Eric felt something come undone in the five patients back in town, on the second floor of the Middleton Hospital, as well — a cord being snipped between them and the creature. The unnatural hair, the infections, the nightmares, the fever sweat — it all went away, just like that. Because if there was no werewolf, there was no way for the curse to spread. He felt their wounds vanish, turn into superficial scratches and bruises. He could almost hear them sigh with relief in their sleep.

Eric yanked the mask back down over Brandon’s face. He felt a whole bunch of possible lives of his own slip away, felt the path to a couple of good futures close forever. He told himself it didn’t matter.

He wondered when Colchester had gotten to Brandon, who’d given him away. And when Colchester had learned to make a werewolf. That was the frustrating part of the job. Trying to keep up with a dark sorcerer with a seemingly infinite amount of time on his hands to pull crap like this.

Sooner or later, he was going to have to deal with Colchester. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

Eric heard voices coming up the hill behind him. He got up and ran, imagining deeper shadows all around him, hiding him from view. He made it behind a nearby stand of trees as a group of people carrying flashlights came over the hill. There were police in uniforms, and some other men in ordinary clothes with hunting rifles — the citizen patrols, now out in force.

One of the men in the group saw Brandon laying there on the ground and raised his rifle.

“Don’t!” someone shouted, and knocked the barrel of the rifle toward the sky.

It was Chief Keene. He shoved the man back. Eric saw Carrie break from the pack and run toward Brandon’s fallen body.

“Carrie, wait!” Chief Keene shouted. But Carrie was already at Brandon’s side.

“I knew it!” she yelled. The rest of the group caught up with her, just in time to see her pull the mask off Brandon. “See?” Carrie said to them, triumphant. “It was someone in a mask the whole time!”

Brandon groaned and began to stir. One of Chief Keene’s uniformed officers pulled him off the ground and put him in cuffs. Chief Keene took Carrie aside and spoke to her angrily, lecturing her about how she had to be more careful, how she couldn’t go charging ahead like that.

But Eric could see her grinning. She’d solved the case. That was all that mattered to her. He found he was smiling too. If she only knew.

Whatever. He didn’t need to be around anymore. He calmed his mind and imagined a door in front of him, and walked through it to the sacred grove, where he told Merlin everything.