“All right.” There was an awkward pause, and Adam said, “I’m sorry, Mercy. I should have noticed there was something wrong.” He swallowed. “When my ex-wife decided I’d done something she didn’t like, she’d give me the silent treatment. When you did it . . . it threw me.”
“I think that was the point someone was aiming for,” I said dryly, and he laughed.
“Yeah. I didn’t stop and consider how unlikely a tactic that was from you,” he agreed. “Sneak attacks, guerilla warfare, but not silence.”
“Not your fault,” I told him, before I bit my lip. If I didn’t need to keep him away from Sam, I’d have said more. A lot more, but I needed time for Samuel to fix himself. “I didn’t figure it out until we were almost home.”
“If I’d realized something was up while it was still happening, I could have found out who it was,” said Adam, a growl in his voice. He took a deep breath and let it out. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer. “Samuel will know how to stop them, too. While he’s escorting you around, why don’t you ask him to teach you how to protect yourself? Even when it’s not deliberate—” He had to stop again. “The needs and desires of the pack can influence you quite a bit. It’s not too hard to block if you know how. Samuel can show you.”
I looked at the white wolf sprawled out on the kitchen floor with Medea cleaning his face. Sam looked back at me with pale eyes ringed in black.
“I’ll ask him,” I promised.
“See you,” he said, but continued in a rush. “Is Tuesday too soon?”
It was Saturday. If Samuel wasn’t better by Tuesday, I could cancel. “Tuesday would be really good.”
He hung up, and I asked Sam, “Can you teach me how to keep the pack out of my head?”
He made a sad noise.
“Not without being able to talk,” I agreed. “But I promised Adam I’d ask.” So I had three days to fix Samuel. And I felt like a traitor for . . . I hadn’t really lied to Adam, had I? Raised among werewolves, who are living lie detectors, I’d long ago learned to lie with the truth nearly as well as a fae.
Maybe I had time to make brownies, too.
My cell phone rang, and I almost just answered it, assuming it was Adam. Some instinct of self-preservation had me hesitate and glance at the number: Bran’s.
“The Marrok is calling,” I told Samuel. “Think he’ll wait three days? Me either.” But I could delay him a little by not answering the phone. “Let’s go work on some cars.”
* * *
SAM SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT AND GAVE ME A sour look. He’d been mad at me since I put his collar on—but the collar was camouflage. It made him look more like a dog. Something domesticated enough for a collar, not a wild animal. Fear brings violence out in the wolves, so the fewer people who are scared of them, the better.
“I’m not going to roll the window down,” I told him. “This car doesn’t have automatic windows. I’d have to pull over and go around and lower it manually. Besides, it’s cold outside, and unlike you, I don’t have a fur coat.”
He lifted his lip in a mock snarl and put his nose down on the dashboard with a thump.
“You’re smearing the windshield,” I told him.
He looked at me and deliberately ran his nose across his side of the glass.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, that was mature. The last time I saw someone do something that grown-up was when my little sister was twelve.”
* * *
AT THE GARAGE, I PARKED NEXT TO ZEE’S TRUCK, AND as soon as I got out of the car, I could hear the distinctive beat of salsa music. I have sensitive ears, so it was probably not loud enough to bother anyone in the little houses scattered among the warehouses and storage units that surrounded the garage. A little figure at the window waved at me.
I’d forgotten.
How could I have forgotten that Sylvia and her kids were going to be cleaning the office? Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been a problem—Samuel would never hurt a child, but we weren’t dealing with Samuel anymore.
I realized that I’d gotten used to him, that I was still thinking of him as though he was only Samuel with a problem. I’d let myself forget how dangerous he was. Then again, he hadn’t killedme yet.
Maybe if he stayed with me in the garage . . .
I couldn’t risk it.
“Sam,” I told the wolf, who’d followed me out of the car, “there are too many people here. Let’s—”
I’m not sure what I was going to suggest, maybe a run out somewhere no one would see us. But it was too late.
