Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  I’d have felt better if she’d had pets. A dog or even a cat would have hinted at a warmth that I couldn’t see in her, but she only smelled of Chanel No. 5 and dry-cleaning fluid.

  “Mercy,” coaxed Kyle in a tone he must have perfected with the women whose divorces he handled. “You have to tell her.”

  I don’t go around telling people I’m a walker. Outside of my family, Kyle is the only human who knows.

  “Freeing your friend might mean that you have to take the stand and tell a whole courtroom of people what you are,” said Ms. Ryan. “How much do you care about what happens to Mr. Adelbertsmiter?”

  She thought I was a fae of some kind.

  “Fine.” I got out of the sinfully comfortable chair and walked over to the window to look down at the traffic on Clearwater Avenue for a moment. I could see only one way to get this over with quickly.

  “I’m not just a mechanic,” I told her, using her words, “I’m Zee’s friend.” I spun abruptly on my heel so that I faced her and pulled my T-shirt over my head, using my toes to push off my tennis shoes and socks at the same time.

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re a stripper, too?” she asked, as I took off my bra and dropped it on top of my shirt on the floor. From her tone of voice, I could have been doing sit-ups instead of undressing.

  I unsnapped my jeans and pushed them off my hips along with my underwear. When I stood wearing nothing but my tattoos, I called the coyote to me and sank into her shape. It was over in moments.

  “Werewolf?” Ms. Ryan had scrambled out of her chair and was backing slowly to the door.

  She couldn’t tell a coyote from a werewolf? That was like looking at a Geo Metro and calling it a Hum-Vee.

  I could smell her fear and it satisfied something deep inside me that had been writhing under her cool, superior expression. I curled my upper lip so she could get a good look at my teeth. I might weigh only thirty or so pounds in my coyote shape, but I was a predator and could have killed a person if I wanted to: I’d killed a werewolf once with nothing but my fangs.

  Kyle was up and beside her before she could run out the door. He took her arm in a firm grip.

  “If she were a werewolf, you’d be in trouble,” Kyle told her. “Never run from a predator. Even the best behaved of them will have a hard time restraining themselves from chasing after prey.”

  I sat down and yawned away the last of the change-tingles. It also gave her another look at my teeth, which seemed to bother her. Kyle gave me a chiding look, but continued soothing the other lawyer.

  “She’s not a werewolf; they’re a lot bigger and scarier, trust me. She’s not fae either. She’s something a little different, native to our land, not imported like the fae or werewolves. The only thing she can do is shift to coyote and back.”

  Not quite. I could kill vampires—as long as they were helpless, imprisoned by the day.

  I swallowed, trying to get moisture to my suddenly dry mouth. I hated this sudden, gut-wrenching fear that assaulted me without warning. Every time I saw the little hitch in Warren’s walk, I knew I would destroy the vampires again—but I paid the cost of their elimination with these panic attacks..

  Kyle’s calm explanation had given Ms. Ryan time to restore her calm facade. Kyle probably couldn’t tell how angry she was, but my keener senses weren’t fooled by the cool control she’d regained. She was still afraid, but her fear was not as strong as her rage.

  Fear usually made me angry, too. Angry and careless. I wondered if showing her what I was had been such a good idea.

  I changed back into my human self and ignored the growl of hunger that the two quick changes left me with. I put my clothes back on, taking time to tie my tennis shoes so that the bow was even before I resumed my seat, giving Ms. Ryan time to regain her composure.

  She was seated when I looked up, but she’d moved to the other side of the table and taken the chair next to Kyle’s.

  “Zee is my friend,” I told her again in measured tones. “He taught me everything I know about fixing cars and sold me his shop when he was forced to admit he was fae.”

  She frowned at me. “Are you older than you look? You’d have been a child when the fae came out.”

