Blood Bound mt-2

by Patricia Briggs

  I don't know if Tony decided to believe me or not, but thinking about it kept him occupied until we stopped next to his car in my lot.

  "Thanks, Mercy."

  "I didn't help." I shrugged. "I'll talk to Zee. Heck, maybe he knows someone who can give us a break in the weather." Not likely. Weather was Great Magic, not something that most fae had the power to alter.

  "If you were a real Indian, you could do a rain dance."

  Tony could tease me because his Venezuelan half was mostly Indian of one sort or other.

  I shook my head solemnly. "In Montana, the Indians don't have a rain dance, they have a Stop-this-Damned-Wind-and-Snow dance. If you've ever been to Browning, Montana, in the winter, you'll know it doesn't work."

  Tony laughed as he got in his car and started it. He left the door open to let the heat out, holding a hand in front of the vent to catch the first trickle of cold air.

  "It'll probably cool down about the time I get to the station," he said.

  "Toughen up," I advised him.

  He grinned, shut his door and drove off. It was only then that I realized Honey's car wasn't in the lot.

  Gabriel looked up when I came in. "Mr. Hauptman called for you," he said. "He said you should check your cell phone for messages."

  I found the cell phone where I'd left it, on top of a rolling tool chest in the shop.

  "Just picked up Warren," Adam's voice had that calm and brisk rhythm he only used when things were really bad. "We're taking him to my house now. You should meet us there."

  I called Adam's house, but the answering machine picked up. So I called Samuel's cell.

  "Samuel?"

  "I'm on my way to Adam's house now," he told me. "I won't know anything until I get there."

  I didn't ask if Warren was hurt. Adam's voice had told me that much. "I'll be there in ten minutes." Not that it mattered, I thought, pressing the end button. There wasn't anything that I could do to help.

  I told Gabriel to hold the fort, and to lock up at five.

  "Werewolf troubles?" he asked.

  I nodded. " Warren 's hurt."

  "You all right to drive?" he asked.

  I nodded again and dashed out the door. I was halfway to my car when I realized that probably no one would have thought to call Kyle. I hesitated. Warren and Kyle weren't an item anymore-but I didn't think it was due to lack of caring on either of their parts. So I found Kyle's office number on my phone's memory and got in touch with his hyper-efficient office manager.

  "I'm sorry," she told me. "He's unavailable right now, may I take your name and number?"

  "This is Mercedes Thompson." It wasn't easy to buckle in with one hand, but I managed. "My phone number-"

  "Ms. Thompson? Hold on, I'll patch you through."

  Huh. Kyle must have put me on his important people list. I listened to classical music in my ear as I turned onto Chemical Drive and put my foot down. I was pretty sure the driver of the green Taurus behind me was the werewolf who had been tailing me.

  "What's up, Mercy?" Kyle's soothing voice replaced Chopin before I made it to the welcome to finley sign.

  " Warren 's hurt. I don't know how badly, but Adam called in the troops."

  "I'm in my car near Twenty-seventh and 395," he said. "Where is Warren?"

  Behind me, I saw flashing lights as the police car that usually hid just past the railroad overpass pulled over the Taurus. I put my foot down harder on the gas.

  "At Adam's house."

  "I'll be there shortly." As he hung up, I heard his Jag's big V-12 open up.

  He didn't beat me there, but I was still arguing with the idiot at the front door when he skidded to a stop, splattering gravel all over.

  I pulled out my cell phone and played Adam's message for the door guard. "He's expecting me," I grated.

  The idiot shook his head. "My orders are no one but pack."

  "She is pack, Elliot, you moron," said Honey, coming to the door behind the big man. "Adam's claimed her as his mate-which you very well know. Let her in." Honey's hand clamped on Elliot's arm and dragged him back from the door.

  I grabbed Kyle's arm and pulled him past the obstreperous moron-guard. There were werewolves everywhere. I knew that there were only about thirty wolves in Adam's pack, but I'd have sworn there were twice that in the living room.

  "This is Kyle," I told Honey, leading Kyle to the stairs.

  "Hello, Kyle," Honey said softly. " Warren 's told me about you." I hadn't realized she was a friend of Warren 's, but her smeared mascara told me she'd been crying.

