Smoke Bitten

by Patricia Briggs

  “That sounds right,” I said, writing:

  Did not have enough power to transform George and me and only ½ semi.

  “So if we can keep the people the beast takes from killing anyone, we can keep it powered down,” George said. “We have Ben contained.”

  He sounded so hopeful.

  “Did Adam tell Darryl, and Darryl tell you, that one of the fae was bitten, went into Uncle Mike’s, and killed a whole bunch of people—fae and human and goblin? That Larry and the frost giant stopped it?”

  George frowned. “No,” he said. “Just that the fae, like the vampires, are holed up until the smoke beast is dealt with. By us.”

  “Do you remember the big car wreck that pushed Kyle’s discharging of a firearm to protect Warren off the front page?” I asked.

  George looked sick. “Stefan,” he said.

  I nodded. “That’s what Beauclaire indicated. I think that the smoke beast has plenty of power right now.”

  “What else did Beauclaire tell you?” George asked.

  “He said that they called it the smoke dragon and smoke weaver—that both of those terms spoke to its nature—that it had a name, but Beauclaire could not speak it. Nor could any fae. And that that was because of the rules under which the smoke weaver operated.”

  George started to say something, but I held up a hand. “Sorry, there is something Zee told me. He said . . . he said that what the smoke beast—” I hesitated because Beauclaire had told me what they called the creature for a reason. “What the smoke weaver is doing with the whole body snatching and killing to power up is more like the way an artifact would have been made. He said that the transformations like what the weaver did with the semi are a power that belong to a group of lesser fae.”

  “Huh,” said George. “That would explain the power problem it has. I have never noticed that the fae have trouble powering their own magic. Maybe it has an artifact it’s using? All you have to do is figure out what it is and take it away.”

  That sounded like an interesting plan. I wished I had the book Ariana, a powerful fae I knew, had written about her people. It had a whole section on artifacts—but I didn’t remember any of them operating quite like that. If Zee had known of one (or built one), he would have told me. The book was gone, but I would call Ariana and see if she knew of something like this. Last I had heard from her, she was somewhere in Africa with her mate, Samuel, and communication was tricky.

  George had moved on. “Are we sure this is fae? You said her magic—its magic—didn’t smell fae.”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t run into it before. There are a lot of fae; maybe this one is like the platypus—or the goblins, for that matter. It doesn’t quite fit in.”

  “What else did Beauclaire say?” asked George, half closing his eyes, which was what he did when he was thinking hard.

  “That we’re unlikely to be able to kill it”—and Beauclaire hadn’t mentioned an artifact—“and that trick it has of transforming itself to smoke makes it hard to capture. He then said that Underhill had imprisoned it because of a bargain it made. And that there is a story about that bargain I should find. Then Baba Yaga shut him up and told me that the key to the smoke weaver’s undoing is to be found in his basic nature.” Huh. “His basic nature,” I said again.

  “So we have a start,” said George. “That’s more than we knew when Ben got bitten. I have a few contacts that might know something about artifacts. Even if they’re locked up in Fairyland, cell phones still work. I’ll do some sleuthing.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” I hopped off the desk and opened the door.

  “I need to go put some signs up at my garage,” I told George. “I’m trusting you to keep Ben from killing anyone—or himself—while I’m gone.”

  “He doesn’t seem suicidal,” George said. “He ate a hearty breakfast—muffin with bacon, eggs, and cheese—all off a paper plate without even so much as a fork or spoon. He’s not exactly cheery—but Ben isn’t usually a cheery sort of guy.”

  Hmm. Ben was usually pretty cheery around me. Foul-mouthed and sarcastic, maybe, but cheerful enough. For sure he hadn’t started out that way. Maybe he was grumpier around other people—or they avoided him so much that they didn’t know he’d changed.

  “So you played cook this morning?” I asked. George didn’t strike me as the homemaker type. Toast and eggs maybe, but not a better-than version of a fast-food staple.

