TEXT: Mike Lee
  
  Mike Lee
  
  The Poison Tree
  2
  Authors: Mike Lee
  Copy-Editor: Jessa Markert
  Managing-Editor: Matt M. McElroy
  Developer: Bill Bridges
  Creative Director: Richard Thomas
  Cover Art: Ron Spencer
  Cover and Interior Design: Mike Chaney 
  © 2015 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permis-
  sion of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and 
  for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal use only. White 
  Wolf, Vampire, World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade, and Mage the Ascen-
  sion are registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. Vampire the Requiem, 
  Werewolf the Apocalypse, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, Promet-
  hean the Created, Changeling the Lost, Hunter the Vigil, Geist the Sin-Eaters, W20, 
  Storyteller System, and Storytelling System are trademarks of CCP hf.
  All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted 
  by CCP hf.
  CCP North America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCP hf.
  This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mysti-
  cal and supernatural elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes 
  only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.
  Check out the Onyx Path at http://www.theonyxpath.com
  
  3
  Table of Contents
  Chapter One: Wormwood 
  5
  Chapter Two: Desperation 
  14
  Chapter Three: Among the Thorns 
  25
  Chapter Four: Cracking the Bone 
  33
  Chapter Five: Lone Wolves 
  42
  Chapter Six: The Charnel House 
  54
  Chapter Seven: Old Blood 
  60
  Chapter Eight: Green Island Road 
  69
  Chapter Nine: Fault Lines 
  76
  Chapter Ten: Storm Warning 
  84
  Chapter Eleven: The Forlorn Hope 
  92
  Chapter Twelve: The Prodigal 
  103
  Chapter Thirteen: Ghost Dance 
  114
  Chapter Fourteen: Liars and Thieves 
  123
  Chapter Fifteen: Truth and Consequences 
  130
  Chapter Sixteen: Shadow of Doubt 
  138
  Chapter Seventeen: Walking in Dark Places 
  146
  Chapter Eighteen: The Dweller in the Dark 
  155
  Chapter Nineteen: Apocalypse 
  163
  Chapter Twenty: Stormwalker  
  171
  Epilogue: What the Rain Left Behind 
  177
  
  For the Grassmere sept:  
  Janet, Micah, Ripper, Carrie, Matt, Gericke,  
  and Paul. Packmates forever.
  
  5
  Chapter One: Wormwood
  In her dreams, Savannah is burning.
  The sky is black as smoke, lit from the north by eerie green and yellow light, 
  and she knows it’s because the river is afire. The buildings along the riverfront are 
  already gone, hollowed out into blackened shells, but the screams of those who were 
  trapped within still linger in the howling air.
  Dark forms dance and writhe amid the firelight, capering to the sounds of 
  torment, leaving poison footprints in their wake.
  It is the end. She knows this. But also, it is the beginning of something else, 
  something far more terrible, and that knowledge is a poison all its own, eating away 
  at her soul.
  The asphalt is hot beneath her feet. She is standing on Bull Street, with her 
  back to the caern, watching Madison Square burn. She can hear the wail of the 
  spirits within, and the gibbering cries of the monsters that are desecrating the 
  shrine. People are being dragged from their homes and taken into the square to be 
  defiled and then cast aside – or worse, to be welcomed with hateful laughter into the 
  blasphemous revel.
  The city trembles, and she howls her rage. She has taken her war form, and 
  Donnerkeil is in her hand, but the ancient blade’s hungry gleam is dimmed somehow. 
  Her strength is failing, and she is alone.
  The abominations know this. They stumble from the firelit square, drunk on 
  slaughter, their misshapen bodies steaming in the heat. They howl in mockery of her 
  righteous anger, their eyes glowing yellow and green with the chemical fires that 
  birthed them, and reach for her with rubbery hands.
  They pour from the square in ever-greater numbers, a tide of foes to drown the 
  world. She stands at the verge and fights against them, because she is garou, and 
  what is more, she is a Shadow Lord, and this land is hers. Donnerkeil flickers in 
  the darkness, and the monsters topple by the score, their bodies split and scorched. 
  The slaughter is terrible, but it isn’t enough. The monsters reach for her. When she 
  slices off their hands they laugh with delight. Here and there a claw gets through and 
  leaves a burning wound in her side.
  Chapter One:  
  Wormwood
  
  The Poison Tree
  6
  Slowly but surely, they drive her back. She retreats, the melting asphalt pulling 
  at her feet, knowing that every step she surrenders brings the enemy closer to the 
  caern.
  It is the end.
  Again and again she howls for her pack. At times she catches a glimpse of a 
  black-furred shape in the distance, struggling against something unseen, but when 
  she calls out, there is no reply. The despair, the loneliness she feels, cuts deeper than 
  all her wounds combined.
  They drive her back into Monterey Square, and she is forced to watch as the 
  shrine is defiled around her. The capering mob smears blood and toxic wastes on the 
  trees, splitting the bark and smothering the spirits within. Her kinfolk are dragged 
  from her family home across the square and their brains dashed out against the sides 
  of the old Pulaski Monument.
  She can feel her heart breaking. Donnerkeil spills out a river of blood, but it is 
  not enough. She howls until her throat is raw, but no help ever comes.
  Another step, and her back is to the caern.
  It is the end.
  The trees of the old park rise up at her back. She can feel the ancient spirits 
  within, and here she thinks she will make her stand. But the spirits do not heed her; 
  when she calls out to them they reject her, as though she were the enemy.
  The children of the Wyrm press close. They are silent now, their burning eyes 
  glittering with a strange, secret mirth.
  She takes another step back, and the ground beneath her crumbles like sand. 
  Her heart is in her throat as she falls, the walls of the pit rising up all around her.
  There is something at the bottom of the pit. It is black like tar, and reeks of 
  death. She lands in it, and its touch sears her with cold. Tendrils of it wrap around 
  her limbs, stripping away fur and the flesh beneath. Donnerkeil is plucked away and 
  swallowed up forever.
  She fights it with all her might. She struggles and snaps, her fanged jaws 
  clashing against the tendrils, but they dissolve in her mouth and leave the taste of 
  poison behind.
  She is sinking into the blackness. A thick tendril wraps around her neck, pulling 
  her head back against the tar. The cold of the abyss spreads across her chest, and she 
  looks up, towards the faint circle of green and yellow light and the smoky sky beyond.
  There are four silhouettes standing around the mouth of the pit. They wear 
  the shape of huge, shaggy wolves, their fur blacker than the night itself. Their red 
  tongues loll and their eyes burn with green fire as they watch her drown.
  And as the end draws near, she glimpses the beginning of what is to come.
  • • •
  Ingrid Stormwalker woke with a strangled cry, still fighting the darkness. Terror 
  and rage made her muscles twitch, feet scuffing for purchase to either fight or flee 
  
  7
  Chapter One: Wormwood
  from the nightmare. Her skin flushed with heat, nerves prickling as though with a 
  fever, and the dull, familiar ache began to take hold in her bones.
  There was a knock at the door to her bedroom. A muffled query came from the 
  hall outside. The old, ceramic knob began to turn. Ingrid shouted a warning as she 
  felt her body begin to shift.
  No. She breathed deeply, fighting the red tide. Ingrid clenched her fists and was 
  surprised to find Donnerkeil’s antler grip in her hand. She was on the floor opposite 
  her bed, head bent and shoulders pressed against the baseboard, bare feet tangled in 
  the old, threadbare rug. The repurposed wardrobe where she kept her sacred objects 
  was standing open to her right. The French doors to her left were also open, letting in 
  the humid night air and the scent of flowers from the garden below.
  Ingrid focused on each detail, clinging to them like anchor posts. The knuckles 
  of her right hand ached as she gripped the ancient, silver blade, and the lightning 
  spirit bound within reacted, throwing out flickering arcs of cold, blue light. As if in 
  answer, a muted rumble of thunder echoed from the southwest, and the ghost of a 
  breeze stirred the heavy curtains beside her.
  A breath at a time, the panicked frenzy began to subside. The ache in Ingrid’s 
  bones ebbed, and the heat bled from her skin. The old house, with its familiar sounds, 
  its familiar spirits, settled over her like a mantle.
  Wincing at the stiffness in her shoulders and back, Ingrid pushed herself to her feet. 
  She was tall and very fit, her pale shoulders and muscular limbs marked here and there 
  with the scars of a grim and violent life. The faint breeze from the balcony was cold 
  against her skin. Sweat trickled from beneath tangled strands of black hair and coursed 
  in rivulets across her shoulders and back. Her t-shirt and cotton shorts were plastered 
  to her body.  Plucking absently at the clinging fabric she crossed to the wardrobe, and 
  with a murmur of apology to the weapon’s twin spirits, she placed the grand klaive in its 
  customary spot next to her ancestor shrine and swung the wooden doors shut.
  Her hands trembled on the polished mahogany. The aftermath of the dream was 
  almost as unsettling as the dream itself.
  There was another soft knock at the door. This time, Ingrid recognized the voice 
  of Eleanor, one of the household staff. “Is everything all right, mistress?”
  “Fine,” she said in a husky voice. Ingrid raked sweaty tendrils of hair away from 
  her face as she went and plucked her smart phone from the nightstand next to the old 
  Queen Anne bed. She activated the phone, fancying she could feel the little device’s 
  electrical spirit stir to life. The screen said 9:00 PM. Ingrid muttered a curse, rubbing 
  at her eyes. It felt like she hadn’t slept at all. “I’m fine, Eleanor. Come in.”
  The door opened, spilling a shaft of yellow light along the bedroom floor and 
  across the antique bed. Eleanor stepped into the doorway, her brown leather day 
  planner clutched against her chest like a shield, and carefully surveyed the dimly-
  lit room. She was a dignified lady of middle years, her salt-and-pepper hair drawn 
  back into a bun, highlighting the strong cheekbones and angular jaw common to the 
  Reinhardt lineage. She and Ingrid were distant cousins, part of a bloodline that had 
  taken root in the city more than two hundred years ago, and now wound like kudzu 
  through most of Savannah’s old families.
  
  The Poison Tree
  8
  Eleanor studied the room a moment longer. When she was certain it was safe, 
  she stood aside and ushered a younger maid carrying a bundle of clothes into the 
  room. The maid was new, Ingrid saw. She moved nervously to the bedside, eyes 
  downcast, and began to set out the clothes atop the rumpled sheets.
  “Good evening, mistress,” Eleanor said, pointedly ignoring the tension in the 
  room and launching into her nightly report. “Your father is out this evening at the 
  symphony fundraiser. Will you be taking dinner with us tonight?”
  Ingrid’s stomach growled at the mention of food. It was distracting – which, 
  she suspected, was exactly the point. “Yes. Steak, if we have it. Set a table on the 
  veranda.”
  Eleanor made a note in the planner. “Master Campbell is waiting for you 
  downstairs. Would you like a place set for him as well?”
  Ingrid frowned. Marcus Campbell was another cousin, beta to her pack, and 
  took advantage of his status and family connection by coming up to the “big house” 
  whenever he could. He made no secret of trying to curry favor with her father Karl, 
  though she suspected that there were more to their conversations than mere face 
  time and flattery. Ingrid was war chief of the Coastal Empire, but Karl Ironhand still 
  ruled here, as he’d done for the last twenty-five years. She suspected that Marcus 
  was informing on her, keeping Karl abreast of her every decision – and any secret 
  ambitions she might have, if and when the decades-long war finally came to an end. 
  She didn’t fault Marcus for it. They were Shadow Lords; it was the way of their tribe. 
  But that didn’t make it any less irritating. “Set out an extra wine glass,” she said. 
  “Once he realizes my father isn’t here, he may not stay long. No sense wasting food.”
  “Of course.” Eleanor made another note. The maid smoothed the clothes with 
  a nervous sweep of her hand, returned to the hall to get Ingrid’s boots. As she left, 
  Eleanor glanced up from her planner. “The pack leaders of all four visiting packs have 
  put in requests for private audiences with your father before they leave tomorrow.”
  Ingrid gave a curt nod. The news wasn’t entirely unexpected, and, technically 
  speaking, none of her business. What purpose did Eleanor have for sharing it? Was it 
  a feint, a test orchestrated by Karl, or a different kind of gambit altogether? “I’ll keep 
  that in mind,” she said, offering nothing in return. “Is that all?”
  “Is there any word on how many garou we can expect after the moot tomorrow?” 
  Eleanor asked.
  Ingrid sighed. Had there ever been a time when the sept could count on aid from 
  the rest of Georgia’s werewolf tribes? It hadn’t happened in the five years since she’d 
  accepted Donnerkeil and become war chief. “I think it’s safe to assume we’ll have at 
  least fifteen, same as last year.”
  The maid set the boots down on the rug with a muffled thump. Eleanor snapped 
  the planner shut and waved the young woman back out into the hall. “I’ll start making 
  preparations for the new arrivals right away,” she said, starting to pull the door shut.
  “Eleanor?”
  The kinfolk paused. “Yes, mistress?”
  
  9
  Chapter One: Wormwood
  “Tell my father I’d like to speak to him as soon as I get back from the hunt. It’s 
  important.”
  Eleanor nodded. “I’ll make sure he gets the message.”
  The door clicked shut. Alone again, Ingrid set the phone back on the nightstand 
  and went to the adjoining bathroom, shutting the door behind her. Her hand fumbled 
  for the light switch. Normally, she was comfortable moving about in total darkness, 
  but the nightmare still had its barbs in her. White light played over marble and colored 
  tile, banishing shadows. Even in her haggard state, the irony was not lost on her.
  She stripped off her sodden clothes and started a shower. The sound of the water, 
  the heat and the mist, were meditative. It helped clear her mind of raw emotion – a 
  danger to garou in general, and to Ahroun, like her, in particular – as she tried to pick 
  apart the meaning behind the dream.
  On the surface, it seemed obvious. Savannah had been under siege since just 
  before she was born, and there was never enough garou to keep the Coastal Empire 
  secure. Her first change had come upon her at sixteen; within months she had 
  completed her Rite of Passage and been thrown into the fight. Then, at twenty, she’d 
  been given Donnerkeil, heirloom of the Reinhardt bloodline and the position of war 
  chief. For the last five years, she had fought day and night to be worthy of both.
  But there had been no great victories, no dramatic turning of the tide like in the 
  old sagas. I haven’t been given the chance, she thought bitterly, letting the hot water 
  work at the tension in her shoulders and neck. Karl would not risk allowing the garou 
  to be drawn into a ruinous battle that might give them a short-term victory but leave 
  them too weak to resist a protracted counter-assault by their foes. It had happened 
  countless times in the past, to the sorrow of garou the world over.
  She could not fault her father’s concerns – dared not, in fact. Karl Ironhand 
  and his pack had wrested the Coastal Empire from a debased Fianna bloodline and 
  defended it for twenty years against vampires, sorcerers, and worse. He had passed 
  the mantle to her only because the last of his pack was dead, and he was too battle-
  scarred himself to continue. I don’t deserve the status I hold now, Ingrid thought. The 
  grand klaive passed to me because I was Karl’s daughter. I did not earn it, as others 
  might have, and every garou in the city knows it.
  The Wyrm seemed to know it as well. Its attacks on the city grew more determined 
  and more widespread with each passing year, while aid from the Southeast tribes dwindled. 
  And whose fault is that?
  Ingrid held her head under the rush of steaming water. You’re afraid of failure, 
  she thought. You don’t want to be the war chief that lost Savannah to the Wyrm. 
  That’s what the dream was about.
  The question is: what are you going to do about it?
  She let the water do its work on body and mind for as long as she dared, knowing 
  that Marcus was waiting downstairs and there was a long night’s work to be done. 
  By the time she was out of the shower her muscles were relaxed, her skin tingling. 
  She dried her hair and braided it, her worries giving way to the daily woes of a long 
  and bitter siege.
  
  The Poison Tree
  10
  Still naked, Ingrid returned to the bedroom for her clothes. She had taken two 
  steps into the room before she realized she wasn’t alone.
  A massive, black-furred shape crouched in the far corner of the room, just to 
  the right of the French doors. Ingrid heard its heavy, rasping breath, saw reflected 
  streetlight gleam on bared fangs and long, dagger-like claws. Ingrid felt her heart 
  clench; icy spikes of adrenaline left goosebumps on her arms and sent a chill racing 
  up the back of her neck. Her skin flushed with heat. She hissed a spirit name under 
  her breath and suddenly Donnerkeil was in her hand, blue arcs snapping angrily 
  along the edge of the silver blade.
  The sudden flare of light outlined the shaggy, wolf-like head of the intruder, and 
  shone through the thin membranes of hairless, almost bat-like ears. The huge figure 
  was part wolf, part man: a garou in warlike crinos form. But the powerful body 
  was crooked. A twisted spine raised the right shoulder higher than the left, and the 
  garou’s right leg was turned inward at a painful angle. The gaping mouth and rasping 
  breath hinted at lungs that never fully formed in the womb.
  Ingrid knew the garou at once, even as her body reacted to the threat and began 
  to shift. For the second time that night, her grip tightened on the grand klaive’s hilt 
  as she fought her primal instincts and held her killing rage in check.
  “Eric?” she said breathlessly.  “What in Gaia’s name- ”
  The garou shrank a bit from the klaive’s angry light, raising a clawed hand to 
  partially shield his face. “Cousin,” Eric said. The words came out in a rumbling 
  growl, all but unintelligible to anyone not of their people. “Are you well?”
  “Am I — ” Her rage faded slowly, replaced with a dawning sense of fear. “Eric, 
  how did you get out of your room?”
  The misshapen creature hunched his shoulders and pointed at the balcony. “I 
  climbed down. It was not so difficult.”
  “Your windows are sealed shut.”
  Eric gave a lopsided shrug. “Mother taught me many things when I was young,” 
  he said. “She whispered secrets to me in my cradle. Did you know?”
  Ingrid scowled at him, hoping that he could not see how shocked she was. 
  “What if someone saw you? Do you understand how bad that would be?”
  “Saw me? No.” He chuckled, a grim and terrible sound. “It was too dark. 
  Besides, there was the shrine. It protects us, does it not?”
  “What are you doing here?”
  The crinos shifted uneasily. “I…was concerned. About you. You were having a 
  nightmare.”
  Ingrid’s breath caught in her throat. “How did you know about that?”
  Eric gave another shrug. “I could hear you. The balcony doors were open, and I 
  am just above.” He rose to his full height. His hunched shoulders brushed the room’s 
  eight-foot ceiling. “I have been having dreams too. I wondered if yours were as 
  terrible as mine.”
  
  11
  Chapter One: Wormwood
  Ingrid fought against a sudden wave of dread. Eric was born under the crescent 
  moon. As a Theurge, he was closely attuned to the spirit world, and the secret 
  landscapes of dreams.
  “Before we can talk, you have to change,” she said sternly. “Your form is…not 
  appropriate.”
  Eric spread his massive hands. “But it is the shape that Gaia gave me.”
  Ingrid winced. Garou were born of a mating between a garou and a human, or a 
  wolf. Most offspring were born as normal humans or wolves, but carried the garou 
  trait in their blood; these became kinfolk to the tribes. One in ten children bred true 
  and became garou. In older times, when families were much larger, that wasn’t as 
  much of a problem as it was today. The Reinhardts, and other bloodlines in the Deep 
  South, tried to offset the difficulty each generation by spreading their seed as far and 
  wide as possible. It did not matter if you were a bastard. If you were garou, you were 
  part of the family, with all the privileges and expectations that went with it.
  But if garou mated with garou, that was another matter entirely. The Great 
  Mother, perhaps to shame her children, ensured that almost every child born of such 
  a forbidden bond became a garou. But the offspring, the metis, would be twisted 
  somehow, broken in body or mind – or both, as in Eric’s case. The tribes shunned 
  and reviled their metis; in some cases, they were even killed. The Shadow Lords, 
  who despised weakness in any form, were especially harsh on them. It remained a 
  mystery to Ingrid and the rest of the family why Eric had been allowed to live.
  “It is the law,” Ingrid insisted. “I am war chief. Do you mean to challenge me?”
  Eric hung his head. He made a whimpering sound deep in his throat, and then, 
  with a crackling of bone and a groaning of sinew, his body began to change. The 
  great beast shrank in on himself, becoming more human than wolf, transforming 
  from one minute to the next into a young man with the characteristic lean features, 
  dark hair and pale skin of the Reinhardts. Eric’s body was still misaligned, but the 
  humped shoulder was less pronounced, and the foot not quite so painfully turned. A 
  simple black shirt, slacks and shoes – invested with spiritual energy and dedicated to 
  Eric’s person – coalesced out of the ether around his thin frame as the transformation 
  completed.
  Eric’s new shape made Ingrid suddenly conscious of her own nakedness. She 
  set the grand klaive on the bed beside her and reached for her clothes. “Tell me about 
  these dreams,” she said.
  The metis turned towards the balcony. “I dream of darkness and fire,” he said, 
  pulling back the heavy curtains and looking out on Pulaski Square. He spoke slowly, 
  as though breath was precious, but his voice was soft and almost musical. “The sky 
  is full of smoke, and I can hear the howling of a wolf.”
  A chill went up Ingrid’s spine. “What does the howl say?”
  “There are no words. Just rage, and pain, and…madness, I think. A longing for 
  something that can never be found.”
  “Madness?” She pulled on briefs and a sports bra, then reached for a pair of 
  loose-fitting black linen trousers.
  
  The Poison Tree
  12
  “Oh, yes.” Eric’s voice grew soft, almost a whisper. “The kind that destroys 
  everything it touches.”
  Ingrid could feel her heart thudding in her chest. She pulled on a tight-fitting, 
  short-sleeved shirt and grabbed for her boots.
  “Dreams are just our mind’s way of working through our problems,” she said 
  tightly, tugging at bootlaces.
  “Sometimes,” Eric agreed. “But sometimes we see glimpses of what is to come. 
  I dreamt of my mother, just before she died. Did you know?”
  Ingrid shook her head. It felt like she was standing at the edge of an abyss.
  “You need to go back to your room, Eric. If Father knew you’d gotten out, he’d 
  be very angry.”
  After a moment, Eric sighed. “All right.”
  Ingrid put Donnerkeil away a second time, then went to a small dresser near 
  the door and dug out a ring of keys. She beckoned to Eric. “Come on. I’ll take you.”
  Eric reluctantly turned away from the balcony and limped over to her. Ingrid 
  opened the door and glanced into the corridor. For the moment, the coast was clear. 
  “Quickly now. We don’t want anyone seeing you.”
  She led the metis into the corridor. The lighting on the third floor was subdued, 
  creating deep shadows along the hallway. She led Eric down the corridor, towards 
  the main stairway. Footsteps and muted conversation could be heard below.
  At the main stairway, Ingrid turned left, down another short hallway that ended 
  in a door. She searched through the keys until she found the one she wanted, and 
  inserted it into the old lock. Beyond the door was a narrow, wooden staircase, rising 
  up into darkness.
  Ingrid led her cousin up the staircase. Another door waited at the top. This 
  one was metal, and bound by a half-dozen locks. Once again, she worked her way 
  through the key ring, the metal clinking faintly in the gloom.
  “You never told me about your dream,” Eric said. His voice was soft and 
  strangely intimate in the close confines of the staircase.
  Ingrid hesitated. She affected a shrug. “It’s gone now. I can’t remember.”
  “Well. I suppose that’s for the best,” he said. “I know there are dreams I wish I 
  could forget sometimes.”
  Ingrid hurried through the last of the locks. The heavy door swung open. Beyond 
  lay the old house’s spacious attic, converted into a large, open apartment. The yellow 
  glow of the streetlights slanted in through dormers set into the roof, illuminating 
  dusty, antique furniture and stacks upon stacks of books. The air within was heavy 
  and still.
  Eric limped past Ingrid and entered the dimly lit apartment. He took a few steps 
  further into the space and turned slowly about. The metis studied her intently.
  “What is it like, cousin? Out there, in the city?”
  Ingrid shrugged. “It’s war. The Wyrm presses closer to the caern every day.”
  
  13
  Chapter One: Wormwood
  Eric nodded thoughtfully. “It’s going to get worse. That’s what my dreams tell 
  me. Something terrible is coming.”
  Ingrid swallowed. Visions of the city in flames, of the squares bathed in blood, 
  danced before her eyes. “What is it? What’s coming?”
  The metis studied her a moment more, and then turned away. “An end.”
  Eric let out a pained cry as his body began to shift again, returning to its natural 
  form. Ingrid shut the door on him and quietly reset the locks. As quietly as she could, 
  she descended the wooden stairs. It felt as though she were falling through darkness.
  She had just reached the base of the stairs and shut the wooden door behind her 
  when the sound of running feet came pounding up the main stairway. Ingrid hurried 
  down the hallway to see who it was.
  Marcus was just reaching the third floor landing as she appeared. The look on 
  his face was grim.
  “What’s happened?” Ingrid demanded.
  If Marcus was surprised to find her coming from the attic instead of her bedroom, 
  the Shadow Lord gave no sign. “I’ve been trying to call you,” he said. “They’ve 
  found another nest. We’ve got to go.”
  
  The Poison Tree
  14
  The fissure was a jagged wound amidst the knee-high weeds, its raw edges glis-
  tening and ruddy-colored beneath the orange glow of the streetlights. The tear in the 
  earth was little more than four feet long, and just wide enough for a man to wiggle 
  inside if he was willing to get down on his belly in the mud. It was all but invisible 
  amid the mounds of trash that littered the narrow, fenced lot, just a block east of Sa-
  vannah’s Colonial Park Cemetery and the city’s police headquarters.
  The weeds had withered and died in a narrow patch surrounding the fissure. 
  There were wolf prints in the bare mud. Ingrid knelt and brushed her fingertips 
  across the deep marks of toe and claw. There were four sets of prints leading up to 
  the fissure, but only one set – shallow and smeared in panicked flight – that led away.
  “Start from the beginning,” she said, her voice low and husky with rage.
  The young garou hunched his shoulders. He was leaning against the graffi-
  ti-covered wall of the building to Ingrid’s left, his face veiled by limp strands of 
  dark, sweaty hair. Anna Hides-the-Moon stood close by, her arms crossed and her 
  expression stern as she monitored the eighteen-year-old’s condition. Dark spots had 
  soaked through his jeans in several places, and his right hand was pressed against 
  an even larger patch along his left side. The humid air was sharp with the coppery 
  tang of blood.
  “I told you twice already,” Aaron Boarkiller muttered, his deep-country drawl 
  rising nearly to a whine. He stole a nervous glance at Joshua Hunter’s Song, who 
  stood watch over the back alley at the north end of the lot. The galliard was turned 
  away from them, his stocky figure cloaked in shadow, but no one doubted he was 
  listening to every word.
  Ingrid stood and stalked over to the boy. 
  “Tell me again,” she snarled, drawing close enough that he could feel her breath 
  on his neck. Her dark eyes were hard and unforgiving. “Keep talking until I can 
  make sense of the colossal fuckup that happened here.”
  The young garou squirmed, shoulders pressed hard against the bricks, head turn-
  ing away in a sign of submission. He was half a head taller than Ingrid, broad-shoul-
  Chapter Two:  
  Desperation
  
  15
  Chapter Two: Desperation
  dered and powerfully built, but the force of her presence was such that he shrank 
  under her stare.
  “We were on patrol,” he said sullenly. “You’ve been telling us to sniff around, 
  try to find what happened to those missing homeless people. So that’s what we did.” 
  He nodded over his shoulder, in the direction of Price Street. “We started at the 
  Catholic place- ”
  “The Social Apostolate,” Ingrid corrected.
  “Yeah.” Aaron took a breath and raked back his lank hair with a trembling hand. 
  His face was haggard with fear and pain. “Dave and Erica shifted, started nosing 
  around for scents. Jay and me kept watch, in case a cop rolled by.”
  There was a murmur of voices at the south end of the lot, facing Liberty Street. 
  Three men in t-shirts and ragged jeans shuffled past, speaking to one another in low 
  voices. They caught sight of Darius Stoneheart’s imposing figure, standing watch at 
  the fence line, then took in the tense scene unfolding in the lot, and hurried on past. 
  It was late, well past midnight, and locals knew that the historic district was a bad 
  place to be after dark.
  “Who caught the scent first?” Ingrid pressed.
  “Erica. Said there’d been some kind of a fight in the alley. Once she pointed it 
  out, Dave caught it, too. Six or seven people, they thought: two homeless guys and 
  twice as many taints.” Aaron gestured at the north end of the lot. “Trail led down 
  the alley to here. That’s when we found the hole.” He shook his head slowly. “Been 
  past this place I don’t know how many times the last few weeks, and never knew.”
  “And then?”
  The young garou stared at his blood-spattered sneakers. “We went in after them.”
  “Just like that?” she pressed. “No hesitation? No discussion? You couldn’t even 
  be bothered to come up with a fucking battle plan?”
  Aaron gave her a defiant stare. “We screwed up, okay?” he said through gritted 
  teeth. “Is that what you want to hear?”
  Ingrid’s lips drew back in a snarl. “What I want to hear is that one of you idiots 
  at least tried to tell your pack leader to stop and send a message back to the caern,” 
  she growled. “Gaia knows we’ve tried to drill that into your thick heads over the last 
  year. One call, and help would have been here in five minutes.”
  “We didn’t think- ”
  “Bullshit,” Ingrid snapped. “Here’s what I think happened. In the time it took 
  you to walk from the Apostolate to here, the four of you decided to go after these 
  taints on your own. Am I right? One last grab for glory before you head back home?”
  Aaron’s defiance guttered like a candle under Ingrid’s glare. His gaze dropped 
  back to his shoes.
  “We thought there was just four of them,” he said weakly.
  Ingrid shook her head. “Gaia weeps,” she growled. “Give me a name, Aaron. 
  Whose idea was this? You’re the only one left, so it’s not like you’ve got anybody 
  to protect.”
  
  The Poison Tree
  16
  Aaron took a deep breath and met Ingrid’s gaze. For the first time there was a 
  real hint of iron in his eyes. “You want to stain somebody’s name, put it on me. Like 
  you said, I’m the only one left.”
  Ingrid glared at him a moment longer, then glanced back at Marcus, leaning 
  against the cinder block wall of the house on the east side of the lot. The Philodox 
  gave her a faint shrug. She nodded, and then glanced back at Aaron.
  “How many are really down there, Boarkiller?”
  The young garou’s expression grew haunted. “I don’t know for sure,” he told 
  her. “At least a dozen. There’s a tunnel that leads to this one big room, like a sunken 
  basement or something. We went in, and they were all over us.” He took a ragged 
  breath. “Three of them tried to pull me down. Erica was snarling and snapping, and 
  then something bit me in the side. The next thing I knew, I was up here.” His voice 
  grew thick with emotion. “I was up here, and my pack was gone.”
  Maybe if you’d stood and fought, the others might still be alive, Ingrid thought, 
  but she bit back the angry reply. There wasn’t much point saying it now. Instead, she 
  turned to Anna. “Will he make it?”
  The Theurge nodded slowly. Her human shape was almost the exact opposite of 
  Ingrid’s: short and somewhat pear-shaped, with narrow shoulders and broad hips. Her 
  frizzy red hair was bound at her neck with a black elastic tie, and her round cheeks were 
  flushed a bright red. “I’ve dealt with the worst of it,” she said. “The bite in his side is still 
  bleeding, but that will help flush any corruption from the wound. He’ll need to be taken 
  to the caern for a proper cleansing in the next few hours, though, just to be safe.”
  “Good enough,” Ingrid said, then pointed a commanding finger at Aaron. “Stay 
  here and keep watch. If we’re not back in fifteen minutes, call the other packs. Can 
  you do that?”
  The young garou nodded weakly. Ingrid turned away and headed for the fissure, 
  beckoning to the rest of her pack.
  The Shadow Lords of Savannah gathered together in silence. Whatever they 
  thought about the debacle in the tunnels below, they kept to themselves. Once they 
  were together, Ingrid spoke in a low voice. “He thinks there could be a dozen fomori 
  down there.”
  Darius frowned, dark brows knitting together. “A dozen?” he said, the words 
  rumbling up from his barrel chest. He crossed his thickly muscled arms, tattoos flex-
  ing across dark skin. “That can’t be right. We’re a block and a half from Crawford 
  Square.”
  Ingrid felt another flush of rage and fought to hold it in check. Coming from 
  Darius, the comment probably wasn’t an accusation, but it was hard to take it as 
  anything else. She was the war chief; for good or ill, she was responsible. Certainly 
  the elders at Stone Mountain would blame her for the loss of three young garou, less 
  than a day before the visiting packs were due to return home.
  “What’s the plan?” Joshua prompted, helping focus Ingrid’s thoughts. The Gal-
  liard’s gray eyes and black goatee lent him an aura of maturity and wisdom, even 
  though he was only a year older than Ingrid herself.
  
  17
  Chapter Two: Desperation
  “According to Aaron, the hole leads to part of the old tunnels. We’ll go to hispo, 
  head down the passageway, and kill any lookouts we find. Then we hit the nest with 
  everything we’ve got.”
  The pack uttered low growls of approval. Marcus eyed his pack leader warily. 
  He had the same sharp, angular features as his cousin, but his chin was more pointed, 
  the cheeks more hollow. He had the look of a fox rather than a wolf.
  “Shouldn’t we call the caern first?” he asked.
  “Don’t be a smartass.”
  “I’m serious,” Marcus protested. “This is bad. We’ve got three dead garou and a 
  Wyrm nest less than a mile from the caern.  Shouldn’t we at least let the other packs 
  know what’s happened?”
  Ingrid felt her cheeks grow hot. The suggestion was reasonable enough. If I 
  want to broadcast this debacle to every werewolf in the Southeast, she thought an-
  grily. The fact was, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Stone 
  Mountain only sent the youngest packs to help protect the Savannah caern: those 
  with the least experience and the most inclination to go hunting for glory. Had the 
  elders any talent for intrigue at all, Ingrid might have suspected that they were delib-
  erately trying to undermine her family’s hold on the city.
  Marcus was another story. She knew exactly what he was up to.
  “You think we can’t handle a dozen fomori?” she countered.
  The beta’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say that. I just think we owe it to the caern- ”
  “We are the caern,” Ingrid declared. “And once we’ve dealt with this threat, I 
  will decide what, if anything, our guests need to be told.” Without waiting for a reply 
  she turned away and went to the edge of the fissure.
  The rage was building within her again. This time she welcomed it. Her skin 
  grew fever-hot, and her bones began to ache. Her heart raced. For a dizzying instant, 
  she felt suspended, as though at the edge of a vast precipice, and then, all at once, her 
  muscles bunched like knotted ropes and she began to shift.
  The pain was immediate and intense, radiating through every part of her body. 
  Ingrid felt her shoulders broaden and her ribs stretch. Her tortured muscles swelled 
  across her chest and limbs. It felt as though her fingernails and half her teeth were 
  being pulled out. Her jaw lengthened, stretching the skin until it seemed it would 
  split. A low growl rose unbidden from her throat.
  The garou were not entirely human, nor were they entirely wolf. They could be 
  either when it suited them, or something between the two. From one heartbeat to the 
  next, Ingrid became less human and more wolf-like. Her clothes wavered, became 
  insubstantial, and finally disappeared altogether as she went from glabro, a human 
  with wolfish features, to crinos, the massive, wolf-human war form. Ingrid fell to 
  her hands and knees as the change continued, her hands shrinking into paws and the 
  shape of her body giving up the last vestiges of its human shape for something still 
  huge, but primal and wolf-like. This was the hispo form, more like the terrible dire 
  wolves of legend than their smaller, more modern descendants.
  
  The Poison Tree
  18
  As Ingrid changed, the world seemed to change around her. Her senses shifted 
  along with her skin. Color faded from the world. She could hear the sizzling hum of 
  the electric lights along the street and the flutter of bat wings overhead. An explosion 
  of smells flooded her nose, each one distinct and nuanced. The scents of her packmates 
  were as familiar and reassuring as the sound of their voices, and just as unique. She 
  knew how long each piece of trash had been in the alley. She could smell the foulness 
  of her enemies, and the trail they had left as they’d exited the fissure and gone hunting 
  for flesh at the Social Apostolary. She caught the scent of the two victims the fomori 
  had dragged back with them. She smelled blood and piss and the acrid stink of fear. 
  The musty breath of the old city and its many ghosts raised the hackles on her neck.
  A breath of wind stirred the trees along Liberty. Ingrid tasted rain and ozone on 
  the night air. Thunder rumbled to the west, and she greeted the sound with a cold, 
  wolfish grin. She chose to see the coming storm as an omen, a sign of their spirit 
  father’s favor.
  Her pack sidled up around her, jaws agape, fangs gleaming in the artificial light. A low, 
  anticipatory growl rose in her throat. Slowly, silently, she nosed her way into the fissure.
  It was a tight fit, even in hispo form. Thick mud and broken roots brushed against 
  her snout. Ingrid clawed at the earth for purchase, and forced her broad shoulders 
  through the gap. After that she dropped easily and silently to the floor of the tunnel 
  beneath. Ingrid smelled dank air and old brick, black mud and the thick smell of rot.
  Enough light leaked through the fissure that she could see brick-lined walls to 
  either side of her that curved upwards to a low, arched roof. The tunnel was very old, 
  like scores of others that honeycombed the historic district. Some dated from the 
  Civil War, while others were older still, carved out of the limestone in the days when 
  pirates and privateers sailed from Savannah Harbor. Behind her, the passageway ran 
  for little more than three feet before ending in a pile of tumbled dirt and stone. Ahead 
  lay darkness, and the sharp smell of blood. Ingrid edged forward, mud squishing up 
  between her toes, tasting the air ahead of her as she sought out her prey. One by one, 
  her pack dropped into the tunnel behind her.
  The city’s tunnels were favorite spots for addicts and the homeless, and as close 
  as the opening was to the shelter down on Price, she expected to find piles of trash 
  and other signs of habitation. There was nothing, not so much as a single beer bottle 
  or cigarette butt. The tunnel, therefore, couldn’t have been open for very long. That 
  meant the nest was something recent, which made its size all the more alarming.
  Ingrid crept through the darkness, her pack tensed like a clenched fist just past 
  her shoulder. There were no sentries that she could see in the barren passageway. She 
  stopped and glanced back at Anna. The Theurge sniffed the air and seemed to stare 
  blankly into space. After a moment, her vision refocused and she twitched her ear. 
  There were no spirits watching the tunnel either, as far as she could tell.
  The war chief whuffed thoughtfully. The fomori were being careless. Or perhaps 
  they had no fear of reprisal. It was hard to fathom the servants of the Wyrm at the 
  best of times.
  
  19
  Chapter Two: Desperation
  Emboldened, Ingrid picked up her pace. The tunnel stretched for nearly thirty 
  yards, straight as an arrow, and ended in a large room. She could feel the subtle 
  change in air pressure against her whiskers as she edged up to the opening.
  The reek of the nest hit her full in the snout – a miasma of unwashed bodies, 
  excrement and oozing infection. Then she heard the sounds of tearing flesh and fran-
  tic chewing, and with an awful clarity she understood why there were no fomori 
  watching the tunnels.
  The room was low ceilinged and fairly long – a sunken basement of some kind, 
  or a root cellar that had been sealed up and forgotten in decades past. A strange, 
  faintly phosphorescent mold grew in patches on the flaking walls, illuminating a 
  hellish scene of filthy, human-like creatures crouched over the gory remains of what 
  had once been Aaron Boarkiller’s pack. The Wyrmspawn were tearing at the dead 
  flesh, hands caked in mud and blood and viscera, stuffing shreds of dripping meat 
  into their mouths.
  Ingrid looked upon the scene of horror and reason fled. Only rage remained.
  Her snarl ripped through the dank air as she leapt into the nearest group of fo-
  mori. The impact sent the creatures sprawling in the mud and filth. She lunged at one, 
  a glassy-eyed man with jagged teeth and rubbery, gray skin. The fomori hissed at her, 
  the sound bubbling up from cancer-riddled lungs, and raised an arm to protect him-
  self. Her powerful jaws snapped shut on the Wyrmspawn’s forearm and bit through 
  flesh and bone with ease. She lunged again, shoving past the severed limb, and this 
  time her jaws closed on the fomor’s skull. Bone splintered like kindling, and Ingrid 
  spat the remains of the Wyrmspawn’s face into the mud.
  Her pack was right behind her, darting like deadly shadows into the sunken 
  room. Darius, as huge and powerful in hispo as he was in human form, caught a 
  fomor by the waist and bit the creature nearly in two. Marcus sped past, snapping at 
  exposed limbs and leaving severed hands and crippled legs in his wake. Joshua let 
  out a chilling howl, cold and cruel as the winter wind, and Ingrid relished the cries 
  of terror from the Wyrmspawn. Here is nature’s vengeance, red in tooth and claw.
  Anna caught a fomor by the back of the neck and shook him like a rat, tearing 
  flesh and snapping bone. Another of the Wyrmspawn lunged at Ingrid, claws raking 
  at her side. She spun, catching the foe’s arm at the shoulder and tearing it from its 
  socket.
  Another blow rocked Ingrid from the opposite side. Sharp, cold pain jabbed 
  again and again into her side. A fomor had thrown one arm around her neck, and was 
  stabbing her over and over with a rusty-bladed knife. With a snarl she shook herself 
  free of the creature’s grasp and leapt aside, the wounds in her flank already knitting 
  shut.
  They had taken the enemy by surprise, but the fomor had already recovered 
  from the shock and were throwing themselves at her pack with mindless zeal. From 
  the ragged, mismatched clothes most of them wore, they had once been part of the 
  city’s homeless, before the Wyrm had sunk its claws into them. The stink of infection 
  was everywhere. Some were already showing signs of mutation, as the power of the 
  Corruptor made its mark on their bodies. The sickly glow of the phosphorescent 
  
  The Poison Tree
  20
  mold revealed a collection of freakish, writhing muscles, curved claws and flicking, 
  barbed tongues.
  There were also, as near as she could tell, much more than a dozen of the enemy.
  The fomor with the knife let out a lunatic shriek and lunged for her again. Ingrid 
  ducked beneath the blow and bit off the creature’s right leg at the knee. The rusty 
  knife plunged into her neck as the fomor toppled and stayed there, buried to the hilt. 
  With a snarl she tore out the foe’s throat and then willed her body to shift again. The 
  rage-fueled transformation was impossibly swift; in the blink of an eye she had gone 
  from hispo back to glabro. Ingrid reached back with a clawed hand and tore the knife 
  free, then called out to Donnerkeil.
  The grand klaive appeared in a flash of actinic light and a hungry crackle of 
  power. Ingrid howled in fury, the sound shaking dust from the walls, and leapt back 
  into the melee. The silver blade, broad and single-edged, flickered through the air. 
  Flesh sizzled beneath its edge. She slashed a fomor across the back, severing his 
  spine, and stabbed another through the heart. Another of the creatures whirled and 
  raked her midsection with his claws. Its mad shriek was cut short as Donnerkeil 
  swept down and split the fomor’s skull from crown to chin.
  Thick liquid spattered across Ingrid’s neck and shoulder. At its touch, hair 
  crisped, and the flesh beneath started to burn. The pain was sudden and intense, far 
  worse than the stings of knife or claw. She cried out, snapping at the burn sites out 
  of pure, wolfish instinct – then hard-earned reflexes caused her to duck and leap 
  aside before she could be sprayed with another shower of acidic bile. Heavy droplets 
  spattered across the churned mud where she’d stood, sizzling and sending up tendrils 
  of acrid smoke.
  She spied her attacker a moment later. The fomor had climbed the wall to her 
  left and clung up against the low ceiling like a spider, some twelve feet away. Green 
  bile oozed from the creature’s rubbery lips. He grinned evilly at her, and then his 
  throat bulged like a toad’s as he prepared to spit again. Without thinking, Ingrid flung 
  the grand klaive and speared the fomor through the chest, pinning him to the wall.
  Ingrid spun, seeking another foe, but the battle was over. The bodies of the 
  enemy lay in heaps, ripped by tooth and claw. Her pack stalked among the bodies, 
  flanks heaving and teeth bared. A mauled fomor stirred weakly, and the garou leapt 
  upon the creature, snapping and snarling as they tore it apart. Part of her longed to 
  join in, to surrender herself entirely to bloodlust, but she focused on the pain of her 
  burns instead and pushed her violent passions away. After a moment, Ingrid turned 
  away and went to reclaim Donnerkeil. By the time she’d levered the heavy blade 
  free from the wall, the others had shifted again and were poring over the battle’s 
  grisly remains. Anna was already picking her way across the room towards Ingrid, 
  her brows knitted in concern.
  “Anybody hurt?” Ingrid growled. The burns along her throat stung fiercely 
  when she spoke. 
  “Just you,” Anna murmured. “As usual.” She gave the burns a cursory glance, and 
  then bent to check the claw marks across Ingrid’s midsection. When shifted, a garou could 
  withstand incredible injuries, except those inflicted by fire, silver, or the supernatural. The 
  
  21
  Chapter Two: Desperation
  fomor’s claws had left four ragged cuts from Ingrid’s left ribs all the way across to her right 
  hip, and the spray of acid bile had burned away fur and left a mottled pattern of angry red 
  chemical burns across her left shoulder and along her neck. The Theurge frowned. “Do you 
  always have to throw yourself at the biggest knot of enemies you can find?”
  Ingrid winced as the Theurge probed at her wounds. “I’m going to assume that’s 
  a rhetorical question and not dignify it with an answer,” she replied through clenched 
  teeth. The glabro form accented the words with a thick, rough-edged growl.
  Anna understood what Ingrid was saying well enough to scowl up at her pack 
  leader. She pressed her bloody hands together for a moment and closed her eyes. 
  Her lips moved, whispering an invocation, then she laid her palms over the fomor’s 
  claw-marks.
  Ingrid sighed as energy suffused her body in a cool, soothing rush. The ache of 
  the claw wounds vanished at once, and the throbbing sting of her burns diminished 
  until it was barely noticeable at all. A sense of peace swept over her, and her body 
  relaxed. She felt her body start to shift, returning her to her human form, and reluc-
  tantly surrendered to the urge.
  Anna opened her eyes and grinned tiredly at her pack leader. “Not perfect, but 
  that should take care of the worst of it,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, but 
  healing Aaron took a lot out of me.”
  “No apologies necessary,” Ingrid replied. The sense of wellbeing was already 
  fading, leaving behind a host of aches and the still-smoldering throb of chemical 
  burns, but it was far better than before. She glanced up from the Theurge to find 
  Marcus standing beside them, a worried frown on his face.
  “How many?” she asked, glancing about at the carnage.
  “Twenty. Our backwoods friend needs to learn how to count.”
  Ingrid cursed under her breath. The idea of a nest that big, so close to the caern, 
  made her blood run cold. “How did we not catch this before?”
  Marcus nodded over at Darius, who had pulled aside a curtain of filthy muslin 
  hanging along the north wall and was peering into the narrow opening concealed 
  behind it. “They’re learning to use the tunnels,” he said. “It’s been years. For all we 
  know, they’ve got a subterranean route all the way up to the Blight itself, right under 
  our very nose.”
  Ingrid bared her teeth. The derelict Bosch Paper Mill, northwest of the city, was 
  a toxic site that had been allowed to fester during the ‘70s and ‘80s, when the Fianna 
  controlled the city. Now it was the source of the Wyrm’s strength in Savannah.
  Anna scowled. “We’ve got to scour the tunnels. Clear them out before this hap-
  pens again.”
  Ingrid shook her head. “We don’t have the numbers, Anna. We’re stretched thin 
  as it is, and these tunnels run for miles.”
  “But this is the third nest we’ve hit in two months,” the Theurge protested.
  “I know.”
  “Gaia only knows how many more there are. Anything could be down here –”
  
  The Poison Tree
  22
  “I know.”
  Anna started to press the matter further, but caught the look in Ingrid’s eye and 
  thought better of it. “I’ll go check on Darius and Josh,” she said, and turned away.
  Marcus watched the Theurge go. “This is getting out of hand,” he said softly.
  Ingrid sighed. “She’s just tired. Healing that fool pup wrung her out.”
  “That’s not what I mean.” He stepped closer, meeting her eyes. “This isn’t work-
  ing. The Wyrm is getting stronger.”
  Ingrid felt her hackles rise. Her hand tightened on Donnerkeil’s hilt. Marcus 
  tensed. The lightning spirit woke inside the grand klaive, causing the air to crackle 
  around the blade.
  “And what exactly would you have me do?” she said, as calmly as she could 
  manage.
  For a moment, the room was still. The pack stood frozen, watching the exchange 
  in wary silence.
  Slowly, slowly, Marcus raised his hands. “No disrespect,” he said carefully, tak-
  ing a single step back. “I only mean to say that we need more warriors. A few dozen 
  garou from the Southeast tribes. Just for a week, maybe less. We could sweep across 
  the city, root out the Wyrmspawn…” he hesitated. “Your father managed something 
  similar, once. Didn’t he?”
  “He did,” she admitted. How good of you to point that out. “Once. Twenty-five 
  years ago.” After the city had been closed off for more than a century, and every pack 
  within four hundred miles was eager to taste the power of our newly won caern.
  “Then maybe the elders at Stone Mountain can be persuaded again. That’s all 
  I’m saying.”
  Ingrid wanted to box Marcus’s ears. Damned Philodox. He sounds just like Fa-
  ther. She wanted to snap at him, to snarl a challenge and close her jaws around his 
  throat, but that would reveal too much about her own sense of desperation. Instead, 
  she bit back her anger and gave her beta wolf a level stare.
  “I am sure the Stone Mountain elders will give us all the support they can,” she 
  said. “They recognize the value of the caern here as much as we do.”
  A slow smile crossed Marcus’s face. “I’m sure you’re right.”
  “In the meantime,” she said, raising her voice so that the entire pack could hear, 
  “we’re going to clean this place out, and then see to our dead. Go and get Aaron. 
  I want him to see the consequences of his pack’s foolishness. And while you’re up 
  there, call in some kin with a can of gasoline to take care of these taints.”
  Marcus stiffened slightly at his alpha’s dismissal. The indirect rebuke would 
  bite deeper, and in a more tender area, than actual teeth could have managed. He 
  gave her a curt nod and backed away before turning and heading back to the surface.
  Ingrid watched him go, then drew a deep breath and went to work, dragging the 
  corpses of the fomori into piles for burning. The creatures were sticky with gore and 
  stank of corruption, but the work took her mind off the invisible teeth worrying at 
  her own heart.
  
  23
  Chapter Two: Desperation
  • • •
  She returned to the old house on Monterey Square just a couple of hours before 
  dawn, loping silently from shadow to shadow along Bull Street in the shape of a 
  wolf. A few lonely lights burned from the windows of the townhouses along the 
  street, but no one was about.
  Ingrid tried to take comfort in the familiar sounds and smells of home. Oak and 
  ivy, roses and ferns, old stone and rusting iron, the scents of the people that came and 
  went through the square the day before. The tall homes rose around her like old com-
  panions as she turned off Bull and began trotting around the perimeter of the square. 
  The air was heavy and damp, even at this early hour. Though there had been echoes 
  of thunder all through the night, the promised storm had never come. The realization 
  only added to her unease.
  She couldn’t shake what Marcus had said, down in the tunnels. Things are get-
  ting out of hand. And it was true. The discovery of such a large nest, so close to one 
  of their shrines, had unnerved her. It meant, among other things, that the enemy was 
  getting stronger by the day, while the shrines were getting weaker. Despite her best 
  efforts, Savannah was slipping from her grasp.
  Something’s got to change, she thought. Father will understand. He has to.
  Ingrid slipped through the wrought iron gate at the front of Reinhardt House and 
  into the deeper shadows of the front garden. As she did so, she willed her body to 
  change, returning at last to her human shape. The world seemed to fade around her 
  as her senses dimmed, and, as ever, she felt a momentary pang of sadness at the loss. 
  All at once, she felt weary to her bones.
  Doggedly, she climbed the steps to her family home. A light was burning over 
  the dark, wooden door. It swung open on silent hinges as she approached.
  “Welcome home, mistress,” Eleanor said softly. The kinfolk was alert and at-
  tentive as ever, but the glow from the porch light showed bags beneath her eyes and 
  wrinkles along the sleeve and shoulder of her blouse. As was her habit, she’d been 
  napping on the upholstered bench beside the door, awaiting her mistress’s return.
  “Thank you, Eleanor,” Ingrid said as she stepped inside. The vestibule was dark. 
  She could just make out the shadowy lines of the wooden staircase and the entrance 
  to her father’s study on her right. Faint, yellow light shone from the second floor 
  landing just overhead. The muted ticking of a clock echoed in the gloom.
  “How was the city tonight, mistress?” the kinfolk asked, as she did every night 
  when Ingrid returned from the hunt.
  Ingrid ignored the question. “Did you give the message to my father? I need to 
  speak to him. Now.” 
  Eleanor paused, choosing her words carefully. “I did as you asked, mistress. But 
  your father has retired to his rooms. He said to tell you that he would speak to you at 
  his convenience this evening, before you leave for the Moot.”
  
  The Poison Tree
  24
  The news took Ingrid aback. She saw the look of concern on Eleanor’s face, and 
  quickly regained her composure. “This evening, then,” she said, and forced a tight-
  lipped smile. “Thank you. Go home, and get some rest.”
  “I will. Good night, mistress,” Eleanor said. She gathered her purse from the 
  bench and headed out into the waning night.
  Ingrid shut the door behind her. The stillness of the old house settled around her 
  like a shroud. Alone with her thoughts, hounded by despair, she climbed the creaking 
  staircase to her room.
  
  25
  Chapter Three: Among the Thorns
  Ingrid overslept. She knew it the moment she woke, limbs stiff and tangled in 
  the bedcovers after a day of tossing and turning in the old four-poster bed. The light 
  outside had mellowed to a deep, ruddy, orange, throwing long shadows across the 
  bedroom floorboards, and the square echoed with the sound of cars and people as 
  locals made their way home from work. Cursing under her breath, Ingrid twisted in 
  the sheets and fumbled for her phone. She’d set her alarm, hadn’t she? Try as she 
  might, she couldn’t remember.
  Twilight was stealing over Savannah by the time Ingrid had dressed and made 
  it downstairs. She emerged onto the wide veranda at the rear of the house to find the 
  household staff bustling about her father’s table, clearing away the remains of their 
  master’s evening meal. Eleanor stood at the ivy-covered balustrade, jotting a quick 
  note in her planner. When she saw Ingrid, the kinfolk gave a slight tilt of her head 
  in the direction of the rose gardens. The war chief gave a faint nod, her hands busy 
  pulling back her hair into a tight ponytail as she crossed the veranda in brisk strides 
  and descended the broad, stone steps to the back lawn.
  When Karl’s sister Elizabeth had been alive, the rose garden had been her spe-
  cial preserve. She had tended its spirits with great care and veneration, creating a 
  sanctuary of vibrant, earthy life just steps away from the brooding, old house and its 
  many woes. Ingrid remembered running down the garden’s winding paths as a child, 
  chasing fireflies through the soft, perfumed air. She had dreamed of tending the gar-
  dens herself one day, too young yet to understand about caerns, or auspices, or tribes. 
  Since her aunt’s death, the garden’s spirits had gone neglected, and the roses 
  had grown tangled and wild, until they took up most of the house’s walled rear lawn. 
  After fifteen years the roses were like towering, dark-leaved hedges, fragrant still 
  but also forbidding, their depths dark and vaguely threatening. The twisting, gravel 
  pathways remained, but they were narrower now, almost claustrophobic in places, 
  and no one could say whether they ran the same way from one night to the next. The 
  household staff feared the place, but Karl Ironhand walked its paths almost every 
  evening, in good weather and in bad.
  Chapter Three: 
  Among the  
  Thorns
  
  The Poison Tree
  26
  The fireflies were coming out as Ingrid entered the garden. The towering roses 
  pressed close on either side, leaves almost touching her cheeks. She paused, listen-
  ing for her father’s steps, but heard only the muted sounds of traffic and the drone 
  of bumblebees. For a moment she was tempted to shift and track her father’s scent 
  through the maze, but she knew her father would take it as a sign of weakness and 
  pushed the thought aside. The war chief set off down the path, the will-o-wisp flicker 
  of fireflies beckoning her on.
  Ingrid tried to calm herself after the headlong rush to get downstairs. She’d slept 
  badly, sore from her wounds and dogged by nightmares she only barely recalled. 
  Sharpen my thoughts like razors, she prayed to Grandfather Thunder. She had to 
  convince her father to see the danger they were in, a difficult proposition at the best 
  of times, and she was at a disadvantage before she’d even begun.
  A few yards ahead the path forked beside a weathered stone bench. The right-
  hand path led deeper into the garden, she knew, towards the reflecting pool at its 
  center. She followed it, picking up her pace, gravel crunching beneath her boots.
  The path wound like a serpent’s track through the towering roses. The air was 
  thick with their perfume. From time to time she would come upon a small bench at a 
  bend in the path, its legs wound about with creeping vines. Once she turned a corner 
  and came face to face with the statue of a faun, peering at her from the deepening 
  shadows. The satyr’s grin seemed to mock her as she went by.
  After several minutes of walking, Ingrid began to think she’d taken a wrong 
  turn. It was getting steadily darker amid the roses, and she hadn’t reached the center 
  yet. You’re just tired, she told herself. The garden isn’t that big. You can’t get lost 
  inside it. But the farther she went, the less certain she became.
  That was when she came upon the shrine. The path curved sharply to the left, 
  and when she followed it around she found herself staring at a niche of sorts, set deep 
  into the tangled growth. Within was a menhir of polished, white stone, carved with 
  the likeness of a dryad upon its surface. At the foot of the menhir was a copper bowl, 
  bright and clean, as though it had been set there only yesterday.
  The path continued on, past the shrine, but Ingrid paused. This wasn’t here be-
  fore, she thought. Was it? She couldn’t recall. It had been years since she’d last 
  walked these paths, and the realization stung her. The spirits of the garden deserved 
  better.
  Ingrid sank to one knee in front of the shrine. The bowl was empty, save for a 
  handful of dried leaves. She racked her brain, trying to think of what she might offer. 
  Only one thing came to mind.
  The war chief eased her right hand into the dense rose bush to her right. She 
  found the thickest, thorniest branch within reach, summoned her resolve, and closed 
  her hand tightly around it. Her breath hissed between clenched teeth as dozens of 
  needle-sharp thorns sank into her flesh.
  Ingrid held the branch for a long moment. Slowly, painfully, she unclenched 
  her hand and held it up to the menhir. “Forgive me,” she whispered, and pressed it 
  against the stone.
  