“Mercy,” said a high-pitched voice as the office door popped open with a roar of bongos and guitars, and Gabriel’s littlest sister, Maia, bounced down the short run of steps and sprinted toward us. “Mercy, Mercy, guess what? Guess what? I am all grown-up. I am going to pretty school, and I—”
And that was when she caught a glimpse of Sam.
“Ooo,” she said, still running.
Samuel is not bad-looking in his human form—but his wolf is pure white and fluffy. All he needed was a unicorn’s horn to be the perfect pet for a little girl.
“Pretty school?” I asked, stepping forward and to the side, so I was between the werewolf and Maia. Maia stopped instead of bumping into me, but her eyes were on the wolf.
The next-oldest girl, Sissy, who was six, had emerged from the office a few seconds after her sister. “Mamá says you can’t run out of the office, Maia. There might be cars who wouldn’t see you. Hi, Mercy. She means preschool. I’m in first grade this year—and she is still just a baby. Is that a dog? When did you get a dog?”
“Pretty school,” repeated Maia. “And I’m not a baby.” She gave me a hug and launched herself at Sam.
I would have caught her if Sam hadn’t bounded forward, too.
“Pony,” she said, attacking him as if he weren’t a scarily huge wolf. She grabbed a handful of fur and climbed on top of him. “Pony, pony.”
I reached for her, but froze when Sam gave me a look.
“My pony,” Maia said happily, oblivious to my terror. She thumped her heels into his ribs hard enough I could hear the noise. “Go, pony.”
Maia’s sister seemed to understand the danger as well as I did. “Mamá,” she shrieked. “Mamá, Maia’s being stupid again.”
Well, maybe not as well.
She frowned at her sister and—while I stood frozen, afraid that whatever action I took would be the one that sent Sam over the edge—told me, “We took her to the fair and she saw the horses—now she climbs on every dog she sees. She almost got bitten by the last one.”
Sam, for his part, grunted the fourth or fifth time Maia’s heels hit his side, gave me another look—one that might have been exasperation—and started toward the office, for all the world as if he were a pony instead of a werewolf.
“Mercy?” Sissy said.
I suppose she’d expected me to say something—or at least move. Panic left me with cold fingers and a pounding heart—but as it faded, something else took its place.
I’ve seen any number of werewolves whose wolf had superseded the man. Usually, it happens in the middle of a fight—and the only thing to do is to lie low until the man takes back control. The other time it often occurs is with the newly Changed wolves. They are vicious, unpredictable, and dangerous even to the people they love. But Sam hadn’t been vicious or even unpredictable—except in the best sense of the word—when Maia had hopped up to play Wild Horse Annie.
For the first time since I’d walked into that damned hospital storeroom last night, I felt real hope. If Sam the wolf could keep to civilized manners for a few days, maybe I would have a chance to persuade Bran to give us a little more time.
Sam had reached the office door and stood patiently waiting for me to let him in while Maia patted him on the top of his head and told him he was a good pony.
“Mercy? Are you okay?” Sissy looked in my car—I often brought cookies. I’d brought the ones I made this morning out of habit. I u
sually make a lot more cookies than any one person can eat, so when I have a baking fest, I bring the cookies for customers. She didn’t say anything when she spotted the bags sitting on top of the book I still needed to deliver to Phin, but she got a big smile on her face.
“I’m fine, Sissy. Want a cookie?”
* * *
WHEN I OPENED THE OFFICE DOOR, WHICH WAS A FADING orangish pink and needed to be repainted, the blaring music was overwhelmed by “Mercy” and “Look, dog!” And what seemed like a hundred small bodies piled on us.
Sissy put her small fists on her hips, and said in a picture-perfect imitation of her brother, “Barbarians.” And then she took a bite of the cookie I’d given her.
“Cookie!” shrieked someone. “Sissy has a cookie!”
Silence fell, and they all looked at me like a lion might look at a gazelle in the savanna.
“You see what happens?” asked Gabriel’s mother, not even glancing up from scrubbing the counter. Sylvia was about ten years older than I, and she wore those years well. She was a small woman, delicate and beautiful. They say Napoleon was small, too.
