Silver Borne

by Patricia Briggs

Chapter 8

 

  WE WERE ON CHEMICAL DRIVE, THE HIGHWAY THAT LED out of the city to the countryside, when the ambulance passed us going the other direction, lights flashing but sirens off. I almost turned to follow.

  No. Better to find out exactly what's happened first. Sam isn't a doctor today, and I can't help anyone better than the hospital where they're taking the victim. And maybe it wasn't anyone I knew in the ambulance at all.

  As soon as I turned down my road, I put my foot down on the gas pedal and forgot about speed limits. Ahead of us, something was billowing black smoke. There were red flashing lights - fire engines at my house, which was well on its way to becoming so much kindling.

  Adam would have thought I was in there. I hadn't told him I was leaving - because he'd have sent someone with me, someone he trusted, and I wanted him to have all of those with him.

  Adam's cry suddenly made sense, but I was terrified of what he'd done when the connection had blown. It might have felt like I had died or fallen unconscious. I should have called him instead of waiting until I could drive here.

  Adam's pack surrounded the trailer, staying out of the way of the fire department. The fire must have started while the meeting was still taking place or shortly thereafter - I firmly squelched the notion that they might have set it on fire in effigy. My eye slipped over familiar faces - there was Darryl, Auriele, Paul - and some not so familiar - Henry and George. I couldn't find Adam anywhere in the bunch. My stomach clenched in fear at his absence.

  I parked by the side of the road as close as I could get with the fire trucks everywhere, but it was still well back from the fire.

  I sprinted up to the closest of Adam's pack and grabbed her by the arm - Auriele.

  "Where is Adam?" I asked.

  Her irises widened in shock. "Mercy? Adam thought you were in there when it blew. "

  Blew? I looked around and realized that it did look as though the trailer had simply exploded. Bits of siding, glass, and trailer were scattered a dozen yards from the burning hulk that used to be my house. The trailer had gas heat; maybe there had been a leak. How long would it have had to leak before blowing up? If it had been leaking when I left, I would have smelled gas.

  Tomorrow, I'll feel bad about losing my home and the things that are important, like my photos . . . poor Medea. I left her locked in because I always lock her in at night so she'll be safe. I don't want to think about what happened to her. Tonight, I have more urgent fears.

  "Auriele," I said slowly and clearly, "where is Adam?"

  "Mercy!"

  Arms snagged me hard and pulled me close. "Oh God, oh God, Mercy. He thought you were effing dead. Went through the side of the bloody trailer to find you. " Ben's voice was hoarse from the smoke and almost unrecognizable. If it hadn't been for the British accent, I wouldn't have been certain it was him.

  "Ben?" I peeled myself out of his embrace with some difficulty - and care, because the hands that clutched me convulsively were burned and blistered - but I had to be able to breathe. "Ben. Tell me where Adam is. "

  "Hospital," said Darryl, trotting over to us from where he'd been talking to some of the firemen. Darryl was Auriele's mate and Adam's second. "Mary Jo was able to ride in with him on the strength of her job. " Mary Jo was a werewolf whose day job was as a fireman and a trained EMT. "I'll take you. "

  I was already running back to the Rabbit. Sam somehow slithered past me when I was getting in, and when the passenger door opened, he hopped into the backseat so Ben could sit down.

  "Warren's on his way," Ben said. His teeth were chattering with shock, and his eyes were bright wolf eyes. "He was working, couldn't get off in time for the meeting. But I called him and told him that Adam was at the hospital. "

  "Good," I said, pulling out in a storm of gravel. "Why didn't they take you to the hospital, too?"

  Away from the fire, the scent of burnt flesh and his pain was impossible to miss. The little car's engine roared as I opened it up on the highway. Ben closed his eyes and braced himself against the seat.

  "I was still in the building," he said. He coughed, rolled down his window, and hung out the side, choking and hacking for a while. I handed him a half-empty water bottle, and he rinsed his mouth out and spit.

  He rolled up the window and took a drink. "Adam went for your bedroom, and I went for Samuel's. " His voice was even rougher than it had been.