  27
  Chapter Three: Among the Thorns
  “I expected you more than an hour ago.”
  Her father’s cold voice echoed from the darkness. Ingrid jerked her hand away 
  and whirled, expecting to see Karl Ironhand standing over her. But the path behind 
  her was full of shadows, and nothing more.
  Ingrid glanced back at the menhir. The carven face of the dryad stared back at 
  her, a bloody handprint dark against her pale cheek.
  “I had a late night,” the war chief said to the shadows. She clenched her fists. 
  “There was a battle. Perhaps you heard.”
  “A battle. Is that what you call it? Three dead garou in exchange for twenty 
  wyrmspawn. I call that a disaster.”
  Her hackles rose at the scorn in her father’s voice. She turned this way and that, 
  seeking its source. “It wouldn’t have happened if they’d done as they were told- ”
  “Is that what you plan to tell the elders tonight? You let three of their people died 
  because you weren’t strong enough to keep them under control?”
  Ingrid let out a low growl. Her skin started to tingle, but she fought the urge to 
  shift. Don’t give him the upper hand, she told herself. Use your head! He sounds like 
  he’s just on the other side – oh. Of course.
  With a last glance at the menhir, Ingrid continued along the path. “I’m going to 
  tell them the truth,” she replied, keeping her voice as neutral as she could.
  “And what truth would that be?”
  Getting some distance helped. The voice came from behind her now, and a bit 
  to the right. “The enemy is growing bolder, and attacking in greater numbers. That 
  nest had been festering under our noses for weeks, just a short walk from the caern.”
  “I see. So it’s not enough that you make yourself seem weak, but you must in-
  clude the rest of us as well?”
  The path turned sharply to the left. Ingrid bared her teeth in frustration, but 
  just around the bend she found herself at the center of the rose garden. The space 
  around the reflecting pool seemed smaller than in her youth, and the water that once 
  glimmered like silver beneath the moonlight was now scummed over with algae and 
  broken up by thickets of yellow reeds. The old gazebo was in ruins, pulled apart by 
  creeping roses, and many of the stone benches were broken or lost amid the weeds. 
  On the far side of the pool, a spectral image glimmered in the twilight: her aunt 
  Elizabeth, carved in marble, kneeling by the water’s edge with two great wolves at 
  her side. The statue had been a gift by one of her packmates, now long gone like all 
  the rest. Her face was dignified, even regal. An enigmatic smile teased the corners 
  of her perfect mouth.
  She whispered secrets to me in my cradle. Did you know?
  Ingrid tore her gaze from the statue and searched the curving wall of roses to 
  her right. What appeared at first to be a shallow depression turned out to be a narrow 
  passage intersecting a second path that paralleled her own. She slipped through, 
  pulse beating in her temples. 
  “I never said anything about being weak,” she said to the shadows.
  
  The Poison Tree
  28
  “But that is exactly what they will hear,” Ironhand growled back. “Have you 
  learned nothing in the last five years?”
  Ingrid bit back an angry reply. Her father’s voice had come from her right, back 
  the way she’d come. She turned down the new path, moving in silence.
  “Those old wolves would like nothing better than to take this caern away from 
  us and give it to one of their own,” her father continued. “I’ve been dealing with 
  Stone Mountain since before you were born, child. And I guarantee you, they’re no 
  friends of ours.”
  Closer now. Ingrid smiled, starting to enjoy the hunt. Her senses sharpened. She 
  drank in the heady smell of roses and the bitter tang of her own blood.
  “There are five Shadow Lords in Savannah,” she replied. “Not counting you and 
  Eric, of course. If Stone Mountain wanted the caern, they could take it from us any 
  time they like.”
  When Karl did not reply at once, she knew her barb had found its mark. She 
  slipped down the curving path, listening for the slightest movement.
  “No one tribe could accomplish it,” her father said after a moment, his voice 
  even colder than before. “Not in these difficult times. Which is the entire point of 
  bringing these young packs to the city in the first place, so they will compete for our 
  favor instead of conspiring against us.”
  Up ahead, the path branched once more. Ingrid paused. “I thought we brought 
  them here to help protect the caern from the Wyrm,” she said.
  “Of course we do,” Ironhand snapped. “But the war serves our purposes as well 
  – so long as it can be kept under control. This is about influence, child. Not just here, 
  but across the entire Southeast. In another five years, the tribes will be gathering here 
  for the Solstice Moot instead of Stone Mountain.”
  Ingrid edged up to the left-hand path. “We don’t have five years!” she snarled. 
  “We may not even have five months. We’ve been on the defensive for far too long. If 
  we are going to keep Savannah, we’ve got to take action. Now.”
  Karl let out a low growl. There was the faint scuff of shoes on gravel. “How 
  many times do we have to go over this- ”
  He was moving now, the voice receding. Ingrid went after him, picking up the 
  pace. 
  “I can make the case to the elders tonight,” she pressed. “We might even get 
  a few of the older, stronger packs to join in. With fifteen garou we could clear the 
  Blight- ”
  She dashed around a curve in the path and suddenly there he was, looming out 
  of the shadows right in front of her, his lined face pale with anger.
  “You’ll not go anywhere near the Blight!” Karl Ironhand snarled, glaring down 
  at Ingrid. “Not while I am master of this city, child. Do you hear me?”
  Nearing sixty, the renowned Lord of Savannah and the Coastal Empire was tall 
  and lean, with broad shoulders and a stern, square-jawed face. His dark hair had been 
  receding for years, drawing back from a high forehead creased with frown lines and 
  
  29
  Chapter Three: Among the Thorns
  accentuating his pale, deep-set eyes. The Shadow Lord wore a dark linen suit and a 
  white dress shirt, its collar unbuttoned in the muggy summer air. He brandished his 
  mahogany cane in one, gnarled fist, its silver cap nearly touching her nose.
  It wasn’t the cane so much as the force of Ironhand’s presence that brought 
  Ingrid up short. Her pulse hammered in her throat. The wolf in her bared its teeth, 
  ready to fight or flee. That’s what he wants, she told herself, trying to drag herself 
  back from the brink. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
  “I am not a child,” she managed to say. “I’m your war chief. And I’m telling you 
  the caern is in great danger.”
  “If we attack the paper mill, the Wyrm will trap us and destroy us,” Ironhand 
  snapped.
  “If we don’t, Savannah will burn.”
  “Not if you do your job,” Ironhand declared, rapping his cane on the gravel for 
  emphasis. “Convince the tribes. Bring back those fifteen garou you were talking 
  about and scour the city from here to the river. It’s that simple.”
  “Is it?”
  Ironhand’s expression hardened. “I did it for twenty years. Are you telling me 
  that you are not up to the task? Because there are other garou in this city who would 
  be eager to lay their hands on Donnerkeil.”
  Ingrid bared her teeth. All of her concerns and self-doubt were swept away in a 
  red rush of anger. “If Marcus Shadow-Dancer thinks he can take my klaive from me, 
  he is welcome to try,” she snarled. “In the meantime, I will do whatever it takes to 
  defend the caern. Make no mistake about that.”
  Karl’s pale eyes narrowed at the implied challenge. Ingrid held her father’s gaze 
  steadily, refusing to back down. She knew, in the back of her mind, that she was 
  treading upon the edge of something vast and dangerous, but she was nearly too 
  angry to care.
  Ironhand bent forward, close enough to raise the hackles on the back of Ingrid’s 
  neck. “Whose city is this?” he asked.
  Ingrid felt her cheeks burn. “That isn’t the point –”
  “That is exactly the point.” Her father leaned closer. “Tell me. Whose city is this?”
  She stared into her father’s pale eyes, and for a moment she wrestled with the answer.
  “It’s yours,” Ingrid said through clenched teeth.
  Karl nodded, his lips drawing back in a lupine grin. “That’s right. And until that 
  changes, my word is law.” Ironhand stepped past her, his cane scraping along the 
  path. “Now stop wasting time. They’re waiting for you at the caern.”
  Ingrid watched her father go, limping down the path of the neglected garden, 
  until finally, he was swallowed by the darkness. Her right hand throbbed in time with 
  her heart, her fingers sticky with blood.
  • • •
  
  The Poison Tree
  30
  She was in a rare mood by the time she made it back to the house, swinging 
  wildly between flares of anger and rushing waves of despair. The household staff 
  scurried from her path as she approached. When she went into the big kitchen to 
  rinse off her punctured hand and wrap it in a clean towel, the cook and her three 
  assistants retreated to the far side of the room and watched her with the wide-eyed 
  apprehension of cornered rabbits. They remained there, too frightened to move, until 
  long after she was gone.
  Halfway to the front door, Ingrid decided she needed a drink. Storming down 
  the main hall, she went to her father’s study, just to the right of the main entrance. To 
  her surprise, the tall, pocket doors were slightly ajar. Frowning, she gripped the brass 
  door handles and pulled them wide. The heavy doors rattled on their tracks, startling 
  the young man standing by the bookshelves on the far side of the room.
  The shock of seeing a total stranger in her father’s sanctum brought Ingrid up 
  short. For a moment, she forgot all about the debacle in her aunt’s garden. 
  “Who in the hell are you?” she snapped.
  “Oh! Um…I’m…shit…hang on…” The young man struggled to fit one of her 
  father’s antique history books back in its place on the crowded bookshelf. He looked 
  to be about Ingrid’s age, tall and dark-haired, with a wide, freckled face framed by 
  horn-rimmed glasses. His white dress shirt and khaki pants were rumpled from sit-
  ting too long in the June heat, and his brown dress shoes looked almost as old as he 
  was. An artfully weathered messenger bag hung from his narrow shoulders. 
  “I asked you a question,” Ingrid warned, her voice low.
  “Right. Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry.” The heavy book slid home with a muted 
  thunk, and the stranger turned, wiping his hands nervously on his khakis. “I’m Na-
  than Carter, Atlanta Business Journal.” Seeing her for the first time, his eyes wid-
  ened. With a nervous smile, he held out his hand. “You must be Ingrid.”
  She ignored the gesture as Carter came forward, feet scuffing across the expen-
  sive Afghan rugs. Her father’s study was decorated in comfortable but imposing Old 
  World style, with a massive antique desk and office chair set opposite a pair of tall, 
  wing-backed leather seats. An antique walnut sideboard stood between the book-
  shelves facing the room’s pocket doors. 
  “You’re not supposed to be in here,” she said, brushing past the human and 
  heading for the bottles ranked atop the sideboard.
  “I’m interviewing your father. For the Journal,” Carter replied. “He, ah…he 
  sure likes his books, doesn’t he?”
  “He likes his privacy even more.” Ingrid reached for a crystal tumbler and a 
  bottle of scotch. “My father would skin me alive if he knew I was in here. Imagine 
  what he’d do to you.”
  Carter gave a nervous laugh. “Sorry. His assistant, Eleanor, left me sitting in the 
  parlor across the hall about an hour ago. I, ah…I guess I got restless.”
  Ingrid poured a generous measure into the tumbler and took a sip, savoring 
  the warmth against her tongue. “I’ll make sure to tell your next of kin,” she said. 
  “They’re going to wonder what happened to you.”
  
  31
  Chapter Three: Among the Thorns
  “You almost sound serious. What happened to your hand?”
  “I was picking roses.” Ingrid replied, her voice husky from the liquor.
  “Oh. Right. The rose garden. I read something about that. It’s supposed to be 
  one of the biggest in Savannah, but no one really knows for sure. From what I can 
  tell, you don’t allow many visitors.”
  Ingrid finished her drink in a single swallow and poured another. “As few as 
  absolutely necessary. And yet, here you are. ” She turned and studied the human 
  over the rim of her tumbler. “So why is the Atlanta Business Journal interested in 
  my father?”
  Carter gave her a bemused look. “Because he’s managed to turn the state legis-
  lature on its head in just five years. Your father backed something like six candidates 
  for the state senate and the house of representatives – real dark horses, outliers with 
  little support and even less chance of winning – and got every single one of them 
  elected. The campaigns were ruthless, even by Georgia standards, but they knocked 
  off incumbents who’d been in office for decades. And the best part is: no one knows 
  quite how your father did it. He’s got half the state’s politicians running scared, and 
  half lining up to kiss his ring, and nobody knows a damn thing about him.” He stud-
  ied Ingrid. “What about you? Any interest in politics?”
  She shook her head, taking a long drink to mask her surprise. “I prefer solutions, 
  not debates.”
  “Your father must be disappointed.”
  “You have no idea.”
  Carter thought about that a moment, then shrugged. “Well, anyway, I’m here 
  for a week to gather background on the family. Maybe you could help me with that.”
  “I have to work.”
  “What do you do?”
  “I manage the family business. Real estate, mostly.”
  “Right. I read about that. From what I dug up at City Hall, your family owns 
  most of the prime real estate in the Historic District. It’s got to be worth millions.”
  “We’ve made some shrewd investments over the years,” Ingrid said carefully.
  “More like the last 150 years,” Carter said with a grin. “The Reinhardts must 
  have come over with the first settlers.”
  “Not quite. We came here in 1756, from a place called Erfurt, in Thuringia.”
  “So, basically, they were Hessians.”
  Ingrid scowled. “The Hessians were German mercenaries. From Hesse. My 
  ancestors were landowners in Savannah nineteen years before the war began. Mer-
  chants and seafarers, mostly, though some fought alongside the British, I believe.”
  “The losing side.”
  “My people are drawn to lost causes, it seems.”
  “The Civil War, too, I believe. As a matter of fact your family made most of its 
  fortune running the Union blockade, carrying cotton and tobacco to England.”
  
  The Poison Tree
  32
  Ingrid shrugged. “That was where the money was. When Sherman captured the 
  city, we worked with him, too.”
  “Is that how the feud started?”
  Ingrid frowned. “Feud?”
  “With the Stirlings. The newspaper accounts I found said that the bad blood 
  between the Reinhardts and the Stirlings went back a long way. Did it start when 
  Sherman took the city, or did it go back even farther?”
  Ingrid felt her hackles rise. She tossed off the last of the scotch. “That’s ancient 
  history, Mr. Carter. We buried that hatchet a long time ago.”
  “Literally?” Carter’s smile turned cold. “They never caught who murdered the 
  Stirling family. One of the grisliest crimes in Savannah history, and the police never 
  named a single suspect.”
  Ingrid turned and carefully set the tumbler back on the sideboard. “Let that 
  tragedy lie, Mr. Carter. Not every mystery has an explanation – at least not for the 
  likes of you.”
  Her answer took Carter aback. “What is that supposed to mean?”
  It means you’re digging your own grave, Ingrid thought, barely managing not 
  to voice the threat aloud. She’d said too much as it was. Glowering, she stalked past 
  Carter and out of the room, feeling his eyes on the back of her neck the entire way. 
  Within moments she was out of the house and hurrying across the front garden, head-
  ing toward Forsyth Park and the caern, just a block away.
  The night was not working out the way she’d planned – and the hardest part was 
  yet to come.
  
  33
  Chapter Four: Cracking the Bone
  Night had fallen by the time Ingrid left Reinhardt House, and the spirits of the 
  old city had begun to stir.
  The ghosts were a constant presence in Savannah, especially the closer one got 
  to the caern. She could feel their distant stares and catch their wispy shapes out of the 
  corner of her eye. On rare occasions, at certain hours of the night, she felt their light, 
  cold touch brush against her skin. 
  The historic districts were crowded with the unquiet dead: settlers and soldiers, 
  pirates and plantation owners, free folk and slaves. Victims of war, plague and storm, 
  of crimes known and unknown, perpetrated in taverns, back alleys, and curtained 
  drawing rooms. No other city in the country, not even dark and decadent New Orle-
  ans, could claim to be so haunted. It was one of the city’s many enduring mysteries. 
  Ingrid often wondered how Anna and the other Theurges, with their greater sensitiv-
  ity to the spirit realm, could stand it.
  Traffic was already thinning out along Gaston Street. The businesses around the 
  park were closing for the day, and people were leaving in small groups to get into 
  their cars and head out of the district. Across the street rose the brooding oaks of 
  Forsyth Park, their spreading branches draped in eerie shrouds of Spanish moss. The 
  darkness beneath the trees beckoned to Ingrid, and she bared her teeth in a hunter’s 
  smile.
  The people of Savannah shunned Forsyth Park after dark, and with good reason. 
  Even the local ghost tours had learned to shun the place. The brick-lined paths were 
  poorly lit, and the shadows beyond were thick with menace. When the moon was 
  high the atmosphere in the wooded park turned threatening and primeval. It hear-
  kened back to elder times when mankind cowered in caves, listening to the howls in 
  the forest beyond and counting the hours until dawn.
  The park was thirty acres of wood-lined pathways and well-tended fields, bor-
  dered by some of the city’s oldest surviving homes. Spirits of a different kind stirred 
  as Ingrid crossed the boundary of the park: air and water, earth and wood. Here, 
  within the bounds of the caern, she could feel their presence, regarding her from 
  behind every leaf and branch. The spirit realm lay very close to the surface here, 
  Chapter Four: 
  Cracking the 
  Bone
  
  The Poison Tree
  34
  flowing in spectral currents along Ingrid’s skin. It never failed to quicken the pulse 
  and send a thrill down her spine. It was wild and potent, timeless and elemental, and 
  it was hers.
  She followed the park’s central path, pausing briefly to dip her hands in the 
  grand fountain and wipe the psychic stink of the city from her face and eyes. After a 
  brief prayer of thanks to the water spirits, she continued on, breathing in the scents 
  of the fragrant garden beyond the trees to her right. Soon she reached an intersection 
  and turned left, heading for the old fort.
  The “fort” at Forsyth Park was a squat, two-story structure made of whitewashed 
  concrete, its sides blackened and weathered by the passage of years. One of two such 
  “dummy forts” built during the early 1900’s, it was constructed to resemble a coastal 
  artillery fortification, complete with rounded, turret-like gun emplacements and steel 
  shutters to protect its imaginary cannon. They were used to train the Georgia Nation-
  al Guard during World War I and beyond, and had been a great embarrassment to the 
  few garou families left in the city at the time. Some pointed to the forts as the first 
  sign of the Stirling family’s decline, while others insisted that the signs went all the 
  way back to the construction of the Confederate memorial at the very center of the 
  park. Over time, the forts had outlived their purpose, and been abandoned. One, the 
  western fort, had been torn down, while the eastern fort was now little more than a 
  dirty, decrepit shell. Since 2002, the city had entertained plans to renovate the fort 
  and transform it into a restaurant and event space, which Karl Reinhardt had been 
  politicking against ever since.
  Ingrid left the path and crossed through the trees to the back of the fort. The 
  rusting, metal door along the back wall was unlocked, and swung open at her touch.
  A cluster of lanterns set amid drifts of trash and debris created a welcoming 
  bubble of light amid the cave-dark interior of the empty fort. Her pack waited there, 
  along with the surviving garou from outside the city, each divided into discrete 
  groups. Silhouetted in the open doorway, Ingrid exchanged nods with the three re-
  maining pack leaders: Sarah Hunts-the-Foe, a Fianna from southern Mississippi; 
  Jason Shadowfinder, a Get of Fenris from Alabama, and Thomas Ghost-talker, a 
  Silver Fang from the Florida panhandle. Sarah had two other Fianna at her back, 
  while Jason was accompanied by three grim-faced Get. Thomas had a mixed pack, 
  comprised of a Glass Walker, a Silent Strider and a Child of Gaia. All had fought 
  with courage and tenacity against the Wyrm over the past year. David Boarkiller 
  stood apart from the rest. The young Get, suffering from wounds both physical and 
  mental, crouched at the edge of the lantern light and avoided the gaze of his kin.
  The Shadow Lords withdrew from the circle of lantern light and went to In-
  grid as she entered the fort. They gathered around their pack leader in the darkness, 
  speaking in low tones.
  “We were getting worried,” Marcus teased. “Another few minutes, and I was 
  going to send Darius and Anna out looking for you.”
  “My father and I had some things to discuss,” Ingrid replied. That will give you 
  something to think about while I’m gone. “Everything ready?”
  “We’re just waiting on you.”
  
  35
  Chapter Four: Cracking the Bone
  “Then let’s get this over with. Anna, open the gate.”
  Ingrid listened as the Theurge moved off to her left, deeper into the empty cham-
  ber, and began a slow, rhythmic chant. “Keep close to the caern while we’re gone,” 
  she told her beta. “Check for more tunnels, but don’t do anything more until we get 
  back.”
  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Marcus said with a canary-eating grin.
  Ingrid rolled her eyes. “Darius, keep him out of trouble.”
  “No problem, boss.”
  Ingrid took a deep breath and headed for the waiting garou, with Joshua Hunt-
  er’s Song following close behind. The werewolves bowed their heads respectfully to 
  the war chief as she stepped into the light.
  “Kinain,” she said by way of greeting. The word felt awkward on her tongue. 
  She and her pack had little use for the archaic language of the tribes. “The summer 
  solstice is upon us, and your oath has been fulfilled. For the past twelve months you 
  have hunted with us, guarding shrine and caern, keeping the forces of the Wyrm at 
  bay. You’ve seen firsthand the dangers we face. You have also reaped the rewards of 
  your service, gaining potent gifts and knowledge from the spirits connected to this 
  sacred place.”
  The young garou nodded solemnly. Ingrid smiled. “We will speak of your stead-
  fastness and courage at the moot,” she said, inclining her head to Joshua. “Your ex-
  ploits have earned you considerable renown. Rest assured that you will be remem-
  bered. Savannah owes you a great debt, and you have earned the right to visit the caern 
  whenever you wish. It is a privilege that few in the Southern Protectorate can claim.
  “All we ask in return is that you spread the word of what you’ve seen here. 
  Share the stories of your exploits, and the wonder of our caern. Let the tribes know 
  what it is we are fighting for. Let them know our cause is just.”
  As Ingrid spoke, a pearlescent light began to fill the echoing chamber. A glow 
  like captured moonlight took root in a cleared space on the concrete floor at Anna’s 
  feet. Swiftly and silently it expanded, growing into a shining sphere taller than hu-
  man height and wide enough for two people to enter abreast.
  She knew the lines by heart. They had long since curdled in her throat. Yet she 
  smiled at the young garou and gestured towards the moon bridge, and said the words 
  her father commanded her to say.
  “Gaia willing, and with the help of our kith and kin, one day we will triumph.”
  • • •
  It was a swift run by moonlight to Stone Mountain. Ingrid and the other garou 
  shifted to wolf forms to run along the silver arch that linked Savannah to Stone 
  Mountain; within minutes they emerged from the spirit realm into an empty parking 
  lot more than 250 miles away.
  The mountain loomed against the night sky beyond the parking lot, its bald 
  top silhouetted by the summer moon. A flood of sounds and smells washed over 
  Ingrid: asphalt and oil, gasoline and human sweat, processed food and plastic. She 
  
  The Poison Tree
  36
  could hear the surf-like murmur of traffic along Highway 78, and the popping hum 
  of electricity along the wires of the subdivision just a few dozen yards behind her. 
  Most of all, though, Ingrid was struck, as she always was, by the lifelessness of the 
  place. Compared to Savannah, bound by shrines and crowded with its many ghosts, 
  the atmosphere of Stone Mountain seemed almost desolate.
  Even so, the caern at the summit was an old and venerated one, and the sept that 
  watched over it was renowned throughout the Southern Protectorate. One of their 
  number waited patiently just a few yards away, backed by nearly a dozen kin dressed 
  in the green uniforms of the state Forestry Commission.
  In his human shape, David Stalks-the-Forest was tall and rangy, his skin browned 
  like old leather from a lifetime spent in the sun. Nearing sixty, he had a strong jaw 
  and a seamed face that spoke of a lifetime of hardship, but his blue eyes were still 
  clear and bright. The caern’s Gatekeeper wore a checked shirt and ragged jeans over 
  a pair of ancient engineer’s boots, and gripped a staff of stout, Georgia oak, carved 
  with ancient garou glyphs and sporting a fetish of owl feathers.
  Ingrid focused her will and resumed her human shape, and the rest of her com-
  panions followed suit. Skin tight and bones aching, she approached the Gatekeeper 
  and cleared her throat. “A good night for a gathering,” she said, remembering to 
  smile. “Thank you for allowing us to cross.”
  David eyed her coolly. The kinfolk tensed, alert to their master’s mood.
  “A blessed solstice to you, Ingrid Stormwalker,” the Gatekeeper said, but there 
  was an edge of reproach in his voice. “Perhaps one of these days you will arrive in 
  time to take part in the opening howl, and help call the winds with your fellow ga-
  rou.” He gave a pointed sigh. “But better late than never, I suppose.”
  Ingrid felt her cheeks burn. She started to speak, but Joshua stepped forward 
  quickly and cut her off.
  “War disdains schedules and timetables, David-rhya,” the Galliard said gravely. 
  “The needs of the caern must come before everything else, as I am sure you under-
  stand. We apologize to you, and will make our apologies to the council when we 
  reach the summit.”
  The Gatekeeper frowned, reluctant to be mollified, but gave Joshua a grudging 
  nod. “Go on up,” he told them. “They’ll be cracking the bone by the time you arrive.”
  “Thank you, elder,” Joshua answered quickly, and gave Ingrid a warning look. 
  She kept her mouth shut and gave the Gatekeeper a grudging nod, then beckoned to 
  her companions. As they crossed the parking lot, the Galliard stepped close.
  “We’re not going to have a problem this time, are we?” he asked under his 
  breath.
  “That’s up to the elders,” Ingrid said coolly. “I’m not here to squabble over 
  honorifics and points of order. I’ve got a job to do.”
  Joshua suppressed an exasperated sigh. “That job would be a lot easier if you 
  showed a just a little respect. These rites are the glue that hold our people together.”
  “The fight to save Gaia is what holds us together,” Ingrid snarled. “Or it should. 
  Certain garou seem to have lost sight of that fact.”
  
  37
  Chapter Four: Cracking the Bone
  “Are you absolutely sure you’re a Shadow Lord?”
  “Don’t start with me, Joshua. I’m not in the mood.”
  Past the parking lot was the mile-long trail that led up the mountain to the sum-
  mit.  The garou walked in silence, passing through a forest of oak and pine that 
  surrounded the lower slopes. Ingrid tried to calm herself as she went, seeking some 
  kind of peace beneath the tall trees. But the higher they went the thinner the forest 
  became, revealing the sickly glow of streetlights from the subdivision at the base of 
  the mountain, and the vast sprawl of the Atlanta skyline to the northwest. By the time 
  she reached the summit, the war chief had fallen into a dark and melancholy mood.
  The trail carved a straight path through the trees before emerging onto a rugged 
  scarp of raw granite. The stone surface was like a moonscape, marked with ancient 
  scars and pocked with shallow depressions. Many of the depressions held trapped 
  rainwater, which shone like molten copper in the reflected light of the great fire burn-
  ing at the mountain’s highest point.
  The Solstice Moot was held in the shadow of a snack bar and gift shop, part of 
  the shuttered amusement park that sat at the base of the mountain’s north face. Garou 
  from six states sat cross-legged around the fire, or stretched out in wolf shape, their 
  eyes shining and their faces shadowed by the leaping flames. It was a primordial 
  image, one as ancient as humankind itself, potent both in symbol and in substance. 
  For all her impatience with garou politics and customs, the sight never failed to stir 
  Ingrid’s blood. She scanned the gathering as she approached; at a rough guess she 
  estimated that there were nearly two hundred garou present. Fewer and fewer every 
  year, she thought grimly. 
  The werewolves sensed the approach of Ingrid and her companions. Looks were 
  exchanged, and the air was charged with subtle challenges as the crowd took the 
  measure of the newcomers. Most of the garou who accompanied Ingrid settled at the 
  rear of the crowd, finding their place in the order of dominance. Ingrid and Joshua 
  kept going, working their way closer to the fire. Appraising looks turned to stares 
  that hardened with every step she took, but Ingrid refused to submit. Finally she set-
  tled onto her haunches just two steps behind the garou who formed the inner ring of 
  the gathering, close enough to clearly view the elders of the Great Council on the far 
  side of the fire. Joshua settled down next to her, clearly uncomfortable.
  “You’re pushing your luck,” he hissed. From the look of reproach on many of 
  the elders’ faces, the Galliard was right. Ingrid kept her eyes forward and her back 
  straight. She hadn’t come to make friends. She’d come to make her case to the moot, 
  and she meant to be heard.
  Just as David had predicted, the business of the moot – known as “cracking the 
  bone” was well underway by the time Ingrid arrived. A portion of every moot was set 
  aside to discuss matters of importance that pertained not just to a single pack, but the 
  sept as a whole. In the case of the Solstice Moot, the issues discussed involved the 
  entire Southern Protectorate, from Mississippi to South Carolina, and as far south as 
  Florida. With so much territory and so many garou involved, the discussions lasted 
  deep into the night, and not every individual who wished to speak had time to be 
  heard. It was the right of the Grand Elder to recognize who could address the moot, 
  
  The Poison Tree
  38
  and the speakers were typically chosen in order of status. Ingrid recognized the garou 
  currently pacing about the fire, clutching the yellowed bone that, by custom, gave 
  her the right to speak: Laila Raindancer, a respected elder from Louisiana whose sept 
  guarded one of the state’s oldest caerns.
  “I tell you, Katrina was the work of the Corrupter,” Laila said to the gathering. 
  Tall and slender, with smooth, brown skin and gray hair tied back with a leather cord, 
  she was well past fifty, but her voice was still clear and strong. “Terrible spirits rode 
  into New Orleans on the back of that storm,” she continued, shaking the yellowed ox 
  bone in her hand for emphasis. “Me and my people hunted them through the lower 
  wards for months after. But the damage was already done; the waters swept up all 
  manner of poison from the port and the refineries and scattered it for miles through 
  the swamps.” Raindancer whirled, the skirt of her long, floral dress lifting about her 
  bare ankles. “You hear me, kinain, and hear me good. There’s a terrible foulness 
  that’s festering in the bayou country north of the city, and something got to be done. 
  We need to rouse folk. Take this thing in our teeth and shake it ‘til it’s dead!”
  Shouts and yips of approval rose from the gathering, especially among the Mis-
  sissippi garou, who had witnessed similar horrors during the hurricane. Nearly a 
  dozen young garou leapt to their feet, ready to pledge their packs to help fight the 
  threat. But instead of recognizing any of them, the Grand Elder, Helen Oakheart, 
  nodded to a middle-aged man in jeans and a t-shirt sitting close to the edge of the 
  speaking circle.
  “Let us hear Samuel Longstrider’s thoughts on the matter,” she said.
  The Theurge from South Carolina rose smoothly to his feet. Laila scowled, her 
  gaze going from the Grand Elder to Longstrider and back again. Finally, she stepped 
  across the circle and handed the yellowed ox bone to the man. Samuel accepted it 
  with a respectful nod and stepped into the circle.
  Silence stretched, broken only by the hungry crackle of the fire and the faint 
  whisper of traffic. Samuel Longstrider was justly respected for his wisdom in the 
  matters of the spirit world, but he did everything in his own time. Ingrid glanced up 
  at the passage of the moon and fought to keep from gritting her teeth.
  “It seems to me,” the Theurge said, after careful deliberation, “that this is a 
  matter best served by appealing to the spirits of the swamp itself. The wetlands have 
  great powers of purification; would it not be more sensible to enlist such aid as can 
  be found instead of trying to cope with this problem by ourselves?”
  Samuel’s words were met with barks of disagreement. Half a dozen garou, some 
  from Mississippi, others from across the Protectorate, began clamoring for the Grand 
  Elder’s attention. The young garou, their impulsive ardor spent, looked uneasily at 
  one another and then sank slowly back on their haunches as the debate around them 
  raged.
  • • •
  Hours passed. Luna continued her stately procession across the summer sky, dis-
  tant and inscrutable. The bone passed from one hand to another, as the garou squabbled 
  amongst themselves. After Samuel Longstrider was done, an Uktena elder from central 
  
  39
  Chapter Four: Cracking the Bone
  Florida shared news of finding a long-lost caern just outside Inverness. Again, several 
  young garou packs vied for the Grand Elder’s attention to pledge themselves to the 
  caern’s renewal, touching off another debate on whether Floridian garou should be 
  preferred over those from other parts of the Protectorate. Then an elder Get of Fenris 
  from Alabama tried, once again, to call for a campaign of violent sabotage against gov-
  ernment facilities in and around Huntsville. Many young garou thought it a good idea. 
  They were quickly stared down by their elders, who knew that drawing the attention of 
  Homeland Security was the very last thing that the Protectorate needed.
  On and on it went. Ingrid quickly lost patience and started tuning it all out. As 
  more and more garou pledged themselves to one undertaking or another, she found 
  herself searching the crowd to see how many potential recruits remained. Twenty 
  perhaps? Less? The darkness and the shifting firelight made it difficult to count. At 
  one point, when a log in the fire collapsed and sent a flaring pillar of sparks into the 
  sky, she caught sight of three garou – a male and two females – standing by them-
  selves a short ways off from the rest of the gathering. Ronin, she thought, with some 
  surprise. Lone wolves, who rejected the tenets of pack and tribe and existed at the 
  margins of garou society. It was not unknown, especially in these unsettled times, for 
  ronin to pass through the Protectorate – even linger for a short while – but it was rare 
  to see them at one of the great moots. They seemed a lean and hard-bitten lot, Ingrid 
  mused, and probably good in a fight. Years ago she had tried to talk her father into 
  opening the city to ronin in the same way that they accepted packs from the other 
  tribes, but Karl Ironhand had forbidden it. More politics, she thought sourly.
  It was now well past midnight. The gathering was growing restless. There were 
  still stories to be told of the past year’s deeds, and the wild revel to follow. All the 
  great elders who wished to speak had taken their turn with the bone. Now it was 
  down to the pack leaders of the major septs, many of whom saw the opportunity 
  to address the moot as more a matter of status than anything else. When each one 
  finished speaking and offered up the bone, Ingrid tried to catch Helen Oakheart’s 
  eye. The Grand Elder’s gaze swept past her again and again settling on another sept 
  leader instead. The garou sitting around Ingrid had started to notice, and were cast-
  ing sidelong glances and whispering to one another. Her expression darkened, to the 
  point that Joshua gave her a warning nudge with his elbow.
  Finally, the current speaker – a sept leader from southern Georgia that Ingrid 
  had never heard of – finished his long-winded speech about the status of some minor 
  water spirits in and around Boggy Bay. He relinquished the ox bone with an ostenta-
  tious bow. Ingrid leaned forward, staring hard at the Grand Elder.
  For once, Helen Oakheart met the war chief’s stare. The Fianna elder was in 
  her early 50’s, with gray streaks in her long, brown hair. Slight of build, with high 
  cheekbones and a sharp, patrician nose, she seemed fragile and bird-like – but there 
  was cold iron in her blue-gray eyes.  Her expression was implacable. 
  “The hour grows late,” Oakheart said. “There are many tales to be told, and I 
  expect our Galliards are ready to burst.” Rueful chuckles rose from the gathering. 
  “If there are any pack leaders who have pressing business and wish to speak, we will 
  hear them, but I caution you to be brief – ”
  
  The Poison Tree
  40
  Any pack leaders? Ingrid jerked upright, as though Helen had somehow reached 
  across the speaking circle and slapped her across the face. The garou around her were 
  openly grinning at her discomfort, their teeth glinting in the firelight. Joshua drew 
  in a sharp breath and reached for her wrist, but Ingrid was already rising to her feet.
  “The war chief of Savannah has pressing business, and will be heard,” she said, 
  her voice sharp as the edge of a klaive.
  The gathering fell silent, the air stretching taut between Ingrid and the Grand 
  Elder. Hackles rose around the circle. Helen’s eyes narrowed, but her stony expres-
  sion remained unchanged. A small part of Ingrid’s mind warned her she was making 
  a terrible mistake, but she was too affronted to care.
  “The Great Council of the moot tries to ensure that every respected elder and 
  sept leader is able to share their business with the gathering,” Oakheart said, putting 
  a not-so-subtle emphasis on respected. “That is why they are encouraged to meet 
  with us in advance, before the moot convenes, and make their needs known to us.”
  Ingrid could not believe what she was hearing. Her blood began to boil. “Other 
  elders and sept leaders have the luxury of not living in an active war zone,” she re-
  torted. “We have been fighting, day and night, to keep the Savannah caern open for 
  twenty-five years. As you and everyone else here well knows.” Finally, her political 
  instincts, such as she had, caught up with her tongue. She gestured to the garou 
  who accompanied her with a sweep of her arm. “I return now with the heroes who 
  pledged to help protect the caern at the Solstice Moot last year.”
  “You return with some of them. Not all.”
  “Which surely underscores the seriousness of what I have to say.”
  Oakheart took a deep breath, hinting that her own self-control was perhaps not 
  as solid as it appeared. “Very well. For the sake of those who came with you – and 
  those who did not – you may speak.”
  Ingrid made her way swiftly into the speaking circle, not particularly caring 
  whom she stepped on in the process. The pack leader holding the bone relinquished 
  it without a word and hastened back to his place.
  The ox bone was warm to the touch after passing through so many hands. Bits 
  of gristle clung to the knobby joints at either end. Ingrid gripped it tightly, struggling 
  to leash her anger and focus on what she needed to say. Slowly, she turned her back 
  on Helen Oakheart and addressed the garou of the Southern Protectorate.
  “My caern is under attack, kinain,” Ingrid began. “Yes, there are toxic spirits 
  taking root in the Louisiana swamps, and yes, there are mining companies blowing 
  the tops off of mountains in South Carolina. I don’t doubt that there are Wyrmspawn 
  working in the government labs at Huntsville, too. All of these are serious concerns, 
  and all of them deserve our attention, but my caern is under attack. 
  “Just last night, we found a nest of nearly two-dozen taints within a block of 
  one of our shrines. That battle cost three young garou their lives.” She drew a deep 
  breath. “Their deaths, however heroic, diminish us as a whole. We mourn, while the 
  enemy swells its ranks further and readies itself for another assault. It’s been that 
  way for twenty-five years, as the Wyrm tightens its coils around our sacred sites.
  
  41
  Chapter Four: Cracking the Bone
  Ingrid began to pace before the fire, her gaze sweeping the silent crowd. “More 
  than a few of you served my father in the past, rising up on the Solstice to come to 
  Savannah’s defense. You know that I am not being boastful when I say that the caern 
  and its shrines are like nothing else in the Protectorate. There is ancient power there, 
  and paths to the deepest parts of the spirit realm. There is good reason why the Wyrm 
  is so intent on destroying it.”
  Grudging nods and grumbles of agreement rose from the gathering. Ingrid felt 
  a feeble spark of hope.
  “Let me also say that I don’t think it was a coincidence that this all-out assault 
  began right after my father seized the caern from Everett Stirling and opened it to 
  the rest of the Protectorate. After a quarter century we’ve only just begun to plumb 
  its depths. The caern’s construction is intricate, and contains many secrets, and the 
  Wyrm is intent on keeping that knowledge from us. That, more than anything else, is 
  what my people and I have been fighting for.
  “Now who will stand with us? Who else thinks this is a battle worth fighting?” 
  Her voice rose, charged with emotion. “There is glory to be had on the streets of 
  Savannah, kinain. If you pledge yourself to the city’s defense until the next summer 
  solstice, the city and its caern will be open to you forevermore. What is earned in 
  blood and valor is never forgotten, not by the people of my tribe.
  “The Sept of the Coastal Empire calls to you for aid. Who will answer?”
  “We will!” A tall, young Get of Fenris leapt to his feet, his expression fierce. The 
  rest of his pack, two men and a woman, joined him.
  “I will!” A Silver Fang stood alone, her fists clenched.
  Two other lone garou, a Fianna and a Child of Gaia, followed suit, and within 
  moments the three had gathered together and agreed to form a pack. Ingrid’s spirits 
  rose.
  “Who else? Seven is a good start, but we need more. Many more!” The war 
  chief’s voice rang across the mountaintop and into the night.
  She waited for an answer, but none came. A pall of silence fell across the assem-
  bled garou, and Ingrid’s heart turned to ice.
  “The people have spoken, Stormwalker,” Ellen Oakheart declared. “Your busi-
  ness here is done.”
  
  The Poison Tree
  42
  After the moot’s business was done, it was time for the telling of tales, as the 
  bonfire burned low and Luna bent her course towards the western horizon. The ox 
  bone was put away, and Oakheart beckoned to the gathering. “Let us hear how the 
  people have fared since the last solstice,” she intoned. “Who has a story to share, or 
  a deed to be remembered?”
  This was the call for the Galliards to come forward and practice their art. One 
  by one the storytellers took their place before the fire and told the truth as they knew 
  it. Some spoke in low, rolling tones; others sang, or worked in verse. Still others 
  danced as they wove their tales, shaping each scene with leaping shadows and the 
  crackle of sparks. Each storyteller tried to outdo the one who came before, as was the 
  Galliard’s way, and the gathering listened to each tale with rapt attention. This was a 
  rite all its own, as sacred to the people as any other, and the garou treated it with the 
  appropriate reverence.
  The stories together wove a tapestry of events from across the Protectorate. A 
  pack of Red Talons had reclaimed a lost caern, deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 
  An Uktena Galliard and her pack – who worked more or less in plain sight as a 
  group of “monster hunters” known as the Strange Sightings Investigation Team – 
  had gone hunting reports of a wampus cat up in north Georgia, and wound up cross-
  ing paths with a fearsome Wyrm-spirit instead. A Child of Gaia in southern Georgia 
  had bridged the divide between a pack of Fianna and a pack of Silver Fangs, putting 
  an end to a feud that had raged for decades. The garou cheered as a trio of Silver 
  Fangs, hunted and outnumbered, turned the tables on the fomori who cornered them 
  and tore them apart. They roared with laughter at the escapades of a Uktena Theurge, 
  whose spirit quest spun disastrously out of control. They clung to one another and 
  wept as a respected elder sacrificed her life so the rest of her pack could live. The 
  stories resonated in their blood, and bound them together as one.
  Ingrid heard none of it. It felt like a knife had been slipped between her ribs. 
  Her heart stung, and her breath came in shallow gasps. Visions from her nightmares 
  danced before her eyes.
  Chapter Five: 
  Lone Wolves
  
  43
  Chapter Five: Lone Wolves
  She wanted nothing more than to get up and run, to give in to the wolf and howl 
  her rage at the sky. Instead, she had to sit and wait, to listen to the laughter and the 
  cheers and think about how she had been betrayed.
  An eternity passed before it was Joshua’s turn to speak. The galliards operat-
  ed on unspoken rules of precedence that only they seemed to understand. After a 
  great many storytellers had come and gone, the Shadow Lord saw his cue and rose 
  smoothly to his feet. The crowd waited respectfully as he took his place before the 
  fire. Joshua was much esteemed by the people for his skills as a storyteller, their 
  antipathy towards Ingrid notwithstanding.
  Joshua didn’t have the theatrical flourishes of many of his peers. His storytelling 
  was simple and spare, but he had the gift of making each listener feel as though he 
  were speaking to him or her alone. The audience listened as he told the stories of the 
  young garou who had helped defend Savannah from the forces of the Wyrm.
  The tales began simply, as they always did, with eager pups thrust into a dan-
  gerous and demanding situation, far from home. He spoke of the perils they faced on 
  the city streets, and how they learned to face them. Each pack was given its moment 
  to shine, and each member within the pack was singled out for a notable exploit of 
  courage, cleverness, or wisdom. The gathering applauded at different points and 
  yipped in admiration, and the young garou grinned proudly.
  The story closed on a tragic note, as Aaron Boarkiller’s pack descended into the 
  nest. He spoke of them as keen hunters and brave warriors, recognizing the dangers 
  the nest posed to the nearby shrine and confronting the enemy in its lair. Joshua 
  recounted in moving detail how the battle turned against the brave garou, and how 
  each of the pack members fell, fighting more than five times their number. Their pack 
  leader, David Howls-at-Dawn, was the last to fall, ordering Aaron Boarkiller back to 
  the surface to warn the other packs.
  Heads nodded in approval. Several garou howled to honor the pack leader’s 
  sacrifice. Ingrid looked over at Aaron. The young garou looked like a condemned 
  man who’d been given an unexpected – and undeserved – reprieve.
  It doesn’t suit our purposes to take in young garou and send them back in dis-
  grace, Ingrid thought, recalling what her father had told her before her first moot. We 
  give them gifts, and burnish their reputations. One way or another, we place them in 
  our debt, and we never let them forget it.
  She swallowed her bitterness as Joshua concluded his tale. The garou murmured 
  their approval, turning to the young ones in their midst and congratulating them in 
  gruff, warm tones. Forgotten by the crowd, the Shadow Lord Galliard gave a quick 
  bow and returned quietly to his place. As he sat down, Ingrid could not shake the 
  feeling that this moot would be their last. By the time of the next summer solstice 
  they would all be gone, and Savannah would belong to the Wyrm.
  • • •
  There were few stories left to tell after that. By the time the last Galliard took 
  her bow, it was just after two in the morning, and the fire was a bed of sullen embers 
  casting more shadow than light.
  
  The Poison Tree
  44
  The pent-up energies of the gathering had built steadily over the course of the 
  night. Now the summer air crackled with tension, hungry for release. The sound of a 
  flute came piping out of the darkness, followed by the pulse-like beat of a drum. The 
  doors to the gift shop swung open, and kinfolk emerged, bringing out food and drink 
  and laying more wood on the fire. The garou rose to their feet, calling to one another, 
  laughing and growling and showing their teeth. The weighty matters of the moot 
  were done. Now was the time to call out the wolf, to revel in the night and consecrate 
  the caern for the months to come.
  Ingrid rose to her feet. Her dark eyes were fixed on the far side of the circle, where 
  Ellen Oakheart was speaking with others of the Grand Council. “Gather up the new vol-
  unteers and take them down the mountain,” she told Joshua. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
  “Ingrid, no,” Joshua warned, reaching for her arm. “Don’t do anything rash- ”
  But the war chief was already moving, rage building as she slipped through the 
  crowd and across the speaker’s circle. A chunk of pine was tossed into the fire as 
  she passed, kicking up a crackling plume of cinders. A garou howled in response, 
  full-throated and fierce, and the wolf inside her began to strain at its flimsy bonds. 
  She came up to the elder as the council was going their separate ways. “What 
  the fuck, Oakheart?” Ingrid snarled.
  Ellen turned back to Ingrid, her expression cold. The caern’s Master of the Chal-
  lenge, a tall, powerfully built garou named Cole Foe-Render, stepped between them. 
  He glared down at Ingrid. 
  “Watch your tongue, whelp,” Foe-render growled. “You think you can come 
  here and disrespect your elders, you better think again.”
  “It’s all right, Cole,” Oakheart said coolly. “I take no offense.” She laid a hand 
  on the Ahroun’s arm. “Go and join the revel. Ingrid and I will talk for a moment.”
  Still glaring at Ingrid, Cole gave a reluctant nod and then brushed past the Shad-
  ow Lord, heading for the fire. Oakheart watched him go, then turned and walked 
  away from the gathering, into the darkness. “Is that how you talk to your father, back 
  in Savannah?” she asked.
  Ingrid stalked after her. “Is this because I didn’t show up on time and kiss your 
  ass, like the other speakers? Is it possible you’re that petty? We came here for help 
  and you screwed us.”
  “Spare me your self-righteous disdain, child,” Oakheart replied. “It gets tire-
  some, even if I only have to listen to it once a year.” She shook her head. “Your father 
  wasn’t much better, truth be told, but at least he made a token effort to respect our 
  traditions.”
  Ingrid felt her cheeks grow hot. The wolf inside her spun and snapped at its 
  bonds. Part of her wanted nothing more than to let the change come, and to bury her 
  teeth in Oakheart’s throat.
  “I don’t have hours to waste shaking hands and kissing ass,” Ingrid snarled. She 
  clenched her fists, fingernails digging into her palms. “We’re barely holding on -”
  “Savannah’s been ‘barely holding on’ for twenty-five years,” Oakheart snapped. 
  “I suspect you’ll manage.”
  
  45
  Chapter Five: Lone Wolves
  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
  Oakheart spun on her heel, bringing Ingrid up short. The two stood nearly nose-
  to-nose, hackles bristling.
  “Only that I’ve been fighting the Wyrm longer than you’ve been alive,” the 
  elder growled. “And I’ve never heard of a caern – much less one on the middle of a 
  damned city – that’s held out against a determined attack for a quarter-century. Not 
  in these desperate times.”
  Ingrid felt the familiar ache swell in her bones. The wolf was now very close to 
  the surface indeed. “Are you calling me a liar?”
  “Gaia weeps!” Oakheart exclaimed. “Do you think we’re fools, child? Do you 
  think we can’t see what you’re up to?”
  The accusation brought Ingrid up short. “I don’t - ”
  “You keep the city closed to outsiders, save for those who support you. You take 
  no part in our moots, save when it serves your interests. You send no aid to other 
  septs, even when their need is great.”
  “No. Not yet - ”
  “Not yet,” the elder echoed. “But once the city is safe, things will change, oh 
  yes. Your father assured us of that many times. In the meantime, though, you’ll take 
  as many of our young garou as you can get your hands on, and spend twelve long 
  months whispering in their ears.”
  “You’re paranoid.” Ingrid’s eyes narrowed. “Or maybe you just can’t stand the 
  fact that the Shadow Lords have been better guardians of the caern than the Fianna 
  ever were.”
  Oakheart stepped closer. “Maybe we’re all just sick of your bullshit,” she 
  snarled. “You had your chance to speak at the moot, Ingrid Stormwalker. You got 
  your volunteers.”
  “What do you expect me to do with just seven garou?”
  “You want more help? Open the city. Let other packs move in and claim territo-
  ry. I can think of four off the top of my head that would jump at the chance.”
  Ingrid gritted her teeth in frustration. “That’s for my father to decide.”
  “Ah, yes. Karl Ironhand, the lone wolf, still clinging to power.” Oakheart showed 
  her own teeth in a cold, wolfish smile. “Of all the strange customs you Savannah folk 
  have, that one confounds me the most. I hear he’s taken to meddling in human pol-
  itics now. Will he send you to Atlanta next, to get help from the National Guard?”
  “You know what? I’m starting to think you made a mistake sending the Master 
  of the Challenge away,” Ingrid said, the words rumbling from deep in her throat.
  Oakheart sighed. “Go home, Ingrid,” the elder replied. “Think on what I’ve 
  said, and we will see what the next solstice brings.” And then she was gone, moving 
  past Ingrid to join the towering forms dancing around the fire. 
  The Shadow Lord watched her go, trembling with thwarted rage. In her mind’s 
  eye, she watched Savannah burn.
  
  The Poison Tree
  46
  • • •
  Ingrid ran through the darkness, boots pounding on raw, weathered rock as she 
  made her way down the mountain. The howls of the revelers echoed behind her, 
  dogging at her heels, mocking her failure at the moot. Her skin burned – not with 
  rage this time, but with shame.
  She pushed herself, running harder, stoking the fire in her legs and chest. The 
  war chief wanted to give in to the change at last, to throw back her head and howl 
  her pain at the sky, but now she found that even her rage had failed her. The wolf 
  had withdrawn to some deep place inside her, far out of reach. Never before had she 
  felt so bereft.
  The caern is lost.
  The thought cut deep. How did it come to this? Ingrid felt the hot sting of tears. 
  I’m not worthy. I was never worthy. The wind rushed past her face, and for a dizzying 
  moment it felt as though she were falling, just like in her nightmares.
  Desperation gnawed at her. When she was a child, sitting in her aunt’s garden, 
  she’d been told the stories of her people, and how a black despair would sometimes 
  come over them when they knew that all was lost. She hadn’t understood it then; 
  often, she’d scorned all those fallen heroes as weak and undeserving of praise. But 
  now… 
  Only death can make this right.
  She did not see the three figures until they stepped into her path from the shadow 
  of a pine tree to the left of the road. Her breath caught in her throat and she stopped 
  short, instantly alert. Reflexively, Ingrid tried to summon her wolf, but once again, 
  it shied from her grasp. Cursing, she held her right hand out low and to the side, 
  preparing to call Donnerkeil.
  “I suppose I should have expected this,” Ingrid growled. “Who sent you?”
  The three figures paused, still well out of arm’s reach. Ingrid saw them exchange 
  looks. The middle one regarded her, and spoke in a woman’s husky voice.
  “Excuse me?”
  Ingrid sneered at them. “You expect me to believe this is some chance meeting, 
  on a dark, lonely road in the dead of night?”
  The figure to the woman’s right let out a low chuckle. “You know, she has a 
  point.” It was a young man’s voice, amused and a perhaps a little bored.
  Ingrid scowled at them. “Look, are you here to kill me or not?”
  The woman let out a snort. “You Shadow Lords…” She raised her hands. 
  “Peace, sister. We just want to talk.”
  “On a lonely road. In the dark.”
  “Oh, blessed goddess… Look, we didn’t want to get in the middle of whatever 
  was going on between you and Oakheart, and we knew you’d have to come this way 
  eventually to get back to the Moon Bridge. That’s all.”
  