  “Adam cooked it up for all of us.” George frowned at me. “He was cooking when I got here at five—and Darryl said you didn’t get to sleep until the wee hours. You look like you could use another eight hours to sleep. You both need to get more rest or you aren’t going to be any good for anything.”

  “News at eleven,” I said dryly, and he grinned.

  “Telling you things you already know is the job of all of your friends,” he said, and headed down to the basement.

  When had George become my friend?

  I had a smile on my face when I opened the fridge, but it dropped away when I saw the deconstructed breakfast sandwich on the large plate with assembly instructions written out in Adam’s handwriting.

  The sandwich was for me. And another time I would have taken it as a thoughtful love-note kind of thing. But we weren’t in that place right now, so that limited the reasons for this gesture. Apologies or guilt—which were both kind of the same thing.

  I thought, just then, of waking up in the middle of the night knowing there was a predator watching me with hostile eyes. Of reaching out and finding Adam in wolf form.

  I don’t trust myself, he’d said. I’ve been a werewolf for longer than you’ve been alive and it’s been decades since I’ve had trouble with it. But now I wake up and I’m in my wolf’s shape—without remembering how I got there.

  Could that hostile presence have been Adam?

  Shaken, I microwaved the things that needed to be microwaved and toasted the English muffin. Adam had said he didn’t know what had caused his problem controlling his shapeshifting—but his wolf had blamed the witches.

  Adam was smart, but beyond that he was perceptive. He didn’t usually have blinders on when he was looking at people, even if he was looking into a mirror.

  I bit into the sandwich.

  He was, in fact, overly harsh when looking into a mirror. He still thought he was a monster. I swallowed and considered that. Could it be that the witches had done something to him and he thought it was his own inner demons breaking free? That the wolf was right and Adam was wrong?

  And what the freak could I do about that? Find another witch? I thought of Elizaveta, who had been our pack’s witch for decades before Adam had had to kill her. I didn’t know that there was a witch I would trust Adam to. Maybe I should talk to Bran? That was an idea with some merit.

  I finished the sandwich and punished myself with a glass of orange juice for health. Followed that up by punishing myself with a cup of coffee to stay awake for the day. Coffee I found nearly as vile as orange juice, but hopefully both of them would do their jobs.

  I was dumping the last half of my coffee in the sink when the front door opened and my nose told me that Auriele had walked in.

  “We are both being chastised,” she told me as she walked into the kitchen. “I am to accompany you on whatever you are doing today.”

  Her tone was neutral, as was her body language. I had no idea what she was feeling about doing guard duty for me. Maybe it was time to put the cards on the table.

  I dusted my hands off and gave her a somber look. “I like you. I think that you are too easily led by your need to protect Christy, who needs protecting about as much as a . . . a jaguar needs protecting.” I didn’t call Christy either a shark or viper—go me!

  Auriele gave me a look that told me that she’d heard “viper” instead of the sexier “jaguar” just fine.

  “I like
you,” she told me without sounding like she was going to choke on it. “You are a Goody Two-shoes sometimes, but you’d fall on a grenade for Adam or Jesse or a member of the pack. You fell on a grenade for Christy, even. But you would also fall on a grenade for a total stranger—and that makes you a liability to the pack.”

  I thought about what she said.

  “That’s fair,” I told her. “But I don’t open other people’s mail.”

  “That’s fair, too,” she said. “Where are we going and when? Adam said he thought you’d be moving by eight.”

  It was seven and if she’d been five minutes later I’d have been gone. Normally I’d have been headed to church (although not at seven a.m.), but the garage was more urgent today.

  I grabbed my purse and said, “The garage. The fae have recalled everyone into the reservation. Without Zee and Tad there, under the circumstances, working in the garage by myself is a liability to the pack.” I deliberately chose her words.

  She nodded approvingly. “Good decision.” Implying that most of my decisions were not.

