Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  “The first wolf I fought was really new,” I said slowly. “If they were all that way, they might have just gotten carried away, and the others fled because they couldn’t calm them down.”

  “Christiansen isn’t new,” said Adam.

  “One of the wolves was a woman,” I told him. “The one I killed was a buff color—almost like Leah but darker. The other was a more standard color, grays and white. I don’t remember any markings.”

  “Christiansen is red-gold,” Adam said.

  “So did they come to kidnap Jesse in the first place or was her kidnapping the result of someone trying to make the best of a screwup?”

  “Jesse.” Adam sounded hoarse, and when I glanced back at him I could see that he hadn’t heard Samuel’s question. “I woke up because Jesse screamed. I remember now.”

  “I found a pair of broken handcuffs on the floor of your living room.” I slowed the van so I didn’t tailgate an RV that was creeping up the side of the mountain we were climbing. I didn’t have to slow down much. “Silver wrist cuffs—and the floor was littered with glass, dead werewolves, and furniture. I expect the ankle cuffs were around there somewhere.” I thought of something. “Maybe they just came to get Mac and maybe punish Adam for taking him in?”

  Samuel shook his head. “Mercy, you they might leave warnings for—or try to teach a lesson. A pack of newbie werewolves—especially if they’re headed by an experienced wolf—is not going to tick off an Alpha just to ‘punish’ him for interfering in their business. In the first place, there’s no better way I can think of to get the Marrok ticked off. In the second place there’s Adam himself. He’s not just the Columbia Basin Alpha, he’s damn near the strongest Alpha in the US, present company excluded, of course.”

  Adam grunted, unimpressed with Samuel’s assessment. “We don’t have enough information to make an educated guess at what they wanted. Mac’s dead, either accidentally or on purpose. They half killed me, and they took Jesse. The human you knew implies that it has something to do with Mac’s story—and Christiansen’s presence implies it has something to do with me. I’ll be darned if I know what Mac and I have in common.”

  “Mercy,” said Samuel.

  “I forgot to tell you that I joined the secret society of villains while I was away,” I told Samuel, exasperated. “I am now trying to put together a harem of studly, muscle-bound werewolves. Please. Remember, I didn’t know Mac until he dropped in my lap sometime after the villains screwed up his life.”

  Samuel, having successfully baited me, reached over and patted my leg.

  I just happened to glance at Adam’s face, and I saw his eyes lighten from chocolate to amber as his gaze narrowed on Samuel’s hand before I had to return my eyes to the road to make sure the RV ahead of me hadn’t slowed down again. There were four cars trailing slowly behind us up the mountain.

  “Don’t touch her,” whispered Adam. There was a shadow of threat in his voice, and he must have heard it, too, because he added, “Please.”

  The last word stopped the nasty comment I’d readied because I remembered that Adam was still hurt, still struggling to control his wolf, and the conversation we’d been having hadn’t been designed to calm him.

  But it wasn’t my temper I should have been worried about.

  Samuel’s hand turned until his fingers spanned the top of my thigh, and he squeezed. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt. I’m not certain Adam would have even noticed except that Samuel accompanied it by a throaty half growl of challenge.

  I didn’t wait to see what Adam would do. I yanked the wheel to the right and slammed on the brakes as soon as the van was on the shoulder of the road. I unsnapped my seat belt and twisted around to meet Adam’s yellow gaze. He was breathing heavily, his reaction to Samuel’s taunt tempered by the pain my jerky driving had caused.

  “You,” I said firmly, pointing at him. “Stay right there.” Sometimes, if you tell them firmly enough, even Alphas will listen to commands. Especially if you tell them to sit still while they’re too hurt to move.

  “You”—I turned my attention to Samuel—“outside, right now.”

  Then I jerked my leg out from under Samuel’s hand and jumped out of the van, narrowly avoiding getting the door taken off as a truck passed by.

