Smoke Bitten: Mercy Thompson: Book 12

by Patricia Briggs

  I dropped the rolling pin—cracking it on the exposed concrete floor. I would feel bad about that later, because it had belonged to my mother’s mother. But at the moment, I was too busy grabbing the cuffs and chains. Beast or not, the creature was wearing Ben’s body and these bindings would hold a werewolf.

  I ran back up the stairs to find the tableau unchanged. Ben writhed and jerked under Adam, seemingly unbothered by the pain of the broken bones—though his lower extremities were unmoving. Adam kept him down. About ten feet from them, fitful fire wreathing his hands, Aiden watched them with wary eyes.

  I bound Ben’s legs together, then closed one of the cuffs on the wrist connected to his broken shoulder. Adam took over from there. Without consideration of the pain of Ben’s broken bones, he pulled Ben’s arms behind his back and cuffed his wrists tightly together. Then Adam connected the leg manacles until Ben was effectively hog-tied with steel and silver, his skin blackening where the metal touched him.

  As soon as he was held immobile, Ben’s body went limp.

  “God, oh God,” he whispered. “Don’t let me go. He’s still in my head. He wants her dead. She scares him and he wants me to kill her. No more fucking around asking questions, just kill her. Find out why later.”

  Ben took a deep shuddering breath. “Don’t let me go.”

  “Okay,” Adam said.

  “Don’t let Mercy anywhere near me,” he said. “Oh God. He’s in my head and I can’t. I can’t … I can’t.” He went limp again.

  “Is he breathing?” I asked, panicked. “This is my fault, Adam. I sent him out there.”

  “He’s breathing,” Adam said. “Pulse is strong. Takes more than a few broken bones and an uncanny thing’s possession to kill a werewolf.” He looked at me. “He was on guard duty—in harm’s way. That was his job tonight.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself. “I sent him out to talk to Wulfe,” I told Adam. “I forgot about the smoke beast.”

  “It didn’t forget about us,” said Adam.

  RUNNING WATER DIDN’T HELP BEN.

  Warren and Kyle showed up about ten minutes before Darryl because they’d been working at Kyle’s office. Ben’s bones had mended themselves by that time and he was half sitting, half lying on the fainting couch in the living room. Adam had put him there after deciding he didn’t want to try to get him down the stairs and into the cage by himself for fear of having to hurt Ben further. Werewolves healed fast, but even Adam, drawing on the power of the pack, would have had a hard time healing the kind of damage Ben had suffered in the half hour or so that had elapsed.

  I couldn’t smell the beast’s magic anymore, but I didn’t make the mistake of thinking it was gone. Ben’s periodic bouts of madness would have disabused me of that if I’d trusted my nose too much. I already knew that sometimes I couldn’t detect this magic.

  “Well,” Warren told Ben, in a squeaky voice that was an obvious attempt to imitate someone, “here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten you into.”

  “I suppose by that I’m to assume I’m Laurel?” asked Ben, trying to sound like himself, but his voice was tight and there was a rough growl on the edges.

  “You aren’t Hardy,” said Adam.

  I hadn’t made the connection. Laurel and Hardy were well before my time, before Ben’s time, too, as he was actually about my age. Adam, on the other hand, had a whole four decades more of cultural references than I did. It had never mattered to me before this moment.

  I was discouraged to discover that I could be terrified for Ben—and still worried about the distance between Adam and me. Warren glanced at me and then at Adam—so apparently I didn’t hide what I was feeling well enough.

  Adam said, “We are just waiting on Darryl.”

  Warren shook his head. “He’s not that heavy. You and I can carry him down to the river.”

  “It’s not the carrying me that’s the problem,” said Ben, his voice shaky. “Anytime anyone comes within spitting distance I turn into that girl from The Exorcist.”

  “Your head doesn’t spin around,” I said, trying not to sound as scared as I was.

  “Don’t give it any helpful fucking ideas,” Ben scolded me.

  He’d bounced around between calling the creature who controlled him by the masculine pronoun and by “it.” I was withholding judgment.

