“Told who to destroy them?” Beezle asked.

Daharan looked at me. “Alerian.”

As Daharan said his name I felt, briefly, that sense of the ocean closing over me. “So it’s nothing to do with Jude’s past at all, but Alerian’s.”

Daharan shook his head. “I can see that the pack’s troubles are tied to Jude’s history, although I cannot see precisely how. The shapeshifter is merely an agent working another’s will.”

“Working Alerian’s will?” Nathaniel asked.

“Alerian was asleep for hundreds of years,” I said. “The pack’s troubles are recent. Unless he left an ancient Post-it with instructions, it’s unlikely he’s behind this.” I looked to Daharan for confirmation.

My uncle nodded. “I believe Alerian has an agenda of his own, but I don’t believe it has anything to do with these wolves.”

“But the shapeshifter is connected to Alerian,” Jude said.

We all looked at Daharan expectantly. Having raised the subject, he now appeared reluctant to continue. I had noticed that while there was no love lost between the brothers, Daharan, in particular, was loyal to his blood.

I believe that he, as the eldest of the four, felt the burden and responsibility of their powers most, and thus was more inclined to keep family matters in the family circle. Although as I glanced around the table I realized everyone except Beezle and Jude were in his family circle.

Nathaniel was his brother Puck’s son, and thus the most closely related. Samiel was the next closest, as the son of Ramuell, who had been Lucifer’s son. I was the most distantly related, with several hundred generations separating me from Evangeline and Lucifer, my many-greats-grandparents. Really, the least likely person to belong at that table was me.

Yet Lucifer and all of his brothers sought me out. And Lucifer’s blood had manifested more power in me than any child of the intervening generations. I’d stopped asking “Why me?” It was pointless.

Daharan cleared his throat, and we all looked at him.

“Many thousands of years ago, when humans were still evolving into the creatures they would become today, my brother Alerian ruled over the seas of this Earth. This planet is particularly well suited to his powers, as there is more water than land. Lucifer and Puck squabbled over other places and other dimensions, as they always have.”

“Color me surprised,” I muttered.

Daharan smiled briefly before continuing. “However, as humans evolved, they became more interesting to Lucifer. He began to spend more time here, to establish a base of power. And then he was made to carry the souls of the dead, which brought him into closer contact with people. He began to covet this planet, a place Alerian considered rightfully his. The oceans were ruled by his creatures, his monsters. All life on land had come from his source, from the sea. He naturally resented Lucifer’s intrusion.”

I desperately wanted to ask just who had been powerful enough to force Lucifer to become the agent of the dead, but I resisted. Daharan might clam up if I started asking too many questions about the origins of the universe.

Daharan continued. “Although life on land had begun in his waters, the intervening years had separated humans and animals too much from this source for Alerian to wield his will over them. He decided to experiment. He wanted to create creatures that would be fully malleable. They must be able to change form but also have no strong will of their own. He also wished, however, that these creatures have a great deal of personal charisma.”

“Seems like those qualities would contradict one another,” Beezle said. “How can they have no will of their own but still be snake charmers?”

I shook my head at him. I could see what Alerian had been trying to achieve. “He wanted to be able to push his will through these creatures, to use them like high priests recruiting acolytes.”

“While he remained in the shadows,” Daharan agreed.

“I guess we don’t need to ask if he succeeded,” I said.

“The creatures were born of his own blood, the power and changeability of the sea, mixed with the blood of humans and of shapeshifters, which were only in their infancy as a species then. Through it all he infused his magic, until he had created the perfect vessel. Three of them.” Daharan paused, his eyes far away.

“So what happened?” Jude asked impatiently.

“The creatures worked perfectly. They could be human or animal or bird, whatever Alerian wished, and they drew others to them until Alerian had a vast army completely under his control,” Daharan said heavily.

“I think I can guess what happened next,” I said. “Lucifer didn’t like Alerian playing with his toy—which he had stolen from Alerian in the first place—and so he decided to just smash it.”

“You understand Lucifer very well,” Daharan said.

“He’s not complicated,” I said, a little insulted. I really resent positive comparisons between me and the Prince of Darkness. “His machinations might be beyond me most of the time, but his motivations are pretty simple. If you’ve got it, he wants it.”

“So Lucifer did what—rounded up his Grigori buddies and started raining fire on Alerian’s armies?” Beezle asked.

“Yes,” Daharan said. “And the carnage was terrible to behold. It soon seemed there would be nothing left of this planet except a wasteland devoid of life. So I was sent to intervene.”

Nathaniel and I looked at each other, each knowing the same question was on our lips—who sent you? But neither of us asked.