“Remember the way d’Ambray was howling about killing anyone caught in the People’s territory?” Jim asked. “For this shit to happen, d’Ambray must’ve made arrangements with the cops. I don’t know if he bribed them, blackmailed them, or what, but he’s done something. Steer clear of the Paranormal Activity Division.”

“Will do,” I said.

“Who’s got the treasure chest?” Desandra asked.

Sage, the other render, went to the left Jeep and popped the hatchback. An assortment of weapons looked back at us: swords, knives, and batons. Nothing elaborate, just simple, functional tools to speed the journey to the afterlife. Derek looked at the smorgasbord for a long moment and fished out a tactical tomahawk. Solid black and about eighteen inches long, it had a six-inch blade on one side of the axe head and a sharp spike on the other. Desandra pulled out a two-foot-long solid metal mace. Its weighted head sported eight sharp flanges. I glanced at Robert.

He smiled. “I’m good. I retrieved my toys from my Jeep before we left.”

I turned to Barabas. “Can I have a word before we go?”

“Of course.” He walked off with me. I put a hundred yards between us and the rest of the shapeshifters, made sure my back was to them, and said, “Barabas, before you leave the city, I need you to stop at a courier and send a few messages. Call in every favor we have with the city and whatever goodwill we have with law enforcement. Use anything we’ve been saving for a rainy day, because the hurricane is here. Please call Evdokia or one of her kids. Tell her what happened.”

Evdokia was one of the prominent witches in the Atlanta Covens and one of the few people who knew my background. The Covens would fight Roland to the end, and letting them know Hugh was on the warpath would buy them time to prepare.

“Will do.”

“As soon as you get to the Keep, please put together a combat team and send it into North Carolina to find Curran. Keep it quiet. We don’t need a panic.”

Barabas nodded.

“Jim will want to send one, but I want you to oversee it. Use renders, use combat people, the best you can get without leaving us too vulnerable. I don’t care if they have to take the mountains apart rock by rock. They need to find the Beast Lord and they need to do it fast.”

“I understand. What about the Pack Council?”

“They are Jim’s problem. If you can, try to stall them. Delay any decision making until tomorrow. We should be back by morning. If I don’t check in by noon, I am dead and you’re on your own.”

“Understood.”

“Find him, Barabas.”

“Kate, I will. I promise you, I will.”

“Also, please tell Jezebel to take Julie out of the city. She’ll need backup, because Julie is good at escaping. If Hugh takes Atlanta, Julie can’t be here. He will use her and make her into something terrible.”

“He won’t take Atlanta,” Barabas said.

“I know. Please do this for me.”

“Of course. Good luck.”

“Thank you. We’ll need it.”

We went back to the cars. Jim’s face looked grim. “For the record, I’m sick of being left behind,” he said.

“For the record, I’m sick of Hugh being alive.”

The weremongoose was waving at our people. “We’re moving out.”

Jim paused. “Don’t get yourself killed and don’t make me come and rescue your ass.”

“Thanks, Mom. I love you, too.”

Jim growled under his breath and went to the Jeep.

“Jim!” I called, too loud.

He turned.

I waited a second to make sure I had everyone’s attention. “If I’m not back by tomorrow evening and the Beast Lord is still gone, you have my blessing.”

Jim blinked. His mouth opened. “Understood, Alpha.”

Someone would have to run the Pack. He had done it before and if I didn’t come back, he would do it again, and now I had a dozen witnesses who would support his right to do it.

Jennifer shook her head. She and her bodyguards got into their vehicle. The dark-haired man who had cut Desandra’s back open lingered. Desandra stepped close to him. “Go with our alpha. When you get to the Keep, send someone to Orhan and Fatima. And if Jennifer tries to do something stupid, delay her as much as you can. Get George to help you.”

So she had gone to see the retired alpha couple.

The man nodded and took off.

