Tony frowned at Tad. “And why do you know the names of assassins for hire?”
Tad’s brilliant facade soured. “Because even though they don’t care a fig for the half-bloods, the pure-blooded fae send us lists of fae who did not answer the Gray Lords’ call. We, the rejected, are to watch out for these fae and turn in any purebloods we see.”
Tony nodded slowly. “I see. And if you don’t turn them in?”
Tad’s smile left entirely, and he looked very adult. “Nothing good. The Gray Lords don’t have much use for half-bloods.”
Tony blinked a couple of times and bit back whatever homily had come to him. Finally, he looked around at the destruction that was getting cleaned up. It was a crime scene, so probably no one should be cleaning yet—but it was also Sylvia’s private papers flying in the wind.
“No bodies on the ground,” said the officer Tad had cornered. “No one bleeding. No lawsuit because Mr. Hauptman is paying the damages—though we’ll need to do a report just in case. We can let them clean up, Tony.” He looked at Adam. “Mr. Hauptman is coming in tomorrow to make a statement about his kidnapping. That works for me—Tony?”
Tony frowned at me, and Tad’s magic lit up again. Finally, Tony said, “Okay.” He looked at Sylvia, and his face softened. “Why don’t you give your keys to one of your neighbors so they can lock up after they’re done cleaning the mess? I’ll take you to Kyle’s house, so you can look in on the kids.”
8
ADAM
Adam kept his mouth shut and left his arms wrapped around Mercy so that he was anchored and didn’t snarl at the nice policemen.
He kept his eyes off her face because he was having a hard enough time with all the noise and people as it was—the bruise that covered half her face would not help. His instincts kept shouting that something was wrong, and had ever since he’d seen the desk land, and he couldn’t tell if it had missed her. He’d stopped breathing. The thought of his world without Mercy in it …
Well, that didn’t help him calm down, either. He had the feeling that enemies were watching, that no one was safe. It was just the aftereffects of battle, dealing with his kidnappers last night and interrupting Mercy’s fight this morning. That on-edge feeling had been familiar even before he was a werewolf.
Adam politely refused to answer any of Tony’s casual questions as they waited for Sylvia to converse with her neighbors. The policeman finally gave up prying. He was a good cop, Tony, and knew that there were things they were hiding; but Adam had scrubbed in the shower of the unfinished winery while they were waiting for Elizaveta to show up. He knew that the only stains left of his killing spree were invisible ones, and he knew how to hide those, even from a good cop’s instincts.
Tony picked up a fluttering paper that had attacked his shoe and looked at it. A bill from the power company, Adam saw, with a lot of red on it. Tony clenched it in his hand.
It was no secret that Tony loved Sylvia—or that she had put him off firmly. But, Jesse had told Adam, that had been a couple of years ago, when Sylvia’s husband had been dead only a year. Tony had respected her wishes and backed off then, which was the right thing to do. But, maintained Jesse, someone should kick Tony and make him try again.
Or else, judging by the expression on Tony’s face while he shoved the crumpled bill into his pocket, maybe a fae should destroy her home, threaten her children, and leave her unpaid bills floating in the wind. Sylvia was tough, smart, and could survive on her own—she didn’t need a handsome prince to ride up and rescue her. But that didn’t mean such a man might not want to protect her from everything he could, anyway.
Adam tipped his head down to see if Mercy had noticed Tony’s epiphany, but as soon as she realized he was looking at her, she turned her attention to him and smiled.
Her lips were outlined in black that faded to gray. If it had been lipstick, it would have been an interesting effect with her coloring. But he knew, from the way the silver had burned his skin when he’d kissed her, that it wasn’t some new color of lipstick. He was also sure that the silver impregnating her lips had something to do with the way she’d taken it from him through their mate bond. He just hoped to Hell that she hadn’t been harmed any other way from that. It might mean they weren’t going to be able to kiss without giving him blisters for the rest of their lives, but he could deal as long as that was the worst it had done.