  She didn't follow us up the stairs-doubtless she'd have a few unhappy moments with Elliot before she could do anything else. Idiot or not, Elliot was a dominant, and so higher in the pack than Honey, who took her rank from her submissive husband. Have I mentioned that werewolf etiquette is stuck in another century? Honey had really put her neck out for us.

  Adam's house has five bedrooms, but I didn't have to guess where Warren was. I could smell the blood from the top of the stairs, and Darryl, Adam's second, stood watch at the door like a Nubian guarding the Pharaoh.

  He frowned heavily at me. I was pretty sure it was for bringing a human into pack business. But I had no patience for it right now.

  "Go rescue Honey from that idiot who was trying to keep me out."

  He hesitated.

  "Go." I couldn't see Adam, but it was his command that sent Darryl past us and down the stairs.

  Kyle entered the room first, then stopped abruptly, blocking my sight of the room. I had to duck under his arm and scoot past before I got a good look.

  It was bad.

  They'd stripped the bed down to its bottom sheet and Samuel was working furiously over the battered, bloody thing that was Warren. I didn't blame Kyle for hesitating. If I hadn't smelled him, I would never have known who the man on the bed was, there was so little left that was recognizable.

  Adam leaned against the wall, out of Samuel's way. Sometimes, if a pack member is badly hurt, flesh and blood of the Alpha can help heal him. Adam's left arm had a fresh bandage. He looked over at us, his gaze taking in Kyle. When he looked at me, he nodded once, in approval.

  Samuel saw Kyle and directed him over to the bed next to Warren 's head with a jerk of his chin.

  "Talk to him," Samuel said. "He can make it if he wants to badly enough. You just need to give him a reason." Then to me he said, "Stay out of my way unless I ask you for something."

  Kyle, dressed in slacks that cost more than I made in a month, sat without hesitation on the bloodstained floor next to the bed and began talking quietly about baseball, of all things. I tuned him out and concentrated on Warren, as if I could hold him here by sheer force of will. His breath was shallow and unsteady.

  "Samuel thinks the damage was done last night," Adam murmured to me. "I've got people out looking for Ben, who was with Warren, but there's no sign of him yet."

  "What about Stefan?" I asked.

  Adam's eyes narrowed a bit, but I met his gaze anyway, too upset to worry about damned dominance or any other kind of games.

  "No sign of any vampire," he said finally. "Whoever hurt Warren, dropped him at Uncle Mike's." Uncle Mike's was a bar of sorts in Paseo, a local hangout for the fae. "The man who opened today found him in the Dumpster when he was taking out the trash. He called Uncle Mike, who called me."

  "If it was done last night, why isn't he healing better than this?" I asked, hugging myself tightly. Anything that could do this to Warren could have done the same or worse to Stefan. What if Warren died? What if Stefan were already dead-the never-to-rise-again dead-left somewhere else, in some other Dumpster. I thought of the joyous way Littleton had killed the maid. Why had I allowed myself to be convinced that the wolves and the vampires would be a match for him?

  "Most of the damage was probably done with a silver blade," Samuel told me in an absent voice-he was paying attention to his work. "The other wounds, the broken bones, are healing more slowly because his body is ov
ertaxed trying to heal everything at once."

  "Do you know where they went last night?" I asked. Samuel's hands were so quick with the needle. I couldn't tell how he knew where to set stitches because Warren looked like so much hamburger to me.

  "I don't know," Adam said. " Warren called me with reports of what they did, not what they were planning to do."

  "Have you called Stefan's house?"

  "Even if he were there, he wouldn't be awake yet."

  I pulled out my cell phone and called Stefan's number and waited for his answering machine to pick up. "This is Mercedes Thompson," I said clearly, hoping someone was listening. I knew that Stefan didn't live in the seethe, but he probably didn't live alone. Vampires need blood donors, and willing victims were much safer than taking someone off the street.

  "Last night Stefan went out hunting. One of his comrades is in seriously bad shape and we don't know where the other one is. I need to know if Stefan came back last night."

  There was a click as someone, a woman, picked up the phone and whispered, "No," and then hung up.

