"Because I'm not taking a boat that has parts not working into waters that aren't safe," Malcolm said. "There are some pretty nasty places around here if you don't know where you are, and her spell killed all of my instrumentation lights - GPS, depth finders, the whole kit and caboodle."

The witch smiled at them all. "Are you still talking?"

Isaac touched her shoulder. "Lead the way, Hally."

The fae followed Isaac and his witch, her pale skin standing out in the darkness like a candle in the night. The FBI agents followed the witch with Malcolm trailing them. That left Charles and Anna to take the rear guard.

Castle Island had been parklike with carefully planted trees and bushes. Gallops was more like a jungle. Not quite as dense as the temperate rain forest near Seattle, but the undergrowth could have used a machete or two to clear it out. Perforce they followed paths that had once been sidewalks or narrow roads before nature had started to reclaim them. Mostly they walked uphill - from what he'd seen on the water, the whole island was mostly one long, narrow hill. It wasn't very big, less than forty acres, he thought. It wouldn't take them long to find the place where Jacob had been killed, as long as the witch was telling the truth - that she could feel it.

Anna pointed out the cornerstone of a house and what was undoubtedly originally a planted hedge of roses that had gone wild. He pointed out some poison ivy and a pair of curious rabbits who weren't at all scared of them. Any hunt on this island would be boring if they were hunting rabbits.

The whole thing stank of black magic. If he'd been trying to find the center on his own, he'd have had to crisscross the whole island and hope he'd stumble into it.

As much as he hated to admit it, the witch had been right. Only amateurs would leave this much power residue behind. After they were done here, he'd have to talk to his father about how to clean it up. This much tainted power was more troublesome than asbestos - people would get sick here and die from colds. They would scratch themselves on a thornbush and die from the resultant infection. They would kill themselves from a despair they would never otherwise have felt.

This much residue would also attract dark things - and in the ocean there were some very bad things who might decide to come ashore for the kind of invitation the island was sending out. And the worst part was that there were more places like this, everywhere the killers had struck over the years.

Sally Reilly, Caitlin the witch had said when she identified the marks the killers left on their victims. It made sense. He hadn't ever met Sally, but his father had made a point of attending one of her "demonstrations" and had come back shaking his head and sent Charles out to do research. Back then it had been more foot and phone work than computer work. After talking to her father (her mother was dead), some old friends, and a couple of witches, he'd returned to Bran with a report.

Sally wasn't a hack or an amateur, but rather a skilled witch. She'd broken with her family and decided to turn the heat up - maybe cause another witch hunt. A hunt that she intended to protect herself from by money she gained while she was busy convincing the television-watching public that witches were real.

He'd told Bran that they needed to stop her - and then she'd quit trying to publicize witches. Instead, she'd started charging rich people large fortunes for her work. She'd disappeared altogether sometime in the early 1990s, but he'd always supposed that she had retired, until Caitlin the witch had been so utterly convinced that Sally Reilly was dead.

It would have been just like Sally to do something like agree to work up a spell that would leave a residue like this, one with incorrect symbols, maybe - while she charged them through the nose for it, thinking them fools who intended to kill chickens or goats.

Had they killed her? The timing was right. And if they'd paid a witch for a spell to let them feed from people they killed, they'd have felt the need to get rid of her, since she was a witness they wouldn't have wanted. And serial killers didn't stay free and killing for this many years without being smart enough to take care of witnesses.

Charles let his hand linger on Anna's back. She wore a sweater and a light jacket, but he pretended he could feel the heat of her through the clothing that covered her.

Brother Wolf wanted her off this island and somewhere far away from killers who hunted werewolves and left no scent behind for them to discover. But Charles knew better. To try to encase his Anna in Bubble Wrap would be to kill the woman who protected him with her grandmother's marble rolling pin. She was the woman he fell in love with.

Then why are you hiding your ghosts from her? Brother Wolf said.

Because I am afraid, Charles answered his brother, as he would have answered no one else. He had lived a very long time, and only since he gained Anna had he learned to fear. He'd discovered that he had never been brave before - just indifferent. She had taught him that to be brave, you have to fear losing something. I am afraid I will lose her. That they will take her from me - or that I will drive her away when she sees what I really am.

Beauclaire had addressed that. Charles couldn't remember the fae's exact words, but he felt them. People as old and powerful as he should never be given someone to love.

For Anna he would destroy the world.

ANNA FELT CHARLES more than heard him, even though he'd taken his hand off her back and let her go ahead. She could hear the others walking in front of her, but Charles was a silent, reassuring presence behind.

She could smell the wrongness in the air and it made her wolf nervous. It felt like something was watching them, as if the wrongness had an intelligence - and it didn't help to remember that at least one of the people they were hunting could hide from their senses.

Anna fought the urge to turn around, to take Charles's hand or slide under his arm and let his presence drive away the wrongness. Once, she would have, but now she had the uneasy feeling that he might back away as he almost had when she sat on his lap in the boat, before Brother Wolf had taken over.

Maybe he was just tired of her. She had been telling everyone that there was something wrong with him...but Bran knew his son and thought the problem was her. Bran was smart and perceptive; she ought to have considered that he was right.

Charles was old. He'd seen and experienced so much - next to him she was just a child. His wolf had chosen her without consulting Charles at all. Maybe he'd have preferred someone who knew more. Someone beautiful and clever who...