“It cost her.” Ysabella had McGlazer open her case on a scarred worktable.
“Reverend, there is a hand pump outside. Would you fill this?” Maisie handed McGlazer a tin bucket that had to be fifty years old. “And consecrate it?”
McGlazer considered telling her he was neither Catholic nor altogether certain that a blessing from him—or anyone—would “take.” He decided to just do as asked, an act of politeness, if not faith.
Ysabella pointed to a row of bundled roots hanging from the rafters and asked Hudson to get them down. As he did, he discreetly watched Yoshida, sensing his friend’s growing agitation. He also noticed that Aura had stopped moving. She pricked her ears toward any small sound—but never took her gaze off Yoshida.
The witches cast a circle—five white candles—around the cage at about a dozen feet from each other. In a well-rehearsed chorus of commanding tones, they called on spirits of the elements and directions.
“All right.” Ysabella gave Hudson a look of dread. “Please open the cage.”
* * * *
“That’s a bad idea, lady,” warned Yoshida, regarding Ysabella’s order to open the cage.
“I’m afraid you’ll like my next idea even less,” Ysabella said, as she accepted a large clay jar from Maisie. “We need her brought out of the cage.”
When she opened the jar, an alien odor hit their nostrils like a shock wave. Ysabella was the only one who did not show disgust as she took a sniff and handed it back to Maisie. “Her muzzle must be removed also.”
Hudson and Yoshida exchanged a leery glance, as Hudson handed Reverend McGlazer the dart gun. “You can still shoot, right, Rev?”
McGlazer nodded and raised the weapon. As Hudson unlocked the cage hasp, Aura lowered her ears and issued a deep growl that rumbled in his bones. Judging by McGlazer’s expression, it reached him as well.
Hudson and Yoshida took hold of the loop of chain around her shoulders and dragged her forward, halfway out of the cage. “She hasn’t gotten any lighter.”
Ysabella dowsed her own face, neck and arms from the bucket of blessed water, then stepped forward without hesitation, knelt, and slowly reached out with both hands. Aura growled stronger and deeper as Ysabella’s fingers made contact just under the ears. “Remove the strap.”
Though she didn’t move at all, Aura continued to growl as Hudson unfastened the buckle of the makeshift muzzle. He kept the strap pulled taut, sure she would bite his hand the very instant he relinquished it.
“I won’t be able to shoot her fast enough to keep her from biting,” McGlazer told the witch. Realizing the rifle was trembling in his hands, the preacher felt admiration for Ysabella’s steel nerves.
“Now, please,” Ysabella whispered. Hudson unwrapped the strap and eased it off, relieved—and shocked—when the beast did not snap.
Ysabella remained poised and steady, her expression as placid as a pond. “You are ready to come out now,” she whispered.
Aura peeled back her black lips to show teeth larger and sharper than any of them had ever seen. The vibration of her snarl had saliva drops dancing like moths on the ivory needlepoints.
As Ysabella’s fingers and palms spread over the wolf’s lean jowls, her growls grew louder, drowning out Ysabella’s whispered litany.
Aura’s eyes rolled in their sockets, then stopped on Yoshida.
“Come out, Aura.” Ysabella dug her fingers into the wolf’s fur. “Face your fate.”
Yoshida felt righteous anger rise in his veins—on behalf of the she-wolf.
How dare this arrogant woman try to manipulate destiny.
…What…?
Given his long-standing contempt of the murderous, very human criminal Aura, Yoshida was alarmed by his own sudden empathy for her.
“Come on,” he mumbled. “Hurry it up…” Yoshida was betting and hoping that the reversal of Aura’s transformation would sever whatever this link was that made him feel more under her control by the minute.
Hudson saw him trembling, wincing, mumbling.
Ysabella began to show signs of stress as well—shaking hands, fluttering eyelids. “The salve,” whispered the petite elder witch.
Maisie already had it in her hands, rubbing them together vigorously. She leaned forward behind Ysabella and began working the strange-smelling concoction onto the monster’s forehead. Aura snarled louder, her right eye wide-open and straining to focus on Yoshida with desperation and insistence.
Hudson checked on McGlazer. The minister’s knuckles were white from his grip on the rifle.
“Pray for her,” Maisie told the shocked minister. He blinked back at her, as if not understanding.
Ysabella’s entire body now shook with the vibration of Aura’s snarls. Still, she rubbed the salve into the wolf’s face as Maisie continued to slather it around her fingers.
“Are you . . ?” Hudson didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“We have to pull her out of there,” Maisie explained. “Quite literally.”
Seeing McGlazer’s shocked face and Yoshida sweating like a salad-hater in a sauna, Hudson felt a surreal kind of aloneness, like an out-of-body experience.
“Come here,” Ysabella whispered like a midwife. “Come out.”
Aura’s savage snarls became more strident, pained instead of fearful and angry.
Yoshida subtly mirrored the wolf’s distress. Hudson had the feeling that if something wasn’t done about Yoshida soon…
“Unchain her,” said Ysabella, her voice presenting strain that her expression did not.
“Um…have you lost your mind, lady?” Hudson asked.
“I have her immobilized,” Ysabella said softly. “I think.”
Keeping his weight on her thick back, Hudson drew the keys from his pocket and gingerly reached for the padlock connected to the chain over the blanket near her shoulder blades. “Say when.”
Maisie leaned in over Ysabella’s shoulder, a good-sized glob of the stinky ointment in each hand. Aura’s howls suddenly became gurgling pants.
Yoshida reached for his sidearm, taking a step toward them.
“Yosh!” Hudson barked. “Stand down. Let them work.”
Yoshida maintained eye contact with the beast, as his trembling hand hovered over his weapon.
“Yosh,” mumbled Hudson. “What the hell are you doing?”
The deputy snapped his head sharply from the wolf’s gaze once again, as her throat swelled like a bullfrog’s.
Ysabella put her hand on this sudden growth and stroked it toward her. “Come out here, Aura.” Ysabella’s tone was soft yet commanding. Maisie raised her voice, chanting a series of strange
