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“How we identify a Raven Mocker, how we kill one once we do.”
“And why would you think my great-grandmother knew this?”
“I saw her before I came here. She showed me her papers, told me where I could find them.”
“You know she’s been dead for seven years?”
“So?”
“Was she a wolf when you saw her?”
His brows lifted. “Should she have been?”
“Hell if I know.”
“The wolf you saw at the pond... You think that was your great-grandmother?”
“She’s not a real wolf. Thing ran right through me.” I shuddered at the memory of the sensation. “Ran through a couple of trees, too. They didn’t even slow her down.”
“Messenger wolf.”
“That was my vote.”
“What did she want to tell you?”
“She wasn’t inclined to chat.” If it had even been my great-grandmother. Who knew? “I thought she wanted me to keep an eye on Quatie, which I have been. But then she kept appearing and running north.”
“Sadness and trouble.”
“She showed up quite a few times either before or after you did.”
“Me? What’d I do?”
“Seduced me? Stole my papers?” I scowled. “Seduced me to steal my papers?”
He didn’t deny it.
“If I hadn’t stolen them, they’d be incinerated.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
“No?”
“No!”
“I’ve learned in my business that the end justifies the means.”
“You should be working for the Jäger-Suchers.” They were mavens of the “end justifies the means” philosophy. “And while I’m on the subject, why aren’t you working for them? They’ve got government funding up the wazoo. You’re both looking for supernatural entities; why split your force? Isn’t that how Custer got his ass kicked?”
“So I hear,” Ian drawled. “We don’t join forces for several reasons. First of all, the Nighthawks began hunting in the eighteenth century. The Jäger-Suchers are a little kill-them-come-lately. They can join us if they like, but why should we join them? Second, pardon us if we don’t trust the government. They don’t have the best record when it comes to Indian affairs.”
“Don’t you think it’s time we got over that?”
“No,” he said. “Third, we specialize in Cherokee spirits, though we have branched out into the spirits of other tribes, and we aren’t averse to putting any old evil entity to rest if we happen to run across it. You can ask Dr. Hanover, but I don’t think they have the best luck with Native American spirits.”
“She said something about witchie wolves. Ojibwe. Considering how she likes to howl at the full moon, I was surprised at how little she cared for them.”
“Just because they’re wolves doesn’t make them pals. Same goes for the Nighthawks and the Jäger-Suchers. We might both be monster hunters, but that doesn’t mean we’d work together very well. I’ve talked with Edward. He was perfectly agreeable to our continuing in our way and the Jäger-Suchers in theirs. Many of the Cherokee spirits require someone with knowledge of the language to understand what they are and how to get rid of them.”
