By ten the next morning, Mia was already polishing up her proposal for an author event. She'd worked off considerable sexual frustration the night before by diving straight into the project and sticking with it until after midnight.
Then she'd sprinkled ginger and marigold over the rough draft for success in business ventures. With rosemary under her pillow to aid in a restful sleep, she'd tuned out the nagging need. She had always been good at channeling her energies, at focusing them on the task that needed attention. After her initial mourning period for Sam, that strength of will had gotten her through college, into business. Into life.
It had, for years, kept her moving forward with matters both practical and pleasurable when she was fully aware that the web of protection around her home was thinning. Yet despite that will she'd dreamed. Of Sam, and of being with him then. Of being with him now. The physical ache of it had her tossing until she was tangled in the sheets. She dreamed of the marked wolf, stalking through the woods. Howling from its perch on her cliffs. And once she'd heard it scream, in pain and rage. And in sleep, she called Sam's name like a chant. Still, she had slept, and she woke to a brilliant sunrise that promised a perfect day. She tended her flowers first while the sky shimmered with the reds and golds of dawn. She paid her respects to the elements that gave her the beauty of her gardens and the gift of her power. She brewed a cup of mint tea, for money and luck, and drank it while standing on her cliffs with the sea raging against the rocks below.
She felt closest to her ancestor there, and could always sense the iron core of strength as well as the bitter, rending loneliness.
Sometimes, when she'd been very young, she'd stood here looking out to sea and hoping to see the sleek head of a silkie bobbing in the waves. Once, she'd believed in happily-ever-after and had woven the tale in her head of how the one who was called Fire's lover had come back for her and how their spirits had found each other. Loved each other. Ever and always.
She no longer believed that, and was sorry for it. But she'd learned, and learned well, that there were some losses that sliced you to bits, shattered the spirit into dust. And still you went on, you remade yourself, mended your spirit. You lived. If not happily ever after, then contentedly enough. It had been on those cliffs that she had sworn an oath to protect what had been entrusted to her. She had been eight, full of pride in what she was. And every year since, on the nights of the summer and winter solstices, she stood on those cliffs and renewed that vow.
But this morning, Mia stood on the cliffs and simply gave thanks for the beauty of the day, then went in to dress for work.
She didn't shudder when she drove the curves of the cliff road. But she watched. At her desk, she read over her proposal, searching for mistakes, any detail she might have overlooked. Her brow furrowed at the knock on her door. Though she ignored it, deliberately, Ripley strode in.
"I'm busy. Come back later."
"Something's up." Never one to stand on ceremony, or to be put off by a less than warm welcome, Ripley came in, dropped into a chair.
That annoyed Mia enough to have her looking up. She saw Nell in the doorway.
"Nell. Isn't it your day off?"
"Do you think I'd've dragged her in here on her day off," Ripley said before Nell could answer, "if it wasn't important?"
"All right." With sincere regret, Mia set her work aside. "Come in, close the door. Did you have a vision?"
Ripley grimaced. "I try not to, and no, this has nothing to do with woo-woo stuff. Not directly, anyway. I heard Mac talking on the phone this morning, trying not to let me hear him talking on the phone."
"Ripley, I really can't meddle in your domestic disputes during working hours."
"He was talking to Sam. Well, that woke you up," she commented.
"It's hardly surprising that they'd have a conversation." Mia picked up her proposal, frowned at the bullet points, then gave up and set it down again. "All right. What were they talking about?"
"I don't know exactly, but something. Mac was really interested. He even walked outside with the phone, casual-like. But I know it was because he didn't want me to hear him."
"How do you know it was Sam?"
"Because I heard him say, 'I'll come by the cottage this morning.' "
"Well, why . . . can't you just get to the point?"
"I'm getting to it. So he scoots me out to work, trying not to make it obvious he's railroading me along.
Kiss, kiss, pat, pat. Shove, shove. But I go, because I'm thinking I'll just run by the cottage myself once I'm on patrol. But first I check in at the station house, and Zack's on the phone. And he stops talking in the middle of a sentence when I walk in, then says hello to me, using my name really definitely."
Her scowl deepened at the memory. "So I know he's talking to either Mac or Sam. Then he starts giving me all this grunt work to do, crap jobs that'll keep me tied to the station house for two or three hours. Says he's got to do stuff. I wait until I'm sure he's gone, then I drive by the cottage and what do you think I see?"
"I hope," Mia said, "you're about to tell me and put an end to this play-by-play."
"The patrol car and Mac's Rover," Ripley announced. "I grabbed Nell, and now I'm grabbing you, because I'm telling you, they're not playing poker or watching dirty movies in there."
"No, they're putting something together without us," Mia agreed. "Too manly for the little women."
"If they are," Nell said, "Zack's going to be very sorry."
"Let's just go find out, shall we?" Mia yanked her car keys out of her desk. "I'll tell Lulu I've got to go out, and I'll be right behind you."
M ac hunkered down on the ground, ran his portable scanner. "Positive energy all the way," he muttered. "Any negativity has been thoroughly cleansed. Next time call me first. I could really use a sample."
"It was a little late for science experiments," Sam told him.
"Never too late for science. Can you sketch the manifestation?"
"I can't sketch a stick figure. It was the same image Mia described. The black wolf, massive size, with the mark of the pentagram."
