Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  Jesse laughed, but left her head where it was.

  Warren looked at me. “You go on. You got someone else’s shoulder to cry on. You tell him I got Jesse’s back. And, Samuel, you stay with me, too. We don’t need any more drama, and I doubt that Adam is up to showing his weakness to someone who could be his rival until the adrenaline eases a bit.”

  Sam stretched, yawned, and lay down.

  “Thanks, Warren,” I said.

  He smiled and tipped the front of his imaginary cowboy hat. “Shucks, ma’am, I’m only doin’ my job. Darryl’s gonna feed the masses again, and I’m riding herd on the stragglers.”

  Jesse pulled back and wiped her eyes, a smile on her face. “Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite cowboy?”

  “Of course I am,” he said smugly.

  “You’re the only cowboy she knows,” I informed him.

  He glanced at his watch. “You got about two minutes left.”

  “Mercy?” Jesse asked, catching my arm before I could go. “What about Gabriel?”

  “We’ll find him,” Warren said, before I could respond. He smiled at me. “I have good hearing, and the house was plenty quiet enough last night to hear a phone call in the kitchen.” He bent down so he could look Jesse in the eye. “Running around when we don’t know anything won’t help him. Zee’s looking into it, and waiting for him is our best option at the moment.”

  “If Zee couldn’t help us, he’d have told us by now,” I said, looking only at Jesse. I wasn’t talking to Warren; I was talking to Jesse. No oath breaking here. “We’ll get Gabriel out of this.”

  “Maybe we’ll sic Sylvia on them,” said Warren.

  “You heard?” Of course he had. News travels fast in the pack.

  “Heard what?” Jesse was coming back online, I thought. Warren’s hug had been exactly what she needed.

  “Sylvia threatened to set the police on me if I darkened their doorstep again. Gabriel isn’t working for me anymore.” I frowned. I hadn’t thought about it, but it might affect Jesse, too. “I don’t know if you’re considered one of the prohibited people—but since she got mad because I didn’t warn her that Sam was a werewolf before Maia adopted him as her new pony, I expect that werewolves of any kind are going to be a hot button for a little while. Once we get him home, you need to talk it over with Gabriel.”

  She nodded. “If we get him home, I’ll be happy to fight with Sylvia about my right to hang out with Gabriel.”

  “Good for you,” said Warren.

  She stepped back from him and almost fell over Sam. “Hey,” she said to him. “How come you let Warren and Dad take care of Mary Jo?”

  “He’s not himself,” I said. “It wouldn’t have been a good idea.”

  Sam gave me a look full of guilt and turned his head away.

  I thought about that guilty look all the way in the house and into the living room where the pack was scattered all over the furniture and the floor. There were more wolves—latecomers receiving the blow-by-blow account of the fight. And I hadn’t seen Adam’s pack this relaxed since . . . ever. I hadn’t hung out with the werewolves much until this last year—and it hadn’t been a peaceful one for the pack.

  Honey caught me on my way to get Adam, who was sitting on one end of the leather couch. I hadn’t noticed her in the garage—and I would have because Honey doesn’t go unnoticed, partly because she is very dominant and partly because she is very beautiful—so she must have been one of the latecomers.

  “Mary Jo was recognized as more dominant than Alec?” she asked. She didn’t sound happy, which was odd. Because her mate, Peter, was a submissive wolf, Honey was considered the lowest member of the pack except for Mary Jo, though by personality and fighting power she was actually closer to the top. Maybe the idea that they might rank her where she belonged offended her idea of what a lady should be. Maybe she worried it would cause trouble in the pack, or between her and her mate. Maybe she was afraid that she was going to get targeted in the dominance fights. Whatever it was, her trouble ranked way down in my priorities at the moment—Adam was listing to the right. In a few moments, someone else was bound to notice.

  “Yes,” I said, sliding by her and stepping over someone who was lying on their side on the floor. “Don’t ask me what it means long-term; I don’t think anyone knows. Adam?”

  He looked up, and I wondered if Warren should have knocked a minute off his countdown to the crash; he looked that bad.

