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    Nicola Calipari had killed the betrayer, Jona. He alone had felt the demon child’s tainted blood spilled all over his skin at the moment of Jona’s death. The old sergeant would be trapped in poisoned visions of the dark soul he had destroyed when he had stabbed his friend, mistaking these for mere nightmares. He was going to be sick as dying.
    I looked around the room. I saw a thousand moments. I saw them merge into one moment. I could still smell Jona, here, under all the smells of scrivener’s ink and interrogation room blood. I opened my mouth to speak, but my husband touched my arm. The new sergeant pointed to the edge of the city, past the walls, where Calipari had gone to be close to his beloved. Calipari thought the stain would kill him. He didn’t want to die in a cluttered room above cluttered rooms, alone. He wanted to die in Franka’s arms. Pup spoke so quietly about Calipari’s death.
    My husband scoffed. “He won’t die. Jona’s blood wasn’t that strong. He will make everyone around him very sick. Why do men like you ignore the temples when you are in need? You give alms, and pray for help alone, but never let your face be seen by mortals when you seek your interventions.”
    Pup shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that stuff, sir,” he said. “Anything else I can help you with?”
    The tavern was far beyond the city walls, to the east. My husband and I left Jona’s skull with the church of Erin in the city. We pulled the wolfskin over our back and charged through the streets. We were wild dogs, running, big like wolves. Women screamed and men drew back from us.
    My husband had lied to the sergeant. Nicola might die. He might take people with him in death. We had to run.

    ***

    We were back to the wall, and beyond it, but this time at the far eastern edge. The swampy pine forests stretched out across the hills with the black, muddy veins of roads. I smelled the wind against my face. We were home.
    Night fell, and we didn’t stop. We kept our wolfskins on our backs and loped overland straight through woods.
    We smelled the tavern before we saw it. Drunk men had lost their way to the outhouse and had leaned into the trees. I smelled it all over the roots at the ground against my nose. I smelled the cook fire dusting the trees. Lamplight in the dark guided weary travelers to a place of rest.
    My husband stopped at the edge of the light. He told me to go forward; he would search the perimeter for any signs of the other two demons.
    I looked up at the building. The bottom floor bustled with travelers and local farmers. In the rooms above, travelers slept, and the owner slept, and his staff slept after drinkers abandoned the bottom floor.
    I went to the barn first. I smelled someone human there, and heard a child breathing. The horses whinnied nervously at my scent. But I needed to see in the dark a little longer, so I kept wolfskin.
    I recognized the boy when I saw him. Franka’s son was sleeping on some hay, waiting for men to come with their horses and a few coppers for his trouble. He snored with his mouth slack, and flies buzzing around his teeth.
    I pulled my hand and back free from the wolfskin to reach into my pack. Stretching my hand out, I poured holy spring water over his head. It must have been very cold. He woke with a start.
    “Drink this water,” I growled.
    “Wha…?” stammering, he stood up, clumsily backing into the wall.
    I remembered myself. He was a child, and me, a wolf in the shadows. I pulled the wolfskin from my back completely. I smiled as warmly as I could, a woman in full, and kind.
    “I am Erin’s Walker,” I said. “Do you know what that is? It is someone who helps people. I’m here to help. You’re Franka’s son, aren’t you? I’ve seen you before, but you do not remember me seeing you. Drink this.”
    “I…?” He shook his head, wiping sleep from his brain. I watched his face as his mind struggled to name what he had just seen. A dream, surely.