“I need my kit, and something for those burns,” he said to Riley. “And now your hands. We’ll have the story, and then it’s best if we clean the grounds. And go.”

“Fresh shirt, medical supplies, beer, cleanup. Check. I’m going to touch base with my contact, nail down just where we’re going.”

Within minutes, they gathered in the kitchen, with Bran tending Riley’s wounds.

“How’d you cut up the hands?” Doyle asked her.

“She pulled that thing off you with them,” Sawyer told him. “Just yanked it out, then shot the crap out of it.”

Over a long sip of beer, Doyle studied her. “Looks like we’re even then.”

“Since you can’t die, yeah. I’d say we’re even. So let’s hear why.”

“A witch. Being magickal doesn’t stop insanity. She was mad. She would lure young men, use them, then kill them for sport.”

“A black widow witch,” Riley said.

“One of the young men was my brother. Barely seventeen when she took him.”

Instinctively Annika wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”

“I hunted her. That was my purpose, my only purpose. To save him, destroy her. I bargained with an alchemist, gave him all I had. He created the sword, to end her. When I found her, my brother was near death, beyond the saving. Seventeen, and dying in my arms, he who had never harmed a soul. My grief was beyond even my rage. He begged me to kill him, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do what he asked of me. That is a regret I can never undo. So he died in agony while I grieved.

“She smelled it, that grief. Savored it. I fought her, blind with it, beyond feeling that rage, certainly beyond fear. When she knew I would end her, she used it, and cursed me with the spell. I would watch everyone I loved die. I would see them bleed and fall in battle, suffer from disease, wither and fall of old age. I would never know the release of death, but only the death of all I touched.”

He polished off the beer, pushed the bottle aside. “I took her head with the sword, and bore my brother’s body home, to his mother’s weeping. He was the youngest of us, and I the oldest. But I hadn’t saved him, I hadn’t given him what he asked of me at his end. And the curse rooted in me.”

“When was this?” Bran asked him.

“In the year 1683.”

“Man, you’re old.” Even as he said it lightly, Sawyer put a hand on Doyle’s shoulder, squeezed. “Sorry about your brother.”

“You would regret it if you’d given him what he asked,” Annika said. “You would carry that as you carry the regret of not doing so. It wasn’t a battle you could win.”

“It’s done, and long ago.” He looked over at Sasha. “You think I should’ve told you this before. You’re the first I’ve been with, fought with, on this quest. The habit of secrecy is hard to break. I can tell you that after tonight, after the battle, I’d decided to break that habit and tell you, as I’ve told you now. I don’t blame you for not believing that.”