  But I was a grown-up and didn’t bring up her decision to open Jesse’s mail again.

  * * *

  • • •

  I used the shop computer and printed out signs after Auriele observed that my handwritten signs looked like something her students would do if they were trying to flunk her class. I am not a computer whiz and wasn’t sure the ones I’d put together were any better than the handwritten ones, but I put them up anyway while Auriele played on her phone. And I hid the signs I’d previously scrawled with a marker for everyday use: Lunch break, back in five and Unexpected drama, will return eventually. On that sign I had initially spelled “eventually” with one “l.” In my defense I’d been in a panic when I’d written it. Tad later corrected it for me using a different color marker than I’d used. It probably said something about me that it didn’t bother me to display it for my clients, but I didn’t want Auriele to see it.

  I called and canceled the appointments for that week that I could, and streamlined the rest. I’d come in on Monday and fix a few desperately needed vehicles. I sent some of my clients with newer cars to the dealership—and a few who couldn’t afford the dealership to another garage. Fifty-fifty chance that those clients would stay with that garage afterward, because he was good and nearly as inexpensive as I was.

  “I thought you were closing the garage until further notice,” Auriele said as I locked up.

  “That’s right.”

  “But you are still coming back Monday,” she said.

  “There are some cars I can’t trust to anyone else,” I said. “And a few customers who need special handling. I’ll get one of the wolves to come in with me. People need their cars to work.”

  We got back in my Jetta.

  “We could have taken my car,” she said, not for the first time.

  “I don’t want to get oil stains on any car that Darryl half owns,” I told her seriously. “He might have a heart attack and we can’t afford to lose any more wolves until Adam succeeds in bringing the invaders into our fold.”

  She laughed. “Ah. So it is not the gas mileage, or the need to be in the driver’s seat.” Which were the answers that I’d given her the first two times she’d complained about the Jetta. “It is out of a deep and abiding concern for my husband’s health.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I like Darryl.”

  “We aren’t going back?” she asked as I turned the wrong way to head home.

  “Nope,” I said. “It’s been a rough few days. I’m going for doughnuts. Spudnuts.” Spudnuts were called spudnuts because the dough was made from potato flour. Ben loved spudnuts.

  “Okay,” she said. “I could do a doughnut.”

  Spudnuts was in the Uptown in Richland—a fair commute from my garage in east Kennewick, but it was totally worth the trip. Except when it was closed—which apparently it was.

  “Well, that’s sad,” I said. Why did I not know it was closed on Sundays? I was sure I’d come here on Sunday once or twice.

  “Safeway has good doughnuts,” Auriele offered soberly.

  I sighed. Grocery store doughnuts and spudnuts shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath. With the garage closed for the foreseeable future, it looked like I was going to have some extra time on my hands. Maybe I should try making doughnuts. My homemade bread was good. I already knew how to make fry bread—and there wasn’t a whole lot of—

  My brain lit up with information.

  I didn’t know if the other wolves saw their connections to the pack the way I did. To me, it was like a web of Christmas garland, sparkly and metallic with unexpected lights here and there, the mating bond between Adam and me a thick, glowing rope. That one changed every time I observed. Today it was a sullen red with orange light moving within, almost like a lava lamp. The orange light, I was sure, was information the bond wanted me to have but Adam was keeping from me. Under normal circumstances that bond informed me of things like Adam’s mood, where he was, what music he was listening to, or what he was thinking about.

  The pack bonds, on the other hand, very seldom told me much. Mostly I could tell when someone died. I knew that Adam got a lot more information than that. But the only time the pack bonds really gave me much was when we were on a hunt. Then it was overwhelming, as if the whole pack was one beast.

  I would have thought I’d freak out when I was consumed by the pack bonds—but it was the best feeling in the world. There was no sadness, no worry, nothing except for a wild joy that seared my nerve endings. No hesitation, no questioning, just knowing that the pack is one.

