Ben said, “Can you really tell who's doing this just by looking at the mess?”

Tony shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes there's spiritual fingerprints. Even when two different people work the same spell, each of them leaves their own stamp on it. Their own personality. If the person is local, it might be as simple as driving around looking for that same stamp. If someone's trying to put a curse on you, you can bet they've cast spells around their own place for protection.”

“Magic spells,” I couldn't help but mutter. “Huh.”

“You don't believe?” Tony said.

“Look at me, you can tell what I am. I have to believe in pretty much anything these days. It doesn't make believing easy. Magic sounds like so much fun when you're a kid, until you realize how complicated it makes everything. Because you know what? It makes no sense. It makes no sense that throwing a bunch of barbed-wire crosses around my house should scare the pants off me.” My voice rose in volume. This whole situation had made me incredibly cranky.

“Except it does make sense, because finding a bunch of plastic Mickey Mouses around your house probably wouldn't have scared you so much, right?” Tony said, donning a half smile that creased his brown face.

My own smile answered his. “I don't know. That'd be pretty weird. I always thought Mickey Mouse was kind of creepy.”

“Tony.” Ben sat in the kitchen chair, leaning forward on his knees, an idea lighting his eyes. “You can spot the type of magic of something by looking at it. Sense it. Whatever. There's something else that's been happening around here. Probably not connected to what's been happening at the house, but who knows. You mind taking a look while you're out here?”

“What is it?” Tony asked.

“Messy,” Ben said.

1 tried to catch Ben's gaze, to silently ask him what he was doing. He was talking about the cattle mutilations, about the second werewolf that he and Cormac had tracked in New Mexico. What did he think Tony could tell about it?

Tony frowned thoughtfully. “What do you think it is?”

“I'd rather not say. Let you take a look at it without me giving you ideas.”

“Sure. I'm game.”

Ben looked at me. “How about it? Where was the last one, out by county line road?”

Marks wouldn't tell me exactly where it was. He'd sort of acted like he assumed I already knew. But he'd indicated that general direction.

“What do you think he's going to find?”

“Just curious,” Ben said. “You keep saying this isn't a werewolf. I'd like to hear what Tony has to say about it.”

With a complaining sigh, I went to find my car keys. “Ben, you're going to have to start trusting your nose.” I looked at Tony. “It isn't a werewolf.”

“Now I'm curious,” he said.

“Whatever it is, I want to know so it doesn't blindside us like it did the last time,” Ben said.

Which made it sound like there was going to be a next time. Why was I not surprised?

Chapter 11

The county line road turned off from the state highway a few miles outside town. It was two narrow lanes, paved, no discernible shoulder. Barbed-wire fences lined yellowed pastures on both sides. We all kept our eyes open, peering out the windows for anything unusual, any break in the consistent rangeland.

Tony spotted it, pointing. “There.”

1 slowed down and pulled onto the grass on the side of the road. To the left, on the other side of a slope of grassland, someone had parked a backhoe. The ordinary piece of equipment seemed ominous somehow, lurking out here by itself. The operator didn't seem to be around. Gone to lunch, maybe.

The three of us crossed the road and picked our way over the barbed wire. Walking toward the backhoe—and whatever work it was here for—felt like the last time, when Marks had brought us to see the slaughtered herd. This marching inexorably toward some unnamed horror. I didn't want to see what lay over that slope. And yet I kept walking.

Finally, we crested the slope and looked down to what lay beyond.

The backhoe's work was done. A mound of newly turned earth lay over a recently covered ditch, a hole some twenty feet to a side. The evidence was buried, cleaned away.

I could see where the dead cattle had lain, though: the swathes of crushed grass, the dark stains of blood on the earth. Anybody could tell that something had happened here.

Tony stood with his arms crossed, regarding the scene, his brows furrowed. “Werewolves didn't do this.”

“How do you even know what happened?” Ben said.

“Something died here,” Tony said matter-of-factly. “Messy, like you said. But more. Evil. Can't you feel it?”

“I don't know. What am I supposed to be feeling?”

I knew what Tony was talking about. Werewolves weren't inherently evil. They came in all varieties. They were individuals, exhibiting a whole range of behaviors and individual intentions. But this—some miasma rose from the earth itself, seeping under my skin, raising the hair on my arms. It felt like something in the trees was watching me, but 1 looked and smelled the air, and couldn't find anything.

“Evil,” I echoed. “It feels evil. All it wants to do is destroy.”

Ben spoke with a clenched jaw. “I've been feeling that crawling under my skin ever since that son of a bitch bit me. How am I supposed to tell the difference?”

He could smell the blood, and the scent prodded his wolf, like poking a hornet's nest with a stick. But he didn't recognize it. Couldn't separate his own hunger from the wrongness that permeated the earth here. His shoulders and arms were tense, like he was bracing against something. His face held an expression of horror, but I couldn't tell if the expression was turned out to the scene before us, or inward, to himself.

I went to him. Didn't look at him, but gripped his hand and leaned my face against his shoulder.

“Practice, Ben. Patience.”

He turned slightly, rubbing his cheek against my head, and I thought he might say something. I thought he might talk it out until this made some kind of sense. Instead, he abruptly broke away from me and stalked back to the road.

Tony watched him leave. “How's he doing really?”

“Oh, just fine,” I answered lightly. “That's the scary part.”