There were a lot of things to worry about tomorrow. Today he was good. He waited until Sylvia was secured in Tony’s car. Then, when he was satisfied the people he felt responsible for were safe, it was time to leave.
He kissed Mercy’s temple, and said, “Wait here.” Then he headed off at a jog to find his people.
He found both identical Toyota Corollas, the one he’d arrived in and the other manned by Mercy’s surveillance team, parked near the Dumpster. He had the man who’d driven with him hand over the keys and ride back with the other two. By the simple expedient of combining them, he gained a car to take Mercy back to Kyle’s. He opened the door—but realized, as he bent to slide in, that the pair of shoes on the ground next to his car were Mercy’s—as was a sock just under the Dumpster.
He smelled Mercy, death, fae—and a strange werewolf. It was that last scent that made him growl. He’d forgotten that Mercy had gone off with a werewolf Bran had sent to help. A werewolf who was making himself conspicuously absent.
It appeared that more had happened than just the part of the fight he’d seen.
He gathered up sock and shoes and drove the car back to where he’d left Mercy. She waited for him just where he’d told her to, and waved to him cheerfully as he drove up. Beside her, looking at the ground, stood Zee’s son; his face—now that there was no one to perform for—looked worried.
As Adam pulled up, Tad turned to him, and said, “Is it okay if I come along?” He looked at Mercy and frowned a little. Adam was unhappy about all those bruises, too. “Before all this happened, I was going to go to Kyle’s with Mercy and the kids.”
“Fine,” agreed Adam. If Tad hadn’t asked, Adam would have insisted. He wasn’t leaving any of his people vulnerable, and Tad belonged to Mercy and thus to Adam. Adam glanced at Mercy, and said, “I’ll drive.”
He knew that he looked nearly as rough as he felt. He’d seen himself in the bathroom mirror after his shower, and Mercy was better at reading his face than most people. Even the half beard he wore wouldn’t protect him from her scrutiny.
He waited for Mercy’s response. He enjoyed their arguments because very few people argued with him at all. Mercy would argue until she won, he convinced her he was right, or it was clear that she was not going to win no matter how right she felt she was. If she was cranky enough about it, she’d get him back—that damned junker Rabbit was still cocked up on one wheel where he could see it out their bedroom window. He kind of liked it—not the leprous Rabbit, the Rabbit made him crazy—but that she cared enough to make the effort.
This was a battle he wouldn’t lose, though he probably shouldn’t drive. His concentration was as shot as his temper. Nothing like lack of sleep and battle fatigue to give him fuel for a really nasty case of road rage. Even so, there was no way that he could relinquish enough control to let anyone else take the wheel, not even Mercy, who was a good driver.
Instead of arguing, Mercy just smiled and got into the passenger seat without a word. Inexplicably, that sent his temper flaring worse than if she’d argued.
He bit his tongue because he’d look like an idiot if he yelled at her for not arguing with him. Tad hopped into the back and fastened his seat belt.
As Adam drove out of the parking lot, Tad said, “We should pick up the other werewolf over by the high school; just turn down Tenth.”
“Why did he run off?” Adam asked, then looked at Mercy.
“He was worried that his presence would just complicate things.” In the rearview mirror, Adam noticed that Tad was tapping his fingers and watching Mercy as if he was worried about her.
/>
“Who died over by the Dumpsters?” Adam asked.
“The other half of the fae team who tried to take Jesse,” Mercy said, sounding as if she were talking about something mundane … like grocery shopping. “She jumped me when we parked, and Asil killed her. By the time it occurred to me that it would be smart to tell the police about her, the kids had already taken off in the car with the body.”
Adam damned near stopped the car. On any other day, he’d have been upset about a body in the trunk of the kids’ car. But that was before he’d heard Asil’s name. “Bran sent the Moor?”
“Asil,” Mercy agreed, so he knew he hadn’t misheard. “He said Charles sent him, but he was talking in front of Agent Armstrong of Cantrip.”
Armstrong must have been the fed who was at Kyle’s house, the one who’d tried to get him to wait when Adam had hustled out to find Mercy.