  47
  Chapter Five: Lone Wolves
  The black despair that had gripped Ingrid was ebbing away, like the sudden 
  shifting of the tide. She shook her head, as if to clear the dregs of it from her mind. 
  The whole thing did sound a little absurd, when she stopped to think about it. “All 
  right,” she said, relaxing slightly. “What do you want?”
  The woman stepped closer, until details took shape from the darkness: short, 
  spiky black hair, a lean, angular face, prominent cheekbones and deep-set eyes. 
  Though several inches shorter than Ingrid, she was lean and sinewy as a whip, which 
  made her seem taller than she actually was. Steel rings glinted in her left ear, her 
  right nostril and the middle of her lower lip. Ingrid recognized her as one of the ronin 
  she saw during the moot.
  “My name’s Euryale,” she said. The ronin beckoned to her companions. “This 
  is Kevin Gallowglass, and Catherine River’s Child.”
  The others came forward. Kevin was tall and broad-shouldered, with long, red 
  hair pulled back in a ponytail and a drooping moustache like a character out of the 
  Wild West. He had a sharp nose and heavy, brooding brows that lent him a naturally 
  fierce expression, but his manner was calm and eerily detached, as though the world 
  didn’t hold much interest to him. By contrast, Catherine was short and somewhat 
  stocky, and clearly of Native American descent. Her round face was expressionless, 
  but her shoulders were tense and her dark eyes were apprehensive.
  Ingrid studied the ronin warily. “What kind of a name is Euryale?”
  “The old kind,” Euryale said, her lips drawing back in a lupine grin. “I was a 
  Black Fury, once. Kevin’s a Fianna in all but name, and Catherine’s Uktena. We 
  came here from Oklahoma just a few days ago.”
  “And what brings you to Stone Mountain?”
  “We’re headed for the coast,” Euryale said. “Catherine’s a Muscogee, and her 
  people were from around there, back before the Trail of Tears. A lot of their sacred 
  sites were lost, and she’s trying to find them.”
  Ingrid scowled. “The Coastal Empire’s closed to outsiders.”
  Euryale nodded. “So we heard. We were hoping you’d make an exception.”
  Now Ingrid began to understand.  Ronin were forbidden in the city because they 
  had no political value, and therefore didn’t fit into her father’s plans. “I can’t help 
  you,” she said. “My father makes the laws, not me.”
  “But you’re the war chief, and the caern is under attack,” Euryale countered. “I 
  saw the look on your face at the moot. You were counting on a hell of a lot more than 
  just seven volunteers.”
  Ingrid felt a headache coming on. “What exactly are you proposing?” she asked.
  Euryale spread her hands. “Let us into the city, and we’ll help defend the caern. 
  Simple as that.”
  “For a year?”
  “For as long as we’re in the city – a few weeks, maybe as long as a month. We’re 
  not looking to put down roots.”
  “That’s not much.”
  
  The Poison Tree
  48
  “It’s more than you had a minute ago, Shadow Lord.”
  Ingrid sighed inwardly. Oakheart’s voice echoed in her head. You want more 
  help? Open the city. 
  It was out of the question – or at least it would have been, just twelve months 
  before. 
  Father’s laws be damned. The caern must come first.
  She gave the three ronin a forbidding stare. “If you come with me, you’ll be 
  treated just like any other pack of volunteers,” she warned. “Which means you’ll 
  have precious little time to do anything but hunt Wyrmspawn.”
  Euryale glanced at Catherine. The young garou nodded. “I understand.” She 
  spoke in low, melodic tones, lending her words unexpected weight despite her age.
  “And you’ll follow orders without hesitation. I do not have time or patience for 
  mavericks or loose cannons. Let me down, even once, and you’ll be lucky if all I do 
  is run you out of town.”
  A slow smile spread across Euryale’s face. “We can live with that.”
  “Then get your gear,” Ingrid growled. “It’s been a long damned night, and I’m 
  going home.”
  • • •
  A half-hour later, Ingrid stepped from the Moon Bridge and into Savannah’s 
  embrace. For a moment, she basked in the energies of the caern and breathed in its 
  scents before reluctantly shifting back into human form. When the rest of the vol-
  unteers had followed suit, she led them out through the fort’s rear door and into the 
  night air.
  It was almost four in the morning, and the city was quiet. Fog had rolled in 
  from the river, transforming the park’s wrought-iron lamps into eerie will-o-wisps 
  and wreathing the mossy trees in shifting cloaks of ghostly gray. Ingrid breathed in 
  rusting iron and wet stone, damp earth and summer growth. The touch of the mist 
  was like spectral fingers against her skin.
  The newcomers followed her silently through the fog, out into the middle of the 
  park. Their eyes were wide, their expressions rapt, as they experienced the power of 
  the caern for the first time. Even the ronin were affected; Catherine wore such a look 
  of wonder that Ingrid suspected she was a Theurge. Euryale and Kevin were more 
  circumspect, but the war chief saw them share a momentary look of amazement.
  Now you begin to understand, Ingrid thought.
  Anna and Joshua brought up the rear of the small group. As they walked, Anna 
  pulled a smart phone from her pocket and made a brief call, her expression grim. 
  Joshua padded silently across the damp grass, still in lupus form after the run along 
  the Moon Bridge. When Ingrid came to a halt, the Galliard drew back his head and 
  uttered a long, low howl into the predawn sky.
  As the howl faded into the mist, Joshua shifted to human form and went to 
  Ingrid’s side. Speaking in low, somber tones, he addressed the garou. “This is the 
  
  49
  Chapter Five: Lone Wolves
  Caern of the Riverlands, dedicated to Uktena, the Great Serpent. For hundreds of 
  years the caern belonged to the Uktena tribe, who lived among the native Muscogee 
  here in the region.
  “By the time the first English settlers arrived in 1732, the Uktena and the Mus-
  cogee had been weakened by a long struggle against the Spanish, who were expand-
  ing from their bases in Florida. Among the English was a pack of Fianna, led by a 
  Philodox named Samuel Stirling. When the local Muscogee tribe, the Yamacraw, 
  welcomed the English to their land, Stirling likewise reached out to the Uktena, and a 
  rare peace was forged between mortals and garou. As General Oglethorpe, the leader 
  of the expedition, negotiated with the Yamacraw over the location of the settlement, 
  the Uktena offered to share the bounty of the caern with the Fianna.”
  The Galliard gestured northward, towards the distant river. “The English settled 
  on Yamacraw Bluff, within sight of the caern. Stirling, who was one of Oglethorpe’s 
  chief advisors, assured the Uktena that the Europeans could live in harmony with 
  both the natives and with the caern itself. He knew that Oglethorpe had a detailed 
  plan for growing the settlement, and the Fianna saw the potential to create something 
  extraordinary: a community that existed in balance between civilization and nature, 
  mortal and garou.
  “The original settlement was built around a series of communal squares, with 
  the squares forming a grid that extended southward from the river. Originally, the 
  east and west sides of each square were occupied by public buildings, while the north 
  and south sides contained private homes. Stirling took the plan one step further. With 
  help from the Uktena, who knew many secrets about the spirit world, and drawing 
  upon the energies of the caern, Stirling transformed each square into a shrine that 
  worked upon the mind and soul of every human being that lived near it. The shrines 
  were made to siphon away a portion of each human’s spiritual energy to fill the 
  reserves of the caern. In return, they worked to shield the minds of the residents 
  from the forces of the Wyrm, and also to conceal the presence of the garou living 
  and hunting in their midst. The settlement originally consisted of four such squares. 
  Twenty more were built between the 18th and 19th centuries, comprising what we now 
  call the Historic District.”
  Joshua paused, giving his audience time to take in all they’d heard so far. Ingrid 
  watched the newcomers’ reaction. The expressions ranged from surprise to veiled 
  disbelief. Catherine was listening intently, her face carefully neutral. Euryale was 
  watching the young garou with a kind of veiled amusement.
  “For nearly eighty years the settlement grew and prospered, becoming for a time 
  the capital of the new state of Georgia. But peace between the Europeans and the 
  natives did not last. More garou had settled in Savannah over the years, and Stirling’s 
  descendants began to covet the caern and its secrets for their own. They turned on 
  the Uktena, destroying the local sept, and the Stirlings took complete control of the 
  caern. By 1832, a hundred years after the founding of the settlement, the Muscogee 
  people were gone as well, rounded up by the army and sent west.”
  As Joshua spoke, two huge, black wolves came loping out of the mist and joined 
  Anna at the rear of the gathering. Within moments, Marcus and Darius had shifted 
  
  The Poison Tree
  50
  back to their human forms, and were eyeing the newcomers with ill-concealed sur-
  prise. Ingrid saw Marcus lean close to Anna and the two began to whisper intently.
  “For a while, Savannah continued to grow and prosper. But then came the Civil 
  War, and the servants of the Wyrm unleashed a fresh hell on Earth. When Sherman 
  and his Wyrm-riddled army occupied the city, the Stirlings and the rest of the city’s 
  garou were nearly overwhelmed. No one knows for certain what happened, but leg-
  end has it that the Stirlings turned to the secret lore that they had stolen from the 
  Uktena and used it to save the city from the enemy.
  “Savannah was spared, but not without cost. Many garou were lost, and the Stir-
  lings themselves were changed – some say tainted – by the powers they contended 
  with. They became secretive and suspicious, withdrawing by degrees from the out-
  side world. Finally, in 1880, they closed the city off entirely, forbidding kinain from 
  entering Savannah on pain of death.
  “The years afterward were dark times for the garou of Savannah. The Stirlings 
  turned in on themselves, growing vicious and mad. The old garou bloodlines in the 
  city dwindled, while the servants of the Wyrm grew strong. Vampires slipped into the 
  city and made their lairs in hidden places, preying on carpetbaggers and decent folk 
  alike. Magicians took residence in fashionable homes and drew on the well of power 
  at the caern to fuel their obscene rites. Battles raged in the dead of night across the 
  Historic District. The Savannah garou were victorious more often than not, but the 
  tide was slowly and surely turning against them.
  “Tensions grew among the old families. The more that the elders pressured the 
  Stirlings to share their secrets, or to open the city for aid, the more tyrannical they 
  became. Garou who spoke out were silenced. Some fell in challenges, while oth-
  ers disappeared, never to be heard from again. And all the while the forces of the 
  Wyrm grew stronger. The Bosch Paper Mill to the west became the source of the 
  Corrupter’s power, dumping poison into the great river and breeding horrors within 
  its depths.”
  The Galliard sighed. “No one can say for sure when the Stirlings were corrupted 
  by the Wyrm. By the late 1980’s the family had been in a long decline, and its garou 
  rarely ventured from the halls of Stirling House, just off Telfair Square. Samuel 
  Stirling, the old patriarch, had died under mysterious circumstances in 1987, and his 
  grandson Wyatt now ruled over city and caern. Samuel had been a despot, but young 
  Wyatt was a true monster: violent, capricious, and cruel. Not long after he took over 
  there were rumors of strange visitors to Stirling House in the dead of night, and foul 
  rites carried out in the cellars. Young humans – women mostly – were snatched from 
  the streets and brought back to the old house to feed Wyatt’s degenerate appetites.
  “Savannah had all but fallen to the Wyrm. Most of the old garou bloodlines had 
  died out, and only a handful of our people remained to defend the shrines and the 
  caern from the enemy. Defeat seemed certain. Then, in June of 1989, Wyatt Stirling 
  took a new victim to sate his desires – only this time it wasn’t a human, but a garou.”
  Joshua reached out and gently laid a hand on Ingrid’s shoulder. “Elizabeth Rein-
  hardt was taken on the night of June 14th, 1989, and held for three days in the cellars 
  of Stirling House. The tortures she suffered are too numerous and awful to recount.
  
  51
  Chapter Five: Lone Wolves
  “When her brother Karl finally learned where she had been taken, he assembled 
  every able-bodied member of his family – garou and kinfolk alike – and descended 
  on Stirling House. Wyatt Stirling and his entire household were killed, and the re-
  maining members of the family hunted down. The Stirlings’ reign of terror was over. 
  Elizabeth Reinhardt was rescued, but the abuses she suffered left her deeply scarred. 
  She died only five years later, at the age of thirty-one.”
  The Galliard bowed his head, his story done. Ingrid nodded her thanks to Josh-
  ua, and then stepped forward.
  “Nearly all of you have heard of my father, Karl Ironhand. Everything the sto-
  ries say about him is true. He drove out the vampires of Savannah in a single night. 
  He hunted down every last magician, killing most with his own hands. Then, on the 
  night of the summer solstice, he opened the Moon Bridge to Stone Mountain for the 
  first time in more than a hundred years and told the moot that the city was free once 
  more. He returned with a war party of forty-seven garou from all across the Protec-
  torate, and over the course of the next seven days they killed every Wyrmspawn they 
  could find.” 
  She took in the volunteers with a sweep of her hand. “You walk in the footsteps 
  of those same heroes, twenty-five years later. You are the next link in the chain. And 
  I speak for the entire sept when I say that we are honored and grateful to have you 
  here.”
  As she spoke, a trio of figures walked out of the mist, coming down the park’s 
  central path: Eleanor and three male kinfolk, summoned by Anna’s phone call. After 
  five years, Ingrid and the house staff had the welcome ceremony timed down to the 
  minute.
  “This is Eleanor, my father’s personal assistant,” Ingrid said, indicating the ap-
  proaching kinfolk. “She will see to your needs over the next twelve months. Living 
  quarters will be provided, and you’ll receive weekly deliveries of groceries and other 
  supplies. Special requests will be honored, within reason.”
  Euryale raised a hand. “What about transportation?”
  Ingrid frowned. “I can’t think of a situation that would require it.”
  The Silver Fang raised her hand. She was a statuesque African-American girl of 
  about nineteen, with regal features and large, piercing eyes. Ingrid had yet to learn 
  her name. “What exactly are our duties?” she asked.
  “Defense of the caern, obviously, as well as the associated shrines,” Ingrid re-
  plied. “Of the twenty-four shrines originally dedicated, twenty-one remain. That’s a 
  lot to cover, but the good news is that they’re concentrated in an area of roughly two 
  square miles.”
  The garou’s head tilted to one side. “Joshua said the shrines were made to repel 
  the Wyrm?”
  “In a manner of speaking,” Ingrid said. “Look, I’ll be honest: we don’t fully 
  understand how the shrines work. The knowledge that went into creating them was 
  lost more than two hundred years ago. What they seem to do is shield human minds 
  against the corruptive touch of the Wyrm. That makes them much less susceptible to 
  
  The Poison Tree
  52
  possession, among other things. But the shrines are weaker than they once were, and 
  fomori are constantly testing their limits, looking for a way to defile them.”
  One of the Get spoke up. He was a tall, broad-shouldered teen in a threadbare 
  shirt and jeans, with a thick, Alabama drawl. “You say the shrines hide us from the 
  regular folk?”
  “Again, in a manner of speaking,” Ingrid replied. “The shrines create an effect 
  similar to the Delirium: sightings of wolves or wolf-like creatures are rationalized 
  away and almost immediately forgotten. Since each shrine acts as part of a larger 
  grid, they reinforce one another somewhat, so within the bounds of the Historic 
  District we have a lot more freedom of action than one would get in any other urban 
  setting.” She raised a cautioning finger. “That doesn’t give you leave to go roaring 
  down Broughton Street in broad daylight with your fangs out and your hair on fire. 
  At best, this means we have a little more leeway hunting in the presence of humans. 
  Do not push your luck.
  “We run patrols every night, without fail, and occasionally during the day. We 
  hunt for Wyrmspawn on the streets, and search for nests across the Historic District. 
  We also keep humans away from the caern after dark. Back in the 80’s there was a 
  big problem with dealers using the park to do business. Not any more. Humans found 
  in the park after midnight are fair game. If you can frighten them away, fine. If not, 
  they disappear. No exceptions.”
  “You’re talking about murder,” Kevin said.
  “I’m talking about protecting the caern,” Ingrid replied. “Is that a problem?”
  Euryale glared at Kevin. He shrugged. “Not particularly.”
  “Good.” Ingrid’s voice hardened. “Make no mistake. This is a war zone. We 
  can’t afford to take chances, especially not as outnumbered as we currently are. 
  As war chief, my word is law. I don’t give orders lightly, so when I tell you to do 
  something, I expect to be obeyed, without question or hesitation. If any of you have 
  a problem with that, now is your time to speak up. I’ll have Anna send you back to 
  Stone Mountain, and you can rejoin the revel. Anyone?”
  Ingrid paused, studying each of the newcomers in turn. Catherine seemed agitat-
  ed, but Euryale placed a calming hand on her arm. No one said a word.
  “Good.” Ingrid beckoned to the kinfolk. “Eleanor will assign you living quar-
  ters, and these gentlemen will take you there. Get some rest. We’ll meet back here 
  at sunset.”
  Ingrid nodded to Eleanor, who opened her planner and approached the pack 
  of Get first. As the others began to gather about the kinfolk, she and Joshua circled 
  around them and joined the rest of their pack.
  “How did it go tonight?”
  Marcus gave her a grim look. “We found three more nests,” he said. “The en-
  trances all look pretty fresh. From the smell, there could be a dozen or more taints 
  in each one.”
  Ingrid felt a chill race down her spine. “I thought I told you to keep close to the 
  caern.”
  
  53
  Chapter Five: Lone Wolves
  “We did,” Darius’s deep voice rumbled in reply. “They’re all within two blocks 
  of the park. Gaia only knows how many others are out there.”
  Marcus looked past Ingrid’s shoulder, at the small crowd of newcomers. “Tell 
  me that this is just the first batch. The others got delayed at Stone Mountain, right? 
  Right?”
  “What you see is what we’ve got,” Ingrid said.
  Suddenly, Marcus scowled. “Who are they?” he asked, pointing to Euryale and 
  her companions. “They’re quite a bit older and…scruffier…than we usually get from 
  Stone Mountain.”
  Ingrid took a deep breath. “They’re ronin. They offered to help defend the city. 
  It’s just temporary.”
  “Ronin” Marcus hissed. “Are you kidding me? Your father is going to be furi-
  ous!”
  Ingrid stepped in close to Marcus, her teeth inches from his throat. “You want 
  me to send them back?” she snarled. “You’d rather have seven warriors instead of 
  ten?”
  But this time Marcus did not back down. He met Ingrid glare for glare. “They’re 
  forbidden. You know that. What were you thinking?”
  “There are three Wyrm nests within walking distance of this caern and you’re 
  worried about ronin?” She shoved the beta roughly away. “Get your head out of your 
  ass, Marcus. Before it’s too late.”
  Ingrid turned on her heel and left, boots thumping angrily along the path as she 
  headed for home. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Euryale staring at her; 
  when she glanced over the ronin gave her a grin and a sardonic, two-fingered salute.
  Maybe it’s too late already, Ingrid thought, as the mist closed in around her.
  
  The Poison Tree
  54
  “I thought fifteen was bad enough,” Karl Ironhand snarled. “But it appears that 
  you’ve outdone yourself yet again.” The Shadow Lord leaned back in his leather 
  office chair, green eyes blazing with anger at Ingrid. “Perhaps you can explain –”
  Before he could continue, there was a soft knock at the study’s pocket doors. 
  One of the ornately carved panels slid open just wide enough for the house’s new 
  maid to slip inside. Avoiding Karl’s cold stare, the girl crossed the room with exag-
  gerated care and presented Ingrid with her coffee. 
  Ingrid accepted the brimming China cup and waved away the proffered saucer. 
  “Thank you…” she frowned bemusedly up at the maid.
  “Charlotte,” the maid answered quickly. She looked to be about sixteen, with 
  dark eyes and a small, freckled nose. “I’m new.”
  “I know,” Ingrid said. The girl started at the war chief’s impatient tone. Ingrid 
  sighed. What’s Eleanor thinking, sending a lamb into the wolf’s den? “Thank you, 
  Charlotte. You may go.”
  The young maid half-turned, nodded deferentially to Karl, and beat a hasty re-
  treat. By the time the pocket door clattered shut Ingrid was out of her chair and 
  heading for the sideboard. 
  “A bit early for that, don’t you think?” Karl said archly.
  “Yes, indeed.” Ingrid poured a strong measure of brandy into her cup.  It was 
  one-thirty in the afternoon. She’d only gotten to bed at six, and Gaia only knew how 
  many hours in between she’d actually slept before Charlotte had been sent to wake 
  her. “If it were up to me, I’d still be upstairs trying to get some sleep.”
  Karl’s hand came down on the mahogany desk top like a thunderclap, loud 
  enough to cause Ingrid to jump. “Don’t take that tone with me, child!” he growled. 
  “That old bitch Oakheart played you for a fool. For twenty years I went to Stone 
  Mountain and brought back dozens of garou –”
  “And what does Stone Mountain have to show for it?” Ingrid took a sip from 
  the cup and bared her teeth at the liquor’s bite. “Every solstice we go to them with 
  Chapter Six:  
  The Charnel 
  House
  
  55
  Chapter Six: The Charnel House
  the same damned story, father. Did you honestly think we could keep it up forever? 
  Oakheart and the rest are many things, but they’re not stupid.”
  “Oakheart and the rest of the elders were too smart for you, so you went and 
  found three mangy ronin to fight for you instead. Is that what you’re telling me?” 
  Karl was shouting now, his deep voice ringing from the plaster walls.
  Ingrid tossed off the last of the coffee and let the China cup fall onto the drink 
  tray with a clatter. “At least they look like they can handle themselves in a fight. The 
  rest are a just another bunch of wide-eyed cubs!”
  “Those cubs are the future of the Protectorate!” Karl roared back. “If we don’t 
  win their allegiance, Stone Mountain will!”
  Rage and frustration boiled up in Ingrid’s chest. The wolf inside her, absent 
  since the end of the moot, was suddenly back in full force, straining at its bonds. For 
  a dizzying instant, she could see herself lunging over the table at her father, fanged 
  jaw agape, Donnerkeil flashing into her hand…
  “What in Gaia’s name happened to you?” she said. “After everything you’ve 
  done. After everything you’ve lost. Now it’s all just a game to you.”
  “Don’t you dare,” Ironhand snarled, rising from his chair. His voice was rough-
  er now, almost more wolf than man. “You have no idea what I’ve done for this city. 
  What I continue to do, each and every –”
  An insistent buzzing cut through the tension-laden air. Karl’s smartphone burred 
  loudly across the desktop. Her father snatched it up and threw it across the room.
  Ingrid smiled coldly. “One of your new friends in Atlanta, I presume?”
  The comment brought Karl up short. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking 
  about.”
  “Gaia weeps!” Ingrid exclaimed. “There was a reporter in this room not twen-
  ty-four hours ago who told me you were one of the biggest – and most secretive – 
  power brokers in the state. What I don’t understand is why. And now I can’t help but 
  wonder what else you’ve been keeping from me.”
  Swift footsteps echoed in the hall outside. The pocket door slid open again. 
  Charlotte stood at the threshold, her expression pale. “M-master, there is a call –”
  “Out!” Ironhand roared, his face a mask of rage. “You come in here again, you 
  stupid cow, and I’ll –”
  “Who is it?” Ingrid demanded. And where in the hell is Eleanor?
  “It’s the police.”
  • • •
  The home had been in Eleanor’s family for more than a hundred years: a tall, red 
  brick Italianate on a quiet street in the midst of the Victorian district, just west of the 
  park. A police cruiser and an unmarked car were parked out front, blue lights flashing, 
  the glare reflecting from the house’s tall windows and white lace curtains. A boxy 
  ambulance from the local fire station sat a few doors further down and on the opposite 
  side of the street, its rear doors open and a pair of blue-gloved EMT’s working inside.
  
  The Poison Tree
  56
  “Let me out here,” Ingrid said, as the town car pulled alongside the police cars. 
  She’d had one of the staff drive her over, not trusting herself in the state she was in. 
  The young man, still in his white kitchen livery, nodded once and eased the big car to 
  a stop. Moving as though in a dream, Ingrid fumbled for the door latch and emerged 
  from the car’s climate-controlled interior into the oppressive summer air.
  A detective stood at the wrought-iron gate in front of the house, beads of sweat 
  standing out on his high, rounded forehead. The blue latex gloves on his hands 
  clashed with the brown of his rumpled suit jacket and the faux leather of the note-
  book tucked under his arm. Faint worry lines marked an otherwise impassive, heavy-
  boned face. He was a distant cousin, one of a handful of kinfolk working in the city’s 
  police department.
  Ingrid stepped quickly between the two police cars and glanced left and right 
  along Waldburg Street, searching for her pack. She caught sight of Darius at once, 
  his imposing figure weaving through the small crowd of onlookers that stretched 
  along the sidewalk for nearly a block. Anna appeared a moment later, coming from 
  the opposite direction, an expression of concern on her round, freckled face. Their 
  presence offered some comfort against the terrible dread building in her chest.
  “Detective Palmer,” Ingrid said quietly, approaching the gate. She was surprised 
  at the calm, almost distant tone in her voice. 
  “Mistress,” Palmer replied with a respectful nod. “I’m sorry to have to call you 
  out to something like this.”
  “What happened?” Ingrid stared past the detective, up at the two-story house. 
  Nothing was out of place. It looked as though Eleanor would open the door and step 
  out at any moment to water the impatiens on the front porch.
  “The next-door neighbor called it in,” Palmer said. “She’s in her 80’s. Mrs. East-
  wood’s son was supposed to drive her across town for her hair appointment at about 
  one. When he didn’t show up she went to the house to check on him, and found the 
  bodies.” The detective nodded in the direction of the ambulance. “The paramedics 
  are trying to get her calmed down now.”
  Ingrid felt her guts turn to ice. She’d dared to get her hopes up when she’d first 
  seen the ambulance. “So, no one…”
  Palmer shook his head. “They’re all gone, mistress. I’m sorry.” From the look 
  in the kinfolk’s eyes, it was clear that he wished there was some small comfort that 
  he could give her, but there was none to be had. Which meant that whatever they’d 
  found inside the house was very bad indeed.
  Darius and Anna joined her at the gate. The Theurge laid a comforting hand 
  on Ingrid’s shoulder, while the broad-shouldered Ahroun scanned the streets with 
  narrowed eyes, searching for threats. The presence of her packmates was a bulwark 
  against the grief.
  “Do you have any leads?” the war chief inquired.
  The detective’s jaw tightened. “It wasn’t human. I can tell you that much. I sus-
  pect you’ll be able to find out more than we will.”
  Ingrid sighed, steeling herself. “We’ll go up then, if you don’t mind.”
  
  57
  Chapter Six: The Charnel House
  Palmer nodded. “I’ve held off making my calls as long as I could. I figure we’ve 
  got another five minutes before someone notices, and I’ve got to call in the crime 
  scene folks. Then this street turns into a circus.” The kinfolk’s expression grew 
  pained. “I can’t keep this quiet, mistress. There’s too many bodies, in too high-profile 
  a neighborhood. The feds might even get involved.”
  “We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” Ingrid told him. “Right now I 
  just need to see my people.”
  Palmer pulled the gate open without a word and stood aside. The war chief 
  squared her shoulders and crossed the short path up to the painted, wooden porch. 
  Anna and Darius followed close behind. As Ingrid climbed the steps to the front 
  door, she stole a glance over her shoulder at her pack mates.
  “Marcus and Joshua?”
  “Joshua was sound asleep when I called,” Anna replied. “He’s on his way now. 
  Marcus isn’t answering his phone. I’ve left about a dozen voicemails.”
  I’ll have his hide for a new pair of shoes, Ingrid promised herself. Her jaw mus-
  cles bunched as she laid her hand on the antique doorknob. With an effort of will she 
  turned the knob and pushed the door wide.
  Late afternoon sunlight spilled over the threshold and across the polished hard-
  wood floor of the entry hall. There was blood everywhere. It made a trail in streaks 
  and spatters down the main stairway and across the hall into the sitting room to In-
  grid’s left. Still more streaks stained the hardwood down the length of the hall, in the 
  direction of the kitchen. The air was thick with the charnel stench of spilled blood 
  and torn entrails – the scent of violent death.
  Anna’s breath caught in her throat. “Bright goddess,” she murmured, pointing 
  at the floor. “Look.”
  Ingrid bared her teeth in a snarl. Huge, clawed tracks had been left in blood all 
  along the hallway, as well as up and down the stairs. High up, near the second-floor 
  landing, a gory handprint stained the pale wall fabric. Long talons had dug divots out 
  of the plaster beneath. 
  A garou has done this, she thought, rage blooming in her chest.
  The war chief crossed the threshold. “Close the door,” she growled.
  She had begun to change even as Darius pulled the door shut behind them. In-
  grid shifted to glabro and fought to hold herself there. The rage was like a sudden, 
  swift tide, threatening to pull her under. Claws pricked her palms as she clenched her 
  fists and held them tightly until the urge to frenzy had passed.
  “Darius, check upstairs,” she growled. “Anna, search the rear of the house. Find 
  out everything you can.”
  Her packmates slipped past her, their bodies shifting as they picked their way 
  through the gore. Ingrid took a deep breath. Her sharpened senses sifted the odors of 
  the house, adding more layers of detail to what she already knew. The blood on the 
  floor and walls were hours old, and there were bodies upstairs, as well as in the kitch-
  en and dining room. The corpses had the bitter, adrenaline reek of terror and pain.
  
  The Poison Tree
  58
  A single garou had done this. Young, male, full of rage and tainted by a sickness 
  that verged on corruption.  Not a Black Spiral Dancer, she decided. The taint doesn’t 
  run quite that deep. A garou could hide this sickness, if he were careful. That con-
  jured up even more worrisome thoughts.
  We could have a traitor in our midst.
  Moving slowly, Ingrid headed left, following the blood trails into the sitting 
  room. Furniture lay in broken heaps, smashed aside by angry swipes of the garou’s 
  powerful arms. Pictures had been torn from the walls and ripped apart by razor-sharp 
  claws. Bits of broken glass and porcelain dusted the wooden floor.
  The dining room could be reached through an open archway at the rear of the 
  sitting room. When Ingrid saw what had been left there, an anguished whine rose in 
  her throat.
  The dining room table had been set for breakfast. Now the plates and bowls 
  had been scattered, and the white, Damask tablecloth hurled aside in tatters. In their 
  place, six heads had been arranged in a rough semicircle atop the antique cherry 
  table: two women, a man and three teenage children, their faces masked with drying 
  blood. Their wide, staring eyes were turned upon the lone figure slumped in a chair 
  at the foot of the table, her back to Ingrid.
  Eleanor’s frail arms and legs had been bound to the chair with lengths of elec-
  trical wire torn from the lamps in the sitting room. The floor around her was awash 
  in blood and bits of torn flesh. Claws were not quite as precise as knives, but they 
  could flay a person to the bone just as effectively, given enough time and patience.
  The garou had left Eleanor’s head and neck untouched. Her face was a rictus of 
  agony, her eyes depthless wells of pain. A tiny sigil had been drawn in blood on her 
  throat, just above the larynx. More tiny drops glistened on her cheek.
  Ingrid stood at Eleanor’s side for a long moment, staring down into her eyes. 
  Death had not brought any sign of peace. No sense of blessed release. Just darkness.
  A howl built within Ingrid, brimming with sadness and a longing for what had 
  been lost forever. Harano, her people called it.
  “Goddess keep you, Eleanor Eastwood,” Ingrid said, her rough voice mournful. 
  “I will remember you in song, for you were like a mother to me.”
  Darius and Anna joined her moments later. The Theurge growled as she entered 
  the dining room and saw what had been done. “The foe entered through the back 
  door, while two of the kin were making breakfast,” she said. “They were taken by 
  surprise, and were struck down in moments.”
  Ingrid nodded and turned to Darius. The Ahroun, huge and imposing even in 
  glabro form, stood just beyond the archway, his gaze fixed on the gruesome tableau 
  left on the dining room table. Pain shone in his dark eyes.
  “I found the bodies of one of the women and two of the children in the upstairs 
  bathroom,” he said. “The kids were still in pajamas. She had a phone in her hand, but 
  never had time to use it.” Darius paused, showing his teeth in a grimace. “The last 
  child tried to hide under her parents’ bed. I think she was the last to die.”
  
  59
  Chapter Six: The Charnel House
  “No. Not the last,” Ingrid said, glancing back at Eleanor. “Not by a long stretch.” 
  The war chief tried to swallow her own grief and look at the kinfolk dispassionately, 
  like any other corpse. “She’s still wearing the same clothes from earlier this morn-
  ing.” A quick check revealed her ubiquitous leather-bound planner, tossed into a far 
  corner. “When did she finish with the new arrivals?”
  Anna thought for a moment. “Five-thirty. Quarter to six. Somewhere around 
  there.”
  Ingrid nodded. “And by the time she makes it home, the garou has killed her 
  children and grandchildren, and is waiting for her.” She turned to the severed heads. 
  “Why was she tortured, but not them?”
  Darius nodded his head at the gruesome tableau. “Those tracks in the hall sug-
  gest that the killer brought those heads down one at a time. He made a damned 
  spectacle out of it.”
  “They were part of the torture,” Anna declared. “Look at this.”
  She tapped a claw on the polished surface of the table. Symbols had been carved 
  there, where Eleanor could see them. There were a several more strange glyphs, 
  similar to the garou’s written language but there was something about the odd curves 
  and jagged lines that both intrigued Ingrid and repelled her. They surrounded a larger 
  symbol: a crude set of nested circles, like a target. Or perhaps an attempt at a spiral?
  “There is a message here,” the Theurge mused. “But what it means is beyond 
  me.”
  “Do you recognize the symbols?” Ingrid asked.
  Anna sniffed. “Spirit glyphs,” she observed. “Symbols representing potent mys-
  tical truths.”
  “Such as?”
  The garou shaman’s expression turned guarded, as all Theurges do when prod-
  ded with questions about the spirit realm. “I don’t know. And I’m not sure I want to 
  know.” She shook her head. “I don’t like the way they…call to me.”
  Ingrid scowled at the glyphs. She reached down and, one by one, scratched 
  through each symbol. She was surprised – and more than a little unsettled – at how 
  hard it was to bring herself to do it, but the last thing she wanted was to let some fool 
  of a mortal get a good look at them.
  “You have his scent?” the war chief asked as she finished her work.
  Her packmates nodded. “He left the same way he came in,” Anna told her. “Out 
  the back door and down the alley, heading north.”
  Ingrid nodded, heading past Anna toward the kitchen. Darius fell in behind her.
  “What now?” he asked.
  Ingrid was shifting again, feeling the rage burning along her bones. When she 
  spoke, her voice was more beast than human.
  “Now we hunt.”
  
  The Poison Tree
  60
  Ingrid broke from the alley at a dead run, nose low to the ground, her pack-
  mates racing silently in her wake. The three huge wolves darted like shadows across 
  Gaston Street, near the north end of the caern, dodging traffic and bounding the low 
  retaining wall fronting the town houses on the opposite side. 
  Brakes screeched; a woman pushing a stroller a few yards away let out a ter-
  rified cry. But the garou were already gone, vanishing between the tall houses as 
  silently as they’d appeared. 
  Tomorrow the residents of the Historic District would be talking about the 
  frightening pack of stray dogs prowling the streets, though the details would already 
  be fading from memory, blurred by the power of the city’s shrines. It was reckless, 
  Ingrid knew, but at that moment she could only think of vengeance, of running Elea-
  nor’s killer to ground and tearing out his throat.
  The garou’s trail ran through alleys and across tree-lined avenues, over fences 
  and across the sheltered gardens of the city’s elite. He had taken wolf-shape upon 
  leaving Eleanor’s home, just as Ingrid had; now and again she spied his paw-prints 
  in the churned earth of a flower bed, or leaving muddy tracks up the back wall of a 
  town home. The same spiritual energies that now shielded her and her pack-mates 
  had worked to the killer’s advantage as well. The realization left her sick at heart.
  Did I do this? Did I bring Eleanor’s murderer back from Stone Mountain? She 
  didn’t want to believe it, but the timing of the attack was hard to deny. Ingrid cursed 
  herself for not taking note of the newcomers’ scents during the trip back to the caern. 
  None of them are old enough to carry the kind of taint I smelled back at the house, 
  she thought.
  None except for the ronin.
  The wolf-scent, overlaid with the coppery reek of human blood, led the Shadow 
  Lords north and east, towards the city’s older wards. The trail passed within a block 
  of Reinhardt House, on the west side of Monterrey Square, and then skirted the 
  edges of the College of Art and Design further north. The wolves dashed across the 
  parking lot of St. John’s church and through Madison Square, then up Drayton Street 
  and across Liberty. The garou wove nimbly between the slow-moving traffic, onto 
  Chapter Seven: 
  Old Blood
  
  61
  Chapter Seven: Old Blood
  the tree-lined median and then across the far lane, amid a chorus of surprised shouts 
  and blaring car horns.
  Just a few blocks ahead lay the old Colonial Park Cemetery. Ingrid suspected 
  that the trail would end there, amid the moss-covered trees and the weathered head-
  stones, and as she led her companions through the cemetery’s south gate she steeled 
  herself for battle.
  The scent wound its way amid the graves, seeming to linger at times around 
  one ancient plot or another. Ingrid slowed her pace, stalking from one patch of deep 
  shade to the next, nose twitching and ears erect. She inspected each of the old mau-
  soleums in turn, expecting each time to find claw-marks on the pitted stone and signs 
  that the killer had forced his way inside, but each time she was disappointed. To her 
  surprise, the trail continued northward, eventually paralleling the winding path that 
  led to the cemetery’s main gate.
  Perplexed, Ingrid clung to the killer’s scent, racing past a milling crowd of tour-
  ists at the cemetery gate and across the tree-lined lanes of Oglethorpe Avenue. The 
  initial flare of rage she’d felt back at the house was fading, and now she was becom-
  ing acutely aware of how exposed she and her companions were. What if the trail 
  led all the way to the river? The bars and restaurants along the riverfront would be 
  teeming with people at this time of the day.
  They were coming up on Oglethorpe Square now. Grimly, Ingrid pressed on, 
  conscious now of every passing stare as she led her pack-mates down Habersham 
  and across York. A vague sense of dread began to gnaw at her as she tracked the kill-
  er’s scent through a small, tree-lined parking lot and across the narrow street beyond.
  Ingrid’s sense of foreboding deepened as she came upon a high, vine-covered 
  wall on the street’s far side. She caught the killer’s scent amid the thick, green creep-
  ers and leapt without hesitation, her claws finding purchase in the pitted masonry and 
  propelling her over the top.
  She plunged through a tangle of greenery on the far side, her legs thrashing 
  through more vines and the branches of a wild, unruly hedge. More branches slapped 
  at her face as she fell, then an instant later she was through, landing roughly in a tall 
  patch of weeds on the far side. Anna and Marcus followed moments later, landing 
  only slightly better than she.
  Ingrid leapt to her feet, shaking twigs and bits of leaves from her fur. The thick 
  weeds pressed in around her, higher than her head in wolf form. Her keen nose 
  smelled brackish water and old stone. The killer’s scent was all around her.
  Warily, she pressed forward, parting the weeds with her snout. The air was pre-
  ternaturally still. The sounds of the city had faded to silence, as though she’d crossed 
  the threshold to another world.
  After just a couple of yards, the weeds thinned out. Ingrid found herself at the 
  edge of what had once been a large parterre garden. The hedges that once defined 
  the garden were now tall and misshapen, and wild creepers covered the old planting 
  beds and wound about the decorative trees. Water bubbled sickly from an overgrown 
  fountain at the garden’s center.
  
  The Poison Tree
  62
  A tall, dark house loomed at the west end of the garden, its walls and elegant, 
  curved stairs covered in vines. At the east end was a huge carriage house, nearly 
  as large as the manor itself. Faded streaks of soot stained the old brick above the 
  carriage house’s gaping, second-story windows. Charred, skeletal timbers showed 
  though gaps in the building’s slate roof.
  Ingrid’s eyes widened. She glanced back at the old manor house and felt her 
  hackles rise. The dread she felt sharpened to a knife’s edge as she realized where 
  she was.
  The war chief rose, letting her body shift back to human form. Her pack-mates 
  followed suit. Darius was tense, his shoulders hunched as he studied the garden’s 
  many shadows. Anna stared up at the manor, her dark eyes haunted. She looks as 
  though she’s seen a ghost, Ingrid thought, feeling a sudden chill. She reached out and 
  touched Anna’s arm and the theurge gave a start, her eyes briefly widening in fear.
  “Call the others,” Ingrid said grimly. “Tell them we’ve tracked the killer to Stir-
  ling House.”
  • • •
  The carriage house was little more than a shell, its lower floor heaped with 
  blackened brick and bits of charred timbers. Shards of broken beer bottles glinted 
  dully amid the dirt and ash, and layers of graffiti covered the interior walls. Most of 
  it was little more than a set of initials and a date, going back as far as the early ‘90s. 
  Ingrid’s own initials were there, on the wall facing the old manor; she’d scrawled 
  them on a dare when she was 10, back when all she knew of Stirling House was just 
  the ghost stories her schoolmates told at slumber parties.
  Joshua slipped into the carriage house from the alley out back, boots crunching 
  softly on slivers of glass. Darius, leaning against one of the empty window frames, 
  gave the Galliard a brief glance over his shoulder, then went back to watching the 
  manor house. Anna sat in a cleared space on the cement floor, legs folded and her 
  hands resting on her knees. Her eyes were closed, her expression one of careful con-
  centration, as though she were listening to a sound that none of the others could hear. 
  Ingrid sat atop a pile of debris against the southern wall, where she could keep watch 
  on the manor house and the alley alike.
  “Where the hell is Marcus?” she snapped, rising to her feet.
  The question took Joshua aback. “I thought he was with you.”
  Ingrid cursed under her breath. “Anna?” she said, glancing over at the theurge.
  After a moment, Anna shook her head. “No spirits about. Well, none that con-
  cerns us, anyway.”
  “Then let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.” Ingrid moved to the open 
  doorway on the west side of the building. “Darius, I want you outside, watching the 
  front of the main house.”
  The Ahroun frowned. “I should be going in with you, chief.”
  “No. I want you in position in case he rabbits on us. I don’t care how tough he 
  is, if he goes out the front door there’s no way he’s getting past you.”
  
  63
  Chapter Seven: Old Blood
  “I know that’s right,” Darius said.
  “One more thing. No one is killing this bastard except me. My duty, my right. 
  Understood?”
  The garou nodded in unison. Satisfied, Ingrid slipped from the carriage house 
  into the waning afternoon sunlight.
  It took only a few minutes to cross the overgrown, weed-choked garden. They 
  moved quickly and quietly, trying to draw as little attention as possible. Every few 
  steps, Ingrid’s gaze rose to the old house’s windows, expecting to see a snarling face 
  looking down at her. By the time they reached the foot of the grand rear vestibule, 
  Ingrid’s heart was hammering in her chest.
  The war chief came to a halt. Darius broke off from the pack and disappeared 
  around the corner of the house. Ingrid waited, studying the rear of the manor while 
  the Ahroun got himself into position. The house’s main floor was almost a full story 
  above ground, accessed by a pair of curving stairs that ascended to the columned 
  vestibule. Access to the house’s basement level, where the storerooms, kitchens and 
  servants’ quarters were located, was through an iron door set in an alcove directly 
  below the vestibule. Steel bars covered the lower level’s narrow windows, and the 
  iron door’s hinges had been welded shut many years ago.
  Ingrid gave Darius a count of ten, then started up the vestibule stairs. The air in 
  the shadow of the old house was strangely cool and dank, despite the muggy day. 
  Stirling House had sat empty since the takeover; her father had arranged to quietly 
  purchase the property from the city a few months later, and sealed the place up. She 
  had no idea what she would find inside.
  A fine layer of dirt and grime covered the granite of the vestibule. A heap of steel 
  chain had been tossed among the leaves and junk food wrappers piled in one corner, 
  along with the broken bits of a heavy padlock. The house’s tall, double doors were 
  slightly ajar.
  Ingrid’s lips drew back from her teeth as she pushed the doors wide and let slip 
  her rage. Bones stretched and muscles swelled. By the time she crossed the thresh-
  old, the back of her shoulders brushed against the top of the old house’s doorframe. 
  Clad in her war form, towering and terrible, she stood in the ruins of a once-grand 
  foyer and sniffed the air for signs of her prey.
  Stirling House smelled like an unearthed grave. Blotches of mildew stained 
  the foyer’s elegant green wall fabric, and tendrils of rotting plaster hung like giant 
  cobwebs from the high ceiling. A collection of debris was scattered across the marble 
  floor, covered in a thick layer of dust: rotting books; a smashed telephone; a woman’s 
  high-heeled shoe. They rested atop dark, irregular blotches on the cream-colored 
  stone. The stains, a darker, rusty brown beneath the mostly gray dust, spread across 
  the floor in dried pools, coin-shaped drops and long, looping arcs. Fainter lines of 
  smudges might have once been footprints, crossing and re-crossing through the gore.
  Off to Ingrid’s right, through an open doorway, lay a formal reception room. 
  Chairs lay overturned or smashed to kindling, amid torn sofas and sprays of broken 
  crystal. An oil painting in a gilt frame had been ripped from the wall opposite the 
  
  The Poison Tree
  64
  doorway and sat facing Ingrid. Its subject, a dour-looking man in a severe, dark suit, 
  had been defaced by the raking sweep of a garou’s claws.
  The house had been left exactly as it was on the night of the attack, twenty-five 
  years ago. All that was missing were the bodies.
  Joshua and Anna slipped through the doorway behind Ingrid, assuming their 
  crinos form as she had. The war chief sent Anna to check out the reception room with 
  the twitch of a claw, then pointed Joshua towards the doorway at the opposite end of 
  the foyer, which led to the house’s main stairway. Ingrid went left, where a broken 
  door hung askew in its splintered frame.
  She placed a huge hand against the surface of the door and pushed it gently 
  inward. Beyond was a large, high-ceilinged room that in better times had been used 
  for parties and formal dinners. Now it was packed with old furniture, most covered 
  by mildewed canvas sheets. There were bloodstains here as well, weaving amid the 
  covered wardrobes and chests of drawers.
  Ingrid entered the room, ears straining to hear the slightest sound of movement. 
  She worked her way through the crooked aisles created by the covered furniture, 
  towards two open doors along the curved wall at the far end. The trail of old blood 
  reached almost to the center of the room, disappearing beneath the shredded, stained 
  sheet of a massive oak desk. Ingrid knelt and pulled the stiff fabric aside, peering into 
  the desk’s chair well. Claw marks had gouged the wood in dozens of places, and the 
  shadowy space was coated in gore. A teddy bear, its fur stiff with dried blood, lay in a 
  forlorn heap in a back corner of the well. The war chief turned away from the ghastly 
  scene and continued her search.
  The first door she came to opened onto a small storage space, filled with shelves 
  of moth-eaten place settings and tablecloths. The second door led to a much smaller 
  and less formal dining room that had been reduced to wreckage during the Shadow 
  Lords’ vengeful attack. The heavy dining table had been flipped over and many of 
  the antique chairs smashed to kindling. Broken China and shattered glass covered 
  the floor, and splashes of blood stained the walls.
  A swinging door stood at the far end of the room, and an open door to Ingrid’s 
  right led out into the house’s front hall. As she passed the doorway, she caught sight 
  of Anna moving through the hall, nose twitching.
  The swinging door led to a small, modern kitchen. Orderly ranks of dusty, 
  canned foods on the shelves contrasted with the smashed plates and silverware 
  scattered across the tile floor. Ingrid studied the room from the doorway for a few 
  moments, and then withdrew to the front hall. Anna was just emerging from the 
  doorway opposite, passing through shafts of afternoon sunlight slanting through the 
  faded curtains to either side of the manor’s front door. Ingrid could tell from set of 
  Anna’s shoulders that the theurge was deeply disturbed.
  “Anything?” the war chief asked. She spoke softly, the word coming out in a 
  low, growling rumble.
  Anna grimaced, showing her powerful fangs. “Just a bedroom and…a children’s 
  room. His scent is there, but nothing looks disturbed.”
  
  65
  Chapter Seven: Old Blood
  Ingrid nodded. There were traces of the killer’s scent everywhere, but the house 
  was silent as a tomb. “Upstairs,” she growled.
  The garou headed back down the front hall to the main stairs. Joshua stood at 
  an open doorway to the left of the staircase, peering into the darkness beyond. The 
  Galliard caught Ingrid’s eye and pointed downward. He’d found the basement stairs. 
  She gestured for him to stay where he was, and led Anna up to the second floor.
  If anything, the damage upstairs seemed more extensive than below. Five doors 
  led off from the upstairs hall, and all of them had been broken down. More portraits 
  of the Stirling family, some going back centuries, had been pulled from the walls 
  and clawed apart. The dank smell of rot was stronger here, and much of the plaster 
  ceiling had fallen in.
  The old hardwood floors groaned beneath the werewolves’ heavy tread as they 
  searched each of the bedrooms. The Stirlings or their servants had tried to barricade 
  themselves in two of the rooms; from the look of the wreckage, the piled furniture 
  had barely slowed Ironhand and his pack. More pools of faded blood showed where 
  the desperate occupants met their ends.
  By the time they searched the last of the bedrooms, Anna was visibly subdued. 
  “How many?” she asked, as she and Ingrid returned to the upstairs hall.
  “Twenty-two,” Ingrid growled. “Family and kin. Plus five more over the course 
  of the night, at other homes across town.”
  “Gaia have mercy.”
  “The Stirlings brought this on themselves,” the war chief said coldly.
  “Even the children? Most weren’t even garou.”
  “Fruit from a poisoned tree.” Without waiting for a reply, Ingrid turned her back 
  on Anna and headed downstairs.
  Only the basement remained. Ingrid had suspected that was where the hunt 
  would end. She knew the story of the Shadow Lords’ attack by heart, and what Karl 
  and his pack-mates had found there.
  Joshua still stood at the doorway, arms folded across his chest. “Nothing moving 
  down there,” he said as Ingrid approached.
  The war chief nodded, nose twitching. The killer’s scent was fresh here, de-
  scending into the darkness. Growling deep in her throat, Ingrid moved past Joshua 
  and started down the stairs.
  The stairwell was narrow and the risers creaked alarmingly under Ingrid’s weight. 
  She descended slowly, senses straining to penetrate the subterranean blackness below. 
  After a moment she emerged into a dank, low ceilinged corridor that stretched off to 
  her left and right. Moving slowly and hunched nearly on all fours, she moved to the op-
  posite wall and worked her way right, feeling her way along. Moments later her claws 
  scraped against wood, and her fumbling hand dropped to a metal doorknob. Ingrid 
  pushed the door open, blinking in the wan sunlight that filtered through the half-sunk-
  en windows in the room beyond. She had found the house’s original, long-abandoned 
  kitchen, its dusty counters covered in spiderwebs and rat tracks. An open doorway to 
  the left led to a bakery and its rusting, cast-iron ovens.
  
  The Poison Tree
  66
  Ingrid continued down the central corridor. There was now just enough light 
  coming from the kitchen to see by. More doors on her right opened onto a storeroom 
  and a fully stocked wine cellar. The war chief gave them little more than a cursory 
  inspection. She had her bearings now. The door she was looking for was halfway 
  down the hallway to her left.
  At some point during the last century the old house’s servants’ quarters had been 
  quietly and extensively altered. The single entrance was a heavy, iron door, secured 
  from the outside by a heavy padlock. The lock itself had been recently torn free, 
  twisting the metal tongue like taffy and leaving bright scars on the hasp. The door’s 
  hinges were rusted nearly shut; they groaned like tortured souls as Ingrid leaned 
  against it and pushed inward.
  Chill air wafted from the room beyond, bearing the faint but unmistakable odor 
  of death. Ingrid’s hackles rose as she crossed the threshold and found herself in a me-
  dium-sized room that had been stripped down to the bare brick and garishly lit by the 
  red-painted windows set in the opposite wall. An old surgical table stood along the wall to 
  the left, flanked by white metal cabinets containing a comprehensive assortment of surgical 
  tools. Thin, steel hooks hung from the ceiling along the wall to the right, and a scarred 
  butcher’s block sat in the center of the room, next to a grimy drain set in the concrete floor. 
  On the far side of the room, beneath the blood-colored windows, were an elegant, antique 
  love seat and a cherry wood end table. An opened bottle of wine and a dust-covered glass 
  still sat atop the table where its owner had left it, twenty-five years before.
  Here is where Wyatt Stirling made the pages for his books, Ingrid thought grim-
  ly, and the goddess alone knows what else. To her right, through an open doorway, 
  lay the cells where his victims were kept. Where my aunt was kept drugged and 
  repeatedly raped. The thought kindled her rage anew.
  A door – antique oak this time – stood ajar to her left. She knew where it led. 
  Ingrid crossed Wyatt’s chamber of horrors in two swift steps and smashed it open 
  with a sweep of her hand.
  Wyatt’s inner sanctum was almost decadent compared to the harsh, clinical fur-
  nishings next door. Two of the wood paneled walls were lined with bookshelves, and 
  an antique writing desk with an overstuffed chair took up almost a third of the room. 
  A small sideboard held glasses and bottles of brandy, and a small divan lay along the 
  wall to the right of the door. In the center of the room, sitting atop a pedestal of dark 
  marble, was a wide copper bowl full of fresh, clean water.
  The killer’s scent filled the room, but the garou was nowhere to be seen. Ingrid’s 
  gaze fell to the mirror-like surface of the water, and knew at once what had hap-
  pened. Snarling, she knocked the bowl from its pedestal with a swipe of her claws.
  Anna was right behind Ingrid, her bulk filling the human-sized doorway. “What is it?”
  “He’s gone,” Ingrid growled. She gestured at the upended bowl. “The bastard’s 
  crossed into the Penumbra.”
  The Theurge entered the room and crouched over the bowl. Any garou could cross 
  over into the spirit realm by staring into a reflective surface, such as a mirror or a calm 
  pool of water. There would be no scent to track in the Penumbra; without a connection 
  to the killer’s essence, like his name or a lock of hair, the trail had gone cold. 
  
  67
  Chapter Seven: Old Blood
  “I don’t understand,” Anna said, shaking her head. “Why go to all this trouble? 
  He could have filled a sink and stepped sideways at Eleanor’s house.”
  “He’s sending us a message.” Ingrid clenched her fists. Rage was giving way to 
  frustration, and her body was starting to shift, returning to human form. “He killed 
  our people and then drew a line from there to here, knowing we’d follow.” She 
  swayed on her feet as the change ran its course, her energy spent. “This is about what 
  we did to the Stirlings, twenty-five years ago.”
  Seeing their alpha shift, Joshua and Anna did the same. The Theurge swept her 
  hair back out of her eyes and frowned at the sanctum’s bookshelves. Both had been 
  thoroughly and none to gently ransacked in the distant past. She slid around the corner 
  of the old writing desk and began poking through its drawers. “What he did to Eleanor 
  was more than just revenge. And what about those symbols he carved into the table?”
  “I don’t know, Anna. Maybe it was part of the torture. Whoever did this is cor-
  rupt to the core.”
  Anna gave her a strange look. The Theurge started to reply but was interrupted 
  by the sound of Ingrid’s phone. Irritated, Ingrid dug the phone from her pocket, dark-
  ly hoping that it was Marcus.
  It was her father. And by the look of things, he’d tried to call her nearly a dozen 
  times since she’d left Eleanor’s house.
  “Yes?”
  Karl’s voice erupted from the phone’s tiny speaker. “Where in the hell have you 
  been, child? I’ve been calling –”
  “I know. I’ve been away from my phone –”
  “Don’t take that tone with me!” The intensity in her father’s voice took Ingrid 
  aback. She’d never heard him sound so upset before, not even when her aunt had died.
  “Now, look –”
  “Eleanor raised you. She was like a mother to you. How could you have let this 
  happen?”
  The words stung. Ingrid’s breath caught in her throat. “I didn’t –”
  “You knew never to bring ronin into the city. Now look at what’s happened. 
  Their blood is on your hands, child. You may as well have killed Eleanor yourself.”
  “Don’t you dare –”
  “Palmer says you just up and left the house without so much as an explanation. 
  What have you been doing for the last hour?”
  “What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing?” Ingrid snapped. “We tracked the 
  killer over half the damned district. And you know where he went? Stirling House.”
  It took a long moment for Karl to reply. When he did, his tone was strangely 
  subdued. “That’s impossible.”
  “Really? Because I’m standing in the middle of Wyatt Stirling’s old sanctum 
  right now.”
  “You’ve got no business being in there,” Karl said sharply. “You hear me?”
  