  “You should come with me. We need to call the Marrok.” Invoking the Marrok’s name should make it unlikely that anyone would follow us. I ensured that by adding, “He’s not going to be happy about being left out of this. The sooner he hears, the better.”

  There was a twinkle in Adam’s eyes, though he kept the rest of his face stoic. “Better be in my bedroom, if I’m going to get chewed on. Give me a hand up, would you? Paul gave me a few good ones.”

  He held up one of his poor, sore hands, and I took it without wincing for the pain that closing his hand over mine must have given him. It was a show to reassure the pack he was as strong as ever. The twinkle left his eyes though his mouth turned up in a smile as he stood up easily, without pulling on my hand at all.

  When we got to the moron who was sitting in the only path to the stairway, Adam caught my waist and lifted me over before stepping over the man himself.

  “Scott?” Adam said as we headed upstairs.

  “Yeah?”

  “Unless someone shoots you, skins you, and throws the results on the floor, I don’t want to see you lying in the walkway again.”

  “Yessir!”

  When we reached the top of the stairway, his hand was heavy on my shoulder, and he leaned harder on me all the way to the bedroom.

  Someone—and I was betting it was Darryl—had left three huge roast beef sandwiches, a cup of hot coffee, and a glass of ice water on the table by the side of the bed. Medea was sleeping on the pillow in the middle of the bed. She looked up at us and, when I didn’t make any move to oust her, closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

  “Crumbs on the sheets,” muttered Adam, watching the sandwiches intently as I pushed him down on the bed.

  “Bet there are clean sheets in this mausoleum somewhere,” I told him. “We can find them tonight and remake the bed. Presto, no more crumbs.” I took half a sandwich and held it up to his face. “Eat.”

  He smiled and bit my finger with a playfulness I’d have thought beyond him, as beat as he was.

  “Eat,” I said sternly. “Food, then sleep. Rescue—” I bit my lip. Adam was a wolf. I couldn’t talk to him about Gabriel, no matter how wrong that felt. “Food, then sleep. Everything else can wait.”

  But it was too late. He’d never let that word go by without a challenge. He accepted the sandwich from me, took a bite, and swallowed it. “Rescue?”

  “I can’t talk about it. Talk to Jesse or Darryl.”

  Mercy?

  His voice wrapped around my head like a bracing winter wind, fresh and sweet to my taste. Here was a way I could communicate without speech—if I could just figure out how. I stared at him intently.

  Finally, he smiled. “You can’t talk about it. You promised . . . someone. I got that much. I keep a notebook in my briefcase in the closet. Why don’t you get that and spend some time writing a letter to me about whatever it is you can’t say.”

  I kissed his nose. “You’ve been hanging out with the fae again, haven’t you? Wolves are usually a little better about keeping the spirit as well as the letter of the law.”

  “Good thing you aren’t a werewolf, then.” His voice was gravelly with fatigue and smoke damage.

  “You really think so?” I asked. When I was growing up, I’d wanted to be a werewolf so I could really belong to the Marrok’s pack. I’d always wondered whether, if I had been a werewolf instead of a coyote, my foster father would have reconsidered his decision to follow his mate in death. But when Adam said he was glad I wasn’t a werewolf, it sounded like he
meant it.

  “I wouldn’t change a hair on your head,” he told me. “Now, go get the notebook and write it all down before I die of curiosity.”

  “I will if you eat.”

  He obligingly took another bite, so I rummaged through his closet until I found the briefcase. He scooted over, making Medea protest until he scooped her into his lap so I could sit on the edge of the bed. While I sat beside him and wrote down everything I could think of, he finished all but half a sandwich (“Yours,” he said. “Eat.”) and fell asleep while I was still writing.

  I finished. “Adam?”

  He didn’t move, but I noticed that his hands were looking better. His pack was behind him again—for the moment at least. Or maybe it was just the way his magic chose to work this time. People who try too hard to explain how magic works end up in funny farms.

  I added “Sweet Dreams” at the bottom of the last page and left the notebook beside him. I slipped out of the bedroom and closed the door. I hadn’t taken two steps before my phone rang. It was Zee.

