I ran off the porch, calling, “Anastasia!”

“I hear it,” she said, standing and looking toward the meadow and airstrip.

Still running, I headed down the path and looked up. A searchlight panned over me from above. I waved my arms, jumped up and down, shouted. The aircraft could have belonged to Provost and friends, it could have opened fire on me, and I was too tired to care.

But the helicopter was red, with the words “Search and Rescue” painted on the side.

Chapter 23

In moments, the yard in front of the lodge turned to chaos. A pair of EMTs arrived with their kits and got to work. I tried to explain, but the words came out jumbled. I wasn’t making any sense, but really, the scene before us was clear. Plenty of blood, plenty of bodies for them to work on.

“Jesus,” one of the EMTs said, crouching by the inert magician. “Did somebody think he was a vampire or what?”

“I can’t find a pulse,” his partner said.

“He’s not dead. He’s in a trance,” Anastasia said. The guy looked at her blankly for a moment, opened his mouth like he might argue, but she must have put the whammy on him, because after a moment he nodded, and they got to work on Grant. Bandages, neck brace, more bandages.

Another pair of EMTs huddled over Cabe and Provost, but without the urgency they’d shown with Grant. Anastasia and I watched it all like it was some kind of movie.

“Inside,” I called to them, struggling for coherency. “There’s two people injured inside. Please.” They nodded and ran into the lodge. Tina, I hoped she was okay, I hoped she’d be okay—

Another man approached. He wore a jumpsuit and a jacket, headphones over his ears. He seemed to be talking into a headset—the pilot, maybe?

“Are you two all right?” he asked.

We were covered in blood. I swallowed, still feeling like I was choking, or howling, or something. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

He gave a wry smile. “Fair enough.”

“How?” I said, my breaths coming in hiccups. “How did you get here? How did you know?”

“The police got a call from a guy named Ben O’Farrell. Is one of you Kitty Norville?”

Tears brimmed my eyes and spilled over. My knight in shining armor. Hell, yeah. “That’s me.”

“He said he couldn’t get a call through and thought something fishy might be going on. We did some checking. Then a hiker from the Pine View Lodge up the trail reported finding a body that had been shot with arrows. We came out here assuming the worst.”

“You have no idea,” I said.

“The police are right behind us in another chopper. They’ll want to talk to you about what happened here.”

Softly, I said, “And we’ll be happy to tell them.”

“There are more bodies inside and out by the airstrip,” Anastasia said.

The pilot turned an unhappy expression to the house and winced. Under his breath he said, “It’s going to be a long night.”

Not as long as the last couple.

* * *

We ended up at a Montana Highway Patrol station near Kalispell.

The detective in charge of the case didn’t want to believe us, but the story we told was so crazy, we couldn’t have made it up. Especially since the guy questioned us separately and we gave him exactly the same story, which matched the evidence. At the hospital, state troopers interviewed Conrad; he told them the same thing. We all backed each other up, and the police couldn’t argue. Also, Anastasia might have done some of her own brand of persuasion; the detective was probably watching her eyes the entire time. By the time he let us go, he was smiling vaguely and murmuring about how we weren’t under any suspicion at all, and if there was anything he could do to help, and so on. We asked him to drive us to the hospital where the others had been taken. Once there, he talked the staff into letting us into the ICU. Half the night had passed since the search-and-rescue helicopter took the others to the hospital. We hadn’t heard anything since and were desperate for news.

Tina was still in surgery and not out of the woods yet. She’d been shot in the stomach, had suffered organ damage. The doctors were doing everything they could, we were told. Conrad had been in and out of surgery and was recovering. His wounds had been cleaned and stabilized, but the doctors were worried about infection and necrosis. If infection set in—a possibility given the depth and severity of the wounds—they’d have to amputate. But they were hopeful it wouldn’t come to that.

Grant was in ICU. The surgeon on his case was on hand to explain that the stake had punctured Grant’s left lung but not his heart. A few hours of surgery repaired the damage. He’d be in the hospital’s ICU for at least another day, waiting for complications to strike. Even when he pulled out of danger, he’d be ill, weakened, for a long time. I was almost disappointed that he was mortal, after all, a standard substandard human being requiring doctors and all the rest. At the same time, it made me like him even more. He was vulnerable but still a fighter. Mere mortal humans made great fighters because they had so much to lose.

After we washed up and changed clothes—our old clothes were soaked with blood—the doctor let us stay with Grant for a little while. Anastasia and I waited at his bedside.

He was asleep and stable, his treated and newly bandaged hands resting over his middle. A machine beeped the steady rhythm of his heart. He had too many tubes hooked up to him—in his nose, in his arm, looping around and over him. He didn’t smell healthy. This whole place smelled like illness, making my nose wrinkle. Instinctively, Wolf wanted to run from the illness, the sick combination of blood and antiseptic, but I felt so much better just sitting here, watching him sleep. The crags and furrows in his face smoothed out a bit, and he looked younger, settled against the flat white hospital pillow, a sheet pulled over his chest, penned in by the rails of the bed. He looked asleep now, instead of the stony quiet of the trance.

I sat within reach of his hand, so I could hold it when he woke up. Not that he’d appreciate it, but I’d try anyway. Anastasia stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, still managing to look elegant in the T-shirt and sweatpants the police had given her. Her wounds were healing, the rashes on her skin fading, but she looked tired. Her shoulders slouched a little, which was almost shocking to see. Her gaze was cryptic, like she didn’t know what to make of this mere mortal who’d nearly given his life for her.