  I wasn’t certain either of them would listen to me, but at least I wouldn’t have to try to drive with a pair of wolves trying to tear each other apart. However, Samuel opened his door as I stalked around the front of the van. By the time I walked a half dozen steps away from the van, he was beside me, and the van’s doors were closed.

  “Just what did you think you were doing?” I yelled at him, raising my voice over the passing cars. Okay, I was mad, too. “I thought you were here to make sure no one challenged Adam until he was well—not challenge him yourself.”

  “You don’t belong to him,” he snapped back, his white teeth clicking together sharply.

  “Of course not!” I huffed in exasperation—and a little in desperation. “But I don’t belong to you either! For Pete’s sake, Sam, he wasn’t telling you that I belonged to him—just that he felt like you were invading his territory. He was asking you for help.” Someone should have awarded me a Ph.D. in werewolf psychology and counseling—surely I deserved something for putting up with this garbage. “It wasn’t a challenge, stupid. He’s trying to control his wolf after nearly being killed. Two unmated male werewolves always get territorial in the presence of a female—you know that better than I do. You’re supposed to be the one with all this control, and you’re behaving worse than he is.” I sucked in air tainted by the traffic.

  Samuel paused, then settled his weight on his heels—a sign that he was considering backing off from this fight. “You called me Sam,” he said in an odd voice that frightened me as much as the violence I could still smell on him, because I didn’t know what was causing him to act like this. The Samuel I knew had been easygoing—especially for a werewolf. I was beginning to think that I wasn’t the only one who’d changed over the years.

  I didn’t know how to respond to his comment. I couldn’t see what my calling him Sam had to do with anything, so I ignored it. “How can you help him control himself if your control isn’t better than this? What is wrong with you?” I was honestly bewildered.

  Samuel was good at calming the dangerous waters. One of his jobs had been teaching the new wolves control so they could be allowed to live. It is not an accident that most werewolves are control freaks like Adam. I didn’t know what to do with Samuel—except that he wasn’t getting back into that van until he had a handle on whatever was bothering him.

  “It isn’t just that you are female,” he muttered at last, though I almost didn’t hear him because two motorcycles blew past us.

  “What is it then?” I asked.

  He gave me an unhappy look, and I realized that he hadn’t intended for me to hear what he’d said.

  “Mercedes . . . Mercy.” He looked away from me, staring down the slope of the mountain as if the meadows below held some secret he was looking for. “I’m as unsettled as a new pup. You eat my control.”

  “This is all my fault?” I asked incredulously. It was outside of enough that he was scaring the bejeebers out of me—I certainly wasn’t about to accept the blame for it.

  Unexpectedly, he laughed. And as easily as that the smoldering anger, the bright violence, and the dominant power that had been making the air around us feel heavier than it could possibly be floated away. It was just the two of us and the warm scent of Samuel, who smelled of home and the woods.

  “Stay out here and enjoy the diesel fumes, Mercy,” he said as a delivery van in need of a new engine chugged past us in a cloud of black smoke. “Give me a few minutes to clear the air with Adam before you come back in.” He turned and took two steps back to the van. “I’ll wave to you.”

  “No violence?” I said.

  He put his hand over his heart and bowed. “I swear.”

  It took long enough
that I got worried, but finally he opened the door and called me over. He hadn’t rolled down the window because I had the keys and the windows were electric. For some reason I still hadn’t tracked down, the windows only worked one at a time even with the car running.

  I scooted in the driver’s seat and gave Adam a cautious look—but his eyes were closed.

  chapter 8

  As soon as “roaming” quit appearing on my phone, I called Zee.

  “Who’s this?” he answered.

  “Mercy,” I told him.

  “Didn’t tell me the part was for the vampire’s bus,” he said shortly.

  I rubbed my face. “I couldn’t afford to pay them the percentage you were,” I explained, not for the first time.

  In the Columbia Basin, which included Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco as well as the smaller surrounding towns like Burbank and West Richland, every business the vampires considered under their jurisdiction (meaning anyone touched by the supernatural who was too powerless to stand against them) paid them protection money. And yes, just like the mob, the vampires only protect you from themselves.