  “Get somewhere you won’t be overheard,” he said.

  I stepped through the open door of Jesse’s room—which was empty—shut the door, and turned on the music again. Adam was sleeping like the dead; it might last five minutes or several hours. No one else would hear anything.

  “Okay.”

  “I know you can’t talk to me about the woman who took our Gabriel,” Zee said. “So you’ll just have to hear me out.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I have Phin’s grandmother here, and we need to talk. But no werewolves.”

  “Why is that?” It wasn’t about the kidnapping, so I figured it was a safe thing to say without ticking off the fairy queen.

  “Because she’s scared to death of them, was nearly killed by them. She can’t even look at one without a panic attack. And you don’t want to be around this lady when she has a panic attack.”

  I wondered if I’d have been as sympathetic if I didn’t have my own panic attacks. “Fine. Where?”

  “Good question. Your house is no more,” he said. “She doesn’t live here, so she doesn’t have a place. My house is no good. She won’t go where there are so many fae.”

  “What about the garage?”

  “In fifteen,” he agreed. “Do you have anything that belongs to Gabriel?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. How specific would the spell be? Better to play it safe. “I can’t answer that question.”

  “Get something.”

  A woman’s voice said, “Something that is his. Something he is connected to, that matters to him or that has belonged to him for a long time.”

  “You heard her?” Zee asked.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Good.”

  He hung up.

  I didn’t have anything like that. Gabriel was incredibly organized; he didn’t just leave stuff lying around.

  I looked around the room. Jesse would have something. It was either that or go face down Sylvia.

  Thinking of Sylvia made me realize that I should have called her as soon as I found out about Gabriel. I would rather be stripped naked and walked through the mall with a pink feather boa. I would rather be boiled in oil. Rancid oil.

  I could call her on the way to the garage. First I needed to find Jesse, in the hope that she had something of Gabriel’s I could use.

  Conveniently, Jesse walked into her room just when I was about to leave and hunt her down. “I’m looking for Samuel,” she said. “He went walkabout. Ben says he ought to be fed because he didn’t eat anything this morning, and for some reason Ben’s pretty frantic about it. I didn’t expect to find Samuel here—but I didn’t expect to find you here, either.”

  “I was just coming to find you.”

  She looked at me, then at her stereo. “You like Bullet for My Valentine?” she asked. “Just like you were sharing my Eyes Set to Kill CD with Mary Jo earlier?”

  “Sarcasm isn’t lost on me,” I told her. “You could tone it down and I’d still get the point. I was having a private conversation.”

  She gave me a tight smile. “Let me guess. Stuff I shouldn’t know because I’m a girl. I’m only human. I can’t be risked.”

  “You know how to use a gun?” I hadn’t meant to ask that. I’d meant to just ask her for something of Gabriel’s. But I knew what it was like to sit around while people were in trouble, and you couldn’t do anything about it.

  At my question, she stilled—just like her father did when something important was going on. “I have a sweet forty-cal 1911 Dad got me for my last birthday,” she said. “Tell me you found Gabriel?”

  And the intensity of her voice made my decision for me. They were young—he was trying not to be serious because he was aiming for college; she was trying not to be serious because she knew he felt that way. Nothing might ever come out of it, but she cared a lot for him. That gave her a great big stake in this mess—and if she could shoot, she could protect herself.

  Jesse was her father’s daughter. Smart, quick-witted, and tough. And yet I already had one of my fragile humans in danger, and I was considering another.

  But I couldn’t talk to the fae or the werewolves about Gabriel, and writing, as my attempt to write down everything for Adam had demonstrated, was too time-consuming. I needed Jesse.

  I pulled Jesse all the way into the room and shut the door. “Zee called and wants me to meet him at the garage in fifteen minutes. He has a fae who is terrified of werewolves who can help us. We need to find something that belongs to Gabriel that he’s pretty attached to. I don’t think she intends to hunt for him by scent, so it can be something hard like a ring instead of just things that carry smell, like a sock or shirt.”

  “I get to come?”

