Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  “So what do they stand to gain with Jesse?” Darryl asked. “Money seems ridiculous at this point. It seems that this attack was directed at the Columbia Basin Pack’s Alpha rather than at Adam Hauptman, businessman.”

  “Agreed.” Adam frowned at him. “Possibly someone wants control of the pack? There isn’t much I would not do for my daughter.”

  Control of the pack or control of Adam, I wondered, and is there a difference between the two?

  “Whoever it is and whatever they want, we should know before dawn. We know where they are staying,” I said, reaching into the pocket of my jeans and pulling out the paper the vampires had given me and handing it to Adam.

  “Zee’s informant said that our enemies paid the vampires almost ten thousand dollars to leave them alone while they were here,” I told Adam.

  Adam’s eyebrows shot up even though he clutched the paper with white fingers. “Ten thousand is way too much,” he said. “I wonder why they did that?”

  He glanced at the paper and looked around the room. “Darryl? Warren? Are you up to another adventure tonight?”

  “Nothing’s broken,” Darryl said.

  “Not anymore,” agreed Warren. “I’m up for it.”

  “Samuel?”

  The white wolf grinned at him.

  “We can take my van,” I offered.

  “Thank you,” said Adam, “but you are staying here.”

  I raised my chin, and he patted my cheek—the patronizing bastard. He laughed at my expression, not like he was making fun of me, but like he was really enjoying something . . . me.

  “You are not expendable, Mercedes—and you are not up to facing a pack war.” By the time he’d finished speaking the smile had left his face, and he was watching the people in the room.

  “Listen, buddy,” I said. “I killed two werewolves—that makes my kill sheet as high as yours this week—and I didn’t do so badly getting that address from the vampires either.”

  “You got the address from the vampires?” said Adam, in a dangerously soft voice.

  “Patronizing bastard,” I muttered, driving my van through the empty streets of East Kennewick. “I am not pack. He does not have the right to tell me what to do or how to do it. He has no right to yell at me for talking to the vampires. He is not my keeper.”

  He was, I’d finally had to concede, right about how little help I’d be in a fight with another pack of werewolves. Warren had promised to call me when they were through.

  I yawned and realized I’d been up for nearly twenty hours—and I’d spent that last night tossing on a strange motel bed, alternately dreaming of Mac dying because of something I hadn’t done and of Jesse alone and crying for help.

  I pulled into my driveway and didn’t bother parking the van in its usual place, safe in the pole-built garage. I’d clean out the wrappers and the socks in the morning and put it away. Zee’s dagger, which I’d put back on before I left Warren’s to make certain I didn’t just leave it in the van, got tangled in my seat belt. I was so tired I was in tears by the time I finally was free.

  Or maybe I was crying like the kid who gets picked last for the softball team at school—and is told to go somewhere and not get in the way while the rest of them played ball.

  I remembered to get the guns out of the van and to grab my purse. As I started up my steps, I realized that Elizaveta Arkadyevna hadn’t gotten around to cleaning the porch yet because I could still smell Mac and the distinctive scents that accompany death.

  No, I decided, my lips peeling back from my teeth in a snarl, I was crying because I wanted to be in on the kill. These people had come into my territory and hurt people I cared about. It was my duty, my right, to punish them.

  As if I could do anything against a pack of werewolves. I brought my hand down on the safety rail and snapped the dry wood as easily as if it had been resting on cinder blocks at the dojo. A small, soft presence rubbed against my ankles and welcomed me with a demanding mew.

  “Hey, Medea,” I said, wiping my eyes before I picked her up and tucked her under the arm that wasn’t holding my guns. I unlocked my door, not bothering with the light. I put the guns away. I set my cell phone in its charger beside the regular phone, then curled up on the couch with a purring Medea and fell asleep waiting for Warren’s call.

  The sun in my eyes woke me up. For the first few moments I couldn’t remember what I was doing sleeping on the couch. The clock on my DVD player read 9:00 A.M., which meant it was ten in the morning. I never reset it to account for daylight savings.

