“Kill them,” Victor screamed.
“Jackson,” I said. “I know where your keepsakes are. Just stay over there, and I’ll get them for you.”
“She’s lying. She and the wolf have been in on it together the entire time.”
The creature who used to be Jackson Miller looked between us like he was a spectator at a tennis match.
I held out a hand, hoping to keep him calm and reasonable. I didn’t want another episode like the house.
“Your name is Jackson Miller, and your wife was Eva Miller. You were a doctor in the civil war.”
The draugr’s chest heaved at my words, recognition of who he once was seeping into his dead fish stare. Good. Maybe I could turn him against Victor after all.
“Kill her,” Victor growled. “How do you think she knows all this? Because she stole your keepsakes.”
Brax backed towards me, keeping Victor and the draugr in sight. He herded me back a few steps.
The draugr’s eyes turned toward me, the brief moment of sanity fading as madness took its place. I’d lost him. He was hearing, but he wasn’t listening. Still I had to try.
“No, he’s the one who’s lying. He has your stuff and is using it to manipulate you into doing his dirty work.”
The draugr screamed, the sound piercing like a thousand needles in my mind. Brax staggered beside me, raising his hands to clutch at his ears.
Whatever was happening affected his balance, and he fell to his knees. He convulsed on the ground, fur crawling over his skin—his limbs and back bulging as the bones ran like water underneath the surface. This wasn’t the easy shift of before. This was hideous and painful, torture of a kind I wouldn’t wish on anybody.
The draugr’s voice faded but Brax’s body continued to twist in the throes of the shift. Victor watched with a twisted grin, relishing his alpha’s pain.
A gray and white wolf lay on the ground panting in Brax’s place. He was a gorgeous specimen, bigger than anything found in the wild, with a luxurious coat and paws the size of dinner plates.
It was tempting to hope that his wolf was enough to turn the tide against our attackers, but I had a feeling things wouldn’t be that easy as he staggered to his feet.
“I know what we should do,” the draugr sang in a high-pitched voice. He giggled and leapt to crouch on one of the headstones, cocking his head like an oversized bird. One whose features were rotting off its body.
The draugr’s skin was in worse shape than it had been in his victim’s house. Giant patches were missing, showing bone and tendon. Half his nose was gone, leaving strings of flesh and cartilage. A yellow substance, pus perhaps, oozed out of raised boils on his hands and neck.
He looked fragile, but I knew his outward appearance belied the strength resting in his body. The victims showed he was capable of tearing bodies apart. Even those of werewolves in their prime. He’d probably tear through me like tissue paper if I let him get hold of me.
“We’ll play a game,” the draugr sang, baring a mouth full of decayed or missing teeth in a smile. “Whoever survives will be eaten by me.”
“I think I’ll pass,” I said, taking another step back.
Brax seemed pretty out of it still, his great head hanging and his tail scraping the ground. I tried to catch his eyes. I needed him to run this time, not attack.
“I think the wolf will play.” The draugr’s head bobbed in a sinuous motion almost like it had no bones constricting its movements. “Yes. Yes. I think he will be most willing.”
The low growl focused my attention back on Brax. His teeth were bared as that growl came again. He edged forward on one paw.
“Brax, you don’t want to do this,” I warned.
The draugr must have messed with his mind. It’s the only thing I could think of for him to suddenly turn on me like this.
“I think he does.” The draugr giggled and clapped his hands, popping one of the pustules. The yellow liquid slid down his arms and soaked into his coat.
“Brax, you are an alpha werewolf. You can fight this. I know you can.”
I backed up, the wolf shadowing me. My foot wobbled on the uneven surface of a grave as his slinking movement brought him even closer.
Victor watched us, his eyes catching and reflecting the light to glow briefly.