We turned and trotted down the bridge, hidden from the vampires’ view by the cars. The shapeshifters began to chant, cajoling the Jeeps’ enchanted water engines into life.

“Orhan and Fatima?” Robert asked.

“Mm-hm,” Desandra said. “I have their blessing to take over the clan. Can you believe that bitch threw me under the bus?”

• • •

WE FINISHED CROSSING the bridge and jogged another quarter mile along the forested road, then turned off the barely visible trail to the left. Trees choked the path, their roots thrusting across the dirt, all but invisible in the night shadows. Perfect. Maybe I’d trip, break my neck, and save Hugh the trouble of hunting me down.

“It’s not that Jennifer shoved me off the cliff,” Desandra said. “I understand. It’s that she was so ham-fisted about it. The woman has been an alpha now for what, six months on her own? It’s fair to expect some subtlety.”

“When did you go to see Orhan and Fatima?” Robert asked.

“A few days ago,” Desandra said.

“They don’t want to be involved in the Pack’s operations,” Robert said. “They’ve made it abundantly clear. An alpha who steps down surrenders all right to meddle with their clan. You’ve put them into a difficult position.”

“They invited me to meet with them. I didn’t ask. You want to know why Orhan and Fatima sent for me?” Desandra pointed at me, then at Robert in turn. “Alpha, alpha . . .” She pointed at herself with her thumb. “Beta. One of these things is not like the other. Jennifer should be here instead of riding with her bodyguards in a comfy car. That’s why.”

“I’m not an alpha,” Derek said.

“You’re like Curran’s baby brother.” Desandra waved her hand. “You don’t count. So no, I didn’t break the rules and go and bother Orhan and Fatima on my own. Give me some credit.”

Robert tried his best to look quietly unapproachable. His best was pretty good, but it didn’t stop me.

“So, Robert, how does that foot taste?”

Robert looked at me, clearly unsure how to react.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Desandra said. “About Hugh having planned all this. You’re right.”

She shrugged the jacket off her shoulder and turned her back to us. A bright red bullet wound, still wet, marked the skin above her shoulder blade. The bullet must’ve penetrated from the front and torn straight through the top of her chest to the back. A dark gray stain bordered the wound. She’d been shot with a silver round. As the toxic bullet passed through the body, the Lyc-V in the surrounding tissues died. When the other wolf had cut her back, she must’ve bled gray.

Nobody carried around silver bullets unless they meant to fight shapeshifters. Silver was too expensive and there were better and more accurate rounds available.

The eardrum-bursting roar of enchanted water engines announced the Pack vehicles passing along the road behind us. We kept moving.

The last echoes of the engines faded.

“Where are we going?” Desandra asked.

“We’re going to Blue Ribbon Stables,” I said. “It’s the closest place to rent a horse.”

“Why?” Desandra asked.

“Because I can’t keep up with you on foot,” I said.

“And she runs like a rhino,” Derek added. “You can hear her a mile away.”

Traitor. “I thought you had my back?”

“I do,” Derek said. “The rhino running is nice. Makes it easy to keep track of you. If I ever lose you, I just have to listen and there you are.”

“Yes,” Desandra agreed. “It’s convenient.”

I laughed.

“Are you always this casual?” Robert asked.

“Derek and I worked together for a long time,” I told him. “He’s allowed some leeway.”

“What about Desandra?”

“She only bothers with protocol when she wants something. The rest of the time it’s lewd jokes and descriptions of plums.”

Desandra snickered.

Robert’s eyebrows crept up. “Plums?”

I waved my hand. “Don’t ask.”

Ten minutes later the wooded path spat us out into Troll’s Ferry Road, and fifteen minutes later we stopped next to the fence near the gate leading to Blue Ribbon Stables. Half an hour gone. We didn’t have much time.

“You better go in by yourself,” Desandra said. “Or they might get scared that Derek and I intend to blow their house down.”

“If there is an issue,” Robert said, “we’re only a few feet away.”