  “All of them didn’t come out at once,” I told her. Her question settled my nerves. It was Zee whose life was at stake here, not mine. Not just yet. I kept talking so she wouldn’t ask why Zee had come out. The one thing I absolutely couldn’t tell an outsider was the existence of the Gray Lords. “Zee only admitted what he was a few years ago, seven or eight, maybe. He knew that being a fae would keep people away from the shop. I’d been working for him for a couple of years and he liked me so he sold it to me.”

  I collected my thoughts, trying to tell her what she needed to know without taking forever about it. “As I told you, he called me yesterday to ask for my help because someone had been killing fae in the reservation. Zee thought my nose might be able to pick out the killer. I gather I was sort of a last resort. When we got to the rez, O’Donnell was at the gate and wrote down my name when we drove through—that is on record. I imagine the police will find it, if they think to look. Zee took me through the murder scenes and I discovered that one man had been present at each house—O’Donnell.”

  She’d been taking notes in a stenographer’s notebook but stopped, set down her pencil, and frowned. “O’Donnell was present at all the murder scenes and you verified that by smelling him?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “A coyote has a keen sense of smell, Ms. Ryan. I have a very good memory for scents. I caught O’Donnell’s when he stopped us as we went in—and his scent was in every one of the murder victims’ houses I visited.”

  She stared at me—but she was no werewolf who might rip my throat out for challenging her—so I met her stare with one of my own.

  She dropped her eyes first, ostensibly looking at her notes. People, human people, can be pretty deaf to body language. Maybe she didn’t even notice that she’d lost the dominance contest, though her subconscious would.

  “I understand O’Donnell was employed by the BFA as security,” she said, turning back a few pages. “Couldn’t he have been there investigating the deaths?”

  “The BFA had no idea there were any murders,” I told her. “The fae do their own internal policing. If they had gone to the Feds for help, I’m pretty sure it would be the FBI who would have been called in, not the BFA anyway. And O’Donnell was a guard, not an investigator. I was told that there was no reason O’Donnell should have been in every house that there was a murder in, and I have no reason to doubt that.”

  She’d started writing again, in shorthand. I’d never actually seen anyone use shorthand before.

  “So you told Mr. Adelbertsmiter that O’Donnell was the murderer?”

  “I told him that he was the only person whose scent I found in all the scenes.”

  “How many scenes?”

  “Four.” I decided not to tell her that there had been others; I didn’t want to tell her why I hadn’t gone to all the murder scenes. If Zee hadn’t wanted to talk about my trip Underhill with me, I thought it would not be something he wanted me discussing with a lawyer.

  She paused again. “There were four people murdered in the reservation and they did not ask for help?”

  I gave her a thin smile. “The fae are not fond of attracting outside attention. It can be dangerous for everyone. They are also quite aware of the way most humans, including the Feds, feel about them. ‘The only good fae is a dead fae’ mentality is quite prevalent among the conservatives who make up most of the rank and file in the government whether they be Homeland Security, FBI, BFA, or any of the other alphabet soup agencies.”

  “You have trouble with the federal government?” she asked.

  “As far as I know, none of them are prejudiced against half-Indian mechanics,” I told her, matching her blandness with my own, “so why would I have a problem with them? However, I can certainly see why the fae would be reluctant
to turn over a series of murders to a government whose record for dealing with the fae is not exactly spotless.” I shrugged. “Maybe if they’d realized sooner that their killer wasn’t another fae, they might have done so. I don’t know.”

  She looked down at her notes. “So you told Zee that O’Donnell was the killer?”

  I nodded. “Then I took Zee’s truck and drove home. It was early in the morning, maybe four o’clock, when we parted company. It was my understanding that he was going to go over to O’Donnell’s and talk to him.”

  “Just talk?”

  I shrugged, glanced at Kyle, and tried to decide how far I trusted his judgement. All the truth, hmm? I sighed. “That’s what he said, but I was pretty sure that if O’Donnell didn’t have a good story, he wouldn’t wake up this morning.”

  Her pencil hit the table with a snap.

  “You are telling me that Zee went to O’Donnell’s house to murder him?”

