I’m a mechanic; I fix things that are broken. I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote. I have powerful friends. But when it comes right down to it, my real superpower is chaos.

The golem’s clay body fell to the ground and shattered as though it had been dropped from a hundred feet onto rocks. Clay shards bounced off the mesh of my cage, mostly harmlessly. One or two got through but only one caused me any damage. And for a very long moment, the reek of the mess that Mary had made of her seethe gave way to the smell of springwater, the kind that bubbles up clear and pure from the earth. And then it was gone, and the whole place smelled of the dead.

14

Mercy

It was hard to look like I’d won when I was still stuck in the stupid cage.

MINUTES PASSED. I GOT A GOOD LOOK AT THE PERSON the golem had pulled out from the stairway. He was the middle-aged man who had led the other humans. I was still trapped in my cage. Galina tried to help, but her abilities to interact with the real world were limited to rolling heads around.

I tried to contact Adam, but my bond had fallen silent again: there but not there. As if I’d overloaded it.

The man moaned a lot. At one point, he started to crawl. I don’t know where he was going, but he didn’t get there. And there was nothing, not anything I could do about him. Nor could I do anything about the sunlight that entered through the broken corner and from the open door at the top of the stairs. I watched, helpless, as it crept closer and closer to the dead who waited under the stairway.

—

THE WEREWOLVES CAME JUST AFTER NOON. ADAM didn’t bother with the broken stairs; he just jumped over the handrail at the top. He stepped over the rapidly rotting body of the man the golem had killed.

His bright gold eyes on me, he took a step toward my cage and stopped with a grunt. I felt the magic flare up as it had not for the vampires, the ghosts, or the golem. Galina petted his shoulder and looked concerned for him. He took a half step back, then he squatted so his head was level with mine.

He didn’t say anything, just stared at me with those gold eyes, his hands clenched into fists.

If I had been free, I’d have climbed into his lap and buried my face in his shoulder and cried. It was probably better for my dignity that I couldn’t do that. I reached out and put my hand against the cage where it was closest to him.

“I think Coyote sent me here,” I told him. My voice was hoarse from the power I’d used to destroy the golem. “To fix things or make me crazy—it’s a toss-up.” I was almost certain that the reason I’d chosen “sunder” instead of “die” was because of Coyote. “I hope he’s happy. I think I’ve ensured that all of the vampires in Prague are dead. Except for the four people under the stairs.” Suddenly anxious for them, I leaned forward. “They are the good guys, I think. So make sure no one shines any sunlight on them, okay?”

He didn’t say anything for a while, just put a hand up toward me and then pulled it back with a grimace.

“Who hit you?” he asked, his voice in that deep place it went when the wolf was riding him. He didn’t say anything about the vampires, but I could trust him to take care of it.

Had someone hit me? I frowned at him, and he ran his hand down the left side of his face. I’d forgotten about that.

“Guccio,” I told him. “The pretty vampire. I think he’s been disposed of, though. That’s what the vampires under the stairs said. It meant they could quit following orders.”

“Guccio’s dead,” Adam agreed, so apparently he knew who Guccio was. “I killed him.” His tone was satisfied, so I expected there was a story that went with that. There would be a lot of time for stories.

“It took you a long time to find me,” I said. And it had. It had been hours since the golem had died—since the manitou who powered it had been freed at last to go and be what he was supposed to be and not what Rabbi Loew had turned him into. But my stomach was easing, and my body was starting to believe I was safe. Hearing Adam’s voice, velvety soft, was better than medicine for what ailed me.

“Your power draw knocked me off my feet,” Adam said. “I was out for an hour. No one could do anything until I was conscious, and it took a while for the bond to start functioning well enough I could use it to track you.”

“Sorry,” I said in a small voice.

“My love,” he said, his voice intent, “you are welcome to all that I am, all that I have. I would destroy the planet for you. I was even diplomatic for you, which was a bigger sacrifice. A little power drain is nothing.”

“An hour,” I said. He was a werewolf, and I’d knocked him out for an hour. “You could have died.”

“You could have died,” he said intensely. “What would I have done then?”

He took a deep breath. When he spoke again, it was in his own voice despite the gold in his eyes. “You are welcome to anything I have, my love. Martin and Jitka got us to Josefov, but only after I took them to the park did they remember they’d lost you here. It took Elizaveta the rest of the time to get through the veil spells without pulling them down entirely. She . . . Libor . . .” He grimaced again. “We all thought it might be a good thing to see what was inside the invisible wall before we exposed it to the good people of Prague—especially since there were vampires involved. But it took time.”

“They might want to leave it up awhile longer than they are planning,” I told him. “I think there are a lot of dead bodies here. Sixty years’ worth or more.”