“I agree,” I said. “I noticed. A lot of the things those witches were doing are anathema. Especially if you consider death sacred. I ask you again, why the Hardesty witches? Why not Elizaveta?”
He snorted. “Can’t get one by you, can I? Let’s just say that they are particularly stupid about the way they have gone about things.” His face twisted and I saw, to my surprise, honest grief. “They have taken something that was pure and holy and besmirched it with their filthy magic.”
“Why don’t you kill them?” I asked.
“I can’t do that,” he said regretfully. “This isn’t like the river monster. These are once-mortal witches whose flesh originated in a different land. They are in your realm of influence, not mine.”
“I don’t understand,” I told him. Unhappy about the “once-mortal.” “Once-mortal” is a bad thing when dealing with a witch, for whom learning is one of the keys of power. Old things have an opportunity to learn a lot.
He patted me on the head. “That’s all right. You just need to kill them. I’ll do the understanding for both of us.”
“Mercy,” Adam’s voice said urgently. “Mercy, wake up.”
9
“You were crying,” Adam said, his voice soft with sleep. He brushed a finger over my cheekbone.
We were both familiar with each other’s nightmares. I couldn’t recall what I’d dreamed about, but sadness still clogged my chest.
I rubbed my head against his hand for comfort, like a cat. A cat.
“It was something about cats,” I told him. “Sherwood’s cat, I think. But I don’t remember it anymore.”
“Okay.” He tucked me against him. “Go back to sleep.”
I glanced at the clock and saw that I’d been sleeping less than an hour. No wonder I felt so tired.
“We need to find those witches,” I said.
Adam nodded. “I hate fighting a defensive battle. All you can do is react, react, react. And you find yourself running around like Chicken Little, never knowing where the next rock will fall from.”
“Adam,” I said slowly, “if you hate being on the defensive—why are you running a security firm? Isn’t security, by definition, always on defense?”
“I hear your logic,” he said. “But I’m not listening.”
“Ethically,” I said, “defense is easier to defend than, say, assassinations or attacking people because they irritate you.”
He growled, then laughed. “Defense is easier to defend.”
“Hey,” I told him, “it’s two in the morning. I’m not responsible for anything I say after midnight.” I frowned. “I have this weird feeling that we need to hunt down those witches really soon.”
He kissed me long and sweet, then pulled me against him and said, again, “Go to sleep, Mercy.” He rolled until I was on top of him, then rumbled, “We need all the sleep we can get if we are going to hunt witches in the morning.”
“Oh goody,” I said.
* * *
• • •
We were on our third day of a full house. Werewolves who had human families were still on virtual house arrest for their own protection. That meant breakfast was a big deal and both the kitchen and the dining room table were full.
Adam had intended to work from home this morning. But when Jesse asked him what he wanted for breakfast when he came downstairs from his shower, he said, “No time for breakfast.”
That was a little unusual. Werewolves have to eat a lot. And “hangry” just doesn’t describe what happens to a werewolf when he is hungry.
He saw my look and grinned at me.
“You’re in a good mood today,” I told him.
“You need to eat,” said Jesse. “There is always time for a good breakfast.”
He breezed through the kitchen, kissing her on her cheek and me, lightly, on the mouth. Aiden got a fist bump. Aiden wasn’t big on touch—so we let him decide when he needed a hug.
“I got called in,” Adam told us. “No rest for the wicked. Jesse, there’ll be food where I’m going.”
He glanced around the room and called all the werewolves to him with nothing more than a glance. After a moment, a few other werewolves appeared from other places, so Adam must have used pack bonds.
“Dress up for an official workday,” he told them. “Meet me at the office. ASAP. Food will be served.”
They scattered. No mistaking the rising energy of “something to do at last” that rose from them.
“No hunting witches?” I asked.
“No witch hunts today,” he told me. “I expect to be late.”
“Where at?” Jesse asked.
“Sorry, I can’t tell you.” He paused. Kissed me again. Then said, “Don’t go hunting without me.”
And then he was gone.
“Huh,” said Jesse. “He seems awfully excited.”
We exchanged mutual raised eyebrows.
“Grrr,” said Kelly’s wife, Hannah. “I hate secrets.” She looked at me with lowered brow. “Do you know how much longer we are all stuck here?”
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I told Adam we had to go witch hunting today.” I waved a hand at all the werewolves bounding out the door wearing Hauptman Security shirts. “You see the result.”
“Just how dangerous are these witches, really?” she asked.
A cold chill ran down my spine—and for a moment I had a glimpse of the dream I’d had last night.
“Very,” I said. “You all stay inside this house today. If we don’t get the situation taken care of in the next few days, maybe we should see about a camping trip or something for everyone until this all blows over.”
I grabbed a piece of toast and a slice of bacon and slunk out. They all knew that my garage had just reopened and I needed to go to work. They would be safe with Joel—and Aiden for that matter—but they weren’t happy.