Mercy was right, Bran had sent the Moor to take care of Mercy and Jesse. The Moor, who was so crazy his own son had sent him to Bran to be put down. Except that Bran, for his own reasons, had decided not to do it.
Asil. Maybe he had recovered from being crazy.
“He kept that bastard from wiping the floor with me,” said Tad. “I was overmatched—and that’s an understatement. I might have been able to slow the spriggan down long enough for Jesse and Gabriel to get the kids away, but it would have been a close thing, and I would have had to pull out my big guns to do it.” He looked out the window, and continued blackly, “My control of the big guns isn’t what it should be. So I’m glad Asil showed up.”
College had changed Tad. It was supposed to, Adam knew. But looking at Tad for a moment longer than was really safe while he was driving, Adam was afraid that he’d gained the sort of knowledge that a chick learned from being pushed off a cliff rather than the low branch of a tree, and had taken damage from the fall.
Adam had grown up that way, too.
The Moor was waiting for them, leaning on a lightpost and looking bored. Adam had never actually met Asil, but he looked Moorish, wolfish, and dangerous. Who else could he be? He didn’t have a mark on him from the fight, though it would be hard to see a bruise on his skin from a distance. People were looking at him as they drove past in their cars, mostly, Adam thought, because Asil was wearing nothing more than a summer-weight shirt. It took a more experienced eye than most people had to see exactly what Asil was.
As he pulled the Corolla over to the curb, Adam met Asil’s eyes briefly, and the old wolf gave Adam a commiserating smile, which Adam found himself returning. This trip was going to be rough. Probably worse for Adam, who was still wound up tight with the aftermath of this morning’s killing. But if half the stories Adam had heard were right, Asil was wobbling precariously between human and beast, so it wouldn’t be easy for him to be cooped up in the car with an unfamiliar dominant wolf, either.
Asil opened the door behind Mercy and slid into the back seat. As soon as the door shut, the urge to tear out the strange wolf’s throat tightened Adam’s hands on the wheel. He should not be driving feeling like this. But without the task of getting to Kyle’s in one piece to focus on, he was certain to do something regrettable.
“Adam,” said Tad, clearing his throat, because he doubtless could read the uncomfortable atmosphere in the car, “we need to go to my dad’s house before we go anywhere else.”
“Why?” It was almost a growl rather than a real word. Adam needed to keep his time in the car with the other wolf to a minimum, and that didn’t include a side trip. Asil’s presence behind him was an itch between his shoulder blades.
“Because that damned sword isn’t the only fae artifact that Sliver and Spice ran around with, and Mercy is acting strange.”
Yes, howled the beast that lived in his heart. There is something wrong with Mercy. I’ve been trying to tell you, but you thought it was just from the fighting. It isn’t. This is like what happened to her before, when we couldn’t protect her.
Adam looked at Mercy, who looked back at him with big eyes and a half smile on her face. “I’m fine,” she said, which if it had been true, she would never have said, not in that tone of voice. She’d have been arguing with Tad or making smart-ass quips about strange people.
“Rub your nose,” Tad told her.
She rubbed her nose.
“Pat your knee.”
She did that as well.
“Cough twice.”
She covered her mouth and coughed.
“Have you ever seen Mercy take three orders in a row without arguing?” Not being psychic and able to hear Adam’s inner beast, Tad thought he had to convince Adam.
“Not even when Bran is the one giving the orders.” Adam put his foot down on the gas. If the tension in the car had been strong before, it was nothing to the current conditions—and it had nothing to do with the Moor.
Adam wanted to kill something, anything to make Mercy all right. Under his hands, the wheel of the car groaned, and he loosened his fingers and fought not to lose control.
The other werewolf was doing his best to make this easy, keeping quiet and keeping his gaze focused out his window, so Adam couldn’t meet his eyes. Adam appreciated it and tried to reciprocate as well as he could when anger was a tide that threatened to blind him.
“What did they use? And how do we fix her?” He spoke between gritted teeth, trying to keep his human form and stay between the white lines on the road. His hands tightened again, and there was a pop as something gave way in the steering wheel of the little car. When it didn’t seem to affect his ability to turn, Adam ignored it.