  "How bad are you?"

  "I'll be all right. Smoke inhalation sucks. "

  * * *

  WE THREE BARGED INTO THE EMERGENCY ROOM. Even for a place that was used to odd things, we must have looked a sight. I glanced at Sam. He'd rolled on the ground when I wasn't looking, covering up the remnants of bloodstains with dirt. All of us looked bedraggled, but at least I didn't think Sam and I looked as if we'd been killing fae. Of course, we didn't look like we'd been fighting a fire, like Ben did, either. I'd come up with some story if someone asked.

  I'd forgotten that there was something more shocking about us than dirt, burns, and old, mostly washed-out bloodstains.

  "Hey, you can't bring a dog in here!" The triage nurse took three quick strides to us and met my eyes . . . and she stumbled to a halt. "Ms. Thompson? Is that a werewolf?"

  "Where is Adam Hauptman?"

  But a roar from the emergency room told me all I needed to know.

  "Whose bright idea was it to bring him here?" I muttered, running for the double doors between the waiting room and the emergency room, Ben and Sam flanking me.

  "Not me," Ben said, sounding a little more cheerful. I think he'd been worried about what we'd find, too. "I am absolved of guilt. I was in the trailer getting toasty-warm when they sent him here. "

  A gray werewolf whose fur darkened around his muzzle stood in the aisle between the patient rooms and the central counter, his change so recent that I could still see the muscles of his back realigning themselves.

  He was missing large patches of fur where his skin was blackened and had bubbled up like wax. All four of his feet were hideously burnt, the singed skin a horrible imitation of the black fur that usually covered them. The curtain from the room was caught over his tail.

  I stopped just inside the doors, assessing the situation.

  Jody, the nurse I'd talked to the night of Samuel's accident, was standing very still - and someone had coached her on how to behave around werewolves, because her eyes were fixed on the floor. But even from where I stood, I could smell her fear, an appetite-rousing scent for any werewolf. Mary Jo crouched in front of Adam, one hand resting on the floor, her head bowed in submission - and her tough athletic body, so fragile-appearing next to the wolf, was directly between the bystanders and her Alpha.

  I glanced down at Sam, but apparently he'd fed enough on the dead fae that his attention was all on Adam, though he stayed next to me. Ben waited on my other side, holding himself very still, as if he was trying really hard not to attract Adam's attention.

  In other circumstances I wouldn't have been as worried. Werewolves tend to lose their human halves when badly injured, but they can be recalled to themselves by a mate or by a more dominant wolf. Samuel was more dominant than Adam, and I was Adam's mate. Either of us should have been able to bring him back.

  Unfortunately, Samuel wasn't himself this evening and Adam had fried our mate bond in his panic when he thought I was trapped in the trailer. I didn't know what that meant in terms of how he would respond to me. He lowered his head and took a step forward, and my time to dither ran out.

  "Adam," I said.

  His whole body froze.

  "Adam?" I stepped away from Ben and Sam. "Adam, it's all right. These are the good guys. They're trying to help - you've been hurt. "

  I'm fast, and I have good reflexes, and I didn't even see him move. He pinned me back against the doorframe, rising on his poor burnt hind legs until his face and mine were at the same height. The scent of smoke and burnin
g things wrapped around us as his hot breath touched my cheeks. He inhaled, and his whole body began shaking.

  He'd really thought I was dead.

  "I'm okay," I murmured while I closed my eyes and tilted my chin to expose my throat. "I wasn't in the trailer when it blew. "

  His nose brushed from my jaw to my collarbone and he let out a low, wheezing cough that seemed to go on forever. When it was finally over, he laid his head on my shoulder and began to change.

  It would be safer for everyone if he were human, which was probably why he'd done it. But he'd just been badly hurt - and only just completed a change from human to wolf. To attempt to reverse the shift within minutes was miserably difficult. That he chose to do it anyway made it obvious to me that he was in very bad shape.

