“They are not as bad as I’d feared,” Adam said slowly, though he acknowledged Tad’s comment with a smile. “I hadn’t considered that she might have helped the lot of us. Most of them are still pretty sick—but Warren and Darryl are almost back to normal. Still, if there had been that much silver, even scattered through all the pack, we would all be dead.”
“But there are still some sick from the silver?” Zee asked.
“Yes.”
Zee waved to Tad. “Come over here and put your hand over mine, I’ll show you how to do this so you can heal Adam’s pack.”
“Cool,” I said without enthusiasm, but my hackles had smoothed out again. “I get to be a teaching exercise.”
Like a dog with a face full of porcupine quills, I found it harder to stand still and let silver be drawn out a second time. But the pain did focus my attention on the present, as did Adam’s grim face. I gave him a cheery smile, and his frown deepened.
Zee taught magic the way he taught mechanicking—by making Tad do all the work while he stood behind him and made acerbic corrections. He did it in Old German, and though I can get by in modern German, the old stuff sounds a bit like Welsh spoken by a Swedish man with marbles in his mouth.
In the end, Tad held a dime-sized bit of silver, I rubbed the cramps out of my thighs, and Adam stalked back and forth like an enraged baboon I’d seen once at a zoo. Asil had retreated to the far corner of the room with a book, to keep his presence from inciting Adam further.
“If Tad intends to do this to the werewolves,” I said through gritted teeth because every muscle on my body was cramping with equal insistence, “then Adam will have to hold them down.”
Adam stalked over to me and began kneading my shoulders. I sighed in relief and let him work on them while I turned my attention to my left calf.
“It won’t be so difficult with the wolves,” said Zee. “Their bodies are already working to get rid of the silver, and all it will require is a little assistance. They also heal faster.”
“I’ll keep watch,” Adam promised me. “Tad won’t take any harm.”
“So are the fae planning on taking over the world?” I asked Zee.
He laughed so hard, he couldn’t speak for a few minutes. “The short answer is yes,” he told me cheerfully.
Asil set aside his book and quit pretending he was not interested.
“But?” I said, and he laughed again.
“Liebchen,” he said. “If they could all point their swords in the same direction for more than ten seconds, they just might manage something scary. The reality is that everyone is tired of merely surviving and is looking for a way to thrive in this new world of iron.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what will happen except that things are changing.”
“I heard someone”—Coyote—“say that change is neither good nor bad,” I told him.
Behind me, Adam made a wolfish noise that meant disagreement. “The older you are, the more you fear change, even if you think you are in charge. Especially if you think you are in charge. There are a lot of very old fae.”
Zee inclined his head to Adam in a move that looked a lot more royal in his own shape than it did when he’d done it while wearing his human-seeming. “As you say. I would tell you that there is nothing to worry about except that there is. There are a lot of fae who hate the humans, Mercy. Some fae hate them for the iron encircling the world, some hate them for the loss of the old Underhill even though we have replaced it, and some hate humans for their ease of procreation.” He sighed and looked old. “Hatred is not a useful thing.”
“To hear you say that—that is a thing I never thought to hear no matter how old I became.” Asil laughed and Zee raised an imperial eyebrow and someone who didn’t know him might not have seen the wry humor in his eyes.
“Not useful,” Zee said, then looked as though he was listening to something, though my ears didn’t pick up anything strange. “But it is powerful. Someone is knocking at my door, I must return.” He put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Stay safe.”
“And you,” Tad said.
And Zee walked through the blackness that filled the mirror’s frame as though it were just another doorway. He said something that I heard with my bones and not my ears, and the frame was filled with a mirror once more.
“That is one I thought would never change,” said Asil thoughtfully.
“He loved my mother,” Tad told him. “Love is more powerful than anything, even an old grumpy fae who knows how to hate.”
Asil gave Tad a thoughtful look. “Indeed?” And then he looked back at the mirror. “Love is both useful and powerful—but seldom convenient.”