  I checked my messages and my cell phone. There was a call from Zee asking me to check in, but that was it. I called Zee back and left a message on his machine.

  I called Adam’s home phone, his cell phone, and his pager. Then I called Warren’s home number, too. I looked Darryl’s phone number up in the phone book and called him, writing down the other numbers his machine purred at me. But he wasn’t answering his cell phone either.

  After a moment of thought I turned the TV onto the local station, but there were no emergency broadcasts. No one had reported a bloodbath in West Richland last night. Maybe no one had found the bodies yet.

  I took my cell, got in the Rabbit, and drove to the address the vampires had given me—I might have given Adam the paper, but I remembered the address. The house was completely empty with a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn. I could smell the pack faintly around the perimeter of the building, but there was no sign of blood or violence.

  If the address had been false, where was everyone?

  I drove to my shop before I remembered it was Thanksgiving and no one would be bringing in cars for me to fix. Still, it was better than sitting home and wondering what had happened. I opened one of the big garage doors and started to work on my current project.

  It was difficult getting anything done. I’d had to take off my phone so I didn’t break it while I was working, and I kept thinking I heard it ring. But no one called, not even my mother.

  An unfamiliar car drove up and stopped out front, and a tiny woman dressed in red sweats and white tennis shoes got out. She met my gaze, nodded once, and, having acquired a target lock, walked briskly over to me.

  “I am Sylvia Sandoval,” she said, extending her hand.

  “You don’t want to shake my hands just now,” I said with a professional smile. “I’m Mercedes Thompson. What can I do for you?”

  “You already have.” She put her hand down and nodded back at her car, a been-there-done-that Buick that was, despite rust spots and a ding on the right front fender, spotlessly clean. “Since your Mr. Adelbertsmiter fixed it, it has been running like new. I would like to know how much I owe you, please. Mr. Adelbertsmiter indicated that you might be interested in exchanging my son’s labor for your time and trouble.”

  I found a clean rag and began rubbing the worst of the grease off my hands to give myself time to think. I liked it that she had taken time to learn Zee’s name. It wasn’t the easiest name to wrap your lips around, especially if your first language was Spanish.

  “You must be Tony’s friend,” I said. “I haven’t had time to look at the bill Zee prepared—but I am shorthanded. Does your son know anything about fixing cars?”

  “He can change the oil and rotate the tires,” she said. “He will learn the rest. He is a hard worker and learns fast.”

  Like Zee, I found myself admiring her forthright, determined manner. I nodded. “All right. Why don’t we do this. Have your son come”—When? I had no idea what I was going to be doing for the next couple of days—“Monday after school. He can work off the repairs, and, if we suit, he can keep the job. After school and Saturday all day.”

  “His school comes first,” she said.

  I nodded. “I can live with that. We’ll see how it works.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “He’ll be here.”

  I watched her get into her car and reflected that Bran was lucky she wasn’t a werewolf or he might find himself having troub
le keeping his place as Alpha.

  I paused and stared at my dirty hands. Last night someone had asked what the kidnappers wanted. They didn’t need Adam’s place in the pack, not if they had their own pack. If they wanted money, surely there were easier targets than the Alpha’s daughter. So there was something special about Adam. Among the werewolves, it is a matter of safety always to know where you rank in the pack. In the hierarchy of the Marrok it was not so important—as long as everyone remembered that Bran was on top. But people kept track anyway.

  I had a very clear memory of my foster father crouching in front of my chair and naming off names on my fingers when I was four or five. “One is Bran,” he said. “Two is Charles, and three is Samuel. Four is Adam of the Los Alamos Pack. Five is Everett of the Houston Pack.”

  “One is Bran,” I said now. “Two is Charles, and three Samuel, both Bran’s sons. Four is Adam, now of the Columbia Basin Pack.”

  If there was something special about Adam, it was that—other than Bran’s sons, he was the nearest challenger for the title of Marrok.