  He'd never have started changing while he was touching me if he'd been fully aware. The change is agonizing enough in itself; skin-on-skin contact makes it even worse. Add to that his awkward position and the pain Adam was already in because of his burns, and I didn't know what would happen. I slid slowly down the wall, bringing him with me as his skin stretched and the bones moved. Watching a wolf change is not a beautiful thing.

  I put my palms flat on the floor, so as not to give in to the temptation to touch him. As much as my head knew more skin contact was the last thing he needed, my body was curiously convinced that I could alleviate the agony of the change.

  I looked up at Ben and jerked my chin toward the nurse . . . and the doctor who'd pulled the curtain back to join the fuss out front. Ben gave me a "why me?" look. In return, I glanced at Adam - obviously incapacitated - and then Sam, who was a wolf.

  Ben looked up at the sky, invoking God's pity, I supposed. He trudged over, hands cradled in front of his body, to solve the problems he could. I caught Mary Jo's eye and interrupted a look directed at me . . . such a look. As soon as she realized I was looking at her, her face cleared. I couldn't interpret the emotion I'd seen, just that it was very strong.

  "Anybody hurt?" asked Ben. When he extends himself beyond his usual nasty personality, people tend to find Ben reassuring. I think it's the nifty British accent and composed appearance - and even with the burns and the charred clothing, he looked somehow more civilized than anyone else.

  "No," said the doctor, whose name tag read REX FOURNIER, MD. He looked to be in his late forties. "I surprised him when I opened the curtains. " And then in a spirit of fairness seldom seen in terrified people, he said, "He was pretty careful not to hurt anyone, just knocked me aside. If I hadn't stumbled over the stool, I'd have kept my feet. "

  "He was unconscious when I left," Mary Jo told Ben, half-apologetically. "I came out to see if I could find someone to help him - we'd been here for a while. I didn't realize I'd been away long enough for him to change. "

  "Not so long," I said. "I saw the ambulance pass us. You can't have been here more than a half hour, and it takes about half of that for him to complete the change. Whose bright idea was it to bring Adam to the hospital in his condition anyway?"

  It had been Mary Jo's. I could see it in her face.

  "All he needed was the dead flesh peeled off," she said.

  A really, really painful procedure - and no painkillers work on werewolves for long. It was such a bad idea that we all stared at her, all of us who knew, anyway - Ben, Sam, and I. Adam was preoccupied with his change.

  "I didn't realize how bad it was," she defended herself. "I thought it was just his hands. I didn't see his feet until we were already in the ambulance on the way over here. If it had just been his hands, it would have been okay. "

  Maybe. Probably.

  "I thought you and Samuel were dead," she said. "And that left it my problem as the pack medic. And as medic and as my Alpha's loyal follower, I deemed the hospital the safer option. "

  She'd just lied.

  Not about Adam being safer at the hospital than home. With the recent upheavals, she was probably right that a badly wounded Adam wasn't safe with the pack in his condition. They'd tear him apart and apologize and maybe even feel bad afterward. But that first statement . . .

  Maybe she thought we were too overwrought to notice - and Ben was sometimes not as aware of subtle cues as some of the other wolves. But maybe Mary Jo didn't realize that I could tell when she was lying as well as any of the wolves could have.

  "You knew we weren't in the house," I said slowly. And then the light dawned about what that meant. "Did Adam send you out to keep watch over me while he met with the others? Did you see us leave?"

  She had. It was in her face - and she didn't bother denying it. She might be able to lie to the humans in this room, but not to the rest of us.

  "Why didn't you tell him?" asked Ben. "Why didn't you stop him before he went into the fire?"

  "Answer him," I said.

  She met my eyes for a long count of three before finally dropping them. "I was supposed to follow you if you left. Make sure you didn't get hurt. But you see, I think everyone would be better off if one of the vampires had killed you. "

  "So you chose to defy Adam's orders because you disagreed with him," said Ben. "He picked you to watch Mercy because he trusted you to take care of business while he dealt with the pack - and you betrayed that trust. "

  I was grateful that Ben kept talking.