  The Poison Tree
  68
  “No business? Do you want me to find out who did this or not?”
  “I told you who did this! It was the ronin!” Her father’s voice rose with each word, 
  until he was nearly shrieking into the phone. “Liars and thieves, the lot of them!”
  “You’re jumping to conclusions –”
  “Then why have they disappeared?”
  Ingrid frowned. “What? What are you talking about?”
  “I sent Marcus and your pitiful bunch of volunteers to go and round them up, but their 
  apartment was empty. It looked like they’d never spent so much as an hour there. Marcus 
  thinks they might have stolen a car, so they could be anywhere in the city by now.”
  Ingrid’s eyes went wide. “You did what?”
  “I sent Marcus –”
  “You don’t give orders to my pack,” Ingrid snarled. “Ever. Do you hear me?”
  “If you were a better leader, I wouldn’t have to,” Karl shot back. 
  “Says the garou who got his whole pack killed.” The words came out in a furious 
  rush. She knew as soon as she said it that she’d crossed a dangerous line, but there 
  was no turning back now.
  Her father didn’t speak for several moments. When he did, his voice was cold. 
  “The ronin are a threat. I want them dealt with. Marcus understands this. Do you?”
  The call terminated. It was all Ingrid could do not to throw the phone against 
  the wall.
  Anna caught the look on Ingrid’s face and came around the desk, her face full of 
  concern. “What’s happened?”
  “The ronin have gone missing. My father thinks they’re behind the killings.”
  Joshua folded his arms across his chest. “Goddess above,” he sighed. “I knew 
  we shouldn’t have brought them.”
  Anna reached out and placed a reassuring hand on Ingrid’s arm. “Do you think 
  it’s true?”
  “Why else would they have disappeared?” Joshua said.
  Ingrid scowled. We were headed for the coast, Euryale said, back at Stone Moun-
  tain. Catherine’s a Muscogee, and her people were from around there, back before 
  the Trail of Tears. A lot of their sacred sites were lost, and she’s trying to find them.
  Marcus thinks they stole a car.
  Anna squeezed her arm gently, interrupting her thoughts. “What do you want 
  us to do?”
  Ingrid considered her pack mates. “Go find Marcus,” she said. “He and the new-
  comers are out hunting the ronin.”
  “What about you?” Joshua asked.
  “I’ve got to go back to the house and speak to my father,” she said. 
  It was a plausible enough lie given the circumstances. With luck, it would buy 
  her enough time to get to the ronin before anyone else.
  
  69
  Chapter Eight: Green Island Road
  Ingrid called the house for a driver to pick her up at Telfair Square. Rush hour 
  was well underway by the time the town car arrived, and the return trip passed at a 
  frustrating crawl. By the time they reached the far end of Bull Street, her patience 
  had worn dangerously thin. She ordered the driver to pull over and left him there, 
  nervous and bewildered, as she turned west, headed for Martin Luther King Boule-
  vard. From there it took another half hour to reach 204 and then turn back east. It was 
  a longer and more roundabout route than she wished, but she didn’t want the driver 
  giving her father – or anyone else – a clear idea of where she was heading.
  The further she went from downtown the worse traffic became. Every time the 
  car came to a stop she found herself glancing at the clock, gauging how much time 
  she had left. She had to make it back to the caern by sundown, when the garou gath-
  ered for the night’s hunt. Karl’s meddling had undermined her authority with the 
  new packs, and encouraged Marcus’s ambitions. She had to reassert her leadership 
  quickly and forcefully, or there was going to be trouble. As if I didn’t have enough of 
  that already, Ingrid thought sourly, glaring at the line of cars in front of her.
  Ingrid’s mood only worsened as the stop-and-start procession wore on, until it 
  genuinely felt like she was in danger of losing control. Her driving skills were rusty 
  and the town car handled like a cruise ship, drawing more than one angry glare from 
  the drivers around her. At one point, passing through Oakhurst, she nearly hit a green 
  SUV as she tried to merge into the right lane. The woman driving the SUV blared her 
  horn and darted into the passing lane. As she pulled even with the town car she start-
  ed yelling obscenities. Ingrid gave the human such a murderous glare that the driver 
  blanched and hit her brakes, dropping nearly a car length back to escape the garou’s ire.
  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she edged her way eastward into 
  the suburbs. Anger over Eleanor’s death was roiling inside her like a storm cloud, 
  eager for release, but after exploring the remains of Stirling House she was even less 
  certain who the murderer might be. She didn’t believe it was one of the Stone Moun-
  tain garou. Most of them were young, barely past their First Change; the attacks on 
  Eleanor’s family suggested a degree of experience and a depth of malice beyond 
  their years.
  Chapter Eight: 
  Green Island 
  Road
  
  The Poison Tree
  70
  That left the ronin. Ingrid had been shocked at her father’s insistence that they 
  were responsible. Garou society in general viewed ronin with suspicion and disdain, 
  but Karl’s hostility verged on outright paranoia. And their sudden disappearance 
  certainly didn’t help, she mused.
  Certainly, it was possible for Kevin to have followed Eleanor home and then 
  attacked her and her family, though why he would do such a thing was a mystery to 
  Ingrid. Was it possible that he had a connection to the Stirling family? It was a matter 
  of record that none of the family survived, but what if someone, a distant relative, 
  had been overlooked?
  Ingrid shook her head. It still didn’t add up. If the whole point was to slip into 
  Savannah, attack her family and then vanish, why go to all the trouble of talking their 
  way into an apartment and a commitment to help protect the city? And what motive 
  could Euryale and Catherine possibly have for going along with such a thing?
  She would know the truth soon enough, if her hunch about their disappearance 
  was correct. One taste of Kevin’s scent was all she needed to prove his innocence.
  Of course, if I’m wrong, then I’ll be confronting a murderer and his two conspir-
  ators out in the middle of nowhere, all by myself. 
  If so, may Grandfather have mercy on the bastards, because I damn well won’t.
  It was another twenty minutes to get from Oakhurst to the barrier islands. She 
  could feel the change in her bones as she crossed over the marshlands on the Dia-
  mond Causeway; this was a different sort of Penumbra, the uneasy border between 
  land and the shifting sea. It was familiar and yet forbidding, full of hidden currents 
  and ancient animosities that her people only dimly understood. The Uktena who 
  lived here centuries ago had made it their home, though Gaia alone knew why.
  The traffic started thinning out as she made her way into the upscale suburbs 
  of Skidaway Island. Past apartment complexes and gated communities with their 
  tree-lined streets and McMansions, she turned off 204 onto Green Island Road and 
  followed it southwest.
  It had been many years since she’d been this way, and Ingrid was dismayed to 
  see how much new construction had gone up since she was a teenager. Near the end 
  of Green Island Road she turned west, into another subdivision with huge, soulless 
  houses crouched amid the thinning trees. At length, she found the street she was 
  looking for – an essentially private lane that connected Skidaway to three tiny is-
  lands sitting along the curve where Burnside River and the Moon River met. The first 
  island supported a private dock, while the second held a house and pool. The third, 
  a narrow spit of tree-covered land, was yet undeveloped. The road ended abruptly 
  there, surrounded by sawgrass and moss-covered trees.
  Ingrid saw the other car at once. The yellow Volkswagen had been parked just 
  off the road, in the shade of a scrubby oak. The car had a SCAD parking sticker and 
  its driver’s side window was down – or perhaps broken in. The ronin had been put 
  up in an apartment near the college, where a lot of students lived. Unless she missed 
  her guess, this was the car they’d stolen earlier this morning. She permitted herself a 
  grim smile of satisfaction that her hunch had proven correct.
  
  71
  Chapter Eight: Green Island Road
  The ronin had gone to Green Island. From where she sat, she could see it through 
  the trees: a densely forested piece of high ground that rose from the marsh almost 
  a mile to the south. She tapped the steering wheel absently, considering her next 
  move. The ronin would be difficult to track through the marsh, as the water would 
  have already dispersed their scents. The smart thing to do would be to wait until they 
  returned to their car and confront them – but there was no way of knowing when that 
  would be, and time was running short.
  “Screw this,” Ingrid muttered, getting out of the car. She wanted answers, and 
  she wanted them now.
  Tucking the keys in her pocket, the war chief crossed the road and worked 
  her way through the sawgrass on the other side. From the edge of the tree line she 
  paused, surveying her surroundings. The marsh was silent in the waning light – al-
  most eerily so. The only living things she could see were a flock of herons, more than 
  a hundred yards away. Ingrid drew a deep breath and shifted into crinos form. She 
  would need the height and the extra muscle to move quickly through the dense grass 
  and the deeper parts of the marsh.
  With a last, quick glance back the way she’d come, the war chief crossed the 
  narrow shore in three, long strides and disappeared into the murky water and the tall 
  reeds beyond.
  • • •
  The going was far tougher than she imagined. Even in her towering, powerful war 
  form, the marsh fought her at every turn. More than once she had to stop and retrace her 
  steps when she came upon a narrow creek or a patch of deeper water, and all the while 
  the sun sank lower in the sky. Finally, after being forced on a long, circuitous route to 
  the west, she clambered out of the muck and into the trees at the edge of Green Island.
  Grateful to be on solid ground once more, Ingrid paused amid the shadows to col-
  lect her thoughts and sniff the muggy evening air. There was scarcely a breeze, and the 
  only scents she could catch were the stink of mud and rotting plants. Orienting herself 
  as best she could, she set off to the southeast, towards the center of the island.
  The Uktena and their Muscogee kin had lived in a settlement on the island – a 
  large one, if the old stories were true. There had been a caern as well, she recalled, 
  but it had gone untended since the Fianna’s treachery, hundreds of years ago. Now 
  there was only wilderness: dense, trackless, and full of thorns. 
  Ingrid stalked warily through the forest gloom. The island’s wildlife had fallen 
  silent, sensing a predator in their midst. Was it this quiet when I first got here? She 
  crouched at the base of a mossy oak, claws digging deep into rough-edged bark. 
  You’re out of your element. Slow down. Listen.
  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The moments stretched. At first, all 
  she could hear was the pounding of blood in her temples. Then, abruptly, the rhythm 
  changed, and she realized she was hearing the distant beat of a drum.
  Ingrid’s eyes snapped open. The drumbeats were coming from up ahead, per-
  haps thirty or forty yards through the trees. She crept forward, keeping to the shad-
  ows, ears straining to follow the sound.
  
  The Poison Tree
  72
  The ground sloped gently upward as she drew closer to the center of the island. 
  She took her time moving through the dense undergrowth, conscious of every small 
  sound she made. Finally, after ten long minutes, the trees started to thin out a bit, 
  and she came to the edge of what appeared to be a wide, bowl-shaped depression, 
  perhaps twenty yards across. There were just enough trees growing within the de-
  pression to create a thin canopy overhead, shot through with dusty shafts of sunlight. 
  Within this rough clearing stood three ranks of rough, moss-covered stones, arranged 
  in roughly concentric circles with the largest closer to the center. The drumbeats 
  were coming from within the stone circles, moving slowly from left to right.
  Ingrid knelt at the base of a tree and watched for signs of movement. A light 
  breeze rattled the leaves overhead and brought her a pair of scents. Two females. Eu-
  ryale and Catherine? There was also the faint sound of chanting, rising and falling 
  with the wind. She could not make out the words, but the meaning was clear. They’re 
  performing some kind of rite.
  Try as she might, she couldn’t see the ronin beyond the inner ring of standing 
  stones. Got to get closer, she thought, studying the position of the stones and looking 
  for a way to approach the inner ring unseen.
  Crouching low, Ingrid edged forward. One ring at a time. Slow and easy. They’ll 
  never know you’re – 
  A tremendous blow smashed into Ingrid’s side, hurling her backwards against 
  the tree. She hit the trunk with bone-crunching force, causing an explosion of white-
  hot pain in her shoulder. Ingrid roared in rage and pain as a huge figure reared out of 
  the undergrowth next to her.
  The crinos garou’s fur was a deep reddish-black, like the smoke of a roaring 
  fire. Ingrid caught a glimpse of glowing, green eyes and then a blur of motion. Claws 
  raked at her face; she threw herself to the right, and the blow tore splinters from the 
  tree instead. Ingrid hit the ground hard, touching off another hot flare of pain, but 
  her shoulder was already healing, muscles pulling broken bones back into place. The 
  garou leapt after her, jaws gaping wide. Ingrid bared her own fangs and lunged up 
  off the ground, into his path. 
  The two werewolves crashed together in a tangle of claws and teeth. Ingrid took 
  a swipe at the garou’s head, but he saw the blow coming and twisted in her grasp, 
  avoiding most of the impact. Fangs snapped hungrily, just inches from her throat. 
  She twisted and kicked, knees driving like pistons into the garou’s ribs and mid-
  section. Bones cracked like kindling, and the garou snarled in pain. Then he lunged 
  forward, breath hot against Ingrid’s cheek, and his jaws closed around her throat.
  Fangs pricked Ingrid’s skin. For half an instant she felt a cold rush of fear – 
  and then called to Donnerkeil. The grand klaive blazed in her fist, its point pressed 
  against the garou’s side.
  “Stop!”
  Another crinos, broad-shouldered and black as night, shoved between Ingrid 
  and her attacker. The werewolf seized Ingrid’s wrist and shouldered the other garou 
  aside. “Peace, both of you!”
  
  73
  Chapter Eight: Green Island Road
  The voice was Euryale’s. Though smaller in stature than the giant, green-eyed 
  Fianna, she had a commanding presence and a voice as sharp as any klaive. There 
  was a sprinkling of silver in the black hair of her muzzle and the ruff at the base of 
  her neck, and her left ear was pierced with three polished copper rings. She turned to 
  Kevin, baring her teeth. “Change, Kevin. Now!”
  The two werewolves locked stares. For a moment it looked as though Kevin 
  might defy her, but then he gave a low whuf of assent and his body began to shift. 
  Seeing him begin to change, Euryale let go of Ingrid’s wrist and began to do so as 
  well, returning to human form.
  It was a gesture of goodwill that Ingrid was expected to reciprocate. After test-
  ing her arm and shoulder to make sure they had completely healed, she grudgingly 
  shifted too. 
  The moment Euryale had completed her change she rounded angrily on Kevin. 
  “What in blessed Luna’s name do you think you were doing?”
  “You said to keep watch,” Kevin said. He rose to his feet. “She was hiding up 
  here, spying on you and Catherine. What did you expect me to do?”
  “Not try to kill her, that’s for certain!”
  Kevin let out a snort. “I was just going to restrain her. If I’d wanted her dead, 
  she’d be dead already.”
  Ingrid bared her teeth and raised Donnerkeil. “The only thing you were going to 
  restrain was my klaive. Between your ribs.”
  Euryale rolled her eyes. “Ahrouns. Gaia have pity on us all.” She glanced down 
  at Ingrid, still prone on the sandy ground. “What the hell are you doing out here, 
  sister?”
  “Oh, no.” Ingrid shook her head. The Shadow Lord rose to her feet. “You’ve got 
  this backwards. This is my domain. I ask the questions, and you answer. What are 
  you doing out here?”
  The ronin’s expression turned guarded. “Helping Catherine pay respect to her 
  ancestors.”
  Ingrid glared at Kevin. “Paying respect involves setting a guard and attacking 
  other garou on sight?”
  “Only the ones sneaking through the shadows and spying on us,” Kevin growled back.
  Euryale silenced Kevin with a hard look of her own. “Savannah is under attack, 
  right? For all we knew, there were Wyrmspawn out here, too. You live off the land 
  like we do, you learn not to take chances.”
  Ingrid scowled. It was a reasonable enough explanation, but Euryale’s body 
  language hinted that there was more to it than that. “I heard chanting. It sounded like 
  you were performing a rite.”
  “That was Catherine, not me. Some kind of ancestor rite. You’re welcome to 
  ask her about it, but I doubt she’ll say much. It’s an Uktena thing.” Euryale folded 
  her arms across her chest. “How did you even know we were here? Have you been 
  following us?”
  
  The Poison Tree
  74
  “The only question you had when you got here was about transportation,” Ingrid 
  replied. “A few hours later, a car was stolen near your apartment. I had a hunch the 
  two were connected, and I figured that if you were heading out of the city, then Green 
  Island was the most obvious destination.”
  The ronin gave her an appraising look. “So you’re familiar with the history of 
  this place?”
  “A little,” Ingrid admitted. “I know that the massacre happened here, back in 
  1830. The Stirlings and their kin attacked on a moonless night, killing the Uktena 
  and as many of their people as they could find. The survivors were rounded up by 
  the army and sent west.”
  “That’s it?”
  Ingrid shrugged. “Pretty much. Everything else died with the Uktena.”
  “And the Stirlings.” Euryale pointed out.
  “I suppose.”
  The ronin started to ask something, then abruptly changed her mind. “Look, I 
  thought we had an understanding. We would help you patrol the city at night, but 
  what we did on our own time was our business.”
  “That was before someone murdered seven of my kinfolk this morning.”
  The news shook the ronin. Euryale and Kevin exchanged looks. Her expression 
  was pained. “You think we – ”
  “It was a male garou,” Ingrid said coldly. She glared at Kevin. “And I’ve got 
  reason to believe he was a Fianna. So you can imagine the list of suspects is pretty 
  fucking short.”
  “How do you know it was a garou?” Kevin pressed.
  “If you’d seen the victims, you wouldn’t have to ask. Besides, I’ve got his scent.”
  “If that’s true, then you know damn well it wasn’t me.”
  Ingrid paused. During their brief struggle she’d gotten as good of a taste of 
  Kevin’s scent as she could ask for. “You’re right,” she said. “Not that it makes much 
  difference.”
  “Excuse me?”
  “My father’s convinced you did it. He’s got every garou in the city out hunting 
  for the three of you.”
  “Because we’re ronin?”
  “And because you happened to turn up missing right after the murders were 
  committed.”
  “I told you –”
  “It doesn’t matter what you told me,” Ingrid said, cutting her off with a wave 
  of her hand. “Father’s made up his mind. As far as he’s concerned, you’re guilty.”
  “But you know the truth.” Euryale persisted. “You’re his daughter. He’ll listen 
  to you.”
  
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  Chapter Eight: Green Island Road
  Ingrid shook her head stubbornly. “It’s not that simple. I broke one of the city’s 
  cardinal laws just bringing you here. If I took your side now, my own pack might 
  turn against me.”
  The ronin narrowed her eyes. “I get the sense you’re not telling us everything.”
  “There’s a lot of that going around, it seems.”
  Euryale sighed. “Well, what do you expect us to do? We can’t just leave.”
  “I’m not telling you to go,” Ingrid replied. Though I’m curious why you’re not, 
  under the circumstances. “But you can’t return to the city, either. By now, my fa-
  ther’s tied you to the car theft and given your descriptions to the cops, so they’ll be 
  looking for you, too.”
  “You’ve got ties to the police?” Kevin said.
  “My family has been in Savannah for more than two hundred years. It’s a small 
  Southern city. Of course we’ve got ties to the police.”
  The ronin shook his head. “You sound like a bunch of leeches.”
  “You sound like a bog-hound in need of some manners,” Ingrid growled, her 
  hand tightening on the grip of her klaive.
  “Bright goddess!” Euryale glared at the two Ahroun. “Can we just cool it with 
  the dominance games and focus on the problem at hand?”
  Ingrid stared at Kevin a moment longer, then relented with an exasperated sigh. 
  “I’ll need a body to convince my people,” she said. “Until I catch this bastard, you’ll 
  need to lie low somewhere.”
  “Fine. We can do that.”
  “Have you got a phone?”
  Euryale gave Ingrid a bemused look. “Seriously?”
  “Get a phone. One of the cheap, disposable ones. Eleanor should have given 
  you my number before she left you this morning.” The thought stung Ingrid with a 
  sudden pang of grief.
  “Yeah, I’ve got it.”
  “When you get the phone, call me so I can grab the number. I’ll be in touch 
  when I know more.” She stared up at the fading light leaking through the canopy. 
  “Providing I live through the night, of course.”
  The packs would be gathering at the caern within the hour. Normally she let 
  the newcomers spend a week patrolling the Historic District, letting them get accus-
  tomed to the sights and smells of the city, but they couldn’t afford that luxury now. 
  The Wyrmspawn nests surrounding Forsyth Park had to be dealt with quickly, before 
  they grew too strong. She would need every garou available – including her insubor-
  dinate beta, Marcus – if they were to have any chance at all of survival. 
  The war raged on, heedless of the living or the dead.
  
  The Poison Tree
  76
  Donnerkeil slashed and hacked in sizzling, blue arcs, splitting rubbery flesh and 
  cleaving rotted bone with every stroke. The bodies of a dozen Wyrmspawn crowded 
  the dirt floor of the tunnel around Ingrid’s feet, but still more came charging out of 
  the darkness to tear at her with filthy claws or jagged teeth.
  She met the next charge with a furious howl and a baring of blood-slick teeth. 
  The tunnel was narrow and low ceilinged, and wound like a worm’s track through 
  the dank earth. There was not enough room to fight in crinos form, but glabro still 
  lent her strength and stamina, as well as the garou’s swift healing powers. She tore at 
  the face of the first Wyrmspawn to reach her with the claws of her left hand, and split 
  the skull of the next one with her blade. The rest crashed into her like a wave, seizing 
  her legs and fumbling for her arms, trying to bear her to the blood-soaked ground. 
  Ingrid staggered against the press of bodies but did not fall. Through the red 
  haze of rage she dimly felt the pain of bites along her hips and upper thighs. Claws 
  tore at her chest, leaving shallow, bleeding scratches. A fomor with gray skin and a 
  fanged mouth like a lamprey seized her left arm and clamped its sucking maw onto 
  her shoulder. The weight on her body mounted steadily, bending her backwards like 
  a tree in the grip of a storm.
  Another Wyrmspawn lunged for Ingrid’s right arm. She buried Donnerkeil in 
  the side of the taint’s head, its milky eyes fluorescing as the weapon’s storm-spirit 
  cooked its brain from the inside out. Ingrid tore the klaive free and hammered the 
  skull of the fomor at her hip with end of the blade’s antler hilt. The taint fell, twitch-
  ing out its death throes. Freed of its weight, Ingrid pinned her other attackers against 
  the wall of the tunnel to her left. She killed the two fomori with quick thrusts to the 
  head and then staggered backwards as the smoking bodies toppled to the floor.
  The Shadow Lord spun, seeking more prey, only to find the tunnel suddenly 
  empty. The rest of the fomori had passed her by in the confusion, seeking other foes. 
  The darkness echoed with gibbering cries and the howls of garou as the battle raged 
  within the nest.
  “Joshua! Anna!” she shouted into the din. 
  Chapter Nine: 
  Fault Lines
  
  77
  Chapter Nine: Fault Lines
  Instead of one or two large chambers, the nest had turned out to be a collection 
  of small spaces connected by a maze of noisome, dripping tunnels. The taints had 
  attacked from all sides, and the garou had quickly gotten separated in the chaos. 
  They were right behind me just a second ago. Ingrid tried to think past a rising 
  tide of dismay. Garou fighting as a pack were a fearsome, nearly unstoppable force. 
  Alone, for all their power, they could be overwhelmed and destroyed – something 
  the Wyrm excelled at.
  This was the third nest they’d hit since nightfall. Ingrid was determined to clear 
  out the sites closest to the caern, but the fighting had grown more intense with each 
  successive attack. This time, the enemy had been waiting for them, and in large num-
  bers. Her body was stiff and aching from a dozen minor wounds, and she imagined 
  the rest of her pack was in similar shape. Gaia alone knew what shape the newcomers 
  were in.
  A cry echoed down the tunnel from where she’d come. It sounded like Anna. 
  Ingrid tightened her grip on Donnerkeil’s blood-slick hilt and charged off after the 
  sound.
  The tunnels were nearly pitch-dark except for occasional patches of luminescent 
  fungus, leaving the garou nearly blind. Ingrid’s enhanced senses were strained to the 
  utmost to try and build a picture of her surroundings. She knew where the tunnel 
  walls were by the smell of raw earth and the air pressure against her face. Drafts from 
  left or right revealed intersections. The sudden thumping of footfalls and the stench 
  of corruption warned her that an enemy was near. 
  A pair of taints stumbled into her path from a tunnel opening to her right; she 
  crashed into them without breaking stride, slashing with her blade. She decapitated 
  one of the fomori with a backhand swipe, and then ripped the other open from shoul-
  der to hip. The bodies toppled in her wake, already forgotten.
  “Anna!”
  “Here!”
  The reply was a deep-throated snarl, coming from just up ahead. Ingrid knew 
  Anna well enough to hear the desperation in her voice.
  A moment later Ingrid raced around a bend in the tunnel and into another tan-
  gled melee. There was a crowd of foul-smelling taints packed into a small, irregular 
  chamber, throwing themselves at a snarling, snapping figure in its center. Anna was 
  in hispo form, turning in tight circles and snapping at the enemy with her powerful 
  jaws, protecting Joshua’s prone form.
  The fomori were so rabidly intent on their prey that for a handful of heartbeats 
  they didn’t realize Ingrid was in their midst. The Shadow Lord was a blur of deadly 
  motion. Donnerkeil flared with every strike, until it seemed as though a summer 
  storm had been loosed in the confines of the cave. She split skulls and severed limbs, 
  smashed bones and splashed blood onto the earthen walls. Ingrid howled as the bod-
  ies fell around her, and the rest of the taints reeled in terror, scattering down side tun-
  nels to escape her wrath. It took a monumental effort of will to suppress her instinct 
  to chase after them and instead kneel down by Joshua’s side.
  
  The Poison Tree
  78
  The Galliard was unconscious and had reverted to human form, leaving him 
  especially vulnerable. There was no way to tell how badly he was injured, but his 
  clothes were tacky with blood. Anna stood to one side, flanks heaving, her snout 
  matted with gore. There were wounds on her right shoulder and down the side of her 
  neck, and her right foreleg was trembling.
  “We were separated,” Anna gasped in wolf-speech. “By the time I got back to 
  him –”
  “Help me get him up,” Ingrid growled back. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
  Anna blinked in surprise. The very idea of retreat galled Ingrid to the core, but 
  she didn’t see any other choice. Trading the lives of a hundred taints for even a single 
  garou was a losing proposition. She gritted her teeth, then threw back her head and 
  howled for the packs to withdraw. Ingrid repeated the howl twice more, then grabbed 
  Joshua’s arm. Anna quickly shifted to glabro, and between the two of them they be-
  gan to drag the Galliard back towards the entrance to the nest.
  It felt like an eternity of twisting tunnels and brief clashes with fomori before 
  they made it back to the dimly lit chamber where the attack had begun. Ingrid had 
  repeated her call every few yards, praying to the goddess that the other garou would 
  heed her. The sounds of fighting continued, but after a while it seemed as though 
  they were getting closer instead of farther away. Ingrid helped Anna up through the 
  ragged hole in the chamber’s ceiling, and together they lifted Joshua’s limp form out 
  of the nest. Then the war chief waited in the darkness for the Stone Mountain garou 
  and the rest of her pack to return.
  Sara Summer’s Run arrived first, stumbling from a side passage with blood on 
  her face. Though in glabro form, the look of fear in the Child of Gaia’s eyes was 
  easy to read. Tom Three Leagues, her Fianna packmate, came next, snarling angrily 
  back the way he’d come. He was in hispo form, an ancient dire wolf of Celtic legend, 
  limping but still eager to fight. Then came Darius, carrying the unconscious form 
  of Natasha Falcon’s Cry, the teenage Silver Fang, in his powerful arms. Darius had 
  shifted to glabro form to move more quickly through the tunnels, and his fur glis-
  tened with fresh blood.
  “Is she okay?” Ingrid called.
  “She’ll live,” he said through gritted teeth.
  Three fomori burst into the chamber right on Darius’s heels, their grotesque 
  faces alight with triumph. Ingrid rushed them, swinging Donnerkeil in a sizzling arc. 
  Two of the taints fell, and the third retreated with a gibbering shriek.
  Marcus and the pack of Stone Mountain Get appeared moments later, crowding 
  into the chamber from another side passage. They were all in lupus form, huge and 
  shaggy but swift, racing out of the darkness with raised hackles and bits of gray flesh 
  matted into their fur.
  “What’s happening?” her beta asked. “Why are we running?”
  Just the sight of Marcus was enough to make her blood boil. He had been late 
  to the caern that evening as well, offering no explanation about his absence earlier in 
  the day. She’d meant to deal with him after the hunt, away from the eyes of the other 
  
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  Chapter Nine: Fault Lines
  packs, but things weren’t working out the way she’d planned. Ingrid glanced back 
  over her shoulder. Marcus was lifting Natasha up into the arms of her packmates. If 
  anything, she looked to be in even worse shape than Joshua. “Just go!” she snarled.
  Sounds of pursuit came echoing out of the tunnels: manic laughter and mad-
  dened screams, thudding footfalls and the thin, scratchy sound of claws raking 
  against packed earth. Ingrid gritted her teeth and backed towards the exit. She want-
  ed to stay and fight, to spill blood and tear the rotten flesh of her enemies. To kill and, 
  perhaps, be killed in return. Just then, with the sting of defeat still fresh, she craved 
  a clean death rather than another moment of uncertainty and loss.
  But that was not the privilege of a war chief. A warrior could fall in battle, but a 
  chief must live on, until the bitterest end.
  Beneath the hole in the ceiling her body began to change. When the first of the 
  Wyrmspawn burst into the chamber she faced them in her war form. Her howl of 
  rage shook dirt from the walls and stopped the enemy’s charge dead in its tracks. 
  Before they could recover she leapt upwards and out of sight.
  Ingrid landed on the filthy cement floor of the storeroom above. As soon as she 
  appeared, Darius lurched forward and dropped a steel door – ripped from the store-
  room entrance – over the hole with a flat, hollow clang.
  She crouched in the darkness of the dank room, chest heaving. The mocking 
  cries of the enemy could still be faintly heard from below. The panting of the wound-
  ed echoed in the musty air, lost at times beneath the rush of traffic along the street 
  outside.
  “Johnny, get over here,” Anna said, her voice tense. She had returned to human 
  form and had her hands pressed against Joshua’s chest. Her bare arms were red up to 
  her elbow. One of the Get, a young Theurge from Mobile, shifted quickly and scoot-
  ed over to join her, his eyes wide. She grabbed his trembling hands. “Here,” she said, 
  laying them over a pair of deep gashes on the Galliard’s shoulder. “Remember what 
  the spirit taught you, Johnny. Concentrate.”
  Ingrid grappled with her own emotions, struggling to see past her rage and fo-
  cus on the matter at hand. She tried to let go of her war form, but her blood was still 
  boiling from the fight. 
  “How bad is it?” She managed to say.
  “I can’t believe Josh is still alive,” Anna replied, her voice tight with strain. 
  “Natasha has a cracked skull and goddess knows what else. It’s going to take pretty 
  much everything Johnny and I have got to get them stabilized. The rest we’ll have to 
  deal with at the caern.”
  Curt Hammerfang, the Get pack leader, forced himself to his feet. He was tall 
  and lean, with sun-browned skin and a broad-shouldered, muscular frame. He’d been 
  crouching with his back to one wall, and the cement floor around him was spotted 
  with heavy drops of blood. “My people are fine,” he insisted. “We can still fight.”
  “So can we,” Tom Three Leagues said through clenched teeth. The Fianna’s 
  bearded face was pale, and his right leg was stretched out on the floor in front of him. 
  He looked to his packmate, Sara Summer’s Run, for confirmation. “Right?”
  
  The Poison Tree
  80
  “S-sure,” the Child of Gaia said. She had a hand pressed to the side of her head. 
  Blood leaked between her fingers and matted her strawberry blond hair. “Just…just 
  give me a minute.”
  “No,” Ingrid said. “We’re done here.” She spoke slowly, trying to make herself 
  understood, which just angered her even more.
  “She’s right,” Darius said. The Ahroun had shifted back to human form and 
  knelt on top of the makeshift cover he’d placed over the hole. “There’s no telling 
  how many are still down there. If we get separated again –”
  “We won’t,” Curt said. 
  “Nobody asked you, pup,” Darius growled back.
  The Get shook his head. “This is bullshit,” he said sourly. “Are we here to fight 
  or not?”
  “We’ve been fighting all damn night,” Darius shot back.
  “Give me a fucking break! Every time we’ve got them on the run, she tells us to 
  fall back!” Curt jabbed an accusing finger at Ingrid. “We haven’t taken out a single 
  goddamned nest!”
  “You want to go chasing taints through those tunnels, shit-for-brains? ‘Cause 
  that’s exactly what they want,” Darius snapped, though it was clear that even he was 
  uncomfortable with the reply.
  “If that’s what it takes.” Curt shook his head in disgust. “Wotan’s nuts, no won-
  der you people are in such trouble.” Abruptly, he turned to Marcus, who had been 
  watching the whole exchange from a shadowy corner a few feet away. “You’re the 
  only one who’s talked any sense since we got here. What do you think?”
  Ingrid was on the Get in a single bound, grabbing him by the front of his shirt 
  and jerking him off his feet. “I don’t give a shit what Marcus told you!” she roared, 
  shaking Curt hard enough to crack his head against the cinderblock wall. The words 
  came boiling out in wolf-speech, nearly unintelligible to human ears. She raised 
  Donnerkeil. “As long is I carry this, you listen to me, understand –”
  “Luna’s mercy! Stop it!”
  Darius shoved between her and the Get, trying to push them apart. Anna was 
  close behind. “Let him go!” she yelled, trying to pry Ingrid’s clenched fist open. The 
  shock and dismay in Anna’s voice was like a slap in the face. The killing rage that 
  had gripped Ingrid vanished as quickly as it had appeared. 
  Curt drooped like a rag doll in her hand, and there was fresh blood on the wall 
  behind him. Slowly, carefully, Ingrid lowered him to the floor. Anna bent over the 
  young Get, gingerly feeling the back of his skull.
  “Is…is he?”
   “He’ll live,” the Theurge said tersely. “We need to get him to the caern. Now.”
  The rest of the Get were on their feet, faces set and fists clenched. Tom and Sara 
  were staring at her with a mix of horror and outrage. Marcus, his face half-hidden by 
  shadow, wore a carefully crafted expression of concern – but there was no missing 
  the cold, hungry glint in his eye.
  
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  Chapter Nine: Fault Lines
  He’s been whispering in their ears the whole damned time, she thought, and felt 
  the embers of her anger start to flare again. She wanted to storm across the room, 
  grab her beta by the throat and beat him within an inch of his miserable life – but she 
  knew that would only make a bad situation worse. I’ll deal with him later, when he 
  doesn’t have an audience to play to.
  Ingrid bent and gathered Curt in her arms. “Let’s go,” she said, and headed for 
  the storeroom stairs. Above was an abandoned store that was just two blocks east of 
  the park. They could be at the Old Fort within minutes.
  For several awkward seconds, no one else moved. Ingrid climbed the stairs, 
  feeling her authority grow more tenuous with each step she took. 
  “Come on, you heard the chief,” Anna said, breaking the tension. “I’ll get Josh-
  ua. Darius, you take Natasha. We’ll need someone to go ahead and make sure the 
  route is clear. Sara, you up for it?”
  There were murmurs of assent, and the garou got moving. Ingrid passed through 
  the doorway at the top of the stairs, muttering a silent prayer of thanks as they navi-
  gated the store’s trash-strewn aisles. For the moment at least, Savannah’s handful of 
  garou were still with her.
  • • •
  They reached the safety of the Old Fort without incident, dashing across deserted 
  streets under the waning light of the moon. Anna started working on Curt at once, 
  while Johnny was put to work evaluating the condition of the walking wounded. Near-
  ly everyone was injured to some degree, though true to Curt’s word, the Get – and Mar-
  cus, who had been assigned as their minder – had come through the battle relatively 
  unscathed. Ingrid found herself wondering if her beta had intentionally held them back 
  to ensure that his allies would be in better condition to support him if he decided to sup-
  plant her. Or perhaps he hoped that by holding back during the fight, the taints would 
  take care of her for him? The sudden stab of anger she felt nearly sent her over the 
  edge. Only the sight of Curt’s unconscious body kept her from doing something rash.
  Bright goddess, you’re losing it, Ingrid thought. You’re starting to sound as 
  paranoid as Father.
  After a moment to calm her breathing, she took Darius by the arm and pulled 
  him aside. “Take over here,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve…I’ve got to get out of 
  here for a bit.”
  The big Ahroun frowned. “You all right?”
  “If I stay here another minute I’m going to skin Marcus and nail his hide to the 
  wall.”
  Darius saw that Ingrid wasn’t joking. The Ahroun winced. “Yeah, okay. I hear 
  you.” He nodded at Curt’s prone form. “What do you want me to tell him when he 
  wakes up?”
  Ingrid gave his arm a squeeze. “I already feel bad putting you between me and 
  Marcus. I’m not going to have you apologizing for me as well. I’ll talk to Hammer-
  fang tomorrow, after we’ve both had a chance to calm down.”
  
  The Poison Tree
  82
  “Okay, chief.”
  Darius nodded a farewell and went over to check on Johnny’s progress. Ingrid 
  surveyed the gathering one last time. Tom and Sara were crouched anxiously next 
  to Natasha. Across the chamber, just at the edge of the lantern light, Marcus and the 
  other Get were whispering intently to one another. The war chief bared her teeth in 
  a silent snarl.
  Not here. Not now. It will just end in blood.
  Moving as quietly as she could, Ingrid withdrew and slipped out into the night.
  • • •
  For a while she was just another one of Savannah’s troubled spirits, wandering 
  the deserted streets in the dead of night. Shifting into wolf form, she loped silently 
  through the darkness, letting her mind work as she made her way north, towards the 
  river. She paid homage at several of the city’s shrines, and padded softly through its 
  cemeteries. She listened to the city as it slept, and contemplated its fate.
  Curt Hammerfang had been right. They hadn’t won a single battle that night. 
  There were simply too many of the Wyrmspawn, and the garou she had were too 
  inexperienced. The addition of the ronin might have made a difference, but the attack 
  on her kinfolk had prevented that.
  The murders might, in fact, be the beginning of the end, Ingrid thought. That 
  one blow, perfectly timed, had cracked the Coastal Empire down to its foundation. 
  There was no reasoning with her father now, not until the killer was caught. Until 
  then, a witch-hunt would rage across Savannah, dividing the garou at a time when 
  they could least afford it.
  That left Ingrid with few options, and each one only made the situation worse. 
  All of them came down to challenging her father, a decision that could only end in 
  blood.
  Four hours later she was no closer to reaching a decision. The wind had picked 
  up, and a line of clouds was streaming in from the east, like hounds chasing after the 
  moon. Reluctantly, Ingrid turned her steps back towards home.
  There was no light above the door to welcome her as she climbed the stone 
  steps. The old doorknob creaked in the predawn quiet, a strangely plaintive sound.
  The bench in the vestibule was empty. Ingrid stood over it, listening to the clock 
  tick in the parlor, and suddenly Eleanor’s death was utterly, irrevocably real. The 
  pain was so sudden and sharp it took her breath away.
  “Where have you been, child?” Her father’s voice, deep and portentous, rose 
  from the darkness of the study.
  Ingrid turned, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “Hunting,” she an-
  swered.
  “You left your people at the caern hours ago.”
  “Is that some kind of accusation?” Ingrid felt her hackles rise. She crossed the 
  vestibule and leaned into the study, one hand on the wide doorframe. “Have you got 
  Marcus keeping track of my movements now?”
  
  83
  Chapter Nine: Fault Lines
  Karl Ironhand sat at his antique desk, a silhouette darker than the surrounding 
  shadows. A bottle from the room’s sideboard rested on the blotter by his elbow. Judg-
  ing by the smell of spirits, he’d been working at its contents for most of the night.
  “Where did you go?” he asked. The words came out slowly, as though rising 
  from a great depth. “Tell me the truth.”
  “I took a walk. I needed to think. What does it matter?”
  Karl didn’t answer at first. She watched him raise a glass to his lips and knock 
  back whatever was left. “That goddamn house,” he growled, reaching for the bot-
  tle. “Tried to tear it down for years, but those bitches on the Historic Commission 
  wouldn’t let me. Why in Grandfather’s name did you have to go there?”
  Ingrid frowned, stepping further into the room. “The Stirling House? Because 
  that’s where the trail led –”
  “There’s nothing there. I’ll tell you that right now. We cleaned it out that very 
  night.” Karl poured another glass and knocked it back. “You won’t find anything. I 
  promise you that.”
  “Eleanor’s death is connected to the Stirlings,” Ingrid pressed. “But there’s 
  more to it than that. If someone from the family survived –”
  Karl’s fist slammed down hard on the desk. “They’re dead!” he snarled. “We 
  made damn sure of that. Every last man, woman, and child.” She could feel the 
  weight of her father’s stare as he reached for the bottle again. “You think I’m stupid 
  enough to spare my enemies? Is that what you think?”
  “Of course not –”
  “You think I’m weak?” Ironhand lurched from his chair. “You think I’ve for-
  gotten how to fight?” He grabbed his heavy cane and brandished it like a blade. “I’ll 
  kill anyone who tries to take this city from me! Anyone! You think I won’t, you just 
  try me!”
  Her father towered over her, cane raised as if to strike. In her human form, a 
  blow to the head could kill her just as easily as anyone else. A deadly calm settled 
  over Ingrid. She became aware of Donnerkeil’s weight resting in her hand. Silence 
  stretched between them, punctuated by the ticking of the clock.
  “I think,” Ingrid said carefully, “that you’ve had enough for one night. Don’t 
  you?”
  Karl glared at her. After a moment his body started to wobble, forcing him to 
  lower his cane. He leaned against it, his breathing ragged.
  “I’m watching you,” he warned. “I’m watching every move you make. You hear 
  me?”
  Ingrid said nothing. Instead, she reached over and very deliberately plucked the 
  bottle from the desk, then turned her back on her father and headed up to her room.
  
  The Poison Tree
  84
  She woke to a gust of wind and the drumming of rain against the windows. A 
  quick glance at her phone showed that it was the middle of the afternoon, and her 
  head was fuzzy with lack of sleep and her father’s whiskey. The sour taste in her 
  mouth reminded her of the confrontation in Karl’s study just a few hours before.
  Her clothes from the night before were still wadded up in a heap next to the 
  door, and no new ones had been brought up. The old house creaked in the grip of the 
  wind, but its halls were eerily quiet.
  After a moment’s thought she eased from the sheets and put on yesterday’s 
  clothes. The conversation with her father played out again and again in her mind.
  That goddamn house. Why in Grandfather’s name did you have to go there?
  There’s nothing there. I’ll tell you that right now. We cleaned it out that very 
  night.
  You won’t find anything. I promise you that.
  Ingrid stood at the French doors and looked down on the square as she raked her 
  fingers through her hair and drew it back into a ponytail. Gray thunderheads were pil-
  ing up over Savannah, driven before a wild east wind. The streets were damp, but the 
  rain was only coming down in fits and starts, a precursor for the real storm to come.
  What is it about that house? Ingrid thought. What did you think I was looking 
  for there?
  She’d wondered about that for hours after she’d returned home, sitting out on 
  her balcony with her father’s whiskey bottle in her lap, watching the cloudy skies 
  pale with the dawn. The liquor had offered little inspiration, and there wasn’t anyone 
  she could go to for answers.
  Except one. It was a long shot, but at this point, she didn’t know where else she 
  could turn.
  Ingrid checked to make sure she had her keys, and then opened the bedroom 
  door as quietly as she could. If her father was downstairs in the study, she didn’t want 
  him wondering what she was up to. With a quick check to make sure none of the 
  house staff were upstairs, she crept down the hall to the attic door.
  Chapter Ten: 
  Storm 
  Warning
  
  85
  Chapter Ten: Storm Warning
  She climbed the narrow stairs slowly, wincing at each telltale squeak. There was 
  the muted sound of a TV playing on the far side of the upper door; it fell abruptly 
  silent as she began to work the locks.
  “Eric?” she called softly as she pushed the door open. The air inside the attic 
  apartment was stuffy, smelling of old paper and animal musk. Wind whistled through 
  the eaves, but did little to stir the turgid air.
  A dark figure stepped from behind a bookshelf and into a shaft of dusty light. 
  “Here, cousin.” Eric spread his hands in welcome and offered her a lopsided grin. “I 
  caught your scent on the stairs and thought it best to change.”
  Ingrid attempted a grin of her own. “Thank you, Eric. That’s…very polite of 
  you.”
  Eric’s grin widened. “Oh! Are you hungry?” The metis limped heavily across 
  the apartment, causing the old boards to creak beneath his tread. He went to a small 
  table crowded with a stack of books and a covered dish on a small, metal tray. “I 
  think there is still some meat left from breakfast.”
  “N-no. I couldn’t eat anything. Thanks.” The wind gusted again, and a handful 
  of raindrops spattered against the dormers. One of the dormer windows flew open 
  with a crash, and set books and papers fluttering. Ingrid rushed to close it, stumbling 
  over more books as she went. She pushed the panel shut and fumbled with the latch, 
  hoping that the metis hadn’t taken to sneaking out of the house again.
  “There’s a storm coming,” Eric told her, as he limped back across the apartment 
  and started gathering up the windblown papers.
  “It’s about time. We haven’t had a decent afternoon shower all month.”
  The notion made Eric chuckle. “Afternoon shower. That’s good.” He carried a 
  teetering stack of old tomes to a nearby couch and set them precariously on one end. 
  “Is that an Ahroun thing? Laughing in the face of disaster?”
  Ingrid scowled at him. “Disaster?”
  “The hurricane, of course.”
  “The hurricane?”
  Eric blinked at her. “Well. Yes.”
  “But the hurricane season just started!”
  “I thought the same thing. Strange times indeed, eh?”
  “How did you find out? A dream? Some kind of omen?”
  The Theurge gave her a strange look. “The Weather Channel. It’s all they’ve 
  been talking about since this morning. They say they’ve never seen a hurricane de-
  velop so quickly. There wasn’t even a tropical storm out there twenty-four hours 
  ago.”
  “And it’s coming here?”
  “Oh, yes. It’s expected to make landfall in forty-eight hours. People are starting 
  to leave the city now.”
  
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  Ingrid wondered if that was why it was so quiet downstairs. Karl wouldn’t evac-
  uate, of course, but perhaps he’d given the staff leave to get their families out of 
  town. “That’s going to complicate things.”
  “How so?”
  Ingrid sighed. “Have you heard about what happened to Eleanor?”
  “Oh. Yes.” Eric’s face fell. “Your father was talking to someone on the phone 
  about it. I heard it through the heating grate. If I sit very still and listen closely, I can 
  learn a great many things. Did you know?”
  “No. That’s…very interesting.” Ingrid paused. “Actually, speaking of learning 
  things…I was hoping you might be able to answer some questions I have about 
  glyphs.”
  Eric’s eyes widened. “You mean you…you need my help? Really?”
  “I really do.”
  The metis beamed. “I know about glyphs. I know everything about them! Moth-
  er taught me secrets when I was still in my cradle. Did you know?”
  “You mentioned that before. That’s why I’m here.” She looked about the clut-
  tered apartment. “Do you have some paper and a pencil anywhere?”
  “Of course!”
  The metis limped to a desk near the west dormers and began pawing through the 
  mess covering it. Ingrid looked around for a place to sit, finally scooping a stack of 
  old leather-bound tomes from a dusty sofa and taking their place.
  “Here you are!” Eric hurried over and pressed a wrinkled legal pad and half a 
  number two pencil into her hands. “There’s no eraser. I’m a bit of a chewer.”
  “That’s okay,” Ingrid assured him. Eric’s enthusiasm was almost painful to 
  watch. She flipped pages on the legal pad until she got to a reasonably smooth one, 
  then paused to collect her thoughts.
  “Eleanor was killed in a very particular fashion,” she began. “The way things 
  were arranged leads me to believe that she was being interrogated.”
  “Interrogated about what?”
  “I don’t know. But the killer took pains to show her a series of sigils.”
  Ingrid visualized the glyphs as best she could and tried to reproduce them. The 
  memories were like quicksilver – she could call them up easily enough, but when 
  she tried to focus on the sigils themselves, the details turned slippery. The harder she 
  tried to focus, the worse the effect became.
  It took several minutes and numerous failed attempts, but finally she felt like she 
  had an approximation of what they looked like. “This last one here,” she said, finish-
  ing the sketch. Of the whole series, it was ironically the easiest by far. “We think is 
  a stylized version of a spiral.”
  Eric studied the drawings for a moment. “Wait here,” he said at last, and went 
  to a dusty alcove in the furthest corner of the apartment. Ingrid listened to him shift 
  more piles of books, and then the rattle of a lock. Hinges creaked.
  
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  Chapter Ten: Storm Warning
  “Here we are!” Eric appeared from the alcove with a triumphant smile, a bulg-
  ing, leather-bound folio in his hands. He brought it over to Ingrid and squeezed onto 
  the sofa beside her.
  “These were my mother’s,” he said, reverently tugging at the cord that kept the 
  folio shut. Inside was a thick stack of loose, hand-cut pages, their yellowed surfaces 
  covered in neat lines of handwritten text and sketches in a fine, precise hand. As 
  Eric carefully turned each page, Ingrid realized that nearly all of the pages had been 
  charred to some degree.
  “Was there a fire at some point?”
  “The day Mother died, Karl threw all of her books into the fireplace,” Eric re-
  plied. “He said he never wanted to see them again. But they were all I had of her. As 
  soon as he left the room, I went and pulled them out. The bindings were destroyed, 
  but most of the pages survived.”
  Ingrid studied her cousin out of the corner of her eye. “What about you?”
  “The burns healed eventually.”
  The Theurge turned one page after another. Ingrid caught glimpses of detailed 
  rituals, ritual circles and descriptions of their effects. There were fanciful sketches of 
  spirits, and the profile of a young man with handsome features and a patrician nose. 
  There was a page of twisting lines that looked like some sort of maze, and then page 
  upon page of glyphs. Many of the sigils Ingrid recognized, but then Eric reached an-
  other section and suddenly the symbols were much more complex and potent. Ingrid 
  felt a chill race down her spine.
  Eric perused each page, scrutinizing the glyphs. Finally, he tapped one lightly 
  with the tip of his finger. “Is that one?”
  Ingrid grimaced and forced herself to study the symbol. “Yes,” she said, quickly 
  looking away. “What…what is it?”
  The Theurge’s brow furrowed. After a moment, he said, “Do you know what a 
  ritual is?”
  “Of course I do.”
  “No, I mean on a fundamental level. Do you know why ritual is important?”
  “I always thought it was something the spirits demanded for their help.”
  Eric nodded. “That’s a common belief. Certainly most rituals invoke spirits as 
  part of the process. But it’s got much more to do with the person performing the rit-
  ual. Imagine…” He glanced about the cluttered apartment, searching for something 
  to use as an example. “Okay. Imagine you could create a book just using the power 
  of your mind.”
  “All right.”
  “Think of all the little details involved. Imagine the paper, and the writing on 
  each individual page.”
  “I hope this is a short book.”
  “If that’s what you wish,” Eric said with a grin. “But there’s more. Imagine the 
  binding. The glue and the stitches holding pages and cover together. Now imagine an 
  
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  88
  image on the cover, and the title. Once that’s done, hold it all together in its totality, 
  using just your imagination. Can you do that?”
  Ingrid closed her eyes. “More or less.”
  “Not more or less. Anything other than an exact image, and you’ll just end up 
  with a mess of paper and ink.”
  “Okay, fine.” She tried again. “Yes. I can manage that.”
  “I’m impressed. Now imagine creating a car the same way, or your smart phone.”
  Ingrid gave him a sidelong look. “It’s impossible. There are too many parts, and 
  I don’t even know what half of them do.”
  Eric smiled. “Exactly. That is what ritual is for. It’s a blueprint, a set of instruc-
  tions to guide the shaman in creating the effect she desires. That’s also why many of 
  the most complicated rituals invoke the aid of spirits. Sometimes you need to call in 
  a specialist for really detailed work.”
  “All right,” Ingrid conceded. “I can see that. But what does that have to do with 
  the glyphs?”
  “Rituals take a great deal of focus. The chants, the dances, the music – they’re 
  all just mnemonic devices that help the shaman visualize the effect she is creating. 
  And the more potent the ritual, the more steps, and the longer it takes to complete. 
  But what if there were a way to shorten the process? What if there were specific, 
  unique symbols that were so charged with meaning that they did much of the ritual 
  work for you? That’s what a glyph does.”
  Ingrid’s eyes widened. “How powerful can they get?”
  Eric searched through the folio until he found a glyph so large and complex it 
  took up nearly an entire page. “With this glyph, your father drove the vampires from 
  Savannah in a single night.”
  “Wait – my father used this?”
  “Of course. How else do you think he managed it? The most potent glyphs are 
  almost rituals unto themselves. They require tremendous will and clarity of vision to 
  use, but Karl Ironhand lacked for neither. Mother taught him the rest.”
  Eric leaned close. “I could teach you, too, if you like. Mother showed me how. 
  Did you know?”
  Ingrid’s mind reeled at the thought. Just looking at the glyphs felt wrong; the 
  longer she studied them, the stranger she felt, as though the lines on the page were 
  somehow worming their way into her brain. 
  And yet, if they really are that powerful…
  “No.” Ingrid stood, tearing her gaze away from the page. “There’s something…I 
  don’t know, something wrong about those things. Can’t you feel it?”
  “The power of the glyph works both ways, cousin. It facilitates the effects of a 
  ritual by ordering the processes of the mind. That is what you’re feeling.  Your con-
  sciousness is being…expanded.”
  “I like my consciousness just the way it is,” Ingrid said.
  
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  Chapter Ten: Storm Warning
  The smile faded from Eric’s face. “Well. I understand. Still, if you change your 
  mind –”
  He was interrupted by the faint murmur of voices. The sound rose to fill the 
  attic space, as though a chorus of ghosts had gathered in their midst. Ingrid frowned. 
  “What in Gaia’s name is that?”
  Eric carefully set the folio aside and crept softly across the apartment to stand 
  over an iron heating grate set into the floor. “It’s your father,” he whispered. “He’s 
  talking to Marcus and the rest of your pack, down in his study.”
  Ingrid felt a flash of anger. Her beta had gone too far this time. We’ll settle this 
  tonight, she decided. I’ll call him out in front of everyone. And if he doesn’t back 
  down, then I’ll give him the beating of his life.
  She moved closer, trying to listen to the muddled voices. Finally she shook her 
  head. “I can’t make out what they’re saying.”
  Eric cocked an ear over the grate. “They’ve returned with the surviving kinfolk 
  and the rest of the garou from Stone Mountain. They’ll be staying here at the house 
  until the ronin are caught.”
  “The surviving kinfolk?”
  The metis gave her a bemused look. “Well. Yes. There was another attack sometime 
  before dawn. The new girl – was her name Charlotte? She and her family were killed. 
  Your father was talking to Marcus about it early this morning. It sounded terrible.”
  “Bright goddess,” Ingrid said. “And he just let me sleep?”
  Eric stared at her. “He thinks you were a part of it, cousin. You and the ronin. 
  You left the others at the caern last night and went off alone, didn’t you?”
  The floor seemed to shift beneath her feet. “Mother’s mercy,” she gasped, shak-
  ing her head. “This can’t be happening.”
  “Karl was waiting for the rest of the garou to arrive before they came to get 
  you,” Eric continued. “Hear that? They’re coming up the stairs now.”
  Ingrid called to Donnerkeil. The grand klaive appeared, its crackling aura in 
  keeping with the mounting storm clouds outside. Instinctively, her body began to 
  shift. Eric straightened, a growl rising from his human throat.
  I can’t do this, she thought, fighting against her mounting rage even as her body 
  took on its war form. I can’t fight them. We’re all the caern has left.
  They would reach her room in seconds. Where would they go once they found 
  it empty? If they check the attic door and find it unlocked…
  “I have to get out of here,” she told Eric.
  As she spoke, the metis shifted, returning to his natural form. “The window,” he 
  said, pointing a wicked-looking claw at the line of dormers along the east side of the 
  house. “It’s not sealed. You can get out that way.”
  There was a crash of splintering wood from below. Leave it to Marcus to kick 
  down an unlocked door, she thought sourly. She wanted to go storming down there 
  and raise hell, but she knew that if she did, it would end in blood. Gritting her teeth, 
  she dashed to the windows and pulled the closest one open.
  
