Me, too. But that wasn’t a productive thing to say, so I found something else. “Marley was going to fire you for climbing up here until the other Lampson guy told him who you were. Apparently you are too useful to them to fire.”
He snorted, and I had a thought. He’d been working here since the third day he’d come to the Tri-Cities.
“Just how many times have you climbed up here without getting caught?” I asked.
“All of them but one,” he said.
“You came here to get out from under Bran’s eye so you could kill yourself,” I said.
He didn’t say anything, which was a “yes” in my book.
I thought of the kind of courage it would take to climb all the way up here to kill yourself, decide not to, and climb all the way down nearly every day for the better part of the month. And the question that occurred to me then wasn’t “why?” but “why not?”
“What stopped you?” I asked his back.
He raised his head and looked up, gesturing to the night sky with one hand, waving with what I considered to be reckless abandon. “Look at that. Do you see the lights? And the sky? Beautiful. Up here? It feels like the huge tightness in my spine that contains all those things I’ve forgotten loosens up a little.” He tapped his forehead. “I can feel those things, curled up inside me, waiting like the sword of Damocles. And I think, maybe I should wait and see if I can find myself. Then I’ll have a better idea of what I have to lose.”
I made sure my grip was tight, then I looked—out, not down. And he was right. It was beautiful.
And the wind decided right then to blow hard enough to send a buzz through the rail I was holding on to. I felt the vibrations of it under my fingers and had to reassure myself that this crane had been sitting here for at least a couple of years and hadn’t fallen down yet. It was certainly designed to hold up more than the three or four hundred pounds that Sherwood and I represented between us. Surely.
And still, the metal vibrated.
“I see your point,” I said tightly. “But I think your hiding place has been found out. You think maybe we could talk with our feet on the ground? Fair warning, if I fall and break every bone in my body, Adam will never forgive you.”
He laughed again. “Okay,” he said. “Do you need any help getting down?”
About halfway to the ground, I stopped to rest. He was below me. When I’d told him I’d get down the same way I got up, he’d scrambled around me to get underneath where he could catch me if I fell. He hadn’t said it, but he hadn’t had to.
After a minute, I said, “You know what makes me crabby? I didn’t need to go up there, did I? If we’d waited for you, you’d have come down just like you always have.”
“Yes,” said Sherwood. Then he said, his voice a little dreamy, “Probably. But maybe I’d have come down another way.”
He started down again then, moving slower than he had to so that I didn’t hurry.
“You missed your chance,” I told him. “I think your days of climbing up here unseen are over.”
“Yes,” he said. “But there’s always the suspension bridge.”
“If I have to climb up the suspension bridge,” I told him. “I really will push you off.”
He must not have understood I was serious because he laughed again.
—
So neither of us got arrested for trespassing, though it was, I understand, a near thing. I got Sherwood into Adam’s SUV. The Vanagon’s radiator had developed a leak and I hadn’t found it yet, so Adam had taken a Hauptman Security SUV and left me his. I had to think a bit to get the lights on and the SUV in gear, but I remembered not to swerve to avoid the ghost of the guard who stepped into the road in front of us. But I couldn’t help but mutter, “Sorry, Sorry,” under my breath when the bumper went through him.
Sherwood looked at me and raised a brow in query.
“Ghosts,” I said. “I see dead people.”
“Do you?” he said.
I nodded.
“Sucks to be you,” he said.
“Beats climbing 560 feet up a crane trying to talk down an idiot who couldn’t avoid being seen.”
“True,” he said thoughtfully. “But doesn’t take away from my earlier observation that it sucks to be you.”
I had to drive back to the interstate and over the Blue Bridge to get home. It added fifteen or twenty minutes to the trip. Having the Cable Bridge down was going to get old really fast.
