The Carter Wallace I'd known was slow-moving and gentle. I'd seen him coax a skunk out of a pile of tires without it spraying everything, and keep a frightened horse still with his voice while he clipped away the barbed wire it had become tangled in. There had been something peaceful about him, solid and true like an oak.
Not anymore. His eyes were still bright and kind, but there was also something predatory that peered out at me. The promise of violence clung to him until I could almost smell the blood.
"How long have you been wolf?" I asked.
"A year last month," he said. "I know, I know, I swore I'd never do it. I knew too much about the wolves and not enough. But I had to retire year before last because my hands quit working right." He looked down, a little anxiously, at his hands and relaxed a bit as he showed me he could move all his fingers easily. "I was all right with that. If there is anything a vet gets used to-especially around here-it is aging and death. Gerry started in on me again, but I'm stubborn. It took more than a little arthritis and Gerry to make me change my mind." Gerry was his son and a werewolf.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Bone cancer." Dr. Wallace shook his head. "It was too far gone, they said. Nothing but months in a bed hoping you die before the morphine quits working on the pain. Everyone has their price, and that was more than I could bear. So I asked Bran."
"Most people don't survive the Change if they're already too sick," I said.
"Bran says I'm too stubborn to die." He grinned at me again, and the expression was beginning to bother me because it had an edge that Dr. Wallace's, my Dr. Wallace's, had never had. I'd forgotten how odd it was to know someone from both sides of the Change, forgotten just how much the wolf alters the human personality. Especially when the human wasn't in control.
"I thought I'd be practicing again by now," Dr. Wallace said. "But Bran says not yet." He rocked a little on his heels and closed his eyes as if he could see something I didn't. "It's the smell of blood and meat. I'm all right as long as nothing is bleeding." He whispered the last sentence and I heard the desire in his voice.
He gathered himself together with a deep breath, then looked at me with eyes only a shade darker than the snow. "You know, for years I've said that werewolves aren't much different from other wild predators." Like the great white, he'd told me, or the grizzly bear.
"I remember," I said.
"Grizzly bears don't attack their families, Mercy. They don't crave violence and blood." He closed his eyes. "I almost killed my daughter a few days ago because she said something I disagreed with. If Bran hadn't stopped by…" He shook his head. "I've become a monster, not an animal. I'll never be able to be a vet again. My family never will be safe, not while I'm alive."
The last two words echoed between us.
Damn, damn, and damn some more, I thought. He should have had more control by now. If he'd been a wolf for a full year and still couldn't control himself when he was angry, he'd never have the control he needed to survive. Wolves who can't control themselves are eliminated for the safety of the pack. The only question, really, was why Bran hadn't already taken care of it-but I knew the answer to that. Dr. Wallace had been one of the few humans Bran considered a friend.
"I wish Gerry could make it back for Thanksgiving," Dr. Wallace told me. "But I'm glad I got a chance to see you before you left again."
"Why isn't Gerry here?" I asked. Gerry had always traveled on business for Bran, but surely he could come back to see his father before…
Dr. Wallace brushed his hand over my cheek, and I realized I was crying.
"He's on business. He's in charge of keeping an eye on the lone wolves who live where there is no pack to watch them. It's important."
It was. But since Dr. Wallace was going to die soon, Gerry should be here.
"Livin's easier than dyin' most times, Mercy girl," he said kindly, repeating my foster father's favorite saying. "Dance when the moon sings, and don't cry about troubles that haven't yet come."
His smile softened, and for a minute I could see the man he used to be quite clearly. "It's cold out here, Mercy, and that coat isn't helping you much. Go get warm, girl."
I didn't know how to say good-bye, so I didn't. I just turned and walked away.
When the clock in the motel room ticked over to noon, I walked out to the van, which Charles-or Carl-had parked just outside the door to number one. If Adam isn't ready to go, he'll just have to find another ride. I can't stand another minute here.