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  90
  “Cousin?”
  Ingrid glanced back at Eric. The metis was still standing by the couch, his long 
  hands clasped anxiously over his chest. Despite his massive frame, his hunched pos-
  ture made him seem smaller, even pitiful. “Can I come with you?”
  The question caught Ingrid by surprise. “What? No –”
  “Please. I want to help.”  He took a tentative step towards her. “Just…just give 
  me a chance. I know things. I can be useful –”
  “No,” she snapped, and immediately hated herself for doing it. Gaia forgive me, 
  she thought. I know he means well, but I can’t have him slowing me down. 
  “You…you’ve already been a great help to me, Eric. I can’t ask you to do any 
  more. It’s too dangerous.”
  Eric’s ears drooped. “I see,” he said, crestfallen.
  “Look, the whole city is against me,” Ingrid continued. “If you leave with me, 
  Father won’t forgive you.”
  “You should go.” The metis turned his back on her and limped towards the door. 
  “If Marcus and the others come up here looking for you, I will try to hold them for 
  as long as I can.” 
  Ingrid watched him go. She tried to think of something to say, anything that 
  might salve his injured pride. But then she heard the attic door bang open, and there 
  was no time for anything but to climb through the window and pull it shut behind her.
  Out on the roof, the wind beat at her with its fists. The roof tiles were dark and 
  slick from the rain. Ingrid looked out over the back of the house and her aunt’s tan-
  gled garden. She felt dreadfully exposed, easily within sight of the upper floors of 
  the houses to her left and right. All she could do was trust to the power of the shrine 
  just a few yards away, and get to cover as quickly as she could.
  She focused her will and shifted back to glabro, making herself smaller and 
  lighter than her massive war form, then crouched and slid carefully down the rain-
  slick tiles to the edge of the roof. From there it was an easy drop to one of the 
  upper-floor balconies, and then down onto the veranda in back. There were figures 
  moving in the solarium at the rear of the house – haggard-looking kinfolk carrying 
  in cots and blankets to transform the large room into a makeshift dormitory. One of 
  them, still wearing his kitchen whites, locked eyes with her and then quickly looked 
  away. Cursing under her breath, Ingrid ran for the far side of the veranda, vaulting 
  the stone balustrade and dropping to the lawn below. From there it was a short dash 
  into the wild maze of the rose garden.
  Ingrid prayed to the garden’s spirits as she ran, asking them for aid. She had no 
  idea if they would pay her any mind – or worse, actively hinder her just out of spite. 
  None of the curving paths seemed familiar, so she ran blindly, taking one left turn 
  after another and hoping for the best. After several long minutes, she came around 
  a bend and stumbled out into the center of the garden. Her aunt’s marble features 
  studied her inscrutably from the edge of the pool. Those same features that had once 
  comforted her now seemed sinister and strange.
  With this glyph your father drove the vampires from Savannah…
  
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  Chapter Ten: Storm Warning
  Ingrid took shelter in the shadow of the ruined gazebo and fought to control her 
  breathing. She listened for sounds of pursuit, but the old house and the grounds were 
  silent. Gusts of wind hissed through the thickets, tearing blood-red petals from the 
  rose bushes and scattering them through the air.
  She forced herself to take a moment, to pause and to think. She had few options, 
  and none of them good.
  Ingrid forced herself to shift, returning to human form. She dug in her pocket for 
  her phone and looked up the number Euryale had left for her. Thinking quickly, she 
  tapped out a text message, and then called the ronin’s number.
  The phone picked up on the fourth ring. Ingrid heard what sounded like a muf-
  fled argument, and then Euryale’s voice came through loud and clear. “I didn’t ex-
  pect to hear from you so soon,” she said.
  “Remember that problem we were talking about yesterday? Well, it just got 
  worse. Have you still got that car?”
  “You told us to get rid of it.”
  The wind shifted. When it did, Ingrid heard the sound of voices at the rear of the 
  house. She broke into a run, circling the pond and heading for the path at the far end. 
  If she was lucky she could make it to the back wall of the house before Marcus and 
  the others could make it through the maze.
  “Grab something else, then,” Ingrid said. “Check your texts. I need you to meet 
  me at that address in an hour.”
  “Ah, okay. Care to tell me what the hell is going on?”
  The entrance to the path was nearly invisible, a narrow cleft in an imposing wall 
  of thorns. Ingrid took it at a run, letting it take her where she needed to go. “I’ve got 
  an idea that might clear your names,” she said. “But you’re probably not going to 
  like it.”
  
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  92
  “Attack a Blight. The four of us.” Euryale’s dark eyes narrowed in disapproval. 
  “That’s your brilliant idea?”
  A gust of wind beat against the side of the old pickup, rocking it on its springs 
  like a ship at sea. The rain had picked up, drumming steadily on the cracked plastic 
  camper top that covered the truck bed. The four garou had taken advantage of its 
  dubious shelter, stretching out their legs and squirming uncomfortably on the bed’s 
  unyielding surface. They’d left the tailgate open, letting in the warm, wet air as they 
  sat by the side of the road just inside the entrance to a small golf course northwest of 
  town. It was getting dark, and sickly yellow sodium lights burned from the towers 
  of the industrial plants north and east of where they sat. A steady stream of heavy 
  trucks came and went along the access road just outside the golf course, as the plants 
  worked feverishly to get as much of their product on the road as possible ahead of 
  the storm.
  Off to the north, past the bustling access road and the glare of the hissing lights, 
  the dark bulk of the derelict paper mill could just be seen through the mist.
  Ingrid grimaced. She and Euryale sat closest to the tailgate, where they’d been 
  able to survey the distant mill for five whole minutes before the rain had started in 
  earnest. “I didn’t say it was brilliant,” she protested. “Only that it’s necessary. That 
  mill is more than a hundred years old. It’s the source of the Wyrm’s power in Savan-
  nah. If we can clear it out –”
  “A big damned if,” Euryale interjected.
  “If we can clear it out, the fomori in the city will be crippled. We could finally 
  break the siege!”
  The ronin was unimpressed. “If it was that easy, why haven’t you done it al-
  ready?”
  “I didn’t say it was going to be easy –”
  “You know what I mean.”
  Ingrid squirmed uncomfortably. “I’ve been trying to go after the Blight for 
  years, but my father wouldn’t let me. He’s convinced it’s a trap.”
  Chapter Eleven: 
  The Forlorn  
  Hope
  
  93
  Chapter Eleven: The Forlorn Hope
  “Really? Imagine that.”
  Kevin, who was stretched out across the truck bed next to Euryale, had spent the 
  last ten minutes with his head against the camper shell and his eyes shut, as though 
  he were taking a nap. “Look, I get why hitting the Blight is good for you and the 
  caern,” he drawled. “What I want to know is how does it help us?”
  Ingrid shrugged. “It’s politics. My father’s accused us of murdering kinfolk. 
  Marcus, my shit-eating weasel of a beta, supports the accusations because it gets him 
  control of my pack. Anna, Darius and Joshua are going to be under a lot of pressure 
  to follow Marcus’s lead, and the Stone Mountain garou are going to follow them, 
  because they just got here and what do they know? Evidence is optional so long as 
  everyone is willing to go along with the narrative.”
  “So we hit the Blight and put a spin on things,” Euryale said.
  “Exactly. We pull this off, and suddenly things aren’t so cut and dried. Are we 
  heroes or criminals? We insert that germ of doubt, and suddenly Karl’s support isn’t 
  so secure. For once, the small number of garou in the city works in our favor, because 
  we only have to pull a few of them away to divide opinion and put up a serious chal-
  lenge to my father’s accusations.”
  Kevin frowned. “It sounds like it would be a lot simpler to just challenge Karl 
  Ironhand and be done with it. You Shadow Lords still believe in trial by combat, 
  right?”
  Ingrid glared at him. “Wow. Why didn’t I think of that? Just kill my father and 
  everything will be all better.”
  The ronin shrugged. “I thought you folks did that sort of thing all the time. He 
  doesn’t seem to have any problem killing you.”
  “You son of a bitch –”
  “That’s enough!” Euryale snarled, baring her teeth at the both of them. “As of 
  right now I have officially hit my limit on Ahroun bullshit. If the two of you want 
  to kill each other, get the fuck out there in the rain and get to it. If not, then lay off. 
  Understand?”
  It suddenly felt about ten degrees too warm inside the camper shell. The ronin 
  had leaned forward until she was more or less between Ingrid and Kevin, and her 
  hands were clenched into fists. Catherine, sitting in the back corner of the truck bed, 
  watched the confrontation with wide-eyed alarm. Ingrid felt her hackles rise.
  Kevin gave her a sidelong look. “Whatever,” he said sullenly, folding his arms. 
  “I thought it was a valid question.”
  Ingrid held her tongue. Silence fell, punctuated by the sounds of traffic and the 
  falling rain. Euryale studied the two Ahroun for several long moments before slowly 
  leaning back against the camper shell.
  “You mean to tell me that no one’s ever attacked this place?” Euryale said, peer-
  ing out at the mill through the gathering gloom.
  “Not in the twenty-five years we’ve held the city,” Ingrid replied. “The mill 
  shut down back in ’72, after a big industrial accident. The place was so toxic no one 
  
  The Poison Tree
  94
  wanted anything to do with it, and my father said the Stirlings just pretended it didn’t 
  exist. I’ve often suspected that the mill was part of some deal the family had with the 
  Wyrm, giving it a foothold in return for Gaia only knows what. Things got steadily 
  worse in Savannah after that, but it really exploded once the Stirlings were gone.”
  Euryale nodded thoughtfully. “So you’ve got no idea what could be waiting for 
  us in there.”
  Ingrid scowled at her. “I’ve never actually attacked a Blight before. Have you?”
  “Once or twice,” Euryale said. Her manner was nonchalant, but there was a 
  haunted look in her eyes.
  “Then why don’t you tell me?”
  “If the place is as toxic as you say, then there will be elemental banes. Powerful 
  ones. Packs of scrags, too, subjugated by the elementals and put to work protecting 
  their sources of power. In the physical realm, you can expect a small army of fomori, 
  fanatically devoted to serving the greater banes.”
  Kevin straightened. “You’ve never seen any Black Spiral Dancers around?”
  Ingrid shook her head. “No. Never.”
  “Well, if there are any in Savannah, you’re guaranteed to find them over there,” 
  Euryale said. “And then, if we’re really, really unlucky, at the center of it all will be 
  a Nexus Crawler.” 
  Ingrid laughed weakly. “Is that all?”
  Euryale leaned in close. “Have I, at any point, given you the idea that this is a 
  fucking joke?” she hissed. “I’m trying to impress upon you the simple fact that if this 
  place is half of what you say it is, the best we can hope for is certain death.”
  Ingrid looked away, out into the rain. She knew that what Euryale was saying 
  was true. She could see it in the ronin’s eyes. “It doesn’t change anything,” she said 
  at last. “My father’s declared me an outlaw. I’ve got nothing left to lose except my 
  honor, and I’ll be damned if I throw that away too.”
  The war chief glanced back at the ronin, studying each of them in turn. “This 
  isn’t your caern. I get that. If you don’t like your chances, I won’t ask you to go. But 
  I’m going. It’s the only real option I’ve got.”
  No one spoke at first. Finally, Kevin cleared his throat. “Sounds like a hell of a 
  fight,” he said. “I’m in.”
  “Idiot,” Euryale muttered, more out of admiration than scorn. She glanced 
  meaningfully at Catherine. “What do you think?”
  The young garou’s face was inscrutable. “It’s worth taking a look.”
  Euryale sighed, shaking her head. “And the elders wonder why we’re a dying 
  people,” she said. “All right. But since we’ve established that no one else here has 
  the faintest idea of what we’re up against, we’re going to do this my way.”
  • • •
  The wind grew stronger as night fell, shaking the trees that bordered the golf 
  course and lashing Ingrid’s face with stinging drops of rain. The hurricane was com-
  
  95
  Chapter Eleven: The Forlorn Hope
  ing on fast – too fast, she thought, to be something entirely natural. Eric said there 
  wasn’t even a storm out there twenty-four hours ago. How is that possible?
  She was standing out in the elements, waiting on the manicured lawn of the 
  course just a few yards from the back of the truck. Euryale had asked for a few mo-
  ments to confer with Kevin and Catherine before they headed for the Blight. Ingrid 
  watched as they huddled together in the back of the truck, speaking in low tones 
  despite the rushing wind and the constant sounds of traffic to the northwest.
  Just what kind of rite were you performing out on Green Island? Ingrid won-
  dered. And more importantly, why?
  It wasn’t a question of trusting the ronin. She knew she couldn’t trust them for 
  a moment. They had come to Savannah with an agenda of their own, and she didn’t 
  believe it had anything to do with helping Catherine honor her ancestors. At the 
  moment, however, they were all she had. And I’d rather keep you close until I know 
  what you’re really after.
  The ronin stirred, climbing out of the truck and into the rain. Euryale turned her 
  face skywards and closed her eyes, her lips moving in a silent prayer. Kevin still had 
  that sleepy look on his face, but there was a tension in his movements that wasn’t 
  there before. Catherine paused with her legs hanging over the tailgate, head bent as 
  she pawed through the contents of a capacious leather shoulder bag.
  Euryale finished her prayer and went to join Ingrid. “Any second thoughts?” she 
  asked, wiping rain from her face.
  “Yeah. I wish I’d brought an umbrella.”
  The ronin gave her a sardonic grin. “Don’t worry. In a few minutes the rain will 
  be the least of your problems.”
  “So, what’s the plan?”
  Euryale rested her hands on her hips and eyed the distant mill. “Fomori we can 
  deal with. Black Spiral Dancers we can deal with, as long as there aren’t too many of 
  them. The real danger of a place like this isn’t the physical threats, but the spiritual 
  ones. We need to cross into the Penumbra and deal with them first.”
  “And how do we do that?”
  “We go after the source of their power,” Euryale explained. “If we can cleanse 
  the spiritual corruption from the area, the banes will be crippled, and the lesser spirits 
  may flee entirely. Catherine knows the rite. We just have to get her close enough to 
  use it, and keep her safe until it’s done.”
  Ingrid gave her a dubious look. “And the banes are going to let us walk right in?”
  Euryale grinned. “They just might.”
  The ronin beckoned to Catherine, who came forward and handed Ingrid a small 
  object hung from a raw leather cord. It was smooth and oval, like an oversized scale 
  made from fired clay. A tiny scrap of gray cloth, like a fleck of ash, was embedded 
  into the clay. It felt heavy and cold in the palm of Ingrid’s hand.
  
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  “There is a fragment of a bane spirit bound into the clay,” the Theurge told her. 
  “Wear it around your neck. When the talen is awakened, you will appear as a kindred 
  spirit to the servants of the Wyrm for a short time.”
  Warily, Ingrid pulled the leather loop over her head. The talen settled against her 
  skin, just beneath the hollow of her throat. “How long?”
  Euryale shrugged. “As much as twenty minutes, depending on the strength of 
  the spirit. Really powerful banes might see through it in seconds, while a nexus 
  crawler might not be fooled at all.”
  “That’s…encouraging.”
  “It’s better than charging through the front door, believe me,” Euryale said. “If 
  the mill’s never been hit before, there’s a good chance the Wyrmspawn won’t be ex-
  pecting any trouble. So long as we keep our heads down and don’t draw any attention 
  to ourselves, we should be fine.”
  “And when we find this power source?”
  “That’s when things get interesting. As soon as Catherine starts the rite, every 
  Wyrm spirit in the area is going to know about it. We’ll need to hold them off until 
  she’s done.”
  Ingrid eyed Catherine. “How long will that take?”
  “Does it matter?” Kevin said, joining the group. “Anything over five seconds is 
  going to feel like an eternity.”
  “True enough,” Euryale agreed. “Ingrid, you’re up front with me. Catherine is in 
  the middle, and Kevin brings up the rear. Don’t touch anything, and for Gaia’s sake 
  don’t start any fights until we have to. If one of the spirits tries to interact with us, 
  Catherine will do the talking. Clear?” She waited for nods of assent from the three 
  garou. “All right. Let’s get this over with. Catherine, if you’ll do the honors…”
  “Link hands,” the Theurge said. When the garou had formed a circle, Catherine 
  began to concentrate. Within moments, the wind fell silent, and the rain dwindled to 
  nothing. Color faded from the world, replaced by an effulgent silver glow like winter 
  moonlight. From one heartbeat to the next, they had crossed the Gauntlet into the 
  spirit realm.
  At once, the ronin began to shift, assuming their war forms. Ingrid looked about, 
  taking in her surroundings. They were in the Penumbra, the dim reflection of the 
  physical realm that existed just beyond the Gauntlet. The shadowy landscape of the 
  golf course surrounded her, bordered by the skeletal outlines of trees, but the access 
  road and the stolen pickup were nowhere to be seen. Off to her left, the train tracks 
  that ran past the golf course could be clearly seen, but not the trains that had been 
  sitting upon them. Only objects imbued with spiritual power – usually accumulated 
  over many years of human interaction – left an impression in the Penumbra.
  Ingrid looked in the direction of the industrial park. Just a handful of buildings 
  could be seen, and then only as ghostly outlines against the silver-hued landscape. 
  The mill, however, was as solid and foreboding as its real-world counterpart.
  “No need to awaken the talens until we get closer,” Euryale said. Her voice 
  echoed strangely in the Penumbra, as though she were speaking from the bottom of 
  
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  Chapter Eleven: The Forlorn Hope
  a well. The ronin gripped a double-bladed silver axe in her powerful hands, which 
  seemed to blaze in the cold light of the spirit realm. It was a labrys, a fearsome weap-
  on favored by the warriors of the Black Fury tribe, and to Ingrid’s eyes it appeared 
  to be very old indeed. “Everyone keep your eyes open. And if anything should go 
  wrong and we get separated, find yourself a reflective surface and cross back over 
  into the physical realm.” She surveyed the small group one last time and sighed. 
  “Gaia have mercy on fools such as we. Let’s go.”
  The garou set off towards the mill, their eyes searching the unearthly shadows for 
  signs of danger. The vault-like silence of the Penumbra was unnerving, and Ingrid kept 
  looking nervously over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed. At one 
  point she thought she saw a flash of movement in the trees back at the golf course and 
  she froze, her hand tightening on Donnerkeil’s hilt. She stared at the spot, trying to catch 
  a glimpse of what might be hiding there, but when nothing moved for several moments 
  she put it down to her imagination and hurried to catch up with the rest of the group.
  After what felt like just a few minutes of walking they reached a dark ribbon 
  of road – the fading image of the old dirt road that had served the mill back in the 
  early 1900’s. They were close enough now that Ingrid could see the main building 
  clearly, its brick walls swathed in the faded, gray webs of the weaver-spirits that had 
  been drawn to the mill during its working life. Long-abandoned and left to rot, the 
  building was a crumbling ruin, and the spirits had left their webs to seek out newer 
  construction elsewhere in the city.
  The ground surrounding the main building was black and crumbly, like packed 
  cinders. Wisps of sickly, greenish-yellow flame leapt from cracks in the sickly earth 
  and drifted in curling ribbons through the air. Strange lights flickered coldly from the 
  mill’s broken windows.
  Euryale signaled for the garou to halt. She studied the grounds of the mill care-
  fully and then turned to her companions. “No spirits prowling about,” she said softly. 
  “That’s good. It means they’ve gotten complacent.” 
  She glanced at Ingrid. “You said there was an industrial accident?”
  Ingrid nodded. “One of the chlorine tanks exploded. Thirty workers died.”
  “That will be the main source of the taint,” Euryale declared. “Take us there.”
  Ingrid’s ears went flat. She barely remembered the history of the mill, much less 
  its layout. “It’s at the far end of the building,” she said. I think. “Follow me.”
  She touched a claw to the talen around her neck and willed the spirit fragment to 
  awaken. At once, the tiny scrap of cloth glowed like an ember, and began to give off 
  a thread of noxious greenish-gray smoke. The smell of it coated the back of Ingrid’s 
  throat with the taste of death and decay. She fought the urge to retch. From the looks 
  on their faces, the ronin were doing the same thing.
  Ingrid followed the ghost road through the faint image of an old, chain-link 
  fence and up to the far end of the mill’s main building. Two huge loading doors, their 
  wooden faces covered in layers of dingy webbing, were parted just wide enough for 
  a crinos to slip past. Her hackles rising, the Shadow Lord edged up to the gap and 
  pushed her way inside.
  
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  Beyond was a vast loading dock, still piled with fading drums of paper. Webs 
  stretched between the towering stacks of drums, and more wisps of greenish flame 
  flickered and raced across the stained concrete floor.
  There was movement up in the rafters. Ingrid peered into the shadows there, 
  and caught sight of a score of large, slug-like creatures, each limned in a pulsing, 
  rusty-colored light.
  “Corrosion spirits,” Euryale said, coming up behind Ingrid. “They’re feeding on 
  the metal decay in the building’s girders. Don’t worry about them. They don’t even 
  know we’re here.”
  Ingrid nodded and headed down the closest aisle between the drums. The fab-
  ric on the talen was smoldering steadily, but for how long? She fought the urge to 
  quicken her pace.
  Beyond the dock was another set of smaller loading doors, which opened onto a 
  long, cavernous room crowded with web-coated industrial machines. Corrosion spir-
  its glimmered balefully from many of the massive constructs, covering their scarred, 
  metal sides with faintly glowing trails of rust. A thin, greenish-yellow mist lay an-
  kle-deep through the aisles between the machines.
  As they entered the room, something stirred up in the rafters. A long, sinuous 
  shape, like a massive snake, lowered itself from a rusting girder. As it drew closer 
  to the garou, a third of its length opened like an obscene flower, revealing a pulsing, 
  circular mouth filled with jagged teeth. Long, whip-like tentacles unfurled from the 
  edges of the spirit’s fleshy hood, their barbed tips flicking malevolently through the 
  air. Caustic fog oozed from the spirit’s maw, washing over Ingrid.
  The spirit edged closer, until the tips of its slender tentacles were just inches 
  from Ingrid’s face. The snake-like body was easily as large as a terrestrial anaconda, 
  and the mouth looked wide enough to swallow a human whole. Ingrid stood com-
  pletely still, holding Donnerkeil in a white-knuckled grip.
  Once, twice, the tentacles flicked through the greasy smoke of the talen. The 
  spirit paused, tasting the scent, then slowly withdrew. Ingrid watched it go, not dar-
  ing to breathe until it had disappeared up into the rafters.
  “What in –”
  Euryale silenced her with a fierce grip on her shoulder. “Careful who you call 
  upon in a place like this,” she warned. “We’re in disguise, remember?”
  “What was that?”
  “A caustic bane,” the ronin said. “A young one, judging by the size.”
  Ingrid summoned up her resolve and pressed on, keeping a wary eye on the 
  rafters. Her throat was starting to burn from the caustic fog, and it felt like blisters 
  were forming on her legs and feet.
  The garou made their way down the central aisle between the old rolling ma-
  chines, alert to the slightest hint of movement. Several times Ingrid heard the scrape 
  of chitin and the hissing of voices, but it was hard to tell where the sounds were 
  coming from. There were dozens of narrow alleys running between the machines, 
  creating a maze of passageways that a pack of spirits could use to their advantage.
  
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  Chapter Eleven: The Forlorn Hope
  Ingrid glanced back at Euryale. “Something is stalking us.”
  “Probably scrags,” the ronin growled. “Keep going,” she said, tapping the talen 
  around her neck. “We’re running out of time.”
  They moved from one room to the next, deeper into the depths of the mill. Ingrid 
  caught glimpses of more elemental banes coiled like snakes up in the cobwebbed raf-
  ters. The burning in her throat had moved into her lungs, and pain lanced through her 
  legs with every step. And the scrags were moving closer, pacing the garou along side 
  passages to left and right. She saw their angular shadows cast against the inner walls 
  of the mill: horned heads and bladed arms, spiked legs and lashing tails. Sometimes 
  they climbed atop the derelict machines and scuttled down the frayed conveyor belts, 
  hissing and snarling to the rest of their pack.
  The poisonous mist was getting thicker. Ingrid coughed, tasting blood in her 
  mouth. She turned to check on the others, and found Catherine leaning against Eu-
  rylae. The Theurge was panting, and there were open sores on her muzzle and down 
  her neck. Euryale and Kevin were clearly suffering as well, their eyes glassy with 
  pain.
  “Is she going to make it?” Ingrid said.
  “She’ll be fine,” Euryale said through clenched teeth. “Keep moving.”
  The scrags were very close now. Ingrid could hear them just on the other side of 
  the machines to left and right. Up ahead was another set of loading doors, but these 
  were scorched and splintered, as if from an explosion. 
  Ingrid limped forward, breathing in shallow, painful gasps. She was just short of 
  the loading doors when a pair of elemental banes uncoiled from the ceiling girders 
  and descended upon the garou. These were much larger than the one they’d encoun-
  tered before.
  “Ignore them,” Euryale said tightly. “We’re almost there.”
  One of the banes let out a warning hiss as the garou sidled through the gap in 
  the broken doors. The room beyond was a scene of devastation. Ranks of giant metal 
  tanks had once been arrayed along the length of the huge room. One or perhaps more 
  of them had exploded, filling the room with debris and poisonous gas. The rest of 
  the tanks had toppled over, spilling their contents as well, which over time had eaten 
  through the room’s concrete floor. Now a massive hole, lined with twisted metal and 
  hunks of broken stone, opened onto the basement floors below. Clouds of gas roiled 
  in the depths, lit from within by a pulsing, greenish glow.
  Ingrid came up short at the edge of the pit. There was no telling how far down it 
  went: at least thirty feet, perhaps more.
  “What now?”
  Euryale joined her at the edge of the hole, still supporting Catherine. Behind 
  them, the two banes were forcing their way through the doors, hissing angrily.
  “We go down,” she said grimly. “Down into the breach.”
  Edging forward, Ingrid tested the broken concrete with her foot. Though seem-
  ingly precarious, the rubble was solid enough to take her weight. Using her free hand 
  
  The Poison Tree
  100
  to steady herself, she climbed down into the fog with Euryale and Catherine close 
  behind. Kevin brought up the rear, with the hissing banes close behind.
  The mist burned Ingrid’s nose and brought tears to her eyes. After an agonizing 
  few minutes, she reached a kind of rough ledge, perhaps fifteen feet down. As near 
  as she could tell, she’d reached the floor of a sub-basement, and the bottom of the 
  hole was another floor below. Gritting her teeth, Ingrid bent her knees and jumped.
  She fell another fifteen feet and landed roughly on a pile of crushed metal and 
  broken stone. The sickly light was pulsing from a point on the floor just a few feet 
  away, bright enough to shine through the caustic fog that hung thickly about the 
  space.
  Euryale, Catherine and Kevin landed just moments later. Angry hisses echoed 
  through the fog above them.
  The ronin lowered her snout to Catherine’s ear and whispered something. The 
  Theurge coughed, showing red-stained teeth, and nodded emphatically in reply. Eu-
  ryale let go of Catherine and stepped away, readying her axe. She stared up into the 
  mist, waiting for the approaching banes, and bared her teeth in a savage grin. “Get 
  ready.”
  Ingrid limped closer to Catherine, who had knelt and was scratching a set of 
  glyphs into the concrete with a claw. Her breath came in searing gasps, and her 
  nerves were aflame.
  The banes dropped down through the fog, barbed tentacles lashing furiously. 
  They reared like cobras above Euryale and Kevin, their hisses rising to a venomous 
  shriek. One of them lunged at Euryale. She responded with a howling battle cry and 
  buried her silver labrys into what passed for the monster’s face.
  Kevin howled at leapt for the second bane, sinking his talons into its bulk just 
  behind the fleshy hood. The spirit thrashed, spitting gobbets of venomous bile, but 
  the ronin’s weight dragged it down to the floor. Heavy, serpentine coils more than 
  thirty feet long crashed down around Kevin and squeezed tight, seeking to crush him 
  even as he tore the creature open.
  Catherine began her rite, head up and arms raised, her voice filling the cham-
  ber. At once, the caustic fog thinned, as though scattered by a sudden breeze. Ingrid 
  blinked away tears of blood and leapt at the bane constricting around Kevin, howling 
  out a war cry of her own. Donnerkeil flashed, and her blade bit deep, nearly sever-
  ing one of the spirit’s coils. Kevin leapt clear, his claws and chest splashed with the 
  bane’s acidic blood, but his feet had no sooner touched stone than he was leaping 
  back into the fray again, slashing at the spirit from a different angle. “Watch it!” he 
  cried.
  Ingrid heard the warning and ducked just as the bane lunged at her. Barbed ten-
  tacles lashed at her shoulders, flaying off skin and fur in jagged strips. She slashed at 
  them with her klaive; yellow pus splashed across her shoulder, and the spirit recoiled 
  with a shriek. Then Kevin struck at the same terrible wound that Ingrid had made 
  in the creature’s side, digging in with his claws and tearing the bane in two. The 
  severed parts thrashed for barely a second before the spirit dissolved into a cloud of 
  poisonous vapor.
  
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  Chapter Eleven: The Forlorn Hope
  Euryale was still fighting the second bane. The spirit bore half a dozen terrible 
  wounds from the garou’s axe, and was visibly weakening. Ingrid realized that the 
  yellow glow filling the chamber was diminishing, like a flame starved of air, and the 
  mist had been reduced to thin, roiling tatters. Catherine’s voice was stronger now, 
  rising in volume as she continued the Rite of Cleansing.
  Then came a chorus of whistling shrieks, and a rattling tide of bone that came 
  rolling down the hole towards them. A dozen scrags came bounding down the sides 
  of the hole, mandibles clashing and bladed arms hissing through the air.
  Three of them were on Kevin before Ingrid could shout a warning. But the ronin 
  had heard them coming, and was already moving even as the first blades darted for 
  his throat. The sweep of a powerful hand sent one of the scrags sideways, crashing 
  into the path of its packmates; a second blow, precisely aimed, crushed its skull. 
  The other two went past Kevin and landed in a heap. The ronin sprang on them and 
  tore a scrag’s head from its armored shoulders before the spirits could disentangle 
  themselves.
  Euryale screamed an oath and swung her labrys, catching the bane in the side 
  and cutting it nearly in two. The spirit wailed and turned to vapor. Five scrags were 
  bounding across the broken stone towards her, while the rest came at Ingrid. Exul-
  tant, the Shadow Lord bared her teeth and prepared to charge.
  She felt the bane coming before she could see it. The tendrils of mist scattered, 
  driven before a spectral wind. Then came the furious shriek, like a ruptured boiler, 
  loud enough to make the spirit world tremble.
  The bane was enormous, rushing down the hole at the garou like an oncoming 
  train. Its tentacles raked the sides of the pit, showering friend and foe alike with bro-
  ken rubble as it plunged straight for Catherine.
  Ingrid had barely a moment to react. Without hesitation she leapt straight at 
  the oncoming spirit, aiming for its tooth-lined maw. She struck with bone-breaking 
  force; for all its fleshy appearance, the bane felt solid as oak. At the moment of im-
  pact, Ingrid watched her weapon-arm sink up to her shoulder down the creature’s 
  tooth-lined gullet. The point of her blade struck the creature’s throat, digging deep, 
  and there was a hungry crackle as Donnerkeil’s storm-spirit vented its rage against 
  the bane.
  A gust of poisonous fog blew into Ingrid’s face as the bane’s maw closed about 
  her arm and then recoiled in agony. Hundreds of jagged teeth tore into her flesh, and 
  the whiplash of the spirit’s motion threatened to tear her arm from its socket. Ten-
  tacles like steel cables stabbed at her as the bane’s hood snapped shut. Through the 
  pain, she felt herself being drawn upward as the creature recoiled from the attack. 
  Ingrid howled in rage as the spirit savaged her arm, but she drove the blade deeper 
  with all of her might.
  The bane thrashed, smashing itself against the side of the hole in its torment. 
  Ingrid twisted the klaive deeper, and abruptly the maw relaxed. She started to pull 
  her mangled arm free, raking Donnerkeil down the spirit’s throat as she did so – but 
  then a trio of tentacles smashed into her back, shoving her head first into the bane’s 
  
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  102
  mouth. Hooked teeth dug like knives into her side, dragging her forward. In two 
  swift gulps the spirit swallowed her whole.
  Pain crashed over her like a wave. Teeth raked her from every angle, until it felt 
  as though she were being ground apart. Furious, Ingrid lashed out with tooth, claw, 
  and blade, raking at the spirit’s insides even as it tried to devour her. Flesh parted 
  under the onslaught, and she forced herself blindly through the tear, hacking her way 
  through the bane’s corpus.
  Ingrid stabbed and tore – and suddenly she was falling, flung from a jagged rent 
  in the spirit’s side. She opened her eyes just in time to see the concrete floor rushing 
  at her; she hit hard and rolled, tumbling for a dozen yards until she crashed into the 
  side of a derelict paper press.
  The bane’s agonized bellows cut through the fog of shock and pain that threat-
  ened to overwhelm her. Ingrid blinked, trying to gather her wits. Her body was 
  pulped and broken, but she could feel it trying to heal itself. The bane’s struggles had 
  lifted her clear of the hole and flung her partway back the way she’d come. Sounds 
  of fighting still echoed from below, but the yellow light had gone out, and the mist all 
  but vanished. The giant bane she’d fought still survived, but its wounds were terrible. 
  It lingered above the hole, screeching in frustration, frantic to save the source of its 
  power yet fearful of the garou’s terrible wrath.
  Ingrid managed a bloody, wolfish grin, but her triumph was short-lived. There 
  were sounds of movement all around her: bone scraping against metal and stone. 
  More scrags were coming, drawn by the bane’s distress and the ritual unfolding 
  below.
  She clenched her teeth and tried to move, but her limbs were weak and her 
  movements disjointed, like a broken marionette. There was a clatter above her as a 
  scrag leapt atop the paper press. It saw her and let out a malevolent hiss. Other scrags 
  responded; they rushed towards her from all sides, hungry for slaughter.
  Ingrid managed to raise Donnerkeil. She caught her reflection in the blade’s 
  polished silver surface, and remembered what Euryale had said. If anything should 
  go wrong and we get separated, find yourself a reflective surface and cross back over 
  into the physical realm.
  She stared at the blade and concentrated, and the world went dark around her.
  
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  Chapter Twelve: The Prodigal
  The physical world swept over her in a gust of wind, water, and the scent of 
  damp stone. Ingrid found herself lying in a pool of rusty water, her back to the 
  slumped wreckage of the paper press. Outside, the storm was gathering strength. 
  Streamers of water fell from holes in the mill’s ceiling, pattering against steel and 
  concrete.
  Biting back a groan, Ingrid rolled onto her knees and struggled to breathe. The 
  pain in her lungs and throat was fading. Her bones ached, but at least they felt whole 
  once again.
  There was no sign of the ronin. She glanced back at the jumble of fallen chem-
  ical tanks – now reduced to little more than rusting shells – and the rubble-lined pit. 
  Had the rite been successful, or was there a desperate battle unfolding just a few 
  yards away, unseen and unheard by her physical senses?
  Got to go back, she told herself. They need you. Get on your feet.
  Her strength was returning. With an effort of will, she forced herself to her feet. 
  Blood and water ran in rivulets from her mangled flesh, but the wounds were stitch-
  ing themselves together as she watched. Another minute and I’ll be whole again, she 
  thought. But do I dare wait that long?
  As she was deciding, a huge figure leapt atop one of the paper presses nearby 
  and sniffed the damp air. She saw at once that it was a crinos garou, silhouetted in 
  the sickly glow cast by the distant industrial plants. As the massive head turned her 
  way she found herself staring into a pair of glowing, green eyes.
  Ingrid straightened, sighing with relief. “I was just about to go back for you,” 
  she said, walking unsteadily towards the Fianna. “Where are the others?”
  The garou leapt from the top of the press. A cry of rage – part howl, part tor-
  mented shriek – ripped through the ruined space. Ingrid caught a flash of white teeth 
  and upraised claws and realized her peril just a half-second too late.
  She threw herself backwards as the killer struck. The swipe of the Fianna’s 
  claws missed her throat by inches and flayed open her shoulder instead. Fiery pain 
  stoked the furnace of her rage and lent her a burst of strength; she lashed out with 
  Chapter Twelve: 
  The Prodigal
  
  The Poison Tree
  104
  Donnerkeil, aiming for the garou’s chest, but she was off-balance and the swing went 
  wide. Another blow smashed into her side, ripping open freshly knit wounds. She 
  staggered, roaring in anger. 
  Hard-won experience told her to retreat when every instinct shouted for her 
  to attack. She backpedaled, swinging wildly with her klaive to get some distance 
  between her and her foe. The Fianna came after her relentlessly, easily dodging the 
  un-aimed blows. A deep, dry laugh echoed from the mill’s rafters.
  “Praise be the Destroyer,” the garou rasped. “This is sweeter than I ever imag-
  ined.” He gave Ingrid a toothy leer, eyes blazing with triumph. “Dweller in the Dark-
  ness, thank you for this gift.”
  Ingrid halted her retreat and lunged forward with all her strength, thrusting her 
  klaive at the center of the Fianna’s chest. But the garou was not surprised by the 
  sudden move; like a serpent he bobbed to the right, out of the path of the blow, and 
  raked her outstretched arm with his claws. Another blow, too fast for the eye to fol-
  low, struck her wrist and sent Donnerkeil spinning into the darkness.
  A clawed hand closed around Ingrid’s throat. The Fianna pulled her towards 
  him. His breath reeked of carrion, and his fur was matted with mud and filth. The 
  scent of corruption oozed from his skin.
  “You look just like her,” he snarled. “Or perhaps it was you I dreamt of all along. 
  Perhaps the Dweller was showing me your face, so I would know you when the day 
  of reckoning came.”  The Fianna’s grip tightened, claws digging into her neck. “As-
  sassin. Thief! Whore!”
  Ingrid growled and clawed at the Fianna’s face. The garou brought up his left 
  arm to block the blow; when he did she brought up both feet and planted them in the 
  garou’s chest. She kicked herself free of his grasp and hit the concrete hard, rolling 
  across the floor. The Fianna charged after her. When he did she rolled into a crouch 
  and clawed at his legs. The swipe struck the garou’s right thigh, but her wounded arm 
  betrayed her, leaving only superficial cuts behind.
  A tremendous blow struck her on the side of her head, shredding her cheek 
  and fracturing bone. For a moment the world dimmed, and the floor seemed to tilt 
  beneath her. 
  When she regained her senses she was lying on her side, the taste of her own 
  blood filling her mouth. The Fianna was walking towards her, an icy glimmer of 
  silver in his hand.
  “I am going to send you back to your murdering father a bit at a time,” he told 
  her. “You’ll suffer for weeks. Or –” he brought up Donnerkeil – “you can tell me 
  what I want to know, and I’ll end it quick.”
  Ingrid glared up at him. “I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about,” she 
  growled, trying to push herself upright.
  “Stop lying!” he cried, kicking her in her injured shoulder and knocking her 
  onto her back. “I want what you stole from me, you Shadow Lord bitch.”
  His foot came down on Ingrid’s left wrist, pinning it to the floor. The Fianna 
  bent over her, Donnerkeil’s point glinting just inches from her face. “I already know 
  
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  Chapter Twelve: The Prodigal
  where the Dweller waits. Oh, yes. I saw it in my dreams. What I need now are the 
  keys, and you are going to tell me where they are.
  “But before we go,” he said, staring down at her trapped hand. “We’re going to 
  leave a little piece of you for your pack mates to find.” The klaive rose and fell in a 
  blurring arc. 
  “Donnerkeil!” Ingrid screamed, flinging up her right hand, and there was a flash 
  as the blade vanished from the Fianna’s grip and appeared in hers. With a savage roar 
  she drove its silver point into the killer’s side.
  Again, her mangled arm failed her; the wound was deep but not fatal. The Fian-
  na leapt back, howling in agony, a clawed hand pressed to his abdomen. A challeng-
  ing snarl rose in reply from the direction of the pit at Ingrid’s back. The killer looked 
  past her, at the source of the sound, and his face became a mask of fear and thwarted 
  rage. He gave the Shadow Lord a brief, hate-filled glare, then leapt for the mill’s steel 
  rafters and out through a gaping window frame, into the rain-swept night.
  The ronin reached her moments later. Euryale leapt atop one of the derelict 
  paper presses and stared after the Fianna, her labrys held before her in a two-hand-
  ed grip. Kevin padded further on into the shadows, ears erect and nose sniffing for 
  other threats. Both of the garou were wounded, torn by teeth or claw or marked by 
  the touch of a blade, but the injuries seemed minor and were healing even as Ingrid 
  watched.
  A figure knelt beside her. Ingrid glanced up and saw that it was Catherine. The 
  Theurge was unhurt, but even in crinos form she looked drained after the rigors of 
  the cleansing rite. She began to probe gently at Ingrid’s injuries.
  “I’m fine,” Ingrid rasped, trying to push Catherine’s hands away.
  The frown that the Theurge gave her reminded her instantly of Anna. “A bane 
  literally chewed you up and spat you out.”
  “I wasn’t spat out,” Ingrid protested. “Not exactly. As for the chewing…” she 
  grimaced. “Yeah, okay. You got me there.”
  Euryale glanced over her shoulder at Ingrid. “That was the stupidest, most reck-
  less thing I’ve ever seen – and keep in mind I’ve been travelling with Kevin for three 
  years, so that’s saying something.”
  “It was very brave,” Catherine declared. “Like something out of the legends. 
  She saved my life. Probably all our lives.”
  “Never mind that,” the Shadow Lord interjected. “What about the rite?”
  Euryale ignored her. Kevin returned, padding silently out of the darkness. “Any-
  thing?” she asked.
  The Fianna shook his head. “The place is deserted.”
  “Damn it.” 
  Ingrid scowled at the ronin. “What does that mean? Did the rite work or not?”
  “Yes, it worked,” Euryale said irritably. “Catherine severed the link to Malfeas 
  and deprived the spirits of their source of strength. The surviving banes fled, and the 
  scrags with them. The plan went perfectly.”
  
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  106
  “Then why are you acting like that’s a bad thing? We might have just broken 
  the siege!”
  Euryale leapt down from the ruined machine and landed at Ingrid’s feet. “Look 
  around you, Ingrid. Where are the Black Spiral Dancers? Where are the breeding 
  pits? This place ought to be crawling with Wyrmspawn.” She spat into the dust. 
  “This isn’t a siege camp. In fact, I’m starting to think there was never a siege at all.”
  “I don’t understand.”
  The Black Fury reached down and gripped Ingrid’s uninjured arm. With Cath-
  erine’s help, they pulled the Shadow Lord to her feet. Euryale’s eyes were sharp as 
  flints, but there was a measure of sympathy in her reply.
  “Someone’s been lying to you.”
  • • •
  Downtown was in chaos as the people of the city scrambled to prepare for the 
  storm. Tourists and those residents who could afford to leave sat in long lines of 
  traffic on the highway, while the side streets were packed with locals hunting for 
  plywood, sandbags, food and liquor. It took two hours to travel as many miles into 
  downtown. After the fourth traffic jam Euryale lost patience and they abandoned the 
  stolen truck, continuing into the city on foot.
  Ingrid led them through the rain to Telfair Square, searching every side street 
  and alley for signs of pursuit. The killer was wounded but still dangerous, and now 
  there was Marcus and the rest of the city’s garou to consider. She had no doubt that 
  they were hunting for her and the ronin even now. Though the rain would wash away 
  their scent, a chance encounter – especially near one of the shrines – was a very real 
  possibility.
  Fortunately, the square was empty when they arrived, and the garou took what 
  shelter they could beneath the dripping branches of a spreading oak. Catherine sank 
  immediately to the soggy ground and closed her eyes in meditation, drawing from 
  the spiritual energies of the shrine. She would need to regain her strength before 
  attempting to heal Ingrid’s injuries. 
  The Shadow Lord leaned against the rough, wet bark, hair plastered to her face, 
  and tried to think of anything besides the burning pain that wracked her from cheek 
  to hip. Kevin moved a few paces away and stood watch, his restless gaze roaming 
  the square and the surrounding streets. Euryale settled onto her haunches between 
  Catherine and Ingrid, her expression troubled.
  They had made the journey from the paper mill in near silence; now, with noth-
  ing left to do but wait, Ingrid could no longer ignore the questions worrying at her 
  mind.
  “None of this makes any sense,” she said. “We’ve been under attack for twen-
  ty-five years. The Wyrmspawn had to have come from the Blight.”
  Euryale shook her head stubbornly. “You’re going to have to trust me on this, 
  sister. The spirits there were potent, but a war camp would have been a whole other 
  matter entirely. After a quarter-century that place should have been a fortress.”
  
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  “Why would my father lie about such a thing? What possible reason could he 
  have?” Yet even as she voiced her denial, she recalled her talk with Karl in the gar-
  den, just two nights before. The war serves our purposes…so long as it can be kept 
  under control.
  “All I’m saying is that the fomori are being drawn here by something else.” 
  Euryale stared up at Ingrid. “Anything come to mind?”
  “Besides Stirling House?” Ingrid shook her head, dismissing the notion at once. 
  If the place had been tainted enough to become a Blight, they would have known it 
  the moment they’d stepped inside. Then she recalled her battle with the Fianna, and 
  frowned. “He said something about a dweller.”
  “Who?”
  “The garou at the mill. The Fianna. He kept referring to the ‘Dweller in the 
  Darkness’.”
  Euryale’s eyes narrowed. “Any idea what that might be?”
  “No, but he certainly seemed to think I did.” She shook her head. “He called 
  my father a murderer, and said he wanted what I’d stolen from him. But then he also 
  had me confused with my aunt, who’s been dead for twenty years. He’s obviously 
  insane.”
  “Or obsessed,” Euryale mused. “Your aunt was kidnapped by the Stirlings, 
  wasn’t she?”
  “Yes.”
  “Well, he’s a Fianna. Could he be a Stirling himself?”
  Ingrid wiped rainwater from her eyes, wincing as she pulled at the scabs across 
  her cheek. “I don’t see how. Father said there were no survivors.”
  Euryale raised an eyebrow. “Your father. The one who lied to you about the 
  Blight.”
  Catherine let out a long, slow breath and rose gracefully to her feet, then went to 
  Ingrid and laid her hands on the Shadow Lord’s ravaged shoulder. She began to chant 
  softly to herself, and healing energies suffused Ingrid’s body.
  The Shadow Lord sighed. The popping of nail guns echoed across the square as 
  people worked feverishly to get plywood sheeting in place before the hurricane hit. 
  The skies flickered, and thunder boomed to the east.
  “I’ve got no idea if my father told me the truth about the Stirlings or not,” she 
  said, turning her face to the stormy sky. “But I can think of someone who might.”
  • • •
  The Marshall House was the oldest hotel in Savannah, and had at times been 
  used as a hospital, both during the Civil War and through the course of two terrible 
  Yellow Fever outbreaks. Its reflection in the Penumbra was solid and substantial, its 
  brick walls and second-story balcony wrapped in the silvery webs of Weaver-spirits. 
  The pattern-spiders stirred as Ingrid approached, a few even emerging from their 
  burrows and raising their forelegs threateningly. She returned their baleful stares 
  
  The Poison Tree
  108
  with one of her own and showed them Donnerkeil, and the spirits scuttled back into 
  the safety of their webs.
  The balcony railing was an easy leap for her in crinos form. She swung her legs 
  over the rail and crouched low, studying the windows that opened at regular intervals 
  along the balcony’s length. Ingrid counted them off from left to right, and when she 
  reached the ninth one, she edged forward and slipped into the room beyond.
  The reflection of the hotel room was muddled, with fading impressions of a 
  four-poster bed, wardrobe, and washing-stand overlaid with the hazy barriers of new 
  walls, a smaller bed and more modern amenities. Making sure she was on the right 
  side of the room’s newer floorplan, Ingrid stared into the klaive’s polished blade and 
  willed herself back into the physical world.
  She found herself in a narrow space between the window and the room’s queen-
  sized bed. A wing-backed chair was tucked into the corner just behind her, and a 
  small table was set against the wall to her left. The room’s single door was set in the 
  wall opposite, and an antique wardrobe stood alongside. A TV on the wall facing 
  the bed was turned to the Weather Channel. The sound was turned down, but the 
  forecasters were clearly discussing the oncoming hurricane. A radar image showed 
  the storm’s track aiming straight for the city. The crawl at the bottom of the screen 
  read SAVANNAH RESIDENTS URGED TO EVACUATE AS ‘STORM OF THE 
  CENTURY’ LOOMS.
  The new walls in the room enclosed a small bathroom to Ingrid’s right. The 
  whirring of a fan and the sound of running water came from within.
  There was a stack of folders and a pair of notepads arranged neatly on the table-
  top. Ingrid shifted back to human form and turned on the table lamp, then began ex-
  amining the folders in turn. There were copies of police reports, newspaper articles 
  – even photos of several of the crime scenes. Several gory photos showed victims 
  that had been torn apart; others showed men and women slumped on the floor of their 
  homes, shot neatly through the head.
  The bathroom door opened. Nathan Carter stepped out, dressed in a white bath-
  robe, scrubbing at his wet hair with a towel. He saw Ingrid and jumped, letting out a 
  startled cry. “Jesus! How the hell did you get in here?”
  “Surely you can do better than that, Mr. Carter,” Ingrid said coldly. “You’re a 
  trained journalist, after all. Focus on the details. Ask me why I’m here, and what I’m 
  doing carrying this very large knife.”
  She raised the klaive. Carter’s eyes widened.
  Ingrid gestured at the foot of the bed. “Have a seat.”
  “Can…can I get dressed first?”
  “No.”
  “What about my glasses?”
  “You don’t need glasses to talk.” Ingrid edged forward, her expression hard. 
  “Sit. Down.”
  
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  Chapter Twelve: The Prodigal
  Carter hesitated for a moment, weighing his chances, then his shoulders slumped 
  in surrender and he sidled to the foot of the bed. “How the hell did you find me?”
  “I made a few phone calls. You should know by now that the Reinhardt name 
  opens a lot of doors here in Savannah.” 
  She glanced at the table and picked up one of the folders. “This is some riveting 
  political analysis, Mr. Carter. Your editors at the Atlanta Business Journal must think 
  the world of you.”
  “It’s a legitimate line of inquiry,” Carter said defensively. “I think candidates 
  have a right to know that the man who’s orchestrating their campaigns also happens 
  to be a mass murderer.”
  “Do you happen to have any proof of that, Mr. Carter?”
  “You think I’d tell you if I did?”
  Ingrid took a single step forward, bringing up Donnerkeil in a smooth, swift arc. 
  The point of the klaive sank an eighth of an inch into the skin just below Carter’s left 
  eye. The human gasped, trying to flinch away, but Ingrid moved with him, pressing 
  the blade into Carter’s cheekbone. A tiny teardrop of blood coursed down his cheek.
  “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said in a quiet, measured voice. “And if I don’t 
  like what I hear, I’m going to start spreading you all over these walls. Do you hear 
  me, Mr. Carter?”
  “Y-yes.”
  “Now, judging by that stack of paper over there, I’m guessing you’ve been dig-
  ging into this story for a while now. Am I right?”
  Carter started to nod, then remembered the blade in his face and thought better 
  of it. “S-since April, when my editor first suggested interviewing your father.”
  “Then I expect you know everything there is to know about the murders.”
  “If you say so.”
  “How many people died that night, Mr. Carter?”
  The reporter blinked. “Uh…twenty-seven. Most were at Stirling House. Five 
  others who worked for the family were killed in their homes between 9:00 PM and 
  midnight.”
  “And none of the family survived?”
  “No. That’s…I mean, that’s common knowledge. The police found the bodies 
  of all eight members of the family at the house. Most of them had to be identified by 
  their dental records. At the time, people speculated that Wyatt was smuggling drugs 
  into the country through the Port of Savannah, and he made some nasty enemies 
  down south.” He eyed Ingrid warily. “Then there were rumors of bad blood between 
  the Stirlings and the Reinhardts, though nobody seemed to know the reason why.”
  Ingrid withdrew her klaive. “What about the house staff?”
  “The servants? All dead. The ones at Stirling House were mangled nearly as 
  badly as the family members. The others were shot to death.” Carter reached up with 
  a trembling hand and wiped away the blood, leaving a red smear across his cheek. 
  