"It was smart to brand him when they had him down on the beach last winter." Mac sat back on his haunches. "Makes ID simple - and it's diminished his power."
Sam rolled his shoulders. "Sure as hell wasn't any pussycat last night."
"He sucked the extra punch out of something, probably you. Bet you were pissed, huh?"
"The fucker tried to drive Mia off a cliff. What do you think?"
"I think the emotional turmoil we discussed the other night is a primary element of the equation. If you'd - "
"I think," Zack interrupted, "Sam should get that shoulder looked at. Then we should stop jerking off with theories and go after this bastard. If it can hurt Sam, it can hurt somebody else. I'm not having it run loose on my island."
"You're not going to be able to track it down and shoot it like a rabid dog," Mac told him.
"I can sure as hell try."
"It won't go after anyone who's not connected." Sam frowned at the unscarred ground. He'd spent most of the night thinking it through. "Fact is, I don't think it can."
"No, exactly." Mac straightened. "This entity needs to feed off the power and the emotions of those of us who are tied to the original circle."
"A lot of islanders have ties to the original circle, however diluted," Zack pointed out.
"Yes, but it doesn't want them. Or need them."
"He's right," Sam told Zack. "It has only one focus, one purpose now, and it can't waste time or energy by scattering it. Its magic is limited, but it's canny. It fed on Ripley's emotions before. This time it fed on mine. It won't happen again."
"Oh, yeah, you've always been a real even-tempered sort," Zack muttered. "You wanted it to go for you."
"It worked," Sam pointed out. "The thing is, I didn't hurt it that bad. It should've come at me again. Another charge and I could've gotten it into the circle. I could've held it there."
"It's not for you," Mac said simply.
"Fuck that. I'm not standing back while it waits for a chance to go for Mia's throat. That's what it wants, that's what I felt from it. It'll have to get through me first, and that's not going to happen. She can make whatever the hell choice she's going to make, but in the meantime, I'm going to rip its goddamn heart out."
"See," Zack said after a beat. "Real even-tempered."
"Kiss ass."
"Okay, okay." Mac stepped between them, patted the tensed shoulders of each man for peace. "Let's just keep our heads."
"Isn't this sweet?" Mia's voice dripped honey. "The boys are out playing in the woods."
"Shit," Zack muttered after one look at his wife's angry eyes. "Busted."
Ripley hooked her thumbs in her belt, tapped her fingers on her pockets, and strode forward. And got up in Mac's face. "Lucy, you got some 'spaining to do."
"No point in hassling them. I asked them to come."
"Oh, we'll get to you," Ripley promised Sam, "but there's a natural pecking order here."
Mia stepped forward, and felt the ripples of power. "What happened here?"
"You might as well spill it," Zack advised Sam. "Take my word for it. I've dealt with these three more than you have."
"Let's go inside and - "
Mia simply slapped a hand on Sam's chest before he could move past her. "What happened here?" she repeated.
"I took a walk in the woods."
Her gaze shifted, rested briefly on the ground. "You used the circle."
"It was there."
Part of her resented that he'd been able to use what was hers, what belonged to the three. It tightened the connection, made his link to her - to Nell and Ripley - unarguable. "All right," she said calmly enough. "What happened?"
"I ran into your demon wolf from hell."
"You - " She held up a hand, more to stop herself than to keep Sam silent. Because her first reaction was gut-wrenching fear. She willed it aside - not away, that was beyond her - and made herself think. And felt fury rise up and strangle fear.
"You called him. You came out here in the middle of the night, alone, and called him out like some swaggering gunslinger."
He hadn't known she still had that much temper in her. Or that it could, as always, trigger his own. "I like to think it was more Gary Cooper-esque."
"This is a joke to you, a joke ?" Fury all but swallowed her whole. "You would dare call up what's mine? You can stand between me and what's mine to do while I - what - shrink aside wringing my hands?"
"Whatever it takes."
"You're not my shield, not my savior. What's inside me isn't less than what's in you." She shoved him back a step. "I won't tolerate your interference. You're meddling because it makes you feel like a hero, and - "
"Take it easy, Mia." Even as Zack spoke, the keen edge of her gaze cut to him, raked over his face. Recognizing a woman ready to bite out a man's heart, Zack merely held up both hands, stepped aside. Sam, he decided, was on his own.
"Do you think I need your help?" She rounded on Sam again, drilling a finger into his chest.
"Stop jabbing at me."
"Do you think because I lack a penis I'm incapable of fighting for what's mine? So you pull your idiotic, manly display, then call your idiot men friends so you can discuss how to protect the helpless women?"
"I've never seen her like his," Nell whispered and watched, fascinated, as Mia shoved Sam back another step.
"Doesn't happen often." Ripley spoke out of the corner of her mouth. "Really cool when it does." She glanced up as clouds, black as a fresh bruise, boiled into the sky overhead. "Man, she is supremely pissed."
"I said stop jabbing at me." Sam curled his fingers around the fist she was currently slapping against his chest. "If you're finished with your snit . . . Careful," he warned as thunder bellowed.
"You arrogant, stupid, insulting. . . I'll show you a snit." She used her free hand, intending to shove him again. And saw the wince of pain as she bumped his shoulder. "What have you done?"
"We've just covered that."
"Take off your shirt."
He worked up a leer. "Well, baby, if you want to finish things that way, I've got no problem with it. But we've got an audience."
She solved the matter by reaching up and ripping his shirt open.