  Adam flexed his fingers, as if he'd been clenching them too much. " Littleton took two werewolves and an old vampire-"

  "Two vampires," I said. "At least Stefan had another vampire assigned to help him."

  " Warren said the second vampire wasn't much use."

  I shrugged.

  "Two werewolves and two vampires, then." Adam seemed to be working something out. "Stefan had already fallen to him once; that makes Warren the strongest of the party. It wasn't chance that he was the one given back. ‘See, Littleton is telling us, ‘send your best against me and see what I return to you. Littleton didn't finish him off because he wanted us to know he didn't consider Warren a threat. He doesn't care if Warren survived to go after him again or not. This…" Adam's voice deepened into a rough growl "… thing has drawn a line in the sand and dared me to cross."

  Adam knew how to play mind games. I think it's a requirement for being an Alpha. Or maybe it was just from his time in the army, which, according to his stories, wasn't that different, politically speaking, from the pack.

  "And the others?" I asked.

  He didn't say anything, just shook his head. I hugged myself again, feeling cold.

  "So what are you going to do?" I asked.

  He smiled unhappily. "I'm going to play Littleton 's game. I have no choice. I can't leave him running around in my territory."

  Just then Warren 's breathing, which part of me was listening to with rapt attention, stopped. Adam heard it too, crouching as if there were an enemy in the room. Maybe there was. Death is an enemy, right?

  Samuel swore, but it was Kyle who came off the floor, tipped Warren 's chin and began CPR with silent desperation.

  I hadn't been able to hear Warren 's heart, but it must have stopped, too, because Samuel started chest compressions.

  Useless again, I watched them fight for Warren 's life. I was really tired of being unable to do anything while people were dying.

  After what seemed like a long time, Samuel pulled Kyle away saying, "It's okay, he's breathing. You can stop now." He had to repeat himself several times before Kyle understood.

  "He'll be all right?" he asked, sounding quite different from his usual airy tones.

  "He's breathing on his own, and his heart is beating" Samuel said.

  It wasn't exactly an agreement, but Kyle didn't seem to notice. He sank back onto the carpet and started telling a story as if he'd never been interrupted. His voice showed none of the strain in his face.

  "Tell me what I need to know about demons," I told Adam, though I couldn't take my eyes off of Warren. I had the strangest feeling that if I quit watching him, he would die.

  There was a long pause. He knew why I wanted to know. If he didn't tell me what he could now-didn't help me with what I intended-then he wasn't the man for me.

  "Demons are evil, nasty, and powerless unless they manage to attach themselves like a parasite to some damned fool. Either they are invited in as a guest-which is what makes a sorcerer, or they sneak in because someone weak of will does an evil thing. A simple demon possession doesn't last long because the possessed man cannot blend in: a demon in control wants one thing-destruction. A sorcerer, someone who controls the demon by means of a bargain, is far more deadly. A sorcerer may live undetected by the human population for years. Eventually, the sorcerer will lose control, and the demon takes over."

  Nothing I hadn't known.

  "How do you kill a demon?" I asked. Samuel's hands were once more sliding needle and thread through bloody flesh.

  "You can't," Adam said. "All you can do is remove the threat by killing its host. In this case, Littleton, who is a vampire, bolstered with the demon's magic." He took a breath. "Not any kind of prey for a coyote. You can leave it to us, Mercy. We'll see that he is dead." He was right. I knew it. I was useless.

  I noticed that Kyle was staring at us with wide eyes, though he didn't pause in his baseball story, something about when he was in Little League.

  "Did you think that werewolves were the worst monster in the world?" I asked Kyle in a nasty tone. I didn't know until I spoke how angry I was. It wasn't right, taking it out on Kyle, but I couldn't seem to stop my mouth. He had rejected Warren for being a monster-maybe he ought to learn more about monsters. "There are a lot worse things out there. Vampires, demons, and all sorts of nasties and the only thing that stands between the humans and them are people like Warren." Even as I said it, I knew I wasn't being fair. I knew that being lied to had bothered Kyle as much as finding out that Warren was a werewolf.

  "Mercy," said Adam. " Shh."

  It seemed as if his words carried a cool wind of peace that swept over me, washing away all the anger, the frustration and the fear, the Alpha werewolf calming his wolf-only I wasn't his wolf. He had done it again.