  Mary Jo was one of the people in Adam's pack I'd thought was my friend. Not because a debt the fae owed me had kept her from dying a little while ago . . . I suspected that had been a mixed blessing, like most fairy gifts. But we'd spent a lot of hours in each other's company because Adam liked to use her as a guard when he felt I needed one.

  Mary Jo wanted me dead. That was what that look had been about.

  It was such a shock that I might have missed her answer to Ben's question if she hadn't sounded so defensive.

  "It wasn't like that. She was safe enough; she left with Samuel. There's nothing I could do that would protect her better than Samuel could. "

  "So why didn't you stop the arsonists?"

  Arsonists? There had been arsonists?

  "I wasn't ordered to protect her place. She wasn't in there. "

  Ben smiled in such satisfaction that I realized he hadn't known there were arsonists either. "Who were they, Mary Jo?"

  "Fae," she said. "No one I knew. Just more trouble she's bringing to my pack's door. If they wanted to burn down Mercy's house, what did I care?" She looked at me, and said viciously, "I wish they'd burned it up with you in it. "

  "Ben!"

  How he managed to stop his hand before it hit her face, I don't know. But he did. She'd have wiped the floor with him afterward. She might be nominally below him in the pack hierarchy, but that was only because unmated women were at the bottom of the pack.

  She wanted to fight him. I could see it in her face.

  I couldn't move with Adam mostly on my lap. "That's enough. " I kept my voice soft.

  Ben was panting, his hands shaking in rage . . . or pain. His hands were really damaged.

  "He could have died," Ben said to me, his voice rough with the wolf. "He could have died because this - " He stopped himself.

  And the violence was gone from Mary Jo's posture as quickly as if someone had hit a switch. Her eyes brightened with tears. "Don't you think I know that? He came running from the house, calling her name. I tried to tell him it was too late, but he just pulled the wall apart and jumped through the hole he'd made. He didn't even hear me. "

  "He'd have heard you if you told him she wasn't in there," said Ben, unaffected by the tears. "I was right behind him. You didn't even try. You could have just told him she was alive. "

  "Enough," I said. Adam's change was nearly finished. "Adam can settle this himself later. "

  I looked over at Sam. "Two changes is bad when there's tissue damage, right? It heals wrong. " The human ear I could see was scarred, and the top half of Adam's head from his eyebrows up seemed to be as well. He must have
had a wet towel or something over his head to cover his face, but it had fallen down at some point and hadn't protected his scalp.

  Sam sighed.

  The doctor had been listening to Mary Jo's story with fascination - I bet he watched soap operas, too. "I'm sorry," he told me, sounding it. "Unless you have some means of effectively restraining him, I cannot treat him here. I won't risk my staff. "

  "Can we have a room, then?" I asked.

  Time wasn't our friend. We could take him back to his house and take care of him . . . but once Mary Jo had reminded me of the danger he'd be in wounded, in the middle of his pack, I really didn't want to take him back there and hurt him.

  Sam caught my eye and looked down the line of curtained rooms to the one I'd retrieved him from.

  I looked back at the doctor. "A real room would be best. Could we use the X-ray storage room?"

  The doctor frowned, but Jody came to my rescue. "This is Doc Cornick's Mercy," she said. "She's dating Adam Hauptman, the pack Alpha. "

  "Who is lying in my lap," I told them. "I'm sorry. If it were anyone except for Adam who was hurt, we could make sure your personnel were safe - but Adam's the only one who could keep a lid on it reliably. You are right not to risk your people. But I've got a couple of wolves here - Mary Jo's an EMT - and we can manage on our own. If it weren't urgent that we get started, I'd just take him home. But if we don't do something soon, the scars will be permanent. "

  His feet were the worst. Wholly human and . . . I could see bone under blackened skin. He was unconscious, sweaty, and four shades paler than usual.

  "What can we get you?" Fournier asked.

  "A stretcher," said Mary Jo. She looked at Sam, waiting for him to take over. Then she realized that in this place he couldn't possibly show them he was a werewolf. I don't think she had noticed the full extent of Samuel's problem yet. She just turned to the doctor and started speaking medical gibberish.

