Silver Borne mt-5

by Patricia Briggs

  Monty was probably Tony, whose last name was Montenegro. That would make the older cop Holbrook.

  “Green,” said the older man quietly—I don’t think any of us were supposed to hear him. “It’s not all right until you find out what’s going on. I don’t care if the president himself is in front of you.” But then Holbrook took a good look at us, all standing with our hands plainly visible and in the relaxed fashion of people who had not almost killed each other five minutes before. We, all of us, were pretty good at lying with our bodies. “Now, go call it in and tell them situation under control.”

  Green turned without argument, leaving Tony and Holbrook to approach us alone.

  “Mercy?” Unlike the other officers, Tony wasn’t in uniform. He was wearing a dark jacket over black jeans, and he wore diamond studs in his pierced ears and looked more like a drug dealer than a cop. “What happened?”

  “He came into the office and saw my friend here.” I rested my hand on Sam’s head. I couldn’t call him by name. Tony knew Dr. Samuel Cornick, knew he was my roommate—and wouldn’t have any trouble connecting him with a wolf named Sam. And calling him Snowball at this juncture was only going to draw attention to the fact that I was hiding his identity. “And assumed that any werewolf was a danger.”

  “That’s a werewolf?” asked the older cop, who suddenly looked a lot more wary. His hand crept to his holster.

  “Yes,” I agreed steadily. “And as you can see—despite Heart’s precipitous actions”—I didn’t tell them what his precipitous actions had been, though Tony’s mouth tightened, so I was pretty sure he knew about the gun—“my friend here kept his head. If he hadn’t, there would be bodies.” I looked at Heart. “Some people might learn from his example of self-control and good judgement.”

  “He’s dangerous,” said Kelly. “I wouldn’t have sh—” He suddenly decided to leave the gun out of it, too, and switched tactics without bothering to finish his sentence. “I have a warrant authorizing the apprehension of the werewolf.”

  “No, you don’t,” I told him confidently. No way did he have a warrant for Sam.

  “What?” said Tony.

  “A werewolf?” said the older cop. “I don’t remember hearing anything about a warrant on a werewolf.”

  He whistled and waved, catching the attention of the young cop who was walking briskly back toward us.

  “Green,” he said, “you hear anything about a warrant out for one of our local werewolves?”

  The young man’s eyes widened. He looked at me, looked at Sam, and came to the right conclusion. Sam wagged his tail, and the police officer straightened up, his face going impersonal and professional. I recognized the look—this one had been in the armed forces.

  “No, sir,” he said. He wasn’t afraid, but he was watching Sam closely. “I would have remembered something like that.”

  “I have proof,” the bounty hunter said, nodding toward the van. “I have the warrant in the van.”

  Tony’s eyebrow went up, and he glanced at the other cops. “I can tell you for certain that we haven’t had any werewolves arrested and let out on bail. Since when does our department give arrest warrants to bounty hunters? I’m inclined to agree with Mercy—you must be mistaken.”

  Holbrook kept his attention on Sam, but Green and Tony both showed better sense.

  “Officer Holbrook,” I said, “you could make things a lot easier on my friend here if you didn’t look him in the eye. He won’t do anything.” I hoped. “But the wolf instincts tell him that direct eye contact is a challenge.”

  Holbrook looked at me. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “I appreciate the information.”

  “The warrant’s in the van,” said Heart. “I can have my assistant bring it here.”

  While the police were talking to Heart and me, Adam, Zee, and Gabriel had been doing their best to fade into the background. But I caught motion out of the corner of my eye: Zee, catching Adam’s attention. When he had it, he tilted his head toward the storage yard across the street.

  Like Adam, I followed Zee’s gesture with my eyes and spotted it right away. On top of the nearest storage unit was something that blended in with the red metal roof. With enough glamour, a fae can take on the appearance of any living thing, but something inanimate—like a roof—is harder. I couldn’t see what he or she was, just that something was there. It took less than an instant, and I pulled my eyes away quickly so as not to alert the fae creature of our notice.

  “Ben,” Adam said very quietly.

  “What did you say?” asked Tony.

