Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  “I still don’t like what Bran’s doing,” David rumbled. “Not at all. But I like what Gerry is doing even less.”

  “Gerry asked us to deliver the boy’s body to your doorstep,” explained John-Julian. “He said that you needed a warning to stay out of wolf business. We met him back at the house he was using for headquarters and that was when we found out that he’d kidnapped Adam’s daughter and left three of his wolves to die.”

  “You don’t leave your men behind,” said Connor.

  “You don’t attack the innocents,” John-Julian told me. It sounded like a creed.

  David gave me a half smile. “And, though I think Bran needs to be brought up short, only a fool would think he could get Adam to move a step he doesn’t choose to. I’d leave Gerry to learn his lesson, but our honor is at stake. We don’t hurt the innocents—so we’re getting Adam and his daughter away tonight.”

  “They have Adam?” It wasn’t really a surprise. What else could have kept the pack away from phones all day? It was even a relief to know because there had been a dozen other, worse things that had occurred to me.

  What did come as a surprise was the door opening, though I hadn’t sensed anyone on my front porch. Samuel, back in his human shape, let himself into my house. He was wearing only jeans. Even his feet were bare, and he limped a little as he came to me. “They have Adam,” he confirmed.

  I might not have heard him or smelled him, but David didn’t look surprised. He’d made a subtle gesture that kept his men where they were—though I could see they were tense and ready to act.

  “David Christiansen, meet Dr. Samuel Cornick,” I said. “Samuel, this is David, Adam’s old army buddy. He’s here to get Adam and Jesse out.”

  “So I heard,” Samuel said, sitting down on the couch next to my feet.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “We got to the address we had for the other wolves and found a few signs, but nothing definite. We wandered around quite a while before Darryl realized the reason Adam wasn’t recalling us from the hunt was because he was gone, along with his car. Someone saw him with a cell phone—which he didn’t have when we left Warren’s house. Several wolves noticed the car drive away, but no one thought to question Adam.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, because I was getting a very bad feeling. “Wait a minute. The vampires would have checked out the address—Bran says there’s nothing more paranoid than a vampire. They’d have made certain there were wolves where they were supposed to be, don’t you think? Even just to make certain that it was wolves who’d come. But when half our pack shows up, they can’t find enough scent to track the others?” I looked at David. “And when Mac’s body was left on my porch, I couldn’t scent anyone else who shouldn’t have been there—I didn’t smell you.” I hunched my shoulders. “I should have realized it then, shouldn’t I? It’s not just Gerry, is it?” I saw Samuel stiffen and remembered he hadn’t known. “Gerry Wallace is working with our witch.”

  There were a lot of witches who could sterilize a body so that not even the keenest nose, or the best-equipped, best-trained forensics team could find a clue. But Elizaveta Arkadyevna was one of the few witches who could have removed the scent of David and his men without removing the scent of Adam’s house.

  “There’s a Russian witch,” David said.

  “If the wolf packs come out into the open, witches will lose a lot of business,” I said. “Staying hidden bears a high price—and the witches are some of the people who benefit. I’m not even certain it would be a breach of contract, not as long as Gerry wants to make Adam the Marrok.”

  “What?” Samuel’s voice was so quiet it made me nervous.

  “Gerry doesn’t want the wolves to be made public,” I explained. “He decided Adam is the only one who can prevent it—by killing Bran.”

  He held up a hand, his eyes cool as they watched the other men. “I think that Mr. Christiansen should tell me what he believes is happening.” So Samuel could see if he was lying or not. Samuel was one of the wolves who could do that.

  David knew it, too, I could see it in his smile. “Gerry Wallace told me that Bran was abandoning his people. He asked me if I would speak to Adam and see if I could get him to object.”

  “Meaning fight the Marrok for leadership,” clarified Samuel.

  “Yes. To that end he flew me and my boys out here. I was surprised at the method he chose. I would not have brought armed men to confront an Alpha in his own home—but I could not object more strongly without a fight that would have left me in charge of Gerry’s wolves—and a sadder bunch of wolves you’ve never seen. I knew that Adam was capable of defending himself, so I went along with it.”