  A gurney appeared, and Ben lifted Adam out of my lap and onto it. A host of hospital personnel showed up and emptied the X-ray storage room of boxes - with very little respect for the existing organization. Someone was going to be upset about that. Dr. Fournier was paged to the third floor and left with the same brisk efficiency with which he seemed to manage everything - including werewolves in his ER.

  With everything out, there was room, if only just, for all of us, the gurney, and the tray of tools Jody brought in.

  "Fournier isn't as good as Doc Cornick when things go bad. " Jody gave me a sharp look as Mary Jo and Ben maneuvered Adam to the center of the little room, and I wondered if she was thinking about how many werewolves I seemed to know and connecting it to the fact that I was Samuel's roommate. If so, she didn't seem to be hysterical at the thought of all the werewolves who were here at the moment, so maybe she'd keep quiet about her suspicions.

  "Fournier didn't get hurt," I said. "He didn't make anything worse. That's good enough for me. "

  "Do you need help?" she asked bravely.

  I smiled at her. "No. I think that Mary Jo can handle it. " I'd have rather had Jody and the doctor, but Adam wouldn't thank me for putting humans at risk. Like Jody, I'd really rather have had Samuel . . . who had disappeared from my side.

  "It's not a sterile environment, but it sounds like that's not important. "

  "No," I told Jody distractedly. Where had Sam gotten to? "Werewolves deal with germs better than people do. Looks like they're ready to go. "

  I closed the door, took a deep breath, and turned to Mary Jo. "Do you know what to do? I have to find Sam. "

  "I'm here. " Samuel was naked as the day he was born, and sweating freely from the speed of his change. His skin was filthy with dust and fae blood - a condition he was remedying with a bucket of water and a towel that must have been among the things Mary Jo had required. His eyes were gray, a shade or two lighter than normal, but the other wolves would doubtless put it to changing. "I'll take care of it. "

  "Samuel," I said.

  But he looked away and took up something that looked like a scrub brush, with stiff bristles. "I need you to hold him down. Ben, lie across his hips. Mary Jo, I'll tell you where I need you. Hands will be the worst, so we'll start with them. "

  "What about me?" I asked.

  "You talk to him. Keep telling him we're helping him with this torture. If he hears you and believes you, he won't fight us as hard. I'll give him some morphine. It won't help much or for long, so we'll need to move fast. "

  So while Samuel scrubbed the dead skin and almost-healed scabs off Adam with a stiff-bristled brush, I talked and talked. The burns had killed tissue that had to be removed. Once it was gone, the raw wounds would heal cleanly and without scars.

  Adam kept going into coughing fits. When they'd happen, everyone backed off and let him cough until he spit up blood with great hunks of black in it. Ben had a few of those fits, too, but he rode them out while still keeping his weight on Adam.

  Every so often, Samuel would stop and dose Adam with more morphine. The worst of it was that Adam never made a noise or struggled against the people holding him down. He just kept his eyes on mine while he sweat and his body shook with small tremors that grew and subsided with whatever Samuel did.

  "I thought you were dead," he said, his voice a bare rasp while Samuel moved from his hands to his feet. It didn't seem to hurt as much - at a guess there weren't a lot of nerves left. He'd jumped into a burning building barefoot to save me.

  "Stupid," I said, blinking hard. "As if I'd die without taking you with me. "

  He smiled faintly. "Was it Mary Jo who betrayed us at the bowling alley?" he asked, proving he hadn't been entirely unaware of what had been going on while he was changing.

  Both of us ignored the pained sound Mary Jo made.

  "I'll ask her later. "

  He nodded. "Better - " He quit talking, and his pupils contracted despite the morphine he'd been given.

  He arched up and twisted so he could press his face into my belly, making a noise somewhere between a scream and a growl. I held him there while Samuel snarled at Ben and Mary Jo to hold him still.

  Another shot of morphine, and Samuel moved us all around. Ben across Adam's legs - "And don't think I haven't noticed your hands, Ben. You're next up. " Mary Jo on one arm, just above the elbow. Me on the other.

  "Can you hold him?" asked Samuel.

