“I know it seems unfair, but I’m going to complain again,” I told Wulfric.

  “Go on,” he said, and it irked me that he wasn’t breathing hard. We were climbing the path across a rugged stream that cut deep into the hillside. Knowing where we were going made the trip far different than last time, but no less taxing.

  “I don’t like hills. Or hiking”

  “What about walking in general? Do you have an opinion?” he asked, reaching out to steady me as I jumped from rock to rock. The stream was low, but still swift enough that falling in would ruin my day.

  “I tolerate walking. I like walking and eating.”

  “I agree. When you—oh, hello friend,” Wulfric said, breaking off his response.

  Bindi hovered before him, smiling and chattering away in amiable tones. She was only moderately excited, which was a state of relaxation for anyone else. As a fae, Bindi had a special relationship with witches, and my family in particular. Wulfric had been guardian of her lands for nearly a thousand years, though I don’t think she was more than a hundred years old at most.

  After I listened to her for a moment, I smiled and stepped closer. “Feel like taking a walk? Or flight, rather?”

  “Where to?” she squeaked.

  “The bad place, from two years ago,” I said.

  Bindi flashed scarlet red as fear and anger pulsed around her normal blue globe of magical presence. “Carlie no you cannot it is not good.”

  “I know, friend. We go to see if anyone has been there. To see if I—if I made a mistake,” I admitted.

  “A mistake? But you killed the big one and freed the boy and then broke the land no Carlie you did not make a mistake.” Her words came out in a fae rush, high and piping.

  “We have to check. There are things happening, and we have to protect Halfway. You people, too. We have to protect all of it,” I said.

  Bindi hovered, pulsing red, to purple, and finally settling back in to a more normal blue. “There is no dragon?”

  “No, I swear it.” I held up my hand, palm out. “No dragon. We look for signs of passage. Nothing more.”

  She considered this, then Wulfric raised his hand too, holding it out in a sign of respect and trust.

  “I will go,” came her answer, and with that, our adventuring party was set once again, going into a place that had been filled with death and ghosts. This Halloween, I was hoping we would find neither.

  “At least it’s pretty,” I said. It was. The trees had lost most of their leaves, but there was still a lot of color around. Little pines peeped out here and there, and the splash of mosses gave the landscape a look that it was only getting ready for a nap, not anything permanent.

  Between the rocks and streams, we huffed on, or at least I did while Wulfric strode on like he was in a book about Hiking While Handsome, and Bindi flitted around asking me lots of questions. Her interrogation ranged from my thoughts on flowers, to moss, to how pretty her sword was, to why Wulfric was so tall and other topics. During her pauses, she asked me about the magical wars, spellcasting, waffles, why men liked Tammy’s perfume, and if I had any opinion on the recent appearance of beavers near Pigeon Brook.

  Wulfric’s smile was only half hidden as he listened to me try to get a word in edgewise, but I had to admit, Bindi’s chatter made the miles slide by, and before I knew it I recognized something from our last fateful journey to the spring.

  “We’re far along. That’s where the demon was,” I said. Pointing to an outcropping, I changed course to avoid the scene, cutting left where some evergreens were holding court over a small patch of needles.

  “We will be at the spring tonight,” Wulfric said, stretching his back with a grimace.

  “So, you are human.” I wanted to smirk, but my feet hurt too much.

  Bindi flashed in confusion. “Yes we are close to the big dig we will go there of course but Carlie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where will we sleep we cannot sleep there it is bad.” She flashed again, a hint of reddened fear coloring her aura yet again. Bindi feared nothing, which gave me pause.

  “Bindi, what’s waiting for us there? You said it’s a—a big dig?”

  “You will see but yes. I can not explain Carlie just please let us rest elsewhere. Not even the air is good,” she concluded.

  “How close?” I asked her.

  Wulfric answered from memory, without hesitation. “Two miles.”

  “I’m loading a spell that will bring down the sky. I don’t like this. Bindi, are there any beings? Any people?”

