Page 46 of Devils and the Dead
I started to say no then changed my mind. “Any werewolf who thinks they might be able to pick up an elven scent left on an object thirty years ago, or sense an elven item can help us search the sugar maple grove. I don’t want too many feet tramping around the area, but I could definitely use a few good noses.”
Clinton gave me thumbs-up. “I’ve got two wolves who’ll be perfect. I’ll have them start on the perimeter of the grove while you two work in the middle.”
“Wouldn’t the Everbloom be right in the center of their village?” Hades asked. “It seems like the logical spot for the artifact that transformed the mountain into something more like their homeland.”
“It does seem like the perfect place, but I’m sure the queen would have looked there first.” I frowned. “It has to be close though. Tinsel said those who knew him, who lived and walked beside him would find it. So I’m thinking it’s either in the spot where they had their compound, or near the compound in an area where the elves may have frequented.”
Hades and I drove down to the spot where the tree had fallen, then made our way through some dense brush to where the sugar maple grove stood. While two werewolves sniffed around the trees, I looked around and tried to put myself in Tinsel’s shoes. If I were a suspicious elf looking to hide an artifact but still wanting it close by, where would I put it?
“Babylon?” Hades waved me over. “Come see this.”
I went, and he positioned me directly in front of him, hands on my shoulders. “Look at the branches of the trees.”
I gasped. “It’s a heart!”
Tinsel had said those who sought with a pure heart and a love for all things living and dead would find the Everbloom. I hadn’t thought to take that statement literally, but here, right in front of me, was a heart. The branches of three sugar maple trees arched in the air, creating a heart-shape with their boughs.
Hades and I ran over and began searching the area around the heart. He took the ground, while I began examining the trees, remembering to look upward into the canopy of red and gold leaves. Not finding anything, I moved further away to where a stream angled through the rocky ground. The elves would have come this way for water. Perhaps Tinsel hid the Everbloom here.
I was so engrossed in searching that I fell over a burrow. Catching my fall before I ate dirt, I let out a curse as I stood. I was brushing off my pants when a huge badger shuffled out of the burrow. The thing looked annoyed and had some intimidatingly long claws, so I summoned a dozen dead spiders.
The badger squealed, transformed into human, and began to dance around.
“What the bloody hell, woman? Get these things off of me.”
A shifter. A badger shifter. A very naked badger shifter with his substantial junk flopping around as he tried to get away from the undead spiders.
“Oh, sorry!” I dismissed the spiders, but the badger shifter seemed just as nervous about their little dead corpses as he had been when they’d been moving corpses.
Addy had said that there was a badger shifter living up on Savior Mountain near the werewolf compound. I just hadn’t realized his sett was right here.
“For fuck’s sake,” he complained, wiping a hand over his body and eyeing the dead spiders on the ground. “I’m woken from a sound sleep by someone nearly putting a foot through the roof of my sett, and when I come out, I get attacked by zombie spiders. I hate spiders. Hate them dead just as much as living.”
I remembered Addy telling me that badgers ate insects as well as earthworms and small mammals, but shifters weren’t always exactly like their animal counterpart. Evidently this one was afraid of spiders.
“I’m so sorry.” I went to brush one of the spider corpses off of him, but changed my mind when I realized that would put my hand dangerously close to the guy’s dick. “I didn’t recognize you and summoned the dead out of reflex when you came out of your sett. Your claws are large, and I just reacted.”
“That isn’t the only thing about me that’s large.” The badger swiveled his hips.
I glanced down, wishing I hadn’t. The dude was huge—freakishly huge. As in, send-a-woman-to-the-hospital huge.
“Well, since I’m awake, I might as well get a bite to eat.” He eyed my bag. “You wouldn’t happen to have a roast or a chicken in there, would you?”
“No.” I dug around in my bag, wondering if Maude had thrown a snack or something in there that I could offer the guy.
“Beef jerky?” He walked close to peer over my shoulder into the bag. I felt something brush against my ass and absolutely didn’t want to contemplate what it was.
“A granola bar?” I offered.
He wrinkled his nose. “Yuck. I’ll just go grab some grubs. One of the reasons I built my sett here is because of those grubs.”
“Babylon?” I turned to see Hades. His eyebrows shot up, no doubt because the man next to me was naked with his dick practically against my ass.
“Accidently tripped over a badger shifter’s house,” I explained. “You wouldn’t happen to have a roast or some beef jerky would you?”
“No.” He tilted his head. “A roast? Why do you need a roast?”
The badger shifter waved his hand. “Nevermind. Those grubs are my go-to snack. There’s an endless supply of them. It’s the weirdest thing, although you’d think I’d be used to weird things on this mountain.”