  I jerked around to stare at him; he was watching Warren intently. If he'd done this to me on purpose, he wasn't concerned about it. But I was pretty sure he'd done it out of habit, because it shouldn't have worked on me.

  Damn it.

  Warren made a noise, the first one I'd heard out of him since we'd come into the room. I'd have been happier if he hadn't sounded scared.

  "Easy, Warren," Adam told him. "You're safe here."

  "If you die on us, you won't be," said Kyle with a growl that would have done credit to any of the werewolves in the room.

  Battered, bruised, and bloody they might be, but Warren 's lips could still smile. But only a very little bit.

  Samuel, his work apparently finished, pulled the old bent-wood rocker from its place in the hall and set it next to the foot of Warren 's bed, leaving the space at the head of the bed to Kyle. Samuel leaned forward in the chair, elbows on the bentwood arms and rested his chin on his folded hands. He looked as though he was watching his shoes, but I knew better. His attention was on his patient, listening for a change in breathing or heartbeat that might signal trouble. He was capable of sitting there, motionless, for hours-Samuel had a reputation as a very patient hunter.

  The rest of us mimicked his quiet stillness as Warren drifted to sleep-except for Kyle, who had dropped back into his trials as a ten-year-old third baseman.

  While Warren dozed restlessly, there was a steady, but silent, stream of visitors over the next hour. Some of them were friends, but most of them were just checking out the damage. If Adam-or Samuel-had not been there, it would have been dangerous for Warren. Werewolves, outside of a well-run pack, will kill the wounded or weak.

  Adam leaned on the wall, watching the visitors with brooding intensity. I could see the effect of his regard as his wolves (and even though they were in human form, they were still his wolves) entered the room. As soon as they saw him, their footfalls quieted further. They dropped their heads, tucked their hands under the opposite arms, took a quick, comprehensive look at Warren 's wounds and left.

  When Honey came in, she was sporting a bruise on the side of her face that
was healing visibly fast. A half hour later there would have been no sign of it at all. She gave Adam a quick look from the hallway. He nodded his head-it was the first reaction he'd given to any of the visitors.

  She scooted around Samuel's chair, then sat down on the floor beside Kyle. She gave Adam another look, but when he didn't object she quietly introduced herself to Kyle, touched him on the shoulder, then settled against the wall with her head leaned back and her eyes closed.

  A few visitors later a blond man with a short, reddish beard came into the room. I didn't know him by sight, though I recognized his scent as belonging to one of Adam's pack. I'd quit paying attention to the visitors-and would have ignored this one as well except for two things.

  His posture didn't change as he walked through the doorway-and Adam's did. Adam pushed against the wall with his shoulders, propelling himself completely upright. Then he took two steps forward until he stood between Warren and the stranger.

  The red bearded man was a head taller than Adam, and for a second tried to use that extra height as an advantage-but he was no match for the Alpha. Without a word or an aggressive move, Adam backed him down.

  Samuel appeared not to notice anything. I doubt that anyone else would have seen readiness in the slowly tightening muscles of his shoulder.

  "When he is well," Adam said, "if you give fair challenge, Paul, I won't stop the fight."

  Under the Marrok's rule, there were very few sanctioned fights-real fights, not just a couple of snaps and a bite or two. That was one of the reasons there were more werewolves in the New World than in Europe, where the werewolf, like the fae, had originated.

  I can usually sort out the pack from most dominant to least (or the reverse), just from body language. Wolves are better at it than I am. Humans, if they pay attention, do the same thing-though it's not nearly as important to them as it is to the wolves. For a human it might mean getting a promotion or not, or winning a hard-fought argument. For a werewolf, survival depends upon the pack-and a pack is a complex social and military hierarchy that depends upon each member knowing exactly what his place is.

  Dominance among wolves is a combination of force of personality, strength of will, physical ability and a component of other that I can't explain to anyone without the eyes, ears, and nose to sense it-and those with the proper senses wouldn't need it explained. Willingness to fight is as close as I can come. It is because of that other that, outside of a pack, the natural dominance of a wolf changes within a fairly broad range. Like all of us, some days they are tired, depressed, or happy-all of these affect natural dominance.