* * *
• • •
Zee and I spent the morning detailing the cars that had gotten soaked the day before yesterday, using my new steam cleaner and the old Shop-Vac I’d brought over from home. For the heck of it, I detailed Stefan’s van, too. It needed it. I tried the steam cleaner on Stuffed Scooby. The best that could be said about that attempt was that he didn’t look any worse. I managed to reattach the spot that had fallen off his back with a little hot glue.
Tad’s hands were still in rough shape, so I’d sent him home to heal up.
“It’s a good thing,” said Zee, cleaning the outside of the driver’s-side window of the car we were working on, “that it’s high summer. These should finish drying out in the sun this afternoon.”
“I’ll remember to thank the witches for picking this time of year when we finally catch up to them,” I said.
I was working on the interior. The car was a couple of decades old, and I might have been the first person to clean the dash. I hoped that the plastic didn’t dissolve in panic at the touch of my cleaner, but I wouldn’t detail a car and send it out with a gunk-covered dash.
Zee paused. “Liebling, this might not be a battle for a little coyote. Black witches are an ugly thing. Maybe leave it for the ugly thing that your pack’s witch has become.”
I shook my head. “No. Adam has promised to protect the government people—and the witches have made it pretty obvious that they intend harm. And they attacked us—here and at my home. We can’t just stand back and hope that Elizaveta takes them out.”
I quit scrubbing for a moment so I could look him in the face. “And what if Elizaveta joins with them like some of her family did?”
“The Gray Lords tell us that no one is to interfere with the witches,” he said.
“They know about them?” I asked.
He nodded. “I told them about the attack here, Mercy, but they already knew that the black witches had attacked Elizaveta.” He scrubb
ed with a little more emphasis, then said reluctantly, “They are right to tell us not to interfere. These talks are important and it would be too easy to make ourselves look bad if we take on the witches. I may be an outcast—”
“I’m not sure you can be an outcast by choice,” I told him. “They’d take you back in a moment if you wanted to go.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes the English language confuses me.”
“Sure it does,” I said. I took out a Q-tip and started on the vent covers. “Outcast. Cast. Out. That means someone kicked you out. If you leave—then you can be something less pathetic and more adventurous-sounding. Like a rogue.”
He snorted. “I may be a rogue, Mercy, but I don’t want the fae to fade away and die.” He looked thoughtful. “I don’t want all of them to fade away and die, anyway. And the ones I’d prefer dead, I’d rather kill myself.”
“Hah,” I said.
My phone chimed and I checked the text message—it was from Ruth Gillman. She was reminding me of our lunch date, and requesting that I pick the venue since she wasn’t familiar with the Tri-Cities.
“I’m going to talk to Senator Campbell’s assistant over lunch,” I told Zee. “Do you have any idea who the fae are going to send to deal with them? I won’t tell her if you don’t want me to, but I’d like to have a ballpark guess about how easily offended the fae who are treating with the humans are going to be.”
“Es tut mir leid, Mercy.” Zee shook his head. “I do not know. I am a rogue, you see; they do not tell me such things. But you may tell them that the majority of the fae are tired of the fuss. They would like to go and live their lives. They are not clamoring for human blood.”
I gave him a look and he flashed a quick smile.
“Ah, you are right. There are fae who would love to bathe in human blood. But the fae who are making the decisions are not driven by the need to destroy. They just want a place to live in peace.”
“Do you have any sense that this meeting might be dangerous?” I said. “I mean, that the humans will have to watch what they say and how they say it? Some of the fae can be very prickly.” I cleared my throat. “And Adam and most of the pack are going to be putting themselves between the fae and the humans if something goes wrong.”
“I don’t know who they are sending,” Zee said again. “But I do know that they will not send out anyone who is not familiar with working with the human government. With humans in general.” He turned on the steam cleaner—and then shut it off again. “Among the more powerful of us, we have a lot who are trained in human law. Like your government, we have an overabundance of lawyers.”
* * *
• • •
I had been going to meet Ms. Gillman at the Ice Harbor Brewing Company, a local pub, but changed my mind at the last minute and texted her directions for a different place.
She beat me there and was waiting for me in a white Camry that shouted “rental car.” When I pulled in next to her, she unlocked her doors and got out.
“I was just about to text you to make sure I’d gotten the right place,” she said. “I hope that this is like good Chinese restaurants. You know—where the more run-down the exterior is, the better the food.”
She was right that it wasn’t pretty. The exterior was boxy and an unlovely blend of textures and shades of white.
The wall nearest the entrance had been newly repaired. I’d been here when a snow elf had taken the whole wall out. He’d been chasing me at the time.
Getting chased by a snow elf might not sound impressive. But when a frost giant says he’s a snow elf, there aren’t many, even among the fae, who would argue with him about it.
The repair work, though not beautiful, had been competently done. Like the rest of the building, it had been painted white. It might have looked better if the rest of the building, also whitish, had been painted sometime this century.
The only elegant thing in sight was a hitching post that looked like someone had lifted it from the movie set of Elrond Half-elven’s home in The Lord of the Rings. It was new because I’d have remembered if I’d seen something so out of place before.
