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“You see why he’s still alive,” the Ulfric said.

“Too powerful to get rid of,” I said, voice still oddly detached, as if I wasn’t really concentrating on what I was saying.

“I used him as my threat. He would lay his magic on a wolf that was misbehaving, and they would be turned into what you see. And he would stitch them into the monstruo. But my wolves fear him now more than they fear me.”

I was nodding over and over because I couldn’t think of a good thing to say. Alive, they were alive when Nicky did his magic. I had a truly awful thought. Somehow it seemed wrong to be putting away the guns, but I needed my hands for other things. I raised the shirt and slid the Browning home, though it wasn’t as smooth as it would have been if the holster had been familiar. But my left hand was pretty much gone. I had to raise the shirt with my right and very carefully tuck the Firestar into the front of my pants. Even after the hand was empty, it continued to twitch uncontrollably. There was nothing I could do but wait for it to calm down on its own. I cradled the hand against my body and walked towards the monster.

I stood on the other side of the bar from it, looking at one of those dried faces. The mouth had been sewn shut on this one. I didn’t know why. I took a few deep cleansing breaths, and there was an odor of herbs to it, but mostly just a dry smell like tanned leather and dust. I reached out with my left hand. Even with the bandages and the muscle cramps this was still my power hand, the hand to sense magic with. Most people have a hand that is better for sensing stuff, usually the opposite hand from the one you write with. I have no idea what ambidextrous people do.

There was an amazing amount of power pushing out from the thing, but the bar was wide and I was hurt so my concentration wasn’t good, and I still couldn’t answer the one question I needed answered. I used my right hand to sort of jump-sit on the bar, then got onto my knees. There was a face at eye level with me, and this one had eyes. A man’s face, I think, with pale grey wolf eyes trapped in a dried mummy face. Those eyes stared out at me, and there was someone home. The walking dead don’t show fear. I knew what I’d feel before I stretched my hand out toward the face. There was Nicky’s power like a warm blanket of worms, squirming over my skin. It was some of the most uncomfortable magic I’d ever felt, unclean, as if the power itself would eat your flesh if you stayed too close to it for too long. This was where Nicky’s energy had gone, and this was why no matter how much energy he gathered, it would never be enough. Magic this negative, this evil, is like a drug. It takes more and more energy to get the same result with worse and worse effect on the spellcaster.

I sent my own magic into that mess, not to empower, but seeking. I felt the cool brush of a soul, and before I could pull back, my power ran up that column of trapped flesh, and the souls glowed behind my eyelids with cool white light. None of them had been dead when he did this to them. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure they were dead now.

I opened my eyes and pulled my hand back from the thing. His power sucked at my hand like invisible mud. I pulled free with an almost audible pop. The man’s face moved its withered mouth, and made a long dry sound, twice. “Help,” it said, “help.”

I swallowed a wave of nausea and was very glad I’d missed breakfast. I crawled on one arm and my knees to Nicky. I bent over him and whispered, “Would burning it free their souls?”

He shook his head.

“Can you free their souls?”

He nodded.

I think if he’d said yes to the first question, I’d have put the Browning to his head and killed him. But I needed him to free them, and I added that to my list of things to do before I left town. But there was nothing I could do for them today, except stay alive, and strangely, keep Nicky Baco alive. One of life’s little ironies, that last.

I sat on the bar with my legs dangling over the edge, hand cradled to my chest, dazed with the