Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  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 Pasco, 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 overtaxed 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 de
adly. 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 bentwood 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.

  In a pack, these natural swings are gradually sifted through. In wolves that are near-dominants, sometimes a fight between them will allow strength to determine pack rank. An Alpha’s second and third were the next two most dominant males in the pack.

  Warren, among enemies, was quiet and watchful, rather than adapting the more typical aggressiveness of a dominant male. His body language skills weren’t even as good as mine because he’d spent so little time with a pack when he was first Changed. He ran beside the pack, rather than inside it. Because of that, he was vulnerable to challenge from wolves who thought they might be stronger, better, faster.

  It was Adam, I knew, who told the others that Warren was his third. If Adam had been less dominant, less well-liked or respected, there would have been blood shed over his declaration. I knew Adam’s determination was right—but I was one of the few people for whom Warren dropped his guard.

  A significant minority of the wolves felt that Warren wasn’t strong enough for the position he held. I knew—from Jesse rather than from any of the wolves involved—that some of the wolves wanted Warren out of the pack or, even better, dead.

  Evidently this Paul was one of those, and one dominant enough to challenge Warren. Something Adam had just given him permission to do.

  Paul gave a small, pleased nod and left the room with brisk steps, unaware that Warren would wipe the floor with him. If Warren survived—by Samuel’s careful focus, I knew that was still in doubt.

  Adam watched the man leave with a brooding gaze. He lifted it at last and saw me watching him. His eyes narrow
ed and he came up to me and took my arm, tugging me out of the room behind him.

  He led me to Jesse’s room, hesitated and dropped my arm. He knocked once, lightly, on her door and then opened it. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the bed, her nose red and tears running slowly down her face.

  “He’s holding his own,” Adam told her.

  She scrambled to her feet. “Can I go see him?”

  “Be quiet,” he told her.

  She nodded and headed for Warren’s room. When she saw me, she hesitated, then gave me a smile like sunshine peeking out from the clouds of Warren’s condition. Then she hurried past.

  “Come,” Adam took my arm again—I really disliked that—and escorted me to another closed door. This one he opened without knocking.

  I held hard to my irritation as I jerked free and walked all the way into the room. If I was irritated, I wouldn’t be afraid. I really hated it that I was afraid of Adam now.

  I folded my arms and kept my back to him, only then realizing that he’d brought me to his bedroom.

  I’d have recognized it as Adam’s room, even if it hadn’t smelled of him. He loved textures and warm colors and the room reflected that from the dark brown Berber carpet to the Venetian plaster treatment on the buttercream walls. There was an oil painting as tall as I was and twice as wide on one wall, a mountain forest scene. The artist had resisted the impulse to add an eagle in the air or a deer in the stream.

  A human might have found the painting boring.

  I touched the canvas before I realized I had moved. I wasn’t familiar with the name of the artist, which was scrawled almost illegibly on the lower right corner and on a small brass plaque on the center of the frame. The title of the piece was Sanctuary.

  I turned away from the painting to find Adam staring at me. He had his arms crossed and there were the little white marks along his wide cheekbones that told me he was in a temper. That in itself wasn’t unusual. He had a hot temper and I was pretty good at getting him worked up—though not lately. And not, I would have sworn, today.