  “They agreed I could repair their cars instead—and they pay me for parts. That way they save face, and I only have to repair Stefan’s bus and an occasional Mercedes or BMW. Stefan’s not bad for a vampire.”

  There was a growl from the seat beside me.

  “It’s okay,” Adam told Samuel. “We keep an eye on her. And she’s right, Stefan’s not bad for a vampire. Word is that he runs a little interference so she’s not bothered.”

  I hadn’t known any of the vampires had intended to bother me—or that Stefan would care enough to stop them.

  “I didn’t know that,” said Zee, who’d obviously overheard Adam’s comment. He hesitated. “Vampires are bad news, Mercy. The less you have to do with them the better—and writing a check and mailing it every month is safer than dealing with them face-to-face.”

  “I can’t afford it,” I told him again. “I’m still paying the bank and will be until I’m as old as you are.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” he said at last. “I didn’t have to deal with him, anyway. Your new supply house sent the wrong part. I sent it back to them and called with a word to their sales manager. The right part should be here on Friday—best he could do with Thanksgiving tomorrow. I called the number on the vampire’s file and left a message. What kind of vampire plays the Scooby Doo song on his answering machine?” It was a rhetorical question, because he continued. “And a woman came by and said your Politzei friend had sent her.”

  I rubbed my forehead. I’d forgotten about Tony’s girl. “Did you figure out what’s wrong with her car?”

  “Mercy!” he snapped, insulted.

  “No insult meant. Was it something worth fixing?”

  “Wiring harness is bad,” he said. “Mercy . . .”

  I grinned because I’d seen the effect this woman had on “I’m married to my job” Tony. “You like her,” I told him.

  Zee grunted.

  “Did you give her a quote?”

  “Haven’t talked to her yet,” he said. “She’s got poor and proud written all over her. She wouldn’t let me give her a lift, so she and her kids walked home. She doesn’t have a phone number except a work phone.”

  I laughed to myself. There was more than one reason that Zee didn’t have the kind of money the older fae generally amass. Well, I’m probably never going to be rich either.

  “Okay,” I said. “What kind of deal are we talking about?”

  “I called the Politzei,” Zee said. He knew what Tony’s name was; he even liked him, though he did his best to hide it. He just disapproved of letting the human authorities get too close. He was right, too—but I don’t always follow the rules of wisdom. If I did, I wouldn’t be hauling two werewolves in my van.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He said that she has an older boy who’s been looking for work after school.”

  I let him say it; it was just too fun to listen to him squirm. He liked to play the gruff, nasty old man—but he had a marshmallow heart.

  “With my Tad gone, you’re short a pair of hands.”

  And with Mac dead. I lost interest in teasing the old gremlin.

  “It’s fine, Zee. If you talk to her, you can tell her that her son can work off the bill. If he works out, I’ll offer him Tad’s job. I assume you’ve already fixed the car?”

  “Ja,” he said. “You’ll have to talk to the lady yourself, though, unless you need me tomorrow, too. She works day shift.”

  “No, I won’t need you. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I’ll leave the shop closed—if you would remember to put up a sign in the window.”

  “No problem.” He hesitated. “I might have a lead for you on Jesse. I was just getting ready to call you. One of the fae who is still in hiding told me she might be able to help, but she wouldn’t tell me without talking to you.”

  “Still in hiding” meant either that the Gray Lords hadn’t noticed her yet, or that she was of the terrible or powerful sort.

  This time it was Adam who growled. Such are the joys of trying to have a private phone call in the presence of werewolves. Somehow it didn’t bother me so much when I was the eavesdropper.

  “We’re about an hour out of town,” I said. “Could you set up a meeting tonight at a place of her choice?”

  “All right,” he said, and hung up.

  “You caught all of that?” I asked them.

  “Adam can’t go,” Samuel said firmly. “No, Adam, you know it yourself.”