  David shrugged. “Talking to Ms. Thompson, we’ve pretty much decided that Gerry intended that blood be spilled because the wolves who died would have been trouble for him. I think he intended blackmail rather than talk from the beginning.”

  Samuel inclined his head. “He knows Adam. Adam wouldn’t challenge my father—even if he disagreed with what Bran was doing. He doesn’t want to be Marrok.”

  “He doesn’t know Adam very well if he thinks he can control him by threatening his daughter,” said David.

  “I think you’re wrong,” I said. “I think Adam would do anything to save Jesse.”

  “You all sound as if it is a given that Adam would kill my father.”

  I considered that. “Gerry’s the one who believes it. Maybe he intends to do something to ensure Bran’s death. He still thinks that he’s the only one who knows about the tranquilizers.”

  Samuel growled, and I patted him on the top of the head. The back of the couch wasn’t as comfortable as the seat—but I liked being taller than the two werewolves. Samuel pulled my hand down to his shoulder and held it there.

  “So why did you come here?” he asked David. “Couldn’t you find Adam’s pack?”

  “I wasn’t looking for the pack,” David said. “Gerry’s got Adam drugged to the gills. I went in to talk to him and he almost tore through his chains. From what he said, he thinks he’s got a traitor in his pack—I think he’s right. I suspect that’s how they took him. Even so, I think the drug is making him more paranoid. Getting him out safely with his human child is going to require his cooperation.

  “He doesn’t trust me—and I’m sorry to say he has reason.” He looked at Samuel. “I don’t think he’ll trust you either—not another male when his daughter is there.” He turned back to me. “But you have his scent all over your van, and he has a picture of you in his bedroom.”

  Samuel gave me a sharp look. “In his bedroom?”

  It was news to me, too. But I was more worried about Adam and Jesse than a picture.

  “All right,” I said. “Where are they holding him?”

  With two exceptions, Samuel didn’t seem to have a problem letting David make all the plans. First, Samuel insisted on calling in the wolf pack—though he agreed they were only to be backup, waiting a few minutes away. Only Darryl would know what was up, until the very last minute.

  He also insisted on calling his father and telling him what we knew.

  “Adam won’t fight him,” Samuel told David’s frozen face. “I know he doesn’t like coming out, but he understands my father’s reasons.” He sighed. “Look, none of us are happy about it, not even the Marrok. But my father has had several wolves report that one of the government agencies is threatening them with exposure if they won’t cooperate.”

  Some expression crossed David’s face too quickly for me to read, but Samuel nodded. “I wondered if someone had talked to you, too. The others were all military. We’ve become an open secret—and that’s not safe. Frankly, I’m surprised that Bran’s managed to keep us hidden this long. I thought that once the public accepted the fae they’d discover all of us.”

  “They didn’t want to know,” I said. “Most of them like their safe little world.”

  “What will your father do to Grandpa?” asked Connor.
/>
  Samuel raised his eyebrows. “I can’t think of anything he’s done wrong. He’s sworn no oaths to Bran or anyone else—nor done anything to betray our secrets. Just the opposite.”

  My cell phone rang again—it was Bran. That werewolf was uncanny. “Mercedes, let me speak to my son.”

  I looked at Samuel, and said, “He’s not here. I told you earlier that I haven’t heard from him since last night.”

  “Enough games,” Bran told me. “Give the phone to Samuel.”

  Raising my eyebrows at David Christiansen and his men, I handed the phone over and listened to Samuel explain matters. Bran had probably heard the lie in my voice when I told him Samuel wasn’t here. Probably. But David, who had heard both sides of the conversation, was going to be forever convinced that the Marrok knew that Samuel was sitting beside me.

  I hid my satisfaction. The more powerful the wolves believed Bran, the safer he was.

  chapter 14

  We rode with Christiansen and his grandsons for most of the way, me as human and Samuel in wolf form. He’d shifted again at my house because other wolves can sense the change.