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  110
  “One of the last ones to die, a young guy by the name of Caleb Morris, was supposed 
  to be out of town that night, but got in a fight with his girlfriend at the last minute 
  and decided to stay home.”
  “Girlfriend?”
  “Yeah. Emily something…Carstairs, I think. She was from Athens, and had 
  been studying illustration at SCAD. Anyway, she was home on summer break, and 
  he was planning on driving up to see her, but they got in a big fight over the phone 
  and he decided not to go. Three hours later, he was dead.” He shook his head. “Never 
  got to see his kid.”
  Ingrid straightened. “What?”
  “Emily had found out she was pregnant. That’s what the fight was about.”
  “And how do you know all this?”
  “It was in the case file. The police interviewed her after checking Morris’s 
  phone records.”
  I want what you stole from me, you Shadow Lord bitch. 
  “Damn.” Ingrid tried to think through the implications. “You said she lived in 
  Athens?”
  “Yeah. Dropped out of SCAD after Morris died, and never set foot in Savannah 
  again. Stuck close to her parents because she needed the help raising the kid.”
  “So you checked up on her?”
  “Sure I did. She was the closest thing to a witness in the whole damn case. But 
  I was too late. She was murdered back in ’04.” Carter’s gaze fell to the blade in 
  Ingrid’s hand. “Somebody broke into her apartment and tore her apart, just like the 
  Stirling murders.”
  “What about the child?”
  Carter sighed. “Nobody knows. He just vanished. According to the police re-
  port, he was last seen walking from school that day, but there was no indication he 
  ever made it home. The cops thought he was a runaway at first, then a possible sus-
  pect, then finally a victim, just like his mother.
  I suspect it was a combination of all three, Ingrid thought grimly. She did the 
  math. The boy would have been around fifteen when his mother was killed. Right 
  around the time of a garou’s First Change.
  If he grew up in Athens, someone damn sure knows what happened to him.
  “Did this kid have a name?” Ingrid asked.
  Carter gave her a speculative look. “You think he’s still alive?”
  “Never mind what I think. What’s his name?”
  “Richard.”
  Ingrid nodded and took a step back, giving Carter a moment to breathe. She 
  considered the stack of folders on the desk.
  “I’m not going to waste my time burning all this,” she said. “If you got your 
  hands on it once, you could do it again, and if you’re smart you probably have digital 
  
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  Chapter Twelve: The Prodigal
  copies of it anyway. So here is my dilemma. Do I trust you to destroy your notes and 
  forget about this story, or do I kill you instead?”
  “You wouldn’t –” Carter began, and then went pale when he saw the look in 
  Ingrid’s eyes.
  “What’s it going to be, Mr. Carter?” She laid Donnerkeil’s edge against the side 
  of the human’s throat. “Live or die? No one saw me come in here, and no one will 
  see me leave. In the chaos of the storm, they might not find your body for days.” She 
  put a tiny amount of pressure on the blade. 
  “Let me live! Please!” Carter gulped. “I’ll get rid of my notes, I swear!”
  “And then you’re going to get into your car and get the hell out of Savannah,” 
  Ingrid told him. “Go home. Stop trying to peel back the surface of the world and see 
  what lies beneath. You won’t like what you find.” She drew back her klaive, lifting it 
  to her face. “Now close your eyes and count to five. And pray we never meet again.”
  • • •
  The storm and the ensuing evacuation were already overloading the cell net-
  work. It took Ingrid three tries to get a connection.
  She stood on the third floor of a deserted parking garage, just a block away from 
  the hotel, seething quietly as she watched the rain pour down through the yellow 
  glow of the streetlights. Down below, a pickup truck plowed through a patch of 
  standing water along Broughton, kicking up a spray of white nearly twelve feet high.
  It was nearly midnight. Ingrid counted six rings and started to think that she was 
  going to get a voice mail, but then she heard a familiar voice.
  “Hello?” Ellen Oakheart said. Her tone was brusque, and slightly befuddled, as 
  though she’d just drifted off to sleep.
  “You hateful, shriveled-up bitch. You knew all along, didn’t you?”
  “I happen to know a great many things, Ingrid Stormwalker,” Oakheart replied, 
  alert now but unfazed by Ingrid’s hostile tone. “Perhaps you could be a bit more 
  specific.”
  “Richard fucking Carstairs. Ring any bells? Fianna garou, father was from Sa-
  vannah? Murdered his mother during his First Change and then disappeared? You 
  expect me to believe you don’t know anything about that?”
  “I…” Oakheart began. “There was a lost cub by that name. The local sept found 
  him wandering out in the country, about ten years ago. You say his father was from 
  Savannah?”
  “Cut the bullshit! The second Carstairs was found, the sept would have done 
  everything it could to uncover the boy’s lineage. That would have taken about five 
  minutes and a Google search to identify his mother, and another five minutes on the 
  phone with her parents to find out about the father.  You knew exactly who he was 
  descended from.”
  Oakheart sighed. “Are you disappointed we didn’t inform Karl Ironhand, so he 
  could come down to Athens and tie up loose ends? If he’d known who Richard was, 
  
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  112
  the boy wouldn’t have lasted a week, and you damned well know it. That’s how a 
  coup works.”
  “And now your precious lost cub is here, murdering my kinfolk,” Ingrid snarled. 
  “Is that what you meant at the Grand Moot, when you said that a lot could change in 
  a year? You were going to wait for Carstairs to kill as many of us as he could, then 
  try to take the city from us?”
  “Richard is there?”
  “He’s killed at least seven of my people. A few hours ago he was promising 
  to send me back to my father in pieces. He thinks Karl is a murderer, and that I’ve 
  stolen something from him. And I can’t help but wonder who might have put that 
  idea in his head.”
  The line went silent. Ingrid paused, listening. “Hello?”
  “He was lost,” Oakheart said. Her voice was subdued, barely audible over the 
  howling wind. “His mother was dead, and he didn’t know who he was. We were just 
  trying to help him. To protect him.”
  “So he could one day grow up and take his revenge?”
  “Spare me the self-righteousness, girl. Your father murdered his entire blood-
  line. He had a right to vengeance.” She paused. “But we didn’t encourage it. In fact, 
  we told him nothing of his origins.”
  “You expect me to believe that?”
  “Ask anyone on the Grand Council. They’ll tell you the same thing. We were just 
  trying to teach him the ways of his people, like any other young garou.” She paused. 
  “Richard was…deeply disturbed. He complained of terrible dreams, and was prone to 
  wild fits of rage. For a long time we believed that guilt over his mother’s death had left 
  a wound on his soul. Perhaps we were wrong. Perhaps it was something much worse.”
  “The Stirlings were corrupted by the Wyrm.”
  “So your father said.”
  “I’ve seen Richard up close. I’ve smelled the taint on his skin.”
  “It grieves me to hear that,” Oakheart said. “We did everything we could, but 
  the more we tried to help him, the more violent and withdrawn he became. Then, one 
  morning, he was gone. That was nearly five years ago.”
  Ingrid cursed under her breath. As much as she hated to admit it, Oakheart 
  sounded like she was telling the truth. “Well, if you didn’t tell him about the Stir-
  lings, who did?”
  There was no reply. After a long moment Ingrid’s phone sullenly beeped. The 
  call had failed.
  Gritting her teeth, she turned her back on the storm and walked across the park-
  ing level toward the stairs. The ronin were waiting by the stairway door, speaking to 
  one another in low voices.
  “Oakheart confirmed it,” Ingrid said to Euryale. “The killer’s named Richard 
  Carstairs. The Protectorate took him in after his First Change and raised him as a 
  lost cub.”
  
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  Chapter Twelve: The Prodigal
  Euryale frowned. “They didn’t tell him who he really was?”
  “Not according to Oakheart.”
  “And you believe her?”
  “Unfortunately, yes.” Ingrid sighed. Exhaustion was setting in, and her brain felt 
  like a lead weight. She pinched at the corners of her eyes and tried to concentrate. 
  “She said he was never all that stable, and his mental state continued to fall apart 
  as time went on. Eventually, he just ran off. That was almost five years ago, so who 
  knows what happened to him after that?”
  Kevin pulled a clasp knife from his pocket and began cleaning his fingernails. 
  “From everything you’ve said about the tunnels around here, he could have been 
  under your noses the entire time.”
  “Only if he knows he’s a Stirling. Otherwise, why come here at all?” Ingrid 
  shook her head. “There’s a piece missing here. Someone got to Carstairs while he 
  was still in Athens and filled his head with lies about what happened to his family. 
  Maybe those lies were what corrupted him, or maybe he was susceptible to corrup-
  tion because of who he was.”
  “There you go again,” Euryale said.
  “What?”
  “Assuming that Carstairs was lied to. What if his version of events is the truth?”
  Ingrid’s hackles rose. “What, that my father robbed and murdered the Stirlings 
  like a common thief? Fuck you.”
  Kevin stiffened at the tone in Ingrid’s voice, but Euryale was undaunted. “I 
  didn’t say there was anything common about it. When a man steals money, it’s called 
  robbery. When he steals a city, it’s called politics.”
  “My father didn’t steal anything. He saved this city from the Wyrm.”
  “History is written by the victors.”
  “Gaia weeps. Now you sound just like Oakheart.” Ingrid threw up her arms. “It 
  was twenty-five years ago. What does it matter now, one way or another? Unless you 
  know a way to turn back time, there’s no way we’re ever going to learn the truth.”
  Euryale gave Ingrid an enigmatic look. “I can’t turn back the clock,” she said. 
  “But it just so happens that Catherine can.”
  
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  114
  They walked the two-and-a-half blocks from the parking garage to Stirling 
  House, heads down and shoulders hunched against the lashing rain. Past midnight, 
  the streets were mostly empty now. The tourists had fled, and the locals who had 
  chosen to remain in the district were hunkered down in their townhomes to wait out 
  the storm. Sirens wailed off to the west, the notes rendered thin and wavering by 
  the shifting wind. Drifts of green leaves and ragged streamers of moss covered the 
  sidewalks and collected in the corners of boarded-over buildings.
  Every so often, Ingrid turned and glanced back the way they’d come, checking 
  for signs of movement. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. 
  Marcus and the others were out there, hunting for them. It wasn’t hard to imagine 
  one of the Stone Mountain packs loping along in their wake, keeping tabs on them 
  and whispering directions into a cell phone so the other packs could close in for the 
  kill. Or what if it was Carstairs, limping from shadow to shadow, watching and wait-
  ing for the right moment to strike? She tried to dismiss it as just her imagination, but 
  a glance at Kevin confirmed that he felt it, too. His expression was calm and disin-
  terested as ever, but his shoulders were tense and his eyes were constantly in motion, 
  scanning every rooftop and alleyway along their path.
  Euryale walked out in front with Catherine. The two were huddled together and 
  speaking in low, urgent tones. The Theurge was clearly unhappy with Euryale’s plan. 
  Ingrid wasn’t sure how she felt about it herself. She felt as though she were edging along 
  a narrow, crumbling ledge, with a long fall into darkness waiting beneath her feet. 
  What are you afraid of? The truth?
  She wasn’t prepared to believe that Karl had lied to her about the Blight. The 
  place’s corruption was a matter of record going back decades. Perhaps it was nothing 
  more than a false assumption; a reasonable enough error, given everything else. He 
  was being overly cautious, nothing more.
  But if he had known, and lied to her about it…what did that mean? What was he 
  hiding? And where did that leave her?
  They reached the corner of Abercorn and State. Oglethorpe Square was just 
  across the street, its trees thrashing angrily in the grip of the storm. Lighting flashed, 
  Chapter Thirteen: 
  Ghost Dance
  
  115
  Chapter Thirteen: Ghost Dance
  painting the scene in stark blue and white, and Ingrid glimpsed a ragged group of 
  figures pacing along the western edge of the park some twenty yards away. Several 
  of the figures saw the garou at the same time and turned to face them, and Ingrid 
  realized they were fomori.
  There were eight of them. Their clothes were little more than filthy rags, and 
  their faces were twisted into bestial expressions of hunger, lust, and depravity. They 
  leered at Ingrid, licking their crusted lips.
  Donnerkeil blazed in Ingrid’s hand. Kevin stepped up beside her, a low growl 
  rising in his throat. The fomori hesitated at the sight of the grand klaive. For a mo-
  ment the two groups stared at one another through the rain. Baring her teeth, Ingrid 
  started towards the Wyrmspawn, and the fomori ran, scattering into the darkness like 
  a pack of hyenas. Maddened howls and gibbering, blasphemous cries echoed after 
  them, taunting the garou and daring them to follow.
  Kevin was all too happy to oblige, but Ingrid halted him with a hand on his 
  arm. “Let them go,” she said through gritted teeth. The taints were growing bolder, 
  using the storm to venture out in numbers. How long before they felt bold enough to 
  strike? “Marcus and the others will have heard the cries. They could be here at any 
  moment.
  Ingrid and the ronin hurried east, around the perimeter of the square. Stirling 
  House crouched behind its walls at the corner, hiding its secrets behind dark win-
  dows and forbidding stone. 
  Instead of scaling the garden wall this time, she led the garou down State to the 
  mansion’s back alley and through the shell of the old carriage house. The garden 
  beyond was slick and tangled, full of deep shadows cast by the blurry glow of the 
  streetlights. The sight of the mansion beyond was more menacing to Ingrid at that 
  moment than it had ever been in her life. 
  When she emerged from the carriage house into the rain she was in her war 
  form. Donnerkeil glowed in her right hand, its storm-spirit exultant in the midst of 
  the raging elements. The ronin followed close behind, also now in crinos form.
  They crossed the garden without incident, and climbed the steps to the main 
  entrance. Ingrid pushed one of the old doors open and stepped inside, sniffing the 
  damp air. The sound of dripping water echoed through the house. 
  “What now?” she asked as the ronin filed into the house.
  Catherine stepped past Ingrid into the middle of the foyer and surveyed the 
  room. “Where did the attack begin?”
  “Well, technically it started back at the carriage house,” Ingrid said. “Father and 
  his pack came up the back alley and surprised a few of the Stirling kinfolk working 
  in the garage. Then they crossed the garden and burst in here, looking for Wyatt and 
  my aunt.”
  Catherine turned in place, taking in every detail of the ruined foyer, her expres-
  sion haunted. She nodded, half to herself. “This is where we will begin.”
  Ingrid watched the Theurge shift back to human form and take a few items from 
  her shoulder bag. Chanting in a low voice, Catherine opened a small, leather bag and 
  
  The Poison Tree
  116
  poured out a thin stream of salt onto the floor with a careful, steady hand. She formed 
  a circle, then began filling it in with precise, interlinked symbols.
  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Ingrid asked. “I thought garou didn’t 
  linger as ghosts.”
  Catherine ignored her, focusing on the preparations for the rite. Euryale sidled 
  up to Ingrid and answered instead.
  “This doesn’t have anything to do with ghosts,” the ronin said in a hushed voice. 
  “Violent events leave impressions behind in the physical realm. If the place where 
  the events occurred remains relatively undisturbed, those impressions can linger for 
  a long time. If the impressions are strong enough, and a person is sensitive enough 
  – or has some personal connection to the events – it’s possible to experience them 
  again.” She eyed the Shadow Lord. “I’d say your connection to what happened here 
  is about as personal as it gets.”
  Ingrid nodded, suddenly uneasy. “What do I do?”
  “Catherine will guide you. Just do what she says, and keep your eyes open. 
  Kevin and I will stay close by.”
  Across the foyer, the Theurge completed the ritual circle and put away the salt. 
  Then she placed a pair of small objects in its center and began to chant again. Her 
  voice rose in volume until it filled the room, and the wind outside seemed to respond, 
  rattling the old windows and moaning through the eaves.
  The chant went on for several minutes. At the end, Catherine clapped her hands 
  and straightened, taking the objects from the circle. She walked over to Ingrid. 
  “Close your eyes.”
  Ingrid did as she was told. Catherine murmured something in her native tongue, 
  and then traced a symbol on each of Ingrid’s eyelids with a small, rough object.
  “Take this,” Catherine said, and touched something to Ingrid’s lips. The Shadow 
  Lord took it and chewed. It was a root of some kind, tough, fibrous, and bitter.
  Chewing, Ingrid opened her eyes in time to see Catherine place the second root 
  in her mouth. The Theurge turned away, reaching into her shoulder bag and drawing 
  out a small drum. Catherine gave Euryale a momentary glance, then bent her head 
  and began to tap on the drum.
  Ingrid swallowed. The drum was not much bigger than Catherine’s hand, but the 
  sound it made reverberated through the whole house. The Theurge began to chant 
  again, keeping time with the drum.
  Not knowing what else to do, Ingrid waited for instructions from Catherine. 
  Wind gusted in through the open door, ruffling her fur. The drumming went on, slow 
  and steady, almost like a heartbeat. Then a rush of recognition sent a shiver down 
  Ingrid’s spine. 
  This is the rite she was performing at Green Island.
  Was this a trick? She turned to Euryale – but before she could say anything, the 
  foyer echoed with shouts and the sounds of running feet.
  “Fire! The carriage house is on fire!”
  
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  Chapter Thirteen: Ghost Dance
  Ingrid whirled, seeking the source of the voice – and saw three ghostly figures 
  running towards her from the direction of the formal dining room. At first glance 
  they seemed little more than silhouettes, but as Ingrid focused on them the appari-
  tions took on more detail and substance. Three men, all middle-aged, dressed in the 
  white uniforms of house staff. An excited babble of voices washed over her.
  “Harry’s out there, working on the car!”
  “What do we do? Call the Fire Department? What if they ask to come into the 
  house?”
  “We’ve got to get out there!”
  The figures dashed across the foyer. One passed right through Kevin, who no-
  ticed nothing at all. He and Euryale were watching her instead, observing her reac-
  tions.
  “Susan, Andrew, you come back to the table right this minute!”
  Two smaller apparitions appeared, right on the heels of the kinfolk. A boy and 
  a girl, neither much older than ten: she in a skirt and a simple white blouse, he in 
  khakis and a button-down shirt. They looked similar enough to be brother and sister, 
  their pale, sickly faces flushed with excitement.
  More figures were rushing into the foyer from the front hall: a man and two 
  women in kitchen attire, wringing their hands on their aprons. Then a slender appa-
  rition appeared in the wake of the children; Ingrid saw a pretty young woman not 
  much older than she, with big, blue eyes and streaks of premature gray in her black 
  hair. She was wearing a green dress and a string of pearls, like a Southern matron-
  to-be.
  “You two get back here right now!” she told the children. There was an exasper-
  ated tone in her voice, but an edge of real fear as well. “If you disturb Uncle Wyatt, 
  he’ll skin you alive!”
  “We want to see the fire!” the boy exclaimed. His sister said something as well, 
  but it was lost in the rising tide of voices in the room. Everyone was speaking at 
  once, trying to decide what to do. The young woman was pleading with her kids to 
  come back to the dining room. The servants were distraught, fearing for the safety of 
  their kin, but fearing to disturb their master even more. 
  One of the men was speaking quickly into a telephone, reporting the fire. The 
  remains of the phone were still there, a quarter-century later, sitting amid the debris 
  on the floor at the apparition’s feet. Ingrid felt her guts turn to lead, knowing what 
  was about to happen.
  A woman’s voice cut through the babble. “What’s that?”
  Everyone fell silent. The young woman darted forward, placing herself between 
  the children and the main entrance. And then came a howl, hungry and terrible, from 
  just the other side of the doors.
  Ingrid turned just as the first of Karl’s pack came bursting into the foyer. She did 
  not see or hear the doors smashing inward, but saw the apparitions react to it. They 
  recoiled, throwing up their arms – and then the Shadow Lords were among them, 
  slashing with their claws. One of the kinfolk spun around, his face and throat ripped 
  
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  118
  open. Another sat down hard, holding his guts in his hands. A third man turned and 
  tried to run, his face a mask of terror. He seemed to reach for Ingrid, a scream rising 
  to his lips, but a snarling crinos werewolf smashed in the back of the man’s skull 
  with one swipe of his hand. Ingrid blinked as ghostly brain matter sprayed at her 
  face.
  The young woman did manage to scream, a cry of pure, heartbreaking terror. 
  “Run!” she shouted, pushing the children away and leaping at the closest garou. The 
  Shadow Lord bared his teeth in a merciless grin and ripped her open from shoulder to 
  hip, smashing the slight figure to the ground. The children, their pale faces speckled 
  with gore, ran shrieking into the formal dining room.
  There were now three garou in the foyer, their fearsome apparitions nearly close 
  enough to touch. They seemed exultant, reveling in the slaughter. By this point Aunt 
  Elizabeth had been Wyatt’s captive for three days, Ingrid reminded herself. Yet this 
  felt nothing like the stories she’d been told as a teenager. There was no sense of 
  justice here, no act of righteous retribution. This was a pack of wolves loose among 
  the lambs.
  The young woman – Wyatt’s sister – was dragging herself across the floor, try-
  ing to get to her children. The garou started after her, and the cooks got in the way, 
  attacking the werewolves with their bare hands. The Shadow Lords tore the kinfolk 
  limb from limb, but their deaths bought enough time for Wyatt’s sister to escape. The 
  foyer rang with screams, throaty snarls and the wet-gristle sound of snapping bones 
  and ripping flesh.
  Arms red to the elbows, the werewolves went in search of fresh prey. One of the 
  garou went after Wyatt’s sister and her children, while a second went down the main 
  hall towards the front of the house. The third, fangs bared in a feral grin, headed for 
  the stairs to the second floor.
  “Ingrid,” Catherine warned in a low voice. The Theurge was staring at the 
  main entrance. Ingrid turned, and her breath caught in her throat as her father came 
  stalking through the doorway.
  Karl Ironhand was in his war form, like the rest of his pack, and the ghostly 
  image of Donnerkeil hung loosely in his right hand. She saw him as he was in his 
  prime, not yet scarred by decades of war. He carried himself with the arrogance of a 
  conqueror, his eyes alight with triumph.
  For a moment Ironhand paused amid the carnage, his expression calculating. 
  The sound of splintering wood echoed from upstairs. Wyatt’s sister screamed from 
  the formal dining room, her voice rising to a hysterical shriek. “Not my babies! Not 
  my babies!” Then, with an almost imperceptible nod, the Shadow Lord crossed the 
  foyer and went straight to the basement stairs in the main hall.
  Ingrid watched him go. He knows exactly where he’s going, she observed. And 
  he waited to make sure he was alone. A cold sense of foreboding settled over her like 
  a shroud. He always told me they went down in a pack to confront Wyatt.
  She glanced at Catherine. “I’ve got to know what happens downstairs. What do 
  I do?”
  
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  Chapter Thirteen: Ghost Dance
  “Just follow him,” the Theurge said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
  Karl had already vanished. Ingrid raced after him, nearly yanking the basement 
  door off its hinges in her haste. She could see her father’s apparition clearly in the 
  darkness below. As she watched, he left the stairs and turned down the main corridor, 
  heading for Wyatt’s sanctum. She followed as quickly as she dared, expecting the old 
  steps to give way beneath her at any moment. The beat of Catherine’s drum filled the 
  narrow stairwell as the ronin kept pace just behind her.
  Karl moved warily down the corridor, the grand klaive held at the ready. At one 
  point, just short of the sanctum door, he turned with a start and stared back the way 
  he’d come. Their eyes met, and for a fleeting instant Ingrid thought that he could 
  somehow see her, his gaze reaching across the gulf of years. The calculating look in 
  her father’s eyes sent a chill down her spine.
  Satisfied that he wasn’t being followed, Karl went to the sanctum door. After a 
  moment to steel himself, the Shadow Lord vanished inside. Ingrid ran down the hall, 
  finding her way solely by feel. A feeling of dread settled over her as she fumbled at 
  the latch and pushed the rusted door open.
  She was greeted by the sound of laughter: melodic, boyish and entirely mad.
  A ghostly tableau awaited her beyond the sanctum door. Where the foyer and 
  other parts of the house had been unchanged by Catherine’s rite, here the entire 
  room looked fresh and new, and shone with a faint, eerie glow. The entire space had 
  been so saturated with blood and human misery that it was an apparition unto itself, 
  resonating to the beat of the Theurge’s drum. There was a twitching, ravaged corpse 
  stretched out on the surgical table, and a pair of glistening human hides hung from 
  skinning hooks along the wall to the right of the door.
  Karl stood just inside the doorway, his massive shoulders scraping the room’s 
  ceiling. Facing him was a naked young man whose alabaster skin was streaked and 
  speckled with freshly spilled blood. Wyatt Stirling had a dancer’s build, all lean 
  muscle and not an ounce of fat, and a handsome, square-jawed face framed by thick, 
  auburn curls. He was a vision of beauty with deep-set, soulless blue eyes, and a knife 
  of roughly shaped obsidian was clutched in one long-fingered hand. Tendrils of foul, 
  inky smoke curled from the edges of the blade, and the air around Wyatt’s head 
  shimmered darkly, like heat distortion on a summer’s day.
  Wyatt spread his arms in welcome and gave her father a madman’s smile. “Oh, 
  the look on your face!” he had a lilting, high-pitched drawl that was entirely at odds 
  with the darkness in his eyes. “Did you honestly think you were going to surprise me, 
  Karl Ironhand? Why, we’ve been waiting on you for hours now.”
  “Where is she?” Karl took a step towards Stirling. “If you’ve hurt her –”
  Stirling laughed again. The sound was sweet and pure, and set Ingrid’s nerves 
  on edge. “I gave her no more than she asked for, Ironhand. And I assure you, she 
  loved every moment of it.”
  Karl roared in fury. He leapt for Stirling, but as he did so, Wyatt spat a string 
  of syllables that stung Ingrid’s ears. Shapes coalesced out of the darkness around 
  Ironhand and seized him by the arms and throat. They were banes, Ingrid saw at 
  
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  120
  once, with skin like bubbling tar and ropy tentacles for arms. The stench of spiritual 
  corruption hit her like a blow, and she watched Karl’s flesh burn beneath their touch. 
  He struggled against them with all of his might, but there were too many of them to 
  overcome.
  Stirling’s expression turned cold. “You’re like a child, grasping for things you 
  can’t possibly comprehend. My family has sought to master the glyphs for more than 
  a century. It took generations before someone like me was born who had the genius 
  to unlock their secrets.” 
  He smiled, showing perfect white teeth, and walked over to Karl. The banes’ 
  ropy arms constricted, and the Shadow Lord let out a strangled groan. Donnerkeil 
  tumbled from his nerveless grip.
  Stirling bent low, his face inches from Karl’s snout. “Do you want to know the 
  best part? The sweetest, most ironic part of your whole pathetic scheme?” He leaned 
  close. “I couldn’t have done it without your sister. Her insights solved the final pieces 
  of the puzzle. Now the spirits of the Wyrm serve me, as any other spirit would. When 
  I speak, my voice carries the authority of the Malfeans themselves.”
  He straightened and went to the doorway of his inner sanctum. “The Apocalypse 
  is at hand,” he said over his shoulder. “Everyone knows this. Gaia is dying, and the 
  forces of the Corrupter are ascendant. There is no denying the inevitable. One can 
  either adapt or die.”
  At the doorway, Stirling beckoned, and a figure emerged, bearing a golden bowl. 
  Ingrid’s breath caught in her throat. It was Elizabeth Reinhardt, regal and enigmatic, 
  clad in a silken robe that hung carelessly open to reveal the flesh beneath. Wyatt took 
  her gently by the elbow and led her to Karl, who watched his sister’s approach with 
  dawning horror.
  “You see, Karl? She told me you were coming. She told me everything.” Stirling 
  laughed. “And do you know why? Because she loves me.”
  Elizabeth bowed her head to Wyatt and offered him the bowl. It brimmed with a 
  dark, oily liquid that gave off the same, tainted vapors as Stirling’s knife. He accept-
  ed the bowl with a ceremonial nod and handed her the blade. Then he stepped up to 
  Karl and brought its golden rim nearly to the Shadow Lord’s lips.
  “My sweet Elizabeth tells me that you can be persuaded,” he said to Karl. “She 
  says that you can be a good and faithful servant, once you have seen the truth. So, 
  for her sake, I give you this. Drink, and gaze upon the face of Malfeas. See the world 
  that is to come, and know that I will be its king.” Stirling’s eyes rose to the banes, 
  and his voice hardened. “Open his mouth.”
  Ironhand struggled, but the banes forced their searing tentacles past his lips, and 
  slowly, inch by inch, his jaws parted. Ingrid’s heart clenched.
  Elizabeth smiled beatifically and went to Wyatt’s side. As he raised the bowl, 
  she pressed her lips to his bloodstained cheek – and then drew the obsidian knife 
  across his throat in a single, swift motion. Blood fountained from the gaping wound, 
  spraying Karl and Elizabeth alike. Wyatt staggered, his eyes widening in shock. 
  The bowl tumbled from his fingers, and the banes writhed, their forms growing less 
  
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  Chapter Thirteen: Ghost Dance
  substantial by the moment. Karl tore free from their grip as Wyatt spun, reaching 
  for Elizabeth. She dropped the knife and grabbed the dying garou by the arms, her 
  expression pitiless. Karl snatched up Donnerkeil and drove the blade into Stirling’s 
  back. The Shadow Lord pulled the klaive free and Elizabeth threw Wyatt’s body to 
  the floor.
  Karl recoiled from his sister, eyes wide with dismay. “What in Gaia’s name have 
  you done?” he hissed.
  “What I had to.” Elizabeth’s expression was cold and unyielding as marble, but 
  her dark eyes were haunted. She turned her back on Karl, snatching her robe shut 
  and belting it around her waist. “You think gaining the trust of a madman is easy? 
  Or cheap?” She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “What does it matter now? 
  We’ve won.”
  Karl wiped the back of a clawed hand across his snout. “And the glyphs?”
  “In there.” Elizabeth indicated the inner sanctum with a nod of her head. “We’ll 
  take everything. It’ll just be one book among many. The rest of the pack won’t know 
  the difference.”
  Ironhand fell silent for a moment, gazing at Stirling’s bloodstained corpse.  “I 
  think we should burn them,” he said at last. “We have the caern. What more do we 
  need?”
  Elizabeth rounded on her brother, her eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare!” she 
  snarled. “The Uktena hid these glyphs for hundreds of years! Now they’re finally 
  ours, and you want to throw them away? After all I’ve –” Her voice broke. She 
  paused, gritting her teeth against a sudden surge of tears. Then, with a deep breath, 
  the mask of iron self-control slipped back into place. “Not after all I’ve sacrificed to 
  get them. You’ll have to kill me first.”
  Karl raised a placating hand. “Please! There’s no need for that. But what good 
  did the glyphs do the Stirlings? Or the Uktena, for that matter?”
  “Wyatt Stirling was a monster. He was weak. We’re nothing like him.” She 
  stared up at Karl. “You have no idea how powerful these glyphs are. We could trans-
  form the city overnight. Think of it!”
  Ironhand matched his sister stare for stare, but the battle of wills was never real-
  ly in doubt. The Shadow Lord sighed. “We do this for the city. For the caern. That’s 
  all. Do you understand?”
  “Of course,” Elizabeth replied. She gave her brother a dazzling smile. “I 
  wouldn’t have it any other way. Now let’s think. The others will be here any moment, 
  and we need to get our stories straight.”
  Ingrid did not hear her father’s reply. Catherine’s drum had fallen silent, and the 
  apparitions were fading like morning mist. She watched them go, her mind numb 
  and her heart aching.
  Everything she’d been told was a lie. Everything. Could one feel harano for 
  something that never truly was?
  All at once, her knees felt weak. Ingrid sank to the floor. Belatedly, she realized 
  that she’d shifted back to human form. When had that happened?
  
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  122
  She became aware of a ghostly white glow flickering somewhere above her. For 
  a moment she thought that the apparitions had somehow returned, but it was only 
  a mote of faerie light gleaming in Kevin’s hand. Catherine knelt, laying a hand on 
  Ingrid’s shoulder. 
  “Come back to us, Ingrid Stormwalker,” the Theurge said, peering into her eyes. 
  “Come back to the here and now.”
  Euryale stared expectantly at the two women. “Did it work this time? What did 
  you see?”
  Ingrid couldn’t tell whom the ronin was speaking to at first. Then she remem-
  bered: this was the same rite Catherine was performing at Green Island.
  The Shadow Lord gazed wonderingly at Catherine. “You lying little bitch,” she 
  said faintly, and then lunged for the Theurge’s throat.
  
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  Chapter Fourteen: Liars and Thieves
  Catherine went over backwards with a strangled yelp, her eyes widening as In-
  grid’s hand closed around her throat. Donnerkeil flashed, its curved point just inches 
  from the Theurge’s face.
  “Honoring your ancestors my ass,” Ingrid growled. The rage came upon her like 
  a fever, scalding her skin and setting her nerves on fire. She could feel it starting to 
  get away from her, but at that moment she didn’t particularly care. “It was about the 
  glyphs all along, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”
  Euryale shouted something, but the words barely registered. Then powerful 
  arms slipped beneath her armpits and lifted her bodily into the air. She kicked and 
  thrashed, roaring in anger, her heels connecting with hard muscle. Kevin grunted 
  with each blow, but didn’t relent. “Calm down,” he said into her ear. “Calm down, 
  before you kill someone!”
  The klaive was still in her hand. Her arms were pinned in a full nelson, but she 
  could jab over her shoulder, maybe hit the bastard in the face or neck. Then she re-
  alized what she was doing and froze, clamping down on her anger with every ounce 
  of her will. Kevin waited, holding her off the ground as though she weighed nothing 
  at all, while she concentrated on her breathing. After what felt like an eternity, she 
  started to relax.
  Ingrid glared at Euryale. “You didn’t drag me back here for my benefit,” she 
  managed to say. “You did it for her. You’ve been working for Catherine all along.”
  Euryale rolled her eyes. “If only. That would mean I was actually getting some-
  thing in return for all this nonsense.”
  “Cut the bullshit!” Ingrid snapped. “I didn’t see it before, but you’ve both been 
  deferring to her all along.” She stared at both women in turn. “Is she even a ronin? 
  Are you?”
  “Now look, there’s no need to get personal –”
  Ingrid tried to twist out of Kevin’s grip. “Put me fucking down and I’ll give you 
  personal –”
  Chapter Fourteen: 
  Liars and 
  Thieves
  
  The Poison Tree
  124
  To her surprise, Kevin did exactly that. Her heels hit the floor hard enough to jar 
  her teeth. Before she could recover from her surprise, the lanky ronin came up beside 
  her and spoke to Catherine.
  “Tell her,” he said to the Theurge. “If you don’t, I will.”
  Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “You gave me your oath. Both of you did.”
  “Then you better understand I’m not saying this lightly. Tell her. If you can’t 
  trust her now, you never will.”
  Catherine scowled at the ronin, angry at having her hand forced once again. 
  Finally, she gave the smallest of sighs.
  “You’re right,” she said reluctantly. “I am still Uktena. Euryale and Kevin are 
  both ronin, but…we share common interests.”
  Ingrid stared at the Theurge, expecting more. Catherine stared back, her expres-
  sion inscrutable. 
  “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
  The Uktena sighed again. “What do you want to know?” she said, clearly un-
  comfortable.
  “Are you here for the glyphs?” Ingrid asked through gritted teeth.
  “Yes.”
  Euryale folded her arms and gave Catherine a pointed look. The theurge pre-
  tended not to notice.
  “Blessed goddess,” Ingrid growled. “Is there more?”
  Catherine’s discomfort grew. “Yes.”
  “Tell. Me. Everything.” Ingrid snarled. “All of it. From the beginning. Now.”
  The Uktena closed her eyes and muttered something in the Muscogee tongue. 
  The tone sounded almost like an apology. Finally she drew a deep breath and opened 
  her eyes.
  “A month ago, I was in a lodge in Oklahoma, seeking the wisdom of the spirits. 
  During my meditations, the Great River Spirit came to me. She shared with me a 
  story of my ancestors, one that had been lost when my people had followed the Mus-
  cogee westward along the Trail of Tears. This is what the spirit said to me:
  “Many hundreds of years ago, long before the coming of the white man, there 
  was a young shaman among the Sept of the Seven Rivers named Hunts-With-Ghosts. 
  He was much esteemed by his people, for his mind was swift and strong, and his 
  affinity with the spirit realm was great.
  “But the path of the Theurge is not like that of the warrior, or the judge, or the 
  tale-spinner; true greatness requires patience and wisdom, which only comes with 
  time. But Walks-With-Ghosts was not patient. His sharp mind and natural talents 
  made him prideful, and he scorned the caution of his elders. Eager for renown, and 
  possessed by the recklessness of youth, he often went alone into the far corners of 
  the Umbra, into deep and dark places where few ever tread, searching for secrets and 
  knowledge that would set him above other garou.
  
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  Chapter Fourteen: Liars and Thieves
  “It is said that his pride and ambition led him, in time, to the fringes of Malfeas 
  itself, stalking the desolate borders of the Wyrm’s own realm in search of power. 
  There he came upon a Wyrm-spirit, ancient and clever, that fled from him across the 
  wasteland like a deer. Walks-With-Ghosts gave chase, as any wolf would, and the 
  hunt tested the shaman’s skills to the utmost.
  “The spirit tried many cunning tricks to throw Walks-With-Ghosts off the scent, 
  but the young Theurge was relentless. Such was his pride that it never occurred to 
  him that he was doing just as the spirit intended.
  “Finally, Walks-With-Ghosts cornered his prey in a splinter realm of deep shad-
  ows and strange, skeletal ruins, where ground was ash and the sky the color of blood. 
  But instead of taking the spirit in his teeth and rending it, Walks-With-Ghosts bar-
  gained with it instead, offering to spare it in exchange for the secrets it possessed. 
  Great was the battle of wits that followed, as the spirit tried to twist the terms of the 
  contract in its favor, but once again, Walks-With-Spirits triumphed. Or so the pride-
  ful garou was led to believe.
  “Over time, the spirit shared deep and terrible knowledge with the young 
  Theurge. He learned how to summon potent spirits, to bind them, and to compel 
  them. He grew wise in the ways of the Wyrm. Swift and sure was his rise to power, 
  and soon he was greatly renowned among his people. But the more power Walks-
  With-Ghosts gained, the more he desired. And the greater his greed, the deeper into 
  corruption he went. The Wyrm-spirit was in fact an ancient force of temptation, a 
  giver of gifts and a bringer of ruin called Abbazû, and he had fallen completely under 
  its sway.
  “Soon, the mastery of spirits wasn’t enough; Walks-With-Ghosts began to dream 
  of mastering his fellow garou as well. By this time his influence within the sept was 
  great; he had many supporters and allies, and young Theurges sought him out for 
  his wisdom in matters of the spirit world. Though still too young himself to take on 
  students according to tribal law, Walks-With-Ghosts defied the elders and taught a 
  select few students in secret. He cultivated their devotion, forcing them to compete 
  with one another for his favor and the Wyrm-spirit’s poisoned gifts. And so corrup-
  tion spread among the people, and the tempter fed on their desires and grew strong.
  “Too late, the sept realized its peril. Shadow Chaser, the great elder, called a 
  moot and demanded that Walks-With-Ghosts appear and answer for his actions. The 
  Theurge refused, declaring that the elders had no power over him. Warriors were sent 
  to seize him, but Walks-With-Ghosts and his followers slew them.
  “The spilling of blood tore the people in two. Walks-With-Ghosts claimed that 
  the sept elders acted against him out of envy and spite, and such was the power of 
  the Wyrm-spirit’s allure that many young Uktena took up his cause. Shadow Chaser 
  declared the young Theurge an outcast and a servant of the Wyrm, and condemned 
  him to death for his crimes. Brother fought brother, and war ravaged the land.
  “The fighting went on for many, many years, and great was the people’s suf-
  fering. Outnumbered but defiant, Walks-With-Ghosts turned more and more to the 
  Wyrm-spirit for support, and unleashed many horrors upon the earth. He gave to 
  his followers many powerful but tainted glyphs, giving them mastery of the Wyrm-
  
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  126
  spawn he summoned. When his corruption became so evident that even his own 
  allies began to desert him, Walks-With-Ghosts summoned Abbazû itself, allowing it 
  to inhabit him and share with him its unspeakable strength.
  “Now the Wyrm-spirit was free to work its corruption upon the whole earth. 
  Shadow Chaser and the surviving elders saw the danger and called to their brothers 
  and sisters across the land, even to the Wendigo in the far north. The moon bridges 
  were opened, and garou from many distant septs gathered to fight the ancient foe.
  “Great Shadow Chaser, now old and scarred from many battles, led the hunt 
  against Walks-With-Ghosts and Abbazû. They fought with the Wyrmspawn for a day 
  and a night. The blood of heroes soaked the earth, and the servants of the Corrupt-
  er sensed victory. But then darkness fell, and a full moon rose in the summer sky, 
  and the garou rose up in their wrath. Walks-With-Ghosts was cast down, pierced by 
  Shadow Chaser’s spear, and a great circle of shaman bound Abbazû and imprisoned 
  him, so that he would tempt the people no more.
  But the war was won at a bitter cost. The Muscogee lands were ravaged, and 
  haunted by evil spirits. Many brave garou had fallen, and their kin faced a long 
  winter without food to eat. Shadow Chaser sent as many of his people as he could to 
  other septs, where they would be safe. The rest he took to Green Island and made a 
  new home, where he and what remained of the Sept of the Seven Rivers would watch 
  over Abbazû’s prison and ensure that the spirit would never escape.”
  Catherine fell silent. Ingrid blinked at her, trying to wrap her head around what 
  she’d been told.
  “Did I just hear you right? Are you telling me that Abbazû is imprisoned on 
  Green Island?”
  Catherine’s eyebrows rose. “No. Of course not,” the Theurge said. “It’s here. 
  Underneath Savannah.”
  Ingrid felt as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. She stared at Catherine. 
  “But you just said –”
  “Shadow Chaser took his people to Green Island to keep them apart from Ab-
  bazû’s prison,” the Theurge explained. “He had seen the spirit’s corruptive power 
  firsthand, and knew the risk was too great.”
  “So, what? The Uktena gave the caern to our people in hopes that they would 
  be corrupted instead?”
  “Don’t be ridiculous. By the time your ancestors arrived, Shadow Chaser and 
  the other elders had been dead for centuries. The sept’s garou were dying out, isolat-
  ed as they were on Green Island, and they feared that soon they wouldn’t have the 
  strength to keep the prison secure.” Catherine shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but 
  I suspect that they ceded the caern to your ancestors in the hopes of passing on the 
  responsibility once they became too weak to tend it themselves.”
  “But no one knew! They didn’t tell anyone!”
  Catherine shifted uncomfortably. “I believe the elders meant to, when they felt 
  the time was right. I’ve been studying the city’s shrines, and it’s clear that at least 
  some of the spiritual energy they collect is being funneled into Abbazû’s prison, to 
  
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  help keep its wards secure. The Stirlings and the sept bound themselves to those 
  shrines with blood and sacred oaths. It was more than just a gesture of peace and 
  community – it was a failsafe in case disaster befell the sept. Which happened – iron-
  ically, at the Stirling’s hands.”
  “Because apparently the Uktena decided to keep Abbazû’s glyphs.” Ingrid 
  clenched her fists. “Blessed goddess! And you people call my tribe untrustworthy?”
  “I don’t expect you to understand,” Catherine replied. “The only way you know 
  how to deal with a spirit is with your klaive. The sept’s elders believed that they were 
  wise enough to use the glyphs cautiously, and avoid corruption. And they were right. 
  They worked great wonders, and kept their people safe for centuries.”
  “Until the Stirlings found out about them,” Ingrid pointed out. “How did that 
  happen?”
  “I don’t know. Maybe the glyphs themselves called to them. Maybe Abbazû 
  reached through them and seduced the Stirlings.”
  Ingrid rolled her eyes. “Or maybe one of your vaunted elders got complacent. 
  Gaia weeps! Is nothing ever your peoples’ fault?”
  Euryale stirred. “That’s enough of that,” she warned. The ronin turned to Cath-
  erine. “Tell her the bad news.”
  “The bad news?”
  Catherine gave Ingrid a level stare. “The Great River Spirit ended its story with 
  a warning. Since the destruction of the sept, there has been no one to perform the pe-
  riodic rites necessary to maintain Abbazû’s prison. It’s been slowly weakening since 
  the time of the Civil War. It would take little effort now to set the Wyrm-spirit free.”
  “The Dweller in the Dark,” Ingrid hissed. “That’s what Carstairs was talking 
  about. Can the glyphs be used to set Abbazû free?”
  “With the proper knowledge…yes,” Catherine said.
  Ingrid stared at the three garou in turn. “You could have told me all of this back 
  at Stone Mountain,” she told them. “But you didn’t.”
  “We suspected that Karl Ironhand killed the Stirlings to get the glyphs,” Cather-
  ine said. “It was just a question of how far the corruption went.”
  “You didn’t trust me.”
  “Of course not,” Catherine said. “And even if we had, would you have believed 
  us?”
  Ingrid sighed. “Probably not. I’m still not sure I believe Father’s been corrupted. 
  He tried to burn the glyphs the day my aunt died. Said he never wanted to see them 
  again.”
  “Sounds like guilt to me,” Kevin observed.
  “You said he tried to burn them?” Euryale interjected.
  “My cousin Eric pulled them out of the fire,” Ingrid said. “He wanted them be-
  cause they’d belonged to his mother. He was only five.”
  Catherine’s eyes widened. “His mother? Oh, goddess, is Eric –”
  
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  128
  “He’s Wyatt Stirling’s son,” Ingrid said gravely. “No one ever talked about it, 
  but we all knew. Father’s kept him hidden away his whole life.”
  “And he has the glyphs? Blessed mother –”
  “He’s not corrupted,” Ingrid told her. “He’s not.”
  “He’s Wyatt’s son.”
  “And he’s done nothing with the glyphs except study them for twenty years,” 
  Ingrid said. “You just told me the Uktena kept them for centuries without harm.”
  “That’s different –”
  “The hell it is,” Ingrid snarled. “Forget Eric. Richard Carstairs is the danger 
  here. He’s the one who tortured Eleanor – and tried to do the same to me – to get his 
  hands on the glyphs.” The confrontation at the paper mill came back to her in a rush, 
  and suddenly she remembered: “He said he already knew where the Dweller waits. 
  All he needs are the keys.”
  Catherine grimaced. “Then he’s found the capstone.”
  “The what?”
  “Abbazû was bound in an underground lake, where the pure waters would 
  weaken it and confound its senses. After the rite, the entrance to the cavern was 
  sealed with a flat stone inscribed with powerful wards, then hidden from sight using 
  the most cunning tricks that the Muscogee shaman knew.”
  “Sounds like a perfect place to hide,” Ingrid mused. “Especially if you’ve been 
  wounded. Do you know where this capstone is?”
  “No,” Catherine said, chagrined. “We went to Green Island to try and find out, 
  but too much time had passed. The echoes of the sept’s elders were long gone.”
  “Then we start searching the tunnels, like I’ve been saying all along,” Kevin 
  declared.
  Ingrid shook her head. “The tunnels run for miles, and no one knows how deep 
  they go. We could be looking for years and never find anything.”
  “Not to mention they’re probably infested with Wyrmspawn,” Euryale said. 
  “They’re being drawn to Abbazû as his prison weakens. If we go down there blind, 
  we’ll walk right into a nest and get torn to pieces – or worse.”
  Kevin shook his head in disbelief. “There have been garou here for, what, al-
  most three hundred years, and no one ever thought to make a map of the tunnels?”
  “You don’t understand,” Ingrid said. “It’s a maze down there –” Her eyes wid-
  ened. “Goddess above. There might be a map after all. Come on!”
  She pushed past Kevin and Euryale and made her way back to the basement 
  corridor, heading for the stairs. Catherine and the ronin hurried after her.
  “Where are we going?” Euryale said, her voice echoing down the corridor.
  “I’ve got to get back to the house,” Ingrid replied. She paused at the foot of the 
  stairway, putting together a plan. “It’s better if I go alone. There’s an apartment near 
  here where the three of you can go to ground and wait. I don’t have the key, so you’ll 
  just have to find your own way inside.”
  
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  “That won’t be a problem,” Euryale replied. “But I can’t say I like the idea of 
  you going back there by yourself.”
  Ingrid started up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “I can’t take you into the 
  house with me,” she explained, “and you don’t want to be outside twisting in the 
  wind with every other garou in the city looking for you.”
  “We can take care of ourselves.”
  “That’s not the point,” Ingrid said. She reached the top of the stairs and pushed 
  the basement door wide. Lightning flashed, casting long shadows down the main 
  hall. “If Marcus and the others catch you, no matter what happens, we all lose. 
  There’s been enough garou blood shed over these damned glyphs. I’m not adding 
  one drop more.”
  “I hear you, sister. I just don’t think your father is going to give us a choice.”
  They headed for the foyer. After the horrors revealed by Catherine’s rite, the 
  atmosphere in the old house seemed even eerier and more oppressive than before. 
  Ingrid quickened her pace, suddenly desperate for the feel of wind and rain on her 
  face. By the time she reached the main entrance, she was nearly at a run.
  Ingrid was almost halfway across the garden before she slowed to let the others 
  catch up. The wind was gusting hard from the east now, and the raindrops stung 
  her exposed skin. Lightning flickered overhead, throwing the garden and the car-
  riage house into stark relief – and revealing the massive forms of four crinos were-
  wolves crouching in the shadows around her. Their bared fangs shone like silver in 
  the storm’s light.
  “Hello, cousin,” Marcus growled over the howling wind.
  
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  “Ironhand thought you’d turn up here sooner or later,” Marcus said, as Catherine 
  and the ronin came up behind Ingrid. She could hear the sound of crackling liga-
  ments and deep, breathy growls as her companions shifted to meet the sudden threat.
  “Remember what I said,” she hissed over her shoulder. “No one is dying here 
  tonight.”
  “Tell that to your former packmates,” Euryale said. She stepped up beside In-
  grid, towering over her in crinos form. The ronin held her labrys at her side, blade 
  down, but the threat of the silver weapon was apparent.
  Ingrid glanced back at her companions. “Just follow my lead. Catherine, what-
  ever happens, just hang back and be ready to take us across the Gauntlet. Under-
  stand?”
  The Theurge nodded. “Of course.”
  Marcus rose from his haunches just a few yards ahead of Ingrid. Anna was right 
  beside him, and a little to Ingrid’s left. Joshua crouched further off to the left, watch-
  ing her intently, while Darius kept an eye on the ronin off to Ingrid’s right. Except for 
  Marcus, the Shadow Lords looked ill at ease, unhappy with the task set before them.
  “I don’t suppose it would make any difference if I said you were making a big 
  mistake,” Ingrid said to them.
  To her surprise, Marcus threw back his head and laughed. It was a ghastly sound, 
  coming from a crinos. “You know, we had a little bet going. A hundred bucks on the 
  first thing you’d say when we found you. And damned if Joshua didn’t get it right.” 
  His grin widened. “Me, I thought you’d try and claim you were innocent.”
  “I don’t need to claim anything,” Ingrid snapped.  She took a step towards Anna. 
  “You can’t honestly think I’d murder my own kin.”
  Marcus eased forward, putting himself between her and the theurge. “It doesn’t 
  matter what we think,” he said, still showing his teeth. “The Lord of Savannah and 
  the Coastal Empire has spoken. Our kinfolk are dead, and you’re going to pay the 
  price.”
  Chapter Fifteen:  
  Truth and  
  Consequences
  
  131
  Chapter Fifteen: Truth and Consequences
  Ingrid took a step closer. “Fine. Take me to the caern. Let my father, the Philo-
  dox, judge me in front of every garou in the city. I’ll demand a trial by combat, and 
  then maybe you and I will settle things between us once and for all.”
  “You’d need the support of the elders for that,” Marcus said. “By which I mean 
  Karl Ironhand. And that, dear cousin, just isn’t going to happen.”
  “So you’re just going to murder me instead?” Ingrid took another step closer. 
  “Is that it?”
  Anna’s expression grew pained. “She’s right –”
  Marcus rounded on Anna. “You stay out of this –”
  It was the moment she had been waiting for. As her cousin turned, she shifted to 
  crinos in the blink of an eye and leapt, propelled by the power of a spirit-gift she’d 
  learned shortly after her First Change. The world seemed to stand still as she flashed 
  past Marcus and crashed into Anna, knocking the Theurge to the ground.
  Forgive me, sister. Before Anna could react, Donnerkeil struck. The grand 
  klaive’s antler hilt struck the Theurge right between her eyes. Bone cracked, and her 
  eyes rolled back in her head.
  Lightning split the sky overhead. Thunder crashed, and all hell broke loose.
  Marcus leapt at Ingrid with a furious roar, slashing with his claws. She rolled to 
  the left, anticipating the blow, and caught a glancing strike on her shoulder instead. 
  She bared her teeth at the fiery pain and took a wild swing at Marcus’s legs, forcing 
  him back.
  A moment later Ingrid was on her feet again and whirled, blade at the ready. 
  Marcus threw back his head and howled at the raging sky. Darius and Kevin circled 
  one another, teeth red and blood dripping from their claws. Euryale was driving 
  Joshua across the garden, keeping him at bay with blurring sweeps of her labrys. The 
  Galliard gave ground, biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
  Distant howls answered Marcus’s call. The other packs were coming. Ingrid 
  cursed under her breath and leapt at the Philodox.
  Marcus was ambitious and sometimes reckless, but he was as much a veteran 
  fighter as Ingrid. He ducked aside from her lunge and tore at her with his claws, 
  raking long furrows down her right flank as she went by. Ingrid curled in on herself 
  in midair, barking in pain, and clipped the back of Marcus’s thigh with her klaive 
  before she crashed shoulder-first into the ground. The Philodox reeled away, hand 
  clasped to the smoking wound in his leg.
  They had to get out of here. If they stayed much longer, someone was going to 
  die. “Catherine!” Ingrid called. Claws scrabbled over dirt and paving stones as she 
  got her feet underneath her. Blood was flowing freely down her side, and her right 
  arm felt weak. Marcus was turning to face her, his face a mask of rage, but his right 
  leg looked ready to give out at any moment.
  Catherine was just a few yards away. Kevin took a wild swipe at Darius and con-
  nected with the Shadow Lord’s muzzle, stunning him long enough to give the ronin 
  space to retreat. Euryale broke off from Joshua and charged at Marcus, screeching 
  one of her bone-chilling war cries. The Philodox retreated a step and fell onto his 
  
  The Poison Tree
  132
  back as his wounded leg betrayed him. Euryale abandoned her feint and rushed to In-
  grid, grabbing her by the left arm and hauling her to her feet with surprising strength.
  The Theurge rushed forward to meet them. Ingrid grabbed hold of the Uktena’s 
  muscular arm and the world was flooded with cold, silvery light.
  “Are you all right?” Euryale asked. It took a moment for Ingrid to realize she 
  was talking to Kevin, not her.
  “Oh, yeah,” Kevin panted. His chest, arms and upper thighs were covered in 
  blood. “None of this is mine.” He started to laugh, then sagged heavily against Eu-
  ryale. “Okay. Some of this isn’t mine.”
  “Get him out of here,” Ingrid said. She gave Euryale the address to the apart-
  ment. “It’s not four blocks from here. Get inside and get him patched up. I’ll be back 
  as soon as I can.”
  “You’re hurt, too,” Catherine said, frowning at the deep gashes along Ingrid’s 
  side.
  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “No time to argue. Anna’s going to recover any second, 
  and they’ll be after us. Get moving!”
  Without waiting for a reply, Ingrid broke away and loped toward the carriage 
  house, pain flaring along her side with every jarring step. By the time she plunged 
  through the tattered pattern-webs covering the building’s open doorway, she’d begun 
  to put together a plan.
  No one would expect her to go back to Reinhardt House. That was the one ad-
  vantage she possessed. She just had to make it there in one piece. 
  • • •
   Ingrid covered a couple of blocks before she crossed back into the physical 
  world. Though it was tempting to stay in the relative quiet of the Penumbra, she 
  knew that the darkness and the storm would offer better concealment. The rain stung 
  her injuries, but they washed away the blood and muddled her trail.
  Marcus had hit her hard, but her injuries weren’t crippling. She shifted to hispo, 
  knowing she could move faster on four legs instead of two, loping painfully down 
  dripping alleys and through the back lots of empty town homes and shuttered restau-
  rants. The rain was pouring down, crashing over the city in waves. The sharp bang 
  of blowing transformers echoed across the district as tree branches were forced into 
  power lines. Sirens echoed across downtown, rising and falling with the wind like a 
  chorus of the damned. 
  Once, off in the direction of the arts college, Ingrid heard a scream and then the 
  gibbering cry of a fomor. The scent of the taints was everywhere, setting Ingrid’s 
  teeth on edge. The Wyrmspawn were rising from the tunnels in numbers, and with 
  Marcus using the garou to hunt her, there was no one to stop them.
  The power was out south of Liberty Street, transforming the close-set buildings 
  into towering, funereal shapes and plunging the roads into canyons of deep shadow. 
  Here Ingrid began to encounter signs of destruction: broken windows and vandalized 
  cars, upended trashcans and broken-down doors. A couple of blocks past Lafayette 
  
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  Square she came upon a group of people – mostly men, ranging from teenagers 
  to middle age – who had broken into a corner café and were eagerly demolishing 
  it. Their faces were flushed and their eyes were fixed and glassy, as though in the 
  depths of a trance. An unseen tension seemed to link them together, like they’d all 
  been wired up to the same spiritual circuit. They’re being influenced by Wyrm-spirits, 
  Ingrid reckoned. Not possessed outright, but driven to act on their worst impulses. 
  She thought of all the hurricane parties going on across the city, and imagined 
  servants of the Urge-Wyrms circling them like sharks, looking for minds to prey 
  upon and drive to acts of horror. Each act of corruption would roil the spiritual land-
  scape, drawing the attention of more powerful Wyrm-spirits in a sort of feeding 
  frenzy that would soon cover the entire district. 
  The stage is being set for the coming of Abbazû, Ingrid realized. The gathering 
  of taints beneath the city, the attacks by Carstairs, the sudden appearance of the storm 
  – it was all connected. The question is, can it be stopped? All she knew for sure was 
  that she’d die trying if that’s what it took. The Wyrm wasn’t going to get Savannah 
  without a fight.
  Ingrid gave the bane-ridden mortals a wide berth, slipping silently through the 
  darkness in the direction of Monterey Square. The alley that ran behind Reinhardt 
  House stank with Wyrm-taint, but there were no fomori about. Images from her 
  nightmares, of her kinfolk dragged out into the streets and slaughtered in the square, 
  leapt unbidden to her mind. The horror they evoked nearly paralyzed her with their 
  intensity.
  Don’t give in, she told herself. That’s just what the enemy wants. Keep going.
  She shifted to glabro and managed to scale the house’s back wall. The warm 
  glow of lantern light shone from the windows of the kitchen and the solarium. The 
  attic windows were black. They wouldn’t trust Eric with an open flame, Ingrid knew. 
  The metis was up there, alone, surrounded by darkness.
  Ingrid took a moment to study the rain-swept garden and the veranda, mak-
  ing sure there were no guards about. The climb to the third floor was going to be 
  hard enough without interference from a well-meaning kinfolk standing watch. Her 
  shoulder and right arm were stiff, and her right side from mid-ribcage to just below 
  her hip was a constant, throbbing ache.
  Once she was certain there was no one about, she shifted to crinos form. Her 
  scabbed-over wounds tore open again as her body stretched, touching off fresh 
  waves of pain. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to breathe until the worst 
  of it had passed, then made her way carefully to the rear of the house. Setting her 
  sights on one of the rear-facing upper balconies, she crouched, gathered her strength, 
  and leapt.
  Even with the height and extra strength of her war form, she nearly didn’t make 
  it. The balcony rail was just within reach at the apex of her jump; she reached for it 
  with her right hand and fumbled for a grip. Her fingers, clumsy and slick with fresh 
  blood, slipped on the wet iron, and for a fleeting instant she felt herself beginning 
  to fall. At the last moment, her flailing left hand connected with one of the balco-
  
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  134
  ny’s iron bars, and she grabbed hold all her might. Ingrid hung there for a moment, 
  toe-claws finding purchase in the brickwork below the balcony. Then, slowly and 
  painfully, she began to pull herself up.
  The wind buffeted her as she climbed, threatening to tear her away from the side 
  of the house at any moment. Lightning flashed, seemingly close enough to touch. 
  The roll of thunder was like a drumbeat against her skin. The fury of the storm quick-
  ened Ingrid’s blood and lent new heat to her rage. Grandfather Thunder’s blessing, 
  she thought, baring her teeth in a lupine grin.
  Finally she reached one of the attic windows and pressed her hand against it. 
  It refused to budge. The space beyond was dark as a tomb. She tapped her claws 
  against the pane. Rain began to thin away the bloody handprint she left on the glass.
  Moments later a dim, hulking shape could be seen moving through the darkness, 
  coming towards the window. Eric’s face loomed before the glass, then a clawed hand 
  worked the latch. The metis pulled the window open tentatively. “Cousin?”
  “It’s me, Eric. Let me in!”
  “Yes. Yes, of course.” He drew back, giving her room to climb inside. “Careful 
  of the papers.”
  Ingrid pulled herself into the attic and settled onto her haunches, her shoulders 
  heaving. Eric shut the window and latched it quickly behind her.
  “I smell blood,” the metis said, kneeling by her side. “You’ve been injured.”
  “It’s nothing,” Ingrid panted. “Keep your voice down. What if Father hears 
  you?”
  Eric waved her concerns away. “I talk to myself all the time. No one notices 
  anymore.” He bent down next to her, peering at the wounds in her side. “This looks 
  bad. I wish I could do something for it, but Mother never taught me the healing arts.”
  The memory of Elizabeth Reinhardt slicing open Wyatt Stirling’s throat leapt to 
  Ingrid’s mind. She grimaced, pushing the vision from her mind. 
  “How did your mother die, Eric?” Ingrid asked.
  The metis grew still. “She fell. Down the attic stairs. Did you know?”
  “Yes,” Ingrid said. “But how did she fall?”
  Eric looked away. His hairless ears flattened against his skull. The metis drew 
  a deep, rattling breath. “Karl pushed her. They were arguing with one another.” His 
  massive hands trembled as he raised them to his head. “It was so loud. I hid in the 
  corner and covered my ears.”
  “What were they arguing about?” Ingrid asked. “Was it you?”
  Eric shook his head. “No. It was about Mother’s books. He said she’d tricked 
  him. Made Wyrmspawn of us all.” The metis smiled faintly. “He didn’t mean me, of 
  course. I didn’t count. But he was very angry at the thought that you might be tainted 
  as well.”
  With this glyph your father drove the vampires from Savannah in a single night. 
  Ingrid’s guts turned to lead. “Fruit from a poisoned tree,” she said faintly.
  