“I don’t know about that,” Adam said. “I’ve found it pretty convenient.”
“That’s not what you told me,” I corrected him, and he laughed.
The ghost tried to give me trouble again on the way back down the stairway from Zee’s mirror room. But I wasn’t stoned by fae magic this time.
“Go away,” I told her.
“Mercy?” Adam was just behind me, and he put his hand on my back.
“Not you,” I told him. “It’s the ghost.” He growled, and it made me smile.
Proving that she could do something other than cry, the ghost screamed at me, her face all but pressed to mine. No one else reacted. It was really ear-piercing, so someone would have reacted if they could hear it. It was just another one of those things that only I could perceive—lucky me.
For a long time I’d thought that was the only thing I could do with ghosts—observe them. Then I’d met a vampire who could steal the power of those he consumed. He’d taken the power of a walker like me, and he’d been able to do more.
I focused my attention on the ghost, borrowed a little Alpha from Adam, though I didn’t really need it, and said again, “Go away.”
She disappeared abruptly, and there was a crash somewhere below. I heard Tad, who’d preceded us, run down the stairs to the main level. Asil, like a lot of the older werewolves, didn’t make any noise when he ran.
When Adam and I got down there, Tad was sweeping up glass in the kitchen while Asil watched. It looked as though the ghost had managed to dump all the dishes that had been in the drainer by the sink onto the floor.
Tad looked at me as he dumped the shards in the garbage. “I thought you said all that she did was cry?”
“I think,” I told him apologetically, “that when I walked through the ghost without my usual mulishness, although she didn’t quite manage to take me over, she did succeed in pulling herself a little closer to this world. She’s probably going to be a little more of a presence here until the effect wears off.”
“We have a ghost.”
“I told you that already,” I said.
“Cool.” He set the dustpan on the counter and grinned at me. “Haunted houses are nifty.”
“Tell me that when she keeps you up all night with her sobbing,” I told him. “But if she gets too obstreperous, just let me know. I might be able to make her leave you alone.” I hadn’t done a lot of experimentation on that front. Ghosts had so little self-determination—bound as they were by the rules of their existence—taking any control away from them seemed like a crime. As long as they didn’t try to possess me or bother my friends, they were safe from me.
“‘Obstreperous,’ huh,” said Tad. “I see you’ve been using that Big Word of the Day calendar I got you last Christmas.”
“That is irrefragable,” I told him solemnly.
Silverless, de-magicked, and vowing never to play word one-upmanship—or even Scrabble for that matter—with either Adam or Asil (What exactly was a quicquidlibet, anyway?), I drove to Kyle’s, where we would meet with the Cantrip agent and everyone else.
Adam only raised his eyebrows when I told him I would drive—which meant he was really exhausted. He closed his eyes as soon as I got the car on the road, and no one said much on the trip. Probably, with two dominant wolves who weren’t in the same pack,
it was just as well.
Marsilia’s car was parked in Kyle’s driveway. I had to park the Corolla a block away because there were a lot of cars on the street—including a short bus that was covered with quotes from the Bible—mostly from Romans, but there were a few Revelation quotes and a lot of Proverbs. Most of them I recognized, but the chapter and verse were helpfully spelled out on each just in case. When I paused to read, Adam gave a quiet laugh.
“Elizaveta,” he told me. “I told her we had the whole pack to transport, and she showed up with a couple of vans and that. She said that one of her nephews borrowed it from his church. He told them that he needed to move some things. They left it here for us to use until we get everyone all sorted out.”
“It’s a good thing that Kyle’s old neighbor is dead,” I told him. Adam hadn’t called me; he’d called the witch who hadn’t even bothered to answer my phone call. “Every time I parked my poor old Rabbit in front of Kyle’s house, Kyle got a letter of complaint taped to his door. I can’t imagine what he’d have done in response to this bus.”
