Smoke Bitten

by Patricia Briggs

  If I’d had any doubt, the expression on the face of the man holding Makaya would have cleared it right up. Whether Lincoln Stuart—I recognized him from Adam’s photo presentation—lived or died today, he was never going to have a human heart again.

  I could see Hannah and Kelly now. Hannah, a scarlet streak across one shoulder, was frozen just inside the gate. Kelly was on the grass, elbow crawling toward her.

  And then the time for observation was over.

  Auriele launched herself, stretching out in the instant before the Jetta hit the werewolf. He was tall, so the bumper caught him just below the knee, obliterating the bone. The sound was loud, but dull as if I’d hit something soft. The velocity folded him sideways over the hood as the car crushed him into the dumpster.

  The seat belt holding me in my seat gave up the ghost—I’d been worried about that; it was on my list to fix. Even so, the car crumpled, as it had been designed to do, absorbing a good bit of the power of the collision. The seat belt held on long enough that I didn’t go through the windshield.

  The impact rang my bell pretty good—and maybe broke my nose on the steering wheel. There was enough blood for that, and my nose hurt sufficiently. Dazed, I backed the car up until it died—about six feet from the dumpster, which had not moved with the impact. I popped the door open and struggled out amid dripping glass. I had to spin around awkwardly once to get rid of the remains of the seat belt.

  The car was more damaged than I’d expected—maybe the speedometer had needed some work. I stared at the car for a moment and decided the speedometer was a moot point. I was going to be looking for another car, again.

  About that time, I realized I could hear a lot of noise—and that there were a lot more important things going on than the wreck of my car.

  I pulled out my gun and stepped around the car to point it at Lincoln, who was howling and snarling and trying to pull the remains of his left leg out of my radiator, where it was caught. That both of his legs were hideously broken did not apparently register because in among the other sounds he was making were threats. They seemed pretty undirected at the moment, but I believed him.

  I’d seen this kind of behavior before. Pain meant nothing to someone who was lost in his wolf. But then his shirt slid back—and I saw a wound on the top of his shoulder.

  My breathing was labored—because I had to breathe through my mouth because of my nose. I was starting to think, as the shock of the collision (I could hardly term it an accident) receded a bit, that I had broken a rib or two as well. Woozy as I was, I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off Lincoln. The shirt slid a little more and I saw a second scab on his skin where another tooth had penetrated. They weren’t small holes—like the rabbit bite that Ben and I had gotten. These were bigger—more like the photos that Marsilia had sent of Stefan’s wounds. As much as I wanted to go rip the shirt off to be sure, I didn’t dare go any nearer to him. He might be bitten, but he was also a werewolf.

  “Makaya?” I called. “Auriele?”

  “Safe,” said Auriele, sounding remarkably composed.

  The sounds had died down to just children crying—near and far—and Lincoln’s frenzy.

  “Injuries?” I asked.

  “Makaya looks like she has a broken wrist and maybe an ankle,” Auriele said. “Hannah has a bad cut on her shoulder that will need stitches. A lot of stitches. Kelly—”

  “Will survive,” he growled. “Changing now.”

  “Any bites?” I asked. “This wolf has been bitten like Ben.”

  Auriele said something pungent. After a moment, relief in her voice, she said, “Not Makaya. Not Hannah. Kelly?”

  “No,” said Kelly. “He hit me with a baseball bat. Then he hit me with my tool chest.”

  “And the sledgehammer,” said Hannah, sounding broken.

  “And the sledgehammer. But no bites. Will survive,” said Kelly again. “No bites, Mercy.”

  I was pretty sure the last word he said was my name, but Kelly’s voice had dropped and lost clarity because he was changing.

  Shifting to wolf and food should fix most of it over the next couple of days—as long as nothing was misaligned. I had to trust Auriele to make sure Kelly would be okay, too. My job was to figure out what to do with this wolf.

