St. Martin had called us uncivilized. Axlam thought for sure he’d use the wolves’ least civilized time against them.
But how? The obvious answer was to throw in a mundane as a werewolf snack.
Maybe the cameras had been a distraction. Maybe his appearances had been a distraction. “Any missing persons reports?” I asked Ed.
He knew exactly what I was asking. He looked at Axlam. “You cannot run here tonight, do you understand? What if he takes a trick-or-treater just before the moon crests the horizon? If he’s going to toss a kidnapping into this just to see if one of the newbies will break, you cannot be here.”
Dagrun walked toward Ed. “The pack has to run their established route. We can’t chance a loss of stability with the blizzard and the Samhain moon. If we move north into federal lands, someone will get caught out there and we’ll come home with frozen corpses.”
Ed looked Dag in the eye. “If you stay here, we might very well have gnawed-on corpses.”
“We will run as planned,” she said.
Ed pointed a finger at the elf. “My job is to keep this town safe,” he said. “It’s the job you hired me to do. If the wolves run anywhere near town, there will be blood.”
Dag’s magic twitched. “We will not allow a mishap.”
“Mishap?” Ed spread his arms, palms up, as if he couldn’t believe Dag’s words. “Someone dying is not a mishap.”
“Ed…” Dag said.
“He said he was going to make us pay. That makes my family vulnerable. It makes all the mundanes in this town vulnerable. But there’s nothing I can do, is there? You all put your spells and your magicks above everything—and everyone—else. How’s that been working for you? Dracula got in.”
“We took care of it,” Dag said.
“Frank almost died!” Ed inhaled sharply and immediately centered himself. “When that vampire broke the wall between the Lands of the Living and the Dead—the moment he poked holes in structures that have supported this town for centuries—the dam cracked. I cannot fathom how you, Dagrun Tyrsdottir, the Queen of all the pointy ears around here, can justify ignoring the obvious.”
For the first time in my two hundred years in Alfheim, I saw Dagrun fall silent.
“He wants me.”
We all looked at Axlam.
“St. Martin. He’s here for me. You said he’s owned those farms for years. That’s what the camera was for. To determine our protocols. Maybe for blackmail.”
Ed shot Dagrun an angry look.
“He’s been collecting information for years, Ed.” Axlam said. “Years. It won’t make a difference if we leave. He knows all our run territories. Who runs with us, their power level, who’s new to the pack. Everything.”
“He picked Samhain because he knows it’s a magical night when you have no choice but to follow protocol,” Ed said. “He showed up and made scenes so that we knew he knew. It’s a terror tactic. He wants public revenge. He can’t make the town’s magicals afraid if we’re surprised.”
Axlam turned to Dag. “We need elves and pack at the schools. Make sure, when the kids leave, that an adult elf or wolf is with them, and that they go directly home, pack an overnight bag, and go directly to our house.” She waved her hand. “Just to be sure.”
Dag nodded.
Axlam turned to Ed. “That includes your family. They stay inside our wards until we get this under control.” Then back to Dag. “Send someone to get Isabella and the little ones now. Make sure they stay with her at all times.”
Dag pulled out her phone. “I’ll send Sif.”
“Ed, call a curfew. Blame the coming storm. Make sure everyone in town stays inside tonight and tomorrow night.” Axlam rubbed at her cheek. “He seems… lazy. I’m not sure that’s the correct word. Not so much lazy as unoriginal. My hope is that fortifying the routine will stop him from spreading his public revenge to the public.”
Ed did not look convinced.
“He wants me, Ed.”
I understood reckless men with anger issues. Men who lashed out like children, but weren’t children. They were physically strong, or financially powerful. And too many of them took their revenge in fatal ways.
For the first time since Axlam had come to Alfheim, she looked small. “He’s going to try to kill me first. If that doesn’t work, he’s going to try to kill my family and everyone else.” She looked around. “So we make everyone else as safe as possible no matter how erratic he is.”
She was right. The wolves were always right. And we had to find a way to stop him.
“We will find him,” Dag said. “He will cause no more harm.”
Ed still didn’t look convinced, but he nodded and tapped the comm on his shoulder. “I need a crew outside to go over an abandoned Tesla.” He waved away Dag and Axlam.
Dag touched Axlam’s shoulder. A look of comprehension passed between them, then they both walked toward the Admin Building.
We needed a way to listen in on St. Martin’s connection to his master’s magic, or to track him, or to call him out in an isolated way, so the elves could put him in a cage.
None of which was going to happen before the storm hit. I looked out at the haze on the northwestern horizon—the blizzard was sitting over the Montana-Canada border, and the forecast had it moving this way at a speed no one had seen from a winter storm in a century of recordkeeping.
We had twenty-four hours before forty-mile-an-hour gusts full of ice and snow came scouring into Alfheim.
Behind me, in the Admin Building, Arne, Dag, and Axlam had the reporter and his crew under control. Dag would send out a few powerful elves to check the run’s route.
“Keep an eye out,” Ed said.
“Of course.”
A deputy jogged toward the Tesla. Ed shooed me off and went about his work with the car. He’d issue the