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  Chapter Fifteen: Truth and Consequences
  “Mother got up and slapped Karl across the face.” Eric grinned ruefully. “Ev-
  eryone in the house was afraid of him, except her. She called him a coward. She said 
  he was weak, just like the Stirlings. She made him so mad that he grabbed her by the 
  arms and threw her.” The metis stared across the cluttered apartment, in the direction 
  of the staircase. “Karl had left the attic door open when he burst in. It seemed like she 
  hung there forever, poised at the edge of the stairs, hands scrabbling for purchase. 
  And then she was gone.” 
  “What happened then?”
  “He tore the attic apart,” Eric replied. “At first I thought he was looking for 
  me, but he was really after the books. Mother’s books. Finally he found them and 
  stormed downstairs. By that point the staff had come up to see what was wrong and 
  found Mother’s body. There was a lot of screaming and yelling. No one was paying 
  any attention to me, so I shifted and went downstairs in the confusion. I watched Karl 
  throw Mother’s books into the fire.”
  Eric fell silent. The bones of the old house creaked and groaned, caught in the 
  grip of the storm. Tentatively, Ingrid laid a hand on her cousin’s humped shoulder.
  “Do you remember what you said to me, after you came to my room? That 
  something terrible was coming?”
  “Yes.”
  “You were right. And it’s nearly here.”
  “I know,” the metis said softly.
  Ingrid drew a deep breath. “I need your mother’s book, Eric. The big one, with 
  the glyphs. Can you get it for me?”
  The metis studied her, his expression unreadable. “What do you want it for?” 
  he asked.
  “There’s a page I need to see. That’s all.”
  “Oh.” The metis sounded almost disappointed. “All right.” He rose to his feet 
  and disappeared into the depths of the dark attic. Ingrid listened to him shuffle 
  through his books as she shifted back into human form.
  Eric returned quickly, holding the folio against his misshapen chest. “What is it 
  you’re looking for? A glyph, perhaps?”
  “No. One of your mother’s drawings. There’s one that looks like a maze. Do 
  you know it?”
  The metis smiled. He undid the cord binding the folio together and laid the book 
  open in front of Ingrid. With a single claw he lifted the corner of a page a third of 
  the way through the stack and gently turned them over. The profile of the young man 
  with the aristocratic features appeared. Ingrid’s skin crawled as she recognized Wy-
  att Stirling’s handsome face. All of the beauty, but none of the madness, she thought, 
  trying to conceal her revulsion. 
  If the metis noticed her reaction, he gave no sign. His claw lifted another few 
  pages, and there was the maze she’d seen earlier that day. She lifted the page gin-
  
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  136
  gerly from the stack, studying it carefully. There were dozens of tiny notes in the 
  margins and on the back of the page: descriptions, directions and measurements, plus 
  what appeared to be the words to a rite in a language she didn’t understand.
  At the center of the maze a circle had been drawn, covered in tiny glyphs. The 
  capstone, Ingrid reckoned. Did Elizabeth learn about the Wyrm-spirit from Wyatt, or 
  discover it through the glyphs? How deep does the corruption go?
  She looked up at Eric. “Do you know what this is?”
  The metis nodded. “Of course. It’s a map of the tunnels. Mother spent years 
  making it.” He tapped the disk drawn at the center. “She said the Uktena hid some-
  thing there, long, long ago.”
  “Something terrible,” Ingrid told him. “A powerful Wyrm-spirit that ravaged the 
  land and nearly destroyed the local septs, centuries ago. It’s been under our noses 
  this entire time.”
  Eric frowned. “How do you know this?”
  “It’s been an eventful night.” She leaned forward. “Listen. This circle, at the 
  center of the maze? I think that’s the capstone sealing the Wyrm-spirit’s prison. The 
  garou that killed Eleanor and the others is there. He’s been trying to find the glyphs 
  so he can set the spirit free.”
  “The glyphs?”
  Ingrid nodded. “The Wyrm-spirit made them. They were created to tempt and 
  corrupt the garou.”
  “Like the Stirlings.”
  “And us.”
  Ingrid stared up at Eric. The metis was silent for a long moment. She steeled 
  herself, unsure what to expect. Anger? Denial? Guilt?
  The metis crouched down and laid a massive hand on her shoulder. “You’re 
  not corrupt, Ingrid Stormwalker,” he said solemnly. “You’re the best garou I know.”
  All at once, there were tears in Ingrid’s eyes. She forced a laugh, wiping at her 
  cheeks. “Clearly you don’t get out enough.”
  “I’ve been saying that for some time.” The metis smiled. “Perhaps I can be of 
  service now.”
  “You can.” She offered him the page. “Tell me everything you know about the 
  map, and the writing on the back. We’re going after the garou that killed our people.”
  “We?”
  “Me and the ronin.” Ingrid gave Eric an apologetic look. “I need you to stay 
  here, cousin, in case something goes wrong down in the tunnels. Guard these glyphs 
  with your life. We cannot let the Wyrmspawn get their hands on them. Do you un-
  derstand?”
  The metis scowled fiercely, but after a moment’s thought, he relented. “I under-
  stand,” he said, taking the map from her hand. “We’ll need to get you a pencil and 
  some paper. You’re going to want to make notes.”
  
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  “Thank you,” Ingrid said. “For everything. I know this is hard for you, but 
  you’re the only one in the family I can trust.”
  “Truly?” Eric said, surprised.
  “Truly.”
  A slow smile crossed Eric’s face. He stared down at the folio, scratching under 
  his muzzle thoughtfully. “Then perhaps there’s something more I can do to help.”
  
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  Something big was burning off to the east, in the direction of the port and the 
  industrial parks at the edge of town. It tinged the horizon a blurry yellow, silhouett-
  ing the tops of the buildings downtown despite the shifting curtains of rain. There 
  had been other fires, other emergencies in the small hours of the morning; Ingrid had 
  stood watch at the apartment’s front window and listened to the sirens wail for hours. 
  The streets were silent now, but she knew better than to confuse quiet with calm. It 
  was more likely that the city’s emergency services already had more than they could 
  handle, and the system had broken down under the strain. The same could be said for 
  us, she thought, feeling more tired and hungry than she’d ever felt in her life. 
  A sudden, loud bang from downstairs made Ingrid jump. It was followed by 
  drunken laughter and human howls, echoing up the apartment building’s main stair-
  well.
  She turned to Catherine and Euryale. The Uktena was sitting on the couch in the 
  apartment’s small living room, studying Eric’s papers by candlelight. Euryale was 
  stretched out next to her, dozing, her labrys propped next to her head. Kevin was off 
  in one of the apartment’s bedrooms, recovering from his wounds.
  The Theurge gave Ingrid an apprehensive look. “That sounded like it was inside 
  the building,” she whispered.
  There was another crash downstairs, followed by jeers and more laughter.
  “They’re breaking into the apartments downstairs,” Euryale murmured. Her 
  eyes were still shut, but her expression was intent, as though she could hear things 
  that Ingrid and Catherine couldn’t. “Are we sure everyone in the building is gone?”
  Ingrid shrugged. “Pretty sure. The place has been quiet since I got here.”
  There was a muffled crash. Someone shouted in pain, followed by more laugh-
  ter. Then came the pounding of feet up the stairs.
  Euryale sighed irritably. “I’ll take care of it,” she said, swinging her legs off the 
  couch.
  “No,” Ingrid warned. “Leave them alone.”
  Chapter Sixteen:  
  Shadow of  
  Doubt
  
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  Chapter Sixteen: Shadow of Doubt
  The ronin waved away her concern. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt them. Just 
  give them a good scare.”
  “Hurt them?” Ingrid snorted. “If it were up to me, we’d still be culling humans, 
  like the good old days.” She sobered. “But we can’t risk causing a disturbance. Mar-
  cus and half the city’s garou could be close by.” The Shadow Lord turned, folding 
  her arms and facing the door. “If they get inside, we take care of them. Otherwise, 
  we keep quiet.”
  Euryale started to protest, then thought better of it. She settled back onto the sofa 
  with a grudging nod.
  Footsteps echoed down the second-floor hall. Ingrid heard voices, and then 
  something banged hard against the apartment door, causing them to jump. Kevin, 
  shifted into crinos form, appeared at the end of the bedroom hallway, fangs bared. 
  Ingrid stopped him with a raised hand and a curt shake of her head.
  The doorknob rattled. Euryale straightened, a hand going to her axe. The four 
  werewolves watched with trepidation as the knob began to turn.
  A small part of Ingrid’s mind reflected on the absurdity of the situation. For the 
  first time ever, she found herself grateful that there wasn’t a Galliard around to bear 
  witness.
  There was a shout from downstairs. The human on the other side of the door 
  gave the knob one last twist, and then the vandals were heading downstairs and back 
  into the storm. Their howls rose and fell with the wind as they went off in search of 
  easier pickings.
  The garou listened in silence as the cries faded to the west. Kevin glanced at 
  the others, his brow furrowed in consternation. “Did we just hide from a bunch of 
  humans? Did that actually just happen?”
  “No,” Euryale said in a low voice. “That is most emphatically not what just 
  occurred. And if anyone ever says otherwise, especially within earshot of a Galliard, 
  I will hunt them to the ends of the earth. Are we clear?”
  “Whatever,” Kevin said with a yawn. He turned and headed back down the hall 
  to his room. “Next person that wakes me up is dead. I don’t care who they are.”
  “I’m with you.” Euryale rose stiffly to her feet. To Ingrid, she said, “Wake me in 
  a few hours, all right? We’ll trade off.”
  “I’m not tired.”
  “I don’t care,” the ronin said. “Your body needs the downtime, even if you’re 
  too stubborn to admit it.”
  Ingrid sighed. Her hand went unconsciously to her ribs. Catherine had done 
  everything she could once Ingrid had made it back from Reinhardt House, but after 
  taking care of Kevin, the Theurge had little left to give. Her shoulder was mostly 
  healed, but the deep gashes down her side were still raw and aching. She gave a curt 
  nod and watched Euryale slip off down the hall to one of the empty rooms.
  Catherine had returned to her studies the moment the humans had withdrawn. 
  The Uktena’s face was troubled. Ingrid gave another surreptitious glance out the 
  
  The Poison Tree
  140
  front window, checking for signs of trouble, then went and sat stiffly on the sofa 
  beside her. “Do you think we can make it?” she asked.
  The Theurge grimaced. “I don’t know,” she said wearily. “Finding the capstone 
  chamber won’t be a problem. We know it’s underneath the caern, so we’ve already 
  narrowed down the physical location. And the notes on the back of the map tell us 
  how to circumvent the wards concealing the chamber entrance.”
  “But?”
  “The tunnels are going to be crawling with Wyrmspawn. I doubt we’ll get more 
  than a dozen yards before we’re spotted.” Catherine paused, rubbing at her tired 
  eyes. “I wish we hadn’t used up the baneskin talens attacking the paper plant, but 
  that’s water under the bridge now.”
  “We’d been told for years that was the Wyrm’s source of power in Savannah,” 
  Ingrid protested.
  Catherine raised a placating hand. “I know, I know. I’m not casting blame. It just 
  makes our task a lot harder now.”
  “That’s why Eric gave us this.” Ingrid leaned forward and tapped the yellowed 
  page marked with the sigil. “He said it was the most powerful abjuration glyph in the 
  book. It should repel even the strongest Wyrmspawn.”
  “Are you willing to bet your life on that?” Catherine gave the page a sidelong 
  glance and shook her head. “I don’t know what half of those symbols mean, Ingrid. 
  It’s beyond anything I’ve ever studied before. We’ve only got your cousin’s word to 
  go on here.”
  “You don’t trust him?”
  Catherine blinked. “Is that some kind of a joke? He’s Wyatt Stirling’s son.”
  “And I’m Karl Ironhand’s daughter,” Ingrid shot back. “We know he used at 
  least one of the glyphs when he took over the city, years ago. If the sins of the parent 
  are passed to the child, then I’m as corrupt as you believe Eric to be. But I saved your 
  life back at the paper mill, didn’t I?” She spread her hands. “So what does that make 
  me, Catherine? Where does it all end?”
  The Uktena shook her head. For a fleeting moment, her stoic demeanor slipped, 
  and Ingrid saw the strain in Catherine’s eyes.
  “I don’t know,” the Theurge said in a hollow voice. “I’m just twenty-two, In-
  grid. I don’t know anything. Ever since the Great River Spirit came to me, nothing’s 
  made sense.”
  The fear and uncertainty in Catherine’s voice struck a chord with Ingrid. “What 
  did the elders say?” she asked, as gently as she knew how.
  The Theurge gave a half-hearted laugh. Tears glistened at the corners of her 
  eyes. “They didn’t believe me. I was too young. They said I’d been in the sweat 
  lodge too long, and saw only what I wanted to see.”
  “But you knew better.”
  “Oh, goddess, no. I didn’t know what to think.” She wiped her cheeks and drew 
  a shuddering breath. “But I couldn’t take the chance. I was a garou. I had a sacred 
  
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  duty.” She managed another laugh. “The Galliards make it sound so noble at the 
  moots. When I say it, it sounds ridiculous.”
  “So you decided to come here on your own.”
  “Didn’t know what else to do.” Catherine sighed. “I’d never been farther than 
  Tulsa my whole life. Thank Gaia I crossed paths with Euryale and Kevin, or I prob-
  ably never would have made it.” The Theurge gave Ingrid a rueful smile. “So here 
  I am. A thousand miles from home, in the middle of a hurricane, with a terrible 
  Wyrm-spirit about to break its shackles and walk the Earth. If you’re looking for 
  wisdom, Ingrid Stormwalker, you’re talking to the wrong person.”
  Ingrid put her arms around Catherine and hugged the startled Theurge tight.
  “You’re not ridiculous,” Ingrid told her. “You’re tight-lipped and mistrustful, 
  and infuriatingly enigmatic, but you’re also honorable and brave.”
  “Thank you. You’re…not ridiculous, either.”
  Ingrid grinned. “That’s all?”
  Catherine thought it over. “Well…you’re hot-headed and arrogant. You bite first 
  and ask questions later –”
  “You know, let’s just stop while we’re ahead –” 
  “No. Let me finish. You’re also judgmental and overbearing, when you’re not 
  crippled by self-doubt. In fact, you’re your own worst enemy.” Catherine pulled 
  away and stared up at her. “But you’ve got the heart of a hero. Even Euryale says so, 
  and she doesn’t think much of anyone.”
  “Then there’s got to be more to us than just our blood and our tribe,” Ingrid said. 
  “Maybe it’s in spite of those things. It’s the choices we make, regardless of every-
  thing else, that makes us who we are.”
  “Like your father.”
  “You saw and heard the same things I did, back at Stirling House. I still believe 
  he thought he was acting in the best interests of the caern.”
  Catherine shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. Assuming we survive the 
  next twelve hours, you’re going to have to make some hard choices about the future 
  of Savannah – and Karl Ironhand.”
  Ingrid turned away. “I know,” she said softly. “That’s why I need you to do 
  something for me.”
  • • •
  Savannah is burning. Her kin are dead, and she is at the bottom of a pit, drown-
  ing in darkness.
  The four wolves watch and wait at the edge of the pit, teeth gleaming in the fire-
  light. She calls to them for help, and their smiles only widen. They start to change as 
  she sinks deeper, their bodies shifting bonelessly, like oily, black tar.
  Her aunt Elizabeth is first. She is naked and achingly beautiful, her dark hair 
  unbound and her skin luminous as moonlight. When she speaks, her voice bubbles 
  up from cancer-ridden lungs.
  
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  142
  “Time to get our stories straight,” she says, perfect lips drawing back to reveal 
  oil-slicked teeth.
  “It’s the apocalypse,” Marcus Shadow-Dancer adds. The usurper leers at her, 
  his eyes fever-bright. “Adapt, or die.”
  Her father crouches next to Marcus, his expression cold and calculating. He is 
  youthful and strong, but his muscular body is marked with livid scars. 
  “You can be persuaded,” Karl insists. “You can be a good and faithful servant, 
  once you’ve seen the truth.”
  The fourth garou crouches at the edge of the pit like a gargoyle. He beams down 
  at her, his expression kindly.
  “I can teach you,” Eric says. “Mother whispered secrets to me in my cradle. 
  Did you know?”
  Her strength has failed her. The poison has reached her heart, clenching it tight. 
  Helpless, she feels her body shift, giving up her war form.
  It is the end. She relents, giving herself up to the abyss. Death will follow swiftly, 
  she hopes. Her soul can take no more.
  The darkness rushes in. Slender arms reach from behind her, closing in a lover’s 
  embrace. Warm lips brush softly against her ear. A hand cups her breast.
  “There is no denying the inevitable,” Wyatt Stirling whispers.
  • • •
  “Hey! Hey! Wake up!”
  Ingrid woke in darkness. Strong hands gripped her shoulders. A figure loomed 
  above her, barely visible in the gloom. 
  She snarled like a trapped animal, thrashing and kicking in blind terror. The 
  figure bore down harder, pressing her into the bare mattress. Instinctively, she drew 
  back one leg and planted her foot hard against her assailant’s chest, shoving the 
  figure away.
  Donnerkeil blazed in her hand, filling the bedroom with angry light. She lurched 
  from the bed, still drunk with sleep, rebounding from the wall and lunging after the 
  prone form just a few feet away.
  It was Kevin. The glow of the blade illuminated the ronin’s shocked face as she 
  stabbed for his heart.
  Both of them shouted at once. Ingrid tried to pull the blow, and Kevin rolled, 
  striking at her wrist. The two efforts combined to save the garou’s life, burying the 
  point of the klaive in the bedroom floor and leaving a smoking cut across Kevin’s 
  chest.
  “What the hell?” Kevin shouted.
  Ingrid recoiled in horror, the klaive falling from her hand. “I’m sorry,” she 
  gasped. The darkness of the dream still clung to her like tar. She fought the urge to 
  be violently ill.
  “I tried to knock –”
  
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  “It was a dream,” Ingrid blurted, pressing a trembling hand to her face. She 
  wasn’t sure if she was trying to reassure Kevin, or herself. “A terrible dream.”
  Suddenly, Euryale was standing in the doorway, axe in hand. “What in the actual 
  fuck?” she growled.
  Kevin grimaced and rose to his feet. “I woke Ingrid up and she tried to kill me,” 
  he said matter-of-factly.
  “I didn’t mean to,” Ingrid protested.
  “Like hell you didn’t,” the ronin said, but then he gave a rueful grin. “Don’t 
  worry about it. No harm done. Not much anyway.”
  Euryale scowled at Ingrid. “Are you all right?”
  “Fine,” Ingrid said, though she felt anything but. “I’m fine.” She took a deep 
  breath, steadying herself. “What time is it?”
  “Almost six.”
  “Blessed goddess,” Ingrid groaned. “You let me sleep for twelve hours?”
  “You and Catherine needed the rest. Though if I’d known you’d go on a murder 
  spree when you woke up, I might have changed my mind.”
  “How bad is it outside?”
  Euryale shrugged. “There’s seven kinds of hell blowing outside. The hurricane’s 
  made landfall, or close to it.”
  Ingrid cursed under her breath. After everything she’d seen over the last twen-
  ty-four hours, it felt like the storm was anything but an act of nature. If it had been 
  summoned as part of the plan to free Abbazû, then the final act was nearly at hand.
  She bent and retrieved Donnerkiel. A strange sense of foreboding came over her 
  as her hand closed about the antler hilt.
  Just a dream, she told herself. It was just a dream. “Come on,” she said tersely, 
  trying to drive the darkness from her mind.
  Catherine was waiting for them in the living room. The map and the glyph had been 
  tucked away in her bag, and she seemed to be meditating in the flickering glow of candle-
  light. The Uktena took a deep breath and opened her eyes as Ingrid and the ronin appeared.
  The Shadow Lord gave her a pointed look. “Ready?”
  Catherine nodded gravely. “All set.”
  Ingrid drew a deep breath. The die was cast. She turned to her companions. 
  No. Not companions, Ingrid corrected herself. Packmates.
  “Let’s get this done,” she said without preamble. “There’s an entrance to the 
  tunnels in the basement of an abandoned market, about a block from the caern. Cath-
  erine thinks she’s got the location pinpointed on the map. That’ll cut the amount of 
  time we’re in the tunnels to a bare minimum.
  “We’ll shift to hispo and make our way there under cover of the storm. If we 
  run into humans or taints along the way, we’ll do our best to slip past them. We can’t 
  afford to get bogged down in a hundred little battles between here and the capstone 
  chamber. Understood?”
  
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  144
  Catherine and Euryale nodded. Kevin made a sour face, but followed suit.
  “Anything to add, Euryale?”
  The ronin gave Ingrid a wry grin. “If we make it back from this, you’re going 
  to owe us all a drink.”
  Kevin snorted. “A drink? Oh, no. All the drinks. It’s the least she can do after 
  she just tried to kill me.”
  Catherine looked from Ingrid to Kevin, and back again. “She tried to kill you?”
  Ingrid rolled her eyes. “Gaia deliver me from smartasses in wolf’s clothing,” she 
  said. “Just follow me.”
  • • •
  There had been no one to board up the abandoned store on Abercorn Street, and 
  it had suffered under the wrath of the storm. The storefront’s plate glass windows had 
  been shattered, and the aisles filled with pools of dirty water and debris.
  The shop’s old, wooden door was ajar. Ingrid pushed it open with her nose and 
  padded warily inside. Water ran in streams from her thick coat, leaving puddles on 
  the tile floor. Lightning flashed, throwing stark shadows across the mud-smeared 
  linoleum. The thunder, when it came, was all but lost in the constant rumble of the 
  wind.
  The hurricane was at the peak of its fury now. Savannah had been plunged 
  into darkness, its streets transformed to churning rivers and its buildings shrouded 
  in curtains of stinging rain. The raging storm had brought the Wyrmspawn out in 
  force. Dozens of fomori were roaming the district, testing the limits of its wards 
  and leaving a trail of destruction and defilement in their wake. There were so many 
  that Ingrid feared that she and her pack would be discovered at any moment, but the 
  storm that gave the enemy so much freedom had concealed their movements as well. 
  Despite a number of close calls, the garou had reached the entrance to the tunnels 
  undetected.
  The sight of so many taints had filled Ingrid with a growing sense of rage and 
  dismay. Everything I’ve done for this city has been a joke, she thought. So many 
  years, so many hunts, and we weren’t even scratching the surface. The darkness from 
  her dreams welled up again, threatening to overwhelm her. 
  Maybe that’s because Father and I have been doing Abbazû’s work all along?
  Euryale crept into the store on Ingrid’s heels, followed by Catherine. Kevin 
  bounded over the jagged sill of one of the store’s window frames, landing amid a 
  sparkling sea of broken glass. Still in hispo form, he shook himself like a dog, spray-
  ing the walls – and his companions – with a shower of water and mud.
  The filthy rain shook Ingrid from her reverie. “Payback’s a bitch, bog-hound,” 
  she growled, giving him a sidelong glare – just as a trio of fomori emerged from the 
  storeroom at the back of the shop.
  Euryale snarled a warning, but Ingrid was already in motion, leaping at the 
  first of the taints to come through the doorway. Doubt and despair vanished as she 
  crashed into the fomor as her powerful jaws closed about the spongy skin of his 
  
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  Chapter Sixteen: Shadow of Doubt
  throat. The Wyrmspawn let out a choking cry as he fell, the sound vibrating through 
  Ingrid’s teeth. She bit down hard, tearing flesh and crushing vertebrae as the fomor 
  clawed at her sides. Foul blood filled her mouth, but she reveled in it, letting her 
  doubts dissolve in a flare of pure, murderous rage. She shook the taint savagely in 
  her teeth, sending his head bouncing across the floor.
  The other two fomori had been knocked sideways by Ingrid’s charge, but were 
  already spitting curses and surging back onto their feet. Euryale reached one in two, 
  long strides, shifting to crinos form between one step and the next. Her labrys fell, 
  splitting the Wyrmspawn in two. A half-second later Kevin was on the third fomor, 
  crushing the taint’s skull in his jaws.
  The fomori had died in moments, the sounds of battle lost amid the rumble of 
  the storm. Ingrid’s relief was short-lived, however, as she caught a flicker of move-
  ment in the storeroom beyond. The Shadow Lord bounded to the doorway, shifting 
  to her war form and summoning Donnerkeil to her hand.
  It was too late. From halfway across the darkened storeroom Ingrid saw a fourth 
  taint dropping through the hole into the tunnels below, shouting a warning at the top 
  of his lungs.
  
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  146
  The fomor’s frantic shouts echoed from the tunnel below. Ingrid bit back a sav-
  age curse. Catherine didn’t think we’d get more than a dozen yards. Turns out she 
  was being optimistic.
  Euryale joined Ingrid at the doorway. “So much for stealth,” she growled. 
  “What now?”
  The Shadow Lord bared her teeth. “We’ve still got surprise on our side,” she 
  said. “We move fast and kill anything that gets in our way. If we’re lucky, we can 
  reach the capstone chamber before the Wyrmspawn can organize a defense.”
  “And then?”
  “We kill Carstairs any way we can and put an end to this,” Ingrid said darkly. 
  “The rest is in the hands of the goddess.” She glanced back at Catherine. “Have you 
  got the glyph ready?”
  The Theurge had shifted to glabro and was peering closely at Elizabeth’s map. 
  “I can get to it if we really need it,” she said, not looking up from the yellowed page.
  “You don’t think it might be useful right fucking now?” Ingrid asked.
  Catherine looked up from the map. “When things are desperate enough that I’m 
  compelled to risk my soul to use a Wyrm-tained glyph, you’ll be the first to know.”
  Ingrid scowled at the Theurge. “Fine. Everyone stay close. Euryale, you’re 
  with me. Catherine in the middle, and Kevin, you cover her and bring up the rear. 
  Let’s go!” Without waiting for a reply, she dashed across the storeroom and dropped 
  through the tunnel entrance.
  She landed with a splash of slimy, gray water. Runoff from above was seeping 
  through the packed earth walls of the chamber and saturating the tunnel floor. The 
  air was dank and thick with the stench of decaying flesh. Ingrid’s lip curled as she 
  saw the bloated bodies of the two fomori she’d killed just two nights before, left by 
  the Wyrmspawn to rot where they’d fallen. The warning cries of the fomor could still 
  be heard over the steady trickle of rainwater, echoing from the tunnel to the north.
  Chapter Seventeen:  
  Walking in 
  Dark Places
  
  147
  Chapter Seventeen: Walking in Dark Places
  Euryale was right on Ingrid’s heels, dropping down into the water at the Shadow 
  Lord’s side. Catherine and Kevin followed mere moments later. Kevin sniffed the 
  fetid air, grimaced, and spat against the near wall.
  “Catherine?” Ingrid prompted.
  The Uktena pointed to a passageway on their left. “That way.”
  Ingrid broke into a run, shoulders hunched and klaive held low. Euryale fell in 
  at her right shoulder, the ronin’s axe glimmering coldly in the gloom. Clawed feet 
  slapped at the wet earth as they raced down the winding tunnel, their senses straining 
  to penetrate the darkness up ahead.
  She could hear more shouts now – cries of alarm and angry, gibbering oaths – 
  but the nature of the tunnels made it hard to tell if they were coming from ahead of 
  the garou or behind them. Or both, Ingrid thought grimly.
  They followed the tunnel for nearly a dozen yards, and then came to a branching 
  passageway on their right. Ingrid slowed, glancing back at Catherine. The Theurge 
  came to a stop, frowning down at the map.
  “Bright goddess, do not tell me you’re lost already,” Ingrid snapped.
  “This isn’t on the map! It’s been at least twenty years. There’s no telling how 
  much has changed since then.”
  “Catherine – ”
  “Just keep going! There will be a passage to your left a few more yards further 
  on.”
  Ingrid choked back her misgivings and pressed on, watching for the side-pas-
  sage Catherine described. If the Theurge was wrong, and they lost their bearings, it 
  would only be a matter of time before the Wyrmspawn surrounded them.
  There! The side-passage was just ahead, right where Catherine said it would be. 
  Ingrid picked up the pace. The shouts of alarm had given way to bloodthirsty howls 
  and frenzied hunting cries that grew louder and closer with every passing moment.
  A group of fomori burst from the side passage right into Ingrid’s path. Wyrm-
  spawn and garou crashed together, but the werewolves’ size and rage-fueled speed 
  gave them the advantage. Ingrid smashed one of the taints against the muddy wall 
  with her shoulder and spilled his guts with a sweep of her klaive. There was a look of 
  triumph in the Wyrmspawn’s eyes as he died. Ingrid knew that the bane possessing 
  the man’s body would broadcast their location to every Wyrm-spirit it could reach.
  Teeth sank into Ingrid’s left arm. She turned on the second taint with a snarl, 
  chopping Donnerkeil into the fomor’s chest and shaking the corpse loose with a 
  violent shrug. Close behind her, metal rang against bone as Euryale chopped into 
  another taint’s skull. Ingrid pressed on, charging down the side-passage and trusting 
  the others to follow.
  They were heading in the direction of the caern now; Ingrid could sense the 
  change in Gauntlet with every step she took. She stole a quick glance over her shoul-
  der and saw that Catherine and the ronin were still with her. Euryale was a vision of 
  terror, her silver axe and her black pelt spattered with gore.
  
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  “What now?” Ingrid called out.
  “Right fork, ten yards ahead!”
  The sounds of pursuit were louder and more focused now. The Wyrmspawn 
  were on their trail. Ingrid raced for the next turning point. A trio of fomori appeared 
  out of the gloom, running directly for them. Ingrid howled in fury and hit them like 
  a runaway train. She shoulder-checked one of the taints, pulping flesh and crushing 
  bone, and then spitted another on the point of her klaive. The third fomor reeled 
  away, gibbering in terror, and ran back the way he came. Ingrid shook the dead taint 
  from her blade without breaking stride and ran on.
  The passage forked a few seconds later. The panicked fomor ran left, and Ingrid 
  led the garou to the right. The tunnel ran for another five yards, then curved gradually 
  to the left. A fitful greenish-yellow glow suffused the passageway up ahead, seeping 
  from a widening seam that ran at knee-height along the right wall.
  Ingrid followed the curving passage for another few yards – and came up short 
  in front of a grimy, crumbling foundation wall. “It’s a dead end!” she shouted.
  “We go down from here,” Catherine explained, pointing to the glowing seam.
  Ingrid knelt beside the fissure. It was wide enough now for a glabro to wriggle 
  into, and sank crookedly out of sight. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
  “You wanted the shortest, most direct route,” Catherine said. “We could have 
  taken another approach, way up by the river, but we’d have had to fight all the way 
  across the district to get here.”
  “Are we arguing, or climbing?” Euryale asked pointedly.
  Ingrid gritted her teeth and shifted forms. If there were something waiting for 
  them at the bottom of the fissure, they wouldn’t know it until it was far too late. 
  “How far?”
  “All the way to the bottom. Fifty or sixty feet.”
  “What’s the glow coming from?”
  “The map doesn’t say.”
  Of course not, Ingrid thought sourly. She eased herself feet-first into the fissure 
  and started to work her way down. The others clambered quickly after her, as the 
  sound of fomori hunting parties drew steadily closer.
  The jagged nature of the fissure provided ample handholds and no danger of a 
  long drop to the bottom. Ingrid made her way down quickly, alert for signs of danger 
  below.
  After forty feet, Ingrid ran out of footholds. The fissure ended above a chamber 
  of some kind. She peered into the pulsing glow at her feet, but couldn’t see how far 
  she was from the floor. 
  There wasn’t any time to dither; Euryale was just above her, coming down fast. 
  Ingrid took a deep breath and let go.
  She dropped almost fifteen feet, landing hard on damp limestone worn flat and 
  smooth by the passage of countless feet. Ingrid found herself in a cavern some twen-
  ty feet across, lit by patches of phosphorescent mold that covered the walls and ceil-
  
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  ing. There was a strange tension in the air, a sense of wrongness that knotted Ingrid’s 
  guts and set her teeth on edge.
  A shower of loose dirt and bits of rock rained down around Ingrid. She stepped 
  aside just in time, as first Euryale and then Catherine landed where she’d been stand-
  ing. Kevin followed moments later. His head and shoulders were spattered with gore. 
  “They’re right behind us,” he warned, glancing up at the fissure as though he expect-
  ed fomori to start dropping through at any moment.
  Just then, a terrible, discordant howl reverberated down a tunnel that stretched 
  off to their right. The sound sent a chill down Ingrid’s spine as she shifted back to 
  crinos form. The others quickly followed suit. “That’s a garou,” she said.
  Euryale stared off in the direction of the sound. “No, it’s not,” she said darkly. 
  “Not any more.”
  A Black Spiral Dancer, Ingrid realized, feeling a sudden sense of dread. All at 
  once the odds arrayed against them seemed overwhelming, the prospect of death 
  very real.
  Euryale caught the look in Ingrid’s eye. “We’ve got to be close now,” the ronin 
  said. “Catherine, which way?”
  The Theurge pointed to a tunnel opening on the far side of the cavern. “That 
  way. Ten yards, then turn right.”
  More dirt showered down from the fissure. Discordant howls echoed through 
  the gloom. Ingrid resolved herself to her fate and broke into a run.
  The sense of wrongness grew worse as the garou crossed the cavern and entered 
  the passageway. It built like a psychic pressure behind Ingrid’s eyes, making it dif-
  ficult to concentrate. Abbazû was straining at his bonds, trying to force his way into 
  the physical world. A sense of unreality threatened to overwhelm her, causing her to 
  nearly miss the turn. At the last moment she caught herself and headed right, deeper 
  into the storm.
  The passage wound this way and that, twisting like a worm’s track through the 
  soft stone. Suddenly, Catherine shouted for them to stop.
  Ingrid lurched to a halt. “What’s wrong?”
  “Nothing.” The Theurge faced the tunnel wall to her right. “This is it. We’ve 
  reached the entrance to the antechamber.”
  Wild howls rang down the passageway, rising swiftly to a fever pitch. The 
  Wyrmspawn were close enough now that Ingrid could hear the pounding of their 
  feet along the stone. 
  “Your mind’s playing tricks on you!” she shouted over the din. “There’s nothing 
  there!”
  Catherine shook her head stubbornly. “The way ahead is hidden,” she said, 
  handing the map to Kevin. She closed her eyes and after a moment, began to chant.
  The enemy was almost upon them. Euryale went to join Kevin, blocking the 
  path back the way they’d come.
  
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  150
  Catherine raised her hands. She spoke a single word – to Ingrid, it sounded like 
  a name – and clapped her hands together. A section of the tunnel wall right in front of 
  the Theurge simply vanished, roiling away like smoke. Beyond was a narrow tunnel, 
  glowing with baleful light. The Theurge opened her eyes, and recoiled at what she 
  saw.
  Once, long ago, the tunnel had been carved from the limestone by human hands. 
  But the malign force of the Wyrm-spirit had corrupted it, transforming the stone into 
  something gelid and faintly translucent. Black veins ran along the walls and ceiling 
  like tangled roots, pulsing with unnatural life. A foul stench, like mortifying flesh, 
  gusted from the opening and struck the garou full in the face. 
  “Merciful goddess!” Catherine choked, covering her face with the back of one 
  hand.
  The first of the Wyrmspawn came charging around the bend. Euryale knocked 
  the fomor off his feet with an upward sweep of her labrys. “We’re out of time!” she 
  shouted.
  Ingrid tightened her grip on Donnerkeil and charged down the tunnel, howling 
  a challenge as she went.
  The floor of the tunnel was slick and yielding, like rotting flesh. Her broad 
  shoulders brushed against the walls, and she could feel the life surging in the black 
  veins as she went past. The animal part of her brain rebelled at the sheer, unnatural 
  spectacle, urging her to escape before she was corrupted as well. Instead, she sur-
  rendered herself to her rage, letting it drive her onward, right into her enemy’s heart.
  The tunnel sloped gently downward. After little more than ten yards it opened 
  onto a wide, vaulted cavern. The antechamber, Ingrid thought. Here the servants 
  of the Wyrm had gathered in secret to worship at the threshold of Abbazû’s pris-
  on, waiting upon the day of his release. Between their efforts and the foul energies 
  leaking past the ancient wards, the cavern had been transformed into a blasphemous 
  shrine to the Corrupter itself.
  A vast spiral had been etched onto the cavern floor, shining darkly against the 
  gelid surface like a tattoo on a drowned man’s skin. Hundreds of human corpses, 
  some decades old, were scattered around the cavern, contorted in poses of suffering 
  and death. Their rotting flesh sagged from their bones and merged with the surface 
  of the floor. Still other victims had been forced to hold metal basins filled with bale-
  fire and made to kneel at different points along the spiral until the poisonous flames 
  killed them and the heat mummified their bodies. Their leathery faces were elon-
  gated masks of agony, lit from below by the unnatural light of the lamps they bore.
  We’re right under the caern, Ingrid thought. This was going on right under our 
  feet the entire time. Torn between rage and revulsion, she stalked across the cavern, 
  searching for the entrance to the capstone chamber.
  She was halfway across the cavern when she heard the sound. It was the crackle 
  of old gristle and the wet slither of rotting skin. One of the corpses off to her left was 
  moving, bones shifting beneath putrescent flesh. As she watched, the body seemed 
  to slough off its grey skin like a caul, exposing a monstrous shape made of spasming 
  muscle and dagger-like bone.
  
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  A skrag! Ingrid’s hackles rose. Such was the Wyrm’s power here that its minions 
  could take shape in the physical world. The ghastly sounds of transformation filled 
  the cavern around her as the skrag’s packmates found dead flesh to use for their own. 
  She would be surrounded in seconds. Ingrid whirled, looking everywhere for a pas-
  sageway that might lead to the capstone chamber, but it was nowhere to be found.
  The first warrior-bane let out a whistling screech and charged at her, scuttling 
  across the cavern like a spider on six blade-like legs. Snarling, Ingrid leapt to meet 
  it, slashing at the Wyrmspawn’s skull with her blade. The skrag dodged the blow and 
  stabbed at her with its forelegs. Ingrid twisted out of the path of one leg and slashed 
  with her klaive at the other. There was a spark of pure, angry light as the blow con-
  nected and Donnerkeil severed the limb with a sharp crack, and the skrag shrieked 
  in fury.
  Searing pain flared across Ingrid’s back. A second warrior-bane had entered the 
  fray, dashing up behind her and slashing with its legs. The Shadow Lord spun, trying 
  to keep both foes in sight. Still more were closing in from different directions: a 
  dozen, she guessed, perhaps more.
  The skrag with the severed limb tried to take advantage of her distraction and 
  lunged again. Ingrid saw the attack coming and sidestepped the enemy’s lunge. A 
  backhand sweep of her blade shattered the monster’s skull. As the skrag’s body col-
  lapsed into a pile of greasy bone and rotting sinew, the Shadow Lord rounded on her 
  second attacker, determined to bring it down before she was overwhelmed.
  But the warrior-bane had retreated out of reach, hissing angrily and slashing at 
  the air with its forelegs. The other skrags were holding back as well, snarling and 
  snapping at her, or scuttling from side to side in frustration. They glared at Ingrid 
  with helpless, thwarted rage.
  No. Not me, Ingrid realized. She glanced over her shoulder, back the way she’d 
  come.
  Catherine stood at the mouth of the tunnel, her face a mask of grim determi-
  nation. She brandished Eric’s glyph at the skrags. Behind her, Euryale and Kevin 
  fought to hold a mob of fomori at bay inside the tunnel.
  “Go, Stormwalker!” she commanded, her voice tight with strain. “We’re right 
  behind you!”
  “Where?” Ingrid spun about, searching the cavern walls once more.
  “There!” Catherine pointed with her left hand at a spot on the far wall opposite 
  the tunnel entrance. “The path is hidden, like before. Just run through it!”
  Ingrid hesitated. The wall looked just as solid as the floor she was standing on. 
  The same floor that’s slowly eating all these corpses.
  The sounds of fighting at her back were growing louder and more desperate by 
  the moment. Gritting her teeth, Ingrid dug in her heels and ran at the wall. The skrags 
  gave way before her, screeching furiously. As the gelid surface loomed before her, 
  Ingrid shut her eyes and tried to focus on the wall turning to smoke before her.
  • • •
  
  The Poison Tree
  152
  The jarring impact Ingrid feared never came. Instead, the sounds of battle were 
  suddenly muffled, and she could sense the weight of unseen walls pressing close to 
  either side. Her sense of relief lasted barely a heartbeat before her foot came down 
  on empty air, and she was falling.
  The shock barely had time to register before she hit hard, unyielding stone. 
  Ingrid rolled, tumbling down a short set of steps that ended at a circular cavern floor.
  She found herself in a rough-hewn chamber barely twenty feet across, lit by 
  four hissing braziers of flickering balefire. The floor beneath Ingrid’s feet was cool, 
  reassuring stone, as were the cavern’s walls and ceiling. An ancient mural had been 
  painted on the curving surface, depicting a great battle between garou and Wyrm-
  spawn. The pigments had faded over the centuries, but the figures and the story they 
  told were still powerful. Huge wolves fought with misshapen creatures under the 
  light of a great moon. Shadows etched in charcoal merged with the real shadows 
  of the chamber, and the flickering light of the balefire lent the fading shapes a sem-
  blance of life. Across the centuries, the great battle still raged.
  In the center of the room, inset into the cavern floor, was a wide, circular stone 
  of polished basalt. Dozens of complex glyphs had been carefully inscribed into its 
  surface in a series of nested circles. Seeing them, Ingrid suddenly recalled the sym-
  bol etched into the surface of Eleanor’s table. It wasn’t a spiral at all. Carstairs was 
  referring to the capstone.
  “The Dweller told me you’d come.”
  Carstairs’ voice rasped from the shadows at the far side of the chamber. A mound 
  of rags and soiled cushions had been piled there; the sort of nest a desperate, wound-
  ed animal might make. The Fianna sat with his back propped against the cavern wall. 
  Above him, the climactic battle between Shadow Chaser and Walks-with-Ghosts 
  raged, the Uktena elder’s spear poised to strike the possessed garou’s heart.
  The Fianna leaned forward. He was in human form, and there was no mistaking 
  the Stirling bloodline. Carstairs had the same delicate, boyish features and slender 
  build, but the light of the balefires emphasized the hollowness of his cheeks and the 
  fevered look in his green eyes. He wore ragged jeans and a grimy t-shirt that was 
  tacky with old blood. The faint smell of infection hung in the dank air.
  “I didn’t believe it at first.” Carstairs pressed a bloodstained hand to his side. 
  “Perhaps I didn’t want to believe. But now the Dweller says you’ve seen the truth. 
  Is that so?”
  Ingrid rose slowly to her feet. “I’ve got no idea what the truth is anymore,” she 
  growled. “The only thing I know for certain is that you killed my kin.”
  Carstairs frowned. “You haven’t brought the keys? You haven’t come to atone?”
  The Shadow Lord bared her teeth. “I’m here to cut your goddamned heart out.”
  “Oh?” Carstairs’ lips twitched in a death’s head grin. “Praise the Destroyer. 
  That’s going to simplify things.”
  The Fianna’s green eyes flicked upwards. Ingrid spat a curse and started to turn, 
  but the Black Spiral Dancers were already upon her.
  
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  The two Wyrmspawn had been clinging to the walls of the cavern like bats, just 
  above the entrance to the chamber. At Carstairs’ signal they leapt on Ingrid, seizing 
  her arms and forcing her to her knees. They were tall and impossibly gaunt, even in 
  crinos form, with hollow bellies and mottled gray skin stretched tight at shoulder and 
  hip. What little fur they had was matted and filthy, and their exposed skin was livid 
  with scabs and open sores. Their eyes, milky with cataracts, reflected the baleful 
  light of the cavern. Ingrid struggled furiously, bellowing with rage, but for all their 
  cadaverous appearance, the tainted garou were fearsomely strong.
  Carstairs rose from his bed of rags. Joints popped and skin stretched as he began 
  to shift, taking on his war form.
  “The last thing I want is for you to see the error of your ways,” he said. “To 
  realize, at this late hour, how alike we truly are. To come crawling here on your belly 
  and beg for the Dweller’s favor. No. I won’t have it.” He stalked towards her, across 
  the dark surface of the capstone. “I dreamt of you for years. Dreamt of all the ways 
  I’d make you suffer.” 
  Carstairs seized her by the jaw, lifting her head so that their eyes met. “After 
  everything you’ve taken from me, I have a right to your pain.” He gave her another 
  twitch of a smile and raised a filthy talon to her left eye.
  The cavern rang with a furious howl. The Black Spiral Dancers started in sur-
  prise at Euryale’s battlecry. Carstairs glanced up, snarling at the ronin’s sudden ap-
  pearance – and Ingrid made her move. She surrendered herself to her rage, forcing 
  her body to shift from crinos to lupus in the blink of an eye. 
  The sudden change in size and mass caught the Black Spiral Dancers off-guard. 
  They fell against one another, snarling in surprise. Ingrid twisted in their grasp; with 
  a snap of her jaws she bit an ear off one of the Wyrmspawn and clawed herself free.
  The sight of the Shadow Lord breaking free brought Carstairs out of his shock. 
  He leapt at her with a maddened snarl and a slash of his claws. Ingrid made no effort 
  to dodge the blow; instead, she focused her anger and shifted once again, swelling in 
  size from lupus to hispo and lunging for the Fianna’s throat.
  The two werewolves crashed together and fell, thrashing, to the cavern floor. 
  Claws raked at Ingrid’s side, but her teeth found their mark. She bit down hard, 
  twisting and tearing with her powerful jaws. They rolled across the stone, Carstairs 
  spitting desperate curses in her ear. The back of her head cracked against the cavern 
  floor, blotting out her vision in a white flare of pain.
  Flesh parted under her teeth. Hot blood poured into Ingrid’s mouth. Carstairs 
  tore at her in desperation, his claws flaying her to the bone, but the Shadow Lord was 
  implacable. Consumed with rage, she twisted her powerful body beneath the Fianna 
  and forced him onto his back. He reached for her with bloodied hands, trying to get 
  hold of her neck, but it was too late. Planting her wide paws against his chest, Ingrid 
  threw back her head and tore out Carstairs’ throat.
  The Fianna thrashed in his death throes, blood pouring from the ragged wound 
  and pooling beneath him. As he died his body shifted one last time, returning to its 
  natural state. 
  
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  154
  Ingrid stared down into Carstairs’ eyes and gave him a red-toothed smile. “This 
  is all you deserve from me and mine,” she growled. “Nothing more. And nothing 
  less.”
  Richard Carstairs’ last breath hissed from his ruined throat. It’s done, Ingrid 
  thought. The caern is safe, and my kin avenged. If I die in the next few minutes, at 
  least I’ll go into the next life with my honor intact.
  Her triumph was short-lived, however. All at once, the cavern shook, and the 
  stone beneath Ingrid gave a bitter, hollow crack. She glanced down. Her eyes wid-
  ened as she realized that Carstairs’ body lay atop the ancient capstone. Just in time, 
  the Shadow Lord leapt clear as the basalt shattered, dropping with the Fianna’s body 
  into the darkness below.
  Ingrid turned. The Black Spiral Dancers lay dead, brought down by Kevin and 
  Euryale. Catherine stood just inside the cavern, a look of shock and dismay upon 
  her face.
  “What just happened?” Ingrid said.
  The Theurge shook her head. “I don’t know!”
  A gust of air rushed through the hole in the cavern floor, like bad air from the 
  depths of an ancient crypt. The temperature in the chamber plunged.
  Euryale shook her head. “Something’s wrong,” she growled. “Bad wrong. 
  We’ve got to get out of here.”
  There was movement at the cavern entrance. A Black Spiral Dancer appeared, 
  creeping down the steps toward Catherine. A jagged blade of oily, dark metal was 
  clenched in his clawed hand. Three more of the tainted garou slinked like hyenas 
  from the tunnel at his back.
  “Catherine!” Ingrid rushed forward, shifting quickly into crinos form.
  The Uktena whirled, raising Eric’s glyph. The Black Spiral Dancers froze.
  “Stay behind me!” Catherine shouted to Ingrid and the ronin. She took a step 
  towards the Wyrmspawn. “I can drive them back – ”
  Grinning cruelly, the first Black Spiral Dancer stepped forward to meet her. Gib-
  bering laughter filled the cavern as he drove his jagged blade into Catherine’s chest.
  
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  Chapter Eighteen: The Dweller in the Dark
  He was sitting on the attic floor, poring over his mother’s papers by candlelight, 
  when the moment finally arrived. It started as a tickle in the back of his brain – the 
  faintest of ripples crossing the fabric of the Gauntlet from the spirit world – but it 
  grew in strength from one heartbeat to the next, until Eric could think of nothing else. 
  The first threads of the old ritual failed, increasing the strain on their neighbors until 
  they, too, gave way. The metaphysical chain-reaction grew in speed and intensity, 
  sweeping across the Historic District from the oldest shrines in the north to the caern 
  in the south. The wind outside rose to a howling crescendo, and he howled along 
  with it, knowing that all his plans had come to fruition at last.
  The uproar was over as swiftly as it began. The wind lost all its fury, and a 
  strange stillness settled over the city. Eric found himself on his hands and knees, 
  panting heavily, his mind whirling. He’d dreamed of this moment every night for 
  the last twenty years – but now that it had finally arrived, all his meticulous planning 
  deserted him. The notion made him laugh, a ghastly, exultant sound that rang from 
  the rafters and echoed from the house’s heating grates.
  After a moment he composed himself, wiping the froth from his lips with the 
  back of one hand. Lighting flickered through the attic windows, and the rain started 
  up again, pattering softly against the glass. The rite he’d used to summon the hur-
  ricane had just been broken, and he could sense that the storm was swiftly losing 
  strength. That was just as well. It had served its purpose. The streets would be his for 
  as long as he needed them.
  Eric filled his aching lungs and blew out the candles. The old, familiar darkness 
  calmed his mind and helped him think. First, he gathered up his mother’s papers and 
  bound them back in their folio, then returned them to their proper place on the shelf 
  by his bed. They would remain behind, safe from the rain. Every line of every glyph 
  he would need had been committed to memory many years ago.
  Then he went to the place where brick column of the living room chimney rose from 
  the attic floor and began shifting the tall stacks of books that had been piled around it. He 
  felt a nervous flutter of anticipation as he cleared away a section of dusty floorboards that 
  hadn’t been disturbed since he was a child. With trembling claws he pulled up the section 
  Chapter Eighteen: 
  The Dweller 
  in the Dark
  
  The Poison Tree
  156
  of board his mother had showed him. She’d warned him never to touch it, never to even 
  go near it, until the time was right. Carefully, reverently, he reached into the narrow cav-
  ity and lifted out the cloth-wrapped bundle she’d left for him.
  The blade within was black glass, darker than night. It felt good in his hand.
  Eric’s steps were light as he crossed to the attic door. The locks clicked open with 
  a touch and a whispered word. The years seemed to roll backwards as he descended 
  the narrow stairs. In his mind’s eye he saw his mother after the fall, her eyes glassy and 
  her limbs askew. He remembered how he’d crept down the stairs while his uncle had 
  stomped and swore around the attic, and held her hand while she died. That was when 
  he’d learned of his birthright. That was the day he learned who he truly was.
  The house’s second floor was quiet. The murmur of voices rose up the stairwell, 
  coming from the rear of the house. Twenty-two kinfolk, members of the house staff 
  and their families, had been moved into the solarium; he’d listened at the grate for 
  hours and counted the voices with care. The children were restless, and the adults 
  were afraid. Ironhand had told them nothing, but between the storm and the killings, 
  they knew something terrible was happening. All they could do was huddle in the 
  darkness and wait like lambs.
  There was no sound from his uncle’s study. Ironhand had grown moody and 
  withdrawn after Ingrid’s escape, refusing meals and brooding at his desk as the storm 
  broke around him. Eric wondered if his uncle had felt the wards come unraveled, 
  and knew that his doom was approaching. He hoped so. He hoped the realization 
  was coming upon his uncle like the point of a knife, sliding slowly between his ribs.
  Eric took the main stairs slowly, savoring the way the treads groaned beneath 
  his feet. His uncle couldn’t help but hear, couldn’t help but know it was he. His lips 
  drew back from his muzzle in an executioner’s grin.
  The doors to the study were shut. Eric paused at the threshold. Never in his life 
  had he been allowed inside. The antique oak panels rumbled like thunder as he slid 
  them open.
  The study was dark, as he expected it to be. A single lamp burned atop the huge 
  desk. Empty liquor bottles lay scattered across the expensive rugs. The smell of de-
  spair hung over the room like a shroud.
  Eric stepped inside. “I’m here, Uncle.” He raised his knife to the lamplight. 
  “I’ve come for what is mine.”
  He expected a fight. He expected denials and bitter accusations. He even ex-
  pected tears. The scene had played out countless times in his mind since his mother’s 
  death.
  But Karl Ironhand wasn’t there. The chair behind the desk sat empty.
  Frowning, Eric searched the dimly lit room. He had gone so far as to peer behind 
  the desk, thinking that his uncle might be passed out on the floor – when a gasp from 
  the doorway caught his attention.
  One of the house staff stood in the doorway, dressed in kitchen whites. He was 
  middle-aged and balding, and his eyes were wide with fear. “He – he’s not here, 
  master,” the man said.
  
