“Still,” said Jesse, staring at the car. She didn’t react to my change in position; maybe she hadn’t noticed. “I loved your little Rabbit. It was my fault we had the wreck. I am so sorry.”
And the driver of the other car went for Jesse like a junkyard dog, dripping words for which my mother would have washed his mouth out with soap as he barreled toward us.
Jesse’s eyes got wide, and she jerked to her feet, stumbling. I stepped between them and said, with power I borrowed from the Alpha of the local werewolf pack who was also my husband, “Enough.”
He jerked his gaze from Jesse to me, opened his mouth, and froze where he stood. I could smell the alcohol wafting from him.
“I was driving, not Jesse,” I said calmly. “You stopped—I hit you. My fault. I am fully insured. It will be a pain in the neck—for which I apologize—but your car will be fixed or replaced.”
“Goddamned spic,” he spat, incorrectly because I’m Native American not Hispanic, and swung a fist at me.
I might have been a mere coyote shapeshifter instead of a muscle-bound werewolf, but I had years of full-contact karate under my brown belt. The irate owner of the SUV was a lot bigger than me, but, from the smell and the lack of coordination in his movements, he was also drunk. That negated most of the advantage his size gave him.
I let his fist slip by me, took a step that angled my hips into his, grabbed the elbow and hand of his attacking arm, and slammed him face-first into the pavement using, mostly, his own momentum to do it.
Hurt me too, dang it. Car wrecks suck. Twinges of pain slid down my recently abused neck and into a hip that I hadn’t thought damaged at all. I stayed balanced and ready for a moment, but the impact with the ground seemed to wipe the fight out of the big man. When he didn’t immediately rise swinging, I stepped back and touched my cheekbone, wishing for the ice pack that I’d dropped.
The whole fight hadn’t taken more than a few seconds. Before the downed man even twitched, one of the cops was there, putting a knee into the small of the man’s back and cuffing him. The motion was smooth and practiced, and I was pretty sure the policeman had had some martial arts training, too.
“No more driving for you, tonight,” the cop told the downed man cheerfully. “No more hitting nice ladies, either. It’s off to the pokey to dry out.”
“Pokey?” I said.
The other cop, an older, less energetic model sighed. “Nielson likes old films.” He handed me a ticket for following too closely and gestured toward the cuffed man. “His girlfriend is under arrest for assaulting an officer. We got him for driving under the influence. Do you want to press charges for assault? We all saw him take the first swing.”
I shook my head, suddenly feeling tired. “No. Just tell him to have his insurance call mine.”
There was a loud scraping sound and a crunch. A tow truck pulled the SUV away. The Rabbit settled to the ground with a sigh, a gurgle, and a hiss of hot antifreeze hitting cold pavement as the radiator tore open.
Jesse shivered beside me. I needed to get her out of the cold.
“When’s your dad coming?” I asked her. She’d called him while I’d been caught up talking to officials and people who handed me ice bags.
“I called,” Jesse said. “He didn’t pick up, so I called Darryl. No answer, either. I should have told you earlier.”
Adam didn’t answer the phone? That felt wrong. Adam wouldn’t be unavailable while we were out shopping among the hordes. He’d even volunteered to come. That would have been … interesting. He couldn’t handle Walmart on a quiet day. That Darryl, his second, hadn’t answered his phone didn’t bother me as much, but it was still weird.
I pulled out my cell phone and saw that I had a new text message from Bran—even weirder. The Marrok, ruler of the werewolves, just didn’t text.
I checked it and got: The Game is Afoot.
“Bran is channeling Arthur Conan Doyle,” I said and Jesse peered over my shoulder to see.
I tried calling Bran back (my fingers were too cold for texting with any speed), but his phone came back disconnected or no longer in service. I tried Samuel, the Marrok’s son, and got his answering service.
“No, that’s fine,” I told the service lady who picked up. “I’ll just go into the emergency room if Dr. Cornick isn’t available.” There was no reason not to leave a real message with her, but the text from Bran had unsettled me. My panic attack—the cause of the wreck—unsettled me more.
