Wolf Hunted, стр. 28

Which only served to increase my background level of frustration and to stir up more ineloquent, coarse mutterings.

But there was something else in Chihiro’s story that caught my attention: She always felt as if a mirage trailed her after she left Ellie’s domain. She’d gotten inside the enchantments. They hadn’t rejected her. And from that moment on, a ghost of the magic walked at her side.

Mirages, ghosts, shadows… just like our interloper.

And Sal had sensed something similar out at the abandoned farm where I’d stopped with Ed—and from that Tesla outside of Sif’s shop.

I could leave it until the morning, but sometimes magic stood out more in the moonlight. Plus we were within Samhain’s aura, which might just make any mirages stand out.

Ed had gone home after dealing with the accident. No fatalities, thank goodness, but I still wasn’t going to bother him tonight, though I did text him my suspicions about the Tesla.

Dagrun was the first elf to answer her phone. “I’ll meet you at the farm,” she said, and hung up.

I drove out and parked Bloodyhood in front of the farm’s abandoned house. Dagrun would arrive shortly, but I had Sal and a good flashlight. I turned off the headlights and waited the moment it took for my eyes to adjust to the moonlight. Silver danced over the pasture and the fences like water fairies as the evening’s frost reflected the moon. An animal—a fox or maybe a coyote—watched me from the grass between the house and an outbuilding. An owl hooted, and bats flapped and dove around the barn.

Winter breathed onto the land her first real exhale of the year. If there was a sort of nefarious magic here, I needed to find it tonight, before that exhale became the shrieks and screams of the blizzard that was on its way toward Minnesota.

I held up Sal. “You were annoyed the last time we were here, and not just by the ravens.”

She responded affirmatively.

“Where?” I asked.

I listened to Sal’s hum hoping to pick out some sort of directionality to her annoyance.

She pointed toward the big elm in the house’s side yard. The tree shaded the little building, or did in the summer. This elm, unlike the ones in elf territory, had already dropped all of its bright gold leaves.

Nothing about the tree stood out. No obvious shadows crawled on its bark. No birds sat in its bare branches, either. It was just a simple tree growing where humans once roamed.

It had lost a limb to rot not long ago, and a large hole had opened about ten feet from the ground on the side of the trunk facing away from my truck. Precise animal magic drifted out of the little cave.

“I think owls nest there,” I said to Sal. Owls wouldn’t come near an inhabited home, and their presence added to the haunted local ambiance.

I leaned Sal against my leg and held up my phone to get a good photo into the hole.

There was an old nest in there for sure. A nest, and a shadow.

I swung Sal up toward the hole, and she quickly confirmed why she felt annoyed—the tree had a localized concealment, and one strong enough to affect the images on my phone.

I looked around. There might be a ladder in the barn—or I could back my truck against the tree. The bed would give me the lift I needed to see inside.

Low-slung headlights swung off the road and onto the drive to the farm just as I began backing my truck toward the tree.

Dagrun parked her roadster and gracefully unfolded from its interior. She didn’t bother to glamour, and her icy, clockwork magic flowed outward from her like a cloak worthy of her title of Queen. Its edges crackled and jostled, as if the natural, frost-touched magic of this place wanted to add crystal ice to the boundaries between elf and land.

“Your magic is energetic this evening,” I called.

Dagrun stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders the way a boxer readying for a fight warmed up. “Let’s get this done. I wish to return to my husband,” she said.

I chuckled and wondered if it really was some sort of elven season of love. Perhaps I should feel blessed for being allowed too much elven information.

Dag’s multitude of silver scalp tattoos shimmered under her thick black hair. She still wore the intricate braids looped in and around each other across her head, and an extra smattering of silver beads dotted the ponytail she’d had at The Great Hall.

My elf mother exuded all of her grace, power, and beauty tonight.

“Thank you for coming out,” I said. Dag sniffed at the air as if the birds had left behind an icy scent trail. “The ravens have been here,” she said. “They were bearing witness.”

“To what? Ed and I had been out looking at a lot of farms all day.” Two magical ravens bearing witness did not bode well for the witnessed. “I was the only one here. Do you think the World Raven is up to something?”

Dag walked toward the barn. She stopped about ten feet from the building’s moon-thrown shadow, and tossed an intricate, clockwork magic over the entire open area on that side of the building.

A fox-shaped sparkle appeared on the side of the barn, low down, next to the ground. It flicked its tail and walked on through. Several bird-sparkles appeared along the top of the door, and up along the roof line, each preening and calling. Mice and voles appeared next, along with a considerable number of deer, all moving through the open space. Crows mobbed the ground, and not one, but three coyotes walked through. Multiple owls swooped in. A moose family followed, and a small surprise pack of timberwolves.

No humans meant the animals had returned.

Then Betsy and Ross manifested directly over a spot about ten feet in front of Dag. Betsy landed first, then Ross. They each added something to the cache, then flew off again.

Dag pulled out