To Darryl, Adam said, “I called Bran. Without checking out the site himself, Bran wasn’t able to pinpoint what could have done it. Taking the fae out of the picture leaves us with not much. Might even be a native creature. Bran said he once encountered a wendigo, and he believes that it was physically capable of killing this way. They smell oddly of magic, the way Mercy described them. But he didn’t think that it would have left canid paw prints—or left anything except bare bones. Their curse is that they hunger in a way that cannot ever be satisfied. Also, they tend to haunt the mountain passes, not the open shrub steppe. He’s having Charles do a little more research for us.”

“Charles who?” asked Christy.

“Bran’s son,” I told her, trying very hard not to be condescending and not succeeding. Maybe because I didn’t try that hard. She’d been Adam’s wife for over a decade, and she hadn’t bothered to learn anything if she didn’t know about the Marrok and his sons. “He’s half-Indian—Salish—and he has some people who will talk to him about things that are culturally sensitive—sacred things or stories they don’t want prettied up with all the original flavor lost so that it can be more effectively marketed as a genuine Native American story.”

“Have you asked Ariana?” Darryl was getting good at ignoring the almost battle between Christy and me and, at the same time, reducing the tension by changing the subject. I would never have thought Darryl would be such an adroit politician.

“No,” said Adam. “Not until we’ve looked at everything else. I’ll call Marsilia as soon as we’re done here, but I don’t expect her to have much for us. She might owe Mercy and need the pack to keep her seethe safe until she gets some more vampires with power here, but she doesn’t like us very much.”

Ben snorted. “You can say that again.”

“Why not ask this Ariana?” asked Christy.

“Because her father tortured her with his fae hounds until she went mad,” Adam told her before I could say something spiteful or petty. It would probably be a good idea if I refrained from answering Christy’s questions.

“She is Samuel’s mate,” Auriele said. When Christy looked blank, Auriele added, “Samuel is Bran’s other son. Samuel is a werewolf, but she’s coping okay with that. However, it is still an effort for her to be around any of the rest of us. Asking her about a giant dog killing people might just knock her right back off her applecart. Not only would that be unkind to do when we don’t even know if she would have useful information, but she’s a power in her own right. If she goes nuts, I don’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity.”