  David dropped us off about a mile from the site with directions on how to get there. The idea was for me and Samuel to sneak up on our own. Then I’d see if I could wriggle my way through a hole in the side of the warehouse where Adam and Jesse were being kept, and Samuel would rendezvous with Adam’s pack and wait until they were called in.

  Adam and Jesse were being held at a tree farm, nestled in the rolling lands just south of Benton City, a small town about twenty minutes outside of Richland.

  Though the tree farm was closed, there were still acres of trees unharvested. I recognized various maples and oaks as we passed, as well as a few pines.

  A huge pole building, obviously the warehouse David had told me about, was nestled well behind the manufactured home. The house was boarded up, and there was a Realtor’s sign beside it proudly proclaiming it SOLD.

  Samuel at my side, I crouched in a ditch surrounded by a thicket of Russian olive and gave the place a good looking over. From where I sat, I couldn’t see any vehicles, so they were probably all parked on the other side of the warehouse.

  Christiansen had told us that the tree farm had been purchased by a local winery that intended to use the land to grow grapes. Since they wouldn’t plant until the coming spring, the whole thing—house and warehouse—was supposed to be empty until then.

  The Realtor’s sign told me that one of Adam’s wolves had indeed betrayed him and gave me a name.

  I pulled out my cell phone and called Darryl’s number. By this time, I had it memorized.

  “Have you gotten in touch with John Cavanaugh, yet?” I asked. John Cavanaugh was one of the wolves I didn’t know very well—he’d been at Warren’s for our council of war.

  “We haven’t been able to locate him.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief that Darryl ignored, still lost in his irritation at not being told exactly what we were doing. He wasn’t happy at having to follow Samuel’s orders, either.

  “As instructed, I’m not leaving messages on answering machines. That means we are going to be short a lot of people.”

  “I’m looking at John Cavanaugh’s name on a Realtor’s sign outside of the tree farm where they’re holding Adam,” I told him.

  There was a long pause.

  “I see,” he said thoughtfully, and hung up. Not one for long good-byes, our Darryl, but a smart man. John Cavanaugh wouldn’t be called for this rescue—or any other. Maybe it should have bothered me more that I had just signed a man’s death warrant, but I’d wait and see how Adam and Jesse came out of it before I felt sorry for Cavanaugh.

  Beside me, Samuel whined softly.

  “All right,” I told him, and began disrobing. It was cold out. Not as cold as Montana, but too chilly to do anything but fling clothes off as fast as I could—while being careful not to stick myself on the Russian-olive thorns. I folded my clothes, somewhat haphazardly, and turned off my cell phone.

  “You don’t have to wait for me to get in,” I told him again.

  He just stared at me.

  I heaved a put-upon sigh, then I shifted. Delightfully warm again, I stretched, wagged my tail at Samuel, and headed out for the warehouse. It was still daylight, so I took a circuitous route to avoid being seen. I was aware of Samuel trailing me, though I never saw him. Quite impressive considering his coloring—white is good for a Montana winter, but winter in eastern Washington is usually gray and brown.

  One corner of the aluminum side of the warehouse was bent up, just a little, right where Christiansen had told me it would be. I had to work at it, but I got inside at the cost of a little fur. My nose told me that another coyote and several smaller critters had used the same route within the past few months. If Gerry or one of his wolves caught my scent, hopefully they’d just think another coyote had gotten in.

  The interior of the warehouse was cavernous and no warmer than it had been outside. Somehow, though Christiansen had said I wouldn’t have any problem finding a place to hide, I’d expected it to be empty. Instead it was filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of crates, pallet-sized with three-foot-tall plywood sides, warped by moisture and wear. The crates were stacked three high on racks that reached to the ceiling, maybe thirty feet over my head.

  The air smelled musty. As I looked around, I saw there was a sprinkler system set up and drains in the floor. It made sense, I suppose. When the warehouse was full of trees, they would have had to keep the plants moist somehow until they shipped them.