  I took a deep breath. “You aren’t going to understand this. You don’t know the fae, not really. Imprisoning a fae is…impractical. First of all, it’s damned difficult. Holding a person is hard enough. Holding a fae for any time at all, if he doesn’t want to be held, is near impossible. Even without that, a life sentence is highly impractical when fae can live for hundreds of years.” Or a lot more, but the public didn’t know that. “And when you let them go, they aren’t likely to shrug it off as justice served. The fae are a vengeance-hungry race. If you imprison a fae, for whatever reason, you’d better be dead when he gets out or you’ll wish you were. Human justice just isn’t equipped to deal with the fae, so they take care of it. A fae who commits a serious crime—like murder—is simply executed on the spot.” The werewolves did the same.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose as if I were giving her a headache.

  “O’Donnell wasn’t fae. He was human.”

  I thought about trying to explain why a people who were used to dealing out their own justice would care less that the perpetrator was human, but decided it was pointless. “The fact remains that Zee did not kill O’Donnell. Someone got there first.”

  Her bland face didn’t indicate belief, so I asked, “Do you know the story of Thomas the Rhymer?”

  “True Thomas? It’s a fairy tale,” she said. “A prototype of Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle.’”

  “Uhm,” I said. “Actually, I’m under the impression that it was mostly a true story, Thomas’s I mean. Thomas was, at any rate, a real historical person, a noted political entity of the thirteenth century. He claimed that he’d been caught for seven years by the queen of the fairies, then allowed to return. He either asked the fairy queen for a sign that he could show his kin so they would believe him when he told them where he’d been, or he stole a kiss from the fairy queen. Whatever the reason, he was given a gift, and like most fairy gifts, it was more curse than blessing—the fairy queen rendered him incapable of lying. For a diplomat or a lover or a businessman, that was a cruel thing to do, but the fae are often cruel.”

  “Your point?”

  She didn’t sound happy. I guess she didn’t like thinking any of the fairy tales were true. It was a common attitude.

  People could believe in the fae, but fairy tales were fairy tales. Only children would really believe in them.

  It was an attitude that the fae themselves promoted. In most folktales, the fae are not exactly friendly. Take Hansel and Gretel, for instance. Zee once told me that there are a lot of fae in the rez, if left to their preferred diets, would happily eat people…especially children.

  “He was cursed to become like the fae themselves,” I told her. “Most fae, including Zee, cannot tell a lie. They are very, very good at making you think they are saying one thing, when they mean another, but they cannot lie.”

  “Everyone can lie.”

  I smiled at her tightly. “The fae cannot. I don’t know why. They can do the damnedest things with the truth, but they cannot lie. So.” I sighed unhappily. I had tried to figure out a way to leave Uncle Mike out, but unfortunately there was no other way to tell this part. Zee and I hadn’t talked since his arrest; that was a matter of public record. I had to convince her that Zee was innocent. “I haven’t spoken to Zee yet, so I don’t know what his story—”

  “No one has,” she said. “My contact at the police department assured me that he hasn’t spoken to anyone since he was arrested—a wise move that allowed me to talk to you before I speak to him.”

  “There was another fae who went with Zee—he’s the one who told me Zee didn’t kill O’Donnell. He and Zee walked in and found the dead body about the same time the police showed up. The other fae was able to hide himself from the police, but Zee did not.”

  “Could he have hidden, too?”

  I shrugged. “All the fae have glamour which allows them to change their appearance. Some of them can hide themselves entirely. You’ll have to ask him—though he probably won’t tell you. I think Zee did it so that the police wouldn’t look too hard and find his friend.”

  “Self-sacrifice?” Maybe someone who hadn’t been raised with werewolves wouldn’t have seen the scorn she felt for my theory. Fae, she apparently thought, weren’t capable of self-sacrifice.

  “Zee is one of the rare fae who can tolerate metal—his friend is not. Jail would be very painful for most fae.”

  She tapped the end of her notebook on the table. “So the point of all of this is that you say that a fae who cannot lie told you Zee didn’t kill O’Donnell. That won’t convince a jury.”