My phone rang through the stereo system, an unfamiliar number. It wasn’t my car, and my purse with my phone in it was tucked under my seat. And then Sherwood helpfully hit the ANSWER button on the stereo’s touch screen—I think he thought I was having trouble reaching it. Any number not in my contacts list I usually let leave a voice mail. It saved me from the guilt of hanging up on someone trying to sell me auto warranties on cars I didn’t own.
“Mercy,” I said.
“Stay away—”
“Pastor?” I said. “Pastor White. Is that you?”
He cried out, and the connection was reset.
I turned on my turn signal, hit the gas, and headed to church. Maybe they were at Pastor White’s house, but I didn’t know where he lived. The best I could do was the church.
“What’s up?” asked Sherwood.
“That’s my pastor,” I told him. Pastor White was new; our last pastor had left to take over his father’s church in California. Pastor White wasn’t quite as engaging or accepting, but his faith was real. “Somebody wants me to go to church,” I said.
I hit a button on the stereo, and said, “Call Adam.” Sherwood and I listened to his phone ring. When the voice mail picked up, I said, “Someone attacked slash kidnapped my pastor, and I’m heading to the church right now. It is eleven fifty-four.” I disconnected. Whom to call? Ben and Paul were home with Jesse and Aiden.
“Call Honey,” I said. And got her answering machine. I didn’t leave a message. “Call George.” Another answering machine. I pounded a fist on the steering wheel. “What the heck good does it do me to be a pack member when there’s never anyone home?”
“I do not understand ‘what the heck good,’” said the stereo. “Please say a command. Some commands you might find useful are ‘call’ or ‘search address book.’”
I growled, then said, “Call Mary Jo.”
She picked up immediately. “Hey, Mercy,” she said, her voice wary.
“I need you to gather anyone you can find who is not guarding the house,” I told her, “and bring them to the Good Shepherd on Bonnie.” I gave her terse directions because it was hard to find, even with the address.
“Got it,” she said.
I hit the END CALL button and settled in to drive.
“I’m not much good in a fight,” said Sherwood tightly. “My leg.”
“You can pick up a three-hundred-pound bar of steel, you can fight,” I told him, not looking away from the road. I was driving too fast, and I didn’t want to hit anyone.
There was a pause.
“I guess that is so,” he said, like it was a revelation. “Okay.”
The church was small. It had been a house that someone converted into a church about twenty years ago. It was tucked unobtrusively into the most mazelike section of Kennewick, a little residential area on the north side of the railroad that ran along the Columbia. There were only two ways in or out, one on the far east side, one on the west. The east-side entrance was the easiest to navigate.
The church grounds backed up to the railway, and between a couple of empty lots and the parking lot, it was half a block from the nearest house. There were two cars in the lot, parked next to the handicap parking. One of them was Pastor White’s. The other was a Ford Explorer that had seen better days.
I parked Adam’s SUV on the side of the lot farthest from the cars and the churc
h building. I gathered the Sig’s two spare magazines from my purse and stuck them in the back of my waistband because my stupid jeans didn’t have pockets. Sherwood scrounged around and came up with a tire iron. I shook my head at him, opened the rear hatch, and pushed back the mat to expose the big locked box. My handprint released the lock. I opened the box and revealed Adam’s new treasure chest. Inside was a collection of guns and various bladed weapons.
“Any idea what we’re facing?” Sherwood asked, examining the contents of the box.
I shook my head. “Probably fae, but it could be one of the anti-supernatural groups or Cantrip or anyone. If they are here, in the church, it probably won’t be vampires.” Sherwood had spent a few years in the Marrok’s pack. He’d know how to fight whatever we’d face as well as I did. “If you figure it out first, let me know.”
He picked up an ax and checked it for balance. “This works for the fae,” he said. Then he picked up the HK45 compact, checked it. (It was loaded.) “This will do for anything else.” He decocked it and put it in the pocket of his jeans. “Compact” was an optimistic label for that gun.
“That’s a dangerous place to carry it,” I told him.
He grinned at me. “Nah, that’s my bum leg. Can’t shoot my foot off ’cause someone already did that. What does the interior look like?”