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  Chapter Eighteen: The Dweller in the Dark
  Eric stalked around the corner of the desk, knife held low. “Where is he?”
  The kinfolk blanched. Eric took a breath and tried again in a friendlier tone. 
  “Where has my uncle gone?”
  “To the caern, master. He left hours ago to join Marcus and the others. They 
  feared the Wyrmspawn might try and attack under the cover of the storm.” Trem-
  bling visibly, the kinfolk took a step towards him. “I’ll be happy to tell Master Karl 
  that you were looking for him,” he said. “If you could just go back upstairs and wait 
  in your room – ”
  Eric’s hand clamped over the kinfolk’s face. The obsidian blade met little resis-
  tance as it sank into the man’s belly. Eric spilled the cook’s guts onto the Afghan rug 
  and then moved on to the kinfolk’s genitals. He sawed and stabbed until the muffled 
  screams stopped and the blood stopped pumping, and then tossed the shredded re-
  mains aside. Seething, he left the study and crossed to the front door, leaving a trail 
  of bloody footprints along the hardwood.
  They were waiting for him outside the wrought-iron gate, drawn by the collapse 
  of the city’s shrines. Six tall, gaunt figures, silhouetted by darkness and rain: they 
  would be his bodyguards and champions, the captains of his army. His pack. 
  The Black Spiral Dancers eyed him warily, ears back and shoulders tense. They 
  knew his face from the depths of their fever-dreams, but they did not trust him yet.
  Eric descended the steps and approached the gate. The Wyrmspawn watched 
  in silence, nostrils flaring. His deformities meant little to garou such as they. Of far 
  more interest was the blood and viscera that matted his black fur.
  He showed them the bloody knife, and spoke to them in the tongue of the Cor-
  rupter, as his mother had taught him in the cradle. “A feast has been prepared for 
  you,” he told them. “Go inside, and eat your fill. We have a long night of work ahead 
  of us.”
  The fallen garou listened, but made no reply. After a long moment, the first of 
  the Black Spiral Dancers reached a claw through the gate and undid the latch. It 
  swung open with a groan. The Wyrmspawn slunk past him, breaking into a trot as 
  they caught the scent of the warm flesh waiting inside the house.
  Eric stood at the gate and listened as the first screams rose from the solarium. 
  The sounds mingled with the distant cries of fomori as the Wyrmspawn emerged 
  from their tunnels and began to desecrate the now defenseless shrines.
  Everything had not gone entirely according to plan, he mused, but perhaps that 
  was for the best. Karl Ironhand would live just long enough to watch Savannah die.
  • • •
  The Black Spiral Dancer tore his blade free. Catherine snarled, spitting blood, 
  the glyph tumbling from her hand as she reached for the Wyrmspawn’s throat. Her 
  legs buckled and she fell backwards, a patch of mangy fur clutched in her fist. Anoth-
  er of the tainted garou leapt on her, gray lips drawn back in a lunatic grin.
  Ingrid gave a furious shout and charged the Wyrmspawn, trying to force her way 
  to Catherine’s side. A Black Spiral Dancer stepped into her path; claws raked her 
  
  The Poison Tree
  158
  chest as she shoulder-checked the taint, knocking him aside. The enemy pack leader 
  saw her coming and sidled to the left, his expression calculating.
  The Wyrmspawn on top of Catherine had sunk his teeth into her shoulder. 
  Ingrid slashed at his snout with Donnerkeil, forcing him back. When she did, the 
  knife-wielding pack leader made his move, lunging forward and stabbing at her side. 
  Too late, he realized that Ingrid’s move was a feint. She spun, the dagger gouging a 
  furrow across her ribs, and drove her blade into the pack leader’s heart.
  The other taint was on her before she could pull her klaive free. Fearsome jaws 
  closed on her right forearm, and claws tore at her arms and chest. The Black Spiral 
  Dancer pushed against her, trying to drive her onto her back, but she dug in her heels 
  and grappled with him. The enemy wrenched his head back and forth, teeth ripping 
  deeper into her arm. Claws swiped at the side of her face. 
  Ingrid dropped Donnerkeil into her left hand and stabbed him in the groin. The 
  taint let go of her arm and staggered backwards with an agonized howl, and she fin-
  ished him off with a cut to his throat.
  The other two Black Spiral Dancers had fallen, brought down by Kevin’s claws 
  and Euryale’s axe. Scrags were appearing at the tunnel mouth now, slashing at the air 
  with their blade-like legs. Ingrid lurched over to stand above Catherine’s prone form. 
  The Shadow Lord’s right arm hung limply at her side, and blood streamed freely 
  from a dozen deep wounds.
  The scrags started forward – then froze at the sound of an eerie, high-pitched 
  wail.
  Kevin advanced on the Wyrmspawn, jaw agape, shrieking like a spirit of the 
  damned. The banshee sound made Ingrid’s blood run cold, and it drove the scrags 
  mad with fright. The warrior-banes all but trampled one another retreating back into 
  the antechamber. Kevin chased after them as far as the mouth of the tunnel, then 
  stopped.
  Euryale stared at him in shock. “When did you learn how to do that?”
  Kevin shrugged. “I’ve always known the trick. I just don’t like to use it much. 
  Hard to fight someone when they’re trying to run away from you.” He glanced over 
  his shoulder at Catherine. “See what you can do for her. They won’t stay gone for 
  long.”
  The Uktena had rolled into a fetal position, shoulders heaving, arms curled 
  against the wound in her chest. Ingrid sank to her knees beside Catherine, and was 
  joined by Euryale a moment later. The ronin took the Theurge by the shoulders and 
  gently rolled her onto her back.
  Catherine groaned. “Bastard stabbed me,” she said, to no one in particular. Her 
  breath was coming in thin, ragged gasps.
  Euryale pulled Catherine’s arms away so she could examine the wound. The 
  tainted blade had left a jagged puncture between her ribs. Fresh blood bubbled from 
  the tear with every breath she took. The ronin grimaced. “You’ve got a punctured 
  lung, but you probably know that already.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t the 
  glyph work?”
  
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  “It should have,” Catherine said through clenched teeth. “If it worked on the 
  scrags, it should have worked on the Black Spiral Dancers.”
  Euryale frowned. “I don’t understand.”
  But Ingrid did. “Oh, goddess. You were right all along.” Her guts turned to lead. 
  “Eric set us up.”
  “How?”
  “Think about it. Catherine just said that if the glyph worked on the scrags, it 
  should have worked on the Black Spiral Dancers. It didn’t, so the converse is also true. 
  If it didn’t work on the Black Spiral Dancers, it didn’t work on the scrags, either. They 
  just acted like it did.” She snatched up the fallen glyph and showed it to Euryale. “This 
  was just a message to the Wyrmspawn to let us through, so we could kill Carstairs.”
  “Why would he want Carstairs dead?”
  Catherine’s eyed widened. “Because of the failsafe!”
  “The failsafe? You mean the shrines?”
  “Yes!” She grabbed Ingrid’s wrist. “The Stirlings were bound to the shrines by 
  a sacred pact. A failsafe, in case the Sept of the Seven Rivers died out. Carstairs was 
  the last of the Stirling line. Now that he’s dead, the pact has been dissolved.”
  “But Eric is Wyatt Stirling’s son!” Euryale protested.
  “He’s a metis. He doesn’t count.”
  Ingrid felt sick. “So we just brought down the wards protecting the Historic 
  District.”
  Catherine nodded. “And the flow of power that was reinforcing Abbazû’s pris-
  on. It was probably the only thing holding the capstone together.”
  Ingrid shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Catherine. I should have listened to you. I 
  just didn’t want to believe – ”
  “Apologize later,” Euryale growled. “Let’s focus on living through the next few 
  minutes instead.”
  Catherine squeezed Ingrid’s wrist. “You three get going,” she said. “I’m dead 
  weight at this point. I’ll just slow you down.”
  “That’s not an option, and you know it,” Ingrid said hotly. “I’ll carry you out 
  myself.”
  “With your one good arm?”
  “I’ll use my fucking teeth if I have to!”
  “For once, I agree with the Ahroun,” Euryale said. “No one gets left behind. 
  Quit wasting what little breath you’ve got trying to convince us otherwise.”
  “If one of us is carrying her, the other two will have to do all the fighting on the 
  way out,” Kevin said.
  “What about that howl of yours?” Euryale asked.
  “I can manage another. Maybe two. But then I’m tapped out. You want to gam-
  ble on that?”
  
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  Catherine stirred. “Maybe we don’t have to. We could try crossing over into the 
  spirit world instead.”
  Euryale frowned at the Theurge. “How does that help us? This place has to be 
  crawling with Wyrm-spirits.”
  The Uktena shook her head. “Maybe not. When the pact was broken, it tore the 
  network of shrines apart. That unleashed a lot of trapped spiritual energy. The tremor 
  we felt earlier was a metaphysical bomb going off on the other side of the Gauntlet.”
  “You think it cleared out any Wyrm-spirits nearby?”
  “The ones not anchored to a physical body, yes. But there’s no telling for how 
  long.”
  “If we can just get past the antechamber, it could make a big difference,” Ingrid 
  said. “I say we do it.” She started to rise, but Catherine held onto her wrist.
  “Wait,” the Theurge said, closing her eyes.
  A rush of healing energy flooded through Ingrid’s body, mending her minor 
  wounds and improving the rest. Her eyes widened, and she tried to pull her hand 
  away. “Don’t! You need to save your strength – ”
  “If I can’t use the gift on myself, I can at least make you whole enough to get us 
  out of here,” Catherine chided. “Now shut up and let me work.”
  The Uktena could not concentrate for long, but it was enough. Ingrid’s cuts 
  were scabbed over, and she was able to use her right arm again. The Shadow Lord 
  switched her klaive to her right hand and beckoned to Kevin.
  “You carry her. I’ll take point. Euryale will bring up the rear.” To Catherine, she 
  said, “Shift to glabro. You’ll be easier to carry that way.”
  The Theurge nodded. After a moment’s concentration she had changed form, 
  and Kevin lifted her easily in his arms.
  A chorus of angry shrieks rose in the antechamber beyond. Euryale laid a hand 
  on Catherine’s shoulder. “Now or never,” she said.
  Ingrid gripped the Theurge’s arm. Catherine drew a thin, bubbling breath, and 
  the scrags’ hunting cries faded away. Silvery light suffused the cavern, illuminating 
  gauzy curtains of dust that drifted in the still air.
  Euryale and Ingrid spread out, weapons ready, searching the cavern for threats. 
  The chamber was empty. “So far, so good,” the ronin said.
  Ingrid dashed down the tunnel and peered into the antechamber. After the ten-
  sion of the running battle to reach the capstone, the silence and stillness on this side 
  of the Gauntlet was unnerving. “Dust and more dust,” she observed, sweeping the 
  antechamber a second time. “Let’s move.”
  The garou set a swift pace, loping across the antechamber and into the passage 
  beyond. It was fifteen to twenty yards back to the fissure, Ingrid recalled, then a 
  sixty-foot climb up the fissure. She was debating in her mind whether to attempt the 
  climb with Catherine, or try to find another way out, when Kevin spoke up.
  “If your cousin’s been trying to free Abbazû this entire time, why didn’t he just 
  have the Wyrmspawn kill Carstairs? Why go to all this trouble?”
  
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  The answer was self-evident to Ingrid. “Revenge. What else? Eric wanted to 
  make my father suffer for what he’d done. Oakheart told me that Carstairs com-
  plained of terrible dreams – what if Eric was the one sending them?”
  “It’s possible,” Catherine said weakly, her head resting against Kevin’s chest. 
  “If Eric understood how the shrines worked, it would have been obvious to him 
  that one of the Stirling line had survived the massacre. And he had a blood tie to 
  Carstairs, so reaching into his dreams would have been simple.”
  “Then he could manipulate Carstairs without ever leaving his apartment,” In-
  grid said. She thought of her own nightmares, and felt her blood run cold. “Bright 
  goddess. I think he did it to me, too.”
  “So he gets into Carstairs’ head, winds him up, and turns him loose on your 
  family,” Kevin said.
  “He knew what it would do to me. Knew what it would do to my father. He was 
  probably feeding information to Carstairs about where and when to hit us the entire 
  time.” Ingrid shook her head. “He exploited my fears, my father’s insecurities and 
  the tensions within my pack to turn us against one another. He even tried to tempt me 
  into using the glyphs myself. It almost worked.”
  “Then he gives you the tools to finish off Carstairs and pave the way to free 
  Abbazû. Unbelievable.”
  “He is half Shadow Lord,” Ingrid pointed out.
  They were at the fissure a few moments later. Ingrid and Euryale leapt into the 
  opening and had Kevin hand Catherine up. Together, they hoisted the Uktena behind 
  them as they climbed, while Kevin went ahead to scout the passageway at the top.
  “Does Eric need to be in the capstone chamber to free Abbazû?” Ingrid asked 
  Catherine as they climbed.
  “No,” the Theurge said, her voice tight with strain. The ascent up the narrow fis-
  sure must have been excruciating, but the Theurge made no complaint. “Technically, 
  he could do it from his room at the house, but the closer he is, the better.”
  “So the caern would be a good compromise.”
  “Yes. It’s right above the prison, and it’s got power he can tap if he needs it.”
  “You think he’s headed there?” Euryale asked.
  Ingrid nodded. “It’s got everything he needs, and he gets to desecrate our most 
  prized possession in the bargain,” she said. “How could he resist?”
  “All clear!” Kevin called down. “Hand her up!”
  The garou heard howls and distant cries as they reunited at the upper tunnels. 
  “We’ve pushed our luck on this side long enough,” Ingrid said. “Catherine, take us 
  back across. We’ll make our way out through the physical world from here.”
  Euryale gave her a dubious look. “You think it’s safe?”
  “I think every Wyrmspawn on the other side is out on the streets right now,” 
  Ingrid said. “Eric knows how weak we are. He’s getting ready to make his move.”
  It took more than a minute for Catherine to gather her strength for the transition. 
  
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  Darkness rushed in, followed by the stink of wet mud and the sound of dripping 
  water. They were alone.
  They met no resistance on the way back to the storeroom. Catherine was bare-
  ly conscious as they lifted her out of the tunnel. The wound from the Black Spiral 
  Dancer’s blade had never closed, and she had lost a great deal of blood. Outside, the 
  storm was still raging, though it had lost much of its strength.
  “What now?” Euryale asked.
  “We get to the Old Fort as fast as we can,” Ingrid said darkly. “And then we go 
  looking for my father.”
  
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  The corpses were laid against the sides of the white monument with care, while 
  the fomori capered and screamed at the churning sky.
  Eric observed the desecration with ritual solemnity. It wasn’t everything he’d 
  hoped for - in his dreams, the Reinhardt kinfolk were dragged alive into the square 
  and their brains dashed out against the marble – but it couldn’t be helped. Things 
  were happening very quickly now, after so many years of preparation. Time was 
  short, and there was much to be done.
  His pack played their part eagerly. It was easier than he’d expected to convince 
  them to give up their feast and carry the offerings to the square. Caught up in the orgy 
  of defilement, they smeared blood and brain matter on the stone and shouted impre-
  cations at Gaia and her children. The same scene was playing out at every shrine 
  across the district, transforming the squares into scenes of horror as an offering to the 
  spirit that even now strained at its bonds, eager for release.
  Yet no angry howls rode the storm wind. There were no signs of vengeful wolves 
  stalking the city streets. Savannah’s defenders had yet to show themselves, despite 
  the carnage he’d wrought in Karl Ironhand’s own house. It was a sign that the garou 
  were desperate and weak, and the Wyrmspawn knew it.
  If Ironhand and his curs wouldn’t show themselves, Eric and his army would 
  go to them.
  When the offering was arranged to his satisfaction, Eric barked an order to his 
  pack, and the Black Spiral Dancers leapt to obey. They scattered among the fomori, 
  snarling and snapping, and soon the first mobs were shambling southwards in the di-
  rection of the caern. Discordant howls called to other Wyrmspawn across the district, 
  summoning them to battle. Scores of fomori – perhaps two hundred in all – began to 
  converge on the north end of Forsyth Park. 
  Eric followed in their wake, his packmates loping obediently at his heel. The 
  power at his command was intoxicating – all the more so because he knew that it was 
  just a foretaste of what was to come.
  The garou were waiting for them beneath the trees at the north end of the park, 
  just as he expected they would be. The fighting had already begun by the time Eric 
  Chapter Nineteen: 
  Apocalypse
  
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  and his pack got there, as the Shadow Lords and their allies ambushed his scouts. 
  The air rang with shouts of rage and the screams of the dying, and the muddy ground 
  at the edge of the park was already thick with blood.
  The enemy fought in three separate packs: four iron-gray Get to the left, the 
  Shadow Lords in the center, and a mixed pack of three garou led by a Silver Fang off 
  to the right. Between them they had accounted for nearly twenty fomori, their torn 
  bodies piled at the werewolves’ feet.
  Karl Ironhand fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Marcus and the other Shadow 
  Lords. Huge and terrible, his sable pelt marked with dozens of faded scars, he tore 
  at the enemy with fatalistic vigor, as though each blow he dealt might be his last. 
  The old wound in his leg had slowed him somewhat, but his savagery and skill was 
  undiminished; as Eric watched, Ironhand crushed the skull of fomor with a slap of 
  his hand, knocking the corpse into the path of another charging Wyrmspawn. The 
  attacker stumbled, and Ironhand tore his throat out. The old Shadow Lord was in his 
  element, claws dripping and gray muzzle streaked with gore, and for the first time 
  Eric saw in his uncle the legendary warrior he’d once been. His towering presence 
  heartened his kin and filled his opponents with dread.
  Eric’s lips drew back in a feral grin. Towering over the fomori, he spread his 
  arms wide and howled a challenge to his uncle.
  Ironhand flattened another fomor with the back of his hand and then straight-
  ened, seeking the source of the howl. Eric locked eyes with him, and watched his 
  furious expression change to one of shame and dismay.
  I’ve waited twenty years to see that look on your face, Eric thought.
  A fomor lunged at Ironhand, leaving claw marks on his chest. The Shadow Lord 
  barely seemed to notice. With a shout born more out of pain than rage, he threw him-
  self into the midst of the fomori, trying to claw his way to Eric. The sudden onslaught 
  took the Wyrmspawn by surprise. One fomor toppled with the side of his face caved 
  in; another spun away in a welter of blood. The rest fell back in confusion, trying to 
  escape the garou’s claws.
  The Black Spiral Dancers saw the danger and started forward, but Eric halted 
  them with a rasping growl. “Let him come,” he ordered, and his pack reluctantly 
  obeyed.
  Ironhand plunged like a blade into the mass of fomori, leaving carnage and cha-
  os in his wake. His sudden charge took the other Shadow Lords by surprise, and for 
  a moment they wavered, uncertain what to do next. Reluctantly, Marcus set off after 
  Ironhand, trying to reach the old garou before he was surrounded, and the rest of his 
  pack had little choice but to follow suit.
  Eric stood his ground before Ironhand’s implacable advance. Caught between 
  the oncoming Shadow Lords to their front and the Black Spiral Dancers to their 
  rear, the fomori fought and died in droves. Twenty yards became fifteen, then fifteen 
  dwindled to ten. But for every fomor that died, two more rushed in to take his place. 
  The Shadow Lords were completely surrounded now, and their charge had left the 
  other packs isolated and without support. Eric watched a mob of fomori rush forward 
  and pull down one of the Get; his packmates, beset on three sides and suffering from 
  
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  dozens of small wounds, could do nothing to save him. On the right, a young Child 
  of Gaia crouched over the torn body of a Fianna, trying with the last of her strength 
  to staunch the flow of blood from his ravaged throat. A lone Silver Fang, regal and 
  fierce, fought a losing battle to keep the encroaching Wyrmspawn at bay.
  Ironhand was less than ten yards away now, but his advance was losing steam. 
  The old hero’s relentless charge had come at a bloody cost, and now his strength was 
  flagging. Bolstered by fresh reinforcements, the fomori sensed their foe’s weakness 
  and started to push back. Three Wyrmspawn threw themselves at Ironhand. Two died 
  within moments, but the third got his arms around the Shadow Lord’s waist. If not 
  for the swift action of Darius Stoneheart, who broke the fomor’s neck and suffered a 
  wound of his own in the process, Ironheart might have been pulled down and slain.
  Eric saw the despair and frustration build in his uncle’s eyes. He waited until the 
  moment that Ironhand realized his charge had failed, and then unleashed the Black 
  Spiral Dancers.
  The air shook with maddened howls as Eric’s pack leapt into the fight, cuffing 
  and snapping at the backs of the fomori as they tried to force their way through the 
  press to reach the embattled Shadow Lords. The fomori reacted with shouts of sur-
  prise and fear, sending ripples of confusion through their ranks. The Wyrmspawn 
  surrounding the Shadow Lords hesitated, thinking for a moment that they were being 
  attacked from two different directions.
  It was the briefest of reprieves, but for the garou it was the difference between 
  life and death. As the fomori hesitated, the Shadow Lords saw their peril and fell 
  back, dragging Ironhand along with them. Enraged, the Black Spiral Dancers clawed 
  their way through the fomori in an effort to catch them, which only made the sit-
  uation worse. The Wyrmspawn faltered, and the Shadow Lords broke free of the 
  encirclement and retreated deeper into the caern. A moment later, the Get fell back 
  as well, howling in confusion and despair.
  A single garou was left behind, surrounded by her foes. The Silver Fang fought 
  alone, refusing to abandon the bodies of her packmates. She sang a dirge for them as 
  she fought, howling their names to the sky. Tom Three Leagues. Sara Summer’s Run. 
  My friends, brave and true. My pack. They are gone, into the darkness, and soon I 
  will follow.
  A fomor rushed at her, jaws snapping. The Wyrmspawn died beneath her claws, 
  but another foe saw his chance and leapt upon her back. The Silver Fang staggered, 
  but did not fall. Two more of the enemy died to fang and claw before the rest pulled 
  her down, and her song was silenced forever.
  • • •
  A hundred yards away, Ingrid ran for the Old Fort through a pitiless rain, her 
  heart aching as Natasha Winter Howl’s death song came to an end. She wanted to 
  add her voice to Natasha’s, to let the proud young Silver Fang know that she’d been 
  heard, and that the deeds of her and her pack would not be forgotten. It took all of 
  her will to resist and let the howl fade into the night sky. Eric thinks we’re dead, she 
  told herself sternly. Hold onto that advantage as long as you can. It might mean the 
  
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  166
  difference between victory and defeat. It was the right choice, she knew, but one she 
  would regret to the end of her days.
  From the sound of it, Marcus and the others had fought the Wyrmspawn at the 
  edge of the caern and lost. One pack was gone, and Gaia alone knew how many 
  more. She scanned the shadows beneath the trees to the north, expecting a horde of 
  fomori to appear at any moment.
  Ingrid gestured to Euryale to keep watch, and then ran for the fort’s rear door. 
  Kevin followed, his expression grave. Catherine was growing weaker by the mo-
  ment. She’d lost her glabro form and now hung limply in the ronin’s arms.
  She kicked open the metal door and navigated the pitch-black interior by memo-
  ry, going to each of the lanterns left behind from the solstice and coaxing them to life. 
  “Set her here,” Ingrid said, indicating a spot against the wall that was relatively clear 
  of water and debris, “then get back outside and help Euryale. I’ll be right there.”
  Kevin frowned. “Someone should stay with her – ”
  “No.” The word was barely a whisper. The Uktena blinked, struggling to focus. 
  “Euryale…needs you. Just…let me…rest a bit.”
  The ronin looked ready to argue the point, but did as Catherine wished. He made 
  the Theurge as comfortable as he could, and then knelt beside her. “You’re going to 
  be okay,” he told her. “I’m going to find someone to take care of you. Just hang in 
  there a little longer, okay?”
  Catherine managed a faint smile. “If you…insist.”
  “Damn right I do.” The ronin reached out and gently brushed her cheek. “Hang 
  in there, sister,” he said, and then headed back out into the storm.
  Ingrid watched Kevin go, waiting until the steel door had clanged shut again 
  before she turned back to Catherine. She set Donnerkeil aside and carefully took the 
  Theurge’s hands in her own.
  The Uktena tried to laugh. “Never thought…I’d miss…Oklahoma. Not…in a…
  million...years.”
  “I’m sorry, Catherine.”
  “I know.”
  “There’s just one more thing – ”
  “I know.”
  “Can you do manage it?”
  The theurge nodded slowly. “If it’s…the last…thing I do.”
  “Was that supposed to be a joke?”
  “Sorry. It…sounded funnier…in my head.” Catherine’s smile faded. “You should 
  go.”
  Shouts rose from outside. Ingrid gave the Uktena’s hands a gentle squeeze. 
  “Goddess keep you, Catherine Stalks-the-Deer,” she said softly, then gathered up 
  her klaive and ran for the door.
  
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  • • •
  Curt Hammerfang landed on his neck and skidded across the muddy earth, fetch-
  ing up against the sprawled bodies of his packmates. Kevin loomed over the three 
  garou, shoulders heaving. Blood flowed from fresh cuts on his chest and arms. The 
  ronin was calm and composed as ever, but when he spoke there was steel in his voice.
  “I’m not in the habit of killing pups,” he growled, “especially not when there’s 
  worse things to fight. But so help me, if you idiots try that again, I will put you 
  down.”
  The warning was addressed not just to the Get, but to Karl Ironhand and the 
  Shadow Lords as well. Ingrid’s father and her erstwhile pack stood in a rough semi-
  circle just a few yards away, hackles raised and teeth bared at the ronin. Euryale 
  stood at Kevin’s shoulder, her labrys held ready.
  Hammerfang and the other Get scrambled to their feet. There were only three 
  of them now, Ingrid realized, and their eyes were wild with rage and grief. Battered, 
  bloody, and desperate, she observed. They’ve had their first real taste of defeat.
  The Shadow Lords weren’t in much better shape. Ironhand could barely stand, 
  his arm draped over Darius’s ravaged shoulder while Anna did what she could to 
  try and heal him. Marcus stood next to her father, his face wracked with indecision, 
  while Joshua looked tired and grief-stricken, as though he’d been witness to things 
  too painful to bear.
  “Traitors!” Ironhand hissed. He pushed away from Darius and staggered a step 
  in the direction of the ronin. Anna put a hand on his arm, but he angrily shook it 
  away. “Assassins! You murdered my kin, and now you’ve come to stab us in the 
  back!”
  “That’s a damned lie,” Ingrid said coldly. She stepped into view from the shad-
  ow of the Old Fort’s doorway. “If anyone here is responsible for the deaths of our 
  people, it’s you.”
  Karl whirled at the sound of her voice. “You shut your mouth, you treacherous 
  bitch!” he snarled.
  Her father’s words cut deep, but Ingrid refused to yield. “I’ve been back to Stir-
  ling House,” she told him. “I know what really happened there.”
  “The Stirlings were corrupted by the Wyrm!”
  “Because of the secrets they stole from the Uktena,” Ingrid countered. “Secrets 
  that you and your sister conspired to steal for yourselves. Elizabeth seduced Wyatt 
  Sterling, and when the time was right, she betrayed him to you.”
  Her words brought Ironhand up short. “That’s outrageous!” he protested, but a 
  bit of the fire had gone from his eyes.
  Ingrid pressed on, her expression implacable. “You left your pack upstairs to 
  slaughter the Stirling kinfolk, and went to confront Wyatt alone,” she said. “Wyatt 
  turned the tables on you, but Elizabeth cut Stirling’s throat with his own knife.”
  “Shut up,” Ironhand hissed. The old Shadow Lord looked at her as though he’d 
  seen a ghost. “You hear me? Shut up.”
  
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  “All that was bad enough, but to make matters worse, the secrets you killed the 
  Stirlings for were cursed,” Ingrid said. “Elizabeth had already been corrupted by 
  them, and she convinced you to use them, too. You drove the vampires out of Savan-
  nah in a single night, and Gaia alone knows what else.” She glared at her father. “By 
  the time you learned that she was pregnant with Wyatt’s child, there was no turning 
  back. If Stone Mountain had learned the truth, it would have been enough to unite 
  the packs and bring them down on your head. So you played along. You built the lie 
  about the paper mill and the siege, and you told it again and again, year after year.
  “The glyphs left their mark on you, but you tried to channel your lust for power 
  in other directions. Not Elizabeth, though; she understood what the glyphs were, and 
  where their true power came from, and went looking for their source. Worse, she 
  began grooming her son to follow in Wyatt Stirling’s footsteps. So when Eric was 
  five, you pushed his mother down the attic stairs and threw her papers in the fire.”
  “It’s not true!” Ironhand protested, but his face looked stricken.
  “The irony is that, had you been a bit more ruthless, we wouldn’t be here right 
  now. I don’t know if you spared Eric out of guilt, or simple arrogance. Maybe you 
  thought that with Elizabeth dead, you were safe. But Eric retrieved the glyphs from 
  the fire, and he spent the next twenty years learning how to use them. Now the rest 
  of us are paying the price.”
  Ironhand fell silent, his chest heaving. Ingrid could see the strain evident on his 
  face as long-buried secrets rose to haunt him again. It was a painful thing to watch 
  her father come undone before her eyes, but Ingrid gritted her teeth and kept her 
  expression resolute. He has to break, she told herself. If he doesn’t, this is going to 
  turn into a bloodbath.
  Anguish filled Ironhand’s eyes. He started to speak – but Marcus cut him off.
  “Where is your proof?”
  Oh, goddess. “Stay out of this, Marcus,” she warned.
  “Karl Ironhand has ruled this city wisely for twenty-five years,” her former beta 
  said, pitching his voice to make sure everyone could hear. “You expect me to believe 
  he’s a murderer and a thief? I’ll need proof.”
  “My word of honor isn’t enough?”
  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” Marcus sneered.
  Kevin scowled at the Shadow Lord. “It’s not your call to make, asshole.”
  “Kevin, please – ” Ingrid began, but it was already too late. Ironhand’s expres-
  sion had turned calculating and cold. It reminded her of how he looked at Stirling 
  House, many years ago.
  “Marcus is right,” he said slowly. “You have no proof. It’s your word against 
  mine. And this is my city.”
  “No,” Ingrid said. Damn you, Marcus. Damn you to hell. She steeled herself 
  and met her father’s angry glare. “You’re done. I’m challenging you, here and now, 
  for control of sept and caern. Let these garou and Grandfather Thunder himself bear 
  witness.”
  
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  Ironhand bared his teeth. He stalked towards Ingrid. “You think you can fight 
  me, child?”
  “That’s up to you,” Ingrid replied, sounding calmer than she felt. “Name a 
  champion if you like. I don’t care. Just don’t waste my time.”
  Her father came to a halt, just out of arm’s reach. “If that’s the way you want it,” 
  he said. “A challenge of this magnitude must be approved by the elders present – and 
  I refuse.” He pointed a bloody claw at Ingrid. “You’re no daughter of mine. You’re 
  nothing but a traitor, and you deserve a traitor’s death.” He turned to Marcus. “Kill 
  her!”
  No one moved. Marcus Shadow Dancer was frozen in place, staring up at the 
  Old Fort behind Ingrid in wonderment and fear.
  Ingrid glanced over her shoulder. Figures had appeared along the building’s 
  upper works: huge wolves, silent and intent, silhouetted against the stormy sky.
  Goddess keep you, Catherine.
  “A challenge has been issued,” said a deep voice from within the Old Fort. Cole 
  Foe-Render, Stone Mountain’s Master of the Challenge, emerged through the open 
  doorway at Ingrid’s back. He was a fearsome sight in his war-form, his broad chest 
  and arms marked with dark tattoos that spoke of his deeds on the battlefield. “Karl 
  Ironhand has made his views known. What do the other elders say?”
  Ellen Oakheart stepped through the doorway. Behind her came the entire Elder 
  Council, followed by garou from all across the Protectorate. Nearly forty strong, 
  they gathered in an arc behind Ingrid.
  “The Elder Council has heard the accusations made by Ingrid Stormcaller,” 
  Oakheart replied. Her eyes were locked on Karl Ironhand, and her expression was 
  pitiless. “We find that the challenge has merit, and will allow it to proceed.”
  Karl stared at the Stone Mountain garou in shock. “What is this?” he demanded. 
  A flicker of fear glinted in his eyes. “What’s happening?”
  “I had Catherine Stalks-the-Deer send a message to Stone Mountain this morn-
  ing,” Ingrid said. “I asked the Protectorate for help. Oakheart and the others were just 
  waiting for a Moon Bridge to open so they could come through.”
  Her father’s expression turned desperate. “No. I won’t allow it.” A murderous 
  glint came into his eyes. “This is a closed city!”
  “Not anymore.”
  Karl Ironhand leapt at Ingrid with a furious shout. She reacted without thinking, 
  her body operating on pure, animal instinct. Donnerkeil rose as her father’s claws 
  reached for her throat. They crashed together, falling to the muddy ground.
  Cole Foe-Render was beside them a moment later, shouting for them to stop. 
  Ingrid heard none of it. All she could focus on was her father’s head slumping against 
  her shoulder, his last breath sighing in her ear. His body was already starting to shift 
  as the Master of the Challenge pulled them apart, her blade buried to the hilt in Iron-
  hand’s chest.
  
  The Poison Tree
  170
  Strong hands gripped her, pulling her to her feet. Ingrid realized dimly that 
  Euryale and Oakheart were standing next to her. She couldn’t take her eyes from 
  Ironhand’s body. Part of her kept expecting him to slowly sit up and pull the blade 
  from his chest. He’s my father, she thought. How can he be dead?
  The Master of the Challenge bent over Ironhand and carefully closed her fa-
  ther’s eyes. Then, with a murmured prayer, he gripped the grand klaive and drew it 
  free.
  It felt as though the blade were being pulled from her heart instead. A strangled 
  sob rose from her throat.
  Euryale squeezed her arm. “He didn’t give you a choice,” she told Ingrid. 
  “Does it matter? He was my father, and I killed him.”
  “What’s done is done,” Oakheart said gently. “Mourn later, war chief. The caern 
  needs you.”
  Off to the north rose the sound of chanting. The triumphant cries of Wyrmspawn 
  filtered through the trees.
  Foe-render came forward, offering Donnerkeil. Her father’s blood had been 
  cleaned from the blade.
  “We’re with you, sister,” Euryale told her. “What do you want us to do?”
  Ingrid reached out and closed her hand around Donnerkeil’s hilt.
  “Follow me.”
  
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  The grand fountain at the north end of Forsyth Park was perfect for summoning 
  up the Wyrm-spirit. Abbazû was bound in an underground lake some seventy feet 
  below; the water in the fountain, Eric reasoned, would be a perfect sympathetic link 
  to the spirit’s prison.
  Eric’s army had suffered significant losses fighting off Ironhand and the rest 
  of his pitiful band, but he still had the Black Spiral Dancers and almost a hundred 
  and sixty fomori. Though the Wyrmspawn were eager to pursue the retreating were-
  wolves, Eric had held them back. He knew Ironhand would lead the survivors back 
  to the Old Fort – there was nowhere else as defensible anywhere in the park. It 
  pleased him to imagine his uncle and the others cowering in that crumbling, stone 
  shell and waiting for the end to come.
  The Wyrmspawn were arrayed in a ragged line between the fountain and the 
  fort, creating a barrier to keep Ironhand and the others at bay while he finished his 
  work. The bodies of the slain garou had been dragged to the fountain and dumped 
  inside, so that now the waters ran red with the blood of Abbazû’s foes. Then he cre-
  ated a summoning circle around the base of the stone feature, painting the necessary 
  glyphs in blood – his own, this time – atop the wet concrete. Each symbol was per-
  fect, drawn entirely from memory. He had practiced the rite so many times that he 
  could have created the complex circle in his sleep.
  The wind had risen again while he worked. The hurricane’s fury was spent, and 
  the rain had tapered off, but now fresh rumbles of thunder shook the air off to the 
  east. It sounded ominous, he thought with a smile. And well it should be.
  When his preparations were complete, Eric stepped carefully over the painted 
  glyphs and into the bloody waters of the fountain. The red water was warm, and 
  rose nearly to his knees. Corpses bumped gently against his legs as he waded to the 
  fountain’s central column. Eric’s heart quickened with anticipation as he dipped his 
  hands in the crimson waters and raised them high. Drawing as deep a breath as his 
  malformed lungs would allow, he began to chant the summoning rite. The eldritch 
  words rolled across the flat expanse of the park, and the Wyrmspawn bellowed in 
  triumph at the sound.
  Chapter Twenty: 
  Stormwalker 
  
  The Poison Tree
  172
  The link to Abbazû’s prison was easy to forge, just as he expected. Without the 
  steady flow of energy from the city’s shrines, the wards binding the Wyrm-spirit 
  were brittle and weak. It would take little effort now to break them.
  As Eric set his mind to unraveling the first of the wards, a howl, lonely and 
  defiant, rose from the direction of the Old Fort. The fomori laughed at the sound, an-
  swering it with mocking cries of their own. A handful of the Wyrmspawn, impatient 
  and full of bloodlust, broke away from the rest and charged off after the garou. The 
  rest of the fomori started to follow, but were brought up short by snarls and savage 
  threats from the Black Spiral Dancers.
  Baying like hounds, the Wyrmspawn disappeared into the shadows beneath the 
  trees to the south. A moment later the hungry cries became screams of surprise and 
  pain. 
  There was a flash of lightning, startling in its brightness. Thunder growled over-
  head. When it had faded, the shadows were silent once more.
  A stir went through the fomori battle line. The Black Spiral Dancers edged for-
  ward, warily sniffing the air.
  Warning shouts rose along the line. Misshapen fingers pointed to the south. 
  Massive silhouettes could be seen moving among the cypresses and oaks, their broad 
  shoulders parting the curtains of Spanish moss. Here and there, glowing green eyes 
  shone balefully from the darkness.
  The garou formed a rough crescent some twenty yards from the fountain – not 
  a beleaguered dozen werewolves like before, but close to fifty strong. Get of Fenris 
  and Uktena, Fianna and Silver Fangs, Red Talons and Children of Gaia, seasoned 
  warriors led by battle-wise elders of great renown. Lightning flickered again, picking 
  out tribal tattoos and polished torcs, dark war paint and gleaming ivory fangs.
  A shocked silence fell over the Wyrmspawn. Thunder rolled, and six of the ga-
  rou took a step forward, hurling projectiles into the enemy battle-line. A half-dozen 
  severed fomori heads sped like cannonballs through their ranks, knocking several 
  taints off their feet. One of the Uktena let out a chilling war cry, and the rest of the 
  werewolves erupted in furious shouts and battle-howls. Like a pagan army of a dis-
  tant age, they lunged and snarled, beat their chests and bared their teeth in challenge 
  at their ancient foes. 
  The wall of ferocious sound crashed over the Wyrmspawn. The fomori wavered, 
  shouting in dismay, and the garou broke into a run. The ground trembled beneath 
  their charge. The Black Spiral Dancers screamed at the panicked fomori, stiffening 
  their backs with acid oaths and punishing blows.
  For the first time in twenty years, Eric felt a glimmer of fear. He redoubled his 
  efforts, focusing all his attention on the rite. The first ward came undone, and he 
  moved quickly on to the second.
  A few minutes were all he needed. After that, the garou would be powerless to 
  stop him.
  • • •
  
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  Chapter Twenty: Stormwalker
  Ingrid led her pack up Drayton while the Stone Mountain garou launched their 
  attack. The roar of their battle cries was stunning; from two blocks away she could 
  feel it in her bones. The sound set her heart racing and filled her mind with awe. 
  They’ll be talking about this night at the solstice moot for many years to come.
  They raced up the middle of the darkened street in lupus form, heading north. 
  Kevin and Euryale were close by her side, with Darius, Joshua and Anna bringing 
  up the rear. There had been no time to waste on regrets or recriminations; that would 
  come later, if any of them survived. She commanded, and the Shadow Lords fol-
  lowed, and for the moment, that was enough. All except for Marcus; she had made 
  her feelings clear to her former beta with a single, pointed stare. He’d remained be-
  hind with Curt Hammerfang and the surviving Get. If he were smart, he would return 
  with them to Stone Mountain once all this was done.
  A gust of wind blew against their faces. Lightning arced across the sky, close enough 
  to set Ingrid’s hair on end, followed by a martial roll of thunder. Ingrid didn’t know if 
  the resurgent storm was the work of the Stone Mountain Theurges, or if there might be 
  some other power at work. She said a silent prayer to Grandfather Thunder just in case.
  They reached the corner at Gaston and turned left, paralleling the north end of 
  the park. The battle plan was a simple one: the Stone Mountain garou would shock 
  the Wyrmspawn with a ferocious assault and draw all of their attention to the south, 
  while Ingrid swung wide and came at Eric’s ritual site from the north. From the 
  sound of it, everything was going according to plan.
  Ingrid crossed back onto the caern grounds, halting in the shadows beneath a 
  live oak tree. She focused her will and shifted to her war form, and the rest of the 
  pack followed suit. 
  “There shouldn’t be a single fomor between us and the fountain at this point,” 
  Ingrid said, “but we can’t count on that. If anything gets in our way, we make a hole 
  and keep going. Eric is the sole priority here. Questions?”
  “What if we’re too late?” Kevin asked. “What if he frees Abbazû before we can 
  get to him?”
  “The Wyrm-spirit has been trapped for hundreds of years,” Euryale pointed out. 
  “It’ll be weak. If the Uktena could bring Abbazû down, so can we.”
  “If we move fast enough, we won’t have to find out,” Ingrid said. She broke into 
  a run, head low and blade ready, and her pack fell in at her heels, forming a hollow 
  wedge with her at the point.
  They hadn’t gone more than ten yards before they ran into their first Wyrm-
  spawn, and everything went to hell.
  A trio of wounded fomori, fleeing in panic from the battle to the south, stumbled 
  from the shadows right into Ingrid’s path. She chopped through the neck of one with 
  her klaive, and was surprised by a brilliant flash and a loud POP as Donnerkeil’s 
  storm spirit blew the Wyrmspawn’s head from his shoulders. The surviving fomori 
  shrieked in terror and scattered in different directions. Euryale clipped one with her 
  axe and sent his body crashing into the bole of a nearby cypress. The other turned 
  and ran ahead of the werewolves, in the direction of the park’s fountain.
  
  The Poison Tree
  174
  Ingrid cursed under her breath and ran harder, trying to catch the fleeing Wyrm-
  spawn before he attracted any attention. Just a few yards short of the wide promenade 
  that ran from the north edge of the park to the fountain, she hurled Donnerkeil at the 
  fomor’s back. The blade struck the Wyrmspawn square in the back, and once again 
  the klaive’s storm spirit reacted with surprising strength. With a sizzling CRACK, the 
  fomor staggered and burst into greasy flame. Yet still the taint wouldn’t fall. Wailing 
  at the top of its lungs, arms windmilling, it kept going, out into the open ground of 
  the promenade.
  Snarling, Ingrid called the klaive back to her hand. The fomor collapsed onto the 
  pavement, burning fiercely. She burst from cover a few moments later. The fountain 
  was to her left, less than twenty yards away. Eric was standing in the still water, his 
  back to her, arms raised to the sky. Beyond the fountain a fierce melee was raging as 
  the Stone Mountain garou tore their way through the Wyrmspawn’s ranks.
  There was a pack of Black Spiral Dancers trying to hold the fomori battle-line 
  together. One of them glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of the burning 
  fomor, then locked eyes with Ingrid.
  • • •
  Buzzing cries and howls of alarm shook Eric’s concentration. His focus on the 
  rite faltered for a fraction of a second, and the third ward slipped from his mental 
  grasp. Irritated, he risked a momentary glance at his surroundings, trying to ascertain 
  what was happening.
  The fomori were holding off the garou assault, but were getting torn to pieces 
  in the process. It looked as though the line would break at any moment. His eyes 
  widened as he saw his pack abandoning the line and racing past him, heading back 
  northward.
  Was he being abandoned? He glanced over his shoulder, snarling in rage – and 
  saw Ingrid coming right for him. She had a mixed pack of garou at her heels and 
  murder in her eyes.
  With an effort of will, Eric turned his back on Ingrid and focused his full atten-
  tion on the completion of the rite. The third and last ward took shape in his mind 
  again. He only needed a few seconds more.
  • • •
  Thunder crashed over Forsyth Park. The Black Spiral Dancers leapt at Ingrid 
  and her pack, claws slashing.
  Two of the fallen garou came right at Ingrid.  Kevin stopped one with a fear-
  some blow to the Black Spiral Dancer’s shoulder, knocking it back. She ducked the 
  swipe of the second foe and slashed it across the chest. Electrical discharges crackled 
  across the Black Spiral Dancer’s torso and it staggered, howling in agony. She shoul-
  dered the enemy aside and kept going, heading for the fountain, but a hand closed 
  around her ankle and she stumbled, landing hard on the pavement.
  The Black Spiral Dancer she’d cut hauled on her leg, dragging her backwards. 
  Snarling, Ingrid rolled onto her back and kicked at the taint with her free leg. Claws 
  
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  raked long furrows down her thigh. She tried another kick, aiming at the fallen ga-
  rou’s wrist, and the blow connected, tearing her free. When the Black Spiral Dancer 
  lunged for her again, she bent forward and stabbed at his face. The klaive caught the 
  taint in the left eye. The exultant storm spirit lashed out again, wreathing the enemy’s 
  skull in a corona of blue fire and frying the fallen garou’s brain.
  Ingrid yanked the blade free and rolled onto her knees. Eric was just a few yards 
  away now. She gathered her feet beneath her and leapt, reaching for his throat.
  She was in mid-air, claws mere inches from the back of Eric’s neck, when the air 
  turned icy cold and stank of an open grave. In a moment of awful clarity, Ingrid saw 
  the bloody water churn around Eric’s legs, and knew that she was too late.
  Eric’s body seemed to blur around the edges, his misshapen body vibrating at a 
  frequency almost too fast to see. One moment he had his back to Ingrid; the next, he 
  was facing her, and his hand was closing like a vise around her wrist. Eric’s touch 
  sent vibrations howling along her bones, curdling her blood and turning her guts to 
  jelly. Then she was being whipped through the air as Eric spun again and smashed 
  her against the central column of the fountain. Bones crunched and the vision in her 
  right eye went red. Laughter, harsh and inhuman, filled her ears.
  Dimly, she felt herself land in the bloody water at Eric’s feet. Something bumped 
  against her: the mangled body of Natasha Winter Howl, her ashen lips parted and her 
  black eyes staring up at her in a kind of silent plea. With her one good eye she saw 
  Euryale take the head off one of the Black Spiral Dancers and then charge at Eric. 
  Kevin tore the throat out of another taint and ran to join her, his expression grim.
  Ingrid tried to move. Her right shoulder was crushed, and her arm refused to 
  work. Belatedly, she realized that Eric had Donnerkeil. He held it behind his back as 
  the ronin launched their attack.
  Euryale reached the edge of the fountain and leapt. Eric blurred – and Ingrid 
  called Donnerkeil back to her. The klaive vanished from Eric’s hand, and the labrys 
  flashed past his guard to bury itself in his left shoulder.
  The metis hardly seemed to notice. He grabbed the haft of the silver axe and 
  wrenched it free, tearing it from Euryale’s grip in the process. As Kevin lunged at 
  Eric, the metis smashed the labrys into the ronin’s side. Blood burst from Kevin’s 
  mouth and he collapsed face-first into the fountain.
  Euryale screamed, raking her claws at Eric’s face. The metis laughed, ignoring 
  the ragged wounds along his cheek and neck, and threw the labrys at Darius, who 
  was still locked in battle with one of the surviving Black Spiral Dancers. The curved 
  blade smashed into his hip, knocking the Ahroun off his feet.
  Ingrid felt her shoulder grind back into its socket. She switched the klaive to 
  her left hand and lunged at the back of Eric’s leg. The blade punched into his thigh; 
  electricity crackled hungrily and this time the metis let out a cry of pain. There was a 
  blur of motion and another crunching impact, and she was tumbling through the air, 
  landing in a broken heap a few yards from the fountain.
  Euryale pressed her attack, her jaws locking around Eric’s throat. The metis 
  grabbed her by the side of the head and tore her free, leaving a ragged wound in his 
  
  The Poison Tree
  176
  neck. Snarling, he smashed her head against the stone lip of the fountain. Blood and 
  stone chips sprayed. The ronin convulsed once, and then went limp.
  Darius was still down, thrashing in pain. Anna and Joshua were too far away 
  to help, isolated and beset by three Black Spiral Dancers. Ingrid drew in a painful 
  breath, feeling splintered bones shift inside her chest. She tried to force her body to 
  move as Eric slowly turned to regard her.
  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, his words carrying easily over the tumult of 
  battle. Eric stepped gracefully over the lip of the fountain, his body blurring between 
  steps. “I hoped I would see you again before it was all over. Did you know?”
  Ingrid tried to work her broken jaw. Muscle and bone shards slipped painfully 
  into place. “I…know you’re a murderer. A traitor.”
  Eric spread his arms. “I am a child of the new world,” he said. “Just as you are. 
  As you have always been.” He walked towards her. “I tried to show you. I offered to 
  teach you. Do you remember?”
  “You lied to me.” She rolled onto her side, gritting her teeth in pain.
  “No. You just refused to accept the truth.” Eric smiled at her. “There is a place 
  for you in the new world, cousin. Abbazû has shown me. We will rule the Earth to-
  gether, and you will bear me such beautiful children…”
  Ingrid uttered a prayer to Grandfather and threw Donnerkeil with all her strength. 
  The grand klaive blurred through the air, right for Eric’s heart. 
  The metis caught the blade with ease. Burning arcs of electricity crackled along 
  the klaive as the storm spirit writhed angrily in Eric’s grip.
  Eric laughed, shaking his head at her. “The spirit of Abbazû resides within me, 
  cousin. I am like unto a god. Do you really think – ”
  A bolt of lightning split the sky, arcing from the klaive to the angry skies above 
  and bathing the scene in sharp, actinic light. Eric stiffened in agony, his skull haloed 
  in fire. The crash of thunder overhead was like the voice of judgment itself.
  The metis fell to his knees, smoke rising from his blackened body and billowing 
  from his mouth. Donnerkeil tumbled from his grip.
  Ingrid forced herself painfully to her feet. A stunned silence hung over the bat-
  tlefield. She limped to her stricken cousin and picked the grand klaive from the 
  ground, then stared down into Eric’s bloodshot eyes.
  “I’m no god, cousin.” She raised her silver blade. “I am a garou. A wolf of the 
  old world. And here is the truth as I know it.”
  Her klaive fell like a thunderbolt, and the storm rumbled in reply.
  
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  Chapter Twenty: Stormwalker
  Ingrid heard the soft crunch of paws on gravel, and a great, black wolf emerged 
  from one of the narrow paths into the center of the rose garden. The garou paused for 
  a moment, taking in the weed-choked pond and the statue at its edge, then padded 
  over to where Ingrid sat on the steps of the old gazebo.
  Euryale shifted from one stride to the next, becoming human once again by the 
  time she reached Ingrid’s side. The ronin settled down on the faded wooden step 
  next to her.
  “Anna said I might find you here.” Euryale frowned. “She failed to mention that 
  the garden would try to get me lost every chance it could. If I hadn’t tracked your 
  scent I’d still be going around in circles.”
  “The spirits here aren’t keen on strangers,” Ingrid said quietly. Thirty-six hours 
  after the hurricane, the winds were still restless, and banks of clouds were scudding 
  westward across the sky. Bright summer sunlight waxed and waned, and shadows 
  sped across the grass. They passed lightly over the freshly dug graves that filled the 
  north end of the clearing and disappeared from sight. 
  Diesel engines rumbled out on Bull Street – trucks from the electric company 
  most likely, trying to restore power to the district. Savannah had been declared a disas-
  ter area by the governor, and the National Guard had been sent in the morning after the 
  battle in response to reports of vandalism and rioting. By the time the troops arrived, 
  the bodies of the Wyrmspawn had all been dragged away, and a steady rain had washed 
  away most of the blood. There would still be questions, of course, but few answers, and 
  in time the events of the hurricane would become another of the city’s strange legends.
  Ingrid glanced at Euryale. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
  The ronin nodded. “It’s time,” she said. “Kevin is fit enough to travel, and he’s 
  getting restless. There’s talk of a pack of lost cubs raising hell up in Nashville. We 
  thought we’d head up and check them out.” She met Ingrid’s gaze. “You could come 
  with us if you want. A trip might do you good.”
  The Shadow Lord gave her a faint smile, but shook her head. “I can’t. There’s 
  too much to do here. Savannah’s an open city now. There’s four new packs to get 
  settled in, and work to be done at the caern.”
  Epilogue: 
  What the Rain 
  Left Behind
  
  The Poison Tree
  178
  “I know. I just don’t like the idea of you being here all alone.”
  Ingrid looked away, across the grassy clearing. Her eyes, as ever, were drawn 
  to the graves. The whole bloodline gone, save for her and Marcus, who was dead to 
  her too, for all intents and purposes. He’d left with Oakheart and the rest of the Pro-
  tectorate’s garou, not long after the battle, and she never expected to see her cousin 
  again. She still couldn’t quite grasp the enormity of it all. She wondered if she ever 
  would.
  “I’ll be fine,” Ingrid managed to say. “I’ve got my pack. And Catherine has 
  promised to stay, once she’s up and about.” The Theurge had been barely alive by the 
  time Oakheart and the Stone Mountain garou arrived. She was convalescing in one 
  of the upstairs bedrooms now, under Anna’s watchful eye.
  “I’m glad to hear it,” Euryale said. “Maybe the two of you can restore the 
  shrines one day.”
  “Is there a point?”
  “Always.” Euryale said. 
  Tears welled in Ingrid’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she said, wiping her cheeks. 
  “From where I sit it feels like the end of the world.”
  The ronin gripped Ingrid’s arm. “Not while we live, sister,” she said gently. “Not 
  while we fight. As long as one of us draws breath, the world will turn a little longer.”
  The Shadow Lord nodded. “I’ll miss you when you’re gone,” she said. “Kevin, 
  too, but for Gaia’s sake, don’t let him know that.”
  “My word of honor,” Euryale said with exaggerated solemnity.
  “Don’t wander far, all right? This is your home now, for as long as either of us 
  live.”
  Euryale smiled. “That means more to me than you know. Truly.” She stood, 
  holding out her hand. “Now leave the dead to their rest, and walk me to the door.”
  Ingrid stared up at the ronin for a long moment, then let Euryale help her to her 
  feet. “There’s just one thing I need your help with before you go.”
  “What’s that?”
  “First we need to start a fire. There’s a bunch of old papers upstairs I need to 
  burn.”
  
  Savannah is under siege.
  For 20 years the minions of the Wyrm have threatened the Coast-
  al Empire, checked only by the courage and cunning of the Shadow 
  Lords. Every year, the septs of the Southern Protectorate send young 
  warriors to aid in the defense and to prove their mettle in the pressure 
  cooker of the port city.
  It’s not enough.
  Every night, the Wyrm grows stronger, its forces more bold. Now, 
  young cubs are dead and a hidden foe reaches out its claws to exact 
  revenge against Savannah’s Garou.
  Ingrid Stormwalker, war chief of the Coastal Empire, must defy 
  her sept’s law, her family, and her pack to uncover the root of the rot-
  ten vine that chokes her beloved caern.
  Time is running out for the historic city — and the entire Southern 
  Protectorate.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/World of Darkness (WoD) [multi]/Vampire/Vampire (oWoD)/World of Darkness (WoD)/oWoD/Werewolf (c)/Werewolf 20th Anniversary/W20 - The Poison Tree.pdf