I opened the back to check my antifreeze because the van had a small leak I hadn't fixed yet. When I shut the back hatch, Samuel was just there, holding a bulging canvas bag.
"What are you doing?" I asked warily.
"Didn't my father tell you?" He gave me the lazy grin that had always had the power to make my heart beat faster. I was dismayed to see that it still worked. "He's sending me with you. Someone's got to take care of the rogues who attacked Adam, and he's barely mobile."
I turned on my heel, but stopped because I had no idea where to find Bran. And because Samuel was right, damn him. We needed help.
Happily, before I had to come up with something suitable to say in apology for my too-obvious dismay, the door to room one opened.
Adam looked as though he'd lost twenty pounds in the last twenty-four hours. He was wearing borrowed sweatpants and an unzipped jacket over the bare skin of his chest. Most of the visible skin was bruised, mottled technicolor with purple, blue, and black touched with lighter spots of red, but there were no open wounds. Adam was always meticulous in his dress and grooming, but his cheeks were dark with stubble, and his hair was uncombed. He limped slowly onto the sidewalk and kept a tight grip on a cane.
I hadn't expected him to be walking this soon, and my surprise must have shown on my face because he smiled faintly.
"Motivation aids healing," he said. "I need to find Jesse."
"Motivation aids stupidity," muttered Samuel beside me, and Adam's smile widened, though it wasn't a happy smile anymore.
"I have to find Jesse," was all that Adam said in reply to Samuel's obvious disapproval. "Mercy, if you hadn't arrived when you did, I'd have been a dead man. Thank you."
I hadn't figured out yet exactly what our relationship was, and knowing that Bran had told him to look after me hadn't helped. Even so, I couldn't resist the urge to tease him-he took life so seriously.
"Always happy to come to your rescue," I told him lightly, and was pleased at the temper that flashed in his eyes before he laughed.
He had to stop moving and catch his breath. "Damn it," he told me, with his eyes shut. "Don't make me do that."
Samuel had stepped unobtrusively closer, but relaxed when Adam resumed his forward progress without toppling over. I opened the sliding door behind the passenger seat.
"Do you want to lie down?" I asked him. "Or would you rather sit up on the bench seat? Sitting shotgun is out-you need something easier to get in and out of."
"I'll sit up," Adam grunted. "Ribs still aren't happy about lying down."
When he got close to the van, I backed out of the way and let Samuel help him up.
"Mercy," said Bran behind my shoulder, surprising me because I'd been paying attention to the expression on Adam's face.
He was carrying a couple of blankets.
"I meant to get here sooner to tell you that Samuel was coming with you," Bran said, handing the blankets to me. "But I had business that took a little longer than I expected."
"Did you know that you were sending him with me when you talked to me last night?" I asked.
He smiled. "I thought it was probable, yes. Though I had another talk with Adam after I left you, and it clarified some things. I'm sending Charles to Chicago with a couple of wolves for backup." He smiled wider, a nasty predatory smile. "He will find out who is out trying to create new wolves without permission and see that it is stopped in such a way that we'll not see a problem like this again."
"Why not send Samuel and giv
e me Charles?"
"Samuel has too weak a stomach to handle Chicago," said Adam, sounding breathless. I glanced at him and saw that he was sitting upright on the short middle bench seat, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
" Samuel is a doctor and dominant enough to keep Adam from eating anyone until he gets better," responded Samuel, climbing back out of the van and snatching the blankets out of my hands.
Bran's smile softened with amusement. "Samuel was gone for a long time," he explained. "Other than Adam, I think that only Darryl, Adam's second, has ever met him. Until we know what is going on, I'd rather not have everyone know I'm investigating matters."
"We think the time is coming when we will no longer be able to hide from the humans," said Samuel, who had finished wrapping Adam in the blankets. "But we'd rather control how that happens than have a group of murdering wolves reveal our existence before we're ready."
I must have looked shocked because Bran laughed.