  I tried to dismiss it at first. If I wanted to get Adam to fight Bran, I certainly wouldn’t start by kidnapping his daughter. But maybe they hadn’t.

  I sat down in the Bug’s driver’s seat, and the old vinyl cracked under me. What if they had come to talk to Adam rather than attack him? I closed my eyes. Suppose it was someone who knew Adam well like his old army buddy. Adam had a hot temper, explosive even—although he could be persuaded to listen, once he’d calmed down again.

  Given that the enemy was a werewolf, he would be afraid of Adam, or at least cautious. That’s the way the dominance game works. Meeting an Alpha on his home territory puts him in a superior position. Can’t take a gun loaded with silver ammunition because that would be a declaration of war—he’d have to kill Adam or die himself. Suppose this enemy had on hand a drug, something to calm a werewolf down. Something to keep Adam from killing him if negotiations went poorly.

  But things don’t work out right. Someone panics and shoots the person who opens the door—less dominant werewolves would have a tendency to panic when invading an Alpha’s home. Suppose they shoot him several times. A mistake, but not irreparable.

  Except that then Adam attacks. So they shoot Adam, too, and chain him so they can hold him until he listens. But Mac dies and Adam is not in any mood to listen. He begins to break free, and when you have enough drug in him to stop that, he is too far under to discuss anything.

  They are panicking. They have to come up with a new plan. How can they get Adam to cooperate?

  “Jesse’s upstairs,” I said, snapping my fingers in a quick rhythm that answered the speed of my thoughts.

  Take Jesse, then force Adam to listen. Or, if he won’t listen, then threaten to kill Jesse.

  It made as much sense as anything else. So where did Mac and the drug experiments come in?

  I scrabbled out of the Bug and jogged into my office to locate a notebook. I had no proof of any of it, just instincts—but my instincts were sometimes very good.

  On one page, I wrote down: Drug experiments/buying new werewolves? and on the next Why replace Bran with Adam?

  I set a hip over a three-legged stool and tapped my pen on the paper. Other than the tranquilizers that had killed Mac, there was no physical evidence of any other drugs, but Mac’s experiences seemed to indicate that there were more. After a moment I wrote down: Were Ketamine/silver nitrate/DMSO the only drugs? Then I wrote down the names of people likely to have knowledge of all the drugs. Samuel, Dr. Wallace, and after a thoughtful pause I wrote Auriele, the chemistry teacher. With a sigh I admitted: it could be anybody. Then, stubbornly, I circled Dr. Wallace’s name.

  He had the ability and a motive for making a tranquilizer that would render him harmless to the people he loved. I quit playing with my pen. Or would it?

  Wasn’t the vampire’s Kiss a tranquilizer? It was possible a submissive werewolf might have come out of it like any other tranquilized animal, groggy and quiet. Stefan had said that only some wolves became problematic. Samuel had come out fighting, with his wolf ready to attack, just as if he’d been trapped.

  I thought of the broken manacles Adam had left behind in his house. He’d put his reaction down to Jesse’s kidnapping—but maybe that was only part of it. But, that was a side issue for now.

  I looked at the second page. Why replace Bran with Adam?

  I brushed my finger over the words. I wasn’t certain that was the motive, but it was the kind of motive that would leave bodies on the ground without discouraging the perpetrators. They left Adam alive when they could easily have killed him, so they wanted something from him.

  Bran had been Marrok for almost two centuries. Why would someone get desperate to change the way things ran just now?

  I wrote down: want change.

  Bran could be a bastard. He was a ruler in the old-fashioned despot sense—but that was something the werewolves seemed to want. Under his rule the werewolves in North America had prospered, both in power and numbers—while in Europe the wolves waned.

  But would Adam be any different? Well, yes, but not in any way that I could see would benefit anyone. If anything, Adam would be more despotic. Samuel said that Bran had considered using Adam as the poster child for the werewolves—but it would never have worked. Adam was too hot-tempered. Some reporter would shove a camera in his face and find himself flattened on the pavement.