I continued with other pack members: Warren, Honey, Mary Jo, and even Ben. Their cells were—in order—off, ring to voice mail, off, ring to voice mail.
I puzzled over Bran’s message as I called Paul—who would as soon kill me as rescue me, though he’d feel differently about Jesse. As the phone rang without results, I remembered that the werewolves were fond of top-secret-emergency-code-word things. Nothing to do with being a werewolf and everything to do with just how many werewolves found themselves in the military at some time or other, and how that left them a particular kind of paranoid. Boy Scouts had nothing on the “be preparedness” of werewolves.
I knew about the secret codes because I’d grown up with werewolves, but I hadn’t learned them because I wasn’t one. Adam presumably would have gotten around to teaching me now that I was a member of his pack, but what with river monsters and broken legs and pack drama, it was no wonder it hadn’t made it to the top of the list.
Paul didn’t answer, either. I was willing to bet, based on the evidence, that Bran’s text meant “no phones.” Which was all well and good, but Jesse and I were stuck here at the mall until we found someone who would answer their stupid phone. If this was just a test of the emergency-secret-code system, I was going to chew on someone.
If it wasn’t … My stomach clenched, and the panic attack I’d had that had caused the accident seemed more sinister. I was twice bound, once to Adam, once to the pack. Had something happened to Adam or the pack? I reached out for those bonds …
“Mercy?” Jesse asked, interrupting my concentration before I connected with Adam or the pack.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I told her. “Let me keep trying people.”
After a moment’s thought, I called Kyle. He wasn’t a were-anything, so he might not have gotten the memo about the phones. And, as the significant other of the third-ranked member of the pack, he might know what was going on. I got his voice mail and didn’t leave a message. Next I tried Elizaveta the witch. Elizaveta was under contract to the pack—I’d recently seen what Adam paid her every month and had no qualms about making her play taxi—but she didn’t answer. Maybe she was in on the codes—or maybe she was shopping, and the screaming hordes kept her from hearing her cell.
Maybe the whole pack was out shopping, and I was being paranoid.
“What are the chances that the pack has joined the rest of the Tri-Cities tonight and gone out shopping in the middle of the night?” I asked out loud.
“Not high,” Jesse said seriously. “Most of them are like Dad; the noise alone would give them the heebie-jeebies. Cram them in with a bunch of normal people in tight quarters and wait for the bloodbath. I can’t think of any of them, except maybe Honey, who would try it.”
“That’s what I think, too,” I agreed. “Something’s up. We’re on our own.”
“I’ll call Gabriel,” she said, and did so.
Gabriel, my whatever-needs-doing man, was fighting like a demon not to be in love with Jesse. He had officially broken up with her in September, when he left for Seattle and college—though they hadn’t been officially dating. But he’d sat next to her at Thanksgiving dinner a few hours ago and flirted as hard as he could given that her sharp-eyed father was at the same table.
Love doesn’t wait on convenience.
When he was in town, Gabriel also lived in my very small manufactured house on the other side of the fence from the home I shared with Adam and Jesse. When he and his mother had a huge home-wrecking fight over whether or not h
e should be hanging out with me and my werewolf friends, he’d moved into it. He might be living mostly in Seattle—but it was there waiting for him when he came back for the holidays.
He wouldn’t be on any werewolf emergency contact list so when Jesse shook her head, I started to get even more worried. Had something happened to the pack while we were gone?
“Damn it,” I said, and I tried again to feel Adam through the mating bond that tied us together. The bond was strong and steady, but sometimes it took more effort to get information from it. When I’d talked to Adam about it, concerned, he’d shrugged.
“It is what it is,” he’d said. “Some people have to live in their mate’s head to feel secure. How did you feel when we were doing that?” He’d grinned at me when I’d tried to apologize. “Don’t fuss. I love you just as you are, Mercy. I don’t need to swallow you whole, I don’t need to be in your head at all times. I just need to know that you’re there.”
There are a lot of reasons I love Adam.