  "Not if he doesn't want me to," I told him.

  "It'll be all right," Adam said. "I won't hurt her. "

  Samuel smiled tightly. "No, I didn't think you would. "

  When Samuel started on Adam's face with the brush, I had to close my eyes.

  "Shh," Adam comforted me. "It'll be over soon. "

  * * *

  WARREN ARRIVED NOT LONG AFTER THAT. TOO LATE to help with Adam, but he and Mary Jo held on to Ben while Samuel scrubbed his hands free of black skin and blisters. He hadn't changed twice and started healing wrong, but it was still bad enough.

  Adam had closed his eyes and was resting while I stood with my hands wrapped around his upper arm, one of the places where he hadn't lost any skin. The connection between us hadn't reset yet, and I had to rely on my senses to tell me what he felt. It surprised me, given how unhappy I'd been with that bond, that I missed the connection when it was gone. My ears told me that he wasn't fully asleep, just catnapping.

  Ben wasn't as quiet as Adam had been, but he was obviously doing his best to keep his cries down. Finally, he sank his teeth into Warren's biceps and dug in.

  "Attaboy," Warren drawled without flinching. "Go ahead and chew some if it helps. Too far from the heart to do me much harm. Dang, but I hate fires. Guns, knives, fangs, and claws are tough - but fires are the worst. "

  Adam's hands looked like raw hamburger, but at least they didn't look like burnt hamburger - and one of them reached over and closed over my fingers. I tried to let go of him, but he opened his eyes and held on to me.

>   "Okay, that's it," Samuel said, and he stepped back from Ben. "Sit him down on the stool and leave him alone a bit. "

  "I brought an ice chest filled with beef roasts," Warren said. "It's out in the truck, so we can feed them. "

  Samuel jerked his head up. "Your Alpha was in trouble, and you stopped and went grocery shopping?"

  Warren smiled with cool eyes while blood dripped to the floor from the arm Ben had gnawed on. "Nope. "

  Samuel stared at him - and Warren gazed at the wall beyond him without backing down a bit. He might like Samuel, but Samuel wasn't his Alpha. He wouldn't cede the lone wolf the right to question his actions.

  I sighed. "Warren. Why do you have an ice chest filled with roast on hand?"

  The cowboy turned to me and gave me a wide smile. "Kyle's idea of a joke. Don't ask. " A light blush bloomed on his cheekbones. "The freezer and the fridge are already full at Kyle's house. We put them in the ice chest out in the garage to take back to my apartment, where I have an empty freezer, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. " He looked toward Samuel. "Bit snappy, aren't you?"

  "He's waiting for Mercy to start in on him," said Adam. His voice was faint, but, hey, we all had good hearing. "And Mercy is wondering if she should do it with all of us listening in or not. "

  "What's Mercy got on you?" asked Warren. When it was obvious Samuel wasn't going to answer, Warren looked at me.

  I was watching Samuel.

  "I just can't do it any longer," he said, finally. "It's better to go now, before I hurt someone. "

  I was too tired to put up with his garbage. "The hell you can't. 'Do not go gentle into that good night,' Samuel. 'Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ' " He'd helped me memorize that poem when I was in high school. I knew he'd remember.

  " 'Life's but a walking shadow,' Mercy, 'a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. ' " He countered my Dylan Thomas with Shakespeare, spoken with as much weary bleakness as any stage actor ever managed. " 'It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying . . . nothing . ' " He said the last word with a bite of bitterness.

  I was so angry I could have hit him. Instead, I clapped my hands in mock appreciation.

  "Very moving," I said. "And stupid. Macbeth killed his overlord and followed his ambition, bringing misery and death to everyone involved. Your life is worth more, I think, than his was. More to me - and to every patient who crosses your path. Tonight, it was Adam and Ben. "

  "Count me in on that," said Warren. He might not have been in on the cause of the conversation, but any wolf would have caught the gist of what we were talking about. "If you hadn't been here when that demon got ahold of me not so long ago, I'd be dead. "

  Samuel's reaction was not what I expected. He ducked his head and snarled at Warren, "I am not responsible for you. "

  "Yes, you are," said Adam, opening his eyes.