  Granted, if the bonds had done that all the time, turning us into a hive mind like the Borg from Star Trek, I’d be moving to Istanbul or Outer Mongolia or some other faraway place to get away. But once or twice a month in a planned and organized hunt? That was pretty cool.

  Today was different.

  I froze where I was, standing in the parking lot with my hand on the top of the open door of my disreputable Jetta, my head and fingertips buzzing with the urgency of the call. The power of it made the air I breathed feel electric. And as on the nights of the hunt, I knew things I had no business knowing. I knew that Kelly was down and scared and—

  “Makaya,” said Auriele, putting her butt in the passenger seat of the Jetta.

  I’d gotten that, too. Makaya was Kelly’s six-year-old daughter—and she was in trouble. We were less than two miles from Kelly’s house. I was peeling rubber before Auriele slammed her door shut.

  On the whole, ’80s Jettas looked like pedestrian cars, something built along the lines of the Chevette or Echo. Useful, but unpretty and unremarkable. My Jetta, midway through restorations, was remarkable for all the wrong reasons. But unlike my beloved Vanagon, which was lucky to attain highway speed, the Jetta was built to move, not only quick but also maneuverable.

  I was doing sixty when I took the corner from Jadwin onto Kelly’s street, and the wheels stayed on the ground when I did it. Ahead, right by Kelly’s house, I could see a large man with a small child in his hands—he was holding her above his head. Just beyond them was a large construction dumpster.

  “She’s alive,” said Auriele, her voice raspy with wolf. “She’s moving her legs.”

  “If I hit him with the car,” I asked her, “can you make the grab from the hood of the car to protect her?”

  I braked pretty hard as I spoke, slowing the car until we were going about twenty-five miles an hour. Much faster and Auriele wouldn’t have a chance. Much slower and I risked not doing enough damage to the werewolf to get him to drop Makaya. This was an old car, well-designed, but what I was planning was going to hurt me, too, because it didn’t have airbags. That thought was a rueful one, and didn’t change my plans. Makaya was a child. And also a smart aleck. And I adored her.

  Auriele didn’t bother t
o answer me. She just broke out the side window with one definite hit of her elbow and climbed out over the shattered glass. The Jetta’s windows rolled up and down manually—she’d still have been lowering the glass ten seconds after we passed Kelly’s house if she’d tried it that way.

  Being a werewolf gave her the strength to break the window efficiently and crawl outside without risk of falling on the ground. But it was her own natural grace that let her stand on the hood of the Jetta while I drove over a pothole-pocked road, aiming my two-thousand-pound weapon at the bad guy holding the little girl.

  He dropped Makaya, holding her by one leg. Apparently his intent was to scare her family, because his focus was toward Kelly’s house. I couldn’t see Kelly or his mate, Hannah, but I couldn’t imagine that they weren’t out there, just hidden from my sight by their picket fence and the neighbor’s hedge.

  I started to slow. I didn’t want to risk hitting Makaya with the car. We were barely half a block away—I was going to have to abort.

  And then he swung her up over his head again, dancing around in a circle. He didn’t even look at us—though he had to have heard the engine. He was having too much fun.

  On the hood of my car, Auriele remained crouched, knees slightly bent. There wasn’t another wolf in the pack that I would even have thought of asking to try this in human form. I wasn’t asking Auriele just to survive the accident. I was asking her to keep six-year-old Makaya safe. But I’d seen her fight a volcano god; I was reasonably certain that if anyone outside a movie could do this, it would be Auriele.

  Even so, I wouldn’t have tried it—except that even when I’d turned the corner and he’d been six blocks away, I could read madness in the enemy wolf’s body language. I’d grown up in the Marrok’s pack, where every year, people who had been newly Changed failed to control their wolf. Some of them went completely mad. I’d probably seen a dozen of them, but one would have been enough. They were scary enough to imprint on my brain the first time.