He didn’t intend to stop at destroying the vampires. Or the humans. And being Jewish wasn’t going to save anyone from him.

I drew a deep breath as the golem took the last step down.

“Stop,” I said. “Stop moving.” And I used the power that allowed me to give orders to the dead.

It stopped. It had eaten the magic of all the ghosts we could call here between us (except for Galina). That meant its power came from the dead—and the dead had to listen to me. And then it did to me whatever it had done to Mary’s spellcrafting.

When I could open my eyes again, the golem had found the vampires. The space between the old furnace and the stairway was too narrow for the golem to get through, though he had pounded the furnace into half the size it had been. So he reached down and began tearing up the stairs.

When we’d removed the anchors that allowed the manitou of the volcano god to travel, it had been forced back to its original home. I had to do something like that here.

But though it was tied to clay with kabbalistic magic powered by the spiritual energy I’d given him, this manitou belonged here, in Josefov. Those weren’t the technical terms, I was sure. But I wasn’t a mage, and I was running on instinct.

The rabbi’s problem was that he’d tried to stop it by killing something that wasn’t killable. He’d managed to render it almost dead and to separate it from the physical body that allowed it power.

I couldn’t kill it. Couldn’t even fight it because I was locked in a cage. Couldn’t free it—

I closed my eyes and stretched with my senses, the ones I’d used to contact Stefan, to find my pack and Adam through our bonds, but this time I directed my attention toward the golem.

He ripped at the bottom stair, and it gave with a squeak of nails and cracking wood.

I couldn’t do anything with the spellcrafting that held the golem together. But the energy, the magic he’d stolen from the dead . . . that was mine.

I opened myself up—and found Adam. As if he were in the same room with me, I found Adam. He always had my back when I needed him.

There was no time to ask for permission, no time to try to communicate anything because the golem had grabbed someone and pulled them out from under the stairs. I couldn’t tell who it was because the golem’s body was blocking my view.

I centered myself, pulled on the connection between Adam and me, and spoke one word. “Sunder.”

I hadn’t meant to say that. “Sunder” means to divide, to part, to separate—I’d meant to try to do what the rabbi had done. I’d planned on saying, “Die.” I’d hoped that with that command, I could force the golem back into the limbo I’d brought it out from. But someone who sounded suspiciously like Coyote whispered that word in my ear as I opened my mouth.