  I had my gun and my cutlass, which was still in its case in the car, but I couldn’t just kill him, not here in the open with door cameras and cell phone cameras (I could see some curtains moving at Kelly’s neighbor’s house). He hadn’t killed anyone here for anyone to see. Broken by the impact with my car, he appeared not to be an immediate threat. He was, especially with those bite marks, but the human authorities wouldn’t know that if I killed him. And if I waited until he was up on his feet—he might manage to kill me.

  “What about the other kids?” Auriele asked—not me, obviously.

  “Safe,” said Hannah. “Sean and Patrick are at a friend’s house. I locked the baby in our bedroom; she’s not happy, but she’s safe.” Sean and Patrick were their two boys, ages twelve and ten. The baby was three—so not really a baby anymore.

  A truck drove up. I didn’t look up from Lincoln, but I heard it just fine. A late-model Ford diesel, I thought from the sounds of it. It didn’t belong to any of the pack—I knew the sounds of the pack’s vehicles.

  The truck stopped across the street and a pair of doors opened. I heard three people get out of the truck and stop on the other side of the road. Three people who were werewolves, and not our werewolves. I wasn’t smelling them—my nose was definitely broken—but I could hear the werewolf in the way they moved. I knew they were our invaders because of the truck.

  “People are watching,” I told them. “Think about what you do next.” Then in a softer voice I asked, “Auriele?”

  “They don’t look like they’re coming for a fight,” she told me, quietly. “That could change.” The enemy werewolves would be able to hear us, but not the humans in their houses.

  I needed to move, to get my back to Auriele and my front toward the new threat. The problem was I was still dizzy, my eyes were having trouble focusing, and I wasn’t sure how far I needed to keep away from the downed wolf-mad Lincoln. I had to be close enough to shoot him if he started to regain mobility.

  The new werewolves stayed where they were.

  “Kids okay?” called a man’s voice.

  “The one he manhandled has broken bones,” I said. “She is six.”

  “Seven,” said Makaya, her voice wobbly. “I am seven.”

  “I told you,” the stranger said. “I told you that he wasn’t right. But you thought you knew better.”

  “Lincoln said he was fine. He had eighty years of controlling his beast,” said a woman.

  I frowned. I’d heard that voice before. But I didn’t know Nonnie Palsic, the only woman in the group of invading werewolves, according to the data Adam had compiled. Maybe I’d only heard her voice, on the phone or something.

  I wished my nose were working. My memory for scent was much better than my memory for voices.

  “We were supposed to go out and create a little havoc today,” said the man—I think he was speaking to me. “The houses with kids were supposed to be strictly out-of-bounds.”

  I chanced a quick look at the new werewolves.

  The man was hard to focus on—as if I were a human looking at a werewolf pulling on the pack bonds to hide themself in the guise of a big dog. I didn’t have time to do more than glance at him, but it didn’t take a genius to know this was James Palsic. Standing just behind him was Nonnie Palsic. Her hair was dark brown, though in the photo Adam had shown the pack it had been lighter. Her face was thinner, but unmistakable. The third person was also a woman, both short and slight, who was faintly familiar.

  I turned my focus back to Lincoln as he finally managed to rip his leg free of the ruined front of my car. He hadn’t show
n any sign of noticing me at all, up to this point. But, still without looking at me, he rolled sideways with speed, slashing at my knee with a knife I hadn’t noticed him having.

  Having two good legs, I managed to get out of his way, but that put me in the middle of the street. And closer to the Palsics and the oddly familiar woman.

  James Palsic said, “Would you mind if I took care of him?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was asking me.

  “Put him in the back of the truck,” the woman with the familiar voice ordered. “We’ll figure out what to do with him when we get back.”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  I put the gun up in the air so I wasn’t aiming at anyone and backed up a dozen feet down the middle of the road, so it didn’t put me any closer to the enemy. Auriele, who had given Makaya to her mother, put herself in front of the little family. I wondered if I should tell them what was wrong with Lincoln.