  I found a stack whose bottom crate bore a sheet of paper that said “Hamamelis Virginiana—Witch Hazel 3'–4'.” It was empty, but the astringent smell of the shrub still clung to the gray wood. I could have hidden inside the top crate, but I’d be easy to see while I was jumping in or out. Instead, I curled up on the cement between the bottom crate and the metal exterior wall, as safe as I could be under the circumstances.

  The plan was for me to wait for one of David’s sons to come and get me. They were going to “do the extraction” (David’s words) at night, which was still a few hours away.

  Gerry had been having problems with Adam. Even with the tranquilizer, they’d found that having guards in the room they were keeping him in made him too agitated. They remembered the way he’d broken through their restraints at his house, so they did their best to keep him calm: that meant most of the time he and Jesse were alone with a guard outside the room. Gerry’s scent bothered Adam enough that he’d had to stay out of the warehouse entirely.

  Although we weren’t getting Jesse and Adam out for a few hours, I could go in with them and do my best to get Adam ready to be rescued.

  We’d argued about that. David had wanted me to wait until his man was on guard duty near dusk, but I didn’t want to leave Adam and Jesse alone any longer than they had to be. David thought the risk of discovery was too high.

  Samuel settled the argument. “Let her go. She’s going to do it anyway, and this way we can reduce the risks.”

  David hadn’t been happy, but he’d bowed to higher authority—and better judgment. Samuel was right. I wasn’t about to let Adam and Jesse wait around without protection when I could be there with them. Gerry was the only wolf who would know my scent, and he was staying away from the warehouse. All the other wolves would just assume I was a coyote, and there were lots of coyotes around.

  I still had to wait for escort, though, which might be a long time coming, but it was safer than having me wander around looking for where they were hiding Adam and Jesse.

  It is impossible to stay in the state of readiness while waiting motionless. Eventually I fell into a light doze that lasted for maybe an hour before the newly familiar smell of John-Julian woke me.

  I crept out cautiously, but he was alone, with my pack over one shoulder. He didn’t talk to me, just turned and threaded his way through the crates to a section of the warehouse that looked as though it had been off
ices. Like the crates, they were stacked one atop the other, three high.

  He climbed the stairs to the middle tier, where the far door had a bright and shiny dead-bolt lock that made it stand out from the others. When he turned the bolt and opened the door, I darted inside and stopped.

  No wonder Gerry left them with only one guard at a time. There was no chance either Jesse or Adam would escape on their own.

  Jesse was lying on a bare mattress. Someone had wrapped duct tape around the lower half of her face, covering her mouth, hair, and neck. Getting it off was going to be nasty business. Handcuffs held her wrists together, and a climber’s rope secured the handcuffs to the two-by-four bed frame. Her ankles were bound together and tied to the foot of the bed, making it impossible for her to do much more than wiggle.

  She stared at John-Julian with dull eyes—and didn’t seem to notice me at all. She was wearing pajamas, probably what she’d been wearing when they’d taken her, those soft cottony plaid things with a T-shirt top. On the white underside of her left arm was a bruise so dark it appeared black rather than purple.

  Adam was seated in a chair obviously made by the same style-impaired carpenter who’d thrown together the bed frame. It was crude, made of two-by-fours and lag bolts, though I don’t suppose they were worried about style. Heavy manacles, just like something you’d expect in a wax museum or medieval torture chamber—held his wrists onto the chair arms and a second set held his ankles to the chair legs. But even destroying the chair wouldn’t free him because there were enough silver chains wrapped around him to have funded the local school system for a year.

  “Gerry won’t come here,” said John-Julian to me. Adam opened his eyes, just a bare fraction, and I saw that his irises were yellow gold and blazing with rage. “His presence has the same effect on Adam that my grandfather’s does. Not even the drugs are enough to keep Adam calm—so Gerry will stay away. Our man is only on guard for another five minutes. The next one is the enemy; but after that, Shawn, one of our men, takes over for a two-hour shift.”