I heard a low guttural sound and I realized it was Derek laughing. Well, at least his sense of humor was coming back. Thank the Universe for small favors.

I jogged to the door and knocked. The door swung open and an elderly black man leveled a crossbow at me. I held up my hands. “Mr. Walton? I need a horse. I called you yesterday and asked you to hold one for me.”

Mr. Walton squinted at me. “About that . . .”

“Yes?”

“I’ve done rented them all.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. “You said you had one and would hold it for me. I sent one of my people here and he told me you took the money.”

“I did say that and I did take it. But you know. Money is a funny thing. The more of it, the prettier it looks. You said you might need a horse and it wasn’t a sure thing.”

Argh.

“You want a refund?”

“I want a horse.”

“I’m all out of horses for this week, but I’ve got a mammoth jenny.”

“A what?”

“Come, I’ll show you.”

He led me to the stable. Inside in the third stall something large moved. It looked like a horse, about sixteen hands or so tall. The man raised a feylantern. A long face with two-foot-long ears looked at me with big blue eyes. A donkey, except it stood about eight feet tall, hoof to ear. Big white spots painted its black shaggy hide.

“What is this?”

“That right there is a mammoth jenny. A female American Mammoth donkey.”

“Is she magic?”

“Nahh. They developed them in the early twentieth century, primarily for mule breeding. She’s a good mount. Good on a trail. She’ll give you a twenty-mile-per-hour gallop in a pinch, but not for long. One thing, though. Most of her kind are sweet. She’s what we call in the business a freak of nature. Smart, stubborn, and ornery.”

“What’s her name?”

“Cuddles.”

Perfect. “I’ll take her.”

The moment I walked Cuddles out of her stall, she turned to face me, stood erect, and put her ears forward. Okay. When a horse was ready to be aggressive, she typically put her ears back. This, I didn’t know. Donkeys were a new territory for me.

“What do the ears mean?”

Mr. Walton shrugged. “Means she isn’t sure about you. Donkeys are stoic animals. They’re not horses with long ears, you know.”

Okay. If Cuddles were a horse, I’d wave the lead at her to make her take a step back. In horse dominance games, whoever moved first lost face. Something told me it wouldn’t work here. “Do you have any carrots?”

Mr. Walton crossed the stable to the front and brought me a large carrot.

“Thanks.” I took one, bit into the top, and made loud chewing noises. “Mmm, yummy carrot.”

Cuddles opened her eyes a little wider.

“Mmm, delicious.”

Cuddles took a step forward. I turned sideways and tried to chew louder. Cuddles clopped toward me and nudged my shoulder with her nose. I held the carrot in front of her and petted her cheek. She ate the carrot and looked at me.

“Very nice,” Mr. Walton approved. “You’re a donkey whisperer.”

“You got more carrots?”

Two minutes later I packed three pounds of carrots into Cuddles’s saddlebags. He let me have them for free “on account of Cuddles isn’t a horse and I did rent your mare out from under you.” If a herd of giant donkeys crossed our path and needed to be subdued, I had it covered.

I rode out of the stables on top of an eight-foot-tall donkey that looked like she had robbed a Holstein cow and was now wearing the stolen clothes. Robert gaped at me. Desandra made a weird face: her right eyebrow crept up, her left went down, and her mouth got stuck somewhere between surprise and the beginning of the word “what.” Derek’s mouth opened and didn’t close until we came to a halt next to him.

“What the hell is this?” Desandra asked.

“This is Cuddles. She’s a mammoth donkey.”

Derek grinned, leaning on the fence. “Do you have any self-respect left?”

“Nope.”

“I think she’s cute.” Desandra reached out.

Cuddles promptly tried to bite her. Desandra jerked her hand away and bared her teeth. “Donkey, you don’t know who you’re messing with. I’ll eat you for breakfast.”

“Where to now?” I asked.

“Hold on,” Robert said. “I’m still . . . coming to terms with your mode of transportation.”