  “I was hoping to convince you.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “It doesn’t matter what I think, Ms. Thompson.”

  I don’t know what expression was on my face, but she laughed. “A lawyer has to defend the innocent or the guilty, Ms. Thompson. That’s how our justice system works.”

  “He isn’t guilty.”

  She shrugged. “Or so you say. Even if Zee’s friend can’t lie—you aren’t fae, are you? At any rate, no one is guilty until convicted in a court of law. If that’s all you have to tell me, I’ll go talk to Mr. Adelbertsmiter.”

  “Can you get me into O’Donnell’s house?” I asked. “Maybe I can find out something about the real murderer.” I tapped my nose.

  She considered it, then shook her head. “You’ve hired me to be Mr. Adelbertsmiter’s attorney, but I feel some obligation to you as well. It would not be in your best interest—nor in Mr. Adelbertsmiter’s best interest—to prove yourself something…other than human at the moment. You are paying for my services, so the police will look at you. I trust they won’t find anything.”

  “Nothing of interest.”

  “No one knows that you can…change?”

  “No one who would tell the police.”

  She picked up her notebook and set it down again. “If you have been reading the papers or following the national news, you’ll know that there are some legal issues being brought up about the werewolves.”

  Legal issues. I suppose that was one way to put it. The fae, by accepting the reservation system, had opened up the path for a bill to be introduced in Congress to deny the werewolves full citizenship and all the constitutional rights that came with it. Ironically, it was being proposed as an amendment to the Endangered Species Act.

  Ms. Ryan nodded sharply. “If it comes out that you can become a coyote, the court might find your testimony inadmissible, which might have further legal consequences for you.” Because they might decide I was an animal and not human, I thought. “Anything you find would be flimsy evidence even if it was admitted. The court is not going to have the same view on your reliability as Zee apparently did. Especially as you will have to declare yourself a separate species—which might be a very dangerous thing for you to do at this time.” The werewolf bill wouldn’t pass—Bran had too much influence in Congress—but I was neither werewolf nor fae, and the same protection might not cover me.

  She frowned and moved her notebook restlessly. “You should know that I
belong to the John Lauren Society.”

  I looked at Kyle. The John Lauren Society was the largest of the anti-fae groups. Though they maintained a front of respectability, there had been allegations last year that they had funded a small group of college-age kids who had tried to blow up a well-known fae bar in Los Angeles. Luckily their competence hadn’t matched their conviction and they’d only managed to do a little minor damage and send a couple of tourists to the hospital for smoke inhalation. The authorities had caught them rather quickly and found an apartment full of expensive explosives. The kids had been convicted, but the authorities hadn’t managed to build a case against the larger, wealthier organization.

  I had access to information not available to the authorities and I knew that the John Lauren Society was a good deal dirtier than even the FBI suspected.

  Kyle had found me a lawyer who not only disliked fae—she’d like to see them eliminated.

  Kyle patted my hand. “Jean won’t allow her personal beliefs to interfere with her job.” Then he smiled at me. “And it will make a point, having someone so active in the anti-fae community defending your friend.”

  “I’m not doing it because I believe he is innocent,” she said.

  Kyle turned his smile to her and it became sharklike. He seldom showed anyone that side of him. “And you can tell the newspapers and the jury and the judge that—and it still won’t stop them from believing that he must be innocent or you wouldn’t have taken the case.”

  She looked appalled, but she didn’t disagree.

  I tried to imagine working a job where your convictions were an inconvenience that you learned to ignore—and decided I’d rather turn a wrench no matter how much better her paycheck was than mine.

  “I’ll stay away from the crime scene, then,” I lied. I wasn’t a fae. What the police and Ms. Ryan didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. The coyote is a sly beastie and no stranger to stealth—and I wasn’t about to let Zee’s fate depend wholly on this woman.

  I’d find out who killed O’Donnell and figure out a way to prove him guilty that didn’t involve me telling twelve of my peers that I smelled him.