scrape enough off its surface to bend lightaround myself. Even those tiny scrapes left bright silver-white marks, like I was coming dangerously close to unleashing power I was totally unprepared to deal with. If I had to do anything fast while we were down here, that Plan B with the bubble shields might well come in necessary.

Gradually I felt like I’d succeeded, but one of the problems with this trick was I could still see myself. In fact, I was pretty sure it violated laws of physics all over the place, since I could also seeoutof my invisibility cloak, which technically I shouldn’t be able to do. Magic, however, wasn’t physics. I tapped Billy’s shoulder again and he flinched, suggesting he couldn’t see me. Satisfied, I crept forward, flashlight knotted in my hand like the bludgeoning tool it was shortly to be used as.

Morrison and Tia had gone halfway around the wicker man, Tia stopping every few feet to examine something. I paused where she had, trying to see what she’d seen, but gave it up after a couple of attempts and edged around the circle as quickly and quietly as I could, until I was opposite Billy and only a few yards from my furry boss and his golden-haired girlfriend.

Tia scruffed the top of Morrison’s head and said something inaudible to him. He lay down immediately, chin on his paws, but his whole body quivered like a dog who wasn’t at all sure he wanted to do as he was told. I wondered abruptly who was the boss in a wolf pack, the alpha male or the alpha female. In an awful lot of pack structures, the males were there for protection and breeding, and the females ruled the roost. Morrison looked very much like his roost was being ruled. Tia crouched to scruff him again and he lay flatter, ears and tail full of displeased body language, but Tia ignored him as she laid a hand on the wooden ring she’d built.

Fire exploded everywhere.

Chapter 28

Ihit the nearest cave wall with my spine and slithered down whimpering with pain and confusion. The wicker man’s firewood ring was fully ablaze, pouring off heat that turned dampness on walls to steam, and though the wicker man himself wasn’t yet on fire, his occupants were shrieking bloody, terrified murder. That seemed perfectly reasonable, and any second now I was going to extricate my backbone from stone and leap forth to rescue them. Any second now. Honest.

Rather than engaging in that activity, though, my brain insisted on whirring around the idea that setting the wicker man alight now, before the fullest moon, made no sense. There were five human beings in that thing. Just the right number for points of a pentagram, if that sort of thing was important, though if the poor bastard in the torso had been in the head I’d have thought it more likely to be relevant. On the other hand, the torso was probably sturdier. A sufficiently motivated kidnap victim might be able to wrench the head off. Or maybe Lynn really had been intended to fill that last space, and the guy in the torso represented heart’s blood. Given what had happened to Naomi’s heart, that didn’t seem impossible, either.

This was a lousy time to hypothesize. I tried straightening up and discovered part of the reason I’d been sitting there was for the second time that night, moving hurt like hell. The healing magic within me was going gangbusters again, and I kind of didn’t want to know just how much damage I’d sustained bashing into the rough cave walls.

I could almost hear Coyote’s scolding: “If you would remember your shields, Joanne, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.” I nodded obediently, trying to make a note. Mental shields were all well and good, but when someone had been put on a warrior’s path, she probably ought to make a habit of permanent physical shields as well. I promised myself I’d get on that as soon as I could walk again. A deep breath made my back crack, and I thought maybe I had another thirty seconds or a minute before I trusted all my parts to properly do their thing.

Thirty seconds was a long time in terms of dry wood and smoke inhalation. Teeth gritted, I shoved myself upward. Black swam through my vision and I clenched my eyes shut, determined not to pass out. I was not going to let people die because of a measly cracked spine.

Tia Carley put her hand around my throat and strong-armed me up the wall.

Her eyes were fire-gold,like she drew on magic to have the strength to hold me there. Like the flames behind her fed her, for that matter: she was beautiful in their light. Dangerous, bonkers and scary, but beautiful. I clawed my hands around her wrist, trying to loosen her fingers, but she squeezed a bit harder, making it difficult to get purchase.

“Shaman. Healer. You’re even better than the dancers. That was you there tonight, wasn’t it? Shielding them? Itried,” shesaid with a note of petulancy. “I tried to scoop your magic last night after you healed me.”

Ah. That had been the nosing-about I’d felt. It hadn’t felt like an attack, but perhaps she’d been being careful. Or maybe my shields had been well in place for once. If I had a time machine I’d go back and check, but I didn’t, so I just hung there on the wall clawing at her wrist while she added, “Breast cancer,” incredulously. “What kind of bullshit is that? I’m barely even human, and you waltz up and tell me I’m going to die of breast cancer? That I’ve got a predisposition for it? That bitch queen screwed us even more than I knew.”

I said, “Bitch queen?” except with her hand crushing my larynx, it came out a lot more like “Kakghk agggh?” Pain erupted in my stomach, the familiar feel of fishhooks hauling me somewhere else. I wished they’d haul me out from Tia’s grasp, but they weren’t nearly that accommodating. They didn’t really have to be, though: she’d grabbed me too high, under the jawbone, which meant I wasn’t going to choke out anytime soon. I only needed another ten seconds or so to get my spine in alignment and then I was going to kick her naked pansy ass from here to eternity.

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve got you now. I won’t need the dancers tomorrow.”

Goddamn it. Three nights of power. Three nights of ghost dances. Three nights of sacrifices. I’d prevented Winona’s death earlier, which was probably why the wicker man’s denizens were getting toasty tonight. They’d almost certainly been intended for tomorrow night’s party. But I’d shown up on the scene, so Tia was improvising, and damned if she wasn’t doing it well.

I stiff-handed her in the throat.

It wasn’t what I wanted to do. I really wanted to kick her in the gut so hard she’d fly back and land in her own bonfire, but I didn’t have room to pull my legs up that far. Besides, it would’vebeen telegraphed, whereas unwrapping one hand from the grip at my throat and jabbing the eighteen inches toherthroat took almost no effort.

Her grip weakened satisfyingly and she dropped me. I fell to my hands and toes and sprang forward, tackling her. I had two inches and at least twenty pounds on her. One solid slam against stone and a fist to her jaw should have been all it took.

Except instead of landing on top of a wheezing, gasping woman, I landed on top of a snarling, snapping wolf, and the fist I was driving toward its face suddenly looked very small and vulnerable in comparison to all those teeth. I pulled the punch and got a paw across my face for my troubles. My glasses went flying and pain erupted where claws scored their mark. Half a second later we’d both twisted and flung ourselves aside to land on our feet, Tia on all fours, me on just the two. I couldn’t see well out of my left eye, puffy flesh and tears already marring my vision. Aggravatingly, that was the eye I had better vision in, so although I was by no means debilitated, Tia’s edges were a little softer than I might have liked. It didn’t matter. If I could see well enough to drive without my glasses, I could certainly see well enough to beat a werewolf into next week without them.

She leaped at me and I ducked into the attack, shouldering up to catch her chest and use her own momentum against her. She went a lot farther than either of us expected, hitting the ground with a yelp that turned to furious growling. I spun, ready to catch her the same way again, but she darted around me and came in for my hamstrings, moving faster than I’d known wolves could do. I jammed my hips forward, narrowly keeping my legs out of her teeth, and it struck me, a little belatedly, that an unarmed human versus a wolf was probably shit out of luck.

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