  “Not now,” she answered cryptically.

  “Were there?”

  “There were and there are you must be careful but also you must see. It is not life Carlie. It is things that might be alive but not now. Let us go,” Bindi said. She unsheathed her fearsome little sword and hovered with an expectant hum.

  “Only one way to find out.” I stepped over a fallen log and began the final climb toward the spring, Wulfric beside me and Bindi streaking about in a patrol loop. It was a behavior I’d never seen before, and if anything, it made me even more nervous. The day was ending, and the sun began to slide away, its work done for the time being as shades of rose and gray crept up the side of a distant tree line.

  “Will we be there before dusk?” I asked.

  “We’re almost there now, and—” Wulfric stopped, his face wrinkled up in disgust.

  The smell hit me like a punch seconds later, and I staggered back as my gorge rose with unwelcome speed. “What in the name of the stars above is that?”

  “It’s not a body,” Wulfric said, He looked a bit pale, which was impressive for someone who spent ten centuries doing time as a vampire. Still, he was a Viking, and they were never known for being toasty golden beach goers.

  “It’s not roses, either. What is that?” I asked.

  Bindi flared into life right near my head, her hands raised to her nose. “That is gross Carlie very gross.”

  “I agree, and it’s at the site where the spring used to be. Careful, everyone. Be on your toes,” I said. My charms were warm to the touch now, and I felt the comfortable heft of a spell on my tongue.

  We began our descent into the rich, deep glen where the chestnut trees loomed overhead, their stately, skeletal presence at odds with the repulsive smell in the air. The spring was tucked in a mass of rubble, but there was a chaotic spear of mud where the outer edges should have been.

  “Mud?” Wulfric asked. “There has been little rain.” His tone was wary, his steps light. Bindi hovered near one of his burly shoulders, her blade flashing in the last sunbeams of the day.

  “And. . .a pit?” I asked. We approached slowly, each step bringing us closer to a scene of bizarre violation. There was no spring, but there was not pile of stone, either.

  There was a hole, and it was a lot bigger than anything a mushroom creature had crawled from. Around the dark pit were smears of soil, debris, and a truly disgusting gray goo that made my nose try to detach from my body and fly screaming in the other direction.

  Against my better judgment, I knelt down and stuck a finger in the nearest pile of slime. Lifting it to my nose, I pulled back like it shocked me.

  “What is it?” Wulfric asked, kneeling to repeat my experiment. He sniffed, and his expression grew thoughtful. “Huh. I didn’t expect that.”

  “Neither did I,” I said.

  “Oh please what is it I do not want to smell but I must know,” Bindi protested.

  “It’s. . .whatever the fungal men, or people or whatever? I think it’s them, but deconstructed. Like they died. Again,” I said.

  “But not after digging,” Wulfric added. He was moving around the pit, peering in with a gimlet eye. “It’s quite deep.”

  “Why would anyone—or anything—dig here? It’s death incarnate, or at least it was until I blew it up.”

  “Would fungal beings care about this place?” Wulfric asked.

  “I don’t think they care about anything. They’re ambulatory mushrooms with loudspeakers attached. They’re carved of magic, and they move by sorcery. I don’t think they have any awareness at all.”

  “So they were called and sent then yes?” Bindi asked.

  “They had to have been. But why? And who?” I asked, rising to stand and wiping my hand on my pants. Gus would just love the way I smelled when I got home from this little trip.

  “What did they take out of the hole?” Wulfric asked.

  “Only one way to know, other than asking them. Let’s survey the site before darkness falls,” I said. I started to circle the pit, moving out in a slow, deliberate arc. Wulfric was opposite me, and Bindi refused to use any system whatsoever, flickering about like summer lightning.

  “Carlie, what are these things they are of people yes?” Bindi asked, hovering near a shadowed pile of rock fragments, now covered with leaf mast.

  “They’re. . . crocks?” I said, looking at the nondescript container without touching.