  Darryl arrived eventually. “Sorry. Flat tire.”

  “No worries,” said Ben. “Just sitting here possessed by an evil fae.”

  The minute they touched him, Ben started to struggle. Undeterred, the three werewolves dragged Ben kicking and screaming out to the river.

  I followed them, feeling sick. Kyle walked next to me, his hand on my shoulder. I almost didn’t flinch when another hand landed on my other shoulder and Wulfe, wrapped toga-style in the fuzzy red blanket, took up the space on my right.

  “Nasty business,” said Wulfe conversationally.

  “Yes,” I agreed. There was no way to signal to Kyle to back away—and I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t, even if I could ask him. I would just have to keep Wulfe’s attention on me and off the vulnerable human on my other side. Kyle, helpfully, kept silent.

  Warren caught sight of Wulfe and got Ben’s bound feet in his stomach for his troubles. He was forced to pay attention to what he was doing.

  “Interesting to see if the river works,” Wulfe continued.

  “You don’t think it will?” I asked.

  He pursed his lips, looking, in his toga, like an escapee from a frat party gone wrong. I knew he was older than Stefan, who had been made a vampire early in the Renaissance era, but he would never grow up to look like an adult. His feet were bare, but the rocks and tackweed didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Should work,” he said, at last. “I don’t know why it would work for you but not for your little red riding wolf.” Ben’s wolf was red. I didn’t like that Wulfe knew that.

  Wulfe tilted his head to watch the struggling wolves just ahead of us.

  “But I have an odd feeling that it won’t,” he said in casual tones. “Shame. It was nice of him to bring me a blanket, don’t you think? Though that might have been your idea—I forget what he said.”

  His hand tightened on my neck. When had he moved his hand to my neck?

  I must have made some sound because Adam glanced over at me and asked if I needed help with a single look. I shook my head briefly. He needed to pay attention to Ben. I didn’t know if Ben could spread his contagion with a bite, but I’d feel better if no one had to worry about it.

  Besides, I was fairly certain that Wulfe wasn’t ready to quit playing at whatever game he’d decided upon yet, so I should be safe enough. I wished Stefan would call me back. It wasn’t like him to not return my calls.

  “I’m not supposed to be here, you know,” said Wulfe.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “Marsilia has called all the vampires to the seethe because … oh. That’s why.”

  I tried to make his words make sense, then realized he’d been talking to himself for the last bit. “That’s why what?”

  “That’s why I don’t think running water will help your wolf. It didn’t help Stefan.”

  I stopped. “Stefan?”

  “We tried to dump him in the river,” Wulfe said obligingly. “But all that accomplished was getting a whole bunch of us wet. Good thing we don’t need to breathe or several members of the seethe would have drowned. He took one out anyway. But I didn’t like her, so I’m not sorry.”

  I thought of all those phone calls I’d made.

  I struggled to imagine Stefan caught up by the smoke beast and failed. Stefan was … reserved, controlled. I had a sudden memory of him in a rage, his face contorted. But even then Stefan had never moved even when the demon killed a hotel maid in front of him, and used demonic powers to inspire visceral bloodlust in my friend. There was no dignity in Ben’s desperate struggles—I didn’t want to imagine Stefan in the same condition.

  “Wha
t else have you tried?” I asked, starting toward the river again. There was nothing I could do for Stefan right this moment.

  Wulfe shrugged. “The usual. After the river, salt, silver, torture, fire. Nothing seems to work.”

  “Do you know how to kill it? Or if killing it will save Ben and Stefan?” I asked, fighting not to visualize someone torturing Stefan. Wulfe was old—Middle Ages old. And he was a sorcerer, a witch, and a vampire. He should know something about this beast.

  “I meant to ask you what you knew about it,” he responded, as if we were walking to tea instead of watching Adam, Warren, and Darryl struggle to hold on to the bound form of Ben long enough to get to the water’s edge.

  I told him everything I knew. It didn’t take long.

  “Smoke beast,” said Wulfe as Ben arced out over the water and entered with a splash. “Never heard of it. Smoking bites don’t ring any bells, either—and I know a lot about things that bite.” He snapped his teeth together.