  Adam sighed. “All right. I even agree I’m not fit to be on my own—but I want Mercy there. We can call Darryl and—”

  Samuel held up a hand. “Mercy,” he said, “what caused you to bring Adam all the way to Montana rather than calling on his pack for help?”

  “It was stupid,” I said.

  “Maybe, but tell us anyway.”

  “I was trying to get in touch with Darryl, and I suddenly felt uneasy. I remembered a snippet of conversation between Ben and Darryl earlier that night, but in retrospect it wasn’t much.”

  “What were Ben and Darryl doing talking to you?” asked Adam in that mild voice he used to cozen people into thinking he wasn’t angry.

  “I can take care of myself, Adam,” I told him. “I was taking the trash out and ran into them. All Darryl did was tell Ben to leave me alone. He said, ‘Not now.’ I don’t know why I decided it meant he knew that something was going to happen.”

  “First you felt uneasy,” said Samuel. “Then you came up with this stupid reason.”

  “Yes.” I felt my face flush.

  “How do you feel about his pack now?”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. “Damn it. Something’s wrong. I don’t think Adam should go to the pack until he can defend himself.”

  Samuel settled back with a small, smug smile.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You noticed something,” Adam said. “A scent or something at my house that makes you think someone from my pack is involved. Instincts.” He sounded grim. “I thought it was odd that they came so soon after my wolves left.”

  I shook my head. “Look, I don’t know anything.”

  “We’re not going to kill anyone,” said Samuel. “Not on the basis of your instincts, anyway—but what’s the harm in being careful? Call your friend back. We’ll see to his information tomorrow, when Adam has enough control to be on his own.”

  “No,” said Adam.

  “Damned if I will.” It felt odd not to be arguing with Adam. “The faster we find Jesse, the better.”

  “I can’t be in two places at once,” Samuel said. “And I won’t allow you to go out on your own and talk to who knows what kind of fae.”

  “We need to find Jesse,” I said.

  “My daughter comes first.”

  Samuel twisted around to look at Adam. “You have a dominant wolf in your pack that you trust? Someone not in line to
be pack leader?”

  “Warren.” Adam and I said his name in the same instant.

  Warren was my favorite of Adam’s pack, and the only wolf whose company I sought out. I met him shortly after I moved to the Tri-Cities, before I even knew there was a pack in town.

  I hadn’t met a werewolf since I’d left Montana, and I certainly hadn’t expected to meet one working the night shift at the local Stop and Rob. He’d given me a wary look, but there were other people in the store, so he accepted my payment without a word. I accepted my change with a nod and a smile.

  After that we’d mostly ignored each other, until the night a woman with a fresh shiner came into the store to pay for the gas her husband was pumping. She gave Warren the money, then took a firmer grip on the hand of the boy at her side, and asked Warren if he had a back door she could use.

  He smiled gently at her and shepherded the two frightened people into a small office I’d never noticed before at the back of the store. He left me to watch the till and went out and had a short talk with the man at the pump. When he came back, he had two hundred dollars cash for her, and her husband drove away with a speed indicating either terror or rage.

  Warren and I waited with the battered pair until the lady who ran the local women’s shelter drove over to collect her newest clients. When they left, I turned to him and finally introduced myself.

  Warren was one of the good guys, a hero. He was also a lone wolf. It had taken him a while to trust me enough to tell me why.

  Perhaps in other ages, in other places, it wouldn’t have mattered that he was gay. But most of the werewolves in power in the US had been born in a time when homosexuality was anathema, even punishable by death in some places.

  One of my professors once told me that the last official act of the British monarchy was when Queen Victoria refused to sign a law that made same-sex acts illegal. It would have made me think more highly of her, except the reason she objected was because she didn’t believe women would do anything like that. Parliament rewrote the law so it was specific to men, and she signed it. A tribute to enlightenment, Queen Victoria was not. Neither, as I have observed before, are werewolf packs.