  “Amphora, but smaller and made here, in the Adirondacks. Old, for your people,” Wulfric said. He lifted one of the two-handled jugs, creating a sloshing sound inside. The neck was open, though small enough to keep whatever was inside from spilling out.

  “Careful, babe,” I warned.

  “I will not drink it,” he said, grinning. He titled the jug and poured some of the contents on his palm. “It’s water.”

  It was. Musty and clouded, but water. I stared at the pile of crockery. Some were broken, others tipped over. All looked forgotten, as if the gatherers had left them behind when they dissolved into stinky goop.

  “Bring one with us, but cork it with mud. I’ll cast some appropriate magic on it at home while Gary watches over, in case anything goes wrong,” I said.

  “Who is Gary?” Bindi asked.

  “A spider. He lives in my cellar.”

  “Is it the fuzzy one? He is quite chatty for one so small,” Bindi said, her color shifting to an amused gold.

  “You know him? He must get around,” I said with a smile.

  “We see you speak to him when we watch your magic. You are our protector, it is natural that we know who your friends are. And your enemies,” she added with an ominous flash of carmine red.

  “Good to know,” I said. “Make for camp? There’s no way I can sleep in shouting distance of this place, and I don’t feel like walking all night, downhill.”

  “We will camp just down the hill, near the birches. I like that spot. I have always liked it,” Wulfric said.

  “You were here before?” I asked. Bindi swooped away in a glittering streak, probably to find other wee folk to keep us company for the night. They were the best security system in the world, even if they were a bit chatty.

  “Many times. I was saddened by all the turmoil, and I am saddened again. Angry, too, if I am honest with you.”

  “Same here. I hate this place and what it did, and now I have to dive into that sample to see if. . . to see if Erasmus is there. Or something worse.”

  “It won’t come to that. I swear it,” he said.

  “How can you know?”

  “Because you need only glance this time. There will be no immersion; no binding. Nothing of the sort. You will find the truth at a distance, because you’re not the same witch, Carlie. Your power has grown, just as you have.” He kissed me, and my lips tingled.

  “I hope I am everything you see when you look at me, love.”

  “You are more. Just ask me. Or Gary.” His smile was bright in the gloom, and at least for the moment, all was well.

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Rock Stars

  Exit Wainright was still tall and muscular and sporting a curled mustache, but he wasn’t dressed like a mining engineer from a hundred years ago.

  He also had gray at his temples, and a less severe haircut that revealed the hint of curls. He was a handsome man, with smiling eyes and a kind tilt to his mouth. He was also a good friend, and still learning his way in our world after sleeping away that last century under the weight of a curse.

  “Let’s talk about mushrooms,” he began, his big hands curled around the coffee mug. We were at the diner, where Dub and Pat were covering for me while I spoke to Exit at the counter. Around us, the restaurant moved on at a frenetic pace, but Exit was an island of calm. I guess you’d have to be after sleeping for that long.

  “Let’s.” I sipped my coffee, which was strong enough to wake the dead.

  “Tammy—and we’ll get to her behavior in a moment—”

  “Oh boy,” I said with a grimace.

  “Yes. Oh boy indeed. In any case, Tammy texted me about another place of emergence.” He hesitated for a second, then forged on. “My apologies. Everything about this discussion is odd, despite what I know to be true. Regardless, she directed me to Creaser Road, where there were not one but two holes in the ground, and they were not the variety I’m used to.”

  “What kind are those?”

  “The kind made by humans, usually in pursuit of wealth. These were ragged, even violent places in the ground, and not entirely in the topsoil,” he said.

  “You mean whatever came out of there changed some rock, too?”

  “Correct. Which means this is your area, not mine. Magic is—it makes me uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t learn anything,” he said. “I found a third site some two hundred yards away, and between everything, I see a pattern. You say these--things?”

  “They’re monsters, more or less.”

  “All right then. These monsters are fungal in nature, ambulatory, and you found evidence of them doing what, exactly?” His brows lifted with curiosity as he waited for my dose of weirdness.