“I don’t know how to fix her,” said Tad. “But my dad will. He can’t use phones anymore—Mercy called him yesterday, and the powers that be took away his phone privileges. I have a way to reach him at home.”
Okay. Zee was good. Adam sucked in a deep breath and tried to make his wolf realize that changing right now was a genuinely bad idea.
“What was it that got her?” He knew squat about fae magic but couldn’t help but ask. Maybe it would be something that wore off.
“An artifact—a set of bone wrist cuffs,” Tad said. “It’s supposed to make prisoners easy to control. Before Asil killed her, did Spice put a set of cuffs on you, Mercy?”
“Just one,” Mercy said in a chipper voice. “I changed to coyote and stepped out of it. Asil threw the cuffs into the trunk with the body.”
“If this is true,” Asil said, “why didn’t it show up until after the battle was over? She wasn’t being compliant when she threw herself at the fae in the apartment.”
“I don’t know,” answered Tad. “Maybe because she only wore one of the cuffs. Maybe because she only had it on for a short time. But you see it, don’t you, Adam? It took me a while to be sure.”
“Yes.” His beast had noticed immediately and become frantic, but Adam hadn’t wanted to see anything wrong.
Zee’s house was less than a mile from Kennewick High School, a small Victorian nestled in a small cluster of houses that dated from the time that Kennewick was a tiny transportation hub connecting railroad and river traffic. The house needed paint and a little work on the porch. The yard was tiny, as was common in the days when the use of horses meant that the distance between places mattered more. House and yard were surrounded by a wrought-iron fence that was suitably elaborate for an iron-kissed fae’s home.
Adam put his hand on Mercy’s shoulder and brought up the rear of the procession to the house. Even through the sweatshirt she wore, he felt the silver that coursed in her blood.
Tad didn’t unlock the door when he turned the fancy brass knob, but Adam had the feeling that he’d unlocked it in some other way. Mercy would have known because Mercy could sense magic a lot better than Adam could.
Zee’s house was furnished sparsely and none-too-fancily despite its Victorian appointments, which included the original light fixtures and fine woodwork. The living room had a matching couch and love seat that were comfortably worn. A small flat-screen T
V adorned the wall between two built-in bookcases filled with paperback books. A handmade rug softened the hardwood floor.
To the right, a door opened to an eat-in kitchen that had a 1950s-style table for two that had passed shabby and hit antique. On the wall next to the table was a large photo of a serious, young-looking man who looked a lot like Tad. The man was dressed in a suit and standing next to a good-looking woman in a wedding dress with her brown hair in a poofy style common a couple of decades ago. Her smile lit up the room even from a photograph.
Mercy lingered, looking at the photograph.
“Come on, Mercy,” said Tad, and she immediately complied.
“You’ve made your point,” growled Adam, unable to hold back his anger, though Tad didn’t deserve it. “That’s enough.”
Asil hadn’t spoken a word, just took everything in. He didn’t protest when Adam hung back so that the other wolf was never behind them.
Tad took them up the typically Victorian narrow and steep stairs to the second story and from there to a hallway. At the end of the hall was a half door—two feet wide by three feet tall, the kind of door that would have hidden a linen closet or a dumb-waiter. Since it was next to the bathroom, Adam would put his money on the linen closet.
Tad put a hand on the door and closed his eyes. Mercy stirred, staring at the floor and moving closer to Adam, away from the wall. Adam could smell her unease, and he put his arm around her. Her feelings were clearly written on her face, too—and she’d never have shown fear to anyone if she could have helped it. She watched the walls as if something dangerous were crawling up from the floor beneath them.
“Whatever they did to her is more than just following orders,” Adam said.
“Yes,” agreed Tad, his hand still on the door. “I think it steals her will. That way, she’d answer questions, follow orders—and not try to hide it when something scares her. It’s okay, Mercy,” he told her when she took another step back from him. “This is old magic, but it knows me, and it won’t hurt anyone here and now.”
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