“You spoil them,” she told me in a dismissive tone. “So it is your problem to deal with. You must pay the price.”
I pulled the two bags of cookies from where I’d hidden them in my jacket. “Here,” I gasped, holding them out over the horde’s reaching hands toward their mother. “Take them quick before the monsters get them. Protect them with your life.”
Sylvia took the bags and tried to hide her smile as I wrestled with little pink-clad bodies that squealed and squeaked. Okay, there weren’t a hundred of them; Gabriel had five little sisters. But they made enough noise for ten times that many.
Tia, whose name was short for Martina, the oldest girl, frowned at us all. Sam, sitting beside her, had been abandoned for the possibility of a cookie. He seemed amused, more amused when he caught my wary glance.
“Hey, we’re doing all the work,” Rosalinda, the second-oldest said. “You chicas start scrubbing right this moment. You know you won’t get cookies until Mamá says.”
“Sissy got one,” Maia said.
“And that is all anyone will get until it is clean,” proclaimed Tia piously.
“You’re no fun,” Sofia, the middle girl, told her.
“No fun,” agreed Maia with her bottom lip sticking out. But she couldn’t have been too upset because she bounced away from me to crawl back onto Sam, her fingers clutching his collar. “My puppy needs a cookie.”
Sylvia frowned at Sam, then at me. “You have a dog?”
“Not exactly,” I told her. “I’m watching him for a friend.” For Samuel.
The wolf looked at Sylvia and wagged his tail deliberately. He kept his mouth closed, which was smart of him. She wouldn’t be happy if she got a good look at his teeth—which were bigger than any dog’s I’ve ever seen.
“What breed is it? I’ve never seen such a monster.”
Sam’s ears flattened a bit.
But then Maia kissed him on the top of his head. “He’s cute, Mamá. I bet I could ride him in the fair, and we would win a ribbon. We should get a dog. Or a pony. We could keep it in the parking lot.”
“Uhm, maybe he’s a Great Pyrenees mix?” I offered. “Something big.”
“Abominable Snow Dog,” suggested Tia dryly. She rubbed Sam briskly under one ear.
Sylvia sighed. “I suppose if he hasn’t eaten them yet, he won’t.”
“I don’t think so,” I agreed cautiously. I looked at Sam, who seemed perfectly fine, more relaxed than I’d seen him since I walked into the storeroom at the hospital.
Sylvia sighed again, theatrically, her dramatically large eyes glittering with fun. “Too bad. It would be much less trouble if I had a few less children, don’t you think?”
“Mamá!” came the indignant chorus.
“There aren’t as many as there seem to be when they are running around shrieking,” I told her.
“I’ve noticed. When they are asleep, they are a little bit cute. It’s a good thing, or none of them would have survived this long.”
I looked around. They’d already been working for a while. “You know, people are going to walk in—and turn around and walk back out because they won’t recognize the place. Are Gabriel and Zee in the shop?”
“Sí, yes, they are. Thank you for the use of your car.”
“No troubles,” I told her. “I don’t need it right now. And you can do me a favor and tell me about anything you notice is wrong with it.”
“Besides the steering wheel popping off?”
I grimaced. “Yep.”
“I will do so. Now you and that . . . elephant you brought . . . need to go into the shop so my little monsters can get back to work.”
Obediently, I lifted Maia off the wolf. “Let’s go to work,” I told him.
Sam took two steps with me, then lay down in the center of the office with a grunt. He stretched out on his side and closed his eyes.
“Come on, S—” I bit my lip—what was the name Samuel kept on his collar? Right. “Come, Snowball.”
He opened a single white eye and stared at me.
I swallowed. Arguing with dominant wolves could have unpleasant results.
“I will watch the puppy,” declared Maia. “We can play cow-girls, and I will teach him to fetch. We shall have a tea party.” She wrinkled her nose. “And then he won’t get all dirty playing with the greasy cars. He doesn’t like being dirty.”
Sam closed his eye as she patted him on the nose.
He wasn’t going to hurt her.
I took a deep breath. “I think he likes the music,” I told Sylvia.