  Ben was leaning against the van and chatting up Tanya-the-Bounty-Hunter’s-Woman, Leather Boy (Heart’s too-handsome sidekick), and Tech-Girl. They all must have had really bad instincts, because they were flushed and smiling. When Adam spoke, Ben looked over to his Alpha. The van would hide him from the fae on the rooftop—but it would also hide the fae from him.

  “Nothing important,” Adam said, while he made a few unobtrusive gestures with his right hand, about hip level. Ben made a gesture in return, and Adam closed his fist, then opened it.

  “Who are you, anyway?” asked Heart.

  “You were going to show us this warrant?” asked Tony, changing the subject.

  By the van, Ben smiled. He ducked his head, said something to the people he was talking with that had them all looking our way, then walked casually around the end of the van. I couldn’t see him as he crossed the street because of the van, but I saw the fae notice him and drop off the far side of the warehouse.

  Heart said, “Bring it on over, sweetheart.” I understood then that they had some sort of mic system that allowed her to hear everything we said. Probably recorded it, too. I supposed that was okay.

  Ben hopped the tall chain-link fence without touching it—if any mundane saw him, there would be no question that he wasn’t human. But the police, including Tony, were watching the famous TV star.

  No one but Adam, Zee, and me—as far as I could tell—noticed anything. Gabriel was gone. I realized that I’d seen Gabriel go back through the garage when his sister had cried out—because Sylvia had pulled her away from the werewolf.

  Paying attention, I could hear him talking in Spanish, his voice sharp with anger as he and his mother argued about something—and my name was definitely a part of the discussion.

  I tuned them out as the bounty hunter’s tech-girl came running over with a thick folder that she handed over to Heart. He leafed through the pages tucked into a pocket of the notebook and produced an official-looking document that he handed over to Tony.

  “He has a warrant,” Tony told me, carefully not looking at Adam. “And you’re right. It’s not for this werewolf.” He handed the paper to Holbrook.

  The older man took one look at it and harrumphed. “It’s a fake,” he said, absolute certainty in his voice. “If you’d have told me the name, I could have told you it was a fake—without even looking at the elegant signature that looks less like Judge Fisk’s than mine does. No way there’s a warrant out for Hauptman and it’s not all over the station.”

  “That’s what I thought,” agreed Tony. “Fisk’s signature is barely legible.”

  “What?” There was enough honest indignation in Kelly’s voice that I was pretty sure it was genuine.

  Tony, who was watching the bounty hunter pretty closely, seemed to have the same opinion as I did. He handed the warrant to the youngest cop. “Green, go call this in and see if it’s real,” he said. “Just for the bounty hunter’s sake.”

  Like Tony, Green very carefully didn’t look at Adam. “I haven’t heard about this,” he said. “And I’d have remembered if we had a warrant for him. We know our local Alpha. I can sure as heck tell you that he hasn’t jumped bail.” Green looked at Tony. “But I’ll go call it in.” And he strode briskly back to his patrol car.

  “My producer told us that the police department didn’t want to take on a werewolf and had asked for our help,” said Heart, though he didn’t
sound nearly as certain.

  Holbrook snorted indignantly. “If we had a warrant to pick up a werewolf, we’d pick him up. That’s our job.”

  “Your producer told you we didn’t want to take on a werewolf,” said Tony thoughtfully. “Did your producer give you the warrant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he have a name? We’d like contact information for him, too.”

  “Her,” Kelly said. “Daphne Rondo.” I wondered if he knew that his heart was in his voice when he said her name. He reached into his back pocket—slowly—and took out his wallet and extracted a card.

  “Here.” He held it a moment when Tony reached out to take it. “You know this guy, right? That’s how you knew this wolf was the wrong one.” Then comprehension lit his face, and he let go of the card and looked at Adam. “Adam Hauptman?”

  Adam nodded. “I’d say pleasure to meet you, but I don’t like lying. What is it I’m supposed to have done?”

  The younger cop strolled back from his car, shaking his head.

  Kelly looked at the cop, then sighed. “What a cluster. I take it you haven’t been killing young women and leaving their half-eaten bodies in the desert?”