  “You get to come to this meeting,” I told her. “I need you. But you need to understand that I will not be exchanging Gabriel for you. I’m not going to get you hurt.” I gave her the best smile I could manage because the fae scare the pants off me. “I need you. But I need you to listen to me when I send you home, too.”

  She watched me with her father’s eyes, and I saw the moment when she decided. “Okay. Shall we tell them we’re going out to get you stuff that you need because your house burned down yesterday?”

  “Secret girl stuff,” I said. “Remember they can tell if you lie.

  So when this is all done, I’m going to go get a gallon of chocolate mint chip ice cream.”

  “Secret girl stuff,” she said. “And if they try to send Warren with us because for some reason they think he ought to be interested in girlie things—which really makes no sense, since Kyle likes men, after all, the more manly the better—what do we do?”

  “Preemptive strike,” I told her. “Let’s find Warren first and send him up to keep an eye on your father, who is sleeping.”

  And then Sam crawled out from under the bed.

  IT WORKED. WE MADE IT ALL THE WAY OUT TO MY CAR with only Sam beside us. All the wolves in the house were fine with Jesse and me going out together—because we had Sam.

  “You have to stay here, Sam,” I said. And then stopped. Looked at him. Really looked at him.

  Sam the wolf wouldn’t have turned his back while everyone was trying to fix Mary Jo—and he wouldn’t have looked like he felt guilty about it. Because Sam the wolf wasn’t a doctor—he was a wolf. This morning, Darryl had recognized pretty quickly that Samuel was in trouble. But in the garage, not one of the wolves even looked funny at Sam. Because it had been Samuel.

  “Welcome back,” I said, trying to act like it was no big thing. I didn’t know why he’d decided to take charge again—or if it was a good thing—but I figured the less drama about it, the happier Samuel would be. But . . .

  “You can’t come with us,” I told him. “You heard Zee. We’re going to see a lady who—” I stopped. “How do the fae manage this lying-without-lying stuff? It really sucks. Look, Samuel, we’re going to see the lady who is scared t
o death of wolves. You have to stay here. You can’t come as a wolf, and you don’t have any clothes.”

  He just stood there looking at me.

  “Stubborn,” I said.

  “We’re going to be late,” said Jesse. “And Darryl is looking out the window and frowning at us.”

  I grabbed my purse out of my car and held the back door of Adam’s truck open for Samuel. “There should be jeans and sweats and stuff in a pack in the backseat if you want to dress,” I told Samuel. “And when we get to the garage, you need to stay outside and leave her to us. Hopefully, we’ll find out . . . what we need to find out . . . and I expect that we’ll be really glad we have you with us then.”

  ON THE WAY TO THE GARAGE, I CALLED SYLVIA. SHE might insist on bringing the police into it—but I hoped I could talk her out of that. Her phone rang until the answering machine picked up.

  “Sylvia, this is Mercy—I have news about Gabriel. You need to call me as soon—”

  “I told you,” she said, coming on the line. “My family doesn’t want to talk to you. And if Gabriel chooses you over his family—”

  “He’s been kidnapped,” I told her, before she could say something that would break her heart later. She wasn’t as tough as she liked to pretend—I knew, because I pretended to be tougher than I was a lot, too.

  Into the silence that followed, I said, “Apparently he walked to the garage last night and tried to take one of the cars—which he has my permanent permission to do. You’d know better than I why he’d do that and where he was going. I have a friend who is in trouble and that trouble crashed down on Gabriel.”

  “Your kind of trouble, right?” she asked. “Let me guess. Werewolf trouble.”

  “Not werewolf trouble,” I said, abruptly irritated with her assumption that all werewolves were horrible. Me, she could be mad at, but she would have to hold her tongue around me about the wolves.

  “Tell Maia that her werewolf buddy is going to put his neck in the noose trying to save her big brother, who got himself kidnapped by the bad guys.” Because I knew that Samuel—my Samuel who was at that very moment dressing in the backseat—would never stand by and watch a human get hurt. He was the only werewolf I knew who cared that much about mundane humans, just because they were mundane humans. Most werewolves, even the ones who liked being werewolves, actively resented, if not hated, normal people for being what they could no longer be.