"It's only a matter of time," he said. "The fae are right. Forensics, satellite surveillance, and digital cameras are making the keeping of our secrets difficult. No matter how many Irish Wolfhounds and English Mastiffs George Brown breeds and crossbreeds, they don't look like werewolves."
Aspen Creek had three or four people breeding very large dogs to explain away odd tracks and sightings-George Brown, a werewolf himself, had won several national titles with his Mastiffs. Dogs, unlike most cats, tended to like werewolves just fine.
"Are you looking for a poster boy like Kieran McBride?" I asked.
"Nope," Adam grunted. "There aren't any Kieran McBrides who make it as werewolves. Harmless and cute we are not. But he might be able to find a hero: a police officer or someone in the military."
"You knew about this?" I asked.
"I'd heard rumors."
"What we don't need right now is a murdering bastard running free around the Tri-Cities, using werewolves to kill people," Bran said. He looked over my shoulder at his son. "Find the blackguard and eliminate him before he involves the humans, Samuel." Bran was the only person I knew who could use words like «blackguard» and make them sound like swear words-but then he could have said "bunny rabbit" in that tone of voice and weakened my spine with the same shiver of fear.
But I shivered more from the cold than fear. In the Tri-Cities it was still above freezing most days. It wasn't particularly cold for November in Montana-for instance, my nostrils weren't sticking together when I breathed, so it wasn't ten below zero yet-but it was considerably colder than I was used to.
"Where's your coat?" asked Bran, his attention drawn to my chattering teeth.
"I left it in the room," I said. "It's not mine."
"You are welcome to it."
"I'm out here now," I said.
He shook his head. "You'd better get going then, before you freeze to death." He looked at Samuel. "Keep me apprised."
"Bran," said Adam. "Thank you."
Bran smiled and brushed past me so he could reach in the van and take one of Adam's battered hands in a gentle grip. "Anytime."
When he stepped back he shut the sliding door with just the right amount of push so it didn't bounce back open. It had taken me three months to learn how to do it right.
He reached into the pocket of his coat and gave me a card. It was plain white with his name and two phone numbers in simple black lettering. "So you can call me if you want to," he said. "The top number is my cell phone-so you won't have to risk talking to my wife."
"Bran?" I asked him impulsively. "What is it that Gerry is doing that is so important he can't come home to be with Dr. Wallace?"
"Feeling sorry for himself," snapped Samuel.
Bran put a hand on Samuel's arm, but spoke to me. "Carter's case is tragic and unusual. Usually when a wolf lives through the Change but doesn't survive his first year, it is because the human cannot control the instincts of the wolf."
"I thought it was always a matter of control," I told Bran.
He nodded his head, "It is. But in Carter's case it is not a lack of self-control, it is too much."
"He doesn't want to be a werewolf," said Samuel. "He doesn't want to feel the fire of the killing instinct or the power of the chase." For a moment the sun caught Samuel's eyes, and they glittered. "He's a healer, not a taker of life."
Ah, I thought, that rankled, didn't it, Dr. Samuel Cornick? Samuel hadn't been given to in-depth talks-although that might have been as much a function of my age as his inclination-but, I remembered that he had trouble, sometimes, because his instinct to heal was not as strong as his instinct to kill. He told me that he always made certain to eat well before performing any kind of surgery. Did he think that Dr. Wallace was the better man for choosing not to live with that conflict?
"Unless Carter allows the wolf to become part of him, he can't control it." Bran's mouth turned down. "He's dangerous, and he gets more dangerous every moon, Mercy. But all it would take was for him to compromise his damn hardheaded morals just once, so he can accept what he is and he'd be fine. But if it doesn't happen soon, it won't happen at all. I can't let him see another full moon."
"Gerry's the one who talked him into Changing," said Samuel, sounding tired. "He knows that the time is coming when someone is going to have to deal with Carter. If he's here, it will be his duty-and he can't handle that."
"I'll take care of it," said Bran, taking a deep breath. "I've done it before." He moved the hand on Samuel's arm to his shoulder. "Not everyone is as strong as you, my son." There was a world of shared sorrow in his words and in his posture-and I remembered the three of Samuel's children who hadn't survived the Change.
