Page 104 of The Wolf Queen’s Curse

Just how powerful is she?

And, does she realize she’s powerful? I don’t think so. The only supernatural community she’s had is the werewolf Pack. I’m not sure whether she’s known a necromancer outside her own family.

“He says he wouldn’t have hurt the boys. Just given them a little of what … Monty gave to him. Monty? Oh, yes, it’s Montague, isn’t it?”

She continues without waiting for Rufus’s response, knowing that any response he gives won’t exactly encourage the fellow to keep talking. This wolf had wanted to scar Bishop or Julius—when they were children—in revenge for what their grandfather did. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised to find him buried under this basement floor.

“How did you end up here?” Ann asks. Then she pauses and says, “Murdered by that bastard upstairs.” Ann glances at us. “I’m relaying his words exactly. The profanity is his.”

“I figured that,” I say with a smile. “Continue, please.”

She does, continuing to relay everything the ghost is saying, and it’s like seeing someone play two roles in a stage production. Odd at first, but soon I can imagine the man’s words coming from him instead.

“Can you be more specific?” she says. “Who killed you?”

“How the fuck should I know?” he replies through Ann. “He got me from behind. I just know that bastard ordered it.”

“What bastard is that?”

“Figure it out.”

“Doyle?”

“Doyle doesn’t have the balls to do this. That’s the problem. That’s always been the problem. He’s being fucked over by that bastard, and he’s too stupid to realize it. I’m older than these other pups, so I figured it out, and I hoped I’d get a little bonus for keeping my mouth shut. Instead, I wound up here.”

“When you say Doyle is being ‘fucked over’…”

“Look at this place. It’s a shithole. We bust our asses to make money, while Doyle keeps waving a dream of the promised land. A proper house. A proper Pack. We should have had it years ago. You know why we haven’t? Because Doyle isn’t in charge of the money, and he’s too stupid to realize most of it is vanishing into someone else’s pocket.”

“Jesse,” I murmur. “Doyle said Jesse is in charge of the money. He made a joke that he has no head for figures, so Jesse looks after it.” I look at the patch of air Ann has been addressing. “That’s who you mean. That’s who ordered your death. Jesse.”

“Look at you,” the wolf says. “A female with a half a brain in her head. I’m done here. Give me my boon.”

I’d be inclined to refuse, but if a necromancer hopes to continue summoning spirits, she must have a reputation for fair dealing. It turns out he does want a message sent, which is the usual request. He has a mother in America, and he wants her to know he’s dead. Ann agrees and takes the information and then releases him.

After that, Ann moves to the next most recent mound. The wolf she summons here is far less belligerent. He doesn’t need a boon. He just wants to tell his story, how he was lured into the Cambrian Pack and then murdered. Why was he murdered? He’s not even sure. He thinks it was because he was getting close to Hanora, but all he knows is that he was murdered while out alone one night.

He’s young—eighteen—and the whole experience has just left him confused. Lured into a Pack, trying to figure out whether he wanted to stay, falling for one of the girls, and then dead barely more than a month after he arrived.

The third wolf is a swirling cyclone of rage, nearly incoherent with it, according to Ann. He came from the Caledonian Pack, and like the last one, he’d been lured with promises. In his case, he’s very clear those promises were fantasies. They’d wanted him because he had influence in the Caledonians and could bring others, but he himself was, as he put it, “too smart for their liking.”

When he saw that their promises weren’t going to be met, he challenged Doyle, who seemed confused, wanting to know what he’d been promised and by whom, and Doyle swore to sort it out and begged for time, saying he’d speak to Jesse. That night, the wolf went to bed and never woke up.

When Ann asks who made the promises, it turns out to be the first ghost we spoke to. He’d been a recruiter. And the wolf that one answered to?

Jesse.

We don’t raise any more dead after that. There seem to be two more, but their graves are old, and Ann says they’ll be more difficult to contact.

It doesn’t matter. We have what we need.

Once back with Julius and Bishop, we talk less than one might expect. Even with the privacy spells, too much conversation seems unsafe, and there isn’t much to say beyond the basics. Jesse is recruiting young wolves—not to grow as a Pack but to grow as a workforce that ultimately lines his own pockets.

While there will certainly be wolves here who are happy enough, that’s because they believe the dream they’ve been sold. Work hard, and someday, you’ll be part of a Pack to rival the Albions, with a fancy house and easier jobs.

My impression is that Doyle is the one selling the dream. Because he believes it.

Bishop is a leader with vision. A leader who sees what could be and has the wits and cunning to achieve it. Doyle has the vision, but he lacks what it takes to see it through, and he relies on his second-in-command, his old friend from the American Pack.