“Hey,” Adam said, quietly into my ear. “I called you first, but your phone was dead. Then I called Elizaveta.”
It shouldn’t have made me feel better. Elizaveta was more useful; he should have called her first. She could destroy evidence and had minions who could borrow vans. But he’d called me first instead. Impatient with myself for having been so jealous about something so stupid, I looked around for a distraction, and my eyes found the bus again.
“‘Thou shall not suffer a witch to live,’” I told him, pointing at the front quarter panel. “I wonder if Elizaveta saw that. It doesn’t say werewolves, but I expect it is implied.”
“‘Wives, be subject to your husbands,’” Adam deadpanned without looking at the bus. “‘Let your women keep silence in the churches.’”
“Ah, Paul. He has so many useful things to say. ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman,’” I replied sagely, and Adam laughed and kissed me.
I stiffened, irrationally worried that Zee might not have gotten all the silver, but Adam made a sound closer to a purr than a growl. So I relaxed and participated.
“Do they always flirt with biblical quotes?” Asil asked Tad.
In long-suffering tones, Tad said, “They can flirt with the periodic table or a restaurant menu. We’ve learned to live with it. Get a room, you guys.”
“Quiet, pup,” said Adam with mock sternness. He gave my butt a promissory pat as he said, “Respect your elders.”
At Kyle’s house, I took time to take a better look at the dent in Marsilia’s car. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered it, but it was bad enough. She was going to be furious, and I couldn’t blame her. I just hoped she kept it between us and didn’t try to involve the pack—the pack had sustained about as much damage as it could handle right now.
“Don’t worry,” Adam said. “We’ll get it fixed.”
“It can’t make her hate me any more than she already does,” I said, willing to look on the bright side.
“It might make her hate you more immediately,” offered Tad, and I laughed even though he was right.
“She won’t hurt Mercy,” said Adam softly. “She knows better than that.”
Asil trailed past the trunk, nostrils flaring. “The dead woman is still in the car.” He glanced around as if he was looking for something. “Armstrong’s rental is gone. He said he had some more coordinating to do with his people. He’ll be back, though. Sooner rather than later.”
“Tell me about him,” said Adam. “I only had time to shake hands and go.”
“I’m not your wolf,” warned Asil, his voice suddenly harsh.
Adam took in a breath of air and shook out his shoulders. “Sorry,” he said, looking at the car and not the other wolf. “Habit. We need to get ourselves ironed out before there’s bloodshed. You’ve been very courteous, and I thank you for it. I’ll try to do better. Would you share what you know about the Cantrip agent with me?”
There was a pause, and I kept my eyes on Asil, watching for a sign that he’d decided not to take Adam’s apology. His eyes were yellow—that they’d shift back and forth so easily told me as much as his earlier warning had about how little control he had over his wolf.
“Charles vouches for him,” Asil said at last, letting the apology lie—which was the safest way to play it. “Lin Armstrong is a troubleshooter for Cantrip and has the power to make things happen. Charles told me to tell you that he can be trusted. As long as we’re following our own rules, he won’t rock the boat.”
“Even with the blood of Cantrip agents hot on my hands?” asked Adam softly.
“Tell him the whole truth,” I said impulsively. “Better yet, wait and catch Tony when he comes with Sylvia and tell the whole herd. We’re in the right here, and they are the ones who benefit from lies.”
“Talk to the lawyer first since you have one immediately available to you,” cautioned Asil. “Then give the others as much truth as the lawyer tells you to, and not one word more.”
“If you do that, we’ll need time to get the story straight,” I said.
“We’ll tell him the truth,” Adam said heavily. “I’m tired of playing games. Maybe it’s time to spread a little fear. If they had been a little more afraid of us, Peter would still be alive.”
Adam opened the front door, and we were hit with a wave of noise and motion that only got louder when people realized who was at the door.
“Quiet,” said Adam—and everyone—the wolves, security personnel, and what looked like two dozen little girls (though I knew that there really weren’t that many, they just moved fast) shut up and stood still.