"Get in the van, Mercy," said Samuel. "You're shivering."
Bran put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me on the forehead, then ruined it by saying, "Let the boys take care of this, eh, Mercedes?"
"Sure thing," I said, stepping away from him. "Take care, Bran."
I stalked around the front of the bus. The only reason I wasn't muttering under my breath was because the werewolves would all hear what I was saying.
I started the van-it protested because of the cold, but not too much. I let it warm up while Bran said a few last words to Samuel.
"How well does Bran know you?" asked Adam quietly. The noise of the engine and the radio would most likely keep the others from hearing us.
"Not very well if he thinks that I'll leave things to you and Samuel," I muttered.
"That's what I was hoping," he said, with enough satisfaction that I jerked around to look at him. He smiled tiredly. "Samuel's good, Mercy. But he doesn't know Jesse, doesn't care about her. I'm not going to be good for much for a while: I need you for Jesse's sake."
The passenger door opened and Samuel pulled himself up into the seat and shut the door.
"Da means well," Sam told me, as I started backing out, proving that he knew me better than his father did. "He's used to dealing with people who listen when he tells them something. Mercy, he's right, though. You aren't up to dealing with werewolf business."
"Seems to me that she's been dealing just fine," Adam said mildly. "She killed two of them in as many days and came out of it without a scratch."
"Luck," said Samuel.
"Is it?" In my rearview mirror, I saw Adam close his eyes as he finished in almost a whisper. "Maybe so. When I was in the army, we kept lucky soldiers where they would do us the most good."
"Adam wants me to help find Jesse," I told Samuel, putting my foot on the gas as we left Aspen Creek behind us.
The conversation went downhill from there. Adam dropped out after a few pointed comments, and sat back to enjoy the fireworks. I didn't remember arguing with Samuel much before, but I wasn't a love-struck sixteen year-old anymore either.
After I pointedly quit talking to him, Samuel unbuckled his seat belt and slipped between the front seats to go back and sit next to Adam.
"Never argue with Mercy about something she cares about," Adam advised, obviously having enjo
yed himself hugely. "Even if she stops arguing with you, she'll just do whatever she wants anyway."
"Shut up and eat something," growled Samuel, sounding not at all like his usual self. I heard him lift the lid on a small cooler and the sweet-iron smell of blood filled the van.
"Mmm," said Adam without enthusiasm. "Raw steak."
But he ate it, then slept. After a while Samuel came back to the front and belted himself in.
"I don't remember you being so stubborn," he said.
"Maybe I wasn't," I agreed. "Or maybe you didn't used to try to order me around. I'm not a member of your pack or Bran's pack. I'm not a werewolf. You have no right to dictate to me as if I were."
He grunted, and we drove a while more in silence.
Finally, he said, "Have you had lunch?"
I shook my head. "I thought I'd stop in Sandpoint. It's grown since last time I drove through there."
"Tourists," said Samuel in disgust. "Every year there are more and more people." I wondered if he was remembering what it had been like when he'd first been there.
We stopped and got enough fried chicken to feed a Little League team-or two werewolves, with a little left over for me. Adam ate again with restrained ferocity. Healing was energy-draining work, and he needed all the protein he could get.
When he was finished, and we were back on the road, with Samuel once again in the front, I finally asked, "What happened the night you were attacked? I know you've told Bran and probably Samuel, too, already-but I'd like to know."
Adam wiped his fingers carefully on the damp towelette that had come with our chicken-apparently he didn't think it was finger-lick'n good. "I'd pulled the pack in to introduce Mac, and to tell them about your adventures with his captors."
I nodded.
"About fifteen minutes after the last of them left, about three-thirty in the morning, someone knocked on the door. Mac had just managed to regain his human form, and he jumped up to answer the door." There was a pause, and I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see Adam's face, but I couldn't read his expression.
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