  Palsic stalked past me and said something in a Romance language that wasn’t Spanish or Italian—Portuguese maybe, or Romanian. It sounded sorrowful and resolute. He avoided Lincoln’s attack, and the maneuver put him at the damaged werewolf’s back. With a quick and easy movement he picked up the struggling werewolf.

  “Don’t let him bite you,” I told him—and he raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Don’t intend to,” he said.

  “Kill him,” said Nonnie.

  “There are about six cell phones pointed at us through windows,” James told her. He didn’t seem to be having trouble keeping Lincoln’s mouth away from him.

  “I said we will decide what to do when we get back.” There was ice in the other woman’s voice—and for some reason that made everything click.

  I had met her before, in the Marrok’s office. I’d been cleaning it after Bran had been the victim of a glitter bomb. For some reason he’d blamed me—even though I’d only been responsible for the first three or four of the things. Someone who was not me had been gutsy enough to break into Bran’s office and suspend the glitter bomb over his desk. Bran was not interested in my defense—though he must have known I wasn’t lying—so I got to clean the room. It did not take much glitter to make a real mess.

  Bran must have forgotten about it—or else he’d assumed that it would only take a half hour or so to clean up. He clearly hadn’t expected to find me there, two hours later, when he came in with a tiny blond woman with a sweet face. But he’d introduced us and explained about the glitter bomb to her—which, as I recall, she’d had very little reaction to. He’d sent me off so they could conduct their business.

  He’d summoned me back a few hours later. His room was absolutely sparkle-less, which was more than could be said about me. He had apologized—told me the real culprit had confessed (without telling me who it was) and cleaned the room. Then he told me that if I ever saw Fiona again, to steer clear of her.

  It had made an impression—because he’d never warned me about another werewolf like that. Because she was so small—smaller than I had been at fourteen or fifteen. And because her eyes had been a cold, clear green—not the green of hazel eyes. But like someone with light blue eyes had put in green-tinted contacts. I’d never seen anyone with eyes that color.

  I later learned that she was one of a group of wolves that Bran used to keep the werewolves in order. Charles was only the most obvious and feared one. But Charles had limits—he knew right from wrong. This woman did exactly what she was told, and enjoyed assassin work the most.

  “Fiona,” I said, and she turned to focus on me. From this distance I couldn’t see her eye color beyond that they were light. Her hair was dark, not blond, but her body language was the same.

  “Mercy Hauptman,” she said, without smiling. “Bran’s little coyote pet.”

  “How unexpected,” I said—though clearly she was not surprised to find me here. “Are you still . . .” I couldn’t think of how to phrase it.

  “Running errands,” she said.

  “Still running errands for Bran?” I asked, using her phrase.

  She shook her head. “No, actually. I found my mate and changed my ways.”

  “Not Lincoln Stuart,” I said, more to let her know that she wasn’t the only one who knew their enemies than because I thought there was a chance that it was Lincoln. She’d have been a lot more concerned about Lincoln than she was if he had been her mate. “And the Palsics are mated to each other.”

  James, still standing beside my car with the struggling Lincoln in his arms, met my eyes.

  “Adam remembered you,” I told him. Let them think we’d had eyes on them, too, instead of good intel from Charles.

  Fiona gave me a sharp smile. “Sven Harolford is my mate, Mercedes Thompson . . . Hauptman. We are here to take over your pack. We will allow Hauptman to take three wolves with him—and you. You should be grateful.”

  I smiled back at her, centering my weight over my feet. I was in no shape to fight, between broken nose and sore ribs, but I wasn’t going to let her see that.

  “Shivering in my boots, here,” I told her. Fiona was probably a game changer. We had a lot of wolves in our pack who had killed people. But we didn’t have any killers—wolves who enjoyed murder. I didn’t want Fiona in our pack. “You won’t take my advice, but you should move on. If you need a refuge from Gartman and his pack, Bran will help you.”