I fought my way down our bond, increasing my already considerable headache, and squeezed past the barriers my subconscious mind apparently had created to keep from being overwhelmed by the charismatic Alpha among Alphas who was Adam Hauptman, and touched him at last …
“Hey, Mercy,” said a deep voice. “You okay?”
I looked up and recognized the tow truck driver. I know most of the guys who tow cars in the area—I have a mechanic shop, it comes with the territory.
“Hey, Dale,” I said, trying to appear as though I hadn’t been fumbling around with werewolf magic. It would have been easier to pretend to be normal without the sudden renewal of the nasty, shivery, breath-stealing feeling that had caused me to run into the SUV in the first place. I struggled to suppress the second panic attack. Probably Dale would think that my chattering jaws were from the cold. “Jesse and I are okay, but I’ve had better days.”
“I can see that.” He sounded concerned, so I must have looked pretty awful. “You want me to tow the Rabbit to your shop? Or do you want to admit defeat immediately and I can take her out to the Pasco wrecking yard?”
I fixed my gaze on him as I had a sudden thought.
He looked down at his coat. “What’cha looking at? Is there a spot? I thought I grabbed this from the clean clothes.”
“Dale, if I’m paying you to tow my car to my shop, is there room in the truck for Jesse and me, too? We can’t get my husband on the phone. I have a car at the shop I can drive home.”
He smiled cheerfully. “Sure, no prob, Mercy.”
“That would be good,” I said. “Thanks.” That would work. My shop was a safe, warm place to think. I needed that, needed my Fortress of Solitude against panic. Because when I reached down the bond between Adam and myself, I could sense nothing but rage and pain.
Someone was hurting my husband, and that was all I could tell.
Dale’s truck smelled like old french fries, coffee, and stale bananas. I forced myself to make light conversation, catching up on his daughter and her new baby, the rising costs of diesel fuel, and whatever else I could come up with. I couldn’t let Jesse know how worried I was until I had more information.
My shop looked just as it should. The little boneyard (where the remnants of a few dead cars lingered to donate parts to their living brethren) and the parking lot were well lit. New halogen lights illuminated the four cars in the still-alive-but-need-help parking lot, and I patted Jesse’s knee when she drew in a breath.
I hopped out of the truck and helped Dale unchain the Rabbit, sending Jesse into the shop. She glanced again at the four cars in the parking lot where there should have been three and ran inside without protest. She had no trouble opening the door that should have been locked—and when she went in, she didn’t turn on the lights because she was her father’s daughter. She knew better than to turn on lights in a room with windows when there might be something to hide.
“Poor thing,” Dale said, patting my car’s trunk, not paying any attention to Jesse. “Aren’t many of these left running around town anymore.” He looked at me, and said, casually, “I have a line on a ’89 Jetta two-door with 110 on the meter. A little banged up, but nothing a little Bondo and paint can’t fix.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “What do I owe you?”
“Boss will bill you,” he said, turning my smile genuine despite my tension—Dale’s “boss” was his wife.
I waved as he drove away, then sprinted for the door of my office because the fourth car, parked between a ’68 Beetle and an old Type II, was a battered and worn ’74 Mercedes that belonged to Gabriel.
I slipped through the door and closed it. The dark office had been enough to let me know that Gabriel knew something and that it was important to keep it quiet—otherwise, the interior would have been blazing with light. As I turned, I caught Gabriel’s scent, all right, but there was also someone else …
Strong arms wrapped around my waist, jerking me almost off my feet. My nose told me the arms belonged to Ben of the British accent and foul mouth as he buried his face against my stomach, so I put the crowbar I’d snagged off the counter back where it belonged without smashing in his head. He moved his head until my shirt rucked up, and his beard-rough cheek was against my skin.
I’d had another werewolf do that before, felt the same tremors and ragged breathing. I was reasonably sure that Ben wasn’t feeling hungry (like the other wolf had been) because it hadn’t been that long since turkey dinner. So I put a hand on his head and glanced at the pair of shell-shocked teenagers standing in front of a shelf of old, mismatched hubcaps. It was dark inside the shop, but coyotes like me can see in the dark.