“The church was a house, once upon a time,” I told him. Then I described it the best I could.
—
We paused for a moment by the cars. By now, the scent of fae magic lingered in the air, so I was pretty sure that was whom we were facing. However, the Ford Explorer belonged to a human male who did a lot of smoking.
“Do you recognize him?” asked Sherwood in a voice that wouldn’t carry.
I shook my head, but the church wasn’t empty during the week. I was grateful that it wasn’t a Tuesday when the choir practiced or Thursday when the youth group met to plan their monthly community service. On other days . . . “The pastor has a degree in sociology,” I told him, softly. “He makes most of his living as a counselor for recovering addicts.”
“Not a lot of money in that,” Sherwood observed. He was looking around alertly; the conversation was to keep relaxed and ready. It wasn’t how I functioned, but I’d fought side by side with enough people—mostly wolves—to know that it was a technique that worked for some people.
I said, “Not a lot of money being a pastor of a small nondenominational church, either. I expect that if he wanted to be rich, he’d have gone into a different business.”
“Does this change our strategy?” Sherwood asked, patting the car soundlessly.
He was acting as if I knew what I was doing.
“I don’t think so, right?” I said. “Two hostages, or two victims if the fae have already killed them.”
“The humans aren’t dead,” said Zee, startling a squeak out of me and an annoyed look out of Sherwood. “I was alerted that something was planned—and apparently my information was correct.”
“Where did you come from?” I asked him.
He frowned at me. “Where your enemy might be next time.”
“Nah,” said Sherwood. “He was waiting around the corner of the building, Mercy. Downwind, but I caught a glimpse of him when you parked. I figured he’d been waiting for us. If he’d been the enemy, I’d have said something. I didn’t see him approach, though.”
“Do you know who they are?” I asked Zee. “What do they want?”
“Nine or ten idiots who follow a greater one,” Zee answered. “These are the ones who left a letter on Christy’s front door. According to my source—and Adam’s telephone conversation—they want Aiden.”
I frowned. “I can scent at least three.” One of whom I knew.
“Four,” said Sherwood. “One of them is flying, but I caught something where it landed on the top of the car.”
Zee considered the church. The lights in the upstairs rooms were on, but the windows had all been replaced with stained glass. It was impossible to see inside.
“The humans are upstairs with Uncle Mike,” Zee said, confirming my nose. “I heard them set him to watch.”
“Is he the one who told you about this?” I asked.
“Probably,” Zee said. “I can’t imagine that he’d be this stupid unless he’s working as a spy for the Council.”
“What’s stupid about it?” asked Sherwood. “They take hostages Mercy cares about to get an unlikeable ancient in the shape of a boy who is doing his best to burn down Mercy’s home. Trade the hostages for the boy—and it’s a win-win for all.”
The dry dislike in Sherwood’s voice told me that he’d had an unpleasant encounter with our Aiden. Aiden was prickly and very good at getting under people’s skin when he wanted to. If I hadn’t seen him vulnerable, hadn’t heard his nightmares, maybe I would be more ambivalent about him, too.
Zee snorted. “Only if you don’t know Mercy or Adam. Or anyone else involved. As if either of our idiot-heroes would ever turn someone who looks as helpless as Aiden over to the fae.”
“Hey,” I protested softly. I’m not an idiot or a hero. But he had the last part right.
By mutual consent, we left the Explorer and headed into the church. The front porch had been modified with a wheelchair ramp next to the stairs, and both led to a double-door entryway that wasn’t original to the house. The changes had been made with an eye to economy rather than harmony.
We could wait for reinforcements, but if the fae thought themselves outgunned, they were likely to kill and run. We had a better chance going in now and hoping the cavalry made it in time to help with the cleanup.
“Mercy,” said Zee in a nearly soundless voice that was hard for me to hear even with my ears, and I stood two feet away. “You go upstairs with your werewolf. Wolf?” Zee met Sherwood’s eyes and didn’t look away. “You keep her alive. I think that it’s only Uncle Mike up there with the human hostages, and I think that he’ll let you get them free.”