  Kyle let me go and I broke free of Wulfe so I could get a better look at Adam, Warren, and Darryl trying to drag Ben out of the water. He seemed to be trying to slip out of their fingers, and werewolves don’t float—they sink. Too much muscle, not enough fat. Or maybe it was something about the way their magic worked.

  All four of them were wet by the time they dragged Ben back to shore. He choked up water in great heaving coughs that strained his bound limbs. The river had almost succeeded in drowning him.

  When Adam reached for the cuffs, Ben shook his head. “No!” And after he spoke that single word, he coughed up another burst of river, only to collapse in a limp heap.

  “He’s in me,” he said. Then tears leaked out as if he’d absorbed some of the river into his eyes as well as his lungs. “He’s still here. Don’t let me free.”

  “Shh,” said Adam. He looked at me.

  “Did you hear Wulfe?” I asked.

  He nodded, then kissed the top of Ben’s head—avoiding the snap of Ben’s teeth without apparent effort. “We have a problem. Let’s get him back to the cage where I can at least get him out of the cuffs. I’ll call Marsilia and check on Stefan.”

  That would work better, I acknowledged silently. She liked Adam and she really didn’t like me. Especially she wouldn’t like me asking about Stefan. She tended to view him as her property—and viewed me as the reason he’d broken free of the seethe. He was the only vampire in the Tri-Cities who did not belong to her. We could work together when we had to, but there was no reason to push it now.

  And all of that gave me something to think about other than our poor Ben and Stefan caught up in the same hell. And I had nothing I could do to help.

  “Where did the scary vampire go?” asked Kyle in a low voice.

  “Wherever scary vampires go,” answered Warren. His voice acquired a hard edge. “Don’t worry. He’ll be back.”

  WE SETTLED BEN IN THE CAGE WITH A MATTRESS ON the floor and the chains and cuffs off.

  Releasing him from the cuffs had almost resulted in disaster. If Kyle hadn’t been carrying a stun gun and been unafraid to use it, Ben would have broken free.

  Adam called Marsilia and she confirmed what Wulfe had told us. The beast had indeed gotten Stefan, though when asked, she said the bite marks on his shoulder were more akin to a big snake—a very big snake—than to a rabbit. She sent photos. Two red marks, the size of a dime, marred the white flesh of his left shoulder. According to the measuring tape, the marks were four and three quarters of an inch apart.

  “That’s the size of a horse’s mouth,” Warren said. “More or less.”

  “Does he know what bit him?” Adam asked.

  “He has not been able to share coherent information with us,” said Marsilia. “We can keep him … indefinitely, I suppose. But I would not keep anyone I cared about in this state for long.”

  “No,” agreed Adam, watching Ben, who stared back at him with eyes that were not Ben’s. “But we are working on it.”

  “Except for Wulfe—with whom it is not practical—I have brought all of my people and their flocks to our seethe and locked us in,” Marsilia said. “I understand that you think that you need to do something about this, but I advise you to do the same. Think about what the news organizations will do when one of your wolves is bitten and goes on a killing spree.”

  “Is that what Stefan did?” I asked. Then I had a panicked thought: “What about his people?”

  Vampire hearing was good, too. She said, “All of his sheep are safe.”

  I did not add “those who survived,” but I wanted to. Marsilia had killed some of Stefan’s people (he had never, in my hearing, referred to them as sheep or his flock) in order to perpetrate some desperate scheme or other. He had never forgiven her.

  She blamed me. Not for her having to kill his people, but for his lack of forgiveness. It didn’t make sense, but emotions don’t have to make sense.

  “How did you discover what had happened?” Adam asked.

  “Wulfe brought him in,” she said. “It was not pretty—and there was no doubt that something or someone else was controlling him. He did not try to blend in. At all.”

  “Thank you for the information,” Adam said. “If we find out anything useful, I’ll make sure you get word.”

  “I would appreciate that,” Marsilia told him.