Ben half growled, half spoke, but I couldn’t parse anything he said. From the heat of his skin against mine, he was trying to fight off the change. I made a soothing sound but didn’t move my hand again because a werewolf’s skin is pretty sensitive when he is changing. Ben quit trying to talk and contented himself with breathing. I looked at Gabriel.
He was gripping Jesse’s hand—or letting her grip him—and didn’t look to be in much better shape than Ben.
“Start over,” Jesse told him. “Mercy needs to hear it all.”
Gabriel nodded. “About midnight, Ben burst into my living room, grabbed me, grabbed my car keys, and dragged me out the door. As soon as we were outside, I could tell there was a lot of something going down at your house. There weren’t any headlights, but I could hear cars—something with diesel engines, truck size. Ben said something about getting here and getting to you, I think. He sounded pretty odd. He shoved me into the driver’s seat and hasn’t said a coherent thing since. I was going to try to call you, but—”
He nodded at the floor, and I saw the scattered remnants of the shop’s phone. “He didn’t seem to think that would be a good idea. I am really, really glad to see you.”
“Ben?” I asked. “Can you—”
He reached up and dumped a tranquilizing dart into my hand. It was about half full of something that looked like milk, but I knew better. Someone knew our secrets.
“He was drugged,” I said, sniffing the hypodermic just to make sure. It smelled familiar. “It looks like that stuff that killed Mac.”
Jesse inhaled.
“Mac?” Gabriel asked.
“Before your time,” I told him. “Mac was a newly turned werewolf who got in the way of a Byzantine plot ultimately aimed at Bran. We’ve always thought that werewolves are invulnerable to drugs of any kind. But the bad guy who happened to be a werewolf himself figured out a cocktail that worked with ingredients any vet supply would have.” That knowledge should have died with Gerry. “Most of the wolves who got hit with the stuff were fine, but new werewolves are more vulnerable, and it killed Mac.”
We all looked at Ben, who wasn’t looking too healthy.
“Is Ben going to be all right?” asked Gabriel. “Can we do something for him?”
“Burning it out,” Ben growled.
I wa
sn’t sure I heard him right, his voice was slurred and thick. “Ben? You’re burning out the drug?” His skin did feel feverish. “Boosting your metabolism?” I didn’t know werewolves could do that.
“Burning it good,” he said, which I took to be an affirmative. “But it’ll … a minute.”
“What can we do to help?” I asked. “Water? Food?” I had some granola bars in here somewhere.
“Just you,” he said. “Pack smell, Alpha smell. It helps.” He shuddered hard against me. “Hurts. Wolf wants out.”
“Let it out,” said Jesse.
But Ben shook his head. “Then I won’t be able to talk. Need to tell you.”
He smelled like adrenaline and blood.
“Is it safe here?” I asked. “Do we need to move?”
“Short-term safe,” Ben said after a moment. “Think so. They should be occupied with the rest … the rest of the pack.”
“Would coffee help?” Jesse asked.
I considered it but shook my head. “I’m not a doctor. Adding a stimulant to the mixture could just make it worse.”
“You could call Samuel.”
I looked into her fear-filled eyes and tried to be stalwart for her sake. “Samuel’s phone goes to his answering service. We’re on our own.”
“What about Zee?” asked Gabriel. He’d seen what Zee could do for a car and had acquired a case of hero worship for the grumpy old fae. “Couldn’t he do something about the silver?”
“Zee’s hidden in Fairyland with the rest of the fae,” I told him, though he knew it. “He’s not going to be able to help.”
“But—”
“Whatever else Zee is,” I told him, “he is fae, first.”
“Hurts,” said Ben, his voice muffled against my stomach. He was writhing against me. Silver hits werewolves like that. I wished that there was something I could do.
“Yes, you can help,” he said, as though he’d caught my thoughts. Sometimes the pack bond did that—one of the things that I was still adjusting to. “You can ask me … that’s what you can do. Ask me questions. Keep me talking so I can keep the wolf down. You need to know.”
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