“Meanwhile?” asked Sherwood in the same very quiet tone.
Zee smiled wickedly and snapped his hand down—where a narrow, black-bladed sword appeared. “I’ll keep the others occupied.”
“Zee?” I said. “Are you okay to fight?” He still wasn’t moving right.
Zee nodded. “Against these fools? I could fight them off if I were blindfolded and tied hand and foot.”
I let it go—though I was still worried. The fae speak the truth—as they know it. Just because Zee was an arrogant old fae didn’t make him right.
We walked up to the doors with me in front and the others flanking me. I pulled the right-hand door open, and Sherwood reached around me to pull the left so we could enter as one group.
The entryway was a twenty-by-ten room cut off from the rest of the church by a wall with a walkway on either side. There was a kitchenette to our left with a refrigerator, a sink, and a stove. The interior wall had a counter and a half wall that opened into the main room, with a curtain that could be shut or open. It was shut.
On the right was the stairway that led up to the pastor’s office, three rooms that were set up as classrooms, and the bathroom. Zee slipped around the wall and into the sanctuary that encompassed the rest of the first floor. Sherwood and I, in that order, headed up the stairs.
Below us, in the sanctuary, there was a huge crash, a wary cry, followed by the clashing sounds of weaponry engaging.
The top of the stairway led to a hall with five closed doors. The door to the immediate right of the stairs was the pastor’s office, to the left was the bathroom. Then there were the three classrooms, one left, one right, and one at the end of the hall.
My sense of smell was of limited use for finding Pastor White—his scent was everywhere. The man who’d driven the Explorer was better. He’d gone into the pastor’s office, but I caught his scent farther down the hall—where he�
�d have had no reason to go.
I tapped my nose and pointed at the classroom door at the end of the hall. Sherwood nodded as a huge crash below us spelled the end of one of the stained-glass windows. My fault. The fae had only come here because of me.
Sherwood took point, the ax in one hand and the big gun in the other. I reached past him to turn the knob, and he elbowed the door in.
The classroom was the largest of the five upstairs rooms. The pastor and a stranger were tied to folding chairs, gagged with duct tape. The floor of the room was covered in a dark brown carpet that showed the triple ring of salt someone had placed around them.
Between them and us stood Uncle Mike, a crossbow in his hand. He’d brought it up—but let the nose point down to the floor as soon as he saw it was me. There were three containers of Morton salt. Two of them were open, but the third still had a seal on the spout.
“Shut that door,” he said. “There’s a sprite lord out there, and I don’t want his sprites seeing what I have done until Zee’s through with them. Stupid louts.”
“What’s this about?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “All I can tell you is they gave me my orders—to bring these two upstairs and secure them.” He grinned fiercely. “My orders didn’t say secure them from whom. As long as those idiots”—he paused as the whole building vibrated—“don’t burn the place down, your pastor and this gentleman are safe from most of my kind. Who did you bring with you?” he asked. “Is it Zee?”
“Can’t you get across the salt?” I asked.
He shook his head. “This isn’t just salt, but salt bonded with magic. I’ve locked out most fae, including myself. Zee might manage it. One or two of the Gray Lords—but the only one of this group, the one who gave me my orders and is powerful enough to break this, isn’t here.” He stared hard at me. There was something he couldn’t tell me. He’d said he couldn’t tell me why they were here. I’d thought it was obvious—but if it were obvious, Uncle Mike wouldn’t have bothered to talk to me about it.
What did they gain from their actions so far? Two hostages—but they were human hostages, near enough to me that I’d respond. But, as Zee pointed out, if they knew anything about Adam or me, they’d never believe that we’d turn Aiden over to them. So what had they gained? They’d called me, let the pastor talk until they were sure I knew who he was, and hung up. And I’d come right over, hadn’t I?
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