“Good.” He looked around. “Where is Kyle? I need to talk to him and get y’all organized.” He was tired if he was drifting back into Southernisms.
“I’ll get him,” said Mary Jo’s voice in the back of the crowd. I caught a glimpse of her before she disappeared up the stairs. She was dressed in sweats that were too big for her, and her skin tone was greenish, like she’d just woken up after spending the night at an all-you-can-drink orgy.
Jesse, with the littlest Sandoval on her hip and her hair mussed and damp, waded through the crowd and kissed her dad on the cheek. She rested against him for a moment. “Welcome home, Dad.”
He hugged her hard, then relaxed his hold to ruffle Maia’s hair.
Maia said, “I rode in a car with a dead body.”
Adam gave me a laughing glance. “I guess we might as well tell everyone the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
“It’s a secret,” Maia explained.
He ruffled her hair again. “Yes. But not a secret from your mom. You shouldn’t keep those.”
“I tell Mamá everything.”
“Good for you.”
“So,” Jesse said, backing up a step, “I hear that you managed to survive without Mercy to rescue you this time.”
He smiled. “Brat. Remember who’s paying for your college.”
She grinned at him. “Maybe I’ll just get pregnant and work at fast food for the rest of my life.” She turned and trotted off the way she had come before he could formulate a reply.
Amid laughter that had as much to do with relief we were safe as with Jesse’s humor, Adam went to work ordering the chaos. I waited for a while, watched various members of the pack come and go. They needed to check and make sure he was still okay, and I understood exactly how they felt.
When he and Asil disappeared together to take care of the who-was-the-biggest-baddest-wolf issue, I slipped away to the kitchen to look for food for Adam—werewolves need to eat, and from the looks of him, wherever they’d held him, they hadn’t fed him at all.
Kyle’s kitchen was a mess. Dirty dishes everywhere and one whole counter was covered with trays of sandwiches that looked as though someone had called out a caterer at some point. I took a few minutes to unload clean dishes from the dishwasher and start the next batch running—dominance displays take
a little time. Then I snitched a heavy-duty paper plate from a stack on the counter and loaded it with four sandwiches thick with near-bloody roast beef.
When I emerged from the kitchen, Adam was the only werewolf in sight, and the total volume of the noise in the house had dropped an appreciable amount. He was trying to push his security team gently out the door.
“We don’t think that the house is secured. And with all due respect, Mr. Brooks hired us.”
I had never met Jim Gutstein, but I recognized his voice from several phone conversations. He was in his fifties and still in the kind of shape primarily limited to professional athletes and werewolves. His dark gray eyes and jutting chin proclaimed his resistance to leaving despite the tiredness even I, who did not know him, could see. Exhaustion, I knew, only made stubborn people more stubborn.
“Here,” I told Adam, before he could say something that put Jim’s back up even further than it already was. I had experience dealing with dominant personalities, most of them werewolves. A human had no chance. I put the plate in Adam’s hand. “You eat this.”
I turned to Adam’s man. “Jim, I’m Adam’s wife, Mercy. It’s very good to meet you.” I opened the door and stepped into him, forcing him to back out the doorway. He’d have had to get more physical with me than he was comfortable with to stop me. The rest of his team followed me out.
“Thank you,” I told him sincerely. “Go home so Adam will sit down and eat. He’s fine, he’s grateful, and he’ll talk to you on Monday. Leave a couple of people here, and he’ll never know—but you, Jim, need to sleep.”
Jim Gutstein frowned at me, but another one of the men put a hand on his shoulder. “She makes more sense than you do right now, Gutstein. Sleep. Then you can give him hell. Chris and Todd have the house covered, and it is chock-full of werewolves. You heard the boss man, the likelihood of another mass attack is slim to none.”
“Good night,” I said, while they were still talking. I went back into the house and shut the door before Jim could bull or argue his way back in.
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