She huffed. “I think you want him out of your way.”
“Maia wants to babysit,” I said. “It’ll keep her occupied.”
Sylvia looked at Sam thoughtfully. She shook her head at me but didn’t fuss when I left him lying there.
Zee had shut the door between the office and the shop—he’s not fond of Latin music. So when I went in, I closed it behind me, too.
Chapter 4
THE FIRST THING I HEARD WHEN I EMERGED FROM THE bathroom with my working overalls on was Zee swearing in German. It was modern German because I could understand about one word in four. Modern German was a good sign.
The Buick was in the first bay. I couldn’t see Zee, but from the direction of his voice, he was under the car. Gabriel was standing on the far side of the vehicle; he looked up when he heard me come in, and relief flashed across his face.
He knows Zee is . . . well, not harmless, but that Zee won’t hurt him. But Gabriel is too polite—and as a result he has to put up with a lot more of Grumpy Zee than I do.
“Hey, Zee,” I said. “I take it that you can fix it, but it’ll be miserable, and you’d rather haul it to the dump and start from scratch.”
“Piece of junk,” groused Zee. “What’s not rusted to pieces is bent. If you took all the good parts and put them in a pile, you could carry them out in your pocket.” There was a little pause. “Even if you only had a small pocket.”
I patted the car. “Don’t you listen to him,” I whispered to it. “You’ll be out of here and back on the road in no time.”
Zee propelled himself all the way under the car so his head stuck out by my feet.
“Don’t you promise something you can’t deliver,” he snarled.
I raised my eyebrows, and said in dulcet tones, “Are you telling me you can’t fix it? I’m sorry. I distinctly remember you saying that there is nothing you can’t fix. I must have been mistaken, and it was someone else wearing your mouth.”
He gave a growl that would have done Sam credit, and pushed himself back under again, muttering, “Deine Mutter war ein Cola-Automat!”
“Her mama might have been a pop machine,” I said, responding to one of the remarks I understood even at full Zee-speed. “Your mama . . .” sounds the same in a number of languages.
“But she was a beauty in her
day.” I grinned at Gabriel. “We women have to stick together.”
“Why is it that all cars are women?” he asked.
“Because they’re fussy and demanding,” answered Zee.
“Because if they were men, they’d sit around and complain instead of getting the job done,” I told him.
It was a relief to do something normal. In my garage, I was in control . . . Well, Zee was really in charge when he came in. Even though I’d bought the shop from him and now paid him to come in, we both knew who was the better mechanic—and he’d been my boss for a long time. Maybe, I thought, handing him sockets size ten and thirteen, that was the real relief. Here I had a job I knew how to do and someone I trusted giving me orders, and the result would be a victory for goodness and order. Fixing cars is orderly—unlike most of my life. Do the right thing, and it works. Do the wrong, and it doesn’t.
“Verdammte Karre,” Zee growled. “Gib mir mal—”
The last word was garbled as something heavy went thump, thump, bang.
“Give you what?” I asked.
There was a long silence.
“Zee? Are you all right?”
The whole car rose about ten inches off the jacks, knocking them over on their sides, and shook like an epileptic. A wave of magic rose from the Buick, and I backed away, one hand locked in Gabriel’s shirt so he came with me as the car returned all the way to the ground with a bang of tires on pavement and the squeak of protesting shocks.
“I feel better now,” said Zee in a very nasty tone. “I would be even happier if I could hang the last mechanic who worked on it.”
I knew that feeling—ah, the unparalleled frustration of mismatched bolts, miswired sending units, and cross-threaded parts left for me to discover: things that turned what should be a half-hour job into an all-day event.
Gabriel was pulling against my hold as if he wanted to get farther from the car. His eyes were wide, the whites showing all the way around his irises. I realized, belatedly, that it might be the first time he’d seen Zee really work.
“It’s okay. He’s through now, I think.” I let go of Gabriel’s shirt and patted his shoulder. “Zee, I think the last mechanic who worked on it was you. Remember? You replaced the wiring harness.”
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