I didn’t know what Uncle Mike’s needed with a hitching post. I breathed in and paid attention to the scents—there just might have been a hint of horse in the air.
“You found the right place,” I told Ruth Gillman, assistant to the most famously fae-hostile senator in Congress. “Welcome to Uncle Mike’s.”
The big Uncle Mike’s sign was down today, awaiting a newer, bigger sign. But there were cars in the lot and the Open sign on the door was lit.
She stiffened and gave me an unsmiling look. “Do you think that it is wise to discuss our meeting here?”
Uncle Mike’s had, once upon a time, been the local fae hangout—humans not allowed. It had sat empty for a while during the worst of the tensions between the fae and humans. But Uncle Mike had gone to work on it, right after the fae had signed their agreement with our pack. It had been up and running for a few weeks now. All the work, from the bussers to the brewmaster himself, was done by the fae. But this time, Uncle Mike had opened it to all customers.
He hadn’t made a big deal about its reopening, and I was sure there were still locals who didn’t realize it existed. But from Ruth’s face, the government knew all about Uncle Mike’s.
“I think that eating lunch here will teach you more than anything you can get out of me in a two-hour meal,” I told her. “Whatever else you need to know, you can ask.”
I hadn’t called ahead, but Uncle Mike himself met us at the door. He looked better than I’d seen him in a while and had his charming-innkeeper thing he did so well blazing away like a blast furnace.
“Mercy,” he said expansively. “Sure and it’s been too long since you’ve brightened our doorstep. Who are you bringing with you, darlin’?”
I made introductions and Ruth’s eyes widened when I gave her his name. Uncle Mike was one of the more accessible fae, and I was sure the government thought they knew quite a bit about him. I was equally sure they didn’t know anything he didn’t want them to know.
“Senator Campbell’s aide,” Uncle Mike said. “And you’re both here for lunch, no doubt. I have just the spot for you.”
He sat us at a card-table-sized table, just in front of the stage where a middle-aged man was tuning his guitar. I didn’t know him—I didn’t think.
The fae have glamour. They might tend to wear the same guise from day to day, but that doesn’t mean that they have to. But I was pretty sure he was new to me; he didn’t smell familiar. A lot of the fae forget about scent.
The crowd was tame today, and mostly human seeming. I could smell fae, thick in the air. But this looked very much like any bar-restaurant lunch crowd.
The hobgoblin who came bustling up to the table with drinks neither of us had ordered was as fae as fae get. He set down a glass full to the brim with something that was a lovely amber for Ruth. For me he brought a bottle of water. Unopened.
“Compliments of Uncle Mike,” he said, his voice a bass rumble far too big for his wiry greenish-gray body, which was barely tall enough to keep his head above the height of our table. His ears, more fragile and larger than anything Mr. Spock had ever sported, moved rapidly, as if they were wings.
I’d never seen another hobgoblin with ears like his. I was curious as a cat, but it had always felt rude to ask why his ears fluttered like that.
Like the other employees he wore black pants, but there was no sign of the kelly green shirt emblazoned with Uncle Mike’s logo all the rest of the staff wore, including Uncle Mike. Instead, the hobgoblin’s upper body was as bare as his long-toed feet.
Hobgoblins and goblins are related, I’d been told, but it was a long way back and they both liked to pretend it wasn’t so.
“I didn’t intend for Uncle Mike to treat us, Kinsey,” I said.
“Pssht,” said the hobgoblin. “He said nothing owed for it, Mercy, don’t fuss.”
“All right,” I told him. He grinned and scurried off.
Ruth sat very still in her seat, almost as if she’d forgotten to breathe.
The guitarist grinned at me, briefly, and his sharp teeth were slightly blue. He slid callused fingertips over the strings to make a shivery-raspy sound, then began picking his way through a Simon and Garfunkel piece.
The music seemed to break the spell that held her still. Ruth blinked and lifted the glass to her mouth for a careful sip. She paused and drank another swallow before she put it down.
“That is lovely,” she said. “Am I going to need someone to drive me home after I drink it?”
Uncle Mike, who’d bustled past us without a glance a couple of times, paused at her question. He dragged over a chair from another table and joined us.
He had a glass that looked and smelled very much like Ruth’s. He hadn’t been carrying it a moment ago, and I hadn’t seen him pick it up. Usually he was more circumspect about using magic, especially in front of the enemy.
“Not if you only have one, Ruth Gillman,” he said. “This is mead of my own making. I won’t deny there’s some powerful spirit in’t, but it will do you no ill.” I felt the magic in his words, but I was sure she hadn’t. Since I was sure that the magic was attached to his guarantee, I let it pass without challenge.
“And,” he continued, “not if you eat some of my lovely stew for lunch. We have sandwiches and such, but the stew is the best thing on the menu today.”
For the rest of lunch, Uncle Mike set out to charm Ruth Gillman. Only once more did I catch a whiff of magic emanating from him. This time it was to amp up the power of his smile, and I tapped my toe against his leg.
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