  Warren and Kyle left to go home and sleep. Darryl settled in as our guard, since Ben had been retired from the field. Adam and Darryl were still discussing how to patrol safely when I went up to bed. I was pretty sure that Adam wouldn’t come up to bed until I was safely asleep, so I left them talking and went upstairs.

  I paused in front of Jesse’s door, then gave in to my need to see someone safe tonight and cracked the door. She was curled up on the bed with a stuffed elephant that I knew Gabriel had gotten her. I shut the door again and left her to her dreams.

  I was just pulling the bedding up to my chin when my phone rang. Caller ID said the number was unavailable. I hesitated—but it was the wrong time of night for a robocall.

  “Mercedes,” said Beauclaire, son of Lugh and Gray Lord of the fae. “Uncle Mike asked me to call you tonight. A few days ago, he informed me that Underhill created a door to her realm in your backyard and in the process, she released a predator, one that Aiden told you was called the smoke beast.”

  “Yes,” I told him.

  “I know of that one,” Beauclaire told me, and I felt a shiver of relief.

  Beauclaire knew things about the creature who held Ben and Stefan. He would know what to do about it so we could save Ben, and save Stefan.

  “You know that Marsilia has locked down her seethe because Stefan was taken.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Did you hear about the accident on Highway 240? The terrible tragic accident where a tanker sideswiped two other cars? All three drivers and their passengers died. Eight people in all.”

  That accident had happened the same night that Kyle had shot one of the werewolves. It had made the front page and relegated Kyle and Warren’s encounter to the Public Records section of the newspaper.

  “Yes,” I said, sick to my stomach because Marsilia was fond of using car wrecks or house fires to account for “problem bodies” that needed to be explained. She had told me that Stefan’s people were safe, but she had not answered my first question about a killing spree—and I hadn’t noticed until just now.

  “A few hours ago, one of the fae, not a Gray Lord, but one who had power and skill, walked into Uncle Mike’s with a sword and used it and her magic to kill as many as she could. Fourteen fae died and also three humans and two goblins. Uncle Mike was on other business so he was not present. Had Larry the goblin king and the snow elf not been there, more people would have died.”

  There was no such thing, as far as I knew, as a snow elf. It was just what our resident frost giant liked to be called. I thought about how powerful a fae had to be if it took both the goblin king and a frost giant to subdue.

 
; “Some of those who died were very old and very powerful beings,” Beauclaire told me. “Uncle Mike says that your previous encounters with the smoke beast seemed to indicate that it was having difficulty acquiring power. I thought you should be warned that, as of tonight, that is no longer the case.”

  “I see,” I said. I no longer was hopeful that Beauclaire was going to provide me with an easy way to save my friends.

  “Because of tonight’s incident—and because of the problems the vampires have experienced—I have called all the fae in the area back to the reservation, including Siebold Adelbertsmiter and his son.” There was a bite to Zee’s full name. Zee had killed Beauclaire’s father a zillion years ago—but the fae have long memories.

  “Is there anything that you can tell me that would help us defeat it?” I asked.

  “Yes.” A pause, as if Beauclaire was being careful with his words. More careful than usual. “I cannot tell you who he is.”

  And that was important or it wouldn’t have been the first thing he said in answer to my question.

  “Cannot,” I said. “As opposed to will not. Like a geas?”

  “To you, perhaps that is the best way to explain it. It is a quirk of his nature. I can tell you a few, very few things about him.”

  “Please,” I said, tightening my grip on the phone.

  “In addition to ‘smoke beast,’ some call him ‘smoke weaver’ or ‘smoke dragon,’ all three referring to his nature—none of them are his name or bear any resemblance to his name.”

  “Because you cannot speak his name,” I said, to tell him that I caught the import of what he was telling me.

  “That is so,” he said. “Long ago he was captured by Underhill, a result of a bargain he made with her. He needed to bargain, as a part of the nature of the creature he was. A human woman gained the upper hand that somehow triggered the terms of his bargain with Underhill. Underhill swallowed him and we … I had thought him safely caught up in her nets for all these years.”

  “Needed,” I said. “As in no longer needs.”