  "That chap your hide?" suggested Warren gently. He shrugged. "People die. I know that; you know that. Even wolves like us die. Fewer people die when you are around. Those are the facts. Being upset about them don't make them false. "

  Samuel stalked away from us all. There wasn't much room to get away, though, and he stopped with his head down. "I was hoping this could be easier, Mercy. But I forgot - you don't do easy. " He turned around and met my eyes. When he spoke again, it was in that gentle patronizing tone I thought I'd cured him of a long time ago. "You can't save me, Mercy. Not when I don't want to be saved. "

  "Samuel," said Adam in a demanding tone, much stronger than his condition allowed. He raised himself up on his elbows and stared at the other wolf.

  Samuel met Adam's eyes . . . and I saw shock in his face for just an instant before he began to shift to wolf. It was a dirty trick, something Alphas - strong Alphas - could do, forcing the change on another wolf. I suspected that if Adam hadn't caught Samuel by surprise, it would never have worked. Adam held Samuel's gaze while we waited with bated breath. Fifteen minutes is a long time to hold still. And at the end of it, Samuel was gone, leaving the white-eyed wolf in his place. The wolf smiled at Adam.

  "Might not be able to save you, old son," Adam said, lying back again and closing his eyes. "But I can buy us a little time to kick you in the butt hard enough you stop thinking about 'tomorrow and tomorrow' and start thinking about how much your butt hurts. "

  "Sometimes," said Warren, "it's real easy to see you were in the military, boss. "

  "Butt kicking being part and parcel of the service, both on the giving and receiving end," agreed Adam, without opening his eyes.

  Mary Jo had been staring at Sam. "His wolf is in control," she said, horrified.

  "Has been for a couple of days," agreed Adam. "No bodies yet. "

  He didn't know about the fae at the bookstore . . . but I wasn't sure the fae counted. It had been a defensive killing rather than an uncontrolled killing spree, though Sam had nearly taken me as dessert afterward.

  Sam met my eyes thoughtfully, and I realized that he seemed . . . different, more expressive, than he had in Phin's bookstore - just as I was used to seeing Samuel's wolf. I'd thought he was getting more aggressive earlier, but I could see that he'd also been becoming . . . less Samuel, even less Sam. Our little disaster might have bought us a little more time.

  "Ah take it that the Marrok does not know about Samuel?" Warren broke the silence, sounding very cowboy, very laid-back - which was usually a sign that he wasn't.

  "Sort of," I said. "I told him he didn't want to know yet, and he believed me. But only on the condition that I'd talk to Charles. According to Charles, the good news is that if Samuel's wolf was more independent of him, he'd have started causing mayhem right away. Bad news is that if we don't get Samuel out of his funk soon, his wolf is going to fade, too. " As he had been doing. "And we'll be left with a dead Samuel anyway, but only after a bonus of lots of other dead bodies. "

  "A regular Vikin' funeral," commented Warren.

  Mary Jo gave him a sharp look, which he returned.

  "Ah can read, as long as they's lotsa good pictures," he said, speaking even slower than usual and using a lot more Texas-cowboy grammar.

  "That's my line," I told Warren. "I resent your stealing it. "

  Ben laughed. But then asked, "How is fading different from just having the wolf in control?"

  Wolves are blunt creatures, mostly impatient with the softpedaling that the rest of the world considers politeness.

  "I gather Sam will turn all fang and no brain and will eventually just fall over dead," I told them. "Probably less damage than what normally happens when the wolf is in charge. Especially since the wolf doesn't stop until someone stops him. But not good. "

  "He'll be easier to kill if it comes to it," said Warren, recognizing the advantages. Samuel was old, powerful, and clever - if his wolf was half as smart, it would take Bran or Charles to take him. This way, any of us with a silver-loaded gun could do it.

  Sam didn't seem bothered by the conversation. He half closed his eyes and snapped his teeth at Warren with mock fierceness. His ears were up, showing that he was only playing.