  Adam was ticked. I could tell it even if he was looking like a reasonably calm businessman. Adam’s temper was the reason he wasn’t one of Bran’s werewolf poster boys. When angered, he often gave in to impulses he wouldn’t otherwise have given in to.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Adam told Kelly in silky tones. “But I prefer rabbits. Humans taste like pork.” And then he smiled. Kelly took an involuntary step backward.

  Tony gave Adam a sharp look. “Let’s not make things worse, if we can help it, gentlemen.” He pulled out his cell phone and, looking at the card, dialed the number. It rang until the voice mail picked up. Tony didn’t leave a message.

  “Okay,” Tony said. “I’d like to get a statement from you about this warrant. If we’ve got someone falsifying warrants, we need to know about it. We can do that here, or down at the station.”

  I left Tony and the police to deal with the fallout, and went back into my office, letting the door shut behind me. I left Sam outside, too. If he hadn’t killed anyone yet this morning, he wasn’t going to.

  I had other matters to deal with.

  Gabriel had his youngest sister on his hip, her wet face on his shoulder. The other girls were sitting on the chairs I had for customers, and his mother had her back to me.

  She was the only one talking—in Spanish, so I had no idea what she was saying. Gabriel gave me a desperate look, and she turned. Sylvia Sandoval’s eyes were glittering with rage as hot as any I’d ever seen on a werewolf.

  “You,” she said, her accent thick. “I do not like the company you keep, Mercedes Thompson.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “We are going home now. And my family will have nothing further to do with you. Because of you, because of your werewolf, my daughter will have nightmares of a man pointing a gun at her. She could have been shot—any of my children could have been shot. I will have a tow truck come to pick up my car.”

  “No need,” I told her. “Zee has it almost up and running.” I assumed. No telling how much he’d done with his magic.

  “It is running,” Zee said. I hadn’t realized he’d come into the office, but he must have come in through the garage. He stood by the inner door, looking grim.

  “You will tell me how much I owe you over and above my son’s last check.”

  Gabriel made a protesting sound.

  She glanced at him, and he bit back whatever he intended to say, his eyes suspiciously bright.

  “My son thinks that because he is almost a man, he can make his own decisions. As long as he lives in my house, that is not true.”

  I was pretty sure that Gabriel could go off and do all right on his own—but that without his extra income, Sylvia would be hard-pressed to feed their family. Gabriel knew it, too.

  “Gabriel,” I told him, “I have to let you go. Your mother is right. My office isn’t a safe place to work. If your mother were not involved, you still wouldn’t have a job here anymore. I’ll mail you your last check. When you are looking for work, you can tell them to call me for a recommendation.”

  “Mercy,” he said, his face white and stark.

  “I couldn’t have lived with myself if something had happened to you or one of your sisters today,” I told him.

  “Oh, poor Mercy,” said Sylvia with false sympathy, her English getting worse. “Poor Mercy, her life it is too dangerous, and she would feel bad if my son were hurt.” She pointed her finger at me. “It is not just this. If it were only the gunman, then I would say—no, Gabriel you cannot work here anymore—but we are friends, still. But you lied to me. I say, What is this great big dog? You tell me, Perhaps some mixed breed. You made this decision, to let my daughter play with a werewolf. You did not tell me what he was. You made such a choice about my children’s welfare. Do not call at my house. Do not talk to my children on the street, or I will call the police.”

  “Mamá,” said Gabriel. “You’re over the top.”

  “No,” I told him wearily. “She’s right.” I’d known that I made the wrong choice the moment I heard Maia’s first cry. It hadn’t been Sam—but it might have been. That I’d been sure it was him right up until the moment I saw Kelly Heart with his gun told me that I’d made the wrong choice. I’d endangered Sylvia’s children.

  “Zee, would you back her car out of the garage, please?” He bowed his head and turned on his heel. I couldn’t tell if he was angry with me, too, or not. Of course, I was pretty sure he had no idea how much of a risk I’d taken. He wasn’t a wolf, hadn’t lived with the wolves; he wouldn’t know what Sam was.