  That was it.

  I sucked in my breath. It wasn’t change that someone wanted—it was to keep everything the same. Bran was planning on bringing the wolves out.

  Suddenly it didn’t seem so odd that one of Adam’s wolves might have betrayed him. (I wasn’t as confident that my instincts were right as everyone else seemed to be.) But I could see how one of Adam’s wolves could feel that aiding the enemy had not been a betrayal. They were preparing the way for him to take power. No harm was supposed to have come from their raid on Adam’s house—but they wouldn’t be discouraged by the deaths there. Werewolves die—and their wolves had died for a cause. A wolf like Mac, who wasn’t even pack, wouldn’t be a great loss when measured by what was at risk.

  The betrayer could be anyone. None of Adam’s pack had any personal loyalty to Bran.

  I took out the card Bran had given me and called the top number. He picked up on the second ring.

  “Bran, this is Mercy.” Now that I had him on the phone I wasn’t certain how much to tell him—far too much of what I’d put together was pure speculation. Finally, I asked, “Have you heard from Adam?”

  “No.”

  I tapped my toe. “Is . . . is Dr. Wallace still there?”

  Bran sighed. “Yes.”

  “Could you ask him if he developed a tranquilizer that works on werewolves?”

  His voice sharpened. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing. Not a damn thing, including where Adam and your son are right now. Just when are you considering bringing the werewolves out in public?”

  “Samuel’s missing?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. The whole pack is with them—they just haven’t bothered to check in with me.”

  “Good,” he said, obviously not surprised that they hadn’t seen fit to keep me updated. “In answer to your previous question—I believe it is something that must be done soon. Not this week nor next, but not a year from now either. My contacts in the FBI laboratories tell me that our existence is an all-but-open secret right now. Like the Gray Lords, I’ve come to the conclusion that since coming out is inevitable—it is imperative to control how it is done.”

  See? Werewolves are control freaks.

  “How many people . . . how many wolves know about this?” I asked.

  There was a pause. “This is pertinent to the attack on Adam?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Most of the wolves here would know,” he said. “I haven’t been keeping it a secret. Next month at the Conclave I am going to make a general
announcement.”

  He didn’t say anything more, just waited for me to tell him what I’d been thinking. It was pure speculation, and I was opening myself up to ridicule by saying anything at all. I sat on that stool and realized that I had my loyalties, too. I was not a werewolf, but Bran was still my Marrok. I had to warn him.

  “I have no proof,” I told him. “Just a theory.” And I told him what I thought had happened and why.

  “I don’t have any idea who it is,” I told the silence at the other end of the line. “Or if I’m right.”

  “If it is a werewolf who is unhappy about revealing himself to humans, it seems odd that there would be humans working with him,” Bran said, but he didn’t say it like he thought my theory was stupid.

  I’d almost forgotten about the humans. “Right. And I don’t have much of an explanation about the drug tests that Mac told us about either—other than maybe they were worried about dosage or side effects. Paying for new-made werewolves seems like a lot of risk with very little benefit.”

  “When two wolves are fighting, having one of them drugged could greatly influence the outcome,” said Bran. “I like your theory, Mercedes. It isn’t perfect, but it feels like you’re on the right trail.”

  “He wouldn’t have to worry about the loyalties of humans,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “Who?”

  “Adam says that one of the wolves who attacked his house was someone he knew, a wolf who shared his rebirth.”

  “David Christiansen.”

  “Yes.” It didn’t surprise me that the Marrok would know who I was talking about. Bran managed to give the impression that he knew every werewolf anywhere personally. Maybe he did.

  “David works with humans,” Bran said slowly. “But not with other werewolves. I wouldn’t have thought he would ever be a part of a plot that included rape—Changes like that experienced by your Alan MacKenzie Frazier. Still it is something to consider. I’ll call Charles and see what he makes of it.”

  “He’s still in Chicago?”