  They hurt my heart with their fierce full-on acceptance of reality.

  "Pack up, kids," said Adam, with his eyes still closed. "It's time to take this party home. "

  Home.

  I glanced worriedly at Warren. Adam would be up and functional in a day or two - thanks to nifty werewolf superpowers of healing. But the pack was still a mess.

  "Right, boss. " Warren nodded at me and continued to talk to Adam. "I reckon I'll stick by you for a bit, though, if you don't mind. Darryl will be there, too. "

  * * *

  WE PACKED ADAM INTO THE BACK OF WARREN'S TRUCK on top of a thick camping pad and underneath a sleeping bag. Werewolves are pretty immune to the cold - especially the kind of cold the Tri-Cities could manage most winters. But we weren't taking any chances with him. He acce
pted our fussing with a sort of royal amusement that managed to be appreciative, too, though he didn't say a word.

  "Camping?" I murmured to Warren under my breath after we'd gotten Adam settled. "You actually got Kyle to go out camping?" Kyle was very happy with the comforts of civilization. I couldn't see him spending a weekend in the woods voluntarily.

  "Nah," he muttered. "Not overnight anyhow. But I'm hopeful for next spring. "

  "But you had sleeping bags and camp pads in your truck. " I couldn't help the smile that grew on my face. "Does this have anything to do with the ice chest full of meat?"

  He ducked his head, but he was grinning. "You don't ask me what you don't want to know, Mercy. "

  Mary Jo rode in the back of the truck with Adam while I drove my car with Ben beside me and Sam in the back. Ben had offered to drive the Rabbit so I could ride with Adam, but his hands were raw and painful. Mary Jo wasn't going to do anything to hurt Adam; whatever resentment or hatred she felt for me didn't interfere with her desire to keep him safe.

  As soon as I started driving, Ben said, "You need to find out who the second man on watch was. "

  "What?"

  "The other wolf Adam had watching with Mary Jo. She doesn't want to tell, and she's higher rank than I am, so I can't ask her. If Warren asked . . . She's one of the crowd that thinks he shouldn't be pack. "

  "What?" I'd thought the homophobic elements in the pack were all men.

  Ben nodded. "She's quieter about it than most, but she's also more stubborn. If Warren gave her an order she didn't want to comply with - like one that would make her narc on someone she cares about - she's likely to defy him. He'd have to hurt her, and that would hurt him more because he likes her - and doesn't have any idea that she's one of the stupid people. "

  I'd always thought Ben was one of the stupid people, too. I guess that must have shown in my face because he laughed.

  "I was bitter when I first came here. Eastern Washington is a big comedown from London. " He didn't say anything for a while, but about the time I turned onto the highway he continued in a soft voice. "Warren's okay. He cares about the pack, and that's not as common in the upper echelon as you'd think. Took me a while to appreciate - and that's on me. "

  I patted his arm. "Took us a while to warm up to you, too," I said. "Must be your charming personality. "

  He laughed again, and this time it was with genuine humor. "Yes. No doubt. You're a right bitch sometimes, you know?"

  The response was elementary-school automatic. "Takes one to know one," I said. "You think there was someone else who watched Adam jump into a burning building to save me and didn't do anything to stop him?"

  "I think that Adam sends us out in pairs. One man on point, the second as backup. Always. Mary Jo wasn't out there alone when you and Samuel left. She wasn't the only one who watched whoever set fire to your house. "

  He paused. "I think I know who it is, but I'm prejudiced, so I'll keep my mouth shut. Just remember: Mary Jo . . . she's good folk when it comes down to it. She's been a firefighter since they allowed women to be on the teams. She may not like you that much, but she's got no bone to pick with Samuel. I don't think she'd have stood by and watched arson taking place without someone stepping in and influencing her. There aren't many of the pack who could override her good sense like that. "

  "You think someone else made the decision to disobey orders. "

  Ben nodded slowly. "I do. Yes. "

  "Someone Adam trusted enough that he didn't insist on their attending the meeting he held at his house. "

  "Yes. "

  "Damn it. "