  “Mercy,” said Gabriel, helplessly.

  “Go,” I told him. I’d have hugged him, but I thought we’d both cry. I could deal, but Gabriel was seventeen and the man of his family. “Vaya con Dios.” See, I do know a little Spanish.

  “And you also,” he said formally.

  And his sister started wailing again. “I want my puppy,” she cried.

  “Go,” said his mother.

  They left, the girls subdued, following Gabriel, with Sylvia bringing up the rear.

  Chapter 5

  WITH SAM AT HIS HEEL, ADAM CAME INTO THE OFFICE while Sylvia and her family were still in the garage, waiting for Zee to get the Buick out. From Adam’s face I could tell he’d heard every word Sylvia and I had said. He put a hand on my shoulder and kissed my forehead.

  “Don’t be nice to me,” I told him. “I screwed up.”

  “Not your fault that overeager boy out there came in with guns blazing,” Adam said. “Someone sold him a whole pack of lies. Tony and he are trying to get in touch with his producer, but she’s not answering her phone. I suppose she wanted a big fight on TV. Man versus werewolf.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe he wasn’t my fault. But if it hadn’t been Kelly Heart, it could just as easily have been a vampire or a fae. Neither of which would hesitate to kill Gabriel or one of the girls if they thought they were in the way.”

  The hand on my shoulder slipped down and pulled me into a hug. I leaned into it, knowing I was receiving it under false pretenses—I could tell from the way he was acting that he hadn’t realized the full extent of my transgressions yet. Doubtless he’d been too busy to take a good look at Sam—and Sam, miraculously, hadn’t done anything to attract anyone’s attention. Yet. The day was still young.

  I breathed in Adam’s scent and took comfort I wasn’t entitled to. Sylvia was right. I was feeling far too sorry for myself, and I wasn’t entitled to that either.

  I pulled away and hopped up to sit on the counter next to the gun before I enlightened him—I couldn’t bear it if he were touching me when he decided he didn’t want anything more to do with me. As Sylvia just had.

  The sticky black stuff left from where someone in the Dark Ages had taped a piece of paper to the edge of the
counter was gone, and I ran my finger over the newly clean spot. She’d left the cookies.

  “Mercy?”

  I’d betrayed him. For all the good reasons in the world, but I was his mate—and I’d chosen Samuel. I suppose I could have hoped he wouldn’t notice, but that seemed wrong in light of this morning. What if Heart hadn’t come here first? What if he’d run into Adam and shot him? What if he’d gone to Adam’s work or had a photo of him . . . Come to think of it, wasn’t that odd? Adam was out to the public, and his face photographed very well.

  Someone hadn’t wanted Heart to know who Adam was.

  “Mercy?”

  “Sorry,” I told him. “I’m trying to distract myself. You need to look at Samuel.” I picked at a mucky spot on my overalls because I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  If Bran wanted Samuel dead, he’d have to go through me to do it, which he could. But I was through lying to Adam, even if only by omission, merely to keep Bran from finding out.

  Sam had trotted past both of us and gone to stand in the doorway, looking through the garage. I could hear Maia still crying for her puppy.

  “Puppy?” said Adam, sounding amused. Sam turned and looked at him—and Adam froze.

  I was well on my way to passing stupid for idiotic. It was only when Adam stilled that I had the sudden thought that it might not have been the best idea to show the Columbia Pack Alpha that he had a problem with Sam in the narrow confines of my office.

  It was Sam who growled first. Temper flared in Adam’s face. Sam was more dominant, but he wasn’t Alpha—and Adam was not going to back down in his territory without violence.

  I hopped off the counter in between them.

  “Settle down, Sam,” I snapped, before I remembered what a bad idea that was.

  I kept forgetting—not that Samuel was in trouble; I had no trouble remembering that—but that his wolf was not Samuel. Just because he hadn’t turned into the ravening beast that the only werewolves I’d seen who lost control to their wolf became, did not mean he was safe. My head knew that—but I kept acting as if he were just Samuel. Because he acted just like Samuel would have. Mostly.