  “They like to yell, chase people, and dig.”

  “Dig?”

  “Yes. I found piles of their—what they turn into, when they break down, I guess—I found dozens of them near the spring that almost killed Halfway. Magical site, fully evil, and there’s no good reason for humans to be there, let alone golems made of mobile fungus. They dug into the collapsed area, and I think they were filling old stone crockery with the remnants of the spring. I can’t call it water, because it’s most likely so toxic it would kill any living thing. Or worse,” I said.

  “What could be worse than death?” he asked, then winced as he remembered his own magical prison. “Right. Many things, it would seem.”

  “You okay?” I asked him. Sometimes, when he was speaking, there was still a shadow behind his eyes.

  “I miss her. I miss my life, but this is good, too. Just different,” he said.

  “Ever think about falling in love again? It’s a big world.”

  “How do you say. . . that ship sailed a long time ago? I think it did, and it left me on the shore of a beautiful, busy planet with scars and dreams and everything in between. Whether or not there’s anyone who could understand me? I don’t know. I can’t lie, even though I’m forced to do it every day just to stay, you know—”

  “Under the radar, we say, but I know what you mean. Does when you’re from change who you are?” I asked him.

  “No.”

  “Then as long as you’re honest about the man you are, I don’t see how that’s a lie. Just don’t close that door, okay?” I smiled so he understood I was being respectful, but still hoping he wouldn’t resign himself to a life alone. Wulfric had done that, and now, he was as much a part of me as I was him. That alone could serve as a beacon of hope, if nothing else.

  “I will.” He frowned into his mug before speaking again. “The magic in this spring, was it comparable to what I lived through?”

  “Worse.”

  Nodding, he furrowed his brow and sighed. “There’s a pattern, but it doesn’t have anything to do with geology or science. It’s about laziness.”

  “Laziness? How?”

  “The sites are all easy to reach. None of them were more than two feet from a path, which means—”

  “Someone is seeding them or altering the soil to cause them to rise in those places. A human, and one who doesn’t know anything about the woods, or Halfway. An outsider,” I finished.

  “You’ve got it. City folk don’t stray from the path without disastrous consequences. They know sidewalks and buildings, and they certainly don’t venture into the raw wilderness. Of the other sites you’ve seen, were there paths? Easy access?”

  I sifted my memory, and realized he was right. “Every. Single. One.”

  “Then you have a smaller group of suspects, don’t you?”

  “By about nine out of ten. Tightens the loop considerably. Hmph,” I pursed my lips and blew out a thoughtful breath. “Want to go see Gran? She’d love to have you over.”

  “I’ve already texted. We’re going for lunch. She made me promise to make it a weekly thing,” he said with a laugh. Gran was not to be denied, even if you were more than a century old.

  “Good. I’ve gotta get back to the grill. See you soon?”

  “Soon.” He patted my hands and left, a gentle smile on his face. I think he stood a little taller, which made me feel lighter inside.

  Walking into the kitchen, I began turning the wheels in my head, moving pictures and sounds all merging together into a quilt of clues that ended where the mountains began. “A stranger from the city.” I looked out over the diner, where the out-of-town girls had been for an early breakfast, and a plan began to take form, one Tiffany at a time.

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Ultimate Evil

  Come to the gas station right away. You need to smell this.

  I have to admit, it wasn’t the weirdest text I’ve ever gotten, but it was in the top ten. I shrugged, pulled on my coat and walked over after kissing Wulfric on the top of his head. He was under Gus, sprawled out like a starfish and snoring lightly, his skin still redolent of redwood and cedar. He’d worked fifteen hours on something that involved wood, glue, mallets, and more wood, all of which ended up in his hair.

  “Be right back. Want cookies?” I asked.

  “Mmmph.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I slipped outside, hoping he wouldn’t wake up and watch from the porch. Shawn’s text hadn’t alarmed me, but it did open up the possibility of cookies and milk, which meant that despite being weird, it was useful.