  “No,” said Fiona, a faint bitterness in her voice. “He won’t. James? What are you waiting around for? Get Lincoln in the truck.” She turned around and stalked back to the truck herself.

  James nodded to me as he passed by with Lincoln. I stared at him, trying to fix his features in my head. I knew what he looked like from Adam’s picture. But I couldn’t get a lock on his face.

  James tossed the other wolf ungently into the back of the truck. Onlookers who did not have supernatural hearing wouldn’t have heard the pop as he broke Lincoln’s neck in the middle of that toss.

  “Idiot,” snapped Fiona. “Who do you think gives the orders around here?”

  He stared at the truck bed for a long moment, tension in his body. Then he turned back to me.

  “I told them,” he said in a soft voice. “No children. And Fiona and Sven sent him here anyway.” He looked at Fiona. “He did not find this place on his own. He’s been so wild that he could barely put his own clothes on.” He met my gaze.

  I felt a spark. There was a little pop in my head, like when my ears depressurized. A zing of magic darted down my spine—and I could see his face at last.

  Fiona said, “We thought he was stable. Today he was better.”

  And she’d sent a wolf here to cause havoc. To Kelly’s house where there were children.

  I looked back at James. “Green Beetle,” I said to him. “Nicely restored. You needed a new generator.”

  He’d come into the shop a couple of weeks ago—and I hadn’t even noticed he was a werewolf. Hadn’t remembered his features or recognized him when Adam had shown his face to the pack. More worrisome, Zee had been working with me that day—and he hadn’t noticed that James was a werewolf, either. Adam’s information was wrong. James Palsic’s ability to go unnoticed was definitely magic. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t work on me anymore.

  He smiled at me, a genuine, open smile. Which felt a little odd coming from an enemy werewolf who had just killed one of his compatriots.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Nice shop you have there.”

  “I’ve closed it temporarily,” I told them. “Because you folks are not the monsters we are worried about just now.”

  “Having trouble with the fae?” asked Fiona. “You should let us handle them.”

  I smiled at her and debated telling her that the smoke beast had already taken one victim from her people. “Not all the fae—they have locked themselves in the reservation because this one, this one they are afraid of.”

&
nbsp; “Sirens are getting closer,” Nonnie said. “If you really don’t want to meet the human authorities until later, Fi, we should get going right now.”

  They listened to her and got in the truck without another word. They drove off just as flashing lights rounded the corner I’d taken at sixty. The police cruiser took it considerably slower than I had. The truck passed them, took a right turn, and disappeared from view.

  And I wondered why Fiona had asked me about the fae. There were vampires here—and other things that defied classification. Had she known about the bite?

  * * *

  • • •

  They set my nose at the hospital. As soon as the medical professionals left me to my own devices, I decamped and went looking for Makaya. I found Auriele and Kelly waiting in one of the other emergency bays and wandered in.

  “Nice shirt,” said Auriele.

  Mine had made me look like an extra from a horror movie because broken noses bleed. So I’d been issued a hospital top. The hospital issue was a pale beige color that made my Native-toned skin look greenish. Solemnly I turned around so she could get a good look at the open back.

  “I don’t think I’ll be setting any fashion trends soon,” I told her. “Makaya in X-ray?”

  “Yes,” Auriele nodded. “Hannah went with her. She’ll let them stitch her up in another room as soon as Makaya is taken care of. Makaya is pretty traumatized and wanted her mother.”

  “How bad is Hannah’s cut?” I asked.

  “Long,” she said. “But not deep. It will need stitches at the top, but the bottom is okay. He cut her with that knife he pulled on you.”

  I knelt to talk to Kelly. “How are you doing?”

  His muzzle wrinkled up and he let out a low, angry growl.

  “He walked in here on his own,” Auriele said. “But it wasn’t easy for him. I checked him over pretty thoroughly. I don’t think any of his bones were misaligned.”

  She meant none of them would have to be rebroken.